“You know that I think you’re mistaken?”
“Yes, of course. I think I know how you feel. Frankly, while I warned your father about bringing you along, I’m glad you came. In fact, that’s why I came.”
He shifted in his saddle, pushing his hat back on his head. In the growing light she could see him clearly, and see the grave seriousness of his eyes, yet there seemed to be some hint of dancing deviltry in them, too. That same look that had excited her in front of the IXL, and later when he arose to leave the table in the dining room.
“You mean you came because of me?”
“Sure,” he took out the makings and began to build a cigarette, “I’ll admit I might have come anyway, but as it happens, I made a decision back there at Pole Creek.”
“At Pole Creek? The stage station?”
“Uh huh. I decided then and there …” he touched his tongue to the cigarette, then put it between his lips, “that you were for me. I made up my mind that come hell or high water, you were going to belong to me.”
She looked up. “Is this a statement of intentions or a proposal, or just what?”
“It’s not a proposal. I don’t believe in them very much. It’s much safer to tell a girl than to ask her. Saves a lot of wear and tear on their minds. Women are such contrary creatures, they have to stall or say no. So the thing to do is to tell them, and let that settle it.”
“And they have nothing to say about it?”
“Of course not!” he grinned. “Although they would probably say plenty!”
“Where did you learn all of this about women?” Jacquine asked, a streak of perversity made her add: “From Rosanna Cole?”
His head jerked around. “From who?”
“Rosanna Cole … the girl in the wagon that has been following us.”
“You know as much about her as I do,” he said. The thought had taken hold of his mind. Why hadn’t he considered it before? When Powell first mentioned the wanted woman? “If her name is Rosanna Cole this is the first I knew of it.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“That,” he said gently, “is your problem. I’ve told you the truth.”
“It seems very strange that the story would be all over the wagon train if there was nothing to it. I’ve heard several people mention it as unquestioned truth.”
Irritation mounted in him, but he fought it down. “It isn’t strange to me when Clive Massey is so anxious to discredit me.”
“You do him an injustice, Matt Bardoul! Clive has never said anything against you! Nor has he given me, or my father, any reason to believe all your vile suspicions about him. I don’t know exactly what you have in mind, but I can tell you that you’re wrong! Dead wrong! Clive Massey is a gentleman, in every sense of the word! I’ve been associated with him a great deal more than you have, and I think I should know.”
“You may be right,” he agreed quietly, “if you are, all my instinct and judgment of men is at fault.”
“It’s simply because you two are at cross purposes, and have been from the beginning! There’s nothing wrong with Clive, and I think he has done a good job with this wagon train. Father admires him very much.”
It was light now, and behind them they could hear the first of the wagons. Upstream some of the horsemen were already watering their stock, and beyond them, on the parade ground of the fort, the troops would be lined up for reveille.
Somewhere downstream a loon called, and a dove mourned in the deep brush. The zebra dun lifted his head, ears pricked, all attention. Jacquine said nothing, and Matt fumbled in his pocket for his tobacco. In his impatience he had thrown down his cigarette half smoked.
“If that is Rosanna Cole,” he said thoughtfully, “Tolliver knows something about her. I wonder how much? And where are they?”
“You are going to warn them?”
He shrugged. “The Lieutenant may have found them by now, or no one may guess who they are. Somehow, well … they seemed such nice people. Kids, both of them. As far as that goes, I’ve nothing on which to base a conclusion that one of them is a girl. Abel Bain believed it … but I don’t know.”
Jacquine listened without comment. She did not know whether to accept this as truth or to believe it was said to convince her she was wrong. She had never really believed the story, but it had been going the rounds in the wagon train, and a number of the women had repeated it.
Something else came to her mind suddenly. “Matt, did you ever hear of anyone named Sim Boyne?”
His head jerked around so quick that he spilled the tobacco from the cigarette paper. “Sim Boyne? Where did you hear that name?”
“Who is he? What is he?”
