Novel 1963 - How The West Was Won (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Zeb Rawlings had come in contact with Indians without bias one way or the other. He did not believe them a pack of savages to be killed off like so many mad dogs. On the other hand, he did not hold with the group—all living safely in the East—who believed the poor Indian was a much put-upon individual.

  From his father Zeb had learned a lot about Indians; he understood many of their customs, their eagerness for war, their pride in courage, and what white men usually considered their treachery.

  He thought of his father now as he scanned the country around. “Pa,” he commented to his sergeant, “knew as much about the Indian as any man, and he was forever wary of them. The first time you try judging them as you would a white man, you’re in trouble. Their standards are different.”

  “Jethro says the same,” the sergeant commented. “What do you reckon is going on, sir?”

  “Think back. How many tracks did we see last month?”

  “Seen a few here and yonder.”

  “But mighty few. And now? How many Indians would you estimate in the parties we saw today? I mean, whose tracks we saw?”

  “Could have been thirty, maybe more in that first lot, and close on that in the next. We crossed the trails of more than a hundred Indians today.” The sergeant scowled. “Seems a lot to be just perambulatin’ around, sir.”

  “I agree.” Zeb paused. “You know, Sergeant, a lot of nonsense could be kept out of reports and out of consideration if folks would just consider the problem of feeding a lot of troops. You know how much ration supply we have to figure on for our lot. Merely multiply that by ten and where are you?

  “I’ll tell you exactly where we are, Sergeant, and I don’t like it. There are five times the Indians in this area right now than can be fed here, which means they do not expect to be here long…or else they expect to come into a lot of supplies they don’t have at present…which can only mean the railroad.”

  At this point Zeb saw the rider come out of a coulee, and knew by the way he sat his horse that it was Jethro Stuart.

  Zeb’s eyes swept the surrounding hills. He was quite sure that his troop was under observation every single moment, and now the Indians would know that Jethro was joining him—it was likely they could even guess what Jethro would have to say. He thought like an Indian, and therefore he could tell them what an Indian would be likely to do.

  Jethro glanced at the troop—twenty-two men, including Rawlings and the sergeant, and it wasn’t enough. Not by a long sight, it wasn’t. And there were not twenty more within fifty miles.

  “We’ve been cutting a lot of sign, Jethro,” Zeb said.

  “The chief claims the railroad broke its agreement. They’ve changed their route and are cuttin’ through the Arapahoe huntin’ grounds.”

  “Is he right, Jethro?”

  “He sure and certain is, Lieutenant. I tried to warn King, but he ain’t willin’ to listen. He’s tryin’ to make better time with his track-layin’, so he switched routes just of his own mind. Maybe you can talk to him.”

  “You know Mike King,” Rawlings replied dryly. “He listens to nobody.”

  Nevertheless, within the hour Lieutenant Rawlings rode up alongside the cars that were Mike King’s office and sleeping quarters. Three flat cars stood nearby…the track-laying crew worked almost half a mile away, but the tent city was close by. There were stacks of ties cut from the hills not far away, and oozing pitch in the hot sun. Zeb swung down and went in, leaving Jethro to follow if he wished.

  King was behind his desk, checking shipments against an order lying on his desk. At another desk at the far end of the car, his secretary worked at a telegraph key.

  “King, when did you decide to change your route?” Zeb asked abruptly.

  King continued to check his lists for a moment before he looked up. He had been expecting this and was ready for it, but he was quite sure he could handle this backwoods lieutenant. When he spoke impatience crept through.

  “We’ve made no change, although we’ve the right to make what minor adjustments are necessary to speed construction, and speeding construction is just what we’ve been doing.”

  “You’re asking for trouble. You’ve cut into Arapahoe hunting grounds, and the tribes are out.”

  “Don’t be foolish, Rawlings!” King answered irritably. “Can you honestly say that what we are doing will cost them any wild game?”

  “What counts is what the Arapahoes think, and Jethro says they think they’re getting a raw deal.”

