by Will DuRey
Wes recognized the speaker as a lieutenant who’d been stationed at Laramie for several years.
‘Come on into the office, Wes,’ the officer continued. ‘You can tell your story in there.’
Wes shifted in the saddle, suppressed a groan as he prepared to dismount, then caught sight of Ellie Rogers, who had been silent all the way from the depression where Curly Clayport had been shot. She was sort of hunched, her shoulders pushed forward and her head bowed as though she were closely inspecting her hands as they rested on her saddle. The big, soft, floppy grey hat hid most of her face and, because she wasn’t known to the people of the fort, no one had paid a great deal of attention to her.
‘Better help the girl down,’ Wes told the lieutenant.
‘Girl?’ Wes saw the soldier and several others in the crowd look at Ellie with more interest. The ill-fitting clothes had effectively obscured her gender.
‘Better find Captain O’Malley,’ advised Wes. ‘He’ll want to know his fiancée is here.’
Murmurs in the crowd carried a tone of surprise at the news that O’Malley’s girl had been found, but one voice, that of a woman, rose above the others as Ellie was helped from her horse. It was Mrs Flint, the colonel’s wife, taking charge of the girl, insisting she must stay in the colonel’s quarters until the doctor had examined her.
Colonel Flint poured whiskey for himself and Wes while the story was told.
‘There’s no Sioux uprising,’ Wes began, which were exactly the words Colonel Flint wanted to hear. ‘Lew Butler, Charlie Huntz and a third man held up the stage. They rode south, towards the North Platte, where they were attacked by a band of Shoshones. . . .’
‘Shoshones?’ interrupted Colonel Flint.
‘Probably the raiding party I’d seen that same day. I expect they wouldn’t have attacked if Miss Rogers hadn’t been with them. A white woman would be quite a prize to take back to their village.’
Colonel Flint nodded his understanding.
‘But everyone agrees that the ponies those men rode in on belonged to the Sioux,’ he observed.
‘After the fight with the Shoshone, Lew Butler and Charlie Huntz lost their own horses. They came across a couple of Sioux boys, killed them and stole their horses.’
The soldier’s eyebrows rose. He knew that any outrage against the Sioux could lead to war.
Wes placated him, told him about the death of Kicking Bear and that the new chief, Red Knife, wanted to maintain the peace with the Americans. He also told him that it was a Sioux warrior, Throws The Dust, who had rescued Ellie Rogers and taken her to his sister for safety.
‘His sister was married to Jim Taylor. Jim is dead. Fell from a hayloft and broke his neck. I was there when it happened. I buried him.’
‘He had a reputation,’ said Colonel Flint. ‘Not a good one. Too much whiskey.’
Wes nodded as though confirming that Jim Taylor had been drunk when he fell from the hayloft.
‘And Curly? What happened to him?’
‘He hasn’t said anything yet,’ replied Wes. ‘I reckon he was suspicious of Lew Butler and Charlie Huntz and followed them out to that place where they shot him. I’ve got the money they stole. Perhaps you should hang on to it until someone from Wells Fargo shows up to claim it.’
He finished his whiskey then went to the hospital to enquire after Curly’s injuries.
Wes remained overnight at the fort even though his sense of duty told him that he had already been absent from the wagon train for too long. His conscience, however, was untroubled. What he’d undergone in the previous few days meant that the Sioux were not a threat to the travellers on the Oregon Trail and, before he’d become embroiled in Laramie’s affairs, he’d travelled enough of the trail ahead to know that the wagons would not encounter any natural obstacles more serious than those that, as wagon master, Caleb Dodge, overcame on every journey.
When he rejoined the wagons Caleb would rant and threaten to cut his fee, but they would both know that it was all show. Caleb knew that Wes did his job, and also that there was no one better.
When morning came Wes looked into the army infirmary to see Curly Clayport. The Wells Fargo man was weak but awake and pleased to see the scout.
‘I’m really grateful to you Wes, not just for getting me back here but for getting those men who did this to me. If ever I can do anything in return just let me know. There’ll be a reward, of course,’ he added. ‘The company will be grateful for what you did, getting the girl back as well as the money.’
