FOR FIVE DAYS THEY TRAVELED WEST. They kept to well-worn highways, passing between fields of corn and wheat, hay and sunflowers. Jack always rode at the lead, setting an easy pace for the larger draft horses. Henry came next, followed by MacLemore and Sadie. The wagon, with Chino and Lu, brought up the rear. Villages popped up every few miles. They had wonderful names like Fleahop and Bugtussel and Smoot. Lu thought it all quite beautiful.
They got up every morning before first light, and only stopped to give the animals a breather once the sun was high in the sky. Chino watched the horses closely, especially the Percherons, making sure they stayed strong and healthy. He also inspected the wagon at every stop, searching for cracks and putting grease on axles and wheels. Without constant greasing wagon-wheels don’t turn smoothly, which wears down and eventually breaks the axle. Henry tended to the weapons. Each day he broke down and cleaned his own revolver, the big rifle that hung from his saddle, and Chino’s guns.
The situation had begun to make Lu feel uncomfortable. He hated getting down from his seat on the wagon, knowing he had no skills to offer. They probably thought he was lazy. But what could he do? He still didn’t even know why he was there.
They spent their nights at country inns—places with names like The Hidey Hole, Auntie’s, and The Stage Stop. MacLemore and Sadie always took rooms in the main house while Henry, Lu and Chino slept in the tool-shed or barn. Jack neither slept in the house nor the barn. Somehow, he always managed to disappear just as they got settled. Lu had no idea where he went or what he did. He’d considered asking Chino or Henry, but wasn’t sure the gunfighter would appreciate his curiosity.
It was late afternoon on their sixth day when they came over a bluff and saw the Quapaw River. It wasn’t near as wide as the Old Man River back home, but Lu was excited to see it all the same—excited and nervous. The Quapaw marked the border between the civilized east and the barbarous west. Once over those muddy waters they’d be out of the States and into the Territories—beyond the reach of law and order—in the infamous realm of mountain men, savage Indians, and desperadoes.
On the near side of the river was a town, not too much different from the others they’d passed through. It consisted of little more than a dozen or so houses, a church with a high steeple and fenced-in cemetery, and a riverboat landing. School must’ve just let out, because the yard in front of the church was swarming with children. One of the older girls, Lu guessed she was about his age, sat on the front steps writing in her theme book. Lu wondered if she might not be writing about what she wanted to be when she grew up. As they passed by the church gate, one shoeless, towheaded boy shouted for Chino to “STOP.” When he didn’t, the boy chased them all the way to the water’s edge.
There was a customs house at one end of the docks, with a sign over the door that read, “Scipio—first town in the east, last town in the west.” Sitting in a rocking chair out front was an elderly black man. He had a pipe clutched in his teeth and long tufts of white hair poking out from under his straw hat. He glanced up as Jack rode toward him, but didn’t stir from his chair.
“You the agent?” Jack asked.
“Yes, sir.” His accent was reminiscent of Mr. MacLemore’s, only denser. “Sir” sounded more like “suh”, the dropped “r” seeming almost to catch in his throat.
Jack took a sheet of paper from his breast pocket and handed it down.
The old man studied the paper a while, then passed it back. “Army writ covers exportation, not use of the ferry,” he said.
“How much is that?” MacLemore pulled his billfold from his jacket pocket.
“You’ll have to go two trips. Can’t get all that on one raft, no way. She’d sink.” He looked at the wagon. “What’s the army got you carryin’ anyhow?”
“That something you need to know?” Jack asked. “Or you just curious?”
“Nope. I don’t need to know nothin’.” The customs agent considered for a moment. “Be five dollars. Two for them smaller horses, and three for the wagon.”
“That’s robbery,” MacLemore said.
“Y’all could always cross up to St. Matthew,” the customs agent offered. “Ain’t but two days ride.”
MacLemore took a greenback from his wallet and dropped it in the old man’s lap.
Having been paid, the agent fairly leapt from his chair, ducking into the customs house and returning with a big yellow flag, which he waved at the opposite bank. He was soon answered by the agent on that shore, and in a minute the ferry was ready to be hauled across.
They decided to send the riders first. Henry, Jack and the MacLemores slid down off their saddles and led their horses onto the raft. The gray stallion whinnied as he felt the logs flex beneath his hooves, but Jack patted him on the neck and told him to calm down, and he was soon standing peaceably.
