Startled, Philomena blurted loudly, “Who in the world?”
“It’s Ebidiah Troutman, ma’am. I’ve come to help. Please be quick, or I’m a goner.”
“Hold on to Blue,” Philomena said to Estelle. Swiftly working the bolt, she jerked on the handle and the old trapper spilled inside, nearly tripping over his own feet. Righting himself, he shoved the door shut and threw the bolt himself.
“Thank goodness. They knew I was there and were closing in.”
“Mr. Troutman?” Estelle said, struggling to retain her grip on Blue’s collar. The dog recognized the trapper from his previous visits, and whined for her to let go. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to greet someone out to save your hides, girl?” Ebidiah said, cradling his Sharps. “I about scraped my elbows and knees raw crawling to your house.”
Philomena was glad to see the old man. But given his years, and the fact he was armed with a single-shot buffalo gun, she didn’t see how he’d be of much use.
Nonetheless, she said, “I thank you, Mr. Troutman. We had no idea you were in the vicinity.”
“Save your thanks for if we make it out alive,” Ebidiah said. “The Injuns have your place surrounded. They mean to exterminate you.”
Motioning with her eyes toward her daughters, Philomena said, “Mr. Troutman, if you please.” He would upset her girls with talk like that.
“Well, they do,” Ebidiah said. “They aim to do you in, the same as they’ve done to Mrs. Weaver and Mrs. Kurst.”
“What’s that, you say?” Philomena asked, aghast.
“Wilda Weaver and Ariel Kurst. The Comanches paid them a visit before coming here.”
“Both of them are gone?” Mandy said, incredulous. “We were at their places not long ago.”
“If our menfolk were here this wouldn’t be happening,” Philomena declared. It proved she had been right about the cattle drive. Owen should never have gotten involved.
“Don’t kid yourself, ma’am,” Ebidiah said, brushing at grass and dirt on the front of his buckskins. “Those red devils would attack, regardless.”
“You don’t know that for a fact.”
A strange look came over him. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”
“What do we do, Mr. Troutman?” Mandy asked. “How can we make it out of this alive?”
“Do you have a root cellar?” Ebidiah asked, scanning the floor. “We can fort up in there and shoot them as they come down the steps.”
“No,” Philomena disagreed. “We’d be trapped. There’s only the one way in or out. They could swarm us so even four guns aren’t enough. Or set fire to the house and do us in that way.”
“How about an attic, then?” Ebidiah asked. “With a rope we can pull up so they can’t get at us?”
“Again, we’d be trapped,” Philomena said. “And they could burn us out as easy as anything.”
“Then we fight them tooth and nail,” Mandy said, “and take as many of them with us as we can.”
“You’re awful young to be so fierce,” Ebidiah remarked.
“Are you here to help or criticize?” Philomena said.
Estelle suddenly pointed at the window. “Look!” she cried.
Whirling, Philomena trained the shotgun but no one was there. “Nothing,” she said. “You need to get control of yourself, daughter.”
“There was a face, Ma,” Estelle said. “I saw it.”
A thump on the side of the house caused them all to stiffen. “What was that?” Mandy said breathlessly.
“Are all the windows latched?” Ebidiah asked.
“Of course,” Philomena said. Not that it would stop the hostiles if they got a shutter open. They could just bust the glass out. The breaking glass would give some warning, though.
Ebidiah gnawed his lip. “To be honest, ma’am, I don’t much like the notion of making a stand, either. We’re at their mercy so long as we stay in this house.”
“Out there wouldn’t be any better,” Mandy said.
“If we can slip out without being seen it would,” Ebidiah said. “It’s dark. We could slip away. I have a horse and my mule back in the trees. If we can reach them, I can get you to town.”
“To my husband,” Philomena corrected him. “And my sons.”
“An iffy proposition,” Ebidiah said. “The redskins will be after us at first light. Some of them are bound to be good trackers. They’ll catch us before we reach Comanche Creek. The town is closer. We might make it there.”
