High Plains Justice, Page 4

FOUR

  By morning, though, he had thought about it some more. If the Indians they had followed were Cheyenne, then they seemed to be already headed homeward. Perhaps they had in mind stealing the Dryfe Sands cattle for their last act, that particular band taking the cattle, while their fellows distracted the army elsewhere. Keeping the army, and consequently the settlers, off balance, seemed the one possible way for the slow-moving cattle to be stolen entirely away.

  ‘You two take our spare horses back for the rest of our people, and then go on back to the ranch,’ he told Cab and Little Hawk in the morning. ‘Us three will be along in a day or two. We’ll check on where the cattle have gotten to first. Should be safe enough, with all the excitement now being to the north of here.’

  After seeing the other pair on their way, Johnnie and his two, with only their riding horses, started up the stream the Cheyenne had come out of several days before. According to Cab Phillips, the small party, whose tracks they had seen going up there ahead of them, consisted of a rancher’s wife being escorted back to her home by the Fort Washita sutler, and some friendly Indians, Apaches who lived among the Kiowa people. The lady had been sent down to the fort for safety during the Indian scare. The sutler, responsible for provisioning the fort, was going on a buying expedition anyway, beef, eggs, cheese, and garden produce, and to oblige, was starting his round with this lady’s home. Many ranchers’ wives ran small sidelines to earn themselves a little ready money of their own.

  Johnnie’s idea was to follow up the north branch of the Red River, and come out on the high plains somewhere ahead of both the Cheyenne and the rustlers. He knew roughly where their line of march would go, having twice brought small herds the other way through there himself, breeding stock his father had purchased from the far-off Kansas settlements. His first hint of further trouble came well on into their second day. Bobcat spotted a coyote disappearing into the mesquite on the far bank of the stream. It was carrying a domestic chicken in its mouth.

  ‘No good,’ he said.

  ‘So it’s stolen a chicken,’ Johnnie shrugged. ‘There must be a ranch close by.’

  ‘Why ranch dogs let coyote in?’ Bobcat asked.

  Johnnie nodded thoughtfully, and reached for the Sharp’s breech loader he carried in his saddle scabbard. He rode with it across his knees thereafter, loaded.

  In a short while they detected black dots circling in the sky far ahead, buzzards. There would be something going on below them to keep them up there. Equally, there would be something dead below them to keep them interested.

  The next thing was distant gunshots, popping noises coming downstream on the wind.

  ‘Movin’ this way,’ Bobcat said.

  The sounds were getting louder. The buzzards, too, were beginning to drop. The action had to have shifted away from the ground underneath them.

  ‘The edge of that butte up there,’ Johnnie indicated. ‘We’ll hole up. Let whoever it is come down river to us.’

  The place he had pointed out was where the cemented limestone, which underlay the high plains, was exposed at the edge of the canyon they were in. Fallen boulders dotted the scree slope where the stream swung round in an oxbow turn. It was a good place to defend, provided they kept an adequate cover on the high ground behind them. Anybody coming over the top would have a long stretch of open grass to cross.

  They had barely settled in position, with a good view up the canyon as far as a grove of cottonwoods about a half mile away, when four riders burst out of the trees, and galloped down the river flats. One was a woman riding side-saddle. Another wore an army campaign hat, but with a black cutaway coat, the Fort Washita sutler obviously. The other two were Indians.

  At a small stand of sycamore trees, part way down the clearing, the two Indians peeled off, to edge into the shelter the trunks afforded. The sutler and the woman kept coming.

  When they were almost to the turn, three more Indians suddenly dashed from the distant cot­tonwoods. Two were turned in the saddle, emptying their handguns into the trees behind them. The third was hunched in his saddle, bleeding, though that wasn’t stopping him from thumbing fresh loads into his chambers as he fled.

  Supporting fire came from the first pair of Indians, who were both sporting Sharps. Their nimble fingers were whipping cartridges out of their bandoliers and into the breeches at a surprising rate. How long their ammunition would last was another question. There was no doubt about the effect they had though. While their three comrades hightailed it flat stick down the clearing, other riders who had appeared under the trees behind them, spun their horses smartly back into shelter. Europeans? The rustlers again?

  ‘Barney! Barney McLay!’ Johnnie yelled at the sutler. ‘Get yourselves up here. We’ll make a stand.’

