Beyond the sunset

by Arthur D. Howden Smith

Mile after mile, the cavalcade pounded on, and I knew the discomforts my comrades must be suffering. But I could not stop. Nobody could have stopped that wild flight. I doubt if I could have stopped the spotted stallion in the first hour. All I could do was to grip him tight with my knees, cling to Kachina and pray he and his fellows would pick fair ground in the darkness.

It was near dawn when I judged there was a chance of success to stay the herd. I began with the stallion, calming him, soothing his nerves, and gradually, my influence extended to the horses surrounding him, mostly his attendant mares, as well as a few colts. No foals could have kept up with our rush. In fact, we had been dropping horses by the way for three hours or more. Those that were left were the hardiest, and their eyes were bloodshot, their flanks wet with foam, their lungs bursting. I slowed the troop to a canter, to a trot, Tawannears and Peters seconding me as well as they could. Finally, we pulled them to a walk, and induced them to graze.

I felt safe enough. We had traveled at a terrible pace, and the Comanche had no means of keeping up with us. Also, we were all exhausted, and I had designs for making use of our plunder which made me unwilling to founder the herd. So we sought shelter in a grove of trees, driving in there the stallion's immediate following, and permitting the other horses to graze at will, whilst we four slept through the forenoon.

Upon awaking, we killed a colt for food, taking pains to dispatch him in a part of the wood down-wind from his kind, and after eating I put into effect the plan I had designed to cover our future trail. Tawannears, Peter and I cut out of the ruck of the herd a score of the choicest ponies, which we drove into the wood to join Sunkawakan-kedeshka's cohort, guarded for the time being by Kachina. And this being done, we chased the remainder south, frightening them with bunches of burning grass. If the Comanches or others picked up our trail now they would be much more likely to follow the larger body, as was evidenced by the area of hoof-prints, and we might continue undisturbed upon our eastward journey, with a quantity of superfluous horseflesh to trade for weapons or food, besides a provision of mounts for ourselves to expedite our progress.

We left the grove at sunset and rode at a leisurely pace until the stars told us it was midnight, camping in the open close to a rivulet where there was ample grass and water for the horses. The next day we traveled as far as a second grove of trees on the banks of a considerable stream, which we concluded was the river we had followed eastward from the base of the Sky Mountains, and we made a halt of two days here to rest the herd and determine in our minds what our next step should be. I was all for continuing as we were, but Tawannears and Peter held that our wisest course was to cross the river and head north to the Dakota country, where we should be among friends and might be able to rely upon an escort to the Mississippi. But, as usual, fate intervened, and relieved us of the burden of the decision.

We were arguing back and forth on the afternoon of the second day, the horses grazing in the confines of the grove under the supervision of Kachina, who, with a little practice, had become as skilled a herd-guard as a shepherdess of turkeys, when we were disturbed by a call from her. She beckoned us to the bluff above the river.

"Strange people over there," she said, pointing.

The stream here was not more than a hundred or two hundred yards wide and in the clear air we could see the newcomers distinctly. They were plainly a returning war-party, travel-stained, badly cut-up, the worse for their adventures. Of sixty or more warriors within view ten or a dozen bore evidence of wounds. Their lances were broken. Their buffalo-hide shields were cut and hacked. But their horses were in the saddest plight of all. One lay down and died as we looked. Others could never move from where they stood.

Tawannears' eyes gleamed.

"Here is fresh favor from Hawenneyu," he exclaimed.