by Stan Himes
“No,” said Mary. “I should finish up and take over watch from Ruth.”
“You can tell it quick.”
“I’d like to hear it,” said Ernestine.
“Me, too,” I added, “if you don’t mind.”
Mary sighed and smiled. “All right.”
Clean Through gave an exaggerated roll of his eyes and tended to the dishes. This was clearly not going to be like any drive he was used to.
Mary said, “My folks and I were living in Texarkana and there was a barn dance. Jonas came in, looked over the girls real quick, picked me out.”
Katie was bubbling over and jumped in. “He told me he could see that Ma had somethin’ special about her. Not just that she was the prettiest, but that there was more to her. Doesn’t that get your heart going? I mean, just from looking at her!”
“Calm down,” said Mary. “I’ll tell it.” Her eyes were bright with memories coming back. Warm. Tender. “After the dance, he told me he was building a ranch and needed a wife to help make it a home. He looked me up and down, then he looked into my eyes and said, ‘You’ll do.’”
Wait a minute. That’s the romantic story? Perhaps not so warm and tender after all. Sally, Pearl and I stopped eating and stared at Mary, waiting for more. Nothing came.
“Hold on,” said Sally. “‘You’ll do?’ My, that is romantic.”
“Don’t sound like much, I know, but somehow the way he said it… it was the most welcoming, approving, inviting thing I ever heard.”
I was still expecting a bit more. “He didn’t talk about your eyes or your hair or get down on a knee or at least hold your hands and smile?”
“No, just that welcoming ‘You’ll do.’ Fell in love right then and haven’t regretted it a single day of my life.”
Katie was stunned by our reaction and never took a breath to let us know it. “Don’t you see? He walked into a room full of girls and picked out Ma to marry as if he’d known her all his life and she fell in love too and she was his and he was hers and all it took was for them to look at each other and… honestly, I can’t be the only one who understands romance.” She waited a moment for us to… well, I don’t actually know what she expected from us. Anyway, whether it was being fired up about her mom’s story or excited by the prospect of sitting under the stars and mooning on about love, she wanted to keep the evening going. “How about someone else? Who has a love story to share?”
The talk was too much for Pearl, who’d never been close to a love story in her life. She rose, took a last sip of coffee, handed her tins to Clean Through and walked toward the tethered horses. “Reckon I’ll go relieve Prudence.”
Mary realized the talk had made Pearl uncomfortable and she rose as well. “And I’ll send Ruth back. Don’t let ’em all sit up talking, Clean Through. Daybreak comes early.”
The fire reflected off Clean Through’s front tooth as he offered a reassuring smile. “Don’t you worry, boss. My biscuits start layin’ heavy after a while. They’ll lie down all right.”
Sally and I each had some biscuit remaining on our plates. We exchanged glances, shrugged, and popped the remainder into our mouths. After a tiring day, we likely didn’t need anything to help us sleep, but the biscuit tasted fine and our bodies would need every ounce of fuel during the journey.
We didn’t stir during the night.
We sure stirred at first light, though. Clang! Clang! Clang! Clean Through’s wooden spoon rattling inside a pan was just as shrill and annoying to us as Ernestine’s shrieks were to the cattle. A yellow-orange wisp of sunlight danced on the horizon, but Clean Through was fresh and spirited like a new morning that was all the way here. “Rise and shine! Come on, now!” We rubbed our eyes and silently cursed the man as he kept banging that pot. “I let you ladies sleep in this one time, but we can’t afford luxurious livin’ for long.”
“Sleep in?” questioned Prudence, too sleepy to raise her hand.
Ruth rubbed her stiff shoulders and back. “Luxurious livin’, my foot.”
The light was dim. The air was cold. The aches of the night before had magnified into a deep, heavy soreness. It was unlikely we’d be leaving our blankets anytime soon.
“Better shake the spiders out of your bedrolls and check for snakes.”
We sprung to our feet almost in unison, like dancers reacting to a cue. Old Clean Through was a sly one, but at least he greeted us with coffee, bacon and biscuits.
