Duncan came out of the darkness. “Susanna, you’d better sleep in the wagon. I’ll sleep under it. It may rain.”
She had not liked sleeping alone in the wagon, the space was cramped and she could not see what was happening, but now she was grateful. The darkness was no longer comforting.
“Are you all right, Duncan?”
“Yes, I am. Tom’s already under the wagon again.”
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know… around somewhere.”
“Duncan? I am glad he’s here.”
He was silent. Was he thinking that she doubted his ability? She had not meant it that way, but two men were better than one.
“So am I.” he said quietly.
It was not until she was in the wagon and almost asleep that she realized she had said nothing about hitting that man. She chuckled suddenly. Duncan would be shocked… and surprised. After all, a well-brought up young lady did not go around clubbing men in the darkness.
Surprisingly, she slept, and when Duncan touched her arm to awaken her the sky was gray. “Tom’s still asleep, but Vallian thinks we should move.”
She had not undressed, so she smoothed out her skirt as much as possible and put on her shoes. A fire was going, and Vallian had made coffee. He was squatting near the blaze, warming his hands. He looked around at her. “You look even better in the morning,” he said, “Fine thing in a woman.”
“What do you know about women in the morning?” she spoke sharply, and without thinking.
“More’n you’d want to hear, I expect. I ain’t always lived in the far out lands.”
“Are they gone? Those men, I mean?”
“Doubt it. You got too much they want, but the farther out you get the more they’ll be likely to leave. Too much chance of Injuns.”
“What about us?”
He shrugged. “You seem willin’ to take the chance. I’ve knowed folks to cross all the way without seein’ ary an Injun, and others had a fight ever’ day. You face things when you get to ’em.”
“You don’t think we’ll make it, do you?”
He shrugged again. “You got a chance.”
They ate a quick breakfast and drank coffee. Tom awakened when they were hitching the mules and ate the bacon and bread that had been saved for him.
Con Vallian mounted his horse and took a quick scout through the trees. “Nothin’ close by,” he said, “Let’s roll ’em!”
The wagon moved out, with Duncan handling the mules, his rifle beside him. Tom rode in the back, keeping an eye on the horses. Vallian scouted on ahead.
“I’m sorry to say it,” Duncan spoke suddenly, “but there’s something about him that irritates me.”
“He’s a conceited boor.”
“Maybe. But he knows this country, Susanna, and he knows how to get along in it. We must take advantage of every minute, and learn from him.”
“He moves like a cat.”
“Yes… yes, he does.”
“He said you did very well in the settlement. He spoke well of you.”
“He said that?”
They left the trees behind, moved out upon the bald plain. At least, Susanna thought, they can’t approach us here without our seeing them. They will have to come out in the open.
Con Vallian had disappeared. She looked around. He was gone-vanished from sight.
“Duncan! What happened? Where did he go?”
He stared, peered around the edges of the wagon cover toward their rear… nothing. “Well, I’ll be damned!”
Suddenly their wagon topped out on the edge of a long slope. Before them the country was spread out-miles upon miles of pale gray-green grass and exposed ridges of red sandstone. No trees, no brush… a few clumps of prickly pear on a slope, and far off a herd of antelope and a few distant black spots.
There, well down the slope before them was Vallian, sitting his horse and looking the country over. Suddenly Susanna was frightened. An army could have hidden here and she would never have guessed… or an Indian war party.
Duncan McKaskel drew up and looked out over the wide space before them. They would camp down there tonight, and for days afterward. It was frightening.
He shuddered suddenly, and put his hand on hers. “My God,” he said softly, “to think of all that! And if anything happens to us there’s nobody to help. There’s no doctor, no hospital-”
“We knew it would be that way, Duncan,” she said quietly. “We talked about it.”
“That’s just it. We talked about it. But we did not know! There is no way one can know without seeing it, feeling it.”
“I wonder how many have died out there? Where nobody knew?”
“Many have died, Susanna, but more will come. There are always people who hope, who wish, who dream.”
He gathered the reins and spoke to the mules. They hesitated, leaned into their collars and be slapped them with the reins. The wagon started, and rolled on.
