Another plan occurred to him. A deep gully angled south to the creek not far to the west. If he could reach it, he could crawl to the creek and then follow the stream to where the Indians were hiding. Then he’d know if they were gone. He realized immediately it was an absurd plan. He couldn’t reach it without being seen. If they were still hiding and he ran into the whole band, he’d die quickly and suddenly.
The horses had quieted inside the corral. Mark pulled his hat low over his eyes and waited, trying to think of something else. Bronco had not fired a shot for ten or fifteen minutes. Suddenly he broke out of the cabin and ran toward Mark, his rifle in his hand.
Halfway to the corral he stopped and faced the creek, standing straight up. Nothing happened, so he came on. It seemed to Mark that he was crazy to stop that way. Then it struck Mark that it had been an act of bravado to save face, that he’d probably seen the Indians leave and had kept up the pretense that they were still there by firing an occasional shot.
“I figured they were gone,” he said, “but I wasn’t sure.”
Mark got to his feet and wiped the sweat from his face. “I’ve got time to be scared now, I guess.”
“You got a right to be, boy,” Bronco agreed. “I’ve been scared ever since you got off your first shot, and I jumped ten feet straight up off the bed.” He put a hand on Mark’s shoulder. “You done good, boy. Real good. That first one you plugged has got his brains scattered over half the yard.”
Bronco turned to the corral and leaned his rifle against it. “I ain’t as brave as I make out. Not when it comes to fighting ten or twelve of the devils and maybe getting my hair lifted. I’ve never met a white man I was scared of, but there’s something about a bunch of damned Indians that drops my heart clean through my guts.” He tried to grin. “It’ll be different the next time I meet up with ’em.”
“Why didn’t they just take the horses and pull out?” Mark asked. “If they’d really wanted our hair, they’d have stayed.”
Bronco shook his head. “Might’ve been different if it had been the Nez Percés. Or the Sioux. But them Paiutes ain’t real good fighters. They wanted something easy like burning us out or plugging us when it got so hot inside the cabin we couldn’t stay. Chances are they sent out a few raiding parties to pick up horses and any cheap scalps they could get, but we’re a long ways from Shadow Mountain. Maybe the main band’s on the move and these boogers who tackled us didn’t want to be pinned down all day.”
“And maybe,” Mark said, “the main band is headed this way.”
Bronco scratched his head and grinned sourly. “Like you said, a ranch ain’t much good to a dead man. I made you a promise and I’ll keep it. We’ll head for the fort.”
They saddled up, Mark taking his sorrel and Bronco a bay gelding, then they turned the rest of the horses out of the corral. They rode west toward the Paradise Hills, Mark looking back once and wondering if he would ever see the cabin again that had been his home since fall. He turned his head and looked at the hills before him, shiny bright with the morning sunlight upon them, and grew a little sick with the thought that, if the Indians came again, every building would be burned to the ground.
Chapter Eleven
When Mark crossed the Paradise Hills and came into sight of the Circle J buildings, he saw that they were intact and that smoke was rising from the chimney of the house. He swung off the trail, calling to Bronco: “I’m going to tell the Jacksons to go to the fort!”
Bronco motioned for Mark to come on. “Monk Evans told ’em. Let ’em stay if they want to!”
Mark kept on, shouting: “I’ll catch up with you if they won’t go!”
Bronco cursed and told him to let them go, but Mark didn’t look back. He rode across the sage-covered bench, thinking it was natural that Bronco wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Herb Jackson. Mark had worried a good deal during the winter about what would happen when they met, as they were bound to do sooner or later. But regardless of how Bronco felt about Herb, he shouldn’t object to Mark’s warning them, especially with Ruth at home. The more he thought about it, the more irritated he became over Bronco’s attitude.
Mark didn’t see anyone when he reached the house. He swung down and, leaving the reins dragging, ran to the front door and pounded on it. When there was no answer, he pounded on it again. Then the door opened and Ruth stood there, her hands on her hips.
“You’re a long time coming,” she said tartly, “and, when you do decide to come, you try to knock the door off its hinges.”
