Man in the Saddle Read online

  It was as if the Indian had been lifted by a giant hand and hurled down on the ground. She heard his agonized grunt and then her legs gave way under her. Dimly she was aware that Spur had turned and had fired the Henry.

  It seemed only a moment later that Spur was lifting her onto the Indian pony and was saying: “Hold on.” Then they were riding and they rode into the night till they reached water. From there on they waded along a stream up to their waists in water, pulling the horses behind them. By dawn, she was exhausted, cold and hungry. She was too tired to even look at the food that Spur offered her when he had found a sheltered place for them to rest in the rocks. She just lay down on the hard ground and fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Chapter Three

  After the loneliness of the ranch on the Big Bend and the plains after her capture, the Fort was like a metropolis to Anne Grimes. The last three days had been like a confusing whirl to her: being questioned by the army major, listening to Spur talking to him.

  She sat now outside the house of the lieutenant who was away on furlough and which the commandant had loaned her, watching Spur saddling his horse and preparing for the trail. And she wondered about the man, thinking back to the interview with the commanding officer. Major Pole, a gruff and bluff soldier who impressed her greatly, but whom Spur thought to be a bit of a fool. Spur had insisted, rather to the major’s annoyance, in questioning all the civilian scouts attached to the fort, both white and Indian. And each one of them had looked at that book he carried in his buckskin shirt.

  “Do you know him?” Spur asked each of them and peeping over their shoulders, Ann Grimes saw that on one of the pages was a neat pencil sketch of the Indian who had led the men who had captured her and Sarah.

  All the scouts said “no”, they didn’t know the man. All of them except Will Pagley, the Delaware Indian.

  Pagley said: “I know him. I think.”

  “Who is he?” Spur asked.

  “Two Bears, a Kiowa.” Spur glanced around at Ann as if to say: “This man knows what he’s talking about.”

  “A chief?”

  “Of no great standing,” the Delaware said, “but he is building a reputation. He has been to this fort several times. A bunch of hot-headed young braves follow him. Is he the one who stole the girl?”

  Spur said “yes” it was the one.

  From behind his desk, the major asked: “You’re certain you’ve got the right man, Pagley?”

  “Pretty sure.5’

  The major stood up and leaned on his desk. “The next patrol will find the Kiowas and make enquiries about the girl. Rest assured., Mrs. Grimes, we shall not leave a stone unturned in our efforts to find her. But you must realize that to find an Indian who does not want to be found is quite an undertaking.”

  Anne nodded. “I understand.”

  “The army,” Spur said coldly, “don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell findin’ the girl. Quickly.”

  The major got mad.

  “I resent that remark, Spur.”

  “I’m tellin’ the truth and you know it, Pole. We want that girl back quick …. untouched. It has to be done now.”

  “What you’re saying is impossible.”

  Anne Grimes saw Spur’s face take on that frightening look. Not glancing in her direction. Spur said: “We leave her there any length of time and we might as well leave her there forever. We all know that, so why fool ourselves.”

  Taking in the meaning of his words, the woman felt herself on the edge of breaking.

  “Is there no way of saving her, major?”

  The soldier waved his hands. “We will do all that’s possible, ma’am.”

  Spur said: “All that’s probable. The army’ll do what’s obvious. The Indians’ll sidestep ’em. There’s only one way.”

  “What’s that?” the soldier demanded.

  “One man goes after her. Or two at most.”

  Pole laughed unpleasantly. “That’d be suicide.”

  “No,” Spur said. “It won’t be. I can prove it.”

  “How?”

  “By goin’ myself.”

  Anne Grimes was on her feet, gripping Spur by the arm. He turned and looked at her with his eyes cold.

  The major said: “It’s your funeral.”

  Will Pagley said: “Mine too.”

  Spur and the major turned to stare at him.

  “You sure?” Spur asked.

  “Not a bad idea,” the major said, thinking quickly. “The army should be represented.” Spur smiled. He liked the United States Army being represented by a ragged-assed Delaware scout.

