Anita Mills (25 page)

Well, he’d offered to marry her, and she’d turned him down, freeing his conscience if he wanted to go. And go he would, because he had to. Somewhere there was a four-year-old motherless little boy who needed him, who had no other relatives closer than distant cousins left, and Spence could not fail him. They’d be strangers, but the love would come later. No, Laura had made her choice to stay, and he had chosen to go. And sooner or later, she’d leave his mind. It had to happen that way.

He’d taken this job to escape from her, to avoid falling into a trap he’d regret, and it hadn’t helped him much. He’d just forsaken a warm cabin, good food, and clean clothes for nothing. Now he was wandering around picking up sticks so he could build a fire in a bucket, feast on buffalo jerky and rock-hard biscuits, then try to sleep with that howling wind slashing through canvas walls. And the memory of another woman who did not want him was driving him mad.

Forcing his thoughts from her to the task at hand, he reached for a hollow branch and stopped dead, nearly paralyzed by shadowy figures riding behind the black, skeletal branches of leafless trees so silently he had to blink to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. Spence edged back into the cottonwood grove, thinking he had to alert the rest of the camp without giving himself away. His stiff fingers sought and closed around the Navy Colt, drawing it soundlessly from his holster as he watched the Cheyenne war party skirt the small cluster of tents. They were after the picketed horses, and a big buck had his eye on Clyde.

Spence put two fingers in his mouth and gave a long, shrill whistle, and the big chestnut gelding’s head came up. The second time, the animal kicked over a barrel anchoring the rope picket and broke out, heading for him with mane and tail flying, and the commotion stampeded the others, alerting the men in camp. Rolling away from a blazing campfire, most of the crew scrambled to get behind a pile of ties while a man who had a repeating rifle handy covered them. Within seconds, the thundering booms of buffalo guns had picked off two Indians trying to round up the horses, and after a mad dash back for the bodies, the rest of the war party took off.

Matt Hadley yelled, “Where’s Hardin? Did the sons of bitches get Hardin?”

“There he is!” somebody answered, seeing Spence running toward them. “Damned if he ain’t got that big horse of his chasin’ him! Must’ve been him that sounded the alarm!”

“That’s some eyes you got, Mr. Hardin,” Hadley told him as he caught up to them. “Don’t know how you seed ’em at night, but if you hadn’t, I reckon as soon as they got the animals, they’d been back for scalps.”

“Yeah.”

“Reckon at least some of us owe you for that whistle. I’d say you’re damned lucky them injuns didn’t come right at you soon as they heard it,” the crew boss went on.

‘Ί thought they’d be too busy chasing horses.”

“Well, you got guts and a cool head to go with ’em, I’ll say that for you.”

‘Thanks.”

“Looks like they’ll be looking for easier pickin’s on up the road—guess I’d better send somebody to warn the main camp.”

“Aw, they ain’t going there,” Billy Watson argued.
“‘Sides, ain’t no way any of us could get ahead of ‘em the way they was hightailin’ it out of here.”

“Better warn Hawthorne, anyway,” somebody else countered. “Hell, Bill, they been bold enough to run off government horses over at McPherson right under the cavalry’s noses. Looks like they’re headed that way again, and a bunch of railroad men’s bound to look better to ’em than the U.S. Army.”

“Humph!” Billy snorted. “If we put ’em on the run, they ain’t got no stomach for a real fight, Ben. No, sir, they’ll be lookin’ for easy pickin’s, all right, so I’d say it’s folks they can catch alone that’s in for trouble. Like last summer when they killed that old German farmer right outside Fort Kearny. Hell, you know he thought he was safe settlin’ in less than a mile from an army post, but by the time anybody heard the commotion and the soldiers got mounted up, the damned savages had scalped the old gent and got clean away.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Hadley murmured, nodding. “Snuck up on him right at sunup, and if any-body’d been looking, they’d seen it from the fort.”

“I’ll go,” Spence offered.

“I dunno—don’t seem like you been out here long enough to be trailin’ injuns.”

“I’ve got the strongest horse.”

“Something to be said for that, Mr. Hadley, ‘cause you know they’ll be switchin’ off to rest those ponies, which is how they keep the cavalry from catchin’ ’em,” Billy observed.

