Stamping Ground

by Loren D. Estleman

  “What’s that?”

  “We can either die fighting or turn Ghost Shirt over to them. He’s what they’re after anyway.”

  “Think they’ll let us go if we do?”

  “I doubt it. That crippled bastard’s wanted our scalps ever since that first night.”

  “So why did you even bring it up?”

  “It was bound to come up sooner or later. Just thought I’d get it out of the way.”

  “Well, you know what my answer is.”

  There being hours to go before sundown, we settled in for a long wait. As I crouched there, taking an occasional potshot at nothing in particular to let them know we were still in the running but mostly just crouching, I realized what it was about Indian fighting I didn’t like. It wasn’t the danger. That was something I’d accepted the day Judge Blackthorne swore me in and I’d never questioned it. Rather, it was the waiting, the long periods of inactivity while something was brewing beyond my control. I’m not talking about tension, although there was plenty of that as vague movements here and there in the grass told me Lame Horse’s braves were deploying themselves for the coming attack. What it was was boring as hell. A man can starve for weeks and still have enough fight left in him to give you a run for your money. By the same token, you can deprive him of water until you’re sure he’s long since dried up and blown away and yet have him slash your throat from ear to ear when you show up to view the remains. Bore him long enough, however, and his reflexes will slow and his brain begin to rot away. I’d felt this same way during the war when I was laid up in the army hospital, following the progress of the fighting in bits and pieces from the newspapers and, when I wanted accuracy, stories told by incoming wounded from Atlanta, Gettysburg and finally Appomattox. Even now, as much in the thick of things as back then I was out of it, I felt the same sense of stagnation and uselessness, as if I were missing something important.

  The hell of it was that I wasn’t. Unlike the Montana high country, where night falls with the unexpected abruptness of a guillotine blade, dusk seeped in over the prairie interminably through the pores in the vermillion and blue-black streaks that were smeared across the western sky on the heels of the departing sun, casting layer upon layer of gray wash over the landscape until the features bled together, and that’s when the scenery we had been watching for hours began to move. They rose from the grass like shadows up a wall when the lamp is turned up, indistinct gray shapes scarcely darker than the charcoal sky that stretched behind them. The wind had died, but that didn’t matter because they moved noiselessly, high-stepping deer fashion through the grass without so much as a rustle. It was eerie, unreal. I was almost afraid to shoot for fear that the dream would then become a reality. I shrugged it off—literally, for something cold had begun to inch its way up my spine—drew a bead on the shape nearest me with the Spencer, and fired. It advanced without faltering. The only explanation I could come up with for that was that they looked bigger than they were and I had missed. It was like fighting ghosts.

  I was getting set to fire again when there was a movement to my right, Jac was on his feet, starlight glittered on something metallic in his right hand, he made a lunging motion, there was a solid sound like an axe biting into wood, and the shape I had been about to shoot at staggered backward three steps, doubled over, and sank almost gracefully into the grass. At that moment another shape that had been walking behind the first wheeled and swung the silhouette of something long and deadly in the méis’ direction. Before it could squeeze the trigger I snapped off a shot, aiming low this time. The figure spun halfway around, dropped its rifle, and fell.

  Having shot his wad when he threw the knife, Jac now was unarmed. I tossed him the Spencer and he caught it just in time to thrust the muzzle into the belly of a brave who had abandoned stealth to charge him with tomahawk raised, and blew him inside out.

  That turned it from a ghost watch into a good old-fashioned Indian fight. They were charging on foot along a front twenty yards wide, those who had guns popping away at targets they couldn’t see any better than we could ours, those who hadn’t swinging tomahawks and clubs and trade axes and bows and lances and singing the war songs their grandfathers had sung when they went to fight the Pawnee and Crow. Hudspeth snapped off two shots in rapid succession, dropped one warrior and wounded another so that he released his lance and had to get down on all fours to grope for it in the tall grass, then swung left and splintered the bow of a third just as he was drawing back to let fly with an arrow.

