The Way Of The West

by Elmer Kelton

  There seemed to be just one big ache through his whole body. But looking up at her, feeling the warm touch of her hands, he didn’t care.

  “I guess I’m not so patriotic as I thought I was,” she said presently. “I should have wished for the whole train to blow up . . . you with it. But I was scared for you. I almost screamed when the blast came. I thought you were caught there.”

  He smiled. In words measured and slow, he told her: “I don’t know why you should have been worried about me. But I’m glad you were.”

  Her fingers briefly touched his. He reached up and caught her hand. She made no effort to draw it away.

  Corporal Wheeler came and knelt beside him. Shame darkened his face. “You better pick you another man to call corporal, sir. The honor’s too big for me.” He looked down at his huge hands. “I was as close to that wagon as you was. I could’ve taken it out as easy as you could. But I was scared. I’m a coward, sir. It ain’t fit-tin’ for me to be in charge of these men any longer.”

  Overstreet reached out and put his hand on the penitent trooper’s big knee. “You’re not a coward, Wheeler. Sometimes a man gets so scared he can’t move, and it’s not his fault. I was as scared as you were. If I’d had time to think, I’d’ve run away, too, I guess. So forget about it . . . Corporal.”

  Linda Shaffer watched the corporal walk away, his wide shoulders a little straighter. “That was kind of you, Lieutenant. I think many men would be bitter, being deserted the way you were.”

  Overstreet shook his head. “It takes a good man to run away, then come back and face up to it like Wheeler did. Next time he won’t run.”

  Back on his feet again, the lieutenant had Wheeler bring him the Yankee who had been driving that wagon. But the Vermont captain stepped up and stood beside the teamster.

  “Don’t punish him, Lieutenant. He set that wagon afire on my order. I hoped to destroy the train. If you feel that punishment is in order, punish me.”

  Overstreet wavered. Then he signaled for Wheeler and Vasquez to let the teamster go back to the other Yankees, huddled together under guard well inside the circle. “Punishment won’t bring back that wagon,” he said. “If I’d been in your place, guess I’d’ve tried to do the same.”

  A thin smile broke across the captain’s face. “And I’d wager that you’d have gotten the job done, Lieutenant Overstreet.”

  VII

  “Deal with Death”

  Darkness dropped over the camp like a blanket, and with it came a nameless dread that Overstreet had felt before while on a ranger patrol along the frontier. It was nothing a man could put his finger on, but it was a strange kind of premonition that frontiersmen had learned to respect and obey. Overstreet sat, leaning against a wagon wheel, in solitary council. Wheeler came and sat down beside him.

  Presently he asked: “You got the creeps, too, sir?”

  The lieutenant nodded. “Bad.”

  He noticed a discordant singing across the circle. The voice cracked on high notes and worked its way back down by worrisome trial and error.

  “What’s that?” asked Overstreet.

  Regretfully Wheeler answered: “Duffy. Sneaked a bottle into one of the wagons before we left the Shaffer place, I reckon. He’d swap his soul for a drink. You want me to go take his bottle away from him?”

  Overstreet shook his head. He had more worrisome problems to ponder. “Let him alone. I hope he gets a hangover tomorrow that busts his head wide open.”

  But after a while he noticed that the voice was getting farther away. He stood up quickly. “That damn fool’s gone clear out past the guard line, Wheeler. You better go drag him back in here.”

  Wheeler hadn’t reached the far side of the circle when Duffy’s tuneless song broke off. Overstreet’s hair bristled to the terror of a throat-tearing scream.

  A guard’s carbine barked. From the darkness came the quick clatter of hoofbeats. There were a couple more shots. The whole camp was on its feet at once.

  Overstreet’s long legs carried him across the circle and out into the darkness beyond ahead of most of the troopers. Wheeler and a guard were standing over the crumpled body of little Duffy. A long, feathered lance still quivered in the trooper’s heart. Beside the dead, contorted fingers lay the shattered remains of a bottle.

  After a while fires began to flicker at points all over the mountainsides. Small fires, the kind the Indians made. Overstreet watched, and his blood turned to ice.

