On the Trail to Moonlight Gulch

by Shelter Somerset

  Unlike the last time Tory had ridden the trail, he could enjoy the idyllic surroundings without sweating under heavy burlap. The more he saw of Franklin’s home, the more he envied him. The richness of the forest seemed to echo off the mountains, as if the color exuded a life of its own, like the birds, trees, and flowers. Sun fell from the heavy branches like a shower of sparkling light. A dreamlike haze followed them along every bend and dip of the trail. Osprey called from overhead. Ravens seemed to pursue them from tree branch to tree branch. Porcupines and mule deer foraged on the forest’s floor.

  As they drove along the gulch, Tory watched Franklin from the corner of his eye. Tory marveled how his left arm, lightning-fast at times, did the work of two. Franklin maneuvered his stump like a counterbalance, sometimes using it like a blunt tool, expertly whipping it about.

  Tory couldn’t help but mention a thought that came to mind, a thought that he had once written in one of his letters, but then he had torn it to pieces, judging it too insensitive. Now, witnessing how comfortable Franklin was with his affliction, Tory saw no reason to hold back.

  “They have attachments for people who’ve lost arms and legs,” he said.

  Franklin did not answer at first, his eyes fixed on the uneven trail. “I’m aware of those things.”

  “Why don’t you get one?”

  “I got one. It’s in my war trunk back at the cabin. Army issued it to me after the war.”

  “Why don’t you use it?”

  “Gets in the way. I used to wear it when I went into town, mostly for appearances. But then I figured, who am I trying to impress in Spiketrout? There ain’t no ladies there worth getting cleaned up for.”

  Tory reflected. He brooded over his alias, “Torsten P.” Would the guilt ever quit biting him?

  Lulu led them past the waterfall and around the first major bend. She snorted, flicking her ears at the flies gathering around her eyes. Golden sunrays draped from the aspen branches, their leaves shimmering like delicate hands carved from emerald stone.

  “What are your plans in Spiketrout?” Franklin asked.

  Tory hadn’t really considered his plans. He had but one goal when he journeyed to the Black Hills, and that was to meet his long-time correspondent, Franklin Ausmus. He had accomplished that. He sat next to him in his wagon, a mere arm’s length away.

  “I’m really unsure,” Tory said. “I suppose I’ll look for work if I decide to stay.”

  “What did you do back in Chicago?”

  “I helped in my parents’ bakery. We also ran a boarding house.”

  “Explains your fine cooking.”

  Tory flushed. “Thank you. Do you think I might find something in town?”

  “There’re about three jobs in Spiketrout,” Franklin said with a sarcastic inflection. “Prostitute. Gambler. Prospector. Some folks do all three. Somehow I can’t picture you doing any of them.”

  “There’s an inn in town. I could work there.”

  “That ain’t really an inn,” Franklin said. “Sure, they got rooms and a kitchen. But the Gold Dust is in business for one thing.”

  “Not much else I can do,” Tory said, his head low, “other than go back to Chicago. I guess I really am nothing but a tourist.”

  “I know the lady who runs the Gold Dust,” Franklin said, brightening his voice. “Madame Lafourchette. That’s the name she goes by. Never learned her real name. Folks say she’s from Poland, or her parents are. She’s a good woman as far as they go around here, despite her keeping a stable of girls. She treats them good and fair. She doesn’t take bark or bite from the men who carouse the place. She’d probably make a better boss than most in Spiketrout. I’ll put a good word in for you, if you choose to stay, that is.”

  “That will be kind of you. Does she need any help?”

  Franklin shrugged with a downturn of his mouth. “People in Spiketrout come and go, so she just might need someone in the kitchen.”

  The gulch opened into a dell bursting with purple and yellow wildflowers. Butterflies rested on golden alfalfa in grassy, sun-soaked gullies. A brown rabbit rustled in the duff, then scurried off once Lulu neared.

  “I can understand why you’ve lived here for so long,” Tory said. “It’s beautiful, more than I imagined.”

  “What makes you think I been here long?”

