The Floating Outfit 17 Read online

  The Home of Great Western Fiction!

  CONTENTS

  About White Indians

  Author's Note

  Dedication

  One: Drop Him Plumb in His Tracks

  Two: He’ll Have to Be Killed

  Three: The Barrel’s Plugged

  Four: You’re a Mystery to Me

  Five: They Ain’t Kweharenhnuh

  Six: One You Call Friend Is Enemy

  Seven: You’ll Have to Kill Him

  Eight: Arrest Him for Murder

  Nine: Running Proves He’s Guilty

  Ten; He Knows He’s Dusty Fog

  Eleven: I Don’t Do No Fist-Fighting

  Twelve: This Could Be Why They’re Here

  Thirteen: My Lodge Oath is to Kill Him

  Fourteen: Kill the Half-Breed

  Fifteen: A:he; ‘I Claim It’

  Sixteen: High Odds, Even for Cuchilo

  Seventeen: This We Didn’t Count On

  In Conclusion

  Appendix One

  Appendix Two

  Appendix Three

  Copyright

  About J.T. Edson

  The Series ... So Far

  Morton Lewis was part Indian … which meant that the only way the land-grabbers could take his ranch from him was to kill him … and the killing had to seem to be legal …

  But Mort’s grandfather was a Comanche war chief, and if a Comanche brave should be killed, those savage warriors would ride to avenge him and in so doing trigger off an uprising that could ravage the State of Texas …

  Two young men rode to avert the trouble. One was the Rio Hondo gun wizard, Dusty Fog. The other was, like Mort, part Comanche. Mostly he was known as the Ysabel Kid. But there were some who called him a White Indian …

  For Brigadier J.R. Spurry, C.B.E., M.R.C.V.S., R.A. V.C.,

  without whose kind acceptance of my story once in Kenya,

  justice would have been done—and so would I!

  Author’s Note

  Although a version of the events recorded herein appeared as: ‘Part One, The Half-breed’, THE HALF-BREED, we did not at the time of that publication have access to all the facts. These have now been made available to us by Alvin Dustin ‘Cap’ Fog, along with permission to reproduce them.

  We realize that, in our present ‘permissive’ society, we could use the actual profanities employed by various people who appear in this volume. However, we do not concede a spurious desire to create ‘realism’ is a valid reason to do so.

  As we do not pander to the current ‘trendy’ employment of the metric system, unless we are referring to the calibers appropriate to various weapons - i.e., Luger 9mm - we will continue to use miles, yards, feet, inches, pounds and ounces when referring to measurements and weights.

  Lastly, to save our ‘old hands’ from repetition and for the benefit of new readers, we are giving details of the family backgrounds and careers of Captain Dustine Edward Marsden ‘Dusty’ Fog and the Ysabel Kid, also such special terms or references to specific events about which we are most frequently questioned, in the form of Appendices.

  J. T. Edson

  One

  Drop Him Plumb in His Tracks

  ‘Hold hard!’ Morton Lewis commanded, sotto voce, gesturing with his left hand to his two companions so as to cause them and his big dog to come to a halt. ‘Either you’ve lived right all your life, Jimmy, or Ka-Dih’s looking real favorable on us. We’ve found him and better placed than I’d dare’ve hoped. Ease forward, quiet as you’ve done up to now, so’s you can take a look.’

  ‘He’s magnificent!’ Geraldine Thatcher enthused, in no louder a tone, and before her slightly older brother could speak, she advanced through the bushes they were traversing until she was able to gaze in the direction indicated by their guide. Her well educated New England accent became redolent of compassion as she went on, ‘It seems such a shame to kill him.’

  ‘There’s no shame to it, seeing he’s been stalked fair and on foot,’ Mort corrected, his voice having the lazy drawl of a native born Texan; albeit one from a lower strata of society than the girl and her brother. ‘’Sides which, he’s gone some past his prime and’s been run off from his herd on account of it. That being, he’ll either get his-self stove up bad by a younger’n’ more limber bull for trying to get back in among the cows again, or he’ll just go on living alone and growing weaker. Either way, all he’s got ahead of him, should we just let you draw him and leave him be, is to wind up getting eaten, while he’s still just about alive, by bears, wolves, or maybe even coyotes, soon’s he gets slowed down so much by old age he can’t fend ’em off his-self and doesn’t have no amigos around to help him.’

