When I went around the wagon again, I saw that Janet was standing there looking as if she wanted to cry and didn’t know how. Jim had laid his gun down and had his eyes closed. I went and looked at the Indian I had killed. He was an elderly gentleman who should have known better. He should have been at home being kindly to the kids and giving his sons advice. I took hold of him by the ankles and dragged him in the direction of the Indians, a fair way from the wagon. Then I walked to the man the cook had shot and I saw that he was a young boy behind all the paint. His face was contorted with the last agony. I dragged him away from the wagon too.
I went back to the wounded, feeling nothing except a sort of all-pervading sadness. When I looked at the longhorns behind us, milling around in their bovine stupidity, I hated them.
McAllister rode back to the wagon and dismounted. He took me a dozen paces away from the others.
“We can't take much more of this, Matt," he said.
“I can't take what we've had so far," I said, and he looked at me curiously.
“All right," he said, “So what do we do?"
I looked at him and for once saw him as an ordinary man. I’d never thought of him like that before. His responsibility sat on him like an unbearable weight. The sight of him reassured me in some way.
I said: “You asking my advice? This is one for the book.”
“So what do we do?”
“Like you said—we can’t take much more of this. While we’re sitting here on our butts, they keep charging us till we’re all dead or they don’t have enough for a charge. If we charge them, we take a risk too, but no more in the long term than if we sit still waiting for them to hit us. Being Indians, they’ll run, expecting us to give up after a while. But we don’t give up. We keep after ’em. It may not work, but it’s better than doing nothing.”
He did not make a sarcastic remark, which was surprising.
He just nodded and said: “All right.” He whistled through his fingers and the boys came in on the run. When they reached us, I could see they all looked like men under strain. But that was to be expected. What made me feel better was that none of them looked scared.
McAllister started giving orders. And those boys jumped to obey. Fresh horses for everybody. Horses with speed and bottom. Men with their pockets full of ammunition. All guns loaded.
Horses were roped and saddles switched. I looked at the men—Perfido Suarez, Wyatt Shafter, the Moss boys, Golly Adams. They didn’t look like much, but they were all men I would rather have with me than against me. McAllister told them very briefly what he intended. They didn’t seem surprised or daunted.
McAllister ended with: “Does everybody agree this is what we should do?” Somebody with a wonderfully casual air said: “Sure.”
Somebody said: “Should of done it long gone.” That was from Drunk Charlie, rubbing his head and muttering about goddam Indians. He caught up a fresh horse and joined us. Suddenly, it felt as if we had a small army. Maybe my idea would work after all.
“Good luck boys,” Hopper Roberts said. “Wish I was goin’ along.”
“Somebody has to look after the store,” Golly said in comfort.
Mr. Smith said: “No reason why I can’t come along, is there?”
McAllister told him the shotgun was needed at the wagon. The cook argued, McAllister told him to shut his head. Somebody tittered. The cook said, still watching the Indians: “They’re planning something, boss. You’d best move pronto if you want to find ’em all in one place.”
“Mount up,” ordered McAllister and we all swung into the saddle. We lined up between the wagon and the Indians, every man with his rifle across his saddlebow. The Indians sat their horses watching us, wondering what was going to happen next. McAllister ordered: “Walk.”
We walked our horses forward. The Indians didn’t move. But all their talking had stopped and they were mighty intent on what we were doing. We walked on for a hundred yards or more. That was smart of McAllister. Any fast movement on our part would have sent the Indians flying and we wanted them within easy range. We walked on for another fifty yards and my finger started to itch for the trigger. I had the feeling that if we didn’t do something pretty quickly we’d have Indians all over us. They were starting to get uneasy. You could see it the way they gigged their horses.
“How about it, Mack,” said somebody. “Can’t we charge the bastards?”
“Don’t call me Mack,” said McAllister. “It only makes me mad. Ain’t that so, Matthew?”
