He hesitated, not sure he was set on killing them. He should be satisfied just to stop them. He fretted over the question until the front sight on his rifle began to waver. Relaxing his arms, he let the rifle lower slowly to his side. Ah, to hell with it, he told himself. I’ve got a better idea.
He moved carefully back from his position and backtracked the way he had come. When he reached the point where he had seen the horse, he waded across the creek. Behind the clump of laurel bushes, he found three horses tied to the branches. Each horse had a deerskin sack tied around its neck. He figured each sack probably contained a warrior’s personal property, and was what an Indian called his war bag. He started to untie the sacks, then decided he’d take the sacks with him. Working quickly, he untied each horse and gathered their reins up, then led them back to the spot where Buck was waiting. The big bay greeted the three ponies with a soft nicker.
“Look here, Buck,” Perley said, “you got company.” He climbed up into the saddle and started out after Liz and Stella at a lope. Thinking about the three Indian raiders he left behind, he allowed, It might not stop you, but it’ll damn sure slow you down.
After a short time, Stella looked back to discover a group of horses catching up with them.
“I’ll be doggoned,” she uttered. “He stole their horses.”
She and Liz pulled up then to wait for him, still some three hundred yards behind.
“I didn’t hear any shots,” Liz said. “So, I reckon he didn’t shoot ’em.” She threw her head back to release a hearty chuckle. “Damned if he ain’t somethin’! Turned the tables on ’em—stole the horse thieves’ horses.”
When he caught up with them, Stella said, “Looks like you’ve been shoppin’. I don’t reckon we have to worry about those Indians anymore.”
“Maybe not,” he answered. “’Course, I don’t know how fast those boys can run, so I expect we’d best put some ground between us and them. At least we can cut back on the road again.”
“Doesn’t look like you had any trouble,” Liz commented as he was fixing lead ropes for his newly gained horses.
“Got my feet wet when I had to wade across the creek,” he complained.
“Why do they have those hide sacks tied around their necks?” Stella asked.
“Those are what they call their war bags, where a warrior keeps all his personal stuff—same as our saddlebags,” he answered.
They set out again, with Perley leading the three captured horses, Liz and Stella still riding double, and Perley’s packhorse trailing behind their horse. As Perley had said, the object was to get far away from the three hostiles. Their horses were fresh, since they had traveled only a few miles before reaching the ambush. Stella was a bit wary when Perley said she would no longer have to ride behind Liz’s saddle, but he assured her he would check the horses over before she tried one out.
“We’ll wait till we stop to rest ’em,” he said. “They won’t be too spunky then.”
Easing Buck up to a comfortable lope, a pace the horses could maintain for a while, he intended to gain a little on the hostiles. To keep from tiring their mounts too soon, he would then pull them back to a fast walk and an occasional trot. He was only guessing, but he figured a man in good condition could walk as fast as a horse’s normal walk, and he wasn’t sure how fast an angry Indian could trot, or how long he could keep it up.
* * *
Walking Man climbed down from his perch in the tree and walked across the road to where his friends were hiding. “Where are they?” he complained. “Are they still sleeping? They could have walked this far by now. My bottom was starting to grow to that tree.”
Feeling much the same as he, Cripple Horse said, “There is still no one in sight. Maybe they have turned around and gone the other way.”
Gray Wolf had other thoughts. He climbed down from his perch to join Walking Man. “I think they have outsmarted us,” he said. “While we sat here in the trees like birds, I think maybe the white man led his women off the road and rode around us. There are hills on either side of this place in the trail. We would not see them.”
“I think you’re right,” Walking Man said. “If they were going to continue on this trail, they would have been here long ago. Let’s get the horses and split up to scout the hills on both sides of this creek. Maybe we can pick up their tracks where they went around us.”
“To be cautious,” Gray Wolf said, “I’ll stay here to watch the road, just in case they have lolled in their beds. You and Cripple Horse go and get our ponies.”
