“Isn’t she a sweetie?” Amanda asked.
“I suppose,” Bryan said with his weak, little voice, “but I might change my mind on that if I knew what she just whispered in your ear.”
“You’ll never know, will you?” Amanda replied.
Caroline giggled, not knowing for certain what she was giggling over, but nevertheless, she figured it called for a giggle. Having some food in her tummy made her feel ever so much better.
After they finished their lunch, Bryan had Amanda summoned Midge out from her kitchen. “Do ya want somethin’ else from the kitchen?” Midge asked.
Bryan raised his head. “I’m all played out, Midge, and I need rest, but first, I’ve got a proposition for you. Then I’m going to go to that Sibley tent we have rented from Elaine and sleep for two days.”
“Uh-oh, what’s the proposition?” Midge asked as she raised an eyebrow. “I figure ya’re a lot like them Irish lads who work over at Deseret. They come in here from time to time, and they are full of the blarney. I can’t tell ya how many times them lads have proposed to me. Ya’re not about to propose to me, are ya?”
“No, Midge, I’m not. I’ve enough problems in my life.” He slapped forty dollars into Midge’s hand and smiled.
“Oh no, is this an indecent proposal?” Midge asked as she winked at Amanda.
Bryan reddened. “Midge, do you think you could be serious for a moment?”
“Yes, of course. What must I do to earn this forty dollars?”
“Take care of this little girl for about a month or two.”
“Of course I can do that. My heart was broken when I heard her story, and I was plannin’ on helpin’ her anyway. Here, take this money back.”
“No, Midge, you keep it. I figure an extra forty might make your life a little easier. Do you have someplace she can bunk in one of your backrooms?”
“I have a little office back there where I keep my books, and there’s a trundle bed in there that she can sleep in.”
“Oh good, perfect. How about food; can you feed her?”
“Of course I’ll feed her. What do ya take me fer?”
“Just asking. Great, so now it’s settled. Thank you, Midge,” Bryan said.
“No, thank you. That forty dollars is a godsend. Actually, I’ve been tryin’ to figure out where I was gonna git enough money fer supplies to keep this restaurant afloat.”
Bryan nodded his head. “So there you have it. Everybody’s happy.”
“Yes, we are,” Midge said as she turned to return to her kitchen to complete the order she had taken for the couple that had just come in.
Bryan slapped ten dollars into Amanda’s hand.
“Well, I never. Now is this another indecent proposal?”
“You danged women. No, of course not. Take Caroline over to the hardware store and buy her a couple new dresses, a bonnet, new shoes, socks . . . you know, just set her up with some decent clothing because I’ve got a feeling she is going to be doing some waitressing here at The Hog Trough.”
“Oh boy,” Caroline said, “new dresses. Can I have a pink one?”
“You sure can, honey,” Amanda said.
Bryan cut his eyes back to Amanda. “Oh, and Amanda, after you buy her some new clothing, why don’t you take her over to the apothecary and get you two a couple of Mr. Whipple’s bubbly sarsaparillas. Oh, and then you’d best get Caroline some candy.”
“Candy, gee candy? I’ve never had candy in my whole life.”
“I want some candy, too,” Amanda said.
“Yes, you need some candy as well.”
“Mr. Kohler, what is an endesent porsal?”
Bryan looked over at Amanda. “See what you’ve done, Amanda? Caroline, we’ll tell you when you are older. Do you want to come live with me on a horse ranch up in Midway? Who knows, you might even get a pony of your own?”
“Wow, would I? A pony of my own?”
“Yes, and you will have a brother. His name is Bobby.”
Caroline started crying.
“What in the. . . . Uh, what in tarnation brought this on?” He looked to Amanda for help.
“We women cry when we are sad, and we also cry when we are happy.”
