Lonely On the Mountain (1980) (4 page)

Each night, just shy of sundown, Tyrel, Cap, or I would scout the country around.

Several times, we caught whiffs of smoke from another campfire, but we made no effort to seek them out.

Short of sundown on the third day, after our rest, I killed a buffalo, and the Ox came up to lend a hand. I never did see a buffalo skinned out faster or meat cut and trimmed any better. I said as much.

"Pa was a butcher, and I growed up with a knife in hand. Then I hunted buffalo on the southern plains." "Take only the best cuts," I said, "an' leave the rest." He was bent over, knife in hand. He turned his head to look at me. "Leave it? For varmints?" "There's some Indians close by, and they're having a bad time of it. Leave some for them." "Injuns? Hell, let 'em rustle their own meat. What d'we care about Injuns?" "They're hungry," I said, "and their best hunter is wounded and laid up." Obviously, he believed me crazy. "I never knew an' Injun worth the powder it took to kill him." "Back in the mountains," I said, "I knew quite a few. Generally speakin', they were good folks.

"We had trouble with them a time or two and they're good, tough fightin' men. I've also hunted and trapped with them, slept in their lodges. They are like everybody else. There's good an' bad amongst them." We left some meat on the buffalo hide, and I stuck a branch in the ground and tied a wisp of grass to it. Not that they'd need help findin' it.

Come daylight, when we moved out with the cattle, I took a look, and every last bit of meat was gone, and the hide, also. I counted the tracks of a boy and two women. They'd have read the sign and would know that meat was left a-purpose.

With Cap ridin' point, the cattle strung out along the trail, and I rode drag. Tyrel was off scoutin' the country. Pipestem Creek was east of us now, and the country was getting a mite rougher. Maybe it was my imagination. Off on the horizon, far ahead and a hair to the west, I could see the top of a butte or hill.

By noontime, that butte was showing strong and clear.

It was several hundred feet high and covered with timber. When Tyrel came back to the drag, I rode ahead to talk to Cap.

"Heard of that place," he said. "They call it the Hawk's Nest. There's a spring up yonder--good water." After a bit, he added, "Big lake off to the north. Maybe a mite east. Devils Lake, they call it. Got its name, they say, from a party of Sioux who were returning victorious from a battle with the Chippewa.

Owanda, the Sioux medicine man, had warned them not to make the attack, but they were young bucks, eager for battle and reputation, and they didn't listen.

"Their folks were watching from the shore, saw them coming far out on the lake, and could tell from the scalps on the lifted lances that they'd been victorious.

"Well, some say that night came down. It had been dusk when they were sighted. Night came, but the war party didn't. That day to this, nobody's seen hide nor hair of them. Devils in the lake, the Injuns say." "Owanda must have been really big medicine after that," I commented.

"You can bet he was. But the way I hear it, he was one of the most powerful of all medicine men.

Lot of stories about him. First I heard of him was from the Cheyenne." Cap went on to his flank position, and I took over the point, riding well out in front, studying the country as we moved. Wherever possible, I held the herd down off the skyline. We didn't want to get in the bottoms and among the trees but at least as low as we could move while handling the cattle. There were Indians about, and if they did not know of us now, they would very soon, but I wanted to attract as little attention as possible.

At the same time, I was studying our future.

The grass was growing, and soon it would be high enough for grazing. Until then, the cattle would be eating last year's grass. We were getting a jump on the season, and that was why we were not pushing along.

We had to stall until the grass was up.

By that time, we should have met with Orrin and his Red River carts. Or so we hoped.

Westward the drive was long. The camp for which we were headed was in rugged mountain country, and we had to make it before the snow started falling. Once the grass was up and we had Orrin with us, we'd have to push hard, even at the risk of losing flesh from those steers.

Tyrel and me, we didn't even have to talk to know what the other one was thinking. It was almost that way with Cap.

Gilcrist and the Ox were worrisome men. Tyrel was right when he said Gilcrist fancied himself with a gun, and while I'd never wanted the reputation of gunfighter, a reputation both Tyrel and me had, I kind of wished now Gilcrist knew something about us. Might save trouble.

