Return to Blanco (Red Book 4)

by Darrell Maloney

  “But don’t tell her that, okay? I don’t want to freak her out or anything.”

  “Okay. I won’t tell her, I promise.”

  And she wouldn’t. Red was quite good at keeping secrets.

  She suspected that at some point, one or the other would let slip the root of their mutual attraction. And the other would say, “Really? Me too.”

  And they’d undoubtedly laugh and grow even closer.

  But for now she’d keep their secrets and just enjoy watching them develop what would hopefully be a lasting relationship.

  When they finished the cargo was completely hidden beneath a nicely made bed.

  “She’s used to sleeping at night, so don’t be surprised if she snoozes for a good part of the trip. I expect the rocking of the wagon to lull her to sleep and to help her sleep soundly. But if she moves back and forth between the bed and the bench, please stop so she doesn’t lose her balance and fall.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That was my plan all along.”

  They went and looked at Beth’s horses.

  “Do you think these two old nags can make the trip?” Jacob asked.

  “I think so. If one of them starts to lag, we can swap her out with your horse. If they both start to lag, we’ll trail them both and have our horses pull the wagon. We’ll just take turns walking alongside it or riding in the back.

  “I don’t anticipate any problems, though. The land is flat and we’ll be going slow. I expect we’ll tire them out, but not do them any permanent damage.

  “And we’ll reward them for their work by retiring them when we get to Blanco. Put them out to pasture once and for all.”

  “What are we going to do with the cattle and the pigs?”

  “Just before we lose the light we’ll let them out of the barn and lead them over to the cornfield. There’s a stream over there they can get their water from.

  “Eventually somebody will come along and shoot them for their meat. But they’ll be in seventh heaven in the meantime.”

  Once finished they returned to the house. Jacob could smell the scrambled eggs being heated up on the stove from the back porch. His mouth watered.

  They had a feast. All the sausage and eggs they could eat, and biscuits and country gravy to boot. Beth wrapped the leftovers up in plastic containers and placed them in a large wicker picnic basket.

  They’d have plenty to eat on their trip back to Blanco, to be sure.

  “Let’s grab some sleep,” Jacob suggested after their bellies were full. You two sleep upstairs. I’ll crash down here on the couch in case we have an intruder.”

  Red asked, “Want me to stand watch, and switch off with you?”

  “Not necessary. I’m going to prop a chair up against the back door, then put several empty drinking glasses on the chair. If somebody tries to open the door they’ll make a hell of a racket and I’ll be on them before they can step foot inside.”

  Red smiled an appreciative smile.

  Jacob didn’t start out as much. At least when it came to his own self-preservation and security procedures.

  But he was definitely learning and getting better.

  -30-

  It was slow going, especially the first few miles. The team had pulled the wagon before, back in the days when old Silas used to use it to gather corn and hay from the fields.

  But it had been awhile. They were not only out of shape, they were two years older.

  And back then, they pulled the wagon only a few hundred yards at a time.

  Still, they gave it their best.

  Red rode point, giving Jacob and Beth a chance to get to know one another.

  Red had taught Jacob the call of the whippoorwill, and instructed him to use it whenever he needed to stop.

  “I don’t want you to yell out,” she explained, “just in case there’s somebody close enough to hear.”

  “Well, how do I know if you’re stopping?”

  She’d smiled and shook her head.

  “You watch my horse’s ass, you big dummy.”

  “Oh. Yeah.”

  The axle grease worked better than expected, as nary a peep was heard from the wheels.

  The only noise the wagon made, aside from an occasional huff from one of the horses, was a random groan from the weathered wood when the lay of the land caused one side to lean and take more than its share of the load.

  But it was only temporary and only occasional.

  All in all, it was a relatively quiet ride.

  Within an hour Beth knew all about Jacob’s childhood. Where he was born, where he grew up, every significant event in his young life.

  Jacob, in turn, heard about Beth’s younger days. How Silas was really the only man she’d ever loved. How they met, how he wined and dined her, how he courted her once he decided to make her his bride.

  At the two hour point, as they’d planned, Red pulled her horse’s reins and ground to a halt.

  Jacob immediately followed suit and pulled the wagon’s brake.

  The two horses pulling the wagon breathed a huge sigh of relief. They had no way of vocalizing their concerns.

  But they were tired and afraid. Afraid because they were out of their element. Afraid because they were being driven into the dark night and didn’t know where they were going or what awaited them when they got there.

  And they were being driven beyond their normal limits.

  They couldn’t vocalize their concerns. But Red seemed to sense them.

  She sidled up to them, one at a time, and gave them water from a plastic bucket. She rubbed their long necks and scratched them behind their ears. Tried to convey to them, in as soothing a voice as she could muster, that they would be okay.

  “I know we’re pushing you girls hard,” she said. “But we’ll take frequent breaks to let you rest. And when we get where we’re going, I promise you you’ll never have to work again. We’ll put you in a nice green pasture and you can just relax for the rest of your days.

  “But first, we need your help. We have a ways to go, and we need your help to get there.”

