Stamping Ground (14 page)

Meanwhile, to the east of us, a cloud only slightly smaller than the one we were trailing held parallel to our route along the horizon. When one of us finally made mention of it, Jac merely nodded and said, “He missed the train.”

It was on the fifth night that Happy—thus we had nicknamed the anonymous dour brave who looked after us—made his mistake. It wasn't that he was stupid or careless, nor that we were especially smart, but that circumstances made it impossible for any of us to be anything else. We were within listening distance of the Missouri River fifteen miles south of Fort Yates, camped in a grassy hollow just off the east bank, where patrols from the fort would have to cross over to engage us and the animals could graze without being outlined against the horizon and the sentries could lie concealed in the tall grass around the rim. Rounded stones, deposited when the prehistoric lake that had occupied the spot receded, studded the ground. Before this, Happy had always made sure that there were no such tools around before he settled his prisoners, but since there were too many of them here and most were anchored down more or less permanently, he compromised by choosing a spot where the stones were relatively smooth and devoid of those jagged edges that came in handy for sawing through bonds, flung away the undesirables, tethered us
carefully, and wrapped himself up in his buffalo robe to take up his nightly vigil. As usual, he was asleep within minutes.

I waited until I was sure he was under good and deep, then struggled into a sitting position and shifted around from rock to rock until I found one that felt like it might do. Hudspeth and Jac did the same. Mine was edgeless, but the surface was like sandpaper and might conceivably be expected to wear its way through the stiff, dry leather thong that bound my hands behind my back between now and sunup. I made myself as comfortable as possible and started rubbing.

The next couple of hours were the hardest. Every muscle in my body cried out for rest, and the tedious rhythm of my wrists scraping up and down the surface of the rock acted like the swinging motion of a baby's cradle, heaping a couple of hundred pounds onto my eyelids. I dozed off twice, the second time so deeply that when I jolted awake I had no idea how long I'd been out, and redoubled my efforts to make up for lost time. But by then the crisis had passed and staying alert was no longer a problem, because the pain made sleep impossible. It started as a dull ache between my shoulder blades and ended up a sharp, stinging sensation like something left by an angry hornet. Worse, I had begun sweating in spite of the cold, and salty rivulets came trickling down my wrists, burning against the raw flesh and drawing the thong even tighter. My hands grew slippery with blood from the chafing. With all this to occupy my mind I hardly noticed the numbness of my rump where I sat on the iron-hard ground.

I heard snoring and looked up to see that Hudspeth, seated a few yards away, had fallen asleep in the middle of his labors, his chin on his chest and the ends of his moustache fluttering as he inhaled and exhaled mightily through his big red nose. I whistled softly through my teeth at Jac, who was working away at a rock not far from the marshal, and inclined my head toward his dozing bulk. Jac nodded and kicked at the marshal's feet until he came
awake with a start. He looked around in bewilderment for a moment, then caught on to where he was and what he was supposed to be doing and resumed scraping.

The damp chill of approaching dawn had seeped into my clothes when my thong came apart with a resounding pop. Pere Jac's parted at almost the same instant. We stared at each other for a second like a couple of kids who had risen ahead of the rest of the family on Christmas morning. Then we tore away the scraps and bent forward to undo the thongs on our feet. The marshal, who hated being last in anything, set his jaw and worked his hands until I could have sworn I saw smoke rising behind him.

I finished ahead of the métis and, once I had mastered the fine art of achieving one's balance after the circulation has been cut off for hours, crept over to see what I could do for Hudspeth. But he was less than two-thirds of the way through his bonds, so I left him there and went off in search of a knife.

The nearest one was on Happy's belt. Since he couldn't very well be expected to give it up without protest, I selected a likely looking rock from among the dozens imbedded in the ground around me and tested it for heft. Rocks are vastly underrated as weapons, as I'd learned at the receiving end last winter. Deciding that this one would suit my purposes, I pulled off my boots and tiptoed over to where the guard was lying enveloped in his hide cocoon.

Right away I regretted having named him Happy. You don't do that, any more than you make a pet of the hog you're planning to butcher for Easter dinner. It didn't matter to me how many white scalps he may have taken, nor how many half-grown girls he may have raped before slashing them open from belly to breast, nor if he preferred using both hands or just one when swinging a baby by its heels and dashing its brains out against a tree. Being shallow, I was concerned only with the fact that he had never done any of us any actual harm, other than causing us a little discomfort, and that only on orders from the top. It had me all torn up for maybe a second and a half. Then I brought
the rock crashing down squarely onto his exposed right temple.

