Wagon Train West

by Lauran Paine

  “You said you were their friend.”

  “I am,” he said, then he stopped. “It’s too long a story. You wouldn’t understand anyway.”

  “Tell me,” she said quickly. Then slower: “I’ve never met a white man like you … who talked for them.”

  “I’m their friend so long as we look at things the same way … like with white people. Now I’m against them … well, not exactly, but at least I’m against their stopping the wagons or turning them back. So … I’ll fight them.”

  “Do they know you? I mean, do they know who you are and that you are guiding us?” He inclined his head. “What did they say to that?” she asked.

  Kit smiled a little at her. “The one I talked to said it wouldn’t hurt as much to be shot by a brother as it would to be shot by a stranger.”

  She took her arm from the black mare’s neck and gripped her hands together, locking the fingers tightly. “I am afraid,” she said softly.

  “So am I,” Kit said.

  “You don’t look it,” she said with spirit, almost spitefully.

  He laughed. “Well, I am, just the same. Maybe in a different way than you are.”

  She looked past him at the raw sweep of the land. “I hate this,” she said, moving her head to indicate the country. “It’s primitive, cruel and primitive.”

  He looked away from her and studied the country with its outfall of long, slender shadows. Its huge sweeps of bloodred sunlight dying in a splashed and awesome way across the immense mountains, and the waving grass, fat with nourishment for horses and game. “No, it isn’t the country. The country’s beautiful. Every mile of it. It’s the fear that’s got you, lady, not the land.”

  He left her after that, feeling better for some strange reason, and walked down to where Lige had a tiny fire going. He dropped down with a sigh and a grunt and wagged his head at the older man. “Where’d the Dakotas go?”

  Lige tossed his head. “Back into the damned trees,” he said, “where they can get a little rest before they hit us about dawn.” As though dismissing the grimness, Lige fished around with one hand on his offside and brought up two soggy-looking lumps of dough. “Look here, real white man’s bread. I talked a woman out of it. She was beating up a batch in a big crock.” Lige eyed the lumpy mass with infinite tenderness. “We’ll bake it in the coals after we eat. Be just right for breakfast.”

  Kit was pointing. “Look, Lige.”

  A black, oily spiral of smoke was rising straight up in the hushed, sparkling stillness. Lige looked and put the dough back on the ground with a slow movement. “Indian signals. Well, those aren’t the only ones around, then. Hell of a skittle now, for sure. Outnumbered before … what’ll we be by dawn?”

  “Maybe it’s just a try at getting reinforcements. If they had friends close, they wouldn’t bother with a thing like that. They’d send a messenger for ’em.”

  Lige studied the smoke for a long time in between his cooking chores. “One thing, Kit. If they don’t get any help by morning, fine. If they do, that yellow hair of yours’ll look real pert atop a coupstick.”

  Chapter Four

  They ate and Kit sat hunched over, looking into the coals when Lige made the little cavities in the earth where he put the bread dough to bake. Powers came over after full nightfall and dropped down. Lige looked around at him and squinted. “Did you put out double guards?” he asked.

  Powers bobbed his head. “One ring way out, another closer in, and a scattering of men just beyond the wagons.”

  “Stagger ’em?” Kit asked.

  “Yes. If they come tonight, they’ll get a hot welcome.”

  “They won’t come in force,” Kit said, “but I reckon a few glory hunters’ll try to lift a little hair on their own.”

  Powers mused. He had taken every precaution. There was fear in him, but it was neither the same kind the girl had felt nor the kind that was lying like a small steel ball in Kit’s stomach. With Powers, it was dread. “You fellers think there’s any way out besides fighting?”

  Lige went on worrying over the coals where his bread dough lay. He said nothing, with his customary way of making his silence shout. Kit watched the silhouettes that were people. It made him wince the way they would let themselves be illuminated by the little cooking fires. “No way other than what you’ve decided, and they’ve decided.”

  “But we can’t go back!” Powers burst out passionately. Then he checked himself.

