“Three days maybe, for the cows. The Pawnee filled his cup and Chantry shared the food from his saddlebags. “If there is no trouble.”
“Where is the herd?”
Sun Chief pointed. “Where the creek begins. The creek called Caddoa.”
Knowing nothing of that creek, Chantry inquired, “How far from here?”
The Pawnee gestured toward the north. “Not far. I show you.”
The campsite the Indian had chosen was a good one. It was under the edge of a cut that dropped off to a creek bed, but was some twenty feet back from the river and at least ten feet above it. There would have been room for one more man and his horse.
When the Indian had smoked he crawled into his blankets, and only then did he tell Chantry one last thing. “There are Kiowas at Big Timbers. The Cheyennes and Arapahoes have gone.”
Kiowas at Big Timbers? And Big Timbers lay between his herd and the railroad. If the Cheyennes and Arapahoes had left such a favorable camping ground there must be a reason. Were the Kiowas planning an attack in which the others did not want to be involved?
Big Timbers…why did the name sound a bell? Perhaps because of a story his father had told him long ago, or some chance phrase remembered from a conversation in his home when men had talked of the far plains and the shining mountains, the forests where no man had walked. The name had a special sound to it. Big Timbers…?
At breakfast they ate jerky and drank coffee, Chantry inquired about Big Timbers, and listened to Sun Chief tell in a few phrases what he knew.
“Big trees…what you call alamo…cottonwood. Fourteen miles long it was, but many cut for logs or fires…no brush around…only grass. Springs and streams…a place the Indian likes. Big powwows held there…fights, too. It is a good place.
So it undoubtedly was, but the trouble-hunting Kiowas had taken away its charm for Tom Chantry.
They had ridden no more than a mile in the morning sunlight when Sun Chief pointed across the tawny slopes at black dots circling against the pale sky. “Buzzards. Something dead.”
“Or dying,” Chantry said. “We will see.”
They rode on, their horses’ hoofs beating on the drying turf. When they topped out on the rise below the buzzards they saw a man’s body, stripped and bloody lying in the hollow beyond.
Riding down swiftly, they drew up close to it. Streaked with bloody gashes, it lay there, an ugly thing under the flat sky.
Tom Chantry passed the reins to Sun Chief and stepped down, fighting his repugnance. He turned the body over. It was Paul, and he was not dead. His body twitched and his fluttering eyes opened wide.
“I did not even see them,” he said distinctly. “It was sundown, and I was looking for you.”
“We’ll take you to the herd,” Chantry said. “They’re pretty handy with wounds.”
Paul’s eyes stared blankly. “I shouldn’t have listened to her. I should never have come. I never wanted money that much, but she did. She wanted money, or she wanted blood…I was never sure.”
Chantry knelt and started to slip an arm under him.
“No!”
He stopped, waiting, but whatever Paul had been about to say was smothered in the blood that came from his mouth. He rolled over on his side, choking and gasping. “No,” he managed again…and died.
Chantry pulled a handful of dry grass and wiped the blood from his fingers. He looked at the body, and then walked to his horse.
He started to speak. “If we had a shovel…”
“No time,” Sun Chief said. “We ride.”
He pointed. Two hills away were Indians, a dozen of them, coming toward them.
Chantry turned his mount, and riding beside each other, they moved away, trotting their horses, not running them.
The Indians came on riding faster now. Chantry drew his rifle from the scabbard, letting them see the shine of it.
“No shoot,” Sun Chief said, but he was showing his own rifle.
The Indians came up to the body and drew up, looking after them.
They saw the fire before they reached the cattle. The herd was bunched for the night, and the men were around the chuck wagon, except for those on night herd and one man on a high knoll as lookout.
The herd was bunched in the open, the remuda held near a small patch of trees and brush.
Helvie was first to see Chantry. He looked from Chantry to Sun Chief, and back again. “Figured we’d seen the last of you,” he said dryly. “What happened?”
