“Injun fight,” Mike commented. “Good riddance.”
“That’s Alvino,” I said, “he was a friend of mine when I needed one.”
So we pitched in and fought him out of his comer, and when he saw who I was and knew where I was living, it ended the Apache attacks on the Tumbling B.
Not that I expected it, for it wasn’t in Indian nature; and Mexican mother or not, Alvino was an Indian all the way through. During a fight in the Apache rancheria where I was so long a captive, Alvino had pitched in and helped me, and now I had returned the favor. Taking him up on my horse, we rode back to the ranch and I roped a pony for him from our own small gather of wild stock.
The Comanches still gave us a whirl once in a while, so we had no chance to become less wary, but there were no more Apaches. In a sense, they still regarded me as one of their own, as a fighting man, at least; and my victories were something of which they could be proud, believing they had taught me the way of the warrior.
The War Between the States had been over only a few months when I rode into Kate Lundy’s camp and became her foreman, and in the almost ten years since that time we had claimed over half a million acres of grazing land and we had a brand on thousands of cattle roaming over that country.
But in some ways I knew Kate no better than when I first came. One day, several weeks after I had saved Alvino from the Comanches, she asked me, “What did you tell that Apache about me? I saw him question you.”
“He asked me if you were my woman.”
There was a long moment of silence, and then she asked, “What did you tell him?”
“I told him you were. He wouldn’t have understood anything else.”
Her eyes avoided mine. “No … no, I suppose not.”
That had been long ago, but it was all still clear in my mind. Thinking of it now, though, was not getting me any nearer to the solution of my problem, but remembering Alvino made me wonder how an Apache would have approached it.
The best thing I had been able to think of was to get on the train when they were all half asleep and get the drop on them before they suspected. That would be the easiest way, but Flanagan had said there was no such grade as we would need to board the train while it was moving. Had he lied? Or had he, perhaps, merely implied there was no such grade?
Flanagan was friendly, and no doubt sincerely so, but he worked for the railroad, and in his own way he no doubt rode for the brand – the railroad’s brand in this case.
The Apache way would be to lie in wait, and shoot them down as they got down from the train. Apaches would have waited until all were off the train and spread out between the station and the saloon.
Once again I got up and walked around the area. There was plenty of cover for such an attack: the old stable, the saloon itself, the side-tracked box cars, the stacks of meadow-cut hay, the watering trough.
When I went back Gallardo, Mason, and D’Artaguette were rolled up in their blankets and asleep on the floor. Flanagan was leaving as I walked in.
“Irishman,” I said, “you wouldn’t be wiring back up the line now, would you? To warn those men?”
“Mister, this is your fight, not mine. You’re in it, and whatever you do is your own business so long as you damage no railroad property and injure no passengers.”
“Does that include those Bald Knobbers?”
“When they leave the train,” he said, “they cease to be my affair. I’ll take no hand one way or the other.”
“If you ever decide to try punching cows,” I said, “come down to the Tumbling B. We’ll find a place for you.”
He walked out, and I let him go. Meharry had been watching, and Rowdy Lynch came over to join us. They had nothing to say, but I knew what they wanted to know. They wanted to know what we planned to do, and I couldn’t tell them. I simply hadn’t the slightest idea of how to handle it.
And then suddenly I did know.
Chapter 9
The last stars hung in the sky when the train whistle called across the empty prairie and the low grass-covered hills. A huge old buffalo bull, half blind from the thick wool grown down over his eyes, lifted his huge head and stared stupidly off into the night, then rumbled a questioning challenge in his broad chest.
After a while, in the distance the train’s headlight showed briefly against a far-off hill, and then there was the sound of rushing wheels, and again the long call of the whistle.
The train drew nearer and the big drivers slowed, brakes screeched, and the train rumbled to a halt alongside the station.
A light glowed from the fly-specked window of the telegraph-office window, but the saloon was dark, except for the lantern that hung over the door.
Men descended to the platform, stretching and looking around, men heavy from their uncomfortable sleep in the cramped seats of the coaches, peering doubtfully around in the unfamiliar dark.
Their eyes made out a hint of welcome in the letters faintly revealed by the feeble glow of the lantern – four letters plainly visible, and the suggestion of a fifth:
ALOON
“There she is, boys! Lets have a drink!” The speaker started across the intervening space, and several more trailed after him, stumbling a little from the stiffness in their muscles from the long train ride.
The others remained for a few moments on the platform, peering about, and then they started to follow.
One man bent over, shielding his hand against the glass, trying to peer into the station window.
The first man to arrive at the saloon began to pound on the door. “Halloo, in there! Open up!” All was silent.
Suddenly somebody spoke, his voice loud in the stillness. “I smell smoke!”
As if on signal, the nearest of the haystacks burst into flame, a tremendous sheet of flame billowing up from loosened dry hay at the bottom and along the side of the stack. As one man they turned to stare, astonished at the unexpected development.
And in that instant, from behind them, came the ominous sound of gun-hammers drawn back; and after that slight warning, I said, just loud enough for all to hear: “Unless you boys want to die right where you stand, drop your hardware and lift your hands!” They had been staring into the flames, and had they turned back to face us, they would have been momentarily blinded, unable to find their targets in the darkness.
We had them cold turkey, and they knew it. Had they been less than what they were, some of them might have been killed, but they were fighting men and they knew enough to stand when caught fairly.
Only three of us were there, but two held shotguns, the Colt revolving shotguns, and at the distance the execution would have been a fearful thing.
Battery Mason and D’Artaguette had moved down on the train, taking the last few who lingered on the station platform. And so, without a shot being fired, we took the men I had feared would destroy us. And we had taken them much as an Apache would – and as they had done, I recalled, on several occasions.
We gathered their weapons, loaded them into their ammunition and supply wagon, and hitched up their horses. Their saddle stock, brought along for immediate use, we simply turned loose on the prairies. The supplies we left at the saloon.
The hired fighters were herded into the thick-walled stables and were left under the guard of D’Artaguette, Gallardo, and Battery Mason.
The gunmen were to be fed from their own supplies; and after four days the three men I left behind were simply to ride off and leave them. Flanagan or the saloonkeeper could free them when they wished.
With Lynch driving the wagon, we started back for our own camp. We drove far into the night. As we had started late, the moon was already low before we drew near the town.
I pulled back alongside the wagon. “Rowdy,” I said, “you swing wide and come up on the camp. If you hear any shooting, or things look bad, pull up and wait until daybreak. We’ll find you.”
“You go ahead,” Rowdy said. “I can look out for myself.” But he was worried.
With Meharry beside me, I struck out at a fast run across the plains. What worried me was that there was no sound, nor was there any sign of a fire. But when we drew near we saw the town was ablaze with lights, as many as if the evening had just begun on the day a cattle drive moved into the town’s area.