The Sunset Trail

by Alfred Henry Lewis

  CHAPTER III

  INEZ OF THE 'DOBE WALLS

  Inez was a mustang--a small, wild-born thing, and the pet of the 'DobeWalls. Those Indians who came calling at the 'Dobe Walls sniffedsuspiciously at Inez and said she was the "White Man's Medicine." Whenput on the scales and weighed, Inez kicked the beam at seventy pounds,or about one-eighth of what she might have weighed had she lived out thelife designed for her by Providence, and escaped the dwarfing influencesof bread and milk as furnished by Mr. Hanrahan's black cook.

  Inez's share in the life of the 'Dobe Walls began in this way. Thehorse-hustler had found Inez and her little mustang mother visitingamong the ponies when he went to make his morning round-up. The motherfled like a shadow, but Inez, then in her babyhood and something thesize of a jackrabbit, fell into the hands of the horse-hustler. Thatpersonage of ponies rode into camp with Inez in his arms, and presentedher as a common charge. She was adopted and made much of, and soonforgot her griefs and her little mother whinnying among the hills.

  Except that she ceased to grow, civilization agreed with Inez. Whetherfrom the fright of capture or the menu of the 'Dobe Walls, and althoughwith time she slimmed and shaped up to be the silken image of afull-grown mustang, Inez stood no higher than nine hands. One might pickher up and carry her under one's arm like a roll of blankets; andoccasionally, for the fun of the thing, one did. To be thus transported,threw Inez into a temper; she was a petulant mustang, and when again onher four small hoofs--as black as jet and as shiny--she ran open-mouthedafter her tormentor.

  If time hung heavy Mr. Wright or Mr. Masterson would cinch a smallsaddle-tree onto Inez. Thereat, our peevish one arched her small spine,dropped her velvet muzzle between her fetlocks--as slender as a woman'swrists--and sunfished about the scene. Inez did not have to be trained tothis trick; it was in her blood and she "bucked" by instinct.

  The 'Dobe Walls consisted of Mr. Wright's store, Mr. Kimball'sblacksmith shop, and Mr. Hanrahan's saloon. This latter mart, of course.The West without a barroom would be London without a club. The 'DobeWalls was a casual camp of prairie commerce, pitched on the banks of theCanadian, and meant for trade with the buffalo hunters, taking skins forcalico, flour, fire-water, sugar, coffee, cartridges and guns. It laytwo hundred miles to the back of no-where, and Dodge, ten days' journeyaway on the Arkansas, called itself the nearest civilization. The fixedpopulation counted eleven at roll-call; but what with the coming andgoing of the buffalo hunters there were few moments of any day or nightwhen a count of noses would not have shown more than a score. The publicate its meals in the saloon, which Mr. Hanrahan turned into a restaurantthree times a day.

  Inez came with the rest to these repasts, and stood about behind thebenches and looked over the shoulders of her feeding friends. This shedid because it was her privilege, and not by virtue of any tooth ofhunger. If by design or accident the door were closed, Inez wheeledindignant tail and testified to a sense of injury with her heels. Sinceshe broke a panel on one of these spiteful occasions, Mr. Hanrahan hadbeen taught to open his portals with speed. The door being opened, Inezwould enter, snorting her small opinion of him who had sought to bar herfrom her rights.

  When it rained, Inez took shelter in the saloon. Also, she passed herhours of leisure there, for while Inez declined intoxicants and wentcommitted to water as much as any temperance lecturer, the company shefound in Mr. Hanrahan's was to her liking, being more unbuckled and atease than were those busy ones of the stores--deep with their foolishbarter.

  This was in the year when the Panhandle coyote rolled in fat from muchbuffalo meat, and a buffalo's skin brought five dollars. The June nighthad been sweltering hot. In the store and about the clay floor of Mr.Hanrahan's saloon, blanket-bedded and sound asleep, lay twenty-one men.Most of them were buffalo hunters, all were equal to death at fourhundred yards with one of their heavy guns. There were no pickets sincethere were no suspicions; for were not the Comanche, the Arrapahoe, theCheyenne, and the Kiowa their friends; and had not delegations of theseaboriginal clans been smilingly about the 'Dobe Walls but the daybefore? The snores and deep-lunged breathings told of a sense of suresecurity.

