Even as he spoke a wind had begun to stir the tall grass. It was gratefully cooling, but he could feel the rain in it. They swung their horses and started back for the wagon train. The horses were eager to run, so they let them go, and behind them the wind suddenly swept down, bringing with it a spatter of rain. A moment later the plain went gray before them with a steel streaked curtain of pounding rain.
The rain stirred the dust bringing a queer smell from the hot dust lying in the grass, and from the grass itself. Jacquine glanced over at him, her eyes bright with laughter. He grinned in response, the rain soaking his shirt and running down his body under his clothes. The dun had turned black now with rain, but the horses seemed to welcome the coolness after the long heat of the day.
They rode down on the wagon train, riding neck and neck at a dead run, soaked to the skin and laughing. As they reached the train, she swung off toward her own wagons, lifting a hand to wave at him, and he swung along side of Tolliver and ducked his head into the back of the wagon for his slicker.
It was only then he recalled his earlier thoughts, his decision about what must be done. He must see Lute Harless right away. Lute, Stark, and the others.
A half hour later it had become too dark and too muddy to travel. They swung the wagon train in a circle within a circle, and gathered the stock inside it. Tonight it would be dangerous to let them graze outside, for they would drift for miles before the driving rain and wind. Usually, the oxen could be safely turned loose, for they rarely travelled far. It was one of the many advantages they had for use on the plains.
Matt found shelter for the zebra dun, and rubbed it down. He thought over what he would tell the others while doing it. Supper was a hurried meal, a matter of getting a plateful of food and rushing to a wagon to eat. Otherwise the pounding rain wrecked and chilled the food.
When he had finished eating, Matt got up. He glanced around at big Bill Shedd. “Stick close by, Bill. Keep an eye on both wagons. I’ll be gone for awhile.”
Shedd glanced at him thoughtfully, lighting his pipe. “All right.” He inhaled deeply. “Them wagons in A Company,” he said suddenly, “loaded mighty light, ain’t they?”
Bardoul nodded.
“Seems funny. Goin’ west to organize a town, an’ one of the main stems ain’t carryin’ much.”
Matt pulled on his slicker again, looking past the lantern at Shedd. The big man puzzled him. He was huge, fat around the belt, and usually untidy, but sometimes there was an expression in his eyes that made Matt wonder if he was the big, simple sort of man he seemed. “You think about that, Bill,” he said, “but don’t talk about it.”
He buttoned his slicker, then ran his hand inside the pocket to make sure he could lay a hand on the butt of his gun. “Bill, just why did you want to come on this wagon trip? You don’t strike me as a gold hunting man.”
“I ain’t. Rightly I’m a bullwhacker an’ a farmer. Maybe I’ll find me a farm farther west. First I got me a job to do.”
“A job?”
Shedd puffed for a moment on his pipe. “Yeah. A job. I ain’t no gold huntin’ man. Right now I’m a man huntin’ man.”
So that was it. Matt looked at Shedd thoughtfully and with new eyes. It was strange how often you accepted someone at face value or what seemed face value and without thinking much about them. Bill Shedd suddenly took on new significance. Bardoul was aware of a new impression, a startling, deep impression. If he were the man Bill Shedd was hunting he would be worried, very worried. There was something sure, inexorable about the big, ponderous fellow that gave him a sudden feeling of doom.
“What man, Shedd?”
“You got things on your mind, you don’t talk about ‘em. Neither do I.” He glanced up at Bardoul through the thin smoke of his pipe. “Meanin’ no offense.” He paused. “Funny thing is, I am not sure.”
“We’ll have to talk about that, Bill. I’ll be back.”
He slid out of the covered wagon and dropped to the ground. The first heavy rush of rain had let up now and it was a steady if not a crashing downpour. The going would be very bad tomorrow. Bowing his head to the rain, he walked back toward Murphy’s wagon, and thrust his head inside. Ban Hardy was sitting there with him. So was Jeb Stark. “Stick around, all of you. I’ll be back.”
Pulling his head back, a cold drop of water went down the back of his neck. It never failed, he thought. Cover yourself as you would, be as careful as you will, one drop will always fall down the back of your neck.
