JOHN STARTLES AWAKE, sure that his reason for waking wasn’t the dream. Red-Feather’s eyes are staring at him from across the campfire. With his eyes, Red-Feather indicates that what woke John was behind him, just past his head. John is lying on his right side, with his Colt in its cross-draw, covered by his blanket.
Slowly, deliberately, John draws his Colt from its holster and rotates, as if turning over in his sleep. He whips both head and gun around, to be faced with the barrel of a Winchester, scant inches from his head.
A gravelly voice says, “Slowly release the hammer of your gun and throw it over towards me. Tell your injun if he makes a move, he dies."
John does as instructed, knowing he still has his derringer as a backup. After he tosses his gun, John slowly stands, hands held chest high, palms out. He sees the man accosting them. The man is middle-aged, thin, and dressed simply. He is holding the repeater rifle with an ease that makes John think he has held it often.
John stands and looks at the man. “You are trespassing on our lands. We are here from the landrun.” John asks evenly, “Who are you, and why are you here?” He glances around counting eight riders with rifles point toward the pair. Too many to walk away unscathed.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the man says. “I own this entire area. This is my land, once I turn in these claim papers.” He holds up the paperwork John remembers putting into his saddlebags several hours earlier.
“So that’s it, claim jumpers. I will see you hang for this.”
The man has an oily smirk on his face. “That’s saying I let you live. You may notice, I outgun you.” He waves backward to his men, swinging his rifle around.
This man is obviously dangerous in his recklessness. John looks at the riders. They appear to be young, most likely inexperienced. John slowly turns his head to Red-Feather. Red-Feather’s eyes open in comprehension and he barely shakes his head. John’s eyes narrow and he nods almost imperceptibly. Red-Feather sighs and nods the same way. “Well, then it seems like we are at an impasse. You want us to get off your land, and we are ordering you off ours.” John slowly starts edging toward his attacker. The distance is only about five feet.
“Nope. No dispute. We have the papers, so you’re on my land. You’re trespassers. You deserve to be shot.” He racks a round into the chamber and raises the gun to his shoulder. John has closed the gap enough now; he is able to move into action. In one smooth movement, John pulls his belt-knife, knocks the rifle aside, pulling his attacker around and off balance, then wraps his knife-hand around the man’s throat. Facing the men with his knife in the position to kill, John yells, “Drop your guns or I put out the fire with his blood!” Red-Feather stands quickly, raising his Winchester and racking a round into it.
The captive man starts trembling slightly, then yells, “He’s serious, boys! Do as he says!”
John leans in and whispers in a snarl, “I knew you would see it my way. Now, leave all the papers and get out of here. If I see you on my lands again, I’ll make sure the ground drinks your blood.” Just to emphasize his point, he nicks the man’s throat, drawing a small amount of blood.
“Pa?” one of the riders calls out.
“Do as he says or he’ll kill me!” The riders slowly bring their horses in closer and start disarming themselves of their assorted guns while John holds their leader under knife point.
Now that they are close enough, John sees they are all quite young and all appear to be related. AH. “If you want to stay alive long enough to leave your sons a legacy, don’t jump any more claims,” John whispers to the man, who gasps in response. “My friend’s gun is trained on you. I am going to let you go. We will take your guns with us to the land office where you can pick them up. I will also tell them you tried to claim jump us, so you won’t be able to register these four other claims. Turn and go slowly to the horse your son is holding for you and leave. NOW.”
John shoves the man towards his horse.
The man stumbles, catches himself and once mounted, turns his horse and says, “I’ll see you dead for this!” He spurs his horse on and leads his sons to the east, toward the lands of the Shawnee, which as yet, have not been opened to white settlement.
“Well then, that was fun.” John makes a face. “What time do you make it?”
“Just a bit before first light.”
“Feel like stoking the fire?” John asks. “I can get some food ready; then we can get done and over with all this.”
