“The same here, Mary Ann.” He tipped his hat to her.
“May I ask where you are going?”
“Sure. Montana. Have you ever been there?”
“No. I was in Fort Smith once. It was so busy, I about got ran over.”
They both laughed and he excused himself. He needed to get set up somewhere for the night. It soon would be dark. There was little twilight in this country after sundown. But he felt exhilarated over his conversation with her as he mounted Kentucky. Headed north down the dusty ruts, he wondered how Dulchy was doing.
He should stop more often and simply talk to people. They didn’t have to be girls his age—just ordinary folks to talk to and connect him again with the human race. Since he’d left Mason, that was one of the longest conversations he’d had with anyone.
Around midnight, thunder woke him up coming out of the west. Flashes of lightning made the trees in the grove beyond him look like giant upside-down icicles. He could tell the shape of all the mountains between him and the incoming storm. There were no buildings around. He and his horses would have to weather it out.
He put on the canvas coat and spent a soggy night sitting up. Lightning danced all around him, and the shattering cracks of thunder made him wonder if he’d live through till dawn. One tremendous strike on the hill above him shattered a great tree and sent it crashing down. There were storms like this in the hill country, but there he knew where to go for shelter.
A dark dawn came, but the rain was lighter and he rode on. Everything was soaked through, and a cold north wind had come in by midday, and he wished for a fire to get warm by. He found a general store with smoke coming out of the stove pipe. The notion that they might have a heater to warm him made him stop.
“Hello.” The deep voice of a man came from behind the counter in the dark interior.
“I just wanted to warm a little and get a few things,” Wulf said.
“Traveling through?”
“Yes, sir.” He unbuttoned his coat and held out his hands to the heat coming from the wood stove. It felt wonderful.
“Going north, I see.”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you skipped out on the law somewhere, I have to tell you Parker’s men been here the whole damn week.”
“Who are they?”
The man grunted. “You’ve never heard of the Hanging Judge Isaac Parker at Fort Smith?”
“I guess I’ve heard of him.”
“Well, when you crossed the ole Red River down there, you came into his jurisdiction. And his marshals are working this district hard and arresting folks.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see if you don’t live here. There are men they’ve arrested whose families will starve without them to provide. President Grant appointed him, and he’s part of that leftover carpetbag government that we ended up with because of the war.”
“I see.” Hell, he didn’t know much about politics, least of all about Judge Parker.
Warm at last, he bought a sack of hard candy, thanked the grumbling man, and headed out. Dried out some, he didn’t feel as squishy as before. He mounted Goose and rode on north.
Later that day, two men in suits riding horseback stopped him. They had a very haggard-looking bushy-headed Indian wearing only his filthy red underwear on foot, and they were leading him by a rope tied to his handcuffs.
“U.S. Marshal Sam Piper,” the heavier man said. “That’s my posse man, Billy Graig. You live around here?”
“No, sir, I live at Mason, Texas.”
“Fur piece for a boy like you to be away from.”
“My father died and I’m on my own.”
“Watch yourself, boy. This country is full of horse thieves and murderers.”
“I will. What did he do?” Wulf asked, motioning to their prisoner.
“Robbed a country store.”
Wulf nodded to indicate that he’d heard him. “Good day, sir.”
He didn’t like being called a “boy.” Kinda got under his skin. If those lawmen talked to everyone like that, no wonder the man back at that store hated ’em. Besides, he was hardly a boy.
He met an old Indian man and his wife who were making camp late in the day in a clearing. The man’s face looked like polished leather and his smile seemed genuine. His hair was done in thick frosted braids.
“You looking for a place to a camp?” he asked Wulf.
“Yes, sir.”
“They won’t charge you nothing to camp here.”
“Good. I don’t have any money,” he said, extending his hand. “Wulf Baker.”
“Charlie Deadman. That is my wife, Judy.” The woman, bent over building a fire, looked up and smiled at him. In her youth, she must have been the prettiest woman in this part of the country—her smile warmed him.
“What can I contribute to this effort?” Wulf asked.
“I have a dressed chicken to cook.” She straightened up and moved her bangs aside.
“Then can I buy supper from you?”
“Not if you don’t have money.” She laughed.
“Oh, I have money for that.”
“Good, we can start a café here, huh, Charlie?”
“I don’t want to wash the dishes.”
She turned her palms up. “There goes another fortune.”
“Where you going?” Charlie asked, looking over Wulf’s things as he unpacked them.
“Montana, to see my cousin.”
“That’s a long ways away, ain’t it?”
“Yes, a real long ways. Where are you going?” He could see they had stuff to camp with in a single wagon pulled by a fat mare.
“To a dance. You should go with us. It will be lots of fun.”
“What kind of a dance?” He knew about schoolhouse dancing.
“Indian stomp dancing.”
“I’m not Indian.”
Charlie laughed. “They won’t know that. The Cherokees have so many mixed bloods in them, they can’t tell if you are one or not. Join us. You would like it.”
“I might do that.”
Charlie’s narrowed brown eyes looked at him like he was peering inside him. “Why are you going to Montana?”