“I see,” Bryan said. “Well, take me to the tent for some sleep because I might start crying if I don’t soon get away from you women.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Bryan convalesced in La Sal for a week, and then he decided it was time to leave. He was still weakened some by the blood loss, but he wanted to ride over on the Picketwire to see if he could capture or kill Ed Muir. The piece of trash had robbed a bank and killed a clerk just for sport. Bryan had originally planned to thin out the raiding Apaches, to actively seek them out and kill them. But it hadn’t worked out that way. The Apaches had come to him to kill him, and with the help of Amanda, they had reduced their number to three. For that, he was thankful. He supposed they had headed back to Arizona and would no longer be a threat to the Mormon settlers there in Southern Utah. Moreover, he hoped they would not be a menace to him. Nevertheless, he decided he should remain vigilant, just in case they were obsessed with seeking revenge for their fallen comrades.
Speaking of obsession, Amanda had been fixated on killing every last one of the Apache raiding party to avenge the loss of her husband, Michael Bagley. It took some doing, but he had finally convinced the headstrong woman that she should stay in La Sal and take care of Caroline. “You’ve killed enough Apaches, don’t you think. Stay here, and I will pick you up on the way back through and escort you to Provo,” he said. “I’ve got to come back through here to pick up Caroline anyway, and then Bobby up in Hanksville.”
“Oh, all right,” she snapped. “Just go out there and get yourself killed by those danged Apaches. See if I care.”
“I’ve told you this before,” he said. “The desert is no place for a woman— especially when it is infested with Apaches.”
She had come back at him with, “In case you have forgotten, I saved your life not once, but twice, and you need me out there to watch your back.”
“No I don’t,” he barked. “How do you suppose I got along before I met you? I’ve burned more gunpowder and been in more tight situations than you can imagine, and you weren’t there to back me up. Don’t forget, they call me Kid Utah.”
“Okay then, Kid Utah, just go get yourself killed. See if I care,” she repeated as she stomped off.
Bryan rode straight for Blanding, but he knew he wouldn’t reach it until the next day or longer. His course paralleled the Colorado River for a ways, and then he ended up fording it at a shallow stretch. The river don’t get to raging until it flows into those narrow canyons down in Arizona where it gets necked down. After all, it’s the river that has carved out the Grand Canyon.
He found a nice place by the Colorado River and set up his camp. He hadn’t seen a soul since he left La Sal, and that was just fine with him. His camp faced the river, and he chose a place that had flat, open ground behind him in a semi-circle. Apaches couldn’t possibly sneak up on him without being seen from way off, and when night settled in, he relied on Cayuse and Mule to give him a warning in plenty of time for him to get his Winchester into action.
The desert smelled fresh, and it was a beautiful sight during the waning hours of that day. A mule deer bounded across the flats and crossed the river. The way it was moving, he wondered if something had been after it—maybe a wolf or a coyote.
The ground around his camp was festooned with an assortment of desert wildflowers. Bryan took the time to look them over. He loved the desert. To some, the desert is a harsh, unforgiving place. But Bryan didn’t look at it that way. He instinctively knew that one cannot go into a desert and expect to conquer it. In order to survive in the desert, one must learn to adapt, to go along with its rhythms. The flowers consisted of yellow Catspaw, Penstemon (a flower that has medicinal qualities for the treatment of bloody wounds), stem Sundays, and mountain pepper plant.
Th
e problem with some people is that their concept of a desert is infested with human perspectives. In order to enjoy a desert, one must throw all that preconceived nonsense aside and look at the desert for what it really is: raw, primal, often deadly, but unmistakably beautiful, unless one is blinded by having been tainted too long by being packed up in towns and cities. Looking at a desert is like looking closely and intimately into the eyes of God or Medusa. It can be intimidating, unless one knows how to cohabit with the entity.
Bryan stripped out the latigos and removed the saddle from Cayuse. The animal looked relieved because it had been a strenuous day in the hot desert sun. Then he pulled the packs off Mule and led the two animals down to the Colorado River for a drink. He wiped the animals down with dry grass and put them on some decent grass. Next, he attended to himself, all the time keeping a lookout for Apaches. He baked biscuits in a Dutch oven, sliced thick strips of bacon into a pan, and warmed beans.
