“Wait right here,” she said. “Wait till you hear me whistle like a bird.”
“What bird?” I said, for there wasn't a sound of birds on the air.
“That's how you'll know it's me,” she said with a lift of one eyebrow.
I said, “You'll be careful?”
She said, “I swear it on my fingertips.” And she kissed three fingertips, as if she were perfectly willing to kiss them good-bye.
“Don't show yourself,” I said, the short hairs on my nape all aquiver.
I took up a position behind some blueberry bushes while Maude crawled away. I plucked a berry and popped it into my mouth. Still a mite tart.
Several blueberries later, I hadn't heard a whistle.
I leaned through the bush and couldn't see Maude. She had gone further on than I thought she would have to. I decided it couldn't hurt to go around the bush for a better view.
But there I still couldn't see her. I could see the road down below us and a dead horse in the middle of it. Behind that, a buckboard with two healthy horses harnessed to it. Those horses didn't want to stay there much longer, judging by the way they were switching their tails and pawing the ground.
I couldn't see who had done the shooting.
I moved forward, trying to be quiet.
A whistle brought me up short. Maude had found a hiding place in the hollow of a tree. She sent me a look that said simply, I knew you couldn't do one thing I asked you to do.
Beyond her, someone slowly poked their rifle out from behind a tree. Directed away from us, it still gave me a start.
I pointed the fellow out to Maude right quick.
I hadn't expected to find anyone so up close, and I was glad she was well hidden.
This fellow put a shot across the way. The bullet whizzed near enough to those horses to make up their minds—they started pulling that wagon up the trail in our direction.
I didn't blame them. They weren't looking for bee stings.
Somebody yelled, “Stop those horses,” but nobody tried. The team skirted the dead horse in their path—it may have been the prospect of getting around that horse kept them from running amuck any sooner. That and the load of dried skins they were carrying in the wagon.
Once started, those horses ran for all they were worth. Nobody could have stopped them, not even in a dimer. “They'll stop when the trail flattens out,” somebody else shouted as the wagon crested the hill. I tried to know where those voices came from, but there was no telling.
The same fellow shot again. I tried to catch a glimpse of him, but he leaned out on the side away from me.
It did prove, however, the two sides in this fight were separated by the trail between them. One shooter couldn't rush the other without being in the open long enough to have the period put on the end of their sentence.
Maude had worked her way back to me. She was good at being quiet. “I wonder whose horse it is that's dead,” she whispered.
“Lemme get my skins,” the shooter called out, “and I'll call it a day.”
Maude looked at me like I was a fellow jury member. I could not disagree. This did seem to make them the injured party.
“You got those skins by poisoning our cattle,” the other fellow behind a tree called back. This statement did cloud the issue, and it inspired a few more bullets to be traded.
Ducking down when shots were fired, and then peering out through the underbrush, me and Maude played the parts of silent witnesses, unnoticed by either side.
Behind us, the wagon noises didn't fade away but stopped abruptly, so I didn't have to look to know the horses had quit running.
“Where's that fancy shooter of yours now, Wa—ers?”
Maude said, “What did he say?”
“Where's your fancy shooter,” I said, believing this might be a clue. “In many a dimer, it's the bad guys who hire a gunman.”
“No,” Maude said. “The name. Was it Waters?”
“I don't know,” I said.
Maude shushed me, for somebody was shouting something back. We missed it while I was talking and Maude was shushing; they didn't have awful much to say.
It was apparent cause for more shots to be traded.
I began to get some idea where the other fellows were hidden. Then, seeing one of them slip from tree to tree, something about him looked familiar. My heart leapt at that familiar sight.
“That's Uncle Arlen,” I said.
FIFTY-FOUR
WHAT WITH THE SHOCK OF IT, I SPOKE OUT LOUD. There was a rustling in that nearby hiding spot directly after. Me and Maude ducked low. We stayed low for what we judged to be long enough.
