CHAPTER 4
“Well ain’t she a real pretty bitch, boys?” the big man with the mustache asked the two saddle bums with him on horseback. They nodded and grinned like some greedy dogs about to feast on guts at a cow killing.
“What’s your business here?” Long asked.
“The Indian princess.”
“She isn’t free to go.”
“We ain’t asking you—”
It was his time to take action. Long roared so loud that he spooked two of their horses backward. Then with his gun in his fist he shot at the leader fighting to draw his pistol while trying to control his horse, but he was already half out of the saddle. Another one tried to shoot over the struck man’s spooked horse, but Long’s bullet cut him down.
Number three was whipping his horse to escape. During his scramble to get up the bank, Long shot at him three times but missed and he was gone in the brush. Long’s gun arm dropped in disgust.
She was shaking there beside him and hugging him.
He petted her on her back and wondered how to settle her down. “I’m sorry but I had no choice. They would have killed us or killed me and took you.”
“I know. I am not a child. Are there more?”
“Lord, I don’t know. But I imagine they are only the first ones.”
“How did they find us?”
“I bet they found Bromley and he told them.”
“What should we do?”
“I’ll clean the fish while you dress. Then we’ll load up our horses and head west. Find us a safe place, tomorrow, down the road and sleep.”
“I know that you chose me over your own life. I will go with you.”
“I hope I can protect you. If we move fast, I think we can shake them, but it will be tough going at times.”
He was back at the water’s edge washing out the big trout he had gutted, and she had put on her clothing. Next he dressed the other fish and told her to take them to camp. He’d clean up the mess, take the dead men’s guns, and be along to load up.
The big dead man had little identity. Long was about to give up when in the man’s saddlebags he found a letter written to Wallace Odom. The address was Omaha, Nebraska. The other man had nothing but a worn-out cap and ball pistol. He dragged their bodies down to the water one at a time and then he put their corpses out in the river to float downstream. He unsaddled their mounts and tossed their worn-out saddles in the stream. Next he sent the two horses into the river shouting and waving his arms, making them go across the river. They struggled up the far bank under a barrage of rocks thrown at them to make them hurry off.
He had two well-used handguns, two knives, and twenty dollars in change and went back to camp. She had it all packed and he began to load the packhorse. Then he saddled his own horse. They were on the road as the sun sank beyond the far horizon.
“I am so sorry that intervened in our talking. What do they call you?” he asked.
“It is the Sioux word for a flower. You can call me Rose.”
“Rose.” That is what he’d call her. “Their saddles were not worth a damn. I will find you one that fits you.”
“I can ride a horse without one.”
“I will find you a suitable saddle.”
“You are very made up in your mind.”
“What is that?” He frowned over at her.
“I wanted to leave you. You stopped me. You want me to ride a saddle and you won’t listen.”
“Trust me I know. You will need a saddle if you ride with me.”
About dawn, they found some brush cover down by the riverbed, unloaded the horses, and slept in the shade until past noon. He awoke drowsy. She was still sleeping in a blanket he gave her.
His holster strapped in place, he put his hat on and checked on their horses.
They were grazing and fine. When he came back she sat up under her blanket.
“Are you awake?”
“Oh, I am fine. I couldn’t start the fire.”
“I bet I can. You look peaked.”
“What is that?”
“Worn out?”
She made a disappointed face at him. “I am at that time when I need to be alone.”
“I can try to find us a hideout today.”
“Alone?”
“Whatever. Will you be well in two or three days?”
“It should go away by then.”
He cooked the fish. She barely ate anything. They moved west without any interference. Her pale face made her look ready to faint. His greatest concern was she might faint, fall off her horse, and hurt herself.
Four hours later in the moonlight, he led them down into the brush and cottonwood trees along the river to find a place where they could camp. There was grazing there for the horses. He set up her blanket and then carried her there from where she dismounted.
“I am not a baby.”
“I didn’t call you that.” He hauled her small body in his arms and gently laid her down on the blanket. “I am going to cook some beans. Sleep.”
“Long?”
“Yes.”
“You are a very sincere man.”
“Where did you learn English?”
“Padres.”
“They come out here?”
“They came from Canada for three summers to our camps. I learned French, too.”
“Well, all I ever learned was English. My mother was a great teacher. Me and my brother, Harp, did lots of bookwork, and when we’d get a little sloppy talking she’d twist our ears. Guess it didn’t hurt either of us.”
“Harp is your brother?”
“Half anyway, but I call it all. Mom had me after she learned my father was killed off on the Outlet. My stepfather’s first wife drowned and he found Mom, took her to a dance, and married her there. Harp’s nine months younger than I am. Oh, he’s a dandy.”
“You miss him?”
“I’ve never been separated over a day or two in my life from him. I let him talk for me when we needed a voice on the trail. I got this big crazy idea to see this country when we started home for Texas. Told him I’d go see the Rockies and then come home.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t do this sick business on purpose.”
“I didn’t think you did. I’m just proud you stayed with me.”
“Can you afford to lose a few days here?”
“I can. But I wish I had a better place.”
“I am a Sioux. We live out here.”
