Herne cleared his throat and waited. He knew there was more.
‘I know you were hired to bring Morning Cloud back to the reservation and that you’ve done. More than that. Only...’
‘Yeah?’
‘Someone ought to follow the trail those Indians took out of here before it’s too late to pick up. Colonel Bradley will want to send a detachment out from the Fort and he won’t want to be chasing shadows.’
‘Hell, whatever I do he’s likely to be chasin’ shadows anyway.’
Patten stared at him: ‘You’re saying you don’t want the job?’
‘I’m saying nothing of the sort. I’ll go all right.’ Herne hesitated. ‘I was talking to Morning Cloud—he knew the Hendersons pretty well. He should have done. They’d been cheatin’ his people for long enough.’
‘That’s no way to speak of the dead!’
Herne spat. ‘Talkin’ about ’em ain’t about to worry ’em none. How many graves out there?’
The Lieutenant looked at Herne puzzled. ‘Three. Why?’
‘Accordin’ to Mornin’ Cloud the Hendersons had a daughter. Kid with curly blonde hair, light brown eyes. Round fourteen. Name of Ali. You see anyone like that when you rode in?’
‘No, I...’
‘No girl’s body?’
‘No.’
‘If she’d run off she’d not have got far. Besides your men’d have seen her by now.’
Patten’s mouth remained open, saying nothing.
‘She’s gone with ’em, then. Taken. I’ll set off inside the hour. Make a start before it gets dark. If I make a sighting an’ it looks like I need help, I’ll send in word somehow. Maybe when you get to the Fort you could suggest Carey come out, see what the Hell I’m up to. If’n I don’t find nothin’, I’ll ride in myself. Okay?’
The Lieutenant nodded, turned away.
Herne prepared as best he could for what was going to be one bitch of a ride.
Chapter Seven
It was late in the day and the heat was less troublesome. Knowing that they would be making a stop before too long and resting up until the dawn, Herne drove his horse hard.
The soft inclines of the land rolled under them, ridges and valleys which ran from west to east. Patches of timber stood out here and there against the skyline. The grass thickened then became more sparse.
Herne followed the trail due north and then saw it veer away to the west, keeping between the two rivers.
The tracks were many and easy to follow.
A dozen ponies; as many horses again, and these riderless. Save for one. Herne guessed that they had tied the girl on to one of the stolen animals and were pulling her with them.
He got to wondering what had happened to cause the sudden outburst of violence, the unlooked-for killings and burnings. Not ordinary killings, either. These had been carried out with a special fervor, a cherished sense of hatred.
Herne reined in his mount and set one hand over his eyes, shielding them from what strength yet remained in the sun. Somewhere up ahead there was an Indian with a loathing for the white man—any white man—fixed firmly in his soul.
Herne knew that he was likely to catch up with him, to meet him face to face. To kill or be killed.
He clicked his tongue on the roof of his mouth and set his horse in motion once more.
Two miles further on he pulled up and dismounted. There were more tracks coming from the south, cutting across the others and mingling with them. Herne walked ahead, making sure the fresh trail went on with the first and didn’t leave it as quickly as it had appeared.
It followed the course of the attackers from the Agency.
Indian ponies: four more of them.
The news of the attack upon the Agency had spread as quickly as Herne had feared. He guessed that Morning Cloud would do his best to dissuade the young men of his tribe from riding out of the reservation and becoming hostile.
But he knew that the Chief was old and that there were times when the young found it difficult to heed what the old said. Even in a society as organized at that of the Indian there would always be rebels, renegades.
He supposed that he had been one himself, though not a renegade in the way that Chance Lattimer would have had it. He had been wild and near impossible to control. In the situation that the young bucks of the Oglala Sioux found themselves, Herne knew what he would be doing—he would be riding after whoever had set fire to the Agency and joining up with him.
The only alternative was a slow starvation and constant humiliation at the hands of the enemy.
Yet... Herne’s mind went back to the bodies of the Hendersons where they had been laid out ready for burial. Did the treatment afforded to the Sioux really warrant that sort of brutal killing? Was it defensible?
Especially he thought of the hatchet wounds in Henderson’s face and back. Whoever did that was no ordinary Indian. No ordinary man.
The mass of White Butte stood clear against the sky. The limestone rock pushed up above the surrounding foothills like some ghostly giant. Here and there around its lower sections Herne could see the outline of strangely-angled trees which seemed to cling to the white ledges for support. Higher up the cliff became sheer with gaunt overhangs. Nothing could live there.
Nothing.
Herne tugged the top from his water canteen and slaked his thirst briefly, wiping the outside of his arm over his mouth afterwards. He reached round and into one of his saddle bags, pulling out a roll of thin cotton and unwrapping the strip of dried and salted meat that lay inside. Herne sank his teeth into the hard meat and worked at it, finally biting the end free. The remainder he covered up again and returned to his saddle bag.
He sat almost motionless in the saddle, chewing at the meat slowly, bringing moisture from it, sucking on the flavor.