He didn’t notice her tartness. He was so relieved to see her that he grabbed her and hugged her, saying: “I guess you’re all right. I’ve sure been worried. Why didn’t you go to the fort?”
She took hold of his arms and, shoving them apart, stepped back. “I’ll bet you’ve been worried about me. You haven’t been over here all winter.” Then she seemed to understand his question, and she demanded: “Why should we go to the fort?”
“Indians. Didn’t Monk Evans warn you?”
“No. I don’t know any Monk Evans. And what’s the matter with the Indians?”
“They’re out raiding.” She was wearing a simple house dress with an apron tied around her waist. He said impatiently: “Put on your riding skirt or whatever you want to travel in.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” she snapped. “If there was any Indian trouble, we’d have heard about it.”
“Where’s Herb?”
“In the garden. …”
Mark didn’t wait to hear any more. He didn’t know what was the matter with Ruth, and he didn’t have time to find out. He strode past her, through the kitchen, and across the back porch. Herb was hoeing in the garden, bent over, working slowly and carefully.
Mark ran toward him, yelling: “Herb, you’ve got to get to the fort! Indians!”
Jackson straightened, wiping a sleeve across his sweaty face. “Hello, Mark. Haven’t seen you …” He threw the hoe down. “What’s this about Indians?”
Mark told him, adding: “Ruth says she’s not going anywhere.”
“She’ll go,” Herb said. “Saddle her horse, will you, son? I’ll be with you in a minute.”
Jackson wasn’t in the house long. By the time Ruth’s paint mare and Jackson’s horse were saddled, she joined them, tight-lipped and red in the face. They mounted and rode down the slope to the road, Jackson saying: “Hard to tell which way the main band will go. Might come right by here and head into the mountains. They’re more mobile than the soldiers, and they know they’ll be chased, so they’re bound to line out for the mountains somewhere.”
He looked back once, then turned his head, his mouth working. “I built well. I’d sure hate to get burned out.” He paused, silent until he recovered his self-control, then added: “Indians have my sympathy. They’ve been mistreated as far back as the first white men had any contact with them. They’re like children, talking about how it used to be when there was plenty of game and they could go anywhere whenever they wanted to. They think they can restore the old days, so they start out pillaging and burning, never seeming to realize that tragedy must be the inevitable end.”
“I don’t have any sympathy for them,” Mark said. “They tried to kill me and Bronco this morning. If I hadn’t killed three of them, they’d have killed me.”
Ruth looked at him, her mouth curling in disbelief. “You killed three of them, did you? Was it Indians? Or flies?
“Ruth,” Jackson said sharply.
“Do you believe him?” Ruth demanded. “Do you think it’s a likely story that he killed three Indians?”
“Forget it,” Mark said, and, after that they rode in silence, Mark hurt and puzzled by Ruth’s manner.
They reached the fort at noon. Mark had never seen an Army post, and he was disappointed. No stockade, no blockhouses, just a huddle of buildings, most of them whitewashed or painted white, scattered haphazardly around the parade ground.
“Ruth knows Lieutenant Bolton’s wife,”
Jackson said. “I’ll take her there. Missus Bolton will probably have room for her.”
Ruth rode on toward the officers’ quarters, sitting straight and severe in the saddle and not giving Mark as much as a glance. Mark saw Bronco with a group of ranchers and reined toward them, trying to put Ruth out of his mind. If that was the way she wanted to treat him, all right, he’d give her the same medicine.
He’d gone out of his way to warn Ruth and her father, and all he’d got for his trouble was a kick in the teeth. Still, no matter how hard he tried to put her out of his mind, a sense of injury rankled, and he was glad to see Bronco grinning at him and motioning for him to get down.
“Here’s the old Indian fighter,” Bronco said. “He killed three Indians before breakfast, two of ’em before I was out of bed.”
A big man with a beard laughed and jolted Bronco with an elbow. “Maybe you had a woman under the blanket with you, and you were so busy you couldn’t bother with no Indian fighting.”