“Sure is,” I said. “Madder’n a wet hen.”
“Can’t get no madder’n that,” Golly agreed.
Some of the Indians started towards us.
McAllister said quietly: “This is where we scare the livin’ shits out of ’em, men. You ready? Charge.”
Those who favored spurs raked them home. Quirt men, like myself, laid on the whip. Our horses jumped forwards in line and we were smart as a fine of crack cavalry. If I had been a Comanche that day, I’d have turned tail and run.
But I wasn’t a Comanche and they didn’t run.
You could have knocked me down with a damp quirly. We saw the whole bunch of them surge forward, eager to get at us.
I don’t suppose there was a man among us whose heart did not drop in him at that moment—including McAllister.
He was bawling something, but I could not make out what he ordered. Yet we all knew what was wanted and we raised our guns. The volley was ragged, but it was deadly enough. It tore great swathes through that tight-packed bunch of men and horses. The whole pack seemed to crumple and wither as we rode through our own smoke and coughed on it. The speed of both parties had brought them close when we fired and we now all wildly swerved our horses to avoid the threatened collision. We rode around a tangle of men and horses, the air filled with screams and shouts. It seemed impossible that this untidy mess of humanity and animals was the deadly war-party we had feared just minutes before.
Then it was every man for himself.
I seemed utterly bereft of thought. There was no time for it. All that I knew was that McAllister had given the order for us to chase Indians until they were finished. So I turned my horse and went looking for Indians. The animal I was riding was an old and experienced cow-pony, used to instant turns, stops and starts. He came around like a dream and took me back into the fight. Fight did I say? It was still a tangle in which it was difficult to make out friend from foe, difficult to focus on the quickly moving figures. You aimed your gun and your target was gone in an instant. Horses cannoned against horses, men grasped at one another, struck blindly at the enemy, fired point blank into each other’s bodies.
The tangle cleared instantly when the Indians, as if they had received the same unspoken message in the same instant, turned and fled, going back the way they had come from the east.
McAllister was shouting for us to keep after them. I saw him strike his horse’s rump with the flat of his Henry’s butt. I laid the quirt across that cow-pony of mine and he took me forward at a flat run, stretching out and getting the bit between his teeth. Within seconds we were overtaking the drag of the war-party. I stuck the lines between my teeth, fired and levered, fired and levered until my gun was empty. The Indians were racing ahead of death itself.
We had not covered half a mile when we were among them and the only choice they had was to fight. I think we all had the same idea in our heads—while any of these braves were still alive, the drive would be in danger. We would not be free of them until they were all dead.
The savagery of that short fight I have never seen equaled. The cowmen had suffered losses and worse, these Indians had instilled fear into them. And nothing angers an enemy or a man more than his own fear. We must have run a mile together, every now and then an Indian trying to break to one side or the other, desperately trying to get out of the fight. Just as frequently one or the other of them would decide that the only way out was to fight his way and he would turn on us with the ferocity of a cor
nered beast, fear and courage the same thing in him. An Indian was knocked from his saddle and one of us would fall back to give him the final death-blow, shooting into him at close range or battering him with a carbine butt. The last thought we had was to give quarter.
Finally, our horses could stand the pace no longer and I think that many of us were running short of ammunition. By mutual consent we let the run peter out, and our horses slowed and finally stopped. While they hung their heads, the riders sat drooping and drained in the saddle. Incuriously, we watched the last of the Indians whipping their exhausted horses away across the plain.
There was no rejoicing in us. We were too worn out and too surprised at our survival for that. We simply stayed there for a while, regained some of our breath and turned back towards the herd. We passed the dead on the way back without a glance. As it seemed to have fallen to me to look out for the wounded, I took a rough check of our own men. Astonishingly, none of our men had been killed in that wild chase; but we had not gone unscathed. Seeing them all alive, I rested content with that for the moment and lifted the lines of that tired cow-pony and urged it forward. McAllister came alongside me.
