The Ferguson Rifle (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 6

  Was Fernandez with them? He was.

  “Likely it was his idea,” Sandy commented. “That’s one we owe him.”

  “The Utes need no ideas,” Talley replied. “I never knew an Indian yet who needed help figuring an ambush. They dread an ambush more than anything, and use it themselves when they can.”

  “I’m for cuttin’ loose,” Bob Sandy said. “Let’s clear off from these Cheyennes and head for the mountains. They move slow, and it’ll be dead cold before we make it.”

  “You’re forgetting those Cheyennes up ahead. If we leave these people, they won’t know we’re friendly.”

  “I don’t know that I am,” Sandy replied coolly. “An Injun is an Injun. If we leave this lot, they’ll kill us first time they see their chance.”

  “I don’t believe that, Bob,” I said. “If we were strangers to them, it might be true, but now we know them. We have ridden with them.”

  “You think like you want, Scholar. Them books will teach you plenty but they’ll surely not help you savvy Injun ways. You got to learn them firsthand.”

  “I appreciate that, Bob, but I still believe this party of Cheyennes are our friends.”

  Sandy shrugged. “Maybe. But I notice you don’t leave that Ferguson rifle lyin’ around. You’re in more trouble than the rest of us, Scholar. There ain’t an Injun in America who wouldn’t give ever’ horse he owns for that rifle. It ain’t only the way it shoots, but all that silver foofaraw you got on the stock. To an Injun that’s prime.”

  No doubt what he said was true. Certainly the weapon I carried was a beautiful specimen of the gunmaker’s art, and such a weapon was rarely seen on the western plains, although occasionally some trapper or Indian would decorate his gun with brass studs. Sometimes this was a design, more often his name or initials in the rifle stock.

  Few of the Indians had seen my weapon fired, almost none of them at close range, and so far as I knew, none of them realized the rapidity with which it could be loaded and fired. Yet I knew enough of Indians not to underrate them.

  There had been a time in the eastern areas when a group of Indians approached a number of white soldiers and asked them if they would not extinguish the matches with which they fired their guns. They protested that the sight of the flaming matches frightened their women and children. Obligingly, the soldiers did so, and then the Indians promptly attacked and killed all but one man, who fled into the woods and escaped.

  The Indians had been shrewd enough to see that the musket of the white man had to be fired by a lighted match, although supposedly the Indian knew little of such weapons. The Indian was endlessly curious, quick to observe and to comprehend, and quite able to make minor repairs on damaged weapons. To underrate either their intelligence or their skill would be dangerous.

  Over our campfires and when riding, we discussed the question from all aspects. We did wish to be about the business of trapping, but there was even more to be gained by trading. Alone of all our party, I possessed no trade goods, so whatever I had would be from trapping alone.

  The hunting jacket and leggings begun back along the trail had been completed, and I now wore them, packing my other clothing away for state occasions.

  The country grew increasingly rough. The ridges were often topped by thick brush or trees.

  There were thousands of antelope, and twice we saw herds of wild horses that fled at our approach. Once we came down to a muddy spot, almost an acre in extent, trampled by wild horses. There were wolves about. We counted two dozen in the last hour of our march, and once we were in camp they lurked nearby.

  During the night, I was awakened by something tugging at my pillow and sprang up to find myself facing a large wolf. Our bacon was wrapped in burlap, several sides of it together, and then placed in canvas bags for ease in packing. I usually used one of these bags as a pillow, and it was this the wolf had smelled.

  Rifle in hand, I glared at him and he glared right back, growling. He stood over the bacon and seemed of no mind to give it up. On the other hand, bacon was a delicacy out here and all too little remained. Nevertheless I disliked firing at the animal in camp, and knew it would immediately awaken everyone who would spring to arms, believing an attack was in progress.

  Tentatively I took a step nearer, looking into the wolf’s yellowish eyes, gleaming in the firelight. He snarled more fiercely, bristling and ready to fight, but when I took a step nearer he hesitated, then when I stepped quickly forward, rifle poised, he broke and fled. Gathering up the torn sack, I brought it back into camp.

  Glancing at my watch, I saw the hour was thirty minutes past three. The sky was clouded over and I could see no stars. The wind was picking up and the air was cold. I added some sticks to the fire, which blazed up pleasantly, so I tugged on my boots and filled a cup of coffee.

  Sleep had left me, and I was as wide awake as if it were morning. The wind worried me for no small sounds could be heard through its rustling and movement. Degory Kemble was on guard and I moved away from the fire to where he watched from some small brush.

  “It’s a wild night,” he whispered, when I was near. “I’ve had a notion something’s moving yonder, but I’d not want to wager upon it. Sometimes I’m sure I’ve heard something, and then it seems to be nothing. I’m glad you’re here. Now both of us can be fooled.”

  We were silent, straining our ears against the wind for sound, and then we heard it, a momentary sound through an interval in the rising wind.

  A shot…and then another, but far off…lost upon the wind.

  “It wasn’t that, but something nearer by.”

  “Who would be shooting? Not many Indians have guns. Captain Fernandez, perhaps?”

  “At what? That sound was afar off…a half mile or even a mile.”

