The Highbinders

by F. M. Parker

  The black horse shifted his rump toward the wind and humped his back against the wet onslaught. He did not move from beside his master.

  The cold deepened and the intensity of the rain increased as the core of the storm arrived. The frigid moisture swiftly soaked the wool blanket encasing the body of Tom Galaway. Icy rivulets washed over his bloody face and saturated his clothing. He became immersed in a chilling bath.

  The battered brain within the bullet-damaged skull sensed the sudden shock of the cold. It drew back from where it hovered on the shadowy border beyond which was death.

  With the awakening of the brain, Tom felt the pain. Oh God! The pain! His skull was broken open and someone was pouring molten lead into it. His body trembled with the intensity of the agony and his arms and legs jerked spasmodically against the blanket.

  Tom became conscious lying in a black arctic winter. What was happening? Why was it happening to him?

  A terrifying thought—Was he dying?

  The mind reached out through the pain to test the remainder of the body and found the heart flickering erratically. And the lungs moving feebly, almost undetectably, on the verge of ceasing to beat.

  The brain struggled to override the damage done by the grievous wound. It ordered the body to live.

  The heart gathered strength and the blood warmed and increased its sluggish pace through the arteries. The lungs arched and sucked at the damp air.

  Something was wound tightly about his body holding him imprisoned. Tom tried to force the obstacle away. The effort almost snuffed out the light of his awakening as the pain soared, screeching to a crescendo, searing every nerve ending.

  Tom held himself still. As the body quieted, the agony lessened to merely torture. Slowly he felt of the thing that trapped him.

  His hand found an opening and extended out into the driving rain. He pulled the edges of the blanket apart, exposing himself from the waist up to the storm.

  The strike of the falling raindrops was hammer blows upon his maimed head. His hands rose to try and hold them off. He sat up weakly, bracing himself against the muddy ground.

  All about lay a murky darkness. Thunder shook the earth. All objects were indistinct, distorted. Some large object was standing on his right.

  He worked his feet free and rolled slowly to his knees. The movement caused his gorge to rise and he heaved, trying to vomit. The muscles surrounding his empty stomach contracted, trying desperately to void the cavity. He strained with one dry heave after another. The anguish in his head surged. Maybe it was better to die.

  He laughed like a madman at the thought. He was already dead and this was hell. But then this was too awful even for hell.

  Something touched the side of his face and he thrust out a hand defensively. The hairy muzzle of a horse met his outstretched fingers.

  Tom peered questioningly at the animal. “Sorry, old fellow, there’s something wrong with my eyes. Come a little closer so I can see you better. Do I know you?”

  The horse nickered and lowered his head to nuzzle the side of the young man’s face.

  Tom began to shiver with the cold and drew the blanket up over his head and shoulders. The sodden covering partially shielded him from the rain.

  An urgent thought, colder than the storm, ran along his spine. He knew he should not be sitting there, but rather riding swiftly away. Which direction should he go? Where to? Would the horse know?

  Tom struggled to his feet. He gathered up the reins and leaned limply on the horse. He would never be able to climb up on the tall back. Somehow the thought of having a horse he could not mount was crazily funny and he began to laugh wildly into the growing din of the storm.

  He ceased his laughter to lick at the rainwater cascading down his face and wet his dry throat. He stripped off the soaked blanket and laid it across the horse’s neck. His hands found the saddle horn and his foot went into the stirrup, and he hung there, unable to complete the task.

  The insistent clamor of warning that he must escape this place charged his body with a feeble strength. He fought the sodden weight of his body up into the saddle.

  “Go. You know the way,” Tom ordered the horse.

  The mount raised his head, listening for a more definite order or the touch of the reins that would tell him what to do. The man waited for the animal to move out.

  “Go,” Tom ordered the horse and pressed his heels in its ribs. “Go in any direction. We cannot stay here.”

