antelope and deer and rabbit, and there’s little fat on any of them. If they don’t get government beef, and many of the wilder ones don’t, they can fill their bellies with deer and jackrabbit in winter and still starve to death.”
I rolled another smoke, thumbed a match into flame and lit it. “Like I said, it’s a good way, but it’s not an easy way.”
“We’ll teach the others who come to farm,” Jen said. “Then our community need not depend on game to see us through the hard winters.”
I dearly wanted to tell this starry-eyed pair that there was more to the Indian way than dressing up in beads and feathers and preaching peace and love. But I knew that nothing I could say would change their minds.
The Indian wasn’t much on peace to begin with. Any warrior worth his salt would ride two hundred miles out of his way to get into a good fight, and as for love, well, maybe they loved their own tribe but outside of that everyone else was considered a potential enemy and treated as such.
Jen finished fussing over me and I touched the wound on my scalp. The dry blood was gone and the clean sting from the stuff she’d put on it felt good.
Outside the day was shading into night, and though I would dearly love to have taken up their offer of a bed for the night, I had to be on my way if I’d any hope of closing the distance between me and Lafe Wingo.
I rose from the table, thanked Jen again for her food and shrugged into my slicker. I’d left my horse at their barn where Jacob had given him a bait of corn, saddled him again and led him back to the cabin. As Jen and Jacob stepped outside I swung into the saddle.
“We whipped those Apaches pretty good today,” I said, “but be sure of it, they’ll come back for their dead. My advice is to stay in the cabin and keep your rifles close. The Apaches will hit and run, but they’re mighty notional and they might just take it into their heads to renew the fight.”
Jacob motioned to me with his pipe. “Thank you for all you did for us, Dusty,” he said. “You saved our bacon and that’s for sure.”
“Glad I could help,” I said, uncomfortable with his thanks.
“Come back and see us.” Jen’s white smile was bright. “And maybe next time you can stay a while and help us teach others the way.”
“Till then,” I said, touching my hat, knowing full well that I’d never visit this canyon again.
I swung the black around and cantered up the slope. The wounded Indian was gone from the rocks as I expected he would be and so were the bodies of the dead.
In this world no man stands alone, and others he meets leave their mark on him, no matter how passing or slight, adding in varying degree to the sum of his knowledge. Jen and Jacob Lawson were dreamers, but in their strange way they had shone a bright torch on the path I intended to take.
Soon I would wed pretty Sally Coleman and live with her happily ever after in a snug cabin of our own. I told myself love and peace we would have aplenty and there would be only a looking forward at happy events to come and not a single backward glance at what had passed before.
All this I thought as I rode under a wild, broken sky, the rain hammering at my face, the wind flapping the wet slicker around my legs.
That the wind blew unnaturally chill I did not notice, though I should have. There was a sharp, cold edge to its thin whisper that sighed of sundry perils to come.
But me, being young and in love, paid it no mind.
Chapter 8
I reached the Prairie Dog Town fork of the Red an hour before midnight and across the river lamps were still lit among the sprawling cabins, general store, hotel, cattle pens and corrals of Doan’s Crossing.
The Red at this point was very wide, but mostly a series of broad sandbanks with only runnels of shallow water flowing sluggishly between them.
Though he was tired, the big black stepped across easily and I rode him into the settlement in a teeming rain.
That summer of 1880, Doan’s Crossing was crowded with people, the Apache menace to the west and south bringing in punchers, ranchers, a few blanket Indians, soldiers, buffalo hunters, peddlers and itinerant preachers.
Jonathan Doan’s general store, where there was a bar, was doing a brisk business and through the glass doors of the two-story hotel, men were constantly coming and going.
I had no desire for whiskey, but what I did need were supplies and news of Lafe Wingo and the Owens brothers.
Doan’s nephew Corwin operated the livery store, and when I rode in, he recognized me, even though I was just one among the scores of punchers who had driven three hundred thousand head through the crossing that spring.
“You’re late getting back, Dusty,” Doan said as he took my horse and led him to a vacant stall.
Maybe Corwin Doan remembering me shouldn’t have come as a surprise. He kept a record of every cow that crossed the Red at his place, the names of the trail bosses and who owned the herds. Simon Prather was one of the spring regulars, but the biggest herds by far were from the King Ranch, thirty thousand head every season.
I followed Doan and rubbed down the black with a piece of sacking before I thought it through and explained my late arrival. “Lingered too long in Dodge, Corwin,” I said, not wishing to burden the man with my troubles. “Simon Prather took to feeling poorly and I stayed with him a spell.”
“Right sorry to hear that,” Doan said. He was a young man with serious hazel eyes, already balding, with a full black beard and mustache.
I watched him pour the black a good bait of oats and fork him some hay; then I walked back with him to the office.
“Planning to stay long?” Doan asked.
“Just tonight. I’ll be moving out come daybreak.” Doan’s face was suddenly troubled. “Is that wise, Dusty, a man riding alone? Yesterday Victorio and his Apaches ambushed a wagon train three miles south of here. Killed eight teamsters and there’s another at the hotel who isn’t expected to live.”
“I’ve got no choice, Corwin,” I said, deciding to tell a half-truth. “I’m overdue back at the SP Connected and Ma Prather will be some worried.”
“Take my advice, Dusty,” Doan said, “and stay here until this here Apache dustup blows over. Every troop of the Ninth Cavalry is out and they’ll soon catch up to those damned renegades.”
Changing the subject, I asked: “A lot of folks in town you don’t know, Corwin?”
“Well I should say,” the man answered. “Crossing’s full of strangers since Victorio started to play hob.”
“Thing is, I’m looking for a man by the name of Lafe Wingo,” I said. “Him and three brothers who go by Hank, Charlie and Ezra Owens.”
“Friends of yours?” Doan asked, a wary suspicion tingeing his voice. Corwin Doan had the Western man’s ingrained reluctance to impart information about men who might be on the dodge, and me, I didn’t have it in me to hold it against him none.
“Just acquaintances, Corwin,” I said, trying to keep my face unreadable. “I’m a mite concerned about their whereabouts, what with the Apaches an’ all.”
Well, Doan thought about that some, then reached a decision. “Lafe Wingo and the Owens boys rode through three days ago,” he said. “They put their horses up here for a couple of hours while they drank at the store. Then they left.”
Three days. I was far behind them and the distance between us was widening fast.
Doan must have seen the disappointment in my face, because he said: “Dusty, the Apache troubles are flaring up worse and worse. I’m guessing those boys will ride careful and hole up somewheres until Victorio moves on or the army gets him. I’m sure you’ll catch up with them, if that’s your intention.”
“It’s something like that, Corwin,” I replied. “As I said, they’re only passing acquaintances.”
“Strange though, Dusty, mighty strange.”
“What’s so strange?”
“That a nice young feller like you would be acquainted with Lafe Wingo and them. Those boys never done me
