by Zane Grey
They came on, horses walking. They were in no hurry. They talked unreservedly, and one of them let out a hard coarse laugh. They wore buckskin and were armed to the teeth. Not in all Clint’s experience had he seen as hard, forbidding, and relentless-looking an outfit. They represented the epitome of wild frontier life of the period. Their indistinct voices grew clearer and finally distinct: “ — hyar ahaid of time,” said one of them.
“Wal, Charley aimed to beat the Comanches heah.”
Blackstone’s deep voice, carrying well, smote Clint’s heart with a deadlier import than that indicated by his presence.
“How’nil did they all git wise to this rich caravan?”
“Aull’s been gatherin’ ten thousand mink, otter, an’ fox hides fer Buff Belmet’s caravan.”
“Haw! Haw!”
“Wal, you might haw on the other side of your jaw if them Comanches don’t get heah, too.”
“What’s two hundred miles to them ridin’ louses?”
When the foremost horses reached to within twenty feet of Clint he rose swiftly, rifle extended.
“HANDS UP!”
The cavalcade froze as one man. The hoofs of the horses beat a nervous tattoo and likewise stilled. Blackstone’s face turned a dirty white under his beard.
“Hands up! Hands up!” roared down the glade as the freighters, like grim specters, rose out of the green.
An instant of paralyzed realization — then the hands of every man shot up. It was an instinct. The complete surprise blocked reason. Suggestion was all-powerful.
Clint seized upon the moment with the passion of genius.
“Andy, grab all guns on your side,” yelled Clint. “Sam, you on your side!”
The two freighters leaped into action, throwing rifles and revolvers to the ground. The stiff upheld hands began to quiver and jerk. Blackstone drew his halfway down.
Clint took two swift strides.
“Up with them!... I’ll bore you!”
For an instant Blackstone’s life hung on a quivering balance. His big pale eyes showed sudden fury. His rifle and revolver, jerked from him, lay on the sand. He had decided too late. Black hell then burned in his gaze.
“Keep ’em up!... Don’t move! — Damn you, stiff thar! — If you wink I’ll blow your guts out!” So the freighters flashed swift and terrible menace, and many of their rifle barrels were thrust close to the bandits.
“GET DOWN!” bellowed Clint, and he ran up close to Blackstone, prodded him in the abdomen with his cocked rifle. The miracle was that the violence did not discharge the weapon. The bandit leader slid out of the saddle mighty quickly.
Others of his band followed suit. Some, too slow to suit the intense freighters, were summarily jerked out of the saddle. One, clubbed on the head, fell off.
“Punch ’em in line!” yelled Clint, and he gave Blackstone another prod. “Line ’em up!... Turn your back, damn you!... Now, men, ropes. Two of you cut ropes. Off the saddles! Quick!”
Twenty grim assailants with cocked rifles pushed and beat the band into a line, then stood guard behind them. The other five freighters, inspired and savage, tied the bandits hand and foot, and toppled them to the ground.
“Hey, Belmet, what’s your game?” demanded Blackstone, harshly.
“Looks like Fort Larned for you, Blackstone.”
Muttered curses rumbled from the prostrate bandits. They were just recovering from a stunning surprise.
“Fort Larned like hell!” burst out a sweaty freighter.
BOOM!
The heavy report of the cannon tore through the cottonwoods. It rolled, and banged back in echo.
“Thar she goes!” yelled a lusty-lunged freighter. “Boys, come—”
A thundering crash of rifles drowned his voice. The forest resounded. Then the wild, hoarse yells of fighting men. Crash! A shrill strange note pierced it. Yells and cries mingled. Crash!
Clint snatched up his rifle and led his men in mad flight down the trail, into the willows. Crash! The din became tremendous as he neared the scene of conflict. He shouted to his followers to keep to the right, so they would come up behind Hatcher’s men. Crash! They understood, though they could hardly have heard. In a few moments Clint reached the trail that Hatcher had made and he headed up it. The rifle-fire now had become continuous, yet above it rose the thudding of many hoofs, the crashing of many horses through the brush, the hoarse bawls of furious men, the piercing shriek of Indians.
Clint felt the zip of a bullet. And he dropped down to crawl. His men were quick to imitate.
