A Western Romance: Cole Yancey: Taking the High Road (Taking The High Road Series Book 9)

by Morris Fenris

  He had certainly followed her. And he, too, had been followed; behind him straggled a few, among them the sharp-tongued Widow Flagler. And beyond that several others, including Jordan Butler and Cole Yancey, standing silently and appraisingly in the sun, waiting for this scene—whatever it might portend—to play out.

  Cole, in particular, wore an expression that gave absolutely nothing away. His arms were folded across his chest, as if to hold up a barrier of indifference.

  Janetta’s heart began to drum loudly in her ears, and her breath stumbled and hitched. Feeling herself surrounded, suddenly, by enemies, she clenched her fists against rising apprehension.

  “You see I have some friends here with me,” Ross continued, waving a hand at the crowd that was beginning to gather. Most out of curiosity, but some with dark intent written on every face.

  “It’s a wonderful thing, havin’ friends,” observed Oliver mildly. To give him credit, not one quick cough or spasm of weakness betrayed any inner turmoil. “What is it you’re wantin’ here, Reverend?”

  The man came closer, near enough that Janetta could see the lust and lasciviousness blazing from his eyes, smell the stench of oily perspiration embedded in his clothing.

  “You all have been attending my services every Sunday, so far,” he boomed out now to his audience. “You’ve heard me preach the Lord’s word; you know that God sent down the list of Ten Commandments to his people, and He expects those to be obeyed.”

  “Amen, brother!” someone called. Obviously primed with just the correct response. Janetta sent a frantic look into what might very well have been the start of a mob, with a mob’s mentality.

  “And we all do our best to hearken to the Almighty, don’t we?” continued Ross, coming into his stride. “We remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

  “Amen, brother!”

  “We honor our fathers and mothers.”

  “Surely do.” “Yes, sir.” “Right t’ the law.”

  “But some folks just aren’t of a mind to heed our Creator, are they?”

  The low roar was growing louder, like the thunder of a buffalo herd stampeding nearer. Cole and Jordan exchanged glances, each gave a small nod in recognition of some unseen signal, and the scout slipped away.

  Oliver was still trying to take a stand. He could guess what was coming, and the need to protect his daughter was paramount. Taking a step forward, he demanded to know what the hell was going on, and what the hell was wrong with everybody?

  Ross grinned. An evil, snag-toothed grin, not one normally associated with someone of the religious persuasion. “Oh, I think you know,” he sing-songed.

  And then made his move, forcing an instant of intensity into chaos. Utter chaos.

  “Thou shalt not fornicate!” he screamed. “Harlot! Whore of Babylon! Look at her, this viper you have harbored in your midst!”

  The flash of his knife blade, slashing down Janetta’s dress from bodice to waist. Her shriek of terror and flinch away from sure injury. Oliver’s outraged attack upon the Reverend, and their ensuing scuffle. A growling, snarling demon of retribution, in the form of one furious dog who managed to get in several hard nips. The crowd’s roar that poured forth into maddened bestiality, with a forward surge.

  Into all of that, the rifle shots from Jordan and his crew came as a welcome diversion.

  “Stop it, right now!” he ordered fiercely. “All of you, get back. You, Reverend, haul your ass outa there!”

  “Look at what you’re giving refuge to, Mr. Butler,” cried the minister. Moving sideways, as commanded, still he managed to throw one arm out to gesture toward his victim.

  The crowd uttered a collective gasp.

  While Janetta, flung panting back against the wagon during the melee, had tried to gather together the lacerated pieces of her dress, still, too much underneath had been laid bare, exposed to the foulness all around.

  Swollen breasts, tucked under the torn chemise; thickened waist; tumescent belly, carried low and well-hidden thus far, beginning a fifth month of pregnancy.

  “Jesus Christ, you goddamned vultures!” bellowed Cole, appearing around the rear of the wagon with a quilt in both hands. Quickly he wrapped the shuddering girl in its benevolent folds, pulled her in close under one arm, and turned on the assembly with as much force and spirit as Barney had turned on the minister. “Get the hell outa here, every dadblasted one of you. Shame on you, and shame on the women that gave you birth!”

