They were all laughing. Men were slapping their thighs in delight. Tears rolled down their cheeks.
He looked from one to the other helplessly.
“You gotta believe it, boy,” Mart said. “You’re rich.”
Will felt the need to sit down.
He hadn’t recovered himself by the time they slowly moved on to water and made camp. Then he had to go away by himself and think. He had to get himself into proportion, to see himself in an entirely new position. He looked back at the camp, saw Martha and the girls busy at the fire. He reckoned he amounted to something now. He could start to do the things he wanted to do. All these people depended on him. He owed it all to them. Manning Oaks, the Quintin boys, the Moras. The dead man they left back there in the lonely grave. They had given him their loyalty and risked their lives for wages.
He stayed away from the fire till long after dark, thinking.
When he walked back to them, he had made up his mind.
He sat down on a log and they watched him wordlessly. They were waiting for him to speak.
“I made up my mind.” he said. “This is the way I see it. I’m headed for Colorado. Me an’ the family an’ anybody else that wants to go with us. There’s good country there for the askin’. New country made for cows.”
“What about the old place, Will?” Mart asked.
“Sell it. There ain’t nothin’ but bitterness there. You can’t go back, Mart. So it has to be Clay. He goes back, makes up a herd and drives it to Colorado. Can you do that, son?”
Clay’s eyes were bright.
“Try me, pa,” he said.
“Anybody want to go along with him?”
The Quintins, the Moras and Manning Oaks declared themselves in one voice.
“All right,” Will said. “We’ll go ahead and locate in Colorado. You drive up next spring.”
Jody said, a little doubt in his voice: “Clay’ll want a full crew, pa. Just go easy with me for once, pa. Leave me go.”
Will looked at Martha. Could she see her way to being parted with two of her sons? The time had to come. They were men grown and they had seen service in the war.
She nodded ever so slightly.
“All right,” he said. “You go along.”
George made an indignant sound.
“That ain’t fair, pa,” he exclaimed.
Will chuckled inside him and snarled: “You had nothin’ more’n a green kid.”
“Old enough to go for a soldier,” he shouted.
Will stared at him.
“All right,” he said. “But Clay’s in charge an’ you do like he says.”
“Sure, pa, sure.”
“Now let’s hit the sack.”
Will lay in his blankets next to Martha. He knew that she was awake, but they didn’t speak. He didn’t know when he had felt better in all his life. He listened to the horses moving about. The old familiar sounds were sweeter now. He didn’t sleep for a long time. He was thinking about the future. Ahead lay the building of something good, something he could leave to his family. He reached out and laid his hand on Martha’s. Her fingers closed around his.
Life’s pretty damned good, he thought and drifted away into sleep.
The Storm Family Will Return in
HARD TEXAS TRAIL
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Stampede! Page 17
