Clay stepped forward.
‘You always did run off at the mouth too much, Oaks,’ he said. ‘Keep it shut now.’
Oaks looked like a man who wanted to back down but whose pride wouldn’t let him. He ripped out an obscenity. Jody drew his gun, his eyes wild.
‘I’ll kill you for that,’ he screamed.
Clay said: ‘Put that fool gun away.’
Oaks laughed drunkenly.
‘Naw,’ he said. ‘Let him keep it right there. Stand back, boys. I can draw and get him in the brisket before he can cock it.’
The other men were backing away.
Sarah said: ‘I thought I’d left the savages behind.’
Oaks cursed her.
Clay couldn’t hold himself back any longer. He leapt forward and grappled with Oaks. They fell to the ground. Clay had him by the throat. Oaks clawed at the strangling hands. Clay heaved himself up and dropped his knees into the man’s belly. A deep groan was forced from Oaks’ lips and he went limp. Clay climbed off him, panting. Slowly Oaks rose to his hands and knees and started retching.
Jody put his gun away and said: ‘We’re all drunk. It’s just we’re all drunk, I reckon.’
Oaks was through retching. He got slowly to his feet and didn’t look in the direction of the girl.
He looked at the ground and said in a dead voice: ‘I’ll take my time.’
‘Sure,’ Clay said. He found his roll and counted out some notes. He handed these to Oaks and said: ‘I’m sorry this happened, Mannin’.’
Oaks just stared at him for a moment, then turned away. He caught up his horses from the remuda and drove them toward the store. The others prepared themselves for bed. Nobody said anything; they all felt bad. They’d come a long way with Oaks and he had been a good hand.
The girl threw back her blankets and came to Clay.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘It had to happen soon or late,’ he said.
‘Do you want to change your mind?’ she said.
‘No,’ he said. But he wondered at his answer. As he looked at her, he had a premonition of tragedy. Not for the first time, he realized that he knew nothing about this girl. He might have been completely fooled by the exterior that she showed to the world. So far as he was concerned, she had not existed until that moment when she had crossed the creek from the Indian camp and climbed on his horse with him. He did not even know how she came to be with the Indians.
He lay awake a long time that night, staring at the stars and thinking about her. He couldn’t help the feeling that while she was with them they would have trouble. Manning Oaks was just the start of it.
He tried to fathom her past, but it was impossible. All he was certain of was that he had never known a woman like her. Not even the simple gingham dress he had bought her at the store could hide the fact that she had a social assurance and an air of position that he had never met before. He suspected that she had lived in a world that he could never know.
The vision of her face and her clear wide eyes was in front of him as he fell asleep.
Chapter Eight
The following day; dusk an hour off.
Manning Oaks sat drinking in the store. He had been drinking off and on all day and had eaten little. He had never once reached the stage where he was incapable, but neither had he allowed himself to become sober since the moment he had woken.
During the day the interior of the store had seemed cool after the suffocating heat of the outside. Now with dusk approaching, the interior seemed close and stifling.
There were a few men at the bar, drinking, talking with Parsons. Oaks sat off to one side, solitary, not wanting the company of men. Finding the close atmosphere at last distasteful to him, he rose and went, drink in hand, to the door and stood staring down at the placid waters of the river. The light was soft and pleasant after the glaring light of the daytime sun. The river shimmered slightly in the last beams of the sun. There were a few Mexican women at the edge of the water and their voices carried to him.
Movement on the far side of the river caught his attention. Three dots approached the water and, when they reached it, took on the form of riders and their mounts. One led a pack animal which looked like a mule. They slowed from a trot to a walk to enter the ford and came slowly across, the water coming no higher than their stirrup-irons.
As they came up the slope from the river, Oaks saw that they were not the kind of men he would expect to see in this country. Not the first two, at any rate. The man in the rear, leading the pack mule, wore the clothes of a man who rode the trails, and bore himself like one. Oaks’ keen eyes, however, even at that distance knew the horse wasn’t a Texan horse and the rig did not come from this part of the country. He added two and two together and came up with the possibility that the man, coming as he did from the north, was a Kansas or Missouri man.
