the Cherokee Trail (1982)

by L'amour, Louis

  Jason Flandrau was at supper in the hotel dining room when he overheard the conversation.

  "Can't figure it out," a man was saying. "Who would want to shoot a woman? If it had been Scant Luther, I'd not be surprised, but this was a man named Longman. Shot at her from ambush."

  "He ought to be hung)"

  "Too late," the first speaker commented. "Temple Boone caught up with him, and Longman was a little slow."

  "What was Longman's connection?"

  "That's just it. There is no connection of which anybody knows. It seems Longman was by the station at Cherokee just a few days ago, but he didn't see Mrs. Breydon-was "Breydon? Wasn't that the name of that former army officer who was shot over at Julesburg a few months ago?"

  Jason Flandrau's back was to them, but he felt a sudden chill. It was getting close, too close. Somebody would be apt to remember who had done that shooting and wonder if there was any connection. For a moment, he sat very still, carefully reviewing his past meetings with Longman. Had they been seen together? He had tried to be careful, but there had seemed no reason to be too careful until now. The worst of it was he would have to move with extreme care. If people were already wondering and anything else happened, they would start not only asking questions but looking for the answers. Should he move out now? Leave Colorado at once, for Montana, perhaps? Or California? That was stupid. He had established himself here. They were talking of him for governor, perhaps for senator. He had been fortunate here and had fallen in with the right group at the right time. Such a coincidence might not happen again. Could he let one woman stand between him and the wealth that could be his by discreetly using his power as governor? And all the honor and position that would be his? But what to do? His strong right hand was gone. At least he had not talked. Thoughtfully, he began considering the men who were left to him, the men from the old outfit. Most of them were simply brutes, tough, lawless men who were loyal enough as long as they had money to gamble and buy whiskey. They knew him, but none of them were in his confidence. What about that young fellow, that friend of Turkey Joe's? He was, Longman had said, very good with a gun, and he was shrewd. Jason Flandrau finished his meal, but he ate without appetite. To attempt to kill Mary Breydon now would bestupid, but he could not afford to let her live.

  He got up and walked into the street, standing there, looking about. He reached into his vest pocket and took out his watch, glanced at it, then returned it to his pocket and walked back to his office.

  Jordy Neff was waiting for him when he stepped in.

  "That true what they're sayin' about comJoe?"

  "It is. Temple Boone killed him."

  "Maybe I better go call on Mr.

  Boone. Turkey Joe was my partner." "You were out at Cherokee with him? And you only saw one woman?" "Woman and a boy-kid. It was John Tanner's boy."

  "I don't know the name?"

  "Owned him a ranch over yonder by Bonnar Springs. West of Owl Canyon. Had a few head of cows, some horses, but his place was a natural hideout, and there was a kind of natural rock fortress there, so some of the boys began usin' it for a hideout.

  "Tanner didn't like it much, but there wasn't much he could do. Then, one day, one of the boys hit the kid over some impudence, and Tanner objected. This man-it was Mody Mercer-he damn near beat Tanner to death. Tanner crawled away, and a couple of days later, when he could walk, he came back with a gun. He hadn't much luck that way, either. Mercer killed him. A few days after that, the boy disappeared. Never saw him again until he showed up there at Cherokee."

  ""This Mercer now? Where's he from?"

  "Missouri, or so I heard, but that doesn't mean much because around that time Missouri was a sort of a catch basin for anybody runnin" loose. "The story was that he rode with Bloody Bill Anderson.

  He's no gun hand, but he's mean. Shoot you in the back or kill you with an ax . . . anything."

  Mody Mercer . . . a name to remember.

  "Jordy? Stay away from Boone. Do you hear me?" Neff stiffened. "Now look here--to was "Neff, I need a few good men, men who can do what they are told and who know how to keep their mouths shut. I had hoped to have Joe Longman around, but since he can't be, I'd been thinking about you." Flandrau took two gold pieces from his pocket and placed them on the table. "It's a lot' easier than punching cows or working in a mine and a lot safer than what that crowd at Bonnar Springs were doing."

