North To The Rails Page 11

  “No!” Chantry snapped the word. “You kill him, and you’ll have to kill me.”

  He turned to face the Indian. “I am Tom Chantry,” he said. “You fought well. Go in peace.”

  The Indian looked at him, then at the others.

  “You going to let him go?” Helvie asked in astonishment.

  Suddenly Sun Chief was there beside them. He held out Chantry’s pistol and Tom took it, dropping it into his holster.

  “He goes free,” he said. “He’s too good a man to shoot down.”

  Rugger swore. “He’s nothin’ but a damn redskin. He’ll kill you the first chance he gets.”

  “Maybe. But in the meantime he goes free.” He spoke to Sun Chief. “Tell him he can go. Tell him I shall come to the village under the Big Timbers to see him … soon.”

  “No need to tell. He knows what you say.” The Pawnee’s rifle was in his hands. “That’s He-Who-Walks-With-Wolves, but often he is called Wolf Walker. He is a big warrior.”

  “Let him go.”

  Wolf Walker looked at him a moment, then deliberately he turned on his heel and walked away.

  French Williams looked at the two dead Indians and commented dryly to Rugger: “You’d better copper your bets, Rug. That’s as good shooting as I’ve ever seen, left and right, both dead center.”

  “It was luck,” Chantry said. “They surprised me. Came right up off the ground.”

  “So you just killed two of them with two shots, and then whipped Wolf Walker bare-handed—and him with a knife. Mister, you call it what you want to, only don’t call it luck.”

  Sun Chief caught up the blue roan and Chantry swung into the saddle. As they started back toward the herd, Helvie rode alongside Chantry and held out his hand. “Whatever I may have thought about you back at the start, I take it back. Next time you need a hand, you just call my name and I’ll come a-runnin’ … no matter where you want to go.”

  “Because I was able to handle those Indians?”

  “No, sir. I don’t regard that. It was the way you let Wolf Walker go. That shines, mister!”

  The cattle passed over the end of the mesa in the last moments of light, all shades of hide lost in a uniform darkness. The hands circled them to a stop on the flat below Clay Creek Spring, and the chuck wagon lumbered over the rocks and swung into place. While Dutch unhitched for him, the cook lowered the back of the wagon to make his table, and began setting out the grub.

  Tom Chantry gathered sticks from the remains of old campfires and, using dry grass and leaves for tinder, got a small fire started. He added buffalo chips and hunted out some dried brush.

  It was a good camp—the best camp so far, Tom thought. Rugger was surly, and Kincaid still avoided him, but Dutch, Helvie, and McKay were friendly and easy. The fire burned brightly, and the food tasted good. For the first time in days, Tom was not hurting anywhere, and now he had a good feeling about the fight with Wolf Walker. He did not think about the two Indians he had killed. They had attacked him without warning, and his reaction had been immediate and instinctive.

  French Williams was curious. “Now, that shootin’,” he commented, “surely didn’t look like the work of a man who never used a gun.”

  “I never said I had never used a gun,” Chantry replied simply. “Pa was a good hand, as you know, and he started teaching me early. I’ve always had a knack … good coordination, I guess. I’ve hunted a good bit, and shot up a lot of ammunition at targets. Up there”— he jerked his head back toward the scene of the fight —“was the first time I’d tried to get a gun out fast in a long time.”

  “We heard the shots,” McKay commented, “just boom-boom, almost like one sound.”

  Chantry glanced over at Williams. “How far is it to Two Buttes?”

  “Fourteen, fifteen miles, I’d guess.

  I never did ride directly from here to there.

  We’ll make a proper day of it.”

  All the men were tired, but the last events of the day had excited them and stirred them to conversation. Chantry leaned back against his bedroll and listened to Helvie, who was telling of a famous fight back in 1867, a running battle between Indians and the riders of a stage headed for the Big Timbers station.

