“Seems likely.”
“My husband saw their leader out here. He started to accuse him, and the man shot him. He killed my husband, Mr. Boone. And my husband was a very good shot.”
“Bein’ a good shot is one thing. Sometimes it simply ain’t enough. People who do their shootin’ out here don’t waste around.”
“I know. I am afraid Marshall was not expecting it just that way. He was prepared to fight, but the other man just drew his gun and shot Marshall.”
“I suspect. You know who that other man was?”
“His name was Jason Flandrau.”
Chapter 7
*
THERE WAS A long moment of silence. A stick fell in the stove, and Matty came in from the cottage. She looked across at them, then asked suddenly, “Mum? Is something wrong, then?”
Temple Boone did not respond, but he put his cup down and leaned his forearms on the table. “Ma’am? Have you any idea why Jason Flandrau shot your husband?”
“Perhaps because he expected Marshall to challenge him. Perhaps because he expected to be shot.”
“Listen to me now,” Boone said, “and listen close. You’re a mighty smart woman, and nobody is goin’ to have to draw you pictures.
“Jason Flandrau is callin’ himself ‘Colonel’ Jason Flandrau now, and he’s bein’ spoken of for governor. He’s livin’ down to Denver, an’ livin’ mighty high on the hog, if you know what I mean. He’s joined the church. He’s been singin’ in the choir, takin’ a big hand in all the public meetin’s.
“The minute he seen your husband, he saw an end to all that, for once the story got out, he’d be finished. Folks might accept a former Confederate, although there’s considerable doubt of that, but nobody has any use for a guerrilla. They’d run him out of the country, maybe hang him. He claimed self-defense, ma’am, and he was surely tellin’ the truth. He had to kill your husband before he could talk, and he done it.”
“I suppose you are right.”
“Doesn’t that mean something else to you, ma’am?”
“Of course, Mr. Boone. I see that he must kill me, too, as soon as he discovers I am here.”
“You ever met him?”
“No, I have not.”
“No matter. Soon as he hears about you, he will know what he has to do, and he will hear. There’s already been a lot of talk up an’ down the line about you.”
“About me?”
“Ma’am, you’re a mighty beautiful woman, and beautiful women are scarce in this country right now. Sooner or later, he’s goin’ to hear about you and make the connection. As far as that goes, Williams will probably rush to tell him. He recognized you, didn’t he?”
“I doubt it. I do not believe he ever saw me before. I saw him from our window. I was inside the house until it started to burn; then we fled out the back. No, I don’t believe he ever saw me.”
She paused. “Mr. Boone? Why did they want Wat?”
“Surprised you haven’t guessed. They want him because he knows where they are hid out. Don’t you see? They’ve found a place, and that was where Wat ran away from. They’re afraid he’ll tell the law, or somebody. If they get him, they’ll either keep him locked up, or they’ll kill him.”
“Kill a little boy?”
“Ma’am, in Lawrenceville and some other places, they killed women, children, and old men. Besides, the stakes are bigger now. Jason Flandrau has not only been mentioned for governor, he wants to be governor. You’ve got to get out of here, Mrs. Breydon. You’ve got to take that little girl of yours and run.”
“I can’t.” She looked directly into his eyes. “This is my home now. This is my job. As far as Jason Flandrau is concerned, he will not be governor if I can help it.”
“He’ll know that, ma’am. He will also know that with you operating this stage station, you’ve no place to hide. Any passersby, any passenger on the stage, anybody who wants to lay up in the woods back yonder, any one of them can kill you.”
“This is my job. I shall stay here.”
Boone stared at her, then got up quickly. “All right, but you be careful, d’you hear?”
“He was one of those who came down from the hills and burned my home. He ran off our cattle. He killed a couple of our people who got in his way. And then he killed my husband. Oh, I’ll be careful, Mr. Boone, but I shall go down to Denver and tell them.”
“He’d laugh at you. So would other folks. Ma’am, didn’t you hear me? He’s a church member over yonder. He sings in the choir, gives money to good causes. He’s a pillar of the community, and who are you? You’re just some no-account woman who runs a stage station. Least, that’s what they’ll say.”
Of course, he was right. Long after he was gone, she sat in her chair thinking. Matty came up to her and stood across the table. “Mum? I heard what was said. I wasn’t eavesdroppin’ or the like. You’ve got to be careful, mum.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “I must be careful. I have Peg to think of, and Wat.” She looked up at Matty with a wan smile. “See? I am already thinking of him as one of the family.”
“He’s a good lad. I doubt you’ve noticed, mum, but he’s tryin’ to improve his table manners. I see him watching you and Peg. He makes his bed ever’ morning, too.”
Mary Breydon heard, but she did not reply. Jason Flandrau was evil. He was cruel, vicious, and a thief. To think of him being governor or holding any public office was to shudder. Somehow, someway, she must defeat him. But Boone was right. To many of the women around Denver and Laporte, she would be suspect. She was working at a job usually only held by a man—something not quite “nice.”
The stage came in, and she glanced at the passengers as they stepped down, suddenly aware that she must pay careful attention not only to who they were but to their actions.
