The Jeweled Spur (13 page)

As people arrived the field began to fill up with saddle horses and wagon teams that were soon grazing lazily. The wagons that arrived were filled with families with excited children that greeted one another. As soon as they unloaded the wagons, the men—young and old—gathered in crews with newly sharpened axes to prepare the logs that would soon form the wall of the cabin. Others set about with saw and wedge and froe to rive out the cedar shakes for the roof. One crew set about erecting the fireplace, which, being a matter of some delicacy, had been put in charge of the man who seemed to know most about depth and width necessary to assume a proper “draw.”

This was, in effect, a holiday for the settlers and ranchers over which the groom and bride-to-be had little control. The young couple stood to one side, and the bride-to-be whispered to Les, “Let them do it the way they want, Les. After they’re gone, you and I can fix it like we want it.”

The women wasted no time in getting several cheerful fires burning off to one side. To feed the amount of people who had come to lend a hand would take a better part of the day. Yet in the midst of setting pots over the fires, and keeping an eye on the children that played about, the ladies kept up a continual chatter of friendly conversation, giving them all a chance to catch up on the local news. As for food, each woman took pride in setting out her favorite dishes for all to see. There were all kinds of fruit pies, fresh butter formed in various patterns, sausages, cucumbers in cream and vinegar,
and assorted jams. Even some of the men boasted of the game they had been able to hunt and bring to roast.

Shortly before sunset, the last log was set in place and the house was finished. Perspiring men came out with the heavy log ends with which they had beaten down the earth floor, which the bride’s mother had insisted on, in preference to puncheons “because the earth is more healthy.” The wedding guests proceeded to move in a four-posted cherry wood bed that had traveled two thousand miles overland, homemade chairs and tables, dishes and cooking utensils, a feather mattress with pillows and a patchwork spread, a barrel of sugar and a barrel of flour and sides of cured meats—all the trinkets and accouterments of a home. As the ladies scurried about making the last touches, someone lighted a fire in the finished hearth. In a matter of hours the cabin was looking like a real home. Many of the wedding gifts that were brought were simple furnishings, and after being shown to the couple they were set in place in the cabin.

Just as the last of the dishes were put in the cupboard, and a brush broom tipped against the wall, a man drove up with a wagon and a team. In the wagon were a plow and a harrow. As soon as Mary White saw her father get down and tie his team to the door, she ran to find Les and the minister, who were off somewhere talking.

Cody stood beside Susan Taylor and wished that Harve Tippitt had not been able to come. The two had worked on separate crews, each keeping a careful eye on the other to see that neither of them slipped away to spend time with Susan. Now, as the work was done and the minister stood in the meadow, the two young people before him, Cody leaned down and whispered, “I wish that was you and me.”

Susan turned to face him, her eyes bright, but she made no answer. On the other side, Harve, who had heard the words, leveled a hard look at Cody. The crowd spread out in a circle around the young couple, and as the sun dropped west, the hour of water-clear light settled upon the land with
its fragrance and its stillness—so complete that the minister’s voice resounded all down the meadow. He married them and pronounced his benediction, and then he put his Bible in his rear trouser pocket and stood back while young Les Dunbar, completely oblivious to all those standing around, accepted his wife with a vigorous kiss. The new Mrs. Dunbar was smiling, composed, and then her father said, “Supper. C’mon, we got a-plenty.”

Cody moved toward the tables laden with the food and piled his plate high, noticing that Harve had walked up and joined Susan. Smoky Jacks, standing close, murmured with a sly twinkle in his eye, “Better watch out. Looks like ol’ Harve is attaching himself to Susan like a barnacle on a ship.”

Cody shook his head, “I wish that fellow would find another girl. I’m tired of having him around.” Filling two plates, he walked over to where they were talking and said, “Harve, you better get that food before it’s all gone.”

Harve Tippitt shook his head. “I’ll just have some dessert a little later.” Then he looked at Susan and said, “I’ll be driving you home, won’t I, Susan?”

Susan Taylor was in her element. She was a pleasure-loving girl, one of the most sociable young women that Cody had ever seen. She loved parties and gatherings of all kinds, and more than once Cody had wondered how he would keep her entertained when they had their own place, and such festivities were rare.

Susan cocked her head, and with a demure smile said, “You and Cody will have to decide that. I can’t ride home with both of you.”

“You wanna flip a coin?” Cody asked quickly. “Or maybe have a shooting match, or a horse race even?”

