Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (35 page)

“Amelia’s Hector was a sickly, ugly-lookin’ pup. I hope he died!” She turned her golden eyes to Buffer. “He was meaner’n a dog with a belly full a cockleburs. He didn’t have none a Daddy in ’im far as I could see.”

Buffer wanted to ask questions, but he didn’t dare for fear that she would stop talking.

“Daddy went off to the war and I ain’t knowin’ where his boys went. The witch woman might’a let the devil man have ’em. Them two was thicker’n thieves. Old devil man did her nasty work. She ran to ’im when one a Daddy’s boys looked crossways at Hector. He’d give ’im a whuppin’ and put ’im on bread and water. The boys was older’n me. I hope they run off where that devil man couldn’t find ’em. He worked ’em hard, whipped ’em, and . . . starved ’em.” She shuddered. “He liked it when a nigger run.”

“Is that what you did?”

“I didn’t get no chance to. Mammy Orkie was gettin’ me ready ta run, when that witch woman sold me to a riverboat man who had him a whorehouse.”

“Gawddamn!”

“I didn’t do no whorin’,” she said quickly. “I rode with ’im on the boat a ways ’cause I had to. First chance I got, I cut that sucker with my knife and jumped in the river.” Trisha’s voice sank to a whisper. “River was dark and cold. Old darkie pulled me out. I stayed with ’im till I heared that riverboat man was lookin’ for me. I was scared he’d hurt that old darkie.

“Some folk didn’t know I was a nigger an’ let me work for ’em, cookin’ or washin’. Oncet I fixed hair for whores while they was comin’ upriver to Little Rock. When we got there, they didn’t want me hangin’ ’round, so I left. Comin’ up over them hills, I got good at stealin’ somethin’ to eat. Had to, or lay down and die. I warn’t goin’ to do that. Ended up in Miss Addie’s barn. Bestest thin’ I ever did.”

“Is it that devil man yo’re scared of?” Buffer asked quietly. “Are ya thinkin’ he found ya?”

She turned to him and for a long moment stared into his face, making no attempt to mask her naked fear. In some way she had changed since she’d started telling her story. She didn’t move any part of her body, but her brilliant eyes held the look of resignation of an animal caught in a trap.

“Before I was popped on the head, I saw a flicker of somethin’. I knowed it wasn’t no dream when I saw where he’d whupped me. Miss Addie showed me the lash. ’Twas his. He makes ’em hisself.”

“If he’s got any sense a’tall he’s gone by now. There’s men here who’ll tear him apart if they catch him. Course, they’ll have ta get in ahead a me.”

“He ain’t goin’ till he knows I’m dead. He ain’t found no buryin’ hole, so he ain’t gone.”

Her quiet mood puzzled and then irritated Buffer.

“Ya givin’ up?” he asked.

She brushed her hand over her eyes, as if forcing them to stay open. She looked straight at him. Her lips moved. It required great effort for Buffer to hear her.

“Ya ain’t knowin’ him.”

“I know me, Buffer Simmons. And I know that bastard ain’t touchin’ a hair on yore head!” Angered, he reached for her and, without giving her a chance to hold herself away from him, drew her close and wrapped his arms around her. “He ain’t touchin’ a hair on yore head!” He felt the quaking in her slender body and pressed his cheek tightly to the top of her head. “Now . . . now . . . don’t shake so, and tell me what this devil man looks like.”

She didn’t answer him at once, but Buffer was encouraged by the small hand that crept under his cowhide vest and burrowed beneath his arm. A minute later he felt the stiffness go out of her body and heard her take a deep breath.

“Black-haired. Beard ’round his mouth. His eyes is mean. Mammy Orkie said he could have nigger blood, is why he hated darkies so. His brag was that no nigger ever got away from Satinwood and lived.” Her voice was shallow and toneless.

“Will yore daddy look fer ya when he comes home from the war?”

“He ain’t comin’. He was soldierin’ at a place called Gettystown, or somethin’ like that. They all got shot all to pieces. Poor Daddy. I reckon he didn’t care much.”

Rough fingers lifted her chin, gently but insistently. She felt his warm breath on her cheeks.

“Look at me, Trisha.”

She tried to hide her tear-wet face against his shoulder.

“Don’t be ’shamed a cryin’. Ya’ve had plenty to cry about. Ya got more guts than any woman I ever did see. Most women would’a caved in a-fore now.” Buffer held her close and stroked her hair. “I’ll be lookin’ out for ya from now on. Ya ain’t to worry ’bout that old devil man or nobody else.”

