Fort Defiance - Chapter 3

[A.N. Drunk Ned is fun. *titter*]

The Fort was always a place of hubbub after the predictable and natural sounds of the canyons about the Tallon ranch. Ned saw it in his mind as it had been four years ago, but there was no doubt it had changed some in that time. He heard the sounds of the place growing bigger most times he visited – nails being pounded into lumber as board houses went up, new and varied accents on Main Street. Time had been that everyone knew him, for good or for bad, in Fort Defiance. These days there were more new folks than old as everyone pushed west in search of more room or more money or just the sight of new land.

The old post office felt the same as always, though. Same scent of aged wood and dust and paper, same sounds, same voices behind the counter even if some of the men asking for letters were strangers.

‘No, there’s no letter from Johnny, I’m sorry,’ Mr Laughton said, putting his hands down flat on the counter with a soft sound. ‘Nothing at all for you Tallons.’

‘Fine, Mr Laughton. Thanks,’ Ned said with a slow nod, trying not to let the disappointment crowd out his good mood at being in town. ‘Next time, maybe.’

‘Maybe,’ Laughton nodded, but the doubt in his voice was quite obvious. ‘How have you been, young Edward?’ he asked, beginning to shuffle papers on the counter while he talked. ‘Mrs Laughton was asking after you. Don’t see you in town often these days.’

Mrs Laughton had been the school teacher, back when she was still Miss Olson. Ned remembered her as always kind, despite the fact that when she tried to teach him he sat with his eyes roaming about the classroom, looking at anything but his slate and books. She had told him once that his inquisitive mind made up in some part for his lack of application. He closed his hands instinctively as he remembered all the times she had had to switch him for not learning his lessons.

‘I’m doing just fine, Mr Laughton,’ he smiled. ‘Ranch keeps me busy, is all.’

‘Sure it does, Ned,’ Mr Laughton said in a quiet voice.

The silence swelled and filled the room – and then Ben broke it by saying, ‘Don’t suppose there’s a letter for me there? Name’s Shelby.’

‘Ah, yes, Mr Shelby,’ Mr Laughton said, turning away from the counter towards the high ranks of pigeon holes that covered the back wall. ‘Something came in for you Friday, I’m certain of it. Yes, here it is.’

‘Is it from Jane, Ben?’ Ned asked with a flash of joy. Ben had been waiting on this letter with such eagerness.

‘Yeah, it’s from Jane,’ he said. There was a rustle of paper as he slipped the letter into his pocket. ‘You excuse me for a moment, Ned?’

‘Oh, sure,’ he nodded. He turned back to the counter as Ben wandered away. ‘They putting up more houses behind Main Street?’ he asked Mr Laughton.

‘Yes, one or five,’ Laughton said with a short laugh. ‘The lumber mill’s never done such good business. This place won’t be a fort much longer if they keep going – they’ll have to start building outside the stockade.’

‘I guess people ain’t so scared of the Indians no more.’

‘Oh, the Indians will be moved on soon enough,’ Laughton shrugged. ‘Folks know that, and they’re coming in beforehand to get their claims set up.’

‘The Indians have been here forever,’ Ned murmured. It was odd to think of the wide, steep canyons and the dusty ground without Indian ponies and Indian noises echoing off the land.

‘This is a settler’s land,’ Laughton said with conviction. ‘The Indians don’t use it. They don’t farm, barely even raise cattle. No, it’s best they move on, let folks that can make something of the place work the land without the fear of being scalped in their sleep.’

Ned rotated his hat in his hands, feeling the felt brim between his fingers, soft and greasy with wear. He didn’t know what to say to Mr Laughton. He didn’t like to contradict him, but he didn’t agree with what he said.

‘Ben?’ he asked, turning about and listening.

‘Your friend went out onto the sidewalk,’ Laughton said. ‘Who is he, anyway? Friend of Charlie’s?’

Ned shook his head. ‘Friend of Johnny’s. Ben served with him down in Tennessee.’

‘Oh,’ Mr Laughton said, with just an edge of surprise in his voice. ‘He’s waiting for Johnny to come home, is he?’

‘Yeah, helping out on the ranch while he does.’

‘Well,’ Laughton said. He was silent for a moment, then said with some reluctance, ‘Ned, when Johnny does get back, you take care, won’t you? Some folks here aren’t so fond of Johnny. Take care you don’t catch the worst edge of the storms that get stirred up when he’s about. Here, let me give you a hand,’ he added, coming round the counter and taking Ned’s arm as he turned toward the door.

‘Thanks, Mr Laughton,’ Ned nodded. ‘Remember me to Miss Olson – I mean, to Mrs Laughton – won’t you?’

‘I sure will, Ned.’

The sun struck Ned’s face as they walked out onto the board sidewalk, not hot, but warmer than the shade in the post office. He put his hat back on and turned his head, listening for Ben. There were horses nearby, probably tied to a hitching post – he could hear their small movements and the metallic chinks of their tack as they stood patiently waiting. He and Ben had come with the wagon and tied up outside the store across the road and there was no way of discerning their horses from the others at that distance.

‘Mr Shelby,’ Laughton said, and Ben’s boots thumped on the boards as he came over to them.

