by Alan Lemay
Sol Clinton came in, now, at last. He looked angry, yet satisfied and triumphant all at once. “I had to put us under his command,” the Ranger captain said. “I don’t even know if I legally can—but it’s done. Won’t matter, once we’re out ahead. We’re going to tie into ’em, boys!”
“The Tonks, too?”
“Tonkawas and all. Mart, you’re on pay as civilian guide. Can you find ’em again in the dark? Can you, hell—you’ve got to! I want to hit before sunrise— leave Greenhill come up as he can. You going to get us there?”
“That I am,” Mart said; and smiled for the first time that day.
Chapter Thirty-eight
Scouting ahead, Mart Pauley found Scar’s village still where he had seen it last. Its swarming cur dogs yammered a great part of every night, and their noise placed the village for him now. The Comanches claimed they could always tell what the dogs were barking at—wolves, Indians, white men, or spooks—and though Mart only partly believed this he reconnoitered the place from a great way out, taking no chances. He galloped back, and met Captain Sol Clinton’s fast-traveling Rangers less than an hour before dawn.
“We’re coming in,” he said to Captain Clinton, turning his horse alongside. “I should judge we’re within—” He hesitated. He had started to say they were within three to five miles, but he had been to very few measured horse races, and had only a vague idea of a mile. “Within twenty minutes trot and ten minutes walk,” he put it. “There you top a low hogback, looking across flat ground; and the village is in sight beyond.”
“In sight from how far?”
There it was again. Mart thought the hogback was about a mile from the village, but what’s a mile? “Close enough to see trees, too far to see branches,” he described it.
That was good enough. “Just about what we want,” Sol accepted it. Everything else had been where Mart had said it would be throughout the long night’s ride. The captain halted his forty-two Rangers, passing the word back quietly along the loose column of twos.
His men dismounted without further command, loosened cinches, and relieved themselves without military precision. They looked unhurried, but wasted no motions. These men supplied their own clothes, saddles, and weapons, and very often their own horses; what you had here was a bunch of individuals, each a tough and weathered fighting man in his own right, but also in his own manner.
Behind them the sixty-odd Tonkawas pulled up at an orderly interval, a body of riders even more quiet than the Rangers. They stepped down and looked to their saddles, which included every form of museum piece from discarded McClellans to Indian-craft rigs with elkhorn trees. Each dug a little hole in which to urinate, and covered it over when he was done.
A word from Clinton sent a young Ranger lacing forward to halt the point, riding a furlong or so ahead in the dark. They were in their last hour before action, but the Ranger captain made no inspection. He had inspected these men to their roots when he signed them on, and straightened them out from time to time after, as needed; they knew their business if they were ever going to.
Clinton sharpened a twig, picked his teeth with it, and looked smug. He had made a good march, and he knew it, and judged that the yellowlegs would be along in about a week. He cast an eye about him for the two cavalry troopers who had ridden with them as runner-links with Colonel Greenhill. They didn’t seem to be in earshot. Captain Clinton spoke to Lieutenant Bart Lester, a shadowy figure in the last of the night. “Looks like we might get this thing cleaned up by breakfast,” he said, “against something different goes wrong.” Before Colonel Greenhill comes up, he meant. “Of course, when’s breakfast is largely up to Scar. You can’t—Who’s this?”
Charlie MacCorry had come galloping up from the rear, where he had been riding tail. Now he pulled up, leaning low to peer at individuals, looking for Captain Clinton.
“Here, Charlie,” Sol spoke.
“Hey, they’re on top of us!”
“Who is?”
“The yellowlegs! They’re not more than seven minutes behind!”
The toothpick broke between Sol Clinton’s teeth, and he spit it out explosively as he jumped for his horse. “Damn you, Charlie, if you’ve let—”
“Heck, Sol, we didn’t hear a thing until the halt. It’s only just this minute we—”
“Bart!” Clinton snapped. “Take ’em on forward, and quick! Lope ’em out a little—but a lope, you hear me, not a run! I’ll be up in a couple of minutes!” He went into his loose-cinched saddle with a vault, like a Comanche. He was cussing smokily, and tightening the cinch with one hand as he started hell-for-leather to the rear. The word had run fast down the column, without any shouting, and some of the Rangers were already stepping into their saddles. Charlie ducked his head between his shoulders. “Knew I’d never git far in the Rangers.” Mart followed as Charlie spurred after Clinton who was riding to the Tonkawas.
