Kiowa Trail (1964)

by L'amour, Louis

  The Apache way would be to lie in wait, and shoot them down as they got down from the train. Apaches would have waited until all were off the train and spread out between the station and the saloon.

  Once again I got up and walked around the area. There was plenty of cover for such an attack: the old stable, the saloon itself, the side-tracked box cars, the stacks of meadow-cut hay, the watering trough.

  When I went back Gallardo, Mason, and D’Artaguette were rolled up in their blankets and asleep on the floor. Flanagan was leaving as I walked in.

  “Irishman,” I said, “you wouldn’t be wiring back up the line now, would you? To warn those men?”

  “Mister, this is your fight, not mine. You’re in it, and whatever you do is your own business so long as you damage no railroad property and injure no passengers.”

  “Does that include those Bald Knobbers?”

  “When they leave the train,” he said, “they cease to be my affair. I’ll take no hand one way or the other.”

  “If you ever decide to try punching cows,” I said, “come down to the Tumbling B. We’ll find a place for you.”

  He walked out, and I let him go. Meharry had been watching, and Rowdy Lynch came over to join us. They had nothing to say, but I knew what they wanted to know. They wanted to know what we planned to do, and I couldn’t tell them. I simply hadn’t the slightest idea of how to handle it.

  And then suddenly I did know.

  Chapter 9

  The last stars hung in the sky when the train whistle called across the empty prairie and the low grass-covered hills. A huge old buffalo bull, half blind from the thick wool grown down over his eyes, lifted his huge head and stared stupidly off into the night, then rumbled a questioning challenge in his broad chest.

  After a while, in the distance the train’s headlight showed briefly against a far-off hill, and then there was the sound of rushing wheels, and again the long call of the whistle.

  The train drew nearer and the big drivers slowed, brakes screeched, and the train rumbled to a halt alongside the station.

  A light glowed from the fly-specked window of the telegraph-office window, but the saloon was dark, except for the lantern that hung over the door.

  Men descended to the platform, stretching and looking around, men heavy from their uncomfortable sleep in the cramped seats of the coaches, peering doubtfully around in the unfamiliar dark.

  Their eyes made out a hint of welcome in the letters faintly revealed by the feeble glow of the lantern - four letters plainly visible, and the suggestion of a fifth:

  ALOON

  “There she is, boys! Lets have a drink!” The speaker started across the intervening space, and several more trailed after him, stumbling a little from the stiffness in their muscles from the long train ride.

  The others remained for a few moments on the platform, peering about, and then they started to follow.

  One man bent over, shielding his hand against the glass, trying to peer into the station window.

  The first man to arrive at the saloon began to pound on the door. “Halloo, in there! Open up!” All was silent.

  Suddenly somebody spoke, his voice loud in the stillness. “I smell smoke!”

  As if on signal, the nearest of the haystacks burst into flame, a tremendous sheet of flame billowing up from loosened dry hay at the bottom and along the side of the stack. As one man they turned to stare, astonished at the unexpected development.

  And in that instant, from behind them, came the ominous sound of gun-hammers drawn back; and after that slight warning, I said, just loud enough for all to hear: “Unless you boys want to die right where you stand, drop your hardware and lift your hands!” They had been staring into the flames, and had they turned back to face us, they would have been momentarily blinded, unable to find their targets in the darkness.

  We had them cold turkey, and they knew it. Had they been less than what they were, some of them might have been killed, but they were fighting men and they knew enough to stand when caught fairly.

  Only three of us were there, but two held shotguns, the Colt revolving shotguns, and at the distance the execution would have been a fearful thing.

  Battery Mason and D’Artaguette had moved down on the train, taking the last few who lingered on the station platform. And so, without a shot being fired, we took the men I had feared would destroy us. And we had taken them much as an Apache would - and as they had done, I recalled, on several occasions.

