The Way Of The West

by Elmer Kelton

  He knelt and kissed her. Then he was up again beside the wagons, watching the Indians close in from three sides. He shuddered to the dreadful shouting and the clatter of unshod hoofs on the rocky ground. At first he could make out only the shape of the strong red bodies upon the horses’ backs. Then he could see the features on the faces, the open, screeching mouths, the paint-rimmed eyes. And he ordered his men to fire.

  The ear-shattering rattle of gunfire made him wince and close his eyes. Then, through the pungent film of gunsmoke, he could see riderless horses racing back and forth in front. The Comanches pulled into their traditional circle, riding around and around the train. Guns roared, and Indians fell. But arrows rained into the circle of wagons like hail from a black cloud. Behind him Overstreet could hear mules scream.

  The gunfire went on and on. The ground in front of the circle was speckled with crumpled men and horses. The circling red men began to pull back, stopping to haul their wounded up beside them. Arrows still plunked into the wagons, but no longer did they fall in the same volume as the first moments. Then at last the Comanches reined around and rode away, out of range. Through the settling dust and the rising gunsmoke, Overstreet watched them gather on a rise.

  He climbed upon a wagon and counted between fifteen and twenty Indians lying on the ground. For the moment, then, Bowden was beaten. But Overstreet’s heart sank inside him as he admitted to himself that the Indians weren’t beaten for good. And he knew that they couldn’t be.

  He climbed down again to check the damage in his own camp. He found two men dead, a Yankee and one of his own. Three others were hit, none badly. Two mules were hit, and three others were so badly wounded that he had to have them shot. Many mules and horses had suffered minor cuts from the rain of arrows.

  Wearily Overstreet sat on the ground, watching Linda Shatter dress the wounds of the three soldiers with deft and careful hands. There was little color in her face. He looked away and cursed himself for bringing her out here.

  Corporal Wheeler knelt beside him. “Don’t reckon it would do us any good to try to move out, Lieutenant. They’re scattering all around us again. There ain’t a way we can move that they won’t be on us like a sackful of cats on a crippled mouse.”

  Overstreet sat and gazed out across that awful stretch of blood-spattered rock, the heart sick in him, his clenched fist beating in helpless anger against his knee. The cold realization worked around the circle until the lieutenant could see it in the eyes of every man. Fear gnawed at them as they looked at each other, at their officers, and at the gray mountains that stared down upon them in grim and final malevolence.

  The lieutenant became aware of a movement among the animals. He arose and saw Chaney Hatchet and his friend, Corbell, mounted. They had guns in their hands.

  “Have you gone crazy?” Overstreet demanded. “Get off those horses before some Comanche puts an arrow through you.”

  “Don’t be a damn fool, Overstreet,” Hatchet blurted. “Bowden ain’t wanting anything but these wagons. Let him have them and he’ll turn everybody loose. That’s what he told me when we were locked up together at the Shaffer place.”

  “Get off those horses,” the lieutenant spoke in measured words.

  “Dammit, listen, Overstreet. They’ll be on our side, fighting Yankees for us. Think of the glory there’ll be in it. And if we string along with them, we’ll be rich. There’s gold and silver just waiting for us, there for the taking.”

  A grim smile came to the lieutenant’s face. “Gold and silver. That’s all you’ve been interested in since the day you left San Antonio, Hatchet. You haven’t cared anything about Texas or the Confederacy.”

  Hatchet’s face twisted. “You’re right, Overstreet. I wasn’t listening to the bands playing or that fool Sibley talking about glory. I was hearing the jingle of gold in my pockets. Wherever there’s war, there’s spoils, and I wanted mine. If it hadn’t been for you, Overstreet, I could’ve had it.” Greedily he said: “Well, I’m getting my share from now on out. I’m riding with Bowden.”

  All the soldiers had gathered, facing Bowden and Corbell. The two men swung their carbines.

  “Everybody drop their guns,” Hatchet barked. “I’ll kill any man who don’t.”

  There was a rapid clatter of steel on the rocks.

  “We’re riding out of here to get on the winning side,” he said then. “There’ll be gold enough for everybody. Who’s going with us?”

