Milcher suddenly looked horrified.
Morelli muttered, “Now, Jason . . .”
“Go back to your wagon, Milcher,” Jason said, “and think about turning the other cheek. Either grab some of that beef that’s roasting, or comfort your wife—she lost Tommy, too, you know—or get some shut-eye. But when those Comanche show up to gather their dead, I do not want to see your face.”
* * *
When Milcher climbed back up into his wagon, he immediately embraced his grief-stricken wife.
He looked about him as his children, who were mostly whole—other than the nine-year-old boy with a broken arm and the seven-year-old boy with a bandaged calf where a heathen arrow had found home and the fifteen-year-old boy who would never be with them again, never see the distant shores of California, never again join him in prayer—and the Reverend Milcher collapsed into tears, muttering, “Oh God, my God . . .” into his wife’s shoulder.
* * *
Alone, his hat in his hand and the noonday sun beating on the back of his neck, Jason slowly walked down the line of fresh graves. Someone had made crosses and simply written the names of the deceased. No niceties like dates of birth or death, no “beloved son” or “devoted wife.” Just last name, first initial.
Here lay, now and forever, T. Milcher—plucky young Tommy; M. Nordstrom—quiet, plain-faced Miranda, who sewed like an angel; C. Kendall—Cordelia, wife of Salmon and mother to Sammy and Peony; R. LeFebvre—Rome, the down-on-his-luck gambler; S. Wheeler—Seth, part-time blacksmith and wheelwright, who had dreamt of opening his own saloon; M. Griggs, who had died from his wounds while Jason was playing dice with Quanah Parker; and, at the end of the row, his father.
J. Fury, the marker said. Except, in Jedediah’s case, someone had taken the time and care to carefully write “Wagon Master & Good Shepherd” underneath in tiny, precise letters.
Obviously, someone who also had not thought highly of Hamish MacDonald’s all-knowing brother in Houston. Or maybe it was his brother-in-law. At this point, Jason didn’t much care.
All he knew for certain was that what he was left with was at least as many injured as killed, wagons with nobody to drive them—although he figured to leave Abigail Krimp’s buggy behind and have her drive the Nordstroms’ second wagon, the one that the late Miranda Nordstrom had been driving.
A picture flashed through his head, that of poor, plain Miranda, pinned to the side of a wagon by a Comanche spear, the life draining from her face.
He shook his head like a retriever fresh from a pond, as if he could shake that picture, all the bad pictures, from his head. He couldn’t, though. He knew he’d live with them for the rest of his life.
“I suppose I should thank you, Fury, for gettin’ my sister back safe,” said a voice to Jason’s left. It belonged to Matt MacDonald. When Jason looked over, there was a smug smirk on Matt’s face.
“Consider it said,” Jason said, gruffly. A conversation with Matt MacDonald was the last thing he needed right now.
But he quickly learned he was wrong when Matt said, “Pa sent me to get you. We’re havin’ a meeting. About who should take over now that your pa’s dead.”
A rush of anger surged through Jason’s veins, momentarily replacing his sorrow. He slapped his hat on his head, pushed past Matt, and headed back toward the circle of wagons. “Take over, my Aunt Fanny!” he mumbled.
That big bag of wind, Hamish MacDonald, was behind this. He was certain of it.
Chapter 12
Jason was right.
When he hopped over the whiffletree of Salmon Kendall’s wagon to enter the clearing inside the circle, there was Hamish, standing on a box—which he most likely carried around with him, just to orate from—sweeping his arms back and forth.
Quite a crowd had gathered around him, too.
As he angrily strode out to the center of the circle, Jason flicked his eyes from wagon to wagon, looking for Megan. Surely she couldn’t be in on this!
He spotted her—sitting beneath Nordstrom’s second wagon, knees hugged to her chest and her head bowed. In embarrassment, it seemed. It couldn’t be easy having a father like Hamish. It could also be simple exhaustion.
“. . . led us into the veritable mouth of disaster,” Hamish was saying. He hadn’t seen Jason yet. “Don’t we need someone trustworthy? Don’t we need someone seasoned? Don’t we need—”
“Somebody who knows the way?” Jason broke in, from the edge of the crowd.
