Ward went into the sheriff ’s office first, found a groggy deputy on duty, managed to crack him over the head, then called for Jason.
Together, they tied and gagged the luckless deputy, found the key to Matt’s cell, and locked up the unconscious deputy in his place.
Matt, who had said nothing during the entire procedure, finally spoke just as they were leaving. And then, only one word. A growl on his face, he looked at Jason and said, “Why?”
“Because you paid my pa to take you to California,” Jason said. “Now, shut up.”
“Huh?”
“Quiet!”
“Listen, you son of a bitch, if you’re gonna—”
Ward stepped between them and grumbled, “If you two are set on killin’ each other, I’d suggest you wait till we get clear of town.”
They slipped out, the streets still being mostly devoid of people except for the occasional dozing drunkard, and walked quietly toward the presidio. When they reached it, the wagons were ready to go. In fact, Salmon and Saul, both of whom knew what Jason and Ward were up to, had already lined the Conestogas up and started them out the presidio gate.
Jason saw someone waving at him, squinted, and realized it was Jenny.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing hold of Matt.
Ward grabbed the other arm, and they fairly dragged Matt, kicking and hollering, to the wagon. Halfway there, Jason had finally had enough. He slugged Matthew on the jaw as hard as he could, and as he’d hoped, Matt crumpled.
“That’s better,” Ward said.
They dragged Matt’s limp body the rest of the way to the wagon, and tossed him up into its bed. Jenny covered him over with quilts—“In case anybody gets nosy,” she said—while Megan drove on. Saul had already tacked up Jason and Ward’s horses, and they sprang up on them and went immediately to work—Ward with the herd and remuda, and Jason with the wagons—and Jenny ran to drive Salmon Kendall’s wagon. Salmon was still passed out in the back.
Saul flagged Jason down when they were about a half mile out of the presidio and asked, “Why didn’t you take me along? I never helped in a jailbreak before.”
“That’s why,” Jason said. “Didn’t want to start any new habits.”
* * *
Later that day, while they were slowly working their way north in the shadow of the Santa Rita Mountains, Sheriff Clancy caught up with them. Jason saw him coming and met him at the middle of the caravan.
“Well, what brings you up this way, Sheriff?” Jason asked.
The sheriff reined in his horse next to Jason’s. He was not smiling. The opposite, in fact. “I think you know that answer to that, Fury. I want him back. Now.”
“What? Who?”
“Don’t play games, Fury. I’ll search every single wagon in this train if I have to.”
Jason propped his hand on his saddle horn and shook his head. “Think you might have a hard time convincing folks to do that, Sheriff, seeing that you’re out of your jurisdiction, and also seeing that you arrested one of our most popular members last night. How’s Matt doing, by the way? Have you set a trial date?”
Clancy glared at him.
“I’d like to know,” Jason went on. “A few of us would like to come back for the hearing. You know, make sure everything’s on the up and up?”
Clancy said, “Cut the horseshit, Fury. You and I both know you’ve got him.”
Jason’s eyes widened. “We do?”
But Clancy was adamant. “You know damn well that MacDonald broke outta jail early this mornin’. Just before your wagon train pulled out. That’s too big a coincidence, Fury.”
Jason sighed. “Well, then, I guess we’ve got a problem, Sheriff. Now, I wouldn’t mind you searching my wagons. Wouldn’t mind it a bit, personally, although I can’t speak for some of the ladies in our party. But see, I’ve got to get these people to California in a hurry, and we already lost several days trying to get across the Canadian River during a thunderstorm.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“I think it is.”
They sat there, their horses dancing nervously between them while the wagons slowly passed. And then at last, Sheriff Clancy turned his horse and rode back toward Tucson, without a word.
Jason sat there on Cleo, watching him go and thanking the Lord for allowing the sheriff to buy into his bluff. Especially when it was done to protect a cowardly murdering jackass like Matt MacDonald.
