The wagon train
Olin Whaler nearly ran his rig into the back of Blake’s, for Blake called a halt and Laura, startled, had reined their team in very suddenly.
Olin jumped down from the seat and stormed forward. “What’s wrong with you, man?” he demanded of Blake. “Somebody could’a been killed! And we’re almost to Fury,” he added, pointing toward the town in the distance. Actually, it looked more like a small fort, being lined all around with a tall stockade fence.
Blake got down off his horse and unslung the binoculars from around his neck. He handed them to Olin with a curt, “Take a look.”
Olin held them up to his eyes. There were the stockade walls of the town, which he could now see were chopped into points at the top. There was a dark spot at the base of the wall nearest him, as if it had been set afire, then put out before much damage could occur.
“What am I supposed to be seeing?” he asked grumpily.
“Look to the south,” replied Blake.
Olin did, and made out a few figures. With a little adjusting of the lenses, he discovered two white men facing an Indian. One of the white men was standing well back from the other two men, and what Olin could see of the lip of the southern wall of the town was lined with men, like spectators at a prize fight.
“What the hell?” he muttered.
“Exactly,” said Blake. “I think we need to wait and see what happens before we go trotting in there big as life. Don’t you?”
Slowly, Olin nodded.
The white man was wounded, Lone Wolf noted as he walked nearer. His shoulder was bandaged.
Good. A weak point, right from the start.
This would be his day, this would be an Apache day. He would gut this pale one with no trouble.
Jason had started his march toward the brave slowly, but as he moved nearer, his steps grew in confidence, actually longer, decidedly firmer.
He had several things in his favor, he figured. First, Apaches usually didn’t sharpen their blades on both sides. His was, and both sides were like razors. No matter how he struck the man, his blade would slice.
Second, he’d had training, thanks to the U.S. Army, in hand-to-hand fighting. All right, that didn’t count for much when it came to outwitting an Apache, but he’d been involved in a skirmish or two since coming West, and he thought he could figure out the brave’s moves.
He hoped he could, that is.
And lastly, he had Saul up on the stockade.
If he was killed—a thing he was fervently trusting wouldn’t happen—then Saul would blast the brave so at least he couldn’t go home and brag about his victory to the other war chiefs.
One way or the other, Jason figured that the town of Fury was saved. And that had been the goal all along, hadn’t it?
Well, that, and to keep on living and to marry Megan MacDonald and to see somebody nice matched up with his sister, Jenny, and…He stopped walking. The brave stopped, too, a few feet from him.
The brave said something Jason didn’t understand. But Jason said, “Same to you, friend.”
The brave tossed his knife from hand to hand. Jason did not. He was afraid he’d drop it. He simply scowled and took a wider stance.
With no warning, the brave leaped toward him, blade first. Jason leaped to the side, narrowly missing the brave’s outstretched blade while he lashed out with his own in midair. He felt the knife meet something, but could tell it hadn’t gone deep.
He landed on his feet, automatically spinning around and crouching just in time to brace for a second attack.
This time he jumped back while nicking a narrow slice down the brave’s heavily muscled back. He thought it was a clean cut, but when the brave turned around, Jason glimpsed a thin, bloody length of skin limply flapping.
The brave had yet to wound him, let alone touch him.
Don’t get cocky, he told himself.
But it came too late. The brave screamed, scaring Jason half to death, and charged again. This time, he felt the knife rapidly whittling at his bandage, felt the sunlight strike what had been tender, pampered flesh, felt a new gush of blood.
Atop the stockade, Saul gasped and clutched his rifle tighter.
No, no, no, Jason! he thought he screamed, but it was all inside his head. For a moment he thought he’d squeezed the trigger, too, but the sight was still firm to his eye, and the rifle’s trigger waited beneath his finger.
There was blood, so much blood….
Jason didn’t know whether the old wound had just opened up, or the Apache had created a new one. He only knew that he had to put a stop to this before it went any further.
The two men, each maddened by impatience, began to wildly attack each other: no planning, no thought, no rules. They fought like wild animals, desperate creatures, and less than half the time when Jason lashed out did he meet more than air.
The Apache wasn’t having any more luck striking Jason’s body. Although Jason felt the knife slice into his arm, across his belly, and skitter along his ribs, the misses by the brave far outnumbered the hits, and all Jason’s wounds were shallow. More times than not, he was able to block a thrust before the Apache’s blade could penetrate flesh.
It was just that they were both moving so fast, so desperately.
And at last, Jason once again came into himself and actually began to think. This time it was he who snatched the second it took to form a shaky plan.
Simultaneously, he shrieked and attacked, and it was the Apache warrior who momentarily froze in shock.
Jason charged, but didn’t swerve. And as he was sinking his blade directly into the savage’s chest, just as he was thinking that this was far too easy—and what had he been so nervous about anyway?—Jason felt his opponent’s knife plunge deep into his shoulder.
