by Rod Miller
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
The Comancheros were disappointed the Lewises’ hens weren’t laying. But constant travel and continuous upheaval are not compatible with egg production. The traders did, however, enjoy fresh milk and butter from the Pate’s milk cow and, as a result, Sarah’s supplies of flour and corn meal were somewhat replenished from the stores of the Comancheros.
Mary, Emma, and Jane stayed out of sight behind the wagons as much as possible, uncomfortable with the long, leering looks of the traders and ill at ease with comments they could not understand and the sneering laughter they spawned. While the women went about their business and tried to stay out of sight, White Eyes, the Pate men, and Daniel huddled in the shade of riverside cottonwood trees talking.
They learned from the Comanchero something of geography and government. He recommended leaving the Canadian not far from where they sat, when it veered northward toward its source, and to strike a course more directly westward to the Gallinas River, which they should reach in three or four days.
“On the Gallinas you shall find civilization again. There is a new town called Las Vegas. Here, you will find the Santa Fe Trail that will lead you to that city. And there you must go if you are to settle in New Mexico as that is the seat of government and has been for longer than your United States have existed. Without incident, you should reach Santa Fe within two weeks; perhaps less.”
Lee and Daniel asked questions about the terrain to and travel on the Santa Fe Trail. They wondered about wagon parts, and learned abandoned wagons littered the trail between Las Vegas and San Jose on the Pecos River; some broken, some burned, some intact. Perhaps a replacement axle—or spare, if Abel’s fix continued to hold up—could be found there.
“What’s the chances of Americans findin’ a decent place to settle down?” Lee said.
White Eyes thought it over for a moment. “There is no shortage of places here. Endless miles of unsettled land that would serve. The government is of two minds on granting any of it to Americans. I do not know what whims drive the decisions. As you can imagine, the nature of my business, while legal for the most part, is not considered legitimate and so we do not deal with the officials in Santa Fe if we can avoid it.
“A few years ago there was a rebellion of sorts here concerning the constitution and tax laws drafted in the City of Mexico and the Jefe Politico sent to enforce them. He—Perez—was killed by the rebels. Now the governor is Manuel Armijo. He is supportive of trade with the Americans, and pays little notice to the government in the City of Mexico. He has granted large tracts of land, I am told, to some American traders.”
“So we may be in with a chance,” Daniel said.
“Perhaps. One difficulty. You know, of course, of the Republic of Texas which claims independence from Mexico.”
The men nodded in agreement.
“The Texians claim all the land to the Rio Grande for their Republic. That includes the ground upon which we sit, and, in fact, Santa Fe itself. Needless to say, the Mexicans are having none of it. It is possible it will take a war to decide it. I say this only because it may color Armijo’s attitude about allowing settlers from the east.”
“We will assure him we have no connection with Texas, and have left the United States behind,” Daniel said.
Lee said, “We’re obliged for the information, Mister White Eyes.” He stood and offered his hand. The trader did not rise, but extended a limp hand. As they shook, Lee said, “We’d best get on the go. We can put a few more miles behind us before the day’s over.”
White Eyes sat and watched the men dust themselves off. As they started for the wagons, he said, “All best wishes to you.” Then, “Keep a sharp eye on those young ladies.”
Abel spun on his heel and took a step toward the smirking Comanchero but stopped when his father called his name.
While waiting for Melvin to bring up and hitch the mules to the wagon, Abel sat down under the tailgate and gave the repaired axle a few hard jerks. He detected slight movement at the repair site, but imagined it solid enough to go on. To stay here—in the presence of the Comancheros—for a day or two to soak the rawhide to stretch and rewrap around the axle and wait for it to dry and harden was unthinkable.
“Richard,” Lee said, “the mules have had a good rest so I want you to ride the wagon with your Ma and drive them. You don’t look to be in any shape for walking—and I don’t want you ridin’ off again.”
“I’m a grown man, Pa. It oughtn’t be up to you no more to be tellin’ me what to do or where to go.”
