by Bill Brooks
Teddy kept a steady vigil the rest of the night, his thoughts alternating between assassins and the curious glances of Anne Morgan.
Chapter 15
White Eye and Yankee Judd and Jane Nebraska had set up camp along the Dismal River right about where it curved around several sand hills and flowed deep and swift.
“I ain’t much on rivers,” White Eye said. “Rivers and water in general tends to give me the willies.”
“Why, there ain’t nothing more beautiful than a river,” Yankee Judd said.
“I’ve seen too many men drown in ’em to find ’em beautiful or otherwise inviting.”
Jane had been listening to the two of them talk ever since they lighted in this spot. She had helped them pitch the tents and set the camp and gather firewood. The sun was starting to sink low beyond the sand hills and several times they saw cranes flying overhead following the course of the river. They were enormous birds with long legs and sometimes they had fish in their beaks. Their long legs reminded Jane of Wild Bill’s long legs, how pale they were when he wasn’t wearing pants.
Jane prepared a supper of rabbit stew with the two rabbits Yankee had shot a little ways from camp earlier. He came walking into camp holding them by their ears in one hand and the needle-nose gun he’d shot them with in the other. White Eye had heard five or six shots before Yankee came into camp with the rabbits.
“I guess you ain’t nearly as good a shot as Bill Cody,” White Eye said, for he couldn’t stand not to have something to talk about when he was out on the prairies.
“I left them others for you to go find and bring on in,” Yankee said, dropping the rabbits by Jane’s cooking pot. They were jackrabbits.
“Humph! I just bet you did,” White Eye said.
Jane skinned the rabbits easily and cut them into nice pieces and dropped them into her pot, along with a bucket of river water and some salt.
Jane was hoping one of the boys would take a direct interest in her after supper. She hadn’t had the sweet pleasure since Wild Bill had made overtures to her on that hunting trip with the Grand Duke Alexis. It had been a long time since then. She still thought about it almost every day; how he come to her tent in the moonlight and stripped himself down to the bare essentials, his long white legs like a crane’s as he stood over her. He still had some scar marks on his body from where a bear got to him years earlier and had wandered onto her daddy’s property and they nursed him back to life and health. That was when she lost her virginity and she remembered that time fondly.
Bill was half clawed up and wrapped in bandages, but it didn’t seem to hinder him none.
She’d said, “I never had a feller before,” and Bill laughed and said, “Well, that makes us even because I ain’t ever had one either.”
Bill kissed her tenderly and she swooned and gave up all hope she’d be a virgin on her wedding night. Bill was equally tender and gentle with her and he felt a natural blessing, like rain or sunshine.
She and Bill met many moonlit nights during that time, meeting mostly out in the meadows. She could still smell the way the meadows were with evening heat in them and the wildflowers dozing.
Then after Bill got well and went off, Jane went a long time without knowing the company of another man until Billy came calling on her to be the cook for their hunting party with the Duke. But that was now several years in the past and she hadn’t seen a man’s bare legs in the moonlight in all that time.
Yankee Judd came over and looked into the pot and said, “Is that rabbit stew about ready?”
Jane saw a big fat moon rising over the sand hills.
It made her feel melancholy.
“You know, if you wanted, we could take a walk after supper,” Jane said.
“Walk?” Yankee said. “Why, we best not go for any walks. There could be cougars or worse out there. Grizzly bears even.”
“Why, a big strong man such as yourself wouldn’t be afraid of any cougars or bears, would you?”
“I ain’t afraid of anything I can see,” Yankee said. “It’s the things I can’t see that cause me the most concern.”
“I wouldn’t let nothing happen to you,” Jane said.
She could see the light of recognition slowly seeping into Yankee’s eyes.
“Well…I, er…”
“This sure is lonely country, ain’t it?” Jane said.
Somewhere an owl hooted.
White Eye came over to the pot and joined them.
“I’m so hungry my belly’s shaking hands with my backbone,” he said. “Smells delicious.”
Jane, standing between the two men, thought she might faint at the prospects.
She looked at Yankee, but his eyes were cast down into the bubbling stew.
She remembered something her aunt had told her once when she was a little girl still and her mama had run off. “The way to a man’s heart, little Jane, is through his stomach, Janey deary.”
Maybe if I feed these boys they’ll be more in a mood to take notice of me, she thought.
So she dished them up each a plate of stew and herself a plate as well and they sat around the campfire and ate with yellow light and shadows playing on their faces.
Yankee finished his grub and went down to the river to wash out his plate.
“Sure is a lonesome night,” Jane said to White Eye, who was gnawing on a leg bone.
“Sure is,” he said.
“A body would do well to keep company on a night like this.”
White Eye licked his fingers and looked across the fire at Jane and said, “I reckon a body would, right enough. You feeling sorta lonely, Jane?”
“I am sorta.”
“I reckon I am too.”
White Eye wasn’t Jane’s first choice of the two men. She favored Yankee more for his dark youthful looks; White Eye was a lot older than she preferred, maybe as old as her daddy. But on such a lonesome night a girl couldn’t be too choosy.
