by Rod Miller
When the low-hanging sun dipped below the horizon, Richard called attention to the mounted Indian across the canyon. As the day faded, everyone in the camp stood for a time watching the lone rider watching them.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The night passed too slowly for Abel. With a bitter cup of tepid coffee in hand, he perched on the accustomed box and studied the animals for any sign of alarm. The clock hands of the big dipper read around about four-thirty when he heard footsteps. He turned toward camp and saw Emma coming his way, lifting the skirt of her nightgown out of the dust, and stood to greet her.
“Abel,” she said.
“Emma. What are you doing up?”
“Oh, I don’t know—couldn’t sleep.” She lifted her eyes and caught his gaze. “Mostly, I wanted to talk.”
She could not see Abel’s blush in the dark. “Here,” he said, “sit,” then held her arm for balance as she lowered herself onto the box.
Emma sighed. “I guess we shall be moving on tomorrow. I must say I am looking forward to it.”
“Me too,” Abel said, and sat on the ground next to Emma. “I just hope we can keep going once we start. If that axle don’t hold. . . . Well, we’ll be moving on with half a wagon, like Rich said. And half our goods.”
“It seems to me your brother Richard says a lot of things.”
“Oh, he’s got his opinions on just about anything, for sure,” Abel said. “Including you.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Abel laughed. “I reckon you already know, Emma. Rich thinks the sun rises and sets on you. He’ll likely be askin’ your pa for your hand ’fore too long.”
“Well, it will not do him any good. He will not be getting my hand or any other part of me, no matter what father says—not that he would agree to any such arrangement.” Emma paused, drew in a long breath and let it out again slowly. “When I marry, it will be to a much different sort of man.”
“What kind of man would that be?”
This time it was Emma’s turn to laugh. “I think you know that, Abel. You may be quiet and shy, but you are not blind. Nor stupid.”
Silence stretched on for minutes, interrupted only by night insects and the rustling of the nearby animals. Then, in the distance, the yapping of coyotes.
“What was that?” Emma said. “Coyotes—or Indians?”
“Coyotes, I hope.”
“Do you fear the Indians, as your brother does?”
Abel pondered for a moment, then said, “You’d be a fool not to fear them. But they can’t be all that different from any other folks, at least in most ways. I suspect if we leave them be, they’ll leave us be.”
“Why do you think that one was watching us?”
“Just curious, maybe. Wondering what we’re doing a-way out here. I don’t blame him for keeping an eye on us—I’d do the same, if I was him.”
They sat without talking for a few minutes until Emma said she had best be getting back to bed as it would soon be time to start breakfast and morning chores. Abel jumped to his feet and offered a hand to help Emma up from her seat on the box. She stood, rose on her tiptoes, drew Abel’s head down with a hand on the back of his neck, kissed him on the cheek, then turned and walked quickly back to the wagons.
Abel, wide-eyed, sat down on the box and touched his cheek, still feeling the caress of Emma’s lips there. The sensation remained as dawn lightened the sky, past breakfast, and well into the day as he reassembled the wagon. Every time he thought of it, his face flushed and both his mother and Mary asked at times if he felt all right. He assured them he felt fine.
The wagon went back together without incident, and the axle felt sturdy as he attached it below the bolster and hounds with the bolts, and hooked up the hound braces. Melvin helped block up the wagon high enough to put on the wheels. Abel coated the axle spindles and clouts with tallow as well as the boxing inside the wheel hubs. The wheels, affixed to the axle with their leather washers and linchpins, showed an acceptable amount of play but not an excess.
After hanging and hooking up the brake beam, Melvin raised the running gear off the blocks with the wagon jack and lowered it to the ground. Abel held his breath, but the repaired axle did not appear to move. He knew, however, that the real tests would come later when the box was installed, when they filled the wagon, and when it lurched over the bumps and rattled through the potholes on what passed for the trail.