  We gathered their weapons, loaded them into their ammunition and supply wagon, and hitched up their horses. Their saddle stock, brought along for immediate use, we simply turned loose on the prairies. The supplies we left at the saloon.

  The hired fighters were herded intothe thick-walled stables and were left under the guard of D’Artaguette, Gallardo, and Battery Mason.

  The gunmen were to be fed from their own supplies; and after four days the three men I left behind were simply to ride off and leave them. Flanagan or the saloonkeeper could free them when they wished.

  With Lynch driving the wagon, we started back for our own camp. We drove far into the night. As we had started late, the moon was already low before we drew near the town.

  I pulled back alongside the wagon. “Rowdy,” I said, “you swing wide and come up on the camp. If you hear any shooting, or things look bad, pull up and wait until daybreak. We’ll find you.”

  “You go ahead,” Rowdy said. “I can look out for myself.” But he was worried.

  With Meharry beside me, I struck out at a fast run across the plains. What worried me was that there was no sound, nor was there any sign of a fire. But when we drew near we saw the town was ablaze with lights, as many as if the evening had just begun on the day a cattle drive moved into the town’s area.

  “Conn!” Meharry caught my arm. “Look!”

  It was a dead steer … and beyond it there was another, then five or six. Suddenly he swore, and backed off his horse. Before us was a tangle of barbed wire, dead cattle, ripped-out posts, and torn-up ground.

  The herd must have hit that wire at full tilt, and our boys must have opened up on them to turn or stop the stampede.

  Fear turned me cold. My skin crawled with it. For the first time in my life I felt real fear - the bitter, awful fear you feel when someone you love has been destroyed, lost beyond recall. For I knew that the men who had shot down Tom Lundy because he came calling on a girl would not hesitate to kill his sister.

  We walked our horses slowly toward the knoll, hoping desperately for a challenge. And there was none.

  Suddenly, almost before we wished to, we topped out on a rise.

  Here, too, there were dead steers, a perfect mound of them. And beyond them the burned-out skeleton of what had been Kate’s ambulance.

  “Conn,” Meharry said in a voice torn with emotion, “there’s a body here.”

  He swung down, bending over close. “Cold,” he whispered. He’s been dead a while.”

  Then he stood up. “It’s Will Joyce, one of Pollock’s men.”

  Dismounting, I walked on with him, and a bit further on we found Van Kimberly. Van was one of our own Tumbling B boys, one who had stayed with Tod Mulloy to cover Tom’s leaving of town the day he spoke to Linda McDonald.

  We found a dead horse, the remains of a campfire, some stacked-up and burned bedrolls.

  The townsmen had stampeded the herd against our wire, and then over the camp. And they had followed along to kill whoever remained.

  On the further slope of the hill we found another of Pollock’s men, recognizable only because of the Lazy P burned into his holster. He had been trampled to death by the herd.

  “She isn’t here, Conn,” Meharry said in a low voice. “She got away.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No use looking on the other side of town. If there was anybody over there, they’d still be fighting.”

  “McDonald might have pulled off at dark.”

  “We’d have heard shoo
ting, Conn. This fight is hours old.”

  He was right, of course, and if any of our lot had been left alive they would have pulled out.

  For where? For the new town, Hackamore, of course. Priest and Naylor were there, and the rest of Matt Pollock’s outfit.

  “Conn … they are loading wagons down there.” Meharry was staring off toward the town. “I can tell by the way the lanterns are moving.”

  “Pulling out?”

  Meharry hesitated, as if making up his mind. “No, Conn, I think they are going to hit the new town. There are too many rifles down there … every time one of those lanterns passes a man I can catch the glint of metal. If they could wipe out Hackamore, they might recover the business they’ve lost.”

  We would need every man, then, need them desperately, and three of my best men were back there guarding the imported gunmen.

  I made up my mind suddenly. “Meharry, ride back and tell Rowdy what’s happened. Tell him to swing wide around the town and head for Hackamore. He’ll be alone, so tell him to be damned careful. There will be Indians to think of, too.”

