the Man from Skibbereen (1973)

by L'amour, Louis

  She was still then. Noble had enough to think about. He mulled it over in his mind. "How'd I know I'd get the reward?"

  She looked astonished. "Why, of course you would! You've been a gentleman, and I will tell them that! I'd tell them how thoughtful you've been. You saved my life!"

  He rinsed out a coffee cup and filled it. She accepted it, although the cup was dirty, and she drank the coffee. It was good, very good. She told him so. He passed her a tin plate with bacon on it and she ate it daintily, carefully. Her hunger was such that she scarcely noticed the plate. Then she drank more coffee and he used the same cup and later the same plate.

  She watched him eat, wiping the grease from her fingers on the grass by her side. She looked away, her glance touching on the tree trunks, on the rocks... had something moved over there?

  No...

  He was thinking, and she was worried about the direction his thoughts might take. "You're a very good plainsman, aren't you? I noticed the way you studied the country and guided your horse."

  "Sure." He wiped his greasy fingers on his pants, then on his shirt. "Good as any full--blood Injun. Been at it all my life. Good in a swamp, too, and woods. I growed up with the Cherokees down yonder."

  "No wonder, then. I think they would hire you as a scout for the Army."

  He did not care for that. "Not much they wouldn't. I don't like that Army stuff. Like to do as I please. That's one reason I left Parley."

  "Parley?"

  "Him. The one who has your pa. He tries to run his outfit like we were sodgers. Calls hisself 'Major'. He ain't no more major than me."

  "Why don't we ride on to Fort Sanders?" she asked him suddenly. "We could go on. You could find your way, I know you could."

  "Course I could. But the hosses is tired," he said.

  "We could shift from horse to horse like the Mongols did."

  "Who? Who's them?"

  "The Mongols. Under their leader, Genghis Khan, they conquered most of Asia and much of eastern Europe. Each man had several horses and they would change from horse to horse without stopping. They drank mare's milk and blood from their own horses."

  He stared at her. "You don't say! Fighters?"

  "Some of the fiercest. They destroyed hundreds of towns."

  "Never run into any Blackfeet, I bet. Them Blackfeet, they're mean! Fighters, too. I lived among 'em. I could live among 'em again, too, an' nobody could touch me, even the Army. I can do anything I want," he bragged, "then go 'mong the Blackfeet an' nobody could touch me." He looked at her, his eyes suddenly malicious. "I could take you 'mong 'em and even your pa couldn't find you. Never know what happened to you."

  They were on dangerous ground and she said, "I've heard that Indians won't talk, but don't they like presents? Suppose my father offered them presents?"

  He shook his head, but she could see he did not like the thought. "Wouldn't do him no good. He'd have to buy you from me, and if I didn't want to sell, I wouldn't have to. Them Blackfeet squaws, they'd soon make a worker out of you! They're real mean. I druther be held by a bunch of bucks any time, than the squaws."

  "My father has many friends among the Indians. He is a good friend of Chief Red Cloud."

  "Red Cloud's a Sioux. He wouldn't cut no ice with the Blackfeet, nor the Cherokee neither." Noble got to his feet. "You bed down right there. We'll pull out come midmornin'."

  He went to see to the horses and she pulled handfuls of grass to make her bed softer. Her fingers touched a round, fist--sized rock. She took it and placed it where she would be able to put a hand on it. She looked for a short stick she might use as a weapon, but found none. There had been several, but they were in the fire, burning a little.

  She sat down, her back against the tree. Through the leaves she could see the sky, the same morning sky she had seen at home in Maryland... how long ago, how far away.

  Thinking back to her schooldays, her grandmother, her home... it was unbelievable that she was here, under these circumstances. But one never knows from any single minute to the next when the sudden change may come. One may drop from peace into horror in an instant.

  Realizing this startled her. Life had always been easy. Not that she liked Army camps at first, or that she thought her life easy then, but now she could see how very protected she had been, how surrounded by civilization, by the borders, rims, edges, conventions and rituals of civilization. She realized how little she really knew of the world because of these things that men have made, yet how easily they could all dissolve, destroying even those who most wished for change.

