Jethro Stuart had not moved. Lazily, he took out a plug of tobacco and bit off a small fragment. "You keep forgettin", Mr. King, my job"s to hunt game." King wheeled in his tracks. "Your job was to hunt. Go to the paymaster and draw your time."
Unconcerned, Jethro turned his back on King and began to unfasten the lashings on the bodies. "Be interested to know, Mr. Kinga"who"s going to hunt your meat? You?"
The contempt in Stuart"s voice infuriated King, but his anger was stifled by the realization that he could not, for the time being, replace Jethro. Without the hunter, there would be no fresh meat for the laborers; and without meat, he would soon have no crew. His anger, his feelings about Jethro, these meant nothing when in the balance against the progress of the railroad. "All right!" He waved an impatient hand. "Forget what I said. But I want you to bring in buffalo meat, not dead men!"
Turning away, he said to his secretary, "Make a note to replace that man at the first opportunity."
Behind him something thumped upon the ground and, glancing back, King saw Stuart had dumped the two bodies right where he stood. Anger flooded him again and he started to shout, then clamped his lips, staring after Stuart, his fury bitter in his mouth. Behind him the spikers swung their sledges in a steady rhythm ... it had a lovely sound. Slowly, his hot burst of rage subsided.
"Mr. King," his secretary said, "those bodiesa"?" "Leave *em for the army. If they won"t protect us, they can at least bury the dead."
They called it the End of the Track, and the name was about as accurate as could be. Only one might have been bettera"the End of the Line, and for many that was what it was.
Tonight it was here; last night it had been thirty miles away. Tomorrow night would be the last on this site, and then it would move along. If they were lucky they might spend a week in one spot ... such times were rare with Mike King on the job. At the End of the Track there was but one lawa"the Railroad. And at the End of the Track, or anywhere along the six hundred miles of steel, Mike King was the Railroad.
It was a town that moved with the track, and could be taken down in less than an houra"a town without roots, populated by men without roots, and by womena"with one exceptiona"of just one kind.
A dozen large tents and fifty small onesa"that was the town at the End of the Track, and nowhere in so small a s.p.a.ce had there ever been concentrated so large a percentage of vice. You could choose your game, and your brand of whiskey. You bought rot-gut whiskey if you didn"t care. If you did care, there was good whiskey; there was even champagne and expensive wine. You could choose your kind of woman. All nationalities and colors were there, schooled in every sin, and prepared to invent a few new ones at the customer"s discretion. It was rough, bawdy, brutal.
The bulk of the men who inhabited the tent city by night were the track-layers, spikers, tie-cutters, and teamsters who were building the road. But there were also the men and women who traveled to entertain and serve them. The tracklayers and those who went before them were making money, and they wanted to spend it. Mike King favored the spending, because a man who was broke was a man who had to stay on the job. Labor at the End of the Track was difficult to get, and many a laborer hesitated to risk the Indians who lurked just beyond the hills. Scattered among the inhabitants of the tent city was a liberal sprinkling of blue, for the railroad would not and could not advance even a step without protection from the army. And Lieutenant Zeb Rawlings was in command. Zeb Rawlings came out of his tent into the night and stood there with the cool wind on his face. He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, and when he looked around, he looked at the hills.
He had never thought of returning East, although he continued a sporadic correspondence with Jeremiah, who was prospering on the farm. He knew, as Jeremiah had known, that the West was for him. Here he belonged, and nowhere else.
He looked at the hills, and knew that the Indians were out there and, night or day, they were watching. How long they would be content to watch, he did not know, except that it would not be forever. A time would come, and then it would be up to him and his blue-coated soldiers.
That he would be outnumbered he took for granted. Three years of Indian fighting had taught him he could handle numbers if he could avoid surprise. Those three years had served to impress him anew with what he had learned long ago from the tales of his fathera"that as a fighting man the Indian was rarely equaled. He walked slowly along the "street" toward the gambling tents, listening to the music with only a small part of his attention. The three frontier years had left a mark upon him that was deeper than the burns of sun and wind. He had grown increasingly sparing of words, increasingly watchful. Long since, he had learned to listen with part of his mind for the night around him, to hear the slightest sound. He would never be as good at that as Linus had been, for Linus had lived longer in Indian country, and knew it better.
He entered the tent and made his way up to the bar. The tables were crowded with gamblers and spectators, and the bar was lined with men. Just as he walked up, a man stepped away and there was a place for him. The music changed to a fanfare and a girl came on in spangles and a red dress. Zeb Rawlings watched her without interest. She had been pretty when she first reached the End of the Track, but that had been at least five hundred miles ago. She started singing "A Railroader"s Bride I"ll Be," and Mike King came up to the bar beside Zeb. Men moved aside for him respectfully, but warily, too. "See those two men they killed today?" King asked.
