8

The wagon train

Randy Mankiller sat down next to his wife with a thump.

“Finished?” she asked.

“Yeah, all done,” he replied. The Whalers’wagon had hit a rock and broken an axle early in the morning, and it had taken half a day to unload it so it could be blocked up, and then the other half to fit the axle—thank goodness that old crank, Olin, had brought a spare!—get it back down on the ground, and load it back up again.

Altogether, he figured they’d made about twenty-five feet of travel for the entire day.

He guessed he must have looked plenty disgusted, because suddenly, he felt a small, cool hand on the back of his neck, then felt it begin to gently knead the muscles there.

“Good,” he said, closing his eyes. “That’s awful good, honey.”

He heard the rustle of her skirts as she moved behind him, then felt a second hand join the first. Their movements, although still gentle, became firmer, and Randy groaned with pleasure.

“Feeling better, I take it?” came Becky’s voice from behind him. “You’re making those yummy sounds again. You know, like the ones you made last night, when we made—”

“Hush, honey!” he said, twisting around. “Somebody’ll hear!”

She giggled, but kept rubbing his neck. “My big ol’ worrywart,” she said with a smile. “Nobody can hear us. They’re all either too far away or they’re asleep.”

Randy, who had eased back around and lowered his head, opened his eyes. “Not me,” he said.

“Of course not you,” Becky soothed, a hint of a smile in her voice.

“Tomorrow will be better,” he mumbled. Sleep was trying to overtake him. “It will. We’ll make it up tomorrow.”

“Of course we will,” she said. “You just relax for now. You deserve it.”

“Deserve it,” he thought he echoed.

“That’s my boy,” she said, although it sounded like she was very far away. “Just sleep, just sleep…”

When night fell, the Milchers were back in their own house—the town had pitched in to make the second floor habitable again, although it was barely that—and Jenny was back at Jason’s home and sharing a room with Megan, who was still too mad at everybody and everything to go to her own ranch. Jason was planning on camping out at the jail again. He would much rather have spent the night with the girls.

At least he had eaten with them. Jenny, who alternately beamed and laughed or burst into tears for no particular reason, had fried a chicken, and Megan had looted their overgrown garden for the greens to make a salad, peas to steam or boil, and new potatoes to bake with cheese.

Aside from Jenny’s occasional bouts of tears, it had been the best meal he’d had in a long time.

Well, the chicken was a little burned, but it still tasted great.

Now, as he patrolled the streets for the last time, nodding to the odd townsman still up and listening to the hum of drowsy conversation from the wagons circled around the well, he almost began to feel as if things might be all right again.

Almost.

There were still a few things wrong. The Apache, for instance. And the fact that at the moment, he had Matt MacDonald locked up back at the jail.

He was sort of hoping to walk around until Matt fell asleep, as a matter of fact.

He checked his pocket watch. It was a quarter till midnight. He sighed. He guessed it was time he turned in. He could always just shoot Matt, he supposed. He grinned at the thought of it, and opened the door to the jail.

It was darker inside than out, with no sound to be heard except for Matt’s snores. Good. He was in luck. Lighting a lantern, he turned the flame low and proceeded to the spare cell. He took his boots off, set his hat aside, stretched out on the cot, and blew out the lantern. Matt didn’t stir through any of it.

Jason closed his eyes and fell asleep almost before his lashes touched his cheeks.

At about three in the morning, Ward Wanamaker, over at the stable-cum-hospital, woke and felt as lively as he had ever felt in all his life. Well, except for his arm and shoulder, that is. But even that felt a whole lot better than it had before he fell asleep. Whenever that had been.

But everybody around him was sleeping. He figured he’d go over to the jail and try to make himself useful, or maybe find someone to talk to, anyway. He stood up and started for the stable door, wincing when he accidentally rubbed his shoulder on the edge of the doorway.

“Jeez,” he muttered beneath his breath. He gripped his shoulder and went on.

He found the jail dark once he rounded the well and its circle of wagons, and he opened the door thinking that he’d have the place to himself. But then somebody snored. Loudly.

The lantern had been moved, but he felt his way to the desk and grabbed a candle and a match from the top drawer. The candle lit, he held it aloft and peered into the cells.

“Jason?” he said, quite a bit more loudly than he needed to.

