the Thundering Herd (1984) (21 page)

By and by his attention was attracted at intervals by soft padded steps somewhere near, and the cracking of twigs down in the brakes, and the squealing of raccoons. Once a wild cry startled him, so nearly like a woman's scream was it, and he recognized it as the rare cry of a panther. He had heard hunters at the camps tell of it. Gradually his nervousness wore away. These creatures of the wilderness would not harm him; he had only to fear those beings made in his own image.

The night, the stars, the insects, the stealthy denizens of the brush, the soft, drowsy, sultry summer darkness with its dim flare of sheet lightning along the horizon, the loneliness and freedom of the open country--these worked on Tom's mind and from them he gathered a subtle confidence that there was something stronger than evil in men. Milly would not be lost to him.

At last Tom slept. He was awakened by the scratching and clucking of wild turkeys, so close that he could have tossed his hat among them. The sun was red in the east. He had slept late. To eat his meager breakfast, water and saddle his horse, fill his canteen, were but the work of a few moments, and then he was on his way again, alert, cautious, not to be misled by his ardor.

Tom traveled ten miles farther east before his ears again throbbed to the boom of the big buffalo guns. Scattered herds grazed out on the prairie, but appeared unmolested by hunters. The shooting came from across the river. Five miles farther on, however, Tom reached the zone of camps on that side, and heard the boom of guns.

Between that point and the river bluffs, which he recognized as landmarks near Hudnall's present location, he found and rode through seven camps of buffalo-hunters. Wagons, tents, reloading kits, mess boxes, bales of hides, squares and squares of hides pegged out--these were in no wise different from the particulars of the camps opposite.

But Tom did not find what he sought. He crossed the river and rode towards Hudnall's with a heavy heart.

The afternoon was far spent, still it was too early for Tom not to be surprised to see his comrades in camp. There appeared to be other hunters--a group, talking earnestly.

Tom urged his tired horse to a trot, then a lope. Something was wrong at Hudnall's. He felt it. There came a cold tightening round his heart. Reaching camp, Tom flung himself out of the saddle.

Ory Tacks, the nearest to Tom, as he advanced toward the men, was crying. Dunn sat near him, apparently dazed. Burn Hudnall's head was buried in his arms. Stronghurl and Pilchuck were in conversation with a group of seven or eight men, among whom Tom recognized hunters from adjoining camps. It was significant to behold these men all carrying their rifles. More significant was Pilchuck's face, hard, cold, forbidding, with his thin lips set in tight line and his eyes almost narrowed shut.

"What's--happened?" burst out Tom, breathlessly.

Burn Hudnall raised a face Tom could never forget.

"Father was murdered by Indians."

"Oh, my God--no!" cried Tom, in distress.

"Yes. . . . I saw him killed--an' I just got away--by the skin of my teeth," replied Burn, in a dreadful voice.

"How? When? Where?" panted Tom, shocked to his depths.

"It was father's carelessness. Oh, if he had only listened to Pilchuck. . . . Mebbe two hours ago. I was west of here four or five miles when I saw a band of Indians. They were ridin' towards us. I was skinnin' a bull an' was concealed behind the carcass.

Father was off a quarter of a mile, ridin' round a small bunch of buffalo, shootin' fast, an' blind to anythin' else but buffalo. I yelled my lungs out. No use! He couldn't hear. I got to my horse an' was thinkin' of runnin' over to save father, when I saw I was too late. . . . The Indians rode like the wind. They ran down on father. I saw puffs of smoke an' heard shots. Father fell off his horse. Then the Indians circled round him, shootin', yellin', ridin' like naked painted devils. . . . Presently they quit racin', an' rode into a bunch, round where he lay. Some of them dismounted. Others rode toward the wagon an' team. These Indians saw me an' started for me. I tell you I had to ride, an' they chased me almost into camp. . . . Tom, I know what it is to hear the whistle of bullets!"

"He's out there--on the prairie--dead?" gasped Tom.

"Certain as death," replied Burn, solemnly. "Who's to tell mother an' Sally?"

"But--but we must go out there--to see--to find out--."

