The Long Trail Home (5 page)

“Is that my daddy's carbine?” he asked.

She pulled back. Her eyes romped. “I've been savin' it for you.” She shoved the Sharps into his hand.

“Did it come bundled up in a package?” he asked.

“Brown paper and ever'thing. I have it all saved for you over at my cabin.”

“Was there a letter with the package?”

“Nothing. Just the carbine wrapped in brown paper. But I saved it for you.”

“Well, let's just waltz over to your cabin, darlin'.”

“I can dance good, you know,” she bragged.

“Piney, you're the best I've ever seen.”

“Do you tell that to all the girls?”

“Only you, darlin'. How about you and me dancin' down this dusty street and showin' all these boys some of your fancy steps?”

Her eyes widened. “Is this dance #5?”

“I believe it is,” he nodded.

“I'll have to check my card, sir.”

“Yes, ma'am. I was just takin' a chance to ask you at this late date.”

She opened up the palm of her hand as if reading something written on it.

Sam could see dried blood, or jam—or both. When she threw her shoulders back straight, she was almost as tall as Fortune. “This is your lucky day, cowboy. Dance #5 is my only opening all evenin'.”

He grabbed her right hand with his left and held the carbine behind her back. Piney leaned into him and he danced her out into the street.

Two men on horseback stopped to watch, and customers drifted out of the shops and saloons to squint at the swirling dust of Antelope Flats.

“You dance pretty good, cowboy,” she sang out.

“With you, Piney, ever' man is a good dancer.”

Across the street he spotted Kiowa and Ladosa watching them from the back of the paneled wagon. He waved down toward the row of white cabins and kept dancing.

They were in front of the Real Nice Hotel when Piney stopped dancing and began to sob. Fortune cradled her against his chest. “What's the matter, darlin'?”

“I don't know where I live, Sammy!”

“What?”

The tears cut deep tracks down her dirty cheeks. “Some days . . . I cain't remember where my cabin is. I got hurt, Sammy. I got hurt real bad, and some days I can't find my way home.” She gasped for breath while he took his bandanna and wiped the corner of her eyes. “I'm too ashamed to ask. So I just wander around 'til dark.”

He put his hand to the back of her head and pulled her close. “It's OK, darlin'. I know which one it is. It's the second one. Come on; you haven't finished my dance.”

She drew back and raised her chin. “You're real pesky about that dance, ain't you, cowboy? I've got a whole line of other men who want to dance with me too.”

“Come on, Piney. Dance with me just a little more—please?”

“I hate to see a grown man standin' around beggin' like this, but it's the only dance you get tonight. I told you, my card is full.”

They danced down the dirt street to the second in a row of white one-room cabins. He led her over to an uncovered wooden porch not more than three feet by four feet. He swung her around, and they sat on the porch steps.

She dropped her chin to her flat chest. “You're goin' inside with me, ain't you?” she murmured.

“Why, look who's walkin' this way,” Sam said. “It's Ladosa and Kiowa. Let's invite them to come in with us, darlin'.”

“It will be like havin' company!” Piney giggled. “We ain't had company in a long time, have we, Sammy?” She rested her head on his shoulder and began to weep.

He gently rocked her back and forth.

“This ain't no way to live, Sammy. I prayed and prayed that the Lord would give me one bullet so I could end it all, if I mustered up the nerve.”

If you hadn't burned all your bridges, Sam Fortune, you could at least pray for Piney. Whatever happened to your middle son, Mama? How did I get here? I'm barely a step ahead of Piney.
He stood up and tugged her to her feet.

“Ladosa, how nice of you to stop by. And who is your gentleman friend?” Piney blurted out.

Ladosa had to stand on her tiptoes to give Piney a hug. “You remember Kiowa, don't you?”

“He had the fourth dance at the Harvest Ball and stepped on my corn.” She addressed Kiowa, “How nice to see you, Mr. Fox, but I'm afraid my dance card is full.”

Ten minutes later the two men exited the small, stuffy cabin. Sam carried the carbine in one hand and a scrap of heavy, brown, folded paper in the other.

Kiowa pushed his black hat to the back of his head. “Seems strange that your daddy would send you his gun without a note explainin' it.”