“Mmm…what? What?” Jason leapt to his feet, tripped over his boots, and barely caught himself on the bars. “Aw, crud, Ward! What the hell are you doing over here?”

In the cell behind Jason’s, another body—Matt’s—stirred, but neither Jason nor Ward paid it much mind.

“In case you forgot, this is where I work,” Ward said.

Jason was squinting at the wall clock. “At three in the morning?”

Ward bit at his lower lip. “Uh, night shift?”

“What’s going on?” mumbled the occupant of the second cell.

Ward held his candle higher. “Matt? What in tarnation are you doin’ here?”

“Shut up, the both of you!” Jason said.

Matt, who had started to stand up, sat back down with a thump, stretched out, and pulled the blanket over his head.

Jason sat down to pull on his boots and Ward asked, “What’s Matt doin’ in here? Did he stick up his own bank or somethin’?”

Jason snorted, but he smiled. “Naw, the jackass was going to go home right at dusk. Trying to ride home in that carriage, big as life.”

From beneath his blanket, Matt said, “I was perfectly safe, Fury. I had a rifle under the seat and—”

“Shut up,” Jason said again, and stood up, his boots on his feet and his hat on his head. “Now that I’m awake, I’m awake. Thank you, Ward.”

Ward scratched at the back of his head. “Sorry, Jason.”

“It’s done,” said Jason. “I’m going to check the town again.”

“Why?”

One hand on the door latch, Jason stopped stock still and stared at him. “Why? Why should I check my town when it’s done nothing but fend off Apache for the last couple of days? Well, all right, not today, but that’s just a lull in the proceedings. I fully expect—”

Ward held up his free hand. “Go. But first, where’d you hide the dang lamp?”

Jason opened the door. “In my cell,” he said as he closed it behind him.

Shrugging, Ward went to the first cell and retrieved the lamp. As he headed back toward the desk, he heard Matt’s voice, still muffled by the blanket, say, “He’s crazy, you know. Those Apache aren’t going to attack us again.”

Ward sat down behind the desk and applied the lit candlewick to the lantern, then turned up the flame. “You know that for sure, Matt?”

In the dim light, Matt lowered his blanket and scowled. “No, genius. I just have the common sense I was born with. Those Indians were scared. They’re beaten. They’re gone for good.”

Ward said, “Uh-huh,” and opened the newest seed catalogue. “You figure that out while we was gettin’ shot fulla arrows and scalped—”

Matt interjected, “Apache don’t scalp, you moron.”

“—and such here in town?” Ward went on, oblivious. “You put the fear of God into ’em from down in that cellar a’yours?”

“Shut up, Ward.”

Smiling, Ward leaned back in his chair and pulled his hat low, down over his eyes. “Night, Matt.”

Jason was surprised to find Saul awake and outside as he made his rounds. Saul seemed just as startled as Jason. In fact, he leaped to his feet and braced himself, fists up, before he relaxed and said, “Oh. Hello, Jason.”

Jason grinned and motioned at Saul to sit back down. “What the heck are you doing up and awake, Saul?”

“The crate in the storeroom isn’t very conducive to slumber, I’m afraid,” he said, settling back on the stoop.

“Wouldn’t Rachael—”

“Her cot’s too narrow, and she’s still hurting,” Saul explained.

“Sorry.” Jason sat down next to him.

“Thanks.”

“Saul?”

“What’s preying on your mind, Jason?”

Jason tipped his head. “What makes you ask that?”

“Something is, isn’t it? You’re up walking the streets at three in the morning, aren’t you?”

Saul had him there. He said, “I’m just nervous about tomorrow, I guess. I wish somebody around here had a big-time mining operation going.”

Saul hiked his eyebrows.

“For a supply of dynamite, you know?”

Saul nodded sagely, then asked, “You’re wanting to burn them, then blow them up, too? Would you not call that overkill?”

Jason grinned. “I reckon you’re right, Saul. I just wish I was more sure of that thing with the oil.”

“And kerosene.”

“Right. And kerosene.”

“It will work, Jason. My Rachael says so, and she is hardly ever wrong in matters of importance.”

Jason nodded. “Hardly ever wrong.” Then slowly, he shook his head. “Makes me feel a whole lot better, Saul.” He stood up. “Thanks.”

