Death Rattle tb-8

by Terry C. Johnston

  “Kersey,” he replied. “We figgered to find water for ’em afore night over yonder at them hills.” He pointed. Then looked down at Bass. “You coming with us?”

  “Damn right I am,” Scratch growled. “A whole passel of them horses are mine, Bill. To get ’em this far, I near died of thirst, got my head shot off by Californy greasers, and a’most had my throat cut by a white man. I ain’t about to let any of you side-talking varmints run off with what critters are mine!”

  Williams rocked his head back and laughed so hard some more fine dust shook off him in a mist. “I figger that means you’re coming with us! You sit a saddle yet?”

  “Ain’t tried—but I’ll keep covering ground on foot any way you care to lay your sights.”

  “That’s what I like in this man, boys!” Williams cheered. “You just can’t beat a good man what puts his head down and keeps on coming!”

  “You heard, Solitaire,” Titus said to the others as he turned around to face them. “There’s a herd to wrangle. All you fellas what are fit to help them others with the horses, saddle up and catch them horses. The rest of you what’re ailin’ too bad can lay back and come along with me.”

  Only Toussaint Marechal and Joseph Lapointe ended up staying behind with him, watching the others wave their farewells, then ease away toward the tail end of that massive herd.

  Titus suddenly looked up and asked, “Ain’t you going on with the rest, Bill?”

  Patting his dust-crusted, lathered horse on the withers, Williams said, “I’ll lay off running them animals for a while, Scratch. Maybeso, you boys could use some company on your leetle walk.”

  “Much ’predated, Bill.”

  The four of them had covered several miles in the blazing sun before Williams, right out of the blue, confessed, “We got less’n half what we drove outta California, fellas.”

  Bass glanced over at the skinny man walking beside him, leading his own horse. “You figgered you’d make it back to the mountains with more, did you?”

  Williams was slow to grin, but smile he did, his brown teeth a shade or two darker than the pale dust coating his severely tanned face. “Shit, Scratch—you got me there! Never in all my days could I have figgered to get this many horses out of California and ’cross that killer desert.”

  “But we done it, Bill.”

  “By damn, if we didn’t!” Williams exclaimed. “But just think of all them horses what left their bones behind us.”

  “No reason for you to feel sad for gettin’ only half of ’em to the mountains. Lookit us—we’re standing here, still alive!” Titus snorted some dust out of his nose onto the desert hardpan. Then he looked squarely at Bill. “We had us some shining times out to Californy, didn’t we, ol’ friend?”

  Williams smiled hugely, no longer grave, and slapped Titus on the back. “We did have us some fun, didn’t we, Scratch? By blazes, if we didn’t have us a whole damn lotta fun!”

  It took them the better part of a week, but they finally put the Green River at their backs, escaping the worst of that broken canyonland where it took all they had to keep any more of the stolen horses from slipping away in that rugged country.

  Throughout the days the trappers kept the animals under a rotation of wranglers while the rest of the men slept. At dusk they saddled up and ki-yiiied, waving hats and coils of buffalo-hair rope to start the last three broodmares they still had alive. No longer were they pushing the rangy animals, not the way they had run the herd out of California, goaded them over the mountains and into those first stretches of desert. None of the survivors wanted to lose any more of their horses. So the cautious men inched forward each night, searching out the water holes and springs.

  For nights on end, Bass had been forced to follow the slow-moving caravan on foot. But by the time they had begun their climb into the first low foothills, Titus was tying on his last pair of moccasins, deciding it was time to give that ham a try before he was forced to walk barefoot. That evening he settled back into the saddle, tenderly doing what he could to keep his weight off that wounded buttock. Trying his best to ignore the painful hammer of the horse’s gait as it made its way over the uneven ground.

  Far off in the distance, the verdant green of the Rocky Mountains beckoned seductively to these men who had outlasted months of desert sand, scorching sun, and their own limits.

