Cherokee Trails/Chapter 17
That was a long watch, and a weary one. It could not have been past midnight when Simpson stopped; the rain that was falling then continued for hours. As the horses settled down to their grazing Tom dismounted, slipped the bridle off his horse, yet sticking close beside it holding the neck-rope, ready to mount at the first alarm. There was nothing he could do to warm his blood a bit but stamp up and down the length of the hitching-rope, and flap his arms like a wet rooster. It helped a little, but was not too wildly exhilarating.
There was no finding the horse that carried his grub and blanket among the shadowy, shifting animals of his little band, much as he would have appreciated the slicker that watch. But uncertainty was equal to a coat, anxiety was a fire that kept him alert and keen. And not even a wolf came to disturb the wet tranquillity of the night.
At length Tom became conscious that the rain had stopped. A breeze was springing, breaks were showing in the clouds. Then a whiff of wind, and the east was like an open door. The sky was swept clear; there was the dawn.
He could hardly believe it had come so quickly; he thought he must have been asleep on his feet. Yet daylight had only been pent beneath the clouds; it was an hour past its time. He caught the horse that carried his grub, took off the bridle it had worn since he hitched it to the sapling before going out on that spying expedition which had turned things loose like the stove-in head of a barrel. Some of the horses were lying down, others standing in little groups, heads over each other's backs in the companionable way of horses, take them where found, world without end.
The fast-broadening day discovered to Simpson that he was out of sight of the timber, in a country where laminated ledges of limestone cropped from the ribs of lean hills, with little swales where grass grew abundantly. It was in one of these that he had stopped. Brier clumps and stunted sumac bushes grew along the hillside, suggesting fuel, fire and hot coffee.
The time he would lose getting breakfast would not put him very far along the road, and if Wade Harrison's men were on his trail they'd overtake him before he could get out of there, hungry or fed. A hungry man will argue down almost any kind of danger, and Simpson was a hungry man.
He splintered some dead sumac, which is a wood that blazes quickly, and comes nearer to burning without smoke than any wood that grows, kindling a fire without much difficulty. He was so reckless and defiant of danger in his famished state that he stirred up a mess of biscuits, there being no trouble finding water for mixing his dough or filling his coffee pot, for every wash was a little torrent after the rain, some of them running as clear as if they had their founts in springs, which is the way of prairie run-off water, as every Kansas pioneer well knows.
Not more than three-quarters of an hour later Simpson, a full man and a warm one, his spirits away up to the top of the tube, got his herd under way. The sun was rising; there would be no lack of a guide the rest of the journey, let it be long or short. There was no trail here, no faintest trace that there ever had been. That mare had followed her nose when the road gave out. Tom hoped she had gone in the right direction.
How far he was from the Kansas line he could not even guess, but the horses were fresh now, if not so frisky or keen for the march, able for it without another stop if it could be crossed before night. And so he was off, the sun at his right hand, as sustaining and helpful in his necessity as a friend encountered in a strange and hostile land.
There was not a habitation in sight anywhere in the sweep of country that presented as Simpson mounted the successive hills, not a cow-camp, although many cattle grazed in those abundant pastures. These moved indifferently out of the way as the horses approached, some of the younger animals bucking and cavorting playfully along as if to show their independence, and perhaps a little mocking contempt, of riderless horses running in a captive drove. Tom hoped luck would continue to favor him, allowing him to cross the line without meeting anybody, as curious questioning might lead to dangerous ground.
The country broke rougher as he proceeded, much limestone outcropping on the hills and slopes, a considerable growth of scrub oak here and there. The land was furrowed by deep ravines, with the perpendicular banks common to prairie washes, making long detours necessary. Simpson understood now why no trail led directly north from the crossing of the Salt Fork. Progress was vexatiously slow here; these twistings and wormings among the hills were eating up his chance.
Simpson had been on the way about two hours when he struck an impassable wash, wider and deeper than any he had encountered. It came down from a generally northwestern direction, and appeared to be miles in length, from what he could trace of its windings. The run-off of last night's rain rushed through in a flood; crossing would have been impossible, even if a break in the banks could have been found.
It was tough luck, for this creek, a dry hollow in rainless periods as the lack of water-nourished shrubs along its banks disclosed, turned him from his direct route. Probably an hour or two would be lost getting around it, or finding a fordable place, and in an hour somebody riding after him could cover the distance he had made since leaving camp. But there was nothing to be done except skirt the wash and push ahead as fast as possible. He had elbow room, anyhow; the sun was shining, luck was with him still.
So he reflected as he started up the gulch. It was pretty good going along there; he could put them through for a while. He had not gone half a mile when he got the first sight of his pursuers. It was only a glimpse, he could not tell how many were in the party, but he saw there were plenty to keep one man busy, let him have every advantage on his side, which Simpson feared would not be his case.
