Joelle's Secret (12 page)

“I’m worried about getting a husband.”

“Why, girl, you ain’t got no worries there, pretty as you are!”

Jennie wanted to say,
But a man will take one look at you
and Pa, and he won’t want me.
She was accustomed to being low on the pecking order. She had not been an attractive adolescent, and the girlish beauty had come only in the last year. But the early years had scarred her, and now she said, “Nobody will want me, Ma.”

“Stop that foolish thinking. You got plenty of time. Now go get the water. I’ll start supper cooking.”

Jennie didn’t respond. She walked down to the river, filled the buckets, and looking up, saw that the sky was clear of clouds. “No more rain,” she said. “That’s good.” She turned to see a coyote trotting along the riverbank. He had a frog in his mouth, and the sight amused her. “Well, froggy, you had a bad day. Too bad.” She turned and walked back toward the train. It was growing darker now, and an unexpected voice nearly made her drop the buckets.

“Hello, Jennie.” Mace Benton, the guide, appeared from a group of scrub trees. He was a big man with a dark complexion and thick blunt features. His lips were thick, and when he came nearer now, they twisted in a grin. “Let me carry them buckets for you, girl.”

“Oh, I can do it, Mr. Benton.”

Benton reached out and touched her hair. “You got the prettiest hair I ever saw.”

Jennie didn’t know how to handle men, especially men like this. If he had been smaller and younger, she might have known what to say, but she was afraid of the man. “I got to get back with this water.” She turned and walked quickly away. She could not get away from the man who let her get almost to the wagons and then caught her arms.

“What’s the matter? I’m not good enough for you?”

“Please let go of me.”

“Sure I will. You just give me one kiss, and I’ll let you go.” Jennie could not resist. He pulled her close and kissed her. She dropped the buckets and tried desperately to get away.

“Let me go!” she cried.

“You need a man. That’s what you need, Jennie.”

“Let her go, Mr. Benton.”

Benton whirled suddenly to see Artie Riker, the youngest son of Lyman Riker. “Get away from here, boy!”

“Sure I will, but you let Jennie go.” Artie was eighteen. He would be a big strong man one day, but now he was merely tall. He had none of his brothers’ bulk.

Jennie, frightened, suddenly turned and ran toward the camp. She had reached the edge when Benton caught up with her. He grabbed her again and said, “Don’t be running away from me, girl!” He felt his arm suddenly jerked free, and he turned to see Artie Riker facing him.

“Don’t bother her,” Artie said.

Suddenly, without warning, Mace struck. His blow caught Artie in the chest and drove the young man backward until he sprawled in the mud. “You’re going to get hurt if you don’t get away, boy.”

Artie got to his feet. His face was pale, and he obviously had little confidence in a fistfight with this big, bruising man, but he said, “I don’t want to fight, but you’ve got to leave her alone.”

Benton looked around and saw a crowd gathering. A fight always gathered a crowd, and he saw Riker and his two burly sons, Clyde and Sid. This gave him pause. “The boy interfered with me.”

Riker stared with disgust at his son Artie. “Are you going to take that, boy? When are you going to become a man?”

Clyde and Sid, both huge, muscular men, were grinning. “Come on, show him what a man you are, Artie.”

Mace Benton saw at a glance that he would have no trouble with these three. He turned to face Artie and said, “You get along, boy. Come back when you get growed up.” He slapped
Artie with the flat of his hand. It staggered the boy, but Artie came back and struck the big man in the mouth. He was a strong young man for his size, and the blow broke Mace’s lip. He uttered a curse and threw himself forward. Artie Riker had no chance at all. He was beaten to the ground and rose several times staggering.

Lyman Riker heard a voice. “Are you going to let him do that to your boy, Riker?”

Riker turned to see Owen Majors watching him. “He’s got to learn to fight.”

“Not with a man like that.”

“You keep your nose out of it, Majors,” Sid said. “None of your business.”

