‘If we make it?’ Abelena’s brow furrowed. ‘We’re going to have to find food.’
They had talked briefly about killing the horse, but he was too valuable. If anything they needed another two, then they could all ride and double a child each. They’d only risked a campfire twice since their journey’s beginning. Jerome had snared jackrabbits to roast but for the remainder of the time they’d subsisted on water and a bag of uncooked corn they’d stolen from the Blums on their leaving. ‘At least there will be timber to burn tonight.’ Jerome glanced at the twins.
‘They sleep,’ his uncle confirmed.
Mathew had been trouble since their forced leaving. Annoyed that they’d had to run from the farm, he’d been vocal in his complaining. The boy was old enough to recognise the difficulties they faced as a family if they all stayed together and more than once he’d suggested that Jerome either give himself up or take off on his own.
‘He worries for Mark,’ Abelena explained, ‘and I don’t blame him. The boy has been afraid and confused since our leaving.’
‘We have more than one to worry about.’ Jerome rose and walked to where Ernst was tethered to a ground stake. ‘Let’s get moving before it’s broad daylight.’
‘Look, the mountains are shining.’
They stood in the main street of the deserted town and looked to where Mark pointed. The flat-topped hill, which had given them shelter during the night, rose from the red earth and sparkled brilliantly as though flecked with silver and glass.
‘Crystals, crystals in the mountain,’ Uncle George explained. ‘Come, we look for food.’
The deserted town yielded little. An uninspiring destination of eight buildings, the structures verged from partial to near ruin. Timber shutters banged on cracked windows, doors swung uselessly on broken hinges and signs that once noted a general store and a blacksmith’s forge lay in the dirt. Tying Ernst to a hitching rail, Jerome led the way as they went from building to building. Initially he’d hoped for a scrap of food, clothing, anything useful. However, he’d soon realised this was a town long abandoned.
‘Nothing,’ Mathew said loudly from the middle of the street. ‘Ain’t nothing here.’
Uncle George urged him to keep his voice down.
‘Why?’ Mathew yelled. ‘There isn’t anyone here.’ His young voice echoed in and out of the deserted buildings.
The old Indian grabbed the boy by the ear and tugged at it until he squealed before letting go. ‘If I tell you to be quiet, then be quiet.’
Mathew spat on the ground and joined Tess and his brother. Mark was on his knees peering under the landing of the general store. He held out his hand and a few minutes later a tawny cat appeared from under the timber.
‘Why didn’t it run away?’ Abelena asked Jerome as they watched the children petting it.
‘Good question,’ Jerome answered. ‘Let’s have another look around. It could be that that cat’s friendly because he’s used to people coming through here on a regular basis.’
Leaving the children in the street, Jerome, Abelena and Uncle George walked around to the rear of the buildings. Lengths of rotting timber lay scattered on the ground amidst stubby bushes, while the land stretched towards mesas that squatted forlornly in the distance. Behind the blacksmith’s they found horse manure and the remains of a campfire. Uncle George crouched to prod the ring of blackened earth.
‘Three days at the most, two men.’ He traced a hoof print with a forefinger. ‘They’re travelling light.’ He followed the hoof marks in the dirt for a number of feet. ‘They came from the east and are heading west.’
Jerome prised the lid off a wooden keg standing at the rear of the building. ‘Look at this.’ He pulled free a couple of blankets, canteens of water and a half dozen tins of beans.
Uncle George shook his head. ‘Put it back.’
‘But we can use this, old man.’ Abelena looked to her brother for agreement.
‘You would steal from these men?’ Uncle George asked her.
Abelena laughed. ‘Now you’re becoming righteous? What happened to the Apache ways?’
‘He’s right,’ Jerome said to his sister, ‘these men could be dangerous. Look at us. We have no guns, only children.’
‘Who have to be fed.’ Abelena rolled the tins up in one of the blankets and hefted it over her shoulder. ‘You both know Tess is not herself. She needs more food. Bring the rest, Jerome. We’ll be out of here by nightfall anyway.’
Jerome looked to his uncle as his sister walked away.