By the time the men lifted the wagon box and set it inside the bolster stakes and lashed the canvas over the bows, Sarah and the Lewis girls had the kitchen trappings packed in their boxes, foodstuffs bundled, and beds rolled. When the sun reached its midpoint, the wagons were loaded, mules harnessed, oxen yoked, and the train was on the trail.
Lee and Abel walked behind the wagon, watching the rawhide-wrapped axle. After an hour or so and rough couple of miles, Lee said, “Son, it looks like it’s going to hold.”
“I sure hope so. Time will tell, I guess.”
“Well, if it gets us to the Mexican settlements we ought to be able to find a new axle there.”
The train moved along without incident, Sarah driving the mules and Daniel prodding the oxen on the lead wagon. Mary kept pace with the oxen on the second wagon. Jane and Emma walked along beside the wagons talking while Melvin ambled along on the other side. Richard rode ahead to scout the trail.
But it was Melvin who spotted the Indians.
“Pa!” he yelled, and stopped while Lee caught up.
“What is it, Son?”
Melvin pointed to the opposite rim.
“Oh, my,” Lee whispered. Across the canyon, nine Indians rode in single file keeping pace with the wagons. Behind them, six women and an assortment of children walked along, some leading horses pulling heaped travois.
“Damn it, Pa, what do we do now?” Melvin said.
Lee offered no response.
“Pa!”
“Let me think, Melvin. For now, we just keep going.”
“You should of listened to Rich and let him shoot that first one what came. Now look at the fix we’re in!”
Lee glared at Melvin, then hurried ahead to catch up with Daniel.
Melvin turned his anger toward Abel. “This is all your fault, little brother. Had you not come up with your crazy notions about fixing the wagon we’d of been miles and miles away from here. These damn Indians wouldn’t even of knowed we was here.”
“You don’t know that Mel. Could be they’ve been watchin’ us even before the wagon broke down.”
Melvin scoffed. “Don’t try to weasel your way out of this. You and Pa put us all in danger. Rich ain’t goin’ to be happy, that’s for sure.”
“Truth is, Mel, I don’t care anymore if Rich is happy or not. Fact is, I can’t remember the last time he was happy.”
“We should of done like he said with the wagon.”
“Pa chose not to.”
Melvin stewed for a moment. “I think Rich may be right about Pa. He’s gone and wrecked our lives. Maybe we should of just stayed in Tennessee.”
“Well, we didn’t. Pa wanted to move on and we did. We’re a family and we go where he says.”
“Some family. Half the time even Ma thinks Pa’s crazy,” Melvin said. Then, “Rich says he’ll be leavin’ soon as he can. Could be I’ll go with him when he does. Other than wantin’ somebody around to help with the work, I don’t think Pa would even care if we was gone.”
Up ahead, Daniel and Lee talked over the presence of the Indians and Daniel agreed going on was the best—the only— course of action.
And so the wagon train lumbered along, the string of Indians keeping pace across the gorge. No one in the families could help but wonder how long they would keep their distance.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Richard never did return to the train that day. Although riding scout, he had not spotted and warned of the presence of the Indians. He had not found and reported the most painless route for the wagons. Nor had he located an
d guided the wagons to that night’s campsite. He was, it appeared, missing.
As night fell, Sarah fretted over where he might be, fearing the worst. Lee worried something might have happened, unsure what it might be—an accident, a scrape with Indians, a thrown horseshoe. Melvin feared he might have quit the family and ridden away and left him behind without so much as an invitation. Abel wondered if Richard could have gotten lost, even with the Canadian River right there to show the way. But he dismissed the notion, berating himself in the instant for thinking ill of his brother.
Morning came with no sign of the prodigal son. They found him midmorning the next day. The wagons encountered a clear trail coming out of the river bottom and leading off to the north. Lee and Daniel opted to follow the trail down to the river to see if it followed the Canadian upstream, as the river bluffs were now lower and the valley between wider. A mile or so upriver, Abel allowed as how he smelled smoke.
