Worse Than Death

by James W. Marvin

  In the midst of all that noise and carnage, Crow couldn’t help a wry smile at the way the Cavalry’s blind obedience to orders worked even with the ladies. The wives and daughters.

  He cocked and fired and cocked and fired again, hardly even bothering to aim. If only they’d have had a Gatling there they could have wiped out virtually the whole of the marauding band of Shoshone in one go.

  The whole action lasted not more than four minutes, from Crow’s yell to the moment when the surviving Indians managed to retreat in some sort of order. Outside the ring of Dougherty wagons lay three dead animals and five more that were badly wounded, down in the trampled bloody snow, kicking out helplessly.

  And there were fourteen dead Shoshone. Two thrashing and twitching in the last stages of life. The rest of the wounded had succeeded in escaping, helped by their uninjured brothers.

  ‘Shoot the living and the horses,’ snapped Crow to Gilbert, standing exactly as he had throughout the fight, calmly reloading his own Colt, while the women quietly collected the empty guns and began to load them again. There was no sign of panic.

  Nor was there any jubilation from most of the women. Just a numbness that they’d survived among all that noise and death.

  But Rachel Shannon was near the edge of hysteria, giggling to herself as she looked out at the grotesquely mangled corpses of the Shoshone young men. Lying stiffly in the dirt, splattered with bright crimson, and shards of white bone.

  ‘We’ve won. We’ve won! We’ve won!!!’

  Crow looked across at the screaming girl, quieting her with a word.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But we’ve won. Beaten them off.’

  He shook his head, the mane of black hair swinging in the wind. ‘No, Ma’am. We just haven’t lost. There’s one Hell of a difference.’

  Chapter Seven

  Nothing happened for the rest of the afternoon.

  Except that it snowed viciously for nearly two hours, burying the bodies of the Shoshone and their ponies under a merciful shroud of clean whiteness, the wind banking up drifts against the frozen corpses.

  Martha Hetherington finally rose from her bed in the wagon and reappeared among the rest of the party. Studiously ignoring Crow, who didn’t even notice her. And replying to the other ladies with a muffled whisper. Finding that the swelling to her lips and the blood from the broken teeth made any normal conversation too painful.

  Crow posted two of the more responsible women to cover both sides of the plateau, warning them to shout out if they saw anything.

  ‘I mean anything at all, ladies, that seems not right to you. Don’t be afraid if’n it turns out a false alarm. False alarm never killed nobody. Missing the signs of an attack could kill us all. I’m dependin’ on the both of you.’

  He favored them with a smile and they both came as close as possible to dropping him a curtsey until they recalled who he was. Both of them blushed at the embarrassment of the moment, but they both kept excellent watch for the Shoshone.

  The rest of them were kept busy unloading the trunks and cases from the wagons and filling in all the gaps with them. Packing them under the rigs as well to stop any adventurous brave coming in close and crawling between the wheels to get at them. Martha Hetherington joined in this work in silence.

  And Crow and the four soldiers spent the time walking cautiously around the plateau, keeping in close to their defenses in case the Shoshone tried a surprise raid. Not that any of them thought that the Indians would be in any condition to come again at them so soon after suffering such a devastating defeat. But equally none of them was under any illusions about having beaten them for good and all. Many Knives would be back. His honor as a leader of the tribe would demand it.

  ‘Last one was the easy one, Crow,’ said the taciturn Muir, banging his arms against his ribs to try and keep the blood flowing warmly.

  ‘Yeah. Next time they’ll be damned careful not to get caught out like that. Least there’s only the two ways they can come at us.’

  The plateau was like a flattened saucer. The narrow sides were about a hundred and fifty paces from the sheer wall of rock to the toppling banks of scree that plummeted down to the icy Moorcock River.

  The other way was nearer three hundred yards from end to end. They knew that any attempt to go back the way they’d come would lead them into a hopeless ambush. And to go on would put them in the maze of trails where Many Knives and his surviving bucks would cut them apart.

