by Zane Grey
“I reckon I don’t like thet,” declared Slingerland. “I was friendly with the Sioux. But now thet I’ve come down hyar to kill off their buffalo fer the whites, they’re ag’in’ me. I know thet. An’ I allus regarded them buffalo as Injun property. If it wasn’t thet I seen this railroad means the end of the buffalo an’ the Injuns, too, I’d never hev done it. Thet I’ll swar.”
It was night when they reached Medicine Bow. How quiet and dark after Benton! Neale was glad to get there. He wondered if he could conquer his unrest. Would he go wandering on again? He doubted himself and dismissed the thought. Perhaps the companionship of his old friends and anticipation of action would effect a change in him.
Neale and King spent the night in Slingerland’s tent. Next morning the trapper was ready with horses at an early hour, but, owing to the presence of Sioux in the vicinity, it was thought best to wait for the work train and ride out on the plains under its escort.
By and by the train, with its few cars and half a hundred workmen, was ready, and the trapper and his comrades rode out alongside. Some few miles from camp the train halted at a place where stone work and filling awaited the laborers. Neale was again interested, in spite of himself. His love for that railroad was quite as hopeless as other things in his life. These laborers were picked men, all soldiers, and many Irish, and they stacked their guns before taking up shovels and bars.
“Domn me, if it ain’t me ould friend Neale!” exclaimed a familiar voice.
And there stood Casey, with the same old grin, the same old black pipe! Neale’s first feeling of pleasure at seeing the old flagman was counteracted by one of dismay at the possibility of coming in contact with old acquaintances. It would hurt him to meet General Lodge or any of the engineers who had predicted a future for him.
Shane and McDermott were also in this gang, and they slouched forward.
“It’s that gun-throwin’ cowboy as wuz oncet goin’ to kill Casey!” exclaimed McDermott, at sight of King.
Neale, during the few moments of reunion with his old comrades of the survey, received a melancholy insight into himself and a clearer view of them. The great railroad had gone on, growing, making men change. He had been passed by. He was no longer a factor. Along with many, many other men he had retrograded. The splendid spirit of the work had gone from him. Only the wild and the violent and the base attracted him now. He had ceased to grow. But those uncouth Irishmen—they had changed in other ways. They were the same slow, loquacious, quarreling trio as before, but they showed the shock of the years of toil, of fight, of growth under the great movement and its spirit—the thing that great minds had embodied and the laborers were no longer ordinary men. Something shone out of them. Neale saw it. He felt an inexplicable littleness in their presence. They had gone on; he had been left. They would toil and fight till they filled nameless graves. He, too, would find a nameless grave, he thought, but he would not lie in it as one of these. The moment was poignant for Neale, exceedingly bitter, and revealing.
* * * * *
Slingerland was not long in sighting buffalo. After making a careful survey of the rolling country for hiding Indians, he rode out with Neale, King, and two other men—Brush and an Irishman named Pat—who were to skin the buffalo that the hunters killed and help load the meat into wagons that would follow.
“It ain’t no trick to kill buffalo,” Slingerland was saying to his friends. “But I don’t want old bulls an’ old cows killed. An’ when you’re ridin’ fast an’ the herd is branded, it’s hard to tell the difference. You boys stick close to me an’ watch me first. An’ keep one eye peeled fer Injuns.”
Slingerland approached the herd without alarming it, until some little red calves on the outskirts of the herd became frightened. Then the herd lumbered off, raising a cloud of dust. The roar of hoofs was thunderous.
“Ride!” yelled Slingerland.
Not the least interesting sight to Neale was King riding away from them. He was wheeling the buffalo on the rumps with his bare hand before Slingerland and Neale got near enough to shoot.
At the trapper’s first shot the herd stampeded. Thereafter it took riding to keep up, to choose the level ground, and to follow Slingerland’s orders. Neale got up in the thick of the rolling din and dust. The pursuit liberated something fierce within him that gave him a measure of freedom from his constant pain. All before him spread the great black bobbing herd. The wind whistled, the dust choked him, the gravel stung his face, the strong, even action of his horse was exhilarating. He lost track of King. But he stuck close to Slingerland. The trapper kept shooting at intervals. Neale saw the puffs of smoke, but in the thundering din he could not hear a report. It seemed impossible for him to select the kind of buffalo Slingerland wanted shot. Neale could not tell one from the other. He rode right upon their flying heels, however, finally unable to restrain himself from shooting, he let drive, and saw a beast drop and roll over. Neale rode on.
