by Len Levinson
One by one, the other horses crossed the river. Children clapped their hands and shrieked gleefully, and dogs swam across on their own. Finally the last wagon floated over the current. Wayne Collins held his reins grimly, and his two companions looked apprehensively at the rapids. They made it across without any damage and cheered as their horses pulled them up the riverbank on the far side.
“We’ll make camp here!” Taggart shouted. “Circle the wagons around! Help ’em out, Stone!”
Stone rode in the midst of the wagons and barked orders as in the days when he commanded old Troop C. The wagons coalesced into a circle and settled down. The travelers freed their horses from their harnesses, watered them, and let them graze. Stone removed his saddle and blanket from his horse and picketed him in the grass. Then he returned to Taggart’s wagon.
Taggart still was out with his horses. Stone sat down and looked at the map. Tomorrow they’d continue upriver for several miles, then head southwest through a pass.
After that, according to the map, the country would be wide open for more than a hundred miles.
Taggart returned to the wagon. ‘Time for supper.” He took his pots and pans out of the covered wagon, while Stone walked toward his horse. He rubbed him down with dry grass as the fragrance of pork drifted across the campsite.
“Come and git it!” Taggart shouted.
Stone returned to the wagon, sat on the ground, and ate the usual beans and bacon. He was getting sick of it and hoped they’d shoot fresh meat soon.
After the meal, he helped Taggart clean the dishes and pots. The sun wouldn’t go down for a few hours, and Stone wasn’t tired. He looked up at the bluffs and wondered if he could climb up there. The view should be stupendous.
“I think I’m going to take a look from the top of the bluffs.” Stone said to Taggart.
“Ain’t you forgettin’ somethin’?” Taggart asked.
“What’s that?”
“Yer rifle. I wouldn’t go anywheres without it, if I was you.”
Stone pulled his rifle from his boot next to his saddle and headed for the bottom of the bluffs. He found a path and climbed it, pausing regularly to look at the surrounding country. Down at the campsite, some of the children whistled and waved to him, and he waved back.
He pushed his way upward and finally made it to the top of the bluff. Now he could see in the other direction, and the rolling plains continued on to the horizon. Stone had read somewhere that the horizon was approximately ten miles away at sea level, so he imagined that the horizon from his viewpoint might be twice that.
He looked back to the country over which they’d traveled that day, and it’d been a good distance. The town of Crawford was far away behind the mists of the horizon. Again, Stone marveled at the vastness of the land. A man could escape civilization and find peace, if that’s what he was looking for.
Stone rolled a cigarette and lit it as the sun dropped lower in the sky. He sat on the ground and thought again of how nice it’d be to live here on the wild frontier, far from the strife and madness of civilization.
An eerie feeling came over him, as if he weren’t alone. He turned his head around but didn’t see anything except trees and bushes. Dropping onto his belly, he moved his rifle into position to fire. He concentrated his mind and listened for unusual sounds, but didn’t hear anything.
He waited a few minutes. Nothing happened, but he couldn’t dispel the notion that something or somebody was watching him.
He remembered what Taggart had told him. The Indians would see him before he saw them. He realized the top of the bluffs would provide an ideal observation post for watching wagons coming from the east.
Stone backed up, holding his rifle ready to fire. He came to the path and went down quickly, glancing around to see whether anybody was following him. You could escape from civilization, but you had to worry about Indians.
He made his way to ground level and walked to Taggart’s fire. Taggart was sitting beside it, conferring with Jason Fenwick, the prosperous farmer. Taggart looked up as Stone approached.
“We’ve got a problem,” Taggart said, then turned to Fenwick. “You tell him.”
Fenwick was heavy set and perspiring. He pushed his hat to the back of his head. “Well,” he said, “I went with my family to look at our horses, and when we came back to the wagon, things weren’t quite the same as when we left. Somebody’d been through our stuff. It wasn’t that obvious, but my wife, Mary, has a good eye for details, and she noticed that certain items had been moved.” Fenwick looked to his left and right furtively. “We’re carrying a fairly substantial sum of money with us, you know, because we intend to buy land in Texas. I’m afraid somebody on this wagon train tried to steal my money.”
