Chapter 10

In my time we could have driven to our destination in hours in an automobile, but with mules and wagons it is considerably slower. It will take months to get to Missouri. Funny thing about slowing down from seventy to three or four miles an hour, it really changes ones perspective, thirty minutes in a car, a day in a wagon. I have always used my time while on horseback to think. Now with wives and responsibilities it was time to talk and plan.

Today Mom and I were riding out front talking. I guess I never realised how much my Dad held my Mom back when I was at home. In the past weeks since she had joined us I had watched her bloom. Today she wanted to talk to me about a decision she had made. "Tom would it bother you if I married again?"

"Has Red Hand asked?" I watched as my mother blushed, "Mom I've seen you with him and Elizabeth. You all look so happy, what's holding you back?"

"You," she looked down using her hair to hide her face, "Red Hand is afraid it would upset you if he asked for my hand. He has so much respect for you he would never do anything to risk that."

I didn't have anything to think about really, I loved my mother and nothing was as important as her happiness, "I'd be honoured to call Red Hand father."

"Oh you! I hadn't thought of that," Mom started laughing, "I have to go tell him." She leaned across and kissed my cheek and then with a hoop and a holler she spun and spurred her horse headed back to Elizabeth's wagon.

My wives had been holding back a ways while my Mom and I talked. When they saw Mom take off towards the wagons they rode up beside me, "What was that all about?" Jana asked.

"Red Hand is about to be my step Dad."

"What's a step Dad," Jana asked.

I hadn't thought about that, divorces just didn't happen much in this time, abandonment, now that was a different story. So I took the time to explain to my wives how where I came from it was common to dump a mate sometimes for no reason at all. They were sure I was lying to them when I told them that over half of all marriages ended in divorce.

Sam was the first to see the rider, "Tom look!"

As soon as I saw him I turned in the saddle and whistled the alert and watched as troopers piled off wagons and started mounting up and forming squads. The younger kids that didn't normally drive teams scrambled to take over for troopers. I kissed my wives and they went and took their place in their squads. Two Horses whistled troopers to the front. Two Horses, Red Hawk, Milt and I rode forward to meet the scouts.

Maggie, now Mills, rode up and saluted, "It's a wagon train Sirs and there's twenty wagons that look like the ones with the hidden compartments."

"Are there any guards?" Red Hawk asked.

"Yes Sir! Every one of the suspect wagons has a driver and a man with a rifle or shotgun."

"I don't like this Red Hawk. Maggie, what's the terrain like?"

"It's just about like this, flat as a table then it slopes off into sort of a valley, it also slopes off on both flanks. They are coming up the slope out of the valley now. And Sir, I took the liberty of contacting the squads on the left and right flanks. They, along with my squad with my second in command, are going to set up behind them."

I had to smile, "Good work Maggie, stay by my side."

Red Hawk looked back and forth between me and Two Horses then finally made up his mind, "Let's unload the field pieces and the Gatling gun. While we're doing that let's get some people on their flanks."

Two Horses whistled up Broken Knife, Robert Mills, and Red Hand. When they got there, "Each of you take ten squads. Red Hand you take the left flank, Broken Knife the right. This is a point, it slopes off on both sides so you should be able to be get set up out of sight." They saluted Two Horses, spun their horses, and raced back to their troops. Two Horses turned to Robert, "Get your guns out of their wagons and on their field carriages ready to move, load one with canister and put ball in the other." Robert saluted, spun his horse, and raced back to get the guns.

Broken Knife and Red Hand were already out of sight, Robert had the guns out, and the three troops under his command were ready to move out. Red Hawk signalled for the advance. Five miles down the trail we met the other wagon train. I wondered what they were thinking. Red Hawk had put the three hundred plus troopers behind us to form up ten squads wide and then stack up behind each other.

A new feature to the squads was the flags. Each squad had a flag and each flag was different. Milt had brought a dozen bolts of cloth and the girls had done themselves proud. Now the wagon before us stopped with three hundred mounted cavalry in front of them. Red Hawk let them sit there for ten minutes then we watched as two men started to ride toward us. Red Hawk smiled, "Bring up the guns. Signal Broken Knife and Red Hand to advance into sight."

With practiced ease squads parted on both sides and in the centre as the two field pieces came flying through crossing in front of the lines so the enemy could see what they were. The Gatling gun set up between them and as if that wasn't enough to rattle them Broken Knife and Red Hand suddenly pop up with one hundred troops on each of their flanks.

