“That leaves one man,” I said.
“That’s you,” McAllister said.
“I thought it was.”
“You’ve been playin’ hero so much during the last few days, you’d best go on doin’ it. You keep the goddam Indians off our backs.”
“Oh, great,” I said. “You fellows mosey along nice and easy, nursing dumb cows and I risk my neck guarding you.”
“That’s right,” said McAllister.
“And while I’m risking my neck,” I said, “and the men’re driving cows, what’re you doin’?”
“I’m in charge,” McAllister said smugly. “Whoever heard of the bosses of this world doin’ anythin’ but sit around scratchin’ their asses?”
“That’s true,” I said. “I can’t argue with that. But we forgot one man.”
“No, we didn’t. I ain’t made up my mind about friend Drunk Charlie.”
“You mean you don’t trust him.”
“That’s what I mean.”
“He was pretty good against the Indians.”
“That’s because he likes killin’ Indians. But he don’t sit too well with me, Matthew, an’ that’s a fact. They should of hung him years back.”
“We need him.”
“Just you watch him. He never played a straight game in his life. He’ll be as good as gold while he needs us to get him safely across the plains. After that … It’s anybody’s guess.”
We stayed put for the next day. We almost got the wagon team to all pull at roughly the same time. We used six in the team and it was six too many. The boys were busy jerking the beef they’d butchered after the Indians killed the animals. McAllister checked gear, ammunition and stores. We had enough food, but we were pretty low on ammunition and the fact worried McAllister. I saw him continually stop what he was doing to watch the horizon. I knew he wasn’t only looking out for Indians. He wanted desperately to find some other white men—travelers, freighters, soldiers, it didn’t matter which, just so long as they were going in the same direction as ourselves.
Perfido, scouting out in front of us, found water about five miles ahead and to this we marched towards the end of the day. The cows were now well-rested and McAllister decided that he would move on again after dark. After some initial trouble, the wagon team settled down as well as could be expected. We all admired the way in which the girls handled both the wagon team and the remuda. During the night, it came on to rain again. None of us were sorry for that. If it rained hard enough the Indians would find no trace of our going. The plains were so massive that it would not be too easy to find even a trail herd our size.
“But they’ll find us,” McAllister said. “You can bank on that. This has gone too far for them to stop now.”
This took me by surprise. I said: “I thought you’d made up your mind that it was all over.”
“I’ve been putting myself in the Indians’ shoes. If I was a Comanche, I’d have one more try. Why? Because next time and if they act real smart, they can win.”
“You really cheer a fellow up,” I said. The longhorns in the rain seemed as wretched as we were. We hardly had a sound out of them as they plodded stolidly north-west. They were very much a herd now, following old Carlos as if they had walked in his tracks all their lives. It rained hard all night. That made life pretty miserable for us all, but maybe it was better than eating dust all day. If you’re a trail driver, you have to find satisfaction where you can. The heavy rain not only allowed us a rest from dust, I think it gave us a rest from Indians also. I couldn’t see them following us in the rain. And not just because they couldn’t find our tracks. Nobody would be out in that downpour if they did not have to be.
In spite of the bad weather, the two girls stuck to their jobs. You know, I reckon them just being there helped to keep the crew together. Every one of us, except maybe Drunk Charlie, felt protective towards them. Both the wagon and the horse herd kept in pretty close to the cows. McAllister and I ranged back and forth, but we couldn’t see much of anything. Not until about three in the morning, that is. At about that time, the rain clouds blew away and the moon and stars presented themselves serenely in the sky above us. Some of that serenity must have touched us. Men shrugged themselves out of their fishes and I even heard a few cheerful words being exchanged. It did me a mite of good just to hear them.
But the fine weather did not stay with us. When I think back, it seems to me that we had some really good luck with that bad weather. It started to rain again just after dawn and it was so cool that McAllister thought it a good idea to push on. We would see how the cows held up to the travel. If they showed any signs of suffering, we would stop. So we pushed on into the middle of the morning when we stopped to eat a hot meal and give a few of us a quick sleep if we could get it. May Jessop cooked us a pretty good meal and the boys cleaned their plates nicely and came back for more. May blushed when we praised her cooking. May blushed a lot at everything, I found. It kind of suited her.
Around noon, the rain stopped again. I was under the wagon asleep at the time. You may not believe it, but the sudden hush that fell over the land woke me. I looked around and there was bright sunlight and I’m damned if the whole darned world did not look good. A couple of the boys were asleep under a lean-to rigged up out of a couple of tarps. The girls were not in sight, so I guessed they were asleep in the wagon. I crawled out, stretched and took a good look around, checking the riders on the outskirts of the herd. They looked as if they were dozing in the saddle. And who could blame them? There was coffee on the fire. I poured a cup and drank it. The scalding hot, bitter drink got rid of a little of that early morning feeling. I get it after sleep, no matter what time of day it is. A lone horseman was loping his mount easily back from the north. The distance was great, but I knew it was McAllister. Westerners, I think, recognize a man before they can make out his details by the way he sits a horse. No two men do it the same.
