“I expect,” Will replied, although the picture of that tended to give him a sour stomach. “To tell you the truth, Lieutenant, I was pretty sure I was dead back on that creek bank, myself.” He was glad when the colonel came in, effectively changing the subject.
The colonel’s visit was no more than a courtesy call, but he questioned Will on the location and strength of the Cheyenne camps before getting around to asking about the men who had attacked him and Bradley at Walnut Creek. When he learned the identity of the three bushwhackers, he was not surprised. “We’ve been looking for those three for quite a while,” he said. “Several ranchers have been hit by them, and we always seemed to be just a day or two behind them.” He smiled then and stood up to leave. Extending his hand, he said, “So I guess you’ve taken care of the army’s business as far as Ned Spikes and his henchmen are concerned.”
“Always tickled to help the army,” Will replied with a grin.
With no particular desire to return to Fort Dodge, Will was an ideal patient for a few days, content to sleep and eat and do little more. Always a fast healer, he began to recover rapidly near the end of the week, so he started thinking about making plans to report back to Camp Supply. He had still not fully regained his strength, but he was strong enough to take an interest in the three horses he now owned. When he first went to the stables to check on them, he was immediately able to recognize the gray gelding that had once belonged to Ned Spikes, and he was reasonably sure of the little paint mare that one of Spikes’ partners rode. But he had to admit that he would not have been able to pick out the other one without help. He wasn’t seeing anything too clearly on that ride from Walnut Creek.
Making idle conversation with one of the soldiers on stable duty one afternoon while watching his horses feed, he suddenly remembered a promise he had casually made to Emma. “I need to work with that little paint,” he said to the private. “I just remembered I owe a little lady a horse of her own, and that little horse might just fit the bill.” The thought brought a smile of pleasure to his face until it occurred to him that he would have to go back to Fort Dodge to deliver the gift. He had already decided to bypass Dodge on his way back to Camp Supply. The idea of seeing the newlyweds this soon after the wedding was not something he cared to experience. I don’t know, Whiskers, he thought, it might not be the right time. He was afraid he couldn’t hide his feelings if he saw Sarah, and he had no reason to want to see Braxton Bradley ever again—and he was certain the feeling was mutual. He knew it was unrealistic to think about avoiding Bradley and Fort Dodge if he continued working as a scout. But he hoped to delay the encounters until a little time had passed, so maybe he wouldn’t feel like a damn fool if he ran into Bradley or Sarah. All those thoughts made him feel restless and he decided that he had laid around Fort Larned long enough. There was too much time for thinking. He needed to get back on a horse and head to the open country. He turned then to find the private studying him.
“You’re the feller that came back from the dead, ain’t you?” When Will was too astonished to answer right away, the soldier continued. “That’s what they’re sayin’ about you. At least that’s what Major Devlin said. He said you were just hangin’ on to this world by a thread—said he didn’t expect you to make it through the night, but you woke up bright-eyed and bushy tailed the next mornin’.”
“Ha,” Will exclaimed. “Is that what they’re sayin’?” He wasn’t sure how to respond. “Well, I hope I didn’t disappoint the grave-diggin’ crew.”
Chapter 14
The morning was too pretty to waste sitting around an army post, so Will decided it was time to take his leave. The fact that the chaplain had left that morning on his way to Fort Dodge to hold his monthly service there had not improved Will’s mood—especially when one of the hospital orderlies had remarked that the chaplain had said that he had a wedding to conduct. So with the briefest of good-byes to the staff at the hospital, he collected his belongings and made his way over to the stables. Another private was on stable duty, one he had not met before. “I’m gonna pick up my horses,” Will said, “and get ’em outta your way.”
“You the scout from Fort Dodge?” the private asked as he walked to the tack room with Will to help him with his gear. When Will allowed that he was, the soldier smiled and recited, “That’ll be that gray yonder, the paint, and the chestnut. Right?”
