Medicine Road (15 page)

"This is close enough," breathed Jesse, studying
her frowning face. "Glory to God, they're pure
blue!"

"What are? What are you talking about?"

"Your eyes, ma'am. They're bluer than a South
Dakota sky, and that's somewhat. I allow they had
to be, too, ma'am. Seems I just knowed that all
along."

"Look, I don't know what you mean, mister, and I
don't care. You go away right now or I'm going to
start yelling. It's silly to stand here like this, and, besides, these leaves are scratching me."

"I envy them, ma'am," said Jesse rashly.

"All right, I warned you. Here goes the yell."

"Wait a minute, Missus O'Mara." She caught the
earnestness in the plea, checked her shout. "I'll ride
along, but I just want to say this." His eyes bored
into hers, making her drop her gaze, blush hotly,
feel, all at once, the hard-framed man of him. "I always said that, if I ever found the woman I wanted,
and she had blue eyes, hell couldn't get that water
high enough to keep me away from her. Well,
ma'am, I've found her and her eyes are just as blue
as a man could dream."

She didn't answer, keeping her lashes downswept. When she did raise her head, he was still sitting there.

"Good bye, Lacey." The blue-eyed, prairie-burned
look of him ran down her spine, chilling her whole
body with its excitement. "I'll see you, again."

He was gone after that, jogging his ugly gray
pony toward the old fort walls, leaving her in
mouth-parted silence.

Lacey O'Mara gasped. The nerve of him! The
sheer gall! Sitting and watching her walk around
naked, then quietly telling her he was going to have
her, hell or high water-mainly, to judge from his laconic remarks, because her eyes were blue! Hah! Well, the world was full of strange people and he
was a relief, anyway. Not many had his clean, fierce
look and easy, straight way of talking.

She watched the tall ramrod of his figure going
toward the timber, sitting the little horse like an Indian, long legs dangling straight down. There was
plenty in those wide shoulders, hanging red hair,
narrow sun-blackened face, and piercing eyes to excite far less hungry women than Lacey O'Mara. He
was just another man, though, for all his hard good
looks and outlandish buckskin fringes. If you were a
woman as old as Lacey, you had to remember that.
You couldn't let yourself get to thinking about any
man when you were thirty years old and had two
kids of your own. Two kids and a bad lot like Tim
O'Mara for your husband.

Nonetheless, she was still looking at Jesse when
he checked the mare short of disappearing in the
timber. Wheeling Heyoka, he called softly back:
"Ma'am, you get them other women and come on
into camp! It's the Injuns, ma'am, but don't scare
them up about it. Just hustle them on in."

She nodded, waving a bare arm in reply. He
waved back, turning the horse out of sight behind
the screening cottonwoods.

When Jesse rode into the emigrant camp, he found
the men folk gathered around the ashes of the
morning cook fire. They were a seedy, whippedhound bunch if a man ever saw one. The kind of an
outfit, Jesse allowed, that God spent his off nights
sitting up looking after.

He came to them without giving any greeting or
getting any. Swinging off Heyoka, he dropped the
hackamore rope to the ground, went in long, bentkneed strides toward them.

"Howdy." His lean, square-shouldered figure in
its grease-blackened buckskins and loose belt of
blazing Sioux beadwork worked in sharp contrast to
the slovenly homespuns, flat hats, and crude
cowhide boots of his listeners. "I'm Jesse Callahan
as works for Jim Bridges up to the fort."

"Howdy," a couple of the men mumbled replies,
not bothering to get up with them. The rest sat and
stared, saying nothing.

"Who's in charge?" Jesse demanded, his eyes not liking what he saw of these scarecrows, his knowledge of the Medicine Road telling him their story
before they had a chance to.

"Tim is, I guess," one of the men vouchsafed.
"Leastways, he says he is."

"Tim who?" Jesse asked, directing his question to
the man who had answered him.

"O'Mara," the other grunted.

"Well, which one of you is O'Mara?"

