“About time for nooning, I reckon.”
She arched her back and lifted her head. “Look, there’s a river,” she said. “Is that the Arkansas?”
“No. That’s the Little Arkansas, just a branch. The real river’s on a few more miles, but we’ll stop before we go to crossing.”
He stayed beside her, neither of them saying anything, and finally when they came to the stream Jori caught her breath. “It looks rough.”
“All that rain’s coming down out of the hills.”
“Won’t it be dangerous to cross?”
“Won’t be easy.”
The river, for such it seemed to be, was roiling, and there were small white caps tossed by a breeze. There was a menace in the stream, it seemed to her, and finally she asked, “Can’t we wait until it goes down?”
“No tellin’ when that will be. It ought to be all right if we keep our heads. I’ll drive your wagon across.”
“I can do it.”
“You probably could, but I’d hate to see you tump over and get all your goods wet.” He did not wait for an answer but kicked his horse into a gallop forward and shouted, “Pull up! We’ll noon here!”
* * *
PAUL MOLITOR STOOD STARING down at the brown waters of the small river. He was so fatigued he could hardly stand there, and every nerve in his body cried out for a drink. He had hoped by this time that some of the desire would have left him, and at times it did. But now it came to him, and he knew he would sell his soul for a bottle of whiskey.
“Looks pretty active.”
Molitor turned to see Callie Fortier, who had come up on foot leading her horse. “I don’t see how we’re going to get across.”
“It will not be bad, no. At least nobody should get killed.”
Molitor reached down, picked up a stick, and threw it out in the river. It sailed out until it hit the water and instantly was driven downstream by the force of the water. He watched it grimly and shook his head. “We could all drown in this thing.”
Callie studied the man. She had wondered about him, for his speech was different from the mule skinners. She knew instinctively that he was educated, and now, as she studied him, she thought, He would be good-looking if he’d gain weight and shave. “We’ll need help getting the mules across. You want me to pick you out a horse?”
“I’m no rider.”
“All you have to do is sit. The horse does all the work.”
Molitor suddenly shivered. It was not cold, but the desire for drink did that to him at times. He did not speak but was such a picture of abject misery that Callie felt sorry for him. She did not have a chance to say anything else for a voice cut into her thoughts. “All hands pullin’ grass!”
“Pullin’ grass? Why for is that?” Callie asked.
“That bank’s too steep for a wagon.” Rocklin was looking at the slight rise. “We’ll pack it down with grass and make sort of a carpet. You OK, Molitor?”
“Yes.”
“Well, start pullin’ grass then. You, too, Callie.”
* * *
IT TOOK MORE THAN grass, and men finally had to fall to with picks and spades and even axes. They leveled out the incline, saw that it was not abrupt, and the dirt was shoveled in. Then the grass, shrubs, and bushes that the crew had gathered were thrown in. In the end it made a carpet strong enough to bear the weight of the wagons, at least Rocklin hoped so. “That ought to do it,” he called out. “Let’s get across this thing. Herendeen, you take the first wagon.”
Herendeen, big and bulky, was staring at the river. “I never like white water,” he said. “It ain’t nothin’ to fool with.”
“Like it or not it’s there, and we’ve got to get across. If you can’t do it, say so now.”
Rocklin’s words touched Herendeen’s pride, and he straightened up. “I can do anything you can do, Rocklin.”
“Well, get across then.”
Herendeen’s mules balked at the water, but he cursed and slashed at them with his whip until finally, with what seemed almost to be a scream, they plunged in. The force of the current swept them to the left, but Herendeen leaped on the back of the wheeler mule next to the wagon and slashed at them and yelled so that they forged their way across. The water came higher and higher but did not reach above their bellies.
Jesse Burkett took the next wagon across, and Stuffy McGinnis followed him.
Stuffy had trouble getting his mules in, despite his yelling, and finally, when they started across, one of them seemed to tangle in his harness. The current caught the wagon, swinging it around, and Stuffy was unexpectedly jerked by a sudden movement of the mule and went head over heels into the water. He came up hollering, “I can’t swim—I can’t swim!”
