MISS
LILIAN GOODNIGHT was reputed to be hard to shock. Indeed, it was she who
was apt to shock the country around Silver Vein; what some considered her
outrageous behaviour had earned her the moniker Misfit Lil.
But the wagon train came as a shock to Lil.
And it kept right on producing shocks of one sort or another to which she
wasn't immune for several tense and troubling weeks in the early spring.
Lil sighted the wagon train from a vantage point high on a lonely, windswept
ridge in the northernmost section of her father's Flying G range where she
had spent the bleakest part of winter manning an isolated line camp.
The word manning could be used advisedly because, notwithstanding youth and
gender, Lil knew as much about range work and the rugged country – part of
a land she loved – as any of her pa's forty-and-found cowpunchers.
The wagon train was out of place and out of time, strung haphazardly like
two rows of child's pull-along toys across the speckled greys, ochres and
dark greens of a sparsely grown granitic landscape still obscured in places
by unmelted snow.
It was out of place because most of the emigrants bound for California and
other points on the Far West frontier traversed Utah in the vicinity of the
Great Salt Lake, many miles to the north of this difficult stretch. For reasons
unreadable to Lil, the small train had looped south.
It was out of time because the movement of hopeful settlers by wagon train
had about come to an end. Also, more immediately than representing the tail
end of a passing era, the cavalcade Lil saw was daringly early in the season
for travel through mountainous ranges where snow fell from mid-October and
sometimes remained on the ground right up until July.
To Lil's experienced gaze, the weather today was due to turn treacherous.
A glint in her grey eyes generally denoted she had some playful mischief
afoot. Now, it was a glint of concern.
A bank of huge black clouds had piled up on the jagged horizon. That was ominous.
A snowstorm was in the offing. Lil knew swirling blasts of the icy white
stuff could reduce the wagon drivers' visibility nigh to zero, rip at the
big rigs' canvas covers and penetrate maybe greenhorn travellers' store-bought
Eastern clothing like knife thrusts. The wagons' progress would become blind
and perilous.
The breeze stiffened, blowing from the north.
In automatic reflex, Lil's trusty grey cow-pony Rebel turned his rump to
the rising wind, tail whipping between his legs. But she had trained her
mount from a foal and he responded obediently when she pulled his head round
again and set them off downslope for the wagons.
Men were moving up and down the length of the train yelling orders, checking
harness and gear and putting ropes on the farm animals that walked in the
space between the two lines of wagons. Lil let her eyes rove over the emigrants.
One of the party sat on horseback off to one side. He was a burly man she
took to be the emigrants' hired trail guide. He was dressed like a frontiersman
in buckskins similar to those favoured by herself and her friend and reluctant
idol, the civilian Army scout Jackson Farraday. But buckskins looked right
when she saw them on Jackson and she felt comfortable in hers. This blocky,
bulky man with a fleshy but hard face was neither right nor comfortable in
his duds.
He saw her coming and tensed – till he saw she was a girl and therefore, he possibly thought, of no account.
"Who you staring at, gal? What do you want?" he called, his face darkening.
"Not staring," Lil said calmly. "Just wondering what y'all plan on doing."
"Is that so?" the guide snarled. "Well, damned if that'd be any business o' your'n, missy. Hightail it!"
"Don't get proddy, mister. I figured I could give you strangers some help
is all. Humdinger of a storm a-coming . . . a blizzard, I'd opine."
"Damn me – ain't that the truth, gal!" the guide said sarcastically. "We got eyes of our own."
"Are you the wagonmaster?" Lil asked.
"I speak for him! I'm his scout and guide. Winton Petrie's the captain. He
gathered these farming folks together back in Missouri and they signed up
with the wagon train."
Lil could imagine how it was. No single wagon stood much of a chance of completing
a lone trek across dangerous, unknown country – across deserts, over mountains,
through Indian territory. It was still not much more than half a lifetime
since such perilous, lengthy journeys had been for none but missionaries
and mountain men. In a group, it would still be tough on the men, and tougher
again on their womenfolk and children. But they could travel together sharing
challenges and troubles; sharing hopes for starting over in fresh country,
like California or Oregon, that held the promise of a bright future.
"What is it, Reiner?" another voice boomed.