Long shook his head. “How old are you anyway?”
“I have been here for fifteen winters. My mother has them notched on a stick. She can’t count.”
“A fine way to know things.”
“She told me she had these same problems, too, as a girl. She promised me I would outgrow it.”
He stood up. Were they through chasing her? He doubted it. Damn, if only he had Harp there—
“Have I ruined it?” she asked.
He whirled around. Her dark brown eyes looked sad in the fire’s light. “Ruined what?”
“When I told you my age, did that worry you?”
He dropped his chin and put his hands on his hips. “I had hoped you were older. You sound older. I’ll be twenty-one.”
She shook her head. “That is not old.”
He snickered. “I need to tell you a story. One day last year when Harp found his woman it was some kinda magic. Her man at the time was going to be hung shortly for murdering another man. So she had no one. She stayed around that store in Arkansas and he came by, bought two cans of peaches, and they went off up on a creek to eat them and they were set forever.”
“That dumb man caught me away from the main camp. I was really feeling sorry for myself when he found you.”
“Tell me something from your life before. When you were at home. Did any warriors bring horses to your family tepee to marry you?”
She nodded her head. “I untied them. Then I shooed them away.”
“Why?”
She shrugged. “They weren’t for me.”
“You never saw me until Bromley brought you to me?”
“You were the first white man he met since he kidnapped me. He said he wanted lots of money for me.”
“I won that money throwing hatchets at a post the day before.”
“That was all you’d paid for me?”
He nodded his head, sat down beside her, and hugged his knees. “Rose, you get to feeling better. I don’t know our enemies. I don’t have any horses to send to your father. No canned peaches to feed you . . . but I figure we can work all that out between us.”
She put her hand on his knee. “I will get better I—promise.” She drew up in pain.
He sat up and nodded. “Willow leaves tea.”
“What is that?”
“Stay here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find some willow leaves.”
She looked at him, peeved. “You were about to get serious and you are going away.”
“Rest easy. We’ve got lots of time to talk.”
In a short while he had several limbs of leaves he had gathered off the willows down by the river. His arms full, he dropped them on the ground and built a fire. Then with his jackknife he began slicing up the leaves and bark.
He soon had them in his boiling water and sat back.
“What is that going to be?” she asked.
“An elixir.”
“What is that?” She held herself in pain.
“Stops pain. I don’t know how long it has to boil.”
He took the cup from his belt, dipped out a half full cup of steaming water, and set it down. “It’s too hot.”
When it was cool she sipped it. “Not as good as your coffee.”
“Wait until it cools.”
In a short while she nodded after drinking the cup of his potion. “I feel much better.”
“Good. If you feel like that in the morning we will ride on.”
“Do you think those men have quit trying to get me?”
He shook his head. “For some reason they want you. I can’t imagine why.”
“What would that be?”
“Does your tribe have lots of money or gold?”
She shook her head.
“The only reason I can figure out for all these bad guys wanting you, they expect to make some big money. If you don’t have any more pain get some sleep. Maybe in the morning we can continue west.”
“Where did you learn about willow tea?”
“My mother. She used it for toothaches, broken bones, headaches. I had almost forgotten it. It must be a painkiller.”
“Oh, it is.” She rubbed her lower stomach under the buckskin dress.
He tucked her in and went to check on their stock. The animals were sleeping on their feet as he watched the moon drop below the horizon. What would he do with her? Return her to her people? Could she survive in his world? In Texas people might snub her for being an Indian. He’d felt some resistance himself being shown toward him in the past. Harp would not put up with it. But she was almost still a child.
After a meal of oatmeal the next morning, and more of his tea, they saddled up and continued on their ride west. They pushed hard, and when he looked for her reaction she nodded she was all right and they rode on.
They found a store on the rolling prairie. He told her to stay with their horses and he’d find them something to eat inside the store. There were only two or three loafers around when he went inside. The store had few food items on empty shelves. No frijoles. No peaches. Some canned tomatoes and rice he bought, paid for, and went outside.
There were two scruffy men out there beside her horse and demanding her name. He crossed the space. “Get the hell away from her.”
“Who are you?” one of them demanded.
“The guy that’s going to shoot you if you don’t get away from her. Now get.”
He fumed as those two went back toward the store. “What did they want to know?”
“What my name was.” She winked at him, looking half-amused at his anger.
He frowned back at them. “What did you tell them?”
“My name in Sioux.”
“Good. I bet they couldn’t translate that.” He flipped back the diamond hitch to put the rice and tomatoes in the panniers. Those packed inside, he was disappointed over the poor quest for something to eat. That wasn’t a store. Just a depot for white lightning—he recovered the canvas and put the hitch back on.
They rode west.
He had not seen any wanted posters for her in there. There were many wanted outlaw ones.
In late afternoon, he could at last see the outline of the mountains.
“Another day we should be there,” she said.
“Yes. Have you ever been in them?”
“Not here.”
“I guess they run north and south.”
She smiled at him and turned up her palms for him. “I have to guess so.”
He shook his head. “I am pleased to have you with me. When I am satisfied I saw them, then you must tell me if you wish to go home or go to Texas.”
