Battle Fury

by Matt Chisholm

  It was getting near to dark when Will decided that if Joe were indeed behind, he was putting off the dangerous rescue operation till dawn. Another night in the mountains without cover and possibly without food didn’t please Will too well, but he reckoned he should be thankful that he still had life in his body.

  They halted and the Indians started to chatter among themselves, probably discussing where best to make camp. There was water near, plenty of timber and great boulders that reared up all around them.

  Brack said: ‘If I have any luck, Storm, we’ll make a break for it and these here savages will put paid to you.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Will said conversationally, ‘that would suit you just fine, Brack.’

  ‘I’ll winter my cows on Three Creeks,’ Brack said smugly.

  ‘You might at that,’ Will said, smiling. ‘If you can get rid of Mart an’ Clay an’ George an’ Jody an’ Prescott Harrison an’ your boy Riley. An’ not forgettin’ my own lady-wife.’ He cocked his head on one side. ‘An’ I have a hole-card, too. There’s Joe Widbee who, maybe pretty soon, you’ll be owing your life to.’

  Brack looked sour.

  ‘I ain’t forgot that black sonovabitch burned my house. If there’s any justice in this world, the Utes cut him down.’

  ‘If there was any justice in this world, Brack,’ Will said, ‘your scalp would be on that brave’s bridle or you’d of caught the cholera you found on Broken Spur.’

  Brack pulled a face.

  ‘I’ll say this, Storm,’ he said, ‘you sure livened things up for me.’

  ‘Now,’ Will declared, ‘you’re gettin’ sentimental. It happens before a real dyed in the wool bastard meets his comeuppance.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with you,’ Brack growled, ‘there ain’t no give in you, Storm.’

  ‘Give?’ said Will. ‘All I’d ever give you, Brack, is a kick up the ass.’

  Before Ed Brack could make a suitable reply, it happened.

  And though Will had been thinking about this moment all day, it took him completely by surprise.

  There came the flat slam of a rifle from high in the rocks and the Indian in front of Will fell forward onto the neck of his pony, clutching wildly at the mane.

  Ed Brack’s reaction was fast.

  He struck the warrior in front of him with the ball of his fist and knocked him limply out of his saddle.

  The pony whose rump Will bestrode, tried to pitch under the double burden. The Indian rider fought to stay aboard. Will reached forward and down, grabbed him by his doe hide leggings and heaved him over the side of the horse.

  Rifle-fire now seemed to come from all sides.

  Will thought: All I want now is for me to get a slug from one of my boys.

  His pony was acting up. Once free of its legitimate rider, it kicked up its heels, tucked in its head, screamed in rage and then whirled so abruptly that Will was hurled from its back. He had a brief vision of Brack disappearing in the direction of the creek. Will tried to get to his feet, but the wind had been knocked out of him. Even if he had gained them, it would have availed him nothing. An Indian pony barged into him and knocked him flat. He rolled and a spear buried itself deep into the dirt beside him. Which showed that at least one Indian with his own life at risk could still be intent of robbing Will of his.

  Will floundered like a man in violently rushing water.

  A horseman dashed past him, trying a back-handed blow at him with a war-hammer as he went. Then Will was on his feet and trying to take in what was happening.

  Two horsemen thundered out of nowhere toward him and he thought: I’m a goner.

  As he braced himself, he saw his son Clay’s face over the neck of a horse. The other man was Joe. They would ride either side of him.

  He’d seen the Comanches do this, picking up wounded during a battle. Him playing games like this at his age. It was ridiculous.

  He held out his arms. As they came abreast of him, they leaned from the saddle. He felt his arms grasped and he was torn from his feet.

  Clay yelled: ‘To me, pa—now.’

  Joe released him and he swung himself around, using Clay’s foot as a pivot. Clay’s strong young arm levered him and he found his butt hitting the rising falling rump of Clay’s bay horse. How he stayed on for the remainder of that wild ride, he would never know. Guns seemed to be going off all around him. They clattered through rocks. There was Saul Hoddick crouched behind a boulder, rifle in hands, face grimed with burned powder. Close behind them, Joe bawled for Saul to ride. They were climbing, Clay’s stout but tired horse heaving and straining up the steep slope. Will clung to his son’s hard body.

