by Zane Grey
“An’ where’n hell was we supposed to have been scalped?” demanded Couch, in supreme disgust.
“Point of Rocks,” replied Buell. “The greaser didn’t talk English very well, but I got that place, positive.”
“Point of Rocks? Wal, I’ll be damned! They shore got my Jonah. What greaser fetched that report?”
“He rode in here over two weeks ago.”
“Alone?”
“No. There were other Mexicans an’ several white men in the party. Travelin’ light with pack mules.”
“Ahuh! Where’d this news about us come from?”
“Fort Union.”
“Wal, it was shore tolerable exaggerated,” replied Couch, gruffly. “We’re here an’ we haven’t lost a scalp or a sack of beans. . . . Buell, I reckon I don’t like that kind of rumor. It might be honest, but then again it mightn’t.”
“Jim, you an’ Belmet come in the office,” returned Buell, with sober significance. And presently when the three of them were alone he went on: “I had the same sort of hunch. But now you’re here all right, I know damn well it smells fishy.”
“How do you know?” demanded Couch.
“Wal, when the news got circulated round, Mrs. Clement an’ her daughter come rushin’ in here ——”
“Are they here?” interrupted Clint, with a violent start.
“They’ve gone.”
“Gone!”
“Yes.”
“With that little caravan we seen out on the Dry Trail? Must have left here about ten-eleven days ago.”
“Eleven? That’s correct. They left on October twenty-third.”
“Heavens! Was they tacklin’ the trip east that late?”
“No. Fort Larned, where what was left of your caravan was supposed to be.”
“Wal! This is somethin’ strange.”
“It begins to look that way to me, Couch,” returned Buell, anxiously, with a worried look. “I tried to persuade Mrs. Clement not to leave. She didn’t want to go. But the daughter was terribly upset. Said she would go alone! . . . An’ she offered a thousand dollars to anyone who’d take her to Fort Larned. There were some freighters waitin’ for a chance to roll out, instead of winterin’ here. Then Jim Blackstone was here with his outfit. Ten or a dozen wagons. He took up thet offer of a thousand dollars, an’ said he’d be train boss. Mrs. Clement wouldn’t let her daughter go alone. They’d practically just got here. Came with Simpson’s caravan, thet went on to Taos an’ Vegas. So they loaded up thet very day an’ left.”
“Jim Blackstone! Haven’t I heard some talk about him an’ his outfit?”
“He’s not a freighter, thet’s shore.”
“Wal, what is he?”
“Been ’most everythin’. Buys some pelts now, tradin’ whisky to the Utes. He’s reported to be thick with Kiowas, too.”
“How many freighters, did you say?”
“Must have been around thirty. Some blamed good men, Couch . . . Davis an’ Hennesy, an’ Black, an’ Tode Williams, all freighters.”
“Wal, I know Tode. I reckon he’d be a match for Blackstone any day.”
“Buell, has Lee Murdock been here this summer?” blurted out Clint, finding his voice.
“Yes, on an’ off. Not since he shot a gambler named Weedon. Murdock hangs out at Fort Larned.”
“He’ll be there now?”
“’Most likely. Larned’s a lively place in winter, an’ all the gamblers aim to be there, especially for early spring, when the trappers an’ hunters come down out of the hills.”
Clint turned to Couch. “Uncle, I’m goin’ to Fort Larned.”
“What! But, Buff, that’s out of the question! It’s a sure bet no more freighters, or anybody, will start this late.”
“I’ll go alone.”
“Now see here, Buff, you ——”
“I’m goin’. I don’t care if you’ve been my guardian. I’m of age. I’ve got to go. . . . I’ll ride at night an’ hide durin’ the day.”
“Wal, if the snow holds off, you might make it,” replied Couch, resignedly.
“I’ll make it, snow or no snow.”
“Buff, you could miss the trail at night, if it snowed. I couldn’t keep to it myself.”
“I’ll go light an’ fast. I’ll beat the snow,” replied Clint, with a steely ring in his voice.