Cripple Horse dropped down from the tree and went with Walking Man to bring the horses.
They had not been gone but a couple of minutes when Gray Wolf heard Walking Man’s screeching outburst. Thinking his friends had been attacked, he notched an arrow on his bowstring and ran to their assistance. When he got to the spot where they had tied the horses, he found the men both scouting the tiny clearing for tracks, but there were no horses.
“They stole our horses!” Cripple Horse exclaimed when he saw Gray Wolf. “While we were waiting to ambush them, they stole our horses.”
“This cannot be true,” Gray Wolf replied. “The horses must have pulled loose from the branches and wandered off.”
“He stole them,” Cripple Horse insisted. “See for yourself. Here are tracks from a white man’s boot where he untied the horses, and the tracks here show where he led them across the creek.”
All three ran splashing across the creek then to look for the tracks on the other side.
“Here!” Walking Man exclaimed, and followed the hoofprints for a few yards before stopping to take a line of sight. “He led them away in that direction,” he said, pointing toward the southwest.
His two friends ran up to stand beside him, and all three peered out in the direction he had pointed, desperately hoping to catch sight of the horse thief in spite of knowing there had been too long a lapse of time.
The loss of their horses was devastating, and when the humiliation of having been so outfoxed by a white man compounded it, the occurrence was unbearable. Along with their horses, they also lost their blankets and the war bags each one carried, with most of the things essential for cooking food. They had but one choice, so they set out to follow the tracks, running at a trot, setting as fast a pace as they could maintain for any length of time.
The tracks led them to the spot where Perley had caught up with the women. From that point, they saw the tracks lead again to the west. There was yet another problem to consider, and Gray Wolf reminded them of it.
“We must overtake them before they reach the place the white man calls Duck Bend,” Gray Wolf said. “It is no more than a day’s ride from here, so we have to move quickly.”
Duck Bend was a wide place in the creek where it became a small pond, formed when the creek almost doubled back upon itself. A man named Lou Temple had built a trading post beside the pond, and a few settlers had staked out acreage for farms close by. Hostile Sioux raiders avoided Duck Bend because Lou Temple and his three grown sons were heavily armed.
“They will probably stop to rest their horses when they are about halfway there. That is when we must catch them,” Gray Wolf continued. “If we don’t, we will be walking from now on.”
There was no need for further encouragement. Already far behind, they wasted no more time in starting out again, with Walking Man setting the pace.
* * *
Back on the common wagon road to Cheyenne again, Perley and his two female traveling companions held their horses to a steady pace. Reduced now to a fast walk, Perley’s bay showed no undue strain; however, Perley saw signs of fatigue in Liz’s gray as well as in his packhorse.
“I reckon we’d best rest these horses for a while,” he told the women, and he turned off the road at the next suitable place to water and graze them.
If there had been time to spare, he would have liked to work with the three Indian ponies so they could alternate mounts and cover more ground at a
faster rate. But he had a notion that there were three irate Sioux warriors wearing their feet out in an effort to rescue those horses. Perley felt confident that the pace he had set would gain his group some time to rest, and he planned to at least try to pick out a horse for Stella to ride. He knew that she didn’t think much of the fact that there were blankets but no saddles on the horses, so he would have to see if one of the ponies would tolerate the heavy single-rigged saddle she had ridden before her old sorrel cashed in.
“Have we got time for coffee?” Liz asked when they dismounted beside Lodgepole Creek.
“I reckon,” Perley replied. “We ain’t gonna be here as long as we usually would, though.” He looked at Stella. “Which one of those fine-lookin’ horses has caught your eye?”
“None of them,” she answered at once. “They all look wild as coyotes. And why don’t they have any bridles?”
“These fellows didn’t use saddles,” Perley said, “but they’ve got bridles.” He held up a piece of rope for her to see. “They call ’em war bridles. They just loop a rope around the horse’s lower jaw and guide the horse by turning his head one way or the other.” When Stella looked skeptical, he said, “The horse works fine that way, especially if he ain’t ever heard of a bridle.”
