Under the Sweetwater Rim (1971) (3 page)

As the column advanced he considered the situation.

Ordinarily a renegade force would try to avoid battle with a military unit, but they might risk it. It was too bad, he reflected, that so much of a recruit's time was wasted on close-order drill, of use only for parade formations and in moving a command in an organized area. Such training was useless in combat; a recruit was taught everything except how to fight. The only way the army offered training in combat was by survival. If one survived in combat one was wiser and a better fighter next time.

When the command had been moving for two hours, Major Devereaux dismounted them under the edge of some trees for a short breather. He wanted both men and horses fresh if they came up with the enemy. He walked among them, checking the appearance of the men and their horses. Cahill was waiting for him when he returned to the head of the column. "Sir, is it possible that you believe Lieutenant Brian to be in command of those renegades?"

"I have suggested no such thing, Lieutenant.

However, there are questions to be answered. Brian was in Julesburg when he was believed to be elsewhere.

He is now with the ambulance in which my daughter is riding. There is no explanation for his presence there. It alone evaded the massacre. One might believe that he had led the ambulance away deliberately before the massacre took place. That would imply prior knowl- edge.

"Furthermore, he is proceeding westward, he has overstayed his leave, and is making no effort to return to duty. That could imply intent to desert."

"But thafs all supposition, sir," Cahill protested. "There could be other explanations"

"Of course. I shall be prepared to hear them. I believe you will admit that other explanations would be doubtful, to say the least."

He glanced at the sun. "Give them five minutes more, Lieutenant, then move them out."

"Ten Brian is my friend, sir. I cannot believe he would do anything dishonorable."

"Your loyalty does you credit. I hope he is worthy of it. Nonetheless, Lieutenant, if we come upon Lieutenant Brian he is to be put under arrest." "Yes, sir. Is it necessary, sir?"

"It will be necessary. You will obey orders."

Cahill flushed. "Of course."

Devereaux watched Cahill walk away.

Whatever else might be said of Brian, he thought, he inspired a unique kind of loyalty.

There probably was not a man in the command who would not speak for him, or fight for him if necessary.

Mark Devereaux was not a man who took much for granted, not even with himself. Stern he might be, and a stickler for the letter of the law, but he was always questioning himself, and he wondered now how much of his suspicion was justified. Was he jealous?

Deliberately, he avoided thoughts of Mary.

He must be clear-headed, and be in a position to judge fairly. Doubt, fear, and emotion could cloud his judgment.

He led off at a fast walk, and after half a mile, to a trot. There was so little time.

When the ambulance was hi. In within the mouth of the gully, and the horses returned from water, Ten Brian went out to do what he could to obliterate the tracks.

He had no illusions of escaping from the renegades or Indians. He knew his enemies too well to underrate their skill. What he did hope to do was keep from being discovered or captured until Major Devereaux's command came within marching distance.

At the same time he knew their chances were best to strike for Fort Bridger and safety. There was a limit beyond which Devereaux could not go, and the ambulance had nearly reached that limit now. So they must find a position from which they could observe the trail to the south and east, and if after a reasonable time they did not sight Devereaux's troops, they must make a run for it for Fort Bridger, roughly a hundred miles to the west. Day had just come when Brian returned to the ambulance. Belle Renick was waiting for him.

"Is it all right to make coffee? The men are worn out, Lieu- tenant."

"By all means. Ironhide will make you a fire. Nothing must go into the flames that will cause smoke, and the fire must be put out as soon as breakfast is over."

It was a risk, he knew, but coffee and a hot meal were a morale factor he dared not omit.

Ironhide was a Cherokee, and he could be depended on as to the fire.

He started to turn away but her voice stopped him. "Lieutenant, I don't understand this at all.

Why, if there was danger, did you take us away from the safety of the wagon train?"

"There was no safety there, Mrs. Renick. As I have said, you must trust me."

"But where are you taking us?"

Corporal West had come up with an armful of dry wood, and now he stood listening.

"I am trying to save your lives. The wagon train is gone . . . wiped out." "You mean ... all those people? They've been killed? Oh, no!"

"Mrs. Renick, I am as sure of it as if I had been there. I tried to warn them. I asked them to stop, to take up a strong position and wait for Major Devereaux's patrol. They wouldn't listen to me, so I used my rank to pull you people out of the train."

Her eyes searched his face. "I don't know what to think, Lieutenant, and I'm frightened"

"West, will you ask the other men to step over here?

And Mrs. Renick, if you would ask Mary to come out."

"I am out."

Mary was standing at the back of the ambulance, a slender, strong girl with grave, serious eyes, watching him. He looked at her, and for a moment their eyes held, but he said nothing more, waiting for the men.

The air was crisp. Overhead the sky was cloudless blue. He could smell spring in the air, the earth coming alive.

Above on the left was a knoll. The gully was a short one, invisible until one was right upon it. A buffalo wallow had probably began it, and water running from the knoll, had over the years cut the gully deeper with every rain. Trees had grown up around it until in the hollow a wagon and horses could be concealed, allowing for a camp hidden from all eyes. The nearest water was a hundred yards off. There was nothing about this knoll to distinguish it from any other, and it seemed to offer no possible hiding place. Schwartz was the teamster, a stocky, bull-headed German who had served in the old country. He was a good man, strong, unimaginative, dependable as the sunrise.

Ironhide, the Cherokee, born in eastern Oklahoma, was a veteran of six years in the cavalry. He was a tall man, slightly stooped; at twenty-three he looked thirty, and at sixty would probably still look thirty. He was a tough, tireless man, and a dead shot.