BOOM!
Clint yelled with his men. That was music to his ears. The fusillade of slugs tore through the cottonwood grove. Smoke rose in thick clouds ahead. On the far side the heavy firing materially lessened, but to Clint’s right it increased. He was working too far to the left. He ran the risk of leading his men in front of Hatcher’s fire. A trampling and shrieking of frightened and wounded horses filled the valley with hideous noise. They were close now. Clint sheered to the right, crawling fast, a rifle in each hand. The labor was prodigious. Freighters were not used to running or crawling in such strenuous action as this.
BOOM!
Benny Ireland was keeping to his pace — a cannon shot every two minutes. The roar appeared hollow and thunderous. A blast of iron went tearing through the trees and brush.
Then Clint found himself up to Hatcher’s men, on their knees, behind trees, shooting, yelling, crawling forward. Sweat so filled and smarted his eyes that he could not see any Indians. He lay flat, to release his guns and wipe his hot eyes. Presently he got up on one knee. His men came crowding along. The uproar perceptibly diminished. Firing ceased close at hand, grew desultory up the draw and stopped. Hoarse shouts took the place of prolonged yells. The men began to stand up, their hair bristling, their actions daring, nervous, eager, like those of bloodhounds about to be let loose on a trail.
“Hold on!” yelled Hatcher from somewhere. “Wait till that smoke lifts.”
Rapidly the smoke wafted aloft and floated away. Horses lay everywhere in the grove, some of them kicking. The ground under the cottonwoods resembled a battlefield. Indians were down everywhere in rows, piles, groups, and singles and many were alive.
“Did Buff Belmet get here?” shouted Hatcher, approaching.
“Reckon we did, but too late to help you,” replied Clint.
“Hell! we didn’t need help. Reckon you went up the other fork an’, hearin’ us shoot, you run back?”
“Yes. But before that we held up Blackstone’s outfit.”
“Holy jumpin’ cats!” shouted Hatcher. “We didn’t hear no shootin’.”
“Jim, we never shot once. Stevens saw Blackstone’s gang from the rock. We hurried up an’ ambushed the trail. Got Blackstone an’ seventeen men. All hawg-tied!”
“Wal, by all thet’s wonderful!” ejaculated Hatcher. “Buff, send some men over to guard them bandits. You can never tell what’ll happen.”
“Andy, take some men an’ hurry over there where we left Blackstone,” ordered Clint.
Andy yelled, and it appeared that the whole twenty-five men who had executed the coup under Clint’s management rushed away through the woods.
“Guard that bunch till I come,” shouted Clint after them. But if Andy heard he gave no sign of it.
“Buff, you’ll be surprised an’ worried. These Injuns are Comanches!”
“Comanches!” echoed Clint.
“Shore are. Look for yourself.... Buff, you never seen anythin’ like this. Must have been three hundred of them. As you figgered, they rode into this open grove. An’ they was bunched pretty thick when Benny let go the cannon. My Gawd!... I’ll bet he put a hundred reddys an’ hosses down. Then we blazed away, an’ it was like mowin’ hay. We was all hid an’ they didn’t know where to turn. Every last man of us got in seven shots before Ben got loaded again. Then, bang! Thet settled it. Hell had busted loose, an’ of all the mix-ups I ever seen thet one beat them a thousand times. Th
em thet wasn’t hit thought only of escape. An’ they run over each other tryin’ to get into thet trail. All the time we was pourin’ lead into them. An’ a big bunch got stuck, tangled, stampeded. Then Ireland let go again!... Buff, I’ll bet we killed more’n half of them.”
“Comanches! — But we were to expect Kiowas?”
“Thet’s what I’m aworryin’ aboot. Mebbe we ought to expect them yet.”
“Listen!” suddenly exclaimed Clint. “As Blackstone came ridin’ up I heard one of his men say, ‘hyar ahead of time.’... An’ then Blackstone said, ‘Wal, Charley aimed to beat the Comanches here.’”
“My Gawd! mebbe we ain’t so lucky yet! We better be aboot our bizness.... Hey, men, send all these crippled Injuns to the Happy Huntin’-grounds. An’ some of you haul the cannon back across the river.” Dozens of freighters ran forward, swinging their heavy rifles by the barrels and whooping. Ireland with his attendants took up the ropes of the cannon.
