Chapter 11

They didn't bring the wagon down into the depression for fear that it was too heavy, fully loaded as it was, for the team to pull it back up if they decided to go on. AJ thought that they could do it, pointing out that wagons like this had crossed the great divide, but Bella didn't want to take the chance.

Becky was loathe to go in the house until Bella swept it out and dragged her inside to prove there was nothing left of the previous inhabitant. The girl stood, uncertainly at first, but finally said, "This isn't so bad, I guess." Then, as if she didn't want to give in too easily, she said "It's awfully dark, though, with no windows."

"You can cut a window in the wall," said AJ, drawing a mild glare from the girl.

"Go!" said Bella suddenly. "I want to know how far it is to a town. We'll have to have things from a town to make it, even in a place like this."

AJ grinned, got some buffalo jerky to stuff in his saddle bags, tipped his hat, and then mounted his horse and rode off.

AJ discovered where the sod had come from to build the house when he rode over the hill to the southeast. While it had grown over with weeds, there was clearly a patch of ground about two acres in size where the sod had been removed. The land had then been tilled and planted. Wheat, oats and corn were growing there still, though the plants were stunted and choked out with wild growth.

Colonel Frederick Cotton shook Stone's hand vigorously.

"As much time as you're spending at the fort I suppose you're going to ask me to provide you with office space," he joked. "We didn't find your young hero, if that's what you're here for."

Stone produced a grim smile. "No, Sir, this time it's a rustling problem. He filled the Colonel in with what information he had.

"That may fit with some problems we've had recently," said Cotton. "Twice in the last year herds of Government beef have arrived short. The drovers always claimed that someone must have stolen cows during the night."

"Maybe this time the night guard caught them," said Stone.

"Well, I don't have to tell you that with things heating up with the Indians my troops need the food the Government buys for them. I've got my hands full with hostiles. I don't have time to fool around with investigations."

"I'm on my way back to Abilene," said Stone, "to see what I can find out there, but your men are all over this area and they may have seen something that will help. I thought I'd talk with some of them while I was here."

"Good idea," said the colonel, "though I'm not sure how much help they'll be. They stay clear of the herds being driven to the rail heads. The men driving those herds are wiley and well armed. They rarely need our help." Cotton yelled for his adjutant and asked what troops had recently been deployed south of Abilene. The man brought him a piece of paper, which he reviewed.

"Oh yes," he said. "Lieutenant Dobbs took new recruits out, looking for that cowboy you were here about last time. They nearly got run over in one of those infernal buffalo hunting escapades. If we didn't have to deny the savages their natural food source I'd run every buffalo hunter on the plains off. Damned nuisance, leaving carcasses littering the prairie to rot!"

"Where might I find Lieutenant Dobbs?" asked Stone patiently.

"They just got back," said Cotton. He turned to the adjutant. "Show the Marshal to Dobbs," he said shortly.

"Thank you, Sir," said Stone.

Finding Dobbs more difficult than it should have been. That was due to the surge of new soldiers that were swelling the ranks of the 19th Kansas Cavalry. Most of the newly arrived men were still living in tents, as barracks hadn't been finished yet. The camp was a beehive of activity as civilian contractors worked on that and other tasks, while the soldiers milled around performing drills.

The adjutant saw Sergeant Dickerson first, and handed Stone off to him. Stone told the man he'd been referred to Dobbs because he just got back from a patrol south of Abilene.

"Yes, we just got back from a sweep to the south," said the old soldier. "We were sent out to look for some damn fool gunslinger, of all things."

"I'm afraid that's my fault," said Stone. "I'm the one who got you dispatched out to look for the cowboy and the woman.

"What woman?" asked Dickerson. "We wasn't looking for no woman."

It became clear in a few moments that the Colonel had forgotten all about the dead farmer's wife and her wagon, when he gave the lieutenant a mission that raw troops could go on. All that had been mentioned was that a cowboy named "AJ" had rid the world of some bad men and that the government wished to thank him for it. Even then, their instructions were simply to tell this AJ person to get in contact with the U.S. Marshals some day.

So, as men on the frontier often did, Stone took a few minutes to tell the sergeant the story of AJ's confrontation with the cheating gamblers, and where the woman fit in. As he talked the old soldier's face showed his interest.

"I knew It!" he said. "I knew there was something odd about that family!"

"What family?" asked Stone.

