Maps of Fate

by Reid Lance Rosenthal

  She lay still, not struggling, something she had learned from countless attempts, and from the bruises and pain that resulted from trying to fight a brute man who outweighed her by more than a hundred pounds. But this time, she had a plan.

  He fumbled with his free hand, trying to raise her dress. She turned her head to avoid the exhale of his dank, liquored-up breath. At the feel of his saliva dribbling down her neck, she felt the onset of nausea, something she’d been plagued by during the past two weeks. She closed her eyes, pressed her lips together, and suppressed the urge to retch.

  “Nobody talks to me like that, you wench. You ungrateful redheaded English bitch. I bought this wagon for you, did I not? I brought flowers to your aunt’s stinky little sewing shop in New York. I was a gentleman. You wanted it on the train. You would’ve never come with me if you didn’t.”

  He mouthed her ear, his raspy wet tongue leaving a thick film on her cheek. “You want it now. I can tell when I take you, you like it more and more. We fit together good,” he grunted.

  He raised her skirt and single petticoat halfway up her legs. His hand reached under the hem and began to move up the inner part of her thigh. His grip over her mouth tightened. “I spent good money on this wagon so you wouldn’t have to walk all the way to the damn mountains. I told you about the gold. I will not sleep on the stinking ground like a damn animal.” His lips and tongue were now pressed against her right ear.

  She shuddered, focusing on her left hand, which she had been quietly extending over the coarse covers of the grain storage bags.

  “Ah, I knew you liked it, freckle-faced slut. You’re my woman and I will take you when I want. You can pretend but I know different, Sarah Bonney of Liverpool. I know different.”

  Her fingers felt the leather underside of the satchel she and Emily had carefully sewed. She inched her hand up from the bottom, where she had hidden her money in the secret compartment since England, into the carryall. She had purposely left the handbag open and in a certain easily accessible spot in the wagon, exactly for this moment. The surprise of many of her Edinburgh shipmates being on this wagon train had merely accelerated the inevitable. She knew this time would come when she had made her plan and agreed to accompany Jacob to the Rockies.

  Jacob had smuggled four jugs of whiskey onto the wagon in St. Louis. He was partially drunk, a nighttime ritual. His hand reached the tender, soft area where her inner thighs merged and where the tips of his thick fingers probed, intent on forcing their way into her. She did nothing to prevent his penetration. As one finger slid savagely into her, she concentrated on holding her shoulder still as her left hand fumbled carefully inside the satchel, willing herself to recognize the various objects as her fingers brushed against them.

  She knew from the bitter experience of the last weeks that once he raised her petticoat and skirt up over her hips and forced her legs fully apart with his knees, he would straighten up to kneel behind her in order to pull his breeches down before lowering himself on her to rape her once again. Her thumb came into contact with a small piece of cold metal. Her heart jumped. Jacob now had both knees between her thighs. Her little fingers closed around the metal. She withdrew it quietly, slowly, and waited.

  Jacobs harsh, threatening whispers transformed to heavy breaths and boarish grunts as he plunged two fingers in and out of her and ground his pelvis against her leg. “That’s better woman, much better. You don’t need to fight me—you and me, Sarah, we have plans.”

  He rose to his knees. She could hear him cursing as he fumbled with the buttons on his trousers.

  Her face was free of his stranglehold, and her back released of his weight. In a quick, agile movement she had practiced one hundred times in her mind, she gathered her right arm under her upper body, raised and twisted her left shoulder and head back toward him, and extended her left hand almost to his face, cocking the hammer of the small, single-barrel .45-caliber Philadelphia Deringer as she did so.

  The sound of the click of the gun’s hammer within the canvas enclosure could not be mistaken. Jacob froze, his pants slightly below his hips, his eyes wide and focused on the muzzle of the three-inch barrel a foot from his face.

  “Get off me right now, or I will pull the trigger. Don’t move, except to backup. Don’t say a word.” Her voice was fierce, harsh, commanding, determined. She heard herself speak as if she was a spectator. She tightened her grip, ever so slightly, on the trigger.

