The Whippoorwill Trilogy

by Sharon Sala

“I’ll walk you down. When you’re done, just holler and I’ll come back and get you.”

  Letty set the plate aside and stood, still holding her wrist against her breast to keep from bumping it.

  “Would you please get my blanket out of the wagon? I’m going to wash these stinking clothes, too.”

  Eulis did as she asked, then cupped her elbow and walked her down to the creek. The water was running fast and high, and she could see foam on the current.

  “It’s right cold,” he warned.

  “After nearly dying of thirst, I will never complain about the temperature of water again.”

  “Need any help?” he asked, pointing to her clothes.

  “Maybe you could help me off with my shoes.”

  “Lean on me,” he said, and bent down.

  Letty grabbed onto his back, steadying herself as he untied first one shoe, then the other, and took them off her feet.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  He nodded, started to say something more, then shook his head and walked away.

  “Call when you’re ready to come back,” he added.

  “Yes, all right,” Letty said, and began untying her rope belt, then taking off the rest of her clothes.

  She kicked the clothes to the edge of the creek so that she could rinse them out and stepped into the water.

  Eulis had been right. It was, as her Daddy used to say, colder than a well-digger’s ass. Her toes instantly went into cramps and curled downward in spasms. She flinched once, then walked into the knee-high flow, found a half-submerged rock, and used it for a seat. With only one hand left to do her any good, she washed herself all over as best she could, then eased off the rock and all the way down into the water. It was almost up to her chin, but she didn’t care. She undid the piece of leather holding her hair away from her face, put it between her teeth to keep from losing it, and then dropped her head forward. It was awkward having only one hand with which to scrub, but she managed.

  Finally, she lifted her head, tossing her hair away from her face as she did and then dragged herself up. It wasn’t until she was standing with the night air blowing against her skin that she realized how cold she really was, and she had yet to wash out her clothes. She took the strip of leather from her teeth and turned around. Eulis was standing on the creek bank with a blanket in his hands.

  “Hurry on out,” he said, as matter of fact as if he’d asked her to hand him a spoon.

  She stumbled once, then caught herself and climbed out, only to find herself immediately engulfed in a warm and surprisingly dry blanket.

  “Ooh, that feels good,” she said.

  Eulis grabbed her elbow.

  “You need to get warm.”

  “My clothes,” Letty said. “I’ve still got to wash out my clothes.”

  “I’m gonna take me a bath,” Eulis said. “I’ll do it when I wash mine out.”

  “Well, then… I thank you,” Letty said.

  “No problem,” Eulis said, and hustled her back to the fire. “Get warm. I made up your bed in the wagon. When I come back, I’ll help you up.”

  Letty didn’t know what to say. Before, she’d been the one more or less in charge, and Eulis had followed her suggestions and orders without much argument. Not only did she feel helpless, but with a broken wrist, also useless.

  “I’m sorry about this,” she said, and held up her wrist.

  “Need to wrap it up some,” he said briefly, then took some leather out of his pack and felt along both sides of her wrist to assure himself the break was clean and back in place. Once he was satisfied that all was as it should be, he wrapped it firmly and tied it off.

  “Don’t be tryin’ to lift anything with that,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “I’m gonna go take my bath now,” he muttered.

  Letty nodded, but there was a pain in her heart as he turned away. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer. She had to know.

  “Eulis.”

  He stopped, but didn’t turn around.

  “What?”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  If her voice hadn’t been so damned shaky, he would have been all right, but when he heard that tremble and knew she was feeling pain, he could no more ignore her than he could have quit breathing. He turned around.

  “Course not. We’re partners now, aren’t we?”

  “I guess.”

  “All right then. Now get on back to that fire and get warm. I won’t be long.”

  “Yes… okay,” Letty said, and watched him walk away.

  There was a funny pain in the pit of her stomach, which she chalked up to a salt-less rabbit and a broken wrist, and sat down by the fire. She didn’t mean to, but exhaustion soon claimed her.

  When Eulis came back from the creek, she was slumped over, and sound asleep.

  He stood for a few moments, watching the way her nostrils flared slightly as she breathed in and out, then picked her up and carried her to the wagon, taking great care not to bump her wrist.

  She settled immediately, rolled over on her other side, and fell into an even deeper sleep.

  Eulis pulled the covers closer to her and tucked them under before walking away. As soon as he’d strung their wet clothes on the surrounding tree limbs, he took off his own wet pants, hung them up, as well, and then wrapped up in his blanket.

  He started to lie down beneath the wagon, and then thought to check on Letty one more time. She was curled up in the blanket. When he felt on her forehead, she moaned.

  He frowned. He wasn’t sure, but she might be getting a fever, and he wouldn’t know it if he was under the wagon. Hesitating briefly, he got their rifle, crawled up into the wagon and then, wrapped up in his own blanket from toe to chin, lay down beside her. He fell asleep with his hand on the gun, dreaming of stampeding buffalo, and a woman who wouldn’t quit.

