Kitabı oku: «The Free Range», sayfa 9
CHAPTER XVII
A BATTLE IN THE DARK
“Everything ready?”
Bud Larkin sat his horse beside Hard-winter Sims and looked back over the white mass that grew dimmer and dimmer in the dark.
“Yes.” Sims lounged wearily against the horse’s shoulder. It had been a hard day.
“Get ’em on the move, then.”
Sims, without changing his position, called out to the herders. These in turn spoke to the dogs, and the dogs began to nip the heels of the leader sheep, who resented the familiarity with loud blatting and lowering of heads. But they knew the futility of resisting these nagging guardians and started to forge ahead. Other dogs got the middlers in motion, and still others attended to the tailers, so that in five minutes from the time Larkin gave the word the whole immense flock was crawling slowly over the dry plain.
Eight thousand of them there were; eight thousand semi-imbecile creatures, unacquainted with the obstacles they must encounter or the dangers they must face before they could be brought to safety or lost in the attempt. And to guard them there were nearly seventy men whose fear lay not in the terrors to be met, but in the sheep themselves: for there is no such obstacle to a sheep’s well-being as the sheep himself.
The last flock had arrived the night before, well-fed and watered. The preceding six thousand were in good condition from days and weeks of comfortable grazing in the hills; all were in good shape to travel.
In moving them at this time Larkin had seized the psychological moment.
The disgruntled cattle-owners, under a guard of ten men, were resting quietly far from anything resembling excitement in one of the untracked places among the mesas and scoria buttes. Bud had ascertained, by spies of his own that scoured the country, that the great posse of rescuing cowpunchers had gone safely off on a wild-goose chase, misled by one of the sheepmen who was unknown in the country.
For the present, therefore, the range was clear, and Bud reckoned on its remaining so until the cattlemen had been rescued from their durance vile. In such a time the sheep-danger shrank into insignificance, and Larkin counted on having his animals across the Bar T range before the finding of the cattlemen, after which, of course, the men would be turned loose with much commiseration and apology.
Of the seventy men guarding and driving the sheep not more than thirty were regular herders. Forty were mounted and belonged to Jimmie Welsh’s fighting corps, which was composed mostly of owners and superintendents from the north country.
Your usual Western shepherd is not a fighting man and cases have occurred in the bitter range wars where a herder has been shot down in cold blood unable to make a defense because of the grass growing out of his rifle.
Years alone in the brooding silence of the Sierra slopes or the obscure valleys of the northern Rockies take the virulence out of a man and make him placid and at one with nature. Into his soul there sinks something of the grandeur of cloud-hooded peaks, the majesty of limitless horizons and the colors of sky-blue water and greensward. With him strife is an unknown thing except for the strife of wits with another herder who would attempt to share a succulent mountain meadow.
Common report has it, and such writers as Emerson Hough put it in their books, that a sheep-herder can scarcely follow his calling for seven years without going mad. On the other hand, those who have lived for years among the sheep declare that they have never seen a sheep-herder even mentally unbalanced.
Probably both are right, as is usual to a degree in all discussion; but the fact remained that, sane or insane, the herder was not a fighting man – something had gone out of him. Therefore in bringing men other than herders south with him, Jimmie Welsh had shown his cleverness. To fight riders he had brought riders, and these men now helped to direct the river of animals that flowed along over the dry plain.
There were two cook outfits to feed the men, one of which contained the incomparable Ah Sin, who had amply revenged himself on the herders for his warm reception at the camp.
That first night they marched ten miles, and, as before, found the water-holes polluted by the cattle which take delight in standing in the mud, and thus in a dry country work their own destruction by filling the springs.
The next day the sheep cropped fairly well, although the sun was terrific and no more water was discovered. Nightfall found them becoming nervous and uneasy. They milled a long while before they bedded, and more of them than usual stood up to watch.
Not a rider had been seen all day. Through the baking glare there had moved a cloud of suffocating dust, and under it the thirsting, snorting, blethering sheep, with the dogs on the edges and the men farther out at regular intervals along the line.
After supper some of the men slept, for it was not planned to start the sheep until midnight, as they needed the rest, being footsore with long traveling. It was calculated also that they would reach the ford at the Big Horn by shortly before dawn.
