The Way West Part 12

Martin opened his eyes and rolled them up from face to face as if hoping to find in one of them the answer to his trouble. Tadlock swung around. "Go and get ready. We'll move in a few minutes. Evans, if you'll take just a little of my load, I can make a bed. We'll doctor him and roll."

"I do' know, Tadlock," Evans said. "Don't know what?"

"Do' know as we ought to."

"I'm the captain. I'll a.s.sume the responsibility."

Behind Tadlock a dry voice spoke up that he recognized as Patch's. "We're all together, you know, Tadlock, including your hired hand."

"Who said we weren't? We'll still be all together when he's in a wagon."

"That ain't what Patch means," Evans put in.

Tadlock bit back the words that came to his lips. The fools! The d.a.m.n fools, acting as if this were a time and place for leisurely solicitude! He looked at them one by one -Evans, Summers, Patch- trying to stare them down. In their eyes he read a stupid stubbornness.

It came to him, slowly, that the thing had come to be an issue. A position taken, a sensible position taken, a few words said and then the lines drawn! Now, here, authority was at stake, prestige, the leadership that forced the train along. To give in to them would be to acknowledge his defeat.

He felt movement at his side and turned and saw Mrs. McBee, a small, ragged witch of a woman. "We got some Jew David's Plaster," she said. "It's good for most anything."

He waved her away. "All right, Evans. Doctor him!"

"What I want to do," Evans said -and Tadlock felt a pulse of astonishment at his tone- "is to see everybody's took care of proper. We got to tend to Martin. I ain't for joltin' him along in a wagon."

"You want to bring up the rear, I guess!"

"I want to see Martin's took care of, or anybody else that gets sick."

Tadlock held on to himself. "Gra.s.s is already short because of the buffalo. It'll be a d.a.m.n sight shorter if we let other companies get ahead."

"We ain't first anyhow," Summers answered. "There's some beyond."

"A handful if any. Light outfits with little stock. But because they're ahead you think we can let everybody pa.s.s!"

Summers was gnawing on his pipestem. He spoke almost idly. "Camp fever makes the bones ache bad."

Patch said, "I'm in favor of staying here until we know Martin's better."

Tadlock heard a mutter of approval from the crowd that had grown while they stood arguing. Their eyes were all fixed on him, it seemed, fixed accusingly when all he had sought was the welfare of the company. System was the thing, a time to get up, a time to travel, a time to bed down, a set distance to make daily, each man performing his appointed duties, each answering to the call of authority. That way, they'd get to Oregon, get there safely, speedily, ahead of the rest. But these men didn't appreciate system, organization, discipline. They didn't deserve the leadership he had given them.

His temper flared up at the thought. "We'll roll. Hear? I say we'll roll."

They didn't move. They stood quiet, regarding him with that stupid stubbornness, until Evans said, "Do' know as we will, Tadlock. Seems to me this is a thing for the council."

"Council!"

"Let the council decide, seein' as we don't agree."

"Good G.o.d!"

"Meantime, I ain't movin'."

Patch added, "I, either," and again there came the mutter of approval.

Tadlock would have cursed them except that it occurred to him that he could handle the council. Brewer was on it, and Mack and Fairman. They would stand by him. The train would lose the time the meeting took, which was to be regretted, but hereafter these muttonheads might not be so ready to dispute his orders. "Stay then!" he said and laughed at them. "We'll talk our way to Oregon."

Evans stooped at the sick man's side.

"Take your time," Tadlock told him. "No hurry. We're only going as far as Oregon City." He added, "The council will meet in an hour."

For a time he watched the self-appointed doctors while they got Martin in a good bed under a tent and talked themselves into believing calomel was the proper medicine. Not that, alone, he wouldn't have cared for Martin and done it just as well. It was just that there were too many wanting to take a hand, too many holding out for Sarsaparilla Blood Pills and Balsam of Life and emetics and calomel and bloodletting.

Leaving, he debated the question of talking to Mack and Fairman before the council met. He decided not to. On this open plain a private conference was impossible. Seeing them, Patch or someone would suspect a conspiracy. He would ask McBee to serve notice of the meeting.

Having asked him, he strode about the camp, confident but still sore, now and then flicking his whip at a gra.s.s stem and feeling something gratified when the popper snapped off a blade. The women, he saw with approval, were making the most of this idle time. Five or six of them were at the river's edge, washing clothes in the sandy water. A couple had washboards. The others scuffed the washing between their hands and slapped the heavier things on rocks dug out of the sand from G.o.d knew where. For the most part the men not tending to Martin just stood around talking while children ran squealing among them. They were talking, Tadlock had no doubt, about him and about Martin and what was the thing to do. Well, he could tell them.

