The Cherokee Trail Part 16

"We used to go out and pick up old bones, buffalo bones, antelope, anything like that. When pa got a wagonload he'd drive it into town and sell it."

"Sell bones? Who would want some smelly old bones?"

"They weren't smelly! They were old. They grind them up for fertilizer and some other stuff. I don't know what-all."

"People bones?"

"No, silly. Buffalo bones, most of them. There were some others. One time pa found a tusk, like from an elephant? Like you see in pictures? He told some people in Denver about it, but they wouldn't come to look. Said it was nonsense. Pa sold it to a peddler for twenty dollars."

"Twenty dollars? For an old bone?"

"It was a tusk. Ivory. Pa said it was probably worth more, but twenty dollars was a lot of money, and he didn't know of anybody who wanted it. Pa said he could eat good for two months on twenty dollars."

Wat stopped suddenly, picking up a piece of stone almost as large as a man's fist. It was chipped along one edge. "See this here? Indians chip off flakes of stone to make hide sc.r.a.pers. After they skin a buffalo, they use these to sc.r.a.pe off the fat on the underside."

"Oh...look! I found an arrowhead!" She held it up for his inspection.

"You sure did!" Wat was pleased. Suddenly his expression changed. "Look! Look yonder!"

He pointed to a track just beyond where she had found the arrowhead. It was a boot track, a large boot track.

"What is it?" Peg was puzzled.

"Ssh!" He gestured for silence. "Look there! It's fresh!" His voice was low but intense. "That was made this mornin'!"

"How do you know?" Disbelief was obvious in her tone.

"Look," he said. "It rained some last night. Not much, but some. See how the ground is speckled by the big drops? And the wind blew, too.

"Well, there's no speckles in that track, and the edges are sharp and clear."

"Maybe Mr. Fenton was over here."

"Ridge? Naw, he won't take a step out of the area least he has to or there's a fight shapin' up. He makes like he's scared an' doesn't want to get into a fight, but you just try keepin' him out of one. That ol' codger would tackle a grizzly and give him first swat! No, siree! I know who made that track! It was Scant Luther!"

"Wat? Let's go home. I'm scared." Then she said, "How could you tell it's his track? It's just an old boot track!"

"I seen his tracks many's the time. See there? That patched place? He fixed that himself. And this place where the heel's run down? He walks like that. You watch him."

"I don't ever want to see him. Wat, let's go home."

"We can't. Least, I can't. I got to see what he's doin', and you can bet your hide he's up to no good. He hates your mama."

"What can we do?"

"Foller him a little ways. See where he's goin', then tell Ridge or Temple Boone."

Eagerly, he started casting about for tracks. "He's got a long stride, bein' big like he is. Stay behind me now."

"What difference does his stride make?"

"Tells you where to look for the next step. About two and a half feet, I'd guess." Wat looked around, then suddenly pointed. "There! In the sand alongside that rock. See? He stepped on the rock, but his foot slid off a mite and made that mark in the sand. Come on, but be very quiet! And don't talk!"

Wat moved swiftly. Scant Luther, not expecting to be trailed, had made no attempt to cover his tracks. He walked swiftly, taking long strides, and if occasionally he stepped on rocks, it was simply because it was easier.

Wat stopped suddenly, and putting his lips close to her ear, he whispered, "I smell smoke!"

He started on, then stopped and whispered again. "If you have to run, run uphill. The station's right over this ridge, and besides, you can run uphill faster'n he can. On the level, he'll catch you. Goin' uphill, he's too heavy!"

They started on, tiptoeing through the sand, slipping through the brush to make no sound. Peg was scared, but she was excited, too. This was fun! She had never done anything like this before. What would mama think? And Matty?

Suddenly, Wat lifted a hand. Too late! She was too close behind him, and he stopped so abruptly that she b.u.mped into him, staggering him into a dry bush.

Scant Luther, crouching over his campfire, looked up, right into her eyes.

With a gruff roar, he lunged to his feet, staggering a little. Peg was off like a rabbit, running up the steep hill, dodging brush and rocks. Behind her, she could hear Scant's big boots scratching gravel, but she feared to look back.

Off on her left and a little ahead of her, Wat was scrambling up the same steep hillside. He was just pa.s.sing a big rock- He stopped abruptly and threw himself behind the rock. "Help me!" he yelled.

Scrambling, she got behind the rock. It moved, it tilted, and suddenly it began to roll, a slow, ponderous roll; then it fell free and started downhill, leaping and bounding, right at Scant Luther!

He heard it, looked up, eyes bulging. Then he gave a great leap to one side and hit the hillside rolling. Down he went, the boulder tumbling past him, missing by a hair's breadth.

