The Ferguson Rifle (6 page)

He went off, moving swiftly, and Cusbe followed. Shanagan moved after them. “Leave him,” he said. “What difference does it make whether it's wolves or ants? It'll be one or the other.”

Buffalo Dog was prowling about. I opened the man's shirt, feeling something beneath it. A gold medal, hung from a gold chain. A fine thing it was, of fine workmanship, and not the thing any casual man would have.

I took it from him, and then noticed the ring with its crest, and took that. In a small pouch under his belt there was a square of paper with a crudely drawn map upon it, three gold coins, and two small silver buttons each bearing a Maltese Cross. I didn't recognize any landmark on the map.

I pocketed the pouch after placing the ring and the medal within it. If there was any way of discovering who the man was, these small clues might help.

Buffalo Dog rode back to me, and dragging the man's body into a crevice in the rocks, I piled brush over it. There was no time for anything else. Yet the puzzle would not leave me.

In the saddle, I indicated the man's body. “Could you trail the killer?” I suggested.

He shrugged and we rode back to the others. The last of the Indians was just coming through the gap and Walks-By-Night was with them.

Buffalo Dog went off toward the head of the column and I began scouting around, cutting for sign, as they say.

Walks-By-Night joined me, and I told him what we had found.

“Who killed him?” I wondered, “And why?”

CHAPTER 8
______________

W
ALKS-BY-NIGHT LET HIS eyes scan the slope of the grassy hill. “He walks there, I think, where the grass is bent.”

He had better eyes than I, for at the distance no bent grass was visible to me, but riding closer we found a trail. And there were drops of blood upon the grass.

It was then I told him of the missing bacon, meal, and powder. He listened, saying nothing, obviously puzzled by a thief with opportunity who took but one slab of bacon, and only powder but no lead.

“Either we have a thief who took only what was desperately needed or one who did not wish to carry more than that.”

“It was not this man,” Walks-By-Night said.

A thought occurred to me. “The shots had to come a few minutes before four o'clock, and something was bothering our horses about that time. Whatever or whoever stole our bacon and meal evidently was outside of camp when the shots were fired.”

He stared off into the distance, and after a moment held up two fingers, then made the sign for together.

The bacon thief and the dead man together? “If they had been together,” I suggested, “they must have had a camp last night.”

Warily, we backtracked the wounded man. He had fallen several times, but each time had struggled to his feet.

His back trail led us to a saddle in the low hills where we approached with some care. The Cheyenne motioned me to wait and hold the horses while he crept up to the crest of the nearest hill.

After a moment, he motioned me forward. Coming down from the hill, he slipped to the back of his horse and we crossed the saddle into a shallow, grassy valley. At the head of the valley, not two hundred yards off was a small clump of cottonwood and willow, and the greener grass of a seep or spring.

Two antelope were near the spring. They moved off as we drew near, evidence enough that no one else was close by.

Yet among the trees we found the remains of a fire, a faint tendril of smoke rising, and when we stirred the coals, a tiny gleam of red still existed.

Carefully, I looked about. Day-by-day my small skills in the wilderness were returning, and I was gathering more by watching and listening.

Walks-By-Night held up three fingers, and swiftly made the signs for man, woman, and boy.

“A woman?
Here?
”

It was incredible. He showed me the print of a riding boot, too small to belong to anyone but a woman.

There had been four horses, but the horses were gone, and there were no packs. We knew the whereabouts of the man, but what of the others?

Five men had come here searching. Walks-By-Night studied the ground with care, and then as we rode away, he explained. Much of it I had seen myself, but I could not read sign with his infinite skill.

“Five men come in the night … they find nothing.”

“Then there's a woman and a boy out here alone? We must find them, my friend.”

“You know her?” He was puzzled by my anxiety. “She is of your people?”

“She is a woman alone, with a boy. She will need help.”

He asked many questions, and I tried to explain. No, I did not want the woman as a woman. I did not know her tribe.

Obviously the idea was foreign to him, for to most Indians any stranger was a potential enemy, and chivalry, by our standards, was alien to their thinking. Yet the Indian had his own chivalry, and that was the way in which I explained.

“It is like counting coup,” I said. “To strike a living armed enemy is to count coup. To take a scalp is to count coup. According to the code of chivalry, to help the helpless is to count coup.”

He was immediately interested, but he was growing restless. There were enemies about, both Indian and white, and our companions were drawing farther and farther away. We took time for a quick swing around to see if we could pick up the trail, and we could not.