Later, at the upper end of the camp, away from the tents and the talk, Tadlock saw Summers by himself, standing still as some old bull while he looked to the West that had molded him. Tadlock walked up to him. "I can't understand you, Summers," he began.

Summers half turned, his two hands clasped on his rifle, the b.u.t.t of which rested on the ground. "Countin' buffler, is all."

"I don't mean that," Tadlock answered, knowing Summers knew that he didn't. "We ought to be traveling."

Summers looked at the sun, now well above the eastern horizon. "Could've made three or four miles, I reckon," he said, his face grave. In his eyes, though, Tadlock caught a gleam that exasperated him.

"G.o.ddam it! This isn't a thing for fun."

"Not sayin' it is," Summers answered, the gleam in his eyes fading, "nor for thinkin' miles instead of Martin."

"One man isn't a train."

"I didn't figure you knew that."

"What do you mean?"

"Ain't you the whole shebang?"

"You're the pilot, Summers. That's all." Tadlock spoke deliberately, wanting to irritate the man, wanting almost to bait him to a fight that would relieve the feelings in himself. He waited, the b.u.t.t of his whip held tight in his hand.

Summers turned and looked across at the river and the island that stood wooded in it. "That there's Brady's Island," he said so casually that Tadlock was unprepared for the rest. "A man tamed Brady got himself rubbed out. That was back in 'thirtythree."

Summers' gaze came back to rest on Tadlock. In it, Tadlock thought, was the cool, the deadly expression of an animal waiting for a kill. Not until then had he known how dangerous the guide could be. He wasn't afraid but still he felt relief when Summers lifted his rifle and moved off. Tadlock watched him go. Summers' gait was the soft and easy gait of an Indian. His hair was beginning to hang long in back, Indian-fashion, too.

Well, to h.e.l.l with him, Tadlock thought, and to h.e.l.l with his parting look of contempt or hostility or whatever it was! Looks didn't hurt. A man could afford to ignore a half-savage pilot.

The restlessness in him made. him want to move. He stepped on westward, letting his gaze roam over the sunlit country while his mind worked. Ahead of him were wagon tracks, the tracks of the emigrants of 1844 and before. They would have had their troubles, too. No doubt there were fools aplenty in those trains, men who couldn't lead but balked at being led and, by the balking, showed the need of the very thing that they resisted.

Across the river he saw buffalo and tried to guess how far they were. Here in the fine air of the Platte one underestimated. A bluff or a turn of the river that looked but an hour might be a day or more. A crow a half mile off appeared within good rifle range. Details stood out -the swags and rises and sand hills, the bars of the river and the water frothy in an eddy, the beards of the distant buffalo, even the very blades of gra.s.s. This clear air, he thought, made the world at once smaller and bigger, smaller because the eye saw, bigger because it saw so far. Sound mixed one's impressions, too. By night every noise was intimate and distinct; by day the report of a rifle was a faint pop in a silence that rang the head like quinine. It was a strange and awesome world. It required decision and management.

He had shown the qualities it took. He had kept the train in motion. He'd managed. They owed a debt to him -and paid in criticism! Take the day Mack shot the Indian, the day that followed the stampede. When daylight came, Summers had led a mere handful of riders out to hunt the scattered cattle. With him away -and with him his precious right to name and organize war parties- Tadlock had appointed other riders, until nearly every last manjack was gone. But still the train went on, the ox teams poked by women and the bigger children.

A storm came up that morning -a wretched, all-day rain that greased the ground and later soaked it, so that the rearward wagons floundered half-stuck in the mire. The rain was cold, slanted by a chilly breeze. The drivers climbed up in the wagons to escape it and got colder yet for want of exercise and climbed back down and stumped along, their feet heavy and misshapen with the clinging mud. But they went on. That was the point. Women driving, children driving, they went on.

Tadlock had shown the way, since Summers was scouting with the men, but often he turned back to give his people help and heart. One thing he could do, he'd have to say for himself, was to get an ox to pull. Give him his whip and he could lift a piece of hide. More than once that day he'd taught a team a thing or two.