“Don't call out,” I said to her when we were giving each other a go-ahead look. “It might cause Uncle Arlen to make the mistake of showing himself.”
We bobbed up, and Maude said, “Where?”
I pointed. In a few seconds, he made another dash between one tree and the next. “See?”
Maude whispered, “Uncle Arlen doesn't wear buckskin.”
“He could change his shirt. And you did hear that other fellow call him Waters.”
“You weren't so sure what that fellow said. What makes you sure it's Uncle Arlen down there?”
“The way he moves,” I said. “Watch. He's trying to get up here, I think, to come around behind them, like.”
We were both of us with our gaze trained on the tree, waiting for Uncle Arlen to show himself long enough for Maude to recognize him.
I saw out of the corner of my eye that down below us another of those fellows was on the move. They knew somebody was up here, and they had decided to find out who.
Uncle Arlen moved, and Maude drew her breath in sharply. She had seen him well enough. I pulled on her sleeve and made her notice the fellow crawling our way through the bushes.
Maude didn't hesitate. She drew a bead and shot a branch off a tree so it fell right in front of him. He jumped about a mile and scooted back into the brush.
“Uncle Arlen,” I called, so he'd know where the shot had come from. “It's Maude and Sallie up here. One of these wranglers is trying to climb the hill.”
There was a moment when nobody said anything. Then Uncle Arlen called out, “That means we've got 'em surrounded.”
Maude broke into a grin. She pumped another shot into the trees, although I saw by the way she turned her rifle she was careful not to hit anyone by accident.
Another branch fell in front of the nearby shooter.
“All right, all right, let's have a little parlay here,” he called out. “You've got ree-inforcemints, you've got our skins. How about if we call it quits? We'll jist walk back aways from here and fergit the whole danged thing.”
“My horse is dead,” Uncle Arlen called back.
“So's mine,” the other fellow answered. “I been riding a mule since one a you fellers killed it last week.”
“We don't make war on horses,” Uncle Arlen said. “You probably killed it yourself with a careless bullet. But someone who shot a dog shouldn't worry over a horse, either.”
“Here now, don't be insulting,” another fellow in the brush said. “We didn't shoot the dog a-purpose.” It sounded to me like wherever there was a gun, there was an accident waiting to happen.
“You shot old Macdougal, too,” Uncle Arlen yelled back.
“That's another story,” the fellow in the brush said. “He had it coming.”
“Are we letting them run for it or not?” Maude shouted out. “I can pick off two of them from here without any trouble at all.”
There was a great rushing about in the underbrush below us. When they mounted their horses, which were hidden as well, beneath a skirt of pine trees, we saw there were no fewer than five of them. Because Uncle Arlen didn't shoot, we didn't shoot, either.
It took maybe five minutes for them to clear out and get far enough away to cause no trouble.
In this time, we listened to the sounds of their leaving and did a little talking back and forth.
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“Uncle Arlen, is everyone down there all right?” Maude asked.
“Dabney. His shoulder is broke,” Uncle Arlen said. “He landed funny when the horse fell.”
We clambered down the trail to have a look at them. Apart from Dabney, I saw only an old codger Uncle Arlen introduced as Whistler. He looked hard at me and Maude.
“Whooo-ee, pretty girls,” he said. “What'cha don't see when you ain't lookin' through a gun.”
“You silk-tongued flatterer,” Dabney shouted. “Give the rest of us a fair chance, why don'tcha?”
“Don't get yourself all in a lather,” Whistler said. “They're pretty, all right, but we've any of us got about a fair chance at playing granddaddy to them at Christmas.”
To Uncle Arlen, I said, “How many more of you are there?” “We are it,” he said. “We didn't want to take too many hands from the ranch, not knowing these fellows were waiting to ambush us.”
We hugged each other all around, even Dabney, who squeezed our hands. Whistler had gotten Dabney splinted up while the shooting was going on.
“We ought to get Dabney back to the ranch,” he said. “There's no sawbones, but Dismal will take care of him.
I said, “Dismal? There's an odd name.”