The two men had stopped in their tracks they now returned to the wagons and made a white flag and started back toward us. We heard a bunch of yelling coming from the wagons in front of us.

Broken Knife signalled that the scouting squads had popped up in their rear. Red Hawk laughed, "Tom, what is it you like to say at a time like this?"

"Oh, yeah, sucks to them."

Red Hawk leaned to where he could see Maggie, "Trooper Mills can you put a white streamer on the Band colours?"

"Yes Sir!" Maggie rode over to the trooper who had the colours. They tied a white streamer on the top and then Maggie took the red, black, yellow, brown and white hands clasped in the centre of the blue flag. This was the flag that represented the unity of four races and a fifth that would come. Then she rode back to Red Hawk.

"Ready Sir!" Maggie winked at her husband as he readied the cannons.

"Let's go!" Red Hawk exclaimed and out we rode to meet the two men.

"What the hell do you mean stopping us like this," the man on the right screamed out.

Red Hawk stopped and raised his hand. The three hundred troops behind us moved into line abreast and drew their rifles, as did the troops on both flanks.

"Your attitude better change real fast mister or this will be your last day." I was also watching the two men on the first wagon, "And if your men fire at us," I nodded toward the first wagon, "we'll have killed every one of you before we hit the ground."

The man on the left turned to the angry one, "Ride back there and tell those idiots to put their guns down." He turned back to us, "What is it that you want?"

I looked over at Red Hawk and he nodded, "We want to inspect some of your wagons."

"And if we won't allow it?" the man asked.

"Then we search them after we kill you." I said as coolly as I could. "We'll do it anyway. Whether you're alive or dead at the time is up to you mister," I calmly replied.

Two Horses signalled the advance and as soon as we started, two shots rang out. The man on the first wagon was lying on the ground. I turned to look and saw that Maggie was holding her side with her free hand and I could see the blood. "Kill the guards now." The whistle signal went out and it sounded like one shot with and echo. I whistled for my med kit and angrily turned to the man from the wagon train, "You better start praying she lives cause if she doesn't none of you will."

The man's face blanched white, I got off my horse and tried to get Maggie to get down, "I'm sorry Sir I can't. I'm holding the colours."

Two Horses whistled for a flag bearer and one came racing forward. Maggie handed the flag off, saluted, and the collapsed into my arms.

Red Hawk turned to the man, "Go tell your people to throw down their guns and knives. If we find any one armed when we come up they will be killed and you as well. Understand?"

The man nodded and rode back to his wagons. We watched as they all quickly began to throw down guns and knives. Red Hawk sent troopers in and they started searching the people in the wagons while Broken Knife and some of his men opened the first wagon.

While they were doing that my wives were by my side as I tried to stop the bleeding on Maggie's wound. It wasn't a bad wound, not as bad as it could have been. The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of her side basically making a deep cut on her side. "Jana, go tell Robert that it's not bad, she'll be all right." Jana mounted up and lit out to give Robert the good news. "Beth, whistle us up a wagon would you, please?"

A few minutes later a wagon pulled up and a couple of the Jones' boys helped me get her in. I kissed my lovely wife, "Beth stay here with her. I want to see what these guys were so stupid over."

I got on Jack and rode up to the wagons, "What is it Broken Knife?"

"More rifles but mostly ammunition," Broken Knife replied.

The man we had been talking to came up to me, "I didn't know there were guns in there, honest, but why?"

"They were for the King of Santa Fe but he's dead now," I replied.

"You have no right to take those guns," the angry man screamed at me.

"Mister, shut up now or die," I was way tired of this asshole. He was just about to start mouthing off again when I drew out my sword, "Say one more word and I'll put your head on the ground before you get the second one out."

Tommy was standing nearby, "You better listen mister, he's faster than a rattler with that sword. He cut one guy's head off and it stayed on until he finally fell down."

The man's hands went up to his neck but at least he shut up. "Are there any slaves on this train?" I asked. Tommy answered, "There are three wagons full of little girls and some of them have been raped."

"They're just whores," one of the drivers replied.

Tommy spun on the man, "Did you rape one of them?"

"Yeah, what of it?" the man replied.

Tommy pulled his pistol and shot the man, "Tom, would you prep him for the hereafter?"

"Sure Tommy," I cut the man's head off and Tommy picked it up by the hair and started walking back towards on of the wagons. A few minutes later Red Hand had the surviving males of the wagon train lined up as Tommy brought the girls out and had them point out the men who had raped them. Five more men were shot and dismembered. Riders took the parts and scattered them to the four winds as Tommy and the other orphans helped the girls get settled in.

