28
The men set out from Phoenix in the morning. They were all in high spirits, with the exception of Buckshot Bob, for obvious reasons. Monahan was enthused and grateful for the company of Sweeney, who was happy to still be tagging along, and especially George Miller, who had plenty of stories about the old spread up in Wyoming which he willingly shared at great length.
According to George, Monahan had been quite a hand with the beef stock . . . and with the ladies. The old cowboy flushed deep red when George told the story of Monahan and Miss Franklin, a popular schoolmarm with whom he’d kept company for some time. Sweeney practically fell off Chili, he was listening so hard, but when he pushed George for more details, George said, “You’re gonna have to pester Dooley about that, son. I only tell what’s fit to tell the preacher!”
And of course, Monahan remained silent on the subject. Sweeney figured Monahan was just as hungry for the details, but he’d probably not shared those with George at the time. It was a real pity, if you asked Sweeney . . . but of course, no one did.
No one knew what became of Miss Franklin, either. That was a real shame. The one person who would have remembered the most didn’t recall a blessed thing about the incident. Why, George didn’t even remember the first thing about Miss Franklin!
After a long and full day on the trail—and about twenty miles under hoof—they settled, at last, into a sleep. Sweeney took first watch to make certain Buckshot Bob didn’t bolt, and woke Monahan at about two in the morning to take over for him.
They set out the next morning in good spirits, although Monahan was a little groggy. George Miller told more tales about the old cowboy’s past, up in Wyoming. Sweeney listened, rapt, as George went on for hours about the beauties of the land around Yellowstone, and the smoking lakes and the geysers. He told the tale of Monahan and the grizzly bear (Monahan won), Monahan and the rabid lobo (Monahan won again), and Monahan and the lumberjack’s daughter, which had a more questionable outcome.
George talked and talked all through the morning ride, and lunch, and then the afternoon and supper, until he was so hoarse he couldn’t talk anymore. Sweeney, who was beyond thrilled to finally get to hear more of the tales of the old cowboy’s past, had forgotten all about his earlier longing to get himself shed of Monahan, to get free and quit getting shot at. Well, his shoulder tried to remind him, but he regarded that as just a battle scar, something that marked his hide to remind him of his brush with greatness. He was certain there’d be more. At least, he kept reminding himself that the past repeated itself.
After all, he couldn’t seem to get shed of Julia, could he?
They ran into her just before they stopped for the night. She had already stopped and was off to the side of the road. Her horse was stripped of tack and grinding blissfully at a nosebag filled with corn and oats. And Julia? She was across the road, holed up behind a patch of prickly pear with a rifle to her shoulder and an irritated look on her face.
She came out soon enough, though, and added her prairie hen to their rabbits and quail. They made a tasty stew—while George finished his day’s tale of Monahan and lapsed into an exhausted silence—then ate it and stretched out on the desert floor for the night. George was run fresh out of stories about the time he’d run himself out of fresh throat.
Sweeney was standing watch first. Well, sitting watch, anyway. He had to admit—if only to himself—that running in to Julia again wasn’t half as awful as he’d thought it would be. Besides, she had some salt in her saddlebags, which he and Monahan had forgotten to bring, and she did pull together a decent stew. Well, all right, he admitted with a sigh. It was better than decent by quite a bit.
He thought she had taken the news about Buckshot Bob’s betrayal like a true stoic. She hadn’t even been mad about it. Of course, it helped that she’d already guessed that he was a thief, and she was just glad they’d run into him in the city and got things handled so she didn’t have to. She accepted her bank book from Monahan, quickly inspected it, and then, behind a clump of cactus, secreted it on her person. She was no fool, all right.
And she’d asked about his shoulder.
That was real nice of her,
he thought,
especially since nobody else cared in the slightest.
He’d told her that he was fine, thanks, and healing up just crackerjack.
She was asleep on the other side of the fire with Blue contentedly curled up on her blanket. She’d told Sweeney to wake her at midnight, and she’d spell him and Monahan, shortening their watch hours.