When they were all aboard, the agent gave another wave of his flag and the ferry began its slow drift. There were hand-winches on either side of the river, which the agents used to drag the log raft across. Lu guessed the man on the opposite shore was doing some heavy labor right about now. On this side, the agent had nothing to do but watch the cable, making sure just enough played out, and not too much, so that the ferry wasn’t caught by the current and dragged downstream.
The raft was nearing the center of the river when Lu happened to glance down and see the same tow-headed boy who’d followed them all the way through town.
“Where y’all headed?” the boy asked him.
“Across.” Even if he’d known their ultimate destination, which he didn’t, Lu didn’t think he’d have said.
But the boy wasn’t satisfied. He called to the custom’s agent, who was still watching the cable spin out of the winch. “Hey, Jim, where they headed?”
“Fort Jeb Stuart.”
The boy whistled. “Long way. You ever been out there?”
“Nope.”
“I plan to go soon as I’m old enough to join the cavalry.” As he spoke, the boy moved forward to inspect the horses. “They strong?”
“I guess so,” Lu said.
“I’ll just bet they are. Strong as heck. Say, you carry a gun?”
Lu shook his head.
“How ‘bout him?” The boy pointed at Chino. “Hey, you got a gun?”
Chino pulled the derringer from his vest pocket. His larger pistols he left atop the crate behind the seat.
“Could ya shoot it? Please?”
Chino aimed at an old cottonwood standing beside the river. The derringer gave a hollow pop, like a cork yanked from the end of a bottle of vinegar, and a chunk of bark the size of a man’s thumbnail broke free and fell into the water. The boy was elated.
“Shucks, I sure wish I could go with you,” he said. “I’d like to kill me an Injun, wouldn’t you?”
Lu shrugged. He didn’t particularly want to kill anyone, not even an Indian.
The ferry had begun its return trip by this time, empty but for Jack Straw, who stood at the center of the raft, hands on his hips. When the ferry was safely moored, Jack walked to Chino’s side of the wagon. “Heard a shot,” he said. “Any trouble?”
“Just a demonstration.” Chino pointed at the tow-headed boy, who’d moved over to stand beside the old customs agent, and was at that very moment inspecting the winch.
Jack led the draft horses onto the raft. The ferry sunk a full ten inches into the river, water soaking up between the logs. The Percherons whinnied and tried to back off the raft. But Jack spoke to the horses in that same strange inhuman language Lu had first heard him use back at the livery stable in St. Frances, and just as with the stallion, the Percherons settled right down.
The raft had just begun to pull away from the dock again when the tow-headed boy leapt aboard. “Jim said I could ride along,” he explained. He went to stand at the front with Jack. “You a gunfighter?” he asked.
“No.”
“Well, you look like one.” From his place on the high-seat, Lu could just see the top of the boy’s head between the Percherons’ massive shoulders. “Ever kill a man?”
The boy waited for Jack to answer, but got no response. Finally, he ambled back toward Lu.
“I seen you got a nigra ridin’ with you,” he said.
“I guess.” Lu wasn’t sure how to respond to that kind of statement. For one thing, his grandfather would’ve whipped him for saying a word like “nigra.” It wasn’t the worst such term, obviously, but it was bad enough.
“Where’d he get that horse?”
Lu shrugged. He had no idea. Nor had it ever occurred to him that a black man owning a horse should be unusual. The boy asked Chino.
“In the army,” Chino replied.
“My aunt owned a few before the war. Nigras I mean. Who’d he fight with?”
“Slocum.”
“My aunt hates Slocum. She says he burned down a lot of good, god-fearin’ folks’ homes. You reckon your nigra did anything like that? Burned down white people’s houses?”
Chino nodded. “I know he did.”
The boy pondered that a moment. “My aunt’s nigras used to get whipped for being lazy, even though they did pretty much all the work there was to do ‘round the place, so far as I could tell. On’y time I ever got whipped was when I stole a lucky horseshoe from the blacksmith. I reckon if I was a nigra, I’d burn down some houses, too. Many as I could. Then maybe I’d light out for the Territories.”
While the boy talked, Lu watched the river creep along beside the raft. They were approaching the opposite shore now, but still the water was dark as night. Lu didn’t know how deep it went, but guessed that should the ferry capsize they wouldn’t reach bottom for a good long time. He was glad to reach solid ground again.
The rest of their party mounted up even as the ferry settled into its moorings. As soon as Jack climbed atop his appaloosa they were off.
“Good luck,” the tow-headed boy shouted after them.
Lu glanced back and saw him, still sitting on the raft, trailing his feet in the river. Judging by the expression on his face, Lu guessed he’d have given up anything in the whole world to go with them.
