Jedediah simply nodded and said, “Figured it’d happen. Just didn’t figure so soon.” He placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “You did the right thing, Jason. I’ll take care of it. Don’t know why these folks can’t just get along for as long as it takes to make the goldurn trip!”
* * *
The livestock was put up, dinner was prepared, a fire had been built in the center of the circled wagons, and most folks sat round it, plates in their weary hands. Jedediah stood up slowly, dreading his speech.
He walked over to the fire, and said, “Folks? Can I have your attention?”
Gradually, the buzz of conversation died away, and all eyes were on him.
“Just wanted to say a few things,” Jedediah began. “First off, you all did real well for a first day on the trail. We made twelve miles, by my reckoning.”
Scattered applause broke out around the fire.
“Of course,” he added, “that was all on the flat. We won’t do as well later on. But by the same token, some days we’ll do better. Now, most of you know that I hired us some help for the drive. Milt Billings—stand up there, Milt—is an ace horseman. He speaks Piute, Comanche, Crow, and Apache. And that’s gonna come in mighty handy.”
Some of the women began to whisper nervously, but Jedediah put the kibosh on that directly, saying, “We’re gonna need to trade with the natives, and that takes communication, folks.”
The whispering stopped.
“Next, there’s Ward Wanamaker and Gil Collins. Ward, doff your hat so’s they can tell who’s who.”
Ward did, and smiled wide. Gil just stood there, twitching nervously.
“Ward and Gil are both as good with their guns as they are with livestock or a shovel. You get into a bind and need somebody to help with your livestock, or you need a spare driver for a spell, you call on Ward or Gil. Sit down, boys.”
He paused a moment. “Now, there’s something else that’s been preying on my mind. Folks, we have all throwed in together in order to make this difficult trip across the wilderness. And that means leavin’ our petty bigotries behind us. We’ve got somebody from practically everywhere in the world in our group. Folks from the north, and folks from the south, folks from the old country and the new; Protestants, Catholics, and Jews. Now, I heard about some trouble breaking out today, which is pretty damned soon for trouble. You parents, you school your young’uns to be more tolerant, else you’re going to be in for a world of hurt. Everybody got that?”
The group was shocked into silence—which he’d hoped would be their reaction—and Jedediah made his way back to his place and sat down, between Jason and Jenny. “Good dinner, honey,” he said, and forced down another bite of Jenny’s overdone rabbit.
Chapter 4
Jenny started the next day as she had started the day before. After she got herself ready, she piled every blanket and quilt she owned on the driver’s bench, then waited while her papa and Jason hitched the team. It was beyond her how those other drivers made do without padding.
Jason must have seen her padding her perch, because he actually smiled at her—something he didn’t do very often—and said, “Smart girl.”
It was enough to plaster a smile on her face for the next two hours.
By that time, they had made another four or five miles, and her papa had ridden down the line, saying that there was a town about six miles up the trail. Jenny knew that could mean only one thing—they’d camp outside it, and some of them would be able to go in and visit. Or buy things!
Megan MacDonald, who was fast becoming her best friend, had told her there’d be gooseberries ahead, or so she thought, and ever since, Jenny had been set on getting hold of some canning jars and paraffin. The Nordstroms had some in their spare wagon, but the cost was too dear.
Well, she’d show them. She’d slip into town and get her own.
The trip, meanwhile, was baking hot. She was glad she’d worn her bonnet. It kept the sun off her face, anyway, but she knew her hands were turning brown as walnuts. Papa had given her driving gloves, but the reins were so soft and old that she hadn’t needed them. Until now. She began to dig through her bag.
“Hello!” called a familiar voice.
Jenny smiled and turned to spy Megan, walking up alongside the wagon.
“Hello, yourself. Want a ride?”
Megan’s pretty brows knitted. “You sure? I mean, that it’s not too much load?”
“Don’t be silly. Besides, I need to find my driving gloves.”
“Okay,” Megan chirped, and placing her foot on the step, swung up into the seat beside Jenny, who handed her the reins. “You’re not blistering,” Megan remarked.
“No, but my hands’ll be as dark as a red Indian pretty soon.”
