TWO

Benjamin Flowers stepped out of the county recorder’s office into the bright spring day, wearing the smile of success. He folded the deed he held in his hand and tucked it into the inside pocket of his worn leather iacket. Then he stood for a minute, taking in the warmth of morning. He allowed himself the time to bask in the pleasure of his achievement even knowing that there were months, years of toil and trouble ahead.

He meant to have breakfast and then shake the dust of Fargo from his heels. He wanted to be riding … home to his newly purchased ranch north of Pawnee. Ben Flowers was only twenty-six years of age, but he had been on his own since he was fourteen and he had worked every one of those years, saving his money while the men around him squandered theirs on whiskey and at the gambling tables. They had mocked him at times, but he was steadfast in his determination: one day he would have a place of his own.

And now he did.

Half a section of Dakota land with a structure already on it. He couldn’t resist glancing at the deed in his pocket once more. It was true. The land had been put up at auction after the former owner had been delinquent in paying taxes for the five previous years. A notice in the Fargo Times had caught Ben’s eye. The auction had been scantly attended and his bid of $513 dollars had been accepted. So Ben Flowers, former cowhand and roughneck, now was the owner of 320 acres of Dakota land. He hadn’t seen the property. He was working on instinct, but instinct told him that if the former owner had taken the time to erect a building of some sort – undefined in the notice – it must have shown some promise as a ranch.

No matter, he would continue to be optimistic until proven wrong. He was young and had the time and strength to invest to try to prove up on the land. In time … well, a lot of things might happen in time, but he would not let concern darken his thoughts on this bright, sunny morning. All of the hard labor lay ahead; for today he would not let anything darken his mood. He was walking on clouds as he crossed the dusty street, dodging a freight wagon and a pair of racing cowboys on their cutting horses.

Entering the shaded stable to reclaim his sorrel pony, he felt that nothing could be as fine as the way he felt on this morning. Then it became even brighter, warmer.

He had slipped the pony its bit and smoothed the saddle blanket when he lifted his head at approaching footsteps to see the pretty blonde girl in the blue gingham dress walking toward him, her expectant eyes on him. Slender, she was, but attractively built. Her hair was loose, drawn back into a tail. Her mouth was full, her nose slightly arched. She was tall and moved deliberately as she approached Ben Flowers.

‘That is your name, isn’t it?’ she asked, as Ben paused before throwing his saddle onto the sorrel’s hack. ‘Ben Flowers?’

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Have we met?’

‘No. I need a man to escort me to Pawnee.’

‘You can’t mean me?’

‘Yes.’ She leaned against the stall partition, resting her arms on it. ‘You see … Ben, it’s like this. My husband, Tom Cole, is returning from a long cattle drive to Oregon. He wrote me to say that he will meet me in Pawnee where we hope to take up residence.’

She paused. ‘The letter took a long time to reach me, and I am very late. I thought there was stagecoach service from Fargo to Pawnee, but there is not, it turns out. I was over at the courthouse to ask the marshal if he could spare a man to ride with me, but he refused. A clerk from the county recorder’s office happened to overhear me and he pointed you out, saying that you were riding that way.’

‘Not all the way,’ Ben Flowers said, tightening his cinches. ‘My property’ – he liked the sound of that and repeated it – ‘my property is about ten miles this side of Pawnee.’

‘That’s close enough. I’ll take my chances from there. But I am fearful of riding the long plains by myself, a woman alone.’

Ben nodded, straightening from his task. He tilted his hat back and told the woman, ‘I can see you along the trail that far – if you’ll trust me to do it.’

She smiled prettily and answered, ‘I trust you. You have kind eyes. If you’ll just give me time enough to get into my riding clothes … I’ve already purchased a horse. That little paint pony over there. I can’t thank you enough.’ She spoke in a rush now, as if she were afraid he might change his mind, ride away and leave her. ‘My husband will thank you as well. I can’t miss meeting him.’ She turned and started away, hoisting her skirt. Pausing briefly, she called back down the stable aisle, ‘My name is Elizabeth! Elizabeth Cole.’