But the sheep would have none of it, and moved and milled uneasily until, in order to save the lambs that were being crushed in the narrowing circle, Sims gave the order to resume the march.
The night “walk” of sheep is a strange thing. First, perhaps, rides a shepherd, erect and careless in his saddle, the red light glowing from the tip of his cigarette; and beside his horse a collie-dog, nosing at objects, but always with ears for the sheep and the voice of his master.
Then come the sheep themselves, with cracking ankle-joints, clattering feet, muffled blethering, a cloud of dust, and the inevitable sheep smell. Perhaps there is a moon, and then the herders must watch for racing cloud-shadows that cause stampedes.
Such was the picture of the Larkin sheep that night, only there was no moon. They started at ten, and Sims sent Miguel forward to walk before them, so they would not exhaust themselves with too fast traveling. On the move the sheep seemed more contented.
It was perhaps one o’clock in the morning that Larkin, in company with his chief herder, spurred out far in front of the advancing flock to reconnoiter. The sheep would be within approaching distance of the ford in a couple of hours, and Bud wished everything to be clear for them.
Nearing the Big Horn, Sims suddenly drew up his horse, motioning Bud to silence. Listening intently, they heard the voice of a man singing an old familiar plains song. The two looked at each other in amazement, for this was one of the “hymns” the cowboys use to still their cattle at night, the time of the most dreaded stampedes. It was the universal theory of the cow country that cattle, particularly on a “drive,” should not be long out of hearing of a human voice.
So the night-watchers, as they rode slowly about the herd, sang to the cattle, although some of the ditties rendered were strong enough to stampede a herd of kedge-anchors.
“Cows here?” said Sims. “What does this mean, boss?”
“It means that we’re beaten to the ford and will have to hold the sheep back.”
“Yes, but who’s driving now? This is round-up and branding season.”
“I don’t know, but between you and me, Sims, I’ll bet a lamb to a calf that the rustlers are running their big pickings north. There are some mighty good heads at the top of that crowd, and they have taken advantage of the deserted range, just as we have, to drive their critters.”
“By George! You’ve hit it, boss!” cried Sims, slapping his thigh. “Now, what do yuh say to do?”
For a long minute of silence Bud Larkin thought. Then he said:
“Here’s my chance to get those rustlers and at the same time benefit myself. There can’t be more than a dozen or fifteen of them at the outside. Ride back to the camp, Simmy, and get twenty men, the best gun-rollers in the outfit. Tell anybody that’s afraid of his hide to stay away, for the rustlers are top-notch gun-fighters.”
“But what’ll yuh do with a thousand cattle on yore hands?” demanded Hard-winter in amazement.
“I’ll tell you that if we get ’em,” was Bud’s reply. “As I see it, we can’t do without them.”
The plan of campaign was somewhat indefinite. The last intention in the world was to frighten away the cattle by a grand charge and a salvo of young artillery. With great caution the sheepmen approached near enough to discern the white cover of the cook-wagon, when it was seen that the whole herd was slowly moving toward the ford, the singing rustlers circling around it.
Bud told off a dozen of his riders and instructed each to pick a man and to ride as near in to him as possible without being seen. Then, at the signal of a coyote’s howl twice given, to close in and get the drop on the rustlers, after which the remainder of the body would come along and take the direction of things.
Sims was put in charge of this maneuver, and was at liberty to give the signal whenever he thought circumstances justified it. It was a strange procession that marched toward the ford of the Big Horn – first fifteen hundred head of calves and young steers, guarded by unsuspecting rustlers; then the knot of sheepmen and the dozen riders closing in on their quarry, and, last of all three miles back, eight thousand sheep clattering through the dust.
For what seemed almost half an hour there was silence. Then suddenly came the far-off, long-drawn howl of a coyote, immediately followed by another. Bud set spurs into his horse, revolver in hand, the remaining eight men at his heels, and made directly for the cook-wagon, where he knew at least one or two of the outfit might be sleeping.
The drumming of the horse’s hoofs could now be plainly heard from all sides, and a moment later there was a stab of light in the dark and the first shot rang out.
After that there were many shots, for the rustlers, keyed up to great alertness by the hazardness of their calling, had opened fire without waiting for question or answer.