  “Cut out that goddamned circus shooting!” I shouted, for the gunshots were deafening.

  “What circus shooting?” he demanded. “I was aiming for his head!” Then a bullet splattered the top of the log over which he was peering. He cried out and rocked back on his heels, rubbing his sleeve across his eyes.

  “Hit?” I had to blurt it out the side of my mouth as I fired the Deane-Adams into the bulk of a shape coming up on me hard. It ran a few more steps and collapsed at the foot of the woodpile. I angled the revolver downward and put a second bullet in it for good measure. Playing ‘possum is as old a trick as Indians have.

  “Bark in my eyes.” He rubbed them with the heels of his hands, the Smith & Wesson dangling by its butt from his right.

  An Indian armed with an eight-foot lance stopped running, struck an athletic pose with his legs spread apart, and took aim with the steel-pointed weapon at the helpless marshal. I sighted in on him carefully and squeezed. The hammer snapped hollowly against an empty shell. I squeezed twice more. Same story. The brave’s throwing arm was in motion when Jac caught him with a bullet from the Spencer. The lance left his hand before he sank, whistled through the air, stuck point-first in the top log just below the marshal’s face, drooped, and fell. By this time Hudspeth had the bark cleared from his eyes and fired at a brave who had gotten down on one knee to draw a bead with his rifle. He missed, but the redskin flattened out in self-defense.

  I punched my last cartridge into the chamber of my revolver. We were all scraping bottom now. There were more Indians out there than I’d expected after they had been playing it so cautious. If we all got lucky and claimed one for each round, that left a good half dozen to battle with our bare hands. I fancied my thoughts were much the same as those that had gone through Custer’s head during his last moments. It was strange how often he had been on my mind of late. Or maybe it wasn’t so strange.

  My first shot after reloading spoiled my figuring when it sailed clear over the head of a befeathered brave near the center of the advancing line. As I picked him off with the second I was wondering if it might be possible to line a pair of them up and make one bullet do the work of two so I could get back on track. You might say I was a little off my feed by this time.

  Then I heard something that made me regret all those church services I’d missed since I was five years old.

  It was a godawful noise, shrill and deep at the same time, raucous and distinctly unpleasant, a wail of agony and yet a roar of triumph, like all the damned souls of Hell letting go at once. It had no comparison. Once you heard it you never forgot it, and when you heard it again, no matter where or under what circumstances, you didn’t have to stop and think to identify it. You just knew it was a steam whistle.

  It climbed to a scream, paused, and climbed again, finishing the second time on a growl. It might have been miles away and it might have been right on top of us. Owing to the nature of the sound and the warping quality of the dry night air, there was no way of telling just how close it was. For an instant while it was blasting I thought I spotted an orange flash on the distant horizon that might have been flames spouting from the stack of the engine, but it could just as well have been sheet lightning of my imagination. In any case, the effect of the noise upon the Indians was immediate and devastating.

  In earlier days, before the Union and the Western Pacific had bisected the great buffalo herds and the iron horse was a thing unknown on the prairie, its cry might merely have made th
e braves curious, much as the rattle of pots and pans on a frontier where man had never before set foot might attract inquisitive deer. But just as a deer once shot at while investigating such a noise will react in the opposite fashion when he hears it again, so the Indians who had learned the hard way that the great flame-snorting beasts brought only death and misfortune to their tribes. For all they knew, this train might be carrying more troops from the seemingly inexhaustible store of fighting men that the Great White Father struck out like arrowheads in his eastern lodge to send against the nations. They stopped fighting suddenly and melted away before the harsh noise like tallow before a hearth. One minute we were going at it fang and claw, and the next we were alone in the midst of a silent prairie. After a few moments we heard the drumming sound of retreating hoofs, then silence again. Where the braves had picketed their ponies so that we hadn’t seen them remains a mystery to this day.

  As if to taunt them, at that moment the whistle blew again. This time for sure I saw flames on the horizon.

