When Jamie reached the bluff, he found his Grandpa all dressed in his white buckskins, laying by the deep hole he’d dug. Jamie wrapped the body in the buffalo robe his grandpa had laid out and as gently as possible, for the old Wolf was no small man, placed the body in the ground. He turned at the sound of hooves on rock. Kate.
She hopped down and walked to her husband’s side, taking his big hard hand in her small hand. “How old was he, Jamie?”
“Nearabout ninety, I think. He thought he was born about 1757. He wasn’t real sure.”
Kate knelt down and looked into the dark hole. “He dug until he hit bedrock.”
“Yeah. We’ll mound it good with rock and . . .” Jamie paused as his eyes touched the rock where his Grandpa had carved out his final eulogy. Jamie pointed and both he and Kate chuckled at the inscription.
JAMIE IAN MACCALLISTER.
B 1757 SCOTLAND
D 1844 AMERICAN WILDERNESS.
I NEVER BACKED UP FROM
NO SON OF A BITCH IN MY LIFE.
“He must have wore out a dozen chisels doing that,” Jamie said.
“I’ll go get Swede and the others,” Kate volunteered.
“I’ll get busy filling in the grave.”
The service was a short one, just as Silver Wolf had requested. A few of the women cried but demurely, and the Wolf would have liked that. Reverend Haywood read from the Bible and that was that. Jamie told Ellen Kathleen to take the rest of the kids home, and when he and Kate were once more alone at the gravesite, Jamie showed her the map his grandpa had given him.
“No one else must ever know of this, Kate. I thought long and hard about whether to tell you, for fear that if outlaws ever learned of the map, they would torture you to tell them. I’ll be gone the rest of the summer, and when I return, none of our kids or grandkids will ever have to want for anything. And it means that Andrew and Rosanna can travel abroad to continue their studies in music. And you and I can enjoy a few extras in our life.”
“And also help others less fortunate than we are,” Kate said.
“Right,” Jamie smiled through the words. “I was just about to say that.”
* * *
The first X on the map was less than twenty-five miles from the valley, and it was not a big vein. It played out after only a day’s digging and gouging. But Jamie figured he had about forty pounds of gold after everything was knocked off and cleaned up. He cached it safely and rode on to the next X, about half a day’s ride away.
After crawling through about fifteen yards of thick brush and chipping away at the stone, Jamie sat back with a gasp. It wasn’t a mother lode, but it was going to take him a good week or better to dig it all out.
It took him longer than that, working from can to can’t, to dig out and clean up the gold. He found a spot and, marking the exact location in his head, he carefully buried the gold and moved on to the next X.
This one was a tiny creek that played out after only a few hundred yards’ run. And it was loaded with nuggets. Grandpa MacCallister always had a small sack full of nuggets, and now Jamie knew where he got them. What Jamie didn’t know, and was not likely to ever know, was how his Grandpa managed to get rid of the gold without arousing suspicion, for government experts had already assured two presidents that there was no gold west of the Mississippi River.
The old Silver Wolf had told Jamie that a government expert was a man who couldn’t get a job nowheres else.
Jamie cleaned out the creek and moved on.
He had not nearly covered even half of the Xs on the map before he knew it was time to head back to the valley. For humanity’s sake, he could not load another pound on any of the pack animals he had brought with him. He didn’t know what gold was going for then, but he figured he had thousands of dollars worth of gold in the packs lashed onto the frames.
Jamie returned to the valley and spent the night on the ledge where his grandpa was buried, hiding most of the gold before anyone knew he was back. Only Kate and a lawyer he trusted back in St. Louis would know about the gold, and only Kate would know where it was hidden. The next day, before the sun was up, Jamie rode down into the valley and put the weary pack animals out to pasture for a long and well-deserved rest. Jamie was sitting on the front porch when Kate arose and threw open the shutters to air out the cabin.
“I figured this was what you did while I was out working my hands to the bone,” Jamie said, maintaining a straight face. “Just lay a-bed and lollygag about all morning.”
Kate hadn’t seen her husband in weeks, still she didn’t bat an eye. “Go fetch some wood if you want breakfast. And wash your hands. They’re filthy.”
