the Thundering Herd (1984)

by Grey, Zane

  How different, lying out under the open starry sky! She liked it.

  The immense blue dome was alight, mysterious, beautiful, comforting. Milly said her short prayer, childish and loyal, somehow more than ever helpful on this eventful night. Often, before she had met the Hudnalls and Tom Doan, she had omitted that little prayer, but never since she had learned from them the meaning of friendship and love.

  The night was warm; the leaves of the cottonwoods near by rustled softly in the breeze; insects were chirping and a night bird was uttering plaintive notes.

  Jett, Follonsbee, and Pruitt remained around the camp fire, quarreling in low voices; and that sound was the last Milly heard as slumber claimed her.

  Milly's eyes opened to the bright light of day, and pale-blue sky seemed canopied over her. Not the canvas roof of her tent! Where was she? The smell of cottonwood smoke brought her with surging shock to realization. Then Jett's harsh voice, that had always made her shrink with fear, sent a creeping fire along her veins.

  She lay a moment longer, calling to the spirit that had awakened last night; and it augmented while she seemed to grow strangely older. She would endure; she would fight; she would think. So that when she presented herself at the camp fire she was outwardly a quiet, obedient, impassive girl, inwardly a cunning, daring woman.

  Not half a dozen words were spoken around the breakfast canvas.

  Jett rushed the tasks. Sunrise shone on the three wagons moving south at a brisk trot.

  Milly had asked Catlee to fix her a comfortable place in the back of Jett's wagon. He had done so, adding of his own accord an improvised sun shade of canvas. She had watched him from the wagon seat, hoping he would speak to her or look at her in a way that would confirm her hopes. But the teamster was silent and kept his head lowered. Nevertheless, Milly did not regard his taciturnity as unfavorable to her. There had been about Catlee, last night when he had muttered: "So that's how a good girl feels," a something which spoke to Milly's intuition. She could not prove anything. But she felt. This man would befriend her. A subtle unconscious influence was working on his mind. It was her presence, her plight, her appeal.

  Milly thought of a thousand plans to escape, to get word to Doan, to acquaint buffalo-hunters with the fact of her being practically a prisoner, to betray that Jett was a hide thief. Nothing definitely clear and satisfactory occurred to her. But the fact of her new knowledge of Jett stood out tremendously. It was an infallible weapon to employ, if the right opportunity presented.

  But a futile attempt at that would result fatally for her. Jett would most surely kill her.

  It seemed to Milly as she revolved in mind plan after plan that the wisest thing to do would be to play submissive slave to Jett until he reached the end of the drive south; and there to persuade Catlee to take her at once to Hudnall's camp, where she would betray Jett.

  If Catlee would not help her, then she must go alone, or, failing that, wait for Tom Doan to find her.

  Before the morning was far advanced Jett gave wide berth to an oncoming outfit. Milly was not aware of this until the unusual jolting caused her to rise to her knees and look out. Jett had driven off the main road, taking a low place, where other drivers had made short cuts. Four freight wagons, heavily laden with hides, were passing at some distance to the right. The foremost team of horses was white--Milly thought she recognized it as Hudnall's. Her heart rushed to her lips. But she had seen many white teams, and all of them had affected her that way. If she leaped out and ran to find she was mistaken, she would lose every chance she had. Besides, as she gazed, she imagined she was wrong.

  So with a deep sigh she dropped back to her seat.

  The hours passed quickly. Milly pondered until she was weary, then fell asleep, and did not awaken until another camp was reached.

  And the first words she heard were Jett's speaking to Follonsbee as he drove up abreast the leader, "Wasn't that Hudnall's outfit we passed?"

  "First two teams was," replied Follonsbee. "That young skinner of Hudnall's was leadin', an' that ugly-face cuss was drivin' the second team. I didn't know the other outfits."

  Milly had to bite her lips to repress a scream. Jett was clamboring down from the seat above. The woman, grumbling under her breath, threw out the canvas bags of utensils, that clinked on the ground. Milly hid her face as Mrs. Jett descended from the seat. Then, for a moment, she shook like a leaf with the violence of her emotions. So near Tom! Not to see his face! It was heartrending. She lay prostrate, with her mind in a whirl. Of the many thoughts one returned--that Tom would reach Sprague's Post next day and get her letter. That thought had strength to impart.