Susanna’s eyes went far ahead, to a small, moving dot. He must have turned slightly because the dot went from black to a kind of brown as the sun hit his buckskins.
“We are not quite alone, Duncan,” she said quietly. “He is out there. Vallian is there.”
“Yes,” his eyes were somber, his lips unsmiling. “Yes, he is.”
CHAPTER IV
The “settlement” was a couple of log houses and a barn. In one of the houses there was a bar, a table, and a few crudely-made chairs. Further out there were a few abandoned lean-tos and dugouts. It was in low land near the river, inclined to be swampy.
Doc Shabbitt tilted the jug over his tin cup. He was a fat, sloppy man with small eyes and a mean, petulant mouth.
“They wasn’t alone!” he said again. “They had somebody with ’em!”
Dobbs was a thin, duly man in ragged buckskins. “There was three of them,” he insisted. “I scouted their camp, an’ we all seen ’em when they come up from the river. It had to be either the woman or the boy who killed Lenny.”
“That city woman?” Shabbitt spat. “I’ll kill her. If she killed my boy-”
“She’s mine.” Red Hyle was a powerful man with a sullen look about him. “I done tol’ you that. You lay a hand to her before I tell you an’ I’ll stretch your hide, Doc.”
“Now, see here-!”
“You want to argue the question, Doc?” Red Hyle held the bottle poised over his glass, but the bottle was in his left hand. Doc did not want to argue. Nor was it his way to face anything directly. He preferred the oblique. He never expected to have trouble with Red Hyle. He expected to kill him first, but in his own time, when Hyle had something worth killing him for.
Besides, Red was too good with a gun-quick and dangerous.
“You seen the tracks,” he said, “he’s loaded heavy. He’s packin’ a lot we could use, an’ his stock besides. Those are mighty fine mules.”
“I seen a few wagons,” Purdy Mantle said, “but none loaded that heavy. I wonder what all he’s carryin’?”
“They’re well-off. A body can see that.”
“Uh-huh… so maybe they figure to buy land. Maybe they figure to buy what all they need. That’s why their wagon’s so heavy.”
“What d’ you mean, Purdy?” Doc asked. “Look at it. What’s the heaviest thing you know of?”
“Gold?” Ike Mantle stared. “You all figure he’s carryin’ gold?”
“I said no such thing. On’y that wagon’s heavy, mighty heavy.”
“He killed Lenny,” Doc muttered. “He killed my boy.”
“Somebody did. Shot right through my hat, too,” Ike said. “Lenny would have to be wearin’ my hat.”
“How’s Booster?” Purdy asked.
“He’ll carry the scars,” Doc said. “His nose is broke, an’ he lost some teeth. I’d sure like to know what he was hit with. His face is tore up somethin’ awful.”
“They was ready for us,” Purdy said. “They was settin’ waitin’. Who’d figure they’d be all that canny?”
“I tell you,” Doc said, “there was somebody else. You look at the tracks around that camp, Purdy?”
“For what? We already knew where they was. I’d no call to go scoutin’ around.”
“Gold,” Ike Mantle said, “supposin’ there is gold?”
Nobody spoke for a few minutes. “You all do what you’re of a mind to,” Red Hyle said, “I’m follerin’. That there’s a woman. I ain’t seen anythin’ like her since those fancy rich women from up on the hill at Natchez.”
“We lost nothin’ here,” Doc agreed. “I’m ready to get shut of this place. Leave it for the next outfit, just like we found it.”
Red Hyle got to his feet and walked out. For a moment there was silence, and then Purdy said, “He’s really got woman on his mind.”
“Did you see her?” Doc said.
“I saw her. But I wouldn’t get myself killed for her. Not me.”
Purdy Mantle was the last one to leave, finishing off the bottle, then throwing it into a corner where it shattered to bits. He followed the others outside, leaning against the wall and thinking. Lenny Shabbitt was dead, and he was no loss, but it had been passed over that he was wearing Ike’s hat. Maybe whoever killed Lenny had wanted to kill Ike… and there were a lot who would take pleasure in it.