The Third Western Megapack

by Barker, S. Omar

  Jim stared through the darkness at the line of waiting animals and men.

  “When you hear the first shot,” he said, “start for the notch. They won’t be expecting you. Stay close together and ride hard.” He crawled over the stockade and twelve men went after him. Blackfoot fires blinked up on the hills. Jim headed for a spot between two of the fires.

  They crawled through the tall grass, wet with dew. They had knives and pistols stuck in their belts. The rifles were too unwieldy to take along.

  “Single file,” Ben called back softly. “Stay low, an’ no noise.”

  Jim could hear the men breathing behind him. He felt something wet as he placed his hand down and he knew they’d reached the damp stream bed meandering through the valley.

  * * * *

  They moved swiftly across the few yards of open territory. He knew there would be Blackfoot sentinels stationed along the ridge. Big Frenchy Ladreau would see to that. Big Frenchy had the Blackfoot ferocity and the white man’s cunning.

  “We’re goin’ up,” Ben whispered.

  Jim nodded. They had reached the end of the valley floor and were starting up the grade. A fire was blazing not more than seventy-five yards up the slope. The young trapper turned toward the left. The notch was about fifty yards to the right, but he wanted to avoid that. Big Frenchy would have a strong body of Blackfeet guarding the pass.

  Moving up the ridge, they could make out the figures of the Blackfeet around the campfire. Jim heard them talking in guttural tones. Steadily, he continued to climb, flattening himself against the rock, pausing behind each boulder and tree.

  Behind him, the twelve men moved silently. Looking back, he could not see them. Ben caught his wrist and pulled him down. They were now almost even with the fires on the hill. Another few minutes and they would be moving between the lines and safely through.

  The old trapper pointed to a spot less than a dozen yards away, Jim strained his eyes. He saw it at last—the tall figure of an Indian standing against a tree. The buck was directly in their line of march.

  Jim tapped the shoulder of the nearest man and motioned him to remain where he was. They passed the sign back.

  “I’ll go to the left,” Ben whispered. The trapper already had his hunting knife out. Jim slipped from the belt. They made a wide circuit and came up behind the buck. An outcry now and the whole plan would go awry. They had to silence the Indian guard permanently.

  Jim lost sight of Ben but he knew the older man was crawling up close to the Indian. He pushed himself forward, feeling carefully for dried twigs or branches that would crack. The Indian loomed just ahead of him. He saw the man suddenly stiffen and take a step in the other direction. The Blackfoot had heard something suspicious.

  Rising to his feet, Jim sprang forward. He saw Ben coming up at the same time. They caught the startled Blackfoot between them and Jim’s long fingers tightened around the man’s windpipe, shutting off any outcry.

  Ben slashed, once, twice, three times with the knife and the Indian guard grew limp. Jim held him for a moment and then let him slip quietly to the ground.

  Both men squatted down and listened. Through the trees they could hear the Blackfeet talking. No one had heard the sounds of the scuffle.

  “Wait here,” Ben whispered. “I’ll bring the men up.”

  Jim lay down a few feet from the dead Indian. He felt the sweat on his face. There was a movement in the grass and he tightened. The Indian wasn’t dead!

  Slipping his knife from the belt, he raised it to plunge it into the Black foot’s body. Reaching out his hand, he felt the Indian’s chest. His hand came away, sticky with blood, but the body was growing cold. The twitch had been caused by a death rigor.

  In a few moments, Ben was again at his elbow, the twelve trappers crawling behind him. They passed through the Indian lines without further trouble. A hundred yards beyond the nearest fire, Jim rose to his feet. They walked silently through the woods and came out into the open.

  A large body of horses stamped noisily, dead ahead.

  “Spread out,” Ben advised. “Walk in among ’em and don’t frighten ’em until you got one ready to ride.” The old trapper squeezed Jim’s arm. “See you at Cold Springs,” he whispered. Then he was gone.

  Jim walked forward slowly. He went in among the herd and he spoke softly to pacify them. He stood before a shaggy-haired mustang and waited a few moments. Then springing to the animal’s back, he lifted his pistol and squeezed the trigger.

