The Man from Shenandoah (12 page)

“Just the one, and he smokes these thin cigars. I found three more stubs up there. Something puzzles me, though. I thought maybe these folks might be those toughs from back yonder in Kansas town, but the feller up the hill didn’t mind getting a little dirt on his britches. Your Mexican friend was powerful upset when you dusted up his clothes, so was it really him and his cronies?”

“I mussed up his fancy duds, but he’s not likely to wear them on the trail. I got a crawling up my back tells me we got Berto Acosta and his pals tracking us.”

Rulon took one last look around the base of the knoll. “Well, we’d best get back. I’ll report to Pa. I’ve a feeling he won’t like what I have to tell him.” He laughed and shook his head.

“There ain’t nothing funny about this, Rule.”

“Only funny thing is that you have to sit up there day after day alongside the girl who brought this whole mess upon us.”

“What’re you saying?” Carl demanded.

“Mary’s fool sister couldn’t wait for an escort to get into town, so she drug the other two girls along with her, and almost got the three of them despoiled. I’d say that makes her to blame for this mess.”

“I’d just as soon take a poke at you here and now, Rulon. Ida didn’t mean anything, heading into town. If anybody’s to blame, it’s them three rowdies, especially Berto Acosta. Ida’s blameless, and I won’t allow you nor anybody else to pin the fault on her.”

“You got yourself a case of hot blood there, little brother. Mind it don’t get you into trouble.”

“Don’t push me, Rule.” Carl climbed on his horse and started back toward the wagons, biting his tongue in regret at his hard words. He didn’t know why he felt compelled to defend Ida, because he knew she was partly to blame for the trouble.

~~~

Carl relieved James at the lines of the freight wagon, and spent the rest of the morning in grim silence. When the wagons stopped for the nooning, Carl helped Ida down from the wagon seat and looked at her gravely. “I ain’t been good company this morning, and I’m sorry for it.”

Ida smiled. “I’ll pay it no mind, Carl.”

“I’ve got to go talk with my brother. You stay put. No wandering away from the wagons, you hear? It’s important, girl.” He looked sternly into her blue eyes, and wagged his finger under her nose for emphasis.

“You’re mighty serious, Carl,” she giggled.

“I’m mighty serious,” he agreed, nodding as he escorted her and her sister to the Hilbrands’ family wagon.

“Sorry I left you out there, Rulon,” Carl apologized stiffly once he located his brother. “I reckon my fool temper is stronger than my sense. Did you talk to Pa?”

“Yep.”

“Well, what did he say about our watchers?”

“He thinks we’re most likely right about who they are and who they’re laying for.”

“Well? What’s he going to do?”

“He didn’t say, Carl. You know Pa. He’ll contemplate on the situation for a spell before deciding what action to take. We’ll have to wait.”

“That’s so.”

~~~

Before the travelers hitched up for the afternoon march, Rod sent word around that he wanted to talk to the men. When they had gathered, he told them what Carl and Rulon had discovered behind the hill. Rod rubbed his beard and squinted around the horizon.

“There’s no need to alarm the women folks. I reckon if we keep a sharp watch behind us, we can go along about like we have.”

“Are you crazy, man?” Rand Hilbrands sputtered, his face red and mottled. “I say we should stay here and circle the wagons, wait for them ruffians to appear, and meet them from a position of strength.”

“We could sit here for a week, waiting for trouble to find us, our food and water running out, when we should be miles down the road toward the Territory. That’s not good tactics, Rand.”

“You think because you were an officer and I stayed home, I don’t know anything. Well, this I know: I’ll not run from a fight. You go along with your two wagons, if you’re too scared to stick and defend yourself and your women folks.”

“Don’t be a fool, Randolph. If they want to make trouble, together we have twice their number. You’ll sit here and divide us up with your fool talk, and make it easy for them to wipe you out.”

“I ain’t going, Rod Owen. I aim to stay right here and fight it out, and yes, with your boy at my side. I paid for his work, and I’ll keep his rifle here.” He turned to the other men. “Tom O’Connor, you never ran from a fight, either. Stay with me.”

