The Englishman's Boy (11 page)

A
ll thirteen assembled in Front Street, sitting their horses in the early morning grey and quiet, mist curling off the coffee-and-cream Missouri, rising into the still air to hang a muslin curtain between the men and the wind-sculptured bluffs across the river.

It was a force mounted and armed and accoutred without consistency, piebald and paint buffalo runners, blooded bays and chestnuts, Henrys and Sharps and Winchesters and Colts and double-barrelled scatterguns, a Derringer in a coat pocket, skinning knives and Bowie knives, hatchets, a Confederate cavalry sabre hung scabbarded on a saddlehorn, smoke-stained buckskins and bar-stained broadcloth, broken plug hats and glossy fur caps, loud checked shirts and patched linen, canvas dusters and wool capotes, parfleche-soled moccasins and high-heeled riding boots. Every face bearing a different mark of vice or virtue, motive or resolve.

Silence was near complete. The Englishman’s boy could hear birds carolling in the thickets down by the river and the horses shifting in the roadway, saddles creaking like the timbers of a ship rocking at anchor, the faint chiming of restless spurs and bridle chains. Someone coughed, but no one spoke. They were waiting on Hardwick.

Hardwick was lighting a cigar. He scratched a match with a thumbnail and his face sprang out at them, bright in the dim surround, like a golden countenance in an old painting. His bay pricked its ears at the crack of the match, sidestepped uneasily when the
sulphur burst stinging in its nostrils. Hardwick remained seated, careless and comfortable, reins looped on the horn, hands cupped to the flame. He spoke softly to the horse, checking its restive dance.

For a moment, he drew on the cigar and studied the shadowy cavalry. Then he nodded and, without raising his voice, said: “I got one thing to say to you boys before we commence this enterprise. I don’t tolerate a slacker. If one of you thinks he can slack on Tom Hardwick, take another think and fall out now.” There came a pause in which he seemed to be taking thought himself. “And I hope there’s no cowards among us,” he added. “I won’t break bread with a coward.” He smiled briefly and that was confusing, as if the smile was taking back or amending what he had just said. The Englishman’s boy was sure that was not the case. “Well,” said Hardwick, turning his horse, “let’s move out.”

They went up the street at a walk, the slow, sombre pace of a funeral procession, past the shuttered house Fort Benton’s merchant prince, I.G. Baker, had built so his wife would not have to give birth to their first baby in the fort, past the ox wagons and trailers parked by the warehouses, past the sporting and gaming houses at this hour black as the heart of sin, past the old adobe fort which had stood godfather to the town, its four massive blockhouses featureless and blank but for the rifle slits in the walls.

Wraiths, they stole out into the country, accompanied by the singing of meadowlarks, the horses steadily warming to their work in the chill morning air. The file lengthened under the blush of sun rising behind them, Hardwick and Evans assuming an air of generalship at the head, the company sorting into a natural order of march, friend falling in with friend, acquaintance falling in with acquaintance, the pack animals and remounts occupying the protected centre of the column, riders at the rear acting as loose herders.

Because they were unfamiliar with the other riders, the Englishman’s boy and a hired hand named Hank from a farm between the Teton and Marias which had lost stock too, fell into step with one another. His employer had equipped Hank with a dubious horse and a dubious rifle, enrolled him in the posse to assist in the recovery of
his stolen property. Hank looked as if he wished he were in any other line of work than chasing Indians. He talked a good deal, as if talking kept the Indians from peeking around some corner of his mind. The boy wished he would talk less and look to the management of his horse more, a fat white plug with a dirty coat which kept blundering and stumbling about in a slew-footed fashion.

When they arrived at the wolfers’ old camp the sun was standing blood-red on the horizon. The camp was marked by a dead fire, a few pieces of charcoal, some fine ash blowing along the ground in a gathering wind. The track of nineteen iron-shod horses was plain as print on a sheet of clean paper. However, Philander Vogle, who had been nominated scout, also espied a faint, partially obliterated moccasin print blended in among the hoof prints.

“They didn’t drive them off,” he said to Hardwick. “Slippery devils come in and walked them out quiet. That’s why we didn’t hear nothing.”

Touching the brim of his hat, Hardwick saluted the moccasin impression and whoever had left it as a signature on the earth. They rode on.

