The King Hill War (3 page)
Authors: Robert Vaughan
“Ian,” Cynthia scolded. “That’s no way to act after Mr. Booker made a special trip into town just to get that for you.”
“I know, I know,” Ian said. “And I’m grateful to you, Emerson. It will be a blessing to be able to get around the house. But I don’t mind tellin’ you, I’m worried about this business with the cattlemen.”
“It’s been pretty quiet since the night you were hurt,” Emerson said. “Of course, the first thing we did after we rounded up all our sheep was bring them back onto our own land. And, since we aren’t running the sheep on the open range, the cattlemen have been leaving us alone.”
“How many sheep did we lose?”
“About a hundred,” Emerson said. “And we divided up the losses, just as you suggested. That way, none of us were too badly hurt.”
“You’re a good man, Emerson.”
Booker sighed. “No, I’m just an ex-schoolteacher trying to make it as a sheep rancher. You are the one everyone looks up to. You are the natural leader.”
“I’m not much good as a leader now,” Ian said. “Not
with this, I’m not.” He thumped on one of the plaster casts on his legs. “Emerson, you and I both know that the small parcels we own won’t support the sheep. We have to be able to graze on the open range.”
“I know,” Emerson agreed.
“Without the open range, we could wind up losing everything. All of us.”
Emerson nodded but said nothing. Then, looking at Cynthia, he smiled. “I picked up your mail just as you asked. There were three issues of the
Boise Tri-Statesman
, so you’ll have some newspapers to read.”
“Thank you, Mr. Booker.”
“And for you, little lady,” Emerson said to Hannah. “Mr. Bloomfield at the mercantile said you had been looking for this.” He handed Hannah a brown paper package.
Hannah tore the paper and looked inside, then smiled broadly.
“Oh, Mama, it’s the calico you ordered!” she said. “You can help me make my dress now.”
“Oh, honey, I don’t know if I’m going to have time,” Cynthia said. “With your father hurt, I’m afraid I’m going to be pretty busy.”
“I’m sure you can find time to help her with her dress,” Ian said. “I know how she’s been lookin’ forward to that.”
Cynthia smiled. “You’re right,” she replied. “I’ll find the time.”
“Thank you, Mama. I just have to have it before the Fourth of July. And thank you, Mr. Booker, for bringing the calico.”
“You’re very welcome,” Emerson said. “Have you read the book I left you?”
“Yes, I have. I’m enjoying it, but I must confess that sometimes Shakespeare is a little difficult to understand.”
“Don’t try to understand Shakespeare by the language
we use today,” Emerson said. “Just listen to the rhythm and alliteration of the words. Once you are comfortable with that, the meaning will be more clear.”
“Spoken like a schoolteacher,” Ian said with a chuckle.
“I guess I did sound like I was back in the classroom, didn’t I? Well, once a teacher, always a teacher, I suppose.”
It wasn’t until late that evening, after both Hannah and Ian were in bed, that Cynthia took a little time to herself to read the newspaper. She gasped out loud when she started to read one of the articles.
It is a rare treat to drop in at the Saratoga upon Mr. Mason Hawke and listen to the beautiful music he plays for the saloon customers. Mr. Hawke is a lover of good music, and by his skillful selection of tunes and brilliant performance at the piano, he draws crowds of attentive listeners.
But Mr. Hawke is more than a skilled piano player. He also enjoys the reputation of being a man of courage, resolve, and steady nerve, coupled with a sense of justice. These attributes were recently tested when Hawke came to the aid of an unfortunate woman who was the victim of frequent beatings, administered by her common-law husband. Hawke provided the woman with enough money to buy a railway ticket to a safe place, away from the drunken lout who had so abused her.
The common-law husband, one Angus Oates, upon learning the identity of his wife’s benefactor, presented himself at the Saratoga, not to listen to the beautiful music, but to disrupt the concert with his malevolent behavior. It is said by witnesses that Oates already had his gun in play before he called out Mason Hawke.
Only by an athletic leap over the bar did Hawke avoid being killed. There, fortuitously for Hawke, he happened upon the loaded double-barrel shotgun that the bartender kept behind the bar, and, making use of the deadly instrument, dispatched the late Mr. Oates to his Maker, where, no doubt, final judgment was made upon this evil man.
Cynthia’s head was spinning as she read the story. This had to be the Mason Hawke she knew, the Mason Hawke who was the brother to Gordon Hawke, the man to whom she had once been engaged.
She sat in the chair holding the paper for a long moment. Had anyone glanced her way they would have been convinced that she was still reading the newspaper, but she wasn’t. She was formulating a plan.
As the details of the plan came into focus, Cynthia put down the newspaper and went over to the cupboard where she kept paper, a bottle of ink, and a fountain pen. Taking the paper and writing instruments to the kitchen table, she sat down and composed a letter.
Hawke had just finished playing the piano and was lighting a cheroot when Ben came over to him, carrying a letter.