That night, while Chino and Henry unhooked the wagon, and Jack and the MacLemores unsaddled the other horses, Lu hiked to the nearest grove of trees and began searching for firewood. This was his first ever night camping, and Lu had no idea how much wood they were likely to need. They had a stove back at the store, but his mother tended that. He’d carried three armloads of sticks, some nearly as big around as his upper arm, and had just started on a fourth, when he saw flames and hurried back.
Jack, who sat on his saddle tending the infant blaze, glanced at Lu’s partially loaded arms and said, “That’s enough for now. You can find more wood after supper.”
The horses had all been set free by that time, and were contentedly trimming the tall grass beside the road. Chino had just finished his inspection of the wagon, and Henry was cleaning and oiling the guns. Mr. MacLemore had taken his guitar from its case and was plucking at the strings, which were badly out of tune. Sadie was in the back of the wagon, rummaging through boxes and baskets, selecting food for their evening meal.
“Guess it’s time to talk about those contracts of yours,” Jack said. “I promised we’d get it all set down once we’d crossed the river, and we’ve crossed it.”
“Excellent.” MacLemore reached into his guitar case. Tucked into a compartment on the bottom was a stack of papers, along with a pen and a bottle of ink. He handed one sheet each to Lu, Henry and Chino. The fourth he kept for himself.
Lu sat down beside the fire and began looking over the paper MacLemore had given him. The whole first paragraph was a confusion of “wherebys” and “wherefores” unlike anything either his mother or Mrs. Wu had ever taught him. According to Mrs. Wu, good writing ought to be clear to any and all who read it. This was anything but. Lu tried to focus on the words again and managed to work out the following:
An agreement, signed in the city of_____, on the _____of_____, 18_____, between the undersigned John MacLemore, hereinafter referred to as the “employer”, and the undersigned_____, hereinafter referred to as the “employee”, for the purposes of reclamation of an estate, or as much as is left thereof, the rightful owner of which is the aforementioned “employer”, and the rights, duties and compensation due under conditions to be set forth in the following, owing to the aforementioned “employee”.
Though his eyes scanned over every word, Lu didn’t understand more than a fourth of it. His mind drifted to the smell of the food Sadie had begun to cook, and the stink of his own body, which had grown worse and worse since leaving St. Frances. Finally, he gave up. Chino was making no effort to decipher the text, so Lu felt at liberty to do the same. Jack didn’t even have a contract.
“What does this mean?” Henry asked, pointing to a line about half-way down his copy. “This last bit, asking for an ‘alternate payee in case of injury or death subsequent to the completion of the contracted work?’”
MacLemore read down the page until he came to the clause in question. “It’s quite simple,” he said. “Should you be killed, your share of the proceeds will go to whomsoever you dictate. A wife or parents is the most common.”
“I got it,” Henry said.
“Ready to sign then?”
Chino looked at Henry, who nodded. “It’s fair. Basically, whatever we collect will be divvied up, four shares to the MacLemores and one each to the four of us.”
“How much is that?” Chino asked.
MacLemore thought a moment. “As I remember, the fortune stood in excess of four hundred thousand dollars. So your share would be … fifty thousand.”
Chino whistled. “That’s a heap all right.”
“Of course, we’re assuming it’s all there. I can’t guarantee even a penny remains. Our enemy may have liquidated my assets. I doubt it, but it is possible.”
“Give me the quill,” Henry said.
MacLemore handed the pen to Henry, who dipped it in the bottle of ink and began filling in all the necessary blanks on his copy of the contract.
When he’d finished, MacLemore peered down at the signature. “Henry T. Jesus,” he read. “What does the ‘T’ stand for?”
“It’s a cross,” Henry said. Then he began filling out Chino’s copy. “Sign here.” He pointed to the appropriate line.
Chino took the pen and carefully began to scrawl. “Henry taught me to print my mark,” he explained proudly. He struggled to print his name, then held the contract out to MacLemore.
“You signed it ‘Chino,’” he said. “Maybe it’d be better if you put your legal name as well, just for safety’s sake. You wouldn’t want a court to declare the document invalid. That could cost you.”
“To be honest,” Henry said, “these contracts are for you. Chino and me, we don’t need them. Cheat us and the case will go before an undertaker long before it’s seen by a judge.”
Chino laughed.
MacLemore scowled. “What about you son?” he asked Lu. “You ready to sign?”
“I guess.”
Chino handed him the pen and ink.
“What did you put for the city?” Lu asked Henry.
