It was towards the tail-end of the afternoon when a patrol brought a stumbling half-blind man into camp.
The blacksmith went to enquire and came back to tell McAllister that they’d found a man lost, his eyesight almost destroyed by the brilliance of the snow. Then the sergeant came up to check on the prisoner and McAllister asked him about the new arrival. The sergeant described him and McAllister knew that Dom Lawson was in camp. It was not the best news that McAllister had ever had.
Chapter Fifteen
When the subject of Dom Lawson came up, McAllister had the feeling that he should have been devious, but he was not feeling devious. He was still feeling enraged by his situation.
It was Newton, the sick major, who came to tell McAllister about the wild ravings of the man who had been found wandering the snow, temporarily bereft of his sight.
The major looked troubled and ill when he told McAllister: This fellow has a story of being jumped by horse thieves a few dawns back. They shot his two companions and stole his horses. His place is down near the first break. He says he dare not go back there, because the rustlers may still be there and gunning for him.’
That was when McAllister should have kept his mouth shut, maybe. Or gone ahead very cautiously. But he did not feel cautious. He felt like hitting out and hurting somebody
‘He’s a goddam liar,’ he said. ‘I know him. He’s been a thief and a killer from way back. I’ve carried warrants with his name on them in my time. He came north here to steal my best stud horse. Hickok and I caught him at Greg Talbot’s place and laid into him. Sure, we killed one of his men and wounded the other. You saw the wounded man when we met you on Black Horse. The real reason for Lawson coming into this country was for the simple reason of killing me. Hickok rode in to warn me.’
‘Why should he want to kill you, McAllister?’
‘Because he owes me a killing. Now he owes me another. It’s a kind of pride with men like him to keep the score even. It may not mean anything to men like you and me, major, but to him it makes sense.’
‘Well,’ said Newton, ‘he’s told his story to the colonel and the colonel believes him.’
‘I can believe that.’
‘There’s more. This man says that he knows where the Indians are located.’ He paused to let that sink in. It sank in all right, deep. McAllister sat quietly there and contemplated what this could mean. It did not take much contemplation for him to realize that he was on the edge of a massacre.
He said: ‘You know just what this means, Major?’
Newton coughed for a while and then said: ‘Yes, I know what it means. But I know of no way of stopping it. Yes, yes, I know, I could arrest Brevington, but it’s very doubtful if I’d get away with it. If I were sure of the men, it would be different. As it is, they’ve heard that the Indians are somewhere near and they’re already talking of a great victory. They’re thinking of their return home, the triumphant entry, every damn one of them a hero.’
McAllister had a simple idea. Not much of an idea, but the only one he could come up with. It did not stand much of a chance, but there was nothing else.
‘Major,’ he said softly, so that the others did not hear, ‘you have to get me loose. These Indians have to be warned, so they can move.’
The major had an objection to that.
‘I can’t do it, McAllister,’ he said. ‘As much as I want to prevent a massacre, I can’t prepare the Indians so they can cut down on these soldiers. I cannot be responsible for the death of a single whiteman.’
‘You’re going to be responsible for the death of a hundred Indians.’
‘When it comes down to it, a man’s loyalties are to his own kind.’
‘Your loyalties should be to humanity.’
‘Not when it comes down to it.’
McAllister tried again.
‘I could give you my word,’ he said, ‘that the Indians won’t fight. I can persuade them to cut and run.’
The major waved a hand at the elements—‘Nobody can cut and run in this. We both know it. The Indians will have to stand and fight. That means soldiers being shot.’
‘For God’s sake, man’ McAllister said. His voice was rising. The sergeant and the blacksmith were listening intently. ‘You can’t sit by and see men, women and children slaughtered like cattle.’
‘Don’t think it’s an easy choice.’
‘It ain’t so goddam easy for me, neither,’ McAllister said. ‘I was raised with these folk. They’re all human beings to me.’
