the Thundering Herd (1984) (17 page)

Dance hall and gambling hell, however, had only momentary attraction for him. Sprague's store was the magnet that drew him.

Here he learned a great deal.

The buffalo south of the Brazos and Pease Rivers had at last turned north and would soon fall in with the great herd along the Red River. This meant that practically all the buffalo in the Southwest would concentrate between the Red River and the Staked Plain--an innumerable, tremendous mass. The Comanches were reported to be south of this herd, traveling toward the Red; and the Kiowas were up on the Staked Plain, chasing buffalo east;

Cheyennes and Arapahoes, whose hunting ground had always been north of this latitude, were traveling south, owing to the fact that the annual migration of buffalo had failed this year. Failed because of the white hunters! An Indian war was inevitable.

Tom heard that Indian Territory was now being guarded by United States marshals; Kansas had passed laws forbidding the killing of buffalo; Colorado had done likewise. This summer would see all the buffalo hunters congregated in Texas. That meant the failure of the great herds to return north into Indian Territory, Kansas, and Colorado. The famous hunting grounds along the Platte and Republican Rivers would be barren. It seemed a melancholy thing, even to Tom, who had been so eager to earn his share of the profits. It was a serious matter for the state legislatures to pass laws such as this. No doubt Texas would do the same.

Tom reasoned out this conclusion before he learned that at this very time the Texas Legislature was meeting to consider a bill to protect buffalo in their state. So far it had been held up by remarks credited to Gen. Phil Sheridan, who was then stationed at San Antonio, in command of the military department of the Southwest. Sprague gave Tom a newspaper to read, and spoke forcibly.

"Sheridan went to Austin an' shore set up thet meetin'. Told the Senators an' Representatives they were a lot of sentimental old women. They'd make a blunder to protect the buffalo! He said the hunters ought to have money sent them, instead of discouragement.

They ought to have medals with a dead buffalo on one side an' a dead Injun on the other."

Tom was strongly stirred by the remarks credited to General Sheridan, and he took the news-paper to the Hudnalls and read the passage:

"These buffalo-hunters have done more in the last year to settle the Indian trouble than the entire regular army has done in thirty years. They are destroying the Indians' commissary. Send them powder and lead! . . . Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffalo are exterminated. Then the prairie can be covered with speckled cattle!"

"Great!" boomed Hudnall, slapping his big hand down. "But darn it-- tough on the Indians!"

Tom was confronted then with a strange thought; he, like Hudnall, felt pity for the Indians, yet none for the buffalo. There was something wrong in that. Later, when he told Milly about what he had heard, and especially Hudnall's expression of sympathy, she said:

"Tom, it's because of the money. You men can't see right. Would you steal money from the Indians?"

"Why, certainly not!" declared Tom, with uplift of head.

"You are stealing their food," she went on, seriously. "Their meat-- out of their mouths. Not because you're hungry, but to get rich.

Oh, Tom, it's wrong!"

Tom felt troubled for the first time. He could not laugh this off and he did not have any argument prepared to defend his case.

"Tom Doan," she added, very sweetly and gravely, "I'll have something to say to you--about killing buffalo--when you come to me on my eighteenth birthday."

Tom could only kiss her for that speech, subtle, yet wonderful with its portent as to her surrender to him; but he knew then, and carried away with him next morning, the conviction that Milly would not marry him unless he promised to give up buffalo-hunting.

Chapter
IX

As Tom drove his team after the Hudnalls, southward along the well- beaten military road, he carried also with him a thought of his parting from Milly--and something about her words or looks was like the one bitter drop in his sweet cup.

Early as had been the hour, Milly with the Hudnall women had arisen to prepare breakfast and see their men folk off. Hudnall and Burn were having their troubles breaking away from wives, daughter, and sister, so they had no time to note the poignancy of Milly's farewell to Tom.

At the last she had come close to Tom, fastening her trembling hands to his hunting coat. She looked up into his eyes, suddenly wonderful, strange.

"Tom, you are all I have in the world," she said.