“Was that all of them?” he said.
I looked at him tiredly. “You think—?”
“There didn’t seem enough there.”
“Oh, my God …”
“Can’t be helped,” he said. “It had to be done.”
We increased our pace a little. McAllister’s sharp ears caught sounds I missed. Drunk Charlie heard it at the same moment and called out: “They’re hittin’ the herd.”
Every man looked up, startled, unbelieving. Then somebody with better ears than the others heard the distant sound of shots and spurred his horse. We all pounded our way back to camp, fearful of what we might find there.
That little cow-pony I was on was some runner. He pulled out in front beside McAllister who always saw that he was well-mounted. We raced neck-and-neck over the ridges and across the dips until we came to that last low ridge and saw the white cover of the wagon and the spread out herd beyond it.
At first glance, all seemed quiet and still.
Then I saw the dead steer. And another. And another.
Movement to the left caught my eye and I inspected the wagon. Now I saw that only one of the mule team was on its feet. The others were down and kicking or lying still.
McAllister gave a great shout and sent his horse down the ridge, risking his neck and not caring. I saw the Indian dart away from the wagon and leap on to the back of a waiting paint pony. Another man emerged from the back of the wagon and ran on bow legs. I was pounding after McAllister, hearing the others coming on behind me.
I thought: Why isn’t there anybody moving?
There was a solitary Indian mounted on the far side of the herd. At the sight of us, he turned his horse and headed west as fast as he could go. The second Indian from the wagon had got astride a pony and was racing away.
As we got in close to the wagon, I saw the cook sprawled on the ground, face down. I turned my horse after McAllister to the other side of the vehicle and there I saw our wounded.
I glanced at McAllister who stayed in the saddle staring, staring. He looked ghastly.
Jim Bayard was pinned to the ground by a lance. Hopper Roberts lay half-under the wagon, as still as stone.
“My God,” said McAllister, “did they take the girls?”
I slipped from the saddle and went to the rear of the wagon. I pulled back the canvas and the heat from inside came out and hit me. On the heat was the sweet smell of death and blood. I wanted to retch. In that moment all the awful thoughts possible went through my head.
I pulled myself up into the wagon and looked at the still face of Janet Jessop.
There was a sound from the front of the wagon. Lifting my gaze I looked into the large terrified eyes of her sister May.
“It’s all right, honey,” I said.
She moved her lips without making a sound and waved the bloody knife she held.
“It’s all right,” I repeated, “they’ve gone.”
I climbed out of the wagon and let down the tailgate. Then I tied back the canvas and looked inside again. May had not moved. But now I saw the Indian. He was a young man with white, black, red and ochre on his face. He had received a knife thrust under the left eye and several more around the area of his belly.
I pulled Janet’s body from the wagon and stood there with it in my arms.
“Quit fooling around, May,” I said, “and come on out of there.”
McAllister was out of the saddle, taking Janet from me. The other boys were coming in, their eyes full of questions.
McAllister said: “For crissake, men, get busy. The herd’s scattering all over. Some’re dead. Get the mule team cleared from the traces. There’s a million things to do and we don’t have all day to do them in.
He laid the girl down in the shade of the wagon. The men were reluctant to go, but Perfido was urging them to get busy. I walked around the wagon and looked at the cook. I couldn’t see a mark on him, but when I turned him over I saw that he had been killed by a single gunshot through the heart. His great hogleg of a pistol was still clutched in his hand.
I took a careful look around and saw that the Indians had cleared all their dead from the battlefield. Except for the dead man in the bed of the wagon. I walked around the wagon to where McAllister was kneeling by Janet, bathing her face with water.
He said: “She’s alive. I reckon she knocked her head.”
May came and stood staring down at her sister, but her eyes looked almost sightless to me. She still held the bloody butcher’s knife in her hand. When I took it from her, she made no protest.