‘Sorry, Ned. Got caught up in reading.’

‘Ah, that’s fine, Ben,’ Ned grinned. ‘Thanks, Mr Laughton,’ he said as the older man patted his arm gruffly and moved away. ‘Ben, what do you say we go over to the saloon before we get them things in the store? I ain’t been inside of that place since last spring.’

‘Sure. I could use a drink.’

Ben touched Ned’s arm and Ned slipped his hand behind Ben’s elbow, letting his fingers touch the roughness of his coat sleeve lightly. It was only a few yards down the sidewalk to the saloon. Everything on Main Street was bunched together in the centre as if it were huddling against an attack, as far away from the fort walls as possible.

The saloon doors swung open with a clatter, swinging back against Ned’s arm as he pushed through them. The conversation inside died to a soft murmur as he and Ben stepped inside.

‘You sure this place is a good idea?’ Ben asked in an undertone. ‘Folks don’t seem overwhelmed at us being in here.’

‘Who’s behind the bar?’ Ned asked.

‘Dark-haired lady in a plaid dress, and a blond guy.’

‘Don’t sound like Dave Parker’s in,’ Ned murmured. ‘We’ll be fine. Dave don’t like Johnny any, but they’ve got no reason to quarrel with me. Besides, this is the only saloon in town.’

‘Well, I guess it is,’ Ben laughed. The conversation was already beginning to pick up again, perhaps as the patrons realised it was not Johnny but a stranger that Ned had come in with. ‘What’re you drinking, Ned?’

‘Whiskey, and I’m buying,’ Ned said firmly, jangling the coins in his pocket. ‘Just point me at the bar.’

‘Ned, I don’t want to be taking your money,’ Ben said awkwardly.

‘You’re not,’ Ned said firmly. ‘If Johnny was here first thing he’d do would be buy you a drink.’

‘Maybe,’ Ben said. ‘But Johnny ain’t here.’

‘No, he ain’t,’ Ned said, turning to the bar without waiting for Ben’s help. ‘That’s why I’m buying.’ He rapped his knuckles briefly on the wooden surface. ‘Can I get two whiskeys?’

‘Sure thing, Ned.’

The bartender was closer than he thought, and he recognised his voice, too.

‘Dan?’ he asked. ‘Dan Walker? That you?’

Dan had sat at the next desk to his in the school where Miss Olson taught, slyly pulling the ribbons undone on the girls’ braids and writing fool rhymes on his slate and then rubbing them away before Miss Olson saw them, but not before Ned was almost bursting with giggles that he had to keep in.

‘Yeah, that’s me, Ned,’ Dan said, putting two glasses down on the counter with sharp taps. The scent of whiskey sharpened the air as he poured out the measures.

‘You’re working in the saloon now, Dan? Thought you’d been away?’

‘Yeah, I’d been off in the army like most everyone else, but I’m back now. That’s a dime, Ned.’

‘Oh, yeah.’

He felt in his pocket and drew out a handful of coins, slipping his fingertip over their faces. He didn’t often have cause to use money since Uncle Charlie usually handled the buying of goods. All those little metal discs felt the same.

‘You need a little help, Ned?’ Dan asked. There was an odd tone to his voice then, as if he seemed glad of Ned’s difficulty.

‘There’s your dime,’ Ben said shortly, coming up beside Ned and picking a couple of cents and three cent nickels out of his palm. ‘Thanks for the drink, Ned. I’ll carry them to the table.’

‘Dan sounded strange,’ Ned said in a low voice as he followed Ben to the table. ‘Like there was something eating him up…’

‘Being away at war eats some folks up,’ Ben said softly as they sat. ‘Some folks get to thinking that those that stayed at home got it easy, no matter why they stayed.’

Ned closed his fingers about the hard sides of the shot glass and then drank the whiskey in one swift swallow. He would have gone off to war with Johnny if he could have. He’d been well into conscription age when the war started up, but he would have volunteered anyway. He would have stood alongside Johnny in his uniform and hefted a rifle and fought the Confederates and brought his brother home safe at the end of it instead of waiting at the ranch while Johnny did God knew what somewhere out in the wide world. Everything would have been different, if only –

‘I didn’t choose this,’ was all he said as he put the glass back down.

‘No one’s saying you did, Ned.’ Ben picked up the empty glasses and stood. ‘I’ll get the next one,’ he said. ‘Hell, no, I’ll get us a bottle. I reckon you could do with getting rip-roaring drunk, Ned. What d’you say?’

Ned laughed. ‘Long as you can drive home at the end of it, cause I won’t be no use to you.’

******

The wagon was like a boat, shifting and sloping across a rough sea. The sound of the horses and the rolling wheels and the creaking of the woodwork could be the sounds of a sailboat, maybe. Ned had never been in a boat. Never even seen one. But the floor of the wagon box against his back was like the rolling of a boat over the ocean.

‘I never seen the stars look that bright,’ Ben said in an awed voice beside him. Ben was lying on the floor of the wagon too. ‘Look like they’re bout ready to fall down outta the sky on us. Ned, you ever seen stars look that bright?’

Ned lay and squinted, turning his head this way and that.

