The War Wagon

by Clair Huffaker

  Taw carried Charley Hill's body from the bench and laid it on the sorrel's back behind Iron Eyes. The horse's hind legs almost slipped out from under it at the new weight, but it caught itself and stood, rolling its eyes and trembling slightly at the scent of death.

  Tying the second man, Taw said, "I hate to do this to you, Charley, but I'd guess you'd say to go ahead."

  The men secure on the sorrel, Taw swung open the rear warehouse door, mounted his pinto and took the Indian pony's rein as a lead line. Keeping the warehouse between him and the town beyond, he rode at a fast, mud-splattering lope into the pouring rain.

  Once he saw a group of riders far off to his right. He twisted the paint into an eight-foot-deep wash, the sorrel slipping down through the mud after him. When Taw emerged into sight after the wash ran out, the plateau where he'd seen the men was empty.

  For a time, Taw rode slowly, his eyes searching intently among the rock formations along his trail, probing with special care at tiny ledges and overhangs that would afford a patch of dry earth underneath. Four times he dismounted and overturned large, flat stones. On the fifth try he found what he wanted, and after placing it in his saddlebag carefully, he rode on.

  Suddenly, from the pony beside him, there came a furious shriek. The sorrel tried to rear, but was brought down as the rein stretched taut. The paint shied away briefly and Taw dragged the Indian pony unwillingly beside it.

  The big man shouted again, twisting and writhing desperately against his ropes, driving the already frightened sorrel to plunge and fight against the rein.

  "Be still," Taw said, "or I'll break your head."

  "Where are we?" Iron Eyes cramped his neck in an effort to lift his head high enough to see around him.

  "Almost where we're going."

  "When are you going to kill me?"

  "I'm not going to kill you, Iron Eyes."

  Thirty minutes later, Taw made out two distant horsemen standing against the gray sky at the top of a gentle slope. He rode forward for a time after they'd disappeared, then pulled his paint to a stop in the middle of a flat, open space and waited.

  Twenty Sioux warriors appeared where the first two had been. They conferred among themselves, then rode unhurriedly down toward the open flat.

  As they came near, Taw tied the sorrel's rein to his pommel and raised his left arm. With his right, he pulled his Colt and aimed it at the back of Iron Eyes' head. "I would speak with Wolf-with-Spots," he called. "He will come to me alone here, or I will kill his brother Eyes-of-Iron."

  "Does Eyes-of-Iron still live?" a short, thick-set brave asked.

  "I live!" Iron Eyes shouted. "Bring Wolf-with-Spots!"

  "Tell him he must come alone," Taw repeated.

  The Indians rode away, most of them waiting at the crest of the hill while a few disappeared beyond it.

  When Spotted Wolf arrived, nearly forty more warriors were with him. The braves sat their horses quietly on the hill and the chief rode his big blue roan down to Taw at a quick trot.

  Pulling to a stop a few feet away he said, "You were a friend of my brother Eyes-of-Iron when last I met you."

  "Your brother is the friend of no man, Wolf-with-Spots. Least of all friend to you. He pointed a finger to your son so that a hidden white man would shoot him."

  "He lies!" Iron Eyes roared, raising his head futilely to see the chief. "I would do no such thing to Runs-toward-the-Enemy. You know that, Wolf-with-Spots!"

  The chiefs face hardened. "Is this foolish thing what you have come to tell me?"

  "Does the white man who gave himself to you still live?"

  Spotted Wolf looked through the rain at the dark sky above. "He will never see the sun again. Even now the women are softening his body with sharp sticks, preparing him for the torment he will endure this night."

  Taw deliberately and slowly lifted the gun aimed at Iron Eyes and put it back in its holster. "I know you will listen to me with the ear of wisdom, Wolf-with-Spots. Do you not wonder why the bridge disappeared with the white man's thunder?"

  "The men on the iron wagon made the thunder to protect themselves."

  "Leaving all their friends behind?" Taw shook his head thoughtfully. "The iron wagon carried as much gold as ten strong horses can carry. Eyes-of-Iron and others wanted that gold. You helped them get it."