‘It was Red Knife’s people who found the girl,’ Wes told him. ‘They should get the reward for that.’ The expression on Curly’s face confirmed Wes’s belief that such a thing would never happen. ‘And you caught up with the robbers before I did.’
‘Yeah, but they shot me. Besides, company employees can’t claim rewards.’ He threw a rueful look at Wes. ‘Reckon I won’t be a company employee much longer. The doc says those slugs will slow me down some. Perhaps I’m just ready for a rocker on a porch someplace.’
Wes’s thoughts began to race.
‘I know a porch you can sit on,’ he said. He explained his ideas to Curly. ‘Jim Taylor is dead,’ he told him. ‘Got too full of whiskey and fell out his hayloft.’
Curly barely registered surprise. It was the kind of death the people in the settlement had predicted for Jim.
‘I was there,’ Wes continued, ‘and I buried him for his woman. Someday I’d kinda like to settle on that land myself. At the moment there’s an itch in my britches that can only be salved with saddle leather. How about sitting on the spread for me? Build it up if you will. We’ll be partners and you can use any reward money I’m due.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘Sure. I ask only one thing. Be neighbourly with the Sioux. Welcome them to the ranch. I intend to be their brother just as I am brother to the Arapaho.’
Until that moment Curly Clayport had viewed the prospect of no longer being useful to Wells Fargo as drawing a curtain on his life. By the time Wes Gray left him he was anxious to begin a new life as rancher, or farmer, or cattleman.
Leading the horses that had belonged to Lew Butler and Charlie Huntz, Wes rode to the settlement. He exchanged those mounts for the Indian ponies the outlaws had been riding when they first arrived and immediately rode out towards Red Knife’s village.
All the village gathered to watch Wes Gray’s approach. They formed themselves into two facing rows, much as they had when he’d had to run their gauntlet. This time he wasn’t being shown the way to the totem pole and torture but to the tepee of Red Knife. Before it, beside the chief, stood Black Raven and Pawnee Killer. All three wore feathered bonnets and carried long, decorated lances. Wes kept his gaze straight ahead, holding the iron-eyed looks of the three warriors. During the final strides he sensed the presence of someone walking alongside him. A hand clutched a handful of his buckskin leggings, a symbol that Sky, whose hand he knew it to be, was declaring to the village that she had chosen him, as was the right of a widow, to be her next husband. It was a good sign for Wes, for it surely meant that he was not considered an enemy.
He halted and held out the lead reins of the Indian ponies he had brought with him. With a mixture of Sioux words and signs he told Red Knife and his people that he came among them with the hope of friendship.
‘I return the ponies of Little Otter and Pony Holder,’ he told them, ‘and give you the news that the white men who killed them are now dead.’ At this point Black Raven moved his lance slightly but distinctly so that the feathers and trophies attached to it fluttered and rattled against the shaft. Topmost of the trophies was a scalp of red hair – once it had been Charlie Huntz’s. Likewise, Pawnee Killer’s lance bore the scalp of Lew Butler. Wes gave each man a nod of acknowledgement.
‘The soldiers at the fort believe that I killed those men. They will not come here to punish the Sioux.’ Red Knife said the news he brought was good and invited him to smoke a pipe. Wes stepped down f
rom Red and entered the chief’s lodge.
Later, as he prepared to leave the village, Throws The Dust told Wes how he had seen Black Raven and Pawnee Killer watching as he took the white woman to the fort.
‘Anger still drove their thoughts but I didn’t think they would disobey Red Knife and attack you. When I saw your fight among the trees I recognized the man with red hair and the other one as the two who had fought the Shoshone. You told me they were the two men who had killed Pony Holder and Little Otter. I pointed them out to their fathers.’
‘It was justice, Throws The Dust.’
‘Yes. Black Raven and Pawnee Killer may never be your friend,’ he said, ‘but they are no longer your enemy. They were pleased you returned the ponies.’
‘I must go,’ Wes told him. ‘Soon a new man will live in the cabin that was your sister’s home. He is a good man. He will welcome and help your people.’
‘And my sister,’ he asked. ‘What of her?’
‘For now she must live in her father’s tepee. When I return she will live in the lodge of Medicine Feather, brother of the Arapaho, friend of the Sioux.’