"He ain't around," said the spokesman.

"And where might he be, mister?" Jesse was beginning to get nettled with the plumb dumb attitude of the emigrants.

"Down yonder by the fork. Relieving hisself, I
reckon. I think I seed him head in behind them
bushes a few minutes ago. 'Course, I wouldn't
know."

"You don't appear to know much." Jesse nodded,
turning his back on them. "O'Mara! Where are you?
Sing out."

The mountain man threw his call toward the
brush the other man had indicated, got his answer
in a surly growl from behind the screening foliage.

"Over here taking care of myself, damn you!
What's it to you?"

Jesse thought that over. It stumped him enough so
that he hunkered down with the others to await the
pleasures of Mr. O'Mara's peristalsis. Meanwhile,
he fired questions at the hollow-cheeked men, got
enough answers to add up to what he had already
figured.

The group was emigrant land seekers from east
Kansas Territory, around Shawnee. They had banded
together and headed West with eight ox wagons.
They had been California bound, had gotten as far as Fort Bridger with fair trail luck and no Indian
scrapes.

Jesse had nodded, understanding that last part of
it. No self-respecting Sioux or Cheyenne, much less
any high-caste Arapaho, would bother a scrubby
bunch like these.

At Fort Bridger the outfit had found themselves
dangerously low on funds, had listened to the
friendly advice of Jim Bridger, and turned back for
the settlements. The old mountain man had pointed
out to them the lateness of the season, the poor condition of their wagon stock, and the good chance of
their running into a fatal snow trap in the distant
Sierras. Jesse could understand that, too, and it
made real sense.

When the emigrants had voted to turn back, Tim
O'Mara, their hired guide, had refused to head back
with them, saying he had business that wouldn't
keep waiting for him in Salt Lake. They had paid
him off and he had taken out for the Mormon capital
alone, abandoning his woman and young ones who,
for some reason, refused to go with him.

The emigrants had pulled into Paiute Crossing
the night before Jesse found them. But it was only
this very morning, just after the Arapaho village
had arrived, that Tim O'Mara had suddenly and unaccountably shown up again, saying only that his
affairs in Salt Lake were in hand and that he was offering to guide them back to Shawnee without
wages.

At this point in the discussion, Tim O'Mara came
slouching out of his leafy privy. One eye-tail look at
him and Jesse knew he had his hands full. Tim was a
big man, far bigger than Jesse. He was that kind of a
bear of a man the Irish frequently breed. Hefty, ham-handed, a meat slab of a face, roughly handsome a few years back, now coarsening up fast.
Small-eyed, hot-tempered, not smart. A bad man
sober, a pure bastard drunk.

"Howdy." Jesse nodded. "I'm Jesse Callahan."

"Yeah, I heard your big mouth going. What do
you want?"

"Looks like you could use some help. Leastways,
your folks can. Maybeso, I can give it to you."

"We ain't got any money." The statement wasn't
an apology, it was a challenge, and Jesse knew the
big emigrant was watching him, sizing him up,
fighting wise.

"I said give it to you," the mountain man replied,
careful to see that his words came out without flavor, one way or the other.

"You mean guide for us? Hell, I guess we know
the way by this time. Backwards, anyway. We just
come over it."

"I didn't say what I meant," announced Jesse
slowly, "but I'm aiming to if...."

"Why don't you climb your hoss, mister?" The big
man's interruption was harsh. "We've had all the
trouble we need and we ain't lost no squawman in
buckskins and Injun shoes. Go on, get moving!"

With the words, O'Mara moved toward the
mountain man, the glint in his pig eyes saying, clear
as glass, that he'd be mainly pleased if Jesse didn't
aim to accommodate his order. The red-haired trapper stood up easy and cautious. He'd seen his share
of Tim O'Maras, handled them as they came along.
You didn't talk to a slob like that. Leastways, not
with your mouth.

Tim stopped two steps away, feet braced, tiny eyes
pinning Jesse's non-committal glance. "You getting on that hoss by yourself, little man, or is Tim
O'Mara boosting you up?"