The brawny blacksmith nodded. “I never ran, for a fact. I’m bound to back a man who’ll stand and fight.”

“Will the lot of you sit around and burrow into the trail then, waiting for those men to spook you like a bunch of rabbits?” Scorn thickened Rod’s voice. “Devil take the ruffians. Who’ll go on with me to Colorado?”

“I’ll go, Rod,” answered Chester Bates. “I see no sense in waiting for trouble to find me.”

“The farther we go, the nearer we are to home,” observed Ed Morgan. “I’m with you, Rod. You have my son Tom’s rifle, too.”

Angus Campbell glanced around at the angry faces. “I’d favor going on, Rod, but I can’t leave Tom and his little ones. I reckon I have to stay with my kinfolks.”

“You’re a good man, Angus. I’m sorry to lose you. Godspeed to you, then. We’ll go on.” Rod turned his back on those who elected to stay, and took Carl by the shoulder.

“You ma will take this parting hard, Carl, but you’ve a duty to stay and see that fool and his freight wagon get on the way again. He’s putting us in double danger, splitting our firepower, but I won’t sit and wait. The season is late enough now.”

Carl nodded dumbly, his throat choked tight with shock. He shook hands with his father, then, as Rod walked away, Carl called out.

“Pa! How’ll I find you in Colorado?”

“Follow the trail, son. Once you catch sight of the mountains, you look sharp for my sign.”

Carl got his gear and his saddle out of the family wagon, dumped it in a pile, and tied Sherando to the back of the freight vehicle. The day burned hot, with no beauty to temper his misery, and Carl felt dull-witted while the Owen group got under way. He stood gazing at his family as the four wagons turned miniature in the distance, finally being swallowed up in a cloud of dust. Then he turned and sat down against a wagon wheel, his rifle across his knees.

Rand Hilbrands swaggered a little with his new position of command. The other men hitched up their teams and drove them into a square. He walked around and around the puny shelter of the four wagons, assigning men to stand watch.

“You there, Carl. Get some rest. You’ll have the first watch after nightfall.”

Carl got his bedroll from the pile where he’d dumped his gear. He unrolled it and lay down beneath the wagon, but sleep would not come in the afternoon heat. Turning over on the blanket, he opened his eyes to see the hem of Ida’s skirt.

The girl bent over to look at him. “I’ll rub your shoulders, Carl, help you relax a bit,” she offered.

“It wouldn’t be seemly,” Carl said, “you scooting under here with me.”

“Fiddlesticks!” she declared, and crawled under the wagon beside him. “You’re my man, and you need to get your mind and body laid to rest before you can sleep. I reckon it’s my duty to help us all, you going on watch later, and all.”

Carl looked up at her, keeping silent.

“I’m sorry your pa took off in such a hurry, Carl. If that nasty brute is following us, we could use a few more guns to chase him away. I think my pa is so brave to set here ready to stand him off. I am so thrilled.”

Carl sighed wearily and declined to answer.

Ida leaned over him and began to rub his shoulders. He sensed the nearness of her body to his, smelled a faint odor of lilacs, then willed his muscles to go slack under her hands. Soon, her kneading manipulations eased the pain of tension. “That feels mighty good,” he grunted, not caring any longer about the possessive way she was touching him. If Ida didn’t care that her pa saw what she was doing, he wouldn’t care either. Then, he succumbed to the heat and his fatigue and shock, and slept.

When he awoke, the sun was gone and supper was ready, cooked over a large campfire. Uneasy at the amount of light cast upon the prairie, Carl looked around for his father to protest. Then, remembering the split that the group had undergone, he shrugged his shoulders and yawned.

Ida smiled at him across the camp as he crawled from under the wagon, and a shiver of warning went up Carl’s spine.
By gum, that girl has something on her mind, and I ain’t got no taste to find out what it is just now
, he thought. He arranged his blankets into a neat bed, then stood, got his plate, and approached the fire.

Amanda Hilbrands served him a scoop of beans, some biscuits, and a mug of chicory coffee, eyeing him from under her pale brows. “You slept well enough after Ida tended to you, I see,” she said. “My daughter has healing hands. Her daddy sent her to rub those tired muscles of yours. He says she’s got a real talent.”