Rounding the base of a ridge revealed the source of the smoke—a dying campfire—bonfire, more like—in a still-occupied camp. Two two-wheeled carts with tall wooden wheels, heaped with hide-and canvas-covered loads, rested on their shafts. Nearby lay a disorderly pile of rawhide panniers and wrapped bundles. Scattered in the grass between the campsite and the river, four mules, as many horses, and two bony oxen grazed. Tethered by the bridle reins to a scraggly mountain juniper, the Pate saddle horse stood, still under saddle and head hung low.
No people were immediately evident, but as they neared the camp they determined the buffalo hide and canvas lumps strewn about covered sleeping men. Closer still, they identified Richard’s boots at the end of a pair of legs reaching out from under one of the carts. The reason for the inactivity revealed itself in the whiskey bottles, some whole and some broken, spread around the campsite, some so recently deposited the earth beneath them was still damp.
The wagons halted at the fringe of the camp. The Pates and Lewises lined up beside their wagons and looked on in silence, unsure of their next move. Only Abel acted, untying the horse and leading it to the riverbank to drink. He let the horse quench its thirst but not drink its fill before leading it back to the camp, stopping on the way to deliver a swift kick to the bottom of one of his brother’s boots.
It took two more blows before Richard drew back his leg in defense. Frustrated, Abel grabbed the still-extended leg and dragged his brother out of the shade and into the sun. The next encouragement, more prod than kick, landed in Richard’s ribs. He raised himself on his elbows, opened his eyes, slammed them shut again, then opened them in a squint.
“Abel? What the hell you doin’ here?”
“I could ask the same of you, Rich.”
Richard sat up, wagged his head back and forth, ground at his eyelids with his knuckles, scratched his fingers through tousled hair, and coughed and hacked and spit.
“You done?” Abel said.
A half-hearted kick missed Abel’s leg.
“You never said what you were doin’ here,” Richard said with a thick tongue. “Damn, I need a drink. Find me a canteen.”
“Find one your own self.”
The look Richard gave Abel could have frozen the contents of a canteen. He rolled over to his knees and pushed himself upright, staggering and grabbing the cart for balance. After propping himself up for a moment to find some sense of equilibrium, he walked the few steps to the horse and unslung the canteen hanging from the saddle horn. He swished a mouthful of water around and spat it out, took a couple of long swallows, then dumped the remainder of the water over his head. Dripping, he wiped the water from his eyes and looked around, noticing the three wagons and his family and the Lewises lined up in a row watching him as if he were on exhibit at a county fair. Taking a deep breath, he attempted to smooth his hair back and walked with delicate steps toward them, making a brave attempt not to wither under their gaze.
“Well,” he said, clearing his throat. “I see you-all made it.”
Lee wondered at that. Then, “Where, exactly, have we made it to, Son?”
Richard wrinkled his brow and wondered at that. Then, with a sweep of his arm at the surroundings, “Why, here. You-all made it to here.”
Every spectator in the line laughed at that, if with little humor.
Some of the heaps on the ground were stirring. Thrown-back covers revealed rough-hewn men, all dressed at least in part in buckskin, most with beards or mustaches—whether from design or lack of grooming. All—those who showed themselves, at least—were dark-haired and dark-complected, looking to be of Mexican descent.
All, that is, save one, who was as pale as death and just as wasted. Unlike the others, who sat on their bedding and scratched and snorted, he stood, brushed off his buckskin trousers and smoothed the front of a black swallowtail jacket. Beneath it was a ruffle-front shirt so stained and discolored its former whiteness was barely evident. A limp and frayed string tie rounded his collar, and he stooped and picked up a stove-up beaver-felt stovepipe hat with a silk ribbon and plopped it on his head, covering a stringy and thin tangle of oily blond hair. He stared, one-by-one, at the Pates and Lewises with eyes so pale a blue-gray the pupils looked almost white in contrast to the bloodshot rims that should have been white.
Sarah could barely speak but managed to say, “Richard— who are these people?”
“They’re traders, Ma. They’re comin’ up from a place called El Paso del Norte to trade with the Indians—Comanches, mostly, so they are called Comancheros.”
