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  HE RODE ALONE

  by Steve Frazee

  An Original Gold Medal Book

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Copyright

  Also Available

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE PLACE was Gravelly Crossing on the Humboldt River, in the late summer of 1855. On the left of the two wagons encamped there, barren mountains stood as bleak as old remembered sins. Grasses reaching out from the brackish river were brown. The sun was hot now, but early in the morning there had been a light frost on the ground and cooking fires had lifted quickly into the haze.

  In the second wagon two people were dying.

  The second wagon was a tottering, sun-twisted wreck, and because of it passage across the salt desert had been deathly slow. Winter might be two months away, but it was a worse threat than the present heat, for the Forty Mile Desert was still somewhere ahead, and beyond that was the terrible barrier of the Sierras. The dream of warmth and greenness in a land where great blue rivers ran to the sea was hard to hold; it was so far away.

  How far away, Eddie Cushman did not know. Time and distance had no meaning. There was only today. He could remember things that had happened when his parents and Kathy and he were traveling in the big, well-ordered train that they had parted with at Fort Hall; but it was now impossible to place the events in order of time.

  He was, however, sure of much that had taken place since the Snellings attached themselves to the Cushmans at Fort Hall. The salt desert had been unmitigated hell. When the two wagons reached the trading post in Ruby Valley, Eddie’s father said they were several weeks behind time, but that it was nothing to fret about; they would make it. Ashley Cushman was a calm, good-natured man of tremendous strength both of spirit and body. He gave freely of his strength, and he overlooked the worst in people, even the shiftlessness of the Snellings who were, said Mrs. Cushman, the only people in the world who could have gone so far toward California on borrowed substance.

  “Now, Rachel,” Ashley said, “you know we got to help them. Look at that bunch of kids.”

  “I have, and there’s only one in the whole litter that I can abide, not counting the baby.” Mrs. Cushman was sharp, but she went ahead and doled out food from her own supplies to the Snellings. The Snellings were always grateful. They were going to pay everything back with interest when they reached California, where Rumsey, the fountainhead, had kin who were doing well.

  These were the people of the two wagons. It was Ashley Cushman and his wife Rachel who lay sick unto death under the bleached top of their wagon.

  With his arm around Kathy, Eddie tried to bear his thoughts on the green land far ahead, the place of promise, the goal his father had sought. In the dream there must be strength that could be forced inside the wagon where Eddie’s parents were unconscious with cholera, attended by Mrs. Snelling. It would be like breaking a promise if Eddie’s parents did not get well. Both of them had been so sure of the dream. If there were some way Eddie could make them remember it, then maybe they would have strength to turn aside the sickness and get well.

  It was childish, Eddie realized. It was like thinking something good was bound to happen if you took only so many steps between rocks beside the trail; like thinking the tire on the worst rear wheel of Rumsey Snelling’s wagon would not come loose again if you stared hard at it and dared it to; it was like watching a bird high in the sky and telling yourself that if it flew west before it flew east, there would be something good for supper that night.

  Eddie Cushman was thirteen. Kathy was ten. They stood together some distance from the wagon, waiting for Mrs. Snelling to stick her head out and tell them that everything was all right.

  Mrs. Snelling had been quiet for a long time. Death makes its own hush. The forlorn land was quiet. Resting in the shade of their wagon, the Snellings for once were not a noisy, whining lot. Rumsey Snelling sat with his back against a tattered roll of bedding, his loose-knuckled hands hanging between his knees, his hat pulled down so that most of his face appeared to be filthy beard.

  He seemed to be asleep, but now and then he spat tobacco juice without raising his head. The three older boys, Reed and John and Jefferson, were sprawled close to him. The five younger boys, all within a few years of Eddie’s age, were scratching in the dirt near one of the leaning front wheels. There were only two girls. One was a baby, born during the second week after the Snellings left Independence. Elizabeth was holding her, sitting straight-backed on the ground, staring down toward the river.

  If one of the Snellings was different, it was Lizzie. Eddie’s mother had said if you met one of them on a dark night in the middle of a river, you’d know at a glance it was a Snelling. They were a roundheaded lot, with thin lips and small noses without any particular bony structure. All the boys, from Reed on down, had a certain boldness of eyes when first met, but a steady look always made them shift their glances, and then they would look back covertly when your attention changed.

  Except for Lizzie and the baby, too young to tell about, the Snellings were cast in the mold of the father. Lizzie’s eyes were straight-looking and stayed that way when she was talking to you. Her hair was brown, like her mother’s, instead of mousy-looking like Rumsey’s and the boys’. For a twelve-year-old, her tongue was nasty sharp sometimes, and when she was standing off her brothers in a quarrel she used language as foul as theirs.

  She was different from the rest of the tribe, yes; but Eddie was not greatly concerned beyond noticing the fact. They were all a shiftless lot and they had fastened like leeches upon the generosity of Ashley Cushman. Otherwise, the Cushmans would be far down the Humboldt now, and most likely would have overtaken the train which had left Fort Hall a week before the Cushmans arrived there.

