Part 7

“I want to talk to you,” Jincy moved over by Cort who had first watch at the pueblo.

Cort turned to her and smiled, “What’s on your mind, Miss Shumpert?”

“I don’t understand what’s going on between you and Ben. The way I see it we’ve all got to depend on each other to get out of this. I’m trying to do my part and I’m getting along just fine. I just don’t see why you and Ben can’t get along?”

“It goes deep, Miss Shumpert,” Cort sighed.

“I’m thinking he must have done something really bad to you at sometime in your life, how long have you known him?”

“I’ve known of him for a long time but I only met him when the train was robbed. You see Miss Shumpert, I wasn’t always a priest…”

“I know, they’ve told me a little about you, said you were a shooter and that you killed a priest; that a man called Herod taught you to shoot.”

“He taught me a lot more than how to shoot, he taught me to steal, to kill. I rode with his gang, I was a part of it all the horrible things that we did. I got shot up pretty bad one time and they left me at a mission. The priest there took care of me, got me back on my feet. He also talked to me a lot about how I could be forgiven for all the things I’d done how I could change my life. I was gonna do it and then Herod come back for me, I told him I wasn’t going with him…I was going to enter the priesthood; and that’s when he put a gun to my head and told me to kill the priest. He started countin’…I valued my own life above his and I killed him. He forgave me before I pulled the trigger.”

“Oh, Cort how awful…what an awful man he was.”

“He’s dead now…I thought for once in my life I was free of him and I went to St. Sebastian and entered the priesthood. Nobody was ever going to make me do something against my will except God. I put my life in his hands…and now Ben Wade has taken Herod’s place.”

“No, no…” she rested her head on his shoulder.

“He used you to control me, Miss Shumpert…to make me rob the train. I blame myself for your situation. You were so good, so innocent. I wanted to protect you…to get you out of Diablo to your fiancé. Instead here we are out of one hell into another.”

“No…it’s my fault if I hadn’t been so silly in Prescott we wouldn’t have been on that train. Don’t blame yourself for me. Oh, Father Cort when we get to Utah we’ll be free we can go anywhere, you can have that mission you told me about, I can help you with it. All that horrible past you’ve lived is in the past. It will never happen again, I’ll make sure of that.” She smiled a little and took his hand.

He covered her hand with his, “Miss Shumpert, if we make it to Utah, I’m still a priest. The best thing for you to do is get on a train back to Tucson.”

She blinked her eyes and sat back against the wall of the adobe. “Priests don’t marry do they?”

“No ma’am.” He said softly.

Across the room in the shadows Ben smiled and turned over in his bedroll.

The next morning dawned cold and windy. They were able to barter for some corn and feed for their horses, the route ahead would get rougher and steeper and eventually there would be no grazing for the animals.

An old woman led them down the path out of the village, a well worn narrow path in the rock.

“Well I told you boys they was comin’, comin’ along pretty good I’d say.”

“You reckon they don’t sleep?” East asked.

“Sleepin’ in the saddle, we’d best be on our way. We got a lot of open ground to cover and we don’t want to be out there when they hit the high country.”

“How do they know?” Egan wondered.

“Probably got a tracker with ‘em.” They had a good view of Black Falls Crossing. “Looks like four men…at least we’re even.” Ben moved to his horse and mounted, “we got about 24 hours on ‘em let’s see if we can’t stretch that out.

He set a fast pace down from the mesa; by midday they were entering the canyons going down precariously narrow passages along the cliff face and still following the trail as it led them deep into the canyon where a river awaited them to ford. Egan led the pack mule and East led Jincy’s horse because she near panicked when she saw where she had to ride. She mostly kept her eyes closed on the descent into the canyon.

The sun had already left the deep canyon when they reached the bottom and the river. There was a good sized raft and poles pulled up on the bank for ferrying across.

“Can we all get on that thing?” She asked.

East and Egan assessed the situation they would take her, the mule and two of the horses across first then come back for the rest.

“Maybe we ought to wait till mornin’ to try this?” Cort said.

“I’d rather have this here river between me an O’Neill before I lay my head down tonight,” Ben looked around at the rest of them.

“Let’s do it and get it over with,” East said.

The raft was pushed into the water, tied off to two trees to keep it from floating away while they loaded the horses and the mule. East calmed them down talking to them; that special way he had with horses. Each man grabbed a pole and they began the trip across the river. Jincy sat flat on the raft with her hands out on either side of her and her eyes closed until it spun around and the shouts from the men caused her to open her eyes to see exactly how her end was coming. But it was not to be, they soon had the raft righted and continued on until they reached the far bank. Mostly wet from the waist down she shakily climbed off the raft. The horses and mule were unloaded and tethered on the narrow river bank.

As Jincy watched the raft lurching across the river the thought came to her that if something happened to them she’d be alone out here in this God forsaken country. She had food and water at the ready, transportation at hand and the trail she could see behind her moving up the flattened rocky path. She could do it if she had to…she could make it out of the canyon. Looking back at her companions she prayed it would never come to that. She’d grown quite fond of them,  each in their own peculiar way had befriended her. Father Cort she realized she loved but could never have…he would be a priest.

