They had made a good start, beating the dawn by an hour. The cattle had risen of their own accord from the wet bed ground and would not feed in the rain. They were walking fast. He figured they had already made better than ten miles. Still his main hope had been that when the wind came it would be out of the north—cold and stormy. What he felt against his cheek was a warm, melting breath from the south. It would clear the skies too soon.
In a dead silence, as the clacking thud of the longhorns passed on, he sat facing their back trail where even in this short time a breeze had begun to tear the gray curtain into shreds. As far as he could see the land was as flat as a floor, unbroken by any creek or dangerous hollows of ground.
Five minutes’ wait brought him nothing. Riding on, to circle the herd and come in at the point, he fell back upon an old confidence. Texans had met Indians before in overwhelming numbers and got through all right. Except for Joy, he knew he would not be dreading it now.
When he passed her wagon, drawn up close along the point behind Owl-Head Jackson’s, he saw that she had her father’s frontier forty-four lying on the seat. They hadn’t talked this morning. He was going to ride on. She called him over.
“Forget it, Lew.” She smiled. “Nothing’s bad enough to make you look like that.”
“Well,” he said, “I got you into this.”
“And you’ll get us out.”
She believed it. Her clear eyes showed him that. He grinned at her. He was suddenly warmed beneath his wet, soaked clothing.
“Sure,” he said. “We’ll get out!”
If only the fool longhorns could grow wings! In another hour the rain had stopped. The herd was grazing now, loose-kneed, heads down, crawling at a slow, tormenting pace. A thick ground mist was left blowing northward. It gave them shelter until sometime past noon.
The lift came abruptly in a layer of fog that rose and hung suspended overhead. He swung out from the herd and looked beyond their close formation, hunting off southeast in the way from which Joe Wheat would come. But off there and on behind him the land stretched empty and flat. He brought his eyes around slowly to hold a fixed gaze on the back trail toward the distant humps of the Wichita range. That emptiness was too good.
So far away that at first he hardly caught it, looking like a part of the brown earth, a darker spot of brown was moving.
He yelled and crooked his arm at the dragmen. They jumped their mounts into a run toward his side of the point. Quarternight loped around to him. Moonlight Bailey and young Jim Hope began to drive the leading horse herd back.
He waved the wagons over, and under that pressure of mules and horses and men the point began to swing. Gradually four thousand longhorns were turning back upon themselves, until they made a great letter U. And then the gap closed as the leaders joined the drags. There had been no confusion to give them a scare. They milled only a little and came to a stop in their compact pool. It had taken perhaps ten minutes’ time.
Watching east, he had seen the dark spot glow in size, coming on swiftly in these minutes.
“John,” he said, “you’re an old-timer at this. What would you say?”
“Take it easy,” Quarternight answered. “Set like we are. They’ll have to do their fancy ridin’ first. If they get too close we can outtalk ’em some ways off.”
His Springfield-Allin lay across his knees; an eager brightness shone in his puckered old eyes.
They sat with men spread out at intervals on either side, the two wagons close behind them, the horse herd bunched between the wagons and the cattle. Like that they formed a line facing the direction of attack, a line that could shift around the pool of longhorns if the Indians swung.
He turned once and saw that Clay was backed against Joy’s wagon seat, making himself her guard. Then his buckskin’s little black-tipped ears pricked up, swinging forward. He felt the animal’s heart pound beneath his leg. Even the horse knew these were Indians, somehow, from a mile off.
He wrapped his reins around the horn and drew his rifle from its scabbard. A cool fascination gripped him, like the thing you felt when you watched the rippled movements of a snake. They made a sight, no longer a solid brown. Their mounts were streaked with red and yellow. Naked, painted bodies and black heads lay close to the horses’ backs.
They came on at a steady trot, knee to knee in a widespread line.
“Ain’t that a show!” Quarternight said. “Cheyennes, sure enough.”
“How many you figure?” he asked.
