Man in the Saddle

by Matt Chisholm

  It took him two weeks of hard travel to reach the squaw-man’s place and before he rode in., he spent a half-day high and in cover watching the place to be sure that there were no Indian bands around. At last satisfied, he rode the dun down to the cabin, the pack-horse trailing behind.

  Whitlock welcomed him all right, but it was plain to see that he was nervous.

  As they ate at the crude table in the house, the old man said: “My Gawd, you didn’t ought to of come, boy. The Kiowas is all stirred up. Two Bulls rid in not a month back and he told a tale of fights and killin’s. There’s wailin’ a-plenty in the lodges and fingers’ve been cut off in grief. Young Man-Who-Catches-Rain’s sure making heap big medicine. They told a tale of white men stealin’ a girl from them. They lost five good men in the fight an’ they didn’t have a Goddam scalp to show for it.”

  “Where’s the Grimes girl?” Spur asked.

  The old man cocked his head and looked at him out of his washed-out eyes.

  “Was you in that fight, Spur?”

  “Does it make any difference ?”

  “It makes a hell of a difference. I have to live with the Kiowas.”

  “They jumped us, Whitlock. What were we supposed to do - kiss ’em.”

  The squawman stood up.

  “You light a shuck outa here. Fast’s you like. Hell, if I’d of knowed you was the whiteman … they ketch you here an’ I’m a dead man.”

  “I don’t go till I know where the girl is.”

  “You’re crazy. Nobody never took a prisoner away from the Kiowas.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “What’s in this for you? Her folks offering a reward?”

  “Would you help me if there was gold in it for you?”

  “Not a chance. I’m an old man. I like it here an’ I’m goin’ to live out the rest of my days here.”

  “You want to do that, then you tell me where the Grimes girl is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Find out.”

  “It’ll take time.”

  “Take time, but find out.”

  A squaw squatting silent in the corner on the edge of the lamplight said something in her own language and Whitlock replied.

  Spur asked: “What she say?”

  “She savvies a little English. She knows you want the Grimes girl and she reckons you mean a whole lot of grief for me. She’s dead to rights. She reckons she could find out where the girl’s at.”

  “Good. Tell her to find out now.”

  “If she does - will you get outa here and stay away from me?”

  “My word on it.”

  Whitlock turned to the squaw and spoke to her for several minutes, after which she rose and shuffled head bent out of the door.

  Spur asked: “How long will she be gone?”

  “Be back around midnight. She’s gone along the valley to where her mother’s camped.”

  This was risky and Spur knew it. There were not many precautions he could take, but he would take what he could.

  He rose.

  “I’ll move back into the hills,” he said. “I’ll leave the pack-horse with you.”

  “Where’ll you be at?”

  Spur grinned.

  “You won’t know,” he said.

  The old man looked defeated.

  “You don’t trust me,” he complained.

  Spur nodded. “That’s about the size of it, old-timer.” He went out of the house, turned the pack-horse loose into the rickety corral and, mounting the dun, walked it away into the darkness.

  He dismounted from the horse below a ridge a half-mile from the cabin and tied its nose so that it could not neigh and give his presence away. Uneasiness rode him. He loosened the animal’s girth and lay down to watch the pinpoint of light from the cabin and chewed on the tobacco he had obtained from Bent, wondering about his timing, when he should go back and contact Whitlock. Any approach to the cabin from now on could mean his own death.

  He reasoned that any move that would bring the Indians back to the cabin would be an aid to his plans. He could not find the Indians’ hideout till he had some sign to follow. If the squaw really brought information, he would be the gainer. If she brought Indians to kill him, if he played his cards right he could still be the gainer. He tried not to think about the risk. Any full consideration of that and he would mount the dun and ride out of there.

  He heard nothing suspicious all night.

  At dawn;, he moved back into the cover of thick brush, but still had the cabin under his eye. He ate jerky for breakfast and washed it down with water from his canteen. He untied the dun’s muzzle and fed it the last of the corn he carried in lieu of the grass it had not been able to eat in the night. He watered it sparingly with water poured into his hat.

  By noon he had not noticed anything amiss down at the cabin. He led the dun back into the hills over several ridges, then mounted and rode it in a wide circle, crossing Whitlock’s little valley cautiously and out of sight of the house and coming in to it from the north.

  He dismounted and tied the pony about two hundred yards from the cabin in deep cover. Then, armed only with his revolver, he went forward on foot. Brush afforded him cover to the eastern end of the corral. The several ponies there took notice of his presence; one softly whinnied. A squaw came around the end of the cabin, stared at him and hastily retreated out of sight. She was not Whitlock’s woman.

  He should have known then that something was wrong, but in the next instant Whitlock appeared in the doorway and took his attention.

  Spur walked along the edge of the corral and approached the house. Whitlock stood motionless in front of the doorway and watched him. When Spur was close enough to hear him, Whitlock said: “You been long enough. What kept you?”

  “Just being careful. Did the woman come back?”

  Whitlock jerked his chin toward his shoulder. “She’s inside.”

  “Does she have the information?”

  “Sure - come on in.”

