Dorothy Garlock (7 page)

“I would make you acquainted with your almost neighbor if I knew his name. My name’s McCloud.”

Logan held out his hand. “Logan Horn.” The man grasped it firmly.

“This here’s Mrs. Parnell. She and her boy have a spread back up in the hills beyond where the Kentucky people settled.”

Logan tipped his hat. “It’s nice to make your acquaintance, ma’am.”

“The same here, Mr. Horn.”

“Here’s your team and wagon.” Mr. McCloud went to the door and looked out. “Pull ’er up here, Virgil,” he called. “He’s goin’ to load up.”

“I’m going to add a few more things to the pile before you add it up. Mrs. Parnell, I’d he obliged if you’d pick out a piece of dress goods for a little girl about this high.” He held his hand to his waist. “Her hair is light and her eyes . . . I’m afraid I didn’t notice.”

“It sounds like Odell Spurlock. I’ve met her and her sister.”

“That’s her name. Her folks were mighty kind to me a few days back.”

“I know just the piece.” Mrs. Parnell pulled a bolt of bright yellow from beneath the other material. “This would be pretty on Odell, especially if you got a length of yellow ribbon for her hair.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Cut off whatever Mrs. Parnell thinks will be needed, Mr. McCloud, and add the ribbon and a tablet and pencil to the bill. I’ll load the things you’ve listed.”

On his second trip to the wagon he glanced down the street and saw the Land Office man standing in the sunlight talking to another man. They watched him as he tossed the tools in the wagon. On his next trip he noticed three or four men had bunched around the Land Office man. They were all looking at him.

Logan cursed under his breath. Goddamn! Would it ever be over?

When he came out of the store again he was carrying a sack of flour on his shoulder and the men were standing beside his wagon. Shorty Banes, from the restaurant, was with them. Logan took time to wonder why he was called Shorty. He was big. Perhaps an inch shorter than Logan’s six-feet, two-inches, and he was heavy. His head sat on his broad shoulders like a bull’s. The men beside him ranged in size from average to tall, but none was as powerfully built as Shorty Banes. Logan paused, looked each man in the eye, and then shouldered his way through the pack to put the sack in the wagon.

“Do you reckon he thinks he’s agoin’ to stay on that land, Shorty?”

“Even a stupid Injun ain’t that dumb.”

Logan’s muscles bunched. It wasn’t going to be easy, he thought.

“I ain’t never seen a redskin that was worth doodle-squat in a man-to-man fight, did you, Shatto?”

“I ain’t never seen one worth the powder it’d take to blow ’im ta hell.”

Fury began to swell the veins in Logan’s neck.

“I wonder what he’d do if’n I took my pig sticker and cut a slash in that flour sack?”

Logan dropped the sack in the wagon and turned to face his tormentors. “Why don’t you try it and find out? May be that you’re all mouth and no show.”

One of the men reared back and let out a loud guffaw. “Shorty, I’m athinkin’ the red ass is a askin’ fer trouble.”

“What’s on your mind? I’m busy.” Logan felt cold and tight for all the burning rage that threatened to boil up and out of him.

“Don’t get sassy with me, Injun.” Shorty Banes looked into eyes that were cold and ugly. Something about the big Indian bothered him. He didn’t run true to form. The man was ready to take them all on. It showed in the way he stood easily balanced, his legs planted wide apart, his right hand hovering within easy reach of the pistol belted about his hips.

“Well . . . If you’re going to jump me, come on. I can kill two of you easy enough. Cowards usually run in packs,” Logan said with a sneer.

“You gonna take that off him, Shorty?”

“Watch yore mouth! You talk big fer an Injun with no backup.”

“He’s got backup, Banes.” The voice came from the end of the porch. Logan glanced at a tall, whiplash thin man with a dusty hat tilted back on his heat. He was leaning casually against the wall of the store.

“Stay outta this, Parnell. Mr. Clayhill ain’t turned loose on you yet, but he will.”

“I’m sayin’ you’re not goin’ to jump the man like a pack of dogs. He’s got backup. If you want a go at him, go ahead. I’ll keep the rest of the varmints off his back.”

Logan looked Shorty Banes in the eye. “Are you afraid to take on an
Injun,
Shorty? I’ll make it anyway you want, guns, fists, or free-for-all.”

“Take ’im on, Shorty. Tear down his meat-house!”

