“I’m sure you’ll be very fit and proper, Mr. Morgan.”
“Then you just naturally couldn’t do any better than to marry me. We could have ourselves a fine family in just no time at all.”
“I believe it, but I can’t accept your proposal, Mr. Morgan.”
“Why not?”
“A woman likes to hear something more inviting in the way of a proposal, something to indicate she is valued for herself.”
“Ain’t that what I been doin’? Invitin’ you? I’m invitin’ you to share my life, Miss Prescott.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Morgan.”
“It’s something else, something naggin’ at you. Well, I don’t intend to let it stop me, you can count on that.”
As quietly as he could, Cleve completed his job with the trace chains, and saddled his horse. He heard Agatha speak then.
“What did he want?”
“Children.”
“Children? Well, I’ll—Why don’t he come shoppin’ to the right store?”
They stood at the rear of the wagon, and the jangle of harness chains had helped to deaden the sound of his own soft movements. Lilith emptied the bucket of water she had brought from the spring and started toward the front of the wagon.
Guiltily, he started to worry with a stirrup strap, keeping his eyes averted.
“Mr. Van Valen?” He glanced around. Her eyes were cool. “How long have you been standing there?”
“I’ve been harnessing up, but if you mean did I hear the proposal, I did. In fact,” he said seriously, “I think he made you a good offer, and he’s a good man. Of course, I might have done it a little different.”
“You already have—or had you forgotten?”
“How could I forget? Children…I guess every man worth his salt would like to have children—a son, anyway. But he would also like to think he’s marrying a girl who loves him, somebody he can do things for.”
“And what would you do for a girl, Mr. Van Valen?”
“Why, I don’t rightly know,” he said honestly enough. “A man thinks of this sort of thing, but when it actually comes—well, for one thing, I’d try not to ever let her forget she’s young and beautiful.”
He dropped the stirrup into place and gathered the reins. “If I didn’t have the money for perfume or fine clothes, I could at least go into the fields and gather flowers.”
She looked at him thoughtfully, as if measuring his sincerity. After a minute, she said, “You could teach Mr. Morgan a good deal about women, Mr. Van Valen, but his example could also teach you a few things.”
Irritated, he demanded, “What, for example?”
“That a woman also likes stability, Mr. Van Valen. If she is to have children, she will want a home for them. Men may think only of today, but women must plan for the months, and for the years. It is not a light thing to have a child, Mr. Van Valen.”
She paused, remembering something her father had said, long ago, beside the Ohio. “A woman wants a man, not a wisp of smoke!”
But even as she spoke the words she recalled the man to whom her father had referred, for Linus Rawlings had made Eve a good husband; moreover, he had understood when Lilith wanted to go away and try her wings. It was he who had provided the money that gave her a start in the theatre.
It had not been much money, but it gave her respectable clothes, an accordion, and enough to live on while finding her opportunity. He had given her all but a small portion of the money obtained from the sale of his furs.
She remembered that morning out by the woodpile when he had handed her the money. “Eve an’ me,” he said, “we want you to have this.” He looked into her eyes and he said seriously, “Lil, when a dream becomes so much a part of you that it shines out of your eyes, you’d best give it rein.”
Linus had rested his hand on his axe handle. “I followed a dream into the West, and I seen the far-off places an’ the shining mountains. I rode the rapids of streams no white man had ever seen, and trapped fur alongside of Carson an’ Bridger. I fit the Indian an’ I seen the varmint, an’ this much I know: without a dream a man or woman is less than nothing; with it you can be anything.
“You doubt what you’re of a mind to, Lilith, but never doubt your dream. No matter how hard it gets, you hold to that. That, an’ your self-respect. Folks will judge you as you judge yourself.”
She had looked down at the money in her hands…how much that money could mean to her! And yet, how much of struggle, danger, and hardship had been demanded to earn it.
“I can’t take it,” she had said, brokenly. “I simply can’t. It’s yours, and it’s Eve’s.”
