Edge: Arapaho Revenge

by George G. Gilman

  Perhaps there was, in their dark eyes, a look of pointed contempt for the manner in which the half-breed propelled and steered the raft out into midstream, by regularly thrusting a long pole into the riverbed and applying all his weight to it—moving to left or right across the stern when the ungainly craft threatened to come about. This while Nalin sat like a carved statue on the seat of the buckboard, gazing sto­ically ahead and seemingly uncaring about the progress and direction of the ferry. But then, when it became apparent the craft would not dock at the pier on the south bank, she turned to look at the stone-faced man on the stern with the same kind of expression he was certain he had seen in the eyes of the mules each time he did something that Maziol had done differ­ently.

  The river flowed serenely from west to east and the ferry went in the same direction so that it was very soon obvious that the craft would reach the opposite shore a considerable way downstream of the pier. For a full minute, per­haps, while Edge moved back and forth on the stern and raked his glinting-eyed gaze over a long length of moonlit river bank in search of the probable landing point, the young girl con­tinued to peer over her blanket-draped should­er toward him. And he tried to devote his entire attention to his chore, pretending he was not aware of her disdainful surveillance.

  Until he felt too irritated to ignore her further and growled, raucous against the gentle rippling of the water around the ferry: "An Indian would make a better job of it, uh?"

  "No, I do not think so, white eyes," she answered, and winced as the act of turning on the seat started a worse pain in the area of her bullet wound. She had moved to look, beyond the man on the stern, toward the house with the door still open and light spilling out over the abandoned corpse of Maziol. "But I think an Arapaho would have waited until the man with the skill to get the boat across the river had done so. Then would have killed him."

  She shifted the direction of her gaze again, to look back at the half-breed. And both her tone and her expression brightened to reveal she felt she had scored a point against him.

  "Lot of white men would have done the same thing," Edge allowed in an easy tone of voice that spread a frown across the face of Nalin. "But that ain't my way."

  "The difficult way is the foolish way when there is an easy way!" she challenged, on the defensive.

  "Figured it was easier to kill him for shoot­ing my horse, Nalin," he answered, evenly. And paused to change the direction of his pacing of the stern, but added before she could voice an objection: "Than it would have been for help­ing me cross the river."

  She seemed on the point of countering his ar­gument, but then decided either that she had nothing valid to say or would be wasting her breath to say it. Which irritated her into turning too suddenly to face front again. And a cry of pain burst from her lips. Or, Edge allowed, it could have been a sound of alarm that the ferry seemed about to hit a rocky point on the bank. But he had spotted the danger before this, and was prepared to avoid it—by thrusting the pole hard into the riverbed from the side instead of the stern of the ferry. So that the bow came around, perhaps ten feet short of impact. At which point the half-breed exerted his full strength against the pole. And it ceased to be an axis on which the raft turned and became the means by which the ferry was propelled into a narrow inlet with the rocky area on one side and a stand of willows on the other. The entrance just half as wide as the raft while the strip of water beyond was twice as long as the ferry, which scraped the bottom and was firmly aground before the stern was free of the gentle but insistent tug of the river current.

  Edge abandoned the pole now and it floated away downstream. And climbed up on the buckboard seat, conscious that the Arapaho girl was ready to direct taunting scorn at him for the least mistake.

  "Going to be a rough ride for awhile," he warned as he took up the reins and kicked at the brake lever.

  Nalin took a firm grip on the handrail at the side and on the backrest of the seat as she nod­ded shortly and then replied: "I have learned to expect nothing more from you!"

  She had to shout the final few words, to make herself heard above the yelling voice of Edge and then the din of the mules and the wagon lunging into motion. And as she did so, she frowned darkly at him, misinterpreting the reason for the grin that was suddenly fixed to his lean features. Thinking he was enjoying her pain and fear as revenge for some barbed com­ment she had made and to which he had not previously responded. Whereas he was expres­sing his pleasure the way in which the mules obeyed his demands.

  He had made an educated guess that they would. After being confined within the house on the far side of the river for so long, they had shown themselves eager for exercise and free­dom during the few minutes it had taken to harness them to the buckboard and drive them onto the ferry. But mules being the obstinate natured animals they were—maybe as volatile in temperament as women . . .

