Wagon Train West

by Lauran Paine

  “Kit!” Allie’s voice was deep and frightened.

  He put the horse down into a flat, ear-back run and raced forward, where the two forces had come together with a shattering suddenness. The confusion was indescribable. The men of war had an advantage only when they could get close enough to a mounted soldier to dodge the footwork of his horse. The fight broke up into a series of furious melees, and the dust churned up into a high yellow cloud.

  Indian death chants were everywhere. The hayoka had worked the warriors into a do-or-die fanaticism. They fought more ferociously than Kit had ever seen them fight. Once, he caught a glimpse of Forrester, then the captain was gone in a whirl of dust and noise. Twice, Kit saw Big Eagle. The stalwart buck—deep chest and coppery arms shiny with sweat, and his face set in a craggy glare—fought with his legs wide. He, like almost any Dakota warrior, could keep half a dozen arrows in the air at the same time.

  The riders held their advantage when they could chase or approach an Indian. In close, their animals were all but unmanageable with fear and a crow-hopping urge to bolt. Several Indians had managed to dislodge riders and were now mounted. One of these rode at Kit with a soldier’s carbine held lightly in one powerful hand. Kit ducked and fired twice. The Indian rolled off the horse on the second shot, and Kit’s horse paced his gait to miss stepping on the body.

  The farthest section of the line held fast in spite of repeated assaults by Dakotas, who were determined to break through and get to the trees beyond. Kit saw this dimly, through the stinging smudge of powder smoke. There was an officer down there who sensed the importance of keeping his line intact. He held it that way in spite of the smashing attacks by increasing Dakota strength, and despite the battered, dented, broken line up where Kit was.

  Somewhere, a long way off, as though from the sky itself, Kit heard the ripple of a bugle call. It surprised him for a second, in the heat of battle, then he turned to watch the soldiers. As furiously as they had accepted the Dakota charge, they were now drawing off. Kit’s anger swam with a reddish froth before his eyes. If the soldiers retreated now, the Indians would take heart and renew their blind charge. They would break through.

  He rode his horse up the field, searching for Captain Forrester. He didn’t find him, and the bugle call came again. With the Indians’ shouts taking on a wildly exultant sound, he raced back to the bugler, found him surrounded by Forrester and five noncommissioned officers, and slid his horse with reckless fury the last ten feet.

  “Forrester! You can’t pull ’em out now! The Indians’re almost licked.”

  “We’ve got to regroup!” Forrester yelled at him. “The line’s broken, and the men’re getting too scattered!”

  “Scattered, hell!” Kit said furiously. He pointed where the steadfast fishhook was holding its ground against increasing Indian pressure. “That’s the way to do it, Forrester.” Apparently, the bugle call hadn’t been heard down there. He swung past the commanding officer and grabbed the trumpet from the bugler with a violent gesture. Captain Forrester turned on him with a set and deadly look.

  “You fool! I know what I’m doing!”

  Kit threw the bugle down. The bugler immediately dismounted to retrieve it. He was bent far over when a long Dakota arrow caught him under the right arm, pierced his chest, and knocked him sideways. Forrester was horrified. His wrath turned sickly at the sight of the dying man. Kit leaped off his horse and snatched up the bugle and turned toward several soldiers who were watching.

  “Who can blow this thing?”

  For a moment no one tried to yell back an answer over the bedlam, then a one-eyed, grizzled soldier held out his hand without speaking. Kit handed him the instrument.

  “Blow the charge, dammit!”

  The lilting call rang out with a mighty blast. The one-eyed soldier blew it again, as loudly and imperatively as before. He handed the trumpet back to Kit without looking at the officers, lifted his reins, and spurred his horse down where the line was wheeling, starting back, with a roaring bedlam that was vengeance and eagerness, toward the startled Indians.

  Kit threw the bugle down and sprang back into the saddle. He shot one triumphant glare at Captain Forrester and raked his mount mercilessly with his spurs.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Indians had become badly spread out in the pursuit of the retreating soldiers. Now, afoot, they had no time to run back, where Big Eagle was rallying a nucleus to stop the oncoming troopers.