  Jordy Neff hesitated, thought of the three silver dollars in his pocket, and picked up the gold pieces. "What do I. have to do?" "Just be around, and when I take my watch out of my pocket with my left hand, meet me here, just like today, just like Turkey Joe told you." Jordy Neff would be useful. He looked like a nice, clean-cut young man, and he was good with a gun. Maybe, in time, he would let him kill Temple Boone.

  If he could. Temple Boone was, all agreed, very, very fast. That was all very good, all very convenient, but the man who interested him was Mody Mercer, and that other man, only now recovered from his wound. The man they called Scant Luther.

  Scant was drinking more than he should, and Scant was nursing a grudge.

  When the sun went down, Mary Breydon went back inside. Her shoulder was almost healed, although she was still wearing a bandage to cover the wound. It had barely split the skin but had been sore for days and hurt when she forgot and moved her arm too freely.

  Turkey Joe Longman, they said his name was, would come no more, but who might be the next one that would be sent?

  "It was well planned," Boone commented.

  "He'd had a horse waiting, but it was stolen before he could reach it. He had no choice but to make a fight." He paused. "Do not think it was only for you, ma'am. He had attacked from ambush, and if we are to have a good life here, such things cannot be permitted. To have arrested him, had there been an officer present, would only mean that he'd be turned loose. Longman had a friend who would have protected him. However, he gave us no choice. It was kill or be killed." "Will you have supper with us, Mr.

  Boone?"

  "I will, ma'am, and gladly. Whether it is Matty or yourself who does it, you set the best table in Colorado."

  "That's an exaggeration, Mr. Boone, but thank you."

  When they were at the table, Peg said, "Mama, tell us about your home. I mean, when you were a little girl."

  "I'm afraid Mr. Boone wouldn't want to hear all that. Maybe some other time-was "On the contrary, ma'am. I'd be most interested."

  "All right, I will if Many will."

  "My story would be nothing the like of yours, mum, but if it's my story you would hear, I'll tell it, as much as I can. She paused, cup in hand. "But you first, mum. It is your story we would hear."

  "It is all gone now, the house where I was born and where we lived. My grandfather named it Harlequin Oaks when he finished it, and my family had lived there one hundred years before the big house was built.

  "The first of us came there in 1660 when it was wilderness. He cut down logs and built a cabin and a barn and plowed land. He chose the site for the big house and cleared the land, leaving the fine big oak trees where they were. He had been an officer in the army, and he brought two of his men with him when he settled, and each of them took land nearby but worked for him.

  "By the time I was born, all the building was done.

  We had fine horses and carriages-was "Slaves?" Boone asked.

  "Neverl My ancestor who built the first cabin, he had been captured from a ship by Algerian pirates and had himself been a slave--" "But he was a white man?"

  "Yes, he was, but many whites were enslaved in Algiers, Tunis, and elsewhere. As for that, there had been slaves in Europe for a thousand years before ever they saw a black man.

  "The Romans enslaved the Greeks and later the Gauls, the Jews, whoever they conquered. It was so all over the world, I'm told. When they conquered a people, they killed them or made slaves of them. "My grandfather, though, he said slaves were too expensive.

  It was cheaper, he said, to hire men to do the wor
k than to feed and clothe them the year around.

  "Aside from the house, there were two barns for hay and wheat, four stables for cows, horses, and mules, the carriage house, a smoke house, and an ice house. There was also a walled-in spring. "The brick for the house was made right on the place, and the lumber was cut there or in the mountains not far away.

  My great-grandfather and my grandfather supervised the work themselves, just as they did all the planting that was done."

  "Were there many rooms?" Wat asked.

  "Twenty-eight, I believe, in the main house. As you went in, the study was on the right, and there was a stair to the second floor on the left.

  "One could walk straight through to the garden, but on the right of the hall was the parlor, on the left the dining room. was "Quite a place," Boone commented.

