The Passionate and the Proud

by Vanessa Royall

  “One minute!” bellowed Vestor Tell.

  Had there been an observer situated in a high place overlooking Arcady today, he would have seen arrayed on both banks of the Big Two-Hearted, north and south of the village, a veritable army of men, women and children, animals and wagons. Just as Torquist had feared, the Pennington ranchers were in the most advantageous positions. But this morning, with the starting gun imminent, the sheer expectant energy of the fanners seemed to offer them an edge of their own. They were ready, and some of them were ready to fight if need be. Emmalee and Randy had already fought.

  “Well, this is it, I guess,” he’d said, while saddling the dapple-gray after breakfast. “Wish me luck.”

  “Good luck,” Emmalee had said, pulling on her riding boots.

  “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like? I’m putting on my boots.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m coming with you.”

  An expression of alarm replaced the initial disbelief on his face, alarm over what might happen to her combined with shock that she was going to persist in defying his wishes.

  “Em, I thought we settled this yesterday.”

  “I thought we did too. I’m going.”

  “The rest of the women are staying here in camp.”

  “Some of them are, but not all. Take a look around.”

  Randy did, and he was as surprised as he was displeased with what he saw. Here and there throughout the area, a husband stood with hands on his hips watching in consternation his wife or, in some cases, his mother readying herself for the rush.

  “Some of the women got to talking about it last night,” Emmalee explained. “Our point is that there’ll be less chance of violence with women present. Don’t you think so?”

  Randy was flabbergasted. “I can’t believe you’re doing this! This is not the way things are supposed to be!”

  “How are things supposed to be? You or Willard Buttlesworth or even old Festus gives the orders and womenfolk obey?”

  “Well…well, yes, but only in important affairs. Em, you know I’m no tyrant, but…I’m worried about what might happen out there today. Please stay here in Arcady.”

  “No,” Emmalee said. Her boots were on now. She stood up and faced him.

  “I don’t have room on my horse for you. I have to pack the stakes, and a shovel, and some wire.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. I’ll go borrow Myrtle’s mule.”

  Myrtle didn’t need Ned anyway. She intended to claim just a few acres outside town for a garden. And she strongly encouraged Emmalee’s plan.

  “A man is sort of like a mule or an ox, Em,” Myrtle said. “If you stand in front of them and bang them over the head, nothin’ will happen. But if you get behind ’em, they’ll wonder what you’re up to and they’ll usually move, at least a little.”

  “Em,” said Randy when she arrived beside him aboard the mule, “I guess there’s nothing I can say to stop you. But listen. I’ve picked out land upriver and everything depends on me getting there quickly. You’ll never be able to keep up on that mule. So this is what you have to do. When you reach a place where a small stream flows into the river—you can’t miss it; it’s the only stream on the east bank—ride upchannel for about a quarter of a mile. You’ll see three white pines on a low hill. I will have placed one of my corner stakes there. You do the same. I’ll have headed north, you go south. Pace off a square of land, don’t forget to drive your markers deep in each corner, and we’ll meet back at the original stakes, all right?”

  “It sounds exciting.”

  “I hope it’s not more exciting than we’ve bargained for.”

  Vestor Tell rode his horse to a place in front of Hester’s general store, took a pistol from his holster, and raised it into the air.

  “Prepare to stake your claims,” he called. “No man’s marker, once set in the ground, is to be touched by anyone else. First come, first served. I will officiate in case adjudication is required, and all claims are to be entered upon my map at the end of the day. Understood?”

  A low, anxious hum of assent answered him. Drivers tightened reins, braced in saddles, readied their whips.

  “All right…” said Tell, and fired the pistol into the air, a thin, sharp crack beneath the sweeping sky. Drivers lurched forward, hooting and shouting; women and children yelled and squealed encouragement. The animals, startled by the suddenness and frenzy, bolted forward from the riverbanks and onto the plain.

  Randy stole a moment to lean from his horse and give Emmalee a quick kiss, then he was gone, galloping into the distance, his marker stakes jouncing against the horse’s flanks. Emmalee kicked the mule furiously for half a minute. It finally deigned to move into a slow, ambling lope. The race had barely begun and already she was far behind.

