Fighting Caravans

by Zane Grey

  “I’m afraid it is,” admitted Clint.

  “Wal, when a man eats rump steak for a while he never wants no more beef. It’s like the hold the Old Trail gets on a fellar.”

  Clint wandered around awhile, absorbed in thoughts and feelings that seemed like vaguely remembered dreams. He had been waiting for more news than that which concerned Uncle Jim Couch. But he did not voice it to his consciousness. He went back to his room, and paced the floor, and threw himself on his bed. The way it sagged and creaked under him attested to the return of his weight. He spread his right hand before his intent gaze. It was no longer spare—a long thin wide skeleton of a hand. The color was white, but the bulk had returned. He could drive a team tomorrow. The two small scars on his knuckles stood out lividly, permanent brands cut there by Lee Murdock’s teeth. Slow stir of blood, slow turgid heat, attended memory of the blow he had given the Texan. The past that had seemed dim, pale, began to gain color and life.

  Chapter Fifteen

  JIM COUCH, with half a caravan, arrived at Kansas City, late at night on the 2nd of August. Clint did not know of it until morning, when his land-lady informed him that Couch had sent word. Clint left without any breakfast and ran all the way to Aull’s freight-yard.

  It was a sorry-looking caravan, but Joe Anderson, after a glad hello to Clint, assured him that they had some wounded men, but no dead, and they had brought in all the valuable freight.

  Clint found Couch a fit-looking leader for such a caravan. He was grimy and bearded, dirty as a trapper, and he had a bandage caked with blood round his head. He yelled when he saw Clint.

  “Buff! By all that’s holy!” he exclaimed, seizing him with horny hands. “My God, it makes me glad! . . . You’re pale—you’re older, but you’re well an’ fit again.”

  Clint choked over his warm greeting, then blurted out, “Uncle, have you a—a letter for me?”

  “Nope—sorry to say I haven’t,” replied Couch, suddenly thoughtful.

  “Any—news?”

  “Lots of news, Buff. Reckon I know what you want to hear first. Last fall when I got back to Maxwell’s, your gurl May Bell was gone. The Clements went on to Taos. Maxwell told me when he last seen May she was well. But she took your runnin’ away turrible hard. Wal, I went on to Santa Fé, an’ sent a letter over to Clement, tellin’ about you bein’ shot an’ that I’d left you in a hospital here. I never got no answer. We wintered at Santa Fé, an’ didn’t get over to Taos. Before we pulled out in the spring, though, I heard the Clements had gone to California.”

  “Is—that all?” queried Clint, in the grip of crushed hopes, which until that moment he had not realized.

  “All about your gurl, an’ I reckon it’s good news. May Bell took your leavin’ hard. She’ll be waitin’ for you out there some place.”

  “But—California!”

  “It was a damn good idea for Clement to take her out to the Coast. Leastways till this war is over. You ought to be glad, Buff. Why, the Old Trail is a red road through hell!”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. . . . Did that Murdock go to California?”

  “No. He’s a gambler, Buff, if nothin’ worse. He was at Santa Fé for a while. Thick with Jim Blackstone an’ his outfit. Blackstone ’peared to have a heap of money to drink an’ gamble with. An’ you can bet no rich dad left it to him. I heard a lot of rumors about him. Murdock is in bad company.”

  “That’s a relief,” replied Clint, with a forced laugh. “I was horrible jealous of him.”

  “Wal, you’re a darn fool. That little gurl, accordin’ to Maxwell, was so crazy in love with you that she couldn’t stand one little word of your disapproval.”

  “Did Maxwell—say that?” asked Clint, inwardly quaking.

  “He sure did. I was at the ranch two days, an’ whenever I seen him all he could talk about was you an’ May. Sort of hipped on it, I reckon. . . . By the way, Buff, Maxwell is in financial straits an’ wants to sell out. But everybody on the frontier is at odds an’ ends. An’ it’s bound to grow wuss before it can get better.”

  “Anderson told me you had some wounded men.”

  “Yes, there’s nine, not countin’ me. We was jumped three times comin’ across. The last time at Point of Rocks, where I got my head in front of an ounce chunk of lead from a muzzle-loader. An inch lower would have put your uncle Jim in the Happy Huntin’-grounds. Wal, we’d have got licked there if it hadn’t been for our six-pounder. Ben Davis took the cannon after I was down. An’ two shots sent them Comanches runnin’ like skeered jack rabbits. We had to leave some wagons, which was individual loss to the freighters who owned them.”

