Survival was the important thing. Parcher had learned this the hard way. Use what you can and destroy what you can’t. This belief had served him well over the years. Parcher knew that no man was his friend when it came to that man having something he wanted, be it a woman or anything else.
He had watched Blanchet’s woman—like a man watches an animal with its foot caught in a trap—for over a week before he’d pounced. It’s been easy. He had her to the point now where she would lay down and let her throat be cut if he told her to. It had been good enough for a while, but he was getting tired of
her lying there like a limp pile of hides while he had his way with her.
He walked into the clearing and there she was, standing with her back to him. He took her by the arms and pressed her to the ground. There was no resistance; there had been none since that first day two weeks before. Hell,
then
she’d fought, he remembered, savoring the thought . . . until he’d squelched her struggles with his insinuating threats. Frank considered the woman beneath him a slut, something less than a whore, more worthless than an animal. He slapped her across the face, trying to drive some life into her. She raised her arm to protect herself, but he pushed it aside and slapped her again. She lay still then, breathing heavily. He tore open the front of her dress and toyed with her breasts for a while, biting and scraping his rough, whiskered face across the tender nipples, then sucking them until strangled whimpers escaped her lips. He liked to hear the sounds that came from a throat that wanted to scream but didn’t dare. He lifted his head and told her to kiss him. She did.
When he opened his britches and ordered her to lift her skirts, she did as she was told and said nothing, but she winced with pain as he plunged his hardened manhood into her softness, pinning her to the ground. He rammed her delicate body against the packed earth until he was finished, then got swiftly to his feet and stood there leering at her disarray.
When she tried to pull down her skirt, he reached for her and fastened his hand in what remained of her
bodice, hauling her to her feet. As she gasped and fell into his arms, he plunged his tongue into her mouth, filling it. When she gagged, he hurled her away from him and watched her stumble back and fall to the ground. He turned to leave her, then looked back.
“Tomorrow night,” was all he said as he walked away.
Frank was still unsatisfied. He wanted to get out into the hills where there was a small Mexican village. There was a little
señorita
waiting for him: she didn’t know it, but she was waiting for him. He found his horse, saddled it, and rode south. He needed something young, something tight, something that would claw and scratch and bite and scream, something that would help him get rid of the demon riding on his back.
Sarah Blanchet stumbled from the bushes when she was sure Parcher was gone. She was crying. Behind her tears her thoughts pounded like a hammer in her head:
Bitch . . . slut . . . whore.
She walked up the line of wagons, seeing nothing, neither the starlit sky nor the whirling waters of the creek beside the wagons. She did not see the campfire or hear the voices around it. She made her way toward her own wagon, climbed in, and pulled out her husband’s rifle. Then she sat down on the bunk. She wanted to find the strength to walk out into the circle and reveal what Frank Parcher had done to her. But Rafe Blanchet was the only decent thing that had ever come into her impoverished life, and she couldn’t let him be shot out of the saddle. Parcher had vowed he
would kill him as sure as he’d coldbloodedly killed their faithful old dog Queenie as a warning. He’d wait in the trail ahead until Rafe rode out, or he’d put the rattlers in the wagon. Rafe was deathly afraid of rattlers.
There was only one other thing to do. Sarah gripped the rifle between her knees, rested her forehead on the end of the barrel, and blew her brains out, bloodying the canvas of the wagon that her husband had built and outfitted with such care and hope.
* * *
Frank Parcher rode back into camp at dawn. Within minutes he knew Rafe Blanchet’s wife was dead. He sat beside the fire drinking coffee and watching the preparations for the burying. There was no question in his mind that he hadn’t evened the score with Rafe Blanchet . . . Blanchet, who had tried to make him look like a fool in front of the whole train, who had questioned his advice, who had tried to put him into a bad light. He had evened the score, and he had enjoyed himself while doing it.
Frank had no regrets about the dead woman: she was weak. Any man on the train could’ve had her after he found her weakness—caring for someone else more than she cared about herself. It had taken only a couple of little threats and she had spread her legs. For a brief time she had been handy, had served his purpose. He moved and flexed his shoulders so his shirt wouldn’t stick to his sore back. That
señorita
last night had almost clawed the hide off him. He’d had to hit her, hard, to take some of the fight out of
her. He chuckled thinking about it. God, but she’d been a pistol!
It was more than an hour later when Frank noticed he was being avoided. The women had always been skittish, but the men had accepted him, soaking in the yarns he spun about Californey. None of them knew doodly-squat about anything except farming, and they hung on every word he spewed out. Some of them, he knew, had seen him coming out of the bushes after he’d tumbled Blanchet’s wife. But there were things these men did and did not do according to tradition, a moral code they lived and died by. One of them was not to tell a man his wife was a whore. He didn’t think they would tell Blanchet even now.
Frank watched one of the men enter the wagon, hand out the blanket-wrapped body, and place it in the arms of her husband. Rafe headed out toward the open prairie, the others following, somber and quiet.
Alone in the silent camp, Frank wasn’t sure why he didn’t just fork his horse and skeedaddle. He didn’t like that army captain butting in, and there could be trouble if anyone took the notion to tell Blanchet he’d been plowin’ his wife. Yet he wanted to wait around and look over the other train that was heading this way. A curiosity had been working on him since he’d heard the captain talking about it.
He stretched and winced. Goddamn, his back was sore. He grinned: his back wasn’t the only part of him that was sore. He needed sleep, but not here. He’d ride up into the hills, find a place where he could
catch a few winks, then ride out and meet the train coming from Fort Worth.
