of brush & most particular the overhanging banks of rivers where they lie in shelter when the sun beats down from the heavens. But there is no counting for the work of the Devil no more than the ways of Man & that snake had in its mind to cross in front of the whore wagon’s mules & cross he did sending them mules into a holy terror I tell you bucking & raring up in their traces & raising panic in more than 1 of our mounts nearby as well though my horse at that time was as steady & stupid as myself & she did only raise her head & wonder at the carry on around her.
My brother’s gelding though did buck & shy a bit & let out a whinny but Tom hauled him in & spoke his muddle of imprecations & threats at him in the Gaelic & English (which he did sometimes use telling me that not all American horses could understand the Irish). Tom pulled his horse out of the column to settle him more & as he did he saw at the same time that snake make its blessed way into the shade of a tipped boulder while all hell let rip around them because the whore wagon’s bucking mules chose just that moment to bolt all 4 of them together like the finest team of prancers pulling a Princess’s barouche jerking the wagon up out of the wheel ruts in the trail with a shot & throwing back onto his arse their driver & heading at a clatter for the banks of the spring swollen Platte.
Now if I tell you the drop off the bank into that rushing torrent of a river is 10 ft. at least I tell you no word of a lie. It is high enough for the drop alone to kill man & horse never mind the rushing water for to drown them & remember this was 4 mules & a ton weight of wagon whores & driver thundering madlike over rock & brush across 200 yds. (no more than that) of sage & scrub racing toward that drop of a riverbank & pure death with goods & sundries spilling out the back while the whores screamed from inside the poor creatures clinging on for their dear lives. I tell you there was foam at the mules’ mouths & eyeballs bulging behind their blinders.
200 yds. in seconds they did hurtle towards death Sutler Kinney’s whores while 12 horse soldiers including myself settled spooked mounts & watched on like fools. Only 1 of us thought to dig his spurs in & reef his reins towards the river & set off after the runaway wagon. Only 1 of us & that was Tom true as God his horse skipping away from the trail its tail up for the chase. It was a sight to see that gelding’s barrelling hind pumping as it rushed over the scrub for the wagon.
And that wagon to my eye was doomed I tell you Sir & heading straight for the river. But did I act? I did not but only looked on as 1 of the poor whores leapt from the back of the wagon to bounce & tumble off the hard ground her neck snapping in the fall God Rest Her In Heaven & causing Tom to veer his speeding mount around her bouncing body to close on that mule team while the other whores & their skinner was thrown about in the back of the wagon under canvas like dice in a cup I tell you as 100 yds. became 50 then 40 then 30.
Says one of the boys beside me, “He won’t G___ D_____ catch em no way Johnnycakes.”
“He G___ D____ will,” says another.
I could not answer as my heart stuck in my throat & I watched as Tom closed his mount on the foaming blind rushing mules pressing his horse close in til it was crowding the beasts pushing them with its side away ever so little bit away from their course towards the river. I watched as Tom did reach out & grab fast to the lead mule’s ear guiding his mount away now still at speed though slowing with that mule’s ear tight in his fist so that she followed & the team followed her & they all turned together to bounce along in line with the edge of the bank instead of off it til he did finally