He studied her, his eyes narrow. “What have you been doing? Listening to someone talk around the camp fires? Sim Boyne is a killer and a murderer. He’s one of the last of those renegades that made the Natchez Trace a synonym for blood and death. They were worse than any Indians. Bill Shedd told me a lot about them, but everyone who has been to Natchez or New Orleans knows a lot about them.”
Jacquine frowned, then started her horse. As they rode up the opposite bank, he reached out and caught her bridle. “Where did you hear that name? It’s important that I know!”
Their eyes met and held. “Matt,” she said, “I heard that Sim Boyne was on this wagon train, and another man named Dick Ryder … and that both of them were in your company!”
“Now, listen … !” He was apalled. In his company? But who could … he stared at her. “Jacquine, tell me where you heard this and how. Who in the world could have such an idea, and who did they think these men were?”
Jacquine’s eyes were level. “Matt,” she said quietly, “I just overheard some talk in a wagon I was passing one night. I heard one man say that he knew Dick Ryder, that he had seen him, that he was now in your company. He also said that where Ryder was, Sim Boyne was not far away. Then he described Sim Boyne.”
“Described him? What was the description? Do you remember?”
“Yes. I remember very well, although at the time I did not know who Sim Boyne was, and since I have mentioned this to no one. The description … but why tell you, Matt? You know, because you’re Sim Boyne!”
She touched spurs to her pony and was gone in a pound of hooves. Blankly, Matt stared at the trees. “Well, I’ll be damned! I’ll be forever damned!”
He sat by while the wagons crossed the stream and moved up to the camping ground and drew in a tight circle of their own. Reutz was also pulling in, and his wagons joined Bardoul’s. The storekeeper shook his head. “Man, if we’d had three miles further to go none of my wagons would have made it. As it is, three of them have fallen out and after we water the stock we’ll have to go back an’ pick them up.”
“We’ll be following the river from now on. For several days, anyway. You hear about the trouble Ben Sperry had?”
Reutz nodded. He stoked his pipe. “Matt, my crowd are about ready to break off from the rest of them. Some of them are getting scared. There’s a lot of bad talk going around, and from all I hear, Sperry’s wagon isn’t the only one that’s been searched.”
“Anything missing?”
“Nothing anybody noticed. But that doesn’t make the women folks any happier, knowing there are men like that Hammer prowling about the wagons. Nothing much has been said in meeting, but my boys are getting about ready for a break. If we make it, will you lead us?”
Matt stripped the saddle from the dun. “Damn it, Reutz, I’d like to, but right now I’m not anxious to break away from the train. If my boys want to break, however, I’ll stay with them. I know Aaron wants to. He’s said so in so many words. Lute ain’t so sure.”
“Could you take us to the Shell?”
“Surest thing you know. Get you there faster than Lyon will take this bunch.”
“What about Phillips? Where does he stand?”
“Portugee might go with us, but he’s an uncertain quantity right now. I figure the man has some i
dea of his own cooking around in that head of his. What it could be, I don’t know.”
He thought of telling Herman Reutz about Jacquine’s comments on Ryder and Boyne, then decided against it. No use giving such a story more importance than it had. Yet it was a story sure to be repeated. Odd, how such a preposterous story could get started, but when it came to that was the story so preposterous? How much did he know about the men in his own wagon train? Of them all, the only ones he had known before, were Ban Hardy and Buffalo Murphy. Stark, a hard bitten man, came from the country of the Natchez Trace, or not far from it. Lute Harless … well, under that bluff, amiable exterior he might be a lot of things. And he knew nothing of young Tolliver or of Bill Shedd. Nor, and here he might be striking the right note, of Ernie Braden or Bunker.
Space was cleared for dancing that night, and many of the men from the three companies stationed at the Fort came over for the festivities. Buffalo Murphy and Ban Hardy routed out their best and so did the others. Brian Coyle, accompanied by Jacquine and Barney, came over, followed in a few minutes by Clive Massey, handsome and distinguished in a black broadcloth suit and a white ruffled shirt. His black hat pulled low upon his brow, he looked everything the southern gentleman should be.
