by Rod Miller
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Over the days to come, Richard approached his work at a more deliberate pace. He trimmed the mules’ hooves and tacked on new shoes. He sharpened the axe and hatchet and shovel and checked and re-checked other tools to ensure their serviceability.
He laid in leather and awls and stout waxed linen thread for harness repairs, cordage and ropes, tin buckets, spare canvas, picket pins and tent pegs and a mallet for securing them, and powder and lead and caps.
Sarah ordered and received additional cooking equipment to supplement the sorry selection she tossed into the wagon before leaving Shelby County with little notice. An assortment of pots and kettles and pans and accouterments to make camp cooking more convenient were added to those already acquired.
Delivery of goods and supplies to the camp—as well as to the Lewis camp—was most often arranged by Abel and he made several trips with his employer’s wagons. But on a few occasions, Richard harnessed up the mules, pulled down the kitchen fly, hitched up the wagon and drove the team to town. No trip was complete without a visit to a saloon where he hoisted a few and refilled his flask.
But those trips were too few and far between to satisfy his thirst and come Saturday night he cajoled Melvin into a trip to Fort Smith with the stated intention of taking in the evening’s merriments at the dance.
Lee was less than enthusiastic with the idea but realized— despite evidence to the contrary—Richard was a grown man and entitled to a certain amount of independence. Besides, his firstborn son had performed well the work given him in readying for the move. “Richard, Melvin,” he said, “you-all enjoy yourselves. But, for heaven’s sake, stay out of trouble.”
Melvin said, “Sure, Pa.” Richard did not answer.
When they were gone, Lee said, “Abel? You going into town?”
“Hadn’t planned on it, Pa.”
“Not that I don’t trust your brothers, but if you was to go along and sort of watch out for them—and maybe keep them from mischief—I would be grateful.”
“Sure, Pa, if that’s what you want. But you know Rich don’t appreciate my being around.”
“Well, just try and take it easy. Besides, the Lewis girls will be there and from what I hear, Miss Emma might appreciate your being around.”
Abel reddened, ducked his head, hauled on Uncle Ben’s duster, pulled his hat low, and hurried out of camp to catch up.
As predicted, Richard wasn’t happy to have Abel tag along. When his brothers veered off into the first saloon in town, he went in with them but propped himself against the wall inside the door. He watched workmen and soldiers and businessmen and saloon girls laugh and talk and sing along with the jangly piano. His brothers joined right in while Melvin nursed his beer and Richard downed several shots of whiskey. But when his demeanor started shifting from high-spirited to sullen, Abel opted to intervene.
“Mel, Richard—let’s go to the dance.”
Melvin tossed off the rest of his beer. “Sure. Let’s go. Rich?”
Richard thought it over, said, “Why the hell not?” He checked to make sure his flask was full and tucked it into the inside pocket of his coat.
The sun slid below the horizon as the brothers walked to the dance. The bonfires were burning, the lanterns lit, and the musicians strumming and sawing and squeezing out dance tunes when they arrived. The Lewises’ town buggy jingled to a halt beside them and Abel grabbed the cheek piece on the bridle to steady the horse. He scratched the horse’s forehead and watched as Richard stepped up to lend the girls a hand out of the carriage.
“Ladies,” Richard said, removing his hat with a sweeping bow. “What a pleasure to see you-all here.” One by one, he grasped chapped hands. When Emma’s came into his grip, he held on after she lit. “Miss Emma, I hope you’ll save a dance for me.”
“Perhaps, Mister Pate.”
“Maybe later, I can walk you home.”
“I do not think so. It has been a long day and riding with my sisters will get me home to bed much sooner.”
Mary was last. “Richard. You are well, I trust?”
“I reckon so, Miss Mary.”
“You seem dejected.”
“Oh, I’ll be fine,” he said as he pulled out his flask and hoisted it as if in a toast.
“Drink will solve none of your problems, Mister Pate.”
He took a sip. “ ‘Mister Pate’ now, is it? What happened to ‘Richard’?”