  Standing On The Promises

  Five days had passed since the buffalo stampede. During those five days, Letty and Eulis had come closer and closer to their destination, but farther and farther apart. There was uneasiness between them that had never been there before. Letty found it difficult to look Eulis in the face when they were talking, and Eulis was having thoughts of Letty that were anything but proper. He couldn’t help but wonder if Preacher Howe’s weakness for women was rubbing off on him. He’d never had these problems before. It didn’t occur to him that the reason he’d been uninterested in women before, was because whiskey had captured his heart. But now that the whiskey was a thing of the past, his normal manly urges were resurrecting. And, added to that was his growing admiration for Letty. Except for when they’d been caught in the buffalo herd, she’d never wavered in her belief that they would endure.

  By Eulis’ best guess, they should reach the location of the gold strike within the week. He’d been told back in Dripping Springs that it was at a place called Cherry Creek, near the town of Denver City, and while he’d never been there, he’d been given some landmarks to look for, one of which they’d passed just this morning.

  He glanced over at Letty, who sat beside him in the wagon seat with the rifle across her lap. With her wrist still too painful to drive the team, she was riding shotgun, and taking the job as seriously as she took everything else.

  “How you doin’?” he asked.

  “Fine,” she said, without looking at him.

  “Need to take a break?”

  “No.”

  Eulis wanted to get a rise out of her. He didn’t like getting the silent treatment, and because he missed the old Letty and her fiery temper, he pushed.

  “You don’t even need to pee?”

  Letty flinched as if she’d been slapped. Before she could think to ignore him, she was already mad.

  “No, I don’t need to pee! Is that what you think of when you look at me? Poor stupid woman… tips an outhouse over on herself cause she had to go. Causes a terrible fuss on the stagecoach because she ha
s to pee again.”

  She hit him on the arm and then hunched her shoulders and looked away.

  If someone had stuck a knife in Eulis’s gut, he couldn’t have felt any worse. He’d only wanted to tease a smile onto her face, not hurt her. He pulled the mules to a stop and tied off the reins onto the brake, then got down out of the wagon.

  When he started to walk away without speaking, Letty looked up and yelled at him.

  “Where are you going?”

  He turned around and grinned.

  “To pee. You wouldn’t give me an excuse and I’m not tough enough to wait it out like you.”

  “Oh.”

  She sat and watched until he moved behind some bushes then she got down and walked a short distance in the other direction. Trees were absent and undergrowth was sparse. The only thing she could hide behind was a large rock, so she headed for it.

  She had her belt untied, and was holding her pants up as she moved to the other side of the rock. And because she was looking over her shoulder to check on Eulis, she missed the fact that she was no longer alone.

  “Lord, have mercy, I am saved.”

  Shocked by the sound of a man’s voice, Letty squealed, and grabbed the gun with both hands. As she did, her pants fell down around her ankles. Then she saw the man and her mouth went slack in disbelief.

  “Good God in heaven…”

  “Emory James at your service, ma’am. Excuse me if I don’t stand up, but as you can see, I am somewhat at a disadvantage.”

  “EEEuuullliiisss!”

  The scream brought Eulis out of the bushes on the run. He thought of the rifle and groaned. Letty had their only weapon, and if she was in dire straits, then they were for sure in trouble.

  When he didn’t see her at the wagon, his heart dropped. Then she screamed again. He turned, saw her running out of the trees, holding her pants up with one hand, and waving the rifle with the other, and started running.

  “Eulis! Eulis!”

  He caught her on the run, yanked the rifle out of her hand, and shoved her behind him.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “There’s a man behind that rock.”

  “Did he hurt you? Tell me, honey… did he hurt you?”

  She was tying her belt as fast as she could and shaking her head in denial.

  “No, no, I’m all right, but he’s… he’s…” she shuddered, unable to finish what she’d been going to say, grabbed Eulis’s hand, and started leading him back to the rock.

  Eulis came with her, but he wasn’t as sure of the urgency as he’d been before. As soon as they reached the rock, he stopped.

  “Wait. I’m goin’ in first,” Eulis said.

  “Okay… and, oh yeah… one other thing. He said his name was Emory James.”

  Eulis stared. “He introduced himself?”

  “Sort of.”

  “Then what in blazes is the problem?”

  She pointed. “You’ll see.”

  Eulis circled the rock with the rifle at the ready then staggered to a stop.

  “Oh God… oh man… Mister, Mister… how in blazes… what… who…”

  “I’d be real happy to tell you the details, but could we talk after you get me out of this hole?”

  Eulis pointed behind him. “The wagon. I got a shovel in the wagon. Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

  Emory James would have grinned, but he was too miserable to make the effort. Instead, he chose sarcasm to cover the emotion of relief.

  “Wait here? Yeah, sure. No problem.”

  Eulis blinked, then sucked his lower lip into his mouth and bolted for the wagon, thrusting the gun in Letty’s hand as he went.

  Letty circled the rock again, squatted down in front of the man, and cradled the rifle across her lap.

  “Mister…”

  “Emory… please call me Emory.”

  “Emory. So how did you get this way?”

  Emory blew toward his nose then gave Letty a beseeching look.

  “I know we’ve just met, but could I ask you to do me a favor and brush that ant off my nose before it crawls up my nostril.”