  “Well, by the look of your homestead, it’s clear you’ve settled for quite some time.” Tory had to exercise discretion. He remembered Franklin’s earnest descriptions of his cherished parcel of earth. To make it seem he was unfamiliar, he asked Franklin how he had come upon it. He wanted to hear the story from his own mouth, to devour personally the passion in his voice.

  “It’s a long story,” Franklin said. But he went ahead anyhow of how he’d wandered the Hills for weeks searching for the perfect tract of land to call home, until finally stumbling upon the moonlit gulch at the end of an old Indian trail. “That’s when I knew I was home,” Franklin said, grinning at the trees. “I decided to call my homestead Moonlight Gulch because of the moonlight dancing off the creek.”

  Tory, his hands balled in his lap, gazed at Franklin’s profile while he described how he had found his homestead. His button nose, simple and soft, elicited a sweet contrast to his rugged features. His bushy horseshoe mustache seemed to swallow the entire lower half of his tanned face. The green fire in his eyes while he recounted his first encounter with his land nearly forced Tory to tears. He was grateful to share that moment in time with Franklin, no matter how brief.

  They chatted about nature and life on the homestead the rest of the way into Spiketrout. Shortly the trail opened and Franklin steered Lulu onto dusty Main Street and parked next to the jailhouse. He set the brake, jumped out, and hitched Lulu to a post. Tory grabbed his satchel and followed.

  “Make sure if you decide to nap in someone’s wagon, you figure out who owns it first,” Franklin told him. “They might not be so kindhearted.”

  “I’ll remember that.” Tory said, smiling. “You’ve been very generous. Thank you for everything.”

  “I got some things to talk over with the marshal,” Franklin said. “If you choose to stay, you let Madame Lafourchette know I give you a good word.”

  Tory stared toward the Gold Dust Inn. His heart drummed against his chest. Franklin turned toward the jailhouse. Tory called after him.

  “Do you come into town often?” he asked.

  Spinning around on his boot heels, Franklin peered at him from under his Stetson. “I try to stay away as much as possible. I come in for my barbering, bartering and selling things, getting my mail. Usually not more than twice a month in the warm months. Why do you ask?”

  “Just curious.”

  Franklin grunted and went about his business. Tory watched him disappear into the jailhouse. Clutching his bag, he inhaled and faced Madame Lafourchette’s inn. Even at such an early hour, rollicking player piano music from inside seeped onto the street.

  Had his traveling so far for a mere one-night stay with Franklin Ausmus been worth it? No, he decided with certainty. He wanted more. What waited for him back in Chicago other than the wrath of his parents and the miserable life of a lonely bachelor? He had unfinished business in Spiketrout. Franklin was still close by. An unquenched need nagged Tory. He couldn’t leave. Not yet. Franklin had said he ventured into town a few times a month. Tory sighed. He supposed seeing him every few weeks was better than nothing.

  Squaring his shoulders, he marched across the street. Three men who appeared to be arguing exited the inn as he approached the boardwalk. Two stumbled backward, as if inebriated. The other grabbed them by their shirts and crammed their noses within inches of his. One of the men spit tobacco juice into his assailant’s face. The man was about to slug him when a fourth man came out of the inn and struck him on the back of his head with a newel post. He staggered back, releasing the other two. His face turned as red as a tomato and, he jerked around with a hauled-back fist, as if he were about to pitch a bas
eball, and cuffed the fourth man in the mouth. Blood and tobacco juice splattered over their shirts.

  The other two seized the opportunity to jump the third man. A tangle of arms and legs spiraled in every direction. Madame Lafourchette rushed out of the inn with her parasol swinging. Using curses Tory had only heard from the mouths of drunken teamsters, she batted and kicked and punched.

  “Get away from my inn, you deadbeats,” she hollered. “Don’t come back, you hear?”

  One of the fighting men took a blow that knocked him into the street. Tory jumped sideways out of his trajectory. Shaking himself, the man scrambled to his feet and rejoined the fight.

  “Stop that! Stop that!” Madame Lafourchette lurched for one of the men and dragged him clear down the boardwalk to the intersection. She pushed him onto all fours and, with her steeple boot, kicked him into the street. He rubbed his rump and ran hollering toward the jailhouse.