  The faithful mount stepped forward, going north along a winding stream channel rapidly filling with a speeding, muddy maelstrom. With each hoof fall of the animal, the outlaw groaned as the sickening pain beat against the walls of his skull.

  CHAPTER 2

  The thunderstorm rumbled its way off the badlands to the northeast. The torrential rain slackened and the trailing winds whisked away. The muddy rush of water in the arroyos began to slacken their wild flows.

  The sheriff peered out from the cliff into the Honeycombs, made dark and dismal by the wetness. “The storm is heading for the Snake River country.”

  “Gumert, look! The body is gone,” cried Basker.

  “I’ll be damned!” exclaimed Gumert.

  “The ground is sloping toward the grave. Do you suppose the water could have washed him in?”

  “Hardly likely,” grunted Gumert.

  “The black horse is gone, too. Are you sure he was dead?”

  “He was dead. I couldn’t feel any heartbeat or breath. Plenty peculiar. I’ll go take a look.”

  “Help me, Gumert. I want to go down there with you.”

  “You shouldn’t use that broke leg at all.”

  “Just help me and let me worry about the leg.”

  “All right. Lean on me as much as you need to.”

  Gumert crawled from beneath the rock ledge and lifted Basker up. With the sheriff supporting most of the injured man’s weight, the two waded the sloppy mud, and drew near the excavation.

  “The grave’s full of muddy water,” said Basker.

  Gumert scanned the land beyond the water-filled hole. His gray horse and the pack animal stood nearby, wet coats plastered to their bodies and still dribbling drops of water from the long hairs on their bellies. There was no sign on the ground that the black horse or the outlaw had ever existed.

  The sheriff ranged his sight over the rocky hills and flooding arroyos. , I thought you were dead, but it appears you were not. Somewhere out there in a piece of the meanest country in the whole godforsaken world and with your head cracked open by my big rifle bullet, you’re trying to escape. I wouldn’t wager a grain of sand for your chances of survival.

  Gumert mulled his knowledge of the badlands. A man could go north and by crossing two low divides from one watershed to another, reach the junction of the Owyhee River with the larger Snake River. That was a distance of twenty miles or better. A straighter, shorter course to get out of the badlands was to go west. Garrity should be somewhere on that route and had a good opportunity to recapture the man. The lava flow lay south and east. No man and horse could navigate that tumble of rocks and crevices in such a storm as had just occurred.

  ‘Fellow, what ever your name, I think you’re going to die. However, you did help Basker. For that, I will give you your chance at leaving this place.”

  “Basker, let me set you down there on the ground so I can use the shovel. I want to bury him.”

  “You think he’s in the grave under that water?”

  “I know he’s in there,” said Gumert as he lowered Basker down. He looked directly into the deputy’s eyes. “Don’t you know it, too?”

  Basker stared steadily back and replied in a strong voice. “I’m positive about him being in the grave. Fill it up and tamp down the dirt.”

  * * *

  The black horse carried its injured rider late into the night. Beneath a moonless sky, the desert stars hung bright and hard and close to the earth. As the constellations wheeled westerly, the warmth of the day leaked a
way and a crisp cold settled upon the badlands.

  Near midnight the horse left the muddy path of the storm and came down from the gloomy hills of the Honeycombs. The tired animal halted at the narrow point of land where the swift current of the Owyhee River rushed out from its deep canyon at the base of Freezeout Mountain and joined the slower flow of the broad Snake River.

  Tom climbed weakly down from the back of the horse. He moved tenderly to prevent jarring his maimed head and sharpening the intensity of the pain.

  He pulled the blanket from off the horse’s neck, and shivering with the cold, wrapped the wool covering about himself and sank down onto the sandy riverbank.

  For a few seconds, Tom held his pain and weariness at bay as he recalled past events. He had brought the injured lawman off the lava and left him where his comrades could find him. Then something had struck him, knocking him from the saddle, to send him tumbling and cartwheeling over the ground. Complete blackness had caught him like a thunderclap.