Before she could answer, there was a stir when Peter hurried up. “Martha!” he said between quick breaths. “Looks like I just made it. Working late.”
Ignoring social convention, Martha wrapped her arms around the breathless man. “I am so glad you made it, Peter! Let us sit so you can catch your breath. Then, we shall dance!”
Emma slipped up behind Abel. He started when she spoke. “Abel—it is good to see you.”
“Oh! Thank you. Nice to see you, too,” he said, pulling off his hat and clasping it to his chest. “And your sisters.”
“Will you be asking for a dance this evening, Abel?”
“Don’t know. Maybe. Later.”
“But we have danced before—did you find the experience unpleasant?”
“Oh, no, Miss Emma. It’s just—well—I—” He looked around wide-eyed, as if expecting someone to throw him a lifeline. Mary came to his rescue.
“Abel, may I impose upon your time and ask you to see to our horse and buggy?”
“Yes, Miss. Happy to.” With a quick nod to Emma he plopped his hat on his head, grabbed the lines just behind the bridle bit and turned the horse away and off into the darkness. He took his time with the unhitching, unbuckling the breeching straps from the shafts, unhooking the traces from the whiffletree, and sliding the shafts out of the tugs. He unbridled the horse, slipped on a halter and tied the horse to the back of the carriage. From a bag he found on the floor of the buggy, he poured a small heap of oats on the ground and stroked the horse’s shoulder and withers as it ate.
When finally he made it back to the dance, the musicians were taking a breather. The dance floor was empty and soldiers, workmen, and women were gathered in clumps all around. Loud voices from a cluster on the other side of the platform caught his attention and he saw Melvin pulling uniforms aside and moving to the center of the circle. Abel stepped onto the dance floor and ran across. He found Melvin on his hands and knees, head down with blood-tinged drool dangling from his mouth. Richard was backed up and trapped uncomfortably close against a bonfire with half a dozen soldiers closing in.
Abel shouldered his way past the soldiers and, pulling a pistol from his pocket, turned to confront the attackers. “You-all had best back off!”
The men stopped, eyeing their new adversary, taking note that he was armed.
“You can’t shoot us all, farm boy,” a soldier said.
Abel rolled back the hammer with this thumb and the Paterson’s trigger reached out to find his finger. “I got five shots here. I reckon my brother Rich can take care of the one of you-all I can’t.”
In a confrontation of this sort there can be but two kinds of men. One kind looks at the odds and sees they are not in his favor and imagines himself already shot. The other kind somehow assumes he will be the one spared and presses the attack. In this particular assemblage of soldiers, all were of the first kind. Each slowly stepped back.
By now, Melvin had regained his feet. He shuffled toward his brothers and, with bloodied mouth, turned to face the soldiers. Still, it was the Colt revolver on which the bluecoats’ eyes were riveted.
One of the soldiers glowered at Richard. “This is not over, jackass.” Then, as if in close order drill, they turned in unison and walked away.
Abel released the breath he had been holding and carefully lowered the hammer on the pistol. “Rich, what the hell’s going on here?”
“Just a little disagreement, brother. No need for you to stick your nose in. Me and Mel had it handled.”
“What? They’d have tore you
apart had I not been here!”
Richard stepped close to Abel and said through gritted teeth, “Abel, you stay the hell away from me. I don’t need nothin’ you got. If you’re a-scared of a few damn soldiers, just go on back to camp. I suppose Pa will protect you.”
Melvin, confused, looked on. And when Richard turned on his heel and shoved his way through the crowd, he followed his older brother.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Two days before scheduled departure, preparations were all but complete at the Pate camp. Everything that could be packed was packed, everything that could be stowed was stowed. With no inclement weather on the horizon, even the wall tents were struck and rolled and loaded. Richard’s belongings stood apart, evidence of his determination to stay behind. Melvin waffled yet about whether to stay with the family or stay behind with his brother.