  Surprised, but thankful for Johnnie’s unexpec­ted appearance, the sutler turned his horse in behind the fall of scree without argument. He had thought his predicament hopeless, ammunition running low, and the nearest help or shelter days away. The woman pulled in beside him.

  She was young, barely out of her teens. A light coloured poke bonnet covered her hair. Tears had left ragged pathways through the red-brown dust on her cheeks, and her red-rimmed eyes were distant, almost unseeing. Probably in repose she was good-looking, but distraught as she was, Johnnie’s response to her was pity, rather than natural male interest.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Indians burnt out Jamie Edison’s spread about ten days, a fortnight ago,’ the sutler answered. ‘This is Mrs Edison. Jamie got her away to the fort with this bunch of friendlies, and knowing the raiders had gone north, and were away over the Canadian again, I was asked to see her back home. When we got there, Jamie, all his men were dead, and this mob were busy running off the cattle. The Indians took horses, guns, and ammunition. These vultures were cleaning up what was left. Mrs Edison, she’s feelin’ pretty bad about it, eh.’

  Johnnie looked at her. She was one sad lady all right. She was obviously still in shock.

  ‘Europeans this lot, are they?’ he asked, looking back to the attacking party.

  ‘Mostly. Bit of a mixture, but yeah, you could say Europeans.’

  The three nearest friendlies, Kiowa Apaches, were coming around the foot of the scree slope. Barney McLay called to them, bringing them up panting to join their small group among the rocks. The last two were attracting a hail of fire from the trees. One of their horses was down on its side, feebly kicking. Even as Johnnie took aim himself to do the job, its owner put a bullet into its head.

  ‘You folk keep them busy from here,’ Johnnie ordered. ‘They don’t know about us. Come on, Danny, Bobcat, we’ll go over the top, circle around behind them. We can fire down on them from the rim along there.’

  Danny and Bobcat cast knowing glances at each other. Dryfe Sands Johnnie sounded full of fire and confidence at the moment, but they rather expected an abrupt change of tune once the lead began to fly.

  Leaving the sutler with a packet of their reserve ammunition, Johnnie led the way on foot across the open grassland above the rim of the canyon. At the last moment they dropped to their knees to peer cautiously down into the stream bed behind the screen of cottonwoods. They could see several men in under the trees, some dismounted, others poised ready to take up the chase as soon as the two nearest Apaches were dealt with.

  There were probably thirty men down there. The number gave Johnnie pause, but there was no way of avoiding a fight with them, not if he was ever to face his friends and family again.

  ‘One each, and we move,’ he whispered, hoping his voice sounded steady. There was no need to assign targets. Danny, on the right, knew to take his choice from the righthand end of the bunch, while Johnnie had the centre, and Bobcat the left. Their three shots rang out in a rattle, which re-echoed back and forth across the canyon. Men dropped, two slackly from their saddles, the other writhing on the ground.

  Johnnie and his friends were already rolling away from the edge, and spreading out to find oth
er positions. When they next peeped down into the canyon, the men below were looking for them. No time could be allowed for a proper aim after that, nor for Johnnie to think much about what he was doing. A snap shot, and move away had to be the pattern. At least the people below couldn’t keep track of how many men they were faced with. On the other hand Johnnie couldn’t tell what further success he was having.

  Behind him, though, Danny and Bobcat had already exchanged approving nods. The young fellow was doing all right for himself so far.

  One of the Apaches shifted from the scree slope to come part way along the canyon rim. His fire was giving the outlaws something else to think about. Johnnie shifted again, until he found a place where, hatless, he could peer through a screen of yucca blades, and get a general view of what was happening below.

  Five bodies were in sight; only a couple of dozen or so to go. That was a thought he could do without! He needed something to keep pressure on them.

  All the rustlers’ horses had been drawn in under the trees, and he could only see where any of the men were by the jets of smoke when they fired.

  ‘Keep them busy,’ he told his companions. ‘Watch for any attempt to make a charge up here. I’m going to see if I can get across the river; take them from that side as well.’

  ‘They try coming up this slope below us,* Danny replied, ‘Barney’s lot can see them.’

  Johnnie wanted his horse. Getting unseen to a vantage point across the river involved going a long way around. Therefore he cut back to the reverse side of the scree slope, where he found Mrs Edison patching up the wounded Apache with strips torn from her petticoats. Having something useful to do had brought back some of the colour to her cheeks.

