This edition (c) Tyler Brentmore 2012
Prologue
It was always the same the first Saturday
night of the month. Beardless boys in the lamplight outside the Coney trying to
coax a free show from whores on its balcony. Fiddle music and laughter pitching
from the open doors of the Silver Pearl. Some fool splattering his guts in the
dry ditch by the boardwalk. Wharton curled his lip as he watched the boy on his
knees. Shouldn’t be allowed to waste liquor that way. Shouldn’t be allowed into
town.
Tightening his
grip on his bottle, he clutched the wooden upright and stumbled off the covered
boardwalk. Better to swing wide. Wouldn’t be the first time his bottle had been
snatched and he’d had to dance a jig for it. But he’d hardly taken a step when
a hidden cur began a throaty growl.
“Quiet, yer
mangy—” Faint hollering twitched at his ears as he felt a vibration through his
boot soles. Stepping back, he reached for the empty rail as a bunch of cowhands
raced along the street flagging their hats and kicking up dust, guttering the
torchlights in their breeze. He let fly with a string of profanities before
catching himself, his gaze darting to the youngsters in front of the Coney.
They hadn’t heard him in the commotion. Wiping the spittle from his lips he
began to zigzag across the rutted street, the bottle nestled close. At least
the riders weren’t shooting, not like in the old days before the ordinance.
The torch nearest
the corner flared as Wharton turned into the alley, his shadow stretching ahead
of him before melding with the darkness caught between the buildings. Pausing
to belch, he reached out a hand to steady himself against the rotting
clap-board. Part of his winnings had gone on the extra bottle, and part on
feeling up that new whore of Molly’s. Little cat had tried to take him to one
of the back rooms, but he wasn’t so drunk that he was a fool. He’d leave her
’til he was sober. A man needed to get his money’s worth, and that new one
looked worth his money.
Sure of his gait
now, he headed for the deeper patch of black that crowded the door to the
flop-house. He’d nearly made it to the step when someone called his name. A
shape as dark as the Devil eased out from the wall to stand silhouetted in the
torchlight.
“Bin a long time,
Wharton. Keepin’ well, I hope.”
There was a sharp
scraping and a Lucifer flared. Wharton saw the face beneath the broad brim and
dragged in such a breath that he nearly choked on it.
“You!”
“Yer, me, come
back to haunt yer just like I promised.”
The hand lowered,
pooling the match’s flickering light along the waiting gun barrel. Wharton
stumbled back, his bowels as unsteady as his legs.
“No! Weren’t me.
Were Baddell. Were Baddell’s notion, all o’it. ”
“That’s what the
others said. Didn’t save them neither.”
The Lucifer faded
and the gun roared.
Vern was grizzling again, wanting to hold
on to his Pa’s leg. Jed Longman eyed first the stream of saliva cleaning a
course down his youngest son’s chin, and then his eldest standing in front of
their canvas tent.
“Does he wanna
go?”
“No, Pa. He’s bin.
Reckon it’s his teeth agin.”
“Well, just take
him, will yer, and let a man converse here.”
Jed removed his
hat and pushed his fingers through his unkempt hair. If it weren’t one thing it
were another. All around him among the tents, families were greasing wheels and
re-packing wagons the way they’d done each and every day since signing on and
being allotted a place. Nerves, Jed had told Tom, folks doing nothing, just
filling time. His eldest had nodded sagely, showing more understanding than his
nine years gave him credit for. Jed was aware of him now, holding the hands of
his younger brothers, waiting on his reply. And here he was, doing nothing,
just filling time.
The wagonmaster
shifted his weight. “Mr Longman, I’m not asking you to agree nor—”
“Agree!” Jed
slapped his hat across his thigh and, casting a glance over his three boys,
ushered the man away a step. He kept his voice low but gave it the venom the
request deserved.
“This here might
not seem much to you, Fremont, but it’s a God-fearing family, and no
God-fearing family o’mine is gonna give wagon space to some painted whore who
thinks she can pay her way out West by—”
“Goddamn it,
Longman, you’re not listening with both ears. You mention that sort of talk in
Mrs Harris’ hearing and I’d wager you’d be on your way to the druggist.” Colonel
Fremont pinked a little behind his whitening whiskers and let some of his
bluster dissipate.
“Mrs Harris
speaks real well, more like you’d associate with a school ma’am. Got all the
attributes, all of ’em. Comes up to
me all prim like, looks me straight in the eye and asks to join the company.”
He leaned into Jed to give more weight to what he was saying. “On her own.
