Sunset Trail (4 page)

“I wonder what our guide is thinking about,” Flint murmured.

Flint murmured.

“If he’s thinking about heading back to Fort Leav-enworth,” Glover grated, “I’ll sure as hell shoot him before he gets out
of the Grove.”

“Maybe you’d like to start shooting now?” Bruce challenged.

“And foller your nose across the
Jornada,
” Purdy added.

“I meant I didn’t want you running out,” Glover said. He strode away with Flint following.

said. He strode away with Flint following.

Purdy’s somber gaze followed them. “Wa-al, son, looks like hit’s you ’n’ me.”

VI

Bruce called the men together that night. “Some of you have been over the trail,” he said. “You know the importance of obeying
orders, of taking your turns at guard duty, and not riding away from the train to hunt or see the country. We’ll have discipline
in this train”-his eyes swung to Glover and Flint-“or there’ll be wolf meat along the trail. We’ll move in columns of four
when possible and necessary. When corralling from that formation, the outside columns will wheel together in front, the others
swinging out. That’ll give us a hollow square, wagon tongue to tail gate. It’ll give us a place to hold our stock after grazing
and a place to hole up when we smell Injuns.”

Agroup of emigrants had joined the circle of men.

One said: “We’d like to travel with you, Shane. We’ve got nigh onto a hundred wagons, but we ain’t got a plainsman in our
outfit.”

“Curt Glover owns this train.” Bruce motioned to him. “That’d be up to him to say.”

“I say no,” Glover snapped. “We ain’t nursing no bunch of greenhorns. If you don’t have a plainsman, go back to Independence.”

“We’ll take our chances if we have to,” the man said stubbornly, “but we heard you had two guides. If we could have one. .
. .”

“I think not,” Flint cut in. “Glover is paying both men high wages. We need Purdy because Shane hasn’t been over the
Jornada.
”

It was the first time Flint had dispelled the fiction that Glover was giving the orders. The trader threw a straight glance
at him, anger sparking his eyes, but he kept his silence. The emigrants moved disconsolately back to their own wagons, muttering
about the damned stubborn traders.

“You got anything to say?” Bruce asked Glover.

“No.”

“I have.” Flint’s enigmatic smile was showing at the corners of his mouth. “The question of whether we lose our hair depends
on the speed we make. It is our intention to make a record for travel on the trail. If we don’t, we may not find Santa Fé receptive
to our entrance.”

Bruce had noted that the men who had brought the ten wagons were gathered on one side of the fire. Flint had addressed his
words to these men.

“All right,” Flint said. “We’ll get all the sleep we can.”

Circling the fire, Bruce caught Flint and Glover before they left. He asked bluntly: “Let’s settle one thing now. Are we two
outfits or one?”

“We’re one,” Flint said in his soft voice.

Glover muttered-“That’s right.”-and stomped away.

Flint stood there for a moment, black eyes locked with Bruce’s, his bland inscrutable face giving no sign of what was in his
mind.

“I hope everybody remembers that,” Bruce said.

“We will,” Flint promised.

When he had gone, Bill Purdy spat into the fire. “Hell of a passel of green scalps in this outfit ready to be lifted, son.”

They hitched up when dawn was no more than a golden promise in the east. The mules had been rounded up and watered, the loose
stock gathered behind the wagons. There were these moments of chaos of plunging horses and kicking mules, of men’s curses
and angry yells.

Bruce, riding Blue Thunder, called: “Catch up!

More cursing and yells of pain when a kicking mule hit his target and harness jangle. Then a wagoner yelled: “All set!” Another
echoed it: “All set!” The cry ran along the line. “Stretch out!”

There was the
crack
of whips, the
creak
of heavily loaded wagons.

“Fall in!” Bruce bellowed above the clamor.

The train strung out along the western slope toward the highland, Bruce and Bill Purdy at the head.The last jumping-off place!
The sunrise behind them. Indian country ahead. And beyond was Santa Fé in an enemy province with Manuel Armijo slouched at
his desk in the adobe Governors’ Palace.

Riding along the line of wagons to the front was Flint Wade, still smiling, still courteous, his thoughts deep and secret
things behind his black expressionless eyes. In distant Fort Leavenworth Colonel Stephen Kearny had no way of knowing that
the caravan, loaded with weapons for the inchoate Republic of New Mexico, was on the march.

