The 8th Western Novel

by Dean Owen

  By four-thirty the sun had dropped into the place on the horizon named by Goose Face as the signal for the stampede of the herd into the rail camp. The remaining Cheyenne braves moved to the ponies recaptured after their dash from the draw.

  And far to the east of the camp, Goose Face and his party of braves continued to dance their ceremonial prelude to death.

  The dancing stopped at the commanding scream of Goose Face. The braves stood rooted in their tracks, listening. From the west rolled a great roar of thunder.

  Goose Face dropped to the ground and put his ear against the earth. In the ground he could hear the pounding of thousands of hoofs; he thought he could hear the screams and cries of pain of the white men and their squaws and their little ones as the great herd advanced toward the tent community.

  Goose Face jumped up. He raised his tomahawk and carbine over his head, and cried out the order. In a frenzy the braves raced for their horses and at the heels of Goose Face, struck west across the great plains and toward the railhead.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Nathan Ellis and Liza Reeves were within a mile of the tent city when they heard the thunder of the buffalo hoofs. They stopped still in the high grass and stared in fascination and wonder and more than a little fear at the thunderous herd pounding across the plains. The dust rose over the backs of the huge plains beasts in a thick cloud that nearly blotted out the sun. Her leg smarting and aching from the hot knife, but better now that the bleeding had stopped, Liza Reeves kicked her pony hard and rode for the camp alongside Ellis, both of them throwing backward glances at the herd and at the furious, swirling cloud of dust.

  Liam Kelly was the first to spot the advancing herd of buffalo. He thought at first the dust cloud was a sandstorm blowing up, or perhaps the advance of a cyclone. At first he mistook the beat of the hoofs for thunder from cloud-heads.

  The Johnny-Jacks stopped their work, ignored the bawling buckos and turned to stare at the western sky. And when they heard the roar of the hoofs, work stopped altogether at the railhead.

  Liam Kelly whipped his pony around and rode out beyond the railhead some hundred yards, away from the jabbering men so that he could listen. His big face paled. He jerked his pony around and flailed the animal at top speed back to the railhead.

  “Buffalo stampede!” he roared above the din. “Get back! Get back!”

  The men did not have to be warned twice. They dropped their tools and scurried for the work train and the three flatcars. The engineers and firemen worked together pouring wood into the firebox, building the steam up even as the men were climbing aboard. Ties, rails, horses and mules were abandoned in the mad flight.

  The cars began to roll before the last of the men were aboard and these were helped onto the flatcars by others who jerked them clear of the ground.

  The balloon stack belched smoke and tongues of raw flame as the train began to back up toward the camp, the men shouting at each other above the roar of the locomotive.

  Kelly pounded alongside the train as it backed toward the camp.

  Further to the south Liza Reeves and Ellis saw excited men, women and children gathering at the outer edges of the community to stare in wonder at the hurtling supply train.

  With a sigh of relief, Kelly spotted Ellis and Liza and spurred his pounding animal at an angle to meet them. The three riders drew up to a stop within a few yards of the outermost tent.

  “It’s a stampede!” Kelly roared.

  “I know it’s a stampede,” Ellis replied. “It’s Goose Face and his men doing it.”

  “Where’s Jake?”

  “Dead, with a Cheyenne arrow in his head,” Liza said, and then groaned as the pain in her leg stabbed viciously.

  “You hurt?”

  “Nothin’ to holler about, Mr. Kelly. But you goin’ to have a hell of a mess if you don’t get these women and chillun outa this camp before them bluffers come streakin’ in.”

  “Is there a chance to turn them?”

  Ellis shook his head. “I don’t know, but there’s a party makin’ up that’s goin’ to try.” He pointed toward the camp, where Johnny-Jacks, soldiers, Jehus and anyone that could find a horse and a gun of some sort had begun to form a rough group.

  “Let’s go,” Liza Reeves said and started to spur her pony around.

  Ellis grabbed at the head rope and hung on tight. “No, you don’t!”

