If a man was a leader, he had to lead. Ike had no business starting off like that, but then, Ike paid no attention to anyone or anything.
Doc Shabbitt glanced around at the others who were now following. He rubbed his horse’s neck. “I’d like to get shut of this bunch,” he said aloud.
The riders closed in around him. “They’ll be on the Arkansas,” Dobbs said. “We’ll come up to them there.”
“He’s well-fixed,” Booster said. “No man goes out on the prairie with a load like that unless it’s valuable. He’s got mules, and they cost twice to three times what oxen cost, and them’s good horses. Matched sorrels like that, you can make yourself a deal with them.”
“Maybe just women’s stuff,” Purdy argued. “We don’t know that he’s got anything worth the trouble. You know how womenfolks are.”
“I know how they are,” Doc Shabbitt said. “I really do.”
“You wait an’ see,” Purdy insisted. “They wouldn’t be carrying gold. Folks come out here to get it, they don’t bring it with them. All they’ll have will be women’s fixin’s.”
“You figure that if you want,” Doc Shabbitt said. “I think there’s gold in that wagon.”
Red Hyle had said nothing. He was slouched in the saddle, just letting them talk. Purdy glanced at him. What about that now? Was he as fast as Red? Sure. He’d never seen anybody he couldn’t outdraw. But supposing, just supposing, that he was not? Supposing it came to a showdown and Red was faster?
He’d be dead.
The mules had lost weight, but they were still pulling. So far the prairies had been soft only in spots and the wagon had moved well, but they were climbing steadily. Not much, just barely enough to feel, but the mules knew it. So did they, when they got down and walked… and these days they walked most of the time.
The road had improved, and the drive to Cottonwood Creek had been only sixteen miles, although the grade was noticeable and the grass had been good. They had arrived early and the mules had time to graze comfortably before being brought in close for the night. The following day the drive had been long and hard, but there, too, at Turkey Creek, the grass was good. There was no fuel and they cooked with buffalo chips and wood brought from earlier camps.
On the first day Con Vallian had disappeared, riding off with only a wave of the hand. Nor did they see him again during their camps at Cottonwood or Turkey Creeks. Susanna found her eyes constantly seeking for him. “I wonder where he is?” she asked suddenly. “Where does he camp?”
“There’s no telling. He’s like an Indian, Susanna. One day he will ride off and we will not see him again.”
“I suppose so.”
Tom turned toward them from the back of the wagon. “He thinks those men… the ones back at the settlement… he thinks they are following us.”
“I doubt it,” Duncan said, “they’d not follow us this far.”
“We killed one of them,” Susanna said. “Maybe they are vengeful men.”
“It’s hard to believe,” Duncan McKaskel stared at the horizon, “there was actually a man killed. Why, I never even saw a man killed before! Come to think of it, I did not see that one killed.”
“He was trying to kill you.”
“I know… although that hardly seems real. I wonder if he really was? Or did Vallian shoot him for reasons of his own?”
“They had your horses, Pa. They threatened you.”
“Yes,” he admitted reluctantly, “yes, they did, but when it comes to killing… well, I doubt if-”
“You said you felt the bullet’s wind when it passed you. You heard the sound of it.”
“I know,” Duncan was having second thoughts, and violence was no part of his ordered plan for living. “But I’ve heard that if a bullet is fired nearby the report is sometimes heard a second time if you’re standing near a tree or post. I could have been mistaken.”
“There was no mistake about the man I hit,” Susanna said, rather sharply. “He was an armed man and he was creeping up to our camp. I hit him, and I’m glad.”
Duncan laughed. “I had no idea you were so warlike.”
“One does what one has to,” she said simply. “I’ve begun to realize that the world is not made up of nice, well-mannered people. There are those, of course, but there are others. Back east we had the law to restrain them, out here we have nothing.”
“It’s up to us,” Tom said quietly. “That’s what Con Vallian says.”
Twice they stopped to rest the horses, and Susanna looked carefully around before they started on. She was alarmed at the change in the mules. They had lost flesh and looked gaunt and tired.
They nooned near a brushy gully and they all took time to pick up sticks to put in the tarp slung under the wagon. Duncan led the mules to water, then let them graze on the buffalo grass nearby.
The air was very still, the sky impossibly clear. Susanna walked slowly toward a small knoll and climbed it. There were a few rocks there, and after a glance around for snakes, she sat down. The wind blew gently against her face and stirred her hair.
She realized with a sort of shock that she loved this country and when Tom came up the hill to join her, she said as much.
“I do, too, Ma. I like to look away there for miles and see all that land. It’s marvelous.”
“It is very mountainous where we’re going, Tom. It won’t be like this.”
“Do you think those men are following us?”
She hesitated. There was no purpose in lying. When trouble came, he must face it too. “Yes, Tom, I think they are. I think Mr. Vallian was right and that they are very bad men. Your father doesn’t like to admit it to himself, he has such faith in people, but he believes it, too.”
“Will we have to fight?”
“I think so. Unless we find some other people… good people.”
“Out here? I think we had better get ready to fight.”
She got up, and they stood there a moment, looking at the vast space. And men, far off-
Tom spoke first. “Ma! Somebody’s coming. See?” He pointed. “Away yonder where that draw comes into the plain.”
It was only a dot, a speck in all that vastness, as they watched the speck grew, and was accompanied by a small cloud of dust.
“It’s Vallian,” Susanna said. “Nobody sits a horse quite like him.”
Tom strained his eyes, but could not make him out. Only a man and a horse drawing nearer.
“We’d better go down,” she said, “Pa is hitching up the team.”
They walked down the hill together, and Susanna saw that Duncan had both his shotgun and rifle near the seat, but she made no comment except to mention Vallian’s approach.
They moved out, walking beside the team, and a few minutes later Con Vallian skirted the trees near their last camp and rode up the slight grade.
“Figured you might need some help,” he said dryly, “with the unloading.”
“Unloading?”
“Uh-huh. Right ahead of you is some sand-hills. You’re going to have to get shut of that load there or kill them mules. Arkansas River’s not far from here.”
“We’ll manage,” McKaskel spoke stiffly, resenting the assurance in Vallian’s tone. “My mules can handle it.”
“Mighty fine mules,” Vallian agreed, “ain’t quite as pert as they was. Reckon it’s the climate?”
He rode on ahead, and Duncan stared after him. “That man-! I wish he’d-!”
“Don’t say it, Duncan. He has helped us, and he will again.”
Yet when the mules leaned into the harness and strained to start the wagon, he felt guilty. They were pulling too hard. It was stupidity to continue on in this way, and his own stubbornness was at fault. For some time he had known they must discard something… but what?
Susanna loved her furniture. The bed they might keep, but that chiffonier…
He could see the drift-sand ahead.
“We can hitch the sorrels ahead of the mules. They aren’t draft animals but they can do it. They’ve been driven to a light wagon.”
Twice in the next quarter of a mile, they stopped. It was then he went to the wagon and looked for the other sets of harness. The extra harnesses had been brought along for repairs, and he had little idea of actually working the sorrels. He got the harness out and threw it on the horses, glancing into the wagon as he did so. The sheen of the mahogany made him turn his head. He was irritated by his feeling of guilt.
They moved forward again, with Tom walking ahead, trying to scout the best route among the sand-hills. Even with the horses the load was heavy.