How The West Was Won Part 5

French thrust out his hand. "I know you, too, Mr. Jones. Knew you when you were a saddle-maker."

"I made good saddles." Alien Jones spoke a little proudly. "There's a great feeling in it," he added. "Nothing better than turning a nice bit of work with good leather. I'll come back to it some day."

"Join us for dinner?" Cleve said to French.

"No, thanks. Got to be moving. Selling mules to folks bound for California, and I've about decided to go myself." He turned to Cleve, putting his gla.s.s down on the bar. "Want to come along? You could do well out there." "I know when I'm well off. I'll stay here."

When Gabe French was gone, Jones turned to Cleve, chuckling. "Do you know who he isa"that man you hired to pack you across the street? He's the biggest stockdealer in this part of the country. He's the richest man in town, if you skip old Choteau."

"I can see why he's rich," van Valen said. He put down his gla.s.s. "I'll take that dinner now, Alien."

"The food is better right here," Jones said, "but the best show is down the street. There's a new girl down there, just out from the East. She's really lovely. Dances, sings like an angel, plays the accordion. Her name is Prescott, Lilith Prescott."

The theatre-restaurant was crowded, but the waiter guided them to a table near the stage, for he recognized Alien Jones at once, and Cleve van Valen was obviously cut from the same cloth.

Cleve glanced around, thinking wryly that if his present bad luck held he soon would no longer be able to afford meals in such a place, or the gambling in the rooms at the Planters'. He would be forced to work the wolf traps or snap houses on the bluff over the river.

Anything but that. Discontentedly he watched the girls on the stage. The dancing was not particularly good, but the swirl of their petticoats was enticing, and his discontent turned to half-amused interest.

The food was excellent, and the Chateau Margaux was a vintage wine. He relaxed slowly. d.i.c.k Hargraves, already notorious on the river, joined them, ordering a second bottle of wine. "Wait until you see Lily," he said. "That girl's got something special."

Jones laughed. "Anybody can see that, but n.o.body seems able to find out how special it is." He gestured. "Here she comes."

Lilith moved with an easy, impudent grace. It was at once apparent that she had something the other girls did not have, for aside from her very real beauty and that impudence, she had style.

Her eyes swept the crowd, and she began to sing, leading the chorus in "Wait for the Wagon." Her dancing was far better than Cleve had expected. Certainly, wherever she had learned, her instruction had been good. He sat up abruptly, refilled his gla.s.s from the bottle, and watched. Cleve van Valen, who had seen dancing in Paris, Vienna, and Rome, could see that she knew a great deal more than her present routine demanded. Somewhere, at some time, she had worked very hard to learn.

Curious, he watched her face. She was lost to all but the music ... and then their eyes met. Hers held his just for an instant, then moved on, away from him. Had she really seen him? The footlights were not overly bright, so she might have been able to see, and he was close to the stage. He had a feeling that she had seen him and had in that instant catalogued both himself and his friendsa"drifters, gamblers, ne'er-do-wells.

"I say three at most," Hargraves was saying.

"Three what?" Cleve asked.

"Petticoats ... Jones thinks she is wearing at least four."

"Four? I am sorry, gentlemen. She is wearing six."

"Six!" Jones exclaimed. "You're crazy, Van. It's all that lace that fools you.

She can't be wearing more than four."

Hargraves put down his gla.s.s. "You'd better not bet with him, Alien. From all I hear, Cleve's an expert on everything pertaining to the female of the species. Anyway, there's no way to prove it."

"Look." Cleve had scarcely taken his eyes from the girl on the stage. "I just stuck you for dinner, and don't mind doing you in a little more. I will lay you an even hundred she has not less than six petticoats on." "How would you prove it?"

"Go backstage and find out. Is it a bet?"

"If I go with you to check."

"Fair enough." Cleve got up. "Let's go!"

