by Zane Grey
“Little enough for what we earned,” returned the other. “It’s a rich haul. Three wagon-loads of guns and ammunition. That was lucky. No end of flour, bacon, beans, sugar, coffee, tobacco! Hardware, house-furnishings, bedding. And all that in less than a third of the wagons.”
“Any rum?”
“Not so far, which also is lucky.”
“How aboot money?”
“We got a pack of greenbacks, gold in money-belts, and silver off freighters. But no search of bags yet.”
“Will thet money be divided?”
“Yes. Share and share alike.”
“Ahuh. Wal, anyway, the boss is a man you can depend on. We’ll go into hidin’ at Spider Web an’ rest up an’ live fat, an’ gamble an’ fight with one another till this blows over.”
“Blows over! It will never be heard of. Just a lost wagon train!”
“Things have a queer way of comin’ out, even murder. But it shore was a good job. Not a rag or a tin can left at Tanner’s Swale!…The boss’s idea of haulin’ everything away, daid men an’ all, shows what a long haid he has. Course the Injuns always pack away their daid an’ wounded. We’ve shore got a load of stiffs on these wagons. Sixty-some daid Kiowas, an’ all the wagon-train outfit.”
“Not all daid, Sprall,” replied Leighton, with a ring in his soft voice. “I’ve a live girl inside this wagon.”
“Yes, an’ by Gawd, thet’s the only bad move in this deal!” spoke up Sprall, forcibly. “If the boss finds it out he’ll kill you. An’ me, too, though I had nothin’ to do with it, ’cept I happened to find oot.”
“He won’t find it out now,” returned Leighton, thickly. “I was afraid he would, back down there at Tanner’s Swale, when I objected to hauling daid Kiowas.”
“But man alive, air you oot of your haid?” protested Sprall, in a tone of amazement. “If I got the boss’s idee we’re to drive these wagons with all they contain across a short cut to the rim of Spider Web. Keetch says no Injuns but Kiowas know how to drive there, same as how to ride into the canyon. Wal, all the stuff is to be lowered down on ropes. The hosses an’ oxen go to Satana, as his share of the deal. An’ the wagons air to be slid off the cliff where no tracks will ever show. … So how’n hell can you hide this girl? She’ll have to eat an’ drink. An’ soon as her mouth’s untied she’ll squall. Thet’ll give us away to the Injuns. I’ll tell you, Leighton, it’s a crazy idea. I heerd you was keen aboot wimmen. Wal, so’m I. But not in a case like this, or ever on any of our raids. The boss’s rule is to kill every last one of any wagon train. So no one livin’ can tell it!”
“I don’t care a—— ——for him,” returned Leighton, passionately. “If he finds out I have this girl I’ll swear we didn’t know she was alive in the wagon.”
“Pooh! You killed thet Kiowa buck in the very act of scalpin’ the girl alive. There’s blood all over the canvas an’ step. Suppose some other Kiowa seen you?”
“I saved her life!” replied Leighton, as if the portent of Sprall’s speech had been lost on him.
“Only to outrage her yourself an’ murder her presently,” rejoined the other in a tone not devoid of contempt. “Leighton, I’ve cottoned to you ’cause I’ve no use for our boss. But this woman hunger of yours won’t never make a leader of men. Not oot heah on this frontier! …I’m givin’ you a hunch. Take care. An’ I’m not meanin’ the boss. He’ll kill you. I’m meanin’ my particular ootfit thet has cottoned to you along with me. They won’t stand for this break of yours.”
“Suppose I let them in the secret—and share the girl—after——”
“No. It’d split our ootfit wide open. Like as not Texas would take a shot at you for hintin’ it. My Gawd! man, this Texas gun-slinger may be the strongest caird you have in a fight, but he’s a preacher. He’d shy at thet. Waldron is daid. Creik, the——nigger slave-driver, he’d shore fall in with your idee. But thet leaves me, an’ I won’t. So put thet in your pipe.”
“All the same I’ll go through with it…alone!” declared Leighton, in a passion of elation which proved him beyond reason.
“Wal, thet’s good,” said Sprall, with a hard laugh. “For then you’ll shore die alone!”
