The Third Western Megapack

by Barker, S. Omar

  She fled with a horrified gasp, skirt swishing angrily toward the campfires. He put his head back and laughed softly.

  When Sergeant Donahue came to check Brooke’s manacles before retiring, his brick-colored face had lost its look of Irish humor.

  “I can’t unnerstan’ it,” he growled. “This train had plenty of scouts and plainsmen to start with. They’re just meltin’ away beneath us. A party of trappers quit back at Council Grove when they’d promised to come as far as the mountains with us. An’ tonight, Beavins and his Delaware hunters have disappeared.”

  “How many experienced hands does that leave?” asked Brooke.

  “Billy Booshway and Tom Thorpe f’r scouts. An’ mebbe a half-dozen teamsters in Miss Kerr’s pay who’ve done the Trail.” Brooke knew Booshway and Thorpe, older men, faces seamed like worn rawhide, bodies fine and hard from years on the plains. He lay back on his buffalo robe beneath the wagon, wondering if Beavins and his Delawares had been taking Mohan’s advice when they left so suddenly.…

  The prairie west of Diamond Springs was becoming criss-crossed with buffalo trails that marked the rank grass in a weird pattern. Here were the first antelope, and prairie hens began to flush from beside the Trail. Lost Springs passed behind. The timber changed, box-elders and willows taking the place of ash and pignut hickory and maple. Crumbling bones of buffalo began to appear, hoary flaking horns marking where hunters or wolves had thrown their prey.

  But it was all the same to Brooke, sitting there in the swaying, creaking bed of the lead wagon, nostrils filled with the stench of the tar bucket.

  It was customary to grease the wheels every morning with the dope from that tar bucket, a mixture of tallow, rosin and tar. But these tenderfeet neglected it half the time, and were forever having hot boxes, their overheated wheels sticking and jamming and causing a delay almost every day.

  Only Julie’s teamsters seemed to know their business Walters’ men were as inexperienced as he with their outfits. They didn’t watch their tires, and as the days grew hot, Brooke waited for the wheels to begin collapsing completely.

  They were past the Devil’s Hindquarters when the first one came apart. A lighter Murphy freighter suddenly dragged to a halt with a terrible squealing sound, its rear tire a dozen yards behind, its wheel crushed beneath the high-sided box.

  * * * *

  A towering Missourian named Tahrr drove the wrecked Murphy, a giant of a man with tremendous shoulders beneath his red wool shirt. He and several others unloaded the wagon to lighten it. Someone rolled out a spare wheel. And Tahrr produced a solid piece of timber from beneath the running gear. He shoved a big packing box up to the wagon-box, laying the hickory pole across it with one end under the Murphy. Then he and another muleskinner tried to lever the wagon up high enough to fit the wheel on, grunting and straining and cursing.

  They had failed twice when Brooke slipped over the tail-gate of his Conestoga prison and sauntered back, blue-coated guard following. Tahrr and the other were making a third try as Mohan stomped up, taking off his buckskin jacket. He shoved the gigantic Missourian aside indifferently, growling:

  “Hell. Let a man git at this.”

  The Murphy was not as large as a Conestoga, and it was empty. Still there was plenty of wagon there. None of them realized exactly what Mohan was going to do at first.

  He set his thick legs into the ground like oak-trees, heavy-fingered hands gripping the axle. His face grew red. Cords snapped and popped in his big wrists, the muscles of his forearms writhed like fat hairy snakes. And that wagon rose.

  “Git that wheel on, dammit,” he roared. “Git it on!”

  The stunned teamsters scrambled for the wheel, mouths sagging. And when they’d fitted it over the axle, Mohan stepped back, breathing heavily.

  He caught Brooke watching him, and laughed thickly.

  “Injuns ever teach yuh that un, Brooke?”

  Brooke smiled thinly. “No, Mohan, not that one. But a lot of others, a lot of others.”

