The incident of Abel Bain’s attempted assault on Sary Stark she could dismiss. In the rough, new western world all kinds and types of men came together, and such things might happen. The fact that Matt Bardoul had warned of his presence in the wagon train and that Clive had dismissed his charge as unfounded, stayed in her mind.
Yet this was but one thing. Riding about as she was, she soon became aware of the subtle differences between the three companies of men commanded by Reutz, Bardoul and her father as compared with that commanded by Massey. The men of the latter group were an untidy, sullen, hard drinking crowd, and no women among them. It was from this group that Clive had chosen his law enforcement group.
She heard of all the disputes in the wagon train, for her father often discussed or complained about them. Barney brought her the rest of the news, and she was usually present when any discussion came up. She knew that Matt had warned them about the trail, and that this warning had proved correct. She noticed also that his wagons reached the bottom fastest and with less trouble than the others. She knew his loan of the block and tackle had helped her father and Herman Reutz.
Clive rarely talked about the gold fields any more. They had occupied a great part of his conversation while in Deadwood. Now she noticed that he was quieter, more watchful, but when he did talk to her there was a boldness and assurance in his manner that was new and different, nor did she like the change.
The following day, riding ahead of the train, she galloped up to join Colonel Orvis Pearson.
He was a fine figure of a man, tall and commanding. He rode as if perpetually on parade, and there was something dashing and theatrical in his manner. More and more she was becoming aware that he was merely a facade, a figurehead. It was her father and Clive Massey who directed the affairs of the train. And more and more she was aware of growing strain, and of the tendency for many of the men to draw closer to Matt Bardoul. Herman Reutz, for instance, had definitely aligned himself with Bardoul.
“Good Morning, Colonel! The air is nice after the rain, isn’t it?”
“Beautiful! As you are beautiful, Miss Coyle! We should make a good many miles today, if this holds.”
Most of the rain had already sunk into the parched, thirsty soil, and before the day was over the sun would erase what little impression it had made. Several times as she rode beside him, Jacquine started to speak, to ask the question she was dying to ask.
“Colonel,” she said suddenly, “weren’t you and Matt Bardoul in the Army together?”
His face stiffened, and when he spoke, his voice was sharp and cold. “He was never in the Service! Bardoul is a disobedient, recalcitrant ruffian!”
He turned his head abruptly. “Has he been talking to you about me?” There was something in his manner that savoured almost of fear. “Has he?”
“Oh, no! Someone, I’ve forgotten who, just said you two had been in the Apache country together.”
“He was a civilian scout. I was in command. He should have been court martialed and shot!” Abruptly, he changed the subject. “Life in a frontier town will be difficult for you, won’t it? You know there are few of….”
The conversation drifted on, but her interest was gone. When she could conveniently escape, she dropped back. Matt was far away on the flank, riding his zebra dun. Her curiosity was thoroughly aroused and she intended to get to the bottom of the story, once and for all. Her father had hinted that it was disgraceful, that Bardoul had been discharged in dishonour.
Clive had hinted that in a panic of fear, Matt had fled from a battlefield. Murphy was his friend, and would be prejudiced. Suddenly, she thought of Portugee Phillips.
She had never talked to him. Bits of information about him had drifted to her from time to time, but he held himself aloof, rarely talking with any of them. She knew him by sight, his black pointed beard, and his narrow, cynical eyes with a hint of ugliness in them. He seemed a surly, taciturn man. Yet she knew the story of his ride from Fort Kearny to Laramie, two hundred and thirty-six miles through a driving blizzard, hordes of Indians, and thirty degrees below zero weather.
He had staggered, half frozen, into the glare and gaiety of a dance at Laramie, told his story and faulted. That story started a relief expedition to Fort Kearny and prevented the Sioux from wiping out the small garrison. Phillips had nearly died, but his name had become a byword in the west.
She knew well enough what that ride must have been. Probably at no time could he have seen more than a few feet before him, yet unerring as a compass course, he had ridden through that blizzard, without wandering or circling. He had killed Carrington’s splendid Kentucky thoroughbred on that ride, and nearly killed himself, but the horse lasted until he reached Laramie and died at the steps of the officers’ club where they were holding a Christmas Eve dance.
Portugee Phillips was not a nice man. He had been reported by Malcolm Campbell to be dangerous and hard to get along with, but courage has never had anything to do with virtue. On that fatal night after the Fetterman Massacre when the dark fury of the buzzard swept down over Fort Phil Kearny, Carrington called for a volunteer to ride to Laramie for help. Phillips was the only one who would attempt it. And he did it. The run from Marathon was a child’s play by comparison. As a feat, it stood by itself.
Jacquine rode her spotted pony out to where Phillips lounged in his saddle, a half mile from the wagon train. He looked at her as she rode up, his eyes amused and somewhat cruel. Although now there was curiosity in them, too.
“You’ve been in the west a long time, haven’t you?” she asked.
He nodded. “I reckon.”
“Do you know the country west of here?”
“Some, no mor’n Murphy or Matt Bardoul.”
She looked at him quickly. “Do they know more about it than Tate Lyon?”
His yellowish eyes shifted to her, amused, calculating, ironic. “Yes,” he said, “they do. Lyon says he knows the route to Shell Creek or the Rottengrass. Maybe he does. He don’t know much else.”
“Do you know anything about the trouble between Bardoul and Colonel Pearson?”
He was frankly studying her now, and he grinned suddenly. “I take it your interest is personal,” he said.
For a minute or two they rode in silence, then he nodded. “I heard about it before I knowed either of ’em. Couple of soldiers told me. They was there.”
He spat. “That Pearson! He’s no leader! Massey’s doing what he damn’ well pleases with this whole outfit! Pearson’s just along for the ride!”
Phillips bit off another chew of tobacco. “It was down Mexico way, ‘most to the line, right in the heart of the Apache country. Pearson was in command of eighty men, followin’ the ‘Paches to punish them for raidin’ some wagon trains an’ ranches. Matt Bardoul was a good bit younger then, but he knowed Indians, an’ he knowed the west.
“They come up with the Indians about sunup in the morning. Up to then they hadn’t seen hide nor hair of an Indian, only the trail. These Indians fired an’ then disappeared into a valley. Matt went up ahead, an’ he saw maybe fifty ‘Paches campin’ in the bottom alongside of a stream. He rode back and told Pearson, then warned him it was a trap.
“Pearson laughed at him. Said let them try! He’d show ’em! Bardoul warned him again. Said it wasn’t Indian nature to camp so open like. It wasn’t Indian nature to be in camp that late in the morning when there were soldiers close by. Pearson told him flatly that he was either a coward, a traitor, or a fool, and he led his eighty men down into that canyon.
“Ma’am, you never fit Indians. They are uncommon shrewd folks. When the soldiers rode down into that canyon, those Indians vanished into the rocks, and then suddenly other ‘Paches, layin’ in ambush, opened up on the soldiers.
“Indians mostly was bad shots. But the first volley four of the soldiers went down. Matt, he yelled at Pearson to come on, wantin’ to make a run for it out of that trap, Pearson ordered his men to dismount and deploy. They did, and then they looked for a target, an’ no Indians in sight: Then the ‘Paches stampeded their horses, an’ they were trapped for fair. It was a good half mile of travel out of that canyon, an’ on foot they would have been slaughtered to the last man.