“Ya ain’t . . . meanin’ that?”

“I am meanin’ that. That devil man makes a move and I’ll kill him quicker than ya can blink them purty eyes of yores.”

“I mean ya . . . ya can’t mean from now on!”

“I shore do! If ya’ll have me, we’ll find us a preacher—”

“We . . . can’t!”

“Sure we can, if yore willin’. He tilted her head back against his arm and looked her in the face. “Folks might not think I’m much ’cause I’ve roamed a lot. I ain’t got no book learnin’ to speak of, but I’ll take care a ya if ya’ll let me. I got a little poke salted away. Maybe it’d be enough to start us up a place out in the New Mexico where you’d be near Miss Addie.”

She stopped his words with her fingers against his lips. She felt his heart beating strongly and heard the anxiety in his voice.

“I’m proud. Purely proud ya asked me. But we can’t.”

Heavy lashes lifted from tormented eyes only inches from his, and the look she saw in them was not the one of lust she had come to expect from men. It was a look of such yearning that it broke her heart to have to deny him. If at this moment Buffer had asked her, she would have given him ten years of her life, but she couldn’t give him what he was asking.

“Ya don’t like me . . . enough?” he whispered hoarsely.

She lowered her face to his shirt, and her voice, when it came, reflected her misery.

“We can’t.” She rolled her head from side to side in an agony of denial. “I’m a— I’m . . . a—”

“Don’t say that!” He grabbed her upper arms and held her away from him. “I ain’t carin’ if ya was black as the ace of spades! Hear me?” He shook her and glared into her face. “Yo’re white as me, as Miss Addie. Yore blood’s red, like mine. Why do ya keep sayin’ that?”

“ ’Cause it’s what I . . . is!”

“It don’t matter. I swear it don’t.”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard on the lips. Then the anger seemed to go out of him. He gathered her close and kissed her again, but now his kisses were soft and gentle. He lovingly caressed her mouth with his.

Trisha had never known the
gentle
touch of a man’s lips. Strength flowed into the hopeless void she had carried within her for most of her life and filled the hollows her despair had dug. Hope blossomed in her heart and began to grow. He lowered his head and kissed her again, this time reverently, as though she were something fragile and precious. She was consumed with love for this big bear of a man who had accepted her for what she was.

Then sudden fear for him swept over her. She saw him ringed by the darkies who had been summoned to watch the flogging. He was stripped to the waist and hanging from a limb by his bound hands. The devil man with a smile on his evil face uncoiled his whip and drew it back.
No! No!
her mind screamed repeatedly. She wrapped her arms around him and held him with feverish desperation, wanting to shield and protect him.

Not knowing what was in her mind, Buffer hugged her and crooned to her.

“We gonna have us a good life, little bird,” he said softly, his lips in her hair. “And lots of purty little younguns.” He chuckled happily. “We gonna make us a home on a mountain top . . .”

Buffer talked on and on. In the shelter of his arms, wrapped in the velvet darkness of the prairie night, Trisha began to believe that what he was saying could really come true.

*  *  *

At the other camp, Judge Van Winkle paced alongside the parked wagons. He was restless and impatient, finding fault with everyone from his man, Saul, to the cook, the driver, and the herders. So far his wrath had not come down upon the head of the patrol.

The trip so far had not been the adventure he or his niece had anticipated. It was hot, dirty, uncomfortable, and at times downright miserable. All of this could have been endured if not for the humiliation of being forced to take orders from an inferior. Today he had ordered his party to drop back a half-mile. The dust was still stifling and the pace so slow it seemed they had gone no distance at all when the signal was given to make camp.

Cindy’s voice, shrill with anger, broke the silence.

“You miserable girl!” Cindy snatched the hairbrush from her maid and pulled the blond strands of hair from the bristles. After twisting them around her fingers, she poked them into the hole of a china bowl. “I’ve got enough hair in that hair-saver to make a full wig. You’ve pulled out a handful every day since the beginning of this hellish trip.”

“I’s sorry, Miss Cindy. It . . . it so tangled up.” The maid sniffed and tears formed in her eyes.

“Don’t bawl, Ivy,” Cindy demanded. “Dammit, I’ve enough to put up with without having to listen to your sniveling every time I correct you. Just look at my face! The wind and dust is ruining my skin. Oh . . . why didn’t I have sense enough to stay home? If I were home I could be having a bath, drinking iced lemonade, and going to parties.”

