Novel 1966 - Kilrone (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Hank Laban got to his feet. “I’ll scout on ahead,” he said. “I don’t like the feel of things, Major.”

  “All right…go ahead.” Paddock got up slowly. His legs felt stiff, and he was sore from the unaccustomed riding.

  God, what he wouldn’t give for a drink!

  Chapter 6

  *

  IT WAS MID-MORNING when Barney Kilrone opened his eyes. For several minutes he lay still, adjusting himself to his surroundings. He had seen Frank Paddock leave with the detachment, and then at the urging of Denise and Betty he had agreed to lie down for a few minutes. He had slept for five hours.

  Clasping his hands behind his head, he considered the situation. Paddock might be right, and he might trap Medicine Dog and administer a crushing defeat on the Indians. But that was not the way to figure it. What if the Dog survived, or evaded the fight? Suppose the Dog was the master tactician the Indians were saying he was?

  Barney Kilrone had a fast, durable horse. The way west was clear. He could saddle up and ride west and south for Virginia City. He was no longer in the cavalry, and the problem of the post was not his problem. Even if he got into hostile country, the chances were that he could slip through, just as he had in coming here. One man alone, particularly if that man knew how to travel cross-country, had a good chance to get through.

  Yet even as he considered the possibility, he knew he would not do it. His duty was clear. He must remain at the post until one of the detachments returned. His rifle might make a difference.

  Defending the entire post was out of the question with the few men they had. They must gather all the people into one or two buildings, get enough ammunition, food, and water there for an extended siege.

  There was a tap on the door, and he swung his feet to the boards and stood up. “Come in!”

  It was Denise. “You’re awake, then. Would you like breakfast?”

  Betty Considine was still there, and for the first time he really saw her. A slender but well-rounded girl with a lovely face, tanned from sun and wind…but not too much.

  “How is your shoulder?” she asked.

  “Stiff. Thanks for changing the dressing.”

  It was very still, the only sound the ring of a hammer on metal from the blacksmith shop. The constant undercurrent of movement, the vague rustle and stir of an army post was lacking. Now the clang of the blacksmith’s hammer only served to emphasize the unnatural stillness.

  “Who is in command?” Kilrone asked.

  “Sergeant Ryerson, I suppose,” Denise said. “Lieutenant Rybolt should be back at any time.”

  “Tim Ryerson?”

  “Do you know him?”

  “He was in my outfit in Arizona.”

  Then they talked casually about many things, remembering people and places, talking of army posts other than this, and of Paris during and after the Franco-Prussian War, when Frank Bell Paddock and Barnes Kilrone had been present as observers, with semi-official positions but at their own expense.

  The coffee was good, and Kilrone was content to stretch out his legs under the table and to talk quietly, though always as he talked there was the nagging thought in the back of his mind that their time might be running out.

  Over the roofs of the barracks he could see the gray sky. The night would be dark, a night without moon, without stars. The wind stirred gently, a wind that would cover the sound of any approach.

  He looked up the parade ground toward the Headquarters building. It was strong, thick-walled, a place where a defense might be made, and the post warehouse was right along side.

  For just a little while it was a quiet time in a pleasant room, and Barney Kilrone, in these last few years, had known few such times. Denise was talking of Zola, and how he had infuriated her father. Yet when his new books came out, he was among the first to buy them, grumbling as he did so.

  Kilrone got up suddenly. “I’ve got to talk to Sergeant Ryerson. Did I understand he was in the hospital?”

  Betty Considine got up to join him. “I have to see him, so I’ll take you there. The Sergeant has been very ill. He had pneumonia.”

  They walked together in silence toward the hospital. The farrier working at the blacksmith shop had finished whatever it was he had been doing, and without the sound of the hammer on the anvil the post seemed dead, deserted.

  The wind stirred and the leaves of a cottonwood rustled, but there was no other sound except that of their footsteps.

  “It’s eerie,” Betty said, “after so much activity.”

