The Lost Wagon
Copyright© 2024 by Jim Kjelgaard
Chapter 17: Besieged
Joe stood still, studying the smoke and trying to analyze its meaning. Fear tugged at his heart, and his lips had gone dry. He could see only the smoke, and it was not a forest fire because it was not traveling. Winterson would hardly be burning brush at this season, either. The obvious answer was that Winterson’s house itself was burning, but why? Was it an accidental fire? Or had the Indians, whom Major Dismuke respected and Winterson scorned, finally attacked? Joe walked back into the clearing and turned to look nervously at the forest. If the Indians were on the warpath, they would come from the woods.
He felt and checked a rising fright. Whatever the situation was, it must be met coolly. Panic would help nothing. Joe entered the house and Emma, cooking breakfast for the rest of the family, looked questioningly at him.
“There’s things afoot,” Joe said quietly. “I think Winterson’s house is burning and Indians might have set it. We’d better get ready for whatever it is.”
Horror was reflected in Emma’s face. “That poor woman!”
Ellis still slept outside and he had not yet come in. Joe went to his bed and shook his shoulder.
“Ellis.”
Ellis, who had a happy faculty for coming awake all at once, opened his eyes and sat up.
“What do you want, Joe?”
“Things might be stirring. I believe the Wintersons’ house is burning and we’d better be ready for visitors. Come on in.”
“Right away.”
Ellis sat up beneath his blankets and started pulling on his clothes. Joe formulated a plan of action. The house was a strong fortress, and all the grass for a hundred yards on every side had been mowed. Tad was a crack shot and Ellis was good, and anyone with the wrong ideas who came in range would have reason to regret it. Joe went back into the house. His eyes shining with excitement, Tad accosted him.
“Are they comin’, Pa? Are they really comin’?’
“I don’t know. But get your rifle ready.”
“It’s all ready!”
Barbara asked anxiously, “Is Ellis coming?”
“He’ll be right in. Come on, everybody. Get everything that will hold water and fill it.”
They filled the buckets, Emma’s pots and pans, and even some of the dishes and stored them in Joe’s and Emma’s bedroom. Joe went to the garden, and filled a basket with lettuce, radishes, onions, and peas. He put the filled basket in the pantry along with the food already stored there and Ellis came in with his arms full of firewood. He dropped it into the wood box. Now, in the event of a siege, they had water, food and fuel.
Barbara and Emma were nervous, but not so nervous that they were unable to discharge their tasks efficiently. Ellis and Tad, except for Tad’s excitement, seemed to grasp the situation and the younger children, not understanding, were merely curious. Joe fought his own rising nervousness.
“Bring Mike in the house,” he instructed Tad, “and watch him carefully. If he growls, barks, or even bristles, watch for whatever might be.” To Ellis he said, “Watch the dog. Keep the kids down and make the rounds of every window. Pay very close attention to the rear; they’ll likely come from the woods if they come at all. If they do, both of you shoot—and shoot straight. I’ll be back as soon as I can get here.”
There was a rising note of alarm in Emma’s voice, “Where are you going?”
He said quietly, “To find out if the Wintersons are in trouble and help them if they are. Don’t anybody stir outside the house until we know just what it is.”
Ellis said quickly, “You stay here, Joe. I’ll go.”
Barbara paled, but said, “Let him go, Daddy.”
Joe hesitated, but only for a moment. His children deserved a chance, and Barbara was going to be married within the week. Barbara and Ellis were young and the world was theirs. Ellis, Joe felt, would help take care of Emma and the children if he didn’t get back. Besides he was older. He’d picked up a few tricks that Ellis didn’t know. Joe said,
“It’s no time for fussing. I’m going.”
Emma said worriedly, “You be careful, Joe.”
“I will, and don’t you fret about me. Likely I’ll bring the Wintersons back.”
“I will, and I want to tell you again not to worry. King can outrun any Indian pony. Now remember, stay in the house, keep your eyes open, and fight if you must. I won’t be gone long.”
Rifle in his hands, hatchet at his belt, Joe left the house and closed the massive door behind him. He listened for the wooden bar to fall in place, and after he heard it drop he started toward the stable. They’d built it down the slope, far enough from the house so that stable odors would not be offensive but near enough to defend. Anyone who tried to get into the stable would be within rifle range. Joe swerved to lock Emma’s chickens in their coop and he scooped the piglet up under one arm. The pig had only a rail fence enclosure; there had been no time to build a house for him.