“I was thinking of taking a little walk,” Jane said.
White Eye looked ’round.
“It’s real dark.”
“I know it is.”
“You figure you might like me to accompany you along, in case there might be a cougar lurking about, or something?”
“I’d surely hate to get eaten by some old cougar,” Jane said.
“We’d be hard to find another cook on such short notice,” White Eye said.
“Billy would sure enough hate it if you were to let anything happen to his cook,” Jane said.
“He’d be all-fired mad.”
Jane stood up and White Eye stood up with her, wiping his greasy fingers down along his trousers. Jane walked off into the darkness and White Eye followed her.
Yankee came up from the river with his clean plate and saw that the camp was deserted.
Oh, them two’s gone off together. He had been down to the river washing his plate and trying to work up the nerve to go off into the darkness with Jane and had accomplished both, but now Jane had gone off with White Eye.
“Rolling stones don’t gather no moss,” he could hear White Eye saying, if ever the subject was brought up.
Yankee looked up at the stars flung across the sky and thought: It sure is a lonesome night.
Chapter 16
The hunting party arrived midafternoon of the next day.
Billy rode in the lead along with Rudolph Banks, who insisted he ride in Billy’s company. Emma Banks rode alongside her sister’s fiancé, Edgar, with Anne riding a little behind on a little sorrel horse. Teddy and John trailed behind the lot of them, Teddy wanting to make sure he kept an eye on things from a discreet distance.
The party stopped several times along the way for the women to rest and stretch their legs and the horses to water and crop grass. Once they came across a herd of pronghorns grazing off in the distance and Banks wanted to shoot some of them, but Billy politely suggested that the animals were too far away for any sort of shot.
Everyone was watching the he
rd except Anne, who turned to look back at Teddy standing off a ways, holding the reins to his mount. John was occupied checking the shoes on his horse. This time Teddy didn’t look away when his and Anne’s eyes met; they held their gaze for several seconds before she returned her attention to the antelope herd.
Teddy wasn’t sure how to respond to Anne’s glances, but he knew what he was beginning to make of them.
When they mounted up and rode on toward the camp, John rode alongside and said, “That’s trouble.”
“What is?”
“You know what is the same as I know what is.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Boys like us,” John said, “are just trouble bound.”
“It’s not trouble unless it happens,” Teddy said. “And there isn’t anything that’s going to happen.”
“You and me both know what it is when it comes to a woman.”
“You maybe, not me.”
John sort of shifted so he was riding a little off to the side, then spat some of the dust from his mouth before kicking his horse into a little trot and rode on up to the front, where Cody and Banks were riding, saying as he passed the two of them, “I’ll run on up ahead a little and see how things are looking.”
Teddy watched the backs of the riders ahead of him, especially the V-shaped back of Anne Morgan.
He’s right, he told himself, hearing John’s words ringing in his ears. That’s trouble.
White Eye and Yankee stood at the edge of the camp and waved their hats as the party approached. Jane was nowhere to be seen.
The riders dismounted and Teddy and John unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down, then led them down to the river to drink before stringing them to the remuda.
“I could about use me a siesta after such a long lazy ride, couldn’t you?” John said after they finished tending to the horses.
It was that hour of day when the sun had the most strength to it but would lose it quick once it fell beyond the sand hills.
“You do something last night in town to wear yourself out?”
“No, sir, other than stay up too late drinking.”
“No dance hall queens?”
“No, sir.”
“I still say there’s something going on with you.”
John looked at him as he untied the bandanna from around his neck and dipped it in the river and brought it up again and wiped his face with it. Then he strung wet fingers through his hair and put his hat back on again.
“I guess there is more to life than dance hall queens, is all,” John said. “I reckon it’s time a feller like me took a hard look at what’s ahead of him and made some sound decisions. I can’t always be drifting; none of us can.”
Teddy followed John up to the heart of the camp as Bill was asking the boys where Jane was.
“She’s taking a nap,” White Eye said.
“Nap?” Billy said looking at the sun, judging the time.
“I guess she’s a little worn out.”
Yankee and White Eye exchanged looks.
Billy knew better than to pursue the matter for details. He’d recalled what Jane had said to him that day back at her father’s place about how a gal needed to be molested every now and then. Lord, he thought.
“Well, go wake her and tell her our guests have arrived. You boys shoot any game for supper?”
Yankee went over and drew back a small tarp and under it lay a half dozen pheasants.
“Shot these,” he said.
“Those will do,” Billy said. “You boys pluck and clean them for Jane.”
Yankee felt a snit coming on. He hadn’t hired on to clean no damn birds.
