He was high on a grassy hill with nothing in sight for a far distance when he heard the cry—a faint, choking cry, like nothing human, and it came from not far off. The roan, head up, ears pricked, looked off toward the right, toward the breaks of the Canadian.
Chantry waited, listening. Had it been human or animal? And if an animal, what kind could make such a sound? Suddenly he was sure the cry was human.
Turning his horse, he started in the direction the roan had looked, and peered ahead for the first glimpse of whatever it was.
He looked around slowly, studying the surroundings with infinite care. It might be a trap. He did not believe all he had heard of Indians, but he was cautious by nature. His horse walked forward, taking each step gingerly, as if ready to bolt. Obviously the roan did not like what it sensed was near.
Chantry’s inclination was to turn and ride away, swiftly, for what lay before him was terror … perhaps horror. Instinctively he knew he should escape while it was still possible, but something urged him on … to see, what?
For a moment Chantry thought he could ride back, warn them of something ahead, and then approach this place with a dozen riders … yet what if there was nothing? He would have shown himself to be both a coward and a fool.
No, he knew he could not go back, and he rode on, walking his horse. He could feel its reluctance in the tenseness of its muscles, its urge to turn away.
Suddenly they topped the low rise and he was looking into a shallow place that sloped away with increasing steepness toward the river, but Chantry did not see that. All he saw was the man staked out before him. He dismounted and took a step nearer.
The man was stripped naked, hands and legs outspread, each ankle and each wrist tied to a stake. Already the sun had turned the white flesh a deep red in ugly burns, but burns could be as nothing to him, for he had been horribly mutilated.
In each thigh there was a deep gash along the top of the muscle from the hip to the knee. His stomach had been cut open and piled full of rock. The sides of his face were cut, and the muscles of his biceps. For a frozen moment Tom Chantry stared, shocked motionless, and then, of a sudden, his horse shied violently.
Turning sharply, he saw himself facing half a dozen Indians. He saw them, saw their hands still bloody from the deed before them, and realized his rifle was in its scabbard on the saddle. It was no more than six feet away, but it might have been as many miles. If he made a move toward it, they could kill him. Would they?
Before him was the evidence. They had killed this man. No doubt he had fought them, no doubt he was an enemy taken in battle. As for himself, if he was to survive he must face them down. He spoke suddenly, keeping his tone moderate.
“This was not a good thing to do,” he said, speaking carefully. “One man could do you no harm.”
One of the Indians spoke, surprisingly, in English. “He do nothing to us. We find track. We follow. We kill.”
“Why?”
The Indian appeared to think the question foolish.
He replied simply, “Why not?”
“G. I will bury him.”
“All right.” The Indian said something to the others
and they chuckled. “All right. You bury. Only him not dead yet.” Then admiringly, “He strong man. He no cry, no beg. He laugh, he swear. Strong man.”
What was he saying? The tortured man was not dead.
“I will bury him,” he repeated. “You go.”
“We watch,” the Indian replied. Then he
said, “You strong like him?”
“Go,” he said, fighting down the horror and the fear that crept up within him. “G.” And surprisingly, they went.
He stood for a moment, staring after them, not willing to accept what his eyes told him. Then from behind him there was a shuddering groan. Chantry turned sharply.
The tortured man said, “If you got any water, I’d like it.”
The tone was calm, controlled.
“You—you’re alive?”
“It ain’t for long. You git me that water and
I’ll be obliged.”
Chantry turned swiftly to his horse and the canteen on the saddle horn. Kneeling beside the man, he held it to his lips. Feverishly, the man drank. For a moment he lay quiet and then he said, “I reckon that’s the best thing I ever tasted.”
“I’ll untie you. I’ll—“
“No! Don’t you pay it no mind.” The
eyes opened and looked at him calmly. “I’m dead, man, can’t you see?” And then he added, “I beat ‘em! I beat those red devils at their own game! I never whimpered!
“You tell ‘em that at the fort!” His voice was suddenly hoarse. “You tell ‘em McGuinness never whimpered! Tell ‘em that!”
“The chuck wagon is coming,” Chantry said.
“We have medicine, we—“
“Don’t be a damn fool,” the man said.
“You tell ‘em at the fort. You tell ‘em—“
His voice faded away and his eyes suddenly were still. Chantry straightened to his feet. The man was dead …
Chapter 6
“Is he gone?”
Chantry faced sharply around. French
Williams, Dutch Akin, Gent, Helvie, and Koch were on the rise behind him. All carried rifles.
“How could he be alive?”
“There wasn’t much give in him,” Hay Gent
commented. “A man like that might live through anything.”
“Ride to the wagon, Dutch,” Williams said, “and bring up a shovel. We’ll do the honors.”
He glanced at Helvie. “You want to say the words? Or shall we let Chantry?”
“No!” Koch shouted. “I’ll be damned if he will! Not over a man who died like that!”
Chantry felt himself go sick with shame, then fury. Suddenly he was in a killing rage.
“Koch,” he said, “I’ll—“
“Shut up!” French laid his voice across them like a lash. “Helvie will read. Chantry, you’d better get back to the wagon while you’re all together.”
Chantry stood stiff, his anger vanished in the cold awareness that only Williams’ intervention had saved him from another shooting situation.
“All right, but I hope you will notice that I
was unarmed, yet the Indians did not attack
me. If this man had done the same, perhaps—“
Helvie interrupted impatiently. “He was unarmed too. Can’t you see? It didn’t save him. If you’ll look at the tracks … we followed them here. They raced beside him, striking, bedeviling him. Then they began the torture.
“This man was a soldier—a deserter perhaps.
He had no gun. They killed his horse.
Didn’t you hear what the Indian said? The man had done nothing to them. He was a stranger, therefore an enemy. They were Kiowas. It did not matter that this man was a white man. Had he been a Ute he would have fared no better.”
“You heard them? You were here?”
“Why do you think they rode away? Because you were
nice and peaceful. They left because they saw our guns on them from right over that ridge. We weren’t begging a fight, and under the conditions neither were they.”
French turned his back on him and walked away as Akin appeared with a shovel.
Tom Chantry hesitated, then swung into the saddle. He had made a fool of himself. Had not the others come when they did he might now be lying dead beside that dead man. Still, how could he know?
Nonetheless, he was displeased with himself. In their eyes he had come off badly. At best, he had been inadequate, and he did not like the feeling that he was despised. They were competent men who knew their jobs, men of proven courage and stamina, accepted by each other. He had proved nothing to anyone. Not even to himself. In their eyes he was a man who failed to measure up. They did not think him worthy to read the final words over a dead man.
It was hard to take, and he rode back to camp, ate, and turned in. Clifton House lay ahead, and there might be news. With luck the drive might be a short one.
Clifton House was a stage stop and a gathering place for cattle. Suddenly, before falling asleep, he made up his mind. He would ride on ahead, reach Clifton House well before the herd, and gather what information was available. Undoubtedly the herd would stop for the night not far from there, but he might learn whatever was known in time to change their route.
At daybreak he told Williams, “I’m riding to Clifton House. I’m expecting mail there.”
“Better take somebody along to wipe your nose,” Koch remarked. “There’s some mighty mean men hang out at Clifton.”
From one of the others he might have ignored it, but Koch was a sour, mean man with no breath of goodness in him, and after his remark of the day before Tom Chantry was in no mood for any more of it. He put down his cup.