  “Leggo of that, you meat-headed idiot!”

  “You’re going over to the doctorin’ tent and get that leg and shoulder fixed up properly”

  “Who you think you’re orderin’ around!” Liza Reeves exploded, trying to tear her pony away from Ellis’s grip.

  Ellis roared. He opened his mouth and bellowed, “I’m orderin’ you, God damn it! Now if I have to get off this hoss and whip you and hog-tie you to a tent pole, you’re gonna stay back here with the others!”

  Liza Reeves blinked, stunned at the sudden ferocity in a man who had shown himself to be brave enough, but not spectacularly strong. “Now git!” Ellis snapped. “If them bluffer do get through us and we can’t turn ’em away from the camp, there’s goin’ to be hell to pay—and clear-headed folks needed to take care of the women and kids!”

  Liam Kelly had remained silent, but now he nodded in agreement. “He’s right, miss. You’ll be more help back here if we can’t turn that herd.”

  “Let’s go!” Ellis shouted and jerked his pony around and straight west after the nearly two hundred riders picking up speed in a headlong rush to meet the buffalo. Kelly turned his mount and raced after the others.

  Liza Reeves, in spite of her leg wound and the imminent danger of the buffalo herd, could not help but blink and grin at the departing Nathan Ellis. He sure was a hell of a lot of man, she thought. Just about nigh perfect.

  She trotted her pony into the edge of the tents, flushing even now at the way Nathan Ellis had looked at her naked body while she was pulling on the dead Indian’s breeches and vest.

  * * * *

  The railroad men pounded at full gallop directly into the path of the onrushing buffalo, now no more than seven or eight miles ahead of them. Like a black tide, the beasts swarmed in an ever-widening front until they stretched for nearly two miles across the plains. The riders held their breath as they saw the black wave engulf the railhead, tearing the carts and wagons left behind into splinters. Hundreds, thousands of buffalo, many of them weighing almost a full ton, pounded at express-train speed in a wide swath across the grass, without sign that they would ever be stopped until their hearts burst or their spindly legs broke beneath their weight.

  At a signal from an old line Sergeant riding at the point of the mob of men, they unlimbered their guns and prepared to fire.

  “Keep together!” the old Sergeant roared above the din, and wiggled his arms. “Spread out and you’re done for!”

  Somehow the galloping men understood and closed ranks.

  Ellis and Kelly rode side by side, the Texan wishing he had a solid Texas saddle beneath him rather than have to depend on his legs to keep him on the pony. Kelly had gripped his reins in one hand, while with his free hand he brandished the heavy old Colt. Ellis still had the carbine and had reloaded long before. His Colt was slapping his legs and he cursed himself for having forgotten to tie the holster down. Afraid that the piece would fall out, the Texan shoved the gun into his waistband and closed ranks with the determined, frightened railroad party.

  To a man, they would rather have been anyplace else this side of hell than riding into a buffalo stampede. There was the promise of a sure death for some, and injury and pain for many. But they went on anyway, hard and fast, straight for the sea of maddened beasts packed so tightly together it was barely possible to distinguish one animal from another.

  They were a scant three miles from the herd now. The line sergeant held up a hand and the band of men ground to a
stop. Ellis knew what the old soldier had in mind and he agreed. The buffalo still had a good run before they would hit the camp and if the horses were to be expected to run much more they had to have a rest, however short.

  Ellis scanned the surging buffalo for some signs of a leader—an old bull, or a group of bulls—but he could see none. The dust was beginning to reach them now. The wind had shifted and swung the cloud before the onrushing animals.

  The men held their ponies in tightly, checking and rechecking their guns as they waited for the sergeant, who was conferring loudly with Kelly, to give them instructions.

  “They still got a run afore they reach the camp,” the sergeant said, keeping his eyes on the beasts all the while, “and if we could turn ’em just a bit—it looks to me like they’re favoring the north—we might get ’em to go past the main body of the camp.”

