Predators and Prey Page 23

  “Stand,” he said to the horse. He closed his eyes and slept.

  Sam awoke with the sun’s slanting rays shining in under the roan’s belly and striking him. He climbed to his feet and slapped the big horse fondly on the neck. “Time to find a water hole,” he told the horse.

  The mounts of the two dead Pawnee had drifted off only a short distance from their fallen masters. Both lifted their heads from feeding on the grass and watched Sam. Good- looking animals, he thought. He would take them with him. In a chase they would be very valuable as relay mounts.

  Sam caught the mustangs, tied lead ropes around their necks, and rode off leading them.

  The prairie spread out before him with not one rise of land to halt or slow the blasts of winter’s arctic wind, not a tree to break the burning rays of the sun. He loved it. Almost as much as the high mountain valleys of the Rockies with their golden aspen and deer browsing the cliff on the slopes above.

  Two hours later, at the edge of the night, he dropped down into the valley of the Blue River, a tributary of the North Platte River. He chose a camp beneath the spreading limbs of a giant sycamore. He tethered the roan near his bed. After cutting lengths of rope he hobbled the Indian ponies and turned them loose to graze.

  He started to whistle, for it was okay to whistle when a man felt so damn good. Even if he did plan to do murder.

  ***

  “We’ve caught the Mormons,” DeBreen said, staring at the procession of handcarts winding over the prairie a mile ahead.

  “They’ve made better time and are farther along than we thought they would be,” Stanker said.

  “I’ve been told the men and women pulling the handcarts can travel faster than a wagon train,” Phillips added. “Now I believe it.”

  “And they lose more people too,” Stanker said. “Back a couple of years ago, a handcart company started out late for Salt Lake City, got caught by winter weather, and three people out of every ten died.”

  “This one is going to be more dangerous than that one,” DeBreen said. “Here’s our plan. Phillips, you and Taylor stay behind and out of sight. At night, come in close, kill the Mormon guards that are posted, and haul them far off so that they won’t be found. Do the same the second night. And if any Mormons go out on the plains during the day, kill them too. The rest of us will ride in, acting friendly, and see what kind of outfit they run. We’ll help you do some killing if we get the chance.”

  “You’ll get to the women before us,” Phillips growled. “How about me and Taylor?”

  “You’ll both get your share of the women. More than you can handle, so just wait a little.”

  On galloping horses, the band of nine trappers swept up behind the handcart company. DeBreen slowed the pace and led the men past the people toiling at the vehicles. The Mormons looked badly worn, and their gaunt bodies showed they were starving.

  Mathias stopped the cart he pulled for a lame man. The carts to his rear stopped in a chain reaction. He walked to meet the new arrivals; perhaps they had news of Anton or Ellen.

  DeBreen reined his horse in beside Caroline’s cart. He looked her up and down; and then at Sophia, in harness with her; then at Ruth and Pauliina, at the back. His eyes lingered a moment on Ruth.

  DeBreen touched the brim of his hat. “Good day, young ladies, we meet again,” he said.

  “It appears that way,” Caroline replied. She glanced at the mule being led by one of the men. Her heart sank. What had happened to Anton and Ellen?

  “How is your journey going?” DeBreen asked.

  “Couldn’t ask for an easier trip,” Sophia said tartly.

  “I’m glad to hear that. But I’m surprised. I would’ve supposed those handcarts would be hard to pull.”

  “They almost roll themselves along,” Sophia said.

  DeBreen cast a short look at Pauliina, standing with her big hands on her hips and strong arms akimbo. “Well, with a horse of a woman like she is, I guess the cart does go easily.”

  Caroline hated the man, for she knew the words had hurt Pauliina. She stared hard at him. There was something malevolent in the back of his eyes. He was one of those men who liked to hurt people.

  DeBreen touched his hat brim again and rode forward, leading the mule.

  “I don’t like him any better now than when we saw him in St. Joe,” Caroline said to Sophia. “Let’s go and listen to what he has to say to Mathias.”

  “I don’t think that man being here is an accident,” Sophia said.

