There were those, of course, who scoffed at Indian attacks and who did not fear, who believed death was something that happened to others, and not to them. They had not yet discovered the impartiality of death. Carefully, Cleve cleaned his pistol, removing all the dust, adding a drop of oil. Then he checked the loads in the three spare cylinders he carried. This was a wise precaution, he decided. It was not easy to load a cap-and-ball pistol in a hurry; it was much easier simply to switch cylinders, which a man could do on a horse and at a dead run. He was checking the last cylinder when he heard someone approaching.
It was Morgan. He indicated the pistol. Gabe French tells me you can use that thing.
When I have to, Cleve commented. I’ve grown up with it. You may have to. Morgan lowered his voice. We saw Cheyenne tracks today, and they’re scouting us. No travois trails, so it’s a war party. Morgan glanced toward the wagons, but Lilith was out of sight. How are you with a rifle? he asked.
Good. But I don’t have one.
Gabe’s got a Colt revolving rifle. Fires six shots. He said you could use it.
All right. Cleve looked up. How did you know they were Cheyennes?
Moccasins … every tribe’s moccasins are different. Other things, too.
Different ways of doing things.
Reluctantly, Morgan strolled on, making his nightly survey of the camp. This was the fifth day since the Big Blue and the events at the crossing, and they had made good time to this point. Seventeen miles the first day, fifteen the next, and the last two days had each been nineteen-mile days. In fact, the last one had been slightly more than nineteen miles. And that, with a wagon train of this size, was good going.
The grass had been good and so far there had been plenty of water, but all knew that the worst travel lay ahead of them. Cleve, profiting by talk overheard before this trip began, had hung a canvas ground sheet under the wagon and into this he had heaped buffalo chips, chunks of wood, and odds and ends of fuel. There was no shortage of fuel now, but in the days ahead this would not be true, and he intended to be ready before they reached that stretch where most of what was available would already have been burned.
After a few minutes Lilith came from the wagon to the fire. She had offered to mend a pair of Cleve’s pants and she carried them now. He stood over her for a minute or so, then dropped to a rock beside the fire. I’m overwhelmed at all this attention, Miss Prescott, but I am surprised too.
Surprised?
I had no idea you were so domestic.
My home was a farm in upper New York state. I have often mended trousers for my brothers.
I never had a brother-or a sister.
My sister lives on the Ohio. She married a mountain man-Linus Rawlings. And I have two brothers.
No parents.
They were lost at the falls of the Ohio. That was four, almost five years ago. I want to confess, Lil, he said suddenly. I lied about why I wanted to work for you.
Did you think I didn’t know that?
The real reason is … I’m in love with you. He stopped her as she was about to speak. It’s the truth. Since the first time I saw you I’ve known I couldn’t live without you.
I’d not like to be the cause of your death, Mr. van Valen, she said lightly. I’m serious. And I’m ready to assume the responsibilities of a faithful husband.
And to assume the responsibilities for my property as well, Mr. van Valen?
Really? What kind of property?
Gold, Mr. van Valen. Gold by the ton, from what I understand. Bright, yellow, shiny gold.
Why, I-I had no idea.
Oh, I’m sure you didn’t, she said mockingly. It is simply a remarkable coincidence.
Coincidence?
Oh, just the fact that when you were back stage settling your bet on how many petticoats I wore, I should receive word of my inheritance. You knew about the bet?
Of course. And if I could overhear what you were saying, I am sure you could overhear what Mr. Seabury told me. Or am I too suspicious? I think you are.
Here comes Agatha. Now, if you must propose to somebody, I suggest you get on your knees to her. She has such beautiful hair. Lilith got to her feet, smiling sweetly. And by the way, Mr. van Valen-there were six petticoats!
Agatha indicated the circle that had gathered about a neighboring fire where they were singing Home, Sweet Home.
Listen to em. You’d think they was buryin’ somebody. Lilith broke her thread and handed the mended pants to Cleve, then she tossed back her hair and, gathering a fold of her skirt, moved toward the circle. She started to half-speak, half-sing the words of Raise a Ruckus, emphasizing its humor and bounce.
As she reached the chorus in full voice, she moved back toward her own fire, and people drifted over to listen. As she sang she saw the sadness and weariness leaving their faces, and by the second chorus their voices began to join in. Roger Morgan paused outside the circle, watching them and observing the effect of her voice on the others. Over their heads his eyes met those of Cleve, and then he walked away.
The night was pleasantly cool, the sky clear. After watching the singers for a few minutes, Cleve slipped away to check his gelding, and then the stock that was encircled by the rope corral.
It was very still. Far off a coyote serenaded the night with plaintive music. Cleve’s boots crunched in the grass as he walked up to the mules, and they flicked their long ears at his voice. He paused near them, liking the sound of their cropping of the grass. His ears had learned to sort the sounds, to hear only the strange, different ones while being aware of all the others. That Lil … she had known all along why he had joined the wagon train. She had seen through him from the beginning, and it was no wonder that she wanted nothing to do with him.
Some night bird was moving in the bushes, the crickets were singing. He walked a little further, listening to the singing, unable to distinguish the words, but liking the music. Lil’s voice reached out, clear and strong. There was more to her than he had suspected. She had intelligence, and she was shrewd as well-and the two are far from the same thing. Moreover, she had character. He considered the future. It was not going to be easy-far from easy, in fact; but she was lovely, and he was not going to mind too much if it took a little longer. After all, what else was there to do on a wagon train? Day had not yet come when he rolled out of his blankets and went for the mules. The night guard let him out of the corral with his six charges and he took them at once to water, then to the wagon to harness them. He was snapping a trace chain in place when he heard Morgan talking to Lilith. She had been carrying water from a spring near the river to fill the water barrels. Miss Prescott, Morgan said, I’ve been thinking.
Oh?
Wet or dry, you’re the handsomest woman I ever did see. You’ve got spirit, and a fine, sturdy body-a noble combination. Why, to you child-bearin’ would come easy as rollin’ off a log.
If you leave it to me, Mr. Morgan, she said dryly, I’d rather roll off the log.
Ma’am, I’m tellin’ you. You got the build for it, and that’s what I’m lookin’ for. I want you for my wife. I’ve got a cattle outfit just below the Merced, an’ I’ll be settlin’ down there, fit an’ proper.
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 not 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; i
t 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 bills. 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.
How the West Was Won (1963) Page 10