The Way Of The West

by Elmer Kelton

  Overstreet stopped next in front of the portly Indian trader. There was an almost unbelievable stench of liquor and tobacco, buffalo hides, grease, and sweat about the man.

  “I’d like to hang you, Bowden. Satan himself knows you deserve it. But chances are the Yankees’ll hang you soon enough, anyway. I’m going to have to let you go.”

  A dry grin broke across the man’s flabby, bearded face. But there was murder in the evil blue eyes. “Did you ever scalp a man, Overstreet?”

  The lieutenant shook his head. A chill played down his back.

  “A bloody business,” Bowden said. “But you don’t know how much satisfaction there can be in it when the man’s somebody you hate.” He paused to give his words emphasis. “I’m going to get your scalp, Lieutenant!”

  Even in the near-darkness, Overstreet could see raw hatred burning in the trader’s face. That chill hit him again, and he turned away. “All right, men,” he said, “mount up.”

  Captain Pace stepped in front of him. “I’ll try once again to put some sense in your head, Lieutenant. The Army will never let you get this train of munitions to your lines.”

  “They’ll never take it,” Overstreet said grimly.

  “Perhaps not. But if they see they can’t, they won’t hesitate to blow it up, so you Rebs can’t use it. A few bullets in the right place would blast the whole wagon train halfway to the moon.”

  The lieutenant froze. He realized Pace was right. “Even if it meant killing you and your mule drivers?” But he knew the answer.

  “Yes. There are only thirteen of us. But who knows how many would be killed if you got the train to your lines?”

  Overstreet rubbed his face hard. If only there were some way . . . Something that might make the Yankees hold back, to avoid a battle with this train.

  He looked around, and his eyes rested on the girl, Linda Shaffer. Strange that at a moment like this he could think only of her beauty, the warm thrill that had swept over him at her slightest touch. Then the idea came. The only thing that might hold the Union troops back. Under any other circumstances it would have been a cowardly thought, even a despicable one. But this was war. This was a win-or-lose struggle for ten wagons loaded to the top with munitions, worth more right now than his own weight in Yankee gold.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Shaffer,” he said, “but I’m going to have to ask you to come along with us. You’d better get some things together.”

  She gasped. Old Walton Shaffer stormed out of his place like a wounded bear. “She’s my daughter, Overstreet. I won’t let you do it.”

  The lieutenant’s voice was edged with regret. “I’m afraid you don’t have any choice, sir. Neither do I. If I did, I wouldn’t think of taking her.”

  Captain Pace swore. “You intend to buy your protection with a woman’s life, Overstreet?”

  Overstreet shook his head. “Not my protection, Captain. The protection of the train. Any Yankee troop that catches up with us now will be plenty careful how it shoots at these wagons.”

  He could feel the old scout’s anger upon him like the furnace heat of an August west wind. He turned away to see that his men were on horseback, including Hatchet. The Union teamsters were upon their wagon seats. Sammy McGuffin had been laid carefully on a pile of blankets in the mess wagon. Overstreet pointed to a lead wagon.

  “Climb up, Captain.”

  A moment later the girl came out with a bag under her arm. Old Walton Shaffer folded his good arm around her.

  “I know there’s no use me begging you not to take her, Lieutenant. So I’ll just give you a warning. If any harm comes to her, Texas isn’t big enough to hide you. Wherever you go, I’ll hunt you down. Don’t forget that, Overstreet. Because I won’t.”

  The man’s eyes were like muzzles of a double-barreled shotgun. They put a chill under the lieutenant’s skin.

  “No harm will come to her, Mister Shaffer, not unless it’s from the Yankees. I promise you that. As soon as we figure we’re out of the danger area, I’ll send her back, with Captain Pace and his men as escort.”

  Helping the girl up onto a wagon seat beside a middle-aged Union teamster on Sammy’s wagon, Overstreet felt the keen throb that passed through him at the touch of her skin. But her stabbing anger was like a whip when she turned her blazing eyes upon him for a moment.

  He swung into the saddle, lifted his arm, and brought it down in a forward arc. “Forward . . . ho-o-o!”