  He would lose no time following, perhaps would catch up with Jett before he got to the Pease River, and if not then, soon afterward.

  This thought sustained her in a trying moment.

  The weakness passed, leaving her somewhat thick witted, so that as she climbed out of the wagon she nearly fell, and later her clumsiness at her assigned camp tasks fetched a reprimand from Mrs.

  Jett. Soon the men were back from attending to the horses, and this evening they were hungry. Meeting outcoming freighters with buffalo hides had for the moment turned the minds of Jett and his two lieutenants from their differences.

  "How many hides in them outfits?" queried Jett.

  "It weren't a big haul," replied Follonsbee.

  "Shore was big enough to make us turn off the road," said Pruitt, meaningly.

  Jett glared at him. Then Catlee drawled: "Funny they didn't see us. But we went down on our side some. That first driver was Hudnall's man, Tom Doan."

  "Ahuh! Well, suppose it was?" returned Jett, nonplussed at this remark from the habitually unobserving Catlee.

  "Nothin'. I just recognized him," replied Catlee, casually, as he lowered his eyes.

  When he raised them, a moment later, to look across the canvas supper cloth at Milly, she saw them as never before, sharp as a dagger, with a single bright gleam. He wanted her to know that he had seen Tom Doan. Milly dropped her own gaze and she spilled a little of her coffee. She dared not trust her flashing interpretation of this man's glance. It seemed like a gleam of lightning from what had hitherto been dead ashes. Thereafter he paid no attention to her, nor to any of the others; and upon finishing the meal and finishing his chore of cutting firewood, he vanished.

  Jett and his two disgruntled men took up their quarrel and spent a long, noisy, angry hour round the camp fire.

  The next day came and passed, with no difference for Milly except that Catlee now avoided her, never seemed to notice her; and that she hung out her red scarf, with a hopeful thrill in its significance. Then one by one the days rolled by, under the wheels of the wagons.

  Seven days, and then the straggling lost bands of buffalo! The hot, drowsy summer air was tainted; the gently waving prairie bore heaps of bones; skulking coyotes sneaked back from the road. A thousand times Milly Fayre looked back down the endless road she had traveled. No wagon came in sight!

  Noon of the ninth day brought Jett within sight of the prairie-wide herd of buffalo. He halted to point it out to his sullen, unseeing men; and later he reined in again, this time to turn his ear to the hot stinking wind.

  "Aha! Listen," he called back to Follonsbee.

  Milly heard the boom-boom-boom-boom of guns, near and far, incessant and potent. Strangely, for once she was glad to hear them!

  All that hot midday she reclined on the improvised seat in her wagon, holding her scarf to her nostrils and looking out occasionally at the sordid ugliness of abandoned camp sites. The buffalo-hunters had moved on up the river, that now showed its wandering line of green timber.

  Milly took a last backward gaze down the prairie road just as Jett turned off to go into the woods. Far away Milly saw a dot on the horizon--a white and black dot. Maybe it was Tom Doan's horses and wagon! He could not be far behind. It was as well now, perhaps, that he had not caught up with Jett. The buffalo range had been reached; and it could not be lon
g before her situation was changed.

  Jett drove off the prairie, into the timber, along a well-defined shady road where many camps had been pitched, and then down into the brakes. Brutal and fearless driver that he was, he urged his horses right through the tangled undergrowth, that bent with the onslaught of the wagon, to spring back erect after it had passed.

  Follonsbee came crashing next. Jett drove down into the bottom lands, thick and hot and aromatic with its jungle of foliage. He must have had either wonderful judgment as to where it was possible for horses to go, or an uncanny luck. For he penetrated the heavily wooded brakes clear to a deep shining river.

  Milly would not allow herself to be unduly distressed because Jett meant to hide his camp, for she knew that any one hunting wagon tracks and camps would surely not miss his. In a way Milly was glad of the shade, the murmur of the river, the songs of birds, the absence of the stench. A camp on the edge of the prairie, with the rotten carcasses of buffalo close at hand, the dust and heat, the flies and bugs, would be well-nigh unendurable.