He taught the Indians something, also, taught the six-man delegation that caught up with the train two hours or so after it had started out. Byrd, who rode so poorly that Tadlock hadn't sent him with the men, had seen them first and managed to get himself aboard an extra horse and bounced ahead to give the news to Tadlock.

The train wasn't in position to corral. It had spread out in the mud. The going was too heavy for a quick maneuver. A hill rose to the right. Trees grew to left.

All these considerations came to Tadlock while Bvrd panted out his message. On the instant he saw them clear and knew what he would have to do.

"Get the women armed!" he barked. "You and Willie Brewer and the preacher come to the rear, with rifles." He jammed a I resh cap on his own. "How many Indians?"

"I just caught a glimpse."

"How far away?"

"Close."

"Do what I tell you!" Tadlock dug his heels into his horse and galloped toward the line, leaving Byrd to follow. He held up his hand for a halt. He couldn't see the Indians yet. They were lost in a strip of woods, lost in the mist.

Charging by the wagons, Tadlock saw the white faces of the women, the suddenly frightened faces of children, the face of his wife written over with anxiety. He hoped that, beholding him, they were finding courage.

A hundred yards below the tail-end wagon he spied the Indians riding from a brake. He slowed his horse and walked it toward them. Six Indians. That was all he saw. Six Kaws, he guessed they were, with roached hair mussed by rain, with odds and tatters of attire glued wet against their skins. The leader had a soggy blanket draped around him. Tadlock caught the black-wet shimmer of gun steel, the tight arch of a bow. A mangy set but maybe mean, he thought, and rode straight at them until they pulled their horses up.

He stared at them, making his face as tight and blank as theirs. It stirred his pride to think, as he went from gaze to tiaze, that he felt, not fear, but challenge, the heady, hard conflict of wills. He asked, "What you want?"

They were a long time answering. Never, he imagined, had they been received like this. They expected the pipe, the oratory, the soft courtesies that were the custom.

The Kaw with the blanket spoke. "Kill Injun." He pointed hack, toward where Mack had dropped the Indian from the irce.

"Kill Injun, yes," Tadlock answered. "Injun steal, so kill Indian."

"Injun no steal."

"Injun steal. Heap dead."

"Injun love presents."

"No presents."

Tadlock saw thought working in their eyes. He saw what he supposed was disappointment rising from his refusal to make amends with gifts. Now was the time, he knew. Now was the danger. But still he felt no fear. Looking at this ill-fed, sc.r.a.pclothed crew, he felt power surging in him, power to bend them, power to treat them as he chose. It was as if, with one sweep of the hand, he could wipe them from the earth.

He caught the leader's gaze and stared it down. In the flush of cert.i.tude he said, "Get!" and hitched his rifle closer. He said, "Now get!" and touched his horse a step ahead.

He was the master of them. One by one they turned. The eyes sliding off from his had a look of craven injury. They filed hack as they had come. He sat straight and still, by his power and presence willing them away, until the last of them was gone from sight.

He had rea.s.sured the women afterwards, had got the train to moving, had met the riders coming in and told them no, it wasn't time to camp. Rain, mud, Indians, scattered cattle and still the train had rolled a decent distance. Eight miles, maybe ten, he estimated. Which showed what management could do. Which showed what a little s.p.u.n.k could do. He didn't exaggerate his deed, though he heard the women talking of it to their men. It was no more than the duty of a captain to his company. He'd do the same again in spite of Summers, who said, "It worked this time, but don't never try it on a p.a.w.nee or a Sioux."

That night he let it be known the cattle guards would have to show some sense. The idea, firing at imaginary Indians and so causing a stampede! Of course the Indians were imaginary. Hadn't the riders found all the animals but one? Had they spied a single thief? He didn't hide his sentiments about Mack and his behavior, either. Not that one Indian mattered much. It was the consequences possible. The men took it well enough then. They knew they had it coming.

But now, because he said a sick man didn't justify delay, because he said Martin would be as well off in a wagon, they acted tip! Tadlock popped another blade of gra.s.s.

He reminded himself it was about time for the council to meet, but for a minute longer he stood where he was, pecking at the ground with his whip. He saw, again with approval, that other women had joined the group at the river's edge. One of the men had built a fire for them, and water was heating in a tub and a couple of buckets, sending up wisps of steam into air still a little chill from the night. To the south the animals grazed, herded loosely. Three hors.e.m.e.n were splashing across the river, hurrying to keep from miring in the quicksand that formed the bed. He identified them one by one -Summers and Gorham and the boy, Brownie Evans. He supposed they were going to hunt the buffalo that grazed northward.