  VI

  “Coward”

  Mules strained in the traces, and one by one the wheels of the loaded wagons began to turn. In a jangling of chains, a popping of whips, the train moved out of the gate a wagon at a time. Outside, they made a right turn, and the tongues pointed south toward Texas.

  As he prepared to follow, Overstreet had all the remaining soldiers and civilians herded into one small outbuilding. He left Vasquez to guard them. “Stay here three hours,” he told the dark-skinned trooper. “By that time we ought to be far enough on our way that nothing they can do afoot will hurt us.”

  Then he turned around and followed in the thin, lingering dust of the wagon train. The sun, just beginning to break through the haze over the mountains, sent long, ragged shadows reaching far out across the broken ground. Sharp morning air brought steam rising from the laboring mules and the nose-rolling horses.

  Overstreet felt rather than saw Wheeler rein in beside him. “Well, sir,” the corporal said, “looks like we’re on our way . . . to hell or to Fort Bliss, whichever comes first.”

  From the time the light of dawn fanned out across the endless, rough-hewn distance, Overstreet was continually turning in the saddle, anxiously looking over his left shoulder for dust, for horsemen, for men afoot. Each time he faced back toward the moving wagons, a thin smile would come to his lips. But soon the worry was dragging at him again, and he had to look back once more.

  Shortly before noon Vasquez caught up, easing his horse along in a sensible, strength-saving trot.

  “Any trouble?” the lieutenant queried.

  Vasquez smiled, showing a broad row of gleaming teeth beneath his trimmed black mustache. “Only the fat one, the Comanchero, Bowden. He is try to climb out a window. I put a bullet close to him, close like a glove. Ai, what maldiciónes he heap upon my poor head.” The trooper sobered. “I think he is a man to fear, Lieutenant. More malo than even the Yankees.”

  At noon Overstreet halted the train at a little water hole to rest and water the mules and to let the soldiers eat a hasty meal of hard tack and cold Yankee bacon. He detailed Wheeler to check the load on every wagon, to make sure it was riding properly.

  From up the line in a few moments came the sharp echo of argument. He saw Chaney Hatchet with his back to the end gate of a wagon, shaking his fist at Wheeler.

  “What’s the matter here?” the lieutenant demanded.

  Hatchet swiveled to face him. There was a flash of defiance in his washy blue eyes as he angrily gripped his right arm with his left hand. “I just told Wheeler I’d already checked the wagon and he could move on.”

  Instantly Overstreet guessed what was the matter. “What’re you hiding in that wagon, Hatchet?”

  Splotches of color showed through the dirty saddle on Hatchet’s flat cheeks. “Nothing, Lieutenant. I just said everything’s all right here, and I don’t like being made out a liar.”

  Lips suddenly tight around his teeth, Overstreet stepped forward. “Move aside there, Hatchet. I’m checking that wagon.”

  Hatchet caught his shoulder and jerked him back, but not before the lieutenant had glimpsed the little black box wedged between two rifle cases. Flame heat whipping through him, he whirled on the trooper.

  “So you slipped back into that girl’s room and stole her jewelry box again.”

  Quick as a jackrabbit, Hatchet leaped upon the wagon and grabbed the box. He jumped down again, his speckled right hand hovering just above the pistol strapped to his waist. “It’s mine, Overstreet. I’m keeping it if I’ve got to blast y
ou to kingdom come.”

  A shadow of fear lurked in Overstreet, but he couldn’t afford to show it. He tried to keep his voice flat as he stepped slowly forward.

  “You know you can’t shoot me, Hatchet. You’d be stood up against a wall, or hung to a tree limb. Hand me that box and get your hand away from that gun.”

  The washy eyes reflected indecision. Overstreet tried to take advantage of it by jumping at Hatchet. But the thief darted aside, bringing the pistol up out of the holster and leveling it at Over-street’s body. The lieutenant stopped short, his heart pounding. But Hatchet wavered, and Overstreet knew the man was not going to fire.

  He grabbed the pistol, roughly tearing it from Hatchet’s fingers, and hurled it to one side. A sudden, desperate fury exploded in the thief’s shallow eyes. With an animal roar of anger, Hatchet sprung upon Overstreet. He dropped the box. The beads gleamed white on the rocky ground, and the rings rolled away.

