“A woman all alone out here?” Joe* Paris said skeptically. “Doesn’t seem likely. Could be somebody staked out in those trees. Keep your eyes open . . . Wait a minute. Here.” He held out a handful of paper cartridges. “Noticed you were having some trouble with that .44 of yours the other night. These’ll fit; they were Dave’s. Just be sure to puncture the paper and spill some loose powder down the chamber before you ram the load home, or you’re apt to get a misfire. Wouldn’t hurt to try a couple of shots when you get a chance. These long conical bullets most likely won’t shoot the same as the round balls you’ve been using.”
“Thanks,” Chuck said.
“Let’s ride in easy,” Joe said. “That female doesn’t seem in the best frame of mind, and there’s a shotgun on the wagon seat.”
They went down the slope at an easy trot. The woman did not see them until they were almost upon her. Then she looked around, turned, and tried to get the shotgun, but the mud and her long skirts combined to hold her back, and Chuck rode in fast and managed to snatch the weapon away just as she was reaching for it.
His horse brushed against her, and she was forced to cling to the muddy wagon wheel to keep from falling.
“I’m real sorry, ma’am,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean—”
His voice trailed off. She wasn’t at all the kind of woman he’d expected to find out here—it was an odd place to meet any woman, at all. She was smaller than he’d thought, and her hair, loose and disheveled about her shoulders, was a kind of chestnut color that threw reddish glints in the sunshine.
She wasn’t dressed like any settler woman he’d ever seen. Her dark green dress was disordered and muddy now, to be sure, but he could see that it had originated as a fashionable and expensive traveling costume of fine material. She shivered as she clung there, her face hidden from him. Then she drew herself up with an effort, and swung around to face him.
“I declare, I should have known some of you beasts would sneak back to find us!” she cried. “Well, you have the gun; I reckon I can’t fight you. Do what you want, just leave Papa alone this time, hear? You’ve hurt him enough!”
CHAPTER 4
There was a brief silence, while they absorbed the implications of her soft, slurred manner of speech as well as the meaning of her actual words. Then Joe Paris laughed quickly.
“Well, I do declare!” he said with his broadest drawl. “I do declare, if it isn’t a little old southern girl! Where are you from, ma’am?”
She stared up at them and licked her dry lips. “You aren’t—” she whispered. “You won’t—”
Chuck said, in what he hoped was a reassuring tone, “I don’t know who you were expecting, ma’am, but there’s no need to be afraid. We’re from the McAuliffe outfit: nine . . . eight men, twelve hundred longhorns, bound for Sedalia. They’ll be coming along soon. You’d be seeing the dust now, if the ground wasn’t wet.”
“Texans?” she whispered. “Oh, thank God!”
Abruptly, she went to her knees, buried her face in her muddy hands, and began to cry. Chuck threw a quick glance towards Joe Paris, who shrugged his shoulders helplessly. Chuck looked down uncertainly at the weeping girl. It seemed indecent to leave her kneeling there, and he thrust the shotgun at Joe, dismounted, picked her up, and carried her up the slope to dry ground.
She might be smaller than he’d thought at first, but he quickly discovered that she was by no means ethereal: there was a firm little body inside the disheveled fine clothes. His breathing was somewhat labored by the time he laid her down in the shade of a nearby tree—not entirely, he realized with shame, because of his exertions. The ranch had been a man’s world since his mother died. There had been few women in the neighborhood, and it had been a long time since he’d even spoken to one, let alone held one in his arms. When he straightened up, his face was hot with embarrassment, and he knew that his ears were red.
Joe Paris’ voice was a welcome distraction. “There’s a man in the wagon,” Joe called. “Middle-aged fellow, all bandaged up. Seems to be pretty sick.”
The girl had stopped crying, and was looking up at Chuck in a half-afraid, half-wondering way. Her eyes were kind of a hazel color. She might be pretty, he decided, once she washed her face—even streaked with dirt and tears, it wasn’t entirely unattractive. Her lips moved.
