Easing sideways in the saddle, in a vain attempt to relieve a body wearied and cramped from traveling too far, too fast, Talmadge Jones reined in his gray gelding at the top of a small rise. He narrowed his eyes, and peered off into the far distance. The dust was still there, still hanging in the air for a long time before it did a little dancing and flirting with the wind. Then it sort of drifted away, faded back into the grayish monotone of the high desert landscape of alkali, sage, and rabbit grass. The way Tal saw it, that dust, coming up from the wheels of a train of freight wagons, wasnt getting any closer. As a matter of fact, it seemed to be angling off toward the west, away from the direction it was supposed to be traveling. And that caused him a some little worry. He couldnt figure the why of it, not when the wagons were supposed to be, according to the man who had hired him, moving straight toward where Tal was sitting a-top his gelding. But, they damned sure werent. Four days worth of whiskers darkened his cheeks and chin, added a little length to his handlebar mustache. The dark, silver-threaded beard had caught itself a goodly crop of dust and grime. He gave his jaw an absent scratch as he pondered the vast expanse of sage and sand, and the dust trail of what he hoped was his quarry: the five wagons of drinking liquor he had been hired to guard. Still, a man had to be cautious; especially with some of the Bannocks and Paiutes off the reservation and doing themselves a little burning, killing, and marauding—and taking a right smart amount of glee in the doing. But the Indians werent the big worry that was gnawing at his vitals like some sort of trapped critter. That was something else, something he had heard, more than once, and didnt want to believe, but belief kept nagging at him. Ambrose Raiter, the saloon owner who had hired him, wasnt an easy man, and he had made himself more than a few enemies. And if the tales were true, one or two, or maybe a whole pack of those enemies were out to get Raiter any and every way they could. Even if it meant robbing. Or a few innocent folks getting hurt bad or even killed along the way. Innocent folks like Raiters wife who was supposed to be coming to Oregon from Winnemucca—not that Raiter had said a word about that little bit of news. No, indeed, and Tal hadnt done any asking. It didnt do for a man like him to be poking around in somebody elses business—especially when that somebody was paying his wage. Tal scratched at his whiskers again and shook his head. Likely if she had any sense at all, Mrs. Raiter, and the two or three soiled doves she was supposed to be bringing with her, would wait until late spring before she tried crossing the two-hundred miles of pure nothing that separated the railroad station in Winnemucca from Raiters place in Oregon. Late fall and winter was a real bad time for traveling across the high desert. Still, even if he hadnt mentioned the women, it was passing strange that Raiter had hired Tal to meet the wagon train at Sod House and protect the liquor. With the well-used Colts, cross-belted and hanging low on his hips, if needs be. Protecting it from Indians and outlaws and other folk with a thirst bigger than their sense. Which, given Tals considerable experience dealing with such, could cover a right smart amount of folk. Or, he mentally added, with a grin trying to pull at the corner of his mouth, a right dumb amount of folk. Whatever he thought about the mental attributes of the overly thirsty, it didnt do much for the present—or change the itchy feeling he was having about his employer. Brutal to beasts and women, the saloon owner might be a real comer in the Oregon cow country, but he purely wasnt much to Tals seeing. But with only three silver cartwheels, a gold double-eagle, and a couple of half-dimes, about twenty-three dollars and change, standing between him and what was shaping up to be a long cold winter, Tal didnt care much who was hiring his guns. But, no matter what else they said about him and his fast guns, Tal always gave a man what he paid for. And usually did it with no trouble to speak of—not that many trouble-makers were eager to tangle with Talmadge Jones. And, other than the pack of damn fool mule skinners sloping off in the wrong direction, this time didnt look to be much different. Or maybe it did. Something wasnt right, and it wasnt anything he could come close to putting his finger on—maybe it was because of what he had heard about the women, or maybe it was nothing at all. Still and all, he hadnt lived by the gun this long by ignoring his feelings—and he damned sure had them. Feelings that were doing their damnedest to tell him trouble was coming at him with both guns out and blazing, bad trouble. Narrowing