Sawbones (5 page)

“And, why is that?” Maureen asked.

“Won't be doing much riding in the schooner. Most uncomfortable way to travel you can imagine.”

“It can't be much worse than the trip from Galveston,” Anna said.

“Oh, you'll be surprised. 'Course, you'll walk most of the time.”

“I'll be driving the wagon,” Maureen said.

Ester stopped chopping and studied Maureen. “Will you, now? I supposed you could at that.”

“I agree,” Anna said, with an encouraging smile at Maureen.

“I have no doubt you will do a fine job,” Cornelius said. “You said your oxen are docile?” The concern in Cornelius's voice and in his expression was plain to all.

I had not been so long without male attention I could not read Cornelius's interest in Maureen. It would have been subtler of him to take an advertisement out in the
Democratic Statesman
declaring his love for my maid. What I could not read, though, was Maureen. She vacillated between anger and embarrassment. Anger appeared to be winning at the moment, though that could be lingering irritation at the compliments being bandied around.

“Yes, they are docile. We have named them Piper and Púca.”

“I suppose I'm outnumbered,” Cornelius said. “My only concern is your safety.” There was a long pause in the conversation, until Cornelius coughed and said, “Meaning the safety of the entire group, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

Maureen blushed, but tried to mask it with a scowl. “It's awfully hot in here.”

Ester shrugged and went back to her chopping. “Y'all wanted to meet in the kitchen.”

I studied Maureen while Cornelius rambled on about the journey. She had fully recovered from her bout of seasickness. Color had returned to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. I thought back over our past and tried to remember her ever being so happy. As I watched Cornelius try to draw her out and her determined refusal to be, I wondered how much of her color was due to renewed health and how much was due to the attentions of Cornelius Warren.

“Amos Pike'll be our trail boss,” Warren said.

“Amos Pike is a good man,” Ester interjected. “Rode with my Hiram. If anyone can get you to Colorado, it's Amos Pike.” She accentuated her opinion by pointing her knife at us.

“Rode with your husband?” Anna asked.

“With Jack Hayes back in forty-eight.”

“Who is Jack Hayes?” I asked.

Ester scooped the vegetables into the cast-iron pot, wiped her hands on a towel, and faced us. “The best Indian fighter Texas has ever seen, and we've had our fair share of good 'uns. Amos was a good 'un in the end, but he didn't start out that way. Not many do, come to think of it.”

“What happened?” Anna asked.

“Same thing always does. Comanche raid homesteads; we chase them. Only Amos was the only one who lived to tell. Walked back into Austin ten days after they left, half-dead from exhaustion and full of shame.”

“Shame for what?” I asked.

“Living. Buffalo Hump killed his whole outfit. Including my Hiram. Those savages scalped Hiram while he was still alive, gutted him like a fish.”

The bloom on Maureen's cheeks faded. I grasped her hand and squeezed.

“Ester, please,” Cornelius said. “There are women in the room.”

Ester scoffed. “And what'm I? This ain't London or New York, or even New Awlens.” Her voice softened a bit and she spoke as if only to Maureen. “It's harder out here, best you know it now.” She patted Maureen's shoulder. “You've got mettle, though. I can tell.”

Maureen forced a smile, but gripped my hand.

“How did Mr. Pike survive?” Anna's voice was strong, though it pitched up at the end, as if it was a great effort for her to disguise her fear.

“He hid behind a rock. Worst moment of his life, he said, walking back into Austin to tell the tale and admit his cowardice.” Ester returned to the stove.

“I'm surprised you think so highly of a man who you call a coward,” I said.

“I called him a coward at the time, I'll admit. I was torn up about Hiram and not thinking straight.” She paused again. “When Amos told the story, well, I can't say as I blame him for what he did. A few held a grudge, but he was young, inexperienced.” She brought a cleaver down onto the hindquarter of a rabbit. Bits of fat and gristle flew through the air. She dropped the leg into the stew. “He made up for it by becomin' one of the fiercest Indian fighters Texas's ever seen.” She nodded. “I learned a long time ago to don't ever judge a person ifin you ain't been in their shoes.” She cleaved the rabbit again. “You got the Army with you. They ain't as good as Rangers, but they'll do.”

“Precisely,” Warren said. “We will drive up the Western Trail, stop at Fort Richardson before we reach Fort Sill.”

Maureen, who had been watching Ester's dissection of the rabbit with fascination, turned her attention to Cornelius. Her eyes narrowed. “The Army's traveling
with
us, right?”

Anna shifted in her chair and stared at the scrubbed wooden table. “Not technically,” Warren conceded. “As I said, though, we will be visiting forts along the way and will be well east of the line of civilization.” He patted Maureen's hand with a protective affection. She pulled her hand away and cut her eyes at me.