  “So,” Kit said smoothly, “I reckon you’d better go up forward and get what sleep you can. And say, Powers … when you go past those folks up there, you might tell them to stay to hell away from their fires. If a buck gets through the guards, he could pot-shoot a half-dozen of the fools.”

  Powers was getting up when another figure came out of the night, close by. All three men looked up, startled. Only Kit recognized her. Lige was spellbound; his jaw hung. Five weeks—nearly six—and he had never seen her before.

  “Mister Powers,” she said, glancing swiftly away from Kit.

  “Why, Allie.” Powers got the rest of the way to his feet with an effort. He smiled at her and looked down at the scouts. “Boys, this is Miss Allison Burgess. Folks call her Allie.”

  “Proud, ma’am,” Lige found the wits to say, closing his mouth with a noise afterward, as if it were a steel trap.

  Kit smiled sardonically and said nothing until Powers peered at him, then he nodded. “We’ve met before.” He motioned toward a saddle blanket where Lige had been sitting. “Sit down, Miss Burgess.”

  She sank down, and Lige moved sideways to see her better, his eyes like chips of ice. Powers seemed uncertain whether to stay or leave. Kit looked steadily at him. He left.

  “I … I wanted to hear more about these Indians, Mister Butler.”

  “Kit. My name’s Christopher. They call me Kit.” He nodded toward Lige. “My pardner could tell you more than I can. He’s lived with just about every tribe in the Northwest.”

  Allie Burgess looked at Lige, and the old mountain man froze for a moment before he smiled at her. Beauty was a thing a man might go ten years without seeing in the far country. White beauty, anyway. Lige shrugged uncomfortably. “Kit’s better at telling it. He knows as much as I do anyway, ma’am.”

  But Kit wasn’t ready to expound. He watched her face, the way the dying light highlighted it. She was beautiful—not pretty, after all, but beautiful. The black hair shone with an imprisoned luster. “Ma’am, how come your folks are migrating?”

  “Why? We’re against slavery, that’s why.”

  Kit’s smile was slight and rueful, like his words. “You can’t ever lick anything by running from it.”

  “We’re not running.”

  Lige heard the deepening sharpness of her voice and looked quickly at Kit.

  “If you aren’t, what’re you doing ’way out here in Dakota country?”

  “My father wants to find a country where the land is good and there’s no slavery. We’ve heard about California. Have you ever been there, Mister Butler?”

  “Kit,” he said again gravely. “No ma’am, and unless I’m wrong, half the United States’ll be out there in another few years. I don’t want to get that far into the desert.”

  “It’s no desert,” she said quickly.

  “Like Indians are filthy heathens. The same way. You’ve never seen Indians and you’ve never seen California, but one’s no good and the other’s heaven on earth.”

  She had the smoky look in her eyes. He couldn’t see it but he knew it was there by the expression of both hardness and antagonistic defiance that swept over her face. She said nothing. He remembered the way she did that, too. Let silence create awkwardness. He looked at the fire and stiffened with a quick grunt.

  “The bread, Lige. Consarn it, the bread!”

  Lige strangled a curse and dug frantically. The s
mells arose before Lige had more than gotten the first layer of earth off. “Burned,” he groaned. “Burned to a frazzle, Kit.” The look of abjection made Kit grin, then smile, then laugh out loud at the expression Lige wore.

  Allie Burgess caught the drift of their dilemma and laughed, too. The sound was deep and husky and soft, like the earth cooling after a drenching rain in midsummer, warm and refreshing.

  Lige swung and gazed at her. “It’s funny to you, ma’am,” he said. “But that there’s the first real honest-to-God, woman-made bread dough we’ve had in years.”

  She looked fixedly at Lige. “It can’t be,” she said.

  “Well, it is, lady,” Lige said stubbornly. “We’ve been eating wasna ration and greens and buffalo hump for longer’n I’d care to guess at.” He swung toward Kit with an injured air. “Isn’t that gospel truth, Kit?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Indians don’t make bread. Especially Dakota Indians. They live on meat almost entirely. Buffalo hump, mule meat, horse meat, antelope, elk, deer … just about anything, including dog … but not much else.”

