her.
“Since when have they started letting Indians ride on the stage with white people?” he asked under his breath.
Falcon resisted the urge to reach up and jerk him back down. Instead, he removed his hat and smiled at the young Indian woman.
“After you, miss,” he said politely.
She smiled shyly back at him.
“Thank you,” she said.
The seats inside the coach faced each other. They were quite wide, wide enough, in fact, to seat four across. The short fat man sat on the front seat, with the young mother and her son. Falcon and the Indian girl sat on the rear seat, facing forward.
Smiling broadly, the short fat man stuck his hand out toward Falcon.
“Arnold Johnson is my name and selling harness is my game,” he said. “I’m what they call a drummer.”
Falcon hesitated for a second, then took Johnson’s hand. “MacCallister,” he said. “Falcon MacCallister.”
Falcon heard the Indian girl inhale sharply, and he sensed that she’d tightened up beside him.
“What brings you to our fair part of the country, Mr. MacCallister?” Johnson asked.
“Business,” MacCallister said.
“Will you be staying long?”
“No.”
Falcon’s truncated answers finally convinced Johnson that he wasn’t looking for conversation. Johnson leaned back in his seat, then took a collapsible fan from his pocket and began fanning himself. “Whew, I’ll be glad when we get under way, so we get a little air. It’s very hot in here.”
“Oh, how clever,” the young mother said, seeing the fan.
Proudly, the drummer turned the fan toward her so she could see.
THURMAN LEATHER GOODS it said on the fan.
“My company puts these out,” he said. “I do a lot of traveling by stagecoach selling my goods, you see. So I learned a long time ago to always carry a fan with me.”
“Are you folks all settled in down there?” the driver called from his seat up front and on top.
“We’re ready,” Johnson called back.
“Yeeehah!” the driver shouted; then he whistled, and snapped the whip over the top of the team. The report of the whip was as loud as a gunshot, and the team started forward, putting the stage into motion with a jerk.
The stage rolled through town with little rooster tails of dust coming from all four wheels. As they passed through the town, Falcon looked through the window. It was small, but typical of the hundreds of Western towns he had visited over his lifetime, the only difference being that, instead of the false-fronted whipsawed lumber buildings he was more used to, these buildings were adobe, or mud-brick.
It was still early morning, so many of the businesses were not yet open. A man with an apron was sweeping the porch in front of the general store. A dog ran off the porch and followed the coach through town, barking at the spinning wheels.
When they passed the blacksmith shop, Falcon saw the smithy building his fire. The last building they passed was the livery barn, and a young boy of no more than fourteen was pitching hay into the feeding troughs. After that, they were out of town and rolling through the desert, which was pocked with hundreds of stately looking saguaro cactuses.
“Are you a Indian?” the little boy asked the young woman who was sitting beside Falcon.
“Timmy!” the mother said sharply.
“It’s all right,” the young Indian woman answered pleasantly. “Yes, I am an Indian.”
“You don’t look like one,” Timmy said. “I mean, you’re so pretty and all.”
“Well, thank you,” the Indian girl said with a lilting laugh. “Does that mean you’ve never seen a pretty Indian girl?”
“Oh!” Timmy said, putting his hand to his mouth. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, you don’t look like a Indian because of your clothes.”
The Indian woman smiled. “I know what you meant,” she said. “I was just teasing you. I’ve been wearing these kind of clothes for the last two years while I was back East, enrolled in school.”
“I’ll bet that’s why you speak English so good too,” Timmy said.
“Well,” the Indian woman said.
“Well what?”
“That’s why I speak English so well.” She laughed. “Excuse me for correcting you, but I learned to be a teacher while I was back East, so I’m just practicing.”
“White man’s clothes, white man’s language,” Johnson said sneeringly. “But it’s like they say, you put a mule in horse harness ... you still got a mule.” He laughed at his comment.
“Sir, have I done something to offend you?” the Indian woman asked.