  It was settled. They talked over the details. And now here was Spur saddling the dun, now putting on fat from several days of being grained. Hoofs drummed softly on the parade ground and looking up, Aim saw the Delaware trotting his horse toward them. He led a loaded pack horse behind him. He halted and dismounted long-legged from his bay horse. He stood taciturn and unsmiling while Spur finished.

  Spur straightened and said to him: “All set?” The Indian nodded and they both turned to Anne.

  A sergeant went by them, holding his sword against his leg, ramrod straight, in marked contrast to the two shabby scouts.

  “Well, ma’am,” Spur said, “we’ll get on our way.”

  When they were mounted, she came and stood between the heads of their horses, knowing full well what lay before them.

  “There’s no way,” she said, “I can thank you. Both of you.”

  Spur looked at her and if any other man had looked at her that way, she would have thought them angry. The blue eyes were cold.

  “Time for thanks,” he said, “when we have the girl. We don’t promise a thing, ma’am.”

  “I know. But you’re tryin’.”

  They lifted their hands and without a backward glance, trotted their horses out of the gateway of the fort. No one had a word for them except the sentry, who waved and wished them luck. They rode twenty yards beyond the stockade before either spoke. The Delaware twisted his thin lips into a wry smile and said: “By God we need it.”

  Spur grunted.

  They trotted their way into the south-west, hardly knowing where they were headed, knowing they had the whole vast plains to feel their way across, searching maybe hopelessly for a small band of Indians who moved with the seasons and raided for a thousand miles from their homeland.

  Spur did not know the extent of the Delaware’s knowledge of these Western tribes, though he was aware that he had served as a scout for some ten years on this part of the frontier. There would be time in the saddle through the blistering days and in camps at night to learn more of the Indian’s lore. What he knew himself did not encourage him. Since the days of the Spaniards from whom the Kiowas first obtained the horse, these people had been known as insatiable raiders and slave-takers. They sold slaves to the Spaniards and stole Spaniards for themselves. They raided the peaceful Pueblo Indians, raided far south into Mexico, had hit Texas regularly each year since the coming of the Anglo-Saxons. They had fought Indians and whites alike implacably, but they regarded the whitemen as their natural enemies. They were the greatest horsemen in the world, not taking second place even to the renowned Comanches. They had the courage, strength and ferocity that made them the terror of the frontier. Horses and slaves would draw them anywhere.

  Yet, with all his dread of them, Spur looked forward to contact with them with some anticipation. In all his wanderings from Mexico to the Canadian border, he had had little dealings with them. And in their country he saw a wonderful chance to add information to the book he carried in his hunting shirt and, with his pencil, he would record indelibly the appearance of what he knew would be a vanishing people.

  Patiently the two men settled down to quartering the country, coming on lone riders to question, here and there a trader, once an army patrol. They searched for three weeks and in that time received no reliable information as to the whereabouts of any Kiowa band. All the time they moved steadily into the sou
th-west, edging into Colorado territory, because on Little Deer Creek under the hills of San Felipe if luck were with them they might find Cass Whitlock. A squawman, Pagley explained. The Kiowas left him alone. Used him at times as a go-between with the whites.

  They had been in the saddle for a month when they splashed their way through the creek and came into the fair meadow in which the squawman had made his camp. A small shebang of uncut logs, a rickety corral with a couple of hang-head horses in it, a truck garden off to one side with an Indian woman working in it.

  Whitlock was there to meet them in the yard. A tall, rangy man of around sixty, eyes pale and faded, his clothing mostly of buckskin. His white man’s speech came hesitantly, almost as though he had forgotten it nearly through lack of use. He knew Pagley and greeted him with a handshake. He made Spur welcome and called the woman from the garden to prepare them food.

  At the table, their bellies full, they told the man their reason for being here.

  He shook his head.

  “Sure, I saw a girl. Fair. About ten-eleven years. She was here, all right. Two moons back, mebbe.”