  He gingerly touched his sore head. A bullet wound, he guessed. He should not have turned aside to help the deputy, but the deed was done. Now he must escape the lawmen that pursued him.

  Tom’s grip on the world slipped away from him. The blackness of the night pushed into his broken skull. Partially unconscious and partially asleep, he lay beside the waters of the two rivers.

  The cayuse pointed his ears here and there and his eyes roamed about to examine the spit of land and the flows of the water lapping close on both sides. He heard the noise of the muted struggle as the powerful Snake River conquered the vigorous Owyhee.

  The wet sounds stirred the cayuse. Stepping carefully so as not to harm the man lying at his feet, the horse went to the edge of the water and slaked his thirst.

  The animal turned his attention to the sedges and grass growing on the damp bank. His hunger was deep and he began to crop the tasty reeds with his big teeth.

  The horse had grazed only a short way along the river when he caught the musky scent of mountain lion. He lifted his head and sucked in a slow breath, testing, measuring the nearness of his ancient enemy. His ears reached out for sound.

  The odor was diffused after drifting from the rock cliffs on the far side of the Owyhee. Even as the horse decided the swift current separated him from the big cat, the scent passed on with the breeze and could not be further detected.

  For several minutes, the wary mustang searched with his night-seeing eyes into the darkness lying dense on the river. Nothing stirred except the undulating waves of the water. The only odor was the smell of fresh water, and the wet sand, and the tantalizing grass.

  The horse grazed for a time and then returned to the man. The animal splayed his legs and rested while standing sentinel over his master.

  Pearl River Valley, Kwangtung Province, China—November 6, 1869

  Pak Ho, warrior captain in the Hung Society, completed his inspection of the palatial residence of Wu Ping Chin, a man who had become very rich as a merchant and now carried the title of Howqua. Pak’s eight warrior guards were awake and alert and all the family of the great Howqua was safe. Pak directed his steps down the slope of the hill toward the giant warehouses on the riverbank.

  He was tall for a Chinaman. His head was shaven bare for a full three inches in front and a long braid of hair, a queue, hung to his waist in the back. He, like all of the other men of the nation, wore their hair in this fashion, the fashion of the ruling Manchus, to show loyalty to these new conquerors.

  Pak moved soft-footed through the blackness of the night. He avoided the lantern-lit carriage lane and went along a steep, twisting footpath. He halted on the flat ground at the end of the first warehouse and listened into the darkness.

  There was no sound among the large wooden buildings or from the river beyond. Overhead, dense clouds skidded fast through the heavens, racing on the sky wind, while on the land no breeze stirred. Somehow that peculiar divergence of movement between the sky and the earth cast a feeling of discord over Pak. Was it an ill omen? Did it portend conflict to come? His strong hand felt the handle of the sharp sword on his side.

  With noiseless steps, Pak went beside one of the long warehouses and crossed the pier jutting out over the water. He stopped and stood silently near a thick post used for mooring the freighter junks.

  The pier was made of large pilings sunk deeply in the mud and sand of the river bottom and decked with wooden planks. The structure extended for two hundred yards along the bank of the river.

  During the daylight hours, a score of junks tied up beside the wharf. Their holds and decks would be laden with goods of a hundred varieties, ferried upriver from Lintin Island where the deep-drafted, ocean-going ships were required to anchor. Sweating laborers quickly unloaded the vessels. Then, reloaded with outbound cargo and sails full of wind, the junks raced away with the current.

  At Pak’s feet, the mighty Pearl River slid past in the night. He knew well its course that continued southeast to pass the city of Whampoa, then onward between Hong Kong and Macao, finally to empty its prodigious flow of water into the salty brine of the South China Sea.

  The oily surface of the river reflected a star as the cloud layer parted to expose a sliver of sky. As the surroundings brightened slightly, Pak turned and surveyed the hulking bulks of the three cavernous warehouses spaced along the wharf and extending back to the base of the hill. The buildings contained many fortunes of jade, tea, fur, silk, sandalwood, metal ores and a hundred other items stored and awaiting barter or sale to the foreign trading ships. All the goods were locked securely away behind stout doors.