  Suddenly a pattering racket of rub-a-dub-dub broke on the sleeping ears.It was Inez beating an ecstatic longroll with the door for a drum.

  "Who shut that mustang out?" growled Mr. Masterson.

  Mr. Masterson sat up and rubbed his eyes. He glanced towards the door;it was not closed. Inez, standing inside, continued to beat it with herhoofs by way of tocsin. Mr. Masterson through the open door could see bythe blue light on the eastern-southern sky that the sun was coming up.

  "What's the matter with the baby?" thought Mr. Masterson. The "baby" wasone of many titles given Inez. "What's she kicking about? That Congohasn't fed her something that gives her a colic, has he?" Mr. Mastersonarose to talk it over with Inez, and learn and locate her aches.

  As Mr. Masterson drew near the door, his quick eye caught a movementunder the cottonwoods that a half mile away fenced the Canadian. Therewere five layers of tan on Mr. Masterson's face, each the work of aPanhandle summer. A moment was all he required to solve the mystery ofthat move beneath the cottonwoods.

  "Indians!" shouted Mr. Masterson.

  Then Mr. Masterson closed and barred the door. The door closed, heblazed away from a window with a six-shooter by way of general notice.

  Every man jack of the twenty-one in store and bar-room was on his feetlike magic. In that Western day, rather from habit than apprehension,one would as soon think of going to bed without his blankets as withouthis guns. Once aroused, the 'Dobe Walls was instantly an armed fort.

  The Indians made a gorgeous charge. There was a red line of them, fivehundred strong--picked fighters of the Cheyennes, the Arrapahoes, theKiowas, and the Comanches. To give them spirit and add eclat to thefray, two hundred of their friends from the Pawnees and the Osages, hadcome to see the fight. These copper gentlemen of peace and curiositywere seated upon a near-by hill, like an audience at a bull fight.

  It was a pageant to remember--that swoop of the red five hundred over thehalf mile of grassy flat between the cottonwoods and the 'Dobe Walls.Great war-bonnets of eagles' feathers floated from every head. The manesand tails of the ponies streamed with ribbons. On they swept, each buckmanaging with his knees his saddleless, bridleless little war horse.

  For a fortnight, the medicine man of the Comanches had starved anddanced himself into a frenzy. He had burned "medicine" tobacco, andoccult grasses, and slips of sacred cedar. Coming forth of his trancesand his songs, he brought word that the Great Spirit would fight on theside of His red children. His medicine told him they might ride into the'Dobe Walls and kill the palefaces in their sleep with clubs. Therewould be no resistance; it was no more than just riding in and strippingoff the scalps.

  Also, there were rifles and tons of cartridges which the Great Spiritdesigned for His red children. These would be as make-weight with thescalps, and pay His red children for the work of waging war. Thuspreached the medicine man; and his hearers were prompt with theirbelief. And thereupon they made stealthy tryst on the Canadian that Junemorning, and without yelp or outcry or war-shout, swept down upon theirprey as softly silent as spectres.

  The medicine man's medicine would have been true medicine, had not thecounter medicine of the white man been hard at work. Inez was so whollyof the palefaces that she disdained an Indian. Let one but cross herladyship to windward, and with squeal of protest she furnished notice ofher displeasure. Inez had gotten the taint of that line of copperbattle, and fled for refuge to Mr. Hanrahan's saloon. It was hercontempt for Indians, expressed on Mr. Hanrahan's door, that brought outthe 'Dobe Walls to defend its hair.

  There was no such Eastern foolishness as a pane of glass in any of thebuildings. The mud walls were perforated with openings eighteen inchessquare. These let in light and air. Also, they made portholes from whichto shoot. Ten seconds after Mr. Masterson's warning fusillade, twolynx-eyed gentlemen with buffalo guns were ready at eac
h of thoseopenings. They were a committee of reception likely to prove as warm asone might wish.

  It is the vanity of the paleface to hold that he can whip twentyfold hisweight in any alien race. He will prove this on the teeth of men red oryellow or black. No disaster drives this notion from his vaingloriouspate. He believes it, and thereon he transacts his wars. Upheld by it,his steady, cool ferocity of heart, makes his enemies believe it also;and in the end they abandon him as the creature indomitable and abovedefeat. That cocky conceit of himself has gotten the paleface intouncounted trouble; and then brought him victoriously through it.

