The Passionate and the Proud (12 page)

“Do you think Randy’s plan will work?”

“No,” said Garn. “But don’t worry. I’ll take care of you.”

For once, Em did not reject the offer.

The mock cannon, ten of them, did look reasonably authentic, even when viewed up close. Torquist’s men, working frenziedly, had stripped wheels and axles from wagons, fitted them with long, thin, blackened sections of wagonpole, and when they were rolled out beyond the wagons onto the prairie facing the ridge, Emmalee could almost make herself believe that they actually
were
cannon.

The only problem was that she knew they weren’t.

Three farmers took up positions, one trio per cannon, as if they were gun crews, and looked up at the Arapaho, still motionless, on the crest of the ridge.

Horace Torquist came out of his tent, fully dressed and confident.

“Now we shall triumph,” he declared.

“Mr. Torquist,” bleated Jasper Heaton, the Indiana farmer, “A calf musta got loose from the herd last night, an’ she’s drowned or somethin’ down by the river.”

“Not now, Jasper. Let us discuss it when the Indians disperse.

“All right, men,” he ordered, his wild mane of hair like a burning bush beneath the red penumbra of dawn, “light your torches and prepare to fire.”

The “gun crews” were equipped with torches, making it appear as if they were ready to fire the fuses and powder that would propel cannonballs. It was a colossal bluff. The torches were lighted.

Up on the ridge, the warriors nearest Fire-On-The-Moon drew their ponies next to him.

“They’re thinkin’ things over real hard now,” gloated Ebenezer Creel.

Emmalee remembered a prayer she had learned at the Lutheran orphanage. She started to say it.

Ten warriors left their chieftain’s side and began to ride slowly down the ridge toward the cannon.

Emmalee caught a glimpse of Garn Landar shaking his head and smiling bitterly. She stopped praying.

“If anyone fires a weapon at these braves,” he said, “I’ll kill him myself. Do
nothing,
or you’re dead right now.”

The Arapaho braves rode down toward the camp, growing larger and more distinct as they came. Emmalee saw the fierce daubs of warpaint across their high cheekbones and their bold, proud eyes, black and glaring. They rode bareback, powerful thighs gripping their horses. Emmalee was aware of the arrogance of physical strength: strong legs, bulging breechclouts, iron-hand stomachs, deep chests, and mighty arms.

“Hold your ground,” Torquist commanded his “gunners,” who turned and looked pleadingly toward him. The gamble was not working, and they knew it. The only question now was what the Indians would do when they got close enough to verify that the “weapons” were phony.

“Don’t do a
thing
!” Garn warned again. “Don’t challenge them in any way. Maybe they’ll take this as some sort of a joke, although the Plains Indians are not noted for their sense of humor.”

“I thought it was a good idea…” said Randy in his own behalf.

“You tried,” Garn told him. “That’s more than most.”

“Th-this is it!” faltered Torquist.

The ten braves fanned out, one to a “cannon,” and halted their horses. They studied the wagonpole barrels carefully, then looked at one another with contemptuous grimaces that were terrible to behold. A warrior rode up to Mr. Torquist and raised his spear threateningly. The wagonmaster showed signs of coming completely apart.

“He wants the torches doused, Horace,” said Garn.

No one was questioning Garn now; nobody else seemed to have any idea of what to do.

The torches, useless anyway, were extinguished; the Indians looked fierce, disdainful, triumphant.

Now the brave with the spear motioned Torquist to step forward. The wagonboss understood the signal well enough, but terror froze him to the earth.

“Get out there, Horace,” ordered Garn, and in his voice was a register of authority Emmalee had not heard before. “Get out there, damn it. He’s not going to kill you.”

For a moment it seemed as if Garn were wrong. Torquist stepped forward and the Indian regarded him dispassionately for a moment. Then, suddenly, the brave’s spear slashed down through the air, jabbed at Horace’s shoulder. He cried out and fell to the ground. The Indians turned and galloped back up the hill toward their leader, yipping and shrieking.

Everyone rushed out to Torquist, who was on the ground, shaking and holding his shoulder. Emmalee saw blood seeping through his flannel shirt and onto his fingers. She could tell at a glance, however, that the wound was not deep.

“What the hell do you make of that?” Ebenezer Creel cackled. “That there redskin coulda kilt old Horace, but he didn’t.”