Sam examined his own name on the paper. “This isn't Daddy's writin': a woman wrote this. Maybe Rebekah wrote it.”

“Who's she?”

“My brother Todd's wife.”

“How about your sister? Maybe she wrote it,” Kiowa suggested.

Sam ambled to the middle of the street where a hand-pump water well was boxed off with graying, cedar one-by-twelves. “Nah, she's just a girl . . . she wouldn't . . .” He propped the carbine against the well casing.

Kiowa surveyed up and down the street. “How old is she?”

“Dacee June is thirteen years younger than me. That would make her . . .” Sam yanked off his red bandanna and jammed it in his back pocket. Then he unbuttoned his shirt halfway down his chest.

“That would make her twenty-one, amigo. She is no little girl.”

Sam stuck his head under the spout of the red pump and cranked it. “You're right. Maybe Dacee June sent this,” he called out, then straightened, water streaming down his neck and shirt. “But why? Why send it to me?”

“Maybe your daddy wanted to give you a present.”

Fortune tugged out his bandanna, shook the dust out of it, and wiped his face dry. “He's dead, Kiowa.”

“What do you mean, ‘he's dead'? They would have wrote you about that.”

“Maybe they did. Maybe Piney can't remember the letter.” Sam pumped some more fresh water and drenched the bandanna. “Daddy hasn't been ten feet away from this carbine since we left Brownsville. I know he's dead. What I don't know is why this didn't go to Todd. He's the oldest. Maybe . . . he's dead too.”

“When's the last time you heard from 'em?”

Sam rung out the bandanna, then retied it around his neck. “I didn't exactly want them to know I was in prison.”

“When's the last time you heard from them?” Kiowa pressed.

“Four or five years, I reckon.”

Kiowa plucked up the gun and studied it. “It's a nice carbine, partner. When they converted them over to single-shot, .50 cartridges, they made a powerful saddle gun.”

“And I don't own a horse or even a bullet for it.”

“Yeah,” Kiowa handed him the carbine, “but the people standin' at the other side of that barrel don't know that. Maybe we ought to rob the hardware since we don't have a dozen .44 cartridges between us.”

Sam held the gun by the receiver and looped the barrel over his shoulder. “I'm not goin' to hold up anythin' with Daddy's carbine. He was a righteous man every day of his life. He was stubborn: He was wrong about the war; he was wrong about abandonin' the ranch to carpetbaggin' bankers; but he was a righteous man. It wouldn't be right to use his gun for a robbery.”

“OK, that eliminates one option,” Kiowa conceded. “But what are we goin' to do, amigo? We didn't do a very good job about keepin' out of sight—what, with you dancin' like a fool down the street.”

“You got any money left, Kiowa?”

“Two bits. You're the one who had a dollar.”

“I had to use it to get this carbine out of pawn.”

Kiowa pushed his black hat back and let it dangle by the braided horsehair stampede string. “Ladosa told us we could try to sell the rest of that tonic.”

“Let's pack it all into that mercantile and see what they'll give us in trade.”

“It would be less work to rob a bank.” Kiowa bent under the red hand-pump and cranked an uneven stream of well water over the back of his neck.

Then Sam pumped the handle while Kiowa washed his face. “Antelope Flats doesn't have a bank.”

“You know what I mean,” Kiowa called out from under the flow of clear water. “It don't seem right for Fortune and Fox to trade patent medicine for bullets.”

“Ladosa wanted to help Piney get cleaned up and settled down. I'm not goin' to stir up town while she's doin' that.”

Kiowa shook his shoulder-length, wet, black hair like a dog after a bath. He surveyed the entire length of the Antelope Flats business district. “You know, partner, some towns is so pitiful, they just ain't worth the effort to rob them.”

Most of the customers in the mercantile seemed to be waiting for something to happen. A store full of eyes followed Sam Fortune's every move. “We brought you six crates of that patent medicine, twelve bottles to a case, and that's all you'll give us in trade?”

The bald man with white hair above his ears and a crisp white apron forced a small smile across his narrow mouth. “Boys, I can sell one bottle to ever' family in town and still have five crates left over. There's a limit to how many bottles of General Marsh's a family needs. Two boxes of .44s, two pairs of spurs, one pair of socks, and one bandanna—that's all I can give you.”