“I got dry-gulched,” Chantry answered.
“It wasn’t him,” Helvie said quickly. “He ain’t left the herd.”
“Didn’t think it was. That doesn’t seem to be his style.”
“You’re smarter’n I thought.”
French Williams was standing near the fire, watching as they rode in. “Howdy!” he said. “Better eat up. We’re making a night drive.”
“Where to?”
“South and west. There’s a bunch of Kiowas north of here.”
“Heard of them.” Chantry poured coffee. “They got you buffaloed?”
Williams turned his head quickly. “No. It’s the wisest thing to do, that’s all.”
Chantry sipped his coffee. “They know you’re here,” he said, “so you aren’t fooling anybody. They can catch up any time they’ve a mind to. And,” he added, “there’s bunches of Indians south of here, too.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“Go north,” Chantry said, “right past Big Timbers. No sense in letting them think we’re afraid of them.”
“All right,” Williams replied carelessly. “It might just work. If they ride out to talk, you going to make palaver with them?”
“I might,” Chantry replied.
“You do it,” Williams said. “I’d like to see how an eastern gent gets along with Indians.” He glanced at Sun Chief. “Where’d you find him?”
“He’s been working for me right along,” Chantry answered calmly. “He was one of Frank North’s Pawnee scouts.”
“I know him,” French Williams said. “He’s a damn good man.”
Suddenly a thought came to Chantry. “French,” he asked, “does anybody want you dead?”
“Me? Maybe fifty people. Why?”
“Somebody tried to kill me, somebody I don’t know. I don’t have any enemies that I can think of and nobody stands to gain if I die.”
“Why tie it to me?”
“There was a mention that if I was dead there’d only be one more. Now, I don’t share anything with anybody but you.”
“The herd?”
Chantry shrugged. “I can’t think of anything else.”
“What about your pa? Somebody killed him. With you back west again they might think you’ve come out here to wind that up.”
“It isn’t likely. That was a long time ago.”
Both of them were silent for a minute, and Tom listened abstractedly to the mutter of conversation around the fire.
“Anyway,” he added, “the girl wanted money. That’s what Paul said.”
“Paul?”
“The girl called him that.” Then, concisely, Chantry told his experiences of the past few days: the dry gulching, his escape, the attempted killing in Trinidad…and Sparrow.
“What’s he doing in this?” French Williams asked. “I don’t figure Sparrow.”
“He said he wanted to see how I’d manage without using a gun.”
“That don’t make sense. I know Sparrow. He’s a no-time-for-fooling-around man. I never knew him to do anything like this before.” French looked at him quickly. “Is he any relation of yours?”
“No.”
“Then it certainly don’t make sense. Unless,” he added, “he figures to pick up the herd himself.”
Chantry got up and threw the dregs of his coffee into the buffalo-chip fire. “I think it concerns you and me,” he said, “and nobody else.”
As he walked to the wagon for his bedroll, he glanced at the men, somber ov
er their coffee, speaking little, their rough-hewn, unshaven faces thrown into relief by the firelight. They were a solid, capable lot. Even the bad ones were good men with the cattle, hard workers to a man…Suddenly, for the first time he felt a kinship with these men who shared with him what would in the East be considered as nothing less than an adventure. Here it was the day’s work, and little different from any other day’s.
All of them knew the Kiowas were out there, and every man among them knew the Kiowas for fearless, dreaded fighters, yet they were prepared to ride on, right past their encampment—or through it if necessary.
Some of these men were of a sort he might never have encountered had he not come west, and they were, in some cases, men whom he would not have chosen for friends, but when trouble showed they would be men who would stand by until death, if need be. For the first time he clearly understood what Sparrow had told him, what Lambert meant, and the others who had tried to tell him what the West was like.
These were hard, lonely men, driven by no man knew what impulses, what secret dreams or thoughts, and they came from all walks of life, all kinds of backgrounds. There was no pattern beyond the one of hardihood and courage.