Logan smiled when he saw the big, angry man fumble with the buckle of his gunbelt. This was better than he expected. He never doubted his ability to beat another man in a fair fight. During the war, as a recreation, he and his men had practiced the Oriental way of fighting. He was gifted with uncommon speed of hand and foot, steadiness of nerve, and had the ability to shoot instinctively, if necessary, to protect himself.

Shorty shoved his gunbelt into the hands of one of his friends and stepped off the porch. Logan placed his hat and his gunbelt in the wagon and moved out into the dusty street.

“All right, Injun. I’m gonna learn ya it ain’t p’lite to mouth off to white folks.”

He swung suddenly, a vicious backhand. Expecting the burly man to attack with swinging arms, Logan sidestepped easily, and Shorty stumbled off balance.

“What’s the matter, horseshit? Can’t you find me? I’m right over here.”

Shorty roared and moved in fast, swinging both hamlike fists. Logan met his rush with a blow to Shorty’s throat with the side of his hand, whirled and hit him alongside the head with the bottom of his foot, whirled again and kicked him in the stomach.
Swish!
The air went out of Shorty’s lungs. He staggered back and shook his head.

“Had enough?” Logan taunted. “I warn you, white trash, I can kill you with these hands and feet.”

In a furious rage, Shorty lowered his head and charged. A blow grazed the side of Logan’s face and he evaded another. He sidestepped to avoid being caught in a bear hug, aimed a blow to the back of Shorty’s neck, then spun around and kicked him in the groin.

Shorty let out a howl and fell to his knees holding his privates. He was doubled up with pain. In less than a minute the fight had been taken out of him, and Logan wasn’t even breathing hard.

“You stupid sonofabitch! I could’ve killed you easily if I had wanted to. Next time, I will. You tell that old bastard you work for that I’ve bought that land and I’m going to hold it. Tell him to get his herd off! A month from today I’ll shoot every goddamn cow I find on
my
land!”

Logan strapped on his gunbelt and put on his hat. Shorty’s cronies bunched around him and lifted him to his feet. Logan moved up onto the porch. “I’m obliged to you,” he said to the slim, sandy-haired man, and held out his hand. “The name’s Logan Horn.”

“Cooper Parnell. That was some kind of fightin’. You’re right handy with your feet.”

Logan grinned. “I learned that from an Oriental I met during the war. Takes some practice, but anyone can do it. It comes in handy when you go up against someone that outweighs you by fifty pounds.”

“You sure clobbered Shorty. He won’t be forgetting it. Watch your back.”

“Thanks, I will.”

When the wagon was loaded and the bill paid, Mr. McCloud held out his hand to Logan. “You’re welcome in my store anytime. I’m not beholdin’ to Clayhill. If the time comes that I’m not my own man, I’ll burn the sonofabitch down and go back to Illinois. Good luck, young feller.”

“It looks like I’m going to need it.”

“By the way, there’s a canvas under the wagon seat in case it rains.” He looked at the cloudless sky. “Don’t much look like it now, but you can’t tell come sundown.”

Logan climbed up on the wagon seat. He didn’t care much for driving a team, but this time there was no help for it. He slapped the reins against the backs of the bays, and they moved off up the street toward the eatery where his horse and dog waited.

Mable came out on the porch while he was tying Mercury behind the wagon.

“I see ya got ya a outfit, ’n I see ya had trouble already with Shorty Banes. Ha, ha, ha . . . You shore took him down a peg. He ain’t goin’ to be adroppin’ his britches fer a spell. Hit’s goin’ to make him madder ’n a rained-on hen. Watch yourself, now.”

“I’ll do that.” Logan removed the saddle from his horse, put it in the back of the wagon, and tied the horse behind. “I hope you won’t have any trouble with Clayhill riders on my account.”

“Don’t you worry none about that. This here’s the only eatin’ place in town. They ain’t goin’ to go hungry even fer Clayhill. Say . . . that’s his girl over there agivin’ ya the eye. Old Clayhill’ll get a first-hand report of the goin’s on. She’s a bitch, is what she is . . . Why there was a time when . . .”

Logan only half heard what Mable was saying. He was looking at the woman in the handsome buggy across the street. She was lovely, and her clothes were some of the finest he had seen. She was dressed all in white from the high-button shoes to the wide-brimmed hat set atop high-piled blond curls. A black boy was driving the buggy and two mounted men lounged in their saddles behind it. The woman was staring at him and . . . smiling.

