EIGHT
THURMAN stood with a camp ax in his hand. One he’d used to split cooking wood for Mary. It was late afternoon when Youree, sitting on the wagon seat, and Morris, on horseback, arrived at the clearing beside the road where Thurman and Mary had set up their camp.
“Thought you’d be way up the road—who’s he?” Morris blinked at the sight of the Indian boy seated on the ground with his leg in a splint.
“Name’s Needles. I figured he’s worth a fifty-dollar reward. He’s one of Chickenhead’s men. They tried to hold us up back down the road, but they were full of firewater and left when I went to shooting at them. Except Needles’ horse threw him off and broke his leg.”
“Yeah, Morris,” Youree said. “I seen Needles’ name on that list.”
“Well, now the court owes you a hundred dollars,” Morris said to Thurman. “That’s more than I’ll make this month.”
“Yeah, but you can wait around for your money. I’ll have to discount mine.”
“What in the hell’re we going to do with a broke-leg Injun?” Morris squeezed his unshaven chin and shook his head.
“You’ve got plenty of labor. Get them to load and unload him. Write me a receipt.”
Morris agreed, but only begrudgingly. “Was Chickenhead riding your red horse?”
“No, or I’d’ve got that horse back. I shot a black hat off one of them to send them running. If he’d been riding my horse today, he’d be lying dead in this road.”
Morris made the receipt out in pencil on the seat of his saddle and handed it to Thurman. “Expensive-looking hat even with a hole in it.”
Then he nodded at Mary, who was bent over the fire, wearing the silk-bound black hat with the high crown creased in the front as she stirred their supper. She took it off and tipped it to them. Putting it back on, she wore it with its trailing eagle feather and a smug look on her face.
The lawmen took the prisoner and then went to the far side of the meadow to camp.
Thurman was seated cross-legged on the ground, drinking coffee. Bareheaded, Mary came and sat beside him. Looking upset, she pulled the short grass up and tossed it into the hot evening wind. “I never told you everything about me.”
“So. I haven’t told you much about me.”
“But I have a dark secret you must know before we get to Fort Smith.”
He blew on the coffee. “What is that?”
“I carry another man’s child.”
He nodded. “And?”
“And it was forced on me.”
He nodded again, busy studying how the small red-blue flames licked the bottom of her black kettle.
“Did you know?” she asked.
“I thought so the first day I saw you.”
Her brown eyes filled with tears as she looked at him hard for his answer. “It does not bother you?”
“I guess we can raise it to be better than its father. It will be all yours. You think that is why those men tried to stop us today?”
“I never told him. I promised myself I would kill him if he ever touched me again.”
“In few days or a week, we’ll be beyond him and he won’t find us up there in the vast prairie country between here and Montana.”
“Hold me?”
He took her on his lap and despite the pain in his side, he rocked her. She dried her eyes with his handkerchief and sniffed a lot. There was no need for words between them. They already had a strong bond. The simple security of his arms and him holding her settled her down.
“Should we hurry to Montana before you have the baby?” he whispered in her ear.
She straightened up and looked in his face. “No, I am strong. I have had two children. One by myself in a lodge. I have good medicine.”
“All right. I think the food must be ready.”
She agreed and jumped up.
Before the marshals’ prisoners stirred the next morning, the two of them were on the dark road for Fort Smith. Using the full moon and stars, they jog-trotted the mule through the shadowy groves and past the rail fences while the sun struggled to come up over some mountains in the east. Thurman could tell she had found a new spirit. Good. Who was he to judge someone else? He’d made the greatest mistake in his entire life riding off to San Antonio for a life he simply knew was going to be more exciting.
When it all shattered, then he couldn’t go back. He’d shut the gate on that part of his life, too. Later on, he began to find some solace in reading the Bible. God forgives, it said. He’d marry this woman in time. But he’d already broken more commandments than he could count. In his case, God had lots to forgive. But he hoped His forces led him to Herschel and then helped him convince that boy he needed to join him on the 7 Bar.
