He thought of his father now as he scanned the country around. “Pa,” he commented to his sergeant, “knew as much about the Indian as any man, and he was forever wary of them. The first time you try judging them as you would a white man, you’re in trouble. Their standards are different.” “Jethro says the same,” the sergeant commented. “What do you reckon is going on, sir?”
“Think back. How many tracks did we see last month?”
“Seen a few here and yonder.”
“But mighty few. And now? How many Indians would you estimate in the parties we saw today? I mean, whose tracks we saw?”
“Could have been thirty, maybe more in that first lot, and close on that in the next. We crossed the trails of more than a hundred Indians today.” The sergeant scowled. “Seems a lot to be just perambulatin’ around, sir.” “I agree.” Zeb paused. “You know, Sergeant, a lot of nonsense could be kept out of reports and out of consideration if folks would just consider the problem of feeding a lot of troops. You know how much ration supply we have to figure on for our lot. Merely multiply that by ten and where are you? “I’ll tell you exactly where we are, Sergeant, and I don’t like it. There are five times the Indians in this area right now than can be fed here, which means they do not expect to be here long … or else they expect to come into a lot of supplies they don’t have at present … which can only mean the railroad.” At this point Zeb saw the rider come out of a coulee, and knew by the way he sat his horse that it was Jethro Stuart.
Zeb’s eyes swept the surrounding hills, He was quite sure that his troop was under observation every single moment, and now the Indians would know that Jethro was joining him—it was likely they could even guess what Jethro would have to say. He thought like an Indian, and therefore he could tell them what an Indian would be likely to do.
Jethro glanced at the troop—twenty-two men, including Rawlings and the sergeant, and it wasn’t enough. Not by a long sight, it wasn’t. And there were not twenty more within fifty miles.
“We’ve been cutting a lot of sign, Jethro,” Zeb said. “The chief claims the railroad broke its agreement. They’ve changed their route and are cuttin’ through the Arapahoe huntin’ grounds.” “Is he right, Jethro?”
“He sure and certain is, Lieutenant. I tried to warn King, but he ain’t willin’ to listen. He’s tryin’ to make better time with his track-layin’, so he switched routes just of his own mind. Maybe you can talk to him.” “You know Mike King,” Rawlings replied dryly. “He listens to nobody.” Nevertheless, within the hour Lieutenant Rawlings rode up alongside the cars that were Mike King’s office and sleeping quarters. Three flat cars stood nearby … the track-laying crew worked almost half a mile away, but the tent city was close by. There were stacks of ties cut from the hills not far away, and oozing pitch in the hot sun. Zeb swung down and went in, leaving Jethro to follow if he wished.
King was behind his desk, checking shipments against an order lying on his desk. At another desk at the far end of the car, his secretary worked at a telegraph key.
“King, when did you decide to change your route?” Zeb asked abruptly. King continued to check his lists for a moment before he looked up. He had been expecting this and was ready for it, but he was quite sure he could handle this backwoods lieutenant. When he spoke impatience crept through. “We’ve made no change, although we’ve the right to make what minor adjustments are necessary to speed construction, and speeding construction is just what we’ve been doing.”
“You’re asking for trouble. You’ve cut into Arapahoe hunting grounds, and the tribes are out.”
“Don’t be foolish, Rawlings!” King answered irritably. “Can you honestly say that what we are doing will cost them any wild game?” “What counts is what the Arapahoes think, and Jethro says they think they’re getting a raw deal.”
“To hell with them, Lieutenant, and with Jethro, too. I’m not going to let the Central Pacific gain ground on me because of a few naked savages. If I wasted my time worrying about what a few miserable Indians think, I’d never get anywhere.” “Is it worth a war? A war that will cost lives?”
“What war? You say the Army is here to keep the peace, so keep it.”
“And how would you suggest I do that?”
“Sell them the idea that the railroad won’t do any harm. It’s just two tracks and a whistle.”
“They won’t buy it, King. You forget these Indians have seen the railroad bring people west. It isn’t the tracks themselves that worries them, it’s the buffalo hunters, and the sod-busters.”
Mike King chuckled suddenly, his manner changing. “Damn it, Zeb, I like you! You’ve got guts. I could use you in my business.” He got up and walked around his desk to the sideboard. “Will you have a drink? I never lied to a man over a drink.”
Zeb took the glass of whiskey. He had an idea what was coming and was braced for it. At the same time he knew the limitations of his authority, and how little his arguments would mean when they reached a peaceful headquarters miles from the scene of action, with a lot of arm-chair soldiers ready to pass judgment. He could not stop the railroad. He could not force it to turn aside by so much as a foot. His job was to keep the peace, and he had tried. It might be that he should simply ride off in the hills on a long patrol and let King bear the consequences of his act … the trouble was, there were so many others who would suffer. And King had never had to bury a woman who had fallen into Indian hands, or seen the result of an outbreak.
If there was an attack the railroad could do a fair job of defending itself, for many of the track-layers were Civil War and Indian war veterans, and not a few had served in European armies before emigrating. “Look”—King filled his own glass—“you’ve seen the buffalo—millions of them! Why, we had a train stopped for two days while a herd of buffalo passed, and that was only last week! How long will it take the settlers to kill off that many buffalo? Not in my lifetime nor in the lifetime of any youngsters we may have. “I don’t have any love for the noble red man, and never did. Whenever two peoples come together and one has the superior culture, the superior technical skill, the other will fold up or decline. I’ve heard you and Jethro say the same thing, although maybe the words were different, but it’s inevitable. “The Indian could cope with anything before the white man arrived, but now he’s out of date. He’s done for. Personally, I want to see all this country filled with ranches and farms. I want to see mines and mills. I want to see this country filling out and growing up, and that’s the way it will do and nobody can stop it—not those fool Indians, nor you, nor anybody else. The Indian has to become a part of it, or fade from the picture.
“It isn’t me who is doing this. It isn’t anybody, really. It is simply that the Indian’s way of life doesn’t fit him to compete with a white man for land or a living. Don’t blame me. I don’t make the laws of nature. “But look at the logic of it. These hunting grounds are safe for at least our lifetime and for the lifetime of the Indians you’ve talked to. And the sooner the Indian comes in contact with the white man and his way of life, the better his chances of surviving. The point is, however, that he has nothing to worry about. It will be fifty, maybe a hundred years before people move into this country.”
Zeb Rawlings looked at the amber liquid in his glass. There was much truth in what King said, and he knew some of the older Indians felt the same way. The trouble was that he did not trust King, or any argument he might offer. Nor could he trust the young bucks who would be hunting scalps and stealing horses. Yet why did he not trust King? Was it jealousy? Zeb scowled into his glass. He did not like to think he might be misjudging a man because of his own personal feelings.
No, it was not a matter of personal feeling; it was simply that he knew that to Mike King only one thing mattered: the railroad. To put that railroad through on schedule Mike King would ride roughshod through and over anything that got in the way. And that included Zeb Rawlings.