“Hell, no,” Bronco said. “Where would I find a woman? No sir, I was just sawing it off when he goes bang-bang with his six-shooter, and I came up off that bed like I had a Paiute knife in my gut. Mark here says calm-like … ‘I got two of ’em.’”
They all laughed, and the big man said: “That’ll teach you to sleep all day when there’s an Indian war going on.”
Then Mark was out of the saddle, standing beside Bronco who said: “Mark, meet John Runyan of Triangle R.” He was the big man with the beard. His handshake was firm, his voice pleasant when he said: “I’m glad to meet you, son. I’ve heard Bronco speak of his partner.”
Mark went on around the circle, shaking hands with all of them. Some were names he hadn’t heard, but two besides John Runyan were familiar to him: Dave Nolan of Rocking Chair, a small, precise man with a carefully trimmed mustache, and Matt Ardell of Bearpaw, a fat man with a scraggly beard and squeaky voice.
Here were the three biggest cowmen in the country—Runyan, Nolan, and Ardell—and none of them looked the part. As he stepped back beside Bronco, the handshaking finished, it seemed to Mark that Bronco looked more like a successful cowman than any of the others.
“You ain’t had anything to eat, have you, Mark?” Bronco asked. Mark shook his head, and Bronco said: “Come on over here to the fire. They’ve got a pot of stew on. I think John cooked it. Don’t taste like much, but it’s the best they’ve got to offer.”
Runyan laughed. “Not guilty, Bronco. I don’t know who cooked it. The hell of it is I went off in such a hurry that I left six pies setting on the shelf that the cook had just pulled out of the oven, but they was too hot to bring.” He motioned to one of the men. “Cory, take care of the boy’s horse so he can eat.”
Mark got a tin plate and cup, filled the plate with stew from the pot, and poured his coffee. Bronco squatted beside him. “So they hadn’t been warned.”
Mark shook his head. “That damned Monk Evans rode right past their place and didn’t say a word. I’m going to bust him on the snout when I see him.”
“Aw, forget it. Haven’t been here before, have you?”
Mark shook his head. “Doesn’t look like a fort to me.”
“Well, that’s what it is.”
Bronco pointed out the three barracks, each of which housed a company; the small buildings for the civilian employees; the quarters for the married soldiers and laundresses, which were on the south edge of the camp; and the officers’ quarters, each cottage large enough to hold two families. Mark wondered which one belonged to Lieutenant Bolton, and that brought Ruth back into his mind. Sooner or later he was going to have it out with her. He had a right to know what was wrong.
Bronco was pointing to the big log building, which he said was the commissary storehouse, then the hospital, the post office, the guardhouse, and finally the big cavalry stable with the corrals behind it. “You’ll find your sorrel there if you want him,” Bronco said.
Matt Ardell drifted over and sat down beside Mark. “The women and kids are scattered all over,” he said. “Plenty of room. When we rode in, there were just thirteen soldiers in the whole damned fort. They said we’d have to defend the families, and they handed out some old carbines that wasn’t worth a damn. Leastwise, we didn’t think they were. Used them old linen cartridges and a hell of a big slug. Well, we went over to the target range and tried ’em out. Hell, we couldn’t have hit Shadow Mountain with ’em, let alone a Paiute, so we brought ’em back. We asked if they didn’t have anything better. They dug around and found enough Springfields, fifty caliber. That was some better. We allowed we could maybe do some protecting with them.”
“You should have fetched your own guns,” Bronco said, laughing.
“Well, I guess we was like John and his pies,” Ardell said. “We was up north of the lakes when we heard about the trouble, so we lit a shuck for the fort.”
Dave Nolan was standing behind Ardell. He said: “The talk is that Captain Bernard will be in tonight with four companies and Robbins’s scouts. Some of us are volunteering to go along. How about you, Bronco?”
“Sure, count me ’n’ Mark in,” Bronco answered. “I’ve got a score to settle with them red bastards, anyhow.”
