Saddler's Run Read online

  ‘Greensborough? I’d have to turn back the way I came an’ then ride for the rest o’ today and all tomorrow. Come on, Abbot, as an old friend, will you help me?’

  ‘As an old friend, no I will not.’

  There looked to be little chance of changing Abbot’s mind on this topic and so Saddler went back to where Abigail was sitting and said roughly, ‘Come on, we’re leaving.’

  The man who had invited her to sit by him said indignantly, ‘The child is starving. Let her eat first.’

  Saddler felt ashamed of himself, knowing that he should have thought of this for himself. The girl had wolfed down half a loaf of bread and so he went up and asked Abbot coldly if he could let them have some pork and beans. This dish was about all that was served here and there was always a steady supply.

  While Abigail was eating, Saddler explained the set-up to the others sitting at nearby tables, who, while agreeing that it was a crying shame, pointedly refused to become involved in the business. After the child had finished eating and drinking, Saddler led her outside and desired her to climb up on to the wagon. He looked up at her and said irritably, ‘This is a damned nuisance.’

  There was a discreet cough behind him and Saddler turned to find that one of the men had followed them out. It was a man he knew by sight but had not exchanged more than the usual civilities with. This fellow said,

  ‘If you’ll step over here to one side, I might be able to help with your problem.’

  ‘How’s that?’ said Saddler, strolling with the man out of the child’s earshot.

  ‘What I propose is this,’ said the man, who had to Saddlers’ eye, a peculiarly ill-favoured look about him, ‘I’ll give you twenty-five dollars this minute and take charge of the girl. You then go on your way unencumbered.’

  Saddler said nothing, but thought hard about this for a minute or so. Then he said,

  ‘Something don’t listen right ’bout this. Why’d you pay me to take the child?’

  The other man smiled. ‘There’s no mystery. I’ll take her south with me. Just over the border from El Paso there’s places always on the scout for young girls. She’s a little young yet, but they’d see she made herself useful ’til she’s ready to . . . work.’

  It has to be said that Ben Saddler was very far from being a saint, but when he grasped what was being suggested, he could scarcely believe what he had heard.

  ‘What, you mean a cathouse?’

  The other man smiled and nodded. Such an infamous suggestion deserved only one response and Saddler gave it swiftly, swinging his fist at the man’s jaw and sending him sprawling in the dirt. As the man began to rise, it looked to Saddler as though he was about to go for the pistol at his hip. He pulled the pistol from his own belt, cocking the piece with his thumb as he did so, and drew down on the man.

  ‘Touch that gun and you’re a dead man,’ said Saddler. ‘You mangy cur, you’d buy an’ sell a child like you would a horse or dog? I’m more than half minded to kill you this minute. Go back inside ’fore I change my mind.’

  The odious wretch shuffled off and Saddler climbed on to the wagon and set off back the way he had come.

  ‘What is to happen now?’ asked Abigail in a quiet, scared voice.

  ‘I’m takin’ you to an orphans’ asylum. We’ll need to sleep out tonight an’ with luck’ll arrive tomorrow evening. It’s a damned nuisance, but there’s little else for it.’

  They continued on until dusk, when Saddler halted the wagon and gave Abigail to understand that she could sleep in it with his blanket wrapped around her.

  ‘If there is only one blanket, will you not be cold?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ said Saddler, ‘I’ve slept without a blanket before.’

  ‘I must say my prayers before sleeping. Will you say one with me?’

  ‘I don’t have time for such foolishness,’ he replied. ‘You say one on my behalf, if it comforts you any.’

  Even after the girl was asleep, he could not settle. Speaking in general, Ben Saddler was not a one to let others dictate his actions. He felt obscurely that he had somehow been buffaloed into taking charge of this child and resented the imposition. But as to who or what it was that had pressed him against his will into undertaking this task, he was quite unable to offer even a tentative opinion.

