McAllister Fights

by Matt Chisholm

  He seemed to go like a knife through the milling Indians and scarcely anybody gave him much notice. He hit the creek and went through it, the horse coming out dripping on the other side and then he was straining up the long incline beyond, the pony herd scattered out before him. There were Indians, men and women, all around him trying to catch horses, fear on all their faces. He rode through them.

  A stutter of shots turned his head around.

  The Indians stopped and stared in the same direction.

  Over the brow of the hill a dark line moved. McAllister brought the canelo to a halt. Horsemen! Their heads bobbed on the tilted horizon, slowly their bodies came into view, a rifleshot away.

  Soldiers.

  The Indians were running back toward the village now, crying out to those below. It seemed that a great shout went up from the hilltop.

  Hastily, McAllister reined his horse around and rode back down toward the creek. The only way out now was north along the side of the water. As he neared the creek, he looked back and saw the soldiers among the horseherd, alarming it and driving it before them and then, as the Indian horses bolted, the soldiers turned in toward the village. McAllister hastily crossed the creek and headed north. Even as he went, Indians were taking their position up along the bank of the creek, firing across the water at the soldiers.

  McAllister rode through the camp. A woman stood in his path, pointing east, screaming something he couldn’t understand. He looked in that direction and saw the dark moving line that could only be soldiers. Anderson had a surround, all right.

  What of Red Feather and Falling Leaf, he wondered, and, on impulse, turned his horse toward the chief’s lodge. Outside, staring at the ridge above her, Falling Leaf clutched her child to her.

  “Where’s Red Feather?” he demanded.

  “She went to look for Many Horses,” the girl told him. “Men came and said that the general had shot Many Horses down. Many Horses went with a white flag and the general talked with him for a while and then shot him.”

  McAllister stared at her incredulously.

  “No,” he said. “It can’t. . .” But it was possible and he knew it was.

  A man in a warbonnet rode by calling to the men to come out and fight the soldiers or the village would be taken. The horsemen above started down from the ridge. A terrible wail went up from the watching women and all those who had been trying to take down or pack tipis abandoned their tasks and rushed this way and that in fear. Women snatched at children and ran with them toward the creek, only here they were met by the heavy fire of the troops to the west. Then they went north, streaming through the camp, crying out their terror.

  An old man came from a lodge and walked toward the ridge, his hands raised above his head and at the same moment the troops coming down from above halted in a long line with here and there the mane of a horse being tossed, the dying sunlight catching a flash of metal.

  “Soldiers,” the old man cried in Cheyenne, “we are all friends of the whiteman here. See there is the American flag given us by the soldier chief in token of his friendship. We do not want to fight, soldiers. Come down to us as friends. We do not want to fight.”

  For a few seconds there was silence.

  Then a single shot from a carbine on the ridge.

  The old man, his arms still above his head, took one tottering step forward, stayed poised for a moment, then fell on his face. A long wail went up from the watching Indians.

  It was that shot that changed the situation for every Cheyenne there. The panic stopped instantly and resistance sprang in its place. Men dropped packs, left horses; rifles seemed to appear in a hundred bronzed hands; men were kneeling among the lodges firing up at the ridge. And suddenly the line of soldiers seemed to reel backward, to break and then to run like frightened quail. The fear had been switched as if by magic from the Indians to the soldiers.

  Almost as quickly, the scene changed again. The soldiers were bellying down behind the ridge, under good cover and sending a withering fire down on to the camp below. The air around McAllister was full of flying lead; he saw men and women falling all around him. A woman ran forward into plain view of the troops crying out that there were women and children there. Did the soldiers make war on women and children? Several bullets thudded into her and she went down a shapeless huddle of doeskin. The exodus of women and children began. They went in a tearing mob north along the creek. All except Falling Leaf who stood at the door of Many Horses’ lodge with its brave emblems as if transfixed, gazing up at the rifle smoke on the ridge.

