“I don’t know whether that would be proper for a minister’s wife,” Ralph objected.
“Don’t be silly!” Sally said, sticking out her chin. “If it’s all right for a man, why should it be objectionable for a woman to wear britches?”
“Well…” Ralph said weakly. Forceful women tended to somewhat frighten him.
“Have you ever read anything by Susan B. Anthony, Bountiful?” Sally asked.
“Oh, yes! I think she’s wonderful, don’t you?”
“Yes. As well as Elizabeth Cady Stanton. You just wait, Bountiful. Some day women will be on an equal footing with men.”
“Lord save us all!” Smoke said with a laugh. He shut up when Sally gave him a dark look.
“Do you think the time will come when women will be elected to Congress?” Bountiful asked.
Ralph sat stunned at the very thought.
Smoke sat grinning.
“Oh my, yes! But first we have to work very hard to get the vote. That will come only if we women band together and work very hard for it.”
“Let’s do that here!” Bountiful said, clapping her hands.
“Fine!” Sally agreed.
“But how?” Bountiful sobered.
“Well…my mother knows Susan B. very well. They went to school together in Massachusetts. I’ll post a letter to Mother and she can write Miss Anthony. Then we’ll see.”
“Wonderful!” Bountiful cried. “I’m sure Willow and Mona and Dana would be delighted to help us.”
Smoke rolled a cigarette and smiled at the expression on Ralph’s face. The man looked as though he might faint at any moment.
The ladies rose and went chattering off into the cabin.
“My word!” Ralph managed to blurt out.
Smoke laughed at him.
“Boss!” Pearlie stilled the laughter and sobered the moment. “Look yonder.” He pointed.
In the dusk of fast-approaching evening, the western sky held a small, faint glow.
“What is that?” Ralph asked. “A forest fire?”
“No,” Smoke said, rising. “That’s Peyton’s place. Tilden’s hands have fired it.”
6
There was nothing Smoke could do. Peyton’s spread was a good twenty-five miles away from Sugarloaf, his range bordering Tilden’s holdings.
It was not long before the fire’s glow had softened, and then faded completely out.
“Peyton refused our offer of help,” Buttermilk said. “Some of us offered to stay over thar with him. But he turned us down flat.”
“We’ll ride over in the morning,” Smoke said. “At first light. There is nothing we can do this evening.”
“Except wonder what is happening over there,” Ralph stated.
“And how many funerals you gonna have to hold,” Luke added.
Peyton, his wife June, and their kids had been forced to retreat into the timber when it became obvious they were hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned. The family had made it out of the burning, smoking area with the clothes on their backs and nothing else.
They had lain quietly in the deep timber and watched their life’s work go up, or down, in fire. They had watched as the hooded men shot all the horses, the pigs, and then set the barn blazing. The corral had been pulled down by ropes, the garden trampled under the hooves of horses. The Peyton family was left with nothing. Nothing at all.
They could not even tell what spread the men had come from, for the horses had all worn different or altered brands.
The family lay in the timber long after the night-riders had gone. They were not hurt, not physically, but something just as important had been damaged: their spirit.
“I tried to be friends with Tilden,” Peyton said. “I went over to his place and spoke with him. He seemed to be reasonable enough, thanked me for coming over. Now this.”
“They turned the wagon over,” June said, her eyes peering into the darkness. “Broke off one wheel. But that can be fixed. There’s lots of land to be had just north of here. I won’t live like this,” she warned. “I will not. And I mean that.”
“I got a little money. I can buy some horses. We’ll see what we can salvage in the morning.”
“Nothing,” June said bitterly. “Nothing at all.”
“And you don’t have any idea who they were?” Smoke asked Peyton.
Dawn had broken free of the mountains only an hour before. Smoke and some of his old gunhawks had left the Sugarloaf hours before first light, stopping along the way at the other small spreads.
“No,” Peyton said, a note of surrender in his voice.
The Apache Kid returned from his tracking. “Headin’ for the TF spread,” he said. “Just as straight as an arrow