  Kit knew what the soldiers didn’t know; that the Dakotas were all but whipped at the moment the retreat was sounded. He knew nothing of military science and therefore was unaware of the danger of having the soldiers broken up as they had been, fighting little individual battles, with great gaps in their lines. His ignorance and Forrester’s prudence, however, turned the tide completely, because, as the soldiers fell back to rally around the officers, they automatically closed up their ranks again, eliminating the gaps.

  Now they swung and thundered back, a solid wall of blue, and the Dakotas, strung out, almost spent, reeled with surprise at this new maneuver—this new and violent charge—when they had been sure the soldiers were fleeing.

  Kit and the one-eyed veteran were neck and neck for the lead when the blue column, like a quivering snake, struck the Indians again. Riding through and over them, they turned and flung out an earsplitting roar of triumph as they raced back.

  Kit saw Big Eagle standing as before. He could see the war leader’s lips move and his eyes glisten, but Big Eagle’s death chant was lost in the pandemonium.

  The bugle was sounding retreat again. Kit swore as the troopers veered off, firing salvos into the din and dust and gun smoke, riding back as hard as they had ridden forward. Not until he was following them, flushed and feverish with the shock of battle, did he realize that Forrester could have him arrested.

  He reloaded at the gallop and reined down to a walk when the firing died away to intermittent popping sounds, down where the inward curve of the line yet stood fast, again, despite the insistent call of the bugler.

  Captain Forrester was rigid. His face was black as night, and a big vein in the side of his neck throbbed. When he spoke, though, his voice was so low and deep Kit had to turn his head a little to hear him.

  “You complete damned fool!”

  Kit holstered the reloaded pistol and, resting both hands on the saddle horn, stared at the officer. Reaction, like a drug, set in. He had trouble finding the words he wanted. “It had to be done that way. They were scattered to hell and back. If you pulled out, they’d get clear. You know that.”

  “I also know that you can’t fight an army in scattered parties, like you’d fight a mob. Individually, the troopers were at a disadvantage as soon as the bucks got past them and in close enough to grab a rider’s leg. A solid front is the only way to fight a mounted line, Butler.”

  “That’s the way they fought, the second time,” Kit said. Forrester’s savage glare was broken when a soldier trotted up to them and saluted the captain.

  “He’s dead, sir.”

  Kit looked around. Forrester returned the salute and nodded his head once, curtly. The trooper spun and rode down the forming line, where men were dismounting and examining horses.

  “The trooper who bugled for you, Butler, is dead.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kit said.

  Forrester didn’t speak for a moment. “He’d be sorry, too,” he said bleakly, finally, “if he’d lived. You shoot men for mutiny in combat.”

  Kit didn’t respond right away. He was watching the wounded. Most were ambulatory. They were all congregating in one place where aid men were setting up an impromptu station for their care. The troopers were talking. Their voices floated up to Kit in a tinny, unnatural way. He looked out at the Indians and beyond, where the wagon train was obscured by the drifting dust and gun smoke.

  Kit made a tired gesture with one hand
. “I shouldn’t have done it, Captain,” he said softly, “from your standpoint. But I know those Indians. I knew it had to be done, and right then. Go ahead and arrest me. They’re licked. That’s what we wanted. You can have the glory. All I want to do is lie down and sleep for a month.” He started to turn away. Forrester’s words caught him up short.

  “Butler.”

  He turned back. There was the same hard core of antagonism in Forrester’s glance, but it was a little awry. His flat mouth was flatter and his body was just as erect. It was the sound of his voice that made Kit look at him. “Where’s the girl?”

  His eyes went flat and his mind reeled. Without answering or speaking at all, he turned his horse and kneed it back to where he had last seen her. With a depth of understanding Kit never would have attributed to the angry commanding officer, Forrester reined after him. “Those mounted bucks broke through, Butler. Over there.” He flung his arm out.