“Might,” Philomena said.
“Think of your girls.”
“Don’t you dare,” Philomena said. “My family is all I ever think about.”
“I want to be with Pa and Luke and Sam, too,” Mandy said.
Estelle nodded.
“Womenfolk,” Ebidiah muttered, and scratched his chin. “All right. You have your minds made up. We’ll make the best of it. The question is how to sneak out without being caught. They’re on all sides of the house.”
“They’ll be watching the doors,” Philomena guessed. “We’d have to distract them somehow.”
The old trapper snapped his fingers and grinned. “I know just how to do it, ma’am.”
“You do?”
Ebidiah nodded. “All that talk of them burning you out gave me a brainstorm. We’ll distract them by setting your house on fire.”
Chapter 46
Luke Burnett was troubled. As he rode night herd with his hand resting on the butt of his Remington, he recollected things said to him by the Kursts over the past week or so, and some of the looks he’d been given.
The longhorns were bedded down, many of them on the ground. They were as still as gravestones except for an occasional grunt or snort. Across the way, the huge white bull they called the Ghost was silhouetted against their campfire.
Luke came to a decision. When another rider loomed out of the darkness, he drew rein and quietly said, “We need to talk, Pa.”
His father drew rein and smothered a yawn. “This night herd work makes me sleepy. We’ve only just started and I’m ready to turn in.”
“It’s about the Kursts,” Luke said.
“Not that again.”
Luke let his misgivings spill out. “The other day, when Reuben mentioned what he aimed to do with his share of the money, Harland looked at him and said he was putting the cart before the horse. Thaxter keeps acting as if he can’t wait to slap leather on me. Then there’s Lorette. She told Sam she would hate for anything to happen to him, and when he said that he wasn’t aiming to be gored, she said it wasn’t the cattle he should be worried about. When he asked what she meant, she said she dare not say and turned and walked away.”
Leaning on his saddle horn, his father gestured at the herd. “You see all those cattle? The Kursts can’t get all them to market on their own. They need help. They need us. They’re not about to risk losing the herd. Trust me, son.”
Luke would like to. He’d always held his pa in the highest regard. In this instance, though, Luke felt sure, clear down to his marrow, that his pa was making a mistake. “If you say so.”
“I know that tone. You don’t believe me.”
“I don’t believe the Kursts, Pa. I don’t believe they intend to share the money. They want it all for themselves.”
“I haven’t seen any evidence of that.”
A lost cause, Luke decided. His pa wouldn’t believe him until the Kursts jerked their pistols. It was up to him to look out for his father and Sam. Jasper and Reuben, too, while he was at it. “I won’t bring it up again, then,” he said, and reined around. He heard his father sigh.
The thing to do, Luke reckoned, was to force one of the Kursts to reveal what they were up to. But how could he, short of shooting one? He was puzzling it over as he circled the herd and came within a stone’s t
hrow of the sleeping figures in camp.
Everyone should have been asleep, but voices fluttered out of the woods on his left. Whispers, some spoken in anger.
Luke drew rein and dropped his hand to his revolver.
The brush crackled and someone strode out, hatless, muttering. Someone else came after the first one and clutched at an arm.
“Leave me be. This has gone too far. I shouldn’t have let you, but I couldn’t help myself.”
“Sam?” Luke said quietly so as not to awaken any of the sleepers.
His younger brother drew up short. So did Lorette Kurst, also hatless, her hair in a wild mane.
“What the dickens?” Luke said.
Sam was rooted in surprise. “Luke,” he said, and turned to Lorette. “Look, it’s my brother.”
“I have eyes,” Lorette said.
“What are you two doing out here by yourselves?” Luke asked, and felt foolish the moment the words were out of his mouth. Lorette’s interest in Sam had been obvious to everyone.
“Uhhh,” Sam said.
