“But Father, I really don’t see the sense in staying here at this army outpost in the hope that Harry is going to turn up. I mean, we could be here for months!”
“My dear, I have it on pretty good authority that Venable is driving freight on the route that comes right through here, as I have already told you. He actually delivers freight here to the sutler’s store.”
“But when? Once a year, every six months?”
“He is due now, according to my information. Any day now. I think we timed it just right.”
It was morning and the Thatchers were seated in their quarters in the guest barracks. Dutch Rothausen, the mess sergeant, had sent coffee over at the captain’s request, and so they were relaxing after having enjoyed another evening with the Conways.
Hawes Thatcher was enjoying his first cigar of the day, leaning back comfortably in the overstuffed armchair, his legs up on a footstool, his eyes carefully appraising his fingernails.
“No, my dear, the best thing is simply to wait. We won’t stay here more than two weeks. I’ll wager our Mr. Harry Venable will show up in less than a week. And when he does...”
“Father, you promised.”
“Yes, Julie, my dear daughter, I promised. And I will keep my promise. I will simply tell that.. .gentleman .. .that he will do the right thing by my daughter, or he’ll be sorry. Damned sorry!”
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Whipped into anger by his own words, he got up and strode into the adjoining room, leaving a trail of cigar smoke in his wake.
Julie continued to sit where she was, with her hands in her lap. She felt quite helpless. After a moment she rose and walked over to the large wall mirror and stood looking at herself. The mirror was big enough for her to see down to her knees, which was all she wanted. She studied herself head-on, then turned, examining one side, now the other. Did it show? No, not yet. She had only missed one period, so things were not all that far along. But soon it would show. And what then? What if Harrv didn't show up? What if he refused to marry her? But no. Nobody refused Hawes Thatcher.
“And meanwhile,” Thatcher said, coming back into the room, “I can be looking over the situation here. In my line of work it certainly doesn’t hurt to have some grassroots information on things like the army and the frontier.”
His good humor restored—he had whipped down a neat shot of brandy in the other room—Hawes Thatcher put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder and looked her steadily in the eyes.
“I only hope that you will bear a son, my dear.”
Julie colored slightly, and her eyes seemed to grow wider. “And what if I don’t, Father?”
“What if you don’t what?”
“What if it’s a girl?”
He studied her a moment, noting her seriousness. A slow smile appeared at his eyes and mouth. “Then of course I’ll forgive you, my dear.” And he dropped his hand from her shoulder.
Hawes Thatcher was a politician all the way through, which meant that since his chief purpose in life was to perpetuate himself in office, he had limited intelligence.
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He did not notice the pain that filled his daughter—the dullness that swept into her eyes, the tension that entered her young body, as he said those words. But of course he had been manifesting such behavior toward her all her life, even though he loved her. For after all, as he had told Warner Conway, she was his daughter.
It was the next day that it finally got to young Julie; and over a cup of tea she told the whole story to Flora Conway. After which she wept in the older woman’s arms, had another cup of tea and a shot of brandy, and discovered that she had a friend.
Flora always took the practical approach. “My dear, the important thing is that you stay well. And when your young man turns up, simply speak openly with him. After all, he’s had all this time to think things over, and I’m sure he’ll look at the situation in a different light now.”
Flora wasn’t sure at all, but what else could she say to the unhappy young girl? And she wondered if it might not be a bad idea for Warner to have a word with Thatcher or—maybe better still—with Harry Venable.
“Mrs. Conway—”
“Call me Flora, dear.”
“Flora, what I said the other night—remember? I told you that you were a real lady and I liked you.”
“I’m glad you like me, Julie. About the lady part, well...” Flora made a face. “I wouldn’t want anything like that to get around and ruin my reputation.”
“Mrs. Con—I mean, Flora...”
The captain’s lady had been moving a book to another place on the side table next to her chair, and she looked up now to find Julie’s great, liquid gaze upon her.
“Flora, I... I wish you were my mother.”
Flora Conway’s mouth opened, and for a moment she didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. “Your mother!