  Letty hesitated a moment, then leaned forward and brushed the ant off the man’s nose.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “Where’s your man,” Emory asked. “I sure would like to get out of here.”

  Letty turned around to look. “He’s coming.”

  “Reckon y’all got yourselves a shovel?”

  “We got one,” she said, then eyed him closer. “How tall are you, anyway?”

  “Less than six feet.”

  Letty nodded. “Who did this to you? Why would someone want to bury you like this… up to your neck and all? He had to know that you’ll die. If he was that pissed, why didn’t he just out and out kill you?”

  The woman’s curiosity struck Emory’s funny bone, which somewhat surprised him, because if anyone had asked him, he would have said that Black Dog had broken the funny bone, and everything else Emory had, before he stuck in him in this hole, and buried him up to his neck.

  “Considering it takes twice as long to die like this, I’d say that Black Dog was using his best options to make me suffer before I kicked.”

  “What happens if we dig you up and Black Dog finds out?”

  “I’d advise you not to mention it around.”

  Letty shivered. She couldn’t imagine running into someone who was capable of this kind of torture.

  “What did you do to piss him off?” Letty asked.

  “I was about to poke his woman.”

  That was something Letty understood. She stared long and hard at him, and rocked back on her heels.

  “Then I reckon you’re lucky he didn’t cut off your dingus before he planted your ass.”

  Emory was still digesting that remark when Eulis came running around the rock. Letty moved aside to give them more room while eyeing Emory James closely. She’d known a thousand men like him, and not one of them had been worth saving. She couldn’t help but wonder if they were doing Black Dog an injustice, but it was too late to question that now. If they walked away from this man after finding him like this, then they would be the ones killing him, and that wasn’t something she took lightly.

  Eulis chunked the shovel into the earth a distance away from where the man’s shoulders should be, and took out the first shovel full of dirt.

  “He’s not quite six feet tall,” Letty offered.

  Eulis looked up, surprised that she’d had the sense to ask, and then smiled.

  “Good thinkin’, Sister Leticia.”

  Emory frowned as he looked at Letty, trying to figure out how an armed woman wearing man’s pants and burned brown as the earth in which he was buried, could have any religious connections.

  “Sister? So is he your brother, or are you one of them nun women… one of them Catholics?”

  “We’re digging you out. That’s all you need to know,” Letty said.

  Since Emory was in no position to argue, he didn’t push the issue.

  Time passed. Eulis dug with the shovel until he was forced to stop and dig with his hands to keep from injuring James more.

  They finally managed to move enough dirt to get a rope beneath his arms and around his chest. The ground around him was looser from the waist down, and Eulis figured they could hitch him to the mules and pull him out.

  Emory wasn’t as convinced it would work and spoke up to the fact.

  “You gonna do this all slow like, aren’t you? I don’t want to find myself pulled in half or nothin’.”

  “I’ll go slow,” Eulis promised.

  “It probably wouldn’t hurt to scare him some,” Letty muttered, as she grabbed the other end of the rope and started toward the mules.

  Emory’s eyes rolled until all that was visible were the whites of his eyes.

  “She’s not serious… is she?”

  Eulis didn’t answer.

  Emory panicked. “Mister! Mister! She ain’t s
erious is she?”

  Eulis frowned. “Letty? Yeah, she’s serious. She’s always serious. I don’t know what you said to her, but she’s taken a dislike to you, and nothin’ I got to say is gonna change that. However, don’t worry. I’m the one who’ll be workin’ the mules. Her wrist is broke.”

  Emory felt a warmth on the inside of his leg and knew that he’d just wet himself. But considering the day that he’d had, he considered himself lucky that he still had a dingus from which to pee.

  “I’m sure grateful to you both,” Emory said.

  Eulis finished tying off the rope under Emory’s armpits, and then stood up.

  “You’re not out yet,” Eulis said. “Better save your thanks for later.”

  At that moment, Emory felt a tug on the rope and knew that Letty was taking matters into her own hand.

  “Wait!” he screamed. “Lady, wait!”

  Eulis grabbed the rope, catching the slack as he ran toward the wagon.

  “Letty! Wait!”

  She was standing by the mules with a smile on her face.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Eulis was breathing heavy by the time he got to her.

  “What did you think you was doin’?”

  “Giving him something to think about.”

  Eulis frowned. “What did he do, anyway?”

  “Pissed off an Indian who calls himself Black Dog.”

  Eulis took a step backward, then grabbed onto the harness to steady himself.

  “The hell you say.”

  “You know him?”

  Eulis’s face turned pale. “Of him. He’s bad news.”

  “So what happens to us if Black Dog finds out we dug the man up?”

  “We don’t tell him,” Eulis said.

  “That what Emory James suggested, too.”

  “What did he do to Black Dog?” Eulis asked.

  “His words were, he was about to poke Black Dog’s woman, and got caught in the act.”

  Eulis looked up at the surrounding hills and then turned a complete circle, searching the horizon for signs that they were being watched.

  “What do you think we oughta do?” Eulis asked.

  “If we leave him planted, then we’re killing him, too,” Letty said.

  Eulis thought about it a minute and then nodded.