  We waited, listening, but we heard nothing more. Suddenly our horses snorted, stamping and tugging at their picket rope. Getting up, I went quickly among them, quieting them, but listening as I moved.

  Something was out there…but what?

  We did not awaken the others, waiting for what would develop. The horses were wary, apprehensive of something, yet they did not act as they would if there were wolves. As the horses quieted, I left them, listening into the wind to catch the slightest sound.

  From the camp of the Cheyennes, there was no sound. I could see the faint, reddish glow of their fire, but nothing more.

  So we waited out the night. Toward morning I dozed near the fire, awakening only to stir it up for cooking our breakfast meat.

  Ebitt picked up the canvas pack, hefted it, then looked inside. He glanced at me. “Did your wolves come back? A slab of bacon’s gone.”

  Degory Kemble glanced at me, then walked over and slowly inspected the ground. Our own feet had trod so much upon the grass that no other tracks could be seen.

  “It was no wolf,” Cusbe said, showing us the rawhide strings. They had been untied, the bacon taken.

  “It’s them thievin’ redskins,” Bob Sandy said. “Give ’em a chance an’ they’ll take the camp away, and everything that’s in it.”

  “Is anything else missing?”

  Talley checked, as we all did. A small sack of meal was gone, and perhaps a half pound of powder that had been left in a sack.

  “Odd,” Talley muttered. “There was a full sack alongside, and my bullet molds and some lead. That wasn’t touched.”

  We exchanged a look, and then Solomon Talley shrugged. “A thief who takes only the small things,” he said, “and not much of that.”

  “But a thief good enough to Injun into our camp whilst it was watched,” Davy Shanagan said. “I’ve a thought it was the Little People.”

  Cusbe Ebitt snorted. “There’s an Irishman for you! Something he can’t explain and it had to be banshees or the like! I’d say we should move out.”

  We saddled up, and saddling K
emble told of the distant shots we’d heard, and of something moving in the night. Nobody had any comment, but when I rode out to take the point, Buffalo Dog was with me, and he had heard the shots.

  The land was vastly broken now, with jagged upthrusts of rock here and there, a difficult land to guard against, for at every step there were places where an enemy might hide, and a man must ride always ready, and no dozing in the saddle or depending upon the other fellow.

  We were a hundred yards ahead of the others, entering a gap between low, grassy hills, when Buffalo Dog pointed with his rifle.

  For a moment I did not see it, then I did. Blood upon the grass, blood still wet.

  Isaac Heath was closest of them and he came riding to see what it was. He looked at it. “You heard shots, all right, and whoever was hit was hard hit. That’s a sight of blood.”

  Buffalo Dog was looking up the slope, studying the brush and rocks at the top. Leaving Heath to point the column, the Cheyenne and I went up the slope, our rifles carried ready for a quick shot if need be, yet even as I rode I was agreeing with Heath. Whoever had lost that much blood was not going far.

  Nor was he.

  We found him among the first rocks. He was a slender man, well made, wearing buckskin leggings but a uniform coat, badly torn now and stained with blood.

  We looked slowly around, but he was alone, and no horse was with him, nor any tracks of a horse. Kneeling, I turned him over, and he was dead, his sightless eyes turned wide to the sky.

  He was a white man, and he clutched a worn skinning knife…nothing else.

  Buffalo Dog scouted about, but I looked at the man. Here was a strange thing, a mystery, if you like. Who was he? How had he come here? At whom had he been shooting? Or who had shot him?

  The man’s features were well cut…he looked the aristocrat, yet when I saw his hands, I could not believe that. The nails were broken, the fingers scarred, the hands calloused from hard work.

  Davy Shanagan came up the slope. “Ah, the poor man! But where did he come from, then? There’s no chance he was alone.”

  “There was at least one other,” Talley said dryly. “The man who shot him.”

  “Aye,” Cusbe agreed. “That’s a bullet wound. And in the night.” He glanced over at me. “And no Indian, or he’d have lost his hair. There’s something a bit strange in all of this.”

  “Captain Fernandez,” I suggested, “was farther north than he should have been. Farther north than he had a right to be. Could he have been chasing this man?”

  “That’s a Spanish uniform,” Talley agreed. “He may be a deserter.”

  Carefully, I turned back the coat. There were pockets on the inside, and in the right side pocket there was flint and steel and a stub of pencil. There was blood on the pencil, blood on the edge of the pocket. I glanced at the outflung right hand, and there was blood on it, too.

  The column of our people had halted in the gap below, and Solomon Talley turned toward them. “We’d best move on,” he said. “This is no place to be come upon by Indians.”

  He went off, moving swiftly, and Cusbe followed. Shanagan moved after them. “Leave him,” he said. “What difference does it make whether it’s wolves or ants? It’ll be one or the other.”

  Buffalo Dog was prowling about. I opened the man’s shirt, feeling something beneath it. A gold medal, hung from a gold chain. A fine thing it was, of fine workmanship, and not the thing any casual man would have.

  I took it from him, and then noticed the ring with its crest, and took that. In a small pouch under his belt there was a square of paper with a crudely drawn map upon it, three gold coins, and two small silver buttons each bearing a Maltese Cross. I didn’t recognize any landmark on the map.

