Chapter 16 #2
Owen thought of his life. He lost any urge to smile. “That’s the way of the West. Too busy building a cabin, building a business to support yourself, building a life and a family. And if you’re not building, you’re forever moving on.”
“Have you always been a rootless man, Owen?”
“I guess I’ve always liked moving. Never thought of myself as ‘rootless,’ but it’s probably true of me.”
“You say you’re from Iowa? And you haven’t seen your ma and pa since right after the war? That’s years ago, and the train’s been running for most of that time.”
“I grew up in eastern Iowa on a farm along the Des Moines River about twenty miles from the Mississippi, where the Des Moines flows into it.” Owen shook his head. “I wonder how my ma and pa are doing. I haven’t written them or received a letter, not even telegraph. No reason for it really.”
Delaney leaned forward and rested her forearm on the saddle horn as if settling in for a long talk. “And you have nowhere you call home?”
Owen sighed. “You have a talent for making me see my life and wonder about it.”
“I guess it suits you. I’ve been so lonely for my parents. I miss my brothers, too. Are you planning to live your whole life this way?”
“I’ve settled down for a spell at times. Lately I’ve been in Denver, mostly when I’m not on the trail working. But I went to war straight from my ma’s house. Pa had gone ahead.”
“That sounds like my pa. Only he didn’t just go off to fight in the war. He was always in the Army, always traveling hither and yon.”
“Not my pa. He was gone for four years. I spent three years fighting. He was back to stay, but by then I’d started wandering.
I had a younger brother and sister. I stayed behind when Pa left for a while, but I was on fire to go to war.
Save the Union and teach those upstart rebels a lesson they’d never forget.
” He shook his head in disgust. “I was a fool kid. I thought we’d whip ’em in a couple of months, which turned out to be dead wrong.
Pa had already been gone for a year, but I expected to be home in time for spring planting.
I thought the war would be some kind of lark. ”
“It’s a wonder you didn’t stay at the farm when you got home from the war,” Delaney said.
Owen nodded. “Our farm was prosperous enough. The hunting was good, the soil rich, and the rain came faithfully. Ma had chickens and a few milk cows, and she grew a big garden.”
“What happened after the war ended?”
“Pa got home before me. My little brother had headed west on a wagon train the minute he saw Pa walking up the road. I had an older sister who’d gotten married while I was fighting.
She and her husband had fallen in with a wagon train to Oregon.
I stayed a few weeks, but I couldn’t settle down.
The war had stirred me up, and I couldn’t shake off the feeling of restlessness.
So I moved on. Besides, it didn’t seem like home anymore with the youngsters all gone. ”
Smiling, Delaney said, “They couldn’t’ve been too young if one went west and the other got married.”
“I reckon not.” How had Owen got to talking about himself? It was his least favorite thing in the world. He lapsed into silence before he started yammering again. It was awkward because he’d been doing all the talking.
As if she realized he had no more to say, Delaney said, “Marshal, you are past due to settle down and find yourself a home.”
Owen laughed quietly, glad for an excuse not to talk any more about his family.
He’d left his old life behind when he headed west. He wondered if his brother and sister were out west somewhere too by now.
He should find out. Go visit his ma and pa maybe.
With the train he could do it. Strange that he never thought much about them.
It seemed like a betrayal somehow, especially of his ma, who’d tried to talk him into staying near her.
“Tell me about your folks, Delaney,” he said. “We’ve got nothing but time.”
“I reckon I can dig some stories out of my head. But first I’ll go warn Marley and Boone to keep watch, and then I’ll be right back.”
Hester had gasped when the tracks they were following opened into a majestic mountain valley, acres of grass waving in the breeze. The stunning mountains rose up all around them. The rustic cabin had been built into a mountainside, and the valley was dotted with longhorns and horses.
“The two men on foot got themselves mounts now,” Grizzly almost growled, which he was fully capable of doing. In fact, it had earned him his nickname. “We should’ve tried harder to close the distance between us and picked them off when they were on foot.”
Hester knew her husband. He’d fought in the war and on the Frontier.
But he wasn’t a man to just go to shooting when trouble started.
He was smarter than that and kinder, wiser.
