Pony Express Read online

  I have said that the smell of wood smoke was mixed up with other, less familiar odours. One of these, now that I was a good deal closer, I identified as the faint, savoury tang of roasted meat, like somebody might have been having a barbecue. I discovered the source of this when I reached the doorway of the charred wreckage of the station. Laying half in what had once been the main building and partly in the yard outside, was the body of man. His legs and the lower half of his body had been almost wholly consumed by fire. Protruding from his upper body, lending him the startling appearance of a porcupine, were a dozen arrows. From the agonized look on his face, I would say that this unfortunate man most likely died hard, as the saying goes. I could not help but notice that the top of his head was one ghastly, bloody wound, where almost the whole of his scalp had been removed.

  CHAPTER 3

  I had only ever seen one dead person before in the whole course of my young life. That had been my father and he had been tidied up by the mortician and arranged neatly in a pine coffin before I was allowed to view him. The man lying there, half-burned and bristling with war arrows, was something else again. I will freely own that I had nightmares about that corpse for a good long while after I saw it. When viewing my dead pa, you could have half-persuaded yourself that he was only sleeping and at any moment might open his eyes and announce that he was ready for his dinner. No such illusions were in any way possible with the man whose mortal remains lay on the ground at the Smoky Mountain Pony Express station.

  I walked slowly round the stables, outbuildings and the rest of what had once been a station pretty much like the one at Seneca, from all that I was able to apprehend. I counted seven bodies, all of which had been scalped. My mind went back to what the boy at Seneca had said about the fight with the Indians and it struck me that this carnage was perhaps part and parcel of the same affair. Five of the bodies had arrows in them; the other two, judging by the huge pools of congealed blood surrounding them and the wounds on their necks, had died after having their throats cut.

  I felt sick at the sight and smell of so much butchery and blood and I stumbled off to a little copse near the burned-out station in order to empty my stomach. I had snatched a few handfuls of parched corn and also a little dried meat which my mother had given me but, that apart, I had eaten nothing since breaking my fast that morning. Nevertheless, I felt my gorge rising and knew that I should vomit in another few seconds. Why I felt that I had to seek the privacy of the little stand of trees in order to throw up, I don’t rightly know. There was, after all, not a living soul to see me. Howsoever, that is what I did. It was when I reached the clump of birches and was leaning over and preparing to hasten matters by poking my fingers down my throat, that I heard somebody say, in a low voice, ‘Hey, boy!’

  Having convinced myself that I was surrounded only by dead men, you may perhaps guess what a shock I received when I heard somebody speaking to me out loud. I thought that my heart would have stopped beating, such was the terror I felt. I forgot about vomiting and looked around fearfully, fully expecting to see a dead man tottering towards me. I had not yet grown out of fearing the bogie man, you see. Then the voice spoke again, this time with a hint of impatience. Well, I had never in my life heard of an impatient or irritable corpse and so this reassured me.

  ‘Never mind those that are dead,’ said the voice, ‘Tend to me now!’

  I looked round and soon saw what I had missed before. A dreadfully injured man was somehow concealed within the thicket that surrounded the base of the trees. He was wearing a buckskin jacket and had long, greasy, grey hair, which was tied back like a girl’s. His face and clothing were liberally besmeared with blood and there was a jagged, raw cut across his face, like he might have been slashed with a knife or sword.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t see you there.’

  ‘Never mind the chat. We don’t have long.’

  I looked at him in the fading light and although I had never seen a dying person, it struck me most forcefully that here was a man who was not long for this world.

  I said, ‘Can I do anything for you, sir?’

  ‘Yes,’ he replied in a thin but vigorous tone, as though he were used to people doing as he bid. ‘You can stop talking and listen to what I say. Come closer. I’m failing fast.’

  I crouched down at the man’s head. Up close, he looked older than you would have guessed from his voice. I would say that he must have been closer to sixty than fifty. He gazed up at me and said, ‘You look awful young. How old are you?’

  ‘I’m fifteen years of age.’

  ‘Why, you’re no more than a baby!’ The man tried to smile as he said this, but it turned to a grimace of pain. He continued: ‘Whether or no, I reckon you’ll have to do. I heard you ride up. You’re from the express?’

  ‘I am. Are you sure I can’t fetch you my canteen or something?’

  ‘In a minute. Listen up, now. It was Comanches done this. They’re on the rampage, good and proper. I don’t belong here. I’m a scout.’ He stopped speaking for a bit, as though to gather his strength. Then he said, ‘All the others dead?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then it falls to you.’

  I didn’t like the sound of this one little bit. I had had enough of adventures now to last me a good long while and the only thing on my mind was how to get back to my mother in St Joseph.

  I said, ‘I got to deliver the mail. That’s my job.’

  ‘Damn your mail, you young fool. There’s lives at stake here. Women and children, well as men. You do as I say, now. You know the way to Fort Richmond from here?’

  ‘I never heard of it. I ain’t from these parts.’

  ‘It’s forty miles north o’ here. Army base. You got to get word to ’em. Tell ’em what’s happened here. Nobody knows as those Indians are crossing into Kansas in force from the Indian Nations. More’n you could guess. You understand?’

