"Your land runs 1000 rods to the left of that big tree, then it follows the creek." " You keep this paper good, now." " You want to stay with us a spell?" "Sure be obliged." "Thank you." "Good luck." "Now you listen to me, you hear?" "You people from Louisiana, ain't you?" "Well, there's plenty of work for you back there:" "Chopping cotton, cutting cane." "Good jobs with people who know you." "You was born there." "You was raised there." "You don't belong out here." "You couldn't last the winter." "You ain't got no place to live." "No farm tools, no sheep." "So you're gonna turn around and go home." "Hey, you." "Come here." "Where's Buck?" "I'm looking for your wagonmaster, name of Buck." "No Buck here." "Don't know nobody named Buck." "He's the one that brought you here, isn't he?" "So where'd he go?" "Where'd you hire him, and where's he staying?" "He had a name something else." "Ain't no Buck!" "Where's Buck?" "He's leery, Floyd." "You hear me." "You're gonna go outside and wave to your old man." "If you holler anything, I'll kill everything around here that moves." "Everything." "Get them horses!" "Floyd!" "Get on!" "Well, how do?" "I need a horse." " I can see that." " I'll pay you $20." "That's a handsome price." "But I ain't in the horse-trading business, brother." "I got to travel fast." "I sure do wish I could be of service to you, but..." " I don't want to have to take him." " Who says you have to?" "Hold it." "You got any objection if I get into my drawers?" "Or do you need them too?" "Just getting my boots, brother." "Just getting my boots." " You're eating my rabbit." " What you doing out here?" "Getting into my drawers." " You gonna take my horse?" " Drop your drawers." " Wait a damn minute!" " Drop them!" "Damn!" "You forgot your coffee!" "There's two mountains pointing up to the sky." "Beyond that, there's a valley." "Green with cool water." "I can see it." "It's there." "Call it Colorado." "But don't turn back." "That valley is going to be our home." "We're going on." "All right." "Nightriders hit Pappy Whitlock and his people here two weeks ago." "Then they burned a wagon train meeting me at Sulphur Flats." "Right here." "Then they got the Deaf Smith County people at the water hole this side of Clay Town." "They're heading this way." "You've got to move out tonight." "Morning, sir." "Could you get me a bottle of whiskey out here?" "You could go inside." "My man, good liquor is best enjoyed under the open firmament." "Anyways, my heart yearneth for the dusky company of my own emancipated people." "Where are the coloured folks?" "Where do you live?" "With my mammy and the rest at Mr. Logan's place, 10 miles out." " Do all the coloured live there?" " No, sir." "We just passing through." "We made a crop for Mr. Logan." "Boy!" "The whiskey, son." "Forty cents a bottle, cash money." "Oh, here." "Where'd you get that horse?" "It was delivered to me in the wilderness." "Where's the man who rode that horse?" " I don't know." " What do you mean, you don't know?" "A man cometh and a man goeth." "In this wilderness, who shall know but the Lord?" "Don't play with me." "There's nobody back there, Uncle Beau." "Where's Buck?" " Is that his name?" "Buck?" " Where is he?" "Mister, I'm looking for that miserable no-good, low-down sinner myself." "And when I find him, I'll smite him hip and thigh." " How come you got his horse?" " On account of he stole mine." " And left me out there to perish." " He's lying." "As God is my judge!" "I swear on this Bible!" "What you doing out here?" "Wandering as the Lord wills, spreading the word of the gospel." "I'm doing like you gentlemen, I'm fighting sin." "You hear me." "We want this Buck." "We want him bad." "You see him, you tell us where he is there's $500 for you." "Can you remember that?" "Five hundred dollars?" "That's easy to remember." "I don't suppose for that kind of money you particular whether he dead or alive?" "Either." "And if in my search for this sinner, I finds him tell me, where do I finds you gentlemens?" "Copper Springs." "Ask for Deshay." "Deshay." "Mr. Deshay." "So you a wandering preacher ministering to your people out here?" "Yes, sir." "Though they's few and far between, the need for salvation is everywhere." "Best thing you can tell them:" "Turn around and go back home." ""Turn around and go back home."" "Young man!" " Pleasant afternoon." " Yes, sir." "You walk home every day?" "No, sir." "I sleeps under the bar." "They finished with the crop for Mr. Logan, and they going to have pig and chicken." "That a fact?" "Who's your preacher?" " We ain't got none." " Then who gives thanks to the