Trouble Trail (10 page)

At ten o’clock the dancing ended for Resin did not want a sleep-drugged force on his hands in the morning. The scout wondered where Bigelow might be, seeeing Grade making the rounds, and so went to find Calamity to see if she could offer any suggestions.

‘Let’s go look down by my wagon,’ she replied.

‘Sure,’ he answered, but on reaching the side of the girl’s wagon could see no sign of the captain. ‘Where’s Boston at?’

‘Gone to spend the night with Molly’s aunt. Johnson’s on guard and she don’t cotton to being alone.’

‘Molly’d be there.’

‘Nope,’ Calamity answered and something in her tone stopped any further questions Resin might have felt like asking on that subject.

‘In the wagon?’ he asked.

‘Underneath,’ Calamity replied. ‘There’s no room inside.’

‘Huh huh,’ said Resin.

Although he had never owned a watch, Resin woke just after half-past two in the morning. As he moved in the blankets, Calamity stirred beside him and her bare arm slid around his neck. Hungrily her mouth crushed up to his.

‘Time we was thinking about moving, gal,’ he said.

‘So move,’ she replied sleepily.

Fifteen minutes later Resin sat on the blankets, drawing on his shirt and ignoring a pair of cavalry boots which swung down from the wagon. Calamity hurriedly buttoned her shirt and reached for her gunbelt as Bigelow walked away from the wagon carrying his weapon belt in his hands.

‘Get going, Beau,’ she breathed. ‘And good luck.’

All around the camp people were stirring as the sentries went around waking them up. The fires had been allowed to die down, except for one in the centre of the circle and that did not give much light. However, the travellers had been handling harness for long enough to know how to hitch up their teams whether they could see properly or not. Of course, the business could not be done in absolute silence, but it was handled with the minimum of noise.

Following Bigelow’s orders, the men and older boys handled the harnessing of teams and saddling of horses while the womenfolk stayed in the wagons and kept the children quiet. Everything went according to plan, with only minor, easily handled problems coming up.

Carrying a darkened lantern, Eileen arrived at Calamity’s wagon and found one of her friends spluttering sotto voce curses while harnessing the six horse team. As for her second friend—on climbing into the wagon and removing the cover from her lantern, Eileen found Molly seated glassy-eyed on the bed and still wearing her underclothes, her frock lying on the floor with her stockings and shoes.

‘It was wonderful, Eileen,’ she sighed.

‘So I recollect,’ Eileen replied dryly. ‘Come on, kid, get dressed while I see if Calamity needs any help.’

However, Calamity needed no help for she had harnessed her team and was already swinging aboard. All around the camp leather creaked and silence fell as men finished their work and prepared for the departure that would come with the ever growing light. Soon it would be light enough for them to see and when that happened—well, maybe it would be the last dawn any of them saw. Somewhere in the darkness the Cheyenne were gathering and already their coyote-yip signals began to ring out.

‘Got your gun ready, Boston?’ asked Calamity, uncoiling her whip and shaking the kinks out of it.

‘Right here,’ Eileen answered, lifting a magnificent Purdey shotgun from a walnut and brass case.

‘Load it,’ Calamity ordered. ‘Is it clean?’

‘I did it while you pair were holly-gagging around last night.’

‘You scared, Boston?’ grinned Calamity.

‘I’m scared, are you?’

‘Sure. So scared that I reckon I’ll do every blasted thing right when the time comes, same as you pair will. You did last time there was a mite of fuss. Say, I wonder how the champeen’s making out?’

‘She was doing all right last night when I saw her,’ smiled Molly, her fear dying at the other pair’s example. ‘She and Muldoon disappeared into the darkness.’

‘There was a lot of that going on,’ Calamity remarked. ‘Break open a box of shells for my carbine, Molly, gal, and stop blushing.’

Bigelow and Resin appeared, leading their horses. Looking like butter would not melt in his mouth, and acting as formal and polite as if attending a ball at the White House, the captain touched his hat brim.

‘Everything all right, ladies?’ he asked.

‘Right as the off-side of a hoss,’ Calamity replied. ‘And for the Lord’s sake climb up here and give the gal a kiss afore you go. Me ‘n’ Boston’ll look the other way.’