“That’s right,” Will replied. With the private helping, they cut the three horses out and got a bridle on each one.
As Will threw his saddle on the gray, the soldier saddled the chestnut. “What’s his name?” he asked, nodding toward the gray.
“I don’t know,” Will replied. “The feller I got him from didn’t tell me.” He paused to think about it for a few moments before continuing. “I think I’ll call him Ned,” he said, then hesitated. “No, that would be too much of an insult to the horse. I reckon I’ll just call him Coyote. He kinda reminds me of one.”
“This little mare is about as gentle as a lamb,” the private said as he led the paint over to Will, who was checking over the saddle.
Will paused to study the horse. “Yeah, she is, ain’t she? She belongs to a friend of mine. Maybe I’ll get around to givin’ her to her one of these days.”
He set out directly south, taking his time, letting the gray set his own pace for much of the distance between Fort Larned and the point where he would strike the Arkansas. Once he struck the river, he would follow it until he was directly east of Fort Dodge. When he reached that point he would have to make a decision. Although the fort was on the river, the Arkansas took a wide turn before curving back to the west, where the fort was located. It was a site shorter to take a shortcut across the bend in the river, but if he was going to Camp Supply, he would leave the river and continue due south.
He tried to tell himself that he was in no hurry simply because he wanted to take it easy on his horses and let the gray and himself get to know each other. The fact of the matter, however, was he still had not made up his mind whether to stop by Fort Dodge or bypass it and go directly to Camp Supply. The little mare that he had in mind to present to Emma seemed to be gentle enough without a lot of work on his part. It made sense to go ahead and give it to her now when he was going to be so close to the fort. He had to ask himself if the real motivation to stop now was really simply to get the horse off his hands. Or was it just a morbid desire to witness the woman he thought he loved happily married to a man he despised? He would not reach the point directly east of Fort Dodge until nightfall, so he still had time to worry over it and decide which way to go in the morning.
Lieutenant Braxton Bradley had returned to Fort Dodge to a hero’s welcome. The entire post had turned out to welcome him back and hear the report of his fight to escape his Cheyenne captors and the heroic battle on Walnut Creek that took army scout Will Cason’s life. He described the treacherous attack by the three murderers and the gallant defense the two of them waged, fighting side by side, until Cason went down with a bullet in his side and another in his shoulder. When he was certain that Will was dead, and after killing one of the three assailants, he took the opportunity to escape and made his way to Fort Larned.
Hardly knowing what to think after so many days of uncertainty, Sarah Lawton greeted her fiancé with a fond embrace that drew a hardy round of applause from the crowd that had gathered around the ambulance Braxton arrived in. Emma’s response to the lieutenant’s verification that Will was dead was to turn away.
“Now we can get back to planning a wedding,” Edna Boyle sang out, prompting another round of applause.
“We can get married tomorrow,” Braxton had suggested.
Before Sarah could comment, Edna Boyle had interrupted. “Oh, no, you don’t, Lieutenant Bradley. You’re not going to ruin our chance to have a big wedding. We don’t get many opportunities like this—a wedding at this dreary post—and Sarah deserves a wedding she can remember.” Her comments were met with a chorus of cheers from the wives
gathered around. “Besides, we’re gonna have a real wedding with a real preacher to tie the knot,” she had continued, “and the chaplain’s regular visit isn’t until next Sunday.” Captain Tuttle, the chaplain at Fort Larned, made regular monthly visits to Fort Dodge since Dodge had none at the present time. It just made sense to wait and let him perform the ceremony.
