The Ferguson Rifle Read Free

admitted. “There was a Spanish army outfit marched north from Santa Fe to the Missouri, but Indians wiped them out when they got there.
    â€œThe Mallett brothers and six others went back the other way. It’s said they named the Platte. It’s rough country, but I’ve a notion we can make it.”
    Shanagan poked sticks into the flames. “Just about anywhere a man goes, he’ll find somebody has been there before him.” He glanced up at me again. “You up to that kind of travel?”
    Squatting on my heels, I said, “I believe I am, Davy. I left nothing behind me, nothing at all.”
    â€œThen you won’t go to pinin’. A pinin’, yearnin’ man is no good on the trail. When there’s Injuns about, a man keeps his eyes open or he dies … an’ sometimes he dies, anyway.”
    He impaled a chunk of meat on a sharpened stick and leaned it over the coals. “You’ll need an outfit. Those clothes won’t last no time.”
    â€œWhen I shoot some game, I’ll make a hunting shirt and leggings.”
    Davy looked doubtful. “You can do that? Of your ownself?”
    â€œWell, I haven’t done it since I was a lad. There was a time when we were very poor. I often made moccasins and once a hunting shirt.”
    Davy chuckled. “I never seen the time when I wasn’t poor.” He indicated the sleepers. “They’re good men. The long, tall one is Solomon Talley, from Kentuck. Bob Sandy lyin’ yonder is from the same neck o’ the woods. The stocky, square-shouldered one is Cusbe Ebitt. I never heard him say where he was from, but Degory Kemble is from Virginny, and Isaac Heath is a Boston man.”
    â€œWhat about the Indian?”
    â€œHe’s an Otoe.”
    â€œKnown him long?”
    â€œI ain’t known none of them long. Deg Kemble an’ me, we rafted down to New Orleans, one time. I trapped a season in Winnebago country with Talley. The Otoe comes from the Platte River country … knows the river.”
    One by one, the others drifted to the fire to roast chunks of meat and drink the strong, black coffee.
    Heath’s eyes kept straying to me, and knowing he was a Boston man, I was ready for the question when it came. “That’s an uncommon name you have, my friend.”
    I shrugged. “Chantry? There’ve been Chantrys on the frontier for years, Mr. Heath. An ancestor of mine was on the east coast as early as 1602.”
    My reply was flat and short, spoken with a finality that left small room for questions, and I wanted none. The past was in the past and there I wanted it to remain. If he had been in Boston within the past few months, he might know that which I wished to forget.
    We mounted and rode west with the Otoe scouting ahead, his pony knee-deep in the tall bluestem grasses. Occasionally flocks of prairie chickens flew up, then glided away across the grass to disappear like smoke. Far off we saw several moving black dots.
    â€œBuffalo,” Talley said. “We’ll be seeing them by the thousand, Chantry. This is their country we’re coming to, and a grand, broad country it is.”
    He leaned down from his saddle and pulled a handful of the bluestem. “Look at it, man! And this is the country some call the Great American Desert! They’re fools, Chantry! Fools! Earth that will grow such grass will grow rye or barley or wheat. These plains could feed the world!”
    â€œIf you could get men to live on them,” Ebitt said wryly. “It’s too big for them, too grand. They can’t abide the greatness of the sky, or the distances.” He pointed ahead. “Look! There’s no end yonder. No horizon. You ride on and on and on and all is emptiness. Only the buffalo, the antelope, and the grass bending before the wind. I’ve seen men frightened by it, Chantry! I’ve seen them turn tail and run back to their cities and their villages.