  “All right.” But he hesitated. “Maybe I should stay with him. We could use those guns and ammunition at Hackamore.”

  “We’ll need the men even more. You’ve got two horses. Ride like the devil.”

  Meharry gripped his Winchester. “Conn … a shot into one of those lanterns might give them plenty to do.”

  “No.” I will admit I was reluctant to say it. “We’re not fighting women and children. Besides, Kate would never stand for it.”

  Meharry knew how I felt about Kate, but he said, “Conn, do you think she’s alive?”

  For a moment I was shaken by a terrible fear, a fear that was washed out in a frightening wave of fury such as I had never felt before.

  “If they’ve killed Kate,” I said. “I’ll personally hunt down every man of them and kill them where they stand.”

  Meharry gathered his reins. “I’ll hurry, Conn,” he said, and was off into the darkness, leaving me alone among the torn bodies of the unfortunate cattle, and near the fallen men who had given their lives. We would return to bury them. There was no time now if other men were not to die, for Hackamore was believing itself safe.

  First, I dismounted and switched saddles. The weapons of the dead men had been taken, their pockets rifled. But all wore belts of ammunition that we might need, so I stripped off the belts and hung them around the saddle horn. I remounted and, leading my spare horse, I started off into the night.

  Soon I must rest, but first I needed distance between myself and the town. I needed to feel that I was on my way.

  By day I might have read the tracks and known what had happened on that hill, but now there was nothing to do but strike out toward the west, and hope the survivors of the attack had made it through.

  Four miles west and south of the town I rode up to a slough, dismounted, and picketed the horses on the grass in the bottom of the hollow. Then I retreated into the edge of the tall reeds and, wrapped in my blanket to keep the mosquitoes off my face, I went to sleep.

  With the first gray light I was once more in the saddle and headed west.

  All around me was the vast sea of grass, the gray-green untouched miles where only buffalo and antelope grazed, unmarked except by a wandering Indian and the twin tracks of his travois. Steadily, I rode on, keeping off the sky lines, and watching my back trail with care.

  Here and there I saw buffalo tracks, usually in twos and threes, heading south. At noon I switched horses, took a couple of swallows of water, and bit off a chunk of jerked beef to chew as I rode.

  A faint wind blew from the south, the sky was very clear, and there was no sound except the drum of my own horses’ hoofs on the ground. Once, circling around a butte, I left the horses in a hollow where they would be visible to me, and scaled the butte to look over the country.

  It was a vast emptiness, that stretched in every direction - only the grass bending before the wind in long waves like the sea, only the faint sound of the wind brushing over the miles of whispering grass.

  If all went well, I would reach Hackamore sometime tomorrow. McDonald and his crowd, coming from the town, would need much longer, with their wagons. But even as I thought of that, I realized they would not wait for the slow-moving wagons, which would carry only supplies to be used later, in the event the fight lasted longer than the initial attack. They would undoubtedly mount a large party of horsemen who would push right through to the attack.

  Shortly before sundown I rode down into a small hollow, choked with willows and brush, where there was a trickle of water from a spring. After watering my horses, I staked them out, refilled my canteen, and switched saddles again. Tired as I was, there was no time for sleep.

  With a boot in the stirrup, about to step into the saddle, I heard something stirring in the willows.

  Instantly, I was on the ground, my Winchester at the ready. There was silence.

  Glancing at my two horses, I saw their ears were pricked and their nostrils flaring. I spoke to them gently and moved ahead, walking with care to make no noise. Peering through the leaves, I saw a saddle horse cropping grass not fifty feet away.

  I returned for my own horses and led them forward, alert for the rider. But when we came into sight, the horse looked up quickly, then came toward us at a rapid trot, whinnying.

  The horse was a sorrel from our own remuda, wearing the brand of the Tumbling B. The saddle was Kate Lundy’s saddle, and there was blood on the pommel.

