The Cherokee Trail Part 12

Jason Flandrau's back was to them, but he felt a sudden chill. It was getting close, too close. Somebody would be apt to remember who had done that shooting and wonder if there was any connection. For a moment, he sat very still, carefully reviewing his past meetings with Longman.

Had they been seen together? He had tried to be careful, but there had seemed no reason to be too careful until now.

The worst of it was he would have to move with extreme care. If people were already wondering and anything else happened, they would start not only asking questions but looking for the answers.

Should he move out now? Leave Colorado at once, for Montana, perhaps? Or California? That was stupid. He had established himself here. They were talking of him for governor, perhaps for senator. He had been fortunate here and had fallen in with the right group at the right time. Such a coincidence might not happen again. Could he let one woman stand between him and the wealth that could be his by discreetly using his power as governor? And all the honor and position that would be his?

But what to do? His strong right hand was gone. At least he had not talked. Thoughtfully, he began considering the men who were left to him, the men from the old outfit. Most of them were simply brutes, tough, lawless men who were loyal enough as long as they had money to gamble and buy whiskey. They knew him, but none of them were in his confidence.

What about that young fellow, that friend of Turkey Joe's? He was, Longman had said, very good with a gun, and he was shrewd.

Jason Flandrau finished his meal, but he ate without appet.i.te. To attempt to kill Mary Breydon now would be stupid, but he could not afford to let her live.

He got up and walked into the street, standing there, looking about. He reached into his vest pocket and took out his watch, glanced at it, then returned it to his pocket and walked back to his office. Jordy Neff was waiting for him when he stepped in.

"That true what they're sayin' about Joe?"

"It is. Temple Boone killed him."

"Maybe I better go call on Mr. Boone. Turkey Joe was my partner."

"You were out at Cherokee with him? And you only saw one woman?"

"Woman and a boy-kid. It was John Tanner's boy."

"I don't know the name?"

"Owned him a ranch over yonder by Bonnar Springs. West of Owl Canyon. Had a few head of cows, some horses, but his place was a natural hideout, and there was a kind of natural rock fortress there, so some of the boys began usin' it for a hideout.

"Tanner didn't like it much, but there wasn't much he could do. Then, one day, one of the boys. .h.i.t the kid over some impudence, and Tanner objected. This man-it was Mody Mercer-he d.a.m.n near beat Tanner to death. Tanner crawled away, and a couple of days later, when he could walk, he came back with a gun. He hadn't much luck that way, either. Mercer killed him. A few days after that, the boy disappeared. Never saw him again until he showed up there at Cherokee."

"This Mercer now? Where's he from?"

"Missouri, or so I heard, but that doesn't mean much because around that time Missouri was a sort of a catch basin for anybody runnin' loose.

"The story was that he rode with b.l.o.o.d.y Bill Anderson. He's no gun hand, but he's mean. Shoot you in the back or kill you with an ax...anything."

Mody Mercer...a name to remember.

"Jordy? Stay away from Boone. Do you hear me?"

Neff stiffened. "Now look here-!"

"Neff, I need a few good men, men who can do what they are told and who know how to keep their mouths shut. I had hoped to have Joe Longman around, but since he can't be, I'd been thinking about you." Flandrau took two gold pieces from his pocket and placed them on the table. "It's a lot easier than punching cows or working in a mine and a lot safer than what that crowd at Bonnar Springs were doing."

Jordy Neff hesitated, thought of the three silver dollars in his pocket, and picked up the gold pieces. "What do I have to do?"

"Just be around, and when I take my watch out of my pocket with my left hand, meet me here, just like today, just like Turkey Joe told you."

Jordy Neff would be useful. He looked like a nice, clean-cut young man, and he was good with a gun. Maybe, in time, he would let him kill Temple Boone.

If he could. Temple Boone was, all agreed, very, very fast.

That was all very good, all very convenient, but the man who interested him was Mody Mercer, and that other man, only now recovered from his wound. The man they called Scant Luther.

Scant was drinking more than he should, and Scant was nursing a grudge.

WHEN THE SUN went down, Mary Breydon went back inside. Her shoulder was almost healed, although she was still wearing a bandage to cover the wound. It had barely split the skin but had been sore for days and hurt when she forgot and moved her arm too freely.

Turkey Joe Longman, they said his name was, would come no more, but who might be the next one that would be sent?