  From that the talk continued—talk of cattle and buffalo, of the stage lines and the Santa Fe Trail. Finally Tom carried his bedroll into the shadows near the wagon, and pulling off his boots and his gun belt, he rolled in and slept.

  His last memories were of the occasional crackle of the fire and the low murmur of conversation.

  When he opened his eyes the fire was down to the last red coals. All the men were asleep except those with the cattle. He was about to turn over and go back to sleep when he saw Rugger slip from his bed and move off into the darkness. Something about his manner moved Chantry to watch him go—not toward the horses, but off into the darkness, obviously anxious not to be seen.

  Where was he going? And for what reason?

  Chapter Fourteen

  FOR A moment Chantry thought of following him, then decided the man was probably just going into the woods on some business of his own, and Chantry turned over and went to sleep again.

  But in the morning he remembered this small incident, and when he had belted on his gun and stepped into his boots he glanced around.

  Rugger was saddling a horse, as were Helvie, McKay, and Kincaid, getting ready to ride out and relieve the night guards. He saddled his own horse, and waited until they had gone. Then, leaving the dun at camp, he went into the woods where he had seen Rugger go.

  He had no trouble in picking up a track. A heel print here, a kicked stone there … for a hundred yards he trailed him back into the brush and scattered juniper, and then across the slope of a hill. There the faint trail went down into the hollow beyond.

  Here the trail ended. Near a flat rock there were two cigarette butts.

  For several minutes Tom Chantry stood there, trying to puzzle it out. Rugger was not exactly a contemplative man, not the sort who would walk all this way to be alone with his thoughts. He had come for a reason.

  Chantry looked around. Due east lay the trail to Two Buttes, an open stretch of valley two or three miles wide, and easy going, bordered on the south by Two Buttes Creek. About five or six miles away lay the Santa Fe Trail, or one branch of it. Two Buttes, the highest of which lifted about three hundred feet above the surrounding country, were dimly visible on the horizon.

  Nothing else. …

  He had turned away when he saw, in the shelter of another rock, a place where a small fire had been built. Not for warmth, for the man had not sat near it, and it was built so that it would be visible only from the valley below.

  A signal then. But to whom?

  There were no other tracks, so if he had expected anyone to meet him, that person had not arrived.

  Had he left any word there?

  Carefully, searching with this fresh idea in mind, Chantry looked around, and suddenly he saw it, near where the fire had been … a tobacco sack. Picking it up, he felt something inside and opened it … there was a page torn from a tally book, and on it, written in a clumsy hand, these words

  2 Butes

  Big Timbers

  Kiwas at Big Timbers

  He returned the note to the sack and replaced it. Then he walked back to get his horse.

  The others had eaten, and the chuck wagon was packed and ready. The cook turned to glance at him, then gestured toward the seat. “I put some grub an’ coffee out for you. Figured you’d be hungry.”

  “Thanks.”

  The cook waited while he ate, and presently he said, “I like your style, Chantry. Can’t say I cottoned to you right off, but you’ve shaped up.”

  “Thanks,” Tom said again.

  “What’s goin’ on? I don’t like it a-tall, the way things are. French ain’t like himself, an’ there’s hard feelin’ among the boys … like they were up to something they didn’t care for.”

  Chantry finished ea
ting, cleaned the plate with sand, and passed it to the cook. “You can’t lose, Cookie,” he said. “Either French or I will pay you boys off if we get through with the herd.”

  “They tell me you’re figurin’ to drive right through Big Timbers.”

  “Why not? Look, if the Kiowas want us they can ride up on us any time. By driving in any other direction we still couldn’t get away— cattle move too slow. If they mean to attack, we can’t avoid it. So why not take the quickest way, where there’s the best water and grass? Why not drive right at them so they know we’re not afraid? We know where they are, and they know we know, so they’ll be wary of a trap. They’ll be sure we’ve got reason for being confident. Anyway, I never found that a man could avoid trouble by running away from it.”

