Novel 1966 - Kilrone (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  Alice Dunivant came up to them. “Mrs. Paddock,” she said, “please get some rest. I can take care of Tim.”

  Betty glanced around, suddenly remembering the Indian girl.

  Mary Tall Singer sat huddled in a corner, a blanket over her head. She sat very still, staring at the floor. Her features were dimly visible in the vague light from the shielded kerosene lantern on the floor. Betty remembered then that she had neither moved nor spoken since being brought to Headquarters by Kilrone. The thought worried her. Yet these were her people who were out there, and some of them had died up there in the loft.

  It was not a good thing to think about. And Mary must now be wondering where she belonged—in here with her adopted people, or out there with the Indians.

  When Denise had gone to lie down, Alice Dunivant came over to stand beside Betty. It was very quiet now. No sound or movement came from above. Alice kept looking up at the ceiling. “I wonder if any of them are still alive?” she said. “It’s horrible to think of them up there dead or dying.”

  “It would be worse to think of them down here…alive,” Betty replied shortly. “That would be the last of us.”

  “I know. I wonder how he thought of it. I mean, shooting through the ceiling like that. You would think a board would stop a bullet.”

  “One of these rifles or pistols will easily shoot through boards like that. I have heard Uncle Carter talking about it.”

  Barney Kilrone slept for two hours. A struggle at the door awakened him—a struggle, followed by a shot.

  He lunged to his feet. Kells was fighting with two Indians who were forcing their way through the door. At that moment there was an explosion in the inner room. Kilrone palmed his gun and fired, his bullet smashing one of the Indians back into the darkness from which he had come. Kells fell, and the other Indian leaped past him and into the room. In an instant the doorway was filled with them.

  The Indian who had leaped into the room, a warrior of powerful build, had grabbed Betty as she came running from the other room and spun her toward him. From the corner of his eye Kilrone saw that, but he had no time to act on that, for he had opened up with his six-shooter on the packed mass, struggling to get into the room.

  Teale, who also had been sleeping, lunged in, swinging his clubbed rifle. The butt struck an Indian on the skull, and Teale, grasping the rifle with both hands, waded in, striking first with one end, then the other. Kilrone, shoving his empty gun into its holster, whipped his bowie knife from its sheath and closed with the nearest Indian. Behind him he heard a scream…he dared not turn. If once the Indians broke through this door the battle would be lost. They would all be dead within minutes, including the women and children in the other room.

  Suddenly the attack broke. One last Indian at the door swung at him with a knife and Kilrone parried the blade with his own, then lunged, the knife’s cutting edge up. It sank into the Indian’s belly, and he ripped it upward, the keen, heavy blade cutting through the breastbone. The Indian fell forward and, grasping him by the hair, Kilrone pitched him back out of the door.

  Swiftly, they repiled the broken door and broken furniture across the opening. Only then could Kilrone turn.

  The Indian who had gotten into the room was dead. He lay sprawled on the floor, the back of his skull crushed.

  “She did it,” Betty said, indicating Mary Tall Singer. “He would have killed me.”

  The Indian girl had ripped the Indian’s own tomahawk from his belt and struck him with it. She still held it now, looking down at the dead man. “I know him,” she said. “He came often to my father’s lodge.”

  “It was a brave thing you did,” Kilrone said quietly, “a very brave thing.”

  Martha Whitman and Alice Dunivant were kneeling beside Kells. The teamster was in a bad way. A bullet had gone through his body and his skull had taken a wicked blow from a tomahawk or hand-axe.

  Kilrone went from window to window. The hours of darkness grew fewer, and still he had not decided what to do. Did he dare make an attempt to break out to warn Rybolt of what was coming? Did Rybolt need the warning? Barring something unforeseen, Gus Rybolt would be coming into the likely ambush area within the next twelve hours.

  Did he dare even think of leaving here when the defenders and their defenses were growing more and more battered? Every rifle would count. Yet he might get a messenger off from Rybolt to Paddock—something, anything, to speed him up.

