Shadow Riders, The Southern Plains Uprising, 1873 (19 page)

“By the saints!” exclaimed Seamus Donegan, swiping whiskey from his mustache with the back of his hand.

“Seems some folks back east grabbed the ear of the President, so Grant put the arm on Governor Davis of Texas.”

“Grant made the governor change his mind about hanging them Kiowa, is it?”

Stillwell nodded. “Instead, the governor sent the two chiefs to prison for life.”

Donegan shook his head. “Why is it I've got the sneaking idea what you haven't told me is that those two won't be spending the rest of their miserable lives in prison?”

Stillwell did not attempt to hide the sheepish look on his face. “They was scheduled to be released back to the Kiowas last March.”

“I take it the chiefs are still down in a Texas prison?”

“For now.”

“So what's to come of it?”

“I think Governor Davis has gone and promised the tribe they'll have their chiefs back by October.”

Seamus stared into his murky reflection in the brown whiskey. “Sounds like you've got me riding south into Texas to find Sharp Grover just about the time the Kiowas are due to get their bloodthirsty chiefs back.”

Stillwell pursed his lips. “You're due, Seamus. Got a right to know.”

“What else, Jack?”

“Them two I been hired to guide down through Injun Territory—they know all about Satanta and Lone Wolf. In fact, they said they've been given permission to talk to those two chiefs when we're down at Fort Sill.”

“You're telling me now that we're going to be around when those two Kiowa are released?”

“You don't wanna go, you don't have to.”

Donegan brooded into his whiskey. He finally gave Stillwell half a grin. “I haven't seen Sharp Grover in a long time, Jack. And, I figure you and me been through enough together that something like this ought not to scare me. I've heard nothing yet that makes me change me mind.” Then he glowered at the scout. “Unless you've got something else up your sleeve you're not telling me about.”

Relieved, Jack sat back, a grin on his face. “No—nothing, Seamus. I'm telling you everything.”

“We leaving tomorrow?”

“Day after, I'm told.”

“I suppose that gives me time, Jack.”

“Time … for what, Seamus?”

He hoisted his glass. “To get meself in trouble before you take us south to get me scalped!”

*   *   *

Last spring, Billy Dixon's three-man outfit didn't sleep much that long, anxious night out on the prairie, deep in the buffalo country of the Cheyenne.

With every crunch of grass by the horses or every faint call of a bird swooping near their fireless camp, with every sigh of the wind that brought the rumor of hostile warriors to their ears, the trio bolted out of their bedrolls. No man could really sleep in country like this. He might only close his eyes because they burned from the long day's ride, or from the sun and grit and pure weariness. But no man really slept.

When dawn spread a murky gray the color of backwater in a buffalo wallow out of the east, Dixon had the old skinner and McCabe on the move. They were back among the other three skinners before dawn gave the rolling grassland a red glow.

“Sorry to scare you boys,” Dixon apologized to the trio, who themselves had spent a fitful night in camp, fearing the others had been set upon and wiped out by hostiles. “I just plain missed my bearings when it got dark last night.”

“We was worried—'cause we knew we'd be next,” one of the skinners explained.

“We're clearing out this morning,” Dixon went on.

“Where to?” McCabe asked.

He shook his head. “All I know is, this country isn't healthy for us. We'll spend too damned much time watching for Injuns … time we should be hunting buffalo.”

“Can't say as I don't disagree with you, Billy,” said the redheaded McCabe as he strode off a ways, turned his back on the others and unbuttoned his fly.

“We'll spend too much time fighting and losing sleep,” Dixon went on to explain. “I figure we'd have to stand watch in rotation—”

“Billy!”

They all turned at McCabe's call.

“C'mere!” he shouted, wagging his arm to the others, still holding his limp flesh with the other hand. As they drew near to him, McCabe said, “Listen. Now shuddup, and listen.”

Dixon, like the other men, put his ear to the spring wind, straining—at first only hearing the sound of the breeze and the faint thumping of his heartbeat. It wasn't like he didn't want to hear the distant lowing, and snorting and bellowing.