‘I’ll have your pony saddled when you get back,’ Ben Flowers said.

As the young blonde flitted out from the intense shadows of the stable into the bright sunlight he wondered why he had agreed to her request so readily. But then, it was not safe for a woman alone out on the Great Plains; too much could go wrong. It was the only decent thing to do. And there were worse fates than having a lovely blonde companion along on his ride home.

He went to find the stableman and ask for Elizabeth Cole’s tack.

The morning was still bright, the skies holding fine though there was a wind rising as they cleared the town limits of Fargo and turned their horses southward toward Pawnee. Elizabeth, wearing a divided buckskin skirt now and a high-necked white blouse, spoke excitedly as they rode – of her husband and their plans for the future. She was eager to reach Pawnee, as eager as Ben Flowers himself. She did make an enjoyable riding companion. The miles they traveled across the long-grass plains passed easily, and she was a delight to study, as cheerful and animated as she was. It certainly made the long ride more pleasant than if he had made the trek alone.

‘Can we make Pawnee by nightfall?’ Elizabeth asked, late that afternoon as the few high clouds that had begun to drift in from Canada were touched with color on their underbellies. The rising wind shifted her hastily pinned blonde hair across her face and into her eyes. Ben shook his head.

‘I don’t really know. I only know this land from descriptions and from maps. You know how misleading maps can seem, even if they’re well drawn, which they aren’t in this part of the country.’

‘I know,’ Elizabeth answered. ‘On a map China is about three inches across.’

Ben grinned. ‘Well, that’s where we stand. I believe we can make my ranch, but I’m not even sure of that.’

‘Are there other people there? Beds? Food?’

Ben smiled again, this time more dourly.

‘So far as I know there’s nothing there. No one’s been on the land for five years. But if we can make it, we’ll have a roof over us if it should decide to rain – which,’ he said, eyeing the ominously gathering clouds, ‘seems likely.’

‘I see,’ Elizabeth said. It was obvious that she wanted to rush onto Pawnee, but a rainstorm would make that a long, cold, disorienting ride. ‘Well, we’ll do what we must!’ she said with another of her bright smiles. ‘Don’t sailors say, “any port in a storm”?’

Forty minutes later it began to rain. It was a sudden hard wash of silver, driving down on their hacks, soaking them through in minutes. Both had slipped into their slickers as the first squall swept in, but it was too late to protect them from the numbing cold of the open Great Plains storm. Rain stung their eyes, and squinting into the gathering dusk, Ben believed that he had now lost the trail. They rode on in determined silence. Speech was nearly impossible above the howl of the wind anyway.

Yet, a mile farther on the low clouds parted briefly and through the falling rain Ben saw the low form of a log building. He reined up and sat his sorrel horse for a long minute, staring into the dark, falling rain. Confused, Elizabeth touched his arm and asked, ‘What is it, Ben?’

His answer was barely audible above the gusting wind. ‘I’m riding on my own land,’ he told her eventually. ‘The ground below us is mine; that cabin is mine.’

She didn’t understand the fervor in his voice, nor did she care at that moment. She only wanted to get to someplace dry and be sheltered against the driving storm.

The cabin was in complete disrepair. Of the riddled front door, half off its leather hinges, Elizabeth remarked. ‘Looks like the moths have been at it.’

‘Probably someone using it for target practice,’ Ben said, his enthusiasm undiminished. It took them long minutes working in the dark to find a pair of candles stored in a cupboard with a tilted door, but the flickering light these offered when lit was welcome. ‘There’s no wood for the fire, I suppose,’ Elizabeth said, her teeth chattering.

‘I don’t see any. We’re sure not going to find anything dry outside to burn. ‘We’ll have to suffer through it, I guess.’

‘So it seems.’ Still Elizabeth’s good spirits were not dampened. She had made it this far and tomorrow she would be in Pawnee to meet Tom Cole. There were two bunks in a back room, three wooden chairs around a puncheon table, some scattered pots and pans in the tiny kitchen area. Nothing much else. The roof leaked very badly in one corner, not so badly in the others.