‘That’s where we differ. They’re not to me. I know every soldier here. They’re more than names to me. I know their parents, their wives and their sweethearts. I couldn’t face their folks knowing that I’d sent them to their deaths.’
‘Aw, shit,’ said McAllister. ‘So this horse thief comes in here, leads the soldiers to slaughter a bunch of Indians and ends off his little victory by putting a bullet through my head.’
‘That’s impossible,’ the major declared. ‘He wouldn’t dare, not with you under military guard.’
‘Don’t try and fool yourself,’ McAllister told him. ‘This bastard could kill me if there were guards ten deep around me. He’ll ride off, laughing.’
There was nothing more to be said. The major coughed some more and wandered wretchedly away, despairing and indecisive.
The blacksmith said: ‘You goddam Indian-lover.’ He pondered a while and added: ‘I hope that horse thief plants a slug in your noddle and no mistake.’
McAllister said, calming down a little: ‘Be assured, my friend, before he gets a chance to do that, I shall beat your dumb head in.’
The blacksmith came forward to do something about that, but the sergeant drove him back with a few well-chosen obscenities.
There was just one bonus that day. The sergeant relented and freed McAllister’s hands long enough for him to eat a fill of hot stew. That helped him to feel a little better. He searched through the crowd of soldiers, but he could not see Lawson. The sergeant said that he was in the colonel’s tent with bandages over his eyes. The command’s doctor thought that it would not be too long before the man could see again.
‘That’s too damned soon for me,’ McAllister said.
Chapter Sixteen
Colonel Brevington dithered at the present campsite for two days for no apparent reason. The men were not sorry to be no longer pushing their way laboriously through the snow. They cut great stacks of wood from the trees growing on the hillsides above them and the fires were keep going fiercely. Men stayed close to them and roasted luxuriously. In spite of all this, the morale of the men was low and even McAllister, on the outskirts of the camp, could not fail to be aware that the manner of the men towards their NCOs and officers was increasingly insolent and rebellious.
During the first day, Major Newton collapsed. McAllister saw him go down.
He was fairly well liked by the men and several of them hurried to carry him to his tent. Later, the sergeant informed McAllister that the doctor had diagnosed pleurisy. The man needed warmth, rest and good nursing. There were several more cases of pleurisy and pneumonia among the men, the sergeant said. There was more news. Two men had foolishly tried to desert, though how far they would have gotten or where they were headed was anybody’s guess. They had been caught and brought back before they had covered more than a few miles. Brevington had them in irons.
‘But,’ said the sergeant cheerfully, ‘pretty soon we’ll come up with the Indians, there’ll be a fight and the men will cheer up considerably. There’s nothing like a good slice of hot action to put the men in the right frame of mind. This man Lawson seems to know where the savages are at. We’ll jump them tomorrow easy as kiss your hand.’
McAllister, being tethered far from the nearest fire, nearly froze to death and he started to feel ill himself. He could not help wondering if his own lungs had become infected and that he was starting to go down with pleurisy also. Searching as he was for any chance to alter the conditions
of his captivity, he told the sergeant he did not feel well and demanded to see the doctor.
The sergeant, who had not been unkind until now, was not too sympathetic. ‘The doc is here for the soldiers, McAllister. Too bad if you ain’t up to taw. It’s all in the mind, I daresay. A little cold don’t hurt a husky feller like you.’
‘A husky feller like me dead from his lungs ain’t going to do you much good,’ McAllister said.
The blacksmith spoke for his sergeant: ‘We don’t need you, McAllister. Not now. This feller Lawson can guide us to the Indians. It’s a cinch. Hand in your chips if you want, it ain’t no skin off my nose.’
During the afternoon of the second day of inactivity, McAllister was dozing. The sergeant woke him with a kick in the ribs. McAllister sat up and blinked around to see a small deputation heading towards him. In the lead was the colonel. Behind were several officers and men. Beside him was a familiar figure. This was Dom Lawson and, to all appearances, he had regained his sight.