‘Calam!’ Molly gasped, blushing like a schoolgirl.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ suggested Eileen. ‘I’ll close both my eyes, Beau can come up the other side, that way you’ll both get kissed.’

‘Go on, Wade,’ grinned the scout. ‘Kiss your gal, or damned if I don’t.’

‘Let’s both kiss Boston,’ Bigelow countered.

‘Now that’s what I call a real good idea,’ smiled Eileen. ‘Only hurry and do it or we’ll have to start without.’

Both men climbed into the wagon, each kissed his girl, then both gave Eileen a resounding sthack at the same moment. With the service rendered, and their innocence of favouritism established, Resin and Bigelow. jumped from the wagon box, took their horses and rode off.

‘Damned if I ever thought I’d be kissed by a pair of unshaven men before breakfast, neither of them my husband, and like it,’ Eileen stated.

‘Reckon you’ve done a lot of things you wouldn’t’ve thought possible afore you left Boston,’ Calamity answered.

Thinking of the fight on the river bank, Eileen smiled. ‘You can say that again, Miss Canary.’

The sky grew brighter by the second. Hands lifted reins, coiled around whip handles, gripped weapons. Men threw glances at their loved ones and silence lay like a cloud over the wagons. This time Calamity did not think about music, her eyes kept flickering towards the slopes around them as she waited for the signal to roll. To one side the cavalry mounted their horses and drew the Springfield carbines from their saddleboots ready br use. Other mounted men gathered around the train’s livestock and spare horses ready to start them moving when Bigelow gave the word. From beyond the rim came coyote-yips which did not originate through four-legged throats.

‘Now?’ asked Bigelow.

‘Not just yet,’ replied Resin, gauging the distance to the Coyote-yips.

Suddenly the Cheyenne appeared, topping the surrounding rims and racing their ponies down towards what they hoped was as helpless a bunch of white brothers as could be found. The drumming of something over a hundred and fifty sets of hostile war pony hooves rumbled out but as yet the war yells had not started, they were being reserved to shatter the travellers’ sleep, to jar them into awoken confusion and add to the certain defeat of the hated people who had taken the Cheyenne lands.

Which would have worked a treat if it had not been for Beau Resin’s plan.

‘Let ‘em roll,’ Resin hissed in Bigelow’s ear.

‘Charge!’

Out rang Bigelow’s command, sent forth on the expelled air from a powerful pair of lusty young lungs. Echoing the shout came the wild war scream of the Comanche and that whole column sprang into movement.

Up rose the wagonmaster’s arm, then his whip lash snapped out to crack over the expectant heads of his team. The horses, waiting restlessly for their signal to go, thrust into their harness and the wagon lurched forward, turning from the circle and off in the direction of the west coast. Showing his attendance to orders, the driver of the second wagon started his team moving an instant later and the herd handlers closed in to move the stock into wakefulness ready to go. Wagon after wagon, as its turn came, rocked forward, urged on by cracking whip and bawled out profanity. The Cheyenne braves’ wild war shouts rose and faltered in confusion as they saw the exodus begin.

‘Fire!’ roared Bigelow to his men as half the circle disintegrated and became a moving line.

Flame lashed from the barrels of his men’s carbines, lead ripping into the exposed Cheyenne line. Two men and three horses went down; not bad shooting from the back of a fiddlefooting horse, aimed at a fast-moving target, with the notoriously inaccurate singleshot Springfield carbines the U.S. Government saw fit to issue to their loyal cavalrymen.

‘Yeeah!’ screeched Calamity and her whip’s gun-shot crack exploded over the heads of her team. ‘Get to running, you slab-sided crow-bait.’

‘Imagine you’re on Boston High Street!’ Eileen squealed, clutching the Purdey in hot, sweaty little hands. ‘Pull!’

With a heave that almost lifted the wagon’s wheels from the ground, the six great horses pulled; even the centre off-side critter for he had been around long enough to know when he might slack with impunity and when he must pull his guts Out.

On the heels of the preceding wagon and last in the line, Calamity’s outfit rolled out. Miss Canary was going to war.