As for the five men who had come to the camp, without doubt they were those who had killed the man whose body we found, but whom they had not found. Why?

The question was a good one. The trail had been easy to follow, the body lying at the end of it, but there had been no tracks to indicate discovery, nor had the body been searched except by me.

Had they been so sure he was dead? Or didn't they care? Then why shoot him at all?

Obviously they wanted something he had, yet nothing had been taken from him. Hence it was something he had that he did not carry on his person … or somebody.

Perhaps it was not he whom they wanted, but those he accompanied?

That would explain why once he had been shot and put out of the game they had not followed. They had followed the others.

Yet someone had slipped into our camp, stolen bacon, meal, and a little powder and escaped … not a girl, surely. But a lad now, a healthy, ambitious lad? There was a likely thing.

We rode swiftly to overtake the others, but the problem nagged at my attention. If the lad had come to rob our camp, and the now dead man had gone off in another direction, where was the woman? Or girl or whatever she was?

And what were they doing out here in the wilderness, and why were they pursued?

We rode down into the bed of the North Fork. There was much sand, little wood except driftwood, most of it half buried in sand, although growing on the bluffs in the distance appeared a few low trees that I took to be cedar.

When we came up to our party, they were encamped in a little valley where a fresh spring sent a small stream meandering down through a meadow. Near the spring there was a scattered grove of pines and cedars, gooseberries and currants growing in great profusion. We camped near them, their thorny wall offering protection from intruders on two sides.

There was wood, fresh water, and grass for our animals.

All heads turned as we rode in. As I was stripping the gear from my horse, I explained what I had found and what we suspected.

Solomon Talley squatted on his heels, chewing on a long stem of grass. “Peculiar,” he said, “mighty peculiar.”

“I don't like to think of no woman out yonder alone,” Ebitt commented. “Still, it ain't our affair.”

“I've decided it's mine,” I replied. “Do you go on and set up winter quarters. I'll follow when I've discovered what's happening here.”

“You'll be killed,” Kemble warned. “A man alone has small chance.”

“Somewhat more than a woman,” I said. “Still, if one of us is to be a damned fool, let it be me. I'm better fitted to play Don Quixote than the rest of you.”

“Don
who
?” Sandy demanded.

“Don Quixote,” Heath explained, “was a Spanish knight who mistook a windmill for a giant.”

Bob Sandy stared at him. “Why, that's crazy! How could a—!” He looked from one to the other of us, sure we were making a joke of him.

“There ain't no such thing as a giant,” he scoffed. “Those are tales for children.”

“I don't know,” Kemble replied. “If you've never seen either a windmill or a giant, one is as easy to believe in as the other.” He glanced at me. “If you want company, I'll ride along.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but this is a concern of mine. Do you ride on to winter quarters. If I find a woman out there, she'll be in need of shelter, and the lad as well.”

“Are you sure they're together?”

I shrugged. “I think it unlikely there'd be several people out here alone. I think for some reason the man we found dead, a woman, and a lad started out upon the prairie. I think their reason was drastic indeed, to attempt to cross the prairies alone, and I think the five men pursuing them plan to recapture or kill the boy and the woman as they killed the man.”

“You reckon that was what the Spanish captain was after?” Shanagan looked up at me. “His eyes were all over the place, lookin' at everything we had, like he expected more.”

To tell the truth, I wished to go alone and I think they understood. Companionship is often to be desired, and to go alone into the mountains or the wilderness is seldom a wise course. Only a little help is sometimes needed to escape from some difficulty, but on this occasion I wished to be alone.

For one thing, a man alone does not
depend
. When a responsibility is shared, it grows less, and two men alert are rarely as alert as one man who knows he cannot depend on anyone but himself. It is all too easy to tell oneself, If I do not see it, he will, and so a little alertness is lost.

“Davy,” I told Shanagan, “I think we're watched. Once the caravan marches, keep them changing places for a while. I'd prefer they don't get an accurate count and realize I'm not among you.”

“I'll do it.” He looked at me doubtfully. “You're takin' a long chance, Scholar.”

He was right, of course, yet the more I considered the situation the more I decided I was right. The lot of us, if we turned from our route, would immediately excite curiosity from those who sought the woman and the boy, and if two dropped out, that would not be missed, yet one would arouse doubt that they had seen correctly. Moreover, I liked being alone, and was sure that I could find them … or what was just as likely … they would find me, if alone.