Sarah sniffed.
Daniel said, “We were concerned that perhaps the Comanches had captured you—even killed you. You were so concerned with those who were watching us, we feared the worst.”
“Oh, them,” Richard said with a wave of his hand. “No need to worry. Turns out them Indians is on their way to meet up with these men and other Comancheros to do some trading. They’ll meet up at a place a ways north of here called Cejita de Los Comancheros—I think that’s how they say it, somethin’ like that. Meet up there a couple times a year, they do.”
The pale man walked over to join them, trying his best to present a dignified air. “You must be Rich’s family.”
“Yes,” Lee said. “We are. I don’t believe I caught your name.”
The man tugged at the lapels of his jacket and tilted his nose into the air. “Names do not amount to much out here. The Mexs and Comanche call me Ojos Blanco. It means ‘White Eyes’ in the Spanish tongue. You may call me the same or not, as you wish. Asking for identification beyond that will be considered bad manners.”
Daniel said, “I believe I hear something of the Continent in your voice—German, if I am not mistaken.”
With a slow gaze in Daniel’s direction, he told him that where a man came from was also of little consequence and not discussed.
Lee asked if it was bad form to know what was in the carts and the mule packs. “Just curious is all,” he said.
“About what you would expect,” came the answer. “Fabrics, metal goods such as cooking pots and hatchets and knives and other tools. Tobacco. Flour. Glass beads and trinkets. Alcohol. Powder and lead and guns if we can get them, which is not often.”
“And in return?”
“Hides and skins, primarily. Horses. On occasion, captives.”
Lee cocked his head, questioning his hearing. “Captives?”
“Captives. Yes. When the Comanche raid other tribes or Mexican settlements—even the white settlers in Texas—they take prisoners. Treat them horribly, I must say. They are sold to other tribes or Mexican rancheros and hacendados who use them as servants, or as laborers for the mines or other work. Young women, as you might imagine,” he said with a nod to the Lewis girls, “are put to other uses. If there are likely looking captives when we meet the Comanche to trade, we may barter for them.”
Lee stiffened. “You are little more than slavers, then!”
White Eyes glared at him cold-eyed. “We are traders. We exchange things of value for other things of value. To
the benefit of both parties, I might add.”
“But you are buying and selling human beings!”
White Eyes nodded. “At times. At other times, you could say we have rescued human beings from a terrible fate. We locate the homes and families of wives and children of Texians, especially, taken by the Comanche, and sometimes those captured from wealthy Mexican families, and offer to return them.”
“For a price, I suppose,” Lee said with disgust.
“For a price, of course. We are, after all, traders.”
“It is a sorry business you engage in.”
White Eyes shrugged. “It fills a need. And it turns a profit.”
Lee turned on his heel and walked toward his wagon. “Come along, folks. We had best be on our way.”
Richard stopped his father with a shout.
“What is it, Son?”
“Don’t leave. Not now.”
“Why not? Ain’t you had enough to drink yet?”
Richard’s wan complexion reddened, first in embarrassment then anger. “Maybe not. But that ain’t none of your damn business. What you need to do is forget your foolish pride and silly notions and talk to this man—listen to him, more like. He knows the country and the people hereabouts—not just the Indians, but the Mexicans and the Americans too. Could be he can help you find what you’re looking for—if you even know what the hell that is.”
Lee looked at the sun then turned to his family and the Lewises. “Too early for nooning. But I reckon we had best stop here a while and see what this man has to say. Unhitch and turn the stock out to graze.” He watched the Comancheros still struggling out of their sleep. “Best stake them—I don’t know as they’re safe here. Abel, unsaddle that horse and give it a rubdown if you will.” He glared at Richard. “Treatment he’s been given, likely he’s saddle sore and cinch galled.”
Richard walked away, picked up a whiskey bottle, and held it up to the light. Seeing it still held an inch or so of liquor, he tipped the bottle up and drank it down, his eyes never leaving those of his father.
