How the West Was Won (1963) (25 page)

Something turned cold in the pit of Zeb's stomach. What's that mean?

Why, if you're callin' on Julie, you're too late. She's promised to me. For an instant they stared at each other, and then Zeb said, Is that the truth?

Gospel.

Suddenly he felt very silly in his dress blues. What must he look like to King? To the others standing around who must have guessed where he was going? Without another word, he had turned on his heel and walked away. Now he looked toward the hills again, and saw no movement ... nothing. Sergeant, he said suddenly, get eight men with rifles to the barrier right away. Issue fifty rounds per man. Let them eat as they stand, but they're not to take their eyes off those hills.

As soon as the rest have finished eating, let the fire die to coals, keep the coffee on, and have every man stand to arms.

They are tired, Lieutenant, mighty tired.

I'd rather see them tired than dead. He went to his weary horse and mounted.

Without another word, he swung toward the settlers' camp. There he demanded:

Who is in charge here?

A tall, lanky man with a shock of sandy hair looked up at him, grinning slowly.

This here ain't the army. We're free agents. We take orders from nobody. Rawlings turned away from him. Any old soldiers here? From any army at all? he asked.

Several men spoke up. All right. Now you men listen to me. I have no authority over you except what authority the Army has given me to protect you. There may be an Indian attack. Get your children inside the tie-wall, and stay in yourselves. Get out any firearms you have and have them ready. Appoint a commanding officer and detail some guards.

I don't see any Indians. It was the tall, lanky man who spoke. What you tryin' to do, Yankee? Show off that blue uniform? Another man sauntered from the group, slowly followed by the others who had been soldiers. The first one was a slender whip of a man with neat black mustaches and high cheek bones. There was a tautaess in him that Zeb immediately liked. Vaucelle, sir. French Foreign Legion.

Vaucelle? I did not know there were Frenchmen in the enlisted ranks of the Legion.

The man's eyes smiled faintly. I was an officer, sir. Will you tell us what the situation is?

These are Arapahoe hunting grounds. The Indians were under the impression the railroad would bring no settlers or hunters here. They will try to drive us away. I do not know their numbers, but there will be at least five hundred Indians out there-perhaps half again that many. I expect an attack soon, perhaps before sundown.

Zeb indicated the army group. I have twenty-two men, including myself and my sergeant. With three exceptions, they are veterans, and the exceptions are good men. But we will need all the help we can get. Thank you, Lieutenant, I will see what I can do. The sandy-haired man got to his feet slowly. I'd like to see what the Lieutenant can do. I've seen him perambulatin' around here, shinin' up to that gal lives by herself in that tent, and I- Zeb Rawlings swung down. Gentlemen, he said quietly, I hope you will excuse me.

The sandy-haired man was three inches taller and thirty pounds heavier than Zeb. He grinned a slow grin and rubbed his palms down his jeans. Ain't had me a chanct like this here since the war, by G-!

He closed his fingers in a big fist and threw his punch. There was no finesse in Zeb Rawlings. He had never had an opportunity to learn there even was such a thing. Linus, on the other hand, had been victor in many a brutal fight with keelboaters and trappers, and he had demonstrated to his sons and rehearsed them in the basic elements of fighting to win. The big sandy-haired man swung, and Zeb Rawlings went under the swing and put everything he had into a right to the ribs. The man buckled at the knees and started to fold, and Zeb Rawlings jerked up his knee to meet the falling chin. There was an ugly clunk and the man continued to fall. Zeb Rawlings stepped back, blowing on his skinned knuckles and looking at the man on the ground. Then he turned. Mr. Vaucelle, I'll appreciate what you can do. Thank you! Quickly, he stepped into the stirrups and turned away, and as he did so he saw Julie Stuart.

She was standing not fifty feet away, a basket in her hand, and as their eyes met, she turned sharply as if to go. He touched a spur to his horse and was beside her in a bound. I've yet to offer my congratulations, he said stiffly. She turned her eyes on him. Congratulations?