his eyes, Tal looked off into the west, peered at the barest trail of dust that rose against the growing wall of dark clouds. Weather breeders, by the looks of them, carrying blow and snow in their bellies and coming in slow and ponderous, like they were fixing to set and stay a spell. By his reckoning, the storm wouldnt be close before late the next day, but the dust trail was closer and, added to the new direction of the liquor train was heading, flat-out suspicious. Judging from the sudden tightening in his belly, not fear exactly, but a kind of tingling, a speck of unease, this new development could make him earn his pay, and then some. Taking off his sweat-stained black Stetson, Tal whacked it a time or two against his knee, giving a little grunt of satisfaction at the result, and then creased it carefully before he returned it to his head. He dug a strip of jerky from his vest pocket, and said, Lets get for getting, horse. Weve got us some moving to do if we want to save Raiter his drinking liquor, and his new whores if theyre traveling with the whiskey, and get us enough money to take off for someplace warm. t couldnt be lost. There wasnt room in the fancy, yellow-wheeled two-seater to lose a flea; it had to be in there. But, it wasnt—that much she knew. Tired and irritated, Edwina backed out of the buggy with its patented cover and roll-down curtains. She jumped to the ground, and stood for a moment, trying to think where she could have put the Japanned writing box with its tale of misdeeds and high adventure in the Wild West. A tale she had started in the hotel in Winnemucca and had, no matter how tired she had been, worked on every evening of their five day journey across the highdesert. Tapping the toe of her dusty Balmoral boot on the ground, hands on her hips, she stood behind the buggy, looking, almost absently, at the camp. Six freight wagons, including the one that held their scanty belongings and a few supplies Ambrose had ordered Livy to bring. Mules being fed and watered, including the two, Big Red and Rude, that she had unhooked from the buggy earlier and led over to the picket line. A campfire where one of the mule skinners was heating something in an iron pot hung on a tripod over the flames. And the rest of the skinners busy with various other chores, making ready for the night. Aunt Edwina. The whisper, coming from the other side of the wagon just in front of her, caught Edwina unaware. Startled, her heart leaping into higher action, she stepped around the vehicle to confront her niece. Meg? Why on earth are you hiding . . . . I didnt want Mama to see me. Her face was hidden within the shadows of her sunbonnet, but, judging from the sniffing and gulping alone, not to mention the quaver in her voice, Edwina was sure the girl was crying. Moving closer, Edwina asked, Why? Whats the matter? Mama begged me not to say anything, but I . . . . Sure she had been found out, that, as she had said, more than once, in her own writing, her dreadful deeds had come to light, Edwina felt her stomach twist into a knot, form a tight tangle of anger and shame. Her hands clenched and she could feel a vein throbbing in her temple, but she said nothing except, Olivia opened my box and found my writing? Is that what youre trying to tell me? After a moment, Meg nodded. It was my fault. I was just going to get some paper to write to Grandma . . . Please, she whispered, dont be mad at Mama, she was crying and . . . Oh, Aunt Edwina, she loves you, she really does, but the preacher said those terrible books were leading . . . . I know what that idiot preacher said, Edwina snapped, letting the anger overwhelm the shame. Whirling away from her niece in a swirl of skirts and petticoats, she stomped, with little puffs of whitish dust coming up with every furious step, across to where her sister stood near the wooden water barrel mounted on the side of the lead wagon. Hands clasped before her, head bowed, black shawl pulled tight around her shoulders, Olivia was obviously deep in prayer, probably begging God to forgive Edwina her terrible sins. By the time she reached her, Olivia had opened her eyes, lifted her head, and was looking at Edwina with an expression of deep sorrow. The same sorrow was in her voice when she asked, Oh, Edwina, you were raised to be good and pure, how could you sink to such depths of depravity and shame us so? Mother and Auntie will never be able to lift their heads again. It was high melodrama, worthy of some of her less respectable literary efforts, but the basic unfairness of what her sister was saying wasnt that easy to bear. Nonetheless, Edwina didnt say, My shameful acts kept our whole family fed, clothed, and out of the poor house, you and your daughters included. But she did say, chin high, eyes