Megan laughed. Although Jenny was two years Megan’s junior, the two had hit it off right away. Megan was nothing like her overbearing father or her bully of a brother, Jenny had decided within three minutes of their first meeting. She had all the humor in the family, and a cleverness to match it. And besides, both girls had lost their mothers at an early age.
They were fast becoming sisters in spirit.
And Jenny had seen Jason watching Megan. Not overtly—that wasn’t Jason’s style—but just in quick glances. He appeared to like what he saw, and Jenny was glad. Perhaps, if she was lucky and said her prayers faithfully, Megan could become her sister in more than spirit.
She hadn’t broached the subject to Megan, though. That would have been bad luck.
“Like what you’ve done to the seat,” Megan said, as Jenny pulled on the first glove. They were men’s gloves and she swam in them.
Jenny laughed. “Don’t know why everybody didn’t think of it.”
“Oh, they will before too long,” Megan said. “If you know what I mean.”
Jenny followed Megan’s gaze up the line, where Europa Griggs could be seen, fresh from driving duty, rubbing her backside as she limped along.
Jenny laughed. “Guess so!”
* * *
Up ahead, Jason had more pressing matters on his hands.
Salmon Kendall’s wagon had run over a rock—a big one—and broken an axle. Jason had the Kendalls unpacking their wagon, and Jedediah had hastened the other wagons in the train around the Kendalls, in order to keep the time lost to a minimum. Jason was helping Kendall to lighten the load while he waited for the Griggs’s wagon or the Wheelers to arrive.
At least, Seth Wheeler had said he’d done some blacksmithing and wheelwrighting in the past, and Milton Griggs was a smithy. Jason hoped that included some axle work, too.
When the Morellis passed them, Doc hollered, “Can I help, Jason?” but Jason waved them past. That was all they needed—a wagon falling on their only medical man. He noticed that the MacDonalds passed them by without a word. That figured. Even the Milchers called, “God be with you!” And the Nordstroms offered their help, but not so much as a look from Hamish MacDonald. Or Matthew, who actually could have been of some help.
But no, he just rode that big flashy pinto of his right on past, as if Jason and the Kendalls and half their cargo, spread out in the grass, weren’t there at all.
Bastard.
When the boys driving the cattle and horses came up close, Ward Wanamaker rode over and pitched in, and together, he and Jason and Salmon got the wagon unloaded at just about the time that Seth Wheeler drove his team up.
When he asked if he could help, Jason sure didn’t turn him down.
“Wagon’s got a busted axle, Seth,” he said, while Wheeler climbed down. “I’m hoping you can do something about it.”
Seth gave a scratch to the back of his head. “Lemme take a look,” he said, and got to it.
After five minutes of making sounds to himself and peering from various angles, he stood erect. “Can’t fix ’er,” he said, and Salmon’s face fell. “But I can shore her up long enough to make the town. Your papa said there was a town not too far off, right?” he asked Jason.
“
Sure did.”
“Good. Don’t supposed anybody in this train has an anvil? And supplies?”
Jason brightened. “Milton Griggs does, I’m pretty sure. He’s comin’ up now.”
Through the dust came the Griggs wagon, with an uncomfortable Milton driving, his lank blond hair flopping beneath his hat. Jason flagged him down and explained the problem, and he and Milt and Seth wrestled the anvil out of the back of the wagon.
“You’re lucky that thing didn’t go straight through the bed,” Seth remarked.
“Bottom’s reinforced iron,” Milt replied with a grunt.
“The whole thing?” Jason asked. He wondered that the horses could haul it. That is, until he took another look at the team. They were Belgian draft horses, as big and muscular as the man who owned them.
“Whole thing,” Milt said. “Somebody got a fire goin’? I got my bellows and stuff in here somewhere. . . .”
“Not much to it, Mr. Griggs,” said Seth. “We’ve just gotta strap her together with some iron. They can replace the axle when we get to the town, I hope. This thing’s pretty much shot.”
“Call me Milt,” Griggs replied. “Let’s get that fire going. C’mon, boys, somebody dig me a pit.”