CHAPTER TEN

EVEN as Resin cut loose with his Remington, he could see the surprise tactic had caused some consternation among the attacking Cheyenne. Having planned all their strategy on raiding a sleeping camp circle, it shook them to their breech-clothes to suddenly see the circle break up and the wagons pull out like the devil after a yearling, their occupants anything but bewildered and half-asleep.

Resin’s bullet flipped a hard-riding brave backwards off his war pony, although it must be admitted that the scout did not take deliberate aim, singling out one special man. Rather he threw a bullet in the direction of the thickest concentration of hostiles and hoped
Ka-Dih
would still look kindly on his adopted follower. Thumb-cocking the Remington, Resin fired again but without result.

The deep bellow of a Dragoon caught Resin’s ears—its forty grain powder load gave a distinctive sound, deeper than the cough of a lighter charged revolver, different from the sullen boom of a shotgun or muzzle-loader and unmistakable in comparison to the sharper crack of a cartridge-firing rifle. Instantly Resin became all attention for only one man he knew around that area toted a Dragoon—Sand Runner showed preference for the four pound, one ounce, thumb-busting old Colt giant. If Sand Runner died, his followers were sure to break and would not come back to a place which harboured so much medicine-breaking power.

Before Resin could locate the mystery leader, he found himself engaged in a shooting match against a group of fast galloping bucks who were coming rapidly into buffalo-bow range.

Over to Resin’s right and towards the rear of the column a wild shape in the dress of a Cheyenne war-bonnet chief, his face covered with yellow ochre and hands concealed under much decorated U.S. cavalry gauntlets, fired another shot from his old Dragoon Colt. Caught by the smashing impact of the .44 ball, Lieutenant Grade’s horse went down. Grade managed to kick his feet free of the stirrups and lit down running, spitting curses as he looked for the man who killed his horse. If ever a young shavetail lieutenant had found trouble, it was Grade at that moment. The wagons went streaming by him and unless he could make it to one of them, he would be unlikely to see noon that day. With that in mind, he ran towards the wagon line, making for the second from last and hoping like hell that he made it. His chances did not look any too good for a young brave bore down on him, buffalo lance tip dropping ready to split him like a chicken on a roasting stick.

‘Mr. Grade!’ roared a voice from behind him and he saw Bigelow charging in his direction, only the captain had further to travel than had the Cheyenne. Twice Bigelow fired, emptying the last two chambers in his gun, without hitting the brave. An Army Colt was probably the finest percussion-fired revolver ever made, but like all its kind it could not be quickly reloaded; and time was something Grade was fast running out of

On Calamity’s wagon the girls saw Grade’s danger and it threw Eileen into one hell of a predicament. She held a loaded shotgun, nine buckshot in each barrel just waiting to be turned adrift. Yet Eileen felt scared. She remembered conversations heard when her husband and father—both keen shooting men—discussed something called the spread of the shot. According to them, the buckshot balls would spread about an inch apart for every yard of range. Which meant that in shooting the Indian, she might also catch Grade with one or more of the .32 calibre balls.

‘Cut loose, Boston!’ Calamity screeched, although the Lord only knew how she managed to see what was happening and guess at Eileen’s problem. ‘He’s dead if you don’t!’

And that, as Eileen well knew, was the living, gospel truth. Muttering a prayer, Eileen sighted the gun and pressed the trigger. The shotgun kicked like a Missouri mule and black powder obscured the girl’s view; nor, if the truth be told, did she want to see the result.

Calamity let out a wild ‘Yahoo!’ as the Indian tipped backwards over his pony’s rump and she overlooked the sight of Grade’s hat being ripped from his head by one of the buckshot balls. However, Grade was on his feet still and Calamity allowed he would rather lose a replaceable hat than his irreplaceable life.

‘Calam!’ Molly screamed, catching the red-head’s arm and pointing to the other side of the wagon.

Unnoticed by Calamity, one of the braves had cut in and headed his horse alongside her team. He lowered his buffalo-lance and aimed it at the heaving sides of the lead horse. If he thrust home and tumbled the horse, he would effectively bring the wagon to a halt.

