by Dean Owen
Goose Face withdrew the knife, wiped it on the buck-skin trousers of the slain man and turned to face the emotionless stares of his men. More than half of them were Cheyenne who had been cut off from Black Kettle during raids. There were many Sioux, as many Pawnee and some Arapaho and Crow. All of them had tasted the treachery of the white man and were dedicated to his death, but all of them had not come to Goose Face to join forces against the long beards. Many of them, like Singing Bird, had been cast out of their villages for violating tribal taboos. But if they swore allegiance to Goose Face—who promised nothing but hardship and war in his sworn vengeance against the whites—the past crimes that brought them into the young renegade’s party were forgotten. “Is there another who thinks he has enough coups in his lodge to challenge the will of Soft-and-Running-Deer?”
The Cheyenne leader did not know that the white man’s name for him was Goose Face, and spoke his true name.
None of the men moved.
“The buffalo stand between us and the whites,” Goose Face went on. “When the sun is here—” he pointed to the horizon where the sun would begin to sink—“and the long beards are beginning their Sad-a-day feast with much whisky, some of us will stampede the buffalo into their camp. And when the beasts have run them down, we will attack from there.” He pointed east and beyond the railhead camp.
The older Cheyenne, who were not dishonored but were true Cheyenne who had been cut off from their people, agreed that Goose Face had devised a clever plan in using the buffalo.
Selecting a group of twenty of his best men, Goose Face planted a stick in the ground and drew a line some distance away. “When the shadow crosses this mark, you will start the buffalo toward the whites!” Goose Face spat the word out with contempt. “Then you will follow the beasts and slay the long beards.”
Goose Face looked over his party. “Today we pay our revenge for the destruction of Soft-and-Running-Deer’s people, for the day when the blood of squaws and little ones ran over the horses’ hoofs!”
Instructing those who remained to kill the scout before they stampeded the buffalo, Goose Face mounted his pony and led his party far to the west, walking slowly to avoid dust trails and circling far to the north to bring up east of the railhead.
Those who were left in the draw posted sentinels down close to the buffalo herd to watch for other scouts who might come out from the railhead in search of the first. The remaining men sat in the shadows of their ponies and talked softly among themselves, recounting the days of their fathers’ childhood when there were no white men pushing across the plains, and the only danger was hunger and cold, and telling of the pleasures of forging north to the headwaters of the Missouri and raiding the Mandan for women.
* * * *
“This man won’t sit a horse for six months,” the doctor told Kelly. The big Irishman glanced down at the silent form of Asa Little, whose head was swathed in bandages.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Kelly said and turned quickly from the tent.
“How’s your man?” Ellis asked.
“Lucky to be alive,” Kelly grunted. “Somebody oughtta string that Watson to one of his own tent poles.”
“What’s all the sweat about?”
“Goose Face,” Kelly said heavily. “Our night scout didn’t come in—neither did the surveyors or the engineers.”
Ellis squinted into the middle distance where the buffalo grazed. “That youngun around here?”
“There were reports from the south by muleskinners bringin’ up cross ties that some settlements had been hit by that youngun,” Kelly said bitterly. “Only he’s not a youngun, he’s a cutthroat Cheyenne with a hatred in him that can be cut out only with a knife.”
“I reckon you got a problem, Kelly,” Ellis said, walking beside the bucko toward the general’s tent. “Goose Face is one stubborn Injun.”
“You ever have any trouble with him?”
“I seen him once. I was kickin’ up dust along the Santa Fe trail headin’ for Independence lookin’ for this Lefty, me and a few other hardtails, when we rousted Goose Face and a party of about twenty from killing off a tradin’ post.”
“He’s got more than twenty followin’ him now. I hear it’s closer to a hundred and twenty,” Kelly said grimly.
“Well, you sure got a problem.” The Texan shook his head, still squinting at the buffalo. “If he’s got a hundred and twenty men—yes sir, Kelly—you got a problem.”
“You eat yet, lad?”
“No, I ain’t and I’m pretty hungry,” Ellis said.
