“You didn’t want me to come with you, did you.”
Kelly K—and I’ll call her that to distinguish her from Kelly A—and I had been riding for a couple of hours through some pretty rugged country, though the trail we were on had been cut pretty well, mainly by the stagecoach and some small cattle drives. I could see the hoof prints of cattle, plus a lot of other game—dear, elk, bear, mountain lion, wolves, and some smaller animals. The road was framed on both sides by high rising Ponderosa pines and Douglas firs covering fairly steep hillsides. But Ol’ Paint and Ol’ Nag weren’t having too much difficulty navigating the terrain. Kelly K called her horse Beauty, which was a hoot. If Kelly Atkins thought my horse was ugly, then I wonder what she would have thought of Kelly K’s grungy runt of a mount. But the horse was game and responded to its owner very well. But she was also getting tired and we were going to have to take a break in a few minutes to give her a blow.
In fact, at that very moment, I spotted a nice little stream cutting through the hills to our right and I pointed. “Your horse is getting winded. Why don’t we stop over there for a few minutes and let both of them rest?”
Kelly was agreeable to that. “Ok. I’m a little saddle sore myself.” She looked at me and gave me a wry smile. “I don’t really get out and ride a whole lot.”
I nodded. One of the reasons Beauty was probably getting a little weary—besides the fact she was 15 years old—was that Kelly had loaded her down with two suitcases and bulging saddlebags. I had no idea what she had in all of that and I wasn’t about to ask. Clothes, I’m sure, and everything else that was precious to her. She and I hadn’t talked a whole lot these first couple of hours, and I think it was partly because she was a bit melancholy. She was leaving her home of 24 years, and regardless of how badly she might want to get away, there had to be some good memories in Upton that she would be leaving behind.
We pulled off the road to the stream and both of the horses had a drink. Ol’ Paint kept his distance from Beauty because the two or three times he had gotten too close, she had nipped at him. Once she drew a little blood and Ol’ Paint had looked at me like, “Can I kick her once? Please? Just once?” I did my best to keep them apart, but Ol’ Paint didn’t need much encouragement.
Kelly had dismounted to stretch her legs and fill up her canteen; I had done the same. “You didn’t respond to my statement of a few minutes ago,” she said to me, as we knelt for water.
“What statement was that?” I replied, though I knew the answer.
“You don’t want me with you.”
I thought about it a moment, considering the best way to answer her. “That’s not altogether true, Kelly. There are some complications, obviously, that I wouldn’t have if you weren’t here. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you here.” I looked at her and gave her my most charming smile, which usually made even rattlesnakes laugh. “Let’s see how you cook, then I’ll decide.”
She smiled in return, and no rattlesnake would laugh at that smile. In fact, its heart might turn a flip. Kelly Kramer was a lovely woman. While I was trying to decide if she was as pretty as Kelly Atkins, she asked me, “What kind of food did you bring?”
Now, that was a good question. “I brought stuff a man would eat,” I answered, very non-committaly. “What did you bring?”
She laughed, the first time she had done so all day. “I don’t have much. Some eggs, bacon, dried fruit, canned beans, peaches, cherries, and apples. A little bit of flour, some corn meal, honey, sugar, salt, yeast, soup, ham bones, crackers, cheese, coffee, and tea. Oh, and a few bars of chocolate for desert.” Her face seemed almost apologetic. “I’m sorry I couldn’t bring more.”
I was staring at her. Now I knew what she had in all that baggage on her horse’s back, and it wasn’t clothes and memorabilia. If that was what she considered “not much,” I would have hated—or, more likely, loved—what she called “a lot.” The whole kitchen, probably, tub, stove, and all. I had some jerky and coffee, a bag of beans and some bacon, along with some dried fruit, and that was about it. I stood up, still a little stunned. “Well, hopefully we can get by on that. We can do some fishing, if necessary”—ha—“and maybe I can shoot a deer or elk for meat.” It would be a nice change from beef jerky and pork…and eggs, canned beans, apples, cherries, peaches, crackers, etc. etc, ad infinitum.
