Waco 7

by J. T. Edson

  Pauline had just decided to make a fire when Whip rose and stared off into the darkness. Even as she reached for the carbine, the girl realized that the big Plott would not be wagging its tail in a delighted manner unless friends approached. For all that, she remained in cover until the wagon drew nearer and Scobie called to her.

  ‘See that mean ole grizzly didn’t come and eat you, gal,’ Scobie said as he took her belongings from her.

  ‘I never saw it,’ the girl replied and climbed on to the box.

  ‘You’d had damned good eyesight if you had,’ Scobie drawled. ‘It’s never been on this side of Desborough.’

  ‘But we saw that bear-tree,’ Pauline pointed out.

  ‘Just like you got back home in Kentucky,’ agreed Scobie. ‘That’s when I knew there wasn’t a grizzly hereabouts.’

  ‘I don’t get you.’

  ‘You saw the height of those scratches and bites, gal. Weren’t none of them over five foot high. A grizzly only that size’d be too young to kill off a full-grown whiteface cow, or to make a bear-tree. And neither black nor cinnamon vii bear sticks around when a full-grown grizzly moves into the area. Or if it does, it’s too smart to start throwing out challenges by making a bear-tree.’

  ‘But that message?’

  ‘Just a pack of lies, gal, to have me bring you to Easter Corner. Schuster and a bunch of hired guns were waiting there.’

  ‘So that’s why you left me behind!’ Pauline said. ‘But couldn’t you have picked a better place?’

  ‘There wasn’t one between here and Easter Corner,’ Scobie replied. ‘Good hiding-place, a tree you could shin up happen I called it wrong about the grizzly, and no berry-bushes or anything else to attract a bear of any kind.’

  ‘You know something, Scobie Dale,’ the girl said. ‘You’re a real smart feller.’

  ‘Hell, gal,’ Scobie answered. ‘It was you who put me on to the thing in the first place.’

  ‘Me! How did I do it?’

  ‘Mind how you said that you had trees like that back home in Kentucky?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well you have. Just like it. Black and cinnamon bears make bear-trees as well as a grizzly – only there’s never been any grizzly bears east of the Big Muddy. viii

  ‘And that’s how you knew the telegraph message was a lie?’ Pauline asked,

  ‘It made me so sure that I didn’t fix to take you into Easter Corner,’ Scobie admitted. ‘Schuster searched the wagon, talked some to me. I reckon we might’ve thrown him off our line for a spell.’

  Fourteen – Scobie’s Mistake

  This time the message’s true, Pauline gal,’ Scobie said as he allowed the girl to join him on the wagon box. ‘Do the shirt and pants fit you?’

  ‘Sure,’ Pauline replied. ‘I’ll keep them until I’ve had a chance to take a bath. Maw always used to tell us kids never to put on clean clothes unless we’d had a bath first.’

  It was shortly before noon on the day following Scobie’s visit to Easter Corner and Scobie drove his wagon out across the rolling range country towards the scene of the grizzly bear’s latest assault on a ranch’s cattle. During the time Scobie spent checking on the validity of the report, Pauline remained concealed in the wagon, However, she had asked him to pick up a change of clothing and he bought a shirt and pair of levis pants for her. The size of the two items caused Mrs. Reiger to remark they would never fit him, but he made up a story which he hoped would satisfy her curiosity.

  Although Scobie did not know it, interested parties watched his arrival and made note of the purchase. Scobie had not noticed Elmhurt in the Liberty Bell at Braddock and so failed to recognize the man as he made the purchase for Pauline.

  Elmhurt watched Scobie leave town, then headed to the rooming house and the waiting Norah and Wilfred Loxton. Quickly he told what he had seen, mentioning how he and Laverick hoped to look in the rear of the hound dog man’s wagon but failed due to Scobie’s pack being around it. ‘Those damned dogs don’t take to strangers,’ Elmhurt finished. ‘They looked mean enough to tear a man apart if he went near the wagon.’

  ‘It’s lucky you didn’t go near then,’ Norah sniffed. ‘I said keep clear of it. Stop trying to think for yourself. We’re too close to the girl to have it loused up now.’

  ‘Dale has the girl with him,’ Loxton stated.

  ‘I’m sure of it,’ his sister agreed. That’s who the clothes are for.’