  The Snellings were a curse. Eddie stared at them with blind anger. The older boys looked back boldly, shifting their eyes after a time. Rumsey spat on the ground between his legs, some of the spittle hanging in his beard. Lizzie sat with the baby in her lap, staring out across the sere grasses.

  There was the river, slow in the sun. It was a Jong lifeline of emigrant travel, but like the other rivers of this forsaken land, it ran only to sink into the earth at last.

  Fearing the long silence in the wagon, Eddie forgot the Snellings and tried to resume his prayer: if only his parents would remember all the fine things they had said about California, then everything might be all right.

  Snelling raised his head and drawled, “You mought as well set down in the shade, Eddie boy.” All the Snelling males looked briefly at their father and it was like the pricking up of ears among a coyote pack when a leader speaks. />
  Eddie sat down where he was. Kathy pushed over against him and they waited.

  John Snelling said, “You reckon they’re both dead by now, Pa?”

  “You shut up,” the father said.

  “There ain’t been no groans or nothing for a while, and Ma — ”

  “Shut your mouth. You weary me.”

  Terror jumped in Kathy’s eyes. “He’s lying, ain’t he, Eddie? John’s lying. They won’t die, will they?”

  Eddie started to say that of course they wouldn’t die but he put his arm around Kathy instead and said nothing, for the terror was in him too. Mystic thinking was no longer a support. He had learned hard truths on the long haul. The westward trails were marked with graves of both the weak and the strong. His mother and father had been bad sick for three days. Since the middle of the morning they had been unconscious.

  Even they could die.

  • • •

  California … Eddie had never seen it; he could no longer hold it as a dream to be projected into the wagon to help his parents. The weather-whitened top of the wagon was small against the immenseness of the land. The land had no feeling; it had been there forever, baking in the sun, brutal and unfeeling.

  For months the very sight of the wagon had been security itself, because his parents had always been close to it. He remembered his father double-teaming the heavy grades, slow and easy, giving encouragement to the oxen, then going back to help the next wagon. He remembered his father riding back after looking at the trail ahead, big and sure. Even on the salt desert where the Snellings were always having trouble with their wagon, Eddie’s father had never lost either his confidence or his temper.

  There he would be, making repairs, talking quietly, while the Snellings stood around and whined at their bad luck. Even now it seemed possible that Ashley Cushman could walk around the wagon and stand for a moment as he wiped dust off his forehead with his sleeve, and ask, “What seems to be the trouble here?”

  There had been long stretches where the trail was level and easy. Eddie’s mother had driven much of that, with Kathy on the seat beside her. Coming in from his chore of helping herd the spare oxen, Eddie would hear them talking as he got a drink from one of the barrels, or maybe Mrs. Cushman would be singing one of the old songs. No matter how choking the dust was back with the loose oxen, or how hot his feet were from plodding along, Eddie would know that everything was all right at the wagon and he would return to his chore without his mother or sister ever knowing that he had been so close….

  The silence inside now was terrible.

  “Cholera generally kills them before this,” John said. He scrabbled out from under the Snelling wagon and rose, scratching his buttocks. “I’m tired of waiting around.” He went slouching toward the river.

  “See that none of them oxen are bogged down,” his father said. John gave no sign that he heard. Rumsey Snelling raised his voice, “You hear what I say?”

  “Yeah, Pa, yeah.”

  Inside the wagon Mrs. Snelling stirred and cleared her throat. A drinking cup rattled. Everyone outside was instantly attentive, staring, listening. Then everything was silent again. The Snellings looked at each other.

  Reed said, “I remember when all them folks died at the camp on the Platte. Me and Jeff went around — ”

  “You shut up,” Rumsey said. He raised his head and spat just beyond the toe of his boot. “It ain’t fitten to be talking like that before Eddie and his sister.” He screwed up his features, staring at the Cushman wagon. “How many was it died in that camp that time?”

  Rumsey and Reed fell into an argument about the number. The other Snelling boys listened, their eyes sliding from the debaters to Eddie and Kathy. Eddie wanted to yell at them to shut up. He felt weak.

  Like everything they started, the Snellings’ argument arrived nowhere. Reed and his father lost track of the original subject and talked of a man who had died of snake bite on the Little Blue.

  Suddenly Mrs. Snelling was looking out under the wagon bow. Her face was gaunt, yellowish, shining with sweat. She climbed down slowly. She put both hands against the small of her back as she straightened up, looking at Eddie and Kathy.

  “They’re dead,” Eddie said.

  “Yes.” Mrs. Snelling brushed at lank graying hair with her forearm. “They went about the same time, I think.” She came forward and started to take Kathy in her arms. Kathy clung tighter to her brother.

  “You poor babies,” Mrs. Snelling said. “Oh, you poor babies!” She stooped and put her arms around them both. There were tears on her face. The odor of her sweat was a terrible sourness.