“By God!” one of them shouted.

“I hear it!” exclaimed another.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Dixon whispered. “If that ain't buffalo, then Mother Dixon raised a rock-headed idjit!”

At a lope he swept up his Sharps rifle and snagged up the reins to the horse he had just ridden into camp.

“I'm going to find out for myself, boys,” he told them once he was in the saddle, tightening up on the rein. “Get your knives sharpened—I got a feeling we'll be working hides before the day's half old!”

What he saw less than five miles off was a sight that could bring tears to the eyes of a buffalo hunter. The herd was moving north at its own slow, time-honored pace. Grazing and browsing, flocks of the tiny black birds sweeping over the black carpet stretched between the hills in its slow, undulating migration. The little yellow ones were frisking beside their mothers at the head of the grand march. Young bulls and old were relegated to the rear, kept to the fringes of the procession.

Whooping, Dixon wheeled his horse and raced back to the skinners' camp, where he confirmed the good news.

“How long you figure we can chance staying?” Dixon asked the old skinner.

He ran a tongue through the gap in his mouth where three rotten teeth had been yanked with ramrod pliers in years gone by. “Three, maybe four days, Billy.”

“That herd will bring in the hunters, won't it?”

The old man nodded. “And we ain't talking about white hunters neither. Don't push your luck, and when we pull out—we best not spare the mules making it for the river, Billy.”

“All right, boys,” Dixon replied. “You heard it. I plan on this outfit hanging on here and working hides while we can—for four days.”

That afternoon the five skinners were put to work. Not a one complained, for this was the only way a hide-man made his money. And besides, they hadn't seen a hint of a feather in any direction. Perhaps the buffalo gods had finally smiled on Billy Dixon after all.

So successful were they that not one of them really kept track of the passing days, not even the old skinner. The hides piled up from sunup to sundown, and at night Billy Dixon cast bullets for the next day's go at the passing herd. For hundreds of yards in all directions around their camp, green, heavy hides were pegged, still much too heavy to haul north.

For weeks now McCabe had served as chief camp cook each morning and evening in return for a bigger share of the outfit's profits. One starlit evening it was the redheaded skinner who told Billy they needed some fresh meat from the next day's hunt for the larder.

“Boss ribs, it is, McCabe,” Dixon declared.

“Come to think on it—anyone know how long we been here?” asked the old skinner.

“I got a idea it's more'n a week,” replied one of the others.

“On the order of ten days, by my count,” Dixon answered. Then it struck him as he turned to the old skinner. “Something wrong?”

“Just hope we didn't overstay our welcome, Dixon.”

“Damn, if that ain't the story, boys. Unless we wait till they're cured, how we gonna haul these green hides too heavy for the wagon? And if we wait on the hides to cure—why not hunt for more instead of sitting on our thumbs?”

“It don't really make sense sitting on your thumbs,” the old skinner replied. “But it don't please me losing my hair waiting for a single hide to dry neither.”

“All right. Two more days won't hurt,” Dixon decided. “I'll go out early tomorrow and make meat to last us till we get north of the Arkansas. And we'll pull hides till we pull out, fellas. Each one of these damned hides is worth too much for me to leave it behind.”

That seemed to settle it, without much grumbling from the skinners. At least any grumbling that Billy overheard. The next morning after a scalding cup of McCabe's coffee, Dixon was gone into the herd roaming and feeding as little as two miles to the west of their camp. What he ran into was mostly younger cows and some young bulls along for the march. And for the most part the whole bunch of them acted as if they'd been chivvied of late, stirred up and restless. Downright spooky and ready to bolt at any sudden change in the breeze.

If he didn't know better, Dixon would have figured the herd had been chivvied by Indians. But he was here to make meat, and hides too, if he got a good stand out of it, so he dismounted and rein-hobbled his horse.

Near the top of a low hill he went to his belly and crawled to the crest. Down below, the herd milled as if ready to make the jump, tails high and noses into the wind. Dixon chose a young bull and eased the barrel of the big Sharps down on the crossed sticks he had jammed in the ground to steady his aim. The gun roared.