  “Now, what made ’em break it off so quick?” Hudspeth wanted to know. We were standing now. Faintly I could feel the buzzing vibration of the distant train’s wheels through the soles of my boots. “It’s still a good five miles off. They had enough time to settle our hash and take a few souvenirs besides.”

  “Indians have no concept of time. Have you got anything in that gun besides air?”

  He was still holding the S & W. Suddenly reminded of it, he glanced down, then returned it sheepishly to the pocket inside his vest. “No. But they didn’t know that.”

  “Still breathing?” I called to the métis, who was standing with his captured Spencer in both hands. He assured me that he was.

  The whistle sounded again, perceptibly closer this time. I handed my gun to the marshal. He stared at it, then at me.

  “What’s this for?”

  “Protection in case they come back. Get this wood burning while Jac and I fetch the Indian. Jac, give him your matches. I hope you’ve got more in that rifle than Hudspeth left himself.”

  “One round,” he said.

  “Good enough.” We left Hudspeth gathering dry grass for tinder and headed on up the slight rise that led to camp.

  “That was fair shooting for a man who believes in turning the other cheek,” I told the breed, who was walking behind me.

  “A little religion is a good thing,” he said. “In its place.” I could tell by the way he said it that he was smiling, although it was too dark to see. “I have said that I will fight for what is mine.”

  The wallow looked naked now that the trees were gone. A spatter of starlight reflected off the surface of the puddles in its muddy bottom. I was wondering if it might be a good idea to water the horses now so that they wouldn’t try to drink on their own after we turned them loose and get themselves mired down, when a flash of red and yellow flame splintered the darkness, a shot crashed, and something tugged at the left flap of my jacket, which was swinging free of my rib cage. Later I found a hole in it where the bullet had passed within an inch of my hide.

  Pere Jac wasn’t so lucky. He gave a little sigh, sank to the ground, and never got up this side of Purgatory.

  Chapter Sixteen

  It’s surprising how much your eyes can see in an infinitesimal amount of time, even though it takes your brain five times as long to comprehend it. In the instant the shot was fired, I saw in the brief illumination of the explosion our prisoner swaying at the top of the grassy knoll, his feet still bound together, my Winchester braced horizontally across his back in his manacled hands, the muzzle pointed in our direction. The fight at the railroad had given him time enough to struggle upright and make his way over to the horses in order to get his hands on the carbine in my saddle scabbard. Likely he had fallen a few times and dropped the weapon more than once while freeing it from its holder and getting it into position, but those were minor setbacks for the Scourge of the Northwest.

  I said that the brain is a lot slower than the eyes. Even so, I had all this put together between the time the bullet pierced my jacket and Jac hit the ground. By that time reflex had taken over and I was already moving. Meanwhile Ghost Shirt was struggling frantically to manipulate the Winchester’s lever behind his back and rack in another shell, muttering curses beneath his breath in English, there being no equivalents in the Cheyenne tongue. He was succeeding when I launched myself at him in a tremendous leap—I paced it off absent-mindedly on my way back later, it was twenty feet, not bad for a middle-aged peace officer—and piled into him, locking my arms about his waist. But before we connected time seemed to freeze, and I felt as if I were suspended while the carbine’s lever clicked home and the young chief’s finger closed on the trigger. In the instant of collision there was a roar so deafening it seemed to be inside my skull and the left side of my face caught fire.

  We came together then, with an impact that tore the Indian off his feet and sent the Winchester flying from his hands. The horses, although picketed, had been milling around nervously as far as their tethers permitted ever since the first shot, and now were between us and the wallow We landed right under the feet of my gray. It whinnied and did a quick dance to avoid us. One of its hoofs stamped dust out of the ground a couple of inches shy of my right ear.

