Free The Wolf Tree by John Claude Bemis Page A

but a hand clamped over her mouth.
    “Don’t say nothing.”
    Jolie dropped the food as she was pulled down to her knees. Conker released her and put his finger to his lips to whisper, “Quiet. There’s men on the other bank.”
    Jolie heard the voices. She pulled the conch shell knife from her belt, as Conker pointed through the leaves.
    A man with a dense black beard on a horse splashed down into the creek, his eyes searching their side of the bank and a stagecoach gun squared across the horse’s shoulders.
    “Alston!” another voice called from the forest on the other side of the creek. “Come on.”
    “Something moving over here,” the man mumbled, squinting and swinging the gun around in Jolie and Conker’s direction.
    Two other men on horseback emerged on the far bank: one a filthy young man with longish blond hair and a pair of pistols at his belt, the other a neatly dressed black man with a tall, crisp hat on his head.
    The black man spoke. “We’ll have time for shooting dinner later. I want to get there tonight, even if we push on through dark.”
    Alston crossed a little deeper, the water splashing up onto his boots and pants legs.
    The black man drew a long-barreled pistol from his jacket and cocked the lever. The gun erupted. Alston ducked and a bullet whizzed through the leaves past Jolie and Conker. His horse reared in alarm. “You hear me or do I have to send John Hardy here in to fish your body out of that creek?”
    Alston grumbled, scratching at the nest on his face and turning back. “I’m hungry, Stacker.”
    “You’ll eat when I say. Let’s move.”
    Alston holstered the shotgun in the saddle and joined the other two on the bank with one last gaze back toward the far bank.
    Jolie and Conker lay crouched in the underbrush for a long time after the men had moved on up the creek. Jolie’s eyes were still narrowed as she watched the direction they had gone.
    “It’s okay,” Conker assured Jolie. “They’re bandits, but at least they’re headed the other direction.”
    “They are headed toward the well!”
    “How would they know about your well? Besides, it’s protected, right?”
    Jolie stood and offered her hand to Conker. “You are right. But let us travel a little farther before we stop for a meal.”

6
THE ELEMENTAL ROSE
    Q UIET DAYS RETURNED TO S HUCKSTACK . N EL’S eighty-first birthday celebration was past. The terror of the dying man from Kansas was fading into memory. Ray and Marisol had left with the Everetts, catching a ride on the
Ballyhoo
as far as St. Louis. And Sally was working with the other children of Shuckstack on the chores that encompassed their everyday routines.
    With Mattias off with Dmitry hunting for game in the mountains, Sally had recruited Rosemary to help plant the seeds that would bring up kale and onions and radishes and other early spring vegetables. The girls sang songs and talked about the party as they worked with the hoes.
    “What do you think of Noah’s scarecrow?” Oliver called as he came around the barn.
    Sally and Rosemary turned and leaned against the hoes.Oliver held the scarecrow’s sack head, while little Noah carried the post protruding from the feet. He had a proud tilt to his chin as he helped Oliver tilt the scarecrow upright.
    “Is that my blouse?” Rosemary asked.
    “It was in the pile of patches in Marisol’s room,” Noah said. “Thought you outgrowed it?”
    “That’s fine,” Rosemary said. “Looks better on your scarecrow anyway.”
    “He looks lovely,” Sally said, waving a hand to the mismatch of worn-out clothes covering the scarecrow’s lumpy body. “You know, I sat on my straw hat and now it’s got a hole in it. You can use it if you want.”
    “Where is it?” Noah said, letting go of the scarecrow and surprising Oliver as the tall straw man tumbled on top of him.
    Sally laughed. “Under my bed. Go get it.”
    Noah set off running, his brogans slapping on the wet mud where the last snow had