There was no time for Eileen to try her shaky aim, nor for Calamity to draw and fire her Navy Colt, nor with any chance of making a certain hit. Yet she did not care, for in her good right hand she held as deadly a weapon as either shotgun or Colt under the circumstances.

Taking aim, she sent the whip’s lash licking forward to curl around the man’s neck. Then she heaved back on the handle and, taken by surprise, the man came jerking backwards off his horse. He lit down on the ground between his horse and Calamity’s team. A steel shod hoof smashed on to his head and unconsciousness came down on him. Which might be claimed fortunate, for the wagon’s wheels passed over his body.

Then as suddenly as it began, the attack came to an end. Demoralised by the white men’s unusual tactics of running and fighting instead of allowing themselves to be slaughtered, the Cheyenne had no heart in the battle. Nor did the spirited opposition from the travellers do anything to increase the Cheyenne desire for war.

Bigelow had come alongside Grade, caught the young shave-tail’s hand and heaved him up on the rump of the horse. Swinging the double-loaded animal towards the wagons, Bigelow headed for the nearest.

‘Jump for it, Dave!’ he said, dropping the formal ‘Mr. Grade’ in his excitement, then seeing whose wagon he made for, went on, ‘And keep your hands off the little blonde gal. She’s mine, boy—and how she’s mine.’

Which, as Eileen was married and Calamity appeared to be well hooked by Beau Resin, did not give Grade much of a chance in the romance line, even if he had the time or inclination for it at such a moment.

Even as he let his burden off in a flying leap that carried Grade to the box of Calamity’s wagon, Bigelow saw the Cheyenne attack break and warriors go streaming up the slopes taking their dead and wounded with them.

At the other end of the train Beau Resin achieved one of his objects. He picked out Sand Runner, guided by the bull-roar of the Dragoon as the mystery chief cut down one of the soldiers. Unfortunately, Resin was not in much of a position to do anything about the chief for his Remington hung empty in his hand and Sand Runner raced his fancy palomino stallion up the slope to safety.

Holstering the empty revolver, Resin bent down and jerked the Spencer carbine from the saddleboot, drawing back the side hammer as the gun came to his shoulder. He took careful sight and touched off the shot. Although Sand Runner’s attack medicine had gone sour, it seemed that the Great Spirit still looked with favour on his fair-haired boy. Just as Resin touched off the shot, a young buck swung between Sand Runner and the lined barrel of the Spencer. At that range even the forty-five grain powder charge which powered the gun could not throw its .56 calibre bullet through the brave and into a man several yards beyond. The annoying thing to Resin’s mind being that the point of impact on the brave showed he held true and Sand Runner ought to have become, in Western terms, a good Indian.

Instead the buck went down and Sand Runner raced on unharmed up the slope. The Spencer was a good gun, easy to reload with a further seven rounds, accurate and far more powerful than any of its repeater rivals, but it had faults. One of the worst being that after working the loading lever to eject an empty case and feed a loaded round into the chamber, one had to manually draw back the hammer before being able to fire—which proved to be one of the reasons the gun fell by the wayside in competition with the less powerful but more easily operated Winchester Model of 1866. Before Resin could complete the reloading process, Sand Runner had passed over the rim and out of sight. With him went the remaining members of his band.

Tearing his horse up the slope, Bigelow, flush-faced and excited, brought it alongside the scout’s Appaloosa and yelled,

‘Let’s run them back to the hills.’

‘Nope!’ Resin replied. ‘Least-wise, I wouldn’t, Wade.’

‘We’ve got them on the run now—’

‘Sure. But take after ‘em and dog-my-cats if you afore you now it you don’t catch up with ‘em.’

‘Would that be bad?’ asked the captain, holding in his restive horse where a few short weeks, days even, ago he would have gone head down and hell bent for glory without thinking of asking for any advice.

‘Not if you caught ‘em on ground of your choosing,’ admitted the scout.

But we wouldn’t do that,’ Bigelow stated rather than asked.