Even so, I was just in time, as at the last instant his eyes sprang open and he went for his knife. But there was no way he was going to fumble his way out of his covers before the rock struck. He arched his back, but by then it was just nerves because he was already dead.

I looked around quickly. The sounds I'd heard before were the same sounds I was hearing now, nothing missing, nothing new. Apparently the slight noises the Cheyenne had made in dying had not been enough to alert his confederates. I let out my breath, only then realizing that I'd been holding it all this time, and returned to my task. Freeing the knife took some prying, clenched as it was in his fist. At length, however, I had my hand around the smooth bone handle.

I felt a presence behind me and spun around, swinging the knife in a wide arc from left to right. Pere Jac leaped backward but not far enough to keep the flat of the blade from scraping the top of his breechclout.

“Sorry,” I said, in the overwhelming silence that followed.

“My widow would have been gratified to hear that,” he replied dryly. But the closeness of the call was discernible on his face.

“Next time maybe you'll remember to keep your distance.”

“You will forgive me if in my prayers I request that there be no next time.”

“There sure as hell won't be if you two don't quit jawing and cut me loose!” Hudspeth's whisper was as good as another man's shout.

I slashed both his trusses—hands and feet—and told him to stay put. Before he could protest I turned away and returned to the dead guard. Somehow I kept my jerky from coming back up long enough to roll the body clear of its wrap and slide the robe on over my shoulders. I considered discarding my hat, thought better of it when I remembered
the merciless Dakota sun, and crumpled and jammed it into my belt instead. My chances of passing as an Indian were about as good as they were of surviving the next half hour, but it was all I had.

“Stay where you are!” I hissed at the marshal, who had been struggling to get up. “Maybe I don't look much like a Sioux or a Cheyenne, but I come a hell of a lot closer than you. Wait until I get you a weapon.”

He didn't like it, but he was no fool. He kept his position.

I handed the knife to Pere Jac. “You they'll believe,” I said. “Cut out three good horses from the relief string. Hit the sentry before he can cry out or we'll be skinned and dressed by sunup. I'll get us some firepower.”

“With what? I have the knife.”

“Weren't you watching the first time? When you get the horses, give us three owl hoots, then count to twenty. If we're not there by then, ride like hell.”

He nodded and slid away into the shadows to the west, where the horses were hobbled.

It was pathetically easy. They say a leaf dropping will bring an Indian out of a sound sleep, but that doesn't hold true when the Indian is surrounded by hundreds of his own kind and he's played out from five days of hard riding. I thumped the first one just in front of the ear while he lay sprawled beneath on ornate blanket. It wasn't as thorough a job as with Happy. At the last moment he stirred in his sleep and I missed the vital spot, fracturing his skull but not killing him. That was all right, because I hadn't intended to do away with anyone in the first place. You just can't be as accurate with a hunk of stone as with a gun or a knife. In any case he was out of action, although still breathing. A search of his body yielded up another knife and a Spencer rifle tucked beneath the blanket. I checked the breech and had all I could do to keep from cursing at the top of my lungs. What had he planned to do if the cavalry attacked while he was armed with an unloaded piece?

I went over him again, more carefully this time, and
came up empty. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, to think. Then I grinned and pulled open his buckskin shirt. There they were, seventeen .56-caliber cartridges, pierced through their lead noses and strung on a leather thong around his neck. I yanked it loose and loaded the rifle up tight, swinging the lever forward and back slowly and quietly to rack one into the chamber, then added another cartridge. I thrust the string containing the remaining ten in my pocket.

Having served its purpose, the rock was cast aside and the knife took its place. This one was store-bought, with a cowhide-wrapped haft and a blade of tempered steel, probably the former property of some long-dead soldier or scout. I laid the Spencer aside for the time being and, holding the knife underhanded, crept up to the next sleeping form.

I withdrew the blade and wiped it thoroughly on the dead brave's blanket. Then I began my search. This time I hit paydirt. Not only had he a fully loaded Spencer, but a revolver stuck in his belt as well. I looked at it in the light, and damned if it wasn't Hudspeth's Smith & Wesson. The odds against that happening weren't as great as you might think, since we were camped in the middle of the Cheyenne and they had been the ones who had captured Jac and the marshal. Twenty to one. No, make it eighteen, since I'd just disposed of two of his comrades. I'd have bet half a month's pay on odds like those. I thrust the revolver into my own belt, collected the rifle and the one I had taken from the other Indian, picked up that one's blanket, and gave everything but one rifle and the knife to Hudspeth. His bright little eyes lit up as he curled his hand around the Smith's heavy grip.