* * *
Two days later, they swung west again along the Old Mormon Trail and entered a flat, endless plain of desert scrub and blooming cactus called El Despoblado, a wild, ummapped part of the territory. They made steady progress, although Jason posted several men as scouts. They looked in every direction for Apache, who could use the low cover in their favor.
The talk around the campfire, in the evenings, was turning toward farming, and most of the men agreed that this wide plain would make for fine crops. All it needed was water.
Jason pointed out that it would also most likely produce trouble with the Apache, but folks were too excited about the land to listen to him. Additionally, it had been a while since they’d had Indian trouble, and they seemed to have pushed the reality of it away.
Jason pointed out that there were no trees, and therefore, no shade.
Saul said that they could plant some.
Jason pointed out that the Milchers already had purchased land in California.
The Reverend Milcher remarked that he could get his money back, and didn’t his flock here need him?
All of this was pointless, Jason figured. There was no water, period. Of course, there was water underground here and there, but he didn’t mention it. He just wanted to get these folks across the Colorado River and into California.
But the next day, they came to a small stream thickly lined with cottonwood trees for as far as the eye could see. The Reverend Milcher proclaimed it a sign from on high, akin to manna in the desert. Privately, Saul told Jason, “I wish he’d stick to his half of the Holy Book.”
Jason pointed out that in California, trees had already been planted, and towns—hungry for new citizens—had already been founded. And he was fairly sure that the rivers and streams there ran year round, something he couldn’t say for Arizona streams.
Salmon Kendall looked up. “They disappear?” He had been keeping company with Carrie English of late, and sat beside her at the campfire, whittling a little model of Rags for Chrissy.
“They still flow,” Jason said, “but they do it underground. Least, that’s what I’m told. It’ll be pretty hard to irrigate your fields when there’s no aboveground water to do it with.”
“I’ve seen it done,” piped up Ezekial Morton, the senior member of their group, and usually the most taciturn.
That captured Milcher’s attention, and he was on Ezekial like a duck on a June bug. “Where, Brother Morton? How?”
“In Tucson,” Morton replied. “While you young bucks were out painting the town, I took a little sightseeing tour. They got them big, deep wells dug down there. Got a sort of augerlike contraption in the center of ’em that brings up the water, and two mules run it. Day and night, the man told me.” He scratched at his beard. “Course, I suppose they change the mules out two or three times a day. . . .”
“Well, there you go!” exclaimed the reverend. “We’ll build one of those for the dry season!”
Jason shook his head. “You know, the only reason I can think of for you folks staying here instead of going on to California and some sort of civilization is that you’ll have to buy land in California, and here it’s free for the taking.”
The resounding calls of “That’s right!” and “Yes!” and “Durn tootin’!” almost knocked Jason off the hay bale he was sitting on. These people were not only cheap, they were crazy.
Wash, apparently the only other sane one in the bunch, said, “What you gonna build them auger things out of? Cottonwood?”
“That’s correct, sir!” Milch
er answered confidently.
Wash shook his head and clucked his tongue. “Don’t you know you can’t kill cottonwood? Hell, fence posts made from it sprout in the ground and give you a fence fulla trees in no time! Cain’t imagine what kinda bushy nonsense you’d get if you was to stick ’em down a well!”
“He’s right,” said Jason.
“We can get other kinds of wood,” Salmon Kendall said. “And we’ve got our wagons. There’s plenty of wood in them, and I’ll bet it isn’t cottonwood.”
A murmur of agreement spread over the group.
Jason sighed. He couldn’t fight them on it. He said, “All right. Those who want to stay here, can. Those who want to go on to California, I’ll lead them. Anybody?”
He looked out over the crowd. There wasn’t one taker among them. Against his better wishes, he said, “Fine. I’ll stay and help you get your town started, then. I owe you that much.”
The Reverend Milcher stood straight up and raised his fist. “Hoorah!” he shouted. And then most everyone rose as one man, and echoed his cry.
