A Town Called Fury Read online

  “Delightful, and fair as a Kansas court. And call me Rome, sir.”

  Jedediah stepped back up on his roan. To the complaint of saddle leather, he said, “Last wagon, Rome.”

  His father rode off in one direction, Ward rode off to join the herd, and LeFebvre turned his wagon around to meet up with the end of the line, which left Jason sitting there on his horse, watching the line of Conestogas move on by while he slowly shook his head.

  Chapter 7

  The Reverend Milcher took center stage after dinner, just as Jedediah had thought he would. As for himself, Jedediah leaned back against the wheel of his wagon and lit his pipe, getting ready for what would pass as his evening’s entertainment.

  “Now, you all know me, my dear friends,” the reverend began, sweeping his arm toward the crowd in a semblance of humility. “I have brought most of you from the eastern shores of our great country. I have ministered to your needs and seen to your wants.”

  A few heads nodded in agreement, but nobody said anything.

  “And I say unto you that these newcomers have no business amongst us. We are stalwart and godly men and women, pioneers all! We have no need for spangles and cards, for games of chance and ribald song.”

  Fewer heads nodded this time and a few folks frowned, but he wasn’t getting any argument from anyone yet, Jedediah noted. He wondered if Milcher thought that the gambler was going to turn his wagon into a traveling honky-tonk, while his women played “Belly Up to the Bar” on Milcher’s wife’s damned piano.

  “And I say, so long as we are cleansing our ranks, we should divest ourselves of the members of the Hebrew race amid our ranks. Let these crucifiers of Christ and these . . . entertainers . . . be cast out together, so that they may have each other’s company on the return trip. I am not an unkind man, my friends. I would send no one into the wilderness alone.”

  There was a profound silence, during which you could hear only the stomp of a horse’s hoof and the soft grunting of a pig.

  And then Salmon Kendall, shy and quiet Salmon, stood up.

  “Brother Kendall!” announced Milcher, obviously expecting a second to his motion.

  “Excuse me, Reverend, but I don’t know what you got against the Cohens here. Why, Saul and his Rachael have been good friends to me and mine!”

  Thus began a heated debate that delineated—for Jedediah, at least—the two major camps among his pilgrims. Namely, those who wished to cross the land lugging a cross and the New Testament, and those who just wanted to get there, period.

  Now, the MacDonalds—two of them, anyhow—were staunchly on Milcher’s side. Surprisingly, so were the Wheelers, the Widow Jameson and her brood, and Milt Billings, although as a hired man, Milt had little say-so in the actual proceedings.

  Dr. Morelli and his family kept their mouths firmly closed—afraid, Jedediah supposed, that if the Jews and the “fancy women” and gamblers were being picked on now, the Roman Catholics couldn’t be far behind.

  He probably wasn’t wrong.

  When you came right down to it, Jedediah was rooting for the gambler and his woman. Oh, he didn’t like them. He didn’t have to, he supposed. But it’d be worth the extra bother of taking the gambler along if it knocked the Reverend Milcher down a notch.

  Jedediah would like that. In fact, he’d enjoy it more than he’d admit, even to himself.

  They went on and on, these hearty pioneers of his, these escapees from civilized society. They argued and yelled and preached and hollered as if they were debating the course of the world instead of just one lonely wagon train of outsiders, of dreamers. And that was it, wasn’t it? No matter what each one thought, no matter from whence he or she had come, they were all outsiders now. Outsiders, wherever they went.

  And at long last, the outsiders voted to keep the Cohens, to keep the gambler and his woman, and to ignore Reverend Milcher’s protests to the contrary.

  Jedediah had good reason to smile.

  He stood up, brushing his hand on his britches. “Glad that’s settled,” he said. He knocked his pipe’s bowl against the palm of his hand. “One more thing before everybody turns in for the night.” He threw a glance Milcher’s way, to make sure he was paying attention. This was mostly for his benefit.

  “I noticed a lot of little kids really dragging today,” Jedediah said. “This is probably my fault for not saying something sooner, but I make it a rule on my drives that all kids under the age of ten walk only half days. It’s too hard on them, otherwise. Everybody got that?”