Chuckles and titters erupted across the throng.
“And somebody who don’t have a know-it-all brother-in-law down Texas way,” shouted Zachary Morton, their eldest member and head of the Morton clan. His brother’s son-in-law had been injured in the fight, and at this moment lay in his wagon, suffering from a stab wound to the chest.
Morton’s wife, Suzannah, slapped his arm, but she broke out in a grin anyway. At least, she covered her mouth with her hand, to keep from showing her picket-fence teeth. But her eyes sparkled like a leprechaun’s.
“Jason Fury, you’re only a boy!” Hamish shouted, and pointed a work-gnarled finger at him.
“Boy, maybe. A fool, no.” Jason’s temper was about to boil over, and he heard his father’s voice in his head, saying, Calm down, boy, just take a deep breath....
And so Jason shut up, letting his last comments hang there, in the air. The whole camp had gone quiet, waiting for Hamish’s rebuff.
But before he had the chance to formulate something cutting, Jason said, “Everybody, I’d like your attention, if you please. In case you haven’t heard, I gave the Comanches leave to come pick up their dead this afternoon, and I reckon it won’t be long before they’re here. Men, I want you to keep your firearms close at hand, but I don’t want anybody flashing them at the Comanches. I want this to go quick and peaceable.”
* * *
The Comanche arrived within the hour, and so silently that no one was aware of their presence until Milt Billings trotted over to Jason, who was helping Abigail Krimp move her few belongings to Randall Nordstrom’s extra wagon.
“They’re here,” was all Milt said, and Jason looked up to see about fourteen or fifteen braves outside the circle, lifting the bodies of their fallen comrades onto the backs of the extra ponies they’d brought along. Several of the Indian ponies were still aimlessly wandering the scene from last night, and the braves rounded them up, too, and put them into service.
Quanah Parker was with them, which Jason hadn’t expected. This was a job you sent your minions to take care of, not one on which you went yourself.
But he was there just the same, mounted on a tall, Medicine Hat pinto, overseeing the others. He caught Jason’s eye, and lifted a hand in greeting.
Jason reluctantly waved back. He could tell his men were getting antsy. Even a few of the women looked like they were ready, willing, and able to take on one of those braves with nothing but a couple of darning needles and a frying pan.
When he saw Matt MacDonald slowly pick up his rifle and, from the cover of a wagon, draw a bead on Quanah, he stole up behind him and banged him over the head with the butt of his pistol. Matt crumpled to the ground like a bag of brass doorknobs.
Which got Hamish all bent out of shape. He came charging over, shouting and blustering. Jason turned his gun on Hamish and hissed, “Shut up, you.”
Fortunately, Hamish was shocked enough to do it.
The Indians slowly began to make their exit, leading their dead and wounded behind them, but Quanah rode closer to the circled wagons. Right up to Jason, in fact.
“Greetings, Jason Fury,” he said, his face like a stone.
“Greetings, Quanah Parker,” Jason replied. And waited.
“My braves say your doctor treated the few who still lived after the battle.”
He did? thought a surprised Jason. But he didn’t let it show on his face. He said. “Our Dr. Morelli is a good man.”
“You will give him my thanks, Jason Fury. Until we meet again.” Quanah re
ined his horse in a quick circle and galloped off to join his men.
“Which I hope is the twelfth of Never,” Jason muttered.
“When?” demanded Hamish. Jason had all but forgotten him.
“When what?”
“When did that low sawbones sneak out to help those filthy redskins?” Hamish hollered.
Jason realized he was still holding his gun on MacDonald. He said, “Hamish, I haven’t slept since yesterday morning. I’m tired and I’m cranky, and if you don’t shut the hell up and stop causing trouble, I’m going to pull this trigger and damn the consequences. Do we understand each other?”
Hamish, a glower on his face, remained silent. Which, lucky for him, Jason took for an affirmative. He holstered his gun. “Now, if you want to do something useful, you’ll put a party of men together and gather enough kerosene and brush to pile over those dead horses.”
