Saddler's Run

Chapter 4

Abigail cavilled a little at the notion of changing her clothes in the hayloft at the livery stable, but Saddler was inflexible and determined about the whole thing. With considerable bad grace, she finally went along with the scheme.

Towering above the little settlement was a huge, sandstone bluff; part of a massif that stretched north as far as the Cimarron river. A path twisted and turned up into the mountains, and along this Saddler and Abigail made their way up into the hills.

‘It feels strange to be wearing pants,’ said Abigail. ‘They are not so comfortable as a dress.’

‘A sight easier for ridin’, though,’ replied Saddler. ‘You couldn’t straddle that pony wearing a dress.’

‘That’s true. What are you afraid of? Why did we have to leave that place so suddenly?’

‘I don’t rightly know, Abigail. Sometimes I get a feeling and it’s like I’m being warned of danger. I felt so when I rode into the little wood where I found you.’

‘You mean what is called a premonition?’

‘I don’t know the word. It’s like a tingling. I had it during the war, an’ each and every time it was telling me o’ some threat I hadn’t known of. I ain’t about to disregard that feeling.’

The two of them rode on until they reached the top of the steep slope and could see the plain laid out before them to the south. The buildings around the Indian Bureau looked like a child’s toys from this height. Saddler dismounted and told the child to do the same. Then the two of them removed the saddles from his horse and the pony. There was a little coarse grass on the plateau which lay behind the bluff and Saddler said that it would be all right to let the beasts graze a little. He arranged their things behind a boulder, which gave shelter from the wind. Seated there, they could not be seen from below and yet had a good view of the Indian Bureau and the surrounding area.

They each ate an apple from their stores, as they gazed down at the scene below. So used had he grown to the little girl’s eerily self-possessed ways, that Saddler had got into the way of thinking of her almost as a grown-up person, rather than a child. So it was that when he saw her shoulders shaking up and down as she looked out across the country with her back to him, Saddler thought that she might have something stuck in her throat.

‘You all right there?’ he asked.

She didn’t reply and he was scared that she was choking on a piece of apple and so reached forward to touch her shoulder. Then Abigail turned to face him and he was horrified to see that she was weeping openly.

Through her tears, the child said, ‘I miss my ma and pa. I miss them so much. I know it’s wrong to grieve for them, but I can’t help it.’

Now Saddler had never been much of a one for handling other folk’s emotions, and for a second or two he was lost for words. Then it struck him that no words of his would help the poor little thing and that what she chiefly needed was comforting. He put his arm around her and the girl buried her face in his shoulder and cried hopelessly for some little while. As she did so, Saddler limited himself to making soothing noises and saying things such as, ‘There, there’ and ‘Everything will be all right’.

At length, the little girl stopped sobbing and looked up at Saddler. She said, ‘You must think me a regular baby to carry on so.’

‘Nothing of the kind. It’s a sight more natural than keepin’ your feelings hidden away inside. I’m only sorry I can’t do anything for you, child.’

Abigail looked at him in surprise. ‘Oh, but you have,’ she said. ‘I cannot think that anybody could have been kinder to me.’

‘Lord,’ said Saddler, embarrassed. ‘I ain’t in that mould at all. It’s some good long time while since anybody told me I was kind.’

‘You pretend not to be. You are the kindest person I ever met.’

Saddler looked vaguely discomfited, as though he had been caught out cheating at cards. ‘Don’t speak so,’ he said. ‘It wouldn’t do my reputation any good if folks got to hear of it. People’d take advantage of me.’

‘I know I’ve been a nuisance to you. Really, why have you taken all this trouble to help me?’

He said nothing for a few seconds and Abigail thought that he was annoyed with her for pressing the point. Then Saddler said, ‘It’s like this. When I was just your age, I was cruelly used by some of the men in the orphans’ asylum.’

‘You mean they beat you?’ ‘That too. But there was worse. Beastly things such as I wouldn’t like to tell of. I prayed for help, I wished some grown-up would come to my aid. Nobody ever did and I had to get through it alone. When I found you, Abigail, I knew I had to help you as best I was able. That’s all.’ From the plain beneath them, came the sharp, clear note of a bugle. Saddler said, ‘Hallo, what’s to do?’

