Joe looked at her in consternation. Then he said uncertainly, "I thought
I'd better tell you before I go down to the stables. I'll be back in an
hour or so."
"All right, dear." She continued sewing placidly.
Joe left with an uncomfortable feeling that, somehow, he'd been a little
silly. He shook a puzzled head. Before she'd known anything about him,
Emma had worried about Gearey. Now that she knew her suspicions were
justified, she didn't seem to worry at all. Joe decided again that he
never would understand women. But he comforted himself with the
assurance that Emma would handle the situation in her own sensible way.
Joe walked on to the stables. He'd shod both mules again, but it was
easier here. Laramie had a complete blacksmith shop as well as a full
complement of men who knew all about handling fractious mules, horses
and oxen. Though she'd put up her usual fight when it came her turn to
be shod, the mare mule hadn't had a chance. Both mules had new calks on
their shoes, and that would give them better footing in snow.
At the far end of the stockade, surrounded by the usual crowd, Barbara
was inspecting the fort. She, Joe thought, had had a wonderful time.
Emma had been happy too. Sergeant Driscoll's Latin wife, who had known
the gaiety of Mexico City and the excitement of Santa Fe, was withering
in this lonely place and she had seized eagerly the opportunity for
relief that Emma's presence afforded. A pretty, vivacious woman, Ynez
Driscoll spoke glowingly of the colorful places she had known and
listened attentively when Emma told of Missouri. Emma's and Ynez
Driscoll's backgrounds were worlds apart, and for that very reason each
found the other's tales fascinating.
Joe reached the stables. One of the stable detail, a red-haired private
whose name Joe did not remember, grinned at him.
"Good morning, Mr. Tower."
"Good morning, son. Can I borrow a currycomb and brush?"
"You don't need any," the redhead assured him. "We've already groomed
your mules."
"Well--thanks."
"Look them over," the redhead invited.
The mules turned friendly heads and blew through their noses when Joe
approached the stalls in which they were tied. The stable detail had not
only groomed them, but had done so with all the painstaking care they'd
have lavished on the colonel's horse if they were readying for a parade.
Every hair was in place and the mules' coats shone. The red-haired
private, who had followed Joe, lingered a little way behind him and
tried to be very casual.
"Are they all right?"
"They're fine. I'd say they're absolutely perfect. And I'm certainly
obliged to you."
"It's nothing--nothing at all.--Uh--May I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Are you going to winter at Laramie?"
"I'm afraid not. We're going down to Snedeker's."
A concerted moan of despair arose from the stable detail, and Joe was
surrounded by young soldiers who presented what they hoped was forceful
argument. Laramie was bigger, better, and more comfortable, than
Snedeker's. It had a lot more to offer; Snedeker's was just a trading
post with the main store fortified in case Indians attacked. For that
matter, suppose they did attack? Could Joe, Jim Snedeker, and whoever
else might happen to be around Snedeker's post, defend Joe's family?
Snedeker's was lonely, too. Joe should consider everything very
carefully, then do the sensible thing and winter at Laramie. Of course
not, they answered indignantly when Joe asked if Barbara had anything to
do with their fervent desire to see the Towers remain where they were.
They were merely thinking of what would be best all around.
Joe left the saddened detail and walked to the sutler's store. Money
was hard to come by, and even with what Jake Favors had paid him he
hadn't any too much. But money was not more precious than anything else,
and just ahead was a season that, even in their leanest years, the
Towers observed faithfully. Joe prowled among the counters. He bought an
exquisite shawl that probably had come to Laramie from Santa Fe and to
Santa Fe from Mexico. Careful, making sure that he was not observed, he
tucked the wrapped shawl into a small box that fitted into his tool box.
After that he got Emma, and together they returned to the store.
They walked through the store while she chose Christmas presents for the
children. There was a bracelet of hammered silver set with turquoise,
another product of Mexico, and Emma bought it for Barbara. Thinking of
Tad, Joe looked wistfully at the rifles. But rifles were expensive, they
dared not spend that much, and Joe nodded approval when Emma selected a
hatchet. There was a doll for little Emma, small bows with blunt arrows
for Joe and Alfred, and a wooden horse, probably carved by some soldier
and brightly painted, for Carlyle. They put the gifts in Emma's trunk,
and then returned to the store for supplies.
The next morning, mournfully attended by every soldier in Laramie who
could possibly break away from whatever he was doing at the moment, Joe
drove his mules out the stockade's west gate and on down the Oregon
Trail. Some of the soldiers trooped after them and Barbara walked with
her swains. Regretfully, the escort turned back after Barbara had
climbed into the wagon.