  The first rush threw Overstreet off balance. He fell on his back, knocking some of the breath out of him. Instantly Hatchet was on him, driving his fists at the lieutenant’s face. Overstreet threw himself to one side, rolled over, and sprang to his feet. He dodged just as Hatchet scooped up a fist-sized rock and hurled it.

  He charged in again, twisting his whole body in a bone-crushing drive at Hatchet’s ribs. Hatchet bent at the middle and roared in pain. But somehow he managed to hit Overstreet a hard belt to the side of the head. The lieutenant faltered, blinking his eyes against the spinning flashes of light that exploded in his brain. Hatchet hit him again, and he lurched backward against a wagon wheel.

  Braced momentarily, he caught his balance and lunged forward. His drive carried him into Hatchet and on. Hatchet stumbled. Overstreet started plowing hard blows into the man’s face and stomach. Fury guided his fists, pounding, crushing, hammering until Hatchet folded and sank weakly onto his face.

  Overstreet stood there, breathing hard, his fists still gripped so tightly that the fingernails bit into the flesh. He wiped sweat from his face, and saw the smear of red on the gray sleeve.

  “Take his guns away, Wheeler,” he said at length. “And see that he never gets them back this time.”

  He stopped a moment, watching Linda Shaffer carefully pick up the jewelry and put it back in the box. Her glance met his, then fell away, and a flush crossed her cheeks. Overstreet swallowed, lurched toward his horse, and fumbled the canteen loose from his saddle. His throat washed clear, he leaned against the horse for support and looked across the saddle. He could feel almost all eyes upon him.

  He signaled with his hand and said sharply to Wheeler: “Head them out again. Hasn’t everybody seen enough?”

  He poured water into one hand and tried to wash his face, but the water trickled out between his fingers. A hammer was driving nails through his brain. He sat down upon the ground and put his wet hand to his forehead.

  He heard the canteen lid rattle, then felt the comfort of a wet cloth against his burning face. He looked up at Linda Shaffer. She was bent over him, carefully wiping his face with a soaked handkerchief. Her fingers on his cheek brought a sudden warm contentment to him. He watched her, almost forgetting the pain, letting his mind give way to wonder.

  She saw the question in his eyes. “I owe it to you, don’t I? After you fought for me the way you did?”

  He shook his head. “That fight started a long time before either of us ever saw you.” He flinched as the cloth touched a cut on his cheek.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” her quiet voice said apologetically. Her dark eyes met his.

  “Didn’t you?” he asked softly. “You should have after all the trouble I’ve brought on you.”

  She didn’t answer. She finished washing his face, turned away, and walked back to her wagon. Sitting on the ground, Overstreet watched her, still feeling the stir of excitement she had aroused in him.

  The train kept rolling until darkness closed in upon it. It was rolling again by the time the reddening suggestion of sunrise rose in the east. As the hours dragged by, the lieutenant kept pausing to look back over his shoulder. But his eyes no longer spent so much time searching over the broken back trail as they did watching the lithe, slender figure of Linda Shaffer, sitting on her wagon seat beside a blue-clad mule driver, or kneeling in the back of the wagon beside the wounded Sammy McGuffin.

  Then, in mid-afternoon, a sudden flicker of light snapped his gaze to the top of a mountain far to the left. He reined up sharply and watched. It came again. He looked back and saw an answering flash from behind. Overstreet’s mouth dropped open, and a dread chilled him.

  Wheeler spurred up beside him, pointing.

  “Yes, Corporal,” he said. “I saw them.”

  “What do you think they mean?”

  Overstreet bit his lips. “They might mean nothing, or they might mean everything. I’m afraid they mean we’ve got more than just Yankees to worry about now.” He swallowed and looked bleakly ahead. “And only God knows how far it still is to Fort Bliss.”

  Fatigue rode heavily on his shoulders. His eyes burned from want of sleep. Soreness from yesterday’s fight still lay in his bones. He watched the wheels of the wagons turning slowly—Judas Priest, how slowly—their iron rims leaving deep cuts in the earth wherever the ground was soft enough. Then his tired eyes would sweep over the range of hills in the east, searching for mirror flashes, smoke signals, any sign of Indians. A flicker of hope flared in him each time he looked and saw nothing. But always dampening it was the memory of advice a ranger captain had given him long ago: There’s worry enough when you see them, and twice as much when you don’t.