CHAPTER
5
THE dawn broke slowly and strangely over Tanner’s Swale, as if nature were loth to let the light brighten again over the scene of the lost wagon train.
No rosy glow suffused the east. Mist and smoke hung low like a curtain and the shadows persisted. The gray old bluff frowned forbiddingly down upon the monotonous melancholy prairie and the dim meandering trail across the dry sandy reaches.
But the scene that morning was one of extraordinary activity and life. Latch’s band and Satana’s Kiowas were making away with their prize. Latch sat his horse on the ridge above the swale and watched, occasionally sending down an order by his aide, Cornwall. He never rode down into the swale. Satana was there, astride his white mustang, in the thick and press of the labors. Long since the wild yells of the savages had ceased. In that hour their many dead and wounded warriors counterbalanced any exultation over their triumph.
Rum had failed Latch. It had thickened the tongues and deadened the sensibilities of his men; it had worked its deadly power with the Kiowas. But it had failed Latch. With shaking hand he cast the huge empty canteen down the embankment. Since sunset of yesterday he had recourse to his rum, in a vain endeavor to drown something in him that had the lives of a hydra-headed dragon. It had seemed, however, that the fiery liquor had only heightened his perceptions, augmented his sensations, magnified his thoughts. He had been forced to see in the dark with the eyes of a cat; his ears had gathered an extraordinarily acute sense of hearing. Screams of anguish! They would peal in his ears forever. From that first woman’s shriek of terror last night after the first shot, to the wail of a child in the gray dawn, Latch had seemed to hear every sound. And he himself had cried out to the night, to the pitiless stars, to his red devils that he was neither great enough nor evil enough for the work his own brain had conceived. Yet he had to carry it through. This torment was what had caused him to drive his men with the Kiowas—to take their share in the battle. This torture was what had chained him to hot rifles during the thick of that fight. But it was over now. Death had stalked by moonlight. Always to the end of time, specters would haunt that swale when the deceiving moon arose. Dawn had broken. Life had to go on for him until——
Latch watched the strenuous labors of the Indians and his men. The oxen and horses had been driven up from the lower swale. One by one the white-covered wagons had been hitched to teams and drawn out of the circle into the open. Kiowa braves were filing over the ridge with their ponies. Latch watched the dead and crippled put upon the wagons. Satana had paid a bloody price for this raid.
Young Cornwall rode up with his last report and for a last order. He was whistling. His beautiful face showed no weariness or pain or remorse. Latch marveled at him. What did this young man lack? Had he ever had a mother, a sister, or a brother? What had killed his soul? He wore his left arm in a bloody sling.
“Colonel, we’re aboot ready to leave,” he announced, coolly. “The whole swale has been searched. No more found!”
“How many braves did Satana lose?” queried Latch.
“Sixty-nine according to our count. Some of the cripples will die. It’s a bloody mess.”
“How many—whites?” asked Latch, huskily.
“We made no count.”
“Any—wounded—left?”
“There was.”
Latch gazed away over the gray, barren, lifeless prairie. The Dry Trail meandered up and down to disappear in the haze. Would another wagon train ever venture that short-cut again? There would be nameless sentinels to warn it.
“Tell Keetch to start when there’s not a vestige left of the massacre,” ordered Latch, presently. “Not a rag—not a shell—not a stain of blood—or a track of wheel or boot or mocassin.”
“Yes, sir. They’ve cleaned up
pretty well already.”
“Look the ground over yourself,” concluded Latch.
“All right, Colonel. We’ll not leave a sign.”
* * *
The oxen toiled up the long gray slope with the heavy wagons. Lines of Indian riders rode beside them, as warriors attendant upon a funeral procession. Far ahead a cortege of wagons drawn by horses led the way up the hill. The white-covered prairie-schooners likewise hauled dead and wounded, but there were no mourners. Latch kept far back in the rear with the cripples who were able to straddle a horse.
There was no road, or even a trail. The wagons zigzagged up a gradual slope, bare patches of hard clay alternating with plots of thick grass. Antelope and deer watched the strange cavalcade drag by. The green spot and the green meandering line that had marked Tanner’s Swale soon disappeared under the brow of the bluff. A vague gray waste yawned far out and down—the prairie being left behind for the uplands. Purple domes of mountains stood up above the rolling horizon, and a scant fringe of trees began to top the ridges.
