“No—you can’t!”
But Burwell was not distracted. “Those who don’t want my father-in-law and his friend along to Fort Hall —”
“Not yet, you can’t vote yet!”
Yet Burwell continued, “—let’s see a show of hands!”
Immediately those on the far side of the assembly raised their arms—perhaps as many as twenty men, along with Hargrove’s eight hired men, while the train captain began to wave both of his arms frantically.
“No, no—there must be time for more debate!”
Roman Burwell continued, “So we should have a show of hands for those who see nothing wrong with these two men coming to Fort Hall with us.”
Only a blind man without ears would have trouble sorting out which way that vote went. As soon as more than sixty men held their arms in the air, they began a spontaneous cheer of relief, of jubilation, of revolt against the tyranny of the man who had arrogantly turned his back on them and would be making for California, leaving them high and leaderless at Fort Hall.
Burwell turned to Hoyt Bingham and said in a voice just loud enough for those close to hear, “I think it’s time we got this all settled here and now.”
“The new captain?” Bingham whispered.
“Yep. Let’s get this over with so we can toss Hargrove out on his ear.”
Bingham quickly looked at the wagon master shuffling over to his supporters, listened to the noise of their arguing, then pursed his lips and nodded his head once in agreement.
“Friends! Friends! Fellow members of the Hargrove Oregon Company!” Roman bellowed, shaking both arms aloft for silence. “We have an important vote to make tonight. Even more important than the one we just made.”
“Vote?” Hargrove squealed as he wheeled about on his bootheels. “What other vote? You can’t do this without your captain’s permission!”
Burwell took a step toward the center of the ring and told the crowd, “We oughtta vote on a new captain!”
For a long moment the entire assembly fell into a dead hush. Not a sniffle or cough, not one shuffle of a boot on the sandy soil or the murmur of a mother scolding a child—nothing for three long heartbeats. Then all hell broke loose. Hargrove’s supporters and hired men began screaming their objections—which only prompted the man’s detractors to cheer, clap their hands, and stomp their feet on the ground. Which drowned out most all of the naysayers.
Once more Roman was signaling for some quiet; then he yelled, “For our new captain, I throw in the name of Hoyt Bingham!”
“Hoyt B-bingham?” Hargrove yelled.
“I put a second on that vote!” Iverson shouted.
“How ’bout you, Roman?”
Burwell turned to the speaker, who stood at the side of the throng. “Mr. Ryder, I do appreciate your confidence in me an’ all—”
“You stood up to that two-tongued no-good who lied about taking us all the way to Oregon,” Ryder said as he scratched at his gray-flecked whiskers. “I say you showed you got the stuff to be our captain!”
A moment after some of the crowd began to roar its approval, Roman shushed them again and said, “No. I won’t let my name be put in the vote.”
“Why, Roman?”
Burwell turned to the man. “Mr. Truell, I won’t let you vote on me ’cause I know I’m nothing more than a simple farmer. I know I haven’t got the brains to lead this outfit to Oregon.”
That’s when Titus roared, “But you got the heart to do it, son!”
Roman turned and stared incredulously at his father-in-law with something in his eyes that told Scratch that the man was about to loose some tears.
Suddenly Bingham was beside Burwell, saying, “I don’t believe what Roman Burwell says when he tells you he doesn’t have the brains to lead this outfit. But I do believe that Roman has the heart to make a good captain of this Oregon company. I will serve as your captain … but only if Roman Burwell will serve as my coleader!”
The deafening roar of more than two hundred throats drowned out the exasperated cries of the desperate knot of men and women which had tightened around Phineas Hargrove.
“All those in favor!” Bingham called for the vote.
But the noise was even louder still, frightening magpies and jays from their roosts in trees for a full half mile around the cedar breaks.
“Any opposed?” Bingham shouted. “Any ’cept Hargrove’s California Company?”
“But we’re going to the same place!” Hargrove growled as he parted his supporters and advanced on Bingham and Burwell, his hired men in tow. “I will serve out my term as the leader of this whole company—”
Suddenly Roman and Bingham stood shoulder to shoulder before him, more than two dozen friends closing in a phalanx behind their newly elected leaders. That stopped the wagon master and his young muscle in their tracks.
“Unless Hoyt Bingham has something against it,” Burwell announced to the throng, “Phineas Hargrove and his people can travel with us till we get to Fort Hall—but only ’cause the rest of us gonna let them stay.”
“Amen to that!” Bingham cheered. “Out here in this new country we’re gonna build, a man can’t stay leader if the people he leads decide they won’t follow him!”
Burwell drew himself up and looked down at the smooth-faced Hargrove. “It’s a new day, Cap’n. No more are you gonna walk on the rest of us just so you can get yourself and your guns to California.”
The apologetic look that came over Hargrove’s face appeared convincing enough to the crowd.
“I-I can see now where I’ve been a little harsh,” he confessed with downcast eyes. “But, I had a job to do—a job you men of this train elected me to”
“Now you take your people to California,” Roman reminded him.
“Yes,” Hargrove agreed, appearing contrite and duly chastised. “I’d proudly serve as the leader of this train until we reach Fort Hall … but, it appears I must turn over command to your new leaders: Burwell and Bingham.”
The crowd roared again as men pounded the new upstarts on the back. Hargrove reached out his hand, shaking with both of those new leaders as his hired men held back the gathering. That brief formality seen to, the wagon master turned abruptly and disappeared with his men forming a protective ring around him as they took their leave from the low knoll.
Maybeso, Titus thought, things just might be working out for these folks after all.
“You see’d Roman?”
Amanda turned to answer her father early the next morning, “He and Lemuel went down to the hollow to find one of the cows that wandered away last night.”
“Together?” he asked, some small itch nagging him, small but buried deep enough he could not quite find it to scratch.
“Yes,” she replied. “Something wrong, Pa?”
Titus shook his head and lamely tried out a gap-toothed smile on her. “Naw—I just ’spect they’ll blow that trumpet anytime now an’ the train be rolling out.”
“We’re about ready here,” Amanda declared. “Team’s hitched and the milkers are over there with Leah and Annie.”
As she turned away to toss the last of the bedrolls over the rear gate of the wagon, Scratch slowly scanned the cedar breaks that surrounded them on three sides. There wasn’t all that much tall cover, and it sure as hell wasn’t a forest the likes of which you’d find against the foothills. Just some low scrub cedar that ran more than five miles in all directions across the rolling, rumpled landscape. But the thickets were nonetheless tall enough to hide a man on foot, and sure as hell thick enough to conceal a cow that had wandered off in search of a fresh mouthful of grass sometime during the night.
The trumpet blew, a shrill blare on the hot breeze that foretold a scorcher of a day.