  The jar had knocked the wind out of the Indian momentarily, but before I could press my advantage he squirmed out of my grip. Bound though he was, he fought like a sack full of badgers. Every time I tried to straddle him and pin him down he kicked at me with his lashed-together legs or arched his back and rolled out of my reach. I was just grateful that his dog was still off somewhere hunting and unable to join in. The second time he got away I reached for my gun and grabbed a handful of prairie air. I’d forgotten giving it to the marshal. Angry at myself, I flung an arm out longer than it was designed to go and snatched hold of something that tore when I pulled at it. Ghost Shirt’s collar.

  He tried to squirm away again, but I had a piece of his throat as well and held on. His windpipe throbbed in my hand, struggling for air. I pulled myself closer and got a leg over him before he could put a knee where women and savages instinctively aim. Even then he pinned one of my ankles beneath his body and threw himself over on one hip, and I would have gone over had I not thrown out a hand to brace myself. My injured wrist all but buckled beneath the shock. By then, though, I’d felt something that sent new strength coursing through my strained muscles. I’d reached for the ground, but my fingers closed over something hard, cold and familiar. The Winchester. Holding him down between contracted thighs, I swung the carbine over my head by its barrel and braced myself for the downswing. He wouldn’t live to see the train, let alone the scaffold in Bismarck.

  I nearly wrenched my shoulder out of its socket when I swung and the carbine didn’t move. Someone had clamped a hand around the stock. I blinked and looked back over my shoulder at Hudspeth’s bulk standing over me.

  His feet were planted apart the length of an axe handle, which made him about as flexible as an adobe wall. To hedge his bet, he had drawn my Deane-Adams and clamped it to my right temple when I turned my head. The barrel was still warm from firing. It struck me then that of late this particular firearm had not done me a whole lot of good.

  “He’s whipped, Page.” His voice was tired and hollow, the dull note of a gong muffled in rags.

  “Jac,” I said.

  “Jac’s dead.”

  I released my grip on the Winchester slowly. Beneath me Ghost Shirt’s eyes gleamed dully in the starlight. I got up.

  At the base of the hill, the woodpile blazed brightly, exposing a twenty-foot section of track. Here and there the upturned face of a dead Indian reflected the reddish glow. Closer now, the approaching locomotive’s whistle took on added depth against a background of chuffs and clangs and humming rails. I went over to where the métis lay stretched out with the Spencer across his stomach.

  “Match,” I said, holding out a hand toward Hudspeth.

  He
hesitated. “There ain’t but three left. We might—”

  “Match!” I barked it this time. He handed one over without another word. I struck it on the seat of my pants, bent, and held it over the still figure’s face, cupping my other hand around the flame to shield it from the wind. In its glow I saw that Jac had retained his perennial half-smile even in death. His eyes glittered between half-open lids. The seams in his face looked deeper than ever now that there was nothing to distract my attention from them. I suddenly realized that he was a good five to ten years older than my extreme earlier estimate. On the edge of the illumination a neat round hole four inches down from his collarbone showed how lucky the Indian’s shot had been. A couple of inches this way or that and in six months it would have been just another scar.

  The flame was burning my fingers. I shook it out and dropped the charred remnant into the pocket of my jacket, Force of habit. Fires were as hazardous in my native Montana with all its forests as in the grassy plains of Dakota.

  The engine was only a mile off now. In two minutes it would be on top of us.

  The same thoughts must have been going through the marshal’s head, because he said, “No time to bury him.” I ignored him and strode past him to the horses. I had my cinch undone when he realized what I was up to and stepped in to give me a hand. In a few seconds we had all four of them unrigged. As they wandered off to graze we gathered up our saddles and bridles, leaving behind Jac’s McClellan, and started back down. I took the time to spread the métis’ saddle blanket over his corpse, not that it would afford any protection against the coyotes and magpies once they scented fresh meat. I then took charge of Hudspeth’s gear while he loosened the cord that bound Ghost Shirt’s ankles, heaved him to his feet, and pushed him stumbling ahead of him down the slope. At the bottom the marshal gave him a brutal shove that sent him pitching headlong into the grass. Then his ankles were drawn together once again.