Chapter 17

There was a sound that brought Kelly instantly awake. When she looked at the fire she saw Tom sitting there, talking with John and Ben. Before she even realized what she was doing she was off at a run and even knocked him off of the log that he was sitting on as she jumped into his lap. It was only when she was sitting there that she said, "Ugh, you stink!" suddenly all of them were laughing, but her laughing couldn't hide the blush that made her face red. When she looked at Tom's clothes she saw that they were splattered in dried blood. He noticed her eyes and reassured her that it wasn't his. She suddenly realized that she didn't care whose it was or how it got there, as long as it didn't belong to Tom.

John and Ben watched as Tom struggled to get back onto the log with Kelly still in his lap, but made no move to help him with smiles on their faces. Tom saw their looks and knew that they were entitled to a little fun at his expense.

Tom said that he was starving and Kelly quickly started to put something together for him. As he ate he knew that all of them were waiting for his story, but it would have to wait until he had eaten. When he was finished he slipped to the ground and leaned against the log that he had been sitting on. Kelly slipped in his arm and he began his tale.

"I knew that if we kept letting them come at us a few at a time, sooner or later they would get lucky again, so I decide to take the fight to them. I went back to the first camp, but found that there were scavengers there. I didn't know if they were interested in us, or just what they could find. So I decided that I would find out before doing anything. I headed back to the camp at the river. They were a few hours behind me, so I decided to give them an easy target. I set up a nice little camp, with a few of our poor friends. I bandaged them up to look like they had seen a pretty bad fight and were traveling slow. I bedded down two of them and sat one on guard against a big rock. I put dinner scraps around the fire and settled in to wait and see what would happen. It didn't take long. I watched them get close enough to see what was going on before they pulled back and circled around to cross the river downstream. I knew then that they were interested in us. So I waited for them to work their way around. There were seven of them, well actually six and a boy. They left him tending the horses. I took him out first by putting him to sleep. While he was out I tied him up and picketed the horses. Then I moved back down to wait and see what they were going to do. These boys didn't even wait until it was good and dark, and just rushed in shooting everybody. I used the rifle and killed four of them before the other two figured out what had happened. When they ran off into the woods, I started hunting them." Kelly saw the look on John and Ben's face and saw the shiver that ran through Ben. For some reason, that said more about what Tom was capable of than any story that he could tell. She shivered herself and Tom felt it. He smiled down at her and she suddenly felt warm and safe.

Tom took a drink and continued his story, "It wasn't long before I heard the first one moving to where I had been when I attacked them. I let him go past and drove my knife into his back between the shoulder blades. It snapped the spine, but he could still talk. I hit him with the handle of my gun and then turned my attention to the last man. He found the man I had just hit and turned to run for the horses. I was waiting and as he passed I clubbed him with my gun too. I tied him up and carried him down to the camp. Over north of the camp there was some large ant hills, I took him there. Then I went back and got my friend that couldn't move. Him I carried down and put right beside the ant hill and stripped him. Then I covered him with honey. I went back to find the boy awake and had him point out which horse was his. Once he told me I killed the others horses as he watched. Then I led him and his horse down to the camp. You could hear the screams a couple hundred yards before we got there. When we got there I made sure that he saw all of the dead bodies. He knew which ones were his friends. I pushed him over to the screaming man. I made him watch as the ants slowly ate him alive. I told the other man that he was next. He was begging as he watched. He begged the whole time. When the first man died a couple of hours later, I turned to him. He cried and begged some more. I shot both of his knee caps and dragged him over to the ant hills. I ripped off his shirt and covered him with honey. Then I took a gun and let him watch me take out all but one bullet. Then I cut his hands loose. Before I gave him the gun I told him that he should consider how he wanted to die. If he wanted to use his only bullet on me, then the ants would get him. Then I pitched him the gun. He did point it at me, but then he put it in his mouth, closed his eyes and pulled the trigger."

There wasn't a sound in the camp as Tom poured himself some more coffee. He saw that even John and Ben were quiet. He knew that they didn't have the stomach for dirty work. He assumed that they just hadn't seen enough people that they loved killed. But he had learned from Gray Eagle, there are times that you have to make a point, and the harder that you drive the point home, the better the lesson is learned.