She looked down at her wet skirt, hanging heavy now against her legs, she hadn’t bathed since she left Canyon Diablo except to wash her hands and splash water on her face. She began to giggle at her condition, never in her life had she ever been in such a dilapidated state. When she stood up the heavy wet leather skirt tried to pull her back down. She went over to her horse and pulled another skirt from the saddlebag. A dark brown wool, it would have to do until her riding skirt could dry. No petticoats to hold it out, it hung limply against her body. She draped her skirt over a rock and sat back down to watch the men load the horses onto the raft on the other side of the river.

It was with a sense of accomplishment that they made it in near darkness to the top of the plateau. Tired, wet and hungry they went through the motions of setting up camp with a view of the opposite canyon wall, the river and the mesa above it. Jincy had a go at the corn trying to pound it into submission, she laughed at her efforts and in the end they all had a go at it producing a tasty if not gritty cornbread.

By the firelight she examined Egan’s foot. She’d been changing the bandage daily for him. Egan leaned over to see and bumped heads with her. He laughed a little.

“How’s it looking?”

“It’s looking good, Egan you know ordinarily you’d be keeping it propped up and staying off of it but we don’t live like that.” She applied the salve and wrapped a clean bandage around it.

Egan thought about what she’d said; for him they weren’t living at all, this was no kind of life. “You’ve got real gentle hands, Miss Shumpert.”

“Egan, why don’t you call me Jincy; it seems to me that we’re all friends and proper manners just don’t apply out here. I call you Egan instead of…what is your last name?”

“I don’t think I got one, I was always just Egan or boy…I prefer Egan.”

“That’s  all right, there you go you’re all done.” She put her medical supplies back in the box.

“Jincy,” he tried it out on his tongue.

“It’s a nickname for Jane; my mother was Jane and Maria called me Jincy.”

“Thanks for doctoring up my foot, Jincy.”

“My pleasure,” she smiled, “one thing I do know is how to apply a bandage.”

Wet clothes were ringed around the fire to dry, boots set a little ways back hoping to be dry by morning. Jincy was physically tired and sore, it had been a long ride and quite a climb up the cliff path, sometimes they’d had to dismount and walk their horses along. She was now scouring out the cooking pots with sand and wiping them good with a rag. She hadn’t heard him come behind her.

“You done real good since we left Canyon Diablo, I had my doubts about you.”

“Thank you, Ben.”

“I ain’t heard one complaint from you.”

“No…and you won’t.” She put the pot down on a rock and sat down beside it. “The way I see it we’re all in this together…nobody else is complaining.”

Ben chuckled, “No but they’re used to hard livin’…it’s gonna get harder.”

“I figured that…we’re running low on foodstuffs. I think tonight was the last big meal we’re gonna have for awhile…and then, well I don’t know?”

“That old Indian said there’s a tradin’ post at the settlement but we got a long ways to go before we get there.”

“What kind of settlement is it?”

“No idea…”

“What’s going to happen when we get to Utah?”

“Well I reckon that depends on what folks want to do. Best thing to do is lose yourself in the population somewhere for awhile”

“Utah is Mormon country, “ she licked her lips, “I don’t think I want to get lost there.”

“Miss Shumpert, you ought to go on back to Tucson you ain’t wanted by the law…nobody’s looking for you.”

“That’s the thing isn’t it…nobody is looking for me.”

“Unless your fiancé has got word you were abducted by a band of outlaws,” he grinned.

“He might be relieved…in fact I think he probably would be…please call me Jincy…I don’t think I’m Miss Shumpert anymore.”

“No…what happened to her?”

“Miss Shumpert might have been abducted, but Jincy Shumpert came of her own free will. I know it sounds crazy but I wanted to come”

“Wouldn’t have anything to do with the preacher would it?”

She pleated her skirt in her hand, “Maybe, but I know now how wrong that was…he’s a priest.”

“He is when he wants to be.”

“No I think you’re wrong…inside of him he really is. He’s a good man; he’s honest and believes in something. What you did…it was wrong, wrong to force him to rob a train.”

“He didn’t have to, he never questioned it…he believed what I told him.”

“But you were going to leave me at Miss Elda’s…”

“Was I?”

Jincy stared at him a moment, “You lied to him…”

“We won’t ever know will we?” Ben smiled a little, “You better get some sleep, tomorrow will be here a’fore you know it.” He stood up.

“Why did you do that? Why don’t you leave  him alone?”

“Because, Jincy I’m a rotten, thievin’, lyin, murderin’ scoundrel of the worst kind. Don’t you read the papers?” He disappeared into the blackness of the night away from the camp.

Jincy stared after him that was the longest and first real conversation she’d had with him since they left Canyon Diablo…she didn’t know what to make of him.

 

 

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