The older man considered Spence for a moment, then sighed. “Think you can find your way without
taking the road? There’s not much cover anywhere, but you’re out in plain sight if you stay on it.”

“Yeah, but if I don’t get going, I won’t catch up to them between here and McPherson.”

“They might make camp for the night somewhere. Seems like the times you got to watch out for the sneaky bastards is right before sunup or right after sundown.” Without turning around, Hadley called over his shoulder, “Frank, you lend Hardin that Spencer—you got a Quick Loader for it, ain’t you? He don’t need to be trying to reload in a fight,”

As Spence swung into the saddle, Frank Davidson ran up to hand him the rifle and a cartridge loader for it. “There’s thirteen seven-round loads in there,” he said as Spence stuffed it into his coat. “All you got to do is open the butt-trap, pull out the magazine spring, and drop the load in. Soon as the spring’s back in, you’re ready to go again—whole thing takes about five seconds.”

“Beats my Colt,” Spence admitted. “Thanks.”

“Just don’t forget where you got it, ‘cause I’m lookin’ to get it back—you hear?”

“I will.”

Pulling wide on the reins and nudging the big chestnut with his knee, Spence turned Clyde toward the road, then leaned forward as he applied his spurs, and the horse took off like a bullet from a full charge of powder. It took almost a furlong for him to ease off a gallop into a canter. At a wide bend, Spence left the road to skirt along the row of trees following the river.

It took him close to an hour to get his first glimpse of the war party. Relieved that he hadn’t missed it
entirely, he dropped back to trail the Indians at a distance until he could find enough cover to pass them. Slowing to a trot, then to a steady walk, Spence told himself they’d probably turn off somewhere before McPherson, and he was probably making a long ride in a miserably cold night for nothing. But he wasn’t taking any chances as long as they could be headed anywhere near Laura and Jessie. The thought had already crossed his mind that if they scouted the perimeter of the main camp, they stood a good chance of stumbling onto her cabin, and tomorrow morning was wash day. It’d be damned easy for them to catch her and Chen Li outside hanging the laundry.

Hell, he didn’t even know where they were going yet, he reminded himself again. Nebraska Territory was a big place, and it was damned unlikely that out of thousands of square miles of empty land, a small band of Cheyenne would find one very small cabin perched on the side of a hill. But at least he had an excuse for coming home, one they both could believe.

Forcing his straying mind back to the Indians ahead, Spence realized that while he’d been lost in thought, they’d gotten away. Or they’d seen him and were lying in wait up ahead. The thought was enough to make his scalp crawl. Spurring Clyde into a lope, he took the river side of the road, where the moonlight on the ice made it easier for him to see. As he came around a wide bend, he gave a sigh of relief.

Yeah, there were five of them riding right up the middle of the road, and he was close enough to hear them talking to one another. Slowing again, he widened the distance. If they fell silent, he didn’t want the sound of Clyde’s hoofbeats alerting them. With McPherson still more than thirty miles away, it was hard to guess where they were going. Maybe he was green when it came to Indians, but it didn’t seem reasonable that a war party of five would want to go anywhere near a fort.

They were stopping. Moving Clyde into the trees, Spence watched them, wondering what the hell they were doing, until he heard more riders. A larger party was joining them. The whole group dismounted and stood around while someone made a small fire. It looked as though they might camp for the night.

Spence dropped from his saddle to the ground, then crept closer. They were chattering like magpies, joshing each other, posturing. As the tinder flared, there was no mistaking the yellow streaks on their faces—it was a war party all right. More riders joined them, and their leader waved a war lance, dipping it close to the fire for the others to see. Long blond hair rippled in the flickering light. He’d taken a woman’s scalp, and he was bragging about it.

Moccasins crunched on dead leaves and sticks about twenty feet from Spence. He held his breath, thinking he’d been a fool to leave his horse. They’d posted a sentry, making it almost impossible for him to leave unnoticed.

Spence lay on his stomach in the frosted grass, fighting sleep, telling himself it was too cold, that he’d freeze if he didn’t stay awake. As tired as he was, it seemed like yesterday’s dawn had been in another lifetime. Now that he had time to think about it, he realized every muscle in his arms, shoulders, and back ached from a full day of digging up broken track and hammering down new rails. A nine-pound hammer, they’d called the one he’d swung, but by the end of the day, it had felt like ten times that heavy.