She shook her head. “I think I’m gonna need a bridle, and I know damn well I can’t ride bareback.”
“Well, that might be a problem,” Perley said, scratching his head. “We can try throwin’ your saddle on one of ’em, but I ain’t got the time to saddle-break a horse right now.”
In the face of imminent danger trailing them, Liz still found humor in Stella’s predicament. “You oughta give bareback ridin’ a try,” she said. “Hell, you’ve been ridin’ bareback behind my saddle. You just had me to hold on to, is the only difference.”
“Yeah, but there’s nothin’ but a rope to hold on to,” Stella came back. “Why don’t you ride with nothing but a rope to hang on to?”
“’Cause I ain’t the one walkin’,” Liz said, grinning.
“I’ll try a bridle on one of ’em,” Perley said. “Which one do you like?”
“Like I said, none of ’em, but if you’re gonna try it, try that one.” She pointed to a paint that was a little smaller than the other two.
“Let me borrow your bandana, there,” he said, so she took it from around her neck and handed it to him.
Then she watched with a great deal of apprehension as Perley walked up to the horse, talking softly in an effort to keep from making the horse nervous. Naturally wary, for the man smelled strange to it, the paint started to shuffle its feet slightly as if about to rear up. Perley held its head and gently rubbed the horse’s neck and face with Stella’s bandana. In a little while, and to Perley’s surprise, the horse settled down.
After the paint seemed content to tolerate the strange smell of the bandana, Perley draped the bridle across its neck. When it appeared to tolerate that as well, Perley slipped the bit into the horse’s mouth and pulled the bridle on and fastened it. The horse showed no sign of rejecting it. Liz and Stella watched with fascination and newfound admiration for Perley and his apparent ability to charm the wild horse.
It was spoiled a moment later when he stated, “That horse has been rode with a bridle before the Indian stole him. Might as well throw the saddle on him. He’s had one of them on his back, too, I reckon.” He handed Stella’s bandana back to her as he walked past to fetch the saddle, giving Liz a puzzled glance when she started laughing again.
Stella sniffed her bandana and made a face. “I’m not puttin’ that around my neck after you rubbed it all over that horse,” she complained, bringing another hearty chuckle from Liz.
As Perley suspected, the horse had been saddle-broken before. It stood calmly while the saddle was placed on its back and the girth was drawn up tight.
“You feel like you’re back home again, now, don’t you?” Perley asked the paint.
When he was finished with the horse, he took the cup of coffee Liz handed him and walked back to the road, where he stood sipping it while gazing back the way they had come.
There was no question in his mind that they had created a lot of space between themselves and the hostiles they had left behind. But he also knew that if it was him who had been left on the prairie on foot, he would run-trot as fast as he could to catch the people who had stolen his horse. A man can walk alongside a horse when the horse is walking, and he can walk-trot a little faster when he has to. Although he wouldn’t be as fast as the horse, the horse would have to be rested after about twenty miles, while a man with the right motivation can walk straight through the day and night without stopping. For that reason, Perley was not willing to rest the horses as long as he usually would have.
He was also thinking that he had better take more care when he selected a place to camp that night. I reckon I should have just shot the damn Indians and not had to worry about them catching up. He walked back to ready his little party for the trail again. While Liz washed the cups and pot, he untied the deerskin war bags from each horse and left them in a neat stack by the ashes of their fire.
“Are you ready to try your new horse?” Perley asked Stella when it was time to go.
She gave Liz a doubtful glance before walking over to the paint pony with him.
“Say hello to him,” Perley said. “He ain’t gonna bite you.”
Not so sure, Stella kept her hands well away from the horse’s mouth as she gave it a couple of pats.
“Up you go,” Perley said and put his hands together to make a step for her.