Presently out of a lane in the dust he thought he saw Slingerland pass. He reined toward the side. King was riding furiously at him and Slingerland’s horse was stretched out, heading straightaway. The trapper madly waved his arms. Neale spurred toward them. Something was amiss. King’s face flashed in the sun. He whirled his horse to take Neale’s course, and then he pointed.
Neale thrilled as he looked. A few hundred rods in the rear rode a band of Sioux, coming swiftly. A cloud of dust rose behind them. They had no doubt been hiding in the vicinity of the grazing buffalo, lying in wait. As Neale closed in on King, he saw the cowboy’s keen glance measuring distance and speed.
“We shore got to ride!” was what King apparently yelled, although the sound of words drifted as a faint whisper to Neale. But the roar of buffalo hoofs was rapidly diminishing.
Then Neale realized what it meant to keep close to the cowboy. Every moment King turned around both to watch the Indians and to have a glance at his comrade; they began to gain on Slingerland. Brush was riding for dear life off to the right, and the Irishman Pat, still farther in that direction, was in the most perilous situation.
Already the white skipping streaks of dust from bullets whipped up in front of him. The next time Neale looked back the Sioux had split up; some were riding hard after Brush and Pat; the majority were pursuing the other three hunters, cutting the while a little to the right, for Slingerland was working around toward the work train. Neale saw the smoke of the engine and then the train. It seemed far away. And he was sure the Indians were gaining. What incomparable riders! They looked half naked, dark, gleaming, low over their mustangs, feathers and trappings flying in the wind—a wild and panic-provoking sight.
“Don’t ride so close!” yelled King. “They’re spreadin’!”
Neale gathered that the Indians were riding farther apart because they soon expected to be in range of bullets, and King wanted Neale to ride farther from him for the identical reason.
Neale saw the first white puff of smoke from a rifle of the leader. The bullet hit far behind—more shots kept raising the dust—the last time still a few yards short.
“Gawd! Look!” yelled King.
“The devils hit Pat’s hoss!”
Neale saw the Irishman go down with his horse, plunge in the dust, and roll over and lie still. “They got him!” he yelled at King.
“Ride thet hoss!” came back grimly and appealingly from the cowboy.
Neale rode as he had never before ridden. Fortunately his horse was fresh and fast, and that balanced the driving the cowboy was giving his mount. For a long distance they held their own with the Sioux. They gained a straight-away course for the work train, so that, with the Sioux behind, they had only to hold out for a few miles. Brush appeared as well off as they were. Slingerland led by perhaps a hundred feet, far over to the left, and he was wholly out of range.
It took a very short time at that pace to cover a couple of miles. And then the Indians began to creep up closer and closer. Again they were shooting. Neale heard the reports and each
one made him flinch in expectation of feeling the burn of a bullet. Brush was now turning to fire his rifle.
Neale bethought himself of his own Winchester that he was carrying in his hand. Dropping the rein over the horn of his saddle, he turned half around. How close, how red, how fierce these Sioux were! He felt his hair rise stiffly under his hat. And at the same instant a hot wrath rushed over him, a madness to fight, to give back blow for blow. Just then several of the Indians fired. He heard the sharp cracks, then the spats of bullets striking the ground; he saw the little streaks of dust in front of him. Then the whistle of lead! That made him shoot in return. His horse lunged forward, almost throwing him, and ran the faster for his fright. Neale heard King begin to shoot. It became a running duel then, with the Indians scattering wide, riding low, yelling like demons, and keeping up a continuous volley. They were well armed with white men’s guns. Neale worked the level of his rifle while he looked ahead for an instant to see where his horse was running, then he wheeled quickly and took a snap shot at the nearest Indian, no more than three hundred yards distant now. He saw where his bullet, going wide, struck up the dust. It was desperately hard to shoot from the back of a scared horse. Neale did not notice that King’s shots were any more effective than his. He grew certain the Sioux were gaining faster now. But the work train was not far away. He saw the workmen on top of the cars waving their arms. Rough ground, though, the last stretch.