Red-Feather storms up to him and yells, “Are you sun-touched? You almost got us killed!”
“I know. I took a risk, but I saw those green-horns and knew they wouldn’t shoot without their old man’s permission.”
“No more hare-brained ideas like that, okay?”
John grins irrepressibly. “No promises.”
They eat a meager breakfast, gather all the guns, and ride toward the land office. They arrive around noon and are surprised by the number of people surrounding the tent. It isn’t only settlers. At a quick glance, John counts 50 cavalry stationed around the land officer. The line isn’t too long, only four people. When John gets to the front of the line, he held out the paperwork.
“Only one claim per person, unless you were an Indian Scout,” intones the land agent with a seemingly bored voice.
“I was a scout—wait, what? How much land can an Indian Scout claim?”
“Four plots maximum, and we need the paperwork showing honorable discharge from service.”
John motions Red-Feather, who is still carrying all the guns, over. “I was going to give this man my claim anyways. He will be filing these claims. Also, who would I talk to about having been set upon by claim jumpers last night?”
The land agent, without looking up from the paperwork in front, jabs his thumb over his shoulder pointing to a captain of the cavalry. Red-Feather runs over to the horses and grabs his discharge paperwork, while John carts the guns over to the cavalry detachment. “We were set upon by claim jumpers last night, and would like to turn these guns we confiscated from them over.”
The captain is stunned. “Why would you turn them over to us?”
“I don’t want to be called a thief. We took them to keep them from being used on us while we slept. I told them that I was going to turn them over, and that I was going to tell you how we came across them. I’m no thief, and I sure don’t want no one sayin' otherwise.”
“Honorable as your intentions are, I doubt they will be reclaimed. If those claim jumpers have a brain in their head, they won’t come forward. If they haven’t been claimed in two weeks, come back by here and we will return them to you. We’re not babysitters. How did you confiscate them by the way?”
John spends several minutes explaining what had happened several hours earlier, by the end of which, the Captain is smiling appreciably and hands him a reclamation ticket for the guns. “Sounds like you got them rather nicely. Remind me not to get on your bad side.” While John tells the tale, Red-Feather walks up with a single piece of paper, expression exultant.
“Guess that’s it, eh?” John asks archly.
“Guess so.”
They leave to go explore Red-Feather’s now greatly expanded acreage. They spend the rest of the day exploring the boundaries and plotting the location for the home camp. Once again that night, they sit around the campfire enjoying a fine meal and celebratory sips from the flask. However, by mutual consent, neither imbibe more than a few sips and each stand guard half the night.
Chapter 3
“Johnny?” Liz asks.
Johnny is crouched, shovel at the ready to use in case of an attack. “Who? How? HUH?”
Liz starts crying and runs over to him.
Johnny stands and wraps his arms around his friend. “I wondered where you were. I didn’t see you when we were burying everyone else. What happened?”
Through her tears, Liz explains that she was sent out looking for some wild mushrooms several hours before the attack, how s
he heard the commotion and the screaming. She stayed in the forest until they left, but when Josh and Johnny came back into the clearing, she got scared and stayed overnight in the woods.
Johnny hears Josh come out of the cellar. Liz is the last person they were expecting to see. She is the smallest and weakest of all the girls. However, she is the one person that Johnny wants to see the most. He held her against his chest, stroking her hair through the storm of weeping. There were several girls missing. Both boys had figured they were taken captive to be sold into cat houses. Johnny hears Josh come up and Josh motions back to the cellar. He’s going to find the chest.
A few minutes later, Johnny hears, “Guys! I found it!” from underground and both Johnny and Liz stand up. She slips her hand into his with a shy look, pleading. Johnny smiles and they both rush to the cellar. They go down into the cellar and see their friend standing in front of two chests. Slowly, Josh reaches down to open one of them.
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, after enjoying breakfast together, Red-Feather leaves the property to go retrieve his family. He leaves John with the homestead paperwork. John rides out to the edges of the property, and places tree branches every fifty yards down the length of the property line.
