“I know they are men,” the cook said.
“Holster it,” Story ordered. “We got what we came for. Get on your horse, Hannah. Round up the steers that strayed and let’s get out of here before those sons of bitches realize they outnumber us eight to one.”
Swearing, Hannah lowered the hammer, shoved the revolver into the holster, kicked the Indian’s ankle, and climbed into the saddle.
John Catlin picked up the Enfield he had dropped and looked at the nearest warrior, who covered his bloodied face with both hands. “Hell,” Catlin whispered. “He looks punier than a starving squirrel.”
Walking by, Story glanced at the Indian, then back at the herd, and at the roasting quarter of one of his steers on the fire. “Thompson,” he said. “Don’t bother with that heifer and that steer back there. They’re so sore-footed, they’d never make it to Montana.” He kicked his horse into a walk and rode to the other grazing longhorns.
Smiling, Catlin mounted his horse.
“One of these days,” Hannah said, still staring at Story’s back. “I’ll kill that uppity son of a bitch.”
Catlin nudged his horse closer. “Over my dead body,” he told the ramrod. Their eyes met. “He’s a son of a bitch, all right,” Catlin whispered. “But I’d follow that son of a bitch anywhere.”
After spitting to his right, Hannah looked back at Catlin. “If you like following sons of bitches, you might as well follow me to get the rest of his damned longhorns, and let’s get the hell out of here.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY
Boone knelt, glanced at the sleeping girl, at the steaming bowl he held, then looked around the camp and realized he was surrounded by cow shit.
“Hey.” The voice came out weakly, and Boone looked back at Constance Beckett.
He almost spilled the soup. “José made you some soup.” He shoved the bowl toward her, spilling about a fifth of it onto the cold ground. He apologized.
“That’s all right, Boone,” Constance said weakly. “You can just set it beside me. I’m not hungry right now.”
“Oh.” He still held the bowl.
She smiled. “Maybe later.”
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I’ve felt better.” She tried to sit up, and that cost her another few spoonfuls of soup as Boone tried to help her. “It’s all right, Boone,” she said. “I’m not dying.”
He managed to put the bowl on the ground without losing any more contents. Wet his lips. Looked around the campground, then back at her. “You can . . . you can call me . . . Mason.”
“Is that your first or last name?”
He seemed to have to think. “First,” he said. And laughed. “Once upon a time, if somebody called out, ‘Boone,’ I’d have turned around to look for Daniel Boone.”
“Mason.” She tested the name. “I like that.”
His face brightened, then the moment was gone, and Story stood over them. “We’re moving out,” Story said. “Get a horse. I want us at Fort Reno as soon as we can get there.”
Boone said nothing, just rose, didn’t even look back at Constance, and walked away. Story squatted where Boone had been, looked at the bowl, the spoon, then at Constance. His lips moved, but never formed a sentence.
So she said, “Mason Boone’s a good man.”
Story’s eyes bored through her, then tried to melt the soup bowl, finally followed Boone toward the remuda. “He’ll do,” he said, and looked back at her.
“He’s the type of man who doesn’t know how good he really is.”
Story just stared.
“You all right?” he asked after a long pause.
She just nodded.
Just thank me, she thought. Just thank me for saving your life, and go away. It’s all right. I don’t even know why I did it.
“Well,” he said. He rose, pointed at the soup, and said, “You should eat. We’re pulling out.” Standing, he looked down on her, and that made her turn her head and stare at the grass, until she heard his spurs fading away.
She brought her hands to her eyes and tried to stop from crying.
* * *
“Reckon Tom Allen had the right idea.” Bill Petty managed to grin. He lay on one of the cots in the picket house that passed for a hospital at Fort Reno. A few cots away, George Overholt groaned. The rest of the patients were soldiers, though Story doubted if anyone in this ramshackle building other than Petty and Overholt deserved being called soldiers.
Attempting his best smile, Story pulled a few greenbacks out of his vest pocket.
“No,” Petty protested. “You pay at the end of the trail, Virginia City.”