“And a box of .50s for the Sharps,” Sam added.

The stocky man fanned himself with a long, narrow bill of sale. “You boys are tryin' to drive me out of business. I can't give you one thing more. I really can't. I just don't need the stuff. Maybe you can try at some other store.”

Sam surveyed the mirror on the wall behind the counter.
I need a shave, a haircut, and a bath, and I'm buyin' bullets?
“How much for one of those amber bottles with the cork stoppers?” he asked.

“A nickel apiece,” the man replied.

“Good, we'll take one pair of spurs and all sixteen of your amber bottles. That's the same price I believe as two pairs of spurs,” Sam calculated.

“What are we goin' to do with those bottles?” Kiowa pressed.

An older woman in a gray- and yellow-flowered bonnet leaned across the yardage counter trying to hear his reply. Sam almost shouted, “Take 'em out in the street and bust 'em.”

“You're not serious!” the storekeeper gasped.

“Mister, as soon as we were out that door, you were goin' to pour General Marsh's into those amber bottles and sell it as fancy liquor for five dollars each. But I just bought the bottles, so you'll have to keep it as patent medicine, won't you?”

The man reached into a glass case and pulled out a box of .50-caliber bullets. “I believe this is what you wanted.”

“I think he said
two
boxes of .50s,” Kiowa pressed.

The man shook his head, then pulled out another box. “I presume you have a bill of sale on this patent medicine.”

“No receipt,” Sam informed him, “but I can assure you that nobody will come lookin' for them. Now, have you got a bill of sale on those two pairs of used spurs?”

The man tugged on his tight black tie and started to laugh. “No, but I assure you no one will come lookin' for them. If you boys ever want a job as hagglin' clerks, I'll put you on commission.”

“We ain't much at clerkin'.” Kiowa plucked up one pair of spurs and flipped open a box of .44s, slowly shoving them one at a time into his bullet belt.

“You boys obviously need a few dollars. I know of a job, if you're tough enough,” the merchant offered.

“Is it legal?” Kiowa demanded.

“It's mostly legal, all right.”

Kiowa started to laugh. “Then, we ain't interested.”

Sam Fortune loaded his own bullet belt. “What kind of job?”

The storekeeper stepped around from behind the counter. “A man pulled in this morning looking for help to break some horses.”

Sam glanced at Kiowa, then back at the man. “What's the deal?”

“Break thirty-six horses in three weeks. It'll take the two of you.”

“What's the pay?” Kiowa inquired.

“Two dollars per pony, plus you get the first two picks.”

“You tired of mules, Kiowa?” Sam challenged.

“I don't even like to eat mules,” the half-breed grinned.

Sam turned back to the man at the counter. “Where's the ranch?”

“That's the catch. Accordin' to this old boy, he's openin' up a ranch on San Francisco Creek.”

“That's up in Public Lands,” Kiowa said. “The government won't let anyone up there.”

“Well, this old boy claims he has inside information that Uncle Sam is goin' to open it up for settlement, and he wants a prior claim. He said he has twelve hundred Mexican cows on the trail already. He wants this remuda broke and waitin' for his crew when they get here.”

Sam plopped down on a nail barrel and tugged off his dusty brown boots. “Then, he wants someone to live up there for three weeks.”

“That's the dangerous part. He doesn't even have a barn finished, just a holdin' pen and a fenced corral.”

Sam peeled off his dirty, worn out socks and wiggled his toes. “Where's the man now?”

“He said he was goin' over to the Ohaysis,” the shopkeeper informed. “Course, it could be he hired someone already.”

Fortune slowly tugged on the new socks. “What's his name?”

“Rocklin.”

Sam pulled his boots back on. “What's he look like?”

“Like west Texas: tough, dry, and windy—about like you two. You won't miss him. Must be about fifty years old.”

Fox and Fortune strolled out on the boardwalk in front of the mercantile. Sam enjoyed the feel of clean cotton cradling his toes.

A wide gold-toothed grin broke across Kiowa's dark-skinned face. “You thinkin' what I'm thinkin', partner?”