Sweetwater (26 page)

“Did you see the teacher?”

“We saw her. She’s feisty as a—”

“What did she say?” Alvin cut in sharply, not wanting to hear the rest of the remark.

“Said you was tryin’ to run her off. That other’n—the Murphy girl, she’s madder than a hornet ’bout Hartog shootin’ her pa. Says she’s goin’ to kill him.”

“That isn’t likely. Maybe I should turn him loose out there.”

Armstrong’s lips set in a firm line, and he stared unblinkingly at the seated man.

“Hartog is pure-dee old mean with womenfolk, Mr. Havelshell. The teacher ain’t deservin’—”

“Hell, I’m not talking about the teacher. If Hartog bothers her, I’ll kill him myself. I’m talking about that black-haired bitch that walks around with a six-gun strapped on. If she wears a gun, she’s fair game. Get her out of there, and Jenny will be more likely to give it up.”

“She’d still have McCall. He mopped the floor with Hartog the other night.”

“I heard about it. He’ll get his. We don’t have to worry about him. Hartog will take care of him.”

Alvin reached into a drawer and threw a tin star out onto the desk.

“Put it on, Armstrong. I’m appointing you sheriff of Sweetwater and the surrounding territory.”

Armstrong stood rooted in his tracks. “Ain’t ya put out that we didn’t blow up the dam?”

“No. Let her have the water. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”

Still not satisfied, Armstrong asked, “What do ya want me to do for the star?”

“Keep law and order. Occasionally take orders from me. Pays twenty dollars a month. You can’t make that kind of money anyplace else.”

Armstrong was tempted, but hesitated. “I’m not a killer, Mr. Havelshell. I don’t shoot a man ’less he’s shootin’ at me.”

“Good idea.”

“Hartog’d not just kill that girl. He’d rape and torture her first.”

“That happens in this country.”

“Not to white women, it don’t.”

“If he does it, you’d have to bring him in and turn him over to a Territorial marshal … or kill him.”

“He’d not let me take him in.”

“Hell, Armstrong. Why worry about that now? Take the badge and keep order in the town.”

“Folk’ll think there ort to a been a election.”

“When there is one, I’ll be elected mayor of this town. I’ve got a right to appoint a sheriff. If you get lip from anyone, send them to me.”

Armstrong reached for the star and pinned it on his shirt.

“Looks good there, Sheriff Armstrong. Sure does.”

It was what Armstrong had always wanted. Being sheriff meant being respected. But there was a price attached to it. And he feared it would be more than he wanted to pay.

Arvella Havelshell sat in the parlor behind the store. She hated being isolated out here at the Agency store. She hated being alone. It had not been so bad with Moonrock here. The girl was company. She had liked teaching her things.
He
had even taken that small pleasure from her. When Linus had returned from the Indian camp to say that Moonrock would not come back because of the agent’s near rape of her, she had known the girl was speaking truthfully.

Alvin had come to her room that night and, still fully dressed, had fallen on her and shoved his way into her. For his visit, she had prepared herself with petroleum jelly. Even so, he had hurt her dreadfully. She had cried out and, in his frenzy to satisfy himself, he had slapped her. When he had finished, he sat on the side of the bed, holding his face in his hands and cursing her.

Now tears rolled down Arvella’s fat cheeks. She had endured Alvin’s rutting because it was what she had to do to get a child. It was her father’s fondest wish to have a grandchild; and if she gave him one, he might soften his attitude toward her and stop making her so miserable. All her life she had striven for his approval. All her life she had been told that she was a disappointment to him.

She wished that she were dead.

Arvella could not remember a time when she had not been plump. Even as a child she’d had little fat arms, legs, and a little round belly. She had never rolled a hoop or played tag with other children. Her mother had been educated in the best schools and took great pride in teaching her only child. It had not been necessary for Arvella to attend school. Her childhood had been spent sitting at her mother’s knee doing algebra or reading the Greek classics. When her mother died, the world as she had known it came to an end.

The door opened at the back of the house. Arvella paid scant attention. It had to be Linus. At times she hated the boy. At other times she pitied him. He was detested by Alvin just as she was.

When Linus heard what Alvin had done to Moonrock, he had threatened to go to town and kill him. His hatred of the Indians had not included Moonrock. The girl had been kind to him, and Arvella suspected that the boy was a little in love with her.