  Behind him he heard a gloating chuckle. “Better feel of your head, Overstreet, make sure your hair’s still on tight. That’s Bowden’s Indians up there. He told me he’d get you.” There was an evil smile on Hatchet’s face. “I’ll be riding high and have gold bulging in my pockets while the wolves are fighting over your bones.”

  With cold fury Overstreet whirled toward Vasquez. “Hatchet’s known this was coming. Throw him in with the other prisoners. If he even acts like he wants to get away, you put a bullet through him and don’t look back.”

  He went back to his place and stood watching the fires. Impatience began its slow torture of him. He itched to move on, but it was out of the question. Ambush in this darkness would be easy, terribly easy. Besides, the men were dead on their feet, and the teams had to have rest, for even mules can be driven to death.

  But there was little sleep for anyone. Lying wrapped in his dirty blanket, tossing fitfully, catching only an occasional tortured nap, he could hear other men tossing, too. From Sammy McGuffin’s wagon he could hear an occasional moan. He threw aside the blanket and climbed to his feet.

  Linda Shaffer was up, too, sitting beside the unconscious young soldier. In her eyes Overstreet could see pain, pain because there was nothing she could do.

  “How long has he been this way?” he asked the girl.

  Wearily she looked up at him, then back at the boy. “The pain has been getting worse the last couple of hours. It’ll get worse still before it gets better, or until he . . .”

  Overstreet gently put his hand on her shoulder. “Go get some sleep, Linda. I’ll sit by him.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t sleep, thinking about that out there.” She pointed her small chin toward the mountain.

  The lieutenant bowed his head. His hands trembled. “I’m sorry I brought you, Linda. I never would have, if I had dreamed . . .”

  She leaned her head against his chest. Quickly he folded his arms around her and held her. Her body trembled against his. “Oh, Miles,” she whispered. “I’m afraid.”

  For a long time he sat there and held her, comforting her, trying to ease her mind by making her think of other things, and talk about her family She began telling him things.

  “My mother was María Martín de Villareal,” she said. “Her family was high in the government at Santa Fé. She died when I was ten. Dad sent me to his family in Missouri then. I went to school there, and stayed with his sister and her husband.”

  He told her: “I can see the Spanish in your face, especially in your eyes. But I don’t hear much of it in your voice.”

  “You wonder why I have no accent? The children in Missouri picked on me for it, and teased me. I got tired of fighting them all the time, so I went to war on my accent.” She relaxed and smiled. “I won that battle.”

  Pacing the darkness inside the circle, Overstreet knew there couldn’t be any turning back. They had to keep rolling south. Trail south and hope for the smile of Lady Luck, hope that by some stroke of fortune they might find other soldiers in gray who would help them fight through with the wagons, all the way to Bliss.

  Overstreet heard Sammy McGuffin, begging for water. He held a canteen to the boy’s hot lips. He looked to one side at Linda Shaffer, lying on the ground, asleep at last. He stopped beside her a moment, knelt on one knee, and pulled the blanket a little higher around her slender shoulders. For a moment the bitter worry faded while he looked down on her face. Lightly he touched her smooth cheek with his fingers, and a semblance of a smile came over his face.


  By daylight the men were up, the mules watered, and the wagons ready to go. Overstreet wasted no time in getting them rolling.

  “Wheeler,” he said, “I want you to flank us on the east. Ride out half a mile . . . farther, if you can. Pick a good man to go with you.”

  He hipped around in the saddle. “Vasquez, you take it on the west. Pick you a good man, too. And if either of you see trouble on the way, come in on the run.”

  It didn’t take long for trouble to start showing up. Almost as soon as the train was on the move, Wheeler sent Private Tilley back to tell the lieutenant that a band of Indians was paralleling the train’s line of march a mile to the east.

  “There’s maybe fifty of them, sir,” the trooper reported nervously “They ain’t made any move toward us yet. Just keep up, like if they was waiting for the right time to jump us.”

  Soon Forsythe came back from the west flank to make a similar report.

  “All right,” Overstreet said. “Go on back there with Vasquez. But if you see trouble coming, hightail it back. Don’t stay and get yourself killed.”

