Worse Than Death

by James W. Marvin

  In many stories, the hero will always ride hell for leather when trouble threatens, to rescue the weak and the oppressed. And if it is white women at risk then he will ride that much quicker and harder.

  Real life, perhaps sadly, is rarely like that. Some men will ride away from cowardice. Some will fight so that they will not be thought cowards.

  And there are men like Crow.

  Very, very few men are like Crow.

  He knew that the train was in grave danger from the surrounding Shoshone braves. Knew roughly where that— danger might come. Not far from where he was. But he was also a realist.

  There was a standard of important values for Crow and if he is ever to be partly understood, it is vital that this is appreciated.

  First of all in importance came the safety and well-being of the man called Crow.

  Second came …?

  Nothing.

  There simply wasn’t anything else that mattered.

  Which explains why he did nothing to warn the whites of the lurking menace of Many Knives and his bucks. Ho bad tried to live the way of society and they had finally turned him loose from it. Banished him to live the way he had before. Leaving him no choice but to be the man riding alone. Owing no debts. Feeling no obligations.

  Except to himself.

  It was round about the first day of November. That was Crow’s guess. But he wasn’t sure.

  It was close to noon. That he was certain about. Crow always kept the gold hunter watch wound in his waistcoat fob pocket. He reined in the stallion and checked the time, the light in the steep-sided ravine so poor that he had to angle the face of the time-piece to read the Roman numerals.

  As far as the day of the week was concerned, Crow hadn’t the least idea. Not being much of a church-going man it didn’t signify at all that one day was called a different name from the next. Last Sunday he could recall was when he’d laid with the wife of a minister in the loft of a small church near Billings in Montana while her husband preached a raging sermon about the sin of adultery fifty feet below their linked, thrashing forms. Crow grinned at the thought, recalling how he’d stuffed her shift in her mouth to stifle her moans of delight as he thrust himself deeper into her than she’d ever imagined Possible, even in her most lascivious dreams.

  So it was noon on some day in November in the year of eighteen seventy-six.

  He pocketed the hunter and rode on. The smile disappeared like the morning dew in an Arizona summer. Crow never smiled much.

  He was in a particularly narrow part of the canyon, close enough to the Moorcock River to hear its distant thunder. Ahead of him, less than a quarter mile off, was the wide plateau where he intended to pause for a bite of dried meat and some biscuits. It would also give him chance to replenish his canteen. From what he recalled of the place, there was a path down to the river that au active man might follow.

  Close by there was an even narrower trail that vanished off to the left. Through a gap that was barely wide enough for a man leading his mount. The snow had begun one of its severe flurries, and Crow swung down from the saddle, intending to wait a while before venturing out into the open where the wind was cutting through like a whetted knife.

  At that moment, above the howling of the gale and the faint rumbling of the water, his keen ears caught o sounds. A couple of shots, far ahead. And a thin scream that went on and on like a file drawn along the edge of a sheet of glass.

  Behind him there was a shouted command. Difficult though it was to hear properly, Crow would have wagered his beloved Purdey against a plugged nickel that the language was not English.

  Then there were more shots. Closer. A yell. More shouting, near enough to catch Shoshone words. A bugle call and the pattering of unshod hooves on snowy ground.

  Whatever was going down around him, Crow thought it was as good a time as any to clear away out of it. With Indians in force behind him and more ahead of him. And cavalry soldiers somewhere in the game that trail was a fine place not to be.

  Moving with a silent grace, Crow pulled his stallion through the defile to his left. So well hidden and narrow that the stirrups rattled on the boulders on both sides of the entrance. It was a box canyon no more than thirty feet long.

  He let the horse go to the end, drawing the Winchester from the bucket and propping it against the rock to his right The Purdey loaded and ready in his hands. The Colt tucked at the front of his belt, where the heavy winter coat wouldn’t hinder a fast draw.

