by Lauran Paine
There were respectable women, too. You could tell them by their drabness. Kit sighed, feeling nostalgia for the old Fort Collins. Allie shot him an inquiring glance. “End of the trail, Kit?”
“Yes,” he said. He didn’t try to explain what the sigh had really meant.
He took her to the Collins House, got her a room—no small feat in a town bursting with people and few facilities—and went to the army post, after leaving their horses to be washed, rubbed, and grained.
He felt no different from the hundreds that swarmed, just as dirty as he was, with far less cause, until he met the beak-nosed, hawk-eyed military commander. He was crisp in word and appearance. Clean, with only the inevitable sifting of ingrained dust on him. And he listened with unblinking regard until Kit had finished his story, then he stood up and nodded once, very shortly.
“Where’ll you be, Mister Butler, when we get assembled?” No question about how Kit felt, whether he could pilot them back, or anything else. Just: “Where’ll you be when we get assembled?”
Kit liked the man and the way he acted. “At the Collins House, Captain.”
“We can’t plug the traffic in town. We’ll meet you south of the last shack, in an hour. All right?”
The officer hardly waited. He was moving past Kit as he spoke. The hard, flinty eyes stayed on Kit’s face with a barely hidden impatience, and the thin mouth grew thinner. “All right,” Kit agreed.
He was left standing in the little command hut alone. He turned stolidly, feeling as thick and oxen-like as he could in the face of this brisk activity, and walked back outside.
Allie had new clothes, provided from some generous and anonymous source, when he knocked on her door and opened it. He stood in the doorway, looking at her. Her face was thinner, more mature, and longer-looking. It was as though he had left a girl, dirty and bedraggled, and had come back to face a woman. The sense of being gone a long time came over him.
“Do I look better?”
“Better? I never thought you could, Allie. But you do. You look … well, like a mature woman.”
“Didn’t I before?” She was watching him with a steady look.
“You looked like a scairt girl before.” He closed the door and leaned on it. “You look older, too.”
She laughed. “I never should have said that to you, Kit. I’m sorry, darling. But it hurt me to see you changing so.”
He smiled. “Age doesn’t mean as much to a man as it does to a woman, I don’t think. We accept it more fatalistically. Women love youth.”
“No,” she said. “Not all women. I don’t. I love you.” It shocked him. It seemed almost indecent to say anything so bold and outright. He crossed to a chair and dropped down on it. She turned and put her hands behind her and leaned on the chifforobe, looking at him.
“You didn’t want me to say that, did you, Kit?”
He nodded his head. “Allie, I reckon there’re no secrets between us. I love you, and you know it. Have since the first time I saw you standing there with your arm across the black mare’s neck.” He smiled swiftly. “It takes time to get used to, though. Not me loving you, Allie. You loving me.”
“Why is it any different one way than it is another, Kit?”
He dropped his gaze broodingly. “Well, for one thing, I’m a scout. I’ve got nothing, Allie. Probably never will have.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will, though, Allie, when the new wears off.”
“No, I wouldn’t, Kit. I really wouldn’t. You don’t know me well enough yet. I wouldn’t care whether we never had anything more than the horses we rode and a big buffalo robe.”
He believed her—and was awed. It was the truth. He could see it in her level gray eyes and strong face. A one-man woman, blindly loyal. A woman as loyal in her woman’s way as Lige was in his man’s way. He got up and crossed over to face her. “Get a lot of rest, Allie. I’ve got to meet the army south of town and lead ’em back.”
She shook her head at him, took her hands from behind her, and ran them up his arms until they were on either side of his lean face. “We’ll both go back, Kit.”
“You’re worn out, Allie. There won’t be anything to going back anyway. I’ll—”
“You’re forgetting my mother and father are back there, darling.”
He had forgotten it. He squinted at her. “I’ll bet they’re fit to be tied, wondering where you are.”
She wagged his head gently back and forth with her palms, in a negative way. “They know.”
“You mean they knew and didn’t try to stop you?”
“They talked to me. You’ll understand when you know them better, Kit. They’ve always treated me like I had a mind of my own. But they’ll be worried, just the same, if I don’t come back with you.” She pulled his head close and kissed him firmly on the mouth. “I have my own fear, too, Kit. I couldn’t wait for you to come back and tell me if they’re all still alive.”
“No,” he said. “I reckon not. But you haven’t had much sleep, Allie.”
“Hold me, Kit. Just hold me and don’t talk for a minute. That’s all the rest I need.”
He swept her up and down with his bloodshot glance. “You look very pretty, Allie.”
She leaned, and he took her into his arms. A big, racking sob broke over her. Just that one, then no more, and she lay still and tall against him.
“Allie, wait up here in the room until I fetch a couple of fresh horses from the livery barn. I’ll signal you from the window. Then you come down, and we’ll go out to meet the army.”
“In just a minute,” she said, stirring against him. “Just a minute longer.”
