Man in the Saddle

by Matt Chisholm

  What he saw there took him as fast as he could travel in rough country at night back to the girl. When he told her what he had seen, she was frightened but steady as a rock. And what he had seen had decided him. He would have to use the girl.

  They took three horses only. One for the girl, one for Pagley and one, if luck was with them, for Spur.

  On a long but hurried detour, he took the girl about a half-mile north of the village. Having gauged the wind, he had decided that that was the best place. Here he hastily cut several piles of dry brush for her and gave her instructions. They were hurried, but they were careful. They were hurried because every minute counted for his friend, they were careful because he had not forgotten his promise and he meant that this girl should come out of this alive.

  Finally mounting his pony and leading the dun, he asked: “You got all that?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Now, this goes wrong, you light out of here. Give me your word.”

  “You have it.”

  “Good. Luck.”

  “You need the luck,” she told him. “Pagley, you’re a good man.”

  “Ain’t I?” he said and, turning his horse, led the dun away into the darkness.

  He rode as fast as he dared up onto the ridges and halted near the spot where Spur had left the dun.

  The drums had stopped now, but the crowd of Indians were still gathered in the center of the village.

  Pagley took his Henry rifle from the saddle-boot, checked that the caps were in place on his revolver and, his grandfather having been converted to Christianity by the missionaries, said a little prayer. It was a short one because time was short. A man with buffalo-horns on his head was capering about in front of the drooping white figure tied to the stake and even at this distance in the firelight Pagley’s sharp eyes could see the vivid splash of red blood on that pale skin. And this was too long a shot for the Henry. Yet the girl must hear the starting shot and that shot must not be wasted.

  Pagley laid the Henry against a rock and took off his boots and exchanged them for a pair of moccasins. His being light footed cheered him a lot. He went down through the rocks and brush as his ancestors had done, making no more noise than a snake. His heart lifted a little - he would show these damned heathens how a good Christian could fight. He said a little prayer for the souls that he would send winging their dark way to hell.

  Feeling both morally and physically a little better, he worked his way through a cluster of trees to a small hillock overlooking the village and from where he had a clear view over the heads of the packed Indians. He wondered briefly if he had been spotted by any lookouts, but he thought not.

  Glancing around to check his possible getaway route, he lined the Henry up on the man with the buffalo-horns.

  The fellow was doing one of his little dances now and the drums had started up again as an accompaniment. One or two other men started to their feet and joined in. Pagley let his eyes drift to the right and saw the chief sitting among his peers.

  One for the buffalo-horns, he thought. And one for old Two Bulls and the ball will be on.

  His heart missed a beat in the excitement, then he took a grip on himself and made sure that his hands were steady.

  He got the buffalo-horns in his sights, allowed for the drop in the terrain and was pleased that the man pranced on one spot for a moment as if preparing himself to be shot. He turned and faced Pagley for a brief second.

  The Delaware fired.

  Buffalo-horns was knocked backward, as Pagley knew for sure, with a bullet through his heart. He tripped on his own lifeless feet and stumbled backward into the fire.

  And the best place for the old bastardy Pagley thought.

  The drums went on for a second and petered out.

  There was a moment more of stunned silence.

  Kiowas looked everywhere, dazed.

  Pagley swung the Henry hurriedly and fired again. He missed the old chief and hit the man next to him. Two Bulls staggered uncertainly to his feet. Men started running this way and that. Pagley gave them another couple of shots and fled. He ran as fast as he could go for higher ground to his left and no sooner had he reached it than he saw the first small burst of flame to the north. Good girl.

  Below him several Indians were catching up their horses and mounting them. Pagley emptied the magazine of the Henry at them, saw two of them fall and ran for a new position, hurriedly slapping a new tube of ammunition into the magazine as he ran.

  This time he headed for the horses.

  He reached them, panting from the long fast climb and got aboard, leading the dun and heading for the south of the village.

  On low ground he came on a mounted man and rammed him amidships with his horse’s chest and knocked him over. He didn’t wait but fled on. A moving man was a living one at a time like this.

  What was apparently a torsoless apparition appeared out of the dark and only just in time did he see that it was a warrior stripped to his leggings and with the upper part of his body painted black. It was time to be thankful that Indians were never as well armed with white man’s weapons as white men claimed. The fellow carried nothing but a club and Pagley only had to wave his rifle at him to send him scurrying into the brush.

  The Delaware came at a full gallop around to the southern entrance to the village, turning right to enter it and saw in time that this was not the moment to try to reach Spur. He glimpsed the whiteman still tied to his stake, but now with his head up. The camp was still in an uproar and it seemed that the Indians were charging in all directions as aimlessly as when Pagley had first fired and killed buffalo-horns.

  Pagley swung his horse and trotted around the village, looking for a chance, his nerves taut, his eyes alert. Then suddenly there was a great whoosh of sound from the north and it seemed that all the timber on the slopes that way had ignited.