The angry man just stared at me, "You let that boy shoot that man. He was unarmed."

"He raped a little girl, what do you think he should do? That boy has had a pretty hard life, as far as he's concerned any one who harms an orphan has forfeited his right to life. The only way to get dead faster than rape would be to do something to that boy, about half of these kids around here were rescued by that boy."

Tommy came up to me, "Tom, some of the girls needs some medical attention, one is real bad."

"Can she walk?" I watched as Tommy shook his head, "Get her in a wagon and bring her over to our wagon, I need to go stitch up Maggie." I mounted Jack and rode back.

When I got back I was told that they had moved Maggie to her own wagon. My wives and my mother were there with her and she was resting quietly. Mom had cleaned the wound again so I took another look at it. The main reason I had just packed it and went over to the other wagons was I wasn't real sure what or how I should do this one.

"Tom, I don't think you can sew her up the way that is," Mom said, "it's awfully wide."

"Maggie, what do you want me to do? I'm afraid if I stitch it up..." I kept moving the skin back and forth trying to figure out how the bullet made such a wide gash. I pinched it together at the middle of the wound, Maggie grimaced despite the pain killers Mom had given her, "Mom you think that would pull too much if I sewed it up like that?"

"Yes," Mom nodded, "I think that will work."

I was just about to start when we heard a horse slide to stop outside the wagon, "Where's Tom?" Tommy stuck his head in the wagon, "Tom, look what I found in one of those wagons, its medicine like that you brought with you. There was a whole bunch of different bottles, I got one of each and brought them, I thought one might help Maggie."

He handed me an empty flour sack half filled with bottles. The first bottle I pulled out was a bottle of lidocaine, "Tommy, were there any syringes like this?" I held up one of the few disposable ones I had left.

"Yeah, boxes of them, do you want me to get you some?"

"No just get all of those medical supplies back here as soon as you can. But be careful with them."

"Ok, but that feller that got mad about me shooting that rapist didn't want me taking what I did. He said that stuff didn't belong to us and he wasn't going to let me take it till I told him I was going to shoot him if he didn't," it was plain that Tommy had had a belly full of the man.

"Bring him with it. He's fixing to get with the program or be past caring one way or another." Tommy bailed out of the wagon and we heard him urging his pony into a dead run headed back to the other wagons. I drew up a syringe full of the lidocaine, "Ok, Maggie, this is going to sting a bit." I irrigated the wound with the last of my sterile saline then started injecting the lidocaine around the wound.

"Tom what does that stuff do?" Robert asked, his face still showed the worry it had had ever since Maggie had been shot.

"It numbs it, watch," I took the syringe and stuck it near one of the first injection sites, "Do you feel that Maggie?"

"I can feel kind of like your pushing on it. What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm poking you with a needle," I looked at Robert and could see the relief on his face. I finished deadening the area around the wound. And then with mother's help sewed Maggie's side. I was just finishing up when I heard a wagon drive up and the complaining voice of a man I was starting to wish I'd shot hours earlier.

"You have no right to take those supplies," the man cried.

"Broken Knife, please let me shoot him. I am fed up with him telling us what we don't have the right to do," Tommy begged.

"No Tommy," Broken Knife answered, "we'll let Tom decide what to do with him."

I stepped out of the wagon and started cleaning my hands, "Mister, if you open your mouth one more time to complain or protest I'm going to let Tommy shoot you. We have the right by the power of our guns. Were these drugs for the doctor in Santa Fe?"

"Yes, and he is going to be very upset about not getting them," the man complained.

"No, he doesn't care one way or another. You see, we sent that sadistic bastard to hell the same day we sent the governor there."

"You can't be serious, you really did kill the governor?"

"Yep, led him through the streets in his long underwear, tried him, convicted him, then in accordance with what his son did to over two dozen children, he was cut up at every joint. We tied tourniquets on him to keep him from bleeding to death too quick, his son used a red hot knife for the same purpose." The man looked a little green around the gills, "What's the matter you don't approve?"

"That's a horrible way to die..."

"It is justice! He knew his son was doing that to those children and did nothing to stop him. He got what was coming to him."

"Mr. Black is not going to be happy to hear about all this," the man said.

For the first time today something had come out of this man's mouth that I wanted to hear, "Who is Mr. Black?"