Two of the eight passengers were men obviously bound for the gold camps to the west, one a drummer peddling, as he soon let them know, hand-me-downs for men who bought their suits off the shelf. There was a rather pretty young woman who was, she said, a performer. There was an older woman on her way to Fort Laramie, traveling with her husband, a captain in the army, stationed there.
The seventh was a tall, very thin man with a neatly trimmed handle-bar mustache and auburn hair. He had the air of a gentleman, but his clothes, although still neat after the long stage trip, were shabby.
He glanced very quickly at Mary, frowned slightly, and looked away, then back again, as if puzzled.
Wilbur came inside behind her and said, “One man got off right up the line. Preston Collier had a carriage waitin’ for him. Englishman, by the sound of him, and some high muckety-muck by the look.”
“Collier? He’s the rancher, isn’t he?”
“He is that, rich as all get out,” Wilbur replied as Boone joined them. “Has him a ranch home with white pillars and two good-lookin’ daughters so prim sugar wouldn’t melt in their mouths. His wife’s the same type. This here Englishman brought some guns along. Says he’s goin’ to hunt bears and buffalo and such. He’ll be lucky if he doesn’t get himself killed.”
She laughed, then said, “Don’t jump to conclusions, Wilbur. Some of those Englishmen can really shoot. When I was a girl, some of them used to stop at our house while hunting in the Bull Run Mountains or the Blue Ridge.”
“Yes, ma’am, you could be right. There was an Irishman or Englishman named Gore. He come out a few years back and shot everything in sight. He shot up enough wild critturs to fatten a tribe of Shoshones, left most of it lay. Me, I never shot anything least I wanted to eat it.” Wilbur walked out to check on the horses.
“Collier’s all right,” Boone said. “He’s a solid man. A good cattleman. I don’t always hold with his politics, but his word is as good as his bond.” Boone hesitated, then commented casually, “If a man wanted to run for office in this part of the territory, Preston Collier would be a man to cultivate.”
Mary glanced at Boone, but he was looking away, watching the passengers filing i
n to the table. Was he trying to tell her something? To warn her?
Temple Boone was a puzzle. Just who was he? Where did he come from? There was much about him that puzzled her, yet he said nothing of his background, and the little she had heard was that he had worked at a usual round of frontier jobs. Wat…she must ask Wat. He seemed to know a good bit about everyone.
For that matter, who was Wat? Had he no family? Where was his mother? A “sagebrush orphan,” they called him, a name given to children whose parents had died or disappeared. Usually, they attached themselves to some other family or found work helping on a ranch until they finally drifted on to wherever such people go.
Well, that would not happen to Wat! He was a nice boy, and she would see he had a chance. Peg liked him, and they were close enough in age that they could be companions.
Nobody asked questions out here. That was one of the first things she had to learn. Every man was taken at face value until he proved himself otherwise. What you had been before was unimportant.
The West, she had come to understand, was a place where you started over. When you came West, you wiped off the slate, and whatever you were to be began here and now. If you had courage, did your job, and were a man of your word, nobody cared whatever you might have been. It was a good thing, she decided. There should always be a place for people to begin again.
Some, like herself, had lost loved ones. Some had gone bankrupt, some had gotten themselves into trouble with the law, into debts that were a burden, some were simply men and women who did not fit into any pattern. They were not the kind to become tellers in the corner bank, grocery clerks, ministers, or lawyers. They were born with a restlessness in them, an urge to move, to get on with it. If you proved yourself a responsible person, nobody cared where you came from.
She was learning, she realized, and ridding herself of preconceived ideas. She had heard the West was lawless, but that had been a mistake. Organized law was, for the most part, remote and far away. However, there were unwritten laws that all obeyed, and if there were a few who did not, the response was apt to be abrupt and very, very final.
The West was tolerant, to a point. When tolerance reached its limit, there was usually a rope or a bullet waiting.
The passengers ate, got up, stretched, and walked outside, lingering around, waiting until the last minute to board the stage.
Wilbur came to the door, his whip in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. He stopped beside Mary.
“Wilbur? Do you know Jason Flandrau?”
“I do, ma’am.”
“If you see him down this way, tell me, will you?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He handed her his empty cup. “He’ll be comin’ down soon, ma’am. He’ll be wantin’ to talk to Preston Collier.”
She was not afraid now, yet she knew what fear was, and the only time she had ever been frightened was when Jason Flandrau and his guerrillas had raided their plantation, striking suddenly across the mountains from their hideout in Kentucky.
She fled with Peg in her arms and a neighbor girl, guided by Beloit, an old black man whom her husband had bought and freed several years before. He hid them in a cave behind some bushes, and they had seen their homes go up in flames, seen the stock driven off, and Beloit, who had run back to get some papers from the house, shot down in cold blood by Flandrau himself.
Now he was here. He had destroyed her home, killed her husband, and to survive and become what he intended, he must kill her.
What she had sought here was a new start, to build a new home, to make a living for herself and her daughter, but Flandrau was here, too, and she had no choice. Should she sit by weakly and be destroyed?
Long ago, a soldier visiting her father had said something she remembered. “The secret of victory is to attack, always attack. If you have ten thousand men, attack. If you have but two men, attack. There is always a way.”