  ‘When do we go after her?’ Elmhurt asked.

  ‘We don’t,’ Norah replied.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because, Mr. Elmhurt, Dale wouldn’t let us. The marshal here is his friend and Rudbeck wouldn’t be any too pleased when he learned who we are.’

  ‘Then what do we do?’ Loxton asked.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Norah answered. ‘We’ll give them a couple of hours’ start and then follow their tracks. I suppose you can do that, Mr. Elmhurt?’

  ‘I reckon I can,’ Elmhurt agreed. ‘But why wait that long?’

  ‘I want them to think that nobody suspects them or is following them,’ the girl explained. ‘When they make camp, I’ll go in alone first. I can think up a story to satisfy Dale if he’s there. If he isn’t, I can handle the girl.’

  ‘It’s your play,’ Elmhurt grunted.

  ‘I know it. Just don’t spoil things by trying to make any smart moves like coming after me too soon.’

  Schuster’s party arrived in Desborough shortly after noon. Not wishing for people to know that Jervis Thorpe associated with hired gun-hands, Schuster had the men drift in at intervals and act as strangers. While visiting the store to buy cigars, Schuster overheard Mrs. Reiger discussing Scobie’s purchase with another woman. Although accepting that the hound dog man might be picking up the clothing for a friend on one of the local ranches, Schuster decided to check the story out. After sending Sage, Joey Stinks and another man out with orders to follow Scobie’s wagon, Schuster made rapid plans and gave certain orders to the remainder of his party; including a part for Thorpe to play.

  Unaware of their danger, Scobie and Pauline rode the slow-moving wagon through the wooded lowlands and approached the more open hill country. They talked of various things while moving, happy in their belief that they had shaken off the pursuit for the time at least. Suddenly Scobie brought the wagon to a halt and stared across the rolling land ahead of them.

  ‘What is it?’ the girl asked.

  ‘Up there, going towards the top of that rim,’ he replied.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ she told him.

  ‘Grab my field glasses from in the wagon,’ Scobie suggested’

  Obeying, the girl raised and focused the powerful binoculars then raked the slope. A sensation like an icy hand touching her spine ran through the girl at what she saw. Ambling along in its hump-backed, careless way, a huge grizzly bear passed up the distant slope and out of sight over the top.

  ‘Is it the one?’ she whispered, although the bear would be almost a mile away.

  ‘It’s the one,’ Scobie replied. ‘You don’t get two bears that size in one area, at least not this early in the year. After May you might find a couple, but they’d have come looking for a mate.’

  ‘What’re you going to do?’ asked the girl.

  ‘Find a place to make a camp, then go after him.’

  ‘Will there be time for you to catch up to him before dark?’

  ‘Time enough, gal. We’ll be so close behind him that he won’t run far. I’ve never yet seen a grizzly keep running when the hounds pushed him hard. He’ll almost always stand and fight.’

  Flicking the reins, Scobie started the team moving in the direction of the rim. Before he had covered much more than a hundred yards, he found a place in which he felt the girl could safely be left. Turning the wagon down into a small hollow, Scobie brought it to a halt at the bottom.

  ‘You can get off after the bear, if you like,’ the girl told him. ‘I’ll see to things here.’

  ‘Let me
help you with the horses first,’ Scobie replied, ‘One way or another we won’t be going any farther tonight.’

  ‘Then I’ll make up the dogs’ feed while you’re gone,’ Pauline promised.

  After Scobie unhitched the team, Pauline led them aside and tethered them on good grazing. She could tell just how dangerous Scobie regarded the hunt, for, despite having given them a thorough cleaning the previous night, he checked both the Lightning rifle and the Remington pistol before saddling the zebra dun.

  ‘Do you want to keep Whip here?’ he asked.

  ‘You’ll need him,’ Pauline replied. ‘Don’t argue, Scobie, I’ll be all right while you’re gone. Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks, gal. I’ll try to fetch you back his hide for a bed robe.’

  Showing considerable interest and excitement, for they knew that there would be hunting when their master left the wagon and mounted the dun stallion, the pack fanned out around Scobie as he rode up out of the hollow. While climbing the slope up which the bear passed, Scobie kept his attention on the rim above him. The grizzly could be traveling, or it might be headed for a den-hole. Either way, Scobie intended to locate it, if possible, before it saw him. On first seeing the bear, Scobie noted various landmarks to help him pick up its tracks. However, he did not need to bother.

