by M L Dunn
When Jonas started out of camp that night into the darkness, he stopped part way out, turned around and yelled back at the sheriff that he was not running off, but was just going to take care of business. “Don’t shoot,” Jonas said throwing his hands up in the air mockingly, before turning back around.
“What’s that about?” Joe asked.
“Him and the sheriff didn’t get off to a good start,” Caleb said.
“Well, looks like they’s doing better now,” Joe determined, having watched them bouncing one of Sweet Time’s jugs between them. “I’ve been meaning to tell you that it matters little to me if we trade with Comanche, or with them miners. They both look at me about the same and I prefer traveling over these plains than up dem mountains. The nights up there get awful cold,” he explained. “I figure I’d do about the same as you done if my child was stolen. It may not be as profitable trading with Indians, but it’s a shorter turnaround and I’d like to see ya get your child back and then get home to ma wife.”
“You married?”
“Sure,” said Joe. “Got kids too, but they all grown. I’d best check on them mules. Goodnight,” he said walking off.
“Goodnight.”
Sweet Time was the first to retire, for it was near midnight and he thought one day should not extend into the next. It being his belief that The Almighty had made nighttime dark so as to demarcate one day from another, like a thick, black line between columns on a ledger that was not to be crossed over. He climbed under his wagon, turned his back to the other men and was soon asleep.
Caleb joined the sheriff and Jonas near the fire, alternately staring at the stars and the flames of the dying fire. The sheriff admitted that finding Mr. O’Hara was fortunate. Jonas said he’d heard of Mr. O’Hara having settled sticky situations that had arisen inside Sally’s establishment. Card games where stakes had become too high or wives come looking for their husbands, some to discover that vows of abstinence had been broken and forgiveness not easily given. He was better than any preacher, Sally had said, because preachers rarely frequented the places they were usually needed.
Caleb wished Allison was there so she could see what progress he’d accomplished toward finding Mattie.
Chapter 19
Allison snatched the letter from Steam Carter before he could extend it towards her. “Sit down,” she told him opening it. The letter’s jagged lettering looked as though it had been written across Caleb’s knee and the sum total of the words there seemed insufficient to answer the number of questions she wanted answered. Allison soon found this was true. The letter said little more than he would be leaving Fort Dodge with a soldier the Army had provided and that they intended to find a trader or guide who could lead them to the Comanche. The letter was encouraging in telling her that they’d learned which band of Comanche Mattie was with and that a group of Kickapoos had seen Mattie since the Cimarron and that she was in fine health. Caleb explained to her how fortunate it was they’d learned which band had Mattie.
The letter went on to describe Jonas Jackson as a Negro soldier who the colonel said was a good and dependable man even if he had been a deserter. It said the sheriff would be going on with them, as though there had been some doubt for a time. The only other thing Caleb wrote was that he loved them. I will bring Mattie home to you, was its last line.
“Where were they going after Fort Dodge?” Allison asked, grabbing Steam Carter’s arm.
“Uh, into Comanche territory I suspect.”
“How long does that take?”
“Not long, as soon as you step out of the fort, really.”
“What will they do next?”
“Uh, they’ll track down the Comanche that has your child, they got a cavalry fella ta help with that.”
“Corporal Jackson?”
“That’s right,”
“How’d he strike you?”
“Uh, he’s a black man,” Steam Carter remembered most, “he seemed friendly enough. He was awful muscular. I’m sure they had a good reason for sending him.”
“They could be gone for some time,” Allison said.
Allison didn’t know what to make of the new information. She’d tried to anticipate everything that might happen, so as though to be braced for it when it did, but she’d not imagined this. She would have to rethink all the different ways things might go now, but that seemed a task so daunting she wanted to solve something simpler first, so she got Steam Carter a glass of milk thinking he might be hungry. Steam Carter didn’t like milk, but not wanting to tell Mrs. Evans that, he sipped some, but it didn’t matter, because Mrs. Evans was preparing to leave anyway.
It was likely now that Caleb and Mattie would be absent for some time. Soon the corn would need to be picked and sold and decisions that should rightly not be intruding on her life right then were anyway. Allison had always thought of herself capable of dealing with any hardship, but this one was different in that her mind needed to be focused not on it, but on life’s ordinary demands.
Allison figured Mattie also needed to adjust for she would have to be strong and depend upon herself to survive until Caleb found her. She wondered how Mattie had really looked. She had no doubt men were incapable as a mother towards discernment. She wanted to talk things over with Mrs. Havel.
“Walk me over to the Havel’s,” Allison less asked than demanded of Steam.
Steam Carter thought of the sheriff’s letter he had to deliver. The ranch foreman had told him not to dawdle, and the Havel farm was a mile out of the way. He thought of all these things in the split second before he told Allison Evans he would.
Chapter 20
Anyone watching the big wagon from afar might have thought its attendants were in no rush – the wagon’s slow pace naturally lent that impression, but Caleb could not have been less inclined that way. He found that he could keep up with the wagon on foot and he liked that because his legs and back were becoming increasingly sore when forced to ride for long periods of time.