“You wish to go home, don’t you?”
“Yes. I have a ranch there and my brother.”
She booted her horse in beside him. Then she held her fingers up apart a small space. “Is there that much room for me?”
He nodded. “There is lots of room there. My mother would smother you. She never had any girls. My father would, too. After this year Harp and I will have some real large ranches.”
“I never lived in a house.”
“It is not hard. You shut out the cold and rain.”
She shrugged. “If you are not ashamed of me, I would go there.”
“I have never been ashamed of you.”
She nodded. “I have tried to figure where I belonged. I have been at peace with you these days we shared. My life was not easy with my own people. How will they survive?”
“These people who passed through here have no end. Now you have chosen I want to buy you a saddle, some clothes, and we can find a wagon train going east.”
“We need a train?”
“It would be safer. We can go back perhaps on the Arkansas River route. Trading wagon trains use it to go back and forth to Saint Louis.”
“I am pleased to ride with you.”
“So am I to have you.” He leaned over the horses and hugged her.
Long studied the spectacular snow-capped mountains riding toward them all day. Two days later they made Denver. He found her the right size saddle, and they put their horses in the livery.
The livery owner stopped them before they left to find a room. “I have a better horse for her to ride if you want to look at him.”
“How much does he cost?”
“Look at him first.”
He turned to her for an answer.
She shrugged.
“Show him to us.”
He sent a boy after him. The roan horse led easy, looked excited, and walked on his toes when the boy brought him. He checked his mouth—a four-year-old.
“Give her the lead.”
She looked at Long. He said, “Try him.”
She began to talk in Sioux to the compact red roan horse. Then she grabbed a hank of mane and swung swiftly aboard. When she gave him slack he raced out back, and when she pulled on his head he slid to a stop in the dirt. She patted his neck, then turned him around to come back.
“How much?” Long asked.
“A hundred fifty.”
“A hundred and her horse.”
The man shook his hand.
“What do they call him?”
“Powder River.”
Long nodded and paid him.
They were refused admittance to the first dress shop they stopped at. She told him laughing, “They do not want your money.”
He was not laughing. “We will find someone needs the business.”
The next two ladies were delightfully friendly. They tried several dresses on Rose to get to see how she looked in them. Some were too fancy, but they found some nice-looking dresses that would work for her.
Then the younger one of the ladies said, “Why don’t you buy her some boy clothes to wear when she is riding?”
“Why is that?”
“She will be more comfortable and who cares . . . she is an Indian girl.”
He about laughed. “I guess she’s not confined to anything in her dress is she?”
“I am not being disrespectful to her race. But riding she will feel much more comfortable.”
“No disrespect. You two ladies have been patient and generous with us. We were barred from buying anything up the street. They must not need business huh?”
The older woman said, “They are too snooty. Mr. O’Malley, you and this girl are welcome here any time you are in Denver.”
He ordered the three dresses they chose.
When they were alone, Rose said, “Why three? I can only wear one at a time?”
“That will come to you later. Don’t worry . . . I am not a poor man.”
They bought two sets of boy clothes that she tried on at the mercantile in a closet to be sure they fit her. He bought her some boy-size suspenders for the pants and she smiled. Then he bought a suit coat for himself, and the night the first dress was done he took her to an opera.
She was awed by the music, and, while he understood little, it was an intriguing evening for both of them.
Walking back to the hotel in the cooling night air, she asked him where he learned about such things.
“A school teacher told me that if I ever got a chance in my life that I should go to see an opera.”
“I loved it. The music and the singing. What are your plans now?”
“Ride back to Texas.”
The desk clerk when he gave him the room key also handed him a note.
It read:
Long, there were some tough men here today asking about you and the girl with you. I told them nothing but felt you should know.
The liveryman
Hinkle
“What is it?”
“Time to check out and ride south.”
“Why?”
“Men were at the livery asking questions about us.”
“Go now?”
“We better. Get our things from the room and go.”
“Is there a place to be safe anywhere?”
When at the top of the stairs, he whispered to her, “Texas.”
She nodded and in the room she hugged him. For a long moment the two of them treated themselves to a moment of rest and assurance in their clutch. She was his ward and he was her shield from harm.
They headed south in the night. Camping before dawn at a rancher’s windmill off the road. There they slept a few hours and rode on.
Long bought some more food for them to eat in Pueblo. There he met Clem Sparks, a freighter out of Missouri who was headed east to St. Louis with Mexican woven cotton blankets, pottery vessels, and other items he found in Santa Fe. He’d come up there to Pueblo in hopes of finding some more freight to haul east but found nothing to take back with him there. Sparks owned two dozen wagons and extra, long-eared mule teams that he drove along in case any died or was crippled. Also he had six tough guards to defend it besides the drivers.
Long and Rose took the Arkansas River Trail east with his outfit. To most it was the Santa Fe Trail, but some folks didn’t want to give the Hispanics credit for anything. Two Mexican women, wives of the drivers, also went along. Sparks’s outfit bristled with Winchesters and Colts. Sparks repeatedly warned them the Indians along the way this time could be treacherous and for them to stay close to camp at all times.