Tom knew that Kelly would be shocked, even Cheyenne women had a hard time with some things. He knew that her white upbringing would never have prepared her for some of the things that he had done, and that he was sure that fear would have a grip on her. When he looked he was surprised that she not only looked calm, but seemed unconcerned about the story. He frowned as he sat back against the log. He didn't know if she was in shock, or she really just didn't care.

He cleared his throat to get every body's attention, "I then turned my attention to the boy. I cut the ropes on him and pointed to the men on the ground and told him that he was going to die like that. Not then, but it was only a matter of time. If he worked hard and did the right things in life, then people would respect him. But, if he stole, robbed and killed for his money, then he would end up just like them. It was only a matter of time, just like it had been for them. I'm sure that they told you it would be easy, just ride out and take it. Well, it's not always easy and one time you won't ride back. This is the time to decide what you will do with the rest of your life. But, if you ever try to come after me again, I will kill you so slowly that you won't even remember a time that you didn't feel pain. I handed his reins to him and watched him mount. Before he turned to leave I told him that he had better tell anybody else thinking of coming after easy money that I am not easy, and there are more than a dozen dead men waiting for them in hell. And tell them that each one will die slower and more painfully than the last. He shook his head and I watched as he rode off as fast as that horse could run. Once I was sure that he was gone I pulled all of the bodies together and started a big fire. I stayed up wind until morning, and then I took off to catch up with you. It was a hard ride, but I don't think that we will be having too many more trying to catch up with us."

Tom looked to John as he shook his head and said that he wouldn't, Ben echoed his sentiment and both of them got up to head back to their blankets. Tom just shook his head and wondered how they could be so soft, when so many lives depended on their success. When he looked down at Kelly he saw that she smiled at him and said, "It was nice that you let the boy go, and you might have even made him a better man in the end." Tom seemed surprised at her and asked, "didn't what I did shock you?'

Kelly was quiet for a minute before she spoke, "It would have before, but I thought about what you said. You didn't go looking to kill those men, but they did come looking to kill us. They came looking to kill my kids. Maybe not specifically my kids, but they would have killed them just the same. If you think that what you did to them was bad, you don't know what I would have done to anybody trying to kill my kids." Tom smiled and laughed as he held her tighter. He noticed that John and Ben were looking at her differently, and Tom hoped that maybe they were even thinking that there are some things worth any price to protect. Just as Kelly felt about her kids, Tom felt about the whole Cheyenne people. Tom put Kelly back in her blankets and moved to wash away the filth on his body before settling himself down for a few hours sleep.

Tom appeared to be right. John and Ben continued their patrols. They kept much closer, but they never saw any other riders, and during the night they found no signs of danger. After a week Tom called them in to ride close to the wagon. They all seemed to relax, and the trip, even though, long and tedious was almost pleasant with the idle chatter. They all felt the tensions ease from them, and each day was like the last.

When they pulled up beside a small stream Tom called a halt for the day. Even though it was still early in the afternoon, he felt a need to let everyone vent some of the nervous energy that the trip was producing. He also knew that it would give him a chance to get some clean clothes. He was starting to feel dirty in a way that only a good bath and clean clothes can fix.

John went upstream a little ways and Ben went downstream, giving Tom, Kelly and the kids some privacy. They could still see them if they looked hard, but they were just trying to be polite. As Tom stripped and waded into the stream the kids were right behind him. Kelly took a little longer, but only because all of the buttons on her dress slowed her down. She wasn't sure when it happened, but she realized that Tom's fanatical desire to be clean was starting to rub off on her. Even the kids seemed to be catching it. She marveled as she looked at them; they seemed to be happier than they ever had. She also had found that Tom had been right when he had told her that she had smelled. Since she was always clean she smelled things that she had never smelt before. She realized that it was like trying to smell a flower in an outhouse; you just couldn't do it.

Now all of the flowers smelled sweeter, and the scents in the air carried a rainbow of colors to her nose. She had never told Tom that he had been right, and she wasn't sure that she ever could, but she was sure that she would never be as dirty as she was before. She realized that since she had met Tom she had taken more bathes than she had in her entire life. Not just the washing up, but full 'get in the water' bathes. Now she couldn't see herself doing anything else, if it was available. She was also surprised how easily all of them could take off their clothes in front of each other, even John and Ben. They pretended not to notice, but she knew that they would have to have been dead not to look, but she didn't seem to mind. It was probably because Tom didn't mind, and she wondered about that. He was so different from other men.

