by Easy Jackson
Gid threw his hat down, tears coming in his eyes. “Aw, shucks! Ma’s dead,” he cried. “Them good-for-nothing brothers of mine are trying to cheat Nab and me out of the farm.”
“How do you know?” Lucas asked.
“’Cause Ma willed it to me and Nab before I left,” Gid said. “I told Nab to look after my share. And now our sorry brothers are trying to get it and kick poor old Nab off the farm.”
“Mr. Gid, I’m so sorry . . .” Tennie began.
Gid went off on another tear about his brothers. While he was bemoaning the death of his mother and the blackheartedness of his family, Lucas and Rusty appealed to Tennie.
“Miss Tennie, can’t we do something to help Mr. Gid?” Lucas asked.
And Rusty whispered, “Miss Tennie, Mr. Gid can barely read and write. He’d be no match against scoundrel lawyers.”
“I don’t know what we can do,” Tennie said.
Hawkshaw made a noise, and she turned to look at him.
“When I return the money to Beauregard, he’s going to hire someone else to come here and kill Lafayette.” It was as if he had been waiting for the right moment to tell her.
“Miss Tennie,” Lucas cried. “We have to do something.”
“I don’t know what to do,” Tennie cried. “We can’t go roaming all over the South trying to help Mr. Gid and keep some old man from getting revenge.”
“But we have to do something,” Rusty pleaded.
“Ain’t that your job as marshal?” Lucas asked. “You’re still the marshal, ain’t you? Shorty said you were.”
“Let me think,” Tennie cried. “Just let me think on it a while.” She rose and went back upstairs to her room.
Walking to the lace curtains, she looked out the window over the town. In his letters, Wash would have advised her what to do. But his letters hadn’t come. Would he be furious with her if she left Waco and went off with two men and three boys hundreds of miles away from Texas to try to solve something that was beyond her capabilities anyway? Lafayette would be horrified.
On the other hand, there could be no telling when Wash might return. It might be months before he was free to come back. And the thought of going back to Ring Bit to wait for another assassin to arrive to kill Lafayette was abhorrent.
Round and round her thoughts went. How would she like it if Wash went off with two strange women? She would hate it. It dawned on her that Wash probably ran across lonely and needy women like Lupe all the time. He expected her to trust him. Shouldn’t she expect him to trust her, too?
If only Wash was there with her. He would take care of everything.
She looked down at the street and saw her three stepsons in a whispered conference. They stood up and hurried away, out of her sight. She was too caught up in the dilemma facing her to wonder too much about what they were up to.
* * *
At supper, everyone but Gid was silent. He complained about his family, cried over his mama, wondered if he should find his father and tell him, and bemoaned that his hands were tied, making Tennie feel even guiltier. Her stepsons, however, kept their eyes on their food and left off their pleading.
Tennie went to bed, praying for wisdom and guidance as she fell into a fitful sleep.
The noises outside began to filter into her room, interrupting what little rest she had. It seemed the whole south side of town had erupted into a volcano of noise and activity. Guns were fired off more so than usual. Loud curses and screams filled the night. Just when the uproar seemed to be dying down, someone began to bang loudly on her door, and she heard a man hollering her name.
“Mrs. Granger, Mrs. Granger! Open this door.”
She got up and reached for the robe she had bought before leaving Ring Bit. “Just a minute.” Poking her arms awkwardly through the sleeves as she hurried to the door, her heart gave a lurch, worrying that something had happened to one of the boys. She tied the cord and opened the door.
The sheriff stood in the dimly lit hall, his face angry and as red as a rooster’s wattle. Gid and Hawkshaw came out of their room. Rusty, Lucas, and Badger hovered in the background. The sheriff ignored them and the eyes peeking from behind cracked doors up and down the hall.
“What is it?” Tennie asked, pretty sure she didn’t want to know the answer.
“I told you, woman, I told you,” the sheriff yelled. “I said if those stepsons of yours so much as caused one inch of trouble in my town, I was kicking them and you out of this here town.”