The grass came high on the legs of the horsemen. Wind from the distant Rockies touched their faces. The sun beat down with
a dry, staggering heat. And wolves prowled hopefully in the distance.

Mick Catherwood joined them. Bruce, watching Flint, saw the break in the man’s composure, saw the mask replaced, but that
second-long wash of passion had been enough. Flint knew that Mick was a woman, that if he could enlist her aid, she could
furnish the flesh and blood he needed to give life to the skeleton of his scheming, and another worry was born to plague Bruce
Shane.

The caravan became trail wise in the days that followed, partly because inexperienced men learned by necessity, but mostly
because Bruce had the plains savvy and an innate sense of leadership that made men respect him. This was his talent, his choice
of life.

Bill Purdy wagged his grizzled head, and mut-tered: “Book larnin’ didn’t faze him. Takes to this like a Comanche takes to
ha’r.” Neither Glover nor Flint interfered. Even Mick Catherwood looked at Bruce with an unconscious respect in her blue eyes.

The miles dropped behind as the wagon train rolled toward the sunset. Diamond Spring. Cottonwood Creek. On to the crossing
of the Little Arkansas, steep-banked and treacherous. They swept across it, the lumbering wagons swaying and twisting like
white-sailed vessels in a high wind, the water churned into a brown foam.

On into the buffalo country, the lush grass behind, the low-growing nutritious buffalo grass around them. Into the land claimed
by the Pawnees.

Bruce, riding ahead with Mick Catherwood, sighted the Arkansas. A great river heading in the high Rockies far to the west,
stinking and muddy here, wide of bottom, cluttered with brush and cottonwoods, and, in spots, treacherous with quicksand. Here
were wildflowers and dust, prairie dogs and jack rabbits and wolves, a hammering sun and water hardly drinkable and wind that
scoured their faces with sand. They had traveled fast, faster than Bruce had expected, but here they stopped, for Purdy had
brought word that buffalo were just ahead.

There was meat the next day, hump steak and tenderloin and marrow, meat eaten nearly raw, blood running down men’s beards,
greasy hands wiped on buckskins, bones gnawed clean. They ate until bellies were stuffed, and then slept, forgetting the danger
of Indian attack for the moment.

Bruce watched the first half of the night, Purdy the second. Amoon climbed into a clear high sky, and stars made a swath of
light above. Wolves prowled around the wagon circle, eyes emerald gems in the thin light.

There was a wildness in this land, a wildness that centuries of Indian occupation had not changed. It was here in the great
emptiness, in the night breeze, in the presence of the wolves. Bruce Shane, moving silently around the wagons, ears keening
the wind, was conscious of it, and stirred by it as he always was when he left human settlement far behind.

Suddenly Mick Catherwood was beside him. “I couldn’t sleep for the snoring,” she said. “They’re as drunk as if they’d cracked
a barrel of Taos lightning.”

Bruce leaned his Hawkins rifle against a wagon wheel. “Walnut creek ahead. Pawnee Rock. Ash Creek. Pawnee Forks. Then Cimarron
Crossing. That’ll be the last chance to stop Flint. Once he gets his wagons across the
Jornada
, they’ll go on to Santa Fé, and all hell won’t stop ’em.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. The Dragoons are behind us, but they won’t get here in time.”

“Glover is sick of his bargain with Flint,” she said. “I finally pried the whole thing out of him. Flint knew him in New York
when he was in trouble of some kind. He didn’t say what it was, but he was working in a bank, so I guess he’d stolen some
money. Anyhow, Flint was going to tell Dad if Glover didn’t throw in with him. He promised Glover that, when the new republic
was set up, he’d give him a monopoly on all the trail trade. So Glover ordered the guns without Dad knowing anything about
it.”

“Whose wagons are the ones that were waiting for us in Council Glove?”

“Flint’s. He hired those men, but I don’t think they know what they’re hauling.” She looked up at him, her head turned so
that the moonlight was fully upon her face. “I keep thinking about what you said that day you left Independence for Fort Leaven-worth,
about it being up to me now that Dad’s gone. I’ll be beside you and Bill Purdy when you call for the showdown.”

“Thanks, Mick.”

VII

It was the first time he had felt she fully trusted him. She could shoot as well as he could. She had brought down her buffalo
that morning. He knew she could have split his heart the day her father was murdered. But those were men’s talents, and Mick
Catherwood was a woman.