  Into the silence, the quiet cold snick of handguns being readied for use by the wagon train crew finally grabbed attention. Slowly the crowd began to disperse, with some muttering low-pitched oaths, a few actually looking embarrassed by what had just gone on.

  On the edge stood a horrified Ruth Simmons, holding baby Charity, and beside her an equally horrified Violet Kenshaw. Whether horrified on behalf of their own sensibilities or her situation, Janetta was not aware. Nor, at the present time, did she care. Shocked, sickened, shivering, she could only huddle against her rescuer and wait for time to pass and the world to start turning again.

  “Oliver, you okay?” Cole pressed the older man, with a sideways glance.

  He had dragged himself upright, one arm hanging over a wheel for support. The beard around his chin and his open shirt collar had been smeared by rusty-colored drops of blood. Could have been exterior. Could have been interior. Could have been both.

  “Still—kickin’…” he rasped. “Nothin’—too serious.”

  “Ahuh. You, Reverend?” Cole demanded next, nudging the preacher with a boot toe large enough to inflict considerable damage.

  Working to muster whatever remaining shreds of dignity might be left, Ross assumed nonchalance by brushing casually at his black frock coat. Now covered in grit and gravel. “A few bite marks from that vicious animal of yours, but otherwise I’m fine, thank you.”

  “Wasn’t talkin’ about your condition, which I couldn’t give two hoots in hades about. I wanna know if you’re ready t’ leave this lady alone and skedaddle b’fore I throw you off the train.”

  “Cole,” Jordan, appearing beside him, admonished quietly.

  He ignored the interruption. “And you better stand up on your hind legs and apologize t’ Miss McCain, here and now, you so-called man of God.”

  “Miss McCain,” the minister repeated sarcastically. “Not married, you’ll notice. Yet soon to bear a child, out of wedlock. A Jezebel. No, Mr. Yancey, I will not apologize.” Amazingly, he spat into the dust almost at her feet, then twisted and stalked away.

  “Well, I’ll be a—”

  “Cole.”

  Shifting position to glare at his inflexible employer, all the while keeping firm hold of his charge, the guide had the effrontery to demand an accounting. “Where the hell you been all this time?”

  “Breakin’ up the crowd, in case you hadn’t been payin’ attention. Makin’ sure they all headed back t’ their own wagons. Me and the boys, holdin’ guns on our own people.”

  “Pack of rabid dogs,” grumbled Cole. “Well, make yourself useful and track down somethin’ t’ drink. These two need it, b’fore they both fall over flat on their faces.”

  Oliver perked up very slightly. “Here, under the front seat,” he informed the wagon master. “Bottle of good ol’ Kentucky bourbon.”

  Much later, once everyone had returned to their own business, once the general atmosphere had quieted into lazy Saturday somnolence, once the firebrand minister had been confined to his own quarters, under guard, Cole joined the sick man to rehash their day’s events. And share in that excellent booze.

  “She’s sleepin’,” said Oliver in response to the unspoken question. “After you poured half a bottle of this stuff down her throat, she settled in right nice. She’ll wake up with a monster headache, sure enough, but, for now, she went off t’ dreamland like a baby.”

  “Good thing.”

  They were settled in beside the wagon, under a great walloping oak with leaves the color of Janetta’s
eyes, listening to camp noises around them. Cole wore such a glowering expression that no one would dare interrupt the conversation. The bourbon seemed to help ease Oliver’s physical discomfort besides raising his spirits slightly; it affected the guide, still simmering and steaming over Janetta’s public humiliation, not a whit.

  Oliver had chosen the usual coziness of his pallet, with a snoring Barney to keep him company; while Cole was sprawled on the fresh-scented grass, his back wedged up against a convenient log and his cup near at hand. Like those adherents to nature worship who rely heavily on their five senses, he needed consistent contact with the earth to regain strength and balance, and took every chance he could to do so. Grounding, as it were.

  “She never toldja what happened, did she?”

