Medicine Road (22 page)

"Let's ride," snapped another of the Missouri
hardcases. "We ain't catching no emigrant wagons
standing here."

The saddle herd was run in, each man making his
own hurried catch-up. Twenty minutes after Andy
Hobbs had mentioned the Arapaho squaw's limp,
Jesse's coyote skinners were on their way.

Sitting the high-loping Heyoka in the midst of his
little band, the mountain man nodded grimly. A
man had to be proud of his color, sometimes. There
wouldn't be a manjack of these boys worth his salt
by settlement standards. They were, every one of
them, ignorant as pigs and dirtier than a Ute's scalp.
But where else would a man find a dozen bucks as
ready to slap on a saddle and ride their bottoms raw
just for the privilege of swapping shots with 100
touchy Arapaho hostiles?

When Jesse's dust-bearded riders rounded Little
Willow Bend of the Black Fork, to gallop into crossmeadow view of the mile-distant loop of Wild
Horse Bend, the damage was already done. Not that
they hadn't known it would be, damn the red devils.
Five miles back on the Cut-Off they'd seen the
grease-black smoke of the burning wagons snaking
skyward. Now, breaking across the meadow in their
headlong, yelling charge, they got the whole picture.

Two wagons had somehow made it to the fork,
and from behind them and a convenient shelf bank
of the river the handful of white survivors were
standing the Arapahoes off. The other wagons,
amid a shambles of dead and dying oxen, were
burning freely in mid-meadow.

Jesse led his aroused muleskinners down on the
still circling Arapahoes, trapping them against the
half-moon curve of the riverbank. Had the odds
been a little less overwhelming in Black Coyote's favor, the saga of the Wind River Arapahoes might
have come to a much more abrupt and satisfactory
end. And even as it was, for all the beautiful strategy
with which Watonga split his forces and broke them
out both horns of the half moon, the Arapaho chief left behind no less than ten of his slit-eyed followers.
The injured among these, on Jesse's short-barked
order, were shot through the head, the white rescuers then setting quickly about pulling the terrorstricken emigrants together.

By the way the hostiles had broken and fled
rather than making a fight of it, Jesse knew, even before he slid Heyoka in among the shocked survivors, that Watonga had already gotten what he'd
come after-whatever that might prove to be. And
what it proved to be was his own hunch: Lacey
O'Mara's red-headed son, Johnny.

He got the entire tragedy from the compressed
lips of the strangely composed Lacey. While she told
it, Morgan Bates put his muleskinners to helping the
emigrants bury their dead and tend their wounded.
Lacey's story went tough and straight and short.

Approaching Wild Horse Bend, just after the
wagons had passed a high spur of sand hills, the
Arapaho squaw had come leaping out of the O'Mara
wagon in which she had been riding with Kathy.
The squaw had shouted that the child was dying
and that the wagons must halt at once.

Tim, with peculiar alacrity and total carelessness
about the train's exposed position in the open
meadow, had stopped the train at once. The squaw
had then disappeared back into the wagon to return
in a moment clutching the blanketed form of little
Kathy. She had at once begun to cry out that water
must be brought from the river, without delay.

Three of the men, on Tim's orders, had grabbed
water skins and run for the river, on foot. The instant they had left, Elk Woman had lifted Johnny up
on her pony, saying: "Bad him see sick child. Child
die, boy no see."

Lacey, taking Kathy's bundled form from the Indian woman, had nodded, thinking the squaw
meant to divert Johnny's attention from the fact of
his little sister's condition. A second later she had
looked up, horrified to see Elk Woman riding like
the wind toward the spur of low hills, Johnny kicking and yelling across the withers of her racing pony.

The next moment they had all been startled to see
Tim leap on his saddle gelding and take out after the
Indian woman. From his shouts and yells, they had
assumed he was dashing off on an instant and brave
attempt to catch the squaw before she could reach
the sanctuary of the hills. But then, even as they
were voicing their confused admiration for Tim's
act, and before any thought of an organized pursuit
of the squaw could be formed, the hills had belched
out a cloud of screaming red warriors. Elk Woman
and Johnny, followed by the hapless Tim, had disappeared into the belly of this cloud that then swept
on unchecked, to surround the strung-out wagons.