  Jacob came up off his knees, directly backward, sitting down heavily on the inside edge of the tailgate. His wide shoulders, with arms raised and palms facing her, were silhouetted by the dim light filtering through the open canvas from the campfire.

  “You’re crazy, you ungrateful skinny-assed tart. You can’t do this to Jacob O’Shanahan. You’re mine. This wagon is mine.” His face was contorted, almost demonic in the dim light. Sarah knew he’d convinced himself that his position was invincible.

  “So that’s why you excused yourself when we was waiting to load on the barge?” he snarled. “To buy a pistol? What will you tell all these pilgrims? How will you explain your man lying here, his eyes shot out? These do-gooders would probably hang you or take you back St. Louis to be tried for my murder.”

  “Jacob, if you move one more inch, there will be a bullet in your sick brain.”

  He froze, startled by the deathly tone and unemotional ferocity in her voice.

  “And while you’re lying on the floor of this wagon bleeding,” she added, “I will take that stiletto out of your boot, cut your throat, then sink it up to the hilt in your sick, evil heart.”

  She paused. Jacob stared at her, incredulous. Her voice continued in a deadly hiss.

  “Yes, that is when I bought the pistol. You’ve not thought this through, you Irish bully. I am now among friends. People who know me. Reuben is decent and strong and actually respects me. Zeb seems attracted to me. He would like nothing better than to slice you up with that knife of his—you do remember the barge, don’t you? These people from the Edinburgh, which the good Lord has thankfully reunited me with, they know you, too. You can see the way they stare at us. They are shocked that I am with you. They will believe my story. Remember, I have bruises to show—all over my body. And I’ll have Dr. Leonard’s wife examine me where you have ripped me apart time after time.”

  She could feel the scalding heat of tears flowing down her cheeks. Her right eyelid ticked. Her face felt like it was burning. There was a metallic taste in her mouth. She took a deep breath to steady herself. “

  You will not touch me again. Ever. You will not sleep in this wagon with me. If you touch me, or threaten me, I will go to Mac, Zeb, Reuben, and Johannes. They despise you. I will tell them everything.” She paused, to catch her breath and let her words sink in. “And I will tell them about your gold map with the bloodstain. You killed or maimed somebody for that map, Jacob. I know you. You always take what is not yours. You live without regard for others.

  You hurt people without remorse. As of this second, I am no longer one of those people.”

  Jacob’s lower jaw trembled with rage. He began to speak, “You…”

  Her face forward, teeth bared, Sarah interrupted him, her tone filled with hatred and contempt. “Not a word, Jacob. Not one single word. Never threaten me again. You will not gloat over how you would break my neck or throw me off the train.”

  Sarah took a third, steadying breath. “We are now in a small, tight-knit group. Everyone is watching. You saw how Rebecca came up to me. And Mac and Zeb. How Reuben came over to the wagon three times today, then Zeb. I know you noticed Zeb rode directly behind us for several hours. He could have been behind any of the forty-one wagons, Jacob. Why do you think he choose ours?”

  A growing rage clutched her chest. “If anything happens to me, it will not be me that gets hanged by this group of brave men and women, Jacob. It will be you.”

  Jacob did not move. Sarah could tell he was carefully weighing her words, torn between his narcissist p
erceptions, and thinking of his own self-interest. After a minute his muscles relaxed and he sat back fully, no longer making any attempt to force himself on her again.

  When he finally spoke, his voice was like thick, poisoned honey. “Well lassie, I am impressed. You’ve been scheming. You’ve led me on all this time. Here I was thinking you were liking me. And every minute you were planning this. What you really want is the gold map.”

  He shook his head and chortled an evil half-laugh. “I knew it, Sarah. You and I, redhead, are much alike. We are a team. Jacob O’Shanahan always recognizes and respects cunning and planning. You’ve done well.” His voice grew more menacing. “My rules are like this: You don’t threaten me again. If you breathe a word about anything, especially the gold map, I will kill you for the sport of it whether or not I hang.” His eyes bored through the darkness into hers. “And you know I am not bluffing.”