George Dorsey was a drifter, at various times a track-layer, a steamboat hand, a cattle drover. He had served two years in the 7th Iowa, and Brian suspected he had served elsewhere before that. Many of the Indian-fighting army had deserted at one time or another, then re-enlisted. They went over the hill, prospected or hunted buffalo for a time, got hungry, and enlisted again.

Dorsey had been on watch on top of the knoll.

"Did you see anything up there?" Brian asked.

"Nothing.. . not even an antelope."

Brian glanced at them briefly, then explained. "When I ordered you to leave the wagon train with me you may have believed me to be crazy, but I knew it was the only way I could save any of you.

"I had occasion to visit Julesburg, and as some of you may know, I grew up in this country. There was a man there I knew, and he passed the word to me that the wagon train would never reach South Pass. By the time I caught up with you the wagonmaster was sure you were out of danger. You will remember that I tried to persuade him to fort up and wait, but he refused to consider it. I had no authority over him, but you were Army personnel."

Corporal West said, "I heard you tell Miss Devereaux the wagon train had been destroyed. How can you know that?"

"I cannot be sure, but yesterday we saw smoke rising from where the wagons should have been."

"They'd have been hard to take, Lieutenant.

There were some good men in that outfit."

"My information was there would be forty or more seasoned fighters in the attacking party. Not Indians, but renegade white men who have been in this business for quite a while, possibly for years. The attackers could choose their own time, and catch the train in the open or when it was crossing a stream"

"You seem mighty sure, Lieutenant. Odd you should know all about this before ever it happened."

Ten Brian was cool. "I am almighty sure of one thing, Corporal West, that had I not come along you would now be lying among the dead. And let me say this. If anything happens to me you will be in command.

I hope when you are you will recall what I am saying now. There is no more dangerous man alive than the one who leads that group, and we have not escaped them yet" "You want to try for Fort Bridger?"

"Their headquarters is behind us, and they are now somewhere near. Their hunting ground is the country we have passed through, and if we wait they may turn back."

"Do they know about us?"

Brian shrugged. "If they do, they will come after us.

They daren't let anybody escape. Also, they'll be wanting women."

Belle Renick interrupted. "The coffee is ready, and rve broiled some steaks."

After Dorsey had returned to the lookout on the knoll, Brian turned again to West.

"Corporal, I want you and Schwartz with the wagon and the women at all times. One of you must be awake always. "Dorsey, Ironhide, and I will take turn about watching from the knoll." When the others had moved off he sat again by the dying fire and filled his cup from the blackened pot.

"I am not sure I like this, Ten," Mary said.

"You are not alone-I like nothing about it"

"If we are off the trail like this, how will father ever find us?" "He may be in so much trouble he won't have time to look. If you recall, your father has only a few veterans in that group. Most of the men have never heard a gun fired, as far as we know."

"Those men . . . they wouldn't attack the army?"

"They might. But only if they felt they had something to gain." He glanced at Belle. "Did the Captain give you a gun?"

"Yes."

"Keep it handy-you may need it. And neither of you must leave camp without telling Schwartz or West, and when you go, go together."

They sat in silence for a while, staring at the coals. "Ten, what are we going to do?" Mary asked presently.

"We'll stay right here for two or three days-it's an unlikely place to look. They won't look for us very long, I'm thinking, and after that we'll pull out for the west, keeping to high ground in the mountains" The air was still, the sky was cloudless.

Brian glanced at the knoll. There were no trees at the top, only a little brush and some dwarf cedar that grew from an outcropping of rock.

There was a small hollow up there, just large enough for three or four men. From the concealment it offered, anyone would have a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree field of fire, with no cover nearer than a hundred yards. However, at a point nearly that far away there rose another hill, slightly higher than their own, and a good marksman on top of that hill could make this position untenable. This was the only drawback in their position here except for its lack of water. Two barrels on the sides of the ambulance, but rarely carried on such a vehicle, took care of that problem when the ambulance was near.

Ever since leaving the wagon train, Brian had taken precautions to erase as much of their trail as possible, but he knew that a skillful tracker could find them.

At noon he climbed the knoll and relieved Dorsey. "Get some sleep," he said. "You'll need it."

He settled down to studying the terrain. This would be a moonlight night, but rocks and trees have a way of looking different by night, and unless every one of them was memorized, a man might believe he was seeing things that he was not.

There was no use, he reflected, in telling them that the man at the head of the renegades was Reuben Kelsey. They had worries enough. Kelsey had never won the reputation of some of the other border riders, like Quantrill or Bloody Bill Anderson, but he had been wise enough to shift his base of operations to the Emigrant Trail. The loot was better, there were Indians to take the blame, and there were no settlers to report their activities. Above all, Kelsey knew the country as few other men did. Everybody knew about Reuben Kelsey, but the fact that he was operating this far west was not known. It had been reported that he had been seen in Kentucky, and even that he had been killed during a fight in Missouri. As for Ten Brian, he had made no secret of the fact that he had once known Kelsey, or that they had been friendly after a fashion.

Choctaw Benson had been the source of the information as to Kelsey's presence in Wyoming. Ten Brian as a boy had known Benson and liked the old mountain man, and he had come upon him again in a frontier saloon, after his own return to the frontier. He had bought him a drink, then staked him.

A few days later, as Brian was preparing for his trip to St. Louis, word had reached him that Benson wanted to see him. Brian hesitated because of his own plans, but Choctaw Benson had never made an urgent request before, so Brian had gone to Julesburg.