Wagon Train West

by Lauran Paine

  He saw the Dakotas coming in a flung-out charge. The closer they got, the more their spine-tingling screams overrode the noise within the wagon circle. It wasn’t a case of any one warrior leading them. The warrior who got close first was simply the warrior who rode the fastest horse. None of them seemed occupied with their single rein, but all had the loosely looped catch-rope tucked under their belts. This catch-rope was often as long as forty feet, and it trailed on their right side. Its sole purpose was to enable an unhorsed warrior to retain his horse before the fleeing animal got away.

  “They didn’t get any reinforcements!” Lige shouted to him. “No more now’n there was yesterday!”

  Kit nodded but made no attempt to shout back. The war cries drowned out all sound now. There was a quick rataplan of gunfire from within the circle. Kit swung, frowning, and peered out at the emigrants. They were everywhere. Prone, under wagons as he and Lige were, standing recklessly in plain sight over wagon tongues, and moving through the thick, heavy dust stirred up by the panicked animals. The Indians were far out of range yet, but the emigrants were trying for looping shots. Kit made a disgusted face and swung back to watch the Indians sweep into range.

  He expected them to split off and enfilade the circle. They didn’t. They came on in their ragged, unorganized charge, low over their horses’ necks, and swept by on the far south side of the wagons. The gunfire was like a dirge. It made his ears ring.

  The vivid kaleidoscope was engulfed in a great curling cloud of dun dust from within and without the circle. Kit squinted hard to see if they would swing inward and try to breach the wagon circle. He couldn’t even see the southernmost wagons, and the furor of sound made a guess impossible.

  The Dakotas swept by, their eerie cries ringing above the crash of erratic, rapid gunfire. Kit watched the mass of dust-laden men moving as they followed the riding attackers in their frenzy to get in final shots.

  Lige started squirming out from under the wagon. Kit grabbed his shirt and yelled: “Lie low! Wait! They’ll be back!”

  They came back, too, only in a large arc that brought them up the far north side of the circle. Lige was swearing and crawling around the water cask for a shot when Kit saw their first target. The buck was swinging down on the offside of his racing animal when Kit fired. Lige, from much experience, waited.

  The horse went end over end, throwing the warrior like a pinwheel. The Indian grabbed frantically for his catch-rope. He had it in both hands and was lurching to his feet when Lige’s big-bore gun exploded. The buck jumped high into the air and fell in a lifeless sprawl. The howling Dakotas streamed past, kicking up another dust cloud.

  “One!” Lige shouted, reloading.

  The earth shook, and the noise was deafening. Gunshots smashed through the dust and a powerful smell of horse sweat and gunpowder filtered through the racket and haziness. Behind them, emigrants were running across the circle, yelling.

  Kit saw the big bay horse with balled ears, belly down, in a frantic race. The warrior on his back was swinging a carbine with his body, tracking something with his sights. Kit aimed, and the two guns went off almost in concert. The buck flinched and was lost in the dust. Kit swore, rolled, and looked back. Two emigrants were standing stunned, unbelieving, staring down at a third man.

  Lige’s stubby carbine, with its cavernous mouth, bellowed a mighty blast. It was the final shot.

  As suddenly as the action had begun, it stopped. One of those dreadful, impromptu silences that descend freakishly in battles came down with startling clarity. Everyone froze as though turned to stone, held immobile and startled for just a second, then the shouts and cries went up again.

  By that time the Indians were far down the valley, out of range.

  “Two to your one and near hit,” Lige said warmly, as if he was at a turkey shoot.

  Kit rolled over and rested his head against the cask, watching the embattled emigrants. “Pioneers,” he said contemptuously. “They call themselves pioneers. Hell, did you see how they ran across that open ground?”

  “Yeah. Bet half of ’em stood right between the wagons and let the danged Indians shoot at ’em.”

  “They’ve got a lot to learn,” Kit said, working his way from under the wagon.