  The twenty-one who waited with the buffalo guns were full-breathedspecimens of their race. Wherefore, the fear of being beaten at the oldgame of war, which their fathers had played for a thousand years, neveronce crossed their slope of thought. They would cord up thoseflambuoyant savages; they would have a scalp to show and a new yarn totell about their camp-fires. That was the most the coming troublepromised; looked on in that light, to repulse those savages wasrelaxation.

  The charging Indians were a minute covering the space between thoseriver cottonwoods and the 'Dobe Walls where the buffalo guns sohopefully awaited them.

  Every charging buck wore on his bow arm a round shield of double buffalohide. It had been stripped from the shoulder of a bull, and would stopthe bullet from a common rifle. The oncoming buck covered himself withthis bull's-hide buckler. His quiver of arrows stood up above his leftshoulder. As he charged, he would whip his right hand toward the quiver.Each time he brought away an arrow by the feather-end. With one motionthe arrow was thrown across the bow; drawing it to the head, he sent itsinging on like a hornet. The charging line of five hundred was precededby an arrow-flight as thick as stubble, for these red experts shot sofast that the seventh arrow would leave the bow while yet the first wasin the air. In that opening charge they did not employ rifles. At rangesnot to run over one hundred yards the arrow would do as well. Every oneof those missiles came twanging off the bowstring with a vengeful forcethat would have sent it smoothly, cleanly through a buffalo calf. Andthey must save their rifles for long range, should the war take on thatshape.

  "Billy," said Mr. Masterson to Mr. Dixon, his comrade of the loophole,"I'm going to hive that big one on the pinto pony." This to the end thatMr. Dixon pick out another target.

  On came Mr. Masterson's selection, shield held forward and arrowsstreaming from his bow like splinters of white light. Mr. Masterson'sfinger, trained to wait instantly on his eye, unhooked his rifle themoment the shield showed through both sights. The great bullet struckthe shield where the bunch of painted feathers floated. It went throughbull's-hide, arm, and savage shoulder behind the arm. The stricken oneseemed to rise in the air like a kite; and then he struck the grass in ahalf-stunned heap to roll and clutch, and at last to lie still. Mr.Masterson snapped in another cartridge, and laughed cheerfully.

  "Did you see the look of surprise, Billy," asked Mr. Masterson, "on myIndian's face? That was because he found his shield no good. The bulletwent through as though the shield were brown paper, and disturbed thatComanche's military theories."

  Mr. Dixon, whom Mr. Masterson addressed, made no response. He had piledup an Indian of his own, and was watching him with the keenest interest,with intent to send another bullet into him if he moved, which hedidn't.

  As Mr. Masterson peered forth on the heels of the charge, he counted around dozen of the Indians, scattered carelessly about, not one of whomwould ride again. The buffalo hunters had been sedulous to aim low andto see their hind-sights before they pressed the trigger. With the dozenIndians were half as many ponies, kicking and tossing in thedeath-heave.

  The volley broke the teeth of that charge; the Indians split on thebuildings to right and left, as the stone piers of a bridge split theriver's ice in the spring. They flashed by and ran into the low hills, athird of a mile to the rear. After the charge, those Osage-Pawneespectators, on their hill of curious peace, lighted pipes; they saw thatthe fight was to be a long one.

  "Bat," exclaimed Mr. Dixon, pointing to where Mr. Masterson's Indian laywaving his one good hand for a sign, "your buck ain't dead. Why don'tyou drill him ag'in?"

  "Let him alone," returned Mr. Masterson. "It's like baiting a trap. Ifhe lives long enough, you and I by being sharp can kill a dozen overhim, for his people will swoop down and try to carry him off."

  The big double door was the weak point. To strengthen it, Mr. Hanrahantore loose the tall rum counter, and piled it across. This uncoveredInez, who for all her hot temper was timid and had crept behind thecounter, regarding it as a cave of refuge in this trying hour. Strippedof her defences, Inez, who felt the peril though she might notunderstand, scuttled to the rear of the room and pushed in among athicket of stools and poker tables, which had been thrown there to havethem out of the way.

  There was a lull, the Indians still hugging the hills. Taking advantageof it, Mr. Hanrahan sent round their morning whiskey to the people atthe openings.

