by Georgina Gentry - Iron Knife's Family 01 - Cheyenne Captive
The journey went smoothly. After a couple of days riding west, the little party saw less and less of the droves of gold seekers who seemed to be moving across the plains. Austin was awed by the vast emptiness of Kansas. Three days west of the fort, they ran across a great herd of buffalo. It seemed to be one great brown sea, undulating like muddy waves as the animals shifted, grunting and rolling in the dust. When the herd moved forward, it echoed like thunder.
The sea of beasts made Austin uneasy. “There must be thousands of them!”
“Millions!” The scout spat to one side. “They say, maybe a hundred million roam the plains and them big wallows where they roll will be there years after them buffalo are gone. ’Course the hunters is startin’ to kill off a lot.”
The lanky sergeant rode up and stared uneasily. “Scares me to think about gettin’ caught in a stampede of those things! Wouldn’t find enough of you left to cover a buffalo chip, much less bury!”
Austin felt both danger and excitement as he stared at the great, moving herd. There was nothing like this in the narrow, crowded streets of Boston or Washington, either. The smell of their hot bodies and droppings made him wrinkle his nose in fastidious distaste.
Summer rode up and sat looking at the great herd. “The buffalo is the Indians’ pantry,” she said quietly. “Without them, the tribes would starve!”
“Now, there’s a worthwhile thought!” Dallinger drawled as he reached for one of those small, stinking cigars he always smoked. “The only way we’ll ever be able to corral them savages is to kill off all the buffalo.”
Austin shook his head as he watched two great bulls fighting. The air floated with red dust as they pawed the earth and snorted. “Since there’s millions of them, it doesn’t seem likely they’ll ever make much of a dent in the herds.”
“Reckon not,” the scout agreed, smoking his cigar. “Although the hide hunters is killin’ a few. That panic in ’57 has got a lot of men lookin’ for a way to make an extra dollar. The farmers shoot ’em, too, to keep them from eatin’ and tramplin’ their crops.”
Austin tasted gritty dust on his lips churned up by the great herd. There seemed to be no beginning and no end to the moving brown sea. Even rising up in his stirrups, he could not see anything but brown fur in every direction.
The sun reflected off the sapphire and diamond ring on Summer’s hand as she clasped her saddle horn. The thought came to Austin that wearing a priceless gem like that out into this lawless country was probably as foolhardy as carrying a thousand dollars in gold in his saddlebags. Then he shrugged it off. What better protection could one have than an armed cavalry patrol?
He could feel such hostility between Summer and the scout that it made him uneasy. Though she was friendly and pleasant to the rest of the group, she treated the scout with such remote disregard that he was almost embarrassed by her lack of manners. He wondered if many years from now he would ever have the nerve to ask her why she hated the scout and decided he would regret her answer.
Mrs. O’Malley never seemed either to cease talking or knitting. Austin felt sorry for the wagon driver when he rode close enough to hear the thick, Irish accent.
“We do need to move on, sir.” The sergeant broke into Austin’s thoughts. “If anything spooked that herd and it began to run, there’s nothin’ taller or stronger than a sunflower in any direction for us to climb.”
Dallinger nodded. “The sergeant’s right. Besides, there’s usually Injun huntin’ parties around these big herds in the spring and I’d jest as soon not run onto Injuns!”
It took the small party two full days to move past the big herd and Austin grew more puzzled the farther they got into the wilderness. The more they moved west, the more remote from all of them Summer became. It was almost as if she were reliving some adventure she either couldn’t or wouldn’t share with anyone, not even him. He tried to talk to her as they rode along, discuss their future, but she seemed almost lost in the past. Her expression chilled him when it finally dawned on him where else he had seen that lost, dreamy expression. Summer’s mother, Priscilla, often looked just that way. He could feel Summer slipping away from him like gold dust through his fingers and he seemed powerless to pull her back to him. He watched her dreamy gaze as he rode next to her across the prairie and had the most terrible urge to turn the patrol around and ride back to the fort, leaving Todd to look out for himself. But what would Mother say?
“What are you thinking about?” Summer glanced over at him as they rode along the flat landscape.
He laughed. “I was just remembering the story of Joseph in the Bible. Remember? He was his father’s favorite who could do no wrong and his father bought him a many colored coat?”
“Yes, I remember.” She nodded. “The older brothers finally got so fed up, they sold him into slavery in Egypt.”
Austin smiled in spite of himself. “When I think of Todd, I can’t help but remember how guilty I used to feel in Sunday school because I cheered for the older brothers!”
Summer threw back her head and laughed and he relished the sound. She had a soft laugh, like tiny, silver bells.
“I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that,” she said, suddenly serious.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I can’t help it. I adore you, Summer. I always have. You know that.”
She patted her horse’s neck. “It makes me uneasy to be worshiped like a marble statue on a pedestal. I want to be loved like a flesh and blood woman.”
He didn’t answer as he pursed his thin lips and tried to imagine making carnal love to Summer. It made him feel both filthy and guilty to think about her that way, and yet . . .