But White Eye started right in, taking no offense at the request. He was feeling quite content after last night’s stroll in the dark with Jane. Jane had been about the most pleasant female company he had had since before he reached Deadwood and took up the practices of gold panning and grave digging. There weren’t any pleasant women like Jane in the gulch. All the females in the gulch were hard-bitten and ugly and unpleasant and charged way too much for their company. He’d foregone the females in the gulch because they were disturbing to his nature to be around. White Eye couldn’t understand how a man with Yankee’s disposition could have fallen in love with someone like Calamity Jane, who was about the bottom of the womanhood barrel in the gulch, but he had. White Eye thought he’d prefer to fornicate with a tree knot than an ugly and unpleasant woman.
So all them months in that gold country had left White Eye a man who practiced celibacy, which was further against his nature, and it was under such circumstances that he found Jane Nebraska’s company last evening to be of supreme pleasure. He’d pluck all those pheasants and more if the Colonel wanted him to, just to be in the same camp with Jane. There wasn’t nothing he could foresee the Colonel asking him to do he’d take offense at.
John found himself a spot on the sun-drenched side of one of the sand hills and lay down and took a nap with his boots crossed at the ankles and his hat pulled down over his eyes.
The guests were shown their tents, Billy saying, “I’m sure you all have found the ride today arduous. Now’s a good time for a siesta for everyone.”
Yankee, still in a snit, said to White Eye, “I shot them damn birds, I sure as hell ain’t gonna clean ’em too,” and stalked off following the path of the river.
Once everyone had settled in Billy said to Teddy, “You go on and take a siesta too. I’ll stand watch.”
“I’m feeling plenty good, Colonel. I don’t mind sitting up while you catch a little shut-eye.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, sir, go ahead. I’ll alert everyone in an hour.”
“I can’t tell you how good it is to have you in my hire, old son.”
Teddy watched Cody retreat into his own tent, then climbed one of the taller sand hills where he could have a good view of everything for several miles in any direction.
The sand hills stretched out for some distance and between them ran the blue green Dismal River where, here and there, he could see white water churning into rough rapids.
He took the makings from his pocket and rolled himself a shuck, like John had taught him, then twisted off the ends and put match to it and took a long deep draw.
He sat there reclined on the hill smoking and became lost in his thoughts of Kathleen. He tried not to think about her off in New Mexico being courted by the man Antrim. He tried not to think of Antrim kissing her as he promised her a good life, once they were married. He tried not to think anything at all about her as an Antrim.
He could see Yankee walking down by the river in one direction and White Eye sneaking into Jane’s tent.
Something moved in the grass behind him. Instinct brought him around, reaching for the Colt in the shoulder holster.
She stopped suddenly.
He let his hand drop away from the gun.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you, Mr. Blue,” she said.
“It’s no problem,” he said.
She stood there with the wind streaming through her light brown hair, the sun awash on her face.
“This is beautiful country,” she said.
He nodded, started to stand.
“Oh, please don’t get up on my account,” she said.
He looked back down toward the camp. Nobody else was moving about.
“You want to sit?” he said.
“Yes, if you don’t mind.”
He shook his head and she knelt there in the dry grass beside him, so close he could smell the sun in her hair.
They didn’t say anything for a time. The wind sang its song to them.
“You must think me bold,” she said at last.
“No, ma’am.”
“I’m not a shy person, Mr. Blue.”
“I didn’t get that impression.”
“Sometimes things happen we don’t plan for or have any control over.”
Her fingers touched his.
“This isn�
��t a good idea.”
“I know it isn’t,” she said.
“What about him, your fiancé?”
She looked down at the slumbering camp.
“Edgar knows I’m not as content with him as he’d like for me to be.”
Her fingers went from his own to his wrist, lingered there.
“This sort of thing can’t work out.”
“I know it,” she said. “Will you kiss me?”
He studied her face, the intent way she was looking at him, then how she closed her eyes.
Before he could say anything more he was kissing her.
She made a little sound when he kissed her and her lips nibbled at his mouth and he knew that they could fall off the edge of the world easily if they let themselves.
He withdrew his mouth. She opened her eyes and looked at him.
“Thank you,” she said. Then she stood and turned and walked back down the gentle slope of the sand hill. He could see her from where he was as she went to her tent next to Edgar’s tent. She turned and looked back in his direction momentarily, her hand shading her eyes, then climbed into her tent and he did not see her again until that evening when Jane served them all plates of roasted pheasant.
Chapter 17
After Mysterious Dave rolled the dead man into the river he headed back to North Platte. Within an hour he had forgotten the shooting incident. He was hungry for ham and flapjacks and some more of Dora Hand. It was hard for him to concentrate on too many things at once. He rode along quite leisurely, pleased to have in his possession a new horse, pistol, and a pair of socks.
“This is some lonesome country,” he said to the horse. “Why, the damn wind blows constant. I’ve never been in no country where the wind blows as constant as it does in this country.”
Dave thought of flapjacks smothered in molasses, and he thought of Dora’s naked ample flesh, warm and soft as flapjacks. The sweet thoughts of how flapjacks would taste and fornicating with Dora made his mouth water.
Then he saw something on a dun-colored bluff that made him lose his thoughts about flapjacks and Dora Hand.