  "After the next charge," observed Mr. Hanrahan, who was not withoutwisdom concerning Indians, "they'll be so sick they'll give us time forbreakfast."

  Then a thing occurred that struck the colour from more than one browncheek. It was the clear, high note of a bugle, sounding a rally, then acharge.

  "This ain't a band of whites painted up, is it?" said Mr. Wright. "Ifit's another Mountain Meadow racket, boys, if we're up against whitemen, we're gone fawnskins!"

  "One thing sure," returned Mr. Masterson, "no Indian blew that bugle.Why, an Indian can't even whistle."

  White or red, again came the swoop of the enemy. Again the buffalo gunsbroke them and crumpled them up. They flew on, however, and tookposition under the cottonwoods from which they had first charged. As Mr.Masterson foretold, two riding side and side had made a dash for thewounded Indian, who still lifted up his arm. They would have gone toright and left of him and picked him up.

  "Take the one to the left, Billy," said Mr. Masterson.

  Mr. Masterson and Mr. Dixon carefully added the rescue party to that onewhom they came to save. "What did I tell you!" exulted Mr. Masterson, ashe clicked in a fresh cartridge and closed the breech of his Sharp's.

  "Which you called the turn!" said Mr. Dixon, who having been three yearsfrom Boston, now spoke with a Brazos accent.

  Again the mysterious bugle sang the tan-ta-ra-ra of a rally. The soundcame from down in the fringe of cottonwoods; the bugler, whoever hemight be, had charged each time with the others.

  As the bugle sounded, a big Osage, one of the pacific audience on thehill, started to ride over to the warriors forming their third line ofbattle beneath the trees. Doubtless he had thought of a word of adviceto give his fighting friends, whereof they stood in need. He was gravelywalking his pony across the space that lay between the red audience andthe red actors in this drama of blood.

  "It would be a good thing," remarked Mr. Wright, who was the Ulysses ofthe 'Dobe Walls, "to break that Osage of his conversation habit righthere. And yet, it won't do to hurt him and bring the Osages upon us.Can't you down his pony, Bat, and send him back on foot? You're the bestshot; and it would be a warning to the others, smoking on the hill, thatwe won't tolerate foreign interference in this fight."

  Mr. Masterson notched up his hindsight for seven hundred yards. Therifle flashed; the Osage pony made a forward jump and fell. At that, theowner picked himself up, rearranged his blanket, and soberly struttedback to his tribal friends whom he had quitted. His said friends tooktheir pipes out of their mouths and laughed widely over hisdiscomfiture. They were pleased thus to have his officiousness rebuked.He should have kept his nose out of this scrimmage, which was not anOsage scrimmage.

  The bugle called down the third charge. There came the low, thick patterof the hoofs, and soon the hail of steel-tipped arrows set in. Thearrows broke against the mud walls of the building, and fell to theharmless ground. One glanced through an opening, lifting the long locksof a defender.

  "Tryin' to cut y
our ha'r, Jim," jested his window mate. "Don't blame'em; it needs trimmin'."

  "All the same," retorted the one of the locks, "I nacherally trimmed thebarber a lot;" and he pointed to a savage who was twisting out his lifeon the grass.

  The arrow grazed Inez as it came clattering into her covert of stoolsand tables. Inez being dislodged, ran screaming to Mr. Masterson forprotection. She knocked against that excellent marksman in time to spoilhis shot, and save the life of a Kiowa on whose destruction he had sethis heart.

  Mr. Masterson, a bit disgusted with the timorous Inez, picked her up andput her in a great empty bin, wherein shelled corn had been kept. Inezbecame instantly engaged with the stray kernels which she found in thebottom, fumbling them and tasting them with her lips, half guessing theywere good to eat.

  There were no more swoops; the Indians had lost faith in the charge as amanoeuvre of war. They leaped off their ponies, the most of them, andfrom the hills popped at the palefaces, looking from those openings inthe 'Dobe Walls, with their rifles. The distance was a fair third of amile, and the chance of a bullet finding its way to anyone's disasterwas as one in one thousand.