‘Put yourself in Sand Runner’s shoes. Would you stop and make a fight against men better armed than you unless the ground suited you and your weapons—And don’t throw West Point training at me, Wade. There’s hoss-Indians out here who’ve forgotten more than most cavalry officers know about light cavalry tactics. You might that happen you get to be a line officer and I reckon you’ll maybe stay alive long enough to call Molly “Grandma.” ’

A slightly red tinge crept back into cheeks that had lost the flush of eager excitement. Then Bigelow grinned and slapped the big scout on the shoulder.

‘All right, blast you,’ he told Resin. ‘I’ll accept your advice and plead insanity at the court martial.’ He paused then looked into Resin’s eyes. ‘Your plan worked, Beau.’

‘Your plan, Wade,’ the scout corrected. ‘If it’d gone wrong, they’d’ve held you responsible, so damned if you don’t get the credit now it’s come off. It was a fool notion anyways, just how risky you’ll get to know when you’re handling your own company out here.’

From the way the usually unemotional scout spoke, Bigelow gained some slight inkling of how serious the risk had been. Surprise had been the plan’s sole virtue; and even so it had been a desperate gamble. While the gamble came off that time, such a plan could hardly be written into the books as offering a standard guaranteed safe method of defeating an Indian attack.

Even so victory had not come without cost. Three soldiers and two civilians died during the hectic mêlée, several more had wounds of greater or lesser severity. Yet the toll might well have been higher and probably would have been, even to the death or capture of every man, woman and child present had they fought in a circle.

‘What now?’ asked Bigelow, watching the line of wagons drawing to a halt, his eyes anxiously searching the team and box of the last in line.

‘Call up a few of your boys, then me ‘n’ you’ll go up then and see Sand Runner’s boys on their way.’

Already Muldoon’s bull-voiced roars had gathered and formed up his men and an order from Bigelow brought a corporal’s escort of four troopers to his side. Not enough men to tempt the captain into rashness, but plenty to fight off an attempted ambush by the departing Cheyenne. On reaching the top of the slope, they saw the last of the Indians disappearing over slopes and down valley bottoms ahead of them.

‘And that’s that,’ said Bigelow.

‘You sound a mite regretful,’ answered the scout.

‘Do I? I reckon I might be, a little. Terrible as it sounds, Beau, an officer can win more distinction in one day’s Indian fighting than by working like a dog for years behind a desk, And in the final estimate, distinction carries the promotion in the end.’

‘Yep,’ drawled the scout. ‘Only there’s ways of getting that distinction, Wade. Way Custer does it is charging in head down, flags flying, band playing—and civilian newspaper writer friends looking on, and to hell with planning—’

‘You don’t sound to like General Custer,’ Bigelow interrupted.

‘He’s either the bravest man in the whole danged U.S. Cavalry, or so damned stupid he ain’t got the sense to be scared. And, whichever way, one of these days he’s going to wind up getting him and a lot of his men killed.’

On June 28, 1876, while watching and listening to the Crow scout, Curly, bring the news of Custer’s defeat and death on the Little Bighorn River—Bigelow being aboard the steamboat
Far West
with the reserve troops—the captain was to remember Beau Resin’s words.

‘And the other kind who gain distinction?’

‘Oh them. They don’t get their names in fancy dude newspapers. But they come out here willing to admit some hawg. dirty, grease-stinking civilian scout who’s lived among ‘em likely knows more about Injuns than they do. So they listen to advice, ask questions, learn and use what they learn. Maybe they never have the glory of wiping out a whole damned great village, but happen they do, it’s warriors and not old men, women and children they kill. Which’s what Custer killed in, how’d they call it, his “signal success” against Black Kettle’s village on the Washita. Nope, the other kind don’t do that. Young Dave Grade’s one of the other kind—and so are you.’

A flush of pleasure tinged the young captain’s face. ‘Thanks, Beau.’

For what, speaking true? I lived among the Comanche long enough to get so I reckon the truth never hurt nobody. If I don’t like a man, I tell him, stay out of his way and expect him to keep clear of mine. So why’n hell shouldn’t I tell a man when I like what he is?’

‘Damned if I know why not, Beau,’ replied Bigelow, grinning like a schoolboy. ‘And I’m not objecting; especially as it’s me getting praised. Did you see the mysterious Sand Runner?’