The mules looked questioningly around and Ellis’s horse nickered a welcome. The placid cow chewed calmly on hay, and Joe put the piglet down. It scooted into the cow’s stall and hid beneath the manger. Joe bridled Ellis’s horse but did not saddle it. He was used to riding bareback and he preferred to ride that way. Joe led the horse from the stable and bolted the door.
For a moment he stood still and a faint smile curled the corners of his mouth as the incongruity of the situation occurred to him. He, Joe Tower, was riding forth to help repel Indians. For some reason he remembered Bibbers Townley and his fancied fight with the eight Apaches in Arizona, and he wondered what Bibbers would be doing if he were here right now. Probably, Joe guessed, he would be riding as fast as possible toward Camp Axton.
Joe would have been happy if Jim Snedeker was here for Jim would have known exactly what to do. That, Joe had to admit, was more than he knew. He had come to Oregon to farm, not to fight Indians. But if they were attacking he’d have to fight them, and Joe was an experienced hunter who knew how to skulk through brush. If necessary, he would abandon the horse and take to the woods, and he wasn’t sure that Ellis would do that if he had ridden to help the Wintersons. Joe pondered the best method of reaching their place.
He’d never been to their house, but now he wished mightily that he had visited it because there might be a short cut. He was riding a horse, and horses do not have to stay on trails. But all Joe knew was what Winterson had told him; he’d built where his wagon broke down the sixth time. It stood to reason, therefore, that he had built beside the Oregon Trail and the surest way to find his house was by riding down that. Joe urged Ellis’s horse into a gallop.
The trees on both sides were deceptively peaceful, as though nothing violent could possibly occur here. But not too far away a man and woman who had traveled three thousand miles in order to find new hopes and new dreams were seeing them go up in smoke. The horse slowed a bit and Joe urged him again.
He rounded a bend and saw the approaching team. They were Winterson’s big white and the smaller horse, and they were being driven at full gallop by Martha Winterson, who, somehow, still managed to hold her precious hen. Winterson crouched on the wagon seat, rifle in hand and looking backward. Trailing the wagon by a few yards ran an unhampered black horse. Without breaking astride, Joe swung his own mount around the onrushing team and fell in behind.
“Keep them moving!” he shouted. “We’re all ready for you!”
He said no more because this was not the time to talk, but now he knew. Major Dismuke had known what he was talking about when he spoke of hostiles. The plume of smoke, the racing team, the fury on Winterson’s face, and the blood on his arm, were ample proof that the Wintersons had been attacked. Joe glanced backward down the Trail, as though he expected to see warriors pounding in pursuit, but he saw nothing.
Expertly, Martha Winterson turned her racing team from the Trail and into the meadows. She brought them to a plunging halt. The black horse, rolling frightened eyes, edged very close to Joe as though it sought his protection. Ellis, Barbara and Emma came from the house, and Emma took charge of Martha Winterson.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right!” Martha’s eyes were blazing too. “I’m not going to faint on you or anything like that! Oh, I’m so glad I could bring my hen along!”
“Well, you just come right in the house! We have everything we need there and the men will be along!”
Winterson, Joe and Ellis unhitched the team and led them to the stable. The black horse followed and crowded in as soon as the door was open. They put the mules in one stall and two horses in each of the others. Ellis filled the mangers with hay and Joe turned to Winterson.
“What happened?”
“They came at dawn!” Winterson said savagely. “The hen started cackling and woke me up! I saw this one looking in the window and threw the first thing I could lay my hands on at him! Happened to be the chamber pot! Time I got my hands on my rifle, he was gone! I took Martha with me, and time we got harnessed there were more of the skunks in the woods! They nicked me in the arm and we were gone!”
“Did they have horses?”
“Probably they had some somewhere! I suppose they left them back in the woods when they came to get us! Yes, there must have been horses! These Indians are too blasted lazy to walk anywhere! I got off one shot, but think I missed!”
“How many are there?”
“I saw anyhow six, but there are more than that! Blasted mongrels probably wouldn’t fight at all unless they were anyhow fifteen to one! Wish I’d had another rifle! I—There’s three of us now! Let’s go back and tear into them!”
Joe said gently, “Leave the women and kids here unprotected?”