“Brush?”
“Yeah. Then set fire to ’em. No sense in drawing in any more predators than we have to. We’re not leaving until tomorrow morning.”
* * *
Dr. Morelli was leaning against a wagon wheel, dozing, when Jason walked up.
“Morelli?”
He cracked open an eye. “Ah, Jason! How goes it?”
“Not too good. Can you take another look at my arm before I go to my wagon and catch some sleep?”
Worry furrowed Morelli’s brow. “It’s worse? What in the world did you do to it, anyway?”
He asked Jason to remove his shirt, took a look at the wound, and frowned. “Been scrambling around in the dirt?”
“Exactly that,” replied Jason wearily. “Plus a few other things.”
“Why in heaven’s name were—?”
“Don’t ask,” Jason cut in.
Since Jason looked no more eager to tell him than he did to swim the English Channel, a silent Morelli went to work. At last, after he’d removed the bandages and cleaned the wound with water as best he could, he picked up a bottle of alcohol.
“This is going to sting like hell,” he warned, then watched Jason nearly ram his first through his own forehead when he splashed some on the open wound.
“I hear you helped the wounded Comanche,” Jason said through clenched teeth.
“Yes,” Morelli said, unsure of just how Jason had reacted to that news. “I took an oath to help all those who need my services.”
“That was real kind of you, Morelli,” Jason said, “and also real stupid. You’ve got Hamish MacDonald against you now. And more than likely, whoever else he’s told.”
“I know. I’ve already had words with Mr. MacDonald.” Morelli wouldn’t repeat those words for all the money in the world.
Jason seemed to understand. “Erase ’em from your mind, Morelli. I’m in charge, and I say thank you. You did the right thing.”
Morelli couldn’t help smiling. He tied off the new bandage and quickly fitted Jason with a sling. “Not neccessary. Now, get some sleep, son. And throw out that bloody, filthy shirt.”
* * *
Saul Cohen, who’d slept through the entire day, woke quite pleasantly at ten that evening to find Rachael waving a plate of beef, peas, and potato pancakes under his nose.
“Ah, my beauty!” he said with a yawn.
Rachael smiled. “You’re meaning me or the food?”
“I can’t mean both?” he replied, and kissed her before he took the plate from her hands.
The boys, all three of them, were curled like dozing puppies at his feet, Rachael was with him, no one was hurt, Mr. Cow was tied to the wagon’s tailgate, and the camp was quiet. The past day and a half seemed like some horrible nightmare.
He hoped he’d never have it again.
He and Rachael repaired to the driver’s bench while he ate his meal, and afterward, they stayed for a while and just stared up at the moon, drinking some of the sweet wine she’d brought along. They held hands.
“Was it horrible, Saul?” she asked him softly. “Getting the girls and the horses and cattle back, I mean. When you had to go into the Comanche camp.”
“Yes and no,” he said.
“Why so?”
“Yes, because, my darling, I was so frightened that I almost soiled myself.”
She giggled softly. “I think I can understand. And why no?”
He reached into his pocket and produced two much-used sugar cubes.
“Sugar?” She waved a hand at him. “Throw those things away, Saul. They are full of dirt specks from your pocket!”
He held them closer to her. “You’re noticing anything out of the ordinary about those ‘dirt specks’?”
She took one and held it to her eyes as she twisted it in her fingers. “No, I . . .” And then her brow furrowed.
“Saul Cohen! You were gambling?”
He leaned back against the puckered, gathered edge of the wagon’s canopy, pulled her close to him, and said, “It’s a long and very strange story I’m going to tell you, Rachael Cohen, so you might as well be comfortable.”
* * *
Beneath her father’s wagon, Megan MacDonald feigned sleep. A few feet away, on the other side of the man-height wagon wheels, her father, her brother, and the Reverend Milcher were having a discussion that she was most interested in hearing.
Normally, she wasn’t one to eavesdrop, but here she was, doing it twice in the same day. But they’d woken her, and how could she be expected to go back to sleep, especially considering the topic they’d woken her with?
