Trouble Trail (5 page)

‘Why, mercy-me!’ Calamity gasped, looking down at the cause of Eileen’s sudden halt. ‘I got all clumsy and trod on the bottom of your dress.’

For all her apparent contrition, Calamity made no attempt to move her foot from the fuming Eileen’s dress until Molly reached Bigelow. All the time Eileen glared over her shoulder in a manner that in saloon circles would have wound up in a cat-clawing brawl. Then the music came to an end and Calamity moved her foot. For a moment she thought Eileen aimed to turn and jump her, especially as Molly passed by laughing, on the young captain’s arm.

‘Come on, Eileen gal!’ whooped the major, bearing down on the brunette. ‘Dammit, I thought young Bigelow’d lick me to you, only it looked like he preferred a younger gal.’

Which proved that while the major might be a real brave man in action, and he was, and a fairly smart man at his work, he would never make a diplomat.

‘So he did, Harold,’ Eileen replied in a tone that would have sliced tough meat. ‘How fortunate for me.’

‘Sure was. Come on. I want to tell you how that husband of yours hung a chamber pot on the roof of the White House on the night of Grant’s Inaugural Ball.’

Eileen Tradle allowed herself to be led off towards the buffet table, nor did she find another opportunity that night to get near Bigelow. The major, Bigelow and Molly all took their full share in making sure of that. By the end of the evening Eileen had worked up quite a hate for both Molly and Calamity.

Long before the evening ended Calamity had troubles of her own.

‘Hey, Calamity!’ whooped a voice as she and Resin walked back to their own section of the camp circle. ‘Come on, gal, ‘tis time we started dancing again.’

Walking up, Muldoon laid hold of Calamity’s right arm in an insulting and proprietary manner. Before he could make a move to lead the girl anywhere, a cold Southern drawl cut in.

‘Just take your hands off her, Muldoon,’ Beau Resin ordered.

‘So that’s the way of it?’ asked Muldoon, shoving Calamity gently to one side and facing the big scout. ‘All right, bucko, ‘tis time you civilians learned respect for us who’re making this country safe for the likes of yez.’

‘Start trying to teach me,’ Resin replied and countered the soldier’s claim with an old scout’s insult. ‘You’ll find me a mite harder than tangling with a village full of squaws and kids.’

Silence dropped over the area. Cold chilling silence as everybody stared at the two big fighting men facing each other. As if drawn by magnets Killem’s men arrived to move in behind Resin and Muldoon’s cronies appeared to form a half circle behind the big sergeant. Other soldiers and civilians showed interest in the affair and there was the makings of a good old-fashioned riot in the air. To one side, in a position which offered him a clear line of retreat, Hack watched his plan approach fulfilment. Once the fighting started, it would ruin the dance and the wagon train’s women were going to look for somebody to blame. The blame would fall smack on Calamity’s curly red head.

Hack knew that—and so did Calamity.

Although attending a range-country ball, Calamity was, in Western terms, dressed. Her Navy Colt rode its holster and her long whip hung coiled at the left side of her waist belt. Reaching down, Calamity jerked the whip free and measured the distance between herself and her two suitors with a practised eye. Resin and Muldoon were moving towards each other, crouching slightly in a manner which offered good defensive and offensive potential but did tend to stick out their butt-ends in a manner which looked mighty promising to providence and Calamity Jane.

Drawing back her right arm, Calamity shot it forward and the whip’s lash curled out. Beau Resin let out a yelp of pain and leapt almost three foot into the air as the lash’s tip caught him. Before Muldoon or any of the other men could make out just what happened, Calamity struck again. Once more the lash hissed out and not even Muldoon’s saddle-toughened butt could resist the impact of what felt like a king-sized bee-sting.

With the two main protagonists handled, Calamity proceeded to damp down the ardour of any other mean-minded cuss who aimed to stir up a fight. Her whip’s lash hissed and cracked like gun-shots between the men.

‘I’ll take the legs from under the first one to start anything!’ she warned. ‘Anybody’s wants a busted ankle step right out and get one from Calamity Jane’s dispensary.’