  There was nothing else he could do. Just flatten himself against the wall of the cramped ravine and wait for the deal of the cards. If anyone spotted the side trail and chose to investigate it, then he was dead. Maybe he’d make it a hard price to kill him, but there was no way out and the Shoshone would easily send their climbers scrambling up above him. And that would be it.

  But he guessed that there was another sort of game being played. One that didn’t even feature him among the players.

  And he was right.

  Many Knives had learned much from the battle tactics of the great Crazy Horse. He had sent a few of his party to circle completely around the wagon train, waiting their moment to attack the rear.

  Half a dozen of his fleetest warriors were lying ready at the edge of the plateau, covered with buffalo skins to save themselves from freezing to death in the snow.

  As soon as the figure of Captain Hetherington appeared through the blizzard, followed by his patrol, Many Knives’ trap was ready to be sprung.

  The hidden bucks threw off their cloaks and pretended that they were there to ambush the Cavalry. They opened fire with their bows at far too great a range, none of their war arrows coming within ten pace of the officer. As soon as he saw them the Captain raised his pistol and set spurs to his horse, yelling for the escort to follow him against the small number of badly-armed Shoshone.

  Scenting an easy victory, the raw recruits galloped on after the little Captain, yelling and cheering as they rode on after the fleeing braves.

  Running out of sight among the rocks, the young warriors threw back their heads and sprinted as if they were running for their lives. Which they were. The snow drove on around them, shrouding them in white, making the almost invisible to the pursuing soldiers, who bunch and cursed as they reached the place where the trail pinched in to only a dozen feet in width.

  ‘Get the stinkin’ sons of red bitches!!’ screamed Hetherington, his voice clearly audible to the tall man in black only a couple of hundred yards away.

  Crow bit his lip and shook his head, seeing the crazed folly that lay behind all the worse defeats that the whit had ever suffered against the Indians. And it sounded like it was about to happen one more time. Almost under his nose.

  There had been the hasty pattering of several men running bard in moccasins. He was so close to them that he could hear the excited rasp of breath as they panted past the hidden opening.

  A half minute elapsed and then the first of the pony-soldiers came spurring on by. Crow inched himself around the shoulder of icy rock, seeing a small man with a little moustache, flourishing a hand-gun as he yelped encouragement to his following men.

  Men, thought Crow.

  ‘Hell, they’re boys,’ he muttered, watching their fresh faces and beardless chins. The excitement of the pursuit carrying them all along in a wild race.

  A race where there was only going to be one winner.

  Trooper Gilbert was a fine soldier. An experienced man who had fought Indians halfway across the country for most of his adult life. But there had always been a fondness for the bottle and something that several officers in the past had called “insubordination”. Gilbert figured it was just that he didn’t suffer fools very gladly. Fact was, he didn’t suffer them at all. That was what bad stopped him from rising any higher in the ranks.

  But it didn’t stop him from being a good soldier and a brave man. His only regret as he whipped the mules to force them to start the defensive circle in the middle of the flat area was that he
’d dropped his chaw of tobacco back on the trail.

  ‘Come on McLaglen, you bastard!’ he shouted, seeing the big Irishman driving the second wagon was having trouble with the lead animals. Beyond him Gilbert could see only three of the remaining rigs coming along. And through the snow he saw that the last of them was driven by a woman.

  His heart sank as he realized how damnably exposed they were on the plateau. The rearguard was likely overwhelmed by now. With so few left by the Captain, Mister Shannon wouldn’t have had a prayer against armed Shoshone. Looked like the last wagon was taken too. And the driver killed off the fifth Dougherty. That would be Trooper Tanner. No great loss at the best of times but in a situation like this even Tanner would have been better than nobody.

  ‘Where’s Hetherington?’ called McLaglen, finally reining his team in close to the lead rig.

  ‘Vanished up his own ass!’ he yelled back. Wiping caked snowflakes from his eyes. Ignoring the squawks of outrage from inside the wagon. Having time for a momentary pang of sympathy for the girl Rachel Shannon was likely an orphan by now.