The three men who had gone for water had been
shot down immediately, cut off as they tried making
it back to the train from the stream. Most of the
wagons had been overturned and fired before the
first white shots were gotten off. Only the fact Tom
Yarbrough's two wagons were mule-drawn had allowed any of the emigrants to escape. These survivors of the first Arapaho rush had managed to get
into the two mule wagons and make a dash for the
riverbed, Lacey, still clutching Kathy, among them.

They had reached the river ten minutes before
Jesse's arrival. In those ten minutes the Arapahoes
had pulled off toward the hills, evidently being undecided about continuing the assault. Their chief's
towering figure, unmistakable under its sinister, eight-foot war-bonnet trademark, had been plainly
visible as he rode the front of the packed warrior
ranks, exhorting them to return to the attack.

Then, as the hostiles had hesitated, an even more
sinister figure moved out of their ranks to join Watonga in haranguing them to wipe out the rest of the
white party. Not a member of the emigrant group
had failed to identify this latter figure. None of them
would ever forget the shock accompanying the
identification. Beyond all reasonable doubt of distance or over-wrought nerves, it was the hulking,
bearthick form of Tim O'Mara. The renegade's oratory, text unknown, had been quickly fruitful, the
whooping savages having just launched their second charge as Jesse and his muleskinners rode
around the bend.

The mountain man and the dry-eyed emigrant
woman had been crouching against the shelf bank
while she told her story, Jesse not touching her or interrupting her, knowing the least sign from him
might precipitate the breakdown he could see building behind her staring eyes. All through the stumbling recital, she had clutched the huddled form of
her daughter, hard against her, not looking at the
child, not even seeming to know she held her. When
she had finished, she remained crouching against
the caving sandbank, looking, glassy-eyed, right
through the listening mountain man.

Jesse reached over, then, taking the pitiful bundle
from her. A glance at the eggshell crush of the small
face, blood-smeared and wide-eyed, showed him
the squaw must have heel-swung the child's head
against the inner sideboards of the wagon bed. His
low-growled mutter went to the stony-calm mother.

"She's dead, Lacey gal." The emigrant woman did not appear to hear him and he touched her on the
shoulder. "Lacey, I said she's dead. Kathy's done for,
honey."

Lacey nodded dully, her eyes contracting as her
face muscles pulled her lips up into the blank smile.
"Dead," was all she said, before starting to laugh.

Jesse dropped the child, leaped for her mother.
Seizing her by the dress front, he swung his hand,
hard and dry as a cedar chunk, across her mouth.

"Shut up, Lacey! Shut up!"

He shook her like a bear with a range colt in his
jaws. The laugh kept coming. Harsh. High. Crazy.

Stepping back, Jesse sighted the writhing mouth,
smashed one short, right-hand jolt up under the
slack chin. Lacey's head flipped back, dropped, sagging forward, the mountain man moving in and
catching her as she fell. Easing her slumped form
down beside that of the dead child, he legged it up
the sandbank.

Minutes later, the shocked survivors of Watonga's
raid were being loaded into the two mule wagons.

"We put the bodies in that water cut over yonder."
Morgan Bates pointed out the shallow grave to
Jesse. "We heaved some loose sand and rocks over
them ... enough to hold off the buffalo wolves.
Ain't much else we could do."

"How many dead?"

"Six. Five men and one old woman. Any back of
the riverbank where you was?"

"Just the little gal," Jesse answered.

"Well, that makes seven, all told," said the boss
muleskinner. "I checked them three that was cut off
trying to get back from the stream. They're so full of
feathers they'd fly if you launched 'em."

"All right, then"-the mountain man nodded"you're set to roll. You oughtn't to have no trouble
making it back to the company wagons."

"What you mean, we oughtn't? Ain't you coming?" Morgan Bates eyed Jesse, waiting with his fellow muleskinners, for the mountain man's answer.

"Nope, reckon not. The sons grabbed that little
redhead boy the same as I figured they would. I got
a stake in that kid and I mean to look after it. And
another thing, too ..."-Jesse paused while his blue
eyes swept their faces-"I owe the pot a few dollars
for not pegging that damn' Tim O'Mara, right off.
He's the white son-of-a-bitch that's working for
Brigham Young in this deal. Cripes, I've been dumb
as a Mexican mule. He's a Mormon, he ditched this
train to go on up to Salt Lake, he shows up again
right along with Watonga's village, he gets it from
the squaw about me taking his woman away from
him ... hell! The whole damn' mess is my fault,
and, boys, I aim to clean it up. Beginning with
Johnny and ending with that lousy Tim!"

