Death Rides Alone (13 page)

The gunfire continued, making it easy for Luke and Tyler to follow it to its source. It didn't take them long, either, to find the battle.

Luke spotted an orange glow over the trees along the river, and a few minutes later he and Tyler came in sight of a wagon camp in a large meadow beside the stream. A couple of dozen vehicles were arranged in the traditional circle with the livestock and the campfires inside.

Two of the big immigrant wagons were burning, flames shooting high from the blazing canvas covers over their beds.

In the open space between the river and wagons, a couple of men lay crumpled and unmoving with buckets lying beside them. In the light from the burning wagons, Luke could see arrows sticking up from the bodies.

It was easy enough to tell what had happened. The men had tried to reach the river so they could fetch water and throw it on the wagons to keep the flames from spreading. They had reacted just like the attackers expected. Arrows fired from the nearby trees had skewered the helpless men.

“Indians?” Tyler said with a gulp in his voice.

“That's right. They're mostly peaceful around here these days, but from time to time one of the tribes goes on a rampage. It's only been a few years, you know, since George Custer ran into a few of them up on the Little Bighorn.”

As Luke spoke, a pair of flaming arrows arched out of the trees. One of them fell short of the wagons, but the other thudded into the sideboards of one of the vehicles.

A man vaulted over the wagon tongue and dashed around to yank the burning arrow loose, but as he ripped it out of the board and cast it away from the wagon, a regular arrow drove into the back of his thigh. He yelled in pain, grabbed at the injury, and fell as the leg folded up beneath him.

Despite being wounded, the man seemed to realize that he was in mortal danger. He used his hands, elbows, and the knee on his good leg to pull himself under the wagon. Another arrow dug its head into the ground beside him, missing him by only inches.

Men waiting on the other side of the wagon reached out, grabbed the wounded man's arms, and quickly hauled him to safety.

“I didn't think Indians were supposed to attack at night,” Tyler said.

“Indians attack when it suits them to attack,” Luke said. “By and large, they're superb strategists. You can't predict what they'll do, and that gives them an advantage right there. If they had the same numbers and weapons we do ...” Luke shook his head. “We wouldn't be here. We'd be back in Europe somewhere, waiting for the Indians to come across the Atlantic and conquer
us
.”

Trees surrounded the wagon camp on three sides, with the river on the fourth side. The immigrants kept up a steady fire into the woods, but Luke knew that had to be mostly futile. The attackers would stay safely behind the trees, stepping out only long enough to launch another arrow or fire a shot if they had any rifles. If the defenders hit any of them, it would be pure luck.

“What are we gonna do?” Tyler asked.

“I don't know about you, but I can't ride away and leave those folks to their fate.”

“We don't know how many Indians are in those trees. There could be a thousand!”

“More like a hundred, I imagine. Maybe less. The tribes can't muster the same sort of war parties they used to. After the Custer massacre, a lot of them went north into Canada and haven't come back yet.”

“A hundred bloodthirsty savages is still too many for us to take on.”

“We won't be doing it by ourselves. We'll be joining forces with those immigrants.”

“You expect me to ride into the thick of a fight like that without a gun?”

Luke considered, then grunted and reached for the butt of his Winchester. He pulled the rifle from its sheath and held it out to Tyler.

“Don't make me regret doing this,” he said.

“Don't worry. We're on the same side.”

Luke wished he could believe that completely. But for now all he could do was hope that Tyler was telling the truth. He drew one of the Remingtons and dug his heels into the gray's flanks. As the horse leaped forward, Luke shouted, “Come on!”

He expected Tyler to follow his lead and didn't look back to make sure that he was. They galloped along the river bank for a hundred yards, then Luke veered into the trees.

He put the reins between his teeth, drew the other revolver, and guided the horse with his knees. It was dangerous, riding swiftly through the shadows this way. He risked being swept out of the saddle by a low-hanging branch. But it was also the best way to take the Indians by surprise.