‘I would sooner try to trick a coyote than argue with a mother hen over the feeding of young chicks.’ The old Indian leant against the wall of the deserted blacksmith’s building and began to cough. By the time the spasm had passed, he was gasping for air.
‘You need to rest,’ Jerome advised, lifting the other blanket and slinging the canteens across his shoulder.
‘There will be plenty of time for that,’ his uncle replied.
They walked back to the general store. Uncle George called for the children to come indoors while Jerome led the Blums’ horse inside the dilapidated building to a store room. Here he tied the animal securely.
‘Do you think those men will come back?’ Abelena cut the scavenged blankets in half with a knife she’d found behind the wooden counter. The few belongings they’d brought with them, a change of shirt for all and Uncle George’s possessions, sat in a heap on the floor.
‘Perhaps,’ Jerome replied. ‘Better to be careful.’ Picking up a pile of tattered wheat bags, he shook them vigorously before laying them on the rotted floor for bedding. ‘I’ll go outside and have another look around.’
‘Cat come?’ Mark asked, lingering in the doorway with the animal purring in his arms.
‘Sure he can,’ Abelena told him.
Abelena cut neck holes in the blankets and slipped the roughly made ponchos over the twins’ heads and then Tess’s.
Mark and Tess lay on one of the bags, the cat between them, as Mathew helped Abelena break up splintery lengths of wood for kindling. She was surprised at his helping without being asked. There was a pot-belly stove shoved up in a corner of the store. Although the flue was missing, it was sitting directly beneath a gaping hole in the ceiling. ‘At least we’ll be warm for a few hours this evening before we move on,’ Abelena told the boy as they stacked the wood. ‘I’ll light it late in the afternoon.’
Stacking the timber near the stove, Mathew watched Abelena puncture a tin of beans with the knife. ‘Where’d you find that?’
‘Outside.’ Abelena shared the contents between two tin mugs. ‘Here you go, give that to your brother and Tess, you and I will share another tin.’
‘Can Mark keep the cat?’ Mathew asked, picking up the mugs.
The cat was nosing around their few belongings, hopeful of something to eat. ‘We’ve barely got enough food for ourselves.’
‘Yeah, but Mark ain’t never had anything of his very own.’
‘Neither have you,’ Abelena said gently. ‘I tell you what. We’ll take him with us when we go, but if the cat doesn’t want to stay with us, we’ll have to let him go, okay?’
Mathew nodded solemnly, however there was a brightness in his eyes, a gratefulness that was difficult to ignore.
‘No cat,’ Uncle George said flatly. ‘If anything we should be eating it.’ He moved to Abelena’s side. ‘There is a meal there for the children.’
Abelena, busy opening another tin of beans, stilled the knife. ‘You wouldn’t?’
Mathew’s eyes widened. He glanced at his younger brother. ‘Abelena said –’
The old Indian picked at a splinter in the floorboard. ‘We can’t take a cat with us, Mathew.’
‘But it’s Mark’s,’ Mathew argued.
Their uncle ignored the boy. ‘Who do you think will be carrying it, Abelena? What will it eat?’
‘It’s a cat, it’s harmless,’ Abelena argued.
‘And when it runs away and the boy gets
upset? No, better the cat stays where we found it.’
‘But Mark won’t understand.’ Mathew’s face was tight with emotion. He waited for his half-sister to speak, for his uncle to change his mind. Instead Abelena concentrated on bending the lid on the canned beans. ‘You don’t want us to have anything of our own,’ he complained. ‘You boss us and tell us what to do but it’s Jerome that’s done murder, not Mark and me. Why are we running?’ Mathew stomped out of the store.
‘They are children,’ Uncle George told his niece. ‘They will soon forget.’
Abelena wasn’t so sure.
Chapter 31
May, 1935 – Payne County, Oklahoma
Seven days later they rested on the wide, shallow banks of a great river. When the mesas and flat plains country of the west had given way to thickly timbered areas and the gentle undulations of this more fertile environment, Jerome hoped for better things. They’d risked a campfire twice to roast wild quail, in spite of their uncle’s disagreement. Captured while the birds roosted at night, they were careful to fan the cooking smoke and were quick to put out the fire. They crossed a number of railroad tracks and marvelled at the thick patches of post oak and blackjack that grew so closely together that it seemed at times that nature intended to stymie their progress, but railway loggers and farmers had eaten away at this natural barrier between east and west and they soon skirted the heavier timber.