  It set Scratch to wondering how could a man live in such warm places as these, especially the sort of man who settled in valleys where other men congregated—building their shacks and huts and barns, forced to breathe each other’s air, where they had no seasons of winter, spring, or fall to their lives? How did folks live like that?

  But he realized there were lots of men who did live out their lives perfectly content to do without the harsh edges any wilderness scraped away on a man, settlers who were absolutely content to live a life untested. His father had been one. One of the many.

  It was Titus Bass himself who was too damned different to get along with the steady sort what came to fill up these open, feral, unforgiving spaces.

  Crossing a wind-scoured country of cedar, juniper, and stunted yellow pine, the raiders were forced to angle north along the base of a great plateau. Once around the end of that towering ridge, Williams curved them around to the south-southeast. From here on out they would no longer travel at night and rest out the sun.

  Three more days of driving the herd and they struck what the mountain men called the Blue River,* one of the tributaries of the mighty Colorado. Finding enough water for their horses was no longer a problem. Nor wood for their night fires. No more would they have to cook their stringy horseflesh over smoky, struggling, greasewood fires.

  They had returned to the Shining Mountains.

  * Ride the Moon Down

  * Today’s Gunnison River in southwestern Colorado, what the Mexican traders of that time called the San Xavier River.

  18

  “We ain’t far now,” Bill Williams had declared last night after they went into camp and killed another skinny yearling to last them the next couple of days.

  “Robidoux’s post?” Titus asked.

  The old trapper nodded. “Up the Blue a ways, afore we hit the mouth of the Uncompawgray. Should be there afore sundown tomorrow.”

  After all they’d endured, that was about the best damned news. Had there been any whiskey in their camp that summer night, there’d been one hell of a collection of drunks sleeping off their revels when the order came to roll out the next morning. As it was, the trappers could only look forward to reaching Robidoux’s post, where they were certain to find some Mexican whiskey or sweet fruit brandy, not to mention a few Ute squaws and some greaser gals who just might be convinced to cozy up with a lonely fella gone too long in the desert without some soft and curvaceous companionship.

  Early that next afternoon, all fifteen were strung out on both sides of the herd behind Williams, who rode at the head of the ragged column, leading the last of their broodmares.

  “Closer I get to whiskey,” Jake Corn announced as he eased up beside Titus, “the thirstier I get—”

  The two of them jerked at the low rumble of gunfire reverberating from the mesa ahead.

  “That was just over the ridge,” Bass declared.

  Another gunshot echoed.

  Far ahead of them Bill Williams was standing in the stirrups, waving his hat, beckoning the men forward.

  Titus kicked his horse into a lope with the others as they streamed off the two sides of their herd.

  “Bowers, you and Gibbon stay right here at the front of these here horses,” Williams ordered in a staccato. “Keep ’em moving—but slow.”

  “What ’bout you?” Samuel Gibbon asked as three more gunshots rattled in quick succession.

  Williams’s lips stretched into a thin line of determination. “Rest of us gonna see what all the shooting’s for.”

  “Awright, Bill,” John Bowers agreed.

  “C’mon, fellas,” Williams ordered as he
reined around in a tight circle. “Keep your flints sharp and your heads down when we bust outta the trees!”

  By the time they had raced no more than another mile up the Blue River toward the Uncompahgre, Bass noticed the thin column of greasy black smoke curling above the leafy treetops. By then, the sporadic gunfire had all but died off.

  “That ain’t a good sign!” Titus called out to the others, pointing.

  Williams and Adair nodded. While they watched, a second, and finally a third thin column of smoke appeared to streak the sky.

  Just as the trappers reached the line of trees bordering a small meadow on the south bank of the river, Bill threw up his arm. The rest of them slowed and spread out to either side of their leader, reining to a halt right when three men on foot suddenly burst into view, sprinting on a collision course for the timber where Williams’s horsemen suddenly appeared out of the shadows. The trio of frightened men spotted the trappers just about the time the trappers raised their rifles in warning.

  “Hold on there!” Titus roared, his horse prancing backward a few steps anxiously.

