McAllister Fights

by Matt Chisholm

  The young Indian stiffened a little, but he did not speak. McAllister could see that the bleeding and the cold were fast sapping his strength. He was keeping himself upright with willpower alone.

  “That’s mighty fancy Indian talk, I do declare,” Mangold offered.

  Gorman shouted: “Talk, you red bastard, talk.”

  McAllister said: “If somebody don’t patch that wound mighty soon, lieutenant, he’ll be too dead to talk.”

  “Then let him be dead.”

  The wounded soldier stopped his groans long enough to say, “Let me kill the murderin’ sonovabitch, lieutenant, sir.”

  McAllister started the talk again, asking the warrior to admit that he was with Two Bulls’ band; he talked for five minutes, pressing and pressing, but getting no answer.

  Finally, Mangold said: “Only one way to make this kind talk, lieutenant. His own way.”

  McAllister looked at the old scout and saw the man meant it. He could not repress a shudder, wondering what he would do if the officer consented and the Cheyenne were put to the torture.

  Gorman went up close to the Indian and howled in his face: “Talk, you close-mouthed bastard, talk, talk, talk.”

  The Indian gathered the saliva in his mouth and calmly spit in the whiteman’s face.

  Every man there went still.

  Gorman stood staring wild-eyed at the impassive Indian, the spittle slowly coursing down his unshaven cheeks.

  He gathered back his fist, balanced himself on the balls of his feet and smashed his fist into the brown face.

  There was a horrible crack of bone and the Indian fell backward into the snow without a sound. He lay impassive except for his terrible eyes, his nose ruined and bloody, his upper lip torn against the teeth.

  McAllister went to step forward, then got a hold of himself and stayed still, holding his breath.

  “On your feet,” Dolan said and kicked the Indian.

  With some difficulty the man got to his feet, assuming the same position as before, looking at the same spot on the horizon. He almost fell, but the iron of his will held him there.

  “Brother,” McAllister said. “Save yourself and your people.” His voice was full of pleading now. “Just tell us where the chief Two Bulls is to be found; We will tend your hurts and see you safe to your people.”

  The man turned his head and looked at McAllister. A faint smile curved the mouth that had been misshapen by the blow. Talking was obviously painful to him.

  “You are he $$$ called the Diver,” he said in a low clear voice. “You have forgotten that the blood of the Cheyenne flows in your veins. You have forgotten too What it is to be a Cheyenne. You have become totally a whiteman.”

  “What’s he say?” Gorman demanded.

  “Nothin’ much,” McAllister told him. “Just he won’t never talk.”

  Gorman turned to Mangold for confirmation.

  “Is that correct?”

  “ ’Bout right, I reckon.”

  Suddenly, the Indian moved.

  He jerked violently on the rope around his neck, so that Dolan was hauled toward him; then he turned with a speed that was incredible for a man as hurt as he was, and kicked at the sergeant. Dolan yelled and went down. The Indian turned again and went running, limping badly, across the snow toward the ridge.

  Gorman yelled: “Shoot that man.”

  A trooper standing with his carbine in his hand, brought the weapon to his shoulder and fired. He missed and the Indian limped on.

  “Kill him, kill him,” Gorman screamed.

  Dolan was on his feet, snatching a carbine from a man nearby. Another man was firing. The sergeant opened up. The Indian flung out his arms as though for a last embrace of the cold world and fell on his face.

  They all walked toward him.

  McAllister thought: That’s what he wanted.

  When they got to him, he kicked twice and lay still. McAllister saw that one bullet had entered the right shoulder blade. The other had smashed the lower part of his spine.

  Gorman rolled him over with his toe and said bitterly: “The bastard.”

  Mangold chuckled.

  “He beat you, lieutenant. He plumb beat you.”

  Gorman glared at him and stomped back to the horses. When they were all near, he said: “Mount up. Lead on, Mr. Mangold.” He looked shaken. His hands trembled as though they would never stop.