The next morning, Joe stood looking back at the tracks the wagon had left behind them - he was unable to shake the feeling that something was following them. He said as much.
“My son, probably,” Mr. O’Hara answered. “That or a war party come to free us from our scalps.”
“I’ll go back and see,” Jonas said.
“Either one is likely to see you before you see them.”
Jonas started back and it wasn’t long before Mr. O’Hara’s son was waving at him from the top of a small knoll.
“I, I, figured you was look … looking for me,” Patrick stuttered as Jonas rode up to him.
Jonas pointed directly behind the boy. “Fort Dodge is that way.”
“I … I know.”
“Then why ain’t you headed there?” Jonas asked, knowing there was no point to it. He felt like a man, who after a night of arguing with his wife, where all kinds of harsh things were said, awakes to find her acting as if nothing had happened between them.
“I did …did for a …while,” the boy said.
“Your pa told you not to follow us.”
“He, he didn’t mean it.”
“I believe he did,” Jonas said. “What if you had never caught up to us?”
“You, ca, can , all, always… catch up to my pa, he, neh, never travels very… fast.”
“Well it’s too late to now. Climb up behind me,” Jonas said, reaching out to the boy.
“I’ll wa, walk,” the young man said, and Jonas found he did not care to argue any further with the boy.
A day later they forded the Cimarron at a place where the river was shallow and underneath was but bogging sand. The plain stretching out in front of them looked mostly flat, but in places it was carved by ravines or thrust up into small bluffs. Further south the tall grasses gave way to sagebrush and pockets of squat post oak and prickly plants, what grass grew there was shorter and sparser and drier. Most every plant was sharp and protruded defenses of tiny thorns or burrs. The wind was
often a mixture of air and earth and the heat of the day lingered well into the night. Small clouds of dust rose up and passed ahead of them and vanished suddenly like ghosts crossing the plain. The only shade was that but which could be manufactured under a hat. Only the early morning hours before and a little after the sun was slung over the horizon could be said to be comforting. Each day, the sun rose quickly before stalling and spilling its contents of heat that could be seen washing over the ground. The light was bright and harsh and by afternoon time – overwhelming - enough so that it usually had given Caleb a headache. Back home he would have been able to duck into the dimmer light inside the barn or house, but here there was little relief from it.
Mr. O’Hara claimed they were making good time - close to twenty miles a day - but Caleb couldn’t bring himself to agree. Each morning when Mr. O’Hara climbed aboard the seat of his wagon and pointed at where he intended they’d reach that day, the thought that another day’s hard travel would only bring him to another dry, shade-less, parcel of land, seemingly not so far off that you could mostly see it starting out, had Caleb frustrated and weary. Despite the sense of urgency he felt, the dangerous nature of their journey and the pressing matters on his mind – Caleb found his days tedious and long. He thought to ride well ahead of the wagon and sit on the nearest swell of land and spend the day watching the wagon crawl towards him, but Sweet Time said it was best if no one put more than a mile between them and the wagon. So usually Caleb would ride the permitted distance ahead looking for sign of others having crossed the land or sit in the shade of his horse hoping to knock down a jackrabbit or game bird to throw in the Joe’s pot that night.
The sheriff did not seem as weary. He seemed to have framed the thing in his mind like a hunting trip. He ignored Mr. O’Hara’s advice and often roamed far from the wagon. The boom of his rifle could be heard from far off and he would return near supper time with a coyote or string of rabbits hung over his saddle. He gave the pelts to Patrick O’Hara in exchange for more shells. He came back one evening saying he’d seen a lobo wolf, but that it was too beautiful to have shot, another time he came back with a turkey that Joe put on a spit and was one of the finest meals Caleb ever had.
Each night the sheriff cleaned his pistols and rifle, sometimes taking them apart and putting them back together like they were a puzzle to pass the time with. The sheriff seemed designed for travel, he was wiry and light and did not mind long days in a saddle. He often went without his dark Bull Rider hat, revealing course hair like paintbrush bristles, that needed little care come morning and seemed to grow slowly. He rose quickly and desired nothing more than coffee each morning. He seemed immune from sunburn, heat, cold, insects and even boredom, needing nothing more than a vista to hold if off.
Jonas too spent his days away from the wagon, sometimes hunting, but often scouring for sign. Other times he would ride next to Mr. O’Hara or Joe and pepper them with questions about herbs, and other medicines, about cooking, or far off places. He asked Mr. O’Hara about New Mexico.
The thought that they ought to set Sweet Time astride a horse with a few things to trade and make better time was discussed among Caleb and the sheriff, but Mr. O’Hara said it was the wagon, not him that the Comanche welcomed.
“It’s them that’s got to find us,” Mr. O’Hara explained. “They won’t show themselves otherwise, unless they’re interested in taking our scalps.”
Sweet Time claimed there was something about the sight of the wagon seen from afar, like a ship spotted on the horizon, which placed onlookers in a frame of anticipation. Caleb had no doubt the wagon could be seen from some distance with the amount of dust it kicked in the air. He thought it could probably be heard from some distance also as the things hung in the back of the wagon made a clanking, brassy sound – that did nothing for his headaches -as the wagon rattled its way south.