  “You said the Sergeant had been ill. How is he now?”

  “He has been up, sitting in a chair. I don’t think he could walk very far yet. He had a very bad attack, and Uncle Carter was afraid we would lose him.”

  “He’s a good man.” They walked on a few steps. “Can you shoot?” he asked suddenly.

  “Yes.” She looked up at him. “Do you think we’ll be attacked?”

  “Yes, by tonight or tomorrow. We’ve got one chance, as I see it. We’ve got to get everybody together at Headquarters. I think we might be able to defend that building, the hospital, and the warehouse. If the men are scattered out, we wouldn’t have any chance at all.”

  “You think Frank was wrong, then?”

  He shrugged. “Who can say? I doubt if I would have gone, but another man might have done as Frank did.”

  They found Ryerson propped up in bed, reading a dime novel. His face broke into a smile when he saw Kilrone. “Captain! Well, I’ll be damned!”

  “It’s been a long time, Tim.”

  Ryerson gave a sharp glance at Kilrone’s shabby cowhand’s outfit. “You’re out of the army?”

  “You should remember. I didn’t get along with an Indian agent, and he had political friends.”

  “I remember. I didn’t know you’d resigned, though, because we went out west about that time.” He hesitated. “Captain, Iron Dave’s here.”

  Barney Kilrone had started to speak. He broke off short. “Here?”

  Suddenly he thought he began to see a pattern, a pattern of action and planning…but he must be wrong. Except that it was Sproul, and one should never underestimate the man. He was cold, dangerous, and utterly without principle, dedicated to his own interests and to nothing else.

  “Has he got a place around here?” he asked.

  “Over in Hog Town—the Empire. Be careful, Captain. Once he knows you’re out of the army he’ll be gunning for you. He only sidestepped you before because he knew he’d have the whole army on his neck. You watch your step.”

  “Has he been trading with Indians?”

  “He has a trading post alongside the Empire, but he makes no point of it. He stays right around the Empire except when he’s prospecting.”

  “Prospecting? Iron Dave Sproul?”

  “That’s right. He’s really got the bug. He’s out every chance he gets…and he’s come in with some good stuff, I hear.”

  Sproul…Sproul had been the man behind that crooked Indian agent, but so far behind that he was untouchable.

  “Do you know him?” Betty asked Kilrone.

  “He knows him all right,” Ryerson commented grimly. “Sproul threatened to shoot him on sight, and the Captain was going to give him the chance…but the Old Man wouldn’t have it. He confined the Captain to quarters.” He looked thoughtfully at Kilrone. “Sproul bragged that you were afraid to come in. He said he wouldn’t even use a gun, that he’d break you with his hands.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Kilrone felt the old anger rising in him. He had to admit it was not only because of what he knew or suspected about Sproul—that the man had been selling guns and whiskey to the Indians—but something more than that. Iron Dave Sproul was one of those men who had merely to enter a room to raise the hackles on the back of Kilrone’s neck.

  The man was a brute, physically and mentally, and he carried himself with a hard-shouldered assurance that for Kilrone was like waving a red flag at a bull. Several times soldiers had b
een found in the alley behind his place who had been brutally beaten, but nothing could ever be proved. One of those soldiers had been a man from Kilrone’s own company.

  “Tim,” Kilrone said, “I haven’t any official position here, of course, but Major Paddock is gone and I know you can use every rifle you can get. I think we are going to be attacked.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “If you don’t mind a suggestion…”

  “Captain, I’d welcome any suggestion you’d make.”

  “Pull everybody back to Headquarters. Man that building, the warehouse, and the hospital. You haven’t men enough to defend the whole post.”

  “What about the horses?”

  “Forget about them. If there’s an attack you couldn’t protect them, anyway.”

  “How much time do you figure we’ve got?”

  “Until tonight or tomorrow, I think, but I’d be moved within the hour. You can’t afford to risk it.”