Midafternoon came. Frank got up from the grassy spot where he had napped, and mounted his horse. He pointed it north, crossed a stream a half mile farther, and rode on. Finally he stopped and dismounted and climbed a small tree, confident that what he was looking for should be nearby. After several minutes in the scrubby pine oak, he swung himself back to the ground and mounted up again. A half hour later he sat amidst a clump of cedars and looked at the broad expanse of valley stretching below him. He rested comfortably on his horse, knees up in Indian fashion, knowing that, among the trees, he himself made no changes in the skyline if anyone should be watching from the train inching along below.
The wagons were small and light, and the only stock being driven were mules and horses. He studied the slowly moving teams, and a sudden excitement gripped him. Goddamn! Those were women driving the wagons, unless the men were wearing dresses and sunbonnets! He could see a few men on horseback and one or two on the wagons, but that was all. For a long moment he debated with himself the possibilities of picking off this train. He could do it. He’d take the men one at a time from behind the rocks in the hills they’d have to pass through. And the women . . . Jesus!
What Frank didn’t know was that Lone Buck was at this very moment watching him from behind, having trailed him for the last half hour. Had Parcher
made one move toward his gun, he would have been dead before he hit the ground.
Frank sat staring at the wagon train, then boldly, letting the dust from his horse’s hooves announce his approach, he rode down the hill. He passed a Mexican boy leading a string of mules and came up from the rear to the last wagon. A big, rawbones woman with a man’s hat crushed down on her head was driving it, and sitting beside her was a young woman with a child on her lap. He tipped his hat to the young woman and she nodded. He set his heels to his horse and trotted up to the next wagon.
A serious-looking woman with straight black hair and gold earrings had the reins in her hands. Beside her was a girl with loose brown hair floating around her shoulders and a large turquoise bracelet on her arm. She gazed at him openly from his face down to his boots, and between them flashed an awareness of their affinity. He grinned at her and let his eyes dwell on her breasts. Her eyes glinted darkly at him, and they each knew what the other was thinking. He felt a surge of sexual excitement. She moistened her lips, her eyes still on his face, and he felt himself becoming more aroused. He reluctantly headed his horse to the next wagon.
The two women there barely returned his greeting, and he moved on. He glimpsed the copper hair glistening in the sunlight even before he reached the next wagon. He rode up beside it and his horse had to keep pace on its own, because Parcher could do nothing but stare at the woman on the wagon seat. She was
the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Her face was like the one he’d once seen on a cameo in New Orleans, and her hair was all curly and shining like a fire on a dark night. She glanced at him and quickly looked away. Her eyes were as green and as fierce as those of a treed wildcat.
“Howdy, ma’am.”
Squinted emerald eyes flashed at him. “Howdy.” She had a cool, no-nonsense voice. He chuckled.
“Who is it, Tucker?” Laura asked.
“No one we care to know, that’s certain.”
Frank had to drag his eyes from the redheaded woman to look at the other one. She was a queer one, kept looking straight ahead all the time. He looked back at the redhead.
“I ain’t never seen so many women on one train,” he commented. Tucker ignored him. “Ya ain’t very friendly.” Silence. “Ya got a man?” The anger that had been brewing in Tucker all day was almost to the boiling point. “Well, makes no never mind, sweetie, if ya got a man or not. You and me are goin’ to get mighty friendly.”
Tucker picked up the small whip beside her. Her hand flashed out, and the end of the crop stung the rump of his horse. The frightened animal leaped and danced, and it was all Frank could do to stay on it.
“Why you little bitch!” he exploded, but by the time he had his horse under control he was laughing. Here was the woman for him. Here was the woman he’d always been looking for and had known he would find some day. He reined his mount up beside
the wagon to tell her so, but a large man on a black horse was charging toward him.
“Who are you and what do you want?” Lucas challenged.
Frank never spoke hastily. His eyes narrowed curiously as he decided what tactics he would use. There was something here he wanted, something he had to have.
“Frank Parcher,” he introduced himself with a smile. “I’m from the train that’s waitin’ ahead with Captain Doyle. I was scoutin’ so the folks’d know how long they had to wait up fer ya.”
Lone Buck had followed Frank down the hill and was now moving along parallel with them. Frank began to have a tight feeling in his chest.
“Where is the captain waiting?”
Frank smiled easily. “Can’t say as I blame ya fer bein’ cagey, what with so many women ’n all. Captain Doyle’s waitin’ down by Brownwood. Say, did ya hear the army done closed Fort McKavett?”
“You don’t say,” Lucas said drily as he took in Tucker’s set features. “Everything all right with you, Miss Houston?”
“Fine.” Tucker snaked the whip out over the mules’ backs with unnecessary force, keeping her eyes straight ahead lest she yield to the impulse to slash Parcher’s lying face. Not once did she look right at him until the two men rode away, and then she glanced up in time to see the stranger looking back over his shoulder and grinning at her.
That night Tucker made a brief entry in the journal.
April 21.
Tonight we are camped with another wagon train on Pecan Creek, just outside the town of Brownwood. We traveled over twenty-two miles today. Mrs. Johnson and her little girl left the train tonight to return to Fort Worth, and wagon partners have been changed accordingly. For some reason I’m beginning to wonder if there will come a day when we’ll all wish we’d gone with her.
Lucas was angry. “They’re not joining up with my train. I don’t give a damn if they get to California or not! We’re moving out in the morning with or without your escort, Captain Doyle. You can do as you damn well please about the Louisiana farmers. I’m not giving them another thought.” Lucas dropped his cigarette to the ground and carefully rubbed it out with the toe of his boot.
Captain Doyle knew Lucas Steele by reputation only. He had a name for being a hard man as well as a good one. He could understand Steele’s concern; he had twenty-two women, two children, and ten men to lead across wild, barren country.
“There’ll be no escort west of Fort Stockton, Steele. The most I can do for you is to send a dispatch to Fort Davis to be expecting you. It’s very likely you might be grateful for the extra guns of those farmers.”