"Pilchuck's taken charge, Tom," replied the other. "He says the Indians were Comanches an' in pretty strong force. We're to wait till morning, get a bunch of men together, an' then go out to bury father."

Tom was stunned. The catastrophe as persistently portended by Pilchuck and corroborated by Sprague had at last fallen. Splendid, fine, kindly Hudnall was dead at the hands of revengeful savages.

It was terrible. To be warned of such a thing was nothing, but the fact itself stood out in appalling vividness.

"Let's rustle supper while it's daylight," said Pilchuck, coming over. "We don't want a camp fire to-night. Reckon there's hardly any danger of attack, but we want to stand guard an' not take any chances."

Camp tasks had to go on just the same, and Tom helped Dunn and Ory Tacks. The other hunters turned to leave with an understanding that they were to stand guard at their camps, and return in the morning.

"Starwell, we'll plan to-morrow after we bury Hudnall," said the scout.

"One only plan," replied the other, a lean, dark, forceful looking Westerner whom Tom felt he would not care to cross. "We buff- hunters must band together an' trail them Comanches."

"Reckon you're right, Star," returned Pilchuck, grimly. "But there's no rush. Them redskins have done more'n kill Hudnall, I'll bet you. They've been raidin'. An' they'll strike for the Staked Plain. That means we've got to organize. If there's a hell of a place in the world it's shore the Staked Plain."

Supper without the cheerful presence of Hudnall would have been a loss, but the fact that he lay dead, murdered, surely mutilated, out there on the prairie, was monstrous to Tom. He could not eat.

He wandered about camp, slowly realizing something beyond the horror of the calamity, a gradual growth from shock to stern purpose. No need to ask Pilchuck what was in his mind! The plainsman loomed now in Tom's sight big and strong, implacable and infallible.

Tom stood guard with Stronghurl during the earlier watches of the night; and the long-drawn mournful howl of the prairie wolf had in it a new significance. This wild West was beginning to show its teeth.

Chapter
XI

Morning came, and Pilchuck had the men stirring early. When Tom walked out to the camp fire dawn was brightening, and there was a low roll of thunder from the eastward.

"We're in for a thunderstorm," he said to the scout, who was cooking breakfast.

"Storm, mebbe, but not thunder-an'-lightnin' storm," replied Pilchuck. "That sound you hear is new to you. It's a stampede of buffalo."

"Is that so? . . . Say, how like thunder!"

"Yep, we plainsmen call it the thunderin' herd. But this isn't the main herd on the rampage. Somethin', most likely Indians, has scared the buffalo across the river. They've been runnin' south for an hour. More buffalo over there than I had an idee of."

"Yes, I saw miles of scattered herds as I rode up the river," said Tom.

"I smell smoke, too, an' fact is, Doan, I don't like things a damn bit. If the main herd stampedes--holy Moses! I want to be on top of the Staked Plain. Reckon, though, that's just where we'll be."

"You're going after the Comanches?" inquired Tom, seriously.

"Wal, I reckon. It's got to be done if we're to hunt buffalo in peace."

Burn Hudnall presented himself at the camp fire, his face haggard with grief; but he was now composed. He sat at breakfast as usual, and later did his share of the tasks. Not long afterward Starwell and his men rode into camp, heavily armed and formidable in appearance.

"Jude, what you make of that stampede across the river?" he asked, after greetings were exchanged.

"Wal, I ain't makin' much, but I don't like it."

"We heerd shootin' yesterday at daylight down along the river from our camp," returned Starwell. "Small-bore guns, an' I don't calkilate hunters was shootin' rabbits for breakfast."

"Ahuh! Wal, after we come back from buryin' Hudnall we'll take stock of what's goin' on," said Pilchuck. "By that time camp will be full of hunters, I reckon."

"Hardy rode twenty miles an' more down the river, gettin' back late last night. He said there'd be every outfit represented here this mornin'."

"Good. We kept the horses picketed last night, an' we'll be saddled in a jiffy."