  The only sound was the soft voice of Vasquez, cursing in Spanish, his blackish eyes fixed in hatred upon the deserters.

  “How about you Yankees?” Corbell demanded. “The color of your pants don’t make any difference here.”

  One Yankee stepped out. Corbell motioned for him to grab a horse and a gun. Pace yelled at him, but the bluecoat didn’t stop.

  Hatchet swung his hate-filled gaze back at the lieutenant. “Just one little piece of business before we leave here. Something I’ve been owing you a long time, Overstreet. I missed you once.”

  He leveled the gun. Overstreet’s breath stopped, and he steeled himself. He shut his eyes, while the hand of fear clutched his throat.

  The booming of a gun crashed in his ears, but no bullet struck him. He opened his eyes and saw Hatchet bend at the middle, then slide out of the saddle. His feet hung in the stirrup. The panicked horse jumped over a wagon tongue and stampeded, dragging the man across the rocks. But Hatchet never knew it, for he was dead before he reached the ground.

  Overstreet spun on his heel. Linda Shaffer stood halfway across the circle, a smoking carbine in her hands. Sammy McGuffin’s carbine, one Hatchet had forgotten about.

  Even as the shot was still echoing back from the mountain, Corbell fired a quick bullet into the crowd and yanked his horse around. Elijah Vasquez’s hand was a quick blur of movement. Corbell leaned back and fell out of the saddle, the dark-skinned trooper’s sharp knife driven halfway through his throat.

  In sudden panic, the deserting Yankee spurred away. A crackling of gunfire followed him. His horse dropped beneath him. The blue-clad soldier went rolling, then jumped to his feet and started to run.

  Captain Pace took quick aim with a carbine and squeezed the trigger. The soldier sprawled and lay still, his convulsing fingers only inches away from the crumpled body of an Indian.

  Corbell’s bullet had struck a Confederate soldier. Overstreet knelt beside him but found it too late to do anything for him. Four men dead, all within little more than the time it takes for two long breaths. Eyes burning, Overstreet turned away from the awful sight before him, turned toward Linda Shaffer. He walked to her.

  Her eyes brimming with tears, she lifted her trembling hands. Miles swept her into his arms and felt her hands tight upon his back. She buried her face against his chest and sobbed away the terrible shock. He stood clasping her tightly to him. For the moment, then, he was at peace.

  From distant protection behind the rocky slopes, the Comanches began a methodical rain of arrows into the circle of wagons. The troopers sought shelter beneath the wagon beds. Overstreet sat beside Linda, watching the feverish face of young Sammy McGuffin, wincing to the pain himself each time the boy twisted and groaned. He beat his fist against his knee and wished to heaven the boy could go ahead and die and have his misery over, or at least lapse into complete unconsciousness that would stop his suffering.

  Someone whooped: “They’re coming again!”

  Out from behind the mountain, swinging down from the hills, surging up out of the ravine, they came riding. Their fiendish cries were an echo from the depths of hell that sent ice through brave men’s veins and made strong hands quiver on the wooden stocks and cold steel of cavalry carbines. Once again hundreds of unshod hoofs clattered on the loose stones, and horses and mules inside the circle screamed and stamped under the hail of arrows.

  This was to be the charge that would swamp the dwindling force of white men and turn nine wagonloads of death and devastation to the grasping hands of savages. But this
time the soldiers were even more ready than they had been. Each man had a stack of rifles and carbines beside him, capped and loaded and ready for a kill. Once again there was the deafening thunder of fire and powder, the defiant shouts of desperate soldiers. Horses plunged to the ground. Indians fell into lifeless heaps or sprawled on the rocks and clawed at air and screamed their last breaths away. But the circling Comanches swarmed in closer and closer to the wagons until it seemed that they would overwhelm them like an angry flight of hornets. Occasionally one broke from the circle and tried to charge in among the wagons, only to be cut in two by a withering blast.

  Fearful men cursed and sweated and jammed fresh loads into their guns and swung around to fire again. Here and there soldiers lay still, their lifeless fingers still gripping guns. And, at last, once again, the swarm of Indians lifted and pulled away, leaving more huddled heaps of dead on the barren and bloody ground.

