Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
[Fort Leavenworth] is the extreme outpost on the Western Frontier, and built, like several others, in the heart of the Indian country.
There is no finer tract of lands in North America, or perhaps, in the world, than that vast space of prairie country, which lies in the vicinity of this post, embracing it on all sides.
— GEORGE CATLIN, LETTERS AND NOTES ON THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, AND CONDITIONS OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS
Fort Leavenworth
Lower Missouri River, Kansas Territory, Mid-April 1834
“Oh no! How could you have applied for this job? You know nothing about it.” Pressing her lips together, Angelia frowned at her brother.
“We need a refuge. We can’t stay here, even though this might be the hardest outpost to reach in the States.
Eventually news of our escapade will reach here, as it did in all the other frontier towns, and then we’ll have a fight on our hands.
Besides…” he held a book out to her, “…I’ve been reading this book on scouting, and I can tell you with certainty that I now know all there is to know about scouting.
It’s all here in this book. Besides it’s only a little stretch of the truth to say that I scouted with the man who wrote this book. ”
“Oh, please…” Angelia barely gave the book a cursory glance.
“Really. This fellow, John Bogart, see he was a mountain man before he became one of the greatest scouts for the government. It’s all here. I’ve read it cover to cover. Why, there’s nothing to it. I’m a good shot; I can tell direction. What could go wrong?”
“There could be many things that could go wrong, and I—”
“Ah, would you quit barkin’ at a knot?”
“But to actually tell them you have scouted with John Bogart—”
“Shhhh.” He pulled Angelia into an alleyway behind a building, thus taking themselves out of the general traffic within the fort. “Do you want someone to hear you?”
Angelia stamped her foot. “You lied! Don’t you understand? What if this fellow comes here and calls you out? Have you thought of that? He’s not dead, is he?”
“Please, please, would you lower your voice?”
She gulped. “Yes, yes, of course I will.”
“Besides,” continued Julian, “Bogart won’t come here.
The real John Bogart is a free trapper nowadays, living somewhere in the Indian territory.
Who knows? He might even be dead, and that’s not so far-fetched.
It is said that the Indians in that territory—Blackfeet, I think they are—are a terror. Trust me.”
“I do. You know that. It’s just that I don’t think a person—any person—can learn all there is to know about a job—and especially one like scouting—from a book. It’s a skill, isn’t it? And being a skill, doesn’t it require practice?”
“I have practiced a lot. I got us here, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but don’t you need more real experience than that? Don’t you need to have actually led a wagon train?”
“Pshaw, how am I supposed to get experience if I don’t try this? Really, it can’t be that difficult. Look at the Indians. They do it. And they’re uneducated.”
“Dear Lord…” Closing her eyes, Angelia took a deep breath and counted to ten before saying, “The Indians have lived here for so long that the land and their sense of direction is a part of their blood, and—”
“Then what you’re really telling me is that your brother is not as bright as the natives who have never stepped foot inside a schoolhouse?” He set his lips in a scowl. “Is that right?”
“No! Oh no. Please don’t misunderstand me.”
Julian’s chin shot up in the air. “I don’t think I am.”
“Oh, for goodness’s sake. Don’t go putting strange meaning to my words. All I’m trying to explain is that we’re in enough trouble as it is, and we surely don’t need more. You know what Papa says about lying and the devil’s work, and this fib will eventually be found out.”
“Aha!” Julian raised an arm and pointed a finger directly at her. “So what you’re really saying is that you don’t believe in me.”
“No, no.” Angelia sighed. “I trust you. I believe in you. But please try to see reason.” She placed her hand over Julian’s.
“Books can only impart a theory of knowledge—how to do something—not the action that goes along with it. There is often much more to know about something than the mere theory.”
Julian rolled his eyes.
Angelia continued speaking, as though she hadn’t seen the look or witnessed his attitude. “For instance, what if there’s some part of scouting that requires a particular skill, and it isn’t covered by that book?”
Julian crossed his arms and set his feet apart, taking a stance. “There isn’t. It’s all here.”
“Can you be sure? And what if there is such a thing and you don’t know about it, and yet everyone else does? You will be found out. And if you are found out, you will have to explain why you’re pretending to be someone you are not.”
