“Belle!” Grayson called out. “It’s me, Grayson!”
Still holding the rifle on him, she hesitated. “Grayson?” she finally responded. “Is that you?”
“It’s me,” he replied. She let the rifle fall to her side and walked out the door to meet him. “What happened? Where’s John?”
“I was afraid it was them coming back again,” Belle replied, her voice hoarse and weary. “John’s hurt bad. They shot him in the back.”
“Who shot him?” Grayson responded.
“They was Pawnee,” Belle answered, “wild young men. They run off with the horses and tried to burn the house down.”
She looked to be about to fall exhausted, but she turned to lead him back inside the burnt-out doorway to the house where he found the big man lying on the bed where she had been trying to administer to his wounds. “Damn, John,” Grayson exclaimed softly when he saw his friend’s face covered with fresh blood. He was unaccustomed to seeing the huge man in such a vulnerable state.
“Grayson?” Polsgrove replied with considerable effort.
“Yeah,” Grayson answered. “What happened?”
From the wounded man and his wife, Grayson was able to piece together the details of the raid on the trading post. He was not totally surprised to hear them. From as early as 1873, the federal government had been moving the Pawnee from Nebraska to reservations there in the Cherokee Nation. There had been very little trouble between the tribes as a result of this, but there had been occasional incidents of friction. According to Belle, a group of five men, all young, rode into the compound purportedly to trade some hides. They said they wanted tobacco, but when John turned to fetch it, one of them shot him in the back. He did not go down, but turned instead to charge them, and was shot in the face by another member of the party. While he lay helpless on the floor, they stormed over the counter to help themselves to anything they fancied, including a shotgun and two pistols that were under the counter. “When I hear the guns,” Belle said, “I run to bedroom to get the rifle. They try to get me, but they run when I start shooting. When I try to help John, they run off with the horses.”
Grayson nodded, concerned. “How bad is he hurt?”
“Bad, but he not die I think.” She tried to smile, and added, “Take more than two bullets to kill bull.”
“I reckon,” he responded as he took a close look at the wounded man. In his opinion, the facial wound looked worse than it probably was. The bullet had entered at the corner of his mouth, shattering teeth on one side and ripping a hole in his cheek where it went out. It left a ragged wound that bled profusely, but luckily missed the point where his jawbone hinged. The wound in his back was more serious, since the bullet entered low on his rib cage, perilously close to his lung. “He been spittin’ up any blood?” he asked. She said no. “Well, that’s a good sign.” He tried to give her a reassuring smile. “Maybe the old bull is too tough to kill.” There wasn’t much he could do for him that Belle had not already done, so he said, “I reckon all you need to do now is rest.” He stepped back and watched the Cherokee woman fashion a bandage around John’s face. “Is there a doctor in the Cherokee village?”
“No doctor,” Belle answered.
“Well, John, looks like you’re just gonna have to heal on your own,” Grayson told him.
“I’ll heal,” Polsgrove said, forcing the words through painful lips. “But they stole my horses and the cow, too, I reckon.” He paused to grimace with the pain of talking. “I need them horses.”
Grayson turned to Belle. “How long have they been gone?”
“About noon,” she replied.
“Noon, huh?” Grayson said. “About three or four hours,” he guessed. “Maybe I can catch up with ’em tonight.” He saw the look of gratitude on both faces, and knew he could not have second thoughts about it, even with the complications it would cause. “I got a little problem, though. I left a fellow tied to a tree back down the river a ways. I’m gonna have to put him someplace while I go after them Pawnees. You got someplace where I can lock him up?”
Belle paused to think for a moment before replying, “Barn, smokehouse, maybe.”
He considered the two choices and remembered that the barn had too many loose boards. “I’ll put him in the smokehouse. Billy’s used to stayin’ in the smokehouse. It’ll be like comin’ home. I reckon I’d better get started.” He certainly hadn’t counted on any delays in getting Billy back to Fort Smith, and didn’t care much for the thought of lingering here. But what choice did he have? He could not refuse to help his friends. Oh, well, he thought, I’ll trust to luck and hope it won’t take me long to track those Indians.