Arvella was wise enough to know that Linus had to feel that he was better than
someone,
and the Indians were handy.

The sound of bootheels that were not Linus’s came toward the parlor. Arvella turned and sucked in a deep breath.

“Why are you here? Did he … come back?”

“No. He’s still in town.”

“You’re not suppose to be in here.”

“I know.” Pud Harris stood holding his hat in his hand. “Why’re ya crying?”

“I’m not! Did you come to spy on me? What do you think I can do out here?”

“I’m not here to spy. Yore pa sent me to keep an eye on thin’s.”

“That’s spying.”

“Not on you, Miss Arvella. Alvin sent men to put the dam back in. Yore pa told me to keep an eye on them, too.”

“But what are you doing in here?”

“I wanted to see how ya was doin’. I never see ya when I come with Havelshell.”

Arvella raised her eyes to look at the man’s homely face. Pud Harris had come to work for her father before she married Alvin and had spoken to her a time or two.
He was not looking at her as if she were a freak.
There was genuine concern in his soft brown eyes.

Her eyes flooded with tears. She covered her face with her handkerchief.

Pud squatted down beside her chair and placed his hat on the floor.

“Why’er ya cryin’? Did I say somethin’?”

Arvella answered with a shake of her head. When her hand dropped to her lap, a rough palm patted it gently. After a few minutes. Pud stood, and for an instant she felt his hand on the top of her head.

He left the room quickly. She heard his bootheels on the kitchen floor and then the closing of the back door.

Chapter Seventeen

Trell awoke to face the stark realization that if he didn’t move soon, he would die here in a hole in a dirt bank. He was in bad shape. One arm and one leg were useless. His upper body was covered with cuts from the shale and his face bloody. He came close to panic when he closed one eye and could see nothing. His head was not working very well; his thoughts came slowly, but he knew enough to realize that he was without a horse or a gun and was being hunted by men who wanted him dead.

The first movement brought pain so severe that waves of blue-and-red lights flashed behind his closed lids. Using one arm and one leg, he sidled along the ground until he was out from under the branches of the tree and into the sunlight where he lay gasping.

If you find me, you bastards, I won’t be hidin’ in a dirt hole.

Inch by inch, he crawled up the incline. One bare foot sought purchase to push his body along. Hours passed—he had no way of knowing how many. His head felt as if it weighed a ton—he could hardly hold it off the ground, but he would not give up. His desire to see Jenny again and his stubbornness kept him going.

“Jenny, Jenny, Jenny—”

He murmured the name over and over, at times in a whisper and at other times aloud. His good hand searched for something to grip as he inched over the ground. Waves of sickness washed over him, but he doggedly persisted.

Finally he pulled himself over the rise to flat land and ruts that could only be a wagon track. He didn’t know where he was and he didn’t care. His strength was nearly gone, but he managed to roll to the foot of a pine. He lay on his back. A lark was singing nearby.

“I made it, Jenny.” For a moment he thought he was lying in a sweet meadow grass near his old home. Then pain consumed him, numbness crept into his brain and he fell into a fitful sleep.

A sharp pain awakened him. He opened his eyes and looked into a face bending over him. A hand was searching his pockets.

“Don’t … don’t—”

“Ya ain’t dead!”

“Not … yet.”

“Thought ya was. I was lookin’ fer a name ter put ter ya.”

“Do what you come to do. I … can’t stop you.”

“I didn’t come ter do nothin. I not be robbin’ a helpless mon. I saw ye lyin’ here and stopped. Ye’re in bad shape, me laddie.”

“You’re not … one of
them?
”

“I be a peddler. Is it the law that’s after ye?”

“No. I don’t know who, or why. Shot me. I fell over the bluff … into the river.”

“Well, mon, I can’t be leavin’ ye here ter die, but I not be knowin’ how ter get ye in the wagon, big as ye are.”

The peddler stood and walked away. Horror swept over Trell at the thought of being left alone. He tried to turn his head but it was too painful. Then he heard the tinkling sound of the peddler’s wagon and the man’s voice.

“Rosie, me darlin’ girrl, I be needin’ yer help. Yer a good girrl and the light of me life. Pay attention ter what I be sayin’. Most likely the laddie will die, but as mather says, while there’s life there’s hope. Once he was a strong, fine, Irish laddie. But now he be a poor, hurtin’ soul. Back up, Rosie, and I’ll be singin’ ya a tune … later on.”

