The Ferguson Rifle (5 page)

Davy's fingers grew busy, and the reply came quickly, on the brave's eloquent fingers. “They're going west, and he thanks you.”

What would my friend Timothy Dwight think of me now? Riding west with a band of Indians?

Remembering the man, and what he knew of me, I smiled, for he would not have been surprised. The others, perhaps, but not Dwight.

CHAPTER 6
______________

W
HEN WE HAD come upon the cheyennes, they hoped to kill a buffalo to relieve their hunger while on the march. Now with the fresh meat we provided, they were prepared to continue their move to the west.

The travois that had been drawn by a squaw was now hitched to one of our packhorses.

Davy Shanagan and the brave, whose name was Buffalo Dog, rode together, carrying on a conversation in sign talk with a word thrown in here or there. Listening to their conversation and to the other Indians, I soon picked up several words of the Cheyenne language.

One of the old men knew of a camping place, and keeping scouts out to warn of danger, we moved toward it. After a while, Shanagan joined me at the point. “They're ridin' to join their people,” he said. “There's a plenty of Cheyennes up yonder. These Injuns figure to take after the Utes. Get their ponies back.”

“Let's stay out of it. No use to make more enemies than we have.”

“Now that may not be just that easy,” Shanagan said. “They'll be wanting our help.”

The Cheyennes preferred a camp on the open prairie but not too far from woods. The old man's choice was a good one, and just before sundown Cusbe Ebitt killed a buffalo cow. We gave most of the meat to the Indians.

Shanagan explained that the Cheyennes were convinced by my clothing that I was a great chief. “Let 'em think it,” he added. “It makes us big men in their eyes. Prestige … that's the key word with Injuns.”

We made our own camp closer to the woods than the Cheyennes, but within a hundred yards of them. Firewood was plentiful and the stand of trees offered some shelter from the increasing wind. Moreover we liked the background of trees against which our bodies merged and blended. Our fire we placed in a hollow behind the stump of a broken-off tree where it was perfectly masked.

After collecting sufficient fuel for the night to come and the preparation of supper and breakfast, I moved to the point of the woods overlooking the plains. The position provided an excellent view in all directions, and sitting down just inside the belt of trees, I gave some thought to the situation.

The government of the Spanish colonies was a jealous one, permitting no trade with anyone but the Indians, and guarding against trespass. Captain Fernandez, as a diligent soldier, would have orders to resist any encroachment upon what was believed to be Spanish territory. From him, we could expect nothing but trouble.

Since I'd joined the mountain men, no plan of action had been discussed. We were riding toward the western mountains for a season of trapping and exploration. If all went as we hoped, we would find a favorable location and build winter quarters before snow fell, and if our trapping was successful, we could expect to return to Saint Louis in the spring with a bundle of furs.

Riding in company with the Cheyennes, who by virtue of our contribution of meat accepted us as part of their group, we could avoid trouble with at least one tribe of Indians. If a large party of Cheyennes were waiting ahead of us, we might easily have been ambushed because any unattached party was fair game, but now that we had joined this group, we would be accepted.

Faint sounds from the camps behind me only served to emphasize the stillness of the plain before me. The sun was gone but light remained, and a sky shot with crimson arrows from beyond the horizon. Shadows gathered in the hollows among the low hills … a wind stirred the grass, then the trees … there had been a lull, a moment of stillness. In the east there was a mutter of thunder … still far off.

For the first time, I found myself wondering what I had done. Behind me lay the career I might have had, a career as a teacher, an author … perhaps even in politics, for my friends were well situated in all these areas.

Few men had better educations, few had read so widely in so many fields, and now I had left it all behind. With the sudden death of my wife and son, my life had begun to seem empty and pointless. I had come west on impulse, and what lay behind it I did not know. Was it a secret desire to die? Had I come west for that?

Or to lose myself in a land far from all I knew, from old memories and old associations?

Rising, I walked back to the fire. Talley was squatted beside the coals roasting a chunk of beef, and the smell was good. Kemble was cleaning his weapon, giving it all the care a mother would give a child.

Ebitt came up to the fire, carrying some knots and large fragments broken from a stump. “Are you from Boston, Scholar?”

“From Virginia, and then Carolina. When the war ended, we moved near Boston. We lived in the country not too far out.”

We talked campfire talk while the coffee came to a boil and the meat roasted. Meanwhile we ate wild onions dug from the prairie soil.

“My family worked with iron,” Ebitt said. “I had no taste for it then, but one day I'll go back.” He looked up at me. “We did ornamental ironwork. Pa considered himself an artist.”