"I think I seen that woman. While we was out there, we came upon this lone wagon. It had a woman and her kids in it, just rolling along like they was going to a Sunday picnic." His eyes went out of focus as he remembered. "She had two daughters and a son. Said her man was snake bit and died. I knew there was something odd about one of her girls. She was all covered up. Wore a big, floppy bonnet. Never showed her face, not once, and her hands looked like they'd worked a lifetime, instead of just a dozen or so years." His eyes cleared. "You know, that might have been that cowboy, dressed up as a girl!"

"Why?" asked Stone, clearly skeptical.

"He never knew who he shot," said the sergeant. "Otherwise he'd have stayed there to crow about it. That means he thought he was in big trouble. Man on the run will do some strange things to keep from the sights of the law."

"You could be right, but that woman was there. She saw what happened. Why would she take in the man who got in a gunfight that killed her husband?"

"I ain't never understood wimmen," said the sergeant. "Mebbe I'm wrong, but there was somethin' funny going on in that bunch. You know, when the Lieutenant suggested we have a dance one night she about bit his head off. Said that dancing is agin' her religion."

"That's not so strange," said Stone. "The same bunch is all riled up about whiskey these days."

"Don't need none of them around here," said Dickerson firmly.

Stone got back to the issue he was there about.

"Well anyway, this time I'm hunting rustlers. Herds have been showing up at trail's end short. Somebody's gathering a herd and taking them a few at a time from the drives."

"It don't surprise me that herds are showing up short," said Dickerson. "We see strays out on the prairie all the time. You may be on a wild goose chase, Marshal. It wouldn't surprise me if those stolen cows are just lost cows instead. A good thunderstorm with some lightning can scatter a herd right nicely" He spat in the dust. "And based on the recruits we get who gave up the cowboy life, they wouldn't work all that hard to gather them up again."

"This is different," said Stone. "A cowboy on night watch apparently caught them and got killed over it recently."

"That's different," agreed the old soldier. "So what are we looking for?"

"It looks like somebody's gathering a herd, taking a few from each drive. When they get enough, they'll do their own drive. Did you see any small herds out there, off the trail, maybe with mixed brands?"

"Not two or three hundred head," said Dickerson. "That woman I was telling you about. Now she had a group of cows with mixed brands, but there was only a dozen or a few more. And I watched that boy of hers bring in two more while we was with them." He shrugged. "Leastwise she had them before the stampede."

"Fifteen cows running away isn't a stampeded," grinned Stone.

"Ain't no laughing matter," said the sergeant darkly. "Damned buffalo hunters got a herd moving and we was caught right in the midst of it. Lieutenant Dobbs seemed to think that thirty men could turn a herd of stampeding buffalo. The troop only got clear by almost killing the horses."

"The colonel mentioned something about that," said Stone.

"Funny thing about it is that that woman got caught right in the middle of that stampede and came out smelling like roses, 'cept for losing their cows. Anyway, they ain't the ones you're looking for. Might be Indians, stealing those cows. We did see some mashed down grass with cattle tracks in it heading west, down around a place they call Widow's Gulch. There was some pony tracks on top of it, but they were headed north. That's the way we went, and I don't mind telling you I'm glad we didn't meet any redskins with that bunch of raw recruits."

Ten minutes later Jeremiah was on his horse and headed for Abilene.

Bella assigned Frank and Becky the task of using the scythe to cut prairie grass for bedding, and to gather wood for a fire that night. She took it upon herself to transfer some cooking utensils from the wagon to the house and then took the shovel to go harvest what could be saved from the garden. In the process she found potatoes, radishes, turnips, onions and some stunted, but edible carrots.

Bella carried her treasure back to the house in a basket made of her skirts and told the children to stop gathering hay and get wood instead. Once she had a fire going, Bella happily started making a stew, including buffalo jerky that would soften and cook with the vegetables.

Becky and her brother went back to cutting hay. By the time they had a two foot thick 'bed' constructed in one corner of the house, it was time to eat. Frank opined it was almost like old times as he cleaned his bowl with his fingers. Becky said she was quite sure it had never been this good.

"What do you think is going to happen, Mamma?" she asked suddenly, looking at Bella.

"What do you mean?" asked her mother.

"Well ... you and AJ are kind of sweet on each other ... right?"

Bella's cheeks tinged pink. "I'm not sure that's the right term for it," she said.

"Do you think he'll stay with us?" Becky's voice seemed to have a hint of longing in it. Frank Jr. also seemed very interested in what his mother might have to say.

"I have no idea," said Bella. "And that's none of your concern anyway."

"Are you happy, Mamma?" asked Becky, not willing to end the discussion.

"I'm happy," blurted Frank Jr. He looked surprised that he'd said it.

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