He looked back now at the two women trailing along behind him. They were riding side by side, talking casually, as if out for a Sunday ride or on a picnic. Evidently, they felt their worries were over, with him to take care of them.
Of some concern were the horses they were riding. They counted themselves lucky that Kenny Lamb had not had time to steal their riding horses when he absconded with their packhorse. After a quick examination of the two horses, Perley was of the opinion that Kenny didn’t figure the two nags were worth the effort—and Perley agreed with him. He suspected the fellow at the stable who sold them to the women was glad to be rid of them. If they were lucky, the horses would make it to Cheyenne with no trouble. They weren’t carrying much of a load, but it was a good one hundred and fifty miles to Cheyenne. Normally, he would figure that would take about three and a half to four days if he was not in a hurry to get there. He decided he’d best figure a day longer, so as not to make it too hard on their horses. Of the two, Liz’s horse, a flea-bitten gray, was in better shape than Stella’s sorrel, although it showed signs of aging. The sorrel was pretty gray in the muzzle as well and had an awkward gait, as if it had sore feet.
He had loaded his packhorse with supplies enough to carry him for a long trip, but at the time, he hadn’t counted on feeding two women. Maybe he might be lucky enough to find some game to supplement the sowbelly he packed. Water would seem to be no problem, for the trail they rode followed a strong creek. The clerk at the general store had told him it was called Lodgepole Creek, and a traveler could follow it all the way to Cheyenne.
Hoping to make twenty miles before resting the horses, Perley was forced to stop after what he estimated to be about fifteen or sixteen. Stella’s sorrel began to limp soon after they started out, but she wasn’t aware that anything was wrong. She said the horse always had a rough gait, ever since they started out from Ogallala, so she didn’t say anything about it. No matter, Perley told her. There wasn’t anything he could do about it except to rest the miserable horse.
“That horse is so old, he’s probably got a case of rheumatism or something,” he said.
“He was the cheapest horse Walter had,” Stella said, referring to the owner of the stable in Ogallala. “I had to buy one in a hurry. I didn’t own a horse like Liz did.”
“I let Walter take it out in trade for the price of that horse,” Liz said. “This is the first time I’ve actually rode the damn thing. Walter was still comin’ to see me three or four nights a week to pay for the saddle. Said I still owed ten bucks on it. I told him I didn’t have time to fool with him—I would just tell his wife how I was payin’ for my horse and saddle.” She looked at Stella and giggled. “He yelled ‘paid in full’ quick enough then.”
“Well, we’ll let the poor old horse rest and see if he’s able to go again after that,” Perley said. “I’ll pull the saddle offa him. Maybe that’ll help a little.”
Before turning the horse loose to go to the water with the others, he took a close look at its hooves and legs. He could only come to the same conclusion as before—the horse was old. The two of them might be riding double before they reached Cheyenne, he thought.
The women still had some concern about the possibility of another visit from Kenny Lamb, since they thought he couldn’t know that Perley had come to their rescue. Perley didn’t share their concern, because Kenny hadn’t left them with anything worth coming back for—unless, he allowed, they were in possession of enough cash money for Kenny to risk getting shot at.
“I know it’s a little too soon to eat,” Perley said when he walked back from the edge of the creek to join them. “But would you ladies like to have a cup of coffee, since we’re gonna be here for a while?”
“I was thinkin’ about how good a hot cup of coffee would be right now, with the wind whippin’ offa that prairie like it is,” Stella replied at once. “I didn’t say nothin’ about it, ’cause I didn’t know how much coffee you’ve got.”
Perley assured her that he had enough to have a little extra while the horses were resting. The problem, he said, was the shortage of coffee cups. He always carried one extra cup, but they would still be a cup short.
“Me and Liz can share a cup. Can’t we, Liz?”