Burn Hudnall led that band of mounted men up on the prairie and southwest toward the scene of yesterday's tragedy. The morning was hot; whirlwinds of dust were rising, like columns of yellow smoke; the prairie looked lonesome and vast; far out toward the Staked Plain showed a dim ragged line of buffalo. Across the river the prairie was obscured in low covering of dust, like rising clouds.

The thunder of hoofs had died away.

Tom Doan, riding with these silent, somber men, felt a strong beat of his pulse that was at variance with the oppression of his mind.

He was to be in the thick of wild events.

In perhaps half an hour the trotting horses drew within sight of black dots on the prairie, and toward these Burn Hudnall headed.

They were dead and unskinned buffalo. Presently Burn halted alongside the first carcass, that of a bull, half skinned.

"Here's where I was, when the Indians came in sight over that ridge," said Burn, huskily. "Father must be lyin' over there."

He pointed toward where a number of black woolly dead buffalo lay scattered over the green plain, and rode toward them. Presently Pilchuck took the lead. His keen eye no doubt had espied the corpse of Hudnall, for as he passed Burn he said, "Reckon it'd be more sense for you not to look at him."

Burn did not reply, but rode on as before. Pilchuck drew ahead and Starwell joined him. The riders scattered somewhat, some trotting forward, and others walking their horses. Then the leaders dismounted.

"Somebody hold Burn back," shouted Pilchuck, his bronze face flashing in the sunlight.

But though several of the riders, and lastly Tom, endeavored to restrain Burn, he was not to be stopped. Not the last was he to view his father's remains.

"Reckon it's Comanche work," declared Pilchuck, in a voice that cut.

Hudnall's giant body lay, half nude, in grotesque and terrible suggestiveness. He had been shot many times, as was attested to by bullet holes in his torn and limp limbs. His scalp had been literally torn off, his face gashed, and his abdomen ripped open.

From the last wound projected buffalo grass which had been rammed into it.

All the hunters gazed in silence down upon the ghastly spectacle.

Then from Burn Hudnall burst an awful cry.

"Take him away, somebody," ordered Pilchuck. Then after several of the hunters had led the stricken son aside the scout added: "Tough on a tenderfoot! But he would look. Reckon it'd be good for all newcomers to see such a sight. . . . Now, men, I'll keep watch for Comanches while you bury poor Hudnall. Rustle, for it wouldn't surprise me to see a bunch of the devils come ridin' over that ridge."

With pick and shovel a deep grave was soon dug, and Hudnall's body, wrapped in a blanket, was lowered into it. Then the earth was filled in and stamped down hard. Thus the body of the careless, cheerful, kindly Hudnall was consigned to an unmarked grave on the windy prairie.

Pilchuck found the tracks of the wagon, and the trail of the Comanches heading straight for the Staked Plain.

"Wal, Star, that's as we reckoned," declared the scout.

"Shore is," replied Starwell. "They stole wagon, hosses, gun, hides--everythin' Hudnall had out here."

"Reckon we'll hear more about this bunch before the day's over.

Must have been fifty Indians an' they have a habit of ridin' fast and raidin' more'n one place at a time."

"Jude, my idee is they'd not have taken the wagon if they meant to make another raid," said Starwell.

"Reckon you're right. Wal, we'll rustle back to camp."

More than thirty hunters, representatives of the outfits within reaching distance of Hudnall's, were assembled at camp when the riders returned from their sad mission. All appeared eager to learn the news, and many of them had tidings to impart.

An old white-haired hunter declared vigorously: "By Gord! we air goin' to give the buffalo a rest an' the Injuns a chase!"

That indeed seemed the prevailing sentiment.

"Men, before we talk of organizin' let's get a line on what's been goin' on," said Pilchuck.

Whereupon the hunters grouped themselves in the shade of the cottonwoods, like Indians in Council. The scout told briefly the circumstances surrounding the murder of Hudnall, and said he would leave his deductions for later. Then he questioned the visiting hunters in turn.

Rathbone's camp, thirty miles west, on a creek running down out of the Staked Plain, had been burned by Comanches, wagons and horses stolen, and the men driven off, just escaping with their lives.