Majors gave him a long, level look and then turned to see that Mace Benton had knocked the boy down. Artie was trying to get up. Mace drew back his foot to kick the boy, but Majors leaned forward and drove a blow into the big man’s kidney. The punch to such a vulnerable spot brought a cry of agony. Mace turned and saw Owen standing there. “This ain’t none of your business, Majors.”

“I guess I’d better leave my mark on you, Mace—as I did once before.”

The words fell like acid on a raw wound for, indeed, Owen Majors and Mace Benton had had a terrible fight on the Little Missouri River when they were trapping. Both men had been marked, but Mace had been left unconscious and battered in body and face. His anger had been building for years, and now he took a step forward and drove a blow at Owen’s face. Owen managed to dodge and instantly returned the blow. It caught Mace Benton in the mouth, drove him backward, and Majors
followed with a left-handed shot that turned Mace around. He watched as Mace staggered and slipped to the muddy ground.

“What’s the matter, Mace? You getting old?” Majors said. “You never were much of a man.”

Mace got to his feet. He looked around and saw everyone was watching and waiting for him to take it up, but he had felt the power of Owen Majors’s blows, and they were no less than they had been back at the Little Missouri River. He tried to gear himself up for a battle, but he remembered how it had taken him weeks to recover from Majors’s earlier beating. He stared around and said, “I ain’t fighting you, Majors.”

“Then get out of camp.”

The words were flat and deadly. Mace Benton started to argue, but he saw the light of battle in Owen’s eyes and turned quickly away. Everyone watched him go. He mounted his horse and headed back east away from the train.

“Good riddance, I say,” Ralph Ogden said. “He wasn’t no guide of any kind anyhow.”

There was a murmur of assent, for no one had been pleased with Mace, but Edith Riker had come and watched this with cold eyes. She turned to her husband and said, “You’re a coward, letting your own son be beat like that.”

“You keep out of this, Edith!”

“Yeah, it ain’t none of your put-in,” Sid said. Neither he nor Clyde had ever liked their stepmother, and now both glared at her.

But she faced them fearlessly. “You’re both no-good bums, letting your brother get whipped like that. If I were a man, I’d whip you myself.”

“Well, you ain’t no man so you ain’t whipping nobody.”

“I might take on that job.” Riker suddenly stared at Majors who had come to stand before him. He saw that Majors was challenging him, and he glanced to see if his sons were ready. Although Majors was a ferocious fighter, Riker had no doubt that three of them could handle him.

“We’ll just take you on.”

“No, you won’t,” Caleb Taylor, a huge, bulky man, said at once. He came to stand beside Majors, and Ralph Ogden, the biggest and strongest man on the train, came with him. “We’ll just make it three and three,” Caleb said. He smiled suddenly. “That way, Lyman, you and Majors can have at it. Have your own brawl.”

Lyman Riker was imposing, but he had seen the power in Owen Majors, and knew he would have no chance with the young man.

“This ain’t none of your put-in, Ogden.”

“It was your place to help your boy,” Ralph Ogden said. “I ain’t got no respect for a man that lets his kin be whipped by a bully. Now either fight or git.”

For a moment the matter seemed to be up in the air, but then Riker stared at Artie, who was struggling to his feet. Edith had watched Majors carefully. The scene had blown up like an explosion almost, and now she thought,
Everyone knows what
Lyman is, and his sons, too, and I’m glad.
She knelt down in the mud. “Come on, Artie. You need some looking after.”

“I’m all right, Ma.”

“No, you come with me.” Everyone watched as Edith led the boy away. When she got to the wagon, she found that Logan Temple had followed her.

“That’s a bad cut. That eyebrow needs some stitches.”

“I don’t think I can do that,” Edith said.

Logan stared at the woman and seemed to come to a decision. “I’ll do it.” He reached into the wagon for the black bag she had noticed. When he opened it, Edith watched him take out medical supplies, and she saw medical instruments. Instantly she knew the truth. “You’re a doctor, Logan.”

“Used to be. Here, sit down, Artie. We’ll get you fixed up.”

