The hand that fate dealt into Allie’s dilemma was that Captain W. T. McConnell wasn’t in Port Station when Dan Harmon’s telegraph arrived—the telegraph requesting that McConnell remove Allie from the case. Thus, Allie received no immediate, official word from her boss, ordering her to return home.
“I’m not your superior, Ranger Summer,” Harmon told her when a wire was received from Sergeant Pine informing the sheriff of McConnell’s absence for a few days, “but I’m still asking you to go back to Port Station.”
“You’re a fool, Harmon,” Allie said to him. “You ought to at least have the sense to use me while I’m here.”
The sheriff clouded up; he didn’t especially appreciate a 20 year old woman calling him a fool, regardless of who she was. “How can I trust you? What if you run into your cousin again? Are you going to turn him loose again?”
Allie walked right up to Harmon, got to within inches of his face, and stared into his eyes. Harmon tried to stare back but…the devil’s eyes…
Very calmly, very coolly, with a voice as cold as her eyes, Allie said, “Sheriff Harmon, what if I’m right and those four aren’t the murderers? You still don’t want my help trying to catch the real killers?” And with that, Allie turned on her heels and walked out of Harmon’s office.
Harmon took a deep breath, watching Allie as she left. He stared for a few moments at the door through which she had exited. The Arkmore sheriff had a very thoughtful expression on his face…
In another part of the territory, but not too far away, one man was talking to four others. “It’s time to hit again,” he said. “Do it in the next couple of days.”
The four men smiled and took the cash the other man offered them…
Allie wasn’t going back to Port Station—not yet, anyway. She would if McConnell ordered her to, but until he did, she had every intention of staying in the Arkmore area and trying to find out who was raiding the white settlements. She smiled to herself as she rode Ranger out of town. If I don’t go back to Arkmore for a while, I won’t know if McConnell has sent me a telegram or not…She couldn’t do any good in town, anyway…
She pondered the mystery and tried to come up with some plan of action. This is a big county…the killers have struck near Arkmore, Tin Cup, Kinsey…they could show up anywhere…It was an almost impossible task. But I’ll stay close to Arkmore, maybe they will cycle back around to this region. The killers had stayed far away from the reservation, so Allie gambled they wouldn’t strike near Sugarloaf, the other town in the area…too close to the reservation. It was about all she had for a plan. She smiled wryly to herself. Who knows what an Indian will do?...
She frowned at that thought. Is Swift Current…? She just couldn’t believe that he would massacre people in cold blood. Yes, he was a hothead, but he’d always shown he could control his temper. But then she remembered the incident at the reservation where he appeared to be ready to bash Wiley Wilcox with a shovel. Maybe being forced onto the reservation pushed him over the edge…maybe he is so full of hatred and bitterness…he’s only 21…Allie had to admit to herself that she was very uneasy. She didn’t want to believe Swift Current was guilty, but she wasn’t quite able to convince herself that he wasn’t. His rustling didn’t bother her too much; stealing from whites was a sport to the Cheyenne, and even Allie had done it a couple of times when she was younger, just for the fun of it. A couple of chickens…the ranchers never missed them…
And killing whites during a war was acceptable, too, of course, though Allie’s band had never officially been at war with Americans. Fleet Fox, Winter Wolf, Bear Claw and the other leaders had always counseled peace. But what was going on right now was nothing but outright murder, and was indefensible. At least to Allie.
Could Swift Current do that? And what would she do about it if she found out he was guilty? If it came down to it…could she kill her own cousin?
That thought brought a tremendous amount of pain to Allie’s heart and tears to her eyes. Maybe I SHOULD go back to Port Station…let some other ranger handle it…just in case…
But, at the moment, her decision was to stay in the Arkmore area, at least until she heard from McConnell. She had been told that the girl, Molly, who had survived the last attack, had heard drums and music right before the Indians had entered the Doughty home. Keep my ears open for drums, I suppose, Allie thought, sardonically…
And as she looked around at the…huge…expanse of country before her, the Lady Ranger was more than a little melancholy about her current assignment.