Where trees were less dense, they foraged for the few edible greens that could be found beneath clumps of shrubby bushes and kept their eyes focused on the trees and plants they passed. They had munched on cracked acorns beneath Burr oaks yesterday and had grabbed hungrily at dark-coloured berries. Uncle George checked every bulb, root, grass and seed that was found and took to rubbing the specimens on the inside of his wrist to see if there was any nasty reaction. Only then would he taste it, before allowing anyone else to eat.
At the river Abelena splashed water on her face and neck, using the wetted hem of her skirt to scrub at embedded dirt. Her legs were pale and skinny beneath the folds of the material as she tucked up her skirt and squatted in the cold water to scrub their few items of clothing. When she was done, she lay the clothes on the ground to dry before handing out the last of the berries they’d saved.
Tess chewed disinterestedly where she lay on the bank next to Jerome.
‘Aren’t you hungry, Tess?’ Jerome asked. The girl shook her head.
‘She hasn’t had a chance to rest,’ Abelena replied. ‘When we were north of Oklahoma City we should have headed there. We should have found the Wade house and asked for help.’
‘Last time I was there I got a punch in the nose for my trouble,’ Uncle George stated. ‘It’s too late to expect help from them. If Serena had kept at Edmund, reminded him that she was entitled, then things might have been different, but she was too proud to go back. They are not our people, Abelena. They would not help us. They didn’t want us.’
‘They didn’t want you,’ Abelena replied curtly. ‘What would have happened if our mother had arrived at that house alone?’ The question went unanswered. Abelena pressed another berry between Tess’s lips as Mathew walked up the bank from the river, where he and Mark had been splashing. Cramming his share of berries into his mouth, he waited for his brother. Mark licked up his share from his palm, wiping at the moisture that wept from his droopy eye.
‘Is she sick? She looks sick to me,’ Mathew decided.
‘Yeah, sick,’ Mark agreed.
Abelena ignored them. The twins had been difficult since Jerome had grabbed the cat from Mark’s grasp and dumped it in the deserted street on leaving the ghost town. The boy had yelped like a coyote and only a slap from his uncle had finally quietened him. Since then Mathew had slowed them up at times, dawdling behind on purpose, arguing about everything from the lack of food to the distance they were forced to walk each day. His complaints were made worse by Mark’s tendency to mimic everything his brother said and did. Jerome was ready to throttle both of them.
‘Maybe we should get some fish.’ Mathew pointed downstream. ‘There’s a deep hole not far away.’
‘Yeah, fish,’ Mark repeated.
Uncle George opened a sleepy eyelid. ‘No fire,’ he commanded from where he lay on the sandy bank. ‘Maybe tomorrow. We’ve rested enough; it’s time to move on.’
‘I forgot, you Apaches don’t eat fish.’ Mathew’s tone was accusatory.
‘I’ll eat fish and so will Tess,’ Abelena announced, touching the girl’s flushed cheek. ‘Let’s try to catch some, Jerome. We’re starving.’
‘We’ll have to risk a fire,’ he replied.
‘No!’ Their uncle’s tone made them all turn and stare. ‘We’re being followed.’
Abelena gathered Tess to her chest. The twins looked up and down the waterway. Jerome peered through the scattering of trees behind them. ‘Are you sure?’
The old man nodded and stifled a cough. From beneath the blanket he lifted one of the canteens they’d taken from the store at the ghost town. Unscrewing the top, he inverted the container and shook it. A slip of paper protruded from the neck of the bottle and he prised out a roll of greenbacks.
Jerome dropped to his knees by the old man’s side. ‘Money? How much is there?’
His uncle poked the bills back inside and re-screwed the lid. ‘Enough for someone to want it back, I would think,’ he replied, slipping the container under the blanket.
‘How long have you known about that?’
