by Tim Washburn
“Ugh,” Emma moaned. “Can I go to the outhouse first?”
“You can. But if you want to eat, I need the eggs.”
Emma grabbed the hand of her sister, seven-year-old Amelia, and dragged her outside as Abigail, using a spoon, dolloped the biscuit dough into an iron skillet and slid it into the oven. She pulled a large pan from the shelf overhead and started slicing bacon into it. She glanced over at Isaac. “What about the ranger that was through here a few days ago?”
“Charlie Simmons? Hell, he’s too lazy to wipe his own ass. Claims he’s lookin’ for rustlers but he ain’t.”
“Momma, Pa said a bad word,” ten-year-old Wesley said as he entered the kitchen, his hair looking like a bird’s nest.
Abigail wiped her hands on a towel and smoothed Wesley’s hair down. “Hush up. We’re having grown-up talk. Now go do your milkin’.”
Wesley groaned, grabbed the bucket, and headed outside.
“Why’re you all the sudden so concerned about us trailing after a couple of cattle rustlers?”
Abigail stirred the bacon around the pan. “Did I say I was concerned?”
“Why ask all them questions, then?”
“Because you’ll be gone who knows how long leaving me here to wrangle the kids.”
“Send ’em up to your mama’s for the day.”
“What makes you think she wants to wrestle our rascals? She’ll be swamped with Percy and Mary’s bunch once Percy rides off with you.”
“What’s wrong with Mary? She feelin’ poorly again?”
The bacon done, Abigail carried the pan over to the table and set it down. “What do you mean, ‘again’? She’s been feeling bad for months. Might not hurt for you to take a good look around once in a while.”
“Hell, I can’t keep up with my own family.”
“Thank you for makin’ my point. Anyway, Mary has something bad wrong with her. Says her eyes get blurry and she hurts all the time. Claims she’s so stiff sometimes she can hardly move.”
“Shoot, I’m stiff as a board after bein’ in the saddle all day, too,” Isaac said.
Abigail, on her way back to the kitchen, stopped midstride and glared at her husband. “Sometimes I wonder why I married you.”
The kids eventually returned with the requested items and Abby scrambled the eggs and carried the pan to the table and sat.
Eating was an act of warfare in their home, and as her family mowed through breakfast like it was the last meal they ever expected to see again, Abby nibbled the corner of a biscuit, waiting for them to finish so she could get on with her day.
Once her family had eaten everything in sight, Abigail added a fresh batch of biscuits to a basket, along with more bacon and scrambled eggs she’d hidden in the oven, and asked Emma to take the food over to Percy’s house. Then Abby dived into the cleanup and was in the middle of wiping out the cast-iron skillets when Isaac returned to the kitchen carrying his bedroll. Tossing it on the table, he grabbed his gun belt from the coatrack by the door, and strapped it on, eager to try out his newly purchased pistol. He pulled it from his holster and looked at it—again. The Colt Single Action Army revolver—the Peacemaker—was a new type of weapon and had just been released from the manufacturer earlier in the year. There was no more packing powder and ball into each of the pistol’s cylinders—with the Colt all Isaac had to do was drop in six .45 caliber metallic cartridges and he was ready to shoot.
“Why do you even bother with a pistol?” Abigail asked from the kitchen. “You can’t hit anything with it.”
Isaac frowned. “Can, too. Amos give me some pointers.”
“Blind leading the blind,” Abigail said. “If you want to learn how to shoot, you’d be better off talkin’ to Percy.”
“Why? ’Cause he rode with the Rangers for a spell? That don’t make him a crack shot.”
Abigail shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
* * *
Angered by his wife’s pessimism, Isaac shoved a couple of boxes of ammunition into his saddlebag, slung it over his shoulder, grabbed his rifle and his bedroll, and walked to the front door. With his hand on the latch, he paused for moment, hoping his wife would at least offer parting words or give him a hug before he left. But after a few moments of silence and no movement on Abigail’s part, he pushed the door open and stepped out into the dawn. “Damn that woman,” he muttered as he walked toward the barn.
