Novel 1966 - Kilrone (v5.0) (10 page)

Kilrone rode to the end of the parade ground with Teale and together they stripped the harness and returned it to the racks.

“Not that it’s likely to matter,” Teale commented. “The Indians will steal most of it if they come.”

They stood together, listening into the night. The rain had begun again, fine, whispering, not unpleasant. At the far end of the parade ground lights glowed from the windows.

“What happened back there?”

“Nothing…Only he knows I’m here now, and he’ll be waiting for me when this is over.” They started to walk along together. “It’s a long story, Teale. I found an Indian agent shorting the Indians on rations…he had a deal with Sproul. And Sproul had a corner of land near the post area for his layout—just as he has here.

“He had political power, and I didn’t, but I did have a friend in Congress. I got him to amend the bill by which they located the post so that they would take in fifty acres more.

“Nobody protested…it seemed an unimportant thing at the time, but that additional fifty acres had Sproul’s place on it, and the change in the bill put that land under government supervision.

“I knew he was selling whiskey to the Indians, but I couldn’t prove it. Two of my men—and that was what really started me going—had been robbed and murdered over there. Yet there was no way to get at him. He always had his trail well covered, and he had political connections. The Colonel who was in command at the fort wanted a promotion and would do nothing about it. But there came a time—he was all right, that Colonel—when he got leave to go East and I was left in command.”

Teale glanced at him with sudden interest. “And you did it? You got rid of him?”

“The place was a corner, you see? On one side, the river, on the other the government land occupied by the post. He was hedged in. He had gone to Cheyenne…he went there regularly…so I simply moved in, jacked up his smaller buildings—they were all frame, you know…used timbers and artillery caissons—and moved the whole lot five miles south and left them on the bank of the river. It was fifteen miles around the head of a deep canyon and in the middle of desolation.”

Teale chuckled. “I’d like to have seen his face!”

“He got back at night and found his place gone. There had been five buildings, only one of them of any size. The others were mere shacks. But he couldn’t find his town. It took him three days, because I’d given orders that no civilians could cross the post without a written permission from the Colonel, and the Colonel was in New York by that time.”

They were standing outside Headquarters now. “What happened?” Teale asked.

“By the time the Colonel returned I had some evidence. Not a thing against Sproul, you understand—his tracks were well covered, but I found enough on the Indian agent to urge his dismissal. Well, he was dismissed, all right, but I was transferred to another post…and then I resigned.”

“You kind of stretched yourself,” Teale commented. “It took nerve to buck the army and Sproul at the same time.”

“Teale, you watch this man’s army and you’ll notice something. They’d rather have action than inaction, any time. It may not always be that way, but that’s the way it is now. If you’re in doubt, plunge in. Believe me, if I’d stayed in I might have been shifted around a while until the political boys forgot me, and then I’d have been in the running again…maybe. Only I was always a rebel, and I wanted Sproul’s scalp. In the army I’d have had to leave him alone.”

“Now that he knows you’re here,” Teale said, “you watch your step.” He was about to go inside, then he paused. “Cap, if there’s any way I can help…watch your back or anything…you count me in. Believe me, you can count on any of the boys in this fight. You’ll see.”

“Thanks…thanks, Teale.”

Kilrone stood alone in the darkness and the rain. He was going to need them…he was going to need them all, not against Sproul, but against Medicine Dog. That was why he had talked as much as he had. They needed to know something about him, they needed to know who they were taking orders from.

The enemy would be out there by now…Medicine Dog, his Bannocks, and his renegades. They would be out there, waiting.

Chapter 9

D
ENISE PADDOCK STEPPED from the dark doorway and stood beside him. “Barnes…will he be all right?”

“Of course.”

“But he hasn’t ridden a patrol in months, and he’s been drinking.”

“He’s a good soldier, Denise, and a brave man. This may be just what he needs.”