Taggart said, “That’s a very serious accusation, Mister Fenwick.”
“It’s the truth, and I thought I’d better tell you about it, since you’re the wagon master.”
Stone asked, “Anything missing?”
“Nothing I could see.”
“Don’t never leave yer wagon unguarded,” Taggart said. “Captain Stone and I’ll keep an eye on it.”
“I have just about everything I own with me in that wagon. I’d hate to have it stolen.”
“We understand how you feel, Mister Fenwick. We’ll do everything we can.”
Fenwick stood, brushed off the seat of his pants, and walked back to his wagon.
“Nothing worse than havin’ thieves in a wagon train,” Taggart said. “Makes everybody suspicious of everybody else. Not much we can do about it except keep our eyes open.” He puffed his cigar and looked at the top of the bluffs. “You see anythin’ interestin’ when you were up there?”
“I think I had company.”
“Injuns?”
“I didn’t see any, but somebody was up there. I could feel them. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true.”
“It’s not so strange. I know the feeling myself. Some people know when danger’s around whether they can see it or not. It’s a good thing they didn’t put an arrow in your ass.”
“I think they’re watching us right now.”
“They probably are. They pay attention to everything that passes through their country.”
“Think they’ll attack?”
“Hard to say. Depends on how many of them they are and what kind of weapons they have. We’ll find out soon enough.”
Taggart looked back to the top of the bluffs that made a dim outline against the twilight sky. The sun already was out of sight behind the bluffs. A coyote howled somewhere in the distance, and a night bird squawked.
“Don’t you think we should post guards?” Stone asked.
“Injuns don’t attack at night, but we might have something to worry about tomorrow.”
“You don’t seem very worried about it.”
“What’s there to worry about? I been through this too many times. If the Injuns attack, the onliest thing you can do is fight ’em. There ain’t as many Injuns around these days as there used to be, and they ain’t never stopped me yet. We might lose some people, but we’ll get through all right. We’re a pretty big party, you know. The Injuns only attack when they see an easy victory, and this wagon train ain’t gonna be no easy victory. Like you said once: Nobody’s lookin’ to die, not even Injuns.”
Chapter Six
The wagon train moved out early in the morning, following the trail alongside the river, and then it turned west.
The plains rolled toward the horizon, and in all that space there was nothing but the creak of wagons and the pounding of horses’ hooves. The sun shone brightly, and Stone rode ahead of the wagons, reconnoitering the country. Shortly before noon he saw dumps of brown bushes covering the plains for miles, but as he observed them more closely, he saw they were moving.
Buffalo. He’d heard about the great herds, and there they were, like a carpet over the terrain, thousands of them. Wheeling his horse, he galloped back to the lead wagon.
; “Buffalo!” Stone said to Taggart, pointing to the north. “A whole herd of them. Should I shoot some?”
“I’d better go with you.”
Stone raised his hand to stop the wagon train, and the wagons pulled to a halt behind him. Taggart saddled one of the riding horses as Reverend McGhee approached from the rear of the train.
“What’re we stopping for, Taggart?”
“Fresh meat. You stay here with the others and wait for us to come back.”
Taggart climbed onto his horse and rode with Stone toward the buffalo. “They got a keen sense of smell,” Taggart said. “We’ve got to approach them from upwind.”
They angled their horses toward the upwind side of the herd, and the buffalo grazed peacefully, paying no attention to them.
“That’s a lot of buffalo,” Stone said.
“This is just a small herd compared to what they used to be. Hunters and rawhiders are killin’ ’em all. In another ten or twenty years, there won’t be none left. Think we’d better dismount here before we spook ’em.”
Stone reined in his horse and climbed down. He and Taggart picketed the horses in a thicket.