  “To hell with them, Lieutenant, and with Jethro, too. I’m not going to let the Central Pacific gain ground on me because of a few naked savages. If I wasted my time worrying about what a few miserable Indians think, I’d never get anywhere.”

  “Is it worth a war? A war that will cost lives?”

  “What war? You say the Army is here to keep the peace, so keep it.”

  “And how would you suggest I do that?”

  “Sell them the idea that the railroad won’t do any harm. It’s just two tracks and a whistle.”

  “They won’t buy it, King. You forget these Indians have seen the railroad bring people west. It isn’t the tracks themselves that worries them, it’s the buffalo hunters, and the sod-busters.”

  Mike King chuckled suddenly, his manner changing. “Damn it, Zeb, I like you! You’ve got guts. I could use you in my business.” He got up and walked around his desk to the sideboard. “Will you have a drink? I never lied to a man over a drink.”

  Zeb took the glass of whiskey. He had an idea what was coming and was braced for it. At the same time he knew the limitations of his authority, and how little his arguments would mean when they reached a peaceful headquarters miles from the scene of action, with a lot of armchair soldiers ready to pass judgment.

  He could not stop the railroad. He could not force it to turn aside by so much as a foot. His job was to keep the peace, and he had tried. It might be that he should simply ride off in the hills on a long patrol and let King bear the consequences of his act…the trouble was, there were so many others who would suffer. And King had never had to bury a woman who had fallen into Indian hands, or seen the result of an outbreak.

  If there was an attack the railroad could do a fair job of defending itself, for many of the track-layers were Civil War and Indian war veterans, and not a few had served in European armies before emigrating.

  “Look”—King filled his own glass—“you’ve seen the buffalo—millions of them! Why, we had a train stopped for two days while a herd of buffalo passed, and that was only last week! How long will it take the settlers to kill off that many buffalo? Not in my lifetime nor in the lifetime of any youngsters we may have.

  “I don’t have any love for the noble red man, and never did. Whenever two peoples come together and one has the superior culture, the superior technical skill, the other will fold up or decline. I’ve heard you and Jethro say the same thing, although maybe the words were different, but it’s inevitable.

  “The Indian could cope with anything before the white man arrived, but now he’s out of date. He’s done for. Personally, I want to see all this country filled with ranches and farms. I want to see mines and mills. I want to see this country filling out and growing up, and that’s the way it will do and nobody can stop it—not those fool Indians, nor you, nor anybody else. The Indian has to become a part of it, or fade from the picture.

  “It isn’t me who is doing this. It isn’t anybody, really. It is simply that the Indian’s way of life doesn’t fit him to compete with a white man for land or a living. Don’t blame me. I don’t make the laws of nature.

  “But look at the logic of it. These hunting grounds are safe for at least our lifetime and for the lifetime of the Indians you’ve talked to. And the sooner the Indian comes in contact with the white man and his way of life, the better his chances of surviving. The point is, however, that he has nothing to worry about. It will be fifty, maybe a hundred years before people move into this country.”


  Zeb Rawlings looked at the amber liquid in his glass. There was much truth in what King said, and he knew some of the older Indians felt the same way. The trouble was that he did not trust King, or any argument he might offer. Nor could he trust the young bucks who would be hunting scalps and stealing horses.

  Yet why did he not trust King? Was it jealousy? Zeb scowled into his glass. He did not like to think he might be misjudging a man because of his own personal feelings.

  No, it was not a matter of personal feeling; it was simply that he knew that to Mike King only one thing mattered: the railroad. To put that railroad through on schedule Mike King would ride roughshod through and over anything that got in the way. And that included Zeb Rawlings.

  “All right,” he said at last, “I’ll see what I can do. I’ll talk to them.”

  King went to the car door with him, his hand on Zeb’s shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, Rawlings. We’re just crossing their land. I give you my word—nobody is going to stay.”

  “I’ll be going.”

  “You seeing Julie?”