Bat Hammer was there, loitering with Buckskin Johnson and several more of the toughs from the Massey wagons. Logan Deane, silent and alone, leaned on a wagon wheel off by himself in the half darkness. There was plenty of food, and from somewhere came a barrel of liquor, and in a matter of a few minutes the camp was roaring with laughter. Murphy, in fine fettle, started a song and everyone joined in.
Thoughtful and watchful, Matt loitered on the edge of things. When the dancing started, he saw Jacquine move out into the circle with Clive Massey. They made a handsome couple and he felt a pang of actual physical pain as they moved together.
He smoked thoughtfully, staring across the firelight at the moving figures. A dozen couples were dancing now, and he noticed Lieutenant Powell move in and claim Jacquine for a dance.
Jacquine puzzled him, and he puzzled himself. Usually, he talked easily and fluently when with women, but when with Jacquine he always seemed to be saying things he had not wanted nor planned to say. They had talked little enough, but what he had said on those occasions was never what he wanted to say or should have said. He felt drawn to her as to no other woman he had ever met, but it irritated and angered him that she could like Clive Massey so much. At the same time, he could see that the man was attractive, yet she seemed unable to sense what he felt about Massey, that the man was evil, dangerous and definitely cruel.
He turned impatiently away from the fire and strode off into the darkness, swearing to himself. He wanted to ask her to dance but how would she receive him? If she refused, and well she might, he knew it would hurt like the very devil. Besides, he had no wish to be laughed at by the ruffians that hung around with Hammer.
Thinking of that, something occurred to himself suddenly that he had not considered before. What had been in the mind of that sergeant today when he suddenly told Lieutenant Powell who he was? Were they looking for him, too? Was something wrong? The sergeant was a stranger, and so was Powell. The Lieutenant had said he would find friends here … who?
He paced back and forth, smoking and thinking, trying to find his way into the mind of Massey that he might ferret out the plans for the wagon train. This would be their last contact with civilization. Going should be good for awhile, and in a couple of days forty or fifty miles would separate them from Fort Reno, and each day would move them further and further away.
Yet he held to his original view. If there was to be an attack, it would come when they were in the Basin, or at the north end of the Big Horns. That would be the logical place. Fort C. F. Smith would not be too far away, yet probably no one on the wagon train knew its exact location. And it would be too far away to do any good. It was, he believed, abandoned and in ruins, anyway.
He turned and walked back to the fire. Jacquine was standing across it, in conversation with Clive Massey. He had his hat off, and his patrician features looked clean and hard in the firelight. He was staring at Jacquine, and saying something. Then she laughed, and he caught her arm and laughed too. Fury bubbled up in Matt’s brain and he hurled his cigarette down.
He knew he was being a fool, but … he turned abruptly and walked around the fire. The fiddles were tuning for another dance. Matt started for Jacquine, walking swiftly. Suddenly a hand caught his arm. “Sir? The Captain would like to speak to you.”
He looked impatiently at the tall redheaded soldier. “Damn it, man! There’s a dance on!”
“Sorry, sir!” The soldier grinned. “I know what you mean, but it’s urgent, sir.”
“All right!” He turned abruptly and walked away after the soldier. He did not see Jacquine’s eyes following him.
Captain Gordon Sharp stood behind a small fire at one side of the camp. There were no other soldiers around. The orderly led Bardoul to him, then saluted. “Mr. Bardoul, sir!”
“All right, thanks, Graves. You may go.”
Sharp was a short, compact man who carried himself erect, and had a square goodlooking face. He might have been forty, but was probably a year or two younger. He thrust out a hand. “Bardoul? Sit down, will you? I’ve been wanting to have a talk with you.”
“With me, sir?”
“Yes. As you may know, we have the job on our hands of keeping some kind of order in a side section of territory. It is a pretty thankless job, as you can imagine. My men are nearly all recruits, just out from the east, and few of them have any idea of working with Indians. Also, we suffer from a division of sentiment. Certain interests want the Indians driven still further west, others consider them noble redmen who can do no wrong and are badly abused. We naturally try to strike a middle course that we imagine is somewhere near the right one.
