The wagon train
Bound and determined to make up the day they’d lost, Blake and the others ate while they rode or drove.
Blake himself was riding his horse, Buck, today, and keeping his cup of coffee balanced on the wagon seat, beside his wife, Laura, and their infant son.
Laura drove a team as well as any man, and he had no worries about her. Other than the fact that she was always so enthralled with the beauty of the mornings out here—the colors in the dawn sky, the soft butter yellow and lavenders and blues and pinks of the vast stretches of wildflowers in the distance—she managed to stay on track. Becky Mankiller was just as adept, but Olin Whaler’s wife, Lena, was a tad shaky as a teamster.
It didn’t help that her boys were more intent on horsing around than on giving her any assistance. And her husband was riding far out to their right side, paying no mind to anybody or anything.
Randy Mankiller rode up beside Blake. He nodded hello, then said, “You wanna kill them Whaler boys yourself, or can I?”
“Oh, you don’t need to go that far, Randy,” Blake said.
“Oh, all right. I’ll just take out Olin then.”
Blake reached out and grabbed Randy’s reins before he could head out toward Olin. “Easy does it there, buddy.”
Bemused, Randy shook his head. “You’re takin’ all the fun outta this for me, Blake.”
“Sorry to be such a joy killer.”
The two rode in silence for a bit. Then Randy said, “When you figure we’ll hit Fury?”
“Maybe a couple of days, if we can avoid attracting any Apache’s attention. Maybe longer.”
“You don’t got any idea where we are, do you?”
“Not a clue. I’m just trying to follow what trail the Express rider left.”
“That’s not much,” said Randy, looking around.
“Tell me about it. When we get closer, though, we’ll cut to the old Mormon Trail. That’ll be easier to follow.”
“What with the broken glass and jugs and all?”
“Check.” Actually, he was searching for the Mormon Trail right now. He was weary of traveling blind, and wanted some nice shiny broken glass—or even some old worn trail ruts—to follow.
“Hey, Rev!”
Both Randy and Blake looked over toward Olin, who was broadly waving at them although he was still scowling.
He yelled again. “I found the Trail! Over this way!”
Randy looked back at Blake. “You reckon we should take a look?” he asked dryly.
Blake shrugged, although he was thrilled with Olin’s news. “Might’s well.”
The two set off at a lope toward Olin, and the four wagons slowly, joltingly followed them.
Lone Wolf’s growling stomach told him it was time for the midday meal, but he was fixated on the curtain of smoke still rising from the ditch around the town. One of his men, Works Like Beaver, rode up from down the line. He had been one of the braves to ride north, and Lone Wolf looked toward him anxiously.
Works Like Beaver slid from his pony and approached, bowing his head in acknowledgment to his war chief. Lone Wolf returned the gesture, and held his hand out to indicate that Works Like Beaver might be seated on the blanket across the small cook fire from him.
When the newcomer was seated and comfortable, Lone Wolf asked him, “What news do you carry?”
“The condition is the same there as here. Much smoke and fire, so that a man may not see past it, nor find a path through it. And it is the same in all directions, Lone Wolf.”
Lone Wolf grunted. “And what is it they burn which lasts for so long?” He had asked the question more of himself than anyone else, but Works Like Beaver answered it.
“It is not wood or dried cactus or dung. It is as if they have figured a way to make the earth itself sprout fire.” Works Like Beaver lowered his eyes to the ground. “It is like magic.” He raised his eyes again. “Do you think it possible that their god has intervened for them? Do you think that—”
“No,” Lone Wolf replied, cutting him off. “It is not possible. Their god is no god at all. How can he be? How can a single god control everything: wind, fire, sorrow, happiness, rain, the animals, and on and on? Not possible.”
Works Like Beaver grunted in agreement. Lone Wolf was right. It was not possible that everything known by man—and everything yet to be learned—was controlled by a single god. He said, “Then what? What have they done to make the earth burn as if it were made of coal?”
Lone Wolf pondered this for a time. Then he asked, “They did not fill the ditch with coal, did they?”
Works Like Beaver shook his head. “It is the earth itself that burns. They dug down to the place where the ground is hard and soft all at once, and set it on fire. It burns long and steady, as we have all seen.”
Lone Wolf shook his head. This layer of ground had been long known to his people. They, and their neighbors the Navajo as well as other tribes in the area, used it to make pots. It did not catch flame and smoke when they fired it in their kilns.
