On the trail, Thomas had explained that the Osage were one of the fiercest tribes on the Southern Plains. Long ago, they had roamed over what was now Kansas and Missouri, until finally being resettled in Indian Territory. At one point, they had warred constantly on the Cherokee, who were seen as intruders on Osage land. The two tribes had been at peace for many years, but not without lingering hostility. The Osage still looked upon the Cherokee as unwelcome foreigners.
In years past, operating as a marshal out of Fort Smith, Thomas had exploited this ancient rivalry. He’d gone out of his way to befriend the Osage, though many of them still had no use for federal lawmen. His most stalwart converts were Longbone and Dog Eater, who had assisted him on several manhunts into the Nations. Their contempt for the Cherokee was aggravated by the fact that tribes in the Nations were quick to grant refuge to white outlaws. The hunt for Bill Raidler was a case in point.
For all their ancient rivalry, a certain amount of trade went on between the Osage and the Cherokee. Johnny Longbone, who kept his ear to the backwoods grapevine, had picked up a rumor. A white man had bought supplies at the trading post in Talala, and word was out that he’d taken over an old cabin on Five Mile Creek. Further inquiry, discreetly conducted by Osage traders with business in Talala, had identified the man as Bill Raidler. Longbone had then arranged for the message delivered to Thomas.
A short distance ahead, Longbone now held up his hand. He signaled for quiet, then motioned upstream, apparently alerted to a sound not heard by the marshals. The terrain was heavily wooded, and nothing was visible to their direct front. After a moment, Longbone and Dog Eater slid off their ponies, armed with worn Winchester repeaters. Tilghman and Thomas dismounted, pulling carbines from their saddle scabbards. Longbone stood listening to a distant sound, then waved them onto a line. They advanced through the trees.
Some fifty yards ahead the woods opened onto a small clearing beside the creek. A log cabin, with one side of the roof caved in, was centered in the clearing. As they emerged from the treeline, a man on horseback, until then hidden from view, appeared on the far side of the cabin. Unaware of their presence, he reined his horse toward a narrow trail that led upstream. Tilghman and Thomas moved out front of the Osage scouts, shouldering their rifles. Thomas bellowed a command.
“Federal marshals! Halt right there!”
The man glanced over his shoulder, and they saw the face of Bill Raidler. He hunched low in the saddle, raking his horse savagely with his spurs, and took off at a lope up the trail. The lawmen fired in unison, their shots clipping bark off trees on either side of Raidler. They worked the levers on their carbines, but by then Raidler had disappeared into the woods bordering the creek. The thud of hoofbeats faded rapidly in the distance.
“Goddamn the luck!” Thomas thundered. “Sonovabitch didn’t even know we were here!”
“Never had a clue,” Tilghman agreed. “Looked like he was headed for the trading post. I saw a gunnysack tied to his saddlehorn.”
“Well, he’s not all that far ahead. Let’s get after him.”
A few minutes later they rode upstream. But Raidler, schooled in the tactics of the Wild Bunch, proved to be elusive. A mile or so upstream, he crossed the creek, then swung wide through the woods and doubled back to the Caney River. There he turned north along the rocky stream.
The Osage scouts clung to his trail. By early evening, as dusk fell, they were some twenty miles upriver. On a rocky stretch of shoreline, where a small creek fed into the Caney, the tracks abruptly vanished. Longbone and Dog Eater, after studying the terrain, were of the same opinion. Raidler had quit the ground and taken to the water.
One way led upriver. The other led west along the creek. Tilghman agreed with the scouts that either direction was a tossup. There was no alternative but to separate and search in both directions. With dark approaching they camped on the river bank and settled it with the toss of a coin. Thomas and Longbone would continue north, along the Caney. Tilghman and Dog Eater would take the creek.
The next morning they parted as dark turned to dawn.
* * *
Tom Dog Eater taught Tilghman a new trick. Instead of separating, and riding both banks, they stuck to the center of the creek. That way, wherever their man left the water, they would not overrun the tracks. In single file, their eyes sweeping north and south, they rode west.
Four miles upstream Dog Eater motioned a halt. Along the south bank, he spotted scuff marks on an outcropping at the water’s edge. On ground beyond the outcropping, he found horse tracks and the bootprints of a man. There, as he pointed out to Tilghman, their man had made a cold camp and watched his backtrail. Anyone who had followed last night would now be dead.
The trail led southwest toward Osage country. Tom Dog Eater was no less surprised than Tilghman. As the day progressed, their surprise turned to thoughtful deliberation. The tracks were on a line straight as a string, never deviating, always headed southwest. Raidler was moving at a slow trot, with no idea that he’d been followed. He clearly had a destination in mind.
Tilghman and Dog Eater camped that night on the open prairie. The chase resumed at dawn and by noonday they were some forty miles from where they’d parted with Thomas. Toward midafternoon they topped a low rise and before them lay a great northward bend in the Arkansas River. A stand of woods wound a mile or so to the west along the shoreline, and to the east was a field of corn. Between