The other two were birds of a totally different feather. Not that their clothes were so very different, but the way they carried themselves certainly was. The difference was subtle, but Oaks didn’t miss it. They rode well, but not with the careless ease of the trail-rider who had adapted the accepted style to suit himself. There was a certain correctness, even primness, to the way they sat their horses that made Oaks suspect that they were easterners.
The man nearest Oaks was aged about thirty. He rode with a straight back that gave him an almost military air. He was dark-haired and he had shaved that day. His costume was that of a plainsman. The black hat had seen wear, but it wasn’t battered. The doeskin hunting shirt was tailored to his form and was caught at the waist by a broad belt from which hung a holstered revolver. The pants were white buckskin and were tucked in high boots with a low heel. Maybe the costume of a gentleman hunting for pleasure on the plains. Such a thing was not uncommon. The man’s face was well-featured, cold and confident.
The other man may have come from the same stable, but he was of a different breed. Where the other was tall, slender and with wide shoulders that tapered to his waist and bore himself with a relaxed air that bordered on boredom, this man had all the appearance of being a pent-up storehouse of energy. He was broad and powerful, his massive chest seeming to be trying to burst out of his checked wool shirt. His face was ruddy and rimmed with hair of burnished gold. The beard gave his already forceful face a forward thrusting look. His eyes were everywhere, missing nothing. A formidable man who bore all before him with his mere presence.
Oaks moved aside from the door so that he might avoid having to greet them. He found a rocker in which Parsons would sit sometimes in the cool of the evening; he slumped into it, finishing his drink. The light breeze from the river was refreshing.
At the sound of the approaching horses, men came out of the store. Parsons came forward to greet the newcomers. The tall man answered him coolly and stepped down from the saddle with a somewhat stiff grace. The ruddy-faced man roared out a greeting in a bluff but cultured voice and dropped violently from the saddle, cheerfully cursing the stiffness of his legs, demanding a man’s drink to cut the accursed dust from his throat. Parsons recognized the third rider as a hired man and told him where to put the beasts, then led the way inside.
Oaks wasn’t sorry to be left alone. For the hundredth time that day his mind dwelled on Clay Storm and the woman. If it hadn’t been for that Goddam female, he’d still be with the outfit. A good outfit. One of a kind that a man seldom found. He had looked forward to the gather down on the Nueces and then the drive to Colorado. Once there, he would have started his own brand, amounted to something. He could still do it. But he had liked being a part of the Storm crew. He liked the idea of belonging. If only old man Storm had placed him, Manning Oaks, in charge instead of that pup, Clay...
He started to doze.
He woke with a start to find a man beside him. It was dark now.
‘Oaks,’ said the man, ‘there’s a feller inside would maybe like a word with you.’ It was Parsons.
‘What feller? ‘ he demanded.
‘Feller rode in earlier.’
‘I don’t hanker after talkin’ with nobody.’
Parsons hesitated a moment, recognizing Oaks’ ugly mood. He always kept the peace around here, he acknowledged a man’s right to privacy when he demanded it. He turned away and went back into the store.
Oaks stayed where he was, trying to get up enough energy to go inside and get himself another drink. But before he could get to his feet, the light from the door to his right was blocked off by a sturdy form. The man came toward him.
He stopped short of Oaks and said: ‘Mr. Oaks?’
Oaks didn’t speak. He wanted only for the man to go away.
It was the stranger with the red-gold beard. Oaks could feel the power of his presence and he resented it. This was one of those bastards accustomed to commanding men and he resented that fact, too.
‘My name’s Blessed,’ the man said. ‘Lewis Blessed.’
‘You want somethin’?’ Oaks demanded, his words slurred with drink.