  Their gazes locked—two men who had different kinds of strength and who understood each other very well.…

  Turkey Creek was their camp on the seventh night, a place of fetid, steaming bottom lands where the mosquitoes swarmed into camp, turning it to a buzzing madness. Brooke sat close to a fire of buffalo chips, head in’ the stinking smoke, eyes closed. Around him he could hear the soldiers and teamsters slapping and cursing continually. Hernic passed, dignity imperilled by the red, swelling blotches on his handsome face.

  “What the devil are you doing, Brooke?” he snapped.

  The manacled hunter laughed. “The mosquitoes can’t stand the smell, Lieutenant. You should try it.”

  Hernic snorted and stamped away. In a few minutes Donahue came over and sat cross-legged beside Brooke, holding his head in the smoke a long time before speaking. Finally he said harshly:

  “Billy Booshway and Tom Thorpe have disappeared!”

  “Not exactly disappeared,” said Mohan from directly behind. “They’re bringin’ in the bodies right now.”

  Brooke rose with no lost motion, not caring to remain seated with Mohan there. But the big man was already walking away, surprising grace to his movements. Brooke and Donahue followed to where a crowd had gathered. Georges Tremaine and Pinkie Haller sat their mounts in the middle of the noisy men. Two other horses were beside them.

  Booshway and Thorpe lay across their saddles, heads hanging down one side and still dripping with blood from the scalping. The Creole was talking in his peculiar French-flavored voice.

  “We wair out ’unteeng on ze back-trail, an’ we fin’ zees scouts zair.”

  “Yeh,” said Haller. “Yeh.”

  Brooke looked closely at the slim Creole in his tight leather leggins and fancy bolero jacket. The man forked a nervous horse, high-cantled California saddle double-cinched around its barrel.

  “Do you hunt with your revolver?” asked Brooke, suddenly.

  The Creole’s face tightened. “W’at?”

  “I asked if you hunted with your revolver. You don’t carry a rifle.”

  * * * *

  The crowd looked at that California saddle. There was no saddle gun booted beneath its broad hair cinches. And there wasn’t much game to be had with a pistol in this country. The angry, frightened voices faded as Tremaine slid from his leather, black eyes narrowed and opaque. Brooke found himself in the center of strained silence. He had only to shake his manacles a little to know how helpless he was. But it wasn’t in him to back down now.

  Mohan stood alone in front of the crowd, an ugly leer on his face. He had only to wait and to watch, and when the time came, no blame would be on his head. Perhaps a lesser man would have pushed things. Not Mohan.

  “I’ve never seen an Indian do such a sloppy job of lifting hair,” said Brooke, wondering what he could do against that pale hand of Tremaine’s. “Scalping does make a mess though, doesn’t it, Haller? Did you wipe all the blood and hair from under your fingernails?”

  Pinkie Haller responded automatically, bringing up his right hand to look at it stupidly. Perhaps Mohan hadn’t figured that, perhaps he didn’t want it to go any farther. He waited no longer.

  “He’s sayin’ you killed Booshway an’ scalped him,” shouted the big man, taking a prudent step backward. “He’s callin’ you murderers to yore faces!”

  With a soft snarl, Tremaine uncoiled, right hand dipping and rising. Brooke had no time for reaction. He just saw that long barrel flashing upward and knew he was going to die.

  The shot didn’t come from Tremaine. It boomed out behind Brooke. The Creole jerked backward, twisting with the impact of a heavy ball in his shoulder crying sharply and dropping his gun. Brooke turned to see Hernic standing there with his booted legs spread wide, a path in the crowd showing where he had elbowe
d through. His big Walker still smoked in a steady hand, and his thumb was resting on the cocked hammer, waiting to see if Tremaine needed another slug.

  Finally he spoke, lips against his teeth. “I think that would have been murder, Mohan. You take Tremaine to a wagon. I’ll see you later.”

  He ordered Donahue to bury Booshway and Thorpe, then waved his gun at Brooke. The teamsters moved away from them as they walked toward Walters’ Conestoga. Julie was on the outskirts of the crowd, face white. She glanced at the two men, seeming to sense that this wasn’t for her.

  Hernic walked ahead silently, shoulders hunched strangely, jacking out the empty with a hollow clicking sound. At the wagon he leaned against the wheel, taking a deep shuddering breath. And for the first time, Brooke realized the boy was shaking.