Jamie sighed. After almost twenty years of marriage, he was still hard-pressed to get one over on Kate.
Five
Folks from the valley to the east of the settlement began coming over to trade at Abe’s store—warily at first, for they had all heard the many tales about Jamie Ian MacCallister, adventurer, pathfinder, hero of the Alamo, and so much more. The men walked light around him, the kids were big-eyed staring at the huge man, and a few of the women batted their eyes and openly flirted with him . . . until Kate stepped in and with one glance put an end to all that.
Jamie stayed back and surveyed the new settlers. He felt that most of them would do and had the wherewithal to make it out here in the wilderness. A couple of the men would not last; Jamie was certain of that. They were trashy and shifty-eyed and their women were loose. They would cause some trouble before it was all over, Jamie would bet on it.
“That Hankins woman is rather pretty, don’t you think?” Kate asked Jamie one evening. Supper was over and the younger kids in bed.
Jamie knew a loaded question when he heard one and wasn’t about to pull the trigger. Julie Hankins was one of the new women who had openly flirted with him. “I suppose so,” he replied carefully. “If you like that type, which I don’t.” He hid a grimace—wrong choice of words.
Kate perked right up. “So you did notice her?”
“Be kind of hard not to, Kate. Way she was swishin’ her butt around and battin’ her eyes like a lost calf. A couple of those women and their daughters are going to cause trouble around here. And their husbands are trash, pure and simple. I wish they’d leave.”
Kate relaxed and sat back in the rocker Jamie had made for her. She adjusted the shawl over her lap, for the nights were getting cold. “Matt and Morgan are nearabout thirteen years old, Jamie. A couple of those trashy girls—es—pecially the Hankins girls—were making goo-goo eyes at the boys. Those girls are older and they’ve been to the hay loft a time or two. I want you to talk to them.”
“The girls?” Jamie asked with a smile.
Kate didn’t reply, just looked at him with those arctic blue eyes; they got colder by the second.
“Right,” Jamie said. “I’ll speak to the boys.” But he didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was going to say. The boys had matured fast for their age and were feeling their oats . . . among other things.
“You just be sure you do. They’re far too young to be thinking about things like that.”
Jamie looked at her to see if she was serious. “Are you forgetting when we were thirteen and fourteen years old, Kate?”
“That was different.”
“The hell it was! I had to go jump in the crick ever’ time I got around you. Kate, you could raise the temperature in a room ten degrees just by walking in!”
She suddenly had to put a hand to her mouth to stifle a giggle. “I wasn’t that bad, Jamie.”
“Five degrees, then.”
She smiled and made a show of fanning herself. “Isn’t it getting warm out here, Jamie?”
“Come to think of it, it is.”
They rose as one and walked into the large cabin. Kate giggled a couple of seconds after Jamie blew out the lamp.
* * *
Jamie sat the boys down in the barn and gave them a talking-to about the birds and the bees. He was shocked to d
iscover they knew more about the subject than he did.
“Where the hell did you two learn all this?” he demanded.
“Ian and Andrew mostly,” Morgan said. “The rest just come natural, I reckon.” He grinned.
“You think this is funny, boy?” Jamie asked.
Both boys started laughing at the expression on their father’s face, and it was infectious, with Jamie hard-pressed to contain his own laughter. He understood how it was when the blood ran hot. But he quickly sobered.
“Boys, you stay away from those two girls. They just might give you something you can’t get rid of.”
“What do you mean, Pa?” Matt asked.
Jamie told them about diseases they might contract and the boys were visibly horrified. Of course, Jamie embellished the telling quite a bit and both boys turned a tad green around the mouth.
Matthew immediately declared his wishes to find a Catholic church and become a priest, and Morgan said he was through with women . . . forever!
Jamie figured those fervently offered declarations would last about a week at the most, but he thought he had gotten through to the boys.
But as it turned out, Jamie and Kate’s worries were groundless. It wasn’t a young boy who was caught with one of the Hankins girls. It was Cyrus Hankins’s best and most trusted friend, the man he had come west with, a married man and father of four, Bob Altman.