  Crow considered trying to get them into the small box canyon on foot and then hope to scout a path up over the top of the last range of bills. But he knew that once outside the ring of wagons the Shoshone would pluck them off like blinded buffalo.

  ‘Could we make some kind of raft from one of the Doughertys and try the water?’ asked McLaglen, his round Irish cheeks red from the cutting wind.

  ‘I don’t figure it, Mac,’ said Gilbert. ‘Last time I come through here the Moorcock was like a boilin’ cauldron and that was in the fall.’

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ suggested Crow, leading the way across the snow to the edge of the scree, stepping carefully. Not knowing where the snow ended and infinity began. Cautiously peering over at the river.

  ‘Jesus,’ whispered Kemp, turning away. ‘Makes me feel sick as a barracks cur just lookin’ down there.’

  The four Troopers left Crow and slithered their way back to the protection of the ring of wagons. He stood for some time gazing thoughtfully into space. Noting that it was more than a hundred feet down the steep slope. Examining the way the driven snow had softened the harshness of the loose rock. The Moorcock itself was milky where it cut its way over the carved boulders and rapids. But just where it bent back left, Crow saw that there was a sign of quieter water, and the banks there seemed lower.

  He stored that piece of information away in the back of his mind and rejoined the others for their continuing council of war.

  ‘Let’s have that again, Gilbert,’ said Crow, his soft voice not carrying beyond the wagon where the five of them were sitting.

  McLaglen had a piece of paper on his lap and it was covered with scribbling and crossings-outs The stub of pencil in his right fist looked as though it had fought a battle with a cougar and come off worst, its end chewed and splintered.

  There was a new chaw of tobacco in Gilbert’s month and ho shifted it to his cheek, looking for somewhere to spit. Finally lifting the flap of the canvas and sending the brown stream on to the snow outside.

  ‘Guns. The forty-five/seventy Model, eighteen seventy- three Springfield carbine. We got fifty of them. And one hundred and fifty rounds of ammunition for each gun.’

  ‘I reckon we should wreck them the first chance we get,’ muttered Kemp.

  The others nodded. Except Crow. ‘Hold on there. Could be useful as a trade if the rest of the roads get closed up on us.’

  If he’d suggested that General George Armstrong Custer had really been a Georgia nigra, the four soldiers couldn’t have looked more shocked.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Crow!’ exclaimed McLaglen.

  ‘Trade with those bastards!’ said Gilbert, quietly, his face showing his shock.

  The tall man breathed in gently, looking at the bluff, honest faces of the four soldiers.

  ‘You know what your trouble is? Cavalry tells you what to do. How to think. Time comes you can’t think any other way.’

  ‘They’d use those rifles against our boys. Against women and children,’ said Kemp angrily, spots of color bright on his cheek-bones.

  ‘What the Hell you think we got here, you brainless whoreson!’ replied Crow. ‘We got soldiers. We got women. And if that fat one delivers like she’s ready to, then there’ll be a baby along. You don’t think that’d be a good enough trade for a few guns?’

  There was silence in the wagon while the four others considered what he’d said. It ran counter to an that most decent folks would ever have thought about trading guns to Shoshone. But they had to admit that the way Crow put
it made sense.

  ‘But it ain’t right,’ said Muir, plaintively, his treble chins quivering.

  ‘It ain’t right,’ mimicked Crow, shaking his head. ‘I like the idea of us gettin’ cut up slow and easy by them Indians? And these women endin’ up in misery and a lonely death in some stinkin’ tepee? That what you want, Muir? If’n that’s what you want, then you can pay your own damned price for it!’

  ‘You’d really trade the carbines? asked McLaglen, still not sure what Crow meant.

  ‘I would. But I’m not goin’ to, so you can keep your God-damned bleedin’ hearts out on your sleeves. Many Knives wouldn’t trade now. If’n I’d known before but that’s water down the gorge now.’

  The look of relief on the Troopers’ faces was so comical that Crow grinned at it. ‘That’s a cross you won’t need to carry, huh? Remember that it’s the nice guys that come last.’

