Wind Walker (37 page)

Bass could hear the soft murmur of words but could not make any of them out as Amanda raised his head slightly from the pillow and propped his shoulders against her side.

“He says thank you, Pa.”

That tugged at his heart something fierce. “You tell ’im that’s what we do for family, Amanda.”

“Before you got here, he said something about the sun,”
she continued, then put her ear down to Roman’s mouth again. “Said you kept his face outta the sun for a long time this morning. That what you did till I got there?”

“Yeah.”

Burwell murmured more, then she explained. “He said to thank you for that, but the sun really did feel good when it touched his face after he’d been so cold.”

Titus took a deep breath, then asked her, “He tell you … anything how they come to leave him out there?”

“No,” she answered. “He hasn’t said anything about what happened. I decided I would have to ask you what state you found him in.”

All the better to take some time afore that, was what he thought, but “Good” was what he said to her. “I’ll tell you ’bout it soon. Tell Roman get his rest now. We don’t want him lollygagging around much more’n he’s done awready.”

“Goodnight, Pa,” she said quietly.

“’Night, Amanda.”

“Goodnight, Gran’papa,” came a small voice.

“That sounded like you got a Lucas critter in there with you, Amanda.”

“It
is
me, Gran’papa!” and the little youngster giggled.

“Shshsh!” he hissed with a finger at his lips. “You can’t stay quiet in there so your pa can sleep, I’ll come drag you out here with me.”

This time the little boy’s voice came out a delicate whisper, “I’ll be quiet. Promise. Don’t take me away—I wanna stay with my hurt pa.”

“’Night, son.”

He had dropped the cover sheet and was turning away when Amanda’s voice drifted softly one more time through the back pucker hole. “Thank you, Pa. Thank you for saving Roman for us.”

“Thank you, Gran’papa,” said that dear little voice.

He stood there, feeling the tears course down his wrinkled, scarred cheeks. It was almost enough to fill a man’s heart to overflowing, listening to those quiet voices caress
him in the still of that starlit night. That’s what a man counted on his family for.

Late on the evening of that second day of goading the very most from Roman’s docile oxen, they had managed to straggle into the wagon camp on the headwaters of a narrow stream draining the northwest end of the rocky Bear River Divide.
^*
Three times that second day they had stopped just long enough to swap out the tired team for a fresh pair of the beasts. Midmorning. Noon. And again in midafternoon they made another rotation … desperately attempting to cover in faster time the same ground the train had crossed. Bass didn’t know a damn thing about these dull-witted brutes, but he was sure they could make up more than the time they lost during the many changes with stronger, fresher animals setting the pace. His gamble paid off as they pushed each team to their lumbering limit through that second hot and waterless day.

When the first emigrants on the outskirts of camp spotted the Burwell wagon swaying down the long slope toward the grassy, lush camping ground, Bass watched them turn and hold up hands to their mouths—shouting for the others to look on their back trail. The sun had already set, but it was still light enough to recognize the faces of friends and allies as the families came streaming out of that orderly camp, racing for the lone wagon and that dusty menagerie walking or riding on both sides of the rumbling wagon. Behind them came the extra, weary oxen, a few head of Roman’s mules, and those packhorses—the whole herd of stock tended by young Lemuel and Flea.

Men whipped hats off their heads as they came rushing forward, waving them back and forth aloft, while women and girls came lurching up the long slope, their graceful movement hampered by the long, layered impediments of skirts and petticoats that easily tangled between their legs or snagged on the calf-high sage.

“Lookit that, will you?” Shad said, his cracked lips crusted with a coating of fine dust. “This here family’s got some good friends.”

“Lord’s sake! Wh-where you been for two days?” hollered the one named Pruett, the first to reach the yoke.

Licking his bleeding lips, Titus jabbed his thumb back to the wagon. “Didn’t that bastard Hargrove tell you folks nothing o’ what happened to Roman?”

Fenton lunged up at Pruett’s elbow and said, “We didn’t know a thing till after we was in camp more than an hour or so last night.”

“Any one of you ask after the Burwells?” Shadrach inquired.

Iverson peered at the wagon while he answered the horsemen, “Goodell was the first. I s’pose we all figured the wagon was way back in line till none of us could remember seeing any of you making camp.”

Ryder spoke up, “That’s when Carter an’ me rode a circuit round the camping ground to have ourselves a look.”

“Didn’t find you,” Dahlmer confessed. “We knowed something bad had come of it.”

Titus squinted into the mid-distance, looking for some sign of the train captain or his hired horsemen. “Something bad did come of it—”

“Everyone alive?” Truell asked as he trudged past the trappers and was about to reach the front of the wagon box.

“Barely,” Sweete replied.

“We’ll have some company soon,” Titus announced from his perch.

The emigrants hushed and turned to find Hargrove and four of his men emerging from the center of the encampment on horseback.

Hoyt Bingham turned back to look up at Bass. “Hargrove said it was likely you’d not find Roman alive.”

“Did he now?”

Bingham nodded. “Figured a rattler got him when he was out looking for a milk cow what wandered off.”

“That so.” Nodding slightly, Scratch kept his eyes on the
approach of those five horsemen as he said, “It were a snake that bit Roman. Fact be, least three of ’em.”

“Three snakes?” shrieked Murray.