  I was almost in tears at the unfairness of it all. All this, riding with the Pony Express and all, had only been meant as a lark; a kind of childhood escapade which had the great advantage of getting my family out of a hole and saving us from losing our home. I should by now have been back in St Joseph, excitedly recounting to my mother and brother how nobody had known that I was girl and that we had pulled the wool over their eyes good and proper.

  Instead, I was stranded out here, over 150 miles from home, surrounded by mutilated corpses and with a dying man giving me an urgent commission to ride alone to some army camp I’d never heard of.

  ‘There’s more to it than that, son.’ said the scout, who, even as I watched, looked to me to be growing weaker and paler. The effort of so much talking seemed to be exhausting him. ‘’Tween here and Fort Richmond there’s a little settlement. Ever hear o’ New Jerusalem?’ I shook my head dumbly. ‘They’re religious types, Quakers or some such. Some of ’em are lately come from England. They built a town, want to live God-fearing lives away from other folk. Well, they’re right in the path of the storm, as you might say.’

  ‘I never even heard of these folk,’ I said and now the tears were really beginning to start from my eyes. It was partly the delayed shock of seeing and smelling those dead men and also the way things had miscarried for me, but I was, to put the case plainly, frightened out of my wits at the predicament in which I found myself. The scout saw my eyes sparkling and the sight seemed to enrage him. He mustered his strength and said fiercely, ‘This ain’t a time to start bawling like a child. You hear what I say? You got to be a man.’ Even at the time, in the midst of my distress, the irony of this statement did not escape me.

  ‘What would you have me do?’ I asked in desperation.

  ‘Good boy. You got to ride hard as the wind to New Jerusalem. Those folk don’t even carry iron, they thinks as guns is sinful. They gonna be slaughtered if the Comanches descend on ’em. You got to get them to go for refuge north to Fort Richmond. Then you got to ride to the fort and tell the cavalry what’s what. Think you ca
n do it?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I’ll surely try.’

  ‘Good man. Now I could do with draught from that canteen as you mentioned earlier.’

  The sun had now sunk completely below the horizon; it would not be long before darkness fell. As I went over to my pony to fetch the canteen it suddenly dawned on me that I did not have so much as a blanket to huddle in for the night. I began to shiver in fear and then stopped myself by a conscious effort of will. I thought about the mocking and unkind things that my brother would have said, if ever he heard of such a thing. It would confirm all the silly views that he held, or purported to hold, about girls in general and me in particular.

  When I returned with the water to the wounded scout, his eyes were closed and I could not see any sign of his breathing. For a terrible moment I thought that he had died and that I was now altogether alone with a bunch of dead men. At that moment he opened his eyes and appeared somehow to divine what had been in my thoughts, for he said, ‘Don’t be affeared, I ain’t dead yet!’

  After he had taken a long gulping drink from the canteen, the man handed it back to me, saying, ‘Well, what are you waiting for? You got a job o’ work to undertake.’

  I looked at him blankly and replied, ‘Oh, but I can’t leave you here alone.’

  He laughed at that, the sound coming out more like a bark than anything one would associate with mirth or amusement. He said, ‘I’ll do well enough. Get goin’. If you don’t persuade them folk in Jerusalem to go for refuge, then they’ll be killed, every man Jack of ’em.’

  I am ashamed to admit it, but my reluctance to leave the gravely injured man was actuated less by compassion on my part for him, than by a fear for my own self of riding alone through the dark in an area which was apparently full of hostile Indians. In a gentler voice than he had hitherto used, the man said, ‘Don’t you worry ’bout me. Just do your duty now. I’m dying, case you ain’t noticed. I want to be alone to meet my maker. I have to make my peace with him while I’m still able.’

  ‘Would you like me to … I don’t know … say a prayer or aught?’

  ‘There’s no time for such foolishness, though I’m thankful for the offer. Me and the Lord need to speak man to man and we don’t neither of us need any witnesses. Off you go now.’

  ‘I just head north, is that right?’

  ‘You got it.’

  I reached out and grasped the man’s hand, which was grimy and sticky with blood. I said, ‘I hope that you get right with the Lord.’

  ‘Him and me haven’t had much dealings lately. We’ll take it as it comes. Get going.’

  So it was that I went back to the pony, mounted and then went trotting off into the darkening evening.

  I might add at this point that I never did learn that man’s name, nor discover what he was doing in that thicket. Whether he was with the army or had some connection with the Pony Express, I couldn’t say. I read later in the newspapers that eight bodies had been found at the burned-out remains of the Smoky Mountain station and I guess one of the corpses must have been his.

  The night was crisp and cool, with the promise of a frost the next morning. I was dog-tired and knew that if I didn’t snatch some sleep, then I would end up passing out on the back of my horse. I surely could have done with a blanket or something to wrap myself in, but since I had nothing of the sort there was no use fretting over it. I found a sheltered spot, off the track and shielded from the wind by a clutch of boulders. There, I untacked the pony and tethered him near at hand before trying to arrange myself for sleep.

