Novel 1968 - Chancy (v5.0) Read online

  An Indian, rifle in hand, stood silently awaiting me. Along the edge of the wood I then saw another, and another…and another.

  There were at least six of them, and I was alone.

  Chapter 7

  MY HORSE HAD continued to walk forward, and I lifted my right hand, palm out. Closing my fist, I then raised the index and middle fingers together, and lifted them beside my face in the sign for friend. The Indians waited, making no move.

  Now, there’s mighty few Indians can resist a good horse trade, and what we needed most right now was a few horses. I had a feeling these Indians could use some beef, so as I drew nearer I made the sign for trade, raising the two fore-fingers and crossing the wrists so the fingers pointed in opposite directions, and sawed the wrists back and forth a couple of times. There were some variations of these signs among plains and mountain tribes, but they mattered little.

  These were Cheyennes, I could see that, and a fine-looking lot, too, warriors every one of them. They were wearing no paint, and one of them had an antelope quarter and some other meat from the animal tied in the skin behind his saddle.

  One of the Indians spoke suddenly. “Who you?”

  “Otis Tom Chancy. I’m driving cattle, and we could use some horses. I figured we might swap—beef for horses.”

  He studied me, and then looked at the horse I was riding. Indicating the buckskin, he said, “Him Injun horse.”

  “I swapped for him,” I said. “Got him from a Shawnee.”

  “What name this Shawnee?”

  “Jim Bigbear. He’s riding with me.”

  “How you know sign talk?”

  “I grew up with the Cherokees.” Here I made the sign for friend, then touched the fingers to my lips, which indicated brother.

  Turning my horse, I motioned for them to follow, and after the briefest hesitation they trailed along behind, riding easily, but warily.

  As this was Indian country we were going into, it seemed to me a good idea to try to be friends. A man can fight if he has to, but the worst thing he can do is to go looking for trouble. Of course he can make a fool of himself by assuming the other fellow wants peace, too, and this is a mistake sometimes made, for many Indians have nothing to gain except through war.

  Jim saw us coming, and when we rode into camp everybody was relaxing, but at the same time everybody was armed and ready. You can be sure those Cheyennes noticed it, too.

  Grub was on the fire, and Tom took one look at the Indians and started slicing chunks of beef. We sat around the fire and the Cheyennes put away the best part of a side of buffalo and a gallon or so of coffee before we settled down to palavering about horses.

  Corbin sidled over to me. “You going to let them stay in camp all night?”

  It was a problem, but I saw no way around it. I wanted horses, but I also wanted the Indians to know we were not afraid of them—and that if necessary we would fight.

  By the time darkness was closing in we had made us a swap of beef for horses. They would ride back to their camp for the horses, and then we would make the swap. But we wanted good horses…this was the point I made. Good stock, or no trade.

  As a matter of fact, I needed those horses almighty bad. Ours were worn down from overwork, and we were nearing the country where I planned to settle. Once there, we would have to keep a constant watch on our herds or Indians would run them off, and at the same time we would have to be building corrals, a cabin for ourselves, and some kind of shelter for our saddle stock.

  Jim Bigbear was taking the first guard, and when he rode out the Cheyennes watched him go. These Indians looked fit for any kind of a scrap. We were five to their six, but aside from our sixshooters we were no better armed.

  Tom and Cotton turned in, and the Indians rolled up in their blankets, but none of us was fooled. We knew they would be awake, or at least some of them would. After a while, Handy Corbin went to his blankets, and I sat alone by the fire, rifle across my knees.

  It was quiet…we heard nothing but a coyote howling in the far-off distance. The cattle bedded down and seemed content. After a time I went to my blankets and turned in, but I kept a six-gun in my hand, and my rifle close by.

  Cotton got up shortly before midnight, added some water to the coffee, and Tom joined him. Cotton rode out to relieve Jim, and after having his coffee, Tom went out, too. Jim idled about the fire and I went to sleep with him still there. We had agreed amongst us that either Tom or Cotton would ride up to the fire off and on during the night to sort of keep an eye on things after Jim turned in.