Rocklin at once plunged in and yelled at McGinnis, “You’d better learn to swim quick!” He rode his horse to the lead mule, grabbed the harness, and led them out the other side. McGinnis floundered around and, being a short man, was having little success. Callie drove her horse to him and cried out, “Hold onto his tail, Stuffy!”
Stuffy did as he was directed, and Callie hauled him across. He spat out the river and glared at Rocklin, who was watching this with a mild interest. “I could have drowned out there, Chad.”
“You were all right. You just lost your head. Take this wagon on now.”
The rest of the crossing was fairly uneventful. Molitor stood watching helplessly, and finally Jori said, “Get in the wagon with me, Molitor.”
She watched as he climbed slowly in and settled himself. She saw that he held onto the wagon seat until his knuckles were white. “It’s all right. We’re making it fine.”
“Doesn’t matter, I guess. If this river doesn’t get us, something else will.”
“Why do you want to be so morbid?”
Molitor turned to face her. The ravages of drink had planed him down. She could see that there was a fineness in his face and wondered as others had about the man’s background. They could not move, for Pedro and Callie, joined by Addie Joss and Jake Fingers and two other of the mule teams, were getting the stock across. Suddenly Jori asked him, “What are you doing out here in this place, Paul?” It was the first time she had ever called him by his first name. Almost everyone called him Molitor when they called him anything. “You’re a city man, used to better things.”
“You’re asking me, I suppose, how I lost my honor? Why I’m a drunk?”
The bitterness of his tone caught at Jori. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“I think you did.” He hunched over and gripped his hands together. Staring down at them he said, “Men don’t lose their honor all at once. Small rodents come in the night, and they carry it away on their little, tiny feet. A man never notices it’s gone—it goes in such small chunks. That’s what I’m doing here. I lost my honor in small chunks carried off by rats.”
Jori stared at the man. His words were almost poetic despite the bitterness of his tone, and she knew there was not another man in the train, even including her own father, who could speak like this. “You’re a young man. You can change. Don’t you have a family, someone who cares for you?”
“No.”
“Surely there’s someone.”
“You still believe in love, I see.”
Jori was struck by his words. “Why, of course I do. Don’t you?”
“No, I don’t.” He turned to face her, and there was a blank emptiness in his words. “Love’s too short. It doesn’t cover everything. It’s like a short blanket. There’s always a head or a leg sticking out in the wind when the cold comes, and it always comes.”
Jori was silent. She knew that something had destroyed a man who had great potential, and she was a woman who liked to see on the inside of things. Right now she knew that he was in the depths of some sort of hell that she could not even imagine. “Things will be better, Paul.”
“No—they won’t.”
The clear, flat finality in his tone shut Jori out, but she resolved to find out
more about this man who was so different from everyone else.
* * *
JAKE FINGERS WAS THE oldest man on the train. He never spoke his own age, but he had to be in his midfifties. He was short, skinny, and homely with buck teeth and a lined face. He was also scared to death of Indians—so much so that more than one person had asked him why he was headed into Indian territory.
“I don’t know. It just happened that way,” Jake would admit. “But the Indians won’t get me.”
Fingers had been assigned the job of finding more firewood. Herendeen had spoken to him roughly, and now Fingers had ranged about a hundred yards from the camp. He had seen a tree stretched out there, and when he got there he was glad to see that it was dead. The tree had been dead for some time and was settled into the earth. Some of the limbs had fallen off, and Jake reached over the main body and started gathering a pile. He leaned over to pick up a chunk at least three inches thick, and as he did, his blood chilled as he heard a deadly buzzing sound. He had only time to turn his head when he saw something white—a huge rattler almost as thick around as his arm. It struck even as Fingers turned his head. He felt the fangs penetrate his neck and stumbled backward yelling and pulling at the snake. He turned and started for the wagon, calling out, but even as he did, he saw Rocklin lift his head and come forward. “What’s the matter, Jake?”