For two hours, following the track broken by the cavalry patrol, they
traveled in comparative silence. After lonely, hard weeks on the Trail,
they had sojourned for a brief time in the comparative gaiety and
certain security of Laramie. Now they were back on the Trail, with
nobody knowing what really lay ahead, and the thought was a sobering
one.
Barbara did not look back. Her experience with Hugo Gearey had left its
mark on her. For all his charm he had been disrespectful and--and nasty
and--well, just horrible. Color rose into her face at the thought of
his arm pulling her roughly against him, of his lips pressing,
demanding--Oh, how she hated him now! Yes, hated him, _hated_ him!
Yet, as the wagon jogged along, the face that intruded again and again
between Bobby and the scenery was none other than the face of Hugo
Gearey.
Watching her daughter, Emma noticed that something had changed.
Barbara's eagerness for what was to come seemed somehow dimmed by the
events at Laramie. She sat quietly, submissively, lost in thought. What
was going on inside that lovely young head? Emma sighed. No one could
guess, and least of all, perhaps, Barbara herself.
There was about a foot of snow. But though the weather had not been
bitterly cold, it had lingered below the freezing point. There had been
no thaw, and therefore there was no crust to break. The snow was still
soft, and the wagon left deep ruts in its wake. The mules pulled
steadily, and Joe swung them from side to side so that they might take
turns walking in the already-broken trail left by the cavalry patrol. A
pair of crows winged across the Trail, alighted in a solitary pine, and
cawed raucously. About to answer them, Joe was halted by Tad's excited,
"Pa, look!"
To one side was a small cabin built at the base of a knoll, and as Joe
turned a buffalo came from behind the knoll to stare curiously at the
wagon. Another followed, and another. Then the rest of the herd came in
sight and twenty-two buffaloes stood in the snow. Tad gulped, and looked
longingly at the rifle, but they'd bought beef at Laramie and had all
they needed. To shoot a buffalo now would be only for the sake of
shooting something, and a waste of powder, shot and meat. Joe did not
believe in that. The buffalo herd watched the wagon for a moment, then
fell to pawing snow so that they might uncover the grass beneath.
Joe grinned, and he heard Barbara chuckle. Emma turned in the seat for a
better look as they drove past. Sighting the buffalo brought back things
that had been, and once again put them in tune with a roving life. The
children began to giggle and chatter as they started a game. Tad leaned
against the seat, staring intently at what lay ahead and on both sides,
but saying nothing.
Rested, and on not too difficult a trail despite the snow, the mules set
a brisk pace. Joe let them have their way, watching them only casually.
Mules had what some people--who knew a little about them but seldom
drove them--called a sense of humor. Others, better acquainted with
mules, knew that they were merely full of deviltry. They did delight in
confounding their drivers but they liked to have the advantage of any
situation. It was a lot easier to snarl a harness when they were hitched
to a plow than it was with a wagon tongue between them, and they knew
it. Only occasionally, when the driver became too lax, did they try any
tricks when they were pulling a loaded wagon.
Mike, who had padded steadily behind or at one side of the wagon,
bounced ahead suddenly. He bristled, and a deep snarl rumbled in his
chest. Keeping in the tracks of the cavalry patrol, he ran about fifty
feet down the trail and halted. Joe stopped the wagon.
"Call your dog," he told Tad.
"Gee! What's comin'?"
"I don't know. Call your dog."
Tad whistled. Reluctantly, stopping every few paces to look over his
shoulder, Mike came back to the wagon. Joe handed Tad a piece of rope.
"Better tie him."
"Aw, Pa. Suppose--"
"Tie him."
Tad jumped into the snow and tied the rope around Mike's neck. Still
bristling, tightening the rope, Mike strained down the Trail. Joe
watched closely. Mike was an enthusiastic hunter as long as he hunted
nothing larger than jack rabbits. He was not afraid of bigger game but
he was smart enough to know that some things were too big for him, and
therefore he paid little attention to them. Obviously he now scented
either something that he wanted to hunt or something that offered
prospects for a rousing battle, and presently the mules scented it too.
They lifted their heads, cocked their ears forward, and watched ahead.
Joe glanced at the rifle, and made sure of the exact location of his
powder horn and bullet pouch.
Presently three Indians mounted on small brown horses came around the
knoll that had hidden them and advanced toward the wagon. Two
nondescript dogs trailed them. Joe took the reins in his left hand,
leaving his right free should whatever happen next demand action. He
looked keenly at the approaching riders.