Keetch, with the Kiowa scout, Hawk Eye, led the procession, and two miles back Latch brought up the rear. Lester Cornwall had dropped back to ride with his chief. Their companions were a dozen or more wounded Kiowas, sagging on their mustangs or with bowed heads, or lying prone. They were a silent stoical group, naked, dirty, bloody. Here and there one rider helped another sit his pony. They moved slowly, owing to the tedious progress of the oxen ahead. The sun rose hot; the prairie vanished in haze; the wandering roll of ridges to the fore slowly dropped to show dark hills and purple peaks, ragged clefts and belts of timber.
By midday Latch’s band had surmounted the escarpment and were winding over level range or rolling downgrade. To Latch, as perhaps to all the raiders, even the Kiowas, that beckoning broken purple wilderness was an alluring haven of rest, where cool shade and running water mpant assuagement of dry choking thirst and labored pangs, where red and white murderers alike could hide in solitude.
At intervals Lester Cornwall addressed his chief, who rode with silent haggard visage bent.
“Colonel, I have to report that I suspect Leighton,” spoke up the bright-faced youth, repeating himself deliberately.
The third time this statement fell upon Latch’s dull ears the significance of it registered. Latch lifted his head.
“Leighton…. What do you suspect, Lester?”
“He’s driving a big prairie-schooner, a grand sort of vehicle like a boat. It’s new. There are big letters in red on the front. Tullt and Co. No. 1 A.”
“Tullt and Co.? I know them. They have the largest establishment in Independence. Rich concern. Outfitters, freighters, fur-buyers.”
“I think Leighton has got something in that wagon he’s trying to hide,” went on Cornwall.
“Why do you think that?” queried Latch, with dawning interest. This boy had the right idea. He was getting at details, facing facts, looking ahead. He had forgotten the past.
“It just struck me. Sprall, that little rattlesnake of a desperado, is on the driver’s seat with Leighton. I watched them several times early this morning. They had their heads too close. They talk too much.”
“What’s in this wagon?”
“I’ve no idea. It’s a big one, fully loaded and has a round canvas top. Look…. Leighton is driving halfway between our men and the Kiowas. He has kept that position practically all the way.”
“Maybe he and Sprall smelled rum,” suggested the chief.
“I’ll find out and report to you before night, Colonel,” replied Cornwall, and he spurred his horse to a trot.
Latch was left alone with his silent cripples. The momentary curiosity Cornwall had stirred did not abide long in a consciousness that held vast questions to ponder. Latch found himself often gazing back over his shoulder. What did he expect to see on this lonely gray range? He did not know, but certain it was that he looked back. Beyond the sweeping bold horizon line, over the long flat foothill, down off the escarpment there seemed to be something tremendous, intangible, terrible, which could not be named or changed or forgotten or erased. Tanner’s Swale! It was a black spot—the period that marked the end of his past and the beginning of his future. Latch realized that he was unfitted for the leadership he had enforced. His intelligence, his executive ability, his power to sway and will to command were enormously handicapped by his imagination, his tendency to deep and poignant emotion. Between these forces he would be fettered to an eternal fear of failure, of betrayal, of death, to a sleepless and horrible remorse.
Far ahead the foremost white wagons wound over the gray waste, sometimes lost to sight under the increasing ruggedness of the rolling land. Then the longer line with its colorful escort moved at slower gait in and out between the knolls. The hours and miles grew apace. A westering sun lost its heat. Green patches of willow and cottonwood showed here and there in recesses, and clumps of trees appeared in the distance. Always the bold domes of the mountains held aloof, far away, apparently unattainable.
Latch’s habit of looking back wore away. His band was not leaving many tracks over this gray rolling upland. The summer rains were due, and one storm would obliterate forever the wheel and hoof tracks that led westward from Tanner’s Swale.
Before the magenta sun had sunk behind the black ramparts in the west, Latch, who had lagged far behind, rode over a cedared ridge to find the cavalcade had halted to camp.