"We buried them."
"What about the Arapahoes?"
"We tracked your men, and we found the Arapahoes, too, but the tracks didn"t lead to them. It was a war party of Cheyennes down from the north who killed your men."
"The h.e.l.l it was! What about those two last week?" "Arapahoes killed them. Your men were drunk and chasing squaws. What would you do if some of those drunks started chasing your wife?" "I haven"t got a wife." He watched the girl in red without much interest. Mike King already knew all there was to know about her. "Anyway, your job is to fight Indians, not agree with *em."
"There were two hundred Arapahoes, and I had twenty mena"it seemed a good time to listen. Anyway, I"m not starting a war just to please you." "I think I"ll wire your colonel," King said irritably. "He may have different ideas as to who you"re out here to please."
Without taking his eyes from the singing girl, Zeb reached into his pocket and handed a wire to King. "I reported to him," Zeb said shortly, "and as you will see, my actions pleased him. If you"re in your right mind the last thing you"ll want is Indian trouble. Start a war with the Arapahoes now and the Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Sioux will all join in."
Zeb leaned his elbows on the bar and accepted a whiskey from King to chase the milk he had been drinking. He should be sleeping off his weariness, for he was tired, dead-tired. Burying those men today had hit him hard. He had merely glanced at them, but their faces stuck in his mind. Especially one of them ... reminded him of ma.
In his inside coat pocket was another letter from Jeremiah. He had bought another quarter section, and the letter ended: "Remember,. half of everything is yours if you want to come back. Ruth and the youngsters send you their best." Jeremiah had married and had two children already.
Zeb stared at the dancing girl. "I want to see the varmint," he said aloud. "What was that?" King asked. "Oh? You mean her? You"re right ... a varmint. All wildcat."
King turned, resting an elbow on the bar so he could face Zeb. "Did you know I"d been seeing Julie lately?"
"She told me. This is still a free country."
"You"re right."
King grinned at him. "If you think those bra.s.s b.u.t.tons are enough, you"re wrong.
I make more in a month than you do in a year."
"If you"re building up to something, let"s have it." "You could be making more," King suggested mildly. "I wouldn"t want to offer unfair compet.i.tion. Take those men of minea"they were killed no more than a mile off the right-of-way. I want my men safe ten miles off the right-of-way. They"re bound to drink and they will chase squaws, but I want *em safe." "My orders are to keep the peace. That"s why I am here, and for no other reason."
"Orders are a piece of paper," King replied impatiently. "You"re here to help us build this railroad. The government wants it, the people want it." "And you want it."
"That"s right. I do want it." King put down his gla.s.s. "And you"re going to help me get it."
When King had left, Zeb Rawlings leaned on the bar and watched the dancers without really seeing them, nor was it the dancers of whom he was thinking. For the first time he was seriously considering a life that had nothing to do with the Army. He knew what pressure Mike King could bring to bear, and he knew that within a few days he would be hearing from his colonel, just as his colonel would have heard from the general.
The general was up for retirement and was already smoothing his way for a job in civilian life. His retirement pay would not provide adequately for the general and his family. A job with the railroad, in an executive position, would do all of that. Zeb Rawlings knew a little of this, and guessed more. Mike King used money and influence the way he used everything else to attain his ends, and without any thought of the morality involved, or the lack of it. Zeb Rawlings had the clarity of vision of a man who had lived on the frontier and dealt with simple things. His mind was not confused with too many issues, and long ago he had sacrificed personal interest for the good of the service whenever that was required. But an agreement had been made with the Arapahoes, and if an effort was made to push them back they would fight, and that meant that innocent people having no connection with the railroad would die. Jethro Stuart moved up to the bar beside him and accepted the gla.s.s and the bottle the bartender placed before him.
He turned toward Zeb, his position almost identical to that taken by King earlier. "Your name is Rawlings and you"re from Ohio. Pa"s name wouldn"t be Linus, would it?" Zeb, curiously, looked at him. "It would." "Knew him." He thrust out a hand. "You"ve been seeing Julie. If you"re anything like Linus, I"m glad you"re seeing her."
"I"ve heard pa speak of you." It was odd that until now he had not connected the names. "He used to talk of you often."
"Used to?"
"He was killed at Shiloh."
Jethro filled Zeb"s gla.s.s and his own. "Better"n dyin" behind a plow, and if I knew Linus he"d have wanted it thataway. I tried a plow once ... most of a year. Took ten years off my life."