They looked down at the hamlet and saw that the cavalry were mounted up and looked to be ready to move out. It was twilight and the sun had sunk right below the horizon. Abigail said, ‘They’re leaving.’

‘Not for good. See now, they left their tents up. They’re off on a sortie. Like as not, they heard word of some Chickasaw raiding party in the area and are going after ’em.’

As the man and child watched, the troop of soldiers moved off, heading east into the heart of the Chickasaw nation. Everything looked as peaceful and quiet as could be after they left and Saddler suggested that Abigail wrap herself up in a blanket and try to get some sleep. For his own part, he purposed to sit for a space, gazing south and west. The girl had the impression that he was waiting for something or expecting trouble, but if so he kept his own counsel.

It was pitch dark when Abigail awoke. At least, it was the middle of a moonless night, and so there should have been no light at all. For a moment she wondered where she was and then recollected that they had climbed the bluff overlooking the hamlet. She wondered what had woken her and then realized that there was a source of light which was not the moon or stars. It was a ruddy, flickering glow and it came from below and not from the sky above. There was something else as well; the faint sound of shouting, triumphant voices. Saddler was sitting by the boulder, peering intently down at towards the Indian Bureau.

‘What it is?’ she asked, ‘What’s happening?’

‘It’s nothing to fret about. Go back to sleep now.’ Abigail shrugged off the blanket and went over to join him.

He said, ‘Keep down. Don’t make a profile against the sky.’

‘What’s going on?’

‘Yon settlement is being attacked. Those horse soldiers was lured away on a snipe hunt and now the Indians are destroying the place.’ The buildings were all alight, which accounted for the red glow she had seen. By the light of the flames, Abigail could see shadowy forms riding round the blazing stores, eating house and livery stable. The offices of the Indian Bureau alone did not seem to be burning, and as she watched she became aware of the crack of rifle fire.

‘How did it happen?’ she asked Saddler.

‘That’s no mystery,’ he told her. ‘Once those soldier boys were a two- or three-hour ride from here a bunch of warriors rode down and torched the place. I guess the men in the Indian Bureau are holding them off, but it won’t be long before they’re done for as well.’

‘Can’t we do anything to help them?’

Saddler sighed and said, ‘Abigail, it’s one of those times when you got to sit tight. I have to watch, to see how it ends. There’s no need for you to do so. Why don’t you go back to sleep?’

‘No, I reckon I’ll watch too.’

The lower half of the complex of buildings which made up the offices of the Indian Bureau was constructed of stone. It must have proved impossible so far for the Indians to set fire to it. All the other structures that made up the settlement were entirely wood and so it had probably only been a matter of piling brushwood up against the side of them and then kindling it. As they watched there were flashes from the windows of the Indian Bureau, followed a second or two later by the sound of shots.

‘They’re game enough, those men from the bureau,’ said Saddler, ‘but it’ll do ’em no good.’ He was proved right a few minutes late when the first flickering flames could be see licking the wooden, upper storeys of the building. ‘I’ll warrant they been splashing lamp oil about. Dry summer, it’s been; that wood’ll go up like a tinderbox.’

In half an hour it was a straight choice for the men and women in the burning offices: to remain within and burn to death or to bolt and hope for mercy from the Indians besieging the place. Bright rectangles of light appeared as doors opened and figures were framed in the openings. There were whoops of delight from the Indians as they set to massacring those who surrendered. Abigail couldn’t bear to watch; she turned her back and huddled up in the blanket, trying to block her ears to the cries of those being killed. She dozed off again and when next she opened her eyes it was dawn.

Saddler was sitting in just exactly the same position as he had been during the night, and as far as she could gauge he had not moved at all. He was still staring down intently at the scene below them. Abigail yawned and without turning round, Saddler said,

‘Don’t you stand up or show yourself against the sky. You want to come over here, then crawl on your hands and knees.’

As Abigail wriggled over to where the man sat she became aware of the tantalizing smell of roast meat. ‘Are they having a barbecue down there?’ she asked and then a dreadful thought struck her. ‘That smell. It’s not . . . not people?’