  He would need a horse. That meant getting one from the Indians; or better still, one from Hog Town. There should be horses there, for there had been no signs of fighting in that direction, and no flames.

  But before he could think of leaving, they must move to the warehouse and carry on what fighting they had to do from there. His original idea of defending all three buildings had been good enough then, but it was no longer so. If they intended to protect the rifles and ammunition from Medicine Dog, they could only do it from the warehouse. And whatever was to be done must be done soon.

  Kells and Ryerson were out of action, and in the warehouse Mendel was in as bad a state. Every few minutes a bullet smashed through one of the windows or the door and ricocheted across the room. So far they had done no damage.

  He looked up at the trap door, wondering what the chances were. What if there was an Indian alive up there? An Indian with a breath of life in him never stopped fighting. Nonetheless, if the move was to be made it must be from roof to roof.

  Teale came up to him. “Cap, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, you better have another think.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The moon, Cap Kilrone, the moon. It’ll be comin’ up within the hour. Once that moon’s in the sky, you ain’t got a chance.”

  He was right, of course, and there was a good chance the Indians were waiting for that moon. They probably had plans. The Bannocks did not mind fighting at night—not Medicine Dog’s men, at least.

  “Denise, get Sergeant Ryerson and Kells ready. They will have to go first, then the children.”

  “Without their mothers?”

  “No, they will have to go, too.” He turned. “Reinhardt, are you a builder? I think I heard somebody say you’d been a carpenter?”

  “Yes, sir. That’s right.”

  Briefly, quickly, he explained. “Rudio, you take the door. Keep your eyes open all the time. Hopkins, you go to the back window again. Teale, you work around from window to window. Shoot at anything that moves out there.”

  There was a stepladder in the closet. Kilrone got it out, took his gun in his right hand, and went up the ladder. While the others waited tensely, he eased the trap door to one side. Nothing happened. He hesitated, feeling the cold sweat down his spine. When he stuck his head up there he might get a bullet through it. He glanced down at the upturned faces, showing faintly pale in the gloom. Teale had his rifle lifted, ready for a shot.

  Kilrone hesitated a moment longer, then removed his hat, put it on the point of his pistol and lifted it slowly. Nothing happened.

  He knew suddenly that he’d made a mistake. If there was anyone up there they would be watching not only for his head to appear, but listening for the grate of his foot on the stepladder or for the creak of the ladder rung.

  Again he started to lift the hat, and as he did so he let his boot slide off the rung and lift. Instantly a gun bellowed, his hat jerked on the gun muzzle, and in that same instant Teale fired and Kilrone went through the trap door with a lunge.

  The Indian was no more than ten feet away, and as he started to rise the movement stirred against the ceiling and Teale fired again. There was a jerk and the thump of a heel, then a slow exhalation of breath…and silence.

  Through the trap to the roof Kilrone could see two stars, and a broad sky. Shielding the glow with his hand, he struck a match.

  There were four Indians, all dead. He blew out the match, then eased himself through the trap roof. The air was fresh and cool. He lay still a moment, breathing deeply; then he sl
id along the roof to the parapet, gingerly lifting his head, expecting the concussion of a blow at any instant. All remained dark and still, with a few scattered clouds overhead and many stars.

  Across the twelve-foot space, the roof of the warehouse seemed equally empty.

  Was the sky already lighter from the moon? Or was that his imagination? Did they dare risk it?

  In any event, there was little time left. The bodies of the four Indians were brought up and tumbled from the roof; the joists were ripped out and lowered into position to span the gap between the two buildings. Four joists were laid a few inches apart, with cross-pieces tied in place with rawhide string. The bridge they made was flimsy, and it was dangerous, but that was a chance they had to take. They worked swiftly, helped from time to time by one of the other men, and by the women. Well within the hour they had brought the children one by one to the roof-top.

