The Hanging of Charlie Darke Page 5

  We were approaching the fork in the trail when Red threw up his head and gave a high whinny. From off to my left a horse answered him. I drew my rifle and rested it across my saddle as I urged Red forward. There were two horses. One, a saddle horse, untethered, came away from the stand of trees where it had been grazing, and snickered again as it caught Red’s scent. I grabbed its bridle and stroked its neck. The brand on its rump told me it belonged to a rider from the Silver Star ranch. A rifle was still in its boot. The other horse was close by and coupled to a buggy. I worked the mechanism of my rifle to make sure that a bullet was in the breech as I approached.

  The man called Arnie lay dead on the ground, arms and legs outstretched and hole in his forehead just above his nose. His gun remained in his holster. He’d been shot without warning. Ambushed. In the dark it wasn’t possible to identify where the murderer had waited, but there were bushes and rocks aplenty that would serve the purpose.

  Doc Cartwright, whom I assumed the other man to be, was slumped in the buggy. He, too, had been killed by a head shot. The motive for the killings seemed apparent. Someone didn’t want Chet Barton to recover from his wound. This time they couldn’t accuse Charlie Darke. He was already in the custody of Dan Bayles.

  There wasn’t anything I could do for the dead men. I didn’t have time to cover them or protect them from curious animals. The horses I tethered to nearby bushes. Their presence would keep away all but the most determined scavengers. I had to get back to the Darkes’ ranch as soon as possible. Duke Barton would send someone to collect the bodies.

  I gathered up the doc’s medical bag from the floor of the buggy and remounted Red. I put him to the gallop, trusting him to be sure-footed as we made our way back. The thought struck me that if shell cases could be found from the bullets that had killed Arnie and Doc Cartwright, and if they, too, had scratches similar to those on the cases that Hawk had found, it would provide conclusive proof that Charlie hadn’t shot Chet. I considered asking Hawk to help me look for them in daylight.

  Thinking of Hawk reminded me that I’d expected to see him on the trail. I realized I’d been wrong to assume that he had crossed the river. The double killing had to be the event that ‘shamed the sight’ of the birds. But he hadn’t found the bodies. If he’d come this way he certainly would have done so.

  I put thoughts of Hawk behind me. The important thing was to get back to help Chet. The only choice now was which of us would try to remove the bullet. I’d brought Doc Cartwright’s medical bag in the belief that it would contain a tool more suitable for probing beneath the skin than my hunting-knife. Whichever one of us attempted the operation it had to be recognized for what it was, a last resort.

  The river arrived more quickly than I expected and soon I was wrapping the reins around the hitching rail at the ranch. Duke Barton opened the door before I got on to the veranda.

  ‘Where’s Cartwright?’

  ‘Dead,’ I said. ‘And Arnie. Bushwhacked in the high ground, near where the trail splits. How’s Chet?’

  My news shocked Duke, and it wasn’t just because it put his son’s life in imminent danger. His face drained of all colour, his eyes expressing bewilderment at the events of the past day. He didn’t even attempt to reply to my enquiry. Annie came out of the bedroom, her jaw set tight to hold back the emotion she obviously felt. Strands of hair strayed across her face and her eyes were wide and watery, like someone who has long been deprived of sleep. The sleeves of her shirt were rolled above her elbows and there were water splashes on her jeans from her ministrations to Chet. She looked around the room wordlessly, eventually her gaze falling quizzically on the medical bag I held.

  ‘We’ll have to remove the bullet ourselves,’ I said.

  ‘Why? Where’s the doctor?’

  ‘He can’t make it.’ I put down the bag and went past her into the bedroom. Chet remained unconscious, his breathing shallow, his skin pallid beneath a coating of feverish sweat. I confess that at that moment I didn’t believe we could achieve anything by trying to reach the bullet. It looked a hopeless task.

  ‘Have you done this before?’ Annie was at my side. She’d taken hold of my arm with both her hands, a reflex action, one she probably wasn’t aware she’d done, just needing something to hold on to.

  ‘I don’t want to give you false hope,’ I explained. ‘It may be too late to help him.’