It did not catch fire at all.
How could it burn now? What reason could there be for it to catch fire and hold it for so long?
He did not know. At least, he could not think of an immediate answer.
His stomach growled again and he slapped at it. “You can leave,” he said to Works Like Beaver. “I will send for you if need be.” He waved toward the main cook fire. “Get yourself sustenance.”
And when Works Like Beaver asked him if he might bring him food, too, he said, “No, I have pemmican,” and shook a little leather bag at his side, as if to prove his point.
In truth, he was not eating.
He was waiting for a sign, some kind of mystical glamour, to show him the how and why of the smoke and fire before he would allow food to touch his lips. He had already sent three braves to the creek to haul water to put it out—to no avail.
They said they hauled much water, and it had no effect. It sank into the hot, thirsty soil beside the clay, and that was all. It neither increased nor decreased the amount of flame, but slightly intensified the smoke rising from it.
And Gray Fox, the only man who had survived the explosion in the trench this morning, was burned beyond recognition and singing his death song beneath a canopied wolf’s hide at the far south of their ranks.
It was a great puzzlement.
Curly and the other hands had spent the night down in the bunkhouse hidey-hole after a long day with no boss around. They rose carefully with the dawn, and seeing no sign of Indians, had made coffee and bacon and toast for their breakfasts. It wasn’t much compared to their usual fare, but they figured it was better to travel on light stomachs for now.
They’d been right.
At half past six, Curly spotted thick gray smoke rising to the north. Town. He couldn’t be certain what the source was—the Indians or the townspeople—but he figured it wouldn’t do him any good to look on the sunny side of things.
He rounded up the boys—easy, for they were huddled in a corner of the bunkhouse—and everybody took to the cellar again. Curly told the boys that if they had to spend much more time down here, he was applying for miner’s wages.
The laughter was minimal.
They sat down there for what seemed like hours—and was—before they heard the Indians hit them. At first, it was distant and far away, as if they were ransacking the main house first.
Makes sense, Curly thought, his lips twisting into a scowl. Mr. and Mrs. MacDonald had a lot of nice things, things they got from the occasional freighters that came through Fury. And Mr. MacDonald had a lot of money to spend.
He heard distant whoops of laughter, and the far-off ripping, tinkling sound of wood breaking and glass smashing. The latter was most probably pretty Mrs. MacDonald’s curio cabinet with all its glass shelves and little figurines. Mostly horses, they were.
What a shame, he thought with a slow shake of his head. Some of those little figures were downright cunning.
Having left the girls back at the house scurrying for rifles and ammunition, Jason made his way down to Rollie Biggston’s place, where he walked in the back door and took Abigail aside.
“From now on,” he said, “you tell every man you serve that it’s his last, and as soon as he finishes up, he’s to report to his station on the wall. You got me?”
“Y-yes, Jason,” she said, eyes wide. “Why? Isn’t the trouble over with?”
“No, it’s not, Abby,” he said. “And after the last man’s been served his last drink, you get yourself someplace safe. Unless…how are you with a rifle?”
“Me? I’d hardly know which end to point!”
“Then get yourself someplace safe, for sure.”
As he turned, she caught his sleeve. “Down in the cellar, where Rollie keeps the good stuff?”
“Yeah, and take Rollie down there with you. He’s not ready to climb up the wall yet, and the hospital’s pretty full up.”
Her fingers released his sleeve. “All right, Jason. And about the wall? Between you and me, Rollie can’t climb it even when he’s Sunday-go-to-meetin’ sober.”
For the briefest of instants, Jason smiled. “Good girl.”
As he turned away again and walked out through the crowd, she smiled at him admiringly.
Once Jason got clear of the crowd, he looked up the street to see Megan and Jenny headed his way, each loaded down with a rifle and a small leather pouch of ammunition. He waved to get their attention, and met them in the middle of the street.
“We’re ready,” announced Jenny, all business. “Where do you want us?”
“For the moment, I want you rounding up the other women who know which end of a rifle to point,” he said.
“All right,” said Megan, nodding. “I know just where to start.”
“And once we finish that?”
“Then I want you up on the wall,” Jason said. “Fight like you would for our father, Jenny.”
She didn’t look the slightest bit intimidated. “I will, Jason.”
“Me, too,” Megan echoed.