Chapter 10
“You will meet bandits, wide rivers, Indians and rustlers.” Before we’d left Secluded Springs, Jonas had used one of his worrisome speeches to tell us of the dangers on the trail. For a fellow who needed our help and didn’t have any replacements for us in sight, he sure seemed to go out of his way to scare us off. I suppose he was just an honest man fearful for his family and friends, but, whew, it was tiresome at times. “I’d like to think that all the bad men rode to Leadville for the silver strike, but it’s an unfortunate fact of life that the bad ones among us are disinclined to perform hard work.”
Jonas wasn’t sure how Prudence could have a question, but up went the hand. “My pa went to Leadville and he’s not inclined toward work.”
Before Jonas could respond, Ruth fired in her opinion. “Don’t you go talkin’ poorly about your pa. If anyone’s gonna call him a lazy, good-for-nothing, sloth of a man, it’ll be me and none other. You mind your respect!”
With Prudence sufficiently chastised, Jonas continued. “If there’s bandits, they’ll be north, just shy of the border. They won’t go into Indian Territory. Rustlers’ll be closer to Dodge—they want to take the herd and move it as little as possible.”
So it broke down like this. The trip to Dodge City should take in the neighborhood of five weeks. We’d angle northeast and sometime in the second week we’d cross the Canadian River into Oklahoma to pick up the Western Trail. (With Prudence still mollified, it was Sally who asked, “Why’s a river in Oklahoma called the Canadian?” She didn’t get much of an answer. “It just is.”) Up until we crossed that river, the danger of bandits was the highest. Then the next couple of weeks would see us across Oklahoma, where Indian tribes may or may not require a toll. Then in the homestretch to Dodge City, the risk of rustlers was high.
As such, we were outfitted to the best of our ability, and I’m not talking about our pants. Along with her pistol, Ruth had scrounged a shotgun for Prudence. Sally brought an early model Colt revolver. I couldn’t afford a Henry rifle but had used my savings on an Evans repeating rifle and a scabbard for my saddle. Clean Through kept both a rifle and a shotgun in his chuckwagon. And Jonas put a rifle—I don’t know the brand—in holsters on the saddles of both Mary and Katie. If he’d had his way, there’d have been cavalry units in front of and behind us.
The most interesting weapon of the group belonged to Pearl, simply because we never saw it. When Jonas offered her a pistol, she shook her head and said, “I’m armed in my own way” and left it at that. We hoped she had some sort of gun on her, because during our training Pearl had proved to be the best shot among us. Ruth speculated that Pearl had a Derringer stuffed in her bosom, another between her legs, a third down her back and a fourth tucked in her boot. “A woman of her sordid experience don’t mind things rubbin’ her all over.” That was one time I was pleased Prudence didn’t ask a question.
We kept the herd moving and kept our eyes peeled for any signs that might indicate outlaws were around. Katie had the lustful stare of that big man, Brute, seared in her memory. The rest of us remembered the sheer size of the man. He could snap any of us in two and maybe even make a toothpick out of Ruth.
“I wonder how many shots it’d take to bring down a man that size,” said Sally at the campfire on the third night. “He’s built like a buffalo.”
“Best hope we never have to find out,” I replied.
For once, Pearl added a comment, and it came in a cold, dark tone that chilled my spine. “Shoot the chest, then the brain. Anything else and he’ll
keep on coming.” Suddenly we all hoped to be partnered with Pearl whenever we pulled night watch duty.
Our initial troubles, however, didn’t come from Sean and Brute, but from three vile men whose names we never learned. It was late on our sixth day. The sun was lowering, but plenty of daylight remained and the sky was clear. Yet we never saw them coming.
They must have been watching us for at least a day because they knew exactly when to strike. Mary had gone ahead to find a suitable site to bed down the herd, and Clean Through had moved his wagon up as well to be ready to set up for supper at Mary’s signal. The grassy prairie had turned to a stretch of scrub brush and loose dirt, with a steady breeze blowing the dust to the east, partially obscuring Sally and giving Pearl all she could handle just to get a decent breath.