“Tomorrow,” he said, once everyone had quieted down, “I shall consecrate this land. And we shall also name our new town.”
“Well,” Matt MacDonald said, stepping from the shadows, “it looks like decent grazing land, anyhow.”
“I vote we name it for Jason’s daddy!” said Salmon.
“A wise idea,” Saul said.
The Reverend Milcher frowned. It looked as if this wasn’t going the way he had expected. “Is that a second?”
“What else would it be?” Saul responded.
“Very well, then. All those in favor?”
The small crowd thundered, “Aye!”
Hopefully, Milcher added, “Opposed?”
Not one word was uttered.
Except by a puzzled Jason, who asked, “You’re going to name the town Jedediah?”
Saul slapped his shoulder. “No, boy! Fury! And we’ll build it right here, right where we are standing.”
Heads nodded all round.
Jason was beaten, and he knew it. These fools would try to build their town right here, and the newly christened Fury would fall to the Apache or just plain dry up and blow away.
He said, “If you’re set on it.”
Chapter 28
Jason and Megan were strolling around the inside of the circled wagons, because Jason didn’t want to take a chance on Megan getting snakebit out there in the brush and grass. Since Tucson, he had given up on trying to keep their mutual attraction private, and they strolled openly, arms linked.
“You don’t like this idea, do you, Jason?” she asked. “The whole thing about the town, I mean.”
“No,” he said firmly.
“But why not?”
He looked down at her. “Weren’t you listening earlier?”
“Yes, but I thought you were just trying to paint the worst possible picture to dissuade the Reverend Milcher from giving up his land in California. And let the others know that it won’t be easy.”
Jason didn’t say anything.
“We know it won’t be easy, Jason. But we’re here, we have water and land—land forever! And it’s just here for the taking!”
“You realize you’re probably going to build right smack in the center of somebody’s range land?”
“But nobody owns the range, Jason.”
“True. But some people like to think they do. And then there are the Apache.”
She gave a little sigh. “They haven’t bothered us yet.”
“Not yet. But that doesn’t mean they won’t. We’re sitting in the middle of their home range, too.”
She looked down for some time, while they walked the length of three wagons. “You’re not going to stay, are you?”
“Not any longer than I have to.” He felt bad about leaving her, but he had to tell the truth. He was leaving eventually. “I’ll stay long enough to help get the first buildings up and make sure you’re settled in, but then I’m going.”
Megan turned her head away and whispered, “All right. I understand, I guess. Will you take Jenny with you?”
He hadn’t ever thought of not taking Jenny. “Yes.”
“Does she know about this? She’s pretty stuck on my brother, you know.”
Jason stiffened. He hadn’t wanted to know about it, had tried to ignore it, push it from his mind. And now here it was. He said, “Tough.”
Megan stopped walking, and he stopped, too. Her hands, curled into fists, were cocked on her hips. “Tough? That’s all you have to say?”
He tried to save it by saying, “What I mean is that it’s going to be tough on her. But she’s young. What does she know yet? And Matthew doesn’t strike me as the type to want to settle down.”
She set her pretty jaw. Through clenched teeth, she said, “And I guess you don’t strike me as that type, either.”
“But Megan—”
“Good night, Jason,” she said before she turned and ran for the wagon she shared with Jenny.
* * *
“Saul? Saul!”
“Yes, Jason, what is it?” Saul looked up from his work, which, at the present, was digging a hole.
“What’s the hole for?”
Saul shrugged. “For a well, you dig a hole.”
Jason grinned despite himself. “I think maybe you’d better start again, about twenty, twenty-five yards over. You’re right in the middle of the trail. What are you digging it for, anyway?”
“Why, the town’s water supply! For when the stream dries up.”
This time, Jason couldn’t hold back his laugh. He said, “Saul, you’d best make it farther than that, then. If we’re going to grow up an entire town around your well, we’d best leave it room enough to grow without every wagon train coming west going right through somebody’s front garden.”
Saul nodded. “Again, wisdom beyond his years . . .”
