The Savage Trail (18 page)

“How the hell could a bunch of redskins sneak into the armoryand steal rifles and cartridges?” Ollie asked, fixing Fry with a look that was almost unchanged from the one he had given Rosa.

“All I can figure is they had help and they knew which throats to slit. Hell, they didn't make a damned sound. Ain't no walls around Laramie.”

“Injuns, that many of 'em, ain't invisible,” Ollie said.

“These sure as hell were.”

“Where in hell was Major Cresswell?” Army asked. “Wasn't he helpin' you, Jubal?”

Fry's shoulders lifted in a shrug, sank back to normal.

“George was supposed to meet me two days ago and let me know when I could have the rifles to bring you.”

“And?” Ollie said.

“He didn't come by, so I went to see him. He said there was a snag.”

“A snag?”

“That's what he said. ‘Tomorrow,' he said, and yesterday he brushed me back again, like he was swatting a damned fly.”

“What do you make of that, Captain?” Ollie asked.

Fry raised his head, stroked the bottom of his chin as if testing the closeness of his shave, or trying to collect his thoughts. Ollie waited. So did Army.

“I think he sold us out, Hobart.” There was no quaver in Fry's voice. He laid his hands flat on the table as if he had just spread out the winning hand in a poker game. “I think he threw in with the Cheyenne and plumb sold us out.”

“Why in hell would he do that?” Hobart asked. “And where did a bunch of renegade redskins get the money?”

“And why in hell didn't you come to me yesterday and tell me about this?” Army asked.

“Hey, back off, Army. You, too, Hobart. I ain't the enemy here. You made the deal with Major Cresswell. You dangled the pork in front of him. Not me.”

“He sure as hell took the money,” Army said. “Agreed to the deal. Licked his lips when I put greenbacks in his hand. I figured him for a greedy bastard.”

“You know anything about Major George Cresswell, Army? I mean, where he comes from, who he really is?”

“He's just another soldier to me,” Army said. “Why?”

“Yeah,” Ollie said, leaning forward over the table, his eyes almost feral in their intensity. Fry straightened his back and pulled his head back as if he were at attention, but he was really bracing himself for a blow from those big fists of Ollie Hobart.

“Cresswell, when he was a boy, I mean a little boy, maybe four or five, was in a wagon train heading out West from St. Louis. I think his folks were going out to Oregon or maybe Santa Fe. Anyways, the wagon train got hit by a bunch of Sioux and Cheyenne. His folks were killed and the Sioux took him prisoner. Raised him. Raised him like a damned Injun.”

“A Sioux,” Ollie said. “Those Injuns we're dealin' with are Cheyenne, ain't they, Army?”

“Far as I know,” Army said.

“George was sold to the Cheyenne, the Northern Cheyenne, the way he tells it, when he was about sixteen or so. He grew up speakin' Sioux and Cheyenne, knows the sign lingo. Couple years later, he was in some Injun camp when the soldiers came up and shot it to pieces. Cresswell was taken and remembered enough English so the soldiers didn't kill him right then.”

Army leaned forward, caught up in the story.

“Then what happened?” Mandrake said.

“George was adopted by Colonel Roland Cresswell, sent off to school back East, joined the army, and, because he was a good fighter, and smart, he kept getting promoted. Far as I know, he never fought Sioux nor Cheyenne before. He was chasin' Apaches down south with Crook and Miles. He come up here six months ago.”

Ollie leaned back in his chair, his forehead wrinkling in thought.

Army looked at him, his mouth agape.

Fry's breathing was the only sound in the room for a long moment. He sat there, stiff as a board, his expression noncommittalas the homeliest desert stone.

“Army,” Ollie said, “we can't wait no more. We get Red Eagle and his bunch and we hit them miners up in Dead Horse Canyon.”

“When?” Mandrake said.

“We'll ride up tomorrow night. We got enough guns. Make sure them Injuns carry their war clubs. Hell, we'll use sling-shotsif we have to. There's gold up there aplenty and it hasn't gone down to no assay office.”