Actually, he mused, she was a real peach.
He settled down for the night, and tried to keep his eyes open. “Just until midnight,” he muttered sleepily.
Later that night, Monahan sat in the predawn desert haze facing west, watching the sun breech the eastern horizon in the broken glass that lined the Old Mormon Trail. Everyone else was asleep, including the dog, who had wakened at around four when the old cowboy got up to relieve Julia, made a circuit around the sleepers, then returned to her blanket. He’d claimed it as his own sometime during the course of the night.
Monahan was awfully glad they’d run across the girl, and grateful for her help on night guard, too. The half nights of sleep were harder on his old bones than he liked to admit. At least with her around, he had to spend fewer hours on guard. It surely did make a difference.
To help pass the time, he ignored his ready-mades and rolled himself a smoke, stretching out the ritual of lighting it and taking the first drag. There was still nothing like the taste of good tobacco the first thing in the morning.
He’d already completed his morning ritual of beating and pounding and grinding everything awake, but now that he’d settled in for the long haul, he was starting to freeze up again. He tried to remember what it was like to have no morning aches or pains, but it was too far back to recall. It just seemed like he’d been born into hurting. His cross to bear, he guessed.
He poured himself a cup of coffee, and his shoulder hurt. He moved back to his pallet, and his knee screamed. Seemed like there wasn’t a move, either big or small, that he could make without some part reminding him that he’d broken a bone or ripped a muscle or gotten into a one-sided argument with a rank bronc or a crabby steer.
It wasn’t fair.
But then, what in his life
was
fair? What in anybody’s life turned out the way they wanted?
He puzzled over this for quite a long time—long enough that the deep morning shadows were erased and light flooded the desert, bringing with it the morning birds and the snakes. The latter he couldn’t stand, especially when a rattler climbed out of the brush and stretched himself out on the bumpy surface of the road to warm in the pre-noon sun. Snakes had as much right as anybody to live, but not when they came so close to him. He dragged himself up off his pallet and shot it, which of course, woke everybody else.
Sweeney jumped immediately to his feet, shouting, “Holy Christ! Who’s tryin’ to kill us?”
Buckshot Bob twisted his head like an owl, George grabbed his pistol and aimed it out toward nothing, and even little Julia threw her arms tight around Blue’s neck and stared wide-eyed.
Monahan took a long breath in through his nose and said, “Snake.”
The camp deflated, as surely as if it had been a balloon that he’d suddenly popped with his one-word explanation. Sweeney dropped back to the ground, Bob’s head stopped twisting, George’s pistol lowered to earth, and Julia released the dog.
Blue bounded over the dying fire, then leaped to Monahan, whimpering with joy. His first instinct was to swat him, but the big pink tongue rapidly scrubbing his face and the happy sounds emanating from his ‘attacker’ got the best of him. Laughing, he fell down and back, taking the oblivious, joyously squirming dog with him.
They reached the station a day and a half later, and poor Mae, always left to worry, was thrilled to see them, particularly Bob and Julia. Although Monahan had made his companions promise to keep their mouths shut in front of Mae, he took her aside later and explained his reasons for riding back with Bob.
He finished by saying, “I don’t figure to know if there’s anything funny goin’ on betwixt you and your hubby, Mae, and it ain’t my business to second guess. Now, ol’ Bob feels pretty dang bad about this whole ruckus, I’m guessin’, but you’d best keep an eye on him for a while.”
Mae was crying, and the old cowboy took her into his arms and said, “There, there,” and tried to comfort her, but she was so shaken—and embarrassed—by her husband’s actions that she had no words. Monahan understood without being told, and he simply held her. He’d known her since she was a little girl of eleven—even though many of those intervening years were cloudy for him—and chasing chickens on her daddy’s ranch in Texas, so she let him.
As for Julia, the first thing she did upon her arrival at the station was to find a new hiding place for her bank book. Having given it quite a bit of thought over the past few days, she had decided that no place in the house was safe—Mae and Buckshot Bob had lived there a good deal longer than she’d been breathing—and so she started searching the barn and the smaller outbuildings in search of a safe spot. She finally found one inside a saddle stand, wedged up into a slit where the wood was cracked, and left her bank book behind without a second thought.