As she walked into the water she sat beside Tom and he handed her the soap. She wondered how he always seemed to have a bar of soap so handy. As she washed she watched the kids scrubbing away the dirt of the trip and knew that she would need to wash clothes again and made a comment to Tom that he would need to run the wash line again. He smiled and said that as soon as they were dry he would run the line, and get the tub out of the wagon. Then he dropped down on his back below the water and rinsed the soap from his body and hair. She smiled and followed his example.

As Tom was sitting at the fire he noticed that the noise from the children had stopped. When he looked around he noticed that they were gone. He thought that they had just visited the bushes, but when they didn't appear to continue their play he decided to find out what was wrong. He looked the see Kelly still washing the clothes and knew that she hadn't noticed yet, so he silently slipped from the camp and made his way around through the woods. He heard the noises and silently followed them until he looked in a small clearing and saw them. He saw Paul standing with Sara kneeling in front of him. From her obviously skillful motions he could tell that this wasn't the first time that she had been on her knees. Paul was enjoying her attentions, and it didn't appear that he was forcing her, so Tom left the clearing. He made no attempt to be quiet and Paul noticed him leave.

When the children returned to their play Tom was sitting by the fire working on the harness again. Paul sat beside him, "Are you gonna tell maw about Sara and me?"

Tom thought for a minute before he said, "Do you think that I should?"

Paul looked at him hard before he answered, "Gosh no, she would beat the tar out of both of us."

Tom smiled and shook his head, "Why would she do that?" Paul shrugged his shoulders and Tom knew that he didn't have an answer. Tom thought for a minute before he said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. If you two tell her, then I will make sure that she doesn't beat the tar out of you. I don't know what she will do, but it won't be a beating."

Paul looked at him closely before he answered. "What if we don't say nothing?"

Tom ginned at him and said, "Well, then I'll tell her and you are both on your own."

Paul grunted and said, "not a very good deal, we lose either way."

Tom laughed and shook his head, "Yep Paul, you will find that life is like that sometimes. You just have to make the best out of what you have to work with." Paul grunted again and got up to go back to play with Sara. He noticed a lot of whispering going on before the play settled down to just tossing stones in the stream.

That night after they had eaten Tom made a motion to John and Ben and they both got up and said that they were going to patrol the area before time to settle down for the night. Kelly thought it strange that both of them were going to go out and looked at Tom. She could tell that he had sent them out, as they both left him only when he ordered it. Tom just stared at the fire.

Paul knew what was going on, and silently he thanked Tom that he had sent both of the men away. Sara had told him that she wanted him to do the talking for both of them. Even though he hadn't worked up his courage enough to say anything yet, he knew that if he didn't say something soon, then Tom would have to, before John and Ben came back. He coughed and sputtered and wished that he had something to drink as his mouth felt like it was full of sand. Somehow he managed to get started and then the words came easier.

"Uh, maw. Uh, I've got something that I gotta tell ya. Uh, well, uh me and Sara, well, we been doing some things together. I didn't force her to either; she wanted ta, just like me. And well, we, I mean she, was kinda like sucking on me, you know like you use to do with Bob the bartender on Wednesday nights when you was paying the rent. And, well we, just kinda tried it and we both liked it, so we been doing it whenever we get the chance. And, well, uh today, uh, well, Tom kinda caught us, and he said that if we told ya, I mean well he said that we had to tell ya, so now we told ya." Paul's courage and voice ran down about the same time. Tom looked at Kelly and saw that the stunned expression was wearing off and she was starting to look mad. He gently squeezed her shoulders and whispered, "Stay calm and talk this out. Don't yell and scream and see if you can get the whole truth, before you think about trying to kill them."

She shot a fiery look at him, but he saw that she got a grip on herself. "Just what did you two think that you were doing? You are just kids, and you don't know anything about things like that." Paul looked at her like she had just sprouted a third eye and couldn't believe what he had heard. He cleared his throat and Tom had to admit that he was doing pretty well facing the most fearsome person that he had ever met. "Maw, we ain't kids no more, and we know all about them things. We lived behind a Saloon, and we seen everything that there was to see. On Friday and Saturday nights, if we didn't keep the door bolted we would have both been bent over our bed until they heard you coming home. More than once old Bob used to talk real sweet to us and try to get us to open the door, but I wouldn't fall for it. I seen what he did to the other kids that opened that door, and I wasn't gonna be one of them."