The image came back to him of his beloved arching her virginal body against a bronzed Indian stallion and he was so torn by jealousy and pain that his hand trembled on the reins. It had been his fate to be second in his mother’s affections. Now it appeared he would be the second man in Summer’s affections, too. But he would be grateful if he got that much from her.
Two days later, following a dry little creek, they ran across the little pioneer family in their sod hut. The farmer plowed, using a thin milk cow to break the hard dirt.
“Mama, we got company!” he cried out, running awkwardly to meet the group. “You all get down and set a spell! We ain’t had anybody ride through since last fall!”
A woman came out of the sod hut accompanied by two small boys. Her face had the appearance of tanned leather and they were all barefoot. “All you folks get down! We’re mighty glad to see you, Lieutenant.”
“We’d appreciate a little water if you have it,” Austin said, dismounting. “We’re almost out and the creek’s dry.”
The man came forward eagerly, holding out his hand which felt callused and horny to Austin’s own.
“Name’s Landry, sir. Been tryin’ to farm this for a year now but don’t get enough rain and the grasshoppers get a lot of it. We got a hand-dug well, kinda muddy, but drinkable if you’re thirsty enough.”
Austin looked over and saw Summer and the kindly Irish maid exchanging sympathetic glances. The little family did look bone-thin and their clothes were almost in rags. The home was built of the only building material available on the prairie, blocks of sod cut and stacked against a little rise. The floor was dirt and it couldn’t be very warm in winter, Austin noted.
The woman ran one big, bare foot over the other in embarrassment. “We’d be pleased if you’d join us for supper, iffen you’ll eat potatoes and flour gravy.”
Her husband nodded. “It was a tough winter, all right, but it ain’t gonna run us out! We’re here to stay! The ox died last fall and we got so desperate we ate the only horse we had last winter. We didn’t dare kill the cow ’cause we needed the milk for the young’uns. Old Bessie don’t plow none too good, but I got to get my crops in or we won’t have nothin’ to eat later.”
Austin wiped sweat from his face. “We’re grateful to get the water, Mr. Landry, so the United States Army will provide
food tonight. We’ll have a little party! Sergeant Meridith, have the men make camp.”
One of the men helped Mrs. O’Malley down from the wagon and she clucked like a fat, fluffy hen. “Saints preserve us! You folks living out here all alone?”
The woman’s eyes followed Summer’s hands as she shook the dust from her fine skirt. “Oh, we ain’t alone, missus,” she said. “There’s another family five miles down the creek. We seen them just last Christmas.”
Austin took off his hat and slapped it against his leg and the dust billowed. He saw another soddy a few hundred feet from the house with a rope tied between.
“What’s that for?”
The man sighed and scratched his weather-beaten face. “That’s the barn. You got to have a rope to follow in a blizzard or you get lost.” He looked sad and pensive. “We lost Bobby that way last January. I guess he went out to feed the cow and let go of the rope. Didn’t find him till the thaw in early March.” His eyes went to a mound on a nearby rise with two small sticks tied in a handmade cross.
As the men went about their jobs of setting up the camp, the scout lit a cigar. Austin noted the way Landry’s eyes watched it hungrily, then looked away. The scout didn’t offer the settler a smoke.
“Mr. Landry,” Austin said, “I hate to smoke alone. If you’ve got a pipe, I brought along a lot of extra tobacco that I’d like to give you in exchange for your hospitality.”
The scrawny man frowned. “Don’t take no charity.”
“Got plenty!” Austin lied. “I’d be offended if you didn’t join me for a smoke. I believe the sergeant probably even has a little whiskey in that wagon somewhere.”
“Wal,” the man said, licking his lips eagerly, “just so’s you won’t be offended and to be sociable like!”
It became a party and Austin enjoyed himself immensely. The sergeant saw to it that there was plenty of food and the patrol pretended not to see the way the starved family gobbled everything in their mess kits. One of the little boys stared at the big sack of sugar and Austin pretended not to notice when he saw Summer slipping it out of the wagon and into the soddy. So what if the patrol ran out of sugar before they found a town again?
He watched Summer digging out a dress for the woman, explaining it would not fit her anymore and she’d only throw it away anyhow because it was so old. Austin smiled gently at her kindness. The expensive dress was almost new. Summer had bought it a few weeks ago while he trailed along behind her on a shopping trip.
After supper, Sergeant Meridith got out his harmonica and played “Listen to the Mockingbird.” Before the evening was finished, he taught the oldest child to play it, too. The rest of them sat around and talked beside a fire that was fueled by cow and buffalo chips. There wasn’t a tree within eyesight except for three cottonwoods on the dry creek. That night as they sat around the fire, they saw a big, lonely lobo silhouetted on a small rise howling at a bright spring moon that hung like a twenty-dollar gold piece over the flat prairie.
The next morning before they rode out, Austin had the sergeant cut the biggest, sturdiest horse out of the small remuda the patrol had brought along.
“Just say the army appreciates your hospitality,” Austin said when the farmer protested. “No use ruining a good milk cow.”
They mounted up and the lanky sergeant reached down and gave his harmonica to the small boy.
“Are you sure you people will be all right out here, Mr. Landry?” Summer asked anxiously. “Wouldn’t you like to go on to the next settlement with us?”