  Jett halted his team in a shady glade of cottonwoods just back from the river and Milly then discovered that this was the scene of Jett's previous encampment. His tents and fireplace, boxes and bales, evidently had not been molested during his absence.

  "Turn horses loose an' unload the wagons," he ordered his men.

  "I'll take a look for my saddle horses."

  "No fear of hosses leavin' grass an' water," rejoined Follonsbee.

  "But there might be hoss thieves on the range."

  "Haw! Haw!" laughed Pruitt, in his mean way. "Shore you know these heah buff-hunters are all honest men."

  Jett strode off into the green brakes. The men unloaded the wagons and set the boxes and bags of supplies under a cottonwood. Mrs.

  Jett opened a tent near the fireplace.

  "Miss," said Catlee, "the canvas wagon cover you had before got ripped to pieces. There ain't any tent for you till that one's mended."

  "Can't I stay in the wagon?" she asked.

  "Don't see why not. We'll hardly be movin' or haulin' very soon."

  It was late in the afternoon when the rays of the sun began to lose heat. Milly was sorely in need of a little freedom of limbs. She had been cramped and inactive so long. So she walked to and fro under the trees. This camp was the most secluded Jett had ever chosen--far from the prairie, down in the brakes at the edge of the river, hidden by trees from the opposite densely foliaged bank. If it had not hinted of a sinister meaning and was not indeed a prison for Milly she could have reveled in it. If she had to spend much time there she would be grateful for its quiet, cleanliness, and beauty. She strolled along the green bank until Mrs. Jett curtly called her to help get supper.

  About the time it was ready Jett returned, with muddy boots and clothes covered with burrs and bits of brush.

  "Found all the horses except the bay mare," he announced. "An' to- morrow we can go back to work. I'm aimin' at hard work, men."

  "Huh! I'd like to know what you call all we've done," returned Follonsbee.

  "Wal, Jett, there shore won't be ANY work aboot heah till you settle up," added Pruitt, crisply.

  Jett's huge frame jerked with the shock of surprise and fury he must have felt.

  "So that's it?" he queried, thickly. "Waited till you got way down here!"

  "We shore did, boss," returned Pruitt.

  In sullen silence then Jett began and finished his supper. Plain it was he had received a hard, unexpected blow, that he seemed scarcely prepared to cope with. He had no further words with his men, but he drew his wife aside; and they were in earnest conversation when Milly fell asleep.

  Next day brought forward a situation Milly had not calculated upon.

  Jett had no intercourse whatever with his men, and saddling his horse rode off alone. The woman sulked. Follonsbee and Pruitt, manifestly satisfied with their stand, played cards interminably, now and then halting to talk in low tones over something vital to them. Catlee rigged himself a crude fishing tackle and repaired to the river bank, where he found a shady seat within sight of the camp.

  Milly was left to herself. Her first act, after the tasks of the morning were ended, was to hang up her red scarf in a conspicuous place. Then she had nothing to do but kill time. With the men in camp, this was not easy. Apparently she had liberty. No orders had been given her, but perhaps this was owing to the timid meekness she had pretended. She might have wandered away into the brakes or have trailed the wagon tracks up to the prairie. But she could not decide that this was best. For the present she could only wait.

  Already the boom of guns floated in on the summer air from all sides, increasing for a while, until along the upriver prairie there was almost continuous detonation. Every boom, perhaps, meant the heart or lungs of a noble animal torn to shreds for the sake of his hide. As Milly settled down again to the actual presence of this slaughter she accepted the fact with melancholy resignation.

  In the course of her strolling round the camp Milly gravitated toward Catlee, where he sat contentedly smoking his pipe and fishing. She watched him, trying to make up her mind to approach him on the subject nearest her heart. But she knew the men and Mrs. Jett could see her and that any such action might arouse suspicion. Therefore she desisted. Once Catlee turned, apparently casually, and his gray gaze took her in and the camp. Then he winked at her.