  A grave certainty settled over the lieutenant as he watched the flank riders pulling away again. This could be the day. He looked up at Linda on the wagon, then turned away as she swung her glance to him. He didn’t want her to see what was in his mind. He knew that dread was stamped in his gaunt face now.

  The sun had swung up almost directly overhead when Wheeler and Tilley came spurring in.

  “A bunch coming in for a parley, sir,” Wheeler said. “That trader, Bowden, is right out in front. He’s carrying a white flag.”

  Overstreet took out his spyglass. With it, he watched Bowden and the painted and feathered Indians top over the edge of a mountain and slant down its side riding in slowly toward the wagons. The lieutenant’s hands squeezed the spyglass hard, the way he wished he had squeezed the trader’s neck, so that this might never have happened.

  “What kind of Indians are they, Corporal?”

  Wheeler scratched his black chin. “Comanches, I’d say, sir. Not that it makes much difference.”

  Overstreet started his ride out to meet the four horsemen. “Wheeler,” he said, “keep those wagons moving but be ready for a fight. If I give you the signal, circle them, and circle them fast.”

  Captain Pace stepped up. “If you please, Lieutenant, my men and I are in this as deeply as you are now. I’d like to ride out there with you, if you’ll let me.”

  Overstreet studied the Yankee officer’s face. Funny, the ways of war. Yesterday, enemies. Today, friends with a common enemy. Smiling, he touched the brim of his hat in salute. “I’m honored, Captain. Borrow a horse from one of my troopers.”

  Halted at the foot of the mountain, the three Comanches sat their horses with the great dignity of a country judge. But Bowden slouched in the saddle, greasy Mexican sombrero low over his gloating eyes. The day was only moderately warm, but sweat trickled from under the broad hat brim and down the flabby cheeks to disappear in the dirty whiskers. There was a filthy smear of dried tobacco amber from the corners of his broad mouth down into the mat of beard. He raised his beefy right hand to the signal of friendship, but a savage gleam in his eyes belied the gesture. “‘Morning, gentlemen,” he said mockingly. “Glad you accepted council. Wouldn’t be none surprised if we was to come to terms.” He made a wicked, brown-toothed grin at the lieutenant. “Shoe’s on the other foot now, so to speak, ain’t it, Lieutenant?”

  Knots stood out on Overstreet’s jaw, but he said only: “What do you want?”

  Bowden spat a brown stream of tobacco juice toward the two men. “I told you once I’d have your scalp. That weren’t no brag. I meant it. But I done a heap of thinking since then, Overstreet. I’m a trader at heart. Seems to me we ought to be able to make a deal.”

  Overstreet looked at the cold, chiseled faces of the three Indians, and a chill settled over him. “What kind of deal?”

  Bowden pointed his chin toward the Union captain. “The way I hear it, them Yankees is pushing you téjanos back plumb out of the territory. You want to get them munitions back to your own lines to keep the bluecoats from pushing you out. But ten wagonloads won’t do you any big lot of good. Why, a bunch of soldiers can waste that much just getting their guns hot. Indians, now, they could make it count.” He jerked a stubby thumb toward the Comanches. “Now, I could gather me a couple of hundred good fighting men like them almost in the time it’d take me to send up the smoke signals. Trouble is, they ain’t got guns fit to shoot rabbits with. But with good Army rifles, like them in your wagons, they could wipe out half a dozen Yankee towns. And with every town, they’d capture more and more ammunition. Why, just think of it, man. In a month we could have a thousand warriors of half a dozen tribes, armed and ready, men that could sweep over New Mexico like a blizzard and push them Yankees plumb back To Missouri.”

  An eager excitement gripped Bowden as he talked. His face grew florid, and his voice rose to a fevered pitch. “Then your Confederacy would have the territory. It could push all the way to Californy You’d be a hero, Overstreet. They’d make a general out of you.”

  Overstreet’s face had drained white, and rage had thinned his lips. “What would you ask in return, Bowden?” But he already knew.

  “There’s riches in these New Mexico towns, Overstreet. Gold and silver, horses, sheep, and cattle. There’s buffalo hides and trade goods. That’s what we want. That’s all we want. The rest of it belongs to you and Jeff Davis.”

