Falconer's Law

by Jason Manning

  He ran as though the hounds of hell were nipping at his heels. How far to the horses? Four hundred yards? Seemed like four hundred miles. Time and again he threw fearful glances over his shoulder, expecting to see the Diggers closing on him.

  But he never saw them.

  Reaching the horses, he was completely winded. Bent over double, he dragged air into aching lungs. Then he remembered that he had never finished reloading the Kentucky rifle, and he hastened to correct this oversight, watching his backtrail as he worked, waiting for his pursuers to appear. They didn't, though, and he had cause to wonder if they had even given chase.

  Climbing into the Appaloosa's saddle, Eben felt better about his chances. The mare would carry him to safety. But Eben could not bring himself to turn the horse and head south. His conscience nagged at him mercilessly. What if Sixkiller wasn't dead? The Flathead had still been fighting for his life when Eben had turned tail. Surely he was dead by now. That was likely, but it didn't ease Eben's guilt, not one bit. And it made no difference that it was Sixkiller back there. It really had nothing at all to do with Sixkiller. This was all about living with himself, and Eben knew this, just as he knew that he had to go back into the camp of the Diggers, even if it was certain death to do so, because he couldn't leave, no matter how sorely he wanted to, until he was sure Sixkiller was beyond help.

  At that moment Eben wished he were more like his brother. No question what Silas Nall would do in this situation. Silas would look out for himself, which struck Eben as an eminently sensible thing to do, considering the circumstances. Too bad he wasn't made that way. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he ran away without trying to help Sixkiller.

  Leading Sixkiller's horse by its reins, Eben muttered a fervent prayer—and kicked the Appaloosa into a canter, heading upriver for the Digger's camp.

  It didn't take long to get there, and Eben was glad of that, because Sixkiller was still alive. Somehow the Flathead had gotten back on his feet. He was still surrounded by the five Diggers, and all he had was a knife. A concerted rush and the Diggers would have him, but they seemed to be afraid of him, jabbing with their spears or taking swipes at him with their war clubs, and it was unclear whether the Flathead was keeping them at bay or vice versa.

  Eben's arrival disrupted the standoff. As one of the Diggers hurled a spear at him, Eben fired the Kentucky rifle. The Digger crumpled, drilled through the chest. The spear missed Eben, but not by much. Eben resolutely steered the Appaloosa into the midst of the enemy. The Diggers scattered like quail. Sixkiller leaped onto the back of his pony, and Eben threw him the reins. A Digger spear struck the Flathead's horse in the neck; with a scream the animal went down. Eben cut loose with a curse. He hammered a Digger to the ground with the barrel of the flintlock rifle, as Six-killer, with remarkable agility, jumped clear of the dying horse and bounded onto the back of the Appaloosa mare behind Eben. Eben needed only a tap of his heels to provoke the Appaloosa into a spirited gallop, and in an instant they were clear of the camp.

  Eben could hardly believe he was still above snakes. His relief was so vast that he laughed like a madman as the mare thundered through the night, carrying him and Sixkiller to safety.

  "You've done well," said Hugh Falconer, hunkered down across a campfire from Eben Nall. "Not many men would have gone back for Sixkiller."

  "Not many men would have run off in the first place," replied Eben.

  He had just finished telling Falconer about the entire escapade. Having considered trying to say that he had left the Diggers' camp in order to retrieve the horses, with every intention of returning for Sixkiller in a gallant charge, for some reason, when confronted by Falconer's piercing gaze, he had decided at the last moment to be brutally honest in recounting his actions. He'd been scared—scared clean down to the bone marrow—and to admit as much lifted a great burden from his shoulders.

  "Don't know if that's true," allowed Falconer.

  "You wouldn't have," said Eben with conviction.

  Falconer busied himself packing his clay pipe. He glanced over at Rube Holly. "You must be right proud of this lad."

  "Damn right I am."

  "How is Sixkiller?" asked Eben.