One of the attackers must have heard them coming. A figure leaped in front of Luke. The light from the burning wagons penetrated into the woods, but it was unreliable, flickering and dancing and causing shadows to leap this way and that. Luke caught a glimpse of a painted face twisted in hate and an arrow drawn back on a bowstring. The next instant he fired the Remington in his left hand and that face disappeared in a red spray as the slug tore into it.

An arrow hummed past his ear. He fired both guns, alternating right and left, and the muzzle flashes revealed buckskin-clad forms toppling off their feet. Behind Luke, the Winchester cracked. Tyler was getting in on the fight as well.

Luke had no idea how many Indians he and Tyler killed or wounded in that wild charge, but he knew they did considerable damage to the war party and that had been his intention. He broke out of the trees again and glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Tyler had made it.

The young man was still there, wide-eyed but apparently unharmed. He leaned forward in his saddle and urged the paint pony up next to Luke's gray.

“We hit 'em hard!” he shouted. “Reckon they'll give up now?”

“Not likely,” Luke replied. “But at least we whittled down the odds some!”

Arrows fell around them as they rode hard for the wagon camp. Luke spotted a man standing between two of the vehicles, waving them on, and he headed for that spot. He didn't know how good a jumper the gray was, but they were about to find out.

Luke hauled back on the reins, lifting the horse's head, and the gray soared over the wagon tongue. Tyler's pony made the leap as well, even more nimble in its brief flight. Luke pulled the gray in a tight turn and dropped from the saddle to the ground.

The man who had waved them into the camp stood there holding a rifle. The broad, floppy brim of a felt hat hung over his angular face. The man reminded Luke of pictures he'd seen of Abraham Lincoln without the famous beard.

“I never saw the likes of that!” the man said. “The two of you charged through those savages like a couple of knights on horseback!”

“If we're knights, our armor is tarnished, I assure you,” Luke said. “But we heard the commotion and figured you folks could use a hand.”

“We sure can. I'm Jonathan Howard, the captain of this wagon train.”

“Luke Jensen,” Luke introduced himself. “This young fellow is Judd Tyler.”

He didn't offer any more details than that.

“It's a pleasure, although I wish we'd met under better circumstances. Grab yourself a spot, gentlemen. There's plenty to go around!”

Luke waved Tyler over to one of the wagons where there weren't any defenders. He positioned Tyler at the back of the vehicle and told him, “Make your shots count. We have a good supply of ammunition, but there's no point in wasting bullets. In other words, don't just blaze away blindly at the trees. Wait until you can see something to shoot at.”

“I've been in tight spots before,” Tyler said. “I'm not gonna panic, if that's what you're worried about.”

Luke just nodded and went to the front of the wagon where he could use the driver's box as cover. He reloaded both Remingtons. The range to the trees was a little far for handguns, but Luke was an excellent shot and the long-barreled guns were powerful enough to cover that distance. He thought he could give a good account of himself with them.

And if the Indians rushed the wagons, as Luke figured they would sooner or later, then the revolvers would come in mighty handy for the close work.

He spotted muzzle flashes here and there in the trees. As he'd suspected, some of the Indians had rifles, more than likely stolen from soldiers or homesteaders they had massacred. Although it was possible the weapons had been supplied by gunrunners who didn't mind doing business with the Indians as long as the price was right.

Either way, those flashes gave Luke something to aim at. He holstered the left-hand Remington and waited with the right-hand gun ready until he saw another spurt of orange flame.

As soon as he did, he reacted instantly, aiming the revolver and squeezing the trigger with one smooth contraction of his finger. Unfortunately, he couldn't see what his bullet hit, if anything, but he noticed that no more muzzle flashes came from that spot.

The Indian who had fired the rifle might have shifted to another tree. It was even possible he had run out of ammunition and that was his last bullet.

But it was also possible he was lying out there with Luke's slug in him, too, so Luke was going to assume the latter.

He crouched there at the front of the wagon and waited for another target.

As he did, he heard the Winchester's sharp crack at the other end of the vehicle as Tyler continued firing. Luke thought maybe it was time to go ahead and start trusting the young man, although it was difficult for him to fully trust any fugitive from the law, no matter what the circumstances.