  Ranging out ahead of the rest of the pack and her master, Belle came to a sudden halt. Hot to her nostrils came the raw scent of the grizzly bear, wafted in her direction from the scent-line. Her nostrils quivered and the back hair rose up stiff along her spine. If that had been cougar, or even black bear, her tail would have wagged; instead it stood up stiff as a poker. Snuffling in the scent, she cut loose with a somewhat querulous medium bawl instead of her full, ringing bugle note’

  ‘Lay to, Belle!’ Scobie whooped encouragingly, even as the rest of the pack headed for the Bluetick bitch with their heads raised and noses working to catch the scent which interested her. ‘Go get him, dogs!’

  Forward swept the pack, their voices lifting as they ran. With so hot a scent they barely troubled to lower their heads to the ground. The pack’s trail-music wafted back to Pauline, although she could see nothing of them, and she felt a quiver of anxiety. Then she gave a shrug. If Scobie Dale could not take care of himself by now, he had no right to call himself a hound dog man.

  Up the slope went the pack, with Scobie following at his dun’s best speed. Once over it, the dogs ran on at a speed no horse could hope to equal when carrying a saddle and rider. The line ran in a straight line; no grizzly needed to walk warily or hide from any creature once it attained its full size. Ahead lay a large clump of bushes and the pack bore down in that direction, but they did not rush blindly into the thick growth. Experience of the hardest kind taught them the ways of their prey and they sensed the danger ahead. So they hovered on the outer edge of the bushes and raised their voices in savage challenge. A roaring snort sounded from the bushes as the grizzly realized that its intended ambush had failed to bring the dogs into striking distance. Turning around, it smashed through the bushes and burst out on the opposite side to the pack.

  Hearing their prey on the move, the pack charged forward, wending their way through the bushes and picking up the bear’s trail on the other side. A grizzly could run fast, but not as swiftly as those superbly fit, hard-muscled dogs. Fastest of the pack, although not far ahead of the rest, Song, the Treeing Walker, saw the bear first and his running-trail chop turned to a wildly excited turkey-mouth. Seconds later the remainder of the pack announced that they too saw the quarry and now ran on vision rather than scent. Increasing their pace, they spread out ready to converge on the bear and bring it to bay.

  The bear ran faster, hoping to leave its noisy pursuers behind. Crashing through clumps of bushes with no more effort than if they had been blades of grass, the bear kept its lead. Then a patch of clear, open country lay ahead. That was what the pack waited for, being too wise to voluntarily close and fight where they could not move freely. Before the grizzly reached the center of the open land, the pack forced it to halt and fight.

  Coming around in a rump-scraping turn, the grizzly lashed out with a paw but Song twisted aside. This time the bear did not face the blindly game courage of a Pit Bull Terrier bred to go into the attack regardless of any danger. Instead it met the coldly calculating pack tactics of trained big-game hounds. Such dogs did not rush in heedlessly against their prey. While some held the bear’s attention from the front and a safe distance, others darted in to slash at its flanks, rump and rear legs. In that way they prevented the grizzly from concentrating on any one of them and stopped it running farther before their master could come up to play his part.

  Scobie knew better than ride up too close. Steady and well-trained the dun might be, but mare never raised a foal which would stand steady in the face of the determined charge by a grizzly bear. Dropping from his saddle a good fifty yards from the fight, Scobie left the dun standing with trailing reins. Under normal conditions, the hanging reins would serve to hold the horse just as well as if they had been fastened to a branch or tree-trunk. However, if the bear should happen to pass Scobie and make for the dim, the free-hanging reins would not impede the horse’s escape.

  Holding his rifle ready for use, Scobie walked forward. The fight took place about thirty yards out in the clearing, but Scobie did not offer to fire while still in the wooded land. All too well he knew the tenacity with which a grizzly bear clung to life. If he shot and did not kill, the bear would go berserk. It might run, although more likely to charge, and escape the hounds. The United States possessed no more dangerous creature than a grizzly bear maddened with the pain of a wound.