On the other side of the hills, vistas opened up. It was flat, open country, a barbed-wire fence running parallel to their advance, posts marching off to the horizon like infantry, staking out the Robinson property where Hank worked and horses had also been stolen. The stirring sight of all the posts he had pounded caused Hank to cluck his nag down the line to Hardwick, to point westward and excitedly pass on his information. “There. Over there. That’s where they broke the fence. Broke it down and run off Mr. Robinson’s horses, by God.”

Hardwick said, “Farmer, what’s this news in aid of?”

“Why, it’s just news, I guess,” he said uncertainly.

“It’s old news,” said Hardwick. “I don’t want no news from you except news of where them horses went to. You got any such news?”

“No, no. I don’t, I suppose,” Hank admitted, crestfallen.

“Then you leave the Indians to us, Farmer. And we’ll leave minding the raising of peas and beans and taties to you.”

Hank dropped back, deeply chagrined. “He had no business coming
down on me so hard. I ought to have thrown it back at him,” he said to the Englishman’s boy.

“I wouldn’t,” said the boy.

“Why not?”

“Because I ain’t a fool,” said the boy.

Late in the morning, a halt was called. Vogle, who had been scouting in advance, returned with a report that a hundred yards ahead he had discovered a dead colt. Recently gelded, it appeared to have bled to death with the effort of trying to keep pace with the fugitive herd.

“That’s one of Mr. Robinson’s,” Hank confided to the Englishman’s boy. “He cut him two days ago.”

The real news was that where the colt had fallen, the trail forked. The Indians had split the herd and one lot of horses had been driven northwest, the other northeast. Everyone dismounted while Evans, Hardwick, and Vogle convened a council, squatting on the ground.

Hardwick asked Vogle if he could estimate how many Indians were in the raiding party. Vogle said he wasn’t sure, but he could find no unshod-pony tracks, which suggested not many.

“How many?” demanded Hardwick.

Vogle shrugged. “Two, maybe three. Can’t swear to it.”

Hardwick considered a moment. “If there’s only two or three, they’re from the same band. They haven’t shaved off to take their share of the loot home to different camps. They’re going to swing back and join up again further north. They’re just aiming to lead us on a wild-goose chase.”

“So what do we do?” asked Evans. “Split up? Me lead one party of men west, you one party east?”

“I don’t like it,” said Hardwick. “Not with the head start they’ve got.” He laid a pebble on the ground. “That’s us,” he said. He traced two lines in the dust with his knife, radiating northeast and northwest from the pebble. “That’s them. If they do figure to powwow up north, say here,” he mused, laying down another pebble to mark the imagined meeting place, “they’ve got to hack back from the line they’re riding now.” He curved the lines to converge on the upper
pebble. “The longest way between where we are and where they’re going is riding the loop. And if either one of us loses the trail of the scallywags we’re chasing, you and me’ll be like the fat couple with the big bellies. We ain’t never going to get it together.”

“Speak your mind,” said Evans.

“But if we split the difference and strike due north,” said Hardwick, drawing a straight line with the tip of his knife between the pebbles, “we’ll make time on them. And sooner or later, no matter where the pebble sets, as long as we keep bearing north, one of their trails is going to cut ours. When it does, we pick it up and go hard after them red rogues.”

“If that’s their plan.”

“There’s the kicker. But I’ll bet on it.”

“All right,” said Evans, standing. “We’ll ride north.”

Hardwick allowed the horses an hour to graze the short, tough grass while the men gnawed hard biscuit and scooped pemmican out of rawhide bags with their fingers. Berries and lard and buffalo meat all scrambled together and poured hot into a leather bag to harden didn’t sit well with Hank, who had been raised in civilization, in the East. He said it was like stirring apple pie into your gravy and pork chops. No different. The Englishman’s boy held his tongue. Hardwick was listening, watching them.

The man the wolfers called Scotty, a Canadian who had ridden down the Whoop-Up Trail with them from north of the line, pulled a bottle of whisky out of his saddlebags, and passed it around to each man for a swig. He said it was Scotch whisky. The Englishman’s boy had never tasted Scotch whisky before, but he drank his swallow and thanked him.

Scotty said, “You’re most welcome.”