Saul got up from the stoop, too. “I didn’t mean to make you feel that way, Jason. I was just saying that Rachael explained to me what you were doing, and why it would work. She remembered how I accidentally set her father’s shed on fire, just after we were wed. There was a place out behind the shed where her mother used to toss the used-up cooking oil, and—”

“Right. I’ve got my rounds to finish, Saul.”

Saul wrinkled his brow again. “I’m sorry if I—”

Calling, “See you later,” over his shoulder, Jason stalked off down the street toward the south gate, leaving Saul with nothing but silence.

Jason made a hard left at the gate, walked past the Milchers’ church, and proceeded down to the stable, where he stuck his head in long enough to determine that everybody in the makeshift hospital was asleep. As he moved on down the boardwalk, he began to regret his attitude toward Saul. He shouldn’t have spoken—or not spoken—to Saul that way.

It was he who was the problem, not Saul. And it was he who was acting like a six-year-old.

Without thinking, he slugged the front wall of Copeland’s Millinery and immediately regretted it. And was angry at Copeland for not painting his wife’s hat and ribbon shop earlier, because he ended up with splinters in his knuckles.

Cursing under his breath, he tugged at the splinters with teeth and fingernails, and still didn’t have all of them out by the time he rounded the square and ended up back at the jail again. The light was on, and he walked in to find Matt MacDonald asleep in his cell and Ward Wanamaker dozing at the desk, his head pillowed on an open seed catalogue.

He walked over to the desk, moved Ward’s elbow enough to open the side drawer and pull out the tweezers—all without waking Ward—then sat down in the opposite chair and pulled the lamp closer. His nose inches from his sore knuckles—which in the light looked like the spine of a ratty porcupine—he began pulling splinters.

“That’s quite a mess you got there,” Ward said, and Jason jumped, stabbing himself with the tweezers in the process.

“Ouch!” he snarled, and looked up. “Let a man know you’re awake, why don’t you?”

“Sorry, didn’t know you was so interested,” Ward said. He pointed to Jason’s bad hand. “Aimin’ at some body in particular?”

“Myself. I missed.”

“You don’t say.” Ward twisted his head. “Musta been some kind of a piece of lumber that got in your way.”

Carefully, Jason pulled out a new splinter before he said, “Yup. Was attached to the millinery.”

Thoughtfully, Ward sniffed. “Worst kind. I hear they’re vicious.”

Jason nodded and attached his tweezers to a new splinter. It was the last one he could see extending from the skin, although he could surely feel more of them in there.

Ward suddenly lifted his head. “You hear that?”

“Hear what?

“Hush up. Listen.”

Jason held his tongue, but he still didn’t hear anything out of place. “You’re getting daffy, Ward. What time is it anyway?” He could just make out the first streaks of red and orange on the western horizon. It made him feel itchy inside.

Ward looked past Jason’s shoulder to the clock on the wall. “Quarter past five.”

Jason’s internal alarm went off. At any minute they could be swarming with Apache! He shot to his feet so quickly that he knocked his chair over backward and said, “Wake up Matt and send him over to the stables. With a rifle. You stay put, gimp. If they make it over the wall, shoot yourself.”

“Shoot myself?”

“You do it, it’ll be fast. They do it for you, it’ll take days.” He jerked open the door. “You pick.”

He went to Saul’s place first. Saul had dozed off on the stoop, his back against a support and his feet propped on an upturned bucket.

Jason walked up beside him and shoved his shoulder, knocking him over sideways, but catching him before he could tip all the way over. “Sorry, Saul. Wake up.” Saul’s eyes were barely halfway open as Jason dragged him up to his feet. “C’mon, Saul, up and at ’em!”

“What?”

“I said, get up. It’s practically dawn and the Philistines are coming.”

“What?”

He heard a distant rustle, like far-off buckskin rubbing low brush, and he gave Saul another shake. “I’m sorry for how I was before,” he said, hoping it made some sense. “But it’s morning, and the Apache are about to attack. Or might be about to. Understand?”

Saul nodded and pulled free of Jason’s grip. “Dawn. Apache. Right,” Saul said, coming swiftly to his full senses. “I’ll wake the others.”

“You take the south and east sides, I’ll take the north and the west.”

“Indeed,” Saul said, and jogged away to the south, sluggishly tripping as he went. The last Jason heard of him, he was beating on the door of Rollie Biggston’s place and calling for Abigail to get up and get moving.