  My mouth felt suddenly dry. Gathering up the reins, I mounted my own horse and started forward, back-tracking the horse.

  The tracks led back up to the prairie, and as it seemed that I might have to ride some distance, I rigged a lead rope for Kate’s horse, and started on again.

  There was little daylight remaining. The sun was going down and there would be a brief twilight. And when darkness came I could go no further, but must wait until it was light enough to see tracks again in the grass.

  The horse had trotted here, walked there, stopped to crop grass, then had started on again. It was a once-wild mustang that we had captured and broke to ride ourselves, and he was no stranger to wild country.

  The light faded. I stood up in my stirrups and my eyes searched the ground, but I saw nothing. No one standing, no one walking, no body lying on the grass.

  In the distance, along the horizon, clouds were forming … thunder clouds. The air was growing closer, heavier. I moved on, riding parallel to the faint trail. Glancing ahead, I saw the trail across the grass like a faint silver streamer lying along the ground and, touching a spur to my horse, I rode on at a gallop.

  The clouds were piling up rapidly. One of them gleamed suddenly with far-off lightning.

  If the rain came before I found her, the trail would be washed out In all this vast sweep of prairie there would be no hope of finding Kate Lundy.

  Suddenly, from the southeast, another trail appeared … three unshod ponies. That meant Indians.

  Drawing rein, I looked around carefully. With three horses and my weapons, I offered a rare prize for any Indians, and in this country, at this time, they would probably be Kiowas, the most feared of all the tribes of the southern plains.

  The Indians had paused too, studying the lone trail they had come upon. They had ridden along it, one Indian going one way, the others the other. Quickly they had made up their minds - this was a lone, riderless horse.

  The rider was somewhere to the east and south, and that was the way they had gone.

  Swearing wildly, I spurred my horse and rode desperately into the night, down into a hollow, up over a rise. Those Indians had found the trail within the last hour.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance … lightning flashed. A long wind rustled the grass.

  Suddenly I topped out on a rise and looked upon a strange tableau.

  Kate Lundy stood alone in the midst of a wide open space, facing three Indians. She was standing very str
aight and facing them, and they were staring at her. Now they turned suddenly to look at me. None of them wore paint. One of them had an antelope behind his saddle.

  Slowing my pace, my rifle ready in my right hand, I rode down to them.

  They looked at me, then at the saddled horse. Any Indian would know at once it was the horse they had been tracking. “How!” I said.

  “How!” they replied. And then one of them pointed a rifle at Kate. “You squaw?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  They looked at me with respect. “Brave warrior!” one of them grunted, his eyes seeming almost to twinkle a little. “Heap brave!”

  Then, wheeling their horses, they rode off over the plains, whooping and yelling.

  “What did you do to them, Kate?” I asked.

  Her face was very pale, and there was blood on her left sleeve and on the side of her dress, for she had been wounded in the arm. “I told them I was not alone … that I had run away from my husband and he was following me.”

  One of them, she added, had started toward her and she had produced a knife … her only weapon … and told him she would cut his heart out if he touched her.

  Obviously they were a hunting party, looking for no trouble, and had been amused by her courage in facing them. Had she shown the slightest fear, the situation would have been otherwise.

  Swinging down, I caught her as she staggered. Her legs stiffened under her. “Conn … I’m afraid I’m going to faint.”

  “You?” I was appalled. “I don’t believe you know how!”

  And at my words she laughed weakly, but she did not faint.

  The clouds were piling higher. “Kate, we’ve got to find shelter. That’s going to be one hell of a storm.”

  When she was in the saddle I started to tie her in place, but she pushed my hands away. “I can still ride!” she protested.

  The only shelter I knew of was in the hollow from which I had lately come. There was a sort of cave there under the thick branches of a gnarled old tree, half torn from the earth in some long-ago storm. Willows grew close around, and there was shelter there for both of us and for the horses.