"Talk's cheap," Joplin Smith, one of the Missouri
hardcases, broke in acidly. "How you aim to get the
kid back? Hell, they probably knocked his brains
out the minute they got him behind them hills."

"By God, I don't know how I'm going to do it."
Jesse scowled. "But one thing I do know. They ain't
harmed the kid, and they won't. Not short of us getting him away from them, they won't." The mountain man paused, regarding the silent men with his
strange, quiet eyes before continuing. "That big
squaw is barren and she's set on getting a son for
Watonga. Well, she's got him now. She sure ain't going to club him. I know how them hostiles are with
boy kids. Happen they knock over a settler outfit, they'll near always scalp the little gals and hoist the
boys. They're locoed on boy kids. If they wasn't, I
wouldn't be here to know about it. I was grabbed
outen a Injun burn-out like this one when I wasn't
much more'n Johnny O'Mara's age. And I know
what they'll do with that kid." There was another
eye-sweeping pause then, and the mountain man
concluded harshly: "The boy's mine now, and I ain't
hankering to have no son of mine brung up
Arapaho-style."

"You're rocking your head-hobbles, Jesse." Morgan Bates shook his head stubbornly. "You can't get
that kid away from them. If you manage to get close
to doing it, they'll kill him. Allowing they're the
same about it as the Comanches and Kiowas down
along the Santa Fe, they will."

"They ain't no different, Morgan. That's what's
sweating me, too. Right off, I ain't got no ready answer for you, neither. But we, all of us, have got to do
what we can."

"Such as what?" the dry-voiced Joplin Smith
wanted to know.

"Well," the mountain man's answer rapped out
unhesitatingly, "you boys get this emigrant bunch
moving for our wagons. When you get there, tell
Andy to hit for Gabe's fort, instanter. At the fort you
can gather up some help and come along after me.
Happen I can track Watonga till you get back with
that help, maybe we can figure some way to snatch
the kid."

"How the hell you expect us to find you?" The
boss muleskinner's demand was short. "Even providing we can get a bunch together what's willing
to try?"

"That ain't so hard as it might appear, right off. I figure them Arapahoes to head north, pretty much
following the main line of the Medicine Road for
quite a spell. They're looking for buffalo, and, when
a northern Injun looks for buffalo, he don't look no
place quicker'n he does Cheyenne Mesa. That's over
west of the main road, and the road's the cleanest
trail to take to there from this part of the country."
The mountain man's narrowed eyes pounced on the
boss muleskinner's laconic opinion like a skinny cat
on a fat mouse. "God damn it, Morgan, that's it! The
powder! I know the stuff ain't mine to trade, but under the circumstances I allow old Gabe'll give me
the loan of half of it against that stack of peltries I
brung down from the Three Forks. And, by damn,
Watonga would give his left stone to get even half of
that Du Pont, wouldn't he?"

"By God, man!" the lank Joplin exploded admiringly. "You mean to swap him the powder for the
kid?"

"Why sure! I don't see how the tarnal hell we can
miss. Happen you and Morgan and the boys can get
them emigrants on up to Gabe's, pick up some help
there, and come along up the main trail with that
Pittsburgh and a dozen kegs of that Du Pont, and do
it all fast enough, we got that boy back sure as the
last drop drips...." The mountain man broke his
words, the blue eyes leaping to Morgan Bates with
sudden intensity. "Not forgetting, Morgan, that
along with that powder I want you should bring me
a good, stiff coil of touch-off medicine ... just in
case!"

Breaking out his wolf grin, the lean boss muleskinner nodded his understanding of the final,
cryptic instruction, expressed his agreement with
the general plan reservedly: "There's a chance, all right. Allowing you can keep the trail without being
caught at it, the Injuns follow the Medicine Road
like you figure, you can open your dicker with them
without they get jumpy and brain the kid, and that
even with the powder you can get that red bitch to
leave go of the boy ... them and about forty other
maybes I can think of."