Before too long he would have to take the long-barreled Sharps and shoot some fresh meat for himself.
Find fresh water for his canteen too.
Hot damn!
He stood in the stirrups, tugging with his left hand at the legs of his pants, freeing them from his legs. He sat back in the saddle and scratched at the damp, itchy skin beneath his arms; took off his hat and wiped round the inside of the band.
Herne stared at the foothills.
There he would be less exposed to the sun, that was one good thing. It came close in Herne’s mind to outweighing the fact that the cover would give the Sioux he was chasing better opportunities to lay ambush for him.
If whoever was leading the break-out had half as much sense as he had wild strength then he had to know the Army would send someone after them.
Hell! What was he saying?
From where they likely were this minute, they’d be able to see him out there at the edge of the plain. One rider where he was must look to them as big and clumsy as that damned white mountain up ahead of him.
Herne pushed his hat down on to his head and swayed in the saddle, setting his mount in motion. Best be on with it.
The line of trees moved in towards the trail Herne was following at a steep angle, meeting it some hundred and fifty yards ahead. They were short, stunted; their branches like crippled limbs.
Forty yards to the right ran a narrow gulley in which there used to be a stream but which now held nothing but dried mud and stones. Patches of scrub lay on either side of it, coming close to three or four feet in height. It was late in the day and the light was changing, fading, becoming almost gray by comparison with the brightness that had gone before.
Something tingled at the back of Herne’s neck, making the short hairs there rise and send tiny shocks to his brain. The hairs on the backs of his hands crackled when he moved them. The pit of his stomach was hollow.
He slowed his horse to a gentle walk, moving his eyes all the while from side to side. With his right hand he flicked the thong from the hammer of his Colt .45. He touched the butt of the Sharps, lifting it some six inches from the scabbard, then letting it fall back.
I
t don’t have to be nothing, he told himself. Just some fool thing got you spooked.
Maybe.
He could recall times when he’d felt the way he did now. The very skin of his legs feeling like they were steeped in ice-cold water. Freezing him. None of those times...
There was a movement between the branches down to the left and Herne pulled the horse short, his right hand resting on the butt of the Colt.
A bird, large and black with a light-colored bill, flew out of the trees and rose in a circling line to the north-west.
It could have come out of its own accord, thought Herne. Or something could have startled it.
He kept his hand to his Colt as he moved along the trail again. The trees, he told himself, that’s where it’ll come from. He kept watching the place where the bird had emerged, his stomach, his skin all the while calling out danger.
As he came level with the spot, he reined in and waited. Stared close. Nothing moved or seemed out of place. He could get down and slip in there, look around for a while, make sure.
But the day was late and likely it weren’t nothing more than his fool brain getting fancy ideas.
The click of Herne’s tongue was quiet yet it seemed to crack the stillness. Another fifty yards and the trees would be level with the tracks.
Half way to that point something stopped Herne short.
His eyes narrowed and he started to move towards his gun and then he heard it but it wasn’t from the tree line it was from one of the patches of scrub to the right.
The distinctive whirr through the air jerked Herne’s body sideways. A line blurred across the edge of his vision and something sharp tugged at the sleeve of his shirt, scored through the skin of his arm.
Herne threw himself from the saddle, hitting the ground and making himself roll, time and time again. When he stopped he was already on his way up into a crouch and the Colt .45 came up with him.
Again the soft, fast buzz and whirr of arrows.
Herne fired twice, one shot melting into the next, aiming at the scrub and then changing position. Ducking low he ran for the gulley, snapping off a third shot seconds before he dived headlong into the narrow dip.
The mud broke apart on the surface as his body hit it; small stones grazed his outstretched left hand.
Herne pushed the barrel of the Colt out ahead of him and held his breath.
They were staying put. For the present.
He glanced round and down at his right arm. The upper section of cotton had been torn away and a bloody dent less than an inch across made in the flesh of the upper arm. A line traced after it for a couple more inches. He had been lucky. Or maybe his reactions had just been fast.
Either way, the sudden twist of his body had saved him from taking an arrow through his chest at a range that would likely have made it fatal.
Herne wondered how many there were; whether they were across in the trees as well?
He wouldn’t find out staying where he was.
Cautiously he started to draw himself along the gulley, using his elbows. He wanted to put himself between them and his horse. They could drop it with an arrow but he doubted if they would—Indians set too high a price on good horse flesh to waste it like that No, they’d concentrate on getting rid of him, though if they saw the chance one of them would likely try to snatch the animal at the same time.
He began to move faster, keeping his eyes just above the level of the low bank.
Nothing, and then a shape that could have been no more than a thickening of the scrub but might have been more.
Herne gently thumbed back the hammer of the Colt, pulling his lips back against his teeth at the sound of the triple click.
The shape moved and Herne fired.
The .45 shell tore through the bush and the dark patch disappeared without a sound or sign that he had hit it.