  “Powers’ll teach ’em,” Lige said sourly, following Kit out. He stretched and watched the white men carting off the body of the man who had fallen near them.

  Kit said nothing. Until that moment, the possibility of fire arrows hadn’t crossed his mind. Now they did. “Funny, Lige. No fires.”

  “Oh, hell,” the older man said dryly, “that was just the hotbloods getting their dander worked out. They’ll be back.”

  Kit saw Allie Burgess once, just a glimpse of her tall silhouette through the settling haze of the yellow dust. He started around the wagon circle toward her. Lige watched his course, hesitated, shrugged, and squatted by their fire hole, which had been badly mauled by men and horses. He felt around for his twist of Kentucky chewing tobacco.

  Kit saw that Allie Burgess’ hands had blood on them and that her face was like chalk. Something in the back of his mind warned him against approaching her now, but he went up anyway, where she was kneeling beside a wounded man with a gory, shattered arm.

  “Glad you’re all right, ma’am.”

  She shot him a worried, hectic look. “I’m fine … no thanks to your Indians.”

  The warning came back twice as strong. He stood hipshot, watching the sure way she worked, feeling awkward and a mite embarrassed that he was all in one piece when so many of the emigrants weren’t. “What’re the casualties, do you know?”

  “No one knows yet, Mister Butler. It’s too soon. So far I’ve worked on seven wounded myself, and the other women are busy, too.”

  He was appalled. One flashing attack by exuberant men of war who weren’t more than showing off, really, and the emigrants had been whittled down badly. He kneeled and watched her working with the man’s arm, unseeingly.

  The worst was yet to come. He wasn’t conscious of her steady, hard glance at all. He was worried. Getting up swiftly, he went in search of Powers, the wagon boss. When he found him, his surprise was even greater. Powers was dead!

  “Anyone see it happen?”

  “Yes,” an old man with a powder-burned face said with a slow nod. “I was right beside him. They come a-whoopin’ and he let off just one shot. That was afore they was ’thin range … and plunk! Right through the brisket.”

  “Arrow?” Kit asked, looking down at the old gaffer.

  “Nope, gunshot.”

  “Where were you two standing?”

  The old fellow turned and pointed at a space where a wagon tongue separated the front of one big Conestoga from the rear of another wagon. “There,” he said. “Me, I was under the danged thing. Powers was standin’—”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Kit’s anger worked slowly. It wasn’t until he was back where Lige was laboriously blowing on a new little cooking fire that it was fully matured. It showed in the smoldering sheen of his eyes. Lige looked up at him, bent to blow on the fire again, then raised his head for a second, longer look.

  “What’s stung you, Kit?”

  “Powers is dead.”

  Lige nodded thoughtfully, then bent and blew on the fire for a moment before he spoke. “No hell of a loss,” he said. “I never cared for him. Big hero one minute, danged crybaby the next.”

  “I’m not thinking of Powers. They’ve got about thirty hurt.”

  “Couldn’t have,” Lige said with a quickening frown. “Why, hell, boy—”

  “They have, Lige.”

  Lige sank back on his haunches, looking at Kit. It was inconceivable to him. The emigrants had had cover. The Dakotas were riding fast, making accurate aim nearly impossible. “Thirty!” He made a snorting sound through his nose. “Now what?”

  “I don’t
know, but if they don’t start using their heads for something beside Indian targets, there won’t be enough left to drive their cussed wagons to Fort Collins.”

  The camp became a place of abiding gloom and sadness. Even the uninjured went listlessly about the business of burying the dead and caring for the wounded. The lugubrious atmosphere didn’t bother Lige. He fried two steaks of antelope haunch and hunted Kit up to give him one. The sobs rolled off Lige like water off a rock. He ate and watched and said nothing.

  Kit found two emigrants engaged in a nervous argument over a successor to Powers. He walked up to them with his antelope steak and listened for a moment, then he turned swiftly away with disgust on his face.