“We can run for it,” Charlie offered hopefully as Sol pulled up. “I believe if we hold the Tonks at a slow gait behind us—”
“Oh, shut up,” Clinton said. He had to send the Tonkawas on, so that his own men would be between the Tonkawas and the cavalry when they went into action. The cavalry couldn’t be expected to tell one Indian from another, Clinton supposed, in the heat of action. The Tonks would race forward, anyway, pretty soon. No power on earth could hold those fools once the enemy was sighted.
“Hey, Spots!” Clinton called. “Where are you?”
Spotted Hog, the war chief commanding the Tonkawas, sprang onto his pony to ride the twenty yards to Clinton. “Yes, sir,” he said in English of a strong Texan accent.
“Tell you what you do,” Clinton said. “We’re pretty close now; I’m sending you on in. I want—”
Spotted Hog whistled softly, a complicated phrase, and they heard it repeated and answered some distance to the rear.
“Wait a minute, will you? Damn it, Spots, I’m telling you what I want—and nothing no different!”
“Sure, Captain—I’m listening.”
“The village is still there, right where it was supposed to be. So—”
“I know,” Spotted Hog said.
“—so swing wide, and find out which side the crick they’re holding their horses. Soon as you know—”
“The west side,” the Tonkawa said. “The ponies are on the west side. Across from the village.”
“Who told you to put your own scouts out? Damnation, if you’ve waked up that village—Well, never mind. You go hit that horse herd. The hell with scalps—run off that herd, and you can have the horses.”
“We’ll run ’em!”
“All right—get ahead with it.”
“Yes, sir!” Spotted Hog jumped his pony off into the dark where a brisk stir of preparation could be heard among the Tonkawas.
“I got to send Greenhill some damn word,” Clinton began; and one of the cavalry troopers was beside him instantly.
“You want me, sir?”
“God forbid!” Clinton exploded. “Git forward where you belong!” The trooper scampered, and Clinton turned to MacCorry. “Charlie... No. No. What we need’s a civilian—and we got one. Here, Mart! You go tell Greenhill where he’s at.”
“What when he asks where you are?”
“I’m up ahead. That’s all. I’m up ahead. And make this stupid, will you? If he gives you orders for me, don’t try to get loose without hearing ’em; he’ll only send somebody else. But you can lose your way, can’t you? You’re the one found it!”
“Yes, sir,” Mart said with mental reservations.
“Go on and meet him. Come on, Charlie.” They were gone from there, and in a hurry.
Galloping to the rear, past the Tonkawas, Mart saw that they were throwing aside their saddles, and all gear but their weapons, and tying up the tails of their ponies. No war paint had been seen on them until now, but as they stripped their shirts their torsos proved to be prepainted with big circles and stripes of raw colors. Great, many-couped war bon
nets were flowering like turkey tails among them. Each set off, bareback, as soon as he was ready, moving up at the lope; there would be no semblance of formation. The Tonkawas rode well, and would fight well. Only they would fight from the backs of their horses, while the Comanches would be all over their ponies, fighting from under the necks, under the bellies—and still would run their horses the harder.
Once clear of the Tonkawas, Mart could hear the cavalry plainly. The noise they made came to him as a steady metallic whispering, made up of innumerable clinks, rattles, and squeaks of leather, perhaps five minutes away. Darkness still held as he reached them, and described the position of the enemy to Colonel Greenhill. The hundred and twenty cavalry-men wheeled twos into line.
“Has Clinton halted?” Greenhill asked.
“Yes, sir.” Well... he had.
