Union Pacific Page 5

  “I remember thet hair,” said Slingerland. “Turn her over.”

  “I reckon we’ll see then . . . where she’s hurt,” muttered Red King.

  Evidently Neale thought the same, for he was plainly afraid to turn her over on her back. “Slingerland, she’s not such a little girl,” he said irrelevantly. Then he slipped his hands under her arms again. Suddenly he felt something wet and warm and sticky. He pulled a hand out. It was bloodstained.

  “Aw!” exclaimed Red.

  “Son, what’d you expect?” demanded Slingerland. “She got shot or cut, an’ in her fright she crawled in thar. Come over with her. Let’s see. She might live.”

  This practical suggestion acted quickly upon Neale. He turned the girl over so that her head lay upon his knees. The face thus exposed was deathly pale, set like stone in horror. The front of her dress was a bloody mess and her hands were red.

  “Stabbed in the breast!” exclaimed King.

  “No,” replied Slingerland. “If she’d been stabbed, she’d been scalped, too. Mebbe thet blood comes from an arrow an’ she might hev pulled it out.”

  Neale bent over her with swift scrutiny. “No cut or hole in her dress.”

  “Boys, thar ain’t no marks on her . . . only thet blood,” added Slingerland hopefully.

  Neale tore open the front of her blouse and slipped his hand in upon her breast. It felt round, soft, warm under his hand, but quiet. He shook his head.

  “Those moans I heard must have been her last dying breaths,” he said.

  “Mebbe. But she shore doesn’t look daid to me,” replied King. “I’ve seen daid people. Put your hand on her heart.”

  Neale had been feeling for heart pulsations on her right side. He shifted his hand. Instantly through the soft swell of her breast throbbed a beat-beat-beat. They were regular and not at all faint. “Good Lord, what a fool I am!” he cried. “She’s alive. Her heart’s going. There’s not a wound on her.”

  “Wal, we can’t see any, thet’s sure,” replied Slingerland.

  “She might hev a fatal hurt, all the same,” suggested King.

  “No!” exclaimed Neale. “That blood’s from someone else . . . most likely her murdered mother . . . Red, run for some water. Fetch it in your hat. Slingerland, ride after the troops.”

  Slingerland rose and mounted his horse. “Wal, I’ve an idee. Let’s take the girl to my cabin. Thet’s not far from hyar. It’s a long ride to the camp. An’ if she needs the troop doctor, we can fetch him to my place.”

  “But the Sioux?”

  “Wal, she’d be safer with me. The Injuns an’ me are friends.”

  “All right. Good. But you ride after the troops anyhow and tell Dillon about the girl . . . that we’re going to your cabin.”

  Slingerland galloped away after the dust cloud down the trail.

  Neale gazed strangely down at the face of the girl he had rescued. Her lips barely parted to make again the low moan. That was what had called him. No—not all. There was something more than a feeble cry that had turned him back to search. A strong and nameless and inexplicable impulse. Neale believed in his impulses—in those strange ones that came to him at intervals. So far in his life girls had been rather negative influences. But this girl or the fact that he had saved her or both together struck deeply into him, fixing the wildness and the nature of this West upon an impelling and romantic and tragical incident. The expression of her face made him dread her return to consciousness.

  King came striding back with a sombrero full of water.

  “Take your scarf and wash that blood off her hands and dress, before she comes to and sees it,” said Neale.

  The cowboy was awkward at the task, but infinitely gentle. “Poor kid! I’ll bet she’s alone in the world now.”

  Neale wet his scarf and bathed the girl’s face. This did not give any immediate result, still he kept doing it. “If she’s only fainted, she ought to be reviving now. I’m afraid . . .”

  Then suddenly her eyes opened. They were large, violet-hued, covered with a kind of veil or film, like eyes opened before sleep had wholly gone, and they were unseeingly, staringly set with horror. Her breast heaved with a sharply drawn breath; her hands groped and felt for something to hold; her body trembled. Suddenly she sat up. She was not weak. Her motions were violent. The dazed horror-stricken eyes roved around and did not fasten upon anything.

  “Aw! Gone crazy,” muttered King pityingly.

