They simply had no chance. There was scarcely time to fire and load before the charging herd was upon them. The great woolly wall of hurtling flesh came down in a gigantic herd. Many a beast among those hundreds weighed at least a ton. And there was no stopping their insane charge. Tents flattened; women screamed. The wounded man pushed the woman aside and tried to cover her with his body; then the black mass whirled through. One instant the settlers’ town was there, and then it was ground into the mud along with torn and bloody flesh. At a dugout near the railroad line Zeb saw a huge bull struggling, half through a roof, saw it plunging to escape the trap, then vanish. And then the Arapahoes came.
They came close upon the heels of the buffalo, and leaping their ponies over fallen beasts, shot down by the desperate effort to stop the stampede or turn it, the Indians were behind the barricade, among the defenders. King retreated swiftly toward his car, one of the few things left standing. Zeb saw his sergeant go down under the glancing blow of a tomahawk, and he fired, knocking the warrior from the saddle. A horse plunged at him and he fell aside, firing and missing.
A young warrior, his face painted with streaks of black, rushed at him, and Zeb lifted his pistol and fired. The bullet stopped the Indian in mid-stride, but then he came on and Zeb fired again. When the Indian fell three bullets were in his breast and he went down almost on top of Zeb. Catching up a rifle, Zeb scrambled to his feet and shot at an Indian near the barricade. Then he wheeled to fire again, but the gun was empty and he charged a group of Indians, swinging the heavy Springfield like a club. As suddenly as the attack had begun, it ended. There was only the acrid smell of gunpowder, the gasping of men exhausted by tremendous effort, and the moans or cries of the wounded. Zeb removed the empty cylinder from his pistol and replaced it with another.
Mike King got slowly to his feet from the steps of his private car, blood running down his face from a scalp wound.
“You bought it,” Zeb told him savagely. “Now walk out there and look at the price!”
“Going to shoot me?” King even now smiled his taunting smile, but his eyes were wary. Both held drawn guns, and the range was close. King knew the difference then: he wanted desperately to live, and Zeb Rawlings did not care. Deep within him, King was filled with fear. He would stand and fight, but desperately did not want to die.
“Walk out there!” Zeb commanded. “I want you to see what you have done!” Where the woman had knelt above the wounded man, now there were two bodies ground into one, their flesh churned by the flying hoofs. The blonde Brunhilde lay sprawled in ugly death, only a raw skull where the blonde hair had been. Men moaned and begged for help. Slowly the survivors collected themselves and began to move among the wounded.
The sergeant, an ugly cut upon his scalp, came to Zeb for orders. Briefly, Rawlings told him what to do. “Get eight men on the barricades as before. Turn the rest of them to collecting rifles and ammunition, and helping the wounded. We can spare only four men for the injured.”
He turned on King. “How do you like it, King? You invited them here. You brought them too soon into the hell created by your broken promises. You brought them here, you killed them—now you can live with it.” “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs,” King said. “And the eggs will keep coming.”
But his face was gray and sick-looking and he turned his eyes quickly away from the dead and dying. “You aren’t going to kill me?” he asked. “You? You aren’t worth killing. You’re dead. You’ve been dead for years. You’re only a hammer in the hands of the directors of your road. There’s nothing inside you at all.”
Julie, he thought … where was Julie?
And then he saw her, bending over a wounded man, and he went to her.
“I’m leaving,” he said. “I’m riding out.”
“Now?” She was incredulous.
“It’s best. The Arapahoes will see me go, and they blame me more than anyone else. I think you can stop any attack that will come now, but if I leave they may not attack at all.”
“They will kill you.”
“Maybe. I’m no martyr—once out there, I’ll run for it. I’m taking the company race horse and leaving mine.”
She put her hand on his sleeve. “No … don’t go.” “I have to. If I go they’ll come after me. It will be easier than attacking here again. If I make it, I’ll meet you in Salt Lake.” There were no tears, no protests. They stood an instant looking into each other’s eyes, and then he turned quickly away.
He walked across to where the sergeant was bringing some order into the frightful mess of the encampment. “You’re in command, Sergeant. My resignation has gone in. I’m riding out. Maybe they’ll want me so bad they’ll leave you alone, but your position is good, their chance of surprise is gone, and the train from Omaha should be rolling in by tomorrow with more troops.” “So long, Lieutenant.”
“So long, Sergeant.”
“And Lieutenant—good luck.”
He saddled the gray horse. It was a runner and a stayer, a horse he himself had bought but which they had kept for racing, winning a good bit of money from time to time. Now it was going to have to run.
He mounted up and walked the horse to the edge of the barricade. Vaucelle came over to him. “Over there,”—he nodded his head but did not point—“there don’t seem to be any of them. You might make it.”
“Thanks.”
The Indians had carried off their dead, as they always did, leaving only those who had fallen within the enclosure. There were pools of blood here and there upon the grass, indication that the Arapahoes had been hard hit, too. He started his horse trotting down the valley, giving them a chance to see him. He was heading west. That always seemed to be the answer. When things go wrong, go west.
A shot rang out…
He glanced back, surprised to see the distance between himself and the fort. And then he saw the Arapahoes. There was a long line of them strung out along the ridge, and they were coming after him.
He glanced off to the north, and there was another line. They were pointing themselves at some spot ahead where they expected to close in on him. “All right, Jubal,” he said to the gray horse, “let’s see what you can do.” The long legs stretched out, the hoofs pounded the turf, the wind whipped at his face. The gray had a smooth, wonderful stride, and dearly loved to run. Ahead of him somewhere was tomorrow—with luck. The hoofs drummed a rhythm upon the sod. He crouched lower to lessen the resistance offered to the wind.
Chapter 18
Gabe French paused on the corner and stared along the street. The last time he had walked on Nob Hill he had come looking for a teamster who had once worked for him, and the Hill then had been a cluster of modest wooden cottages. Now they had been replaced by ornate mansions.
He squinted his eyes against the reflection of sunlight from Jim Flood’s thirty-thousand-dollar brass fence. It was all of two blocks long, and there was a man at work polishing it. Gabe had heard about that fence. In fact, come to think of it, Cleve had told him of it, and how it kept one man busy every day to keep it polished.
The gray towers of the Hopkins castle with its terraced gardens was diagonally across the street. He walked on by, ignoring the Colton, Stanford, and Crocker houses. He had never visited Cleve’s home during his lifetime, and it seemed odd that he should come here now, when Cleve was dead. Yet they had been friends in the old days, and never less than friends in all the years that followed. “One man I envied,” Gabe said aloud, as he hesitated on the corner. “He had something about him … sort of a flak, I’d guess you’d call it.” “What was that?”
Gabe turned at the query, embarrassed to be caught talking to himself. “Asked if you knew where the van Valen mansion is,” he grumbled. The man pointed. “Right over there. Although you can hardly call it his now. And by all accounts it won’t be his widow’s after today. They’re selling him out, lock, stock, and barrel.”
He was a prim little man with small eyes and a sour expression, and the satisfaction in his tone was obvious.