* * *
Salmon Kendall’s wagon, jerry-rigged axle and all, fell into last place in the train an hour later. His load had been split out between Milt Griggs and Seth Wheeler—and Saul Cohen’s extra rig—and the wagon slowly limped along, eventually catching up with the others.
Jedediah rode back to see how they were doing, and was pleased to see that Jason had handled the situation. “How’s that axle look?” he asked as they rode along, bringing up the rear.
Jason thumbed his hat back. “Not good. They’ll have to replace it once we get to town. Either that, or buy a whole new rig. If I didn’t know different, I’d swear that Conestoga of Kendall’s was a hundred years old. Damn thing’s full of dry rot.”
Jedediah made a disapproving face, then shook his head. “Idiots,” he muttered.
Jason knew exactly what he meant, and didn’t reply.
* * *
They pulled into the tiny prairie farming community of Bliss, Kansas, just as the sun was setting. Jedediah ordered the wagons lined up along the outskirts of the tiny town, and the herd bedded down farther out.
Jason rode in ahead to see if they had a carter or a smithy who could either fix the wagon or replace it. He was hoping for the first, and he knew Salmon Kendall was, too. Wagons cost dear, and Salmon didn’t look as if he was any too flush. He’d sweated all through the repair work, and Jason was pretty sure it wasn’t from the heat.
He found Bliss Livery right off, and as it turned out, he was in luck. The proprietor had nothing of the sort handy, but he knew of some folks that had come out from Iowa not too long ago, and were trying to sell their wagon. When Jason tracked them down, it turned out they were just as willing to sell the whole shebang as the rear axle. He guessed they weren’t doing too well, by the look of them.
He rode the palomino out to meet Salmon Kendall, and directed him out to the wagon, then sent Milton Griggs after him, just in case. They might need another pair of strong shoulders, and frankly, Jason wasn’t up to it.
He’d yanked his neck, back, and shoulder clear out of kilter back there, while they were shoring up the axle. So far, he’d managed to hide it from his father and the others—who wanted a ramrod who busted his own body during the first days out?—but right now, all Jason wanted was a hot bath in town, to soak in for maybe six or eight hours.
That, and about a quart of liniment.
Jason wasn’t accustomed to hurting himself. Oh, he’d been shot during the War, but that had been an accident of friendly fire, seeing as how he was attached to the Department of War in Washington. Just a glorified paper-pusher, that’s all he’d been. Not a hero, like his brother, butchered in the swamps of Georgia, or a hero like his father, who’d spent the last few months of the war in that hellhole, Andersonville Prison.
No, just a pen-pusher, a paper-shuffler, a requisitions expert—a big, fat nothing.
The man who’d shot him was a private, cleaning his mostly-for-show service pistol in the next office over.
Life wasn’t fair, Jason thought grimly as he rode into town and found the barbershop. No, sir, it just wasn’t fair at all.
* * *
Jedediah was just sitting down to his supper, and wondering what the devil had become of his son, when he heard a wagon rolling in, and saw Salmon Kendall on the driver’s bench. Salmon reined in the team and jumped down, a grin splitting his face.
“What do you think, Mr. Fury? Isn’t she grand?” He swept an arm back toward the big Conestoga, which was quite obviously a different rig than the one he’d been limping along in.
“Why, I think she’s a beauty, Salmon,” Jedediah replied, and fought off the urge to scratch his head in wonder. Salmon and Cordelia Kendall hadn’t a pot to piss in nor a window to toss it out of. How on earth could he have afforded a new rig?
“Mr. Kroeger, the man with the wagon?” Salmon went on, all in a rush. “He and his folks are havin’ hard times, said that if he couldn’t sell the wagon, they were going to burn it for firewood this winter. Wouldn’t sell just the axle. So I traded him, my wagon for his, and I threw in a hog for good measure. What do you think of that?”
Salmon’s hogs were fat and would make a lot of bacon and chops, and Jedediah knew the Kendall kids had named them, but he kept his counsel. “That’s fine,” he said, “right fine. Griggs look her over for you?”