In the case of an attack they’d circle the wagons and hold them off. But as summer turned toward fall most Indians were too busy laying in food supplies and the train moved east safely, at a snail’s pace. Sparks had them put Long’s panniers in a wagon so there was no loading or unloading of the packhorse. Long and Rose rode their saddle horses at the head of the column with Sparks or one of his lieutenants.
The days dragged along at twenty-mile stretches or less per day. Rose helped the other wives fix meals. Her women problems returned in three weeks and she rode in the lead wagon and drank willow tea the next few days. She assured Long she would overcome it and be back to ride with him shortly.
He grew impatient, by the day, with the train’s slow pace. They passed out of Colorado into western Kansas where, at the time, most of the warlike tribes were situated. She was back on horseback and her old self.
Sparks took a day to rest and repair things when he and his scouts thought it would be safe to do so. Long and Rose went off a short distance to a place on the river and talked freely about Texas and his plans for their future.
“When will I become your wife?” she asked.
He knew she was growing much more anxious over the matter of their pairing. He wasn’t resistant to the idea, but he wanted things perfectly right before they entered into it. They could wait until they were alone in a safer place like being at home.
“When we can find a place to be alone and safe,” he promised her.
She nodded, seated on a fallen cottonwood log. “I am ready to be your wife.”
“There is so little privacy in camp. I want to save it for a special time and place.”
“The days are so long. The nights are worse not sharing my body with you.”
“Our time will come. I promise you that we will have a dreamlike union.”
She agreed and he hugged her. Then he kissed her. He kissed her a lot, but still held out for the right moment—not some quick flash in the pan affair. This would be for their lifetime.
Two days later farther east on the road, their scout Jules Hambee rode in late one afternoon, where they’d parked for the night, and talked to Sparks. Then the two men, looking very serious, came over and talked to Rose and Long.
“Jules thinks a band of Cheyenne are gathering to attack us. He thinks she should ride in a wagon for her safety.”
Long looked over at her. “You heard the man. What are your wishes?”
“I would rather ride with you, but I know you will want to fight them if they come, and with me in the wagon you would be free to do that.”
He nodded. “I want you safe. I thought we were about past the mean ones, but Jules has no reason to fabricate.”
She smiled and shook her head. “What is that word?”
“Means he did not make up something.”
She nodded. “Tell Woolley I will join him. There is no need to stop.”
Sparks agreed that for her safety it would be best. The next morning Long helped her up with the jolly driver, Woolley, who welcomed her riding with him again.
While they were stopped the night before, Sparks and Jules told the drivers, guards, and the rest of the wagon train the situation, and said they would go ahead, find a good site, then circle and stand them off. Long put Rose’s horse in the herd of loose mules and horses, telling the herder boys what the deal was about the Indians.
On the move, Long started watching the northeast horizon closer. This was where he figured they’d come from. He hoped those Indians didn’t think they were sodbusters that they could easily swarm over.
Every man on the train, he knew well, was an experienced driver or guard and with it went training and knowledge of how to hold off an Indian attack. They were not inexperienced Indian fighters. Those bucks would soon learn these guys could shoot them off their horses. They had lots of ammo and real lever action–fighting weapons, not single-shot muskets.
Long first saw their dust boiling over in the east when he started back to the front of the train. Woolley was already bringing his lead wagon around in a circle. The herders brought the loose extra mules and horses to be inside that ring. Helpers were being sure each man had enough ammo and good weapons in working order.
They were unhooking the teams and putting them in the center with the loose ones. There was no time to unharness them. The distant drum of the war ponies’ hooves could be heard as they thundered toward them still beyond the horizon. Men refilled their water bags from the water barrels in the side of the wagons. This could be a long battle, no telling, except someone he heard say that the Indians were getting desperate. All summer long endless wagon trains of land seekers had plodded west, shot their buffalo and other game, making their source of food much scarcer. Few of the tribes still stayed out there on the plains, but it would only be a short matter of time until they must move. Long knew it and so did the Indians. These white invaders would soon fill all of their country.
Riding at the front that morning, he began to hear their distant war cries. It was time to circle the wagons. Orders were given and they militarily-like began to form the circle. The loose animals were driven into the middle.
The Indians’ cries would soon deafen everyone’s ears with their screaming. His horse in the herd, Long went to find Rose. She piled out of the wagon at the sight of him coming through the great-circled fortress.
“Rose, stay over here where they piled these crates. It is intended for a hospital. The other two women coming?” Long looked around for sight of them.
“No, they told me they fought with their men. They say they can shoot.”
“You get in that hospital. You may have to help bandage the wounded.”
“I can. Protect yourself.” Then she stood on her toes and kissed his mouth.
“I will come for you when it is over. I will . . . I promise.”
And she was gone to hide in the center place where they would treat the wounded. He went with his rifle and two boxes of cartridges to where Sparks stood giving orders.
“I think they will charge right at us and try to get inside the circle. We need to keep them out and make them circle us. We have to mow that charge down so they will be forced to ride around their own dead horses. We can kill them as they ride past us.”
“When your rifle is empty use your pistol. That initial charge must be turned,” Long added.