  “I will go first,” Denise said. “It will be better if I try it, and the children can come to me on the other side.”

  She got down on her hands and knees and crawled across. After a moment, they sent the first child across, with Martha Whitman close behind. The others followed carefully, one by one.

  Now the sky was growing faintly gray. There was little time left.

  “Get Ryerson and Kells,” Kilrone said.

  He had kept that till the last, knowing the risk there would be in moving the two wounded men. It would be a slow process, and the feeble bridge might even collapse under them.

  “How will you do it, Cap?” Ryerson asked. “I am a heavy man.”

  “We’ll slide you on a plank. We don’t have a stretcher, and the plank is narrow, but if you lie still and help to balance yourself, I think we can do it.”

  And they did.

  At the end, there were six of them remaining in the Headquarters building.

  “All right, Hopkins. You first.”

  “Look, Kilrone, I—”

  “You first, I said. No nonsense now. There’s no time to waste.”

  Hopkins went, and they could watch him all the way across. How had the Indians missed seeing them, Kilrone wondered. They must be watching, and now it could be only a matter of minutes…

  “Rudio, quickly now! Then Reinhardt, then Lahey.”

  “Saving me to last, Kilrone?” Teale grinned at him. “Figure I’m the one you could lose best? The world’s better off without me, or something like that?”

  “Hell, no! You’re the man I want with me if we have to make a fight of it.” Lahey was already crawling out on the makeshift bridge, close on Reinhardt’s heels.

  The Indians saw them then, and a dozen rifles fired at once. Kilrone, on his knees on the roof behind the parapet, saw the dawn blossom with spots of fire from the rifles, and he shot quickly, firing at the flash. Teale was down beside him.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Rudio had made the roof, saw him wheel and open fire, saw his body jerk with the impact of bullets—and then saw him fall forward and slip slowly from sight behind the parapet.

  Teale fired a quick shot, ran, and dropped to his knee, firing again a bit to the left of a brown shoulder he saw. Kilrone, behind their parapet, waited, hearing the ugly sound of ricocheting bullets and, against the wall below him, the thud of their strike.

  He glanced over at Teale. “Think you could run over that?”

  Teale grinned. “Ain’t no other way, Kilrone. You with me?”

  “You go first,” Kilrone said. “I hope that thing doesn’t fold up under you.”

  Teale reloaded his rifle, took a look at the narrow bridge, and crouched, ready. In the growing light they could see that the outer joist had developed a long split. There was an obvious sag in the middle, which meant that one of the other joists might also be broken. It was likely that only the crawling movement of those who had gone before had saved the makeshift contrivance; for by crawling, their weight was stretched over a wider area and did not put so much strain on the bridge. But now it was no longer a matter of crawling. Their only chance was in running.

  Teale braced himself, then suddenly he was moving. He went up in a charging lunge; one foot hit the top of the parapet and the other hit the bridge almost four feet out. Instantly a terrific cannonade of shooting broke out as the Bannocks tried to get him. He was running full-tilt now. His second stride carried him another four feet, but when his boot hit the bridge there was an ominous crack and the bridge broke under him. He caught the edge of the parapet ahead and threw himself over as hands reached to help him.

  Barney Kilrone crouched alone on the roof. They had him now. Could he jump the twelve feet? Without the parapet, he was sure he could have done it, but with it there was no chance for a running start, which he would need.

  Suddenly there was a yell, and he saw Reinhardt pointing. Down the parade ground was a mass of horses, at least two hundred of them, and with shrill yells and shots the Indians were starting them again, to repeat their charge of the previous day.

  “Teale!” Kilrone shouted.

  The ex-cowboy turned and he called across to him. “I’m going to warn Rybolt!” He called just loud enough for Teale to hear him, and he did.

  Wheeling, Kilrone darted to the trap door and went down the ladder, and ran swiftly to the window that opened on the gap between the buildings. The horses were coming now, and behind them a hundred charging, yelling Indians.

