Cry of the Hawk

They stopped at a plain-fronted, two-story clapboard house set off the main street away from the whir of things, where hung a sign in a yard overgrown with too much ragweed and prairie bunchgrass. A rap on the door brought a fleshy woman wiping her flour-dusted hands on a dingy apron.

“Afternoon,” Riley said, smiling and setting his tongue for charm. “My name’s Fordham, and this here is Jonah Hook.”

The woman nodded to each, her eyes coming back to the girl standing between them.

“And this is Hattie, Mr. Hook’s daughter.”

“Hello, ma’am,” she greeted the woman softly.

“Hello yourself, young lady.”

“Could we ask a favor of you?” Fordham inquired.

“Room-and-board prices posted on the sign by the door,” she said, cutting him off.

“No, ma’am. We just want to know if Hattie could use some of your water, a clean towel, and a little of your lye soap to freshen up, a young lady and all … if you don’t mind.”

She was not long in eyeing the girl down, then up, once more, and determining the child was badly in need of a good scrubbing. “You come on in, young lady. We’ll take you up to my room where we’ll freshen you right up. You fellas, just make yourself comfortable on the porch here. I’ll send my girl out with some lemonade for you.”

The good part of an hour later, Hattie reappeared. While not washed, her dingy dress had been nonetheless dusted, and the many small tears repaired by the hand of a fine seamstress. The young woman stood before them, freshly scrubbed, cheeks rosy, eyes gleaming and bright, her hair washed, brushed, and newly braided, finished off with a scrap of ribbon.

“Her teeth were something awful, you ought to know, Mr. Hook,” the woman said.

Riley grinned at Jonah when Hook sheepishly covered his own mouth with a hand.

“We thank you for seeing to her teeth too,” Hook mumbled. “Lord, Hattie—it’s been so many years. You’ve growed so. And look at you now!”

“What do we owe you?” Hook asked the landlady.

The woman looked at the girl, then Jonah and Riley, and finally the big man in greasy buckskins. She gave Hattie a gentle hug, then a playful slap on her rear.

“You go ’long now, Hattie. It was my pleasure, fellas. You all take care of that little lady now. She’s something real special.”

Hook brought his hand up to shake the woman’s. “Real special. Thankee, ma’am.”

They led their weary horses back onto the main, dusty street, not finding it hard to locate the rail station, where they counted their assets after inquiring the cost of a ticket east.

“Got enough to get her to Kansas City,” Hook said.

“She needs to go farther than that,” Fordham declared, staring at the scrip in his hand. “Clerk said it cost forty dollars to get to St. Louis.”

“Only twenty’s what he said,” Hook replied. “But I don’t have that much. It’s for damn sure I ain’t asking for your money, Riley.”

“I’m paying. And I’m riding too—like I said from the start. Two tickets to St. Louis is forty dollars, and I’ve got enough for both.” He patted his belly, beneath his shirt where he had belted a leather wallet. “I figure to have a lot left over from what I eased away from Jubilee Usher when I ran out on him.”

“More’n enough to get you to St. Louis?”

“That, and enough to get Hattie enrolled in a good seminary.”

“Seminary?”

“A girl’s boarding school.” Fordham looked down at the young woman. “If that’s all right with you and your daddy.”

She beamed, went to embrace her father. “May I, Pappy?”

“I only just got you back, Hattie.” Clutching her to him, Hook finally smiled, crinkling the flesh on his homely, bony face. Moisture welled in the eyes that finally looked up at Fordham. “Whyn’t you go on now, Riley—and buy them two tickets to St. Louis. This young lady’s gonna need a proper escort she goes riding the rails east to boarding school.”

As Jonah stood and drew up the cinch in the gray light of summer’s dawn here outside Fort Laramie, he knee-popped the horse in the belly, causing the mare to blow. He yanked quickly and buckled—in, down, and in again. And remembered that sunny afternoon back nearly a month gone now. A July afternoon in a railroad town called Salina cropping up like a prairie weed beside the Smoky Hill and Kansas Pacific line.

With the whistle growing more and more faint, he and Shad Sweete had reined up atop the first row of low hills shouldered along the timbered river course, turning in their saddles to gaze back at those last few cars of the eastbound disappearing into the shimmering summer haze of that late afternoon.

“She’s gonna be fine, Jonah,” Sweete had told him.

“I know she is.”

“Time we get to Laramie, chances are Riley’s wire be waiting for you already.”

“It’s something I need to know. Where she is. Who she’s with. For so long—”

“Any man can understand that. Especially Riley Fordham. He’ll wire you where she is. The school matron’s name.”

Shad swiped at troubling, buzzing, green-backed flies tormenting the men and horses in the afternoon heat.