When McAllister reached the wagon and stepped down from the saddle, I said: “Don’t you ever sleep?”
He said shortly: “Sleep ain’t so damned necessary.”
I said: “That’s a real nice greeting when a fellow wakes up.”
He ignored the remark.
“We’ll take advantage of the daylight and the cool,” he said. “We’ll drive till dark and see how we go.”
“All right” I said, and kicked the two sleepers. Automatically and still asleep, they cursed me, so I kicked them again and this time they woke up. They were Orville Moss and Perfido.
In Spanish, Perfido said: “Trampling to death is too good for you, man.”
I said: “Don’t get sentimental first thing in the morning.”
“It is not morning.”
“Then first thing in the afternoon.” Orville said: “You mean we ain’t been attacked for a whole hour? What the hell’s wrong with them Indians?”
McAllister slapped a hand on the canvas of the wagon and bawled out: “Up and around, ladies. We’re drivin’.”
Sleepy voices complained from inside. I went and caught up Old Patch. Why I picked him, I don’t know—but, thank God, I did. Maybe I needed some friendly company. I rode down to the herd and told the boys we were driving. They groaned and said hell weren’t they going to get any sleep. I told them I had it on the best authority that sleep wasn’t so damned necessary.
The cows lined out like old troopers. I never saw a better parade. Even McAllister stopped by me to say: “Ain’t she a pretty sight?”
They walked thus till daylight gave way to the abrupt nightfall of the plains. The clouds had been blowing up for the last hour, but the rain held off, though we were all poised to whip our slickers on. Janet Jessop drove the wagon in close to the herd and May tried to keep the remuda tight. McAllister reckoned if the weather broke again we would have to halt no matter where. We did not have enough men to hold the herd in a bad storm. If one came we might lose the whole of the remuda too.
McAllister must have smelled that storm com
ing. I only reckoned it was going to rain. But about two hours after dark, the atmosphere suddenly changed. The cool breeze from the north stopped and the night seemed to close in on us. We started to sweat. The cattle became uneasy. I heard McAllister shout an order. I did not hear his words and it would not have done any good if I had. There came a clap of thunder so suddenly that it startled me out of my wits. It sounded as if it were right overhead. A hundred cannons could not have made more noise. I looked up and, as I did so, there came a blinding flash of lightning. When I looked back at the herd I could see the St. Elmo’s Fire glowing on the tips of their horns. I had only seen it once before when a kid. I tell you it is the uncanniest sight you can ever hope to see. As the lightning lit up the cattle, you could see the blind panic hit them. Every last animal there shared it. Another flash with the heavens letting off their deafening artillery and the herd got its feet under it and ran.
In that very same instant, the skies opened and the deluge hit us.
In the next flash of lightning, when Old Patch was showing me what he had to do, which was stay with the herd, I saw a man ride up close beside me. It was McAllister. He pointed to me and bellowed at the top of his voice: “The girls.” Then he was gone, riding his horse recklessly forward into the darkness in the wake of the herd.
I swerved Old Patch to the right and I could tell by the way he acted that he was puzzled by my action.
Where the hell was the wagon? I found the remuda first and was nearly taken along with it as the horses raced off after the herd as if sucked in by the rush of its going. I tried to catch sight of the girl with the horses, but failed. Patch stumbled and nearly went down. The rain was at our backs now as we turned back in search of the wagon. I remember being fearful of going ahead in case the girl guarding the horses had been thrown and was now lying on the ground somewhere in that rain-soaked darkness.
Suddenly, I realized that I had been looking for the wagon too long. It must have passed me in the darkness. I began to turn back into the rain again. It beat into my face and I bowed my head. Patch seemed to stagger under the force of the downpour.
A moment later, I realized that I was wandering aimlessly in a black void. Something like despair touched me. I knew that I was failing—failing McAllister, failing the girls.
I could no longer hear the herd now.
The thunder rolled on. A great sheet of lightning came and I looked hastily around, hoping to see the wagon, but I only found myself alone on the great plain in the teeming rain.
I must have wandered about for ten minutes, searching and calling, feeling more hopeless every second. When I was close to despair, I heard a sound.
A woman’s voice …
I hurried forward. A moment later, I found by the brilliance of a lightning flash that I was almost on top of the wagon. May Jessop was there, struggling with the team. One of them had slipped and was down, fighting desperately to regain its feet and only making matters worse. Quickly dismounting, I went and got the animal up. May said: “Thank God you came.”
“Where’s your sister?”
“I don’t know.”
The team was standing quietly now, water streaming off their backs. I told her that the remuda had run after the cattle. I pictured Janet Jessop lying in the mud, dead.
“I’m going to look for your sister. Stay with the wagon. Don’t move.”
I walked back to Patch and climbed into the saddle. He rumbled a soft neigh deep down. That was the greeting he gave other horses. I knew it like my own voice. Faintly, somewhere out there in the night, I heard a reply. I told Patch to go find ’em and he started west.