Sunset found him leaving Santa Fé on a big raw-boned horse, with blankets and small pack tied behind. He had dispensed with a pack-horse. He could live on meat and parched corn and dried fruits. He carried two canteens, a Colt’s rifle and two revolvers.
Clint had only one thought and that was unwavering—to find May Bell. He had, at last, assurance of her whereabouts, her love, her fidelity, her anguish, and he would find her or die in the attempt.
The night soon encompassed him, cold, starry, and silent. The broad trail was as easy for his keen eyes as if the sun were shining. He ran little risk of encountering Indians after dark. On the soft ground, pulverized by countless wheels and hoofs, his horse made no sound. And with his passion released and augmented by the encouragement of May Bell’s faithfulness, with all his senses alert, the hours were nothing. He knew the water holes and towards morning he stopped at one and let the horse drink sparingly. At dawn he halted in a clump of cedars, unpacked and unsaddled the animal and tied him on a long halter where grass was thick. Then, without fire, he ate his meager meal, after which he hid in a thicket and went to sleep.
The sun had westered far when he awoke. He ate and drank again, then crept out of the thicket. The horse had fared well. Clint crawled to a vantage-point, and swept the country to the fore along the trail. Buffalo, antelope, deer, rabbits, wolves, wild horses crossed his roving sight, but no Indians. He had to fight the temptation to ride out and risk the last hour of daylight, but he resisted it. He had made his plan and would adhere to it. The farther he traveled along this trail the greater must be his caution. The Dry Trail, so seldom traveled late in the summer, on account of the drought, would be less risky. In the still cold twilight he rode out.
Chapter Sixteen
SOME time during the fourth night Clint, coming into the Dry Trail, rode upon wheel and hoof tracks that obliterated most of those that had been made by Blackstone’s caravan.
But Clint did not know this until daylight, when he could see them plainly. He studied these tracks and pondered deeply over them, but did not risk himself out on the trail after the day broke. This morning he sat up long to puzzle about this unexpected and decidedly favorable circumstance. Another caravan, and of fairly good size, to judge by the tracks, had turned into the Dry Trail, and not many hours behind Blackstone.
The night of that day a crescent moon shone gold over the black ridge. Clint was making fast time. The tireless animal scarcely needed to be kept to a trot. About midnight in a gloomy spot, overshadowed by low bluff on one side, the horse shied violently and snorted in fright. The instant Clint stopped he smelled putrefying flesh. He knew that odor. Dismounting, and peering keenly ahead, he advanced very cautiously.
Scent of burned hides next assailed his nostrils and sent a shudder down his spine. Indians had attacked either Blackstone’s caravan or the one following it and had left death and fire in their wake. Soon Clint came upon the charred skeletons of freight wagons and smoking piles of baled hides. Twenty-two freight wagons in a half circle! That told the story. But which caravan? The cold sweat wet Clint’s face and chest.
He searched off the road, guided by his sense of smell, and presently stumbled upon a hideous ghastly row of dead savages, so torn by buzzards and coyotes that it was only with difficulty he identified them as Kiowas. They had not been scalped or stripped. He counted twenty-nine bodies, that had evidently been dragged off the road. The freighters had not buried them, which seemed proof of hurry. Dead horses, too, lay about.
Clint could not find a dead white man, nor any evidence of a grave. This encouraged him, though he knew, of course, that if the freighters had time they w
ould bury their dead. He searched everywhere within a reasonable radius.
Then mounting, he rode on, this time putting the horse to alternate lope and trot. By the first streak of gray dawn in the east he calculated that he had covered thirty miles since the midnight halt.
In the gray gloom he went far off the trail, and found a satisfactory covert, where grass was fair, but water lacking. When he lay down his chest seemed weighted and the clouded condition of mind persisted in sleep. That afternoon, after a survey of the open country, wild and lonely and gray, he built a little fire and roasted strips of buffalo meat, which, with salt and a hard biscuit, satisfied his hunger.