  Chapter 2

  Saddler awoke on the ground the next day, drenched in dew and in a thoroughly disagreeable frame of mind. He had hoped to dispose of his whiskey that day and to be leading a troop of ponies back across the border by nightfall. Instead, he had to double back on his tracks and visit Greensborough, where no doubt he would be compelled to answer a lot of damn fool questions before he could rid himself of the child. All in all, the circumstances were enough to make even the most equable and good-natured of individuals, into which category Saddler most definitely did not fall, a little tetchy.

  Saddler’s mood wasn’t improved by the fact that he knew deep within his heart that he should not be embarking upon this course of action and that thought too was riling him up in no small measure.

  He shook the girl’s shoulder to wake her. She opened her eyes at once and for a moment her face seemed fresh and eager to face the day ahead. Then, recollecting perhaps the death of her parents, she appeared to Saddler to withdraw into herself again, putting on that same guarded, watchful and unemotional front that he had observed in her the previous day.

  ‘We must be making tracks,’ Saddler said. ‘I aim to reach Greensborough this day and then you are going to the orphans’ asylum.’ He realized that he was speaking more harshly than was necessary and regretted his words almost as soon as they were out of his mouth. Abigail turned away from him and he feared for a moment that she was about to cry. She threw off the blanket and sat up.

  ‘Is there anything to eat before we start?’ she asked, her voice neutral and cool.

  You’re a rare customer and no mistake, thought Saddler to himself. You have seen your parents murdered in the most savage way imaginable and are about to be deposited in an orphanage, yet all you do is ask about breakfast.

  ‘I’ve a couple o’ rolls in my pack,’ he told her. ‘They’re apt to be a little stale, but it’s all we have.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Abigail.

  While they were eating Saddler asked the child, ‘You got no other family as might take you in? If there’s folks near Greensborough, then I guess I could take you there instead.’ He did not really take to the scheme of leaving her in some institution, for all that he represented the case to her as a done deal.

  ‘My father had no folks that I ever heard tell of,’ said Abigail. ‘My mother’s people kind of disowned her when she got married to a missioner. Her father lives up in Kansas.’ She named a small town in the south of that state.

  ‘God almighty,’ said Saddler, ‘that’s the better part of two hundred miles from here. I can’t engage to take you that far. I’ve business to attend to. I dare say the orphans’ asylum will write him.’

  ‘I was not asking you to take me there,’ Abigail said. ‘You asked about my folks and I told you.’

  Once again, Saddler was struck by how self-contained and aloof the child was. It was almost like talking to a grown-up person. I guess, he thought to himself, her parents raised her so.

  After they ate the rolls, the two of them just sat there without speaking for a space, until Saddler announced abruptly, ‘I growed up in an orphanage.’

  ‘What . . . what was it like?’ asked Abigail timidly.

  ‘It was terrible,’ he said. ‘Just terrible.’

  ‘Were they cruel to you?’

  ‘That they were. Then again, there’s the hunger. Never having a full belly. Other things, I durst not tell you.’

  The girl sat there, her face pinched and white; her eyes wide with dismay.

  Saddler said, ‘I would not deliver up a dog I liked to such a place. It won’t answer. I can’t take you to no damned orphans’ asylum.’

  Abiga
il said nothing and then asked, ‘What will you do with me?’

  ‘I reckon I’ll have to take you to this grandpa o’ yours. My conscience ain’t exactly in tip-top condition, but I mind I’d never sleep easy again if I didn’t make some attempt at aiding you.’ Saddler smiled at the girl and said, ‘Don’t look sad, child. I ain’t about to abandon you. I’m not such a dog as that.’

  It was a fine day to be travelling across open country. The sun was shining and despite the fact that all his plans had been upset and he looked likely to waste the next few weeks on a fool’s errand, Saddler found it hard to be out of sorts for long.

  He said to the child at his side, ‘Tell me something about yourself. It ain’t natural in a girl your age just to set there quietly in that way.’

  ‘What would you like to know?’

  ‘I don’t know. How old are you?’

  ‘I was twelve last month.’

  ‘I took you for being younger,’ said Saddler. ‘You’re small for your age.’

  There was no reply and it looked as though there was going to be another long stretch of silence. It was not how Saddler liked to travel. He was a naturally sociable and gregarious sort, who liked to talk in order to idle away the time.

