Harvey nodded and prepared to follow the column of wagons already pulling out. Shaken by his first experience with hostile Indians, he was grateful for the presence of the broad-shouldered scout.
“I expect it would be a good idea if we rode out a ways and took a look around, partner,” Johnny said.
“I expect so,” Jim returned. “I need to water my horse first.” He stepped up in the saddle and turned the buckskin around. “I’ll be keepin’ an eye on you folks,” he said, looking directly at Lucy.
The train continued on with no further contact with Indians. Harvey’s mules proved to be up to the task, never falling seriously behind the others, so Jim was never required to hang back with them. But he was seen from time to time to appear for a few moments on a distant ridge, or at the edge of a stand of pines, before disappearing again. It was enough to tell Lucy and Tessie that he was watching over them.
They camped that night between the forks of the Little Piney Creek, and Tessie called for a celebration in honor of the successful defense of their wagons. In view of that, she announced that she was going to use some of her precious flour and make pan bread to go with their beans and bacon. “I think it would be nice if you took some bread over to Rider’s fire,” she said to Lucy, “to sort of thank him for protecting us today.”
“Why me?” Lucy replied, her guard up immediately. “Why don’t you take it over—or Harvey?”
Tessie favored her sister with an impatient gaze, much like a mother with a difficult child. “Because you’re the one who drove the wagon way outside the column,” she retorted. “You’re the one who’s been eyeing him when you think nobody’s looking. And you’re the one he’s been eyeing. Besides,” she giggled, “I’ve already got a husband.”
“Tessie Taylor McGowan!” Lucy charged. “Bite your tongue. I haven’t been eyeing anybody. Even if I was, it wouldn’t be a wild man who looks like an Indian.” She pulled herself erect in an exaggerated huff. “I’ve a good mind to pour some of this coffee on you,” she said as she moved the boiling pot away from the coals. “Harvey,” she called, “whip your wife.”
Harvey looked at her bewildered, with no notion if she was serious or not.
Jim and his partner got some pan bread that night, but it was Tessie who brought it to their campfire, telling them how pleased she was that they had joined the train back at Fort Reno. Jim was slightly disappointed that Lucy did not deliver the bread, but he and Johnny enjoyed the treat. “I swear,” Johnny commented, “this is better′n that bread Mornin’ Flower bakes, but don’t ever tell her I said that. She’d kick my ass.”
It took a little extra time for Lucy to fall asleep that night, for there were many thoughts that captured her mind, most of them concentrated around the rugged dark-haired scout called Rider. The strong, sharply chiseled face and the dark moody eyes were things that a woman would notice. She had to question the many times he was on her mind when she should be thinking about other things. Long before this day, she had vowed to herself that she would never marry for love, unless it was accompanied by wealth. Still, it was interesting to fantasize about a union with a man like Rider. It would be like mating with a panther, she thought, and allowed a devilish smile to creep across her face.
The wagon train started out early the next morning as usual. There was no further threat from Sioux or Cheyenne war parties the entire trip as they crossed the Tongue and traveled on to the confluence of the Big Horn and the Yellowstone. After crossing over to the north side of the Yellowstone, which required the major part of the day, the train went into camp a few hundred yards from the ferry. With the wagons circled up and the stock driven in for the night, there was nothing more to do but finish the last of their supper and drink up the remaining coffee.
“When we get to Bozeman City,” Johnny said, “we’re gonna need to trade for some more coffee beans, and that’s a fact.”
Jim didn’t answer, caught more deeply in thought than usual, even for him. Johnny had a suspicion about what the problem might be. The closer they came to the end of this trip with Grainger′s train, the more his young partner seemed to withdraw into himself. Jim was never much for talking, but over the last few nights, he almost never said a word. Johnny was sure the problem had to do with Lucy Taylor, and to Johnny it was very much like lancing a boil. If Jim didn’t release some of that worry inside him, he was in for some powerful suffering. So he decided it was time to lance the boil. “I swear, you’ve been a bit off your feed lately, and I know you’ve been thinkin’ ’bout that gal.” There was no response from Jim at all, but Johnny was not discouraged. “I’ve seen enough buck fever to know when it’s hit somebody, so you might as well come on out with it.”
