Shadow Riders by B.J. Bayle

Author:B.J. Bayle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2010-06-18T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter

Thirteen

Word of the attempted horse robbery had spread through F Troop, and both Rob and Luke were treated like heroes. To ease the headache that had turned Luke’s lips white with pain, Denny managed to secure some laudanum from Dr. Kittson by pretending to have a severe headache himself. The trooper who was also F Troop’s cook had made pemmican soup with wild onions he had found, and fully baked the bread to tempt Luke to eat. Rob carefully washed the three inch split in Luke’s skull and watched anxiously for any sign of infection. In the two days that followed, the lump gradually grew smaller and Luke refused more laudanum. Orders were given: the troopers were to pack up and be ready to move again.

Colonel Macleod and a few constables had gone south twice to buy oats and hay from the well-supplied men who were marking the boundary, and once he’d been able to purchase a dozen horses — all of them dark brown. As the train moved northwest, they sometimes spotted small herds of buffalo, but they were too far in the distance to give chase. They used the pancake-sized dried buffalo dung they found along the way, which burned well in their campfires. Rob figured buffalo were a mixed blessing since they could make good eating, but they chewed off all the grass in their path and turned small creeks to mud.

Some of the men began to grumble over the following days since leaving the fairly comfortable camp at Old Wife’s Creek — especially after they set up camp one night in the driving rain and had to ride in sodden clothing while buffeted by a cold wind the next day. A rumour floated through the camp that they were lost, that Colonel French had no idea which way to go. They doubted the very notion that they would ever see the mountains they had heard so much about. Some even began to doubt the existence of the mountains.

On August 25 the advance scouts spotted the Cypress Hills. They also rode into camp that night with two antelope and three deer — a welcome change from pemmican. Rob and Luke weren’t impressed, though, and had been silently fuming ever since they left Cripple Camp and turned northwest, when they should have been going southwest. Rob was impatient to get to Fort Benton and perhaps find news of their missing herd. That night, when Inspector Denny joined F Troop for the evening meal, Rob forgot himself and demanded an explanation.

“Seems to me Colonel French must be dumb as a stump if he can’t see that he has to go south if he’s going to Fort Benton!” As soon as these words left his tongue, Rob regretted them. He knew he had gone too far.

There was dead silence while Denny stared at Rob. But the officer relaxed and reached for the tin teapot. Filling his cup, he said gently, “I know how you feel, Rob, but you must bear this in mind: the purpose of this journey is to bring law and order to this great land.

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