A Big Sky Christmas Read online

  “But we could do all that if we have to,” Moses insisted. “Couldn’t we, Captain Hendricks?”

  “We’ll do whatever’s necessary,” Hendricks said with a curt nod. “We all knew when we started out that there would be hardships along the way.”

  Jamie said, “You’d need plenty of luck, too. Luck that you don’t run into any Indian trouble, and that the weather cooperates. That last is the main thing. Winter would have to hold off, at least the worst of it. Where you’re going, nothing will kill you quicker than a Great Plains blizzard.”

  “We have faith,” Hendricks said. “The Good Lord watches over us.”

  “He’d have to, for you to have a chance of getting there.”

  Moses turned to Jamie. “But you could do it,” he insisted. “With God’s help, of course. You could make all those things happen and lead us to Montana.”

  “I can’t do anything about the weather,” Jamie said.

  “But if it did get bad, you could tell us what we need to do to survive. And then when conditions improved, we could move on again.”

  “It would depend on how bad things got”—Jamie’s brawny shoulders rose and fell—“but yeah, maybe. If anybody could get you through, I reckon I can.”

  “Then it’s settled, right?” Moses said eagerly. “Mr. MacCallister has the job, Captain?”

  Hendricks peered at Jamie. “Do you want the job, MacCallister?”

  “Not particularly,” Jamie replied, being honest as always. “But this young fella tells me that you’ll be setting out for Montana Territory anyway, whether I go with you or not.”

  “That’s true. We don’t have any choice.”

  “And I can’t stand by and wind up with the lives of . . . how many in your bunch?”

  “Two hundred and seventeen souls, Mr. MacCallister. Men, women, and children.”

  “I won’t have the lives of that many people thrown away if there’s anything I can do about it. I’ll take you to Montana.”

  There. It was done. His earlier idea of paying for them to stay in Kansas City until spring and then set out on their journey was forgotten, and he had a pretty good idea why he had discarded it. Jamie Ian MacCallister wasn’t a vain man, but he was a proud one, and Moses had played on his pride in a shrewd manner. That one was plenty smart.

  “It’s settled, then,” Moses said again. “You can put your horses with our stock, since you’re one of us now. Isn’t that right, Captain?”

  “Yeah, I reckon,” Hendricks said, still not completely convinced it was a good idea. Apparently he was going to make the best of it, though. “Then I’ll introduce you around. People will need to know what’s happened.”

  After taking that short break, the musicians were starting up again. The strains of their new tune filled the night air. Jamie felt one of his booted toes begin to tap slightly in time to the music. It would be a long, hard trail to Montana, he thought, and these pilgrims had no real idea of what they were facing.

  Let them enjoy what time they had left, before they set out on what might be a trail to disaster.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Moses Danzig invited Jamie to share his wagon, but Jamie told the young rabbi that he would just spread his bedroll underneath the vehicle. “I’m pretty sure it’s not going to rain, and I’ve spent many a night sleeping on the ground. Maybe that’s not as comfortable for these old bones as it once was, but it doesn’t bother me all that much.”

  “Suit yourself, Mr. MacCallister,” Moses said.

  “Call me Jamie.”

  “All right, Jamie. Since we didn’t get around to meeting everybody, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the group in the morning.”

  “You’re acquainted with everybody in the wagon train, are you?” Jamie asked.

  “Well, most of them, anyway. Once you get to know me, you’ll see that I’m the gregarious sort.”

  “Does that mean friendly and talkative?” Jamie asked, even though he knew that was exactly what the word meant.

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Reckon I’d sort of figured that out already,” Jamie said dryly.

  He had put his horses in the corral after unsaddling Sundown and moving his supplies from the pack horse to the back of Moses’s wagon. He would use the pack animal as an extra saddle mount if he needed one and eventually press it into service again as a beast of burden once he parted ways with the immigrants after they reached Montana Territory . . . although he might not be leaving Eagle Valley right away, he realized. That would depend on the weather. If snowstorms closed the passes, it was possible he might have to remain with the pilgrims until spring, unable to reach his home in Colorado until winter was over.