  She had been restless with it. She had felt there should be more, not understanding how ill--equipped she actually was to face trouble. She had longed for the wilderness more than once, but when she went into the fringes of it she always prepared a lunch from the things she could buy, and she went provided with the protections her world could give.

  Here there was none of that. She was alone with a man who seemed a little less than human, a man who believed he might do anything and escape, scot--free, into the camps of the Blackf eet.

  She edged back against the tree, feeling for the stone. It reassured her to have it near. A gun would have been better, but she remembered something her father had said when she commented on the advantage rifles gave the Army. He had said, "Don't forget, my dear, that for a million years before rifles were invented men killed each other with clubs or stones. A thrown rock can kill just as effectively as a fired bullet."

  The coolness of the rock felt good in her hand. She replaced it on the ground, suddenly wishing it were larger, a thought that startled her. She had never wished to kill anything, had always said she never would, but suddenly the circumstances were different.

  She leaned her head back against the tree and after a moment her weariness became too great and she dozed. Suddenly something moved near her and her eyes flared open. He was standing over her. "Get up!" he said. "I ain't a--goin' to take you back!"

  She remained where she was. "You injure me in any way and you'll be hanged for it."

  "Hell!" he said. "They'd never find me. Among the Blackfeet--"

  Her anger flared. "Don't be a fool!" she said, and she got to her feet, the rock in her hand sheltered by her body. "Only last month the soldiers went into a Blackfoot camp and took out the son of a chief who had killed a man. And they let him go. Times have changed, my friend."

  "You lie!" he shouted. "That's a damn lie!"

  She had hit him where it hurt, for he must many times have held that out to himself as a refuge, a final escape, a place where he could not be touched. And she had destroyed it.

  "It is not a lie." Anger made her bold, and the knowledge that this man, this bully, was trying to frighten her. "It is the truth, and if you lift a hand against me I'll see you turned over to the troopers. They've known me since I was a child. They've made a pet of me. I've been daughter and sister to them all! If you--!"

  He stepped back, staring at her. "You think that scares me?" His voice was harsh, but he was scared, or bothered at least. "I don't give a damn about them sodgers!" Suddenly his eyes lighted, they looked odd, almost insane. "How'd they know I done anything? I'll do what I want an' when they find you they'll think it was Injuns done it, they'll--"

  He stepped toward her then, one hand reaching for her left wrist, the other for her waist.

  And she swung the rock.

  Barda McClean had been swimming and riding horses since she was a child, spirited horses that needed a strong hand. She swung the rock and she swung it hard. Too late he saw her arm come around; he threw up his arm as the rock hit just back of the temple. He staggered, and she swung it again, quickly, against the side of his head.

  He fell, going to his knees. He started to get up, and then collapsed on the ground.

  She ran swiftly to the horses. Working faster than she ever had in her life, she saddled and bridled the mare. She drew the cinch tight, then looked over at him.

  He was getting up.

 
Swiftly she turned and ran to the fire, catching up his rifle. Turning, she clucked to the mare, who trotted to her. Barda swung into the saddle.

  Pete Noble was on his knees, fumbling for his pistol.

  She slapped her heels against the mare's flanks and the animal leaned away. She rode swiftly and hard toward what she believed was the north, and when a mile was behind her she drew up, listening. There was no sound except the distant yammer of a coyote.

  Barda looked toward the sun, behind drifting clouds, and got her bearings. She would ride north until she reached the railroad, and then she would ride--

  East or west? She might recognize something, but she had no idea what it would be. She thought she must be far west of the little station where the train had stopped, but it was a long, long distance west to the next place, and there were Indians.

  After a moment's hesitation, she turned her horse northeast. The search would center around the station, would work out from there, so if she went back there she would be safe, and the nearer she got, the safer she would be.

  Far behind her she thought she heard the sound of a shot. She listened, but heard no more. She rode on, walking the mare.

