Chapter 8

As Charles Taylor rode home, he thought over the events of the day. His thoughts were undisturbed by the two men trailing along behind him - they would see him safely home before riding on to the bunkhouses out by the smelter, where they lived.

It had been a strange day. First of all, Mr. Peabody hadn't received the items he'd ordered for Mrs. Taylor - some dresses and things for their home which she'd ordered from back East. The storekeeper had blamed the recent attacks on wagons coming into town - Charles knew all about those as his own wagons had been the ones attacked.

Actually, that wasn't strictly true. The wagons had been carrying his goods, and his payroll, but they belonged to that haulage company run by Pete Blackshaw. It seemed that Mr. Blackshaw was worried about what was happening as well, as he'd hired two people to investigate.

And what strange people they were! The man, Jake, had seemed all right, though he had pointed a gun at him. It had been one of those revolvers as well, not seen often and usually only carried by someone serious about his guns.

But the girl. Sue he called her, though he couldn't imagine that was actually her name. She was an Indian - a squaw. And those damned Indians had been the ones attacking his wagons. She dressed like a man, and she had one of those revolving pistols as well. And a huge knife. Though somehow they didn't look like ornaments to him.

Still, as Jake had said, at least it meant they knew about Indians.

That was another strange thing. When they sat in the saloon to discuss things, and he had said that the Indians needed to be stopped, Jake had asked how he knew it was Indians? Of course it was Indians. Who else would it be? The men were shot with arrows and everything.

When he said, no - demanded, that Jake find the local Indians as they were obviously doing it, Jake had said that they had already met the Indians and discussed it with them. Just like that - like it was a business meeting or something. As though anyone could have a discussion with a pack of savages!

Where had he met them? And how had he found them? No-one had seen any Indians around here for ages, apart from those arrows of course, and Jake and his squaw had only just arrived in the area. Yet they had already found the Indians, had a meeting with them, and seemed to think that they hadn't done it! Of course they'd done it - all the signs pointed to it. And who could believe anything an Indian told them anyway?

Charles thought about what happened when the Sheriff arrived. He came into the saloon, sent for by Charles as he'd stormed from the store, with his pistol out ready for trouble. But it had been a single-shot pistol the same as most people carried, not revolvers like those two. And they had thrown themselves out of their chairs, one in each direction, splitting the Sheriff's targets. They had landed on the floor, and both of them already had their guns out, pointing at the lawman. He had never seen anything happen so quickly, and the woman - no, girl - hadn't been much slower than Jake.

It was all very tense for a moment. The Sheriff froze, all went quiet, and then Jake had pointed out that there were two of them to his one, that they had ten shots to his one, and that anyway they hadn't done anything wrong, so did he want to make an issue out of it?

The Sheriff had thought for a moment, then slowly pointed his gun at the ceiling. After that everything had calmed down. The two investigators - was that what they were? - had got to their feet, slowly put their own guns away, but only after the Sheriff had done so first.

So there were three unhappy people in the saloon. The Sheriff hadn't liked being faced down by a squaw and an Indian-loving white man, the barkeep didn't want an Indian woman - or any Indian for that matter - in his saloon, and Charles was shocked by the speed at which violence had so nearly erupted.

Jake and the girl hadn't taken any notice of the upset, they just sat at the table without any sign or worry - until you looked at their eyes. They were everywhere and watching everybody. Charles had been sure that more violence hadn't been far away, but that the couple were content for someone else to start it.

Once everything had settled down, they talked some more. Even the squaw had joined in, though her English wasn't great. Still, she obviously understood everything. But Charles had felt uneasy in their presence, and they were no nearer working out who was attacking his wagons except he was sure that the Indians had, even though the man Jake said he didn't think so.

Another shipment was due in the next day or so. This time there would be four men with the wagon and he'd see what happened. Only a few people knew about this shipment and he'd ride out himself to meet it.

Charles looked down at the dusty trail. He was sure that this time things would go smoothly. He just had a nagging doubt about what that man Jake would do.

Jake and Sue were also riding home, or, to be precise, to the hidden campsite where they had left Grey Cloud. They discussed the day. Jake had been surprised how aggressive Charles Taylor had been. He hadn't liked Sue at all. In fact, he didn't seem to like any Indians, though that was hardly surprising if they had been burning his wagons. But Jake couldn't help thinking that it wasn't as simple as that.

Sue, on the other hand, wasn't surprised by Mistur Tailur's attitude. He clearly didn't like Indian's but that was all right, Sue didn't like him either. In fact she hadn't met many white men she liked - just her Djaik, and some of the people from Johnson City - the store keeper and his woman, the blacksmith, the brothers who helped fix the cabeen. And their neighbour had seemed nice, and his daughter. Perhaps she liked more whites than she thought.

But others were like James Masters, and Charles Taylor, and the ones who had raped her - men who hated Indians and who needed to be put down like dogs. But Bent Stick had been a bad man too, look how he had treated Grey Cloud who was a lovely girl, so maybe there were bad Indians as well as good whites.

All this talk and thought had occupied the two of them for the couple of hours it took to reach the spot where they had left Grey Cloud. The rocks were off to the side of the trail, but there was no sign of the young Shoshone. Jake was glad he couldn't see her as he had told her to stay hidden. Followed by Sue, he turned into the stony area, carefully picking his way between the bigger rocks.