  The mules started forward like two quarter-horses trained for sprint racing. Off the bow of the grounded raft and into the shallow water of the inlet. To drop perhaps two feet to the sur­face and another foot to the muddy bed be­neath. When they snorted and flailed in terror of the unexpected—and sought to bolt clear of the unfamiliar.

  The buckboard went off the bow and the girl screamed, as terrified as the mules, when her handhold on the backrest was torn free at the sudden forward tilt of the rig. And she would have been thrown off the wagon and into the water—perhaps to be crushed into the bed of the inlet by a wheel—had not Edge flung out his right arm to clasp her around the waist.

  The rear wheels of the rig came clear of the bow to crash down into the inlet amid an explo­sion of spray. And the backwash acted to speed the progress of the ferry out into the river, the raft having become free of the bottom when it was relieved of the buckboard's weight.

  While the mules, not liking the sucking soft­ness of the mud struggled to the limit of their strength to get clear. Urged on additionally by the snarling voice of the half-breed who knew that, if they stalled, the wheels of the wagon were likely to sink deeply into the mud and remain firmly stuck there. But this was a potential danger for just a few stretched sec­onds before the animals and then the wagon were thudding and jolting across a rock strewn pebble shore, shedding water but fully out of it. And, as with the ferry raft earlier, Edge abandoned his attempts to keep the mules moving to concentrate upon steering them. Which was not easy, since high timber in back of the riverside stand of willows blocked out the moon and the panicked mules were for a long time deaf to his voice and unresponsive to the reins as they raced blindly over the danger­ously darkness-clad ground. Seemingly, it was easy to be certain of, hauling the buckboard along a course that caused its wheels to find every hollow, bump and loose obstacle between the timber on the left and the bluff that had suddenly loomed to the right.

  But at least he had both hands on the reins now, having completely encircled Nalin with his right arm to achieve this, so that her slender body was held tight against him. And he could hear her venting more words in her own language. But whether she was cursing him—or the circumstances—or was pleading to her God for deliverance he had neither the op­portunity nor the inclination to decide. The rig pitched and rolled, jerked and jolted and if it did not cant too far and tip over there was a danger of a wheel collapsing. Directly ahead was just a dark unknown and since the bolting mules refused to be halted by the dictates of the man with the reins, all he could do was keep them racing into the unknown. Which could be no more dangerous than the trees to one side and the rock face on the other. While he waited for a sudden collision or for the failing strength of the mules to slow the headlong pace and bring it to a gentle halt.

  And it was the latter alternative that ruled. Signaled by a stumble by the animal on the right that could well have led to a crash had the mule not righted himself. And Edge gave the team a free rein, but used the brake—cautious­ly applying and releasing the blocks against the wheelrims to increase the burden of the tiring animals.

 
The clatter and thud and creak of the high speed run gradually became less to the accom­paniment of the regular shriek of the brakes. And then the reduction in the pace could be seen as well as heard. The man and the girl be­came suddenly aware of each other again—Nalin to pull away from Edge's embrace and he to release her without a struggle. They felt the sodden wetness of their clothing from the spray when the wagon had hit the water. Ex­perienced, too, the tackier moisture of sweat both beneath their clothing and on their ex­posed faces as it was suddenly chilled and dried. The buckboard was just seconds away from rolling to a halt behind the sweat lather­ed, snorting and trembling mules. And the man and the girl were able to look about them­selves. To recognize that they were in a ravine with a cliff to either side, but the bluff to the east hidden for most of its length by a band of pine. Ahead, the way was no more veiled by darkness. For the ground began to rise, the trees to the left as tall as ever but the facing cliff losing height, toward a moonlit area where the ravine ended.

  The rig came to a standstill and the heavy breathing and the snorts of the exhausted mules were the only sounds to disturb the peace of the night for stretched seconds. Before Edge leaned to the side and spat. And Nalin asked tensely:

  "Something in your mouth taste bad, white eyes?"

  "Never known fear to taste good."