  Shots rang out from all directions and the trappers shouted. Jim lifted his voice in a long whoop. He saw the ponies spring away in all directions. Clinging to the pony’s mane, he bent low and continued to yell. The herd was running wildly toward the north.

  He caught a glimpse of two other trappers spurring on groups of the ponies. The Blackfeet were running toward them, firing guns in the darkness. Then they heard another sound in the direction of the notch and a concerted crackle of rifles. The trappers in the valley were coming through,

  IV

  Riding in among the herd of wildly charging animals, Jim glanced back over his shoulder. It was too dark to see anything clearly but he spotted flashes of rifles and he knew the trappers were making it hot for the small body of Blackfeet in the notch.

  They rode through the darkness and the herd began to scatter. After five minutes of hard riding they were well spread across the plain and in among the various gulches and cutbacks.

  Jim let the mustang run till it was tired. Then with his knees he turned it toward the north and east. Cold Springs was a well-known camping spot for the mountain men. It was situated at the foot of a steep wooded slope. Clear cold water oozed out of the rocks and fell into a deep pool.

  The sound of the stampeding Blackfoot herd died away in the west and Jim walked the pony quietly through the foothills toward Cold Springs.

  By the Dipper it was nearly midnight when he arrived. Small fires were already blazing down in the little canyon. A sentinel bounced up with a rifle as Jim turned the horse down the slope.

  “Sing out,” the man rasped.

  “Beckman,” Jim called. “Who’s here?” He recognized the voice of One-Arm.

  “Welcome,” Brown grunted. “Glad you made it, son. There’s about a half dozen due in afore mornin’.”

  “Ben here?” Jim asked. Then he saw the grizzled trapper striding toward him. He dismounted.

  “The whole shebang got through from the valley,” Ben told him. “The Blackfeet wounded a few mules but we even got them through. Clem Hyde got a scratch from a bullet. Hugh Benton took a Blackfoot bullet in the leg. It ain’t bad.”

  “What about the riders?” Jim asked him. “Everybody here?” There were thirteen in the party which had stampeded the Blackfoot herd.

  “Five boys still due,” Ben said. “I wouldn’t worry about ’em, son. They know these mountains and they’ll be in.” He took the younger man by the arm. “There’s a pot o’ coffee boilin’, Jim,” he grinned. “Reckon you could stand some?”

  Clem Hyde and the Bearcat came forward to greet him. All had come out of the Blackfoot trap without a casualty. The Bearcat’s wound had been dressed and he was feeling in good spirits.

  “We ain’t lost a pack,” the big man grinned, “an’ we’re makin’ the Blackfeet walk home. They ain’t gonna like that.”

  “Thanks to Beckman,” Hyde said solemnly, “we still have our hair, not to talk o’ the packs.”

  In another hour all the riders were in and accounted for. Ben advised that they turn in for a few hours’ sleep and get a good start in the morning.

  “St. Louis is a long way off,” the trapper grinned, “an’ there’s plenty o’ red devils in between.”

  Through the mist, Jim watched them steal away the next morning. They went in pairs and each g
roup had a string of heavily-laden mules behind them.

  “Remember,” the Bearcat called, “two puffs and a long column. Everybody come arunnin’.”

  “See you in St. Louis,” Hyde said as he shook hands. “Good luck.”

  Ben tightened the packs on their own mules and then headed north through the hills.

  “We kin strike through Eagle Pass,” the trapper advised, “and cut across the plains from there. We’ll travel mostly by night across the open. It ain’t safe to move in the daylight if you don’t have to.”

  Jim nodded. He knew most of the trappers would he doing the same thing. Men wise in the ways of the mountains kept well hidden out on the open plain.

  In three days they reached Eagle Pass, a narrow defile through the mountains. Huge barren cliffs rose on either side of the gorge. Tremendous boulders were scattered like giant pebbles across the floor of the pass and they had to turn their mounts in and out of the rocks.

  Ben pointed to an old wagon track almost obliterated by the grass.