Many a man thinks large of himself because he doesn't know the company he's in. No matter how good a man can get at anything, there's always a time when somebody comes along who's better.

It was Tyrel who worried me, too.

Tyrel was a first-class cattleman, a good man with handling men, and he never hunted trouble, but neither did trouble have to look very far to find him.

Orrin an' me, we might back off a little and give a trouble-huntin' man some breathin' space.

Not Tyrel--you hunted trouble with him, you'd bought yourself a packet. He didn't give breathing space; he moved right in on you. A man who called his hand had better be reaching for his six-shooter when he did it.

Worst of it was, he seemed kind of quiet and boy-like, and a body could make a serious mistake with him.

Back in the high-up hills where we came from, fightin' was what we did for fun. You got into one of those shindigs with a mountain boy and it was root hog or die. Pa, who had learned his fightin' from boyhood and seasoned himself around trappers' rendezvous, taught us enough to get started. The rest we picked up ourselves.

The wind was picking up a mite, and there was a coolness on it that felt like rain, or snow. It was late in the season for snow, but I'd heard of snow in this country when it was summer anywhere else.

When we were close to the Hawk's Nest, we bedded them down for the night.

"Lin, feed 'em as quick as ever you can," I said to the cook. "I think we're sittin' in for a spell of weather." I pointed toward the Hawk's Nest. "I'm going up yonder to have a look over the country before it gets dark." The Hawk's Nest was a tree-capped butte rising some four hundred feet above the surrounding country, and when I topped out, I found a gap in the trees and had a good view of the country.

There was a smoke rising about a mile up the creek from where we were camped at the junction of the Pipestem and the Little Pipestem. Far ahead, I could see a line of green that showed the Pipestem curved around to the west. Somewhere off there was the Sheyenne.

The water in the spring was fresh and cold. I drank, then watered the line-back dun I was riding and swung into the saddle. Just as I was starting to come off the top, I glimpsed another smoke, only this one was to the west of us and seemed to be coming from a bottom along the Pipestems as it came from the west and before it began its curve toward the south.

It lay somewhat to the west of the route we should be taking on the morrow but not so far off that it wasn't cause for worry.

For a time, I just sat there under cover of the last trees and studied that layout. I brushed a big horsefly off the shoulder of the dun and said, "You know, Dunny, this here country is sure crowdin' up. Why, there's three smokes goin' up within a five-mile square. Gettin' so it ain't fittin' for man or beast." Then I turned that dun down trail and headed for the beef and beans. Seemed so long since I'd eaten, my stomach was beginnin' to think my throat was cut.

By the time I reached the fire, Cap an' Brandy were just finishing up. Cap glanced over at me, and I said, "We've got neighbors." "I seen some tracks," Cap said.

"How many?" "Four, looked like. Shod horses. Big horses, like you find up here in the north where you have to buck snow in the wintertime." "There's no way we're going to hide eleven hundred head of cattle," I said, "but we won't start westerin' for a bit. Come daybreak, we'll hold on the North Star." "Back in Texas," Cap said, "when night came, we used to line up a wagon tongue on the North Star. Use it for a pointer." Lin handed me a tin plate full of beans and beef, and

took a look at Brandy. He was settin' quiet, almighty serious for a boy his years.

"You havin' any trouble?" I asked him.

He gave me a quick look. "No, not really." "Stand clear if you can," I said. "That's a mean lot." "I can take care of myself." "I don't doubt it. But right now I need every man, need 'em bad. Once we hook up with Orrin, it may be some better, but we don't know. Understand, I'm not puttin' any stake rope on you. A man just has to go his own way." Brandy went out to throw his saddle on a fresh horse, and Cap looked up from his coffee.

"He's makin' a fair hand, Tell, and he's got the makin's." Well, I knew that. Trouble was I had to walk almighty careful not to step on his pride.

