Ride the Moon Down

by Terry C. Johnston

  “Take your men off too, Scratch.”

  Bass peered over them, having already made his choices. Nodding to each man in turn, he picked Sweete, Meek, and Newell, along with two men he didn’t know well but who appeared to be weathered veterans of Indian scrapes. Leaving the remaining ten behind with Walker and William Craig, Titus released his horse from the brush and led it on foot toward the broad, shallow ravine that would take them down to the south bank of the Green.

  He halted his outfit among the brush growing at the mouth of the ravine where they waited. Anxious to be atop the horse and moving, Scratch found this waiting hardest to endure. He checked the priming in the four pistols he had stuffed into his belt, then flipped back the frizzen to see the rifle’s pan was primed.

  “There,” whispered Sweete.

  Titus snapped his eyes to the island, saw Walker’s men reaching the grassy sandbar. “Let’s ride, boys.”

  “Walker’s plan just may work after all,” Meek cheered as they went into the saddle and started their horses onto the ice.

  “We get them ponies to the north bank,” Sweete declared as they picked their way toward the east end of the island, “we can start ’em off at a run and Thompson’s men won’t stand a chance of catching us.”

  But by the time Walker had the first of the horses off the bank, the nervous animals were finding the ice so soft that their hooves were beginning to sink into the spongy surface. Some balked, halting and attempting to turn back as those horses behind them were goaded by Walker’s men waving rawhide lariats, or pieces of blanket and buckskin.

  When that first frightened horse whinnied, Scratch knew their soup was shot. A handful of the ponies immediately neighed in fear or warning to the rest as they balled up there on the ice that started to sink beneath their combined weight.

  In surprise Bass looked down as his own horse suddenly shifted beneath him. They had reached that part of the river where the ice was being undercut by the warmer, spring-fed water. The pony jerked its head, fighting the reins as he jabbed heels back into its flanks. Around him the others struggled with their horses across the next few yards, every soggy step of the way as the riders continued to sink past the hooves, then the pasterns, and slowly up to the knees by the time they reached the middle of the river where the ice was clearly as soft as newly boiled oatmeal on a winter morn.

  To their left Walker’s men were having a bad time of it, each of them in among the more than sixty horses—whipping, whistling, driving the animals across the river as they continued to sink on the cracking surface, water flooding onto the thick sections of rolling, pitching, floundering ice, splashing the men up to their thighs.

  At the distant warning Scratch jerked, twisting to the right. A figure stood just outside the stockade gate, an arm pumping at those inside as he sent up the alarm.

  “Wolf’s been let out to howl now!” Titus roared.

  It was as if the six of them were moving sluggishly, every bit as slow as thick molasses poured over johnny-cakes. Sweete and the rest were just turning to look at the fort as both sides of the small gate were flung open and at least fifteen men belched out at once. Instantly angry, they were yelling to one another and bellowing at the horsemen floundering in the middle of the river with those stolen ponies.

  “Keep a’coming!” Scratch hollered as they neared the north bank.

  Twisting back to his left, he saw Carson’s men already on shore. In that next moment Walker’s horse was lunging off the ice, clawing its way among the leaders of the herd to clamber onto solid ground. Every animal was dripping, stopping briefly to shudder. But the moment Walker was joined by another four of his men, they had the horses turning.

  A shot rang out. A puff of smoke emerged from a muzzle of one of those guns at the stockade as Scratch heard the ball pass his ear.

  “Don’t shoot, goddammit!” Just outside the palisades a voice was shrieking, perhaps the one of their number shoving down the muzzles of nearby guns. “Them’r white men!”

  Closing in on the north bank, no more than a hundred yards from the fort now, Titus could make out the angry clamor.

  “Ain’t Injuns?”

  “Don’t shoot—they’re white niggers!”

  “What the hell they doing with—”

  “They stealing our horses!”

  Walker had those first horses turned east.

  East?

  Bass couldn’t figure it. Walker and his men had the horses running now—but instead of driving them west along that north bank of the Green, running them away from the fort … they were stampeding the wet, frozen, frightened herd straight for the stockade and Thompson’s horse thieves.