  When, at last, he watched the sun bury itself behind the ragged stretch of mountains in the west, he wondered how far the train had gone in two days, and knew it had not been nearly far enough. He looked behind him but knew that in this rocky land there would be little dust to warn of an approaching Yankee column. Again he tried to find some sign of Indians in the mountains, but there was none. Maybe—and he grabbed at the hope like a man in deep water grabs at anything—maybe those mirror flashes hadn’t meant anything. Maybe their makers had been only a stray hunting party, now many miles away.

  With dusk gathering in, he picked a camp spot near a small stream that flowed through a shallow ravine. “We can’t take any chances,” he said to Wheeler. “We’ll pull the wagons in a circle tonight, and turn the stock loose inside. An Indian’s sharp knife on a picket line could leave us all afoot.”

  He sat his horse a little to one side and watched as Wheeler directed the wagons into a tight circle and had the teams unhitched one at a time.

  Just as the last ammunition wagon was started into place, a cry of “Fire!” cut through the sharp evening air. The Yankee driver piled off the wagon and started running. Panic swept through the camp with the speed of lightning, men scattering like quail in every direction. A horrible mental picture flashed into Overstreet’s mind—the whole wagon train going up in one huge, ear-shattering blast.

  “Get that wagon out of there!” he shouted in desperation. But he knew that not a man would try. Even Wheeler was running. Overstreet spurred forward, fear clutching at his throat. Smoke billowed out from under the blackening wagon sheet, and the terror-stricken mules were fighting in the traces.

  Pulling abreast of the wagon, Overstreet braced himself and jumped. He almost missed. Splinters ripped at his hands as he caught hold. Fighting for breath, fear burning all the way down to his stomach, he somehow pulled himself up into the heaving wagon seat. He grabbed at the reins, pulled the panicked team away from the circled wagons and toward the ravine.

  His own panic was driving at him. He could feel the heat of the blaze in the wagon bed behind him. The smoke choked him, burned his eyes until he could hardly see. Any second now, flame would eat through a keg and strike the powder. He flipped the reins and yelled like a madman, fighting the team on toward the ravine. There wasn’t a chance that he would have time to unhitch that team and save i
t, he knew. But there was a ghost of a chance he might break the wagon loose.

  Almost at the brink of the shallow ravine, he hauled back on the reins with all the strength in him, trying to pull the team sharply to the left, knowing the wagon would never make the turn. The mules pulled back. The iron wheels screamed as they gouged into the bed of the wagon and could turn no farther. Overstreet heard the coupling pole break like the sound of a gunshot, and felt the wagon heave beneath him.

  For a split second he was in the air. Then he hit the ground and was rolling and sliding across the sharp rocks away from the blazing, overturned wagon. He heard the bouncing clatter of the team running on, dragging only the tongue and front wheels of the shattered wagon. Inches ahead of him was the lip of the ravine. In one agonizing effort he threw himself over the edge.

  The whole earth seemed to rock with the force of a gigantic blast. Overstreet threw his arms over his head and buried his face as rocks the size of his fist shot out over the edge of the ravine and bounced down upon him. Then there was only the rattle of rolling stones, the easy crackle of flames eating through what little was left of the wagon, and, above it all, the awful ringing in his ears.

  A voice reached out to him from the dusk. Overstreet thought he recognized it as Wheeler’s. He tried to answer, but his throat was paralyzed, burning from smoke and dust. He heard a horse’s hoofs sliding on the rocks above him, and the scrape of cavalry boots running toward him. A strong arm clamped around him. Wheeler’s voice called, almost in his ear: “Come help me get him out of here.”

  Soon he was lying on his back on a blanket, and Linda Shatter once again was washing his face with a cloth. He tried to rise up, but she put her hand on his chest and gently pushed him back.

  “Easy now,” she said softly. “I don’t think there are any bones broken, but we’ll have to see. You just lie there a while.”