Edith watched as Logan treated the boy’s wounds. He sewed up the eyebrow with skill. Finally Logan said, “You’re going to be a little bit sore, but you’ll be all right. Here, take a spoonful of this before you go to sleep tonight.” He handed Artie a small bottle and then changed his mind. “No, Edith, I guess you’d better give it to him.”

“All right, Logan.”

Artie was staring at Logan Temple and said, “Thanks, Doc.” He turned to his mother and said, “I did the best I could, Ma.”

“You did fine, Son. I’m ashamed of your father and your brothers. You’re the best of them though.”

“Aw, Ma, that ain’t so.”

“You better go lie down awhile.”

As soon as Artie left, she turned and said, “If you’re a doctor, what are you doing out in this forsaken place?”

“It’s a long story, Edith, and one I don’t like to talk about.”

She started to question him but saw that it was a painful matter. She suddenly put out her hand, and he took it before he thought. “Thanks for helping Artie. He’s a good boy.”

“Yes, he is, and I’m glad Benton’s gone. He wasn’t a good fellow.”

“No. We’ll have to have a guide now. I think I know who that’ll be.”

* * *

OWEN’S TIME HAD BEEN claimed by Cherry, and she asked about the fight. Joelle was standing close and saw Cherry approach.

“Did he hurt you, Owen?” Cherry asked.

“No, he didn’t.”

“What you need,” Cherry said, “is a woman to take care of you.”

Owen laughed. “No woman would put up with me, I guess.”

“I think you could find one if you looked hard enough.”

The two walked off, and Joelle felt a strange pang. He ought to stay away from her. He’s a smart man.
Doesn’t he see what
kind of a woman she is?

The thought troubled her, and later on that evening as she was talking to Aiden Hall, she remembered what Cleo had said about Aiden’s marriage. Joelle was curious, and finally she brought up the matter of the fight and worked it around to talking about the Rikers and their marriage.

Aiden turned and faced Joelle. “Joe, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but you’re a man, and all men are weak. But I hope you’ve got better sense than to go to a bad woman. It makes me sick to watch Owen chasing after Cherry. She’s a saloon woman.” Aiden shook her head and said, “You find a good woman and be true to her if it kills you, Joe.”

* * *

THE NEXT DAY, ARTIE was gathering wood as the train moved along. He made a habit of picking up dead sticks and placing them in the back of the wagon. He moved rather stiffly for the fight had taken a lot out of him. The laudanum had made him sleep, however, and he had gone over and over the fight in his mind and wished he could have done better. He heard his name and turned to see Jennie Pickett. She came up to him, and he saw that her face was flushed. He had always thought she was a pretty girl although he had never really spoken to her.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I . . . I just want to tell you”—she bit her lip—“thank you for taking up for me.”

“Well, I didn’t do much good, Jennie. I got stomped.”

“You’re not grown yet. When you’re full grown, you’ll be able to take care of yourself, but you tried. That’s what counts.” Her voice grew soft and her eyes warm. “It’s the first time anybody ever really took up for me.”

She suddenly reached out and touched his cheek. “I’m sorry you got hurt,” she said, “but I thank you.” She turned and ran away.

Artie Riker stood watching her. He felt something turn over in his breast and suddenly grinned. The movement of his facial muscles brought some pain, but he said, “Well, I guess that was worth taking a licking for.”

“I SEE AS HOW that Townsend girl is plum gone on you, Joe.”

Joelle turned in the saddle to give Owen a disgusted look. The two of them were riding far ahead of the train, having left Harry Jump to lead the oxen. “Don’t be silly,” Joelle snapped. “She’s man-crazy.”

Her answer came sharply for she was well aware of Leah Townsend’s attentions. The girl was indeed wild about men. That was easy for Joelle to see. Leah Townsend had bright red hair, fair skin, and freckles. She was attractive, and she was obviously out to get any man who gave her a look.