Once he completes that, it is nearly dark. John rides back to the area they have established their camp in, gets his change of clothing, soap and a towel, and rides over to the creek. Being careful to make sure he has his gun close by, John takes a bath and washes his clothes in the creek. He throws the wet clothes over a nearby tree branch to dry and settles in for the night there by the creek. Keeping a hand on his gun, John falls into a light, troubled sleep.
OPENING THE FIRST OF the trunks, they see it is filled with gold and paper money. The other is filled with personal items, letters, pictures, etc. Johnny looks at the letters, stunned. The three teenagers search through the trunks for anything with their names on them. Johnny sees a letter with his name on it, in an unfamiliar hand. He immediately rips it open and sees another, contained in it as well.
July 20, 1850
Johnny, your father is gone. He rode into town, dropped this letter off at my office, went down the street, and took his own life. We are sorry for your loss.
Signed,
Sheriff Davis
Federal County Mo.
“They hid this from me for ten years?” Johnny exclaims incredulously, tears crowding his eyes once more.
Dere Son
I know yu are to young to understand this but I wanted to let yu know why I felt I had to do this I know yu probly won’t foregive me for it I dropt yu off at the orphanage to weeks ago, cus yor ma died of konsumshun, and I got it to I don wanna die like she did so I am gon go out on my on terms May God grant you pees and helth I pray I got yu owt in tim Plees foregiv me fore not being ther fore yu growin up Just no yore ma n I wil alwas luv yu
Pa
Johnny falls heavily onto his backside. Pa hadn’t abandoned him, he'd saved him. Pa was dying. Johnny starts crying freely now. Liz walks up to him, and presses his head to her breast. She starts stroking his hair.
“Well, at least we have enough money we can live on,” Josh says sardonically.
“How can you think about money at a time like this?” Liz demands fiercely. “Everyone we know is dead, and only God knows who it was that attacked them, or if they will even come back. We are alone in the wilderness, surrounded by people that want to kill us or possibly do even worse.”
“Look, I am just trying to think of ways we can stay alive.”
“He’s right, Liz.” Johnny wipes his tears and looks at her. “And so are you. We don’t need to be here. We need to take some of this money, and git. We also need to hide the rest in case we need more.” He stands, and squares his shoulders. “No more tears. We are truly alone now. We have only each other to depend on.”
“What about God?” Liz asks wide-eyed.
“There is no God. He’s an invention of the church to steal the money, objects, and dreams of the unsuspecting public. This money proves it.” Johnny shakes his head in disgust. “Those sisters stole all this from US!” He spits on the ground and sighs deeply. “Well, whatever we do, we need to do it now. Who knows if those riders are gonna come back. We need to be somewhere else.” He moves to get some of the paper money and gold.
Liz grabs his arm, pulls him back into her embrace and says softly, “I’m scared, confused, and we’re all hungry. Shouldn’t we have something to eat? Shouldn’t we wait to leave until morning?”
Much as Johnny wants to be away, it seems to be the best course of action. It is getting on to be late afternoon, and they are all exhausted enough to be stumbling around. He hates the thought of spending one more hour at the site of this tragedy, but he won’t really be able to do anything tonight anyways.
All three of them load their pockets with money and grab several unmarked jars. They troop out back to their temporary campsite. They gather some wood for a campfire and cook the rabbits that were caught the day before. They check out what kind of jars they brought up from storage. Liz had gotten several jars of pickled okra, Johnny pickled beets, and Josh had several jars of peaches.
They eat mostly in silence. Johnny stares at the flames, lost in thought about the revelations of the day. After they eat, Liz looks at him, turns to Josh, and shakes her head. “Does anyone have an idea what we’re gonna do, where we’re gonna go?” she asks.
Josh, interrupted from his musing, looks at her and in a distant voice, asks, “Do you? You ‘n me been here around the same time. Did the sisters ever take you to town? Do you even KNOW where town is?”
