Dorothy Garlock - [Wabash River] (10 page)

*  *  *

Jerr Simmons, known throughout the Indian Nations as Buffer, had watched John leave the magistrate’s office and head for the livery. The scout’s face had had the look of a snarling wolf. He was sure sour-mouthed about something. From the doorway of the harness shop Simmons had seen John come out of the barn, swing into the saddle, and ride out of town in the direction of the Hyde farm.

Why would a well-known scout and cattleman have need to see the law in this one-horse town? Simmons had made a midnight visit to the livery stable. Tallman’s horse had been there. It had not been in the stable the night before. Had he spent the night at the Hyde place? The only things of interest out there were the women. Which one had caught the scout’s fancy?

The blond woman was pretty enough, Simmons thought now. But she had three younguns hanging on to her skirts. A man would have to be really smitten with her to take them on. He couldn’t see John Tallman loading himself up with that. He had to be after the girl, Trisha. It hadn’t been hard to find out her name. Almost every man in town knew it. None of them knew where the girl had come from or how she happened to be at the Hyde place. All seemed to know she had Negro blood, and that made her fair game.

“Trisha, Trisha . . .” Buffer liked to say her name. The fact that she had a drop or two of Negro blood mattered not at all to him. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen, and she had been constantly in his thoughts since he had caught a glimpse of her face beneath the sunbonnet. Yesterday, when he had watched her through his spyglass, he had become as excited as a boy seeing a naked woman for the first time. Her movements were wild and free, leaving him to wonder if she wore anything at all beneath her loose shift. She had seemed docile in town, but he’d bet his jackknife that when cornered, she’d be wild as a bobcat with a fresh batch of cubs.

He chuckled.

Buffer Simmons had made up his mind when he left the buffalo-hide–covered shack on Wolfe Creek in Oklahoma Territory that he was not going back. Pretty Flower, the Kiowa who had cared for him after he had eaten tainted meat and almost died, had gone back to her people. She had been pretty and the only female he’d seen for the better part of a year.

Thank God there had been no younguns to tie him to her. He remembered how willing she had been, and how he had ached for a woman. He felt no guilt about pulling foot without telling her he wasn’t coming back. She had understood that from the first. Her people would take care of her. The Kiowa always took care of their own. In time, a warrior who needed a woman to do for him would take her to his lodge.

All of Buffer Simmons’s thoughts now were fixed on the young black-haired girl with the catlike eyes. He wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life. He had to figure out a way to get her alone. He didn’t want to take her by force if he didn’t have to. The thought was insane. They would have to strike off into Indian territory alone. That part didn’t bother him, but if he could persuade her to come with him, he could still join Judge Van Winkle and do what he had been hired to do—provide fresh meat for the party traveling to Sante Fe. The money would give them a start.

John Tallman, known as Spotted Elk by the Shawnee, Cherokee, and Kiowa, was a problem to be reckoned with if he too had his sights set on the girl. All hell might break loose if he took Trisha by force and she was the one Tallman wanted. He sure as shootin’ didn’t want to fight the New Mexico scout for her, but he would if that was the only way.

Buffer Simmons drew from inside his vest a long thin knife, razor-sharp on both sides of the blade, and began to shave the hair from the back of his hand. In his mind he pictured a fight to the death with John Tallman. He sure as hell hoped it wouldn’t come to that. Buffer was confident that he could take care of himself. Tallman was a man like any other and bled like any other. He might be the best scout in the territory, but he, Buffer Simmons, was the best hunter. One thing bothered him, though: There were no rules of fair play when it came to stalking and bringing down game, but a man like John Tallman was another matter.

*  7  *

T
he sun was a bright ball of fire coming up over the eastern horizon. This morning promised to be no different from other bright sunny mornings, yet in the years to come Addie would look back on this day not only as the most frightening day in her life up to this time, but as a turning point for her and her family. Every detail of this day would be etched in her memory forever.

As usual, Trisha got up as soon as she heard Addie in the kitchen. Dressed in the loose shift she favored, her feet bare, her hair hanging in ringlets down her back, she stopped just inside the door and tied the cloth sash around her head to keep her hair away from her face.

“Mornin’, Trisha.” Addie noticed that the girl had dark circles beneath her eyes and that her mouth drooped. “Did you stay awake most of the night?”