  Some system now seemed to be bred out of the Indians’ fear. Even in this their first rush of panic, they could see that if they didn’t move fast, their camp would be doomed. Tipis began to collapse as their owners tried to save them. The lodge poles were crossed and tied on the backs of ponies, women ran to scoop up children. Thankfully, Pagley saw that the kids would get away all right. He would have liked them out of the way before he made his final dash, but he knew there was no time to waste.

  Taking off his hat, he hung it by its thong to his saddle-horn and turned in among the tipis. He slipped his rifle into the boot under his right leg and drew his revolver.

  He trotted along without haste, wishing to pass unnoticed for as long as possible.

  He passed the first lodge and felt the light from the great wall of fire to the north fall on him. Here it was as bright as daylight. A child stumbled almost under the feet of his pony and the animal stepped aside to avoid treading on him. A woman screamed at the little boy, looked up and saw Pagley. Then she screamed about Pagley. The Delaware ignored her and rode on, hoping she would be paid no heed in the general uproar.

  Spur’s dun was acting up now on the end of the lead-rope. Pagley cursed it.

  He passed the second lodge and sighted Spur again, now fighting vainly to free himself from his bonds.

  A man stood in Pagley’s path.

  He stood motionless, staring in astonishment. His mouth opened. He yelled. But he could have fired a cannon in that din and nobody would have heard.

  Pagley kicked his pony’s belly and rode down on him. He jumped aside and ran, howling. Pagley lifted his animal into a run and headed for Spur. No more fooling, he had to get Spur out of there now.

  Something brushed past his face and stung his cheek and he knew that was a near-miss from an arrow. He was still Indian enough to pray that his medicine would hold good. He ducked low and concentrated on riding.

  His pony started pitching wildly and, glancing around, Pagley saw an arrow sticking out of its rump. He plucked it out and went on. The animal leapt a fire, the dun balked at the flame and refused to come on and there was Pagley
caught up in the fire and fighting the damned dun, shouting at it. A man ran at him from the left, swinging a stone hatchet. Pagley shot him through the chest and he fell into the fire in a shower of sparks. There wasn’t time to see if anybody else was coming for him. He jumped his pony back through the fire, hit the dun hard on the rump with his pistol barrel and yelled at it. It tried to make a break back the way it had come. Pagley fought it around again and drove it toward Spur, thrusting the gun away and drawing his knife.

  A warrior spotted his approach and ran at Spur with a lance to finish him. Spur twisted himself frantically to avoid the thrust and Pagley hurled himself from the back of his still running pony. He and the Kiowa went down in a heap and a flurry of arms and legs. He ripped the knife across the man’s throat, lurched to his feet and jumped for Spur, slashing at the bonds that held his arms around the stake.

  Spur yelled: “Quick, quick.”

  An arrow smacked into the stake.

  Pagley felt that his back was a mile wide and as the upper bonds gave, he stooped and slashed the ankles free.

  Spur collapsed.

  Pagley turned to look for the horses and saw them twenty yards away, all messed up with a collapsing tipi and a half-dozen Indians.

  Men were running at him. He had an impression of vividly painted faces, the bright colors of feathers, wide eyes and mouths, weapons flourished. He transferred his knife to his left hand and yanked out his revolver as fast as he knew how, thumbing and triggering as soon as it was lined up, shooting into the tight wad of savage figures.

  It knocked one over, but it didn’t stop the rest.

  He fired again and never knew if he hit one of them. A club swished through the air and the next moment he was floundering in the dust, unable to get enough strength into his legs to get on his feet. He had dropped his gun, so he slashed out blindly with his knife.

  A man fell on him and he heaved him aside.

  He tried again to get to his feet, a gun went off almost in his ear and a man fell on him, knocking him down again.

  When he tried again to rise, he found that he was pinned to the ground by a lance that had been stabbed through his shirt. His medicine was good still, all right.

  Dimly, he was aware that Spur was on his knees, firing a pistol.

  “Get to the horses,” Pagley yelled, heaved the lance head from the ground and staggered weakly to his feet.

  Spur floundered blindly, waving the gun in an aimless fashion. Pagley looked around for opposition and couldn’t see any. A warrior ran past him carrying a child in his arms without noticing them. Pagley took Spur by the arm and led him in the direction of the ponies. The dun was still raising hell, whinnying wildly and kicking up his heels.

  A mounted man dashed past them, heaved to a slithering halt ten yards ahead of them and between them and their horses, turned and gazed at them in disbelief.

  “Shoot him,” Pagley yelled.

  Spur looked at him in a daze and said: “Huh?”

  The Indian charged, lance leveled.

  Pagley hurled Spur to one side and leapt in the opposite direction. The horseman thundered past, missed his aim at Pagley and halted his horse in a whinnying rear, turning the animal before its forefeet touched the ground. Dust enshrouded them. As soon as the animal was all fours on the ground, the Indian yelled and sent him forward again.

  Lying in the dust, Spur lifted the pistol and fired almost point blank into the horse’s chest. The animal ran on past them and then somersaulted as though it had run into an invisible wire. The rider was catapulted over its head. Almost as soon as he landed, Pagley was up and dragging Spur to his feet.

  “Get on the dun,” he bawled into his ear and launched himself in the direction of the stunned brave. He -missed with the thrust of the knife and reversed the blow with the hilt, knocking the man cold.