Bud, as he dashed up to the cook-wagon, saw two men crawl out and stand for a minute looking. Then, as their hands moved to their hip-pockets like one, he opened fire. At almost the same instant the flames leaped from their guns, and Bud’s hat was knocked awry by a bullet that went clean through it.
Meantime the man who had been riding beside him gave a grunt and fell from his saddle. One of the rustlers doubled up where he stood.
Larkin, to avoid crashing full into the cook-wagon, swerved his horse aside, as did the others. The horse of the man who had been shot stood still for a moment, and in that moment the rustler who remained standing gave one leap and had bestridden him.
Bud saw the maneuver just in time to wheel his horse on a spot as big as a dollar and take after the man in the darkness, yelling back, “Get the others!” as he rode.
It was now a matter between the pursuer and the pursued. Pounding away into the darkness, heedless of gopher-holes, sunken spots, and other dangers, the two sped. Occasionally the man ahead would turn in his saddle and blaze away at his pursuer, and Bud wondered that none of these hastily fired bullets came near their mark. For his part he saved his fire. It was not his idea to shoot the rustlers, but rather to capture them alive, since the unwritten law of that lawless land decreed that shooting was too merciful a death for horse- or cattle-thieves.
But Larkin found, to his dismay, that the horse of the other was faster than his own, and when they had galloped about a mile he had to strain his eyes to see the other at all. He knew that unless he did something at once the other would get away from him.
He lifted his revolver and took careful aim at the barely perceptible form of the horse. Then, when the other fired again, Larkin returned the shot, and almost immediately noticed that he was creeping up. At fifty yards the fleeing man blazed away again, and this time Bud heard the whistle of the bullet. Without further delay he took a pot-shot at the rustler’s gun arm and, by one of those accidents that the law of chance permits to happen perhaps once in a lifetime, got him.
After that the rustler pulled up his failing animal to a walk and faced him around.
“Hands up!” yelled Larkin, covering the other.
The answer was a streak of yellow flame from the fellow’s left hand that had been resting on his hip. The bullet flew wide as though the man had never shot left-handed before, and Bud, furious at the deception, dashed to close quarters recklessly, not daring to shoot again for fear of killing his man.
This move broke the rustler’s courage, and his left hand shot skyward. His right arm being broken, he could not raise it. Larkin rode alongside of him and peered into his face.
It was Smithy Caldwell.
Quickly Bud searched him for other weapons.
“What’re yuh goin’ to do with me, Larkin?” whined the blackmailer. “Don’t take me back there. I haven’t done nothin’.”
“Shut up and don’t be yellow,” admonished Bud. “If you’re not guilty of anything you can prove it quick enough, I guess.”
“I saved your life once,” pleaded the other. “Let me go.”
“You saved it so you could get more money out of me. Think I don’t know you, Caldwell?”
“Let me go and I’ll give you back all that money and all the rest you’ve ever given me. For God’s sake don’t let ’em hang me!”
The cowardice of the man was pitiful, but Bud was unmoved. For years his life had been dogged by this man. Now, an openly avowed rustler, he expected clemency from his victim.
“Ride ahead there,” ordered Bud. Caldwell, whimpering, took his position.
“Put your hands behind you.” The other made as though to comply with this command, when suddenly with a swift motion he put something in his mouth.
Instantly Bud had him by the throat, forcing his mouth open. Caldwell, forced by this grip, spat out something that Bud caught with his free hand. It was a piece of paper. Larkin slipped it into the pocket of his shirt and released his clutch. Then he bound Smithy’s hands and started back toward the scene of the raid.
When he arrived, with his prisoner riding ahead on the limping horse, he found that all was over. Two of the rustlers were dead, but the rest were sitting silent on the ground by the side of the cook-wagon. One sheepman had been killed, and another’s broken shoulder was being roughly dressed by Sims.
Others of the sheepmen were riding around the herd, quieting it. That there had been no stampede was due to the fact that the shooting had come from all sides at once, and the creatures, bewildered, had turned in upon themselves and crowded together in sheer terror, trampling to death a number in the center of the herd.
Less than half a mile ahead were the banks of the Big Horn and the ford. A mile behind the leaders of the sheep were steadily advancing. There was only one thing to be done.