“Just write ‘Territories.’”
When Lu reached the blank for his signature, MacLemore stopped him. “It really is best if you put your legal name,” he assured Lu.
Lu did, and then handed the finished contract to his employer.
MacLemore peered confusedly down at it. “What is this?”
“My signature. In Chinese.”
“Here, let me see that,” Jack said.
MacLemore handed him the contract, which Jack held up to the fire-light. “It’s all right,” he confirmed. “But Master K’ung told me you couldn’t read or write Chinese.”
“Just my name,” Lu admitted.
Jack handed the contract back to MacLemore, who rapidly countersigned all three documents. “Excellent,” MacLemore said. “Now we’re partners.”
“Pardon me, sir,” Lu said. “But I still don’t know what our business is.”
“Not know? Why, it’s spelled out right here. ‘Reclamation of an estate.’ What could be clearer?”
Lu nodded sheepishly. “I guess I missed that part,” he said.
“I believe what the boy means to ask is, exactly where is this fortune, and how are we going to reclaim it?” Henry looked at Lu, who nodded. “I wouldn’t mind knowing a bit more about that myself.”
Chino nodded. “Me, too.”
“I thought Jack had explained the entire situation.” MacLemore glanced at the gunfighter, who received the look with his usual steely glare. “But maybe I should tell my story all the same.”
And so, while Sadie stirred their supper, MacLemore told his tale.
“My father owned a farm down along the Old Man River, in Yoknapatawpha County,” he began. “A plantation, some might’ve called it, but Daddy always said ‘farm.’ He wasn’t one for putting on airs. Not like some we knew. This was a good many years ago. Long before the war. We grew cotton, of course. Everyone did. Cotton was king. Still is, from what I can gather, though I haven’t been down that way in an age.
“Unfortunately, Daddy died when I was just nineteen. And Mama had long since departed, God rest her. So I was left with the whole house, and not the faintest notion of how to make it go. I just didn’t have my father’s knack for dealing with the workers.”
“Slaves,” Henry said. “That’s what you meant, wasn’t it? Slaves.”
MacLemore nodded. “Slaves. That’s right.” He sighed. “Lord knows I tried. Even married the daughter of a plantation owner downriver, but farming just wasn’t my line.
“So I sold it. The whole place. A Connecticut Yankee came down, looking to get into the cotton business, and I made him a deal. A month later I set out for the Territories, dragging my wife and little boy along behind.”
“What about your workers?” Henry asked. “Did you sell them, too?”
“We kept a nurse for the baby, and a pair of old hands that’d been in my family since before I was born.” He frowned. “I just couldn’t see signing them over to that Simon Legree, not after all those many years.”
“You might have set them free,” Henry suggested.
“I’m ashamed to say that it never crossed my mind. In those days, a man didn’t think of his boys like that.” He stared at his hands. “They were too … valuable.”
Henry scoffed.
“Go on,” Jack said.
“Anyway,” MacLemore continued, “selling that farm was one of the smartest things I ever did. Two years later, the Yankees voted in an abolitionist, started a war, and reduced the grand old farms to mere husks of their former glory.
“Mind you, I wasn’t sorry to hear it. Bound to come, I always said. Even my Daddy knew that. And feared it every second of his life. I followed the war as best I could, and heard about all the old families. Most lost sons. The majority were set adrift one way or another. But not mine. We were comfortable, settled on a branch of the Paiute River, not two day’s ride from a town that the locals called Silver City.
“We had a beautiful cottage. Bedrooms above, kitchen and sitting-room below. And since no one was interested in the mountains, I bought one.”
“The whole mountain?” Chino asked, clearly impressed.
“The whole mountain. We could see it through our bedroom windows. It wasn’t as expensive as you might have thought, either.
“My wife Daisy wasn’t always happy there, but not always sad either. We made a few friends. Traveling shows would make the trip over from the coast about twice a year. Once, a pair of opera singers from San Pablo gave a concert. We even had a natural hot springs, which I converted to a bath house and had connected to the main cottage by tunnel. That way my wife could take the waters in her all-together should the mood strike her, or even in the dead of winter. Sadie was born during our third year.
“The miners in Silver City were a rough crew, but we never had any trouble with them. At least, not at first. Then one day, one of them was working a dig not far downriver from our house, and he found something unexpected. He was cleaning the mud from his tools when he saw something shine. At first, he guessed it was just mica or pyrite. Fool’s gold. But he was wrong. He’d found gold in the Paiute Basin. And my section of the river was lousy with the stuff.