Kelly was looking stunned again, but she quickly found her voice. She turned to Sara, and asked her, "So young lady, just what do you have to say for yourself?" Sara just kept her head down. She wouldn't meet anybody's eyes. Tom felt a little sorry for her when she put her thumb in her mouth. Kelly tried again, in a softer voice. "Is it true that you liked it and wanted to do it? And nobody made you do anything" They watched as Sara nodded her head, then there was a squeaky little voice, that you had to try to hear, "Just with Paul, I didn't want to with anybody else." Kelly shook her head and sat staring up at the stars. Tom could see that Kelly wasn't going to say anything else so he did, "Okay kids, why don't you go and get wrapped up in your blankets and get a good nights' sleep. We will talk before we pull out in the morning." As they made their way toward the wagon Kelly said, "And keep those trips to the bushes strictly business." Tom was sure that she didn't have to say that, but he saw them move a little faster at her words.

She didn't have anything to say as she watched the kids settle down under the wagon. Without looking at him Kelly said, "Thank you." Tom wasn't sure what she was thanking him for, so he made a noncommittal grunt, and waited to see where she was going to go. She quickly glanced at him and smiled as she said, "For not letting me make a fool out of myself. You knew that the first thing that I wanted to do was to yell and scream at them. If I had, I would just have made a fool out of myself." She slumped against him as she quietly said, "How can I yell at them for doing the same thing that they have watched me do, since the day that they were born? I never knew that they saw so much. I thought that they didn't understand what was going on. Now I see that they understood a lot better than I did what was going on around there." Tom squeezed her shoulders as she snuggled deeper into his arm.

Her voice was quiet and she never looked up at him as she whispered, "I wasn't much older than Paul when I went to work in the saloon. I didn't even know that I was pregnant. My momma had to go back east to help take care of her sister. I took over as the woman of the house. I cared for the stock and the kids while poppa worked in the fields. At night poppa taught me how to take care of him, and then I was really the woman of the house. Everything was fine until momma came back. She was gone a long time, but when she came back she took one look at me and called me names, that I didn't understand. I leaned those names very well, as I have heard them almost every day of my life since then; hussy, slut, whore and home-wrecker; oh yes, I know all of those names now."

"But back then I couldn't understand what was wrong, or what she was upset about. She threw me and my clothes out the front door, and when she slammed it closed. I heard her start yelling at poppa. All the time that she had yelled at me and threw me out poppa had never said a word, and as she yelled at him I still didn't hear him say anything. After I gathered up my clothes, there weren't many of them, and they really didn't fit very well as my belly had started to get big. I thought that I was just getting fat. Well, after I got my things I left for the only place that I knew of; town. I didn't know what I was going to do, or how I was going to live. I must have looked a sight; a little pregnant girl stumbling into town, carrying a bundle of clothes with tears streaming down her face. No money and not knowing how to make any." Tom felt the wet spot on his shirt continue to grow, and just held her tighter.

She sniffed once and he felt her wipe her eyes before she continued her story. "I'm sure you know what happened then. None of the decent women of the town would even look at me twice, and behind my back I heard the same names. That's when I stumbled into Sarah. For good or bad, it would have happened sooner or later. If it hadn't been her, it would have been one of the other women, because it was all that I had. She saw me and when she looked at me she understood what had happened. Not everything, but she understood why I was there and that I needed help. She took me back to her little shack behind the saloon. She explained things to me, and even told me that I was pregnant. That was the biggest shock of all to me. She told me that if I wanted to take care of my baby, then I was going to need to learn how to make money, and to take care of myself and my baby. She told me how she made her living. I thought that it sounded easy, but those men didn't love me, or treat me nice like poppa did, and it wasn't easy. I used to cry every night, until Sarah slapped me around and told me that it was only going to get tougher, and that if I wanted to survive then I had better get tougher to handle it. She was right, and she was the only one that wanted to help me, without wanting anything from me. She helped me when Paul was born, and took care of me until I could get back on my feet. She was my only friend until she left for another town and another saloon. I didn't understand at the time, but I do now; she was getting older and with younger women it was getting harder for her to make a living. I cried when she left. When I got pregnant again I named Sara after the only friend that I ever had. Tom felt a fresh batch of tears join the stream on his chest and just held her tightly until the moment passed.