While saddling his horse, Isaac’s mind drifted repeatedly to his wife. Things hadn’t been good between them for a while now. They were cordial to each other—mostly—but a man had his needs and Abigail had been less than cooperative. Yes, the birth of Amelia had been hard for Abby, but that had been seven years ago. Since then, their bedroom encounters had been few and far between and Isaac didn’t know if Abby was afraid of getting pregnant again or if it was something more. He had even thought about broaching the subject with Abby’s sister, Rachel, yet for one reason or another hadn’t. Probably because he knew what his sister-in-law’s answer would be—Tie it in a knot and quit pestering your wife. Besides, he thought, the chances of the story getting back to Abby were high and if she found out Isaac was talking about their private business, he’d catch eternal hell. With no easy answers available, Isaac climbed aboard the now-saddled horse and shoved his rifle into the scabbard. With a cluck of his tongue and a touch of his spurs, he steered the six-year-old bay gelding out of the barn.
Emma had named the horse Blaze because of the slash of white on his forehead and not because of his speed. However, Blaze had a comfortable gait and was Isaac’s preferred choice for long rides. And with his stubborn father-in-law, a long ride was almost assured.
CHAPTER 3
Percy, the oldest of the four Ridgeway siblings, felt conflicted as they worked to cut a few extra horses out of the ranch’s herd for the trip. Feeling guilty about leaving his wife, Mary, in such a terrible state, a part of him was looking forward to a day or two away from the house to clear his mind. The last few weeks had been extremely difficult, and the doctor was doing all he could, but it was clear to Percy that his wife’s condition was worsening. Physically, Mary no longer resembled the woman he had married and, the hardest part to accept, her once-active mind was dulled by an unending supply of laudanum that barely eased her pain.
Percy returned to the task at hand and spurred his gray mare into the horse herd to cut out a paint horse he enjoyed riding. Riding along beside the paint, he strung out a lasso with his rope and tossed it over the mare’s head, pulling her to a stop. Nudging the gray closer, he rubbed the paint’s neck and talked to her in a low, soothing voice. Most of those on the ranch thought Percy was crazy for choosing to ride mares, often citing their tendencies to be bad tempered and meaner than hell. But Percy found them companionable and gentle as long as they weren’t in heat. He led the paint mare over to the horse wrangler for the trip, Luis Garcia.
Luis was a short, compact Mexican man who had been born south of the border and had eventually migrated north. Percy thought he was one hell of a hand and Luis could ride anything on four legs. He shook his head as he grabbed the rope and said, “Wouldn’t hurt to pick out a gelding, Percy.”
Percy grinned and he suddenly realized that was the first time he’d felt a spark of happiness in a long while. “Always been a lady’s man, Luis.” He nodded at the paint. “That mare is as gentle as a kitten.”
“Might be, but kittens turn into cats and most are meaner than hell,” Luis said. “Some’d scratch your eyes out just for spite.”
Percy widened his eyes and pointed at his face. “Still got two good ones.” Percy laughed as he turned his horse. Tall at six-three, Percy had his father’s dark hair and his mother’s lean frame. Rangy and strong, his smooth and graceful movements often appeared effortless to others and he was smarter than most, allowing him to quickly adapt to any situation. With wide-set shoulders that tapered to a narrow waist, Percy disliked shaving and only accomplished the task every couple of weeks when he got tire
d of the stubble.
Deciding the two horses would be enough, he rode toward his father, who was sitting his big white gelding, Snowball, watching the men pick out their mounts. A big man needed a big horse, and Snowball was one of the largest saddle horses on the ranch, measuring over seventeen hands tall. Percy reined to a stop and said, “What happens if these rustlers turn out to be a couple of Comanches?”
Without turning, Cyrus said, “Don’t matter. A thief’s a thief.”
Percy, continually frustrated by his father’s unbending will, said, “You willing to start an Indian war over a couple of steers?”
Cyrus turned to look at his son. “What would you do? Just let ’em ride off with them cattle with no punishment? We do that and we won’t have any cattle left fore long.”
“I’m not sayin’ we do nothing. But hangin’ a couple of Comanches might not be too smart on our part. Might spark a shootin’ war.”