“Well now, those were high times, I don’t need to tell you. The old boys I brought out with me took to mining like they never did to cotton. We panned and dredged from sunup to sundown, only stopping a few hours every Sunday to observe the Sabbath. We even sunk a few shafts into my mountain, hoping to locate the source of the gold. I think we were close.
“But then, after a few months of solid production—”
“Banditos,” Chino said.
MacLemore nodded. “Daisy was out in the yard, bathing the children in an old wash tub. She had their Mammy with her, and they must have been gossiping or joking or something, because they never saw the riders coming. Not until shots were fired.
“My wife grabbed our boy and ran into the house. Sadie’s Mammy grabbed her and fled into the forest. Just imagine the old girl, fat as an ox, cradling my naked little darling in her arms.” He shook his head as he recalled it. “Took the rest of that day and all of the next for her to hike to Silver City. Of course, by that time it was all over.”
“How did you get away?” Henry asked.
“I was down to Bridger City at the time, trying to get the samples from our shaft milled and tested. I didn’t even hear about the massacre for two whole weeks.”
“Who were they?” Chino asked. “The bandits, I mean.”
“I still can’t say for sure. I’ve heard rumors, of course. Some think their leader was a Yankee. That sounds about right.”
Lu glanced at Jack, remembering the conversation he’d overheard in his grandfather’s basement. The gunslinger knew who the bandits were, Lu remembered, or at least he had an idea. <<Is it him?>> That’s what Jack had asked, after reading the old notebook Master K’ung had given him. It had meant nothing to Lu at the time, but now, looking back on that moment, he felt certain that they’d been discussing this mysterious Yankee of MacLemore’s. Lu wondered if he ought to say something. But one look at the famous gunfighter, squinting at him across the fire, convinced Lu to hold his tongue. If Jack hadn’t voiced his suspicions by now, Lu figured he had his reasons.
“Why wait ‘til now?” Henry asked. “Why not try and get it all back earlier?”
“I did,” MacLemore said. “Rangers. Pinkertons. I dragged my little girl over the whole continent, searching for anyone who might help us. I had the San Pablo Cavalry all set to march, but then the war got bad and they were called east.”
“You could have started your own army for the money you say you’ve got.”
“Most of my gold is still at that house. I’d made one or two tiny shipments, but they barely paid for equipment.”
“Don’t look like you’re starving to me,” Chino muttered.
MacLemore glanced down at his coat. “I owe a heap of money to Sadie’s uncle,” he explained. “And he wants it paid. He never forgave me for taking his only sister into the Territories. Besides—” His mouth twisted into a grimace of pain and fury. “Those villains killed my wife. They killed my son. They don’t deserve my gold as well.”
“What makes you think it’s still there?” Henry asked.
MacLemore smiled. “Most of it was hidden.”
“Where?” Chino asked him. “Where’d you hide it?”
“You’ll see when we get there.”
Sadie began to dish up the stew. “Ain’t but pork-belly and mustard-greens,” she said. “But if you don’t like it, you can starve.”
She handed a bowl to Lu. It smelled good. He stirred it with his fork, searching for a piece of bacon, and was about to take his first bite when a thought suddenly leapt into his head. “What about me?” he asked.
They all looked at him.
“I mean, am I just supposed to ride along and collect firewood?”
MacLemore stared. “Why, you’re our explosives expert, of course. Chosen by the great Jack Straw himself. Isn’t that right?”
Lu was stunned. The closest he’d ever come to working with explosives was when he helped his grandfather roll firecrackers for the New Year’s celebration. Until now, he’d completely forgotten that part of Jack and his grandfather’s conversation. At the time he’d been so convinced they were talking about Lung that Lu had allowed all the rest to wash right over him without sinking in. He was about to say as much, but before he got any words out, he looked at Jack.
Instantly, Lu felt as though a steel lock had snapped closed over his tongue. He tried again, but couldn’t even manage to unclench his jaw. Jack had done something, Lu felt certain. It was some kind of enchantment. The gunfighter had taken hold of his voice, just as surely as he’d grabbed that smoke out of the air. And Lu couldn’t even protest.
Jack lit a cigarette. As he inhaled, his eyes bore down on Lu. The intensity of his glare made Lu break out in a cold sweat.
“That’s right.” Jack blew a cloud of smoke over their campfire. “Selected by me. But ‘til you reach the mine, and can dazzle your new employers with your blasting skills, you have a different job.”
“What’s that?” Lu croaked.
“To learn.”