Zeb pulled over a keg and slowly turned her face, intently examining the gash from several angles. “Reuben, light those two oil lamps and bring ’em over here close so I got some light,” he said, pulling out a small leather pouch. “Went by Buck and got the sewing needles. Only got two. Generally use an awl cause these little things are worthless for leather. But, an awl surely won’t work for a pretty woman’s lips.” He smiled at Rebecca, obviously trying to elicit a response. She simply looked at him, and then her eyes shifted to Reuben, tears welling in them again.
Zeb held the pouch up to the light, rummaged through it, and held up a small notched wood square around which was wound green thread. “This thread is going to look awful, but in the end it won’t matter. Once the edges of that cut bind, I’ll pull out the stitches.”
Reuben looked at Rebecca. “She’ll be beautiful, Zeb, even with green thread in her lips.”
Zeb craned his head around. “Reuben, I ain’t exactly sure that’s what you say to a lady.”
Rebecca’s lips curled in the slightest hint of smile as Zeb uncorked the whiskey, washed his hands and then the needles, gently wiping her face and lips with whiskey after giving her a fortifying drink, taking every precaution.
Reuben winced each time Zeb gently worked the needle through the sensitive tissue around Rebecca’s lip. Her hands were clenched in the wool blanket, which had slipped from her shoulders. The top half of her breasts and one darker pink areola shone vaguely through the thin uncovered chemise. She seemed completely immodest. Each stitch of the needle brought tears to her eyes, which trickled silently down her cheekbones.
Zeb finished the last stitch, tied it off, and she let out a long half-sigh. She started to raise her hand but Zeb reached out and grabbed it, “You don’t want to get that infected.” She looked down at herself, blushed, and hurriedly pulled the blanket up and around her chin.
The injured side of her lips had swollen to at least three times its normal size and her speech was thick. “I guess I don’t have many secrets from you two anymore.” She attempted a smile and winced.
Sarah giggled from the other side of the wagon. “Nor I,” Sarah said, a hint of humor in her voice as she sat forward. Zeb and Reuben looked at each other and laughed.
“There’s no part of a woman that ain’t a secret,” said Zeb matter-of-factly. “Reuben, let’s go over and check on Mac. I’m getting a mite worried.”
“Wait,” Rebecca reached out, one hand holding the blanket over what had already been revealed and the other pointing at the whiskey jug. Zeb’s eyebrows raised. He looked at Reuben, then handed her the jug. She tipped her head back, pressed the spout to her lips gingerly, and guzzled three large gulps. She set the jug down on her lap, some of it sloshing on the blanket, and began to cough.
“A bit much, Rebecca?” asked Sarah, wide-eyed.
Rebecca emphatically nodded her head and the men laughed.
“Well, give me some anyway,” said Sarah. Zeb handed the redhead the jug and she mimicked Rebecca’s actions, though partly through the second swig she coughed uncontrollably, almost dropped the jug, spraying whiskey all over the blanket.
Zeb retrieved the jug and shook his head from side to side as he stepped back, “You ladies need a good sleep, and I ’spect you’ll get one now.” The two women looked at each other and smiled, their necks and cheeks already flushed. “When will we be moving?” demanded Rebecca in a thick voice. “The sooner we get away from this place, the better.”
Reuben began to speak, but Rebecca cut him off. “Go check on Mac,” she ordered. “We’ll be all right.”
Reuben’s last image of the interior of the prairie schooner was Sarah rising, wrapping the blanket around her, and sitting next to Rebecca, the two of them leaning into each other, their hands touching, their bare feet visible beneath the blanket.
He turned to Zeb and took a deep breath. Zeb nodded. “Them two saw more in one day than most see in a lifetime.” He paused and looked vacantly somewhere to the west. “Course, that’s what happens when you set out to do big things.” His eyes dropped to Reuben, “Let’s go.”
They walked up to the supply wagons and paused, unsure which one Mac was in. I got a bad feeling, Zeb thought to himself, his eyes roving the ground around each wagon. “Mighty quiet,” he said to Reuben.