blazing, and hurt almost equaling her anger, both sending her voice high, Why? Because I didnt think I could support all of us with the pittance I would earn as a soileddove. Her fingers rushed up to cover her mouth and Olivia gasped. One of the mule skinners snickered. Even one of the mules made a noise that sounded remarkably like laughter. Edwina didnt care. Instead, she licked the bitter dust from her dry lips, glared at her sister, and demanded, Where is it? What did you do withit? Edwina, sister, dont. I beg of you, if you wont think of yourself, think what your sinful ways are doing to those of us who love you. Where? Taking in a quick, frightened-sounding breath, Olivia took a step back, pressed herself against the side of the wagon, looking for all the world as if she expected Edwina to attack her with pitchforks, horns, and fire, Satans tools. Perhaps fearing the same thing, Meg ran between them, spread her arms protectively before her cowering mother, and screamed, No, dont hurt Mama! She is only trying to save your immortal soul! For one unforgivable moment, Edwina was sorely tempted to grab both her sister and her niece and shake some sense into their silly heads. Instead she sighed, moderated her tone, and asked, once again, Where did you dispose of my writing case, Olivia? Even if you dont approve of my behavior, that box is mine, and I want it. And, whats more, Im not about to quit writing just because your mealy-mouthed, sanctimonious preacher has set himself up as a little tin god. Hes not the only one who says those terrible little novels are leading the innocent straight down the road to eternal damnation! Olivia whispered. Not willing to add a new dimension to their disagreement, Edwina asked, once again, Where did you put it, Olivia? Timid in most things, but unexpectedly stubborn in this, Livy shook her head, sending a small cloud of dust up from her black bonnet. She was saved from answering by the cooks shouted, Come and get it, or Ill throw itout. Her arm around her daughters shoulders, Olivia started to move away from the wagon, pausing beside Edwina long enough to say, her voice throbbing with moral righteousness. My dear sister, dont you know that I would rather have starved to death than grown rich on the wages of your sins? That I would rather die than know that I am the cause of your damnation? I know Mama and Auntie feel the same way, and it breaks my heart that I must write and tell them and our dear preacher of your dreadful deeds. It pains me beyond your knowing that I must cause them the sorrow that you have caused me. But I must, I cannot condone evil by my silence. Hurt beyond her sisters knowing by the condemnation, the pious ingratitude, Edwina gritted her teeth, clenched her hands into fists, but she just stood there without saying a word. Pain gripped her throat, throttled her with cruel fingers, made her want to weep, but pride kept her erect and love for her family, if not for her sister at that moment, kept her silent. How could Olivia be so silly? She had been married at the time of their greatest need, and Ambrose wasnt one to help his in-laws. But didnt Livy have enough sense to know that after Papa was killed in the war, there wasnt much else Edwina, fresh out of the schoolroom, could do to support them? And, even if she was going to burn in hell for writing the novels, she couldnt and wouldnt stand by and allow her mother and aunt to die of genteel poverty. Tomorrow, Livy said slowly, the girls and I will ride in one of the freight wagons. They are young and I cannot permit them to . . . She stopped, dabbed at her eyes with the crumpled hankie she had pulled out of her sleeve. They are innocent, and it is my duty to shield and protect them from . . . I love you and I will pray for you, Edwina, but I cannot allow your sins to . . . Oh, sister, how could you? Still touching her eyes with the scrap of linen and lace, head bowed, Olivias was shaking as if with the palsy. Leaning heavily on Megs arm, she walked slowly over to the campfire where their dinner and her other daughter were waiting. Waiting with a group of mule skinners who were pretending to be interested in everything except what was going on between Edwina and her sister. Olivia wasnt too upset to accept the tin plate of food that Becca handed her, but Edwinas appetite was gone. It took her anger and hurt with it, leaving her empty and somehow bereft, sad as the eternally mourning, high desert wind. The orange sun, looking impossibly large, was sliding down behind a massive pile of purplish clouds on the western horizon, but it wasnt yet getting dark. The wind swirled around, kicked up a twist of dust, flung it, and the smell of venison stew, full in her face, almost choking her. Wiping her face, stumbling