"Well, dear, I'm all yours," he had replied, tenderly.

"You must not stay away long."

"I'll come back the very first chance," Tom had promised.

"You should not leave me--at all," she had whispered then, very low.

"Why Milly, you're safe here now," he expostulated.

"I'll never be safe until--until Jett has no right over me."

"But he will not come for you. Captain Singleton and Sprague say the Indian scare has just begun."

"Tom--I'll never be safe--until YOU take me."

"Dearest . . ." he had entreated, and then Hudnall boomed out, "Come on, break away, you young folks." And there had been only time for a last embrace.

Milly's last look haunted Tom. How big, black, tragic her eyes!

How beautiful, too--and their expression was owing to love of him.

His heart swelled until it pained. Was it right to leave her? He could have found work at Sprague's. A remorse began to stir in him. If he had only not been so poor--if he had not been compelled to hunt buffalo! He realized that he was returning to the buffalo fields no longer free, bearing the weight of a great responsibility,--a lonely girl's happiness, perhaps her life.

The summer morning was warm, colorful, fragrant with soft breeze off the prairie, full of melody of birds, and bright with the rising sun. But Tom did not respond as usual. The morning passed, and the hot afternoon was far spent before he could persuade and argue himself into something of his old mood. Common sense helped him. The chances of his returning to find Milly safe and well were very much greater than otherwise; yet he could not forget the last few moments they had been together, when under stress of fear and sorrow she had betrayed Jett's real status and her own fatalism.

All that day Milly was in his thoughts, and afterward, when he lay in his bed, with the dark-blue, star-studded sky open to his sleepless gaze.

It took Hudnall only two days and a half, hauling light wagons, to return to the Red River camp. Conditions were identically the same as before the trip. Pilchuck and his three helpers had killed and skinned three hundred and twenty five buffalo during Hudnall's absence. The chief of the outfit was delighted; and late in the afternoon as it was, he wanted to go right at the slaughter.

"Take it easy," growled Pilchuck. "We want some fresh grub an' some news."

Manifestly, Pilchuck and his associates had not fared well since the departure of the women folk. "Dam the pesky redskins, anyhow," he complained to Hudnall. "Who's goin' to cook?"

"We'll take our turn," replied Hudnall, cheerfully.

"Lot of fine cooks we got in this outfit," he growled. "Wal, there's one consolation, anyway--reckon we won't have to eat much longer."

"An' why not?" demanded Hudnall, in surprise. "I fetched back a wagon load of grub."

"Wal, we're goin' to be scalped by Comanches directly."

"Bosh!" boomed Hudnall, half in anger. "You plainsmen make me sick. You're worse than the soldiers. All this rant about Indian raids! We've been out over two months an' haven't seen a single Indian, tame or wild."

The scout gazed steadfastly at Hudnall, and the narrow slits of his eyes emitted a gray-blue flash, cold as light on steel.

"It's men like you who can't savvy the West, an' won't listen, that get scalped by Indians," he said, with a ring in his voice.

Hudnall fumed a moment, but his good nature prevailed and he soon laughed away the effect of Pilchuck's hard speech. Dread he seemed to lack.

Next morning Tom followed the others of the Hudnall outfit out to the chase, which they returned to with redoubled energy and a fiercer determination. Concrete rewards in shape of gold and greenbacks paid to them by Hudnall were the spurs to renewed effort.

Tom started that day badly. Just as he came within range of the first buffalo and aimed at it he thought of Milly's reproachful dark eyes and he wavered so that he crippled the beast. It escaped into the herd. Tom was furious with himself for wounding a buffalo that could only limp away to die a lingering death. After that he put squeamishness out of his mind and settled down into the deadly and dangerous business of hide-hunting.

The day was one of ceaseless and strenuous labors, extending long after dark. Bed was a priceless boon; memory had little opportunity; sleep was something swift and irresistible.

Thus was ushered in the second phase of Tom Doan's buffalo-hunting.

The vast herd of buffalo, reported by Pilchuck to be several miles wide and more miles in length than any conservative scout would risk estimating, never got farther north than the vicinity of the Red River.