While he ate his meal, he got to thinking about Amanda. She was hopping mad that she had to spend more time living in one of Elaine’s Sibley tents. Truth be told, he felt sort of bad that she had to stay in a nasty, old tent. Amanda was proper and refined, and she was out of place in such an environment. When she was around that tent, she stood out like a crib girl at a ladies’ temperance social. But he couldn’t help himself; he laughed at the analogy. Hey, he hadn’t asked her to come out on this desert and stick her nose in matters better handled by a man. It was then that he spotted a rider coming across the desert toward his camp. He got his field glasses to see who was approaching. He couldn’t believe his eyes—it was Amanda. What was wrong with that girl?
When she got close to the camp, she shouted out in the Western tradition, “Hello, the camp. Can I come in? I mean you no harm.”
“No, you can’t come in. Just turn your skinny ass around and head back to La Sal. I will be facing down two very violent criminals and possibly more of those Apaches. It is too dangerous for you. I can’t believe it . . . why are you here? What’s the matter with you?”
“First of all, Bryan Kohler, I don’t appreciate such vulgar language, and secondly, I’m here to lend a hand. From what I’ve seen, you can get a little careless and I’m afraid you are going to get yourself killed. You need me.”
“Yeah, I need you like I need another head! Come on in, and I’ll rustle you up some grub. How is Caroline? Is Midge handling her okay?”
“She is fine. Midge is treating her with kindness.”
“Sit down here, and I will take care of your horse and fix you some food. You must be tired.”
“If you can take care of my horse, I would be most appreciative, but I can cook my own food.”
“Fine, that will work.”
“Bryan, how are you doing today? Have you recovered your strength?”
“I’m doing fine,” he said as he cleared his throat. “Amanda, in the morning, I want you to turn around and head back to La Sal.”
“No, there are three of those Apaches remaining, and if they are still around, I want them dead. No, I’m tagging along.”
Bryan looked toward the heavens for an answer. “What have I done to deserve this?”
“Some men would be happy to have someone backing them up,” she said, giggling.
“You backing me up? That’s laughable.”
“Need I remind you I have saved your life a couple of times? You seem to have a very short memory.”
“Okay, since I can’t get shed of you, we need to lay out the ground rules, right this very minute. I am the boss. If I tell you to do something, you do it. Is that understood?”
Amanda gave him a salute. “Yes, sir; it is understood.”
“And regarding a couple of other matters, keep your mouth shut about my habits. I’m out here risking my neck, and I’m not about to observe all the little niceties you so appreciate. If I swear, shut up about it. If I use improper English, shut up about it. If I blow my nose on the ground, shut up about it. If I don’t pray to your God of an evening, shut up about it. So, in general, just shut up about most everything.”
She whipped off another salute, “Yes, sir,” she said. “I’m just out here to kill Apaches.”
Bryan laughed. “You’re out here to kill Apaches. Now isn’t that just . . . rich.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They came at dawn, and they wouldn’t have been able to get in so close if Amanda hadn’t dozed off during her watch. Victorio closed in on Bryan before he could even get out of his bedroll. He was clutching a long, wicked knife, and he tried to eviscerate Bryan with the first swipe. Bryan came fully awake in an instant, a habit that had served him well over the years, a habit needed for survival on America’s frontier. He rolled away from Victorio and also managed to escape from his bedding in order to put up a proper fight. “White pig, you’ve killed many of my warriors. Now I am going to kill you and leave you for the carrion birds,” Victorio muttered in broken English.
“Ha! You’re about to find out that you’ve bit off more than you can chew.” Having said that, Bryan pulled his Bowie knife from the scabbard, which was nestled in close to his bedding. His Colt was just out of reach. There was no time to get it, or he could have ended the disputation in an instant.
