Smith's Monthly #4

by Smith, Dean Wesley

  Zach had nodded and looked worried when Long took his horse away, walking it slowly back to let C. J. hold it.

  Then Long told Jimmy to go to the left of the herd, Truitt to the right, and he said he would stay directly behind them. “We move up to them slowly,” Long said, “then when I give the signal, wave your hat and shout.”

  “We’ll drive them directly at Zach,” Jimmy said, glancing down the valley ahead of the herd where Zach crouched behind a rock.

  “The beasts will turn slightly left, following the valley, and will pass beside Zach’s position,” Long said. “They are lazy creatures by nature and will not run up a hill unless they are forced to.”

  Jimmy just hoped, for Zach’s sake, Long was right about that.

  A few minutes later, they were all in position and Long gave the signal. This time, Jimmy had no plan on getting too close to the herd, and he noticed that Truitt stayed a safe distance away as well.

  The herd of large beasts rumbled into motion, moving toward Zach. Again, Jimmy couldn’t believe the noise and how much the ground shook.

  For a moment, Jimmy thought Long was going to be wrong and Zach was going to have to depend on hiding behind a rock to save his life. But then, as Long had said they would, the herd turned left, giving Zach a clear and close shot at the nearest creatures.

  Zach leveled the rifle on one small cow and fired twice.

  The cow went nose down, tumbled once, and then lay there, not moving.

  Long motioned for C. J. to bring Zach’s horse and the pack horses, and all of them moved toward the dead buffalo.

  Jimmy was amazed at how ugly the creature was up close. And Long had been right, they were very smelly beasts, like a rancid stew left out in the sun for too many days. Their hair was patchy and bugs crawled all over them.

  Long gave Jimmy, Truitt, and Zach step-by-step instructions on how to get the meat out of the beast, how to pack it, and so on. By the time they were finished, all three of them had to take a swim in the cold brown water of the river just to get the smell off.

  But that night, the buffalo steaks that Truitt cooked were wonderful. Jimmy figured it was almost worth it.

  Almost.

  PART TWELVE

  A BIG STORM

  THE NEXT AFTERNOON they reached the South Fork Crossing.

  All Jimmy could think about was that it wasn’t possible to cross that wide a river. It had to be at least a half-mile across. It looked more like a lake than a river. He could swim, but not that good.

  “We’re going across that?” Truitt asked.

  “All of them are,” Jimmy said, pointing at the two hundred wagons that were camped along the banks of the river. “We can make it.”

  “I’m not much of a swimmer,” Truitt said, clearly not happy with the idea.

  “Neither am I,” C.J. said.

  “Your horse can swim,” Long said. “Just stay in the saddle.”

  Truitt looked at Long. “Oh, sure, easy for you to say.”

  As the five of them sat and stared at the ford from the high bank, at least twenty wagons were in the water at one point or another in the crossing. And more were camped on the other side.

  From what Jimmy could tell, none of the wagons seemed to be in too far over their beds, and none of the horses seemed to be swimming. That, at least, was a good sign.

  They spent the rest of that day camped with the wagons, making sure Benson wasn’t among those waiting to cross, then the next morning, they went into the water.

  As Jimmy pushed his horse gently into the slowly moving river, he wasn’t sure what was more frightening, riding in a herd of buffalo or crossing a river a half-mile wide. At that moment, he almost wished he was back with the buffalo.

  But the river turned out to be shallow all the way across, and he didn’t even get his boots wet. That afternoon, after checking the wagons camped on the other side for any sign of Benson, they headed away from the river into the fourth leg of the long trip.

  From what C. J. told them, it was just over one hundred and eighty miles from the crossing to Fort Laramie. More than likely, that would be where they would catch up to Benson.

  The trail from the crossing cut across a shallow range of hills and started up the North Fork of the Platte River.

  The hills around them now were rocky and higher, and the brush thinner. And by this point, the wagons were really spread out. Sometimes they would ride for a few hours before catching up to a stopped band of wagons.

  “We’re in Sioux territory,” Long said on the third day. “We should camp at night with a wagon company for safety.”

  Jimmy had no argument with that.

  Jimmy wanted to ask Long many questions about his mother’s people, but figured now wouldn’t be the time. Maybe later in the trip. Right now, Long looked very serious and focused on the rocks and hills around them and Jimmy let him concentrate.

  On the third evening as they were moving along the river, it seemed as if the sky around them and above the mountains just suddenly turned a pitch black. It had rained off and on for the entire trip, but no storm before had looked this bad.

  Zach pointed at the coming clouds. “I think we need to take cover.”

  “I agree,” Long said. “That will have some strong winds and lightening with those clouds.”

  “How about up that canyon there?” Truitt pointed to a rock-lined canyon “We should be able to anchor our tents pretty well there.”

  “It’s not with a wagon company,” Jimmy said. He didn’t much like the looks of the coming clouds either, but he also didn’t like the idea of camping alone in Sioux territory without a lot of people around them. And at the moment, there was no wagon company within sight along the trail.