“Yes’m. I jist couldn’t get it outa my mind ’bout old Renshaw comin’ for Colin. I kept tellin’ me he’d not come at night, but ever’ time I heared somethin’, I feared it was him. What we gonna do, Miss Addie?”

“I don’t know. I thought about it all night too. If we can’t get help from the magistrate, the only other thing I can think of is to try to get Mr. Birdsall to buy the farm; then we’d take the children and leave. I don’t know where we’d go, though. It would have to be someplace where we could do something to earn a living.”

“Colin thinks that . . . passerby is gonna help.”

“He offered to talk to the magistrate.” What Addie didn’t say was that she was counting desperately on his being able to convince the official that Renshaw was not a decent man and therefore was unfit to have control of a young boy.

Trisha shrugged. “I be mighty surprised he come back.” She emptied what water was left in the bucket in the stove reservoir and went out to the well. “Are we gonna do washin’ today?” she asked, when she returned.

“Do you think we should? Yesterday was wash day; but after the preacher came, I didn’t even think about it.”

“I say we wash ’cause a nice warm wind is blowin’. Might be we get rain next washin’ day.”

They ate mush laced with honey and leftover biscuits that had been buttered and browned in a skillet on top of the stove. Colin and Trisha drew water from the well to fill the wash and rinse tubs. Then Addie added the hot water from the reservoir, gathered the soiled clothes, and put them in a pile on the porch.

The morning passed slowly. They had plenty of work to do, but it did little to keep their minds off the dread that hung over them. Washing one of Dillon’s shirts, Trisha scrubbed it so hard on the wash board that she tore a hole in it. Addie, catching Colin as he looked toward town with an expression of longing on his face, hoped that John Tallman would not disappoint the boy.

By midmorning the clothes were flapping on the rope strung between two trees; wash water had been carried from the porch and dumped. Colin had taken the cow to be staked out in a grassy meadow until milking time.

Addie was kneading bread dough when Jane Ann ran into the kitchen, her eyes wide with fright.

“Miss Addie! Miss Addie!” she screamed. “Old Renshaw’s comin’.”

“Lordy mercy!” Addie felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. She wiped her hands on her apron and hurried to the front door as the wagon passed the side of the house heading for the back. She ran through the house and out onto the back porch. Mr. Renshaw had pulled the horses to a halt in the open space between the house and the barn and was climbing down from his wagon.

“Ya know why I’m here,” he said with no pretense at civility.

Although Addie and the children referred to him as “old” Renshaw, he was only a little older than Addie’s twenty-five years. He was a small man, wiry and bowlegged, with light-brown, sun-streaked hair. His most prominent feature was his large, bucktoothed mouth.

He stared at Addie with hard, cold eyes. “Ya heared me, woman. Get ’im.”

The memory of what Trisha had told her about how this man planned to use Colin filled Addie’s mind, and a red-hot rage washed over her as she looked at him. At that instant she fervently wished that she were a man so that she could beat this sorry piece of humanity to a pulp and smear what was left of him into the muck of the barn lot, where he belonged.

“Air ya deaf and dumb? Air ya so addled ya ain’t knowin’ what I’m sayin’? I said I come fer the boy. Get ’im! I ain’t got all day.”

“Get back in the wagon and leave. Colin is staying right here.” Addie’s voice shook; her throat was so tight she could scarcely speak.

“Preacher said ya’d got full of sass all a sudden. Don’t ya be spoutin’ off at me, ’cause I ain’t gonna stand fer it. Give
me
some of yore sass and I’ll slap yore jaws.”

“No ya won’t! If’n ya hurt Miss Addie, I’ll . . . I’ll cut yore heart out.” Colin’s voice shook with fear, but he stood erect, shoulders back, head up.

Addie looked down at the small boy whose head hardly came to her shoulder. He was so helpless to defend himself. His life, his well-being, was being decided by an ignorant, uncaring, self-serving hill preacher.

Colin had seen the wagon and knew who had arrived. His fear was so great that his first thought was to hide where Renshaw couldn’t find him. Then in the night he would run away. But that would leave his dear Miss Addie to face old Renshaw and the preacher with only Trisha to help her and he knew he couldn’t do that. He had run all the way in from the meadow. He felt his skin crawl now as the man’s eyes bore down on him.

“Shut yore mouth and get in the wagon. Ya can get yore things later.”