Twilight had fallen when he ventured back to the trail, but he could see distinctly. From long habit his eyes swept the open country ahead, then all around and back. And lastly the trail, the look of which caused him to fall abruptly on his knees. He scrutinized the tracks, he crawled ahead, across, back; and then he arose, shaking in every limb under the realization that the second caravan—the one following on Blackstone’s tracks—had turned off. Somewhere and at some hour the night preceding, in the dark, Clint had passed by a fork in the trail, where emigrants bound for Texas turned off. That second caravan could absolutely not have done anything else. The fact increased Clint’s perplexities and augmented his fears. He was not an expert tracker, but years of watching the road had taught him much. Ten or a dozen wagons, drawn by horses, and a number of mounted men had proceeded toward Fort Larned.
Clint had undisputable proof now that the loss of wagons had been from Blackstone’s caravan. Perhaps the second party had never overtaken the first. And dread gnawed like a wolf at Clint’s vitals. He dared not go back, even if that would have been of any avail. He could only speculate on what had happened. As he knew travel along the trail and Indian attacks, the chances favored Blackstone’s men having fought and driven off the Kiowas, with more or less loss. No doubt they had abandoned the greater number of their wagons, which the Indians had burned. If any dead white people had been left along the trail, they would have been stripped, scalped, and mutilated.
After that point the nights for Clint were endless and torturing. The snow caught him, squall after squall, but he beat the winter into Fort Larned.
Sunrise of the last day overtook him less than ten miles from the fort, and he rode on in, hungry, weary, haggard, hard, and grim, with infinite respect for the great horse that had carried him through.
Clint rode to Aull’s corral, and gave a Mexican lad a dollar to care for his horse. Then he hurried into the store, where he was well known. Beckett, the agent, threw up his hands.
“Buff Belmet! . . . O Lord!—Jim Couch has got it at last!”
“No. I’ve come alone from Santa Fé,” replied Clint.
“Alone!”
Customers and clerks came at Beckett’s call.
“Yes. I rode at night—slept by day,” went on Clint, hurriedly.
“You wasn’t with Blackstone? He sure never told it, if you was.”
“No. I left Santa Fé ten days an’ more after Blackstone. I was on his trail. On the Dry Trail I found where another caravan had come in. You see, I rode in on the short cut after night an’ never found out about the second caravan until twenty-four hours later. Then I rode on, an’ came to burned wagons an’ hides an’ dead Indians—Kiowas. Twenty-nine of them! . . . Again at night I passed by where the second caravan turned off on the Texas trail.”
“Reckon Blackstone never had any idea there was a caravan close behind him. He sure never reported it if he did. . . . An’ whyinhell was you trailin’ after them alone?”
His query strangled the voice in Clint’s throat. If all had been well with Mrs. Clement and May Bell—if they had been brought safely on to the fort—this agent would not have been perplexed by Clint’s arrival.
“I was—on Blackstone’s trail,” broke out Clint, hoarsely. “My—sweetheart—May Bell an’ her—an’ Mrs. Clement—were in that caravan.”
“My God! Man, you must be mistaken!” ejaculated Beckett.
“No!” cried Clint, passionately.
“But they didn’t come! They’re not here. . . . An’ Blackstone never said one word about havin’ women with him. This is damn strange, Buff. Come with me to the colonel.”
“Not yet. Is this Jim Blackstone here at Larned?”
“You bet he is. With his outfit goin’ to stay all winter.”
“An’ Murdock—Lee Murdock?”
“Sure. He was in here half an hour ago.”
“Where’ll I find them?”
“Ten to one it’ll be at Horner’s gamblin’. Or loafin’ at the hotel, waitin’ for dinner. But say, Buff ——”
Clint stalked out, leaving his rifle where he had leaned it inside the door. The weariness from the long ride, the anxieties, fears, and hopes, the succession of shocks burned into ashes in the tremendous passion which consumed Clint. Yet his mind reverted to the mood inculcated by those winter months in camp at Santa Fé, where he had trained himself for the meeting with Murdock that was now at hand.
Across the square from Aull’s store stood Horner’s saloon, a red adobe structure, crumbling and old, with rafters exposed. The letters of a once white sign were half obliterated.
Clint split the double door and strode in. He had been in Horner’s many a time. The usual loungers at the bar, the stoical Indians standing like statues, the gamblers at the tables—Clint took these in with one sweeping flash.
