“If you mean that for me,” Bardoul said calmly, “forget it. I never shot at any man except in self-defense. I trailed Bain because he tried to kill me an’ because he was a mad dog. He drew. It was his tough luck, however, if you take a poll of the women in this train, I think you’ll find they all will rest easier when they know he’s dead.”
“Then that question is settled,” Coyle said, obviously relieved. “What about the route?”
“We follow the one we chose,” Pearson said. “It has been very good so far.”
“What about that route, Bardoul?” Reutz asked.
“It is a good route so far. Tomorrow it will be rough, but still good, and the next day. After that, I’d say we’d better change. That waterhole is not good and we will make it only after a dry camp.”
“Nonsense!” Pearson said. “Our information is of the best. Lyon says that waterhole is good. Phillips says he thinks it is.”
“We’ll continue on the way we’re going,” Coyle said. “How about it, Massey?”
“I’ll take Tate Lyon’s word. After all, he’s the guide on this trip.”
“That’s good enough for me,” Coyle added.
“Well,” Reutz shrugged, “might’s well give it a try.”
Massey turned on Bardoul, and there was a cool, measured triumph in his eyes. Jacquine Coyle had just ridden up. “By the way, Bardoul. What about that wagon of yours that is trailing behind us?”
They all turned, eyes on him. Suspicion mounted into the eyes of the German. “What wagon?” Reutz asked.
“Why, the light wagon that’s been trailin’ us. Two men in it.”
“What about it, Bardoul?” Coyle wanted to know.
“I know no more about them, than you. My driver, Tolliver, seems to know them. Bain had climbed in their wagon and was holding them under his gun. The oldest one’s name is Joe Rucker, but both are mere youngsters, and perfectly harmless!”
He turned his horse and started back toward his wagons, Murphy falling in alongside of him. How much they believed, he neither knew nor cared. Yet he was conscious that Jacquine’s eyes followed him, curious, questioning.
6
The air lay dead and still upon the long, dry grass lands, no breath of wind stirring the pale green and brown of the prairie. A haze covered the sky, a high haze that seemed to gather and intensify the heat while increasing the humidity and making every breath an effort.
The oxen were irritable and erratic, no longer content to bow their necks and pull, but wanting to wander from the trail, to spread out, to escape the eternally rising and enveloping dust.
Stones mixed themselves with the grass, and although the heavy wagons tacked and yawed, they could not escape them all. The going was heavier now, and occasionally the sheer weight of the pull dragged the teams to a stop, and then under the cracking of the bull whips they lunged into the harness once more, straining inch by inch through the grass.
Pausing to give the oxen a chance to breathe Murphy glanced up at Matt, who had stopped beside him, “Sultry as hell! We may get a storm!”
“Uh huh. A little rain would help.”
“If we get it now, it won’t be a little rain.”
Twice more they crossed the river, but the water was running very low. Once, far away to the south, they sighted a few antelope, and although Bardoul tried, there was no getting close to them. They were restless and wary, seeming to feel the same tension that disturbed the oxen.
Glancing back he noticed that Joe’s wagon was following them closer now, staying within sight of the wagon train.
This was Indian country, and several times he had seen Indian sign around. Murphy noticed it, too.
During the late afternoon, Matt relieved Tolliver, and walked beside the oxen while the young mountaineer rode back to talk to Joe and Joe’s brother. Matt told him to warn them about keeping a sharp lookout for Indians.
Company C, led by Herman Reutz, was next to him on the south. The storekeeper had seven wagons, all heavily loaded. Two of his company had four wagons each. Aside from Brian Coyle’s, no wagons were loaded so richly as these, although Matt knew his own load was valuable enough.
If the Sioux should wipe them out they would certainly make a rich haul. Probably no wagon train had ever moved toward the west as richly laden as this one. Each man was chosen and each had been advised as to his cargo, and the loads they carried were at least eighty percent pay loads.
At prevailing prices, Matt figured, his wagons were worth easily … it hit him like a bucket of ice water.
He stopped dead still for an instant as the idea hit his mind, and then he began to walk on, but he was scowling. Why, in freight and animals alone, not counting weapons or money carried on their persons, this wagon train must be worth more than three hundred thousand dollars!
Work cattle brought thirty to forty dollars a head in St. Joseph or Council Bluffs, although often the price varied from month to month. They were selling for still higher prices in Deadwood, but in Oregon they would command at least twice that amount. There were a number of milk cows being driven along, and nearly every wagon had at least one saddle horse trailing behind. Some of Coyle’s company were driving a few sheep.
Each wagon carried from two thousand to twenty-five hundred pounds of freight, most of it in clothing, ammunition, tea, flour, coffee, sugar, beans, bacon and dried fruit. As the wagon train was supposed to supply the basic needs of a town that was expected to grow, there were also tools, bales of clothing and other dry goods as well as extra weapons.
It would be a rich haul, a very rich haul for the Sioux … or anyone else.
Supposing the personnel of the wagon train were unarmed? How very simple to slaughter them and take over!
That, he knew, was the only way it could be done. The west was already too crowded for a wagon train to be looted boldly without making every man of the attacking party an outlaw. The only way it could be done would be mass murder.