  He spent the night under the wagon, and as he had predicted, he slept just fine. His muscles creaked a little and his joints popped when he crawled out of his bedroll the next morning, but there was nothing uncommon about that.

  As usual, he was up well before dawn, had a fire going and his coffeepot boiling by the time Moses crawled out of the wagon with his hair rumpled and a sleepy expression on his face.

  “What time is it?” Moses asked.

  “Time for folks to be up and stirring around,” Jamie told him. “Most of them already are.”

  It was true. The women had cook fires blazing, and the men were tending to the animals. Jamie had already checked on his horses and knew they were all right.

  Moses dropped from the tailgate to the ground and ran his fingers through his tangled hair. He put his hat on and hunkered next to the fire. The days were still pleasant some of the time but the nights were almost always cold. His breath fogged a little in front of his face as he held his hands out toward the fire’s heat.

  Jamie handed him a tin cup of Arbuckle’s. “That’ll warm you up.”

  Moses sipped the strong black brew gratefully.

  “Once we’re on the trail, we’ll be moving by this time of the morning every day.” Jamie waved a big hand toward the arching gray vault of the eastern sky. “There’s enough light for the men handling the teams to see where they’re going. That’s all we really need.”

  “You weren’t joking when you said that the days would be long ones, were you?”

  “Not one blasted bit. What do you usually do for meals?”

  “I, uh, prevail upon the generosity of some of my fellow pilgrims, and in return I provide them with some supplies. I’m afraid that I’m not much of a cook myself.”

  “Well, no need for you to do that anymore. I’ll fix us some flapjacks and fry up a mess of bacon.”

  “Uh, Jamie . . . I don’t exactly eat bacon . . . You know, because of my religion . . .”

  Jamie vaguely recalled hearing something like that about the Hebrew religion. He wasn’t sure how anybody could live without eating bacon or salt jowl, but he supposed that was Moses’s business, not his. “We’ll just stick with the flapjacks, then, if they’re all right for you to eat.”

  “Sure,” Moses said with a smile. “Actually, that sounds really good.”

  After they had finished breakfast, Moses offered to clean up.

  Jamie thanked him. “While you’re doing that I’ll go talk to Cap’n Hendricks. Point me to his wagon.”

  “Of course.” Moses told him how to find the captain’s wagon, and he began to walk around the big circle that formed the camp.

  He had passed about a dozen of the covered vehicles when a figure stepped out from behind one of them and confronted him. Jamie recognized the man Moses had identified as Reverend Bradford. He and the two children with him had disappeared by the time Moses had started introducing Jamie to the rest of the group the previous night.

  It appeared that Bradford was intent on meeting him. He planted his feet and stood with a stern expression on his face.

  Jamie could have moved him out of the way if necessary, but it would have taken a little work.

  “You’re MacCallister,” the big man said bluntly. “The new wagon master and guide.”

 
; “That’s right.” Jamie didn’t feel any instinctive liking for the reverend, but he was willing to wait and see what the man had to say, so long as Bradford didn’t waste too much of his time. He held out his hand to see if Bradford would shake.

  “You’ve befriended the Israelite,” Bradford went on, ignoring Jamie’s hand and making the words sound like an accusation of some sort.

  “If you’re talking about Moses, I believe he’s from Poland,” Jamie said as he lowered his hand. His eyes narrowed. It seemed that his initial dislike of Bradford had been right on the money.

  “I don’t care where he’s from, he’s a Hebrew, and someone like that has no place among decent, God-fearing folks like the ones with this wagon train.”

  “Now hold on a minute,” Jamie snapped. “He’s got a right to be here, same as anybody else—”

  Before Jamie could go on, rapid footsteps sounded behind him. He whirled around, instinct making his hand flash to the butts of the .44s holstered at his hips.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  He stopped before he made the draw, as two youngsters skidded to a halt in front of him. Their eyes widened at the sight of the big frontiersman looming over them in a slight crouch, clearly ready to jerk his Colts from leather and set those deadly smokepoles to work.