Lord?" "This old Uncle Cudjo." "He's more conjurer than preacher." "That a fact?" "May I prevail upon you to share my beast of burden?" "The horse, son." "Who's that with Toby?" "Blessings in his name." "I'm the Reverend Willis Oakes Rutherford of the Holiness Persuasion Church." " Where you from, reverend?" " Sunflower County, Mississippi mostly." "And whereabouts you heading?" "In the vastness of God's earth, every corner challenges my ministry." "I'm headed there, and I could be there tomorrow." " Where you from, brother?" " We all from St. Ann Parish, Louisiana." "My name is Kingston." "Pleased to meet you, Brother Kingston." "Well, well." "Sister." "Reverend." " You've come a long way." "A long way." " And we going further yet." "I do admire to meet a good Christian congregation." "Yes." "And if you'll permit me..." "After a bit of supper I would like to offer a prayer for your safe guidance here beneath the wonders of God's creation." "How'd you find me?" "I asked your horse." "It's all right." "It ain't nothing." " What's on your mind?" " My horse, amongst other things." "You'll get your horse." "What are you doing round here?" "Just spreading the sweet word of the gospel." "You a preacher?" "The Reverend Willis Oakes Rutherford of the high and low order of the Holiness Persuasion Church." "You can take supper here, reverend." "That'll square for the rabbit." "You can rest a while, and then you move on." "Buck." "Fifty, 60, 70, 80, 90." "Four hundred, 410, 420." "Four mules, a litter of pigs." "Right on the barrelhead, fair and square." "That's right." "If you folks want to stay and plant another crop, we'll make the same deal." "No." "Expect we better be moving on." "But much obliged to you anyway, sir." "All right." "Which way you riding, Preacher?" "I've not exactly settled my mind yet." "You've got three possibilities:" "North, south or east." " What happened to west?" " We going west." "There's a lot of room out there." "It's not elbow to elbow out that way." "You've got your horse." "Don't press your luck." "Tell me something." "What you got against me?" "Nothing." "But it's a fool farmer let the weasel travel in the chicken coop." "I know an Eastman when I see one." "These people ain't for picking." "I told you, I ain't no Eastman." "I'm a preacher." "On the other hand, you could say it's a might stuffy out there to the west." "Amen, brother." "Fivefold, amen." " Double your watch tonight, hear?" " I'll do that." "I'll be back tomorrow by sundown." " You can find water holes on the map?" " Yeah, they're plain." "Indians!" "Buck, Indians!" " What are you doing?" " Get off your horse." " Have you looked behind you recent?" " Get down!" "Don't tell me you took to praying." "Preacher, you do as I say." "Hunker down and keep your mouth shut." "Sweet Jesus." "Lord of mercy, look at that." "If you don't be quiet, you're gonna be dead." " Do you have good health?" " Yes." " Things go well?" " Some things, some days." "What do you want, sergeant?" "I got a wagon train coming through." "Forty head of people, not including children." " What kind of people?" " Black." "I want them to get through safe to the pass north on the west bank of the Pecos." "You have five days to pass." "They got sorry horses and worn-out mules." "Five days." "All right." "Ten dollars each one." "I was thinking on $6." "Eight." "They've gotta live through the winter, and they got children." "They ain't worth 8." "Eight." "Children nothing." "They gonna need food." "I can get by if I kill three buffalo." "One buffalo." "My husband say two buffalo, if you must." "Thank you." "Brother, you a man of many parts." "How do you know how to deal with Indians?" " What were you tracking me for?" " Me?" "Fact is, I got lost." "I praise God I found your tracks, or I might've perished out here like a heathen." "Toby?" "God!" "Come on, now." "Yeah, that's good." "Okay." "It's all right now." "Get me some water." "And the money's gone." "All $1400." "How we gonna live through the winter?" "Where we gonna get food, seed?" "We done been turned around." "Penny." "Suzanna." "Tom DeCooper." "Joseph." "Rachel and Toby." "All dead." "But the valley is there." "Green and wild." "It's there." "We gonna go on." "You ain't got no supplies, no food." "You can't make it through the winter." "Then we dies in the snow." "No, you ain't gonna die in the snow." "The old man said we're going on?" "Then by God, we're going." "But we ain't got the money to pay what we owe you." "Don't matter." "You paid for safe passage through the Indian land." "You'll cross north of the salt wells." "You only got five days to pass." "I'll