Westward the Tide (1950) (26 page)

Pulling off the poncho, he rolled it up, and then he examined his wound. It had closed up and although slightly inflamed, did not look bad. The bullet had gone through his side just above the hip bone. Searching his pockets, he found a heavy clasp knife he always carried, and with this he cut himself a good sized stick for a cane. Then tucking the poncho over his belt in behind, he got to his feet.

Then he started to walk. When he had made what he believed was a half mile, he rested and took stock. He did not feel badly, although very weak, and he needed food. Yet his best bet was to continue on to the Tongue. The closer he got to the fort, the better his chance was of finding help. Also, the closer he would be to the wagon train.

Once, about mid morning, he found a bit of biscuit dropped by someone in the wagons, and ate that. He fell asleep then close to a bush, and was awakened sometime later by a bawling mingled with angry snarls. Rolling to his knees, knife in hand, he saw four timber wolves attacking a buffalo calf. Nearby, several others were harrying the cow. Getting a firm grip on his club, he lay beside the bush until the wolves had pulled down the calf, and then he got to his feet and yelled.

Instantly, the wolves wheeled to face him. He started toward them, waving his stick. Three of them made off at once, but the fourth stood his ground, only backing a little and snarling. Matt continued toward the wolf, walking steadily, and the animal glanced left and right to reassure itself of an easy retreat. When no more than twenty feet away, Matt lifted the club once more and shouted. The wolf fled.

The calf was already dead, and he knelt over it, cutting up as much of the meat as he could carry. Then he moved back to the stream, and leaving his meat, returned for more. When he reached the stream after his second trip, he collected sticks and built a fire.

While he was broiling the meat, he studied the situation. For all his effort, he had made no more than two miles, yet once he had eaten, he should be able to do better. As he sat over the fire, his eyes kept noticing some dark object lying out toward the ruts of the wagontrain, and finally he decided it was a man.

Thinking of that, he let his eyes wander over the trail, and after a bit, he picked out another. His lips tightened and he felt something well up within him that was between rage and hatred. He ate, his eyes averted. When he had eaten what he could, he rolled the rest of the meat in a haversack made of the poncho, and got to his feet.

He walked slowly, but directly toward the body lying upon the trail. It was Ban Hardy, and he was literally riddled with bullets. Matt knelt over him and went through his pockets. He found his wallet, containing a picture of Sarah Stark and a few faded letters. Matt stowed it away in his pocket, then got to his feet. It took time he needed, but he gathered a few stones and covered the body, then he went on.

The second body was that of Will Stark, one of Aaron's sons. Will was only sixteen. He had been shot twice through the chest.

"There must be some back behind me," Matt told himself, "but not many. I think I was pretty far back."

He found two more bodies before reaching the Tongue. One was a man from Coyle's company, and the other was Bill Shedd.

Shedd, too, had failed. He had set out to get Sun Boyne, and he had failed. How many more would he find at the Tongue? By now, an idea of the situation was beginning to fit itself together in Matt's brain. The attack had been premature because they had known something of the plans made by Bardoul and the rest. Massey had not waited for the Tongue, but had struck at once, taking advantage of the scattered wagon train when there was no chance of unified defense, and when due to the terrain and the travel as well as the driving rain, it was impossible for them to be together. It had been a neat piece of generalship, there was no question of that.

Yet it left Massey with a problem. He had still to get the wagons to a place where they could be hidden or disposed of, and he did not have drivers enough. For that reason if for no other, few of the wagon train personnel would be shot if they did not offer any resistance. There was a chance no women would be annoyed for the same reason, as peace must be kept as long as possible to get the wagons out of reach of appeal to the fort.

That left the only chance the prisoners had for survival, to lie with an accidental meeting with an Army patrol, or Matt.

Of course, nobody on the wagons knew he was alive. In that lay his greatest chance of success, yet it gave the people of the wagons very little to hope for.

