Black Horse Creek (9781101607466) (13 page)

Stover and Iron Foot, still somewhat dumbfounded by the unexpected turn of events, and still wondering how they could be retreating when they outnumbered the victim three to one, wheeled their horses and obediently followed Rampley back into the water. Upon reaching the riverbank, Rampley didn't stop, turned his horse up the river, and broke into a lope. When out of sight of the island, he reined his horse back to a stop and waited for his partners to pull up beside him.

“Well, that didn't come off worth a shit, did it?” Stover was the first to comment, after silently following Rampley's lead. “He sure as hell buffaloed us.”

“You know who that was?” Rampley asked. When Iron Foot and Stover both shook their heads, he told them. “That was Grayson. I saw him once at Fort Smith.”

The man was still a mystery to Iron Foot, but Stover was familiar with the name. “Well, I'll be damned,” he muttered. “You sure of that?”

“I saw him at Fort Smith,” Rampley repeated. “It's him, all right.”

“Well, I'll be . . .” Stover started again, then paused to think about it. “If he's as much hell as ever'body says, then I reckon he wasn't just braggin' when he said he'd get two of us.”

“I wasn't gonna give him a chance to show us,” Rampley said.

“Reckon why he didn't try to arrest us?” Stover wondered.

“Hell, he don't know what we've been up to. Besides, he ain't a marshal no more,” Rampley answered. “He quit a few years back.”

“He had thick hair.” That was Iron Foot's first comment on the matter. “Look good on my rifle barrel.”

Stover looked at him and scoffed. “It might be a little bit harder to take that scalp than that scraggly old man's you've been totin' on your rifle.”

“Maybe,” Iron Foot replied, his thoughts still on the horses he had seen back on the little sand island. “He might be big medicine, but he's got to sleep sometime. I think maybe I might sneak in his camp tonight and kill him, and take his horses.”

“I don't know,” Rampley hedged. “I've heard talk that some folks think he don't ever go to sleep.”

“I am Pawnee,” Iron Foot declared grandly. “Nobody can sneak into camp better than Pawnee. He'll never hear nothin' till he hears the sound of the wind comin' out of his windpipe.”

“You ain't but half Pawnee,” Stover ridiculed. “Maybe you didn't get the half that sneaks good. You just got the half that talks big.”

“Maybe you and Rampley too scared to steal them horses, but after I kill Mr. Big Medicine Grayson, then I bet you help me steal 'em.”

Stover started to respond with sarcasm again, but Rampley cut him off. “You might have a good idea there, Iron Foot, you havin' all that Injun blood in you. You think you could sneak into his camp at night and kill him?” Stover was about to scoff at the idea again, but Rampley motioned for him to keep silent. He had been thinking about the opportunity they had just missed—not just the horses, which were reason enough—but he had seen other spoils in addition. There were at least four saddles that he had seen, plus weapons, cartridges, supplies. And Stover could be right: there might be something valuable in the odd-shaped bundle of canvas. It was a lot to pass up. He had nothing to lose if that crazy breed got himself killed, and all that to gain if Iron Foot succeeded in killing Grayson. “Yes, sir,” Rampley said, “there'd be a helluva lot of respect for the man that killed Grayson.” He could tell by the gleam in Iron Foot's eyes that the half-breed was thinking about it.

“I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch,” Iron Foot announced confidently. “There ain't no doubt about it.”

“It's a while yet before dark,” Rampley said. “So we'd best get to a place where we can watch that camp.” He guided his horse off the river trail and headed back toward the hills where they had first discovered Grayson's camp.

When they returned to the original spot, they dismounted and prepared to wait out the daylight. Stover sat down on a rock next to Rampley while Iron Foot was pulling the saddle off his horse. “What the hell was all that talk about ol' Iron Foot and all his Pawnee blood? That damn fool's gonna get himself killed. He couldn't sneak up on a deaf and dumb rock.”

Rampley smiled. “But what if he does? We stand to gain. Right? And if he don't, then we ain't lost a helluva lot, have we?”

