For several minutes he saw nothing, and then it was a lone rider, coming fast, low over his saddle. He swept by, turning toward the direction of the herd, and was scarcely past when a band of Indians, riding hard, followed.
There were at least six in the bunch—in the now vague light he could not be sure of their number. He waited a moment longer, listening, and then rode down the hill and headed north.
As he rode he made his decision. The thing to do was not to join the herd but to let the herd join him. He would ride ahead, make a dark camp somewhere along the line of travel the drive must follow, and when they came up to him, he would join them … in daylight, when there would be no mistakes.
To the north there had seemed to be a low rim of darkness … a line of trees? The river? He knew the Purgatoire took a bend somewhere ahead of him, and it was probably the trees along that stream, partly hidden by the depth of the river bed.
How far had he come? His route had see-sawed back and forth so often that he had lost track of distance in his effort to avoid an ambush. Probably he was no more than sixteen or seventeen miles from Trinidad.
In the gathering dark he continued his way north, growing more and more wary as he neared the river. Several times he drew up to listen into the night, but he heard no sound except the faint rustle of wind.
The first stars appeared. The ground fell away slightly and he saw the dark wall of the trees. Descending into the river bottom, he could feel the coolness rising from the water. He walked his horse along in the darkness, every sense keyed for trouble.
He had drawn his pistol as he went under the trees, and he allowed the horse to go forward to find his own way, which it seemed to be doing without hesitation, ears pricked and alert.
He was apparently on some sort of trail, for the horse’s hoofs fell evenly, and the dun held to a good, fast walk. Suddenly water gleamed gray before him.
The dun stopped and its head came up. It seemed about to whinny when Chantry spoke sharply but softly. “No! Steady, boy! Steady!”
Although the dun jerked its head impatiently, it made no sound.
Then he caught the smell … woodsmoke.
Somebody, somewhere quite near, had a fire going.
The smell was faint, but with it there was something more.
Coffee …!
Chantry, gun in hand, walked the dun forward toward the gray water, toward the fire he could not see.
Chapter 12
There is a subtle awareness in the night. The darkness around you does not sleep; it is awake, alert, sensing. It is alive to movement, and feels the changes in the air, the smell, the temperature.
The trees are aware, and the bushes. The birds and small animals are aware, and they listen, hesitant, suspecting. Awareness of danger is an element of their being. It is like their breathing, like the blood in their veins, and one who lives much with the wilderness becomes so aware, too. Living with stillness, he detects sounds unheard by the casual passers-by, sees things they do not see, catches odors too faint for their nostrils. Half of woodcraft is attention, and all of survival.
Tom Chantry had been bred in the West, and in the East he had spent much time in the woods, but what was happening to him now was different, strange and exciting. For the first time he was not in the night, but was a part of the night. He had come in recent days of scouting, riding, suffering, and struggle to a point where he belonged to all this.
Only a short time ago he had ridden, unseeing, past things that seemed of no importance to him, but now he sensed them. His ear was learning the difference between a movement of the wind and that of a small animal or bird. His eye was quick to catch the difference between a bird that flew up from fear and one going about its usual business. He could detect, by the changes in temperature, hollows or creek beds before he came up to them, for they were cooler in this weather, more humid.
Chantry walked his horse a few steps, then drew up, waiting.
He felt a faint stir from the wind, lost the scent of coffee for a moment, found it again. He heard no sound, and he felt that the man who had the fire was moving silently or was listening. The scent of the coffee was enough to tell him the man was awake.
A slight dampness, a coolness, coming to his right cheek indicated a hollow or a spring close by. He turned his mount ever so slightly and edged it through the trees. His gun was still in his hand, and he was ready.
It might, of course, be the
Talrims, but he did not think so. They would be closer to the herd, watching for him, or carrying out whatever they meant to do. Whoever it was, he was prepared.
The gleam of the fire caught his eye, and there it was, not twenty feet off, in a hollow below some brush. He drew up again and waited. When he at last heard a sound, it was a voice.
“Welcome to my fire. I am Sun Chief.”
The Indian materialized from the shadows and Tom Chantry dismounted, holding out his hand, and the Pawnee took it.
“There is coffee. In the light I would look for you, but you find me first.”
He took Chantry’s dun and stripped the saddle from it, picketing the horse in a small glade close by. Then he came back to the fire, where Chantry had already filled his cup.
“How did you know I was around?” Tom asked.
The Pawnee shrugged. “I know you come. And on
the road I met the man from Trinidad—the one called Moby.”
Moby? Mobile? But what would the gambler be doing out here?
“He told me you were coming.”
There were other things to consider, and Chantry put
aside the question of Mobile Callahan’s movements. “What about the railroad?” he asked.
“Three days maybe, for the cows. The Pawnee filled his cup and Chantry shared the food from his saddlebags. “If there is no trouble.”
“Where is the herd?”
Sun Chief pointed. “Where the creek begins.
The creek called Caddoa.”
Knowing nothing of that creek, Chantry inquired, “How far from here?”
The Pawnee gestured toward the north. “Not far. I show you.”
The campsite the Indian had chosen was a good one. It was under the edge of a cut that dropped off to a creek bed, but was some twenty feet back from the river and at least ten feet above it. There would have been room for one more man and his horse.
When the Indian had smoked he crawled into his blankets, and only then did he tell Chantry one last thing. “There are Kiowas at Big Timbers. The Cheyennes and Arapahoes have gone.”
Kiowas at Big Timbers? And Big
Timbers lay between his herd and the railroad. If the Cheyennes and Arapahoes had left such a favorable camping ground there must be a reason. were the Kiowas planning an attack in which the others did not want to be involved?
Big Timbers … why did the name sound a bell? Perhaps because of a story his father had told him long ago, or some chance phrase remembered from a conversation in his home when men had talked of the far plains and the shining mountains, the forests where no man had walked. The name had a special sound to it. Big Timbers …?
At breakfast they ate jerky and drank coffee, Chantry inquired about Big Timbers, and listened to Sun Chief tell in a few phrases what he knew.
“Big trees … what you call alamo … cottonwood. Fourteen miles long it was, but many cut for logs or fires … no brush around … only grass. Springs and streams … a place the Indian likes. Big powwows held there … fights, too. It is a good place.
So it undoubtedly was, but the trouble-hunting Kiowas had taken away its charm for Tom Chantry.
They had ridden no more than a mile in the morning sunlight when Sun Chief pointed across the tawny slopes at black dots circling against the pale sky. “Buzzards. Something dead.”
“Or dying,” Chantry said. “We will see.”
They rode on, their horses’ hoofs beating on
the drying turf. When they topped out on the rise below the buzzards they saw a man’s body, stripped and bloody lying in the hollow beyond.
Riding down swiftly, they drew up close to it. Streaked with bloody gashes, it lay there, an ugly thing under the flat sky.