Scant started to rise, staggered, and fell again.

"Quick!" Wat said. "The other one!"

Running after him, Peg threw herself behind a second, somewhat smaller rock. Down it went, leaping and bounding, followed by a torrent of small rocks, some of them leaping high in the air as they toppled and fell.

"Come on, let's run!" Scrambling, they went up the hill and, breathless, paused at the top, hand in hand, to look back.

From where they now stood, they could no longer see Scant Luther, only dust rising from the hillside.

"Let's go," Wat said. "I should never have brought you out here."

"Mama will be angry."

"We've got to tell her," Wat said. "She's got to know he's over there."

Matty came to the door to throw out some wash water just as they came into the yard. She stopped, looking at them.

"So it's trouble you've been makin'?"

"How did you know?" Peg asked.

"Sure it stands out all over the two of you! A blind man could see it. Now come here an' tell me. What is it you've done?"

As she spoke, Ridge Fenton came to the door, a piece of apple pie in his hand. As they explained, he began to grin. "By the Lord Harry, I'd of give a pretty piece to've seen that! Ol' Scant a scramblin' for his life!" He slapped his leg, his mouth stuffed with pie. When he could talk again, he said, "Too bad one o' those rocks didn't bust him on the head!"

Mary, preparing her supply list, listened, half in anger, half relief. Then she got up and came to the door. "Wat, first I want to thank you for getting Peg safely home, but don't you ever do that again! She is not to leave the yard without telling me. Do you understand? You both might have been killed by that awful man!"

"Yes'm," Wat said sheepishly. "I'm sorry, ma'am. It was only a little way, and I didn't reckon anybody was around."

"He's gone by now," Fenton said. "He knows we know, and he don't know but what Boone is around. Boone would go huntin' him, sure as shootin'."

"I don't want you to go, Ridge," Mary said. "We want you here."

"Now don't you worry yourself about that, ma'am. I just don't cotton to goin' off in the hills huntin' Scant Luther. If'n he brings trouble to us, I'll speak my piece, an' it'll be language he understands."

"We must all be careful," Mary said. "We do know he is around, and Wat? I want to thank you for discovering him."

"He's a good boy," Matty said when she came inside. "You cannot blame them, children as they are. It's only natural they should go pokin' about, and certainly I did it myself.

"We had no outlaws or Indians about, but we had high cliffs along the sh.o.r.e and the sea and the caves in the cliffs where sometimes we went when the tide was out.

"Lookin' back, I can see it was fearsome risks we took, climbin' about in those caves like we done. It was a wonder the sea never trapped us there, and there were times when we scarcely made it out before the caves flooded. But that's the way with youngsters, mum."

After they were all inside, she went to the door herself and stepped out in the almost dark and stood in the shadow of the station, looking westward.

That was where the mountains were, higher mountains than she had ever seen, as high as the Alps but more of them, they said. Someday she must go there. She must take Peg and Wat and go to the mountains, yet even here there was something in the air that was different. It was so clear, so different from what she had been used to.

She watched the first stars come out, and suddenly she wished Marshall were there, standing beside her, just to feel with her, to realize with her that she was changing, and she knew what the change portended. She no longer longed to return to the plantation. To rebuild Harlequin Oaks...yes. She must do that. She had promised herself that, promised that to the memory of her father and to Peg.

For herself, she knew now it would never be enough, for she had changed. She had become a western woman.

Chapter 18.

JASON FLANDRAU'S FIRST instinct was to run, yet he had built too well here, and he had no desire to return to the old days of riding and hiding. Returning to Denver, he studied all aspects of his situation.

After all, it was one woman's accusation. Admittedly, he must forget any a.s.sistance from Preston Collier, for the latter would not risk his position and prestige backing a candidate whose reputation was tainted. All right, then, Collier must be forgotten. Who were Collier's rivals? Who were his enemies?

Flandrau had already discovered that people were reluctant to think evil of anyone who dressed and talked well and who maintained an outward appearance of respectability. He had a good singing voice, and like almost every boy of his time, he had gone to church regularly, if only to meet the girls, and he knew most of the hymns.

So he would continue on the course he had set for himself, careful to keep himself to respectable circles. He must develop a mine or ranch where he could hire men and so have contact with those he needed without arousing unwelcome curiosity.

Mary Breydon must, of course, be eliminated, but now it must be done by accident or by Indians. Traveling was rough, the horses often only half broken. There were many things that could happen, only he must make sure that one of them happened to her.