“And if you see your husband,” Jason went on, still looking toward Jenny, “don’t shoot him. Save the bullet for a deserving Apache.”
“You take all the fun out of things, Jason.”
“I know.”
Rifle balanced over his shoulder, he walked off down toward the jail.
This time, Ward was awake when Jason walked in. But he still had Matt MacDonald in a cell. Matt was sleeping like a baby.
“What’s with him?” Jason asked, pointing. “Thought you were going to send him up on the wall.”
“Had him up and almost out a while back. Little turd kept tryin’ to leave town, even after they lit the fires.” Ward poured himself a cup of coffee and one for Jason. “Finally ended up crackin’ him over the head and draggin’ him back down here. The son of a gun’s been out ever since.”
Jason took a sip of his coffee. “This is good stuff,” he said. Generally speaking, it left Ward’s usual brew in the dust, and he took another drink just to make sure that his taste buds weren’t playing a trick on him.
They weren’t.
“I didn’t make it,” Ward said as if he were reading Jason’s mind. “Mrs. Morelli come by and brewed it up.”
“Thank you, Olympia,” Jason said to the air.
Ward nodded his agreement. He tipped his head toward Matt. “What you want me to do with him? Personally, I’m in favor of lettin’ him out the gate, except we might have to let four or five Apaches in to make it a fair trade.”
Jason nodded and pulled out a chair. He sat down. “Agreed. Let’s just keep him where he is for the meantime, all right? If he wakes and starts getting uppity again, get some of that sleeping powder from Doc Morelli and sneak it into his coffee. Doc won’t mind so long as you tell him it’s for good ol’ Matthew.”
Ward took another sip of coffee. “You’re the sheriff.”
“Unfortunately.”
Ward hiked a brow. “Why? What’s goin’ on out there?”
“You name it. My list got too long to remember.”
“The Apache ain’t gone then?”
Jason gave his head a slow shake. “I don’t think so, but I can’t see a dang thing through the smoke. What I think is that they’re still out there, waiting for the fire to burn itself out. Which it will, sooner or later.”
Ward’s brows went up one at a time. “You could be right, y’know, Jason.” He nodded, and began to precariously rock back and forth on the straight legs of his chair. “Yessir, you sure could.”
Jason didn’t answer him. Instead, he poured himself a second cup of coffee. If he was going to die, it might as well be with the taste of good, fresh coffee on his lips.
After he took the first hot, clean gulp into his mouth and savored it, he swallowed and asked, “Ward, are you a godly man?”
“You mean, do I go to church of a Sunday? At the Milchers’?”
Jason didn’t go to Milcher’s church either, so he said, “No, I mean, do you believe in God?”
“Sure do,” Ward said. “My mama would’ve tanned my hide iff’n I wasn’t. Or didn’t, I mean.” Ward looked confused. “Wasn’t?”
“Then start praying now,” Jason said, ignoring Ward’s fuddle and throwing back the last of his coffee as he climbed to his feet. “Make sure you pray for the right side.” He set his empty cup back on the stove. “And stay in this jail. I don’t want you trying to climb the wall yet. And again, if the Apache break through the wall and get in here, shoot yourself.”
Ward’s brows flew up.
“I mean it. Don’t let them get at you.”
Ward swallowed hard, but he said, “Right. You can count on me.”
Jason nodded and walked out, closing the door behind him.
Outside on the street, he saw a large knot of grumbling men near the circled trade wagons, and he moved toward it. “Howdy, men,” he called once he was within hailing distance.
One of the men turned around. “You know who stopped the liquor, buddy?”
Jason kept a friendly smile on his face. “I did, friend. I’m afraid we’re gonna have a few more Indians to fight today.”
“What makes you think that?” the man snarled. “Nobody’s heard a peep outta them since the fires was lit.”
“Can you see them through the smoke?” Jason asked.
“Hell, no. They all run away.”
“Just because you can’t see ’em, that doesn’t mean they aren’t out there,” Jason said genially. “We don’t intend to take any chances.”
The man’s hand dropped toward his gun. “And just who the hell are you to say what the town is or isn’t gonna do?”
Still smiling, Jason’s right hand dropped to within reach of his gun while his left thumbed aside his jacket lapel to reveal his badge.
“I’m Jason Fury. The town sheriff. Any more questions, gents?”
He was vastly relived when the men grumbled no, and turned to head back to the stockade walls.