‘See him?’ growled Resin and for a couple of minutes spat out a comprehensive flow of invective, finishing with, ‘I’ll say I saw him. That jasper’s got more luck than a man’s got good right to. I had him meat-in-the-pot under my sights and a damned young buck rode ‘tween us just as I touched off the shot. If Sand Runner knows about that, he’ll use it to claim his medicine can’t be all bad.’

‘Then we might still have trouble with him?’

‘Might do. There’s something about that Sand Runner I can’t savvy, and it worries the hell out of me. We’ll have no more fuss with him and his boys today, and that’s for sure.’

‘Then let’s head down to the wagons and see about cleaning up. I want to make sure M—everybody’s all right.’

‘Everybody being a lil blonde schoolmarm,’ grinned Resin. ‘Was I you, I’d be real polite and well-behaved when she gets fool enough to marry you. I don’t know who handed who a licking that night back there afore we reached the plains, but she’d been plumb in the thick of it and that was mighty rough company.’

‘There are times you civilians think you’re so smart,’ sniffed Bigelow. ‘Head back to the train, Beau, we’ll move on for a mile or so, then make camp and attend to the burying.’

At the end of the attack Calamity started to slow down her racing team. It was no easy job, even for one as skilled at horse-handling as Calamity, for the big horses ran hard and packed power to spare. Spluttering curses, she hauled back on the reins with both hands, a moccasined foot ramming down on the brake to hold it fully home. With a casual disregard for the safety of his limbs, young Grade bounded from the wagon box and sprinted to the heads of the slowing team. Grabbing the two lead horses, he lent a hand at getting them under control and helped Calamity halt the wagon within a foot of the preceding one.

‘Are you pair all right?’ Calamity asked, looking at the two pallid faces at her side.

‘I’m going to faint,’ Molly answered.

‘Drop first so I can land on you,’ Eileen told her in a strained voice. ‘I—I—I killed a man.’

‘Lean over the side of the wagon and let it go, Boston,’ Calamity said gently. ‘There’s no disgrace in it.’

Neither girl did faint and although badly shaken by the experience of taking another human being’s life, Eileen did not need to follow Calamity’s advice. With an effort, she controlled her rising stomach and then settled down on the wagon box to await orders.

The wagons moved on for a mile, halting upon the banks of a pleasant stream and forming a defensive circle. Bigelow sent out pickets around the area to watch for any return of the Cheyenne and then started to organise the burying; and care of the injured.

Towards evening Eileen sat with Calamity at the freight outfit’s fire. Molly had departed earlier to take her school class and the two girls were conscious of the brooding air that hung over the camp. Before either could speak of the situation, they saw a deputation approaching. One look told Calamity that Sergeant Muldoon, the corporal and two oldest troopers did not come on a social visit, nor to see her.

‘I’ll just go check the horses, Boston,’ she said, rising. ‘Stay put, gal, I can manage.’

Eileen opened her mouth to object, followed the direction of Calamity’s gaze and closed it again. One look told her that something unusual was in the air. The men all appeared to have taken extra care with their appearance, not only by trying to clean up their uniforms, but taking the trouble to shine their brass work and polish their boots.

‘Asking your pardon, Miz Bos—Tradle, ma’am,’ Muldoon aid, coming to a halt in a parade ground brace and throwing her a salute straight out of the drill manual. ‘Could we speak with you?’

‘Certainly, gentlemen. Would you care to sit down?’

‘ ‘Tis a formal thing, ma’am,’ the burly sergeant replied. You’ll be knowing we lost three men in the fighting.’

‘I know,’ Eileen agreed.

‘T’would be the senior officer’s lady’s place to write to their kin, ma’am, only the cap’n’s not married, yet. So we wondered if you’d do it for us.’

A lump rose in Eileen’s throat as she realised the honour the men gave her. She saw young Grade standing to one side of the men, clearly having given his permission for them to approach her with the request.

‘Have I the right to do so?’ she asked.