He held her, with the fullness of her like fire against him. Then he rocked her with a soft, instinctive movement. That was all it took. She started to cry. At first he felt a gentle pathos, but as the fury of the storm swept over her, wave after wave, he became uneasy and frightened and feeling helpless. When he would have pushed her away to ask, she clung the tighter. They stood like that for a long time, neither of them aware of the passage of time, until a shattering blast of fisted knuckles rolled peremptorily across the door, making the room quiver and the chifforobe quake.
“Mister Butler? You in there?”
“Yes.” He disentangled himself quickly, his face as red and guilty-looking as it could get.
“Captain Forrester sends his respects … and will you hurry. We’re waiting.”
“Be right there. As soon as I get horses.”
“I have two downstairs now. Are you coming?”
“Two?”
“The captain said you had a lady with you.”
“Oh,” Kit said, frowning at the captain’s perspicacity. “We’ll be right down.”
He turned back, but Allie was arranging her hair—of which not a strand was out of place—and her back was to him, her straight, long-muscled back.
“Ready, Allie?”
“Yes.”
She swung and crossed to him in a flurry of fast steps. “Kit, I didn’t know one human being could love another as much as I love you. It’s painful and it’s … almost indecent.”
He smiled and reached up with a curled fist, tilted her head back so far he could see the little pulse in her throat, and kissed her with a hungry anguish. “I didn’t, either,” he said, “and I’d give anything to be able to take a year off and tell you about it.”
“Hoppo!” she said, stepping away, with her gray eyes like smoke on a windy day.
He laughed.
When they got downstairs the corporal was red-faced with impatience. He was stocky, with great sweat-stain crescents under his arms and an unpleasant, bleak cast to his jaw. He bowed low to Allie and led them through town in a reckless lope. Pedestrians jumped and cursed, and Allie laughed at the teamsters’ throttled, purple looks as they had to bite back t
heir words when they saw her.
The soldiers were a sight she would never forget. There were 220 of them. They had little guidons on long poles to designate their separate units, and Kit rode up to Captain Forrester and introduced Allie. Forrester’s testy, restless eyes became suddenly very still. She accepted the unvoiced compliment and rode a little closer to Kit.
They struck out in a shambling trot. The sidesaddle bothered her and cramped the circulation in one leg, but she bore it, thinking of the way she had ridden in, like a man, astride, her billowing skirt an inconvenience and an annoyance that neither of them heeded.
The soldiers’ horses were fresh and the men eager. Kit listened to Forrester. He had fought Indians from Mexico to Canada. He had a world of respect for them and no love at all.
“They’ve just about stopped commerce out here, this past couple of years. A man might get used to the idea, Butler, if he knew when it would end, but there’s no way of knowing. We think they’re licked or pacified … and here they come, as wild as ever.”
Kit had little to say until they got back on the big plains, where the heat-hazed distance showed the twin peaks either side of the gap. Then he pointed toward it. “Beyond there, a day’s ride.”
“Oh. That’s Fargo Valley. The Indians have another name for it. The gap’s what they call Place of Kills. I forget what they call the valley.” Forrester looked at Kit with a narrow, hawkish stare. “They didn’t go into the gap, did they?”
“No, we left them back a ways. No sense in getting where they’d dump boulders down.”
“Of course not.” Forrester hurried the troops and rode leaning forward in his saddle. “Sometimes a horse is awfully slow, isn’t it?”
“Depends on whether you’re riding or running,” Kit said. “I used to ride this country trapping. The spring up here was always beautiful.”
“I never looked at it like that,” the captain said. “How many did you say are in the wagon train?”
“Originally about a hundred and sixty, or so. They’ve lost several men and about thirty are wounded.”
“What band of Indians is it … do you know?”
“Yes,” Kit said. “White Shield Owner’s band, and, later, some of Big Eagle’s bunch.”
“Huh! I had the Big Eagle bunch bottled up over on the Rosebud once. He’s quite a battler.”
Kit dropped back into his silence again.
When they stopped to rest the horses, Kit and Allie were surprised at the lack of weariness the soldiers showed. Allie commented on it while Captain Forrester munched dry rations and smiled. “They’re tough. There’re a few replacements, but mostly they’re regulars. They’re used to going three and four days on a handful of biscuits and a two-hour sleep rest.” He looked over at Kit. “I’ve always thought that in order to whip these Indians, you’d have to match them in everything, then go them one better.”
Kit nodded, watching the men saunter around, ground grazing their horses. “That’s right, Captain. That’s what leaves so many dead emigrants out here. They think you can bring your manners and habits from the East and make this country like it. You can’t. I told that to the people we’re guiding. This is an altogether different land. You don’t fight nature here. You learn how to get along with her or you don’t survive.”
“You fight like the Indians fight, too, Butler. Don’t forget that.”
Kit brought his ranging glance back to the captain’s face. “It isn’t hard to do. White men learn to take scalps pretty darned quick.”
They pushed on after nightfall, crossing the big grass prairie when the moonlight made the grass look like sheet silver. By morning they were almost back to the tree fringe. They had made much better time than Allie and Kit had made. Their horses were far better fed and rested, and they made no detours. It was as though Captain Forrester was looking forward to a fight, trying to find Indians he could throw his troops against.