“What’s the use of a dream unless it can help to build another dream atop of it? I had mine. I seen the things I said. I seen the buffalo running and heard the coyotes holler at the moon of a nighttime. I seen the grizzlies fishing salmon, and moonlight on the Teton snows. I made tracks where no man had been, and I left my print on the land. Now I’ll raise a boy to follow where I went, a boy who’ll blaze fresh trails himself.
“I know what you want, Lil, believe me I do. I know the hollow ache of yearning inside you, I know how desperate you feel sometimes of a morning when a day has come again and finds you trapped in the same place. You go…you have your dream. And don’t ever rate yourself cheap, or settle for anything less than all you want.
“You’ll come on hard times, but when you do, you remember the tale I told you of Hugh Glass, wounded sore an’ left for dead, an’ how he crawled and dragged himself hundreds of miles through wild country to get to help.
“You think of John Coulter, naked, with his feet torn to bloody flesh, escapin’ the murderin’ Blackfeet. You think of them and try a mite harder.”
She took the money; and now she recalled every instant of that time out there by the woodpile. Her eyes had been blind with tears, and she remembered how Linus patted her shoulder. “You go on now,” he said, “somewhere out there things are waitin’ for you. I seen it in you from the start.”
Linus Rawlings had been like that, a drifter and a mountain man, but strong when strength was necessary, and with a vision in him.
She remembered another thing he had said: “A land needs heroes. Small men and small thoughts come from small dreams. A man is as big as his dreams are. There are always those who scoff and bicker and cower…but if you want to make big tracks on the land, you got to step out and start walking.”
Was Cleve Van Valen like that? Or was he simply a gambler, a drifter, a fortune-hunter?
Gabe French liked him, and Gabe French was a canny man who wasted no time with the second run of things. In horses, dogs, and men, Gabe respected only quality.
*
WHEN SHE HAD eaten and went to their wagon to sleep, her hand touched something on her pillow—rough stems, soft petals. The perfume was delicate, as that of prairie flowers is likely to be.
She gathered them up and held them close to her face, and tried to remember the last time a man had given her flowers. They had offered her clothes, money…even a carriage and horses. But none of them had ever picked flowers for her.
The coarse stems brushed her cheek, and when she put them carefully aside and settled down to sleep, she did not feel like a worldly-wise young woman, with the hard, direct mind she seemed to have. She felt like a girl who might swing on a garden gate, waiting for a boy. And it was a nice way to feel…a very nice way.
In the morning there was rain, a rain that came with a sly whisper on the canvas wagon cover just before daybreak. It settled the dust and lifted an odd smell into the air as rain will do when it first falls into the dust. The wagons rolled westward when the first light was yellow on the grass, but this morning there was no dust cloud.
Roger Morgan rode far out on the flank, and he was a worried man. Three times that morning he had cut the sign of unshod ponies…one band fairly large. They had been stalked for the past week by Indians, but now there were several bands, which meant a gathering…and Indians did no
t gather by accident.
He glanced back toward the wagons. They were strung out far too much. He must get them bunched up, not one long line today, but two lines driving parallel. He cantered back to the train and as he cut through between the wagons he heard a voice say, “I call…”
Another voice said, “All right…I’ll stay.”
Then Cleve Van Valen spoke. “Gentlemen, are we pikers? I’ll raise it this fine pepper-box pistol—five barrels it has, London-made and loaded for bear.”
Anger exploded within Morgan. Swinging his horse alongside the tailgate, he reached through and grabbed Van Valen by the shoulder. Slamming the spurs into his mount, he jumped away from the wagon, jerking Cleve out of it and to the ground, where he hit with a thud.
“I told you I wouldn’t stand for you fleecin’ the people on this train, Van Valen, and by the Lord Harry—!”
Cleve rolled over and came up fast from the dust as Morgan dropped from his horse. Fury had been building in Roger Morgan for days. In his own mind he was sure it was Cleve Van Valen who stood between him and his projected marriage to Lilith.