Gradually it was driven west along the river to the North Fork, which it crossed, and then, harassed by the hunters behind and flanked on the west by the barren rise of the Staked Plain, it turned south, grazing and traveling steadily, to make the wide and beautiful Pease River divide in ten days.

Here began a fearful carnage. Hudnall's outfit fell in with the thick of the buffalo-hunters, many of whom had been a year at the game. They were established in name and manifestly proud of that fact. "Raffert's, Bill Stark's, Nebraska Pete's, Black and Starwell, Bickerdyke's, Uncle Joe Horde, Old Man Spaun, Jack and Jim Blaise," and many other names became household words in the Hudnall camp.

Tom kept eyes and ears open for news of the Jett outfit, but so far had not been successful in learning its whereabouts. There were hundreds of gangs strung along the rivers for many miles, and by far not all of the buffalo were in the great massed herd.

On a tributary of the Pease it was decided by Pilchuck and Hudnall to make permanent camp until fall.

"I want four thousand hides by November," boomed Hudnall, rubbing his huge hands.

"Easy. I'll show you how to kill a hundred to-morrow in three hours," replied Pilchuck.

"When we'll freight back to Sprague's?" queried Tom, anxiously.

Thus each man voiced the thing most in his thoughts.

Next day Pilchuck outdid his boast in the estimated time, killing one hundred and eighteen buffalo--a remarkable feat. But he had a fast, perfectly trained horse; he was daring and skillful; he rode his quarry down and made one shot do the work.

Day by day Tom Doan killed fewer buffalo. He did not notice the fact until it was called to his attention. Then, going over his little book of record, which he kept faithfully, he was amazed and chagrined to discover that such was the case. He endeavored to right the falling off, only to grow worse. He wavered, he flinched, he shot poorly, thus crippling many buffalo. It made him sick. The cause was Milly. She dominated his thoughts. The truth was that Milly had awakened him to the cruelty and greed of this business and his conscience prevented him from being a good hunter.

Hudnall solved the knotty problem for Tom, very much to his relief.

"Tom, you've lost your nerve, as Pilchuck says," said the chief.

"But you're the best skinner he ever saw. You're wastin' time chasin' an' shootin' buffalo. We're killin' about as many as we can skin, an' we could kill more. Pilchuck can, anyhow. Now you follow us an' skin buffalo only. We'll pay you thirty five cents a hide."

"You bet I take you up," declared Tom, gladly. "I didn't know I'd lost my nerve, but I hate the killing."

"Wal, it's begun to wear on me, to be honest," sighed Hudnall.

"I'd rather push a plow."

Next moment he was asking Tom to make accurate estimate of the stock of ammunition on hand. Tom did his best at this calculation and reported: three hundred forty six pounds of St. Louis shot- toner lead in twenty-five pound bars; about five thousand primers; five cans of Dupont powder, twenty-five pounds to a can; and three cans of six pounds each.

"Jude, how long will that last us?" inquired Hudnall of Pilchuck, who had heard Tom's report.

"Wal, let's see. I reckon August, September, October--unless we have to fight Indians," replied the scout.

"Ho! Ho! There you go again," derided Hudnall. "This Injun talk is a joke."

With this skinning job Tom soon found himself in better spirits, and worked so effectively that he won golden praise from his employers.

"Shucks! What a scalper of redskins that boy would make!" declared Pilchuck. "He can keep a knife sharp as a razor an' cut with it like a nigger."

If Tom had been able to get some leisure he would have found much enjoyment in the permanent camp. It was situated on a beautifully wooded bench above the wild brakes of a tributary to the larger river near by, and game abounded there. Down in the brakes were bear, panther, wildcats in numbers too plentiful for wandering around without a gun. The wide belts of timber appeared to be full of wild turkey and deer. Antelope, tame as cattle, grazed on the prairie; and in the wake of the buffalo slunk hordes of howling coyotes. Bands of big gray wolves, bold and savage, took their toll of the buffalo calves.