Nor would it be the first time it had happened. White men were known to have run with Indians, and to have guided them to selected wagon trains. Jules Reni, for whom Julesburg was named, had long been suspected of doing just that. The richest wagon trains had invariably been looted after leaving his post, and escaped prisoners told of seeing white renegades coming and going among the Indians.
Abel Bain had been known to be one of these, and Bat Hammer was suspected of being another. Bardoul had once accompanied a relief party that started out to drive off the Indians attacking a wagon train, and while trailing the Indians, had personally seen a man riding a steeldust horse, such as Hammer rode at the time, among the pursued. Although there had been no evidence, feeling was so high around Julesburg that Hammer had left the country.
Certainly, if that were the plan, to lead this wagon train into the remote Big Horn basin and loot it, the planning had been shrewd. Precautions had been taken to select only men who would bring good stock and a rich cargo, and to keep anyone from knowing their destination.
Where, in all this, did Colonel Pearson stand? Despite his dislike for the man Matt could not bring himself to believe that Pearson was a criminal. He might be a coward, and was without doubt a fool, but he was at least a reasonably honest fool.
Yet Brian Coyle was one of the planners. The project had been conceived by Pearson, Coyle and Massey, and Tate Lyon had offered the gold that was their talking point. That Lyon was a part of the scheme, Bardoul could easily believe, for the man was of a type with Bain and Hammer.
Was Coyle an unwitting dupe of Massey? Or was he involved himself? If he was involved, would he bring his daughter? That was the best argument in Coyle’s favour, and yet Coyle had done most of the planning and organization. Many a man had been drawn into crooked dealings when he believed it could be done without being exposed, and to them this should seem a foolproof plan.
Whether or not he had guessed correctly, it would be wise to plan with this answer in mind. If it were not the right one they would at l
east be ready for whatever came. It would be well, too, to have a talk with some of the more trustworthy men of his own company as well as those of Coyle and Reutz. They must not be trapped.
There was another point to be considered. Where would the attack be likely to occur? Would it be soon? In the Big Horn basin? Or would they wait until they reached the bank of the Shell?
It was logical to assume that they would wait. The further the place of attack from Deadwood, the easier it would be to destroy any possibility of information ever getting out as to the fate of the wagon train. Also, the wagons would be closer to the market probably selected for the goods which would certainly be further west. When he thought of the market problem, he at once recalled the mining towns northwest of them where everything was priced out of reason.
When Tolliver returned, Matt mounted his horse, and mopping perspiration from his face, turned the horse toward the open country to escape the dust.
He was no more than a quarter of a mile away from the train when he saw Jacquine Coyle loping her pony toward him. “Oh? It’s you?” She looked at him curiously. “Somehow I didn’t recognize you.”
“Disappointed? Or is my horse so dusty he looks black?” Clive Massey often rode a black horse.
“No, it was neither. Only, I thought … well, I’m glad to see you, anyway. I’ve been wanting to tell you how sorry I was for being sarcastic the other evening when you were shot. It’s just that I was never near anyone who had been shot before, and it seemed so fantastic. I thought something would happen, a big noise, or a scream or something. It was scarcely even exciting.”
He chuckled. “Next time I’ll grab my chest with both hands, scream and fall off my horse.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that! But… .”
“I know. It surprised me at first, too. So many things that are so dramatic or exciting when you read about them actually happen so simply and quietly. We humans like to consider ourselves important to creation and to the world, and we expect that whenever death comes it should be with a crash of thunder and wild shouts or something, or with soft music around and people looking grave and serious. We always have it that way in the theatre because it makes us believe in our importance. Most of our life is a matter of dressing ourselves up to believe in just that, dressing ourselves in attractive clothes, in titles, in reputations. Actually, at base we all realize that we’re just a frightened bunch of animals, still afraid of the unknown, still afraid of thousands of things that can separate us from life, and trying to shield ourselves from our own smallness.”
Jacquine stared at him curiously. “You’re a strange man. You talk like a philosopher. Does your wound bother you now?”
“Itches a little in this heat. It wasn’t much.”
She turned a little in her saddle. “How does a man become what you are?” she asked. “I mean … well, Barney heard some stories about you. About your fight with Lefty King at Julesburg, and how you were at the Wagon Box fight, and Ban Hardy told us how you stood off sixty Kiowas all alone once, down in Texas.”
“Ban talks too much. Anyway, I was in a buffalo wallow, and they couldn’t get to me.”
“Then on the stage coming up from Cheyenne I heard Elam Brooks talking to a man when we stopped at Pole Creek Ranch and he said you were one man Logan Deane would want to stay clear of. Are you such a dangerous person then?”
“Me? Lord, no! Only I’ve had gun trouble a few times.”
“What do you think about Logan Deane?”
“I think he’s a brave man, as much as any of us are.”
“Barney heard that he was suspected of holding up the stage out of Cheyenne, once.”
“I wouldn’t know. He doesn’t talk much. He has a reputation as being one of the fastest men alive with a gun.”
“Do you think you’ll have trouble with him?”