  “The Sioux will take cover as well,” Long said. “They consider a storm like this one bad medicine.”

  “Can’t argue with them there,” Truitt said as a rumbling of thunder echoed out over the river.

  With one more look at the clouds, Jimmy said, “Let’s move before we get soaked.”

  At a full gallop, they turned away from the trail and headed up the rocky canyon, following a shallow stream. There were numbers of side canyons off the main one, but Long led them to what seemed like an alcove water had cut into the rock. The walls of the canyon would shelter them both from most of the wind and the lightening.

  They secured the horses, then madly worked to pitch and secure their tents. Jimmy had just finished and crawled inside when the first gust of wind really rocked his tent and a moment later the rains started.

  Chances are, it was going to be a very long night.

  He must have dozed because the next thing he realized, lighting and thunder were shaking the ground around him, and water was pouring into his tent.

  He grabbed his saddlebags and got out into the storm quickly. In one flash of lighting, he saw that the small stream they had camped beside was quickly rising.

  “Water!” he shouted. “Everybody up and out!”

  Another very close strike of lightning spooked the horses and he barely got to them in time to hold them from trying to break away.

  “We need to get out of this canyon!” Long shouted over the thundering of the storm.

  “And fast!” Jimmy shouted.

  He could only see the others through the pitch black pouring rain when lightning lit up the canyon. But from what he could see, the others were scrambling to gather up their gear and get to the horses.

  The water around them was coming up faster than Jimmy could have imagined possible. He decided to leave his tent and bedroll. He doubted he could get to them in the rising water anyway.

  He managed to get a saddle on his horse while the others worked frantically in the pouring rain beside him. By the time he got the gear on one of the packhorses and got mounted, the water had risen so fast, it was up to his waist.

  Somehow, he got his horse and the packhorse headed downstream, but now both horses seemed to be swimming in the strong current and i
t was everything Jimmy could do to just hang on.

  A lightning strike showed a side canyon ahead that looked mostly dry. He tried to turn his horse in that direction, and somehow the horse got footing and pulled out of the water, with the packhorse following.

  Lightning strikes, one right after another, gave him just enough light in the rain to work his way up the canyon to a high, wide shelf area that would be above any flooding.

  There he dismounted and tried to hold the horses as tight as he could against the shelter of the rock wall.

  The rain pounded on him as he knelt down. He was so cold, he was shivering and his fingers were numb.

  Around him, the storm raged, as if the Earth itself was mad at him.

  He stayed pressed against the rocks, trying to hold the horses from bolting with every close lightning strike and thunderous clap.

  None of the others had made it into this side canyon.

  More than likely, they had been swept downstream and into the big river and were dead. Even if they could swim, no one could survive that swirling torrent in the rock canyon for very long.

  It was going to be a very long night.

  He had lost his friends.

  Mother Nature and the west had clearly won this battle.

  And again, he was completely alone.

  To be continued next issue…

  USA Today bestselling writer, Dean Wesley Smith, remembers clearly the early days of dating. The fear, the dreams, and the vivid imagination.

  “Sleeping with the Goddess” takes a glance inside one special date when reality sometimes gets mixed up in a guy’s mind. Especially when things on the date seem great and all girls represent a goddess.

  SLEEPING WITH THE GODDESS

  OKAY, BAST HAD LEGS that touched the ground and extended all the way up into heaven. I knew the ground part of the equation because her heels clicked when she walked on the sidewalk beside me as we headed into the movie.

  Click. Click. Click. Click. Proof the goddess walked on the earth.

  The heaven part I hoped to visit later in the evening. It was a faith issue, and I wanted to be the converted.

  The date had started off well, the conversation light but strained as I walked with her from her parents’ suburban house down the driveway to my car. I even held the passenger door of my Bug open for her to get in.

  She liked that, said she liked the car, and gave me a beaming smile with perfect white teeth.

  I liked what the seat belt did to her chest, but I didn’t say that of course.

  Bast had been named after an Egyptian goddess, so I figured the best way to find my way into her stone chamber was to treat her like a goddess. Tonight, I would be on my best behavior. So far, so good.

  She was wearing a bright blue blouse with short sleeves, a matching blue short skirt, and heels that made her almost as tall as I am.

  She had pulled back her long blonde hair like she did when she was wearing her cheerleader uniform and leading the school to shout and yell for the football players. With her hair pulled back tight like that, her face seemed to stretch and she actually had a cat-like look that could melt any guy in the school.

  Kind of creepy when you consider her name, Bast, was the name of the Egyptian cat goddess.

  I know because I had looked it up after the second day of sitting beside her. I loved the part about Bast that she was the pleasure-loving goddess in whose honor wild parties were thrown.

  However, I sure didn’t look like any goddess consort. I had on my normal jeans, sweatshirt, and Reeboks. I wasn’t one of the football or basketball jocks cheerleaders normally went for. My only sport was snowboarding and I did it well. In fact, with luck, I hoped to have a shot at the regional tryouts for the Olympics next spring.