Barney Kilrone spoke the words and he made them sound sincere. Actually, he felt that Frank Bell Paddock had made a ghastly mistake. His long ride would come to nothing. He would effect his junction with Mellett and they would then return to the post…to what?

Denise stood silent, and all the past stood between them. How far, he thought, from the night they danced together for the first time at Combourg!

“I wish it were spring,” she said suddenly. “I dread the thought of winter.”

“I don’t blame you. This is one of the coldest places in the country.” He was listening as he spoke, but the soft drizzle of rain deadened any sound. Yet he had the feeling…he knew they were out there.

How long before Mellett and Paddock could return, he was thinking. Three days? Four?

“Remember Brittany in the spring?” Denise said. “I liked it better than in Paris, I think.”

“It was a time of innocence,” he said. “That spring, I mean. By the time autumn came around, everything had changed.”

“Have you ever thought of what might have happened?” She looked at him curiously.

“Of course…but nobody can say when the turning point comes. Suppose instead of coming to Combourg that night I had decided—which I almost did—to go on? There’s no use thinking about it. If one thing changes, everything is changed. At Combourg I met you…we had stopped there only by chance. That began it, you might say. And then we met again…It was three weeks before I returned to Paris.”

“And after that when we met again I was married to Frank Bell Paddock.”

“And happily so.”

The trouble was, Frank Paddock had known about them, but what he did not seem to realize was that for Denise, Frank Paddock was the only man with whom she could have been happy. Certainly, Kilrone admitted, she could not have been happy with him. He knew that and Denise knew it, and neither had regrets. The trouble was, Frank had never believed it.

“He’s out there now because of us,” Kilrone said bitterly.

“No, he’s not.” Denise spoke firmly. “I love Frank, but what he has become is his own fault. And whatever he does in the future will be up to him.”

The sensible view, but was it the true one? “All that was long ago and far away…another world than this.”

“What are you going to do, Barnes?”

He shrugged. “If I get out of this? I don’t know. Settle somewhere in the West, I expect. This country grows on me, and I doubt if I’d be content anywhere else.”

Denise went back inside then, and once more he was alone in the darkness. He should be getting some rest while it was possible, but he was in no mood for it. A deep restlessness was upon him. He knew their chances were slight. Such defenses had been made before this, but in other instances the position had been better than the one they now held. If he had a larger force…

He squatted on his heels against the wall where there was shelter from the slight rain. With each succeeding minute the time of attack was drawing nearer, and any possible help was miles away. Worst of all, somewhere en route from Fort Halleck was Lieutenant Rybolt with the payroll and its handful of guards.

That payroll must come to quite a lot of money. It was unlikely that such a move would have gone unnoticed by either the Indians or the men at Hog Town; and such a sum, at such a time, would be tempting. But there was nothing to be done about it. With Ryerson in poor health, Kilrone must stay on. He would have remained in any case because his rifle was needed here.

The door of the warehouse opened noiselessly, and closed. A dark figure moved toward him. It was McCracken.

“Kilrone?”

McCracken moved closer. “I figured that was you. How much time do you reckon we’ve got?”

“An hour…maybe two.” Kilrone pondered the situation a moment. “Better get Webster busy on something for you boys to eat—coffee, and a quick, light breakfast, with at least two men always on watch; but whatever you have to eat, take it to your posts with you.”

“I was going to ask about that.” McCracken squatted beside him. Finally, he said, “You reckon we got a chance?”

“We’ve got a good chance,” Kilrone replied with an assurance he did not feel. “Look what those boys did at Adobe Walls a few years back—twenty-eight buffalo hunters stood off upwards of seven hundred Indians. Some say as many as fifteen hundred.”

McCracken stood up. “Well, I’d hate to have it happen like this. I’ve got a family back in the States, but I’ve taken bigger risks for less…considering those folks in there.” He gestured toward the Headquarters building behind them.

“Take your time, make every shot count, that’s all anybody can do.”