  “Good Lord!” Bradford exclaimed. “MacCallister, no! Those are my children.”

  Jamie straightened, took his hands away from his revolvers, and willed the snarl off his face. He drew in a deep breath and smiled as he nodded to the children. “Sorry, younkers. I didn’t mean to spook you. It’s not a good idea to come running up behind an old-timer like me, though. We spook easy.”

  The boy swallowed. “That’s all right, mister. We didn’t mean to scare you.”

  That brought a genuine chuckle from Jamie. “That’s all right. Just don’t do it again.”

  “This is a perfect example of why we don’t need some gunman accompanying this wagon train,” Bradford said from behind him. “Guns never bring anything but trouble.”

  Jamie glanced over his shoulder at the reverend. “If you ever get set upon by Indians or road agents, you’ll be mighty happy to have somebody around who knows how to handle a shooting iron. Now, why don’t you introduce me to these young’uns of yours?”

  Grudgingly, Bradford performed the introductions. “This is my son Alexander and my daughter Abigail.”

  “We’re twins,” Alexander told Jamie.

  Jamie nodded. “I can see that. How old are you?”

  “We’re ten,” Alexander replied.

  “And our mama’s dead,” Abigail added.

  Jamie looked at Bradford again. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “It’s true that I’m a widower,” the preacher said. “My dear wife, rest her soul, went to be with our Lord more than a year ago.”

  “So you’ve been raising these little ones by yourself since then?”

  “That’s right,” Bradford said. “Bringing them up in the way they should be raised.”

  Alexander said, “We’re not so little.”

  “That’s right,” Abigail said. “We’re just the right size for our age.”

  Jamie grinned down at her. “I reckon that’s true, missy. I didn’t mean any offense.”

  “That’s all right,” Abigail said graciously. “You’re pretty big for your age, aren’t you?”

  “I reckon you could say that.”

  Bradford asked, “What do you children want? I thought you were going to play with the Harper youngsters today.”

  “We were,” Alexander said, “but we saw you talking to Mr. MacCallister. Billy Harper says that he’s a famous gunman and Indian fighter. We wanted to get a look at him close up.”

  “Do you think the Indians will scalp us, Mr. MacCallister?” Abigail asked.

  “Don’t you worry about that,” Jamie told her. “It’s my job to see to it that nobody hurts you, Indians or anybody else.”

  “You’ll take care of us, then?”

  “Well . . . that’s really your pa’s job. But I’ll help him any way I can.”

  “All right,” Alexander said, evidently satisfied by Jamie’s answer. “Let’s go, Abby. Billy said he knew where there was a dead frog we can look at.”

  The two children turned and ran off. Jamie watched them go, then looked at Bradford. “That’s a couple of fine youngsters you got there. I’ve got quite a few children myself, and a passel of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.”

  “You and your wife must be proud of them,” Bradford said stiffly.

  “My wife’s dead, too,” Jamie said, his voice hard and flat. “So I reckon we got that in common, Reverend. Because of that I won’t take any offense about what you had to say about my friend Moses . . . this time.”

  Bradford glared, but he didn’t say anything else. He just turned and stalked off.

  Jamie shook his head as he watched Bradford walk away. He hadn’t known many Jewish fellas in his life, but Moses Danzig seemed like a decent hombre and Jamie was willing to give any man the benefit of the doubt.

  Bradford, on the other hand, rubbed him the wrong way. Jamie would try to keep things civil between them because he liked the man’s kids. Bradford must not be all bad, he told himself, if he’d had a hand in raising Alexander and Abigail.

  Jamie started toward Lamar Hendricks’s wagon again, but he hadn’t gone very far before he was intercepted again. Three men stepped up and barred his path. They wore belligerent expressions and planted their feet as if they didn’t intend to move until they’d had their say, whatever that was.