When he had crossed the Tongue, he was on the edge of what had been their camp for the night. He sat down and cooked more of the meat, and drank thirstily. After resting, he got up and made a careful survey of the campsite.

He found where a number of the men and women had been herded together for better guarding, and where they had been fed. A few scraps of food and many tracks in a close area, and very few tracks elsewhere aside from other, more scattered signs, proved this was the correct conclusion.

Bathing his head for the first time, Matt found that mud and blood had caked together to stop the bleeding. The bullet had curved around his head under the scalp, and was still under the skin on the back of his head. Taking a chance, he cut a slit in the scalp and forced the bullet out. Then he bathed the wound again and rested.

He was weak from loss of blood and shock, but despite the walking, he felt better. Yet he knew he had come but a short distance and the wagons, hurried by Massey, would have covered at least forty miles in the two days of travel. Without a horse he would fall farther and farther behind. Had he his full strength, he could have overtaken them on foot, but there was no chance in his present condition.

The course the wagon train was taking would lead them to the Little Big Horn, and from there they might strike across toward the Big Horn itself, or follow a route that would take them south between the river and the mountains. Yet he had no way of guessing their actual destination without following the trail.

Darkness came swiftly, and Matt rolled up in his poncho, but despite his weariness and the throb in his head and side, he lay awake for a long time. Finally his mind a confusion of dreams, he slept.

He awakened with a start, long before daylight. Rolling out, he built a fire and then went to the stream where he bathed his face and head, then cooked the best of the remaining buffalo meat and ate all he could manage. He had no way of carrying water, but with the recent rain there was a chance he could make it. The Little Big Horn lay some twenty miles to the westward.

His head throbbing, his face dark with beard, he started out. Somewhere ahead of him was the wagon train, and when he found it, he would know what to do. Head down he started plodding along the ruts the wagons had left.

The grass was high now, high as the wheels on the wagons that had rolled across this prairie, and had he possessed a rifle there would have been no need to worry about food, for there was all the game a man could want. Prairie chickens and rabbits darted away as he approached, and once, late in the afternoon, he saw off in the distance a pair of antelope, but this time there were no wolves to make his kill for him. Three times during the morning he stopped to rest, once for all of an hour. Yet despite his weakness, he kept going, content only when he was moving. Once, in midafternoon, he stumbled from weakness and fell headlong, and that time he lay long before moving again, and when he started once more, rested every little way. He must keep going, but at all costs, he must not stop or be stopped.

His years along the frontier and the hard, rough life he had lived had built stamina that did not fail him now. When he started again, he moved along for a mile, then rested and started once more. He was determined to make the river before he stopped, no matter how many hours it took him, and the distance was between eighteen and twenty miles. Once, sighting a band of horsemen, he took to the brush. Even at that distance he recognized them for Indians, for their manner of riding was distinctive. Concealed in the brush, he waited, and after only a few minutes, saw six Indians riding along the wagon trail.

Clutching his knife, he waited. They were Sioux, and young warriors, which was all he needed to know, for if they found him they would not hesitate to kill him and take his scalp, and he was without any weapon but the knife. Once, they reined in, and he saw a tall young warrior on a spotted pony staring down at the trail. Once, he half turned his pony as if to ride toward the brush, but the others shouted something at him, and rode along. Twice, he turned in his saddle to glance back.

Obviously, the warrior had seen his trail, and probably was undecided whether it was made at the time the wagons passed or not. Yet when they had gone on, Matt did not at once emerge from cover, but kept to the shallow place between the hills, utilizing every bit of cover. It slowed his pace, but after a few minutes, he saw the Indian on the spotted pony returning.

Evidently he had noticed the tracks he had seen did not continue, and saying nothing, had decided to count coup on the straggler by himself. Matt eyed the Indian with care. He was a young warrior, agile and strong. He possessed no rifle, and no doubt was hoping to get one when he found his man. It was the paint pony that interested Matt... if he could get that horse ... he crouched in the brush, waiting.

