by Yes Jack
Steve Coulton removed his hat and the other men, who had evidently decided that the safest course of action was simply to imitate Coulton in every way, did the same.
‘Dear Lord,’ said Coulton huskily, ‘we ask you to take to your bosom this faithful servant of your’n, who’s met a fearful end. We ask it in thy name. Amen.’
Tom Hilton and the other seven men piously echoed Coulton, chorusing his ‘amen’.
‘Now I’ll just say a couple o’ prayers,’ announced Coulton, getting into the swing of his burlesque, ‘startin’ with an Ave and then saying a Paternoster.’
Coulton’s early raising at a Jesuit school stood him in good stead, as he rattled off the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary in tolerably good Latin. At the end of each prayer, he paused, so that all of them pronounced the ‘amen’ together.
As they turned back to the major, it was clear to every one of them, by the look on his face, that he was not wholly satisfied by this outward display of piety. However, he had other and more important matters to attend to, chiefly the suppression of what was rapidly taking on the appearance of a general uprising by all the Indians in this part of the country. There was no time even to investigate the attack on this isolated mission, and he had already wasted time here. The murders here told Major Carter all that he needed to know about the rumours that had reached Fort Williams about the restless nature of the local tribes. It was imperative now that he both continued with his own mission and also sent word back to his base to warn them to assume a posture of war.
The major surveyed the group of ‘pilgrims’ for a space, running his eyes over each of them in turn. He could hardly burden himself with nine prisoners at this juncture; nor did he feel able to deal with these villainous-looking individuals by executing them without a trial. After a few moments, he came up with what seemed to him to be an ideal solution to his dilemma, one which would shift the onus for figuring out what kind of wrongdoing, if any, these men were about.
Major Carter announced, ‘You men may be heading over to El Paso for some reason. But it would be madness for you to ride through the wild country right now. ’Case you’ve not heard, the Kiowa are rising. If I suspected for a second that you were running guns to the redskins or aught of the sort, I tell you now: it be all up with you.’ He paused, to allow the full import of his words to sink in. Then he continued, ‘Howsoever, I don’t see my way to suspicion you all on the evidence as it stands. Here’s what we’ll do, for your safety as well as mine. I have to send a messenger straight back to Fort Williams and tell of what I have found here this day. They need to be warned. So I’ll send a rider back along of you boys. There’s safety in numbers and then when you get to the fort . . . well, then we’ll see what they make there of this “pilgrimage” of yours.’
For all that he was a battle-hardened veteran of the Indian Wars, there was a touching naïvety about the cavalry major which rejoiced the hearts of Tom Hilton and the others. It was as plain as a pikestaff that the thought did not for a moment cross the mind of this decent man that any white man, however depraved, would dream of raising his hand against a trooper of the United States Cavalry. The Hilton gang could scarcely believe their luck.
‘That’s right good of you, sir,’ said Tom Hilton, his voice quivering with genuine and unfeigned gratitude. He truly could not believe that Coulton had fooled the major so easily. ‘Me and the others will be glad of the company and reassured by having one of your men riding along of us.’
‘Well, mind I don’t have cause to repent of the action. Make certain-sure that you repay my trust.’
So it was that instead of being taken off in irons or shot, both of which had seemed realistic prospects a half hour earlier, the nine bandits found themselves riding hard in the direction in which they wished to go, accompanied by a pleasant and good-natured youngster of nineteen, with no more guile about him than a babe in arms. Matters could hardly have turned out better and later that day, some of them took to joshing Steve Coulton that those prayers he spoke must have been mighty powerful and that maybe they should all take up as Catholics, if that’s what their petitions to the Almighty were able to accomplish.
The fort hove into view sooner than Talbot Rogers had expected. Their way had led him and Melanie to a craggy range of hills, the slopes of which were riven with chasms and scattered with boulders. The track wended its way through a miniature canyon, until the two of them emerged into the open, with a wide plain stretched out before them. There in the distance stood an army fort, its towering walls constructed of creosoted wood. Next to it, they could just make out two small settlements which had grown up in the lea of the military base. On one side was a straggling line of log cabins and other little buildings; on the other, what looked to be an Indian village made up of tepees. Talbot rubbed his chin meditatively and said, ‘I wonder what they’re about, letting the Indians camp so close to the fort.’
‘Ain’t it usual to do so?’
‘It’s not common. I seen it before, up at Fort Laramie, in Wyoming. Didn’t much care for the arrangement up there, neither.’
The girl opened her mouth to make some reply, but Talbot held up his hand, saying, ‘Hush up. I can hear something.’ He listened intently for a moment and then said, ‘There’s a bunch o’ riders headed this way. Happen we’d do well to get off the road. Move quickly now. Hop down from that horse.’
The two of them and the horse moved into a rocky defile which led into some chasm within the cliffs which reared up behind them. By this time, even Melanie could hear the thunder of hoofs and was struck with a sudden terror, recollecting the bloody deaths that she had witnessed over the last few days. She leaned against Talbot Rogers for comfort and assurance. He put his arm gently around her shoulders and murmured, ‘There, there. Like as not, it’s nothing to be affeared of.’
