But Spotted Horse shook his head. “No. Talk is better here. I will have one man come to us, you have one, to keep us even.”
“All right,” Lew said and turned again and tried to point at Quarternight, beckoning.
But it was Clay Manning who came out. Spotted Horse had likewise made a signal. The one who rode forward, he saw instantly, was not the same sort as this old Comanche chief.
He was a young buck, thoroughly savage, with the thin sharp face and long bony nose, humped in the middle, of the northern Cheyenne. He wore a breech-clout of blanket cloth and moccasins. His hairless chest had the look of polished brown leather and was badly scarred as if from the slash of a knife. He kicked free of the rawhide loops, dropped lightly to the ground and stood there with his roached head up high, looking at no one.
“Howdy,” Lew said and got no answer.
Two vermilion spots of sumach juice were smeared on the sharp cheekbones. A yellow crescent curved around the ball of his chin.
“He cannot talk English,” Spotted Horse explained. “I will talk for him. He is Crazy Bear, Dakota Cheyenne.”
“I see.”
Crazy Bear must be one of the younger chiefs, then, stirring up the reservation Cheyennes now that their wiser head, Red Cloud, had gone to Washington.
Clay Manning had come to his side.
“What’s up?”
He turned a little with a low warning. “Talk. And I’ll do it.” As an opener he said, “Spotted Horse, how is it with our friend, Long Rifle?”
“His camp is good,” said Spotted Horse. “He has plenty.”
He spoke to the stolid figure beside him in a clacking tongue. They bent their legs and squatted on the ground.
Lew touched Clay, drawing him down, and squatted, facing them. No one spoke. Time meant nothing to an Indian. Their talk must run in many circles before they came to the point.
Spotted Horse lowered his head, his face heavy and sad.
He sat like that, silently, with the immovable quiet of a huge dark rock, and spoke at last without looking up.
“My people,” he said, “have been driven from their lands by your people. You have killed our buffalo and give us meat that smells bad instead.”
He paused.
“I know,” Lew said. “It’s a bum trade, Spotted Horse. I admit it. But my people are many. Like the grasshoppers that breed too fast and swarm as the sun moves we had to move west. It had to be, Spotted Horse, and I am sorry.”
“Yes. That is it.” The old Comanche tapped his chest. “My heart is not bad now. But the Cheyennes’ hearts are black toward you.” He moved his head a little to Crazy Bear. “This is Cheyenne beef you are taking north.”
“That’s right,” Lew said. “For the reservation beyond Ogallala.”
Spotted Horse stared at him a moment, turned, and pointed his chin toward the Wichitas. “Six hundred Cheyenne are over there. They are hungry. They hunt the antelope and the antelope are gone. This is Cheyenne beef, they say. They want what is theirs now.”
“How much?”
“Half,” said Spotted Horse. “Half of this herd.”
“You know the answer to that,” Lew said.
He felt Clay move on his heels beside him and started to look around when the old warrior’s next words stopped the turn of his head.
“I know. You are a Texas man. You can fight. But your friend, Long Rifle, asks you to listen when I say the Cheyennes have whisky. Many are drunk.”
With his head turned a little he saw Clay’s fixed interest in something on the ground, and then Spotted Horse was saying, “Two white men came with four horses loaded. They gave whisky to the Cheyennes and put this talk of beef in their ears.”
Lew brought his eyes all the way around to Clay then. But if there had been any foreknowledge of this in him it didn’t show on the unchanging ruddy cheeks. So there it was. A neat trick now that he saw it clearly—fire the Cheyennes up on liquor, send them against the Cross T herd. If they got their bellies full of Cross T beef they’d let the Open A pass without trouble. But drunk—you might as well touch fire to the prairie grass.
No man could tell where it would stop.
Quietly Spotted Horse said, “My people want peace. This is our country. We live here and will not go with the Cheyennes against you. But if there is fighting and the army comes we will be blamed with the others. They will not give us beef for many months and make us live on flour and water. Our women and children will go hungry. That is why I talk.”