  “Settlers used to come through here a few years back,” the trapper explained, “afore they found South Pass. It’s the shorter road to Oregon, but it ain’t the safest.”

  At one point in the pass the gorge narrowed to ten yards with the cliffs rising straight up into the blue of the sky.

  “If the Blackfeet, or the Sioux, ever trapped a wagon train in here,” Ben grunted, “there wouldn’t be much left of ’em to tell the story.” The trapper glanced back over his shoulder at the second mule in the string. The animal had been limping from a bullet wound in the leg. Ben had cleaned the wound and it had been healing nicely.

  “Reckon I’ll have to take another look at it, Jim,” the trapper said. “If that mule gives out we’ll lose a lot o’ skins.”

  Jim nodded. The remaining mules were too heavily laden already to take any more. He watched Ben carefully examine the animal’s left hind leg. The bullet had passed cleanly through the hock, leaving a neat wound. It had begun to fester again.

  Ben shook his head. “We’ll have to rest her a few days, Jim,” he explained. “She’s been walkin’ on it too much already.”

  They made camp in Eagle Pass beside a small stream which gushed out of the rock on the north side. Jim shot a deer while Ben prepared the camp and attended to the injured mule.

  It was four days before the mule was ready to travel again.

  “I don’t like it,” Ben grunted. “We’re gittin’ too far behind the others.”

  In another day they were through Eagle Pass, and the prairie extended before them, rolling in a series of ridges, spotted here and there with clumps of trees.

  It was late in the afternoon. They saw the smoke from dozens of campfires circling up into the reddening sky. Ben blinked.

  “What in hell!” he whispered.

  * * * *

  Jim raised himself in the saddle. “Might be a wagon train,” he murmured.

  Ben shook his head. “They don’t roll through Eagle Pass any more. Every one of ’em takes the South Pass. It’s been years—” He stopped. Distinctly, they saw the rider spurring toward them at breakneck speed.

  Jim slipped his rifle from the holster. Ben remained behind with the pack animals. At the distance it was impossible to see whether the rider was white or red, but they could take no chances.

  The rider came up out of a depression. Jim stared. He saw the huge brown furry shape several yards behind the horse, lumbering along at a terrific rate of speed.

  Ben saw it at the same time, “Grizzly!” he said tersely. If there was one animal the mountain men feared, it was the big bear of the hills. Jim remembered Ben saying they were usually plentiful in the chokeberry brambles close to Eagle Pass. Each night they had been careful to avoid the tangled enclosures where the grizzly fed.

  The rider made no attempt to shoot the pursuing grizzly. He was riding straight for the two mountain men. Jim motioned to the trapper to move away with the pack animals. Already, the mules had sensed the nearness of the huge beast and they were stamping nervously.

  Ben pulled the string fifty yards to the left and waited. Jim saw him hurriedly dismount and tie the string to a stout scrub tree. Ben realized it would take more than one man to bring down, the brown bear. Sometimes a half dozen bullets had no effect on the king of the mountains.

  “Reckon that hoss is a little hurt,” Ben called as he came back. The rider was astride a white horse and they could see the stream of crimson flowing down the right hind leg. Evidently, the grizzly had scented the blood and was half-crazed.

  Jim crossed over to permit the rider and the grizzly to pass between them. Firing from “both angles, they were liable to hurt the animal.

  “Don’t let him git close to you, Jim,” Ben called.

  Jim stared. The rider was about twenty yards away. He saw the flying black hair. It was a woman, whitefaced, terror-stricken. She flew between the two riders with the bear bounding after the screaming horse.

  Jim took aim at the grizzly’s head. He didn’t know whether his bullet went home but the animal stopped, fangs open, tongue hanging. Ben let go from the other side as the grizzly started to move for the younger man. The old trapper wisely shot for the leg and the bullet smashed the bone.

  The bear roared as it stumbled on its face. It came up again and moved forward clumsily. Jim spurred his pony away while he rammed another shot into the muzzle. They had plenty of time now as the wounded grizzly couldn’t get close to them.

