The Yellowstone (21 page)

Chapter 6

Fat moon

Mac had never felt such a fool. He felt a fool on the wagon bench, holding a shotgun across his lap next to Red Hand, instead of on his horse. Felt a fool surrounded by a crowd of funny-smocked, funny-hatted Chinamen milling around him. They carried a comical variety of out-of-the-bottom-drawer pistols and knives. They looked like laundrymen dressed up as pirates. Which is exactly what they were.

Maclean’s army, Mac thought mockingly.

On one side Zach sat astride an extra saddle horse, and from the look of him he hadn’t ridden much and wouldn’t be much good at shooting from horseback. Mac didn’t know if the black Irishman had ever pointed a gun with deadly intent anyway.

On the other side stood Peddler, ready to go. Mac was getting used to calling him Peddler. He had a two-wheel cart strapped around his ample waist. His items for peddling, light sewing stuff, had been transferred to the wagon. Mac had never before seen a human being hitched up as an ox. He felt for Peddler, but the Jew seemed cheerful about it.

And atop the cart sat the fool dog, Punch, doing tricks that tickled the Chinamen and the bystanders. Peddler would speak, and the little terrier would jump straight up in the air. Or chase its tail savagely, barking at itself. Or Peddler would hold up two fingers, and the dog would bark twice. Or Peddler would toss a ball of vulcanized rubber and the dog would leap off the cart, catch it in the air, bring Peddler the ball, and bound back onto the cart. That little dog was a whirling dervish.

It was an appealing little dog, a West Highland terrier, according to Peddler. Mac’s people were originally West Highlanders, but he had never seen one. A blocky little fellow, with perky ears, and smart as some people.

Now the peddler held up his other hand and slowly stuck up one, two, three fingers. Instead of barking twice, the dog sat up, opened its mouth, and called out loudly, “Three.” With a guttural accent, of course. It got a roar from the crowd.

Ventriloquism, Peddler said. Mac would be damned curious about that, some other time.

The dog jumped from the cart onto the peddler’s shoulder, agile as a cat. Then Peddler removed his skullcap, Punch stepped onto his bald head, sat up, held its paws out, and bowed its head. The crowd burst into applause.

Mac nodded to Red Hand, and the boy clucked the horses up the road, away from the damned town of Virginia City. Mac was taking nothing home but Strikes Foot, packed with ice in a pine box.

Mac looked over the Chinese marching raggedly along. Two were giggling, like boys off on an adventure. The leader scowled at them. Mac didn’t know a single man of the Chinese and had no idea what they could do. Nothing, he guessed. He’d had Mae Thong tell them they were just for show, unless fired on.

Mac felt bilious himself. He didn’t like being surrounded with a bunch of amateurs. That applied even to his sons, to Zach, maybe to Peddler, to everyone except a mountain man like Mackenzie. Mac would have given a lot to be backed by Jim Sykes. Or Jacobs. Or his old partner Skinhead, dead twenty years.

Where would the trouble come? Mac wondered. Probably in the fifteen-mile stretch between Virginia City and the sawmill on the Madison River. No point in speculating about it. It was coming—he felt it. He half hoped for it. He felt bloody-minded.

Easing down the long hill toward the sawmill, the horses well under control with Red Hand at the reins, Mac felt disappointed. And ashamed of himself for being disappointed.

Nothing had happened. No highwaymen, no lynchers, no dry-gulchers. He and his foolish army of Chinamen had gotten out of Alder Gulch okay.

Smith and Thomas were coming in from behind on the south side at a lope. Mackenzie would be along soon, Mac supposed. He looked over the little mill community. A main cabin, a bunkhouse, a cookhouse, some wall tents, the big mill building on the diversion ditch, a couple of sheds, and an icehouse on the bank of the river.

The sun was low in the west. Mac hadn’t decided whether to camp at the mill or push on a little. The miller, Caseen, would be glad of company, Mac was sure. His crew was mostly upstream now, getting timber cut and floating it down to the mill to start the cutting season. The man would be home minding his fine sawblade. The first time through he had wanted to talk Mac to death about that wonderful blade.

Mac was inclined to go beyond the mill and camp, even though it meant giving the Chinese further to walk back.

Smith and Thomas rode up alongside, their horses blowing. “Nothing,” said Thomas.

“No fresh tracks, not a thing that looks questionable,” said Smith.

