Westward the Tide (1950) (22 page)

"White Man, you have destroyed my people; you are destroying my land; but a day will come when you must face destiny, when you will find the metal you made into cheap trinkets or into objects soon to be worn and tossed away, you will find that metal is the metal you need to survive. War and desolation will sweep over you, and you will be gone. The white man will go. He will die, not slowly like the Indian, but swiftly, suddenly, and then he will be gone.

"The white man is not fitted to survive, for he knows not content. He knows not peace. Wars and more wars and bitter famine and pestilence shall end his pride. He cannot learn. Wherever he goes there is war. The Indian fought, but his battles were short and soon over, and the Indian returned to his hunting and his lodge and his squaw. But the white man lives in violence. Where he goes there is fury, and he will die, tearing at the agony of his wounds, crushed and bloody and wondering because in all his hurry and his doing he has never understood his world nor what he does.

"My people will not be here, but when the fury of the white man is gone, the grass will return, and the forests will grow tall again, for at last, White Man, it is the grass that must always be the victor. It is the grass that made us, the grass built your cities, and the grass fed your flocks. It is the grass that made us, and it is the grass that will come back, sewing up with green thread and winding brown roots the gashes you have ripped in the earth, and the grass will save the water that trees may grow tall, and the flowers bloom again. And the grass will strain the mud from the rain water and the streams will grow clear again, gathering the soil from the desert into bounty once more.

"The white man will be gone. Nothing of him will remain. His cities will fall to ruin, rust will gnaw his steel, and when the years have swallowed him, there will be nothing to mark his passing or the fury with which he looted this green and golden land.

"I shall go, White Man. You have taken my Black Hills from me, the dwelling place of the Great Spirit. You soon will take the Big Horns. My chiefs have died to save their people, and we have fought well, but your ways of war are hard, and my people are not persistent in their hatreds. We have fought well with what little we have, and now we shall go, wrapped in our blankets and sorrowing that this must be an end."

Aaron Stark shifted and looked around. Then he got up suddenly and bent over the coffee pot to fill his cup. "Some of this land ain't much good, nohow," he said, "won't grow nothin. You get a good crop for a few years, an' then its all gone."

Barney Coyle had walked up while the old Indian was talking. He looked up suddenly. "That's right," he agreed, "just like my poke. Spend a few dollars and then there isn't any more." He pushed his hat back on his head and grinned at Ban Hardy. "I guess the idea is to keep putting something in once in awhile."

"Huh!" Stark scoffed. "That sounds mighty good, but how you going to put anything into land? If it ain't there, it just ain't there, that's all!"

Matt straightened and felt the pain in his side sharpen. Holding himself against it, he walked slowly away from the fire. When he was a hundred yards off, he sat down on a stone and stared down at the water of the fork.

It was still and dark, and now there seemed no movement except at intervals when he heard a sudden rippling of the water as though the stream were whispering to him that it was still alive. His head throbbed and he sat still, looking at nothing. At that, he felt better, and he could think better. Carefully, he felt of his hands, working his fingers to loosen them and make them pliable.

Brian Coyle was sitting on his bed under his biggest wagon when Ben Sperry walked up to him. Sperry dropped to his haunches. "Brian, this here setup looks kind of funny to me. My wagon's been gone through."

"Gone through? How do you mean?"

"Somebody searched it. My ammunition's all gone."

Coyle stopped with his boot half off. "Your ammunition? Stolen?"

"Yes, an' I think that's why Elam was killed. I think he found Hammer goin' through his wagon an' found what he was after. He didn't have no gun on him, Brian. Elam Brooks never carried a short gun. He was a rifle man. Carried a Winchester carbine."

Brian Coyle pulled his boot back on and got to his feet. He walked around behind his wagon. "Jacquine? Can I come in?"

"Yes, I'm still dressed."

Coyle clambered in the wagon and began pulling things aside. When he got to the ammunition boxes, they were empty. He stared at them, his eyes hard and his face very serious. Slowly, he got out of the wagon.

