The Flashman Papers: The Complete 12-Book Collection

by George MacDonald Fraser

  For four hours we went at the run, while I watched the pursuing dust-cloud dwindle and finally vanish, but not on that account did I slacken our pace, for I knew they were still there, reading my trail, and it was only when the heat of the day began to scorch us unbearably, and I became aware that I was almost dead from sheer weariness and hunger and thirst, that I drew rein at the first grass that we had sighted since entering that hellish plain. It was poor fodder, but the little Arab fairly laid his lugs back, and didn’t I envy him?

  I gave him the last of the water, telling myself that we must come on a stream in an hour or two, for the Jornada desert was petering out into mesa studded with sage and greasewood, and there were dimly-seen hills on the northern horizon; I trotted on, turning at every mile to stare through the shimmering heat haze southwards, but there was no movement in that burning emptiness. Then it began to blow from the west, a fierce, hot wind that grew to a furnace heat, sending the tumbleweed bouncing by and whirling up sand-spouts twenty feet high; we staggered on through that blinding, stinging hail for more than an hour in an agony of thirst and exhaustion, and just when I was beginning to despair of ever reaching water, we came on a wide riverbed with a little trickle coursing through its bottom. In the dust-storm I’d have passed it by, but the little Arab nosed it out, whinnying with excitement, and in a moment we were both gulping down that cool delicious nectar, wallowing in it to our hearts’ content.

  You mayn’t think it’s possible to get drunk on water, but you’d be wrong, for I reckon that’s just what I did, gorging myself with it to the point where my brain became fuddled, so that in my lassitude common sense and caution took wing, and I crawled under the lee of the bank out of the wind, and lapsed into a sodden sleep.

  The Arab saved me. I came to wondering where the devil I might be, and what the noise was; recollection returned as I gazed round the empty river bottom. The wind had dropped, but it must have been only a lull in the storm, for the sky was grey and lowering, and there was that uncanny stillness that you can almost feel. The Arab neighed again, stamping excitedly, and I was just scrambling to my feet when from far away down the water-course came a faint answering whinny. I threw myself at the Arab’s head, clamping his nostrils and hugging his muzzle; I strained my ears, and sure enough, from somewhere beyond the bend of the dry bed came the sound of hooves. With an oath I seized the bridle and stumbled up towards the lip of the bank, heedless of the clatter of stones; we gained the flat, but it was empty both sides – nothing but low scrub and rank grass, with rising ground a mile or two ahead, and tree-clad foothills beyond.

  All this in a glimpse as I swung into the saddle, dug in my heels and went hell-for-leather – and only in the nick of time. Three strides we’d taken when something whizzed like a huge hornet overhead, there was a blood-chilling shriek from behind, and as I turned my head, there they were, surging over the lip of the bank a hundred yards to my left – a dozen of those dreaded figures with their scarved heads and flying hair, bows and lances flourished, whooping like fiends as they bore after me.

  Another half-minute in the river-bottom and they’d have had me – even now, as I put my head down and the Arab went like a rat up a drainpipe, it was going to be a damned close thing. A sling-stone buzzed past me (someone less skilled than the Yawner, thank God), but we were flying now, and in a minute we were out of range, drumming across the mesa with that chorus of savage yells waking the echoes behind. I stole another glance; there were four of them bunched together, close enough for me to make out Iron Eyes at their head, and the rest strung out behind; they screamed and urged on their ponies, but they’d been riding continuously, I guessed, for hours, while the Arab was fresh as paint; barring a slip, we must draw steadily away from them – I forced myself to keep my eyes forrard, intent on the ground ten yards in front of the Arab’s ears; I picked my course through the low bushes, watching the forested gullies of the foothills coming closer, stealing another backward look – they were a furlong adrift now. That was the moment when the bridle snapped.

  One moment it was whole, the next it was trailing loose in my hands. I believe I screamed aloud, and then I had my fists wrapped in the Arab’s mane, holding on for dear life, crouching down as a gunshot cracked out behind – there was precious little chance they’d hit me, but now as I raised my head, an infinitely worse peril loomed before me. Out on the flat I had little to fear, but once into those rocky ravines and forested slopes my Arab’s speed would count for nothing; I must keep to the open, for my life – but even as I prepared to swerve I saw to my horror that already I’d come too far; there were tongues of forest reaching down to the plain on both my flanks, I was heading into the mouth of a valley, it was too late to turn aside, and nothing for it but to race deeper into the trap, with the triumphant screams of the Apaches rising behind me.