Cyrus turned and looked off to the west, toward the heart of what was still Comanche territory, a scant few miles away. “Injun war’s already a-brewin’ and it ain’t got nothin’ to do with cattle.” He turned back to Percy. “Besides, it ain’t Comanches. Wilcox claims the rustlers headed north, across the river. Might be Injuns, but it ain’t Comanche. Far as I know, ain’t many of ’em on the reservation.”
Percy sagged in the saddle a little. Moses Wilcox could track a gnat across a desert. And if he said the rustlers went north then they went north. And just about every time they’d ridden into Indian Territory bad things had happened. “So, we’re headed north?”
“Looks like,” Cyrus said. He pulled out his pouch of Bull Durham and began rolling a cigarette. As if reading Percy’s mind, he said, “Ain’t my favorite direction of travel, neither. But ain’t much we can do about it.” Cyrus licked the edge of the paper and ran his finger along the seam before putting the cigarette in his mouth. He pulled a match from his pocket, flicked the head with his thumbnail, and lit up. As the smoke curled out of his nostrils, he watched as the last of the hands rode in with their preferred mounts.
“Eli staying back?” Percy asked.
“Yep, as usual,” Cyrus said. “Boy ain’t got a lick of fight in ’im.” He took another drag from his cigarette and the smoke danced around his bearded mouth when he said, “I don’t know where I went wrong with that boy.” He shrugged and said, “Anyways, I hope you brought plenty of ammunition.” He spurred the big gelding forward without waiting for Percy’s reply.
Percy paused, mentally calculating how much ammo he had packed in his saddlebags. He had two boxes of. 44-40 cartridges for the new Winchester rifle and two boxes of .45s for the new Colt Peacemaker he bought recently to replace his older Colt Model 1861 Navy. Percy decided if they were going to need more ammunition than that they might ought to stay home.
CHAPTER 4
Rachel Ferguson, the youngest of the Ridgeway siblings, sat at the table, sipping a cup of coffee as the cook cleaned up in the kitchen. This cook, an older Mexican woman named Consuelo Ruiz, had lasted longer than any of her predecessors and by a far margin, now coming up on her sixth year of cooking and cleaning for the five members of the Ferguson family. Consuelo was a mournful woman, and, in the beginning, Rachel had a small measure of sympathy for her situation—all five of Consuelo’s children had died before reaching adulthood—but time and the constant hardships had eroded even that.
That’s what life on the frontier was like, Rachel thought as she stared at the oily surface of the coffee in her cup. The day-after-day drudgery dashed the smallest of dreams, leaving Rachel feeling hollowed out. This was not the life she’d yearned to have. There were no grand galas or crowded society dinners where she and her husband, Amos, could rub elbows with those in the upper echelons of society. No, the closest thing the Fergusons got to a party were the Sunday potluck dinners her mother occasionally organized for the ranch hands and their families with a rare neighbor or two thrown into the mix. The same faces—the same stories that were told and retold until Rachel could recite most from memory.
There had been occasional moments of joy over the years, but Rachel’s enjoyment dimmed nearly to extinction with the death of their youngest daughter, Elizabeth, four years ago. Some kind of fever, the doctor had told them. Then the doctor had the gall to tell them they were lucky the disease hadn’t spread to other members of the family. Rachel hadn’t felt particularly lucky when they buried Liza in that deep, dark hole on that cloudy, cold day.
Rachel’s thoughts were interrupted when Amos stepped back inside the house. He grabbed his gun belt from a peg by the door and strapped it on. “I guess we’re heading out,” he said.
Rachel’s gaze drifted from the coffee cup to the scrapes and gouges on the table’s surface. “Okay.”
“Don’t know when we’ll be back,” Amos said as he stood by the door.
Rachel traced a deep scar on the tabletop with her finger. “Guess I’ll see you when I see you, then.” Out of the corner of her eye, she watched her husband as he shook his head and exited. Over the years, cracks had developed in their relationship, but Elizabeth’s death had irrevocably shattered the last remaining remnants of their marriage. Now they coexisted out of convenience and Rachel often wondered if she’d sold herself short by settling for Amos Ferguson just because he happened to pass through at a time when she was being urged to wed.
