A Novel Idea
Page 12
Romance - Historical
The Rare Breed
Prologue
EARLY on a beautiful spring day in 1845, Jack Boudry and his fifteen-year-old daughter Jeanette waved good-bye to Mrs. Boudry and their comfortable New York brownstone home. The industrious and adventurous Mr. Boudry had fixed a gleaming eye upon the West, that profitable new frontier brimming with people searching for a marketplace for newfound wealth. As a modest importer, Jack Boudry intended to extend his holdings to include a port on the west coast and be on hand to receive the spoils of the new land.
Mrs. Boudry had declared herself against the adventure at first, objecting vehemently to her husband’s explanations. It wasn’t until he made her realize how much their income would be boosted that she relented. But once she learned of his intention to take Jeanette with him, she flatly refused to budge. Like a feisty old bird, she sat puffed up and closed-mouthed on the divan while her husband argued and cajoled, pacing in a worried circle around her. Secure in her own territory, she let her silence speak.
This was a new tactic to Jack, who had always been able to gain his wife’s acquiescence one way or another. At her stubborn silence, he felt unaccountably at a loss as to how to deal with her on this issue. Finally, though, he resolved to be as stubborn and immovable as she and went about planning the adventure―including Jeanette―without consulting her further. He wasn’t sure in the end if she had thought better of it or had merely been worn down by his relentless planning, but when the day came, she stood sobbing in the doorway while Jeanette took her place on the wagon beside her father.
Jack made the parting as brief as he could. He knew his wife’s tears were infectious and resolved to be away before they spread to Jeanette. With waves and assurances and optimistic promises, he slapped his grays into a trot and left his weeping wife on the doorstep.
Father and daughter traveled with several other families as far west as Independence, Missouri. There the wagons regrouped, some going on to Oregon or California, some hanging back to await late comers. Boudry attached himself to a California train that proposed to take the Spanish Trail and together they rumbled westward to Fort Leavenworth. There the daring and danger of the trip seemed to come home to Jeanette and she widened her eyes at the alien territory.
Two days out of Fort Leavenworth the train prepared to stop for the night, but before they could properly organize their defenses, the travelers were aghast to see Indians riding hard upon them. In the dimming twilight they came like ghostly devils from hell, loosing death with every arrow, surrounding the wagons in a fiendish shrieking circle. One quarter of the people lay dead before a single Indian was killed.
Being a shrewd man of action, Jack plunged quickly into the fray, throwing his daughter under a wagon and grabbing a gun in the same motion. While he fired shot after shot, missing every time, his daughter stared dumbstruck at the savages that rode endlessly around them. Hearing her father curse yet another missed shot, she jumped up and ran to his side, wanting to help but not quite sure how.
“Damn!” Jack bellowed. At first Jeanette thought he was cursing her but quickly realized he was out of ammunition. Casting about, she spotted a dangerous looking rifle beside one of the first casualties, a grizzled old scout. Thinking only to help her father, she rushed blindly across the open space to the rifle, her heart thudding so loudly in her ears that she never heard the hoof beats behind her.
There were so many screams and cries that Jack missed his daughter’s. He had found a few more bullets in a forgotten pocket, fired them, then looked about for another weapon. His eyes fell on the rifle, then rose to the sight of an Indian riding hell bent away from him, apparently struggling with something. Jack wondered if the brave’s horse were not used to so much noise, then saw a small white hand flail out and a flurry of white petticoats. It was then that he realized Jeanette was gone. Forgetting the danger around him, he stood up, frantically looking about for his daughter, calling for her hysterically. The Indian had ridden safely away and had turned his horse about, still grappling with the girl in front of him. An intense rage overcame the importer, blocking out everything around him as he ran crazily after the Indian. Laughing at the ridiculous white man, the Indian reined his horse toward the distant hills. Jack was still running when the savages regrouped and disappeared into the scrub-covered hills, towing their newly stolen horses behind them.
Jack Boudry hung back at Fort Leavenworth for almost two months. He met every returning company at the horseshoe shaped outpost and plied every man with questions, but no one had seen his daughter or her captors since that day. To his face they made optimistic remarks but he knew they shook their heads when they thought he couldn’t see. Finally Captain Lewis himself suggested Boudry go on ahead to California before the last wagon train passed. Any word would be quickly sent ahead to him.
Jack received no word during the time he was in California and none awaited him at Fort Leavenworth on his return trip the next year. Back in New York, he was able to boast proudly to his wife of the warehouse he had bought in Yerba Buena, but only after they had both cried long and hard over the loss of their daughter. They pushed hope to the back of their minds, waited patiently for any word and went about the business of living their lives and making their fortune.
In 1859 there occurred a gold rush along the Platte River. Any man who had found his fortune in California or any man not willing to travel as far as the west coast hurried eagerly to the Platte. A sudden population boom rocked the area. The outposts became towns and the limit of the frontier was pushed inward again and again. Periodically, inevitably, the gold rushers rallied against the Indians.
It was the misfortune of one small band of Cheyenne to be surprised by one such group of men. The fact that the band was almost entirely made up of women and children did not afford them any saving grace. Most were killed unceremoniously by volleys of gunfire, their lodges burned and their possessions destroyed. The only thing that saved Jeanette Boudry, for she was part of the band, was her tongue. She told her story as quickly as the slaughter around her would allow. Luckily, she was believed. The men came back from their raid triumphant, having killed twenty or more savages and at the same time rescuing a captured white woman and her thirteen-year-old daughter.