The Christmas MEGAPACK ®. Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Christmas, and began mouthin’ about it himself. You know what he did? Cut himself a little tree and planted it by that big rock. Then he begged and whined until I opened one of them packin’ cases and got him out a little stuff. He wanted to fix the tree, he said. Just some tinsel and a few colored glass balls and half a dozen candles. Thought it’d keep him quiet and out of our way while we were rushin’ things here. Didn’t think you’d object.

      “That was all right,” Sergeant Willard replied, as he straightened in his saddle. “Poor devil! A husky lad like him—and his wits gone.”

      “No future for him,” Cooper admitted.

      “Ed,” Willard told the teamster, speaking in a low voice, “get Ellison and Jones over here without Johnny noticin’ anything’s going on.”

      * * * *

      Within two minutes, the troopers were standing with the teamster beside the sergeant’s mount. Willard handed the arrow down to one of them.

      “Found it up there on the hillside,” the sergeant said. “Far from the trail. A Cheyenne war arrow. May mean nothin’ and may mean a lot. I’ve been smellin’ Injuns all day.”

      “Me, too,” Trooper Lew Jones confessed.

      “They’ve been trailin’ us and keepin’ out of sight,” Willard went on to say. “No way of tellin’, now, how many are in the bunch. Four of us—we can’t count on Johnny in a scrap.”

      “If they jump us, it’ll be late tonight or just afore dawn,” Jim Ellison guessed. “Stoke up the fire and cook supper,”

      Willard ordered. “Fix it so we can bed down near the spring. Those bunches of rocks will furnish cover if there’s trouble. Get the horses in close and picket ’em behind that fringe of brush. Mules, too. We’ll swing the wagon around and across the floor of the ravine—make a good barricade. Don’t let on to Johnny. Let him play around with his little tree.”

      They ate an early supper and packed away everything except the coffeepot for morning use. Horses and mules were brought close to the camp and picketed behind the brush. The wagon was slued around for a barricade.

      Through all this, Johnny Bight wandered around like a man who did not understand. He muttered to himself continually, but the others could not catch his words.

      “If trouble comes, we’d better get him in the wagon and see he stays there,” Willard suggested.

      The wind died down and it turned considerably colder at sunset. But moon and stars burned in a cloudless sky. They would get back to Fort Wallace without encountering a snowfall or a blizzard—if they got back at all.

      The country had been pestered since early spring with bands of roving young hostiles who refused to go to the reservations, despite the orders of their chiefs. There had been a few brief clashes, nothing serious—but always there was the fear that there might be a sanguinary conflict which would be the prelude to a small-sized Indian war. Commanders of detachments of cavalry away from fixed posts were always cautioned never to start trouble.

      Sergeant Gus Willard knew all this. He also knew that the way to avoid a conflict with Indians was to keep from revealing that one was expected. To be on guard and fully prepared for a clash without seeming to be so—that was always best.

      Dusk came swiftly. The little campfire· was allowed to burn beyond the wagon. Blankets were spread on the ground in dark spots, but the men did not expect to sleep. Ammunition was broken out and distributed.

      “Ellison,” Sergeant Willard ordered one of his troopers, “go afoot up to the lip of the ravine and watch toward the north. Jones, you watch toward the South. Cooper, stay with me.”

      Ellison and Jones adjusted their ammunition belts, inspected sidearms and picked up their carbines.

      “If you see anything that looks like trouble, get back here quietly, if possible, and report. Don’t shoot unless you have to—and don’t shoot first.”

      The two troopers went away through the shadows to take up their observation posts. Willard went to the fire and filled two tin cups with scalding coffee and handed one to Cooper. As they sipped, Johnny Bight wandered up to them.

      “Want—want—” he muttered, pointing to the coffeepot.

      Willard poured a mug of coffee for him, and Johnny sat down on a rock and began sipping, muttering to himself between sips.

      “If anything breaks,” Willard whispered to Cooper, “you jump in and help me grab Johnny, and we’ll lash him in the wagon under the green boughs.”

      Johnny finished drinking his coffee, put down the tin mug and began wandering around the camp again through the streaks of moonlight. Willard and Ed Cooper, the teamster, watched and listened. The wind had died completely. They would be able to hear any sounds that presaged danger, any low call either of the watching troopers on the lips of the ravine might make.

      It would probably be a long vigil, one lasting through the night, Willard thought. Indians always liked to jump a camp just before dawn. Willard got up and strolled around nervously, leaving Cooper beside the little fire. Johnny Bight approached him.

      “Time now?” he asked.

      “Time for what, Johnny?” the sergeant asked calmly.

      “Time to light tree?”

      Oh, he had decorated the tree and fastened candles to it, had he? But Sergeant Gus Willard did not want that tree lighted. The light flaming against the big rock before which Johnny had put the tree would kill shadows and make the little camp a fine target.

      “Orders changed, Johnny,” Willard replied, in the voice of a somewhat stern noncom giving commands. “We’ll light the tree later. I’ll tell you when.”

      Johnny fumbled a salute as if Willard had been wearing shoulder insignia instead of chevrons, and turned away. Willard returned to where the teamster was squatting beside the fire.

      Three hours passed as the moon and stars wheeled the sky. Willard and Cooper took turns pacing around to stir the blood in their veins, for it had grown colder. Ellison and Jones must be cold up on the lips of the ravine on their cautious guard duty, the sergeant thought.

      Twice during those three hours, Johnny Bight approached the sergeant and stiffened and saluted and asked whether he could light his tree now. Willard always told him to wait longer, and Johnny wandered away to squat at the side of the wagon and wait.

      Suddenly the sky toward the north became tinged with red. Yells and yips sounded in the far distance.

      “They’re dancin’, Sarge!” Cooper said. “Sounds like it.”

      “Startin’ to work themselves up for a smash at us before daybreak. Wonder how many of ’em are in the bunch?”

      “No tellin’,” Willard replied. “Who’s leadin’ ’em, that’s the important thing. Some cocky young brave with ambitions, maybe. Maybe somebody we can scare off, and maybe not.”

      “Had the feelin’ all day we were bein’ followed and watched,” Cooper said. “Well, if they muss us up, a lot of the boys will be spendin’ their Christmas in the field this year.”

      “The principal object is,” retorted Willard, “to keep ’em from mussin’ us up. Me, I’d like to spend a cozy Christmas Eve at Fort Wallace, sittin’ before the fire and maybe sippin’ a hot drink with some kick to it.”

      Cooper’s grin could be seen in the light from the fire.

      “Not sippin’, Sarge—gulpin’,” the Army teamster corrected.

      Brush cracked, and both men sprang to their feet and gripped weapons. They saw Trooper Lew Jones coming through the streaks of moonlight.

      “Means trouble,” Cooper said.

      The brush cracked in another direction, and they saw Jim Ellison hurrying