  Zeb Rawlings looked up, his eyes cold and level. “Yes. Any comment?”

  King smiled, that taunting smile that always seemed to be concealing so much. “No, no! You’re a lucky man, that’s all.”

  Zeb walked to his horse and paused there, making a business of tightening the cinch. He had a feeling that King had bested him, but with King one usually had that feeling, whether the issue had been lost or not.

  Stepping into the saddle, he turned to Jethro, who was waiting. “Can you get me a chance to talk to the chief?”

  Jethro merely nodded, turning his horse away. Together they rode into the hills.

  Chapter 16

  *

  DAY HAD SCARCELY come when they rode into the village of Walks-His-Horses. At the first sight of it, Zeb Rawlings felt the skin tighten on the back of his scalp. There were at least two hundred lodges, which could mean close to five hundred warriors.

  Dogs rushed out, yapping furiously, and an Indian stepped from one of the lodges.

  “How safe are we?” Zeb asked. “Pa used to say if you came of your own accord into an Indian village you were safe as long as you stayed there.”

  “That’s true…generally.”

  Jethro chewed on the idea for a minute or so. “I’d say you are safe enough this time. Walks-His-Horses is a reasonable man, and smart enough to figure it is better to talk than to fight. It’s his young men you have to worry about—they want to count coups so they can stand tall among the squaws.”

  Walks-His-Horses was a tall, powerfully built Indian of perhaps forty years. He had a large-boned, intelligent face and such dignity as only an Indian can have. He looked at them, then invited them into his lodge.

  When they were seated, Jethro began to speak slowly, in Arapahoe, of which Zeb knew only a few words. However, Jethro spoke in sign language as well, the graceful and fluent movements of his hands lending a weird touch to the moment. Slowly, other warriors began to enter the lodge.

  Jethro spoke to Zeb out of the side of his mouth. “Says there’s an Indian he knows who knows your pa…an Osage named Arrow-Going-Home. Says your pa had the name of being a great man, a great warrior and hunter.”

  “Heard pa speak of the Osage. They crossed the plains together back in ’forty-four or ’forty-five.”

  Zeb could follow some of the talk, for he knew the sign language, which was universal among the tribes, although few Indians knew any tribal tongue but their own.

  The lodge filled with warriors. The air became stifling. The pipe was lighted and it went slowly around the circle. Zeb pulled on it gravely, then passed it along.

  “The old man is in good temper,” Jethro whispered, indicating a white-haired man of noble features who sat behind and to the right of Walks-His-Horses, “and that counts for plenty.”

  The talk droned on, Jethro translating from time to time items that Zeb could not grasp.

  Suddenly, Walks-His-Horses began to speak. His voice was low, but filled with somber power, and as he spoke his eyes moved from one to the other.

  “When I see you here in my lodge, I feel glad as do the ponies when first the green grass comes to the hills at the beginning of the year. My heart fills with joy that we can talk together as old friends, for I have no wish for trouble with my white brothers, least of all with you who speak to me here, my friend, and the son of the man known to all among Iñuaina.

  “When first the white man came among us and spoke of blazing an iron trail for the Iron Horse, we were amazed and wished to see this thing, but at the same time we were frightened, for word had come to us that wherever the Iron Horse drew its wagons, there the white man came to hunt, not in dozens, but in hundreds, perhaps even thousands. These hunters we feared would kill the buffalo and leave the redman hungry, his squaws and papooses without food.

  “We heard the white man killed the buffalo and took only the skin, leaving the meat to rot beneath the sun while the children of the Indian died from hunger.

  “The white man promised the Iron Horse would not come close to our hunting grounds, but would take the other side of the hills. Now this has been changed and the Iron Horse and its wagons have come among us. We see the game frightened off into the far hills, where we must go with many dangers to find food.

  “Now the Iron Horse has come and my young men come to me and shout their anger. They shake the arrow of war and mix paint for their faces, and they bring their war ponies in from the grass.