How would I ever find them in this ocean?...
They may never strike again…
Or it may be weeks or months from now…
They might be 100 miles away from me when they hit again…
Or…they might not be…
Friday, June 17, nighttime…
Allie was restless. She loved the outdoors, she loved camping out at night, she loved being under the moon and the stars—and this night was brilliantly clear and cool, with a full moon and millions of twinkling points of light pinned to a deep blue celestial tapestry over her head. As perfect a night as God can make.But Allie was restless.
She had spent the past two days simply riding in the vicinity of Arkmore, searching for…what?...The attacks had all been at night so there really wasn’t much to do during the day. She had considered visiting the ranches where the previous assaults had been made, but decided against it. The killers wouldn’t return there and all the evidence would have been wiped out by now by the wind and what little rain there had been. Allie had been trying to concoct some plan of action, but…how do you plan for a surprise attack? When you don’t know when and where? Or who?
Allie smiled wryly. Just the kind of thing Indians are good at…
As she stopped for the night and prepared to make camp, she had been able to come up with nothing, no system, no plan, no direction, no idea how to proceed. As she reached down to uncinch Ranger’s saddle, she thought, until McConnell orders me home, I’ll just ride around and listen for the sound of drums and music, I guess…
And that’s when she heard it.
Art Rogers didn’t have Indians on his mind. Not at all. He was thinking about food, and his young wife and baby inside their house. His wife, Rita, had given birth six months ago to a lovely daughter, and Art loved being with both of them. Just a couple of more chores and I’ll be done. Boy, I’m hungry, and he could smell the chicken cooking…
But as Art started to fork some hay into a trough for his horses, he stopped… BOOM boom boom boom BOOM boom boom boom BOOM boom boom boom…
Allie Summer heard the same thing…
Art Rogers’ heart skipped a beat when the thumping of the drums was soon accompanied by
Ay o lay lale lo e-la, lay-o
Ay o lay lale lo e-lael-lay o lola lo e-la, lay-o
Ay o lay lale lo e-la…
Allie Summer heard that, too. And then, mesmerized for a moment, she did a very queer thing. She started singing along with the music…
But she snapped out of it, realizing what the drums and melody meant. Quickly recinching Ranger’s saddle, she took three seconds to locate the direction of the music, then hopped in the saddle and said, “Run, boy, run like you’ve never run before.”Ranger was tired, but he sensed Allie’s urgency and he took off like the wind…
Art Rogers knew—or highly suspected, at least—what the drums and music denoted. He immediately dropped the pitchfork and ran out of his barn, towards the back door of his house, which was perhaps 40 yards away. Sure enough, about halfway to the door, he saw three men coming around the side of his back outbuilding, where he kept most of his tools. “Indians!” he shouted. One of them lifted a bow and arrow and fired…
Allie and Ranger topped a short ridge and saw the Rogers’ ranch about a quarter mile below. The house was to the left, the barn to the right, and the tools outbuilding was between them, though set back some 20 yards are so. With the brightness of the night sky, the Ranger could see, and hear, all that happened. Rogers running out of his barn…the three men appear from behind the back building…Rogers shouting…the Indian firing his arrow…
And missing. Or so Allie thought. Rogers kept running.Allie pulled her gun from her holster and started shooting. She was too far away, and moving too rapidly, to hit anybody, but the shots attracted the attention of the three men who were raiding the homestead. They stopped and looked in her direction. Allie saw Rogers disappear into the house, and she heard one of the men yell, “Let’s get out of here!” The three men turned and ran back the way they had come and disappeared down a swale behind the outbuilding. A few seconds later, Allie and Ranger arrived in the yard and she considered going after the men who had attacked the house. But it was dark and they would be difficult to track, even in a full moon. She felt her first obligation was to make sure the owner of the ranch was safe and not injured.
The singing and drum beat stopped. In the distance, Allie could hear the hoofbeats of horses scampering away. I’ll take care of you later…
She was frustrated, but knew she needed to stay. “Hello, the house!” she called. “My name is Allie Summer. I’m a Montana Ranger. The attackers are gone, it’s safe now!”