  “Where’d you aim to go, mister?” Mangold asked.

  “Right ahead.”

  “That’s why them varmints jumped us, I reckon,” said the old scout. “They didn’t want us to go ahead. There’ll be a passle more of ’em a-waitin’ for us’ns.”

  “Most likely there’s a village up ahead and they’re the lookouts.”

  “Mebbeso. But that ain’t no never mind. If there’s a village, that means bucks and bucks means trouble for a party small as this one. Turn back, lieutenant, while you got your hair.”

  The young officer looked undecided.

  “McAllister, what do you think?”

  “Tom’s right.”

  “Very well, then. We’ll rejoin the command,” Gorman said. “And I hope for both your sakes you’re right.” He turned his horse and started back. They all climbed stiff and cold into the saddle and followed him. When they had gone a mile, McAllister looked back and saw the dark moving dots on the snow-covered flank of the ridge. He knew that the little war-party had returned to gather up their dead.

  He sighed. It was with relief.

  He had recognised the dead Cheyenne. He had been one of the young men who had escorted him down into Many Horses’ camp.

  * * *

  The men complained that night, for the lieutenant would not permit them to light fires to warm themselves. Being jumped once was enough for one day. The cold increased and McAllister was cold even in his buffalo robe. He lay smoking with old Tom Mangold by his side.

  “You knowed that Indian wasn’t from Two Bulls’ band,” Mangold said.

  “What other band could he of been from? Two Bulls is the only chief on the war-path.”

  “Maybe he’s the only chief out,” Mangold returned. “But that don’t stop the young bucks of any camp goin’ on the rampage and you know it. That boy the soldiers shot back there was from Many Hosses’ village.”

  “How’d you know?”

  “He was my son.”

  The old man knocked out his pipe and turned over to go to sleep.

  Chapter 4

  Old Tom Mangold lead them unerringly to the command late on the following day. A sentry challenged them with teeth chattering in the cold and they went on to find the soldiers and wagons scattered along a lengthy stretch of the Arkansas river, fires blazing, the aromatic smell of cooking in the air. It had stopped snowing and there was a pleasant feeling for the men of the patrol of coming home. McAllister knew that there were some three hundred foot and horse soldiers here with some three dozen wagons and three pieces of artillery. It was a crazy setup for fighting Indians, in his opinion, and he would have thrown the heavy guns into the river and burned the wagons. He would have put the foot-soldiers to guarding the supplies and put the horsemen to hunting Indians. And they would have been too slow for the fast-moving Cheyenne. But men said that the general knew what he was doing. Hadn’t he caught the Indians down on the Washita the year before and trounced them?

  While Gorman went to report to the general, McAllister and Mangold found their way to the wagon of Jed Harper, a civilian teamster, with whom they had become friendly. He was one of some forty civilians who were with the train. Harper was a big jovial man who had deserted from a northern contingent of the army the year before and was a little amazed to find himself on a winter campaign with the soldiers again. He reckoned the money was a little better this time. And the wagon was his, so he was liable to come out of the adventure with a small profit for a change. That is, if he lived.

  He cooked them up as good a meal as he could of sourbelly and pork and they wolfed the hot f
ood down. After, when they were relaxed with their pipes, a soldier came to tell them that the general wanted to see them immediately. They tramped along the line of wagons and resting troopers to the general’s tent and there they found Anderson studying a map with his second-in-command, Major Carpell of the cavalry and Captain Snyder of the infantry. Gorman was also there, still with some of that wild and unearthly look about him that he had worn at the time of the killing of the young Cheyenne brave.

  General Arthur K. Anderson was a fine-looking man; even his enemies had to admit that. McAllister had always thought that a man with burning ambitions should have something wrong with him for which he hoped to compensate, a smallness of which he was acutely conscious or some disfigurement. But there was, outwardly at least, nothing wrong with Anderson. He was big, almost as big as McAllister, handsome and full of fire and energy. Mentally, maybe he wasn’t as bright as an ambitious general could hope to be, but physically he was apparently untiring. Night or day, with or without sleep, he was always clear-eyed and alert.

