Читать книгу The Shaggy Legion - Hal G. Evarts - Страница 5

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"The grandson of Big Mandan is known to Black Elk," the war chief of the Crows greeted. "Always he has been welcome in the lodges of the Crows. Why does he now lead all these white men here to kill the buffalo of Black Elk and his people? The buffalo is following the trail of the beaver. Soon they will be gone. The white men must not kill buffalo in the country of the Crows. Tell them to turn back at once."

"These men do not come to kill the buffalo," Coleman said.

"It is the way of the white man to kill buffalo wherever he goes," Black Elk returned. "Why do these men come here? They are not wanted."

"Up in the country of the Blackfeet there are white men's mining towns, as Black Elk well knows," Coleman said. "The dogs of Blackfeet trouble them. We hasten through with supplies and the new medicine guns that shoot many times to help them fight the Blackfeet. We do not stop in the Crow country but hasten through. We would gain the permission of the great war chief Black Elk to pass through with all haste."

Black Elk pondered the matter. He was loath to go to war with the whites. Also, since before the days of his father's father, the Crows had been inveterate enemies of the Blackfeet. Any blow that the whites might inflict upon the Blackfeet would be most welcome. In the long ago, Big Mandan had led the wild trappers of the fur brigades against the Blackfeet. It was logical that his descendant would lead men to war against them. But there was the matter of the buffalo. The entire Crow nation was unalterably opposed to the abundant and useless killing among the herds by white men in Crow country.

"Black Elk has it from the Shoshones, who have it from the Utes, that the white-men-who-take-many-women on the shores of the big lake of salt possess medicine guns that are always loaded," the Crow chief said. "So much sooner will our buffalo be gone if your men turn those medicine guns upon the herds. If Black Elk knew that the guns would speak against the Blackfeet and remain silent among the buffalo the village-on-wheels might cross."

"No buffalo will be killed," Coleman said.

"Black Elk has never known a white man who did not kill buffalo," the chief said doubtfully. "How can the Crows know that these men are different?"

Coleman struck himself on the chest with his closed fist. "Coleman says it! Coleman is known to Black Elk as a great warrior whose lodge is black with the scalps of his enemies. They tremble at his name. Black Elk knows that his tongue is not split and that his words are straight! Would Coleman be such a senseless one as to kill buffalo in the heart of the Crow nation when the mighty Black Elk, chief of all the Crows, says it must not be? No! Coleman says no buffalo will be killed."

There was much further palaver.

"A man walks on two feet and has but one tongue in his head. A snake walks in the grass on but one foot and has two tongues in his mouth," Black Elk said at last. "I have watched your mouth and I have seen but one tongue in it. That is good. The Crows do not want war with the white men. Always they have slept under the same robe. Coleman says the white men will not kill our buffalo. Black Elk says the village-on-wheels may cross through. It is written."

The watching freighters and pilgrims saw the two men separate, each riding to rejoin his own faction.

"You can march on to water now," Coleman said to Flack.

"Break corral and get strung out on the march so's they can have a better chance at us?" Flack demanded. "Not me!"

The cloud of warriors turned and rode off across the sage.

"Well, we'll try it. Got to reach water," Flack said.

Sometime after noon the train descended to a shallow valley and went into camp on the shores of a sparkling little creek. It was at this stopping place that Mrs. Carrolton gave up the struggle and within the hour the new infant followed her. They were buried together beside this singing creek in the heart of the Crow nation. Carrolton seemed dazed, as if he scarcely comprehended his loss. Time after time he wandered to the wagon and peered into it as if to assure himself that the recent ceremony in the light of a blazing fire had been but a dream. Sue, dry-eyed now, comforted the younger children.

The stock was turned out to graze for the night. "I don't trust no damn Injun," Flack declared to Coleman. "Likely this is just a play o' theirs to get us off guard, then spring something. I'll have night guards to ride herd on the stock as usual."

If he had expected Coleman to take issue with him on that point, he was mistaken. "Well, I would think so!" Coleman agreed. "Stock stealing is the breath o' life to an Injun. The Crows as a whole will stand by what they said. But there's no chief that can control all his wild young bucks. A parcel of them might take a notion to run off our stock at any minute. But they won't attack. We're safe from that."

