the Cherokee Trail (1982)

by L'amour, Louis

  She had turned in the doorway when the first of the carriages came into the yard. Under the coating of dust from the trail, it was black and shining, as were the six horses that drew it. There were a half-dozen men and four women in the carriage laughing and chatting. A moment later, a second carriage pulled up, and someone leaned out and said, "Why are we stopping? This isn't the ranchl" "No"-a young man got down from the seat beside the driver-"but it is the last time you will have a chance to get a cup of coffee or tea before we get there. We've miles to go."

  "That suits me." A young woman accepted his hand and got down. "Regina? Are you coming?"

  "Why don't we wait? This is just a stage station, and their food is awful!"

  The young man with the curly hair turned to Mary. "Is that true? Is your food awful?"

  She smiled. "Why don't you try it? Our coffee is really very good, and we've tea. Won't you come in?"

  "Archie!" Regina called. "Really!"

  "I am thirsty," Archie said, "and besides that"-he turned to look at Mary again-"she's very pretty!"

  One of the other men stepped down, holding his hand to help another young woman down. "He's right, Regina. We are thirsty. Even if it is only a few miles, I'd feel better for something to drink, if it is only water." was in, if you like," Regina said. "I shall be served here." . She turned to look at Mary. "A cup of tea, please."

  Mary Breydon smiled. "I am sorry. We only serve at the tables." "But I am Regina Collier!" , "How nice for you! But we do serve only at the tables."

  Regina Collier was angry. Was this stage person being impudent? "I am afraid you do not understand," she said icily. "I am Preston Collier's daughter!"

  Mary Breydon smiled. "I understand perfectly, Miss Collier. We are very busy here and do not have time to serve people in carriages or stages. She smiled again. "I could not serve you in your carriage if you were President Lincoln. Of course," she added, "he would not ask me tol Turning, she went back to the tables where nine young people had gathered, laughing and talking. Matty was just serving the last of them and had put a platter of cookies on the table.

  Archie went back to Regina's carriage. "Come on]" he invited. "The coffee's really very good, and so are the cookies!" He offered his hand. "No,"

  Regina said stubbornly. "I shall stay here. I will not yield to that-that woman!"

  "Oh, come now, Regina! They have their rules, you know! And she's really a very nice woman!"

  "You do as you like. I will not be insulted by a common waitress!" Archie's smile faded. "I am sorry," he said, and returned to the table, joining again in the excited talk.

  Mary refilled his cup. "Thank you," he said.

  "We haven't far to go, but we were all very thirsty.

  It's a dusty ride.

  "I know. You are going to Preston Collier's?

  "Yes, there's a party there, a reception for some chap from England who has come over to hunt and see how the colonials are progressing. He's a nice chap, really, and this is his second trip, although I do not believe he was ever this far west." "He will enjoy it, I am sure. Is there anything else I can get for you?" "Not at all, and thank you." Archie hesitated, then said, "I must apologize for Miss Collier."

  "Please don't. I am not in the least offended.

  We all have our bad moments, and no doubt she is tired."

  Archie looked at her, somewhat puzzled. "You have not been here long Miss-?"

  "Breydon. Mrs. Mary Breydon."

  "Oh? Your husband is here, then?"

  "Major Breydon was killed. I am a widow."

  "I am sorry. I didn't mean to pry."

  "I am sure you did not." She glanced around to see the others drifting back to their carriages.

  "I hope your weekend is a pleasant one. Now if you will forgive me?" She turned and went back to the table and began gathering the empty cups and the saucers.

  He glanced after her, still puzzled, then walked back to the carriage. "I hope you enjoyed your chat," Regina said irritably. "I did, indeed," Archie replied. "Your neighbor is a surprising young woman."

  "She is not my neighbor! This is merely a station on the Overland Stage Line, and I suppose she works for them. We never stop here," she added.

  "Is Sir Charles already at the ranch?" he asked, changing the subject. "Yes, he is. He came down yesterday with father. I believe he wanted to do some shooting this morning. There are always deer, you know, but father says the elk are disappearing. They are going into the high country as the snow goes off."

  "He has been here before, you said?"