“Fort Reno’s the end for you, Bill.” Story realized what he had just said. “Hell, that’s not what I mean. You know . . .”
Petty laughed. “Nelson, you ain’t much for passing time with conversation.” He lowered his voice. “You need more men. I mean . . .”
Story’s head shook.
“There’s no fight in these men.” He tilted his head toward the allegedly sick soldiers. “All I’ve seen them do is lay around, play cards, and steal from emigrants, though none has guts enough to steal from me.” He let his voice fall to a whisper. “As far as I know, they’ve never heard of General Order Number Twenty-seven.” He slipped the money under Petty’s pillow, and stood, nodding grimly. “Take care of yourself, Bill.” He started to extend his arm for a shake, remembered at the last second, and shoved the hand into his coat pocket. Then he turned, leaving the recently one-armed man inside the post hospital. Once Story stepped outside and felt the chill of the afternoon, he looked back at the roughhewn door and cursed.
* * *
He looked at the child with the tube in her windpipe, sat on the edge of her bed, and held her hand, smiling gently, though she never looked at him. The door opened, the men from Tibbetts’s undertaking outfit took the girl’s mother outside, and a deputy sheriff closed the door. Seth Beckstead felt the girl’s forehead, a little warm, and watched her chest rise and fall.
She kept improving. Would probably live. Tears started down her cheeks, and Beckstead rose, still silent, and stepped away from the row of makeshift beds and cots until he reached the fireplace. He held out his hands, coughed, spit into the flames, sniffed, and tried to feel warm.
A moment later, Doc Sparhan stepped beside him.
Two drunks had become doctors again. “What would . . . ?” Beckstead couldn’t finish, so he nodded at the teakettle on the table. He had meant to ask Sparhan, What will history have to say about us?
“Seth,” Sparhan whispered, “I think I should look at your throat and tongue.”
Beckstead smiled. “Too late, my fine colleague.” Even that much hurt like hell, but Beckstead made himself heard. “The tongue’s black. Like my soul.”
* * *
Shorthanded, they pushed north. So shorthanded, Constance Beckett now drove Bill Petty’s wagon, since Petty and George Overholt remained at Fort Reno. The temperatures dropped, and they gained elevation, now in the hills, the mountains, following the Emigrant Trail.
For the first time in years, she thought about Nashville.
The prairie, the plains behind them now, climbing up. She breathed in deeply, looking at the trees—not stunted trees, not cottonwoods along riverbeds, but tall conifers. The wind brought to her the scent of pine. Sweet, tall, beautiful pine.
And for a moment, she dreamed she had never left Tennessee, never met a louse of a major at a dreary place called Fort Kearny. Yet then the dream ended, and Constance saw that she drove a wagon in the Dakota Territory, bound for Montana, and she glanced behind her, looking for Molly McDonald’s wagon, but it would be too far back. And she liked the feel of the leather lines in her gloved hands, and she imagined the scar she’d have on her side when the stitches—made from horsehair—were out.
This country was so wonderful, and for the first time in long memory, Constance Beckett felt alive. To her surprise, she kept catching herself looking at the trail herd, not
for the cattle, or even at Nelson Story riding in front of the column, but at the point rider, Mason Boone.
At length, she knew why she felt so happy, so alive. She had found her home.
* * *
Riders topped the treeless ridge, briefly halted, and loped toward the herd. Seeing the guidon one rider carried, Story slid the Navy into the holster, told Hannah to keep the cattle moving, and spurred the dun into a gallop. When maybe a hundred yards separated them, Story raised his right hand and pulled gently on the reins, slowing the gelding to a trot, then a walk.
The soldiers stopped first, and Story slowly approached them, stopping in front of the patrol of six men. He hoped these bluecoats were better men than those at Fort Reno.
“Name’s Story,” he said. “Nelson Story. Got a thousand longhorns and wagons of supplies bound for Virginia City.”
“Lieutenant Colonel William Fetterman,” said the soldier on Story’s left. “Eighteenth Infantry out of Fort Phil Kearny.”