  “Shoot ’em, I say!” a voice cried out at the wall.

  “Ain’t gonna shoot no white man!”

  “I’ll shoot any man what steals my goddamned horses!”

  The thieves were arguing among themselves, some shoving one another in angry frustration, as Bass’s men reached the bank, their own half-frozen, waterlogged horses scratching with their hooves at the icy shore, lumbering onto the flaky ground covered by a thin layer of dead grass.

  “C’mon, Scratch!” Walker was yelling off to Bass’s left, loping his way as he drove the herd toward Titus’s men.

  They were no more than eighty yards from the thieves milling in front of the open gates.

  “You heard the booshway!” Scratch hollered. “Keep them horses moving!”

  Meek, Newell, Sweete, and the rest yipped and bellowed as they kicked their weary, cold horses into motion, stringing out along both sides of the oncoming herd as it overtook them, joining in that gallop toward Robidoux’s post.

  At the front of the ponies Walker stood in the stirrups, screaming, “Get outta our way, you sonsabitches! Get back! Get back outta our way or you’re hoof-jam!”

  “What the hell’s he doing?” one of the thieves squeaked in a shrill, frightened voice as the horses bore down on them.

  In the next instant every figure standing in front of those gates exploded left or right as they realized the herd was making directly for them. Scattering like a flushed covey of quail busted from the underbrush by a coyote, the thieves screamed, cursed, and shrieked in horror as they tumbled out of the way in a roiling mass of elbows and legs, grunts and yelps.

  Walker hollered, “Don’t stop ’em now, Scratch!”

  Before Bass realized it, he was among the lead horses as they shot through the opened gate. Unsure, he reined back quickly as the horses jostled and shoved against each other in this small space where they were suddenly corralled. Here, there, and over there too, men stood pinned against the low-roofed cabins built against the inside of the palisades. Outside the gate men were hollering angrily.

  Slowly turning his horse in the milling madness, Bass spotted Carson and Owens reaching the gates, driving the last of the horses into the fort. Walker and three others were already out of the saddle, on their feet, and sprinting along the walls to reach the opening where they heaved against the huge gate timbers, quickly muscling those two sections together and sealing up the fort.

  Beyond the walls, just on the far side of those gate timbers, men cursed, some calling out the names of those they had recognized among Walker’s outfit.

  Of a sudden they were hushed by one voice, a voice that hollered out as the horses snorted around Walker and the rest.

  “Billy? That really you, Billy Craig?”

  “I’m in here, Phil,” the trader answered Thompson.

  “What you pulling with our horses, you stupid son of a bitch?”

  This time Walker yelled. “I’m the son of a bitch, Thompson.”

  “Thort that was you, Joe Walker!” a new voice cried.

  “It’s me, Peg-Leg,” Walker announced.

  “Best you tell us what’s going on with our horses a’fore we bust in there and spill some blood!” Thompson warned.

  “Try your damnedest!” Bass hollered. “Them gates is barred shut, boys!”

 
“What you want with our horses?” Peg-Leg Smith asked.

  “Ain’t your horses!” Scratch shouted, slowly working his horse through the herd toward the gate.

  “We took ’em. Fair is fair!” Thompson argued.

  Sweete roared with laughter. “Ain’t yours if you can’t hold on to ’em!”

  “We’ll come in and get ’em!”

  Walker shouted, “That’s one sure way to spill a lot of blood, Thompson. Now, you can think this over and let us ride on outta here … or you can pull some idjit trick get a lot of men hurt bad.”

  “Sure—that shines!” Thompson replied just outside the gate. “You boys go on and ride outta here. Leave the horses and we’ll let you go as you please!”

  At the gate Titus shouted, “We’re taking the horses back to them Snakes you stole ’em from!”

  “They ours now!”

  “So we’re coming in for you niggers!”

  “Come right on!” Walker goaded the thieves. “There’s a few more of us in here than there is of you boys out there! Make a quick fight of it!”