Latch felt that if he had seen this place before he had suffered the blight to his sense of beauty, it would, in his estimation, have rivaled Latch’s Field. A wide low-walled amphitheater nestled between sparsely wooded hills. A brook bisected the level valley floor and shone ruddily under the sinking sun. Cottonwood trees, like stragglers from a herd, led down from the main grove. Outcropping of rock ledges added a gray hue to the green. Antelope and deer moved away in droves. This was evidently another of the verdant spots known only to the Indians.
Keetch had drawn up the smaller number of canvas-covered wagons across the brook just outside the thick grove. Cottonwoods and walnuts, however, gave a park-like aspect to his camp site. Satana and his many followers selected the larger and more open plot for their encampment. With dead and wounded to care for, they sought privacy. Probably they would bury their dead here. Latch had not ordered Keetch to perform a like service for the white people. He had dodged the question. The corpses had been wrapped in blankets and hauled in two of the wagons. But packing such freight across the hot hills was a ghastly business.
Latch gave the Kiowas a wide berth and rode up the amphitheater to cross the brook above. After the long exhausting day how restful the shade and the green, the sense of isolation from the wide pitiless waste of prairie-land! Halting a moment, he took off his sombrero to let the cool breeze fan his heated forehead. He could see Keetch’s camp through the trees. The Indians had unhitched the horses, and they were rolling in dusty places. Already a column of blue smoke rose from among the cottonwoods. It seemed like any other camp scene. Only it could not be!
Finally Latch rode on slowly. He hated to face the men, his responsibility, and the irrevocable. But orders had to be given. Leighton would seize upon any show of weakness and work upon it. Leighton! That Southerner wore on Latch’s nerves. He rode on under the trees, and presently sighted a large boat-shaped wagon apart from the others. It had drawn up under a huge spreading walnut tree some distance from the camp. Under the adjoining walnut stood an old log cabin with adobe roof partly washed away.
As Latch passed he heard voices on the other side of the big wagon. Leighton’s high-pitched voice was always unmistakable.
“Say, what the hell are you sneaking around heah again for?” demanded Leighton of some one.
The reply was indistinguishable to Latch, but the tone was youthful, cool, provocative. That belonged to Cornwall. Then Latch remembered. He resisted an impulse to ride by, noting, however, that the rear door of the big canvas-covered wagon pointed toward the cabin Latch’s sharp gaze next to
ok in the red letters on the front—Tullt and Co. No. 1 A. What an odd sensation passed over him! Illusive and unpleasant! Perhaps it was the red color of the lettering. Riding into camp, he dismounted, and throwing saddle and bridle he let his horse go.
The camp scene presented no bustle and cheer common to plains travelers at the end of a wearisome day. Men were moving about, but painfully, silently. Latch approached Keetch.
“How’d you make out?”
“Hard day, chief,” responded Keetch. “An’ makin’ camp ain’t no picnic for cripples. Damn me if I can stand up long!… Cain’t you see that Leighton an’ Cornwall lend us a hand? They ain’t hurt.”
“Yes, and I’ll help myself.”
“Our redskin pards will be better tomorrer, I reckon,” went on Keetch.
“I gather they’ll bury their dead here.”
“Shore. An’ we oughter do the same. But we jest ain’t up to that—if you want a safe job done.”
“Wait?” ejaculated Latch, harshly.
“Shore, but how’d you like to drive one of them wagons full of white stiffs… men and wimmen an’ children—all scalped!”
“I can do it, if necessary.”
“Wal, I’m glad you could. I’ll tell thet to the band. … How aboot makin’ Leighton drive one? He’s took a shine to that big new Tullt an’ thinks he owns it.”
“I’ll see that he——”
“Colonel,” interrupted a cold ringing voice, surely intentionally loud and clear enough for all present to hear.
“Cornwall!” ejaculated Latch, wheeling.
“Leighton has a girl in his wagon.”
The leader gaped mutely at his youthful lieutenant. Cornwall was unexcited as usual, except that his eyes emitted blue flame.
Keetch took a heavy stride forward.
“A girl!” he boomed.
“Lester—what is this?” demanded Latch, through dry lips.
“Leighton has had a girl hid in his wagon. I saw him carry her out into that log cabin.”
“Girl!… Alive?”