a little on the uneven ground, she went to the water barrel, dipped in the tin dipper. Edwina had just taken a sip when one of the skinners, a bandy-legged, balding oldster with only three teeth left in his mouth, eased over to where she was standing. Shorty, as he had insisted she call him, had taught her how to drive the mules that pulled the fancy buggy, answered every question she asked. And, much to Olivias disapproval of the familiarity, he called Edwina by her first name, when he wasnt taking advantage of his years and calling her child. He stood there a moment before he pushed back his hat with two fingers, cleared his throat, and said, Edwina, I aint one for coming between kin, but I reckon shes wronging you some. Your sister took that box of yourn, looked inside it, and liked to swooned on the spot—that was a-fore she took her a hike over to the lip of that there gully, did her some right smart praying and a whole lot of tearing, and then pitched the whole shooting-match over the edge. Thank you for telling me, Shorty, Edwina said, marveling that her voice sounded so normal, so soft and courteous, when it should have been as dull and empty as the rest of her. As she returned the dipper to its nail, she tried to force her lips into a smile, but smiling was beyond her at the moment. She just walked away, heading in the direction he had indicated, but knowing it was useless, that nothing of the writing remained. The wind was as ruthless as her sister, and between them they would have destroyed what had taken Edwina many weary hours of hard labor to produce. The wind was blameless, but Livy was a fool. A sanctimonious fool who would return to her brute of a husband, allow him to beat her black-and-blue, maybe even kill her, because it was her wifely duty, and then condemn Edwina for writing tales of adventure and . . . Shivering, Edwina took a deep breath, fought against the return of sensation, of hurt that was trying to crowd her throat, burn her eyes, but she wasnt aware the old mule skinner was walking beside her until he said, Child, Id be mighty pleased iffen youd . . . He shrugged out of his heavy wool coat and draped it over her shoulders as he added, lowering his voice so only she could hear, Go along now and do what you hafta do. Ill see to that there aint a soul comes a-bothering you. The coat smelled of sweat and mule and dirt, but Edwina was grateful for its warmth, and for his concern. She thanked him, pushing the words through stiff lips, as she put her arms into the garment and buttoned it snug. He stood there a moment longer before he said, I aint be knowing the straight of it, but theres something going on that stinks to high heaven. Raiter be your kin, too, and I aint got the right to bad-mouth him, but theres been a heap of whispering going on about his wife and the girls and maybe even you, and Ive got me a notion that . . . . Oh, hell, dont pay me no mind, just go on down and get whats yourn. But, be careful, child. Real careful. My old bones be telling me somethings gonna happen. Something real bad. That said, Shorty turned abruptly and strode away without giving her any more advice. She knew, in some vague way, he was trying to warn her about something, maybe even something to do with Olivia and the girls and what Raiter was planning for them. She tried to listen, but Edwinas attention was all on the deep gully and its burden of white, wind-tossed papers, papers that moved, hid in the deepening shadows, beckoned. Slipping and sliding down the steep, rocky canyon wall, she made her own cloud of dust but she reached the bottom more or less intact. Which was far more than could be said about her writing materials. The sturdy case, a final gift from her father before he went off to war, had withstood the rigors better than she expected and, although it would never again be the same, could probably be repaired. The ink bottle was shattered. She found two of the steel nibs, and one holder, but all else was lost, broken, scattered. There were other supplies in her trunk for her future endeavors, but her writing wasnt that easily replaced. Despite her need to repress it, feeling began to creep back and erase the numbness. Hurt, anger, fear, and shame took turns shaking her, clawing at her, burning in her chest, her eyes, her heart. And, standing in the bottom of a deep ravine, the wind moaning like all the lost souls in hell, the sky growing perceptively darker, Edwina Parkhurst felt more alone that she had ever felt in her life. Reaching down she picked up a piece of paper, looked at what remained of the torn and crumpled page, and hurt and loneliness overwhelmed her. Tears started in her eyes, ran down her cheeks as Edwina stumbled on down the narrow gorge, picking up papers as she