They were just dipping down a slope when he saw them; a flitting glimpse of them and they were hidden in the swale. Five or six of them, he thought; certainly not fewer than four. They were not more than half a mile away.
They had not come so tight on his heels undiscovered through any laxity in Simpson's vigilance; he had nearly screwed his head loose looking back that morning. Curiously enough, the discovery that they were coming, and so near, did not give him half the start the sight of that light in the forest cabin had given him last night. He was on edge with expectation of their appearance; there was more the feeling of disappointment, of bitter reproach against the turn of luck, than surprise.
It was a run for the money now, and he saw no reason why he couldn't go about as fast as they could come, pressed by the necessity of doing it, the country fairly open along the bank of the arroyo. He gave a whoop that raised the ears of every horse in the band, and started them with a rush.
No animal associated with man in his domestic economy, not even excepting the dog, will sense and respond to its master's nervous condition as quickly as the horse. It feels the flow of confidence through the reins as readily as it senses the thrill of panic; it will quicken to the calm word of encouragement and quiver at the excited voice of nervous command as no other living creature not endowed with human understanding.
There was not a horse in that band but understood a supreme effort was required of it. They leaped to the race in long strides, bellies close to the ground, necks stretched, chins pointing, running in open order, each picking his own way; leaping rocks, skirting bushes, gathering for mighty springs over ravines which they ordinarily would have paused and looked around for breaks in the bank to ease them over. It was like a whirlwind that springs out of the somnolent quiet of a summer day.
Simpson rode tight after the band, throwing many a troubled look behind. Now he saw the pursuers, now lost them, but each fleet glimpse revealed them a little nearer. They were gaining slowly, but closing up the gap as surely as good horses and good riders could do it over a free-running band. They were getting close enough to start shooting; Simpson wondered why they didn't cut loose.
Then he remembered his standing in the eyes of those men. They didn't want to shoot him if they could save him alive for the rope. He was a horsethief, and a horsethief should always be hung if possible. It was not alone the inflexible code of the Cherokee trails, but of the range. Simpson knew it as well as anybody. He was not to be shot, except to incapacitate him from using his gun or to save the lives of those closing in upon him. They would kill his horse, and rush him while he was entangled, if he did not get clear of it as it fell.
It was not long until this hard pace began to tell on the less fleet and vigorous horses in Simpson's band. These began to lag; those in the lead drew away from them, dividing the herd. Simpson did not want to lose this bunch of laggards, there being among them several of the likeliest-looking draft horses of the Block E brand.
The fleet mare which had led the retreat from captivity was still ahead, running free and tireless, going as if certain of her course. Not more than nine or ten were able to follow her pace. It began to look to Simpson as if he must abandon the slower animals to save himself.
While he was considering this course he saw the vanguard of his headlong retreat swerve sharply from the northwesterly course they had been following along the arroyo—which he noted for the first time was now out of sight—and head northeast. He realized in a flash they had struck the old cattle trail which he had followed into the Nation. Whooping to inspire the lagging bunch with new courage and speed, he rode among them, slapping them with his hat, setting up more noise than a man in less urgent extremity would believe possible for one human throat to make.
By the time he had turned this bunch into the trail and headed them after the leaders, the pursuers were almost within pistol-shot of Simpson. He told himself the time to stop running had come.
Sling out the rifle and begin to pump lead down the line! That was the time to stop, and to stop them. The horses were sure to go right on to Kansas, which could not be more than nine or ten miles away. It didn't seem to matter so much to Simpson just then whether he ever got there; the business immediately before him was right there, on that old cattle trail.
Simpson wheeled shooting. The pursuing band pulled up sharp, and got out their guns, slamming lead around him so fast it looked as if he had ridden into a swarm of grasshoppers which went plumping down at the roadside. Some of them came close—so close the horse squatted and jumped, trembling and snorting, apparently fully conscious of his danger.
Simpson saw there were five in the crowd that was after him. Two broke from the others, riding to flank him, or draw out of range and follow the horses—he was not certain which. Either move was not as he wanted it. He stopped the one on the right. The horse went on, stirrups dancing as it circled and galloped back toward the three riders who remained in the road where they had halted at the first report of Simpson's rifle.
On his left Tom saw the man riding hard for the foot of a little rise that would cut him off. He threw a shot, his target flashing between intervening bushes, and safely away. The three in the road came on with a whoop, cutting loose with everything they had.
Simpson turned to race them for it, hoping to find a spot where he would not loom so prominently, and there stand for the finish. Off to his right he saw the unhorsed man rise up, tall and gaunt, stand wavering a moment, and fall. A bullet caught Simpson's horse. It grunted with the slap of lead, pitching forward so abruptly, so violently, that Simpson was sent sailing as he had gone out of the wagon the morning he hitched that very animal up to its unaccustomed task.