Taking off his hat, the young lieutenant looked at the hole in the top of its crown and thought of the hooves of the attacking brave’s pony as they sounded behind him. He knew what Eileen must have gone through deciding whether to chance shooting with the risk of killing him while trying to save his life.

‘Yes, ma’am, Boston,’ he said. ‘You’ve earned the right.’

‘We’d take it kind if you’d do it, ma’am,’ put in one of the troopers, a grizzled veteran who had joined years before the Dragoon Colt appeared to be damned as a new-fangled contraption that would never last.

‘Gentlemen,’ Eileen replied and, had he been there to see it, her husband would have marvelled at the quiet, genuine humility in her voice. ‘I’d count it a privilege to do it.’

Coming to her feet, Eileen went to the wagon and returned with pen, ink and paper. Muldoon produced a box for her to sit upon and the men gathered around her. While she had known none of the dead men, except as familiar faces among Bigelow’s troop, Eileen wrote letters to their next-of-kin which would long be treasured. She wrote simply, sincerely, without mawkish sentiment; and the wet-caused wrinkles the distant readers found on the paper were not placed there as an affectation but came from the tears which trickled down Eileen’s cheeks as she wrote.

‘Damned smoky fire,’ she said, wiping a hand across her eyes after finishing the last letter.

‘Yes, Miz Bos—Tradle.’

‘Make it Boston and save your spluttering, Muldoon,’ Eileen said.

‘Yes, ma’am, Miz Boston, ma’am!’ grinned the burly sergeant. ‘And thanks.’

‘You could have asked Miss Johnson to write the letters,’ Eileen pointed out. ‘She and Captain Bigelow are engaged.’

‘Aye. But she’s not Army—yet.’

‘Stick your chest in, gal,’ Calamity said, walking up after Muldoon’s party threw Eileen salutes and marched away. ‘You look like to burst.’

‘I’ve become accepted as Army, Calam,’ Eileen replied.

‘Sure, I always knew you would. Soldiers always go for mean, ornery gals like you and me. Which’s why you ‘n’ me never got on at first, we’re too damned much alike.’

‘Time was when I wouldn’t have taken that as a compliment,’ smiled Eileen, then the smile died. ‘Everybody looks miserable, Calam.’

‘Sure do,’ agreed Calamity. ‘Most of ‘em, especially those who lost somebody, or got wounded on their hands, are asking themselves why the hell they came West. Happen they come up with the wrong answer most of them’ll be licked right now.’

‘Then we have to make them forget today, or get them over it,’ Eileen stated firmly but grimly.

‘You’re the eddicated one, Boston, gal. You tell me how.’

Eileen explained her plan and together the Boston socialite and the wild Western girl went around the train. Using the power of their combined personalities, they gathered every man and woman who could walk, calling them all together around the main fire in the centre of the camp. There Eileen addressed them, speaking as she had earlier written, saying the things those gloom-ridden travellers wished to hear and urging them to carry on. Then Eileen stopped talking and Calamity stepped forward. In a quiet voice, she told them of the future, the land ahead of them, the new life waiting for them and of the importance of looking forward instead of back.

‘By cracky, ladies,’ said an elderly man whose youngest son died with a Cheyenne arrow through his chest. ‘You’re right. My Jimmy wouldn’t want us all to sit grieving for him and letting everything we all worked for go.’

‘Thank you, Mrs. Boston, Calamity,’ a woman who had lost her husband went on. ‘You’ve given me heart to finish the trip.’

Once more Calamity and Eileen had helped hold the wagon train together and given it their strength at a time when such strength stood badly needed.

Molly came through the crowd followed by her children, forming them up in a neat block facing her two friends. Raising her right hand, she halted the crowd as it prepared to break up.

‘Before you go,’ she said, ‘the children and I would like to pay a tribute to two gallant and for-real ladies. In doing this, Boston, I don’t want you to think I’m belittling you, or holding a grudge for our little contretemps at Battle Creek—’

‘If that means when you had the fight, who won?’ called a man.

‘We’ll say it was a stand-off,’ Molly answered, her eyes sparkling. ‘Anyways. here is a little tribute to two real game girls. You would have been included in this, Eileen, but who in the world could make a rhyme with Boston.’