  Kilrone went outside and stood in the light drizzle that had begun to fall. So Sproul was here, after all this time. Iron Dave Sproul, whose fists had killed at least one man and who prided himself on his ability to fight bar-room style.

  There were many such men as Sproul, and Kilrone had met them before this: men who came west, bringing nothing with them but the lust for gold, the desire to get rich and get out; men who would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. But few came as well equipped for what he planned to do as Iron Dave.

  Aside from the cunning of the man, and his sheer physical strength and stamina, he was a man of considerable intelligence, and possessed a will for survival earned in the bitter struggles of New York’s slums of the 1840’s. Barney Kilrone was uncertain as to what Sproul’s eventual goal might be, but he was sure that it was more than mere money. The man wanted power…and perhaps something more than that. There was more behind his conniving than the desire to sell whiskey and rifles to the Indians.

  Sproul was careful to keep himself in the clear. It might be that, like many other man, he saw the possibilities in frontier politics? Certainly, Sproul’s early background had been a place where politics was part of the power struggle, and he had learned his tricks in a rough but practical school.

  Betty had stayed behind to prepare the hospital to receive casualties, but Barney Kilrone wanted to see more of his surroundings. He walked along the line of buildings, spoke to the farrier, who was still in the smithy, and then crossed to the corral where his horse was.

  He was turning away from the corral when he saw the Indian girl. Mary Tall Singer was dressed as any American girl of the period would be. She was a pale copper-skinned girl with dark, beautiful hair and large eyes. That she was Indian he knew at once.

  He spoke to her, and she turned her dark eyes on him, seeming somewhat embarrassed or frightened, though why he could not guess.

  “I am Barney Kilrone,” he went on. “I rode in yesterday.”

  “I know. I am Mary Tall Singer.” Then she added, “I work for the sutler.”

  The way in which she spoke and her composure, now that she was past her immediate embarrassment, told him that she not only had education but was accustomed to being treated by whites as an equal.

  “You’re fortunate. It could be a good job.”

  “It is. I enjoy my work.” She hesitated. “Is there some way I can help?”

  “I was looking for a buckboard. Is there one on the post?”

  “No. The only one I know of belongs to Mr. Sproul.” Yet even as she spoke she seemed to be sorry she had said it. “The only one I know of, that is. He might lend you his.”

  “I didn’t want one right now. I was just curious.” He had started away but suddenly he turned back. “Do you know Medicine Dog?” he asked.

  There was no visible change in her expression, but he knew at once that she did know him. Her manner was suddenly wary, her eagerness to be away was obvious.

  “Medicine Dog,” Kilrone said, “is borrowing trouble for himself and his people. I wish he was half as bright as Chief Washakie.”

  “Do you know Washakie?”

  “I know him. I have eaten in his lodge. I have smoked the pipe with him. He is a good man who will do well for his people.”

  She made no reply, and tipping his hat he went on to the sutler’s store.

  Hopkins, the sutler, was putting together several sacks of food and ammunition. He glanced up when Kilrone entered. “If you want anything,” he said, “find it and bring it up to me.” Then realizing that Kilrone was a stranger, he said, “You must be the man who brought the news. Too bad…there were good men in I Troop. And Webb…I won’t say the man knew much about Indians, but he was a good commander. He kept the post in shape.”

  Hopkins looked around. “Mary!” he called, then turning back to Kilrone, he said, “I wonder where that girl got to?”

  “I saw her down by the corrals.”

  “Mary? What in God’s name would she be doing down there?” he exclaimed.

  Kilrone went behind the counter and hunted out a couple of boxes of shells, considered a moment, and added two more. The chances were that there would be plenty of army ammunition but he had no wish to run short. He added to the ammunition several shirts, handkerchiefs, and odds and ends of clothing.

  When he had bundled up the lot he paid for it and went to the door. There he paused, looking up the parade ground. Two women were walking toward Headquarters building, each carrying a bundle.

  “It looks as if there might be mineral in those hills,” he commented. “Is there much prospecting going on?”