went. Papers that Livy had all but destroyed before she had thrown them to the wind and desert. Crying in great gulping sobs, cradling the torn pages against her breast, Edwina retreated far down the canyon, crept into the shadows, finally hiding herself in a shallow cave that had been water-gouged into the back of a huge rock. The wind rose to new heights, howling down the ravine like some demented beast, and she wanted to howl right along with it. Perhaps she did, sometime in the growing darkness of the, as yet, moonless night. Perhaps she howled and screamed and beat her hands against the sand before she huddled down in her meager shelter and cried herself into a restless and uneasysleep. The moon was already up and far to the west when a burst of sound, sharp, cracking, echoing and re-echoing from the walls of the ravine, slammed into her sleep, jerked her into dry-mouthed, fearful waking. Disoriented, Edwina sat up, looked around, saw nothing beyond the utter darkness of pooled moon-shadows and light-glittered frost on the patches between. Shaking, not entirely from the bitter cold, heart pounding, she strained her ears, listened for something, anything to tell her what she had heard was nothing, a fragment of dream, harmless. The night gave her no such reassurance. It only added to her sense of foreboding. For several, very long minutes her entire world became deathly quiet, the wind died, the sage was unmoving. It was the breath-holding silence of a world filled with foreboding, waiting for some awful doom, and then it was broken, shattered by the blast of sound, a veritable barrage of explosivesound. This time Edwina knew, with a pain in her chest and fear clutching her throat, what the sound was—if not who was doing the shooting. Olivia! She flung the hoarse, anguished cry into the night sky and started to run, retracing the path she had taken earlier. She prayed with every labored breath that her sister and nieces were safe. That the gunfire wasnt actually coming from their camp. That the mule skinners werent trying to repel a superior force of attacking Paiutes and Bannocks, face-painted savages intent on pillage and murder. But she knew, with a terrible, heart-breaking certainty, that it was the Indians she had heard about, knew it had to be. The terrible knowledge didnt give wings to her leaden strides, nor did it give new strength to her weary body; instead it drained her, made she weak. She stumbled, fell full-length, knocking the breath from her lungs, and scratching the side of her face on something sharp and unyielding. Struggling to her feet, she stood for a moment, drawing in burning breaths of night-chilled air, and fought to regain some of her scattered senses. Only to have them scattered anew by more gunfire, gunfire and the terrible scream of what had to be a dying man. almadge Jones spurred the gelding to greater effort, swore, at himself not the animal, as the beast stumbled almost fell. Easy, boy, Tal said, reining him in a little, letting him pick his way down the ruts that the mule train had left to mark its passage. The second outbreak of firing was close, close enough for him to bring the sweating horse to a stop, climb down, drop the reins, pull the Winchester from the saddle boot. He levered a shell into the chamber. Made his cautious way across the bleached-bone white of an alkali playa and up a small rise, with never a thought that the horse might stray and leave him stranded in the middle of the desert. The freight wagons were just beyond the rise—the wagons and whoever was doing the shooting. Slipping from shadow to shadow, he crouched, ran, paused to listen, and then ran again until he was at the backside of the end wagon. He waited, trying to separate friend from foe—if thats the way the game had to be played. It wasnt long before Tal got his first shock. Please! Please, for the love of God, I beg you, dont hurt my girls! Theyre only babies! The words were soft, filled with despair, and female. A woman? Out here? With her babies? Riding with Raiters drinking liquor and a pack of brainless skinners? It didnt make a lick of sense, but it had to be Raiters wife that was doing the talking, but what did she mean when she said babies? What, in the Name of God, was going on? Those two questions fact gave Tal a flicker of real disquiet, lowered his guard for a fraction of a second. It was enough, more than enough. Just as he heard the woman cry, Help me. Oh, Ed . . . Her keening wail was cut off, in mid-word, by a triggered six-gun. The hot lead found its target. Blood streaming down his face, Talmadge Jones, gunfighter, dropped where he stood, sprawled on the cold sand at the rear of a freight wagon, fell with his own Colts still holstered, his Winchester unfired. http://www.hardshell.com |