‘Careful!’ Ben warned as Elizabeth crossed the front room, for someone had torn up some of the floorboards. Studying this with puzzlement, Ben said, ‘Probably some passerby using them for firewood.’

There wasn’t much more to be seen by the flickering light of the candles. The place was obviously a mess, but Ben hadn’t expected much more of a cabin that hadn’t been occupied for over five years. Morning was soon enough to survey the work he needed to do. For now he stifled a yawn, went to the badly hung front door and closed it.

‘Let’s get what sleep we can,’ he said to Elizabeth. ‘We both have busy days tomorrow.’

Ben went into the sleeping nook, looked under a bunk and kicked it with his boot, checking for lurking critters. It seemed safe enough and so he let Elizabeth crawl onto it and close her eyes, still wearing her rain slicker. Ben had opted to try dozing on one of the chairs.

He was too excited to sleep much. He had made it home. Sagging onto the wooden chair, he folded his arms, listened to the rain dripping through the roof and smiled to himself The cabin wouldn’t suit everybody, but he had slept in far worse situations on the open trail, and this place, such as it was, was his very own. Sometime before dawn he did actually manage to fall asleep.

Jerking awake, disoriented and stiff, Ben Flowers rubbed his head and rose to his feet. The front door was open. Morning light glistened on the long grass, scattering jewels of dew across the land. The big oak tree in the yard dripped silver droplets. The air was cold but the wind had died down. The skies were clearing with only a few lazy behemoth clouds drilling slowly past.

It was a miserable but glorious morning. The first day.

He glanced toward the sleeping area where Elizabeth had been the night before, but she was gone. Frowning, he looked around and finally found the note scrawled in pencil that she had left hanging on a nail on the wall.

Clear skies. Off to Pawnee. Thanks – Elizabeth Cole

Well, he wished he had had the chance to say goodbye to her, but he could understand her eagerness. Her husband was arriving. Soon they would be starting a new life. As would Ben Flowers.

Rincon was already up and breakfasted when Elizabeth found him in Pawnee’s only restaurant. She dropped into the seat across the table from him and gestured to the waitress, miming a poured can of coffee. Rincon did not look much different than when they had sent him up five years ago, but his dark mustache had been shaved and his lips only twitched when he offered a smile. He stretched his hands across the table and took Elizabeth’s.

‘Missed you,’ he said.

‘You missed any woman,’ she said, as the tired-looking waitress brought Elizabeth a mug of steaming coffee.

‘Not like I missed you,’ Rincon said, as he removed his hands so that the half-frozen Elizabeth could sip at her coffee. She tried very hard to believe his words.

Glancing around the room carefully, he asked in a low voice, ‘How did it go?’

‘The kid’s as dumb as a stump,’ Elizabeth answered.

‘He doesn’t know about the gold, then? When I first heard that the Whittaker property was going up for sale, I wondered.’

‘He doesn’t know a thing.’ Elizabeth said. ‘I spent all day with him. He’s just a wet-nosed kid all excited about having his own half-section. I grilled him pretty well – without him knowing it of course.’

‘Did you have to smile a lot?’ Rincon asked coldly.

‘Only smile,’ Elizabeth said stiffly. ‘Look, Rincon, I waited five years for you to be released. Why would I start speculating now?’

‘I don’t know. I’m sorry,’ he said with bland insincerity.

‘If you’d been able to send me some money I could have outbid the kid for the property and we could have searched at leisure; but you never—’

‘Where was I supposed to get money, locked down in the Territorial Prison?’ Rincon said, and then he realized he was speaking too loudly and lowered his voice. ‘Anyway, this might turn out just as well. The kid shouldn’t be a problem for us.’

‘Us?’ Elizabeth said. ‘Where is Cal Mercer anyway?’

‘He got an extra month for slugging a prison guard. Losing that arm has just made him meaner than he ever was.’

‘And he was pretty mean before,’ Elizabeth commented. She was silently thoughtful as the waitress refilled her coffee cup. When the aproned woman had walked away, Elizabeth leaned forward and asked in a whisper, ‘What if we can find where Billy Carter stashed the army gold before Cal Mercer is released from prison? I mean … do we still have to cut him in?’