His appearance must have been striking, for it seemed the silence began at the head of the bar and communicated itself like a wave to the end of the long room. A freighter’s heavy boots crashed down from the stove.
“Buff Belmet!” he shouted.
Ordinarily Clint was a figure to attract attention, but now, white with dust, unwashed and unkempt, black and forbidding of face, he might well have arrested the attention of the wildest of frontier saloons.
“I’m lookin’ for Jim Blackstone an’ Lee Murdock,” he announced in a loud voice.
His challenging speech filled the room, except for a whisper here and shuffle of foot there, and a nervous cough. Only one possible construction could be put upon Clint’s presence and his trenchant announcement.
Many faces turned toward a table close to the stove, around which four men sat and three stood. The game of cards had been interrupted. Slowly Clint stepped toward these men, guided by the turning of faces in that direction. Then he espied Murdock, sitting, with restless hands manipulating cards, clean-shaven, hand, some face growing set and pale eyes shining. He whispered something, evidently to the man next him, a bearded giant in a buckskin shirt. This individual moved only his eyes. Behind this particular table, in a line with Clint, all the loungers and gangsters stealthily slipped to either side. The reason was manifest, as was the stiffening of Murdock and Blackstone in their chairs.
“I’m Blackstone. What you want?” replied the giant, slow and cool.
“Where are the two women who hired you to drive them to Fort Larned?” demanded Clint, stepping so that he had all the seven men directly in front of him.
“Reckon they were killed or carried off by the Kiowas.”
Clint read falsehood in the man’s steady, somber eyes. It only confirmed his dreadful suspicious. But few men could lie unbetrayingly in the face of death.
“Blackstone, there’s a lie about you somewhere. Why didn’t you report the loss of Mrs. Clement an’—Miss May Bell, who paid you a thousand dollars to bring her to Larned?”
“Wal, Belmet, when a man fails bad he hates to give himself away,” returned Blackstone, deprecatingly. Under his beard the tan had begun to pale. His eyes quivered with the watchfulness of a man used to crises on the frontier.
“Ahuh! Why didn’t you report to headquarters here that another caravan, bound for Texas, caught up with you on the Dry Trail?” queried Clint, piercingly. This was a random shot on Clint’s part, but it struck home.
“Who the hell are you to bullyrag
me?” shouted Blackstone, suddenly flaring with passion.
“Boss,” interposed one of the standing men, low and quick, “he’s Jim Couch’s driver an’ bad medicine.”
“That girl was engaged to me,” hissed Clint. “An’ you haven’t got a hell of a long time to tell me where she is.”
“So help me Gawd, man, I can’t tell you!” rejoined Blackstone, hoarsely, and there might have been truth in that. “The Kiowas jumped us. We had to fight an’ run, leavin’ most of the outfit an’ men behind.”
“Blackstone, you’re known to be thick with Kiowas—an’ you, Lee Murdock—you’re known to have hounded May Bell from one place to another.”
On the frontier of this day, very much less than that accusation was a gauntlet thrown in the face of men. When Blackstone lurched for his gun Clint’s had leaped out in his hand. But the third man of the three standing, who must have unobtrusively drawn his weapon, discharged the first shot, which knocked Clint down.
He raised himself on his left hand, and fired. He downed the man in front of the one who had shot first, and as he staggered to fall over the table Clint’s second bullet brought a yell of agony from the coward who had used his comrade for a buffer.
Then Blackstone’s gun boomed, and Murdock leaped up, firing rapidly. Clint felt the hot tearing of lead. But his quick aim was true. Murdock threw up his gun and fell backward. Blackstone slid out of his chair, shooting over the table. But he had a large body, and Clint’s second shot at him, under the table, found its mark. Blackstone slumped down.
Then, to Clint’s deadening ears the rush and yell of excited men grew quiet, and in his dim eyes the fallen men faded, the long room blurred, and grew black.
Before Clint opened his eyes he heard the crackling of a wood fire and he smelled alcohol or some other strong medicine. Then he recalled the fight and at the same instant grew conscious of pain. It took effort to lift his heavy eyelids.
