Maude March on the Run! (20 page)

“Over here,” I called, but remained where I stood. I was still in the grip of cowardly fear—when I heard the worst, I didn't want it to be more than I could take.

Then I saw Maude had Dr. Aldoradondo with her; he had fallen forward over the horse's neck. “Is he dead?” I cried, running to him. I hadn't realized I'd gotten so fond of that old man in the short time we'd been riding together. But he and Rebecca had treated us as kindly as anyone could hope, and paid us for working alongside them.

“Sallie, he's alive,” Maude said, “and look who turned up to help me.”

He rode out of the darkness. Likely he'd been riding a little apart so three horses wouldn't leave much of a trail, the way I'd read of in dimers. It was John Kirby. I knew his horse, too.

There was a great deal to take in all at once. “Silver Dollar,” I said. “You're the one who rented Silver Dollar? Where's Uncle Arlen's rig?”

“A little the worse for wear,” he said. “I traded it in some miles earlier.”

I was for a moment torn between arguing the loss to Uncle Arlen's business and wanting to know what he traded it for and knowing it really only mattered that he'd come to
Maude's aid, even though at the back of my mind I questioned the why of it.

I said, “Have you followed us from Independence?”

“I didn't follow you,” he said. “I got there a few days ahead of you, if you remember.”

We couldn't spend time arguing. The doctor needed help. Maude and John Kirby each took an arm over their shoulders as he slid off the horse and helped him walk. I was glad to see his feet weren't dragging.

“Let's get him on the cot,” Maude said. John Kirby took most of the doctor's weight over his shoulder as Maude scrambled inside the wagon. Then he pushed the doctor through the door to her and followed them both inside.

Rebecca had slipped to the floor.

Maude said, “Are you hurt, Rebecca?”

Her eyelids fluttered, and when Maude lit the lantern, she tried to sit up. She put her hand down on a piece of glass. She didn't appear to notice.

“Wait,” Maude said, and helped her up.

The glass hadn't caused but a tiny cut that hardly bled. I helped Maude to prop her in a corner at the end of the bunk, and John Kirby was able to put his burden on the greater length of it.

I was still not sure why this fellow had taken such a risk to help us. Barring ink smudges, he looked like he'd never been this dirty before in his life, let alone interfered with a crazed mob.

Maude sent me outside, saying, “See to the horses, Sallie.”

I reached for the lathered-up reins on Maude's horse and mine, wanting to get them under cover. As for Silver Dollar, I
only needed to whistle for him. He was ever expectant of good things, such as pieces of apple or carrot, or a nose bag, and he answered readily enough by following me to the far side of the wagon.

While I pulled the saddles off our horses, Maude yanked the door shut on the wagon. That was how I knew there might be men to follow. She didn't want a light to lead them straight to us. By a stroke of good luck, the part of the wall that came down as a shelf was turned away from the trail, so any light leaking through the seam wouldn't be seen.

I kept the horses well behind the wagon, and as I rubbed them down, I listened for men coming along the trail. I'd lost track of how far we might have traveled when the horses were running wild. It could have been two miles, it could have been twelve.

The more I didn't hear anyone coming, the better I felt.

Dr. Aldoradondo had escaped the tar and feathers and, in Maude's estimation, wasn't dying.

We had added one more to our band, was how I decided to look at it, and maybe we could trust him. At any rate, he had proven himself helpful when we needed help most.

I couldn't help feeling things were looking up.

I'd brushed the horses down and moved the nose bags over to feed them the same light rations I'd given the others before the back door swung open again.

Maude came outside carrying her rifle and the doctor's. She handed me the weight of her kit bag so she could load. I said, “What happened back there?”

“Their taste for mayhem has been satisfied. Only one of
them came back after you scattered them,” Maude said as she loaded her rifle. “We left that one trussed up like a chicken for his persistence.”

“I couldn't manage the horses,” I said. “I couldn't stay in the wagon with her, Maude.”

I didn't like to think I hadn't done entirely right by Rebecca. She had turned scary, but I should have found the nerve to face our situation.

“There's nothing you could have done for her,” Maude said. “She isn't hurt, don't worry.”

Silently, I resolved to do better the next time I was needed to do the right thing.

“Everything will turn out all right,” Maude said, but not with a great deal of assurance.

“It looked like gunfire took a few of them down,” I said. “You'd have mentioned it if any of them died, wouldn't you?”

“Two are bullet-nicked, but it isn't more than a scratch on either of them.” She raked her fingers over the open box. She had to load without any light, just feeling her way along. “I tied up the worst with a kerchief.”

“A clean kerchief ?” I said. Since traveling with Dr. Aldoradondo, I'd learned more than I ever cared to know about infection. “It ain't a good idea to keep racking up accidental killings.”

“It was his own kerchief,” Maude said, her voice coming on stronger. “And quit saying ‚ain't.' How many times do I have to tell you?”

“What about the woman who died?”

“None of them knew who she was,” Maude said in a bitter
tone. She set down the rifle she'd finished with and picked up the other. “Thanks to the drink in them, they were only half the men they ever were.”

I said, “I'm proud of you, Maude.”

“You don't know what a close thing it was, Sallie,” she said. “I'm glad you didn't take off in the other direction, after all. We're just that much further west.”

“I didn't have any say in the matter,” I told her. “Those horses had a mind of their own.”

Maude said, “How are they holding up? We have a ways to go.”

“They're as tireless as Aunt Ruthie's rocking chair.” It was true, they had the grit to go a distance. I only hoped they had some speed left in them after the run we'd made.

I
NSIDE THE WAGON, REBECCA HAD RALLIED ENOUGH TO
put out a basin of water for John Kirby to wash his hands. However, she looked some wobbly as she passed a wrung-out cloth over the doctor's face.

