Before them were the breaks of the Arkansas, a rough, wooded and brushy area where any danger might lurk. Emerging into a small open space they found three graves. From the brief words scratched on the crosses two had died from cholera, one from Indians.
Vallian noticed them, and shrugged. “Riding back from Californy I counted more’n a thousand graves of folks that died or were killed last year.”
His amusement was ironic. “I reckon some of them tried to go through to the gold fields with their wagons loaded too heavy.”
“Possibly,” Duncan said quietly, “possibly they did just that. And perhaps some of them managed to get through, even though they were overloaded.”
“Mr. Vallian, were you ever married?”
“Me? Never.”
“Women, Mr. Vallian, often build their lives around things. The proper things in their proper places give women assurance, a sense of lightness and stability. Perhaps we men lack that, for better or worse, or maybe we have other things to which we give our attention.
“In this wagon we have a bed that my wife’s family brought over from Devonshire almost two hundred years ago. We have several other articles of furniture equally as important. We could very easily have left those articles at home and loaded the space with food or implements, but the happiness of Susanna is very important to me, and wherever we are, those things will be home to her. Do you understand, Mr. Vallian?”
Con pushed his hat back from his face and gave one shake of his head. “Yes, I expect I do. I understand mighty well. My own pa fetched things over the mountains with him that he never found use for, but that still ain’t gettin’ this wagon through that sand, nor along the Arkansas bottom, either, where there’s quicksand.”
“When we come to a bridge, Mr. Vallian, we will cross it.”
“Quicksand ain’t no bridge, and as far as these sand-hills are concerned, you don’t have to wait. They are here right now. All you got to do is roll on ahead.”
He turned his horse. “And don’t use yourself up. One night soon you’ll have visitors.”
“You mean that bunch from back there? You think they’d follow this far?”
“I think they have follered you. I think they are just a-settin’ back waitin’ for you to get bogged down or in some corner of the breaks where they’ll have you dead to rights.”
Duncan McKaskel let his hands fall to his sides. He knew his mules could not last much longer with the present load and the terrain he was crossing. He knew Susanna would be broken-hearted at leaving behind her possessions, and he did not want her to have to leave them behind. He knew the trail before them was long and bleak with only uncertainty beyond that. And now this.
He had been frightened that day in the town. He had gone ahead, and he remembered how each foot came down almost of its own volition as he moved forward. He had been walking ahead, moving into a trap with no thought of turning aside.
That had been in the open. Here there would be unseen enemies… and he remembered those men, a bad, bad lot.
“We will have to do the best we can,” he said simply, “but now we have to be getting on.”
He started the team, and they leaned into their harness, he took them gently, talking to them, urging them on. They started the wagon, and with the added strength of the sorrels, got through the first stretch of sand.
Night came before they cleared the sand-hills and got down to the bottom land near the river.
They camped where there was a good cool spring, with grass and water near Walnut Creek. As Duncan McKaskel stripped the harness from the horses and mules, he looked around for Con. He had disappeared. “Did you see Mr. Vallian leave, Tom?”
“No, Pa. He was here one minute and when I looked around he was gone.”
“We’ll have a quick meal,” McKaskel said, “and then we’ll put out our fire.”
When the boy started to gather sticks at a place near the wagon, McKaskel shook his head. “No… down in the hollow.”
They wasted no time. Susanna made a quick pot of coffee and heated up some stew she had carried along in the wagon. When they had finished eating, the fire was put out and they moved back to the wagon.
Duncan had drawn the wagon among some trees and had the stock picketed nearby, but as darkness closed down he watered the stock again and brought them in close.
“Tom, you take the first watch,” Duncan handed his gold watch to the boy. “When it’s ten o’clock, you waken your mother.”
Susanna slept in the wagon with the shotgun close by. She lay awake for a few minutes, regretting the red glow of the coals and worried by the rising wind.
CHAPTER VIII
He came into the camp so softly she had no idea he was there until he spoke. “They’re out there, ma’am. You’d better wake your man.”
She had been sitting with her back against the wheel, the shotgun in her lap, and she had heard no sound nor movement but the wind in the trees.
“You move very quietly,” she said.
“I don’t know what they’re figurin’ on, but you’d better be ready.”
He saw her move toward the wagon, then slipped back into the brush. The wind was strong and rising. It was going to rain… maybe hail. Vallian glanced at the sky, but it was so dark he could see no detail of the clouds, just a solid blackness. Far-off he heard a rumble of thunder, and he wondered if they had ever experienced a prairie thunderstorm. If they had not, they were in for a shock.
He held his rifle ready and went down through the trees, easing down a steep bank by passing himself from tree to tree where he could not have walked without them. At the bottom, close against a tree trunk, he listened.
It was a good night for an attack, too much noise to hear clearly, and constant movement of trees and brush. They would come along the creek bottom… their own camp was on the river or near it, not three hundred yards off. There was small chance that anyone else was anywhere around, but in the night the sound of the shots, if there were any, would not carry any distance at all.
By the dim firelight, he could make them out. There were eight. Doc Shabbitt was there, of course, and the Booster. Boston Pangman, Ike, and Purdy Mantle. The man crouching at the fire was Dobbs and then big Red Hyle. Con Vallian studied him for a moment. He knew all about Hyle.
Brutal, ruthless, contemptuous, and cold, Red Hyle was an Irish-Finn, quick with his hands, unusually strong, and a man utterly without regard for anyone. Red would be the worst of them. Purdy was good. Fast with his hands and a dead shot, but Purdy had a streak of decency in him, although how it ever got there was a question, and in that crowd it would be construed as weakness. He might hesitate to kill Hyle, but Hyle would not hesitate one instant to kill him… or anybody.
Nor would Doc Shabbitt, but Shabbitt was cautious. Doc would always try to have two aces in his pocket and another up his sleeve. He would kill and quickly, but only if your back was turned or he had a clean shot at a distance. Doc was officially the boss, but Con Vallian smiled cynically into the darkness. Doc could lead only as long as he could stay ahead of them, and he would much rather guide from behind.
They were taking their time. Suddenly he wondered-where was the Huron?
Vallian crouched, squatting at the foot of the tree, then he moved suddenly, swiftly, staying low. His body merged with that of a clump of brush.
The Huron!
He was out here… he had to be.
He had heard stories about the man. He was a skillful hunter, a stalker of game, and he had killed more than one man. He was like a ghost in the woods, and in this timber along the river, he was in his element.
Vallian strained his ears for sound, heard nothing. He straightened up, keeping himself merged with the brush, much of which was clumps of willow and some persimmon, and moved away. He was good, he told himself, but was he as good as the Huron? Was he even half as good?
He saw the shine of water from the river. On his right, between himself and the river the brush seemed to be an impenetrable wall. He crouched again, trying to identify the shapes around him.
Did something move? Or was it imagination? He eased his rifle forward in his hands.