  “Do you know who had her?” Spur asked.

  “Two Bears. I told him he was a damn’ fool and he’d have the soldiers after him. But he jest laughed and said if the soldiers came after him, they wouldn’t get the girl. Not alive.”

  Pagley asked: “Would he trade?”

  Whitlock shrugged.

  “Who can tell with a man like Two Bears. He’s kind of vain. It’s a great thing for him to have a prisoner like that kid. Mebbe when she’s old enough, he’ll make her his woman. He was on about how she was fair and yellow like gold. He was sure took with her all right.”

  They spent the rest of the day trying to find out where Two Bears’ band might be, where they were heading, but Whitlock seemed reluctant to talk. He lived cheek-by-jowl part of the year with the Kiowa and he did not want trouble. They couldn’t blame him.

  They slept that night out on the plain, wrapped in their blankets. Before they slept, Pagley said: “Two Bears’ tracks will be plain. There has been no rain for a long time around here.”

  Sure enough, soon after dawn, on circling they came on plain tracks leading south. Both agreed that some ten riders on unshod ponies had gone that way. They returned to the cabin, made their farewells to Whitlock and his squaw and rode south, lifting their horses to a trot and keeping the pace.

  Some ten miles to the south, Two Bears’ band had halted and waited for a larger party of Indians coming in from the west. That had brought the number up to over thirty men. Men. No women and kids. Neither of them liked the sound of that much. Kiowas without their women along could mean only one thing.

  They went on.

  They camped that night in the foothills and kept their horses hobbled and near. They kept no guard, for neither reckoned that there were Indians near. In the morning, they pushed on, following the sign.

  They followed it for a week, ever going south until they were within a couple of days of the Picket Wire river. Here the country was fairly open and they were able to see fair distances at times. The heat was oppressive and they had not seen a cloud since they started the ride. Their saddles were blackened with their sweat. The grass now was consistently brown and the feed for their horses poor. The animals were really starting to show signs of wear. Both men had it in their minds to obtain new horseflesh.

  Now, they came on the Crampton place.

  A small ranch. The start of what one day would be a cattle empire, but now no more than a soddy with a starve-out. Here lived two brothers, Jed and Carl, big brawny men in their twenties, blackened by the sun and worn down to whang leather riding their scattered and scanty herd to keep the Indians off them. They had been raided ten times in two years. The Comanches and Kiowas seemed to take it in turns to eat their beef and try for their horses. Neither, they both claimed, knew why the hell they had come to this Godforsaken country in the first place.

  They gave the two men a good welcome, though at first they looked askance at Pagley who was so obviously an Indian. They shared steaks with their guests and listened to the reason for their being in the country.

  Jed Crampton, the leader of the two, said: “The Kiowas was through here not a couple of weeks back. Around ten of ’em an’ we shot the asses off’n ’em. By Gawd, you’d of thought they’d learned to give this place the go-by, the punishment we give ’em.”

  Carl said: “There was a bunch of Texas Rangers here three-four days back.”

  Jed took him up. “Yeah. They said something about the Injuns takin’ a white girl. Belonged to a family staked out around a hunnerd miles north of here.”

  “That’ll be her,” Spur said.

  The Cramptons swapped them horses and saw them on their way, sorry to see them go, because to see a strange face was a real treat to them.

  Chapter Four

  Five days later, when they reckoned they were in New Mexico Territory, they came on the wagon train. A dozen big Conestogas in the care of a company of about forty angry men. They’d been hit by Indians around dawn. Spur and Pagley were made welcome and ate with their leader, a St. Louis man named George Quigley. No, the trader told them, he didn’t know if they’d been.

  Kiowas or Comanches or Navajos. And he didn’t give a damn what they were. They were all Indians to him, murdering and thieving devils who should be shot on sight like vermin. He didn’t even blush when he said this in Pagley’s presence. They’d burned a wagon and that was more than a thousand dollars down the drain. These losses to the Indians could not go on. Business could not stand it. He added as an afterthought that he’d lost a bull-whacker dead and had a boy wounded. He reckoned they had not killed a damned Indian. They’d swooped in at dawn when they’d thought there wasn’t a damned Indian within a thousand miles of the place, driven off six good horses and killed a couple of good oxen just for the hell of it.