  ‘Lord,’ he said, ‘making conversation with you is surely hard work. Don’t you never chat about nothing in particular?’

  Abigail did not answer and as the seconds passed, Saddler resigned himself to a journey spent as though he might as well have been alone. Then the girl said slowly,

  ‘My father did not encourage me to speak just for the sake of it. He told me many times that if you have something worth saying, then you should say it and then when you have said it, you should stop speaking.’

  ‘Begging your pa’s pardon an’ not wishin’ to speak ill of him, but that’s a lot o’ nonsense. Why shouldn’t we chat freely to each other? What other purpose in life is there, ’sides enjoyin’ the company of others? That’s hard to achieve if you all sit around without speaking.’

  ‘I am not used to it. I do not mean to be sullen or aught like that. I am just not in the habit of talking a lot.’

  ‘Well,’ said Saddler, ‘you are at any rate making a start now. Where d’you live, ’fore coming to the territories, I mean?’

  ‘We moved about a lot. We did not spend long in one place. My father was about the Lord’s business and that kept him busy in many different places. You never know where the Lord will send you.’

  ‘What about school?’

  ‘Oh, my father and mother taught me.’

  ‘Did you have friends and suchlike though? Like you would in a schoolroom? I mean other children to play with.’

  ‘I do not think I have had what you might call a friend. And my father said that playing was a waste of my time.’

  And a right nice fellow your father sounds, thought Saddler to himself. Raising a little thing like this without friends and with no playing or ordinary chatter. No wonder she is so strange.

  Abigail sensed what he was thinking, because she said suddenly, ‘I would not have you think that my Pa was a cruel man or careless of my happiness. He and my mother loved me, but they were always thinking about the next world. They did not think much to this one.’

  Now it was Saddler’s turn to fall silent as he mulled over what she had said.

  At length, he remarked bluntly, ‘I can’t say I take to that doctrine in anywise. Strikes me that a man who cannot get on in this world isn’t likely to do any better in the next. No offence meant to your pa, you understand.’

  Little by little and with long periods of awkward silence, the two of them became tentatively acquainted as the morning drew on. By the time the sun was high in the sky, Saddler said,

  ‘I guess we must think about procuring some food, or we’re likely to go hungry ’til evening.’

  The girl looked around the barren landscape and asked, ‘Where shall we find food here? There are no stores or anything of that sort.’

  Saddler laughed. ‘Surely you are city-bred. I’ll show you. I hope you ain’t afeared o’ loud noises?’ He halted the wagon and they sat quietly for a minute or two. Saddler picked up his rifle and cocked it. While they had been travelling Abigail had seen jackrabbits hopping out of their way and now she realized that there were several near by, either grazing on the sparse and scanty grass or just sitting around and admiring the view. Without any warning the man at her side raised his rifle and fired. A plump jackrabbit leaped convulsively, hopped a little and then lay still.

  ‘Scoot down and fetch that for me,’ said Saddler.

  ‘Won’t it be all over blood?’ asked Abigail.

  ‘If you want to eat before dusk, you better fetch it here anyway.’

  Abigail walked the twenty-five yards or so to the dead animal and picked it up, a look of disgust on her face. She managed to avoid getting any blood on her fingers. She climbed back on to the wagon and after another wait of ten minutes or so, Saddler repeated the trick. Then he sent the child over to a nearby clump of trees to gather kindling, while he gutted the animals; a messy job that he was not keen for Abigail to witness, seeing that she had seen her own parents served in similar fashion not forty-eight hours since.

  Broiled jackrabbit makes a satisfying meal, especially if you have been out of doors all morning, having broken your fast on no more than a morsel of dry bread. They both felt sated and full by the time they set off again.

  Now Saddler knew as well as anybody that the territories could be a hazardous place, most particularly when you were driving a wagon loaded up with a valuable commodity such as ardent spirits. He saw the two riders up ahead, apparently just sitting on their horses and admiring the view. There was little enough to see round that part of the country, other than the bleak, scrubby landscape, which consisted of nothing but dusty soil, low bushes and a few stunted trees. The hairs on the back of Saddler’s neck rose the second he caught sight of them ahead; just loitering there by road.