‘It is,’ said Saddler grimly. ‘What d’you expect when a bunch of wooden buildings burn with everybody in them?’

The smell of burnt meat mingled in the morning air with the fragrance of wood smoke and Abigail felt suddenly sick. She scrabbled across the ground to throw up some distance away.

Saddler called over, ‘We need to move from here soon. You want any breakfast?’

His matter-of-fact manner calmed her and she consented to share some bread and cheese. As they ate, she asked,

‘Will we carry on the same, now this has happened?’

‘No. The sooner we get clear o’ the Chickasaw nation the better. They’re right vexed with the white man just now. I ain’t about to head north from here. We’ll make north-east and work our way into the Choctaw territory.’

‘Was it the Chickasaw who killed all those folks last night?’

‘No, it weren’t. I knew when I saw that Chiricahua boy yesterday that something’ was amiss. I’ll take oath that those braves last night were Chiricahua Apaches. The Chickasaws led the cavalry away on a mad chase and then once they were out o’ the way, the Chiricahuas rode in. It was neatly done, I’ll allow.’

‘Neatly done? How can you speak so about a heap of murders?’

Saddler said nothing for a spell and then observed, ‘Nobody asked us to come here and take their land. What they’re doing is no worse than what we all did in the War between the States. They just defending theyselves.’

There was no sign of life in the burnt out buildings around the Indian Bureau. Whatever had lured the cavalry away, they had not yet returned. They were in for something of a shock when they did, because the Indians had made sure to burn all their tents and steal any stores left behind. The raid had, as Saddler remarked, been very neatly done.

The horses had not wandered far and it did not take long to tack them up and make ready to break camp. Saddler wanted them to take a trail leading down from the plateau on which they were currently situated and which led east and then north, in the general direction of the Choctaw nation. Not knowing enough about the geography of the area to be able to offer an intelligent comment about this plan Abigail chose to remain silent.

Saddler’s horse seemed a good deal happier being ridden than it had done being harnessed up and expected to draw a cart behind it. It was ready and raring to go. The pony which he had acquired for Abigail was a little slower and lacked the zip of the larger animal, but suited her well enough. Although, as she had told Saddler, she had once owned a pony of her own, she was but an indifferent rider and the pony, who sensed this, took full advantage of her inexperience, showing a tendency to stop and graze every few seconds.

The man and his young companion made their way down the path leading off the mountains and Saddler was congratulating himself on having made the smart choice when, up ahead, he saw a sight which filled him with horror. A war party of braves was heading straight towards them. They were painted up and armed to the teeth and it could hardly be doubted that these were the very men who had made such short work of the nearby settlement not twelve hours since. Saddler reined in and desired Abigail to do the same, although her pony had stopped as soon as his horse had halted.

‘Are these men looking for trouble, would you say?’ asked Abigail nervously.

Saddler hadn’t the heart to give her an honest answer, saying instead: ‘Let’s see what they have to say.’

He surreptitiously loosened the pistol tucked in his belt. If it looked as though these boys meant mischief towards them, then he had no intention of allowing the little girl to be captured alive and treated barbarously. Better by far that he put an end to her life, than that he leave her at the mercy of such men. He had seen at first hand the way that the Apache treated their female prisoners.

There were perhaps forty or more men in the band, which was fast bearing down upon them. To bring together such a large war party argued for careful planning; last night’s activity was obviously not a spur-of-the-moment attack. The Chickasaw and Chiricahua had seemingly buried the hatchet over their own long-standing differences and joined together to fight the common foe.

Mentally, Ben Saddler cursed the greedy men who were apparently determined to drive the Red Man from the rest of his land. Even when the Indians had been confined to reservations and this supposedly ‘Indian’ territory, still they could not forbear to steal even the portions of land remaining to the Indians. No wonder they were on the war path!

Things did not look at all promising as the heavily armed band drew near and then surrounded the two travellers. Saddler made no hostile move, but was very ready for the attack. He really could not see how he and the child were likely to be spared. It was then that he received a great surprise, when the young boy whom he and Abigail had stood up for the previous day pushed his little pony through the ranks of warriors and began first by talking excitedly and then shouting urgently. The men nearest to him turned and listened gravely to what he was saying and then, without a word, the riders in front of Saddler and Abigail parted, leaving a clear path forward for the two white people. The boy, who really could not have been any older than Abigail, smiled at them and said, as he had done the day before, ‘Thank you!’