Matt glanced at her curiously. Was this simple curiosity? Or was she actually seeking information? And if it was information she wanted, was it for herself? Her father? Or for Clive Massey? If he said he expected trouble, and within himself he was sure it would eventually come, it could be twisted to mean that he was hunting trouble. Massey would stop at nothing to put him in a bad light, to get rid of him.
“I doubt it. He has a reputation as a gun hand. So have I. Often two such men hunt each other up just to see which is best, and the men of this wagon train know that. They like to talk about such things over a campfire, and men always have. I expect that in the days of the knights in armour the various fighters would go miles to find each other, and before them cavemen with stone clubs.
“The trouble is that such talk will often lead to a fight, for gun fighters are often jealous of their reputations, and they hear a lot of talk about who is the fastest, until finally they begin to wonder themselves. From there it is just a step to an actual fight.”
“Like you and Spinner Johns?”
“That was different.”
“You mean,” she asked carefully, “that you believe he was sent to kill you?”
“Where did you get that idea?”
“Barney heard it. He likes you, and he hears a lot of gossip among the men. Some of them believe he was sent to kill you.”
“I don’t know why he came. I had never seen him before.”
“You’ve heard that silly talk about Clive sending him?” She looked at him searchingly.
“Yes. Did Barney tell you that, too?”
“No, I heard that from two other men. Mr. Reutz and Elam Brooks thought it curious.”
He changed the subject deliberately. “That brother of yours is quite a fellow. He’s considerable of a man, if you ask me. This country is made to order for him.”
“If he doesn’t become a gunman, he has been practicing.”
“He should. It might come in handy, sometime. After all,” he looked at her quickly, anxious that she understand this point, “this country is still wild. There are Indians here, and white renegades that are worse. These men are savage, they understand only the law of force, and if one is to live in such a country one must be prepared to protect those one loves and the things one lives by.
“But you need not worry about Barney. He isn’t the stuff of which gunmen are made.”
She looked around at him suddenly. “Who’s your girl? Is it that pretty Stark girl? Sarah?”
He blushed suddenly. “Gosh, no! I don’t have a girl.”
“Or is it that girl in the light wagon back there?” There was genuine questioning in her eyes now and he realized she had been leading up to this.
He hesitated only an instant. “What girl? You mean Joe’s brother?”
“I heard Joe’s brother was a girl.”
He was not sure of that, but he believed Abel Bain’s guess could be right. There was certainly something mysterious about that light wagon.
“Whoever gave you that idea?”
“Clive. He says you’re keeping a girl back there, dressed as a man.”
“He’s mistaken. If there is a girl back there, it is none of my business, and I don’t know that there is.”
“Are you still suspicious about this wagon train? I remember how you tried to warn us in the hotel.”
He avoided the issue by seeming to misunderstand the question. “You mean, do I doubt there is gold along the Shell? No, I can’t say that I do. There is very likely to be gold there, and certainly, whether there is or not it is one of the most beautiful regions in the west. For myself, I don’t care whether there is or not. I have other plans.”
“What sort of plans?”
“A ranch in the Big Horn basin. A ranch where I can see the mist rising over the valley in the morning and where I can see my cattle grazing on the long grass. A place of my own, just a long, low rambling place with lots of comfort and security, with good, cold water, a lot of beauty around me, and a chance to do something that will add to the country instead of just looting it.”
“A wife? Or have you a wife somewhere?”
“No, to the last question. I have no wife, and haven’t had. As to whether I want one: of course. Schopenhauer said that happiness was born a twin. I believe that. Nothing is quite so beautiful as when you share it with someone else. There is no purpose in working unless one works for someone, for something.”
“A gunfighter who quotes Schopenhauer! What next?”
“You’d be surprised at some of the men you see in the west. Don’t get an idea because they wear guns and use them that all these men are ignorant and uneducated. Some of the most brilliant men in the world have come west as pioneers, men of intelligence and ability in every line. Around these campfires I’ve heard men discuss questions of philosophy in a manner that would do justice to Berkeley or Hume.”
“Then it isn’t gold you’re looking for?”
“Of course not. Gold can mean power, luxury, women, liquor, and whatever a man wants in that line, but gold always means struggle, war. I don’t want that. I’m a man who knows what he wants, a home, a ranch, time to work without strain, and time to live. Why fight my life away to have as much as or more than someone else? Soon the years are gone and all there is to remember is a lot of empty struggle, and one is too old to enjoy what was gained.”
“What was the trouble between you and Colonel Pearson?”
He looked around at her quickly. “What is this? An inquisition?” He shrugged, smiling. “It was quite important at the time. We had a difference of opinion about a little matter of tactics in an Indian fight down south of here, a long way south.”
“Was he in command?”
“Yes. I was a civilian scout.”
He studied the horizon, his eyes narrowing. “We’re going to have a storm, and a bad one. We’d better start back.”
Without actually being aware of it, they had ridden on ahead of the wagon train. They were far out of sight of it now, and Matt could see the thickening along the horizon. He knew how quickly storms could strike in this region, and how fierce they could be.
Novel 1950 - Westward The Tide (v5.0) Page 10