Arrangements were mostly complete at the Lewis camp as well. The oxen were shod, the wagons refitted, the town buggy and horse bartered for goods, the laundry paraphernalia sold off. One wall tent still stood on its platform and some camp equipment remained in service. Peter and Martha had gone before a preacher and taken wedding vows. They would continue to live at the camp until more permanent accommodations could be acquired.
Feeling ever more free of family fetters, Richard spent more time in town. This evening was no exception. He persuaded Melvin to come along and they walked into Fort Smith and through familiar saloon doors. Over drinks, Richard tried to convince Melvin to stay with him.
“I don’t know, Rich. Ma and Pa might need my help.”
“Oh, hell! You know as well as I do that so far as Pa’s concerned Abel can do anything. He don’t need us no more than a milk cow needs six tits.”
“What’ll we do for money? What’ll we eat?”
Richard emptied his shot glass and signaled for a refill and watched the bartender pour. “You got a job, Mel.”
“Already told the boss I was leavin’.”
Richard laughed. “Don’t worry ’bout that, brother. They’ll be tickled to keep a big, strong hoddie like you around. And I can find me another job—not at the brickyard, maybe, but there’s other work around.” He swallowed his drink in one gulp and called for yet another. “We ain’t neither one of us too handy with a cookin’ pot, but we sure as hell won’t starve.”
The saloon doors banged open and every patron in the house turned at the noise. Two army privates, well along in their evening of drinking, stood smiling and studying the clientele. One of the soldiers spotted Richard and his smile turned upside down.
“You!” he yelled, pointing at Richard. “You sonofabitch!”
Surprised, Richard looked around to make sure the man was pointing at him. Then he realized it was one of the soldiers from the altercation at the dance. He slid his chair back from the table and stood.
The soldier was at him in three long strides. “I told you it wasn’t over.”
Later in the night, Melvin staggered into camp, heaving for air after a long run. “Pa,” he said between gasps, “we got trouble.”
Lee bolted upright in his bedroll, trying to make sense of the world. “What? Melvin? What is it?”
“Richard. He was in a fight. The town marshal’s got him.”
Lee sat across the desk from the deputy on duty at the jail. He squirmed in the wooden ladder-back chair seeking a comfortable seat. The deputy, seated in a swivel chair with his feet propped on the desk, whittled a chunk off a plug of tobacco. He chewed for a minute to moisten the cud, tucked it in his cheek, and leaned over to spit in a battered cuspidor by the desk.
“Marshal’ll be back soon. He’s over to the fort talkin’ with some officer there.”
“Do you know what happened?”
The deputy spat again. “It was a hell of a fight. That saloon looked like a herd of buffalo had passed through. Never thought two men could make such a mess.” He spat again.
“Richard’s locked up?”
The deputy chewed and spat and nodded, wiping a splash of brown juice off his chin.
“Where’s the other man?”
“He was a soldier. He’s in the infirmary over to the fort.”
The door opened and the marshal walked in. The deputy dropped his feet to the floor and stood, stepping away from the desk to stand against the wall with his hands clasped behind his back.
The marshal sat in his already-warm chair and studied his guest. “You must be Lee Pate—Richard’s father.”
Lee nodded.
“Hell of a boy, him. Seen a lot of him these past weeks.”
Lee cleared his throat. “I’m awful sorry about that. He wasn’t raised that way.”
The marshal moved a stack of papers on his desk aside, pulled a single sheet from a drawer, placed it on the desk and carefully aligned it with the palms of his hands. “No,” he said, staring at the paper and adjusting it slightly. “I don’t reckon so. Sometimes boys go their own way, no matter their teaching.”
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Near as we can tell, your boys was having a few drinks and minding their own business when this soldier came in—him, and another soldier, already liquored up. Seems he knew who Richard was on account of some altercation they had at a dance Saturday week. They started fighting and didn’t quit till they’d wrecked the place and neither one of them had any strength to go on. Beat each other up pretty bad.”
“Is Richard hurt?”
“He’s plenty bruised up, and bleeding out of a few places. But the doc took a look at him and said there weren’t nothing busted and he’d heal up fine, given time.”