“It pains me to do so, Son. But ridin’ off and gettin’ liquored up when you’re supposed to be scouting for a place to camp and watchin’ out for trouble is plumb irresponsible. Ain’t no way for a growed man to behave.”
Richard held his tongue, his lips set in a thin line. He walked away and helped Melvin finish hitching the mules. They exchanged a few words, then Melvin looked around and, seeing everyone in the party occupied with preparations to leave, hustled over to the Comanchero carreta where they found Richard sleeping earlier. He reached under the cart and fetched a cotton flour sack that clinked when hefted. After hurrying back to the wagon, he lifted the canvas cover and stuffed the bag behind the seat.
Atop the seat, Richard watched Abel help Emma hitch the oxen to the Lewises’ second wagon. They laughed and talked as Abel lifted the yoke above the animals’ necks and held it while Emma hung the bows and slipped the keys into the holes. With the wagon tongue in place, Abel untied the saddle horse from the wagon, snugged up the cinch, stepped into the stirrup, and swung a leg over the cantle. He said something to Emma, which prompted a giggle, then heeled the horse into a walk and headed up the trail.
Emma stood with hands on hips and watched Abel ride away. Richard sat with his chin propped on the fist of an arm propped on the knee of a leg propped on the top of the wagon box and watched Emma watch Abel. He cursed under his breath, took out his pocket flask and sipped at the whiskey. The flask went back into the pocket when he felt the wagon shift as his mother grabbed the box and stepped on the wheel hub and lifted herself to climb onto the seat.
“Still got your eye on young Emma, I see,” Sarah said as she tucked her skirt under her thighs and settled herself on the seat.
“What?”
Sarah smiled. “I saw you watching her. I ain’t blind, you know.” She paused, then said, “I saw what you got in your pocket there, too.”
Richard squirmed on the seat but did not respond.
“You know, Son, you’re wasting your time mooning over that girl. Any fool can see she ain’t got eyes for nobody but your brother Abel.”
“Yes’m. But she could change her mind.”
“Not likely. And she won’t be lookin’ your way so long as you keep on actin’ so peevish all the time. That, and filling your gullet with that foul liquid like you do every chance you get.”
“Well, hell, Ma—what do you expect a man to do? Here we are out in this godforsaken place with nothin’ but the hot sun for company. Don’t know where we’re goin’ or when we’ll get there. Had I knowed what was in store, I’d have hogtied Pa back home in Shelby County to keep him from leadin’ us on this merry chase.”
“Now, Richard—”
“Aw, Ma, I know you think the same.”
Sarah considered her response. “Your Pa don’t know how to be anybody but who he is. The fact that there ain’t a day go by that I don’t curse your father and his cussed notions that brought us out here don’t change a thing. We are his family and we owe it to him to go along.”
Richard snorted. “You sound just like Abel.”
“You may not like to think so, Son, but sometimes Abel is right.”
Another snort. “Damn right he is—to Pa’s way of thinkin’ the little turd is always right.”
“That’s as it may be. Me, I think you’re more jealous of your brother than you got any call to be.” Sarah lowered herself off the wagon seat. “I believe I prefer to walk
along with Melvin for a spell.”
Richard did not reply. He looked ahead to where Abel was now little more than a jot or tittle on the horizon. He released the brake lever and slapped the lines on the rumps of the mules as the Lewis wagons rolled. “Get up, mules!” he said. “Time to follow baby brother farther down the road to hell.”
Several times as they lurched along the trail, Richard turned to look back at the Comanchero camp. After one such look, he found his father sitting beside him on the wagon seat. “What the hell, Pa! You like to scared me to death!”
“All I did was climb onto the wagon, Son.”
“What for? You come to remind me that it’s rollin’ down the trail just like new, thanks to Abel’s handiwork?”
Lee studied the wrath on Richard’s face and flinched at his own inability to soothe his son. “Difficulties among brothers ain’t no new thing, Son,” he almost whispered. “Been goin’ on as long as there’s been brothers—take Cain and Abel—but don’t be taking what Cain did to his brother Abel as a worthy pattern. Firstborn sons feeling done by by younger brothers ain’t new neither. Look at Esau and Jacob . . . Ishmael and Isaac. . . .” A pause, to clear sniffles from his nose and mop the corners of eyes threatening to overflow.
