McAllister Fights Read online

  Matt Chisholm

  McAllister Fights

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 1

  A big sky, lowering and grim, threatening rain, overhung the world. A big country that rolled and reeled to a distant horizon, the land of the buffalo and the Indian. A big man crouched forward in the saddle against the wind, astride a tired horse, searching. The man: Remington McAllister, aged twenty-four, already a legend on the frontier, already a man to be feared if you crossed him, a man to batten to if he looked on you as a friend.

  He rode the ridges in the teeth of the wind, in view of the elements, challenging them, in view of any wandering Indians, because he wanted to find them. For a week he had searched for Many Horses and his Cheyenne and he had not found them. His urgency was increased by his wish to be under cover by the time the weather broke. The canelo horse had been pushed to its limit and now it plodded through the damp surface of the prairie, head down, tired to the bone.

  Suddenly, it lifted its head and began a rumbling whinny deep in its throat and McAllister also lifted his head to stare in the direction the animal’s ears were pointing. Faintly, he heard a sound carried by the wind. Ahead, he guessed, was a pony herd. He prayed so. He didn’t have to urge the canelo forward now; it stepped up its pace eagerly, wanting the companionship of its kind. They came to the end of the ridge and, looking westward, McAllister saw the dark sweep of trees, the sudden dull glint of water in the bottom, the rapid drift of smoke in the wind. Away to his left, in the lea of a ridge was the horse-herd. Two boys on ponies guarded it. The lodges stood in the lea of the northern ridge, along the edge of the water the tops of their poles looking like tufts of hair in the uncertain light.

  So he had found an Indian encampment. Now let it be Cheyenne and, if Cheyenne, let it be the village of Many Horses. He rode on down, lifting his hand to the boy horseherds as he went. They sat their ragged ponies, watching him, suspecting him because he was a whiteman. One of them suddenly kicked his mount into action and went dashing down toward the lodges and McAllister could hear his shrill voice as he went, crying out that a whiteman was coming.

  For a moment nothing happened, then there was a sudden flurry of movement and out from the lodges burst a knot of horsemen. McAllister smiled briefly to himself, knowing that some of the young sparks of the tribe were coming out to have their fun. Most likely they would be strangers to him and there might be a little trouble ahead. He hoped not. All he wanted was to get to Many Horses and to talk.

  They came dashing up the slight incline, riding superbly all of them, yipping like coyotes, all alive and full of spunk. They came straight at him, as he knew they would, not veering their horses until the last moment when it looked as if there would be a collision. McAllister kept on course, letting them do the maneuvering, hoping they knew their business and could handle their horses sufficiently. Certainly the performance they put up would have terrified a greenhorn even to the extent of making him shoot at them. But McAllister knew better. Or hoped he did. Painted faces and painted ponies flashed past him, frightening the usually stolid canelo. They circled on either hand, waving their bows and spears, yelling. McAllister kept on going. They swooped after him, nettled at his calm, ran their ponies under his horse’s nose, waved blankets to frighten it, clinging to the backs of their racing mounts, swaying easily to their every movement. They kept it up till he neared the lodges, then, suddenly, they scattered away and he was faced by the women and the children gathered to stare at him. Three warriors forced their way through the throng, beating the dogs that ran forward to snap at the stranger. These were members of one of the several police societies; all tall men, painted and feathered. The canelo was shying at the dogs; one of these men caught it by the bridle and held it quiet. The horse got the Indian smell full in its nose and didn’t like it.

  McAllister searched in his head for his rusty Cheyenne, remembering back to the days when he had been wintered by his father with Many Horses’ people.

  “Many Horses,” he said. “I have come to talk with Many Horses.”

  If the men were surprised at a whiteman knowing their tongue, even haltingly, they didn’t show it. Their faces remained sullen and hostile. McAllister looked around him and saw the hostility on every face. Times were changed maybe and men and women changed with them.

  The man he spoke to said the name: “Many Horses,” and McAllister knew that he had come to the right place. The chief was here. The man made a sign for McAllister to dismount and the big man stepped down from the saddle. The three society members turned and started to push a way roughly through the crowd and McAllister followed them. They made their way through the lodges, the dogs still snapping at the kicking canelo, the throng of women and children following behind silently. Finally, they came to the banks of the creek and here a large lodge stood alone. From the heraldic signs on the wall, McAllister saw that this belonged to Many Horses. One of the soldiers made a sign for McAllister to halt and went forward himself to the tipi. McAllister wondered if Many Horses would remember what he remembered – the white boy being treated as one of the Indian family, receiving the affection of the chief’s wife, Red Feather, playing as a brother with the chief’s son.

  Before the warrior could reach the lodge a man came out through the doorway, stooping from his height, then straightening and staring at the whiteman. Even after all those years, McAllister would have known him anywhere: a tall man in a tall people; a handsome man in a handsome people; a chief among men by any standard, a man wedded to his honor and his reputation. McAllister waited, his throat dry. The warrior was talking; Many Horses made a sign with his hand and came forward. As he drew nearer, McAllister saw that there was a faint smile on his thin-lipped wide mouth, there was a welcome in the dark eyes. McAllister held out his hand and found it grasped strongly. Then, to his surprise, the Indian embraced him.