  It was no easy task to sleep fully clothed, out in the open on a chilly night like that. So tired was I, though, that I fell asleep fairly swiftly, notwithstanding the unfavourable conditions. The night was restless and uneasy though. I was constantly being woken by strange scurrying noises, as of animals near at hand. Once or twice I heard a snuffling; like a bigger animal was close. This caused my heart to race, in case it was a bear, wolf or some other animal that might do me harm. Despite all this I succeeded in getting a few hours of sleep before the dawn came and I found myself drenched through with the morning dew.

  It was a miserable and wretched morning and I was feeling thoroughly dispirited and sorry for myself. I had a few pieces of dried meat left for breakfast, and these I washed down with swigs of water. Then I thought that I might as well be on the move as sitting around moping. Besides which, from all that I was able to gather, there really were some poor folks in danger and if that scout had spoken truly, then it depended altogether upon me to help them to safety.

  The day looked as though it might be a fine one and I thought it wise to make as much speed as ever I could. This Fort Richmond was supposedly forty miles away, and so the town I had been told of must be something less than that. With a steady pace I was hopeful of reaching it before midday. I would need to pace the pony carefully; there was no question of pushing him the way I had yesterday, when a fresh mount was no more than twelve miles ahead of me. For all I knew to the contrary, this pony would have to see me safely over the next forty miles, and if I somehow lamed him then it was all up, not only with me but also with those helpless people with the Comanches bearing down on them.

  I knew that the track I was following headed directly north, but whether it would lead to this New Jerusalem place of which I had been told, was more than I could say. At every touch and turn I was expecting some bloodthirsty savage to leap out at me from behind a tree, and so when I saw two riders in the distance, heading towards me, I was initially nervous and tempted to ride off the track and try and hide in the nearby woods. Before I had reached a decision we were close enough for me to see that, rather than being Indian braves, they were just a pair of travel-stained white men. Feeling reassured and thinking that I could do worse than ask them for directions to this New Jerusalem, I carried on until I was within hailing distance.

  Now although I had at first been relieved to find that these were not Comanches who might be planning to scalp me, I found that as I got close enough to examine the men carefully I did not care at all for the look of them. It was not so much that they looked dirty and rough. I looked pretty beat-up myself after the previous day’s hard riding, followed by a night spent sleeping in my clothes.

  No, it was the expression on their faces that made me uneasy. They looked cunning and mean. It was too late to avoid the meeting, though, because they were watching me closely. I could see that they were also discussing me as they came on and this too raised my hackles.

  When they were twenty feet away the men reined in and one said, ‘Hidy, fellow. Where you headed?’

  Although I had at first thought of asking for directions, now that I could see them plainly the last thing I intended was to let them know where I was going, and so I said, ‘Nowhere special.’

  The other one said in a low, ugly voice, ‘Don’t you dare sass me, boy. My partner here asked you a question. You just give him a civil answer.’

  ‘I’m going north.’

  ‘Where you come from? You runnin’ away?’

  I shrugged. I was starting to feel alarmed, because these men didn’t look like they were going to let me pass for some reason. There were in those days various scamps around who preyed on travellers, robbing and sometimes killing them. Occasionally, they went after bigger game, taking down mail coaches or even trains. Some called these types ‘road agents’ and I was afraid that these men were of that brand. They weren’t common near big towns like St Joseph, but in wild country like this there was less law and order.

  During this brief exchange the two riders had started turning their horses sideways to me, so that it would be no easy task to ride on past them. Both were wearing guns and I had an uncomfortable notion that they might be accustomed to using them. The one who had first spoken to me looked to be about twenty-five years of age, and the other perhaps thirty or so.

  The younger man said, ‘You know what we want. You best get down and let us take your horse, else you’re apt to g
et hurt.’

  Hearing this, a rage began to flood through me: a seething anger such as I had never before felt in my life. This fury was mingled with and sharpened by great fear. There was a coppery taste in my mouth; like I had been sucking coins or something. I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life before. At the same time I knew that I wasn’t about to let these rascals take my pony. All else apart, there were people’s lives at stake, other than mine. On the other hand, it would be dangerous to let them know at once that I wasn’t going to cooperate.

  I said, ‘What would you have me do?’

  ‘That’s the sensible dodge,’ said the older man, ‘Lucky for you, you’re one of the smart ones. Get down from the pony. Nice and slowly.’

  Because of the way that the mochila rucked up in the front, they hadn’t had a clear view below my waist and so did not know that I was carrying a pistol. I made sure that as I twisted round meekly to dismount they didn’t catch sight of the holster hanging from my belt. I got down on the side away from them.

  Once I was down, the two men turned their horses and walked on towards me and my pony. At this point I drew the pistol, cocking it with my thumb as I did so. I was more frightened than I had ever before been in my life, but I was not about to give up on the important commission which had been entrusted to me.

  ‘Now step clear of your horse,’ said the younger of the men. He was almost affable, thinking that he and his partner had got what they wanted without any trouble. His face changed with astonishing rapidity when I walked out from behind the pony with a gun in my hand, which was aimed in their direction.