  There was more trouble when it came to considering supplies.

  There weren’t any. Or so little that they scarcely mattered among the seventeen of them. And most of the water was gone.

  ‘The Captain said we’d hunt once we got through these hills,’ said Gilbert, gloomily.

  ‘Man counts his chickens hatchin’ tomorrow is goin’ to go damned hungry,’ replied Crow.

  ‘Some of the women got a few vittles in their bags,’ said Muir. Looking down at his boots as if he wished he hadn’t spoken.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Biscuits. Cakes. Dried fruit. That kind of stuff. Not a lot though, Mister Crow.’

  ‘Get them out. All of them outside this wagon in one minute flat. Get to it.’

  ‘Sir,’ snapped the soldier, leaping up and nearly knocking his head off on one of the iron hoops around the Dougherty. Crow let the “Sir” pass unchecked. Saving his breath for the ladies of the train.

  He kept them shivering for a couple of minutes before he appeared. Looking along the line. Noticing that Martha Hetherington was there, dried blood a dark brown splash across her chin and neck.

  ‘We got precious little to eat. I hear of any of you keep in’ food back. Any kind …’ he paused and raked them with a glance. ‘I’ll cut out her throat myself. You know me for three hours. You see how I work. I don’t give a sweet God-damn for any of you. But if you do like I say then we all got a chance of living a while longer. Me and the Troopers are goin’ to be takin’ a look inside chests and that, so don’t try it. I swear to God I mean what I say. We swim together or we go down together. That’s all.’

  Within a quarter of an hour they had a small pile of food in the Gilbert wagon. Crow appointed Rachel Shannon to be in charge of it.

  ‘Any goes, you get the blame and I’ll rip the clothes off of you and whip you bloody. You hear me, young lady?’

  She nodded, blushing. Unable to restrain a wicked thrill at his words. Wondering what this sinister and brutally violent man might be like to hold in a bed. Blushing more at the sudden thought that he might be able to read her mind.

  But Crow had already turned away from her.

  With more important things to do than bother with a girl of fifteen.

  Food would keep them going for a couple of days at best. But they had no water at all and Crow wasn’t prepared to let them have a fire to melt the surrounding snow down to drink.

  Which meant it had to be the Moorcock?

  One of the younger women started to cry as they all listened to Crow tell them how some of them were going to have to carry water under the watchful eyes of Gilbert and Kemp, while the other two Troopers stayed on top of the cliff to stand guard against the Indians.

  ‘Why don’t we give up? They wouldn’t hurt us if we surrendered.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ said Crow, not even bothering to look at her, ‘I don’t believe in

  reaching the end of the line until I run clean out of track.’

  There was no more talk of surrendering just then after that.

  To his surprise, Crow found an ally in Martha Hetherington against the women who were showing signs of losing heart. She went around telling them through her puffed and bloodied lips what would happen if they gave in. And how nobody should even dream of letting the savages take possession of them. ‘Better death,’ became her watchword for the others.

  Gilbert commented on her words to Crow. ‘Guess it’s good to have a fighter like that. Someone who’ll go all the way and keep the others with her.’

  Crow sucked in cold air between his teeth and peered moodily out of the front flap of the wagon. ‘Can’t say I agree, Gilbert.’

  ‘Name’s George, Crow.’

  ‘Right, George. No, fact is it’s the talkers who throw in the hand first. Man I knowed sometimes back, Jed Herne, used to tell me that talk was cheap, but the price of action was damned high. That’s the way it is with folks, George. Watch Martha and you’ll soon see signs of crumblin’ around the edges. Just you watch her good.’

  Crow wasn’t surprised to find that the morning had brought a clearing of the skies. He’d smelled it in the wind during the late evening. A softening of the air. Now there were bright blue skies, though the frost still lay bitter hard across the earth.

  Allowing the Shoshone time for their ceremonies for the dead, he figured they’d return either late afternoon or maybe leave it until the following day. That meant he had at least five or six hours to do what he wanted.