  It did seem so. She put her hands to her ears as if to shut out a horrible sound. And she screamed. Neale grasped her shoulders, turned her around, and forced her into such a position that her gaze must meet his.

  “You’re safe!” he cried sharply. “The Indians have gone. I’m a white man!”

  It seemed his piercing voice stirred her reason. She stared at him. The face changed. Her lips parted and her hand, shaking like a leaf, covered them, clutched at them. The other hand waved before her as if to brush something aside.

  Neale held that gaze with all the dominance the moment gave him. He repeated what he had said. Then it became a wonderful and terrible sight to watch her—to divine in some little way the dark and awful state of her mind. The lines, the tenseness, the shade, the age faded out of her face; the deep-set frown smoothed out of her brow, and it became young. Neale looked into her eyes as strongly fascinated himself as he was determined to compel her to realization. He saw those staring eyes fix upon his; he saw a dull opaque blackness of horror, hideous veils let down over the windows of a soul, images of hell limned forever on a mind. Then that film, that unseeing cold thing, like the shade of sleep or death, passed from her eyes. They suddenly were alive, great dark-violet gulfs, full of shadows, dilating, changing, so that Neale saw the spirit of youth, a life of hope suddenly dawn in exquisite and beautiful lights.

  “I’m a white man,” he said tensely. “You’re saved. The Indians are gone.”

  She understood him. She realized. With a low agonized and broken cry she shut her eyes tightly and reached blindly out with both hands. Then she screamed. Shock claimed her again. Horror and fear convulsed her, and it must have been fear that was uppermost. She clutched Neale with fingers of steel, in a grip he could not have loosened without breaking her bones.

  “Red, you saw . . . she was right in her mind for a moment . . . you saw!” burst out Neale.

  “Shore, I saw. She’s only scared now,” replied King. “It must hev been hell fer her.”

  At this juncture, Slingerland came riding up to them. “Did she come around?” he inquired, curiously gazing at the girl as she clung to Neale.

  “Yes, for a moment,” replied Neale.

  “Wal, thet’s good . . . I caught up with Dillon. Told him. He was mighty glad we found her. Cursed his troopers some. Said he’d explain your absence, an’ we could send over fer anythin’.”

  “Let’s go, then,” said Neale. He tried to loosen the girl’s hold on him, but had to give it up. Taking her in his arms, he rose and went toward his horse. King had to help him mount with his burden. Neale did not imagine he would ever forget that spot, but he took another long look to fix the scene indelibly on his memory. The charred wagons, the graves, the rocks over which the naked gashed bodies had been flung, the three scraggly trees close together, and the ledge with the dark aperture at the base—he gazed at them all, and then turned his horse to follow Slingerland.

  Chapter Six

  Some ten miles from the scene of the massacre and perhaps fifteen from the line surveyed by the engineers, Slingerland lived in a wild valley in the heart of the Black Hills.

  The ride there was laborious and it took time, but Neale scarcely noted either fact. He paid enough attention to the trail to fix landmarks and turnings in his mind so that he would remember how to find the way there again. He was, however, mostly intent upon the girl he was carrying.

  Twice, that he knew of, her eyes opened during the ride. Then it was to see nothing, and only to grip him tighter, if that were possible.
Neale began to imagine that he had been too hopeful. Her body was a dead weight and cold. Those two glimpses he had of her opened eyes hurt him. What could he do when she did come to herself? She would be frantic with horror and grief and he would be helpless. In a case like hers it might have been better if she had been killed.

  The last mile to Slingerland’s lay in a beautiful green valley with steep sides, almost like a canyon, trees everywhere, and a swift clear brook running over a bed of smooth rock. The trail led along this brook, up to where the valley boxed, and the water boiled out of a great spring in a green glade, overhung by bushy banks and gray rocks above. A rude cabin with a red stone chimney and clay-chinked cracks between the logs, with furs and pelts and horns and traps everywhere, marked the home of the trapper.

  “Wal, we’re hyar,” sung out Slingerland, and in the cheery tones was something that told that the place was indeed home to him.

