“Ah, my son!” he cried brokenly. “You didn’t forget! You came to help me over the last mile. You—”
The old-timer awoke sobbing. Outside the wind stiffened to a gale. He was alone.
“A dream,” he muttered, “but what of it—the thrill and joy are the same measure as if real.”
A sudden gust of wind, and one of the stone-weighted lines holding the walrus-hide roof in place, parted. He felt the chill of the blast as the wind moaned through the opening. The next gust tore the skin clear. With fiendish joy the storm rent and tugged until the last heavy skin was whipped clear, and nothing remained but the sod of the walls. Snow drifted upon him with each flurry. With lips compressed with pain he sought to burrow within his robes. The frost was biting deeper, too; his circulation was slower and he lacked the resistance of youth. He closed his eyes once more, and in a trice was transported to a land of warmth and sunshine, flowers nodding sleepily in the gentle breeze. His twisted legs responded to the warmth and became straight; he walked erect, bearing his years well. There was a stalwart young man and pretty woman who called him old-timer in soft tones; and a big dog named Rajah, who loved him. Suddenly the dog turned and snarled. The old-timer brushed his hand across his eyes, aroused to wakefulness by a twinge of pain. A lean wolf peered down, teeth bared in a snarl, eager to leap, yet afraid. The old man looked at the brute unafraid. So this was the end of the last mile! Horrible to contemplate, yet withal, brief—then warmth, sunshine, love. Presently another wolf appeared, then a third. They circled warily, trembling in eagerness, but held back by fear, and so they waited, circled a bit, and waited again, sure of their prey. It was agony, this suspense, this uncertainty; why didn’t they leap and. have done with it? He half rose. “Cowards!” he cried. “Cowards!”
They withdrew, snarling; then as he settled back, one gathered for the spring. Straight as an arrow he dropped onto the huddled figure. Snarling, the other two gathered for the leap, only to face some new danger behind. An instant later they slashed at the sides of a great malemute that launched himself from the swirling flakes into the very center of the igloo. The powerful jaws and the gleaming fangs met deep into the first wolf’s throat, to hurl it away a quivering heap.
“Rajah! Rajah!” cried the old man. “It’s a dream! A dream! Oh, Lord, don’t deceive an old man; don’t waken me again to the cold, the frost, but take me! Take me!”
The wolves, either a match for the dog, were tearing at his sides, with darting snaps of keen fangs that met with the snap of a steel trap. The dog got the hold he wanted at last, driving the second of his enemies to the ground, as the third fastened his fangs into the malemute’s unprotected throat. Dream it might be, yet White Chief struggled to his knees, caught up an ivory spear, and with the last of his strength drove it deep into the brute. Red-hot irons pierced his joints, the perspiration of agony covered his skin, then the old hands relaxed their grip and he fell from the couch to the quivering brutes beneath.
And thus McCurdy found him, with Rajah, wounded, yet licking the patriarch with his tongue in token of his delight at finding his old friend again.
“Old-timer,” whispered McCurdy as he held the old man gently in his arms, “I’m here to take you south to where there’s warmth and sunshine.”
The old frame trembled.
“Old-timer, the last mile isn’t over, it’s just beginning, and it’s a long one through a country always warm; through a land you’ve dreamed of. Come, old-timer, it’s McCurdy.” There was silence; then something like a sob escaped McCurdy as the other relaxed and peace and rest came.
“I’m too late,” he said. “I failed—by minutes!” The heartbreaking fight northward had failed, the unerring in-stinct that had led Rajah through the blinding storm to the old-timer was for naught, he thought.
The snow continued to fall, the force of the wind abated, the peace of a, benediction fell on the scene, then the old man’s lips moved, and a reassuring smile lit his face. “No, son, not too late—in plenty of time. I was afraid to open my eyes, because I thought it might not be true; it might be a dream.”
White Chief knew it was no dream when he was placed gently on the sled and headed south for the schooner, then Nome and a comfortable hospital—mere stop-overs on the last mile that led through lands bathed in sunshine and warmth.
THE WAGON WARRIOR, by Les Savage, Jr.