find you somewhere north of the Pecos." "Ain't nothing left here for you, Eastman." "You can come or go." "It don't matter." "You ever hear of Copper Springs?" "Ten riders, boss named Deshay." "How you know?" "They catched me with your horse at Frenchman's Ford." "They asked a lot of mean questions." "Now I know why." " Copper Springs?" " I heard them say they holes up there." "And I remember every one of them faces." " Deshay, hold up a minute." " Ollie, how are things?" "I wanna talk to you." "Delighted." "Floyd, get me a bourbon." "You ran into a couple of wagon trains out yonder." "We just had a little talk, is all." "You listen to me, Deshay." "Nobody's gonna be gunned downed or burned out here as long as I have a say." "That goes for the coloureds too." "Ollie, I just rode in to pick up my mail and spend a little time at Esther's." "Never mind." "I'm telling you." "Those folks can come and go as they like." "That's the law." "Sheriff, you got any official complaint against me and my boys?" "We are bona fide labour recruiters employed by the Delta Planters Association in Louisiana." "There's a whole way of life back there." "It's going down the drain." "We don't aim to see it frittered away." "I don't care who you're working for." "This ain't Louisiana." "You walk soft in my town." "That's them." "Deshay is the one with the hat on." "There's only eight of them in there." "The other two are in the saloon." "You studying on taking eight in one gulp?" "Five." "Three of them busy upstairs." "Yeah, but they ain't tied down forever." "I just gotta catch them off guard." "Let me talk to them." "You'll catch them off guard." "Blessings on this house!" "I am Rev. Willis Oakes Rutherford of the Holiness Persuasion Church." "Get the hell out of here!" "You do recollect we've encountered each other previous?" " It's that old preacher." " Yes!" "I run a selective house." "This ain't New Orleans." "Shut up." " What you want?" " Well, sir..." "You do recall there was an old silly you was interested in by the name of Buck?" "You know where he is?" "They have eyes that see not until they are open!" "Don't trifle with me." "I ain't trifling, sir." "But I do seem to remember that there was a sum mentioned." " Five hundred dollars to be exact." " Where is he?" "Yea, though he flees as a shadow, yet will I lead thee to him but for $500." "Look, I ain't gonna bargain with you." "You tell us where he's at, and maybe we'll talk about money." "Get him out of my house!" "I've got a reputation." "Thy suffers that woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess to teach and to seduce my servants into fornication." "Revelation, Chapter 2." "What the hell is he doing here?" "He's a-preaching." "That's right, brother, I'm preaching." "And my text is fornication." "He that committeth fornication, sinneth against his own body." "Corinthians 1." "That's you, Esther!" "That's you, Esther!" "Fornication!" "That's the way to ruination." "Fornication." "That's the way they's taught the nation." "You keep up that fornicating, I'll take you to ruination." "Rich man marries, him abate." "Poor man, he just fornicates." "Yes, sir." "He's coming, and he's waiting." "He's got no time for fornicating." "I'm Buck." "I put my faith in the Good Book." "Ain't no more than $100 here." "I got about 30." "Where's the money?" "Where is it?" " The money!" " They're coming, Buck!" "I'm talking to you." "Where is it?" "Come on, Buck, we've got to move!" "Come on, Preacher." "Stick to thine, Jesus." "Will you hurry up?" "Are they gonna track us through four miles of sheep dip?" "They don't have to." "They know where I've got to go." "They've been there before." "$157!" "They drunk up and screwed away more than $1000!" "That's a lot of drinking." "And they didn't even have my 500." "What 500?" "What they was gonna pay me to deliver you." "Well, I'm here, ain't I?" "And they's dead, ain't they?" "Yeah." "Buck." "Jesus!" "You all right?" "I ran to Anne Pennybegger's." "She took me in." " They didn't hurt you none?" " Cuff me on the head some." "That's all." "They hit the St. Ann Parish people." "They killed some, and they burned them out." " You better rest." " I ain't got no time." " I didn't know if you was alive or dead." " I couldn't come back." " They could've been waiting." " I know." "Horses are in the thicket." "That's Ruth." "Ruth, this is Preacher." "Your servant, ma'am." "Y'all sit down." "I'll get you something to eat." "Where can we get horses around here?" "Elias Pennybegger has horses." "Don't worry." "We can trust them." "She's my friend." " How many horses?" " At least one for