“Oh, Samuel,” Luke said.
“I can explain.”
“No,” Luke said. “You can’t.”
Lorette brazenly clasped Sam’s hand and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him. “We don’t have to account to you, Luke Burnett. What we do is no one’s affair but our own.”
“Consarn you,” Sam said to her. “He’s my brother. Don’t treat him that way.”
“What would Ma say?” Luke said.
Lorette placed her other hand on Sam’s chest and leaned in close. “Don’t listen to him. Listen to your heart. To how it feels. If we don’t follow through, we’ll regret it the rest of our days.” She kissed Sam on the cheek, glared at Luke, and marched toward their camp, her head high.
“Ain’t she something?” Sam said.
“Your heart?” Luke said.
His younger brother stared after her. “I’ve done some things I shouldn’t ought to have done.”
Luke didn’t say anything.
“She’s been after me for weeks now. Follows me like a puppy. But I suppose you know that.”
“Everyone does,” Luke said. “She followed you out here tonight, did she?”
“No,” Sam said quietly. “She led me by the hand and I couldn’t stop myself. I wanted to, as much as she did.” He paused. “What’s happening to me?” He didn’t give Luke time to answer. “She says she loves me. That I’m the one for her. That if I can’t see it, she can.”
“Do you feel the same?”
Sam raised a face twisted with confusion. “I don’t know what I feel. Some days I’m mad at her. Other days . . .” He didn’t go on. He didn’t need to.
“Have you told Pa?”
“No. He might send me home. Or say something to Mr. Kurst and he’ll take a switch to Lorette. He does, you know. Beats on her now and then.”
“It would stop her from pestering you.”
“To tell the truth,” Sam said, his mouth splitting in a lopsided smile, “I’ve come to sort of like being pestered.”
“That answers my question.”
“I’ve stepped into her loop, haven’t I?”
“With both feet,” Luke said.
Chapter 47
Ebidiah Troutman thought he had come up with a brilliant idea. He was taken aback when the lady of the house thought differently.
“I’ve heard some addlepated notions in my time, but this beats all,” Philomena Burnett declared. “We’re not burning our house down, and that’s that.”
Ebidiah Burnett could have pointed out that the Comanches might do it themselves. Instead he said, “Not actually burn it. We’ll only pretend.”
“Make sense,” Philomena demanded.
“We light a small fire near the front door,” Ebidiah proposed, thinking furiously, making it up as he went. “Then we throw a wet blanket on it to make a lot of smoke and throw the door open. The Comanches will see the smoke and think there’s a fire. They should all come around to the front for a look-see, and when they do, we’ll slip out the back door and be gone before they know it.”
“Why not go out a window?” Mandy asked.
“Those shutters,” Ebidiah said. “It would make too much noise. That’s why I came in the back.”
“I don’t know,” Philomena said. “A lot of things could go wrong with that plan.”
“If you have a better one, let me hear it,” Ebidiah said gruffly. He’d come all this way to help, snuck into the farmhouse under the Comanches’ very noses, and she was giving him a hard time.
“I don’t,” Philomena admitted.
“Let’s try it, Ma,” Mandy said. “We have to get to Pa and the others.”
Estelle, holding on to Blue, nodded. “I don’t want to be trapped in here. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”
Ebidiah was pleased to see that the girls were having an effect.
“All right, then,” Philomena said, reluctantly.
“We have to hurry,” Ebidiah stressed. The Comanches could attack at any moment. “Find me some towels or blankets.”
“Mandy, come with me,” Philomena said, and bustled into the hall.
Ebidiah glanced at the window and then put his ear to the back door to listen. Outside, all was quiet. The lull before the storm. When the war party struck, they would come from all sides in a rush, whooping and hollering and killing everyone they saw.
“Thank you for coming for us, Mr. Troutman,” Estelle said.
Ebidiah had almost forgotten she was there. “Least I could do, girl. You folks have been kind to me.”
