Second Lieutenant Taylor and his men, riding away from the Cohoes herd of cattle, skillfully avoided an Indian ambush at Franc’s Crossing, thanks to the alertness of the point rider, Private Myles Moynihan.
Mr. Taylor was a fairly modest man; still he felt pretty puffed up from having outfoxed the Sioux. There were indeed moments when Taylor, like many a young officer out of West Point, chafed under the tough yet resilient discipline of Easy Company’s adjutant, Matt Kincaid. Taylor sometimes had difficulty figuring out Kincaid’s motives. Sometimes the man was as strict as a whip, while on other occasions he simply seemed to go along much too easily. In short, his superior officer did not manifest the inflexibility of “the book,” which Taylor and so many graduates from the Point honored often at the expense of common sense.
Still, there was no question that Mr. Taylor admired Matt Kincaid, and sought to impress him—not as a fawning seeker of favor, but to satisfy the need for approval from someone who was so clearly his superior. Thus, the cute outmaneuvering at Franc’s Crossing was a coup; and Taylor chuckled to himself at the choice of the word.
The patrol rode briskly across the meadow that separated Franc’s Crossing from a line of young cottonwoods, through which the trail led west and north, rising to the higher ground where Taylor expected to encounter the Basque herders later that day.
It was a day in which the clarity of the blue sky rang
with a stillness penetrated suddenly by a flock of wild geese, whose disciplined flight emphasized the vast emptiness. Lieutenant Taylor sighed as they approached the cottonwoods, the trail disappearing into the dark interior.
He was mentally writing up a dashing report for Kincaid and Captain Conway, when suddenly an appalling avalanche of screaming warriors swept out of the trees, while another row of horsebackers poured out of a gulch just off to the right, catching the patrol in a neat pincer. To his dismay, Taylor realized he had been completely fooled by the fake ambush at the Crossing.
Taylor did not lose his head. He had seasoned men in his command who, following his orders, dismounted and found cover, horseholders dropping back with the mounts, ready to bring them forward as needed.
The men on the ground instantly began returning a solid fire at the attackers, who seemed to be coming from all directions, though Taylor realized that in fact they were not surrounding them, thus running the risk of shooting one another across a circle, but had executed a more deadly attack in the form of an L.
The first waves left two men wounded, and Moynihan, the point rider who had spotted the earlier false ambush, dead. The Sioux swept back to the cottonwoods and the gulch, giving the soldiers a moment while Taylor ordered them to keep spread out in a staggered line.
The lieutenant was a brave man, but he suddenly knew a terrifying moment as he waited for the next attack, as a silence fell across the meadow. The silence lasted barely a minute, and then the Sioux came pounding in, firing rifles and arrows, sweeping into the lines of the prone soldiers, swinging war clubs and axes.
And again they were gone.
Only this time there was no silence. All at once the sharp coughing of a bugle broke over the meadow, and
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Taylor, stunned with disbelief, saw the blue soldiers pouring in from his flank. By the time Kincaid and his men reached the beleaguered patrol, the hostiles had vanished.
“In the very nick of time, sir, and thank God,” Taylor said ruefully after saluting Matt and nodding a greeting to Windy Mandalian.
“Sometimes it happens like that,” Matt said.
Taylor seemed to take a fresh hold on himself. “But aren’t you going after them, sir?”
“Ifiaven’t lost my sanity yet, Mr. Taylor.”
Taylor could have chewed his tongue right out of his mouth as he felt his face flaming with embarrassment. “God, sir! Will I ever learn!”
“In this country, Mr. Taylor, you only get to make one mistake. Windy read your tracks back at Franc’s Crossing. That trick they pulled is the oldest in the book.”
“And I almost did it again!” Taylor was bleak with despair. He looked so miserable that Windy let a heavy chuckle fall, but said nothing.
Matt was looking at Taylor’s shoulder. He had noticed the rather heavy salute the lieutenant had given him.
“You’ve been hit?”
“Just a crease, sir. Some of the men are hit badly. And Moynihan is dead.”
“Better get a casualty count right away.” Kincaid turned to Gus Olsen, who was still mounted. “Sergeant, dismount and cover the area.” He turned back to Taylor while Olsen barked out the order. “Was it Quick Thunder?”
“I don’t know, sir.” A wry grin formed itself as he said, “They were quick. And like thunder. They came like lightning.”
“And like lightning they took off,” said Windy, easing himself into the conversation. “It’s got to be Quick Thun-
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der.” He held up an arrow. “Sioux arrow. And the fight was Little Haw'k’s style. Quick Thunder took some good lessons from him.”
By now the casualty count was in. “Four men wounded, sir. McGee and Barton aren’t bad, but Williams and Ferrandi need attention, shot in the neck and leg. Moynihan’s dead, and Furman is gutshot. It don’t look like he’ll make it, sir.”