Liz nodded. In a short while, they had a fire going and Perley’s coffeepot working up some fresh coffee. Stella took on the chore of fixing the coffee, and when she poured the two cups, Perley insisted that he would wait for his; he had to tend to the horses first. She knew he was just being polite, even though he walked over to the horses and busied himself checking his packs.
“First man I’ve run into in a long time that don’t automatically think God put women on earth to serve men,” she commented to Liz.
“Perley’s different, all right,” Liz replied.
“Reckon how long it’ll be before he takes a notion that he wants to jump under the blanket with one of us?” Stella asked. “And when he does, reckon which one of us he’ll pick?”
“I don’t know,” Liz said. “Seein’ as how you’re so much younger and dainty, might be you—might be both of us. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he don’t come sniffin’ around either one of us at all.”
“Shoot!” Stella scoffed. “He’s a man, ain’t he? He can’t help hisself.”
Liz shrugged, causing Stella to challenge, “I’d bet a dollar he asks one of us before we get to Cheyenne.”
Liz smiled. “I’ll take that bet, but on one condition . . . it’s no fair for either one of us to ask him if he wants a free one. All right?”
“All right, it’s a bet,” Stella agreed. “I wish to hell he had some sugar to put in this coffee, though.”
She took another swallow, then refilled the cup and walked over to the edge of the creek and gave it to him. She walked back to the fire to find Liz grinning at her.
“You ain’t cheatin’ on me, are you?” Liz chided her. “I hope you ain’t afraid of catchin’ hoof-and-mouth disease.”
Stella responded with a puzzled frown and waited a moment for an explanation. When there was none, she shrugged it off, thinking Liz said a lot of things that didn’t make sense, and answered the question.
“Hell, no,” she replied, grinning. “I ain’t cheatin’ on you. I thought about it, though.”
“Something about him, ain’t there?” Liz remarked. “I think I’d just like to take him home with me and mother him, more than anything else.”
“Well, when you pay me that dollar, you can mother both of us,” Stella said.
When Perley decided the horses were rested enough, they started out again, hoping to make this segment of the trip longer than the first one had been. Stella’s sorrel looked to be traveling better and maintained a decent pace for over ten miles before it began to show a pronounced limp in its walk. Still it held to the pace.
The critical moment came when the trail crossed a swift stream. In crossing, the horses had to drop down from one bank and scramble up the short bank on the other side. Buck and the packhorse behind him managed it with no difficulty at all, as did Liz’s flea-bitten gray.
But when Stella urged her sorrel to cross, the horse refused at first. Then, when it decided to jump down the short bank, its front hooves landed solidly on the creek bed. It almost sounded like a rifle shot when the bones in both front legs broke. The injured horse collapsed headfirst into the stream, sending Stella flying over its neck to land on her back on the other side.
Liz and Perley dismounted as fast as they could to come to her aid. Relieved to find that she had only had the wind knocked out of her, Perley went at once to the stricken horse. With no way to comfort the injured sorrel, he was faced with the undesirable task of ending its misery. Seeing the pain in the old horse’s eyes, he didn’t hesitate to pull his .44 and put a bullet into the sorrel’s brain. Startled by the gunshot, both women flinched, with Stella suddenly sitting upright. Liz helped her to her feet, and they both rushed to the fallen animal.
“You shot my horse!”
Stella exclaimed. “He didn’t mean to throw me!”
“I know he didn’t,” Perley said, realizing she still wasn’t sure what had happened. “I shot him to put him outta pain. He broke both his front legs, and there wasn’t nothin’ to do for him except shoot him.”
“Oh—” Stella started, then checked herself. “Well, I understand. You had to do it.” Embarrassed by her outburst, she recovered a moment later when another concern occurred to her. “I don’t have a horse now . . .”
She looked to Liz for help, but even in a moment of tragedy, Liz couldn’t help japing her.
“That’s mighty tough luck, gal. It’s a long walk to Cheyenne,” she said. “Ain’t it Perley?”
“You and Liz will have to ride double,” Perley said to Stella. “As light as you are, that gray of hers can handle it without noticin’ the extra weight.”
