When he returned to the wagons he found that they had been driven into an almost circle and the animals were all loose on the plains to graze during the rain. Each wagon had an oilcloth covering rigged like an awning to give everyone a place to stand and stay dry.
Rab rode Cromwell directly into the circle of wagons and dismounted when he saw Graham Devalt. He walked directly up to the young man.
"When I tell you not to speak, I expect you to not speak," Rab said.
Amos Cummings, who was standing under an oilcloth with Stuart Bancroft, correctly read Rab's anger in his posture, and both Amos and Stuart hurried over to where Rab was confronting Graham.
"I'll speak when I feel like speaking," Graham said, but some of the edge was gone from his tone. He was already cowed by Rab Sinclair's anger.
"You're a damn fool," Rab said, though he did not raise his voice or shout in anger. His words were harsh, but his tone was as even as it always was. "Engaging with men like that in talk of secession and abolition. You're lucky you didn't get yourself and every man, woman, and child of this wagon train shot dead."
"Do not call me a fool," Graham muttered.
"I call what I see by the name that fits it," Rab Sinclair said. "I don't mince my words. And I'll tell you straight, you're a damn fool."
Amos stuck a hand out to intervene, but Rab caught it and brushed it aside.
"You need to see to this fool, Mr. Cummings. He's put you and your family in jeopardy with his free mouth."
Graham Devalt balled a fist and took a swing at Rab. But the frontiersman was fast and easily dodged the blow.
In an act intended to humiliate more than harm, Rab open-hand slapped Graham Devalt across the face. When Graham raised another fist, Rab Sinclair batted it down and slapped him again.
Stuart and Amos now stepped in between the two younger men, taking hold of them and pushing them backwards a step or two.
Amos was surprised when he took Rab Sinclair by the shoulders and felt the muscles under Rab's coat and shirt. For just a moment, Amos had a feel for the difficulty of life beyond the East's civilization. Hard work and activity had made this young man like a stone sculpture.
"Mr. Sinclair, please," Amos said. "Surely there's no need to offer insults."
Rab took a step back so that Amos Cummings was no longer touching him.
"There are troublesome men on the plains and in the mountains, men who would give no thought to cutting your throat to take anything you might have that they might want," Rab said. For the first time, Amos Cummings heard a bite to his tone, though Rab did not raise his voice. "And if they have to cut my throat to get at your throat, they'll cut me, too. I'm talking about men who are thieves, but at least a man can understand what motivates them. So if you have something of value that a thief might want, you keep it out of sight. Whether it's a good gun or a bag of gold coins or a pretty woman.
"But there are also troublesome men out here on the frontier who will cut your throat because they don't like the way you look, or they don't like how noisy you are when you chew your chow or take a breath. Or they'll fire a bullet into you to see whether or not you jerk when you're hit. They's all kinds out here. And you can't tell when you look at a man what kind he might be. You can't tell if he's gentle like a gelding or ornery like a bronco. If you want to survive this trail, you give every man the same respect you would give a grizzly bear. You step wide of 'em, and you don't provoke 'em."
Now Rab raised up a finger and poked it toward Graham Devalt, and he held it rigid, accusatory, as he spoke.
"But this fool here, he provokes. He wears his opinions like a chip on his shoulder, and challenges a man to knock off that chip. Yet from what I've seen, there's no man west of the Mississippi who would not gladly and with ease knock his chip. Your assistant is a weak man with an active mouth. And your problem is that if he flaps his jaw at the wrong man, that man will shut it for him and then come after you and me and everyone else with this man."
Amos Cummings glanced at Graham Devalt.
"What did you say to those men?" Amos asked.
"I only said that we were abolitionists," Graham muttered.
"Had those men drawn knives or guns, what choice would I have had but to intervene?" Rab asked. "For your mouth, I might have had to kill those men. That's not a chore I'll willingly accept. I'll not gun down other men to protect Mr. Devalt's ability to flap his jaw."