Abe Goldman came knocking on the door of the cabin just as Megan and Joleen were clearing off the supper dishes. Jamie opened the huge oversized door—built that way so Jamie wouldn’t bump his head going in and out—and faced a very worried looking Abe Goldman.
“Come in, Abe,” Jamie opened the door wider.
“You best come outside, Jamie,” the storeowner said. “This is news that is not proper for ladies to hear.”
Kate immediately stepped past Jamie and onto the porch.
“Very forceful woman,” Jamie said.
“I’m told,” Abe replied.
Jamie stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him.
“I’ve got Caroline Hankins over to my house,” Abe said. “She’s pretty badly beaten up and the wife says she’s pregnant, too. How she managed to walk from one valley to the other is a mystery.”
“Caroline is fourteen years old,” Kate said. “Who beat her?”
“Her father, Cyrus. With a belt and with his fists. She won’t say why.”
Kate pushed open the cabin door. “Matthew, Morgan! You both look after Joleen and Falcon. And I mean look after them. Megan, get your cloak and fetch mine and come with me.” She turned to Abe. “We’ll be over to your cabin, Mr. Goldman.”
“Thank you, Kate. The wife will appreciate the help. She’s about beside herself with this thing.”
When Kate and Megan had gone, Jamie said, “Who did Cyrus catch his daughter with, Abe?”
The storekeeper was speechless. “Why . . . I hadn’t thought of that, Jamie.”
“You can bet that’s what this is all about.” Jamie reached inside the cabin and strapped his pistol belt around him. He didn’t have to check to see if the guns were loaded . . . guns were always loaded on the frontier. “You go back to your wife, Abe. I’ll saddle up and ride over the ridge and find out what this is all about. Tell Kate where I’ve gone.”
Before Jamie had put the lamplights of the settlement out of sight, he heard the sounds of a galloping horse coming hard. “Hold there!” Jamie shouted. “Before you kill that horse.”
Cyrus Hankins reined up the exhausted and trembling animal and Jamie had a notion to slap the man out of the saddle for nearly ruining a good horse.
“Get out of my way, MacCallister!” Cyrus said.
“Watch your mouth, Hankins,” Jamie warned him. “Before your ass overloads it. You’ll not lay another fist or belt on that girl of yours in this valley.”
“So she did come over here!”
“That’s right, and to a safe place. Now you just calm down and tell me what all this is about.”
“I’ll tell you nothin’! You’re not the law around here, MacCallister.”
“You wanna bet?” Jamie said softly.
Like most men of his ilk, Cyrus was a bully, and most bullies are cowards at heart. Cyrus slumped in the saddle, not really wanting to tangle with Jamie. “Caroline ain’t nothin’ but a damned whoor, MacCallister. Takes after her ma, I reckon. I found her with Bob Altman in the barn this afternoon, both of them all caught up in the desires of the flesh. It was a terrible sight to behold, it was.”
“Where is Altman?”
“Dead. I run him through and through with a hayfork. I reckon he’s still there in the barn. Then I whupped that girl to a fare-thee-well. Now git out of my way, MacCallister, ’cause I’m a fixin’ to whup her some more.”
“No, you’re not, Cyrus. She’s had enough. Too much, really. Go on back home and calm down.”
Cyrus tried to jump his tired horse to get some distance on Jamie, but the horse was just too weary to jump. Jamie lashed out with a hard left fist and smacked Cyrus flush on the jaw, knocking the man from the saddle and stretching him out on the narrow trail. Jamie took the man’s pistol and knife and led the tired horse back to the settlement and put him in a stall to eat and rest. Morgan came out to see what was going on.
“Give him some water when he cools down, Morgan. I’ll be over at Abe’s.”
Jamie was shocked at the girl’s appearance. Both eyes were nearly swollen shut and her face was a mass of cuts and bruises.
“Is she pregnant, Kate?”
“Yes. About four months, I’d say. She’s a strong, healthy girl, so she might not lose the baby. It’s just too early to tell.”
“Ya, it’s a bad ting,” the Swede said. “A bad ting, it is.”
