Anita Mills (15 page)

Spence exhaled heavily and looked away. “Yeah, she was pretty, all right—about as pretty a woman as you’ll ever see. But the boy—he wasn’t sick, too, was he?”

“No, but he was sure crying for his Fanny—Lt. Davison said he thought he was calling her his mammy, but I heard him real clear, so I know that wasn’t what he was saying.”

“Auntie Fan,” Spence murmured, nodding. “She was the Negro woman who raised both of them—the boy and the mother. They left her to die over at Fort Kearny.”

“You don’t say. Last time I seen ‘em, the blond fella was driving off, holding the kid on his lap. Everybody’d kinda thought they’d stick around, seein’ as he was a little queasy himself.”

“Ross?”

“The fella that brought her in. I thought he said the name was McDonald, or something like that.”

“Donnelly. Ross Donnelly.

“Yeah. He got some soda from the doc for his stomach, but Doc said he was probably sick from the smell, you know. ‘Course he didn’t know about the cholera, or we’d have limed her up good before we buried her.”

“King over at Kearny said that’s what he thought it was, anyway.”

“Probably so, then. Doc or not, King’s a good man. Say—I don’t believe I caught your name, did I?”

Spence took a breath, held it for several seconds, then let it out slowly. “It’s Spencer Hardin.”

“Oh. Then you must be kin to her husband, huh?”

“Something like that,”

“Too bad you weren’t here to identify the body, ‘cause all we had was the man’s word it was Mrs. Hardin.” The fellow looked past Spence to the cross. “Yeah, it was sure a shame. Guess she wasn’t but twenty-five,”

“Twenty-four. She was born in December,”

“Even worse.” He shook his head. “ ‘Bout all I know, mister. Guess you could talk to Doc, but I doubt he could tell you anything more. They weren’t here much longer than it took to drop the body off.”

“Thanks.”

“Sorry I couldn’t help you more. But if you want to see Doc, he’s over at the hospital.”

“No. I’d like to make a few more miles today.”

“Don’t know as I’d want to be alone out at night,” the fellow allowed. “Been some Indian trouble—stock run off, folks killed. I been here long enough to see some of it, and it ain’t pretty. Had to bury a fellow once, and when they was done with ‘im, I was puttin’ pieces of ‘im in a sack instead of a box.”

“I’ll watch out.”

“You’d damned sure better. I’d put a bullet in myself before I’d let ‘em catch me. They turn you over to the squaws, you got a hard way to go, mister. Yessir, we got Cheyenne and Sioux war parties out, and if it was me, I ‘wouldn’t be anywheres on the Platte Road come night. And if I had to be out, I’d be eating in my saddle, and I wouldn’t be cooking nothing. Fire’ll give you away quicker than anything, and Indians got good noses when it comes to smelling smoke.”

“I’m just taking Mrs. Taylor and her wagon as far as the advance Union Pacific camp.”

“Railroad man?”

“No. Just passing through.”

“Headed west, are you?”

“California.”

The soldier looked up at the sky for a moment, then back to Spence. “Well, you might make it, but I’d sure doubt it. Them clouds up there already came across the mountains—that’s why the road’s nigh to empty, you know. Snow’ll be hitting in another couple of weeks, too—you got to get worried about that before the end of September, mister.”

“Once I drop her off, I’ll be traveling light enough to make good time.”

“Yeah, but California’s a fur piece from here, you know. Gettin’ through the Rockies don’t put you halfway there. You got the desert, then the Sierras to cross after the Rockies.”

“I know.”

“Do you now?” the fellow countered skeptically. “Don’t guess you heard about those Donners, did you?”

“Yeah, but I’ve got to go.”

“You get caught by a blizzard up in them passes, and you ain’t never getting to California, mister. Talk to ‘em over at Laramie, and they’ll tell you right. Snow’s twenty feet deep, wind’s blowin’ ten times faster’n a race horse can run, temperature’s down to thirty below—once you eat your horse, you’re done for. You got no food, no way out, and no place to keep from freezin’—that’s what it’s like up there. Won’t anybody find you before summer, neither.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, Spence told him impatiently. “Look—”

“If you don’t, you’re a damned fool—that’s all I got to say.” The fellow spat tobacco juice again. “It ain’t me that’ll be burying you, anyway, so I don’t know why I’m wasting my breath on you. If there’s anything left by spring, Laramie’ll get that job.” Holding out his hand, the soldier added, “Well, whatever you do, good luck to you.” As Spence shook it, the man’s grip tightened briefly. “You remember to look out for Indians, you hear?”