  After the lapse of fifteen minutes Mr. Hanrahan's black cook begantossing up a bacon and flap jack breakfast for the garrison. Water wasat hand; Mr. Hanrahan's well had been dug cautiously inside the buildingfor just such a day as this. While the garrison were at breakfast, asentinel went through the manhole and watched from the roof. There wasno disturbance; the Indians kept discreetly to the hills, and put intime with a breakfast of their own. Fighting is hungry work, and willgive folk white or red an edge.

  After breakfast, Mr. Masterson lighted one of Mr. Hanrahan's cigars, andtook a look from a rear window. It was well into the morning. A long sixhundred yards away a score or more of the younger savages, restless witha lack of years and sore to be thus knocked about on their first warpathby a huddle of buffalo hunters, were galloping hither and yon. Theirwar bonnets still flaunted, and their ponies still streamed withribbons; but where was that hot courage which had brought them a trio oftimes up to the muzzles of those buffalo guns? Mr. Masterson counted thedistance with his eye; then he shook his head.

  "Bob," said he to Mr. Wright, "I can't be sure at that range with mygun. It's got buckhorn sights--coarse enough to drag a dog through 'em.Where's that closed-sight gun you brought out last week, the one withthe peep sight in the grip?"

  "It's here," returned Mr. Wright, "but there's no cartridges nearer thanthe store."

  "That's all right," said Mr. Masterson. "You boys cover me, and I'llmake a dash for the store. I want to see how they're getting on overthere, at that."

  Mr. Masterson went through one of the eighteen-inch openings. Thedistant Indians saw him, but appeared indifferent. There was a tall wallof mud between the store and Mr. Hanrahan's saloon. There was a gate,but that had been closed and locked by Baldy Smith. Mr. Masterson's planwas to crawl under the gate, being invited by an open space of at leasta foot. It was better than climbing; were he to do the latter somefar-off lucky savage might manage a cock-shot of him as he went over thetop.

  As Mr. Masterson stooped to dive beneath the gate, he shouted loudly tothose in the store. He had no desire to be mowed down by his friends,upon a notion that he was some enterprising Indian, piercing theirdefences. At Mr. Masterson's shout, a wounded Indian, who was lying lowin a clump of weeds, sat up and with the utmost good will pumped threebullets at him from a Spencer seven-shooter. The bullets chucked into apile of chips, heaped up where the cook was wont to chop his fire wood.They buried the crawling Mr. Masterson beneath a shower of bark andchips and splinters, but did no harm.

  Mr. Masterson's feelings were ruffled by the shower of chips. Onreaching the store, his first care was to borrow a rifle, poke a hole inthe mud wall and quiet that uneasy personage in weedy ambuscade.

  "I don't want him whanging away at me on my return," explained Mr.Masterson.

  There were five in the store. Young Thurston had been shot through thelungs. His days were down to minutes; parched with the death-fever, helay calling for water.

  There was no well in the store as in the forethoughtful Mr. Hanrahan'ssaloon. The store pump was fifty yards away in the stark, undefendedopen.

  "I reckon now," said Daddy Keeler, "I'll go fetch a bucketful. I'm thegent to go, because my eyes are too old and dim to do anything at sixhundred yards. I'd just waste cartridges."

  Daddy Keeler was called Daddy Keeler for two reasons. For one matter, hehad passed sixty years; and for another, everybody loved him. In theWest when a man is loved they give him a nickname.

  Also, there are no struggles for precedence in the West. Each man playshis part in peace or war as best dovetails with his pleasure. Not one inthe beleaguered store would have hesitated to run the gauntlet of thosesavage rifles to bring water to young Thurston as he died. Yet not onewould offer to take the place of Daddy Keeler. To do so would have beenin violation of Panhandle proprieties, and Daddy Keeler would haveresented it to the death.

  Daddy Keeler took a bucket and tossed it through an opening. For all hisyears and hair of gray, he was as active as a cat. He made no task ofsliding through the opening after the bucket. The four who remainedstood ready, should the sight of him cause a rush to cut him off. As,bucket in hand, he started for the pump, a frightened dog, in hidingbehind a heap of lumber, came forth and followed whiningly.

  The savages were not slow in getting to work. They didn't charge; theirstomachs were too weary for that. But their rifles cracked by twos andtens and twenties. The bullets zipped and whistled as thick as twilightbats.

  The pump was sun-dried and slow; it cost two minutes to start the waterfrom the cracked spout, and five to fill the bucket. Smack! smack! thepump was struck a dozen times, while in twenty places the well-platformwas rasped or whitely splintered by the flying lead.