The Sioux had turned aside from the trail and was following his path through the grass toward his first hiding place. Carefully, Matt slid backwards through the brush, rearranging the grass and branches as he moved, trying with all his skill to cover his trail. In his present weakened condition, an attack upon the Indian would be sheer suicide unless he was at once successful.

When he reached a dense section of brush he went into it, and after passing through, concealed himself in the grass near his trail. He lay very still, gripping the knife.

The afternoon was warm and very still. The sun lay upon his back, and the dew-heavy grass smelled fragrant to his nostrils. Flat as he could lie, pressed tight to the earth but with one leg drawn up and his toe dug in for a quick move, he lay waiting.

A fly droned lazily in the warm summer sun. It sat upon a leaf and walked about curiously, then flew to Matt Bardoul's hand, where it prowled without apparent purpose, then took off. The sun warmed his back, and his muscles soaked up the heat. His hand upon the haft of the knife grew sticky and he drew the hand away, wiping it on his left sleeve.

No sound came from the brush, but suddenly the Indian was there, lean and powerful with tan, lithe muscles. He was led among the leaves at the edge of the brush, his eyes studying carefully the open valley before him, dotted with clumps of brush. He carried a bow in his hand, and an arrow ready for shooting.

Matt needed no one to tell him how quickly that arrow could be let go. He had seen the Sioux in action before this. He lay very still, breathing carefully, his eyes riveted upon the warrior. There could be no escape now, for the Indian was too close, and he would trail Matt and find where he had doubled back. There was only one chance, and that was Mart's ambush. When the Indian came abreast of him, he must be killed.

The whole action must take no more than a split second, and there must be no sound. The knife must win on the first stroke. In ordinary condition, without his wounds, Matt could have bested the Indian in a hand to hand fight, but now there was no room for a gamble. None at all.

The Sioux was careful. Young he might be, but he had seen war. You knew that in the way he moved, and there was confidence in him, too, the confidence of victories past. Mart's grip tightened on the knife, and he waited, tense and ready.

The warrior moved from the brush and crouched, staring down at the trail, then he straightened and looked all around him. There was something in that trail he did not like, and Matt almost grinned to see the Indian's face, so close now that every change of expression could be noted. From the trail the Sioux knew the man he was following was not trying to get away, he knew the man understood how to leave or conceal a trail.

Now, the Indian moved. Matt was aware of the faint, earthy smell, of the slight movement of the tall grass as the Indian came forward, and of the fly that buzzed mournfully about. In the far distance, above the low hills, a bit of lonely cloud drifted across a pale blue sky.

The eyes of the Sioux were black, his skin dark and his hair black and greasy. When he moved there was only the whisper of the grass. He wore only a breechcloth, and carried beside the bow and quiver of arrows, only a scalping knife.

Mart's tongue touched his dry lips. The Indian was abreast of him, but looking ahead, searching the brush and the hillside. He hesitated there, and Matt Bardoul held his breath, and then the Indian took a step, then another.

In a long, soundless leap, Matt shot himself from the earth. The Sioux, warned by some small sound or a premonition of danger, wheeled like a cat, but Matt was too close for the bow and arrow, and the Indian dropped them, wasting time in a futile grab at his knife. Matt struck with his own knife, and the Indian caught the blade on his arm.

Blood whipped from it in a crimson curtain that covered his arm like a sleeve. Matt struck with his left fist and caught the Sioux in the mouth, staggering him. He struck again with the knife, blade held low, stabbing for the soft parts of the Sioux's body. Again the Indian warded it off, getting only a thin red scratch across his stomach, but now he had his own knife out.

Matt struck with his left for the Indian's wind as they went down into the tall grass and thrust again with the knife. That time it struck home, and the Indian gasped, his black eyes ugly with hatred and battle lust. Matt got the knife out, and they rolled over. He felt a flash of pain across his shoulder and then he got the Indian's wrist and forced it back, fighting desperately to hold the blade away from his body.