“Papa,” she whispered. “The bullet’s still in his leg. I didn’t know how . . . I didn’t dare try . . . And he was hit on the head, too. Those brutes! He was unconscious for hours. I . . . I thought he was dying. I was trying to reach Fort Gibson with him, but it rained and the country all looked alike. . . . I don’t suppose you have a doctor. . . .” Her voice died away.
Chuck said, “No, ma’am, but the Old Man’s pretty handy with all kinds of wounds—that’s my dad. He’ll be here shortly, I reckon. He’s the one that spotted you and sent us over to help.”
“Oh,” she said. “I saw a man on horseback, that’s why I drove down here, to hide in the trees. I thought he was one of them, the men who attacked us. I didn’t realize the ground would be so soft down here, and the team was almost played out, anyway. . . .” She was trying to sit up. Chuck helped her awkwardly. She pushed the thick, tangled masses of her hair back from her face, and gasped when she saw the condition of her costume. “Heavens!” she exclaimed in a stronger voice. “I looked wretched enough this morning, after being rained on for days, but now you’d think I’d been wallowing with the pigs!”
“I’ll fetch some water,” Chuck said quickly. “You stay right here and rest, ma’am. We’ll have your wagon out in two shakes.”
It took a little longer than that; but the Old Man came riding over with a couple of hands to see what was keeping them so long, and with one man to handle the team, and a pair of tough Texas ponies—accustomed to dealing with mired-down cattle—throwing their weight on ropes, they broke the rig loose and hauled it out on solid ground. The girl came running from where she’d been standing with the Old Man and climbed inside.
“Anything we can do, ma’am?” Chuck asked presently, looking into the rear of the wagon.
The man inside hearing his voice, tried to sit up. Chuck saw a long, pale, whiskered face topped by a bandage that seemed to have been tom from some feminine garment. It gave an odd rakish look to the sunken features below.
“John Netherton,” the man whispered. “My daughter Amanda . . . extremely grateful . . ."
“Lie down, Papa,” the girl said. “Everything is going to be fine.”
The sick man lay back and closed his eyes. The girl pulled up the blanket to cover him, and made her way back to the rear of the wagon. Chuck helped her to the ground. The Old Man came forward.
“You say you were bound for Fort Gibson when some men attacked you, Miss Netherton?”
“Why, yes,” she said. “It was the second or third day after we left Baxter Springs, I’ve kind of lost count —the second, I think. These men came riding up, there must have been twenty of them, at least. They looked as if they’d been in some kind of a fight and got the worst of it; some were wounded and some were riding double. They were going to take our horses. . . .”
“Sounds like you encountered the same bunch that tried to ambush us by the river,” Chuck said.
She glanced at him. “Well, whatever you did to them didn’t put them in any pleasant mood, I can tell you! Papa had me hide in the wagon, but they found me and . . . and it kind of took their mind off horses, for a spell.” She flushed. “They started by making me cook and serve for them. . . . they threw everything out of the wagon, our provisions, my trunk, Papa’s instruments and books— he’s an engineer and surveyor by profession. They broke open my trunk and . . . and made sport with all my pretty things. You know what a bunch of drunken ruffians would think was funny, parading around with my petticoats and. . . .” She drew a long breath. “I warned Papa not to try . . . I told him there wasn’t anything he could do against so many . . . even if he could get his hands on the gun, he’d j
ust get himself hurt, but when they started pawing me and passing me from one to the other to be mauled and kissed. . . They shot him when he tried to interfere, shot him and clubbed him down with a gunbarrel. It turned them mean and ugly. I don’t know what would have happened if a man hadn’t come riding into camp and told them angrily to get moving, they had no business wasting time. . . . Well, yes,” she said a little stiffly, not looking at the men about her, “I reckon I do know what would have happened, if he hadn’t come.”
Jesse McAuliffe asked, “Would you recognize this man, the one who gave the orders, if you saw him again?”