  At Brooke’s glance, Hernic turned defiantly, spitting out his words. “Well, damn you, that’s the first time I ever shot a man! The first time I ever stood there and squeezed out my lead and saw it knock him over backward with blood spurting.”

  Something tingled up Brooke’s spine. Of course, of course. A kid, fresh from the Academy, where all they taught you was tactics and strategy and theory. Yet, there he’d stood, blond head thrown back and legs spread out wide, all cool and deadly, gunhand steady as a rock. The first time he’d ever shot a man.…

  What a fire and a steel this boy had beneath his arrogance and his pride and his youth! Brooke put his manacled hands on Hernic’s shoulder, saying quietly:

  “I was only fifteen when I shot my first man, Hernic, and after it was all over I went away by myself and cried.”

  The lieutenant looked at him, then straightened with an effort. “Well, it’s done now, anyway. And there are other things. Booshway, for instance. How could you accuse a white man of scalping him?”

  Brooke drew a heavy breath. “White men take scalps too, Hernic. It’s just another thing you’ll have to get used to.”

  Hernic was revolted. “But it’s ghastly. And why should Haller kill Booshway?”

  Brooke didn’t answer directly. “You found Ballard’s party on Turkey Creek, you said.”

  “Yes, about five miles north. Why?”

  “If you’ll ride out there with me, maybe we’ll find out why Haller killed Booshway.”

  * * * *

  The moon cast a weird yellow-green glow over the rolling prairie. Hernic led the cavalcade on his big-barrelled gray, Brooke following on his split-ear. Behind were four troopers, vainly trying to keep their sabers from rattling. It felt good to be mounted again after so long in that musty Conestoga, and Brooke talked softly to his pony, smiling when one of the ears pricked up.

  Ballard had evidently turned north, seeking an easier crossing than the usual one. The remains of his wagons formed dark splotches in the sandy bottoms beneath the fluttering talk of a willow copse. The bodies were gone, of course. Hernic had given them Christian burial.

  Brooke rode with no more saddle than a hair rope about his pony, through which he thrust his knees, the Indian way. He slid to the ground and kicked about through the charred ashes and pieces of burned wagon-beds. Finally he asked:

  “How many wagons was Ballard supposed to have?”

  Hernic had come out here reluctantly and spoke with some impatience. “Twenty some odd, Brooke. I told you before.”

  “There aren’t enough remains here,” said the hunter evenly, “to account for more than three or four wagons.”

  Hernic’s leather popped as he swung down, impatience wiped from his face. Brooke toed an iron tire with half-burnt orangewood spokes clinging to it.

  “Not over a dozen tires. And look at those yoke irons, the bit-chains. Does this look like twenty wagons?”

  “All right,” said Hernic. “So the Indians took the other sixteen. Where does that leave us?”

  “Indians don’t take wagons,” said Brooke. “You know that.”

  He began playing with his split-ear’s mane, twining it in his fingers, and he looked out across the ghostly sweep of moonlit prairie with a strange set to his dark, aquiline face.

  “Hernic, did you ever hear of Los Diablos?”

  The boy’s head jerked up sharply. “Now listen, Brooke—”

  Brooke’s quiet voice stopped him, going right on, as though the lieutenant hadn’t spoken at all. “There was Weaver’s train, for instance, in ’37. He had a consignment of Hawkins muzzle-loaders for Rocky Mountain Fur’s agency in Santa Fe. Those rifles had carving on their stocks you couldn’t miss. And he had a dozen pigs of Galena lead with his initials cut in ’em. His train didn’t reach Santa Fe. A year later it was found by the Cimarron Crossin’, the ashes, and what was left of the bodies. In that same year those Hawkins rifles turned up in St. Looey. The pigs of lead appeared in Taos. It must be a marvelous organization, Los Diablos, to spread the loot that far.”

  Hernic swung an angry leg over his cantle, snorting. “I thought I was giving you a decent chance to help me, to prove you’re more than the dirty red Indian you look. But I was mistaken. Now get on your horse. We’re going back!”