The plain seemed an abandoned place on the face off it, but from out holes and burrows emerged coyotes and prairie dogs. The ground beneath them seemed to spit rabbits. Caleb spotted his first buffaloes, a half dozen bulls and cows wallowing and rolling in a depression of dusty ground. Caleb, the sheriff and Jonas rode closer, but not so close so as to alarm the buffalo. The group paid little attention to them anyway and did not bother to form together or even stand. They discussed the merits of shooting one, but Joe had said they’d be all day skinning it and partitioning the meat, their clothes bloody and smelling. Hunting buffalo is to be done in quantity, he explained, either you process a half dozen or more of them or let them be, so they followed Joe’s advice and let the large, dusty animals alone.
The first night past the Cimarron, after they had stopped to make camp and Joe was wondering what to make for dinner, a bevy of quail scooted along the ground some forty feet away and the sheriff drew his Navy revolver and knocked three of them down. Caleb had heard the sheriff was skilled with the use of a handgun and now he’d seen it firsthand. The sheriff must have impressed Patrick O’Hara also, for starting that night he began gathering empty cans for the sheriff to practice shooting at, throwing them up in the air. This went on for a couple of nights until Mr. O’Hara put a stop to his son taking ammunition from out his inventory for mere diversion.
They learned Mr. O’Hara had named his sole offspring Patrick since he was born on St. Patrick’s Day seventeen years earlier and despite not looking it, he was handier for more than launching targets. He inspected the horses and mules hooves each night for thorns and burrs, rubbed them down, fed, and watered them. He watched over them like a shepherd while they grazed. Not because anybody had asked him to, but because he enjoyed the equine company and could tolerate the mules. He didn’t care to ride a horse, always choosing instead to ride in the wagon with his father or lumber alongside in its shade.
The boy was not slow or dim as was the first impression he gave. He did move slowly, giving the impression his mind worked in similar fashion, but mostly the boy was just careful and meticulous. He did have a habit for dropping things. Caleb watched him at first because he was wary of him spooking his horse, but soon found the boy had a better relationship with the Comanche pony than he ever would. Patrick O’Hara did talk some, but it was mostly directed towards his father or Joe. When he did attempt to speak with the others his stammering took on its most limiting form.
It was uneventful for the first two days past the Cimarron, but the third day Jonas approached the top of a small bluff. He stood up in his stirrups to peer over it and below him were three Indians huddled over a freshly killed antelope. He drew his rifle and laid it across his lap, unsure how they would react when they finally noticed him. When they did, the Indians rose, not taking their eyes off him and spread a little ways apart.
Jonas waved at them, slowly forming a big arc with his hand, but his friendly gesture seemed not to stir the Indians one way or the other. He realized then that he had no idea what to do next. Certainly, he had no way of making them understand he was just out there looking for a blond child. He wanted to lead them back to the wagon, but squatting down in front of them and drawing them a picture of it in the dirt seemed a poor idea. Instead he gave them a look like he’d lost his nerve and he spurred his horse and rode off frightened like. The ruse worked for the Indians quickly mounted their horses and chased after him. He raced back towards the big wagon, which could be spotted on the plain as easily as a lighthouse. The Indians pulled up out of rifle range when they saw it and the other men, but they waited as Sweet Time started out towards them gripping his hands above his head, something like, Jonas thought, the winner of a wrestling match might do. The Indians seemed familiar with this hand signal and they cautiously approached him. It took him near a minute to reach them and when he did Sweet Time used other hand movements to communicate with them. The best Jonas could have described the way he moved his arms and hands about was like he was instructing them in various kinds of calisthenics, but the Indians obviously put some meaning to them.
“What’s going on?” Cal
eb asked when he came back.
“They figure we owe them a toll for crossing their land,” Mr. O’Hara explained, gathering some things together from the back of his wagon.
Mr. O’Hara carried the items out to them. It was evident he understood only part of what the Indians tried to communicate to him; mostly he stood nodding at them like a simpleton. The braves held out their rifles towards him, not in a threatening manner, but pointing at the barrel as if to demonstrate a small creature was hiding inside, instead they were indicating they needed bullets. They had not even a single cartridge among them to show him what they had wanted.
“They aren’t Comanche, but I’ll ask ’em if they know where Big Bear’s people might be,” Sweet Time said as he returned to the wagon to begin fishing through things again.
Sweet Time returned with some cartridges for the braves who loaded their vintage rifles and swung them around excitedly, making Caleb fear one would go off and injure Mr. O’Hara. Sweet Time handed them a few more cartridges each and told them he was looking for Big Bear.
“They’re Kiowas,” Sweet Time informed Caleb when returned. They didn’t know where Big Bear was except to say he wasn’t close by,” Sweet Time said. “If they’d known anything more I suspect they’d told me. They’re gonna escort us to their camp.”
“What for?” July asked.
“We might learn something useful there,” Sweet Time answered. “I don’t really care to go there myself, but it’s best if we tread lightly out here. I figure ya owe me two dollars for the toll,” Sweet Time told Caleb. “If you’re still planning on paying me for my things that is.”