Lightning streaked the night, and he could see the picketed animals in the center of the huge circle, their backs wet and glistening. Around them, like the coils of a huge snake, were the gathered wagons, each only a few feet from the next, the wet canvas glistening in the reflected light. He splashed through a pool and stopped by Stark’s wagon.
He scratched on the canvas. “Come in!” Stark yelled.
Matt pushed his head in. “My feet are wet, an’ I’m dripping. Stark, come over to Murphy’s wagon, will you? Little medicine talk.”
He withdrew his neck and went on to Lute Harless’ wagon. He hesitated, after speaking to Harless. Beyond was Rabun Kline’s wagon, and next to that, Ernie Braden’s. He hesitated over the idea of Kline. He had never talked much to the little Jew. Nor did he have any idea how the man stood except that he kept his team and wagon well, and had seemed a stable, reliable man.
That he was a friend of Herman Reutz, he knew. But was he too close to Pearson and Coyle? Would he talk?
Bardoul shrugged, then turned and moved toward Kline’s wagon. He scratched on the canvas, and at a word, thrust his head inside. Rabun Kline was lying on one elbow, reading a book. He wore square steel rimmed glasses, which he took off as he saw Bardoul. “Oh?” he was surprised. “Come in, will you?”
“Some other time. Now, we’ve got a talk coming up. Medicine talk.”
“Where?”
“Murphy’s wagon.” Matt took off his hat and wiped his wet face. “Kline, we’ve never talked much, but I take it you’re an honest man.”
“Thank you, sir. I hope that I am.”
“Up there at Murphy’s wagon there’s a talk for honest men, but one that may mean a mess of trouble. Maybe gun trouble.”
Kline folded his glasses carefully. “Shall I bring my gun now, sir?”
Bardoul grinned. Suddenly, he liked this square built man with the placid face. In the west you knew men quickly, and he knew this one now. “Not necessarily,” he said, “if it comes to that, it will be later.”
Within ten minutes they were all there, gathered in a tight little group in the crowded confines of the wagon. Murphy, fortunately, was carrying less than most of them, and had space.
Matt glanced around at their wet, serious faces. “Men,” he said softly, “I had a brainstorm today. I want you to hear me out, answer my questions, and then decide if I am crazy or not.”
He turned to Lute. “Harless, you have three wagons. What would you say your wagons, teams, and cargo are worth at prevailing prices?”
Lute’s brow furrowed, and he rubbed his chin with the stem of his pipe. “Reckon I could figure it. My wagons are carryin’ upwards of two thousand pound each. All told I’ve got about two thousand pound of flour in all three wagons, scattered amongst ‘em. Flour is sellin’ pretty general at ten dollars a hundred, some places more. You can figure that flour at two thousand dollars, all right.”
He studied the problem for a few minutes while the rain pounded steadily on the canvas over their heads, and dripped from the sides of the wagon bed to the sod below. “Countin’ sugar, tea, tools, an’ ammunition, I’d say I have about ten thousand dollars tied up in my outfit. Ever’ cent I brought west, an’ what I took out of my claim in Deadwood.”
“Reutz and Coyle would have more, wouldn’t they?” Matt asked.
“Sure. A good bit more.”
“Then,” Matt suggested slowly, “at a rough guess this wagon train would have a total value of nearly or maybe more than, thr
ee hundred thousand dollars?”
“I’d say a little more than that,” Rabun Kline said. “Perhaps half again as much. Coyle and Reutz have richer loads than we.”
Matt nodded. His voice was low, reaching only the crowded circle of intent faces. “What a nice, rich, juicy plum to knock off the bough … if someone had the idea!”
Aaron Stark’s chewing stopped with his mouth open. Murphy took the pipe from his mouth and stared at Matt, then slowly he put it back in his teeth. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he muttered.
“Think it over: we were all carefully selected as men who had money enough to put a good, substantial outfit on wheels. We all were led to indicate our cash position by buying shares in the venture, the money being held by Clive Massey. We were advised as to what stock to buy, all valuable merchandise. Every effort has been made to see that this is the richest wagon train on wheels!”