  To be on the safe side, Spur decided to make his next moves contrary to whatever Whitlock indicated. As Whitlock turned and went to enter the cabin first, Spur decided that he should be second and caught him by the arm. The man turned his head, puzzlement in his eyes. As Spur lifted his gun from leather, the puzzlement turned to fear.

  “I’ll go first,” Spur said softly and lifted Whitlock’s knife from his belt.

  He swung the old man quickly aside and stepped forward into the cabin.

  The first person he saw was the squaw in the corner of the place, crouched down. In the first fraction of a second he thought that she stared at him, but it came to him suddenly that she stared past him. As he turned he was aware of the smell of Indian. Something moved above him with the speed of lightning and he automatically flung himself to one side. He heard the old man cry out. Something struck him a numbing blow on the shoulder, but he was going forward too fast then to be stopped.

  His shoulder drove hard into the guts of a tall man and smashed him back against the logs of the cabin wall. His breath went out of him in a big sigh. Spur straightened, sighted dark hair braided and befeathered and slammed his pistol barrel down on it.

  The blow was hard and would have killed an ordinary man, but this one stumbled blindly away, collided with the table and went down.

  In the doorway, the old man was shrieking for them to stop. The squaw ran past Spur, screaming, brushed Whit-lock aside and fled away.

  The Indian sorted himself out from the table, making a noise like a cornered bobcat. Before Spur could cock his gun and fire, an explosion boomed deafeningly in the confined space and a bullet passed so close to Spur that he felt its wind. It hit some clay used to stuff the chinks in the logs and blew scraps all over him.

  He jumped to the right and dropped to one knee as the second shot missed him by a foot. His return fire caught the man first in the center of the body, knocking him across the cabin to the further wall. His second shot caught the man i
n the head and killed him before his body started for the floor.

  Spur ran forward. The man lay on his face. He turned him over with his toe and saw that it was Man-Who-Catches-Rain. The blue eyes stared sightlessly. Spur knew a terrible regret that he could not fathom.

  In the doorway, Whitlock said: “Christ, you’re a dead man.”

  Spur turned the gun on him and said: “Get that woman back here, fast.”

  “She’s back in the brush. There’s no gettin’ her.”

  “You then,” Spur said. “You tell me where the Grimes girl is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You old bastard,” Spur said softly. “You set this up. I don’t owe you a damned thing. You tell me or I’ll kill you like the mangy coyote you are.”

  The old man was terrified, but he stood his ground.

  “You wouldn’t gain nothin’ by killin’ me.”

  “I don’t gain a thing by keeping you alive. Those shots will bring help for our dead friend here. I have to ride.”

  “I don’t know a thing,” Whitlock said.

  Spur went up to him, turned him around and walked him from the cabin, holding him by the scruff of his neck.

  “What’re you doin’?” Whitlock asked in a shaking voice.

  “Fixing you so you talk.”

  He propelled the old man around the corral to where the dun stood tied. He put his revolver away and took his rope from the saddle horn. The old man made a run for it. Spur leapt into the saddle, turned the dun after him, building a noose as he went and dropped the noose over the man’s head. He brought him down with all the ruthlessness a wild horse hunter uses on a mustang. Whitlock fell on the ground choking.

  Spur flicked the rope and loosened the noose. Whitlock coughed and spluttered, hands at throat.

  Spur said: “Talk or I’ll drag you.”

  Whitlock nodded. Spur dismounted and walked to him. “Go ahead,” he said.

  Whitlock went on making strangling noises in his throat till Spur said: “Old man, my patience is all stretched to hell. Next time I’ll drag you and you’ll be dead.”

  The squawman sounded like he had a sore throat when he said: “I’ll tell you.” He pulled the noose over his head and flung it toward Spur. His eyes shifted over the landscape, showing a desperate hope that help might be at hand.

  When none came, he told Spur: “Go north to Three Beavers.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A crick.”

  “How do I find it?”

  The old man waved an arm toward the north. “Go over three, maybe four ridges, I disremember. You’ll hit an old trail. Can’t miss it. Follow it maybe a mile east. You’ll be on Three Beavers there. Two Bulls is camped there. Twenty lodges.”

  He watched Spur out of the corner of his eye to see if he was believed. Spur neither believed him nor disbelieved him. He would know soon enough. He had killed an Indian back there in the cabin and that man had come from Two Bulls’ camp. He had therefore left sign. If Spur did not find it on those ridges, the old man was lying.

  He coiled his rope and tied it by the laces on the right side of the saddle horn. Whitlock got to his feet and dusted himself off. He didn’t look afraid anymore, so Spur reckoned he was lying.

  Spur walked back to the dun and mounted.

  “I hope you get that girl,” Whitlock said, still massaging his throat. “But you can’t do it.”

  Spur nodded. ‘I’ll see you.”

  “Don’t bank on it,’ Whitlock said and stumbled away toward the cabin.