  Jamie stopped and studied them. The one on his left was tall and lean, but the ropy muscles of his arms and shoulders testified to his strength. His hands were clenched into knobby-knuckled fists. The one on the right was tall, but broad-shouldered and powerful-looking. He sported a bristly black beard, while the other two were clean shaven.

  The man in the middle probably looked shorter than he really was, since he was standing between the two tall men. He seemed almost as broad as he was tall, and small, piggy eyes were buried in deep pits of gristle above a prominent nose in his round, sunburned face.

  He was the one who spoke. “You’re MacCallister.”

  “That’s right.”

  “The man who attacked Jeb Ralston for no good reason and broke his leg.”

  “Well, you’ve got that half right,” Jamie drawled. “Ralston started the fight. As for breaking his leg, that wasn’t my intention. It just sort of happened in the heat of battle.” Jamie’s voice hardened. “But I didn’t lose any sleep over it last night.”

  “Jeb is a good man and a top-notch wagon master. He deserves better.”

  “I don’t plan on wasting my time arguing with you,” Jamie said. “Step aside.”

  “No, sir,” the piggish man snapped. “We hired on with Jeb as scouts. We’ve worked with him before. Now we hear you figure on waltzin’ in here and takin’ over.”

  “Agreeing to take this train to Montana wasn’t exactly my idea. But I’ve said that I’ll do it, and that’s what I plan to do, with you men or without you. It makes no never mind to me. We’ll get there either way.”

  “One of us should’ve got that job, blast it! It’s not right that you cripple Jeb and then take his job!”

  “You’ve seen Ralston?” Jamie was mildly curious about the man’s condition. “How’s he doing?”

  “The sawbones says it’ll be months before he can walk normal again, if he ever does. He may not ever get over what you done to him.”

  Jamie shrugged. “He should’ve let it go after I threw him over that bar, instead of coming after me again.” In a voice like flint, he added, “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”

  “Mister . . . by the time we get through with you, you’re gonna wish it was the other way around!”

  All three men attacked at the same time, charging at Jamie with fists swinging.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  That didn’t surprise Jami
e. He’d been able to tell as soon as the men got in his way that they were on the prod. They’d just taken a few minutes to talk themselves up into doing something about it.

  At least they hadn’t come after him with guns or knives. Maybe he wouldn’t have to kill the stupid varmints.

  That thought flashed through his brain as he planted his feet and hit the short man first, since he was the closest of the three hombres. Jamie’s fist crashed into that prominent nose and flattened it. Blood spurted hotly across his knuckles. The blow rocked the man’s head back and stopped him as abruptly as if he’d run into a stone wall.

  The lanky man with the malletlike fists darted in quickly. Jamie didn’t have time to block the punch he threw. All he could do was lean his head to the side and let the man’s bony fist scrape along the side of his head. That hurt his ear a little but didn’t do any real damage.

  Jamie hooked a hard left high into the man’s midsection, just under the heart. The man hunched over and his face turned a sick shade of gray. He tried to throw another punch, but it was wide and flailing.

  After dealing with the first two, Jamie couldn’t hope to avoid taking a punch from the third man. His fist landed solidly against Jamie’s jaw, sending him staggering to the side as his hat flew off his head. The bearded man was the biggest of the three, and he hit hard.

  Still on his feet, Jamie’s head and eyesight were clear. He grinned at his opponent. “That the best you got, son? Can’t even put an old, old man like me on the ground?”

  That gibe had the desired result. The man roared angrily and charged. Jamie twisted out of the way, grabbed the man’s shoulder, and slung him up against the nearest wagon. The man crashed headfirst into the heavy side boards and bounced off. He fell on the ground and rolled over, stunned.

  “Look out, Mr. MacCallister!” a little girl’s voice cried.

  Jamie wheeled around in time to meet another charge from the short, broad man who had recovered his wits after the painful blow that had broken his nose. Blood streamed from his nostrils, smearing the bottom half of his face and giving him a fearsome look. He threw punch after punch as he bored in at Jamie, landing some of them.