  There was no way of knowing whether she was successful in relieving the horses’ stress. They seemed to calm down a bit, but that may well have been due to their being able to rest.

  Red walked over to the side of the wagon, where Jacob and Beth were stretching their legs.

  “I think we need to stop every hour from here on out.”

  Jacob objected, but not too strenuously.

  “But that’ll throw us off schedule. As it is, we’ll barely make it by sunrise.”

  “It can’t be helped. The horses are in worse shape than I thought. We’ll stop more frequently and take two nights instead of one.”

  “Okay.”

  “Remember that abandoned farmhouse we passed by on the way in?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “It’s about the halfway point. It had an abandoned barn. We’ll make it that far and then break until tomorrow evening. By then the team will be exhausted.”

  Beth said, “Red, can I speak to you for a moment alone?”

  If Jacob took offense at the suggestion, he didn’t voice it.

  He walked to the back of the wagon while saying, “I’ll go give my horse some water. I’ll be back in five minutes or so.”

  As soon as Jacob walked away, Beth leaned to Red and whispered, in a hushed and greatly embarrassed tone, “I have to pee. What do I do?”

  -31-

  Red couldn’t help but chuckle.

  Beth was a woman she’d come to admire greatly in the short time they’d known one another. Beth had been through an awful lot. Things that would have left most women of her age emotionally defeated and unable or unwilling to go on.

  But Beth was still standing.

  She was, in Red’s estimation, a tough old broad.

  That’s why Red was a bit surprised that, in all her years, Beth had never lived off the land. Had never roughed it. Had never even gone camping.

  “Not to
worry,” she whispered back. “Take these goggles. They’ll be a bit bright at first, but after a few seconds your eyes will adjust. Also, everything will have a greenish gray tint. That’s normal.”

  “But where do I go? What do I do?”

  “Use the goggles to find yourself a tall tree with high branches. Drop your jeans and panties and squat. With your back against the tree for support.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. After you do it a few times you’ll be an old pro at it.”

  “I thought it was more… elaborate than that.”

  “Nope. Easy as pie. Just hope there are no snakes to bite you on the butt.”

  “Oh, my God! Seriously?”

  “No. Just kidding. If there are any snakes they’ll hear you coming and will go in the other direction. Snakes don’t like us any more than we like them.”

  Beth put on the goggles and looked around as her eyes adjusted to their glow.

  “Wow, these are rad!”

  “They’re what?”

  “Rad. Isn’t that what you young people say today?”

  Red smiled.

  “Beth, don’t try to be like us. You’re wonderful just the way you are. Really. And besides, nobody has said ‘rad’ since the ‘80s.”

  “How about groovy?”

  “Go find yourself a tree, young lady, before I take my goggles back.”

  Beth left and Jacob came wandering back over.

  “She have to go to the bathroom?”

  Red was mildly surprised, but shouldn’t have been.

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “She was squirming on the wagon seat for the last half hour. I kept asking her what was wrong but she kept saying ‘nothing.’ I guess she didn’t want to tell me.”

  “She’s a woman with a lot of pride.”

  “Yep. The more I get to talk to her the more I like her. Did you know her great great grandfather died at the Alamo?”

  “No. I didn’t know that.”

  “She said the land they’re leaving behind was given to her great great grandmother as a gift from the state of Texas. All the surviving widows got a hundred acres. It’s been in her family ever since.”

  “How’s she holding up?”

  “The first hour she was fine. Talked a mile a minute. Seemed to be having a great time. The last hour, though, she slowed down a bit. Started yawning a lot. I think she’s getting sleepy.”

  “Did you suggest she crawl in the back and get some sleep?”

  “Yes. She said she was fine. But I’m afraid if she doses off on the bench she might fall off, maybe even fall forward and under the wheels.”

  “I’ll try to talk her into napping, at least until we stop again.”

  “You serious about stopping every hour?”

  “Yes. I think we owe it to those poor nags not to run them into the ground. We can spend an extra day on the trail and make it a hell of a lot easier on them.”

  “Okay. How soon are we getting underway again?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes. I want to take a ride as soon as I get the goggles back.”

  “Where, exactly?”

  “Back down the trail a ways. Just to make sure we’re not being followed.”

  “Okay. Here comes Beth.”

  A shadowy figure approached them in the dark, and handed Red back her goggles.

  “Thank you,” Beth said. “That’s so much better.”

  “You’re welcome, ma’am. Now then, what’s this I hear from Jacob that you’re refusing to go to bed?”

  “Young lady, I haven’t had a curfew since I was half your age.”

  “But you’re not used to night riding. You must be exhausted.”

  She thought, then admitted, “Actually I am. But won’t young Jacob get lonely without my friendly chatter?”

  “I’ll survive,” he said. “And after you get some rest we can pick up right back where we left off, I promise.”

  She didn’t argue much further. She was beat, and while she didn’t necessarily want to admit it to the young people in front of her, she had no choice but to admit it to herself.

  “Okay. Provided that each time you stop you wake me up and give me the option of getting up.”

  “Deal.”