“Go wait outside,” Hannah told him. “And you, too,” she told Jamie.
“You go with them,” Rebecca told Abe. “This is woman’s work. You men just get in the way.”
On the porch, the men lit their pipes and Jamie told them what had happened across the ridge.
“Killed him?” Abe said.
“I knew dem movers was trouble when I seen dem,” Swede said. “I told Hannah they was, I did.” He shook his big head. “But to kill someone . . . it takes two for a coupling, you know.”
“That’s true,” Abe said. “And the girl is pregnant.”
“But is it Altman’s child?” Jamie questioned.
“What do you mean, Jamie?” Swede asked.
“Something is wrong here. I sensed it in Hankins’s voice back yonder on the trail. I got a notion this is darker than any of us realize.”
“You better believe it is,” Kate spoke from the doorway. No one had heard her pull open the door. “Caroline is awake. She says Bob Altman raped her . . . but she’s pregnant due to her father. Cyrus began forcing himself on her several years ago . . . threatened to kill her if she told anyone. I believe her, Jamie.”
The men were shocked into silence. By now, most of the settlement had gathered around, their breath making steam in the cold night air.
“Murder and incest,” Reverend Haywood said. “The murder might be justified, but the incest is certainly not.”
“It might be a blessing if the child is aborted,” Sarah said, stepping up on the porch to stand beside Kate. “It could well be a monster.”
“That is in God’s hands,” Juan Nunez said.
“Yes,” Reverend Haywood said. “Quite right.”
“What do we do, Jamie?” Moses asked.
Nearly every man there was older than Jamie, but still they looked to him for leadership. “It’s her word against his. Even back east, no jury would convict Cyrus for killing a man who raped his daughter. Especially since he caught him in the act. Incest is another matter. But there is no law out here. No proper judge. I don’t know what to do.”
“Tar and feather the bastard!” Daniel Noble said.
“Yes,” Eb French agreed. “And then send him on his way.
”
“No!” Jamie thundered, his voice stilling the crowd. “There will be none of that. I told you, it’s his word against hers, even though I am inclined to believe Caroline. I think she’s a good girl born into a rotten family. We’ll send Cyrus and his brood on their way and Caroline can stay here. She can stay over in Ian’s cabin. No point in it going to waste when there is need.”
“I agree,” Kate said.
“Me, too,” Hannah said.
“And I,” Sarah said.
“I tink dats a good idea,” the Swede said. “Yes, I do.”
“Hannah, Sarah, and I will stay over here tonight,” Kate whispered to Jamie. “Mrs. Goldman is about done in. You go back home and—”
“No,” Jamie said. “I’ll stay over here just in case Cyrus decides to do something tonight. I’ll sleep in the barn. I’ll see Megan home and be right back.”
“Yes. That’s a good idea. I’ll get Megan.”
The crowd began to slowly break up, with Swede and Sam staying at the Goldman home until Jamie returned. If Cyrus was foolish enough to try something at Jamie and Kate’s home, it would more than likely be the last time he ever tried anything, for Megan could outshoot the boys, and Jamie knew his daughter well. She would not hesitate in using a gun to defend hearth and home. The boys would probably shoot quicker, but not as straight as Megan, something that always irritated Matt and Morgan and never failed to amuse Jamie.
“Don’t worry, Pa,” she told him on the way home. “If Cyrus comes around our cabin, he’ll regret it . . . for a real short period of time.”
Six
Just after dawn, when Juan and Daniel Noble relieved him, Jamie saddled up and rode over the ridge to the other community. Cyrus’s horse had come up lame; nothing serious but Jamie wanted to keep him away from Cyrus, so he left the animal in his barn.
The people in the settlement across the ridge were up and gathered all around the community building that served as a school and church. The blanket-wrapped body of Bob Altman was laying in the bed of a wagon.
“If you’re lookin’ for Cyrus, Mr. MacCallister,” a man said as Jamie swung down from the saddle, “you’re too late. He and his wife and kids pulled out before dawn. They was up all night, a-packin’ and a-fightin’ and a-fussin’ amongst themselves. You never in your life heard such a commotion. I say it’s good riddance.”
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