  They reached a narrow trail running along the side of the hill and Clay turned the horse right along it. The horse was running and Will knew that if the animal put a foot wrong they would be fifty feet below in the rocks with the consistency of jam. After a minute or two, however, the ground flattened out a little and they plunged into sparse timber, weaving this way and that through the trees.

  And suddenly, as they fled, it was night and Joe was hollering for them to stick together. The horses slowed and Joe went into the lead. They climbed again and then dipped into a gully, the horses picking their way carefully. Will was very tired. He looked around and saw the dim figure of a rider behind them.

  ‘Is this all?’ Will asked.

  Clay turned and looked and said: ‘No. Brack rode across the creek. Meredith’ll bring him on.’

  ‘How the Hell do you suppose he’ll find us in the dark?’

  ‘We have a rendezvous. Meredith’ll make out. He has Rile Brack with him.’

  ‘Is that Saul behind?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Who else is there?’

  ‘Mart and George.’

  ‘Where’re they at?’

  ‘Ask yourself, pa. How should I know that?’

  Will bridled —‘Don’t get gay with me, son.’ There was a splutter of shots in the distance, behind them. Will said to Clay: ‘We should ought to go back. That could be one of the boys in trouble.’ It could be his brother or his son. He lifted his voice: ‘Joe, best we go back.’

  ‘Like Hell we go back,’ said Joe.

  ‘That could be Mart or young George.’

  Joe laughed—’It could be ole Brack gettin’ what’s due to him.’

  Will knew it was no good. He wasn’t in charge here. He was the old fool who had gotten himself caught by a passel of wild Indians. The only consolation was that that old fool Ed Brack had gotten himself caught too.

  They drifted on through the darkness. Joe seemed to edge his way through the blanket of night with an uncanny confidence. They advanced in this way for a couple of hours, finding their way through a changing terrain until they found themselves on a bald mountain and there on the rounded head that was crowned with protective boulders, they stopped. Trust Joe to find a rendezvous that could not be approached silently or secretly. They dismounted from their tired horses and Clay gave his father a drink from his canteen. Will sat down with his back against a boulder and fretted about the boys out there in the darkness. After a while the stars started to come out and visibility improved a little.

  Joe said: ‘We don’t talk, we hear that much better.’

  But none of them wanted to talk. Sleep started to stalk up on Will, but he fought it. His conscience ordered him awake until his boys were all in safe and sound. He reckoned in his present mood, he wanted to see even Ed Brack back alive. Which was sentimental foolishness if ever he’d seen it.

  Conscience or no conscience, sleep caught up on him. His chin hit his chest and he never knew it.

  He came awake suddenly, not knowing where he was. He heard a voice whisper: ‘Riders a-comin’, pa,’ and knew it was Clay.

  He rose stiffly to his feet and joined the others at the rampart of boulders, staring across the bare rounded contour of the hill that lay eerily in the starlight.

  There came the sound of the hoofs of walking horses, their metal
shoes clattering on rock. He knew they were a good way off, but the sound carried clearly.

  ‘How many, Joe?’ he asked.

  ‘Two,’ said Joe.

  Which two? Will asked himself. That old fool Brack or two of his own kin and friends?

  The waiting must have lasted an eternity, but finally Saul Hoddick called out: ‘Sing out.’

  ‘Brack,’ came the bellowed reply.

  Clay chuckled—‘No need to ask which Brack.’

  Will groaned. It would have to be that misbegotten self-proclaimed overlord of the West. He wondered who was with him. It would be ironic if it were his own son, Riley.

  And so it proved to be. They came in together, the father still on his little Indian pony, cursing the crude wooden saddle, grumbling that it had practically robbed him of his manhood. Riley was on a blue roan that had traveled that extra mile too far. They dismounted stiffly and Brack demanded of the world if it was right that a son should deny his father a ride in a decent saddle on a decent horse. What kind of a son would speak to him the way Riley had spoken to him?