Scant Luther? If he acted against her, n.o.body would be surprised, and it would not be linked to Flandrau.

Scant...Indians...accident.

One or the other should provide an answer, and whatever accusations she made would quickly be forgotten. Now he must think, he must plan- Of course, there was Denver Cross, but Cross he wished to keep out of sight and out of trouble until he, Flandrau, became governor. Cross was no fool and too valuable a man to be wasted. He would be needed later.

Scant first...Cross could handle that or, better still, Jordy Neff. Jordy, as Flandrau had been quick to recognize, had a mean streak. He liked to prod about until he found something about which a man was sensitive and then work on it. It was a form of s.a.d.i.s.tic torture at which Neff was adept.

A few days later, pausing on the street near Neff but without seeming to notice him, Flandrau said, "See anything of Scant? I wonder how he likes being made a fool of by that woman?"

Neff chuckled. "He don't like it much. He's been muttering in his beard, making threats."

"He could save us a lot of trouble, Neff. Prod him a little."

Flandrau walked on up the street. There was that little ranch up the river. Maybe he could make a deal for it, a quiet place, out of sight, easily reached, and with trails heading back into the mountains.

His every instinct warned him that now was the time to leave. There were other places, other times. Yet there was in him a streak of stubbornness, a refusal to be defeated by a woman and the realization that he might never again find such a situation as he had come upon here.

He was not sanctimonious. He was simply quietly respectful. On several occasions, he had been asked to sing solos and had done so. He was not a great singer but had come from a family where there was much singing, and he had grown up around camp meetings and revivals, so all the hymns, the prayers, the quotations, came easily to him.

He was a man who believed in nothing, a man totally selfish, totally self-centered, completely ruthless. To be defeated by a mere woman was absurd. Preston Collier would have been useful, but he was not necessary. He would have Mrs. Breydon eliminated and would press on. So far, his name had not appeared in the newspapers, and he wanted it that way. If he could begin by winning a large number of voters, right at the gra.s.s roots, when his name was finally brought forward, he would have easy sailing. Carefully, he began considering his next move.

WHAT WAS NEEDED was a good rain. Not a piddling few drops but a rain, something to settle the dust, for at Cherokee dust was the enemy and the cause of much of the work that must be done. Every stage and every rider-by started up a cloud of dust, and it settled on everything.

Matty was alone, and she was baking. She loved baking and especially she liked making cookies, pies, and doughnuts. Doughnuts were new to her, for she had never seen one until she came to this land, but she liked making them and liked seeing them eaten. Coming from a large family of healthy boys, she knew what an appet.i.te was. Or she thought she did.

Then there was the day when the Indians came.

Mary Breydon had taken Peg and gone off to Laporte to pick up some things needed about the place. Ridge Fenton had gone hunting.

At breakfast, he had said, "I'm hungerin' for wild meat. I'm goin' to fetch some. Antelope, maybe, although I don't cotton to antelope. Too stringy, gets in my teeth. Buffler, that's what I want. Come right down to it, I'd rather have a nice fresh lion. Mountain lion. Cougar. Ain't no better meat anywhere than cougar meat."

He glanced across the table at Peg. "You got to kill 'em first. They're too lively to eat right off the hoof."

"Cougars don't have hoofs!" Peg said. "They have paws."

" 'Course they do! Maws, too. I'm that hungry for wild meat I could eat paw, maw, and the kittens. The whole batch." He pushed back from the table and wiped his mustache with the back of his hand. "You just set by. I'll take ol' Betsy out there an' run down a buffler, a deer, somethin' of the kind. Maybe I can back an ol' grizzly into a corner."

"A grizzly?" Wat stared at him. "n.o.body in his right mind wants to corner a grizzly!"

"Hate to do it," Ridge explained. "Really hate to do it! Them grizzlies, they know me. Once they see me comin', they know the end is near. Why some of them back up an' cry! They just cry like babies because they know when they see ol' Ridge a-comin' totin' ol' Betsy that their time has come.

"They know their days of free roamin' is over and they are about to become steaks an' mince meat. Ever eat a mince meat pie made from fresh grizzly? Ain't nothin' better.

"All summer long, that grizzly has been fattenin' up on nuts, berries, roots, and the like, mixed in with a fresh young buffler, maybe a papoose or two, so he's ready! I mean he's fat.

"Of course, I never kill a grizzly lest he's fat. Sometimes, when they are runnin' to get away, I have to run up beside them and pinch their ribs to see if they're fat enough. When I pinch 'em, they know why, an' they screech like banshees because they know what's comin', an' they are sorry for all those berries and nuts they been eatin'. Right then, they wished it was less."