Chapter 7

When I reached the wagons, I said, "Come with me and hurry. I'll explain when we get there." That was enough to set the curiosity bug to stirring, and I had no arguments as I led the wagons to where Mary was waiting.

My wives were shocked when they saw what had happened and heard the story from Mary. Suddenly, there was a meeting of the four women, and I was left to look after the children. The conversation/meeting lasted for over an hour before June started walking in my direction. That was when I knew that a decision had been reached, and June was delivering the conclusions that the women had reached. I knew that it was up to me to accept or reject their agreement, but, if I rejected it, I could expect a lot of bad results for me.

June marched up to me and opened the discussion with, "Hannibal, we have ta talk." I knew that I was in for it as soon as she said my name, because she usually called me Honey.

"OK, I'm willing to listen to my fate. What is it?" I said that with a grin, but we both knew that it was no joke.

My answer was enough to break the ice, and June relaxed a bit. "Honey, ya know that Mary has no place ta go, and with two children, she's gonna need a lot of help. Therefore, we think that ya should take her on as another wife. Sarah, Alice, an' I all agreed that it would be the best thin' ta do. She has some money hidden in the wagon, so she ain't gonna be a complete burden. We want ya ta take her as yer fourth wife. Please take her, we know that ya will love her an' her kids. Besides, she gives ya another pussy fer yer bed!" That was said with a nervous laugh, as if June was playing her trump card.

I frowned for a moment, just to make June sweat a bit. However, I couldn't hold it for long and said, "Of course, I'll take her. I was just concerned that you three might object." I laughed as June punched me on the shoulder.

We buried John Archer a little back from the trail, and we fashioned a small wooden cross with his name on it. We all knew that there was nothing else we could do, so we dragged the Indians to the opposite side of the road for the scavengers to feast on and went about our business.

Mary's wagon was too badly burned for us to try to salvage it. She was able to recover a few items, but there was so little in there that only a tiny bit was added to the load in the other wagons. Her small reserve of treasure consisted of $12.29 in silver and copper, but that was more than a month's wage for most men, so she could hold her head up about her contribution. I had not yet told her about how much money we already had, as I didn't want her to think that I was only taking her out of pity.

The Indians had nothing that we wanted, except for their horses. We could get a few dollars for the five Indian horses, but we would get more for the two mules from the Archer wagon. The Indians' guns were not worth having, but I did break them up so that no other Indians could try to use them.

We rode away with some sadness for John Archer, but Mary was happier than she would normally have been because she had found a caring family already. It was obvious that we were glad to have her and her kids to join us, and Mary was basking in our love and concern. She was after the kids to call me Pa, but that might take a while.

That night, Mary joined me in one wagon, while my three wives cared for the kids in the other wagon. From the way she acted the next morning, I dare say that Mary enjoyed the experience—I know that I did. Mary jumped right in to help with the chores, and she had Amy Sue "helping" the women to fix breakfast. Meanwhile, Johnny "helped" me to care for the animals and to do the male chores of the morning. Actually, Johnny was more real help than I expected, and the chores did seem ta go faster with the novelty of me teaching him my way of doing things.

Since she was much older than June, I was afraid that Mary would try to take over as boss wife, but she seemed content to let June continue as the leader of the female group. June liked to be the leader, so it worked out well, and things stayed very much as they had been before Mary joined us.

Fortunately, we had one unused pistol that had been converted to use the Henry ammunition. Mary was a large woman, so she had no trouble holding the pistol during its strong recoil. She did learn quickly how to shoot, but she was never going to be as accurate as I was. Nevertheless, she would be deadly up to 25 feet, and I figured that was where she would be shooting, if she ever did. After her experience with the Comanches, Mary was quick to appreciate the importance of being armed, and she was never very far distant from her pistol.

We now had enough women to have two in each wagon. I was very happy with that, because it let me wander farther afield on Red. We were approaching a section of the state where we had to be definitely concerned about attack, both from bandits and from Comanches. Therefore, I wanted to be able to ride farther from the wagons to do a better job of scouting. That was now possible, and I felt better for it.

One thing we did to help matters was to mount a bell beside each driver's seat. The driver could ring the bell at any sign of trouble. That would warn the other wagon and would bring me on a dead run. We had a chance to try out the alarm system for real only shortly after we had it installed. By this time, I had also found two more Starr DAs that had been converted to Henry cartridges, so we had one of them in the hands of the guard on each wagon. The women especially liked these guns because they did not have to remember to cock the gun before they could shoot it. The double-action had another unforeseen advantage.

Mary was driving the lead wagon and Sarah was riding as guard when two men came riding out of the nearby woods and ordered them to stop. Mary rang the warning bell very vigorously while Sarah brandished the Starr DA. The two bandits must have never before seen a Starr DA, so they didn't know what it was capable of. Both men laughed when they saw the gun, and one said, "The dumb whore don't even know that she has ta cock her piece afore she kin shoot it."

The second man laughed and said, "OK, you two. You look ripe fer fuckin'. Git down from the wagon an' strip off yer clothes. We're fixin' ta have a party, an' them two whores back there are next on the dance card." The talker reached for Mary's arm to pull her from the wagon when Sarah decided that she had waited long enough for me to show up.

Sarah pulled the trigger and shot the man reaching for Mary. Sarah didn't pause. She swung her aim to the second man and shot him, too. She was so close to the second man that some blood actually splattered onto her dress, and she was madder than a wet hen over that. It distracted her enough that she did not have time for remorse over killing the two would-be rapists.

I had been well away from the wagons when the alarm bell had been rung, so it took me about 10 minutes to reach the wagons. By that time, the excitement was over with, and all I could do was to congratulate the women on how they had handled the incident. I was quite proud of them, and I made a point of letting them know that I was serious in my praise. Everything considered, we were pleased at the results of using the alarm bell; it had certainly served its purpose.

These must have been relatively successful road agents, judging from what they were carrying in their moneybelts. We recovered $435 in gold and $18 in silver between the two. All of their guns were relatively new, as was their tack. From those things and their horses, we got a total of $154. There was even a bounty of $10 on one of them, but we decided that it was not worth the effort to try to collect it. Ain't it nice to be rich?

The kids had been riding in the wagon with Mary, and they had dived under the seat when the alarm went off. That, alone, was enough to sell Mary on the value of the alarm. It got the kids' attention and got them out of the way without arguments, so that was enough to keep the alarm in place, even if it had no other value.