Jonathan Howard, the wagon train captain, had hurried over to one of the other wagons after introducing himself to Luke and Tyler. After firing several shots at the Indians, he trotted back to the wagon they were defending, stooping low and moving fast when he crossed the gaps between the vehicles.

“I don't suppose you fellas are scouts for the army or anything,” Howard said. “There's not a whole company of cavalry in the area that's going to show up any minute now.”

“No such luck,” Luke said. “We're just passing through these parts.” He looked around the circle of wagons, realizing something he had noticed earlier without the significance of it really sinking in on him. “Your camp is pretty lightly defended. Seems like there ought to be more men.”

With a gloomy expression on his face, Howard nodded and said, “That's because a dozen of our men, including my son, are off hunting fresh meat for us. We hadn't run into any trouble at all, so we figured it was safe to split up. They headed upriver earlier today, and we're not expecting them back until tomorrow.”

“The Indians have probably been watching you for days, just waiting for you to do something like that.”

“I know it was foolish, but we honestly didn't think it would do any harm.”

“Maybe the hunters will hear the shooting and hurry back,” Luke said.

Howard shook his head.

“They left early enough in the day that they're probably out of earshot. Reckon there's a good chance they'll ride in tomorrow and find the wagons burned and all of us slaughtered.”

“We'll just have to hold out until they return,” Luke said.

“I reckon it won't hurt anything to hope—”

Howard's feeble attempt at optimism was interrupted by a cry from Judd Tyler at the other end of the wagon.

“Here they come!” the young man yelled.

Somewhere off to Luke's right, a woman screamed in sheer terror. He wheeled in that direction and saw the same thing Tyler had.

Indians on horseback had burst out of the trees on the opposite side of the camp from the river. They charged toward the wagons, riding flat out.

At the same time, the warriors on the two flanks stepped up their attack even more, pouring arrows and rifle fire at the wagons in a deadly barrage designed to keep the defenders occupied and take a toll on them as well, so they wouldn't be able to stop the mounted attackers from overrunning the camp.

Howard turned and dashed toward the area where the charging Indians were headed. Luke was right behind him, but as Tyler started to abandon his post, Luke called to him, “Stay there! This could be a feint!”

Tyler seemed to understand. He jerked his head in a nod, swung around, and resumed peppering the woods with slugs from the Winchester.

Other men were converging on the spot where the Indians were going to try to breach the circle. Gunshots roared in a thunderous barrage, but the mounted warriors were moving fast and had almost reached the wagons by the time Luke and Howard reached one of the gaps between vehicles. A couple of ponies were riderless, showing that the defenders' fire had done a little good, but not enough.

The first of the attackers leaped his pony over a wagon tongue and soared into the circle. He yipped shrilly as he fired the rifle he held and one of the immigrants went down, drilled through the head.

An instant later, both of Luke's Remingtons roared. The impact of two slugs crashing into the warrior's buckskin-clad body lifted him off his pony. He hit the ground in a limp sprawl.

One Indian was down, but three more were already inside the camp. A man shrieked in agony as one of the mounted warriors ran him through with a lance. A second later, Jonathan Howard brought that Indian down with a rifle shot, but not in time to save the man who had been mortally wounded with the lance.

It was a whirlwind of action inside the circle of wagons, and if Luke Jensen had not been there, the immigrants might well have been overwhelmed and slaughtered, just as Jonathan Howard had said.

But Luke seemed to be everywhere at once, spinning, darting, and most of all shooting. Flame lanced from each of the revolvers in turn, and every time one of the Remingtons blasted, an Indian fell, shot through the head or the body.

Luke knew the situation was desperate. He called on every bit of fighting skill he had amassed over the long and perilous years, first in the war, and then during his career as a bounty hunter.

When his revolvers ran dry, he jammed them back in their holsters and snatched up a fallen Winchester from the ground to continue battling. He emptied the rifle as well, and just as the hammer fell on an empty chamber, the surviving warriors leaped their ponies back over the wagon tongues and fled, still yipping defiantly but no longer fighting.