  "Will you listen to such talk from a white man's forked tongue?" Iron Eyes shouted. "Tell your braves to surround him so you will be safe from harm, Wolf-with-Spots!"

  Taw swung down from saddle and pulled the sorrel around so that Iron Eyes was hanging on the side near him and Spotted Wolf. "Eyes-of-Iron speaks of a forked tongue. Perhaps a forked tongue will bring us to the truth. I say Eyes-of-Iron helped a white kill Runs-toward-the-Enemy. If this is true, will you give me your living prisoner for Eyes-of-Iron and a dead white man?" Taw touched Charley Hill's back. "This one was a great warrior, a hundred times greater than the one who shot Runs-toward-the-Enemy. His scalp will bring great wisdom to the lodge it hangs before." Taw looked at Spotted Wolf steadily. "If Eyes-of-Iron pointed his finger, will you trade?"

  The Sioux chief stared from the back of Iron Eyes' head to Taw. He nodded almost imperceptibly.

  Taw took down his saddlebags and untied the flap of one pocket. Holding it away from him, he dumped a small rattler out onto the ground. It sprang immediately into a tight knot of coils, its rattles whirring viciously as it weaved its blunt head up in the rain.

  Iron Eyes raised as high as he could and saw the coiled serpent from his upside-down position. He screamed a long, high scream, then bit savagely at the sorrel's side to stampede her. Taw grabbed the rein and the pony wheeled sideways until she bumped into the pinto, jarring Iron Eyes' teeth loose from their grip.

  Taw put his boot out toward and above the snake and it struck, sinking its fangs into the heel before it fell to the earth. Before it could coil again, Taw's boot was on it, just behind the head. He picked it up and held it under Iron Eyes' face. The breed bent his neck up and backwards until it was almost at right angles to his spine.

  "Massasauga," Taw said. "The smallest death snake with the gray lines." He held the tiny, squirming head closer to the petrified Indian. "Is what I say true?"

  Iron Eyes broke instantly. "Yes!" he shrieked. "It is true! True! Take massasauga away!"

  Taw's hand didn't move. "Tell Wolf-with-Spots what happened so he will know you are not simply saying this in fear."

  "I said we should go hunting! I said I had seen deer at a certain spot where the white man was waiting! I raised my hand near Runs-toward-the-Enemy so that the white man would know which brave to shoot!"

  Taw removed the rattler. He tossed it several feet, and as its looping body struck the ground it began to glide swiftly away.

  Taw turned to the chief. "You will trade?"

  "I will trade." Spotted Wolf rode toward his braves and two of them came down to meet him.

  Taw unclasped his jackknife and cut the ropes holding Iron Eyes and Charley Hill to the sorrel. They slid to the earth, where the half-breed lay quaking with fear.

  In a few minutes a dun pony came over the hill, its rider hauling a naked man on foot who pitched at an awkward, stumbling run behind.

  Spotted Wolf took the line from the brave on the dun and walked his horse out to where Taw waited. Taw cut the rawhide noose around the man's neck and the other strands holding his hands behind his back. His entire, swollen body was covered with thousands of tiny cuts. His eyes were puffed shut and his enlarged tongue protruded slightly from his lips. "Can you hear me?" Taw asked him.

  The man nodded his head once painfully.

  "Can you talk?"

  One shake of the head.

  Taw moved Cuttler toward the sorrel, and with his help the man finally got onto the pony's back.

  Iron Eyes sat up in the mud, his eyes wide in terror. He pointed a trembling hand at Taw. "His brother killed Runs-toward-the-Enemy!" he shouted. "Not this dead white man!"

  "The bargain
is made," Spotted Wolf said calmly. "You pointed your finger at my son. That is the thing that matters most to me. Then you pointed your finger at this innocent white man."

  "I did not kill your son!"

  "Whatever else the elders and the medicine man shall decide to do with you, Eyes-of-Iron, in the last moment before your life spirit has left your body, you shall be buried deep in the ground, in a hole containing as many angry massasauga as there are fingers on your hands to point with."