“I thought I had made it quite clear,” Addie said, her voice rising. “He’s not going with you. Ever! And I want you off my property right now.” She was immensely relieved that her voice didn’t reflect her fear.

“Preacher said ya’d be stubborn. It makes me no never mind how hard ya got yore head set on keepin’ ’im. I come for the boy, an’ I ain’t leavin’ without ’im. Preacher said he was to work for me.”

“
Work
for you? Is that what you call it? You lecherous old billy goat!” Addie’s control broke. She lifted her hand as if to strike him, and her voice rose until she was yelling. “You shameful defiler of children! You’re worse than a rutting boar! The lowest male beast doesn’t do to the young what you do! Get off my land now, or God help me, I’ll shoot you down like the mad dog you are!”

“Don’t raise a hand agin’ me, bitch! I come for this boy an’ I’m takin’ ’im.” As quickly as a striking snake his hand lashed out and grabbed Colin’s arm. “Get in the wagon, ya gawddamn by-blow of a whore, or I’ll switch yore ass good when I get ya home.”

“I ain’t goin’!”
Colin struck out with his free hand and tried to kick the man.

Renshaw gave the boy a resounding, open-hand slap across the face. The blow rocked Colin’s head back.

“Nooo!” Addie screamed. She dived for Colin, grabbed him around the waist, and the two of them fell to the ground, breaking Renshaw’s hold on the boy. Addie rolled with Colin, keeping her body between him and Renshaw. She felt a vicious pain in her ribs when the man kicked her with his heavy boot.

“Ya damn bitch! I’ll learn ya—”

Bang!

Renshaw screamed, staggered back, and sprawled on his back in the dirt, his hands clutching his private parts.

Startled by the sound of the shot, the wagon team lurched, ran a small way, came up against the barn, halted, and danced nervously in their traces.

Addie scrambled to her feet. Trisha was standing, bare feet spread, with the gun pointed at the fallen man, a stream of curses pouring from her mouth.

“Bastard! Son of a bitch! Horny old goat! Shit-eatin’ dog!”

“Ah . . . Gawd! Lord help me—” In pain and panic, Renshaw continued to scream and curse and hold his crotch.

“The
Lord
ain’t gonna help ya now!” Trisha shouted. “Ya ain’t fit ta live nohow. Yore a suck-egged, pig-ugly ol’ bastard, is what ya are! I’m gonna shoot that
thing
off’n ya and ya’ll not be pokin’ it at little younguns no more. Then I’m gonna shoot ya so full a holes, ya’ll look like a flour sifter.”

“Trisha, no!” Suddenly reality began to filter into Addie’s mind.

Dear God! Trisha has shot a white man! It doesn’t matter if he dies or not, the Renshaws will come for her and hang her!

Addie grabbed the rifle out of the girl’s hand.

Trisha was like a coiled, deadly snake. It was as if she had suddenly gone wild. Her lips were pulled back from her teeth in a vicious snarl. Her eyes glimmered.

“Let me kill ’im! Let me kill ’im!”

“I hope ya did,” Colin said, tears streaming from his eyes.

Addie looked down at Renshaw sprawled in the dirt, glaring up at her with hate-filled eyes. The bullet had missed his private parts and slammed into his hip joint.

“The nigger bitch shot me!” he said with disbelief. “Gawd help me!”

“It was
me
who shot you, you filthy scum!”

All of Addie’s attention was focused on the man on the ground. She didn’t hear the frightened cries of Dillon and Jane Ann or the sound of a running horse. In a daze, she turned to see John Tallman leaping from his horse.

John went by her and knelt beside the fallen man. “Who is he?”

“Ellis Renshaw. I shot him.”

“Miss Addie . . .”

“
I
shot him,” Addie repeated firmly, looking directly into Trisha’s eyes and shaking her head almost imperceptibly.

“I hope he die!” Trisha said. “I hope he die.”

“Colin, run get one of those towels off the line,” John said calmly, as he used his bowie knife to cut Renshaw’s britches from waist to thigh. “No doubt he deserves to die, but it’d cause a lot of trouble right now. You women back off unless you want to see his privates.”

“I goin’ ta get me a knife,” Trisha hissed. “I goin’ to
geld
that sucker!”

“Take Trisha and the children to the house, Addie. Colin and I will take care of this.”