“I’ve got to see the general and tell him the Situation. That’s my tent over there,” Kelly said, pointing. “There’s a whucked-up Jehu hobblin’ around on one foot and a cane that fixes for me. You tell him I said to feed you.”
“Right kind of you, Kelly. Thank you,” Ellis said courteously.
While Kelly strode off toward the general’s tent, Ellis stepped over tent guys and dropped his saddle in front of a tent. A young boy of about eighteen, leaning on a make-shift crutch, grinned up at Ellis. “Mr. Kelly ain’t here, mister.”
“I know, boy,” Ellis said amiably. “I been sent over to eat by the very man himself. You reckon you could rustle me some coffee, beans and bacon?”
“Sure,” the boy replied.
“Where can I wash off some engine smoke? I been ridin’ your damned railroad all night on an open flatcar.”
The boy jerked a thumb around the side of the tent.
“How’d you hurt your foot?”
“Wagonload of rails spilled and I didn’t jump quick enough,” the boy replied with an infectious grin.
Ellis dug into his pocket and flipped a silver dollar toward him. “Hot coffee,” Ellis said, “strong enough to bite back.”
“Yes sir!”
Ellis moved around the side of the tent to a community washstand, consisting of a rough plank, several basins and a donkey-drawn cistern of water on high wheels.
A black-haired, buckskin-clad figure was bending over a basin swishing water and gurgling happily. Ellis stepped up and slapped the figure on the seat with a resounding whack. “Move over, hardtail,” he said good-naturedly.
The figure whirled, black hair a tangled, dripping mess, hurled the basin of water into Ellis’s face and shoved him off balance into a wallow of mud. While he was still spluttering, Ellis heard the unmistakable click of a Colt hammer pulled back.
“You make that kinda mistake again, mister,” Liza Reeves said, finger on the trigger, “and I’ll take your ears off one piece at a time.”
Ellis could only stare at the apparition with the tangled, dripping hair.
To one side, Billy Brighton stepped out of his tent and offered Liza Reeves a towel. He looked at Ellis, still sprawled in the mud, and grinned. The tall Texan watched them walk away.
“Well I’ll be damned!” he said.
“Whatcha doing down there, mister?” The crippled boy had moved to the washstand and was grinning broadly. “Your coffee’s ready.”
“I’m comin’, boy, just give me time,” Ellis said, shaking his head.
* * * *
“The graders and survey engineers are back, Kelly,” the general said. “They had gotten so far out, they decided to make camp last night. And Jake Reeves will probably show up, too. Jake’s a damned good scout. It would take a lot more cunning than Goose Face possesses to get a good man like him.” The general smiled. “Relax, Kelly. I heard the boys have already put down nearly two miles, and it isn’t ten o’clock yet.”
Kelly grunted. “I’d like to talk to them just the same.”
The general grinned. “Go ahead.”
Kelly left the big tent and, after a quick check around the railhead, headed for the survey tent.
“Did you see anything at all?” he demanded of the head of the survey party that had gone out two day
s before.
“Not a thing, Kelly,” the man replied. “Last night we saw Jake making a fire about thirty miles west of the railhead.”
Kelly frowned. “You saw Jake making a fire? Are you sure it was Jake?”
“We didn’t go over and pass the time of day with him, Kelly,” the man said. “But who else could it have been?”
“It could have been Goose Face and his party, that’s who!” Kelly snapped. And then he apologized. “I’m sorry. I guess I’m gettin’ to where I see Injuns behind every bush.”
The survey engineer smiled thinly. “We penetrated nearly forty miles due west and didn’t see so much as a rabbit.”
Kelly stamped out of the tent and headed back for his own quarters.
“Saddle my horse, boy,” he roared as he approached his tent.
“Goin’ for a ride?” Ellis asked, sitting cross-legged on the ground, working on his fourth tin plate of beans. He watched Kelly strap on a heavy Colt and turn to his rifle.
“Seems like I’m the only one in this camp,” Kelly said, “that sees any danger in Goose Face.”