  Allie Burgess found him watching the people, leaning beside her parents’ wagon, chewing slowly. He looked philosophically calm and placid. It aroused her ire when he glanced up, met her stare, and nodded gently.

  “I don’t see anything to be so calm about, Mister Butler.”

  “Kit,” he said, looking past her where four graves were being hastily covered. “I’m not calm.”

  “You look it.”

  “Maybe. I’m more scairt than you are, now.”

  “There’s a little consolation in that,” she said waspishly.

  “More scairt,” he repeated, watching the flinty chunks of soil go into the graves from spades in the hands of white-faced men who sweated copiously. “Because if these people were hurt this bad when there was no call for it, what’ll happen to them when they really have to fight?”

  “What was this,” she said fiercely, her smoky eyes like wet slate, “if it wasn’t a battle?”

  “This wasn’t the battle, ma’am. The battle’s yet to come.”

  “What do you mean?” A little fear was coming in where the fury had been. “Why wasn’t this the battle?”

  “Well, they work like this. First, the wise men let the hotbloods—the men of war—have a fling. That’s what we just skirmished through. Now, after some of the hotbloods have been killed and we’re still down here, why the old men get together and have their licks. They use strategy, not head-on tactics like the coup hunters use.”

  She tried to catch his glance and couldn’t. He was watching the graves fill with an unblinking, unseeing dourness. “Will they try it again, today?”

  He looked at her then. “Yes, maybe in an hour or so.”

  “They can’t,” she said desperately, squirting the words out.

  “Because we’re not ready?” he asked softly. “Why, ma’am, I don’t reckon that’ll keep ’em back very long.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

  He saw how tired she looked and it made an uneasy stirring inside of him, in his chest. He threw aside the last of the steak, wiped his fingers very methodically on his trousers, and gazed at her in silence.

  “They’ve killed the wagon boss,” she said.

  “I know. Leaders aren’t important out here, Allie, unless they know how to do things … and when.”

  She wanted to say something, just anything that would jar his appearance of complacency. It seemed an impossible thing to do. He was leaning there in the shade as calm-looking, as collected and thoughtful, as though he were a thousand miles away, back in Independence.

  Then he spoke in the same soft, gentle way, looking at her. “They got a lot of tricks. Folks’ll tell you they ride around and around a wagon circle. Well, that’s not true. They make one hotblood attack like that, then, if that doesn’t work, they fall back on strategy. Just like white soldiers do.”

  “There’s no comparison,” she shot at him sharply.

  He shrugged, let his gaze fall away from her face, and in that moment saw the emigrants wandering aimlessly, listlessly through the dust and over the trampled, soft-churned earth, and an idea was born. He got a quick, tense look. She saw it come, a speculative coldness mixed with deep resentment.

  “You don’t like these people, do you?”

  “It isn’t that,” he said candidly and swiftly, his mantle of seeming indifference gone suddenly. “I’m with them now and can’t help myself, that’s all. They’re fools. They call themselves pioneers. They’re emigrants … that’s what we call ’em out here, and that’s what they are. Emigrants. Learners. It’s the same thing. Look at them. Instead of getting ready, they’re wandering around like gut-shot buffalo. Look at them.”

  His scorn stung her anew. “How do you expect them to act differently without leadership?” she demanded hotly.

  His eyes went back to her face. She was more alluring now, dust, grime, anger and all, than he had ever seen her look. “For God’s sake, Allie. There’s still a hundred and fifty of them. Powers wasn’t the only man here.”

  “All right,” she said ringingly, her voice mounting with passion. “Why don’t you lead them?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you! Since you know what the redskins’re going to do, and they don’t … and your life’s as much at stake as mine and theirs … why don’t you help yourself and them, too?”

  He was too engrossed with the idea to answer. She misunderstood his silence. Her eyes grew smoky. She let the staring moment of vibrant silence settle. He saw how she did it; it thrilled something deep within him, and he smiled at her. “All right, Allie. All right. I’ll do it. I’ll try it, anyway, and if they don’t want to listen, you won’t blame me?”