As if on cue, a bear appeared about 100 yards upstream to do some fishing of his own. The water was clear and I could see some trout swimming by, but now wasn’t the time for recreation. Kelly spotted the bear, too. It was a small black bear, probably less than two years old.
“Aren’t you going to kill it?” she asked me.
“Why?”
“Well, I mean, he’s dangerous, isn’t he?”
"He won’t bother us if we don’t bother him.” The bear looked in our direction, sniffing, and obviously saw us, but went back to swatting fish out of the stream. “See? He’d rather eat fish than you or me.”
But Kelly shuddered. “I don’t like bears. I had a friend killed by one a few years ago.”
“They can be dangerous, but usually only if they are scared or feel threatened. Now a grizzly might attack you for pure meanness, but usually they’ll leave you alone, too. I’m sorry about your friend.”
“Freddie’s sister.”
I glanced at her. “Did you ever think that maybe that’s why he’s so protective of you?”
She looked at me quickly, then back at the bear. “I guess…that’s possible…” Then, back to me. “Can I…wash up a bit? I didn’t have much chance this morning to make myself look presentable.”
I was quite anxious to see what she meant by “presentable” if the way she looked now—beautiful—wasn’t presentable. “Sure. We’re in no hurry. Ol’ Na--, uh, Beauty, would probably appreciate a little more rest, anyway.
“Thanks,” she said, went over to her saddlebags and pulled out a small sack, and then headed about 20 yards downstream—away from the bear.
I sighed. This was the kind of aggravation I had expected. I could have been halfway to River Bend by now. But with a woman along…
Well, I shouldn’t tell too big of a whopper. I’m human, and I’m male, and I like pretty faces on the opposite sex. So I could put up with a few minor discomforts to have her along.
I was hooking my canteen onto my saddle horn when I happened to look over in Kelly’s direction. And if I hadn’t done so, she might not have been with me much longer.
She didn’t see him—or her—but a mountain lion was creeping up on her. Kelly had her head down, washing her face in the stream, so she wasn’t showing any interest in the local wildlife. The cat was probably 10 yards from her now and would pounce very soon.
I started to shout at her but that would have been useless, so I simply pulled my Winchester, levered, aimed, fired—no more mountain lion. Kelly jumped when she heard the shot and looked over at me, a questioning expression on her face.
I pointed. “Bears aren’t the only things that wander around these hills.”
She looked and saw the lion. Her head was turned away from me so I couldn’t see her face, but when she turned around, she smiled wanly. “Thank you,” she said. “I guess I wasn’t paying any attention.”
“Might want to take your rifle with you next time you go off like that.”
Actually, she had and I hadn’t noticed. She held it up and said, “I guess it doesn’t do much good lying around on the ground.”
“No. It normally doesn’t shoot by itself. Get on with your business, I’ll keep an eye out.”
It was a lovely scene with the creek meandering through some wooded terrain. I felt like doing some fishing again, but I think the bear upstream was getting most of them. I was watching him when Ol’ Paint and Beauty started acting funny, snorting a bit and moving closer to the stream. I figured they were about to get into a fight, but they weren’t that close to each other. Then, all of a sudden, I heard a BLAM! A rifle shot. It came from Kelly’s direction and I looked at her.
Sure enough, she was holding a rifle. She smiled sheepishly and pointed behind me. About 20 feet away from me was a dead mountain lion.
For somebody who claimed not to be very accurate with a rifle, that was a pretty good shot—about 30 yards. I narrowed my eyes at her. “Sometimes they travel in pairs,” she said to me, that sheepish smile still on her face.
I nodded slowly, still studying her carefully, wondering how many other lies she had told me. “Yeah. Sometimes they do that. Are you ready to go?” I wasn’t in a mood to say thank you to a liar. Maybe I was being too hard on her, it wasn’t that difficult a shot. Except that she hit the blasted animal right in the head. I don’t even aim for the head. Well, not all the time.