“I was just down to the post office,” Ben said, “and this came for you.”
Hawke looked up in surprise, then shook his head. “A letter for me? There must some mistake. I don’t get mail.”
“Well, you got this one,” Ben said, handing him the letter.
The return address was Mrs. Ian Macgregor.
“Well, I remember an Ian Macgregor,” he said as he read the envelope. “He was the sergeant major of my regiment. But I didn’t know he was married.”
His curiosity aroused, Hawke opened the letter.
Dear Mason,
I know this letter must have come as a great surprise to you, and you may be wondering who Mrs. Ian Macgregor is. You knew me as Cynthia Rathbone.
I am sorry that I was not there to welcome you when you returned from the war. But first Gordon was killed, then shortly after that my sister died. And when it seemed as if my brother was going to make it, he was killed in the final month of the war. Of course, you know all of that, you were with both Gordon and Edward when they were killed.
I don’t know what I would have done if it had not been for Ian Macgregor, and I thank you for letting him bring Edward’s body home to me. Ian helped me pick up the pieces of my life, and we were married shortly after he came back.
Now, Ian, my daughter Hannah and I live in Idaho near the small town of King Hill. We are raising sheep in what was once all cattle country.
As you can imagine, sheep herders in cattle company is causing some friction. But I believe that, were it not for a man named Joshua Creed, who owns Crown Ranch, the biggest cattle ranch in the county, we would be able to live together in peace.
However, it seems to be Mr. Creed’s personal goal to bring about a range war between the cattlemen and the sheep herders, and in a recent confrontation with some of the cattlemen, Ian was badly hurt. He is recovering from two broken legs and, during the recovery, is unable to run the ranch. We have some wonderful Basque people to tend the sheep, but I am
sure that the cattlemen, goaded on by Mr. Creed, will take advantage of Ian’s injury. You see, Ian has acted as sort of a leader of the sheep herders, and without him, I fear the others will succumb, one at a time. If that happens, none of us will be able to save our ranches.
Mason, like many from the South, Ian and I lost everything we had in that terrible war. This small ranch is all that we have. If we lose it, I have no idea where we will go or what we will do.
I read an article about you in our local paper. I have taken a chance on mailing this letter to you in care of the Saratoga in the hope that it finds you. If this letter does find you, and if, indeed, you are the same Mason Hawke that I knew, the brother of the man I loved and the fiancé of my own sister, then I pray that you will see fit to answer this plea for help from one who, but for the war, would have been your sister-in-law.
Sincerely,
Cynthia Rathbone Macgregor
Although Hawke finished reading, he held the letter for a long moment, just staring at the pages. How odd were the twists and turns of life. Had it not been for the war, Cynthia would have been his double sister-in-law, for she was going to marry his brother, and Hawke was going to marry her sister.
Seeing Hawke sitting there holding the letter but obviously in deep thought, Ben came over to talk to him.
“Anything important?” he asked.
“Yes, I think so,” Hawke replied. “Ben, I think I’m going to have to tender my resignation.”
“Say what?”
“I’m going to give up my job here. I have a train to catch.”
“Damn, I hate to hear that, Hawke. I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a piano player as good as you are. But, you did tell us when you took the job that you wouldn’t be staying very long. Where are you going, if I may ask?”
“Idaho.”
WHILE ON THE PRAIRIE, THE TRAIN WAS A BEHEMOTH
, overpowering the small plants and shrubs that bordered the track. But once it entered Veta Pass it became nothing more than a poor attempt by man to challenge the grandeur of nature. The Sangre de Cristo range ran down from the north, a towering spine that dwarfed the small train, which, by that perspective, was little more than a worm making its feeble way through the mountains.
Darkness was falling, and a broad bar of black was overtaking the sky, except in the west, where a strip of pale blue was gradually retreating. As part of the process, the setting sun played upon clouds of vivid color and shape.
Then, as light surrendered to shadow, the color began to fade, tone and tint leaving the sky a dark purple. Finally, as if making one last, desperate attempt to assert itself, the sun sent a single golden shaft shooting straight up, only to
be quickly blotted out by the encroaching darkness, and the day was done.
“Did you enjoy your meal, sir?”
Hawke, who was sitting at a table in the dining car, had been looking through the window at the light show of the dying day. When the waiter spoke, he turned toward him.
“Yes, thank you,” he said. “It was quite delicious.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it. What time will you want your breakfast table ready?”
“Eight o’clock, I think.”
“Very good, sir.”
As the dishes were cleared away from the table, Hawke left the dining car and returned to his seat in the Pullman car. Some of the beds had already been made and he had to walk a narrow aisle between hanging green, sackcloth curtains to reach the back end of the car.
Sitting next to the window, Hawke turned up the gimbal-mounted lantern so there was enough light for him to read the letter from Cynthia again. When he finished it, he looked outside at the little patches of projected light that slid along the ballast as the train hurried through the night, recalling the first time he’d met Cynthia. It had also been the first time he met Tamara….