“That’s because he didn’t want to,” explained Garn. “Blooding a man, as that brave just did to Torquist, is a sign that he could have killed but chose not to.”

“Why not?” asked Torquist, clutching his wound.

“Because the man who has been spared is already at the mercy of the one who could have killed, and who could still do so at any time.”

“How do you know so much about these things?” demanded Randy Clay, with considerable heat.

“I spent a lot of years out here. The high plains are my home.”

Myrtle Higgins pushed her way through the groups of people around Torquist, cut away his shirt, and began to apply a bandage. “What do they want, anyway?” she asked, looking up at the ridge, along which the Arapaho were still arrayed.

“Well, they don’t want to kill us, at least not yet…” Garn began.

The wagonboss interrupted testily, threatened by Garn’s steady and confident supply of comment and information, humiliated by the fear he had just displayed.

“All right,” he called, “all right. If they can wait, so can we. Everyone stay calm. Women and children will remain inside the circle of wagons. Men, get to work and water the horses and the cattle. Drive them down to the river.”

“Hey, Mr. Torquist, there’s Indians down by the river too,” shouted little Jimmy Buttlesworth, the miller’s boy. He had taken a position high in a cottonwood and had a good view of the terrain.

“What do you mean?”

“Upstream,” said Jimmy. “They’re dumping sacks of stuff in the water.”

Two dead dogs.

A dead calf.

“Poison of some kind,” Garn said quietly.

But everybody heard him, and they understood what it meant. The animals smelled that water, needed it. They were restrained inadequately in makeshift corrals of rope and sticks and fluttering pieces of cloth. When the sun rose a little higher and the day grew a little hotter, horses, cattle, and oxen would push through those frail barriers and head for the river. And death.

“The Arapaho can’t befoul a moving stream permanently,” Torquist calculated.

“But they can do it long enough to cause us plenty of trouble,” said Garn.

“Strep,” asked the wagonleader, “what’s the water situation?”

“Half the barrels full, boss. I was goin’ to fill the rest this mornin’.”

Torquist surveyed the Indians on the ridge, crossed his arms, forced himself to assume a stubborn stance. The people needed his wisdom, his will. He had to pull himself together. “We’ll save a couple of barrels for use in camp,” he decreed. “Men, take the rest over to the animals. It’ll keep them in their corrals. Stay calm, everyone. I shall go to my tent and devise a plan of action.”

Almost no one remained calm. The men busied themselves watering the animals, knowing full well that a few barrels would not long overcome the sweet lure of the river. The women and children debated the kinds of shelters they might create should the Arapaho attack, and decided that, short of a giant bird that would pluck them from the camp, nothing could save them. Up on the ridge, the Indians had dismounted now. They squatted in the grass in groups of four or five or six, eating cold joints of meat and casting aside the bones.

Emmalee could see Fire-On-The-Moon, still astride his white pony, patient, implacable, waiting. She realized how lucky she was to have gone to the river before dawn, and when she returned to the wagon and read Mrs. Creel the Twenty-third Psalm, she was very conscious of having walked in the valley of the shadow of death.

Ebenezer was out telling anyone who would listen what Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis would have done to these Arapaho, if they were there and if they had half a chance. Emmalee finished reading, gave Bernice a double dose of medicine—the poor woman was as alarmed by the Indians as she was tortured by pain—and sat down on the Conestoga’s endgate, intending to catch up on her sewing. It did seem a little silly to darn her heavy trail socks when she might soon be dead, but the activity helped to keep danger from her mind.

Garn walked up just as she was getting a clump of yam untangled.

“Emmalee,” he said, “you sure look pretty in that red-and-white dress.”

She saw him looking at her breasts and remembered how she had felt when he kissed them.

“Thank you,” she said crisply, squinting in the sunlight, trying to get the darning started.

Garn took off his hat and used it to cast a shadow for her. The needle flashed.

“Ah, you’re good at that sort of thing,” he said. “Make some man a fine wife one day.”

“That’s what some people have told me.”

“But you’re not interested?”

“Not yet. It depends on the man anyway, doesn’t it?”

“Well, it does depend a little on you too. But I didn’t come over here to discuss a future you don’t seem to be interested in. The fact is, we’re in big trouble here with these Indians.”