  "My father loved to entertain, so we often had people staying with us, and on almost any evening we had from four to eight guests. When people traveled by carriage in those days, they often stopped with friends, and of course we had many of those who came up the Shenandoah Valley who were going on to Washington."

  "You still have guests," Boone said, "only you have to share them with the Overland Stage Company."

  Mary looked up at Matty, who had started to clear the table. "Now it's your turn, Matty."

  "Another time," Matty said, but "twill be no such tale as yours, nor was I born in a house so grand but in a wee cottage with a thatched roof where we could look westward over the sea." She paused, dishes in hand. "My first memories were of me mother standin" lookin' off to sea, shadin' her eyes for a sight of more' father's boat.

  "The sea gave us our livin', such as it was, but we dinna trust it to bring back those who sailed out upon it, and many's the poor lad from the village who sailed after fish and was seen no more, my father among them." "He was a fisherman?"

  "Aye, but a soldier before that. As a lad, he fought in Spain with Wellington and was at Waterloo with a brother of his on the side of Bonaparte. He saved a bit, my father did, and married late and bought the boat, and twas a good living we had whilst he lived and before the sea took him, and his boat, too. Only the sea gave us back the boat but not the man."

  "On another night you must tell us, Matty."

  She turned to Boone. "And you, Mr. Boone?

  You've a story, I am sure. Will we hear it someday?" He smiled. "What story could I tell?

  I know little enough of my people, although I've a memory of sitting by a field while my father plowed, the lines about his neck so he could have both hands for the plow. I remember the crops standing tall and my mother crying when the grasshoppers took it all. "I was a sagebrush orphan like Wat here. Cholera took my mother and father and my baby sister. My father was wanting to cross the plains to Oregon, but he lacked the money. He had six crow-bait cattle hitched to our old farm wagon, but no wagon train would accept him. "That wagon would break down before you'd gone fifty miles if your stock didn't die first. We can't risk it, they all said, to have the wagon train waiting while you made repairs. It would be a risk for us all."

  He pushed back from the table. "They were right, of course. We hadn't supplies enough for the trip.

  Only pa was figuring on hunting enough to feed us. He hadn't thought how the game would stay away from the wagon trails and he'd see nothing for days.

  "Pa was a good hunter, a dead shot with a rifle and a hard worker, but it just wasn't enough. You have to have luck, too, and pa didn't have it. Year after year, I saw him whipped by flood, frost, drouth, and grasshoppers, and always he'd come back and try again."

  Long after the last coal-oil light was out, when only embers smoldered on the hearth, when brief flames made the shadows dance on the log walls, Peg whispered, "Mama? If that man had killed you, would I be a sagebrush orphan?"

  "He did not kill me, Peg, and he won't."

  "But if he had?"

  She lay wide-eyed, staring up at the rafters. "Yes, Peg, I am afraid you would."

  Later, she said, "Go to sleep, Peg. You'll be all right. Matty would take care of you."

  After a long time, Peg whispered again, "And Mr.

  Boone? And Wat?" "Yes, Peg. Mr.

  Boone and Wat, too. Now go to sleep."

  When morning sent the first gray light through the window, she was up. She went to her purse and carefully counted over what money she had left.

  She had sold the pearls her father had given her when she became sixteen, sold them to buy their outfit.

  Marshall had sold two horses he had managed to keep throughout the war, and they had come West, Marshall first and then Peg and herself. The little money she had was going all too fast, and she could not earn enough here to provide for Peg.

  Realistically, she had to think of what would become of Peg if she were killed. People always had an idea such things never happened to them, but she knew otherwise, and it had happened to Marshall, the best, the bravest, the kindest of men.

  Looking at the little there was left, she thought of the years before Peg would be a woman. And Wat, she must think of him, too, although he was a solid little fellow, already doing a man's work cheerfully and without question, seemingly glad to just have a home. But Wat was part of the family now.

  He was a good boy, she thought, but too tight, too controlled, too reticent. He was learning to share, even wanting to share now that he was one of them.