  The Reverend Milcher sniffed and disappeared into his Conestoga. But he’d heard.

  “LeFebvre!” Jedediah shouted, waving a hand at the gambler.

  LeFebvre, a winner’s grin stretching his face, came at a trot. “Yes, Mr. Fury! What can I do for you?”

  “You can pay me your share of my fee,” Jedediah said, and stuck out his hand while he looked over the man’s poor excuse for a rig. “That’ll be eighty dollars, flat.”

  * * *

  Abigail hummed to herself as she finished cleaning the supper things. She’d listened to the debates earlier, and was more than pleased that they wouldn’t have to turn back, although she was more than a little miffed by Milcher’s use of the term “ribald song.”

  She wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but she figured it couldn’t be good, not judging by the tone he’d used.

  Rome was still up there, talking to the wagon master, Mr. Fury. She’d learned he was the pretty boy’s father, and she sighed without realizing it. That was one fellow she’d like to take a little buggy ride with, if it weren’t for Rome.

  Oh, well. Things were what they were. Rome couldn’t keep her from looking, though.

  Suddenly he was behind her, grabbing her around the waist.

  “Oh!” she gasped.

  He chuckled into her ear. “Oh, indeed, Abby!”

  She relaxed a bit. He was in a good mood.

  He let go of her just long enough to turn her about to face him. “You got any pin money, sweetheart?” he asked with a smile.

  “There’s thirty-five cents in my pocketbook,” she replied.

  His grip on her arm tightened. “No, I mean real money. It’s gonna cost us eighty bucks to tag along with this crew. After I paid the hotel and the livery, I’ve only got forty left. And that’s just barely.”

  Her arm was already throbbing, and her eyes welled with tears. “Rome, really, I—”

  “You must have something stashed, honey. Something put by. How’d you buy that new dress? The green one? I sure didn’t shell out for it.” He began to slowly twist the gripping hand, and now her arm burned as well as throbbed. She thought she might faint.

  “In my carpetbag,” she whispered, afraid that at any minute she’d scream and give them away.

  “That’s my girl,” he said, dropping her arm like she were nothing more than a rag doll. If she hadn’t had the corner of the buggy to catch herself on, she would have fallen like one.

  “Why do you have to be so mean to me?” she asked, rubbing her arm.

  He already had her carpetbag, and was dumping its contents out into the dirt. “Because you don’t tell me the truth, angel,” he said, distracted by the bag. He pawed through her underwear and shoes and stockings until he found her little change purse, the one made out of soft deerskin with silver fittings.

  He opened it and smiled as he counted out the money.

  “You been holdin’ out on me, Abby,” he said at last. “Seventy bucks, even.” He stuffed the whole roll in his pocket, then stood up. “I’m gonna go pay Fury. You clean this mess up, you hear?”

  As he strode off, out across the circle made by the wagons, she heaved a sigh, then bent to pluck her clothing from the dirt. And as she did, her tears finally spilled. He’d taken her money, her savings. She’d never be free of him now. At least, not before three or four years more of working in saloons and brothels.

  She’d been barely sixteen, orphaned, and living on the street when he
found her and introduced her to the life, and she knew nothing else. It was a rough and cruel existence, and she had secret dreams of leaving it behind, of marrying, of becoming respectable. Now she’d be too old for anyone to want her. At least, by the time she saved up enough money to slip out of Rome’s clutches.

  Blast him, anyway.

  She stuffed the last items into her bag, realizing that tomorrow she’d have to figure out how to do laundry on the move. She looked out, into the open circle, and saw young Jason Fury talking to another man, the one with whom he’d ridden out to their buggy. Ward Something? It didn’t matter. The two of them were standing before a fire, and the light washed up over Jason, all golden and warm and enticing.

  It wasn’t difficult to imagine him making love to her, being tender and gentle and caring and . . . nice. Yes, nice.

  He was looking better and better.

  * * *

  “Well,” Ward was saying as they watched the gambler walk past them, “I guess they’re stayin’. Your old man sure surprised me!”