  Taw rode away from the open flat at a walk, leading the sorrel with the tortured, naked man clinging to its neck. There was a last wailing cry behind him as the warriors surrounded Iron Eyes.

  After they were far away from the Sioux, Taw stopped and got down from his paint. He burrowed his fingers into the soaked ground and put the handful of mud into the other man's hand. "Here, Cuttler. Hold this to your eyes. I'll get more when the rain washes this away."

  It was slow going. More than an hour later Taw looked at a distant hill and saw several horsemen in formation moving in a southeasterly direction. Cavalry. He fell back even with Cuttler and said, "You're going to be in good hands now. The U.S. Army is up ahead a way. They've spotted us now, and they're swinging this way. You'll be able to see in two or three days. You'll be all right. Just sit here and wait."

  He started to move away and the hurt man shook his head frantically, his hands suddenly trembling. Taw touched his shoulder and spoke softly. "Don't be scared. They'll be along in ten minutes. I'll be riding back the other way, so no one else will be able to get to you. Just sit quiet and wait."

  He turned the pinto and loped back toward a hill to the south. When he topped the rise, he turned and saw the cavalry not far from where the naked man crouched down over the neck of the sorrel pony.

  Circling back toward Pawnee Fork, Taw cut far to the west. He would have circled even farther but his westward arc was interrupted by a creek that the heavy rains had turned temporarily into a raging, snarling torrent of rushing water.

  A rough wagon trail was midway down the steep, forty-foot bank, running parallel with the pounding current. Taw followed the top of the bank half an hour before leaving the sight of the river where it bent into a mammoth S-curve. He would never have turned back except for the furious cursing that came from the wagon trail over the sounds of both river and rain.

  Riding cautiously back to the edge of the bank, he looked over and saw a wagon stuck downstream in the mud of the pathway below. It was an eight-hitch team of mules. The long, low wagon was covered with a flat, tight tarp.

  From the high-pitched cursing that came from behind the wagon, Taw knew the driver was Snyder before he saw him. And something Charley Hill had said came back to Taw. "I bought one of Snyder's two old army wagons." Taw realized suddenly that the storekeeper had somehow switched the matching wagons, leaving one of them in Pawnee Fork and getting out of town with the other, the one with the gold.

  Snyder was out of view working on the right front wheel, which had sunk deep in the mud near the twenty-foot drop to the rushing water below. He was crying insanely, repeating curses over and over again in a shrill, penetrating scream.

  As he started to climb onto the wagon seat, he saw the motionless rider staring down at him from above. It was doubtful if he even recognized Taw. Someone was watching him, was aware of his actions. That was all he knew or cared. Taw heard "Go away! Go away!" piercing through the sounds of rumbling and falling water, and Snyder leaped to the driver's seat, lashing the mules brutally. They lunged forward, and the right front wheel rolled up suddenly, free of the deep groove it had been in. Still whipping the straining animals like a madman, Snyder beat them at last into a run.

  At the first bend in the curving trail, the storekeeper steered the mules too wide. The outside wheels skidded too close to the edge of the bank and the wet, weakened earth gave way under the weight of the wagon. Snyder was jolted out of the wagon as the rear axle thudded heavily onto the mud. Sticking far out over the bank, the outside wheels were still turning slowly as the wagon slipped down until most of the weight extended out over the torrent below. Then the inside wheels raised up and the wagon turned over and plunged down, wheels up, toward the roaring stream.

  The front connecting rod snapped in the twisting motion and the freed mules continued around the bend and out of sight. On his knees near the edge of the bank where he had been thrown, Snyder watched dumbly as the overturned wagon smashed down in a thundering crash that sent monstrous walls of water flying into the air and exposed for an instant the white rocks beneath the water.

  The upturned wagon bottom was shattered by the force of the fall, but parts of the framework held together and the wagon shifted slightly before clinging to the rocks below, only its wheels showing above the surface. All sixteen barrels were splintered or smashed.

  The speeding gray water rushing through, over and around the wagon in a swift torrent, became frothed and foamy with the white of spilling flour as it continued in its roaring downstream flight. Then the churning water slowly changed from white to muddy gold, turning almost bright yellow where the stream ran swift and shallow.

