Fifteen Western Tales, January 1953 — page 64: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

64 FIFTEEN WESTERN TALES men. Washakie was at Fort Bridger and Winnemucca was in Smoky valley. They could not see each other, they could not hear, but the white men told the medicine wire and when Washakie and Winnemucca met, each knew what the other had said. It is aanedicine wire and J say, leave it alone!”’ Black Calf slapped his flintlock rifle in it’s deerskin case. “My medicine is stronger than the wire!” he boasted. “‘When the wire is broken, one man comes to fix it. J say, cut it and wait for him!” Elk Robe made the decision. “Fights His Horses is right,” Elk Robe said, ‘but Black Calf has strong medicine. Do you, Black Calf, ride back and forth under the wire. If nothing happens we will cut it.” In Sand Creek stage station, Andy Curtis listened to the clatter of the Morse relay repeating a San Francisco dispatch. Mrs. Marples, the station keeper’s wife, was wash- ing breakfast dishes, Marples, Dad Purcell and Ribidoux, the hostlers, were in the main room. The sounder of the way wire came alive and Andy copied. When the message ended she stepped to the door. “Dry Wells says. the stage is through the Gap,” he announced. “There'll be six pas- sengers for dinner.” Marples nodded and, returning to his stool, Andy tried to call Blue Hill but the line was dead. Beyond the window, he could see the poles marching eastward, the through wire and the way wire strung between them, sagging in long curves. Poles and wire were not two years old; the first transcontinental telegraph, spanning the nation. “Damn it!” Andy Curtis said and tried Blue Hill again. Intervals during the next half hour he tested the line, always with the same result. It was open to the west, dead to the east. That was the rule: Test for thirty minutes then search, find and repair the break. For twenty-five miles in each direction, Andy Curtis was the Western Union Telegraph Company; operator and lineman, too. The ' half hour ended and he assembled equip- ment; climbing irons, tools and a brand new Spencer rifle. Marples, Ribidoux and Dad Purcell were in the corral when Andy saddled his mule. Dad Purcell grinned toothlessly and said that this never happened when the Pony Express was running; them boys went right on through. Marples, eyeing the Spencer, suggested that Andy take another rifle. “You just got her,’ Marples said, “and you den’t know how she shoots. Take mine.” “She shoots seven times,” Andy answered, “and that’s good enough for me.’ He rode off toward the east, the Spencer balanced across his thighs. Below the slope of Crying Woman, Elk Robe, Fights His Horses and Black Calf, well hidden in a nest of boulders, waited with the patience of their kind. Their pon- nies were tethered in a coulee and before them, a full pole’s span distant, two wires were on the ground. “He is coming now,” Black Calf said. “It is my plan, and I will shoot him.” “Tf you miss him, he will get away,” Elk Robe objected. “Fights His Horses and I will shoot the mule.” Each man checked his priming, each pushed his rifle between stones, thumbed back a hammer, sighted, squinting. | Andy Curtis came down the line of poles, looking at the wires. Three pole spans, two —he saw the fallen wires and stopped. Rifles boomed in the rocks, the mule went down. Andy, thrown clear, held to the Spencer, got up, ran and dropped behind the mule. “Vou missed him!’ Elk Robe accused, “but we killed the mule. Now we must .make him shoot and charge him when his gun is empty.” He moved cautiously, expos- ing head and shoulders. From the breast- works of the dead mule, Andy fired. Instantly the Sioux were on their feet, running, charging in. But this was no muz- zle loader that they charged. Behind the mule, Andy Curtis worked lever and fin- gered his trigger. Elk Robe flinched from a bullet burn across his ribs, wheeled and dodged back into the rocks. Black Calf dropped and crawled to safety. Fights His Horses hid behind a boulder. An- dy Curtis thumbed .56 caliber shells through the trap in the Spencer’s butt-plate, filled the magazine, workeck the lever and then waited. There was no movement in the rocks, no sign of life, at all. The wires lay on the ground, almost touching the dead mule. Wind whipped the grass and overhead clouds scudded by. Then, on the slope of Crying Woman, well out of rifle shot, Andy saw three riders. They went up the slope, dimin- ishing, growing smaller, rounded a shoulder and disappeared. .. . CoOMmicboool CO