Westward the Tide (1950) (24 page)

Coyle glanced at Bardoul. "You were at that Wagon Box fight, weren't you?"

"Uh huh. And hadn't any business there. I was riding up from Reno and risking my scalp to do it and bring some mail through. I spotted some Indians around the fort, so I headed around and ran into Powell and the wood cutters. Powell was smart. He never raised any fuss about things, but he was a good soldier and careful. He dismounted the wagon boxes from fourteen wagons, and used them for a barricade, piling sacks of grain and other stuff on them to stop arrows.

"It must have looked pretty easy to Red Cloud, only thirty-two white men inside, as they had killed four wood cutters before they could get to the wagons. Red Cloud had about fifteen hundred warriors, and Crazy Horse to lead them. Crazy Horse was worth a hundred men, himself. Red Cloud just didn't know Powell. Powell had given the best shots two rifles apiece and had the poorer shots loading for them, and they held their fire until the Sioux were right on top of them, and then opened up.

"It was a lot different than the Fetterman massacre. Powell knew what he was up against and he wasn't a glory hunter, he was a fighting man, pure and simple. It knocked the stuffing out of the Sioux, but they weren't through. They tried it three or four times more, tried it crawling, charging on foot, and another time on horseback. They got right up against the wagons once, but then they broke and ran.

"We lost seven men and three wounded. Nobody knows what the Indians lost, but Powell figured it around a hundred and eighty. It could have been more, maybe as many as two hundred, for Powell was the sort to underestimate rather than otherwise."

Brian Coyle put his hands on his hips and looked at Bardoul. "I reckon you think I'm a fool," he said, "I remember your warning, but I had never run up against anything like this before. Now I can see what we've run into."

Bardoul shrugged. "I wasn't sure. I was just guessing, then. Now that we're in it we can't do any good by thinking of what we might have done or should have done. We've got to be thinking of what to do. One thing is to keep our own guards on watch, all the time. And keep our weapons handy. I'm thinking they won't try anything before the Tongue, but that's only a guess for I've no way of knowing.

"What we should do is keep right on going when we hit the Tongue and head for the fort on the Little Big Horn. There we can report the whole thing and get an escort if need be; however, if we have ammunition we won't need an escort. Right now we've got to think of the women and children in this outfit and getting as near that fort as possible before the fight. Every mile increases our chance of rescue from the fort even as it increases the danger of attack."

Lute Harless had walked up with Herman Reutz. "I'm for going on as long as we can," Harless said, "I don't like this!"

"All right," Matt agreed, "but all of you stand by tonight. Let your womenfolks stay awake to awaken you, or stay awake yourselves, because there may be trouble."

Coyle looked at Bardoul. "What are you planning?"

Matt swept the group with a glance. "You're all safe men. I'll tell you. I'm going to steal back some ammunition tonight. Just like they stole it from us, only not enough so they'll know, but enough to make all the difference in case of trouble."

"You can count me in on that," Coyle said.

"No," Matt shook his head, "I want only two men with me, and I know who I'm taking. It must be done quietly, and I want men who have woods experience, men who have fought Indians. If we're caught at it, we may have a pitched battle, so my suggestion is that in case of trouble you all center on Reutz' wagons. Assemble there, and it will serve as a rallying point."

The group broke up and Matt walked back to his wagons. Tolliver and Bill Shedd were loitering nearby, smoking. Matt glanced at the young mountain man. "How's your girl?"

He looked up quickly, flushing. "She's some better," he said. "She wants to see you."

"All right." He hesitated. "You two stay by your wagons tonight and stay together, sleep if you want to, but take turn about, and keep your rifles handy."

Shedd nodded grimly and turning, crawled into his wagon. Matt walked toward the Starks', listening to the rustle of the Pine Creek as he walked. It was coming again, more fighting, more danger, and it was different when there were women. If he knew for sure, they could act without delay, but they did not know, for even the stealing of the ammunition might be the act of one or two of the renegades hoping to peddle it to the Indians. It was all a vast confusion with many indications of a plot, but nothing upon which one could act legally.