  “Here and there.”

  “When this is over I may have a try at it. I hear that the fellow who owns the Empire prospects a little.”

  Hopkins gave him a cynical look. “If you can call riding around over the country in a buckboard prospecting, he does it. Oh, he comes in with some samples now and again, but he never looks as if he’s done any serious digging. I never even seen him with his hands dirty.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t stay out long. I knew an old boy down state who used to go out, find a nice steady place, and curl up for a sleep. It was the only way he could get away from his wife.”

  Hopkins grinned. “Sproul doesn’t have a wife. No, he doesn’t stay out long. Overnight, usually. Maybe he just wants to get away from the Empire. It’s a noisy place.”

  Kilrone took his bundle and started up the street. Glancing toward the corrals, he saw no sign of Mary Tall Singer.

  He had learned a little. Iron Dave Sproul did not take his prospecting very seriously, and it was he who drove a buckboard, accounting for the tracks over in the Santa Rosas. Suddenly he wanted very much to back-track that buckboard to see just where it stopped. Without a doubt Iron Dave was up to his old tricks of peddling rifles and whiskey to the Indians, but to prove it would not be easy. How many lives, both Indian and white, had already been lost due to Sproul’s activities?

  The rain continued. It fell softly, whispering against the barrack walls and falling gently upon the ground where the troops had paraded before they marched off…I Troop to die, M Troop to what destiny? That was the thing about being a soldier—he never knew when the band played and the girls waved the troop good-bye whether he would ride back or not. He never knew if this good-bye was his last, but there was something about it, something bold and strong that made a man feel his strength, and so he rode and was glad to ride, although he grumbled to be in tune, and let no one know just how he felt.

  It was too quiet here, Kilrone was thinking. He could feel trouble coming, for its breath has a way of being felt in the air, and he could feel it now. Whether Iron Dave Sproul was to blame or not, that must wait. First there would come the fight, a good fight, too, if they were to last it out.

  How many warriors would come? Two hundred at least, he was sure, and more likely a thousand. And at the post were fourteen or fifteen men and some women, too small a party by far to defend the place, even to defend themselves, des
pite the fact that there was food enough and ammunition enough.

  Suppose he went to Hog Town now? Suppose now, before the fight could begin, he went to see Iron Dave and smashed him down? Or even killed him?

  It would change nothing. Whatever influence Sproul had among the Indians would not reach to even one squaw, once the battle was joined. He could not stop them then even if he wanted to, and it was not likely that he wanted to.

  What was it the man wanted? There was no one out here who mattered to him unless it was Kilrone himself; and Sproul had not even known Kilrone was in this part of the country, or that Kilrone had been tracking him down, following him from place to place, learning a little here, a bit more there.

  Whatever it was he wanted, he needed an Indian war to bring it about.

  Chapter 7

  *

  BARNEY KILRONE WALKED back to Paddock’s quarters. Denise had the door open, and a carpetbag was sitting on the step. “May I help?” he asked.

  “Would you?” She brought some blankets to the door and handed them to him. “You think Frank was wrong, don’t you?”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t have gone, Denise, but I might have been wrong, very wrong. Frank was the one who had the decision to make and he made it. We can only wait and see what happens.”

  Taking the blankets, Denise’s rifle, and the carpetbag, he walked beside her to the Headquarters building.

  “This is a long way from Paris,” he commented. “Do you miss it?”

  “Occasionally. I would be lying if I did not admit it, but I do not miss it nearly so often as one would believe. It is beautiful here…I love to ride, and I have books to read. Betty is a great help. She’s remarkable in so many ways.”

  She looked to the hills. “And the hills are the best of it all, I think. Frank hates the post. I believe he hates it most because he thinks I do. As a matter of fact, I love those mountains; they’re so restful, so…enduring, and timeless.”

  Stella Rybolt was waiting for them inside the door. “Well, you made it!” she said cheerfully to Denise. “I was just coming down to lend a hand.”