Having taken care of Bob and Mae, Monahan found himself at loose ends. He knew he was supposed to be moving on—California, probably—but had no idea why. He wandered out to the front stoop and sat down with a smoke. Sweeney was already out there, leaning listlessly on the front rail and talking to George, who was out roaming around the front yard with his gaze downcast.
Looking for snakes, Monahan guessed. “He find anything yet?”
Sweeney shook his head. “Nothin’,” he said. “What’s next?”
Monahan honestly didn’t know what to tell him, although he was certain he’d known before. “Dunno right now. Ask me later.”
The young cowboy shrugged and went back to watching George, who was surreptitiously keeping one eye on the horizon where Buckshot Bob was out after cattle with his dog. Although he hadn’t known Bob earlier, he was full of Bob theories and more than full of ideas about where he and Monahan would go once they had things wrapped up.
Monahan was still concerned about Buckshot Bob. He had got himself real embarrassed and Monahan figured he’d never try to steal anything from anybody again as long as he lived. He just wasn’t the type. But the old cowboy fretted over things and people long after they needed fretting over. It was just the sort of man he was . . . or at least, he used to be.
George knew all about the old dream to go to Alaska. Monahan had been harping on it since they were up in Wyoming, and he’d sold George on the idea years ago. But he hadn’t heard mention of it lately. Was it possible he’d already got himself up there and back, and found nothing?
George didn’t think so. Monahan had been too certain-sure of himself and Alaska, and he was too pigheaded to fail at something he was so convinced of. Besides, George had been keeping tabs on news coming out of the frozen territory, and best as he could tell, there were still fellows striking it rich up there. Just not as many as had gone to California. Alaska was a forbidding place, all right. He’d heard there was snow on the ground all year-round, and that if you accidentally dumped a bucket of water outside, you could skate on it within fifteen minutes!
Of course, according to Monahan, all that was blown way out of proportion. Oh, it was cold, all right, but there were regular seasons of the year, and yes, summer, too. He’d had books and papers to back up what he’d claimed, all kept on a makeshift set of shelves beside his bunk. George wondered whatever had become of the books, all those tales of Alaska and its wildlife and its terrain. He shook his head. Monahan had probably just got up one morning, forgot he had them, and wandered off.
At his movement, George heard Sweeney call out to him, asking if he’d spotted something. He shook his head, turned back toward the house, and hollered, “No, nothing!” then went on with his, well, whatever it was he’d been doing. He wasn’t sure quite what that was, but he carried on, just the same.
His eyes flicked out toward the horizon, where he spotted a distant Bob coming in with about a half-dozen cattle. His dog was with him, keeping the cattle bunched up and headed the right way. Except for her coloring and her smaller size, she was a lot like Blue. George would have bet hard money that she could have gone out by herself and rounded up those cows just fine. But then, he supposed Bob needed something to do, something to get him away from the house—and them—to think things over, and so he had let his dog take care of finding the cows.
Being younger than Monahan by about only a decade, George was beginning to slow down some. He was just as smart as he’d always been, but he could see old age was creeping up on him, and he wasn’t half ready for it. He wanted something where he could make a good chunk of money in not much time so he could retire decently. More than anything, he didn’t want to end up like other fellows he’d known, fellows who hadn’t been able to set anything aside and had ended their days begging on the streets or mucking out stables, and buried in pauper’s graves.
He wanted to travel with Monahan to the Alaskan gold fields. He figured there was one place he could still be a pioneer, and Alaska was it! There was time to get in, strike it rich, and get out again before the main wave of gold diggers came rushing in, like they had in California.
He was all for getting in and getting out fast. He just hoped Monahan was of a like mind—if he ever thought about it at all.
Bob and the cattle were almost upon him. He lazily lifted an arm and nonchalantly shouted, “Hey, Bob!”