  I pocketed the pouch after placing the ring and the medal within it. If there was any way of discovering who the man was, these small clues might help.

  Buffalo Dog rode back to me, and dragging the man’s body into a crevice in the rocks, I piled brush over it. There was no time for anything else. Yet the puzzle would not leave me.

  In the saddle, I indicated the man’s body. “Could you trail the killer?” I suggested.

  He shrugged and we rode back to the others. The last of the Indians was just coming through the gap and Walks-By-Night was with them.

  Buffalo Dog went off toward the head of the column and I began scouting around, cutting for sign, as they say.

  Walks-By-Night joined me, and I told him what we had found.

  “Who killed him?” I wondered, “And why?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Walks-By-Night let his eyes scan the slope of the grassy hill. “He walks there, I think, where the grass is bent.”

  He had better eyes than I, for at the distance no bent grass was visible to me, but riding closer we found a trail. And there were drops of blood upon the grass.

  It was then I told him of the missing bacon, meal, and powder. He listened, saying nothing, obviously puzzled by a thief with opportunity who took but one slab of bacon, and only powder but no lead.

  “Either we have a thief who took only what was desperately needed or one who did not wish to carry more than that.”

  “It was not this man,” Walks-By-Night said.

  A thought occurred to me. “The shots had to come a few minutes before four o’clock, and something was bothering our horses about that time. Whatever or whoever stole our bacon and meal evidently was outside of camp when the shots were fired.”

  He stared off into the distance, and after a moment held up two fingers, then made the sign for together.

  The bacon thief and the dead man together? “If they had been together,” I suggested, “they must have had a camp last night.”

  Warily, we backtracked the wounded man. He had fallen several times, but each time had struggled to his feet.

  His back trail led us to a saddle in the low hills where we approached with some care. The Cheyenne motioned me to wait and hold the horses while he crept up to the crest of the nearest hill.

  After a moment, he motioned me forward. Coming down from the hill, he slipped to the back of his horse and we crossed the saddle into a shallow, grassy valley. At the head of the valley, not two hundred yards off was a small clump of cottonwood and willow, and the greener grass of a seep or spring.

  Two antelope were near the spring. They moved off as we drew near, evidence enough that no one else was close by.

  Yet among the trees we found the remains of a fire, a faint tendril of smoke rising, and when we stirred the coals, a tiny gleam of red still existed.

  Carefully, I looked about. Day-by-day my small skills in the wilderness were returning, and I was gathering more by watching and listening.

  Walks-By-Night held up three fingers, and swiftly made the signs for man, woman, and boy.

  “A woman? Here?”

  It was incredible. He showed me the print of a riding boot, too small to belong to anyone but a woman.

  There had been four horses, but the horses were gone, and there were no packs. We knew the whereabouts of the man, but what of the others?

  Five men had come here searching. Walks-By-Night studied the ground with care, and then as we rode away, he explained. Much of it I had seen myself, but I could not read sign with his infinite skill.

  “Five men come in the night…they find nothing.”

  “Then there’s a woman and a boy out here alone? We must find them, my friend.”

  “You know her?” He was puzzled by my anxiety. “She is of your people?”

  “She is a woman alone, with a boy. She will need help.”

  He asked many questions, and I tried to explain. No, I did not want the woman as a woman. I did not know her tribe.

  Obviously the idea was foreign to him, for to most Indians any stranger was a potential enemy, and chivalry, by our
standards, was alien to their thinking. Yet the Indian had his own chivalry, and that was the way in which I explained.

  “It is like counting coup,” I said. “To strike a living armed enemy is to count coup. To take a scalp is to count coup. According to the code of chivalry, to help the helpless is to count coup.”

  He was immediately interested, but he was growing restless. There were enemies about, both Indian and white, and our companions were drawing farther and farther away. We took time for a quick swing around to see if we could pick up the trail, and we could not.

  As for the five men who had come to the camp, without doubt they were those who had killed the man whose body we found, but whom they had not found. Why?

  The question was a good one. The trail had been easy to follow, the body lying at the end of it, but there had been no tracks to indicate discovery, nor had the body been searched except by me.

  Had they been so sure he was dead? Or didn’t they care? Then why shoot him at all?

  Obviously they wanted something he had, yet nothing had been taken from him. Hence it was something he had that he did not carry on his person…or somebody.

  Perhaps it was not he whom they wanted, but those he accompanied?

  That would explain why once he had been shot and put out of the game they had not followed. They had followed the others.

  Yet someone had slipped into our camp, stolen bacon, meal, and a little powder and escaped…not a girl, surely. But a lad now, a healthy, ambitious lad? There was a likely thing.

  We rode swiftly to overtake the others, but the problem nagged at my attention. If the lad had come to rob our camp, and the now dead man had gone off in another direction, where was the woman? Or girl or whatever she was?

  And what were they doing out here in the wilderness, and why were they pursued?

  We rode down into the bed of the North Fork. There was much sand, little wood except driftwood, most of it half buried in sand, although growing on the bluffs in the distance appeared a few low trees that I took to be cedar.