  ‘Then he’s just what I want for the museum,’ declared First Lieutenant James Thatcher, 2nd United States’ Cavalry.

  ‘You’ll have to take him from here,’ Mort warned. ‘There’s no way we can get closer. Which same’s judgment on me, likely. Grandpappy Wolf Runner allus allowed no good ever come to folks’re loco enough to go walking when they’ve got horses they could’ve used.’

  The creature being discussed was a splendid, if no longer young, even-toed ungulate of the scientific order of Artiodactyla. Terrestial, herbivorous mammals, its kind had the third and fourth toes of the fore and hind feet evenly developed, with the tips encased in horny sheaths to support its weight and having present small lateral hooves, otherwise known as ‘dewclaws’. Being a ‘cud-chewer’ it was placed in the class of Ruminantia and had a compound stomach which temporarily stored often hastily snatched and always only partially chewed food in the first compartment, or ‘paunch’. Such sustenance was later regurgitated in the form of small pellets to the mouth. Then, having been thoroughly ‘milled’, in the process known as ‘chewing the cud’, this was returned to the second compartment where digestion could be commenced.

  Actually a wisent, or bison, the animal being studied had become more popularly known to the settlers of the United States and Canada as a ‘buffalo’. 1 Despite being exceeded in height by the Alaskan elk—just as wrongly designated a ‘moose’—in other respects it was the largest land dwelling wild animal native to the sub-continent of North America.

  Standing some six foot in height at the shoulder and slightly more than double that in length, the bull buffalo 2 in question weighed over two thousand pounds. Due to the great elongation of bony spurs on the backbone at that point, the shoulders were high and humped. The massive head and deep, muscular neck were slung low on the shoulders. Yet the rest of the body, notably the hindquarters, were surprisingly narrow in cross-section. Its forequarters, including the head and neck, were covered with a mantle of thick, shaggy hair that terminated abruptly below the knees of the forefeet and just behind the shoulders. While not in fresh ‘pelage’, the coat was still a dark chocolate brown, becoming almost black on the head and shoulders and showed no sign of fading to the pale yellowish-brown coloration it would have acquired by the time the spring molt came around. A long black beard hung from its chin and the tail was short with a tassel of long hair at the tip. Staring, seemingly without expression, the eyes were placed low down on the sides of the head. Above them, indicating it belonged to the family Bovidae, the short, stout horns—each close to twenty-three inches long and having a circumference of seventeen inches at the base—consisted of hollow horny sheaths growing over round bony cores which were never shed and curved outwards and upwards.

  The three human watchers in the concealment of the bushes were fairly good representatives of the species, Homo Sapiens.

  Tallish for a member of her sex, curvaceous without allowing this to become blatantly obvious, Geraldine was in her early twenties. She had honey blonde hair, at that moment tucked up insi
de the low crown of a wide brimmed tan J.B. Stetson hat. Pretty in a frank, open way, her freckled face had already taken on a tan due to an exposure to more sun that she was accustomed to experiencing in Maine. She wore a lightweight brown two-piece riding costume, an open necked blouse of the olive-drab hue given the name ‘khaki’ by British soldiers serving in India, and sturdy black boots suitable for walking over fairly rough terrain. A thin leather pouch, about three feet square and holding materials for drawing, was suspended by a strap from her left shoulder to the right hip. In a close topped military holster on the belt around her waist was a Colt 1853 Navy Model revolver. Using it at extemporized targets, she had proved to be a reasonably good shot.