Was there? What could she do? Yet the idea was right. She must not sit by, waiting to be killed, waiting to be destroyed. She must move herself.
But what could she, a woman, do? What weapons did she have?
She had the truth, yet she was not so naive as to believe the truth alone would prevail.
The truth was a weapon, and if wisely used, it might destroy him. She did not intend to sit by and wait for attack. She would choose her time, and then she would move. But what time? When? How?
She must have a pistol. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, she would go into Laporte and buy one.
She watched the dust settle after the departure of the stage; then she walked out to the stable. Wat was there, pitchfork in hand. He was, she noted, keeping things neat and clean. “Thank you, Wat. Everything looks very nice.”
“It’s a job, ma’am.”
“Wat? You seem to know most of the people around here. How do you happen to know so many?”
“I sort of watch and listen.”
“Where are your family, Wat?”
“I got no family.” He looked up at her, then quickly away. “I got nobody.”
“Now that isn’t a nice thing to say. What about me? What about Peg?”
“You ain’t kinfolk.”
“There is more than one kind of kinfolk, Wat. Some are kin by blood and some by heart. Peg wants to think you are her brother, and I like that. You have a family, Wat, if you want it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“What happened to your family, Wat? Your father and mother?”
He shuffled his feet, then stabbed at the earthen floor with his pitchfork. “Mama died when I was two, maybe three. I remember her a little. Pa, he was shot.”
“Shot? By whom?”
“It makes no difrence.”
They were interrupted by the sound of hoofs. “Riders comin’,” Wat said. “Two of them.”
She glanced out of the stable door. Two men on horseback, and they were strangers.
Chapter 8
*
LONG AGO, HER father had told her to see. “Not many do, Mary. Learn to see what you are looking at.” And about these riders there was something different.
“They have fine horses,” she said aloud.
“Yes, ma’am,” Wat said. “No cowhand can afford horses like that. They are either mighty well off, or they are outlaws.”
“Outlaws?”
“Yes, ma’am, an outlaw needs a horse that can run. A horse with stayin’ quality, too. He dasn’t trust himself to just any ol’ crow bait.”
“Wat, please go into the station and tell Matty not to mention me. Just feed them and let them ride on. I’ll wait until they are inside, and then I’ll go over to the house.”
“You scared of them?”
“Not scared, just careful.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “Wat, I am going to tell you something, but keep it to yourself. My husband was shot and killed by a man named Jason Flandrau. He shot my husband because of what we knew about him, and he does not want people out here to know.
“He killed my husband to keep him from talking, and he may have heard that I am here.”
Wat walked across to the station as the men were tying their horses. She saw the door open and close. The men looked around, then followed him in, and as soon as the door closed, when they would be looking about the room, she crossed to the house.
Peg looked up from the tablet where she was drawing. “Mama? What’s the matter?”
“There are some men at the station. I do not want them to see me.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t believe so. We will have to wait and see.”
Inside the station, Wat moved over beside Matty. “How’s about some of that pie? As long as there’s only the two of us to eat it—”
“You’ll have to wait until I feed these gentlemen. They might want some pie.” Her attention caught at his comment “only the two of us.” He was staring at her, his eyes intent as if trying to tell her something.
“I know you got to feed these fellers, but if there’s any left…I m
ean, you don’t eat pie, and that leaves only me.”
Matty glanced toward the two men, two strong, rough-looking men, both wearing guns. Of course, nearly everybody out here did wear guns, but—
“Coffee?” she asked. “Is it coffee you’re wanting?”
“And a bite to eat if you’ve something put by.”
“We’ve a bit of stew left, and we’ve bread, fresh baked by meself.”
“We’ll have it.” The younger man glanced around. “We heard there was a woman runnin’ the station, but I’d no thought she’d be Irish.”
“Are you Irish yourself, then? You’ve a bit of the look.”
“Aye, a bit. My grandmother was from Donegal.” He glanced around again. “Is it you who runs the station?”
“Who else? Could the boy run it, now? He’s long in the country, though, and I couldna do it without him.”
She put down two cups and filled them. “But I didna come for that, not for runnin’ of a station or what all. I come for the gold they said was lyin’ about everywhere.”
Taking a long-handled wooden spoon, she began dishing up stew. “ ’Twas my wish to go back to Ireland a rich girl and have the pick o’ the lads there.”
“You’re dreamin’, girl.” The older man spoke harshly. “How much gold have you seen? It’s here, but there’s only a few of them has it.”
“You watch. I shall find my gold and go home a great lady.”
The younger one asked, “Did you come right here from the old country? Or did you stop in Virginia?”
“Virginia? I dinna ken the place. ’Twas to Boston I came and worked there until I could get the fare for the stage to come west. It was California where I was bound, but when I heard there was gold in Colorado and it was a thousand mile the closer, I chose Colorado.”
There was no more talk. They settled to their eating, and as Matty had noticed, eating in the West was a serious business not to be interrupted by idle conversation. From time to time, she refilled their cups. She knew tough men when she saw them, and these were all of that.
Louis L'Amour Page 6