Carl stared woodenly at Mrs. Hilbrands, thinking he had not heard right, then walked over to a barrel and sat. He ate silently, gulping down the hot brew in his cup. When his food was gone, Carl drained his mug and threw the grounds into the fire. He dropped his plate and mug into the washtub, wiped his knife on his trousers, and got his rifle from the wagon wheel. Then he walked out a ways from the hubbub of the camp and took his turn on watch.

Gradually, the noises of the camp subsided as the women washed and put away the dishes and the travelers retired to their beds. Glad when the fire died, Carl walked around the outside of the wagons, listening to the night sounds, alert for any unfamiliar noise. He took up a position for a time, then circled the wagons again, never keeping to a set pattern that a watcher could count on.

He listened as the night insects chirped early in the evening, then they, too, went to sleep and he was left in the solitude.

Dwarfed by the immensity of the night sky, Carl wondered where his family was that night. He drove his fist into his hand in frustration at the lowly rank he held in this company that kept him from talking sense into Rand Hilbrands. In Rand’s eyes, he was barely more than a kid, a hired driver, not yet a son-in-law, and not worth listening to. Besides, he was Rod’s son, and right now, that was a count against him. How long would they be here, perched on the side of the road, waiting, and sitting, and eating up the food and drinking the water barrels dry?

When his hours of watch were up, he awakened Tom O’Connor, then prevented him from throwing an armful of fuel onto the fire.

“Let’s don’t show them were we are, Mr. O’Connor.”

“Right, lad. I guess I’m still used to a roaring fire in the hearth of the smithy. It comforts a man, somehow.” Tom went off to take up his position, while Carl returned to the freight wagon to crawl into his blankets.

The next day, Carl spent several hours in Sherando’s saddle, scouting the back trail. He wished Rulon was with him, with his tracking experience, but even without him, he was sure he had not missed anything when he returned and reported to Rand.

“There’s nobody out there, Mr. Hilbrands. Not a sign of folks watching us, not a cigar stub, not a blade of grass bent down for miles around.”

“You’re sure you missed nothing, boy?” asked Angus Campbell. “If they’re not out there, we might as well go on, don’t you think, Rand?”

“No! We’ll wait and fight them from a position of strength!” he trumpeted. “They’re out there, all right. They’re just waiting for a weak moment, a wavering on our part, to close in and destroy us. We’ll wait, I say, and outwit them.”

Carl turned away and went to rub down Sherando.
The man is hell-bent on staying until we all take root
, he thought.
There’s no turning his mind to the righteous path
. Grumbling to himself, Carl worked with his horse, cooling it down from the exercise of the morning. Tom O’Connor walked over, and rubbed the horse’s nose.

“Nothing to be seen, lad?”

“Maybe they went back to the last stage stop to drink some courage,” Carl mumbled. “Acosta saw we were well armed when he spied on us, Mr. O’Connor. He’ll have to make a plan other than ‘catch up and shoot’.”

Tom clapped Carl on the shoulder with his massive hand. “That’s thinking, boy. We’re ready for anything, here. But things have changed. There’s less of us now.”

“And he doesn’t know it yet. I don’t reckon there’s any chance of fooling him when he shows up. Eight wagons, take-away four leaves us with the odds about even, and he’ll know it sure as daylight spills over the edge of that prairie when the sun rises.”

Tom’s black brows drew together. “I’m beginning to think twice about this plan of Rand’s. We should have stuck together.”

Carl spun around to face the blacksmith. “It’s too late to change your mind now,” he said, gritting his teeth against striking out at the man. “You should’ve said that when Pa gave you the chance. We’re double-dyed fools to sit here and waste time.”

“Wait a minute, boy. Are you calling me a fool? Better think twice, yourself.”

Carl stood himself up straight. “We’re all fools, one day or another. And I ain’t a boy, Mr. O’Connor. I ain’t been a boy since I joined Mosby.” He jabbed his finger into Tom’s chest.