“We gotta creep up on ’em real slow and easy,” Taggart said. “When I give the word, open fire. Aim right here,” he pointed to his left armpit, “that’s where their heart is. The main thing is be quiet. We’ll shoot as many as we can.”
Taggart dropped to his belly and crawled toward the buffalo that were about five hundred yards away. Stone followed, cradling his rifle in his arms. They made their way across the grassy plain and gradually closed the distance between them and the buffalo.
The buffalo had short horns and huge heads covered with woolly hair. Stone thought they were the most freakish-looking creatures he’d ever seen. They mooed like cows and cropped grass peacefully, unaware that death was stalking them.
Taggart stopped moving, turned to Stone, and winked. He pressed the butt of his rifle against his shoulder and took aim. Stone followed his example and lined up his sights on a gigantic buffalo grazing directly in front of him.
Taggart’s rifle boomed in the afternoon, and a buffalo in the herd crumpled to its knees. A moment later Stone pulled his trigger, and his buffalo raised its head in surprise. Then the buffalo’s knees buckled and it collapsed onto the ground.
The other buffalo raised their heads and sniffed the air. Then they moved away from the gunshot in a rolling brown mass, mooing and hooting. Stone jacked the lever of his rifle and took aim at the rear end of a buffalo just as Taggart fired again. Stone squeezed his trigger, and the rear legs of his buffalo gave out. The buffalo tried to move forward on his front legs alone, and Stone shot it again, and then again. The animal dropped to the ground, coughing blood.
The herd thundered away, streaming over hills and through the long, wide canyons, and the ground shook with the pounding of their hooves. Five buffalo lay motionless on the grass.
Taggart got to his feet. “You stay here with ’em, and I’ll go back for the others. We’ll have a feast tonight, m’boy.”
Taggart walked back to his horse, and Stone advanced to take a closer look at the dead buffalo. They lay on the ground, bleeding from holes in their torsos, their tongues hanging out, and their eyes open and staring. Stone dropped to one knee and rolled a cigarette. How quickly death could come when you least expected it.
It had been like that in the war. You could have a friend, and next day he’d be dead. He’d lost many friends in the war, and after a while he stopped being friendly.
Something prompted Stone to turn around. A butte was behind him, and he thought he saw a man standing on top of it. Stone blinked his eyes. The man was gone. Had he hallucinated, or did he actually see somebody?
He couldn’t be sure. The bright sun and broad vistas were making his eyes play tricks, but he was in Indian country and maybe he’d seen an Indian.
He turned around and saw the wagon train approaching. The line broke apart as the individual wagons approached the ground where the buffalo were lying. Taggart brought his wagon to a stop and jumped down.
“I thought I saw a man on that butte over there,” Stone said, pointing.
Taggart turned to look. “If it was an Injun, you wouldn’t’ve seen him at all. Might’ve been a white man. Might’ve been a coyote. Hard to say.”
The other travelers gathered around the dead buffalo. The children appeared fascinated. Alice McGhee looked sick.
“Let’s skin and butcher ’em,” Taggart said.
He yanked out his knife and began cutting, and blood oozed onto the ground. Taggart slit his animal’s belly and tore out its liver. He bit off a raw chunk of it, red blood staining his white mustache.
“Best part,” he said with satisfaction.
The travelers butchered the buffalo and divided the meat. Then they built fires, because it would last longer cooked.
The campsite took on a festive air as the buffalo were stripped of their skins and meat. Soon only the bloody bones and entrails were left. Fragrant spirals of smoke rose into the sky. Stone figured that the meat ought to last several days, and then, if they were lucky, they’d find another herd.
The travelers enjoyed a big feast of buffalo steaks, then packed the remainder of the cooked meat, loaded it into their wagons, and rolled toward Texas again, leaving the carcasses of the dead buffalo behind.
Stone took the point again, riding in a southwesterly direction. They continued until dark and stopped for the night at the edge of a forest, where they made camp.