“Come to that, I never much got along with my own brother Ben—from the time we was boys he lorded it over me that he was bigger and stronger, never mind he was younger. Even as growed men, he never passed up a chance to remind me he had amassed more of everything than me—more land, more livestock, more money. More of darn near everything—but sons. That stuck in his craw, but there weren’t nothin’ he could do about it.”
Now it was Richard’s turn to study his father. “I knowed you two never got along. Didn’t know it was that bad.”
Lee chuckled but there was no humor in it. “Bad enough we’re here ’stead of back in Shelby County where we belong.”
Richard’s brow furrowed as he wondered what his father meant.
It took Lee a moment to choose his words. “Ain’t nobody else knows this and I’ll ask you to keep it as such.
“Now, it ain’t no secret that I don’t hold with slavery, and that evil practice would have driven me out of Tennessee sooner or later. But it would have been later and under better circumstances had it not been for your Uncle Ben.”
Again, Richard’s lack of understanding painted his face.
“The day we left, you’ll recollect I had business in town. On the way home, I happened across one of Ben’s ‘nigras’ as he called them—the one named Jefferson. He was herding a dozen or so market hogs to town. One of them hogs took a contrary notion and went off into a cornfield. Jefferson chased him ’round and ’round and tore up that crop no end. ’Course them other hogs took the opportunity to root around and made the damage even worse.
“Anyhow, I was tryin’ to help Jefferson get them hogs out of that field and back on the road when Ben come along. Didn’t even bother to whoa-up his buggy horse ’fore he jumped out of that shay and lit into the boy with his whip.
“I’m ashamed to say my temper went the way of Ben’s. I grabbed his shoulder and spun him around and struck a blow that sat him on his backside among the ruined cornstalks. I never bested him with my fists but once or twice in our lives, but I did that day. Ben was as surprised by it as me. He cursed me. I cursed him in turn. We carried on like that at cross purposes while poor Jefferson looked on. Even the hogs was so shocked by all the ruction they stood and watched.
“The gist of it is that Ben swore he would set the law on me for interfering with his ‘property.’ And he reminded me that if it come down to his word against mine, there wasn’t a lawman nor officer of the court in all of Shelby County that would take my word over his. Then he laughed at me. He dusted himself off, climbed into his buggy and as he drove away warned me to expect the sheriff to be paying a visit, as he fully intended to file charges.”
Wide-eyed, Richard said, “And that’s why you came home in a dither and told us to start loading the wagon.”
Lee nodded and then ducked his head, searching for something of interest on the wagon’s toeboard.
“Why didn’t you say?”
After a long look at his son, Lee again ducked his head and Richard strained to hear him say, “Ain’t no man likes to get outdone by his younger brother.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The train made good time and two days after leaving the Comancheros, they were miles away from the traders. Melvin, riding as scout, located a suitable campsite and the wagons hove to for the evening.
Reliving their days as laundresses, Mary and Emma walked up from the nearby stream, each with a full bucket in hand and sharing a third between them. They would use the water to further the revival, washing clothes for the camp while Sarah and Jane saw to supper.
“I wonder how Martha is doing,” Emma said as they knuckled clothes against the washboards.
“Oh, you know Martha. Smart as that girl is, she will figure a way to deal with any problem that might come up. But, I don’t suppose she and Peter—Mister and Missus Neumann,” Mary said with a smile, “will encounter many problems. Fort Smith and his employment there seemed to suit Peter. Martha will adapt, I am sure.”
Emma held up the wet shirt she was cleaning—one of her father’s—saw the stain on the sleeve had faded but still needed attention and dunked the shirt back in the tub and scrubbed some more. “Do you think we shall ever marry?”
Mary paused in her washing, wiped a damp brow with an even damper forearm, and studied her sister. “Why ever do you ask, Emma? Should you desire to marry you shall have no difficulty attracting a suitable mate.”