“Tomorrow night? It's a day's ride,” Army said.

“We'll hit 'em when they wake up, the day after.”

“If you say so,” Army said. “I hope Red Eagle's still up there in his mountain camp.”

“He'd better be,” Ollie said.

“What about Cresswell?” Fry said. “He might beat you to Red Eagle.”

“You know why he's gone Injun on us, Fry?” Ollie asked.

Fry let out a breath, looked down at his hands, then back up at Hobart.

“There's been talk of a campaign up north to round up all the Sioux and Cheyenne and either put 'em on a reservation or kill 'em. Folks are going into the Black Hills, findin' gold, and the Sioux are hoppin' mad. I think Cresswell's going to help his red brothers by takin' rifles and cartridges up to the Dakotas and joinin' in the fight.”

“On the wrong side,” Hobart said.

“Yeah. On the wrong side.”

Hobart stood up, a look of distaste on his face.

“You know what, Army?” he said.

“What, Ollie?”

“I think we just stepped into a deep pile of shit.”

There wasn't a bit of humor in Ollie's words. He walked back to where Rosa was sitting, jerked the whiskey bottle out of her hand, and slapped her hard across the mouth.

“And I'm just about to run out of patience with you, too, Rosa. Make some coffee and drink it down until you sober up.”

“Ollie,” she said in a pleading voice that trailed off with her sodden breath.

“If you don't,” he said, “you'll be the first blood I draw on this job. Long before we hit that mining camp.”

For the first time that evening, Fry lost his composure. He slumped in his chair, his military bearing gone like a puff of smoke.

But he never said a word.

23

John swung into the saddle, relieved to be free of colonelward's jurisdiction. He would have been less relieved had he heard what the colonel said to Lieutenant Herzog as soon as Ben and John walked out the door.

“Rolf, get two good men and follow Savage and Russell. Don't be obvious about it. Keep your distance. But I want to know where they go and what they do.”

“Yes, sir,” Herzog said. “Do you want me to detain them if they come across Hobart?”

“No, just send one of your men back here to report.”

Herzog saluted and left to get two troopers so that he could follow John and Ben. He wasted no time, but outside, he marked the direction the two riders were headed and ran to his horse, calling out to his men: “Crisp, Freeman, come with me. The rest of you are dismissed.”

The two sergeants, Will Crisp and Daryl Freeman, flanked him on their horses a few minutes later. Herzog gave them their orders and the three men slowly rode into the night, following in the tracks of their quarry, stopping every so often to listen, making sure they were following the two civilians.

BEN GROWLED AT JOHN.

"You mind tellin' me where in hell we're goin', Johnny?”

John was leaning to one side, peering down at the ground.

“Wherever these tracks lead us.”

“What tracks?”

“See them all? You heard what happened? Some Indians broke into the armory and stole rifles and cartridges. Probably for Hobart. If we follow their tracks, we might find Ollie.”

Ben leaned over and scanned the ground. Scanned the blackness, struggling to find even the faintest trace of a hoof-print,an iron scuff mark, a broken twig, or anything besides ground as black as funeral crepe.

“I don't see no tracks,” Ben said.

“At night, you have to compare.”

“Compare what?”

“Bare ground with torn-up ground.”

“All looks the same to me.”

“Pa taught me to track at night. Black night, when there wasn't any moon and the stars were faint.”

Ben tilted his head back, looked up at the sky. There were stars sprinkled everywhere, tiny pieces of shattered, broken glass shot with light. A glow in the sky from a moon not yet risen. He looked back down at the ground. But he didn't trust his eyes. At night, all shapes were suspicious, unreal. He might have seen horse tracks. He might be just imagining them. He didn't know.

“I can't compare shit,” Ben said.

“There's that, too,” John said.

“Huh?”

“Smell the horse droppings? They're faint, but they're down there, and I can see them, too.”

“Maybe you better explain how you see anything down there on that black ground.”