  “Point of Rocks? Uncle, that’s an unlucky camp for us,” observed Clint, his memory active.

  “Wal, I should smile. Buff, every time Point of Rocks peeps at me over the horizon I get the creeps. . . . As if somethin’ bad was goin’ to happen to me there! This was the second time.”

  “Beware of a third, uncle.”

  “Ahuh. I’ve had that hunch myself. Wal, we can’t help fate, any more than our queer feelin’s. . . . Buff, I put your money in the bank here. Did anyone notify you?”

  “Yes, an’ I’ve paid all my debts. Got about two thousand left.”

  “Wal, you leave it there, an’ add to it every dollar you get.”

  “I’m not much of a spender. When are you loadin’ again, uncle?”

  “Right away. Have a big contract. I’ll load all the wagons I fetched in an’ fifty-odd more. We’ll have to put up with some tenderfoot drivers. But my luck holds. There’s an army train here, loadin’ for Fort Larned. We’ll travel together.”

  “I’m wonderin’ if you could use an old overland freighter,” drawled Clint, his gaze fixed strangely on the West.

  “Haw! Haw! Wal, I might. . . . Buff, get your pack an’ guns, an’ come out to camp. You want to get some tan before we hit the Injun country. You might get took for a albino.”

  With a caravan of one hundred and sixty-nine men, not including a troop of soldiers with a supply train, Jim Couch had little to fear from savages on that westward trip.

  Seven bands of Indians, some of them large, watched this long caravan pass their lookout points, with never a hostile move. Their silent watchfulness, however, was ominous. Woe betide a small caravan!

  Clint Belmet dropped into his old groove, and in a month of driving, hitching up, and chopping wood he was brown and hard again. Not even Couch, however, would have guessed the ever-growing state of his suspense and hopefulness. A thousand times while driving, with eyes on the beckoning purple horizon and at night when the coyotes mourned he went over in mind what Coach and Maxwell had said about May Bell.

  He could never persuade himself that they were right. But had he been hasty, ruthless, over-jealous, too much, alas! of a wild buffalo-hunter? Had he been unjust to May Bell? Had he done the wrong thing instead of what he had imagined was the best? His doubts increased. Yet in his heart still rankled memory of the scornful flouting she had given him in Maxwell’s store, and later, and more bitter, the golden sunset hour when he had discovered her with Lee Murdock. If he could only have had more time! If he had only been wise and self-restrained! Useless as regrets were, they multiplied with the miles. But his hope kindled and burned to a steady fire.

  It was November when Couch’s caravan arrived at Santa Fé, and snow was falling. The freighters unloaded and went into camp for the winter.

  Clint abandoned the idea cherished all during the long trip out—that he would go to Maxwell’s Ranch the first opportunity which afforded—for the reason that the colonel was absent in the East. Gold had been discovered on his ranch and rumor had it he was trying to sell out or raise capital.

  Next day Clint rode to town to make inquiry about the Clements. He was patient and persistent. At last he was directed to interview a trader from Taos who had recently arrived in Santa Fé. This man’s name was Wright.

  “I shore did know Hall Clement,” he replied, instantly, at Clint’s
first query. “Fine Texan, and they don’t make any better. . . . I’m damn sorry, Belmet, to have to tell you I helped bury him.”

  “He’s dead!” exclaimed Clint.

  “Yes. Shot by a gambler named Murdock.”

  “Murdock! Lee Murdock?” flashed Clint, now with a gasp.

  “Never heard his first name. But he was a Texan an’ knew the Clements. Was sweet on their adopted daughter. . . . I didn’t hear much, but what I did was to the point. Hall Clement went to California last year, leavin’ his wife an’ daughter at Taos. The girl had some reason for not wantin’ to go to California. Well, durin’ Clement’s absence this Murdock nagged the girl till she was ill. When Clement came back he met Murdock an’ beat him severely. Later they met in Turner’s saloon an’ Murdock killed Clement. This Murdock is a dead shot, they say. . . . That was in the summer. In August Mrs. Clement an’ the girl left Taos to come here, where they joined a caravan bound for Kansas City.”