We found the horse first. It stood with one rein dragging. I started calling out the girl’s name. Dismounting, I began to walk ever-widening circles. It was not long before I found her. She lay motionless, but she was still breathing. When I had taken a turn around the saddle horns with the horses’ lines, I picked the girl up in my arms and started back for the wagon. I knew Patch would follow and most likely the girl’s horse would follow him.
May saw us coming in a flash of lightning and ran to meet us.
“She’s alive,” I said. “Let’s get her in the wagon.”
We got her into the wagon and when we had a lamp alight, found where she had struck her head. May’s teeth were chattering with cold. It was only now that I realized that none of us had a slicker on. We were all three soaked to the skin. We needed something warm inside us and dry clothes.
“Get those wet things off her,” I said, “dry her and wrap her up in blankets.”
“What’re you going to do?” May asked. “Get us moving,” I told her, “we have to keep with the herd.”
I tied the two horses to the tailgate of the wagon and then climbed on to the driving seat. The team was still pretty subdued. When I lifted the lines and bawled to them to get moving, they raggedly hit their collars and after a struggle got the wagon out of the mud. I must say that I was not too sure in what direction I was going. I could see very little except when there was some lightning. After a while, I thought: We’re not gaining anything driving through the dark like this. We’re maybe going in the opposite direction to what we want. So I reined in the team and sat and thought about the situation. I did not get very far.
However, I had forgotten how near dawn we were. Dawn comes suddenly on the plains and now, just like a miracle, I could see. We were plumb in the middle of the churned-up tracks of the herd. I wondered if the cows had stopped running yet and if the boys were up ahead there waiting for some hot food and a good drink of coffee. I picked up the lines and got the team moving again. I stood up to see if I could spot the herd, but I could not. For all I knew, they could still be running.
I went on for another hour, then I halted and walked around to the tail end of the wagon.
I heard a man’s voice and I was startled. Then I remembered Hopper Roberts and I thought: You’ve got to be more alert than this, Chisholm. Christ, what’s happening to you?
I sang out and May came to the opening in the canvas. She looked as tired as hell, but her eyes were bright and I thought they were the nicest eyes I ever saw on a woman. Like a fool, I said so. She blushed agonizingly.
“How’s your sister?” I said.
“She’s just fine, thank you, Mr. Chisholm.”
“And Hopper—how’s he coming along?”
“Just fine.”
“You want I should stop so we can get something hot into us?”
“I think we should push on till we come up with Mr. McAllister and the others.” So be it, I thought. I trudged back to the driving seat and climbed aboard. The team did as they were told and started pulling. I sat and drove and wondered how long it would be before we came up with the herd. To say that I was anxious would be to put my attitude of mind over modestly. I was starting to scare again and I didn’t much like the feeling. I kept remembering McAllister’s words. So every now and then I stood up on the seat and took a good look around. May found me a glass in the wagon and I used that for closer looks at anything that could be men and horses.
Once I had a false alarm when I spotted a small bunch of wild mustangs running to the west. Another time we flushed out some antelopes and I thought they were Indians jumping us. But apart from that nothing untoward happened. By noon we had not sighted the herd. You can’t go on being anxious for ever. The human mind won’t allow it. So I began to relax a little and think maybe after all McAllister was wrong and those Comanches had cut their losses and decided to forget about us.
Then I began to think of all the dips and depressions out there on the plain and how the Comanches knew every darned inch of this country. They could be within a hundred paces of us and I would never know. I called back to May and she handed me the shotgun through the tie in the canvas. She gave me a half dozen loads for it. By now I had steamed for several hours and my clothes were dry. I was thankful for this. Nobody feels much like a protective hero when he’s soaked to the skin.
A
bout an hour past noon, we came to a dip in the plains and there at the bottom of it was water. I halted at the lip in this depression and I called May around to the front of the wagon.
“You drive the wagon down to the water, Miss May,” I said. “Don’t unhitch, but let the horses drink. Not all they want, but just enough. I’m going to scout around while you do it. I’ll be down in a short while to fill the barrel.”
She looked doubtful for a moment, then she climbed up and took the lines. I dropped to the ground and she moved the team forward.
As soon as she moved, I wondered if I was doing right. Was I leaving the two girls and Hopper unprotected down there?
All the time the wagon was on the move, I kept my eyes moving around the rim of that depression and over the rocks within it. The wagon went about twenty paces and halted suddenly. There was absolute silence except for the sound of the horse gear when the animals stirred.
I started to call out, to ask May what she was doing, and then I thought that she must have stopped because she could see something I couldn’t see. I started forward along the rim of the depression and at once I saw him—a solitary figure standing on the far side of the water. He had been hidden from me by the wagon.
I halted.
The man was plainly an Indian. I could see the feathers, the fringes on his leggings, the bright splash of paint. In his hands there glittered the shining barrel of a rifle.
Was he alone? Was he connected with the Indians who had attacked the herd? All I knew was that I could not take any chances. But I was also sure that I could not shoot him down without knowing who and what he was. I called out to him and raised my hand. As I did so, another figure appeared, another and another. I halted and sang out to May: “Stay still, May. Leave this to me.” I didn’t have an idea in hell what I was going to do next, but I thought that was the kind of thing a man said to a girl in a situation like this.
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