Mike King told me he had spoken to you.

Her chin came up. He has spoken to me many times, and what of it? I've no doubt he will speak to me again if he passes me on the way, and I shall answer, and what of that?

You're not-you mean you're not going to marry him?

Mike King? And why should a girl want to marry a railroad, I'd like to know?

I've never given a thought to it.

But he told me-I thought--

Do you believe everything you're told, then? Don't you know the man hasn't the truth in him? You had no reason to think anything of the sort, and if you'd been less of a fool you would have known it.

Zeb glanced toward the encampment. Julie, you've got to get what you need and come to where the army is. We're expecting an attack. You change the subject very fast.

He grinned sheepishly. It's a poor time to talk of romance and what comes after, when I have a duty to fulfill. He looked down into her eyes. Julie, I'll be leaving the Army.

So you told me before. If you are going to leave, you should do it soon.

Wherever we settle we will want a crop in, and there's little time.

He was halfway back to the camp before the full weight of her words struck him.

He rode into camp in a daze.

And then anger flooded through him. King had lied to him, made a fool of him, and he had let it happen. Wheeling his horse, he rode toward King's car just as the railroad man stepped to the door and stretched. Zeb drew up. You're not wearing a gun, he said. Get one, and get it now. Mike King lowered his arms with care. His pistol lay on his desk inside, and almost within reach was a fully loaded shotgun. Zeb Rawling's face was taut and white, and King, who was counted a courageous man, felt an odd sinking in the pit of his stomach. In that instant he knew he was closer to death than he had ever been. He had seen Zeb Rawlings shoot, and he knew just exactly what his chances were.

He started to speak, when a shout came from the army encampment. Indians!

Indians!

A shot barked in the afternoon sun. Zeb wheeled his horse sharply around. The crest of the hill was feathered with charging Arapahoes, and even as he looked, another bunch burst from the mouth of a gully not twenty-five yards off, their horses at a dead run.

You asked for war! he shouted savagely at King. Now you've got it! He turned his horse and raced the few yards to his own camp, where sporadic fire had already begun as his veterans picked their targets. Directly before him Zeb saw a man stagger, clutching at his throat, where blood welled between his fingers.

Glancing toward the settlers' camp, he saw Vaucelle and the ex-soldiers he had mustered lined up behind the tie-stacks, rifles poised to fire. Under their steadying influence the others were coolly prepared to fight. Mixed among the muzzle-loaders and breech-loaders were a few of the new Henry rifles, and here and there a Spencer. You could always tell when the big Spencer hit, because the .56 or .54 caliber cartridges would lift an Indian right off his horse.

A statuesque blonde girl who might have modeled for Brunhilde was running a ramrod down a rifle barrel, loading it and passing it to a man who exchanged it for the rifle he had just fired. Another woman was bending over a wounded man, bathing a wounded arm and preparing to bandage it. Far from their homes in a savage land, these stalwart people, many of whom had never heard a shot fired in anger, were fighting to defend their right to be here. No less than the Indians, they fought for home and family, and many would die.

King's railroaders settled down grimly. Most of them were veterans, or men who had experienced Indian battles before, and they took their positions quickly and began to fire.

The sudden fire seemed to break the onrush of Indians, for their charge suddenly split off to left and right. And then Zeb heard a sound that gripped his throat with sudden fear.

A soft, muted thunder, scarcely heard, then filling the ears with sound ... a great dust cloud that suddenly exploded above the hill, and then the dust was split apart by a vast, rolling blackness from which came the thunder. A dark cloud of massive, woolly heads, glistening horns ... buffalo! On either side rode the Arapahoes, pointing the stampeding herd straight at the town of canvas, straight at the flimsy barricades of the settlers, many of whom were at the end of the tie-stacks.