  Madame Lafourchette returned to the center of the ruckus and began striking the men in the head and shoulders with her parasol. Ear-curdling expletives spewed from between her cherry-red lips. More men poured out from the inn and joined the brawl. Tory was unable to count how many. Worried for his safety, he ducked behind a horse hitched to a wagon, but a man reeking of rum and urine came after him. Wobbly and bloodied, the man grabbed Tory by his jacket collar and thrust a fist into Tory’s nose. Stunned, Tory fell backward into the horse. His satchel and derby slid under the wagon.

  The man lunged for Tory again, but Tory rolled from his grasp just in time. The squealing horse landed a front hoof on the man’s stomach. Growling in pain, the man stumbled blindly toward the boardwalk, where a boot met his forehead. He fell back onto the street and lay sprawled, motionless.

  Numbing paralysis spread from Tory’s nose to his ears. He checked for blood, but his fingertips came away clean. A heavy swirl of jasmine perfume revived Tory and made him cough. Leaning on his elbows, he watched in a daze as Madame Lafourchette crouched down to inspect him.

  “You all right, honey?”

  “Yes, I’m all right.” Tory rubbed his nose.

  The shouting increased. Madame Lafourchette wielded her parasol and let loose a new string of expletives in the faces of the brawlers. Tory heard Franklin’s voice coming from down the street. He twisted around and saw him racing up the boardwalk with another lanky fellow. Franklin stopped before the spiral of fighters and glanced down at Tory. A fierce grimace ironed the fine lines around his eyes. Jumping into the fray, he became a one-armed fighting machine. He used his legs like a donkey. Tory wanted to race in and help, but he knew he was useless.

  Madame Lafourchette’s painted fingernails dug into the cheek of one of Franklin’s muggers. Franklin kicked the man, and he doubled over. Franklin’s companion (Tory noticed his marshal badge glinting in the sunlight) hauled two fighters upright by their collars, their feet dangling. The two men swung and kicked wildly at the air.

  The marshal’s robust voice crested above the shouts and curses. One by one, the men calmed. Madame Lafourchette held one man against the wall with her bustle. Most of the men were hunched over, clutching onto the side of the building, or lay flaccid on the ground.

  “Who started all this nonsense?” the marshal demanded. The accusations began to fly as wildly as the fists had. The marshal insisted on quiet. “Help me with these roustabouts,” he told a few of the men who were minding their own businesses. “Come on. We’ll settle this back at the jailhouse.”

  “Don’t let them come back here, Marshal,” Madame Lafourchette hollered after them as he herded the men down the street.

  Once they were corralled into the jailhouse, Franklin dropped to a squat by Tory’s head. “Are you all right?”

  “It’s nothing, really,” Tory said, touching his nose. “Someone just bruised my nose, that’s all. It’s odd. No one has ever struck me before.”

  Twirling her parasol, Madame Lafourchette looked down at them from the boardwalk. The exertion from the brawl had left the powder on her face splotchy, and the raspberry paint on her cheeks had bled. “I wish the gold hadn’t dried up,” she said, shaking her head. “When they had dust to spend, they weren’t so quick to fighting. Now they all are like children without candy, always looking for a chance to throw a fit. It’s a vicious circle, ain’t it?”

  Franklin glanced at her. “You might think about getting yourself some protection.”

  “Who do you think half those men were?” She guffawed and, swinging her wide hips, sauntered back into her establishment with the swirling parasol capturing the sunlight.

  Franklin reached a hand to Tory and helped him to his feet, the second time in less than twenty-four hours he had done so. “You didn’t get a job there yet, did you?”

  “No, I never had a chance to go inside.” Tory brushed the dirt from his clothes.

  “I don’t see you working at a place like that. And there’s really nothing else left in town. You still wanting to stay?”

  “I kinda had my mind set on it,” Tory said.

  Franklin shook his head and made a strange elongated grunt that came from the back of his throat. “Come on,” he said, rolling his green eyes. “You best come back with me. I reckon I can put you to use on the homestead somehow. I can always use an extra hand.”

  Tory nearly toppled back to the ground. “You mean it?”