She thought for a moment and shook her head doubtfully. “I . . . don’t think so. It was dark, by that time; and the minute those others let me go, I ran to Papa, of course, and tried to stop the flow of blood. When I looked up again, they’d all gone. They’d left our horses, thank God. I. . . I managed to get Papa into the wagon. I didn’t stop for much of anything else; I just drove in what I thought was the right direction, but I must have got turned around in the dark, and then it rained. . . . It seems like I’ve been soaking wet and driving in circles for days!”
“Well, you’re all right now, ma’am,” Jesse McAuliffe said. He studied her with a frown. “Most folks going to Fort Gibson, as I recall, used to come in from the east, taking a boat up the river at least as far as Fort Smith, and sometimes clear to Gibson, water permitting.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What do you mean, Major McAuliffe?”
“Why,” the Old Man said gently, “I was just wondering why a man with a pretty daughter, and business in Fort Gibson, would want to make the hard journey overland across Indian Territory, when they could have traveled so much more safely and comfortably by riverboat.”
Chuck, annoyed with his father’s attitude, found much to admire in the way the girl took it. She faced right up to the Old Man and laughed.
“You’re a suspicious man, Major,” she murmured. “I suppose you’ll be even more suspicious of us, in that gray army coat of yours, after you’ve heard Papa talk. So I’ll tell you right now, he talks like a Yankee because he is a Yankee; and there have been times when I’ve been ashamed of that, but I’m not any longer. Mama left him at the beginning of the war and took me back home to South Carolina. She . . . she died of lung fever, which she caught trying to save a few things the night Sherman’s men burned our home in Columbia. After the war, Papa came looking for me. I didn’t want to go with him, you understand—I hated everything he stood for; I’d been taught to—but there wasn’t anything left and I had no place to go. He’s been very kind. It wasn’t until I thought he was dying that I realized how kind. . . .” Her voice broke. “You’ll get him to a doctor at Fort Gibson as soon as possible? Please?”
The Old Man frowned again. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question, Miss Netherton.”
Her eyes widened. “Out of the question? Why?”
He said, “We’re about two days north of the place already, and a couple of days east, as close as I can figure —we gave it a wide berth on purpose. Most of us have had quite enough dealings with the Union Army. . . . Anyway, I can’t turn my herd around now. Nor can I spare you enough men for an adequate escort, considering the size of the gangs that seem to infest this part of the country.”
“You’d let a man die because of your silly old cattle?” Her voice was sharp.
The Old Man looked down at her bleakly. “Miss Netherton,” he said, “six or eight men, at least, have already died because of those silly old cattle. Two were from my own crew. One was my . . .” He checked himself, and went on in a different tone. “Anyway, I don’t know how much of a force is maintained at Gibson these days, but I’m under the impression it’s been greatly reduced. They may not even have a surgeon. You’ll be sure of help at Baxter Springs, which is where we’re headed. In the meantime, if you wish, I’ll have a look at your father myself. I have some experience with bullet wounds.”
She said angrily, “Don’t trouble yourself!” Then her face crumpled into an expression close to tears, and she said breathlessly, “I’m sorry! Of course I want you to look! I. . . I’m just so . . . I don’t mean to be unreasonable. Please forgive me!”
The Old Man bowed, and started towards the wagon, but paused to look at her. “You didn’t say why your father chose to drive overland, Miss Netherton.”
She said stiffly, “No, Major, I didn’t. Why don’t you ask him? I’m sure he had his reasons.” She watched Jesse McAuliffe climb into the wagon; and swung on Chuck, standing nearby. “I declare, your daddy doesn’t trust people much, does he?” she cried. “What does he suspect us of, smuggling guns and whiskey to the Indians?”
She broke off, as the Old Man stuck his head out again. He paid her no immediate attention. “Joe, take the men back to the herd,” he said. “Keep it moving. We’ll be along when we can. Chuck, you go with them. Bring me the black leather case from my warbag, and clean cloth for bandages, if you can find some. . . . Wait.” He turned at last to the girl. “Miss Netherton, I want your permission to probe for the bullet. I am not a surgeon and I make no guarantees. All I will say is that I have done it before.”
Amanda Netherton licked her lips. “Successfully, Major?”