Allie dismounted. She was between the house and the barn. She heard a voice answering back, in a quaver, “How can I be sure I can trust you?” It was a man’s voice.
“Are you all right?” Allie called back. “I saw one of them shoot an arrow.”
“Yes, but he missed,” Art Rogers said. He appeared from the back door, holding a rifle, looking around. “Stay where you are, I’ll shoot.”
Allie knew there were few things more dangerous than a scared man, if for no other reason than the trembling of his finger might pull the trigger on the rifle. She held up her hands in a gesture of peace. “It’s ok. I’ll show you my badge. I’m a Ranger.”
“You’re a woman,” Rogers said.
“You’re a man,” Allie replied equitably.
“The Rangers don’t hire women…do they?”
“Well, they hired me, and no offense, but you’d better be glad they did, or you’d be dead meat by now. I’m assuming you hadn’t invited those fellows for supper.”
Rogers apparently believed Allie now, or at least wasn’t too scared of a woman. “No. No, we…didn’t invite them for supper. How did you happen to show up? Incidentally, my name is Art Rogers.”
“Allie Summer,” the Ranger repeated. “I’ve been assigned by the territorial Rangers to try to find those men who have been killing the white ranchers. It’s…fortunate I was in the area when I heard the drums and singing.”
“Yes, you arrived just in time. Thank you, thank you very much.”
A woman appeared at the back door. “Art? Is everything ok?” she asked.
“That’s my wife, Rita,” Art explained to Allie. “We have a little baby girl, too.” Then, to his wife, “Yes, Rita, all is well. This is a Ranger. She got here right as those Indians showed up.”
Rita Rogers walked over, relief on her face. She wasn’t especially pretty, Allie noted; her face was a little too long, with a pointed chin, and her hair was stringy and unkempt. But she wasn’t necessarily an ogre, either. “Thank you, Ranger. We owe you our lives. We never…thought…they would come here.”
“Yeah,” Allie replied. “It always happens to somebody else, but in this case, the ‘somebody else’ was you.”
“Would you stay for dinner?” Rita asked. “And…stay for the night? They might come back…”
“No, to the last statement,” Allie replied. “They won’t come back. But,” and she smiled, “the offer of dinner sounds nice. That is, if you have enough.”
“Oh, we have plenty, and we’d feel so much safer if you’d stay. We have an extra bedroom.”
“I’d rather sleep in the barn,” Allie answered. “Just in case they do come back, I don’t want to be in the house. My horse will tell me if somebody strange is around. He doesn’t like anybody but me.” She smiled again.
“Well, please come on inside…”
Allie didn’t really want to stay at the Rogers’ place that night, but she reasoned that it was as good as any location. Art Rogers offered to take care of her horse, but all Allie asked for was water and hay for Ranger. She didn’t want anybody but her handling the Appaloosa.
“Do you think we ought to go into town tonight and report what happened?” Rogers asked her as he was forking more hay for his animals.
Allie considered. “No, we can wait until tomorrow morning. There is nothing the sheriff can do tonight. I’ll get on the trail of those outlaws tomorrow.”
Rogers stopped for a moment and leaned on his pitchfork. “Ranger Summer, can you explain why, all of a sudden, the Indians have started to do this again? They were so peaceful…”
Allie’s mind was in whirlwind. She now knew some things that nobody else knew. And she didn’t want to take the time, at the moment, to explain to Rogers what she did know. So, she gave the pat response: “Who knows, Mr. Rogers, what an Indian will do?...”
What did Allie know? Well, she didn’t know who was doing the killing of the white ranchers.
But she knew who wasn’t…
Allie didn’t sleep much that night. Deep into the night, she lay on the soft hay in the loft of Art Rogers’ barn. She was staring at the ceiling. Repeatedly, constantly, worming through her head was…that song…
Ay o lay lale lo e-la, lay-o
Ay o lay lale lo e-la
el-lay o lola lo e-la, lay-o
Ay o lay lale lo e-la…