“Yes, I’m ready,” she said, and walked towards me.
We started on our way again and were silent for a few minutes. Then, with a little playfulness in her voice, everything at the stream apparently behind us, she asked me, “Do you know the way to Bandera?”
“I don’t even know the way to River Bend.” And we both laughed.
“Well,” she said, “there’s a town on this road, maybe 50, 70 miles ahead, I’m not really sure. It’s called Lethridge. There’s a fork just out of town and the left fork goes north towards Bandera. That’s all I know. I’m sorry.”
I’d heard of Lethridge, but never been there and knew nothing about the place. So, all I said was, “We’ll find it.”
“You can…leave me at Lethridge if you want to. I may have enough money to get a stage from there.”
I couldn’t resist, I just couldn’t; the devil made me do it. But I smiled when I said it. “If you’d sell all that junk you’re carrying, you could probably by passage to Paris.”
“Hey,” she said, “some of this ‘junk’ is going to go into your stomach, buster.” But I could tell she took what I said in good humor.
“You can keep that part.” Then, on a more serious note, “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, Kelly. I may go all the way to Bandera with you, or as you say, I may drop you off at the nearest town. If you give me any trouble, I’ll drop you off the nearest cliff.”
“But you’re going to River Bend. That’s the other direction, isn’t it?”
“Quite frankly, I don’t know where River Bend is in relation to where we are now. I know it’s east of here, and south, I believe. I’m in no real hurry to get there, and I’ll find it. I want to make sure you’re safe, either on a stage or at your kinfolks’ place.”
“Thank you, Sam. I told you that you were a nice man.”
I didn’t find that worth responding to. I was still trying to figure her out, then grunted to myself. Who can ever figure a woman out?
We went silent again for a few minutes, just enjoying the scenery and the ride. It was a little chilly; we were in some pretty high country, so I reached back, fumbled in one of my saddlebags for a few seconds, and pulled out the red and blue scarf that Kelly Atkins had given to me before I’d left River Bend. I wrapped it around my neck; it was warm. I was already wearing my jacket.
“That’s a pretty scarf,” Kelly K commented.
“I think so, too. Your look alike in River Bend made it for me.”
“You said her name is Kelly, too?”
“Yes. Kelly Atkins.”
“Is she your…girlfriend?”
“No.” One mark against Kelly K. I hate nosey women.
“I see,” she said, after a pause, obviously realizing that I wasn’t going to expand on the subject she had raised. But after a few moments, she said, “Sam, I don’t…mean to pry, and you don’t have to tell me anything, but…I don’t really know anything about you. Yeah, it was pretty dumb of me to come with a man I know nothing about, but, like I told you yesterday, I was pretty desperate. And you’re not a bad man, I can see it in your eyes, so I’m not worried what you’ll do. Can you…tell me a little about yourself?”
I thought on it a moment. I didn’t really like talking about myself because it resurrected memories that I was trying to bury, though I knew I’d never succeed in doing so completely. But Julie…Robin…Robin was barely a year ago. And now, Kelly was asking me to re-open those scars, scars which, again, had never really healed and probably never would. I’d lied to her yesterday about my name, but I saw no reason to lie to her now.
“Ok, but only the short version,” I said. “No, I’m not a bad man. I was a rancher south of here for a number of years, but my wife…died. I…moved, and soon after, I married again, and got another ranch. My second wife decided, about a year ago, that she preferred life back east to living with me, so that’s where she went. I sold the ranch, and I’ve been wandering ever since.” That was enough.
Kelly didn’t respond for a few moments. I hadn’t really told her very much, but I had told her enough that she probably figured I didn’t want to tell her any more. But she was curious, and she had a right to be. Well, I guess she did; she didn’t have to come with me. But then, I didn’t have to bring her, either.
“You seem to be pretty good with a gun,” she said, tentatively. She had said the same thing the day before.
“Oh? What makes you say that?”
“Well, the rifle shot. But more than that, you and Freddie yesterday. I was really afraid he might hurt you when he pulled you off your horse, but you had your gun…I never even saw you move…”
“My palm was itching.”