“I don’t reckon so,” Owen murmured. “She’s setting her cap for you. I expect she’ll catch you too. Girls with red hair have a way of getting what they want.”

Joelle sniffed but didn’t answer. She looked around the country instead, for there was a different quality to the terrain. They had come to the Caw River and were watering their horses. Overhead the fleecy clouds were delicate and fine as they drifted along lazily.

“How much farther to California?”

“A long way,” Owen shrugged. He turned to face her and studied her carefully. “You sorry you came?”

“No, I’m glad.”

The horses drank thirstily, and Joelle took the opportunity to study Owen. This had become habitual with her. He was a man of loose, rough, and durable parts. A thought occurred to her:
Why, he’s like a machine that’s made to do hard things.
There’s nothing fine or smooth about him.
She studied the long mouth that was expressive only when he smiled and the rather short straight English nose. His hair was coarse and black as night itself. He was looking off in the distance. His intense deep blue eyes fastened on something far off. Joelle learned that he had the best vision of any man in the train, able to see things the rest of them couldn’t even glimpse. She noted the wide mouth and the scar at the left corner, wondering how he got it.

Ideas sometimes came over long periods of time in small increments. Joelle’s mind usually worked like this. She had been thinking of Owen Majors a great deal ever since she had stumbled over his inert body, and caring for him as she would for a child had sharpened her interest. As she sat loosely in her saddle, however, a realization struck her forcefully. She straightened, and her lips drew tighter.

Why, I’m too interested in Owen!

The single thought shook her, and she pulled her floppy hat down farther over her forehead as if to hide her expression. The troubling thought came firm and solid. For years she had been unable to think of any man in this sense. She had a streak of romance, but her efforts to help her mother and to fight off the unhappy advances of Burl Harper had driven
most romance out of her system. Now, however, she knew that this feeling had been building deep inside for some time, and involuntarily she shook her head.
I can’t be thinking thoughts
like that.

“It’s too deep to cross here,” Owen murmured. “Come on. We’ll find a better spot.” He turned his horse to the left, and Joelle followed him. Her thoughts still lingered on the astonishing revelation, and with it came a sudden bitterness. He couldn’t be thinking of me. He doesn’t even know I’m a woman, and he’s had other women in his life.

She pulled her horse closer to him and said, “You’ve known Cherry Valance a long time, haven’t you?”

“Why, you’re downright interested in my love life.”

Joelle turned red and glanced at Owen. He was smiling at her. “I guess most young fellows are interested in women. I was, I know. When I was about your age, I followed them around like a hound dog follows a coon. I was scared of them and didn’t know how to act.”

“Well, how did you learn how to act?”

Owen suddenly leaned forward and slapped his horse’s neck, and there was amusement in his intense blue eyes. “The same way any fellow learns, I guess. Trial and error.”

Owen’s eyes were searching the river, but Joelle was not finished yet. The thought that she was attracted to this man troubled her, and at the same time her curiosity caused her to ask, “Are you in love with her?”

Owen pulled up his horse and turned to study her. His face was deeply tanned without a wrinkle, and he seemed taller and heavier than when she had first met him. He had a rider’s looseness about him, and his features were solid, and his flat,
angular shape was that of a man who made his living in hard ways. Her question seemed to trouble him, Joelle saw, and he searched for an answer. She had learned, at times, he would become absolutely still, and she had learned to recognize the expressions on his face when he was thinking deeply.

“I thought I was once,” he admitted finally.

“Are you still?” she persisted. And then suddenly she blurted out, “She’s only a dance hall girl, you know. She’s not the kind of woman who’s fit for a wife, Owen.”

Owen suddenly grew serious. He pushed his hat back, and a lock of black hair escaped from the brim, falling over his forehead. “She’s no angel,” he said finally, “but neither am I.”

“You’re better than she is.”