As the stinging, gray smoke cleared, Dixon could see not only that the young bull had dropped, but that the rest of the herd was whirling away in a blinding cloud of dust, spooked by the gunshot and blood. He rammed home another cartridge, fired. Chambered another and fired as fast as he could. One after another Dixon aimed by feel into the blinding cloud of dust raised by the herd lumbering past the slope of the hill. If they were running off, then Billy Dixon was going to take as many as he could right here and now before they got out of range of his big gun.

When the thundering noise of their passing had faded and the dust cloud hung far down the valley hemmed with rolling hills, Billy rose and surveyed the scene. He tapped a finger on the Sharps barrel, searing his flesh. At least there were a dozen, perhaps more, down there for the others to skin. A good start on the day's work, he decided.

At that moment back in camp, McCabe and the others had heard the first shot, then the second and all the rest rumbling in from the prairie in rapid succession.

“He's pinned down,” declared the old skinner.

“We best get,” suggested another.

“I ain't leaving Billy!” McCabe growled.

“Lookit!” one of the others shouted, pointing at a distant hill, in the general direction of the gunfire.

Silhouetted on the crest of the knoll were several dark forms that to the eyes of the skinners appeared to be mounted warriors adorned with feathers in their hair. Instead of being a war-party of Comanche, a small band of some two dozen antelope had been driven toward the skinners' camp by the stampeding buffalo. Those shadowy outlines of the confused, frightened antelope was all it took to light a fire under the hide-men.

“We're next, by God!”

“They got Dixon—and now red bastards coming for us!”

“Get ready to fight for your scalps, boys!” the old skinner exhorted them. “We'll try for the river if we can.”

“We're staying here—and waiting to find out what happened to Billy!” McCabe yelled at them.

The old skinner stepped up to the redheaded young man. “We're going to the river to save our own hides.” He whirled on the other, younger men. “Now, the rest of you—round up the stock and let's get loaded. Maybeso we can reach the Arkansas afore they kill us all.”

They had the wagons hitched and the horses saddled, leaving the hides, both dry and green, where they dotted the surrounding prairie … when of a sudden one of them spotted a lone figure appear on the far hilltop.

“There's one of the bastards,” he said.

The old skinner pushed forward through the muttering, frightened men. “He's probably come in to show us Dixon's scalp and tell us we better push north, we know what's good for us.”

“Don't shoot,” McCabe begged them. “Let's find out what happened to Billy first.”

They watched the rider come in at an easy lope, with something shadowy and dark slung over the front flanks of the horse as the rider came out of the west. After a moment McCabe rose behind the wagon where he had taken refuge, ready to sell his life dearly.

“Glory! Glory be! Howdeedo, Billy!”

“Halloo, the camp!” Dixon hollered back. “Made meat, fellas.” He rode into their midst, looking over the hitched teams and loaded wagons. “Didn't mean to starve you to the point you'd just up and take off on me.”

“They was fixing to light out for the river, Billy,” McCabe explained.

He gazed at the old skinner, then the rest. “That right?”

“We heard all the shooting,” one of them explained sheepishly. “Figured you'd made a fight of it and was a goner.”

“Then we saw some Injuns on the hill over yonder,” another skinner jumped in to declare.

“Injuns?” Billy asked, turning in the saddle. “I ain't seen nothing but some antelope on my way in.”

The rest looked at one another.

“Antelope?” McCabe asked. “So what you got for my stew kettle, Billy?”

Dixon glanced down at the bloody, fresh chunk of meat he had slung in front of him for the ride in. He eased the heavy load down to McCabe's arms. “I promised you boss ribs … so boss ribs it'll be.”

“I wasn't gonna leave you, Billy,” said the fiery redbeard as he juggled his load of buffalo meat. “The rest was set to pull up stakes.”

Dixon's eyes touched them all, not finding any that would hold his for very long. “That true? You was ready to pull out and not even come back and claim my body?”

“You wasn't killed, Dixon,” said the old skinner.

“What if I was—you'd just leave me for the wolves and the buzzards?”