I cleaned the knife on the ground, then pulled Hopper Roberts out from under the wagon. I examined him carefully and found that he had suffered no extra wounds. So I concluded that he had passed out through loss of blood. He had a faint pulse. I mixed him a slightly salt water drink and got him to take it. He started to pull round.
McAllister covered Janet with a blanket and May sat on the ground beside her.
Drunk Charlie stood there watching with his dead eyes.
“We have men to bury,” McAllister said. “Get to diggin’.”
Charlie shoved a wad of tobacco in his cheek and said: “I wasn’t hired to do no diggin’. I’m a ridin’ man.”
McAllister seemed glad to have something to cling to. He clutched at the man’s protest avidly.
“You were never hired,” he said. “Now you get to work, you son-of-a-bitch or I’ll kick your backside from here to Denver.”
Charlie thought about that for a moment, then slouched away to look for a spade. I found another and joined him. We buried Jim Bayard and Mr. Smith side by side. They had died that way, so it seemed proper. I said a few good words over them and then we covered them with dirt. I kept the Comanche lance. I had always wanted one.
The Indians had killed twenty-three cows. McAllister ordered them butchered and jerked. That was good beef and he didn’t see why the owner should be robbed of its value. You could sell jerky any day of the week. We got some sense into the dazed May by telling her she had to cook for a starving crew. McAllister decided we should stay right where we were till we had gotten ourselves together. That would take a day, maybe two days. The boys cut some good steaks from the dead cattle. At least those of us who remained would eat well.
Thirteen
I NEVER HEARD of anybody who came up with a clear idea of why those Indians did not scatter the herd, but we were sure grateful they didn’t. Now that the danger had passed, even though possibly only for a short while, we felt let down, depressed; rather like kids after a hectic party. Through being overplayed on our nerves were deadened. Maybe that was just as well. There had been too much violence and too many people killed. I don’t suppose that one of us didn’t think the thought I had earlier—that those men had died because of a bunch of lousy cows. Right from the start and all the way
through of course, it never really entered McAllister’s mind, nor mine for that matter, that we would do anything but deliver those same cows in Colorado. It was the way we were reared, I reckon. We’d agreed to deliver, so that was what we would have to do. Dumb, maybe; but a man has to have some kind of code or he’s nothing at all.
The crew was below minimum for driving the amount of cows we had. In .theory we could hardly go ahead. In practice, it would have to be done.
The two girls solved some of our problem. They said they could handle a team. We would need every man in the saddle. So one of the girls would drive the wagon. The other, they said, would guard the horse-herd. No, we said, we wouldn’t hear of it. But I could see right at the start we would have to give them best. We could not get on without their help. They were frontier girls and not delicate city misses. Out on their lonely ranch they had worn pants and ridden like men. They’d helped their old man and their brothers with roundups. They even boasted they’d gentled mustangs. Maybe they were having us on. Anyway, finally we agreed. They would take turn and turn about driving the wagon and the horses.
Now we faced a slight problem. We had one mule left. That meant that we would have to use some of the remuda horses in the traces. Most of them were half mustang and a good few of them pure-quill man-caught wild horses. Even if we picked out the most placid we were going to have a lot of fun getting them to pull that chuck-wagon. But it had to be done and we started in. It took us a good few hours and even when we were through, with them hitched up and pulling the wagon back and forth, they were a team I would not like to drive myself. The girls, however, were adamant. They would drive those horses.
“So be it, ladies,” McAllister said, half exasperated and half-admiring. “An’ God help us all.”
We talked over how we were going to distribute the crew. We could count Hopper Roberts out for a few days. That left Perfido Suarez, the three Moss brothers, Golly Adams and Wyatt Shafter. Wyatt was bitter and morose after the loss of his partner Jim Bayard. They had been kin and had ridden together since their first riding job six or seven years back. But he would throw his weight into the work. We decided we should have one man riding point, give four men roving commissions on the flanks and have two men riding drag.
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