Ride the Moon Down (71 page)

Beyond the walls, just on the far side of those gate timbers, men cursed, some calling out the names of those they had recognized among Walker’s outfit.

Of a sudden they were hushed by one voice, a voice that hollered out as the horses snorted around Walker and the rest.

“Billy? That really you, Billy Craig?”

“I’m in here, Phil,” the trader answered Thompson.

“What you pulling with our horses, you stupid son of a bitch?”

This time Walker yelled. “I’m the son of a bitch, Thompson.”

“Thort that was you, Joe Walker!” a new voice cried.

“It’s me, Peg-Leg,” Walker announced.

“Best you tell us what’s going on with our horses a’fore we bust in there and spill some blood!” Thompson warned.

“Try your damnedest!” Bass hollered. “Them gates is barred shut, boys!”

“What you want with our horses?” Peg-Leg Smith asked.

“Ain’t your horses!” Scratch shouted, slowly working his horse through the herd toward the gate.

“We took ’em. Fair is fair!” Thompson argued.

Sweete roared with laughter. “Ain’t yours if you can’t hold on to ’em!”

“We’ll come in and get ’em!”

Walker shouted, “That’s one sure way to spill a lot of blood, Thompson. Now, you can think this over and let us ride on outta here … or you can pull some idjit trick get a lot of men hurt bad.”

“Sure—that shines!” Thompson replied just outside the gate. “You boys go on and ride outta here. Leave the horses and we’ll let you go as you please!”

At the gate Titus shouted, “We’re taking the horses back to them Snakes you stole ’em from!”

“They ours now!”

“So we’re coming in for you niggers!”

“Come right on!” Walker goaded the thieves. “There’s a few more of us in here than there is of you boys out there! Make a quick fight of it!”

Just beyond the gate they could hear the thieves arguing among themselves, little more than a murmur of angry voices for a long time until Thompson stomped up to the wall once more and shouted through a crack in the timbers.

“You don’t wanna come out to save your hides—
that’ll be fine by us. We’ll get them Yutas camped just down the river to help us bust you outta there.”

Walker turned to look at a sheepish Antoine Robidoux. When the trapper pulled a pistol from his belt and brought its hammer back to full cock, the trader shrugged helplessly. Walker held the weapon under the trader’s nose. “How the hell you callate them Yutas wanna help you horse-stealers?”

“You ain’t so stupid, Joe!” Thompson cried. “Every one of their warriors help us kill you niggers, we’ll give ’em a horse. That way we’ll get all the horses back and rub you bastards out too!”

Turning back to Robidoux, Walker grabbed a handful of the trader’s capote. In a whisper the trapper demanded, “Them Injuns help Thompson like he says they will?”

Robidoux was just opening his mouth to speak when Bass snarled, “I don’t know what this here son of a bitch, parley-voo turncoat got to say to that, Joe—but I damn well will wager my own hide that them Yutas won’t mix in this here fight.”

“That’s good ’nough for me, Scratch.” Walker let go of Robidoux, shoving the trader back. “Go fetch your Yutas, Thompson! They’ll make this here scrap a real interesting fight!”

“You asked for it, you skunks!” the thief cried as if he had been wounded. “We’ll burn every last one of you outta there and hang your scalps from our belts when we’re done ripping your hearts out!”

After it had been quiet a few minutes, Walker pointed to the trader. “Robidoux—get my men some tobaccy!”

His eyes blinked nervously. “You gonna pay for it?”

“We ain’t thieves like Thompson’s bunch,” Scratch growled. “I figger all you got is that piss-poor Mex tobaccy anyways.”

“It come from Taos,” Robidoux agreed.

Walker nodded. “If all you got is Mex, we’ll leave you one of these here horses when we go. That ought’n pay for some tobaccy and what we’ll drink while we’re in here.”

“What you’ll d-drink?” Robidoux flustered, growing more assured. “I don’t want nothing from you in trade
because Thompson’s gonna have your men drove outta here—”

“If he tries that foolishness,” Bass vowed, “you’ll be the first I’ll kill.”

Turning on Titus with a jerk, Robidoux went white. “Me? Wh-why kill me? I didn’t steal no—”

“You took them horse thieves in here!” Walker grumbled. “If Bass don’t shoot you, I will.”

“Awright,” the cowed Frenchman relented as he turned away. “I go get your tobacco now.”

“Go with him, Doc,” Walker ordered. “See he don’t do nothing gonna make me kill him here and now.”