He raised his voice, “Mac?” There was no response. They looked at one another. “I’ll check this one, Reuben, you check the other.” Zeb walked around the back end of the second supply wagon. The tailgate was open. The rear canvas flapped slightly in the breeze.
He looked around the outside corner of the wagon and froze. Mac lay on his back, sightless eyes staring at the sky, his lips blue and curled back in a snarl, his head held slightly off the ground by a spoke of the front wagon wheel, one leg bent and curled under the other, his toe pointing toward the rear of the wagon. His right hand clasped the broken shaft of an arrow, sunk dead center in his chest. His left arm lay to his side in a pool of half-coagulated blood, his left hand holding the other half of the arrow’s broken shaft.
Zeb leaned forward against the front of the rig, looking at the ground. He took a deep breath and shook his head. Damn shame. One of the few I’ll miss.
He straightened up, “Reuben come on over here.”
Reuben came around the camp-side corner of the wagon. “He’s not in…”
He stopped when he saw Zeb’s face. Zeb nodded to the west side of the wagon.
Reuben stepped over the tongue, walked around the corner, and came back quickly, one corner of his mouth twitching, his face pale and his eyes screwed down tight like he was fighting tears. “What the hell, Zeb?”
“I suppose he got killed by that arrow. The question is how.”
They walked carefully around the body, Zeb searching the ground for sign, bending down once in a while to study things more closely. That’s right strange. He stood and walked over to Reuben.
Reuben’s eyes were fixed on the body of the tough, jovial wagon master. He asked in a low voice, “Well, what the hell? What do you think?”
“It’s a Pawnee arrow, but I don’t reckon a Pawnee put it in his chest.”
Reuben lifted his widening eyes. “You mean…?”
Zeb nodded and pointed out various indications on the ground, “See that scrape mark there? Somebody was covering track. If a brave looses an arrow forty or fifty yards away, he ain’t comin’ in to check what happened when he can see the arrow sticking out of the chest—not unless he aims to scalp.”
Zeb looked up at the sky. No weather coming. Doesn’t feel like the wind will kick up. He dropped his eyes to Reuben. His young friend’s face was taut, his eyes shaded to grey. “I will take me a walk out there. I’m bettin’ there’s no horse tracks.” He looked down toward the creek, “And I’m thinking that down there by the creek will be signs of somebody getting the blood off their hands.”
Reuben’s eyes had narrowed. Through clenched lips, he muttered, “And who might that be?”
Zeb looked at him, reached out a hand and shook his shoulder. “Reuben, you’re the wagon master now. We’ll figure out who done this and,” he fought to keep the snarl from his lips, “I know ways to teach some justice—ways most never heard of.”
He shook Reuben’s shoulder again. “Reuben, we got wounded people, grieving families, we’re in dangerous country. There’s men, women, and children depending on you.”
Reuben raised his eyes and Zeb instinctively pulled back from the sadness and pure, bitter anger that glowed in the younger man’s eyes. He watched him take a deep breath, gathering himself up before speaking.
“Zeb, it’s only right that people get to decide. If they choose me, I’ll do it.” He began to walk away and then turned back sharply. “And Zeb, it’s best that we keep folks calm for now. Everyone is pretty damn rattled. We will just say Mac was killed by a Pawnee arrow, which is true enough. Let’s keep the circumstances of how the arrow may have got into his chest to ourselves, and sort t
hat out later.”
Zeb nodded. “I’ll get this arrow out of poor Mac and meet up with you shortly,” he said, thinking to himself, Reuben’s going to do just fine.
Reuben made the rounds, visiting the mourning pioneers, informing them there would be a general meeting at dusk, just several hours away. To those who inquired, he merely replied, “To discuss some decisions that will have to be made between here and Cherry Creek.”
He was on his way to check on Rebecca and Sarah when he spied Johannes’ tall, lonely figure several hundred yards upstream from the last wagon, headed back to the encampment. Walking slowly, without energy, he carried only a shovel and his Sharps Carbine.