It was an earnest plea, yet given in the old Comanche’s low, unpleading tone.
Lew felt it strongly and hesitated and saw no other way.
“The answer,” he said, “is still the same. This is not Cheyenne beef till it reaches Ogallala.”
“Lew.” Clay touched his arm. “This is bad. I say you’d better give in something.”
He shook his head. “No use. You can’t bargain with drunk Indians.”
“No hurt to try.” Clay’s voice came with a sharper edge. “You better.” His blue eyes were still fixed upon the ground. “We got more than cows to think about. You go ahead and make a deal!”
“Clay,” he warned, “watch out.”
For he saw Crazy Bear’s quick attention to this talk. It was too plain a show of trouble in the white man’s camp and bad to be known.
To Spotted Horse he said, “Tell Crazy Bear we have refused. What does he say then?”
The old chief signed rapidly and spoke in a clacking tongue. The young buck’s haughty face showed no change. He grunted, opened and closed his hands many times, dropped them, and sat stiffly, looking off toward the camp.
Spotted Horse said nothing. He shut his eyes.
Clay moved, suddenly irritable.
“Well?” he asked.
The old eyes opened and looked at him.
Spotted Horse took his time before he said, “Six hundred cows. One for each Cheyenne.”
“All right,” Clay agreed readily. “Lew, there’s your deal!”
“Clay,” he said, “you show you’ve never handled Indians. That six hundred is only an opening wedge. Listen. Spotted Horse, your heart is clear. There is no lie in it. If we give this much to the Cheyennes can you say they’ll not take all we’ve got? We have horses, wagons. If we give six hundred cows we are weak in their eyes. Can you say they’ll not come back for more?”
Gravely the old man said, “They are not my people. I cannot tell them what to do.”
“Satisfied?” Lew asked and got no answer.
He turned from Clay and looked past Spotted Horse, his glance held suddenly by a fixed attention in Crazy Bear’s jet eyes. He followed that look back toward camp.
Joy had come from her wagon to stand with the group of men at the fire. Its light showed Crazy Bear all that she was.
Spotted Horse had seen her now. His head lifted.
“You have women?”
“One,” Lew said. “She has her man along.”
A hopeless anger filled him. Trust a woman’s curiosity to do that!
He nodded sidewise and saw the old Comanche give Clay a measuring look.
“She is young,” said Spotted Horse. “That is not good.”
Crazy Bear stood up. He made a sign and walked back to the mounted group. For a moment longer Spotted Horse sat with his head bowed again. Then he, too, rose, ponderously, and dusted off the seat of his pants.
He held out his right hand, palm up.
Rising, Lew touched it lightly with his own.
“Spotted Horse,” he said, “your name is written on this land in great letters. You have come to warn me and I am glad. But the white man and the red man never could talk with words. Tell my friend, Long Rifle, I am not asleep.”
He stood watching while the huge shape lumbered off and waited then until
the little band wheeled east toward the Wichita range.
Clay had started back to camp ahead of him. He caught up and gave him a questioning glance. The full ruddy face was set. Some determination of his own held Clay grimly silent.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Last Testament
He couldn’t bring himself to believe at first that Clay’s talk would get anywhere with Joy. The girl had her father’s common sense. Old Tom wouldn’t have listened to one word of rebellion at a time like this. A man could be wrong as well as right and often both right and wrong in anything he did. One was the same as another like that. When you swapped leaders you only swapped an equal chance of good or bad in a different way. That was what she would know. But Clay could be a convincing cuss when he set himself about it.
From his bedroll, cross-legged with a tin plate in his lap, Lew watched them standing apart from the others and eating from the endboard of the cook’s wagon. None of the men squatted in their half circle around him now had asked about the Indians. They’d rather get a good meal inside of them before they heard about any more troubles. He felt that way himself. A hungry man never could think straight.