“Don’t be making snap judgments, boy. You aren’t old enough for that.” Her words seemed to trouble him, and finally he straightened in the saddle, pulled his shoulders back, and shook his head as a thought seized him. “A man wants a woman to be better than he is,” he said finally. “I know that probably isn’t right, and maybe it’s unfair to women, but a man has to get out and rassle with the world, and he does things he shouldn’t have to do just to stay alive. When he comes home at night, he doesn’t want a woman that’s wallowed around the dirt like he has. He wants her to be gentle and full of goodness. He wants one that won’t lie to him.”

“Have women lied to you?”

“You’re plum full of questions. Yes, a woman lied to me once. She fooled me pretty bad. I was young, and I found out she had been deceiving me. Ever since that time, I’ve been a little bit careful about how much faith I put in a woman. Maybe I’ll always be like that.”

Owen’s words troubled Joelle.
Well, I’m deceitful, and I’m
fooling him just like that woman did. Maybe not in the same way,
but he’s got a hard streak in him that I hadn’t noticed before. He
seems happy enough, but that woman, whoever she was, put her
mark on him, and now he’ll never be able to accept a woman as
good. He’ll always remember her.

“This ought to do.” Owen broke into her thoughts and indicated a spot on the river where the banks gently sloped. “We’ll check the water here. Come on. Let’s tie these horses off.”

“What for?”

“Why, it’s time to have a bath.” He glanced back and saw that the wagons were a far distance. “They won’t be here for thirty minutes.” He tied his horse, but Joelle sat on hers. He turned to look at her, and as he pulled off his shirt, he said, “Well, come on. You’re bound to be as dirty as I am.” He sat down, pulled off his boots, and then stood up and started to unbuckle his belt.

“I don’t want a bath,” Joelle said. Hurriedly, she turned Blackie’s head around and touched him with her heels. He went galloping off, and she heard Owen calling after her.

“Why, you dirty boy! Don’t you ever take baths?”

Owen watched the horse and rider disappear. He stripped off all of his clothes and plunged into the river, ducked his head under, and came up sputtering. The water was warm, and he would have preferred one of the colder mountain streams, but a man used what he had at hand. He watched the rider as she grew smaller and then laughed. “That’s one funny kid. He’ll have to toughen up before he makes it out here.”

* * *

THE TRAIN HAD SETTLED down for the night. The smell of cooking meat was in the air, and fires dotted the darkness with bright yellow tongues. The wagons had traveled farther than usual, and everyone was tired but not too tired to eat. A fiddle started up, and then the sound of singing reached Ash Landon. He was sitting on a blanket across from Lonnie Tate, who was the bouncer in his gambling casino when he had one. Also there was Tom Jordan, a lean gunman, with the grace of a panther and the same yellow golden eyes. Two miners had joined them, and they were losing money steadily. Finally one of them, a tall lanky man named Henderson, said, “I must have left my mind somewhere back on the trail, trying to beat a gambler at his own game.”

“Try again. I’ll take your IOU, Henderson.” Landon smiled, but the miner got up, and the short, chunky man with the unlikely name of Bill Og threw his cards down. “That goes for me too. You done cleaned me out.”

“Come back anytime, boys. We never close.”

Lonnie Tate laughed as the two left. He was a broad man in every way. His face had the blunt features of a bare-knuckled fighter, which he had been at one time. “They got to be pretty stupid to play cards with you.”

Ash suddenly smiled. His fine dress and appearance were lacking in the other members of the train. He was only of medium height, but he gave the impression of being larger. His chestnut hair was carefully trimmed and had a definite curl. His deep-set, well-shaped eyes were hazel. He looked down at the cards in his hands and shrugged. “It’s a good thing men are fools or else I wouldn’t have any way to make a living.”

He got to his feet and saw Cherry standing by herself, gazing into the darkness. He moved over to stand beside her and was silent as he studied her. He could feel a turbulence in her spirit as a man might feel strange currents across the waters of the sea. Her face was a mirror that she usually used as a mask, but now he saw that something had loosened in her, and for the moment, at least, she was vulnerable.
She’s as alone as any
woman I’ve ever seen.
Her expression stirred his curiosity, and he tried to identify her feelings. It was something like the gravity that comes when someone has seen too much—like the shadow of hidden sadness.