‘I can’t see no stars, Ben,’ he said finally. ‘I’m blind, you fool.’

‘Oh. Yeah, that’s right,’ Ben murmured. ‘Well, I never seen them that bright. Look like fires in the heavens. White hot fires waiting to fall down on us.’

‘We didn’t get none of them things in the store,’ Ned said suddenly, moving his hand over the planks over the wagon box and feeling the emptiness beside him. He moved his other hand out and felt the softness of Ben’s coat over his warm body, but no store goods anywhere. ‘Ben, who’s driving the wagon?’

Ben sat up with a lurching awkwardness, and then lay down again with a thump.

‘I guess the horses are, cause I ain’t, and you ain’t, Ned.’

‘Where are we?’

Ben sat up again. ‘Well, I’ll be darned. We’re bout a hundred yards from the house. Them horses have pulled us all the way home. Your Uncle Charlie’s in the door with a lamp. Looks kinda mad…’

Ned laughed, and then he couldn’t stop laughing. His laughter rang out against the bare hills and echoed back at him, loud but insignificant against the largeness of the world. In the corral a horse whinnied, and one of the horses hitched to the wagon responded, and Uncle Charlie shouted something across the wide open space between the house and the wagon.

‘Oh, I ain’t been this drunk in a long time,’ Ned said finally. His ribs and throat were aching with the laughter but he tried to look sober as the horses came to a halt near the house and Uncle Charlie hauled him none too gently out of the wagon.

‘I’ve been waiting on that cornmeal all day,’ Charlie said irritably, letting go of Ned’s arm and stomping back to the wagon. ‘Where’s the cornmeal, Ned?’

Ned swayed. The ground didn’t seem too level under his feet. Then he collapsed to the ground, pressing his forehead against the cold dirt and laughing fit to burst.

‘We ain’t got no cornmeal,’ he wheezed, his mouth close to the ground. ‘And we ain’t got no new hatchet blade, and we ain’t got no pound of nails neither. We forgot it, Uncle Charlie. I’m sorry, Uncle Charlie…’

If Charlie replied he didn’t hear him. There was a hand under his arm, hauling him to his feet and he was staggering through the darkness into the house and then falling into his bed, clothes and all. His bed felt so soft after the hard, lurching wagon boards. His hat was still jammed on his head, but he didn’t care. His chest felt empty and aching after the laughter. His eyes were wet with tears. He slept, and dreamt about Ben and Johnny and the faces of men in Fort Defiance, and about the feeling of Nellie Carlton all around him in her pa’s barn.

Fort Defiance - Chapter 2

Ben grew to be a comfortable presence in the house with remarkable swiftness. There was something right about sitting by the stove in the evening with Ben there a few feet away and Uncle Charlie sitting nearby darning a worn-through sock or mending some piece of tack or whittling at a piece of wood. It reminded Ned of the evenings before Johnny had gone to war. Ben was quieter, perhaps, than Johnny. He was less restless – but then Ben had a wife. Ned couldn’t imagine Johnny ever coming home with a wife. He enjoyed being a bachelor too much. The Arizona Tallons would maybe end with him and Johnny.

Ned thought about that as he sat in the shallow wash tub before the heat of the stove, a blanket strung up between him and the rest of the room, swiftly scooping the water over his limbs and torso. The Tallons didn’t get to a lot of praying on Sundays like they had when Ned’s ma was still around, but they did still take their baths on Saturdays, religiously, so to speak. Ben had been here for almost two weeks and he’d settled right in, even down to taking his turn in the wash tub on Saturday night and then sitting afterwards, drying off and smoking, just like Johnny used to do.

Ned could smell Ben’s tobacco smoke drifting through the air, pulled by the draught of the stove. Ben smoked a different brand to him and Uncle Charlie, and the smells mingled together as they drifted past him, the familiar and the new entwined. It gave Ned a moment’s feeling of being in the saloon in Fort Defiance, where at least five different tobacco blends always hung in the air – but that was always mixed up with the smell of liquor and sweat and men’s boots. Here it was just mixed with the fading scent of salt pork and sour dough and the smoke from the stove.

Ned always scrubbed hard in the tub because he couldn’t see the dirt that must be on him after a week of working and riding. Back when he could see, the water had always had a faint red hue after his bathing from the red dirt that settled on him whenever a horse’s hooves stirred up the ground. He used to sit in the shallow water, fascinated at the change in colour, watching the droplets glinting in the lamplight as they ran down his body. Uncle Charlie had always hassled him for taking too long. He couldn’t see the droplets of water any more, but he still sat too long in the tub, thinking, and Charlie still hassled him to hurry up.

‘You almost done, Ned?’ Uncle Charlie called, close by the screen.

‘Yeah, almost.’

He scooped the water over his head and felt his hair flatten to his scalp. Johnny had told him that somewhere in between the gold strands of his hair was the thin white scar from the Parker boys’ beating. He couldn’t feel it at all, even when his hair was dry and light on his head. There were no scars on him but that one, Johnny had told him – that one, and whatever scar or damage had been left inside his eyes after the blow that had left him out cold for days.

‘Ned?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, feeling on the chair beside the tub for the towel.