“And the soldier?”
The marshal leaned back in his chair and turned and stared at the front door for a minute. Then, he turned back, leaned forward with elbows on the desk and interlaced his fingers. “That’s the thing. That soldier boy’s broke up pretty bad. Your boy picked up a busted table leg and whaled on him till he tired out. Good thing he was already pretty well spent, or he would have beat that soldier plumb to death.”
Lee shook his head in disbelief. “Will he be all right?”
“Too soon to say. Army doc at the infirmary says it could go either way.”
The men sat silent for a time. Then the marshal said, “Word is, you folks are leaving town.”
Lee looked surprised. “Yes. Yes, we are. Day after tomorrow. Well, I guess it’s tomorrow now.”
“Here’s the thing. Witnesses at the saloon all said the soldier started the fight. Came in the door and went right after your son. So I ain’t inclined to file any charges. Army’ll stand for the damages, on account of their boy started it.” He paused. “But if that boy dies, well, things will be different. The army could insist I keep Richard locked up and hold a trial. I don’t think any jury in Arkansas would convict him—but if that soldier don’t make it and we don’t try your boy for killing him, well, the army could make it right uncomfortable for me. And I don’t want that.”
Again, the men sat silent. Finally, Lee said, “What is it you’re saying, Marshal?”
The marshal turned and looked at the deputy, who continued to stare straight ahead. He turned back to Lee. “Now, I would never advise someone—officially—to leave town in such circumstances. But we could not put a man on trial if he wasn’t here. And I doubt, given the nature of the fight, that anyone would bother to track him down.” He paused, then, “Besides, like I said, Mister Pate, I’ve been seeing too much of your son— and I don’t want to see him anymore.”
Lee and the marshal locked eyes, and, in a moment, Lee nodded.
The marshal turned to his deputy again. “Go get the boy.”
“Yessir.”
A few minutes later, Richard shuffled through the door to the cells. Lee took him gently by the arm and led him out into the night.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ten days out, the Pate and Lewis wagons stopped where the Little River joined the Canadian. A few miles up the tributary lay Edwards’s Post. Over
the first 140 or so miles of the journey here, they encountered Choctaw Agency a long day’s travel out of Fort Smith, then a handful of small Choctaw and Cherokee towns and farms scattered along the way. But this place, run by a white man named Edwards and his Creek wife, was the last settlement until reaching the Mexican towns around Santa Fe nearly 700 miles later.
Lee and Daniel decided to lay over a day at the Edwards place to rest the stock and make a final inventory of supplies and provisions. The trail ahead—such as it was—would be long and lonely and they could rely only on their own resources. Hardtack, flour, coffee, tea, sugar, bacon, cornmeal, salt, rice, beans, and dried fruits were measured out and replenished. On the advice of Mister and Missus Edwards they added a new—to them—kind of trail food: pemmican. The mixture of pounded buffalo meat, berries, and animal fat was nutritious and traveled well, they were told by the storekeeper.
Richard, still tender in spots but ever more mobile since getting off the wagon after the first three days and hoofing it, albeit with a slight limp, found occasion to slip away to Edwards’s store. After his return, his bedroll secreted a number of bottles of whiskey, wrapped in burlap bags for protection—both from breakage and discovery by clinking and rattling.
Rested and restocked, the family wagons were rolling by sunrise following the day of rest. Sarah sat on the wagon seat and drove the mules with Lee walking alongside, the saddle horse and cow tethered to the back of the wagon.
The Pate’s mule-drawn wagon could make good time, but the plodding oxen set the pace for the train. Daniel trudged along beside the team on the lead wagon with a goad and a rope attached to the near-side ox’s nose ring. The second wagon followed, the team content to walk in the tracks of the first. Still, Daniel always kept one of his daughters on duty with that span, just in case.
Richard, Melvin, and Abel walked along with the wagons save when one of the boys went out hunting meat, or rode ahead on the saddle horse to choose a suitable site for nooning or an overnight campsite.