David Brooke made a bizarre figure, sitting his split-ear pony there on the fringe of Council Grove where the wagons were gathering for the Santa Fe Trail. He looked more Indian than white, a shortbow across his mount’s withers, a quiver of arrows on his bare back. He wore his black hair braided over one shoulder like a Cheyenne buck’s, and there was something hawklike in his dark, aquiline face with its high cheek-bones.
Most of Brooke’s youth had been spent in the tepees of the Cheyenne. He was a brave, the deep scars on his chest marked him as having endured the Sun Dance. And he was blood brother to Chief Little Elk. Yet, when Becknell opened the Santa Fe Trail in ’21, Brooke had drifted back to his own people, the Yankees, acting as buffalo hunter for their caravans every spring, keeping them supplied with hump-rib and doupille and back-fat all the way from Council Grove to Santa Fe,
* * * *
This was a bad year for the Trail. Trains had been systematically raided through the preceding springs of ’37 and ’38, and there were Yankees who said the raider-chief was Little Elk, violating the treaty he and the Osages made with the Americans at this very grove in 1825. Brooke had just come from his Indian brother’s camp on the Neosho, and he knew how false this rumor was. But what weight would his word bear, who had smoked so many longpipes with the Cheyenne?
There was the other story, of course, to account for the raids. It was almost a legend by now, and only the old-timers and the Indians listened to it. It was a tale passed across the campfires. It was of Los Diablos—The Devils—a band of mysterious renegades who rode from the jagged Sangre de Cristo mountains north of Santa Fe, raiding as far south as Mexico, as far east as the Missouri.
Even though the old-timers listened to the legend, they laughed after it was told, for it was only one of many, and they said it came from the influence of the awesome prairie nights or the eerie howl of a lonely loafer wolf when the coals were burning low…
So it was a bad year for the Trail, and for the young hunter who was both white and red, sitting his buffalo pony there under the straight ash trees and thinking that he had never seen so many greenhorns gathered in one place.
A big solid-trunked man was picking his way through the Conestogas toward Brooke. He wore a gaudy, fringed buckskin jacket, and a black soft brimmed hat. He was Harvey Mohan.
Behind him were the inseparable Georges Tremaine and Pinkie Haller. Brooke felt his face grow carefully impassive as Mohan stepped across the last wagon tongue and put a thick-fingered hand on the pony’s neck.
“Hello, Injun boy,” he grated. “What you doin’ at the Grove?”
There was a nasty inflection to Mohan’s voice that made Brooke sit his mount for a long moment, not answering. He had never liked Mohan. The evident bull-strength in the man’s body was turned brutal by the ugly twist to his sensuous-lipped mouth. The intelligence flickering behind his heavy-lidded eyes held a tight leash on that brute in him, and it made him doubly dangerous. Finally Brooke answered, flatly.
“You know what I’m doing here, Mohan. I run meat for the trains every year.”
Georges Tremaine moved in from the other side, thin face leering. He was a Creole, and somewhere he had learned to use a gun too well, and he had excellent reasons for being so far from his native city of New Orleans.
Mohan curled his fingers into the horse’s mane. “I’d advise you not to run any meat this year, Brooke. There’s hardly an old-timer in this caravan. All tender feet from the East and hicks just off the farm. Would you want the respo
nsibility of all them greenhorns on your back when the Injuns start raidin’?”
Pinkie Haller was by Brooke’s knee, now. The hunter felt his palm grow moist against his short hickory bow. Haller was a degenerate trapper whose only claim to fame was that he’d been scalped by some Kaws and had lived to tell the tale. He wore a greasy kerchief over his skull, but those who had seen him without it said they understood why he was called Pinkie.
A thin anger cut through Brooke, and his voice was very soft, almost inaudible. “I’d like to find the wagon-master, if you’ll step aside.”
They didn’t step aside. Haller’s dirty hand slid toward the big Green River knife he had slung between his shoulder blades by a rawhide thong around his scrawny neck. Brooke knew his skill with that blade.
“Injun boy,” said Mohan, “I been out here on the frontier a long time. Most folks know me well enough to listen to my advice. Those that don’t listen usually find they should have. And I’m advisin’ you not to go with this train.”
