Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (29 page)

“Thank you for the invitation, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea tonight. Jane Ann and Dillon are still upset over the death of our ewe. It would have been wasteful not to use the meat, but I don’t want them to see any part of it.”

“The critter is still a-hangin’ out there in the woods. Gregorio skinned her and stretched the hide on the side of the wagon. We thought you’d want the pelt. Later tonight, after she’s cooled out some, I’ll salt her down.”

Addie winced at the matter-of-fact way he spoke of Bucket, the sweet little lamb that spent the first few weeks of her life in Addie’s kitchen.

“Got catfish, tortillas, and peach cobbler.” Bill patted his plump stomach and grinned.

He really was nice, Addie thought. His eyes were twinkling.

“Mr. Tallman told me you were called Sweet William. How in the world did you cook peach cobbler over a campfire?”

“Wasn’t nothin’ to it a’tall. I got a big iron pan.” He spread his hands to show the size. “I jist put the peaches, flour, sugar, and— Oh, shoot, I’ll show ya how sometime.”

“I would appreciate that. I don’t know much about cooking over a campfire.”

John walked up behind Addie and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Get settled in?”

Before Addie could answer, Dillon and Jane Ann ran to him.

“Lookee at my new hat!” Dillon put both hands to the round brim. “Lookee at my new shoes!” He stood on one foot so he could lift the other.

“Do they fit?” John squatted down and pressed his thumb to the end of the shoe.

“I got new shoes too,” Jane Ann said, lifting her skirt to her knees and looking anxiously at John.

“So you have. Do yours fit?”

“They’re big. Miss Addie says I’ll grow.”

“And you will.” John took the end of the child’s braid and tickled her nose with it. She giggled and shied away.

“I want shoes like yours.” Dillon had squatted in the dirt and was fingering the lacings on John’s knee-high moccasins.

“Me too!” Jane Ann echoed.

“We’ll get you both some when we get to New Mexico. For the trip you need heavy shoes.”

The children scampered away to tell the news about the moccasins to Trisha, who was still in the wagon.

“I held back the other . . . for you to give them.” Addie waited until Bill had left them to say this. “And I thought that maybe you should wait awhile. They’re so excited about the new clothes and the trip—”

“Spread out the joy a little, huh?”

“Something like that.”

“I’m sorry about the ewe.”

“I know. I didn’t want to leave them at the farm. The Renshaws would have killed them out of pure meanness. The sheep helped to get us through the war. I’ll always love them for that.”

Bill rang the supper bell.

“Call the children, Mrs. Tallman. It’s suppertime.”

*  *  *

Later, drifting down from the breathless heights of pleasure, Addie lay as if in a trance. Her body nestled against John’s, a warm soft thigh between his legs, one arm across his chest. John’s strong fingers worked the muscles of her back and shoulders.

He had brought a ground sheet and a feather tick, and showed Addie how to lower the canvas and fasten it to the wheels. He had also looked into the wagon and said good night to Trisha and Jane Ann, who were going to sleep on the overjet, and to Colin and Dillon, who were sleeping under it.

“Where’s Muvver gonna sleep?” Dillon had asked.

“She’ll be here with me under the wagon.”

“Under the wagon? That’s funny,” the boy had shouted.

Then Trisha had shushed him, and soon all was quiet.

John continued now to rub Addie’s back. She stretched like a contented kitten, and a throaty moan escaped her.

John laughed softly into her hair.

“John, sometimes I’m afraid.” His fingers stopped and she hurried on: “Afraid this is a dream and I’ll wake up back there at the farm with the Renshaws, old Preacher Sikes, and nothing but bleak years staring me in the face.”

“It isn’t a dream, sweetheart. Although at times on the trail you may wish it were. It’s not an easy trip—dust, wind, rain, breakdowns, rivers to cross.”

“I’ll not worry because we’ll be with you. I used to worry about what would happen to the children and Trisha if something should happen to me.”

He shook her shoulder gently. “Shhh . . . Don’t talk like that.”

“I know you would take care of them, or see to it they were cared for.”

“Of course I would. Now, hush up and go to sleep. This train rolls at dawn.”