And she could do it, too. Every man in the two groups knew it for sure, or guessed it with enough accuracy to believe her. Yet Calamity knew she must settle the issue in a more permanent manner and her eyes flickered around. In one glance she saw the way—and a possible reason for the trouble, taken with certain things she remembered from earlier.

Hack saw his chances of revenge on Calamity fading away and decided to follow their example. Once Muldoon quietened down, he was going to start thinking; although thinking had never been the burly three-bar’s strongest suit. While Muldoon might not be a mathematical genius, he could add up two and two and make the answer come out four. Hack had never been noted for generosity or mingling with the lower elements of society and Muldoon might suspect a nigger with a bottle of Old Stump-Blaster dwelling in the wood-pile of the shiny-butt’s sudden flow of hospitality.

With that in mind, and knowing something of Muldoon’s way when roused. Hack turned to take a hurried departure. Before he had taken two strides he found his progress halted as surely as Eileen Tradle’s had been earlier, through the same person though in a less gentle manner. The lash of Calamity’s whip coiled around his fat neck and dragged him back on his heels. Angrily he turned to face the girl as she bore down on him. His anger oozed from him when he saw her change the whip handle to her left hand and draw her gun. While Calamity could not truthfully claim to be fast with a gun—in the West one needed to be able to draw and shoot in at least three-quarters of a second and the best Calamity could manage was a full second—she sure as hell looked fast to Hack.

Stepping forward, Calamity stabbed out the barrel of her Navy and sent it deep into Hack’s lard-soft belly.

‘Talk, Fatso!’ she said. ‘Talk up a storm!’

‘Huh?’ Hack gurgled. ‘Ooof!’

The first exclamation had been to indicate his lack of understanding, the second came when the Navy’s barrel jabbed home again.

‘Talk, you lard-gutted shiny-butt!’ Calamity growled. ‘Tell Paddy why you fed him rot-gut whisky and stirred him up agin me.’

‘Now that’s a good point, Hack,’ Muldoon said thoughtfully, rubbing his sore butt-end. ‘I never remembered you being generous afore.’

‘Was I you. I’d talk up, hombre,’ Resin commented, ‘afore ole Calam pokes that ‘Navy clear through your backbone belly first.’

‘I—I don’t—ooof!’

‘I’ll tell you why!’ Calamity snapped, after ending his protests with another savage jab. ‘It’s ‘cause of what happened on the river bank this morning.’

‘And what did happen on the river bank this morning, darlin’?’ asked Muldoon eyeing Hack with renewed interest.

‘Ask him,’ replied Calamity.

‘Now you’ve got a real smart point there, gal.’

On hearing Muldoon’s reply, Hack decided the time had come to depart, and had been passed several belly-aching minutes before. The whip’s lash had come free and so Hack turned and fled. Letting out a bellow, Muldoon took after him and most of the soldiers followed to see the fun.

The crisis had been postponed and Calamity decided to make an end to it. When he returned, Muldoon might still retain his amatory interests and Resin would not take kindly to that. So Calamity figured to remove temptation from Muldoon’s way.

‘That hurt?’ she asked as Resin rubbed his whip-stung rump.

‘Stings like hell.’

‘I got me a real good cure for what ails you,’ she told him, ‘only I can’t do it here.’

‘Then let’s go someplace where we can.’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’

Together they walked from the camp circle and into the darkness. At dawn Resin returned to the wagon he shared with the wagon boss’s outfit. His rump no longer hurt him and although he had missed the end of the dance, Resin had no complaints, Calamity’s cure had been well worth it.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘THOSE are my bags, the ones marked with my name,’ Eileen Tradle told Calamity as they stood by the lead wagon of the train. ‘I suppose you can read?’

Eileen would never know how close she came to getting hand-scalped at that moment. It was the morning after the dance and the wagon train’s travellers prepared to move on. At such a moment Calamity’s temper had never been the best and she did not take kindly to sarcasm. The harnessing of a six-horse team took time and Calamity wanted to get her guest’s baggage loaded so as not to delay the start of Killem’s outfit. Due to loading the stores on the previous day, Killem failed to collect Eileen’s baggage earlier, but had sent Calamity and two of his men to collect it as soon as they hitched up their teams in the morning.