He stood up tall in the fire’s heat, rubbing the water out of his hair and letting the stove do the rest of the drying.

‘Good, cause my water’d be boiling over if you sat there much longer,’ Charlie complained amiably. ‘Give me that towel, Ned – I’ll hang it up to dry.’

Ned handed over the towel and felt on the chair for his long underwear, taking good care as always not to brush the stove with his naked flank as he reached over. He had gained enough small, agonising burns in the first months of his blindness to teach him to always be respectful of the stove’s power.

‘I’ll throw out your water. You go’n have a good jaw with Shelby,’ Charlie instructed Ned firmly as he pulled on the knit underwear. ‘I’d sure like to think you two have got more to do than listen to an old man scrub his – Well…’

‘Come on, Ned,’ Ben said, thrusting cloth into his hands. Ned felt over it, and recognised it was his pants and shirt. ‘Get those on, and let’s go check on the cattle. I thought I heard a wolf howling before.’

‘Ah, that was a long ways off,’ Ned shrugged. The evening heat was rising around him and the air felt thick and comforting. He didn’t feel like going out into the fall cold, but he started to sort out the bundled clothes in his hands anyway. ‘Ain’t it dark out, Ben?’

‘Yeah, just about,’ Ben told him. ‘But it don’t bother you. Don’t see why it should bother me, either. Tell you what – I’ll finish up oiling my gun and I’ll roll us some cigarettes. You saddle up the horses. May as well each do what we’re good at.’

‘All right, Ben,’ Ned nodded, pushing the small buttons through the eyeholes of his shirt one by one.

There was something about Ben. Ned didn’t like to think bad of Johnny, but Ben always let him play to his strengths. He trusted Ned to be able to do what he needed to do. Johnny always took things out of Ned’s hands and did them himself, like he was impatient or untrusting of Ned’s ability, while Ben stood back and talked slow and waited for Ned to finish each task on his own.

He pulled on his coat and opened the door. The air outside was cold in his still-damp hair. He reached and took his hat from the peg, and then went to fetch the saddles, first his, and then Ben’s. Ben’s horse wasn’t as staid as old Doggone but he still stood patiently enough while Ned hefted the saddle onto his back and started to sort out the stirrups and the girth. His body was warm and solid against Ned’s hand, and he could hear the rumblings of digestion going on inside. Maybe the horse had been expecting a quiet night munching on hay and standing about the corral. But Ben was right – there was a wolf somewhere howling, closer than it had been before. It was a good idea to go check on the stock.

******

The canyons were quiet at first with that night time stillness that seemed to press down over the land. The sound of the horses' hooves echoed from the hard cliffs, coming back clear through the dry, still air. Even the creaking of the saddles sounded loud against the wordless night. It seemed to Ned like the only things alive in the world were the men and their horses, and that wolf somewhere, crying to the sky.

‘It’s cold,’ Ned said.

‘It’s close on cloudless,’ Ben said in reply. ‘Moon looks like a silver dollar balancing on top of them cliffs. Looks so close I could touch it.’

‘I ain’t seen a silver dollar in a long time,’ Ned laughed. ‘I can picture it, though.’

‘It’s light as day, almost,’ Ben said as the horses picked their way forward over the rough ground. ‘I guess Jane’s maybe looking up at that same moon,’ he added after a spell of silence.

‘I guess so,’ Ned smiled. ‘You miss her, Ben?’

‘Of course I miss her,’ Ben said gruffly. ‘A man starts to depend on having a woman around. Half us were half crazy when we was fighting, all them men corralled together and in the mood for killing, and not a woman around to ease their troubles.’

‘Johnny wrote there was public women about the camps like flies on a wound,’ Ned said, feeling the horse shift and shift back again as it rounded one of the outcrops of rock that littered the ground hereabouts. A smell of sagebrush rose into the air as the horse pushed past a bush.

‘Yeah, there was women enough of that kind,’ Ben said darkly. ‘I went with one once.’

‘Yeah? Oh, man…’ Ned half laughed. He wasn’t sure what else to say. He felt suddenly hot and awkward despite the cold night around him. ‘Was she nice?’ he asked finally.

‘Nah, she was sharp as flint and rough as a bar room floor, and stank of liquor too,’ Ben said shortly, kicking the horse on to a trot for a moment as if he wanted to shake the thought out of his mind. ‘I ain’t never doing that again. T’ain’t worth the bother.’

‘Maybe them kinda women are different, but I never thought of girls as bother,’ Ned said with a distracted smile. ‘I don’t know – I like just the smell of them, the sound of their skirts brushing on the floor.’

‘You even been with a woman, Ned?’ Shelby asked curiously.

‘Yeah, once,’ Ned said with a soft smile, remembering that time. ‘Been going with Nellie Carlton for a while and we went out in her pa’s barn when her ma and pa was away. I was so scared I thought I wasn’t going to be able to do it… She said if anything came of it I’d have to marry her, but nothing did and then I lost my sight. She – didn’t talk to me after that.’

‘She pretty?’

‘Johnny said she was a deal too pretty for me,’ he laughed quietly. ‘She had ringlets looked like fresh wood shavings – you know that gold you get when you plane down pine?’