“You know, French,” he said, when he went back to the fire, “no matter how it turns out, I’ll have learned a lot on this trip. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”
French looked up, a sudden smile on his face. “Maybe we’ll ride another trail, my friend, another trail besides this. You’ve come a long way since that night in Cimarron.”
Yes…yes, he had. But how much further was he to go? It might be no further than the camp of the Kiowas, nor as far as the railhead.
There was not much time left, not many days, not many miles, and then he would know.
Chapter 13
*
DAWN BROKE COLD and gray. Tom Chantry rolled out of his blankets, scrambled into his clothes, and tugged on his boots.
Helvie and McKay were at the wagon, plates held out for the cook. Chantry stood up, stamped his feet into his boots, and slung his gun belt around his waist. Helvie looked at it, but made no comment.
Rugger strolled up to the wagon, throwing a sour glance at the gun. “You strap that on an’ you may have to use it.”
“If I have to, I will,” Chantry said, and he added, “When this drive’s over, Rugger, if you have any money to bet, I’ll outshoot you for whatever you’ve got.”
Rugger stared at him. “Huh! You must think you’re good. I’ll take that bet.”
French Williams rolled out and sat up. “You’d better not, Rugger. I think Chantry can shoot. I think he’ll surprise the hell out of you.”
Rugger snorted, but he was less confident. If French thought Chantry could shoot, it was a good bet that he could. For French Williams made few mistakes in such matters.
“French, do you know Clay Spring?” Chantry asked.
“I been there a time or two. I guess everybody in this country knows it.”
“How about stopping there tonight?”
“I’d sort of figured on it.”
Williams was a neat, natty man who looked well in whatever he wore. This morning he wore a blue army shirt, black jeans, and a flat-brimmed hat. His boots were almost new, and were decorated with large-roweled Mexican spurs. He wore his gun tied down. Chantry suspected that Williams had a better background than was implied by his conversation or by his way of life.
“That man the Indians killed?” Williams asked now. “You say his name was Paul?”
“Yes.”
Williams walked away without comment.
Within minutes the herd was on the move, pointed east now. The dust beneath the hoofs of the cattle rose in clouds. The sky remained dull, leaden.
Clay Spring, if Chantry remembered rightly what he had been told, lay at the foot of a mesa where several runoff springs combined to form Clay Creek. He had never been there, but Bone McCarthy had mentioned it.
From there they would drive to the vicinity of Two Buttes, and this would be what the Kiowas would expect. But their next move would, he believed, surprise the Indians. It might also confuse them. For instead of driving away to avoid the Indians, they would drive right toward them. And he had his own ideas about what to do next.
Oddly enough, he had come to like French. The arrogant gunman, with his amused, taunting eyes, puzzled him, but Chantry wasted no time in trying to figure out his personality. His liking stemmed from the fact that Williams was good at his job, and Tom Chantry always admired a man who knew what he was doing and did it well.
The thought came to him that he might have to kill Williams, but if so he would do it with regret. That thought gave him pause. He…kill? Such an idea had been foreign to him, but now he was considering the possibility, if there was no other way out.
His readiness to accept the possible necessity of it worried him. He must guard his emotions and his actions all the more now. He must not only be wary of others, but of himself.
In spite of the dust, there was a feeling in the air that he liked, a smell from the land. Eastward the rising sun shone in the faces of the cattle. They walked stolidly on, sometimes trotted a little, then walked again.
Today he stayed with the herd, interested to see how easily his horse responded to the work, and how accustomed to it he himself had become. His hand was sure, his movements easy…he had changed.
But he must not permit the ready smile of French Williams to put him off. Why had Williams so easily accepted the idea of going north into the face of the Kiowas? Did he think Chantry would fail when he faced them and lose the herd there? Or had Williams already approached the Kiowas, perhaps on a share-and-share-alike basis? It would not be the first time Indians had raided a herd or a wagon train at the instigation of a white man.
