We Were There at the Oklahoma Land Run

by Jim Kjelgaard

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  _Plains City_

  Pete and Jed were asleep in the wagon. Completely enchanted by thenight, Alec and Cindy sat outside.

  A big round moon hung so low in the sky that it seemed to roll like awagon wheel right across the tops of the hillocks. There couldn'tpossibly be such a moon anywhere except in Oklahoma. It shed so muchlight that Cindy thought she could count every hair on the picketedhorses and mules. She could see the grass plainly, and had she had abook, she would have been able to read it.

  But, though it was almost as light as day, it was wholly different. Themoon's was a ghost light, and it was easy to imagine that witches andelves were abroad in it. Cindy shivered and hugged her knees.

  "Do you know what I'd do if we weren't going to Plains City tomorrow?"she asked Alec.

  "What would you do?"

  "I'd go on a ghost hunt!" Cindy exclaimed.

  "It would be fun," Alec agreed, "but we are going, and we'd better getsome sleep."

  "I couldn't possibly sleep!"

  But she slept the instant she drew the blanket around her, and when shewoke the sun was shining and Pete was cooking breakfast. Plains City wasonly two miles away, it would take just a short time to record theclaims, and there was no need to get up before daylight. Cindy jumpedout of the wagon, and Alec grinned at her.

  "Thought you couldn't sleep?"

  "Pooh!" Cindy made a face at her brother. "How do you know I did?"

  "Maybe that was someone else snoring?"

  "I _don't_ snore!"

  "Better get some breakfast into you," Pete said.

  Everyone else had finished breakfast. While Cindy ate, Pete and Jedstaked the work horses and mules in fresh grass and saddled Sunshine andthe roan ponies. Alec started washing the dishes, and as soon as shewas finished, Cindy handed him her plate.

  "Hey!" he protested. "You might at least wash your own!"

  "I have to pack a lunch."

  "Not today," said her father, who had come back and overheard."Everyone's been working hard, and everyone deserves a rest. We'll eatin a restaurant."

  When everything was ready, Pete mounted his roan pony and Jed swung upon Sunshine. After an argument, which Cindy won, about who was going tosit the saddle and hold the reins, Alec and Cindy rode double onSparkle. The mules and horses had also worked hard, and they needed arest.

  They rode at a walk across the grasslands. Everywhere, in what only ashort time ago had been such a lonely place, were sod houses andgardens. Not all the homesteads had men on them, but nearly all hadgrazing horses, mules, or oxen, and there were a few cattle. Then theymounted a hillock, looked down on Plains City, and halted inastonishment.

  "Ooh!" squealed Cindy.

  Alec said, "Gosh!"

  "Beats all!" Jed Simpson exclaimed.

  "Sure does!" Pete seconded.

  Instead of a town or village, they looked down upon a city. True, forthe most part it was a city of tents. But there were some woodenbuildings, well-planned streets, streams of wagons going in and comingout, and more people than any of them had ever before seen in one place.The sounds were those of hammering, sawing, shouting, creaking,everything that could possibly be connected with a city in the making.

  A little overwhelmed because they'd expected a baby and found a giant,they rode slowly into the city. A man on a running mule careened crazilyamong the wagons, and a man driving a four-horse span hitched to a heavywagon spoke to him in terms that are never heard in polite company.

  "Cover your ears, Cindy," Alec ordered.

  "I didn't hear a thing," Cindy said sweetly.

  Her eyes were big and growing bigger. A wagon piled high with lumberpicked up at the railroad swerved to where some men were workingfrantically on a wooden building. Two of the workers, Cindy saw, werethe carefree young men who had camped close to the Simpson wagon on theborder and had taken little interest in anything except fun. They'dprobably thought that getting land in Oklahoma was a huge joke too, andas a result they hadn't got any. Cindy supposed that most of the peoplewho had no claims would either go back home or work for someone else.

  Next to the building was a tent with "Poast Ofise" written on it in redpaint. At least two hundred people who hoped to get mail stood in a longline outside it. Next was another tent with a sign, "J. C. Summers,Wholesale and Retail Grocer," and next to that a wooden building whosesign proclaimed that it belonged to Caldwell and Hunter, dry-goodsmerchants.

  Everybody, including those who stood in various lines, for there wasmuch pushing and shoving, seemed in a great hurry.

  "What are they all doing?" Alec inquired.

  "They are," his father said happily, "building Plains City." He calledto a man standing beside a building, "Where's the livery stable?"

  "Straight down!" The man waved his hand down the street.

  "We'll leave our horses and walk around awhile," Mr. Simpson said. "It'sworth seeing."

  The livery stable, when they finally reached it, was merely a series ofposts with ropes stretched between them. There were so many horses,mules, and ponies already tied to the ropes that there couldn't possiblybe room for more. But just as they rode up, four horsemen rode away.

  "Any room?" Mr. Simpson asked the lank, tobacco-chewing man in charge ofthe livery.

  "Yup."

  "How much?"

  "Fifty cents a head."

  "That include hay and water?"

  "Yup."

  "I looked from the top of a knoll," said Mr. Simpson. "I thought thattown sites could be no more than three hundred and twenty acres. PlainsCity seems almost three times that."

  "Plains City," the livery man said, "is igzactly three hun'ert an'twenty acres."

  Mr. Simpson grinned. "Who do you think you're fooling?"

  "Nobody," the livery man said. He waved a hand southward. "Down thar isSouth Plains City, an' that's igzactly three hun'ert and twenty acrestoo." In turn, the man waved his hand toward where East, West, and NorthPlains City were locating or would be located.