Story grinned, and pointed at Fetterman’s blood bay stallion. “Infantry?”
The bluecoat’s face flushed. His hair was dark, wavy, with a mustache intersecting with long, well-groomed sideburns. He held a Colt’s revolving rifle across his lap. He had announced himself as a lieutenant colonel, though the bars on his shoulder ranked him a captain. Brevet colonel, probably. Story would never understand soldiers or their massive egos.
“Captain . . . Colonel Fetterman requested to join us,” the other captain said, and he introduced himself as captain, not major, colonel, general, or senator, James Powell, 2nd Cavalry.
“We were hoping to find some red Indians,” Fetterman said. “They’ve been dogging us for weeks.”
“We found some.” Story gestured southeast. “Just south of Fort Reno.”
“They attacked you?” Powell asked.
Story shrugged. “We sort of attacked each other.”
“How many? Indians, I mean,” Fetterman asked.
“Thirty. Maybe more. It was dark.”
“And how many men did you have?”
Fetterman sure had an inquisitive nature. “I have thirty-five with me now,” he said, hoping they wouldn’t check his math. “Twenty-two wagons.”
“So, it was an even match, you and those red devils?” Fetterman asked, while his friend, the captain of cavalry, just stared blankly at the infantry officer.
“Not exactly.” Story decided to be honest. “I had five men with me. They took some of my cattle. I wanted my cattle back.”
Fetterman laughed, slapped his thigh, and looked at Powell. “See, Jim, what did I tell you? These Sioux are no better than digger Indians. Give me eighty men, and I’ll ride through the whole Sioux nation.”
Story waited a moment, then looked at Captain Powell. “Captain,” he said. “I was hoping to bed down my herd at the fort. For a day or two. Have some horses shod, some injuries attended to, then get home to Virginia City before the snows hit hard.”
The captain nodded. “You will have to address your wishes to Colonel Carrington, Mr. Story. We’ll be glad to escort you back to the fort.”
* * *
Fetterman might have been a glory-hunting fool, but Henry B. Carrington was a jackass. The colonel’s brow knotted, sending canyons of wrinkles stretching from the corners of his eyes to his slicked-back hair, and stroked his thick mustache and chin whiskers, and finally shook his head.
“The grass near this post is needed for army livestock, Mr. Story. You may camp three miles from the post.”
“Three miles.” Story studied Carrington.
“My men are here to protect you. Trained horse soldiers can cover three miles quickly.”
“So can Cheyennes and Sioux.”
Carrington folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair, but did not speak after feeling the bite of Story’s insult.
“Then I’d like to move on,” Story said. “Winter’s coming, and I have miles to go.”
“That I cannot allow,” Carrington said. “The Indians are devilish. They maraud, torment, frustrate, and kill. You must stay here under our protection until the Sioux realize they cannot best the United States Army.”
“Protection,” Story said.
“Correct, Mr. Story.”
“From three miles away.”
Carrington lifted a silver bell off his desktop, rang it, the door opened, and a gaunt sergeant major stepped inside.
“Is there anything else, Mr. Story?” Carrington asked.
Without answering, Story walked past the sergeant major, through the anteroom, out the door, mounted his horse, and waited for the sons of bitches to open the gate to their damned fort so he could get back to his outfit.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE
It had become a daily game. In the morning, Story sent a request to Carrington that he be allowed to leave for Virginia City, and with prompt efficiency the colonel would deny the proposal. In early afternoon, Story asked to be allowed to move closer to the fort. That, too, would be rejected.
“The way I see it,” Catlin said, “the army needs all that pasture for the one saddle horse the Sioux haven’t stolen yet.”
Sitting on a stump and sipping his coffee, Jameson Hannah snorted. “Well, I think they have a few more horses than that.”
“How about us?” Catlin turned away from staring at the fort. “We lose any horses last night?”
“No horses. We keep them well guarded.” Last week, the teamsters had finished two large corrals, one for the remuda, the other for the oxen and mules, and four men guarded both corrals day and night. “But we might have lost two more steers. Peña, Dow, and Boone are following some tracks.”