  “We do not wish to fight the white man, but our young men are angry. They demand war. They demand the iron trail be destroyed before it brings hunters to our hunting grounds.”

  Zeb Rawlings was silent, choosing the words with which to reply. Why did he feel guilty before this old man? And before Walks-His-Horses? Had not Mike King given his word?

  He spoke slowly, taking his time to make himself understood, and to allow for translation of those words he missed. “We look upon the Arapahoe as brothers, and your problems are our problems also. It is true the trail of the Iron Horse has been changed, for it cannot run everywhere as a pony can do. Where the trail is now the way is smooth for it, and it can run swiftly without cutting through hills or bridging streams.

  “Many men will ride the Iron Horse’s wagons, but they are men who go far away to the land beside the blue waters where the sun sets. They will pass over your lands but they will not stop. The man who builds the iron trail has promised me this.”

  The eyes of Walks-His-Horses burned into those of Zeb Rawlings. “Blue Coat, son of the man we know, I speak to you. I do not speak to the man who makes the iron trail. You sit in my lodge, you smoke the pipe, it is your voice I hear.

  “I do not smoke with the man who makes the iron trail. He does not sit in my lodge, he does not hear my voice. What do you say? What is it you will promise?”

  Lieutenant Zeb Rawlings hesitated, for he did not need to look around him to know his audience. The lodge was packed with warriors, many of them the young warriors who demanded war. From these he could feel bitter animosity. They were held back only by the authority of their chief…for how long?

  When they attacked, who would die? At first it would be lonely travelers, settlers, innocent people who had done nothing to invite the red rage that would sweep the plains. Only later would they attack the railroad. Innocent people would die unless he could stop this now, unless he could stop it here.

  Walks-His-Horses was an able man. He knew how fiercely the white man could retaliate, and he had come to know how ruthlessly they followed their enemies. The Indian way was to fight a great battle—one battle—and on the outcome would the decision rest. Not until the white man came did the Indian discover what a campaign meant. The Indian fought, then retired to his lodge; but the white man followed after, destroyed the Indian’s corn, his meat, and his lodge. He drove off the ponies and hounded the Indian until the snow was red with his bloody tracks. The chief knew this, as did the o
ld man who sat at his elbow. The young men did not know, or they believed they could win. They did not understand that against the white man no victory was possible.

  “What I have said,” Zeb Rawlings reiterated slowly, “is true. Men will ride the Iron Horse, but they go to the lands in the west where there is gold and silver. The man who makes the iron trail has given me his word. I give you my word. No one will stop. The hunting grounds of the Arapahoe will remain the hunting grounds of the Arapahoe.”

  The sun was setting when the two rode out again upon the hill overlooking the still distant End of the Track. As they drew rein to give their horses a chance to catch their wind, a far-off train whistle blew.

  “That blamed whistle!” Jethro said irritably. “It’s like the crack of doom for all that’s natural.”

  “What’s natural and what isn’t? My ma came from a settling family. They believed a man should make his scratch on the land and leave it a little different. Anyway, thanks for fixing things with the chief.”

  “Me? I fixed nothing. You put the words in my mouth and I said what you couldn’t say for yourself. That won’t make ’em come true.”

  “I said what had to be said to keep the peace. There’s a risk, I know.”

  “Risk? You pledged your word back there, Rawlings. Not my word. Not Mike King’s word, and not the Army’s. It was your word they’d keep their huntin’ grounds.”

  “I think they will.”

  “You got more trust in your fellow man than I have. Especially when your fellow man is Mike King.” Jethro took out his tobacco, looked at it thoughtfully, and then said, “Look, son, how do you figure they aim to pay for this road? Do you think carryin’ the mail and a few passengers to Californy will do it? If you do, you got another think a-comin’. They need farms and folks and towns. They need men shippin’ cattle and farmers shippin’ grain. Your treaty’s goin’ to be broken, Rawlings, and I don’t want to be around when it happens. Look me up sometime when you’ve got a belly full.”