"Ben, how much ammunition have you got?"

"Five bullets in my six gun, an' four or five shells in my Winchester. That ain't very much."

"No, it isn't." Coyle stared at the ground. "Ben, you go back to your wagon and keep your eyes open but don't mention this to anyone."

He reached into the wagon for his own gun and belted it on.

"Father... ?"

He turned at Jacquine's voice. "Is there going to be trouble? Is something wrong?"

Coyle hesitated. "I'm afraid something is very wrong, Jackie." He spoke softly and gently. "I wish I had left you in Deadwood."

"Father, why don't you go see Matt Bardoul?"

Brian Coyle's face stiffened. "No! I'd never ... !" His voice died. "Maybe it would be best at that. I'd better talk to Herman first. You stay in the wagon."

Ammunition, of course, was valuable. Coyle started for the Reutz wagons thinking that. It could be a thief. Probably Hammer was a thief. The thing to do was to talk to Herman Reutz, to find out if theirs was an isolated case or if the ammunition had been removed from all the wagons. Of course, nearly all the men were still armed, and their weapons would be loaded. Bardoul's whole idea had been preposterous, and there had to be a solution for this problem.

Brian Coyle was not unaware, however, of the growing strain among the people of the wagon train. He had observed the tightening of discipline in Massey's company with approval, but now he thought of it with misgiving.

If Sperry was right and Elam Brooks had been murdered, the situation was indeed serious. It was characteristic that Coyle did not even consider calling upon Colonel Pearson, for in the days on the march, he had come to recognize the notable inefficiency that characterized Pearson. He was one of those men who mean well but have small intelligence, and no ability to cope with the unexpected. His entire life had been lived to a series of set rules, according to a program, and any deviation upset him severely. He was by no means typical of his profession, yet there were many like him, Coyle knew.

As he walked toward the wagons of C Company, Coyle's footsteps slowed. The first break had been the presence of Abel Bain and his attempted attack on Sarah Stark. The attempted killing of Bardoul had been the natural outcome of that, yet it had a place in the larger scheme, too. The personnel of the law enforcement group, the attempt to collect all the guns in the train, the searching of Sperry's wagon and then the killing of Elam Brooks. All these had been signs of something. Yet, Coyle realized that without Bardoul's suspicions, he might have considered them isolated instances bearing no relation to anything, past or future.

Herman Reutz was sitting on a box near a dying fire. He smiled at Coyle. "Sit down, Brian. I'm helping my fire die." Then he saw Coyle's face. "What's wrong?" he asked quickly.

Brian Coyle sat down and drew out his pipe. Then, in as few words as possible, he explained.

At once, Reutz got up and went to his wagon, then to a second wagon. He walked back and sat down. "Gone!" he said. "Every last bit of it! And I all but emptied my rifle at a herd of antelope today!"

"We've got to do something, Herman. We've got to think fast and act faster."

"We can be wrong about this," Reutz said, "we can be wrong. Bardoul warned us, but this story about him being Boyne upset us all. It threw me off, I know." Coyle nodded. "Nonsense, of course. I checked with both Phillips and Pearson. He could not have been Sun Boyne. He suggested that Massey was Boyne."

"Well," Reutz said, "the description would fit. They are both big men. We'd best work out a plan of action, but we're going to be handicapped by the fact that we don't know how much time we have."

"You think they would actually try to take over the wagon train? They would have to kill us all!"

Reutz nodded. "The only way for them. If Massey is Sun Boyne we could expect nothing else, anyway. The man is a brute. Worse, he's a fiend. Not just a killer, he's a sadistic murderer. I know something about him."

"We outnumber them, and most of us have some ammunition left. If we moved now, we might swing it."

"Nothing we can do, actually," Reutz protested. "We don't have any evidence, nothing but suspicion and the fact that our ammunition has been stolen. It might be Hammer. That ammunition would sell to the Indians, you know. We're going to have to move carefully. As far as that goes, they probably have spies in our own companies."