Cornelius was a healthy, handsome man, if somewhat portly and talkative. He tended to run to vanity about his full, silky beard, stroking it for effect more often than he should. But those were hardly characteristics to stand in the way of Maureen's happiness. What could stand in the way, though, was Maureen's concern about me. It suddenly occurred to me she might be trying a little too hard to hide her pleasure at being courted to reassure me she would not leave me.

“You'll be fine. Amos knows what he's doing. You got guns, too, dontcha?” Ester asked.

“Of course,” Warren said.

“Doctor? You got a gun?” Ester asked.

I pulled my eyes from Maureen's face. “I'm sorry. What?”

“You have a gun, don't you?”

I opened my mouth to say yes when I realized I had not seen my gun since that final, horrible night in New York City. I must have dropped it after I shot my attacker. Did James pick it up and forget to give it to me?

“I lost it,” I replied.

Ester wiped her hands on a towel. “I can take care of that.” She walked out of the room.

I narrowed my eyes at Warren. “How safe is this journey, Cornelius?”

“I wouldn't take my daughter on such a journey if I thought there was the least amount of danger involved.” He patted Anna's hand.

“I am not frightened in the least,” Anna offered. I wondered if her confidence was genuine or based on loyalty to her father.

Ester returned holding a man's shirt between her hands with a reverence usually reserved for the Good Book. She placed it on the table in front of me and unfolded the blue material. The gun and holster were old but well cared for.

“A Colt,” I said.

Ester nodded. “A Paterson, given to Hiram by Hayes himself.”

“It's the same as the gun I lost.”

“You know how to keep it.”

“It was your husband's, Ester. I couldn't possibly accept it.”

“'Course you can. It's sittin' in a drawer, gettin' cleaned once a month. Consider it payment for saving my daughter and grandson's lives.”

I placed my hand over my heart. “Thank you, Ester. I will take good care of it.”

“Better yet,” she said, eyes glittering, “kill an Indian with it.”

I stood atop a lone steep hill. Before me the flowering grasses of the prairie rolled in the wind like the Atlantic before a storm, and the enormous sky surrounded me like a pale blue shawl. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the setting sun on my face and the cool breeze tickling my skin. I inhaled and basked in the unique scent of the prairie: flowers, dust, and very faintly, rain.

I turned and watched our wagon train make its way up the Western Trail. Far to the north and just in sight, the trail boss and the chuck wagon were setting up camp for the night. Roughly a half mile away from the night's campsite three schooners and five supply wagons bumped and rattled over the uneven ground. After a small gap, Amos Pike's unhappy herd of cattle stretched out for over a mile. The plaintive mooing of 750 cattle and the whistles and whoops of the cowboys driving them floated on the wind and to my ears. Try as I might, I could not escape the sound.

As far as I could see to the east were herds of cattle destined for the railheads in Kansas. We were a little apart and farther to west by necessity. Our herd was not bound for the Kansas market but for Fort Sill in Indian Territory, for distribution to more remote forts as well as the Indians who had reluctantly given up their roving way of life for one reliant on the generosity of the government.

I pushed my wind-whipped hair from my face and saw a small retinue of two wagons and ten riders moving up our western flank.

“Well, well. It looks as if our Army escort has arrived,” I said. Maureen would be relieved.

I thrilled at the thought of new people to talk to. My fellow travelers were pleasant enough, but ten days into the journey our nighttime conversation had lagged. Our sole fiddle player knew only two songs, and those not very well.

I turned back to the setting sun and marveled at how, in a few minutes, the scenery had changed. The dusty green of the swaying prairie grasses gave way to a sky ablaze with colors I had not seen since the sun set on the battlefield at Antietam. At the time, I credited the bloodied sky with God's anger at man's idiocy and hubris, at the wanton waste of life He witnessed that day. Here on the prairie I saw again the intense red color of an angry God, now tempered with beautiful purples, golds, and deep blues. I longed for the tools needed to sketch what I saw, to put these colors on paper so in years to come I could remember beauty and destruction are inexorably linked in nature and in the heart of man.

“Where have you been?” Maureen demanded when I entered the camp.

“On top of the world,” I replied. I held out a spray of wildflowers. Maureen took them with disgust.

“One of these days you're going to wander off and be snatched up by them savages, mark my word.” She shook the flowers in my face.

“Thank you for the flowers, Laura. They're beautiful.” I intoned in an imitation of her Irish brogue. “I thought you'd like them.”

Maureen would not be swayed from her point, so I let her make it. “They'll do all sorts of unspeakable things to you and I'll have to live with the vision of it my entire life.”