  Dropping his rifle, he crouched by the window. Going through the gap there would be a time when the horses would jam up. He had taken many a flying mount, and this would not be hard…if he was not seen.

  They came with a rush, and he threw himself from the window at a big gray. He caught the mane, mounted, and slid off to the side, only one leg across the horse’s back, Indian fashion.

  The horses burst through on the other side and went charging in a mass toward the brush and the plains beyond, and as they hit the brush Kilrone rolled over on his horse’s back and slapped him with his palm.

  Had he been seen? There was no telling, and so many shots had been flying that he could not tell if any were aimed at him. The big gray was one horse in a mass of others.

  Charging into the thicker brush, he guided the horse and suddenly turned at right angles, and instead of rushing straight ahead with the rest, he rode south, keeping the wall of brush between himself and the fighting Indians. Their eyes, though, were directed toward the fort, away from him.

  Presently he slowed his pace. He felt for his pistol, and found he still had it. The thong was in place and the Colt rested solidly in its holster. About his waist was a cartridge belt, another was thrown over one shoulder and under an arm.

  Rudio had been killed, he was sure of that, but there remained, so far as he knew, eight able men. With the arms, ammunition, food, and water in the warehouse, eight men should hold it for a while at least. In the meantime he might warn Rybolt, and then start one or two of his men after Paddock and Mellett and their troops…or he might go himself.

  In the meanwhile, those left at the post would have to fight. It was up to them now.

  He headed south at an easy canter. He had some thinking to do, for he had to decide where to try to intercept Rybolt and the wagons, and he had to do it without being seen.

  Chapter 14

  *

  THREE MILES SOUTH of the post, Kilrone drew up in a small cluster of cottonwoods and rigged a hackamore from rawhide strings such as he had used in tying the makeshift bridge together. He allowed the horse a little water, talked quietly to him for a few minutes, then mounted and headed south.

  The big gray horse liked to travel, and he held his pace well. From time to time he slowed of his own volition, and then resumed his canter.

  The morning air was clear and bright, the sky almost cloudless. He saw no Indians, although there were plenty of tracks.

  In the remote distance, he seemed to see, as a vague blue line, the Slumbering Hills, and among them, Awakening Peak. But his imagination was perhaps recognizing the hill
s where there were only low clouds.

  Finally he stopped, dismounted, and leading the gray horse, walked on in the glorious morning. Puffs of dust rose from each step; a faint cool breeze off the rain-soaked Santa Rosas was pleasant. War and fighting seemed far away.

  Had he been wrong to leave? He told himself he had done the right thing…he was not even sure he could have gotten into the warehouse from below, and he could not allow Rybolt and his guard to ride unknowing into disaster.

  Eight men should hold the post, he told himself again. Ryerson was able to command, even if unable to help much with the fighting. Teale, Lahey, Reinhardt, McCracken…all of them were good men, and the warehouse was strongly built, well supplied.

  After a period of walking, he mounted the gray horse and rode on.

  How far away would Rybolt be? Where would they choose to ambush him? Medicine Dog’s ambush of I Troop had been in the least obvious place, and it was likely the Indians would try to do the same sort of thing now. More important, if Iron Dave was close by, watching his stake in the game, but out of it, where would he be?

  It had been scarcely daylight when Kilrone started, and by the time the sun was approaching its zenith he was drawing into the danger area. At any time now he would come within sight of the detail commanded by Rybolt, or within the range of the Indians waiting in ambush.

  Cane Springs? He thought of it suddenly. There had been a stage station at Cane Springs. It was deserted now, had been deserted since the outbreak of trouble. But the location was one offering conditions similar to those of the place where I Troop had been massacred. There was the pass between two mountain ranges, the Santa Rosa and Bloody Run, and then the widening out from the pass into the valley. And there at the end of the Bloody Run Range was Cane Spring, a logical stop. A place for nooning or a night camp before going on up the valley.