“Some less than a hundred. Not near what you were told.”
He nodded, turned, and swept a circling gaze around the flat land. But this one party was all. And then a grunt from the old man jerked his eyes around. He half rose in his stirrups, held there suddenly rigid by the horrible beauty of that charge.
It came like a tossing wave with every horse thrown forward in the same instant. The Cheyennes rode flat, their black heads hardly above their animals’ manes. A drumming on the earth ran ahead of them, nothing more. They didn’t yell, and it was that unexpected deadly silence that made his blood run cold.
Even with Quarternight’s calm voice warning him, “Take it easy,” he dropped in his saddle and swung up the long barrel of his gun. He knew what Quarternight was counting on. This was the moment of the Indians’ greatest advantage. Why they must strike with this fierce strength, then always stop and boast before they fought, he didn’t know. But this one time maybe they wouldn’t. The wave was sweeping on within three hundred yards. He lined his rifle sights, and then his eyes caught no signal. Every man was suddenly upright, with the horses thrown back on their hindquarters, rearing and plunging to a halt. Their arms flew up. Rifles that had been hidden beneath the naked bodies glinted in the sun.
They sat in an unbroken line, motionless, until one rider started out at a walk from the others. Off two hundred yards he stopped and crooked his arm and shouted something. He had only a strip of blanket cloth around his waist and between his legs.
Lew yelled across to him, “No savvy!” The Cheyenne yelled back something that sounded bad. He wasn’t Crazy Bear.
Quarternight raised his rifle.
“Boy,” he said, “first lick’s half the battle. Might as well show him what we’ve got.”
He squeezed the trigger once. The horse wheeled and stumbled, bolting back into the line. The old man’s whiskers parted in a wicked grin.
“There now. Watch out, they’ll make a run!”
They were yelling now, high and gobbling like a flock of turkeys. Suddenly their horses pivoted and they were lying flat again, racing in a circle around his herd.
He slapped his buckskin with his heels, riding with both hands free. The men strung out from him needed no order; there were old Indian fighters in this crew. Swinging off from the cattle, they rode their own smaller circle abreast of the Cheyennes’ running line. But he had to yell at young Jim Hope to make him stay with the horse herd. He saw Clay start from Joy’s wagon, turn, and go back.
Little black puffs of smoke began to rise and drift above the Indians, wild shooting, at too long a range for their old-fashioned guns. He kept an eye on Quarternight just ahead.
They were half around the herd when the old man threw up his arm.
“Hold in, boys! Here they come!” He let out his rebel yell.
Lew swung his buckskin with his knee and halted, facing out. Some instinct out of Quarternight’s Apache days had let him time the moment of a charge. For the Cheyennes had pivoted again. They came on in a solid running front.
The blast of Springfield-Allins was like the rattle of beans in a gourd. Beyond his own sights he saw a gap break wide open. It was a withering fire. Horses went down. He saw the way the Cheyennes plunged with them, unable to kick free of the rawhide loops that held their legs. He felt cool and a little sick.
The charge broke and scattered. He call
ed, “That’s enough,” and admired the stolid courage that brought some of the red men back to pick up the wounded. Then off at a distance out of range the ragged line continued its circle. But that blast had taught them something. At three quarters around the herd they pulled in and bunched up close together. He could see their arms making signs and hear the gobble-talk.
He fed a handful of shells into the side of his rifle and said to Quarternight, “That’ll make ’em powwow some. All we need is time.”
It was past noon. Any moment ought to bring Joe Wheat and the cavalry up over the edge of the plain. With his gun filled he took a long look off southeast beyond the bunched Cheyennes and thought once there was something but couldn’t be sure. The powwow went on. He brought his eyes along the silent line of his men, curious to read their faces.
