Novel 1969 - Conagher (v5.0) Page 5

  She had never been sure if he loved her, for he was not a tender man. In the few moments when he had approached tenderness he had seemed oddly uncomfortable, yet she felt that in his own way he did care for her. He was simply one of those silent millions who have never really learned how to express what they feel, or somehow seem to find it indelicate to do so.

  And she had needed love. She had needed tenderness. She was frightened and she was alone, and the romance she had needed so desperately, of which she had dreamed so long, was simply not in him to give.

  This was the second time that death—for somehow she felt sure that Jacob was dead—had left her alone. First, it had been her father. Suddenly she was alone in a strange place and her father was dead; but he had taken from her more than a father, more than financial support—he had taken her dreams with him.

  He had always been filled with plans—wild, impractical plans they might be, but plans, dreams…and a goal. He had always had that, and as swiftly as one faded away he was busy with another, and his stories as well as his dreams had fed her own dreaming. Always, somewhere in the offing there was a Prince Charming, a someone who needed her, someone who was young and handsome, and filled with romance.

  When her father died she lost her dreams. There was nothing of the Prince Charming about Jacob Teale, but he was a rock to which she could cling, and she had been frightened. With no money, no home, and no chance even to work, she had accepted his offer of marriage.

  Now she was alone again, yet not quite alone, for there were the children and they needed her. They needed her as much as she needed them. She had them, and she had this place; without them she would again be where she had been, a woman alone in a harsh world where there was no place for a woman alone.

  The coolness of the night held a hint of distant rain. Something far out upon the grass stirred, and she heard the whisper of sound. She stood a moment longer, and then she went back to the cabin and let herself in, barring the door behind her.

  A moment then, she listened, hearing the breathing in the loft above. She looked around at the shadowed room, lighted only by the lantern and a faint flickering from the fire.

  A double bed, a table, some benches, a chair…the pots and pans shining upon the wall or near the fireplace, the hard-packed earth floor…Would she ever have a plank floor, now that Jacob was gone?

  She went to her carpetbag, the repository of the few things she had brought with her when she came to Jacob, and took out a thin volume of poetry. For an hour she read, then stared into the fire for a long time. Her loneliness was with her always; only the hours when she was most busy gave her respite, and each stage she awaited with a half-conscious longing, a hope that someone, or something special would come for her.

  Six months had gone by since Jacob Teale had ridden away, and she found herself hard put to remember his features. She remembered his square-shouldered dignity, his quiet, somewhat stern manner; and whenever she thought of him she found herself feeling guilty that she did not mourn him. But when she remembered him now he was like a stranger.

  *

  THE FOLLOWING DAY Charlie McCloud brought in the stage, and there were no passengers, so he lingered, drinking coffee with her.

  “Mrs. Teale,” he said abruptly, “you ought to find yourself a man. You’re too fine a woman to go to waste out here like this.”

  “Mr. Teale has only been gone six months, Mr. McCloud. I think it is rather too soon to—”

  “Nonsense!” he interrupted. “You know as well as I do that something’s happened to him. Mrs. Teale, this here is a violent land, and I’ve helped bury two, three men whose names nobody knew…it happens all the time.

  “A man can get throwed by his horse out there on the plains and he can die of thirst before he can get anywhere. That’s why they hang horse thieves, ma’am, because out here if you take a man’s horse you may have taken his life along with it.

  “It’s a sight easier to die out here than to live. It doesn’t have to be Injuns or outlaws. Now, you take your husband. I’ve asked around, passed the word along the stage line for any information about him or his horse. Neither of them seems to have been seen by anybody. I’d say that was pretty good evidence that they ran into trouble somewhere together.

  “There was a flood on the Rio Grande shortly after he left here, and heavy rains over east of here, too. He may have tried to swim a river or take a short cut across country somewhere. You’d better count yourself a widow, Mrs. Teale.”

  “Perhaps you are right, Mr. McCloud. I would not say it to anyone but a good friend, but I am lonely, and sometimes when we are alone here, I am frightened; but even if I was sure Mr. Teale was dead, I still would know of no one I’d be interested in.”