“Come on, Buff,” said Hatcher. “We might find some Kiowas, an’ if we do we’ll shore look fer Charley Bent.”
That stirred a strong urge in Clint, stronger than the repugnance he felt. He became witness to a harrowing scene, dwarfing all others of like nature to which he had been party. All through the glade lay Comanches. Every third or fourth one showed signs of life.
“Smash ’em all,” yelled a freighter, clubbing his rifle.
“Haw! Haw! — Zam!”
“Playin’ possum, huh? Take thet!”
Dull thuds and the cracking of skulls resounded through the grove. And every freighter appeared sinisterly mirthful over the gruesome task. Comanches, of all the savages of the Great Plains, they hated and feared most.
“Look fer Kiowas,” shouted Hatcher. “An’ fer a white man painted.”
“Put these horses out of misery,” ordered Clint.
“Yes, an’ make a count while you’re doin’ it,” added Hatcher.
Crippled horses had to be shot. This was a feature of the finishing process that did not appeal to the freighters. Some of them shirked it, but there were others who grinned while cracking an Indian on the skull, and straightway afterward ending the tortures of a mustang. The Comanches, being the finest horsemen of the plains, owned the best horses.
“Ketch all sound ponies,” ordered Hatcher.
Few, however, of those still in the grove were unwounded, and they could not be caught. Clint gazed at so many dark bronze visages without recognizing a Kiowa that at length he gave up. Lee Murdock had not led this band of Indians against the caravan. Therefore he was to be expected. But not from south or east of Point of Rocks! The fleeing Comanches would betray that the caravan had arrived ahead of schedule and had taken the initiative. Chances of Kiowas coming from the north or west along the road were possible, but remote.
In the space of a couple of acres the freighters counted over a hundred dead Comanches. This carnage had been the result of Ireland’s first cannon charge, and the rifle-fire following at once. Hardly any force could have rallied after such a frightful first blow. Perhaps many horses received injuries here, yet were able to get away. Several dozen carcasses, however, lay in this zone. Six pounds of iron slugs made almost a bucketful of bullets, and the heavy charge of powder had propelled them terrifically. Trees and brush were riddled. And the savages who had fallen before this murderous instrument presented ghastly spectacles.
Mangled bodies and blood reddened almost the whole of that space.
Hatcher met Clint here.
“Shore was a mess.... Reckon we’d better clear out an’ get back to the wagons.”
“Yes. But we’ve Blackstone’s outfit over here.”
“Wal, if I know freighters, Blackstone an’ his gang won’t worry you much by now.”
Clint made no reply, but hurried away by a short cut across the flat. He heard Hatcher call his men to follow. When Clint reached the other trail he saw where the freighters had left the cannon on the bank, but had disappeared themselves. Whereupon Clint took to a trot and soon rounded a green corner to reach the long glade. A horrible sight met his gaze. From all the lower branches of the cottonwoods there hung one or two bandits. Some appeared like limp sacks, others were in convulsions, and a few, evidently just hanged, were going through appalling contortions. All this Clint took in at a glance, and at the same instant he heard the loud voices of his men, at his left.
“Andy, cut his feet loose, too, so we can see him kick like the rest of his dirty outfit,” called a hoarse voice, in callous mirth.
Then Clint saw Blackstone standing under a spreading cottonwood, with a rope round his neck. It reached up over a branch and down into the outstretched hands of a dozen hard-faced freighters. They had reserved Blackstone for the last.
Clint yelled and rushed over.
“Hold on. Hyar’s the boss,” shouted Andy.
The stretched rope slackened and all faces turned toward Clint, and toward Hatcher who was approaching rapidly with the crowd of freighters behind.
“Ho, men!” called Clint, before he reached them. “Who ordered these men hanged?”
“Hellsfire! Who needed thet?” declared Andy, suddenly red and fierce. In him spoke the will, the ruthlessness, and all the law that existed on the frontier. Clint realized how superfluous had been his question.
He strode up to confront Blackstone. The bearded giant, ashen under his hair, gloomy-eyed, clammy with sweat, had accepted his fate. Long years of indifferent realization of what awaited him and his kind had steeled his nerve.