“Hell, I reckon not,” Stover replied, matching Rampley's smile with a wide grin when he saw the reasoning behind Rampley's actions. “I reckon we got nothin' to do but set back on this hill and wait till dark, then watch ol' Iron Foot take to the warpath.”

Rampley got his army telescope out of his saddlebag and laid it on the rock, then made himself comfortable. “I believe we could make us a little fire if we keep it down behind those rocks.” He pointed to a notch at the top of a gully.

“Don't want no smoke,” Iron Foot said as he walked up to take a position to watch the island.

“Hell, he can't see smoke from a little fire,” Stover said. He had a hankering for some hot coffee, and it would be a few hours before sunset.

It was going to have to wait, however, for before they could argue the point Rampley exclaimed, “He's on the move! He's leavin'!” He came sliding off the rock and ran to grab his saddle. “Saddle up,” he directed.

*   *   *

If his three visitors had been more observant, and noticed something other than what he might have of value, they might have noticed that he had made no efforts to set up camp. He supposed the fire he had built may have caused them to think he was there for the night. He had never intended to stay longer than necessary to give the horses a little rest, for he figured there were at least three more hours before dark. As soon as his guests had left, he started saddling horses, and when Billy was secured back across the saddle on the Appaloosa, he kicked dirt on his fire and climbed aboard his horse. It had not been much of a rest stop for the horses, but he figured it might be best to move on before the three outlaws thought it over and decided to have another try—this time without announcing themselves. It didn't figure that they would give up that easily, but if he was lucky, they might not see him pull out right away. The horses would have to wait until dark to rest.

Leaving the little island behind, he continued following the river as it made its way toward the southeast. From time to time, he looked back over the way he had come, but he saw no sign of anyone on his trail. Maybe they really had ridden on up the river, deciding it not worth the risk of losing one or more of their number. He could hope that was the case, but he would assume that they were tracking him and be ready, just as a precaution.

As darkness approached, he swung over closer to the river, searching for a suitable place to camp. Although he had seen no sign of anyone on his trail, he was intent upon finding a campsite that afforded him some protection, for he still had a feeling he had not seen the last of the “carpenters.” And with four extra horses to protect, his choices were limited. Finally, when the light of day began to fade, he found what he was looking for, and he guided the gray down into a gully created by a wide creek that flowed into the river. It was wide enough for the horses to stand hobbled for the night with some protection from a five-foot bank. As was usually the case on a long journey, the horses never got enough time to graze. When he had come looking for Billy, he had brought a small supply of grain to make sure his horses were fed. But he didn't plan on a return trip with extra horses. He knew they needed a long grazing period, but they weren't going to get it until he reached Fort Smith.

Still acting with caution in mind, he pulled the horseshoe that was Billy's body off the Appaloosa, and dumped it on the edge of the gully, above the spot where he intended to build his fire.
You might as well be useful
, he thought.
You can act as a redoubt against anybody coming up behind me.
The macabre breastworks might have been more useful had he been able to straighten it, but in its U-shaped form, it wouldn't provide much cover. He grunted in appreciation for his attempt to make a joke.

“I reckon I'd better get somethin' to eat before it gets any later,” he muttered, with an attack on his camp still in mind. So he settled for some buffalo jerky he had bought at John Polsgrove's store, and the always necessary coffee. While he waited for the coffee to boil and the jerky to roast, he climbed out of the gully and walked a few yards away into the deepening darkness to listen to the prairie around him. All was quiet, broken only by the howl of a coyote off in the distance. He squatted down on his heels for a few minutes longer, listening. But even the coyote went silent, and the dark prairie became so quiet that he became aware of the sound of the water in the creek.
They'll be coming pretty soon
, he thought, almost certain he would have visitors on this night. He rose to his feet and returned to the gully to prepare for the attack.