  It also meant that they had that much time to stock up on water. They had plenty of rope and he’d told Gilbert how he wanted it done. The women lowered while the men stayed at the top to pull them up and down.

  ‘Shouldn’t we go down, Crow?’ he’d asked, biting off another chunk of tobacco, spitting out the mangled remnants of the last piece.

  ‘If’n they attack sudden, then whoever’s down there dies,’ Crow had replied. ‘I’d rather lose one of the women than one of you.’

  Crow didn’t know it but the four soldiers had talked about him that morning. Arguing whether they were glad he’d come along. All finally agreeing, with differing degrees of reluctance, that they’d probably have been dead now but for the tall stranger.

  ‘Looks like he come straight out of the black shadows of Hell,’ said Muir, who had always fancied that he had a way with words.

  Gilbert was shorter and simpler. ‘Meanest son of a bitch I ever met,’ he’d said. Adding: ‘But I’m sure happy he’s with us.’

  Crow left the train at about ten in the morning, riding his big stallion. Carrying all his guns newly cleaned a loaded. Leaving George Gilbert in charge.

  ‘What happens if that Mary-Lou has the baby? Trooper had asked. The woman had been moaning and crying during the night in her wagon, until Crow had gone in and had a few words with her. After that she’d been very quiet.

  ‘If she has it then let the woman with her do what she has to. We got plenty of blankets. But no fire. Got that, George?

  ‘Sure. No fire, Crow.’

  ‘If’n I see any game I’ll try and get us some fresh meat. Otherwise, we’ll use what we got.’

  He looked round at the snow-covered bodies of the Shoshone dead and their ponies, but Gilbert was staring the other way and didn’t notice the gesture.

  At the back of Crow’s mind was still the hope that he might be able to find a trail that would lead them all out of the Indian trap. Though he’d tried to raise their spirits some by telling them that the Cavalry could be out for them in a few days, he doubted whether they’d be missed for a week, and then it could take another week to get together a strong enough patrol to come out and rescue them. By then the weather could have deteriorated so much that it might be yet another week before the rescuing command came to the plateau.

  He wondered what they’d find.

  It was a day that promised a lot of danger and drama. There was the possibility of finding food. Or of running into one of the Shoshone hunting parties. Or of finding a trail that would let them all get away free.

  As it turned out, the drama didn’t come where Crow bad th
ought it might.

  And when it came it was blacker than anything he’d looked for.

  There was not a sign of any animal life out on the love. With the hard frost and ice it was difficult for Crow to travel quietly. The hooves of his horse rang o the snow-coated boulders like a blacksmith’s hammer, sending all the game scurrying for cover before he could get near enough to it. But that was something that didn’t’ worry him that much. Not with all that horse-meat back at the wagons.

  Nor did he see any of the Indians. But all of the side trails and narrow canyons were trampled down with the marks of unshod ponies. Many Knives hadn’t been taking any chances on losing his prey. Crow guessed that there would have been scouts watching him as he made his own search for a way out, but they would be under orders not to do anything unless there was a general attempt to leave.

  Without a path that the women could manage on foot, there wasn’t any point. There were a couple of the box canyons that looked as though a healthy man might make a go of. But not in winter. Not with ice splitting away segments of raw rock making the climb impossibly treacherous and the snow coating any hand or foot-hold.

  Although the few hours it had taken had been totally fruitless, Crow wasn’t either surprised or disappoint.

  He hadn’t thought there’d be any food around on hoof. Not after the shooting and with so many humans ii the region. At least it had cleared several points in his own mind. Making planning easier.

  They had no hope of food from outside the circle of wagons.

  The Shoshone would not be attacking them again before nightfall.

  And there was no other way out.

  They had to hold on.

  Or die.

  Chapter Eight

  The bad news began to be visible from the moment Crow rode out again through the gaping jaws of the ravine out onto the bowl of the plateau.

  The wagons were still there and he could tell from the tracks that there had been no attack. All there was, dotted black across the untouched whiteness, were the marks of the stallion’s hooves moving outwards.