“Drive the cows across the ford,” commanded Bud. Then he told off a detail to guard the prisoners, and the rest of the men got the cattle in motion toward the crossing.
Bud did not join this work. Instead, he pulled from his pocket the bit of paper that Smithy Caldwell had attempted to swallow. By the light of a match he read what it said:
The range is clear. Drive north fast to-nite and travel day and nite. Meet me to-morrow at Indian Coulee at ten. Burn this. Stelton.
For a minute Bud stared at the incriminating paper, absolutely unable to digest the information it carried. Then with a rush understanding came to him, and he knew that Mike Stelton, the trusted foreman of the Bar T ranch, was really the leader of the rustlers, and was the most active of all of them in robbing old Beef Bissell.
For a long time he sat motionless on his horse, reviewing all the events that had passed, which now explained the remarkable activity of the rustlers and their ability to escape pursuit and capture.
“I don’t know where Indian Coulee is, Stelton,” he said to himself, “but I’ll be there at ten if it’s within riding distance.”
CHAPTER XVIII
THE IMMORTAL TEN
Jimmie Welsh threw his hand into the discard and grinned sheepishly.
“Yuh got me this time,” he said.
Billy Speaker, who held a full house, kings up, smiled pleasantly.
“I allow yuh’ll have to put yore gun in the next pot if you want to stick along,” he said. “An’ if yuh do I’ll win it off yuh and get away from here.”
“No,” said Jimmie regretfully, “if it was any other time I might resk it, but not now.”
Red Tarken, who had been shuffling the single greasy pack of cards, began to deal. In the game beside these three were two more sheepmen and another cattle-raiser.
The six sat in the shade of a huge bowlder that had broken off and rolled down the side of the red scoria butte. The game had been going on for hours, and captors and captives alike played with all the cowboys’ fervent love of gambling. Tarken, Speaker, and their companion were free to move as they liked, but were on parole not to try to overpower their guardians.
Others of the eleven owners sat about in the shade of rocks, playing cards, or talking and doing their best to pass away the time. It was a strange gathering. Only one man remained sitting by himself with bent head and his hands bound behind him. This was Beef Bissell, the cattle-king, who had steadfastly refused to give his word to remain peaceable, and fumed his life away hour after hour with vain threats and recriminations.
At either end of the small inclosure that backed against the butte, two men with Winchesters in their hands bestrode motionless horses.
This perpetual guard, kept night and day, though invisible from all but one small point, was the only sign that there was anything but the kindliest relations among all the members of the party.
When the cowmen had found that no personal harm was to be done them, all but Bissell and one other had resigned themselves to making the best of a laughably humiliating situation. It was Billy Speaker himself who had suggested the idea of the paroles, and as Jimmie Welsh knew the word of a Westerner was as good as his bond, the pact was soon consummated.
It was a remarkable formation in a desolate spot that the sheepmen had taken for a prison. It is a common fact that on many of these high buttes and mesas the pitiless weather of ages has chiseled figures, faces, and forms which, in their monstrous grotesquery, suggest the discarded clay modelings of a half-witted giant.
This place was a kind of indentation in the side of a precipitous butte, above which the cliff (if it may be so called) arched over part way like a canopy. The floor was of rock and lower than the plain, but over it were scattered huge blocks of stone that had fallen from above. Other stones had, in the course of time, made a sort of breastwork about this level flooring so that the retreat was both a refuge and a defense.
Better even than its construction was its situation. This particular spot was a corner of real “bad lands,” and lumpy ridges, hogbacks, and barren buttes arose on all sides like waves in a sea. So numerous were they that unless riders passed directly by the sheepmen’s hiding place the chances of discovery were almost nil. At one spot only was it visible, and that was a place where the edges of two hogbacks failed to lap and hide it.
The sheepmen were aware of this, and their two guards were placed out of range of that single opening. The distance to it was almost half a mile.
The game of poker went on. Billy Speaker sat with his back to this opening, and after a while, in the natural progress of things, the sun crept over the top of the rock and smote him. It was a hot sun, although it was declining, and presently Billy gave warning that he was about to take off his coat.