It was true they were rarely together, or in any way seemed to manifest any interest in each other, but he could find no other reason for Lilith’s refusal. Besides, he had disliked Van Valen on sight.
Wheeling from his horse, he threw a hard right-hand punch, and more by accident than intent Cleve ducked the blow. He let go with his own right; it was a wild punch but a lucky one. The blow caught Morgan coming in, and the wagonmaster dropped as if shot.
From behind Cleve there came a wild shout, and a horseman charged by, his eyes distended, one arm outstretched toward the hills. “Indians!” he screamed. “Cheyennes!”
The wild-eyed rider raced off down the line of wagons, shouting, “Indians! Run!”
Somebody cracked a whip and a wagon started with a lunge. Grabbing Morgan from the ground, Cleve heaved him over the tailgate of the wagon, then wheeled for his own horse.
It was gone…stampeded by the screaming rider.
Wagons went lumbering by. He shouted at the drivers, but caught in a wave of panic, they ignored him.
Cleve drew his pistol and turned to face the charging Indians. As he turned, he fired…an Indian lost his grip on his lance and fell forward, sprawling on the ground, dead before he reached it.
Lilith, of whom he caught a fleeting glimpse, was firing a shotgun from her wagon seat. A few of the wagons raced by, but most of them were far too heavily loaded for any speed. The wagon train was in chaos.
One of the horses, hit by an arrow, went to his knees. The wagon tongue jabbed into the ground as the horse fell, and the wagon jackknifed and turned over. Thrown clear, the driver grabbed his rifle and, using the turned-over wagon for a breastwork, opened fire on the Indians.
Cleve, his feet firmly anchored, stood as if on a parade ground, taking his time with each shot. Within him there was bitter anguish…this was his fault.
The wagon train had stampeded and this opened them wide to the more mobile Indians, who could cut them to pieces wagon by wagon. To run was to invite disaster, for there was no place to run to…nor could the heavily loaded wagons be raised to even a trot unless going downhill. In any event, there was absolutely no chance of escaping the swift, lightly mounted Indians.
There is only one defense against mounted Indians for such a train—the wagon circle. It had proved itself time and again against any number of attacking Indians. No wagonmaster in his senses would allow a train to stampede as this one had, and had Morgan been conscious, he would have stopped the train. Had it not been for the gambling, he might have formed the wagon circle in time.
Cleve fired, then fired again. A horse stumbled and went down, throwing its rider; the second shot smashed through the chest of a charging Indian and he toppled from his horse.
Leaping for the racing horse, Cleve mounted it as it swept by him, grasping wildly for a hold and swinging astride. Yelling like a Comanche, he bore down on the head of the train. “Circle!” he shouted. “Make a circle!”
It was Gabe French who caught the sound of his voice and swung his wagon, forcing the one behind to turn also.
Conditioned from their many nights of making the protective circle, the others began to follow suit. Racing like a wild man, using only his grip on the horse’s mane, Cleve rode from wagon to wagon, forcing the stragglers back toward the circle with shouts and yells.
One panic-stricken driver refused to turn until Cleve fired into the ground ahead of his team, causing it to swing off and turn. At least a dozen were too far out to circle. Two had over-turned, another had two dying horses struggling in their harness.
Firing at an Indian with an arrow drawn to his bow, Cleve glimpsed his own horse, stopped where it had finally stepped on the bridle reins and come to a halt. He dropped from the Indian pony and caught up the reins.
For an instant he stood there, fighting for calm, taking in the surroundings. He took the moment to exchange cylinders, dropping the empty one into his coat pocket and snapping the loaded cylinder into place.
Where the two horses were struggling in their harness a man was down on the ground, his wife on her knees beside him, firing his rifle. An Indian swept down on her from behind and, long shot though it was, Cleve chanced it.
He saw the Indian jerk with the impact, and instantly the warrior swung his mount and started for Cleve. He was far down on his pony’s side, and Cleve lifted his pistol to fire, but the Indian swung his horse so that only a leg was visible. In so doing, he forgot the woman he had been about to kill, and for her it was point-blank range. She fired…and the warrior charged on past Cleve, then let go and fell to the ground.