  That droll action established anew Milly's faith in an understanding between her and this man. She had no assurance that he would help her, but there was a secret between them. Milly felt more than she could prove. The incident made the long day supportable.

  Chapter XIV

  Jett's outfit fell into idleness for more days than Milly could remember. She waited for time to pass, and no one would have suspected her longing. When Jett returned to camp from one of his lonely rides Milly would hear his horse breaking the brush along the trail, and she could never repress a wild throb of hope. It might be Tom! But it was always Jett.

  One day Jett returned in great perturbation, apparently exhausted.

  His horse was jaded. Follonsbee and Pruitt were curious, to no end, for Jett did not vouchsafe any explanation. Whatever had happened, however, brought about a change in him and his habits.

  He stayed in camp.

  The business of hide-hunting had been abandoned; not improbably in Jett's mind for a temporary period, until his men weakened. But they did not weaken; they grew stronger. More days of this enforced idleness crystallized a growing influence--they would never again follow the extraordinary labors of hunting and skinning buffalo. Whatever had been Jett's unity of outfit was destroyed.

  Milly heard the woman tell Jett this, and the ensuing scene had been violent. It marked, further, the revealment of Mrs. Jett's long-hidden hand in the game. She was the mainspring of Jett's calculated mechanism, and when the other men realized it, it precipitated something darkly somber into the situation.

  Follonsbee and Pruitt had manifestly been playing a hand they felt sure would win. Jett could no longer hunt hides, or steal them, either, without his men. All of these lonely rides of his had been taken to find other accomplices, whom Follonsbee and Pruitt knew could not be obtained there on the buffalo range.

  Milly heard the bitter quarrel which ensued, between Jett and his wife and the two lieutenants. Catlee was always there, listening, watching, but took no part in any of their talks or quarrels. He was outside. They did not count him at all. Yet he should have been counted immeasurably, Milly concluded. Like herself, Catlee was an intense, though silent, participator in this drama.

  The content of that quarrel was simple. Jett had weakened to the extent of wanting to settle in part with his men. Follonsbee and Pruitt were not willing to take what he offered, and the woman, most tenacious and calculating of all of them, refused to allow Jett to relinquish any share of their profits.

  There was a deadlock, and the argument put aside for the present.

  Follonsbee and Pruitt walked a
way from camp; Jett and his wife repaired to their tent where they conversed heatedly; Catlee and Milly cooked the supper. Milly did not know when the absent men returned.

  Next day the atmosphere of Jett's outfit had undergone further change. The leader was a worried and tormented man, beset by a woman with will of steel and heart of hate; and he saw opposed to him Westerners whose reaction now seemed formidable and deadly.

  That had roused an immovable stubbornness in him.

  Milly saw the disintegration of this group, and what she could not divine herself she gathered from study of Catlee. Indeed, he was the most remarkable of the outfit--he whom the others never considered at all. Not that Milly could understand her impressions! If she tried to analyze Catlee's effect upon her it only led to doubt. As for Jett and his men, they were a divided outfit, wearing toward dissolution, answering to the wildness of the time and place. The evil that they had done hovered over them, about to enact retribution.

  Milly began to dread the issue, though the breaking up of this outfit augured well for her. Then any day Tom Doan, with Hudnall and his men, might ride into Jett's camp. That meant deliverance for her, in one way or another. If Jett refused to let her go she had but to betray him. Milly held her courage all through this long ordeal, yet she felt more and more the looming of a shadow.

  Toward the close of that afternoon the tension relaxed. Follonsbee and Pruitt sauntered off with their heads together; Jett fell asleep under a cottonwood and his sullen wife slouched into her tent; Catlee sat on a log by the river bank, not fishing or smoking, but deep in thought.

  Milly, answering the long-resisted impulse, slipped to his side.

  "Catlee, I must tell you," she whispered. "This--all this I've gone through has got on my nerves. I've waited and hoped and prayed for Tom Doan. . . . He doesn't come. He has missed this road. I might have stood it longer, but this fight between the Jetts and his men wears on me. I'm scared. Something awful will happen. I can't stand it. . . . I know you're my friend--oh, I know it! . . . But you must help me. Tell me what you think.