Salmon gave a quick, happy nod. “Yes, indeed, and he pronounced her trail-worthy—a good deal better than my other rig, he said later on. I mean, after we left the Kroeger place. Why, he said my old rig was full of dry rot.”
Jedediah nodded. “Happens. You’d best get your things unloaded from the other folks’ wagons and into your own before they start to take a dislike to you, though.”
“Certainly, certainly!”
As Salmon Kendall climbed back up to the driver’s bench, Jedediah called after him, “You haven’t seen my boy, have you?”
“Not since about five. He rode off toward town.”
Jedediah nodded, as if that was exactly where Jason was supposed to be—blast him, anyway!—and waved to Salmon as he pulled out.
“Papa?” asked Jenny, sitting at his side. She had perpetrated the so-called stew on his plate. He probably could have sold it for axle grease, if it had a little less salt in it.
“What, baby?”
“What’s Jason doing in town all this time?”
“I’m sure he’s got a good reason, honey.” He held out his plate. “Now, serve me up some more of that cornmeal mush.”
Jenny sighed. “Corn bread, Papa. Corn bread.”
Chapter 5
Jason was slouched in the steaming tub, half asleep, his back and shoulder having already been tremendously eased, when the voice broke into his consciousness.
“You the wagon man?”
He opened one eye, surprised to hear the female voice in the men’s bathing house, but not entirely shocked by it. During the War, even lowly paper-pushers were welcome in Washington’s bordellos. And it was precisely the tone of voice he’d expect to hear in one of those places, too.
The woman standing at the door way was dressed like a saloon girl. Probably was one, too, in those bright green spangles. And all that red hair, piled up on her head. She couldn’t be much older than he was, even under all that makeup. Which she didn’t really need, he caught himself thinking.
He opened the other eye.
“Yes, I guess I am,” he said. “Miss . . . ?”
“Miss Krimp,” she said. “Abigail Krimp. And you are?”
“Jason Fury, Miss.” He caught her gaze flicking to the tub, trying to peek beneath the water, and set his sponge drifting to cover a strategic part of his anatomy.
She looked disappointed.
He smiled. “And may I ask w
hat brings you . . . here, Miss Abigail Krimp?”
“My man would’a come, but he was busy. Sort of. So he sent me.”
She was pretty enough, but if she didn’t come to the point pretty soon, he was liable to toss that wet sponge at her. “About what?”
“About joinin’ up!” she said, as if he should have read her mind.
“With the wagon train?” he asked. She sure didn’t look like any pioneer he’d ever seen.
“Well, of course.” Rather than showing signs of leaving, she sat down on the bench and crossed her arms stubbornly. She cocked her head. “You’re a handsome devil, ain’t you? And we wanna go to California, me and Rome. Be nice, havin’ you along for scenery the whole way.”
“And Rome is?”
“My man, you fool. The one playin’ cards up at the Red Garter.”
Now, Jason didn’t have anything against gamblers, personally, but he knew his father did. Jedediah vowed, quite often, as a matter of fact, that they were all larcenous ne’er-do-wells and he wouldn’t have one within five miles of any of his wagons.
So Jason pursed his lips for a second, then said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to find yourself a different party to join, Miss Krimp.”
This time, she shot to her feet. “Why?”
“Because my pa is in charge, not me, and he doesn’t take to gamblers of any sort. Or fancified ladies,” he added.
Suddenly, she looked stricken. “But there hasn’t been a wagon train through here in two years! They all go down through Hastings!”
“Then I suggest you get yourselves down to Hastings, wherever that is.”
She yanked a folded towel off the shelf behind her and threw it at him. “Well, I guess that ‘handsome is as handsome does’ is the truth, after all!” she spit. “Thank you very much, and good luck with your journey!” she added snidely before she flounced out of the bathhouse, emerald skirts flashing.
He caught the towel before it could land in his bathwater, and set it on the little tub-side stool that also held an empty shot glass and a half bottle of bourbon.
“Thanks, Miss Abigail,” he said to the place where she’d been, then closed his eyes and sank back down. “I’ll probably be needing it. Sooner or later.”
A Town Called Fury Page 3