  Kit looked along the field and saw dead horses. Two dead soldiers were sprawled grotesquely across the animals. His heart went dead within him. His mind got fuzzy.

  “You know them. You know what they’ll do if we go after them.”

  “Yeah.” He reined up and shook his head, the way he had when Allie had insisted he was too tired to go on.

  “Then think of something … quick!”

  He dismounted near where she had been. The ground offered an eloquent story in mute tragedy. The corporal and his guard had put up a gallant fight. They had been overwhelmed by force of numbers. The tracks led south, toward the forest. He got off his haunches and went back to stand by his horse, looking over where a heat haze obscured the glowering shadow-world of trees. Forrester watched him in silence. He had seen much Indian ferocity but he had never gotten used to it, and never would. That and the knowledge of what would happen to Allie Burgess was prompting him, in spite of himself, to be lenient with the scout who had committed such an unpardonable breach of conduct—at least in the army’s eyes.

  Kit mounted and rode in a tight little circle, quartering the path taken by the fleeing Dakotas. What he read from the earth confirmed what he already knew. They had been about fifteen strong. They had swept up the girl when they found her, and had taken her as a hostage.

  He rode back toward the column. The men were sitting, eating and smoking, and drinking copious amounts of water. The sun was burnishing the valley with a blasting fury.

  Captain Forrester dismounted when Kit did. He looked over at the Indians. Burial parties were at work. They had to grub in the earth with their hands and captured soldier sabers. The majority of the warriors were having a council.

  Kit stood like a statue, staring at the Indians. He forced his mind to work with great effort. Thralldom—an emptiness—left him feeling weak and drained. Forrester walked over slowly and stood beside him.

  “I hope they’ll talk sense now, Mister Butler.”

  Kit got his idea from those eight words. He didn’t move, though, until the officer spoke again.

  “I’ll ride out with a white flag and see.”

  “No.” Kit turned and mounted his horse in a leap. He gathered the reins and stared at the officer. Bareheaded, the fullness of his mane in disarray, Captain Forrester looked younger.

  “Well?”

  “I’ve got a notion, Captain. I know the army doesn’t trade, but it’s got to this time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Trade them their lives for Miss Burgess.”

  Forrester continued his unblinking, squinted regard of the scout. He dropped his head a little and turned it, gazing out where the Indians were. “They’re army prisoners, one way or the other, Mister Butler,” he said firmly, softly. “We can’t let them walk away from here.”

  “Time’s valuable,” Kit said. “If we can save her at all, it’s got to be done right now.”

  “We can’t trade,” Forrester repeated. “Not their freedom.”

  “It doesn’t have to be their freedom. Trade them their lives.”

  “You mean butcher them if they don’t have her sent back?”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Kit said. Then he shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean that. I meant let them think that’s what’s going to happen to them.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  Kit let his shoulders droop. “Line up your men. Have them kneel and aim their guns. I’ll ride ahead. I’ll talk to them. When I lift my arm, you have them aim every gun at the Indians.”

  Forrester expelled his breath and started to shake his head. “This is no time to bluff,” he said solemnly.

  “This is exactly the time to bluff,” Kit corrected him flatly. “It’s the only time to bluff Dakotas. When you have the power and they think you have the will to carry through with it.”

  “I don’t like it. Suppose some fool starts shooting?”

  “Suppose we talk too long, and they kill her?”

  “How do you know they haven’t already?”

  “I don’t, but I know them. As soon as the fighting ended, those mounted bucks found a high spot and are sitting up there, looking down. The rest is up to us. She’s more valuable to them alive than dead … right now.” Kit tightened his reins. The color came into his face. “Will you do as I’m asking?”

  Forrester looked deeply troubled. He ran a hand through his hair, then sheltered his eyes and stared out at the Dakotas. “You’re riding to your death, more than likely,” he said in a thin, resigned way. “All right. If hell breaks loose, you’ll be in the middle of it and we won’t be able to save you, Butler.”