“Uh,” Tennie began. “What did they do?”
“What did they do? What did they do?” He was so apoplectic, Tennie feared he was going to have a heart attack.
“Do you need a nitroglycerin tablet or something?” Tennie asked.
“Shut up! No, I do not need a nitroglycerin tablet,” he roared. “I need you to take those little hellions of yours the hell out of my town. I have never in all my born days seen such an uproar as they caused. Rats put in beer barrels. Dead snakes on the sidewalks. Street signs switched. Horses moved all over town and saddles put on backwards.”
“They didn’t hurt the horses, did they?” Tennie asked.
“No! But isn’t that enough? Isn’t it enough they wrote, ‘Waco, home of the clap,’ on the sidewalk in front of every brothel in town?”
“What is the clap?” She remembered almost as soon as the words left her mouth, causing her to blush so much she thought blood would exit her pores. She hastily changed the subject. “How do you know it was my stepsons?”
The sheriff got right up in her face. “Because only trash from Ring Bit would dare do such a thing,” he said, his breath coming out hot and foul. “I don’t want you or your stepsons in my town any longer.”
Tennie raised herself up and spoke with as much self-respect as she could muster. “We will be happy to leave tomorrow. Now I must ask you to let me get back to sleep.”
“Aarrghh,” he growled. He turned on his heels, stopping to give Hawkshaw and Gid a momentary glare before stomping away.
“You didn’t do anything here in the hotel, did you?” Tennie whispered.
Her stepsons shook their heads vigorously. “No, ma’am, only on Second Street.”
Tennie stared at all five of them. She set her eyes on Hawkshaw. “What time does the train leave for Dixie?”
“One o’clock tomorrow,” Hawkshaw answered. “I already have the tickets.”
Her eyes moved to Gid. Hawkshaw saw it. “Don’t accuse me of having sympathy for anybody else’s troubles. When I go in dragging you and these kids behind me, no one will blame me for returning the money and refusing to do the job.”
“It’s so nice that one always knows where one stands with you.” She looked at the boys. “Go to back to bed. We have a big day tomorrow.” She went back into her room and shut the door.
Due to circumstances mainly beyond his control, Wash had left her stranded in a Waco hotel. She couldn’t wire Lafayette for help or advice. He would insist on accompanying her. Not only did he need to take care of his own business in Ring Bit, he would probably unintentionally instigate another duel. She put her forehead against the door and shut her eyes. Hawkshaw was out to save his own skin, and Gid would only aggravate his own relatives.
She beat her head against the door frame. “I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this,” she whispered. She stopped the banging and wiped away the tears that sprang into her eyes. She would have to try.
Going back to bed, Tennie fell into a deep sleep.
* * *
In the morning, she began writing—facts, not accusations. She would leave a letter for Wash in the general delivery box in Waco. As far as she knew, he was still her fiancé, and she wrote of her love and longing for him.
While she was agonizing over what to write Lafayette, to tell him where she was going without him trying to follow her, Badger rushed into the room.
“Miss Tennie.” Breathless, he leaned his elbows on her knees as she sat at the desk. “Mr.
and Mrs. Payton are downstairs sitting on the veranda, and they want to talk to you.”
Surprised, Tennie rose. “Thank you, Badger,” she said, following him out the door and wondering what the Paytons were doing in Waco.
“We heard about your troubles, Tennie,” Mr. Payton explained as she sat down by the couple on the veranda. “We had a cousin who died, so we thought we’d come here and settle his estate in person and check on you at the same time.”
Tennie murmured her thanks and sympathy, wondering just how much land the Paytons already owned. They dressed and lived simply, but she had the feeling there were piles of money to back up anything they felt like saying or doing. They wanted to know about the kidnapping, and she explained about that.
“What’s this I hear about you running off on the train to save Lafayette’s hide?” Mr. Payton demanded when she finished. “Let him take care of his own problems. I told you before, Tennie, Lafayette will do everything he can to get you to feel obliged to him.”