  She had no doubt that Pete Noble would follow her, but she doubted he would suspect her of riding toward the northeast. The fear of him was still in her mind, an ugly, unclean thing. Thinking of him, she shuddered.

  She had no way of knowing that her fears, so far as he was concerned, were over.

  Pete Noble staggered to his feet, dazed and ugly. Blood ran down his face and there was something wrong about his head. He lifted a hand and touched it with delicate fingers. It felt soft, like something had been smashed, and one of his eyes wasn't seeing quite as it should. He leaned against a tree and tried to think.

  The girl was gone. He had seen her on a horse with a rifle in her hand. He walked to the fire where he had left his rifle and it was gone. He blinked slowly. There was a gathering pain in his skull. He poured coffee into the cup and gulped it, filled it again and straightened up, and everything seemed to be spinning.

  Suddenly his eyes came to a focus and Murray was standing across the fire from him, tough, cold, hawkfaced Murray.

  "Parley wants to know where the horses are?"

  Noble waved a hand. "Yonder. In the trees. I got some of them."

  "And let the girl make a fool of you."

  "There was a reward! I--!"

  "I saw it, Pete. I saw what you tried to do, and you let a snip of a girl best you. Hell, Pete, Parley was right. You're good for nothing, and you're hurt. I think you've got a skull fracture, Pete, and if I let you stay here and the Army comes up--"

  "I'll ride along. I'm all right."

  "We can't take a chance on you, Pete. You ran the first time somebody turned a gun on you. I'll take the horses back for you, Pete. I'll tell them you just couldn't make it. I'll explain everything to Parley for you."

  "If you'd do that, I'd--"

  "I'll tell them how it was, Pete," Murray said, "but we can't take a chance on you naming names or anything. We just can't."

  "Then what--?"

  "This, Pete. Only this." Murray drew and fired almost in the same instant. Noble saw the hand move and he reached, but the nerveless fingers that grasped the gun butt were already dead fingers.

  Murray bent over, took Noble's watch, a few dollars from his pocket, and his pistol. "I'll sell it to some Injun," Murray muttered. "Ought to bring three, four dollars."

  He mounted and turned his horses toward the northeast.

  "You couldn't do it, Pete," he said aloud, "but I can."

  In the early morning light, after a mile or so, he picked up the trail of a walking horse.

  Chapter Eight

  Cris Mayo was circling the rocky hill when he saw another set of tracks, a single horse this time, coming up out of the brush. He hesitated, not liking the idea of two men. Both horses were shod, so it was likely that both were white men. Of course, there was the possibility of an Indian on a stolen horse.

  Warily he moved forward. He was fortunate in the horse he rode, for the big beast not only had stamina but was extremely sensitive to the moods of the rider, and seemed to have an awareness of when to be still. Nostrils distended, ears pricked with interest, the gelding walked around the hill.

  All was silent. Cris caught a faint smell of smoke, nothing more. Rifle in his hands, he urged the big horse steadily forward, alert for any shot. There were many openings in the brush and he noted them with worry, for he could see that despite alertness he was a sitting duck for a concealed rifleman.

  He came suddenly into the camp, and the first thing he saw was Noble's body. The gelding did not like the smell of death, so he tied it to some brush and walked over.

  A single bullet... right through the heart. Barda had certainly not fired that.

  The fat man's pockets were turned inside out, his pistol gone. It was then that Cris paid attention for the first time to the other wound, noting the bloody hair just back of the temple. The man had been struck hard, very hard indeed, before he was killed.

  Walking around the camp, Cris found nothing else except a confusion of tracks, and, near a tree, a bloody stone. The sort of thing one could grasp in the hand. That was likely to have been Barda, for a man armed with a gun would not use a rock.

  Barda was gone, the horses were gone, the second man was gone.

  Cris was learning. Mounting, he made a semicircular sweep on the north side of camp, from which the riders were most likely to emerge. Finding the tracks was no problem. A tight bunch of led horses, heading northeast.