“Then you ain’t got many bright people in your camp,” Ellis said, chewing on his beans. “You goin’ to ride out and take a look?”
“I am.”
Ellis squinted. “You had any experience ridin’ scout against Cheyenne?”
“I’m goin’ out lookin’ for Jake,” Kelly said stubbornly.
“Didn’t Jake get in yet?” a voice said in the tent opening. They spun around to see Liza Reeves standing in the light. “How come you ridin’ out to look for ol’ Jake?” she asked quietly. Her eyes took in the heavy awkwardness of Kelly’s sagging Colt. “Ain’t there no more scouts in this setup to go out? And what makes you think ol’ Jake needs lookin’ after?”
Kelly was checking his rifle, one of the new breech-loaders, and shoving cartridges into his pockets. “Ma’am, there’re a few people in this camp that don’t think much of my fears that that sly devil Goose Face is in the area, but I’ll tell you straight out that I think he is. And with my scout Asa Little laid up in the doctoring tent with a busted head, somebody’s got to go lookin’ around to see where he is.”
Liza Reeves appeared to see Ellis for the first time. “Whyn’t you send him? He looks like a trail rider.”
“I don’t work for the railroad, ma’am,” Ellis said and continued to eat his beans.
“Where’bouts you think ol’ Jake might be?” Liza Reeves asked.
“He was headin’ for the big grass due west of here,” Kelly said.
“Well, I might just ride along with you,” Liza said decisively.
“No, you won’t,” Kelly said shortly. “You might be free to ride down from the Missouri badlands by yourself, but you’re not—”
Nathan Ellis nearly choked on a mouthful of beans. “She came down from up north—alone?”
Liza Reeves glanced at Ellis with impatience. “Are you one of them that thinks a woman can’t live without the help of a man?”
“No, ma’am,” Ellis said. “I guess I made a mistake. I shoulda known that any woman that would walk around with her hair lookin’ like yours, and wearin’ buckskin and smellin’ as bad as you do, wouldn’t need a man—and had lost hopes of ever gettin’ one.”
Liza Reeves’s face turned violently red. She hefted her rifle and spoke to Kelly. “What time you leavin? You gotta give me time to get my horse.”
“You’re not goin’ with me!”
“You don’t think you’re goin’ to stop me, do you?”
Kelly looked at Ellis in dismay. Ellis grinned. “Might as well take her, Kelly. If your horse breaks a leg, she can carry you into camp on her back. Damned if she don’t look strong enough.”
“I knew you wouldn’t fight me ’cause I’m a woman, but I wish—”
Liza Reeves didn’t get a chance to finish her wish. A tremendous explosion rocked the air, followed by a second and then a third. The ground quivered under the shock and then, rising out of the deafening noise, came the shrieks and wails of injured men.
“Good God almighty!” Kelly roared and sprang to the opening of the tent, Nathan Ellis and Liza Reeves right behind him.
* * * *
For two hundred yards along the sides of what had been Union Pacific track, tents and wagonloads of equipment had been blown over as if by a giant wind. And, instead of shining rails laid out in perfect alignment, there was a hole torn in the plains four feet deep and nearly fifty yards long. Whole lengths of track had been hurled three hundred feet and lay twisted and useless. Two sets of wheel trucks had been blown fifty yards. Cross ties had soared into the air and splinters were still raining down on the army of rescuers surging into the scorched field. Men lay on the ground by the score, some of them with the silence of death about them. Others crawled on all fours, blood streaming from their faces eyes glazed with shock. And others screamed with pain and begged for relief.
“The powder car!” a Johnny-Jack shouted in explanation as Kelly fought his way to the center of the devastation. “Nobody knows how it happened!”
When the last of the flying, cross-tie splinters had settled to earth, Kelly took charge. His big voice roared orders to the Jehus to dump their wagonloads of ties and gear and haul the wounded to the medical tent. The furious young drivers lashed their horses mercilessly, bringing up their wagons where ready hands were picking up the injured.