The riders came from behind and to the left. The biggest of the three snatched Ernestine from right off her horse, cracking her dizzy with the butt of his pistol when she latched her foot in the stirrup and resisted. The second grabbed Prudence from her saddle as well, silencing her with three quick words: “Quiet or die.” The third man held his gun high, covering the others and ready to fire should there be any pursuit.
But we were unaware.
How much time passed I can’t say. Not much, I think. It was good fortune that Pearl had decided she’d swallowed all the dirt she could handle in one day. She chose to drop back and glide a ways to the left for relief from the thickest stream of dust. It was like riding through fog that clears at a sudden edge. Her first sight was the rambling herd beginning to spread out to the left. Her second sight was Ernestine’s rider-less horse.
“Ernestine?!”
No response. She looked forward to Prudence. Another rider-less horse. She could see me up ahead.
“Laurie!” I couldn’t hear her. She urged her mount to a high gallop and I heard it before I heard her. “Laurie! Help!” I raced back to meet her, my eyes absorbing the drifting of Prudence’s horse and the wide scattering of the herd. “Ernestine and Prudence. Both gone!”
“Go tell Katie and Sally to stop the herd, then bring back Ruth. I’ll go take a look.”
“Alone?”
“Just ’til you get back. Hurry!”
Pearl rushed away as I pulled out my rifle, hoping Mary was on her way back, wishing Clean Through was a young marshal, and praying that Ernestine and Prudence were all right. I scanned the trail behind us. No movement. No signs of bodies on the ground. I began a slow backtrack. I had no tracking skills, and even if I had, the hoof prints and droppings left behind by the herd would likely have obliterated any sign. My best course of action was a steady speed, steady eyes and a steady finger on the rifle’s trigger.
Looking to the southwest, I saw where the sage scrub brush blended into a thin section of salt cedars, juniper and honey mesquite. If the girls were hiding, that’s where they’d be. If the girls were stolen, that’s still where they’d be.
I headed that way, keeping the horse slow and quiet.
Three sets of tracks headed directly into the trees, even I could see that. That cleared up one mystery. They were taken. By three or more than three? Were they hurt? Dead? No shortage of mysteries yet to solve.
I am not proud to say that fear paralyzed me. Having dismounted, I watched from the cover of a thick juniper, lock-kneed, feeling the weight of the gun in my hands but unable to inch forward and use it.
In the grove, the three men had bound and gagged Prudence and were now at work on Ernestine, who was still dazed. “Now we’ll start adding the others as they come lookin’,” said the apparent leader of the group. He was thin and angular, with a powder burn on his cheek and the tattered remains of a Confederate jacket wrapped around his soiled shirt.
“What about the herd?” said the short, pug-nosed one.
“Ain’t wasting time with it. Women like these are worth a hell of a lot more. Damn sight more. I know a comanchero across the border who’ll pay a thousand dollars apiece for these young ones, maybe five hunnerd for the used ones.”
“Hell yes we forget the herd,” the third one chimed in. He had a twitchy cheek, like flies were landing on it. “Money like that? Damn straight we forget the herd.”
“Damn straight,” echoed Pug Nose.
Prudence shook with tears and terror. Ernestine had regained her senses enough to scowl at the men with a hate which I had not known her capable of but for which I believe her to be entirely justified. She tried to pull her hands out through the ropes that bound her, but succeeded only in tightening the bond.
“Hoofbeats! At least one’s moving this way,” Powder Burn alerted the others. I could hear them, too.
“Another thousand dollars,” said Twitchy.
“She ain’t our’n yet. Get back behind them mesquites. Let her come to us. Don’t shoot ’less you have to.”
Fear for myself held me in place. Fear for Prudence and Ernestine and whoever was riding up told me to move. I backed out of the grove away from the direction Powder Burn was watching, grabbed my horse’s reins and moved into the open. Affording myself a quick glance back, I was relieved to see that Sally and Ruth had seen me and were high-tailing it my way. I moved to meet them. A group plan seemed wiser than shaming me with inaction a second time. Until I heard Ruth’s plan.
“Let’s rush ‘em!”