It was crowded backstage. Girls were coming and going in various stages of undress. There were no proper dressing rooms, simply shoulder-high screens, and behind each of these a girl was disrobing or changing costume. Cleve van Valen worked his way through the group with the a.s.surance of a man to whom no situation is entirely strange, and the two gamblers followed. Lilith Prescott was easy enough to find. She was behind a screen, only her head and the very top of her shoulders visible, while over her head hung an elaborate dress suspended by wires and prepared to be lowered about her. A wardrobe mistress stood outside the screen ready to take her clothing as it was removed. Cleve looked across the screen at the girl's pretty, somewhat flushed face and asked himself if he had really come backstage to satisfy a bet, or to see more of this girl? Was it because her glance seemed to have catalogued him and brushed him aside as of no importance? He smiled at the thought of his pride being injured by so slight a thing, but admitted that it nettled him. He was not, he believed, more than ordinarily vain, but he had been fortunate with the attentions of women, of all sorts and kinds ... and after all, what sort of girl would be dancing in such a place?

As he hesitated, awaiting the proper moment to ask his question, he heard someone say, "Oh, I beg your pardon!"

Glancing around, he saw a middle-aged man moving somewhat diffidently through the backstage crowd. Obviously, he was both confused by the disorder and embarra.s.sed by the visible extent of bare flesh and stockinged leg, but he persisted until he reached Lilith Prescott's screen. Hesitantly, he said, "Miss Prescott? Miss Prescott?"

She did not even look up. "Later."

"It's quite important, Miss Prescott. Ia""

"It's always important. The older they are, the more important it becomes."

A petticoat flopped over the edge of the screen, and Cleve lifted a finger. "Miss Prescott, you misunderstand. I am Hylan Seabury, attorney in the matter of Jonathan Brooks." Seabury paused. "Does he mean nothing to you?" "That old goat?"

"Well," Seabury said testily, "you evidently meant something to hun. He included you in his will."

She looked over the screen, startled. "He what?" Her eyes went past Seabury, meeting those of van Valen. She looked away.

A second petticoat flipped over the screen, then a third. Cleve's fingers registered them as they appeared. "I'm going to win, gentlemen. Not less than six."

As he spoke there was a momentary lull in the noise backstage and his voice sounded loud in the partial silence.

"You will have to go to California, Miss Prescott, to take advantage of the bequest, but if I were youa"" "You're not me. And I wouldn't go to California if John Jacob Astor willed me all of San Francisco." As she spoke the fourth petticoat flopped over the screen and was taken up by the wardrobe mistress.

Cleve's fourth finger came up. "See? That makes four. And my bet was not less than six."

"Mr. Astor has no such holdings in San Francisco, Miss Prescott. However, you will discover the yield from Mr. Brooks's holdings is not to be scorned. Definitely not."

The fifth petticoat appeared atop the screen, and the men whose task it was to lower the ornate costume cleared their lines.

"That's all, Mary. All right, boys."

"All?"

"You heard me. That's all!" She lifted her arms into the dress as it descended around her, moving her shoulders to settle the dress into place. "Yield, you said. Yield of what?"

"Gold, Miss Prescott. In fact, I am advised the property is considered quite a good one. Now, if you would like to sign these papersa"" "Did you say ... gold?"

"Precisely. The claim yielded thirty-five hundred dollars during the first week."

Lilith glanced past Seabury at Cleve van Valen, who was counting gold eagles into Jones's outstretched hand. "You win," Cleve said, "but d.a.m.n it, I'd have sworna"" "You did swear, but you lost. Not less than six, you said, and we all heard you."

Dropping the last coin into Jones's hand, Cleve heard Lilith saying, "For that much, I might even go to California."

Disgusted with his luck, Cleve turned away, and as he walked off, Lilith flopped the sixth petticoat over the screen, then stuck out her tongue at his retreating back.

Chapter 8.