Hardly daring to believe their luck, Saddler led the way through the Apache braves, none of whom made any attempt to molest him or Abigail. When they were clear of the Chiricahua, Saddler breathed a sigh of relief. He realized that he was running with sweat. He had been certain sure that those boys had had it in mind to kill him and then take the child away for Lord knows what horrors. Abigail, being a child, had not perhaps fully understood the danger in which they had been, although she looked a little white and shaky. ‘Well, Mr Saddler,’ she said, ‘we surely cast our bread upon the waters that time!’

‘Hey? What’s that you say?’ he enquired.

‘It says in the Bible that if you cast your bread upon the waters, it will return to you tenfold. Meaning that acts of charity will bring you a reward. Helping that boy yesterday has saved our lives, don’t you see?’

‘That’s one way of viewin’ the case,’ said Saddler gruffly. ‘That was the hell of a fix we was in. I didn’t think we’d make it out of there.’

‘Oh, something always turns up,’ said the girl cheerfully, ‘You must never despair, you know.’

As far as Saddler knew the Choctaws had no sort of reason to feel aggrieved with white folk just at that present moment, leastways, no more reason than usual. At any rate they had not just had another chunk of their land stolen away from them, the way that the Chickasaw had. That being so, the two of them might be a little safer in their territory, although of course, you could never be certain sure.

Abigail was disposed to chatter while they rode, which Saddler found pleasant. Her crying yesterday looked to him to have unloosed something within her and she was a mite more open than she had been.

‘Don’t you ever wish that you had a little house, all of your own?’ she asked wistfully. ‘It must be so nice to stay in just the one spot for years at a time. Don’t you feel the same way?’

Saddler turned the question over in his mind, before replying. At length, he said, ‘Now that you set the case out so, I won’t say as I wouldn’t like that. I been a roaming type, what some call a rolling stone. I ain’t never put down roots.’

‘Did you never marry?’ asked Abigail and then blushed, saying hastily, ‘What a thing to say. I’m sorry.’

He chuckled. ‘That’s nothing. No, I never married, leastways, not yet I ain’t. There’s time enough; I’m not all that old. Had one or two sweethearts, but nothin’ ever came of it.’

They rode on for the day, seeing only a very few other travellers, all of them Indians. None of these others appeared to want to talk or have any dealings with them, which was just fine by Saddler.

They stopped every couple of hours so that Abigail could stretch her legs. The famous pony, of which she had made mention, turned out to have been only in her possession for three months and that when she was nine. She hadn’t ridden much since then and it was an uncomfortable experience for her.

After they had halted for the third or fourth time, she said, ‘I have a terrible pain in my . . . that is to say in a certain part of my body.’

Saddler laughed at this, saying, ‘You will get used to it in time. It’s quicker than driving that wagon.’

By evening they had, according to Saddler’s calculations, entered the Choctaw territory. There was no reason to fear most of the people living in this part of the territories, although of course, like anywhere else, there were bad people. A lot of his trading in recent months had been with the Choctaw, and Saddler had always found them to be honest in their dealings, although exceedingly shrewd and canny bargainers. Even so, there was no percentage in taking unnecessary chances, and so Saddler insisted that they make their camp that night in some woods. He wanted to be off the road and out of view.

Despite his caution, Saddler could see no cause to forbid the lighting of a little cooking fire. Apart from food, he had a desperate craving for coffee. After they had eaten and drunk their fill, the two of them stretched out and relaxed.

Abigail said, ‘You are sure that we will be safe here tonight?’

‘No, I ain’t sure. There’s no such thing in this world. I mind though that we are no more at risk than we would be in the average town. The Indians in these parts are not bloodthirsty savages. They’re just folks like you an’ me. I think we will be fine here.’

As it happened, Ben Saddler could hardly have been more wrong about that, but to be fair to him, the danger that found them there the next morning could not have been foreseen. Still and all, Abigail came closer to losing her life in that little wood than at any other point in their journey to Kansas.