Reuben pulled up short. Should I leave him alone? Go meet him? Let him initiate communications? But he is your friend…
He turned away from the prairie schooner and walked out to meet Johannes, stopping and waiting halfway. Johannes did not increase his pace. His eyes seemed fixed on the ground and, as he approached, Reuben was taken aback by the blond man’s ghastly lack of color and the sorrowful quivers around his mouth where so often in the past there had only been smiles.
Johannes almost walked into Reuben, stopping only at the last moment, his head snapping up with a startled expression.
For a long moment, the two men simply looked at one another then Johannes spoke. “I told her, Reuben. I told her…,” a tear rolled down his cheek, “but I think she was already dead.” He sank slowly to his knees, one hand supported by the barrel of his rifle, the other leaning on the handle of the shovel. He bowed his head. “I don’t know if she heard.” He took a deep, uneven breath and looked up at Reuben, pain etched in his face, “I raised my head to look at her, to make sure she’d understood…and…and…she was gone.”
Reuben squatted down in front of him. “Johannes, she knew. Whether she was still alive at the moment you said those words, or had just departed, she knew.” Should I tell him about Mac? Should I add to the shock…or perhaps it would help get his mind elsewhere— away from the guilt. “Johannes, I need your help…”
Johannes looked slowly up from where he knelt in the sand and cobble along the shores of the creek. He nodded numbly.
Reuben was not sure if his words registered. “Looks like we lost, besides poor Inga, eight from the train,” Reuben sighed, “including one child who somehow got out of her mother’s wagon during the fight. We have a total of eight wounded, none seriously, but four of them are incapacitated. We will need to figure out who can drive the wagons. Zeb thinks Charlie is dead,” Reuben paused, “and so is Mac.”
Johannes blinked, his eyes regaining their focus. “Mac?” Reuben nodded. “But it was only an arrow to the arm. What happened?”
He does need something else to think about. He told Johannes the rest of the story, leaving nothing out. As he spoke, he noticed Johannes’ posture straightening and some color returned to his face. Anger perhaps? The soldier in him, certainly.
“So, someone needs to figure out who will drive the supply wagons, and what women in wagons with wounded men are capable of driving, and…” Reuben continued, “I have called a meeting. We need to vote on a new wagon master. I need your help.” He watched his friend’s eyes closely. He understood.
“I can be most effective, Reuben, in organizing the defense, guard, and outriders for the wagons. I am a soldier. My skills are at your disposition.” Johannes’ expression changed as if remembering something, “How is Rebecca? Sarah?” The question was sincere and anxious.
“They are shaken up. Rebecca was…hysterical. Thank you, Johannes for coming to Rebecca’s rescue. I was too far down the line of wagons.”
“There’s no sense both of us losing the women we love,” Johannes replied in a low voice, his lips pursed, “and certainly not on the same day.”
Reuben extended his hand and squeezed his shoulder. They rose and walked silently back to the wagons.
As the sun dipped to the west, Johannes rode out to check on the outriders, his saber dangling at his side for the first time in a non-battle situation, his shoulders once again erect. Thankful for a task, thought Reuben, an officer off to review the troops.
Reuben had asked Johannes to tell the pioneers to gather at the supply wagons, and, as the setting sun’s red hue cast a beautiful but grisly reminder of the bloodshed of the ending day, Reuben joined the assembling group. Zeb had covered Mac’s body with a blanket, but had not moved it. There was a slight murmur of voices as Reuben walked up, standing in front with his back to the supply rigs.
“It’s been a terrible day. We’ve all lost friends.” Far in the back of the crowd a woman began to cry quietly. “Others have been wounded, though thankfully it appears they will recover. You all fought valiantly.”
Everyone’s eyes were fixed on him. Zeb’s words ran through Reuben’s mind. There is no one else.
“I wish I had an easy way to say this,” he continued, “but there is one more piece of bad news. Mac is dead.” His blunt announcement was met by startled looks. Several women broke into tears. The men exchanged glances. A current, like a wave of fear, swept through the crowd, a palpable tide of uncertainty.