“Two-legged ones,” Titus explained. “Near beat the man to death, then strung ’im up to a tree—fixin’ to let the desert finish him off the rest of the way.”

The crowd of women, children, and those men murmured a moment, then fell silent. It was quiet enough to hear the gentle breeze waft through the sage and dwarf yellow pine, to hear the clop of those horses’ hooves as the riders plodded up the slope behind their leader. The emigrants parted for Hargrove and the quartet.

The wagon captain took off his hat, his face grave with worry as his eyes settled on Bass. “Burwell? Is he—”

“He’s alive,” Titus interrupted. “More today than he was yestiddy mornin’ when you rode off with your train.”

Hargrove slammed the hat back down on his head. “I had every faith in the world that you’d find him out looking for his cow and that you’d be right behind us.”

“You an’ these here spineless back-shooters knowed good an’ well we wouldn’t find Roman Burwell out looking for his cow, Hargrove.”

For an instant the man’s eyes glared into the old trapper’s. “Perhaps you can explain your allegations to me later, in private … so that we don’t ruin this group’s celebration at your return to the fold!” He tore the big hat from his head again and whipped it around in the air, shouting, “This is glorious news! The Burwells have rejoined us!”

At that moment Amanda appeared at the front of the wagon, her hands gripping the backboard of the seat so tightly her knuckles were white.

“Hargrove!” she screamed accusingly. “You nearly killed my Roman!”

His mouth hung open a moment as the crowd watched in stunned silence. “I only did what any good wagon captain would have done, Mrs. Burwell,” he explained in the most syrupy of tones. “How was I to know that your husband would not be collected within minutes of our departure and
you would catch up to us by midday, by last night’s camp at the latest?”

Scratch could see his daughter was near to tears as he urged his horse to the wagon.

She said, “Y-you didn’t give a good goddamn for us, Hargrove! Didn’t send no one back to see about us!”

Standing in the stirrups and reaching out, Scratch grabbed one of her rough, callused hands. “Hush now, daughter. We’ll see to his bunch later.”

“Thank you, sir,” Hargrove exclaimed in his booming voice. “Yes, Amanda—we’ll all see to this matter later. For now, just knowing your husband and family are safe is cause to celebrate! I say we ask the musicians in this outfit to bring out their instruments straightaway!”

The crowd turned back to look at the gray-headed horseman who took off his big hat and wiped the back of a hand across his brow just below the faded, sweat-soaked bandanna. Bass quickly flicked his eyes to Shad, then turned back to the ousted wagon boss.

“Awright, Hargrove,” he said as Amanda disappeared into the wagon, “I say let’s do make us a lot of noise tonight!”

The music and laughter were good and noisy that night after dark, enough celebration to cover a wake for the dead.

Titus and Shad left their wives at the Burwell wagon with extra guns, instructing the women to keep a weapon trained on anyone who came near until Amanda could declare if they were friend or foe. Those dogs he wanted them to tie up would serve as guards too, announcing the approach of any danger. Part of Scratch wanted the women to go right ahead and blow a few holes through some of Hargrove’s men for what they had done to Roman and his family. But, there was an even bigger piece of his heart that desired to take that revenge for himself.

Moonrise would be coming all too soon. With that milky orb only two or three days from filling itself out, the two of them had to be about this bloody business of retribution before the moon came up, shedding its light upon this barren high ground just west of the Bear River Divide.

They didn’t know which three of Hargrove’s seven had been in on the beating of Roman Burwell, which of them had left the farmer strung up for dead. And Titus didn’t figure he could recognize the three who showed up at the wagon with Hargrove the morning Roman was missing … but then, it
really didn’t matter. All seven were the same. Just different faces, different names. But like most all scaly critters that slithered through a man’s life, these seven were bad from the first jump.

“’Least two of ’em gonna be out watchin’ Hargrove’s animals,” Titus said as he and Shad moved like whispers on the periphery of the dancing, clapping, jubilant emigrants.

Bitter as he was, Scratch couldn’t blame these simple folk for climbing right aboard when it came to a celebration, so starved were they for music and joy and happy abandon. Besides, with so much gleeful merrymaking, all he and Sweete had to do was show their faces here and there before they slipped into the dark to see about finding a couple of those bullies tending to their employer’s herd of animals. As they walked around the edge of the celebrants, he managed to pick out three more of the hired men. In this group of homespun emigrants, the bully-boys stood out like whores stepping through the doorway of a country church. Most times they were off by themselves, since most of the farmer families did not much want to have anything to do with the single men who eyed their young daughters and never lent a hand with creek crossings, the roundup of strays, or a settler struggling with a troublesome animal when it came time to hitch up for the day.

“Three of ’em,” Bass whispered as they eased back into the dark behind a wagon. “Means Hargrove’s got more’n two men watching his herd tonight, or we ain’t picked out all the weasels back at the hurraw by the fires.”

“That leaves four of ’em out there,” Sweete said. “Two for you, an’ two for me.”

Thirty yards out from the last wagon, they stopped and listened to the night sounds, letting their eyes grow accustomed to the starlit darkness here in the hour just before moonrise.

“Where’s Hargrove camped?” Shadrach asked.

Titus pointed. “I figger his herd be down in that patch of grass by the crik.”

“That’s where we’ll find us some critters to skin.”