The younger officers nodded slowly and wiped the beaded sweat from their faces.
Texas Herds Bring Death
I
There was sultriness to the hot desert air that made even the lizards slow and lethargic, and Caleb Doom looked up at the sullen sky. His gaze wandered over the trackless heaven and the brassy, blast-furnace lining was covered over with a dull gray opaqueness. He looked down over the tremendous sweep of the ageless land and let his eyes stop on a distant dust cloud that wound its way down out of the far mountains. A Texas herd. His gray, deep-set eyes were thoughtful and pensive. Since the end of the war, great Texas herds had been coming up into the northern territories. Texas was making a gallant effort to recover her shattered economy under the Confederacy and the Texas cattle were the medium. The big black gelding saw the dust and pointed his small, delicate ears. Caleb reached for-ward and patted his damp neck. The heat was intense as he reined around off the slight eminence, and started to ride down the narrow deer trail that led to-ward the little frontier town of Lodgepole.
Caleb Doom was an average-size man dressed in the garb of a scout. His buckskin clothing was fringed, and the fringes swayed sinuously with the movement of his body as he rode into Lodgepole. The hostler at the livery barn nodded respectfully Caleb Doom was a well-known man on the changing frontier. His exploits among the Indians were al-most legends. To the red men, he was known as the Silent Outcast, a former cavalryman who spoke only when there was something worth saying.
After leaving his horse at the public barn, he strolled along Lodgepole’s single, dust-coated road, past the raw, new buildings with their brave false fronts, and entered the only two-storied establishment in town, the Lincoln House Hotel. In the roughly furnished parlor, he saw the man he was looking for, Jack Britt, grizzled cowman whose ranches on the Verde made him one of the big men of the Lodgepole country.
“Texas herd comin’, Jack. Crossin’ the Big Sink right now, comin’ from the direction of Taos.”
Britt’s close-cropped, gray head nodded thoughtfully. “I figgered there’d be one along afore too long.” He looked up at Caleb. “Well, it’ll mean trouble. The Crows won’t let’em go on upcountry with their herd, an’ the local ranchers will fight’em if they try to hold their herd on Lodgepole range. Barely enough grass fer local cows, let alone havin’ enough to spare for an outside herd.” Caleb was turning away. “Where ya goin’?”
“Over to see Bull Bear. See if I can’t talk him into lettin’ the Texans go on through.”
“He won’t let’em.”
“Maybe not, but if he would, it’d save some trouble. Anyway, maybe the Texans’ll cut out a few stragglers an’ give’em to the Indians for a tribute. That used to work pretty well.”
Britt shook his head dourly. “Won’t work no more, Caleb. Them Crows rustle whatever they need nowa-days.” He shrugged resignedly. “Well, go to it. If anyone can talk sense into that redskin, you can. I’ll hang around town until you get back. Maybe the Texans’ll bivouac out in the sink before you get back, an’ there won’t be no trouble for anyone.”
Caleb picked up his black horse at the livery barn and headed out onto the great prairie that began abruptly at the north end of Lodgepole. He rode with the grace of a born horseman. There had been no rain for two months and the feed was fast turning brown.
It took three hours of slow going to get to Bull Bear’s camp. Wraith-like riders fell in behind him. He affected not to notice them following him in the shimmering distance. Crow scouts, he knew, had been posted strategically across the prairie to keep a close watch on Lodgepole. Caleb understood the Indian viewpoint easily enough. With no rain and the feed drying up, there was barely enough feed to keep the natural game from moving farther north. When the game left, the Indians would have to go, too. This, naturally, they didn’t want to do; consequently they had drawn an imaginary deadline beyond which none of the white man’s cattle could go.
Caleb rode past two sullen sentries, signaled that he came in peace, and was allowed to pass. The camp of Bull Bear was in a magnificent meadow fringed with a sprinkling of majestic pines that lent a delicate aroma to the grasslands where the conical, gaudily decorated teepees were scattered. Bull Bear’s camp was in the hereditary upland of his people. From its slight eminence, the Indians could see the prairie around them for hundreds of miles. They could see the great dust clouds caused by the hump-backs, hours, sometimes days, before the buffalo would be close enough to kill. It was a favorite camping grounds of the Crows and in the rank, coarse grass at their feet and the top two layers of mulch could be found the discarded artifacts of their ancestors, indicating how ancient was the camp site.
Bull Bear’s teepee was somewhat larger than the others, being, in fact, a combination home and council lodge. Impressive symbols of the Crow tribe and Bull Bear’s fighting and hunting prowess were daubed with Neolithic candor over the high structure. Four horses were tied to a crude hitch rail in front of the teepee and a heraldic coup stick was planted firmly in the ground in front, and a little to one side, of the teepee opening. Caleb dismounted under the curious glances of the Indians, who knew him by sight, and entered the Great Plains home of the Crow chieftain.
Inside, a caressing coolness swept over Caleb. He stood respectfully just inside the flap, accustoming his eyes to the shadowy gloom. A resonant voice boomed out at him in English. “Silent Outcast, I have been expecting you. Sit.”
Caleb, who had a genuine affection for the scarred, dusky man before him whose piercingly fierce eyes were also genial and friendly, sat. Another man was sitting beside Bull Bear. He was younger, with twin streaks of red paint daubed horizontally across each cheek, stretching from his nose to the area just below each ear. He nodded with slight reserve and Caleb nodded back. “Bull Bear, I am always glad to find my welcome in the teepee of my brother. Why were you expecting me?”
Bull Bear snorted. “Because my scouts told me early this morning that a Texas herd was riding into the Big Sink.”
Caleb was mildly surprised. If the Crows knew the herd was coming, they must have scouts completely around Lodgepole and far out on the plains south of town. “Why would I come to you because of a Texas herd?”
Bull Bear’s face was touched by a faint smile. “Be-cause you would want to get my permission to let the Texans cross Crow land. It is simple, Silent Out-cast. Unless the Texans cross Crow land, there will be a fight with the Lodgepole cowmen. You would try to avert this.”
Caleb looked for a long silent moment at the Indian. He had encountered perspicacity before, but never, that he could recall, had he run into an Indian who thought through to the end of a situation. Curious to see how far Bull Bear’s reasoning had gone, he spoke again. “You are a wise man. What, then, is in the end?”
Bull Bear leaned forward a little. “There will be a fight among the white cowmen. Some will be killed. Some will give up and go back beyond the mountains. Others will hunt new ranges and new ways of driving their cows into the north country.” He straightened up and smiled slightly. “The white men, who will stay in the land, are my brothers.”
Caleb nodded solemnly. “This will happen unless you allow the Texans to cross Crow land.”
“They cannot cross.”
“Many men will die.…”
“White men, not red men.”
“I see. You want the white men to fight among themselves. Even this small war might take some of the growing pressure of the whites off the Crows.”