‘That,’ Rincon said, sipping his own coffee, ‘is something we will have to consider carefully, isn’t it?’

Ben Flowers had decided to tackle the roof first. His sorrel, picketed out beyond the oak tree grazed placidly on the long grass of the plains. Ben had discovered a ladder in the broken-down lean-to which had once served as a shed and, poking around, a dull saw, a barrelful of rusty nails and a few slats; not enough to do the job, but enough to give him a start. He still had a little pocket money and, after the rough work was done, he planned to ride into Pawnee himself and purchase some decent tools and shingles.

The roughly made pole ladder looked hazardous, and Ben tested it carefully before deciding that it would take his weight. Surprisingly, the ancient contraption allowed him to climb to the roof, a bucketful of nails hitched to his belt, hammer tucked in behind. Then he hefted the stack of slats he had roped together and got them up, losing two or three as they slipped the knot.

The roof was only slightly pitched, but when Ben’s boot hit a mossy spot, it was enough to send him into a brief, scrambling slide toward the edge of the roof.

A mocking voice called up, ‘What are you doing up there! Or should I say, what are you trying to do?’

Sitting, his knees drawn up, Ben looked into the morning sunlight to see a skinny kid on an outsized, hairy buckskin horse in his front yard. The kid wore a wide fawn-colored Stetson, black jeans and a checked red shirt. Scowling, Ben answered, rubbing the elbow he had skinned.

‘Patching my roof if you don’t mind.’

‘Your roof? You mean you actually bought this place?’

‘Took it over for taxes,’ Ben shouted. He realized that he had lost his grip on the slats and would have to descend the ladder. The kid had swung down from the big-shouldered buckskin horse to watch with evident amusement. Smothering a curse, Ben retraced his path. Reaching the ground he began to bundle the slats again. The kid’s shadow fell across him.

‘You ought to use some proper roofmg materials.’

‘This is all that’s at hand,’ Ben said rising from his crouch. ‘Anyway—’ He turned to find himself facing the kid who was at least a head shorter than he was, narrowly built. The Stetson hat had been removed to show a roughly sawn-off crop of black hair which the kid was scratching at vigorously.

‘I’m damned,’ Ben said. ‘You’re a girl.’

‘I am a woman. My name is Kate McCallister and I am twenty-two years of age. I am slenderly built. People keep telling me that I will fill out, but I hope not. I feel more secure the way I am.’

‘I don’t get you.’

Kate McCallister shrugged. ‘Of course not; you’re a man, aren’t you?’

Ben didn’t know what to say. Eventually he introduced himself. ‘I’m Ben Flowers. Why did you sound surprised when I said that this was my place?’

‘Oh,’ she answered, shrugging one shoulder. ‘I just didn’t think that anyone would want to live here again.’

‘Why not?’ Ben asked with surprise. ‘What is it, haunted or something?’

‘Maybe,’ the girl answered. ‘Maybe worse. Come with me, I want to show you something.’

Going around to the front of the cabin, Kate pointed to a series of holes bored into the face of the unbarked logs.

‘Woodpeckers?’ Ben asked in puzzlement.

The girl laughed. ‘Sure! I’ll show you,’ she said, taking a pocket knife from her jeans. Digging into one of the holes she worked at it until she had pried out a misshapen lead slug. She displayed it in the palm of her small hand. ‘There’s over a hundred of these holes in the front wall, Mr Ben Flowers. You surely noticed the door?’

He had, but he had taken it for careless shooters using the deserted cabin for target practice. He took the slug from her hand and asked, ‘What does this mean? What happened here?’

‘No one knows for certain except that the army was involved. Father bolted our door and shuttered the windows. We couldn’t see anything much, but we could hear the guns firing for nearly an hour.’

‘Is that what happened to the last owner?’ he asked thoughtfully. ‘He was killed?’

‘Yes, but there are a lot of other people involved in whatever happened here. You’d better hope they don’t come back.’