When McCracken had left, Kilrone got up and walked to the hospital, eased in, and talked to Ryerson. He saw that several cases of ammunition and food had been brought over from the warehouse. Everything looked ready. Only then did he return to the silent Headquarters and stretch out on the floor, lying on his bedroll. Almost instantly he was sleeping.

Major Frank Bell Paddock, camped near Twin Buttes, at the head of Toppin Creek, could look north toward his destination, still a hard day’s ride from where they were. They could not wait as long as a night here. Four hours of rest, he decided, with a chance for the horses to graze; then up, a light breakfast, and in the saddle once more.

Hank Laban squatted on his heels near the fire, a little apart from the others. He held his cup in both hands, and sipped the hot black coffee with slow pleasure. He was a coffee-drinking man, and he relished these minutes by the fire, which were too few. He was a man without illusion, looking on life with ironic appreciation of its realities, and watching with a jaundiced and half-amused eye those who viewed life through the mist of their own desires, fears, or ambitions.

Nor had he any illusions about Indians. He knew them and, generally speaking, liked them. He had lived their life and found much of it good; but he knew that the red man, like his white brother, could be led down the garden path by a good talker. And somebody had been stirring the Indians into trouble. Buffalo Horn was one thing—he was torn between leading his people in a rightful fight for Camas Prairie, where they had dug the camas roots from times unknown, and his own desire to outdo Chief Joseph. But Buffalo Horn was already a half-tame Indian. Medicine Dog was another matter: he was not tame.

The Dog was a broncho Indian. Like Geronimo, he was not a chief, merely a warrior who attracted to himself the unsettled youngsters, eager to make themselves big Indians, the malcontents, and the hardheads who refused to know when they were whipped. The Dog was tough, mean, and cunning as a wolf, dangerous as a prairie rattler.

Nothing was ever simple any more. Hank Laban would have liked to ride with Mellett. Mellett was a soldier, pure but far from simple. He was smart and direct, and when he hit he hit hard, and no nonsense. Paddock was a good enough man when sober, and he was sober now, but Paddock wasn’t simply riding after Indians, he was riding after a reputation. Laban was an old coon from the high-up creeks, and he knew the signs.

Young Pryor was riding for the same reason, only where Paddock was desperate and at the end of his tether, Pryor was bursting at the seams to fight somebody, anybody. He wanted glory—or what he thought would be glory—and he wanted promotion. He wouldn’t even mind a scar if he got it in a romantic-seeming place. Pryor was impatient with all of them—with Mellett, with Paddock, with Webb. Ride right out and ride the Indians into the ground—that was his idea. What he wanted was a cavalry charge, and he bitterly regretted that the saber was no longer used on the western prairie.

Hank Laban continued to sip his coffee, and he speculated on his horse. That was a fast-running horse he had. Come to the worst, he might make it out…and if it came to the worst, he was going to try. He did not like to ride with ambition. He wanted to ride with soldiers, with fighting men doing a fighting job, solid, steady men who fought to win, but fought with common sense, not bravado and dash. That sort of thing could get a man killed.

In a lifetime on the frontier Hank Laban had managed to keep his scalp. He had held onto his hair by fighting when he could, running when he could no longer fight, or lying quiet when outnumbered. He was a disciple of the philosophy that nothing has to be done all at once.

The fact that they were riding away from where he believed most of the Indians to be made him no happier. He had never gotten used to seeing the ravished and scalped bodies of men, and especially those of women and children. In his own mind he was gospel sure that was what they would find on returning to the post. He was not reconciled to the idea of riding where they were riding; he knew they’d find Indians enough themselves, and they’d find them when they least wanted them.

The canyon of the Owyhee was rough and rugged. This whole country was rough. Earthquakes and volcanoes in prehistoric times had had their way with the land, and they had upset it here, ruptured it there. It was ambush country, no mile of it safe. Hank Laban had lost nothing on the North Fork, and he wanted to lose nothing there, least of all, his scalp.