“Yeah.”

Laura Taylor looked away when Spence swung up onto the wagon seat next to her. As he took the reins, she offered, “If you want to talk about her, I won’t mind, and if you don’t … well, I won’t mind that, either. I know what it is to hurt inside.”

“I’m not hurting—I’m just damned mad, he lied, “and I don’t want to talk about anything right now.”

“All right. Would you like me to drive the wagon?”

“No,” he answered tersely. “I’m just fine and dandy.”

But he knew he wasn’t. When he’d left Georgia, he’d never expected to find Liddy buried alone in such a godforsaken place.
No
,
he’d spent his waking hours thinking about wringing her slender white neck, and now it wasn’t going to happen. The Almighty had gotten even for him there. And the hell of it was he’d have to pray to God that Ross had made it to San Francisco with Josh, because the alternative was unthinkable. Losing Lydia had been a terrible blow to his pride, but losing Josh would mean he had nothing he loved left on this earth.

Laura sat silently, her hands gripping the seat as the wagon bounced over the rutted road, her thoughts fixed on that grave, on what he’d just said.
I’m not hurting
—
I’m just damned mad.
If he believed that, he was surely deluding himself.

But the whole thing didn’t make any sense. What in the world could have brought the woman out here? Why had she died? And where was the little boy in the photograph? As curious as she was, she wasn’t about to ask him. If he wanted to tell her, he would. If not, it was his business, not hers. But she had to wonder if he still meant to leave for California tomorrow.

And the men loitering around the few tents looked worse than the thieves and cutthroats Mississippi paroled to fight in the war. None of them looked as if they’d seen any soap in six months, and the clothes on them were so caked with dirt and grease they could stand alone. It’d take a year’s supply of lye soap and a good, hard hide-scraping before anyone with a nose could get within ten feet of that crew without gagging. As miserable a bunch of hardcases as any he’d ever seen, he decided sourly. As the wagon passed by, one of them tilted a bottle of whiskey, guzzling the stuff so fast it dripped from his matted beard. When he finished it, he threw the empty bottle on the ground, then ambled off to the latrine to relieve himself in plain sight.

No matter what Laura Taylor had said about having nowhere to go, she sure didn’t belong here. He didn’t even see anyone in charge of the hellhole. Damning her for the inconvenience and himself for being a fool, he jerked the reins savagely to turn the wagon around. Out of time or not, he had to take her back at least as far as McPherson, maybe even all the way to Kearny, to put her on a train headed east. And unless he wanted to use up more of his time trying to find Russell, he’d have to pay for her ticket himself. She wasn’t going to like it, and she’d be as balky as a damned mule, but he couldn’t help that.

“As difficult as it is to imagine, by the time the crews move on, this place will be on its way to being a town,” Laura murmured. “And in a couple of years, it’ll look like Omaha. There’ll be churches and schools and enough decent women to civilize it.”

“Well, it’s a long way from it now,” he retorted.

“Not as long as you’d think. When the rest of the crews arrive, the camp will fill up.”

“Yeah—with sots and whores. No, you don’t belong here—you’ve got no way to support yourself— nothing. I must’ve been out of my mind, or I’d never have done this,” he muttered.

“I’ll be all right, really.”

“Like hell!” he snapped. “Jesse’d turn over in his grave if he had any notion you were out here alone.”

“Well, it’s no worse than the last place he left me,” she said mildly. “And since he was never around, I might as well have been alone.”

“But you had a husband, and everybody knew it,” he pointed out tersely. “Look around you—how the hell do you expect to feed yourself, let alone the kid?”

“I’ll have to go into business.”

“Doing what?”

‘Ί don’t know yet, but I’ll think of something. I have to.”

“No. I’m putting you on a train home.”

“What? Oh, but you can’t! I don’t
have
a home anymore!”

“You can screech and squawk all you want, but you’re going.”