“How many dead hostiles?”
“The Sioux took whoever was hit with them, sir.”
“Of course.” Windy stood swing-hipped, his thumbs hooked in his wide leather belt.
“And the cattle?” Matt kept his eyes on the men who were helping the wounded as he spoke to Taylor.
“The cattle are all right, sir. We were on our way to the sheep. Cohoes kept saying he wanted to push on up to the shipping point, and he wanted a full escort. I left two men, and along with Dobbs and Holzer, that makes four. But I advised him to stay where he was.”
“And the ranches?”
“The McKinneys and the Cowries are coming in. The rest, up around Grass Creek, want to stick it out. They’re pretty close together. I told them I didn’t like the idea, but they insisted.”
Matt studied the sun for a moment. “You’d better get right on back to Number Nine. You’ll have to go slow with your wounded.”
“Yes. sir.”
Kincaid said, “We will take over the rest of the patrol. I think we’ll check back on Cohoes just in case Quick Thunder decided on a visit.”
Windy looked across at Matt carefully. “You suspicion something besides Quick Thunder?”
“Just as you do. We might check out those tracks.
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Our friend might decide to make his play.”
“Sir...”
“Yes, Mr. Taylor.”
“Sir, request to stay in the field. I can send a detail back with the wounded.”
“Lieutenant, I am not sending you back because of your stupidity in riding into an ambush so easily, but because I want you back at the post.”
“Yes, sir.” Taylor appeared to want to say something more. “But, sir—”
“Heroes bore the shit out of me,” Matt Kincaid said.
“It’s not that, sir. It’s that I want to make up for my idiocy. I’m not looking to be a hero.”
Matt Kincaid reflected for a moment, then came to a decision. “Mr. Taylor, I can say that my experience is a good bit more than yours. I am older than you and I’ve been in this army longer. Let me tell you, one of the best assurances that you will repeat your mistake lies not in wiping it out as you wish to do by some kind of admirable action, but by living with it. That is going to be painful, mister. But that is what will teach you. And only that.” And then, following the briefest pause, “That is it, mister!”
Taylor couldn’t snap a salute; his arm was much too painful. But he did manage a slow, rubbery movement of his arm. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. I think I understand.”
Matt Kincaid, his gray eyes cold, hard, as expressionless as granite, was already walking away.
Mr. Taylor stepped into his saddle and swung onto his horse. He motioned the men forward. As he rode out of the meadow he felt terrible. He felt as though his whole world had collapsed, and he could hardly think of Moynihan dead, Furman dying, and the four wounded,
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nor that look on Matt Kincaid’s face when he had asked to stay in the field.
But he knew that Kincaid was right. It angered him to have to accept that, and yet, as he felt how much he wanted to rid himself of his feeling of guilt and stupidity, he knew too that Lieutenant Matt Kincaid was a hell of a lot smarter than he had ever imagined.
When Matt and Windy and the patrol caught up with the Cohoes cattle, they found the army detail guarding the herd right along with some of the cowboys. It drew a lot of bantering from their Easy Company companions.
Windy coughed out a laugh as he sized up the situation. “Bet you soldier boys never knew you’d end up punching beeves, did you?” And he dropped an eyelid as he rode up to Private Eddie Anders, who had been assigned by Taylor.
Anders, a young man with sandy hair and a wide- open face, broke into a big grin. “It sure ain’t like soldiering, Mr. Mandalian.”
And Windy laughed at that; he didn’t know anyone who called him Mr. Mandalian, except now and again Kincaid or Conway, in jest.
Cohoes and Domino were no more sociable than they had been the last time Matt saw them.
“I am aiming to push up to the shipping point with the herd, Kincaid. Could use some of your men to help us with them red bastards that I hear are running all over the country butchering good honest citizens.”
“Cohoes, it is not the time to move up into that country. The B rules are out in force and I would not advise it. I can leave men with you only if you remain where you are, but if you push to the Stinking Water you’ll be asking for big trouble.”
“I am not aiming to sit here, Kincaid, just picking my mose!”
“Sorry, Cohoes.”
“Sorry, my ass,” cut in Ching Domino, stomping up and catching the last words. “Sorry about them sheep, are you? How about them sheep coming into good grazing grpund—cattle country—and ruining it? Hell, you got ranchers in this here, and now you be letting them Basque bastards come in with their fuckin’ sheep!”
Kincaid turned a hard look on the big foreman, waiting a moment before responding, “We’re not looking for a cattle and sheep war, Domino. The sheepmen will be told where they can graze their woollies, and so will the cattlemen know where they can run their stock. But get one thing clear, this will not be on tribal land.
Cohoes’s face had turned a dark red, the lines on his furious jaw looking like hatchet marks. You re not telling me you’ll let sheep in here, into this graze! 1 mean to bring up more herds, and so do other drovers, by !< God!”