  Sobbing with panic, I thundered on, past rocky gullies on either side, past birch and pine thickets, the walls of the valley steadily closing in, and my Arab forced to slacken pace on the rough going. Shots cracked behind me, I heard the deadly swish of an arrow; my pony was stumbling among the loose stones, I jerked my revolver loose and glanced back – Jesus! the leader was a bare fifty yards away, quirting his mustang like fury, with another three strung out behind him. The Arab gathered himself and cleared a stream, slithering on that infernal shale as he landed; somehow he kept his balance, I urged him on—

  A numbing pain shot through my right shoulder and something struck me a glancing blow on the face, I glimpsed a feathered shaft spinning away as we blundered through a screen of low bushes; I reeled in my saddle, dizzy with pain, as we raced between low red bluffs topped with thick forest, round a bend in the valley, out on to a broad expanse of loose stones bordering a shallow stream – and beyond reared a great tangle of rock and forest with no way through. The Arab slid and stumbled helplessly on the stones, I knew the Apache must be right on my heels, his war-screech rang in my ears, I was losing my hold, slipping sideways with one arm useless, and in that awful instant I had a glimpse of a man in buckskin standing on a rock not twenty yards ahead, in the act of whipping a musket to his shoulder. A puff of smoke, the crash of a shot, and I was pitching headlong into the stream.

  I came out of it like a leaping salmon, floundering round to face the Apache – his riderless mustang was clattering away, and the Indian himself was writhing on the stones in his death agony; I saw him heave and shudder into stillness – but when I looked round the buckskin man was no longer there. The rock was empty, there wasn’t a sign of life among the trees and bushes fringing the gully – had I dreamed him? No, there was a wisp of smoke in the still air, there was the dead Apache – and round the bend, whooping in hellish triumph at sight of me, came Iron Eyes with two other screaming devils hard on his heels. He flung himself from his pony and raced towards the stream, lance in hand.

  Instinctively I pawed at my holster – my revolver was gone! I scrambled wildly up the far bank, clawing my way towards the bushes, and fell headlong; Iron Eyes was yelling with glee as he reached the stream …

  “Don’t stir a finger,” said a quiet voice from nowhere. “Just rest right there.”

  There was no time to be amazed – for the painted red devil was bounding over the stream, brandishing his lance.

  “Ah-hee, pinda-lickoyee dasaygo! Dee-da tatsan!”d he screeched, and paused for an instant to gloat as I sprawled helpless, his head thrown back in cruel glee – something flickered in the air between us, he gave a choking gasp and staggered back into the water, dropping the lance and plucking at the horn-handled knife protruding from beneath his chin. The two other braves, halfway to the stream, checked appalled as he flopped into the shallows, bleeding his life out – and to add to our amazement, shots were ringing out in a volley from beyond the bend in the valley, shouts of command were mingling with warwhoops, and on my disbelieving ears fell the undoubted clarion note of a bugle.

  If I was stricken dumb, the Apaches weren’t; they yelled with rage o
r fear, and whirled about like victims in blind man’s buff in search of the unseen attacker – and it was uncanny, for one moment the trees to my left had been empty, and then there was a small, sturdy man in faded yellow buckskin standing out in the open, leisurely almost, with a hatchet in his hand and an expression of mild interest on his placid, clean-shaven face.

  He glanced at me, and then said something quietly in Apache, and the two braves gaped and then screamed defiance. The small chap shook his head and pointed down the valley; there was another crashing volley, followed by screams and the neighing of horses and the crack of single shots; even in my pain and bewilderment I concluded that some stout lads were decreasing the Mimbreno population most handily – and the nearest Apache rolled his eyes, yelled bloody murder, and he and his mate came at me like tigers, hatchets foremost.