Here and there the keening wail of an Irish lass rose to the big sky as a Johnny-Jack breathed his last. The dead were covered with blankets, and the ones in shock were held by strong hands as they fought against the fury of the nightmare.
Scenes of pity, bravery, and despair reached out and touched Nathan Ellis, who worked quickly, quietly and effectively helping the wounded. But the big Texan had seen too much death and suffering during the war to be stricken, as had many of the men who recognized the whip of authority in his voice and responded, not knowing who he was or if he had such authority rightly.
And Liza Reeves worked swiftly and surely. At the first sight of the disaster, she had breathed silently to herself, “Bandages!” and had taken off through the tent community snatching sheets and towels and clean laundry from lines and ripping them into strips. Coolly she examined the men’s wounds, and with nothing more than her frontier experience, decided whether they should be attended to at once in the medical tent or wrapped tightly in bandages to prevent bleeding while they waited until the more badly injured were cared for.
Kelly recruited a crew of two hundred men with shovels and picks, and another hundred with trace teams to haul away the heavier wreckage, and began at once to clear the disaster area. Digging and shoveling, the army of workers began filling in the gash torn into the plains, while another army moved in to repair the gap.
“How many dead?” Kelly asked Ellis when the Texan moved slowly through the tents back to the scene of the tragedy.
“Thirteen,” Ellis said. “And seven not expected to make it longer’n tonight. There’re about thirty-five that I can count who won’t do any more railroadin’.” He watched the feverish activity of the gangs repairing the tracks. “You don’t lose much time, do you, Kelly?” His voice was a little tight.
“We’re out here to build a railroad,” Kelly said succinctly. “It could just as easily’ve been me—or you—or anyone else that was standin’ near that car when it blew up.”
“I reckon,” Ellis said.
“Did you see that gal workin’ on the men?”
“I saw,” Ellis said.
“Cool as a tinhorn gambler, she was, workin’ with those men. Not many women in this camp coulda looked at the-blown-out insides’ of a man, seein’ what he ate for breakfast, and keep goin’ without a flinch or a quiver.” Ellis nodded.
Both men turned to watch Liza Reeves walk past them with her arm around a woman who had lost a
husband and a son in the explosion.
“I been lookin’ at the buffalo,” Kelly said.
“What about ’em?”
“Wonderin’ why they didn’t react to the explosion.” Ellis squinted out at the herd that was moving a little more restlessly, but showed no indications of being startled by the explosion of the powder car. “You’d think they’d rustle a bit,” Ellis said thoughtfully.
“Think somebody’s out there cooling them down?”
“Like who?”
“Like Goose Face.”
Ellis Wondered. No one could control buffalo, but he had heard that some of the plains Indians could work among them—“talking buffalo,” as the story went.
“I have a favor to ask of you, lad,” Kelly began.
“Sorry, Kelly.” Ellis shook his head. “I been lookin’ for Lefty too long a time.”
“I haven’t asked you yet.”
“Then don’t. I’m sorry you got yourself a peck of trouble—losing your scout, this explosion, maybe Goose Face, too—but you don’t know how long I been trailin’ this fellow.”
“Would you want me to send out a greenhorn that would get stomped to death by the buffalo even if he managed to escape a Cheyenne arrow?”
“If he’s foolish enough to go, it’s his lookout,” Ellis said brusquely. “I thought you was gunned-up ready to take a look.” He nodded at the old Colt Kelly still wore.
“I can’t leave now,” Kelly said worriedly. “I’ve got to see to everything here.”
“Then you got yourself one more problem, Kelly.” And Ellis started to walk away.
“Where you going?” Kelly called after him.
“Lookin’ for Lefty Hayes.”
The tall Texan worked his way through the tents and headed for Watson’s. The pole had been jacked up and the canvas was fluttering in the hot southwestern wind.
* * * *
Watson’s tent was nearly full now. The rough plank bar was crowded and the bartenders were hard-pressed to keep up with the orders. The women were still chattering in the corner, but a few had moved to the bar among the men and were drinking the whisky from the earthen crocks.