“We’ll be following the river from now on. For several days, anyway. You hear about the trouble Ben Sperry had?”
Reutz nodded. He stoked his pipe. “Matt, my crowd are about ready to break off from the rest of them. Some of them are getting scared. There’s a lot of bad talk going around, and from all I hear, Sperry’s wagon isn’t the only one that’s been searched.”
“Anything missing?”
“Nothing anybody noticed. But that doesn’t make the women folks any happier, knowing there are men like that Hammer prowling about the wagons. Nothing much has been said in meeting, but my boys are getting about ready for a break. If we make it, will you lead us?”
Matt stripped the saddle from the dun. “Damn it, Reutz, I’d like to, but right now I’m not anxious to break away from the train. If my boys want to break, however, I’ll stay with them. I know Aaron wants to. He’s said so in so many words. Lute ain’t so sure.”
“Could you take us to the Shell?”
“Surest thing you know. Get you there faster than Lyon will take this bunch.”
“What about Phillips? Where does he stand?”
“Portugee might go with us, but he’s an uncertain quantity right now. I figure the man has some idea of his own cooking around in that head of his. What it could be, I don’t know.”
He thought of telling Herman Reutz about Jacquine’s comments on Ryder and Boyne, then decided against it. No use giving such a story more importance than it had. Yet it was a story sure to be repeated. Odd, how such a preposterous story could get started, but when it came to that was the story so preposterous? How much did he know about the men in his own wagon train? Of them all, the only ones he had known before, were Ban Hardy and Buffalo Murphy. Stark, a hard bitten man, came from the country of the Natchez Trace, or not far from it. Lute Harless … well, under that bluff, amiable exterior he might be a lot of things. And he knew nothing of young Tolliver or of Bill Shedd. Nor, and here he might be striking the right note, of Ernie Braden or Bunker.
Space was cleared for dancing that night, and many of the men from the three companies stationed at the Fort came over for the festivities. Buffalo Murphy and Ban Hardy routed out their best and so did the others. Brian Coyle, accompanied by Jacquine and Barney, came over, followed in a few minutes by Clive Massey, handsome and distinguished in a black broadcloth suit and a white ruffled shirt. His black hat pulled low upon his brow, he looked everything the southern gentleman should be.
Bat Hammer was there, loitering with Buckskin Johnson and several more of the toughs from the Massey wagons. Logan Deane, silent and alone, leaned on a wagon wheel off by himself in the half darkness. There was plenty of food, and from somewhere came a barrel of liquor, and in a matter of a few minutes the camp was roaring with laughter. Murphy, in fine fettle, started a song and everyone joined in.
Thoughtful and watchful, Matt loitered on the edge of things. When the dancing started, he saw Jacquine move out into the circle with Clive Massey. They made a handsome couple and he felt a pang of actual physical pain as they moved together.
He smoked thoughtfully, staring across the firelight at the moving figures. A dozen couples were dancing now, and he noticed Lieutenant Powell move in and claim Jacquine for a dance.
Jacquine puzzled him, and he puzzled himself. Usually, he talked easily and fluently when with women, but when with Jacquine he always seemed to be saying things he had not wanted nor planned to say. They had talked little enough, but what he had said on those occasions was never what he wanted to say or should have said. He felt drawn to her as to no other woman he had ever met, but it irritated and angered him that she could like Clive Massey so much. At the same time, he could see that the man was attractive, yet she seemed unable to sense what he felt about Massey, that the man was evil, dangerous and definitely cruel.
He turned impatiently away from the fire and strode off into the darkness, swearing to himself. He wanted to ask her to dance but how would she receive him? If she refused, and well she might, he knew it would hurt like the very devil. Besides, he had no wish to be laughed at by the ruffians that hung around with Hammer.
Thinking of that, something occurred to himself suddenly that he had not considered before. What had been in the mind of that sergeant today when he suddenly told Lieutenant Powell who he was? Were they looking for him, too? Was something wrong? The sergeant was a stranger, and so was Powell. The Lieutenant had said he would find friends here … who?
He paced back and forth, smoking and thinking, trying to find his way into the mind of Massey that he might ferret out the plans for the wagon train. This would be their last contact with civilization. Going should be good for awhile, and in a couple of days forty or fifty miles would separate them from Fort Reno, and each day would move them further and further away.
Yet he held to his original view. If there was to be an attack, it would come when they were in the Basin, or at the north end of the Big Horns. That would be the logical place. Fort C. F. Smith would not be too far away, yet probably no one on the wagon train knew its exact location. And it would be too far away to do any good. It was, he believed, abandoned and in ruins, anyway.
He turned and walked back to the fire. Jacquine was standing across it, in conversation with Clive Massey. He had his hat off, and his patrician features looked clean and hard in the firelight. He was staring at Jacquine, and saying something. Then she laughed, and he caught her arm and laughed too. Fury bubbled up in Matt’s brain and he hurled his cigarette down.
He knew he was being a fool, but … he turned abruptly and walked around the fire. The fiddles were tuning for another dance. Matt started for Jacquine, walking swiftly. Suddenly a hand caught his arm. “Sir? The Captain would like to speak to you.”
He looked impatiently at the tall redheaded soldier. “Damn it, Man! There’s a dance on!”
“Sorry, sir!” The soldier grinned. “I know what you mean, but it’s urgent, sir.”
“All right!” He turned abruptly and walked away after the soldier. He did not see Jacquine’s eyes following him.
Captain Gordon Sharp stood behind a small fire at one side of the camp. There were no other soldiers around. The orderly led Bardoul to him, then saluted. “Mr. Bardoul, sir!”
“All right, thanks, Graves. You may go.”
Sharp was a short, compact man who carried himself erect, and had a square good-looking face. He might have been forty, but was probably a year or two younger. He thrust out a hand. “Bardoul? Sit down, will you? I’ve been wanting to have a talk with you.”
“With me, sir?”
“Yes. As you may know, we have the job on our hands of keeping some kind of order in a side section of territory. It is a pretty thankless job, and you can imagine. My men are nearly all recruits, just out from the east, and few of them have any idea of working with Indians. Also, we suffer from a division of sentiment.
Certain interests want the Indians driven still further west, others consider them noble redmen who can do no wrong and are badly abused. We naturally try to strike a middle course that we imagine is somewhere near the right one.
“We’ve an added problem now. Partly due to some vigilante efforts in the mining camps to the north and west, we are getting an influx of bad men. White men who are out for their own ends. They have been causing us just as much trouble as the Indians. Knowing the Sioux, you understand our problem. They strike here, then there, and we can never seem to catch up with them or pin down any certain bunch as the offenders. The result is that my men are riding themselves and their horses ragged, and not doing much good.”
Matt nodded. “I know how you feel. Unless you know the country, you wouldn’t have a chance.”
“There’s something else, too.” Captain Sharp picked a blazing twig from the fire and lit his pipe. “Ever hear of Sun Boyne?”
Bardoul chuckled. “Never knew much about him, but the last few days I’ve been hearing a lot!”