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Couldn’t I at least be your sister?”
And when Julie realized what she had said, the two of them burst into a great peal of laughter.
Billy Golightly’s unfortunate physical condition had virtually disappeared and he was himself again. This good fortune was the result of two factors: rest from torturous contact with the McClellan saddle, and an ointment prescribed, and in fact prepared, by Dutch Rothausen, the mess sergeant and healer-in-residence at Outpost Number Nine. Billy had been so elated at having his rear end restored that he put in extra time in Dutch’s kitchen without having either been asked or ordered.
“I always thought there was something the matter with that mysterious kid,” Sergeant Ben Cohen said when Rothausen started singing his brag about the new recruit who actually wanted to pull KP.
“Jesus!” answered Dutch to the first sergeant’s comment, and stomped off in disgust.
Meanwhile, Private Golightly was now pulling stable detail—officially—a job that no one but himself knew he liked. He loved horses. He loved the way they smelled, felt, looked. He had ridden since he was a button down in Texas, and he knew horseflesh like the best of them.
Billy also knew guns, and that was something he also kept to himself. There had been that moment on patrol when Lieutenant Kincaid had spoken to him, noting his ability with his mount, but it hadn’t gone any further.
He had learned at an early age from his older brother Larrabee that you never told anybody anything. “Don’t trust nobody but yourself, kid—then you’ll know who sold you out,” was how Larrabee Hogan had put it.
Billy Hogan had loved guns almost as much as horses. And he loved his older brother. Larrabee had raised him
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from a little kid, their parents having been shot and killed by the vigilantes. The vigilante leader had apologized the next day when it had been discovered that the Hogan couple were the wrong party. Billy often relived that scene. He couldn’t have forgotten it, even if he wanted.
“We are sorry, boys, we made a bad mistake. Took your paw and maw for another couple.” The vigilante leader had come to the cabin with two other men, who stood silently beside him. All three wore beards, big boots, and guns.
Larrabee Hogan had stood there silently for a long moment. Beside him, his kid brother, age seven, had been more or less successful in fighting his tears, only he couldn’t control his body and it had started to shake.
Larrabee was just nineteen, and he had said finally, “A mistake, mister? And you are sorry for that mistake?”
“We are sure sorry, son. We are all of us sorry for that terrible mistake.”
Larrabee had been standing on one side of the big sofa, with the back of it facing the three men, and behind them the door of the cabin.
“Well,” he’d said, “then maybe you can also be sorry for your second mistake—telling me.” And he had reached down and grabbed the cutdown shotgun lying on the sofa cushions out of sight of he visitors, and with that wide scatter had cut those three vigilantes just about in two.
In the stable at Easy Company, Billy felt the sweat damp on his forehead as, forking out the manure, he relived the scene, as he had done many times; the bodies lying like scarlet pulp on the floor, then the two of them running to their horses and racing away. And it always made him sweat. But it also made him feel good.
There had been the years on the trail, the outlawing that Larrabee took to like a snake to its skin. Larrabee
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had taught him everything—horses, guns, men; he had taken the boy everywhere with him. Finally he had left him with an old couple down in Nogales. Billy hadn’t wanted it, but Larrabee had insisted, the law being so close on his trail. Billy had hated it at first, missing his brother badly, and some of the men he rode with. But he got used to the old couple, the Hardies, who ran a few head of cattle outside Nogales; and he even learned to read and write.
When news came that Larrabee Hogan had been taken by the law, the Hardies, who were having hard times keeping bread on the table, said why didn’t he join the army. Billy asked for the cavalry, and ended up in the mounted infantry, which was just as good, and maybe better.
It was late in the day when the stable detail was dismissed. Young Billy was walking alone across the parade when he saw the girl. She was obviously looking around for some kind of directions.
“Can I help you, Miss?”
“I was looking for the paddock and the horses,” Julie Thatcher said.
Billy Golightly looked into those deep blue eyes and said, “I’d be proud to show you, Miss.”