“Cleanliness is most important,” she said for maybe the third time. But I wasn't sure she had noticed a stranger sat beside her.

The doctor had come around enough to say which balm was needed for his cuts. His face had a couple of lumpy swellings, but he didn't appear to have been broken anywhere. I was glad of this, but also satisfied I could move on to my next concern.

“You have a nerve to trade away Uncle Arlen's buggy,” I said to John Kirby as he touched the paste to the doctor's face and ears.

“Sallie,” Maude said in that way she had when my manners were lacking. In fact, this hadn't been foremost in my thoughts until I'd laid eyes on him again.

“Who is he, anyway?” I said to Maude before I turned
back to him. “And don't think you can put me off with word-play. You had a reason to follow us from Diamond Springs.”

As I neared him, he reached for me and dabbed a bit of that paste on my scraped knuckles. I dropped the feed sack, reacting as if I expected it to sting, and for a moment it did want to, but then the hurt went numb.

I said, “What's your interest in us?”

“I know who your sister is,” he said, and when I didn't say more, he did. “Not Maude Waters, but Maude March.”

“Maude March?” Rebecca said as if a fresh weakness had come upon her. “You're Maude March?”

Maude did look like the worst of the posters under the lantern light.

“I have been following your story in the papers,” he said. “It interests me.”

“She
is
innocent,” I said, without inquiring of his interest. “We'll clear her name.”

Always quick to read a man, or a woman, Dr. Aldoradondo saw right away how things stood. “It won't make it any easier, now you've broken up a mob with gunfire,” he said.

I looked at John Kirby. “You did the shooting.”

“No one is dead of it,” he said.

“What I'm saying is this, Maude will be blamed for it, unless you stand up.” My feelings for him were mixed; I couldn't get the measure of the man.

Maude made the more timely argument. “They didn't have any business taking the law into their own hands. Is it possible they never gave chase?”

“Any reasonable mind might think this way,” John Kirby said. “But these are not reasonable minds we're dealing with.”

“Then we must save the talk for later,” Maude said. “The sheriff might yet make a showing.”

I left the wagon, and John Kirby was right behind me. We hitched the horses to the wagon rail in a tight silence. The doctor remained on the bunk, and I heard Maude settling Rebecca next to him in her rocker.

I took to the wagon seat, and after a moment John Kirby decided to ride up there. He took over handling the team, and I didn't mind it. Those horses took to the trail again as if they were starting fresh, and set a brisk pace.

In the tone of making sure he knew what he was doing, I said, “Are you not worried about someone following us down this trail?”

“If we don't hear from that mob in the next few minutes, we don't have to worry till morning,” he said. “If anyone comes after us in the morning, it'll be the sheriff, and he won't be in a mood to listen to our side of things. Either way, it's a matter of getting as far from here as we can by the middle of tomorrow.”

He was a planner, I had to give him that. And there was no better way to make speed than to follow the trail.

Maude rode watchful at the back door for a time. It was still full dark, and all was quiet. I loosened my jaw just enough to say to John Kirby, “I haven't thanked you for stepping in to help my sister.”

He said, “No need.”

“I don't have a generous supply of sisters,” I said. “This one means a great deal to me. I saw that fellow drawing on her.”

“He might have missed, being jostled by the crowd. But I couldn't take the chance,” he said. “His aim might be bad and he could hit her accidentally. People die both ways.”

I said, “I'm just glad you did not kill him. Maude already stands wrongly accused for a death.”

“You have a point,” he said. “But I wasn't thinking of Maude's reputation. Only my own. As you already know, reputations are easier to pick up than to put down.”

I said to him, “How is it you came to be in Independence to rent Silver Dollar and were in Diamond Springs when we got there?”

“There's a good question,” Maude said, coming to stand behind the wagon seat.

“I was staying for a time in Independence. I got news of my cousin's death in Diamond Springs,” John Kirby said. “He was the newspaperman. The letter-writing business was his as well.”

“So you found yourself set up in business,” Maude said.

“I thought about it,” he said. “But business isn't my game.”

Me and Maude spoke up together. “What game is that?”

“I write books,” he said.

I said, “What kind of books?”

“True stories, when there's a call for it. I could write your sister's story.”

“You were planning to write about my sister.” I felt the beginnings of excitement in my belly. “That's why you followed us. Admit it.”

John Kirby said, “Don't you want your sister's story told?”

“I don't want another lie told.” A truthful account did matter to me, for what use was it otherwise? But it wasn't only the thought of truth made my heart beat harder. I was ever a fool for an interesting story.

Maude wasn't decided; I could see it in the set of her mouth.

John Kirby said, “You are, what? Ten years old? Who has the last word here?”

“I do, and I'm thirteen.”

“She's twelve,” Maude said, “and she makes an excellent point. Do you have the truth in you?”

“You don't trust me?” he said.

Maude turned from him a little, impatience partly, but also, she didn't trust him entire. “We have a great deal more than a twenty-five-cent letter riding on your answer,” I said.

“Think of it this way,” he said, talking direct to Maude. “I'll make you the hero of your story. People are near to admiring you for your boldness; it won't take much to make them love you.”

Maude said, “What people are you talking about? The law wants to hang me.”

“Public sentiment hangs more men than the law,” John Kirby said.

I said, “Would such a book clear my sister's name?”

“It will go a long way toward swaying public opinion,” John Kirby said.

Rebecca piped up from inside the wagon. “Public sentiment won't want to punish her for any misdeeds that occurred while she was trying to save herself. And she did indeed act the hero tonight.”

“Public sentiment does not always carry the day,” the doctor said. “She will have to prove her innocence.”