  “Run,” McAllister shouted. “For God’s sake. . .”

  “No,” she said, “my man. . . Little Wolf.”

  McAllister urged the canelo up beside her.

  “Come away,” he shouted. She turned and looked at him, lost and afraid. He could hear the bullets ripping into the walls of the lodge. The soldiers on the west side on the other side of the creek were cheering and firing. McAllister turned and looked in their direction. A horse-holder was running back out of range with the horses, the men were making use of what cover they could, pouring fire into the camp. Indians had crossed the icy waters of the creek and were under the far bank firing back at them. McAllister guessed that they were just within range of the guns up on the ridge. They didn’t have a hope.

  Time he was going. For a second, he experienced the crazy urge to ride out into the open from behind the buffalo hide lodge and to cry out for the soldiers to stop, but the will to live was too strong in him.

  He reached down and gripped Falling Leaf by the arm before he was fully aware of what he was doing.

  “Give me the child,” he cried. “Get up behind me.”

  “No,” she almost screamed back at him.

  “Would Little Wolf want you to die?” he demanded.

  “If he is dead, I shall want to die.”

  “He’ll come back,” he told her, anger rising in him. “What use will you be to him dead?” He raised his voice to a hectoring bellow. “Do as I tell you, woman.”

  She gazed at him out of large startled eyes for a moment, then silently handed the baby up to him. He tucked him into the crook of his right arm, kicked his foot from his left stirrup so that she could put her foot into it. She placed her small foot in it and he gave her a backward heave that put her on to the horse’s rump. The canelo shifted.

  “Hold on tight,” McAllister told her. She clung to him with both arms. “Get up, boy,” he told the horse and touched it with the spurs.

  Suddenly, they were out in the open, riding after the fleeing women and children and he wondered for how long that way would be open. Glancing right, he saw that soldiers on the ridge were working their way down from cover to cover while others poured a heavy fire down on the riflemen below. The noise was deafening.

  The canelo ran along the side of the creek. Visibility was starting to go now and it was difficult to see how clear the way ahead was. He glanced down at the child in his arms and saw two dark eyes watching him. A white child would have been frightened, but this one did not even cry. Who had ever heard a Cheyenne child cry?

  There were women and old folk all around them now; he could hear the sound of their shuffling steps, the sobbing of their breath it seemed even above the deafening sound of gunfire.

  Suddenly, the flood of humanity stopped. A wail of terror and dismay arose. The flood reversed and came back against them. He saw an old man go down clutching at his belly. A woman screamed; a child circled blindly, its face bloody. A woman went down on all fours, shrieking insanely and crawled leaving a trail of blood in the snow. The canelo panicked a little and jittered away to one side and in the dim light, McAllister saw the dark forms ahead against the pale snow, saw the muzzle-flashes, the smoke, heard the lead smacking into human flesh around him.

  The same panic that had touched the horse reached for him with icy hands. Which way? Was he caught like an animal in a trap?

  He turned in the saddle, searching for a way of escape. />
  The west was the only way. He had come past the left flank of the soldiers firing across the creek. If he could get across the water he might be able to get past them. There was risk involved, but not nearly so much as the risk in staying in the village.

  He swung the canelo toward the water and jumped it down on to the small smooth beach of sand. It didn’t want to enter the water again, but he shouted to it and used the spurs savagely, holding the child tight against his chest. The animal jumped and in a second was knee-deep in water, floundering. McAllister knew at once that he had previously crossed on a ford, but here it was swimming water. So he was going to take the winter dip after all. He shouted to the girl that he would have to swim. She screamed something at him, but he didn’t hear the words, but awkwardly handed the child back to her. Tying the lines to the horn, he threw one leg over the horn and dropped into the water. He tried to cling to the saddle, but failed and went under. The cold of the water snatched his breath violently from him and he came to the surface almost paralysed with cold. He grabbed hold of a stirrup-leather and yelled for the girl to get into the saddle. She obeyed him as he trod water, his boots filled and became heavy and then the canelo was swimming with a will for the opposite bank.