  Instead of going directly north as Whitlock had indicated, Spur rode east down the valley, making what use he could of any cover offered by brush and rocks. Even though his thoughts were urgent and every fiber of his being sensed danger in his surroundings, he knew that he was riding through a wonderful country. And as he turned around the eastern edge of the ridge to his left and climbed a little, sometimes leading the dun the going was so hard, the view was magnificent. He saw at once that this was a horseman’s paradise. Here was grass, water and hills offering protection from the elements. There was timber for building. He didn’t blame the Kiowas for claiming this for their hideaway. Any man worth the name would fight to retain this kind of country. It was rich with sign of wild game and once he crossed the tracks of mustang.

  When he had crossed the first ridge and turned west and gone slowly in that direction for about five miles, he still had seen no sign that the Kiowa had made coming to Whitlock’s place. He turned north again, crossed the second ridge, and worked his way east to make a second and last try for sign.

  He found none.

  So the old man had lied.

  He came to water and rested himself and the dun. He allowed the animal water, but not as much as he wanted. A horse didn’t have the sense of a mule and would drink itself loggy and Spur knew he would be wanting a fast horse under him any time now. He filled the canteen and his own belly to capacity.

  By the late afternoon he had ridden clear around to the western end of Whitlock’s valley and come upon not only Man-Who-Catches-Rain’s sign, but that of the squaw.

  They both pointed Two Bulls’ camp as being in a westerly direction.

  He now led the dun into deep rocks and brush, returned to the sign and worked carefully for an hour rubbing out his own sign. Whitlock would be having visitors soon and Spur didn’t want them to know of his presence this end of the valley. He returned to the dun and worked his way back into the folds of the hills and found a good position from which he could watch the floor of the valley. His patience paid off and before dark a party of some six Indians loped their ponies from the west, going toward Whitlock’s place. They passed the spot where he had wiped out his sign and did not pause, so he knew that, for the moment, at any rate, he was safe.

  After debating whether to attempt to find the Indian village after dark or to be sure and try in the morning by daylight, he decided that time was the main factor in this operation and he should try to locate the place as soon as possible.

  He mounted the dun and followed the ridge along the valley, keeping below the skyline and was still pushing west after dark fell. Now he halted and waited for the moon to come up and then once more went on again.

  It was an eerie and nerve-straining task, this looking for an Indian camp in the night. Every pace the dun took now, Spur expected to ride down on a Kiowa guard or to hear the yapping of village dogs as they spotted him. But he traveled apparently undetected until suddenly below and ahead of him, he saw the light of fires.

  At once, he dismounted and tied the dun and went forward on foot. After a few paces, he paused to remove his spurs. He wished he had some Indian foot-gear for silence. He now went on quickly, but with caution. He carried only his pistol and knife, for he wanted to be quick-moving and to have his hands free.

  He worked his way higher on the ridge and came opposite the tipis. He reckoned they were about three hundred yards away. But it was near enough to smell danger. His spine was cold and the palms of his hands were damp with sweat.

  I’m the biggest damned fool ever spawned, he told himself.

  He thought of Jane and wondered what she was doing right now.

  Somewhere off to his left, a dog-fox barked and he remembered the same sound by the river before the Indians swarmed all over them. He knew only too well how possible it was that he had been watched all the time since he had first sighted the camp. He wished he had Pagley with him without a spear hole in his shoulder.

  He counted the tipis and reckoned that Whitlock had told the truth about their number. There were about twenty, though it was not easy to tell in the moonlight and by the flickering light of the fires. They were fairly widely scattered and from where he was, it looked as if the Indians were taking no precautions against attack. Though he knew better than to be fooled by appearances. Figures walked to and fro in the uncertain light, men, women and children.

  He worked in closer, but that brought him onto lower ground and he saw e
ven less. There seemed little chance in this light of discovering the Grimes girl even if she were there. He would have to watch in daylight using his glass from the ridge-tops. By daylight also, he had to have his horse well back out of hearing of the village or the animal would give his presence away.

  Returning to where he had left the dun tied, he was alarmed to find the animal no longer there. It was not only the absence of the animal and the fact that it looked obvious that the Indians had found him, but that his rifle had been in the saddle boot that alarmed him. Common sense then told him that he must have mistaken the position. He started to work his way through the rocks, ears and eyes alert.

  A faint sound behind him brought him around fast, his right hand wrenching his gun from leather.

  He glimpsed a figure stretched in the upward swing of a club. His thumb pulled the hammer back, but he was too late. There was more than one man there. Strong hands grasped him from the shadows and he was hurled to the ground. He fired blindly as something smashed down on his head.

  He made one feeble and automatic attempt to get to his feet. He had dropped his gun and his right hand fumbled weakly for the hilt of his knife. It never found it. The second blow rushed out of the shadows and knocked him into a bottomless pit.

  Chapter Twelve

  Two nights after they had crossed the river, Pagley made camp in a motte of trees many miles to the south. He had held up pretty well under the hard riding and was pleased with himself. The girl had scarcely spoken a word to him all the time. He knew that her mind had traveled north-west with Spur, just as his had done.

  He knew then as they cleaned their plates after their evening meal that he could not go through with this. He had known it from the start when he had given Spur his word.

  He built a smoke and lounged back against his saddle, looking across the fire at the girl.

  “What’s the nearest settlement?” he asked.