“When Long’s rifle is empty, have him a spare one loaded,” Sparks told one of the horse boys named Dale, chosen to reload rifles for Long.
“Yes, sir.”
“Any Indian inside the circle must be killed immediately.”
The sounds of their approaching fight grew louder, and Long knew they were coming at a breakneck speed. He waved at Dale to be ready with the second rifle. He stood beside the front of the wagon he figured would be their main target. He could see them now.
“Shoot their horses. Cut them down,” he shouted to the others, and he began taking down approaching horses.
In an instant he swapped rifles for a loaded one. More horses went down under his and the other men’s bullets, and that made the field impassable for the Indians in the back to charge over the downed, dying, but still kicking horses. Fleeing bucks tried to escape all the hot lead being shot at them. He’d swapped rifles four times, and the boy always had the next one loaded.
Sparks shouted, “We’ve stopped them.”
Long nodded at him and went to picking off either horse or rider he could see in his iron sights through the thick gun smoke and dust on the scene. Without any wind, visibility had become a serious problem. But guns continued to crack whenever a mounted fighter came out of the fog.
Sweat ran down his face in streams, and if the gunpowder smoke didn’t burn his eyes the sweat did. He mopped his face on the kerchief around his neck. He feared using it for a mask in case he might not see everything going on.
There must have been a dozen Indian drummers out there somewhere beyond the riders’ track still beating on their drums the whole time. He’d liked to have gone out there and shot some of them to shut them up. A warrior came out of the smoke trying to control his spooked horse. Too late and he was blown off his horse screaming from the bullets making a sieve of his body.
Long was satisfied the Indians, by this time, knew these teamsters were not simple farmers. And they would, despite their small numbers, be able to fight to the end.
The drums finally went silent and the howling quit. Too quiet for him. Then Woolley came over and shouted for Long to come quick to the center area. Long had to duck the frightened mules bolting around him and others kicking some unseen enemy in their panic inside the circle. Plus their honking so loud he could hardly hear a thing when Woolley shouted for him, “It’s Rose. She’s been shot by a stray bullet.”
He came up to one of the other men holding her half on his lap. Too much blood was on her dress. Long dropped on his knees and took her gently into his arms.
“Rose, Rose don’t die.”
She coughed and then managed to say, “I love you so—much—”
So did he. But at that very moment every drop of life went out of the body he held.
“Men! Men!” Sparks shouted. “They’re coming back to try us again.”
“She’s dead,” he said to the man who’d found her.
“Cover her and I’ll get back to my gun.” He stood up and ran through the mules, took the Winchester from his loader, and began dropping all the Indians that came into his rifle’s range. His jaw hurt; he had it clenched so tightly it ached.
Tears, not from the smoke and dust but rather directly from the internal feelings over the heavy loss of her on his mind. She was dead. He’d never get to have the wedding he promised her that they’d planned. Nor have the wedding night to share with her in a fine bed and her virtue. Damn you, red devils . . . I’ll see you all in the fires of hell and re-kill every damn one of you down there.
After their second try the Indians left, carrying some of their fallen brothers off the field of death. Many corpses were too close to the accurate riflemen in the wagon circle for them to recover and were left among the dead and dying war ponies.
There was silence in the wagon camp. Two men had minor wounds and were doctored.
Sparks and his top men circled and squatted around Long to comfort him.
“This may not be where you wish to bury her. But there is no way to take her body with us. I am sorry,” Sparks said to him.
“She would understand. But when we bury her I want her body so concealed that no damn Indian can dig her up to disfigure or rape her.”
Sparks looked half-sick back at him. “Would they do that?”
“Damn right. It would be as big a deal for them to do it as tramping on my soul for killing so many of their brothers.”
“We can bury her tonight. Real deep. Damn it, Long, we loved her as much as you did. There’s not a dry eye here. She was an angel walking among us. All of us were so damn jealous that she was your girl, and we’ll make damn sure they can’t get to her.”
Long nodded. “I’ve lost some things in my life. My cow dog that got bit by a rattler, a horse, who went down in a badger hole that I wouldn’t have sold for a thousand dollars. I had to shoot him. But Rose was so special in my life—that I wouldn’t touch her until we were married. That concerned her, but I held her that great in my heart and mind to be square with her.
“God sent her to me up on the Platt. A worthless man brought her to my camp and he offered to sell her—I gave him all the money I had at the time. It is not the money I lost but her gentle spirit. Boys, this is hard.”
They all agreed.
“I told her when he left her with me, I told her that she could go back to her people. She wasn’t sure. I said that I was going to see the Rocky Mountains and she could come with me—”
Concerned, Tucker said, “Sit down before you fall over.”
He did so on a crate. “I told her, then, ‘Rose, if you still want to go home I will take you.’ After that was settled we went to Denver, and I bought her that horse, saddle, and some new clothes. Then the stableman—hell, fellows, I didn’t tell you how three hardcases came to us right after Bromley sold her to me. They said they were taking her.” He rubbed the side of his hand on his forehead. “I fed two of them to the fish in the Platt River. Anyway the Denver stableman told me some tough guys had come around there asking about me and her at his stables. So we left in the night and found your outfit down by Pueblo. We planned to be married at Christmas at our family ranch in Texas.”