Some distance from our camp there was a rugged sandstone ridge, broken and shattered like a massive, uneven wall, with fragments fallen out from it and mingled with outcroppings. There was some cedar scattered among these ruins, and it was there, under cover of night, I took shelter with my horse.

With me I carried a good supply of dried meat, and so lay quietly. As the sun arose and our party prepared to move out, I lay motionless in the shadows of the rocks and watched and waited. Finally, they took the trail. Gnawing on a piece of jerky, I watched them trail away and disappear, and still I lay quiet.

When the strangers appeared, it was suddenly and without warning. They topped a low ridge and rode down to our camp, looking about, examining tracks. Altogether they spent the better part of a half hour, just looking about. None of them were men who had ridden into our camp with Captain Fernandez.

During the night I had done a good deal of thinking. Our previous day's journey had been but twelve miles, very short for travel on horseback, but we had taken time in backtrailing the dead man and otherwise.

Now squatting in the shadow of the sandstone ridge, I drew a circle in the sand that was in my mind twelve miles in diameter. At the previous camp, food had been stolen from us by a lad, and a few miles into the circle a man had been killed, on that same night. Near one edge of that circle we had found their camp, and near the western edge was our own camp of the night. Somewhere in that circle or very close to it would be a woman and a boy, perhaps together again, perhaps waiting or searching. And somewhere here also were five desperate men, who also looked for them.

Seated where I was, I considered the terrain before me. The wounded man, I felt sure, had been attempting to draw the pursuers away from their quarry.

If the two were wise, they would remain where they were, wherever that was, because to find tracks someone must leave tracks, and if they remained still, their pursuers must eventually decide they had moved out of the area. Yet I doubted if two escaping people would have the patience.

Tightening the girth on my saddle, I mounted and rode down off the ridge, returning toward where the dead man's body had been left.

I was well armed. Aside from the Ferguson rifle, I carried two pistols in scabbards on my saddle, and my fighting knife, an admirable weapon in which I was thoroughly schooled.

CHAPTER 9
______________

T
HE AIR WAS clear and cool. The thin grass of the country about was broken at intervals with outcroppings of limestone or sandstone, and there were occasional pines and cedars. Now, suddenly, the land about me looked strange.

Passing through a country is vastly different than searching it, and a land that had seemed simple indeed to me as a passerby was now complex, and filled with possible hiding places. I became increasingly both amazed and irritated with myself that I could have been so stupid as to believe the land unrelieved.

Now I realized that a thousand Indians might have been hidden where I would not have dreamed a dozen could find concealment. Secret folds of the land revealed themselves, and where there had been a long grass hill, suddenly I found that the crest of one hill merged at a distance with the crest of the hill beyond and in between lay a valley where a fair-sized town could have been hidden.

At first I found no tracks except the occasional ones of antelope and buffalo. Then twice I came upon the tracks of the grizzly, easily recognized from those of other bears by the long claws on the forepaws. The five riders had been scouting here also, and twice I crossed their trail.

The morning drew on, and methodically I searched every draw, every hollow, every clump of trees, and found nothing. Nor did I see any tracks that might have been left by Indian ponies.

If the lad had acted as I supposed, he had returned to some previously appointed meeting place with the woman. By now they had eaten, and probably were aware they were searched for by the five mysterious riders. Whatever hiding they had chosen must have been done on the spur of the moment.

From various vantage points I studied all the land about. One place seemed too obvious, another offered too little, yet more and more my attention returned to an outcropping of rocks on the southwest facing slope of a long hill.

From that point, our camp on the night we were robbed would have been visible. The lad would not have gone out on the mere chance of finding something at night in this remote region. He must have seen our camp and made his plans before dark. The route of the wounded man who had died near our trail trended away from that spot.

Allowing my horse to graze for a few minutes concealed by a clump of cedar, I studied the outcropping. It might be larger than it appeared from here; it also might offer a place of concealment.

A trail of greener brush and grass led down from the rocks into a widening fold in the hill. Apparently there was a spring or something of the kind there that subirrigated the fold and flowed down to what appeared to be a small, willow-bordered stream below.

The boy, at least, was canny. It had been no small feat to slip into that camp of wary frontiersmen and escape with loot. Small the boy might be, but he must also be something of a woodsman to achieve what he had without being seen or heard.

Determined to examine the place, I now gave attention to all the surrounding area. Where were the five mysterious pursuers?

The coolness of the dawn held on, and the wind stirred the sage, moaning among the cedars with a hint of storm. The sky was clouding over, and I was glad there was a slicker behind my saddle. Did the woman and boy have anything of the kind?