  It was not until arriving back in the brigade's camp that Eben had learned of Sixkiller's injury—the result of a spear driven deep into his shoulder. The Flathead warrior had ridden for over an hour without betraying his pain. But in that time he lost so much blood that he passed out and fell off the Appaloosa as soon as they arrived at their destination, giving Eben his first clue that something was terribly wrong.

  Because of Sixkiller's injury Falconer had chosen to remain in camp an extra day, posting a strong guard in case the Diggers had an appetite for more trouble. Eben had slept most of the day, while Rube kept the curious at bay. Naturally, every man in the company was dying to hear all the details of Eben's adventure. But Eben had told only Hugh Falconer his story.

  "Sixkiller is as tough as an old buffalo hide," said Falconer. "He'll pull through. Of that I'm certain."

  Remembering the night before, Eben shook his head in wonder. "I've never seen a man fight like that. Like he was possessed by demons."

  "Fighting is Sixkiller's forte." Falconer mused in silence for a moment, puffing vigorously on the pipe. "He's not too happy about being alive, though," he added eventually.

  "What?"

  "You saved his life. Now's he beholden to you. That doesn't sit well with him."

  Eben was nonplussed. "Well, I'm not going to ask him to kiss my feet every time I walk by. Truth is, I didn't even do it for him. Not really."

  "I know. But Indians are funny in some ways. You're not his favorite person, by a long shot, on account of your taking that Appaloosa mare, and then the stallion, away from him the way you did."

  "Then why did he volunteer to go along with me yesterday?"

  "Because he figured that would be his best chance of collecting some scalps, I reckon. Had nothing to do with you, Eben. He owes you his life now, though, and he purely hates the thought."

  "Huh!" Eben shook his head. "Seems like I just can't win."

  "Look at it this way," said Falconer, with the trace of a smile moving beneath his full beard. "Sixkiller's an honorable man, in his own way. He won't rest easy until he gets the chance to repay you by saving your life."

  "That's funny," said Eben, though he wasn't the least bit amused. "Now I've got a guardian angel who hates my guts."

  "That's about the long and short of it," concurred Falconer. He stood to go.

  "Hugh," said Rube. "We leavin' out of hyar come daybreak?"

  "Reckon. It will be a hardship on Sixkiller, but by morning he'll be strong enough to make do."

  "Good. I got me an itch 'tween the shoulder blades, hoss. Like we're bein' watched."

  Falconer scanned the night, and nodded slowly. "I know that feeling."

  "I don't think we're shed of them Injuns just yet."

  Falconer walked away without saying anything.

  Chapter 14

  They got under way early, before sunrise, as the first gray threads of dawn began to weave through the disintegrating fabric of night. A travois had been fashioned to transport the wounded Sixkiller, but the Flathead refused to be carried in that manner. It was not befitting a warrior of his status.

  Some of the men were openly unhappy with Falconer. They felt it only proper that Joe Newell's death be avenged. Which meant wiping the Digger Indians off the face of the earth. But Falconer would have none of that.

  "We didn't come all this way to get into a full-scale war with the Diggers," he told Gus Jenkins.

  "I agree. But others don't."

  "They underestimate those people. As it stands, we'll be lucky to get out without a fight."

  By mid-morning this had become apparent to everyone else in the brigade. They began to see small bands of Diggers, off in the distance, beyond the reach of their rifles, running single file and shadowing them.

  "I suppose th
ey have acquired a taste for horse meat," quipped Doc Maguire.

  The presence of the Diggers quickly began to wear on the nerves of the mountain men. Some wanted to ride out and confront the Indians, or at least chase them off. Falconer warned them against it. He told them that by doing so they would play right into the hands of the enemy.

  That afternoon a hundred Diggers were in evidence. The next morning that number had doubled. By nightfall it had doubled again. By now Falconer had concluded they would not get out of the Humboldt River valley without a fight.

  They were near the Humboldt Sink, a vast swamp; here the river became deeper and wider. Falconer found ground to his liking for the night camp. A dry ravine shaped like a horseshoe would form the camp's perimeter on two sides, while the river protected their backs. The mountain men worked feverishly through the night to construct a breastworks of dead timber on the rim of the ravine and the fourth side of the camp. When morning dawned the Diggers discovered their prey dug in deep in a strong defensive position.