  Snyder leaped over the ledge above and plunged down through the twenty-foot drop. As he hit the water, one leg twisted and shot out from under him. Hopping on the leg he could still use, and grasping for support at the few tips of rocks above water, he fought his way through the waist-deep, booming current to below the wagon. He clawed at the ruddy gold water with his hands, clutching wildly at the stream where the swirling color was richest.

  Then the spuming torrent shifted the wagon again and sent it smashing against him. Snyder disappeared. He was tossed, rolling and helpless, to the surface about fifty feet farther down. Then he went under one final time where the river banks narrowed and the water ran deep.

  Chapter Ten

  UNAWARE of his own movement, Taw stepped down from the saddle and stared woodenly at the once more gray, rushing water below. Before he turned to remount, the last signs of the wagon had disappeared as it was pummeled and pounded to pieces in the furious, rumbling flood.

  The pinto raised its head and walked, faintly disturbed at the total lack of direction from its rider. Wandering aimlessly, the paint traveled at a slow pace, moving wherever its curiosity prompted it.

  The rain had stopped when the pinto found a blanket of sweetgrass growing huddled up against the side of a steep, overhanging rock wall. It nuzzled down into the gleaming wet blades of green, its ears resting back in a line with the contented stretch of its neck.

  Taw slid down and sat on a damp rock, staring out across the sloping plains before him, his chin and arms resting across his knees. After a long while he reached down near the horse's working mouth and snapped off a stem of grass. He stuck it between his lips, chewing the inner end slowly with his teeth.

  The rain had now stopped for good. The black clouds above were thinning into light patches of gray, and the general position of the sun could be made out by the brighter color filling the low eastern sky.

  Taw said, "You know, horse, there's times when you have to hold damned tight to your sense of proportion. Times when the only right thing to do seems to be to take a good look down a gun barrel and pull the trigger."

  The paint cocked an inquisitive eye up at him, but didn't miss a beat in its rhythmic munching of grass.

  "You God-damned stupid fool horse," Taw continued mildly. "You'd be just as happy one way or the other, whether you had saddlebags loaded with greenbacks or empty, just so long as you could find yourself a clump of grass somewheres.

  "And damned if that ain't a better outlook than most. You take poor old Iron Eyes along about now. Or Snyder, or old Charley Hill. None of them would be interested enough to give two hoots in hell for all the gold they ever found in this territory.

  "So you take a fellow sitting here like me right now. I got all the air I want to breathe, and a blade of grass to chew on. I don't hurt, except a little where that damned half-breed spurre
d me on the shoulder. I guess compared to them I'm well off."

  Taw reached under his buckskin jacket and into his shirt. Two cigars had been crushed. The third was still in shape and dry. Taw flicked his thumbnail over a match and put a flame to the tobacco. "Hell," he muttered, shaking out the flame of the match. "I even got a smoke. That's moving into a standard of downright luxury."

  Night had fallen and a few stars were showing in timid, tiny clusters across the sky when Taw rode into view of the lights of Pawnee Fork.

  Taw tied the pinto's reins to one of the slender porch columns in front of Christine's house. Indoors he found the foyer dimly lighted by a kerosene lamp burning in the parlor. The parlor was empty. The rest of the house was dark. "Jess? Christine?" he called. There was no answer.

  Taw walked to town and found it subdued and quiet after the excitement of the day, the streets nearly empty. He went into a restaurant and the waiter brought him a thick slice of beef and boiled potatoes. The other customers had grown silent, he realized, and were watching him whenever he turned away. The waiter stared out the window and Taw followed his open gaze. Sheriff Wiley and two deputies, one of them carrying a shotgun, were passing by on the walk outside.

  The waiter swung around to look at Taw, then dropped his eyes and hurried toward another table when he saw Taw watching him.

  After he'd finished eating, Taw went out to the street and started back toward the house. On the way he stopped off at a saloon for a drink. The bartender was in an argument with two men who were leaning against the bar as Taw moved up to it a few feet away from them.