Jethro turned his gla.s.s in his hand. "You buried those men I brought in."
"Yes."
"Good men ... surveyors. Had a right to be where they were. Cheyennes done it."
"You knew that?"
"I can read sign." He emptied his gla.s.s. "King will try to turn it into an excuse. Hates Indians."
Zeb Rawlings was surprised. "Hates Indians? Why?" "They"re in the way. They"re no good to Mike King or his like. They belong to a way of life that King resents because it ain"t his way. "There"s a kind of man who hates anything unlike himself and what he understands, and just seeing the Indians out there doing nothing that he can see, it bothers him."
"I never thought of it that way."
"King will be a big man in the country some day, but there ain"t much to him. Reminds me of beaver. You put a beaver where there"s water and he"ll make a dam because it"s his nature to make dams. Take him away from water and he"s good for nothing. Same thing with Mike King. He can get things done and he will make money, and he will die never knowing there was anything else in the world. "That"s one reason he resents those Indians out there. Most ways they have it better than he does." Jethro turned away. "You drop by my place whenever you"re of a mind to. Like to see you."
Zeb finished his whiskey and put down his gla.s.s. No question about ita"he was tired. He walked from the tent, pausing for a moment in the open air, far removed from the tin-panny music and the rough talk within. He wished again that he might have returned before ma died. Ma would have liked Julie.
Chapter 15.
The town at the end of the track had a way of becoming abruptly silent. Rarely did the music, the noise, and the confusion dwindle away. They were going full blast with all the stops out, until suddenly silence descended like a dropped blanket, and then nothing remained but the night soundsa"the creak of a sign in the wind, the flap of an unb.u.t.toned tent door, the scuffing of a foot, or the sound of a man murmuring in his sleep. In the distance a lone coyote cast his woes into the starlit sky, and still further away a locomotive whistled mournfully at the unreplying stars.
Julie wrapped her cloak against the wind. She should not be out, she knew that, but after staying in the tent all evening, she desperately wanted fresh air. Tonight when her father had come in, he glanced at her, saw she was waiting.
"King?" he asked.
"No."
"That Zeb," he commented, "he"s a fine lad. Reminds me of his pa." He rolled up in his blankets and went to sleep, but Julie sat very still for a while, wondering at the comment. Jethro had never tried to influence her one way or another in her choice of friends, not since she was a little girl. They had been long apart, and somehow when they came together again he chose never to interfere. Sometimes she almost wished that he had, but he had the special western trait of letting each person go his or her own way. In this case it was something morea"he trusted her.
Presently she went out to stand under the stars. She thought of the tent city in which she was a part. There were no other women at the End of the Track but those that followed the track-layers and the builders. She knew none of them, and would not. In her world and her time the two lines never crossed beyond a polite greeting.
She heard Zeb Rawlings" footsteps before she could see him, and sensed the tiredness in them. She had known he was worried, had seen the same worry in her father"s face. And she knew it was worry about the Indians. Zeb came up and stood beside her. He stood there a moment without speaking, letting the wind blow in his face and feeling the coolness. "Zeb," she said, "what are you thinking about?" "Haunted, I guess. One of those men we buried out there today reminded me of my mother. I don"t know why, exactly ... something in his face." "What was she like?"
"Like? She was kind," he said, after a minute, "and she had a love for the land.
She loved her family, and there was a strong vein of poetry in her thinking.
Cropped out now and again. I took after pa."
"What was your father like?"
"Like me, I guess. And a good deal like your pa. It"s a peculiar thing," he added thoughtfully, "you never think of your parents as much else than parents. It isn"t until you get older yourself that you begin to realize they had their hopes, dreams, ambitions, and secret thoughts.
"You sort of take them for granted, and sometimes you are startled to know they were in love a time or two, or maybe carried on over something. You never stop to think of what they are really like inside until it is too late. "Many a good father or mother is plodding away, doing the best they know how to raise a family, when their hearts are off across the horizon somewhere, hunting a dream ... a dream that because of their family they may never find." "I know."
"Reality has a way of raising up obstacles. Like now."
"Now?"
"I like the Army. Somehow I never could see myself away from it, not after the war. But the way things are arranging themselves, I may resign my commission." "Is it Mike?"
If he noticed the use of the first name, he ignored it. "In a way. In another way it is something more than that. It is two kinds of life coming face to facea"one a hunting, food-gathering life, the other a busy, commercial, technical life with all sorts of demands and needs. When two such peoples come face to face the one less equipped to survive must be pushed aside. It isn"t right, it isn"t wrong, it just is."