"Nor would we ask you to," Amos Cummings said. "I'll speak to Graham, and in the future we will all be more careful about how we address strangers."
Rab Sinclair nodded his head and walked away, the rain lashing against the brim of his hat.
He chanced a tip of his hat to look up at the sky. Off in the far distance he could see light beyond the darkness of the clouds. The storm would pass soon enough. Oilcloths had been pulled out from all the wagons, and Rab now walked to the far one where no one was seeking shelter. He stepped under the awning and leaned against the wagon, and he lit his pipe, puffing on it some and trying not to think about Graham Devalt.
"What was said to those men?" Amos Cummings demanded, turning on Graham Devalt.
"I merely asked which way Kentucky would go if there was secession," Graham said. "I stated that we were Ohioans and abolitionists. If the man took offense, it is not my fault that he is overly angry about the issue."
Amos shook his head. "Mr. Sinclair is correct. We do not know the men who inhabit this part of the country, nor do we know how easily they might be provoked. We must conduct ourselves in a way that gives offense to no man. You were lucky that those men rode on. If we cannot think of our own safety, we should think of the women and children and the things we must do to keep them safe."
Graham Devalt nodded his agreement, but he was hurt and angry. He did not like the change that had come over Amos Cummings since they had left Ohio. A once passionate and vocal advocate for abolition, he now ordered Graham to keep quiet on the subject about which no man of conscience should ever be compelled to hold his tongue.
9
Pawnee Bill picked through the supplies in the back of the wagon. There were large bags of flour and cornmeal. There was a barrel full of salt. There was cloth for making clothes. Lots of common supplies that would be found in any farmhouse.
"If we had a cabin, we could get through the winter on these supplies, I suppose, but this ain't the sort of wagon load a man would need for making the trip to New Mexico," Bill announced. "There's flour enough and beans and rice, but there ain't no dried fruits, no cured meats."
"Is there powder and ball?" Mickey Hogg asked.
"Some."
"Farmer planned to hunt his meat for the winter," Mickey Hogg said. "We should dump the things we know we do not want and cannot trade with the Indians. We can take three days or four to hunt some buffalo and cure some meat. The real problem is that we have only the two bottles of whiskey. This will be a long and unpleasant journey if we cannot secure more whiskey."
"Maybe get whiskey at one of the stagecoach stations," Dick Derugy suggested.
"Don't dump any of the supplies until we know if we can trade some of it at a station," Chess Bowman said.
"We just need to keep going," Pawnee Bill said.
The group of men had started out from Abner Spears' hollow as soon as the sun rose, and they had made little progress. The horses wandered off every which way and could not be driven, so they had to be led. Within an hour of leaving the hollow, they mired the wagon in mud trying to cross a creek, and none of the men were skilled drivers or knew how best to work the wagon out. When they were finally back on the trail, a torrential rain blew over, and they stopped to wait it out. None of them wore good slickers, though Mickey Hogg had a slicker full of tears, and when the sun finally reappeared, they continued to not move while they hung their clothes on lines to dry. Then, at last, they began to go through the wagon to see what supplies they had.
"We haven't even got to the trail yet, and already everything's wrong," Ch
ess Bowman said. "Maybe we ought to point ourselves east and go for a town somewhere."
"No, now, this is what we decided on," Pawnee Bill said. "We said we would ride for Santa Fe, and we ain't going to let one rain storm and some missing supplies change our plans. You're forgetting that if we need supplies we can always just take. There will be plenty of other wagons out on the trail, and they'll have the right provisions. As long as we've got caps, powder, and balls, we can get anything else we need."
"Then let's get on our clothes and start for the trail. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can start procuring the supplies we do need," Mickey Hogg said.
The men dressed into still sodden clothes and started off. Dick Derugy drove the wagon and the others rode horses, leading the spares behind them. Dick had his mount on a lead tied to the back of the wagon.
Through the afternoon they stayed in a generally southwest direction, going the way they knew the trail would be. They did not know where they might hit it, but so long as they intersected with the trail – and could recognize it for what it was – they knew they would be all right.