  “I saw him once before too,” Ruth said. “When he sold furs to my father.”

  “Would your father hire him to come and take you back?” Caroline asked.

  Ruth bit her lip as she considered the question. “I don’t know,” she replied with a worried expression. “I thought my father acted afraid of him that one time I saw them together discussing furs.”

  “Why would so many men be needed to take Ruth back?” Sophia asked.

  “Be quiet, we don’t want him to hear us,” Caroline cautioned as the four girls hastened forward with several other people.

  DeBreen dismounted near Mathias. “Are you the leader of this group of people?” he asked.

  “I suppose I could be called that,” Mathias answered. He recognized the mule. “My name is Rowley.”

  DeBreen noticed Mathias’s scrutiny of the animal. “We found the mule grazing beside the trail a day’s ride back,” DeBreen said. “I thought it had probably strayed, so I brought it along, hoping to return it to its rightful owner. Is it yours?”

  “Yes. It’s ours. You didn’t see the man who was riding it?”

  “Saw nobody. Only the mule.”

  “No woman, either?”

  “Like I said, nobody.”

  “One of the women wandered off and Anton Lund went to find her,” Mathias said in explanation.

  “Sorry, but I can’t help you with either of them. My name’s DeBreen. Me and my men are heading for Fort Laramie to offer our services to the soldiers there and to help kill some Indians.”

  As DeBreen spoke, he casually pivoted around, raking a calculating look over the gathering of Mormons. Caroline thought he seemed to be counting them, measuring them, especially the few men. The other buckskin-clad men, still sitting their mounts, roamed their eyes over the women, looking at them from top to bottom. Caroline sensed something sinister and threatening in their intense appraisal. She felt a chill of apprehension.

  “I don’t see any guns except your pistol,” DeBreen said to Mathias. “That’s not much protection from Indians.”

  “We have some men with rifles who can use them. We lost a man two nights ago. He was killed when Indians took our small herd of steers.”

  “That’s too bad,” DeBreen said. “We’re in no hurry to reach Fort Laramie. If you want us to, we can ride along with you for a few days. Maybe you need some meat. We’ll kill you some buffalo.”

  Caroline wanted to shout out to Mathias to refuse DeBreen’s offer. She believed he was lying, a dangerous man.

  “Losing the cattle has made us short of provisions,” Mathias said. “A couple of buffalo would be most welcome. Then you can go on your way.”

  “We’ll do some hunting for you yet today,” DeBreen said. He faced his men. “Stanker, you and Ross ride on ahead and kill two or three buffalo.”

  “Right. We’ll meet you along the trail with the meat,” Phillips said.

  “Mathias was a fool to have accepted the help of that bunch,” Sophia said under her breath to Caroline.

  “I agree, but I can understand why. The people are starving, and those men have horses and will know how to hunt buffalo. Our empty stomachs are Mathias’s immediate concern.”

  ***

  Phillips lay in the prairie grass in the early night and watched the camp of the Mormons. The aroma of frying buffalo meat wafted to him on the slow, evening wind.

  DeBreen and the trappers were eating and talking with the polygamists. Some of the women sat near him, list
ening intently and apparently interested in what he was saying. DeBreen had given Phillips the meanest job.

  “I wish I was there instead of here,” Taylor whispered as he reclined near Phillips.

  “Well, you’re not,” muttered Phillips.

  The evening meal ended for the Mormons. Two men left the camp. Walking in opposite directions and carrying rifles, they went into the dark prairie just outside the handcarts.

  “There go the guards,” Phillips said. “You take the fellow going north and I’ll take the one heading south.”

  Taylor pointed up at the sky. “That moon’s making a little light, and it’ll be hard to get close enough to knife the Mormons without some fuss and noise.”

  “Naw, it won’t be. The moon’s almost gone. Here’s how we’ll do it. Crawl up between the man and the camp. Then just stand up and walk toward him. He won’t be able to see your face in the dark and will think you’re just one of the trappers he saw before. He’ll think you’re coming out to talk with him. Get close and knife him quick and quiet.”

  “That’s a good plan,” Taylor said. He crawled off through the grass on his stomach.