He returned to the riverbank to find Billy securely tied, just as he had left him, and the horses grazing peacefully near the water’s edge. At first sight of the stoic bounty hunter, Billy railed against the treatment he had been subjected to. “Get me off this damn tree!” he demanded. “You ought not treat a dog this way.”
“I reckon you’re right, but you ain’t hardly on the same level as a good dog,” Grayson said, and meant it. “I’m fixin’ to untie you right now. I’ve fixed you up with a nice room for the night, one you’ll like, and nobody’s gonna bother you—feed you, too, if you behave yourself.”
Billy was so relieved to be set free from the cottonwood that he refrained from cursing or threatening Grayson while he was taken to the trading post. When he saw Belle standing at the smokehouse, holding the door open for him, however, he let loose another tirade, protesting a second confinement in the dark cell. The solemn Cherokee woman gazed at him without compassion as he stood just inside the smokehouse door, his back now toward her, waiting for Grayson to untie his wrists. A big, sturdy woman, she had no sympathy for Billy’s plight. Her sole concern was for the giant of a man lying on her bed in the house. When Billy was relieved of his bonds, she slammed the door shut and Grayson tapped an iron spike into the hasp in lieu of a padlock. With Billy safely put away, he walked toward the corral where his horses waited. Belle walked with him, and he told her what to do about the prisoner.
“I don’t hardly see how he can get outta that smokehouse,” he told her, “but you be careful. He’ll try anythin’ to get away, and he ain’t particular about who he kills if they get in his way. I don’t like to leave you with John stove up like he is, but if I don’t go after those raiders while their trail is still fresh, I won’t likely catch ’em at all.”
“No worry,” Belle said, her voice confident. She picked up the rifle she had momentarily propped against the side of the barn and held it up before her. “He break outta there, I shoot him in the ass.”
“You do that,” Grayson said, pulling the saddle off of Billy’s Appaloosa as he spoke. “I don’t know how long I’ll be gone, but I’ll get back as soon as I can. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch ’em when they’re sleepin’.” Working as quickly as he could, he took the pack saddle off his sorrel and turned all the horses except his gray out into the corral. Belle helped him replace the poles the Pawnee raiders had taken out to steal John’s horses. Then with one last caution for Belle to be careful, he stepped up in the saddle and headed downriver in the direction the Pawnee had fled.
Far from oblivious to all the action taking place outside his darkened cell, Billy listened attentively to all the conversation he could hear between the Cherokee woman and Grayson. As soon as he heard Grayson’s horse leaving the yard, he called out, hoping to catch Belle’s ear before she went back in the house to care for her husband. “Ma’am,” he called, doing his best to sound meek. “Ma’am, I don’t wanna be no bother, but can I speak to you for just a minute?”
Hearing his plaintive request, Belle walked back to stand outside the smokehouse door. “What you want? Grayson say don’t trust you.”
“I don’t know what I ever did to make that man come after me. He’s haulin’ me to Fort Smith f
or somethin’ I didn’t even do. I can prove I’m innocent, but he won’t let me. I don’t mean to bother you, but if you’d just give me some water I’d be mighty obliged. Grayson ain’t give me nothin’ to eat or drink since yesterday, and I’m awful parched.”
Belle did not answer at once, but stood there for a few moments, thinking over his request. She was not without pity for any suffering animal, but neither was she witless. “I bring you some water, maybe some food.”
“Oh, thank you, ma’am, and bless you. I surely do appreciate it. I could tell by your sweet voice that you were a kind Christian woman.” Inside the dark en-closure a malicious smile spread across his face. He was confident in his charm with the ladies, whether they were gullible young girls or weathered older women, and this time Grayson would not be around to interfere.
Due to the Pawnee raid, there had been no food prepared for her husband’s supper, but Belle got some deer jerky and filled a jug with water and returned to the smokehouse. Hearing her approach, Billy positioned himself at the door, ready to spring on the surprised woman as soon as the door was opened.