“And give up our farm?” His weather-beaten face questioned her incredulously.
“I know it don’t look like much now.” The thin woman stood proudly in her new dress and rubbed one big, bare foot against the other. “But we’ll make a go of it. That’s what built this country, folks like us.
“Yes sirree!” The man put an arm around his wife proudly. “We’re partners, me and the wife! Share and share alike! Someday, there’ll be folks all over Kansas and someone might be proud to know their kinfolks helped build this state!”
Austin was impressed by their bravado. He touched his hat in salute and led the patrol out. The four people looked very small standing together on the vast plain as the group rode away. For at least a mile, they could hear the faint, off-key sound of the harmonica.
It seemed forever they rode toward the Rockies, looming up ahead of them, before they finally started moving from flat plains to high elevations. They ran across a new mining camp every few miles. They always stopped to ask if anyone had seen or heard of Todd Shaw, left a description, and told of the reward. No one had heard or knew anything about Austin’s brother. Too many men roamed the Rockies and many of them did not want their names known.
Finally, on a fast flowing, icy creek a few miles south of the new town of Denver, they found yet another mining camp.
“Hallo the camp!” the scout shouted and immediately a dozen or more grizzled faces appeared from everywhere.
“Look, it’s an army patrol!”
“Hey, they got women with them! White women!”
“White women? I ain’t seen nothing but squaws for months!”
Five of them scrambled from the cold stream and dropped their gold pans, running to meet the visitors. Austin smiled as he dismounted among the tall spruce trees. The miners surrounded him eagerly, asking for news of the outside world. He helped Summer from her horse and kept her protectively by his side. Still, the miners ganged around her just to stare at her beauty. Another group ran to help Mrs. O’Malley from the wagon and the woman reddened with pleasure, obviously never having had that sort of rapt attention before. A woman was a rare and valuable item on the frontier, which made the Western men appreciates and treat their ladies much better than their Eastern counterparts, Austin decided.
The arrival took on a festive atmosphere and no one did any more work that day. The miners roasted a deer and made something called Sonvagun stew that Summer pronounced delicious although Austin ate it hesitantly, not sure he wanted to know what it contained. He was just too civilized to relish the raw, frontier world although he had to admit the freedom of the wild appealed to him.
That night they sat around the fire and discussed events in the outside world and the fact that this area would fight on the side of the North should a war begin.
Now a miner brought out an old fiddle and someone passed a jug around. As the fiddler struck up a chorus of “Oh! Susannah,” the lanky sergeant bowed before Summer.
“With the lieutenant’s permission, I’d like the honor of dancing with his lady.”
“Oh, I really don’t feel like dancing,” she protested.
But Austin urged her on. “Go ahead, dear! All these men will want to dance with you. They don’t see a white woman very often and you might hurt their feelings.”
So Summer stood and went out in the dirt circle by the fire and immediately the men lined up for a chance to dance with her.
A group also formed around Mrs. O’Malley and the expression on her face was pleased as the men fought over who got the next dance. She puffed her way through a few songs until she was breathless.
As in most mining camps where there weren’t enough women to go around, some of the men tied handkerchiefs around their arms to designate them as “ladies” for the evening so there would be partners for everyone.
Austin watched the light flicker on Summer’s golden hair, thinking how he would love to tangle his fingers in it and then frowned guiltily. No, that was a savage thing to think. Mother would not approve at all.
A bearded old miner with a crippled left hand came over and sat down next to Austin. “Now what did I hear you was doin’ up here, Lieutenant?”
“I’m looking for my brother Todd.” He sighed. How many times had he told the story?
The old miner scratched his beard. “What is he wanted for? He kill somebody?”
Austin noted the caution in the man’s voice. The frontiersmen protected their own.
The thought annoyed Austin. He really wanted David in that position of honor. Could he never win an argument with his mother?
The miner grinned. “You marryin’ that purty thing?” He motioned with his crippled hand toward Summer.
Austin cleared his throat as he nodded. “The only thing holding us up right now is finding my brother. There’s a reward—”
“Hell, mister.” The miner laughed. “We all already got more gold than we can spend! Not that there’s much to spend it on, although there’s a new fancy house in Denver that’s really worth the price when we get up there now and then.”
“A fancy house?” Austin didn’t understand for a moment.
“You know!” The miner gave him a broad wink. “Most popular place in Denver! Run by some Spanish duchess who appeared out of nowhere a few months ago, I understand. Becoming one of the richest, most important women in town, they say!”
“Oh.” Austin tried not to redden as the man’s meaning became clear. He didn’t mean to be a prude, he just couldn’t help the way he felt about women. He’d never actually had one yet although the West Point boys had gotten him as far as the front door of a whorehouse before he panicked and left. The image came to him again of Summer in the throes of passion in a savages’s arms and he couldn’t bear the thought that another man had had her before him. But he loved her enough that he would try not to hold it against her, never throw it in her face.
“Is it possible you might have run across my brother anywhere here in the Rockies?” Austin asked, fumbling with his pipe. He didn’t want to think about Summer making love to another man.