The Ferguson Rifle

And a shadow moved... a horse snorted, and I sidestepped as a darker shadow lunged toward me. There was the gleam of firelight on a knifeblade, and I chopped, short and hard, with the butt of my rifle.

He was coming low and fast and the butt thunked against his skull and he went down hard. Turning swiftly as another came in over the low mound, I fired.

My shot was from the hip, for there was no chance to aim. It caught the Indian and turned him but my hands went automatically for bullet and powder.

All was suddenly still. Unused to combat, I had expected the clash of arms, the scream of wounded, the stabbing flame of shooting... and there was nothing.

Stepping back among the horses, I went from one to the other, whispering to quiet them down. From where I stood, I could see the beds of the others, all empty.

Something stirred near me and I turned swiftly. Davy's voice was scarcely breathed. "You all right?" "The Otoe was gone. I went to the horses, thinking they might try to stampede them." "You done right." He could see the body on the ground about a dozen feet away. "You got one?" "Two, I think. I shot one over there." I started forward and Shanagan caught my arm.

"Uh-uh. They'll still be out there." There was a faint lemon tinge to the far-off sky now. We stood waiting, listening.

An owl hooted... inquiringly. After a bit, the same owl.

Davy's lips at my ear whispered, "Wonderin' where this one is." The sky lightened, red streaks shot up, and high in the heavens a cloud blushed faintly at the earth below.

We waited, not moving, not knowing what might come. The Indians might press the attack, might draw away to wait for a better moment. The red man is under no compulsion to continue a fight. He does not insist upon victory at any cost, and he has time. He is under no compulsion to win now.

Now the sky brightened quickly. We moved to the perimeter, seeking firing positions. The plain below was i

Degory Kemble moved over to us. "There's nobody in sight," he said. "My guess is they've pulled out." He saw the Indian lying in the dust and moved over to him. With his toe he turned him over, holding his rifle ready for a shot if the warrior proved to be playing possum.

He was quite dead. One side of his head was bloody, crushed by my blow. I turned away, and looked out over the prairie.

"You want his hair?" Davy asked. "He's yours." "No," I said. "It's a barbaric custom." "This here is a barbaric land. You get yourself a few scalps and the Injuns will respect you more." "Take it if you wish." "No. By rights it's yours." Kemble carefully broke the dead warrior's arrows, then his bow. His knife he tossed to me and that I kept. "Trade it for something," Kemble said. "It's worth a good beaver pelt." "I thought I shot one," I said. "He came in right over there." "They're like prairie dogs," Talley commented. "If you don't kill them right dead, they're gone into some hole." We walked over to where I'd seen the Indian, and suddenly Talley pointed. "Hit him, all right. See yonder?" There was a spot of blood, very red, splashed upon a leaf. Just beyond we found two more.

We followed no farther for the trail of blood vanished into thick brush, and he might be lying down there, waiting for us.

"Lung shot, I'd say," Kemble said. "You nailed him proper." He looked at me. "For a pilgrim, you sure take hold. That's as good shootin' as a man can do." "I didn't want to kill him," I said.

Then I paused. That was not quite true, because I certainly had not wanted him to kill me, and it was one or the other.

"If you'd not shot him, he'd have thought you a coward or a poor warrior. He'd despise you for it. You better think this through because there ain't no two ways about it. You got to be ready to shoot to kill or you better go back home." He was right, of course, and had not men always fought? We walked back to the fire where coffee was on. Bob Sandy came in. He had gone stalking and found nothing.

"They pulled out," he said regretfully.

"They're no fools. The Otoe probably figured with a tenderfoot on watch it would be easy." He gri

These were men of the same kind, men of action, fighting men, no better and no worse than those.

CHAPTER 4

Nothing anyone can say can tell you how it was upon that land of grass. Horizon to horizon, upon every side, it stretched to infinity, and overhead the enormous vault of the sky.

We plodded westward, and the land unrolled before us. More and more, as we moved away from the settlements, there was wild game, the buffalo in increasing numbers, and antelope often in herds of sixty or seventy.

At streams where we stopped for water, we often found the tracks of bear, occasionally of lion.

Wolves and the small prairie wolf called the coyote lurked in the vicinity of the buffalo, watching for a chance to pick off a calf or one too old to put up much of a fight.

We rode warily, for there was no security even upon the open plains, because such ope

For some time, being a student of history, I had been excited by the influence of climate upon history, and especially upon the movements of peoples. The sudden appearance of the Huns or the Goths in Europe, for example, and the earlier migrations of Celtic peoples... what occasioned these moves? Was it the pressure of other tribes, increasing in numbers? Or was it drought?

Or the ever-present movement toward the sun?

Several times we saw the tracks of unshod ponies, and from their direction and purposeful movement, it was easy to see they were not wild ponies, but ridden by Indians. During this time, I began to see that in the Ferguson rifle I possessed a kind of insurance the others did not have.

Also I was having second thoughts about my clothing. I must have something more fitting for travel, but instead of discarding the clothes I wore, I must keep them for use on ceremonial occasions. The American Indian, I recalled, was ever a man of dignity, with a love of formality, and it behooved me to approach him in a like ma

The Otoe was gone, departed with his friends whom he had invited to the raid. I was still astonished at the sudde

Since the begi

For three days we rode westward, and we left behind the long grasses. Not yet had we reached the shortgrass country that lay still farther west. The tall bluestem we had seen on previous days now disappeared except in the bottoms along the creeks. Judging by the grass, the climate was hotter, and much drier ... wheatgrass, little bluestem and occasionally patches of buffalo grass and blue grama.