‘Reckon I can,’ Calamity answered. ‘Only those do-dads are marked “Tradle,” ’ she pronounced the word to rhyme with ‘saddle,’ ‘and everybody calls you “Tray-dell!” So I figured they couldn’t be yours.’

Fortunately, the colonel’s wife was present and had been out West long enough to have lost her preconceived ideas of superiority; and plenty long enough to read danger signs without needing spectacles.

‘Now leave Calamity to handle the baggage, Eileen,’ she said, stepping forward. ‘It couldn’t be in better hands. I talked with Dobe Killem last night and he left you a space in the front of Calamity’s wagon. I’ve had a camp-bed rigged in it and all you’ll need.’

‘Thank you, Monica,’ Eileen answered. ‘I suppose she is competent?’

Again Eileen had more luck than she deserved, for Calamity had never heard the word ‘competent’ and did not know what it meant. The Colonel’s wife did know and hurried to assure Eileen that Calamity was quite competent.

‘You couldn’t be in better hands,’ she finished.

‘Lay hold of those fancy do-dads, boys,’ Calamity said. ‘And don’t scratch ‘em up, they belong to a lady.’

‘That woman is insufferable!’ Eileen gasped as Calamity and the men walked away with her baggage.

‘She probably feels the same way about you, although I don’t think she’d express it in that way.’

‘She’s—she’s——’

‘She’s unique,’ the colonel’s wife replied. ‘There’s only one Calamity Jane, my dear.’

‘I would imagine that was one too many,’ Eileen sniffed.

‘Look, Eileen.’ said the older woman, laying a hand on the other’s sleeve. ‘This isn’t Boston. People out here don’t care that you come from the best Back Bay stock, that your father is a Congressman and that you have two uncles who are generals. It’s what you are that counts with a girl like Calamity. I don’t often give advice, except to young wives going out to their first frontier post, but I’d advise you to make friends with Calamity. You could learn a lot.’

‘I’ll remember your advice,’ Eileen promised coldly.

‘I doubt it,’ smiled the colonel’s wife. ‘Goodbye, my dear, and good luck—you’ll probably need it.’

Stiff-backed and tight-lipped, Eileen stamped off after her baggage. Nor did her annoyance lessen when she found Molly Johnson standing by the side of the wagon into which her belongings were being loaded.

‘Asked Molly here to ride with us this morning,’ Calamity remarked in a tone which implied she did not give a damn whether Eileen objected or not.

‘If you think there won’t be room, I’ll go back to my own wagon, Mrs. Tradle.’ Molly remarked, being more susceptible than Calamity to atmosphere and realising Eileen did not approve.

‘Shucks, there’s more’n room for the three of us on my wagon,’ Calamity put in. ‘Ain’t none of us that fat. Hop aboard, gals, and we’ll be all set to roll.’

Turning, Eileen stared up at the wagon’s box and found it to be higher than she imagined. Of course, the other wagon had been high, but supplied a step-ladder to allow her to mount. She watched Calamity climb the spokes of the front wheel and hop lightly aboard.

‘Here, Molly, take hold!’ Calamity ordered, extending her hand to the little blonde, then glared at the freighters who hung around in the hope of seeing a well-turned ankle. ‘Get the hell to your wagons or I’ll peel the stinking hides offen you.’

Which caused a rapid departure for the men knew better than to cross their Calamity at such a moment. Molly, with Calamity’s help, made the climb on to the box and took her seat. Being on her dignity, Eileen declined assistance.

‘I’ll manage,’ she stated as Calamity offered a none-too-clean hand.

‘It’s your notion, not mine,’ replied Calamity calmly and sat down.

Eileen tried to climb aboard without help, but could not manage it. However her pride refused to allow her to ask for assistance.

‘Hey, Calam!’ yelled the man in the wagon behind them. ‘Get rolling.’

‘Do you want help, or shall I have a couple of the boys come boost you up?’ Calamity asked and bitterly Eileen conceded defeat.

After being helped on to the box by a pull from Calamity’s strong arms, Eileen sat down hard and looked into what would be her home for the next four weeks or more. Although the rear of the wagon carried a load of wooden boxes, a piece at the front remained clear, apart from her baggage and a camp-bed—and a war-bag, bed-roll and a wooden box of battered aspect which certainly did not belong to her.