“Some of them were,” I said. “I have seen the screen in the cathedral at Nancy, done by Jean Lamour, and the staircase in the town hall … beautiful work. And there was always Malagoli of Modena.”

Ebitt lowered his chunk of meat, looking up at me. “Were your people in iron, too? I've heard my father talk of such men. They were the masters!”

“You're a smith, then?” I asked him.

He lifted his hands to me. They were square, powerful hands. “Iron is in the blood. Once a man has worked with it, it never leaves him. Yes, I was a smith, but I grew restless thinking of the western lands. At nights I would lie in my bed and think of all that vast, open land … unridden and untouched. One day I shouldered a pack and started out.”

“There's no telling about wandering men,” Talley commented. “They come from everywhere. I knew James Mackay. He was west in 1784, and again in '86, '87, and '88.”

Kemble agreed. “Truteau was an educated man. Jean Baptiste Truteau. He came from Montreal, taught school for a while in Saint Louis, I hear … that was about '74, but some years later he was in the Mandan villages, trading. He lived with the Arikara, too.”

We made our plans. Of the lands toward which we were moving we knew nothing but hearsay. There were furs … we did know that, and once in the mountains we had no doubt of our ability to find them.

For three days then we moved steadily toward the setting sun. We rode the flanks or point along with Buffalo Dog, and we saw no enemies. Several times we killed buffalo, and once an antelope. The Cheyennes were well supplied with meat, and the wounded brave grew better. Soon he could walk a little, and on the day we reached the hollow near the North Platte, he was able to ride. His name was Walks-By-Night, and he had counted many coups.

He rode beside me. “Why do you give us meat?” he demanded.

“You need meat,” I said.

He was not satisfied, but after a while he asked, “Where do you go?”

“To trap fur in the western mountains,” I said. “First, I must have horses. This,” I said, “is a splendid animal, but he needs time to learn to feed upon your grasses. He will learn, but in the meantime he should not be ridden as hard as I must ride. I shall need a western horse.”

“I will give you a horse,” Walks-By-Night replied. “When we come to our people, I have many horses.”

“It would be a great gift. I have nothing to give Walks-By-Night.”

“You have given meat to my people. You have ridden beside us when the Utes might have come, or the Pawnees.”

To that I made no reply. Our presence might have contributed to their safety, and it was well that he believed so, for we wanted their friendship.

“You do not count coup? You take no scalps?”

How to explain that without offending him or seeming weak? “The Great Spirit knows of my victories. It is enough.”

“Your medicine is strong,” he said.

Yet we rode with care. The air was cooler, the wind a little stronger, and the coulees deeper. The greater the distance from the settlements, the greater the danger. We were all aware of this, and aware, too, that we were being watched. Twice tracks were seen where horsemen had observed us for some time, and by now they knew our numbers. Without doubt they also knew of an encampment of Cheyennes to the west, toward which we were obviously pointing.

If they wished to destroy us, they must attack soon, and Walks-By-Night was aware of this, as was Buffalo Dog.

We found a camp in a shallow place where there was green grass from a seep, and a few gooseberry bushes growing about. One lone ash tree grew nearby and there was a dead tree lying on the ground.

While the others made a fire, Walks-By-Night and I rode a circle wide about the camp, scouting every rise in the ground, but we saw nothing but a few buffalo.

During the passing days, my meager supply of Cheyenne words had increased so that with it and what English Walks-By-Night knew, we managed to communicate. I was also acquiring some skill with sign language, and then to my surprise I discovered that the Indian talked very passable French.

He shrugged at my astonishment. “Many French trapper,” he said. “All the time they come. Live in village. Ride with us. My people long time lived beside Great Lakes, then beside river far to north.”

“This is not your homeland then?”

“No. My people lived north of Great Lakes in what you call Canada. The Cree were our people, too … far, far ago. All Indians have moved. No Indian lives where he once lived.”

“It is the same with us … with all peoples. A long time ago our ancestors lived in what we call Russia … or beyond in Central Asia. Then they came west … many, many people came west, and some of them occupied empty lands, some took lands by driving others out.”

“They were white men?”

“Yes. There was not one migration, but many. The horse made it easy for them to move, and with the horse to ride they became more powerful.”

“It was so with us,” Walks-By-Night said. “The Sioux have become strong with the horses.”

We dismounted on a hillside. There in the sand around an anthill he drew me a rough picture of the western Great Lakes and showed me where once his people had lived and how they had moved west to the Sheyenne River in what was now the lands of the Dakotas or Sioux.

