These mornings the air was fresher. There was a faint chill in the air, a sign we were getting higher. We were riding along in the early hours when we saw the wagons.
Seven wagons, burned and charred. We moved in carefully, rifles up and ready; edged over to them, holding to a shallow dip in the prairie until we were close up.
Folks back east have a sight to say about the poor Indian but they never fought him. He was a fighter by trade, and because he naturally loved it, mercy never entered his head. Mercy is a taught thing. Nobody comes by it natural. Indians grew up thinking the tribe was all there was and anybody else was an enemy.
It wasn't a fault, simply that nobody had ever suggested such a thing to him. An enemy was to be killed, and then cut up so if you met him in the afterlife he wouldn't have the use of his limbs to attack you again. Some Indians believed a mutilated man would never get into the hereafter.
Two of the men in this outfit had been spread-eagled on wagon wheels, shot full of arrows, and scalped. The women lay scattered about, their clothing ripped off, blood all over. One man had got into a buffalo wallow with his woman and had made a stand there.
'No marks on them,' I said, 'they must have died after the Indians left.'
'No,' Cap indicated the tracks of moccasins near the bodies. 'They killed themselves when their ammunition gave out.' He showed us powder burns on the woman's dress and the man's temple. 'Killed her and then himself.'
The man who made the stand there in the wallow had accounted for some Indians.
We found spots of blood on the grass that gave reason to believe he'd killed four or five, but Indians always carry their dead away.
'They aren't mutilated because the man fought well. Indians respect a fighter and they respect almost nobody else. But sometimes they cut them up, too.'
We buried the two where they lay in the wallow, and the others we buried in a common grave nearby, using a shovel found near one of the wagons. Cap found several letters that hadn't burned and put them in his pocket. 'Least we can do,' he said, 'the folks back home will want to know.'
Sunday was standing off sizing up those wagons and looking puzzled. 'Cap,' he said, 'come over here a minute.'
The wagons had been set afire but some had burned hardly at all before the fire went out. They were charred all over, and the canvas tops were burned, of course.
'See what you mean,' Orrin said, 'seems to be a mighty thick bottom on that wagon.'
'Too thick,' Sunday said, 'I think there's a false bottom.'
Using the shovel he pried a board until we could get enough grip to pull it loose. There was a compartment there, and in it a flat iron box, which we broke open.
Inside were several sacks of gold money and a little silver, coming to more than a thousand dollars. There were also a few letters in that box.
'This is better than hunting cows,' Sunday said. 'We've got us a nice piece of money here.'
'Maybe somebody needs that money,' Orrin suggested. 'We'd better read those letters and see if we can find the owner.'
Tom Sunday looked at him, smiling but something in his smile made a body think he didn't feel like smiling. 'You aren't serious? The owner's dead.'
'Ma would need that money mighty bad if it had been sent to her by Tyrel and me,' Orrin said, 'and it could be somebody needs this money right bad.'
First off, I'd thought he was joking, but he was dead serious, and the way he looked at it made me back up and take another look myself. The thing to do was to find who the money rightfully belonged to and send it to them ... if we found nobody then it would be all right to keep it.
Cap Rountree just stood there stoking that old pipe and studying Orrin with care, like he seen something mighty interesting.
There wasn't five dollars amongst us now. We'd had to buy pack animals and our outfit, and we had broke ourselves, what with Orrin and me sending a little money to Ma from Abilene. Now we were about to start four or five months of hard work, and risk our hair into the bargain, for no more money than this.
'These people are dead, Orrin,' Tom Sunday said irritably, 'and if we hadn't found it years might pass before anybody else did, and by that time any letter would have fallen to pieces.'
Standing there watching the two of them I'd no idea what was happening to us, and that the feelings from that dispute would affect all our lives, and for many years. At the time it seemed such a little thing.
'Not in this life will any of us ever find a thousand dollars in gold. Not again. And you suggest we try to find the owner.'
'Whatever we do we'd better decide somewheres else,' I commented. 'There might be Indians around.'
Come dusk we camped in some trees near the Arkansas, bringing all the stock in close and watering them well. Nobody did any talking. This was no place to have trouble but when it came to that, Orrin was my brother ... and he was in the right.
Now personally, I'm not sure I'd have thought of it. Mayhap I wouldn't have mentioned it if I did think of it ... a man never knows about things like that.
Rountree hadn't done anything but listen and smoke that old pipe of his.
It was when we were sitting over coffee that Tom brought it up again. 'We'd be fools not to keep that money, Orrin. How do we know who we'd be sending it to?
Maybe some relative who hated him. Certainly, nobody needs it more than we do.'
Orrin, he just sat there studying those letters. 'Those folks had a daughter back home,' Orrin said, finally, 'an' she's barely sixteen. She's living with friends until they send for her, and when those friends find out she isn't going to be sent for, and they can expect no more money, then what happens to that girl?'
The question bothered Tom, and it made him mad. His face got red and set in stubborn lines, and he said, 'You send your share. I'll take a quarter of it ... right now. If I hadn't noticed that wagon the money would never have been found.'
'You're right about that, Tom,' Orrin said reasonably, 'but the money just ain't ours.'
Slowly, Tom Sunday got to his feet. He was mad clear through and pushing for a fight. So I got up, too.
'Kid,' he said angrily, 'you stay out of this. This is between Orrin and me.'
'We're all in this together, Cap an' me as much as Orrin and you. We started out to round up wild cattle, and if we start it with trouble there's no way we can win.'
Orrin said, 'Now if that money belonged to a man, maybe I'd never have thought of returning it, but with a girl as young as that, no telling what she'll come to, turned loose on the world at that age. This money could make a lot of difference.'
Tom was a prideful and stubborn man, ready to take on the two of us. Then Rountree settled matters.
'Tom,' he said mildly, 'you're wrong, an' what's more, you know it. This here outfit is four-sided and I vote with the Sackett boys. You ain't agin democracy, are you, Tom?'
'You know darned well I'm not, and as long as you put it that way, I'll sit down! Only I think we're damned fools.'
'Tom, you're probably right, but that's the kind of a damned fool I am,' said Orrin. 'When the cows are rounded up if you don't feel different about it you can have my share of the cows.'
Tom Sunday just looked at Orrin. 'You damned fool. Next thing we know you'll be singing hymns in a church.'
'I know a couple,' Orrin said. 'You all set down and while Tyrel gets supper, I'll sing you a couple.'
And that was the end of it ... or we thought it was. Sometimes I wonder if anything is ever ended. The words a man speaks today live on in his thoughts or the memories of others, and the shot fired, the blow struck, the thing done today is like a stone tossed into a pool and the ripples keep widening out until they touch lives far from ours.
So Orrin sang his hymans, and followed them with Black, Black, Black, Lord Randall, Barbara Allan and Sweet Betsy. When Orrin finished the last one Tom reached over and held out his hand and Orrin grinned at him and shook it.
No more was said about the gold money and it was put away in the bottom of a pack and to all intents it was