  “No vegetables? No bread of any kind? Not even that corn cake–looking bread the Mexicans had back at Independence?”

  “Yes, ma’am. In the spring and summer the Indians get wild onions and the like, but no bread. Not even the Mexican stuff.”

  She held his glance a long time. “Well, I’ll get you some bread.” She hesitated, frowning a little. “Didn’t any of the other pioneers give you any?”

  Kit’s smile returned sardonically. He shook his head. “We’re not invited to supper, ma’am. You saw how they’d’ve eaten us alive today, I expect. No, we’re like Indians to you folks. Guides and scouts as far as Fort Collins … after that, a dirty memory of a harrowing passage over hostile Indian country.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” she said sharply, getting up. “I’ll go get you some fresh bread.”

  She was turning away when Kit stopped her. “No. You just go back to your wagon and stay there. Take a gun and stay low and out of sight, and Miss Allie … don’t walk in front of any of those cussed little cooking fires on the way back.”

  He watched her go. Lige sat with his hands dangling, looking after her. He swore gently. “Kit, I never saw her before.”

  “I didn’t, either, until this afternoon. Well, like I told her, we don’t mix much.”

  “She’s as pretty a filly as I’ve seen in years. In fact,” Lige said flatly, “I’m not so sure she’s not the prettiest woman I’ve ever saw.”

  Kit tossed a pebble into the fire. He didn’t speak, and after a while Lige looked back at the two lumps of blackened bread batter. “Who’s going to sleep first?”

  “You can,” Kit said. “I’ve run into too many ghosts today to be able to sleep … for a while, anyway.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, White Shield Owner, for one. That redheaded fellow losing his hair, for another. I’ve seen that done before, on a dead run. It sort of sticks inside your mind, Lige.”

  “And the girl, Kit?”

  “Roll in and shut up. I’m going for a walk. I’ll take a look at their guard. I’ll wake you in a few hours.”

  Lige watched his lean, tall form move away. He felt around for his old buffalo robe, rolled up into it, and lay there looking up at the lanterns in the sky.

  Kit leaped over a wagon tongue that ran half the distance of the wagon in front of it. Outside the wagon circle the night seemed less friendly, less inhabited and intimate—more foreign, more Indian. He shrugged away the thoughts that came flooding. It was eerie, though, waiting, waiting, knowing what was coming at dawn and being reasonably safe right now, even with the knowledge that a dozen black eyes were watching the emigrant train.

  He saw the first man off on his right, about fifty feet ahead. He spoke before he moved any closer. The man swung with his rifle, making a vicious half circle.

  “That you, Samuel?”

  “No. Kit Butler, the scout.” He went forward until he could see the man’s face. It was a dark night. Only the slimmest of moons shone weakly. He recognized the man suddenly. It was the man Powers had called Reaves, the man who had been hot-eyed and fiery-faced after the killing of the youth in the morning. He nodded stiffly at him. “Seen anything?”

  “Nary a thing. Man sure can think he sees ’em, though. And hears ’em. While ago, I’d a-swore they was in the grass. They wasn’t.” Reaves smelled strongly of chewing tobacco, a bittersweet smell.

  Kit studied the stillness with its purple reflection. There wasn’t a sound ahead, or a movement, and yet there could be … “Pretty night,” he said suddenly, looking upward. The man called Reaves shot him a startled glance. He said nothing. Kit’s glance dropped. “Where’s the rest of them? Up ahead a ways?”

  “Yeah. Caleb Martin’s to the right of us. Watch him, though. Old Cal’s touchy tonight.” The man’s face swung swiftly, close to Kit’s face. His voice was husky and hoarse and very low. “Will they hit us at dawn, Butler? What d’you think?”

  “I think they’ll come,” Kit said, moving away. “We’ll know in a few hours.”

  He walked away from Reaves in a southerly direction. He didn’t want to see any more of the guards. It was the restless desire to be alone that had driven him out here in the first place.

  The night was an immense vault. He sat down on the ground and felt the night dampness of the grass. Will they hit us at dawn, Butler? He swore, something he rarely ever did. Hit us? They’ll come like a whirlwind, raising the yell. They’ll make the ground rumble with the drumroll of their horses. They’ll come all right. Like the most diabolical devils any stay-at-home has ever imagined when he was retelling the horrors other stay-at-homes had written or imagined, or just plain made up.