Some of the immigrants started to emerge from cover as the Indians fled. Luke waved at them and called, “Get back down, you fools!”

They started to follow his order, but not in time to keep one man from being struck in the shoulder by an arrow that came streaking in from the darkness. Just because the frontal attack was over didn't mean that the wagon train was out of danger.

During the fighting, Luke had strayed quite a distance from the wagon where he had last seen Judd Tyler. He glanced in that direction as he reloaded his revolvers, then looked again as he realized he didn't see Tyler.

Ducking low, he hurried along the line of wagons to make sure the young man wasn't lying somewhere Luke couldn't see him, either wounded or dead.

Luke hoped Tyler hadn't been killed in the battle. Even though he had never met any of the people in White Fork, he already wanted the truth about Rachel Montgomery's murder to come out.

There was no sign of Tyler around the wagon. Luke looked underneath it. Still nothing.

He went in search of Jonathan Howard and found the man a couple of wagons away. A young woman had torn away the bloody sleeve of Howard's shirt and was wrapping a bandage around his upper left arm.

“Hurt bad?” Luke asked.

Howard shook his head and said, “An arrow scratched me, that's all.” He nodded toward the young woman and added, “Mr. Jensen, this is my daughter Deborah.”

“Pleased to meet you, miss, despite the circumstances.”

Deborah Howard was in her late teens or early twenties, with long, straight hair so fair it was almost white. She was strikingly pretty, even though the strain of the attack had drawn her features tight.

“Thank you for helping us, Mr. Jensen,” she said. “I never saw anybody who could handle guns like you do.”

“I promise you, miss, if we'd had my brothers here, we would have had those savages outnumbered.” He turned back to Howard and went on, “Have you seen Tyler, the young fellow I came in with?”

Howard frowned and shook his head.

“Isn't he over yonder at that wagon?”

“No. I can't find him.”

“Well, let's look around,” Howard said as Deborah finished bandaging his arm. “He's got to be here somewhere. I need to check on all the folks and make sure they know we need to keep fighting. Those Indians haven't given up, have they?”

“Not hardly,” Luke said.

They went quickly around the circle. Three men had been killed in the battle, in addition to the two lost earlier, and several more were wounded but insisted that they could still fight.

The defenders' spirits seemed to be high, but Luke could sense that they were getting close to the breaking point. A person's nerves could only stand the constant fear of being killed by an arrow or a rifle shot for so long.

While Howard was assessing the state of the group, Luke was looking for Judd Tyler. By the time they got back to the wagon where Deborah was waiting with a rifle in her hands, Luke had been forced to accept a grim conclusion.

Tyler was gone.

Sometime during the chaos of battle, the young man had slipped away. He must have decided he would rather risk his life trying to get past the Indians than return to White Fork and face a trial.

Which meant that Luke was right back where he'd started . . . only now he was surrounded by bloodthirsty savages who wanted to kill him and lift his hair.

* * *

Arrows still flew into the wagon camp occasionally, and the rifle fire from the trees continued as well, although at a more desultory pace now.

The relative lull in the fighting gave the immigrants a chance to patch up their wounds and to eat and drink a little.

Luke was angry that Judd Tyler had gotten away from him. The paint pony Tyler had ridden was still here in the camp, along with Luke's gray. They had left the two extra horses back at the spot where they had camped for the night before they heard the distant gunfire.

That meant either Tyler had fled on foot, or he had grabbed one of the Indian ponies and taken off on it. Clearly, he had been willing to run whatever risks he needed to in order to escape.

The Indians had left behind nine dead warriors, most of them killed by Luke. He and some of the other men dragged the bodies to the side, where they wouldn't be in the way.

Now that Luke was able to get a better look at the attackers, he could tell that they were Cheyenne. There was a good chance some of them had been at the Little Bighorn. The massive Indian army had been composed mostly of Sioux but had included Cheyenne warriors and members of several other tribes as well.

Luke had no great admiration for George Armstrong Custer, but he didn't mind thinking that maybe the deaths of some of the members of the Seventh Cavalry had been avenged here tonight.