The Old Man said calmly, “Both successfully and unsuccessfully.”
“And if I don’t give permission?”
“Then your father will certainly lose his leg, and probably his life.”
“That leaves me little choice,” she said quietly. “Go ahead. But. . .”
“Yes, Miss Netherton?”
She shook her head quickly. “No. I was going to say something foolish. Just go ahead.”
“Very well,” the Old Man said. “Now you’d better come in here. I’ll need your help.”
CHAPTER 5
The weather held fine as they moved northwards. This wasn’t an unmixed blessing, Chuck discovered. When the ground dried, the dust came, and he had to eat plenty of it, riding in the drag of the herd. In the evenings, the Netherton wagon would pull up some distance from the main camp. The Old Man had laid down the law about that.
“This is a cattle drive,” he’d said the first night after the girl and her father had joined them, “not a Sunday social. The young lady seems competent to handle her team without help, and if she can’t cook or build a fire it’s time she learned. She’s been supplied with as much food as we can spare, and there’s wood and water around for the taking. We’ve got a herd to look after. I can think of no good reason for any man from this outfit to hang around that wagon—or any boy, either,” he’d finished, looking straight at Chuck.
There had been some laughter at this, the memory of which still rankled. Therefore, about the fourth night, when the Old Man came in from scouting the route of the next day’s drive, and announced that he was going across to see his patient, and that Chuck could come along if he wished, Chuck made a point of showing no eagerness whatever. He took his time about getting his horse and mounting up. The Old Man was waiting.
“Kind of dusty back there today,” he said, as they rode slowly towards the light of the Netherton fire.
“Yes, sir,” Chuck said.
“It was proved during the war,” the Old Man said deliberately, “that experience in the ranks never hurt an officer.”
“No, sir,” Chuck said.
“Anyway,” the Old Man said, “somebody’s got to look after the remuda and ride in the drag. You can’t run an outfit that’s all trail bosses and top hands. . . It was, Chuck supposed, an explanation and apology of sorts, and his father was waiting for him to speak, but he could not think of what to say. Then the moment was past. The Old Man was talking again, looking towards the wagon ahead. “Just remember one thing,” he was saying cryptically, “when you’re young you bleed easily, but you heal quickly.”
Chuck had no time to figure out what was meant by this, and the Old Man did not press the point, if he had one to make. A slender figure had come out of the
Netherton wagon to greet them. Jesse McAuliffe reined in and looked down at the girl.
“In this country, ma’am,” he said, “when you hear riders coming, don’t go to meet them without a gun in your hands. How’s your father?”
“Much better,” she said. “We want to thank you—” The Old Man said curtly, “I would not leave a dog to die out here, Miss Netherton.” He glanced at Chuck. “Wait for me here.”
He dismounted, strode to the wagon, and climbed inside. They heard him ask a question, in the same brusque voice, and they heard the sick man’s reply. Amanda Netherton moved to the side of Chuck’s horse and looked up. “Aren’t you going to get down, Mr. McAuliffe?”
He hesitated, and stepped down from the saddle. There was enough light from the fire so that he could see her clearly. Her face was clean now, and he’d been right about her being pretty—beautiful was the word that came unbidden into his mind. Her hair was put up neatly about her head. He wasn’t sure that he hadn’t liked it better loose and flowing. She was still wearing the same green traveling outfit, carefully brushed free of mud, but noticeably faded and stained by the hardships of the past week. He would not have thought of it as detracting from her appearance, however, except that she seemed embarrassed about its condition: she made a quick gesture of rubbing away a sooty smudge left by recent labors at the fire.
“Don’t look at me so critically, Mr. McAuliffe,” she said with a laugh. “I know I look positively shipwrecked. I’ve even had a notion to come over to your wagon and borrow some clothes, if I’d thought you’d have some to fit me.”
She laughed again to show that she was joking. Of course, no gently reared young lady would actually display herself in a man’s trousers—or even mention the garment by name. Even as a joke, the suggestion was quite daring, and it brought an uneasy silence between them.
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