“I am not telling you anything, Cohoes,” said Matt, and there was a glitter in his eyes. "1 just told you.
Domino suddenly spat furiously at the ground, just in front of himself. “You know how them disgustin sheep bastards castrate them animals, do you?”
“That I do.”
“Not with a knife, like normal folks cuttin’ horses or bulls. Shit, no. They do it by bitiri their nuts off with their fuckin’ teeth!”
“Say...” Windy unwound himself from the side of the chuckwagon. “Say, you want to know how a Sioux
castrates a Texas cattleman?”
Ching Domino and Cohoes turned furious glares on the scout, whose face was washed in complete innocence.
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“Easy,” Windy went on, his voice soft as powder. “Easy. That wild Injun just castrates the cattleman with the cattleman’s own teeth.”
Cohoes and Domino were so outraged at the scout that they were speechless.
“We’ll be in the area,” Kincaid said, stepping into the lethal tableau.
Cohoes found his voice. “You taking your men?”
“For now. There are ranchers who need support. We’ll be patrolling between here and the Haymaker outfit on Jack Creek. Not too far.”
Without anything more being said, Kincaid turned and walked toward his horse, Windy following.
Very often, the long view over the plain seemed to shimmer, and perspective was tricky. The horse and rider now appeared indistinguishable from the clump of willows. Only in movement, as they broke out of the horizon, did they become clear.
They moved slowly, the rider watching carefully for sign, noting the jay creasing the sky as it plunged out of a stand of box elders near the river. The rider’s whole body sharpened. Shifting in his dark brown saddle, he eased the holstered .45 at his right hip, and touched the hideout gun under his shirt. Yet he did not alter the slow, picking gait of the little dun gelding.
In a few moments he was in cover again, and he drew rein. Now he saw the coyote running and knew why the jay had been startled. Still, he kept at the alert. Reaching to the pocket of his faded blue shirt, he took out a cheroot and lighted it, striking the wooden lucifer on the sad- dlehom. But he didn’t throw the match, he put it back into his shirt pocket.
Seen close now, he was a stocky, muscular man of medium height, still young, yet with the marks of years
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in his face. His blue eyes were widely spaced, and at their comers could be seen the faint imprint of crow’s- feet. He crossed his arms now, leaning forward onto the pommel of the saddle, peering out from the protection of the thin trees to study the trail ahead.
He had seen the army patrol riding away from the herd, and wondered if they had left more men behind, or had possibly taken back those who were already there. He would check that later, toward evening, when the, light would be more in his favor.
He drew on his cheroot. It was good. It had been a long wait, and he knew he was getting restless and would have to be careful. He had not dared to show himself in the town, and so he’d had to live off the land. Good enough, except for nothing to drink, and no women or cards. What was more, hunting was difficult, for he only had the two handguns. But he had earned a satisfaction, he had figured right on Cohoes and Domino bringing the herd up the Greybull to the Stinking Water. That was a gamble he had won.
He leaned back in the saddle, his hand automatically reaching to his other shirt pocket; only the deck was not there. He wondered if the Indian had been found. More than likely. Well, there was nothing there that would identify himself. He had not tarried after the shooting— that cheating son of a bitch—he had not even waited to collect the deck of cards. Nor had he left any trace with the first featherhead, the one who’d been packing in that fresh-shot elk. But the fool had argued with a hungry man, and he should’ve known better. Anyhow, dead men tell no tales, and that was the big point.
Well, it shouldn’t be too long now. They’d be within range of the depot soon, and he’d have to make his play before that. And then, by God, he’d have that herd his herd, most of it his—what that bastard Domino had
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stolen while he was in the pen, and was now partnering with Elihu Cohoes.
Yes, his plan was clean. He’d let them trail the herd pretty close to the Stinking Water and he’d just take it— for they weren’t expecting him, not by a long shot, with fifteen years’ sentence next to his name. He had considered waiting until the beeves were sold and then simply taking the money, but it would have had to be in town, with any number of witnesses and other possibilities that might work against him. No, this was safer. He knew he could handle the men. Ching Domino would have it all pretty well organized, and he would simply step in and take over. He had planned it close. It was going to work. It had to work.
By God, he had tried the straight side of the law. He’d gotten himself together that herd of beeves, worked like hell for it, rounding up mavericks and whatever else he could lay an iron on down in the brakes around Harley- ville. His plan had been to make a stake and maybe then send for the kid to come help him out with running a few head. But he had lost half the herd to that sonofabitch Domino in a game of stud, and then the next thing they were partners; until the law from that old robbery at Medicine Bow had caught up with him and he’d been taken. Well, he was out, and Ching Domino and Cohoes had taken the herd. And he was coming to get his. Lar- rabee Hogan was coming to get what was his.