  On both sides of the river, as far as the eye could see, pioneers rushed to secure a piece of the living earth, so that they and their children and their children’s children might have hearth and home.

  Festus Bent, his wife, along with Priscilla, Cynthia, and Darlene, rattled by in their wagon, going hell-for-leather into the hills. Festus did not intend to be a sharecropper any more.

  “Yo, Em!” called Priscilla. “I saw Garn Landar. He’s back there in town.”

  For a moment, Emmalee was nonplussed. The Bent girls hadn’t let her forget what had happened between her and Garn, nor had they ceased speculating as to whether or not it would happen again.

  “What are you doing here then?” she shot back. “He told me he was looking for you.”

  But, in truth, Emmalee wondered what Garn was up to now. If he had any big schemes connected with claiming good land, sitting around Arcady while the land rush was under way could hardly be considered a likely start.

  The pioneers scattered pell-mell at top speed all over the plain, and even Myrtle’s mule got caught up in the excitement and increased its speed a bit. Not fast enough, though, to outdistance a shouting, cursing Pennington man in a red bandanna, who streaked past Emmalee and gave her a loutish leer. It was Alf Kaiserhalt, who’d yanked her out of the willows yesterday. His presence north of town did not augur well for a peaceful day; Kaiserhalt, scrawny bantam that he was, left a palpable aura of meanness in his wake. The sight of him made Emmalee want to wash herself all over, rid herself of the residue of malevolence he left in the air.

  Riding north, Emmalee kept her eyes peeled for evidence of the Pennington men claiming water rights along the river. She saw, with considerable pleasure, that Torquist himself had driven his stakes into a rich swath of land just north of Arcady, and that Virgil Waters and sinewy El-wood Bliss of Iowa had done likewise right across the Big Two-Hearted. So the farmers would have at least some access to the precious water. This fact, however, did not content Emmalee for long. She remembered the false claims Torquist was undertaking today and also that there were miles of riverbank which Pennington and his men might readily seize.

  By the time the mule had carried her as far as the small stream that Randy had mentioned, Emmalee’s hopes for the day had broken down. In spite of intentions, the presence of women was not preventing trouble. Emmalee heard yelling and shouting near the river and in the hills, and saw with a sinking feeling that a scuffle had broken out between Festus Bent and Lambert Strep. If the farmers could not refrain from fighting between themselves, what hope was there in the long run? Lambert wrestled Festus to the ground as Bent’s wife and daughters danced around like idiots, trying, apparently, to crack their father’s attacker on the skull. Emmalee made a mental note of the scene, in case it should be important later. She wondered how Vestor Tell would resolve contested claims.

  Bent was on top of Strep and his women were cheering wildly when Emmalee turned upstream and rode into the hills. At first she was disheartened. The land rose abruptly from the river and the hills through which the little stream flowed were steep, almost rugged. She saw very few pioneers surveying this section, having been discour
aged by the comparative severity of the terrain. But beyond the ring of hills, revealed to her suddenly as she urged the mule over the crest, was a small, high, sweet plain, a rolling expanse of gentle hills and shady groves. Immediately she understood why Randy had chosen this area: The land was rich and sheltered; the stream would provide water, all but eliminating dependence upon the Big Two-Hearted. Then she saw the three white pines he had named as a landmark and rode toward them happily. He was driving his initial stake into the ground beneath the pines. She thought he ought to be farther along by now, since he’d gone on ahead, but it didn’t seem to matter because there was no one else around to vie with him for the claim.

  Randy began to look a little funny to Emmalee as she rode nearer.

  Then he looked very strange.

  And when she got right up close to him he looked exactly like Alf Kaiserhalt, who was pounding a stake that read A. K’HLT into the din. He looked up at her and grinned evilly.

  “Well, lookee who’s here, would ya? If it ain’t that snoopy little spitfire from yesterday. Did Otis get what he wanted o ffn you?”

