Tabor Evans (25 page)

There wasn't any way Longarm could see of avoiding Belle's request. "Why, sure, Belle," he said. "I'll be glad to." Sam said, "I'll be on my way, then. It'll take me an hour or more to make the rounds. I'll meet you here at the store, and we can get some cheese and crackers and eat them before we start back." He looked questioningly at Longarm and added, "If that'll tide you over until supper, Windy. That's about the best we can do here. There isn't any restaurant."

"That'll suit me fine," Longarm replied.

Starr untied the mule from his saddle-strings and set off on foot, leading the animal. Longarm watched him until he turned between two of the buildings and was out of sight, then he followed Belle into the store.

Longarm found the general store no different from a hundred others he'd seen in towns like Eufaula. Its interior was a wild jumble of goods arranged with little logic. Calico dresses crowded farming tools such as rakes and hoes. Shoes and bolts of cloth shared the same table. Patent medicines jostled cans of peaches on shelves behind the counter. Harness straps and horse collars hung on the walls beside slabs of bacon. Hams dangled by their curing-cords from the rafters, next to heavy work shoes suspended by their knotted laces. There was the inevitable wheel of cheese standing on the counter next to the tobacco cutter.

A short, bald man in a soiled, striped apron made of mattress ticking came from somewhere in the dimness at the back of the store. He said, "Well, Belle, I was wondering when you'd be coming for that sugar you ordered. It's been here for almost a week."

"I'm ready for it now, Eleazar," Belle said. "And I've even brought somebody to help you load it on the mules."

"Good, good. Now that the boy's back in school again, I'm a little shorthanded." He looked at Longarm. "Well, I'd say you ought to be able to lift a sack of sugar without too much trouble."

Longarm grinned but made no reply. The thought flashed through his mind that he might be able to entrust his note to the storekeeper to mail, but, judging from the gossipy exchange between the man and Belle, he'd be a fool to take a chance. His note to Gower might wind up in Belle's hands if he risked giving it to the storekeeper to mail.

Belle said, "There are some other things I need besides the sugar, Eleazar. A sack of scratch-feed--the eggs haven't been very good since I ran out a few days ago--and matches, we're running low. If you've got a fresh comb of the red clover honey, put it in a bucket for me to take back. Sam might want something else, I don't know. Flour, or something like that. He'll tell you when he comes back from picking up the bottles. And I guess we'd better load the sugar on right away. It looks like it might be getting ready to rain."

"Be a shame if it spoiled the blowout for the newlyweds," the storekeeper said. "You'll be going, I guess?"

"What blowout?" Belle asked, frowning. "And who's getting married? I haven't heard anything about a wedding."

"Why, Sam's Aunt Lucy's girl, Sairey. She's marrying young Fred Mayes. Thought sure you'd heard."

"Sam's kin don't pay much attention to us out at the Bend," Belle said shortly. "But I don't guess we'll go to the wedding, since we didn't get invited."

"You'd be too late for it, anyhow," Eleazar told her. "They had that this morning early. But the shindy's just about getting started good right now, and it'll probably go on most of the night."

"Well, you and Windy go ahead and load the sugar," Belle said. "Be sure it's covered good, Windy. Sugar's too dear to let the rain get to it and melt it away."

"I'll look after it, Belle," Longarm assured her. He watched Belle go out the door, one hand holding her velvet skirt above her ankles to keep it from dragging on the dusty floor. Then he turned back to the storekeeper.

"I'll make sure the saddles on the mules are clear, then we can start toting the sugar out."

There were five one-hundred-pound sacks of sugar to be loaded, and Longarm lashed three to one mule, two to the other. He covered the sacks carefully with the tarpaulins that were tied to the packsaddles. It was easier to do the job right than to have Belle jawing at him, he thought as he tied off the last cross-hatch on the heaviest load. The other load wouldn't be lashed down until the rest of the supplies had been added to it.

Belle came up just as he was finishing. She inspected the completed load carefully before nodding her satisfaction.