  “Of course not, Mister Butler.” Her voice was tight and a little harsh. “Why should I, if you offer them your services?”

  He reached for the iron tire of a high rear wheel, twisted to face it, to spring up where they could all see and hear him, then he paused a moment and looked back at her. “In case I never get the chance to tell you this again, ma’am. I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Then he sprang up, balanced on the huge wheel, and let out a Dakota scream. It was effective enough. The emigrants froze where they were, looking wildly at him. “Listen to me, folks,” he said in a deep, throbbing voice. “You’ve lost a leader. Maybe you can elect one after this is over, but right now, I want you to do what I tell you.”

  He saw their faces, intent and dirty with sweat. Men straightened up and stared.

  “Those Indians’ll be back shortly. You haven’t won a fight. Hell, you haven’t even begun to fight ’em. Now then … you, there … you with the beaver hat. Take ten men and draw off buckets of water. Put ’em under the seat of every wagon. That’s in case they use fire arrows when they come back.” The people were looking interested now. The men moved in a little, a lot of the thralldom faded from their faces. A few even smiled and showed in the shine of their eyes they liked what they heard.

  “And, Reaves … you pick ten more men and haul stuff out of those cussed wagons and build barricades under them.” He saw Lige stroll up with a surprised look on his face. He smiled down at him. “Lige, count their ball and powder and bullets. See that everyone’s got the same amount. Let me know how we stand that way. Show ’em how to make a barricade, Lige—and the first grown man who stands between the wagons, kick him in the britches as hard as you can.”

  Lige swallowed and flushed. His eyes twinkled sardonically. “You reckon to make prairie warriors out of sheep, Kit?” he called out.

  Someone laughed. Kit smiled. The people had their hope renewed. There was a surging glow inside Kit. He started to climb down from the wheel, hesitated, and let his grin slide off sideways. “Listen, folks. I don’t have any notion how long they’ll keep us bottled up here. Maybe two days, maybe a week, but I do know what’ll happen if you ever let them inside this circle. It isn’t a pretty thing to talk about, but if some of you want to know privately, come around and I’ll tell you. Above everything else … don’t expose yourself … don’t sleep or drowse under the wagons … and don’t let an Indian inside this circle!”

  He leaped down and stood beside Allie Bu
rgess. She was watching his profile. His eyes danced and his face was a rust color from the swift-running blood under it.

  “You were very good,” she said softly. “I’m glad.”

  He looked at her searchingly. “Glad I’m good?”

  “No, glad you did that. They believe in you, Mister Bu—”

  “Kit.”

  “They do. Look at them.” She was avoiding his glance, and he knew it. He smiled a little dourly and watched the emigrant women resist the stony-faced egress of the men who tossed out marble-topped bureaus, parts of mahogany bedsteads, and even barrels of salt pork and flour. Over it all, he heard Lige’s stuttering protest to the women, that salted flour made the best bullet and arrow stopper there was.

  “Will they come after dark?”

  He had forgotten her standing there. He shook his head, watching. “No. I already told you, they don’t fight at night. Listen, Allie, this was your idea. Why don’t you go help Lige? Look at those women. You’d think a barrel of flour or salt pork was more valuable to them than their husbands’ lives.”

  “All right,” she said.

  He watched her cross the enclosure. It was going to be a fight for survival. He knew it, and after a little while the emigrants would find it out, know it, too. Survival called forth every effort. He went among the men, picking one out here and there, until he had assembled thirty riflemen. He led them up where the animals were nuzzling for food and motioned for them to sit on the ground.

  “Now listen, boys. You know this is going to be a fight, but you don’t know how much of a fight it’s going to be—and I’m here to tell you right now that if any of us ride out of this valley, it’ll only be because of you men. I want you to do exactly what I tell you the second I say it. You understand?”

  The men nodded. They looked almost eager. The bustle and excitement within the circle lent them an eagerness they hadn’t had before.