  "That land should have been homesteaded," said Mr. Simpson.

  "'Twas," the man said.

  "Then how did you get it?"

  "Most of them as staked was glad enough to sell," the man said. "Citylots is wuth money. Them as wouldn't sell we reasoned with. They couldsell at a fair price, or they could be tarred an' feathered an' rid' outon a rail."

  "I see," said Mr. Simpson.

  The man led their mounts away, and they set off on foot to view thewonders of Plains City. There was a big tent with "Plains City Hotel"written across it and a wooden frame with a canvas roof that wasevidently Brown's Restaurant. There were all kinds of stores. A man saton a wooden box behind another box bearing the sign, "J. C. Donnelly,Lawyer."

  "Need any law work done?" he asked when Jed, Pete, and the youngsterspassed.

  _"Need any law work done?" he asked_]

  "Nope," said Mr. Simpson.

  "I'm good at land titles."

  "Nope," Mr. Simpson said again.

  Another man stood behind a wooden counter upon which rested three walnutshells. "Triple your money," he chanted. "Pick the shell with the peaunder it and triple your money." He lifted the center shell to reveal agreen pea. "If you'd picked that one, friend, you'd have tripled yourmoney."

  "What's that?" Cindy asked.

  "A game fools play," her father told her. "He holds the pea in his handand cheats people."

  "That isn't very nice!" Cindy exclaimed.

  A wagon drawn by two small horses and piled high with prairie chickens,a wild game bird that is good to eat, lurched down the street. Thedriver called, "Fresh-shot prairie chickens for sale cheap!" Pete andJed looked at the wagon with interest.

  "Where'd you get them?" Mr. Simpson called.

  "Shot 'em on the prairie, an' now I'm sellin' 'em. A body has to turn apenny somehow."

  "It's something to think about," Pete remarked.

  "It sure is," said Mr. Simpson. "If we run short of money, we can gohuntin
g."

  "I'd like that!" Alec declared.

  Cindy shuddered. "I couldn't bear to kill them!"

  "Aw," Alec scoffed. "That's just like a girl!"

  They passed doctors', dentists', and more lawyers' offices. They saw atent in which the _Plains City Enterprise_ had already been printed fora week. They marveled at stores and shops, and after a while they becametired.

  "Let's eat," Mr. Simpson suggested.

  "Good idea," Pete seconded.

  "Wonderful!" Cindy said.

  They walked back to Brown's Restaurant, seated themselves on a rough,wooden bench at a long, wooden table, and a waiter in a clean whiteapron came.

  "What'll it be, folks?"

  "What do you have?" Mr. Simpson asked.

  "Venison steak, potatoes, and coffee."

  "That's what we'll have."

  Cindy shivered suddenly. It was exciting to eat in a real restaurant,and venison steak would be a welcome change from what they'd beeneating. Why should she feel so strangely uneasy?

  "Do you feel anything?" she whispered to Alec.

  "Hungry," Alec said.

  "Oh! I don't mean that!"

  "By gosh, Pete!" Their father sounded very happy. "We've come a long wayin a short time! This afternoon we'll record. Tomorrow I'll bring Annup."

  "I'll bet," said Pete, "that it'll be wonderful to have your wife withyou."

  "I can hardly wait!"

  Cindy, who still felt uneasy, turned suddenly to see three men risingfrom a table behind them. Two, who looked like rogues, she had neverseen before. The third, unmistakably, was Tom LaMott. Cindy nudged Alecin the ribs.

  "Look!"

  "What?" Alec asked.

  "The man with cat's eyes! And he heard every word we said!"

  "What of it?"

  "I don't like it!" Cindy exclaimed.

  "Cindy! For heavens' sake! He has a right to be here!"

  "I still don't like it!"

  "Maybe you don't like your dinner, either," said Alec, "but here it is."

  They did full justice to the venison steaks, potatoes with brown gravy,and mugs of hot coffee. Jed paid the bill, and they left.

  "Now to record!" Jed said cheerfully. "Then we can go home!"

  "Sure thing!" Pete agreed.

  They made their way toward the American flag that rose over a smallland office, and stopped in their tracks.

  There had been many people waiting to get into the post office and someof the stores, but they were as nothing compared to the throng here.They were nearly all men, with here and there a woman or girl. A soldierappeared in the doorway, called a number, and a man left the crowd to gointo the land office. Beside the doorway stood another soldier by asign: "Get Your Numbers Here."

  "What's it all about?" Jed asked the man standing next to him.

  "You must get a number," the man said, "then wait your turn."

  They went to the soldier, who gave Pete number 828 and Jed 829.

  "Can we get in soon?" Pete asked.

  "You must wait until your number's called," said the soldier.

  "How long will it take?" Pete inquired.

  The soldier said, "It's been averaging two weeks."

  "Two weeks!" Pete exclaimed. "We might as well go back to our claims!"

  "If your number's called sooner, and you aren't here, you have to startall over again."

  "Oh, my gosh!"

  All the happiness had gone out of the day, and sadness had entered in.While Cindy and Alec watched nervously, their father and Pete talked inlow tones. When they finished, they called the youngsters to them.

  "It'll mean two more weeks without your mother," Mr. Simpson saidunhappily, "but there seems to be no way out of it. The claims must berecorded and the sooner the better. Can you two make out all right onthe homestead?"

  "Sure," Cindy said.

  "We can," said Alec.

  "Then go back and take the horses with you. No sense boarding them if wedon't have to. We'll walk, and we'll be there as soon as possible."

  Cindy looked around to discover one of the men who had been with TomLaMott standing very near. Again, he must have overheard everything.