  Kit didn’t answer. He took off his hat and waved it in big, swooping motions over his head and began to ride slowly forward. Behind him, he could hear Forrester bellowing for his officers. Ahead of him the Dakotas were standing up, a lot of them staring. The bucks hunkering around the council turned and watched the lone white man riding his horse at a walk toward them. Several jumped up with shouts of rage. Others made the wibluto signal for sit-wait.

  Kit could see the gesture very plainly. A balled fist held ear-high, then brought down sharply to shoulder height. Sit-wait. He stopped waving his hat and dumped it on the back of his head. His eyes burned with a fiery dryness, and his body felt bruised as though from a physical pummeling.

  A tall, handsome Dakota man of war arose very calmly, with great dignity, and walked forward through the watching warriors. Kit was conscious of the sudden hush that overhung the battlefield. Far back, over the heads of the Indians, he could see the crowd of small figures outside the wagon circle. They stayed very close, in case the Indians turned and threw themselves, in desperation, upon the only cover around them. He wondered where Lige was. Well, whatever happened, by nightfall the wagon train would be safe, anyway. There was a bitter shred of satisfaction in that thought—until he recollected the faces of the Burgesses.

  He winced and dropped his gaze to the Dakota warrior.

  He had stopped, waiting Kit’s advance, and was leaning on a dragoon carbine.

  “How-kola.”

  The buck didn’t respond. He stood impassive and defiant, his black eyes swimming with rancor.

  Kit dismounted and hunkered. The buck reluctantly dropped down. He kept the soldier gun clutched in both hands across his lap. “Where is White Shield Owner? I want to talk to him.”

  “He is dead.”

  That shook Kit. He flickered a glance to the thinned-out horde of warriors standing back, watching them. “Who is left?”

  “Big Eagle is dead, also.”

  “Owgh! I knew them both very well. White Shield Owner was my old friend. I am sorry over him. My heart is on the ground.”

  “I am a lance bearer. I am the war leader now. I am Owl.”

  “I come to make a council with your warriors.”

  The war leader hesitated, then he got up and turned away.
Kit walked beside him. As tall as Kit was, the Dakota was half a head taller. He led his horse and caught the scent of them once he was close. There was a feeling of deadliness around him almost instantly. He knew they knew who he was and that they hated him above all the other whites. He had outwitted them not once, but half a dozen times, and every time had come off triumphant.

  Owl called the men of war. They came in bleak silence and dropped down. Kit waited until every man was hunkering, he himself standing, then he raised an arm and held it out before him, palm upward.

  “I come to offer you peace. I come to offer you your lives. But I can’t restrain the soldiers very long.”

  “Let them come,” a scarred, older warrior said. He had a nose that had been badly broken sometime and had healed crookedly so that, in the silence, the rasping, unpleasant sounds of his breathing were noticeable.

  “They want to come,” Kit said. “They want revenge. They want to wipe you out to a man, and they are strong enough to do it. They are twice as many as you are now. Behind you are the emigrants.” He stopped and let it soak in before he spoke again.

  “There are some of your friends up there in the forest. They were mounted. They left you.”

  “They couldn’t reach us,” Owl said calmly.

  “It doesn’t matter. The soldiers want to kill you. I have made talk for you.”

  “What kind of talk?”

  “Like this. If you will throw down your weapons, you will be taken to Fort Collins and put in the stockade. You will not be massacred.”

  “It would be better to die!” the broken-nosed warrior said violently, gripping his bow until his dark hand was white.

  “What about your villages? Do you want the babies and women to die, too? They will, if you don’t get some wisdom.”

  “They might anyway,” Owl said. “Who will look after them?”

  “I will.”

  The older men looked beaten. One of them motioned Owl to silence with a weary, scrawny arm. “Your word is good. We know you, Ohiyesa. We are defeated.”

  “No!” the recalcitrant buck roared, shaking his bow at Kit and making as though to stand up. “I am no coward, no sheep to be herded into your white man stockade. I will—”