“You must have some other name than Mick,” he said softly.

“Dad gave me that name.” She was close to him, lips upturned. “I was christened Marian.”

He knew she had read his mind. Something had happened back along the trail, something she probably did not fully understand
herself.

“You’re not a man,” he said a little roughly. “It’s time you stopped thinking you were.”

“I thought you were the man who’d stop me thinking it.”

Her words were an invitation, and he did not need a second. He kissed her, holding her hard slim body against his.

She was limp for a moment, and then fire swept through her and she was giving his kiss back, fiercely, compellingly, as if
she had discovered something that she had not known was in the world.

He let her go.

“You see how it is, Marian. You’ve played you’re man, but there’s something in you that won’t let you keep on playing that
way.”

She did not move for a long time. He heard her breathe, rapidly as if she was still riding a high wave of emotion. Then she
whispered: “So that’s all it is to you.” Wheeling, she ran from him.

He understood, then, what he’d done and what he’d lost.

They crossed Walnut Creek the next day. Then Pawnee Rock loomed ahead, a yellow sandstone cliff ominously shadowing the trail,
and tension built until men’s nerves were ready to snap, for all of them knew that this was the bloodiest point between Independence
and Santa Fé.

On to Ash Creek. Glancing back, Bruce saw smoke pillars rise from the frowning top of the rock. He hurried the wagons across
the creek, and they made a tight corral, but there was no attack that night.

“Passin’ the word on to thar brothers,” Purdy said. “We’ll hear more of ’em when we git down the trail a piece.”

“Too many of us,” Glover said with false confidence. “They took a look and saw we were too strong.”

Bruce didn’t tell the man how wrong he was. Curt Glover was like a boy whistling at night in a graveyard. Bruce understood
him better after what Mick had told him. Aw eak and cowardly man, but he might still be the means of keeping the guns from
going through.

They crossed Pawnee Fork and angled southward with the river. That morning Wade Flint rode beside Bruce at the head of the
train. Purdy was scouting ahead of the caravan, and Glover and Mick were somewhere behind with the wagons.

“I wonder if you’ve heard the rumor,” Flint said in his soft voice, “that a great many British army officers were hunting
Independence this spring. Or, as some said, to enjoy our scenery.”

“I heard it,” Bruce said. “It may be a big year for the United States, Flint.”

Flint nodded bland agreement. “It may also be a year when we put an end to this idea that the continent belongs to those who
sit in the seats of the mighty in Washington.”

“You’re wrong,” Bruce challenged. “Traitors will hang now as they have hanged before. We’ve got a war with Mexico, and Kearny
will occupy Santa Fé. Frémont is in California. The Stars and Stripes will fly on the shores of the Pacific before the year
is out, Flint.”

Flint met Bruce’s eyes, the strange smile on his lips. “It’s too big a country to rule that way, a fact you well know, Shane.
Afew of Benton’s ilk talk about expansion. The solid men like Daniel Webster realize the facts of geography. There will be
an Anglo-Saxon republic in New Mexico, another on the Pacific coast. They will not be drains on the United States, and their
people will be ruled more justly than they could be by officials in Washington who think the country ends at the Mississippi.”

“Look, Flint.” Bruce turned in his saddle, pinning his gaze on the man. “Let’s stop trying to fool each other. You know why
I’m here, so you had Armadillo Dunn make a try for me in Mogan’s Saloon. You tried to nail down my hide for Ed Catherwood’s
murder. You hired Snake River Joe to bore me on the street. Your luck was bad, so you figured the safest way to handle me
was to hire me to guide the train so you could watch me. When you were done with me, you could shoot me in the back and let
the wolves gnaw my bones.”

“You’re a smart man,” Flint said amiably. “Through certain connections that I have in Washington, I was informed why you returned
to Independence when you did. I’m not sorry now that my plans for you failed. I’ve come to appreciate your talents. We can’t
fail, Shane. Armijo will run without firing a shot. Kearny’s Dragoons have neither the supplies nor the numbers to force a
way through Raton Pass. It will be late this fall before he even gets to Fort Bent. By that time the British will be at war
with the United States. The Republic of New Mexico will be a fact. A man with your ability could go far. . . .”