Longarm said, "Think I'll walk around and stretch my legs. I'll be back before you're ready to leave."

"If you run into Sam, don't tell him about his cousin's wedding," Belle cautioned. "We don't get along with that side of Sam's family, but if he hears about the shindy, Sam's going to want to look in on it."

"I'll keep quiet about it," Longarm promised.

He walked quickly down to the post office and mailed his note to Gower. A barbershop across the street caught his eye as he came out. He crossed over after fingering his stubbled chin, deciding that a good shave would improve his spirits. He didn't think Belle and Sam would have any trouble locating him if Sam showed up and they got ready to start back.

While the barber was rubbing in the last drops of bay rum on Longarm's now-smooth face, he saw Sam leading the third mule, loaded now with bulging tow sacks, in the direction of the store. He got out of the barbershop as fast as possible, and walked into the store just in time to hear Belle exclaim, "Get some sense into your head, Sam Starr! We'd be just about as welcome at Aunt Lucy Suratt's as a case of smallpox!"

"Not when there's a party going on to celebrate a wedding," Sam retorted. "They'd get madder if they found out we was in town and didn't come to it than they would if we was to show up."

Longarm left them to argue it out, and walked over to the counter where cigars were displayed. To his surprise, a partly emptied box of his favorite cheroots stood among three or four other kinds on the shelf. Pointing to the cigars, he told the storekeeper, "If you got a full box of that kind, I'll buy it off you. Or if you ain't, I'll take what's left in this box."

"Take what's there and welcome," Elezear said. "I've only got two customers buys that kind, I just keep 'em on hand to oblige."

"I'll leave a few, if it's going to put your customers out," Longarm offered.

"If you want all of 'em, take 'em. I can't sell something but once."

Eleazar counted the number of cheroots left in the box and handed it over to Longarm. "Does this go on Belle's bill?"

"No." Longarm tossed a half eagle on the counter. "Take the price out of that." He saw that Belle and Sam were winding up their argument. "Well?" he asked. "We going to the shindy or back to the Bend?"

"We'll go say our hellos to Aunt Lucy and the rest," Belle replied. She made no effort to keep the anger from her voice. "I can't make Sam see he's just poking his head into a hornet's nest. You don't have to come unless you want to."

"I've got nothing better to do. And I'll be right there handy when you get set to go back."

"All right. We'll load the rest of the order and go stay at the shindy a half-hour or so, then head for home. We'll get wet before we get home, but Sam's got his head set."

"If we get wet, we get wet," Sam said curtly. "Come on. If we're going, we might as well finish up here and get to Aunt Lucy's before the food runs out."

They could hear the music a quarter of a mile before they got to the festivities. The twanging of a guitar, the scratchy high notes of a violin or two, and the thumping of a drum accompanied them as they wound along a dirt road well past the town itself to a house that stood isolated in a grove of mixed sycamore and sweet gum.

When the road straightened out enough for them to look down it, they saw that a board platform, only inches above ground level, had been raised for the dancers who stamped and spun to the music. At one side, long tables were heaped with food. Longarm judged that there must be thirty or more people there, counting those at the tables and on the dance floor and the few who sat on the porch of the house where it was shady.

Off the road, there were wagons, buggies, and saddle horses, as well as a few saddle mules, tethered in a glade far enough from the house to keep the flies from swarming over the entertainment area. Sam had been leading the way, with Belle riding just behind him and Longarm bringing up the rear. Sam reined in and surveyed the crowd.

"Looks like the whole damn family's here," he told Belle over his shoulder.

"Not including your cousin Henry, I hope," she snapped. "If that renegade shows his face at one of your family parties, and I'm there too, I intend to shoot his head off."

"Now, Belle," Sam said. "You just leave it to me to settle with Henry."

Longarm had drawn abreast of the Starrs. He asked Sam, "You sure I'm going to be welcome here? Because from the way you and Belle have been talking, I got the idea your family's sort of split up, and don't get along any too well together."