He waded out of the shallow stream to get a rope, then returned to the dead horse and put a loop of the rope around its neck. He tied the other end around Buck’s withers, then dragged the carcass out of the stream.
“Ain’t no use in foulin’ the water,” he explained to Liz when she asked why. “I’ll get your saddle off of him,” he said to Stella. “You can sell it when you get to Cheyenne. I can load it on top of my packs.”
It took a little more help from Buck before Perley managed to get the saddle out from under the horse. Then, with Stella up behind Liz on the gray, they got under way again.
* * *
Gray Wolf pulled his pony to a stop when he saw the dead horse lying on the other side of the stream. He paused there in the trees until he was sure there was no one else around before he called out to his friends.
“Over here,” he yelled, then urged his pony forward to cross the stream.
He took another quick look around him before sliding off the horse, and was kneeling beside the carcass of the unfortunate sorrel when Cripple Horse and Walking Man rode up beside him. Gray Wolf pointed to the bullet hole in the sorrel’s head.
“This was the shot we heard. The horse is very old; maybe that is why they shot him.”
“White man,” Cripple Horse said when he saw the horseshoes on the sorrel’s hooves. A moment later, he said, “The old horse broke his legs. That is why they shot him.” He looked up, as if searching for the white men. “This horse has not been dead for very long. They cannot be very far away. They dragged the horse up out of the water and took the saddle. They cannot be far.”
“How many are they?” Gray Wolf wondered. “Maybe soldiers?”
Walking Man, who had been studying the ground around the carcass, answered him. “Not soldiers—soldiers don’t ride old horses like that one. I see tracks that tell me there were probably three more horses, all wearing iron shoes.”
“Only three,” Gray Wolf murmured, thinking out loud. “Maybe we have found something better to hunt than deer or antelope,” he said then. “Where do the tracks lead?”
“They are riding the trail west,” Walking Man answered.
“Then I say we are wasting time looking at a dead horse. Let’s find these white men and kill them and take their horses and guns,” Cripple Horse suggested.
“I think maybe they have guns and plenty of bullets, if they waste one on this worthless horse,” Walking Man said. “They will see us long before we can get close enough for our bows.”
He received grunts of agreement from both of his friends, for the trail ahead of them was barren of trees, except for those that lined the creek. The possibility of acquiring guns and ammunition was too great to be ignored, however.
“Walking Man is right,” Gray Wolf said. “We must wait until they camp and strike them at night.”
“We’re wasting time standing here talking about it,” Cripple Horse said. “They’re getting farther away while we talk.”
Gray Wolf looked up at the sun. “It is still a long time before the sun goes down. We have plenty of time to catch up with them.” When his two companions looked skeptical, he said, “They will still be on this trail. There are no white-man settlements between here and Duck Bend.”
“I think you are right,” Cripple Horse said, “but it would still be a good thing if we could get close enough to see them before it gets dark.”
There was no disagreement with that, so they jumped on their ponies and started up the trail after the white men.
The three lone hunters were but one small group of many Sioux warriors who had refused to go to the reservation after their defeat at the Battle of Wolf Mountain. Vowing never to surrender to the soldiers, the three friends had joined with a few other Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors to live as they had always lived. But the near extinction of the buffalo and the constant pressure from army patrols forced them to retreat into the Rocky Mountains and the harsh winters they found there. Before a year had passed, the band of Indians began to break apart, with most of them reporting to the reservation. Still defiant, Gray Wolf and his two friends moved into the plains of Nebraska and Wyoming, still seeking the buffalo, even after ammunition for the two rifles among them was depleted and bows were their only weapons.
They had not met with much success, so they decided to scout the wagon road between Ogallala and Cheyenne, hoping to prey on settlers heading west. Happening upon this small party of whites might give them the opportunity to gain precious cartridges and other supplies, as well as three horses.