Tremaine’s hand looked very small and pale, hanging so close to the dragoon revolver holstered about his slim hips. Haller’s hand was now splayed out on his shoulder.
Deliberately, Brooke slipped his knee from the hair rope about his horse’s barrel. He placed his moccasin carefully against Mohan’s solid chest and pushed hard.
The big man sat down, wheezing.
* * * *
Tremaine’s hand was a white, dipping blur. Haller snaked his blade from its thong with practiced ease. Then they stopped like that—the Creole with his dragoon not quite free of leather, the trapper with his wicked skinning knife still behind his neck.
For they were staring down the slender shaft of a long headed arrow, nocked into the bowstring that was pulled back to Brooke’s ear. And in the hunter’s hand were six more arrows.
“Now,” said Brooke with that deadly softness. “If you will step aside, I’d like to find the wagon-master.”
None of them had actually seen him draw those arrows. Yet there he sat, ready to let fly. And it was an axiom on the frontier that a skilful bowman could have his sixth shaft in the air before his first one struck its mark. A man was more likely to fall with half a dozen arrows in him than with one.
That was why Haller and Tremaine moved so carefully away, eyes fascinated by that nocked willow shaft. The Creole’s gun made a small sound, rasping back into its holster.
But before Brooke could guide his quivering split-ear through them with a pressure from his knees, a young voice snapped out behind him.
“Drop your bow, Mr. Brooke. You’re under arrest!”
For a suspended instant the hunter sat with his bowstring still drawn, feathered arrow against his brown cheek. Then he lowered it, turning to face the man behind. Kansas sun slanted down through the ash trees, glinting on the blond head of ft cavalry lieutenant who forked his big gray in the very middle of Council Grove Creek. His right hand rested on the service pommel, fisted around a big Walker model dragoon.
Brooke kept his voice even. “Under arrest, Heroic? Why?”
Heroic was a shavetail not long out of West Point, and his youthful arrogance sat heavily upon him. “I don’t know that I’m obliged to explain anything, but Ballard’s early train was wiped out. We found the remains only a few days ago on Turkey Creek. Only a few charred embers left of the wagons. I don’t need to describe the bodies. We have orders for the arrest of Little Elk’s band. I’ve been at Leavenworth long enough to know that includes you.”
Mohan spoke then, and turning, Brooke saw that he had been standing there quietly, taking it all in, eyes smoldering.
“Shippin’ this Injun back to Leavenworth is the smartest thing you could do, Lieutenant,” grated the thick-thewed man. “He spent the winter with Little Elk. I wouldn’t be surprised if he took some o’ those Ballard party scalps hisself.”
Brooke’s hand twitched a little; that was the only sign of the impotent anger burning at him. Lieutenant Heroic answered Mohan coolly.
“Unfortunately, Leavenworth is a hundred and thirty-eight miles behind us. I’m to provide escort for this train as far as Choteau’s Island, and I can’t spare any men to take Brooke back. He’ll have to come with us.”
Disappointment slid through the triumph in Mohan’s ugly-mouthed grin. The lieutenant splashed out of the ford, holstering his dragoon and nodding indifferently for one of the troopers following him to pick up Brooke’s bow. A pair of cavalrymen sidled their long-legged grays one to either side of the hunter, accouterments rattling.
Steadying himself with a slow breath, Brooke kneed his pony forward, Heroic’s broad young back swaying before him, the rest of the troop cantering behind. And the last Brooke saw of Mohan, the man was staring after him with a black hate stamped into his heavy-boned face.
* * * *
They picked their way through the motley collection of wagons, passing a gigantic Missouri teamster in red wool shirt and square-toed boots who was swearing at his stubborn mules with a profanity that approached a fine art. Farther on was a family making a poor job of loading their big Pittsburgh. It wouldn’t be long before the trail jolted everything loose, and they would have to repack.
Finally Hernic halted them by a big red and blue Conestoga, red tassels hanging from the hames of each mule. Brooke saw the source of such pathetic display when the girl came around from behind the wagon-box, smiling up at Hernic.
She had thick hair like dull gold, and there was a depth to her blue eyes. Her crinoline was starched and gay. Brooke knew just how long that fresh dress and those tassels and all the gaudy red and blue paint would last.
