Chapter 9

We were two thirds through our journey now, and all of us were anxious to get where we were going, get cabins up, and get ready for winter. Winters weren’t that bad in Georgia, and I had heard enough about blizzards and low temperatures in Colorado to not want to be caught unprepared.

I had done some trading at some of the forts and small towns we’d passed through, making a good profit off some of the weapons and other sundries. I’d gotten rid of a barrel of candy and that distressed the children of the train badly. At the last big town we passed through I found myself buying instead of selling. I’d hit a growth spurt, adding four inches and forty pounds to my frame, and the weight wasn’t fat. Cindy had altered a few things for me but finally she said enough. Half the ladies of the train dragged me into the biggest merchantile in town, measuring me and picking clothes. The clerk stood there watching and grinning, asking me which was my mother.

“If you’d ask them they’d say they all were.”

Cindy brought a shirt over and set it on the pile. I didn’t like it and told her. She’d gotten pretty comfortable mothering me and she just glared. “Don’t backtalk me, son. This color will look good on you.”

I gave up. “Yes ma’am.”

When it came time to leave I got my revenge, threatening to take everything back until they got something for themselves. They fussed, but when they saw I wasn’t moved it took another hour before they were happy with their purchases. I rode beside them in the wagon they’d taken to town, and asked them why they thought I needed a suit.

The women all laughed and Chastity answered. “You’re a handsome boy, Joshua. Plus it’s pretty obvious you’re going to be successful in whatever you choose to do. You’re going to be well off when you empty those wagons so you’re going to be a good catch for some lucky young lady and we’d like to keep you in the family, so to speak. Take my Karina for example. She is very pretty, no? And she just turned fifteen, a good marrying age in my country. I married Hans when I was fifteen and we have been very happy. Karina is a good worker and excellent cook, and if she takes after her mother she could make you very, very happy. You think on it.”

That led to a discussion of the merits of every available female on the train, talking like I wasn’t there, but when they got around to Mary-Beth I’d had enough and galloped off. I could hear their laughter as I rode away.

We were four days past the last fort when trouble struck. I’d been out scouting the terrain in one direction and Jed in another. The trail was very rough in that section and we worried about breaking wheels. All of the wagons carried a spare but none carried two, so we wanted to be very careful. I heard the gunshots as I was riding back. I slowed down and peaked over a rise when I got close. There were about fifteen men sitting horses in front of the wagons, every one with a weapon in their hands. One big man was off his horse holding something. The men and women of the train were holding rifles and shotguns and it looked like a standoff. I angled up behind then, moving as cautiously as I could. Back home I’d gotten good enough at stalking to get close enough to touch a deer, and I used every bit of my woodcraft to get as close as possible. They had to be a pretty arrogant bunch because not one person watched their backs.

The man was holding Mary-Beth, with a knife to her throat! He was talking. “You ain’t understandin’ me, you furrin devils. You drop them scatterguns! I’m takin’ those cows and horses, they belong to the ranch anyway. Ya’ll just stand back and we’ll let her go when we’re clear. Don’t even think you can run to the law. I’m the law around here!”

He was talking about my horses and ten little Jersey heifers and a bull one of the Mennonites had bought from one of their kind already here. He planned on opening a dairy if he could find a place close to a town. By nature they were gentle, docile creatures, and the people of the train, especially the children, petted them relentlessly.

“Like hell you will! When the man that owns those hosses comes back you’re a dead man! I hope he lets me watch while he hangs you.” Mary-Beth ended her speech by biting him on his arm. He dropped his knife and she took the small one she had in her skirts and stabbed back, catching him in the thigh. He jumped back, screaming about what he was going to do to her, when I rose up and smacked him in the back of his head with my rifle, using it like a club. I had a fleeting though that I should have kept that axe handle from back on the farm. Everyone there heard the thunk as I connected and he dropped like a rock.

I let go of the rifle and snatched out both pistols before they could figure out what happened. The one man in the crowd who looked salty enough to give us any trouble was standing very still, the barrel of Jed’s pistol pressed against the back of his head. I looked around for the one that seemed most scared, and dragged him off his horse, jamming both pistols into his belly.

“You want to live to see tomorrow this would be a fine time to start talking. Who is this asshole and what makes him think he can just ride up and steal from us?”

“He’s Jim Worley. He owns the JW spread a few days west of here.”

I grabbed him by his long beard and dragged him over to the Jerseys. “You see anything here with that brand on it? How about those horses over there?”

“N ... No sir.”

“Then what the hell made him think it was a good idea to try to steal them?”

“He’s done it before. This is the first time anybody’s bowed up to him. I ain’t never seen so many shotguns in the hands of pissed off women and farmers in my life. We tried to get him to back off but he wouldn’t. He’s buffaloed a couple of trains before, Mister. He’s got brothers and you’d best let us go.”

I laughed. “Let you go? Horse stealing and cattle rustling is a hangin’ offense. I don’t intend to let you go, I intend to hang the whole lot of you.”

That lead to a bunch of scared cowboys and a general outcry. They all had their hands in the air by then. A shotgun boomed and a woman cried “Enough!”

I turned around to see Becky and grinned. Then I saw the dark bruise on her cheek and got really still. “Who did that to you?” My question was barely above a whisper but everyone who heard me could hear death in my voice. Her eyes flicked down to the man on the ground. I took a bucket that hung off a wagon and filled it about half full, pouring the contents over the man’s head. He came to pissed beyond measure. “I’m gonna kill you!”

My laugh was not what he was expecting. “Them’s mighty bold words from a man lyin’ in the mud with two dozen shotguns aimed at him. This ain’t your day for killin’ mister. Today is your day for dyin.”

The men of the train dragged him up and he changed his tune mighty quick. “Now hold on here! I may have made a mistake. Maybe that ain’t my livestock. Why don’t you folks just pass on through and we’ll call it even.”

I stared at him until he got nervous. “You got a wife? A mother?”

He looked at me like I was insane. “No wife. Ma’s passed these five years now.”