  “August! . . . What caravan? Who was the train boss?”

  “Bill Kelly, I’m sure. He left Taos in July—had some of my goods. An’ I didn’t hear of any other caravan leavin’ around that time.”

  “Oh! We missed that train!” cried Clint, in sickening realization. “We took the Dry Trail—the short cut Uncle Jim knows so well. Kelly was on the old road.”

  Clint rushed out of the hotel and furiously rode his horse back to camp. He had missed May Bell by a few days, for he remembered Couch saying, when they arrived at the fork of the trail, that the tracks of Kelly’s caravan were fairly fresh. The freighters took account of such things.

  The shock and disappointment seemed unbearable to Clint until it occurred to him that at least May Bell had escaped the importunities of Murdock. There was a nucleus of comfort in this. Kelly had a large caravan and could stand off all save a concerted attack of several tribes. May Bell would most assuredly be safe in Kansas City. It occurred to Clint that she might have received word of his injury and had taken the first caravan east. If that were true! His heart swelled. It would mean she did love him, in spite of everything. The hope would not down.

  “If it’s so she’ll stay there this winter an’ wait till I get back next summer,” soliloquized Clint, persuading himself that it was not altogether unlikely. “But, oh, the long winter for me—the wait! . . . An’ that drive in the spring!”

  How could he pass the time—the endless hours of waiting, with nothing to do but remember and yearn, when he could not be certain of anything?

  Suddenly thought of Murdock flashed across him, and with it the stirring recollection of the two insulting slaps Murdock had given him, and the blow he had returned. Swift on that followed recollection of the several reports about this Murdock, and lastly what the trader Wright had added to them. Clint could imagine just about how Murdock, having failed by permission to win May, had harassed the girl. He would not stop at anything to gain his ends, whether it was marriage or something else. Hall Clement did not beat Murdock for nothing.

  “I’ll kill Murdock,” muttered Clint, suddenly. And then there came a regurgitation of the strange cold ferocity Clint had felt the moment before he struck Murdock.

  The deadly resolve furnished Clint food for reflection. He must prepare himself for the inevitable meeting with this Texan; and to that end he began to practice with his revolver. He was already the best pistol-shot among Couch’s freighters. With the rifle he was not above the average, but he had the quick eye, the sensitive finger, the knack that made for accuracy. While the weather stayed good Clint went hunting, more with the intent to practice with his revolver than to kill game. Later he would plod out in the snow—into the cottonwood grove—and shoot at targets.

  He bought all the ammunition in the store at Santa Fé, and altogether it cost several hundred dollars. The freighters ceased teasing him about this game he was playing. Couch looked serious, shook his shaggy head, but said nothing. When Clint could hit a small tin can every shot at fifty feet he began to think he was getting somewhere. When he could throw one up into the air, and put a bullet through it, three times out of five, he gained confidence in himself.

  With this practice there was also included the swiftness of the draw. Kit Carson, who had killed more Indians and men than any other frontiersman of that period, once gave Clint a talk on shooting which he would put to infinite test. So Clint Belmet spent the daylight hours of that winter in keeping a fire burning, cooking, and chopping wood, reading and studying, and lastly perfecting himself in the use of a revolver. Long before spring came he hoped Murdock would return to Santa Fé. But the gambler was working the army camps.

  The winter dragged along and spring came late, which fact did not operate cheerfully on the dispositions of the freighters. Some seasons they were able to make two trips each way, but this was exceptional.

  Couch did not get started until after the first of June; however, he had command of two hundred and sixty-three wagons, his largest caravan, and that afforded everyone some consolation and lessened the risk.

  On the trip across, which was number thirty-eight for Jim Couch, the caravan was circled by four different bands of Indians, the first Kiowas, and the last Pawnees. Couch fired his cannon upon two occasions, causing no casualties, but a decided rout. “Haw! Haw! Run, you red devils!” he would yell, and once he said: “All the same, I’m glad none of them was Comanches. Those varmints have rid up on me more than once—too quick to get the cannon in action.”