He wouldn’t have picked them off. And if they’d ever caught those two, they’d’ve taken them prisoner if at all possible. But they’d had to slow down some.
“We weren’t that far behind ’em.” He shook his fist at their hoofprints, overtop of earlier prints he’d decided long ago belonged to Boone, Delaney, and their crew.
“We should’ve settled things before they found mounts.
But who’d’a thunk there’d be a cabin and horses and cattle out here?
We’ve ridden so far out into the wilderness, maybe we’re back to civilization now. ”
A few minutes later, Hester headed into the cabin and then came out with a report. “Two people, one of them a child, I’m thinking the other a woman. They must’ve joined up with our group and ridden out with them.”
Grizzly looked around the beautiful meadow. “Who’d live clear out here? A woman and child alone? Makes no sense.”
Hester said, “There’s nothing inside that isn’t made from the land right under our feet.
Not a can of peaches, no salt, no sugar, and no flour.
The clothing is all men’s sizes but cut down to be smaller.
That’s why I think it’s a woman and child.
There’s some buckskin being used, so maybe that’s what they’re both wearing.
Judging by what I saw inside the cabin, they’ve been living alone out here for a long while, and there’s no town nearby. ”
Hester had searched the cabin, Grizzly the barn.
“There’s a root cellar,” Hester said. “Honey in there and jars that look like she knows how to preserve the bounty of her garden.”
Grizzly said solemnly, “I found three graves.”
That got Hester’s attention. “Old ones?”
He nodded, and her shoulders relaxed. “There were rough crosses marking them. Two with the last name Sutcliff. The woman, June, died fifteen years ago, and the man, Cap, six years ago. Her parents, I’d say. And another man with a different last name, a Herman Beck, who died four years ago.”
“If she had a child,” said Hester, “the third grave might be her husband. I’m only guessing, but it strikes me as such. You knew Morgan’s pa, Grizzly. Does Cap Sutcliff sound like someone you knew once?”
Grizzly shook his head. “The American Frontier’s a vast place, and there aren’t that many people really.
And a man who had a daughter who’d been living out here, possibly for years, she’d’ve been a child back when folks were settling the land around here.
I’d’ve remembered a child. A man who chose this place was someone who knew how to survive in the wild.
How else could his daughter learn to do so, too? ”
“That sounds about right,” Hester said.
“We need to push on.” Grizzly swung up on his horse. “Now that the outlaws are on horseback, they’ll be moving faster. That puts our children in even more danger.”
When would it ever end? she wondered.
They rode over to where it looked as though a landslide had cleared the side of the mountain some years ago, and it scraped every tree clean off the slope.
There was still no trail except the tracks left behind by others.
Tex came up to a cliff and sat down, dangling his legs over the edge. He was exhausted, and he was stranded. Again. Honestly, Stella was holding up better than he was.
Stella dropped down beside him and sighed so deeply it about created a breeze.
Looked like she wasn’t holding up that much better after all.
“We’ll have to go back and find another way forward.” She swung her legs like she was out for a hike and taking a break by sitting on a fence rail.
Tex turned to face her. She noticed and looked at him with a wry smile. “I never thought I’d be walking my way out of the Rockies. We should have been able to walk east and reach the edge of the mountains and just move right on down the trail.”
“It’s not a busy trail from Denver to Fort Collins to Cheyenne, but it gets some use. I had hopes that we’d be able to hop onto a farm wagon and just roll on north.”
She chuckled. “You strike me as a realist, Tex. Now you’re just talking like a dreamer.”
He smiled as he shook his head. This wasn’t the first dead end they’d reached. They’d climbed down a few slopes that were just barely manageable. And they’d gone around a few. Right now he didn’t see any way forward. How far would they have to go to get around this massive canyon?
“Do you like being a Marshal?”
“I’ve liked it well enough. This mess we’re in now sure takes some of the shine off it.”
“With a name like Tex, why aren’t you a Marshal in Texas?”
“I had a chance with the U.S. Marshals Service at Fort Smith, Arkansas, but that’s the last town before Indian Territory.”
Her brow furrowed. “So you’d be sent in there to arrest Indians?”