  The faces of the people changed, smiles came, women chattered. The warrior who had approached the tent looked put out. Many Horses led the visitor into the tipi. There at the fire was a woman. The chief spoke to her in Cheyenne and she came to McAllister with her arms wide. A fatter and older Red Feather, but still the same woman, beaming, talking excitedly. There were others there in the lodge – a tall young man of McAllister’s age, a pretty young woman, a child. With difficulty, McAllister recognised Many Horses’ son, Little Wolf. They embraced, they laughed. They behaved like brothers should on meeting after a long time.

  For an hour, McAllister held back from the purpose of his visit; for an hour he chatted and laughed and saw the side of the Cheyenne which so few white men saw. The dignified Many Horses unbent, he was a father and grandfather with his family; he joked with his son and with McAllister, laughter filled the large tipi, they dipped their wooden spoons in Red Feather’s steaming bowl, they talked and belched, men warm in each other’s company, talking of old times, laughing at mishaps, recounting old adventures made golden by time. McAllister went along with them, one part of him extraordinarily happy, his childhood come alive again, reliving once more the sudden explosive joy of being young and alive; the other part dwelled upon the grim message he brought with him. He held on to it, not wanting to spoil the moment. Many Horses and his son were curious, but politeness forbade them to ask questions. The guest would speak when the time was right and he was ready.

  The time came when th
eir bellies were full and the women left the tent to clean the bowl and do other chores. The men settled down with a shared pipe, passing it courteously from one to the other, exchanging a soft word, smiling.

  “I have looked for you for many days, father,” McAllister said.

  They nodded, knowing that he had come to the purpose of his visit. They waited, not speaking, watching him somberly now, telling from his manner that the news he brought was not a matter for lightness.

  McAllister sought in his mind for the words, not knowing how to begin, not wanting to spoil the good moment nor wanting to start the chief on the wrong trail. Maybe the lives of all the men, women and children in this village were in his hands. It was an awesome thought.

  He began –

  “I am with the pony soldiers,” he said. They raised their eyes to him, seeing him now in a different light. Wondering. “I am acting as scout for them. My chief is the great pony soldier General Anderson. You know him?”

  Many Horses nodded slowly. What Cheyenne did not know the terrible Anderson? The summer before he had caught a combined village of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho on Crooked Creek. He had not come off best from the resultant fight, but he had acted with a ferocity unparalleled in Indian fighting. Women and children had died in the dawn, shot down ruthlessly by the rifles of the soldiers in retaliation for several raids of which that particular village claimed it was innocent. But what difference had that made to General Anderson to whom one Indian was much the same as another? They had been Indians in that camp and the general had a reputation to think of? He had never been defeated before, not during the Civil War, not in his several fights with Indians. Mainly because each time he had outnumbered the enemy and because he didn’t have any qualms about hurting non-combatants. The Indians at Crooked Creek had put up a strong resistance even though the general had surprised them.

  To pay them for their impertinence, Anderson had killed their horse herd, had slaughtered nearly a thousand animals under the awed and horrified gaze of the Indians. Never had fighting Indians been so humbled nor more efficiently hamstrung. A horse herd slaughtered in the hunting season! The Indians had been stunned, utterly broken. And the word had spread through the tribes – even the Blackfoot in the north and the wild Apache in the south had heard of what Anderson had done that day to the Cheyenne and the Arapaho.

  So Crooked Creek was in the minds of Many Horses and Little Wolf when McAllister told them for whom he was working.

  Why, McAllister asked himself, am I scouting for a man like Anderson? He didn’t like the man, he half-despised him.

  Old Tom Mangold, the half-Negro scout had talked him into volunteering for service with the soldiers after the Cheyenne band of Two Bulls had caused such devastation in Kansas and north Texas the spring before. There had been terrible tales of women ravaged and children carried off. The whole frontier had been up in arms. Two Bulls was still loose and still raiding lone homesteads, still lifting horses wherever he could find them. His small insurrection was spreading through the Cheyenne and some men said that the Northern Cheyenne and the Sioux were coming out, emboldened by Two Bulls’ example. Maybe Many Horses and his band had been in McAllister’s mind when he had stayed clean through the summer and into fall with Anderson’s command. McAllister had always felt an affinity with the Cheyenne, ever since in one of his many drunken moments, his father, old Chad McAllister, had stated that Rem’s mother had been a Cheyenne. At other times, of course, he had claimed that she was a Mexican lady of high birth.

  Whatever had impelled McAllister to serve with the soldiers, he was here now because he feared that Many Horses and his people might find themselves in the path of the searching soldiers. Anderson would start shooting at the sight of Indians without first ascertaining that they belonged to Two Bulls.

  McAllister’s problem now was not to arouse the warrior in Many Horses. The chief was prudent and careful; he could be relied upon not to make a hasty decision, but, on the other hand, he was a prideful man and he would not run from danger.