The other men were finding their feet, moving
away from the fire.

"Help yourself," said Jesse quietly, and made his
move.

None of the bystanders saw how that Hawken's
butt got switched around in the mountain man's
hands, much less Tim O'Mara seeing it. But they all
heard the grunt that exploded out of the hulking
Irishman as the rifle stock drove itself halfway to the
trigger guard in the hard fat of his belly. Tim doubled forward, covering his stomach, stumbling
toward Jesse. The mountain man side-stepped as he
came, letting him fall past him, the rifle swinging in
another blurred arc as he did. The crack of the barrel
steel on Tim's thick skull sounded like a double-bit
axe bouncing off an elm burl.

"Prop him against that wheel," Jesse directed,
"and slosh him with that can of coffee water."

A belt on the head with a rifle barrel will slow a
bear down. When he came around, Tim stayed
where he was, sagged against the wagon wheel, listening sullenly to Jesse's talk. While the latter was
having his say, the womenfolk, returning from the
slough, drifted up to stand, gray and silent, behind
their men.

"The first thing," the mountain man began, "is
that Injun camp, yonder. They're meaning you some
trouble, or I don't know red skin when I see it. Soon
as I'm done talking to you, I'll mosey over there and
palaver with them. See can I get a line on their aims
and ambitions as regards you folks. Meanwhile, I
want you should listen close to what I've got to say. I
got a twelve-wagon freight outfit due in here this af ternoon. With them spanned out around you, you'll
be safe for right now. But I got to roll them wagons
on up to Fort Bridger. We can't lay over here, at all.
Now, if you're smart, you'll tag on up to Gabe's fort
with us, then hook up with a strong outfit heading
east. Next to that, you can wait right here until one
comes through, eastbound. But on no account should
you head east alone. I've just had some trouble with
a strong bunch of Arapahoes back yonder where
you're bound for. They're regular trail raiders and
spoiling for any kind of bait right now. We whipped
their tails offen them, the way that Injuns look at
such things, and I allow the next white outfit they see
will get charged for the lesson. I advise you not to let
it be yours."

"Mister," the man named Tom Yarbrough, the one
who had spoken to Jesse before, answered him, "I
believe you. We should ought to do what you say.
But hang it all, we cain't. We ain't got the food, nor
the extry draft cattle, no more. If we head on back
right away, we might just last it out to Shawnee. We
ain't got no choice, mister. We got to go on back."

Tim, his wits unscrambling gradually, was watching the talk now. Not looking at Jesse, he grunted an
obscene agreement with Tom Yarbrough's objections.
Encouraged, the other men began speaking up testily.
Jesse, seeing he was licked for the minute and hoping
he could get the emigrants to listen to Andy Hobbs
when the powder train got in, broke up the meeting.

"All right, we'll leave it the way it is till my wagons get in. Then we can put the whole thing up to
the company wagon master. He's been with the
Choteaus for thirty years, and working this Oregon
Trail for fifteen of that time. I allow you'd listen to
him where likely you wouldn't to me."

Several of the men nodded. Jesse looked at Tim
O'Mara, waiting for him to speak.

"What do you say, Tim?" he asked finally. "You
willing to talk it over again, tonight? When Hobbs
and the company outfit gets here?"

The burly emigrant got up, bracing his back along
the wheel to let himself make it. When he stood, he
swayed a little before his legs steadied. A thin trickle
of blood was seeping from his nostrils, a blue lump
the size of a horse-collar gall growing behind his left
ear. His eyes, beginning at the ground, ran slowly
up Jesse's leggings and across his hunting shirt,
came to rest squinting fully on the mountain man's
dark face. His tongue ran over his upper lip, clearing it of the blood. He drew in through his nose,
gathering the phlegm and mucous in his mouth. His
words, along with the blood and spittle, were spat
viciously into the ground at Jesse's feet.

"You can kiss my butt, squawman. I'm through
talking."