Jim gazed unblinking into Johnny’s eyes, a look Johnny had become accustomed to from his serious young friend. Then for a second, his sober expression softened, the burden he had been carrying on his mind weighing too heavily to hold any longer. He spoke hesitantly in the beginning, but as his feelings flowed, he emptied his heart to the only man he would trust with his inner yearnings. “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed. “I’ve never had any doin’s with a girl before. I never cared whether I did or not. But dammit, from the first day I found her in the bushes at the Crazy Woman, I ain’t been able to get her out of my head.”
“That’s what I thought,” Johnny said, satisfied that his diagnosis was accurate, and ready to subscribe the medication. “I ain’t been blind to the way she’s been lookin’ at you, so I’m willin’ to bet you ain’t the only one thinkin’ ’bout the other′n.”
“But what should I do about it? She acts like she don’t like me most of the time I’m around her.”
“Now, see,” Johnny was quick to explain. “That’s what they do. They don’t want you to think they’re gonna be easy, like pickin’ a gooseberry off a bush.” He paused then. “What kinda hurtin’ have you got for this gal? Roll in the hay hurtin’? Or marryin’ hurtin’?”
“I expect it’s marryin’ hurtin’,” Jim confessed. “I wanna take care of her, go somewhere where we can live together.”
“Hmm,” Johnny murmured. “You’ve got it worse than I suspected.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Jim repeated.
“There ain’t nothin’ to do but tell her how you feel. That’s the only way you’ll find out how she feels about it. Then you have to take it from there. Two young folks like yourselves, you can make it right fine, do enough huntin’ and trappin’ to get what you need.”
“You think I’m crazy?” Jim asked humbly.
“Hell no. Look at me and Mornin’ Flower. We get along just fine, and I ain’t even there half the time. Go tell that gal what you got on your mind. She’s getting way past marryin’ age, anyway. I expect she’s been wonderin’ if she was gonna have to pop the question to you.”
“You think so?”
“Sure I do.”
“I reckon I might as well do it,” Jim decided.
“Go get ’em, boy,” Johnny encouraged happily.
Lucy walked down by the busy stream as the evening softened. It was the last camp before reaching Virginia City. It had seemed like a trip of a million miles and it was hard to believe they had actually made it with everyone safe and sound. The thought of seeing Virginia City the next day was cause for excitement after so many days traveling in a wagon through land so foreign to civilization, but she felt stronger because of that trip, and confident that she could tackle any task. There were some things that had made the trip interesting, and her thoughts went directly to Rider. What an odd name, she thought, remembering her reaction to it the first time she had heard it. Surely he must have a second name. Her thoughts were interrupted then by the sudden appearance of the tall, silent scout. She glanced up to see him leading his buckskin horse toward her along the stream bank, and knew that he had come to find her. “You found me by the water again,” she said in greeting him.
“Yep,” he replied. “Only this time you ain’t hidin’
in a bush.”
“Where are you going?” she asked, guessing that she knew the answer.
“Lookin’ for you,” he replied, then paused before trying to go on with what he had determined to say to her, his nerve wavering now that he was face-to-face with her. “I got somethin’ I need to tell you,” he found the courage to say.
“Well, I’m right in front of you,” she replied, wondering now if she could possibly be right in thinking what she suspected he was gathering his nerve to confess.
It was difficult to speak of his feelings for her, harder than Johnny had said it would be, but he had opened the door and he was determined to go through it. “Well”—he stumbled over the words—“I ain’t—I mean—I reckon I oughta tell you that my real name ain’t Rider. Johnny gave me that name, after a creek we camped on. My real name is Jim Moran. Johnny gave me the name Rider because the Yankees were lookin’ for me because I rode with Bill Quantrill’s boys durin’ the war.”
“Is that what you came down here to tell me?” Lucy asked, somewhat surprised.
“Well, that and another thing. I just thought I oughta be honest with you before I asked you, and I didn’t want you to think I was an outlaw usin’ another name.”