  ***

  “It’s a woman,” Ash said, standing up in his stirrups and staring out across the prairie. “I can see that she’s wearing a skirt.”

  “I believe you’re right,” Nathan said, also standing up in his stirrups in order to see better.

  The woman walked steadily along through the grass, which whipped and danced to the stiff wind. Her head was bent down as she looked at the ground. A blanket roll was tied over her shoulder.

  “I can’t tell if it’s an Indian squaw or a white woman,” Ash said.

  “We’ll ride on and talk with her,” Nathan said.

  A few minutes later, as the band of Texans closed the distance to the figure coming over the plains, Jake said, “Looks like a white woman to me. At least she’s wearing a white woman’s clothes.”

  “It’s mighty strange for her to be out here and traveling south,” Ash said. “There’s no white people for a thousand miles in that direction.”

  “She must be lost,” Jake said.

  “Most probably,” Nathan said. “I wonder if she might be one of the Mormon women. We’re getting close to the route Drum said they would use along the Platte River.”

  The woman lifted her head. She immediately halted as her eyes spotted the approaching horsemen. She spun to the side and darted off over the flat grassland.

  “Woman, we mean you no harm,” Nathan called out to her.

  “I’ll catch her,” Ash said. He touched his mount with his heels and the animal broke into a gallop after the fleeing figure.

  “I’ll help him,” Jake said. He hurried his horse up beside Ash.

  “Don’t scare her,” Nathan called out. His voice was drowned out by the pounding hooves of the two men bearing swiftly down on the woman.

  She cast a look behind and then back to the front. She increased her pace to an all-out run, her feet kicking the tail of her skirt and the blanket roll bouncing on her back.

  Ash shouted out. “For God’s sake, woman, stop. We just want to talk to you.”

  Nathan jumped the roan forward into a full running stride. “Ash, she’s frightened. Don’t chase her!” he shouted out ahead.

  The woman looked again to the rear. Closer now, Nathan saw her face twist with fear. She bent forward, her arms pumping as she desperately tried to outrun the men on horseback.

  “Head her off, Jake,” Ash yelled. “Make her stop.”

  Jake drove ahead of the fleeing woman, jerked his horse to a stop, and leapt down. Ash stopped behind the woman and swung to the ground.

  The woman slid to a halt. “I’ll never go back! Never!” she shouted.

  Jake moved toward the woman. She screamed in a shrill voice, peaking at an intensity of hate and fear that was not human. She launched herself at the big blacksmith.

  Jake backed away from the woman’s attack. He had not expected that. She bore in on him, her hands clawing at his face. He retreated, shielding his eyes.

  The woman sensed Ash coming up behind her, and her crazed eyes darted to the rear. She whirled, screamed her wild scream again, and rushed at Ash.

  “Damnation!” Nathan exclaimed as he sped forward. He was very afraid she would hurt herself in the fit-like state she was in.

  Jake lunged toward her, grabbed her in a bear hug, and pinned her arms to her side. “Please. Please,” he said, trying to calm the wildly struggling woman. “You don’t have to go back.”

  Nathan reined in his horse close to the struggling pair. He heard the woman’s breath sobbing in her throat and she fought Jake at the extreme limits of mortal strength.

  Abruptly she stiffened, then, coming from the very core of her, a tremor ran through her body. She collapsed in Jake’s arms.

  Jake hastily knelt and laid the woman down in the grass. Nathan and Ash hunkered down beside him. Her glance moved from one worried face to the other.

  Nathan saw a strange light of awakening come into her eyes. Her lips moved but no sound would come. She breathed once, and then the life went out of her as smoothly as a lamp ceases to burn when the oil is all gone.

  “She’s dying!” Jake cried. His hands shot out to clutch the woman by the shoulders. He shook her. “Don’t die! Please, don’t die!” he pleaded. She was as limp as cloth in his hands.

  “Let me have her,” Nathan said, taking the woman from Jake and bending quickly to put his ear next to her mouth. Nothing—not one sign of a breath.

  “She’s dead,” Nathan said, looking into Jake’s anguished face.