  Daddy Keeler pumped doggedly, and never raised his head; the creaking ofthe pump-handle matched with the low howling of the frightened dog.Daddy Keeler's sombrero went whirling, the dog was shot down at hisfeet; still he pumped on. The bucket at last was filled. Daddy Keelerpicked up his hat and fixed it on his head. Then he brought the bucketand passed it through the opening without spilling a drop. The nextmoment he had followed it, and never a mark upon him.

  "It's some hot out thar in the sun," said Daddy Keeler, apologetically,wiping the great drops from his forehead. Then taking off his sombrero,and considering the double hole the bullet had left: "It was aforty-four did that; some of 'em's shootin' Winchesters." For fourteenlong, hot days the fight went on; now and then a charge, more oftenlong-range shooting, whereat the buffalo hunters excelled. When thefight flagged the garrison played poker, leaving one to watch.

  Every night one-half the garrison must dig graves for the dead--pony andIndian alike. The argument for these sexton labours was sanitary, notsentimental. In the blinding height of a Panhandle summer it is no goodthing to be cordoned about with dead ponies and dead Indians. There wasnever a danger; your savage lies close, and will not move in the darkunless one crowd him. He is so much the Parthian that it is against hisreligion to fight in the night.

  Before the burial parties tumbled an Indian into his sepulchre, theywere at pains to have his scalp as an incontestable method of keepingaccounts. On the fifteenth day, when the troops from Dodge relieved thesiege, there were eighty topknots to tell the loss of the enemy.

  Inez, when the fighting fell to long-range, cried to be lifted from herbox. Inez did not fear bullets; arrows were a different commodity andset her nerves on edge. She could see them; besides, they smelledfearfully of Indians. As long as no arrow came spitting and splinteringthrough the openings, Inez was without a care. She would have beencontent were it not for her rations of merely bread and water. This shethought squinted at parsimony, and it aroused her spleen.

  When the cavalry came riding down from Dodge the beaten remnant of thatwar party went squattering through the shallow reaches of the Canadian,and headed south for the S
taked Plains. Then the visiting Osages andPawnees, pipe in hand and blankets wrapped about them, came beaminglyfrom their audience hill to offer congratulations.

  "How!" said Black Feather, the Osage chief, extending his hand to Mr.Wright "How! Heep big fight!"

  Then Black Feather went over the four score scalps, and whether by tintof plume or mark of braid, hidden to the white man, confidently told thetribe of each.

  "Comanche!" grunted Black Feather, picking up a scalp; and then: "Kiowa,Cheyenne, Arrapahoe," as he pawed the others over one by one.

  "Who were right in this shindy?" asked the captain of cavalry.

  That officer was curious to hear what Black Feather would say to thequestion. Black Feather, who believed firmly in the equities of force,did not hesitate.

  "White man right," said he. "The longest lance is right."

  What of that mysterious bugle, whereof the music so shook the men ofbuffaloes? It was blown by a caitiff negro, a deserter from Uncle Sam'sswart cavalry. The third charge was the black bugler's last. Striped andpainted like the others, the burial party might never have known therace or colour of him had it not been for his want of a scalp lock. Theytook his bugle instead, and rolled him into the trench with the others.

  "By the way, Bat," remarked Mr. Wright, when two days after the fight,life at the 'Dobe Walls had gone back to old-time lines, "we forgot tothank you for seeing those Indians that time. They'd have cinched us,sure, if you hadn't; killed us, as it were, on the nest. It ain't toolate to take a drink on it, is it?"

  "The drink goes," returned Mr. Masterson, drawing up to Mr. Hanrahan'scounter, which was again happily in its place; "the drink goes, but itought to be for Inez. It was she who gave warning. If it hadn't been forInez every man of us would have gone with Thurston, and those eightybucks might be riding yet. It was pretty work, Bob, to stand off fivehundred Indians fourteen days, and only lose one man against theireighty." Here Inez came mincingly through the door, like a fine ladythinking on her skirts. She nosed up to Mr. Masterson for a caress."That's right," said Mr. Masterson, patting her satin neck, "you're justin time, Ladybird. We're going to drink to the White Man's Medicine,Inez, of the 'Dobe Walls."