  Spur and Pagley took the opportunity to buy supplies from the train, replenishing their dwindling food stocks and powder and ball. Spur was lucky enough to be able to buy a hundred rounds for his Henry repeater.

  They consulted together and agreed that the raiding party who had hit the train was the same one they had been following and pretty soon the Indians would spot them on their back-trail. They also agreed that they had probably come too far south and that this war party might be heading for Mexico. If that was so, they were way out of their mark. They wanted a village where the women would be.

  “But,” Pagley said, with that wry smile of his, “maybe we won’t make it. They’ll spot us almost for sure and they’ll come looking for us.”

  He was right.

  At noon, they sighted Indians on a ridge not a mile away.

  It was then that Spur was glad that a man of Pagley’s caliber had chosen to come with him. Calmly, the Delaware said: “I think it is agreed that we do not fight unless we have to.”

  Spur knew that if they fought and killed Kiowas the word would reach the villages and then any chance of negotiating for the girl would be lost. He agreed.

  They halted and waited under the broiling sun.

  The Indians, some five of them, walked their horses down from the ridge.

  Pagley said: “My Sharp’s could kill all of them from here. A pity.”

  The Indians came within half-a-mile of the waiting men.

  Now, Spur and the Delaware could see the brightness of their plumage and the flash of their weapons. Pagley tilted his Stetson over his forehead against the glare of the sun and looped an idle leg around his saddle-horn.

  “There are not enough of them for a fight, even for a Kiowa,” he said softly. “They’ll try to scare us.”

  “Okay,” Spur said, “we sit tight.”

  Suddenly, the Indians, from a distance of a couple of hundred yards, charged. Rifle-butt, bow-haft and quirt lashed at the bony rumps of horses and, yelling and screaming, they galloped at top speed toward the two men. Both Spur’s and Pagley’s horses trie
d to take off in fright, but the two men held them there as they skittered in tight circles.

  When the Indians were no more than yards away, eyes and mouths wide, their paint vivid and hideous, their ponies roiling their eyes wildly, they halted. The animals stood on their hind-legs, whinnying. Dust choked the two men as they held their own horses down with iron hands. When they had got their animals down on all fours, the Indians shook their weapons and yelled their defiance. Spur and Pagley looked them over coldly. Then with a yell, the Indians were off again to halt a hundred yards away and watch them impassively, as their ponies tossed their heads and their feathers fluttered.

  “Pagley,” Spur said. “We do the same to them.”

  The Delaware shot him an astonished glance.

  Then he grunted, Indian-fashion, and a flicker of a grin touched his face. “Fight up to ’em an’ swerve,” he said.

  Spur nodded. “Give the word.”

  One Kiowa leaned from his saddle to talk to another.

  Pagley said softly: “Ready.” They eased their feet forward and when he yelled: “Now!” they swung their heels and jabbed home with the spurs, sending both ponies forward in a hard jump that, before it was a couple of full-length paces, became a rocketing gallop.

  They saw the Indians snap to attention. One of their ponies gigged sideways. The man hit it and pulled it back near his companions. As the two of them thundered near a paint-pony started pitching frantically. Almost up to the noses of the Indian animals, they thundered. Spur saw the eyes of one young warrior come wide in fright. An older man sat like stone in his wooden saddle. They were so close that every touch of paint was visible. The Indians’ nostrils flared, their hands tightened on their weapons. The young man was itching to lift his rifle and fire - then Spur and Pagley swerved outward and brushed past them.

  As soon as they were past, they pulled their animals in. The pack-horse blundered into Spur’s horse. The saddle-horses reared. Then they turned them and through the dust saw the Indians like ghosts. They had turned also.