They simply had no chance. There was scarcely time to fire and load before the charging herd was upon them. The great woolly wall of hurtling flesh came down in a gigantic herd. Many a beast among those hundreds weighed at least a ton. And there was no stopping their insane charge. Tents flattened; women screamed. The wounded man pushed the woman aside and tried to cover her with his body; then the black mass whirled through. One instant the settlers' town was there, and then it was ground into the mud along with torn and bloody flesh. At a dugout near the railroad line Zeb saw a huge bull struggling, half through a roof, saw it plunging to escape the trap, then vanish. And then the Arapahoes came.

They came close upon the heels of the buffalo, and leaping their ponies over fallen beasts, shot down by the desperate effort to stop the stampede or turn it, the Indians were behind the barricade, among the defenders. King retreated swiftly toward his car, one of the few things left standing. Zeb saw his sergeant go down under the glancing blow of a tomahawk, and he fired, knocking the warrior from the saddle. A horse plunged at him and he fell aside, firing and missing.

A young warrior, his face painted with streaks of black, rushed at him, and Zeb lifted his pistol and fired. The bullet stopped the Indian in mid-stride, but then he came on and Zeb fired again. When the Indian fell three bullets were in his breast and he went down almost on top of Zeb. Catching up a rifle, Zeb scrambled to his feet and shot at an Indian near the barricade. Then he wheeled to fire again, but the gun was empty and he charged a group of Indians, swinging the heavy Springfield like a club. As suddenly as the attack had begun, it ended. There was only the acrid smell of gunpowder, the gasping of men exhausted by tremendous effort, and the moans or cries of the wounded. Zeb removed the empty cylinder from his pistol and replaced it with another.

Mike King got slowly to his feet from the steps of his private car, blood running down his face from a scalp wound.

You bought it, Zeb told him savagely. Now walk out there and look at the price!

Going to shoot me? King even now smiled his taunting smile, but his eyes were wary. Both held drawn guns, and the range was close. King knew the difference then: he wanted desperately to live, and Zeb Rawlings did not care. Deep within him, King was filled with fear. He would stand and fight, but desperately did not want to die.

Walk out there! Zeb commanded. I want you to see what you have done! Where the woman had knelt above the wounded man, now there were two bodies ground into one, their flesh churned by the flying hoofs. The blonde Brunhilde lay sprawled in ugly death, only a raw skull where the blonde hair had been. Men moaned and begged for help. Slowly the survivors collected themselves and began to move among the wounded.

The sergeant, an ugly cut upon his scalp, came to Zeb for orders. Briefly, Rawlings told him what to do. Get eight men on the barricades as before. Turn the rest of them to collecting rifles and ammunition, and helping the wounded. We can spare only four men for the injured.

He turned on King. How do you like it, King? You invited them here. You brought them too soon into the hell created by your broken promises. You brought them here, you killed them-now you can live with it. You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, King said. And the eggs will keep coming.

But his face was gray and sick-looking and he turned his eyes quickly away from the dead and dying. You aren't going to kill me? he asked. You? You aren't worth killing. You're dead. You've been dead for years. You're only a hammer in the hands of the directors of your road. There's nothing inside you at all.

Julie, he thought ... where was Julie?

And then he saw her, bending over a wounded man, and he went to her.

I'm leaving, he said. I'm riding out.

Now? She was incredulous.

It's best. The Arapahoes will see me go, and they blame me more than anyone else. I think you can stop any attack that will come now, but if I leave they may not attack at all.

They will kill you.

Maybe. I'm no martyr-once out there, I'll run for it. I'm taking the company race horse and leaving mine.

She put her hand on his sleeve. No ... don't go. I have to. If I go they'll come after me. It will be easier than attacking here again. If I make it, I'll meet you in Salt Lake. There were no tears, no protests. They stood an instant looking into each other's eyes, and then he turned quickly away.

He walked across to where the sergeant was bringing some order into the frightful mess of the encampment. You're in command, Sergeant. My resignation has gone in. I'm riding out. Maybe they'll want me so bad they'll leave you alone, but your position is good, their chance of surprise is gone, and the train from Omaha should be rolling in by tomorrow with more troops. So long, Lieutenant.