  They were spotted at once and McAllister had a terror that either the girl or the child would be hit. He let the horse go past him and caught hold of the tail, kicking out with his feet. The water around them was torn by seeking bullets, but in seconds it seemed there was solid ground under his feet and he was rising dripping and shaking with cold from his dip. The canelo clattered up on to a stony beach and neighed with annoyance. McAllister grabbed a line and started running north along the beach, but at once ran into deep brush and was forced up onto the bank. No sooner was he up there than he knew that he was being fired at by both bodies of troops. He vaulted on to the canelo’s rump, reached forward for the lines and directed it to the left so that he was travelling north-west. His teeth were chattering with the cold and he seemed to be composed of ice, but, even so, he felt the sharp burn of the bullet as it nicked his left shoulder.

  Then, they seemed out of gunshot. The canelo was running free up a slight incline, laboring under his double burden.

  McAllister looked back; the light was even dimmer now and the soldiers were no more than faint blurs in the murk that seemed to be lit as much by the snow as the light in the sky. He ran the horse for another five minutes, then halted and got off to walk, for he was cold to the bone after his dipping. He strode beside the horse, but the cold still bit, so he broke into a run with the canelo trotting behind him. As he ran he cursed the general and the damn fool soldier boys who had gotten him into this. He cursed himself for allowing them to get him into it. He cursed Many Horses for his goddam obstinacy. If the old fool had lit a shuck none of this would have happened. Strong Bear would have been trounced and he would have run after Many Horses and declared himself a friendly Indian.

  He kept on going for an hour, slowing working his way around into the north in which direction he reckoned the bulk of the people would go. He had to get Falling Leaf and her son back to her people, but he reckoned it wasn’t the best direction for him. That was the way the soldier boys would go when they started chasing Indians. The running had warmed him, but his outer clothing was frozen stiff in the cold. He stopped and looked up at Fallen Leaf no more than a dark shape perched up on the horse. She was shaking with cold. He was a damn fool. He took the two blankets from behind the saddle and gave them to her. Then he went on again, but he knew that soon he would have to stop and light a fire or he, the girl and the child would freeze to death and he for one didn’t intend dying that way or any other way. Not yet awhile, any road.

  The moon came out, a slice of cold light in a calm sky. The beauty of it mocked what he had seen back there by the creek.

  He stumbled into a motte of trees and nothing had ever been more welcome in all his life. He went deep into them, stopped and took the child from Falling Leaf. He helped the Indian girl down and placed the child’s face against his own. It was stiff with cold.

  “I’m going to light a fire,” he said.

  “That’s dangerous,” she told him.

  “I know it. But we’ll die if I don’t.”

  He drew his knife and searched around for kindling. The girl helped him, holding the child in one arm. All the time his teeth were chattering with cold and he shook from head to foot. Warmth at that moment was his only desire in life. He felt he could never get enough of it. He kneeled, preparing tinder, blowing on the dry and carefully prepared bark of the tree with enormous gentleness at first and then harder. Suddenly, the small flame leapt; he applied the kindling and in no time at all the fire was going. He laughed with delight and turning, saw the girl show her teeth, so white in her brown face. The child’s large round dark eyes watched him. He piled on the wood, leaving the girl to look after it and searched around for bigger pieces. Soon he had a fair store piled there. He came and basked in the heat, feeling its life-giving caress on his face. He pulled off the heavy buffalo coat to dry it and give it to the girl. He rigged up a frame of sticks for it and soon it was steaming.

  Searching in his pockets, he found some jerky, gave some to the girl and stuffed some in his own mouth. He kneeled near the fire and the clothes on him started to steam. The girl carefully chewed the jerky before she put some in the child’s mouth.