“Do you think I’m so stupid as not to know
that
?”

“I don’t think you’re stupid at all. A little bullheaded maybe, but…well, there’s no time for that now. We’re in deeper trouble than anyone suspects, and I want you to do me a big favor.”

Emmalee ceased working and looked up. He was serious. “What is it?” she asked.

He put his hat back on. The silver pieces glittered in the sun. She saw the vacant spot where the missing piece had been.

“Go to Horace Torquist’s tent,” he said. “I need you to tell him what to do.”

“But Mr. Torquist is perfectly capable of—”

“No, he’s not. Torquist is an able man, but he functions well only when the world he sees before him matches an idea of a world he keeps safe in his mind. Those two worlds are pretty different right now. Falling apart in front of everyone, as he did a few minutes ago, hurt him badly too.”

Emmalee was curious. Garn had, quite casually, rendered Torquist less puzzling. “Why don’t you go see him yourself?” she asked.

“It’s very difficult for a fellow like Torquist to take advice, especially from a man like me. But there’s a chance he might listen to you.”

“Even if he does, what do I have to tell him?”

“Pay attention,” Garn instructed. “That’s what I’m here to talk to you about.”

A few minutes later, Emmalee stood in front of Torquist’s tent and called his name. After a long moment, during which time she could hear the squeak of bedsprings, the wagonmaster came to the door. He had a faraway, almost distraught look in his eyes and his usually impeccable appearance was marred by a misbuttoned shirt.

“Miss Alden,” he said, “I’m very busy…”

Emmalee did as Garn had advised, ignored Torquist’s protestation and pushed inside the tent. It was as neat as ever, except that the bed was unmade. The wagonleader had been lying down, worrying.

“Emmalee…” he started to say.

“I have an idea that might work,” she interrupted, getting it out quickly. “Let’s send an emissary up to see Chief Fire-On-The-Moon and see what he wants. You know how these Indians are. They hold themselves like kings. They want to be attended with diplomacy and respect.”

Torquist thought it over. “I suppose I could do that,” he mused. Emmalee’s heart went out to him. He seemed so fragile in some ways, a mere husk of the man he appeared to be when he spoke to the people. His great dream of a perfect community beyond the mountains was threatened by the Arapaho, and he stood in double jeopardy. In the first place, he would lose his dream; in the second, he would lose the concepts of virtue and rectitude by which his dream was sustained.

“An emissary might work,” he said in a stronger voice, as if the idea had been his from the start. “We’ve got to do something, or we’ll lose the advantage of time we’ve been able to gain from Pennington. Any ideas as to whom we ought to send?”

“What about that scout?” Emmalee said. “The one who’s always doing all the talking? I understand he knows sign language and even a bit of the Arapaho tongue.”

“Good work, Emmalee.” Garn grinned, mounting his black stallion. “If I don’t come back, it’s been nice knowing you. Enjoy yourself in Olympia.”

Then he was riding up the ridge toward Fire-On-The-Moon. Emmalee could see the Indians get up from the grass and leap onto their ponies, watching alertly as Garn rode toward them.

Torquist and the scouts stood outside the wagonmaster’s tent.

“I’ll say one thing about Landar,” said Red Cassidy, “he sure is a hard man to figure out. It looks like he’s out huntin’ his own death.”

“I hear he’s a gamblin’ man,” said Tip Mexx, poking Hap Ryder in the ribs. Hap had already lost half his pay to Garn in a series of poker games.

“What’s this about gambling?” demanded Torquist, tearing himself away for a moment from his preoccupation with what would happen between Garn and the Indians.

“I said Landar is taking a gamble.”

Emmalee was standing close to the tent, watching the ridge too. Torquist noticed her there. “Women and children to the inner ring of wagons,” he scolded. “I swear, nobody obeys around here.”

It was as if he had completely forgotten her contribution to this enterprise! With considerable irritation, Emmalee, started back to join the women, then realized that she couldn’t bear to miss out on what was happening on the hill. The men of the camp were crouched down behind the outer circle of wagons, armed with pitchforks, axes, and hammers. They were intent upon Garn’s progress, so no one noticed Emmalee as she slipped inside the Conestoga nearest Horace Torquist’s command tent. It was cool and dark in the wagon. She unfastened a couple of lashing and folded away a small section of canvas. She could see the ridge clearly.