"It was well planned," Boone commented. "He'd had a horse waiting, but it was stolen before he could reach it. He had no choice but to make a fight."

He paused. "Do not think it was only for you, ma'am. He had attacked from ambush, and if we are to have a good life here, such things cannot be permitted. To have arrested him, had there been an officer present, would only mean that he'd be turned loose. Longman had a friend who would have protected him. However, he gave us no choice. It was kill or be killed."

"Will you have supper with us, Mr. Boone?"

"I will, ma'am, and gladly. Whether it is Matty or yourself who does it, you set the best table in Colorado."

"That's an exaggeration, Mr. Boone, but thank you."

When they were at the table, Peg said, "Mama, tell us about your home. I mean, when you were a little girl."

"I'm afraid Mr. Boone wouldn't want to hear all that. Maybe some other time-"

"On the contrary, ma'am. I'd be most interested."

"All right, I will if Matty will."

"My story would be nothing the like of yours, mum, but if it's my story you would hear, I'll tell it, as much as I can." She paused, cup in hand. "But you first, mum. It is your story we would hear."

"It is all gone now, the house where I was born and where we lived. My grandfather named it Harlequin Oaks when he finished it, and my family had lived there one hundred years before the big house was built.

"The first of us came there in 1660 when it was wilderness. He cut down logs and built a cabin and a barn and plowed land. He chose the site for the big house and cleared the land, leaving the fine big oak trees where they were. He had been an officer in the army, and he brought two of his men with him when he settled, and each of them took land nearby but worked for him.

"By the time I was born, all the building was done. We had fine horses and carriages-"

"Slaves?" Boone asked.

"Never! My ancestor who built the first cabin, he had been captured from a ship by Algerian pirates and had himself been a slave-"

"But he was a white man?"

"Yes, he was, but many whites were enslaved in Algiers, Tunis, and elsewhere. As for that, there had been slaves in Europe for a thousand years before ever they saw a black man.

"The Romans enslaved the Greeks and later the Gauls, the Jews, whoever they conquered. It was so all over the world, I'm told. When they conquered a people, they killed them or made slaves of them.

"My grandfather, though, he said slaves were too expensive. It was cheaper, he said, to hire men to do the work than to feed and clothe them the year around.

"Aside from the house, there were two barns for hay and wheat, four stables for cows, horses, and mules, the carriage house, a smoke house, and an ice house. There was also a walled-in spring.

"The brick for the house was made right on the place, and the lumber was cut there or in the mountains not far away. My great-grandfather and my grandfather supervised the work themselves, just as they did all the planting that was done."

"Were there many rooms?" Wat asked.

"Twenty-eight, I believe, in the main house. As you went in, the study was on the right, and there was a stair to the second floor on the left.

"One could walk straight through to the garden, but on the right of the hall was the parlor, on the left the dining room."

"Quite a place," Boone commented.

"My father loved to entertain, so we often had people staying with us, and on almost any evening we had from four to eight guests. When people traveled by carriage in those days, they often stopped with friends, and of course we had many of those who came up the Shenandoah Valley who were going on to Washington."

"You still have guests," Boone said, "only you have to share them with the Overland Stage Company."

Mary looked up at Matty, who had started to clear the table. "Now it's your turn, Matty."

"Another time," Matty said, "but 'twill be no such tale as yours, nor was I born in a house so grand but in a wee cottage with a thatched roof where we could look westward over the sea." She paused, dishes in hand. "My first memories were of me mother standin' lookin' off to sea, shadin' her eyes for a sight of m' father's boat.

"The sea gave us our livin', such as it was, but we dinna trust it to bring back those who sailed out upon it, and many's the poor lad from the village who sailed after fish and was seen no more, my father among them."

"He was a fisherman?"

"Aye, but a soldier before that. As a lad, he fought in Spain with Wellington and was at Waterloo with a brother of his on the side of Bonaparte. He saved a bit, my father did, and married late and bought the boat, and 'twas a good living we had whilst he lived and before the sea took him, and his boat, too. Only the sea gave us back the boat but not the man."

"On another night you must tell us, Matty." She turned to Boone. "And you, Mr. Boone? You've a story, I am sure. Will we hear it someday?"

He smiled. "What story could I tell? I know little enough of my people, although I've a memory of sitting by a field while my father plowed, the lines about his neck so he could have both hands for the plow. I remember the crops standing tall and my mother crying when the gra.s.shoppers took it all.