They were wild, proud, startling. They wore full-length buckskin
trousers, moccasins, and buffalo-skin coats. Fur hats were pulled over
their black hair. They sat their little horses with an easy, insolent
grace that few white men ever achieve. Their one concession to white
men's ways was the long rifle that each carried over his saddle bow.
Looking to neither side, betraying by not so much as the flicker of an
eyelid the fact that they saw the wagon and its occupants, they swerved
around and continued down the trail. Even Mike's savage lunge at their
dogs, a lunge that was halted only because Tad reefed full strength on
the rope, did not disturb for one second the dogs, horses or riders.
Without a single backward glance they disappeared around another knoll,
and Joe halted the wagon to let Tad get in.
"Gee!" Tad gasped. "Was that a war party?"
"Must have been," Joe asserted.
But he knew it was not. Though he was unfamiliar with western Indians,
Joe had heard that war parties bedecked their cheeks with war paint and
wore scalp locks. That might and might not be true. A man heard a lot of
things and he was silly as an ox if he believed all of them. However, a
war party would not have ridden so nonchalantly up the Trail where they
were so easily seen. Probably they were just three Indians going to
Laramie, but Tad wanted desperately to find great adventure on this
journey and it would do no harm to let him think that he had at least
brushed elbows with it.
"You're smart, Pa!" Tad breathed.
"Why do you say that?"
"Suppose old Mike had been loose, and pitched into those dogs like he
wanted to? First thing, wham! They'd 've tried to help their dogs and
we'd 've had a nice fight on our hands!"
"Sure thing," Joe agreed.
He smiled to himself because of the disappointed down pitch in Tad's
voice. The youngster ate, slept, and traveled with a mighty dream of a
fight with Indians. He could have his dream, but not, if Joe could
possibly help it, the fight. He wanted to reach Oregon, and anything
that interfered with that goal was, at the very least, an unpleasant
annoyance. Anything that put his family in danger, if there was a way to
keep them out, would be an unforgivable error.
They stopped for lunch, went on, and there were two hours of daylight
remaining when Joe smelled wood smoke. Five minutes later, he saw
Snedeker's.
The post was at one side of the Trail, in a group of pines, and
scattered pines grew on snow-clad hills that rolled away from the post.
The main building, a solid structure of heavy logs, was the center of a
group of buildings which probably served as warehouses, stables, and
quarters. About two hundred yards away, a little bunch of horses that
were grazing in the snow raised their heads to watch the mules come in.
They were Indian ponies, thin and gaunt. An old mule grazed all alone,
and in a pole corral at one side were three nice-looking saddle horses.
Probably they were personal mounts for whoever lived at Snedeker's.
Joe swung his team off the Trail and up to the post. Silence lay all
around. Joe stopped, and hoped his grin concealed the nervousness he
felt when he turned to Emma. Laramie was a town complete within itself;
compared to Snedeker's it was almost a city. Joe swallowed hard, already
doubting the wisdom of wintering here when they might have stayed at
Laramie. He comforted himself with the thought that they could still go
back. He gave the reins to Emma and jumped from the wagon.
"I'll go find out about things."
The post, he saw, had small windows and all of them were high off the
ground. The door was massive, hand-hewn timber that was liberally
scratched and gouged, and Joe frowned as he looked at it. A craftsman
himself, he decided that the door had been made by a poor or sloppy
worker. Then he saw that the battered door had never been made that way;
the cuts and gouges had been put there by ax blades and bullets. No
bullet had gone all the way through, but certainly Snedeker's had been
under attack. Joe lifted the latch and walked into the gloomy interior.
The building was long and low, with a wooden floor built well off the
ground. Only with difficulty could anyone from outside reach the small
windows, but due to the raised floors, anyone on the inside could stand
at them and shoot out. There were counters and shelves, but they were
not heavily loaded. Over a huge stone fireplace in which chunks of wood
crackled was a rack with six long rifles in it, and at one side was a
pile of cured buffalo robes. Unlighted lanterns hung from the ceiling
beams, and here and there smoke-blackened candles clung by their own
melted wax to saucers.
"Can I help you, sir?"
Joe saw him then, a lean young man with straight black hair. Supple as a
bull whip, he had risen with easy grace from a chair near the fireplace.
He wore a cloth shirt, trousers, and leather shoes. His face was thin,
with high cheek bones, and the brown eyes that were fixed steadily on
Joe were humor-lighted. Joe fidgeted. This young man, and he could not
be more than twenty, reminded him almost uncomfortably of Percy Pearl.