The Lost Wagon Part 38

Tad jumped into the snow and tied the rope around Mike's neck. Still bristling, tightening the rope, Mike strained down the Trail. Joe watched closely. Mike was an enthusiastic hunter as long as he hunted nothing larger than jack rabbits. He was not afraid of bigger game but he was smart enough to know that some things were too big for him, and therefore he paid little attention to them. Obviously he now scented either something that he wanted to hunt or something that offered prospects for a rousing battle, and presently the mules scented it too.

They lifted their heads, c.o.c.ked their ears forward, and watched ahead.

Joe glanced at the rifle, and made sure of the exact location of his powder horn and bullet pouch.

Presently three Indians mounted on small brown horses came around the knoll that had hidden them and advanced toward the wagon. Two nondescript dogs trailed them. Joe took the reins in his left hand, leaving his right free should whatever happen next demand action. He looked keenly at the approaching riders.

They were wild, proud, startling. They wore full-length buckskin trousers, moccasins, and buffalo-skin coats. Fur hats were pulled over their black hair. They sat their little horses with an easy, insolent grace that few white men ever achieve. Their one concession to white men's ways was the long rifle that each carried over his saddle bow.

Looking to neither side, betraying by not so much as the flicker of an eyelid the fact that they saw the wagon and its occupants, they swerved around and continued down the trail. Even Mike's savage lunge at their dogs, a lunge that was halted only because Tad reefed full strength on the rope, did not disturb for one second the dogs, horses or riders.

Without a single backward glance they disappeared around another knoll, and Joe halted the wagon to let Tad get in.

"Gee!" Tad gasped. "Was that a war party?"

"Must have been," Joe a.s.serted.

But he knew it was not. Though he was unfamiliar with western Indians, Joe had heard that war parties bedecked their cheeks with war paint and wore scalp locks. That might and might not be true. A man heard a lot of things and he was silly as an ox if he believed all of them. However, a war party would not have ridden so nonchalantly up the Trail where they were so easily seen. Probably they were just three Indians going to Laramie, but Tad wanted desperately to find great adventure on this journey and it would do no harm to let him think that he had at least brushed elbows with it.

"You're smart, Pa!" Tad breathed.

"Why do you say that?"

"Suppose old Mike had been loose, and pitched into those dogs like he wanted to? First thing, wham! They'd 've tried to help their dogs and we'd 've had a nice fight on our hands!"

"Sure thing," Joe agreed.

He smiled to himself because of the disappointed down pitch in Tad's voice. The youngster ate, slept, and traveled with a mighty dream of a fight with Indians. He could have his dream, but not, if Joe could possibly help it, the fight. He wanted to reach Oregon, and anything that interfered with that goal was, at the very least, an unpleasant annoyance. Anything that put his family in danger, if there was a way to keep them out, would be an unforgivable error.

They stopped for lunch, went on, and there were two hours of daylight remaining when Joe smelled wood smoke. Five minutes later, he saw Snedeker's.

The post was at one side of the Trail, in a group of pines, and scattered pines grew on snow-clad hills that rolled away from the post.

The main building, a solid structure of heavy logs, was the center of a group of buildings which probably served as warehouses, stables, and quarters. About two hundred yards away, a little bunch of horses that were grazing in the snow raised their heads to watch the mules come in.

They were Indian ponies, thin and gaunt. An old mule grazed all alone, and in a pole corral at one side were three nice-looking saddle horses.

Probably they were personal mounts for whoever lived at Snedeker's.

Joe swung his team off the Trail and up to the post. Silence lay all around. Joe stopped, and hoped his grin concealed the nervousness he felt when he turned to Emma. Laramie was a town complete within itself; compared to Snedeker's it was almost a city. Joe swallowed hard, already doubting the wisdom of wintering here when they might have stayed at Laramie. He comforted himself with the thought that they could still go back. He gave the reins to Emma and jumped from the wagon.

"I'll go find out about things."

The post, he saw, had small windows and all of them were high off the ground. The door was ma.s.sive, hand-hewn timber that was liberally scratched and gouged, and Joe frowned as he looked at it. A craftsman himself, he decided that the door had been made by a poor or sloppy worker. Then he saw that the battered door had never been made that way; the cuts and gouges had been put there by ax blades and bullets. No bullet had gone all the way through, but certainly Snedeker's had been under attack. Joe lifted the latch and walked into the gloomy interior.

The building was long and low, with a wooden floor built well off the ground. Only with difficulty could anyone from outside reach the small windows, but due to the raised floors, anyone on the inside could stand at them and shoot out. There were counters and shelves, but they were not heavily loaded. Over a huge stone fireplace in which chunks of wood crackled was a rack with six long rifles in it, and at one side was a pile of cured buffalo robes. Unlighted lanterns hung from the ceiling beams, and here and there smoke-blackened candles clung by their own melted wax to saucers.

"Can I help you, sir?"

Joe saw him then, a lean young man with straight black hair. Supple as a bull whip, he had risen with easy grace from a chair near the fireplace.

He wore a cloth shirt, trousers, and leather shoes. His face was thin, with high cheek bones, and the brown eyes that were fixed steadily on Joe were humor-lighted. Joe fidgeted. This young man, and he could not be more than twenty, reminded him almost uncomfortably of Percy Pearl.

Joe said, "I'm looking for Jim Snedeker. My name's Joe Tower."

"I'll call him, Mr. Tow--"

Before he could finish, an apparition came through an open door toward the rear of the building. Tall, it was thin to the point of gauntness.

A fur hat sat on its head, and uncut gray and black hair straggled from beneath the hat. It was dressed in an ornate fringed buckskin shirt and buckskin trousers. Its feet were bare. Above a gray stubble that covered its leathery cheeks were eyes so pale and blue that they seemed to have no expression at all, but to be oddly like drifting blue smoke. Its expression was a snarl, and its voice matched the expression.

"Want to see me, eh? Go ahead an' look."

"I'm looking for Jim Snedeker."

"Who you think I am? Pres'dent of the Unitey States?"

Joe controlled his rising anger and prepared to state his mission. But before he could speak, Snedeker spoke again.

"You an Oregon emmy-grant?"

"That's right."

"Where's your booie knives?"

"What?"

"Your booie knives, man! Last emmy-grant I saw off the Trail had six of 'em an' a revolver stuck in his belt. Where's yours?"

"I haven't any."

"You're a heck of a emmy-grant." Snedeker addressed the youth, "Ain't he a heck of a emmy-grant, Ellis?"

The youth winked at Joe. Snedeker saw him do it and glared.

"Don't you go doin' that behint my back! Wuthless pup! I see you do it!"

He turned to Joe. "This Ellis Garner, he sets around here all the time 'stead of movin' his rear a mite! Kids nowadays ain't wuth the powder to blow 'em up! Ain't that so, Ellis?"

"Jim, this man--"

"Shut up!" Snedeker whirled on Joe. "What do you want of me?"

"Did you know a man named Seeley?"

"Yeh. I knew him. Shif'less old coot. What about him?"

"He said you'd give me a job."

"I might." Snedeker stroked his stubble. "I might at that. You drink?"

"No."

"Why the blazes don't you? Ever'body else does."

"None of your blasted business!" Joe exploded.

"Why you--!" Snedeker sputtered like a boiling tea kettle. "Ain't no man talks thataway to me!" He strode to the rifle rack, seized a rifle, and aimed it at Joe. "Take that back!"