“Cain't say if he has another. He used to be a dismal trader. Getting the dead ready for a last review has made him a fair hand with repairs.”
“That sounds all right to me,” I said, thinking I'd rather have an undertaker to fix a broken bone than a doctor too easily referred to as a sawbones.
We double-timed it back down the other side of that hill and brought the buckboard back to carry Dabney. Those pelts made a soft bed for him, and likely the trip wouldn't bother him near as much as it would have without the padding.
By then, Marion and Ellie had come in answer to the sound of gunshots. “I told you this wasn't a good idea,” Marion said to Maude.
“What was that he said?” she said to me, teasing. “My hearing is suffering from the noise of gunshots. Did he say he was glad to see we aren't shot down?”
I put my hands around my mouth like an ear horn and shouted, “I believe that's what he said.”
FIFTY-FIVE
AS WE RODE ON TO THE RANCH, UNCLE ARLEN HAD A little reunion with Silver Dollar. I wouldn't have known to say that horse was down in the dumps while we were leading him, but he did look to me to be a great deal more cheerful with Uncle Arlen on his back.
“I've been worried about you girls,” he said to us next. Uncle Arlen was determined to hear my side of Maude's jailbreak. I concentrated Uncle Arlen's interest on John Henry and that maybe, once Maude's true story was known, her name would be cleared.
He was moderately cheered by this. I'd hoped for more enthusiasm, but he only said, “Tell me about the trip from Independence. Did you run into any trouble?”
Maude told Uncle Arlen how we traveled with the Aldoradondos for a good part of the time. I promised to put on my button shoes, but of course we left out the part having to do with tar and feathers.
In fact, there were so many parts we felt it prudent to leave out, me and Maude were down to pretty much, “Hot and dry. No rain at all. We saw a lot of grass, and then more grass.”
I figured we could get together later to decide exactly how we should tell our story. Because we were for sure going to have to tell everything all over again.
Uncle Arlen had given Dabney a flask filled with something golden-colored and potent, it being our uncle's intention to medicate him against the pain. Dabney had three or four swallows together and pretty much passed out.
It looked to be some more potent than anything Dr. Aldoradondo kept in his wagon. I watched in some suspense as Whistler sipped at it and choked, but he didn't pass out.
We topped a rise and saw there was a ranch in a hollow of the land—a house made of cedar and pine, with green shutters, behind which there was a sizable garden patch. A new barn was being raised alongside the spot where another one had burned to the ground. I thought I wouldn't be run out of this place without putting up a fight, either.
Another old fellow was sitting on the porch in a long chair made of picket-fence slats. “Right nice chair you have there,” I said to him after we were introduced. Mr. Macdougal, I was to call him.
“A convalescent chair, my daughter calls it,” he told me. “Lets me lay back like a pasha.”
I didn't at that moment ask him what a pasha was, for my eyes lit on a little stack of dimers on the table at his elbow. He said to me, “I like to read about this fellow, Wild Woolly. Have you heard of him?”
“Is he still lost out there on the icy plains?” “Well, now,” he said, but the door opened, and out of the house came an older woman with strong features and graying hair pulled to the back of her head in a thick broomtail.
“You found them,” she said to Uncle Arlen. “They showed up in the middle of nowhere,” he said, “just in time to save our bacon. Dabney's been hurt.” Dabney raised his good arm as if to make little of it. However, he didn't raise the injured arm.
“She hurried out to the wagon to look him over. “It's not too bad,” Uncle Arlen said. “He's had a strong dose of medicament, is all.”
Her attention was drawn back to us as Uncle Arlen said to Maude and me, “This is Maria, Ellie's aunt.”
“It's about time,” she said. “Once we knew you were making your way here, I made them go over the map and over it, figuring out where you ought to have been, day by day.”
“She was like a mother lion,” Macdougal said. “Sent her own niece out there to bring you through the wilderness.”