As he paced towards McAllister, the man had a fixed and ghastly smile on his face. Like a deathly gargoyle, McAllister thought, as if what Lawson had in mind was at that very moment giving him an obscene and almost intolerable pleasure.
Colonel Brevington halted a foot or two from the prisoner.
He said at once: ‘Well, we don’t need you any more, McAllister. This man here knows where the Indians are to be found. We shall hit them at dawn and all your base plans to save them from retribution will be thwarted. But you needn’t go thinking this lets you off the hook. Mr Lawson brings accusations against you for murder and horse theft. The army intends to hold on to you and to hand you over to civil law for your hanging. I take some pleasure in informing you of this.’
McAllister said: ‘It warms a man’s heart, Colonel, to hear such public spirited words.’
Lawson kept his wolf’s teeth bared.
The colonel said: ‘Well, Lawson, all it needs is for you to identify this fellow before witnesses. Go ahead. Is this your man?’
Now Lawson showed that his sight was not perfectly restored to him. He screwed up his eyes and leaned forward to stare into McAllister’s face.
‘This is him all right,’ he said. ‘The murdering, thieving bastard.’
‘Good,’ cried the colonel, ‘excellent.’
McAllister kicked Lawson in the crotch.
The man let out a startled yell of pain and staggered back into the arms of the men behind him. They caught and held him as he voiced his pain loudly and repeatedly. The blacksmith rushed forward to strike at McAllister with the butt of his carbine. The prisoner covered his face with his arms as the heavy weapon thudded home. An officer caught hold of the blacksmith’s arm and said: ‘We’ll have none of that. The man’s a prisoner.’
‘He’s a goddam Indian-lover,’ the blacksmith roared.
The colonel danced around on his toes, crying: ‘You’ll suffer for this, McAllister. By God, you’ll suffer.’
Lawson was shouting, as he held his private parts, that he would kill McAllister.
When Lawson had been dragged away, protesting and struggling violently to get to the man who had kicked him, the sergeant said to the prisoner: ‘That was a dumb thing to do. I never saw a dumber. You’re just piling up grief for yourself, feller.’
McAllister, smiling benignly, said: ‘Dumb maybe, sergeant, but it sure made me feel better. And if this goddam blacksmith of yours comes close enough, I’ll do the same for him.’
Rogers cocked the hammer of his carbine and said: ‘Chance’d be a fine thing. You so much as look at me wrong and I’m going to plant lead in your guts.’
Later, when McAllister asked the sergeant if he could be moved nearer to a fire for the night, the man answered: ‘Not a chance. We ain’t feather-bedding you.’
Chapter Seventeen
McAllister was woken by that boot again. It was not yet light and he felt awful. He heard himself coughing and he thought: I sound like the major.
He heard the sergeant say: ‘On your feet. We’re riding.’ The sergeant walked away and the blacksmith took over. He did not use the toe of his boot but his rifle butt, which was just as effective. McAllister climbed slowly to his feet and found that he was so giddy that every fiber of his body demanded that he lie down again. He seemed to be shaking uncontrollably. He had no sooner discovered this than he began to sweat.
A trooper brought him his horse, saddled and bridled, and McAllister climbed laboriously into the saddle. They tied his hands to the saddlehorn again.
The men were going around, killing the fires. Other men were heaving on mule packs and the mules were complaining. They did not like the snow any more than the men did. Even the voices of the sergeants were subdued, as if their owners were too cold and too tired to put any effort into their shouting. They would liven up soon when they came within shooting distance of the Indians. Indians acted on troops like a tonic. Nothing like fleeing women and children to make life worth living.
McAllister looked at the faces of the boys carrying the rifles and realized how young they were, too young almost to be blamed for anything. They had been reared to hate and fear Indians. As they should, for they were the invaders. And so it went on. Before them, the Sioux were the invaders and before them ... it went on through time, the invasion and conquering of weaker people. Right and wrong hardly came into it; it was just something that happened. He did not blame anybody. He just wanted to save a hundred brown men, women and children from bloody slaughter. There surely could be nothing wrong in that.