Flack grunted his doubt as to their immunity from attack by Crows. Coleman followed his usual procedure in bedding for the night. A hundred yards or more from the wagon corral he stretched himself out with his saddle at his head. Against it, ready to his hand, was propped his big navy pistol. His rifle he took to bed with him, sheltered from the weather by his buffalo robe. He slept undisturbed by the usual sounds. But on several occasions during the night he waked, listening, after the fashion of some wary animal. It was not until an hour before dawn that anything occurred to excite his suspicions. Then he opened his eyes, every sense alert, with a distinct feeling that all was not well. In common with all plainsmen and Indians, Coleman never failed to heed such obscure warnings. He could not have explained it in words, but the fact remained that in a large percentage of such awakenings there was some underlying cause. A stray scent drifting to his nose, a stealthy footfall reaching his ears or some similar message, traveling over the paths of his physical senses while he slept, had penetrated his consciousness and roused him to instant preparedness. Minutes passed but his tense watchfulness was not relaxed. His eyes probed the darkness, his ears were attuned to catch the slightest sound alien to the sleeping camp.

The ox herd had bedded down a hundred yards away and the night guards sat sleepily on their mules. Several oxen had risen from their beds to graze again. Coleman could hear their occasional slow movements, the stamp of a restless saddle mule. Then an ox snorted, a loud blowing sound denoting sudden suspicion. There was a swift rumble, the cracking of joints as every animal in the herd rose to its feet as one.

"What the hell!" the voice of one of the guards drifted from the night. "Ride round 'em, boys. They're going to make a run." Coleman heard the guards calling out soothingly to their charges. There was an ominous quiet about the herd as if every animal in it, suspicions roused as Coleman's had been, stood tense and alert. The slightest alien sound, scent or movement would serve to start them running now.

It might be that a grizzly had wandered along the creek, Coleman thought. Undoubtedly, the Crows had scouts observing the camp. Perhaps one had ventured too close or had crossed upwind. A vague movement attracted Coleman's gaze, as if perhaps there had been merely an eddying current to stir the surrounding darkness, a deeper shadow imposed upon the steel-blue background of the night. A crouching figure, silent as a cat, moved upwind toward the herd. From his prone position, Coleman could see the few upright feathers sprouting above the savage's head in silhouette against the sky. Some unruly young Crow braves intent upon stampeding the stock, he decided. A shot would stampede the herd. Coleman's hand sought his knife. But if he took the life of a Crow, even when the latter was engaged in attempting to steal the stock, it would mean war. Stock stealing was a recognized and honorable occupation among all Western tribes. Coleman held his hand and spoke to the crouching savage in low tones.

"Black Elk will be angry if his young men frighten the white man's stock," he said in the Crow tongue.

Even before he had finished speaking, the savage had leaped erect with a fierce grunt, hurling a few words at his unseen foe. A bowstring twanged sharply and an arrow hissed above Coleman's head. This was no Crow that addressed him. Coleman did not speak the Blackfoot tongue but he divined on the instant that the marauders were not Crows but raiding Blackfeet who had slipped into Crow country. His knife arm described an arc through the air. The night was rent by a sudden wild shriek. Dark figures sprang into view in the blackness and leaped toward the herd. The yelping gobble of the dread war whoop rose above the thunderous rumble of hooves as the ox herd left the bed ground. All had occurred within ten seconds from the time that Coleman had spoken the first words to the stalking savage.

Bowstrings twanged sibilant accompaniment to the war whoops. Muskets roared and crimson flashes cut brilliant streaks across the dark background of the sage. Coleman, on his knee now, with his big Sharp rifle pressed to his cheek, fired at a dark figure just behind one of those crimson flashes.

A death screech rewarded him. Then he was running, pistol in hand, in the general direction that the stampede had taken. He saw the flashes as one of the night guards emptied his pistol. Behind him, faintly, he heard Flack roaring orders. After running for half a mile without having sighted an enemy, Coleman dropped suddenly flat as a slender form loomed just ahead. A low bubbling gurgle reached his ears. The figure lurched sidewise and fell to the ground with a crash of mangled sagebrush. Coleman knew then that the slender form had been that of a wounded ox, facing him. He advanced and pulled the arrow from the side of the stricken beast. Then he turned to make his way back to the wagon camp. It was growing light now, and there was need for haste.

The white tops of the prairie schooners loomed vaguely as some ghost city in the gray dawn. Coleman found the camp prepared to resist attack.