  "Some kind of a diplomatic mission, I believe. He was in Washington, D. C., before the war began, but it was only for a few weeks."

  "I know something about him, but we've never met,"

  Archie commented. "My brother knew him in Paris when they were at school there. For such a young man, he's become quite a famous diplomat. He's been to Cairo, to Constantinople, to Vienna and Rome on missions of some sort or other."

  "Father met him in Washington, and when he expressed a wish to hunt, father invited him out."

  "Who else will be there?"

  "Oh, you knowl The usual crowd. The Talbots, the Kings, the Williamses, and some new man whom I've never met, although they say he is both very handsome and very important, a Colonel Flandrau."

  "He's been around Denver. I believe he's investing in mines. There are so many new people around now that it's hard to keep up with them. They keep coming and going, investing in mines or cattle or town sites. If it isn't one thing, it's another."

  Archie glanced ahead. In the distance, at the end of a winding road, he glimpsed the white columns of the Collier ranch house. Peg stood in the door watching the carriages go by. Four more passed during the hour, then a fifth. "Where are they all going, mama?" "Mr. Collier is having some friends down for the weekend, I believe." "Was it like that at Harlequin Oaks when you were a little girl?" "Yes, it was, only the country back there is greener, and there were more carriages, and many people rode over on horseback from neighboring places. We lived closer together than people do here."

  Temple Boone rode in before noon. "Mrs.

  Breydon? Better stay close to the station and keep the youngsters inside. There's a report of an Injun raid on a small place east of Virginia Dale."

  "But isn't that quite far off?"

  "Ma'am, they burned the house and killed two men. They were riding south according to the tracks." He swung his horse. "I'll tell Ridge." He looked back. "You be careful nowl"

  Indians . . . here?

  With the rising sun, there was a change in the weather.

  The sky, which had been clear, clouded over, and there was a spatter of cold rain, then a brief gust of wind that sent the leaves skittering across the hard-packed ground.

  Trees bent before the wind, and a loose door banged. Temple Boone, bowing before the wind, came from the barn, closing the door behind him. When he reached the station, he said, "Looks like a storm coming."

  There was another brief spatter of rain that ceased abruptly. "Where is Ridge?" Matty asked.

  "Is he all right, then?" "He's in the barn, ma'am, and you know Ridge. He'll sleep there."

  Boone rested his rifle against the wall near the window. "Saw some tracks out yonder a few hours ago. Pony tracks."

  "Indians?"

  "Sioux, I'd guess, and that means trouble."

  "Where is Wat?" Peg asked.

  "He'll stay in the tack room. He'll be with Ridge, and they'll take turns watchin". That lad's as good as any man when it comes to that."

  He held his hands to the fire. "Wind's cold," he said. "Uncommon for this time of year."

  "Will it be safe for the stages?" Peg asked.

  "Won't they have to stop?" "Stages don't stop for nothin', Peg," Boone said. "They carry mail, and they have to keep movin'. Most of the passengers would prefer to keep goin', too."

  He added fuel to the fire and edged. The coffeepot farther over to heat the coffee. "I came by Preston
Collier's and stopped off to warn them. They'd had the news, but they don't seem worried. Must be forty or fifty people over there to meet that English lord."

  "He isn't really a lord, is he, mama?

  Isn't a "sir' just a knight?" "You're right, Peg. So many Americans think anyone with a title such as "count" or "earl" is royalty. It isn't true. Only members of a royal family are royalty. The others belong to the nobility."

  "Never set much store on such things," Boone commented. "A man should be two things. He should be a man, and he should be a gentleman. I mean a gentleman in his behavior. That's the way I was raised."

  "How does one become an earl or a count?"

  Peg asked. "Usually, from service to his king.

  Once it was a reward for bravery or skill in battle, then for other services to the king. Usually, with the title went a grant of land, and the nobleman was expected to respond on call with a certain number of soldiers to serve his king during a war. "Such titles were often passed down from father to son or occasionally to a near relative, always with the expectation of service to the king. Some of the noblemen became so powerful they threatened the power of the king himself. Others had their estates and titles taken from them and given to others.