  Will, still tired, irritable from being abruptly awoken, snapped: ‘He just saved your life. He didn’t have to. He’d be the richest man in Colorado if he’d let them Utes carve you a mite. I reckon them redsticks had the right idea at that.’

  Brack ignored that and demanded to know if there was a man Christian enough to carry some hard liquor on him. Christ, he needed a drink. Saul said he had some but he’d sooner offer it to a coyote. Brack pretended he didn’t hear that, but they all knew he became terribly conscious that Saul had liquor with him. Every now and then he’d look at Saul and smack his lips. Riley asked about those who were not there. Will said they didn’t know about them. They would have to wait. Joe said they couldn’t wait much after dawn or they’d have the whole Ute nation down on them. Will said they’d wait all the following day if they had to, he wasn’t going home without George, Mart or Meredith. At least one of them must be wounded or dead. You didn’t jump a party of fighting Utes and get away unscathed. Men shrugged into coats or sat with blankets wrapped around their shoulders. Will started to worry that George had been separated from the others and could not find his way. Joe retorted that George could look out for himself, Will was no better’n a woman, the way he fretted.

  Toward dawn, when some of them were dozing, Saul called softly: ‘Rider comin’.’

  Will came guiltily out of a doze and heard the slow climbing hoofs of a single horse. They all hurried to the rocky rampart and stared down below. Joe sang out and there came the reply: ‘George here.’

  Will climbed the boulders and ran down the hill and found his middle son slumped in the saddle of an exhausted horse. He reached up and gripped his son’s hand.

  ‘You all right, boy?’

  ‘Sure, pa. Just nicked in the arm. Mart acted like I was dead or somethin’. Made me come on ahead.’

  They went together up into the rocks and George told his story after Saul had given him a drink of whiskey. Brack nearly went crazy at the sight of the liquor, but he didn’t get any. While they dressed George’s wound with rag torn from the tail of a shirt, the boy told his story.

  He and Meredith and Mart had been cut off by the Utes west of the creek and they’d run for it. After a while Meredith’s horse put a foot in a hole and they’d forted up and fought the Utes off. That was when George got hit. They’d circled wide to reach the rendezvous, but the Utes had followed them. Mart thought they would keep on till they came on this place. So he and Meredith had laid an ambush about three miles back. Mart’s message was that, if Will had any sense, he and the rest of the outfit would head for home.

  ‘Like Hell we’ll head for home,’ Will said. ‘George, you know where they’re layin’ for the Utes?’

  ‘I don’t have no idea,’ said George.

  ‘Ain’t this a Hell of a thing to happen,’ Will said.

  They waited, chewing on the jerky they had with them and washing it down with sips of water from their canteens. Brack complained that he wanted to go on home and they told him to shut his head. About two hours after dawn, they heard distant shooting. That brought Will into action.

  ‘Saddle up, boys,’ he said, ‘we’re a-goin’ back.’

  But they didn’t go back. They were no sooner saddled than they heard horses. Not so long after, they saw horses and riders come out of the timber line below. One of the horses was limping. Pretty soon they could see it was Mart and Meredith. They lifted their eyes beyond them, to see if there were any Indians following, but they could see nothing. Maybe the Utes were hanging back under cover of the timber at the sight of the armed white men on the bald mountain.

  Mart and Meredith seemed in good spirits, though tired to the bone. Meredith didn’t say anything much, keeping the silence that had come to him after the killing of his brother Charlie. Mart slid from his exhausted horse and said: ‘Merry an’ me, we sure shot the butts of them Indians.’

  Will said: ‘That was a damn-fool play.’

  ‘Is that so?’ said Mart. ‘I reckon it saved the army comin’ out. Them boys ain’t a-goin’ to bother us awhiles. Just the same, my vote says we don’t hang around an’ tempt ’em none.’