When Joe Rucker had been slain, there had been the scratch on Stahl's cheek, and Matt had seen the track of a boot heel near the wagon that looked like Stahl's, but it was indefinite. Elam Brooks had been killed, but the only actual witnesses had been Logan Deane's men. He felt a queer hesitancy to make the actual decision for battle, knowing as he did that the women would be involved. Every day drew them nearer and nearer to the protection of the soldiers.

Sarah Stark was standing beside her wagon, wiping her hands on her apron. She looked up and smiled at him. "She's been asking for you."

He nodded. "Sary, you tell Ban I want to see him at my wagon. Right away, you hear?"

She looked up. "You want Jeb, too?"

Bardoul hesitated. Jeb Stark was a good man. "Yes, send him along. Not with Ban, though. Have him go by himself and get right into my wagon and stay there until I come."

The wounded girl lay on a pallet in the wagon and he could hear her breathing when he climbed through the back end. She looked up at him and her eyes brightened. There was a flush of fever on her cheeks but she put out a hand and caught his sleeve. "You ... you're a marshal?"

"Yes, Ma'am, I guess I am."

"You ... you won't blame Tolly for helping us? Please, don't." Matt shrugged, smiling. "Miss, I sure don't know any reason why he shouldn't help you. There's been some talk about a woman named Rosanna Cole who killed a man in St. Louis, but I haven't seen her.

"Maybe she's guilty, and maybe she's not, that she must settle with her own conscience. This country is big and wide and it's a good country for people to start over in, but as for me, I've got bigger problems and more important ones than hunting up a woman who shot somebody."

She put her hand over his. Her hair was brushed back from her forehead and lay tumbled in dark confusion around her head and face. Her eyes seemed unusually large. She smiled at him, and squeezed his hand tightly. "Thank you. Thank you, very much. That girl ... I don't think she killed anyone. Someone else did, but the man needed it. He was a brute."

"I wouldn't know about that," Matt said. He ran his fingers through his hair. "Ma'am, I'm going to ranch out west, myself. You and Tolliver would make mighty nice neighbours, so when I start ranching, I hope I have you with me."

A sudden movement from the tailgate of the wagon made him look up. Jacquine Coyle was standing there, staring from one to the other, then without a sound she dropped the canvas and vanished.

Quickly, he scrambled from the wagon. "Jacquine!" he called. "Wait!"

She hesitated, turning toward him, but her face was stiff and white. "Don't let me take you from your lady friend!" she flared.

"My lady friend?" he was astonished.

"Don't try to find excuses, Mr. Bardoul! I heard quite enough. I very distinctly heard you tell her when you started ranching you wanted her with you! That's almost the same thing you told me!"

"But listen!" he protested. "You ...!"

"Let me alone!" She drew away from him, then turned and fled toward her wagon.

Matt started after her, then halted. For an instant, he hesitated. If anything was to be done tonight it was time he talked with Murphy and Ban. They would be at the wagon, waiting.

Swearing, he wheeled and walked across the camp. Only a few fires still blazed. Most of them had died to glowing coals, and he could see the guards moving out to their posts. In a little while the camp would be asleep, and Pearson had left orders for an early start to make the twenty odd miles to Goose Creek.

Red coals glowed where the fire had been and as he walked toward his wagon a small stick fell into the coals and a tiny blaze leaped up, dancing brightly over the deep red, flickering on the log that lay behind the fire, and dancing on the wagon wheels and sending little ripples of shadow over the dusty white canvas of the wagon.

He turned when he reached the fire, and looked round. All was still. The banjo that had been played earlier was silent. A horse stamped somewhere and blew loudly. Matt seated himself on the log and hitched his gun across his leg. It might be tonight.

Extending his hands over the coals he warmed them and then chafed them gently, his mind working over the problem, working out a plan of action. He would use Murphy and Ban Hardy. Jeb Stark could help by keeping watch. It would have to be done swiftly and silently as possible. If they failed they would have no second chance.