  “No.” Much as he hated to admit it, that refusal still rankled. “No, she didn’t. I asked her t’ talk t’ me, but…”

  “Poor girl. What she’s been through…” Shaking his head, swiping stealthily at tear-wet eyes, Oliver took a healthy slug of bourbon as if it were an enemy, having to be vanquished. “Well, she couldn’t, you see. We’d concocted this story, gonna have her as a widow woman once we joined up with the train. Even had a name picked out. And then that damned Ross showed his ugly face.”

  “You knew him back home,” Cole remembered.

  “Yeah. So there went that hope, right out the window. Didn’t quite know what t’ do from then on.”

  Puzzled, Cole scooched up higher to survey the older man. “Well, why didn’t she just marry the feller who got her—who took away her—”

  A phlegmy, involuntary cough that, fortunately, sounded worse than it was; and a slow stroke of the dog’s fur that had his muscles rippling with pleasure. “He raped her, Cole. He’d been after her for some time, makin’ a nuisance of himself. And there it was: he finally caught her alone, one stormy afternoon, and he beat her and raped her and left her there, like some rag you wipe your dirty hands on and then throw away. Think I’d wanna tie my Janie t’ scum like that?”

  Especially with me not long for this world, went on the silent comment.

  Cole shivered. The fingers of one hand wrapped futilely tight around his cup handle; the fingers of the other clenched into a fist that thumped, just once, onto the ground. “You reported it? Saw a lawyer? Went t’ the sheriff?”

  “Oh, sure, all of that. Didn’t do much good.” Oliver rolled his aching head back and forth against the wooden spokes of the wheel behind him, recalling, denying. “The man who hurt her so bad is the sheriff’s brother.”

  “Sweet Christ.” For a few minutes there was quiet between them, as Cole took in all the ramifications involved and found them not to his liking. No wonder, then, her occasional sour attitude, her physical distress, and her heated dismissal on the issue of trust.

  Across the campground, several boys dashed by in a game of tag; farther away, Violet was busy instructing the small class she had gathered together in the fine arts of arithmetic and grammar. Gunshots rang out, off in the distance: a couple of the farmers had gone hunting for game. Two women, chatting convivially, were returning from the nearby creek with baskets full of wet laundry. All the normal, everyday routine of life on the trail.

  This was a beautiful, peaceful place, with an atmosphere in which to submerge and saturate the spirit, as a bulwark against upcoming rigors. Cole lifted his dark, far-seeing, thoughtful gaze to the hills beyond. A place where he might have enjoyed female companionship.

  And into his mind’s eye flashed the image of Janetta McCain, forced into frightened resistance by a crowd of normally easygoing travelers, whipped up to mob disorder by their minister of hate.

  There she stood, backed up against the wagon with no escape, fumbling to cover the beauty of half-naked breasts and pregnant belly. A helpless, wild creature, at bay: burnished hair, beaten into gold by the late morning sun, and pulled free of its neat braid to curl insolently around bare shoulders; heart-shaped face even more pale than usual, drawn into lines of pure dread; red lips half-parted with fear and horror.

  And yet, despite his overwhelming rush of compassion and sympathy, despite his immediate rush to save her from whatever further degradations might be approaching, he had felt his body immediately come alive to the carnality of the moment. It took him and shook him with ravaging force, and he stood powerless before it.

  Briefly Cole closed his eyes with abject self-loathing. Could he have sunk no lower than to lust after this delectable, delicious woman, even in the midst of such jeopardy, even so many months gone with child?

  And yet. And yet. He re-lived that instant when breathing quickened, pulses thrummed like a Comanche drumbeat, juices began gathering, and demanding flesh swelled.

  God. What a sorry excuse for manhood he had turned into!

  Now, Alcove Spring had been forever ruined for him by the machinations of one stringent, barbaric zealot.

  “So where d’ you go from here?” he asked the man who lay, mellowed by moonshine, half-asleep.

  “Don’t see that we have much choice, son. We’ll continue on and do our best. Both of us’ll be gettin’ weaker as time goes on, prob’ly just when we hit the worst of this trip. Janie’s baby is due somewheres around the end of October. We’re just hopin’ I can hold on that long.”

  V

  She still had friends on the train. Violet remained her staunch supporter, as did Ruth, and a few others. Some travelers, those with a “Live and let live” mentality, were simply ambivalent about the whole thing, and didn’t see what all the fuss was about.