“Oh … now, you wait just a minute … it’s my life, not yours. Just because you’ve got some fancified notion of what’s proper, you’ve got no right to make me fit it. You turn this wagon around, you hear? I’m not going anywhere!”

“The hell you aren’t.”

“You sure like that word a lot.”

“Huh?”

“Hell. You can’t say a sentence without it, but you think you’re the civilized one in this wagon, don’t you? I don’t know why you bothered to bring me out here, considering you don’t think I’ve got the brains of a goose.” Her chin came up defiantly as she added evenly, “But this wagon’s mine, and so is everything in it, except you and that horse tied on back there. If you want, you can take it and go on—that’s your right. But you can’t make me leave all my belongings behind and go somewhere I don’t want to go, just because
your
pea-brain tells you I ought to do it.”

“Jesse’d never—”

“Jesse’s dead, Dr. Hardin. I’ve got to look out for me and the baby myself now. I’ve got two guns, and I’m not afraid to use them. Maybe your wife would be, but I’m not.”

“Leave Liddy out of this!” he snapped. “You don’t know anything about her!”

Taken aback by the anger in his voice, she regarded him soberly for a moment. “No, I don’t, but I know me. Once I find Mr. Hawthorne, you can take your horse and go on with a clear conscience.”

“Yeah? And I suppose you’re going to unload the damned thing by yourself?” he countered sarcastically.

“If I have to.”

“Like hell.”

“There you go again, using that word. Those men look worse than they are, if that’s what’s bothering you,” she said patiently. “The railroad doesn’t put up with rowdies—they have to cross the tracks to raise hell.”

“
A drunk man doesn’t know his direction,” he muttered.

“Do you?”

“Yes, he answered tersely.

“Then turn this wagon around, because you can’t get to California this way.”

“The privy’s a damned ditch!”

“You say too many damneds, too,”

“Well, what are you going to do?—squat over it?” he gibed. “Those men will be relieving themselves in front of you!”

“I don’t aim to watch them. Besides, the cabin’s supposed to be a little ways from camp, she reminded him. Pulling herself up to stand in the slow-moving wagon, she contemplated the ground.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing now?”

“Fixin’ to walk back, I guess, since you’re determined to go the other way.”

“Sit down before you fall out.” Goaded, he turned the wagon again. She was too damned stubborn for her own good, and it’d probably cost her, but at least she was making it easy for him to leave her. Pulling up in the middle of the camp, he muttered, “Wait here,” as he climbed down. “Anybody comes near you, use that whip on him,” he flung over his shoulder as he stalked toward the nearest tent.

“Tell Mr. Hawthorne I want the cabin!” she called after him. Leaning back on the hard seat, she stretched her legs out over the front of the wagon, trying to ease the stiffness. Aside from the labor pains, the worst thing about having a baby was the backache, she decided. She was about to close her eyes when she realized she’d gathered a group of grimy admirers. One snaggle-toothed fellow had sidled close enough she could smell him. “Looks like I got here just in time,” she told him.

“Huh?”

“I’m opening a laundry.” The notion had come to her on the spur of the moment, but she warmed to it as she looked around the men. “I’ll wash, dry, and iron, but it’ll cost you ten cents a piece, providing I get it on Monday, which is my wash day. If you’re out laying track somewhere, I’ll hold your clothes two weeks; if not, you’ll have to pay for them by Friday.”

“That ain’t what we thought you was,” someone admitted.

She patted her stomach, drawing attention to it. “I don’t know if any of you knew Jesse Taylor, but he was killed six weeks ago in a railroad accident over by McPherson, and I’m his widow. Since I’ll be having this baby in another couple of months, I’ve got to work to feed it, and I’d sure appreciate if you’d bring me your laundry.”

“Hear that, boys?—she’s a widow woman!” the snaggle-toothed fellow announced, taking off his hat to reveal a matted mass of hair. “Name’s Wiley Skinner, and I sure am glad to meet you. My clothes is holey, but you’re sure welcome to wash ‘em come payday.”

As hats doffed around her, she saw another need. “I can barber, too—quarter a head—but you’ll have to wash and delouse your hair first.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Spencer Hardin demanded, coming back to the wagon.

“Getting acquainted with my neighbors.” Looking over his head to the others, she said, “I hope you all don’t forget about Mondays.”