  A moment later he took aim and shot the animal through the mouth. With a horrible roar, the grizzly came up on its hind feet. Ben plugged it through the chest with another ball.

  As the bear writhed on the ground, still alive, both men came forward on foot and emptied pistols into it. The grizzly shook and then shivered in death.

  Jim looked up. He saw the girl riding back toward them. The wounded horse was still screaming with pain and wouldn’t go near the dead grizzly. Jim ran up and caught the bridle. He gulped. It had been several years since he’d seen a white woman. He’d been to Taos and he’d seen Spanish girls and plenty of Indian squaws but no white girls from the east.

  * * * *

  The girl seemed very tall in the saddle. Her hair and eyes were black, but not the Spanish type. She had a small upturned nose and a firm little mouth. Two spots of red glowed in her cheeks. She looked down at the tall trapper, too breathless even to speak.

  Ben came up grinning. “Reckon you had a close shave, ma’am,” he said. “Them grizzlies don’t play.”

  The girl found her voice. “He jumped out of the brambles as I was going by,” she explained. “He must have clawed the horse. I didn’t see him.” She looked at Jim again and the trapper moistened his lips.

  “We’re headin’ for St. Louis,” he explained. He nodded to the pack animals. “Beaver pelts.”

  The girl with the dark hair nodded. “I’m Jane Elliott with the Elliott wagon train, bound for Oregon. My uncle Jeff sponsored the expedition.”

  “I’m Jim Beckman,” the trapper introduced himself, “and this is Ben Williams.”

  “If I was your dad, ma’am,” the older man grinned, “you wouldn’t be ridin’ away from the camp. You’re liable to run into somethin’ more dangerous than grizzlies.”

  “Indians?” Jane Elliott smiled. “We haven’t seen any since leaving the Missouri.”

  “There’s plenty of ’em around,” Ben said quietly, “an’ when you don’t see ’em, that’s the time to worry.” He paused. “What’s the train doin’ so far north? They’re way off the trail. South Pass is a hundred miles to the south.” The girl shook her head. “Our scout, Sam Heffley, was taken sick the first week out, and had to go back to the settlements. Uncle Jeff picked up another trapper four days ago. He’s leading us through the mountains.”

>   Jim glanced at the campfire smoke. He remembered Heffley, a former mountain man who had gone east two years back.

  The trappers caught their horses and rode back with the girl toward the wagon train. Riding over a ridge they saw the white-topped corral with the animals herded in a rope stockade a short distance away. Riders were coming in with firewood for the fires. The aroma of coffee and baking biscuits drifted up to them.

  Ben sniffed. There were about thirty wagons in the train, a comparatively small party. Thirty wagons meant possibly fifty men, not counting the women and children.

  “That party,” Ben said slowly, “can’t go through Eagle Pass. The Blackfeet will be waitin’ fer ’em. They’d do better to ride through the pit o’ hell.” White settlers came out of the corral to stare at the two mountain men as they rode up to the wagons.

  “Who’s the new guide?” Jim asked finally. They were but a few yards from the wagons.

  “A Frenchman,” Jane Elliott told them. “A man named Ladreau,”

  Ben jerked his horse’s head. The animal came to a stop and the old trapper looked at Jim.

  “Big Frenchy Ladreau!” the younger man asked. “A big man with a black beard?”

  The girl nodded. “You know him?” she asked. “Is he reliable? Uncle Jeff has been worried. When Heffley had to turn back, he didn’t know what to do. The other men persuaded him to move on and take a chance on finding the pass through the mountains.”

  Jim’s blue eyes hardened. A week back, Big Frenchy had been working with the Blackfoot war party, directing the attack on the trappers. Now, the Frenchman was leading a wagon train through the dangerous Eagle Pass. Possibly, Big Frenchy intended to make up for his failure in Pleasant Valley.

  “We know Big Frenchy,” Jim said quietly. “Was there an Indian with him?”

  The girl shook her head, mystified. “Ladreau was heading for St. Louis also, when Uncle Jeff told him the fur market had been closed.”