“Hey, Robidoux—we’ll leave you one of these here scrawny English horses in trade!” Sweete cried as some of the others started to cackle and laugh.

But Walker didn’t join in their mirth. “Kit—climb on up there on that wall and see what’s going on.”

An hour passed. The trader reappeared with Newell to pass out a twist of tobacco to every one of Joe Walker’s men. Then a little more time crawled by when Carson suddenly grew animated at the top of the wall.

He shouted down to Walker. “Joe! Joe! Thompson’s coming back with some Yutas!”

One of the trappers growled, “Goddamn you, Bass!”

“Shuddup!” Walker whirled on him.

“Sorry, Joe,” Titus apologized as the booshway stepped over to him. “Didn’t figger them Injuns would come.”

Walker wagged his head. “Shit. I didn’t figger them Yutas for helping the bastards neither.” He turned to yell at Carson. “How many?”

“Twenty. Maybe thirty of ’em I see now.”

For a moment Walker fell silent. Finally he sighed. “Scratch, you know any of that tongue?”

“First winter I spent in the mountains,” he admitted, “I learned me some … from a gal.”

Grinning, Walker said, “If’n you picked it up from a woman, then you’ll damn well know enough to talk to a buck.”

“Walker!”

Thompson’s voice came from just outside the gate again.

Joe demanded, “You here to tell me you brung them bucks here to fight us, ain’cha?”

“Last chance! Open up the gates, and we’ll let you go a’fore any of you gets kill’t!”

“Go to the devil!” Meek hollered.

Peg-Leg Smith yelled, “That’s just where we’re fixing to send you, Joe!”

Walker grabbed Bass’s arm. “Get on up that wall with Kit. Start talking to them Yutas—now!”

“A goddamned mess the way things turned out,” Shad grumbled as he followed Bass up the rungs of the narrow ladder to the top of the palisades to join Carson. “White men paying Injuns to rub out other white men.”

“These mountains gone to hell, that’s for sure,” Scratch said as they reached the top and cautiously peered over.

Kit pointed at the last of those warriors just then emerging from the brush downriver. Quickly scanning the horsemen, Bass counted at least forty. That, along with Thompson’s thieves, made for some three-to-one odds.

“S’pose it’s time to dust off my Yuta,” he whispered as he stood slowly. “A mite rusty …”

He cleared his throat as the white men started to turn, peering up at him, pointing.

“Ute men,” he shouted in the tongue he hadn’t used in years. Then repeated the simple address. “Ute men—listen to me. These white men … bad.”

Bass pointed at Thompson’s thieves, who were beginning to murmur as the warriors turned their heads, giving Scratch their attention. He repeated, “Yes—these white men bad. Bad. Steal horses from white men. Steal horses from …”

But he couldn’t remember the Ute word for Shoshone. Instead, he made the wiggling movement with his hand and forearm. Every warrior should understand that universal sign.

“These bad white men steal horses from the … and
we take the horses back to the …”he said, pantomiming the snake wriggle both times. “White talker!”

Bass turned to find the warrior who dropped to the ground and started toward the fort wall. He asked, “You are chief?”

“I am war chief. Come to help these white men take back their horses from you. These men say you are the bad white men. Ask us to help. Promise us horses to kill you bad white men.”

“You kill us, you get horses,” Scratch said. “But some of you die here. Blood on this ground.”

“We rub you out quick, none of my warriors die.”

“Perhaps …” Bass shouted down sternly, his confidence growing as more of the language came back to him. “But we are here to get the horses ourselves because the other tribe tell us they will come here to get their horses if we don’t bring them back.”

Titus could tell the man was turning that over in his head, what with the way his brow suddenly furrowed in deep thought.

“Warriors from the other tribe told us they do not want to kill white men, but said they will kill white men because these white men stole from them.”

The war chief turned to gaze at Thompson.

“If you help these bad white men,” Scratch pressed on, “if you kill us and take some of these horses for yourselves, one day the other tribe will learn that you helped the thieves kill the men who came here to help them.”

Now the war chief gazed up at Bass standing at the top of the wall.

“The other tribe will be angry with the Ute—for helping the men who took horses from them, and for taking their horses as a reward for killing us,” Titus explained.

“How will they know about us?” the chief demanded haughtily.

“They know about you, because they told us the bad white men had come here.”

“They know we are camped here?”