Some restrained shouting went on in the dark. The cavalry prepared to dismount, bringing even numbers forward one horse length; dismounted; reset saddles; and dressed the line. Colonel Greenhill observed that he remembered this country now; he had been over every foot of it, and would have recognized it to begin with, had he been booned with any decent kind of description. He would be glad to bet a barrel of forty-rod that he could fix the coordinates of that village within a dozen miles. If he had had so much as a single artillery piece, he would have shown them how to scatter that village before Scar knew they were in the country.
Mart was glad he didn’t have one, scattering the Comanches being the last thing wanted. In his belief, the pony herd was the key. A Comanche afoot was a beaten critter; but let him get to a horse and he was a long gone Comanche—and a deadly threat besides. He felt no call, however, to expound these views to a brevet-colonel.
“Tell Captain Clinton I’ll be up directly,” Green-hill ordered him; and went briskly about his inspection.
Mart started on, but made a U-turn, and loped to the rear, behind the cavalry lines. At the far end of the dismounted formation stood four narrow-bowed covered wagons, their drivers at attention by the bridles of the nigh leaders. Second wagon was the ambulance; a single trooper, at attention by a front wheel, was the present sanitary detail. Martin Pauley rode to the tail gate, stepped over it from the saddle, and struck a shielded match. Amos lay heavily blanketed, his body looking to be of great length but little substance, upon a narrow litter. By his heavy breathing he seemed asleep, but his eyes opened to the light of the match.
“Mart? Where are we?”
“Pretty close on Scar’s village. I was to it. Within dogbark, anyway. Sol sent the Tonks to make a try at their horses, and took the Rangers on up. He wants to hit before Greenhill finds what he’s up to. How you feel?”
Amos stared straight upward, his eyes bleak and unforgiving upon the unseen night above the canvas; but the question brought a glint of irony into them, so that Mart was ashamed of having asked it.
“My stuff’s rolled up down there by my feet,” Amos said. “Get me my gun from it.”
If he had been supposed to have it, the sanitary detail would have given it to him, but it was a long time since they had gone by what other people supposed for them. Mart brought Amos his six-gun, and his cartridge belt, and checked the loading. Amos lifted a shaking hand, and hid the gun under his blankets. Outside they heard the “Prepare to mount!”
“I got to get on up there.” Mart groped for Amos’ hand. He felt a tremor in its grip, but considerable strength.
“Get my share of ’em,” Amos whispered.
“You want scalps, Amos?”
“Yeah.... No. Just stomp ’em—like I always done—”
Men and horses were beginning to show, black and solid against a general grayness. You could see them now without stooping to outline them against the stars, as Mart stepped from the wagon bed into the saddle. The cavalry had wheeled into column of twos and was in motion at the walk. Mart cleared the head of the column, and lifted his horse into a run.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Sol Clinton’s forty-two Rangers were dismounted behind the last ridge below Scar’s village as Mart came up. They had plenty of light now—more than they had wanted or intended. Captain Clinton lay on the crest of the ridge, studying the view without visible delight. Mart went up there, but Clinton turned on him before he got a look beyond.
“God damn you, Pauley, I—”
“Greenhill says, tell you he’s coming,” Mart got in hastily. “And that’s all he says.”
But Clinton was thinking about something else.
“Take a look at this thing here!”
Mart crawled up beside Clinton, and got a shock. The fresh light of approaching sunrise showed Scar’s village in clear detail, a scant mile from where they lay. Half the lodges were down, and between them swarmed great numbers of horses and people, the whole thing busy as a hoof-busted ant hill. This village was packing to march.
A hundred yards in front of the village a few dozen mounted warriors had interposed themselves. They sat about in idle groups, blanket-wrapped upon their standing ponies. They looked a little like the Comanche idea of vedettes, but more were riding out from the village as Mart and Sol Clinton watched. What they had here was the start of a battle build-up. Clinton seemed unsurprised by Scar’s readiness. You could expect a find a war chief paying attention to his business once in a while, and you had to allow for it. But—“What the hell’s the matter with you people? Can’t you count? That band will mount close to three hundred bucks!”
“I told you he might want this fight. So he’s got himself reinforced, that’s all.”