“The raiding parties they sent out like the one that hit you boys will be trying to catch up with the main band,” Nolan went on. “It’s my guess they’ll head north from Shadow Mountain, and they’ll move fast, probably try to reach the Umatilla reservation in hopes they’ll pick up some help.”
Mark noticed there were other groups of men scattered around, most of them standing beside fires. Jackson had joined one of them. If Bronco saw him, he paid no attention. Several children were playing tag on the parade ground. Two of the boys got into a fight. One of them started to cry, and a woman ran out of one of the officers’ cabins, spanked the boy who was crying, and led him back to the cabin by his ear.
“Bernard won’t leave any of his men in camp,” Ardell was saying, “and we can’t figure on the thirteen soldiers who were holding down the fort when we got here to fight off the Paiutes if they get it into their heads to attack.”
“They won’t,” Nolan said. “It’s the Army’s business about who holds the fort. There won’t be any trouble here anyhow.”
“How do you know?” Ardell asked.
“The talk is that the Bannock chief, Buffalo Horn, got killed, so I figure the Bannocks have thrown in with the Paiutes, and they’ll get Egan to lead them. He’s too smart to tackle the fort. He’ll head for the mountains.”
Ardell shook his head. “With all these women and kids …”
“I’ve got eighteen men who have promised to go,” Nolan cut in. “I figure to take our buckaroos and leave the settlers.” He paused, his lips squeezing together, then he said with more bitterness than had been in his voice: “Damned funny how many of them there are when they all come out of the hills and show up in one spot like this.”
Ardell shrugged. “Nothing to worry about, Dave, as long as they stay in the hills.”
The talk ran on, Mark only half listening, for he was thinking of Ruth again and wondering what he had done to antagonize her. His attention wavered back and forth, but he gathered that the Indians had struck hard around Shadow Mountain. Two men who had been surprised in their cabin had had it burned, and they had died in it.
“Which just about happened to us,” Bronco said. “I’m still scared when I think about it.”
“Then don’t,” Ardell said. “When I remember all the close shaves I’ve had since I came to this country, I figure I might as well throw my razor away.”
Damn it, Mark thought. I don’t want Ruth sore at me. I’ve got to see her.
The men went on, talking about two cowboys who claimed they could handle all the Paiutes and Bannocks in the country single-handed, and had died because they’d refused to run. And how Dave Nolan’s ranch had been attacked and his Chinese cook shot and scalped, and Nolan with a Sharps rifle and a belt full of cartridges had held off the
Paiutes while his men rode to safety.
“Well, who’s getting off the biggest lie now?” a man asked as he walked up.
Monk Evans! For the second time in his life Mark went crazy mad. All he could think of was that the man had ridden within a few yards of the Circle J and hadn’t bothered to stop. Only luck and the Lord’s mercy had brought the marauding band to the Cross Seven instead of the Circle J.
For a moment Mark sat there, his face turning red, his hands trembling as Ardell said: “No lies, Monk. Hell, this is gospel …”
Mark rose and whirled; he hit Evans in the belly as hard as he could. The man was jolted back on his heels, his breath going out of his lungs in an audible whoosh. Then Mark cracked him on the nose and knocked him flat, blood spurting from his nose and running down into his mouth.
Evans muttered an oath, swiped at his mouth, and, lying on his side, raised himself on an elbow. He pulled his gun as he shouted: “No damned kid’s gonna belt me like that!”
Evans had his gun out and leveled at Mark, and Mark, not expecting this, was caught flat-footed. He clawed for the .44 in his holster, but he knew he was slow, far too slow.
Mark heard a shot, but it wasn’t from Evans’s gun. Mark, with his Colt barely clear of leather, saw Evans drop flat on the ground. He said thickly: “Bronco, you …” Bronco fired again, the bullet driving through his chest and killing him instantly.
Men ran up, John Runyan among them. He stared at his dead buckaroo, then at Bronco, who still held his smoking gun. Runyan cried out in rage: “What the hell, Curtis?”
“He was fixing to kill the kid,” Bronco said flatly. “I ain’t one to stand here and let my partner get plugged because he knocked Evans on his butt. The fellow must have been drunk.”
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