  Bewildered and terrified, the three skidded to a halt, immediately dropping their weapons and throwing up their hands.

  Williams reined his horse close to the three and gave every one of them a good eyeing. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Two of ’em’s Mex.” Bass translated what he could of the excited response. All three kept checking over their shoulders as they stood among the trappers, peering back across the meadow. “This other’s a Frenchie half-breed.”

  A few warriors suddenly showed themselves on horseback, breaking out of the trees near the post’s stockade. Spotting the trappers back against the trees, the bare-chested horsemen halted, reining around in circles as they yelped a warning to more of their number. In a moment, more than thirty painted, feathered horsemen belched from the stockade. They poured into the meadow, weaving in and out and around the three separate grass fires raging in the meadow.

  All of them beat their chest provocatively and shouted out their boastful challenges to the white men.

  “You cipher things the way I do, Titus Bass?” Williams asked.

  “Maybeso,” Scratch replied gravely. “Looks like them bastards want us to come out and fight.”

  “These here Robidoux’s men?” Williams demanded, indicating the frightened refugees as those distant warriors raced their ponies back and forth across the meadow, working up a second wind in their animals.

  Bass nodded, keeping his eye on the Indians growing bolder by the moment. “Figger they skeedaddled afore they lost their hair.”

  Bill grumbled, “Ask ’em what’s the chalk at their post.”

  From what little Titus was able to recall of the Spanish tongue, he could ask only limited questions, comprehending only portions of the frantic, impassioned jabber they flung at him.

  “From what I get, them Injuns is—”

  Williams interrupted, “Hold it—did I hear that’un say them are Yutas?”

  “Yutas,” Bass confided as one of the Mexicans bobbed his head up and down with agreement. But Titus was baffled by this strange turn of events. “Never knowed ’em to take on white men afore.”

  “Maybe one of these’r parley-voo half-breeds can tell us something,” Bill continued, turning to look over his trappers. “Marechal! Listen to this here Frenchie—see what he claims brung all this—”

  The raiders instantly wheeled around to stare at the fort the moment they heard high-pitched screams.

  At the narrow opening of the double-hung gate appeared more than a handful of women—most of them squaws by their dress, while two were clearly Mexican. A half dozen warriors flushed them screaming and whimpering from the stockade.

  “There’s your answer, Bill,” Titus grumbled. “They come for to get their women back.”

  Williams wagged his head. “You figger this here raid gotta do with their women?”

  “They ain’t set fire to the post,” Scratch observed.

  Jake Corn growled, “Not yet anyways.”

  “Ain’t butchered these here fellas neither,” Bass protested, feeling even stronger stirrings of confusion at the Ute attack. “For some reason they let the greasers an’ parley-voos run ’stead of shooting ’em.”

  “There goes your hurraw at Robidoux’s, boys!” Williams roared with a cackling laugh. “Them Yutas is taking back their wimmens!”

  “An’ them two Mex’ gals besides?” whined Dick Owens.

  “Plain as paint,” Bass replied.

  “But them Mex’ gals ain’t theirs to take!” Pete Harris protested.

  “Yutas and Mexicans been stealin’ women and young’uns back and forth from each other,” Titus declared. “Near as long as there’s been Mexicans and Yutas in these mountains, I’d lay.”

  “I say we kill them bucks!” Pete Harris suddenly spoke up. “Get them women back for the fort an’ ourselves.”

  When a few of the other trappers hollered in agreement, Williams and Bass turned to peer at Thompson’s old friend together. Titus said, “Your stinger sure must need some dipping in a woman’s honeypot in a bad way, Harris!”

  “I ain’t gonna let no yellow-bellied Yuta scare me off!” Harris boasted.

  When Williams shot Titus a sly grin, Bass shrugged and turned to the others, asking, “How’s that shine with the rest of you? We gonna lay into them Yuta and run ’em off?”

  “Like Harris said,” Jack Robinson argued, “them redbellies is taking the women. Our women.”

  “You’re all hobble-headed!” Bass snapped. “Them bucks got ever’ right to come here an’ take back their own women if’n they want.”