“A rattler. It got me … in the neck.” He saw Rocklin’s eyes open wide and said, “The Indians ain’t gonna get me. That snake will though.”
“You can make it, Jake.”
“No, I’m a dead man….”
* * *
JAKE FINGERS DIED QUICKLY but horribly. Spasms had shaken his body, and he had formed an arch as the poison coursed through his veins. It had not lasted more than twenty minutes from the time Rocklin came bearing him into the camp. Everyone watched in horror, and it was Jesse Burkett who said, “I guess we could try to suck that poison out, Chad.”
“Too late. It got him right in the big vein.” Rocklin’s voice was cold as he knelt beside the dying man.
“I heard that tobacco juice will help,” Eddie Plank suggested.
“It’s not going to help him,” Charlie Reuschel spoke up. “If it got him in the arm or leg maybe, but in the neck in the big vein, he’s a goner.”
Five minutes later Jake Fingers had ceased to move. His body had stiffened and then relaxed as if he were going to sleep.
Rocklin rose up and said bleakly to Good News, “Let’s go dig him a grave.” He looked down at the still form and said, “Well, the Indians didn’t get you.”
There was something in his tone, a grim finality, that chilled Jori. Her eyes went around the circle, and she saw that most of the men were calloused, not seemingly horrified by the scene. She knew they had seen more of this side of life than she had, but still a pity came into her. Carleen came and pressed close beside her. “I wish he hadn’t died. He was nice.”
“Yes, he was.”
“He liked oranges better than anything else.”
“How do you know that?”
“He told me. He said his idea of heaven was to have all the oranges that he could eat.”
“Well, he’s having his oranges now, I guess,” Jori said slowly. “Come along. Let’s go back to the wagon.”
* * *
JORI HAD BEEN TROUBLED by the death of Jake Fingers. She had stood with the others beside the grave that the men had dug. There had been no rocks to pile over it so they had buried him deep. Good News Brown had quoted a great deal of Scripture and said a few words about the man, but there was still something raw and angular and terrible about a death.
Later on in the afternoon she wandered away from camp and saw Rocklin standing over the grave. Curious, she made her way to join him. He turned to see her and gave a nod, and there was a bleakness in his countenance.
“It’s too bad,” Jori said.
“It always is.”
Jori stared down at the raw earth and was restless. “You think it was worth it, Chad?”
“You mean coming on this trip?”
“Yes. Wouldn’t it have been better if he had stayed back in Franklin?”
“I’m not the man to ask.”
“You’ve seen men killed before, haven’t you?”
“Yes. I’ve seen men killed over a two-dollar bet at blackjack. Does that mean anything?”
His voice was almost harsh, and Jori was surprised to see that the little man’s death troubled him. She waited, not knowing what to say, and finally he said, “I had a good friend once that ran in a burning building to try to rescue a woman who was trapped. He didn’t make it. He got burnt up himself, and so did the woman. Was it worth it?”
“I don’t know about things like that, but it was a noble way to die.” She suddenly felt a touch of fear along her nerves. “This trip frightens me, Chad. We never should have come.”
He turned at once to face her. “You want to go back?”
“No, I won’t go back.”
Chad Rocklin stared at her and said, “I’ve been meaning to apologize for that kiss.”
Jori was taken aback. They had been talking about death, yet the kiss was in his mind. “I’ve been kissed before.”
“I’m sure you have. If you want to go back,” he said, “I’ll see to it. You’re a proud woman.”
“You make pride sound like it’s a disease.”
Rocklin seemed to have pulled a curtain around himself and shut out everything. He was cold and aloof, and Jori knew at that moment that he of all the skinners had felt grief for Jake Fingers. He looked at her and shook his head. “You’re a proud woman,” he repeated. “And pride kills more people than bullets or knives or sickness.”
“I’ll be all right, Chad.”