The mention of the horse race stirred a simmering anger in Harve Tippitt, and he shook his head. “I’m not gettin’ in any fool contest, Cody. I’m taking Susan home tonight, and that’s all there is to it.” There was an arrogance in the man as he set his shoulders firmly, fixing his eyes on Cody.

“We’ll see about that, Harve,” Cody murmured, then turned to Susan and began to talk to her as if Tippitt were not even there.

After the meal was over, a man jumped up with a fiddle on his shoulder and let out a whoop, hollering, “Where’s Simon to call for us? Come on now—come on, we’ve got to dance off these provisions before we go home!”

The stars were brightly glinting in a sharp, black sky, the musicians were shouting, and the sound of the fiddles and the mandolins tuning up was tinkling on the air. One of the men disappeared and came back toward the fire laughing with a keg under his arm. He got a bucket, poured the contents of the keg into it, and walked in the house for a dipper. He came back with a second bucket, and with both buckets and dippers, he made his rounds. “Whiskey or water? Can’t dance without sweatin’. Whiskey or water?”

Most of the men declared for the whiskey, but Cody shook his head. He was not a drinking man, disliked the taste of it and even more the effect afterward, so he contented himself with the water. Finally, the fiddler launched into a familiar tune and the caller—a tall, thin man with bright red hair and a prominent Adam’s apple—stood up and called out, “Partners, form your sets! We got room for two sets at a time.”

“Come on, Susan,” Cody said, but found that he had been forestalled, for Harve had stepped around beside him and pulled Susan to her feet and was walking with her toward the opening where the dancers were beginning to form the sets. Cody shook his head in disgust, muttering under his breath, “I’ve gotta move as fast as that if I’m gonna cut Harve out tonight.”

The dancers moved in time to the lively music and the caller sang out, “Form and balance all! Let her go, Jed!” The fiddler sank his bow on the fiddle strings and swung into a reel. The two sets formed, four couples to a set, near the fire. The caller’s voice whipped them around; they stepped over the trampled grass of the meadow, out and back. “Oh, take
your girls, your pretty little girls,” cried the caller while the onlooking spectators clapped to the lively music. “Virginia is a grand old state. Come on, boys, don’t be late.”

The dance proceeded for over an hour, and soon a contest developed between Cody and Tippitt, as was expected by everyone. They both sought to dance with Susan in every set, and their rivalry became the object of some crude jokes among the ranch hands.

But Dan and Hope were not amused. They danced several times themselves, but Hope remarked, “I don’t like the way those two are acting, Dan. Susan ought to put a stop to it.”

“Not her,” Dan shook his head. “She loves every minute of it.”

“Well, she’s creating a problem for herself, urging them both on like that. I wish she’d make up her mind so that it was all settled.”

She looked up at Dan and shook her head, adding, “There’s going to be trouble, I’m afraid, between those two.”

Her words proved to be prophetic, for not five minutes later, when Cody reached to take Susan’s hand, he found his wrist grasped, and it was pulled aside. Whirling around, he saw that Tippitt was grinning loosely. His eyes were bright with the effect of the liquor, for he had been drinking heavily from the bucket containing the whiskey. “I think this is my dance, Cody,” he said. “Go find another girl.”

Cody jerked his hand back and stood staring at the larger man. “You’re wrong about that, Harve,” he said through clenched teeth. “This is
my
dance. You had the last one.”

The liquor had loosened Tippitt’s temper, and he shook his head, his lips growing into an even broader smile. “Get along, little man. I’m dancing this set.” He pulled at Susan, but suddenly Cody reached out and struck his forearm with the edge of his palm. The hard blow numbed Tippitt’s arm, and he released the girl’s arm at once. But anger laced his voice as he said loudly, “Nobody lays a hand on me, Cody. You know that.”

Cody shrugged. “Come on, Susan. Let’s get to the dance.” He reached out for her, but without warning Harve Tippitt struck out and his hard fist caught Cody high on the forehead, knocking him to the ground.

Susan cried out, “Oh no, Harve!” and her cry attracted the attention of the others, so that a muttered exclamation went up, and the fiddles scraped to a stop.

Cody was not hurt badly and came to his feet like a cat. He moved toward Harve, but Ozzie Og and Smoky Jacks grabbed his arms. “Take it easy,” Smoky murmured, although his own eyes were hot with anger. “You can’t have a fight here.”