Never before had Logan received such a bold, admiring look from a woman. Her stark, naked gaze roamed over him leisurely and gave him the sensation of being slowly undressed. He shifted on the seat in acute embarrassment.

“I’ll see you the next time I’m in town, ma’am.”

“Say, mister . . .” Mabel added, “if’n ya want to stop some’ers fer the night, ya might want to stop at Mary’s. She’s a widder woman ’n lives ’bout five or six miles out. House is painted up nice and she’s got flowers. She does doctorin’ ’n such. Got a girl or two if ya need yore ashes hauled.”

“I remember seeing the place. Thanks.”

He watched Brutus size up the team of bays, then move on out ahead. Logan put the team in motion and followed. When he passed the buggy he glanced at the woman. Her eyes were still fixed on him. She was openly amused and he saw her eyelid droop in a flirtatious wink. He ignored her. Clayhill’s stepdaughter was as dangerous as a keg of gunpowder in a forest fire.

He drove out of town, ignoring the stares of the loafers in front of the saloon and the people on the street who paused to gawk. He didn’t see any sign of Shorty Banes and his cronies, but he had the uneasy feeling that he might he watched by a dozen pair of eyes. The feeling stayed with him until he was on the open road.

A stillness hung over the timbered benchland—a quiet so complete that the dull sound of the horses’ hooves and the wagon wheels rolling over the thick, yielding mat of pine needles faded into nothingness. The glow of elation Logan felt when he stuffed the deed to the land in his shirt had died a trembling death in the wake of his troubled thoughts.

Despite his bravado in town, he knew he might have bitten off more than he could chew. It would be weeks, even months before the members of his old army platoon arrived, although he supposed they had already left Illinois and might even be in Deadwood by now. They would have kept in touch with James Randolph, the only other survivor of the group who fought together during the War Between the States, and he would relay the message.

He thought about his land. The grazing was good; there was timber for buildings, an unlimited view that he liked, and plenty of good water. Moreover, there was a maze of canyons to the south, mountains to the west, and his nearest neighbors were the Spurlocks.

Uncle Henry would approve of the way his money had been spent, Logan mused. Invest in land and cattle, he had advised. The day of making a fortune in the fur trade will soon be over. Logan’s face creased in one of his rare, sudden grins. His uncle would have gloated over the fact he had bought the land out from under Adam Clayhill.

He was traveling up the valley beside a busy stream, the jingle of the harness echoing on the air. The wagon rocked on steadily, making him feel lonely and turning his thoughts inward to settle on Rosalee Spurlock. From the first he had felt the difference between her and the other women he had known, and he had known a few of them intimately. He admired her steadiness of will, her deep-rooted integrity, her womanliness, and her ability to speak frankly. He found himself responding to those qualities rather than her startling beauty. He doubted that she was even aware she was a beautiful woman.

Logan could feel the swelling in his groin as he thought about her. He was a man of strong sexual hungers and didn’t regard this physical change in his body as a sign of love. The only thing he knew about love was what he had read in the classics. He knew he wanted it someday when he was ready for it, but with all the trouble ahead of him this wasn’t the time. Yet he was lonely and longed to have someone of his own. He envied the men who were deeply rooted. He craved permanency, craved it with an urgency intensified by his years of seeking it. This was where he would sink his taproot. He would not let events conspire to uproot him again.

He jolted along on the wagon seat and wryly reflected that there was more than a modicum of truth in the adage having to do with the inadvisability of man living alone. This thought brought him up short! Good Godamighty! What was he thinking? In this part of the country it was unthinkable for a white woman to marry an
Indian.

Logan was brought back from his dark thoughts by Brutus’s odd behavior. He was turning his head to the left and to the right, then back to look at him, alerting him to an unfamiliar scent. Logan was at once on guard. The trail had wound away from the stream and was passing between high boulders and scrub cedars that afforded plenty of concealment.

On a sudden hunch, Logan unbuckled his gunbelt, lifted his tunic, and dipped into his money belt, taking all the gold except for a few coins. He reached under the wagon seat for the canvas and hid the gold in the folds. He hastily rebuckled his gunbelt about his waist and moved the rifle to lay across his lap.

Brutus, with his nose to the ground, moved rapidly ahead. Suddenly he turned and came back. He barked, and the startled team, nervous and excited, picked up speed. Logan pulled back on the rein with his feet braced against the footboard at the front of the wagon.