  He waited while the wagon pulled out and started over the ridge. When it was lined out on the trail, he rode south to the banks of a creek that flowed into the Two Buttes almost due south of Clay Spring.

  The banks were cloaked with shrub willows, many of them growing ten to fifteen feet high. He went in among them, drew up there, and stepped down from the saddle searching for a vantage point from which he could watch the rock on the hillside where the message had been left.

  From time to time he looked toward the herd, now only a dust cloud down the long valley. He drank at the stream, and let his horse browse on the rich green grass along the bank.

  An hour passed. Just as he was about to step into the saddle again, he heard the beat of hoofs. From over the ridge behind him came two riders, who cantered down the slope, splashed through the shallow stream, and went up the opposite slope to where the message had been left.

  They were some distance off, but he needed no closer view to know who they were. The Talrims!

  The Talrims and Rugger in this … and who else?

  But the message? What did it mean? 2 Butes was obvious enough, and it was their next stop. After that they were going to Big Timbers, though not in one long drive. And at Big Timbers there were Kiowas.

  Rugger was apparently telling the Talrims their direction of travel, and warning them about the Kiowas at Big Timbers. But what else? Despite himself, Chantry was worried. There might be some other meaning which he did not grasp, some other reason for the message.

  When the two riders had disappeared over the ridge in the direction of Clay Spring, he rode out of the willows and followed the herd.

  The drive to Two Buttes was an easy one, and Chantry rode the drag all the last half. They bunched the cattle on the plain north of the Buttes, avoiding the breaks along the canyon that lay just to the south.

  Twice during the last part of the drive they saw Indians. Two of them sat on a ridge watching, apparently unworried about being seen. That night the camp was quiet.

  “What do you think, French?” Akin said at last. “Will they tackle us?”

  Williams shrugged. “Maybe yes, maybe no. From what I hear, that passel of Kiowas shapes up like a war party, and if they want beef there isn’t any closer than we are. The same goes for scalps. They know they’ve tackled my drives a couple of times with no luck, so that may steer ‘em off, but I doubt it.”

  “I think we’re in for a fight,” McKay agreed.

  Chantry sipped his coffee, listened to the talk, and watched Rugger. When he had finished eating, Rugger strolled over to where Kincaid was repairing a broken bridle. For several minutes they talked in low tones, and nobody seemed to be paying any attention. Williams was lying on his back, his hat over his eyes.

  Rugger and Kincaid were two of Williams’ boys … did Williams know what was going on? Was this a part of a plan? The Talrims had kept pace with them for days, and Chantry was sure they were Williams’ ace in the hole. A shoot-out at the last minute; and with Chantry dead the cattle belonged to Williams.

  Suddenly he remembered the girl Sarah … where did she figure in all of this? Did she know that Paul was dead? Had she given up whatever she was trying to do?

  She had wanted Tom Chantry dead because then only one man would stand between her and what she wanted, and that one man had to be French Williams. Yet French professed to know nothing about her … or was it Paul?

  Had he ever mentioned Sarah’s name to French?

  He suddenly said to French, “We’ve never talked about your background.”

  Williams’ eyes were level and cold. “And we are not planning to,” he said.

  “I was thinking about Paul,” Chantry went on. “We need not talk about it, but you had better do some thinking about it.”

  “I do not know anyone named Paul.”

  “And there was the girl named Sarah,” Chantry continued.

  Williams stared at him. “Sarah? Sarah and Paul? It can’t be.”

  “Those were the names. They spoke of killing me, and then added that there would be only one man left. Williams, the only thing you and I have in common are those cattle. If both of us die before we get to the railhead, who gets the cattle?”

  The cynical amusement was gone from Williams’ eyes. His face looked drawn.

  “You wouldn’t have gotten to Dodge,” he said, “so the cattle would belong to me. And if I died … no, it is absurd! I can’t believe it.”

  “Sarah would be nineteen or twenty,” Chantry said; “Paul a few years older.”