  It was about two hours after midnight that I woke up. It was time for Handy and me to relieve the others. For a few minutes I lay still, just listening, studying the night with my ears.

  From where I lay I could see the fire, which was down to red coals. There was some smoke drifting up, mingling with a mite of steam from the pot. All of a sudden I saw one of the Indians move under his blanket. He came out from under it like a snake, and he had a knife in his hand.

  I don’t know what he had in mind. With an Indian, a body never knows. We had a lot of fixings around camp that an Indian could use, and to an Indian anybody not of his tribe is fair game. To his way of thinking, to stick a knife into each one of us would be a fine piece of business. But I wanted no trouble unless it was necessary, so I merely eared back the hammer of my Winchester.

  That Cheyenne froze as if somebody had nailed his feet to the ground, but I just got up, easy-like and walked over to the fire, seeming to pay him no mind. He could see the hammer was back on my Winchester, and he could make his own choices.

  He simply picked up a stick and began cutting some shavings to kindle up the fire, as if that had been his idea all the time…and maybe it was.

  The fire began to blaze up and I poured him a cup of coffee and handed it across the fire to him—with my left hand. And he taken it, also with his left hand. I thought I glimpsed a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.

  We both drank coffee, and then Corbin came up to the fire. I could tell from his eyes that he, too, had been awake. And so could the Cheyenne. If he had lifted that knife to anybody, he would have been blasted right out of his tracks by at least two rifles…and well he knew it.

  When daylight came the Indians rode off, and a few hours later they were back with some saddle stock. We made a swap, picking up six fresh ponies, and the Cheyennes left with us a buffalo quarter for good measure.

  We shook hands, that big Cheyenne and me, and grinned at each other. Neither of us was fooled, and each of us was liking the other.

  He had walked his horse some thirty yards when he turned in the saddle. “Where you go?”

  “Somewhere up on the Powder.”

  “That’s Cheyenne country.”

  “We don’t figure to cause any trouble. We’re just going to run a few head of cattle up there. You come and see me. I’ll have a beef for you.”

  They rode away, and we watched them go, and then we started our cattle again.

  IN THE COOL of the evening we came up to the red wall that Tom Hacker had told me about. We’d been taking our time, and the cattle were fat and sassy. The wall towered up above the grassy plain, barring all progress.

  “You say there’s a hole in that? How far up?”

  “I’m guessing,” Jim said, after studying the country and the wall, “but I’d say four, five miles north. The Middle Fork of the Powder runs through it, and it’s a big, wide hole. That’s not to say that a few riflemen couldn’t hold it if they were of a mind to. There’s water and grass in behind it…good grazing along Buffalo or Spring creeks.”

  A couple of hours later we rode through the Hole-in-the-Wall and let the herd spread out a mite along the Middle Fork. It was almost dark, but we let them eat a little before we bunched them for the night.

  Two days later we found the spot we were searching for, a hollow of the hills with some scattered trees and brush, and a creek that turned around under the edge of the fringing cliffs that shaded the water.
It was good water, sweet and cold. There was good grass around, mostly blue grama on the flatlands and low hills, wheat-grass on the higher ridges.

  We turned the herd loose in the rock-walled basin and set to work to build a cabin under the trees. Hacker, Madden, and I did most of the building, while Handy Corbin and Jim Bigbear guarded the cattle. They sometimes killed an antelope or a deer, and once in a while a buffalo. The weeks passed quickly, and there was no sign of trouble.

  “You think we lost ’em?” Madden asked me.

  “No,” I said, “they’ll be coming.”

  “I feel that you are right,” Jim Bigbear commented soberly.

  As the best hand with an axe, I notched the logs for the cabin. We could expect cold winters, and we made the cabin tight and strong, allowing no chinks, and we built a good fireplace that would take a good-size log. But every day, no matter how heavy the work load, I managed to let one rider loose to explore the country. At night we’d talk about what he’d seen during the day, and as most cowhands have a good feeling for terrain and the general lay of the land, we soon began to get a picture of what it was like around our ranch.