It’s not that her husband wasn’t handsome because he was—tall and broad-shouldered with dark hair and deep-set blue eyes—and he was a good father to their children. But their marriage had never come close to the type of relationship her parents enjoyed. Her mother and father often touched each other—a hand on an arm, an arm around the other—in an unconscious display of their affection for each other. Something that had rarely happened among the Fergusons, either privately or publicly. Maybe my parents are the ones with an abnormal relationship, Rachel thought as she pushed to her feet and returned the cup to the kitchen. Maybe this was what marriage was supposed to be.
Rachel provided a few instructions to Consuelo then made her way out to the front porch, taking a seat in one of the rockers. The perfect mixture of her mother and father, Rachel had long, dark hair, blue-green eyes, and lush, full lips. Tall at five-nine, she was long-legged and had all the right curves in all the right places. In total, she was a looker and knew it.
Even though the sun was still low on the horizon, the heat was already building and a trickle of sweat dripped down Rachel’s back. In the distance she could see the men heading north and she wasn’t surprised to see Amos riding at the back of the pack. And riding beside him was Isaac, as usual. They rarely took the initiative in anything they did, often following the lead of others. Yes, her father was the alpha male around the ranch, but just once she’d like to see either Amos or Isaac grow a spine and stand up to Cyrus. But that was probably a lost cause, she thought, because her own two brothers were also spineless when it came to confronting their father. Rachel and Abigail had no such qualms, often telling their father exactly what they thought, much to their mother’s consternation.
Rachel turned to look at the barn and saw her three children walking back to the house. Seth, the oldest at twelve, was shuffling along, his shoulders slumped in disappointment as he followed Jacob, who was ten, and Julia, now their youngest, at seven. Seth’s body language suggested Rachel was in for a long day. No doubt he felt slighted for not going on the trip and she silently cursed Amos for leaving her to deal with it. Rather than take his son aside to explain the dangers that might lie ahead, Amos most likely uttered his refusal and left it at that.
“Ma, when’s Pa coming back?” Julia asked, stepping onto the porch.
“No idea,” Rachel said. “I want you and Jacob to go inside and read three chapters of your books.”
Julia shrugged. “Okay.” She loved to read and could spend all day wrapped up in her books.
“I don’ wanna read,” Jacob complained.
“Too bad,” Rachel said. “You
need to keep up with your schoolin’ while your aunt Mary’s sick.”
“That book’s stupid,” Jacob whined.
“Choose another one,” Rachel said. A reader herself, she made sure the cabin was filled with books of all types. “Why don’t you try that new book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?”
Jacob thought about it for a moment. “What’s it about?”
While describing the book to Jacob, Rachel spied Seth out of the corner of her eye as he silently shuffled onto the porch, his cheeks still damp from the tears. He slouched into one of the chairs and rested his chin on his chest.
“And there’s a giant sea monster,” Rachel said as she arched her arms up and clawed her hands, grabbing at Jacob.
Jacob giggled and squirmed away from her grasp. “I might take a look,” he said between giggles.
“Go on, then,” Rachel said, playfully swatting him on the butt as he walked by and stepped inside.
Rachel settled back in the rocker and she and Seth sat in silence for a few moments, both staring at the distance. Rachel’s gaze drifted surreptitiously to her son, waiting for the inevitable onslaught of unanswerable questions. Seth didn’t disappoint.
“Why, Ma? Why won’t they let me go with ’em?”
Seth hadn’t hit his major growth spurt yet and he was a smallish, thin boy with sandy blond hair and large ears that his head hadn’t caught up to yet.
“Are we going to go through this again?” Rachel asked, turning in her chair to face her son.
Seth angrily swiped at the fresh track of tears sliding down his cheeks. “I’m old enough.”
“No, you aren’t. There’s nothin’ but trouble across that river,” she said, pointing toward the water. “It’s not even safe for your pa or the rest of them.”
Seth stood abruptly. “I’m tired of bein’ treated like a baby,” he shouted before stepping off the porch.