“Don't be ridiculous, Maureen,” I chided. I removed my old slouch hat and tossed it in the back of our wagon. “They wouldn't dare attack so close to the fort, nor this large of a train.”

She lowered her voice. “They don't think like us, Katie. Mind you listen to me for once and stay close.”

There was real fear in her eyes. Unlike me, she had taken Ester's stories about the Comanche and Kiowa as the gospel truth. It did not help that when we passed the many abandoned homesteads along the trail, Amos Pike became a raconteur, terrifying everyone with stories of his time as a Texas Ranger before the war. No storyteller worth their salt would shy away from making a tale larger and more colorful than the actual event, and savage Indian tales were ripe for elaboration. The more I heard about the atrocities of the Indians the more I had to believe at least some of it was true. However, Amos, his teamsters, and his cowboys made me feel safe. Maureen, on the other hand, was certain of our impending doom. With the Army arrived and with the knowledge we were less than a day's ride from Fort Richardson, I saw no need to argue with her. I put my arm around her shoulder. “If it will make you easy, I will stay nearer the wagon train.”

“Thank you.”

“I will shove cotton in my ears to muffle the sound of the cattle and pinch my nose against the smell.”

“I don' even hear them anymore. You can amputate a limb without flinching, but the sound of mooing cattle gets on your nerves.”

“You are not the first to think I am full of strange contradictions, and you will not be the last.”

Maureen reached under the buckboard and handed my holster and gun to me. “Wear this.”

“It does not fit.”

“I had Herr Schlek punch a new notch for you.” She shook the holster at me.

“Do you not trust when I say I won't wander off?”

“You've never listened to me before, why would you now?”

I took the holster and cinched it around my waist. It fit perfectly. Maureen stepped forward and tucked the extra leather beneath the belt. “There. Now I feel better.”

Her goal accomplished, Maureen turned her attention to unhitching Piper and Púca from the wagon while I struggled to remove the gun from its holster. “I'm doing something wrong.”

“Twist it around to the other side, so the handle faces front,” Maureen said. She patted the oxen on the neck. “That's how Cornelius wears his.”

“Cornelius doesn't strike me as an experienced gunfighter,” I said. I twisted the belt around and drew the gun across my body. “Well, I'll be damned. It is easier.”

“Katie!”

Everyone was too busy setting up camp to notice Maureen's slip. I glared at her in admonition.

“Now don't you go turning into a heathen because you're living on the frontier. I won't have it.”

“Don't call me Katie,” I said in an undertone. We stared at each other, waiting for the other to crack. I did not want to fight with Maureen. I wanted to regain the tranquility from the hill. I holstered my gun. “I see the cavalry has arrived.”

Maureen relaxed, sure of her victory. “None other than Uncle Billy himself.”

“General Sherman?”

“In the flesh.”

Maureen led the animals toward the creek while I unpacked the wagon. I could not help craning my neck in hopes of catching a glimpse of the general, though I did not expect to see him among the soldiers setting up camp for the night.

I set to my tasks by rote, thinking of General Sherman and his brazen march through Georgia to the sea. Southerners reviled him for leaving a swath of destruction behind him and for the audacity of gifting the city of Savannah to President Lincoln for Christmas in '64. His men loved him for his boldness in the field, his unwavering loyalty to the Union, and his firm belief the Southerners deserved what they got for the temerity of seceding from the Union. I admired him for doing what was necessary, no matter how repugnant, to break the will of the enemy and win the war. The campfire conversation between ex-Confederate Pike and General Sherman promised to be interesting.

By the time Maureen returned from watering Piper and Púca and gathering wood, our Dutch oven full of beans was hanging on the tripod, waiting for the fire. The ingredients for biscuits and a grinder full of coffee beans were on a crate, which served as our makeshift worktable. As Maureen worked on the fire, I took the kettle and a bucket to the creek for water.

I walked a little ahead of the campsite for water unspoiled by the animals and gently picked my way down the creek bank, using the trees as handholds and the exposed roots as stair steps, paying little attention to the creek itself. When I reached the edge, I discovered Sherman sitting in the middle of the creek, bare chested and smoking a cigar. I stumbled the remainder of the way down the bank and almost fell into the creek myself. My face flamed with embarrassment, more from my clumsiness than his nakedness.

Knowing it was what was expected of me, I averted my eyes. “Pardon me, sir. I did not know anyone was around.”

“No. I expect you did not.” Sherman's clothes hung haphazardly on the low-lying limb of a cottonwood tree, his red long johns standing out from the dark blue and gray of his uniform like a bloody gash. “Please, retrieve your water.”

I smiled my thanks and filled my containers.

“I am William Sherman.”

“Laura Elliston.”

“Where are you from, Mrs. Elliston?”