"Bardoul was of the opinion, you told me several days ago, that if they struck it would not be until we reached the basin or at least got around the tip of the Big Horns. That would give us some time."

"A little." Reutz knocked out his pipe. "Coyle, we'd better talk to the few men weknow we can trust. We'd better make a careful check and see that each man has some ammunition, and we had better have a talk with Bardoul."

Matt Bardoul flexed his fingers and palmed his gun. He was fast but not fast enough. He turned and started back to camp. He was almost there when he heard a woman scream and a sudden rattle of shots.

The sounds came from somewhere off in the darkness away from the wagon train, and instantly, he thought of the wagon. He ran for his horse, and swung into the saddle. He glimpsed Tolliver buckling on a gunbelt and running for his own horse. From all over the camp, other men gathered. When Bardoul raced out across the prairie toward the sound of the shots, at least twenty mounted men rode after him.

There was a shot ... another shot, and then silence. The pound of their horses' hooves was the only sound.

Matt was first to reach the small fire by the wagon. If Indians they had been, they were gone now. At first he saw nothing but spilled flour and beans, but then he saw Joe Rucker, sprawled on his face, a bullet through his arm, and another through his head.

Under the wagon, lying on her back, was Joe's brother ... no longer a brother even in name, for her shirt was torn, and there could be no doubt that Abel Bain had been right. Matt, knelt beside her, and immediately realized that she at least was alive.

Matt glanced around at the crowding men. "Stark, you an' Lute rig up a stretcher, will you? We'll take her back where the girls can lend a hand."

Clive Massey shoved through the crowd. Stahl and Hammer were with him, and the first thing Bardoul saw as he straightened up was a livid scratch across Stahl's cheek. The man was still panting, and his pupils were dilated.

"We'll take her to my company!" Massey said. "One of the girls will come there to care for her."

Bardoul looked at him, the firelight on their faces. This could be it, he thought, and swollen hands or not, he was ready. "No," he said, "the arrangements have already been made. The Stark girls can care for her, and they need not leave their own wagons. That would be much better."

"Who's running this wagon train?" Massey demanded. Matt noticed how his right hand was held and a curious light came into his eyes.

"Pearson, supposedly," Matt said, "but this girl goes to the Stark wagon."

"I think, maybe," Massey said coldly, "we'd better settle this question of authority right now!"

"Sure," Bardoul was relaxed and easy. "Any time you like. Let's get Coyle and Pearson here first, and Reutz."

"I'm here," Herman Reutz said quickly.

"So am I." Coyle stepped forward and Colonel Pearson was behind him.

Bardoul gave Massey no chance to speak. "This girl," he said quietly, "goes to the Stark wagon. Clive Massey has made it a question of authority." He drew his commission from his pocket and handed it to Colonel Pearson. "Tell them what that says."

Pearson started to read, then he looked up, blank astonishment written on his usually composed features. "Why, this says he is a Deputy United States Marshal!"

"What?"Clive Massey leaped forward and ripped the paper from Pearson's hand.

As he read, his face slowly paled and his nostrils dilated. When he looked up, a living hatred blazed in his eyes. "So?" he said. "A deputy marshal? I reckon that authority exceeds mine."

He started to turn away, as all eyes stared at Bardoul, but then he turned and walked back, coming close. "Just what would a deputy marshal be doing on this wagon train?"

Matt Bardoul met his gaze with a taunting smile. "Why, Massey, I'm here to preserve the law, first an' foremost. With a gun if need be. Also, I'm on a special sort of mission. It seems there's a crazy killer loose in the northwest, two of them, in fact, and I'm to find them and bring them in. I'm talkin'," he added, "about Dick Ryder and Sun Boyne!"

He turned suddenly. "Stahl, how did you get that scratch on your cheek?"

All eyes swung to the burly renegade. He started, then glared left and right. "Runnin' through the brush. Didn't I, Hammer?"