  He considered that. Barda was either with this man or he was following her. A few minutes of rapid switching back and forth over the ground showed no other tracks. Cris was, he deduced, but a short time behind them, for the dead man's body had retained some warmth when he touched it.

  From a shoulder of the rocky hill he scanned the country. Far off, he thought he glimpsed a tiny plume of dust. He looked to his rifle, then rode down off the hill and put the gelding into a canter.

  Riding gives a man a time to think. Where Rep and the colonel had gotten to, he had no idea, but his hunch was that all parties concerned were now riding toward the railroad and the tiny station where it had all begun. The direction was right.

  After several miles he slowed his horse, walked into a bottom near a slough, dismounted, and let it drink. When he started on again, he walked, leading the gelding. He was going to come up on them, but there was no need to kill a horse in doing so.

  Twice he crossed old trails, both groups of unshod ponies.

  Several miles to the east, ten riders were pointing toward the station from the southeast. Justin Parley, Silver Dick Contego and Del Robb led the group. They had recovered ten horses; several had returned to camp, the others they had rounded up near water. Two men were out now scouring the plains for the rest.

  "He'll head right back for the railroad," Parley said. "And this time we'll kill him, and when the train comes in, we'll loot it."

  The men who rode with him were the toughest of the lot, and ready for anything. They were men of violence who had known no other way. Their initial hatred was for Sherman, but now McClean was added to the list, and in his pocket they had found what they'd missed when first searching him, a small piece of extremely thin paper on which his orders had come to him.

  It was Contego who found the orders and passed them over to Parley. The uniform coat had been left behind when McClean escaped, and Contego had gone through it, discovering the orders.

  They were simple and direct. He was to proceed with utmost speed to Fort Sanders, there to confer on the possible rerouting of the Union Pacific tracks, and on the dispute between Durrant and Dodge." Copies of the order had been sent to Generals Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, and Haney, as well as to Colonels Seymour and McClean, and to several civilians concerned with the development of the railroad.

  Parley read, reread, then leaped to his feet. "Dick! This is m
arvelous! We've alerted them, of course, but they'll never suspect! They'll be sure we are fleeing the country!"

  "Aren't we?" Silver Dick asked mildly.

  "No! Definitely not! Not now, at least. Dick, do you realize what this means? We can grab the lot of them!"

  Silver Dick had started his coffee cup to his lips. The movement ceased. "You mean you'd try to capture the whole bag? Grant, Sherman, Sheridan--?"

  "Why not? Oh, what a blow to strike for the South! What a blow! Why, man, we'd make history!"

  "If we lived," Silver Dick replied. "They'll be surrounded thick with soldiers, Major."

  "That's perfect! Let them be surrounded, and the more surrounded they are the less they'll fear. They'd never dream of such a thing! Coming right into the fort, and--"

  "Major," Silver Dick suggested, setting his cup down and beginning to comb his hair, "why go into the fort at all? If you really mean to attempt this, there's no need to try the fort. Catch 'em on the outside."

  Parley stopped. His eyes were brilliant with excitement and it took a moment for the cool words to penetrate his enthusiasm. "What did you say?"

  "They'll undoubtedly go huntin'. All of them are hunters, and I doubt if any one but Dodge has evert hunted buffalo. I may be mistaken, but I'll lay you a hundred that Durrani's planned something of the sort. He knows he's in trouble. He's been buildin' more track than necessary, because the company's making a fat profit on it, and he's going to want to soothe 'em down and win 'em to his side if he can. You can be sure he'll have planned a hunt."

  Parley sat down and filled a cup, thinking. Del Robb sat up, his eyes suddenly bright. Robb was a daring man. He had been a sergeant in the Army of the Confederacy, he was a Georgian, and the idea of kidnapping and executing General Sherman had immediately appealed to him. But compared with the development, that plan was nothing, simply nothing at all.

  "We'd have to expect a dozen, at least," Parley mused. "The officers, Durrant, probably several of their aides; and there'd be a scout or two, and probably a wagon with food supplies, skinners, and a few helpers trailing behind."