  A couple of years older and somewhat taller, his build good and implying excellent physical condition, Jimmy Thatcher showed a strong family resemblance in his features and the color of his hair. More tanned, as a result of having spent the past two years in Texas with his regiment, he was clean shaven and well-groomed, if disheveled by passing through the bushes. Except for having retained his black Hessian leg service boots and weapon belt, being on furlough, he had changed his uniform for the kind of clothing worn by cowhands. The revolver in his high riding cavalry holster was a walnut handled Colt 1860 Army Model with a seven and a half inch “Civilian” pattern barrel. However, for hunting, he was carrying a single shot Sharps New Model of 1866 rifle which he had had equipped with certain improvements to the original design when it was purchased.

  Having just passed his twenty-sixth birthday, Mort Lewis had an advantage over the lieutenant of two inches in height. A wide brimmed hat, its low crown altered to the fashion of Texas and its original white weathered to a yellowish-gray color, hung suspended on his broad shoulders by its fancy leather barbiquejo chinstrap. Straight and black, his hair was short and he too had shaved that morning. There was a slightly aquiline cast to his deeply bronzed, ruggedly handsome features and a somewhat Mongoloid slant to his dark eyes indicative of—as he had mentioned when referring to his maternal grandfather—his birthright being part Indian.

  Lean of waist, Mort exuded a rawboned fitness and vitality. Encircling his throat, a tightly rolled dark blue bandana trailed its ends over the front of an open necked tartan shirt. As he was acting as guide on a hunting trip, instead of working the range on his small ranch in Holbrock County, the legs of his yellowish-brown Nankeen trousers were tucked into the calf high leggings of Kweharehnuh Comanche moccasins. While the garments showed signs of much recent usage, this was not their invariable condition. In fact, like the majority of cow-hands—a canard created by a later generation notwithstanding—he washed, shaved, kept his hair cut and attire as clean as circumstances allowed at all times. A walnut handled Army Colt with a standard eight inch barrel rode the open topped Western style fast draw holster on the right side of his gunbelt and a staghorn hilted J. Russell and Co. ‘Green River’ knife with an eight inches long, clip point blade hung in its Indian-made sheath on the left. Resting across the crook of his left arm, the Spencer repeating carbine he carried, to support his client if necessary, was covered by a long fringed buckskin case inscribed with medicine symbols announcing he was a member of the Antelope band of the Comanche nation. He was equally competent, if not exceptional, in the use of each weapon.

  Lying not too far from its master, where it had gone when the party halted, the big dog showed no discernible interest in the proceedings. Coming from a strain created by an Army officer whose education had instilled him with a deep respect for Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter Scott, its conformation had derived from careful cross-breeding of Scottish deerhounds and British bull mastiffs to achieve the best each could offer. Shaggy coated and grayish in color, while possessing some of the speed and stamina of the former, it also had some of the bulk and powerful jaws attributable to the latter. Answering to the name, ‘Pete’, it was in its prime and had been of the greatest use to Mort as guard and helper on hunts for stock-killing predators. It had also proved of assistance in the task upon which he was currently engaged.

  Asked by an officer who had been a good friend in the days when he had ridden as a civilian scout for the 2nd Cavalry, Mort had agreed to act as guide for the Thatchers on a hunting trip which was to obtain good specimens of Western animals for a museum being established in their home town. His belief that Captain Patrick Kelley would not have made the request unless confident they would get along had soon been justified. Despite it being her first trip west of the Mississippi River, Geraldine had proved to be accustomed to an outdoor life and was willing to accept less than the comforts to which her home in Maine had made her accustomed. Nor had Mort found anything objectionable about his relationship with her brother.

  Having formed his liking for the Thatchers, Mort had warned them that acquiring the requisite trophies presented problems, as not all were any longer easy to come by. Already hunting for hides and tongues, along with the need to clear the grazing land for more easily controlled and commercially acceptable cattle, had reduced the formerly massive herd of buffalo in Texas to what a later generation would call, ‘a point of no return’. Much the same applied to the Mexican sub-species of bighorn sheep and pronghorn, often wrongly referred to as an ‘antelope’, Arizona wapiti—misnamed ‘elk’—the Texas flat-headed grizzly and black bear, all of which had once been numerous in the western regions of the Lone Star State.