“Why did they want her?” one of the men asked.
“Maybe because her father is a big Sioux chief. I never pressed her about that. I knew she was homesick. Now my entire life has fallen into a pile of fresh hog shit.”
“Long, I’ve been out here for near twenty years. I’ve fought beside some of the toughest men anyone ever heard of, but you are the toughest Indian fighter I have ever known. I knew when they charged you that they were tackling the hardest, toughest Indian fighter I ever met. We can’t heal your loss, but ain’t a man here tonight don’t think that about you.”
“Boys, if Harp and my dad had been here there’d been a lot less of them that would have ridden home.”
One of the men held up something. “I’ve got a bottle of whiskey. Good stuff. If you want it you can have it.”
“No, but thanks. I am so mixed up now that whiskey would really put me spinning.”
“We can stay and talk all night and the others can dig that grave.”
“I’ve said about all I need to say. A drover would say to his partners I’d cross the next river with any of you any time. Gracias.”
He rode his horse, took hers and the packhorse away from them the next day. In two weeks pushing himself hard he was at the trading post of the half-Cherokee John Chisholm on the Salt Fork. He’d met John that summer going north and they laughed about being alike—both half-Cherokee.
He told John he’d seen the Rockies. John had been there before, too.
“Mighty tall hills,” Chisholm said, and they both laughed.
He talked to John about Rose and losing her.
And his friend told him, “The maker in the sky treated you to her. But he had more work for her in that final place. I, too, have lost such perfect women. They never complain. Never nag you and bring sparkles into your life. But instead the others always survive.”
They both laughed.
Among Chisholm’s trading goods he found a well-made, sheep wool–lined, long-tailed leather coat like new. It fit Long perfectly and he bought it. After he paid for it, John told him that the man who owned it last was still alive when he sold it. That the damn fool had sold it to buy whiskey and the next night froze to death without it.
Long was never sure if he was teasing or right about it—but he knew, headed south, as long as he had it on he wouldn’t freeze to death.
On the Texas Road he met up with an outfit returning home from Abilene and going south. Long met Grover McCarthy, who owned the Plains Cattle Company that was situated west of Austin, on the road. He and his dozen boys, his remuda, and chuck wagon made up their outfit, and Grover told him he was welcome to come along with them going home. There were enough worthless bums on the road south looking for a single man to prey upon that Long was grateful for their company.
Long, right off, liked Grover and his men, mostly boys who were a fun bunch, so he brought along his packhorse and Rose’s pony and joined them. They loaded all his gear in the chuck wagon, put the extra two horses in the remuda, and headed south leaving behind the Salt Fork Trading Post of John Chisholm.
The rivers were all low in the fall, and some of the boys asked if he could swim.
“I sure can. Harp and I were raised in western Arkansas, and as young boys my dad made us learn to swim. His first wife drowned, so Mom and us all learned how to swim. When we got to Texas we didn’t have enough water but we had learned how, and you don’t forget it.”
One of the boys said, “Where I was raised we didn’t have any water ’cept in a well deep enough to swim in.”
They all laughed.
Those boys wanted to stop and party in Fort Worth. So Long shook their hands, loaded up his gear, thanked them, then him and his ponies headed southwest. He wanted to be home for Christmas, and partying at the moment didn’t have an appeal to him.
Late that next night, across Brazos River, he’d not found a site to camp before dark. Then he discovered a loose-saddled horse in the road and caught him. The good gelding must have gotten loose and was dragging his reins. Long decided he’d have to make a camp and try to find the owner in the morning. Maybe they’d been thrown or were hurt. He had a candle lamp in his things. He’d need some light while he tied up the horses, so he unpacked that. Then he began to unload things under the lamplight. It wasn’t that big a help, but it beat the moonless darkness. The saddle horse had a brand but he couldn’t read it.
He found some wood and had a fire going to cook some frijoles and make some coffee. It brightened up his rough campsite among the post oak and cedar along the wagon tracks someone called a road that supposedly went south to Kerrville. He knew it was still several long days’ ride from home.
When involved at last in pouring himself a cup of coffee, he heard someone cock a pistol behind him. The sound chilled his blood—all the care he took and this might be the last moments of his life.
“Get your damn hands in the air or I’m blowing daylight right through you, mister.”
He set down the cup and rose to his feet all careful-like. It was a woman’s voice but she sounded tough.
She reached in and jerked his Colt out of the holster. “Now get over there.”
“I’m sorry. What are you so mad at me about?”
“I figure you work for that gawdamn Orem Cates. I ain’t going to be his whore.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know him or you for that matter.”
“Don’t lie to me, you big sumbitch. Why, you guys doped me tonight or I’d got somewhere’s safe. But—I got—dizzy.”
He knew in an instant she must be fainting and tried to catch her, but in his effort to save her she rode him to the ground, her limp form on top of him. She was six feet tall and not fat but a very big woman—a real nice enough looking one, too, from what he could see in the fire’s light. He set the gun aside from her and rearranged her body to be more comfortable, putting his saddle under her head.