King was drawing ahead. He had used all the shells in his rifle and now with hand and spur was goading his horse.
Suddenly Neale heard the soft thud of lead striking flesh. His horse leaped with a piercing snort of terror. Neale thought he was going down. But he recovered and went plunging on, still swift and game, although with uneven gait. King yelled. His red face flashed over his shoulder. He saw something was wrong with Neale’s horse and he pulled his even.
“Save your own life!” yelled Neale fiercely. It enraged him to see the cowboy holding back to let him come up. But he could not prevent it.
“He’s hit!” shouted King.
“Yes. But not badly!” shouted Neale in reply. “Spread out!”
The cowboy now swerved a foot. He watched Neale’s horse with keen sure eyes.
“He’s breakin’! Mebbe he can’t last!”
Bullets whistled all around Neale now. He heard them strike the stones on the ground and sing away; he saw them streak through the scant grass; he felt the tug at his shoulder where one cut through his coat, stinging at the skin. That touch, light as it was, stung the panic out of him. The strange darkness before his eyes, hard to see through, passed away. He wheeled to shoot again, and with deliberation he aimed as best he could. Yet he might as well have tried to hit flying birds. He emptied the Winchester.
Then, hunching low in the saddle, Neale hung on. Slingerland was close to the train; Brush, on his side, appeared to be about out of danger; the pursuit had narrowed down to Neale and King. Now anger and the grimness faded from Neale. He did not want to go plunging down in front of those lean wild mustangs, to be ridden over and trampled and mutilated. The thought sickened him. The roar of pursuing hoofs grew distinct, but Neale did not look back.
Another roar broke on his ear—the clamor of the Irish soldier-laborers as they yelled and fired.
“Pull him! Pull him!” came the piercing cry from King.
Neale was about to ride his frantic horse straight into the work train. Desperately he hauled the horse up and leaped off. King was down, waiting, and his mount went plunging away. Bullets were pattering against the sides of the cars from which puffed streaks of flame and smoke.
“Up wid yez, lads!” sang out a cheery voice, and Casey’s grin and black pipe appeared over the rim of the car, and his big hands reached down.
One quick and straining effort and Neale was up, over the side, to fall on the floor in a pile of sand and gravel. All whirled down around him for a second. His heart labored. He was wet and hot and shaking.
“Shore yez ain’t hit now!” exclaimed Casey.
King’s nervous hands began to slide and press over Neale.
“No . . . I’m . . . all . . . safe,” panted Neale.
The engine whistled shrilly, as if in defiance of the Indians, and with a jerk and rattle the train started.
Neale recovered to find himself in a novel and thrilling situation. The car was of a gondola type, being merely a flat car, with sides about four feet high; it had thick oak planking that bullets did not penetrate. Besides himself and King, there were half a dozen soldiers, all kneeling at little portholes. Neale peeped over the rim. In a long thinned-out line the Sioux were circling around the train, hiding on the offside of their mustangs, shooting from those difficult positions. They were going at full speed, working in closer. A bullet, striking the rim of the car and showering splinters in Neale’s face, attested to the fact that the Sioux were still to be feared, even from a moving fort. Neale dropped back and, reloading his rifle, found a hole from which to shoot. He emptied his magazine before he realized it. But what with his trembling hands and the jerking of the train and the swift motion of the Indians, he did not do any harm to the foe.
Suddenly, with a jolt, the train halted.
“Blocked again, b’gorra,” said Casey calmly. “Me pipe’s out. Sandy, gimme a match.”
The engine whistled two shrill blasts.
“What’s that for?” asked Neale quickly.
“Them’s for the men in the first car to pull over the engine an’ remove obstructions from the track,” replied Casey.
Neale dared to risk a peep over the top of the car. The Sioux were circling closer to the front of the train. All along the half dozen cars ahead of Neale puffs of smoke and jets of flame shot out. Heavy volleys were being fired. The attack of the savages seemed to be concentrating up forward, evidently to derail the engine or kill the engineer.