He decided to move the horses farther up the creek to get them out of the way of any stray bullets. Even though he knew they would not be intentionally targeted, for dead horses would be of no value to the thieves, he deemed it best not to take a chance. After that, he proceeded to gather blankets from all the extra saddles he had acquired, and used them to fashion what he hoped would appear to be sleeping forms lying randomly around the fire. When he was finished, he had four dummy blanket rolls positioned in a circle around the fire, which he hoped would cause confusion for anyone attacking the camp, as well as give him a chance to see their muzzle flashes and locate the shooters. When all was to his satisfaction, he hung a cartridge belt over his shoulder, picked up his rifle, and moved a couple dozen yards away from the fire. Wrapping his blanket around his shoulders, he backed into a trench in the side of the gully and waited.

He was almost ready to say his gut feelings had misled him, for he must have waited in his cramped ambush for almost two hours, long enough to become sleepy, because he caught himself nodding several times.
Go to sleep and you'll never wake up
, he told himself, but still he fought the desire to close his eyes. In the next instant he was wide awake, alert to the shadow moving up to the edge of the gully close to the canvas-wrapped body.

His confidence high now that he had made his way right up to Grayson's camp with no sign of alarm, Iron Foot peered over the side of the gully into the sleeping camp.
What the hell?
he thought when he saw the four sleeping forms like spokes around the dying fire.
Where did they come from?
He started to back away, reluctant to set off a gun battle when outnumbered four to one, while Stover and Rampley waited a short way back upstream, and in no position to help him. Then it struck him: the “sleeping bodies” were set up to confuse him so he wouldn't know which one was Grayson. A slow smile spread across his simple face.
I ain't that easy to fool
.
I'll just shoot all of them,
he thought, but then he remembered how quickly Grayson had assured them that he would get two of them before they got him. That thought made him hesitate again, and he looked hard at the blanket rolls, trying to decide which one had a real man sleeping inside it. In the dim light, he couldn't tell, so he asked himself which one was closest to the fire, thinking that would be the place he would pick—and Grayson probably would do the same. He aimed his rifle at that one and pulled the trigger. The result was like a lit fuse, for he saw the sudden flash of a muzzle blast at the same time. A fraction of a second later he was slammed in the chest and knocked over on his side.

Moving immediately, lest his muzzle flash had provided a target for the wounded man's two partners, Grayson scrambled to a new position up closer to the edge of the bank. Much to his surprise, all was silent again except for the horses stirring around behind him, reacting to the two sudden gunshots. He had expected an all-out attack upon his camp, but there was no sign of the other two outlaws. It was enough to cause him to turn quickly and splash through the creek to the other side, thinking that the others must have somehow circled around behind him. He strained to see in the darkness on the south side of the creek, but he could see no sign of anyone. Looking back at the opposite side of the creek, at the position he had just left, he saw no signs of an attack, only the wounded man lying near Billy's corpse. From all signs, the man had acted alone, so where were the other two?

“You think that fool got him?” Stover wondered aloud. He got to his feet and walked to the top of the mound they had taken refuge behind, peering into the darkness between him and the river.

“I don't know,” Rampley replied. “I doubt it, else he'd be whoopin' and hollerin' and doin' some kinda crazy war dance.” They had heard two shots. The first was definitely Iron Foot's Spencer, but the second one was a Winchester. That was not a good sign, especially since there were no shots after that.

“Whaddaya reckon we oughta do?” Stover asked, now that Iron Foot's boastful plan seemed to have failed. “I knew that damn-fool Injun couldn't sneak up on nobody.” He stared off into the darkness for a few moments more. “You reckon they shot each other?”

“I don't know,” Rampley said. “Maybe . . .” His voice trailed off as he considered that possibility. He didn't think much of the idea of walking up to the creek to see. “I'd feel a little bit better about it if we'd heard Iron Foot's Spencer last, instead of the other way around.”

“Yeah, me too,” Stover remarked. “I reckon it'da been smarter if we had moved up a little closer. Then maybe we'da seen what happened.”

“That son of a bitch is settin' up there waitin' for us to show up,” Rampley said.

“You reckon they shot each other?” Stover repeated the question. “As quiet as it's got—wouldn't it be somethin' if they're both layin' up there dead, and we could walk right in without no worry?”