The men scrambled for their horses. Romayne was already mounted and riding out. Sydnor made no move to go, nor Wellman, and no doubt Shurtz and Hostetter were staying home, too. The street boiled with dust.
Wellman came over to Dan Younge. “Glad to see you’re not riding. I wouldn’t want to lose my gambler.”
“Your interest touches my heart, Mr. Wellman. Love me enough to stand for a beer?”
“A good idea, Younge.”
The big bartender drew them two, and one for himself. “We only got three kegs of beer left, Mr. Wellman. Somebody better get the trails open soon.”
“Until they are open, beer’ll be four bits a glass,” Wellman said. “Dan, how’ll the blockade affect your table?”
Dan Younge shrugged. “When money can’t get out of a place,” he said, “the house percentage will start eating it up, I suppose. Of course, there are quite a few men in town who don’t gamble, and an awful lot more whose wives are going to get pretty mad if we start doing too well. They might try and get an ordinance against gambling.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when…” Wellman broke off. Horses were drumming down the street and not from the direction of the reservation.
“Can’t be the men coming back,” the bartender said.
But Dan Younge was already in the door. Wellman crowded him. These were not townsmen that rode Rock Spring; they were a ragged bunch, with the flat hats and jack-eared boots of miners.
The leader’s hat was white and hugely-brimmed. Seeing the men in the saloon door, he pulled his horse up, and while the animal was still rearing, snatched a gun from his hip and fired.
Wellman ducked back into the saloon, and Dan Younge dropped to one knee. The shot flicked splinters from the doorframe.
Dan Younge said: “Red, lemme have the shotgun.”
The barman must have passed it to Wellman. It came under Dan Younge’s arm, and he threw it up, fired without taking much aim. The middle of the street was pretty far range for a sawed-off bar gun, the shotgun was meant to foil holdups, not to hunt rabbits with.
The shot must have tickled White Hat’s horse. He danced, and the big man on his back rocked perilously in his saddle. He fired again, the shot going high, and then galloped on down the street, his men coming up after him. As they passed the sheriff’s office, now deserted, they shot out the glass window that had a sheriff’s star in it. Going by the store, they caused Charley Sydnor to tumble back into its dark depths with a lack of dignity unusual in the town’s richest man.
“Now you know,” Dan Younge said. He stood up, handed the shotgun to Wellman. “Miners. They must have been hiding out in the malapie. They’ll be back. They need supplies.”
Wellman said: “Well, damn it, a saloon’s what they’ll head for. I… They must have been watching, must have seen the men leave town.”
Dan Younge said, “They’ll be back. There’s a half dozen soldiers up by the big rock, the noise’ll bring ’em down. Till then, you and Red can hold them off. I’m going over to the store.”
“Sydnor…”
Dan Younge said: “To hell with Sydnor,” and ran across the street into the store. Sydnor was cramming shells into a double barrelled shotgun. Ellen Lea was back against the till. Dan Younge said: “Give me a six shooter, Mrs. Lea. And then start loading all the rest of the ones in stock. Stay back of the counter there, and throw them to me as they’re ready:“
There was a flour barrel and a sugar barrel and a pickle keg. He rolled the keg into the doorway, backed it up with the sugar barrel, and had to leave the flour barrel alone because the hoofs had drummed back.
He was behind the sugar barrel, crouched down, when White Hat pulled up in front of the store. There were only ten or twelve men with him. Dan Younge grinned at himself; they had seemed like an army when they went by the Great Chance shooting at him.
White Hat roared, “We’re starvin’ men, and we know they’s only a handful of you in town. If you don’t want your houses burned and your womenfolk killed, start throwin’ out some edibles.”
Sydnor’s answering roar was characteristic. “If you’re who we think you are, you have gold to pay for what you want.”
“We’re wanted for murder,” White Hat said. “It ain’t gonna hurt us to be sheriffed after over some stolen groceries. Throw ’em out! We need bacon an’ flour, an’ salt. We need coffee an’…”
Dan Younge fired. As he did so, something nudged his leg. He almost turned, then remembered, and dropped his left hand down. It was a loaded six shooter. Another arrived before he could raise his hand—Ellen Lea was getting practiced at loading.