“You stand back from the door,” she said, “and I put water and jerky inside.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Billy replied. “I’ll stand way back against the back wall until you close the door again, and I sure thank you for your kindness. I’m backin’ up now.” In a crouch, he moved up silently before the door, his feet set solidly under him to launch his body like a battering ram as soon as he saw daylight in the opening.
Certain now that she was doing the right thing, she set the jug of water on the ground at her feet and carefully removed the spike that latched the door. Inside, Billy heard the grating of the iron spike as it slid up from the hasp. He readied himself to attack. As soon as she pulled the door open, she was affronted with a body hurling up in her face. Prepared for the possibility of such an occurrence, she took a step back and delivered a blow to his forehead with her husband’s hand axe, which she had brought with her as a precaution. Knocked senseless, Billy landed in a heap across the sill of the smokehouse door, where he lay motionless. Still with no show of emotion, Belle took hold of Billy’s belt and dragged him back inside the smokehouse. She then set the jug of water inside, along with the jerky, closed the door, inserted the spike, and returned to the house to check on her husband.
“Grayson said be careful, you might try something,” she said as she was walking away, but the figure lying prone inside the smokehouse didn’t hear her comment.
* * *
The trail was not hard to follow. The raiders had taken no pains to hide it, probably, Grayson thought, because they didn’t think there was anyone that might follow them. Down along the riverbank they had fled, crossing over to the other side at a point where a sandbar extended halfway across. This is where he found John’s cow. Evidently it had balked at going for a swim and the Indians decided it too much of a bother to try to drive it to the other side. Grayson was mildly surprised. He had figured to find the remains of the cow after the Indians had butchered it for supper. According to what Belle had told him, the raiders had gotten away with a generous supply of bacon, dried apples, and a case of canned peaches that John had ordered all the way from Omaha. Evidently they were satisfied to feast on this, he supposed, and let the cow go when it became a nuisance.
With a nudge of his heels, he guided the gray into the water, and picked up the Pawnees’ trail where they came out of the river. It continued to follow the river. He was glad they had felt no need for caution, for it was already beginning to get dark. He estimated no more than another half hour at the most before the sun dropped below the distant horizon, and then light would disappear as if someone had blown out a lantern. He followed the tracks for as long as he could see them, and they never left the river. When darkness finally descended upon the prairie, he continued to ride down the river, for they were sure to make camp next to the water. As he watched for a fire, he hoped they had stopped to make camp early, since he had started several hours behind them.
After a couple of hours passed, a full moon climbed over the hills to the east, casting enough light on a sandy patch in the bluffs to clearly reveal the tracks of the horses he followed, telling him that he had not lost them to that point. He rode no more than a mile farther before he saw what he had been alert for, the flickering of a flame through the branches of the trees beside the river. He reined the gray back immediately and dismounted. He tied his horse to a tree with a split trunk, one he could recognize easily in the dark in the event things didn’t go the way he planned and he had to run for it. After checking to make sure he had a full magazine in his Winchester, he started making his way closer to the campfire.
He had covered a distance of about fifty yards when he reached a point on the riverbank where he was forced to stop and look the situation over. To proceed, he would have to leave the cover of the trees and cross an open patch of grass, perhaps thirty yards across. The campfire was on the other side of the opening where the trees began again. The Indians had hobbled the horses in the open patch and left them to graze. The rising moon didn’t help matters, for it would only make it easier for him to be seen when he crossed the opening. So he backed away and dropped down below the bank, thinking it safer to make his way along the slippery edge of the water.
Once he reached a point almost directly below the Indians’ campfire, he raised up from his crouched position just high enough to see the camp. It was as he had hoped to find it. The raiders had evidently filled their bellies and retired to their blankets. Belle had said there were five raiders, and he counted five sleeping forms like spokes around the fire. He remained there for a few minutes, trying to decide how best to handle the situation. It would be risky to try to sneak off with the horses without waking the Pawnees. There was also the matter of punishing them for raiding the store and shooting John Polsgrove. And that would require a gun battle between him and five Indians, all armed, probably, since they stole weapons from the trading post. If he walked in among them, shooting as fast as he could, he was sure he could kill at least three of them before they could all react. But that would leave two that had a chance to retaliate. He discarded the idea, thinking that just wasn’t his style to fire away at sleeping figures. First, I’ll see about the horses, he decided.