The wagon stopped with the back of it just above Trell’s head. He could hear the peddler arranging things inside the caravan, then the back gate dropped. He stepped out and knelt down.

“I be tellin’ ye straight, mon. I can’t get ye in the wagon ’less ye help. I ain’t big, but I be strong. Can ye stand?”

“I’ll try—”

“That be all I be askin’, lad. Take a long swig a this good Irish whiskey ter get yer blood a goin’.” He tipped a long-necked bottle and the fiery liquid went into Trell’s open, bloody mouth. The peddler took a drink from the bottle and slapped the cork in place.

Trell rolled over and got on his knees, groans of pain rumbling from his throat. Holding to the wagon with one hand and with the help of the small man, he pulled himself up and stood swaying on one leg, not daring to put the other on the ground.

“There ye be, laddie. All ye need ter be doin’ is ter put yer backside on the tailgate while I be holdin’ yer hurt leg. Scoot yerself back. I fixed ye a nice pallet. It be long way from a feather bed, but ’tis better than what ye was on. I be takin’ ye home fer Mather to tend.”

The drone of the peddler’s voice filled his mind, driving him on. Trell concentrated on what the man was telling him to do. For the first time since he had been shot, he had hope. Then, agonizing pain took possession of him and he sank into a black void.

“I’ll take ye home again, Kathleen,

Across the ocean wild and wide—”

Trell came out of the darkness aware that he was moving and that someone was singing. Then he sank back into the black pit where demons with pitchforks poked and prodded his body and burned his flesh with torches.

In early-morning light, Colleen came out of the house with a lantern and a milk pail and went into the shed that housed the cow. She hung the lantern on a post and pulled up an overturned bucket to sit on.

“Betsy, Betsy,” she said tiredly and rested her head against the side of the cow. She liked the smell of the shed, the milch cow and the warm milk. She nudged the udder and squeezed the cow’s teat with her long, slender fingers. Milk shot into the bucket she held between her feet.

A minute later she jumped to her feet and whirled. Her hand going to the gun on her thigh, her foot kicking over the bucket of milk. Travor McCall was lounging against the shed door.

“Ya tryin’ to get yoreself shot?” she spit out angrily.

“How did you know I was here?”

“Easy. A mouse ran
toward
me and not to the door.” One quick glance had told her that he had been in the pond. His hair was wet and his face clean-shaven. Her insides were shaking, but her features were composed.

“Sorry I scared you.”

“What’a ya want?”

“I don’t dare tell you.” The tone more than the words gave meaning to his answer.

She was too stunned to answer, and her lips parted softly in surprise. The glitter in his eyes made her feel as though her heart might leap from her breast, and she stared at him in total panic while her mind searched frantically for something to say.

“Then get the hell out of here so I can finish milkin’.”

“I want to talk to you. There’s a few things you should know.”

“I’m knowin’ that. I ain’t the smartest person in the world, but I know enough to keep clear of a slybooter who thinks he’s the only billy goat on the mountain.”

“Slybooter, huh? I’ve not been called that before.”

She watched the firm line of his mouth curve in a smile that softened the hard contours of his face. His smile was wicked, teasing, and jarred her to say something she instantly regretted.

“How can ya smile when yore brother could be lyin’ dead som’e’rs?”

Her words wiped the smile off his face. She looked into his dark blue eyes. Deep grooves marked the corners, worn there by years of squinting against the sun. There were other lines, too, that experience, tiredness, or hard winter weather had etched.

“You know how to cut to the quick, don’t you?”

“If I have to. Now get out, I’ve got to milk.”

“Go ahead. I’ll not bother you.”

“Yo’re damn right, ’cause ya won’t be here.” She slapped the gun on her thigh with the palm of her hand.

“She wears pants, packs a gun and … she swears,” he muttered, shaking his head. Then, “All right, all right.” With hands lifted, palms out, he backed out the door.

Travor leaned against the wall of the bunkhouse and lit a cigarette. He was surprised to find himself angry. Why was he so riled up? No answer came readily to his mind. He didn’t understand the little blue-eyed witch’s attitude toward him, and his logical mind asked him why he should give a damn. Hell, he’d only winked at her.