  By Falconer's calculations there were now about five hundred Indians amassed on the dusty flats half a mile west of camp. The brigade, outnumbered twenty to one, realized that things looked pretty bleak for them. Falconer did not hold out much hope that this time the Diggers would turn and run at the sound of a rifle. In the scrape with Sixkiller and Eben Nall they had proved themselves tenacious fighters.

  But the day dragged by without an attack. One concerted charge and they could overrun the brigade—so what were they waiting for?

  Late that afternoon a deputation of six Indians approached the camp. In the lead was the warrior with whom the mountain men had first come into contact, the one who had audaciously claimed that Falconer and his men were his prisoners. Eben pointed this out to Rube Holly.

  Rube nodded. "I may be old and have but one good eye, boy, but I kin see who it is. This time he's got the numbers to make it stick."

  "You don't think Falconer would even consider surrendering, do you?"

  "Surrender? Hugh Falconer?" Rube snorted. "That word ain't even in his vocabulary."

  "Well, if it's a fight, we don't stand much of a chance."

  "You never know. Long as yore suckin' air you got hope."

  Falconer boldly ventured beyond the breastworks to confer with the warrior in sign language. The parlay was of short duration. By the end of it the warrior was plainly agitated. But no attempt was made on Falconer's life. The Diggers were all too aware of the thirty rifles aimed at them.

  "They say they want to make peace," Falconer told the others. "Say they want to come into our camp and shake hands and smoke a pipe and share a meal."

  "They must think we're half-wits," said Gus Jenkins. "What did you tell them, Hugh?"

  "That it didn't take five hundred warriors to make a peace. Told him they'd started it by murdering Joe Newell and that didn't strike me as a very friendly thing to do."

  "What do you reckon they'll do now?"

  Falconer drew a long breath. "I got a strong hunch they'll hit us before the sun goes down."

  He was right.

  They came an hour before sunset, after indulging in an hour of chanting brave-making songs. Then a single warrior ran forward to hurl taunts at the mountain men, shaking his spear over his head.

  "They're wanting to know how far our rifles will reach," mused Falconer.

  "Let's oblige the bastards," growled Bearclaw Johnson, which were more words than Eben Nall had heard him utter since leaving the Green River. Bearclaw drew a bead. Falconer made no move to stop him, and Bearclaw dropped the Digger in his tracks at two hundred yards.

  Immediately a second warrior ventured forth, stopping a hundred yards farther away. Bearclaw cleaned this one's plow as well. A third warrior rushed forward.

  Doc Maguire laughed harshly. "If they keep coming at us one at a time, we'll do fine."

  Bearclaw killed the third Digger at a range of almost five hundred yards. "Like shootin' fish in a barrel," he growled, making light of a shot that drew the admiration of all who witnessed it.

  Eben Nall was watching the distant horde of Indians so intently that he was not at first aware of the presence of his brother at his side.

  "Maybe that will discourage them," said Silas hopefully.

  "Wouldn't bet on it," replied Eben, remembering his recent scrape with the Diggers. Glancing at Silas, he realized that his brother was white as a sheet. Silas was scared, and that surprised Eben. Silas had always claimed he wasn't scared of anything—said it so often that Eben had just accepted as gospel truth that his brother was braver than he.

  As for himself, Eben felt remarkably calm in the face of what he deemed to be certain disaster. He was not so much scared as he was full of regret. He'd been looking forward to seeing California. Odd, he thought, that a few days ago he had been almost paralyzed with fear in his confrontation with the Diggers who had murdered Joe Newell. But now he wasn't. Perhaps this had something to do with being in the presence of Hugh Falconer and the other mountain men. Maybe the unflinching courage they displayed in the face of such daunting odds was contagious.

  "Don't want there to be any hard feelings between us," said Silas. "I-I didn't mean what I said back there in the desert. Just lost my head, I guess."