  Wondering where Captain Hetherington had gone. Feeling a chill of despair as he suddenly came to the realization that this might just be the end of the road. Without someone to lead them and enough men to organize a proper defense, then the Indians could just corn riding in slow and easy and take what they want Which had to be the women. If this was the cunning am bush that it now looked, the Shoshone knew what they were after.

  That was when Many Knives dropped his war-spear to his side, in the signal for the jaws to be clamped shut on the trap. The spear, with many counted coups marked o it, was clearly visible through the snow, now easing as quickly as it had thickened.

  They had several rifles. Springfields and Winchesters. Spencers and Henrys. Though they were generally poor shots with the weapons of the white men, their fire was sufficiently concentrated and unexpected to cause total chaos in the ranks of the charging soldiers. The chief had picked his spot well. Blocking the trail with fall rocks, placing his warriors behind cover, and on ledges up both sides of the canyon.

  Coming without warning into this bottling holocaust of smoke and fire and death, the charge broke into a hundred pieces. Every man tried to battle clear, knocking into each other in panic. Cutting at each other with their sabers, the blood mingling with the freezing sins about the horses’ hooves. The stink of powder and death terrifying the barely broken animals.

  Hetherington scarcely knew what had hit them. One moment he was leading a spirited pursuit of a few scattering savages, the next moment his first proper command was in tatters about him.

  The fifty-two bullet from an old breech-loading Gallagher carbine that tore through his skull from close range, killing him instantly, gave him a kind of mercy that he had done little to earn during his life.

  It was all over in less than three minutes.

  Every man of the patrol either dead, dying or helplessly wounded.

  The ambush had only been a hundred yards beyond where Crow hid, and he heard everything. Nodding in professional admiration at the way Many Knives had achieved his victory. Blocking the pass. The clever bait, swallowed by the men in blue. The choice of the right place. Even the ten or so braves who came silently behind the trapped men to fire at them from point-blank range as they tried to turn their horses. Not a man escaped back past Crow.

  Who decided that if he was ever going to get out of the canyon, now was the moment. The Indians were busy with their butchery, but the time would soon come when they would be more careful. And would check through the side trails to ensure nobody had slipped through their net.

  It was time to go.

  Gilbert knew it was time to stand.

  With the wagons ringed, the Shoshone were still holding back somewhere behind them. There had been one more shot and then silence. Nothing could be seen through the black hole between the rocky cliffs.

  The burst of shooting and yelling from ahead was barely audible to them on the train, but all of them knew what it meant. Martha Hetherington gave out a great scream of desolation, tearing at her hair in terror as she shared everyone’s realization of what had happened.

  McLaglen called out to Gilbert as they both climbed down from their seats, unshipping their carbines with a slow resignation.

  ‘Do this mean what I think it do?’

  Gilbert nodded, listening to the absolute silence around them. Just the wind and the river. Nothing else.

  ‘Yeah. It do.’

  They told those women able to hold a gun to break out the pistols from their wagons and take their places around the ring of snow-topped rigs.

  Mary-Lou Brittain stayed behind in the wagon, moaning in fear, but the rest of them appeared in the cold light to take the guns and a handful of ammunition. Rachel Shannon was still in shock from seeing her father disappear in the snow, but Martha Hetherington was now more composed. Despite the evidence of her own ears she had great faith in her husband’s talents and made it clear that she expected him to reappear at any moment.

  Trooper Gilbert did nothing to disabuse her of that fanciful idea.

  ‘Miss Shannon,’ she called out. ‘Remember what I told you about the savages. Should by some mischance you find that you are about to be taken by the heathens, then you must save a last round of ammunition for yourself and do the decent thing that any red-blooded American woman would do. Never forget that there is a fate so infinitely much worse than that of …’

  ‘Look!’ yelled one of the four surviving soldiers, pointing with his rifle towards the rocky cleft where the bulk of the patrol had so recently vanished from sight. Gilbert cocked his carbine, aiming it across the seat of the nearest wagon, sighting in on the figure on horseback that had just ridden into their view.