Mac was pleased. His sons were good trackers. If anything was there, they’d have spotted it. “We could still get into something tonight or tomorrow,” said Mac. He didn’t think so, but wariness was his way, a way of long years’ standing. He’d be glad when Mackenzie came in with the same report.

On top of Alder Gulch, where the country opened up, Mac had gotten down to walk a spell. The country was greening up nicely, the hills covered with new grass, and it was a good day to be on the move. Mac listened idly to Zach and Peddler talking.

“Often travel alone?” queried Zach from high in the saddle.

“Usually,” said the peddler.

“How do you keep your scalp?” Zach asked with a skewed smile.

“How would they take it?” answered the peddler, lifting the skull cap to show his shiny pate.

“Tell me, really.”

“Indians don’t bother me. Maybe I’m too old and pitiful to matter.”

“How long you been traveling?”

“Since I left Yellowstone House twenty years ago. I’ve walked to San Francisco, and back to St. Louis, to Mexico, to Salt Lake, and back here. Selling my few notions along the way. Mostly walking with just Punch for company.” He indicated the dog behind him on the cart.

Peculiar enough to fit, thought Mac.

“Never any trouble?” Zach went on.

“A little sometimes. Some Pawnee boys rode up fast once like they were about to puncture my old hide. But they stopped to issue threats first, and Punch diverted them, and I gave them a rubber ball and sent them along happy.”

Mac would bet the peddler could do that.

The high-pitched scream of the sawblade came to Mac across the rolling, baby-green hills. That meant the miller had got some logs downstream and was at least a little bit back in business.

Mac climbed back into the wagon and bumped to the edge of the mill settlement. When Mac got beyond it, he’d get back on his horse, tied to the rear. A saddle was damn well more comfortable than a board seat.

The blade screech stopped.

Was that the miller running out toward them from the raw, stacked boards?

Then Mac saw a figure stand out alongside the sawdust below the millhouse, holding up a rifle.

Mackenzie. He was making the lookout’s long-distance sign that said, “Enemies.”

Mac took off his tattered beaver hat and waved it up to the right, as if he were shaking it, then put it back on. That was the sign confirming, “Enemies,” usually made with a blanket.

Mackenzie moved back out of sight. Whoever it was, and however many, they must be this way of Mackenzie.

“Here’s our trouble,” murmured Mac. “Follow my lead. We don’t suspect anything.” Smith and Thomas looked away, casual, not letting on. Red Hand blanched but made no gesture.

The miller arrived out of breath. Really out, thought Mac;—he’s panicked.

“Come quick, Mr. Maclean, my man has cut his arm off on the blade.”

The sight and coppery smell of Paul the Blue’s leg spurting blood clanged through Mac’s brain. He pushed away the fear and nausea.

“I’m not a doctor, Caseen. None of us is.” So they wanted him to follow the wagon ruts between the bunk-house and the cookhouse toward the millhouse and the stacks of lumber.

“But couldn’t you just try to help him, Mr. Maclean, just comfort him? It’s so awful.”

Mac was setting the layout in his mind. Millhouse way across by the diversion ditch, bunkhouse and cookhouse just ahead, tents, main cabin.

Whoever it was, and however many, they didn’t know Mackenzie was behind them.

Why didn’t they think he might take the back side of the bunkhouse if he caught on? Because a man-high pile of sawdust stood in the way, where they’d bucked timber into lengths.

Mac’s style was aggression. He let the muzzle of his shotgun drift toward Caseen. Then he said softly to Red Hand, “Back of the bunkhouse. Right through the sawdust.” He gave Caseen a crooked smile. “Now!”

The driver cracked his whip over the team and the horses took off, nearly bowling Caseen over. Smith and Thomas galloped alongside, Zach lagging a little. Mac wished like hell he could keep his sons out of it, but there was no way.

The Chinese trotted along behind in a gang, their leader barking orders.

“Go hard!” Mac hollered as the lead horses approached the sawdust. Red Hand made the whip explode.

Someone jumped out from behind the bunkhouse with a rifle leveled. Mac let fly from the bouncing wagon with the shotgun. He missed but scared the fellow back.

The wagon tilted up on the two right wheels—it hung at a rakish angle for a long moment—and Mac jumped. He rolled in behind the bunkhouse.

The wagon went over with a splintering crash. Dragging, it brought the horses to a screaming halt. The casket slammed against the bunkhouse and bounced away. Chunks of ice flew everywhere. Strikes Foot rolled out and turned ceremoniously onto one side. His eyes seemed to open slightly.