Warily, I looked around, my rifle easy in my hands, for this was a land of trouble and I was new upon this grass. These brown-turning hills did not know me yet, nor I them, and there was a menace in their silence, their emptiness.

At the touch of my heel, my horse walked down the long slope, angling across it toward the east. If watchers there were where the rocks crouched upon their hillside, they must see me now.

Suddenly, I felt good. I could trust myself, and I had something meaningful to do. My horse began to gallop and I found myself singing “The Campbells Are Coming!”

Down the long hillside to the thin trail below, down over the grass to the waiting ascent. I should climb the slope to—

They came out of a notch of the hills riding toward me, five hard-faced men with rifles in their hands, who drew up as they saw me coming. I did likewise, my heart thumping but my Ferguson balanced easily in my right hand, my fingers closed around the action.

Two wore Mexican sombreros although they were not Mexicans, one wore a coonskin cap, the others nondescript felts. Four wore dirty buckskins, one a frock coat. They drew up facing me.

“Good morning, gentlemen!” My voice was cheerful. “A fine morning for a ride, isn't it?”

“Who might you be?” The speaker wore the frock coat. He was a broad-faced man with a black beard and a disagreeable air to him, a burly man who looked likely to have his own way in most cases. I decided I did not like him.

I smiled. “I might be almost anybody,” I said flippantly, “but as a matter of fact, I'm Ronan Chantry, professor of law and literature, student of history, lecturer whenever he's invited. And who might you be?”

They stared at me. I knew that if I disliked them, the feeling was mutual. I also realized they possessed an advantage: they would have no hesitation at shooting me if so inclined.

It was an advantage they had for the moment only, for as soon as I reached that conclusion, I decided I would have no compunctions at shooting them either, one or all.

Wild country and wilder circumstances can thus render all theoretical ethics a little less than a topic for conversation.

“It don't make no dif'rence who we are,” the man replied roughly. “I want to know just what you're doin' here.”

My reply was as rough as his. “It makes just as much difference who you are as who I am, and what I'm doing here is obvious. I'm riding. I'm also, if you wish, minding my own damned business!”

The man was shocked. He had been so sure he held the strongest position that my reply shook him. He stared at me, unable to make me out, and then I saw his eyes go beyond me, looking for my supporters.

“Look here!” he said roughly. “I want to know—!”

I cut him short. “Whatever you want to know, you've a damned impertinent way of asking. Now I have no business with you. If you have any with me, state it and be damned quick. I want to get on with my riding.”

One of the men started forward angrily and my rifle twitched only an instant. “Hold it right there!” I said. “I have no idea who you are or what you want, and to be perfectly frank, I don't give a damn. Now if you want trouble, start the music and I'll sing you a tune. If you don't, get the hell out of the way. I'm coming through!”

They did not believe it. That one man alone would talk so to
them
. Obviously they fancied themselves of some importance and they could not accept it.

I slapped the spurs to my horse and leaped him among them. As I did so, I kicked back with my right spur raking the horse nearest me on that side. Instantly he began to pitch, turning the small group into turmoil.

My horse swung to my bidding and I held my aimed rifle on the head of the leader. “All right,
gentlemen
!” I said. “Do you ride or do I shoot?”

Oh, they did not like it! They did not like it at all! But they rode. Glumly, bitterly, they quieted their mounts and they turned their backs on me. One of them growled, “We'll be meetin' again, mister. This here ain't over.”

“I sincerely hope not,” I replied. “You're a surly, impolite, and dirty-necked crowd, and somebody should teach you some manners.”

They rode off and I watched them go until the shoulder of the hill concealed them, and then I wheeled my horse and ran him down the trail for a good half mile at a dead run, not wanting to open a shooting war with five men out on the shortgrass plains. When I could, I turned up the slope and worked around behind the hill where the outcropping was. I had an idea whoever was up there, if it was not all imagination, had witnessed the recent meeting, and would be wondering about it.

Now I had need of care. The way before me was plain enough, but I wanted neither to be shot by those I wished to help, nor by those searching for them, so I took my way along the reverse slope, angling along toward the crest, hoping to top the ridge somewhere back and to the north of the rocks.

Several times I drew up to look carefully around. My own position was exposed, but the bulk of the hill lay between myself and my enemies. No one else was within sight. Nearing the crest, I dismounted, and rifle in hand walked slowly forward.