“We’ve an added problem now. Partly due to some vigilante efforts in the mining camps to the north and west, we are getting an influx of bad men. White men who are out for their own ends. They have been causing us just as much trouble as the Indians. Knowing the Sioux, you understand our problem. They strike here, then there, and we can never seem to catch up with them or pin down any certain bunch as the offenders. The result is that my men are riding themselves and their horses ragged, and not doing much good.”
Matt nodded. “I know how you feel. Unless you know the country, you wouldn’t have a chance.”
“There’s something else, too.” Captain Sharp picked a blazing twig from the fire and lit his pipe. “Ever hear of Sim Boyne?”
Bardoul chuckled. “Never knew much about him, but the last few days I’ve been hearing a lot!”
Sharp looked at him with quick, hard eyes. “You mean, you’ve run into him? Or met someone who has?”
“No, not that. Just talk. We’ve got a man along who came from Natchez and another from up at the north end of the Trace. They were both telling stories about him.”
“I see.” Sharp smoked thoughtfully. “Bardoul, we’ve got some pretty good authority that says both Ryder and Boyne are headed out this way or already here. According to the story, they have an idea of organizing some sort of an independent power out here in the west. It sounds fantastic, I agree, yet it could create a lot of trouble. Murrell had the idea, you know, and before him, Aaron Burr had it. You’ll still find a lot of people who swore by Murrell’s fantastic secret organisation. However, whether that’s the idea or not, Boyne and Ryder are both dangerous men, and they are believed to have come west.
“We’ve word from several places that a lot of bad men are headed this way, and it looks like something big may be afoot. We’ve heard that they intend to ride in and take over Bannock and some of the mining towns, completely clean up and then leave. We’ve heard all sorts of fantastic stories. This is 1877, and you’d think people would stop dreaming, but apparently some of the best of them do.”
“You mean, you have orders to look into such things?
That it is considered so serious the Army is putting troops to work on it?”
Sharp laughed. “You make it sound fairly silly. No, as a matter of fact, it is just talk. And I have no orders along that line at all, just some talk with higher ranking officers. Of course, you know what the Army is, always seeing wars around every mountain and behind every treaty. Maybe it isn’t a bad thing: somebody should be on the alert.
“No, as a matter of fact, this isn’t my job. It’s yours.”
“Mine?”
“That’s right,” Captain Sharp reached into his dispatch case. “I have a commission for you as Deputy United States Marshal for the area; it’s a special appointment. They made an attempt to catch you in Cheyenne, but you had already gone on to Deadwood Gulch. And they failed to get you there, so this was sent to me to deliver to you when you passed here.”
Matt Bardoul stared at the document. He remembered vaguely some talk in Cheyenne about this, but he had supposed it to be only talk. He had been footloose and fancy free, and when asked if he would accept such an appointment he had said that he would, but at the time he had not dreamed O’Connor was serious.
“Just what,” he asked, “does this mean? What am I supposed to do?”
“Your orders are there, folded in with your commission. I think, however, you are simply to enforce law in Wyoming, and particularly that area in the Big Horn range country. What they really want is the scalps of Sim Boyne, Dick Ryder, and a few scattered members of the Plummer gang. There have also been some renegades around. I know there are warrants out for Abel Bain.”
Matt looked up. “Bain is dead.” Briefly, he explained. Then he said, “What about this Rosanna Cole affair? Lieutenant Powell was looking for her this morning.”
“Yes, we have been asked to keep our eyes open. She was a youngster, scarcely more than a girl, married to a very wealthy man in St. Louis. Well, she shot him and killed him, and not much that anybody knows about it except that he was found dead with a bullet through his body, and she was gone.
“Some say her lover did it, others maintain she didn’t have any lover. Our only job is to ship her back to St. Louis if we find her. Frankly, I don’t like the job, and am not much interested. It isn’t the Army’s business and but for some political bigwig, it wouldn’t be of interest to us. To you, however, as deputy marshal, it would be.”
Novel 1950 - Westward The Tide (v5.0) Page 14