“Asked me what?” she promptly responded before he could finish.
“I’ve been watchin’ you ever since that day on the Crazy Woman,” he said. “I never thought about ever hitchin’ up with a woman, but I ain’t been thinkin’ about much else ever since that day. I know I ain’t got a lot to offer you right now, but I’m strong and able. I know I can make a good life for you—or die tryin’. I guess I just need to know how you feel about it.”
“You do?” she asked after listening to his stumbling attempt to confess his feelings. He nodded. “You’re asking me to marry you?” she asked.
“I reckon I am,” he replied.
Before answering, she gazed intently at the bashful young man standing nervously before her. Fearless in the face of charging Sioux warriors, he fidgeted bashfully in her presence. She thought carefully about her response. “Rider—or Jim, whichever—I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth. It’s nice of you to ask, but I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life like a squaw in some log cabin, raising a houseful of young’uns for a husband who’s off somewhere hunting or trapping.” It was cruel, she admitted that to herself, but she wanted to be sure he didn’t harbor any hope that she might change her mind.
Chapter 6
Virginia City was a proper town in 1866, with schools and churches and stores for respectable citizens, a newspaper, and more than a thousand buildings—all mushroomed up from Alder Gulch and Daylight Gulch from the first strike of gold in 1863. Gone were the lawless times of the vigilantes. There was law and order now in Virginia City and the town had recently been designated the Territorial Capital of Montana Territory. Just this year, the town boasted the first telegraph in Montana. Much to Johnny Hawk’s relief, the other face of Virginia City was still evident—the bawdy houses and saloons. It was an amazing sight to Jim Moran’s eyes. Virginia City was a proper town, all right, but it was a dying town. Placer mining had all but played out, and the gold strike in Last Chance Gulch near Helena was pulling even the die-hard miners away from their claims. It was only a matter of time before the whole place would dry up.
That Virginia City was in her death throes was plainly seen by Harvey McGowan, an observance that was immediately verified by his uncle’s boarded-up store on Wallace Street. Easily discouraged, Harvey felt his hopes draining into his boots as he stood staring at the empty windows of the store, for he had counted totally on his uncle’s help in establishing a successful living in what had been a boomtown. Never prone to despair as a rule, Tessie stood beside him wringing her hands, the air of bravado she had shown before leaving Fort Reno having faded. Of the three, Lucy Taylor remained the determined tower of strength she had willed herself to be.
“We’ll go to Helena with the rest of the people,” she said. She stepped up on the boardwalk and peered through a crack in the shuttered window. “There’s a lot of stuff in there. I don’t think your uncle has left town yet, or if he has, he’s left an awful lot of inventory here.” She turned back to her sister and her husband, who were still in deep despair. “We’ll find your uncle’s house. He sent for you, Harvey, so he’ll damn sure welcome you to help him build a new business. Snap out of it.” She then told her sister, “I didn’t come all the way out here to be poor.” She stepped away from the window to stop a passerby. “Excuse me, sir. Do you know the man who owns this store?”
“Why, sure, miss,” the man replied. “That’s Ralph McGowan’s store. You looking for Ralph?” When Lucy replied that she was indeed, he turned and pointed. “He lives in that white frame house on the hill.”
“Thank you, sir,” Lucy said, then turned to Harvey and Tessie. “See, he’s still here. Now, let’s get in the wagon and drive up there to let him know his new partners are in town.”
Ralph McGowan was a self-made man. He had built his store in the summer of 1864 when Virginia City was still at her peak. Losing no time, he accumulated his fortune while the town was desperate for dry goods and prices were high, mining his gold from the men who labored to extract it from the mines and streams. For that reason, he was disappointed, but not surprised, when the gold petered out, and certainly not discouraged. A single man, Ralph had no ties to keep him in any spot he didn’t deem promising to his financial possibilities, so he promptly turned his closed sign to face out, and locked his door, and looked forward to new prospects in Helena.