  Sarah straightened her spine, the Deringer still extended, her forearms balanced on her knees, one hand holding the gun, the other wrapped around her shooting wrist. “Get out of the wagon, Jacob.”

  He hesitated, then edged backward. Reaching behind him, he found the ladder with one hand and without looking down, climbed to the ground, his eyes fixed balefully on hers.

  Without taking her gaze off him, Sarah kept the pistol pointed at his head. She fumbled with her left hand for his bedroll. She found it, brought herself to her knees and then stood, never taking the ominous blue-black .45-caliber muzzle of the Deringer from his figure. She walked within a few feet of the open tailgate and kicked the bedroll out and into the dirt.

  “Close and latch the tailgate, Jacob. Put the ladder inside the wagon, and then close off the bottom three ties of the canvas.”

  The last thing she saw as he sullenly obeyed her commands were his eyes staring malevolently at hers while he tied the last chord at the base of the canvas top. Then the fabric tightened, obscuring his face.

  CHAPTER 16

  MARCH 18, 1855

  DOROTHY

  Black Feather’s band rode east away from the mountains at a steady, ground-eating pace, roughly parallel with the Cache la Poudre River. Twenty miles from the last of the foothills, they veered northeast, away from the cottonwood trees that marked the river’s turn to the south. He planned to meet the river again after it, too, had veered north and, fed by tributaries, merged with the Platte.

  For the first several hours his men joked, comparing the bloody scalps they had taken and arguing over which was more valuable, blond, grey, or dark. Occasionally, the discussions became heated and the men lapsed into native tongues. Black Feather shook his head at the indistinguishable bragging and bickering behind him. At times, he craned his head around to see how the girl was riding, reaching behind him to tug her back into a centered position on the black stallion. Three times he asked, “You want to talk yet?” The thin blond girl would not reply or raise her eyes to his, but the grip of her thin arms tightened in their partial circle around his waist, and he could feel increased pressure where her forehead was buried in the army tunic’s dark blue wool, halfway between his shoulder blades and belt.

  They stopped late in the morning to rest and water the horses in Double Kettle Creek. Black Feather scanned the men until he found Pedro. He waved him over. “Pedro, I’m going to untie the lash. Lift her down from the saddle and bring her over to the shade behind those cottonwood trunks.”

  Black Feather loosed the rope that held her to him, and she slumped sideways into Pedro’s thick, waiting arms. “Easy, you fool,” he admonished Pedro, who then carefully set her feet down in the dry sandy soil. But her knees buckled, and she couldn’t support her own weight.

  Pedro looked up at Black Feather, trepidation clearly etched in his face. “Patron, what should I…”

  Black Feather interrupted him, “Carry her over there if you have to.” He gestured with his hand much as one would shoo a stray dog. Then, still mounted, he looked quickly around. “Hank, Snake, and Chief, you too, González, I don’t want any blue-coated surprises. Gonzales, cross the creek and set up a scouting post a half-mile south. That’s a high fold in the ground. Keep your eyes peeled to the southeast and west. Don’t skyline yourself.”

  He turned to the other three. “You three spread out. Hank—go back downstream to that last oxbow we passed behind us—stay in the cottonwoods. Snake, get your ass a half-hour’s ride up this creek bed and slightly north, and you, Chief, I want you a half-hour ride due north. When you see dust, you will know we’re moving again. Keep your position as we move. Keep the same pace as this morning. I don’t want to waste time, but we can’t wear out the horses either.”

  The men started to pull on their reins but Black Feather stopped them. “Wait!” he barked. “No gunplay. Those blue coats will be all over you like dogs if there’s any shots. If you can’t handle any problem with your knife, sneak back here and tell me.”

  The outriders galloped off and Black Feather slid off the stallion. He stretched out one long leg, then the other. He snatched a water pouch from the clutch of one of the band and walked over to where the girl sat, her back against a tree, her knees to her chest, her face buried in her hands.