Addie snuggled against him, but she couldn’t sleep. In the back of her mind was the image of the Yankee soldier she had seen at the livery, and uneasiness stirred within her.

*  20  *

W
hen Buffer Simmons left the freight camp, he backtracked as far as the stream where he and Tallman had dumped the Renshaws, looking for a trace of them. It would have taken a while for them to round up their horses; but two days and two nights had passed, and if they were still trailing, they were too dumb not to have left some sign. Buffer had no doubt that one or the other of them was still dogging Trisha’s trail.

Riding along, looking for tracks of sloppily shod horses, Buffer mused that people as low as the Renshaws had to find someone they considered lower than they were. In this case it was Trisha. From the bits of news he had picked up in Free-point, it was Preacher Sikes who had passed the word that Trisha was a Negro. He had declared her to be a runaway slave. Up until that time, she had been presumed by the townsfolk to be a distant relative of Miss Addie.

What the hell difference did it make if Trisha’s great-grandma came over on a slave ship? Buffer’s own grandpappy had been plucked out of Newgate Prison and sent to the New World. He thought of the time he had spent with Trisha, the firelight shining on her face. What he had told her was the truth. He had first noticed her because she was pretty, but there was more to her than her looks—much more. She was spunky, loyal, dependable, and tough as a willow switch. She would be one to winter with. There would be no dull days with her around. Buffer chuckled as he remembered her asking if he had a weak chin.
“Is that why you cover it with brush?”

He fingered his bushy beard. One of the first things he was going to do when he got to Van Buren was to visit the tonsorial parlor. He usually let his whiskers grow in the winter and shaved in the spring. This year he just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Buffer completed the circle without finding a track he could tie to the Renshaws, so he took the trail along the river to Van Buren, arriving there about noon. He ate beans and tortillas served by a jolly little Mexican woman in a brightly painted eatery. When he entered, the two tables were full except for one place on the end. As he filled his plate from the bean pot on the table and forked several hot pickled peppers onto his plate, he felt the intense gaze of a man at the other end of the table. Buffer let his eyes pass over the starer as if he hadn’t noticed the man’s interest.

He was tall, Buffer judging by the way the man’s shoulders rose higher than those of the diners on either side of him. His black beard reached the third button on his shirt and his black eyes, separated by a beak of a nose, were ice-cold. A vulture was what he resembled, Buffer thought. The man ate only beans, slurped his coffee, and spoke to no one.

Passing the time of day with the others at his table, Buffer hedged when asked where he was from and where he was going. His built-in survival instinct warned him that the
vulture
was listening to all the conversations going on around him.

On leaving the table, Buffer jollied for a moment with the woman called Lupe, then left the building and headed for the mercantile, dismissing the
vulture
from his mind.

Several hours later, after a bath, a shave, and a haircut, and dressed in clean buckskins and a new shirt, he went back to where he had left his horse. On his way out of town, he stopped again at Poole’s store. He bought himself a new hat and the smallest pair of buckskin breeches they had in the store, although he figured even then they would be too big for Trisha. He wasn’t sure why he had bought them or the scabbard and belt. Before mounting his horse, he added them to the roll tied behind his saddle along with his bedroll.

Buffer was almost through town when the black-bearded man came out of a doorway and walked toward the store. He was thin to the point of gauntness, his shoulders were narrow, and his arms and legs were long. He carried a long-barreled rifle and wore an old, black, high-crowned hat. He walked along the street ignoring the curious stares of those he passed on the boardwalk.

About three miles out of town Buffer found the judge’s camp. Before riding in, he pulled his horse to a halt, leaned on the pommel, and studied the scene. He thought that he had seen every manner of train that had crossed the territories, but one of the six wagons in the semicircle was a sight he’d not encountered before. It was a caravan with wooden sides and a shingled roof out of which extended a tin chimney. A white canvas canopy, covering the length of the vehicle, was attached to the side and supported by poles on each end. Seated in the shade of the canopy were a man and a woman with a small table between them. The caravan was painted a soft yellow and decorated with blue and green scrollwork designs. Steps led up to its back door.

Two of the wagons were prairie schooners, apparently new, judging from the gleaming paint and snow-white canvas stretched over the bows. A Negro man sat beside one of them, polishing a pair of boots.