  Red readjusted the goggle straps, since Beth’s head was just a bit smaller than her own. She mounted up again and rode quietly into the darkness, in the direction they’d come from.

  “Where’s she going?” Beth asked.

  “She’s just doing a check on our six, to make sure we’re not being followed.”

  “A check on our what?”

  Instead of answering, he laughed.

  “Come on, let me help you up and you can crawl into the back. I think you’ll be comfortable there. We put clean sheets on the mattress and took the softest and fluffiest pillows we could find.”

  “I’m only doing this under protest, you understand. And I’m not even sure I can sleep with all the rocking back and forth this wagon is doing.”

  “I think you’ll sleep quite well. I think the rocking will lull you to sleep and you’ll sleep like a baby.”

  Beth put herself to bed and Red reappeared.

  “Anything?”

  “Nobody I can see.”

  “Want me to take point?”

  “Sure, if you don’t mind. I’ve been wanting to drive this thing.”

  “Have you driven one before?”

  “Yes. One similar to this. A hay wagon on my Dad’s farm. But that was years ago. He finally junked it and got himself a utility vehicle with a trailer on the back. Driving the Gator was fun, but not as fun as the hay wagon.”

  He climbed back down from the wagon and said, “Be my guest.”

  -32-

  The night passed without incident, and the weary travelers bunked at an abandoned farmhouse during the daylight hours.

  Although she slept most of the night away, Beth was still tired enough to sleep several hours during the day as well.

  Red woke up in the early afternoon and thought about waking the old woman.

  Then she decided against it. Driving the wagon the night before was exceedingly boring with no one to talk to, and she didn’t want to raise her voice loud enough to carry on a conversation with Jacob.

  Without the night vision goggles there was nothing to see except the pitch black of the night all around her, and the rump of Jacob’s horse directly in front of her.

  Perhaps by sleeping most of the day Beth would be able to stay up all night and keep Red company.

  About suppertime Red awoke again. This time Jacob was already up and tending to the horses in the barn.

  Beth had managed to find a propane grill and was heating up some prime rib from one of the jars she brought along.

  “Run along and tell Jacob supper will be ready in about ten minutes.”

  “Sure. What are we having?”

  “Prime rib sandwiches. I wish like heck I had some cheese to put on them. They’re so much better with cheese.”

  “When we get to Blanco we’ll get some cheese. A couple of the neighbors have milk cows and make their own cheese. We’ll barter for it.”

  Then Beth’s words fully registered and she asked, “Where in heck did you get bread?”

  “Oh, I baked it a couple of days ago. With wheat I got on the far side of the corn field. I put the rest of the loaf into the picnic basket.”

  Red left the farmhouse and met Jacob in the barn, inspecting the hooves of the team.

  “What do you think?”

  “This one’s starting to go lame, I think.”

  “Yeah, I was afraid of that. I noticed when we pulled in she was starting to favor her right side.”

  “Think she’ll make it?”

  “I don’t know. I’d say it’s pretty iffy.”

  “Let’s discuss it with Beth over supper and see what she says.”

  “Who’s cooking?”

  “Beth. She says it’ll be ready in about te
n minutes. Actually, that was a few minutes ago. Why don’t you wrap it up?”

  “I’m done. Let’s go.”

  The pair walked back to the farmhouse, and Red noticed Jacob scanning his surroundings.

  He was learning. It was something he’d never done before they teamed up and he saw Red constantly looking around.

  In the early days, right after they met, she liked him and thought him a decent man. But she wouldn’t have given a plug nickel for him as a partner.

  “You’ve come a long way, Jacob.”

  She wasn’t sure he knew what she was referring to. If he did he didn’t acknowledge it.

  He smiled, though. And she was reminded once again she’d made a wise choice by letting him tag along.

  As they walked into the house Jacob smelled the scent of the prime rib coming from the kitchen and his mouth started to water.

  Beth stood in the doorway of a sliding patio door, the grill just outside the door on the patio and the smell wafting indoors.

  “That smells mighty good, ma’am.”

  “Well then, Jacob, let’s hope it tastes as good as it smells.”

  She continued, “Speaking of smells, you two smell like horses. Why don’t you find a way to wash your hands while I put these on plates?”

  Jacob whispered to Red as they walked outside to a crank water pump, “She’s getting kinda bossy lately, isn’t she?”

  Red smiled. She didn’t mind. For that matter, neither did Jacob.

  They returned to the kitchen to find their dinner on the table, ready to be eaten.

  “The chips are a bit stale,” Beth said. “Not too bad. I found them unopened in the cupboard. They’re only a couple of months out of date.”

  Jacob picked up a jar of Miracle Whip salad dressing from the center of the table.

  “Is this safe to eat? I thought it had to be refrigerated.”

  “Only after it’s been opened. It’s a new jar, and it’s still in date. It’ll be fine.”

  He read the label, pondering her words and still a bit hesitant.

  Red grabbed it from his hand.

  “You go ahead and think about it. But if you think too long it’ll be all gone. I haven’t had Miracle Whip on a sandwich in the better part of a year.”