The more prominent families of Georgia knew each other, if not by actual contact, then at least by reputation. To be a member of the privileged few in one community meant ex-officio entitlement to membership in all.
Jefferson Tinsdale Hawke was a former member of the Congress of the United States who resigned his seat when Georgia seceded from the Union. He was also owner of one of the largest and most productive plantations in Georgia. Because of that, the Hawke family had full entrée into the top tier of society, not only in Georgia, but all over the South.
One week after Mason Hawke returned from Europe, where he had been engaged in a grand concert tour playing piano before adoring crowds from London to Berlin, Charles Brubaker, one of the wealthier farmers of the county, hosted a huge barbecue for the regiment. Half a steer and ten hogs were spitted and being turned, slowly, over glowing coals, and the aroma of roasting meat competed with the fragrance of flowers and the ladies’ perfumes. The ladies were all dressed in butterfly-bright dresses, and sporting jewelry that flashed and sparkled at bare throats, in their hair, and on broaches.
Most of the men, Mason Hawke included, were wearing the gray and gold uniforms of the newly activated Georgia 15th, which, because the regiment was commanded by Colonel Jefferson Tinsdale Hawke, was often referred to as “Hawke’s Regiment.” In the button holes of many of the men’s tunics were snippets of hair—black, brown, blonde, or red—snipped from the lady of their choice.
Hawke was a newly commissioned second lieutenant, and his brother, Gordon, a captain, in the regiment.
“Why did Dad make me a lieutenant?” Hawke asked his brother. “What do I know about the military? I’m a pianist. I should be a private.”
“Does being a pianist make you more qualified to be a private than to be an officer?” Gordon asked in response.
Hawke shook his head. “Being a pianist doesn’t qualify me for anything, except being a pianist.”
Gordon chuckled. “There you go, then, little brother,” he said. “Since you aren’t qualified for either position, you may as well be a lieutenant. Trust me, you’ll like it much better. Now, come, I want you to meet someone.”
Hawke smiled. “What do you mean, meet her? It’s Cynthia Rathbone, isn’t it? We’ve known the Rathbone’s all our life.”
“Well, yes, but Cynthia isn’t the only one I want you to meet.”
“What do you mean, not just Cynthia?” Hawke laughed. “Good heavens, Gordon, don’t tell me you have two women.”
“Not exactly,” Gordon said. “But Cynthia has a sister.”
“Of course she has a sister, I remember her. What is she, about fourteen or so?”
“She’s nineteen,” Gordon said. “And she’s a knockout.”
Hawke shook his head. “I don’t know what you are getting me into, but I’ll go along with you…for now.”
“There they are, standing by the hall tree,” Gordon said, pointing to a couple of young women.
Although not twins, the two young women looked very much alike. Both had brown hair that hung in dark curls, and eyes that were so dark as to be almost black. They were each holding a fan, and they used them to hide their smiles and the words they exchanged as the Hawke brothers approached.
“Ladies, may I present my brother, Mason?” Gordon asked. “Mason, this is my fiancée, Cynthia, and her sister, Tamara.”
Hawke surprised everyone by clicking his heels together and bowing slightly, as he had seen it done in Europe. Then, as he had also seen it done, he kissed the hands of first Cynthia and then Tamara.
Shortly after meeting the two ladies, there was some unscheduled excitement. Someone saw a mouse on the dance floor, and it caused quite a panic among all the women. Many of them ran from the frightened rodent, screaming hysterically. Somebody knocked over the punch bowl, another crashed through the window.
It turned out that the mouse wasn’t on the floor by accident. It had been intentionally released by Brubaker’s four
teen year-old daughter, Angel, who was displeased because she had not been allowed to come to the barbecue.
Hawke had thought of that night many times since then. That was the day the old Mason Hawke, the gentleman of music and art, of culture and decorum, of hope and faith, died. And somewhere, in the din and crash of battle, the new, soulless, and very deadly Mason Hawke was born.
Eighteen months after that party, Hawke’s father, Colonel Jefferson Tinsdale Hawke, was killed at “the “bridge” during the Battle of Fredericksburg. Eighteen months after the colonel was killed, Major Gordon Hawke was killed.
Hawke had become engaged to Tamara before the regiment left. But the marriage was never to be. Tamara died shortly before the end of the war. There probably would have been no wedding anyway. Hawke had lost his soul long before that.
“May I make the gentleman’s bed, sir?”
“What?” Hawke asked, jerked out of his reverie.
The porter, leaning slightly over the seat, touched the bill of his cap. “May I make your bed for you, sir?” he asked again.
“Oh. Yes,” Hawke said. “Yes, thank you.” He got up and stood in the aisle as the porter pulled the seats together to make the bunk. Since no one else was sharing the seat, there was no need to pull the top bunk out from the wall.