  Clint arrived in Kansas City late in August, happy at last in the certainty of getting track of May Bell. He made so sure of this that he bought a new suit, shoes, hat, shirt, and tie, and arrayed himself as he had never before in his life. In fact, he passed right by Couch and Anderson, who did not give him even a second glance. This pleased Clint exceedingly. He began to have hopes of a decided impression upon May. Yet his old backwardness and doubt assailed him. He resolved, however, if—or when he found her, that if she would only forgive him he would never offend her again, so long as he lived.

  At once he got upon the trail of May Bell and Mrs. Clement. They had been at the Hotel Western in the late fall of last year, and upon their return from Texas, where they had traveled by boat, they had spent some weeks in Kansas City. He was informed that Mrs. Clement had relatives there. But Clint’s persistent search proved fruitless. It set him, however, upon another track. Mrs. Clement and May had gone by stage to Council Grove.

  This upset Clint. His hopes were dashed, and in their place consternation and misgivings began to beset him.

  Clint knew something about the stage lines, though he had never actually traveled on one of them. There had been a long route from Fort Union to Santa Fé, and another from Fort Larned to Fort Lyon, three hundred and ten miles, and the same mules had made the whole trip. This line had been discontinued of late, and Clint remembered it only because he had known a man named Clegg at Fort Larned. He had been a stage-coach driver and he told Clint about the trip. “My passengers had to sleep in the coach an’ cook their own meals. Shore was tough on them. But when they got to kickin’ too blame hard I jest yelled, ‘Injuns!’ an’ thet quieted them down.”

  The stage line to Council Grove, one hundred and fifty miles, was running intermittently. Clint engaged passage upon the first stage west, a procedure which did not meet with the approval of Jim Couch. Then he had to wait tedious days. It happened, however, that an east-bound stage came in with a driver who had spent several days in Council Grove, owing to a disabled wagon. This man was intelligent and obliging, and he informed Clint that he had met and talked to every person in Council Grove. Mrs. Clement and May Bell were certainly not there. Therefore Clint gave up his plan. It would not be long until Couch’s caravan passed Council Grove again, when Clint could inquire for himself.

  Meanwhile he resumed his search in Kansas City. At the post office he scraped acquaintance with a clerk who remembered May Bell.

  “Reckon I do,” he avowed. “She asked for mail here a year ago, a
bout, an’ then lately she came several times. She shore wanted a letter bad. She had great big beautiful eyes like dark velvet. I got so I hated to run over the letters, pretendin’ to look for one when I knew it wasn’t there. She had a pale face, with sad lips. They were red as cherries, though. I reckon she was about eighteen or nineteen years old.”

  Clint thanked the loquacious clerk and left the post office. May Bell had recently been in Kansas City, hoping for a letter from him, and she had gone. No doubt about that! But where? It seemed reasonable she would not turn right around and start on the overland trip again. Still Clint feared she had done exactly that. There had been a July caravan and also one in early August, both large and well armed. The only information Aull & Company could give him was that the last caravan, which hauled government supplies for them, had five or six families who had gone along for protection. In fact, all emigrants were persuaded to join either the freight or army caravans.

  Clint’s next trip overland was the longest he had ever driven. Toward the end of it he would have welcomed a brush with Indians, and for once Point of Rocks failed to cause him apprehension, and he drove through Apache Pass in grim defiance.

  Along the main road from Fort Union, just below its juncture with the cut-off called the Dry Trail, Clint saw a short wagon-train, scarcely half a mile long, working down to the eastward. Such a sight was not unusual, except that in these latter months of the war a short caravan was seldom or never seen.

  At camp that night Clint approached Couch with a query: “Uncle, did you see that caravan goin’ east on the Dry Trail, about noon today?”

  “I shore did, Buff, an’ whoever its boss was I shore cussed him proper,” replied Couch, with fire in his eye. “Thirty-eight wagons! I counted ’em. Wal, they’re plumb ravin’ crazy.”

  Days had to pass, however, before any information about this caravan would reach them.

  Upon Couch’s arrival at Santa Fé the whole populace, from Aull’s agent to the Mexican sheepherder, turned out to welcome a caravan that had been reported mostly all massacred. Such rumor traveled like fire in prairie grass, often by mysterious channels. Seldom, however, as in this case, were there no grounds whatever for a reported attack by Indians. The freighters on the trail and the residents stationed along the line were inclined to take seriously any news at all that was bad. They were skeptical about the good.