Casey pulled Neale down. “Risky fer yez,” he said. “Use a porthole an’ foight.”
“My shells are gone,” replied Neale. He lay well down in the car, then, and listened to the uproar and waited for the Irish trio. When the volleys and the fiendish yells mingled, he could not hear anything else. There were intervals, however, when the uproar lulled for a moment.
Casey got his black pipe well lit, puffed a cloud of smoke, and picked up his rifle. “Drill, ye terriers, drill . . . drill, ye terriers, drill!” he sang, and shoved his weapon through a porthole. He squinted over the breech. “Mac, it’s the same bunch as attacked us day before yesterday,” he observed.
“It shure ain’t,” replied McDermott. “There’s a million of them today.” He aimed his rifle, as if following a moving object, and fired.
“Mac, you get excited in a fight. Now I never do. An’ I’ve seen that pinto hoss an’ that domn’ redskin a lot of times. I’ll kill him yet.”
Casey kept squinting and aiming, and then, just as he pressed the trigger, the train started with a sudden lurch.
“Spiled me aim. That engineer’s savin’ of the Sooz tribe! Drill, ye terriers, drill . . . drill, ye terriers, drill . . . Shane, I don’t hear yez shootin’.”
“How’n hell can I shoot when me eye is full of blood?” demanded Shane.
Neale then saw blood on Shane’s face. He crawled quickly to the Irishman. “Man, are you shot? Let me see.”
“Jist a bullet hit me, loike,” replied Shane.
Neale found that a bullet, perhaps glancing from the wood, had cut a gash over Shane’s eye, from which the blood poured. Shane’s hands and face and shirt were bloody. Neale bound a scarf tightly over the wound. “Let me take the rifle now,” he said.
“Thanks, lad. I ain’t hurted. An’ hev Casey make me loife miserable foriver. Not much. He’s a harrd mon, that Casey.” Shane crouched back to his porthole, with his bloody bandaged face and his bloody hands. And just then the train stopped with a rattling crash.
“When we get beyond them ties as was scattered along here, mebbe we’ll go on in,” remarked McDermo
tt.
“Mac, yez looks on the gloomy side,” replied Casey. Then quickly he aimed and shot. “I loike it better when we ain’t movin’,” he soliloquized with satisfaction. “That redskin won’t niver scalp a soldier of the U.P.R. . . . Drill, ye terriers, drill . . . drill, ye terriers, drill!”
The engine whistle shrilled out and once more the din of conflict headed to the front. Neale lay there, seeing the reality of what he had dreamed. These old soldiers, these toilers with rail and sledge and shovel, these Irishmen with the rifles—they were the builders of the great U.P.R. Glory might never be theirs, but they were the battle-scarred heroes. They were as used to fighting as working. They dropped their sledges or shovels to run for their guns.
Again the train started up and had scarcely gotten under way when with jerk and bump it stopped once more. The conflict grew fiercer as the Indians became more desperate. But evidently they were kept from closing in, for during the thick of the heaviest volleying the engine again began to puff and the wheels to grind. Slowly the train moved on. Like hail the bullets pattered against the car. Smoke drifted away on the wind.
Neale lay there watching these cool men who fought off the savages. No doubt Casey and Shane and McDermott were merely three of many thousands engaged in building and defending the U.P.R. This trio liked the fighting, perhaps better than the toiling. Casey puffed his old black pipe, grinned and aimed, shot and reloaded, sang his quaint song and joked with his comrades, all in the same cool quiet way. If he knew that the shadow of death hung over the team, he did not show it. He was not a thinker. Casey was a man of action. Only once he yelled, and that was when he killed the Indian on the pinto mustang.
Shane grew less loquacious and he drooped and fumbled over his rifle, but he kept on shooting. Neale saw him feel the hot muzzle of his gun, and shake his bandaged head. The blood trickled down his cheek.
McDermott plied his weapon, and ever and anon he would utter some pessimistic or gloomy word, or presage dire disaster, or remind Casey that his scalp was destined to dry in a Sioux’s lodge, or call on Shane to hit something to save his life, or declare that the engine was off the track. He rambled on. But it was all talk. The man had gray hairs and he was a born fighter.