  There were those others, however, of weak nature, prone to gossip and easily swayed by a strong leader, who drew aside when she walked past, who pointedly turned their backs on her in group settings, who pulled impressionable children out of her path and followed her with glares of indignation or outright contempt.

  Her father did his best to keep a wall built between his daughter and those who would do her harm; and Cole, too, provided defense when he was around. But, with the trail ahead beginning to roughen, growing chancy and occasionally hazardous, he was spending more time at his scouting work and less time in camp.

  At that point, the wagon master himself stepped in. While he continually circled the slow-moving train, to ensure that everything went according to plan, Jordan also made it known in no uncertain terms that the McCains enjoyed his own special protection. To reinforce the edict, he set Austin Fisher and Caleb Burns to accompanying the pariahs, on alternate days.

  “Why do you think he hates me so much, Pa?” Janetta asked wearily one afternoon. She had dragged her footsore and clumsy body up on the high seat to join him, in a respite from walking.

  “The Reverend? Dunno for sure, honey.” Oliver squinted off at the horizon, hazy with rain and storms up ahead. “I could guess, though.”

  Wetting her handkerchief from a canteen of cool water, she sponged both flushed face and back of wrists in an attempt at renewing energy. “Tell me, even if it is a guess.”

  “Well, we know he’s a fanatic when it comes t’ the Bible and his own brand of religion. I think he’s gone crazy, myself, but that’s just my opinion.”

  “Dangerous.”

  “That he is. Fanatics often are. And I also think the man hates you b’cause he can’t have you.”

  Shuddering, she leaned against the wagon bow to follow his gaze. “When the Reverend looks at me, he makes me feel unclean all over. Ugh. Just like when—when Kyle—”

  Their wagon jounced over a rut in the track, bumping Oliver’s shoulder against hers and unbalancing the dog between them. “Men are funny critters, Janie, girl. Ross wants you so bad he’s almost sick with it. Yet his warped vision of God tells him you’re practically the devil in women’s skirts, sent here especially t’ tempt him int’ fornication. He’s bein’ torn apart by two different needs—one of the flesh and one of the divine—and he can’t figure out how t’ handle it.”

  “So he makes me out as the prime sinner.” She shook her h
ead, disbelieving and disconsolate. “Oh, Pa,” as tears clouded the edge of her vision and clotted her voice, “I don’t see how either of us will make it to the end of the line. I’m starting to feel awfully—afraid.”

  With the bullwhip held upright in his left hand, Oliver reached to slip his right arm around his daughter’s disappearing waist. “I know, sweetheart. If I was a religious man, I’d tell you that God will provide. But more’n anything I figure we gotta depend on ourselves. Keep your courage up. Somehow we’ll get through this.”

  As the train wended its laborious way north into the new state of Nebraska, a vast stretch of plain greeted them, open country bare of trees or shrub. Here the pioneers would learn how to cook over fires built of buffalo chips—the gathering of which was a chore often delegated to the children, who happily assumed this responsibility.

  Here these travelers to the west came upon their first Indians—the Potawatomi, dressed in beads and buckskins; a peaceful tribe willing to barter and trade. There was, Jordan informed his people, little cause for fear or alarm. Anyone had a greater chance being killed by falling down their own well, back home, than being attacked by a native.

  Taking him at his word, some members of the group happily sat down to see what sort of deal they could work out, for goods one side wanted to buy and the other side wanted to sell, without benefit of a common tongue. Cole showed up unexpectedly that evening with a pair of beautifully constructed moccasins for Janetta, with the somewhat sheepish explanation that he’d gotten them for a song, and it seemed a shame if somebody couldn’t use them. Namely her.

  And here a series of minor but annoying incidents took place.

  Several fine horses managed to escape their makeshift corral and slipped away into the night. A search went on next morning through early afternoon, which not only delayed departure but cost time and energy that Jordan would have preferred using to reach their next destination. At least the missing animals were found and returned. It wasn’t such a mystery as to how they had broken free, containment on the trail being less than ideal. But a few whispers started.