“Conn!” Meharry caught my arm. “Look!”
It was a dead steer … and beyond it there was another, then five or six. Suddenly he swore, and backed off his horse. Before us was a tangle of barbed wire, dead cattle, ripped-out posts, and torn-up ground.
The herd must have hit that wire at full tilt, and our boys must have opened up on them to turn or stop the stampede.
Fear turned me cold. My skin crawled with it. For the first time in my life I felt real fear – the bitter, awful fear you feel when someone you love has been destroyed, lost beyond recall. For I knew that the men who had shot down Tom Lundy because he came calling on a girl would not hesitate to kill his sister.
We walked our horses slowly toward the knoll, hoping desperately for a challenge. And there was none.
Suddenly, almost before we wished to, we topped out on a rise.
Here, too, there were dead steers, a perfect mound of them. And beyond them the burned-out skeleton of what had been Kate’s ambulance.
“Conn,” Meharry said in a voice torn with emotion, “there’s a body here.”
He swung down, bending over close. “Cold,” he whispered. He’s been dead a while.”
Then he stood up. “It’s Will Joyce, one of Pollock’s men.”
Dismounting, I walked on with him, and a bit further on we found Van Kimberly. Van was one of our own Tumbling B boys, one who had stayed with Tod Mulloy to cover Tom’s leaving of town the day he spoke to Linda McDonald.
We found a dead horse, the remains of a campfire, some stacked-up and burned bedrolls.
The townsmen had stampeded the herd against our wire, and then over the camp. And they had followed along to kill whoever remained.
On the further slope of the hill we found another of Pollock’s men, recognizable only because of the Lazy P burned into his holster. He had been trampled to death by the herd.
“She isn’t here, Conn,” Meharry said in a low voice. “She got away.”
“Maybe.”
“No use looking on the other side of town. If there was anybody over there, they’d still be fighting.”
“McDonald might have pulled off at dark.”
“We’d have heard shooting, Conn. This fight is hours old.”
He was right, of course, and if any of our lot had been left alive they would have pulled out.
For where? For the new town, Hackamore, of course. Priest and Naylor were there, and the rest of Matt Pollock’s outfit.
“Conn … they are loading wagons down there.” Meharry was staring off toward the town. “I can tell by the way the lanterns are moving.”
“Pulling out?”
Meharry hesitated, as if making up his mind. “No, Conn, I think they are going to hit the new town. There are too many rifles down there … every time one of those lanterns passes a man I can catch the glint of metal. If they could wipe out Hackamore, they might recover the business they’ve lost.”
We would need every man, then, need them desperately, and three of my best men were back there guarding the imported gunmen.
I made up my mind suddenly. “Meharry, ride back and tell Rowdy what’s happened. Tell him to swing wide around the town and head for Hackamore. He’ll be alone, so tell him to be damned careful. There will be Indians to think of, too.”
“All right.” But he hesitated. “Maybe I should stay with him. We could use those guns and ammunition at Hackamore.”
“We’ll need the men even more. You’ve got two horses. Ride like the devil.”
Meharry gripped his Winchester. “Conn … a shot into one of those lanterns might give them plenty to do.”
“No.” I will admit I was reluctant to say it. “We’re not fighting women and children. Besides, Kate would never stand for it.”
Meharry knew how I felt about Kate, but he said, “Conn, do you think she’s alive?”
For a moment I was shaken by a terrible fear, a fear that was washed out in a frightening wave of fury such as I had never felt before.
“If they’ve killed Kate,” I said. “I’ll personally hunt down every man of them and kill them where they stand.”
Meharry gathered his reins. “I’ll hurry, Conn,” he said, and was off into the darkness, leaving me alone among the torn bodies of the unfortunate cattle, and near the fallen men who had given their lives. We would return to bury them. There was no time now if other men were not to die, for Hackamore was believing itself safe.
First, I dismounted and switched saddles. The weapons of the dead men had been taken, their pockets rifled. But all wore belts of ammunition that we might need, so I stripped off the belts and hung them around the saddle horn. I remounted and, leading my spare horse, I started off into the night.
Soon I must rest, but first I needed distance between myself and the town. I needed to feel that I was on my way.
By day I might have read the tracks and known what had happened on that hill, but now there was nothing to do but strike out toward the west, and hope the survivors of the attack had made it through.
Four miles west and south of the town I rode up to a slough, dismounted, and picketed the horses on the grass in the bottom of the hollow. Then I retreated into the edge of the tall reeds and, wrapped in my blanket to keep the mosquitoes off my face, I went to sleep.
With the first gray light I was once more in the saddle and headed west.
All around me was the vast sea of grass, the gray-green untouched miles where only buffalo and antelope grazed, unmarked except by a wandering Indian and the twin tracks of his travois. Steadily, I rode on, keeping off the sky lines, and watching my back trail with care.
Here and there I saw buffalo tracks, usually in twos and threes, heading south. At noon I switched horses, took a couple of swallows of water, and bit off a chunk of jerked beef to chew as I rode.
A faint wind blew from the south, the sky was very clear, and there was no sound except the drum of my own horses’ hoofs on the ground. Once, circling around a butte, I left the horses in a hollow where they would be visible to me, and scaled the butte to look over the country.
It was a vast emptiness, that stretched in every direction – only the grass bending before the wind in long waves like the sea, only the faint sound of the wind brushing over the miles of whispering grass.
If all went well, I would reach Hackamore sometime tomorrow. McDonald and his crowd, coming from the town, would need much longer, with their wagons. But even as I thought of that, I realized they would not wait for the slow-moving wagons, which would carry only supplies to be used later, in the event the fight lasted longer than the initial attack. They would undoubtedly mount a large party of horsemen who would push right through to the attack.
Shortly before sundown I rode down into a small hollow, choked with willows and brush, where there was a trickle of water from a spring. After watering my horses, I staked them out, refilled my canteen, and switched saddles again. Tired as I was, there was no time for sleep.
With a boot in the stirrup, about to step into the saddle, I heard something stirring in the willows.
Instantly, I was on the ground, my Winchester at the ready. There was silence.
Glancing at my two horses, I saw their ears were pricked and their nostrils flaring. I spoke to them gently and moved ahead, walking with care to make no noise. Peering through the leaves, I saw a saddle horse cropping grass not fifty feet away.
I returned for my own horses and led them forward, alert for the rider. But when we came into sight, the horse looked up quickly, then came toward us at a rapid trot, whinnying.
The horse was a sorrel from our own remuda, wearing the brand of the Tumbling B. The saddle was Kate Lundy’s saddle, and there was blood on the pommel.
My mouth felt suddenly dry. Gathering up the reins, I mounted my own horse and started forward, back-tracking the horse.
The tracks led back up to the prairie, and as it seemed that I might have to ride some distance, I rigged a lead rope for Kate’s horse, and started on again.
There was little daylight remaining. The sun was going down and there would be a brief twilight. And when darkness came I could go no further, but must wait until it was light enough to see tracks again in the grass.