  I never saw the buckskin man move, but suddenly he was in their path and the murderous axe-heads clanged as they struck and parried and struck again faster than the eye could follow. I looked to see him cut down in seconds by those agile fighting demons, but if they were fast as cats the little chap was like quicksilver, cutting, ducking, leaping aside, darting in again as though he were on springs – I’ve seen men of their hands, but never one to cap him for speed, and he wasn’t just holding his ground, but driving them back, his hatchet everywhere at once like polished lightning, and the two of them desperately trying to fend him off. Suddenly he sprang back, lowered his hatchet, and addressed them again in Apache – and now came pounding of feet, American voices hollering, and round the bend in the valley men in stained blue coats and dragoon hats were running towards us, led by a big black-whiskered cove in plaid trousers and feathered hat, brandishing a revolver.

  One Apache made a bound for the forest and was cut down by a volley from the dragoons; the other hurled himself again at the buckskin man and was met by a cut that sent him reeling back with a gashed shoulder; the whiskered man’s revolver boomed, the savage dropped – and to my amazement the small buckskin man shook his head and frowned.

  “There was no necessity to shoot him,” says he, in that same gentle voice that had spoken to me from thin air. “I had hoped to talk to him.”

  “Did you now?” roars Whiskers; he was a great, red-faced jolly-looking file. “Listen here, Nestor – you were talking to him just fine, in the language he understood best.” He surveyed the four dead Indians in and around the stream. “Fact, you seem to have been having one hell of a conversation.” He caught sight of me. “Who in the name of God Almighty is that?”

  “Fellow they were chasing,” says the buckskin man.

  “I’ll be damned! Why, he’s got Injun paint on his face! And a damned Apache-looking haircut, too!”

  “He’s white, though. Hair on his chin. Wounded, too.”

  I was glad someone had mentioned that, for my arm was running like a tap, and if there’s one thing that makes me giddy it’s the sight of my own blood. What with that, the pain of my wound, the terror of the chase and of the bloody slaughter I had witnessed, I was about all in, but now they were all round me, grimed white faces staring curiosity and concern as they gave me Christian spirits – first down my throat, then on my wound, which made me yelp – and patched me up, asking no questions. A trooper gave me some beef and hard-tack, and I munched weakly, marvelling at the miracle that had brought them to my rescue – especially the supernatural appearance of the gently-spoken little fighting fury in buckskin; there he was now, squatted by the stream, carefully washing and drying the knife that had felled Iron Eyes.

  It was the big jolly chap, whose name was Maxwell, who explained what had happened; they had been lying in wait for some Jicarilla horse-thieves who were believed to be making south for the Jornada, when they had seen me coming lickety-split with the Mimbrenos behind me. The little buckskin man, Nestor, knowing the ground, had guessed precisely where my flight must end, and while the soldiers had neatly ambushed the main body of my pursuers, that buckskin angel had just been in time to deal with the vanguard – one musket-shot, and then his knife and hatchet against three Bronco braves; God forbid, I remember thinking, that I should ever get on his wrong side.

  But I was taking it in like a man in a dream, hardly able to believe that I was here, safe at last, among friends, and the vile ordeal of months, my escape and flight, the final horror of Iron Eyes rushing to finish me – they were all past, and I was safe, and absolutely crying with relief and shock – not sobbing, you understand, but just with tears rolling down my cheeks.

  “Easy does it, now,” says Maxwell. “We’ll get those wet duds off you, and you can sleep a piece, and then we’ll hear your side of it – and, say, if you feel like trading in that pony of yours, maybe we can talk about that, too …”

  He was smiling, but suddenly I couldn’t keep my eyes open; great waves of dizziness were engulfing me, my shoulder was throbbing like an engine, and I knew I was going to chalk out. The small buckskin man had come to stand beside Maxwell, looking down at me with the same mild concern he’d shown when he was facing the Apaches; I’d never seen such gentle eyes – almost like a woman’s. Perhaps I was wandering in my mind; I know as I looked at that placid, kindly face, I mumbled something, and Maxwell caught it, and his laughter was the last thing I heard before I slid under.

  “Magician, you say?” The cheery red face winked and faded. “Mister, you ain’t the first that’s said that …”

  * * *

  d White-eyed man, you are about to die!