  * * * *

  Beyond Turkey Creek the days were an endless monotony of broad spreading plains and squeaking wheels and stubborn mules. Once a herd of buffalo halted the train, migrating southward across the trail, a continuous stream of stupid beasts with small hocks and tremendous shaggy barrels.

  Now and then the caravan passed a disused wallow, the stench of rotting frogs rising from its poisoned waters. The pale gold of diseased dodder mixed sickly with scarlet mallow about its rim. Even the shrill call of snipe held a hollow, mocking sound here.

  Mohan rode the high box-seat of a big, paint-peeled Pittsburgh most of the time. He never packed a shortgun, but across his knees he held a heavy Sharps buffalo gun. Tremaine and Haller preferred their horses, though they kept close enough to Mohan. The Creole’s shoulder was healing, but whenever he looked at Brooke or Hernic, a snake-glitter entered his opaque black eyes.

  And Brooke couldn’t forget that he was the only plainsman left with the wagons now. All the others had disappeared, in one way or another. Tremaine had tried eliminating him once. Perhaps Mohan wouldn’t want the next attempt so noisy. That thought made Brooke watch Pinkie Haller closer—a Green River skinning blade carried no sound in its death.

  Scudding gray clouds hid the sun on the day they reached the Big Bend of the Arkansas. Walters corralled the train in a swale between two humps of sandy ground, grown over thick with stunted cottonwoods.

  Brooke climbed stiffly from the Conestoga and was leaning against a wheel when Julie brought supper. She kept glancing nervously toward Mohan’s campfire. Walters was there, talking loudly, thickly. The girl had lost some of her contempt for Brooke, some of her fear, and now she gave him the plate with a forced smile, saying:

  “Louis was all right for a while, when he’d drunk up all the Monongahela he brought from Westport. But now Mohan’s started feeding him trade whiskey, every night.”

  “Oh,” said Brooke. “Mohan.”

  She frowned, puzzled at the tone of his voice. Before either could speak again, Hemic walked past. He stepped over, bowing low to the girl. Brooke stopped eating.

  “Lieutenant, I’m surprised you let Walters camp here. Hills on both flanks, thick timber coming right down to our wagons. Anybody could get right on top of your sentries before being seen.”

  Hernic faced him stiffly. “In the first place, it wasn’t Walters’ idea. It was Mohan’s. He said it was close to water and the humps would hide our fires. And in the second place, I don’t think you’re in any position to be giving advice. Good night.”

  He turned on his heel. The girl watched him walk away, a small, amused smile curving her rich mouth. Then she murmured:

  “He’s so terribly young, so terribly proud.”

  Broo
ke hardly seemed to hear her, and he might have almost been talking to himself. “Mohan has his hand in a lot of pots lately.…”

  She looked at him sharply, but Brooke had his face turned towards those hummocks of sand, rising somberly on either side. A wind soughed through the cottonwoods. Their ghostly rattle held a foreboding.

  * * * *

  Brooke was wakened that night by Sergeant Donahue. The Irisher came from outside the wagons, and his hoarse voice was a tocsin ringing through the fog of Brooke’s slumber.

  “Turn out! Indians! Turn out! Indians.…”

  Over and over, not excited or afraid, just flat and continuous like the beat of a drum. Brooke rolled from beneath the Conestoga. Already his ears were filled with the sullen thunder of the cavayard being stampeded out beyond the corral. Troopers and teamsters were jumping from their blankets, still groggy and confused.

  Before Brooke could move in any direction, a dark blurred stream of riders burst through the wagons, leaping tongues and smashing up under high box seats, one after another until they swam before his eyes. Their gunfire opened up like flame that burned half a dozen stunned teamsters into the ground.

  Brooke lurched around the Conestoga, almost knocking over Walters. The big man grabbed at him, panting:

  “Get me out of this, Brooke. Get me out.”

  The lean hunter shouldered him aside, catching Julie as she jumped from the wagon. Perhaps if she had thought, she would have clung to Walters in her sudden stunned fear. But she didn’t think. She followed Brooke automatically when he took her by the hand.