Then, sipping coffee, he wondered how to revive her. Man that sure was a lot of woman there. Who was this Orem somebody? Obvious someone had doped her. But what could he do? A twenty-some-year-old woman he had no name for was passed out cold in his camp. Someone was trying to enslave her or she thought so anyway.
How in the blue blazes did he get caught up with these women? Her and Rose had both been dropped in his lap. Of course he loved Rose and they’d made—would’ve had a good life together. This woman was an Amazon. He read a book somewhere about them.
He almost laughed out loud about how he had been nearly crushed to death by a storybook character.
Still amused about that, at last he went about fixing a bowl of steaming beans to eat. She’d tried to come around once, but didn’t make it. He finally hid her gun in a pannier, put his own back in his holster to have it at hand should he need it, and got ready to sleep on the ground across the fire from her.
The temperature had dropped so he put his heavy coat over most of her and kept his own blanket for himself to sleep in. She still puzzled him, but maybe she’d sleep it off, and when she woke up maybe she’d explain. He sure hoped so.
When the sun tried to rise he woke up. The temperature had dropped even colder. When he got water on the fire for coffee she stirred. He glanced over where she had pulled herself up into a sitting position huddled in his great coat.
“Oh, my God. What in the hell did you do to me?”
“Not one damn thing, lady. You came in here accusing me of something I had nothing to do with—doping you or poisoning you. I simply found a loose horse, saddled, in the dark on the road and made camp.”
She shook her head. Her brunette hair was in her face. She looked a mess, and a large one at that.
“First tell me who in the damn blazes are you?”
“Long John O’Malley from down by Kerrville. I’ve been from Abilene, Kansas, to Denver to see the Rockies and dodging fighting crazy wild Indians to get back here. My business is driving cattle herds to Kansas.”
She parted her hair and tossed some back. “And you’ve got a damn nice thick coat I am loving this cold morning. Me, well six weeks ago I had a husband. He got into a gun fight with a man who came by and told me to leave my husband and for me to come be his concubine.”
Smiling, Long said, “He had lots of nerve to tell you that, didn’t he?”
“Oh, he had the gall of a real billy goat. That old sumbitch riding a stud horse like he was Napoleon telling me that I needed him.” She made a repulsive face and shook her head over her situation.
“Well here’s what happened next. Rory, my husband, got so mad over it he went to town and got in the damndest gun fight with those sumbitches. Ended up wounding some of them and got kilt his-self.”
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Well I buried him. Bless his soul and went to running my ranch. Next they went to running off my hired help. I told the sheriff but him and Orem Cates, the bastard that told me to leave Rory, are as close as brothers.”
“So what happened next?”
“I told you. Cates’s boys run off my help, and yesterday they come to forcibly take me to their paw. Well I fought them hard as I could and they got me down and about choked me to death giving me laudanum. Then loaded me onto a horse. I fooled them acting groggy and I got away in the night. But the drug struck me and I got dizzy, fell off the horse, but remember stumbling down the road. When I found your camp I thought you were more of them Cates.”
“What is your name?”
“Janet Holcroft.”
“I’ll make us some breakfast, Janet, and then we can go see what can be done for you.”
“Hey, you must have family, a wife, a ranch, too much for you to worry about my ass.”
“The woman I was to marry was killed by Indians in Kansas six weeks ago. My brother’s been running the H Bar H ever since I left. I would like to settle this horrific war for you before I go home.”
“Well I wouldn’t turn down any gawdamn help. You got a brush. My hair is a damn mess.”
“How big a ranch do you have?” he asked her.
“Oh, a section. Rory’s daddy fought in the Tex/Mex war and he earned it as a sixteen-year-old boy.”
“Wow.”
“We lost him last year to the fever. But he was a great guy and he left Rory with the ranch. His dad’s second wife had a baby after him but they both died at the birth. Rory’s mom had died earlier from snakebite.” She paused. “Where did you come from?” she asked.
“My Cherokee father died out hunting buffalo. I never met him. My stepfather married my mom before I was born up in Arkansas. My nine-month younger brother Harp and I are very close. We took six thousand head of cattle to Abilene last year.”
“Why hell, Long, you’ve got enough money to burn wet mules on a wet damn rainy day and have some left.”
He laughed. “I never thought about it like that.”
She got up and put the coat on. “I’ve got business to take care of right now. I swear I’ll come right back and I won’t shoot you.”
“Don’t take too long . . . these eggs and ham I have here will be done soon enough.”
She nodded and strode off in his coat into the brush.
He shook his head after her. Why, she might even up and claim it for her own.
They ate his cooking. She bragged on his Arbuckle coffee and then she gathered dishes to wash them and his pan.
“I’ll saddle the horses. Anywhere you want to go, or home?”
“Won’t do any damn good to go to the sheriff. Told you, him and Cates are like brothers.”
“Fine. Your place?”
“If they ain’t burned the son of a bitch to the ground.”
He stopped. “I know you’re mad, but cussing like a sailor won’t bring your man back or stop these bullies from attacking you.”