  “Well,” he said, “you deserve yourself a good man, and I’d surely say I’d be the last to advise you to latch onto the first saddle tramp who comes along. But you see, Mrs. Teale, the stage line…well, they want to put in their own station out west of here, four or five miles. I know you’ve been making a little off feeding us, but that time’s about up, ma’am. I don’t see how you’re going to make it without the stages stopping here.”

  She had known it was coming, of course. From the first, the stage company had planned to build their own place, and she knew her small cabin was not adequate.

  “This is all we have, Mr. McCloud, and we must do the best we can. Mr. Teale had hoped to have a herd started by this time, but I’ve had no money to buy cattle.”

  Charlie McCloud put down his cup. “Mrs. Teale, I’ve got me an idea. There’s a herd a-passin’ through here, and when they come you should go talk to the trail boss. Now, this here is a mixed herd, and they’ve got some long, dry drives ahead, I’ll bet you you could get some calves.

  “You’d have to wean ’em, most likely, but you’ve got that milk cow. No trail boss likes to be bothered with calves, and where they don’t have a wagon to carry ’em in they just let ’em lay.”

  Suddenly his eyes began to twinkle. “Ma’am, I’ll tell you what you do. Make up a big batch of them doughnuts. The average cow-poke would sell his soul for a doughnut. You make up a batch, have a couple of gallons of coffee handy, and you feed those cowboys and tell them if they have any fresh-dropped calves you’d like to have them. They know those calves aren’t going to last out any desert crossing. You’re liable to pick up four or five, maybe more.”

  She got up. “Thanks, Mr. McCloud, for what you’ve told me. Thank you very much.”

  He rose, hesitating a moment. “Don’t you be forgetting. You keep your eye out for a good man, and latch onto him. There’s a-plenty running around who are no good. You need you a good, steady man.”

  “Mr. McCloud, if I marry again it will be for love, and only for love. I don’t care what comes. A woman deserves some happiness, Mr. McCloud, and I’ve had precious little, but I can’t leave this place. It is all we have.”

  She knew his advice was good, for she had already seen how hungry travelers were for any kind of baking, and for doughnuts in particular. The cattle would be coming through soon and she was going to gamble all she had at hand on a chance of success.

  With Ruthie helping, and Laban gathering additional firewood, she went to work to bake the doughnuts and prepare for a cowboy invasion. As she worked she considered the future. If she could get several calves it would be a start, at least, and Bess would be dropping a calf before the winter was over.

  Before the herd came in sight they could hear the cattle bawling, and the herd was a big one.

  Two men riding point swung away from the herd as it prepared to bed down for the night, and rode up to the cabin. Evie met them at the door, with Ruthie and Laban at her side.

  The first was a lean, broad-shouldered man with a walrus mustache, and the second an older man, leaner still and stooped in the shoulders.

  “Are you the lady who bakes the bear sign?”

  “Bear sign?” Evie was puzzled. “Do you mean doughnuts?”

&n
bsp; “Yes’m, reckon I do. We heard tell you was the best all-fired doughnut maker this side of the Mississippi, and that you’d set us up to doughnuts.”

  “Come on in,” Evie said. “I’ve coffee on.”

  The two men swung down and went inside, hats in hand. Both men were armed, both were dusty and tired-looking. They seated themselves and she put out a tray of doughnuts and filled their cups.

  After a few minutes of silent eating, the first man looked up. “I am John Catlin, ma’am, and this gent here ridin’ herd on me is my uncle, Sam Catlin. We hear tell how you’d like some calves.”

  “I can’t afford to buy them,” Evie confessed. “I’d heard that when you were driving a mixed herd calves could be a trouble. I thought perhaps you might have one or two that you want to be rid of.”

  “That we do,” the younger Catlin said. “They’d never make it across the desert anyway, and they’d be a trouble on the drive. As a matter of fact, I’ve got six head, a week to three weeks old, and we’ve lost a couple back yonder that couldn’t keep up.

