Searching the terrain before him, he picked out several other Indians. The others in the party must be hidden somewhere among the trees along the stream. There was nothing he could do. To advance was to lay himself open to attack by the Utes, and perhaps by the ambushing party, who might not recognize him as a white man. All he could do was wait… a chance might come for him to make a run for it across the open meadow.
Where he was the trees were scattered, but close on his left was the thicker forest along the stream, which meandered back and forth across the narrow valley. Shadows fell about him and he was in a good position to remain unseen. He stayed in the saddle, ready to fight or run, as the developing situation might demand.
The smoke disappeared. The echoes of gunfire lost themselves down the canyon, and the sun crept further down the slope. Here and there the clefts in the mountain allowed shafts of sunlight to reach the meadow and the river. Birds chirped and twittered in the brush nearby, and Linus relied on them for a warning if an Indian started to move in his direction. His eyes continued to search the meadow.
And then he saw what he had half suspected. Two Indians were creeping through the grass toward the buffalo wallow. When the others fled, these two must have deliberately fallen from their horses in simulated death, for the sole purpose of this attack.
Lifting his rifle, he estimated the distance. The target was poor, the range too great. He was hesitating whether to chance a warning shot when someone fired from the trees where he believed the horses were hidden. One of the Utes screamed hoarsely and leaped to his feet. Two buffalo guns boomed from the hollow and the Indian was slammed back to the grass, where he struggled an instant, then relaxed and lay still. The other Ute did not move, and three searching shots sent into the grass near him drew no response from him.
Linus chewed thoughtfully on a stem of grass and considered how rarely combat was as you expected it to be. Moments of smashing, thundering struggle were few; so often it was like this … a few lazy-sounding shots in the still air, and then endless minutes of waiting, when nothing happened. Dew sparkled on the grass, and the birds were twittering again among the willows. His horse stamped a restless hoof against the turf and nicked his tail. The pack horses cropped indifferently at the grass, or stood three-legged, heads down, dozing in the morning warmth.
The position of the trappers was well chosen. Such an ambush in the open was an Indian trick, but obviously the Utes had been surprised by the use of their own tactics. Counterattack on the part of the Indians was difficult, because of the ones in the willows near the stream.
Yet if the stalemate continued until dark, the excellent position of the trappers would be worthless, for the superior numbers of the Indians could close in quickly. The trappers had laid their ambush, but now they had a bear by the tail. When they had failed to destroy the larger part of the party, they left themselves in a bad way.
For some time Linus had realized that his own position was increasingly perilous. Other Indians might come to rendezvous with these, or some Ute might move back far enough to discover him. Once seen, cut off as he was from the other white men, he would be surrounded and killed. But a sudden attack by him now, from an unexpected quarter, might work in his favor. At that moment, when the Utes were likely to be confused and uncertain, Linus chose to act.
Three Utes were exposed to his rifle. One was some distance away, two were relatively close by. Lifting his rifle, he settled his sights on the spine of the nearest Indian. He took a deep breath, let it out easily, then squeezed off his shot.
The gun boomed in the narrow valley, and the Indian at whom he had fired stiffened sharply, then rolled over, face to the sky. Instantly Linus fired again, then swinging his rifle far left, he squeezed off the third shot, each booming report slamming into the echo of the one before it. The first shot was a clean hit, the second a miss, the third a hit. Linus slapped his heels into the ribs of his buckskin and fled across the meadow, whooping and yelling.
He counted on the sudden attack, which he had tried to make appear as coming from several men, to surprise the Utes into giving him a running start. Astonished by the attack, the Utes fled for the brush, and as Linus dashed by the buffalo wallow, he saw the trappers on their feet, firing at the retreating Indians. Drawing up among the trees, Linus saw a lean, powerful man with slightly stooped shoulders drop from a tree.
“Waal, Linus,” the man said as he came toward him with a broad grin, “you showed up when the squeeze was tight. Where you come from?” “Over on the Green.”
The other trappers had come in, and they began to mount up. Their pack horses were heavily loaded.
“You took a sight of fur,” Linus added.