“So!” Harless stared at him.
“Understand, I am accusing nobody. Understand also that I know nothing the rest of you do not know. I told you of my warning in the livery stable, and some of you are aware of my doubts of Massey, my questioning of Hammer’s presence, and that of Bain.
“Buffalo can tell you that Abel Bain was a notorious renegade who raided many wagon trains out of Julesburg, and was almost lynched for it. Portugee Phillips knows the same thing.”
“I’ve heard that,” Harless said.
“Hammer has been suspected of the same operations. So was Buckskin Johnson. Their wagons carry more men than goods, heavily armed men, all with tough reputations. A little while ago Massey tried to get us to give up our weapons, too.”
“You figure,” Stark asked, “that they plan to murder us all an’ lay it to the Injuns?”
“Something like that. Understand, I know no more than the rest of you. I may be doing honest men a grave injustice, but I’ve called you here to tell you and let you make up your own minds. If it is in the wind, we can set our canvas for it and be ready. If it is not, what can we lose?”
Hardy straightened a leg, then drew it back. He was getting stiff from the cramped position. “I’d say we’d better figure it that way. Massey lays out the guard plan. Any night he wants he could have only his own men awake. We’d be caught asleep, and wouldn’t have a chance!”
“Or he could have some of us killed on guard,” Murphy offered. “It’s been done.”
Harless shook his head. “It doesn’t seem possible they would do a thing like that,” he protested. “After all, they are white men!”
Stark snorted. “I’d sooner trust an Injun!”
“Mr. Coyle’s a fine man,” Kline added, “you don’t think he would be a party to such a thing?”
“I doubt it, but I don’t know. The only thing we can do,” Matt continued, “is to carry weapons and ammunition at all times and keep our ears and eyes open. Who is, or who is not in it, I wouldn’t know.”
“Somebody let that Bain get loose,” Stark added. “He wouldn’t have got loose had it been me. Sary still wakes up nights shiverin’ an’ scared.”
“What would you advise, sir?” Kline asked, looking up at Bardoul.
“Only what I’ve said. To go armed and watch. It would pay to remember the suggestions of Murphy and Ban, and keep an eye on that guard list, too. And any time any of us are on guard, it would pay to keep an eye on the camp as well as outside the camp.”
“We could bust up an’ go on by ourselves,” Harless commented, “but that might lead to trouble right now.”
“Uh huh.” Matt thought of Jacquine. “Personally, I’m stayin’ with this outfit. I think that’s best. But I’ll have a talk with Reutz about this. The rest of you keep mum.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes while the rain fell steadily. All of them were thinking ahead, realizing what this might mean. To a man, those in the group had invested every dime in this venture. To lose it would mean all they possessed was gone, more, it would mean life itself, for not one of them could imagine the deal being attempted other than by a massacre.
Bardoul knew they were thinking, and even with his suspicion rising so strong within him, he could see how little he had to go on. Nothing but the merest suspicion. There could be plausible reasons for the presence of Bain and Hammer. Yet he could not convince himself that he was mistaken.
He knew the country that lay ahead, and knowing it, he was doubtful of any early attempt being made. Every effort should be taken now to prevent any surprise, but if the attack came, he was doubtful if it would come before they reached the Big Horn basin. In the meantime, much might happen.
“What about the division of friends and enemies?” Kline asked. “Wouldn’t it be well to consider that a little? To try to draw some line of demarcation? What do you think, Mr. Bardoul?”
Matt studied the matter. “We can’t be sure. I would say all in my own company are honest men with the exception of Ernie Braden and his driver. I believe they are doubtful.”
“I agree,” Stark said grimly, “that Braden’s a liar an’ a four flusher.”
“Most of the men in Reutz’ outfit are good men. Elam Brooks, certainly is. There are others.”
“The total number of people now with the company,” Kline said, “is one hundred and forty-four. There are sixty-two wagons. Fourteen of those wagons are in Company A, where Mr. Bardoul seems to feel the greatest danger lies. They are lightly loaded wagons, but some of them carry goods belonging to Brian Coyle, and to Weber, who is in Coyle’s company.