No matter how rough it was, a man has to saddle his own broncs in this western country.

Only I was afraid Brandy was goin' to have to tackle the big one before he'd whupped anybody his own size. It didn't seem fair, but then, a lot of things aren't. We take them as they come.

If I was around-- But who knew if I would be?

The Ox looked fat, but he wasn't. He was just heavy with bone and muscle, and his broad, hard-boned face looked like it had been carved from oak. He was a man of tremendous strength, with thick arms, massive forearms, and powerful hands.

He gave me the feeling of a man who has never seen anything he couldn't lift or any man who could even test him.

I said as much to Tyrel. "Gilcrist told me he'd seen him break a man's back just wrasslin' for fun." "I don't think he ever did anything just for fun," I said.

Tyrel nodded. "You be careful, Tell. That Ox ain't human. He's a brute." "I want no part of him," I replied.

On most cow outfits, a man stands night guard about two hours at a time, but we were short-handed and in wild country. The Ox and Gilcrist were going to be on from six to ten, Cap and Brandy would take over from ten until two, with Tyrel and me closing out until morning when one of us would come in, get the fire started, and awaken Lin so's he could fix breakfast.

If we were going to be attacked by Indians, it would most likely occur just before daybreak, but nobody has any certainty of any such thing.

When Cap touched me on the shoulder, it was just shy of two, and I was up, tugging on my boots.

Under a tree about thirty yards away, Tyrel was already on his feet. We made it a rule to sleep apart, so if somebody closed in on one of us, the other could outflank them. There were those who thought we'd be better off side by side, but we figured otherwise. Too easy for one man to hold a gun on us both.

All was quiet, the cattle resting. The stars were bright, here and there blotted by clouds. A body could see the darkness of the trees, the lumped bodies of the cattle, and hear the footfalls of a horse as it moved.

It was past three, closing in on four o'clock before it started to grow gray. The line-back dun was moving like a ghost toward a meeting with Tyrel.

Suddenly, the dun's head came up, ears pricked. My Winchester slid into my hands, and at that moment I saw Tyrel.

He was sitting quiet in the saddle, his hands on his thighs, reins in the left hand.

Facing him were four Sioux warriors.

Chapter
V

Now I'd lay a hundred to one those Injuns had never seen a fast draw, but if one of them lifted a weapon, it would be the last thing they ever did see.

At that range, there was just no way he was going to miss, and that meant he would take out two for sure, and likely he'd get three. Time and again, I've seen him fire, and men would swear he'd fired once when actually he'd fired twice and both bullets in a spot the size of a two-bit piece.

They'd never seen a fast draw, but they were fighting men, and there was something about him, just a-settin' there quiet with his hand on his thigh that warned them they'd treed a bad one.

Their eyes were riveted on him, so I was within fifty feet and moving in before they saw me, and I was on their flank.

"Something wrong, Tyrel?" I asked.

He never turned his head, but he spoke easy. "Looks like I was about to find out." One big Indian turned his pony to face me, and the minute he did, I recognized him.

"Ho! I see my old friend, High-Backed Bull!" I said.

He looked to be as tall as my six feet and four inches, and he was heavier, but a lean, powerful man. He was darker than most, with high cheekbones and a Roman nose. He stared at me.

"I have no friend who is white eyes," he said.

Me, I pushed my hat brim back so's he could see my face a little better. "You and me, Bull, we had a nice run together. That was years back, down on the Bozeman Trail.

"You were a mighty strong man," I added, "a big warrior." I doubled my biceps and clapped a hand to it, then pointed at his. "Much strong!" I said. "Run very fast." He peered at me. "Sack-ETT!" he shouted. "You Sack-ETT!" I grinned at him. "Long time back, Bull!" Now I knew he had no liking for me. He'd tried to kill me then, not from any hatred of me but simply because I was a white man driving cattle over the Bozeman Trail, which the Sioux had closed to us. They'd caught me, stripped me, and had me set to run the gauntlet, only I'd started before they were ready and had broken free, taking off across the country.