“Bad year,” Williams said, “and then a few weeks back we found us a mountain branch an’ took more fur’n we’d took all year.” Williams swung his leg over the saddle. “We’re followin’ the Rio Grande down to Taos.”
Linus moved alongside him. “I’m for the East Down the Platte and the Missouri, then up the Ohio. I’ve taken urge to see the ocean water.” “Fancy gals, more’n likely.”
“Sure enough. It’s a coon’s age since I’ve seen a woman all frilled out an’ fussed up. And I aim to. But that there ocean water’s been on my mind. I got to thinkin’—a man as old as I am, and I ain’t seen nothin’ but Indians, mountains, an’ fur.”
“You’ll see water … a sight of it. Raised up in North Carolina myself. Never did see the ocean back thataway, but I seen the Pacific. Ain’t like mountains, though. You seen it once, you seen it all.”
“Most water I ever saw was Salt Lake.”
“Folks do say that country back yonder is fillin’ up. No time at all, folks say, until they are comin’ thisaway. I hear talk of steam cars and a railroad clean to Californy.”
“Fool talk,” Linus commented. “Who would be fool enough to bring his womenfolk into Injun country? Besides, what’s to bring ‘em? Fur’s gettin’ scarce, and there ain’t nothing else. Not to speak of.”
“Land … folks want land.”
“The Sioux will have something to say about that, the Sioux an’ the Cheyenne, and the Arapahoe.”
“You step light back east,” Williams warned, “or you’ll lose your hair. More devilment back east than in all these mountains. I hear tell the women folk really lay for a man back there … ain’t like Injun country where you swap a buck a couple of blankets and two, three ponies for a squaw.” Linus traveled with the trappers for two days. The wind blew cold when he parted from them, but the flush of green was on the hills and the trees were leafing out. Here and there were dark patches where the earth was still damp from the melted snow.
Linus Rawlings rode with care. After all, this was Ute country. If all the Indians were like the Shoshones, Nez Perce or the Flatheads, it would have been different. A man could get to know them; to know them was to like them. The Nez Perce made the boast that no warrior of their tribe had ever killed a white man, and Linus was ready to believe it. But this was Ute country and next to the Blackfeet no tribe was more trouble to the white man, and beyond the Utes were the Arapahoe.
Chapter 2
Eve Prescott stood alone, a few feet back from her family, watching the boats that thronged the Hudson River and the Erie Canal. The shore was piled high with bales, barrels, and crates, merchandise and household goods, all awaiting shipment to the West. Nothing on the farm where she had lived until then, or in the tiny village nearby, had prepared her for this. Big, roughly dressed men pushed back and forth, shouting, wrangling good-naturedly, loading or unloading boats and wagons. Huge drays rumbled past, drawn by the largest horses she had ever seen, big Percherons or Clydesdales. On the river there was the shrill piping of whistles, the clang of bells, and the sound of steam exhausts.
Bunched about the Prescotts were other emigrants like themselves, huddled about their goods and clothing, waiting for the call that would take them aboard a canal boat. They, too, were cutting all their ties, leaving all that was familiar behind, venturing into a new and frightening country. Looking about her, she saw other men like her father, men who talked loudly of the Ohio country, of taking up new land, of opportunity, the black earth, rainfall, and the wild game to be had for the hunting. They talked loudly to cover their own dismay; for it is one thing to talk of and plan a venture—there is room for excitement, enthusiasm, and conjecture—but it is quite another thing to actually begin a new life, to take one’s family and step off into the nothingness of the unknown as these men were doing. They had been bold before, and Eve, knowing such men, knew they would be bold again, but now they were frightened, as she was. Now she felt her heart pounding, and she seemed to have difficulty in breathing. All this activity was so impersonal. These bold-eyed men shoving past her, shouting at their work—what could they care about her, about her family? Yet here and there her eyes intercepted a bold, appreciative glance that warned her these men could care … on one level, at least. She was surprised to find that she was excited and pleased by such glances rather than repelled. Back home every man had been catalogued; she knew the ones who were married, and therefore ineligible, and those who were single. She knew exactly how to gauge each man’s interest in her, and what it meant or could mean—and she had not been interested in any of them.