As soon as Bryan got to his feet, Victorio came in low and took another swing at his stomach with his knife. Bryan parried the blow and right then, during that instant, Victorio’s head presented itself, so Bryan brought the haft of his knife down on his head. If Victorio didn’t have a headache before, he surely developed one at that time. Victorio shook his head and ran behind a juniper tree to buy a little time. Bells were clanging in his head, and he was fighting slipping into unconsciousness.
Bryan took that reprieve from the struggle to cut his eyes to the left to see what was happening with Amanda. He couldn’t see her in the weak, early morning light, but her scream let him know she was in trouble. Damn that girl! If she had just stayed in La Sal like I told her! He plunged around the tree to see if he could finish off Victorio, and then he could go help Amanda. Damn that girl!
Victorio had been in too many skirmishes to hang around and continue a knife fight when his faculties had been compromised after having been clonked on the head with the haft of a knife. So he ran, discretion being the better part of valor. In so doing, he knew he could be around to fight yet another day. Bryan chased him across the desert for a good hundred yards, screaming obscenities at him and asking him to come back and fight. But Victorio didn’t come back; he leaped on his pony and raced off into the desert. Bryan had managed to retrieve his Colt before he took after Victorio, so he gave him a send-off with a couple .45’s that gave the Apache chief a little wind music as the bullets sailed by his head.
Bryan sprinted back to save Amanda. He was frantic. He knew all too well what would happen if they made off with her. They would do one of two things with her. They would either keep her around as a sex toy for several days, then torture and kill her, or they would take her into Mexico and sell her on the sex slave market that was prospering there at that time.
Just before he arrived at the scene of the struggle, one of the Apaches let out a bloodcurdling scream. Then he heard the fellow exclaim in very poor English— and between wrenching gasps—that Amanda had done something terrible to his manly parts. It was obvious that he was in excruciating pain. Bryan didn’t know what she had done, but he assumed it was something brutal because the fellow was caterwauling to beat the band. Even though the situation hardly called for levity, Bryan still had to chuckle a little. That girl was a caution, she surely was. But unfortunately, before he could get back to the skirmish, the Apaches had loaded Amanda onto her lemon silk stallion and ridden off into the desert.
Even though the lighting was bad, Bryan could see that one of the warriors was slumped over on the neck of his pony as they rode away. He didn’t dare take a shot at the Apaches for fear of hitting Amanda. Bryan surmised that the injured Apache was riding like that because his testicle
s were somewhat in disrepair. What had that girl done to him? Under most any other circumstance, he would have laughed about it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Bryan rushed back to strike camp. Then he loaded Mule and saddled Cayuse in record time. Next, he crammed jerky and hardtack down his throat and washed it down with water from one of his canteens. Riding and fighting would go much better if he had a little something in his stomach.
He resolved to follow those Apaches to hell and back if that’s what it took to save Amanda. Going after the two hard cases for the reward money would just have to wait. Later on, if the hard cases changed locations, he would just pick up from where they had last been seen and trail them from there. He had the two dodgers in his panniers, and the fifteen thousand in rewards for the pair would remain in effect indefinitely. Besides, even if he didn’t ever get around to capturing or killing them for the rewards, he figured he had enough money in Zions National Bank up in Salt Lake to start his horse ranch up Snake Creek Canyon above Midway. Then, of course, he might get a substantial sum for selling the family farm there in Midway. He could develop that horse ranch no matter what. But the downside to the situation would be that the hard cases would remain free to harm more people.
Just before he climbed aboard the hurricane deck on Cayuse, he took his hat off and slammed it on the ground. He had recently paid five dollars for the hat at a general store in Orem, Utah. Damn that girl, he thought, if she had just stayed in La Sal like I had told her. But then his mood softened when he thought of the trouble she was in and how scared she must be. He picked his hat up from the dirt and brushed it off. It was no way to treat a practically brand new Boss of the Plains Stetson. But if it weren’t for that damned girl. . . . Then he stopped right there and forced himself to soften. The poor, silly girl; his heart went out to her. No, he knew he had to rid himself of the anger and go fetch her; that’s all there was to it. There simply weren’t any other options.
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