The Sioux had got the horse by trade or by theft from southern Indians who had them by theft from the Spanish. And once mounted the Sioux had pushed west from their homeland to conquer much of the Dakota lands of Nebraska, part of Montana and Wyoming.

It was growing darker. “Some say you people came from here”—I sketched in the northern steppes of Siberia—“and that you migrated across this water to America. They say my people came from here too.”

He put his finger on the western Tarim and southwestern Russia. “And you from here? Then once our people may have ridden together … there?” He put a finger making a wide sweep of Central Asia.

“It could be,” I said. Standing up I gathered my reins and stepped into the saddle. “Your people went east and north, mine went west and south, and now we meet again … here.”

“It is far? This land we come from?”

“Very far. Perhaps three hundred suns of riding … perhaps more.”

“We have come far.” He looked at me. “We have come far to fight again here.”

I smiled. “But not you and me, Walks-By-Night. I think there is friendship between us.” I held out my right hand. “Between us let there never be blood.”

“Only of our enemies,” he said.

So we rode into camp together, and dismounted by our fire.

“See anything?” Kemble asked.

“A few buffalo … nothing more.” I cut myself a chunk of meat and began to roast it over the fire. Walks-By-Night had gone down to his own people.

The meat smelled good, and I was hungry. I thrust a stick into the coals and a few sparks went up … disappeared.

I began to eat my meat and listen to the campfire talk.

CHAPTER 7
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W
E WERE NOTICEABLY higher when we moved out in the morning, the air was cooler, and the vegetation was changing to shorter grass, drought-resisting plants. Yet it was the Cheyennes that interested me most of all, and whenever possible I led Buffalo Dog or Walks-By-Night to talk of their people.

The horse had revolutionized the Cheyenne way of life, and once the horse had arrived in numbers, the Indians had almost ceased from planting, and had become meat eaters, buffalo hunters. Their way of life was in many ways easier as well as more dramatic. The Cheyenne lived upon the herds much as did the wolf, but the wolf could only kill the poorer stock while the Indian looked for fatter, healthier animals. The white man, when he came in numbers, would do the same.

Yet much of their killing was wasteful, for often the Indians would stampede a herd over a cliff, killing great numbers, although much of the meat would inevitably rot. Such a way of life could support only a limited number of Indians, but constant warfare and occasional blood feuds kept down their ranks.

In the distance we could see a faint line along the horizon and gradually I began to realize it was a far-off mountain range. Excitement grew within me. Soon we would be there and settled down to the business of trapping.

Suddenly Shanagan came racing to me. “Scholar!
Look!
”

Atop a low line of hills to the south, several warriors had appeared. They sat their horses, watching us.

Sliding my rifle from its sheath, I made ready for an attack. But Buffalo Dog went racing by us and out upon the plain, calling out to the strange warriors. Slowly, they began to ride down off the ridge and we saw there were but four.

Walks-By-Night was beside me. “They come. Our people.”

The four, riding a wide open line, rifles at the ready, came down the slope to meet Buffalo Dog. They drew together, stopped, and there was much talk. Meanwhile we had halted the column.

Now they came toward us—four warriors, one of them scarcely able to sit his saddle.

We had the story before the sun was high. They had come up to the Ute encampment, found it empty. Warily they had approached up a draw. Two lodges stood there, a fire was burning, nobody was in sight.

A rifle lay across a bundle of furs; a pot was over the fire; there were saddles and equipment lying about. The horses were tethered among the trees back of the lodges. Emerging from the draw, the Cheyennes were sure they had come upon a camp where the Utes were gone buffalo hunting.

They went into the camp. One Cheyenne stooped to lift the rifle; another started for the lodge nearest him. Suddenly there was a burst of fire. Three Cheyennes dropped where they stood, the others scattered, running. Another fell as he ran.

Hidden in their lodges, with holes made in the buffalo hide tepees from which they could fire, the Utes had waited until the Cheyennes were in their camp and at point-blank range.

The Cheyennes had recovered some of their horses, most of which had been lost in the chase that followed.

Was Fernandez with them? He was.

“Likely it was his idea,” Sandy commented. “That's one we owe him.”

“The Utes need no ideas,” Talley replied. “I never knew an Indian yet who needed help figuring an ambush. They dread an ambush more than anything, and use it themselves when they can.”

“I'm for cuttin' loose,” Bob Sandy said. “Let's clear off from these Cheyennes and head for the mountains. They move slow, and it'll be dead cold before we make it.”