  “You’re not the only one,” Jason said. The only thing he could figure out was that his father was, in some way, using Rome and Abigail to put the Reverend Milcher in his place. If so, it had worked as far as he could tell. Milcher sure had his drawers in a bunch.

  Which was just as fine with Jason, if the truth be told. He couldn’t abide the man.

  But then, he didn’t like much of anybody on the train. There was an open, ongoing aggravation between him and Matt MacDonald. It was only a matter of time before it would come to blows, and everybody knew it.

  He found Mr. Nordstrom haughty and stuck up, the Mortons—every single one of them, including Milton Griggs—too boring for words, and Eulaylee Jameson (and all three of her grown kids) too bigoted and narrow-minded to live.

  And the rest of them, he didn’t know well enough to dislike. He figured he would in time, though.

  But he thought he kind of liked Ward Wanamaker, and he knew he liked the oldest Milcher boy, Tommy—probably because he was a frequent target of Matt MacDonald—and he was certain that he liked Megan MacDonald. The girl was pretty, with long, shiny, setter-red braids, sparkling green eyes fringed with russet lashes, and a fair, freckled face. And she made him laugh.

  She was only seventeen, though, and so he hadn’t made any overtures. Only seventeen, and bound to stay with her family out West, once they got there. He’d be headed back East. To college. Which was no place for a married man.

  “What?” he said. Ward had been saying something or other, and Jason had completely lost track of it.

  “Indians?” Ward said. “Where were you? Rhode Island? I asked if we should we count on a fight anytime soon.”

  Jason shook his head. “Hard to tell. Before the War, we could buy most of ’em off with cattle or trade goods. That’s been years ago, though.”

  Ward nodded. “So you know ’bout as much about it as I do.”

  “I’d say you nailed it, Ward.”

  * * *

  Saul and Rachael Cohen lay snug in their quilts, having tucked their three boys into the spare wagon and seen them safely asleep. Saul was pleased about the evening’s goings-on, although he was sorry the subject had come up. Again.

  “Will it ever stop, Saul?” Rachael asked, echoing his thoughts.

  “You expect it to stop?” he replied. “How can it stop while these goyim are still so ignorant? Since the beginning of time, they’ve been ignorant. You think anything will change that?”

  “I suppose you are right,” she said, and snuggled closer to his side. “But still, I will pray for them.”

  He smiled. “Now you’re sounding like Reverend Milcher, Rachael, always praying for people. Who don’t want to be prayed for, I might add.”

  “Possibly, Saul,” she said, cocking a brow. “But I have a more direct route.” Before he could speak, she closed her eyes, and whispered, “No middleman.”

  Chapter 8

  Three weeks, one broken leg, a busted collarbone, and one Piute episode later, the wagons found themselves cutting down into Indian Territory.

  Electa Morton had tripped in a gopher hole and broken her leg below the knee, and was now teaching school from the back of her parents’ wagon. Young Tommy Milcher, Jason’s friend and admirer, fell from his horse and broke his collarbone.

  As for the Piute, they had been a small band of stragglers, and had been bought off with the offer of three of Jedediah’s “eating steers” from the herd, two blankets, and one hand mirror from Jedediah’s box of trinkets. They’d ridden off, happy as larks.

  But Jason was concerned. The wagons would be going through Comanche territory, and nobody but him seemed the least bit upset about this. Even his father, usually a most careful guardian, seemed unconcerned. Maybe Jedediah knew something he didn’t.

  He sincerely hoped that was the case.

  They were two days into Indian Territory, and their surroundings had gradually changed from the endless grasslands of Kansas, where they had gathered buffalo chips for fuel to burn and bumped across seas of buffalo bones, to a rugged kind of half-desert, half-plains. The kids were more often riding than walking, even more than his father had decreed the night he had the blowup with Milcher.

  Well, not a blowup, really, Jason corrected himself. It had been more like a quiet victory, without a threat made or a single blow struck.

  But Milcher had been halfway quiet ever since, with the exception of Sunday mornings. Roman and Abigail had been left alone, and the Cohens had been unmolested, insofar as he knew, by either hand or word.