Red Hand was crumpled against the bunkhouse wall, but he got up and grabbed for his rifle.

Mac heard some shots. The Chinese were herding in behind the bunkhouse, overexcited. Mac wondered whether any had been hit.

Smith and Zach were already standing on their saddles by the eaves, climbing onto the roof with their rifles. Mac followed them fast.

Red Hand and the Chinese pushed the wagon back onto its side and used it for cover.

Looking around the settlement, Mac saw the bastards were all out of sight. He felt exultant. Now who had the high ground?

A figure poked out by the corner of the cookhouse and Mac emptied his second barrel at it. Couldn’t tell the result. Started reloading. “Keep era pinned own,” he shouted at Smith and Zach. His elder son had a sober, satisfied look on his face. His .50-. 70 Springfield boomed.

“That’s enough, Maclean!” screamed a voice. From the end of this bunkhouse. Mac set his loads and crawled toward that end of the building.

Stocky Trash had Thomas seated on the ground, dragged away from the building, clamped by one wrist and his arm sharply twisted, a pistol hard in his ear. Thomas looked dazed. He must have been jerked off his horse and kicked or clubbed. He’d gone too near the other end of the building—maybe didn’t see the man jump out from behind there. From the look of him, Thomas was dizzy with panic.

Peddler came strolling up with his cart and his fool dog.

Scraggle was prancing around Thomas and Stocky, overcome with his good luck, calling out gibberish orders. Mac would barely have to take Scraggle into consideration, though he did hold a pistol and had even remembered to load it.

Two other men came out from behind the cookhouse and into the wagon road. One stood up on the roof. Outlaws, they’d call themselves. Mac called them frontier scum without enough sense to stay behind something.

The peddler was walking up close, looking curiously, like the guns were props in a show.

Mac thought of blowing Stocky Trash away. Too risky, with that barrel halfway into Thomas’s ear. Mac’s bowels ran cold. He hoped Mackenzie would see it the same way. Even a killing shot could make that trigger-finger jerk.

“The other boy stands up in the open!” barked Stocky. “Everybody in the open.” Mac looked at Thomas, who was trying to twist to ease the pain in his shoulder, and turned white. Mac nodded at Smith, and Smith stood up but didn’t drop his rifle. Red Hand and Zach did likewise. Scraggle held his pistol on them two-handed.

The Chinese stood there like spectators. Well, Mac had told them not to make any plays.

“Drop your guns!” snapped Stocky.

The fool dog started barking at Stocky, idiotically.

Mac shook his head no. “Seems to me we got a standoff here,” he said. “You got Thomas. But we’re not stupid. If we give up our guns, you’ll kill us all. If we don’t, someone gets hurt, but mostly you.”

Stocky s eyes shifted. “All I want is the gold, Maclean.”

That damn dog was close to Stocky now, making an awful racket. The peddler spoke to it gently in some foreign language, but it didn’t back off. Stocky was getting irked. Mac too.

Mac stepped to the edge of the roof, near Stocky. “I’ll give you my coins,” he said simply. “That’s all we’re carrying. They’re in here.” He touched the pouch that held his flint and steel and tinder, plus half his coins.

Stocky gave a coarse laugh. “The Chinese bitch’s gold, Maclean. We want all of it.”

Mac wondered what would happen if he jumped for Stocky from here. Would the bastard’s hands jerk up by reflex? Mac was going to have to force something. Which would get someone hurt. But Mac couldn’t bear for it to be Thomas. Looking at his son there on the ground, wrenched with pain and fear, froze Mac.

“I sent the dust with Jim Sykes, the Delaware, to Fort Benton three days ago.”

Stocky eyed Mac, keeping the contemptuous sneer on his face. He couldn’t tell if it was true. Even Scraggle stood still for a moment.

Peddler spoke a single word. The dog bounded in two jumps into Stocky, straight at his groin, jaws wide.

By reflex, Stocky grabbed with both hands to deflect the vicious little animal.

Mac gave him a full load of buckshot square in the chest.

From the millhouse Mackenzie’s big rifle roared, and Scraggle went down.

Mac was already flat on the sod roof. He loosed the other barrel at the man on the other roof. Smith and Zach were firing. Mackenzie spoke again from the millhouse.

Peddler dragged Thomas to safety.

“Enough?” boomed Mac.

All guns were silent.

“Put down your weapons and you live!”