“Aw, I was about to kill my stepfather over some things he did to me. Thought I’d go see my cousin who’s a sheriff up there.”
“I should have killed three men in my life. Two are dead now. I wish I’d killed the other one that is left.”
When Wulf’s horses were unloaded and watered, he put on their feed bags while supper was cooking. The wind was cool, and he knew the temperature was going to drop since the storm had gone on east.
“You got some damn good horses,” Charlie said, admiring them.
“Goose was a gift of my father’s friend after my stepfather sold my good Comanche horse to a traveling show.”
“Was he a real Comanche-bred horse?”
“Yes.”
“I saw them as a boy. They walked on feathers.”
Wulf nodded. The old man had seen real Comanche horses in his lifetime. The grim picture of Calico after they cut him made a lump in Wulf’s throat he couldn’t swallow. Charlie was right. There was a man in his life, too, that he needed to kill—Kent Hughes.
One thing led to another and he enjoyed their company so much, he went with them to the Blaine School House the next day for the dance. They chose a place in the trees outside the great circle of grass around the building, and made a picket line between two post oaks for the three horses. En route, they found lots of firewood to stack in the back of their wagon because Judy warned them that every speck was used up around the campground. It was near lunchtime when they set up. Wulf noticed several other families were setting up. He took Judy’s ax and went to work chopping up her wood. Charlie sat on the wagon tongue and talked to him as he worked. It felt good to be using his muscles again.
“Some Cherokee mother may kidnap you for her son-in-law. You are a hard worker at this wood business.” Charlie chuckled
.
“Hey, my dad was sick for two years. I’ve been doing this for years. You got a stone? This ax is getting dull.”
“Sure, sure.” Charlie got up to go get it.
There were three riders coming across the school yard. Something about their looks made Wulf wonder. They looked tough, and the one with the darkest skin wore leather cuffs like some kind of gunfighter.
“Who are they?” Wulf asked.
Charlie looked and shrugged. “Some killers, I guess. Oh, that one’s Sequoyah Hawks, the darkest one.”
“He mean?”
“I guess he can be. I’ll get that stone.”
The three went to the wagon south of the Deadmans’ Wagon and spoke to the man there. Wulf kept them in mind while he chopped some more wood. Charlie came back with the round whetstone for him, and Wulf got busy sharpening the double-bitted ax.
The three then rode up and reined in their horses. Hawks called out something to Charlie in Cherokee that Wulf did not understand. But the two skinny-looking ones with Hawks laughed. Wulf had a feeling he was the butt of the joke. He went back to sharpening the ax and they rode off. But the youngest one cast too long a look over at Wulf’s horses to suit him. He’d remember him.
“What did he say?” Wulf studied their backs as they rode off across the grounds filling with people and their rigs.
“He asked if I had a new squaw cutting wood for me.”
“I see why those other two laughed.”
“They are just a little drunk and it was a Cherokee joke.”
Then, testing the new edges with his thumb, Wulf agreed with a short nod. “I bet they could get awfully troublesome if they really were drunk.”
“You know, you’re right, and probably the cause of all their trouble with the law is from too much alcohol.”
Wulf sunk the ax in a block. “Think your wife has enough.”
“Oh, yeah, you will spoil her with that much.” Charlie stood up to his full height of five-six and laughed, looking up. “Come along, I want to introduce you to my friends. We are going walking,” he said to his wife, who was busy sewing on a blue shirt.
They went to the next camp south and Wulf met Bill Pearson, the man who had spoken to Hawks.
“I see Hawks came to see you,” Charlie said.
Pearson nodded. “He wanted to borrow some money for hooch.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I was broke. What did he ask you for?”
“He saw Wulf chopping wood and asked in Cherokee if I had me a new wife.”
Pearson laughed.
Wulf decided that must be a real funny joke to Cherokees. Maybe he shouldn’t be affronted by it.
“He has bad taste to say that in Cherokee,” Pearson said, and shook his head to show his disapproval to Wulf.
“I didn’t want any trouble with drunks,” Charlie said. “Besides, Wulf is a patient man. Anyone who sharpens my ax for me is a good friend.”
“You can sharpen axes?” Pearson perked up.
“Sure. Do you have a stone?” Wulf asked.
“No.”
Charlie shook his head. “I’ll go get mine.”
Next, a woman came to see Pearson’s wife, Honey, and when she discovered that Wulf sharpened axes, she half ran back for hers. Wulf didn’t mind. They were polite, and he could listen to tales while he put edges on butcher knives, axes, and pocketknives.
Each person wanted him to take something for his services. They were small things like a jar of jelly or honey, some hulled black walnuts, or some salve for sore muscles. Charlie told him not to eat it. A bar of homemade soap. One woman gave him two brass cavalry buckles for a bridle headstall with U.S. in raised letters.
“This is too much,” Wulf said, considering it valuable. Did she even understand him? Then he looked around for his translator, but couldn’t see Charlie anywhere.
Pearson leaned in and said, “Don’t worry. She is going back for another ax.”
The crowd laughed.
Finally, Judy came over and held her hands in the air. “He is my guest. You must let him rest.”
The crowd began to melt away, and he completed the last jobs. He handed an ax back to a woman who had no teeth, and she thanked him.