The young trooper whose job it was to accompany them to Fort Williams, was the most trusting of individuals and all of them could sense at once that he did not entertain the least apprehension about the men riding along with him. He gossiped about the difficulties of army life, the scandalous behaviour of the officers at the fort, his home in Kansas and 101 other things. Tom Hilton thought that it was as good as a play to hear the boy chatter on in this way; he was that fresh and innocent. Hilton was by no means a sensitive or sentimental man, but even he felt that it was a pity that the kid would have to die.
Chapter 8
When Hilton and his men had been riding for a half hour or so and it was certain that they were well clear of the troop of cavalry whom they had encountered at the mission station, Hilton cried out, ‘Whoa, rein in there!’
The eight men of his band all obeyed this command immediately. The young trooper took a little longer; trotting forward for a few seconds, until he found that the others had all halted. He wheeled his horse round and went back, saying, ‘Hey, you fellows! What’s to do?’
Hilton addressed the youngster in a regretful, almost fatherly tone of voice. He said, ‘What it is, young man, is that it don’t precisely accord with our plans to have that fort alerted of the hazard it’s facing. Queers our pitch, so to speak.’
‘I don’t rightly understand you,’ began the boy, as one of Hilton’s men moved up behind him and plucked the trooper’s carbine from where it nestled in its scabbard. At this action, the young man whirled round angrily and then saw that all the men were looking at him soberly. It was at this point that he realized that the remaining seconds of his life were slipping inexorably away. He was a game one though, and didn’t show the slightest fear, merely observing contemptuously, ‘Why, you bunch of skunks! You’d murder me to further some game of your own? Well then. . . .’ He was speaking only to hold their attention and without any warning, reached down and tried to extricate his pistol from its holster. Unfortunately, he was wearing not some gunslinger’s rig, but a stiff, leather holster which had a flap buttoned over the hilt of the pistol to prevent it falling out while a man was on horseback. The boy had only m
anaged to undo the button, when Tom Hilton’s ball took him in the chest and he toppled sideways from the saddle. His horse jittered sideways and was still. By the time the echo of the shot had died down, it was all over with the young soldier.
‘Didn’t he die well, boys?’ said Hilton. There was a chorus of assent, with people making remarks such as, ‘He weren’t a bit afraid!’ and ‘He was a game one, all right!’ If there was one thing which these men respected, it was fearlessness in the face of death and from their point of view, though exceedingly young, the trooper had shown himself to be a real man.
‘Still and all,’ said Tom Hilton, after a few seconds pause in appreciation of the man whose life he had so casually snuffed out, ‘this ain’t business. Strikes me as things are moving pretty damned fast and if we don’t make tracks to Fort Williams this very minute, we’re like to lose out on whatever pickings are to be had from this here rising.’ He shouted, ‘Yah!’ and spurred on his horse. The others rode after him.
As the riders swept past their hiding place, Talbot Rogers risked a peek over the top of a boulder, at their retreating backs. There was nothing remarkable about the appearance of this body of men, and he would have been wholly unable to explain why he felt so, but Talbot knew, deep in his bones, that these men meant mischief and were up to no good. It was that lawman’s sixth sense, which warned him to stay concealed and wait until the men were well away. It was just as well, because as they rode away, the position of the horsemen altered slightly and he caught a brief glimpse of crimson at the neck of one of the men. It would have been the damnedest coincidence for Talbot to spot two such men in the area in the space of a day or two. He stared thoughtfully after the retreating riders and thought to himself, Unless I miss my guess, there goes one of them as killed young Melanie’s pa.
Melanie said, ‘Who are they? Anybody you know?’
‘I couldn’t say. Something’s amiss, though.’
‘How so?’
‘Can’t put it into words, Miss Melanie, but those boys are heading in the same direction as us and I wish that they weren’t. Well, let be what will. We’d best be setting off towards the fort. But before we go, I want an assurance from you.’
‘What is it? Have I done something wrong?’
Talbot smiled and said, ‘Don’t fret, you been a good girl so far. No, I just want you to promise me that you do exactly as I bid you, without any debate. Once we’re in sight of Fort Williams, I mean.’
‘Do you expect trouble?’
‘I always expect trouble. It’s by way of being an old habit o’ mine. In the present case, though, I think as I’m entirely justified in it. Lord knows why, but I seem to have taken responsibility for you, child. That being so, I need you to do just as you’re told. At once, mind.’
The girl looked crestfallen and forlorn, saying sadly, ‘I been a trial to you and no mistake.’
‘Nothing of the sort. You’ve acted on me like a tonic and made the journey more pleasant.’
Her face brightened at once and she said, ‘Truly?’
‘Yes, truly. But we spent enough time chattering here like old women. We needs must move on as fast as we can now. There’s something afoot as I don’t care for, though I can’t quite make out what it might be.’
The little town which had sprung up in the shelter of Fort Williams contained no more than a hundred souls. In general, they provided services for the soldiers stationed at the fort, things that they would otherwise have been compelled to forego. There was a liquor store, which doubled as a cantina in the evenings, a general store and also a cathouse, perhaps the smallest in the whole country. A log cabin, divided by hanging blankets, gave the facility for three men at a time to satisfy their desires with three farm girls who had been lured out into Texas on the promise of becoming actresses and dancers in musical theatres.