you." "They've been here once." "They can come again." " They still after you?" " Not all of them." "Some dead." "Eight to be exact." "We going north like we said, to Canada?" "No, we can't." "Not yet." "Well, why not?" "Where we going?" "You done what you could in this country, and it all end on fire, in the grave." "I ain't gonna live in this land no more." "You hear me?" "The war ain't changed nothing." "It's like a poison soaked into the ground." "They ain't gonna give us nothing." "Not no 40 acres and no mule." "And not freedom, neither." "It's like a poison soaked into the ground." "The time is going." "I don't wanna spend my life washing other people's clothes." "I wanna live somewhere with you, like natural people." "I wanna have your children and raise them someplace where there ain't even a shadow of slavery." "I think about sewing, making pretty things for my family while my hands are still steady." "I wanna go someplace with you." "I wanna have your children." "But I won't have them here." "I am going somewhere." "They won't have us in Canada I'll go to the edge of the ocean, and I'll walks on away from here." "St. Ann Parish folk..." "They're heading out there, and they ain't got no food, no seed." "And they starve when the winter come." "Buck, honey, you just one man." "But I gave my word." "Eat your food." "I'll go see about the horses." "What you studying, honey?" "Troubled about all that killing." "I killed men before." "I just don't know which way to turn no more." "I think they beat me." "Drivers couldn't do it in slavery days, nor the rebels in the war, but now I think they beat me." "You're just tired." "When it's dark, looks like the heart just gets to hurting sometimes." "You gonna keep on fighting best way you can." "Looks like there just ain't no other way." "I love you, Buck." "Where'd you get them cannons?" "Gunsmith in Fort Leavenworth." "Where'd you get that funny Bible?" "Well, that my inheritance." "Before the war, when I was a boy my mama and me was sold to a travelling preacher." "I'd fetch for him and take up collection." "And when he got drunk, I'd haul him off to bed." "He travelled in little towns, preaching sin and hellfire." "When he got them gals full of the Holy Spirit when they're ready to repent, he'd jerk them." "Between wiles he'd take my mama to bed." "And I'd sleep out with the horse." "By and by, about 16, he sent me to town for a jug of whiskey." "When I come back, my mama was gone." "He sold her for a couple hundred dollars." "He got drunk that night, and he said:" ""Boy, put me to bed."" "So I lead that man into the tanning yard by the lime pit." "And I put him to bed right there." "I hold him under with a cedar fence rail." "There was no next of kin." "So I got the cart, the horse..." "Preacher clothes and this funny Bible." "Where are you gonna find that money?" "I don't know." "If it was me, I'd look for money where money's kept." "Like in a bank or an Express office." "We gonna walk in the bank and just take it?" "That's right, brother." "And I know just the place." "Where they ain't got no sheriff, no deputy and hardly any men because they out in the countryside chasing two poor field hands." "You're crazy." "Yeah." "What you want, boy?" "You make a sound, and you're a dead man." "We ain't got all day." "What's in the box?" " What's in the box?" " U.S. Government shipment." "Shipment of what?" "What?" "Gold." "Gold." "Sweet God Almighty, that's gold." " Where's the paper money?" " There isn't any." "I sent the cash deposit over to the bank." "Will you get off that?" "!" " That's a whole mess of gold." " You can't carry it on a horse." "Where's the key?" "There's got to be a key!" "It's in Texas." "They always send the key separate." "He's telling the truth, but there's got to be paper money." "I'm gonna ask you for the last time." "Where is that paper money?" "I told you." "At the bank." "I sent it over there." " What do you think?" " What the hell?" "Otherwise, we done wasted the whole morning." "Posse's riding by." "Sheriff's with them." "Well, that's it." " Let's get out of here." " Preacher." " I'm going to that bank." " It's across from the sheriff's office!" "There's an awful lot of money down there." "Otherwise, we done wasted the whole morning." "You're the one that's crazy." " Morning, Miss Esther." "How you feeling?" " Some better, thanks." "Thing like that's not easy to forget, but life goes on." " My money good enough for you?" " Money's money." "Hard-earned too." "Wages of sin, just so's I get 3 percent on them." "I got stuck with Ohio bank notes." "Are they any good?" "That depends on the solvency