  ‘But you’ll try. Please, please try.’ Her last sentence was almost whispered, almost a prayer.

  ‘Yes, Mr Gray,’ Duke Barton spoke from the doorway, ‘you must try to save him.’

  It seemed I’d been elected surgeon. I wasn’t sure it was an honour I warranted or wanted. I’d dug slugs out of men who’d been shot in the arm, the leg, the shoulder and the butt. None that were near vital organs and even then they hadn’t all survived. This one was in the back, in deep, and it had to be somewhere near the heart. I could kill him myself just probing for the bullet.

  I felt Annie’s nervous fingers on my arm and remembered when I, too, had been shot and my Sioux brother-in-law, Throws The Dust, had put my life before his reputation. Chet’s father and Annie wanted him to have this chance, and, slim as it might be, who was I to deny it.

  ‘We’re going to need some hot water,’ I said. ‘I need to wash and you need to wash Chet and the table in there.’

  Duke set to work drawing water from the pump by the horse-trough while Annie lit a fire in the black stove in the corner of the living-room. All my previous attempts at surgery had been performed with nothing more than my hunting-knife, burned clean in a flame then used to probe, force out and cauterize. Now that I had the opportunity I searched through Doc Cartwright’s medical bag, selecting every cutting, probing and gripping instrument I thought might be needed. I asked Annie for a dish to put them in and told her to pour boiling water over them when it was ready.

  I sliced away Chet’s shirt and, with Duke’s assistance, turned him so that I could see his back. Blood still ran from the wound, not heavily, but it had been several hours since he was shot so the loss was now substantial. I knew that the open wound needed some sort of treatment to prevent infection but I had no idea what it should be. If he died while I attempted to remove the bullet then at least I’d tried, but I was more concerned about what would happen if I was successful. I could cauterize the incision but I could give no guarantee that the wound inside his body would be clean.

  As though my thoughts were on view Duke Barton’s words to me were a comfort. ‘I know you’ll do your best.’

  I washed; hands, face and shoulders, needing to refresh myself as much as to clean myself. When I was done I carried Chet across my shoulders from the bedroom to lay him face down across the freshly scrubbed table in the front room. I checked with Annie that she had a quantity of linen at hand. The bleeding concerned me. I hadn’t a clue how to stop it. When I picked up the doctor’s scalpel Annie stepped closer with a lamp. I saw that her lips were moving, the words were silent but I knew it was prayer. For a brief moment our eyes met. I wanted to give her some encouragement, but there was none to give. Prayer was likely to be as effective as my use of the blade. I stepped forward, took a deep breath and positioned the point of the scalpel just above the wound.

  Then the door opened, the night air shifted the flame from the lamp and I looked up from Chet’s naked back. The man held his head high, his nose was long and straight and down his cheeks were two yellow lines. Apart from a deerskin loin-cloth and deerskin moccasins he was naked. In his left hand he carried a short stick attached to which were a series of relics, small bones of animals, perhaps humans. In his right he held a long scalping-knife. He was Cheyenne.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  He was not alone. At the Cheyenne’s left shoulder stood a young girl of his tribe. Like the warrior she held a proud posture. Her hair hung free but kept clear of her face by means of a decorated, rabbit-skin headband. She wore a beaded dress fringed with porcupine quills, and wore moccasins on her feet. She
held tight to a buckskin bundle.

  Hawk stood behind them, his high hat towering above his two tribespeople. ‘I have brought my children to save your child,’ he told Duke Barton. ‘I read the signs. They spoke of the death of a wise man. It must be your doctor. No longer can he help Ice Eyes. You must trust these. My people. If Ice Eyes can be saved they can do it. Then, while breath remains in our bodies, we will be equal friends.’

  For a long moment silence covered the room. Duke seemed stunned by the suggestion that his son’s life should be put in the hands of Indians. He looked first at Annie, then at me. I dropped the scalpel back into the bowl. If someone else wanted the responsibility of removing the bullet from Chet that was OK with me. The Cheyenne, like every other Indian nation, had had to learn about treating gunshot wounds the hard way. It was probable that the medical knowledge of these two Indians – calling them his children didn’t necessarily mean they were Hawk’s offspring – was greater than mine.