Maria said, “I thought for sure something terrible must've befallen you. But, Arlen, he said you two girls were like corks in the rapids, you always bob to the top.”
“I like to hope so,” Maude said, being led into the house.
“They are not just girls,” Uncle Arlen said. “In a tight spot, they have the Macdougal touch. They can be counted on.”
I rode to the barn with Uncle Arlen, feeling myself tall in the saddle.
The undertaker was in the new barn, keeping himself busy with a wooden puzzle, a small box with parts that had to be put together just so. He looked relieved to hear we needed him to set a bone.
We put Dabney on a worktable littered with wood shavings, trying not to jog his shoulder. It pained him something awful. Uncle Arlen poured more of that medication down his throat. Dabney whooped and coughed.
“Easy there,” Whistler said. “We don't care to drown him.” Dabney, still gasping from the drink, said, “Am I getting ready to die?”
“I don't believe your shoulder is broken,” Dismal said. “It's just dislocated. I believe we can have you right as rain in only a moment.”
He instructed Uncle Arlen and Whistler on holding Dabney just so, then yanked his arm, causing Dabney to give a yell, but the whole thing was over quickly.
“That feels some better,” he said after a minute. Then he passed out again. The stuff in that flask more than beat the liquid Dr. Aldoradondo measured out with a dropper.
“He'll sleep through the night,” Uncle Arlen said. “Let's go up to the house and let Maria fuss over us.”
FIFTY-SIX
MARIA MANAGED TO BOSS EVERYBODY ABOUT WHILE she made them feel welcome. “Come on in here and let me fatten you up a little,” she said to us, and we weren't reluctant.
When I had nearly done with eating a cake with blueberries running through it, I started to think about questions we had traveled with. “In your telegram, Ellie, you said it was too late for you,” I said to her. “I thought you must be in much worse shape, somehow.”
“I wanted to go home,” Ellie said. “Daddy didn't want me to get caught up in this fight. Then they shot him, and truly I'm glad I was here to care for him. But they also killed my dog, the devils.”
Maria said, “This ranch is your daddy's dream, not your own. You ought to have been safe home with your momma.”
Maude l
ooked to Ellie. “You don't live here?” “No. Daddy went west in 'forty-nine to make his fortune in gold,” Ellie said. “The wonder was, he lived to tell about it. That we all lived to tell about it.”
“Oh, I see,” Maude said.
“No, you don't,” Maria said, sitting down and leaning across the table to us. “Her momma is now living in California while her daddy is following a different dream. He wants to be a cattle baron, and he has to be east of the mountains and the worst of the deserts to do it.”
Ellie took up the telling. “Momma wants to create a fabulous vineyard, like her poppa had in Italy, where she hails from. She's trying to grow grapes out there in a place called Rutherford.”
“Have you seen the ocean?” Maude asked her.
“Many times,” Ellie said. “We're two days' ride away from it, in a wagon.”
I could see this information being tucked away in Maude's heart. “Are you going back?” I asked Ellie.
“I'm in no hurry just now,” she said, glancing across the room at Uncle Arlen. “I want to see Daddy through this rough patch.”
“Uncle Arlen will see him through,” I said.
At this, Ellie smiled, and so did I. Me and Maude weren't going back to Independence, and Ellie looked like one more reason why Uncle Arlen wouldn't go back, either.
“I believe the West has begun to agree with him,” Maude said.
Some time later, after supper, we settled out on the porch for a spell. There were crickets singing, and an owl hoot-hoot-hooted every so often. The air was cool and fresh.
One of the ranch hands had brought over a fiddle, but hadn't played it yet. There was much recounting of one adventure and another. After a while I took a seat on the steps and pulled my boots off. It hadn't yet been said in so many words, but I could see we were going to be calling this place home for a time.
Maude came to sit beside me. I said, “Did you like Independence?”
“It was noisy and smelly and dusty,” Maude said. “But I liked it now and again.”
I pressed my toes into the cool of the dirt. “Do you like it here?”
Maude March on the Run! Page 22
