So one by one he began to assay the metal of the men who were to travel with him. Of Brooks and Stark he had no doubt. These were good men, sincere men, strong men. Coyle himself was a man of civilization, yet he seemed to have the quality the frontier demanded.
There were others who would bare study. The lean, slab-sided Iry Jackson, burly Lute Harless with his foghorn voice and bulging eyes. Larson, the big, slow moving Swede, and the Jew, Rabun Kline. These men promised well, and no doubt there were others.
Of Pearson he already knew too much, yet he hesitated to form too decided an opinion, for experience might have wrought some change. Nothing Matt Bardoul had seen on the frontier impressed him with military men or their ability, even in their own field. Steeped in tradition, they were bound in a lockstep of ritual and a chain of command that throttled initiative. They were a mill that ground slowly and exceedingly fine, and more often than not by the time the grinding had ceased the need for flour was gone.
The Fetterman Massacre had only served to convince him of his judgment. He had seen Major Powell, an experienced Indian fighter, outranked for command of a rescue party by Fetterman. Then Fetterman, disdainful of the Indians’ fighting ability, had gone out and pursued a few scattered Indians over a ridge. It was a trap in which his entire command was wiped out.
The only two men in the lot who fought with any skill or ability were two civilian guides who had been found, ringed with pools of blood where their enemies had fallen.
The case was not isolated. The mountain men fought the Indians when necessary, lived with them, hunted with them, and kept peace with them for the most part, but when they did fight, they usually won.
Pearson was a spit and polish soldier, narrow and self-centered, far from the best of his lot, but better than the worst.
They found Hardy’s German sitting in front of his tent, a squat, red-faced man with cropped blond hair and a blond walrus mustache. His wagons were good and his teams better. When the trading was over, Matt had bought two wagons, Hardy another, and Murphy, despite his objections to encumbering himself, a fourth.
Twice during the two days that followed Matt glimpsed Jacquine Coyle from a distance, and both times she was with Clive Massey.
Matt wasted no time in preparations. His decision had been made and he hurried to buy the supplies he wanted, and then the three of them drove out to the rendezvous followed by a man named Bill Shedd whom Bardoul hired.
On the second day after the meeting the man had approached him on Sherman Street. “Seen you at the meetin’,” he said. “I had me a wagon but lost her in a poker game. Coyle said if I could latch onto a job as a driver I’d still be one of the train.”
“All right.” Matt liked the look of the man. He was big, awkward, but kindly looking, and seemingly as powerful as one of the oxen he wished to drive. “You’ve latched on. Have you got a rifle?”
“Uh huh, a rifle an’ a short gun, an’ a fair to middlin’ cowpony.”
“What kind of rifle?”
“Winchester .44.”
“Good! Mine’s the same, so we won’t be worried about having ammunition for you.” Matt reached in his pocket and dropped a couple of gold coins in the man’s hand. “That’ll keep you until we leave, but be ready to go on time. Understand?”
By the next morning there were forty wagons at the rendezvous and most of them had come in during the night. Some of the wagons were carrying passengers with their weapons and tools. They were a rough, hard bitten lot, but good fighting men. Matt strolled aimlessly about, keeping his eyes open. Around the wagons of Deane, Bat Hammer, and a few of their like there seemed to be a preponderance of armed men. In each of those wagons rode two extra men, and a rough, surly lot they were.
“Murphy,” he said thoughtfully, “we’ve got four wagons among the three of us, four men to four wagons, counting Shedd. I was just over near Deane’s wagon. He’s got two hard cases riding with him, and the wagon is loaded light for three men. Hammer has two riding with him, and so has Hatcher. Strikes me they are long on tough men, an’ short on supplies an’ equipment.”
Murphy nodded, lifting one booted foot to a wagon tongue. He said nothing, but his eyes squinted toward Deane’s wagon, and his expression was thoughtful.
The IXL Dining Room was crowded when Matt arrived in town Monday afternoon, but he pushed his way inside, looking for a table. His eye caught the eye of Brian Coyle who was seated at a table with Clive Massey and Jacquine. There was an empty chair, and when Coyle recognized him he stood up and waved for him to join them.
“Sit down, boy! Sit down! If we’re all going on this trip together we might as well get acquainted!”
He gestured. “My daughter, Jacquine and Mr. Massey you’ve met. Jacquine, this is Matt Bardoul.”
Matt bowed gravely, his eyes on Jacquine’s, then he seated himself and slid his black hat under the chair. Jacquine lifted her cup and glanced at him over the rim, her eyes amused and faintly curious.
There was quality in this girl, something slim and handsome and finely tempered as a Kentucky thoroughbred. The red gold of her hair against the smooth beauty of her cheek stirred him, and he had trouble keeping his eyes from one flaming tendril of hair that brushed like living fire against the soft whiteness of her neck.
“You’ve been to the Big Horns?” Coyle asked, looking him over with interest.
“Yes, I was there a few years ago during the Indian trouble.”
“You know the Sioux?”
He shrugged. “Some, I expect. Jim Bridger was probably the only white man who knew them well, but Phillips and Buffalo Murphy both know them.”
“Will they make trouble for us?”
“Certainly.” Matt buttered a piece of bread. “They won’t attack a party of our size, although they might even try that, but they are more likely to try to pick off any stragglers or run off our stock. Most of the big chiefs of the Sioux and Cheyenne are on reservations now or in flight, and their statesmen, the ones like Red Cloud, Spotted Tail or John Grass have become men of peace.”
“Statesmen?” Massey smiled, his dark eyes amused “That’s scarcely the term for a savage, is it?”
“It’s the right term for some of them, and especially for the ones I mentioned. A much better term than savage. There is always a question as to who is the savage and who is not. The Indian was a nomadic people who kept this country in a condition suited to his needs. He felt no necessity for complexity, he was content with the land, the buffalo, the beaver, and the wild game of other kinds. The land remained unchanged, and there was no necessity for change.
“The white man came and the beaver are gone, the buffalo are going. The white man cuts the timber along the streams so the rain rushes unchecked into the streams and causes floods that formerly the roots and brush held back. Already, in some places, he is putting too much stock on the grass, overgrazing the country.
“Time alone will tell what this will mean to the country, but for one, I don’t like the look of it.
“As to being statesmen, what is a statesman? I think he’s a leader who serves best the interests of his people, and the Indians I mentioned have done that, to the best of their ability against what some might consider a superior barbarism.
“If one is to consider oratory as part of a statesman as some people seem to believe, I believe the Indian surpasses any people in history, not excepting the Greeks and the Romans. Had the Indians possessed a Plutarch, you might agree with me.”
“You wouldn’t compare Red Cloud to Cato?” Brian Coyle asked, interested but incredulous.
Matt took a swallow of coffee. Jacquine was looking at him, surprise in her eyes, and he was pleasantly conscious that her interest was intrigued. The subject interested him, and he nodded a response to Coyle’s question.
“Yes, I would. For apt or picturesque expression I doubt if anyone could surpass the orators of the Sioux or Cheyenne, but their greatest asset is the greatest asset of any speaker … they have simplicity of statement, a gift for direct phrasing.
“In all recorded history there is no more tragic epitaph to a beaten, dying people who have been robbed of their birthright than that uttered by Spotted Tail when he said, ‘The land is full of white men; our game is all gone, and we have come upon great trouble.’ “