“Boston, by way of London.” Like Ester, my fellow travelers accepted my false history without comment or concern. In fact, I seemed to care more about telling my background than they did about hearing it. No questions were asked of me, nor did I ask questions of them. I suspected we all had our secrets.

“What brings you to Texas?”

“Opportunity and adventure.”

He took a long drag of his cigar and appraised me, his eyes lingering on my gun.

“Have we met before?”

I straightened, immediately on my guard. Had Sherman seen my Wanted poster, or a newspaper article about me? It was a question I asked myself nearly every time I met someone new. I forced a smile. “I have not had the honor.”

Of course a man like Sherman was unaffected by the compliment. He expected people to be honored to meet him, especially women. “You have met so many people, I suppose everyone you meet seems familiar.”

It was a pathetic justification, but he appeared to be satisfied by it. He removed his cigar and used it to point to his clothes. “There is a bar of soap in my pants pocket. Would you be so kind as to throw it to me? Mind you do not throw it over my head. I would hate to have to make explanations to your husband.”

I tossed the bar of soap to him perfectly, making a neat splash of water into his face. “I am not married, and have been quite capable of guarding my own virtue these many years.”

He shoved the cigar in his mouth and nodded to my gun. “I imagine you are.”

I executed a low curtsy; too pleased by half with the image the gun gave me. I doubted Maureen considered this particular protection when she forced the gun on me but would be satisfied with the benefit, nonetheless. I picked up the kettle and bucket to leave.

“Miss Elliston, please allow me to carry the bucket to your wagon. It is the least I can do for your service to me.” He held the soap aloft.

I inclined my head, set the bucket on the ground, and scrambled up the side of the creek bank with as much grace as I could muster while holding a kettle full of water. A young soldier carrying a clean uniform for the general met me at the top of the bank.

“Ma'am.”

I inclined my head and walked toward our wagon, where Maureen stirred an impressive fire. “Where's the rest?”

I decided to wait to tell her of Sherman. It would be worth it to see her face if Sherman delivered the bucket of water himself. “It is being carried for me. The bank next to the creek is quite steep.”

I ground the coffee, spooned it into the kettle, and set it over the fire to brew. I helped Maureen finish the biscuits. When the young soldier arrived with the water, our hands were covered in flour.

“With the general's compliments.”

“Thank you, Private. Please, place it on the end of the wagon and thank the general as well.”

The young man scurried off in the direction of a military ambulance. Maureen raised her eyebrows. “The general?”

“You should have fetched the water. You would have gotten the thrill of your life.”

Maureen's eyes widened. “You don't mean!”

“He was covered, but only just.”

“How did he look?”

I leaned close and scanned our surroundings as if I was about to impart important, private information. Maureen moved closer.

“Like a bare-chested man.”

“Oh, you!”

“Hurry down to the creek, Maureen. Maybe you can catch him getting dressed.”

“I'll do no such thing!”

“I know how well you like redheaded men. He might be the only one around for hundreds of miles.”

“He's married!”

“Excellent point. Which is why I'm sure he'd welcome a little harmless flirting.” I motioned at the countryside. “We women are in the minority out here, in case you haven't noticed.”

“I've noticed.” She looked in the direction of Cornelius Warren's wagon. Cornelius lifted his bowler from his head with a flourish. Maureen scowled and turned to poke the fire. “Coffee'll be ready in a minute.”

I waved to Cornelius. “I know I am out of practice, but I
do
believe Cornelius is wooing you, in his blustering way.”

“Humph. If this is what the West is going to be like, men always looking out for a woman to make their life easier, well, I'm not gonna like it overmuch.”

“Do you need my gun for protection?”

“I can handle myself, thank you.”

“I am sure once we get settled the offers for your hand will slow from a flood to a steady trickle.”

Maureen brandished the spoon she was holding. “You aren't so old I won't use this on you.”

I moved out of the way, laughing. “You never did when I was a child and deserved it. Why would you now?”

She waved her hand at me as if swatting away a pesky fly and stirred the beans. “It's good to see you laugh again. Even if it is at my expense.”

“It has been too long, hasn't it?” We sat on upturned crates with two mugs of coffee, waited for our biscuits to cook, and watched our fellow travelers set up camp.

The wagon train consisted of ten wagons: six loaded with supplies for the Army forts; a chuck wagon for Amos and his cowboys; ours; Cornelius and Anna's; and the Schleks', a German family of six and owners of a trailing menagerie of animals including goats, mules, pigs, and a bitch ready to whelp. Frau Schlek was eight months pregnant. She was so hearty and hale I suspected she could stop, have her baby, and continue without missing a beat. The cowboys had a pool going for which would give birth first, her or her dog; I picked the dog.