  “Shore is a likely lookin’ camp,” drawled King, throwing his bridle. “Been heah a long time, thet cabin.”

  “Me and my pard was the first white men in these hyar hills. He’s gone now,” replied Slingerland, and then he turned to Neale. “Son, you must be tired. Thet was a ways to carry a girl nigh onto dead . . . Look how white. Hand her down to me.”

  The girl’s hands slipped nervelessly and limply from their hold of Neale. Slingerland laid her in the grass in a shady spot. Then the three men gazed down upon her, all sober, earnest, doubtful.

  “I reckon we can’t do nothin’ but wait,” said the trapper.

  King shook his head as if the problem was beyond him.

  Neale did not voice his thought, which was that he wanted to be the first person her eyes beheld upon her return to consciousness.

  “Wal, I’ll set to work, an’ clean out a place fer her,” said Slingerland.

  “We’ll help,” rejoined Neale. “Red, you have a look at the horses.”

  “I’ll slip the saddles an’ bridles,” replied King, “an’ let ’em go. Horses couldn’t be chased out of heah.”

  Slingerland’s cabin consisted really of two cabins built adjoining one another with a door between, one part being larger and of later construction. Evidently he used the older one as a storeroom for his pelts. When all these had been removed, the room was seen to be small, with two windows, no table, and a few other crude articles of homemade furniture. The men cleaned this room and laid a carpet of deer hides, fur side up. A bed was made of a huge roll of buffalo skins, flattened and shaped, and covered with Indian blankets. When all this had been accomplished, the trapper removed his fur cap and scratched his grizzled head and appealed to Neale and King.

  “I reckon you can fetch over some comfortable-like necessaries . . . fer a girl,” he suggested.

  King laughed, his cool easy droll way. “Shore, we’ll rustle fer a lookin’ glass, an’ hairbrush, an’ sich as girls hev to hev. Our camp is full of them things.”

  But Neale did not see any humor in Slingerland’s perplexity or in the cowboy’s facetiousness. It was the girl’s serious condition that worried him, not her future comfort.

  “Run out thar!” called Slingerland sharply.

  Neale, who was the nearest to the door, bolted outside, to see the girl sitting up, her hair disheveled, her manner wild in the extreme. At sight of him she gave a start so sudden and violent that it seemed unnatural, and she uttered a cry. When Neale reached her, it was to see her shaking all over. Terrible fear had never been more vividly shown, yet Neale believed she saw in him a white man, a friend. It was that fear in her that was stronger than reason.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “My name’s Neale . . . Warren Neale,” replied Neale, sitting down beside her. He took one of the shaking hands in his. He was glad that she talked rationally.

  “Where am I?”

  “This is the home of a trapper. I brought you here. It was the best . . . in fact the only place.”

  “You saved me . . . from . . . from those devils?” she queried hoarsely, and that cold and horrible shade veiled her eyes.

  “Yes . . . yes . . . but don’t think of them. They’re gone,” replied Neale hastily. The look of her distressed and frightened him. He did not know what to say.

  The girl fell back with a poignant cry and covered her eyes as if to shut out a hateful and appalling sight.

  “My mother,” she moaned, and shuddered with agony. “They . . . murdered . . . her! Oh, those terrible yells . . . shot fire . . . I saw . . . killed . . . every man . . . Missus Jones! My mother . . . she fell . . . she never spoke! Her blood was on me . . . ! I crawled away . . . I hid . . . The Indians . . . they . . . tore . . . hacked . . . scalped . . . burned! I couldn’t die! I saw . . . Oh . . . oh . . . oh!”

  Then she fell to moaning.

  Slingerland and King came out and looked down at the girl.

  “Wal, the life’s strong in her,” said the trapper. “I reckon I know when life is strong in any critter. She’ll get over thet. All we can do now is to watch her an’ keep her from doin’ herself harm. Take her in an’ lay her down.”