  If only she had some of the dresses she used to give. away! If only she had the material, the needles, thread, buttons! It was easy to mend and even to create clothing if one had the things to do with, all of which she had so taken for granted at Harlequin Oaks. She had only to wish and to speak and it was there, ready for her.

  Her trunksl Of course, why had she not thought of theml They were in storage at the Brewsters', and she could write for them to be sent. Fortunately, to sew was one thing all young ladies learned. It was one of the things you did. Sewing, riding, music, were all considered things a young lady did well, and dancing, of course.

  She smiled grimly. Who would have guessed that what served her best now was what her father would have expected from any stay! Yet when she walked through the barn and saw how orderly and efficient it all was, she blessed her father over and over again.

  The trunks . . . she must send for the trunks. She could remake many of those dresses, some for herself, for Matty, and for Peg. Matty was kindling a fire as she came out. Matty stood up. "Ways gone for an armful of wood. Be careful, mum, if you're goin' outside."

  "Be sure and save any newspapers;

  Matty. Sometimes the passengers leave them behind.

  We know so little of what is happening in the war.

  Sometimes I feel ashamed, when they are all suffering so."

  "We've troubles enough of our own, mum. There's been no papers, although I put by a book of Mr.

  Dickens's that was left behind, thinkin' the poor man who left it would be cumin' for it. I used to read him in the newspapers. Mr. Dickens, I mean."

  Matty paused. "You get no letters from home, mum?" Mary's lips tightened; then she said quietly, "No, Many. I am from Virginia, and most of my friends are with the South. My husband was a Union Army officer; my father was against secession.

  I am afraid many of my friends think me a traitor."

  "I know little of the war, mum. I'd only just come over when the fighting began. Is it about slavery, then?"

  "Not really, although that is a part of it. Mostly, it is about states' rights and whether the state or the nation shall control. I am ashamed to say I know less about it than I should.

  "Mere was much talk about it at home, but I was a young girl, busy with riding, dancing, going to parties.

  I don't think many of us realized how serious it was until it was too late. All of a sudden, all the young men were in uniform, either blue or gray, and they were riding off to war. "Some of our old friends did write, but I became irritated, I am afraid. Even when the war was growing worse and worse, there was more ta
lk of promotion and who was getting what command than of the war itself." She paused.

  "I am sending East for some trunks I left behind.

  Maybe there's something in them we can make over."

  "Will they still be there, mum? I mean with the fighting and all?" "I hope so." She hesitated, thinking.

  She would write to Martha Brewster, but it might be well to write to someone else, someone in authority.

  She considered that. Yes, yes, of coursel She went outside after a careful look around from the door, then walked around the corral. She must stop that, too. She remembered Temple Boone's warning and something she had heard her father say about avoiding patterns of behavior when fighting Indians, for they quickly grasped the pattern and were waiting for you.

  When she had gone through the barn where Ridge Fenton was harnessing the team for the incoming stage, she paused at the door. "Mr. Fenton? Have you heard anything about the war?"

  "Not much, ma'am. They're still fightin'." He straightened up, resting a hand on a horse's shoulder. "It's so far away, ma'am, and we got so much to think of out here."

  She scanned the hills slowly, deliberately, looking for anything that might suggest the presence of an enemy. She was not very good at it, and she might miss what would be obvious to men like Temple Boone or Ridge Fenton. She crossed the yard then, her heart pounding. Was it fear she felt? Apprehension?

  Once inside, she looked around the station, wondering what might be done to make it more inviting.

  From the first, she had understood that she could not compete with old, experienced station agents, not at least until she had more on-the-job experience. What she could do was to create a more re/l, homelike atmosphere.

  On the way out from Missouri, she had noticed most of the stations were untidy, and the food was often just thrown on the tables.

  She was perfectly aware that Mark Stacy had not made up his mind, and Ben Holladay knew nothing about her at all. She could not be just as good as the others; she had to be a little bit better.

  What of Scant Luther? From time to time, she had heard that he was still around, that he was nursing a grudge.