A Lone Star Christmas (20 page)

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Authors: William W. Johnstone

BOOK: A Lone Star Christmas
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“No. Morrell was not there.”
“Mr. Whitman, are you saying that you know everyone who was there?”
“I don't know any of them by name,” Tom replied. “But I know who was there and wasn't there.”
The prosecutor stepped up to the judge and whispered something to him. The judge nodded affirmatively, then spoke.
“I would like for the entire gallery to leave the courtroom, please,” he said.
With protests and grumbling, the gallery, assisted by Sheriff Bell and some of his deputies, left the courtroom. The only ones who remained were those who were directly involved with the proceedings. A moment later, the gallery returned.
“Now, Mr. Whitman, earlier you conducted an experiment for the court, and if you will allow me, I would like to conduct one myself,” the prosecutor said. “As you just observed, the judge emptied the courtroom. It is full once more. I wonder if you could look out over the gallery and tell us if there is any difference in their composition.”
A murmur of interest and anticipation spread through the gallery as Tom looked out over the men and women who were seated in the courtroom.
“That lady, second from the left in the second row was not here before,” Tom said. “The man sitting next to her was here, but he was sitting on the extreme right of the third row.” He continued to point. “That man was not here. Neither was he. She was, but was sitting in a different place. There are four people missing, who were here before but are not here now.”
The prosecutor stared at Tom with his eyes and mouth open in shock. Then, when Tom was finished, the prosecutor shook his head in wonder, and looked up at the judge.
“Your Honor, Mr. Whitman is correct on every account,” he said. “I have no further questions.”
The judge did not even have to leave the bench to make his decision. “This court finds no cause to bring charges against Mr. Matt Jensen, and finds him innocent of any wrongdoing in the death of Frank Lovejoy. This hearing is adjourned.”
The judge finished his announcement with the slap of his gavel.
 
Later that afternoon, Rebecca found herself standing in Boot Hill Cemetery for the second time within the last two weeks. When Rebecca first saw Dalton and the others, she thought they had come to Dodge City just to find her. She had since learned that they came to Dodge to receive a herd of Black Angus cattle to be driven back to Live Oaks. She learned that from Dalton, who asked her to come to the burial. He was also the one who asked her to come back home.
Rebecca had no reason not to return home now. Her mother was dead, and it was obvious that whatever feelings Tom Whitman might have had for her were gone. He now believed that she had been working as a prostitute in the Lucky Chance, and she had not said anything to him that would disabuse him of that idea. At first, she was hurt that he would even believe such a thing. But as she thought about it, she decided it might be for the best. Her father was determined to prevent any relationship from developing between them, and this would just make it easier to follow her father's wishes.
As the funeral began, Dalton led Mo's favorite horse, fully saddled, to the side of the grave. There was then, total silence, as the saddle was removed from the off-side, signifying that this horse would never again be ridden by the man whose saddle this was. The horse, almost as if it understood, lowered its head and nodded a few times. Then Dalton led the horse away, and Dusty stepped up beside the open grave. Dusty's father had been a preacher, and Dusty still carried his father's Bible. He opened the Bible to read a few words at Mo's interment.
“I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.
“We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
Rebecca listened to Dusty read, and thought how much more comforting these verses were than those hateful words spoken by the Reverend T.J. Boyd at her mother's funeral.
Clay gave the eulogy.
“Mo was raised in an orphanage,” Clay said. “He often told me that we were the only family he ever had. And we know that he believed that, from the bottom of his heart, because in defending Dalton, he gave his life for his brother. And now we, his brothers and sisters, are here to commit him to his final resting place.” Clay opened his hand to show some dirt. “This is dirt that came from an extra saddlebag that has been lying in a corner of the hoodlum wagon. It is Texas dirt, and that means that even up here in Kansas, our brother Mo, will be buried in Texas soil.” He opened his hand and let the dirt stream down onto Mo's coffin. “Be with God, brother.”
As Mo's grave was being closed, Rebecca walked over to her mother's grave. There was still a mound of freshly turned dirt over it, not yet having settled. She looked at the tombstone.
J
ANIE
J
ENSEN
D
AVENPORT
1846–1890
 