  His neck feathers ruffling, Dick Owens demanded, “You ain’t gonna do nothing ’bout it, Bass?”

  “Them squaws?” Titus wagged of his head. “My truck with them warriors got more to do with running off white men from their trading post.”

  “Even if they’re no-account greaser and parley-voo?” Pete Harris asked with a big grin plastered on his face.

  Titus grinned too. “That’s right—even if them Injuns run off Mex and parley-voo too … I say we owe them Injuns a li’l lesson in goodly manners.”

  “An’ maybeso we’ll get them two greaser gals back for ourselves in the bargain!” Dick Owens cheered lustily.

  “We got horses we don’t want run off by a pack of these here niggers,” Williams reminded harshly. “We come too damn far with ’em awready.”

  “Bill’s right,” Scratch agreed. “Let’s see what we can do to run these brownskins off across the river. Maybeso they won’t get wind of our herd back yonder.”

  “Shit,” Jack Robinson grumped. “How the hell we gonna hide more’n a thousand goddamned horses?”

  Bass turned on the man and looked him squarely in the eye, saying, “I was figuring you was gonna come up with a idee, Jack. Only way you get to roll in the grass with one of the Mexican gals is to take her away from the warriors.”

  Robinson looked sheepish a moment. “Didn’t figger on having to do that.”

  “Just see you get them two senoreetas back for the traders,” Williams ordered. “Far as I can tell, them Yutas ain’t kill’t or shot up none of Robidoux’s parley-voos. So I don’t want you hurtin’ none of them Yutas.”

  “Who’s coming with me?” Pete Harris asked, his voice rising an octave as his eyes raked over the rest. “You got some hair in you yet, Bass?”

  He shook his head. “Nawww. I don’t need to hump no Mexican gals no more. So it’s up to the rest of you boys to go run off them Injuns and bring them whores back.”

  “I’m coming!” Dick Owens volunteered.

  Around Harris another three fell in with flushed enthusiasm. Harris bellowed like a spiked bull struck with spring fever and led them out of the trees for the fort. As the hell-bent-for-rawhide trappers burst from the timber, the Ute warriors suddenly reined up, appearing to take stock of their situation.

  “They’re a bit light on
the odds, Bill,” Titus suggested. “We oughtta show them brownskins the rest of us.”

  Williams asked, “Hang back near the trees to show ’em there’s more of us?”

  “That’s what I was thinking, Bill.”

  “C’mon, boys,” Williams directed the others as he kneed his pony forward. “Let’s spread out and make ’em think there’s a hull shitteree of us back here gonna rub ’em out.”

  The moment the rest of the horsemen came out of the shadowy timber alongside him and Bill, Bass set up a caterwauling akin to some disembodied spirit streaking back through that crack in the sky to haunt this world. In another two heartbeats the other trappers joined in—coyote yip-yipping, some of them trilling their tongues while others u-looed. A few let fly with a chest-popping screech.

  Out in front, Pete Harris and his quartet of trappers took up the call and began to scream for all they were worth as they raced headlong across the narrow meadow for the Ute horsemen.

  The sight of those nine trappers emerging from the timber, along with Harris’s four chargers, immediately put the warriors into flight. At the fort gates the half dozen Ute then on foot scrambled over one another to reach their ponies and get mounted. Ahead of the trappers, all of the Indians spun out of the meadow, heading for the bank and the river ford.

  Into the shallow water the first of them leaped their horses, landing in a spray of water and nearly losing their balance. None of the warriors dared to look back over their shoulders until they had reached the north side of the river.

  With the way this meadow ground sloped away toward the crossing, Scratch and those who had hung back with him couldn’t really see much of that crossing until the horsemen reached the other side, racing away. But they plainly did hear when Harris and the rest roared with laughter.

  Trotting on foot into the ranks of Bill Williams’s horsemen, the post employees glanced up at the trappers as if to ask why the Americans were sitting there on their horses when there was a fort to be rescued.