“I don't see much, but if I shift my focus, I can make out tracks. I look up and down and right and left. The faint light makes tracks appear kind of not direct, but indirect. Hard to explain.”

“Let it go, Johnny,” Ben said. “I ain't even goin' to try and understand you. Life is just too short.”

John laughed.

He could smell the horse droppings and the ground was roiled enough so that he knew there had been horses along their path not long before. The riders seemed to be heading for the distant mountains, mountains he could not see in the darknessof night. But with his vision, he already knew that some of the horses were carrying more weight than others. All of the hoofprints seemed deeply embedded in the sandy soil. If packhorses were carrying rifles and ammunition, their tracks would be the most visible. All of the horses were unshod, so the tracks were not as distinct had the horses been wearing shoes. However, one track stood out. And that one had been made from a shod horse.

“Something funny here, Ben,” John said, pulling on his reins to halt his horse.

“Yeah? What?”

“Can you see well enough to make out that the bunch of horses has been splitting up? Some go one way, others drift off in another direction. I'm going to follow just one set of tracks.”

“I can't see much. Ground looks torn up some, but . . .”

“No matter. I think whoever's ridin' these horses will meet up later. I think they're trying to throw off any army trackers.”

“Makes sense,” Ben said.

The moon rose above the horizon, slipped up slow, half lit, the shining half beaming with an alabaster radiance that seemed to pulse with a quiet energy that John could feel. The landscape changed under its light. Shadows formed and reformed, plants that had been nearly invisible before now blossomed on the plain, taking on grotesque shapes that made them seem alive and oddly ominous. The effect, John thought, was spectral, as if the ghosts of living things had magically appeared and what had been flat and dark before now bristled with a life born of the night, born out of nothingness.

“We gonna just wait here and gaze at the moon?” Ben asked quietly when John had not spoken for several minutes.

“Awhile, yes.”

“How come?”

“Adjust the eyes, for one thing.”

“All right. Any other reason? We can see a little better. I mean I can see some horse tracks now.”

John swung out of the saddle, walked over to a pile of horse apples. Another horse had stepped in it and dragged some of the nuggets away from the pile, cracked some of them open. John knelt down and sniffed the offal. Ben eyed him from atop his horse, feeling oddly out of place, almost unwelcome and unwanted.

“Not so fresh,” John said. “But not real old, either. A coupleof hours ahead of us, maybe.”

“I'm thinkin' maybe we don't want to catch up to them thievin' Injuns whilst it's still dark as a mine shaft out here.”

John looked back over the way they had come, turned his head slowly, cocked it, cupped one ear with his hand. He held up another to silence Ben as he listened. He turned his head slightly to the right and to the left. He still cupped an ear, bending the flesh slightly. Gathering sound in a human seashell. Amplifying whatever he thought he had heard momentsbefore. Listening, like a deer, for anything that made a sound.

John heard something.

He drew in a breath, took his hand away from his ear. He turned to look up at Ben and put a finger to his lips.

Ben nodded.

John beckoned to him. Ben dismounted, led his horse over. He stood next to John, a puzzled expression on his face. He said nothing, knowing he was still under John's admonition to keep silent.

“Ben, we might have a small hitch here. Just listen to me.” John's whisper was just loud enough for Ben to hear without straining. He nodded again.

“I think somebody's following us,” John said. “Maybe ColonelWard sicced some soldiers on our tail. Or those Indians we're tracking might have circled around, some of them, anyway,and mean to catch us from behind.”

John paused and Ben nodded again.

“Either way, we have to take it into account. I was going to follow the tracks of that one shod horse. If that's a stolen army horse, we can deal with that. But if there's a soldier leading those Indians, he'd be the one who might be in cahoots with Ollie Hobart. Follow my thinking so far?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, without thinking.

“I don't much like this bunch splitting up like they have. Those we don't follow might circle in back of us. In fact, that's what I would do if I was leading these Indians.”

“I follow you,” Ben whispered.

“We can't split up. They could pick us off too easy.”