“Fifty-three women and children, which leaves ninety-one men. The question is, how many of the ninety-one can we depend on?”
“We’ll have to study that,” Stark said, “I reckon there’s nigh thirty men in that Company A, an’ we can figure them as again’ us right to start. I reckon until we do some figurin’ we better count on nobody but ourselves. Matt here smelled this out, an’ he ain’t drivin’ much of the time. Let him study out which ones we can figure to stand by us, an’ which won’t.”
“I agree, sir,” Rabun Kline said, “and until then we do no talking?”
“Right!”
Matt Bardoul drew his hands along his trouser leg. He was remembering the cold face and the flat deadly eyes of Logan Deane. Sooner or later that would have to be settled, too. Strangely enough, at that moment he began to wonder about Deane. Somehow, killer though the man was, he did not seem to have a place in such a scheme as this.
Thinking of him, Matt recalled their conversation at the bar after his fight with Johns when he had suggested that Clive Massey was himself a gunman.
Who?
One by one he began to chalk off the names of those he could not be. Clay Allison and Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid could be eliminated. Not Masterson, Luke Short, or Billy Brooks. Not Ben Thompson or Wes Hardin. Try as he would, he could not think of who Massey might be, but instinct told him the man was a gun artist.
There were many such, however, who had never become known and Massey might be one of these. In the Clements’ clan in Texas there were dozens of gunmen. Manny himself, Jim Miller, and many others, but the shadow of Manny Clements and his cousin, Wes Hardin, had obscured the names of the clan members.
Further west in the mining camps of California, Nevada, and Utah there were other gunmen, such as the Plummer gang of Montana, Pearson of Pioche, and many others who never acquired the fame given to the gunmen of Texas or the cattle trail towns. It might be that Massey came from such a group.
Every sense in his body sounded a warning when near Massey. The man was a killer, and unless Matt was mistaken, a cold blooded killer with deadly speed. There was something in the way he looked at a man, something in his movements that was a challenge.
“Well,” he said looking up, “I guess there’s nothing more. If any of you learn anything, by all means come to me with it.”
“What about Phillips?” Harless asked.
“I don’t know,” he replied honestly, “I really don’t know. He was one of the first to hi
nt that something might be wrong with this whole trip, but we hadn’t better count on him until we know.”
Suddenly, he noticed a slight bulge in the canvas that had not been there earlier. He lifted his finger for silence, then stepped over the knees of the men between him and the door. There must have been some subtle movement of the wagon, for he heard a slight splash outside and hurled himself at the opening, gun in hand.
He caught one fleeting glimpse of a dark shadow vanishing in the direction of the other wagons, and he dared not shoot, for the wagons, some of them containing women, were directly in line with the running man.
The others piled out beside him. “Who was it?” someone demanded.
“I didn’t get a look at him.” Matt went around beside the wagon, and crouched there in the rain, striking a match that he cupped in his hands.
There were tracks there, partly in the mud, partly in water. The man had shifted his feet several times, so he might have been there for some time. There was no identifying mark.
He got to his feet and looked around at the circle of intent faces. “Well, maybe he was friendly, and probably not. From now on, every waking and sleeping moment, we’ve got to be ready!”
As the men scattered toward their wagons, Matt Bardoul turned his head and stared off through the dwindling rain at the large, white topped wagon where Jacquine Coyle lay sleeping.
This night might have changed everything. Walking back to his own wagon, he crawled inside. When he was ready for bed, he drew his guns, and one by one, with loving care, he cleaned and reloaded them. Now, he was ready. They could start any time.
7
Back in the wagon after her exciting ride through the lashing rain, Jacquine changed into dry clothing, but while she changed her mind was not at rest, nor had it been at rest for some days.
She understood herself quite well, and she was perfectly aware that something had happened that day when she got down from the stagecoach and looked up to see Matt Bardoul leaning against the awning post in front of the IXL.
Novel 1950 - Westward The Tide (v5.0) Page 11