  Franklin grabbed for Tory’s bag and derby from under the wagon. He handed the derby to Tory. Scrunching his mustache at the satchel in his hand, he asked him, “What else you got in here?”

  “Just some clothes, a few personal items.”

  “Fancy city clothes like you got on?”

  Tory scanned the length of his body from his congress boots to his pinstripe pants, sack coat, tweed vest, and silk cravat, all disheveled and covered in dust and splatters of what looked like blood. “Yes,” he said, his cheeks heating. “My clothes are about all the same.”

  “You best get something more suitable for ranch work. That fancy derby won’t do you much good out in the field, either. You got money?”

  Tory felt for the purse containing his last three hundred dollars in his breast pocket. Sighing with relief, he said, “Yes, I have money.”

  “Let’s head over to the mercantile, then.”

  Half an hour later, they were riding back to Moonlight Gulch with Tory’s new sturdy boots, wool socks, two pair of breeches, three flannel shirts, and an authentic rawhide Stetson rocking in the back inside brown paper. Franklin went down a list of what Tory should expect working on a subsistent homestead.

  “This ain’t Chicago with all your fancy things. No ice boxes, no electricity at Moonlight Gulch. And that’s how I like it.”

  “I understand,” Tory said, eager to prove himself to Franklin. “And I can sleep in the barn. I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

  “Too late for that,” Franklin said. “You can sleep on the cot in the cabin like before. No point letting you freeze. It gets cold at night in the mountains. You won’t be any good to me if you’re sick with pneumonia or dead.”

  And for the three dollars a week, plus room and board, that Franklin had said he would pay him in wages, Tory figured that was good enough. He tried his best to keep from grinning all the way back to Moonlight Gulch.

  Seemed his trip to the Black Hills wasn’t for naught, after all.

  Chapter 15

  THE happiest days of Tory’s life passed at Moonlight Gulch. Though Franklin had kept his promise to work him hard, his first week by his side flowed as easily as the creek running through Franklin’s land. He learned to slop the hogs and milk a cow, pump water into the sluice to water the crops, and snatch an egg from under a hen without getting pecked. Running a homestead, Tory discovered, was a never-ending task, much more tedious than the running of a boarding house and bakery. Yet Tory would not have traded his experiences for all the free time in the world.

  The hardest task was censoring what he said around Franklin. He knew Franklin far better t
han Franklin would understand. The few times he had slipped, revealing information only Franklin would know, he wiggled his way out by blaming his knowledge on Wicasha, who popped in for occasional visits. Franklin seemed to accept Tory’s explanations.

  He felt bad for deceiving Franklin. He tried to atone by working extra hard. Franklin seemed to appreciate his diligence. Tory could not deny a genuine affection had developed between them. Franklin had taken a liking to him, he was certain.

  That became clear one evening a week after Tory had first arrived at the homestead. They were idling in domestic comfort, away from the heat of the cabin while supper roasted in the oven, after toiling in the field side by side all day. Granite peaks were silhouetted against the indigo sky. The scent of wild honeysuckle wafted down from the forested ridges like sweet breath. By the added light of a torch, Tory rolled dough for kanelbulle at the plank table while Franklin, leaning against a tree stump, sewed a buckskin jacket. It was then that Franklin finally revealed his loneliness, previously disclosed only in his letters.

  “It’s nice to have someone around to talk with,” he confessed. Tory detected a pink glow on his tanned face.

  “That’s understandable,” Tory said in a casual tone. “You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t want company now and then.”

  “Wicasha’s a good friend to have,” Franklin went on, “but we have our separate lives.”

  Tory genuinely wanted to know more about Wicasha. Franklin had never gone into detail about the Lakota’s life in any of his letters—at least not before Postman Persson began burning them.

  “What’s Wicasha’s story?” Tory asked, lifting his eyes from the cinnamon rolls only long enough to gauge whether Franklin was ready to talk about him.

  Franklin rested his sewing in his lap. Gazing at the lofty peaks, he seemed to reflect. “He’s an outcast from his band,” he said, turning back to his buckskin jacket. “He helped the cavalry scout out the Sioux back in the ’70s.”