  “Ma’am, we’d be pleased for you to have them, but I’m afraid it will cost you. We’ve got nine or ten hungry cowhands just a-sawin’ at the bit to get over here.”

  “Send them, and you’re welcome any time, whether you have calves or not, as long as the flour holds out.”

  An hour later she had five hungry cowhands around the table, and the way the doughnuts vanished was something to see, but they had brought with them six calves, all white-face, and along with them a cow.

  “She’s a mite old,” Catlin said, “and likely this here’s her last calf. I doubt whether she’d make it over the desert, so you’re welcome.”

  Evie Teale stared at the cow. If it was more than five years old she was badly mistaken, and it looked to be in excellent shape, but she offered no comment beyond her thanks. The following morning when the herd moved out, the chuck wagon stopped by the house to fill its barrels with fresh water.

  It was not until they were gone that Ruthie came running into the cabin. “Ma! Come look!”

  On the doorstep was a hundred-pound sack of flour, fifty pounds of sugar, a sack of rice and one of beans, with a small package of dried fruit.

  On top of them was a torn piece of canvas on which somebody had written, “With the thanks of the 2-C.”

  The Two Bar C was gone, but they would not be forgotten, and they had left behind them another legacy not lightly to be dismissed. Where the herd had bedded down there were cow chips enough for many a fire.

  Evie Teale prepared for the next stage, and watched the sky. It was colder now, and the sky looked gray and lowering. They must work hard to gather fuel for the winter. It was surely on the way.

  The wind was picking up, and the tumbleweeds were starting to roll. Soon they would be rolling off to the south in unnumbered legions. She counted those she could see rolling.

  “…eight…nine…ten…eleven…twelve…”

  After that there was no use in counting, for they rolled away across the vast plain like an army of skirmishers—scattered out, moving forward, pausing, and then moving again.

  “I wonder where they go,” Laban said, watching them.

  “I don’t know, Laban. Maybe they just never stop. Maybe they just keep on rolling forever.”

  “They hang up against corrals sometimes, or fences.”

  “There are not many fences out here,” Ruthie said, “but when we came West I saw a great bank of them against some willows and cottonwoods…remember? They were piled up as high as a house.”

  Again that night, when the children were asleep, Evie walked out in the moonlight.

  The plain was stark and lonely, the stars shone unbelievably bright wherever the clouds broke for them to be seen. The wind whipped her skirt, and she saw one of the silent riders of the wind roll by not very far away.

  Maybe…off to the south somewhere…maybe there was somebody down there as lonely as she was, somebody whose thoughts reached out into the emptiness of the night, longing, yearning, alone.

  Chapter 6

  *

  CONN CONAGHER CAME down out of the Mogollons riding a line-back dun. He had a healing scar over his right ear and a drawn look about him that showed even under the thick stubble of black beard. His blanket roll was tied behind his saddle and two rifles were tied across it. His own rifle was in its scabbard.

  The Horse Springs stage station looked wind-blown and bleak when he rode in, huddled in his thin coat. He rode up to the station warily, like a man expecting trouble.

  Two horses were tied at the hitching rail, both of them cow ponies wearing Ladder Five brands.

  Conn glanced at the brands and muttered to his horse, “Now, there’s a rustler’s brand if ever I saw one. A Ladder Five will cover almost anything.”

  He tied his horse and went up the steps to the store’s porch, then he opened the door and stepped in. There was a fire glowing in the stove, and three men sat around it. The storekeeper was arranging stock on the shelves.

  Conn went up to the stove and warmed his hands. “Cold out there,” he commented.

  “Too cold.”

  “Makes a man wonder what he did with his summer’s wages,” Conn continued. “Don’t know anybody around who is looking for a hand, do you?”

  “Can’t say I do.” The speaker was a square-built man in a buckskin jacket and battered hat. He wore moccasins rather than boots.

  The other two looked like hard cases. Both were young, lean, and wiry, with a reckless cast to their features and a half-taunting expression that Conagher had seen many times before. These men were trouble, and trouble was the last thing he wanted right now.