  Just beyond the gate they could hear the thieves arguing among themselves, little more than a murmur of angry voices for a long time until Thompson stomped up to the wall once more and shouted through a crack in the timbers.

  “You don’t wanna come out to save your hides—that’ll be fine by us. We’ll get them Yutas camped just down the river to help us bust you outta there.”

  Walker turned to look at a sheepish Antoine Robidoux. When the trapper pulled a pistol from his belt and brought its hammer back to full cock, the trader shrugged helplessly. Walker held the weapon under the trader’s nose. “How the hell you callate them Yutas wanna help you horse-stealers?”

  “You ain’t so stupid, Joe!” Thompson cried. “Every one of their warriors help us kill you niggers, we’ll give ’em a horse. That way we’ll get all the horses back and rub you bastards out too!”

  Turning back to Robidoux, Walker grabbed a handful of the trader’s capote. In a whisper the trapper demanded, “Them Injuns help Thompson like he says they will?”

  Robidoux was just opening his mouth to speak when Bass snarled, “I don’t know what this here son of a bitch, parley-voo turncoat got to say to that, Joe—but I damn well will wager my own hide that them Yutas won’t mix in this here fight.”

  “That’s good ’nough for me, Scratch.” Walker let go of Robidoux, shoving the trader back. “Go fetch your Yutas, Thompson! They’ll make this here scrap a real interesting fight!”

  “You asked for it, you skunks!” the thief cried as if he had been wounded. “We’ll burn every last one of you outta there and hang your scalps from our belts when we’re done ripping your hearts out!”

  After it had been quiet a few minutes, Walker pointed to the trader. “Robidoux—get my men some tobaccy!”

  His eyes blinked nervously. “You gonna pay for it?”

  “We ain’t thieves like Thompson’s bunch,” Scratch growled. “I figger all you got is that piss-poor Mex tobaccy anyways.”

  “It come from Taos,” Robidoux agreed.

  Walker nodded. “If all you got is Mex, we’ll leave you one of these here horses when we go. That ought’n pay for some tobaccy and what we’ll drink while we’re in here.”

  “What you’ll d-drink?” Robidoux flustered, growing more assured. “I don’t want nothing from you in trade because Thompson’s gonna have your men drove outta here—”

  “If he tries that foolishness,” Bass vowed, “you’ll be the first I’ll kill.”

  Turning on Titus with a jerk, Robidoux went white. “Me? Wh-why kill me? I didn’t steal no—”

  “You took them horse thieves in here!” Walker grumbled. “If Bass don’t shoot you, I will.”

  “Awright,” the cowed Frenchman relented as he turned away. “I go get your tobacco now.”

  “Go with him, Doc,” Walker ordered. “See he don’t do nothing gonna make me kill him here and now.”

  “Hey, Robidoux—we’ll leave you one of these here scrawny English horses in trade!” Sweete cried as some of the others started to cackle and laugh.

  But Walker didn’t join in their mirth. “Kit—climb on up there on that wall and see what’s going on.”

  An hour passed. The trader reappeared with Newell to pass out a twist of tobacco to every one of Joe Walker’s men. Then a little more time crawled by when Carson suddenly grew animated at the top of the wall.

  He shouted down to Walker. “Joe! Joe! Thompson’s coming back with some Yutas!”

  One of the trappers growled, “Goddamn you, Bass!”

  “Shuddup!” Walker whirled on him.

  “Sorry, Joe,” Titus apologized as the booshway stepped over to him. “Didn’t figger them Injuns would come.”

  Walker wagged his head. “Shit. I didn’t figger them Yutas for helping the bastards neither.” He turned to yell at Carson. “How many?”

  “Twenty. Maybe thirty of ’em I see now.”

  For a moment Walker fell silent. Finally he sighed. “Scratch, you know any of that tongue?”

  “First winter I spent in the mountains,” he admitted, “I learned me some … from a gal.”

  Grinning, Walker said, “If’n you picked it up from a woman, then you’ll damn well know enough to talk to a buck.”

  “Walker!”

  Thompson’s voice came from just outside the gate again.

  Joe demanded, “You here to tell me you brung them bucks here to fight us, ain’cha?”