It irritated him that they should set out, for buffalo grazing at a distance, away from where the road led. It was as if they a.s.sumed already, prior to the action of the council, that the train wouldn't move. Under good discipline the act would have been recognized as an act of impudence, if these people understood that word.

He blamed Summers most of all -and not for this small offense alone. He had the feeling that Summers contaminated the company with his casual independence, his backwoodsman's uncertain respect for authority. Summers knew the trail. He was a good guide, an expert hunter, a watchful scout, a neversleeping sentinel. He was all of these, Tadlock had to admit to himself, but he was also a man hard to manage or impress, a t.i.tan admired for his Indian graces and rude skills and so imitated in att.i.tudes.

Walking to the council meeting, Tadlock found himself wishing resentfully that he had Summers' frontier lore to go along with his own impulse for order. It was Summers who suggested, along the Little Blue, that horses be tied to the branches, not the trunks, of trees. That way, he said, they wouldn't break the bridle reins. Summers could lure buffalo cows to him by imitating the call of a calf. He could put an arrow or a ball into a cow and leave life enough in her to drive her close to camp, thus eliminating the ch.o.r.e of packing in the meat. And who but Summers would think of tying his horse to the horns of a killed buffalo while he butchered? Summers could handle oxen, mules, horses. He could, it seemed, smell game and water and Indians. He was deadly with rifle and bow. He struck the quickest fire. The manner in which he rounded the wagons into a corral at night was simple and effective, though it did lack military style. For himself, Tadlock would have preferred a method he had been told about, by which the train divided into equal sections, with an officer for each, and made smart right-angle turns and formed a square. Still, he had to admit, Summers' way was good. d.a.m.n the man, anyhow! He was competent -though outwardly modest if somehow insolent and independent as a hog on ice! Why couldn't a man of wider view, of greater education, possess that wilderness wisdom? Small a qualification as it was, it still would promote the recognition of leadership.

The other councilmen, out fifty yards or so from the wagons, were waiting. Tadlock checked them off -Evans, Fairman, Mack, Brewer, Daugherty. He sat down by them. "How's Martin?"

"No good," Brewer answered in his thick German. "He vill die, you bet."

"He's tough."

Evans said, "My woman's watchin' him, along with Brother Weatherby and some others."

Tadlock nodded, thinking not so much about Martin as about the council, as about an issue that had grown beyond its true importance because it was a challenge to authority. He wished, almost, that he had proposed the delay. Still, it was all right. Brewer he could count on, and Mack and Fairman. They and he would compose a majority. "Still could make ten miles or so," he said, squinting at the sun. "Every mile counts."

They didn't answer. Only Brewer, sitting cross-legged, his paunch spilling over into his lap, so much as nodded.

"Martin's out of his head," Daugherty said in what might have been reproach.

Tadlock sized him up, wondering now as he had wondered before why this hillside Irishman opposed him. Could he have overheard some incautious criticism of popishness?

"Just yells Jesus," Evans added. "Yells Jesus and follers with 'To Thee I pray.' "

"That doesn't show he's out of his head."

"He was never a great one for prayin'," Daugherty said.

Tadlock had the feeling that in their faces was the look of something withheld. He studied them, then let his gaze stray off to the camp where the wagons stood idle and the new-done wash stirred on lines the women had run from wagon to wagon. He saw the tent that had been put up to shelter Martin and Weatherby standing by it, his rusty coat donned out of respect to sickness. Women and children moved among the wagons and the fires that were being allowed to die. Women always managed to improve the movement, Tadlock reflected while his eyes went from them to four men who lay by Patch's wagon. One of them was stabbing idly at the ground with a knife. He thought he could hear Martin's voice, maybe crying to Jesus.

"Well," he said, "we have a decision to make."

They didn't answer him. They sat waiting, their lids narrowed against the sun. It would be warm today and dazzlingly bright, the sun striking back from the sand and the saltlike patches that lay on it.

He caught Evans' eye. "You're willing to abide by the decision of the council?"

"Are you?"

"Naturally." Tadlock gave his attention to the others. "We need to remember that the trick is to keep moving. It will be late fall before we reach Oregon in any case."

Evans brought his hand to his face and rubbed his broad cheek as if rubbing helped him to think. "I ain't denyin' what you say, Tadlock, but we been makin' good time. It ain't as if we couldn't spare a day or two."

"We'll meet other delays, you know."

"Maybe so."