of that particular..." "Hold up!" "Hold up!" "They're gonna get away!" "Yeah." "You shoot that rifle, boy, and we're dead!" "You gonna quit?" " Remember that wagon train you shot up?" " Yeah." "They never did come back." "I wonder if they're joining up with them." " He say he will not fight them for you." " I understand." "Tell him I just need help to get through to my people." "They need supplies, and I can pay." "Dried meat, as much as he can sell them." "Horses, powder and shot." "Five horses." "No powder." "No guns." "Ask him again." "Tell him we're all brothers." "He will not give you guns." "They come too hard." " Food." " Dried meat." "Flour." "Corn." "Do not ask for more." "He stopped that posse because he gave his word to let you through safe." " He will do no more." " Ask him again." "Tell him they looking for their own land, and they'll have to fight for it because they can't live back there, no way." "Before the yellow hair, my father, my grandfather hunted buffalo raised pony and took women on the land where Fox River crosses the grassland at Place of Skull." "Now Copper Spring, Fort Sheridan." "Now we are here with our backs against Snow Mountain." "And yellow hair send wagon, soldier and speaking wire." "Tomorrow we will be like ghosts." "Like the spirits that come in dreams with no earth to walk on." "But we will fight." "We will fight ten tens of years, and our children's children will fight." "We need our guns, bullets and powder for our own fight." "Tell him his enemies are our enemies." "He say you black people fought with that enemy against our people." "I ain't in the Army no more." "He knows, Buck." "No guns." "No bullets." "Eighteen hundred dollars." "That's your share." "For what we have just received, we give thanks." "In Jesus' name, amen." "I'm going back East to Illinois, and I'm gonna buy me a tent." "I'm gonna have the biggest revival meeting since King Solomon preached to his wives and concubines." "Amen." "And you, brother, you got a good woman there." "Take that money and buy yourself a living and do like she want." "Go to Canada." "All right, brother." "One question." "How do I get out of here?" "To Illinois?" "One of two ways." "Go on back the way we come and on across Kansas." " There's a posse with a trigger hitch." " Yes, there is." "What's the other way?" "Keep on west, across the Pecos to where I'm going." "Into the mountains and north along the Idaho Territory then back by the Canadian border." " How long that take?" " All winter." "All winter." "What's my chances of sneaking past the posse?" "Not much." "When I caught you eating my rabbit I should've got me a rock, busted you upside your head and left you for dead." "Scout come in." "That posse did not go back." " They're tracking the wagon train." " How close are they to it?" "One-day ride from the big river." "How long will it take us to catch them, riding straight through?" "Maybe two days." "He will give you guides to take you through the high pass." "Remember, they will not fight for you." "I know." "Looks like the back door's open." "Figure I can skate on through and take my chances." "You done walked more than half the journey with the St. Ann Parish folk." "That's all a normal man can do." "What do you wanna die for them for?" "What happened?" "Somebody close the back door?" "If they're gonna join up with them, they'll do it before sundown." "Let's finish off that wagon train." "They ain't broke any laws I know about." " We gotta turn them around." " What you got against them folks?" "You on their side?" "You soft in the head for them?" " They killed Uncle Beau, robbed the bank." " They didn't!" "Buck and that preacher did." "And that's all we're after." "You don't understand." "I gotta turn them field hands around." "If we leave them fields go fallow now, we done lost it all." "We gotta keep it going like it was, the way they rightfully belong." "You got 16 white men down there." "Sixteen." "You just give me half of them, and I'll finish that job." "As far as I'm concerned, that wagon train can go anywhere it likes!" "And you make one move against those people I'll take you to Copper Springs with you tied under the belly of your horse." " Where's Ollie?" " He went to cover the pass." "He'll say, "boo," if that Buck comes through." " What does he want us to do?" " Take the wagon train." "Well, if that's what he said..." "Let's go!" " You gonna have to take it to them." " What you gonna do?" " We can draw them south." " But..." "You go with the wagon train." "I'll come to you later." "Get up on top." "Go around in front of them and cut them off!" "I run out."