  He walked over to the counter. “Mister,” he said, “I am in a swapping mood. I want one of them sheepskin coats and some gloves. Maybe a pair of Levis and some .44 ca’tridges.”

  “What have you got to swap? I usually do a cash-on-the-barrel-head business.”

  “I’ve got a couple of Winchesters,” Conagher said. “I’ll get ’em.”

  He went out, untied the two rifles, and brought them into the store. “They’ll stand cleaning,” he said.

  The storekeeper took them in his hands, turned them over, tried the action, and looked down the barrel of each one. “Unusual thing,” he commented, “a man wanting to swap off rifles, two of them.”

  “They belonged to a pair of Indians,” Conagher said. “They jumped me up in the Mogollons. There were three of them. We had quite a go-around there for a few minutes.”

  The man in buckskin commented, “Three Apaches? You’re lucky you’ve got your hair.”

  “Well, I seen a rabbit up ahead…maybe a hundred yards ahead. He was hoppin’ along easy-like across the trail when he suddenly took off back the way he came, so I sort of figured there was something in the brush alongside the trail that scared him.

  “If they were Indians they’d likely seen me, scouted ahead to lay for me, and likely they were watching me now, so I pulled up and got down and picked up my horse’s hoof—like it was giving me trouble.

  “I hunted around for a rock, hit at the shoe a couple of times, then threw it down and picked up another, dropped it, and stepped over to the side of the trail, as if I was hunting a bigger rock. Then I ducked into the brush and sneaked up on ’em.

  “Just about the time I got close they began to wonder what had become of me, so one of them craned his neck up out of the brush for a better look and he saw me. He was surprised, but I wasn’t. He wasn’t any more than thirty feet off, but when I commenced shooting I dusted the brush all around him and two Indians broke from cover, one of them dragging a wounded leg.”

  “So you nailed him,” one of the cowhands said.

  “No, I figured I had him, all right, so I let drive at the other one and dropped him. When I looked around for the wounded one, he was gone.”

  “Did you hunt him down?”

  Conagher gave the cowhand a glance. “Mister, nobody but a fool goes into the ro
cks after a wounded Apache.”

  “How’d you get the rifles, then?”

  “Well, I laid there a piece, and then I got over into the brush where I’d killed the first one, and I latched onto his rifle and ammunition. No use leaving it for some other Indian to kill with. Then I edged around until I could see the last Indian I shot, and with a long stick I pulled his rifle to me. Then I went back to my horse and lit a shuck out of there.”

  “I’ll swap,” the storekeeper said, “and I’ll add a box of .44’s for them you used up in the fight. Most of the Apaches around here are good people, and the Zunis north of us are no trouble makers, but it’s them south-of-the-border ’Paches who keep raiding up here that give us trouble. They attacked the stage station down the line where that woman—Teale’s her name—runs it.”

  Conn Conagher looked up sharply. “They didn’t kill her?”

  “She made a fight of it, she and them youngsters. Then the stage came in, all bloodied up, but amongst them they fought ’em off.”

  Conagher tried on a sheepskin coat, then another. Satisfied, he put the boxes of shells in the pockets and picked up the gloves and the jeans.

  “Might as well set and have coffee,” the storekeeper said. “You ain’t goin’ far tonight.”

  “Thanks. I’ll move on.”

  The man in buckskin followed him outside, leaning on the hitching rail while Conagher tightened the cinch. “Where was you in the Mogollons?” he asked. “I’m aheaded up thataway.”

  “My guess would be you knew them pretty well,” Conagher said. “What is it you want to know?”

  The man in buckskin glanced over his shoulder. “I got me a little stand over on the Negrito. I was wonderin’ if you’d been around thataway, and if you’d seen any Injun sign.”

  “I came down through Sheep Basin,” Conagher said, “and I saw no Indian sign.” He straightened up and rested his hands on the saddle. His eyes smiled a little, and he said, “I did see some other sign over on Beaverdam.”