“Hold on,” said Sally. “We go in with guns blazing, we might hit Prudence or Ernestine.”
“Prudence’d rather be shot than what might be happening to her. I’m goin’ in.”
Before I could even warn that we were being watched, she urged her mount into the trees, pistol drawn. Like it or not, that was our plan. Sally and I spread out behind Ruth and rushed forward, weapons ready as well. Everything about it felt wrong, but I didn’t have time to think on it. In retrospect, what was wrong was that it was stupid. We had no idea what we were doing. Jonas had given us shooting lessons, but retrieving stolen women wasn’t something we had practiced.
For all the wrong reasons, the plan turned out to be brilliant. No, I take that back. It was still stupid. We were lucky.
Ruth increased her speed and we matched it.
“Holy Christ! They’re charging in!” shouted Twitchy. They might’ve expected us to be stupid, but not stupid and brave.
Ruth burst into the mesquite with Sally and me just seconds behind. “There!” bellowed Sally, spotting the girls on the ground. At the same moment that we reined in the horses, arms shot out from behind two trees and grabbed at Sally and Ruth. Sally spun in her saddle and fell, but Ruth ducked under and urged her mount toward Prudence. I pulled my rifle to my shoulder to shoot at the man hovering over Sally, but more hands grabbed the gun’s barrel. It was a wrestling match for the gun and I lost it in seconds, dropping from my horse in the same motion. As Ruth yanked her horse to a halt and hopped down to Prudence, the loud cock of a gun ended the charge.
“That’s far enough!” rang out Powder Burn’s voice. Ruth’s hand shuddered around her gun. “Don’t do it. Drop it. No one needs to die.”
Boom!
Boom! Boom!
Three men dead.
Pearl stepped out from behind a pecan tree, Katie’s rifle in her hand. “Not the way I see it,” she said.
Chapter 11
“Every person deserves to meet his maker with words said over him. So I’ll just say that these terrible men were dealt with justly in this life, and I have no doubt they’ll be dealt with justly in the next. Let’s give them no more thought except to hope that their arrival will have taught us to be more vigilant and that their deaths will teach others to let us be.”
So began and so ended Mary’s speech beside the three shallow graves. You’ll pardon my language, I hope, but I thought it was a damn fine one. Had she topped it off by spitting on the graves, not a one of us would have found it out of line. Ruth would have been happy to dig them up and shoot them again.
We were calm, quiet, yet our emotions were running full speed in every direction. There wa
s fury that men would try to steal us and sell us. There was terror that it could be done. There was worry about what trials lay ahead. There was the bonding of a team pulling together to help each other. There was relief that we were indeed still all here. Above all, there was gratefulness that Pearl was a good, fast shot.
After alerting me, Sally and Ruth, Pearl had ridden to Katie. She took Katie’s rifle, sending Katie on ahead for Clean Through and Mary. Pearl had then galloped back but hadn’t seen the tracks to the trees. She’d pulled up wide of the grove and it was only by stopping that she’d been able to hear the crashing branches and yelling voices from when the three of us charged in. She entered from the other side, took aim, end of story. All had hugged her for it, even Ruth.
Once freed, Ernestine had sobbed hard for more than an hour, droplets of fear and anger and humiliation washing clean streaks through the trail dust on her cheeks. Prudence cried as well, but recovered quickly by taking strength from the support of all. Drying her eyes, she rose up and kicked the dead body of Pug Nose in the gut. “Anybody messes with us don’t get no second try.”
Mary and Katie rode up to the scene, ready for a fight that was over. Clean Through was last to arrive and, while relieved that all was well, I could hear an edge of disappointment as he said, “Pulled my gun and there’s no one left to shoot.”
Sally, Ruth and I returned to the herd, and Katie went to gather the horses. Mary kept Prudence and Ernestine with her as she, Clean Through and Pearl dug the graves. We all returned long enough for Mary’s words, then it was back to business.
As we left the graves, Clean Through left a paper on the upturned earth and placed a rock on it to hold it down. It read: “Kilt For Steeling Women.”