Kit wanted vengeance, too, but he felt uneasy about Allie. He rode off a little way to one side with her. They swung up into the trees and felt the humid, pine-scented shade almost instantly, and stopped to blow the horses when they had breasted the first spiny ridge. Kit helped Allie down. Her face was flushed, and her eyes had a writhing anxiety in their depths.
“It’s hard to wait, Kit.”
He nodded, looking past her where the depth of dark forest lay. “It won’t be much longer now.”
“I’ve been trying to hear … to listen … but—”
“We’re too far for that. Another couple of hours, though, and we’ll begin to slope down toward the valley floor.”
“I wish we could hurry.”
He regarded her thoughtfully. It was the first time he had seen her when her nerves were crawling like worms. Even when the coup-counting Indian had stalked her, she hadn’t looked so badly shaken as she was now. He leaned against a tall old pine and half dreaded what they might find down in the valley. He, too, had been straining to hear sounds and had heard none. What made him more apprehensive than anything was the absence of Dakotas.
He knew they had sentinels high above the pass. He knew, too, that the dust stirred up by the army’s passage would be visible for miles, as still and crystal clear as the summer daylight was.
“Butler!”
He shoved off the tree and watched Captain Forrester striding toward them. Allie was like a ramrod, straight and tensed.
“Butler, there’s a scouting party coming up from the valley south of us.”
“South?”
“Yes. They’re riding west, as though they have been down the valley.” Forrester’s eyes were fixed on Kit’s face.
If the Dakotas were scouting up this way, it meant they had received signals from a sentinel who had seen the cavalry before they got into the forest, or who had seen their dust after daylight but hadn’t seen the troops. He thought it likely it was the latter. Otherwise, the men of war wouldn’t come in a scouting party; they would come in force.
“Are they mounted?”
“Yes.”
His heart sank. There had been at least twenty who had retrieved their horses. It was also possible …
“Take me where I can see them.”
He knew Allie was following by the sounds her skirt made when it snagged on little trees, but he didn’t look around at her. The soldiers were standing perfectly still. They had heard enough to suspect what was up and were waiting like statues. It made Kit’s spirit rise a little, knowing they were the kind of men they were.
Captain Forrester twisted and turned until he was on a little windswept outcropping of rock where the ground was too shallow to support vegetation. There, a grizzled sergeant was squatting, head twisted, watching something off on their right and down in the valley.
Kit saw them instantly. Forrester kneeled beside him, saying nothing. The Indians were riding in a fast walk. Their horses looked tired, and the riders seemed loath to urge them in the cruel heat that was filling the valley right then.
“What do you think?”
Kit ignored the question and continued to watch the Indians. They were a part of the Dakotas who had gotten their horses back. He was sure of that for several reasons. That meant, possibly, that the wagon train was still resisting.
“They’re heading for the high country.”
He got up when the Indians had passed from view and dusted off his knees. “Yeah. They’ve got a signal that something’s crossed the plain. I don’t think the sentinel knows it’s an army, though. Not the way they’re riding. If they knew how many soldiers were in the forest, they’d send men like the wind to warn the others.”
“Then the others must be down where the wagons are.”
“Must be,” Kit said, turning to Allie. “So they’re probably still fighting, down there.”
“Or plundering,” the sergeant said dryly, getting up. Then he s
aw Allie and his mouth fell open. However, it was too late to withdraw it.
Kit bristled for a second, then he took her arm and piloted her back where their horses were and spoke over his shoulder to Captain Forrester. “Let’s get moving.”
Chapter Fourteen
They moved carefully after that, and Forrester finally asked Kit to guide them. He reluctantly left Allie’s side and led the strung-out force among the trees until they came to a thinning of the natural cover, and there he reined up and beckoned Forrester over.
“Listen.”
They cocked their heads. Distantly, there came a tiny popping sound. Kit smiled and swung far back to seek Allie. She had heard. He could see it in her face. Forrester lifted his reins. “They’re still alive. Let’s go.” He was starting to nudge his horse when Kit restrained him.
“Hold on a minute.”
Forrester stopped and looked over at him inquiringly.
“The way the wagon train’s placed, Captain, and the number of men you have, I think you can catch those Dakotas without having them slip into the trees where you das’n’t chase ’em.”
“Are they out in the open on all four sides?”
“Yeah. Only they’ve got the trees on the south side to run for. The thing is, they’re afoot. We stampeded their horses. You can’t circle around and get across the valley because their sentinels will see you and flash the warning, but you can hit the valley in a dead run and make a big surround, and cut them off on the south side as well as over here.”
“How many are there up there, would you guess?”
“Maybe a hundred and fifty … maybe a few more or a few less.”
“No more than a hundred and seventy-five?”
“No,” Kit said. “I’m sure of that. They’ve lost some and they never totaled two hundred anyway … unless they’ve got some help since we’ve been away.”
Forrester turned and jerked his head to the hard-bitten sergeant who served as his scout. “Ride about a mile ahead of us, Mike. When you can see the wagon train, get a pretty close count on the Indians. Hurry up. We’ll be waiting.”