"Thar's how much a Crow promise amounts to!" Flack roared.

"Blackfeet," Coleman returned shortly. "Raiding party out to steal Crow horses or take a few easy scalps and make a run for it. They chanced across us instead." He exhibited the arrow that he had drawn from the dead ox. "Blackfoot make and marking. There'll be a party of Crows flanking us all the way through their nation, three-four mile off where we never set eyes on them. Their scouts would have heard the ruckus and read the sounds right. Won't be long before Crows will be swooping in. Give orders that not a man fires on them."

Even as he spoke, a rise of ground half a mile away suddenly swarmed with mounted warriors that popped continuously over the skyline and raced their ponies toward the camp.

"I'll go out to meet them. You can send men on out to help the night guards round up the stock. I'll get the Crows to lend a hand."

Coleman went out to meet the advancing Crows. He mounted an extra horse that one of the warriors led. With Black Elk at the head of fifty braves, he rode round the train toward the spot where the two slain Blackfeet lay. Already Flack and another freighter had discovered the nearest body and stood there looking down at it curiously. Flack shivered slightly as he observed the handle of the knife, its heavy blade buried to the hilt in the dead warrior. The Crows dismounted and stripped the scalps from the Blackfeet.

Then, accompanied by several freighters, the party swept on at full speed on the trail of the stampede. The Crows fanned out over a wide front to cut the trail of the Blackfeet. Here and there along the way, small groups of oxen and occasional mules were discovered and freighters were detailed to gather them and start them moving back toward camp. Several badly wounded animals were dispatched. Some six or eight miles out from the train, at the base of a high range of hills, the weary night guards had gathered the bigger part of the herd. Black Elk detailed a score of braves to scour the surrounding country in search of strays that might have quit the run during its course.

The main band of Crows, led by Black Elk himself, took the trail of the Blackfeet and followed it into the higher hills, only to find that the raiders had separated, after the usual custom of the Blackfeet when pursued, each one shifting for himself, and had been lost in the maze of canyons that led back up into the peaks. In the early evening the Crows returned to the wagon camp where the last of the scattered stock had been gathered through the efforts of the warriors detailed for that purpose.

The Crows made camp a few hundred yards down the creek. Huge fires were kindled and throughout the night the savages hopped, shuffled and chanted in the frenzied throes of the scalp dance round the two wisps of hair wrenched from the Blackfeet. The steady throbbing of the tom-toms boomed until high dawn.

The Crows now looked upon the members of the wagon train as allies. Particularly, they viewed Coleman as a mighty brave. Black Elk was heavily indebted to him. Coleman, of course, had slain the two Blackfeet, but neither he nor others of the freighters had touched the bodies. Black Elk himself had been first to fling from his pony and strike the dead with his coup stick before wrenching off the scalps. An Indian received no credit for an enemy killed at long range. Victory was accorded only to the first man who reached a fallen foe and struck him with a weapon held in the hand. Thus Black Elk was entitled to boast two more "coos" that he had counted upon his enemies. Naturally, his regard for Coleman was high.

Thereafter, parties of mounted Crows flanked the route of march. At every stopping place, Crow squaws and children materialized as if by magic to beg for sugar and for trinkets. Still adamant in their refusal to allow buffalo killing in their country by white men, Crow hunting parties brought meat in abundance and supplied the train.

The Crows observed that Coleman rode on occasion beside the wagon wherein Sue Carrolton rode; that he sat with her round the campfire of nights. They spoke of her as the squaw whom the grandson of Big Mandan would soon take to his lodge. Also they observed that the burly wagon boss coveted this girl and that his heart was bad toward Coleman. Among themselves it was agreed that Coleman, a great warrior, soon would be wearing Flack's scalp at his belt if the wagon boss opened hostilities.

Something of that same feeling had taken shape in Flack's own thoughts. He knew that most men had to nerve themselves to the point of killing a fellow human. Coleman, he divined, had no need to nerve himself—was always primed, in fact, to kill a man as readily as he might slay a wolf if the need arose. He recalled the haft of that heavy knife protruding from the side of the Blackfoot brave in whose heart the blade had been buried. Save for the timely appearance of the Crows that first morning, it was highly probable that that knife would have found its mark in his own body. There had been no indecision in Coleman's eyes on that occasion; instead a cold fury and the intent to kill. His dislike for Coleman smouldering, Flack nevertheless refrained from any further clash of wills.