Needless, I gave her short shrift – a woman on her own, indeed – and I thought
that would be the end of it, but no, she’s back faster than the flux. Wants me
to introduce the two of you – formally introduce is what she said – and
she won’t take no for an answer, Longman. She’s there when I water my animals,
there when I sit down to my meal. She was there at sun-up when I came out the
shitter still buttoning my pants!”
“Then she ain’t
no lady,” Jed spat.
“Sometimes,
gentlemen—” the two men wheeled round “—sometimes ladies have to go to
inordinate lengths to get a hearing.”
From the way Fremont had
described her, Jed had expected a fleshy, middle-aged frump with a ramrod back
scowling through a pair of pince-nez spectacles, but the woman who had sneaked
up behind the tent was willowy and younger than himself. He’d been right about
the back, though. She held herself tall in her high-collared store-bought
dress, and despite its ribbon fastening, the hat was prim enough for any woman
used to standing before a chalk-board. Fremont hadn’t
exaggerated a jot about her fierce gaze, neither.
“Mrs Harris...”
spluttered the wagonmaster.
“Good day to you,
Colonel. I’m obliged to you for interceding on my behalf. Eventually. As we’ve
gotten this far, would you be good enough to introduce us, please?”
“Er...” Fremont seemed to
deflate. “Mr Longman, Mrs Harris.” As she turned Jed’s way, the wagonmaster
took a step backwards in escape. “I’ll leave you two good folks to get
acquainted.”
There was no bob
of her head in acknowledgement. Instead Mrs Harris stepped forward to offer a
lace-gloved hand. Jed supposed it only right to accept it under the
circumstances, but became acutely aware of the dirt ingraining his knuckles. It
had been a while since the soap had seen the scrubbing brush. Martha would have
sure given him an earful.
He pulled himself
up short and fixed his hat back on his head. “No.”
“I beg your pardon,
Mr Longman?”
“The answer’s
no.”
“You haven’t
heard the venture.”
“There’s no
room—”
“—at the inn?”
He eyed her a
moment and it was she who averted her gaze, but within a breath she was back at
him, just as Fremont had cautioned.
“Mr Longman, I’m
not asking for living space in your tent nor to laden your wagon with my
belongings. I have my own riding horses and pack mules, and I am perfectly
capable of making the journey as an independent rider.”
“Then why don’t
yer?”
“For the same
reason you are travelling with other wagons, Mr Longman, safety in numbers and
the services of a guide. If I were a man there wouldn’t be a problem. Alas I am
not, and Colonel Fremont carries a very low opinion of the moral fiber of the
family men who have signed to his command. He will not have me sign unless I
can affiliate myself to a family for… protection.”
Jed raised an
eyebrow.
“Mrs Harris won’t
be a bother, Pa,” Tom offered.
Without turning,
he waved his son quiet.
“Why us? There be
plenty of others here, an’ they got women fer company.”
“There’s a
natural hierarchy in a family, and a woman does not like to share her kitchen,
nor her cooking fire.”
Nor her man, Jed
mused. Mrs Harris was a thin ’un, true, and although he was trying hard to keep
his eyes on her face, she had all the right curves in all the right places and
a smell about her that he hadn’t had in his nostrils for many a day. No, his
instinct had been correct from the start. Mrs Harris, school ma’am or not, was
a barrel o’trouble he could do without.
“On the other
hand,” she continued, “an upstanding man like yourself with three young boys
could do with some female help—”
“What you trying
to do, lady? Tell me that I’m some preacher’s son or tell me that I can’t take
care of my own kin? We’ve done just fine all the way here and we’ll do just
fine all the way yonder, so go take yer fine talk and pester some other fella.”
Tom stepped
forward. “But Pa, Ma always told us that it was a person’s Christian duty—”
Jed swung round
on his eldest. “You take your Ma’s words in vain and you’ll be feeling my
belt.”
Tom stood his
ground. “I ain’t. I’m remembering what she said.”
With no one
holding his hand, Vern’s grizzling raised a pitch and then he began to sob. Jed
glanced at him and realized that his youngest stood alone. His six year old
brother was no longer standing in front of their tent. Jake had eased round to
Mrs Harris and was holding her gloved hand and whispering, all wheedling
smiles.
“Well, Jacob, I
might have a piece in my purse if I look hard enough,” the woman was saying to
him, and out of the lace wrist-bag came a bundle of twisted barley-sugar.
Jed felt his jaw
sag, then he gritted his teeth. “What is this?” He turned back to his eldest
for explanation, but Tom’s defiance had fled and he was being eyed through
lowered lashes.