“I have nothing to give you,” she said.
“That’s all right.”
Then she got a funny look in her good eye. “You could come sleep with me tonight.”
“No, thank you. It’s fine.”
“All right, but I wish I had something.”
“It’s fine.” He couldn’t reassure her fast enough that he wanted no part of that offer.
She shrugged and went hobbling off, taking her sharpened ax with a home-carved hickory handle.
“It is time to eat,” Charlie announced.
“I was going to buy something for Judy to cook,” Wulf said.
They each carried an armful of Wulf’s “gifts.” “I bet she could use some of these,” Charlie said, and laughed. “Unless you need them.”
“What all did you get?” Judy asked, setting what they brought her in a row on a log. “There was a man that used to come to these dances. He had a big wheel and he sharpened things for everyone. Where did you learn how to do it?” she asked Wulf.
“Andy Carter. I learned in his blacksmith shop at home.”
“You would make a good husband for someone,” Charlie said.
“I have a girl at home.”
“That is a shame. I hoped you’d settle around here—by me.”
Wulf shook his head. “No, I better get on to Montana.”
Twilight set in when he sat down to eat Judy’s beans and bacon. Wulf could have used some hot sauce in his, but it was tasty and he didn’t have to cook it.
At the sound of a commotion, Wulf whirled and saw someone slip on to Goose’s back and boot him out.
“He is stealing your horse,” Charlie said, shocked.
Wulf, with two fingers in his mouth, gave a shrill whistle. In the twilight, he could see Goose immediately begin bucking and throw that rider higher than the post oak trees.
“Catch him,” Charlie shouted, and two men rushed in and caught the fallen thief.
Goose came back and put his face on Wulf’s chest. “Good boy.”
He fed him a piece of hard mint candy and led him back to the picket line. When Goose was hitched beside Kentucky, Wulf walked out to see who had tried to steal him.
Dressed only in a loincloth and moccasins, the skinny boy stood between the two captors.
“Why did you try to steal my guest’s horse?” Charlie demanded.
“Go fuck yourself, old man,” the drunk rustler said with a whiskey lisp.
Charlie’s jaw quivered, he was so furious. “What should we do with him?”
Wulf shook his head with no answer. “I’m not the law here.”
“If he was a Cherokee and we got the horse back, he would get ten lashes with a whip.”
Someone said he was Cherokee.
“Then in the morning when he is sober enough to feel them, that will be his sentence,” Charlie said, and the heads bobbed. “Tie him to a tree until then.”
“Better yet, I have chains and locks,” another said.
They all agreed that chains and locks were better than ropes, and dragged him off far enough that they wouldn’t hear him wail.
That night, Wulf learned how to stomp. With his hands on the hips of some woman who had invited him to dance with her, he followed her moves to the drumbeat in the long serpentine lines of men and women. He met many nice girls his age. Some were very bold, and almost challenged him to meet them beyond the ring of firelight.
The stew girl, Mary Ann, found him standing by himself. “You are very talented. You teach horses tricks. I didn’t know you could dance.”
He laughed. “I just move with them.”
“My mother has lemonade. Would you like a glass?”
“Sure.”
He fell in behind her. She must be two
, maybe three inches taller than he was.
“Thank you,” he told her mother, drinking the cool sweet-sour liquid from a brown glass.
Her mother nodded and said, “Mary Ann told me that the horse trainer is here. I said he must need a drink. I am really surprised she brought you back here to meet me.”
“She is a very kind person,” he said.
Her mother laughed and tossed her head at her daughter, standing there opening and clenching her fists at her side and looking to the stars for help. “Oh, Mother, why did you say that?”
“It was the truth.”
“Come, I want to dance with you,” he said, taking Mary Ann’s hand.
“She thinks I am taken with you,” she said as he guided her through the people to where they could dance.
He went up next to the last man in line. Then he put his hands on her hips. The drumbeat was going and they followed it.
“I am not taken by you. You are a good person, I know that. There are not many good people in this world.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “You know what I mean?”
“Yes.” And they danced.
Then later, they stood back in the shadows. In soft voices, they talked to each other.
“I’ll have to ride on tomorrow,” he said to warn her.
“I know. Is the one who waits for you at home pretty?”
“She is a nice-looking Dutch girl.”
“She—” Her words were cut off by the cries of a woman.
In the shadowy light, he could see a man holding a woman by a handful of her hair and beating her with a stick. Mary Ann tried to stop Wulf, but he was already gone. He leaped over things and when he reached the man, he ripped the stick he was using from his hands. Then he went to flailing the man two-handed about the head and shoulders with the stick until he released the woman’s hair and bent over crying. Holding his hands over his ears and unable to escape Wulf’s beating, he screamed, “I won’t do it again. I promise. I promise.”
“Stop! Stop! You are killing him,” Mary Ann screamed, and took Wulf’s right arm in both her hands to stop him.
“What’s going on here?” someone demanded.
Out of breath, Wulf glared in the night’s darkness at the man who’d asked. “He was pulling out her hair and beating her with this stick,” Wulf said.
“Who are you? Who invited you here?”
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