When she put a foot in his hands, he popped her straight up in the air, leaving her no choice but to throw her other leg over to land in the saddle. The horse took a couple of quick steps in surprise, but then stood patiently waiting for commands. Stella grinned, relieved that she was not flying through the air like on her last ride with the old sorrel.
Perley turned and pointed. “That way,” he said and gave the paint a little slap on the rump.
* * *
It was late in the afternoon when three weary Lakota braves came to the place where those they pursued had stopped to rest their horses. There was no doubt the man and two women they followed had stopped there, for waiting in a neat stack by the ashes of a fire, they found their deerskin war bags.
The sight infuriated Gray Wolf. He felt as if the bags were left there to taunt them. “He seeks to shame us,” he said. “I will find this white devil and kill him, and I will kill the crazy horse he rides.”
Equally frustrated, Cripple Horse and Walking Man were glad to see their war bags, however, and immediately looked into them to see if their possessions were still there. When they found that the contents were undisturbed, Walking Man said, “Now at least we can make a fire and cook something to eat.”
“First, we must find something to cook,” Cripple Horse reminded him.
“Forget about filling your bellies,” Gray Wolf snapped. “This white man has stolen our ponies, and left our war bags to show us how little he thinks of our belongings.”
“I think we have lost this race with him,” Cripple Horse said. “I am tired. I can’t walk another step until I have rested. We are already close to the place the white men call Duck Bend, and there are too many guns there.” He stirred the ashes of the fire with his finger. “These ashes are almost cold. They have been gone from this place a long time, so they will surely get to Duck Bend before we could catch them, even if we were not tired.”
“What Cripple Horse says is true,” Walking Man said. “What we must do now is find some horses. There are white farmers that have settled not far from here. Perhaps they will have horses.”
Gray Wolf knew they were right. He was as tired as they were, but he was still reluctant to admit they had been defeated, outsmarted by the white man riding the crazy horse.
“We will rest for a little while, but then we must keep going. They have our horses!” he exclaimed, as if to remind them. “The
y will probably stop at the trading post for only a little while. We will strike them when they leave, kill the white man, and take the women, if we want them.”
Walking Man looked at Cripple Horse and shrugged. He was met with the same gesture from Cripple Horse, so they both nodded, and Walking Man said, “We will do as you wish.”
CHAPTER 7
With still some time left before having to stop for the night, Perley was surprised to see what appeared to be a building sitting close to a pond up ahead. They were not close enough yet to determine if it was a trapper’s shack or a farmhouse. As they drew closer, he could see the outline of the building more clearly through the trees between it and the road. It turned out to be larger than it had first appeared, with a barn and a couple of small outbuildings as well.
“I hope one of ’em’s an outhouse,” Liz commented. “I’m gettin’ a rash on my behind from squattin’ in the bushes so much.”
When they approached the house, they saw a small sign nailed on a corner post of the porch, proclaiming the place to be a store.
“Well, that’s a welcome sight,” Stella said. “Maybe they’ve got a few things we could use, like another coffee cup, some sugar, and some bakin’ soda for those poor biscuits.”
With concern about the three Lakota warriors they had left behind, Perley suggested that it might be a good place to camp that night. “We can give the horses a good rest,” he said. “And if those three Indians show up, they might think again about attackin’ this place.”
His suggestion was met with undisguised enthusiasm, so they turned off the road.
“Well, howdy, folks. Welcome to Duck Bend. My name’s Lou Temple. This here’s my store. You folks travelin’ to Cheyenne?”
He came out from behind the counter to meet them. A short, plump little man, bald on the top of his head with long gray hair hanging to his shoulders on the sides, he nodded to Perley but took a closer look at Liz and Stella. It was fairly obvious that he was speculating on the reason for a man and two women on horseback to be riding the road—and one of the women dressed like a man. He glanced out the door to see the extra horses they were leading.
The Legend of Perley Gates Page 10
