The Western Megapack - 25 Classic Western Stories

by Various Writers

  Then one rider broke from the group and came down the slope, slouching easily in the saddle as his pony kicked a spray of snow ahead of its sliding hooves.

  Two Bears turned and walked slowly to the outer circle of the lodges, then stopped and turned again to face the rider, who took the shallow ford of the river in plunging leaps, the horny hooves of the pony making a great crashing in the ice of the edges. He knew the rider now: Burden Frazee, and the uneasiness inside him subsided.

  * * * *

  Burden held his pipe out before him with one hand. He rode up within ten feet of Two Bears before he pulled up and slid out of the saddle. Two Bears reached his own pipe, which hung on a thong around his neck, inside the blanket, and held it out toward Burden who grinned and stepped forward.

  “My brother, Buffalo Man, is welcome to my lodge,” said Two Bears formally, using Burden’s Indian name.

  Burden Frazee grunted polite acknowledgement, and followed Two Bears to the lodge, his keen blue eyes missing nothing of the patched and tattered poverty of the camp. One side of his mouth quirked under his wiry sandy beard, though he made no sound. But Two Bears knew he saw, and inside his chest a shamed anger grew that his white blood-brother should see him thus.

  But he made no sign of this, and when Burden was seated at his left in the lodge, and the pipe had been lighted and smoked, Two Bears waited.

  Burden Frazee—Buffalo Man—spoke with a blunt voice that was near anger. “My heart is heavy,” he said. “The Long Knives come with peace in their mouths and war in their hands.” His blue eyes flicked at Two Bears and then away. The edge was sharp in his voice now. “They come for the young men who stole the horses of the black trader.”

  “They were our horses,” replied Two Bears calmly.

  Frazee did not dispute this; did not even say “maybe,” for that would be calling Two Bears a liar. He said instead, “The black trader died, and the Long Knives have come for the young men.”

  “The black trader fought them,” said Two Bears. “When a man fights he must expect to die. Else why does a man fight? Besides, what will the Long Knives do with the young men?”

  Burden shrugged, as Two Bears might have done, for he was as much red as white. “Perhaps they will lock them up for a time,” he said, but his voice did not carry much conviction.

  “They will hang them by their necks,” said Two Bears. He did not say it as if he disputed Burden. It was simply that Two Bears remembered what had happened once before.

  “No,” said Two Bears. “The young men are needed here.” For the first time a little of his inner bitterness came out.

  “We are poor,” he said simply, shaming himself before Buffalo Man who was his brother, “we have not enough hunters to feed us now. If the young men go, we die.”

  Frazee looked down and his blue eyes were cloudy. Then he lifted his head and pointed with his chin at the line of cavalry on the ridge.

  “They have come for the young men,” he said bitterly. “Believe me, my brother, I did not know it was my brothers they sought when I joined with them.”

  His eyes fell away from Two Bears’, and looked at his crossed knees. “If the young men do not go with me, the Long Knives will come after them. They carry war in their hands. There will be wailing in the lodge of my brother.”

  Two Bears digested this in silence. He knew the bitterness and anger in Buffalo Man’s voice was not for him. Buffalo Man was his brother. They had hunted together in the old days when only the mountain men knew this land. Burden’s woman had been Two Bear’s sister, and they had shared their meat and their fires. But even when the beaver went away, and the mountain men had quit trapping, more white men came, and the Spotted Death came with them, and the buffalo went away, and still the white men came.

  Now Two Bear’s people were only eighteen lodges, and they were hungry. And Two Bears knew, deep inside him, that he was old, and tired, and afraid. The cold was inside him, drying up his courage. Twenty years ago—ten—and he would have given them their answer straight. He would have ridden at these arrogant Long Knives, chanting his war song, with the young men at his back, and if he died, he died like a man, in battle.

  So all he had left was stubbornness, and he said slowly, “The young men will not go with you.”

  Burden did not argue. He shrugged, and rose. “My heart is heavy for my brother,” he said “I will tell the leader of the Long Knives.”

  He ducked out of the lodge and swung into his saddle, and rode out without looking back.