  The Snelling men came from the shade of their wagon like a flock of moulting chickens rising from the dust. Rumsey fumbled with his beard with a big gray-knuckled hand. “The Lord giveth, and He taketh.”

  Eddie pushed away from Mrs. Snelling’s embrace. “Are you sure?” he asked, the question that all men use to try to block final acceptance of death.

  “You poor babies,” Mrs. Snelling said, and turned away.

  “The Lord giveth, and He taketh,” Rumsey said again, as if he had not been heard the first time, “and no one can do nothing about it.” He scratched his belly with both hands as he walked over to the Cushman children. “You’re among friends, Eddie boy. It’s a blow, but you and Kathy are with us and you’re going to be taken care of.”

  “We’re not with you!” Eddie said. “I know what you mean by taking care of us.”

  His hot stare made Rumsey look away. “Now ain’t that the beatin’est thing,” Rumsev said.

  Kathy bumped against Eddie as he walked over to the Cushman wagon. It was a frightening thing and he didn’t know whether he had the courage for it, but he could take nobody’s word for this. “You stay here,” he told Kathy, and broke away from her and climbed into the wagon.

  When he got out of the wagon there was no doubt left.

  “You just take it easy, Eddie,” Rumsey said. “Ma and the boys will do everything we got to do.” He put his hand on the rear wheel of the wagon and tried to shake it, his eyes roving over the strong, sound spokes.

  “Nobody has to take care of us,” Eddie said, but he was ashamed of his words immediately, not because of Rumsey but because of Mrs. Snelling. He saw her watching him with a tired expression, a big-framed woman whose flesh had shrunk and dried until it was almost like the folds of her shapeless dress. She had stayed with Eddie’s parents day and night during their sickness, doing everything for them she could.

  “Sure, sure, Eddie boy,” Rumsey said. “We’re all together. We’ll get along all right. I thought a heap of your folks and now it’s like you and Kathy was kids of mine. Ain’t that right, Ma?” He turned and looked at his wife.

  Mrs. Snelling watched her husband steadily for a moment and some hot, lingering spirit of rebellion came to her expression, and then it faded away under tiredness and resignation. She walked away without answering.

  Rumsey shook the wheel again. He looked at the sky, squinting as if he could read facts from it. “We’d better get an early start tomorrow. We can’t risk getting caught by snow in the mountains, Eddie.” His hand lay on the wheel as if he owned the wagon. “We’ll give your folks a decent burial and then we’ll have to hop around, making a few switches with the wagons and things.”

  The Cushman children stared at him. The weakness in Rumsey which had been repulsive to Eddie before was now frightening.

  “We ain’t switching anything about this wagon,” Eddie said. “I can handle it.”

  “Sure, sure.” Rumsey’s eyes shifted. “It’s just that we got to help each other, like we did before, that’s all I mean.”

  Kathy was still hard against Eddie, like a scared puppy. She hadn’t cried a tear. Eddie thought that was brave of her and yet, vaguely, it worried him. She was wide-eyed, stunned, like the time she had wandered in between the two coiled rattlesnakes and had stood there too scared to move when they rattled.

  “You go over and see
Lizzie for a while,” Eddie said.

  Kathy shook her head.

  “Go on now. I got to help do some things. You go over there and maybe Lizzie will let you hold the baby.”

  “Sure, now, Kathy, you do that,” Rumsey said. “Me and Eddie have got to work out some problems.”

  Kathy gave Rumsey a quick look and then she pressed in tighter against her brother.

  “Women beat all. I swear they do.” Rumsey looked irritably at Kathy, as if he wanted to slap her.

  If he tries to lay a hand on her I’ll get Pa’s rifle out of the wagon and kill him, Eddie thought; but an instant later he realized there was no real viciousness in Rumsey, but only the sharp impatience of the shiftless.

  Lizzie gave the baby to her mother and came over.

  She was a pinch-faced girl, Lizzie Snelling, with an earnest expression. Her eyes were still red from the salt that had blown into them on the desert east of Ruby Valley. Her dress was mainly rags. She wore shapeless boots that one of her brothers had outgrown. She reached a brown, thin hand down to Kathy.

  “Come on, Kathy, you and me can go barefooted in the mud again down at the river.”

  The boys had edged over to the Cushman wagon. Reed and John were trying to peer in. Jefferson, who was fifteen, grinned and said, “If you want to, Lizzie, you can take off your clothes and wash all over, like the time we seen you — ”

  “I’m tired of that talk!” Rumsey said. He raised his arm threateningly, but Jeff was too far away to reach.

  Holding Kathy’s hand, Lizzie stooped and picked up a rock. She stepped toward Jeff and he ducked around the wagon. “Stop that goddam fighting,” Rumsey whined. “I’m trying to think.”

  Lizzie led Kathy away. For a while Kathy held back, looking to Eddie. The baby began to cry, nuzzling at Mrs. Snelling’s bosom. Since somewhere in Nebraska she’d had no milk to nurse it. She held it in her arms, staring down the Humboldt. She went to the grub box and began to stir around in it.