  ‘White man!’ he shouted to the others. ‘Not Cavalry, though he sits that black stallion like …’

  His voice tailed away. There was something about the way a soldier rode that he could never quite shake out of his system. Not to the eyes of someone who’d also ridden with the Cavalry.

  ‘Keep a look the other side! And watch those damned mules, ladies! We’ll untether them in a while when we see what those Indians out there are aiming to do. Cover him, Mac,’ he said quietly, suddenly feeling uneasy about the way this lone white man had sprung out of the bare rock. How come he hadn’t gotten himself killed like the others?

  Moving on at a fast trot, yet somehow managing to look as if he wasn’t in a hurry, the stranger was closing quickly on the wagons. Now only fifty paces off, the hooves of the stallion kicking up pockets of snow, ringing on the exposed stones.

  ‘Hold it there a while, Mister!’ yelled Gilbert. ‘Just tell us what’s goin’ on!’

  Martha Hetherington had appeared at his elbow, her sharp face inquisitive and suspicious. ‘Could be a trap, you know,’ she hissed as the tall man in black reined in the horse.

  ‘Why send one man if’n there’s a hundred Shoshone out there, Ma’am?’ asked Trooper Gilbert. Shutting her up for a moment.

  ‘You want me to sit here while they come whoopin’ in and butcher you men and take the women?’ asked the lone man.

  There was something about his voice. He hadn’t shouted, and yet the words had carried easily. The tone was quiet, almost gentle. Hardly like a man’s voice at all. Too soft.

  Yet for all that, Gilbert shuddered. Telling himself that it was the cold. Knowing that it was the voice.

  ‘What’s happenin’ back there, Mister? More of the Indians ?’

  ‘Thicker than the fleas on a hog. If’n you’re countin’ on help from those boys up yonder, you’d best forget it. There more soldiers?’

  ‘Some back there, but I guess they’ve …’ Trooper Gilbert allowed the end of the sentence to trail away on the wind.

  The stranger nodded, his eyes still fixed on the soldier with the carbine. Gilbert thought he’d never seen such chillingly deadly eyes in his life.

  ‘So there’s you few and the
women.’ It was a statement, not a question. ‘And those Shoshone gettin’ ready to ride in here over the top of you.’

  Crow paused and considered the situation. Balancing his choices. The Moorcock was in flood and a man going in there would be dead in seconds. There were too many warriors behind him to go that way. From what the Trooper had said, there could be near as many up ahead of him, towards the east.

  That meant there weren’t a whole lot of choices. And his best chance of living a while longer meant staying with the defenders of the circle of ice-crusted Dougherty wagons.

  ‘Guess you could use another man.’

  Once again it was a statement and not a question, but Gilbert nodded all the same. Waving him forward with the barrel of the gun.

  ‘You Calvary, Mister?’ he asked as the big stallion walked in between two of the rigs.

  ‘Once.’

  ‘Officer?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Gilbert watched him swing down from the horse, tethering it to the rear of McLaglen’s wagon. Realizing how tall he was, and how thin beneath the enveloping coat.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lieutenant.’

  ‘Been out long?’

  Crow turned to look at him and the soldier took a step back as if he’d been slapped. There was a bitter anger in the stranger’s face at the questions and it showed in the narrowed lips and blazing eyes.

  The soldier had never seen anyone looking like this mysterious stranger. Dressed all in black but for a splash of yellow at his throat where he wore what was obviously an old Cavalry bandana. Under the coat he wasn’t wearing the usual pistol. The holster was too broad and bulky for that and Gilbert wondered what sort of weapon the man earned.

  But he decided, wisely, not to ask.

  Crow finally answered him.

  ‘I been out long enough, soldier. Now are you and me goin’ to do somethin’ ‘bout gettin’ ready for the attack or are we goin’ to stand here in the god-damned snow jawin’ while they walk in slow and easy?’