  “Do we ride into ’em, Sergeant?” a young Jehu asked.

  “You do, boy, and you’ll never ride out!” the sergeant bawled.

  “You ride in front of them, son,” Ellis said. “And you keep in front of them, shootin’ behind you, trying to kill the leaders.”

  “They’re gettin’ close, Sarge!” a voice bellowed from the crowd.

  “All right, men! Let’s go to hell for supper! Eeeoooyoooow!”

  The buffalo were a scant thousand yards away from them now, and the red eyes of the animals were easily distinguishable by the time the riders had whipped their animals around and begun to ease along, looking over their shoulders to watch the buffalo gain on them. Gradually they picked up speed as the buffalo came closer, and then some of the men began to fire into the herd. Ellis saw a buffalo drop and saw several others stumble over the fallen beast, but the tide merely swarmed around them, stamping them to death. The noise was deafening. More shots rang out, then more and more, and Ellis saw one, then three, then ten, then twenty of the buffalo fall. Still those behind came pushing on.

  A Jehu’s horse stumbled in a gopher hole and threw the boy to the grass. The rider got up and raced for his horse, gained it and was in the saddle when the herd reached him, the leading bulls goring the horse and throwing the Jehu into the air. The boy disappeared beneath the hoofs.

  Another rider went down and was crushed beneath the hoofs. More and more buffalo were killed as lead from nearly two hundred guns poured into the outer edge of the herd.

  Ellis had been riding hard, his legs locked on the ribs and shoulders of his pony, firing coolly and carefully into the herd when he noticed he was being overtaken on his right. He grabbed the head rope of his pony, urged it on and then dared a glance to his right. They had made an effective hole in the center of the line, but the buffalo were filling it from the sides. Though dozens dropped before the wall of fire, the gigantic herd did not hesitate in its rush forward.

  Their mounts were tiring now and Ellis saw one and then another of the railroad men thrown to the ground as a horse’s heart burst or a gopher hole or sand pit trapped a hoof. Ellis’s own pony faltered and he thought he would go down, but the sturdy little animal picked up its gallop and was soon back in stride racing before the oncoming buffalo.

  They were riding hard on the camp now. Ellis could see the frenzy of activity around the tents as women and children scurried back out of the way. There was a sharp, shrill noise and Ellis could not identify it for a moment. Then he realized that it was the steam whistle of the engine. He could see the train pulling out. Every spare car on the temporary siding had been coupled and it now swarmed with women, children and men.

  His attention was jerked back to his left where seven riders went down together as if their horses had been tied to a rope and the rope had run out. A sand pit, not very wide and not very long, had trapped the hoofs of their ponies. Ellis saw them and their horses crushed to a pulp by the maddened beasts.

  Suddenly his hands burned and he realized that he had fired his carbine until it was nearly red-hot. The flesh of the palm of his left hand was blistered and torn, but he gripped against the pain and continued to fire back into the wall of the herd.

  Then, from the center of the tent city, Ellis saw two dozen soldiers appear, riding hard and fast on fresh horses straight into the advancing herd. He shouted for them to get back, to turn around and run with the herd, but they did not appear to hear and charged straight into the rumbling black sea of buffalo.

  Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion, then another and another. Then more—again and again explosions shattered the air and smoke and dust and splinters flew high. More explosions followed. Again and again, Ellis saw the soldiers throw sticks of dynamite into the on-rushing herd of buffalo.

  He did not realize that his pony had stopped, or that the other riders had pulled up at the very edge of the tent city and were watching along with him.

  The line of beasts wavered, and then there was a sudden swing away on two sides, and as the buffalo swung, the soldiers moved along the outer edges of the herd tossing more sticks to keep them turning.

  Ellis watched in fascination, not conscious of his nearly raw hand, not conscious of anything really as he saw the soldiers blast the tide into two streams, turning the buffalo around, driving one stream north and the other south.

  For forty-five minutes the soldiers blasted the beasts into submission. For nearly an hour they surged up to the very edge of the tent community, facing continuous fire from more than five hundred guns, in addition to the explosive charges.