As he rode, his thoughts returned to the girl called Sarah. Of the two, the girl had been the stronger, the most dangerous. And she was an attractive woman with a good figure, enough to take the eye of any man, east or west, but this was the West, where women were scarce.
He had been thinking there must be some connection between them and Williams, but Williams had seemed to know nothing about them.
The cattle went ahead steadily, heads swinging to the rhythm of their walk. The cowhands lounged in their saddles, thinking of the campfire ahead, the strong black coffee, and the warm food.
Tom Chantry swung out from the flank where he had been riding, and loped his horse along the slope of the low hill. Clay Creek Spring was not far ahead, hidden in a notch of hills. Below it was a holding ground, somewhat higher than the ground around it, a pleasant place for the cattle.
A bird flew up, from almost under his horse’s hoofs. The saddle creaked, his spurs jingled, and he topped out on the rise.
The three Indians came out on the ground around him without warning. They had been lying down, horses concealed beyond the rise, and their dusky bodies blended with the brown earth and the growing shadows. He heard the explosion of a gun, felt the jolt of it in his fist, then the hammer fell again and he saw an Indian spin and fall, the knife dropping from his hand.
An arm came around Chantry’s throat from behind, and he knew, instinctively, a knife would be in the other hand. He kicked his boots free of the stirrups and threw himself from his horse.
Hitting the ground with a thump, he rolled over, and jolted free of the Indian. He came to his feet quickly, just as the warrior, knife held low, sprang at him. He was a big man, tall as Chantry, and equally broad in the shoulders.
The Indian crouched, then came in. Chantry moved swiftly, and with the ease of long practice, a practice he had never used until now except in friendly wrestling matches. His left palm slapped the Indian’s knife-wrist to his right and out of line with his body, his right hand grabbed the wrist, and he stepped across in front of the Kiowa and threw him over, hard.
The Indian hit the ground, but he retained his grip on his knife, and came up fast. The man was like a big cat; his black e
yes gleamed as he circled to come in again.
Chantry’s gun lay where it had fallen, several feet away. His horse, the blue roan, had trotted off to one side and stopped, the red sunset on his saddle.
The Indian’s hand was lower now…he was a wily fighter, not to be taken by the trick again.
“You are a brave man,” Tom Chantry heard himself say. “I shall hate to kill you.”
Did the man understand? Chantry heard him suck breath and then he came in swiftly, slashing right and left with the knife. Chantry side-stepped to his left to put the Indian out of position, but the warrior turned abruptly and lunged again.
Chantry sprang back, but in his boots he was not agile enough, and as he went back he tripped over the body of one of the other Indians. His opponent lunged forward, but off balance, and tripped over Chantry.
Tom sprang to his feet, more quickly this time, and kicked savagely at the Indian’s head. The boot heel glanced off the Indian’s temple and sent him rolling.
Leaping on him, Chantry slipped an arm under him and across the warrior’s throat, clapping the palm of his right hand against the Indian’s skull, his left hand grasping his own right arm in a strangle hold. He knew he could kill the Indian now, and he put on pressure, fighting for his life.
Suddenly horses were all around them, and Williams was saying, “Step back, Chantry. I’ve got a gun on him.”
Slowly Tom Chantry released his hold and stepped away from the Indian, who lay gagging and choking, and then slowly the brave got to his feet.
Rugger was there, and Helvie and McKay; there were four guns on the Indian, and Rugger eared back his hammer. “I’ll kill him!” he yelled. “I’ll—”
“No!” Chantry snapped the word. “You kill him, and you’ll have to kill me.”
He turned to face the Indian. “I am Tom Chantry,” he said. “You fought well. Go in peace.”
The Indian looked at him, then at the others.
“You going to let him go?” Helvie asked in astonishment.
Suddenly Sun Chief was there beside them. He held out Chantry’s pistol and Tom took it, dropping it into his holster.
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