“How long are you going to wander, Sam?”
Oh, Lord, how many times have I been asked a question like that over the past year? “I don’t know, Kelly, I really don’t know. Till I find what I want.”
“River Bend?”
That was a very good question. I didn’t know. But I knew I had to return and find out. Do I want Kelly Atkins? Will she even have me after I’ve left her twice? All I said to Kelly K was, “I don’t know that, either, Kelly, but maybe I’ll go and see.”
“Do you want a ranch again?”
“Yes, I do.”
“My uncle says there’s some good land up near Bandera.”
“I may go up there and take a look.”
I wasn’t trying to be short, sharp, or curt with her. I just didn’t like the doors that were being opened inside of me because of the subjects being raised.
“Can I ask you one more thing?” she said.
“Ok.”
“What lie did you tell me yesterday?”
Since she had obviously told me a pack of them, I was a little surprised she brought the subject up. “Well, I’ll tell you if you’ll tell me all the lies you told me.”
“I didn’t tell you any. Everything I said was true.”
I ignored that because it was another lie. “You can start with your telling me you weren’t very accurate with a gun. You hit that lion in the head.”
She smiled. “He got in the way of my bullet. Besides, if you lived in a town with Freddie Orton, wouldn’t you learn how to shoot, too?”
That was as big a pile of non-answer as I’d ever heard in my life. I re-directed the conversation. “You said your parents are dead? I’ve told you about me, now you tell me something about you. Maybe you are the sex crazed, ax murderer.”
She smiled again. “Maybe I am.” Then, she sighed. “Yes, my parents are dead. They were killed in an Indian attack a little over 10 years ago. I survived because…I could shoot pretty well. I lived with another family until I could support myself at 18.”
“Why did you tell me you couldn’t shoot?”
“I…wanted you to think I’m… a lady.” The sheepish smile again. “And maybe a little helpless.”
“Are you? A helpless lady?”
“Well, I like to think I’m a lady. And I wouldn’t make this trip to Bandera alone.”
We were going around in circles. She repeated what she had told me yesterday about her uncle and aunt in Bandera and so forth, nothing new. There was more to this woman than she was letting on, but I wasn’t going to let it bother me. As soon as I got rid of her, I’d never see her again, so if she wanted to lie through her teeth, that was between her and the author of the Holey Bubble.
But she pressed me about the “lie” I had told her yesterday. Nagging woman… Julie had never been like that. Robin had a bit too much of it in her, but I could tolerate it. I didn’t know about Kelly Atkins, but she didn’t strike me as a nag. Anyway, I answered her. “My name is Rob Conners, not Sam Scott.”
She stared at me for a few moments. “Oh,” is all she said.
I didn’t ask her if she’d heard of me because I didn’t care.
We got along ok and, I’ll admit, she held up her end of the bargain. We had to stop and give that nag of hers a break a little too frequently for my taste, but it didn’t hurt me any. And she was a good cook. I love biscuits and ham and eggs and cherries and apples and all that other stuff she brought, so I found myself, after the first evening, not in any hurry to get anywhere any time soon.
The second afternoon, however, she seemed a little morose and I asked her about it. She paused a few moments before she spoke. Then, “I don’t know, Rob. Am I doing the right thing? I mean, leaving my home, my job, my friends.” She looked over at me and smiled softly. “Maybe I’m having second thoughts.”
“I can’t answer that for you, Kelly. It’s your life and you’ve got to do what you think is best. It’s hard to leave home, I know that. I’ve had to do it, more than once, and there are always some regrets.” I looked over at her and said something I didn’t want to say, but knew it was true. “I’ll take you back to Upton, if that’s what you want to do.” I didn’t want to say that because I didn’t want to lose two days backtracking. But I wouldn’t let her go back alone, either.
“Thanks, Rob. I’ll…think on it some more.”
Well, she must have done just that because, the next morning when I awoke, she was gone.
My first thought was, rats, I wanted some bacon and eggs…