“Where in hell—”

I hissed. “Wrap that blanket around yourself and keep your chin tucked in so the handlebar doesn't show. And ditch that hat.”

Three owl hoots sounded faintly to the west. I put my boots on and helped him to his feet.

“Wait a minute!” He stood his ground. “What about Ghost Shirt?”

“For Christ's sake, shut up!” I would have throttled him if the circumstances were different and he weren't so big. We crept off.

Within a hundred yards of the horses I halted and threw out an arm to stop Hudspeth. Someone was speaking in harsh Cheyenne.

As my eyes grew accustomed to the shadows on this side of the hollow, I made out Pere Jac standing motionless among the horses' milling forms. At his feet, just as motionless, sprawled a figure which I took to be that of the Indian assigned to watch over the horses. Something about his position told me that his responsibility was ended. Jac was gazing up at the rim. I followed his line of sight and spotted an Indian sentry silhouetted against the lightening sky.

He must have risen from the grass when he heard noises. He had a rifle braced against his shoulder and was scanning the scene below in search of a target. He repeated his challenge.

I raised my own Spencer and drew a bead on his chest. I was set to fire when a shot rang out from an unexpected quarter. The sentry's rifle tumbled from his hands and he crumpled into the tall grass. Then a bugle sounded and the world fell apart in tiny, glittering pieces.

The first wave came thundering over the western rim spread out in charge formation, bugle wailing, Springfields popping, scattering the riderless horses left and right in spite of their hobbles. Officers' sabers flashed in the first pink rays of dawn. Sabers, by God. I gave Hudspeth a shove between the shoulder blades with the flat of my hand so that he lost his balance and pitched forward onto his face, and joined him an instant later. Hoofs shook the ground on either side of us. The wind of them bounding overhead stirred the hairs on the back of my neck. I heard the dust sifting down all around me, my senses were that acute. Not that it did me any good. It seemed we lay there for hours while rider after rider pounded past, although it couldn't have been more than a couple of minutes. Even so, at the rate they were traveling that added up to a hell of a lot of cavalry.

I waited until I was sure the last straggler had passed, then leaped to my feet, still clutching the Spencer. Hudspeth got up more slowly, but I could see he wasn't hurt,
unless you count being mad as hell as a handicap. Pere Jac, who had himself flattened out when the sentry fell, was already up, clutching the mane of his own paint—dumb luck—and shouting something at me that I couldn't hear because hoofbeats were still echoing in my head. But I caught his drift and snatched at the mane of the horse nearest me, an excited army gray that was trying to gallop and gnaw at the thong that bound its forelegs at the same time. Hudspeth had the misfortune to grab onto a mustang that fit him about as well as a size 5 corset fit the Statue of Liberty, now arriving piecemeal from France. But we all had mounts and, as far as I could tell in the haze of settling dust, were still armed.

The Indians had been taken completely by surprise. They were running all over the place, whooping up their courage and firing their rifles at flitting shadows, grabbing for the manes and tails of panicky horses, while the soldiers rode through with their reins wrapped about their forearms and picked them off with rifles and side arms first from this side, then that. Gunsmoke glazed the battleground. Sabers slashed randomly at tipis and running figures. It was a killing frenzy. A brave armed only with a flint tomahawk leaped onto the back of a horse behind the soldier who was riding it, but before he could swing his weapon a bullet from a nearby Springfield splintered his head and he tumbled off. Another soldier leaned down from his saddle, revolver in one hand, and tore aside the flap of a squat tipi. The young squaw inside thrust the muzzle of a Spencer up his nose and pulled the trigger. His horse screamed and reared. He somersaulted backward over its rump and landed on his face, which didn't matter because he no longer had one. A fat squaw waddling as fast as she could go with a child in her arms ran straight into the downswing of a young lieutenant's saber. Her head came off slick as a kicked cabbage and her body ran for several more steps before it stumbled and fell, spilling the infant out onto the ground. A soldier's horse came clattering toward the yowling, naked
baby where it lay sprawled in the grass. I turned my head away just as the first hoof struck.