Drawing away from the edge of the bank, he backtracked to a point opposite the edge of the clearing. Then he climbed up the bluff and made his way as quietly as he could in among the group of horses now watching him as he approached. John’s horses were easily distinguished from those belonging to the Pawnees, for the Indian ponies backed away as soon as he came near. One of John’s horses wore a halter, so Grayson went to it first; then one by one he untied the hobbles on the others. After he finished removing the restricting ropes on John’s horses, first one, then another of the Indian ponies allowed him to approach and remove their hobbles as well. The remaining three shied away; one of them, a shaggy looking paint, reared his head and snorted his defiance, causing Grayson to drop to one knee, rifle ready, in case the pony woke those sleeping by the fire. When there was no response from the camp, he decided to leave well enough alone and forget the three renegade ponies, although he would have liked to put the Pawnees on foot.
Not at all sure whether it would work or not, he took hold of the halter on John’s horse and led it across the clearing toward the trees where the gray was tied, hoping the others would follow. At first, the others simply stood where they were and watched as he neared the tree line. Then one, and then a second, and then the others followed, including the two Indian ponies he had freed from their hobbles. Grayson was amazed. He made it back to the split tree and the gray, with the horses still following, although a couple began to lose interest and turned around. Still, he decided he was ahead in the game, so he climbed aboard the gray and rode back to herd the two stragglers before they reached the clearing again. The sudden crack of a rifle shot as
it whistled over his head was the signal that caused the camp to erupt in an uproar of loud yelling and cries of alarm. It was followed by rifle and pistol shots thrown indiscriminately toward the trees around him. The sudden commotion caused the horses to bolt, and Grayson worked hard to keep his from rearing up. Out in the clearing now, he saw two figures running to try to catch their ponies. He settled his horse down enough to get off a couple of fast shots, hitting one of the Indians in full stride. There was immediate return fire from the edge of the clearing when the others spotted his muzzle flashes. Spending only enough time to throw three more shots at the flashes he saw from their weapons, he decided it best to retreat. He wheeled the gray and galloped after the gang of horses that had bolted away from the river, luckily in the direction he had first come.
Leaving the river behind, the small herd of horses galloped out onto the prairie, with Grayson content to follow, as long as they continued in that general direction. He would let them run until they tired themselves out, even with the risk of breaking a leg on the dark prairie; then he would attempt to herd them back toward the river and John’s place. His thoughts were interrupted once again by the zip of a rifle slug over his head, followed by the report of the rifle behind him. Damn, he thought, sure it was the same Indian that sent the first shot over his head earlier. If he ever figures out he’s shooting high, I’m a goner. Bending low over his horse’s neck, he galloped on until coming to a line of low hills. Charging straight over the top of one of them, he pulled the gray to a hard stop as soon as he crossed over the crest, coming out of the saddle with his rifle in hand. As soon as his feet hit the ground, he scrambled back to the top of the hill and dived on his belly. He didn’t have to wait long before he saw two Indian ponies charging after him at full speed, the dark forms of their riders leaning low over their horses’ necks. He took his time to make sure the front sight was squarely in the center of the dark form on the lead horse. He squeezed the trigger and the rider disappeared from the horse’s back. Grayson cocked the rifle and quickly shifted to aim it at the second Indian, but he veered away when the rifle spoke, causing Grayson to miss. He immediately cocked it again, but the Indian was galloping away at an angle by then and lying low on the side of his pony. Grayson watched to see if the warrior would attempt to come after him again, but after a few minutes, he decided that the Indian had had enough. With thoughts of his little herd of horses scattering in all directions, he sped off after them again, only to lose them in the darkness. “Dammit!” he cursed, afraid he had gone to all that trouble in vain.
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