  Little Knife sprang up from the side of the lodge where he had been sitting, forbidden to take part in the talk because he was not yet a man, and he cried, “Do we fight the Long Knives then, my grandfather?”

  Two Bears stared at the flickering of the tiny fire before him, and he felt the old heat coming inside him. The heat that had been in him years back when he had led his men against the Crows and the Arapahoes; but he knew dismally that his muscles were old and weak now, and a doubt he had never had before was coming, along with the heat. He sighed, hating the age that hampered his body, and he spoke slowly.

  “Tell the women to make bundles of the robes and skins and food. Tell them not to touch the lodges. Tell the boys to move the horses back into the trees—but slowly, slowly, so the Long Knives will not think they are running. And bring Yellow Ear and Bright Wolf here, I would speak to them.”

  * * * *

  Burden Frazee pulled up and slouched in his saddle before Captain Quarles. His face was blank under the wiry whiskers as he said quietly, “The chief says he can’t let the men go, Cap’n.”

  Captain Quarles’ obstinate reddened face tightened. His voice was as solid and unbending as his body when he spoke.

  “I told you this palaver was wasted, Frazee. You don’t argue with animals like that. They understand only one thing, and that is a better man or superior arms.”

  His head jerked curtly right and left checking his file of cavalry. “We’ll go down after them,” he said.

  He twisted in his McClellan saddle and snapped over his shoulder, “Sergeant! We’ll move in on them now. Skirmish line. Trumpeter! At the first shot, and on command, you will blow Close Ranks and Charge. A clean sweep of the village, and if we don’t find the men we want, take hostages. They can dicker for them later at the fort. For—’ar-rd, ho!”

  The file surged over the crest of the ridge, and made a ragged line down the slope. Frazee twisted his pony aside and let them pass him, and he cursed silently into his sandy beard. An impotent anger filled him for there was nothing he could do. He knew Captain Quarks’ reasoning.

  Indians were stupid animals. Frazee, who was a mountain man, and as much Indian as white, was almost as bad, though he was useful as a guide. Other than that, the captain’s world did not include such people. The Army was his life, and Duty his god, and in just a few minutes hell was going to pop.

  * * * *

  Two Bears was stripped to the waist. His high leggins were hooked to his belt, and his blanket was kilted about his waist. A streak of red paint ran across his cheek, over the high bridge of his nose, and across the other cheek. He wore a first-coup feather proudly erect at the back of his head.

  He looked down now at the battered old Pomeroy flintlock musket for which he had perhaps six short charges of powder. His bare, veined, skinny old arms made the gun look tremendously heavy His elkhorn bow was hung across his back, with a quiver of iron-tipped arrows, and his knife was in its sheath on his belt. He stooped to duck out of the lodge, and saw the solid line of the troopers coming down the slope to the ford. For an instant, his resolve almost wavered, and then his fingers touched the medicine bag hung on his chest, and he began a soft, almost inaudible chanting of his war song.

  Yellow Ear and Bright Wolf stepped out of their own lodges at almost the same moment, both old men, nearly his own age, both comrades of the days that were gone.

  “The Long Knives come,” said Yellow Ear softly.

  “Hai!” said
Bright Wolf, “Now we die like men.” His lips formed his own war song. Two Bears looked back through the camp, glad that the young men were all away, hunting. The horses were gone, drifted back into the timber. The boys should keep them moving now, and perhaps they could keep them away from the Long Knives. He breathed deeply and turned back.

  The Long Knife troopers were crashing the ice of the ford under the hooves of their horses now. They towered against the wintry sky, solid and fat with good eating, dully gleaming with buttons and ready guns, the clatter and jingle and clinking of their spurs and sabers and saddle fittings coming over the solid trampling of hooves in the crusty snow. But their guns were silent, and they kept their horses in that steady, remorseless walk. Two Bears sighed, and as the first horse touched on the trampled trail to water, he reared back the heavy hammer of the Pomeroy and pulled the trigger.

  The vise-jaw of the hammer slammed the flint forward, scraping on the pan lid, lifting it and throwing sparks. The musket bellowed, pointed straight up—a warning shot.