  When the last beast had swung to the right and the dust of the plains had blown away, as far as the eye could see the grass was bent and steaming. As if a fantastic wind had hailed stones to the ground, the plains lay trampled and churned into a dry field of death. Great black mounds of buffalo were piled at the very steps of the tent community. Parts of buffalo lay everywhere: the animals had been literally torn to pieces by the charges of dynamite. And farther back, every Johnny-Jack and soldier knew, were the bodies of friends and working mates, stamped irrevocably into the dry Nebraska plains, so thoroughly torn to pieces by thousands of hoofs that when riders went out in search of possible survivors they would not even find so much as a shoe.

  * * * *

  Hardly a moment after the stampeding buffalo had been turned away, and the riders were slipping exhausted from their horses, there came another attack on the tent city from the east.

  Goose Face and his hundred followers swarmed up over the hillock eastward of the tents and, screaming war cries, charged straight for the heart of the railhead camp.

  The emergency train filled with women and children was blocked a half-mile away by twenty of the braves who had led spare horses onto the tracks and hobbled them there, a bloody sacrifice to prevent any of the whites from escaping.

  A third of Goose Face’s warriors broke away from the main party and began firing arrows point-blank into the loaded train. The wails and screams of women and children broke out over the late afternoon plains.

  Hasty fire was returned by the few men and women aboard who had guns, while others labored to remove the dead and injured carcasses of the screaming horses from the tracks. The engineer had not hesitated to plow his powerful balloon-stack hundred-tonner into the animals and prayed that the engine would not be thrown from the tracks.

  The wheels had held, a miracle on this day when Providence had seemed to abandon the railroad men and their families.

  Soldiers dropped like dead flies before the rain of arrows thrown by the circling Cheyenne, but the horses were removed from the track and the engine throttle shoved wide open, the high wheels slipping and sliding in the blood before catching hold and picking up speed. When the train had succeeded in pulling away from the attackers, the Indians fell away and turned their attention to the camp city itself where Goose Face and his braves were already wreaking havoc.

  The attack was timed so perfectly, the thrust and vengeance of the Indians so violent that the defende
rs of the camp reeled back, suffering heavy losses.

  Goose Face knew that the white men expected the Indians to attack, circle and withdraw. He saw them trying to form a hard core of fire power in a large, devastated area strewn with fallen tents. He screamed to his men to follow, and those nearest him swerved their ponies around and galloped after their youthful leader.

  Goose Face plowed straight into the thick of the fire, scattering the railroad men and soldiers with the fury of his unexpected attack. Again and again, he whirled and pounded into the middle of the group until the power of its concentrated fire disintegrated to lone bullets from men forted up behind canvas spills and baggage.

  The raid could be counted as a success, but Goose Face had sworn himself to kill the white men until death alone prevented him from drawing a bow.

  The defenders of the camp, the horsemen who had pounded out to meet and race before the buffalo herd, were now back in the saddle. The enraged Irishmen, the ex-Confederates, the Jehus, the soldiers, the scattering of gun-slingers and drunks, the engineers and graders, the entire corps that had come out here to build a railroad that would link a continent, roared back against the sudden rain of death Goose Face had poured down on them.

  The general’s caboose had been brought up and guns were distributed to any who could point and fire. Tarts from the grog tents, missionaries on their way west, injured and bedridden in medical tents, were given guns and cartridge belts. Two hundred, three hundred, four hundred guns began to answer Goose Face, death for death.

  The Cheyenne party continued to slash and fight, not bothering to reload, but firing until their guns were empty and hanging low to the ground, then snatching fresh guns from the dead or wounded. The finest horsemen in the world, the Cheyenne showed the hated whites that day what a hundred furious savages could do to the order and plans of civilized men. Again and again the ponies of the Indians were shot out from beneath them, and again and again the savages would remount either one of the railhead’s own horses, or an animal of a dead comrade.