CASINO SHUFFLE (45 page)

     
A flicker of movement ahead brought Jubal back to the moment.
 
Shading out the sun with his hat, he saw amidst the glare the shimmering form of a rider approaching at a fast trot.
 
As the dust rose around the rider it was a few moments before he could pick out the scout returning on his roan gelding.
 
He sure was coming back at a faster gait than he left that morning.
 
Something had happened on the trail ahead.

      
"Mr. Bonner!"

      
No response.

      
"Mr. Bonner!
 
Lookit! It's Monsoor Delcroy a comin' back!"

        
Josh had heard Jubal the first time but didn't register it was him he meant and not his father.
 
At the second hail he realized he was the only 'Mr. Bonner' here.
 
The thought crossed his mind that, besides Ned, he was the only ‘Mr. Bonner’ that ever was going to be.
 
He looked over to where Jubal was standing up and pointing, then stared off in the direction he was gesturing.
 
He could only see a wispy cloud of dust he guessed to be about two miles distant.
 
He ran to the wagon and vaulted up for a better vantage.

 
    
Jubal halted the team and moved over as Josh stepped onto the wheel and into the bench box so he could see.

     
Closer than he'd thought but still some distance away, Josh saw the rider and could tell by the horse and outfit it was the scout, Delacroix, returning with some bit of news.
 
He was moving at a fast but comfortable gait.
 
Evidently, he had seen something worth tiring his horse for but not riding so fast as to alarm the train.

     
Josh's wagon was in the fore this day and he decided to halt and let the others draw up.
 
He raised his hand in a signal and stopped.

     
Their original party of three wagons from
Illinois
, the Bonners, the
Greshams
, and the
Hamptons
, had joined up with the
Missouri
party led by a Captain Metzger.
 
In this party were Dr. Lemeul Bingham and his wife Hattie, the Parson Clark and his wife, and six other wagons of people he hadn't met yet.
 
It seemed to Josh that one of the names was Oroville.

    
Altogether there were about fifty people including the Missourians’ half dozen or so slaves and about eighty head of mules, horses, cattle, and oxen.
 
Elizabeth Hampton's wagon was being drive by one of the parson’s slaves, Ely.
 
Another of their slaves, a woman named Dinah, helped with the camp chores.

     
The men had all gathered and stood shuffling about, speculating on the news the scout was bringing.
 
Most huddled around Captain Metzger and many brought their guns.
 
They were checking their priming as they talked.
 
In these parts any news or change carried the prospect of danger.
 
Josh carried no weapon as the carriage of the scout didn't seem to indicate any threat was close at hand.

     
Josh sidled up to Mr. Gresham who stood slightly away from the group, enough that he didn't seem a part of it.

     
Josh asked, "Mr. Gresham, what do you think the scout has seen?"

     
"Either Indians or buffalo, I reckon, Joshua.
 
The weather's clear and I expect we would have smelled a fire on the wind.”

     
"Well, we ain't seen sign of either, so far, but I expect we'll have our fill of both afore we get to
Oregon
," said Josh.

     
"Reckon that right enough.
 
I wonder what Metzger's plans are."
 

     
Gresham
's remarks about Metzger's as yet undisclosed plan seemed tinged with some hostility.
 
Mr. Gresham apparently felt he should have been the captain but the others had already elected Metzger their leader before the
Cairo
party joined them.
 

     
Delacroix rode up to the milling group of emigrants and they crowded about, all probing him with their questions
.
 
The scout could see they were on edge and it would do no more good talking to them than to a jabbering flock of crows.

     
"Nothing to worry about, men, but I'll need to talk to the captain," he said.
     

   
 
This didn't do much to quiet them but did give him the opportunity to take Metzger by the arm and lead him aside.
 
Metzger saw what the scout was about and raised his hand to quiet the others.

     
"Hold off, boys.
 
I'll talk to Delacroix and then we'll see what's to be done, if anything."

     
He strode away a few paces with Delacroix and turned his back to the group.

     
"Well, Delacroix, what did you find up ahead that's worth lathering that fine horse of yours?"

     
The scout replied, "'Cap', I espied some Indians up ahead.
 
"He slapped the brass spyglass he carried on his chest.
 
"I didn't bother to make their acquaintance and I saw but two.
 
However, they was travelin' in a peculiar manner."

     
"Thunderation, Claude, I've never been in the
Indian
Territories
so maybe you better explain 'peculiar’ to me," Metzger retorted.
  

     
"I means peculiar in that they was bein' watchful but moving too fast to be scouting game.
 