  “General Anderson,” he said, “has been hunting the plains for Two Bulls. So far, he has not been successful.” The Cheyenne was coming back to him more easily already. “He is angry with all Indians because Two Bulls has killed several whitemen. It is the same with Indians. One whiteman commits a crime and an Indian will make the first whiteman he comes on pay for it.”

  Many Horses nodded again. That was true. No man could deny that. All men were alike in the illogic of their actions.

  “Anderson,” McAllister went on, “is no more than a few days’ ride from here and he wants to find Indians before the winter comes on. That is why I am here.”

  Many Horses looked perplexed. He looked like a man who wanted to say something, but was too polite to do so.

  “You come here to tell me this, my son,” Many Horses said. “Yet you scout with the pony soldiers.”

  It was like a gentle rebuke.

  McAllister looked into the dark eyes of the Indian.

  “My path is not an easy one,” he said. “Like the Bent boys, I am belonging to two worlds. Whether or not my mother was a Cheyenne, I am a whiteman, yet part of me is with your village. You were like a father to me and Little Wolf was a brother. A man cannot forget such things.”

  Many Horses said: “So your heart has reason for your coming. What does your head tell you is the purpose for your coming?”

  “I think you and your people are in danger.”

  “I have no quarrel with Anderson. Certainly, some of my young men have gone away to join Two Bulls. But that is the Cheyenne way, as you know. I could only stop them by persuasion. They would not listen. They are young and their blood is hot within them. It was always so with the young. Even Little Wolf here would have gone for the excitement.” Father and son exchanged small smiles. “But I have seen the soldier chief, Major Miles. He knows that I have kept the peace. My people are in no danger from the soldiers. You have nothing to fear.”

  McAllister leaned forward.

  “Yet I do fear, father. You know Anderson. If he finds you here, there is no telling what will happen.”

  “You mean that he knows this village is here?”

  “Not yet, he doesn’t. But Tom Mangold is scouting for him, too. And you know how smart a tracker Tom is.” Many Horses knew. Mangold’s name had been a byword for tracking skill on the frontier since the early days of the Bents and Kit Carson. If anybody could find the village, he could. McAllister had found it, so it must be possible for the half-Negro to do the same.

  Many Horses said: “The chances are that the village will not be found. If it is found, I have Major Miles’ word that we will not be attacked.”

  “Major Miles is a small chief. Anderson can ignore anything that he’s said.”

  “But the major gave me an American flag. If the soldiers come, we have to show the flag. No pony soldier however angry would fire on that.”

  McAllister sighed in despair. The chief was going to be a hard nut to crack.

  “Father,” he said, “why stay here?”

  He knew the answer to that before he heard it.

  “Winter is near. This is a good place to spend a winter.”

  “You could go north into the country of the Sioux. You would be welcome there and you would be safe.”

  “We have many old people and children. It would be a great hardship to travel during winter. The bad weather is now close. We should not cover many miles before the snow came down.”

  It would be better to be cold than dead, McAllister thought.

  The talk went on. Many times McAllister felt anger rising in him, impatience with the chief, yet he controlled both, because he knew that if he attacked Many Horses’ decision to stay too vigorously he would only drive the Indian to stay. The whole trouble was that there was a firm friendship between Many Horses and Major Miles. The Indian trusted the whiteman. Miles had said this village was safe, therefore it was safe and that was the end of it. But Miles
, in spite of his army title, was an Indian agent and no longer a soldier. The army was in command now. Anderson had been told unofficially to go out and hunt Indians indiscriminately. Officially, his target was Two Bulls, but he had been given the wink that all dead Indians would be considered to be good Indians. Many Horses still believed that the soldiers would only hunt those Indians who had raided white settlements. It was like trying to batter a way through solid rock. McAllister argued far into the night and could not move the chief. His faith in Miles and his reluctance to move his old folks and children through the hardship of winter was too much to argue against.

  He slept the night in the chief’s tipi, huddled warm and snug in thick buffalo robes, comfortable once more with Indian sounds and smells around him.

  Chapter 2

  The first thought that entered his head when he woke in the morning as pale dawn light seeped into the lodge, was: I’ve failed.

  But he didn’t give up.

  He got the chief and his son into conversation as soon as he was able. If Many Horses wouldn’t take the long and arduous journey north, marching toward winter, would he not move west into Colorado where Anderson and his men would probably not go? The chief shook his head. It was good of McAllister to come. It warmed an old man’s heart to think that McAllister had remembered his early years. But Miles’ word was good and he had an American flag. He and his people were safe. Let the Diver not worry. That brought a smile to McAllister’s grim mouth. In his childhood, the Cheyenne had called him the Diver.

  The chief and his son walked to McAllister’s horse with him. The people crowded around, huddled in blankets and buffalo robes against the biting cold of the wind. McAllister shrugged himself into his heavy buffalo coat, tied the thongs. Little children came forward shyly to touch him, girls smiled behind their hands, the warriors looked on with wooden faces. The hostility they had shown when he had first arrived had changed to a neutrality that bordered on sullenness. There were Cheyenne out on the plains killing whitemen. It was plain that the people here were for peace against their instincts. Only the strong word of Many Horses kept them here.