  So Scobie knew he must move in so close that he could not miss even though the bear moved, jinking and weaving its head as it slashed at the surrounding dogs. Not until he had halved the distance to the fight did Scobie come to a halt. He felt again the wild, primeval excitement of the hunt; a sensation which went back to the dim days of history when men went out to battle with primitive weapons and against creatures even larger and more dangerous than the grizzly bear. Not that Scobie’s position was any sinecure. Even with the ultimate of black powder fire power instead of a spear with a fire-hardened wood, or bronze head, a man could not be assured of victory at such a moment.

  When the bear saw Scobie approaching, it appeared to realize that the man presented an even more deadly danger than the dogs. Letting out an awe-inspiring roar, and looking far larger than its great size due to its hair being erected in rage, the grizzly charged straight at Scobie. Wisely the dogs before it leapt aside instead of trying to halt its progress and those at the sides or behind fell back a little.

  Throwing up his rifle, Scobie took aim at the bear’s head. There would be little enough time, but he knew better than shoot wildly. Gently he squeezed the Lightning’s trigger – and a dull click rewarded his efforts. Even as he started to work the “trombone” slide of the cocking mechanism, Scobie could not prevent himself from taking an involuntary pace to the rear. His foot caught against something and he tripped over backwards to fall right in the path of the charging bear. Letting out a roaring snarl, Strike flung himself forward and his powerful jaws seized hold of the bear’s left rear leg. Even the Rottweiler’s hundred pounds of solid weight could not halt the bear’s progress or even slow it to any great extent.

  At such a moment a hound dog man’s life hung in the balance and depended on the spirit and loyalty of his pack. With hounds cowed by harsh training methods, Scobie would have died. However, he treated his pack with firm kindness, retaining their spirits rather than crushing them under. Those dogs would willingly face any danger to protect him.

  An instant after Strike gripped hold of the bear’s left leg, Bugle’s jaws clamped on to the right. Then Belle, Whip, Dick, Song and Tiger, the last bluestick, closed in to grab hold where they could. Tiger, blocked by the others on the flanks, went for the bear’s throat and missed death by inches as its powerful jaws chopped savagely
at him. Altogether the seven dogs did not quite equal the grizzly’s seven hundred and fifty pound weight, but their combined assault slowed it down.

  Scobie twisted himself over in a hurried roll and the bear’s mouth closed so near that he felt its breath on his shirt while the long-clawed feet landed where he lay a split second before. Unfortunately, Scobie had lost his rifle when he fell and been forced to roll away from it. He continued rolling, not wishing to impede his dogs.

  Foiled in its attack on Scobie, the bear vented its rage on the dogs. However, they knew the game too well to hang on when its head or paws came their way and showed a remarkable agility in leaping clear of danger. Of course, the moment the bear tried to attack one side, the dogs on the other increased their efforts. Belle caught a long but shallow gash from a claw and Tiger’s right ear ripped open in a real narrow escape when the bear’s teeth grabbed it and tore through.

  Coming to his feet, Scobie knew he must act, and quickly, before more serious injuries happened to his dogs. The rifle lay beyond the fighting animals and might not work even if he reached it. Which left only the big pistol; accurate, powerful, yet not the kind of weapon one would select when going up against a full-grown grizzly bear. Scobie carried the big Remington more as a last-ditch defensive weapon rather than for dispatching an uninjured bear, but beggars could not be choosers.

  With the Remington in his hand, cocked and ready for use, Scobie gave rapid consideration to his next move. Darting to one side, he approached the bear from the rear. If only his pack held its attention for a short time, he might succeed in his plan?

  Sucking in a breath, Scobie stepped forward. He saw the bear’s head start to swing in his direction and shoved the muzzle of the Remington just below where the ear joined the skull. Even as the bear realized its danger, the gun cracked. With a bullet large enough to be fired in a rifle, the Remington packed sufficient power to drive its load through the bear’s skull and into the brain beneath the wall of bone. Not even the mighty grizzly bear could withstand such a blow. Its jaws snapped convulsively as the mighty frame crumpled and it toppled to the ground. Leaping backwards as soon as he fired, Scobie started to throw open the Remington’s breech while still in the air. Deftly his left hand scooped a bullet from the belt loops and fed it into the chamber as the empty case flew out.