  For two days and nights Neale watched over her, except for the few hours she slept and during which he divided his watch with King. She had periods of consciousness in which she knew Neale, but most of the time she raved or tossed or moaned, or lay like one dead. On the third day, however, Neale was encouraged. She awoke weak and somber, but quiet and rational. Neale talked earnestly to her, in as sensible a way as he knew how, speaking briefly of the tragic fate that had been hers, bidding her force it out of her mind by taking interest in her new surroundings—to be active in some way—to think of the time when he surely would get her back to civilization. She heard him, but did not seem impressed. It was a difficult matter to get her to eat. She did not want to move. At length Neale told her that he must go back to the camp of the engineers, where he had work to do, and he would return to see her soon and often. She did not speak or raise her eyes when he left her.

  Outside, when King brought up the horses, Slingerland said to Neale: “See hyar, son, I reckon you needn’t worry. She’ll come around all right.”

  “Shore she will,” corroborated the cowboy. “Time’ll cure her. I’m from Texas, whar sudden death is plentiful in all families.”

  Neale shook his head. “I’m not so sure. That girl’s more sensitively and delicately organized than you fellows see. I doubt that she’ll ever recover from the shock. It’ll take a mighty great influence . . . But let’s hope for the best. Now, Slingerland, take care of her as best you can. Shut her in when you leave camp. I’ll ride over as often as possible. If she gets so she will talk, then we can find out if she has any relatives, and, if so, I’ll take her to them. If not, I’ll do whatever else I can for her.”

  “Wal, son, I like the way you’re makin’ yourself responsible fer thet kid,” replied the trapper. “I never had no wife nor daughter. But I’m thinkin’ . . . wouldn’t it jest be hell to be a girl . . . tender an’ young, an’ like Neale said . . . sudden hev all you loved butchered before your eyes?”

  “It shore would,” said King feelingly. “An’ thet’s what she sees all the time.”

  “Slingerland, do we run any chance of meeting Indians?” queried Neale.

  “I reckon not. Them Sioux will git far away from hyar after thet massacre. But you want to keep sharp eyes out an’, if you meet any, jest ride an’ shoot your way through. You’ve the best hosses I’ve seen. Whar’d you git them?”

  “They belong to King. He’s a cowboy.”

  “Hosses was my job. An’ we can shore ride away from any redskins,” replied King.

  “Wal, good luck, an’ come back soon,” was Slingerland’s last word.

  So they parted. The cowboy led the way with the steady easy trotting walk that saved a horse yet covered distance, and in three hours they were hailed by a trooper outpost, and soon were in camp.

  Shortly after their arrival the engineers returned tired, dusty, work-stained, yet in
unusually good spirits. They had run the line up over Sherman Pass and now it seemed their difficulties were to lessen as the line began to descend from the summit of the divide. Neale’s absence had been noted for his services were in demand. But all the men rejoiced in his rescue of the little girl and were sympathetic and kind in their inquiries. It seemed to Neale that his chief looked searchingly at him or through him, as if somehow the short absence had made a change. Neale himself grew conscious of a strange something that was puzzling, and once curiously certain of it, he pondered over the idea. It was, then, the girl and that about her—her helplessness and pathetic plight—that made the difference.

  “Well, it’s curious,” he soliloquized, as soon as he re-analyzed it. “But . . . it’s not, either. I’m sorry for her.” And he remembered the strange change in her eyes when he had watched the shadow of horror and death and blood fade away before the natural emotions of youth and life and hope.

  Next day he showed more than ever his value to the engineering corps and again won a word of quiet praise from his chief. Neale gathered from a new impetus in the way he went at things that he found the work more fascinating as the achievements grew behind him. He liked the praise of his superiors. He was heart and soul in the belief of the greatness of the railroad. And that week he drove his faithful lineman King to complaint, which fact was so unusual that it amazed Neale.

  King tugged at his boots and groaned as he finally pulled them off. They were full of holes, at which he gazed ruefully. “Shore I’ll be done with this heah job when they’re gone,” he said.

  “Why do you work in high-heeled boots?” inquired Neale. “You can’t walk or climb in them. No wonder they’re full of holes.”

  “Wal, I couldn’t weah no boots like yours,” declared King.

  “You’ll have to. Another day will about finish them and your feet, too.”

  King eyed his boss with interest. “You-all cussed me today because I was slow,” he complained.