  Les came up and knelt with the other Texans beside the still body.

  Jake looked from one face to the next. He was responsible for this tragedy. A soul-bending sadness brought tears to the blacksmith’s eyes. “I only wanted to help her, and in the end I killed her,” he said.

  “Not you alone,” Ash said. “I was part of it. We didn’t know this would happen. We meant only good toward her.”

  “That’s right,” Nathan said. “It could have been anyone of us who had hold of her when she died.”

  Ash laid his hand on Jake’s shoulder. “I once roped a beautiful little mare running with a band of mustangs. Well, I pulled her down as gently as I could, and walked up the rope to get acquainted. The moment I touched her, she just trembled and died. She’d simply scared herself to death. This woman’s fright killed her, not you. We don’t know why she was so afraid of us. But she surely would have died out here on the plains all by herself.”

  Les reached for the woman’s bedroll and pulled it off her shoulder. “Let’s see if she has anything that will tell us who she is.” He unrolled the bedding. “There’s nothing but the blanket and an empty canteen. Not a speck of food. She couldn’t have survived for long.”

  “Wrap her in the blanket,” Nathan said. “We must bury her.”

  Jake gazed at the woman’s face. “I hope she knows how sorry I feel.”

  The four Texans began to dig in the prairie grass with their knives.

  28

  The Texans rode swiftly, sensing the goal of their long journey was near. They did not talk and made no stop for food. When the sun reached its zenith, they slowed their mounts to a walk.

  As the day burned down to evening, the prairie ended, falling away before the horsemen in a series of short, steep gullies down into a river valley. The meandering river flowed off to the east in the center of a two-mile-wide floodplain. Brush and giant trees bordered the river. From their elevation, the men could see black, dead swamp water in several abandoned oxbows of the river.

  “The North Platte at last,” Nathan said.

  “We can be across the river in an hour or less,” Jake said.

  The Texans touched their mounts with spurs and, leading the packhorses, went into the valley. There they found a gravel-bottomed riffle and forded the river, the water lapping at the horses’ bellies.

  An awful
stench assailed their noses. Half a hundred buffalo had fallen through the ice during the winter. Then, in the spring thaw, the rotting carcasses had been washed, along with much brush and tree trunks, into a huge drift. The men seemed to be riding through a lake of putrid odor.

  They hurried their mounts past the dead buffalo. In the next two miles they had climbed up from the valley and onto the plain again.

  Nathan reined his mount to a halt. “Take a look, fellows,” he said, pointing down at a wide, dusty trail full of wheel marks and footprints.

  Ash flung his eyes left and right along the worn path. He jerked off his hat. “Yahoo,” he yelled at the top of his voice. “We’ve found them.”

  “You’re right,” Nathan said. “The tracks show that handcarts have passed here.” He scanned to the west. There was only the prairie, empty and silent as far as he could see. Without another word he turned along the trail that stretched all the way to Salt Lake City.

  In the black ash of night the riders approached a small, wood-lined creek which ran in from the right and onward across the trail toward the river lying some four miles south. The men stopped their weary mounts. They sat silently in their saddles and peered into the dark woods.

  “What’s that?” Nathan said. “I think I hear voices.” He cupped his hands to funnel more sound to his ears and listened intently. The voices of women drifted to him on the soft wind.

  “I hear it too,” Ash said.

  “Could be the women of a wagon train heading for Oregon,” Jake said.

  “I feel we have found the Mormons,” Ash said.

  “Whoever it is, is about a half mile to the west on the other side of the stretch of woods,” Les said.

  “There’s only one way to find out for sure,” Jake said. “Let’s go and take a look.”

  “Maybe we’d better wait until daylight,” Ash suggested. “They’ll have guards posted. They might take a shot at us coming out of the dark.”

  “We can take a look from a distance tonight,” Nathan said. “Then tomorrow go and talk with them.”

  Nathan moved slowly through the woods and turned left. They may have found the Mormon women, and he felt his excitement growing. Yet at the same time he was reluctant to take the final step and approach the camp. He noted that nobody else hurried. They must have the same emotion as he.