“You can stop right there,” Bruce choked, the muzzle of his rifle swinging to cover Flint. “I’ll see you fry in your own fat
if I have to throw you into the pan myself.”

Flint laughed. “When you left the Dragoons at Fort Leavenworth, my friend, you signed your own death warrant. Unless, of course,
you’re smart enough to throw in with us and obviously you’re not.” He motioned back along the train. “I pay the men well that
I hired. Glover is a weak thing, but he’ll go with us and bring his men. It’s you and Purdy against my fifty. The odds will
be longer after we cross the Arkansas. I’ve made a deal with the Comanches to see that we get through.”

Wade Flint was talking straight. Bragging in his own self-centered way. Bruce read him as a dangerous, frustrated man, intense
and inward-looking, determined to play Cæsar in Santa Fé as Kearny had said. He’d fail as ingloriously as Aaron Burr had failed,
but, unless it could be handled here, he’d flood this parched land with a river of blood such as it had never known under
Spanish rule.

So Bruce held his temper and lowered his rifle, sensing that this wasn’t the time. Somehow Flint’s men had to be cut away
from him. “Looks like we’ve lost hoss and beaver,” he said at last, and turned his eyes ahead.

“I’m glad you recognize that, Shane. One more thing. I know that Mick Catherwood is a woman. If you play my way, I’ll see
that she isn’t hurt. If you don’t, she goes to the Comanches.”

“All right,” Bruce said thickly, and spurred ahead, anger a volcanic force in him.

He had underestimated Wade Flint, misjudged his cruelty, his passion for power, his ruthlessness. Bruce knew now he loved
Mick Catherwood, knew that if they lived, their destinies would be one here in this new raw land.

He found her that night, and told her what Flint had said.

“It’s in the open now,” he said bitterly, “but if I wind up being wolf meat, I aim to take Flint with me. I get that far in
my thinking. Then I remember that, if something goes wrong, the Comanches will get their hands on you, and then I can’t think
at all. Before we get to the Cimarron Crossing, you’ve got to light out for Bent’s Fort.”

The red glow of the fire was on her face, the strong tanned face of one who knows the savagery of this land and counts the
risk as part of the day’s work. There was something else in her face, too, the look of a woman who has discovered she possesses
something she thought had been lost.

“I’ll play it out, Bruce,” she said simply. “Perhaps our scalps will hang in the same Comanche lodge.”

His grin was tight-lipped and mirthless. “A fine future,” he said, knowing he had expected no other answer.

The train rolled westward and tension grew until men’s tempers snapped for no reason at all. They were being watched and their
progress reported by smoke talk, but the red devils stayed out of sight. Stock was grazed under double guard and then driven
into the hollow square. Saddle horses were kept on short rope pickets beside men as they slept restlessly, waiting for the
attack.

Curt Glover kept his dignity, but he mopped his baldhead often, and sometimes his hazel eyes held doubt as they turned to
Bruce Shane. The caravan reached The Caches, the Cimarron Crossing just ahead, and Bruce had an opportunity to talk to Glover
alone.

“You’ve got fifteen wagons loaded with legitimate merchandise,” he said bluntly. “You let Flint throw in with you because
you’re afraid of him and be cause he made you a promise he’ll never keep. The minute he rides into Santa Fé, he’ll be done
with you, and he’ll cut your heart out.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Glover snarled.

“You know all right. If you’re still alive when Kearny marches into Santa Fé, you’ll have a rope around your neck. It’ll be
Flint and his hired guns against Kearny’s Dragoons. Even if Flint doesn’t slit your gullet, you’re smart enough to know that
in the long run Flint can’t win.”

Glover wiped a film of sweat from his forehead. “Go to hell,” he said thickly.

“You’ll have a chance to save your hide!” Bruce called. “If you aren’t man enough to take it, you can count on that neck stretching.”

The Caches fell behind. The air was hot and heavy and without motion, the sky a sullen steel-gray. Lightning lanced the western
horizon. Then they reached the Crossing and corralled. Bruce splashed through the water to scout among the sandhills and Purdy
rode upstream while Flint chafed at the delay.

“We’ll have no trouble with the Comanches,” he told Glover. “I say to cross today and to hell with Shane.”

“We’ll wait,” Mick said tersely. “We’re taking Shane’s orders in case you’ve forgotten the agreement.”