Over his dead body, he thought. This man Brevington would not lead his men down on the Indian remnant – not while there was life in McAllister’s body.
How much life was left in his body? He seemed to ache from head to toe. A rasping cough tore at his chest. His very lungs ached within him. He was light-headed. The sweating had stopped now and he trembled with cold. He felt as though his body would never be warm again.
The colonel was in the saddle. ‘Forward,’ he cried, like a hero in a dime novel. He raised a hand dramatically. A mule brayed appropriately. He called to Lawson, who was now mounted on an army horse, sitting it uncomfortably because of McAllister’s well-placed kick. ‘Lead on, Lawson. Find us the Indians so we can finish the job.’
In front of Lawson walked the squad who were breaking trail. Their faces looked dark and shrunken with cold in the bright glare of the snow. Shoulders hunched, they moved forward. They looked as much like soldiers as sacks of corn tied in the middle. But they could kill, thought McAllister, they could pump hot lead into the brown bodies and leave death lying blood red in the snow. He clutched at the saddlehorn for support and kicked his horse into a slow walk.
They pushed on into the morning, travelling slowly, stopping now and then when they met an impassable drift of snow. The sergeants bawled for shovels and the men worked up a sweat while the colonel danced on the outskirts of the activity, impatient with the elements and the men. Finally, Lawson called a halt and said that the Indians were no more than an hour’s march in front. The colonel gave the order to camp. Only small fires to be lit. Double guard. Now the men began to be transformed. At last they were pretty sure of a fight. The young ones became tense, but they were happier because suddenly they had a purpose. The veterans mocked them, telling them how they would mess their pants and have Indian-fever the first time they had to fire on living flesh and blood. There was no tree near to which McAllister could be tied, so he was dumped on the snow in the open and the blacksmith watched him with a loaded carbine in hand. ‘He won’t get away from me, Sarge,’ he said, ‘you can bank on that.’
When it came to eating time, the sergeant permitted McAllister’s hands to be untied so that he could feed himself. By now, McAllister existed in a cocoon of sick misery. The perpetual coughing had weakened him and all he wanted to do was to lie down and sleep. But he knew that he dared not sleep, not with the Indians so close. If he could reach them and warn them, he must do that; anything just
so long as they had the chance to cut and run. Maybe a few of them would survive days out in the snow. He did not know. But they had to have the chance.
He knew that he must make a break before they bound his hands again. When they bound them, they bound them tight with rawhide and there would be no freeing them. The thought that the vital moment was right on top of him daunted his sick mind. He tried to drive his thoughts and make some plan, but his sluggish brain refused to work. He would have to act and follow one act by another until he reached the Indians and gave them the warning.
His opportunity came just after he had insulted the blacksmith. He called him a few choice names picked out of the air and Rogers rose from the ground, placing his tin of stew carefully upright in the snow before he moved. He slowly picked up his rifle and advanced on the prisoner. First, he paused and looked around to see if he was being observed by a superior officer. When he was convinced that he was not, he raised his rifle to bring the butt down on some vulnerable part of his prisoner. McAllister hurled his mess tin into the man’s face and, as he did so, rose, seized Rogers’ clothing with both hands and heaved him with all his waning strength towards him. At the same time he drove up and forward with the top of his head. The blacksmith’s nose cracked with the sound of a pistol shot. The man staggered away from McAllister and fell on his back. McAllister rose giddily and dropped his knees hard into the fellow’s belly. Rogers’ eyes started from his head and his tongue came out. He made a sound rather like a deflating balloon. When he tried to rise, every muscle and nerve in his body screamed its refusal. He tried again and, to make sure of him, McAllister hit him hard under the jaw. Rogers groaned and lay still.
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