But Cody had caught the insolence in Tippitt’s eyes and knew that if he let this pass he would never live it down. There was an arrogance in Tippitt that would not be stopped with anything less than a physical beating. “Come on,” Cody said, “we’ll settle this once and for all.”

“That suits me,” Tippitt growled. The two suitors turned and walked away and were followed at once by most of the men.

Dan stepped up as the two opponents squared off and said, “You fellows need to cut this out. It won’t settle anything.”

Cody shook his head, “He’s asking for it, and I’m going to give it to him.” He held his hands down at his sides and looked at Tippitt carefully. Tippitt was well over six feet and bulky with muscle. He was a strong, powerful man and had a record as a brawler.

Now he looked at Cody, taking in the smaller man’s lean form, and sneered, “I propose to stop this foolishness tonight. The loser lets Susan alone. Are you agreed?”

At once Cody nodded, “Fine with me,” but he barely got the words out of his mouth before Tippitt threw a thundering right at his jaw. He was caught off guard, not quite ready, but managed to move his head so that the blow merely grazed his cheek. Cody was a fast young man with very quick reflexes. As Tippitt lunged by, he reached out with a quick right and caught the larger man with a hard blow to the body.

Tippitt grunted, but was well covered with muscle, and simply whirled. He held up his hand then, and there was a hatred in his eyes that sobered Cody.
This is not going to be easy,
he thought to himself, and as the larger man came in, he backed away, keeping high on his toes, knowing that his only hope was to stand off and let the bigger man tire himself out. He was aware of the crowd around him watching, some of them crying out to their favorites, but then all of that faded, and his vision centered on the face and the fists of Harve Tippitt.

Tippitt moved forward, flat-footed, throwing punches that he seemed to pull from the ground, any one of which would have ended the fight. Cody caught them on his forearms, slipping them with his fist, but he could not stop them all. One wild right caught him flush in the mouth, and he staggered backward, tasting the warm blood as it ran down his jaw. A cry went up from Tippitt, who rushed forward, intending to end the fight. He threw blow after blow, many of them landing, some on the chest of his opponent, but most of them caught on Cody’s forearms.

To all observers, it seemed the fight was going Harve Tippitt’s way, but Smoky Jacks leaned over and whispered to Og, “Look at that, Ozzie, Cody’s lettin’ Tippitt wear himself out. Soon as he runs out of breath, you’ll see something.”

Og shook his head, saying, “If he don’t get beat to death before that happens.”

Soon, it became apparent that Tippitt was beginning to tire. His face was flushed with the whiskey and the tremendous efforts he was putting into the fight. With each punch Tippitt threw, Cody noticed his opponent moving slower. Finally, he knew it was time to carry the final punch to Tippitt. When the bigger man drew his hand back to throw another thunderous right, Cody suddenly stopped his backward progress, stepped forward with one quick step, and threw a hard right hand that moved so fast Tippitt did not even see it. It caught him on the nose and brought an excruciating pain
that made him blink his eyes. Before he had time to catch his breath, another blow, this time a left, caught him high on the head, splitting the skin over his eyebrow. With those two blows, Harve Tippitt’s face suddenly became bloody. He stopped to wipe the blood running out of his eyebrow with his sleeve, and then found he was being pounded by such quick blows that he had no defense. With a roar, he threw himself forward and caught Cody around the body with his huge arms. Driving ahead, he tipped the smaller man over, and they fell to the ground. A yell went up as the two rolled over and over, this time with Harve getting the best of it, using his superior weight to punish Cody.

Cody fought back as best he could, but he knew that if he ever got trapped on the ground, as Harve obviously intended to do, he would be beaten to a pulp. Frantically, he shoved and fought, trying to shake free, but the huge hands of Harve Tippitt were like vises clamped on him. Cody suddenly was trapped as Harve straddled him and lifted his hand to throw a heavy fist into Cody’s face. There was a vicious look on Tippitt’s features—his eyes mad with the fury that had risen up in him—and he drove his fists down on the helpless man pinned to the earth. The blows caught Cody on the side of the head as he attempted to dodge, and the world exploded into a series of flashing lights. Another blow caught him, this time in the throat, which gagged him.
Got to get him off,
he thought wildly. And when Harve drew back his fist, Cody surged upward with all of his strength, shoving with his heels and driving his fists with a blow that caught Tippitt in the solar plexus. The air came out of the larger man with a
whuff,
and Cody struck again, managing to shove him off so that he was free.