  Emmalee pulled Ned to a halt and looked around. This had to be the place Randy had meant; he really ought to be there, she hadn’t seen him anywhere else. And she didn’t see a sign of him there either.

  Kaiserhalt was holding a mallet in one hand and looking up at her, his head cocked to one side like a fighting rooster set to attack.

  “Otis just gave me a ride home yesterday,” Emmalee said, almost civilly.

  “Heh-heh. Shows what you know. Otis got a real bad case for you. Trouble with him, he’s a gentleman. I ain’t.”

  “That’s obvious,” said Emmalee. She started to dismount.

  “What’re you doin’?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you. I’m getting off this mule.”

  Randy had told her to plant a stake and then go south. Kaiserhalt was there, and there was nothing to stop him from making a claim, but there seemed no reason for Emmalee not to go ahead with her plans.

  “I’d advise you to stay in the saddle,” said Kaiserhalt edgily.

  Emmalee tensed. She saw the vile glint of angry determination in the little man’s eyes, saw the ripcord muscles bulge beneath his faded shin.

  “You can’t claim this whole area,” she told him. “Nor can you tell me what to do or not to do.”

  Emmalee knew now for certain that something was amiss. Alf wore a gun; Randy didn’t. Had something happened? But if Kaiserhalt had harmed Randy in some way, where was the dapple-gray? Kaiserhalt could have driven it off, of course, but…

  “You stay on that mule, or I’ll teach you a few things. Warm you up for Otis, so to speak…”

  Emmalee studied the ground where Kaiserhalt stood. She saw his marker, half-driven, and the scuffled earth around it. A lot of dirt had been disturbed just for one wooden stake.

  “You haven’t seen Randy Clay here, have you?”

  “Honey, I haven’t seen anybody here. I got here first and this is gonna be my land, right along this stream.”

  Emmalee understood. Pennington had sent Kaiserhalt to claim land along the creek. The ranchers weren’t missing a trick.

  “Then I guess we’ll be neighbors,” said Emmalee, and climbed down from the mule.

  Alf Kaiserhalt swung the mallet. “Now you’re gonna get what’s comin’ to you, one way or t’other.”

  Emmalee ducked the blow, realized she had no time to get back up on Ned, and ran for the shelter of the pines. Kaiserhalt studied the hills for a moment, saw no riders, and advanced slowly toward her.

  Good God, thought Emmalee, shrinking behind one of the pines, I’ve done it now. Maybe if I feint and run for his horse, get away…

  “Some of you women just got to learn the hard way.” Kaiserhalt grinned, coming toward her with the mallet poised.

  Emmalee was about to scream, for whatever good that might do her, when her foot struck something. She looked down. It was a wooden stake and it bore the name CLAY.

  Randy had been there. He’d driven his corner marker and then ridden off to place another. Alf Kaiserhalt had taken it out of the ground and was in the process of replacing it with his own stake. In the distance, Emmalee saw two riders come over the top of a hill, but they were too far away to help her. Kaiserhalt was right on the other side of the tree, weaving, bobbing, ready to attack her with the mallet.

  “You’ll never get away with it,” she told him, trying to buy time.

  “Get away with what? You fell off your mule and cracked your skull on a rock. Shouldn’t be out here anyway. Got no business. I came across you an’ got you back into town soon’s I could, but unfortunately, I was a little too late.”

  He swung the mallet in a sharp, downward motion. Emmalee ducked down and to one side. The mallet tore away a strip of bark when it glanced off the tree.

  Emmalee could tell that the riders had seen her plight, had begun to gallop toward her. But the distance was great, and meanwhile Alf Kaiserhalt came around the tree and lifted the mallet again.

  “Like to do you another way”—he grunted—“but this’ll have to fill the bill.”

  He struck again. In desperation, Emmalee grabbed Randy’s stake, swung it upward in an arc toward Kaiserhalt. Stake and mallet collided with the ugly, crunching sound of wood on wood. The marker flew from Emmalee’s hands and the handle of the mallet cracked like a stick. The ram-shaped head went flying.

  Kaiserhalt laughed. “Hell, I enjoy a piece that puts up a fight.” He leered. “Makes it better, see. You gonna get it, honey.”