Low clouds lay across the sky, and there was no moon. His mind kept going back to Jacquine and what she had heard. Wrenching his thoughts away from her, he considered the problem again, dropping a small stick into the coals. He got up then, and moved back to his wagon. Buffalo Murphy was leaning against the tailgate.

"Ban here?"

"Inside, with Jeb."

"We'll talk right here then. We've got to get ammunition, and we'd better get it tonight. We want no noise, no trouble."

He pulled off his own boots and dug his moccasins from the pack in the wagon, slipping them on. "Murphy, you're a good Injun. You come with me. I've got the wagons spotted, I think. Ban, you and Jeb will keep watch. We won't try to get very much, just enough."

Quietly, he outlined his plan of action, Murphy nodding as he made his points. Matt took off his wide brimmed hat and tossed it into the wagon, then watched Murphy drift off into the shadows, and a moment later, Ban Hardy and Jeb Stark. He waited for a moment, then stepped behind his wagon.

While a man might have counted a slow thirty, he did not move, watching what he could see of the open space within the circle of wagons. The fires were all dying, but vaguely the scene was visible, and nothing stirred. If anyone was spying upon them, he did not show himself.

Carefully then, Matt Bardoul circled among the wagons, moving ghostlike in the space between the twin circles until he neared the Massey wagons.

He counted a dozen men sprawled under their blankets, sleeping near the wagons. One by one he studied them, aware that the slightest noise might awaken them. A few had been drinking, and they would be comparatively safe, but others among them were woodsmen, and they would be the ones to watch. Like a shadow, he moved to the rear of the nearest wagon.

Something moved in the darkness, and he saw the huge form of Buff Murphy. Big as the man was, he moved as silently as the wind moves through the grass.

There was a chance that someone would be sleeping within the wagons. Earlier, he had spotted the wagons that carried the ammunition, for most of the Massey wagons were lightly loaded, and now a couple of them began to leave deeper tracks, and offer more resistance to the pull of the oxen.

Matt slipped a hand under the canvas at the rear of the wagon. Carefully, he explored the darkness. Then lifting the canvas, he climbed in.

It was the work of a minute to find the ammunition boxes. He lifted two of them out of the pile and placed them near the tailgate, then he heaped up sacks and old clothing in the space they had occupied. Looking out, he spied Jeb Stark in the shadows, and motioned to him. The hilhnan moved up, and Matt passed a box to him, and then a second.

Jeb had placed the first on the ground, the second he kept and moved off into the shadows. Matt picked up the first box and followed him, and then waited for Murphy and Hardy. "Any more?" Ban breathed in his ear.

He shook his head, and they moved carefully away. Matt grinned and shook their hands as they broke up and each returned to his wagon. They had done it, and now there would be enough ammunition unless the fight was prolonged.

With the gray of dawn, they moved out. Matt rode near Reutz. "Ride by Murphy's wagon," he said, "and load up. Get some shells for your men, too!"

All day, under a lowering gray sky, the wagons moved north. Warily, Matt kept an eye on the Massey crew, but saw no indication mat they had discovered the theft. For the time then, they were safe. When they bedded down that night on the Goose, they had made twenty-one miles. He walked by Jacquine's wagon, but she was not around. Disconsolate, he returned to his own.

Barney was waiting for him. It was the first time he had seen him in days, but he knew that owing to the illness of one of Coyle's drivers, Barney had been handling a team.

"Matt," he said excitedly, "a few minutes ago one of Massey's men got on a horse and rode away! From the way he looked and from what was said, I have an idea he was going to meet someone. Dad told me you'd heard there was a rendezvous arranged up ahead, somewhere."

"Thanks, Barney. You're exactly right. You keep a gun handy, and be sure it's loaded and ready. Something may break and it may not."

"Can't we do something now? To stop them I mean?"

'That's what I'd like to do, but after all, what do we know, Barney? All of it is a lot of suspicion with a few disconnected things that seem to tie in with those suspicions. You can't arrest a man or shoot him for what you think he's going to do, and we haven't a shred of evidence against anybody that would hold in court. Moreover, we've got to think of the women and children, for if a battle starts some of them are going to get hurt."