  "It is a fool who is never afraid," she allowed, less strained but not ingratiating in her atti­tude.

  "It also ain't smart to go without food and rest unless you have to."

  "I do not think I can eat. But to be still on the ground and not on something that is mov­ing—I would have no objection."

  There was ample kindling and fuel for a fire in the timber and an ample supply of water for coffee and cooking at the river. But when the fire was burning steadily, emanating pleasing warmth to keep the increasing chill of the night at bay, Edge elected to use the spring water from his canteens rather than make the more than a mile round trip to the river. And within an hour of hitching the mules as the first act of making camp, he and the Arapaho girl were sharing a mug of coffee and the smell of boiling salt meat was wafting appetizingly out of the cooking pot.

  There had been no talk while Nalin remained up on the seat of the buckboard, huddled in the blanket, and Edge undertook all the chores. But the silence was not a strained one although the half-breed—sound in health and as sure in the circumstances as he could be that he was in command of his own destiny—was undemonstratively more contented than the Indian girl who tried not always with success to hide her pain and weakness.

  When she handed him back the mug after taking a second drink of the coffee, it was she who spoke first, to end a period in which he had always signaled a query and she had either nodded or shaken her head. She said evenly:

  "Yellow Shirt and the braves came to the south, Edge. When they left the rest of us at the camp beside the spring. But they were far to the west of the trail."

  "They left no word with you when they'd come back?"

  "The females in our culture are not made privy to … Oh, I see what you mean. Not me personally?"

  "Whichever," he said as he struck a match on the Colt butt to light a fresh rolled cigarette and extended the mug of coffee toward her again.

  She accepted the coffee with a nod, drank some of it and gave it back. "The elders were told and I think some of the squaws found out what was said. But I knew nothing. Although I am a full blood Arapaho who has never been guilty of breaking the laws of my nation, I am never trusted as I would be had I not been raised for so long as a white eyes by the Harts." She shrugged, her wound momentarily forgotten but then winced as it was painfully recalled.

  "I don't carry medical supplies, Nalin," Edge said. "If you want me to, I'll bathe it for you. Maybe that'll ease the pain. Maybe needs to be cleaned anyway. Help to keep it from getting infected."

  The girl was briefly perturbed that he had seen her react to the stab of pain. Then was intrigued and eyed him levelly as she tried to decide if she was right or wrong about this man's strangely unfamiliar demeanor. And when, as he finished talking and leaned forward to stir the contents of the cooking pot, she reached the conclusion she was correct. The at­tention he gave to the food was an excuse to avert his eyes, but he should have looked away from her a moment earlier. Before she saw that he was uncomfortably embarrassed. Which was a state of mind, she felt sure, he did not experience often.

  "It is all right, white eyes," she said softly and smiled her understanding at him as he con­tinued to give his attention to the good smell­ing contents of the cooking pot. "After so much rough riding, my wound does not pain me so badly as it might, I think. Just when I forget it and move too suddenly. So it is not poisoned, I am sure."

  She released her grip on the blanket at her throat and looked down at the bullet holed breast partially revealed by the razor cut shirt. But made sure that, if Edge glanced at her, he could not see her body in the flickering light of the fire—shielded herself with the blanket.

  "It looks okay, as well as feeling okay?" he asked and when she wrapped the blanket around her body again she saw that he was looking at her through the drifting smoke of his slightly moving cigarette. "Sometimes when a wound doesn't hurt it can be a bad sign."

  She nodded her agreement with this and needed to make an effort to remain unsmiling at the half-breed's continued discomfiture. "Yes. But it is not so with me. I am young, and I think that young flesh is quicker to heal than old."

  "Yeah," he answered. Cleared his throat and offered: "You want some more coffee?"

  She nodded and felt free to smile now as he refilled the mug from the pot and handed it to her, signaling with a hand gesture that he wanted no more before the meal. And she said: "I think I will have some food, too. I was not hungry at first, but the smell of what is cook­ing has changed that."