“Well, something’s got to be done,” the Reverend Milcher was saying. “The boy has no respect for his betters. Absolutely none!”
This had been going on for at least the half hour Megan had been awake.
“I’ll agree with you there, Milcher,” her father said. She could tell he’d lit a cigar by the meter of his pauses, and also because of the stench the wind wafted her way every once in a while.
“He’s an ass,” muttered Matt.
“Shut up, Matt,” her father snapped. “You got any bright ideas, Milcher? I already tried it the American way. Tried holding a meeting and a vote, and what did I get for it? Sass, plain sass, I tell you! It puts me in mind of when I was a lad, in Scotland. Jason Fury’s puttin’ on a bit of the English, I think!”
Megan knew what he meant by “puttin’ on the English”—that Jason was acting like he was better then everybody else—but she didn’t agree. Jason was better than they were. Out here in the wilderness, at least, and probably anywhere. That wavy, yellow hair and those blue, blue eyes, those dimples and that cleft in his chin and . . .
“You know I would not willingly wish harm on any man, Mr. MacDonald,” Milcher said. “It is not the Christian way. And I know that you wouldn’t, either.”
She heard her brother make a muffled snort, and her father say, “Course not, Reverend. I had nothing so drastic in mind. After all, he saved my darlin’ lass, sleepin’ there beneath the wagon, from those filthy redskins. And wipe that smirk off your face, Matthew.”
“I’ll be bidding you good night, then, MacDonald. I’m afraid that for now, we are in the grips of an ethical dilemma that can’t be settled by three men in one night. And I must get some rest. It’s been a long day.”
“That it has, Milcher.”
“May God bless you both, then.” The reverend walked away, his footsteps scuffing softly off into the distance.
Megan knew that her father wouldn’t do any serious physical harm to Jason. He just wasn’t that kind. Oh, he might try to undercut him at any and every given opportunity, and he might even get mad enough to hit him. But he wouldn’t kill him. She doubted the Reverend Milcher would even take a swing at him, despite all his complaints. He was too much of a coward.
They just didn’t like taking orders from somebody younger than they were, that was it. They were men accustomed to being in charge.
Matt, though, he was different.
Megan loved her brother, but she knew that at heart, he was a bully. And, she thought, h
e might just be a dangerous bully.
Deadly, even.
Jason had to be warned, and it looked like it was up to her to do it.
Chapter 13
Jason sat his mare on a ridge not far above the plodding wagons, watching their progress. He was glad they’d left the plains of Kansas far behind. There, one wag had said, you could look farther and see less than anywhere else in the world. Jason had to agree with him.
Kansas, then the Indian Territory, and now New Mexico—beautiful and bleak at the same time.
Since early in the trip and the trouble with Salmon’s axle, Jason had been able to avoid stopping near any towns. He did this for two reasons: His father had tended to avoid them, saying that introducing strangers to the mix made for trouble. The second reason was some paperwork that had inexplicably floated across Jason’s desk during the War—probably from somebody’s attempt to effectively “lose” it.
These papers had told of a wagon train headed west that had cut through the Utah Territory and stopped by a town. A short time after they moved on, they were attacked by what was alternately reported as a band of Indians, or settlers disguised as Indians, or both.
At any rate, the pilgrims were slaughtered, probably by radical Mormons, although the case had never been fully looked into due to the more pressing issues of the War with the South. That had been the Mountain Meadow Massacre.
Jason wasn’t taking any chances.
Despite their problems with the Comanche, they were still what would be considered a rich wagon train. They had more than their share of livestock, and between the cloth and so on in Randall Nordstrom’s extra wagon and the hardware in Saul Cohen’s, the train would be prime booty for any plains pirates that happened along.
There hadn’t been any more talk of replacing him since a fortnight past and that Comanche business, although Megan had come to him the next morning. She’d warned him to watch out for her brother, Matt—as if he needed anyone to tell him that—and she’d repeated the conversation she’d overheard between her father, her brother, and Milcher.
He made note of both, however, although he had to admit that he took more notice of how pretty she looked that morning. That, at least, was real and visible. And touchable.
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