‘Yeah, I know,’ Ben nodded.

‘Funny thing is, I don’t remember so much about how she looked then. I just remember the smell of her. She had a real pretty smell, and the hay all about her. I can’t smell hay without thinking about that time.’

They rode on for a while through the cold, quiet land. A kind of barking howl set off to the left of them as the horses walked down another slope and Ned heard Ben hefting the rifle he had borrowed from Uncle Charlie.

‘Coyote,’ Ned said, shaking his head. ‘I bet you can’t get a sight on it, anyhow. It’s behind something.’

‘You’re right,’ Ben said slowly, letting the horse move cautiously sideways towards the noise. ‘Think it’s in them bluffs over there. Was that what we heard before?’

‘No, that was a wolf,’ Ned said decisively. ‘Listen, Ben.’

There was a howl much closer to them then, different in timbre to the coyote’s sound.

‘That’s a wolf,’ Ned said as his horse moved nervously sideways. ‘Can you see the cattle?’

‘Yeah, they’re down there, huddled together,’ Ben said. He hefted the rifle again, and this time he did not lower it. ‘There more than one, you think?’

‘Could be. I don’t know,’ Ned said honestly.

A shot rang out somewhere ahead and Ned’s grip tightened on the reins. He sat motionless on the horse’s back, listening keenly as another horse somewhere moved forward at a trot.

‘Indian pony,’ he murmured. ‘An Indian shot that wolf.’

‘An Indian protecting your cattle?’ Ben asked with some surprise.

Ned shrugged. ‘Maybe. We’ve always shared some stock with the Indians. Maybe he’s protecting his own people. He’s gonna take that wolf for the fur.’ He laughed. ‘I sure wish I could get my hands on it. I’d like to have me a wolf skin for my bed over winter.’

‘Well,’ Ben murmured. ‘Maybe I can shoot you another for a blanket – or would you prefer a hat and slippers?’

Ned laughed, but then he shook his head. ‘No – they’ll move on. Wolves ain’t stupid.’

There was an uneasy silence in the air, broken only by the small, restless movements of the cattle and the sound of the un-shod Indian pony being ridden up out of the canyon. Ned listened, but he heard no other signs either of wolves or Indians.

‘We may as well get on home, Ned,’ Ben said finally. ‘There’s nothing else we can do here.’

******

Uncle Charlie was sitting in the heat of the fire when they got back, the wash tub emptied out and the blanket taken down. He was playing a slow tune on the accordion his pa had brought over from the old country and the music filled the house like something sweet and mournful all mingled together. Ned took his place in his chair and let the words of each verse drift out as Charlie played, until the song was finished and Charlie set the instrument down.

‘I guess you didn’t get that wolf?’ he asked.

Ned shook his head. ‘Nah. Ben would have, but an Indian got it first.’

‘Those Indians are pretty busy these days, ain’t they?’ Charlie commented, and Ned laughed.

‘I guess it’s their land too. I ain’t going to fight with them if they don’t want to fight with me. And there ain’t no wolf bothering our cattle now.’

Some of the ranchers hereabout liked to pick fights with the Indians and drive them out of their land and take shots at them for sport. Ned saw no sense in that. It was better to be friendly and to share what they could. It was no fun having things taken away from you, and he sure didn’t feel any need to keep going and taking things away from the Indians that had lived here since time began.

‘I guess so,’ Charlie said slowly. He didn’t take so easily to Indians on his land – but then, Ned had grown up alongside the Indians, and Charlie hadn’t.

‘Besides, Brave Bear’s a good man,’ Ned shrugged. He felt in his pocket for his pouch and papers and began to roll himself a cigarette. ‘He’s never done us any harm. Helped us out a few times, too.’

‘Things are changing,’ Ben murmured from his seat opposite Ned. He was rolling his own cigarette. ‘Let me light that for you, Ned,’ he said.

‘Thanks, Ben.’

‘I been hearing rumours that the Indians are going to be moved on pretty soon,’ Ben said as he lit the cigarette on the stove and handed it back to Ned.

Ned drew the hot, rich smoke into his lungs, and exhaled slowly.

‘Ah, they’re fine long as you don’t bother them,’ he said. ‘There’s no call for moving them on.’

‘It not up to us. It’s up to the good folks in Washington,’ Ben pointed out. ‘I was thinking of going into Fort Defiance on Monday, see if there’s a letter from Jane. Might hear more about the Indians then. You want to come, Ned?’

‘Sure,’ Ned grinned, straightening up in the chair. ‘Uncle Charlie won’t go less we’re scraping the bottom of the salt barrel or the coffee’s down to a handful of beans.’

‘Ah, I don’t like nattering with strangers like you do, Ned,’ Charlie said dismissively. ‘I’d rather be out on the range than hemmed in by town-folk.’

‘Maybe there’ll be a letter from Johnny,’ Ned said brightly, full of anticipation. ‘He said he’d write soon.’

‘Soon for Johnny’s never so soon as it is for other folk,’ Charlie said laconically. ‘He’ll write when he writes.’