  Swiftly, Two Bears lowered the butt to the ground, poured powder from his tipped powder horn, slapped another ball on a square of greased buckskin, rammed it home. He had to prime the pan with the same course powder he used in barrel. He had no priming powder. But even as he did these things with deft speed, he heard the bugle send its clear brass voice at them, and the troopers were suddenly crowding stirrup to stirrup, and the drumming of charging hooves made a dull thunder on the frozen earth.

  The guns of the Long Knives were coming alive now, shattering the air of the camp with their harsh barking voices. The one who rode a pace ahead, the one with gold braid marking his shoulders, carried a short gun balanced in his right hand, and his reddened, square face twisted as he bellowed commands to his troopers Two Bears brought the Pomeroy onto this man and pulled the trigger.

  Sparks flared from the flint, but the coarse powder did not catch. Two Bears snatched the hammer back again, and now a trooper was riding at him, coming at him with his mouth gaping in a soundless yell, and Two Bears thrust the muzzle almost against the man’s side and pulled off the shot. The Pomeroy bellowed, and almost leaped from his hands, and the man piled out of the other side of the saddle.

  Two Bears automatically slapped the driving horse on the shoulder with the flat of his hand, claiming it for his own, and then another trooper came at him, and the trooper swung his saber high and brought it down.

  Two Bears threw up the Pomeroy, holding it with both hands, and the blade clanged against it. But Two Bears’ muscles would not take the violence of the blow. The barrel deflected the blow, but the blade drove it down, and the driving steel caught him alongside the head, and Two Bears was suddenly falling into a great blackness that grew out of the snow and swallowed him up. The charging shoulder of the cavalry mount caught him and spun him away, and one iron-shod hoof caught his ribs as he fell, but he felt none of it.

  * * * *

  Captain Quarles sat squarely and stolidly in the saddle of his heaving mount, and took his sergeant’s report.

  “One dead, three wounded,” said the sergeant. “Corporal Allen and Troopers Odlick and Franz captured four women, with packs on their backs, in the underbrush on the far side of the village. Three of the skulkers who fought among the tipi’s, killed. The rest got out into the brush. Mostly half-grown boys, I’d say, sir. Otherwise, the village is now deserted, sir.”

  The captain returned the sergeant’s salute, and said briskly, “Burn this mess of rags and hides. Half an hour for rations and checking equipment. Detail two men to guard the hostages. The rest of the troop ready to take the trail in thirty minutes. That’s all, Sergeant.”

  Burden Frazee kneed his pony around to come alongside the captain. “Cap’n Quarles, you ain’t figgerin’ to burn their lodges, are you?”

  The captain gave the guide an impatient flick of his icy eyes. “I am,” he said shortly.

  “But hang it all, man, it don’t shine,” Frazee blurted. “They can’t make out the winter without lodges.”

  Captain Quarles retorted stiffly, “Frazee, rid your mind of the thought that this is a tea party. I am here to arrest four murderers. Their people fired upon the United States Army. May I remind you that no one fires upon the Army except its enemies. Therefore, this detail will be carried out to its conclusion. We shall follow them and attack them. Resistance will be put down with a firm hand, and we shall take in the murderers. Failing that, we shall take what hostages come to our hand. Anyone firing upon us will be considered a hostile, and dealt with as such. Is that clear?”

  “Clear enough, Cap’n,” said Frazee roughly. “A half-breed trader cheats a bunch of Injuns out of their horses, and gets his mark rubbed out when they get ’em back. So the Yewnited States Army wipes out a whole village of starvin’ women and kids and old men just to show ’em who’s boss. I reckon it’s clear enough, Cap’n.”

  Quarles flushed a deeper red under his windburned cheeks, and snapped, “Sergeant, this man is under open arrest. When he scouts, detail a man to accompany him. I will take up his case when we return to the fort.”

  “What do you mean, arrest?” demanded Frazee truculently.

  “Just what I said, Frazee.” The captain’s voice was icy. “If open arrest does not suit you, you will be disarmed and put under guard. Now, you will take up the trail, with an escort, five minutes before the troop. You will fire signal shots at any sign of resistance, and await the troop. The troop will move at route speed, so keep moving. I intend to wind this thing up by dark. That’s all, Frazee.”