It was night, and a distant glow upon the sky ... now, what would that be? Stars overhead, and somewhere, not too far off, a dog barking. No sound but the creak of his saddle and the clop-clop-clop of his horse's hoofs. The air was cool, and he thought he could smell the river.

Cleve van Valen knew he was seven kinds of a fool, starting off after a girl who might not even have come this way. Had he not heard her say she would not go to California? Still, when the lawyer mentioned gold she was interested ... and so was he.

Cleve took a long, slow look at himself and did not like what he sawa"a grown man who had wasted fourteen or fifteen years of his life gambling, and who was now searching for a girl simply because she had inherited a gold mine. And why? Because he hoped to marry her and so gain possession of the mine and its income. There was little in the past of which he was proud, yet nothing of which he was actually ashamed; but if he did what he had set out to do there would be reason for shame. If he could manage it at all ... and that was the joker in his little deck of cards, for Lilith Prescott had manifested not the slightest interest in him at any time.

She had glanced his way, seen him and the company he kept, and had ignored him from then on. And that was what rankled.

Yet the thought aroused amused irritation. What kind of a child was he to be irritated because she ignored him? He had been loved by women, and he had been hated by them, and once a girl had even tried to kill him, but none had ever been indifferent to him.

Was it that which disturbed him? Or was it the thought of losing a chance at all that gold?

She had cost him a hundred dollars because of one petticoat, and he intended to have his own back. So he told himselfa"and he lied in his teeth. He was going to try to marry Lilith Prescott, not because he loved her or even liked her type, but simply because he had failed at everything else and was looking for a soft spot to light before he got too old. And when a man faced up to such a decision it was not a very nice thing.

But how in G.o.d's world could he find one girl in a place as wide as the open West? Even such a girl as Lilith Prescott? Find her he must. In his pocket he carried three twenty-dollar gold pieces, and he owned the horse he rode. He had a pistol in his belt holster, and a few clothes wrapped in a blanket behind his saddle. He had no rifle, no experience with the frontier, and nothing to warrant his going west.

He had suddenly, on a mere whim, tied his future to this girl with her legacy; yet what else could he have done?

He was not even sure she had come this waya"only that she had quit her job and disappeared into thin air. But coming on the heels of the legacy, it was a likely supposition. Around Independence and its neighboring area, gathered the people who were moving westward in their wagons and on horseback. There they gathered, arranged themselves into wagon trams, repaired equipment, and generally prepared for the long journey ahead of them. Suddenly van Valen topped out on a rise and drew up in amazement. Before him, the wide plain stretched toward the river, and in the center of that plain was a town with lights ablaze, although it was past midnight. But it was not the town that surprised him, nor even the fact that it was lighted at this late houra"it was the campfires around.

Even the low hills had their encampments, and it seemed as if there must be a campfire for every star in the sky. Wherever he looked, the night was sparkling with their lights, flickering, inviting.

Since he was a child he had heard tales of men who went west, and talk of others who planned to go, but never in his wildest imaginings had he dreamed of such an exodus as this appeared to be. They must have been gathering here for weeks. Undoubtedly a few venturesome souls had already headed out across the prairie that lay to the west, but still several days away. It was an hour later when he rode up to Bob Weston's blacksmith shop. There were other smiths in town, but this was the largest and most active, and it was a focal point for travelers planning to go west. Both a place of rendezvous and the place for the organization of wagon trains, it was always crowded. Here he would begin his inquiries.

A dozen anvils were clanging under the blows of hammers, the forges glowed with their fire, and the soot-darkened faces of the smiths reflected the red of the fire on their faces and bodies. At least twenty smiths were working, hammering out shoes for horses, shoeing them, or doing bits of ironwork for wagons. And this was the middle of the night!

A wagon rolled by, a woman on the seat holding a crying child, a man walking beside the wagon carrying an ox goad. But they were going west. Suddenly a hand grasped his stirrup. "You, is it? You're going west?" It was Gabe French.