  ‘If I had a gun, I could join in,’ she offered. ‘I can use one.’ If it hadn’t been for their circumstances, her slow southern accent would have made him smile, it was so like the speech of the ex-slaves on the Dryfe Sands’ payroll.

  ‘You can have my revolver, Mrs Edison,’ he agreed soberly. ‘It kicks something awful though.’

  ‘I’ll manage. Call me Mary-Lou. I’m a widow woman now.’

  ‘Mary-Lou,’ he nodded, unstrapping his gunbelt. The Sharps was all he needed, if he was to fire from across the river.

  ‘Oh my,’ she said, when she took his revolver from its holster. ‘I haven’t seen one like this before. What is it?’

  ‘It’s French made. A Lefancheaux. I bought it from a French slaver in Baton Rouge. It loads like this,’ he explained, and went on to show her how to load the chambers from the rear with ready- prepared metal cartridges. The Colt weapons she was used to all had to be loaded from the front with percussion caps, and then powder, and then bullets, all separately.

  Mary-Lou, he thought, as he went for his horse. She seemed to have a darned sight more spirit than he would have expected. He had heard talk of her at the time of her wedding — Mary-Lou Cum­berland Edison now, the Cumberland Belle they had called her. She was a daughter of rich southern planters, who had married a younger son, James Quincy Edison, if he remembered the name correctly. Himself the scion of a Mississippi cotton dynasty, Edison had hoped to found his own fortune in cattle. The talk had been that both of them would be too soft for the ranching life. Well, she had certainly been given the opportunity to test whether that estimate was true of herself.

  He led his big black horse down on to the flat, before he mounted up. The nearest break in the canyon rim across the river was some half mile back. He was in a hurry, and galloped all the way.

  When he slowed, looking for a place to drop into the river, his horse nickered.

  ‘Hush Dusky,’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  He had long since learned to take notice whenever his horse was trying to tell him something. This time Dusky had detected a presence in a clump of willows under the canyon wall. Perhaps a cougar, a bobcat. Time was short. Getting into a new position was more important than investigating Dusky’s unease. He was about to move on, when there was an answering nicker from the willows.

  That was different. Another horse was where another horse shouldn’t be. Cocking the Sharps, but wishing he had his revolver in his hand, he kneed Dusky forward into the willows.

  A bay mare, a mustang, barebacked, was tethered there. Its bridle was of woven hair, an Indian’s horse, but not Commanche. If it had been Commanche, there would have been a loop braided into the horse’s mane, and hanging under its neck. The animal hadn’t been there when they had passed this spot not more than half-an-hour before.

  Bare feet had left their pattern in the dust. A man had gone up to the mesa above. Clearly he would be spying on the gun battle up the river... only who would he then be reporting to? It was important to find out. More friendlies would certainly be welcome, Apache, maybe Kiowa in this country. Or they could be neutrals, people not wanting to get mixed up in the white man’s squabbles. Then again, they could be Cheyenne, Arapaho, or some such, not withdrawn from the area at all.

  A short distance away a draw offered a steep route up out of the canyon. Johnnie put his horse to it. Riding up would be faster than going on foot, and it was a fair bet that the spy would be somewhere directly above his horse. Johnnie must have taken him by surprise by coming down river so fast, while the gun battle was still going on.

  Sure enough, as Johnnie expected, as soon as he started the climb up the draw, the Indian made a break for his horse.

  There was a brief glimpse of buckskin in the mesquite, and a crashing of breaking twigs under the trees. A moment later horse and rider broke cover, going for dear life down the river flats.

  Johnnie held his fire. He had no wish to shoot anybody who wasn’t definitely an enemy.

  Too late, he found that this one was. The brave was a Cheyenne scout. He was gone while Johnnie was still trying to identify him. ‘Where was he going?’ was the question.

  On up the draw, Johnnie came out on the open grassland again, and again he correctly guessed what the other man would do. In a few minutes the brave appeared out of a draw further down river. He turned in the saddle, looking back at Johnnie, while heading east across the grass as fast as he could go.

  East? That was back in the direction of Fort Washita, more or less. There were still marauders, then, ravaging further down the Red River.

  Thoughtfully, Johnnie turned back along the canyon rim. He had changed his mind about firing on the rustlers from across the river. There were more urgent things needing doing.