  Watching them go, Overstreet rose shakily to his feet. He looked once around the circle and shuddered. Half the command, blue and gray alike, were casualties now. Dead or wounded. Half the mules and horses were dead or lay kicking and screaming until someone mercifully put them out of their misery.

  Despair settled over him like a cold, wet blanket. There wasn’t enough draft stock left to pull the wagons out now, even if they could get away. But he knew they wouldn’t get away. Not now. Bowden wasn’t through. He would try again. And the next time, he would win.

  Overstreet went back to Linda. His heart swelling, he looked down at her dusty, blood-smeared face, the beautiful black hair that once had been shiny and neat, now windblown and tousled, streaked with dirt. The dark eyes that had been so alive were dull with dread and loss of hope.

  He fell to his knees and clasped her to him. “Linda,” he cried huskily, contritely, “what have I done to you?”

  Later he walked out beside a wagon and leaned wearily against a wheel. Closing his eyes, he conjured up the memory of his father, and he found himself whispering to him. “Pa, Pa,” he breathed in despair, “I’ve led all these people into this trap, and I can’t get them out. Isn’t there any hope for me at all?”

  As if in answer, he remembered tall Jobe Overstreet standing on a wagon bed, the Book in his hand, speaking words of comfort to discouraged settlers who had been hit by an Indian raid. There is always hope for a man of good heart, the old circuit rider had said. The Psalmist said that, though he may fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand.

  Pondering, Miles Overstreet decided that there might be a way. It was a painful one, the end of a dream. He fought against it, rejected it, yet knew it was the only course left to take. Knowing at last what he had to do, he said to Wheeler: “Get all the men over here.”

  When the men had gathered, he turned to face them. Sadness was like a cold stone in the pit of his stomach. “We can’t save the wagons,” he said dully. “We’re going to move out of here.”

  Captain Pace stepped up in protest. “And leave these wagons to the savages, Overstreet? Is that what all these men have died for, what the rest of us are bound to die for?”

  Overstreet shook his head. “They won’t get the wagons, Captain. Nobody’s ever going to have those wagons.” He glanced at Wheeler. The despairing look in the big man’s brown eyes showed he knew what was coming. “Get every man busy, Corporal. They are to grab all the food and ammunition they can carry. Then spill powder in every wagon, enough to make sure they’ll all catch fire. Get moving.”

  IX

  “Last Man”

  Watching the sudden hustle of activity, Overstreet felt the warm touch of a small hand on his arm. Linda stood beside him. She said nothing, didn’t even look up at him, but he felt the warm understanding that passed between them.

  Captain Pace faced them. “Somehow, Lieutenant, I almost regret this. You’re my enemy. But I think you deserved a lot better.”

  Overstreet nodded his thanks.

  Wheeler trotted up. “It’s done, sir.”

  “Then take the horses and mules and make a break for that ravine yonder. Take all the wounded with you. And take Miss Shaffer.”

  The girl clung to his arm, her eyes suddenly wide. “Miles,” she cried, “what’re you going to do?”

  He tried to avoid her eyes. “I’ll wait till you’re all clear. Then I’ll set the powder afire. I’ll go on to the ravine afterwards, if I can.”

  The girl still clung to him. “You can’t do it. Miles . . . Miles!”

  Overstreet turned to Pace. “For God’s sake, Captain, take her away.”

  He leaned against a wagon, his eyes closed, listening to the shouting of the soldiers, the pounding of hoofs, the sobbing of the girl. Then he was alone, the last man left with the wagons. Nine wagons of munitions that might have saved New Mexico for the Confederacy. His dreams came back to him in a throat-clutching rush, bitter and forlorn. He tried to shove them away as he drew the Colt from his holster and pointed it toward a black trail of powder that led to a keg dropped beneath one of the most heavily loaded wagons.

  He could hear the blood-chilling cries of the Comanches as they started to swarm down again. The sudden exodus of the troops had made them think the train was theirs. Overstreet closed his eyes and squeezed the trigger. The pistol jumped in his hand. Flame leaped up at his feet. A yellow ball of fire darted down the zigzag trail of black powder, dark smoke trailing in its wake. Overstreet turned and began to run, hard as his legs would go. Pounding in his ears were the cries of the Comanches, the sizzling of the burning powder, the anxious shouts of his men urging him on. The ravine was a hundred feet in front of him—seventy-five—fifty.