  “And Paul is dead? The Kiowas killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it is over,” he muttered, half to himself. “That will be an end to it.”

  “I don’t think so,” Chantry insisted quietly. “The girl was the stronger one. She was the one who was pushing hardest. Without her I don’t believe Paul would have done anything; nor do I believe she will quit.”

  Williams stared at Tom. “I thought they had forgotten me,” he said. “Now they find me again, and it is for this!”

  They were alone—the others had gone out on night guard, or were asleep. “I wanted to go back some day,” Williams said gloomily. “It is not a place to forget. My boyhood was there, and where a man has lived as a boy … he has feelings for it.”

  “My first home was out here somewhere,” Chantry said. “I never knew exactly where … I think it was over east of here. You know how it is … plains are plains; and afterward my mother never would talk about it. Pa was well-off until that norther wiped him out and we had to move into town.”

  “I always wanted to go back,” Williams said. “I had a good time as a boy.”

  “You can always go back.”

  “You have much to learn, my friend. No one ever really goes back, for when you return you are not the same as when you left, and everything is different, and strange. You look about where everything ought to be familiar, but nothing is right. I know, my friend. But still I did want to go back.”

  “What have Sarah and Paul to do with it?”

  Williams shrugged. “Perhaps nothing. But I do not think there is much to go back to if they have come so far to kill me. … Yes, I know them. They are the children of my cousin. With me, they are the last of our line. My father always told me I should avoid them. … They were no good, he said, and he should know, for he came of the same family.”

  “What about your mother and father?”

  “Dead. My mother died when I was very small— my father only a few years ago. My mother was lovely … she came of an old, old line. My father was a common soldier who rose from the ranks to become an officer. That is not an easy thing to do in the French Army. As a boy he dreamed of going off to India, of becoming a general.

  “Actually he served in Africa, and lost an arm there. He came home then, married my mother, and bought a farm … call it an estate if you will. His own family he did not like, and he avoided my mother’s family as well.

  “They had refused to sanction the marriage until it became obvious that my mother would refuse to obey, and then they sanctioned it, but unwillingly. Later, after my father was visited by some of France’s foremost military men, their attitude changed, but he was a proud man
and would have none of it.

  “He had the devil’s own temper, and my own was like it. When I was not yet sixteen the arrogant nephew of an important man demanded that I hold his horse, and I refused. He attempted to horse-whip me, and although he was three years older and larger, I pulled him from his horse and gave him a beating. I thought I’d killed him, so I went home and put a few things together to run away.

  “My father came to stand in the door. He asked me about it, and I told him. He said that if I wished to stay he would face them beside me, but I refused. Then he offered me a dozen gold coins, but I knew they were all he had, and I refused that too. Finally we split them, and I shook his hand and left. I never saw him again.”

  “That was in France?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the name Williams? It doesn’t fit.”

  “It was a name I took when I needed a name in a hurry, that’s all.”

  “What do you think our chances are now with the Kiowas?”

  “You can never tell about Indians. They might attack, and they might not. They might try to stampede the herd, and then get us one by one as we try to round them up. This is a war party, hunting trouble. The other tribes who pulled out knew that, and did not want to be involved. If we put on a bold face we might ride right through them.”

  “I’m going into their camp,” Chantry said.

  French stared at him. “You’re crazy.”

  “I’ve heard that an Indian would never kill a man who came willingly into his camp. Maybe before or after, but never in camp unless he is brought in as a prisoner.”

  “Yes, but you just might find an Indian who didn’t think that way.”

  “In the meantime, you boys can drive the cattle right on … by going east.”

  “I know where Dodge is.” Williams threw his cigar into the flames. “If you’ve got nerve enough you might bring it off, but I wouldn’t want to bet on it.”

  Chantry got to his feet. “I’m turning in.” He paused for a moment, and then asked casually, “How much do you trust Rugger?”

  “Rugger? He works for me, but I don’t trust anybody. Including you.”