  “We’re going to have to cut hay,” I told them, “so keep an eye out for some good meadows.”

  We snaked logs out of the timber, taking the fallen stuff wherever possible, and building a stack of wood against the coming winter. And in all that time we saw nobody at all, not even an Indian.

  By the time the cool winds started to blow down off the mountains we had wood stacked near the cabin, hay stacked in the meadows, and near one of the cliffs that bordered our little basin we had built a shelter for cattle that used the wall of the cliff to keep the wind off them. We had worked hard and steady, and still no trouble.

  But I was worried. Not so much by what might happen when Caxton Kelsey and LaSalle Prince found us as by thinking of Tarlton’s coming.

  When we made our deal in Abilene he had said he would join us with another herd this year. That meant he’d best be getting here soon if he was coming. There was no post office within many a mile, and it seemed as if the best chance to get some news was to ride to Cheyenne, or to Fort Laramie, which was a bit closer. Also, if he had a herd on the trail we’d best be keeping an eye out for it. All Tarlton knew was that we had come to Wyoming.

  Now, that wasn’t so bad as it might sound, because cattle were so scarce in Wyoming in 1871 that word of mouth would tell him a good bit about where we’d gone. But he would never find this place without a guide.

  The upshot of it was that I started thinking of riding down the trail toward Fort Laramie. The work here was caught up. Now it was mostly a matter of keeping a watch on the cattle and riding careful because of Indians, so I put it up to them. “I’m fixing to take two men along,” I said, “and you can draw cards for who’s to go.”

  Corbin and Hacker won, but Hacker tossed his winning king back on the deck. “Take Cotton along,” he said. “He’s younger, and he’ll need a look at a girl before he holes in for the winter.”

  The leaves had turned, the grass had gone all brown, and the winds that blew down from the Big Horns were raw and cold. When a man starts riding out in that kind of weather it makes him wonder what he’s done with his summer’s wages.

  We went out of the Hole-in-the-Wall and lit a shuck for Fort Laramie. We had been riding no more than an hour when we crossed the first set of tracks—a dozen ponies, unshod, heading west, and a bit south.

  “No travois,” Corbin said, “so they’re not just moving to another camp. No women or kids along.”

  “Might be a hunting party,” Cotton Madden suggested.

  We rode on, but just before sundown we came on another bunch of tracks, also headed a little south of west…only four riders this time.

  Nobody was taking any bets, but we were all doing some serious contemplating. So far, it didn’t mean a thing, but there’d been talk here and there of the Cheyennes getting together, with rumors of them going on the warpath.

  FORT LARAMIE WAS the biggest army post I’d seen. It lay on the flat in a bend of the Laramie River, named for a French-Canadian trapper, Jacques La Ramée, who was killed by Indians in 1820. The fort had first been a fur-trading post, back in 1834, and folks bound west had stopped off there for many a year.

  It was quite a place, with a lot of buildings of all sorts scattered about, maybe half of them around the parade ground, the rest seemingly located without any plan. The hills around were brown with autumn, and most of the trees along the river had already shed their leaves.

  We rode up to the sutler’s store, dismounted, tied our horses, and went inside. There were three men at the enlisted men’s bar…only one of them a soldier.

  The bartender moved over to us, polishing a glass. “Rye,” I said, “and some information.”

  He filled our glasses, then squinted through the cigarette smoke, resting both hands on the bar. “What do you want to know?” he asked.

  “We’re expecting a herd of cattle…a small herd. A man named Tarlton will probably bring them.”

  “Cattle? We haven’t seen a herd of cattle, not since I’ve been on the post. Only cattle I’ve seen was driven in here for our own use.”

  One of the men at the bar, a stocky man in buckskins, turned half around. “Tarlton? The cattle buyer from Abilene? He rode out of Abilene before I did…that’s a month ago.”

  Corbin tossed off his drink. “We’ve got troubles, Chancy,” he said. “He should have been here before this.”

  “Any Indian trouble?” I asked.