Lil's eyes went to the speaker. He was in his early fifties, a rugged man
with the hard-worn looks of a farmer, stepping out alongside the lead wagon,
which was drawn by oxen. An imposingly heavy beard and moustache, as well
as his carrying voice, lent him an air of authority.
Reiner was dismissive.
"Some damnfool gal, Cap'n Petrie. Spouting off 'bout a blizzard, as if I
hadn't steered the train a far piece already across Kansas and Colorado."
"You don't know the wind that blows off our mountains," Lil warned. "Haven't you heard what that range is called? Wasatch."
"Wasatch so what!"
Lil let her eyes roll.
"You're the damn fool, Mister Reiner."
Petrie said, "How's that, missy?"
"Wasatch is the Ute words Wuhu' Seai spoken in American English," Lil said,
striving to be patient. "My friend Jackson Farraday told me that."
"Jackson Farraday?"
Lil became proud. "Mister Farraday is a real scout who works for the Army.
He's reliably versed in the lore of this land . . . more like the old trailblazers
than your Mister Reiner, I'd say."
Reiner let out a roar of anger at Lil's slighting implication.
"Git, you sassy brat, before you feel the cut of a whip!"
But Winton Petrie stayed him. "Hold on, Reiner, the kid ain't told all yet,
has she? What's so all-fired bothersome in this Wasatch word?"
Lil drew herself up in her saddle and said, as primly and straight-faced as she could, "Wuhu' Seai means a frozen –
thing."
"How interesting!" a fresh voice put in. "What sort of thing?"
At the front of the covered wagon behind Petrie, a girl had appeared. She
had light brown hair done in two pigtails beneath a frilly bonnet, dimples
and a smattering of freckles across a pretty nose.
"Now then, Honesty!" Petrie said. "Be a good daughter and speak when you're spoken to." But his tone was indulgent.
"Why, hullo, friend!" Lil said. "Pleased to meet you. I'm Lil Goodnight."
And she proceeded to answer the girl's question, taking a liking to her promising
quickness and eagerness for knowledge.
Once upon an infamous time, a similar approach had led Lil into all kinds
of trouble when her pa, Ben Goodnight, had memorably sent her to a finishing
school in Boston where she'd educated her fellow pupils, mostly the over-protected
daughters of Eastern gentlefolk, in the ways of nature and the world. The
extra-curricular favour had led to her expulsion.
"It's like this," Lil explained to the girl in the wagon. "A thing is what's
also called a man's cock, or his pecker, or his tool – or a half-hundred
other names. You see, a Ute chief informed Jackson that many Indians used
to live between Heber and Provo. One day at the dawn of their history, the
braves were out hunting when a mighty blizzard sprang up and they lost a
man. When they found him he was dead and his thing was frozen stiff. So,
because Indians weren't silly about this stuff before the Europeans changed
them, and maybe as a warning, they named the mountains for his misfortune."
Honesty Petrie giggled excitedly. "Oh, did you hear that, Luke?" she said
to Reiner. "What a terrible, wasteful tragedy!" For a moment, she was flirtatiously
arch beyond her innocent years, which looked no more than seventeen in sum.
Then, more demurely to Lil, "I can't wait to tell your interesting story
to my friend Prudence!"
But Reiner was seething and her father had gone red in the face.
"No, you shall not, young lady!" Petrie said. "Prudence's father is a parson.
You forget yourself. The Reverend Hannigan leads this party spiritually and
he don't abide dirty talk."
Reiner produced a sickeningly false smile for Honesty.
"Your pa is right, honey," he said ingratiatingly. "A nice lady like yourself shouldn't be listening to coarse windies."
Chided, Honesty dropped her face and sighed daintily, but from beneath the
frill of her bonnet she flashed Lil a look that was surely rebellious if
not conspiratorial.
Though Lil was irritated to hear her information dismissed as a coarse tale,
it wasn't an apt time for palaver. The wind was starting to whistle and bend
and pluck at the sparse tussocks of grass.
"Well, anyway," Lil said, addressing the men, "less'n you gents fancy being
found dead with your important parts in a state of irregular stiffness, now's
the time to turn your wagons and livestock off this exposed trail and head
for shelter."
"And where do we find this shelter?" Petrie asked.
"Follow me. The Flying G – that's my father's outfit – has a line camp in
a valley only a mile east. Your wagons can be there in a half-hour. In the
lee of the valley's northern flank and its timber, you'll have a mite of
protection, and there's watering places and patches of willows along the
creek."