  His hair was golden and long. He affected a frontier style with it falling almost to his shoulders. His large sweeping mustache challenged the world. His eyes were large, clear-gray and piercing. He disdained to wear uniform when with his own command and was now wearing white buckskin breeches, black boots that came up to his thighs and a doeskin hunting shirt that was of exquisite workmanship. On the march he invariably wore two pearl-handled Colt’s revolvers which, McAllister had to reluctantly admit, he used with great skill.

  He liked to hear himself talk and he dominated any company he was in. Although a hard taskmaster and a relentless driver, he could talk to his inferiors with a familiarity that charmed most of them. He didn’t charm McAllister.

  “Ah, my intrepid scouts,” he boomed when he sighted Mangold and McAllister. “Come in, gentlemen, and give us the benefit of your wisdom.”

  Old Tom said: “Gineral.” He always thought with the general with whom he was a great favorite. He had been mentioned several times in the memoirs the general was writing.

  McAllister said nothing.

  “Mr. Gorman tells us that you met some opposition at Indian Creek, lads.”

  “A slight brush is all,” said Mangold.

  “But you gave a good account of yourselves.”

  McAllister, remembering how Tom had hung back during the fighting, had to suppress a smile.

  The general slapped Tom on the back and the old man beamed.

  “Jest a small scoutin’ party,” he said. “We was mebbe a leetle close to their village and they was gettin’ nervous.”

  “Didn’t you think to scout the village, man?” Anderson’s tone changed suddenly, but old Tom didn’t mind. He never let the general upset him.

  “If we’d of done that,” he said, “none of us’ns would of gotten back to tell the tale. We know there’s a village an’ we can reckon roughly where it’s at. What more do we want to know?”

  “True,” said the general. “And where is it?”

  The old man shuffled forward, squinted short-sightedly at the map for a moment then put a dirty finger on Indian Creek and followed it north. He thought a while, traced across country for a short distance and found what he wanted.

  “Goose Creek,” he said. “That’s my guess.”

  The general cried: “A guess isn’t good enough.”

  “You ever knowed one of mine be wrong?”

  The general thought a moment –

  “Can’t say I have. Now whose camp is it?” He glanced from one to the other of them. “Can it be Two Bulls’ so far west?”

  McAllister said: “We should be lookin’ further east. Two Bulls is harrying the Kansas settlers.”

  “That’s if Two Bulls is our only target,” the general said. “And Two Bulls isn’t. Any Indian is our mark. So whose is this camp on Goose Creek?”

  Tom Mangold looked at McAllister, waiting for him to speak, but McAllister said nothing. Finally, the old man said –

  “It’s Many Horses’.”

  McAllister thought: Mangold most likely has a wife in that village and he don’t give a damn.

  McAllister said: “We don’t want Many Horses. He’s for peace.”

  The general said: “I am yet to be convinced that any Indian is for peace. Sure, they want peace during the winter when their ponies are weak, but as soon as they’re strong in the spring, they’re out on the warpath again. Indians are for peace only when it suits them. That’s why I’m hitting them in the winter. Strike while they’re weak and they’ll never be strong.”

  McAllister thought before he spoke. He knew that he could not go too far or he would arouse the suspicions of all who heard him.

  “I know Many Horses,” he said. “He has advocated peace all along. He is one of the few Indians who can see how strong the whites are.”

  “And I say you are mistaken, sir,” the general cried. “Do you know Many Horses, Tom?”

  “Sure, I know him,” the old scout said. “What Rem says is right. He’s a good Indian. He don’t want war. But that don’t mean the young men in his village don’t want it. They want it like hell. The war-chief there, Strong Bear, he wants it. Them Indians ‘at jumped us on Indian creek, they was from Many Horses’ village. I knowed ’em. The young ‘uns’ll keep on goin’ out on the warpath till the chief himself is dragged into it. The gineral’s right. You won’t stop ’em till you burn down the whole shebang.”