  A terrific blast behind him knocked him down like a giant hand. He jumped up and went on running again, only to be sent rolling once more. Half on his hands and knees, he scrambled the last feet to the ravine, and dropped over the side.

  Looking back, he saw that some Indians had been caught in the blast. A hundred yards from the circle, the trader Bowden was down, his horse floundering, the fat man scrambling to get away.

  The fire leaped from one wagon to another, shaking the ground with the mighty roar of exploding powder, hurling flames far into the air. A wagon wheel sailed high and came down rolling toward the ravine. Black smoke billowed upward.

  The powder all gone, the big clouds of black smoke slowly drifted away. There was only the thin gray smoke rising from the crackling flames that fed on the last wood of the wagons. Soon even that was gone, leaving just the smoldering of ashes, with here and there a burned remnant of an axle or coupling pole pointing like a ragged black finger toward the sky.

  Overstreet watched and blinked away the stinging in his eyes and swallowed the last of a great dream. Linda Shaffer held his arm.

  “I’m sorry, Miles,” she whispered.

  He heard a voice calling for water. It was a familiar voice that made him whirl. Sammy McGuffin.

  “Please,” the voice came again weakly. “I’m dryer’n powder. Won’t somebody please fetch me a cup of water?”

  Sudden joy over Sammy lifted some of the deeper sadness from Overstreet. “He’s awake,” he said excitedly.

  Linda nodded. “Yes, Miles. He was beginning to come out of it before we left the wagons. A lot of the pain has left him.”

  “What did you do?”

  Her dark eyes fastened on his. “The only thing there was left to do. I prayed for him, Miles.”

  A moistness came into his eyes before he blinked it away. “I’m glad you did, Linda. I’m glad you did.”

  The Comanches had bunched again not far from the smoldering wagons. There were many less of them now than there had been this morning. Through his spyglass Overstreet watched them argue and gesture among themselves. Then Bowden split away from them and came riding out toward the ravine. With him rode two of the three Indians who had been with him in the parley at the foot of the mountain.

  A hundred and fifty yards from the ravine, Bowden reined up. His horse h
ad a decided limp, and Bowden leaned a little in the saddle.

  “Overstreet,” he shouted, “I want you. Come on out, and the others can go free.”

  Panic leaped into Linda Shaffer’s eyes. Corporal Wheeler jumped to Overstreet’s side. “Don’t do it, sir,” he pleaded. “Bowden’s lying. He’d butcher you, then finish us off, anyway.”

  The lieutenant clenched his fists. Fear stalked him. He tried to push it away, but still it was there, lurking in the shadows of his mind, chilling his blood, putting a quiver in his muscles. He called huskily: “Is that a promise, Bowden? You won’t hurt any of the rest of these people?”

  Bowden shouted back: “I’ve give you my word. You come out and I’ll pull the Indians away.”

  Still the fear rode him, and Overstreet hesitated. Then, from somewhere back in time, he heard his father’s voice again, saying words the lieutenant had heard years ago and forgotten until now. You can’t expect God to make you live forever, son. But if a man believes in Him, he can die in peace.

  Suddenly Miles Overstreet wanted to believe again, as he had so long ago. The fear drew back. He stopped trembling. He faced his troopers, swallowed hard, and spoke to them in an even voice.

  “There’s one thing I want you men to know. For weeks I hated you, the whole lot of you. I thought you were scalawags, the scum of the Sibley Brigade. A hundred times I wished you were all dead. But in a way I’m glad this all happened. The scalawags and the cowards are gone now. Only the brave men are left. And whatever happens to me, I want you to know that I’m proud to have ridden with you. It’s been an honor to serve with soldiers.”

  He turned and grasped Linda Shaffer’s arms. He kissed her on her wet cheek, her trembling lips, then gently pushed her away.

  “Pray for me, Linda,” he said softly. “Pray for me.”

  He dropped his carbine and unstrapped the Colt. He climbed up out of the ravine and started walking toward Bowden, walking steadily, his shoulders squared.

  The voice of his father kept whispering in his brain: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil . . . fear no evil.