‘I want something,’ the man said, unperturbed at Oaks’ tone. The man took a stogie from a pocket, stuck it between his teeth and lit up. For a brief moment, Oaks saw his face and was startled by the hard coldness of the eyes. Then the flame died and Oaks stayed with the impression of those eyes. He found it easy to despise Northerners like this man usually. This man was different. He felt that whatever this man wanted, he gained.
He still didn’t say anything. Even in the few moments of being in this man’s presence he was under the impression that he was face to face with a man of far greater strength than his own. It wasn’t a feeling he took kindly to.
Blessed puffed at the stogie. The scent of it surrounded Oaks like the man’s presence.
‘I heard,’ Blessed said, ‘that you rode in here yesterday with an outfit from Kansas.’
Oaks wanted another drink. He concentrated his mind on the fact. The desire for drink was more important than this smooth-voiced Yankee.
Blessed waited for him to say something and, when he did not, went on easily.
‘I heard also that there was a young woman with you.’
Oaks’ attention focused on the man. He turned his head and stared up at him, trying to penetrate the gloom with his eyes and failing.
‘What’s she to you?’ he said.
‘Let the fact that I am interested suffice,’ Blessed said.
High-toned talk, Oaks thought. It irritated him.
‘You mean,’ he said, ‘you ask the questions, but I ain’t allowed.’
Blessed said: ‘It’s me who’s offering to pay for information.’
Oaks digested that and found that his emotions were divided between indignation and cupidity. He liked the idea of receiving money for nothing more than talk, at the same time he was insulted that a man should think that he could be bought.
‘Ask the questions,’ he said. ‘I ain’t obliged to answer.’
‘What was the woman’s name?’
‘You could of learned that inside there.’
‘On the contrary. Nobody at the store more than got a glimpse of her. I hear you camped down by the river.’
‘What more did you hear?’
‘I heard that she had escaped from the Indians.’
Oaks chewed on his problem. He didn’t owe anything to the woman, nor to Clay and the outfit.
‘Tell you her name for a dollar.’
Blessed reached into his pocket and drew out a note. He handed it to Oaks who crumpled it in his hand.
‘Sarah Bingham. That the name you want?’
‘No. It’s not the name I want. But no matter - a name’s easily assumed or discarded. Describe her to me.’
‘Cost you another dollar.’
Blessed sighed and handed over another note. Oaks crumpled it in with the other. Haltingly he described the girl. When he finished, Blessed said, as though to himself: ‘It’s her. It has to be her.’ Then to Oaks, he said: ‘I heard you were headed for some part of the Nueces River. Is that so?’
‘Could be.’
‘Where exactly?’
Oaks grinned to himself in the darkness.
‘That’s a ten dollar question,’ he said. He sensed that the answer was vital to the man. He reasoned that the three men had followed the Storm outfit down through the Indian Nations, but they had done so on hearsay. None of them were trackers. It could be that if they wanted to come up with the girl, they would have to be led to her.
Blessed lost a little of his calm.
‘Are you trying to get cute with me?’ he said.
Oaks stood up. He was drunk and he wasn’t afraid of any man. He didn’t know much fear when he was sober, for that matter.
‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘I’m gettin’ cute.’
It was pleasant to feel that it was possible to get the better of this man. He walked past him and went into the store, blinking in the lamplight. Parsons was behind the bar. There were several local men standing around. The tall aloof man was sitting by himself to the right staring expressionlessly into a drink. At Oaks’ entrance he raised his eyes briefly to inspect him, showed no interest and went back to contemplating his drink. The man who had led the pack-mule was with the men at the bar, talking and laughing. Oaks bought himself another drink and settled himself on the floor with his back to the bar.
Lewis Blessed entered and sat down beside the aloof man. He leaned toward him and spoke softly. The other nodded once and looked toward Oaks.
He turned to Blessed and said so only Blessed heard: ‘He’s not going anywhere tonight, Lewis. In the morning, we’ll hire him to lead us to her. If he refuses, we shall beat the information we need out of him.’