  "Nowadays, a title is often given for other services, even for diplomatic or business successes, and the titles vary in importance according to the country where they are given."

  There was a brief roll of thunder, then, after a moment, a flash of distant lightning.

  "You won't have many travelers in this kind of weath- er," Boone said. "Probably nobody until the stage comes by in the morning."

  He finished his coffee. "I've got to ride on over to Fort Collins," he explained. "I should be back before daybreak. I'm carryin' dispatches for the army." He glanced over at Mary. "Will you be all right here?" "Of course. You've no cause to worry about us. Ridge is here, and we're armed."

  "I've never seen a red Indian," Matty said, "except that old man who came through on the stage. He seemed a fine old man."

  Boone chuckled. "Him? You just bet he is a fine old man, but in his day he was a holy terror.

  He was a Ute. They are mountain Indians, properly speakin', and he's probably taken thirty or forty scalps in his time." "That nice old man?" Mary exclaimed. "He had such an amused expression on his face."

  "He probably was amused," Boone said.

  "He was probably thinkin' how silly some of our ways are, compared to his. Every people seems to think their way is the best, and maybe it is, for them."

  Temple Boone took his comrifle, paused a moment at the door, glanced back at Mary, and lifted his hand. Then he went outside.

  "I'd better get in another armful of wood,"

  Matty said. "It will be a cold night."

  As she was going out, they heard the clatter of horse's hoofs, and Temple Boone was gone.

  "I wish he had stayed," Peg said. "I feel safer when he's here." do "We all do," her mother said, "but he has- his work to ."

  She glanced out the window. There were six horses in the corral huddled together against the wind. For a moment, she hesitated. Should she have them put in the barn? With Ridge's saddle horse, there was scarcely room for them all, and they did not have to be harnessed until morning. There was hay in the corral, and these were mustangs, bred to the wild, unused to barns.

  "Come on, Matty, we'll fix supper, and then I'll read a bit to you all. It's a good night to be inside."

  She went to the window again and looked out. Nothing moved. From old habit, her eyes scanned the trees and the brush. The thought of Indians worried her, but she did not want to frighten Peg.

  Had she been wrong to bring a child to this wild country?

  Or to come herself?

  No. It had been their only chance, and when spring came, she would find a place and file on some land herself.

  Why not? She could prove up on a homestead as well as anyone, and it would be one more thing Peg would have if anything happened to her. "You should file on a homestead, Matty," she said suddenly. "There's nothing like owning land."

  "How much could I get, then?"

  "One hundred and sixty acres, but you have to build a shack, sink a well, and plow some land."

  "One hundred and sixty acresl" Matty was aghast. "It is a rich woman I'd be!"

  "Not quite that, Matty, but it is something for yourself, something that would belong to you."

  "We'd better fix supper," Matty said.

  "Mr. Fenton will be hungry." "I'm hungry, tool" Peg declared.

  "The light is fading," Mary said. "What there is of it!" Suddenly, even as she watched, the corral gate swung open as if of its own volition. She started. "Why somebody must have-to "

  There was a shrill whoop, and then the horses came stampeding from the corral, a running Indian behind them. Ridge Fenton's old buffalo gun boomed from the barn, and she saw a dozen mounted Indians come sweeping around the corral and from behind the barn and take in after the stage horses. One of the Indians was clinging to his horse, blood streaming from a wound and turning the side of his horse crimson.

  "Matty!" she cried. "They are stealing our horses!" She caught up her rifle and, without thinking, threw open the door and fired. She saw an Indian turn his head toward her, and he waved at her derisively, then was gone. She fired again, too late. Slowly, she lowered her rifle. She had failed. The horses were gone. What was she to do?

  Peg was staring at her, round-eyed. "You shot at them? Did you hit one?" "I don't think so, Peg. I missed. And the horses are gone-gone!

  When the stage comes in the morning-to "

  Ridge Fenton, rifle in hand, came in from the barn. "Sorry, ma'am, they was on us afore I realized. Must've been a dozen of them, right out of nowhere!"