‘You’d tell me if there was news, wouldn’t you, Uncle Charlie?’ Ned asked with a sudden upsurge of uncertainty. All of his news of Johnny was filtered through Charlie, and although Ned trusted him he also knew that Charlie was protective of him. Sometimes when he read the letters Ned heard the smallest of pauses, as if Charlie was figuring what to say and what to leave out.

‘Yeah, I’d tell you, Ned,’ Charlie said firmly. ‘He just ain’t bothered to pick up a pen – that’s all.’

‘I guess so,’ Ned nodded.

He stretched out his legs toward the fire, feeling the heat creeping into the cloth of his pants. It was quiet now outside. Even the coyotes had stopped their noise. The smell of tobacco and wood smoke wreathed through the air, and just for now the world felt perfect, even with Johnny gone.

Fort Defiance - Chapter 1

[A.N. Okay - I love this film so much I want to know more about the characters - especially, of course, the Peter Graves one :-) So I've started a novelisation. Disclaimer, for this and all subsequent chapters: The story of Fort Defiance, most of the characters and some of the dialogue contained herein belong to MGM. This is a work of fanfiction and no infringement is intended.]

The horse was nervous in the safety of the corral. It wasn’t the high, dusty land that bothered him, or the wide open skies, or the threat of the loose rocks and canyon sides. Peppy loved to gallop wherever he was given free rein. It was being penned up that bothered him, being hemmed in by rough planks and having to depend on the kindness of those around him for his existence. It was a feeling that Ned Tallon had understood for close on four years now.

The horse whinnied and protested, flinching away from Ned’s hand as he tried to calm him. He could feel the nervousness vibrating through his muscles and skin, everything coiled up and waiting to release. When the horse moved his head towards him his breath was hot and moist against Ned’s cheek, a welcome moment of heat in the chill October air, but the head moved close and then away again as if the horse were searching for some way of escape.

‘Easy there, Peppy. Easy.’

He kept his voice calm and steady. He had saddled plenty of horses and he could saddle Peppy just as long as he could keep him calm, and ride him too. Old Doggone was a good horse but there was something free and spirited in riding a horse like Peppy out in this rough country.

‘Easy,’ he said again as the horse jittered. ‘Easy, Peppy.’

A noise caught his attention. It caught Peppy’s attention too. The horse felt suddenly focussed and alert through the leather looped about its neck and through the muscle at its shoulder.

‘Uncle Charlie?’ Ned asked. He was expecting his uncle back from checking the cattle any time now.

‘Is your name Tallon?’

Ned turned in surprise at the unfamiliar voice. Strangers were not exactly a novelty these days, but still sometimes it was days or weeks between their passing. There was an edge to this man’s voice, but maybe he was tired out with the riding and wary of coming to strangers. It wasn’t in Ned’s nature to be suspicious and ornery just for the sake of it.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Ned Tallon.’

‘What’s your kinship to John Tallon?’ the man asked. He sounded like the men who came from the east – an Okie, maybe.

‘Well, I’m Johnny’s brother,’ Ned said, standing a little straighter. He was proud that he could claim such a kinship.

‘Where is Johnny?’

Ned put a hand on the horse’s neck again to steady it, feeling its tension jittering through the leather strap.

‘Who are ya?’ he asked the stranger curiously.

Folks who knew Johnny were always going to fall on one side or the other of the line. He was proud of Johnny for being able to turn his hand to most anything and talk his way out of everything else and draw his guns faster than a lightning strike when his fast-talk failed, but some people hated him for it.

‘Friend of Johnny’s,’ the man said economically. ‘Where is he?’

Ned relaxed inside. Having a friend of Johnny’s here was maybe almost as good as Johnny himself. It was too long since he had seen his brother or heard any word but through the few letters that Uncle Charlie read out in his slow, analytical way.

The horse seemed to sense his feelings and calmed a little too. Ned rubbed at his face, thinking of what he had last heard from Johnny. He seemed to spend most his time travelling, going by his infrequent correspondence.

‘I reckon he must be somewhere on his way here by now.’

‘From where?’

‘Don’t rightly know,’ he admitted. ‘I ain’t seen Johnny since before the war.’

‘Well, how do you know he’s coming here?’ the man asked, with that edge creeping back into his voice.

‘Got a letter from him a while back, ’bout the time the war ended. Said he’d be home by the month before Christmas.’

‘About four or five weeks then, you reckon?’

‘Yeah, ’bout.’ This was starting to feel like some kind of interrogation. Whoever this man was, he sure was keen to see his brother. ‘Where d’you know Johnny from, the army?’

‘Yeah.’

The man’s voice was full of something with that word. What was it? Doubt, regret? For all of his profession of friendship there was tension crackling in the air again. Peppy felt it too. Abruptly the horse snickered and whinnied, and then lurched up away from Ned’s hand.

The stranger’s voice was like a shot in the clear air.

‘Look out!’

A horse in panic was a powerful thing, all muscle and heat unleashed in mindless fury. It made the ground shiver as it bucked and came down hard, raising dust that filled the air and powdered the inside of his nose and mouth. Ned stumbled backwards and fell onto the ground.

‘Get out of there!’