“And get somebody to help you,” Jason called over his shoulder as he walked away. He had other fish to fry.
Everybody seemed to be of the same mind as Saul in thinking that nobody would ever again use this trail. The wagons were still circled smack on it, with the shallow trail ruts running right through the circle.
Actually, this gave Jason a modicum of hope. Other trains would come through here, and could pick up those who became dissatisfied with their choice to stay. There was a back door, after all.
But folks had already begun setting up shop, right where their rigs sat. Canvas wagon covers were untied and pulled out and staked up for shade, just like Olympia Morelli’s was each night to make the cook tent. People were spreading out, freeing up possessions they’d kept squirreled away since the start of their journey.
He was looking for Megan, hoping to clear up their little misunderstanding of the previous night, but was told by Ward Wanamaker that she was gone. And his horse, too!
“Yeah, Matt was headin’ off to scout a good place to headquarter a ranch,” Ward said. “Megan went with him, and your sister, too. She took your Cleo. Said you wouldn’t mind.”
Actually, he did mind quite a bit. If Matt wanted to wander around on the plain and act as Apache bait, that was his choice. But he had no business taking the girls with him.
Jason pulled a horse from the remuda, borrowed a saddle and bridle, and made ready to go and bring them back. “Which way did they head?” he asked Ward, as he swung up into the saddle.
Ward pointed. “Southeast. They were followin’ the creek. You want I should ride along, Jason? Wash is right over there, too. You might want a couple’a extra guns.”
“Yeah.” Jason nodded curtly. “Be glad of your company, Ward.”
* * *
The men spotted the Apache before the Apache spotted them. There were two braves, and they seemed to be trailing somebody. Probably Matt and the girls, because they kept to the cottonwoods along the stream.
Wash pulled out his rifle and started to take aim, but Jason shot out an arm and shoved t
he barrel aside. “No,” he whispered. “Let’s see if we can take care of this without any bloodshed.”
“But they’s only Apache!” Wash hissed, disappointed.
“You shoot two, and you’ll have two hundred down here looking for them. And finding the train.”
Wash swore under his breath, but shoved his rifle back into its boot. If Ward had any feelings one way or the other, they didn’t show on his face.
The Apache had stopped, and so did the men. At a signal from Jason, the men dismounted. Jason, the only one tall enough to see over the slightly rolling scrub and grass, kept the Indians in sight.
“What?” Wash said. “What do you see?”
Jason shook his head. “I figure that Matt and the girls’ve stopped up there, somewhere. The Apache are either just waiting them out, or looking for a chance to attack. Or, hell, maybe they don’t think it’s worth it for a kid and two girls. . . .”
“Worth what?” Ward asked.
“Worth possibly getting shot.” Jason kept his eyes on the Indians. They were still mounted, and he could make out their heads and shoulders. “They’ll have to have seen that Matt’s armed. And if I know Jenny, she’s got Papa’s shotgun on her.”
He just hoped that if she saw those braves on their trail, she’d hold off on blasting them. While they stood there, he ran scenario after scenario through his mind, but all of them ended in blood. Mostly theirs.
At last, he quietly said, “Mount up, boys.”
“What you thinkin’, Jason?” Wash asked, his eyebrows knitting and relaxing, then knitting again.
Ward, jumpy as a cat in a room full of rockers, said, “Yeah, what?”
“We’re gonna charge those Indians, men. Charge ’em full out, yelling and yelping and hollering. There are three of us and two of them, and they know there are more of us ahead of them. What I figure to do is split them off to the east at high speed, then pick up Matt and the girls and hightail it back to camp.”
He didn’t wait for either of them to respond. He just kicked his horse and took off, screaming at the top of his lungs, and screaming some more.
Ward and Wash followed him, thank the Lord. They all three hooted and hollered at full volume, and the Indians, shocked and surprised, did exactly what he’d hoped they’d do. They took off at a gallop, heading east over the prairie.
A Town Called Fury Page 17