Behind the girl swaggered a big, blackhaired man. The strength of his big shoulders and the fine straightness to his long legs was spoiled by the dissipation in his florid face, the shiftiness of his bloodshot eyes.
“I’m Louis Walters,” he said. “Wagon-master. This is my fiancee, Julie Kerr. I was expecting you, Lieutenant.”
Hernic swung down from his gray with too much flourish, bowing gallantly to Julie Kerr, then turning to the wagon-master.
“Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Walters, but I’m afraid I’ll have to put my prisoner in your wagon. It will be first in line, you see, and I want to keep a close eye on him.”
The girl’s glance toward Brooke was a mixture of disgust and scorn, and perhaps a little fear. “I won’t have a red Indian in my wagon. Louis, tell them I won’t have it!”
Hernic made his laugh soft for her. “He’s a white man, despite his looks, ma’am.”
Enough of Brooke’s anger had disappeared so that he could turn to the girl and say, very gravely, “I can assure you I never scalp women with blue eyes.”
She gave a startled gasp. Her widened eyes gazed for a long moment straight into his. Then she realized she was staring and lowered her face, flushing. Hernic shot Brooke a frown, then turned to his sergeant.
“Donahue, put this man in irons and keep a guard posted by the wagon at all times.”
Donahue’s face was a brick-red that came from a thousand Long Scouts, an as Brooke slid from his pony, holding out his hands for the manacles, he marked the non-com as being the first experienced man he had seen in this whole caravan.
Julie’s father, Steven Kerr, had been a well-known trader on the frontier, having built up a large outfit through shrewd but honest dealing. When he contracted malaria in St. Louis, his daughter came from New York to nurse him. At St. Louis, Walters wooed and won her, but before they could marry, Steven Kerr died. It was typical of Julie that she should take the reins of her father’s established trade, and insist on accompanying the wagons on their annual trip to Santa Fe.
Brooke couldn’t help overhear the girl tell this to Lieutenant Hernic as the two sat outside the Conestoga after supper.
That afternoon the greenhorns had gat
hered beneath the stately Council Oak, choosing for their leader the inexperienced, shifty-eyed Walters, because he owned the majority of the train. His wagons, and Julie’s, combined, made up twenty of the thirty-four. He had to have lieutenants and a sergeant of the guard and a court, of course. And for some inexplicable reason, those greenhorns chose as first lieutenant, Harvey Mohan.
That troubled Brooke. Mohan was a wealthy man, supposedly owning controlling interest in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company. But in all his wanderings, Brooke had never met a trapper who knew of Mohan’s connection with Rocky Mountain Fur.… Again, if Mohan’s source of wealth was trade with the Mexicans, Brooke had never seen any of the man’s wagons in the Santa Fe trains, and he certainly owned no wagons in this caravan.
Brooke remembered, too, that look of naked hatred he had last seen on Mohan’s face there by Council Grove Creek.
* * * *
They rumbled out of the grove with dawn mist still swimming through the ashes and elms, and they stretched out with the inevitable crackling of whips and raucous cursing of Missouri muleskinners.
Diamond Springs was some fifteen miles west of Council Grove. They made the green-grassed encampment by pushing on after dusk. Julie Kerr brought Brooke’s supper with a hesitance in her step, making sure Hemic had posted his guard before she called the hunter out.
He slid from the tail-gate, accepting the tin plate of hardtack and bacon silently, leaning against the rear wheel. Finally the girl gathered her courage.
“How…how did you come to live with the Indians?”
“My mother died when I was baby,” he said. “My father was a trapper. We were in Green River country when the Sioux killed him. They traded me to the Cheyennes. I was about ten at the time.” Those scars on his chest drew her fascinated gaze, and he laughed wryly. “That’s the Sun Dance, the way a Cheyenne becomes a warrior. The medicine man slits each pectoral with a bone knife. He puts hickory skewers through the slits and ties rawhide thongs to the skewers. Then they hang you off the ground and let you kick till the skewers tear from the flesh. Sometimes takes days. Then you can wear an eagle feather.”
The Third Western Megapack Page 52