"I see," Petrie said, starting to give the proposal consideration.
"I gathered the best part of my pa's herd in this section and drove them
to the valley for the winter. The cabin was warm and snug for me with plenty
of firewood handy, food stores and books. Only hard work I had to do was chop
holes in the ice on the creek so the cows could keep drinking."
Quick, frowning reflection made her realize that wasn't the entire truth
of it. "Oh, and kill a mountain lion that was stalking a calf, and chase
off a pack of
wolves, and haul a big old steer out of a tangle of brush."
Reiner scoffed disbelievingly. "The kid's full of bullshit, Cap'n! 'Sides,
her pa won't want our critters mixing in with his longhorns. Either that
or his waddies'll steal 'em."
Lil's eyes flashed. "That's a lie! The Flying G aren't thieves! We can fix a rope corral for your domestic stuff easy."
The wagoners' guide rudely turned his back on her.
"Keep 'em rolling!" Reiner yelled, the wind seeming to snatch and spread
the word as it left his coarse lips. "There's a pass up ahead. We can get
offa this damn mountain before the storm hits if we hurry."
"Sure, Luke!" a wagoner called back. "Time's a-wastin'!"
Lil knew the truth of it was that the pass Luke Reiner saw as an escape route
was anything but. Most storm winds were funnelled through it with added velocity.
The wagon train and its occupants would be lashed there ferociously by the
coming sleet or snow.
Lil felt foreboding as a hard knot within her stomach. These foolish men,
especially their guide, Luke Reiner, wouldn't take her advice. Plainly, the
arrogant Reiner would soon as give an arm as give anyone else a say in directing
the wagon train. That plus, she suspected, he liked to keep the wagonmaster's
pretty daughter impressed. . . .
She was sorry for the wagoners' womenfolk and the buttons who had no choice
but to accompany their elders on the long and gruelling adventure. But she
could do no more. If only Jackson were here! He would know what to do for
the best. He always knew!
It was some months since she'd last seen her reluctant hero, but during her
sojourn at the line camp, he'd never been far from her thoughts. Not for
long
could she thrust remembrance of his solid reliability out of her mind.
Flakes of snow began to fall, whirling and dancing on the wind in wild pirouettes
at first. The wagon women who were afoot clutched their skirts to stop the
wind from lifting them, and ran at their men's urging to climb into the wagons.
A wagon train – lumbering, heavily laden – generally moved at a speed of
around two miles an hour. Able-bodied women and children customarily walked
beside the wagons, like the men. Emigrant parties averaged ten miles a day.
With good weather, the 2,000 mile journey from Missouri to California or
Oregon would take about five months.
With a maximum load of passengers, Reiner was now attempting to force four
or five miles an hour out of these wagons. Lil knew the draught animals,
oxen or horses, would not be able to sustain such a pace. It was unlikely
Petrie's expedition would even make the pass without capsizes or other accidents.
The snow was changing swiftly with each gust of wind from feathery lightness
to sharp, stabbing needlepoints. Hurled on by the rushing wind, it laid quickly.
In an incredibly short time, the slope before Lil was covered by a thickening
white carpet.
The wagon train vanished before her narrowed, watering eyes into a relentless, blinding snow storm.
What to do?
She tugged down her hat-brim, tied it securely under her chin, turned her
collar up around her neck till it shielded her cold ears, and pulled up a
neckerchief to protect her face from the stinging lash of icy snow. Winter
was coming back with a vengeance, taking what had to be a late, unfortunate,
last fling.
It was going to be a first-class blizzard for sure. Landmarks were rapidly
disappearing in the whiteout conditions, though she had every confidence
Rebel would know their trail back to the line camp and she had few worries
for her own safety.
Her thoughts were with the women and children of the wagon train – especially
the pretty one called Honesty Petrie. She had a weird feeling she'd met her
before though she knew she couldn't have.
Yet it was overlaid by the other feeling she had, that if she didn't do something
she might never see Honesty or her companions again.
How could a spurned country girl and her horse help?
Preoccupied, Lil gave Rebel's neck a gentle pat. "This looks like it's going
to get bad," she murmured. "Better turn back to the cabin for now."
[Read on in UNDER A MINUTE!]