  The speeding clouds healed the momentary tear. The sky vanished and blackness poured again upon the river and the hills.

  A mile distant the city of Canton glowed dimly beside the river. A tall, gray stone wall surrounded the older part of the city. That aged barrier had been built in some misty, half-forgotten time when only a village existed there. The population had grown generation by generation to spill beyond the wall to clutter the adjoining hillsides and spread far up the river.

  Pak was glad not to live in that place with its teeming throng of people and incredible maze of narrow, twisting streets. So much better to reside in the pleasant cottage in the woods near his men’s barracks behind the Howqua’s mansion.

  It was a great honor to have obtained a contract for his squad of forty-eight warriors to guard the personal safety and possessions of one of the richest merchants in Canton. Pak’s duty was to destroy quickly and skillfully any man who threatened the Howqua.

  In fact, Pak’s sole purpose in life was to deal violent death to others. Pak felt no fear of his own death. He had no hope of afterlife. Buddha promised nothing for him. Pak let his mind dwell on the gold and silver he received for his skill as a fighting man.

  The warrior on patrol moved along the pier, passing within ten feet of his captain. Pak caught the dimmest outline of the man carrying a rifle over his shoulder. Guns were against Pak’s personal code; however, he let his men use them. A strange paradox.

  Pak almost shouted out at the man to scold him for not detecting the intruder standing so near. But then he held himself in check, reluctant to break the stillness.

  Pak breathed deeply of the night air. He smelled the mud on the stream bank and the sour, stale odor of human waste on the water of the river. He turned away from that unpleasantness and drew in the pungent aroma of tea and sandalwood from the warehouses.

  A “scrambling dragon,” a trader’s junk, drifted by heading downriver under the shove of its one big sail. A large flaring torch on the bow lit the way over the dark water. The men dared run the river at night so they could be at the harbor mouth to meet the British and American schooners and clipper ships at first light. The junk rounded a bend in the stream and disappeared.

  Pak leaned against the mooring post and rested. Soon he would climb the hill and find his bed and sleep away the dreary hours remaining before the dawn broke.

  Pak came suddenl
y alert, cocking his head toward the river. It came again, the faintest riffle of water around the sculling oar of a boat. He had heard such water noises far too many times to ever be mistaken about its origin. Sounds came to him of the prow of a boat cutting a small wave, followed by a series of gurgles as the disturbed river water lapped along the side of the craft.

  Pak lifted the thick queue of his hair and coiled it on top of his head. With the short tassel of red silk that held the end of the braid from unraveling, he tied the mound of hair in place.

  He pulled his two-edged sword from its scabbard with a whisper of steel on leather. Unknown men approaching so silently in the dark meant trouble. Honest men would have a lantern or torch. Still it was possible that someone had gotten lost on the wide body of the Pearl and his light had burned out.

  “Watch out for the dock,” someone whispered a warning.

  The hull of the boat struck the pier with an audible thunk. A man cursed.

  “Tie the boat. Make no more noise,” whispered the same voice.

  “Are you sure we have the correct warehouse?” asked a second man.

  “I am certain. The lights on the hill are aligned perfectly. I know where we are.”

  Pak examined the lanterns of the Howqua’s home on the high ground and the line of them lighting the private lane down to the public road. For thieves coming off the river, they were a perfect beacon for marking location. The Howqua must do without his lights in the future. It would be a difficult task to convince him of that.

  “Keep your knife ready,” said the first man. “These guards move on no fixed patrol. They are fierce fighters. If one discovers us, we must kill him swiftly and silently.”

  The two men crossed the pier, moving directly toward the middle warehouse. Pak followed, trailing them not three body lengths behind in the darkness.

  Pak slowed and stopped. Let the thieves enter the warehouse, then trap and kill them there. In that way the questions of the authorities about the deaths would be easily answered.