  “Last chance! Open up the gates, and we’ll let you go a’fore any of you gets kill’t!”

  “Go to the devil!” Meek hollered.

  Peg-Leg Smith yelled, “That’s just where we’re fixing to send you, Joe!”

  Walker grabbed Bass’s arm. “Get on up that wall with Kit. Start talking to them Yutas—now!”

  “A goddamned mess the way things turned out,” Shad grumbled as he followed Bass up the rungs of the narrow ladder to the top of the palisades to join Carson. “White men paying Injuns to rub out other white men.”

  “These mountains gone to hell, that’s for sure,” Scratch said as they reached the top and cautiously peered over.

  Kit pointed at the last of those warriors just then emerging from the brush downriver. Quickly scanning the horsemen, Bass counted at least forty. That, along with Thompson’s thieves, made for some three-to-one odds.

  “S’pose it’s time to dust off my Yuta,” he whispered as he stood slowly. “A mite rusty …”

  He cleared his throat as the white men started to turn, peering up at him, pointing.

  “Ute men,” he shouted in the tongue he hadn’t used in years. Then repeated the simple address. “Ute men—listen to me. These white men … bad.”

  Bass pointed at Thompson’s thieves, who were beginning to murmur as the warriors turned their heads, giving Scratch their attention. He repeated, “Yes—these white men bad. Bad. Steal horses from white men. Steal horses from …”

  But he couldn’t remember the Ute word for Shoshone. Instead, he made the wiggling movement with his hand and forearm. Every warrior should understand that universal sign.

  “These bad white men steal horses from the … and we take the horses back to the …”he said, pantomiming the snake wriggle both times. “White talker!”

  Bass turned to find the warrior who dropped to the ground and started toward the fort wall. He asked, “You are chief?”

  “I am war chief. Come to help these white men take back their horses from you. These men say you are the bad white men. Ask us to help. Promise us horses to kill you bad white men.”

  “You kill us, you get horses,” Scratch said. “But some of you die here. Blood on this ground.”

  “We rub you out quick, none of my warriors die.”

  “Perhaps …” Bass shouted down sternly, his confidence growing as more of the language came back to him. “But we are here to get the horses ourselves because the other tribe tell us they will
come here to get their horses if we don’t bring them back.”

  Titus could tell the man was turning that over in his head, what with the way his brow suddenly furrowed in deep thought.

  “Warriors from the other tribe told us they do not want to kill white men, but said they will kill white men because these white men stole from them.”

  The war chief turned to gaze at Thompson.

  “If you help these bad white men,” Scratch pressed on, “if you kill us and take some of these horses for yourselves, one day the other tribe will learn that you helped the thieves kill the men who came here to help them.”

  Now the war chief gazed up at Bass standing at the top of the wall.

  “The other tribe will be angry with the Ute—for helping the men who took horses from them, and for taking their horses as a reward for killing us,” Titus explained.

  “How will they know about us?” the chief demanded haughtily.

  “They know about you, because they told us the bad white men had come here.”

  “They know we are camped here?”

  “Yes. So they will come to this place … and rub out the Ute who helped the white men steal their horses.”

  With a whirl of fringe and feathers and unbraided hair, the war chief turned to stomp away, grumbling at a handful of warriors to join him. For long minutes they huddled together, conversed in low, angry tones, until the war chief turned back to Bass.

  “We go!”

  “You do right,” Scratch congratulated.

  The moment the war chief and the others leaped atop their ponies, Thompson and the rest set up a pained, furious howl, darting among the forty-some warriors, gesturing at the fort, yelling, patting the Indian horses as if to emphasize that they would earn a booty for their assistance in killing the men holed up inside the walls.

  Leaning down from the top of the palisades, Bass announced to Walker, “The Injuns—they’re riding off!”

  Those men in the compound among the frightened, milling horses set up a wild cheer.

  “You sonsabitches!” Thompson roared in anger, hammering the side of his fist against the outside of the gate as Bass, Carson, and Sweete clambered down the narrow ladder to the courtyard.