“We’d have a hell of time getting across the
Jor-nada
without Purdy,” Glover added.

“It may be we won’t need a guide,” Flint said, but he didn’t press the argument.

Bruce and Purdy were back in camp before dark.

“Cain’t see nuthin’ ahaid,” Purdy told Glover, “but they ain’t quit watchin’ us. Thar’s a million brown-skins jest out o’
sight, or this ’coon cain’t tell pore bull from fat cow.”

“Plenty on the other side,” Bruce said. “We’d better go the long way.”

“We’re going the dry route,” Flint snapped.

“What about it, Glover?” Bruce asked.

The trader shifted uncomfortably and fumbled for a cigar. For a moment Bruce thought he’d take a stand against Flint. But
Flint’s influence on the big man was greater than his fear of the Indians or the rope Bruce had promised him.

“We left Independence planning on crossing the
Jornada
,” Glover said. “I don’t see any reason for changing things now. Fact is, Shane, that’s why we hired Purdy.”

“Then we cross in the morning,” Bruce said, “if we’ve still got our hair.”

The sun dropped from sight and a black oppressive sky crowded the earth. There was no wind; heat lay upon them like a sticky
blanket. Bruce moved inside the wagon circle, ordering the fires out and telling every man to look to his gun.

“They won’t attack till dawn,” he told them. “Maybe not then. Might let us get halfway across the
Jornada
before we see ’em.”

When Bruce completed the circle to where he had picketed Blue Thunder, Mick Catherwood was waiting for him. “Comanches?” she
asked. “I noticed you didn’t say.”

“Kiowas. A lot of ’em. Maybe we can beat ’em off, but if we get into the
Jornada
, we’re gone beaver.” When he reached for her and brought her to him, she did not pull away from his grip. “I’ve got to tell
you or I may never get another chance. I love you. When we get to Santa Fé, I’m going to ask you to marry me.”

She was in his arms, her lips meeting his, and there was this moment when terror and fear and shadow were not of this world.
Then she drew away. “We’ve had at least one fight every trip we’ve made, and I still have my hair. We’ll make it this time,
Bruce.”

Slipping away, she disappeared into the darkness. He smiled grimly, knowing better than anyone else how slim their chances
were. This spring of 1846 was like no other year.

They wore out the long hours, none sleeping. Bruce made his rounds, lifting sagging spirits. Then, near dawn, Bill Purdy said:
“We’re in fer hit, son. I’ve got a feelin’. Jest like I can allus tell hit’s gonna rain when thet damned arrerhaid in my ribs
begins to ache.”

Curt Glover lying under the next wagon said: “We haven’t seen a redskin since we left Council Grove. I don’t know why. . .
.”

“Flint! You there, Flint?” It was a rumbling voice from near the river. For a pregnant moment no one answered. There was not
even a whisper inside the enclosure. Then Bill Purdy rapped out an oath. “Thet’s Armadillo Dunn. I’d know his voice in hell.
We’re gone beaver eff he gits his brownskins inside.”

“Dunn.” The word, a choked curse from Curt Glover’s dry tongue, was echoed on around the wagon circle.

Knowing the depths of Dunn’s duplicity, Bruce thought he recognized the renegade’s game. Dunn would not know what decision
had been made about going the long way by Fort Bent, or the short trail across the dreaded
Jornada.
It would be Dunn’s purpose to persuade them to take the dry route. Then, with the train divided and the river between, he’d
signal for the attack.

“Tell him to come in, Flint,” Bruce said softly. “Bill, keep your eyes on Flint. Let him talk to Dunn, so we can see what the
devil’s got on his mind.”

“Ain’t you there, Flint?” Dunn called again.

“I’m here,” Flint answered. “Come in.”

Bruce saw the man’s bulky shape lift itself from the black earth and come toward the train in a twisting run. He threw himself
under a wagon, puffing. “Where are you, Flint?”

“Here. What are you doing on the river?”

“Injuns closin’ in,” the renegade panted. “I jest came across the
Jornada
from Santy Fee. The Co-manches won’t bother us, but the Cheyennes will. You’ve got to get across the river and keep rollin’.
Soon as the Comanches find us, we’ll be safe because the Cheyennes won’t. . . .”

“But it’s Kiowas out there,” Mick Catherwood cried, “and it was Kiowas that attacked the two other trains you led before!”