"Thinking about it. How about you?"

"Pulling out tomorrow with the Roger Morgan Company, and I'll have four wagons. If you want to come along, see me before you join up. I could use an extra hand."

"I'll look around."

Gabe French lifted a hand and hurried away with his odd, bandy-legged walk. Cleve looked after him. "He's the one who will make it, boy," he said to his horse. "When you and I are still broke, he will own half of California." Under a torchlight across the street a man was operating a three-card monte layout. Cleve looked closer. It was Canada Bill. Riding on along the street, he watched wagons loading and pulling out on the prairie. Wherever he turned his attention there was activity, and there was talk. Never in his life had he seen so many men talking and using the identical words so often. It was talk of the trail, of the best wagons, of oxen, horses, or mules. There was speculation about Indians, about forts being established. They were rapt, excited ... they were men involved in a colossal binge, a gigantic migration, and West was the magic word. It was the "Open Sesame" to fantastic futures.

Turning his mount, he started back. He was dead-tired and had best find a place to bed down, and Colonel Noland's inn was just up the street. Then, just as he was again nearing the clangor of Bob Weston's blacksmith shop, he saw her.

She was deep in conversation with a tall, powerfully built man who was examining some whips laid out for sale on a table just outside the door of the blacksmith shop.

Drawing rein in the deep shadow near a building, he listened. The man was speaking. "You got a wagon, I suppose?"

"I can get one," Lilith replied.

"And a team?"

"Whatever I need, I'll get."

"You're married?"

"I am single, Mr. Morgan."

"Travelin' alone?"

"Yes."

"Not on my wagon train. A woman alone an' single, that puts deviltry into men. Gets *em all worked up, an' believe me, on these trains they're wild enough already."

"I shall keep to myself, Mr. Morgan, and I can take care of myself. After all," she added dryly, "any problem that is likely to arise will be one I have handled before."

"No doubt. But a woman of your sort? One day you'd find yourself in trouble and there'd be h.e.l.l to pay just figurin' out who."

Lilith's face went white. She caught up one of the whips and, taking a quick step back, she unfurled the whip in a businesslike manner. "Now," she said icily, "you repeat that, Mr. Morgan, and you'll get the horse-whipping you deserve."

Morgan laughed, but there was respect in his eyes. "Well, now. I like a woman with spirit, and I'd no right to speak as I did. I have an idea you'll do to take along." He took the whip from her hand. "This is the whip I'll want," he said, and tossed a coin on the counter.

Then he turned to Lilith again. "There's a woman named Clegga"Aggie Clegg. You might try getting her to join you, or vice versa. I'd be glad to take the two of you."

Cleve waited in the shadows until Lilith started away, then followed at a discreet distance. She walked with a purpose that indicated she knew where the Clegg woman could be found.

At the end of the street she turned toward several wagons standing on the prairie's edge. By torchlight a woman was loading a heavy crate into the back of a wagon.

When Cleve came within earshot he heard the woman saying, "Well, I don't know. I'd been hoping to make the trip with a husband, and almost caught me one last week."

"They tell me there are forty men to every woman in California. Look, Miss Clegg, I'd be willing to pay you."

"I don't want money, I want a man." Looking at Lil, she added, "You'll need one, too, before this trip's over."

Gently, Cleve touched a heel to his horse and walked him forward. They looked up at the sound.

"Good evening, ladies, a very good evening to you. Miss Prescott? Cleve van Valen, at your service. At your command, if you will, from here to California." "Thanks," Lilith replied brusquely. "Whatever it is you're offering, we don't need."

Agatha Clegg wiped her hands on the front of her ap.r.o.n. "Speak for yourself, honey. Like I said, before this trip is overa"" Cleve interrupted. "Perhaps you do not understand, Miss Prescott. Ia"" "I understand, all right. And I know a tinhorn when I see one." "I'm offering an honest day's work for an honest day's pay."