Before dawn they were awake again, and it was a cloudy day. They ate buffalo meat and moved out again, advancing steadily across the prairie. They didn’t stop for lunch, eating buffalo meat while the wagons rumbled over the rocks and holes in the ground.
In the late afternoon, Stone saw a profusion of trees and vegetation, the water hole where they were supposed to spend the night. He rode ahead to investigate.
It was an island of trees in the middle of a sea of grass. Stone saw no tracks on the ground and no sign of Indians. The trees could conceal a substantial number of them, and Stone drew his rifle out of its scabbard, peering ahead suspiciously.
He rode into the trees, and it was silent and cool. The trees were tall, blocking out the light. Stone followed the trail and came to the water hole, clear as glass. He climbed down from his horse, led it forward, and let it drink as he scrutinized the trees and bushes for shapes or movements that might indicate the presence of Indians. Finding nothing threatening, he took off his hat, lay down, and kissed his lips to the water.
It was sweet and cold, and he gulped it down eagerly. Next to him, his horse slurped noisily.
Stone heard a thunk sound next to him. He lurched around and saw an arrow sticking out of the ground only three inches away from his knee. He dived to the ground, pulled out his pistols and cocked the hammers.
It was silent and dark in the grove of trees, but he knew an Indian, or maybe more than one Indian, was out there. That arrow didn’t launch itself into the air without help.
He was sure the Indians could see him, but he couldn’t see them. He peered into the foliage, but there was nothing. He was a sitting duck, because he’d walked to the water hole without taking precautions. The uneventful day had lulled him into a sense of safety, but there was no safety now. If that arrow had flown a few inches higher, he’d be a dead man. He raised a pistol and fired three shots into the air to warn the wagon train.
The sound of the shots reverberated over the prairie. He couldn’t hear the wagon train anymore and assumed it’d stopped. Taggart was wondering what happened.
Stone picked up his rifle and sighted down the barrel. What if the Indians rushed him? All he could do was fight them off as best he could. What are they waiting for? He examined the bushes and trees in front of him but couldn’t see anything. He wondered if the Indians were still there.
“Hello, Stone!” Taggart shouted in the distance.
“I’m in here!” Stone re
plied. “Somebody shot an arrow at me!”
“Stay where you are! We’ll be right there! Don’t shoot any of us by mistake!”
Stone held his rifle tightly and wondered what the Indians were up to. They could kill him easily if there were enough of them, but maybe it was just a lone brave who’d already run off after scaring the white man half to death.
Taggart’s head popped up from a bush in front of him. “Are you all right?”
“He missed me.”
“If he missed you, maybe he didn’t want to hit you.”
Taggart stood, his rifle in his hands, and pushed his way out of the bush. He was followed by the Reverend Joshua McGhee, Stewart Donahue, Jason Fenwick, and a few of the others. Stone pulled the arrow out of the ground and held it out to Taggart.
Taggart looked at the feathers at the end of the shank. “Comanche,” he said.
The wagons rolled into the grove and formed their defensive circle. The men watered and picketed the horses, and the women prepared supper, but all kept weapons close at hand.
Darkness came to the water hole. Stone and Taggart gnawed on buffalo meat.
“They know where we are,” Taggart said. “Wonder what they’ll do about it?”
“Maybe they’ll attack first thing in the morning.”
“They will if they think it’ll be easy.”
“They almost killed me. Now I know why they say a good Indian is a dead Indian.”
“How would you like it if people moved into yer backyard, took yer food, and crowded you out of yer house? They’re fightin’ back the onliest way they know how. We broke every treaty we ever made with ’em. If yer gonna be livin’ out here, you’ll have to understand these people, because you’ll have to deal with ’em, that’s fer damn sure.”
A shriek pierced the night air. Stone jumped to his feet, yanked out his six-guns, and ran in the direction of the sound. It came from the other side of the wagons on the far side of the campsite. Other men grabbed their pistols and rifles and ran toward the same area. Stone plunged into the bushes, found a trail, and ran along it. Ahead he saw Miss Bottom, an expression of consternation on her face.