  Chapter 14

  Maxwell claimed later that the arrow which wounded me must have been poisoned, and indeed there are some who say that the ’Pashes doctor their shafts with rattlesnake venom and putrid meat and the like. I don’t believe it myself; I never heard of it among the Mimbreno, and besides, any arrow which has been handled by an Apache, or even been within a mile of him, doesn’t need poisoning. No, I reckon they were just good old-fashioned wickiup germs that got into my system through that shoulder wound, and blew my arm up to twice its normal size, so that I babbled in delirium all the way to Las Vegas.

  Why they took me there, instead of to Santa Fe which was only half the distance, remains a mystery. Apparently I started to rave and turn purple a few hours after my rescue, and since Maxwell, having whetted his appetite on the Mimbrenos, was still keen to come to grips with his Jicarilla horse-thieves, I was placed in the care of a couple of troopers with orders to get me to a medico with all speed; they carted me off on a litter borne by friendly Indians (I wouldn’t have thought there were any in that neck of the woods, but there you are), and Las Vegas was where they finished up, with the patient singing “The Saucy Arethusa” and crying out for women, so they tell me. There, presently, I awoke, in Barclay’s fort, as weak as a moth and fit for nothing but gruel.

  I wasn’t sorry to be there, though. In Santa Fe I might easily have had an embarrassing encounter with my last wife but one, and for all I knew that greasy little Jesuit might have blown the gaff about my selling Cleonie to the Navajos. So I was content to recuperate under the care of Alick Barclay, a cheery Scot (which is almost as rare as a friendly Indian), and reflect on the sober fact that during eighteen months in the United States of America I had been laid out four times, married twice, shot twice (both from behind), blown up, chased for my life more often than I cared to remember, met some of the most appalling people, and … dammit, it wasn’t worth it; sooner or later this bloody country was going to prove fatal. I was still stuck in the middle of it, no nearer to home than when I started, and the prospect of a safe passage out distinctly bleak. And all because I’d squeezed Fanny Duberly’s tits at Roundway Down and played vingt-et-un for ha’pennies with the likes of D’Israeli. But it was all part of the great web of destiny, every bit of it, as you’ll see; God moves in a mysterious way, and I just wish He wouldn’t insist on carting me along with Him.

  I’d been at Las Vegas a week when Maxwell rolled up, in great fettle; they’d not only intercepted the Jicarillas and k
illed five of them, but had also recovered the stolen horses, and he was now on his way back to his place at Rayado, up by Taos. He pooh-poohed my thanks jovially – I was sitting up in my cot in Barclay’s back-parlour looking pale and interesting – and was all agog to know who I was, for there hadn’t been time to introduce myself before I’d keeled over, and how I’d come to be booming up from the Jornada with paint on my face and a war-party at my heels. I was just preparing to launch into a carefully-prepared tale, leaving out such uncomfortable details as scalp-hunting and being Mangas Colorado’s son-in-law, when who should slip in but the small man in buckskin.

  You’ll think me fanciful, but on the spot I decided that the yarn I’d been about to spin had better be more truthful than not. I can lie to anyone, pretty well, and usually do, but there are some birds it’s safest not to try to deceive – as often as not they’re stainless characters who could have been thorough-paced rascals if only they’d felt inclined, and consequently can spot villainy a mile off: Lincoln was like that, and Chinese Gordon, and my late Lord Wellington. And this quiet, harmless-looking little frontiersman. I don’t know what it was about him; he was the most unobtrusive, diffident cove in the world, but there was something in the patient, gentle eyes that told you lying would be a waste of time, for this was not an ordinary man. You may say that having already seen him at his business, I knew how deceptive were his soft voice and modest bearing; well, I sensed the hidden force of him now, even before I’d made the faux-pas of addressing him as Mr Nestor – which was the name I’d heard in the valley – and Maxwell had slapped his thigh in merriment and introduced him: Christopher Carson.

  I stared just the same, for I don’t suppose there was a more famous man in America at that time. Everyone had heard of Kit Carson, the foremost guide, scout, and Indian fighter on the frontier, the “Napoleon of the Plains” – and most folk on first seeing him found it hard to believe that this shy, unassuming little fellow was the great hero they’d been told about. I didn’t – and my instinct told me to stick to the plain truth.