The two wagons that had been ablaze when Luke and Tyler arrived had burned on down to ashes and rubble, but with a lot of hard, dangerous work, the immigrants had been able to keep the flames from spreading to the other vehicles.

Still, that left two gaps in the circle that would have to be defended heavily, because Luke was sure that when the Indians attacked again, they would concentrate their charge on those weak spots.

He was standing next to one of the wagons, keeping an eye on the trees, when Deborah Howard came up to him with a cup in her hands.

“Would that happen to be coffee?” Luke asked the young woman with a smile.

She returned the smile and said, “It would be. Would you like it?”

“More than almost anything right now.” He took the cup from her and sipped from it. “Ah. Nectar of the gods.” He took another sip and frowned in thought. “Is that a hint of . . . bourbon I taste?”

“We're from Kentucky,” Deborah said. “My pa thinks a shot of bourbon improves almost anything, including coffee.”

“Your father is a wise man.” Luke drank again and sighed in satisfaction as he felt the bracing effects of the coffee and the whiskey go through him. “Earlier he mentioned that your brother is one of the men with the hunting party . . .”

“Nolan is his name. He's our chief scout. He's been out here in the West before, working as a scout on several wagon trains. When Pa and I decided to pull up stakes and start fresh in Montana, Pa wrote to Nolan and asked him to sign on with this group.”

“It's none of my business,” Luke said, “but I've been to Kentucky and it strikes me as fine country. Some of the finest farming land I've ever seen, in fact.”

“You're wondering why we'd want to leave there and go some place like White Fork, Montana, aren't you?”

Luke raised an eyebrow and said, “You're headed for White Fork?”

“That's right. I know that's ranching country, but there's a valley near there that's government land, just opened up for homesteading.”

“Some of the cattlemen in the area may not appreciate farmers moving in.”

Luke was thinking primarily of Manfred Douglas, who was used to ruling the area around White Fork with an iron fist. The conflicts between ranchers and homesteaders were a bloody and ongoing problem on the frontier.

“Pa got a letter from the local judge assuring him it would be all right.”

“Judge Keller?”

Deborah brightened and asked, “Do you know him?”

“Only by reputation. I'm told that he's a decent, honest man.”

Of course, he had been told that by Judd Tyler, Luke reminded himself, and Tyler had run off at the earliest possible opportunity, so he wasn't sure how much he could rely on the information.

“I hope that's right,” Deborah said. “As for why we left Kentucky . . . my pa was a businessman there, not a farmer. He did all right, but he's always moved around some, started stores in different places, and he got the urge again. I guess some men are just like that, not able to stay in one place forever. You know what I mean?”

“I understand completely,” Luke said. That sort of restlessness seemed to be a Jensen trait as well. Smoke was the only man he knew carrying that name who had been able to put down roots . . . and it wasn't like Smoke spent all his time on his vast ranch in Colorado called the Sugarloaf. He traipsed off to other places on a fairly regular basis and usually wound up in a heap of trouble.

That
seemed to be a Jensen trait as well.

“Well, I need to take coffee to some of the other men,” Deborah said.

Luke raised the cup to her in a salute and told her, “I'm much obliged to you for this. It'll help me get through the night, that's for sure.”

Deborah started to turn away, then paused.

“When you rode in earlier, there was a young man with you . . .” she said.

The interest in her voice and eyes was unmistakable. Luke figured he would be doing her a favor by quashing it immediately, in case they did survive this siege.

“He's gone,” Luke said in a flat, hard voice. “And I don't reckon we'll ever see him again.”

“He was . . . killed in the fighting?”

“No. I don't know where he is. He appears to have gotten out while the getting was good.” Luke couldn't keep a bitter edge out of his voice.

“Oh. He didn't really seem like that sort to me . . .”

“I guess you can never really tell about people. But if I ever
do
run into him again, I plan to have some pretty choice words for him, I can tell you that.”

And that was one more reason he wanted to make it through this stand-off, he thought.

He had a score to settle with Judd Tyler.