He couldn’t tell if his bullet did any good, but with unlimited ammunition and no need to stop to load, he ought to be able to stop the outlaw miner problem before it got a fair start.
Red was booming away with the shotgun, and then men in the street were firing back. Suddenly the pickle barrel burst wide open, and taught Dan Younge that pickles make poor cover. He was drenched with the brine, and blinded by it.
He scrubbed at his eyes with his neat black sleeve, and when he could see again the scene in the street had changed. The miners were gone, and the last of Sergeant Rylan’s tiny garrison was disappearing after them.
Dan Younge stood up, and turned to Ellen Lea. “Hardly a hero. I must smell like a pickling works.”
She said: “With dill seeds in your hair instead of laurels,” and, defiant of Sydnor, threw him a brand new huckaback towel out of stock.
He scrubbed at his face and coat with it, chuckling over her remark. It showed an education and a point of view that he hadn’t expected in Rock Spring.
Sydnor, grunting and red in the face, was wheeling the sugar out of danger of being contaminated with the free-flowing pickle brine. Dan Younge dropped the towel on the floor, and then picked it up again, realizing that if he didn’t, Sydnor would make Ellen do it. He said: “They won’t be back. They must have thought all the soldiers went off to the Indian parley.”
“You’re a cool one,” Sydnor said. “Ever think of giving up gambling?”
“For what?”
“This town could use a law officer who was around sometimes when he was needed.”
“I’m too fond of money for work like that,” Dan Younge said. “I was drinking a beer when this started; think I’ll go finish it. The troops won’t catch White Hat. Their horses are too big to be very fast.
Sydnor cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said. “And those miners surely headed for the malapie. Pretty broken country in there for a big horse. You ever seen it?”
“Closest I’ve ever been was a couple of miles, when I was out with Romayne.”
“Romayne,” Sydnor grunted. “That one’s a lot of use to Rock Spring.”
Ellen Lea said sharply: “He thought the danger was from the Indians, and he went out to meet it.”
Sydnor looked astounded.
He said: “Well, maybe,” and went back into the store.
She’s serious about Jack Romayne, Dan Younge thought. Too bad, nice girl. He bowed to her, and said, “Mrs. Lea, you and I make a good team in a gunfight,” and went out in the street, back to his beer.
CHAPTER XV
Lieutenant Beer said: “You can promise these Indians justice, but you cannot promise them that I’ll lead my squad of men into country such as this malapie you are talking about. I’m sorry!” and then was silent as Nate Allen translated to the two chiefs. The one called Ironhand started shaking his head dolefully.
But the older man was suddenly talkative. His speech flowed fast, his hands waved, he rolled in his saddle with the passion of what he had to say.
Jack Romayne found himself listening intently, though there was no possibility of understanding a word.
When the old man finished, he settled down in his raw wooden saddle again, and waited. It was impossible t
o believe that a moment before he had been so active.
Nate Allen shrugged, and looked from one to the other of the three white men. “Two Eagles says he doesn’t blame the soldiers for not wanting to go into the malapie after the killers. It was not the soldiers’ women that were killed, not their children. So, he says, give the Indians good rifles and good pistols, like the killers have, and the young men of the tribe’ll go into the malapie, and get the killers themselves, and there will be peace on the prairie. That’s what he says.”
Jack Romayne shouted: “No! I got seventy-five, a hundred men over there, just over that rise. They got guns, and they’ll use ’em before they let us arm the Indians. It’s bad enough with the smooth bores an’ old single shot pistols the Shoshone have now.”
“We need our guns for hunting,” Nate Allen said. “If yore folks didn’t want to live next to Indians, they shouldn’t have settled here first off.”
Major Miles cried: “Gentlemen, gentlemen, we’re not getting anyplace. I suggest…”
He broke off, and they all waited. And then he finished lamely, “I suggest we hold off all action till tomorrow, and hold another parley then.”