Old John and Ash Brownstone had been in this hole before and only stared off at the Indians, undisturbed. Next to Ash, Neal Good sat with a wooden look on his dark half-Spanish features. Nobody had ever heard much about that quiet youngster, where he had been or what he had done. This was an old thing to him maybe. It seemed so. But he knew that Charley Storms, beyond Neal, had worked in Arizona. He must have fought Apaches. Charley was grinning at the Cheyennes’ crazy talk.
Steve was the last in line. He had to lean forward in his saddle to see his face. Its color was high. But there was no scare in it, only that flushed excitement. As far as he knew this was the tightest place Steve had ever been in, waiting through moments that could show the unnerved weakness in a man. And seeing none of that in him, he had a sure, convincing knowledge. Steve at other times was only scared of something in his head.
The Cheyennes abruptly stopped their gabble. It left a strange dead hush. He saw their horses move a little. All their painted faces turned. Clay Manning’s yell was like a shot behind his back.
He jerked around and saw Clay near the wagons and heard him shout again. North beyond the longhorns a lone mounted Indian had risen from the ground. A blanket whirled above his head. He was alone for an instant. Then the earth seemed to open behind him, pouring up horses and naked brown men.
Things have a way of happening, swift in the action yet tormentingly slow to the quick flashing of a man’s mind. Lew felt himself move. But it was like those dreams in which he struggled against an unseen force that held him back. He saw forty or fifty Cheyennes pour up and strike toward the herd at its farther rim. They were after cattle.
Quarternight yelled, “Let ’em go! Watch here!”
From the south a bunched run was coming again. He pivoted back and steadied his horse and emptied the magazine of his rifle. Once more those ranks broke under the repeating fire of the Springfield-Allins.
Off across the herd the Indians had struck in a flying wedge. Their terrific impact sent a wave of motion through the massed pool. It rolled backward as the longhorns turned and rammed at those behind them, and even before that struggle reached the edge near the horses and wagons he knew what it would do. He grabbed his reins left-handed and threw his buckskin forward. Less than fifty yards separated him. He could see Joy’s white face and Clay Manning fixed in his saddle close to her wagon seat. These things he saw while his horse was running toward them and yet seemed to be standing still.
He yelled at Clay. The waves of fighting longhorns had struck their terror into the horse herd. He saw Jim Hope and Moonlight Bailey fail to hold them. Owl-Head Jackson’s four-mule team plunged and reared against his tightened reins. But it was Joy’s team that he aimed for in this flash of time.
There was that instant when Clay Manning could have saved her, as the mules bolted, tearing the reins from her grip. He could have grabbed their bridles or caught the girl from the seat. Instead he tried to turn the horses, saw his mistake too late. Their running flood hit him and carried him on.
With Clay gone there was no one near the girl. Her mules were kicking as they ran. His own buckskin was snapping like a dog at the horses and cattle that blocked his way. He clubbed the bony skulls of longhorns with his rifle. A lane parted. He was half across before it closed again. Their horns were lances stabbing at his legs. He kicked at them and tramped them down and in that struggle could no longer watch the wagon.
He was almost through when he saw it and the half a dozen Cheyennes who had raced back on that side of the herd to cut it off. They swept around it, running. The next moment they vanished completely from the earth.
A last stubborn chain of longhorns blocked him. As he broke free he heard Quarternight’s rebel yell. He looked back. The two war parties had joined, scattering west behind a bunch of split-off cattle. To the south was a moving spot of blue.
The wagon’s white top was ahead of him then, down in a hidden channel of some ancient stream bed that twisted away to the east. The mules had halted, tangled in their harness. The seat was empty. A trampled swath of footprints led back toward the Wichita range.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Long Rifle
His first minutes’ run down the channel’s looping course was blind and unreasoning, thinking only he’d catch them around the next bend. One of their mounts had the extra burden of carrying Joy. It would slow their pace.
He quirted his tiring buckskin for better than a mile and the swath of trampled grass ran on vacantly ahead. He gave in then to his knowledge of their swifter ponies. His own had already given its best.
