“That man the Indians killed?” William asked now. “You say his name was Paul?”
“Yes.”
Williams walked away without comment.
Within minutes the herd was on the move, pointed
east now. The dust beneath the hoofs of the cattle rose in clouds. The sky remained dull, leaden.
Clay Spring, if Chantry remembered rightly what he had been told, lay at the foot of a mesa where several runoff springs combined to form Clay Creek. He had never been there, but Bone McCarthy had mentioned it.
From there they would drive to the vicinity of Two Buttes, and this would be what the Kiowas would expect. But their next move would, he believed, surprise the Indians. It might also confuse them. For instead of driving away to avoid the Indians, they would drive right toward them. And he had his own ideas about what to do next.
Oddly enough, he had come to like French. The arrogant gunman, with his amused, taunting eyes, puzzled him, but Chantry wasted no time in trying to figure out his personality. His liking stemmed from the fact that Williams was good at his job, and Tom Chantry always admired a man who knew what he was doing and did it well.
The thought came to him that he might have to kill Williams, but if so he would do it with regret. That thought gave him pause. He … kill? Such an idea had been foreign to him, but now he was considering the possibility, if there was no other way out.
His readiness to accept the possible necessity of it worried him. He must guard his emotions and his actions all the more now. He must not only be wary of others, but of himself.
In spite of the dust, there was a feeling in the air that he liked, a smell from the land. Eastward the rising sun shone in the faces of the cattle. They walked stolidly on, sometimes trotted a little, then walked again.
Today he stayed with the herd, interested to see how easily his horse responded to the work, and how accustomed to it he himself had become. His hand was sure, his movements easy … he had changed.
But he must not permit the ready smile of French Williams to put him off. Why had Williams so easily accepted the idea of going north into the face of the Kiowas? Did he think Chantry would fail when he faced them and lose the herd there? Or had Williams already approached the Kiowas, perhaps on a share-and-share-alike basis? It would not be the first time Indians had raided a herd or a wagon train at the instigation of a white man.
As he rode, his thoughts returned to the girl called Sarah. Of the two, the girl had been the stronger, the most dangerous. And she was an attractive woman with a good figure, enough to take the eye of any man, east or west, but this was the West, where women were scarce.
He had been thinking there must be some connection between them and Williams, but Williams had seemed to know nothing about them.
The cattle went ahead steadily, heads swinging to the rhythm of their walk. The cowhands lounged in their saddles, thinking of the campfire ahead, the strong black coffee, and the warm food.
Tom Chantry swung out from the flank where he had been riding, and loped his horse along the slope of the low hill. Clay Creek Spring was not far ahead, hidden in a notch of hills. Below it was a holding ground, somewhat higher than the ground around it, a pleasant place for the cattle.
A bird flew up, from almost under his horse’s hoofs. The saddle creaked, his spurs jingled, and he topped out on the rise.
The three Indians came out on the ground around him without warning. They had been lying down, horses concealed beyond the rise, and their dusky bodies blended with the brown earth and the growing shadows. He heard the explosion of a gun, felt the jolt of it in his fist, then the hammer fell again and he saw an Indian spin and fall, the knife dropping from his hand.
An arm came around Chantry’s throat from behind, and he knew, instinctively, a knife would be in the other hand. He kicked his boots free of the stirrups and threw himself from his horse.
Hitting the ground with a thump, he rolled over, and jolted free of the Indian. He came to his feet quickly, just as the warrior, knife held low, sprang at him. He was a big man, tall as Chantry, and equally broad in the shoulders.
The Indian crouched, then came in. Chantry moved swiftly, and with the ease of long practice, a practice he had never used until now except in friendly wrestling matches. His left palm slapped the Indian’s knife-wrist to his right and out of line with his body, his right hand grabbed the wrist, and he stepped across in front of the Kiowa and threw him over, hard.
The Indian hit the ground, but he retained his grip on his knife, and came up fast. The man was like a big cat; his black eyes gleamed as he circled to come in again.
Chantry’s gun lay where it had fallen, several feet away. His horse, the blue roan, had trotted off to one side and stopped, the red sunset on his saddle.
The Indian’s hand was lower now … he was a wily fighter, not to be taken by the trick again.
“You are a brave man,” Tom Chantry heard himself say. “I shall hate to kill you.”
Did the man understand? Chantry heard him suck breath and then he came in swiftly, slashing right and left with the knife. Chantry side-stepped to his left to put the Indian out of position, but the warrior turned abruptly and lunged again.
Chantry sprang back, but in his boots he was not agile enough, and as he went back he tripped over the body of one of the other Indians. His opponent lunged forward, but off balance, and tripped over Chantry.
Tom sprang to his feet, more quickly this time, and kicked savagely at the Indian’s head. The boot heel glanced off the Indian’s temple and sent him rolling.
Leaping on him, Chantry slipped an arm under him and across the warrior’s throat, clapping the palm of his right hand against the Indian’s skull, his left hand grasping his own right arm in a strangle hold. He knew he could kill the Indian now, and he put on pressure, fighting for his life.
Suddenly horses were all around them, and Williams was saying, “Step back, Chantry. I’ve got a gun on him.”
Slowly Tom Chantry released his hold and stepped away from the Indian, who lay gagging and choking, and then slowly the brave got to his feet.
Rugger was there, and Helvie and McKay; there
were four guns on the Indian, and Rugger eared
back his hammer. “I’ll kill him!” he
yelled. “I’ll—“
“No!” Chantry snapped the word. “You kill him, and you’ll have to kill me.”
He turned to face the Indian. “I am Tom Chantry,” he said. “You fought well. Go in peace.”
The Indian looked at him, then at the others.
“You going to let him go?” Helvie asked in
astonishment.
Suddenly Sun Chief was there beside them. He held out Chantry’s pistol and Tom took it, dropping it into his holster.
“He goes free,” he said. “He’s too good a man to shoot down.”
Rugger swore. “He’s nothin’ but a damn redskin. He’ll kill you the first chance he gets.”
“Maybe. But in the meantime he goes free.” He spoke to Sun Chief. “Tell him he can go. Tell him I shall come to the village under the Big Timbers to see him … soon.”
“No need to tell. He knows what you say.” The Pawnee’s rifle was in his hands. “That’s He-Who-Walks-With-Wolves, but often he is called Wolf Walker. He is a big warrior.”
“Let him go.”
Wolf Walker looked at him a moment, then
deliberately he turned on his heel and walked away.
French Williams looked at the two dead Indians and commented dryly to Rugger: “You’d better copper your bets, Rug. That’s as good shooting as I’ve ever seen, left and right, both dead center.”
“It was luck,” Chantry said. “They surprised me. Came right up off the ground.”
“So you just killed two of them with two shots, and then whipped Wolf Walker bare-handed—and him with a knife. Mister, you call it what you want to, only don’t call it luck.”
Sun Chief caught up the blue roan and Chantry swung into the saddle. As they started back toward the herd, Helvie rode alongside Chantry and held out his hand. “Whatever I may have thought about you back at the start, I take it back. Next time you need a hand, you just call my name and I’ll come a-runnin’ … no matter where you want to go.”