“You're forgetting those Cheyennes up ahead. If we leave these people, they won't know we're friendly.”

“I don't know that I am,” Sandy replied coolly. “An Injun is an Injun. If we leave this lot, they'll kill us first time they see their chance.”

“I don't believe that, Bob,” I said. “If we were strangers to them, it might be true, but now we know them. We have ridden with them.”

“You think like you want, Scholar. Them books will teach you plenty but they'll surely not help you savvy Injun ways. You got to learn them firsthand.”

“I appreciate that, Bob, but I still believe this party of Cheyennes are our friends.”

Sandy shrugged. “Maybe. But I notice you don't leave that Ferguson rifle lyin' around. You're in more trouble than the rest of us, Scholar. There ain't an Injun in America who wouldn't give ever' horse he owns for that rifle. It ain't only the way it shoots, but all that silver foofaraw you got on the stock. To an Injun that's prime.”

No doubt what he said was true. Certainly the weapon I carried was a beautiful specimen of the gunmaker's art, and such a weapon was rarely seen on the western plains, although occasionally some trapper or Indian would decorate his gun with brass studs. Sometimes this was a design, more often his name or initials in the rifle stock.

Few of the Indians had seen my weapon fired, almost none of them at close range, and so far as I knew, none of them realized the rapidity with which it could be loaded and fired. Yet I knew enough of Indians not to underrate them.

There had been a time in the eastern areas when a group of Indians approached a number of white soldiers and asked them if they would not extinguish the matches with which they fired their guns. They protested that the sight of the flaming matches frightened their women and children. Obligingly, the soldiers did so, and then the Indians promptly attacked and killed all but one man, who fled into the woods and escaped.

The Indians had been shrewd enough to see that the musket of the white man had to be fired by a lighted match, although supposedly the Indian knew little of such weapons. The Indian was endlessly curious, quick to observe and to comprehend, and quite able to make minor repairs on damaged weapons. To underrate either their intelligence or their skill would be dangerous.

Over our campfires and when riding, we discussed the question from all aspects. We did wish to be about the business of trapping, but there was even more to be gained by trading. Alone of all our party, I possessed no trade goods, so whatever I had would be from trapping alone.

The hunting jacket and leggings begun back along the trail had been completed, and I now wore them, packing my other clothing away for state occasions.

The country grew increasingly rough. The ridges were often topped by thick brush or trees.

There were thousands of antelope, and twice we saw herds of wild horses that fled at our approach. Once we came down to a muddy spot, almost an acre in extent, trampled by wild horses. There were wolves about. We counted two dozen in the last hour of our march, and once we were in camp they lurked nearby.

During the night, I was awakened by something tugging at my pillow and sprang up to find myself facing a large wolf. Our bacon was wrapped in burlap, several sides of it together, and then placed in canvas bags for ease in packing. I usually used one of these bags as a pillow, and it was this the wolf had smelled.

Rifle in hand, I glared at him and he glared right back, growling. He stood over the bacon and seemed of no mind to give it up. On the other hand, bacon was a delicacy out here and all too little remained. Nevertheless I disliked firing at the animal in camp, and knew it would immediately awaken everyone who would spring to arms, believing an attack was in progress.

Tentatively I took a step nearer, looking into the wolf's yellowish eyes, gleaming in the firelight. He snarled more fiercely, bristling and ready to fight, but when I took a step nearer he hesitated, then when I stepped quickly forward, rifle poised, he broke and fled. Gathering up the torn sack, I brought it back into camp.

Glancing at my watch, I saw the hour was thirty minutes past three. The sky was clouded over and I could see no stars. The wind was picking up and the air was cold. I added some sticks to the fire, which blazed up pleasantly, so I tugged on my boots and filled a cup of coffee.

Sleep had left me, and I was as wide awake as if it were morning. The wind worried me for no small sounds could be heard through its rustling and movement. Degory Kemble was on guard and I moved away from the fire to where he watched from some small brush.

“It's a wild night,” he whispered, when I was near. “I've had a notion something's moving yonder, but I'd not want to wager upon it. Sometimes I'm sure I've heard something, and then it seems to be nothing. I'm glad you're here. Now both of us can be fooled.”

We were silent, straining our ears against the wind for sound, and then we heard it, a momentary sound through an interval in the rising wind.

A shot … and then another, but far off … lost upon the wind.

“It wasn't that, but something nearer by.”

“Who would be shooting? Not many Indians have guns. Captain Fernandez, perhaps?”