He struck the ground some distance beyond the horse, the fall confusing him momentarily, giving him a terrific jar. He dropped the rifle, and went clawing after it on hands and knees; recovered it, threw himself in the shelter of the horse's body as a fresh shower of bullets cut over his head.
His revolver was in his holster, the one he had taken from Noah hanging to the saddle-horn. He had put Dan's gun under the rope of the packet behind the saddle, ready to hand if needed. Noah's gun still hung on the saddle, but it was under the horse; the other gun was gone, jolted out on that last tight run. This Simpson saw in a glance as he flattened out behind the horse.
The horse had a broken foreleg, clipped by a rifle bullet. It was lying on the disabled member, and now began to make a heaving, frantic struggle to get up. Tom grabbed the reins and tried to turn the creature's head for a quieting shot. As he tugged, a bullet struck the horse's head not a span from his own, killing it instantly.
There appeared to be more caution than valor in that band of horsethieves. They were not keen to rush Simpson and dislodge him from the shelter of his fallen horse. He lay waiting for them, not risking to show his head, filling up his magazine. For a few moments their firing stopped, then there was a rush of horses and they came tearing past, off a cautious distance, riding like mad one behind the other, pouring in their lead as they went.
Simpson threw a shot at the leader and made a jump for it to change sides of the horse before the other two came directly opposite. As he went over a bullet hit the rifle, the reamed particles of lead, red-hot they felt, striking his hand. He flopped down on the other side. The three of them went tearing past, on their way to help their companion turn the horses back, Tom supposed. They knew he could not get very far away.
He was wrong in that surmise. Horse or no horse, they were not going to leave him there alive. They were circling him, closing in as they came this time, one of them an Indian, surely the very Indian he had seen for a second in that cabin door. Tom squirmed up to face them, discovering that the bullet which threw hot lead parings into his hand had jammed the trigger of the rifle. It was out; he dropped it and slung his revolver.
The leader veered off, shooting wildly. It was the Indian, and Simpson knew few of his breed ever became very dangerous with a pistol, especially when shooting on the run. Tom vaulted the horse and dropped down on the other side, banging away with no more effect than his hard-riding enemies.
He knew he couldn't keep up that leap-frog business very long. Soon one of them would get him on the jump or, if not then, their courage would rise with their exasperation, they would rush him and settle their bill. So he was not going to have it that way. They'd have to take him off his feet if they got him, not lying on his belly behind a dead horse like a lizard. And there was no doubt, it appeared now, how that show was going to end.
Tom sprang up as the last man rode by, opening up with such unexpected vigor as to spur him with a spurt that carried him quickly out of range. The other two rode after him, the three of them bunching their horses in a brief conference, one of them suddenly slinging a rifle from under his leg and firing from his vantage of distance and safety.
Simpson was obliged to hunt cover again. Luck had gone off the stage, it seemed. Yet it was remarkable what a quantity of ammunition could be spent by three able-bodied men to so little damage. Beyond the small wounds in his right hand, where the hot spatterings of that bullet had struck, he was unhurt. But luck was out of it.
They were suddenly quiet down the road. The man with the rifle had stopped firing. Simpson stole a cautious look, expecting an immediate response. The three were facing the other way, watching the approach of two men who came riding from the south.
Tom's heart sagged lower, low as it had swung before. It seemed, indeed, that it hit the bottom that time. Reënforcements. The three men were waiting for them, little as they were needed. But no! The two men from the south snapped out their guns and began to shoot as they came tearing within range of the three. There was a break among the horsethieves, a wild scattering, a futile popping of their guns, and they were off.
It was useless, and it seemed an act by a man who had crept out of his hole, but Simpson emptied his gun after the three as they cut toward the southwest down the old cattle trail. The two men who had arrived in his extremity rode up to where Simpson was standing between the legs of his dead horse. Tom's hand was covered with blood; his disabled rifle lay at his feet, the trampled ground was sown with empty shells.
"Looks like you'd been havin' a little skirmish," said one of the riders.
He was slipping his gun into the holster, grinning amiably.
Simpson had to look twice before he was sure it was Sheriff Treadwell, but half a glance sufficed to identify his companion, who was nobody on earth but Wallace Ramsey of the Bar-Heart-Bar. The Sheriff was not wearing his derby hat and buttoned shoes. That was his buckboard rig. To-day he was attired like any rider of the Cherokee trails, and he looked as fit and handy to his part as he was welcome.
Simpson did not reply to the sheriff's comment on the appearance of things around there: just stepped out from between the stiffening legs of that good horse and reached up his hand; and turned to Wallace Ramsey and reached up his hand again.