Blessed laughed and slapped his thigh.
‘I have a feeling,’ he said, ‘that we are reaching the end of our trail.’
Coldly, the other said: ‘You thought that in Kansas.’
‘Good God,’ Blessed said. ‘Who would have bargained that the Indians would get her?’
‘I think she intended that they should,’ the other said.
Blessed gave him a sharp look, then said: ‘We’ll get her this time. I solemnly promise you that.’
He turned and shouted for a drink.
Chapter Nine
They were a morose and sore-headed crew when they pulled out at dawn. Clay had his work cut out to get them out of their blankets. He’d never seen a sicker-looking bunch in his life. They avoided the girl and not even George spoke to her. As for Sarah herself, she was cold-faced and withdrawn.
Nobody remarked on the fact that she was now dressed like a white woman, though the transformation was startling. Suddenly, she was more feminine. They were more strongly conscious of haying a lady in their midst. They were reminded of this when Clay helped her on her horse, for the long wide skirt was awkward for riding and, as she was not able to ride sidesaddle without the proper gear, she was forced to show a length of stockinged leg. To the men this was shameful and embarrassing. If Sarah realized this, she gave no sign. She stayed beside Clay on the trail as if now she needed him more. It seemed as if they were drawn together as if by necessity and this fact increased the distance which had appeared between himself and the crew.
It was now that Clay became aware of the girl’s interest in their back-trail. Several times in the hour, she would turn and look back, as though searching for telltale dust.
By the evening, the crew had sweated most of their bad-humor out of them. George returned to talking to Sarah, but the girl was distant with him as though her thoughts were somewhere else. In camp, the men were subdued, but the ill-feeling which Clay thought they felt toward the girl seemed to have evaporated. He could not help feeling relieved, for from the time they had first ridden up the trail from Texas into Kansas, they had been a happy crew, they had been through hardship and danger together and such experiences could not help but cement comradeship. The girl cooked the evening meal and the men were polite to her, but there was now restraint on both si
des.
Clay found himself attracted to the girl strongly. That he no longer denied to himself. But just what his emotions concerning her were, he could not fathom. Maybe that was because she was so different from the girls he had known in the past. But he found himself becoming increasingly sensitive to her moods and inclinations. He made little outward show of this for he was not a demonstrative man by nature. However, he knew that for some reason she was becoming increasingly nervous. There was not only her watching their back-trail, but several times when they were in camp and she heard noises in the night, she showed signs of fright. He could come to no other conclusion but that she was expecting somebody. Who, he had no idea. It could no longer be the Indians. He could only assume that this was a case of delayed shock and that her experiences among the Cheyenne were beginning to tell on her.
Young George also noticed this. He came to Clay in camp and said: ‘What’s gotten into Sarah, Clay? She’s spooked.’
That described her state. She was spooked.
Clay brushed the question aside, saying that she’d had a rough time and he didn’t doubt her nerve had been shaken.
They continued on south in the direction of the new-constructed Fort Griffin, going at an easy pace, though Sarah showed signs of wanting it to be increased. Clay was not willing to do this because he wanted the horses fit when he got them onto the home range. Once there, they were going to work their heads off catching cows. He wanted a good herd for the trail come spring.
Griffin had been built, the Yankees said, so that there would be some military presence against the depredations of the Indians. The Comanches, the Kiowas and the Kiowa-Apache had been increasingly bold during the war and still looked on Texas as a place where they could freely gather stock when they felt so inclined. The Texans knew different. Griffin was there to help hold Texas down. Clay aimed on replenishing his supplies there.
Sarah apparently didn’t want to go there. When Clay was riding out ahead of the others one day, she rode up beside him and broached the subject of avoiding the fort. Where there was a fort, there would be a settlement, she argued, and she didn’t want to meet white folk. Not yet.
Hard Texas Trail Page 7