There was the sort of place I sought right before me. It was a slight break in the crest where erosion had cut out the sandy earth from around the rocks and brush, leaving a gap. I went to it. Trailing the reins of my horse, I crept forward on my belly and looked across the ridge.

The outcropping looked like a cluster of small stone buildings from here, with broken rock all about, and some brush as well as cedars. Beyond, I could see nothing. If watcher there was upon those hills yonder, he was well hidden, as I was.

As for the outcropping, if it was not now the refuge of those I sought, it certainly had been, for crossing the ridge right below me and angling toward the rocks was a dim trail, the sort that might have been left by one horse.

The afternoon was well advanced and there was no time for delay. Nor as far as I could see was there reason for it. Leading my horse, I crossed over the slope and walked into the circle of rocks.

They stood side by side, facing me, a rather tall young woman of perhaps nineteen or twenty, and a lad of about thirteen. They stood together, their backs against the flat side of a great square block of sandstone. She had auburn hair and hazel eyes and was dressed in what had been a handsome riding outfit of a style much in fashion when I was last in Europe. The boy wore buckskins and a sombrero. He had black hair and black eyes and he carried a rifle much too long for him.

“How do you do?” I said. “I'm Ronan Chantry, and if I can be of assistance, I'd be pleased.”

“I'm Lucinda Falvey, and this is my friend, Jorge Ulibarri. He's helping me to reach the Mandan settlements.”

“The
Mandans
!” I exclaimed. “But … but the Mandans are far and away to the north! Hundreds of miles!”

“That's true,” she replied quietly, “but that's where I must go. My family have friends in French Canada. If I can reach them, I believe I can arrange to return to my home in Ireland.”

Frankly, I was disturbed. I had not imagined anything of this sort, and had no particular desire to go riding off to the country of the Mandans. Not that I did not know something about them, for I did, indeed. They were a tribe of Indians who lived in well-built mud lodges in the land of the Dakotas, on the Missouri River.

“We had best get you out of here,” I suggested, “before those men come back. They were pursuing you, weren't they?”

“They were … and are. They followed us from Santa Fe, but so far we've given them the slip.”

She volunteered no further information and I asked for none. She was a lady in distress and I was, I hoped, a gentleman. And she was, obviously, a lady. Moreover, it was equally obvious she was Irish, as was my own family … not to say that my line was innocent of other blood. My noted ancestor, Tatton Chantry, the first of the name to visit these shores, had set us all an example by wedding a most lovely lady whose family was of Peru. She was the descendant of a Spanish grandee who married an Inca princess.

“I have friends farther along the way,” I said. “We'll catch them, and then it'll be time enough to make plans.”

She looked at me with great severity. “You have evidently misunderstood, Mr. Chantry. My plans are made. I go to the Mandan villages.”

“Yes. Of course.”

We mounted, and rode down the long hill toward the trail. They had two excellent riding horses, fine stock with more than a little of the Spanish Barb in them, and a packhorse as well. What the packs contained, I had no idea. But in view of the long journey before them, I hoped it was food. However, looking at the young lady, I would almost have wagered my last cent that it was clothing … and not the clothing of the trail either.

We rode swiftly. Their animals were in better shape than mine and were in any case better horses, so we made good time while watching the country for the five men.

Rather hesitantly, I inquired if she knew their identities or motives. She denied knowledge but somehow I only half believed her and warned her we were in danger.

“Oh,
them
!” She was scornful. “I saw it all. You sent them packing, and if they come upon us, you'll do so again. I have no doubt of it. They fairly trembled when you spoke to them!”

Well, now. That was not exactly the way of it, but how could I use what eloquence I possessed to prove to this lovely lady that I was less fearful than she imagined? They had gone, and I was nice enough to know it was simply because I had a momentary advantage. Had it actually come to a scrimmage, their leader would have been dead … but I would be dead also. It was an event that I did not contemplate with any enthusiasm.

She rode sidesaddle and she rode it with dash and beauty. She carried her head high, and if there was fear in the world, certainly she was unaware of it.

Yet there were questions that must be asked. “The man who rode with you? Who was he?”

She turned her eyes to me. “He was, as my father was, one of the Irish Brigade. It was he who brought me to my father in Mexico, and when my father was killed, he offered to help me escape.”

“You must tell me about that,” I suggested.

“All in good time,” she replied quietly. She drew up suddenly, as did the lad and I.

Seven Indians sat their horses in the trail before us, seven Indians, armed and ready.