  Despite the gloomy picture he had painted, Mort had said he could take the Thatchers into an area which still offered a reasonable chance of securing the trophies they required. Being in the wild country over which the Kweharehnuh Comanche still retained control, having declined to accept the peace treaty which was concluded at Fort Sorrel, 3 assigning the other bands of their nation to reservations, it was generally regarded as being unsafe for white people to go there. 4 However, as grandson of Chief Wolf Runner, he could enter accompanied by friends. For all that, knowing the nature of the Antelope warriors—rugged individualists like every member of the Nemenuh, therefore prone to acting as their respective will desired rather than conforming to laid down rules—he had tried to persuade the girl to remain in the safety of the trading post owned by Sanchez Riley on the fringes of the territory. Saying she had had her expenses paid by the museum to come to Texas and paint pictures of the animals in their natural surroundings, she considered herself obligated to do so and refused to accept his precaution. Having found her to be a most determined young woman, in a polite and friendly way, he had agreed that she should accompany himself and her brother.

  Compared with some of the hunting parties which were becoming fashionable with visiting foreign dignitaries and wealthy Easterners, 5 Mort and his companions were travelling light. They rode horses and carried what supplies they would need in a chuck wagon. In addition to his cook from the ranch, who was also an expert skinner, they had only Thatcher’s striker with them.

  From the beginning, luck had favored the party. Without having needed to go too deep into the Kweharehnuh country, the young lieutenant had already taken several very good trophies. What was more, he had quickly earned Mort’s approbation by showing a sportsmanship of a high order while taking them. Not for him the easily attained kill, regardless of quality. He had invariably passed up animals which, being an excellent shot, could otherwise have fallen to his rifle without effort because he had not considered them worthy of being exhibited. Furthermore, as soon as he had obtained what he regarded as being a satisfactory specimen, he had declined to take another of its kind, even if one better had crossed their path.

  Despite it being the last day before the party must start back to allow him to rejoin his regiment, and having failed to acquire such a specimen, Thatcher had proved less than enthusiastic when told of the deductions drawn by Mort from tracks found whilst scouting in a wide circle around their camp that morning. On learning the signs indicated that the quarry would be a bull buffalo of greater than average size, he had said he wondered whether collecting it would offer a sufficiently sporting
challenge. Unlike the stalking skill required when taking his Mexican bighorn sheep and Arizona elk, or the courage called for to tackle the grizzly bear he had brought down, according to what he had been told by older officers, it seemed to him that hunting buffalo was as easy and no more dangerous than shooting fish in a barrel.

  Mort had agreed that, although ‘running’ them on horseback was sufficiently hazardous to test courage and skill, there was some justification in the comments when dealing with the animals in a herd. However, they did not apply when a lone bull was the quarry. Separated from its companions and deprived of the sense of security it derived from their company, such a creature could prove as dangerous an antagonist as a grizzly bear. Keeping constantly alert and made nervous by its solitary state, it would not hesitate before charging, whether approached on foot or horseback. When that happened the speed and surprising agility of its massive body combined with its great size, made taking one far from a sinecure.

  Most impressed by the grave way in which his experienced young guide had imparted the information, the lieutenant had lost all his qualms over the ethics of embarking upon the hunt. In fact, contemplating its potential danger, he had suggested that his sister stayed behind while Mort and he went after the bull. Pointing out that she had been present during the hunt for the grizzly bear, which had proved anything but free of peril, she had insisted on going with them. Conceding she had not been an impediment to them on that occasion, the two young men had given their agreement. In fact, in a curious way, both had come to regard her as something of a good luck charm.

  Having ridden while following the tracks until they disappeared into an area covered with fairly dense bushes and scrubby trees, and having then discovered they had not emerged from the bush when they had completed a circle, Mort had suggested the hunt should be continued on foot as otherwise it would put the horses at great risk. Geraldine had refused to remain with their mounts and, as on other occasions, had proved she was able to duplicate their silent approach through the undergrowth until they had come into view of their quarry.