Over his corn-meal bread and steaks and coffee he watched toward the cook’s wagon with only a curious interest. Steve was over there, too, eating with them. But it was Joy that Clay was working on, making something light of it, with his hat pushed back on his blond head and all of his big face showing her an easy reassurance. He could wheedle her when he wanted to, with a sort of concerned gallantry, his blue eyes going momentarily grave.
You couldn’t blame a girl, Lew thought. Clay knew the things to do. Even the way he put his hand on her arm could bring a flushed and breathless look across her face. He felt how much alike Clay and Steve and Joy were at times. Like now. Some common bond of lighthearted spirit over there that he didn’t have. Well, no, not that he didn’t have it in him, but there was always something else to hold it down.
Then he could see their talk was coming to a decision, and his first feeling that Clay could get nowhere with Joy left him. For she stood briefly with a little frowning doubt. Steve took her arm and spoke to her. She nodded. They tossed their empty plates at the wreck pan and came on toward the fire.
He was not watching them now. They could have saved that decision, whatever it was. He had his own ace in this game. Stretched out against his bedroll, he looked up and saw the sky’s complete darkness. A misty air brushed his face. Without turning his head he knew they had stopped a quarter circle around the fire from him.
“Well, Lew,” Clay said.
He brought his eyes around. “School’s out, Clay. Class dismissed. Sit down.” He grinned at Joy.
“We’ve got to know your plan,” she said.
“All right. We’re turning west at dawn.” He held out one hand, palm up. “Here’s rain coming. Indians won’t travel in the wet, so we’re safe enough tonight. Isn’t that about it?”
He glanced at the half ring of men to see what backing he would get. Some of them nodded.
“Spoils their feathers,” said Rebel John. “They’ll stay under cover now.”
“Then we can count on that. If the rain holds tomorrow we can make better than twenty miles to the west. We’ll be close to the Texas panhandle by that time. It’s thin safety, I know, but we can call on the army if we have trouble off of Indian lands.”
“Army!” Clay mocked. “You got any idea where that is?”
“There’s a troop,” he said, “at Doan’s Crossing. I’m sending a man back tonight.”
“That all you got?” Clay asked.
“That’s all. Keep moving. Except we can make a fight of it if we have to.”
“Sure. Against six hundred Indians!”
“Eleven men,” he pointed out, “held off more than that at Adobe Walls. But there won’t be six hundred bucks. Half of any tribe are squaws.”
He leaned back on his elbows. He needn’t go on with an argument, and yet he wanted Clay to show his hand.
It came forced out with heat, where none was called for, as if Clay needed that fire of temper to bolster him up. “You’re right about turning west. But the herd travels too slow. We’ll send the wagons on ahead.”
“What about splitting the men?” he asked. “You can’t divide this outfit now. You’d have no protection anywhere.”
“Then send plenty with the wagons. Make sure of that. It’s Joy I’m thinking about!”
Maybe. Yet Clay’s plan boiled down simply to abandoning the herd. He grinned dryly.
“Why not all go with the wagons? Let the Cheyennes take the cows.”
“Lew,” Steve put in, “Clay’s right!”
Lew gave the boy a long straight look. “Steve,” he said gently, “you know better than that. You stand there in your dad’s boots and tell me to desert four thousand longhorns at the first scare of Indians. You’ve got more reason than you’re telling. That’s plain enough. No man with any honest sense would split his crew here or run off either. I won’t.”
“Then I guess,” Steve said flatly, “a showdown’s come. Hate to do it, Lew. Clay’s taking charge.”
Lew stood up. “By owner’s vote?”
“That’s it.”
“You agree, Joy?” he asked.
“Lew, I—” she began and faltered.
“All right,” he said. “That’s all I wanted to know.” He paced toward the three of them slowly. “I wanted to be sure you understood the owner had full power.” He pulled a folded sheet of paper from inside his buckskin jacket. “I hadn’t intended to show this or use it. Joy—”
Keeping the paper in his own hands, he opened it and held it to the firelight for her to read.