“At what? That sound was afar off … a half mile or even a mile.”

We waited, listening, but we heard nothing more. Suddenly our horses snorted, stamping and tugging at their picket rope. Getting up, I went quickly among them, quieting them, but listening as I moved.

Something was out there … but
what
?

We did not awaken the others, waiting for what would develop. The horses were wary, apprehensive of something, yet they did not act as they would if there were wolves. As the horses quieted, I left them, listening into the wind to catch the slightest sound.

From the camp of the Cheyennes, there was no sound. I could see the faint, reddish glow of their fire, but nothing more.

So we waited out the night. Toward morning I dozed near the fire, awakening only to stir it up for cooking our breakfast meat.

Ebitt picked up the canvas pack, hefted it, then looked inside. He glanced at me. “Did your wolves come back? A slab of bacon's gone.”

Degory Kemble glanced at me, then walked over and slowly inspected the ground. Our own feet had trod so much upon the grass that no other tracks could be seen.

“It was no wolf,” Cusbe said, showing us the rawhide strings. They had been untied, the bacon taken.

“It's them thievin' redskins,” Bob Sandy said. “Give 'em a chance an' they'll take the camp away, and everything that's in it.”

“Is anything else missing?”

Talley checked, as we all did. A small sack of meal was gone, and perhaps a half pound of powder that had been left in a sack.

“Odd,” Talley muttered. “There was a full sack alongside, and my bullet molds and some lead. That wasn't touched.”

We exchanged a look, and then Solomon Talley shrugged. “A thief who takes only the small things,” he said, “and not much of that.”

“But a thief good enough to Injun into our camp whilst it was watched,” Davy Shanagan said. “I've a thought it was the Little People.”

Cusbe Ebitt snorted. “There's an Irishman for you! Something he can't explain and it had to be banshees or the like! I'd say we should move out.”

We saddled up, and saddling Kemble told of the distant shots we'd heard, and of something moving in the night. Nobody had any comment, but when I rode out to take the point, Buffalo Dog was with me, and he had heard the shots.

The land was vastly broken now, with jagged upthrusts of rock here and there, a difficult land to guard against, for at every step there were places where an enemy might hide, and a man must ride always ready, and no dozing in the saddle or depending upon the other fellow.

We were a hundred yards ahead of the others, entering a gap between low, grassy hills, when Buffalo Dog pointed with his rifle.

For a moment I did not see it, then I did. Blood upon the grass, blood still wet.

Isaac Heath was closest of them and he came riding to see what it was. He looked at it. “You heard shots, all right, and whoever was hit was hard hit. That's a sight of blood.”

Buffalo Dog was looking up the slope, studying the brush and rocks at the top. Leaving Heath to point the column, the Cheyenne and I went up the slope, our rifles carried ready for a quick shot if need be, yet even as I rode I was agreeing with Heath. Whoever had lost that much blood was not going far.

Nor was he.

We found him among the first rocks. He was a slender man, well made, wearing buckskin leggings but a uniform coat, badly torn now and stained with blood.

We looked slowly around, but he was alone, and no horse was with him, nor any tracks of a horse. Kneeling, I turned him over, and he was dead, his sightless eyes turned wide to the sky.

He was a white man, and he clutched a worn skinning knife … nothing else.

Buffalo Dog scouted about, but I looked at the man. Here was a strange thing, a mystery, if you like. Who was he? How had he come here? At whom had he been shooting? Or who had shot
him
?

The man's features were well cut … he looked the aristocrat, yet when I saw his hands, I could not believe that. The nails were broken, the fingers scarred, the hands calloused from hard work.

Davy Shanagan came up the slope. “Ah, the poor man! But where did he come from, then? There's no chance he was alone.”

“There was at least one other,” Talley said dryly. “The man who shot him.”

“Aye,” Cusbe agreed. “That's a bullet wound. And in the night.” He glanced over at me. “And no Indian, or he'd have lost his hair. There's something a bit strange in all of this.”

“Captain Fernandez,” I suggested, “was farther north than he should have been. Farther north than he had a right to be. Could he have been chasing this man?”

“That's a Spanish uniform,” Talley agreed. “He may be a deserter.”

Carefully, I turned back the coat. There were pockets on the inside, and in the right side pocket there was flint and steel and a stub of pencil. There was blood on the pencil, blood on the edge of the pocket. I glanced at the outflung right hand, and there was blood on it, too.

The column of our people had halted in the gap below, and Solomon Talley turned toward them. “We'd best move on,” he said. “This is no place to be come upon by Indians.”