When he did so without an alarming display of hidden weapons, the fancy suspenders he wore came in for considerable attention. Now cowmen or cowboys almost never wore braces; either their trousers were tight enough at the waist to stay up, or they wore a leather strap to hold them. Suspenders hampered an active man.
But Billy Speaker, who had originally come from Connecticut fifteen years ago, wore these braces and treasured them because his mother had given much light from her aging eyes and many stitches from her faltering needle to the embroidery that traveled up and down both shoulder straps. She had embroidered everything he could wear time and again, and at last had fallen back on the braces as something new.
After free and highly critical comment regarding this particular aid to propriety, the game was permitted to go on. It happened to be Billy Speaker’s lucky day, and he had nearly cleaned the entire six of all their money and part of their outfits. In the exhilaration of raking in his gains he moved about really lively, forgetful of the brilliantly polished nickel-plated buckles that decorated his shoulder-blades and denoted the height to which his nether garment had been hoisted.
Out in the bad lands a troop of horsemen moved slowly forward, detached bodies scouring the innumerable hogbacks for signs of their prey. There were a few more than a hundred in this body, and it represented the pick of ten ranches. At the head of it rode a stolid, heavy-faced man, who appeared as though he were in constant need of a shave, and whose features just now were drawn down into a scowl of thought and perplexity.
This man’s body remained quite motionless as his horse plodded on with hanging head, but his small black eyes darted from side to side ceaselessly.
It was in one of these quick glances that he experienced a blinding flash upon his retina. A second later it occurred again, and then a third time. Suspiciously the man drew his horse to a stand, and those behind him did likewise.
Stelton thought for a moment that there must have been an outbreak from the near-by Wind River or Shoshone Reservation, and that the Indians were heliographing to one another. Presently, in an open space between the edges of two buttes he caught the flash close to the ground.
It probably was a tin can left by a herder – they often flashed that way – but he would prove it before he went on. He took from their case the pair of field-glasses that swung from his shoulder and raised them to his eyes.
What he saw caused him to swear excitedly and order the company to back out of sight.
At the same instant Jimmie Welsh, holding a straight flush, looked up triumphantly at Billy Speaker who had just raised him. He looked over Billy’s shoulder and the smile froze on his face. He continued to look, and the cards dropped one by one out of his hand. Then his face became stern and he jumped to his feet.
“No more of this,” he ordered. “We’re discovered. You fellows get back out of sight,” he added to the cowmen. “Here, Harry, Bill, Chuck, search these fellers again an’ see they ain’t got nothin’ in their shoes.”
“What ails yuh, Jimmie? Are yuh locoed?” asked a man who had not understood the sudden change in Welsh.
“I plenty wish I was,” came the reply, “but I ain’t. We’ve been discovered, an’ we’ve got to fight. I don’t know how many there was in the other party, but I ’low we ain’t in it noways. Red an’ Plug, you take yore horses round the butte to where the others are tethered, an’ help Jimmie and Newt bring in them casks o’ water. They ought to be back from the spring by this time. Tip, Lem, and Jack, help me put our friends here in the most-sheltered places.”
In a moment the camp that had been sleepy and placid was bustling with a silent, grim activity. From secret places men produced Winchesters, revolvers, and knives, if they carried them. In half an hour all the food had been brought in, and the casks of water laboriously filled at a brackish pool five miles away.
“That flush excited yuh so you seen a mirage, Jimmie,” bantered Speaker, whose ready wit and genial manner had won their way into the sheepman’s affection.
“I hope so,” was the curt response. But Welsh had seen no mirage, and he was aware of the fact, knowing that a council of war was delaying the action of the other party.
His chief concern was the disposal of his prisoners. Excepting for the first line of breastworks, the only protection in the flat area of the camp was derived from the masses of stone that had fallen into it, and behind which one or two men could hide. At last it was decided that the prisoners, unarmed as they were, should lie down behind the wall out of danger’s way, while the sheepmen should take their chances behind the rocks. Another reason for this was, that it would never do to have the prisoners behind the men who were doing the fighting, ready to attack from the rear at first chance.
Each man had fifty rounds of ammunition, and was a fairly good shot, not, of course, equaling the cowboys in this respect. The prisoners had hardly been placed when, from behind a neighboring hogback, rode a man waving a white handkerchief.