Cherry turned to him, and her eyes reflected a thought he couldn’t read. She watched him silently, and Ash knew that a woman’s silence could mean many things. He wasn’t sure what it meant in Cherry Valance, but then he had never understood her. She was meant for better things and, perhaps, had them once, but she had taken a wrong turn somewhere. And now he knew that she was as alone as he himself. Her head turned slightly, and he followed her gaze to see Owen Majors. Landon knew that the two of them had been more to each other than either of them admitted.

“Cherry, I can’t believe a fellow like Majors looks better to you than I do.” His tone was jocose, but he saw no answering smile on her face. She moved her shoulders in a gesture of impatience.

“I’m getting too old for this kind of life we lead, Ash.”

Her words surprised Landon. “What else is there?” he said. “Get married and have a houseful of squalling babies? You wouldn’t last a year at that.”

“What difference does it make?” She turned, and her voice was hard as flint. “You’d never marry me or any woman, Ash.”

“I might. You never know.”

“I know you.”

Ash said suddenly, with an abruptness that surprised him, “You’re going to try to get Majors. I doubt if it will work. He’s not your kind of man, Cherry.”

“It might work. You never know until you try.”

The thought of the woman’s past floated into Ash’s mind. He was not in love with her in the least, but in some strange perverse way he admired her, for she was as hard as he himself in some ways. He shook his head and put his hand on her shoulder. “Good marriages have happy endings. Why, those things are just romances in books or on the stage. I figured you would have learned better by now, Cherry.”

Cherry Valance didn’t answer him. Finally she shrugged, and her voice sounded flat and filled with a grief he had never heard in it. “You don’t like this life either, Ash.”

“It’s the only life I know. The only life you know too.”

He was surprised when she turned abruptly and moved toward the wagon. He knew he had touched a nerve in her that he had not known existed. His eyes went back to Majors, and he studied the big man carefully. It was his business to know men, for his was a dangerous trade, and one mistake in a man’s character or inclination could prove fatal. He knew Owen Majors was hard, tough, and sometimes dangerous. As far as Majors’s affairs with women, Ash knew nothing except that he and Cherry Valance had once fancied themselves in love, or so he supposed. He struggled for a moment and finally
gave it up. “A man never knows about a thing like that,” he murmured and then turned back toward the fire.

* * *

AFTER WEEKS ON THE trail, the wagons had traveled 460 miles west of the Missouri River, passing the confluence of the Platte’s north and south forks. High water had caught them once, and wagon wheels had to be removed, and the wagon box turned into a flat-bottom boat that could float. Some of the wagons were not watertight and nearly sank, but fortunately none were lost. Others had to be double-teamed, using eight yoke of oxen for each wagon. The wagons plunged into the river, taking a diagonal course, and it took three-quarters of an hour to reach the opposite shore.

The country had changed as they moved westward. It began tilting uphill. For twenty-two miles, the train crossed a high, waterless tableland. The wagons passed Hash Hollow, and the going was so difficult through sandy ground that the wagon wheels sank deep, and the oxen were exhausted by the end of a hard day.

At noon Joelle turned to Owen and said, “What’s that?”

Majors turned in the direction of her gesture. “That’s Chimney Rock. Pretty big hunk of rock, isn’t it? About five hundred feet high.”

“Did anybody ever climb it?”

“Oh, lots of people. They get up to the top and carve their names in it. You want to go?”

“I don’t think so. Sounds like a lot of work for nothing.”

“I always thought so myself.” He suddenly grinned at her. “You missed your chance at having a bath. Now I’m all nice and clean, and you’re dirty. Didn’t your mama teach you to take baths, Joe?”

“That was a week ago. You’re as dirty as I am.”

He suddenly laughed. There was a freeness to his laughter when it came, which was not often. “Next time I’m going to strip you off and scrub you down myself. I can’t stand having a dirty partner like you.”