  Hamish MacDonald, however, was becoming more and more of a problem. He had his own map, and it was his dogged persistence that had them taking this particular route. Jedediah had wanted to stay either farther north or cut down farther south—mostly to avoid the Comanche threat—but Hamish swore up and down that he had it on good authority—from his brother-in-law, who had settled in Houston some years ago—that lately, the whole Indian problem was much exaggerated, and mostly a fabrication of the Eastern newspapers.

  Jason was surprised his father hadn’t fought harder against Hamish. But he hadn’t, and for the first time, Jason wondered if perhaps his father was getting too old for these trips.

  Jason was out riding with the herd, and they were slowly moving over a hill of red earth about two hundred yards north of the wagons. Grazing had been good for the livestock so far, and they were all fat and sleek. He knew that wouldn’t last long, though. The grazing was growing sparse, and would continue to grow thinner and thinner.

  He swung farther to the north to bring in a stray calf when he caught a movement from the corner of his eye.

  It wasn’t much. Just a patch of color that shouldn’t have been there. And he could no longer see it.

  But he’d been well trained by his father, and he immediately called to Ward. “Get the herd down the hill!” And then he bolted down himself, toward the train, chasing the errant calf before him.

  He came down so fast that his mare nearly skidded into the side of the MacDonalds’ wagon, and he immediately shouted, “Circle the wagons in tight! Men, get your firearms ready!”

  He cantered down the line shouting the same thing, over and over, to the shocked faces of the pilgrims, but they all sped up and made a halfway decent circle up ahead. He heard his father shouting instructions, too, while the herd of horses and cattle and such climbed down the hill and headed for the circle. The men left a gap between two wagons just wide enough to funnel the herd through, three and four at a time, then closed it tight as Jason galloped back.

  It was just in time, too. He heard the whoops of attacking Indians breasting the hill’s crest just as he jumped his palomino over the traces of Rome LeFebvre’s silly little buggy. Leaping from the saddle and slapping his palomino on the backside, he crouched down beside Rome. His pistol was in one hand and his rifle was in the other.

  All Rome had in his shaking hands was an old Colt Navy and a derringer. Abigail w
as crouched beside him, white with terror.

  Jason saw their attackers now, and too clearly. They came boiling down the hillside in full battle regalia, with very serious looks on their painted faces.

  Jason had met up with Comanche once before. He hadn’t liked it.

  He pulled up his rifle and drew a bead on one of the front riders. He fired.

  And missed.

  He cranked another shot into the chamber and aimed again.

  This time, his slug hit home.

  By now, the suddenly formed camp was in a panic. Some of the men were doing as Jedediah had instructed back in Missouri—firing while their wives or kids reloaded. Others, including Roman, were simply frozen.

  Jason wasn’t one to waste time. He slugged Rome in the jaw, just hard enough to get his attention, and said, “Shoot, you idiot!”

  When that didn’t work, he shouted, “You know what a Comanche’ll do to you if they get in here? They’ll tie you to a wagon wheel, cut a hole in your belly, string your guts out while you watch, and let the pigs eat them while you’re still living!”

  Rome went to work with his gun. Abigail fainted.

  Jason just kept on firing.

  He fired, in fact, until he ran himself out of ammunition and had to make a run across the circle to the ordnance wagon. On his way, he dodged confused cattle and spooked horses, jumped over a dog, snatched up a wandering Milcher kid, and took a stray arrow just above his left elbow.

  He handed over the Milchers’ spawn, then reached across his body and broke the arrow off, so that only an inch of it protruded from his flesh. It was bleeding like a butchered hog, but he didn’t have time for it now.

  His father, who had obviously run dry himself, was at the ordnance wagon, and tossed him down a box of the right ammo for his rifle. His eye flicked to Jason’s arm and he opened his mouth, but Jason shouted, “It’s all right, Pa! Watch yourself!”

  And then he headed back across, to the sounds of Indian whoops and cries, shouted curses, kids and women crying, and cattle and horses dying. He ducked down behind Salmon Kendall’s rig. Salmon needed some help.