“Blackstone, do you know me?” demanded Clint.
“Shore. I’ve had the pleasure of meetin’ you before. I cain’t very well offer to shake, Buff.”
His voice was husky but steady, and not without humor.
“You were to meet Murdock — Charley Bent here today?”
“So I heerd from your necktie outfit.”
“Here, you know damned well you were,” replied Clint.
“Belmet, if you know so damn much what do you ask me fer?”
“You gave it away. I heard you. Just before I jumped out of the brush, you said, ‘Charley aimed to beat the Comanches here.’”
“Wal, if thet’s so he played hell doin’ it,” returned Blackstone, bitterly.
“Blackstone, I’m not sure I can save your life,” went on Clint, hurriedly. “But I’ll try — if you tell me the truth about some things.”
The bandit leader knew the frontier as well as Clint. Nothing could save his life. The commander of any fort would order him hanged. Evil as he was, he gave out the impression that even if Clint had power to save his life he would not betray a comrade.
“No, I won’t answer no questions,” he retorted, in dark passion, and his eyes lighted with sinister divination. “But I’ll tell you somethin’ on my own hook.... A few years back me an’ Lee Murdock took thet little Bell girl up in the hills where we hid out. We had her one whole winter... had her turn aboot! — An’ when—”
Clint leaped to brain him, and at the same instant a freighter called, piercingly:
“Up he goes!”
A score of sturdy arms pulled on the lasso. Blackstone’s burly form shot up right before Clint’s face; in fact he just escaped a violent kick from the bandit’s heavy boot. Clint staggered back.
“Swing your pardner, Blackstone,” yelled a leather-lunged freighter. “Turn the lady, turn.”
Then they held him six feet off the ground, and all faces were turned upward — grim, leering, sweaty, bloody faces, hard as the frontier, yet laconic also in the contemplation of a just retribution.
“Damn your black-stone soul!” called one, breathing hoarsely.
“Now kick.”
Blackstone’s legs had been untied, as had those of all the other bandits, and there could have been only one interpretation to such action — the freighters wanted to see him kick. And they watched him kick. He was a very large, heavy man, exceedingly powerful, in the prime of life; and no matter what iron will an
d nerve he had when the spiritual man dominated, his muscular reaction was extraordinarily violent, grotesque, and hideous.
His bearded face, up to the sky, could not be seen, but it must have been too awful for even these avengers to behold. He kicked out with both legs at right angles, just the automatic kick of a jumping-jack. Then all ways, so monstrously that the branch of the tree bent and swung and his body swayed to and fro.
“Ho, men!” yelled Hatcher, from the trail, and his voice had a stirring ring. “Get out of this! Stevens is wavin’ from the rock! Shore as Gawd made little apples the Kiowas are comin’!”
Hatcher thudded down the trail, with the watching freighters suddenly breaking into action. The executioners tied the end of the lasso to a sapling, and leaping to their weapons, grunting and cursing, they stampeded out of the glade.
Clint laid a shaking hand on the lasso. It was tied securely and it would not break. Then he hurried to the trail. But he looked back. Blackstone’s writhing had lost energy. It was now a swelling ripple of body. His knees were drawn up. Beyond him hung seventeen dark, limp figures, long-necked and loose, suggestive in their horridness.
Wheeling, Clint ran down the trail after the men. When he got into the open he espied Stevens frantically waving from the top of the rock. The scout pointed to the north and his gesture inspired terror.
“Murdock — an’ his — Kiowas!” gasped Clint, and flew over the sandy flat.
Half the hundred men were already across, shouting and calling. About a score were bringing the cannon. They ran with it, splashing, cursing, falling to their knees, plunging on. The men behind carried the rifles of those who were handling the cannon. And four rifles to one man made a burden. Those with the ammunition staggered along, yet made fast time.
Clint plunged into the shallow stream, making long bounds. Suddenly he halted, at the end of a jump. Hatcher, bareheaded, his white locks flying, stood on the bank, cupping his hands round his mouth.
“Come on, boys! Stick to thet cannon!”
CHAPTER 20
HATCHER HELD UP all until the men with the cannon and ammunition reached the bank.