To the Englishman’s boy, there was something odd about the Scotchman, a peculiar, unsteady gleam in his eye. He didn’t seem to belong with this bunch, seemed not aware of the company he was keeping. He had the Englishman’s way of talking. Gentleman’s airs. Didn’t care to blaspheme. Kept himself spruce and neat. He’d seen
him writing in a little book after he finished eating, just how the Englishman did. Journal, the Englishman called his book. The boy could read a little but had never got the hang of writing.

They remounted at noon and rode to the spot where they had seen carrion birds fluttering down for the past hour. Magpies skimmed away and floated back to earth a short way off to wait out the interruption of their feeding. The horses, catching the heavy, sweetish stench of death mingled with the smell of horse, arched their necks, cocked their heads, drummed their hooves, and shied sidelong past the corpse, snorting and nickering. The colt lay stark on its deathbed of wiry grass, stiff back legs streaked with long stockings of rusty blood, eye sockets empty, guts torn and scattered, body encased in a tattered mail of blue flies.

Clear of the corpse they walked their horses on under an impassive sky dappled with handfuls of torn white cloud flying before the wind like cottonwood fluff. Men and horses blinking in and out of the eye of the sun, cloud shadows overtaking and encompassing them and racing on, patches of darkness sailing over the billowing grass like blue boats running before a storm. Antelope and mule-tail, prairie chickens and jack-rabbits, coyotes and fox and grouse started out of the sage, flashed across the emptiness at their approach.

About mid-afternoon, Hardwick took his bearings, consulted his pocket watch, and booted his horse into a brisk trot. Within a mile or two, it became evident that Hank’s white nag lacked the staying power to hold the pace. Little by little, the Englishman’s boy and the farm hand lost ground until they found themselves lagging in the rear. A gap gradually opened between them and the body of riders. Ten yards, twenty, thirty. When it lengthened to forty, the boy put his heels to his horse and loped back to the column. Hank too closed ranks, but not so effortlessly, and the ground he won back he immediately began to lose again. Three more times the string ran out and had to be wound back tight, and each tightening took a little more out of the white horse. Sweat darkened its belly and patched its chest, lashings of foam flew from its bit, spattering its neck.

No one looked back to see how they fared. Hardwick gave them
no quarter for their shortcomings. By late afternoon the breach had widened to several hundred yards. A look of panic crept over Hank’s face when he realized that Hardwick was not going to relent, would make no allowances. “Goddamn him, why don’t he slack off? He knows we can’t keep up.”

“I can keep up,” said the Englishman’s boy.

“I thought we was all in this together,” said Hank. “That Hardwick’s leaving us as easy pickings for any Indians that’s dogging our trail.”

“There ain’t any Indians dogging our trail. We’re dogging theirs.”

“We don’t know there’s no Indians dogging our trail,” the hired man muttered. “They might have slipped behind us. Ever think of that? That’s what Indians is known for. Slipping behind you and lifting your hair when you least expect it.”

The horsemen ahead topped a rise and descended out of sight.

“Look at that,” whined Hank. “Now they’ve skinned out on us entire. We’re cold alone and left to fend for ourselves.”

“The reason we’re cold alone,” said the Englishman’s boy, “is because of that plug of yours.”

Hank’s brow furrowed with worry. “I didn’t know what I was letting myself in for, signing on with that Hardwick feller. I never did meet a redheaded man you could trust. Every one of them is crazy.”

“If you keep up your pissing and moaning,” said the Englishman’s boy, “I just might ride on and join that redheaded man for the change of company. His talk has got to be a damn sight cheerfuller than what I’m getting here.”

With the threat he might be abandoned, Hank went even more squirrelly and apprehensive. He squirmed in his saddle and threw nervous glances over his shoulder. “First rule in the wilderness is stick together, boy. We got to look out for one another. Don’t we, son?”

“The only way we’ll stick together,” said the Englishman’s boy, “is if you kick a little more go out of that nag of yours.”

“There’s no more go to kick out of him,” said Hank. “His go has gone and went.”

They were climbing the rise. Breaking onto the crest they could see, half a mile away, the posse dwindling on the prairie.

The boy said, “They put any more distance between us, even I ain’t going to catch them before nightfall.”

“It’s a sin to leave a traveller in distress, son. Remember your Bible. Remember the Good Samaritan.” Hank put his hand in his pocket. “I got a dollar,” he said hopefully, showing it to the Englishman’s boy. “It’s yours.”