Through the afternoon, they traveled over what seemed to be an endless sea of green hills. The sun had come out and burned off the rain, and now the day was just hot with the sun beating down on them. It did, though, dry out their clothes.
Late in the afternoon, when there was some discussion of stopping for the day, Dick Derugy in the seat of the wagon spotted several horses far out on the horizon.
"They's something up ahead," Dick called to the others, who had outpaced him.
Pawnee Bill turned in his saddle and reined in his horse. "How's that?" he called back.
"They's something up ahead," Dick repeated. "Looks like horses out on a hill."
The riders now whipped their horses into a gallop and closed the distance. As they neared the horses Dick had seen, they saw four tents set up near the visible path of the Santa Fe Trail. Outside of the tents, four men were cooking supper around a campfire.
The mounted men slowed their horses, and Mickey Hogg and Chess Bowman backed off some while Pawnee Bill approached the four encamped men.
"Howdy!" Pawnee Bill called to them.
"Howdy, friend," one of the strangers camped by the side of the road said, standing up from the campfire. The other three men turned to face Bill but did not step up.
"This might sound like a dumb question, but can you tell me if this is the Santa Fe Trail?" Pawnee Bill asked.
"We hope that it is," one of the men said. "We've been following it for a couple of days now, and if it turns out not to be the Santa Fe Trail, we'll be well disappointed."
Bill laughed. "I am glad to hear that," he said. "We've been coming from north and liked to never find this damn road. Y'all bound for Santa Fe?"
"Headed to the gold fields in the territory," the man standing by the fire said.
"Well, good luck to you for that," Bill said. "Where y'all from?"
"We come from Kentucky," the man said.
"You've come a long ways," Bill said.
"Most of it by steamboat. Down the Ohio, up the Missouri. We disembarked there at Independence and then started on the trail."
Bill glanced back at the eight horses grazing on the hill nearby. "Y'all packin' the trail?"
"That's our plan," the man said. The other three around the campfire sat quietly, only watching and listening.
"We've got a wagon, but he's having a hell of a time trying to keep pace," Bill said. "He's back there somewhere, if the Indians ain't got him."
Pawnee Bill laughed at his own joke, but the four Kentuckians did not.
Bill was just making idle talk. He was looking for two things. First, he was looking to size up the other men. He wanted to make a decision now whether or not he thought these men might be easy to take. They looked stout enough, like they could probably fight, and they seemed on their guard about having strangers approach them. Nothing about these men made them seem easy. The other question Pawnee Bill wanted answered was whether or not the Kentuckians would invite them into their camp. If they could share a camp, Pawnee Bill and his three men could jump the four Kentuckians in their sleep.
"Run into a stagecoach yet?" Bill asked them.
"Haven't seen it. Might be coming through tomorrow. Tough for us to judge how quick they'll catch us."
"How about other travelers? Seen many of them?"
"We passed a wagon train earlier today. They're probably a couple of hours behind us now. We were moving a good bit faster than they were. Another train started out about the same time we did, maybe a day ahead of us, but we passed them a long time ago."
Pawnee Bill nodded. Still no invitation, not even to coffee.
"Coffee sure smells good," Bill said.
The Kentuckian said nothing. Bill shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head, agreeing with his unspoken thoughts.
These four men from Kentucky knew better than to share their provisions – supplies that by the end of the trail would be running dangerously low. They also knew better than to invite strangers into their camp. Whatever Pawnee Bill and his companions were going to steal on the trail, they would not be stealing it from these men.
"Well, I guess we'll ride on," Pawnee Bill. "We'll find a good place to camp on up ahead. I imagine with that wagon slowing us down, we'll be seeing you again tomorrow when you pass us by."
"I imagine we'll see you tomorrow," the Kentuckian replied.
Pawnee Bill waved his hand and pointed down the trail, and he and the other two mounted riders started west down the trail. Dick Derugy turned the wagon, cutting across the open prairie to intersect the trail farther down.