The one thing he had not been sure of was the arrival of his nephew. When things were booming, he wrote that he would put Harvey to work for him if he came out to Montana, but to be honest about it, he wasn’t certain Harvey had the gumption to uproot and make the journey. And since that was sometime back and he had received no word from Harvey, he had all but forgotten his offer. So he was somewhat taken aback when his nephew pulled a wagon up to his house, accompanied by his wife and her sister. “Harvey?” he questioned in disbelief.
“Howdy, Ralph,” Harvey responded. He never called him Uncle Ralph even though Ralph was almost twelve years older than he. “Well, we made it,” he announced, then climbed down from the wagon. “This is my wife, Tessie, and her sister, Lucy,” he said as he helped each one down.
Ralph was temporarily suspended in a moment of indecision, but only for a moment, before he responded appropriately. “Why, good Lord,” he managed, “I see you did. I was beginning to wonder.” He hurried down the porch steps to greet them, pumping Harvey’s hand enthusiastically, then a hug for each of the ladies. All the while his mind was working over his reaction to the unexpected appearance of his nephew at a time when he was set to move on to another prospective spot. Always one to see the silver lining around every dark cloud, and a firm belief that the silver was there for him to mine, he quickly concluded that Harvey’s arrival was a good thing. He was positive that he would be as successful in Helena as he had been in Virginia City, and he would need a good man to help with the expansion of his business. He remembered his nephew as an honest, hardworking individual, although short of ambition. Just the kind of man Ralph figured he needed, someone who could run his business, but unlikely to press for a partnership. There was also the added attraction of Tessie’s younger sister, a fine-looking woman who graced him with an engaging smile.
“Excuse my manners, ladies,” Ralph went on. “Come on in the house. You must be hungry. I’ll have Pearl fix you something to eat. It’s a little past suppertime, but I’m sure she can rustle up some coffee and a little something to go with it.” When Harvey raised an eyebrow, Ralph explained, “Pearl’s a Shoshoni woman who cooks for me. I can’t pronounce her real name so I just call her Pearl.”
“I gotta take care of my mules,” Harvey said, looking around at somewhat of a loss as to what he could do with them. There was no barn or corral that he could see.
�
�You must have seen the stables at the foot of the hill,” Ralph said. “You came right by them. You can unhitch ’em and leave your wagon right where it is, and take your mules down to the stables.” When Harvey seemed to be taking a moment to think that over, Ralph guessed his indecision. “Tell Percy at the stable that I’ll pay for their feed and board.”
“That’s mighty generous of you, Ralph,” Harvey replied gratefully.
“Not at all,” Ralph said. “We’re gonna need those mules when we pack up and head for Helena.” His remark caused raised eyebrows in all three guests. In answer to their unspoken question, he explained, “We’ll load everything up in the next couple of days, and take our business to Helena. That’s where the gold is flowing now, so you folks got here at just the right time.” He stood aside then and waved the women up the steps while Harvey unhitched the team. “You take those mules on down to Percy and I’ll take this opportunity to get acquainted with these lovely ladies you brought with you.”
The reaction to the news that they were going to Helena was varied among the three new arrivals. Harvey was relieved that his uncle showed every indication of including him in his plans. He had been concerned about his future ever since learning of Virginia City’s decline. Tessie was dismayed that another long trip was in the immediate offing after just having survived the long trek from the east. Helena was about one hundred miles away. Lucy, on the other hand, was eager for the new adventure to begin, and felt fortunate to have an alliance with someone who had material and financial backing. Her ambitious eyes saw only opportunity.
His young friend was in pain. It was not necessary to ask what had happened upon his profession of affection for Lucy Taylor. The results were written in Jim’s face, and as was his habit, he withdrew to a place inside himself, but this time it was a deeper room inside his mind in which he permitted no entry. Johnny tried to get him to talk about it several times, but Jim would only shake his head and respond that it was a bad idea from the beginning. For three days, they camped at an abandoned claim by a stream near the town while Johnny satisfied his cravings for strong spirits and loose women. Jim remained in camp, declining the little man’s invitations to accompany him and wash away his hurt with whiskey and a go with one of the many available whores. Finding it difficult to believe that this remedy did not tempt his young friend, he finally stopped trying and left Jim to wrestle his demons alone.
Ride the High Range Page 10