‘The day after we left the ghost town,’ the old man admitted to Jerome.
‘And you said nothing?’ Abelena accused, settling Tess on the blanket again.
‘What did you expect us to do,’ her uncle chastised, ‘take it back? You were the one who wanted to steal it in the first place, woman. Always you are telling us what and what not to do. You have many lessons to learn in this life, Abelena, and this difficulty we now face is just the beginning of the problems that may follow you if you continue to ignore those who know better.’
Abelena stared back at her uncle, her gaze defiant.
Jerome ran a hand through his hair. ‘What do we do? Wait for them and give it back?’
His uncle laughed. ‘Do you think it will be that easy?’
‘It mightn’t be the owners of the things we found in the ghost town. It could be the law following,’ Abelena suggested.
‘After all these days?’ Jerome kicked the dirt at his feet. ‘We’ve been so careful.’
‘Either way, they are not far behind us,’ Uncle George told them. ‘A day at the most. Yesterday I could smell them on the morning wind.’
‘There’s probably a reward out for you, Jerome, out for all of us.’ Mathew folded his arms across his chest.
Uncle George agreed. ‘The boy is right, and if there is a reward, there’ll be a description of us.’
‘We have to move,’ Jerome decided, ‘now.’
His uncle nodded. ‘Abelena, I want you to take the children. Keep walking with the sun directly behind you, we’ll catch up.’
‘No,’ Abelena disagreed. ‘We have to stay together.’
‘It’s too late for that.’ Her uncle lifted a hand. ‘Don’t argue, girl.’
Jerome clasped her shoulders. ‘If anything happens, keep on walking to Broken Arrow, Abelena. You’ll make it, sis.’ He thought she would argue. It was to be expected. Instead she told the children to roll up their blankets and gather the drying clothes.
‘Take this.’ Abelena pulled the broken knife she’d found at the abandoned store from the belt at her waist and gave it to her brother. ‘Be careful.’
‘And you.’ Jerome lifted Tess and, placing her in a piggy-back position against Abelena’s back, he wrapped the blanket across the child and tied the ends of the material securely across Abelena’s chest. ‘Carry her for as long as you can.’
‘Head downstream until you reach the railway line we saw yesterday. There will either be a bridge or a barge so that you can cross
,’ Uncle George advised.
‘What about the horse?’ Mathew walked towards the gelding. ‘We should take it so Mark and Tess can ride.’
‘It’s safer if you’re on foot,’ Jerome told him. ‘Go with Abelena.’ He watched as his sister and the two boys began to walk along the bank of the river. The group turned at a bend to look briefly at the two men they’d left behind before disappearing into the trees. ‘Now what?’
Uncle George lay back down on the ground. ‘Light a fire. We might as well get this over with and see if you can find something to eat. I’m hungry.’
Chapter 32
May, 1935 – Payne County, Oklahoma
Jerome had just started to rub a twig against a piece of bark to light the dry litter he’d gathered when two men on horseback appeared out of the trees. Unshaven and dirty, they wore suit-coats and carried rifles.
‘Looky here, Harry, we’ve got ourselves a ready-made campfire and a couple of Injuns to boot. Shouldn’t you two be on the reservation?’
The man who spoke slipped from his saddle. Lifting the rifle he carried, he gestured for Jerome to move next to his uncle. ‘Well? Can’t you speak?’
Uncle George’s expression never altered. ‘You following us?’
‘Maybe. You left a trail as wide as the Red River.’
The one called Harry dismounted and ran an admiring eye over the Blums’ horse. ‘Nice piece of horse flesh you’ve got there. You Injuns wouldn’t have stolen it, by any chance?’
‘What do you want?’ Jerome asked.
The first man walked to the river’s edge. ‘There’s more of them all right – they’re heading downstream.’ He knelt and examined the footprints. ‘Children. That matches the description.’
Harry rubbed the thick stubble on his chin. ‘I’m thinking you’d be the Wade half-breed that murdered that homesteader’s son. The same half-breed who was stupid enough to snitch our belongings back at Fork Gully.’
The Great Plains Page 26