They crossed the Canadian River on a ferry in late afternoon. The dingy brown water lapped at the side of the barge. The black man cranking the winch to carry them across sang gospel songs as they started across the high river. Thurman was grateful he wasn’t staring at that high water with a herd to cross it.
Many a son of Texas never came up from the first ducking they took in swift water like this—swept away by the strong current that made the thick rope, which the man was working his great muscles on to propel them across, bow. Halfway, he stopped singing and used all his strength to wind the rope up.
Mary moved against Thurman and clutched his leg. “I don’t like this.”
Ira shook all over, rattling the harness standing in the traces. Then he snorted so loud, she jumped. The towrope groaned. The river rushed past faster underneath the barge. Heavy grunts from the black man lasted until he began to break the river’s force and they were inching again for the far bank.
Thurman would have gone to assist him, but he knew the broken rib was still too tender for him to be much help. When they approached the north bank, he squeezed Mary’s leg through the dress. “We’re about there.”
Then she struck his right arm. “I hated that.”
“No, you never had to swim it with a horse. It was ten times worse, and then the cattle were swept downstream and your cowboys were drowning. No, no, Mary, it was an easy crossing.”
He took her in his arms and kissed her hard on the mouth.
When he settled back, she stared at him as if lost. Her fingertips touched her lips as if he had burned them. Then, she finally smiled at him. “I will complain more often if that is your punishment.”
“Ma’am, you’s can drive off now,” the black man said, standing in the front of the docked ferry.
“Oh, yes.” Startled, she took up the reins and drove Ira off the barge.
“Let’s make camp,” Thurman said, looking around. “I think we can reach Fort Smith tomorrow.”
“We are not stopping until I don’t have to smell or hear that damn river,” she said, and made Ira go faster.
Thurman twisted and looked back. Not near as bad as some of the crossings he’d made. Then he looked to heaven, grateful for their safety.
Late afternoon the next day, they reached a shantytown on the west bank of the Arkansas River. A settlement of Indians, ’breeds, and riffraff that lived in dugouts, crate shacks, and canvas-covered lodges with their skinny, slinking black dogs and dirty, naked children looking blankly at the wagon’s passing.
Thurman drove the mule down the steep cross-tie road laid in the alluvial sand to the waiting ferry. Mary closed her eyes and held his leg tight.
He nudged her with an elbow. “You can look now. We’re on the ferry.”
“Two bits,” the ferryman said, and Thurman paid him.
Then the man in a sailor’s cap went inside the small doghouse and blew a steam whistle that made Ira spook in his tracks. The paddle wheeler began to churn the brown water, and they were off for the far shore. Several red brick buildings stood against the skyline across the Arkansas. A half dozen river paddle wheelers were docked on the bank, unloading or taking on cargo. The town showed off its success despite the setbacks of the war.
Thurman drove Ira up on Garrison Avenue, then turned right to go to the federal court building. He stopped in front, then undid his gun belt and left it on the seat.
“I need to go in here and see about my rewards. Then we’ll put Ira and Blacky up at a livery. Find us a room in a hotel and go have supper in a café.”
She looked warily at the three-story brick barracks. “That is where Parker’s court is held?”
“Yes.”
“They won’t keep you, will they?”
“No.”
“Good.” She hugged her arm and looked around the near empty brick street. “I’ll be fine.”
“I hope so.”
He took the stairs two at a time and went inside the right-hand door. A clerk looked up at him. “Can I help you?”
“I have two receipts for federal rewards.”
The young man held out his hand. He read them and handed them back. “Go to the second door on the left. They can help you in there.”
In the second office, a middle-aged man at a desk removed his glasses and came over to the counter. “What do you need?”
“I have two receipts for rewards.”
“Hmm,” the man snorted. “You’ve been busy shooting ’em, huh?”