  Emmalee wanted to run but forced herself to back slowly away from him. If Kaiserhalt overtook her from behind and forced her down, she wouldn’t stand a chance. Once he got her on the ground, his wiry strength would keep her there.

  She looked up, seeking deliverance from the approaching horsemen, but to her horror both of the riders had disappeared. How could that be? Down into a slight dip between hills? Please, God…

  “Someone’s coming!” she told Kaiserhalt, pointing toward the horizon anyway. If she could just distract him in some way.

  But he wasn’t buying. “That trick’s as old as the river.” He grunted, so close to her now, darting, crouching, that she could smell his breath: onions, bile, and spoiled meat.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Emmalee thought she saw the riders again, coming over the nearest hillock, but she couldn’t be sure because Alf Kaiserhalt made his move, springing toward her in a manner that she had seen somewhere before and which her subconscious mind had salted away. She saw him coming and responded without thinking, acting with a series of movements she did not know she possessed, but which she had also observed once before in Denver.

  She ducked down and to one side, catching his clutching arm as he flew past, twisting his arm and bringing it down across her upraised knee. Alf Kaiserhalt’s howl of agony rose to the sky. He stood there before her, grabbing at his devastated arm. Angry white slivers of rent bone sliced through his shirtsleeve; welling blood matted in the cloth, which stuck to his skin.

  The two riders drew near and reined in.

  “Not bad, Emmalee,” said Garn Landar. “I guess you learn a lesson well.”

  “You all right, Em?” Ebenezer Creel cackled nervously. “What are we gonna do. Garn? What are we gonna do?”

  Garn looked at Kaiserhalt and smiled slowly.

  “Seems,” he said, “that Emmalee has things well under control. I think we can count on her to do what she wants, as always. You are all right, aren’t you?”

  Emmalee nodded, biting her lip.

  “Then I wouldn’t think of interfering. Get his gun, though.”

  Kaiserhalt was suffering too much to care that Emmalee removed his weapon from its holster.

  “All right, Ebenezer, we’ve got some ground to cover,” said Garn. He tipped his hat to Emmalee.

  “See you, Em,” said Ebenezer, who seemed a little worried about leaving her there.

  The two men rode awa
y then. Emmalee noted that Garn was riding his black stallion. Maybe there was something in Lottie Pennington’s moral code that prohibited her from using a man’s horse on the day of a land rush. Emmalee also saw that Garn and Ebenezer were riding toward the rugged foothills of the Sacajawea Range. She almost laughed in spite of herself. If the two men intended to make a fortune out of inhospitable, unproductive mountain land, they had rocks in their heads. Emmalee felt a little sorry for Ebenezer, though. Obviously Garn had sweet-talked him into some fool ploy that tantalized the old man’s imagination.

  Well, there wasn’t time now to think about that. She had her own problems. Alf Kaiserhalt had slumped down beneath one of the pines. Pain and hatred had turned his eyes red. Emmalee held the gun on him and tried to decide what to do.

  “You are gonna pay for this, lady.”

  “If you don’t shut up, I’ll shoot you and put you out of your misery.”

  “Hah! You ain’t got the guts.”

  Emmalee pulled the trigger. She wasn’t especially familiar with handguns, but she had fired rifles and shotguns in the past. Both types of weaponry required fairly strong pressure on the trigger before they discharged. But she barely touched the trigger of Kaiserhalt’s revolver when it barked and jumped in her hand. The bullet slammed into the ground in front of the wounded man, raising a small cloud of dust.

  “Hey!” he yelled, terrified. “That thing’s got a hair-trigger! You’ll kill me.”

  “That’s the general idea, if you don’t stay put. After I stake my claim, I’m taking you back into town and having you arrested.”

  Where was Randy? She hoped he’d return soon. Kaiserhalt was peering around, judging the lay of the land, looking for some way to escape. Emmalee saw several riders and a wagon on the hill now. If she didn’t get started and place her markers, she’d be out of luck, Randy’s plan ruined, the day lost. She couldn’t waste another minute guarding Kaiserhalt.