The judge stood beside the caravan and listened to Cindy railing at her maid because of the dust on the coverlet of her bed and swearing because she couldn’t remove the cork from the bottle of olive oil she put on her sun-dried face.

“I swear, Ivy. I don’t know what you’re good for. I should have brought Bethel with me. At least she didn’t bawl all day every day.”

“I’s sorry, Miss Cindy.”

“If you say that again, I’ll slap you! I know how sorry you are. You’re a
sorry
maid, is what you are. Now get out of here before I take this hairbrush to you.”

Ivy came out the back door of the caravan, her hand over her mouth to silence her sobs. She disappeared in the darkness to cry and to wait for Cindy’s temper to cool.

With his head bent, the judge walked down the line of wagons to where Captain Forsythe sat with the men of his patrol.

“Word with you, Forsythe.”

“Yes, sir.” The captain got up and followed the judge back toward the caravan.

“I do not intend to eat the dust from that freight train another day. A man of my position should have some consideration from that uncivilized lout.”

The captain waited for the judge to say more, not knowing if an answer was required.

“Well?” the judge snapped. “Do you not agree?”

“Absolutely. There are two things we can do, sir. Fall farther back or go on ahead.”

“We can’t afford to fall back and waste time. Did either one of the new men you hired have scouting experience?”

“To find a scout, we’ll have to go to Fort Gibson. I hired night herders and extra guns in case of attack. Both men are crack shots.”

“I’m glad to hear that. How many more days until we reach the trail to Fort Gibson?”

“Three or four at the rate we’re going. I heard that from one of the bull-whackers. I strongly urge you to turn north to Fort Gibson, Judge. Even if it means we will be a few days late reaching Albuquerque.”

“I’ve been thinking that myself. That man Rolly is nosing around our wagons telling the drivers to grease this, grease that. They resent it. I feel trouble brewing between our men and that crew of miserable bull-whackers. Meanwhile, we’ll not be reduced to the status of beggars and
allowed
to follow this train and eat their dust. Tomorrow our wagons will go to the front of the line or I’ll do everything in my power to ruin that bastard when I get to Sante Fe.”

“It might be better,” the captain said hesitantly, “if we just hung back rather than rile Tallman. A few more days and the trail will split. We’ll have some relief from the dust tomorrow. The wind switched around to the south late this afternoon. It should hold for a day or two.”

“Hell and damnation, Kyle. What’s the wind blowing from the south got to do with anything? Cindy is having the screaming trembles. At this rate she’ll be a wreck by the time we get to Fort Gibson and will be nagging to go back home.”

“Do you think that’s a bad idea? I could escort her.”

“Of course it’s a bad idea. I’ll not hear of it. I’m Cindy’s guardian. She goes where I go.”

Kyle Forsythe didn’t dare say the words that sprang to his mind:
Cindy’s fortune goes where you go!
The greedy old bastard didn’t dare let her go back home. He’d lose control of thousands of Yankee dollars.

“I’ll talk to her,” Kyle said, bringing his thoughts back to the present. “Maybe I can persuade her to ride in the caravan during the day.”

“I tried that. She won’t leave the windows open in the caravan because of the dust, and she won’t stay inside because of the heat.” The judge turned and looked toward the freight camp. The only light was the small campfire in front of the cook wagon. “He keeps a tight camp even here where the Indians are supposedly friendly.”

“Our camp is well secured. The only light is Miss Cindy’s. The guards take three-hour shifts so that every man gets his rest and is alert on watch. Judge, we can go on ahead and find that cut-off to Fort Gibson. I’d rather not have a confrontation with that high-handed savage if there’s a way around it. He could cause us a lot of trouble if he had a mind to.
^”

“Such as?”

“He has more than twice the men we have, for one thing. And, for another, I heard plenty about him at the livery in Van Buren. His father was Rain Tallman. Have you heard of him?”

“Some. What’d you hear?” he asked impatiently.

“Rain Tallman was raised Indian. By the time his sons, John and Mac, were knee-high, they spoke Shawnee. Tallman sent his boys out to live with the Shawnee for months at a time. They learned the Indian ways. The Tallmans can hunt, track, use a bow and a knife as good as an Indian. John is known as Spotted Elk, named for Rain’s Indian father. Mac is known as Stone Hand. I suspect both of them are as mean and as sneaky as the Indians who trained them.”