"And Mike wants you to push?"
"Yes."
"But if it is inevitable, why do you mind?"
"You always mind, Julie. And the pushing need not be now. Your pa thinks the Indians offend Mike ... maybe he"s right. One thing is sure. We differ, and Mike King is going to win because he can use political influence, and no Army man likes to think he"s taking orders from a civilian. The president is differenta"he"s a civilian in a sense, but he"s commander-in-chief too." Without thinking, they had begun to walk away from the tents. Zeb"s hand strayed to his belt gun, a.s.suring himself it was there. They would not go far, but he was not a man to take risks unnecessarilya"only a fool did that. There were risks enough in the ordinary process of living.
"What will you do, Zeb? I mean, if you leave the Army?" "Go west. I might start ranching. All of our family seem to want to go west, except maybe Jeremiah."
He had told her about Jeremiah, and about Aunt Lilith too. She had come to his mind when the trouble with King developed, for Aunt Lilith"s husband, Cleve van Valen, was a big man in railroading on the Pacific coast. Not that he would ever approach his Uncle Cleve to use influence. Zeb Rawlings was a man who fought his own battles, accepted his own defeats. "I won"t deny," he told her, "that I"d thought a time or two about ranching. There"s land to be taken out west, and I"ve a love of the land in me. I guess I got that from ma. Only I"d stay with the Army if I could, even though there isn"t much chance for a man to rise unless he"s been to the Point. Promotion is slow, any timea"when there"s peace, that is."
They strolled, not too far from the edge of camp, then turned slowly and came back. The tent city lay still under the stars. Near a pile of ties, Rawlings saw a sentry outlined against the sky.
When they parted he almost started to ask her to go west with him, and then he thought of Mike King. King would be vice president of the Road someday, possibly even president. He would be a wealthy man. What could Zeb offer to compare with that?
After he had gone she stood a moment looking after him, reluctant to see him go and a little annoyed that he had said nothing to show he thought about her in his plans.
Would he say anything at all? She felt a sudden panic at the thought that he might not. For an instant she almost started after him, then she ducked her head and went inside.
Lieutenant Zeb Rawlings led his patrol on a long sweep around the area at the End of the Track. Wherever he rode he found the tracks of unshod ponies, some of them large parties; nowhere did he find travois trails. That meant the Indians had no families with them, and that meant they were war parties. Drawing up on the crest of a hill, he studied the country.
"Sergeant," he said, "have you seen Jethro in the last couple of days?" "He"s around. Ain"t talked to him, though. Not since he brought in those dead men."
Rawlings was uneasy. The parties of Indians who had pa.s.sed back and forth across the country might be hunting parties, for there were several good-sized villages not very far off, close enough for squaws to come and do the skinning if any game was killed. But there was little game close to the railroad, because of the noise and confusion, so hunting parties appeared to be a doubtful answer to the tracks. Of course, the Indians sometimes came to the camps to beg, or simply to watch the white man at his incomprehensible tasks. But Rawlings was uneasy, and he was a man experienced enough to trust his intuitions.
This was open country, though less open than it appeared at first glance. The railroad moved down a wide valley, but around it were rolling hills, some of these ending in steep bluffs. The higher ridges were tree-clad, and trees grew along the few water courses. A large party of riders who knew the terrain might travel unseen for some distance by riding along the bottoms of creeks or under the trees.
Like many another soldier who served on the frontier, Zeb Rawlings had developed a sympathy for the Indian. The Indian was a good fighting man, and before the coming of the white man he had adapted himself to his surroundings to a remarkable degree.
Without horses before the white man came, the range of Indian travel had been limited. Their travois were then drawn by dogs, and with them they followed the game; and in addition to game, seeds, nuts, and berries or roots were the staples of their diet. Their greatest source of honor and pleasure came from warfare with other tribes.