They weren’t picketing the ponies, so they weren’t planning on staying the
rest
of the night, after all. They were just gathering a large party before they went on—and swapping tall tales while they ate, by the sound of it. Spence kept his eyes open by counting them. Sixteen full-grown warriors and two young boys, one of whom looked white, even with that war paint on his face.

It seemed as though they were there for hours while Spence shivered in the sharp-bladed, icy grass. Finally, they buried the fire, chose fresh ponies, and mounted up. The sentry dropped from his perch on a rock to follow them. The whole war party took the road west toward McPherson again. If he had to guess, Spence thought they’d get there just before dawn. So sore he groaned when he pulled himself to his feet, he found Clyde and mounted up again.

Sometime later, he dozed, then caught himself as his chin dropped to his chest. Rallying, he looked over his shoulder. It was still dark overhead, but a layer of red hugged the horizon, fading to a pink haze before it met the sky. He’d been up almost twenty-four hours. And McPherson was just a couple of miles up the road.

It looked as if they were going to skirt the fort, surprising him, but then the two boys split away from the rest of the party, dropped to the ground, and snaked through the grass on their bellies, right past two soldiers on guard duty. Spence considered sounding an alarm, but the rest of the party stood a good chance of getting away before a troop of cavalry could mount up to chase them. Besides, it was the others who worried him—there wasn’t much of anything else out here except the railroad camp. And Laura’s cabin. The cavalry couldn’t get there in time to warn anybody, and Spence couldn’t get past the Cheyenne himself.

In the graying light, the boys emerged again with a pair of government horses. As bold as you please, they swung up onto the animals’ bare backs and rode off, leading their ponies. They’d tweaked the U.S. Army and gotten away with it.

They were going for the railroad camp, all right. Alert now, Spence realized if they raided it, there was a good chance some of them would ride up that hill. Digging in his coat pocket for the Quick Loader, he checked it, then reached for the Spencer rifle. Five seconds to reload, Frank Davidson had said, but he doubted that. Between the Colt and the Spencer, he had twelve bullets, and after that, it’d be hell reloading under fire. But as long as he had a breath in his body, that war party wouldn’t get Laura and Jessie.

He could see them clearly now, and he could see a faint curl of smoke rising above the cluster of white tents. At least someone was up to raise the alarm if he didn’t get there. The damned Indians were intent on surprise, and he intended to give them one. He cocked the Spencer’s side hammer, jerked on the reins, and dug his spurs into Clyde’s flank, praying the big horse still had enough left to make a run for it. The chestnut took off across the road to the left side, then shot down it, and headed straight for the Cheyenne.

Bending down against Clyde’s neck, Spence pulled the rifle’s trigger, and an Indian pony went down. His second shot hit one of the kids bringing up the rear. The boy pitched forward, then fell under the horse. The Indians wheeled to defend themselves and rode hell-for-leather toward Spence. Knotting the reins over his saddle horn, he reached across to draw the Colt with his left hand as he urged Clyde to go right through the middle of the war party.

He hit them firing both guns, and for a few seconds he was surrounded by yelling, yipping Cheyenne warriors. He felt a hot sting in his ribs, and then he was past them. Clyde staggered, and for a moment, Spence figured he was done for, but the big animal’s front legs regained their footing, widening the gap as the war party wheeled to pursue.

He hit the camp at full gallop, shouting, “Indian raid! Indian raid!” before he saw men already scrambling from tents. They’d heard the gunfire. Two of the grimiest fellows he’d ever seen were dragging out the wagon, while someone else had climbed onto it to load the Gatling.

“Hold your fire! Let ’em get close!” Spence yelled. Dismounting, he reloaded the Spencer, crawled behind a supply wagon, and drew a bead on the closest Indian. Still thinking they had a chance of overrunning the defenders, they charged. “Now!” A volley of rifle fire, followed by the steady spitting of the Gatling, shattered the dawn, and as half the Cheyenne dropped, the rest fell back, trying to get out of range, while men with Sharps took over, picking them off. Within minutes, the battle was over. As Spence stood up, he was surrounded by railroaders wanting to shake his hand.

“Mister Hardin, I been
in four years of war, and I ain’t never seen anything like what you just did— you got to be either the nerviest or the stupidest sonofabitch I seen yet,” a grinning man told him.