“I guess we’ll have to wait until Edna says we’re ready,” Sarah had responded to Braxton’s suggestion. Although she fashioned a pleasant smile for his benefit, inside she found that she was relieved to put the wedding off for now, even if for only a week. Deeply troubled by the news of Will’s death, it was difficult to feel elation over the prospect of her coming nuptials. While others were in a celebratory mood over the prospects of a wedding, she could not escape the black cloud that Will’s death had cast over her. Somehow she had felt that Will would always survive—he was nothing if not a survivor. How could he be dead? If she had chosen to examine her feelings more closely, she might have realized that she had been able to accept the news of Braxton’s probable death when he had been reported missing more calmly than this tragic news about Will. Aware then that everyone was beaming in her direction, she said, “I guess I had better go after my daughter. She was very fond of Will, and I think the news has upset her.”
Emma had joined her mother when the ambulance arrived on the post, escorted by a patrol of six troopers, and minutes later they heard the people shouting her mother’s name. The soldiers had told her mother several days before that Lieutenant Bradley was missing, so everyone was happy to see that he was all right. Emma was glad that he was safe, but she had not been prepared for the news that Will was dead. Colonel Arnold and Captain Evans had come to see them one night with the news about Braxton, but they said that Will had volunteered to look for him on his own. So Emma had known in her heart that Will would find him and everything would be all right. Today, when Braxton had reported that Will was dead, she turned and ran back to the wagon so no one would see her tears.
Braxton had come to the wagon that night just as soon as he had finished his reports to his superiors. Sarah greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, even though it was obvious that he expected more. But he assumed that her less than passionate embrace was due to the presence of her six-year-old daughter. He could not help but notice the lack of the usual enthusiasm in the child. She was quiet, hardly speaking a word, which was noticeably uncharacteristic. In an effort to elicit a response from her, Braxton had said, “Looks like about another week before you’ll be my little girl. What do you think about that, Emma?”
Emma had responded by instructing the lieutenant, “Don’t call me Emma—my real name is Whiskers.”
Unaware of the origin of the nickname, Braxton had replied, “Oh, well, I didn’t know that, but I think I like Emma better for a pretty little girl like you. So I’ll call you Emma.”
“My name’s Whiskers,” she muttered under her breath and promptly left their presence to find seclusion in her bed in the wagon.
“Are we going to have trouble with that child?” Braxton asked when she had gone.
“No,” Sarah answered. “She’s just fond of Will and misses him. She’ll get over it before long.” The thought occurred to her then that Emma had gotten over her father’s death in a shorter time—a little more than a day, in fact.
“Where did she get that name . . . ? What was it—Whiskers? Kind of an odd name for a little girl.”
“It’s nothing,” Sarah replied, hesitating to tell him, since he was already showing signs of irritation with Emma. When he continued to gaze inquisitively, she told him, “It’s just a little nickname Will called her.”
“Will again,” Braxton had fumed, clearly irritated then. “The man was an issue when he was alive. Am I going to have to put up with his ghost now with Emma?”
Sarah had tried to reassure him that Emma would come around, but inside, she knew that Braxton was going to have to make a major effort to replace Will in Emma’s heart. Now, almost a week later, there had not been much progress along those lines, and the wedding was scheduled to take place the next day.
The wedding day broke bright and clear with the promise of a perfect day for Braxton and Sarah. Emma lay awake in her bed beside her mother, staring up at the canvas top of the wagon. The night just past would be her last in the wagon. After the wedding, she and her mother would move into the small quarters prepared for them and her new father by the carpenters. Emma found that she was reluctant to leave the wagon, and she had been awake since before sunup thinking about her new life with her stepfather. Young as she was, she had a level head on her shoulders, and she resolved not to make the union difficult for her mother, in spite of her personal preferences.
She paused to listen—there it was again, a slight kind of snuffling noise outside the wagon. This was the second time she had heard it since waking, and this time she decided to investigate. Moving as slowly and as quietly as she could so as not to disturb her mother, she left the wagon and sneaked through the tent attached, hoping to surprise the varmint that was no doubt sniffing around their camp. Pushing the tent flap aside very carefully, she was at once astounded to find the gentle noises had emanated from a brown and white paint pony.
