Chapter 16

Jake's shoulder felt a little better the next morning. More stiff than sore, it didn't hurt him too much so long as he didn't move it too much. The bandaging helped with that. Lisa had rebound it after breakfast and, while it restricted his movements, it also stopped him hurting himself too much.

The young couple walked to the stable to collect their horses. They had been taken there the night before, along with the two extra ones from the men that had been shot. It was the first time that Jake had seen them, and they seemed to be of good enough quality.

Not needing six, Jake thought to sell the two extra horses to the stable owner, Will Peters. The extra cash would come in handy once the Monroe brothers started rebuilding the cabin. However, Will didn't want them.

"If I have them in my stable when Masters' men come to town next time, I will lose them," he explained. "They will claim that they are ranch horses and just take them."

"In that case, we will take them with us," Jake answered. "But I still don't need six horses. Will you take the other two instead?"

"Yes I can do that", Peters replied. "They won't know where those horses came from, and they will have no claim on them. Just be careful they don't catch you with theirs."

"Ha. They won't do that," was Jake's confident reply. So the two original spare horses were left with Will Peters and the two Masters' horses were fitted with the pack saddles. As part of the deal Will would keep two saddles, the two others would be returned to the cabin on the Monroe's wagon leaving the next day.

Leading the four horses, Jake and Sue walked back to the store. Jake didn't want to have to mount and dismount too many times yet with his bad shoulder - he would sort that out when he had to.

Back at the store, George and the Monroes helped load the two packhorses with all the essential equipment. Clothing, ammunition, some pots and pans and utensils, a few tools, dried food and a variety of small items were going on horseback, the rest would follow on. Jake settled up with Lisa, made sure that the Monroes had enough funds for their purchases and knew where they would be going, and it was time to leave.

Sue was fussing that Jake should take things carefully, and when it came time to leave she made sure that the Monroe brothers almost lifted Jake into the saddle. She didn't want him straining that arm. She mounted up shortly afterwards, dressed in her western clothes today as she felt they would be best for long distance travelling - she could put the buckskins back on when they got home.

Home. That was a strange way to describe a leaky cabin with no windows and a rotten floor. It was so different from the teepees that she had grown up in, and which formed part of her Comanche heritage. The idea of living in a static, rotting wooden box was so alien, that she almost couldn't believe it. But that's where her Djaik was settling down, so she would too.

By mid morning they were on their way. They rode off the way they had arrived, across the plain and up the rise off the main trail. A few hours later they took a quick break. Jake carefully let himself down off his horse, Blaze, without jarring his shoulder too much. They had a brief meal of bread and cheese, supplied by Lisa, and visited the undergrowth, and they were ready to leave again. Sue found a small mound and insisted that Jake mounted his horse from it so he didn't have to swing up so far. Jake grumbled to himself: "For someone who doesn't speak English, she sure is bossy!"

They passed the campsite they stopped at on the way to Johnson City as there were still a few hours of daylight left. The further they rode today, the less they would have to cover tomorrow. In any case, the weather was looking ominous and some shelter might be needed. Towards sunset, they found a suitable place. A large tree gave shelter, and some rocks around the base would provide a windbreak. The sky was beginning to look very dark, and it wasn't just the approaching dusk.

Jake dismounted carefully, and then led all the horses to stand under the tree so as to keep any rain off the packs as much as possible. Between them they had two rain slickers and a tarpaulin-style sheet. Using some fallen branches and the tarpaulin, and some cord, Sue constructed a shelter for them to sleep under.

Jake was feeling a bit helpless, but Sue wouldn't let him help and anyway, with her experience of coming from a nomadic tribe which lived in tents, she was better at it than he was. When their own shelter was built, and a fire was burning, she used the two rain slickers to mostly cover the packs on the horses. They would have to wear them all night - it wasn't ideal but by tomorrow night they would be back at the cabin and able to strip all the saddles off the horses and let them rest. The loads weren't heavy, just bulky, and for one night they would just have to manage.

After a hot drink and cold food, Jake and Sue bedded down in the shelter. The rain started as they were doing so but, by snuggling together, they managed to stay dry. The fire was soon extinguished in the downpour but the horses, tied close to the trunk of the tree, also avoided the worst of the storm. Jake and Sue lay awake for a while, listening to the rain in the night, but the steady hiss soon had them fast asleep.

The following morning was overcast but dry. The rainstorm was over but the world looked damp and miserable. Jake and Sue were dry under their shelter, and Jake's shoulder felt a bit better even though he had slept on the hard ground. The horses were dry too, though they can't have had the best of nights with their packs and saddles still on them. Still, if those had been placed on the ground they would have been sodden so leaving them on the horses' backs had been the right thing to do.

Sue and Jake packed up the camp, Sue still doing more of it than Jake did. The horses were released to eat some wet grass around the outside of the tree, and drink from the many puddles that had formed overnight. Once coffee had been boiled, using firewood that Sue had hidden under the shelter with them, and drunk, it was time to get off again. The slickers were taken off the packhorses and tied behind Jake and Sue's saddles - if the rain came back they would be needed.

Winter was definitely on its way. The damp wind was cold as they set off. It wasn't long before they stopped again. Sue took her new buckskin shirt off her packhorse and put it on over her western one. Jake also added a second shirt. If that didn't do it he'd put the slicker on to at last keep the wind out. They continued on their way. The rain held off, but the wind blew water droplets off bushes and trees and it wasn't long before both riders were damp and miserable.

Apart from a brief stop for them both to water the bushes, they kept on going and arrived back at the cabin around mid afternoon. Everything seemed as they had left it. Sue straight away went to check on their makeshift corral where the two Indian ponies had been left, and she was pleased to find that they were both looking wet and miserable, but still there.

Sue still wouldn't let Jake do any lifting. He was sent inside to get a fire going while she struggled with the packs and got them indoors. The stones they had used to mark the puddles were still on the floor, now in even deeper puddles, but there were still some dry spaces and that's where she placed the packs for the time being. Saddles followed the packs. After bringing in the four saddles, Sue was feeling weary but she still unpacked enough to find Jake's horse brush, and she sent him out to go and brush them down. That was something he could do one-handed.

While he was working away outside, Sue used some of their supplies and her new pots to prepare a stew for their meal. She would have to set some snares tomorrow to catch some fresh meat, but after the last few days she wasn't going to do that now.

The stew was ready by the time an exhausted Jake staggered back into the cabin. They both sat on the floor by the fire while they ate and then, although it was still quite early, they retired to the dry bedding in the corner of the cabin and collapsed.

The next day dawned brightly. The clouds had gone and the wind had dropped, leaving a cool clear morning that was actually quite warm in the sunshine.

Jake's shoulder wasn't troubling him so much, but Sue insisted that she look at it anyway. Sitting outside where the light was better, in just his pants, Jake watched Sue as she undid the bandages that Lisa had put on him a couple of days earlier. The wound seemed to be healing nicely, from what Jake could see off it out of the corner of his eye. The bullet had carved a furrow across the top of his shoulder. Lisa had put in a couple of stitches just to hold it all together, and there now seemed to be a hard scab formed over it.

Sue looked at it carefully, and even bent down and sniffed at it. Satisfied, she held her hand out to him, flat, telling him to stay where he was. She then went back inside for a moment and emerged with some fresh bandages which Lisa had given her. Placing a small piece of cloth over then wound itself, she then wound the bandage over it and around Jake's chest. She had obviously been watching closely when Lisa did it the first time.