  For just a moment, a fire that should have warned the captain showed in Frazee’s frosty blue eyes. Then his mouth quirked in a sardonic grimace, and he turned away without another word. He mounted and rode out, at the word, with a trooper a length behind, carrying a carbine unsheathed across the pommel of his McClellan saddle. Frazee cut a slant eye at the trooper, and grunted contemptuously. He got out a strip of jerky and chewed the tough stringy stuff as he followed the trail.

  * * * *

  Two Bears came awake with the cold biting deep inside him. He moved his head, and an icy cake of frozen snow raked his cheek. For a moment, he could not move; his arms and legs seemed to have turned into clumsy sticks, but finally he managed to roll over and twist his legs enough to bend his knees. Then pain came, and brought him fully awake, and he knew where he was.

  He lay where he had fallen, half-buried in a bank of crusted snow, and his nostrils were filled with the stink of burnt cloth and hides. He raised his head, and the camp was no more. Smouldering heaps marked where the lodges had been, and one fire burned, where two of the blue-coated Long Knives guarded four of the women. The rest of the troopers were gone.

  First, he searched for the gun, with the snow bank hiding him, but the gun was broken. The shearing blade that had struck him down had broken the brittle metal of the hammer, and the Pomeroy could not be fired. He left it, and crawled away, still keeping the ridge of trampled snow between him and the fire.

  When he was far enough away, he stood up, and instantly fell again. Again he got up, with a dull, consuming pain tearing at his shoulder, water in his trembling legs, but he got up. He pulled his blanket up to cover his throbbing shoulder, and took up a staggering walk, plowing through the snow, moving back into the timber.

  He crossed a small ridge, descended into the canyon beyond, finally spotted a trail where the boys had driven the horses. He sheered away from that and mounted the cross slope, keeping to the brush, but heading in the general direction of the horse trail. His feet were like blocks of wood. His leggins were soaked, from the time he had lain unconscious, and now they were frozen stiff, rasping at his legs where the action of his knees had broken the icing to make them bend.

  Again he came across the horse trail, and moved away, and then he heard the muffled thudding of walking horses.

  He dropped back into the shelter of the crowding brush, and carefully worked his elkhorn bow out from under the blank
et ...then found his numbed and stiffened muscles could not string it. He dropped down into the snow, with the branches of the bush behind him to break up the outline of his head.

  It was Burden Frazee with a trooper behind him. The trooper was not watching the trail, but kept his eyes on Frazee’s back. Two Bears had a sudden numb wonder at how he had gotten ahead of Frazee. Frazee must have left the campsite long before Two Bears came alive, but here he plodded on the trail, and Two Bears had gone by him.

  He saw the eyes of his blood-brother flicking restlessly through the timber, watching everything with a quick intentness, and then Frazee’s icy blue eyes came on Two Bears...as somehow he had known they would. He had come too close to the horse trail back there. Burden would never miss that. And now Burden Frazee had found him, and Two Bears did not have strength enough to string his bow.

  Then Frazee’s eyes went on but not before one blue eye had winked quickly. And Frazee was singing a little monotone song, in the Indian tongue of Two Bears. It was very soft, the sort of thing a man might croon absently to himself, but Two Bears caught the words: My brother, the night is coming. The hunters go southward....

  Then the scout and the Long Knife trooper were gone; the wind began to rise a little, and snow began to fall. Within a minute, the trail was a dim thing seen through a thick curtain, and Two Bears started to rise.

  Then he caught a clumping and jingling and thudding of hooves, and the troop came by, with the big man, the one with gold on his shoulders, sitting thick and heavy in the saddle, his broad, reddened face stubbornly straight ahead, ignoring even the icy pelting of the snow on his cheek. A flanker came by Two Bears, passing behind the very bush that sheltered him. But the trooper, from his seat in the saddle, saw nothing but the thick mushroom of snow that covered the bush, and rode on. The light was dulling, when Two Bears crawled out and staggered to his feet.