I think they was running from something."

     
Metzger asked, "Are they headed this way?"

     
"
Oui
, there is a place about a mile ahead where one could ford horses and this I think is the place to which they ride," replied Delacroix.

     
"And do you think there are more than the two you saw?"

     
"I believe so,
Capitaine
.
 
If there were just the two they would travel close together.
 
They were some distance apart and one seemed to be watching the land about while the other scouted the river.
 
I don’t think they saw me."

     
The Captain thought a moment.
 
"We'll stop here, then.
 
I don't want a party of Indians able to come up behind us where they can run off our stock."
 
He spoke loud enough for his voice to carry to the milling settlers.

     
All the men had been straining forward, trying to overhear the scout's report.
 
The mention of Indians didn’t do much to placate them.

     
"He still didn't tell us what's come up.
 
He ought at least to do that much,"
Gresham
muttered, mostly to himself.

     
Josh made no comment.
 
He knew
Gresham
resented Metzger's being captain.
  
When they steamed up the
Missouri
the three
Cairo
families had chosen
Gresham
as their leader.
 
He had been a selectman up until the last election and it had come natural to pick him.
 
As near as Josh knew, none of the people emigrating had been any further than
Cincinnati
except his father who had been to
New Orleans
as part of his steamboat enterprise.
 
Josh figured floating to
New Orleans
on a boat didn't qualify.
 
Josh hadn't voted.
 
Gresham
seemed as good as any other to him.

     
When the two parties allied at the camp where his parents died Metzger had already been the elected captain of the
Missouri
families.
 
When they joined up no one had asked for a new election.
 
They had just been soaked up,
Gresham
's captaincy and all.
 
It was a risky thing, asking a group with disease to come on with them.
 
Metzger could have been voted down then, but he hadn't.
 
Josh was grateful but a part of him wondered at the wisdom of such a decision.

     
"We'll stay below the ford where we can keep an eye on them till they pass.
 
Thank you, Claude," Metzger announced.

           
Dismissing the scout, the trail boss wheeled back to the anxious faces awaiting him.
 
As the throng parted he strode amongst them and began to outline the situation.

           
The guide watched Metzger being surrounded by the nervous greenhorns, like chickens to a housewife with corn.
 
While they were distracted he ambled up to retrieve his horse.
 
He softly stroked the horse's nose and led it away to the riverbank.

     
Kneeling by the horse as it drank he commenced to refill his canteen, keeping his eyes westward toward the distant ford.
 
The roving band wouldn't be any bother but it was always wise to keep your eyes and ears open in these parts.
 
The two he had seen looked from their topknots to be Pawnee, and while it was not unexpected to see Pawnee so near the
Platte
fords, the Sioux considered this their land.
 
From the way these two were behaving he reckoned them to be scouts for a raiding party looking to put some distance between themselves and a pursuing party of Sioux, probably Oglala.
 
He sure couldn't begrudge them their haste.
 
The Pawnee and Sioux were hereditary enemies and they wouldn't be just touching with coup sticks if they met up.
 
Revenge for old murders, stolen horses, and stolen women would turn any meeting between those two into a hairlifting party, certain as sunset.

     
He surmised it was just plain orneriness that sent the Pawnee this far north.
 
There were plenty of
buffle
for them all and there was water and land enough on these prairies for all the tribes.
 
Old habits didn't die easy, he figured.

     
It was good for the emigrant trains that the Lakota had pretty much driven the Pawnee south near the
Kansa
River
.
 
As long as they were busy cutting each other up they generally left the trains alone.
 
The Sioux, while more numerous, and therefore potentially much more dangerous, seemed to abide the whites who just passed through their lands.
 
As long as they would trade for blankets and knives and be allowed to steal a horse now and again, they remained tractable enough.
 
Sure, they would probably kill a lone hunter or scout, but as long as the whites traveled in a group and didn't wipe out more game than they needed, travelers were tolerable safe.

     
Delacroix walked the gelding up the short embankment and back to the train.
 
He saw the men had gone back to their wagons and were commencing to form into an open corral where the animals would be protected.
 
Metzger had gotten them doing the right thing without much of a fuss and the scout was grateful the crisis had been averted with no further bother.
 
So far Metzger had been an easy man to lead.
 
These people were fortunate to have picked Metzger as their headman.
 
He had a natural ability to command but was smart enough to know he didn't know his way past
St. Louis
.
 
He usually listened to Delacroix's advice, even beyond which direction to go.