Standing a few yards from the center of the camp, sipping his coffee, waiting for Connor Lehman to return with Colonel Carrington’s latest denial of Story’s request, Story turned around, “You told them—”
Hannah cut off Story’s comment. “I told them not to go more than a mile. If the tracks keep going, they know to turn back. Two steers aren’t worth dying for.”
“But we can’t let them pick us clean,” Dalton Combs said.
“That’s a peacetime army for you.” Catlin spit and looked across the pastures. A squad of infantry marched along two mule teams pulling wagons with men in the back ready to cut hay. Yesterday, they had dragged logs for firewood or to help fortify the palisade walls that surrounded the fort. “They put up these forts to protect travelers like us. All that did was piss off the Indians and make it damned hard for travelers like us.”
“Here comes Lehman.” Lying in her usual position with her head against the wagon wheel, Molly McDonald pointed her tin cup toward Fort Phil Kearny’s wooden palisade. Connor Lehman trotted on the back of a mule to the edge of the campground before reining up. “He said no. Again.”
Story spit, and Lehman turned the mule toward the corrals.
Rising, Hannah emptied the dregs of his cup and crossed the ground till he stood beside Story. “You gonna stay here till you don’t have one head to sell in Virginia City or stock that ranch you’re planning?”
“No.”
“It’s getting colder every day.”
“It’s that time of year.”
Hannah sighed. “A corpse is a better conversationalist than you,” he said, and walked back to the coffeepot.
Story almost grinned. Back when they had been courting, Ellen once told him the exact same thing.
* * *
She sat on the top rail of the horse corral, whittling and wondering what the folks back in Nashville would think if they could see her now, short hair, sunburned to a deep bronze, wearing men’s duds, and still answering half the time to a man’s name, whittling a piece of pine while watching three riders come trotting in. She let one of the teamsters on guard duty get ready to open the gate.
Three riders. Constance Beckett let out a sigh of relief. They kicked their mounts into a lope and covered the last quarter of a mile quickly, reining up and swinging out of
the saddles as though they had been doing this all their lives. Which, she figured, two of them probably had. But Mason Boone? She wasn’t sure.
Boone stared at her, holding the reins to his brown gelding, and asked, “Story got you on guard duty?”
She laughed. “Not hardly.”
Boone waited, but saw just her smile, and he shrugged and turned to unsaddle his horse. She pitched the stick, folded the knife, and leaped to the ground, waving at George Dow and Fabian Peña, and stopping a few feet behind Boone.
“Did you find the cattle?”
“No. About a dozen pony tracks with them. Guess they’ll be feeding Indians directly.”
“Yeah.” She toed the earth. “I suppose they’re hungry.”
“Not half as hungry as me.”
“Let me fix you a plate,” she said.
Boone turned, wet his lips, his face a mask of bewilderment. She shrugged, grinned, tilted her head. “Well, I never paid you back for all you did when the locusts attacked.”
“I didn’t do much.”
Constance sighed. “You also never told anyone . . . How did you know?”
Boone blinked, turned to work on the bridle, and muttered, “I got sisters back home.”
A grinning Peña came over and took the reins to Boone’s horse. “Let me take him for you, Boone,” the cowhand said, taking the reins with his left hand and grabbing Boone’s saddle with his right, and led the gelding away.
“Come on.” Constance crooked her finger. “José has some beans and biscuits, even got some bacon from the post commissary.” She started away.
From the gate, Fabian Peña called out, “Boone, if you don’t go, I will.”
Boone hurried to catch up with Constance Beckett.
* * *
Boone excused himself from Constance, told her he’d be along in a jiffy, and walked to Story. “No luck,” Boone said. “About a dozen tracks, unshod. Two steers.” He pointed. “Heading up over that tall ridge there.”
“I figured,” Story said, and looked back at the fort.
When he turned a few minutes later, he saw Constance Beckett handing Mason Boone a plate, then filling a cup of coffee. Like a damned homemaker.
A Thousand Texas Longhorns Page 37