"I was a sagebrush orphan like Wat here. Cholera took my mother and father and my baby sister. My father was wanting to cross the plains to Oregon, but he lacked the money. He had six crow-bait cattle hitched to our old farm wagon, but no wagon train would accept him.

"That wagon would break down before you'd gone fifty miles if your stock didn't die first. We can't risk it, they all said, to have the wagon train waiting while you made repairs. It would be a risk for us all."

He pushed back from the table. "They were right, of course. We hadn't supplies enough for the trip. Only pa was figuring on hunting enough to feed us. He hadn't thought how the game would stay away from the wagon trails and he'd see nothing for days.

"Pa was a good hunter, a dead shot with a rifle and a hard worker, but it just wasn't enough. You have to have luck, too, and pa didn't have it. Year after year, I saw him whipped by flood, frost, drouth, and gra.s.shoppers, and always he'd come back and try again."

Long after the last coal-oil light was out, when only embers smoldered on the hearth, when brief flames made the shadows dance on the log walls, Peg whispered, "Mama? If that man had killed you, would I be a sagebrush orphan?"

"He did not kill me, Peg, and he won't."

"But if he had?"

She lay wide-eyed, staring up at the rafters. "Yes, Peg, I am afraid you would."

Later, she said, "Go to sleep, Peg. You'll be all right. Matty would take care of you."

After a long time, Peg whispered again, "And Mr. Boone? And Wat?"

"Yes, Peg. Mr. Boone and Wat, too. Now go to sleep."

Chapter 14.

WHEN MORNING SENT the first gray light through the window, she was up. She went to her purse and carefully counted over what money she had left. She had sold the pearls her father had given her when she became sixteen, sold them to buy their outfit.

Marshall had sold two horses he had managed to keep throughout the war, and they had come West, Marshall first and then Peg and herself. The little money she had was going all too fast, and she could not earn enough here to provide for Peg.

Realistically, she had to think of what would become of Peg if she were killed. People always had an idea such things never happened to them, but she knew otherwise, and it had happened to Marshall, the best, the bravest, the kindest of men.

Looking at the little there was left, she thought of the years before Peg would be a woman. And Wat, she must think of him, too, although he was a solid little fellow, already doing a man's work cheerfully and without question, seemingly glad to just have a home. But Wat was part of the family now.

He was a good boy, she thought, but too tight, too controlled, too reticent. He was learning to share, even wanting to share now that he was one of them.

If only she had some of the dresses she used to give away! If only she had the material, the needles, thread, b.u.t.tons! It was easy to mend and even to create clothing if one had the things to do with, all of which she had so taken for granted at Harlequin Oaks. She had only to wish and to speak and it was there, ready for her.

Her trunks! Of course, why had she not thought of them! They were in storage at the Brewsters', and she could write for them to be sent. Fortunately, to sew was one thing all young ladies learned. It was one of the things you did. Sewing, riding, music, were all considered things a young lady did well, and dancing, of course.

She smiled grimly. Who would have guessed that what served her best now was what her father would have expected from any stableboy! Yet when she walked through the barn and saw how orderly and efficient it all was, she blessed her father over and over again.

The trunks...she must send for the trunks. She could remake many of those dresses, some for herself, for Matty, and for Peg.

Matty was kindling a fire as she came out. Matty stood up. "Wat's gone for an armful of wood. Be careful, mum, if you're goin' outside."

"Be sure and save any newspapers, Matty. Sometimes the pa.s.sengers leave them behind. We know so little of what is happening in the war. Sometimes I feel ashamed, when they are all suffering so."

"We've troubles enough of our own, mum. There's been no papers, although I put by a book of Mr. d.i.c.kens's that was left behind, thinkin' the poor man who left it would be comin' for it. I used to read him in the newspapers. Mr. d.i.c.kens, I mean."

Matty paused. "You get no letters from home, mum?"

Mary's lips tightened; then she said quietly, "No, Matty. I am from Virginia, and most of my friends are with the South. My husband was a Union Army officer; my father was against secession. I am afraid many of my friends think me a traitor."

"I know little of the war, mum. I'd only just come over when the fighting began. Is it about slavery, then?"

"Not really, although that is a part of it. Mostly, it is about states' rights and whether the state or the nation shall control. I am ashamed to say I know less about it than I should.