“It’s not that,” Tennie said, explaining about Wash. “Shorty told me I am still the marshal of Ring Bit. I either go back to Ring Bit and wait for the next hired gun to show up, or I try to put a stop to it now. I don’t have anywhere else to go. I don’t know when Wash is coming back, and the sheriff is kicking us out of Waco.”
“Humph,” Mr. Payton said. “The sheriff’s just trying to get you out of town hoping Hawkshaw will leave, too. He’s afraid of him.”
“I never thought about that,” Tennie said. Her anger at the sheriff softened somewhat. “It doesn’t make any difference, though.”
“If I could get my hands on Wash Jones,” Mr. Payton threatened, “I’d lay down the law to that boy.”
“It’s just the way it is,” Tennie said. “He told me on the stage coming here that he wants to continue being a ranger for a while yet. He doesn’t want us to stay in Ring Bit. He wants us to live on his San Antonio ranch. But we’re not married yet, and he’s not here.”
The boys were in the background, hanging on to Winn Payton’s words. Their faces were full of worry, hoping Mr. Payton didn’t change her mind about helping Gid. She thought perhaps Hawkshaw and Gid had gone into hiding.
“That’s another thing,” she said. “Will you talk to Lafayette for me? And convince him that we’ll be fine with Mr. Gid and Mr. Hawkshaw as escorts? And if Wash gets back soon, I’m sure he’ll try to join me. If Lafayette goes, he could start another family war and that many more duels.”
“I don’t care what happens to Lafayette,” Mr. Payton said. “But I agree you’d be better off without him. I’ll talk to him if you are dead set on going.”
Tennie breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he had finished with his fussing, but she was wrong.
“But this Coltrane business,” he said. “Tennie, do you have any idea what those people are like? They live up in those hills feuding with one another. Somebody will probably take a potshot at you before you ever reach the house.”
“All the better for us to have Mr. Hawkshaw with us,” Tennie said.
Mrs. Payton interjected in her gentle way. “Tennie, dear. It’s not wise for you to travel alone with two men, even if your stepsons are with you. You may trust them, but other people will be suspicious of you. You certainly won’t be received in the South. You really need a female chaperone with you.”
“You mean, they won’t talk to me?” Tennie asked.
“Oh, no, they’ll speak to you. They just won’t ask you to stay in their homes.”
Tennie shrugged. She had been ostracized for so long, it never occurred to her to think otherwise. “I don’t know anyone here in Waco . . . unless you would want to go with me?”
“Oh no, dear. I’m sorry,” Mrs. Payton said. “It’s taken it out of me just making this trip.”
“I don’t want you interfering in some kind of legal hassles with the Coltranes,” Mr. Payton added. “That crazy branch Lafayette got mixed up with will be bad enough, but the Coltranes . . .”
Tennie felt like crying. She knew they were right, but she didn’t know what else to do.
Mrs. Payton sat with an introspective look on her face. She turned to her husband. “Father, didn’t the son of the judge there serve in your unit during the war? Why don’t you write a letter of introduction to the judge for Tennie? That may solve many of her problems.”
He nodded and turned to the boys, surprising Tennie. She hadn’t known he realized they were behind him.
“Make yourselves useful and go fetch me a pen, ink, some paper, and something to write on. And if you boys don’t mind Miss Tennie on this trip, I’m personally coming up there to haul your behinds back to Ring Bit and make the preacher take care of you.”
“He won’t. He hates us,” Lucas said, adding, “sir.”
“He will if I say so,” Mr. Payton said. “And he doesn’t hate you. He just can’t stand you. Now hop to it. You have a train to catch.”
Before they left, Mr. Payton asked how she was paying for the trip. She was reluctant to tell them most of it was being paid for with money taken off the bushwhackers at the river. Instead, she explained she still had some of her own, plus the money Lafayette gave her. “I won’t touch what Wash gave us unless we are starving.”
“How much money was on the Miltons?” he asked.
Tennie paused. “About forty dollars, I think.”
“There should have been more. They sold the butcher shop.”
“I don’t know,” Tennie said. “They probably gave most of it to Inga.”