“Hmm, my cussing bothers you?” Her blue eyes stared a hole in him.
“It does. You’re a pretty woman and it comes out of place for me.”
“You may have bad eyes, too.”
“No, my eyes are fine. Your cussing, aside from bothering me, does nothing but distract from you.”
“Well.” She wet her lips. “Not one man ever told me that in my life. How did a half Indian learn so much and so many words I never heard of, ever, before in my life?”
“My mother, and I hope someday you meet her.”
“Long, I want to meet her.”
“We can go down there. You’ll like her.”
“And from here on, I will try not to cuss around you.”
“Don’t do it for me. Do it for yourself.”
“Go pack. I’ll have these—dishes done in no time.”
He tossed her a hairbrush that she caught. “Thanks. I’ll try to look better wearing this fine coat and talk more like a lady.”
Horses packed. They rode for her ranch. He felt better when they found the place was still standing.
She dropped off her horse. “Long, this is all I have from a wedding and three years of marriage. Rory worked hard. We sent two hundred head of cattle, we had big enough, with a drover and got eight thousand dollars. Paid off the longest standing ranch loan in Texas and I have the rest in the bank.
“I guess Cates thought I was free game for no reason I could give. I swear I never as much as smiled at him. I met Rory up at Cleburne at a dance. He was like you, six feet tall and it was nice. I’d danced with midgets since I was sixteen or younger.
“He told me he’d marry me if I’d move to his ranch down here. That wasn’t hard. I figured I’d be an old maid if I didn’t. No, that’s not so. He was very gracious and respectful of me. We were married two weeks later. His paw was still alive and he was a good old man until he later died.
“After we got the loan paid off, Rory got serious and we went to branding mavericks that were all over the place. The Cates got pushy about us taking their cattle, but we never did one blame thing about rounding up any of theirs. Why, we branded five hundred head, Rory, I, and two cowboys in the past three months.”
“You’ve been busy.”
“Right. Now I can go hire me some gunnies and wipe that bunch out.”
“Not so fast. They can put you in jail for doing that.”
She made a sour face at him and shook her head. “You’re so straitlaced. I figured that you’d want to do it the right way.”
“I don’t want to be put in jail, either. Let’s see if they come back for you. We can defend your house and that is not a crime. If I can hold off Cheyenne and Sioux war parties, we can do the same with the Cates.”
She smiled. “I’m game. But before we get to be too serious I need to warn you about my failings. Him and I have been married three years and I have not been pregnant once. So I am not much of a prize for a wife. Now I’ve warned you.”
“If we come to that river, we will cross it.”
“Another thing . . . you are pretty flat honest about things. I like that.”
“Amen.”
“How many women have broke your heart?”
“A few.”
She made a face at him. “That ain’t a number.”
“Two. One was a widow with children. One was an Indian princess.”
“The widow?”
“She had children and decided she didn’t want to remarry. The princess was killed in a wagon attack a few weeks back.”
“I am sorry. That is so sad.”
“Well let’s unsaddle and see what happens.”
She came over and hugged him, then kissed his cheek. “Thanks for staying to help me. I sure hope your plan works.”
He stood still for a long moment, then nodded. He about lost it and kissed the fire out of her. But instead he kept it all inside. There would be time for that—later. He hoped.
They took turns sitting up on guard shifts that night in her house and no one came. He carried a rifle and cartridges anywhere he went doing chores. The next night they had a heavy rain at sundown and still no one came.
The day after that a neighbor woman came by in a buggy, asked how she was and said she was going to town and did she need anything. He remained out of sight until she left.
When she was gone, hands on her hips, Janet said, “That woman has affairs going on with them boys of his. Only reason she came by was to report I was here alone.”
“Good. Maybe they will try something.”
“I bet they do now.”
“How old are those boys?”
“Twenty on down. All of them. One of them younger ones was drunk and told Rory, in the saloon, that he should try that woman’s body. He said he told them he wasn’t interested. He was faithful. I believed in him.”
That night, awake, sitting on the dark living room floor on guard duty, Long heard a harsh whisper. “Shut up. I get her first.”
They were coming on foot from the west. He moved across the dark room to quietly open the window. Two were sneaking up in the ghostly starlight from, as Long figured, the west side. He took aim out the open window, shot both of them, and they crumpled to the ground. Quickly he ran for the front door and saw two more running madly north toward the road in the night’s inky light. He took another down with a quick shot, and his effort put spurs on the last one who managed to escape.
“Long? Long? Are you all right?” she cried, rushing outside with a pistol in her hand.
He caught and held her back from going to the downed raiders. “I am fine. Three are down. One got away.”
“What can we do now?”
“Sun comes up we will ride to town. Have the sheriff and justice of the peace come out here and decide.”
She hugged him in her nightgown. He lightly kissed her. When they stepped apart she nodded. “Anyone ever tell you that you are the meanest man in Texas?”
“No.”
“Well you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“When we get all through with all this I am going to prove to you I am the meanest woman in Texas—bar none.”
“And?”
She slapped him. “You know da—good and well what I mean.”
Working hard to control his amusement he said, “We will have to see about that.”