‘Don’t worry,’ Calamity remarked, seeing the way Eileen eyed the latter. ‘I sleep under the wagon most nights.’

Already the wagon train had started to roll, following the wagon master’s vehicle in single file. Killem’s outfit would bring up the rear and it only remained for the cavalry escort to make its appearance. Which it did, bringing an exclamation of surprise and amazement from Calamity.

With Bigelow at their head, a force of twenty troopers under a lieutenant and Sergeant Muldoon swept from the fort. Only they looked like they were riding a general’s review, not handling an escort duty through wild country. Each man wore his regulation uniform blouse over his shirt and their short-legged boots had a shine to match the glint of their brass work. More than that, each man carried a sabre in addition to his carbine and revolvers; a thing which, artists’ impressions or not, rarely if ever went into action against the horse-Indians of the plains.

‘Land-snakes!’ Calamity gasped. ‘Just lookit old Paddy Muldoon there. My, don’t he look right elegant and becoming all togged up in his shiny best. Say, they must be expecting good buffalo hunting, way they’re toting them over-growed carving knives along.’

‘Those are sabres!’ Eileen answered.

‘Do tell. What do they use ‘em for, ‘cepting looking fancy?’

‘They fight with them!’

‘Whooee!’ Calamity gasped, although she knew well enough what a sabre was for. ‘I’d sure as hell hate to tangle with a Cheyenne or Sioux buffalo lance with one of them things in my hand.’

Not wishing to encourage familiarity, Eileen let the matter drop and Calamity stopped talking as she prepared to start her wagon rolling.

‘Wagon roll!’ Killem roared.

‘Hang on, gals,’ Calamity warned. ‘And don’t blush if I have to do some cussing. These hosses are common cusses like me and don’t take to soft talking.’

The wagon ahead started and Calamity swung her whip, yelling to her horses. She gave her full attention to the team as it took up the strain on the harness, and flicked the centre near-side horse with the tip of her whip to make sure it did not shirk its share of the load. With a lurch, the big wagon began to roll, but Calamity gave her horses a blistering string of profanity just to let them know she was still around. At last the team settled down and Calamity relaxed, turning with a grin to Molly.

‘Wasn’t that a party last night?’

‘Did you enjoy it?’ asked Molly.

‘I always enjoy a good—dance,’ Calamity answered with her reckless grin. ‘That Beau Resin’s got his points, Molly, gal. If you see what I mean and I reckon you don’t.’

An angry flush crept to Eileen’s cheeks as she read an implication into the words that Calamity had not meant to be there. On the way West Eileen had shown some considerable interest in Resin and thought Calamity knew of this. Eileen took it that Calamity knew of the friendship and tried to annoy her by hints at a very close relationship with the big scout.

‘I really enjoyed myself last night,’ Molly admitted, seeing the expression on Eileen’s face and changing the subject—or so she hoped—to safer ground.

‘Sure,’ grinned Calamity. ‘I saw you and that bow-necked shiny-butt.’

‘Wade’s not bow-necked, or a shiny-butt!’ Molly put in hotly. ‘He’s just unfortunate in having been assigned to the Quartermaster Corps, but he’s hoping for a transfer when he reaches Fort Sherrard and—’

Molly’s defence had come just a shade too quickly and her cheeks reddened as she saw the tolerant smile on Calamity’s face, so stopped her details of the life of Wade H. Bigelow, frustrated captain of the Quartermaster Corps.

Once more Eileen breathed her annoyance; for she had hoped to become much better acquainted with Bigelow during the trip to Fort Sherrard and saw her chances going out of the window in the face of the pretty,
single
schoolmarm’s competition. Naturally Bigelow would prefer an unmarried girl, with its attendant possibilities, rather than squiring an officer’s lady which could only pass mild, innocent flirtation with the gravest risks to his career.

To give her credit, Eileen had no intention of extending her friendship with either Resin or Bigelow beyond the mildest flirtation. She loved and was loyal to her husband and reared in the strictest Back Bay Boston traditions—which were about as strict as one could get. So her interest in both men was more mercenary than licentious. Resin had been third from the top in the wagon train’s hierarchy during the trip from the East and the two higher members of the social scale were both married, with their wives along. Bigelow, as commander of the military escort, now was the head man. All her life Eileen had tried to be around the top people, not out of snobbery but because she had been born into that class. She knew the value of friendship with men in high places as an adjunct for obtaining her own way. So she planned to be known as the escort of the leader of the train; it was always a good thing to be.