Ned didn’t even try. Peppy would chase you if he saw you running, and Ned had never yet been able to master running blind. He could hear and feel the horse above him like a fury and knew if he raised himself up it would like as not knock his head off with its flailing hooves. He rolled onto his front, holding his hat down hard over his head as the only protection he had. It was hard to hear the stranger through Peppy’s whinnying and the clashing of his hooves, but somewhere behind it there was the whip of a rope through the air and the panicked lunges of the horse slowly subsided.

Ned pushed himself up off the ground and stood, tilting his hat back straight and steadying himself. His heart was hammering, the blood still surging through his veins after those long, fleeting moments of panic. The stranger came back to him and he had the same signs of shock in his voice that Ned was feeling.

‘Why didn’t you get out when you had the chance?’

‘I can’t see.’

It was always a bitter admission to make. Better to get through the banter with these wayfarers without them ever knowing, ever pitying.

There was that familiar pause, and the hand before his face. They thought he couldn’t sense them doing that, but he could feel it somehow, like a pressure close to his skin.

‘You mean you got no sight at all?’

He shook his head. There was a flicker sometimes, like the light moving behind a thick curtain, but that could not be called sight. It told him nothing more than whether it was night or day, and he could tell that from other things.

‘Well, what d’you want to try to saddle a horse like that for?’

The anger welled up in him quickly. It came sometimes like one of those geysers in Yellowstone, quick and steaming. His ma had always said there was no one this side of the Colorado as glad-hearted as Ned, but his anger was a sharp thing somewhere deep inside, and it came and went like a small storm.

‘Why not?’ he asked hotly. ‘I wasn’t always blind.’

He had a fleeting thought of dawns when the light cut sharp across the dusty land, the horses standing patient in the corral. The smell of leather and saddle oil and that glint of the sunlight on the horses’ flanks. Saddling up any one he chose and riding out into the hard, open country, with the air clear around him and the shadows long and solid on the ground…

It did no good to think of those things, but still, he let himself sometimes. There was nothing to compare with the beauty of dawn light on the red dust and on those cliffs that stood so straight and tall it looked like the Lord Himself had raised them up from the ground yesterday.

Hooves sounded on the dirt, and he turned. Likely it was Charlie this time, but it was busy these days with all the fortune-hunters passing through and you could never be sure who was going to turn up at the door, friend or foe. And then there was Fort Defiance. Johnny had left plenty behind in Fort Defiance to count as enemies.

‘Uncle Charlie?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’

The voice was familiar and reassuring, and he relaxed a few inches as his uncle came into the corral.

‘Look here, mister,’ Charlie began, the Irish pushing through into his voice as it always did when he was readying for a confrontation. ‘I ain’t hostile to veterans, but the best you can get here is feed and water for yer horse and a hunk of bacon for the trail, and don’t let any of our herd attach themselves to yer on the way out.’

Ned could picture him squaring up to the stranger, moving from foot to foot as if he were getting ready for a fight. His rifle was probably somewhere near about. Uncle Charlie wasn’t as quick as Johnny, but his aim had always been sure.

‘Uncle Charlie, this here’s a friend of Johnny’s,’ Ned said quickly, before his uncle’s hackles rose any further.

‘A friend of Johnny’s?’ Charlie asked, disbelief thick in his voice. ‘Mr – er – ?’

‘Ben,’ the stranger said. ‘Ben Shelby.’

‘Oh,’ Charlie said slowly. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked of Ned.

The dust must have been powdering over his coat and perhaps his hands and knees. A little river of nervous laughter welled up in him. Charlie would be sore at him for trying to take Peppy out alone.

‘I was saddling Peppy,’ he said, straightening his coat and his belt with his hands. ‘If it wasn’t for Shelby here he – mighta got me.’

As he expected, Uncle Charlie exploded. He was fond of Ned and took care of him the best he could, letting him do what he could and trying to protect him from the rest. That was why sometimes Ned waited until he was out from under Uncle Charlie’s eye to try what he thought he could do.

‘Didn’t I tell you never to try to saddle Peppy ’less I was around?’ Charlie scolded him hotly.

‘Ah, you was around,’ Ned said carelessly.

‘I know, but in the corral. You want to ride, take old Doggone.’ Charlie turned to Shelby and said with gratitude, ‘Thanks, mister.’

The sound of hooves again was a new relief, stopping Ned’s uncle from launching into what was sure to be a lecture on what was safe and what was not. Two horses it was this time, both cantering over the dusty ground to reach the corral. He heard one man dismount and he touched his hand to Shelby’s coat for guidance as they moved over towards the newcomer.

‘Howdy,’ the man called as he came into the corral.

‘Howdy, strangers,’ Uncle Charlie responded easily.

‘Who owns this place here?’

He was looking about as he said that, trying to figure which of the men to speak to. Coming into the corral like that, standing so close to Charlie, looking them all over – he wanted something. Ned could tell.

‘I do,’ Uncle Charlie said.

‘Well, we were just riding through and spotted some of your cattle out there.’

Charlie tried to change the tack of the conversation. There had been enough people through here already who casually mentioned the cattle before offering up deals to take them away.

‘Where ya heading for? California?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Gold fields, huh?’

‘That’s right, pop.’