Reuben held up both hands, saying nothing. The murmur died off slowly. “He was a good man and our friend, just like everyone else we lost today. Some of you lost loved ones. Mac told us that not everybody would make it. Even in death, he spoke the truth.” There was no sound as the darkness drew around them save the distant howl of coyotes, the gentle flap of the open canvas of the supply wagons, and the creek’s rushing waters.
“We need to elect a new wagon master. I think the fair way to do this is for anyone to call out the name of a person they want to take over. Speak out, then we’ll have a simple vote.”
A number of heads nodded, several people looked at one another, but most simply stared at him, a few seeming less anxious than when they just learned of Mac’s death.
“Okay, let’s have some nominations. We need somebody to head things up, do his best to keep us organized and get us through the next two or so weeks.”
Nobody spoke. All eyes were glued on him. There was a voice behind and to his right, and he turned. It was Zeb, leaning relaxed against the corner of the wagon, one shoulder into the bow support of the canvas, rifle under one arm, rolling a smoke. Like the day I met him at the livery stable, thought Reuben.
“I got a nomination to make,” he said, putting the rolled cigarette to his lips, licking, and sealing it. “I nominate Reuben.”
Virtually everyone’s heads nodded, other than Jacob who stood slightly apart at the outer band of the semi-circle of people, a strange glitter in his eye. When he realized Reuben was looking at him, he looked away.
“Surely there are more nominations?”
Still not a sound.
“Well then, let’s vote. Yes or no, I won’t take it personal. All those who don’t want me to be wagon master, raise your hands.”
No hands went up.
“Anyone who wants me to be the wagon master to Cherry Creek, please raise your hands.”
Everyone’s hands rose, some only halfway up to their shoulders, others enthusiastically stretched into the air. He noticed Jacob hesitate, give a quick glance around, then raise his hand, looking down at the ground as he did so.
“I accept. I’ll do the very best I can. Mac gave you the speech two months ago. Keep his words in mind. I’m always open for suggestions. Just five months ago, I was a farm boy in Prussia. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I intend to rely on Zeb to be our eyes and ears. Johannes will keep our defenses, front, rear, and flank guards, organized. Since we’ve lost stock, we will need to sort out the teams. It’s getting warmer—with less stock and dryer country. Mac told me that it would be wise to travel early and late, and rest midday. So that’s what we’ll start doing as soon as we cross Beaver Creek in the next few days.”
The crowd was absolutely silent. “Tomorrow morning, we will bury the dead. Preacher Walling, would you be so kind
as to do the service?” The preacher nodded somberly and patted his wife’s hands, which were wrapped around his arm, her head leaning against his shoulder.
“If you would tell the wounded folks who aren’t here, and the outriders when they come back, that would be good. Johannes will assign the guard shifts when he gets back. If all the menfolk could bring shovels tomorrow morning, I would appreciate it. And those of you ladies who wish to participate as well.” He felt the catch in his throat.
“They were all our friends. I think they would like to be buried by friends. I will need two men in two shifts to stand watch over the bodies tonight and keep the animals away.” Several pairs of eyes turned upward to a dozen turkey vultures flying in lazy circles, their black forms silhouetted against the darkening sky.
One of the men raised his hand, “Are we gonna do anything about those poor redskins?” he gestured out at the crumpled forms beyond the wagons, and the neat row of six braves that they had dragged outside the half-circle.
Reuben shook his head, “No.” He looked across the circled wagons and, from the rear canvas of their prairie schooner, he saw Rebecca and Sarah watching, only their faces showing. “The next sizeable stream after Beaver Creek is Badger Creek. After we cross, we will take a half-day for wagon repairs.”
A voice spoke out of the crowd, “I think we have several people getting sick. Poor Dr. Leonard, he’s been sick since the get-go but that’s consumption. Just in the last day before all this, Thelma complained to me about not feeling well. I checked on her on the way down here. Doc is not doing good, and she’s running a high fever.”
Another hand went up, “That Tommy, the boy that lost his Pa today, he has the same. Just started last night.”
Maps of Fate Page 37