  Food was going to be the problem. Even if he got her back to her people, the problem would still be there. He knew Anderson. The Cheyenne would lose out whether they stayed or ran. If they stayed, he would burn their winter food stocks; if they ran, they would die of hunger and cold in the snow. It just wasn’t worth being an Indian these days. He gave the girl some more jerky, telling her there wasn’t much and it would have to last. Maybe a miracle would happen tomorrow and they would come on some game. But he didn’t hold out much hope.

  When his front was dry, he turned around and dried his back. He turned the coat so that the other side could steam. Inside an hour, he was dried out. The canelo had made a wretched meal on bark and twigs. It wouldn’t keep him going for a day. Bitterly, McAllister knew there was a possibility of him having to kill the horse.

  God damn, the luck a man could attract to him.

  He stood up and put the fire out. Falling Leaf didn’t say anything, but she sighed and he knew what she felt. Let them stay here, let the soldiers catch them, but let them be warm. Anything rather than face that bitter cold again. He put her up on the horse and handed the child up to her. Then he put the big buffalo coat around her and the child. Nothing showed but her dark head. She laughed, then she protested. The blanket was good enough for her and the child. He told her to hold her noise and bound his hat with his bandanna over the crown and under his chin. One of the blankets he tied around his body, the other he latched behind the saddle and then he moved out, leading the horse.

  Chapter 9

  He was still walking at dawn, groggy on his feet now, face, hands and feet frozen, but the rest of him comparatively warm. The girl nodded in the saddle, cradling her baby. The canelo was wretched, but it showed no tiredness. A horse in a million. He had chosen well.

  He found himself on an apparently endless and treeless plain, rolling away to eternity; a world of white cold overhung now by a lowering sky.

  His sharp eyes searched the back-trail.

  Nothing.

  Nothing but a dead cold world, promising a frozen death. He filled his pipe and lit it, taking it all in, thinking. His thoughts took him nowhere. All he could do was keep on going.

  The girl woke. Her face looked pinched with cold. He gave her the last of the jerky. He went forward on tired legs, the horse plodded through the snow behind.

  He had walked for an hour before the girl called to him. Turning, he saw her pointing away to her right.

  “Look, the people have been this way.”

  He walked to where she was pointing and saw the tracks in the snow. They were mis
shapen now with the action of the wind and it was hard to tell how long ago they had been made. But he could see that four or five people had dragged their tired feet through the snow. There had been one horse with them. He went back to the horse and led it on, following the tracks. Within an hour again, he came to the dead horse. It had been partly butchered, showing that the fugitives had taken what meat they could carry from it. With his knife, he cut several joints and tied them to the saddle of the canelo. The girl chewed on some of the raw meat and declared it good. He went on another mile or so and she said that she would walk now. So they changed places. He took his seat in the saddle, the child in his arms and promptly fell asleep.

  He woke to find that it was snowing heavily and that the tracks they had been following had now disappeared. Visibility was poor and they now had to rely on their instincts to show them the way north. He didn’t like it much and a kind of dread set in on him. When he changed places with the girl again, he found the snow deep and the horse could not have made its way if he had not been ahead to break trail for it. Now that the snow was falling the intense cold seemed less, but he longed for a fire and once more he felt that he could never be warm enough to satisfy him.

  “Do you know where we are?” he asked the girl.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t know even if we’re going in the right direction.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll get you out of this,” though he had no idea how he would.

  He and the girl were now like white ghosts, shrouded in snow. He had a powerful desire to lie down and sleep and sleep. But he must not stop and rest, he must keep on. To stop was death. He walked through noon on legs that were so tired that it was as if he were dragging lead. He could hear the child whimpering now and the girl murmuring to it.

  In the middle of the afternoon, the canelo stopped dead and whinnied. In a daze from the continual whiteness of the snow, McAllister halted and looked around him. He could see nothing. He tried to go forward, but the animal held back. He dropped the line and went forward a short way alone and then he saw it.