Liz stares into the fire. “Well then, what now? Where do we go? How do we get there, and what do we do once we DO get there?”
Johnny, rather bemused by the fire, replies, “Did anyone recognize those riders?”
“What? No, I just saw some of them wearing blue, maybe,” Josh replies.
“That’s right! They were soldiers. I figure they were cavalry. Why would soldiers want to rape nuns and burn down an orphanage?” Having the confirmation of his fears, Johnny begins to dread the direction of this conversation.
Josh looks at him for a moment, his mouth working noiselessly. “I don’t know. Maybe they were looking for—God knows how much—gold and money that was hidden here?”
“We were only gone a few hours. That was barely enough time for them to have done this.” Johnny motions around to the numerous graves and burned out buildings. “If they were looking for money, don’t you think they would be spending some time, I don’t know, actually LOOKING for it?”
Liz looks at the both of them, stunned. “We have literally lost EVERYONE we have ever known or loved, and you two are sitting here trying to figure out their REASONING WHY?”
Johnny looks at her. “We need to know why so we can figure out if they are going to come back and kill us, or if they are done with us. Either way, we need to make sure one of us stands guard, while the other two sleep. I’ll do it first, while the two of you grab some shut-eye.”
Josh snorts, and curls up under a blanket.
Johnny stands up, grabs a shovel, and walks over to the wall with a view over the camp. He leans up against it, bemused as he watches Liz get up and saunter on over.
“I’m glad you survived,” she whispers to him. “There’s something I have been wanting to talk to you about. The sisters would never let us have enough alone time, to be able to talk like this.”
“Talk like this, what?” he asks, just as quietly. She steps up to him, wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him, deeply, lingeringly.
Chapter 4
John wakes with a pang in his chest and a curse upon his lips. He looks around, and sees a fog developing off the water in the creek. From the position of the stars, John guesses it to be just before first light. He stands and stretches some of the kinks out. Out in the field, he sees a doe stand and shake herself. He grabs his rifle and sets his sights, only to see a speckled fawn rise up next
to her and he lowers the rifle. You’re lucky this time.
After a meager breakfast from a can of beans, John starts working on building a soddie. Around noon, he breaks for lunch and sees smoke on the horizon. It doesn’t look too thick, little more than one would think would come from a campfire. Judging by the position of the smoke, however, it appears to be well outside the boundaries of Red-Feather’s property.
It does appear to be coming from the same direction as the land office, though. John puts his shirt on, saddles his horse, and rides over toward the column of smoke. After riding for more than an hour, he sees he was right about one thing. It was in the direction of the land office.
About two miles from where John remembers the land office to be, he sees a fire in the middle of the prairie, and several riders wearing white cloaks and hoods riding at a hard gallop away. He rides closer to the fire and sees what appears to be a wagon on fire. As he gets closer, he looks for survivors and sees two people face down in the sparse grass. He takes a chance that they might be alive and checks for signs of life. They are bloodied and battered, but still breathing. It’s the Chinaman and his wife he remembered seeing in line during the landrun. John picks the man up and slings him over the saddle of his horse. He then picks up the man’s wife, puts her on top of her husband, and ties them both down to the saddle, keeping them from slipping. He walks his horse back to his temporary campsite.
He pulls them off the horse one at a time and lays them on the ground by the creek. The Chinaman groans when John starts tending to his wounds. However, his wife doesn’t stir at all. John spends the entire evening doctoring their wounds. He eats a little bit of the leftover meat from the night before.
A little before midnight, the Chinaman wakes. John slowly and carefully crosses the campfire to stand in front of him. The man looks around fearfully. He hunches down onto his knees, treating the injured man much as a wounded animal. He holds out a cup of water, fresh from the creek. “Would you like some water?” The man stares back at him, dumbly. John offers it again, only to have the man not understand.
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