To crosscut between one bend and another he swung up the channel bank. He looked south and suddenly pulled his horse in and rode in short, fast circles. At the same time he drew his forty-four and shot it into the air. The far-off spot of blue was plain now—Joe Wheat bringing the cavalry troop. Yet at more than two miles they couldn’t hear his gun and gave no sign of recognizing his riding signal. They kept on toward the stalled herd.
Back there, equally two miles away, he could see the little darting figures of men spreading out to catch the horses. While almost out of sight beyond them the split-off bunch of cattle were vanishing to the west.
Someone must have found the wagon. They’d follow. No time for him to go back and get help. Once the Cheyennes reached the Wichita canyons they’d vanish like rats in a stack of hay. He sent his little buckskin running on, feeling how even this short pause had given him new wind.
The channel wandered back and forth, the banks gently sloping, its bottom smooth and green. The short cuts let him gain a lot. They’d keep under cover themselves, following down the crooked way. He watched backward, hoping any moment that some of the outfit would show up. But they might be riding directly along the Indians’ trail. Each time he plunged into the winding course there was only the empty trampled grass. Those devils could move!
His run brought the black Wichitas looming up into the fog that had held low overhead all day. Light around him began to fade. The channel straightened. He saw water of North Fork Creek beyond the narrow mouth.
Even as he hit the stream’s edge and crossed it he knew the trail would not come out. This was what they had aimed for—an Indian trick. He splashed through to a sandy beach that lay smooth and unmarked. Down or up? He reined in.
If the stream had been clear water he could learn something. Suppose they were above him now; the hoofs of so many horses would have stirred a muddiness. But this creek was already loaded with silt from the rains.
And then some hunch he didn’t reason with pulled him upstream anyway.
There was no close growth to shelter him. He took his chance on that, riding openly up the broad level wash. Off on his right scrub willow made a low fringe. Beyond it the oak-forested Wichitas stood up in rounded humps, slashed by deep canyons, their tops lost in the mist.
He loped on for half a mile and the hunch that had pulled him this far became like a magnet losing its force. The wash lay empty on ahead. A sense of every moment taking her farther from him with those brown devils made his skin crawl. No use going on this way anym
ore. He pulled to a stop and sat listening. Any sound from the canyon mouths would carry far in the still air. Not even a blue jay’s warning chatter broke the Wichitas’ dead hush. His heart went cold. He was turning to head back down the stream when there came a coyote’s quavering bark.
It held him rigid. Too early in the evening for those animals to be on the prowl. He pulled his rifle from its scabbard and saw his buckskin’s little black-tipped ears swing and point. There was danger here. But he could locate nothing up where they directed. Slowly he moved the horse again.
“Hold on, son!” Old Willy Nickle stepped from the willow fringe.
“Willy!” he said and rode toward him. “You old coon!”
“Been seein’ you,” said Willy.
That was all just then. He turned his gentle changeless face and stared off blankly. But he might be learning things; you never could tell. Lew waited, keeping down his sudden impatience. The old man’s needle gun was wrapped in soft deer hide and bundled like a baby across his arms. His greased deer-hide coat and breeches were dark and glossy from the rain. There was a beard on his chin and that told something. Whenever old Willy missed a daily shave it meant he hadn’t stopped very long in his travel.
“Well,” he said in a moment and brought his eyes around. “There’s Indians knocking about here, so there is. Cheyennes. They give you a fight? Seems like I was watching from the hills, but was too much fog.”
“We held them off,” he said. And then it burst from him. “They got the girl!”
Unconcerned, old Willy said, “So they did.”
“You saw them?” He moved his horse. “Which way?”
Willy stood there calmly looking up. “Now you hold on. Don’t you never go trailing Indians up too close. It was Crazy Bear had her on his pony. Him and six of his bucks. They’re in the hills by now and they’ll be watching back. No, you give an Indian time to think he’s safe.”
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