“No, they were busy attacking me.”
“I can’t sign these warrants and my boss is gone for the day. You’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
“Then give them back to me or issue a receipt for them.”
“Well, don’t you trust me?” The man swaggered up to the counter and tossed them down.
“That ain’t the question.” He put them in his pocket, bit his tongue, and started for the door. “Good day.”
At the buggy, Mary frowned at him. “Did you get the money?”
“No, I didn’t get the warrants that they issue for them. The man who signs them was not there.”
“You weren’t this mad when they tried to rob us.”
“Sorry.” He collapsed on the seat and smiled at her. “We’ll do better tomorrow.”
She clutched his arm and laughed. “Ferries make me upset. Judge Parker’s men make you mad. We were lots happier in the mountains.”
“It will all work out.” He clucked to Ira and gave Mary the reins to turn him around as he put his gun belt back on his waist. He whistled to Blacky and the dog fell in with them. No need to let him get into a fight with some town dog.
“Where do we go next?” she asked.
“Dearborn’s Livery, go two blocks, then turn left and a right on Garrison.”
She looked uncertainly at him and finally nodded, clapping Ira on the butt to go faster.
Inside the livery, a whiskered man came out of the office, licking a lead pencil with a tag in his hand.
“Name?”
“Thurman Baker.”
“Well, I’ll be dogged gone. Captain Baker, that you?”
Thurman stepped down. “Who’re you?”
“Why, Sergeant Reilly O’Brien, sir.” He clicked his heels and saluted.
“I’ll be damned, Sarge, how are you?”
“Fine. It’s been a long time, sir.”
“Yes, it has been. I need to leave Ira and my dog Blacky here, and we have several things in our buggy I want looked after.”
“Cap’n, I’ll be damn sure it’s all here when you get ready to leave. Cross me heart.”
“Good enough. Also, Mary and I need a clean hotel.”
O’Brien scratched his ear. “The Palace is good as I know.”
Mary rolled up some things of hers including her new dress. Putting on the moccasins, she smiled at Thurman. “You knew him?”
“In the war.”
“You were an officer?” she asked as he guided her outside and to the edge of the busy street.
“I’ve been many things.” Then he took her by the elbow past the beer wagons and riders to the far curb, then inside the lobby of the Palace.
He went to the desk and asked the clerk about a room.
“I have a room for you, sir. But she can’t go in—”
Thurman’s right fist shot out and he jerked the young man halfway over the counter to talk in his face. “She’s my wife. You say one word and I’ll cut your tongue out. Savvy?”
The man’s face went to putty and he tried to swallow. He finally managed a croaking “Yes.”
Thurman released him, and he about fell off the counter he’d been taken halfway over. Straightening his suit and tie, the clerk swallowed hard. “If you will sign in for both of you.”
Thurman did that. “We will stay four nights.”
“That will be ten—I mean eight—dollars for four nights, sir.”
Thurman paid him, and the man marked paid on the four dates in the register.
“The room is on the second floor—206.” The clerk put the key on the countertop.
They went up the stairs in silence.
When they got to the door marked 206, she stopped, looked up at him, and wet her lips. “I see why you were a captain.”
Then her shoulders began to shake in mirth. In the room, she laughed aloud and in a falsetto voice said, “No damn Indians can be in here.”
Amused, he went and opened the two windows. “Peel back the sheet. If you see one black bug we’re leaving.”
She pulled the spread and sheet aside and examined the bed closely. “No bugs.”
“Good,” he said, then grabbed her around the waist, lifted her up, and swung her around. “Is this better than the last time?”
Looking down at him, she smiled and removed his hat. “I think you should kiss me again.”
Late that night, from the open window, he studied the traffic on Garrison Avenue and took a sip of whiskey from the new pint. The sounds and smells of the city wafted on the warm night air. Buy a stout horse and let her drive the buggy. In three days they’d be headed for Montana. He needed to find that boy.