  "That's good," he replied absently and another vocal silence fell between them. Edge seeming somehow relieved by it while the Ara­paho girl appeared eager to end it. But came to the point of speaking several times, only to check the impulse—like she felt it important to raise the right subject or could not determine just how to broach the subject she had in mind. Until the half-breed offered her the first serv­ing of food on their only plate, and she waved for him to eat it while she finished the coffee. When, as soon as he had tossed away his cigar­ette and taken a first mouthful of meat, she opened:

  "I must thank you, white . . . Edge."

  She had begun to peer across the top of the steaming mug into the fire. Now shot a side­long glance at him and saw the tacit query in the glinting slits of his ice cold eyes as he chewed at his food with no show of relish.

  "Not just for bringing me with you," she went on, returning her dark-eyed gaze to the fire. "But for taking such good care of me as well. And for not taking ... for not using me as . . . that disgusting old man would have."

  Nalin eyed Edge again at the sound of him swallowing the food. And was in time to see him shake his head before he answered:

  "If there was any need to thank me, it'd be just for bringing you with me. The rest of it wouldn't have applied if I hadn't done that."

  Now she shook her head to deny what he was saying. Said vehemently as she continued to look at him: "I was a fool. I did not know how badly I was injured when I told you I wanted to remain with my dead people. Perhaps to die from being shot. Or to be killed by some other white man who found me—who was more like the boatman than you." She shrugged with just one shoulder, favoring her left side and not wincing. "Perhaps to be found and protected by the braves on their return. If they have not had trouble with the white eyes and do return. And if they think it worth their while to be bur­dened with one squaw who many do not look upon as true Arapaho."

  "Yellow Shirt and his band are looking for trouble, Nalin?" Edge asked.

  And the girl was mildly irritated to be side­tracked off the line she had taken so long to start out on. But this lasted just a moment and she spoke with feel
ing when she replied: "It was not meant to be so, Edge. When our land was taken from us by force, the elders say to the sub-chiefs that they should try to live on the reservation as the soldiers tell them. But the land was not good for our ways. Every Ara­paho knows of this, but few have the will to escape what is little more than a prison for those whose only crime is to be Indian."

  She glanced at Edge again, and saw that he was eating, still without enthusiasm for the food. And suspected, with a grimace, that he also lacked interest in the root problems of her people.

  "You asked me," she said accusingly.

  "I know," he replied evenly.

  She paused to collect her thoughts and drank some coffee while she did so. Then went on: "Yellow Shirt would have gone alone. But many wished to join him. Braves and squaws, some with their children, and elders. Like those who were murdered at the camp by the source of the river."

  She peered long and hard into the heart of the fire beneath the cooking pot. Her face and frame in profile totally unmoving, as if she was holding her breath while she recalled the merci­less slaughter. Until she was startled out of her private world of remembered horror, by Edge moving into her line of sight—to ladle food from the pot to the plate, which he handed to her.

  "Thank you," she said.

  "You're welcome. Watch it, it's hot."

  "There were too many followers of Yellow Shirt. This is a big country, but all the time more and more people—white eyes—come to claim it and build on it and fence it. We did not seek trouble. But white eyes who see so many Indians are frightened into making trouble for us. They fire their guns before they talk. And we Arapaho are a proud nation, Edge. We must meet force with force. But all the time we lose more people until Yellow Shirt has just thirty warrior braves and those of us he leaves at the camp beside the source of the river."

  There was a deep sadness on her face and in her voice as she shook her head slowly and de­fended: "We came looking for a part of this land where we might live as our people before us lived. We did not want to fight the white eyes to get this, but they forced us to fight them. And now it is said in many places along the ways we have come that Yellow Shirt and his band of Arapaho are renegades, thieves and murderers of innocent white eyes." She sighed and gazed levelly at the half-breed. "So the answer, in truth, is no to your question. Yellow Shirt does not look for trouble, but in looking for what he seeks for those who follow him he is certain he will find it." Then a wan smile paid a brief visit to her beautiful young face as she spooned up a piece of meat and admitted: "Which wasn't at all what I started out to tell you, Edge. But it was you who asked about Yellow Shirt. Perhaps because you think it un­manly to talk of what I had it in mind to say?"