The horse was tied to the back wheel of the wagon, patiently standing, saddled and bridled. Emma, still in her gown, went out and looked for the rider. There was none that she could see. She walked all around the wagon and tent, still finding no one, so she went back to look at the paint again. It was then that she noticed a piece of paper tied with a length of rawhide cord to the saddle horn. Concentrating on each word carefully, she managed to read the message. This horse is for Whiskers. She’s saddle broke and gentle. It was not signed.
Emma’s screams of joy brought Sarah out in a panic, thinking her daughter was in danger. “Mama!” Emma fairly screamed. “It’s Will! It’s Will!”
Confused and frightened that Emma’s imagination had run rampant, she sought first to calm her hysterical daughter before spying the strange horse tied to the wagon wheel. When she saw it, she, like Emma had, looked around thinking to find the rider. When there was no one to be seen, she turned again to the excited child, who was even then trying to climb up in the saddle. “Emma, get down from there. You’ll get hurt. We don’t know who that horse belongs to.” The mysterious appearance of the horse was now beginning to worry her.
“It’s my horse, Mama!” Emma insisted. “Will promised he would get me a horse of my own, and he kept his promise.”
Sarah was about to tell her that she had let her imagination run away with her when Emma suddenly thrust the note in her hand. Sarah felt as if her heart stopped temporarily as she read the words scrawled upon the back of a duty roster, evidently ripped off the bulletin board outside the orderly room. Feeling suddenly chilled inside, she tried to force her mind to make sense out of the appearance of the horse and the note, which defied reason. Will Cason was dead. Braxton had confirmed it, so where did the horse come from? Sarah was not a firm believer in things spiritual, but she could not dispel the eerie feeling visited upon her. At this point, Emma was her only source of information, so she questioned her daughter about the promise she claimed Will had made to her.
“I told him I wanted my own horse,” Emma insisted. “And he said he would get me one, but he told me not to tell you because you might not want me to have one. It was our secret, and he kept his promise!”
Sarah was beside herself. She had no reason to disbelieve her daughter. Emma had never shown a tendency to make up stories, but the incident was too bizarre to explain. She believed Emma when she said no one but she and Will had known of the secret promise they shared. For a moment, she considered that Braxton had made the gesture as a bridge between him and her daughter. Just as rapidly, however, she discarded the idea simply because the note had said Whiskers and not Emma. With her mind in a quandary, she didn’t know what to do about the horse. However it arrived at her wagon, someone had obvi
ously meant it as a present for Emma, so she could do nothing to solve the mystery until she talked to Braxton or maybe Edna Boyle—someone must know something about it. She wasn’t ready to believe a ghost had left it there.
Knowing she must make some effort to return normalcy to the morning, she told Emma to leave the horse where it was until Braxton came over later. “Come on,” she said. “Get dressed and we’ll start some breakfast.” And this is supposed to be my wedding day, she thought, wondering how she could possibly be less excited over the prospect.
A little while after breakfast, Edna Boyle came over to inform Sarah that the preacher had arrived late the night before from Fort Larned and the ceremony could proceed as planned, with the actual vows scheduled to be exchanged at two o’clock that afternoon. She was taken aback when Sarah told her of the mystery pinto. Like Sarah, she could think of no reasonable explanation for its appearance at her wagon. “We oughta unsaddle it, though, and maybe let Emma lead it down to the water to drink,” she suggested. “The horse seems gentle enough, and we can watch them from here.”
It was while Emma was down beside the river with the mare that Braxton joined the two ladies. When told of the gift for Emma, his reaction was stony and his ire was immediately turned upon the little girl watering the horse, as if it were her doing. “I’m sick of hearing about that damn ghost,” he railed, “and I think you’re going to have to do something about your daughter’s infatuation with that saddle tramp.”
Thinking Braxton’s attitude a bit overboard, Sarah felt obligated to defend her friend. “I think it’s a little harsh to call Will a saddle tramp. He means a lot to Emma, and certainly to me, too. You must give Emma a little time to get over this.”
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