  “None to speak of,” the man in buckskins answered. “Of course, you know how it is with Indians, if they get notional. Where were the cattle headed?”

  Well, I hesitated. I knew the army looked with no favor on cattlemen moving into Indian country. “Up the country,” I said finally.

  “You’d better have your own army then. The Sioux don’t take to the white-eyes moving in amongst them.”

  “I thought that was Cheyenne country.”

  “Sioux…Cheyenne, it makes no difference, They’ll have your hair if you try to live in that country.” He paused. “A man might make peace with the Cheyennes, although they are great fighters when given cause. But I don’t believe the devil himself, nor the good Lord, for that matter, could make peace with the Sioux. They live to fight, and believe me, friend, they fight well.”

  Of their fighting ability I had no doubt, but I hoped to live among them in peace. The buffalo were going, anybody could see that, and maybe we could trade with the Indians…maybe even get them to ranching on shares.

  What worried me right now was Tarlton. He should have arrived near Fort Laramie by now, or he should have gone on north, and we had cut no trail coming south.

  We went outside. It was pleasantly warm in the sunshine, cool in the shade. I glanced at the sky, and it gave promise of fair weather. But I had no idea what to do. Seems to me a lot of folks want to be leaders, but almighty few of them realize that decisions don’t come easy. We could wait here, hoping Tarlton would show up, or we could scout toward Nebraska, or even send out a man to ride west and try to cut any trail they might have made.

  Finally I decided to sit tight and keep my boys together. Meanwhile I would try to find out if any patrols or army details had been sent out, and to learn what they knew. That meant caution, for if the army had to notice us officially, we’d be in the soup for sure.

  I couldn’t stop thinking of Tarlton. He was a good man, but he was a city man. I had no idea who he had with him, or how good they were, and I knew a good part of my own success had been because of the men I’d had with me. Especially because of the uncanny skill of Jim Bigbear and the steadiness of Tom Hacker. But every man had done his share.

  Also, the more I heard of the Sioux and the Cheyennes, the more worried I became for the herd and the men left with it. I not only wanted to find Tarlton, but I wanted to be back with the outfit. The Indians would surely know where they were, and might come down u
pon them at any time.

  We went back into the sutler’s store and bought what we could, letting him hold it for us until we decided to leave. To the other things, we added ammunition. I had no idea how much we’d need, but I bought a thousand rounds.

  The sutler stared. “You figuring on starting a war?”

  “Buffalo huntin’,” I lied. “I heard there was a big lot of them over west and to the south.”

  Probably he didn’t believe me, but he let us have what we wanted.

  We stayed at the post for two full days, checking every rumor we heard, talking to the soldiers who returned from the routine patrols. But all the while we heard nothing.

  When the news came it was bad…very bad.

  I was sitting with Corbin at a table in the sutler’s saloon when Cotton came in. He crossed right over to the table and pulled back a chair. “Chancy”—he spoke in a low tone, but I could see the others watching, guessing something was in the wind—“I seen a cowhide hangin’ on a fence yonder.” He jerked his head to indicate the direction of Hog Town. “It’s carryin’ a Lazy TC!”

  “You sure?” I asked it, but I was only buying time to consider, for I knew he was sure. No cowhand was apt to mistake something like that.

  “I’m sure,” he said. “I’d have started askin’ folks about it, but decided I’d best get back here and report to you.”

  “Good man,” I said. “Let’s go over there.”

  We got up and went outside to our horses. As we mounted up, I glanced over by the commissary. There was a man standing there watching us, and there was something vaguely familiar about him, but I gave it no special thought at the moment.

  The Hog Ranch was a saloon, trading post, and hotel just off the post at the western end. Later it would become a more elaborate setup, I suppose, but right then it was a pretty miserable place, offering the soldiers some rot-gut whiskey, a change of food, and occasionally, a woman or two imported from bigger towns where they hadn’t been able to stand the competition. Officially, it didn’t even exist, but every man on the post knew it was there, and knew it as a hangout for some rough types.