He leaned on to his left side and fingered fresh shells out of his belt. He was sliding the last one home when a branch snapped back across the trail. Herne pushed himself into a crouch with his left hand. Saw the Sioux making a run for his horse, the hand seizing the rein, turning. Herne fired, too fast, scared of hitting his own animal. He dodged back a yard, two. The Indian had turned the animal and was leaping for its neck, brown legs sliding over its back.
An arrow thudded into the hard mud inches behind his boots.
Herne brought up his gun and fired. A fraction of a second after he hurled his body sideways and round. Two more arrows ploughed into the gulley where he had been a moment before.
Herne lay flat. Waited, his breath rasping inside his chest, catching at the back of his throat.
In the middle of the narrow trail the Sioux lay dead. One arm looped about his head, as if protecting it. His legs were splayed wide. Herne’s shot had taken him high in the back, between the shoulder blades. Because of the angle of the Indian’s body on the horse, the shell had driven through the flesh and ripped an exit wound in the neck, splitting the windpipe apart and spraying blood for yards in either direction.
The horse had bolted back along the trail and now stood, tossing its head and looking balefully at the trees, reins trailing to the ground.
Herne reloaded, keeping the chambers full when he had the time. He was hemmed in and he didn’t like it. He could always get the horse and make a wide circle round but that would place the Indians behind him for sure and he didn’t fancy getting himself squeezed in that kind of situation.
He began guessing numbers and came up with three, maybe four. One down. Okay.
Herne began easing his way along the gulley once more.
Watching like a hawk.
He heard the hum of the arrow’s flight in time to flatten himself in the mud; judged the time of its passing and pushed head and shoulders clear; saw a blur of movement to the left and fired. There was a half-choked cry and a heavy falling against scrub and then ground.
Herne kept going, firing as he went.
Ten yards, fifteen, twenty.
There was a shout and one of the Sioux leaped at him, arm slashing already in a death blow with a long-bladed knife. Herne threw up his left arm to block the attack and fired the Colt. The bullet went under the curving leap of the Indian’s body and was lost in the middle distance.
Herne’s fingers caught the descending arm immediately below the elbow and fought to stop it coming further. His right leg began to slide away under him. The eyes of the Indian glared through narrowed slits and he read the strain on the brave’s face.
The arm held.
Herne tried to work the hammer of the Colt and the Indian kicked at his shoulder, pulling himself and Herne suddenly backwards. Herne felt the jarring blow close against the arrow wound and with a shout he let the pistol fall from his hand.
He went crashing down on top of the Indian and the brave’s knees were hard in his stomach, attempting to hurl him on over the top in a somersault.
Herne went with the force of the action but retained his grip on the arm, taking the Indian round with him.
Herne landed on his back and rolled over, still gripping the Indian tightly, twisting his body through a half-circle. There was a grunt and a guttural shout and Herne brought his right hand down on the same arm and pushed against the bone.
The knife dropped away to the mud.
Herne swung his right fist back through an arc that landed his knuckles against the brave’s jaw. The head jolted back and Herne dived in for the throat but as he did so another movement at his right made him look round.
The second Indian closed fast, brandishing a club. Herne’s fingers found the first brave’s throat and began to tighten round it as the two of them struck the ground.
As the club swung down towards his head, Herne loosed his hold and ducked underneath it.
Fingers delved inside his right boot, seeking the hilt of his bayonet. He arched upwards and drove the blade underneath the rib cage, feeling the point break flesh, beat the resistance of the body. He lifted his other hand and seized
the Indian’s neck, dragging him down on to the blade. The hilt jammed hard against the ribs and Herne let it be.
As he turned, the Sioux on the ground was shaking his head to clear it, starting to rise. Herne lashed out with his left leg, catching the man on the side of the head with the toe of his boot. There was a solid thud and the Indian went sprawling.
Instantly Herne was upon him, one knee in the middle of his back while his right arm encircled the neck. He levered the head backwards, tightening his grasp all the time. Thin, high sounds emerged from the Indian’s mouth. He could feel the movements inside the throat as the brave struggled for breath.
Herne’s face tightened with the effort and he brought the head back even further, squeezed the arm closer and closer together. There was a final shuddering against his skin and then the body went limp. Herne released his hold and stood up. Retrieved his gun.
When he looked about him everything was still.
He hadn’t heard anyone moving away but was sure that someone had. It took him no more than a minute to find the tracks. One Indian heading back to where they had left their ponies, taking them back to where the rest of the band would be waiting.
Herne freed his bayonet blade from the dead man’s chest and wiped it clean on his breech cloth.
He examined the wound in his arm, but it was little more than a deep scratch with blood trickling away from it. He would wash and bind it before moving on.
He squatted on his haunches and forced his breathing to still and become even. He flexed the fingers of both hands. Finally stood up and fetched his hat from where it had been knocked into the scrub.
His horse had strayed further back down the trail and he whistled him and called till the animal came back on the trot. He used water from the canteen to wash the wound in his arm and tore a thin strip from the bottom of a spare shirt to tie round it
Ahead the sun was disappearing behind White Butte.
Sun Dance Page 7