The next two wagons were heavily loaded freight haulers with high sideboards and dark canvas covering the loads. The fifth wagon was the type used by the army to carry men and supplies. An extra wheel was attached to the tailgate. The sixth was the cook wagon. Beside it, a colored man was working over a smoking campfire.

Shaking his head in dismay, Buffer was sure that there was not one spare axle, wagon tongue, or double-tree in the camp, and that the only spare wheel was the one attached to the back of the army wagon. The freight wagons had two barrels for water on each side, and one water barrel was attached to the side of the cook wagon; no barrels hung from the sides of the prairie schooners or the caravan.

Buffer’s eyes wandered to the meadow where the stock was grazing. In an area off to the side were some of the finest horses he had ever seen. They were Thoroughbreds, from the look of their shiny coats, long slim legs, and high arched necks. Aside from the Thoroughbreds, there were six draft animals and a dozen head of mules and horses.

Taking off his hat, Buffer scratched his head. He let the warm sun beat down on his face, the lower part of which felt almost naked, having been sun-shaded by his beard all spring. The thought came to him that getting this flashy outfit past renegades and others looking for easy pickings would be about as easy as stretching a bluejay’s ass over a water barrel.

Several Yankee soldiers lounged beneath a pecan tree, and a couple of men on horseback circled the grazing stock. A colored woman came from the caravan, walked around to the far side, and shook a cover of some kind. She wore a black dress with a white apron tied about her waist and had touches of white at her neck and wrists. Buffer had not seen one before but he reckoned she was a “lady’s maid.”

He debated turning his horse around, going back to Tallman’s freight camp, and asking to sign on. Hell, he’d work his way across for his grub. He sat for several minutes and thought about it. Finally he came to the conclusion that he owed it to the men in Fort Smith who had recommended him that he at least speak to the judge and give him a chance to hire another hunter.

A suspicion began to form in Buffer’s mind. Why would the judge need a hunter for a party this size? It seemed to him that one of the soldiers could go out once in a while and bring in fresh meat.

After folding up the front of the brim of his new hat and securing it to the crown with the silver pin he took from his old one, Buffer slapped it on his head and put his heels to his horse. He rode slowly into the camp. Before he neared the wagons, the soldiers moved quickly from beneath the pecan tree and intercepted him. One stepped up beside his horse and took hold of the cheek strap.

“What’s your business here, mister?” he demanded in the harsh, clipped accent of the North.

“What’s it to ya?”

“We saw you sitting off out there watching our camp. What do you want?”

“Ya been a-fightin’ in the war?” Buffer asked softly.

“Of course I have. What about it?”

“Didn’t nobody ever tell ya not to come up to a mounted man and take hold a his bridle like yo’re doin’? Yo’re primed to get the toe of my boot right under yore chin. Seen a few fellers lose teeth that way and one that bit his tongue right off.”

“I’m asking what your business is here.”

“It ain’t with you, sonny boy, and that’s a fact. I’m here to see the judge.”

“What about?”

“Gawddammit!” Buffer’s temper flared. His booted foot shot out of the stirrup. “If ya don’t get outta my way, I’m gonna get off this horse and kick yore ass up so high yore damn head’ll be ridin’ on it.”

“You’re taking on the United States Army, mister.”

“I’m takin’ on a puffed-up, brayin’ jackass and two other jacks, if they deal in.”

“Back off, Shipley. The captain told us the judge had hired a hunter. Might be this is him.”

“If he is, why didn’t he say so?” Red-faced, the soldier backed away.

The instant the man let go of the bridle, Buffer gigged his horse. The animal shot ahead. A sharp tug on the reins spun it around. Just as Buffer had expected, Shipley had his hand on his side arm. In a lightning-fast move, Buffer pulled his knife from its scabbard.

“Ya gonna bet ya can shoot me ’fore I put this knife in yore throat?” He spoke calmly as he tossed the knife up and caught it by the tip of the blade between his thumb and forefinger.

“The judge is yonder by the caravan.” The man who spoke was holding Shipley’s arm.

“Thanky kindly.” Buffer slid his knife back into the scabbard, rode the short distance, dismounted, took off his hat, and dropped the reins to the ground. The ground-tied horse stood perfectly still.