“Yes. So they will come to this place … and rub out the Ute who helped the white men steal their horses.”

With a whirl of fringe and feathers and unbraided hair, the war chief turned to stomp away, grumbling at a handful of warriors to join him. For long minutes they huddled together, conversed in low, angry tones, until the war chief turned back to Bass.

“We go!”

“You do right,” Scratch congratulated.

The moment the war chief and the others leaped atop their ponies, Thompson and the rest set up a pained, furious howl, darting among the forty-some warriors, gesturing at the fort, yelling, patting the Indian horses as if to emphasize that they would earn a booty for their assistance in killing the men holed up inside the walls.

Leaning down from the top of the palisades, Bass announced to Walker, “The Injuns—they’re riding off!”

Those men in the compound among the frightened, milling horses set up a wild cheer.

“You sonsabitches!” Thompson roared in anger, hammering the side of his fist against the outside of the gate as Bass, Carson, and Sweete clambered down the narrow ladder to the courtyard.

On the other side of the palisades the horse thieves argued for a long time. It was many minutes before a familiar voice suddenly called out.

“Scratch? Was that you at the top palaverin’ with them Yutas, Titus Bass?”

He recognized the voice, but scrambled to put a face with it. Titus asked, “Who’s calling?”

“Solitaire, Scratch. You ’member me, don’cha?”

Solitaire, he ruminated on it. “Bill?
Ol
’ Bill Williams?”

“That’s me—thought it was you I see’d up there palaverin’ with them Yutas,” Williams explained. “You done spoil’t Thompson’s big plan, Scratch.”

“To hell with him,” Bass snapped. “I’ll gut him sure as I’m standing here.”

“May get your chance to try, nigger!” Thompson hollered.

Ignoring the turncoat, Bass inquired, “You throwed in with them, Bill?”

Williams’s voice came closer to the gate. “I was here when Thompson’s outfit rode in with them horses. That’s when I tol’t ’em the Bent brothers need horses over there on the Arkansas.”

Walker asked, “Need horses?”

“Them Bents and Savary sell ’em, or trade ’em off,” Williams declared. “So Thompson was fixing to start over to the Arkansas with them horses next day or two … ’cept you come breaking things up.”

“How’s your stick float, Bill?” Titus asked. “You gonna jump in the middle of this?”

For a moment Williams didn’t answer. Then he said, “I figger there’s ’nough bean-bellies and red niggers for this child to raise hell with. I don’t need to kill me no white men.”

“You ain’t gonna come to Bents’ with us?” Peg-Leg squealed.

“Nawww,” Williams confessed. “You ain’t got no horses now, so I’ll have to go off to get me some in Californy.”

“I hear them Mex got a passel of horses out there, Bill,” Peg-Leg cried. “I’ll throw in with you, and we’ll steal us some Mex horses we can bring back to the Arkansas.”

Outside the walls there arose some disgruntled murmuring, then the noise of footsteps moving away from the walls.

“You still there, Thompson?” Walker yelled.

“I’m here—just figgering a way to kill you, Walker.”

“It’s over,” Walker said. “You ain’t got no Injuns to do your killing for you. And from the sounds of it, you’re losing some of your own white men too. Why don’t you just step off to the side and we’ll just ride on out of here with the horses—nobody getting hurt.”

“Damn you to hell, Walker!”

Now Bass shouted, “What made you go bad, Thompson? You was partners with Craig and Sinclair—had yourselves a nice post there in Brown’s Hole. What went wrong?”

“Beaver’s done!” Thompson hollered, his voice cracking with deep regret. “Ain’t no future in hunting plews no more. Last year or so, I could see there weren’t no future in supplying you trappers neither. Prices too high on goods I brung out, dollar too low on beaver … I could see trappers like you fellers wasn’t gonna make it, what with the world turn’t upside down on us the way it is.”

“Maybeso you can make your fortune on horses,” Scratch declared.

“Just what I figgered I was doing,” the trader snorted. “English horses. Injun horses too.”

Walker said, “Go to Californy with Bill Williams and get you some Mexican horses.”

“Craig!” Thompson yelled.

“I’m here, Phil.”

“S’pose you figgered it out: when I took off to steal some horses, you knowed our partnership was done.”

“I thought as much,” William Craig responded. “Just me and Sinclair now.”

Thompson said, “I wish you boys best of luck.”

Craig looked at Walker in wonder. “What you fixing to do about these horses now?”