“You’re right! Guess you’re right! It’s just that I’m so lashing mad I’d do about anything! I’m never going to like an Indian again if I live to be five hundred years old!”
“They burned your buildings. I saw the smoke.”
“That’s probably why they weren’t hot on our trail; they were too busy looting! I suppose they got my cow and pigs too, but I saved the horses and Martha got her hen out. That’s some hen! I wouldn’t swap her for a farm!”
“Better come up and get a dressing on that arm.”
“Just a scratch,” Winterson assured him. “It doesn’t amount to anything. What are we going to do now? Send somebody to Camp Axton to bring the soldiers?”
“Too dangerous,” Joe decided. “One man alone could be ambushed and we have four rifles now. We’d better figure on making a stand right here.”
“Who’s the fourth rifle?”
“Tad, and he’ll be a good one. That kid can shoot the whiskers off a cat at a hundred yards. Did you bring plenty of bullets?”
“Just what’s in my pouch. We didn’t have time to grab as much as we’d have liked.”
“Well, we have lead and molds. We can rig a mold to fit your rifle. Let’s go in before the womenfolk decide we’ve all been scalped.”
Still more angry than frightened, Martha Winterson had taken Carlyle on her lap and was relating the story of the raid. Barbara and Emma listened closely, while the three younger children stood silently near. Too young to appreciate exactly what had happened, they knew it was something out of the ordinary and they digested it as such. A look of eager excitement on his face, Tad was sitting in front of the fireplace melting lead in a ladle and molding bullets for his rifle.
“That’s enough,” Joe ordered. “Leave some lead for the rest of us.”
“But what if there’s a whole mob of them?”
“Everybody still has to shoot.”
Martha rose and, despite her swollen body, there was a supple grace about her as she moved across the floor to her husband.
“Now I’ll fix that arm, Henry,” her voice was faintly apologetic. “There wasn’t time to do it before.”
She unbuttoned his shirt, removed it, and bared the bloody arm. The bullet had torn through one side, missing the big muscle and the artery, and leaving only a flesh wound. Martha washed the dried blood away and put a cold compress over the still-bleeding wound.
“Would you have some whisky?” she appealed to Joe. “This should really be sterilized.”
“Don’t have a drop,” Joe admitted. “I didn’t bring any.”
“I did,” Emma announced. She reached into her trunk, brought out a brown bottle, and glanced aside at Joe. “I brought it for emergencies only.”
“Thank you, Emma.” Martha Winterson pursed her lips, dampened one side of her cloth with whisky, and said, “Now this may sting a little.”
While her husband gritted his teeth and made a face, she applied the antiseptic. “The bullet wasn’t that bad!”
“Now don’t be a baby,” Martha chided. “You won’t feel it in a little while.”
“Probably won’t be able to feel anything,” he grumbled.
Martha applied a clean bandage and Henry put his shirt back on. He wandered restlessly to look out of a front window. Anger flared in his face. Henry Winterson cherished his house. Nobody was going to destroy it and go unpunished.
“Wish they’d come,” he said nervously. “Wish they would. The day I left Vermont my brother Enos said, ‘Henry, what are you going to do if Indians attack?’ Those were his very words. That’s exactly what he said to me. ‘If the Indians attack,’ I said, ‘I’m going to shoot them dead in their tracks.’ And by gosh, I didn’t. But I aim to.”
Joe said worriedly, “You might get a chance soon enough.”
This was not real, he thought curiously. It was a charade that all of them were acting out, and as soon as they were finished acting the Wintersons would hitch their horses and go home. Jim Snedeker might have waited in a house such as this one while Indians prepared to attack it, but such things did not happen to Joe Tower. Then he reminded himself forcibly that they were happening to Joe Tower. A cold shiver ran through him.
“Hey, Pa!” Tad breathed. “Look at Mike!”
The dog was standing very still, ears alert and nose questing. He moved a step, as though to verify some elusive message that was reaching him faintly. His hackles rose and a low growl rumbled in his throat. He was looking toward the rear of the house, and when a door was opened for him he padded into a back bedroom. At the same time they heard the crack of a rifle and a sodden “splat” as a bullet thumped into an outer log.
Joe’s fear and nervousness departed and he knew only a terrible, white-hot anger. This was his house. He had built it with his own hands and now it was threatened. At all costs he must avert that peril. No enemy could enter. Rifle ready, Joe peered through one of the rear windows.