The Indian settlement, which lay on the other side of the fort, provided broadly similar services and goods and the two villages vied constantly for the soldiers’ business. The Indians, Kiowa in the main, also ran a miniscule cathouse on an even more modest scale than that operated by the white men on the other side of the fort.
Relations between the fort and the various civilians who lived around it were cordial. Indeed, the main gate to the fort was only locked at night. At other times, traders, whores, peddlers, scouts and many other types and conditions of men and women simply walked freely in and out of the place. It was this which the men organizing the uprising hoped to take advantage of. For in addition to the complement of cavalry which manned the base, there was an arsenal which contained many hundreds of muskets and a vast store of powder and shot for the same. The government in Washington, even at this time, two years before the beginning of the great War Between the States, wished to keep plentiful supplies of weaponry scattered about the country. This was so that if ever the calls for states’ rights became too strident and threatened to spill over into armed confrontation, the federal government would have enough guns to distribute to men of good will; those, in other words, who would side with Washington in any dispute with the South.
They say that familiarity breeds contempt and complacency. This was without the shadow of a doubt the case at Fort Williams. So used were those stationed at the base to seeing both white people and Indians wandering around, that they hardly gave a thought anymore to the security of the rifles with which they had been entrusted. After all, the country was presently at peace and doubtless they would be given good notice if that were about to change.
The day before Tom Hilton and his men rode up to Fort Williams, the Officer Commanding had received word that there were stirrings of discontent among the local tribes. He didn’t set much store by this; there were always rumours of some sort floating around, but as a precaution he had despatched a patrol to scout about and see what they might uncover. It was this group which the Hilton gang had encountered at the burned out mission station. As a further measure, Colonel Russell forbade any Indians to enter the fort, although white folk were still permitted to come and go, providing they left their guns at the gate. Sentries enforced this new rule, which nobody expected to last for long.
When Hilton and his men rode up to the fort, they half hoped to find it already ransacked and abandoned, allowing them to help themselves to whatever the Kiowa had not thought worth taking. However, one glance told them that it must be business as usual there.
‘I don’t see sign of any massacres or nothing,’ remarked Ben. ‘Looks as quiet as quiet can be, you ask me.’
‘Thinkin’ the same thing myself,’ replied Hilton moodily. ‘Were it not for that mission station and the cavalry back there, I might think we been sold a cat in a sack over this.’
The nine men dismounted, tethering their horses to hitching posts outside the general store. Hilton said, ‘What say we take a turn in this famous fort and see what we might see?’
There were nods and grunts at this. Hilton continued, ‘Let’s not all march in like we’re bandits or something. We’ll drift in in twos and threes, so nobody marks us.’
It is said that man proposes, but God disposes and so it proved that day. Tom Hilton invited the ’breed to enter the fort in his company, but they were peremptorily stopped at the gate by two sentries who asked Ben, ‘Where d’you think you’re agoin’?’
‘Why, just to do a little business in this fort o’ yours. What’s the difficulty?’
‘Well now, we ain’t welcoming Redskins into our place just now, so there’s an end to it.’
The ’breed stood there, baffled and furious. At last, he said, ‘I ain’t an Indian.’
‘Well, you surely ain’t a white man. Now get on out of here.’ The guard turned to Hilton, saying, ‘You can enter, but you’ve to leave your gun here. You can have it again when you leave.’
Tom Hilton turned to Ben and said mildly, ‘You cut along back to your friends, now. I’ll catch up with you later.’
It did not escape Hilton’s notice that despite confiscati
ng the piston he carried in a holster at his hip, no attempt was made to search him for arms. This struck him as peculiarly inept and suggested that it would probably be possible to smuggle a gun into the fort, were one determined to do so. This might be useful to know.
Talbot and Melanie reached Fort Williams while Tom Hilton and a few of his men were wandering around inside the army base, working out what it would take for a determined band of men to seize the arsenal there.
‘I’m awful thirsty,’ exclaimed Melanie, ‘do you think we can get some soda or something?’
Talbot looked at the girl fondly and said, ‘We can try. More to the point, we can find the relatives that your dead pa, God rest him, was bringing you to visit.’ While he spoke, Talbot caught sight of a group of men who were standing down the single street of the village a little way and realized that these were the very men who he had seen gallop past earlier that day. Watching them covertly, he was confirmed in his impression that here were no innocent travellers, but rather a bunch of fellows up to some villainy or other. He said to Melanie, ‘I’m telling you, honey, the sooner I can hand you on to your folks, the better I shall be. Not ’cause I don’t take to your company, but on account of there’s trouble brewing and I don’t want you standing at my side when the lightning strikes.’
‘Well, the only thing is, I don’t rightly know at all who these kin of mine are.’
‘You must have a name or something, surely?’
The girl shook her head and replied, ‘Nothing o’ the kind. My pa, he just said as he’d settle everything once we reached Fort Williams. That’s all I know on it.’