The only trouble with the troops, Jack Romayne was thinking, is that there aren’t enough of them. On the other hand, there are plenty of Rock Springers, but I can’t get them organized into a posse. Maybe another man could; maybe Dan Younge could.
But he pushed the thought away and said, suddenly: “Lieutenant, would you ride with a posse if we had one?”
Lieutenant Beer looked startled. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “Maybe I would. I can’t think of anything against it; an officer is entitled to scout, if he wants to, and leave his command behind. Let me think it over.”
Watching the soldiers, Jack Romayne hadn’t heard riders coming up. The Indian chiefs and old Nate Allen were being crowded back, into safety, by young Indians who circled their ponies forward. Half of them were riding without saddles and hardly any of them had proper bridles, Romayne noticed, and the guns they carried were smooth bores and old single shot rifles—but there were a lot of them.
They made their ponies curvet and dance among the white men, separating Romayne from Beer, Beer from Miles. Beer passed a low order to his men: “Keep your hands away from your carbines; hold your reins high.”
The riders, it became apparent in a moment, were a soldier and Dan Younge. The trooper made a sketchy salute. “From Sergeant Rylan, sir. Riders hit the town. We druv ’em off, but Schmidt an’ Raikes is dead and Swite’s wounded.”
“Indians?”
“No, sir. White men. Miners. We wounded one, took him back to Rock Spring. He says they’re fellas was run out of the Colorado diggings, sir.”
Beer said: “All right. Fall in with the column, over there.” He turned to Dan Younge. “Anything to add to that, Mr. Younge?”
Dan Younge said: “The men in town—Sydnor, Wellman and so on—want to beg you and Major Miles to settle with the Indians on any basis. I agreed to bring the word to you.”
Beer said: “What everybody seems to want is for me and my men—and I’ve only got thirteen of them left—to ride into the malapie after these outlaws. That’s the basis the Indians are willing to settle on. But the sheriff here has the idea that a few of my men and I go as scouts with a posse. That I’m willing to do.” He turned in the saddle. “Mr. Allen!”
Seeing that there were only two of the gallopers, and that they had not come gun in hand, the braves had allowed their elders to come forward again.
Nate Allen said: “Yeah?”
Beer said: “You can hold your young men till—say—this time tomorrow?”
“Make it this afternoon. After dark, they might get to wardancing around the fires, and then they’d be out of hand. Make it before sundown today.”
Beer stared at the half breed. “You’re really out for peace,” he said. “You’re a good man, Mr. Allen.”
“I’m a live one. Mean to stay so.”
The words, the spoken wish, might have been a signal.
The townsmen, bored with waiting over the hill, had started passing bottles around. Now they were filled with courage, Great Chance brand; and they came over the rise and down on the parley hard.
Miles said quickly: “Stop them, Romayne.”
But he didn’t say how. Jack Romayne raised his reins, kicked back with his spurs, and the horse carried him forward till he was abreast of the men.
They split around Jack Romayne like water around a rock, and rode on for the Indians. Only a few of them carried rifles, but they all had six shooters, and maybe it was just some drunken fool trying to puncture the sky who fired the first shot.
But that did it. The warhoop that came up from the Indian braves might have come from one monstrous throat. The Indians rode into the townsmen with knives and clubs and the townsmen rode into the Shoshone with their guns out, and one horse screamed as its throat was cut.
Dust came up in a blinding, choking cloud, and Jack Romayne felt his horse taking him out of there. Suddenly there were Indian braves—last year’s boys—on either side of him, and one of them grabbed his horse’s bridle. The other grappled for Romayne’s neck, trying to get a forearm under Jack Romayne’s chin to pull his head back for the knife.
Jack Romayne felt pain go through his almost healed side. He got his gun out and fired—no need for aiming at that range—at the figure that held his bridle, felt the horse toss his head free.
He clubbed out with the gun and then was riding free, rolling in the saddle. He’d lost his stirrups but the horse was at a flat-bellied run, and it was easy to stay aboard.