Welsh stepped out of the camp and drove him back before he could talk, realizing the fellow’s clever idea of spying on the defenders’ position.
The cowboy had little to say except to demand the immediate surrender of the cattle-owners and the delivery up to court martial of half the sheepmen. Jimmie laughed in the messenger’s face, and told him to tell whoever was boss of that outfit to come and take anything he wanted, and to come well heeled.
Then he went back to the rocky camp and stood his men up in a row.
“We got to keep our guests another week yet, boys,” he said. “Mr. Larkin won’t be up the range till that time, and our job is to keep them cowboys occupied so as to hold the range open for the sheep. Now anybody what don’t want to take chances with lead can go from here now and get hung by the punchers. If there’s many of ’em I allow we won’t see Montana ag’in till we’re angels; if there ain’t, they won’t see the Bar T. Now that’s the story. One other thing.
“Our guests are out in front. If yuh see any of ’em actin’ funny or tryin’ to get away, put a hole in ’em an’ end that right off. Hear that, boys?” he yelled to the cowmen who were on the ground behind the defense.
“Yep,” they shouted, and continued to chaff one another unmercifully in the greatest good-humor.
The old story states that the Spartans prepared for the battle of Thermopylæ by oiling their bodies and brushing their hair, much to the surprise of the Persians, who were forever wailing to their gods. This story has come down to us to illustrate solid, supreme courage in the face of certain death.
No less inspiring, though in a different way, was the preparation of Jimmie Welsh and his nine sheepmen. They cracked jokes on the situation, reminded one another of certain private weaknesses under fire, recalled famous range yarns, and enumerated the several hundred things that were going to happen to the enemy during the next few hours.
In all this banter the cowmen joined with their own well-flavored wit.
These facts have been given to show the natures of these men who made the West; who carved, unasked, an empire for the profit of us who live now, and who, in a space of less than forty years, practically passed from the face of the earth. Trained by their environment, they finally conquered it and left it to a more-civilized if softer generation.
At four o’clock of that afternoon came the first attack.
Stelton and his men were under a great disadvantage. In front of the sheepmen’s defense was a little plain some three hundred yards across which was bare of any protection. The canopy of rock that overshadowed the camp prevented attack from above or behind. There was nothing for it but an onslaught in the face of a deadly fire.
Suddenly from around the butte that faced the camp poured the charge of the cowboys. Instantly they scattered wide, adopting the circling Indian mode of attack. On they raced to a distance of a hundred, then fifty yards.
Then, as though by preconcerted word, the Winchesters of both parties spoke, and the cowboys, turning at a sharp angle, galloped off out of range with one riderless horse, and two men, clinging, desperately wounded, to their pommels.
Jack Norton, one of the sheepmen, who had exposed himself for a better shot, dropped dead where he stood.
Now there was no word spoken. The helpless cowmen huddled against the wall while the hail of bullets swept over them in both directions, cursed softly to themselves, and smoked cigarettes. The punchers, having learned the lay of the land, drew off for consultation. Half of them were dispatched around the butte that protected the defenders and the plan of attack was changed.
On signal, the parties from both sides charged along the face of the butte toward each other, this movement being calculated to bring them out close to the enclosure without the danger of an attack in front, and at the same time give them the chance to fire upon the sheepmen from a destructive angle at either side.
The maneuver resulted in concentrating the fire within a zone of twenty-five yards, and it was fire so murderous that, before the cowboys could get out of range, ten were dead or wounded, while two of the sheepmen were killed outright and a third was disabled and rolled out into the sun to writhe in agony until his pal ran from cover and dragged him back.
The result was now a foregone conclusion, for the cowboys had solved the difficult problem of attack. Mushrooming out on either side at a distance of three hundred yards, they formed again in the shelter on either side and charged once more.
The wounded man, hearing the drumming of hoofs, seized his revolver, rolled out into the sun, and sat up on the ground. And from this position he emptied his gun at the yelling cowboys until another shot put him out of his misery.
More cowboys fell, and now, in front of the stone breastworks, a dozen bodies lay, some twitching, and others still. The number of the defenders was reduced to five capable of holding and using a weapon, for such marksmen were the punchers that, if they did not kill outright, their bullets inflicted mortal wounds.