"Oh, you know how families are," Starr said. "There was a big split long years back, between the ones who were for and against John Ross, the Cherokee chief who signed the removal treaty. But that was fifty years ago, and Ross has been dead for a long time."

"That doesn't seem to make any difference to the Starrs and the Wests and the Suratts," Belle said. Her voice was sharp. "And that's got nothing to do with Henry West. He's the son of a bitch who turned Sam and me in to the federals on a cattle-stealing charge."

"Just the same, my family's big enough to forget fusses when one branch or another's throwing a shindy," Sam said confidently. "Come on. We'll pull in and leave our animals here with the others, and walk up to the house."

As far as Longarm could tell, Sam and Belle weren't openly snubbed by anybody as they circulated around the edge of the dance floor. There were some who returned short, stern-faced replies when Belle and Sam greeted them, but there were about as many others who seemed glad enough to see the Starrs of Younger's Bend.

Longarm tried his best to do the impossible: make himself inconspicuous and still act as though he felt at home. He was introduced to a number of Starrs and Wests and Suratts and others whose names he didn't catch, young and old, male and female, and all of them seemed to accept his presence there as normal.

It was difficult for Longarm to realize that all, or almost all, of those at the gathering were from the same family. As far as he could see, there was no common trait among the three clans. He met a variety of Starrs and Wests and Suratts who might have been pure Anglo-Saxon, full-blood Cherokee, or part Spanish or part black. The more of the family he saw, the more confused he got.

He stubbed his toe with Belle just after they'd completed the circuit of the porch, where the elder members of the group had gathered. She said, "All right, we've done what you wanted to, Sam. Now let's go home."

"Home? Damn it, Belle, this place right here's home for the time being. We just got here. We can't up and leave like we think we're too good to mix with 'em."

"You mix, then." She turned to Longarm. "Come on, Windy. Dance with me. I might not look it, but I'm one hell of a fine dancer. Used to dance professionally, you know, over in Dallas and out in California."

"I'd be real proud to lead you out on the floor there, Belle," he replied. "But all I'd do is make you look like a fool. I got two left feet when it comes to dancing."

"Oh, hell, you're just bashful!"

"No. I'm telling you the truth. Seems like the music goes to my head and gets my feet all mixed up. I end up falling on my face and making my partner mad. After that happened a time or two, I swore I never was going to try to dance anymore."

"Oh, you're just no good for a woman at all, Windy!" Belle snapped. "Well, if Sam's so dead set on staying, I intend to have as much fun as I can." She looked around, and saw a young man close by. "Jim! Jim July!

Come on and dance with your old Aunt Belle!"

For a moment the youth seemed on the verge of refusing, but then he smiled, showing big, yellowed teeth, and took Belle by the arm, and then they were stamping and whirling with the others on the dance floor.

Sam said to Longarm, "Well, Belle's taken care of, so I'm going to do some dancing myself. Go help yourself to vittles, Windy. There's whiskey under the tables. Just lift up any of the tablecloths and pick up a jug."

Left to himself, Longarm sampled the food. There were ham and chicken and spareribs and beef, cornbread and biscuits and a variety of vegetables, few of which he recognized, not being much of a vegetable fancier. There were fried squirrel and rabbit and possum, beans of several kinds, pickled crabapples, and tiny orange persimmons wrinkled into sweetness. There were some pots of stew that smelled appetizing, but which Longarm left alone because he wasn't sure what might have gone into them.

While he ate, he studied the shifting crowd. Fresh faces were constantly appearing, but Longarm couldn't tell whether they belonged to new arrivals or people he hadn't noticed before. He saw that Sam had gone onto the dance floor, but wasn't dancing with Belle. She was still twirling around with the young Cherokee she'd called Jim, and Sam had taken a short, chubby, middle-aged woman for his partner. A young couple, their faces flushed and perspiring, pushed past him, heading for the tables. Longarm stepped aside and bumped into someone behind him.