“Lafayette said they didn’t find her body,” Mr. Payton said.
“They probably buried her and the money before coming after us,” Tennie said, not wanting anything more to do with what the Miltons might or might not have had. “Mr. Hawkshaw bought our train tickets in exchange for showing we are a big part of the reason he decided not to go through with killing Lafayette.”
Mr. Payton grimaced. “He may be a cold-blooded devil, but he does have brains. If you get broke and stranded, Tennie, wire the bank in Cat Ridge. I’ll see that they send you something.”
She almost cried again, hardly believing how kind the Paytons were to her.
CHAPTER 14
When she found out the amount the livery was going to charge for stabling the Appaloosa, Tennie drew back and gulped, but the boys promised to pay for part of it out of the money they had made running errands in Waco.
Gid apologized multiple times all the way to the train station for not hearing them sneak out to raise havoc the night before, but Tennie assured him it had worked out for the best. She knew very well Hawkshaw understood exactly what they were up to even before they did it, but he said nothing and so did she.
Horses and buggies filled the street. At the train station, people were lining up next to the tracks. Farther down, drovers were herding cattle into livestock cars, their long horns clashing. It was exciting and scary watching the men with their long whips, cracking them above the cattle’s heads, using the noise to jolt the frightened animals into moving in the direction they wanted them to go. One second of getting too close could mean death to man and horse, and many of them looked only a few years older than Rusty.
Tennie found herself suddenly afraid of the iron horse belching fire. She looked at Hawkshaw. At least he had ridden a train before, and Gid knew how to rob them, or not, since he had failed. Hawkshaw had had the café prepare four baskets of food for them, along with canteens of water. He explained that although riding a train was much faster, it lacked certain luxuries a stagecoach provided. They would be stopping to take on firewood and water during the trip, and people were expected to exit the train and make quick use of that time to take care of necessities.
“I want to ride in the caboose,” Lucas said.
“Me too, me too,” Badger repeated.
Hawkshaw ground his teeth in impatience. “You can’t. That’s for the brakemen.”
The conductor began calling for them to board, and Tennie fo
und herself feeling much like a longhorn steer being led to slaughter. She wedged in between Hawkshaw and Gid, with the boys following behind.
As they stepped up into the car, Tennie, remembering Hawkshaw’s idiosyncrasies, murmured, “Where do you want me to sit?”
“Sit with the boys in the middle of the car. I’ll sit on one end, and Coltrane can sit on the other end. If there’s any trouble, we’ll have both ends covered.”
“Trouble?” Tennie said, her lips trembling, but since she had reached the middle and Hawkshaw indicated for her to take a seat, she said no more.
Badger wanted to know why he couldn’t sit with Gid.
“Because he doesn’t want you pestering him to death,” Rusty said.
Tennie looked around uneasily. “Let the car fill up and get going. Then if there’s room, you can sit by Mr. Gid for a while. We have a long way to go.”
Several of the cowboys who had been driving the cattle took seats near her, their spurs jangling on the wooden floor. When the whistle blew, there were only two other women on board, and they were obviously with husbands.
As the afternoon progressed, it was as Hawkshaw said. Dashing to get off the train at stops and a rush to get back on so one didn’t get left behind. The grating and squealing of the iron wheels on the track made a tremendous noise, and cinders and ashes blew over them from time to time. Tennie did not blame Mrs. Payton for not wanting to endure it. They were entering cotton country again, miles and miles of cultivated river bottomland. Tennie had expected her stepsons to act like little firebrands, but beside the presence of so many hardened men who looked like they wouldn’t put up with trash from anyone, much less a troublesome kid, the boys refrained. Besides, they were tired from their nocturnal Waco activities.
Tennie leaned her head back and closed her eyes. The cowboys behind her talked of nothing but cattle and horses. Keeping her eyes shut, she thought they knew she was listening to their excited talk of going to South Texas in search of a different breed of horse especially good for working with cattle. The boys, when they were not asleep, kept quiet, listening to the older boys talk of cattle and horses like it was a romance.