The coming of the horse revolutionized their way of living, extending their range immeasurably, and giving to horses a value beyond anything the Indian had previously known. The possession of horses became the measure of status, and a good horse-thief could have the pick of the young squaws. The Sioux, for one, had upon acquiring horses launched out on a career of conquest. Had the westward march of the white man been a little slowera"say, for instance, had there been no gold rush to California, the savage hors.e.m.e.n of the Great Plains might have found their Genghis Khan, just as the Mongol hors.e.m.e.n, in a somewhat similar state of civilization, had found theirs. Like the Mongols, the American Indians were divided into many small tribes without any sense of unity in its larger meaning. Genghis Khan had welded the free tribes of the Mongols into a great fighting unit. Tec.u.mseh had the idea, but the menace of the white man was not sufficiently realized, and Tec.u.mseh came before his time. Quanah Parker had a similar idea, but he came too late. Had such a leader appeared to lead the Indian against the white man, it is at least possible the white man would have been driven back to the sea. Certain it is that many a frontier settlement would have been wiped out of existence. In later years the white man always had the advantage of arms, for even when the Indian possessed firearms he never had sufficient ammunition for any prolonged engagement. But the Indian danger was always there. Allowing for an occasional exceptiona"and these were usually young officers fresh from the Easta"it was the Army that best understood the Indian; and had the management of Indian affairs been left to the Army it would have caused far less trouble. After the immediate subjugation of the Indians, it was in most cases some civilian appointee who stirred them again into action. Zeb Rawlings had come in contact with Indians without bias one way or the other. He did not believe them a pack of savages to be killed off like so many mad dogs. On the other hand, he did not hold with the groupa"all living safely in the Easta"who believed the poor Indian was a much put-upon individual. From his father Zeb had learned a lot about Indians; he understood many of their customs, their eagerness for war, their pride in courage, and what white men usually considered their treachery.
He thought of his father now as he scanned the country around. "Pa," he commented to his sergeant, "knew as much about the Indian as any man, and he was forever wary of them. The first time you try judging them as you would a white man, you"re in trouble. Their standards are different." "Jethro says the same," the sergeant commented. "What do you reckon is going on, sir?"
"Think back. How many tracks did we see last month?"
"Seen a few here and yonder."
"But mighty few. And now? How many Indians would you estimate in the parties we saw today? I mean, whose tracks we saw?"
"Could have been thirty, maybe more in that first lot, and close on that in the next. We crossed the trails of more than a hundred Indians today." The sergeant scowled. "Seems a lot to be just perambulatin" around, sir." "I agree." Zeb paused. "You know, Sergeant, a lot of nonsense could be kept out of reports and out of consideration if folks would just consider the problem of feeding a lot of troops. You know how much ration supply we have to figure on for our lot. Merely multiply that by ten and where are you? "I"ll tell you exactly where we are, Sergeant, and I don"t like it. There are five times the Indians in this area right now than can be fed here, which means they do not expect to be here long ... or else they expect to come into a lot of supplies they don"t have at present ... which can only mean the railroad." At this point Zeb saw the rider come out of a coulee, and knew by the way he sat his horse that it was Jethro Stuart.
Zeb"s eyes swept the surrounding hills, He was quite sure that his troop was under observation every single moment, and now the Indians would know that Jethro was joining hima"it was likely they could even guess what Jethro would have to say. He thought like an Indian, and therefore he could tell them what an Indian would be likely to do.
Jethro glanced at the troopa"twenty-two men, including Rawlings and the sergeant, and it wasn"t enough. Not by a long sight, it wasn"t. And there were not twenty more within fifty miles.
"We"ve been cutting a lot of sign, Jethro," Zeb said. "The chief claims the railroad broke its agreement. They"ve changed their route and are cuttin" through the Arapahoe huntin" grounds." "Is he right, Jethro?"
"He sure and certain is, Lieutenant. I tried to warn King, but he ain"t willin" to listen. He"s tryin" to make better time with his track-layin", so he switched routes just of his own mind. Maybe you can talk to him." "You know Mike King," Rawlings replied dryly. "He listens to n.o.body." Nevertheless, within the hour Lieutenant Rawlings rode up alongside the cars that were Mike King"s office and sleeping quarters. Three flat cars stood nearby ... the track-laying crew worked almost half a mile away, but the tent city was close by. There were stacks of ties cut from the hills not far away, and oozing pitch in the hot sun. Zeb swung down and went in, leaving Jethro to follow if he wished.
King was behind his desk, checking shipments against an order lying on his desk. At another desk at the far end of the car, his secretary worked at a telegraph key.
"King, when did you decide to change your route?" Zeb asked abruptly. King continued to check his lists for a moment before he looked up. He had been expecting this and was ready for it, but he was quite sure he could handle this backwoods lieutenant. When he spoke impatience crept through. "We"ve made no change, although we"ve the right to make what minor adjustments are necessary to speed construction, and speeding construction is just what we"ve been doing."
"You"re asking for trouble. You"ve cut into Arapahoe hunting grounds, and the tribes are out."
"Don"t be foolish, Rawlings!" King answered irritably. "Can you honestly say that what we are doing will cost them any wild game?" "What counts is what the Arapahoes think, and Jethro says they think they"re getting a raw deal."