The Kentuckian who did the talking sat back down and checked his biscuits. He was making up enough for his supper tonight, breakfast in the morning, and his noon meal.
"Glad to see them ride on," one of the men at the campfire said.
"I'll be more pleased about it when we pass them and leave them behind," the other man said. "I had a bad feeling about them boys."
10
Graham Devalt and Rachel Cummings were walking together and collecting branches from the ground down near the creek.
It was early in the afternoon to stop, but Rab Sinclair liked having some trees and fresh water near the camp, so they'd halted the wagon train here at the creek. They had plenty of wood for the night's fire, but Rab encouraged Amos Cummings to collect more wood to put in the possum bellies under the wagons.
"I'll be glad when we put this journey behind us and are in California," Graham Devalt confided to Rachel. "I have despised every step we have taken since we left Independence."
Graham was convinced that Rachel would one day be his wife. It only made sense. They were near enough in age, Rachel was only a couple of years younger than him. He had known her for several years, had watched her grow from an awkward and embarrassed girl into a young woman. She was the daughter of his mentor, a mentor he was now following all the way across the continent. He believed that they would not be long in California before he and Rachel would marry.
Graham also knew that Amos approved of the match. The battle was more than half won.
Rachel, though, was not yet won over. She had an independence of spirit that made her difficult to court. Her parents had raised her in such a way. They had brought her up to think for herself and to question conventions. If she spurned him, Graham believed that she would live to be an old maid, single and unloved.
"It hasn't been so bad," Rachel said. "It is an extraordinary adventure, though I will grant you that the countryside is growing painfully monotonous."
"And the company is atrocious," Graham said.
"I do not know how to take that," Rachel said.
"Oh, not you!" Graham quickly corrected himself. "It's that Sinclair fellow. He is a boor. He is contemptuous of us all, and I cannot stand the disrespect he shows to your father."
Rachel glanced at Graham. "I would agree that his is boorish, but I h
ave not seen him speak disrespectfully to my father."
Graham snorted. "He bosses your father around in a way that is unseemly. Your father is his employer, yet Sinclair speaks to him in the most rude ways. There is no instruction your father has given to your brothers that Sinclair has not countermanded. I cannot stand him, and I am eager to get to Santa Fe so that we can be done with him. I hope for the second half of our trip we are able to find a guide who knows his place."
"What happened between the two of you earlier after those men overtook us?"
"I conversed with them," Graham said. "There was nothing more to it than that, and Sinclair took offense because he thought it was his place to do the talking."
Rachel did not say anything for a moment while she added dead branches to the stack in her arm.
"It is hard to know what to make of him," she said.
"Not for me," Graham said. "I know exactly what to make of him. He is an illiterate bumpkin who thinks, because we are in his element, that he has some authority over us. He's younger than I am, yet he bosses me around as if I was a dumb schoolboy."
Rachel, who was also younger than Graham, wrinkled her nose. "What does age have anything to do with it?"
"His youth is a good indication that he does not know as much as he thinks he knows," Graham said.
"Maybe he is not illiterate," Rachel said.
"Of course he is," Graham responded.
"He does seem a bit simple," Rachel said.
"A bit?" Graham was incredulous. "He is nothing but a simpleton."
Rachel laughed at a recollection. "At the noon stop yesterday I witnessed him eating his jerky and then picking his teeth with the point of that enormous knife he wears on his belt."
Graham laughed with her at the thought of it. "No wonder all of these mountain men are missing so many teeth."
"We should watch for the moment he encounters a particularly brutal string of jerky and cuts a tooth from his head in order to remove the gristle." Rachel felt a touch of remorse over the petty joking, but the thought of Rab Sinclair plucking out a tooth to get at some gristle amused her too much. "He wears that buckskin coat, and he is an absolute caricature. If he were old enough to have a beard, he would be too much to believe."
A Trail Too Far Page 7