  He smiled at the night and lived within himself, recalling raids he had made with friendly Indians against their enemies. He thought of White Shield Owner and marveled that the old man of war had thought so far ahead as to see, long ago, that he and Kit might be enemies. He had thought about it enough to think it through.

  My brother’s bullet won’t hurt as much as a stranger’s …

  He looked at the faint outline, bold and yet soft, of the faraway hills, and somewhere deep within him there arose an urge to pray as the Indians prayed. He bent his head and chanted an old Arapaho prayer.

  Father, have pity on me.

  Father, have pity on them.

  I am crying for thirst.

  They are crying for thirst.

  All is gone … my soul is empty.

  Their souls are empty,

  Have mercy on them.

  He looked up into the night again and thought of the girl. He could picture the look of shock and abhorrence on her face if she had heard him chanting an Indian prayer. He laughed under his breath and even formed the words with his lips. It is the same God. If they believe in one Great Spirit, and you believe in the same Great Spirit under another name, Allie Burgess … who can say he isn’t the same God?

  Like a slow awakening, then, he understood what his restlessness was. The girl. Not the Dakotas—the girl with the Indian-black hair with blue shadows in it, the smoky gray eyes, the full-lipped mouth, and the hatred for Indians.

  With realization came a manner of peace. He gazed steadily ahead. The hours fled by, and only when he saw the faint grayness did his heart slam hard against his ribs. He jumped up and turned back, hurrying. Any time now …

  The wagon circle was still and quiet. He had a panicky thought that the emigrants might be asleep, after all. He shook it off and trotted back, with the dew making his boots shine with dampness. He saw the guard, Reaves, and called to him.

  “Watch close now, pardner. If they’re coming, it won’t be long.”

  The guard hardly moved. His face was sagging and gray-looking. Kit stopped when he was almost back to the wagons and twisted for a long
glance backward. The land was ill-looking—quiet with a hush of death—and murky-looking. Against the far forest there was a starkness of limbs and trunks and ghostliness, a deep, brooding expectancy. He turned and went almost to the wagon tongue. In fact, he was reaching for it with his hand when he heard what might have passed the other hearers as a soft, distant soughing of wind in the long grass—a long, piercing cry rendered soft and mellow with distance.

  “Hoka hay!”

  He cleared the barrier in a swift leap, drew his pistol, and fired it once into the air, then he ran toward Lige Turner and wrenched away the buffalo robe. Lige sat up heavily, gropingly, fighting for clearness. He saw the tight face above him and came to his feet with his carbine in his hand. He blinked away the surplus water in his eyes.

  “Are they coming, Kit?”

  “Listen!”

  The wagon train was bursting with life now, and the guards had seen and were rushing back with their mouths open and no sounds coming out. They all heard it the second time, but only two of the nearly two hundred understood it.

  “Hoka hay!” It meant: “Charge!”

  “God Almighty,” Lige said fluidly. “Come on!”

  Chapter Five

  The wagon circle was a throng of confusion. Men’s rumbling shouts rose when there was no need for them beyond the primordial desire to yell, and so dissipate pent-up tension that had been growing under their hearts for days.

  The contagion spread to the horses and cattle. People had to hug close to the big wagons, for frightened horses careened by wildly. Kit watched with a helpless feeling how the emigrants reacted to the final test. Only the younger men seemed to go directly to the places where their gunfire would help. He thought instinctively that this was a land that consumed youth—ate it up, and wore it out fighting, building, toiling over the terrible deserts and mountains and flooding rivers—then tossed it aside and reached for new youth to consume. He turned and sought Lige. The mountain man was already rolling a thick oaken water cask with grunting effort.

  Together they worried the cask under a wagon and lay down behind it. Lige’s jaws were locked so that his cheeks looked ribbed with muscle. Kit wormed around the cover a little and lay with his head low, peering out. The bedlam behind and around them was deafening.