Flashman and the Redskins. George Fraser MacDonald
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if I was going to take orders from some grubby little carter? I said, well, ah … while the Colonel called loudly for cobblers and the boys looked tactfully at the ceiling, and just then a burly scarecrow came into the store – or rather, he seemed to drift in, silently, and the Colonel introduced him as Mr Wootton, our guide.
I heard Susie sniff in astonishment – well, he was grubby, no error, and hadn’t shaved in a while, and his clothes looked as though he’d taken them off a dead buckskin man and then slept in them for a year. He seemed diffident, too, fiddling with his hat and looking at the floor. When the Colonel told him about my commanding the caravan he thought for a bit, and then said in a gentle, husky voice:
‘Gennelman bin wagon-captain afore?’
No, said the Colonel, and the boys looked askance and coughed. The clodpole scratched his head and asks:
‘Gennelman bin in Injun country?’
No, they said, I hadn’t. He stood a full minute, still not looking up, and then says:
‘Gennelman got no ’sperience?’
At this one of the boys laughed, and I sensed Susie ready to burst – and I was about fed up being ridiculed by these blasted chaw-bacons. God knows I didn’t want to command her caravan, but enough’s enough.
‘I’ve had some experience, Mr Wootton,’ says I. ‘I was once an army chief of staff—’ Sergeant-General to the nigger rabble of Madagascar, but there you are ‘—and have known service in India, Afghanistan, and Borneo. But I’ve no special desire—’
At this Wootton lifted his unkempt head and looked at me, and I stopped dead. He was a ragged nobody – with eyes like clear blue lights, straight and steady. Then he glanced away – and I thought, don’t let this one go. It may be a picnic on the plains, but you’ll be none the worse with him along.
‘My dear,’ says I to Susie, ‘perhaps you and the Colonel will excuse Mr Wootton and myself.’ I went out, and presently Wootton drifts on to the stoop, not looking at me.
‘Mr Wootton,’ says I, ‘my wife wants me to command the caravan, and what she wants she gets. Now, I’m not your Old Bill Williams, but I’m not a greenhorn, exactly. I don’t mind being called wagon-captain – but you’re the guide, and what you say goes. You can say it to me, quietly, and I’ll say it to everyone else, and you’ll get an extra hundred a month. What d’you say?’
It was her money, after all. He said nothing, so I went on:
‘If you’re concerned that your friends’ll think poorly of you for serving under a tenderfoot …’ At this he turned the blue eyes on me, and kept them there. Deuced uncomfortable. Still he was silent, but presently looked about, as though considering, and then says after a while:
‘Gotta study, I reckon. Care to likker with me?’
I accepted, and he led the way to where a couple of mules were tethered, watching me sidelong as I mounted. Well, I’d forgotten more about backing a beast than he’d ever know, so I was all right there; we cantered down the street, and out through the tents and wagons towards Westport, and presently came to a big lodge with ‘Last Chance’ painted in gold leaf on its signboard, which was doing a roaring trade. Richey got a jug, and we rode off towards some trees, and all the time he was deep in thought, occasionally glancing at me but not saying a word. I didn’t mind; it was a warm day, I was enjoying the ride, and there was plenty to see – over by the wood some hunters were popping their rifles at an invisible target; when we got closer I saw they were ‘driving the nail’, which is shooting from fifty paces or so at a broad-headed nail stuck in a tree, the aim being to drive it full into the wood, which with a ball the size of a small pea is fancy shooting anywhere.
Richey gave a grunt when he saw them, and we rode near to where a group of them were standing near the nail-tree, whooping and catcalling at every shot. Richey dismounted.
‘Kindly cyare to set a whiles?’ says he, and indicated a tree-stump with all the grace of a Versailles courtier; he even put the jug down beside it. So I sat, and waited, and took a pull at the jug, which was first-run rum, and no mistake, while Richey went over and talked to the hunters – fellows in moccasins and fringed tunics, for the most part, burned brown and bearded all over. It was only when some of them turned to look at me; and chortled in their barbarous ‘plug-a-plew’ dialect which is barely recognisable as English, that I realised the brute was absolutely consulting them – about me, if you please! Well, by God, I wasn’t having that, and I was on the point of storming off when the group came over, all a-grin – and by George, didn’t they stink, just! I was on my feet, ready to leave – and then I stopped, thunderstruck. For the first of them, a tall grizzled mountaineer, in a waterproof hat and leggings, was wearing an undoubted Life Guards tunic, threadbare but well-kept. I blinked: yes, it was Tin Belly gear, no error.
‘Hooraw, hoss, howyar!’ cries this apparition.
‘Where the devil did you get that coat?’ says I.
‘You’re English,’ says he, grinning. ‘Waal, I tell ye – this yar garmint wuz give me by one o’ your folks. Scotch feller – sure ’nuff baronite, which is kind of a lord, don’t ye know? Name o’ Stooart. Say, wasn’t he the prime coon, though? He could ha’ druv thet nail thar with his eyes shut.’ He considered me, scratching his chin, and I found myself wishing my buckskin coat wasn’t so infernally new. ‘Richey hyar sez he’s onsartin if you’ll make a wagon-captain.’
‘Is he, by God? Well, you can tell Richey—’
‘Mister,’ says he, ‘you know this?’ And he held up a short stick of what looked like twisted leather.
‘Certainly. It’s cured beef – biltong. Now what—’
‘Don’t mind me, hoss,’ says he, and winked like a ten-year-old as he stepped closer. ‘We’re a-humourin’ ole Richey thar. Now then – how long a hobble you put on a pony?’
I almost told him to go to the devil, but he winked again, and I’ll say it for him, he was a hard man to refuse. Besides, what was I to do? If I’d turned my back on that group of bearded grinning mountebanks they’d have split their sides laughing.
‘That depends on the pony,’ says I. ‘And the grazing, and how far you’ve ridden, and where you are, and how much sense you’ve got. Two feet, perhaps … three.’
He cackled with laughter and slapped his thigh, and the buckskin men haw-hawed and looked at Richey, who was standing head down, listening. My interrogator said:
‘Hyar’s a catechism, sure ’nuff,’ and he was so pleased with himself, and so plainly intent on making game of Richey that I decided to enter into the spirit of the thing. ‘Next question, please,’ says I, and he clapped his hands.
‘Now, let’s calkerlate. Haw, hyar’s a good ’un! Hyar’s a night camp; I’m a gyuard. What you spose I’m a-doin’?’ He looked at a bush about twenty yards away, walked a few paces aside, and looked at it again, then came back to me. ‘Actin’ pee-koolyar, hoss – you reckon?’
‘No such thing. You’re taking a sight on that bush. You’ll take a sight on all the bushes. After dark, if a bush isn’t where it should be, you’ll fire on it. Because it’ll be an Indian, won’t it?’ We’d done the same thing in Afghanistan; any fool of a soldier knows the dodge.
‘Wah!’ shouts he, delighted, and thumped Richey on the back. ‘Thar, boyee! This chile hyar’ll tickle ye, see iffn he doan’t. Now, whut?’
Richey was watching me in silence, very thoughtful. Presently he nodded, slowly, while the buckskin men nudged each other and my questioner beamed his satisfaction. Then Richey tapped my pistol butt, and pulling a scrap of cloth from his pocket, drifted over to the tree and began to snag it on the half-driven nail. My tall companion chuckled and shook his head; well, I saw what was wanted, and I thought to blazes with it. I’d taken as much examination from these clowns as I wanted, so I decided