  They all thought that was a good idea and they started out down the far side of the mountain, going slowly and tiredly. Brack said, not looking at Saul—Goddam a man who was so cussed ornery he would deprive a fellow man of a drink of the hard stuff.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They came to Tall Rock on Three Creeks mid-morning on the following day. By this time, men and beasts were fit to drop. There weren’t enough horses to go around so the men took turns to walk.

  The two creeks at Tall Rock was a shock to them. They stopped on the ridge above the water and stared, unable to believe their eyes. Where there had been a multitude of men, there was now no more than a handful.

  ‘What happened?’ said George.

  Mart laughed. ‘I reckon they ran out of gold.’

  They all looked at Ed Brack and he glowered.

  Will said: ‘Be kinda funny, Brack, if there was still gold a-plenty on Broken Spur.’

  Brack gave a growl of disgust. It was possible, his expression said. The whole damned world was against him.

  They rode down and spoke to a couple of men panning in the shallows. There was a hopeless air about them; they were men who were working on other men’s leavings. The heart had gone out of them.

  ‘Where’d the others go?’ Saul asked.

  One of them jerked his head north—‘They’re all on Broken Spur. They found gold on the eastern side an’ they reckon there’s more shafts been sunk over there than there’s days in the year.’

  They looked at Brack again. It was worth the look. The man looked as if he could murder the world.

  They went on slowly across the water to the creek trail that would take them home. Will said to Brack: ‘You’d best sleep the night at our place, Brack. Then we’ll go up to your place and dig some graves if there’s anythin’ left to bury.’

  Brack halted—‘Don’t play the goddam Samaritan with me, you self-righteous bastard, Storm. I don’t need anybody. I’ll bury my own dead. You think this has finished me. You were never wronger in your life. Broken Spur is just one of six ranges. I’ll swamp you yet.’

  Will looked at him, long and cool.

  ‘Do as you think fit,’ he said without rancor. ‘It just purely amazes me a man as smart as you don’t never learn.’

  Brack turned his Indian pony and walked it way into the north-east. Young Riley Brack gigged his horse and started after him.

  George started to say: ‘What?’ but Will told him to hold his tongue.

  Riley fell in beside his father and Ed swung in the saddle to glower at him from under beetled brows.

  ‘What the Hell do you want?’ he demanded.

  ‘Thought I’d ride along and give you a hand, father,’ Riley said.

  ‘I don’t need help,’ Brack snarled.
>
  ‘Your crew’s dead—what’s left of it and there’s diggers all over,’ Riley told him. ‘If you don’t need help now, you don’t never need it.’

  His father stared at him, wondering at the change in this boy who not so long before flinched at a word from him.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ he said.

  Riley said, calm as you please: ‘I always suit myself, sir. Just the way you do.’

  ‘Don’t sass me, boy,’ Brack said and some of the fight seemed to have gone out of his voice.

  Riley said: ‘This isn’t sass. This is one man talking to another. You can accept me on that level or not at all. You can suit yourself.’

  ‘Maybe the Storms taught you to rope and shoot,’ Brack said, ‘but they didn’t do much for your manners.’

  But that was mild. Riley knew that there was some kind of change in his father.

  An hour or more later, they reached the house and found the grisly remains of the crew. The vultures and coyotes hadn’t left much. Silently, they corralled their horses and started work with spades and picks. Together, they buried what was left of the crew. They said nothing over the graves, but Brack led the way into the house. He went straight to his office and found his bottle. He uncorked it and looked at his son standing there in the doorway. The boy was a man now, lean and hard. The eyes had lost their temerity. They looked at Brack now with a kind of objective curiosity.

  ‘You learned to drink since you were on Three Creeks?’ the father demanded.

  Riley smiled.

  ‘I didn’t have to learn,’ he said. ‘I inherited the ability from my father.’

  Brack nodded, filled two glasses to the brim and handed one to his son. They sat.

  ‘Why’d you really come here?’ Ed asked.

  ‘You have no crew, two sides of your range are over-run with miners and you have one thousand head of cattle with nobody to look after them. You’ll need somebody around while you get together a fresh crew.’