“You give this
piece to Thomas, now, and we’ll see if Vernon can be
comforted.”
“Enough, lady!
Are you trying to bushwhack me through my own children? I’ll not have it!”
Mrs Harris was
already round his arm hunkering down beside his crying youngest, who threw his
chubby arms around her neck.
“It’s not like
that, Mr Longman. I met them on the boardwalk outside the Mercantile. The
storekeeper was chasing them with a broom for leaving sticky fingerprints on
his windowpane. Vernon fell and grazed his knee.”
Disentangling
herself from Vernon’s arms she drew a kerchief from her purse and wiped his eyes,
cooing to him low and steadily. It didn’t seem to have any effect.
Tom sidled up
beside his father, his cheek bulging with candy and his eyes glittering. “Mrs
Harris told the storekeeper to pick on someone his own size. Threatened to take
the broom offa him and whack him o’er the head wi’it.”
Mrs Harris looked
mortified. “I did no such thing, young Thomas! At least... not in so many
words.” She adjusted her bearing and turned back to Vernon, removing
her glove to smooth her hand over his face.
“I don’t care
what happened,” Jed thundered, “it ain’t gonna buy you a travelling place with
this family. Tom, get your brothers in tow. It’s time we fed the oxen and
milked the cow or we’ll be eating in the dark.”
“Mr Longman, we
need to speak.”
“We’re done
speaking, lady. Just leave.”
He was surprised
to feel her hand on his arm, and attempted to shake it off, but her grip became
stronger. “Lady—”
“Vernon!” she
hissed. “How long has he been like this?”
Jed looked into
her widened eyes and then beyond her shoulder to where Tom was trying to pull
his youngest to his feet. There was a sudden empty feeling in Jed’s gut.
“It’s his teeth.
New teeth coming through. Takes him like this.”
“This is not his
teeth, Mr Longman. He’s running a fever and his throat is raw. Has he vomited?
When did he last eat?”
He glanced at
Tom, remembering the boy telling him that Vern had pushed aside his morning
vittles.
“You know what
this means, Mr Longman? If the Colonel realizes you’ve a sick child he’ll not
have your wagon take its place at daybreak. You’ll have to wait for another company
to assemble. You could lose a month. Like as not you’d hit the mountains in the
first snows and lose all three—”
“I know what can
happen, lady.”
“Well know this,
Mr Longman. Even if you get past Colonel Fremont’s assembly tonight you are not
going to be able to keep a sick child a secret. Your wagon will be quarantined
behind the rest, and the cattle, and the milk cows, so your boys will be
choking on everyone’s dust.”
“All right, all
right!” He was well ahead of her and didn’t want to hear it coming from her
mouth. Or have her frightening his boys. One sick child could as easily turn
into three and there would be no way he could do all the chores, act the
nurse-maid and goad the oxen. Not on his own.
Mrs Harris
released his arm and straightened her spine, stepping back into her school
ma’am regime. “This meeting was meant, Mr Longman. You have need of a temporary
minder for your children and I need to reach my husband. I suggest we
accommodate each other.”
This sudden
intervention of a shadowy Mr Harris caught Jed by surprise. He’d taken it for
granted that she was a widow-woman.
“Do we have an understanding,
Mr Longman?”
Jed cast around
for alternatives, but there didn’t seem to be any. “I guess.”
He let her take
Vern into the tent away from prying eyes and quietly brought the medicine box
from the wagon. Jake was more than happy to stay close to Mrs Harris to do her
bidding and, picking up pails and fodder, Jed and Tom made their way beyond the
encampment to where the animals were being kept.
“What’s matter
with Vern, Pa?”
Jed squinted down
at his son and decided that a lie just wouldn’t do. “Don’t rightly know yet,
but if anyone asks it’s his teeth, hear me?”
The boy nodded,
though his face had become pinched beneath its grime. Jed squinted at him some
more. Being the eldest Tom was the only one who remembered all the deaths:
Jo-Ann and Charlotte. Then baby Liza. Finally Martha. No, not Martha. They’d
been gone two days, he and Tom, checking on the trap-line, and for some reason,
for some Heaven-sent reason he’d left Tom to water the horses and had entered
the cabin alone. He shuddered as the images burgeoned in his mind. Death wasn’t
going to enter his life again and take his boys. He wasn’t going to let it.
With his free hand
Jed clapped Tom on the back. “Vern will be fine. We got Mrs Harris takin’ care
of us now.”
In their absence Mrs Harris had been taking
care of more than Jed anticipated.
##
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