  When he ran on toward the horses, Spur was trying to catch the dun. Pagley didn’t waste any time. He ran to his own bay pony, heaved himself into the hull and rode the dun down, catching up the dragging split-rein and leading him back to Spur.

  Looking up, he saw that the wall of flame and smoke was pretty close now. He wondered if the girl had done as he had told her.

  A shot from a muzzle-loader went over his head and he looked up to see the pursuit.

  He edged his horse over beside the dun and leaned over to heave Spur into the saddle by taking a good grip on his hair in the absence of a shirt collar. Spur swore in a blurred sort of way and managed to get a leg over the cantle of the saddle. Pagley took the gun from his hand before he should drop it and put it away. Then he hit the dun across the rump with his hand and they were running the horses on a path parallel to the fire. A covey of Kiowas came after them.

  They hit the timber slopes with the Indians not fifty yards to their rear and Pagley was thankful that repeating rifles were scarce that year in the Kiowa nation.

  The horses scrambled up the rugged slope, the two riders got caught up in branches of trees and the Indians came crashing recklessly after them. In spite of the foliage the great fire made it still light as day among the trees.

  They heard the crackling of the brush fire above the pounding of hoofs and the heaving of the straining ponies. Spur lost all sense of time as he clung to the heaving dun with arms and legs, torn at by branches, thrown against the trunks of trees, his face one moment pressed against the sweating neck of the horse, the next thrown backward as the animal plunged down a short slope only to attack an even steeper one and hurl its rider forward again. He wanted to call a halt, to slip to the ground and stretch out to sleep.

  Pagley was yelling and the dun shied off to one side, nearly unhorsing Spur. He entwined his fingers in the black mane. Something struck him hard in the back and his spine seemed to come up and hit the inside of his skull. He merely clung to his horse the tighter.

  Distantly, he heard a gun fired.

  Somebody was riding close beside him, knee to knee.

  He turned his head and at first thought that it was Pagley, but when he saw the feathers he knew it wasn’t. Pale streaks of paint contoured the cheeks, the eyes were circled with white. White teeth showed bared in a full-throated scream of hate.

  A brown arm painted with zigzag lines was raised.

  There was a dull roar of an explosion and the Indian seemed to be plucked out of sight into some shadow. His shriek of anguish or pain sailed away like a kite on the wind.

  The dun ran on. It seemed it would run forever, run until its heart burst.

  It came heaving from the steep grade and hit a level bench;, running flat on loose stones, kicking them out from under its pounding hoofs. They seemed to be going right along the edge of the fire. The flames licked up at horse and rider. Fear touched Spur briefly. The dun began to slow. It stumbled, regained its footing and came down to a trot.

  Spur pulled up his head on tired neck.

  Ahead, a figure came out of the rocks. The fire glinted on a rifle barrel.

  The dun halted and stood whinnying softly.

  Spur tried to throw himself out of the saddle to escape the shot that must come.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jane was frightened and knew that she had never been as frightened as this in her whole life. As soon as she put a match to the first pile of brush and it flared high, she felt as if she were naked on Main Street in some town. At once she felt a dozen Indian eyes on her.

  She ran quickly to the next pile, toting Spur’s heavy rifle. She laid it down on the grass, hoped desperately that the wind from the north would hold and blow the flames down the tunnel of the valley and struck another lucifer on her finger-nail. The second pile of brush flared as easily as the first. She kicked it with her toe, spreading it into the long parched grass. A great sheet of flame sprang up and she ran on as much to get away from it as to reach the next pile of brush. She had forgotten the rifle and had to go back and get it. She was getting confused in the excitement and knew that she must keep a grip on herself.

&nbs
p; As she ran on, she thought of the children down there in the Indian camp, but she thought too of her man down there in their fathers’ hands.

  Behind her, the flames sprang into a clump of trees and, tinder dry, they caught at once. The sight was an awesome one.

  She continued to the first swell of the valley in the eastern wall and tried to remember the directions that Pagley had given her, his carefully detailed instructions.

  Here there were no piles of brush awaiting her. She tore up dried grass and piled it at the base of a giant clump of living brush and put a match to it. In a minute it was a roaring inferno, sending its lethal tongues of flame running south.

  Sweating, her face black with soot, she scrambled into timber and started climbing.

  After she had climbed a while, she stopped and looked back on the edge of exhaustion. A great wall of flame advanced on hastening feet down the valley.

  A thought hit her.

  Had the shots she heard indeed been Pagley’s signal shots? Or had he run into trouble and the Indians killed him? Was she on her own and therefore did Spur have nobody but her to save him?

  She turned and climbed on, using the rifle as a staff. Slipping, falling to hands and knees, sobbing to herself with tiredness and fright, she struggled up to the first bench so that she was high above the flames.

  And then, when she was ready to drop to the ground and lie till her breath and strength came back, she saw the man.

  He was coming down the hillside at an angle to her, leaping agile as a mountain goat on his bowed legs, caught in sharp outline by the light of the fire. Her frightened eyes took in the buckskin, the fringes and the painted haft of the bow.