  Black Feather knelt down slightly to the side and in front of her, careful not to be too close. Skittish as a mustang foal that’s lost her mama in a roundup, he thought to himself. He held up the water pouch. “Thirsty?” The girl was silent. He reached into the side pocket of his tunic, pulled out a hardtack biscuit and took a small bite. “Good. This is a good biscuit.” He extended his hand partway toward her, the biscuit at the tip of his fingers. “Want some?” There was still no verbal or physical response of any kind. He withdrew the proffered food, and, to spell his increasing annoyance, shifted his position from kneeling to sitting cross-legged, still more than an arm’s length from her. Never crowd a cornered foal, he reminded himself. “Well, this time, I will save you the biscuit. At some point, you will be hungry.”

  He relaxed, stretched out his bared arms behind him, and leaned back. He squinted up through the tree branches that stirred just slightly with the faint breeze of late morning. Wisps of clouds floated in and out of the limbed frame of the sky and moved lazily to the northeast, the same direction of travel as he and his band of outlaws.

  Lulled by the changing pattern of blue and white, and perhaps influenced by the shocked, mute trauma of the girl, his mind faded back to his regression at the morning’s ambush, a memory long suppressed.

  His mother Sunray was Osage, a full-blood. She was beautiful, the tallest woman in a tribe, her athletic body proportioned perfectly. Her thin waist flared to hips made for childbearing. It was rare that her perfect white teeth were not displayed in a broad and friendly smile that complimented her wide, acorn-brown eyes. His father, Jonathan Harrison, was older, tall and lanky, with greying hair. He traded often with the Osages. He gave them milk, eggs from his chickens, and vegetables he set aside each harvest.

  In return, he received tanned leather and several horses, including the family favorite—an aging grey mare. The Harrison farm was on the very outskirts of civilization, the edge of the frontier. There were few settlers west of the Mississippi in the 1830s. On his very occasional supply trips back to St. Louis, not yet a city, Jonathan would always return with five or six small wool blankets, which he gave as gifts to children of the tribe, asking nothing in return. It was this generosity, greatly respected by the Indians, which eventually led to his being given permission to marry Sunray, a very rare blessing for a non-Osage, from a tribe with tightly regimented marriage and breeding traditions.

  His parents had met on one of these trips to the village, in the summer of 1822. He remembered his mother telling him the story many times, her face glowing, her eyes usually fixed on her husband, though she was speaking to their only son, whom they had named Samuel Raysun Harrison.“Love at first sight” his father had called it.

  Unconsciously, still lost in his reverie, with the blond captive only a few fe
et away, Black Feather grunted in disdain. Love at first sight? After twenty bloody years on the outlaw trail, love was a foreign word from another world.

  On the farm, he helped his father with the chores and his mother around the house. Several nights each week, his father gave him and his mother reading and writing lessons. They would sometimes fish together in the ponds, and he learned the skills of hunting, fishing, trapping, and self-reliance of both white and red, taking the best from each, eventually using those lessons to stay alive.

  He was twelve when it happened.

  Black Feather opened his eyes and stared at the huddled, unspeaking figure curled in a tight ball in front of him. He blinked. I was just a few years younger than her, maybe that’s why. He pushed away the unwelcome thought.

  There were nine men, all white, all bearded. It was just after the midday meal. They rode up to the farmhouse, drunk. His father was back in the fields on the other side of a dense stand of trees less than a half-mile away, farming the twenty-acre tract that Black Feather had helped him clear and cultivate. His father taught him respect for each tree felled, each root system pulled from the earth. Half the field was irrigated with the ingenious ditch system he had dug by his father’s side.

  Three of the men stumbled up to the front porch. Samuel was in the shadow of the barn interior, able to see and hear, picking up most of the words, but unseen himself.

  His mother answered the door. Even at that distance he could see she was bobbing her head, gesturing happily, trusting visitors, which were few and far between and always welcome at the Harrison farmhouse. Samuel saw two of the men suddenly grab her under her arms. She kicked at them, losing her balance, and fell backwards. The third man grabbed her feet. Her scream pierced the shadows where Samuel hid, like a knife to the heart. One man, his big burly form topped by an old round hat, two black feathers sticking up from its crown, raised a fist and struck her in the face. The men laughed, and the big man waved the other men off the horses and into the house.