“Pshaw. Won’t happen. Like I said, this book—”
“But it could happen.”
“It won’t.”
Angelia’s expression stilled, then she straightened her spine. “I must protest. This is not some cute little game we’re playing. Now, please, go over there…” she pointed toward the back of a low building, “…and quit while you have the chance.”
Julian posed stubbornly. “I will not. It’s my good luck that the scout they originally hired can’t make the trip—fell and broke his leg or something. Listen to me, they’re desperate, and they want me.”
“But—”
“I’ll admit the wagoners did hire a couple of Indians to help with the scouting, but you know the general opinion of Indians in these parts.
Friendly or not, no one trusts them or understands them.
Actually…” Julian dropped his voice, as though he were only now realizing this himself, “…feelings between the whites and the Indians run a little deeper and a little more hostile than that. Besides, I’ve only just got the job. I’m not gonna quit.”
“Oh please. You really must think about this. What if Papa were to find out?”
Perhaps it was because he was the son of a minister that Julian Honeywell looked away from his sister, shifting his feet uneasily, if only for a moment.
But when he spoke, whatever call to conscience there had been—if there had been any—was not to be witnessed upon his countenance.
“So what? What else are we going to do? The only reason we’re here is to escape the bounty that was offered against our capture. ”
“But Papa is handling all that for us.”
“Is he? And how is he handling it?”
“You know that he’s going to the authorities—”
“Without us being there?”
Angelia frowned. “Come now, you must realize we can’t be there.
We’ve been discovered in every town, every city we’ve landed in, and no lawyer’s been able to bail us out.
Someone, somewhere, really wants us found.
You don’t suppose Elmer Riley—that big plantation owner—is behind this, do you?
” Her frown deepened. “Is there more that happened in Mississippi? Something that I don’t know?
Please, if there’s more than simply a girl… ”
Julian faced away from her, his expression lost to her.
She continued, “Papa’s lawyers think they can make a case without us being there. But you know all this, and that Papa’s case, stating that we were acting in self-defense, will show that we didn’t commit murder.”
“Yes. But.” Julian raised an eyebrow. “Papa is pleading to the authorities where?”
“In Washington.”
“That’s right,” said Julian, “in Washington…which will have about as much authority in the South as a Japanese samurai in the state of Virginia.”
Angelia let out her breath. “Julian, please listen to reason. You can’t do this.”
“Well, I am.”
“But—”
“End of argument. I’ve stood your tirades this long, and I won’t stand it any longer. We need to leave this garrison and get ourselves to Santa Fe.”
“But—”
Her pleas landed on deaf ears. Julian had already turned his back on her and was marching off in the opposite direction.
Darn! How did he do it? How did he manage to twist the facts around until he had her feeling as though she were some loathsome creature? One who particularly liked to tax her brother’s charms?
As Angelia watched her brother pace away, she pulled her bottom lip into a worry line. Darn, darn and double darn. This scouting business was a fine mess—definitely not what she wanted to do.
What she really wanted to do was to go back to Mississippi, confront the authorities, tell them what had happened—that the whole matter had been an accident, an incident of self-defense—take whatever was coming to her and be done with it.
But she couldn’t do that. Not now. Not after discovering what else Julian had done, back there in Mississippi. Goodness knows he’d be hung on sight.
How could he have done it, she wondered for the umpteenth time.
How could he have set out to win the daughter of Elmer Riley, the richest plantation owner in Mississippi?
Of course, Julian’s intentions had been good.
Of course he had meant to marry the girl.
But that didn’t excuse him being alone with her—without a chaperone—for an entire hour.
But nothing had come of it, had it?
Why, oh why had he picked Elmer Riley’s daughter?
Certainly the girl was winsome, but the father… Truth be told, the mere presence of Mr. Riley anywhere near her caused Angelia to flinch. The looks he gave her, the stares—as though she were some bargain in a bootlegger’s auction.
Even now, the simple act of thinking of the man sent shivers up and down Angelia’s spine.
But all that was behind them. After all, the man’s influence over them had surely ended when she and Julian had crossed the state line. Or had it?
If that were so, why were she and Julian still on the run, still trying to escape the authorities?
Angelia sighed. She had no answers to this, and perhaps a hundred other questions.