“Do you think so? I am not so sure.”
Mary smiled. “Oh? And why is that?”
Emma scrutinized the soggy shirt again, saw it was suitably clean, wrung it out and tossed it in the tub of rinse water. “It’s— it’s—well, it’s Abel.”
“What about Abel?”
Neither girl noticed that Richard was listening. He had taken a seat on a boulder near the washtubs but behind the girls, eavesdropping on the conversation and nipping at his whiskey flask.
Emma bowed her reddened face. “I believe he knows how I feel about him. But he shows so little interest in me.”
“It seems clear that he is fond of you.”
“Maybe. But it seems he sees me more as a cousin, or just a friend.”
“He is young, and inexperienced. One day it will dawn on him that what he feels for you is much more than friendship.”
Emma pulled a pair of drawers from the laundry bag and pushed them down into the wash water and scrubbed vigorously against the knurled washboard.
Richard pushed the cork into the lip of the flask and slipped it into his pocket. He cleared his throat, startling Mary and Emma.
“Richard!” Mary said. “What are you doing here?”
“Just passin’ the time. Thought I’d spend some of it visiting with you-all.”
“Surely there are more important pursuits requiring your attention.”
Richard only smiled.
Emma, her blush more florid than before, said, “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough to hear you moonin’ over my baby brother.”
Emma attacked the garment in the tub with more vigor than its soil required. Mary stood and used her apron skirt to wipe her hands. “Please,” she said. “Show some consideration.”
Richard retrieved his flask and took a sip. “Just want to make sure Emma don’t make a mistake.”
Mary sniffed. “A more likely explanation would be that you are jealous.”
He raised the flask to Mary as if making a toast and took another sip, then plugged the flask and dropped it in his pocket. “Fact is, you-all don’t know what Abel’s really like.”
Emma wrung out the washed drawers and sloshed water out of the rinse tub when she threw them in. She riveted Richard to his rock with her fixed stare. “What are you talking about?”
she hissed through clenched teeth.
After a moment, Richard recovered from her acrimony and smiled. “The boy’s got blood on his hands.” He paused. “Youall was talkin’ about Peter. Ask Abel how Peter come to be with us back in Fort Smith.”
Emma’s face paled.
“While you’re at it, ask him where he got that fancy knife he carries.”
Mary lowered herself to her knees and steadied herself on the edge of a wash tub.
Richard talked on. “Might just as well ask about them pistols he prizes so, and that linen duster rolled up and stashed in the wagon.”
Emma and Mary looked at each other, then back at Richard.
“Hell, while you’re at it, ask him about his hat. He never come by that stuff honestly, I can tell you that.” With that, Richard stood and brushed off the seat of his pants and left the women kneeling next to their tubs full of water, now stilled.
When Emma came to herself, she said, “Mary? What do you think he is talking about?”
“I do not know. Cannot even imagine. Peter never mentioned anything untoward back in Fort Smith. If he said anything to Martha, she did not mention it.”
Emma sighed. “I suppose I shall have to ask Abel. There must be some explanation.”
The girls finished the washing and hung the clothes to dry on makeshift clotheslines strung between juniper trees. Emma said nothing during supper. Abel felt her eyes on him, but she lowered her eyes whenever he looked her way.
After the meal, Jane excused herself to answer the call of nature—or “take the air” as she called it. “Emma? Mary? Care to come along?”
Neither did. Daniel said that as it wasn’t full dark yet she should be safe enough, but advised her to be careful and not dawdle, then watched Jane walk out into the brush toward the stream. She had not been gone long when a scream brought the camp to its feet.
“Jane!” Daniel yelled and ran after her.
Abel rushed to the wagon and pulled one of the Colt revolvers from the holsters draped over the wagon wheel and followed Daniel. Jane shrieked again, but the scream ended as suddenly as a cork stopping a bottle. Lee grabbed his rifle from the wagon and checked the load, told Richard to stay at the camp and watch Sarah and Mary and Emma, grabbed Melvin by the sleeve to break him out of his seeming stupor, and they ran out of camp.