  ‘Why are you staring at those men up ahead?’ asked Abigail.

  ‘I mind they’re up to no good,’ replied Saddler shortly. ‘You do just whatever I tell you now. Understand?’

  ‘What would you have me do?’

  ‘Nothing. Leastways, not yet a whiles. Just be ready to do as I say at once. If I say, get down, you get straight down an’ crouch there on the buckboard. Or if I say, run, then you run. You got it?’

  The girl wriggled closer to Saddler, as though sheltering from a cold wind. She said, ‘Don’t let them hurt me.’

  There was something about the trusting tone in the child’s voice that cut straight into Ben Saddler’s heart. He looked down at Abigail and said,

  ‘Anybody tries to hurt you, they soon goin’ to learn their mistake. Don’t fret now, it’ll turn out all right.’

  As they drew closer to the men on horseback Saddler realized that he knew one of them. Abraham Stock was not precisely a friend, but he and Saddler had done some business in the past. He wondered if Stock and his partner were up to the bushwhacking game and reached down to make sure that the rifle was right there at hand. When he was twenty yards from the two men Saddler reined in and called to them,

  ‘What’s to do, boys?’

  Stock called back, ‘Hey, Saddler. How goes it?’

  ‘Just fine. What’re you an’ your partner about?’

  Stock said, ‘Come closer, man. We can’t keep shouting so.’

  Reaching down to the buckboard, Saddler picked up his rifle, cocking it unobtrusively as he did so. He said quietly to Abigail, ‘You climb into the back of the wagon now, an’ keep your head down.’

  Saddler jumped down from the buckboard, with the rifle just held easy in his hand, like he might have picked it up as an afterthought. He walked slowly towards the two men on horseback, not taking his eyes from them for a moment. He halted a dozen feet away and asked,

  ‘Well, what’re you two up to?’

  ‘We ain’t exactly up to anything,’ said A
braham Stock, carefully. ‘Truth is, we’re in a bit of a fix and could do with a helping hand.’

  Stock’s companion said, ‘What you got in the back of your wagon, friend?’

  ‘I reckon that’s my affair,’ said Saddler curtly. ‘You tend to your business and I’ll look to mine.’

  The man stared coldly at Saddler and said, ‘That ain’t what I would call a friendly approach.’

  Stock intervened, apparently eager to smooth things over and avoid any unpleasantness.

  ‘Fact is, Saddler,’ he said, ‘me and this fellow, whose name by the by is Joe Collins, have our tails in a crack. We’re plumb out o’ luck and money both and could surely do with your help.’

  Without hearing another word, Saddler knew that this was going to end badly. Every so often those, like him, who made their living in this way would run out of money and goods and find themselves without any resources to fall back upon. Sometimes you could pull yourself back into credit by a little card play. Other times you were compelled to hire yourself out to others and earn a little stake money so. Then again, it was often quicker and easier to set upon and rob some traveller in an out-of-the-way location and simply take his money and belongings. Saddler would have taken oath that this was what Stock and his friend were aiming for here.

  Imperceptibly, he took a firmer grip on the rifle tucked beneath his arm and brought his left hand across his body, ready to grasp the fore-end, should need arise.

  Stock’s friend Joe still had his eyes fixed on Saddler.

  ‘You ain’t told us all yet,’ he said. ‘What you have in the back o’ your cart?’

  Stock said, in a reasonable tone, ‘We only want a small part of your goods, Saddler,’ then, seeing his partner’s hand moving towards the holster at his hip, he cried, ‘No, Joe, that ain’t needed!’

  But it was too late now, because the man he had introduced as Joe Collins had grown tired of a heap of talking and just wanted whatever Saddler was carrying in his wagon. He went for his pistol, and at the same instant Saddler brought up his rifle and fired at him. Then he dropped the rifle and pulled the pistol from his own belt and fired at Abraham Stock, who had not even gone for his gun. Saddler didn’t know if he had hit the man called Joe, but that individual had seemingly had enough anyway, because he spurred his horse on and galloped off. Saddler didn’t fire after him.