The Crows wondered why Coleman did not take the blue-eyed squaw to wife at once.

"She wails for her dead," one brave suggested. "When her period of wailing has ended, he will take her to his lodge."

"It is not that," another submitted. "Coleman, though a great warrior, is poor. He owns but one horse. The wagon chief is rich. He has many cattle. The wagon chief will buy the blue-eyed squaw from the head of her lodge. He can pay the biggest price. He will get her. You will see."

The Crows pondered this and did not find it good. They had scalp-danced every night over the two tufts of Blackfeet hair. Black Elk, their greatest war chief, could boast two more coos because of Coleman's run-in with their hereditary enemies. Flack found no favor in their eyes.

The train reached the edge of Crow country at last. Coleman had ridden on ahead as the outfit started to break camp. Black Elk and several braves appeared suddenly from the mouth of a gulch. They led a number of ponies, several of which were packed with finely dressed buffalo robes and furs. Formally, they tied the ponies to the wheels and tongues of Carrolton's wagons.

Carrolton had been in more or less of a daze since the loss of his wife. He seemed oddly vague, as if some vital part of him were missing. Now he gazed uncomprehendingly at Black Elk as the Crow chief addressed him.

Chuckling, old Ike Williams stepped forward to act as interpreter. His heavy earrings sparkled in the early morning light. His mind slipped back to that time when the mountain men, himself among them, had vied with one another as to who could do the most for the mite of an infant in the trading post on Snake River, grandson of Hunter Breckenridge, the Big Mandan, wild hawk of the fur brigades. It was Williams, himself, who had rustled an Arapaho squaw whose infant had died and whom he had induced to cross South Pass and accompany him to Snake River to nurse the orphaned infant. He chuckled again at the recollection.

"The Injuns don't love Flack overmuch," he explained to Carrolton. "They think he'll make a bid for Sue and that you'll take his offer."

"Sue? Flack!" Carrolton said with sudden spirit. "That coyote could never have my gal. Tell the Injuns that and shoo 'em off so I can yoke my bulls."

"They're off'rin' you the ponies and the robes and other plunder to purchase Sue for Breck Coleman," the old mountain man grinned.

Carrolton snorted angrily. The girl flushed scarlet beneath her tan. "Just what variety o' varmint do them miscreants think I am—to barter off a gal o' mine for ponies?" Carrolton demanded truculently.

"It's the Injun way of getting their selves a wife," Williams said. "They mean all right. If 'twas me, I'd take the ponies."

Carrolton had wondered about Sue and Coleman. He looked at the girl's flushed cheeks and dancing eyes.

"She can wed the man she picks on without any one a-bribing me with horses. Tell 'em that for me!"

"They wouldn't savvy. It ain't within the bounds of Injun understanding that a man won't sell his daughter if the price is right—any more'n a white man could understand selling his daughter at any price. See? They'd think you was holding out for a better price. Accept the ponies and they'll be mighty pleased. An Injun's mind don't follow the white man's road in such matters."

Carrolton looked at his daughter. "Is it that way betwixt you and Breck?" he asked.

The girl nodded assent.

"Yes. Some day, if things come right. I can't go to him yet awhile. These youngsters has to have some one to look after them, now since Ma's gone. It'll have to be me. But some day—yes, it's that way with Breck and me, I reckon, Pa."

"Well, you tell them Injuns that I thank 'em kindly but that my gal can go to Breck if she's a-mind to and they don't need to bribe me with no ponies," Carrolton instructed.

Williams turned to Black Elk. "The head of the blue-eyed squaw's lodge says the price is right," he lied glibly.

With exclamations of satisfaction, the warriors turned and rode off across the sage.

"They says to keep the ponies and other truck as a weddin' present for Sue," Williams explained amiably to Carrolton. The old mountain man returned to the task of yoking his oxen. To himself he added virtuously, "When thar's two parties dickering, neither of which can travel the other's trail o' reasoning, it's always a good idee to take the middle ground. All hands are mighty well satisfied with themselves now; and I ain't got any reasonable cause for complaint agin myself."

The train crawled slowly on toward destination and eventually reached the mining camps. Sue Carrolton, mounted on one of the Indian ponies, rode in the lead with Coleman as the bull train pulled into Virginia City, the first capital of Montana, while the miners cheered.