“A fallen flower has returned to the branch”
“I'm going back home, Mama,” Rebecca said quietly. “But I will keep you in my heart, forever.”
She stood there looking down at her mother's grave for a long moment, then she turned away. When she did, she saw Tom standing about twenty yards behind her.
“Tom!” she called.
Tom turned quickly, and walked away.
November 20
When Rebecca showed up at the holding pens on the day they were to depart Dodge, she saw the men moving through the holding pens, urging the cows through the long chutes to the open ground, where others were bunching them up into one large, manageable herd. Even as they did this, the leadership among the beeves was being established. Animals that had remained docile while in the pen now began to affirm their authority. The cowboys allowed them to do this because they knew that the herd would be led home, not by them, but by the leadership exhibited by the more assertive cattle.
One of the riders inside the pen pushing the cows out was Tom Whitman. Rebecca stared at him, trying to make eye contact, but he was either too busy to notice her, or he was purposely avoiding looking at her.
“You'll be driving the hoodlum wagon,” Dalton said. “I drove it up here, but with Mo gone now, Clay is a man short, and there's no way you could actually ride herd.”
Rebecca didn't tell Dalton that she had ridden as a cowboy with Walter Hannah's herd when they came up from the Rocking H Ranch. Along the way she had ridden point, swing, and drag. She had cut cows out of the herd, and she had run down cows who had gotten away.
“You aren't going to have any problem with driving the hoodlum wagon, are you?”
“No. No problem.”
“Good. Maria and Mrs. Jensen are driving the chuck wagon, so you won't get lost or anything. All you have to do is follow along behind them.”
Rebecca could have told Dalton that she made the trip up here as a cowboy on a cattle drive, and that she wasn't likely to get lost. But she held her tongue.
After settling accounts with the manager of the holding pens, the trail cattle were brought together into one herd, then pushed down to the bank of the Arkansas River. The stage of water in the Arkansas made it easily fordable, so Clay pushed them on across. There was also a bridge available and the bridge was utilized by the two wagons.
Once safely over the river, they made plans to camp at Crooked Creek, which was just about six miles south of the Arkansas. There, they would organize for the 450-mile drive that lay ahead of them.
“I am the foreman and trail boss,” Clay said. “But I confess that this is new to me in that I haven't worked Angus cattle before. Duff, you've been around them for a long time. How do they trail?”
“We found out when we trailed down to Cheyenne from Sky Meadow that if you bell one of the leaders, we shouldn't have any trouble,” Duff said. “And as long as we can keep that steer going in the right direction, the others will follow along behind.”
“With Longhorns we could average about fifteen miles a day. How does that track with the Angus?”
“I think we'll have no trouble in doing that,” Duff said.
“If we can do fifteen miles a day that would put us on track to be back home by the middle of December. But with winter coming on, we may not do that well. Still, I think that's what we should shoot for. I would like to be back home by Christmas.”
Clay set the watch for the first night, and Sally and Maria served a delicious dinner of fried beef and potatoes.
After dinner, they all sat around the campfire, not only for the warmth but for the camaraderie. Duff played his bagpipes, which was a treat to Clay, Dusty, Dalton, and Maria, who had never heard pipes before. Rebecca had heard them, and enjoyed them immensely. Dusty played the guitar, then both he and Clay prevailed upon Tom to perform.
“What does Tom do?” Smoke asked.
“He calls 'em soliloquies,” Dusty said. “They're words from plays, but not just any kind of words and not just any kinds of plays. They are the damndest words and plays you ever heard of, just like the ones in them high-falutin' plays that sometimes comes touring around.”
“That ought to be right up your alley, Falcon,” Smoke said. Then he went on to explain to the others that Falcon's brother and sister were New York actors.
“Oh, Tom, please do a soliloquy for us,” Sally asked. “Do you know Puck's soliloquy from Midsummer Night's Dream? The one that begins, ‘Thou speakest aright, I am that merry wanderer of the night'?”
“I know it,” Tom said.
“When I was teaching school, the children used to love that one,” Sally said. “Please, do it for us.”
“Shall I stand and ham it up? Or sit here and just say it?” Tom asked.
“Oh, you must stand. Look at it this way. You aren't here on the barren plains of Kansas,” Falcon said. “You are on stage at the Booth Theater in New York. You wouldn't be sitting cross-legged there, would you?”
Tom smiled, stood up, cleared his throat, then struck a dramatic pose and extending his right arm, palm up, began to speak, rolling his R's and putting emphasis in just the right places.
Thou speakest aright
I am that merry wanderer of the night.
I jest to Oberon and make him smile
When I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile,
Neighing in likeness of a filly foal:
And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob
And on her wither'd dewlap pour the ale.
The wisest aunt, telling the saddest tale,
Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me;
Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,
And ‘tailor' cries, and falls into a cough;
And then the whole quire hold their hips and laugh,
And waxen in their mirth and neeze and swear
A merrier hour was never wasted there.
But, room, fairy! here comes Oberon.
The others around the fire laughed and applauded. Tom took a good-natured and elaborate bow, smiling as he made eye contact with everyone there.
Including Rebecca.
Rebecca held Tom's eyes for a long moment before she broke away. What did she see in his eyes? Sadness over what might have been between them? Anger at her leaving? Condemnation over how he found her?
It was a long time before Rebecca went to sleep that night. Tom Whitman was less than twenty feet away. What would he do if she moved her bedroll over beside his? Would he welcome her? Would he turn away in disgust?
She lay tossing and turning, sleep evading her, until she heard a voice calling Tom's name.
“Tom. It's your watch.”
There was no moon tonight, but there was a single lantern hanging from the elevated tongue of the hoodlum wagon. This served as a beacon for the night riders to find their way back to the camp. It also put out enough illumination to enable Rebecca to watch as Tom sat there pulling on his boots. He reached for his coat and hat, then walked over to the remuda, pulled out his horse, saddled it, mounted, and rode away.
Tom had relieved Dusty, who was in bed by the time Tom rode out.
Rebecca had watched the interaction between Clay and Maria, and between Smoke and Sally. The love that they shared was obvious, not only in what they said to each other, but the way they touched, and the way they looked at each other.
She lay here in her bedroll, thinking about that as she listened to the soft lolling of the cattle, the sound of wind passing over the wagon, and the hooting of a nearby owl. Rebecca felt the tears welling in her eyes. Was she never to know such love?
She thought of her mother and Oscar. Janie had told her, in no uncertain terms, that she had reached the bottom, with no hope of a future beyond the ever descending rungs on the whore's ladder, from mistress, to brothel, to bargirl, to streetwalker.
“And then I met Oscar,” her mother had told her. “I don't know how I happened to wind up in Dodge City, I could just as easily have gone to Denver, or Cheyenne, or San Francisco, or Phoenix. But I got off the train in Dodge City, and of the sixteen saloons here, the Lucky Chance was the first one I walked into. I worked for him for less than a month, then he asked me to marry him.
“I will confess to you, Becca, I married him just to get off the line. But he has been the most wonderful man, and I love him more than I can say. Love came late, but I am just thankful that I lived long enough to experience it.”
Would love come to Rebecca?

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