The warriors started out after them at a spirited lope, hoping to catch up enough to spot them in the distance. In the treeless prairie they rode through, it was necessary to remain far enough behind so as not to be discovered by their prey. It was certain that the white men carried rifles, and the warriors would be no match for them if they were spotted.
Walking Man, noted for his sharp eyes, rode a little ahead of his two friends, his focus concentrated on the trail ahead as it disappeared into the horizon.
“There!” he exclaimed after they had ridden for half an hour. He pulled up and waited for Gray Wolf and Cripple Horse to catch up to him. “I see them.” His companions nodded, seeing the tiny images on the road far ahead. “We must fall back, so they don’t see us.”
For any chance of success, they had to wait until the party had camped and darkness had set in. To attack before then would be suicide against their rifles.
“We should keep up with them if we cross over to the other side of this creek and use the trees beside it for cover,” Walking Man said.
His suggestion was met with approval, for the trees along the creek were the only trees for as far as the eye could see. And even with the many winding curves the creek took, they could easily shorten the distance between themselves and their targets.
* * *
The sun was starting to settle down upon the horizon by the time Perley decided both the horses and the women had traveled enough for that day. So, when they came to a point where the creek left the trail to take a wide bend before rejoining it, he decided it would be a good place for their camp. There was a large patch of grass within the loop of the creek bend that promised good grazing for the horses, and there were cottonwoods on both banks that provided an abundance of firewood. A couple of hundred yards north of the trail, a long grass-covered ridge rose above the rolling prairie beyond.
The women went to work immediately, gathering wood for the fire, while Perley took care of the horses. He hobbled the packhorse and Liz’s gray to make sure they didn’t stray during the night. He never hobbled Buck. It wasn’t necessary, because the big bay gelding never strayed far from him. Perley’s brother John used to say the horse had a foolish crush on Perley, even claiming that Buck would break away from the remuda on a cattle drive and chase after Perley when he was working another horse.
In short order, Liz and Stella had coffee boiling and sowbelly frying in the pan. Using Perley’s supplies and the few utensils he owned, Liz mixed up some pan biscuits to go with it.
“If we had one more cup, we’d be dinin’ in style,” Stella
declared.
“And maybe a little sugar,” Liz added.
“Maybe tomorrow I could ride in the saddle and you ride behind,” Stella commented.
“We’ll see,” Liz teased. “You’re mighty lucky I was kind enough to let you ride behind me.”
Perley shook his head, amazed by the carefree air of the two women, when only a few hours before they were stranded on the prairie, fearing for their lives. Thoughts of a return by Kenny Lamb were forgotten, and the Kansas cowhand named Riker was growing even fainter with each mile traveled from Ogallala.
* * *
Watching from the cover of a clump of laurel bushes on the other side of the creek, Walking Man was surprised to see two men and a woman as they made their camp for the night. From his angle, he could see three saddles, and one of them appeared to have a rifle stock showing. Cripple Horse will be happy to hear this, he thought, since he does not have one. His next thought was to hope they had plenty of cartridges, and that he and his friends could kill them before they had a chance to use them.
Walking Man was careful to take in every detail of the camp—where the bedrolls were positioned and where the horses were left to graze. Again, he was pleased with what he saw. The patch of grass where the three horses were peacefully grazing was close to the road, and they would be easy to steal. He was sure that, had they not planned to kill the white men, it would be a simple thing to slip in that night and ride away with the horses without the owners knowing they were gone. One of the horses, especially, caught his eye—the big bay. That is the one I will steal, he thought.
Already, the shadows were growing long, so he thought he should get back to his friends. They were sure to be getting impatient by now. Slowly, he started to back carefully away from the bushes, when he suddenly stopped and lay as flat as he possibly could. The woman and one of the men had gotten up from the fire and started walking toward him. Had they seen him? He was trapped if they continued to advance his way! They both wore handguns, but neither one had drawn one, so maybe he had not been discovered.
The Legend of Perley Gates Page 8