A rise of dust beyond the village and west of the Wild Dog showed where the Comanche horse herd had been put in motion. All animals not in use as travois horses or battle ponies—the main wealth of the village—were being driven upstream and away. But the movement was orderly. Where were the Tonkawas? They might be waiting upstream, to take the horses away from the small-boy herders; they might have gone home. One thing they certainly were not doing was what they had been told. Captain Clinton had no comment to waste on that, either.
He pulled back down the hill, moving slowly, to give himself time to think. Lieutenant Bart Lester came forward, dogged by the two uniformed orderlies. “Flog on back, boy,” Clinton told one of them. “Tell Colonel Greenhill I am now demonstrating in front of the village to develop the enemy strength, and expedite his commitment.... Guess that ought to hold him. Mount ’em up, Bart.”
The Rangers mounted and drifted into line casually, but once they were formed the line was a good one. These men might shun precision of movement for themselves, but they habitually exacted it from their horses, whether the horses agreed to it or not. Mart placed himself near the middle of the line and watched Clinton stoically. He knew the Ranger would be justified in ordering a retreat.
Clinton stepped aboard his horse, looked up and down the line of Rangers, and addressed them conversationally. “Well, us boys was lucky again,” he said. “For once we got enough Comanches to go around. Might run as high as a dozen apiece, if we don’t lose too many. I trust you boys will be glad to hear this is a fight, not a surprise. They’re forming in front of the village, at about a mile. I should judge we won’t have to go all the way; they’ll come to meet us. What I’d like to do is bust through their middle, and on into the village; give Greenhill a chance to hit ’em behind, as they turn after us. This is liable to be prevented. In which case we’ll handle the situation after we see what it is.”
Some of the youngsters—and most of the Rangers were young—must have been fretting over the time Clinton was taking. The cavalry would be up pretty quick, and Colonel Greenhill would take over; probably order a retirement according to plan, they supposed, without a dead Commanche to show. Clinton knew what he was doing, however. In broad daylight, lacking surprise, and with unexpected odds against him, he wanted the cavalry as close as it could get without telling him what to do. And he did not believe Greenhill would consider retreat for a second.
“In case
you wonder what become of them antic Tonks,” Clinton said, “I don’t know. And don’t pay them Comanches no mind, neither—just keep your eye on me. I’m the hard case you’re up against around here—not them childish savages. If you don’t hear me first time I holler, you better by God read my mind—I don’t aim to raise no two hollers on any one subject in hand.”
He pretended to look them over, but actually he was listening. The line stood steady and perfectly straight. Fidgety horses moved no muscle, and tired old nags gathered themselves to spring like lions upon demand, before a worse thing happened. And now they heard the first faint, far-off rustle of the bell-metal scabbards as the cavalry came on.
“I guess this sloppy-looking row of hay-doodles is what you fellers call a line,” Sol criticized them. “Guide center! On Joe, here. Joe, you just follow me.” Deliberately he got out a plug of tobacco, bit off a chew, and rolled it into his cheek. It was the first tobacco Mart had ever seen him use. “Leave us go amongst them,” the captain said.
He wheeled his horse, and moved up the slope at a walk. The first direct rays of the sun were striking across the rolling ground as they breasted the crest, bringing Scar’s village into full view a mile away. A curious sound of breathing could be heard briefly along the line of Rangers as they got their first look at what they were going against. A good two hundred mounted Comanches were now strung out in front of the village, where only the vedettes had stood before; and more were coming from the village in a stream. The war ponies milled a bit, and an increased stir built up in the village beyond, in reaction to the Ranger advance.
Clinton turned in his saddle. “Hey, you—orderly!” “Yes, sir!”
“Ride back and tell Colonel Greenhill: Captain Clinton, of the Texas Rangers, presents his respects—”
“Yes, sir!” The rattled trooper whirled his horse.
“Come back here! Where the hell you going? Tell him the Comanches are in battle line east of the crick, facing south—and don’t say you seen a million of ’em! Tell him I say there’s a couple hundred. If he wants to know what I’m doing, I’m keeping an eye on ’em. All right, go find him.”