Mounting, Cleve rode past the woman, lifting his hand as he did so. She was momentarily free from attack, and farther out two men were making a desperate fight for their lives against half a dozen warriors.
Crouched low in the saddle, Cleve went in on a dead run, and as he closed in he chopped down with his pistol, shooting into an Indian’s chest as a buffalo hunter shoots into a buffalo. His horse swept by, and turning, he brought his gun down and fired…missed, and fired again.
Then he was in the midst of the fight, his horse riding down one warrior who stepped back unaware; and Cleve chopped his barrel down on the head of another. He felt something tear his clothing, felt the bite of a lance, and then he was thrown from his horse, losing his grip on his pistol.
He lunged up from the ground as the Indian ran in for the kill, turning the lance with an out-flung arm. They grappled, rolling over and over in the dust, struggling and gouging.
Jerking a hand free, he smashed the Indian in the face, pulping his nose.
Cleve was down on his back, and the Indian leaped astride him and reached for his knife. Cleve threw his legs up and clamped a head-scissors on the warrior, bending him far back, both of Cleve’s ankles locked under his chin. Sitting up part way, bracing himself with his left hand, Cleve swung his fist against the Indian’s exposed solar plexus. He struck, and struck again, then threw the warrior from him and struggled to his feet. The Indian, all his wind knocked out, was too slow getting up and Cleve kicked him under the chin.
A teamster had caught up Cleve’s pistol and now he tossed it to him. He fired…then, having no recollection of the number of times he had fired already, he switched to his third loaded cylinder.
As suddenly as it had begun, the fight was over. The Indians were disappearing over the hill, the prairie was still. Half a mile away the wagon circle puffed with smoke as a few tried shots at the retreating Indians. The entire attack, beginning to end, had lasted not more than a few minutes.
The woman who had helped Cleve was now supporting her husband with an arm around his shoulders—he was up and walking.
One of the men in the final fight was down and badly hurt, and Cleve knelt above him, trying to stop the blood. Another driver was at work cutting a dead horse free of his harness and straightening out his team. Together, Cl
eve and the driver put the wounded man in the back of the wagon, and started toward the circle. Another wagon, some distance off, was also coming in.
Suddenly Cleve felt weak, and remembered his own wound. At the time he had thought it was no more than a scratch; now he was not so sure. Yet it might be he was feeling only the reaction from battle, the sudden letdown after such explosive action, such great demands upon his body. He stopped when they came abreast of his horse and got into the saddle. His side felt wet and he knew he was bleeding.
He checked the loads in his pistol, although he had reloaded it only a few minutes before. Minutes? It might only have been seconds. He glanced at the sun…it was scarcely noon.
Cleve Van Valen walked his horse toward the wagons, and suddenly his whole body started to shake. He gripped the saddlehorn and clung with all his strength, fearful that he would topple to the ground. He drew rein and waited for the seizure to pass. It was not his wound, he realized now, but the nervous reaction to what he had been through.
Presently he felt better and he walked his horse around the circle, searching for the wagon. Suddenly, a slow finger of smoke mounted…someone had lighted a fire. With a surge of relief he stared at the smoke; there was something comforting, everlastingly normal and real about it.
So simple a thing, a lighted fire, yet it was a symbol of man’s first great step toward civilization, and it was his instinctive return to reality when times of trouble came. It is his first reaction, to build a fire, to give himself the security and comfort that a fire symbolizes.
How many times had he seen women start a fire and begin to cook when the first shock of disaster was over, to offer warm food, coffee…how many times had it seemed as if a man, in offering fire and warm food, was saying, “See, I am a man, by these signs you shall know me, that I can make a fire, that I can cook my food.”
And then he saw her standing there, outside the circle of wagons, shading her eyes toward him, shading her eyes against the sun’s bright glare, standing alone and watching him come…not yet quite sure.
Novel 1963 - How The West Was Won (v5.0) Page 11