All around him other men rode, and one of them, a man who’d driven wagon when the trails were open, a man named Walters, was crying: “We got run off. We got ourselves plain run off by a bunch of Indians.” Tears ran down Walters’ face, and it was a curious thing to see.
Bullet-noise could be heard behind them, and some of the men started lashing their horses with rein-ends and quirts; but the horses were already tired, and going as fast as they could.
Then Jack Romayne realized that no bullets whirred around them; the firing was not at them. He leaned back in his saddle and pulled the bit, and his horse stopped. The first thing he did was put his feet back in the covered stirrups.
There was another round of fire. It was regular and even. “That’s the Army,” Jack Romayne said. A few other men had pulled up, too.
He pulled his horse around, and started back for the scene of the battle, putting the horse to a stiff trot, standing in his stirrups to ease the shock. Three or four men came after him.
But before they got there, Lieutenant Beer came up out of a dip and stopped them with a raised palm. “The Shoshone have pulled deeper into the reservation,” he said. “I dismounted my men and drove the Indians off with carbine fire.”
“I came back as soon as I could round up some help,” Jack Romayne said.
“Certainly,” Beer said courteously. “Certainly. Sheriff, either you or I is Indian agent now, I’m not sure which. Major Miles was killed, the Indians got his body. I lost one of my men, too.”
The officer gestured behind him. There was his little file of men, and one of them was belly down on his saddle, another trooper led his horse.
There was a civilian with the troops; Dan Younge had stayed to fight it out, alongside the military. Jack Romayne avoided the gambler’s eyes.
Lieutenant Beer was still talking, and his voice was like that of a lonesome drunk. Jack Romayne, who had never seen a real gun fight before today had heard that they left men in a peculiar state of shock. “Twelve men,” the officer said. “I have twelve men left. It’s not exactly an Army.”
Jack Romayne said: “I’m going to deputize every able-bodied man in town. That will make you up an army. We’ll run them off, lieutenant.”
; “Who?” the officer asked, simply. “The miners or the Indians? Rock Spring has got itself pinched in a three-cornered war.”
Romayne said: “I reckon that’s right.”
“I’ve got a good education,” Beer said. “You know something about three-sided wars? It’s impossible for anyone to win.”
CHAPTER XVI
Sergeant Rylan’s men had taken a prisoner. One of the troopers had shot a man off his horse, without killing him. The sergeant had brought him back to town, and Charley Sydnor, with his usual presence of mind, had invited the wounded man to his home and sent for Dr. Arnall.
Charley Sydnor waited in the drawing room of his big house. After awhile the doctor came out. He said: “We got the bullet out, Charley. He’ll only be in bed a few days. That’ll be two dollars.”
Charley Sydnor grunted. The doctor shrugged and let himself out the front door.
Charley Sydnor slowly got to his feet. He patted his comfortable paunch, and made his ponderous way to the guest room door. He went in without knocking.
Phyllis was just propping the wounded miner up on three pillows.
Charley said: “I want to talk to this man, wife.”
The miner had a wild, wary look in his eyes; the rest of his face was covered with a snarl of whiskers that made it impossible to place his age within ten years. He could have been forty or sixty.
Phyllis Sydnor quietly left the room.
Charley Sydnor said, “I’ll call you Jonesy. Jonesy, you fellows have been hiding out in the malapie, haven’t you?”
Jonesy said: “Out in that black rock country, yeah. We was headin’ for the coast, and our hosses needed rest. They’s grass and water in there.”
Charley Sydnor let out a ponderous chuckle. “And gold,” he said. Suddenly he moved across the room, snatched up the miner’s clothes.
Jonesy yelled, “Put those down,” and then groaned as the effort pulled at his wound.
But Sydnor went on searching. He found what he wanted in the hip pocket of Jonesy’s woolen breeches—two thin pads of buckskin, nicely quilted. He went over to the bed, put the pokes in Jonesy’s hands. “See, here’s your gold. I’m your friend. Now, the doc says you’ll be well soon.”
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