  But I had misunderstood Duke’s silence. He stepped forward and placed a hand on Hawk’s shoulder. ‘I’d be grateful for Strong Bull’s help.’ A look passed between them that was beyond my comprehension. It spoke of friendship, or duty, or some bond between them from which the rest of us were excluded. My willingness to hand over the task was obvious; I hoped that my belief that the Cheyenne had a greater chance of success was equally apparent. I stepped aside and took Annie with me.

  That Duke had recognized the warrior, knew him by name, made it more likely that Strong Bull was Hawk’s son. Strong Bull sang a low song and shook his relic stick over the unconscious body on the table. His eyes looked at the wound and the body and the face. With Hawk’s help he turned Chet on to his back and began feeling with his fingertips the area where the bullet would have exited if it had gone clean through. I suggested to Annie that she should get some rest while Strong Bull and the girl worked on Chet Barton, but she refused.

  ‘You’ve nursed him for a long time,’ I said, ‘and tomorrow you’ll be needed to do the same again. Go and lie down. If it becomes necessary I’ll call you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t sleep,’ she said. Judging by the wary glances she cast towards the Cheyenne people I knew she didn’t share my confidence in their medical abilities. I poured her some coffee from a jug keeping warm on the stove. When I gave it to her a new smell began to permeate the room. I recognized it immediately. The Cheyenne girl had opened her buckskin bundle and spread its contents, several kinds of herbs and berries and bulbs, on the floor. She had selected three or four of them and had begun crushing, chopping and grinding them in an earthenware bowl. They were bound together by the natural juice of the ingredients, boosted by generous portions of her own spittle. The resulting pungent, green paste was a better and less painful way to heal Chet’s open wound than my amateur attempts with gunpowder and searing-steel would have been. I’d been treated with something similar myself. Marie Delafleur had been appalled when I refused to replace the long grass leaves that were smeared with the slimy unguent with her store bought ointment, but Sky had mixed and applied the medication and given me strict orders not to remove it for three days. I’d been shot, then tortured by her own people. She’d nursed me back on to my feet. She wasn’t going to apply anything to my body that would do me harm. I owed it to her to adhere to her advice.

  All this occurred before I was married to either of them. Despite the unpleasant smell and perhaps because of Annie’s reaction, I had the comfort of their images in my mind. The tribes had developed their own medical customs and had used them, successfully, for centuries. Annie’s face reflected the same abhorrence that such a vile composition should be applied to Chet’s body as Marie’s had when she found it on mine.

  In a low voice, both to give her confidence and to distract her from Strong Bull’s scalping-knife which he had laid on Chet’s chest, I told her of my own wounds, and of the healing power of the paste the girl had prepared.

  By now, Strong Bull had begun to burn some roots. The smoke was thick, dark and foul-smelling. When Annie began to cough I suggested we went outside, but she decided that it would be sensible to rest for a while. She went into the bedroom and closed the door.

  I stepped outside. The night air remained warm. I looked up at the moon, a pale shape in the black night sky. From the north, sounds of cattle, uneasy where they lay, carried to me, and all around scents of nature hung in the air. There was a hint of light coming from the bunkhouse. Annie’s cowhands had returned, presumably while I’d been looking for Doc Cartwright. There were voices, laughs and shouts, and I guessed they were playing cards with the aid of an overhanging oil-lamp. Perhaps, in the morning, two of them could be persuaded to bring in Doc and Arnie.

  Behind me the door opened. With silent step Hawk came and stood with me just off the veranda. He’d discarded his hat, jacket and shirt. He folded his arms across his chest and breathed deeply of the night air. There was something of celebration in his manner, and something of completion.

  ‘When I was a boy there were no white people on this land. The enemies of my people were the Crow and Shoshone. They seldom came this far into our land, but if they did, if they came to steal our ponies, we would fight them and chase them until they returned to their own lodges. Then we would attack their village and steal their women, and later, around the village camp-fires we would tell the tales of our bravery.’