The two blond heads bent in close to hers, and he followed the lines their eyes were following, written in Tom Arnold’s oddly small, rounded script. He passed over the first legal preamble to the meat of what it said:
To Lew Burnet, in the event this will is read while the Cross T herd is still on the trail, full ownership. That ownership to hold until Ogallala is reached and a sale is made. Such money then to be divided half to my son, Steve, half to my daughter, Joy. To Lew Burnet, furthermore, five hundred head of his own choice out of the extras, to be held by him in payment for half interest in his Powder River lands of Wyoming.
Ames Strayhorn, Tom Arnold’s attorney in Ox Bow, had witnessed and notarized the document.
There was no loophole. Its legality was beyond question, and he couldn’t help but feel the compliment of the old man’s trust in him.
Joy was the first to look up. Any sudden surprise is hard to take for most people. You come up behind a man and only yell his name and most likely he gets mad. He thought it was that way with the girl now. She stared at him with a quick, bewildered anger. He saw Steve’s eyes lift from the paper and strike at Clay, questioning him, all of their old hounded fear suddenly in them again. Of the three, this turn seemed to hit Steve the worst. For Clay’s reactions were slow at times. His head came up. He stood like a huge bull swelling with his rage.
It burst from him with the madness of one hardly knowing what he said. “This changes nothing!”
“Clay,” he said, “that’s enough.” He could feel the scar across his cheek begin to itch and burn. “You call this a showdown. All right, let’s show! Something happened before the start that’s made you want to block this herd from going north. Now you think you’ve got your chance. You’d make Joy an excuse to let it go. Want to hear why? The Open A is coming up behind us. If we lose our herd to the Cheyennes they’ll pass with no trouble. There’s a stacked deal for you! It’s all you want.”
He saw Joy’s face down beside his shoulder turn from anger to shocked disbelief. She stared at Clay, drew back from both of them suddenly, holding them both with darkly bitter eyes. Without speaking she walked with rigid steps toward her wago
n.
The group of men had begun to break up. Joe Wheat rose and came over in his casual walk, a thin slat of a man with a gaunt, morose face. But there was a thing behind Joe Wheat’s morose silences that men understood.
In his quiet drawl he said, “Time for the first guard, ain’t it, Lew?” He turned his deeply hollowed eyes on Clay. “Our watch.”
It was Wheat’s plain statement that there had been no change in bosses. And under those quiet hard eyes some of the stiffness went from Clay Manning’s back. With no more the old man started away. Lew followed him past the fire.
“Not you, Joe,” he said. “I’m riding guard in your place. You’re going back to Doan’s.” He picked up his saddle, carrying it on to the night-guard horses. “We haven’t come more than seventy miles. You can make it by daylight and lead the troop back. They said they wouldn’t give me any help in the Nations, but they’ve got a young lieutenant. He’ll come when he knows we have a girl along.”
Saddling, he looked past the firelight toward her wagon. Steve was over there, leaning in across the endgate to where she lay motionless on the blankets, her head buried in her arms. It was strange how rarely he thought of them as brother and sister. There was never much between them to show that bond. Yet all of a brother’s comfort, for some reason now, was in the way Steve’s hand brushed her hair slowly, his lips moving in talk.
Her stillness tugged him. But there was nothing he could do for her himself, nothing more to say. He had used an ace to play this game as he felt it should be played. He had damn well better be right!
CHAPTER TWENTY
Indian Fight
Any man, he had known before, can be both right and wrong. He knew he had been right in holding the outfit all together, turning west. But he had been wrong in counting on the rain.
Sometime past the middle of the next morning he saw the first breath of wind stir through a gray curtain of drizzle that had been falling straight down. He dropped back along the herd, feeling the bitter irony that so much could hang upon the direction of a wind.
He pulled to a stop and let the longhorns flow past, waving the men on as the drag end came abreast. Most of the crew were riding back here now, each with a rifle scabbard thrust under his left stirrup leather, stock forward, close to his hand.
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