‘Yeah, most of you veterans are. Well, you just keep heading that direction,’ Uncle Charlie said, still trying to move them on with his words. He liked it best when it was him and Ned here, and no one else. He didn’t have to watch anyone for trouble, then. ‘If you’re shoving off, Shelby, you can throw in with them.’

‘Like to buy some of your cattle,’ the man persisted. ‘Bout fifty head.’

‘What was you figuring on paying?’ Charlie asked, a dangerous softness entering his voice.

‘Fifty cents a head.’

‘Well! If you could get it for that price, be cheaper than stealing them, wouldn’t it?’ Charlie’s voice suddenly became hard again. ‘I tell you what you do, son. You just keep heading in that direction. Maybe you’ll find some idiot that’ll do that.’

‘Be nice, pop,’ the man snapped, moving forward with his words.

‘You heard him,’ Ned snapped, feeling the tension racking up. ‘There ain’t nothing for sale here.’

There was silence – and then the sudden noise of a boot against metal and Shelby snapped, ‘Lay down,’ in a short, urgent voice.

Ned threw himself to the ground, trusting Shelby on instinct. He had already saved his hide once today. As he dropped a shot rang out, exploding close to him. There was a pained grunt and thud as a body collapsed to the dirt. Shelby had fired – he was certain of that – but he couldn’t be sure if there had been another shot, or just the echo of Shelby’s from the cliffs about the house. Only one body had dropped, he was certain.

‘Well, I guess that’s all, innit boys?’ Shelby drawled calmly, and Ned got to his knees, hearing the other felled man clambering upright. He couldn’t be badly hurt, if he was standing.

A kind of silence hung in the air as the man left the corral and mounted his horse. The only sound then was the thudding of hooves as the men cantered away. Ned waited until they were a distance away before standing up. Guns unnerved him when he couldn’t see where they were pointing.

‘You all right, Ned?’ Charlie asked him, his voice subdued.

‘Yeah,’ he grunted as he straightened up. ‘I’m all right.’

‘The way you handled that gun, you must be a friend of Johnny’s,’ Charlie began in a buoyant tone.

Ned knew that without Shelby it would have been a fine line between their standing here now and lying on the dirt bleeding to death while their cattle were herded out by those strangers. When Johnny came home it would all be different, but there was little hope for one old man and one blind one to hold the ranch together for long. Johnny needed to come back. He needed to…

‘There never was much law here before the war. Even less now,’ Charlie mused as he recovered his rifle and dusted it off. ‘Men keep coming through, don’t know where they’re going or no notion of what they’re gonna do. Got so used to killing that killing’s the only thing they’re sure of.’

‘Ah, Johnny’d put a stop to that,’ Ned said with certainty. ‘When d’you see him last, Shelby – ?’

‘If you’re shoving off, Shelby,’ Charlie cut across him, ‘I reckon we can spare you a fresh horse.’

‘Kinda figured maybe I’d stick around and wait for Johnny,’ Shelby drawled.

‘And what did you figure on doing while you was waiting?’ Charlie asked him acerbically.

‘You could use a hand, couldn’t you?’

‘Well, if you wanna work for grub and scarcely no wages, that’s the only kind we can afford.’

That would have most people moving on without a moment’s hesitation, but Shelby said firmly, ‘I’ll take it.’

‘Where’s your horse?’

‘Tied to the hitch rack.’

‘All right. Come on,’ Charlie said to Ned, touching a hand to his shoulder. Ned took the offered arm and followed the men out of the corral over to the house.

‘I’ll fix some coffee while you take care of the horses,’ Ned offered, letting loose his hold on Charlie’s sleeve and stepping toward the house.

‘You take care of the stove, won’t you, Ned?’ Charlie called after him.

‘Yeah, I always do, Uncle Charlie.’

He trailed his hand along the rough wall of the house, feeling each stone catching and loosing beneath his fingers until they turned the sharp corner into the doorway. He ducked into the windless inside of the house, where there was no more dust in the air and the warmth of the stove was a beacon at the end of the room. He hung his jacket on the peg by the door and went to find the pitcher of water.

The stove was pouring heat into the room as he carefully put the kettle down on the hot plate, and the water spat its fury as a small spill touched the iron. Ned dropped a handful of coffee beans into the grinder and sat down in the rocking chair, turning the grinder handle and letting the scent of coffee rise about him as the water began to hiss its way toward boiling.

Ahh, Peter Graves...

Peter Graves - How do I begin?

I've been a crazed Star Trek fan since I was 15 - crazed enough to buy Mission Impossible just because Leonard Nimoy was in it. And then something happened. Peter Graves reeled me in, dammit, with his sky-blue eyes and his tallness and his lovely hair, and the way he smiles with the side of his mouth and licks his lips about once every five seconds. Do I need to mention his ability to play the clarinet and the saxophone, and sing, and apparently also play pool, and his left-handedness which for some reason I find hopelessly sexy, and his voice which I think I'd follow blindly wherever it called me, and his talent for leaping onto a bareback horse and riding it off across the Australian bush as if it were all in a day's work.

Sigh... He's even blinded me to Spock for the past few weeks, which is just unprecedented. But enough rambling for now. This is just the beginning...