  I pretty much knew the lifestyle of the Cheyenne. It didn’t differ much from that of the Sioux, Pawnee, Arapaho or Crow. Long ago they banded together to survive and were as likely to trade with other tribes as they were to fight. Battles were usually brief and often bloodless; touching an armed enemy with a coup stick gave a warrior as much honour as killing him. Villages usually consisted of only a handful of families so they needed all their hunters to survive, one death being sufficient to end a skirmish. Then the white men came. At first just another tribe who built permanent settlements, stockades, towns and ranches. But they were a tribe that multiplied, spreading over the land like ice melting in a spring thaw. They wanted and took more and more, pushing the tribesmen towards the hills, away from the buffalo trails and hunting grounds that had long been theirs. And when the white men fought their disregard for the number that died amazed the Cheyenne and Sioux and the other tribes. An Indian village would mourn one dead warrior, the whites, it seemed, merely replaced their dead with another ten, and each one seemed to have only one desire – the death of all the tribespeople.

  ‘When the white man came,’ continued Hawk, ‘they never had peace in their hearts. They wanted the land we hunted, the rivers we fished and the sacred hills of our ancestors. We lost the fight for our homes. We were forced to follow new trails. It became more difficult to feed and clothe our families. Before he became a warrior, the heart of my son, Strong Bull, filled with a longing to return to the land of his fathers. It was his time for fasting, dreaming his dreams and learning the medicine that would lead his life. Alone, he left the village. His wanderings brought him to the hills above this ranch.’ He pointed into the darkness, towards the ridge from which the shootist had fired at me. ‘Certain that the spirits had led him to that spot he sat on the ground and sang his dream song. But, though he remained there while the sun blazed and the night chilled his body, and though neither food nor water entered his mouth, no dream came.’ I knew what Hawk wanted to tell me: that Strong Bull was confused by his failure to dream. If he’d been led to that spot by the spirits then some vision, hallucination, dream should have taken over his mind. ‘He got on his pony to make the journey back to his village. Within two strides the pony slipped and Strong Bull was thrown against some rocks. Bar-Ton found him. When a Cheyenne is found alone and injured by a white man he expects to die. Bar-Ton did not kill my son. He took him to his house. Brought a doctor to heal him. Fed him and looked after him until he was able to travel.’

  ‘That why you hang around here? Repaying Mr Barton for taking care of your son?’

  ‘We do not always
understand why the Great Spirit guides us down one trail and not another.’ He paused, his stoic features softened by the deep tranquillity in his eyes. He looked into the night as though listening to a secret message that foretold peace for him for ever. ‘Strong Bull had his medicine dream in this house. In a fever brought about by his injuries the spirits visited him and told him he would be a great healer for his own people. When he was able he returned to our village. The value of my son’s life to the Cheyenne is high. He fulfils his destiny and heals many people. My value now is small, but I came here because I believed the Great Spirit had need of me here. I thought He wanted me to protect Bar-Ton. Now I know it was just to be a messenger. To bring Strong Bull back here when he was needed. I will stay no longer. When my children return to their village I will go with them. I am pleased my debt has been repaid before it is too late.’

  ‘I think you’ve been more than a messenger,’ I told him. ‘Today you’ve saved my life and Charlie Darke’s. Perhaps Annie’s, too.’ Then I remembered Hawk’s words to me when we were examining the tracks on the ridge. ‘Why did you tell me that Charlie Darke wasn’t a good man?’

  ‘He killed Top Man.’

  ‘You mean Mr Barton’s foreman? Straker?’

  He nodded. One solemn movement of the head.

  ‘Charlie told me it was self-defence, that Straker had called him out.’ I wondered if Straker and Hawk had been friends, but when I asked the question Hawk shook his head.

  Before I could question him further we heard the approach of a single rider coming quickly from the south. There was a bustle about the way he rode, arms flapping up and down as though keeping his own body on the move would increase the speed of his mount. He jumped down and strode on to the veranda. Despite the dark I knew it was Wade Barton. Hawk had stepped away from me, moved into the deepest shadows near the door, trying, it seemed, to keep his presence a secret.