Only it appeared that Molly, who Eileen had previously regarded as a rather plain, sexless little mouse, was cutting the ground from under her feet one way and the coarse, common, vulgar Calamity Jane taking her place in the other.

All in all the earlier stages of the drive were not happy for Eileen. In the course of her talk, Calamity let it slip out that she had appropriated Bigelow’s trout; which further annoyed Eileen who had been offered a supper from the fish and was disappointed not to receive it after hearing so much about the taste of fresh-caught squaretails. She resisted all attempts to make peace, snapping out chilling answers until Molly’s even temper started to wear thin and Calamity sat debating to herself whether to boot the officer’s lady from the wagon box.

Fortunately for Eileen, before Calamity reached a decision on the matter there came an interruption. Muldoon galloped his horse up from the rear and pulled in alongside Calamity’s wagon. After mopping his sweat-streaked face with an enormous bandana, he grinned at the girls.

‘The top of the morning to yez, ladies,’ he greeted.

‘Sure and ‘tis elegant yez look, Pathrick, me darlin’,’ replied Calamity. ‘If ‘twas Indian country, sure they’d see yez coming five miles off with the flash of yez fancy buttons.’

‘Elegant!’ answered Muldoon, snorting like an old bull buffalo faced with a pack of Great Plains wolves. ‘It’s the idea of that bow-neck—’

‘Now hush up there, Paddy,’ grinned Calamity. ‘Can’t you see I’ve got a lady aboard. Anyways, that shavetail from Connel’s been out enough to know better.’

‘And so he does; for hasn’t he had the teaching of Pathrick James Muldoon to show him what’s right. Sure, we’d be riding in comfort but for that—’

‘Sergeant!’ Eileen snapped. ‘Do you usually cut down your officers before civilians?’

Stiffening into a brace, Muldoon looked at the young woman. ‘No, ma’am. Only Calamity isn’t a civilian at all—’

‘Aren’t you going somewhere on duty?’ Eileen interrupted coldly.

‘That I am, ma’am,’ Muldoon answered.

Anger glowed in Calamity’s eyes as the burly sergeant sent his horse along the line of wagons. Eileen met Calamity’s stare without flinching and it appeared that an open clash could not be avoided.

‘Will we see any buffalo this trip, Calam?’ Molly asked mildly.

‘Huh?’ Calamity grunted, then smiled at the little blonde. ‘We might.’

Eileen decided that having two enemies might be a mite more than she could handle, so reckoned she ought to make her peace with one of them. Of course, there could only be one choice. While Molly Johnson was in employment, schoolteaching stood on a different plane to other kinds of female labour; and Molly was socially acceptable both by birth and education. With that in mind, Eileen turned and smiled in her most winning manner at the blonde.

‘My father came out here hunting last year, with another congressman,’ she said, deciding to show Calamity that she possessed a string of imposing relatives, ‘and my uncles, Generals Brackstead and Porter. They all shot several buffalo.’

‘Never could stand these dudes coming here and gunning down poor fool critters then leaving the meat to rot,’ Calamity put in.

‘Nobody asked you!’ Eileen spat out. ‘I’ll thank you to continue driving and mind your own business.’

‘Yeah!’ snorted Calamity. ‘Well, you can g—’

‘I think I’ll go to my own wagon.’ Molly interrupted. ‘It’s humiliating to see two grown women acting like children,’

‘I assure you, Molly—’.

‘Danged if she didn’t start—’

Both girls started to speak at the same moment, stopped and glared at each other then relapsed into silence.

‘Of course, I could talk with one of you for, say ten minutes, then turn to the other,’ Molly remarked, hoping the introduction of a light note would break the hostility.

‘Don’t put yourself out for me!’ Eileen snapped.

‘I got work to do!’ Calamity snorted. ‘Blasted dudes coming out here and shooting up the country.’

‘I always say a woman should dress like one!’