  There was silence in the tent and then the talk became general. Every man there had his say, except McAllister, who stayed silent. And all the talk went the same way. If Mangold was right and there was an encampment on Goose Creek, they must strike quickly before it moved. McAllister knew there was little chance of that in the snow. A village in the winter would not move unless it was forced to do so. Many Horses and his people were going to be sitting ducks.

  All that remained now was to see who the general would send out in advance of the column.

  The general was speaking –

  “What I propose to do, gentlemen, is this. Captain Snyder will stay here with the infantry and the wagons. The cavalry will advance on this village with all possible speed. Mules will carry our supplies.”

  “But we don’t know the exact location of the village,” McAllister said.

  The general smiled.

  “You’ll put that right for us, McAllister. You will go ahead and find it for us. I’d send you, Tom, but I need you here with me. McAllister, you will set off at dawn tomorrow. Take all precautions to prevent yourself from being spotted by the Indians, but remember speed is of the essence. I shall start out with the cavalry a day behind you. We will rendezvous here on Indian Creek.”

  “We know already that country’s being scouted by the Indians,” McAllister said. “You’ll be sighted.”

  “All right,” the general said impatiently. “We’ll halt ten miles south of Indian Creek. But I must be as near to the village as I can get. They must not have time to take fright and evade me. I’ve promised myself a great victory this winter. You’ll be in the history books yet, gentlemen.” He showed McAllister the exact spot on the map where he would halt the mounted men and then dismissed the two scouts.

  Together they walked along the line of fires.

  “You got what you wanted, boy,” old Tom said, looking at McAllister out of the corners of his eyes.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know damn well what I mean. Don’t be a fool. The Cheyenne part of you’s talkin.’ I can read you like a book. Jest think – if Many Horses is hit and finished, every rampaging buck in Kansas’ll come in. When a man like Many Horses is brought down that makes a real impression.”

  “An’ it don’t matter if he’s innocent or guilty?”

  “He’s guilty.”

  “You know that ain’t true.”

  “I know the old man don’t want war – he’s too fly for that. But half his people do. They was his bucks jumped us an’ you think old Many Ho
rses don’t know. Sure he knows. He ain’t a fool. I know how his mind works. He keeps in with the whites and he does the same with his own folk. That’s why he’s been chief so long.”

  “This is all hogwash, Tom, an’ you know it. If we hit Many Horses, the whole of the Southern Cheyenne will come out. If they do, that’ll mean most likely the Arapaho and Kiowas’ll do the same. Many Horses has strong connections with the North. If he goes down the Northern Cheyenne’ll be on the rampage and if they are it’s a sure thing the Sioux’ll do the same.”

  “You’re wrong, boy. The Indian respects the big stick. You hit him hard enough and he behaves himself.”

  It was no good arguing with the old man and there was nothing to be gained by more talk. They tramped in silence back to their bedrolls, got into their buffalo robes and slept.

  * * *

  Dawn saw McAllister on his way.

  The going was hard and slow and he cursed Anderson for being crazy enough to fight in the snow. Not even the canelo liked it and McAllister had his work cut out to keep the animal moving into the wind when its instinct was to drift before it. However, travelling on his own, he made good time and was on Indian Creek an hour after the following dawn. It had started to snow again and it wasn’t easy finding his way, but he had found Goose Creek by the following noon and was working his way north-west along it. The quick-flowing water was not frozen and he and the horse were able to slake their thirst in it. Of Indians, he saw not a sign, though he was constantly on the watch for them. Any moment, now, he knew, he might be fired on and it wasn’t going to be easy to reason with an irate buck with a smoking rifle in his hands to allow him to go ahead to Many Horses.

  He had to talk to the chief.

  All right, if the young men wanted to fight, let them have their fight. They would get more than their bellyful from Anderson and his men. But let Many Horses and the rest of the peace-party move out of range. If only he could make the chief see sense. . .