  "It wasn't your fault, Mr. Fenton. At least you wounded one of them." "No, ma'am,"

  Ridge said, "I killed him. Any time a man bleeds like that, he's a goner. Make "em more careful next time. But don't you worry, ma'am. Those Injuns know who done it. They know better than to try an" steal hosses when I'm around."

  "But they did get the horses, Mr. Fenton, and we have a stage coming in tomorrow morning."

  "Nothin' we can do, ma'am, until Stacy gets us some more hosses." "Doesn't Mr.

  Collier have horses?" Mafty asked. "If you were to ask-?" "Wouldn't give you the time o' day!"

  Fenton said. "He's got no use for Ben Holladay. Never did have. Them two just don't get along. Too much alike, I reckon."

  Mary Breydon took off her apron.

  "Nevertheless, I'm going to try! I don't want people saying that if a man had been running this station, it wouldn't have happened. I'm going over there."

  "Ma'am, it's coming on to storm, and there's Injuns about. You just set down, an'- "Mr.

  Fenton, you take care of things here. And if you would let me, I'd like to borrow your horse."

  "Now see here, ma'am! That there's a mighty uneasy animal! He don't take to women no way, and he doesn't like other folks ridin' him."

  "Are you saying I can't have him?"

  Fenton looked right and left. He rubbed his jaw, glanced sheepishly at her, and cleared his throat. "No, ma'am, it ain't that. I jest-was "Thank you, Mr. Fenton. I'll get my cape."

  Ridge started to speak, then muttered angrily about "fool woman!" and started off toward the barn.

  Matty stared at her. "Ma'am? Do you think you should? There's Indians and all, and Peg here she's already lost her daddy."

  "I have a job to do, Matty. Don't worry.

  I ride very well, and I shall be back before you realize it. Just you stay inside and keep Peg in." Ridge was holding his horse at the door.

  He had saddled it with her sidesaddle. "Don't know how you ride one of them durned things!" he protested. "Moreover, I don't think Arthur will stand for it." "Arthur? You call him Arthur?"

  "He was give to me by a man named Arthur, so I just got to callin' him that Arthur horse, and it sort of worked itself down to just Arth
ur." She walked up to the horse and put a hand on his neck. "Hello, Arthur. We're going to be friends, aren't we?"

  Arthur rolled a wary eye at her but did not seem displeased at the soft touch on his neck.

  Accepting a hand from Fenton, she mounted quickly.

  Arthur shied at the unfamiliar feel of the skirt against his flank and the different weight, but he recognized an authoritative, knowing hand on the reins.

  The night had grown colder; the sky was still overcast. Arthur seemed ready to go, so she let him have his head. She wore the heavy pistol under her coat and had both derringers in pockets in the rough skirt she was wearing.

  Indians . .

  They could be anywhere! Suddenly, and for the first time, she was frightened. What in the world had possessed her that she would start off in the middle of the night . . . but it really wasn't that late, scarcely more than nine o'clock.

  The risk had not entered her mind. Not really.

  All she thought of was that stage coming in, the horses weary from the long run, another run ahead of them.

  She had to have a fresh team. Whose was the responsibility if not hers? She did not ask herself what Scant Luther would have done or Mark Stacy or Boone. She thought onlyof what she must do.

  The horse's hoofs pounded on the hard road. The rain had no more than settled the dust. Wind tore at her clothes and lashed the brush into weird shapes. She slowed Arthur, not wanting him to run himself- out. She had heard that mustangs could run on and on, but she was accustomed to the finely bred horses of Virginia and Maryland.

  Arthur slowed at her urging, but he was perfectly prepared to keep running. She patted his neck and talked to him, and he cocked a surprised ear at her and kept going.

  Again, it started to rain, a quick flurry of hard-driven drops, cold as ice. It stung on her flesh and slapped at her cape like angry fingers. Suddenly, Arthur shied, snorted, and something moved in the woods alongside the trail. Mary reached under the cape and put her fingers around the butt of the pistol.

  Arthur kept going. Whatever was back there was something he did not like, but he was not about to be stopped by it.

  She rode into the open, and there, atop the knoll before them, was the house, ablaze with lights, lights that reflected on the glistening, varnished sides of the carriages. She rode on, weaving through the carriages to the white railing of the hitching posts.