He stared at her a minute, and she could tell that something was on his mind. He could not find the words to say it, and she wondered at his silence. Finally he turned and said, “Better get some sleep. We’ll leave early in the morning.”
Chapter Fourteen
MARK HAYDEN STOOD BESIDE the small stream no more than ten feet across. He stared moodily down at the water, noting a group of minnows that seemed directed by the same brain. Briefly he wondered how they all knew when to turn together all in the same direction at the same instant. Even as he watched they suddenly exploded, making a silvery flash underneath the water, and then were gone.
Overhead the sky was blue and dotted with fleecy clouds that moved majestically across toward the horizon. The sun was hot, and Mark took off his hat and let the breeze ruffle his hair. In his free hand he held a pint bottle of whiskey. He lifted it, measured the contents no more than a half inch, and then quickly swallowed it. As the fiery liquid burned at his throat and hit his stomach, he coughed, and then with a sudden angry gesture he threw the bottle out. It sailed over the stream, landed on the far side and broke against a rock that thrust itself upward from the loam of the prairie.
From far off came the sound of laughter. The train had stopped for nooning, but Mark had no desire for company. He was sick to death of the trip, worn in body, and knew that a hard time was coming, for he had drunk the last of the whiskey that he had brought with him from Franklin. It had been in his mind that they would pass a train headed eastward or catch up with a slower moving train than their own, but they had seen no one for days now, and the monotony was a burden on him.
“Hello, Mark.”
Mark turned and saw that Callie had approached on foot. She had a bundle of clothes in her arms, and he assumed she had come down to wash them. His own clothes were filthy, but he had not enough energy or desire, for that matter, to wash them. “Hello, Callie.”
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
“It’s all right.”
“I thought I’d come down and wash a few clothes out.” With these words Callie knelt, dumped the clothes on the ground, and grabbing a shirt, plunged it into the water. She made a lather out of a bar of gritty, yellow soap and was humming under her br
eath as she performed the task.
Mark squatted down and watched her. The liquor was going to his head, and he felt a slight dizziness. He did not drink well, he knew that, but he had fallen into the habit and now was ill-tempered because he knew he would be cut off from liquor at least for a time.
“I’m tired of gathering wood,” Mark said abruptly.
“Well, why don’t you get Rocklin to let you help Pedro and me herd the animals.”
“I’m not asking him for anything.”
Callie looked up. The sun caught the brightness of her hair, and her gray eyes were inquisitive. She had a smooth, ivory complexion, and her teeth were white as she smiled. “Why don’t you want to ask him?”
“I don’t like to ask favors.”
“That’s foolish. We all have to ask favors.”
Mark wanted to argue. He was ill-tempered, and something about the girl’s cheerful disposition irritated him. “You don’t have to be so happy about everything.”
“Why not? What’s to be unhappy about?”
“For you maybe nothing, but I’ve had better things in life.”
“You’re spoiled. You’re a big baby, you.”
The truth of Callie’s words struck Mark with force. He suddenly straightened up and reached over and pulled her up. The flesh of her arm was warm and firm in his grip, and he could see tiny flecks of gold and blue in her gray eyes. “You can’t talk to me like that.”
“Let go of me, Mark.”
“I’ll let go of you when I want to.” Mark suddenly reached out, grabbed her other arm and pulled her toward him. She struggled and jerked one arm free, striking him lightly in the chest.
“Let go of me, I said!”
Mark just merely laughed. “I don’t have to.” He was determined now to kiss her just to show her that she was nothing but a servant. He made a wild grab for her, but suddenly Callie pulled away, and with one swift motion of her free hand struck him with the flat of it against his chest. The force of it knocked Mark off balance, and he took a step backward. His foot hit nothing, however, except the crumbling bank, and with a yell he fell over backward full length into the stream. His head was plunged beneath the surface, and he swallowed some of the muddy water. Rolling to his feet, he came up as angry as he had ever been in his life. He staggered getting up, but the whiskey had made him less than certain. He waded out and started for Callie, grimly intent on having his own way when suddenly a voice caught him.
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