  Overstreet glanced at Captain Pace and saw the horror in the man’s eyes. He turned back to Bowden. “There’s one thing you didn’t mention, Bowden. Those towns have got people in them, innocent people who don’t really have any hand in this war. Those savages of yours would leave a trail of blood behind them that wouldn’t wash away in a hundred years. It wouldn’t be just men, Bowden. It’d be women and children, too, butchered like cattle.” His throat was tight. He felt a hot drumming of blood in his temples. “Sure, we want New Mexico. But we don’t want it like that. I’m not giving you the guns.”

  He glanced again at Pace. The captain said quietly: “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  Bowden thundered. “Then there won’t be a one of you alive to see the sun rise, Overstreet! And we’ll get the wagons anyway.” The big trader swept his hand in a wide arc. “I got a hundred warriors out there, Overstreet. They’ll wipe you out like a snowball in hell.”

  The lieutenant’s voice was grim. “Not without a fight, Bowden. And if you start shooting bullets into those wagons, you’ll set off the powder. The whole train’ll go up, and it won’t do you or anybody else a bit of good.”

  Bowden leaned forward in the saddle, triumph in his thick face. “No, Lieutenant, nothing’s going to happen to them wagons. These men won’t use guns.” He pointed to the bow carried by one of the Indians. “These Comanches can take a short bow like that and drive an arrow halfway through a tree trunk. And with a running start, a-horseback, they can shove a lance plumb through a man. You better think it over. I’ll give you five minutes.”

  Overstreet started pulling his horse back. “I don’t need five minutes, Bowden. Let’s go, Captain.”

  The trader stood in his stirrups and shook his fist. “I swear, Overstreet, I’ll have you roasted alive!” Then, muttering something to the three Comanches, the trader jerked his horse about and spurred across the foot of the mountain. He was waving his hand at someone up on top. Lifting his face, Overstreet saw a mirror flash.

  “Get a firm grip on your scalp, Captain,” he said, “and spur harder than you ever spurred before in your life.”

  VIII

  “‘Here They Come’”

  Loping down the rocky slope, Overstreet looked back over his shoulder for pursuit. He could see it coming in a shouting, feathered wave like a tide sweeping in on the Galveston coast. He kept touching spurs to his horse’s ribs and fanning the mount’s rump with his hat. Stones clattered and bounced from under the flying hoofs.r />
  A few hundred yards ahead of the wagon train he saw a fairly flat open space, cut across one end by a snaking ravine. Down by the lead wagon, Corporal Wheeler was watching. Overstreet waved his hat to signal the train ahead. He had to do it only once. Wheeler swung into action. In seconds the wagons were rolling as fast as the teams could pull them, the canvas covers dipping and plunging over the rough terrain.

  The officers spurred into the wagon train just as it reached the open spot. Overstreet waved his hat in an arc, and the wagons rapidly pulled into a circle, the iron wheels screaming on the sliding gray rocks. Shouting men fell into the job of unhitching the teams, turning them loose inside the circle. Then hands grabbed at guns, and men fell on their bellies beneath the wagons, fingering loads into place and trying to catch their breaths before the painted wave swept over them.

  Hands trembling with excitement, Overstreet swung down from the saddle, let his horse go, and faced the Union captain. “Will you give me your word that, if I arm your teamsters, they won’t use the guns against us later?”

  Pace nodded. “You have my word.”

  Overstreet shouted orders for the Yankees to dive into the wagons and get guns and ammunition for themselves. Then he fell into a brisk trot around the circle, seeing that the men were ready.

  Linda Shaffer was on a wagon, straining to lift some heavy rifle cases and drop them to the ground. “We’ve got to build up a shelter for Sammy,” she said, her breath short. Overstreet helped her stack the cases on the ground, then lifted Sammy down. The boy was groaning and gripping his fists, now talking deliriously, now gritting his teeth in pain. A pang of sympathy brought a catch to the lieutenant’s throat. It looked as if the boy hadn’t a chance.

  “Linda,” Overstreet said, “you get down behind those cases, too.”

  She did, without hesitating a moment. But she caught the lieutenant’s arm and pulled him down toward her. “Miles,” she said quickly, tears glistening in her dark eyes, “in God’s name, be careful.”