“You’re very brave.”
“I just don’t know any better,” Ebidiah made light of it.
“My pa says you’re a good man.”
“He said that?”
“The last time you were here, as you were leaving with your mule. My ma said that you’re a bit strange and Pa looked at her and said you’re a good one, and he trusts you.”
“Well, now,” Ebidiah said, and coughed. Many folks were like the wife and regarded him as peculiar for sticking with a way of life most had given up. Trappers were becoming rare, even in the Rockies where they once thrived. It was the death of the beaver trade that started the decline. Once beaver hats went out of fashion, interest in beaver pelts waned. There was still a demand for other furs, but not nearly as much as before. Store-bought clothes were the thing these days. Except for the rich, who liked to dress fancy, and who were fond of fur trim and fur coats and the like.
Estelle brought him out of his reverie with, “What’s keeping them?”
As if they had heard her, Philomena and Mandy hustled into the kitchen bearing folded blankets. “These should do,” the former said.
“Wet one really good,” Ebidiah said.
Mandy moved to the pitcher on the counter and proceeded to pour the water over a blanket until it was soaked. She used every last drop. “That’s all there is unless we go out and get more from the pump.”
“With the Indians out there?” Philomena said.
Ebidiah stepped to the stove and touched the side. It was barely warm. “When was the last time you used this?”
“About noon,” Philomena answered. “We had soup.”
Opening it, Ebidiah poked around inside for an ember they could use. He didn’t find a single one. “Damn.”
“I’ll thank you not to use that sort of language in front of my girls,” Philomena said.
“Your husband never cusses?”
“Not in my presence he doesn’t, no.”
Ebidiah didn’t doubt it. Some women ruled their roosts with an iron will. Others, like Ariel Kurst, were ruled over by their men.
“We have some parlor matches,” Philomena was saying. She crossed to a drawer, opened it, and brought back
a metal tin. “These should do.”
“Why didn’t you say so sooner?”
“You didn’t ask.”
Ebidiah took them and led the females down the hall to the front door. “Keep an eye on the windows,” he cautioned. It wouldn’t do for the Comanches to see what they were up to.
The dog sniffed at the bottom of the door, and growled.
“Keep Blue quiet,” Philomena told her youngest. “And move back out of the way.”
Hunkering, Ebidiah unfolded two blankets and fluffed them, then placed one on top of the other on the floor. With his fingernails, he pried at the tin and opened it. He seldom used matches. A fire steel and flint had sufficed for him his whole life. But he knew how to use matches, and struck one. It caught and flared, the acrid odor almost making him sneeze. He applied the tiny flame to the edge of a blanket, but the flame went out.
“It didn’t work,” Mandy said the obvious.
“There’s a heap more matches.” Ebidiah struck another and tried again. The flame licked at the blanket, growing brighter. Smoke rose, but only a little. Craning down, he puffed lightly until the flames grew. Slowly they began to engulf the pile.
“Starting a fire in my own house,” Philomena said. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
“It’s been my experience, missus,” Ebidiah said, “that we see a lot of things in life we never thought we would.”
“Aren’t you the philosopher?” Philomena said, not unkindly.
“No,” Ebidiah said. “I’ve just lived long.” He stood and moved back a step. “Hand me the wet blanket.”
Mandy did, then wiped her hands on her dress.
“How do we keep Blue from barking and giving us away once we’re outside?” Estelle wanted to know.
“Put your hand over his muzzle,” Philomena said. “He usually listens good, so we can only hope.”
The flames were high now, and smoke began to fill the hall. It stung Ebidiah’s eyes and was getting up his nose. Holding the wet blanket wide in both hands, he announced, “The time has come.”
Chapter 48
Amanda Burnett had never been so scared in her life. Not even that time she almost stepped on a rattlesnake. Fortunately, it had rattled its tail, giving her enough warning to spring back before it struck.
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