“I’ll make sure the saddles on the mules are clear, then we can start toting the sugar out.”
There were five one-hundred-pound sacks of sugar to be loaded, and Longarm lashed three to one mule, two to the other. He covered the sacks carefully with the tarpaulins that were tied to the packsaddles. It was easier to do the job right than to have Belle jawing at him, he thought as he tied off the last cross-hatch on the heaviest load. The other load wouldn’t be lashed down until the rest of the supplies had been added to it.
Belle came up just as he was finishing. She inspected the completed load carefully before nodding her satisfaction.
Longarm said, “Think I’ll walk around and stretch my legs. I’ll be back before you’re ready to leave.”
“If you run into Sam, don’t tell him about his cousin’s wedding,” Belle cautioned. “We don’t get along with that side of Sam’s family, but if he hears about the shindy, Sam’s going to want to look in on it.”
“I’ll keep quiet about it,” Longarm promised.
He walked quickly down to the post office and mailed his note to Gower. A barbershop across the street caught his eye as he came out. He crossed over after fingering his stubbled chin, deciding that a good shave would improve his spirits. He didn’t think Belle and Sam would have any trouble locating him if Sam showed up and they got ready to start back.
While the barber was rubbing in the last drops of bay rum on Longarm’s now-smooth face, he saw Sam leading the third mule, loaded now with bulging tow sacks, in the direction of the store. He got out of the barbershop as fast as possible, and walked into the store just in time to hear Belle exclaim, “Get some sense into your head, Sam Starr! We’d be just about as welcome at Aunt Lucy Suratt’s as a case of smallpox!”
“Not when there’s a party going on to celebrate a wedding,” Sam retorted. “They’d get madder if they found out we was in town and didn’t come to it than they would if we was to show up.”
Longarm left them to argue it out, and walked over to the counter where cigars were displayed. To his surprise, a partly emptied box of his favorite cheroots stood among three or four other kinds on the shelf. Pointing to the cigars, he told the storekeeper, “If you got a full box of that kind, I’ll buy it off you. Or if you ain’t, I’ll take what’s left in this box.”
“Take what’s there and welcome,” Elezear said. “I’ve only got two customers buys that kind, I just keep ‘em on hand to oblige.”
“I’ll leave a few, if it’s going to put your customers out,” Longarm offered.
“If you want all of ‘em, take ‘em. I can’t sell something but once.”
Eleazar counted the number of cheroots left in the box and handed it over to Longarm. “Does this go on Belle’s bill?”
“No.” Longarm tossed a half eagle on the counter. “Take the price out of that.” He saw that Belle and Sam were winding up their argument. “Well?” he asked. “We going to the shindy or back to the Bend?”
“We’ll go say our hellos to Aunt Lucy and the rest,” Belle replied. She made no effort to keep the anger from her voice. “I can’t make Sam see he’s just poking his head into a hornet’s nest. You don’t have to come unless you want to.”
“I’ve got nothing better to do. And I’ll be right there handy when you get set to go back.”
“All right. We’ll load the rest of the order and go stay at the shindy a half-hour or so, then head for home. We’ll get wet before we get home, but Sam’s got his head set.”
“If we get wet, we get wet,” Sam said curtly. “Come on. If we’re going, we might as well finish up here and get to Aunt Lucy’s before the food runs out.”
They could hear the music a quarter of a mile before they got to the festivities. The twanging of a guitar, the scratchy high notes of a violin or two, and the thumping of a drum accompanied them as they wound along a dirt road well past the town itself to a house that stood isolated in a grove of mixed sycamore and sweet gum.
When the road straightened out enough for them to look down it, they saw that a board platform, only inches above ground level, had been raised for the dancers who stamped and spun to the music. At one side, long tables were heaped with food. Longarm judged that there must be thirty or more people there, counting those at the tables and on the dance floor and the few who sat on the porch of the house where it was shady.
Off the road, there were wagons, buggies, and saddle horses, as well as a few saddle mules, tethered in a glade far enough from the house to keep the flies from swarming over the entertainment area. Sam had been leading the way, with Belle riding just behind him and Longarm bringing up the rear. Sam reined in and surveyed the crowd.
“Looks like the whole damn family’s here,” he told Belle over his shoulder.
“Not including your cousin Henry, I hope,” she snapped. “If that renegade shows his face at one of your family parties, and I’m there too, I intend to shoot his head off.”
“Now, Belle,” Sam said. “You just leave it to me to settle with Henry.”
Longarm had drawn abreast of the Starrs. He asked Sam, “You sure I’m going to be welcome here? Because from the way you and Belle have been talking, I got the idea your family’s sort of split up, and don’t get along any too well together.”
“Oh, you know how families are,” Starr said. “There was a big split long years back, between the ones who were for and against John Ross, the Cherokee chief who signed the removal treaty. But that was fifty years ago, and Ross has been dead for a long time.”
“That doesn’t seem to make any difference to the Starrs and the Wests and the Suratts,” Belle said. Her voice was sharp. “And that’s got nothing to do with Henry West. He’s the son of a bitch who turned Sam and me in to the federals on a cattle-stealing charge.”
“Just the same, my family’s big enough to forget fusses when one branch or another’s throwing a shindy,” Sam said confidently. “Come on. We’ll pull in and leave our animals here with the others, and walk up to the house.”
As far as Longarm could tell, Sam and Belle weren’t openly snubbed by anybody as they circulated around