  "Forget it," said Eben. Such matters were of little consequence now.

  "So we'll just let bygones be bygones, right?"

  "Sure."

  "If I get killed, and you survive, I want you to have all my possibles. Not that I have much to my name right now, but . . ."

  Eben nodded.

  "Guess the same goes for you?"

  Eben hadn't given it much thought. "I'll want Rube to have the Appaloosa, Silas. Everything else is yours if you want it."

  ''That ain't very brotherly."

  "So it's the mare you're after." Eben shook his head. "I should have known."

  "You always thought you were better than me," sneered Silas.

  "That's not true."

  "Yeah, it is. Well, one day, little brother—one day you'll find out otherwise."

  As Silas walked away Eben stared after him, perplexed. He had not known until today that Silas resented him, and he was at a loss as to why this should be so.

  Rube Holly came running. "Here they go."

  About half of the Diggers were charging across the dusty flats.

  "Looks like Bearclaw Johnson's shooting discouraged some of them," observed Eben.

  "There's still plenty of 'em to go around."

  They rushed to their places at the breastworks. Luck joined them there. Rube did not even try to send her away. It would have been a pointless exercise, and, besides, there was no safe place for her to go.

  Eben noticed that Sixkiller, though still suffering greatly from his wound, had taken up a rifle and placed himself nearby.

  When the Diggers were five hundred yards away the mountain men began firing at will. For every shot a Digger fell. But the Indians kept coming, the hot, still air filled with their shouts. Every man got off three or four shots before the Diggers reached the ravine, thinning the Indian ranks considerably and leaving the flats strewn with the dead and dying. But there were plenty of them still standing, and now they began to hurl their spears and fire their arrows into the brigade's stronghold.

  The effect was devastating. Several trappers fell. The horses, collected in the center of the stronghold, also suffered; a half dozen of them were struck, some fatally. A number of Diggers attempted to cross the ravine and clamber up to the breastworks. They were cut down at almost pointblank range. By now their numbers were no longer sufficient to press the issue, and they began to fall back, leaving the bottom of the ravine carpeted with brown-skinned bodies, the wounded writhing among the dead.

  Falconer seized the initiative. He called upon the mountain men to mount up and follow him, leading the way out of camp at a gallop, around the head of the ravine and in hot pursuit of the fleeing Diggers. Many of the Indians were unarmed, having thrown th
eir spears and expended all their arrows. Some carried war clubs, but clubs were no match for flintlocks. The trappers knew how to fire accurately and reload quickly on the back of a running horse. The retreat of the Diggers soon became a rout, as dozens fell beneath the guns of the mountain men. Their panic was infectious. Those Indians who had not chosen to participate in the attack turned and ran.

  Two trappers were dead, five more wounded. At least a hundred Diggers had been slain outright, with that number and then some wounded. Many of the latter would perish where they lay during the night. Eben found his opinion of these people changed drastically. Before, he had considered them savages, little better than wild animals. Now, having watched so many die so bravely, he felt somewhat differently about them.

  Falconer presided over the hasty burial of the two dead trappers, then led the brigade south under cover of darkness. When morning broke there was no sign of the Diggers. But they could see a black cloud hovering over the battlefield miles away—hundreds of buzzards, come to feast on their bloody handiwork.

  Later that day they turned west, making for the distant mountains—the Sierras, beyond which lay golden California.

  Chapter 15

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF EBEN NALL

  October 8, 1837. After nine days crossing desert flatland, we finally reached the foothills of the mountains, which have been tormenting us for so long now, floating like apparitions above the ever-present shimmer of the heat haze.

  We have not lately suffered from a lack of water. On several occasions, always in the afternoon, the clouds would gather, building quickly into towering thunderheads, before bursting open to spill their contents upon the thirsty desert. These storms were preceded by very strong winds, which whipped the dust and sand into a stinging fury. The rain, when it came, was very cold and driving. Though of short duration, these rains deposited sufficient water in the rock pools and buffalo wallows to supply our needs.