  We had ended up sitting next to each other in a second period English literature class. It had taken me a week just to get up the nerve to nod at her before class, and after the first nod I just sat there and sweated the entire hour.

  It took me another week to say hi.

  And another week to actually ask her a question. I think my first question was where she was thinking about going to college the following year. I’m not sure if I stammered or not. I hope not.

  Stanford was the answer. Prelaw major.

  She asked me in return and when I told her Columbia, if things worked out, she had given me my first smile.

  I remember sort of melting into the chair after that smile. It had taken another two days for me to get up the nerve to talk to her again.

  After that we sort of talked every day, sometimes just a hi, sometimes a few sentences. I looked forward to every word, to be honest.

  Then the big day came when she even asked me my name after one class in which I had answered correctly a fairly hard Shakespeare question.

  There is nothing like a beautiful girl wanting to know the name of a boy in her class. The simple question can send a boy into masturbation heaven. I was no exception to the rule.

  Then when the school newspaper did the article on me trying for the Olympics, she got real friendly and we talked before and after every class, even walking twice to our next classes together. I guess having a goal beyond making the next touchdown was a little interesting to her.

  A week later I finally got up the nerve to ask her out.

  Or she asked me out.

  I’m not really sure how the date happened, but it sort of did.

  Luckily, a film we both wanted to see was opening on Friday night, so we decided that would be perfect.

  And unlike what I had feared might happen, the date went very, very well.

  She looked like a goddess. I looked like a snowboarder.

  I made no gaffes in the car as we talked about why she wanted to go to Stanford, and managed to keep my gaze on her beautiful blue eyes instead of her beautiful blue blouse.

  I bought the tickets to the show. She insisted on buying the popcorn and Diet Coke.

  The movie was good. We both laughed a lot, which broke even more of the first-date tension.

  After the show we went for pizza, discovering both of us liked Canadian bacon and tomatoes. Having the same taste in pizza is important.

  I asked her about her family, which I found out consisted of one brother and her mother who worked. Her dad lived across town and was a college professor of ancient history, thus her name. I discovered she wanted to be a lawyer and help people.

  She asked about my Olympic hopes, about me going to New York to go to college, which was a long way from a snowboard hill, and my family, which consisted of one younger sister and parents who should be divorced but didn’t know it yet.

  We talked for hours, working at the pizza and drinking Diet Coke, having a blast, to be honest. By the end of the conversation, my single-minded thoughts of finding goddess heaven had faded back to actually enjoying Bast’s company.

  I took her back to her house, parked the Bug on the street, and turned to her, suddenly realizing the tension was high again between us.

  Sexual tension?

  First kiss tension?

  How to end a really perfect evening tension?

  All of the above more than likely.

  “Now this was fun,” I said after we stared into each other’s eyes for a few moments.

  “It sure was,” she said, giving me that melting smile and a wonderful laugh. “Want to do it again?”

  “Sure do,” I said. “Different movie though. I hate seeing the same movie twice.”

  Again she laughed, which was nice of her for such a lame joke.

  “Deal,” she said.

  She started to reach for the door handle, hesitated, glancing back at me.

  The moment seemed to take a lifetime. Then she turned to me, leaned toward me, used one hand to grab my sweatshirt, and pulled me into a kiss.

  Now understand, I have kissed my share of girls before. Being around ski lodges certainly gives a guy like me lots of chances for meeting and finding private places to end up with
girls. I hadn’t lost my virginity yet, but kissing I was downright good at.

  She was better.

  She kissed like a goddess.

  I melted and lost my mind, all at the same moment.

  From that kiss on I have no idea what actually happened.

  Granted, I have a memory of the events that followed, but no belief in those events.

  I think what happened is that she pulled away from the kiss and said, “Let’s go inside.”

  I asked about her mother and what would she say.

  “She is not a problem,” she had said, getting out and motioning for me to follow.

  I don’t remember my feet touching the driveway. I don’t remember closing my car door. I don’t remember opening her front door.

  I do remember staring at her wonderful body and thinking of the smooth skin and wonderful feel of her lips.

  That I remember.

  We went inside, her holding my hand and pulling my stumbling body along.

  I do remember stopping just inside the front door as she closed it behind me, staring. And I remember being stunned.

  The inside of the house wasn’t a three bedroom standard American. It looked like an Egyptian King’s bedroom, with silk hanging from impossibly high ceilings, and dozens of people bowing to Bast.

  As we entered her clothes seemed to change from the short skirt and blue blouse to blue Egyptian silk that shimmered around her as she walked, showing off the smooth skin of her legs, her shoulders, her neck.

  Two large men came forward and bowed to her, two others fanned her with reed fans.

  I remember thinking they should be fanning me instead, because I was the one that was having the heat stroke.

  She directed still another two men to take me, strip me, and put me in the hot baths.

  They were big guys, and I don’t remember fighting them as they helped me undress.

  Then after I was in the water, she slowly let the silk slide off her shoulders into a pile beside the pools.

  I swear trumpets rang out somewhere in the distance.