Skewered on the blade of the white called Jason Fury, Lone Wolf did the only thing he could—he thrust his knife hard into his opponent’s shoulder. He hoped he had found the joint.
This white might kill him, but at least he would maim him, Lone Wolf thought. At least he might steal the use of his arm from him.
The white’s knife was dancing dangerously close to his heart, and he felt the hooves of death pounding, galloping nearer and nearer. But he would not go willingly to be with his ancestors.
With his last strength, he twisted his blade.
The two struggled for a moment, closer than dancers, each one grimacing in pain and frustration, their screams of agony just skimming over the surface of expression. And the cheering, hooting crowd on the stockade wall went swiftly silent.
The blade in his shoulder pinned his arm, grated against his joint, but Jason threw everything he had into his knife hand, forcing it up and just slightly to the side.
But just slightly was all it took.
Suddenly, fluid gushed from the man’s chest wound and his opponent went limp in his arms. Jason let him slide to the ground, and when he backed away from the crumpled corpse—Lone Wolf’s chest was bathed in blood from that one last, frantic gush—Jason sat down, hard, and fell back in a dead faint.
And his last thought, before he passed out and dropped into a deep well of soft, welcoming black, was pleasure that now Saul wouldn’t have to shoot somebody that wasn’t shooting back at him.
“Hello the gate!” Blake called. He had put on his collar at Laura’s insistence, and sat his horse ramrod straight. “Hello, somebody!”
Faintly, he heard a male voice call, “Open the gate, somebody. Visitors!”
Blake allowed himself a sigh of relief. There was someone in there alive after all.
Then the gate swung open, and the four wagons of his little train passed through the gate while Blake stayed outside, watching over them. When they were safely inside, he rode in after them and the gate was closed behind him.
A man came up to him and grabbed his horse’s reins. But the man seemed friendly—at least he was smiling—so Blake took no offense.
“Howdy!” said the man, and introduced himself as Ward Wanamaker, the town’s deputy sheriff. Blake wondered where the sheriff was, but said nothing.
“Glad to see you folks,” Deputy Wanamaker went on. “Glad you came when you did. If you’d come a day earlier, you would’a likely ended up dead. We been havin’ some Indian trouble, which is why the town’s locked up tighter than a tick.”
“I see,” said Blake, not correcting the deputy’s simile while thanking the Good Lord for their broken axle. “We thought we saw smoke a couple of days past. Was that part of your trouble?”
“Yup, sure was,” said Wanamaker. “Long story. Which I’d be glad to tell you over a beer.” His eyes flicked to Blake’s collar. “That is, if it ain’t against your religion, Reverend.”
Blake shook his head. The promise of a real beer was music to his ears, and already had his mouth watering. “I’d like to get my people settled first, but yes, that sounds wonderful. Where should I meet you?”
The deputy jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Right here, at Biggston’s,” he said. “But I’ll come along and get you settled in. ’Fraid you’ll have to stay in your wagons for the time being. We’re fresh out of anyplace to put you up.”
As he rode after the wagons and the deputy strolled at his side, Blake looked around at the town, saw the burned-out buildings, and also saw the people, joyous at their deliverance. He made up his mind. This was the place they’d stay and put down roots.
This was home.
“Jason?” Saul Cohen’s voice.
“Oh, Jason, please wake up,” he heard Jenny weep.
“Now, I’ve told you folks. It’s sheer exhaustion more than any wound.” Now, the soothing tones from Dr. Morelli washed over him. Jenny said he had a good “bedside manner,” and she was right. “If you’ll all back off and let him sleep, he’ll be right as rain when he wakes up. Aside from that shoulder wound, that is.”
Jason tried to reach to feel his shoulder, but could no more move his hand than open his mouth. He felt himself sinking down again into the blackness, a sinking that came from inside and felt so calming, so good. Is this what dying is like?
Mayor Kendall’s voice came next. “Well, exactly how long do you feel this might take, Morelli?”
Jason heard the sounds of people being herded out the door, heard their protests turning to mutters with distance, and then he heard a door quietly close.
The inner darkness enveloped him again.
Megan was getting better each day, but not enough that Morelli would let her get up from her cot as yet. Jenny sat beside her, going on and on about Jason, and what he had done for the town, and what a wonderful brother he was, and so on and so forth.
And Megan could listen as long as Jenny wanted to go on. As angry as she’d been with Jason on the day she rode into town—how long ago had that been?—she was filled with love for him now.
Love for him because he’d arrested her brother rather than let him ride, hell-bent for leather and full of pride, straight into a swarm of Apache; because Jenny was going to stay here with him, in town, and she loved Jenny almost as much as she loved Jason; and because he’d done the impossible—he’d saved the town of Fury, lock, stock, and barrel.
Saved it—and them all—once again.
Now, these were but a few of the things Jenny had told her while she lay here, unable to reply or even open her eyes. She’d heard Curly come through, too, with the news that their house was burned to the ground and all the outbuildings, too, but that he and Carlos and Wilmer were all right, though the blasted Apache had made off with their horses. She was sorry for their captured mounts, who were likely being whipped silly—if not served up for dinner—by their new owners, but otherwise overjoyed for the three hands’ good fortune.
She hoped that her wound wouldn’t be hideous when it healed. She hoped it wouldn’t show at all. She couldn’t imagine Jason paired with anyone less than perfect—not even her!
She pictured him in her mind—his blond hair bleached almost white by the Arizona sun, his once-pale skin bronzed by the same culprit, and those pale, blue, mesmerizing eyes, those eyes you could fall into, and fall and fall and fall….
She sighed, and heard Jenny cry, “Doctor! Oh, Dr. Morelli, come quick!” Although she couldn’t see it, she heard the happiness in Jenny’s voice. “Megan smiled!”
The newcomers had been settled in, and now Ward Wanamaker strolled down to Jason’s house, feeling as full of himself as if it had been he who had killed that Apache brave with his own two hands. He rapped at the door. It felt funny to knock since he lived here most of the time, but in a few seconds, Susannah Morton an swered the door.
Immediately, she smiled and asked him in. Over tea, he brought them up to date on the current situation. Su sannah and her sister-in-law, Eliza, oohed and ahhed in all the right places, and Miss Electa and Miss Europa softy oh-myed or gasped when they weren’t pouring tea or offering him more of the funny little sandwiches that Susannah had made.
When he finished everything he could think of to tell them, Miss Europa—whom he had never thought of as Mrs. Griggs, although he should have—asked when they might go home, seeing as how the Indians had gone south and according to him, were not expected back.
It left him in a bit of a muddle, since only the sheriff could give them permission, and the sheriff, Jason, was unconscious at the moment. They’d been bravely defended from the Apache menace by Ward himself, of course. But he told them they’d have to wait for Jason, and that was all there was to it.
All four women nodded, and that was the end of it.
But on his way out the front door, Miss Electa pulled him aside.
“Deputy Wanamaker,” she began shyly, “thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule to keep us apprised of the town’s matters. We are most sincerely grateful.” She gave his arm a soft squeeze on the word “most.”
Well, Ward couldn’t make it back to the office fast enough. This was all wrong!
Jenny was the one he wanted, even though she was married to somebody else. He didn’t want wizened Electa Morton. Why, she was old, probably as old as he was, for cripe’s sake, and talked like a Kansas City banker to boot!
Just the thought of it shook him so badly that when he got back to the office, he drank half of the bottle of whiskey that he’d hidden in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet.
The wagons around the well in the center of town showed no signs of moving on, and not because their owners had been told to stay. The people were simply exhausted—and hungry.
Olympia Morelli had the cook fires going again, and was brewing up a kettle of stew the size of which was reported to be someplace between two nail kegs, stood end to end, and the size of a grand piano’s sound box.
As usual, it was a good, thick stew: full of big chunks of beef and potatoes, with beans and corn and tomatoes and onions, and sided by Olympia’s own excellent biscuits with sweet cream butter and wild mesquite honey. Or fruit preserves, for those with more exotic tastes.
All the men in town were either drunk or stuffing themselves with Olympia’s bounty, or both.
The newcomers joined in the feast, too, and were more than happy to taste Olympia’s cooking. One of the ladies was overheard to say that it was the best stew she’d ever tasted. Aside from her own, of course.
Almost all the womenfolk were keeping themselves busy cleaning. After all, they’d had smoke or dust blown into their homes for days, or tracked in by bleeding husbands or sons. And most of the time they hadn’t been allowed to do anything about it. They’d stayed inside, hiding with the children as they’d been told to.
But even they got a bite or two of Olympia’s stew.
Even Rollie Biggston, drunk as a skunk, waddled up the street to Olympia’s outdoor kitchen. “Shtew!” he managed to belt out.
Jenny, who was manning the kettle while Olympia made the rounds of the shut-ins, grabbed a bowl, ladled in two dippers of the rich concoction, and stuck a spoon in it. “Shtew to you, too!” she said as she handed it to him.
“Thankth,” he said, and waddled away, leaving Jenny to chuckle behind him.
A few minutes later, Abigail Krimp came walking up with a disgusted look on her face. “Don’t give Rollie nothing else to eat,” she said. “He’ll just throw it up. Again.”
“Outside?” Jenny asked hopefully.
“No such luck.”
Jenny shrugged. “Sorry, Abigail.”
“No need. Rollie’s gonna be sorry enough for himself and everybody else, too. I’m gonna let him lay in his own mess till he wakes up.” Suddenly, she brightened. “Have you got a spare bowl for me? I found a nice place to eat outside.”
Jenny fixed her right up, and Abigail walked away humming.