Ride the River (1983) s-5

by Louis L'Amour

  He turned on Dorian. "That Sackett girl? Is she sweet on you?"

  Well! There was an answer I strained my ears to hear. "Her? Of course not. She's never thought of me that way."

  Little did he know!

  "Travelin' through the woods together?" Sardust scoffed. "Who'd believe that?"

  "I would," Archie said. "She's a lady."

  Bless him!

  Somebody added fuel to the fire and brought out a coffeepot. Some of this I could see; the rest I could surmise.

  They moved suddenly and disarmed both men, then sat them down against a log.

  At the foot of a stump, in a hollow under the roots, I cached my carpetbag, leaving the Doune pistol in it. I kept my rifle and the pistol with the sawed-off barrel. I worked around through the trees and listened, watching. If they made a move to harm either of those men, I was going to go to shooting, no matter what it cost me.

  "When daylight comes," Horst said, "we will find her tracks. No use to go off half-cocked. She can't move fast in those skirts, and you can bet she's not far away. No matter what they say, I think she's sweet on Chantry here."

  "You had better think about him," Elmer said suddenly. "If anything happens to him, old Finian Chantry will never let up. He'll track down every one of us."

  "What I want to know," one of the men said, "is what screamed?"

  "Panther, more'n likely. I've heard they have a funny cry, like a woman's."

  "That didn't sound like no woman I ever heard," Sardust said.

  "There was a man roamed this country years back, an' Injun hunter name of Lew Wetzel. He had a cry like that. Like a ghost in the woods, he was, and could run like a wolf."

  "That's been years ago," another man protested.

  They drank coffee and munched on some hard biscuits and meat. My stomach growled, a most unladylike sound. I sat down where I could watch their camp and kept my rifle where it could be used. There was a little blood on the sight. I wiped it off.

  Several of them stretched out to sleep, but not Patton Sardust. "When killin' time comes around," he said to Horst, "I want him." He pointed a middle finger at Dorian.

  "Who will help you?" Dorian said. "You couldn't do it alone."

  Sardust grinned, showing some broken teeth. "We'll see about that." He drew his knife. "Right across the throat, ear to ear, with this."

  The mutter of their voices lowered as several men slept, and I could no longer hear. Felix Horst sat with his back against a tree, staring at Chantry, but he was listening, too, so I did not move.

  Dead tired, I sat watching their camp, wondering what I could do to get them free, what I could do to fight back without endangering them, and me so tired I could scarcely lift a hand. With the coming of daylight they'd be fanning out in the woods, and I could not avoid them all. Daylight would be a killing time. I could see it coming.

  Suppose that weird cry had been Mordecai? But how could he know about me? Maybe it was a painter, a panther, that is. Or maybe it was Mordecai just a-travelin'? I didn't know those Clinch Mountain Sacketts, although we were surely in their part of the country.

  Worst of it was, if anything happened to me, my folks would never get that money, and the Good Lord knew they needed it!

  What could I do? Whatcould I do?

  It would be growing light soon and those men would be after me, yet I dared not run away into the woods for fear of what they might do to Dorian and Archie.

  Maybe if I just went to shooting, those boys could make a break for it? But what would their chances be of gettin' into the woods without being shot? Mighty slim.

  I didn't even know rightly where I was, or whether I was still in the state of Virginia or had crossed into Tennessee. I knew the direction I had to travel if I got away. For that matter, I could dig up my carpetbag and head off down the country and maybe get away, but I'd be leaving them in the lurch and I couldn't do it.

  Day was coming and I'd better get set to make my fight. Maybe I was only a girl, but I was a dead shot and I could nail one of them and maybe reload before they got to me. I could get one, and when they rushed me, I could get another with the pistol, and then they'd have me. And I had no doubt what would happen then, me bein' a girl and them the kind of men they were.

  I was scared for Dorian and Archie, and I was scared for me.

  Elmer got up and walked to the fire. He taken up the pot and started to fill his cup. I could see Horst and Oats and three others, one of them the sick man whom I'd hurt. Something jumped inside me.

  Where were the others?

  Had I dozed? Had they slipped out of camp? Were they coming for me now?

  Something stirred in the brush and I came up fast and they were on me, two of them, a long, slim dirty man with a scraggly beard, and a younger one, grinning at me. Too late for the rifle. As the long thin one grabbed at me, my hand went into that slit pocket in my skirt, and I said, "Who is first?"

  He hesitated just for a moment, caught by my words, and I let him have seven inches of blade right in the middle of him.

  He let out a gasp and his face turned kind of greenish white and I shoved him free and taken a long, swinging swipe with my blade at the second one. He jumped back, then picked up an arm-long branch and swung it at me. It missed, but he was coming on in when I heard a yell from camp, then a shot and a crashing in the timber.

  "Get them, dammit!Kill them!"

  Guns exploded, but that young one was coming at me with that club.

  Then somebody was running up on us and he turned sharp around to see, and it was Dorian who came in swinging a fist. The fellow with the club drew back for a swing, but Dorian, just like he'd fought somebody with a club before, went right into him, slugging him on the jaw, and then, as the fellow went down, Dorian grabbed me. "Come on!" he said, and I grabbed up my rifle and we ran.

  We ran into the deeper woods. We heard guns firing, and one bullet knocked bark from a tree close by, spattering us with fragments.

  We ran, we fell down, scrambled up, ran some more. In a dense growth of trees, all tall, towering yellow poplar, we pulled up, gasping.

  "You all right?" he asked.

  "I am. You?"

  "I guess," he said. "What happened to Archie?"

  He was asking himself more than me, because I wouldn't know. All was suddenly still. Not a sound in the forest. We weren't scot-free by any means, and we knew it. I had my rifle in my hands and somehow he had come up with one, evidently one that had belonged to one of the two men who attacked me.

  "That other man?" Dorian whispered. "What happened to him?"

  "He must've run into something," I said. "It wasn't quite light yet."

  "I've got to go back for Archie," he whispered.

  "You stay out. He knows a sight more about woods fighting than you do. Maybe he got away."

  He was restless, but he waited. "We saw a chance," he said, "and made a run for it."

  "You done right," I said.

  They would be coming for us soon. He looked over at me. I was crouched down behind the trunk of a big sycamore partly shielded by a limb that was almost as large as the trunk, all mottled kind of gray and yellow.

  Resting my rifle, I studied the brush and the trees, looking for a target. They had not located us yet, but they would. There were large trees all around, most of them yellow poplar.

  We'd been shot with luck. Undoubtedly back there I'd closed my eyes for a moment and those men had slipped out of camp and closed in on me. Then the boys had made their break.

  "We've got to shorten the odds," I said. "We've got to cut down a few of them."

  "I've never killed a man," he said.

  "Neither have I, but these here don't seem to be leaving us much choice." I paused a moment. "That money may not seem like a lot to you, but it is a change of life for we-uns back in the hills. It can make things easier for Ma and can ease things for all of us. I came down from the hills to get what was rightly mine and don't intend for it to be taken from me."


  Something moved out there, and my rifle came up, resting on that thick branch. Dorian, he slipped a mite further away to take another stand.

  Nothing stirred; then something did. Taken me a minute to realize what I had sighted. It was a knee.

  The man was well hidden by a slanting log, but he'd drawn up his knee and exposed it. He was sixty yards off and the light was bad but better than that on many a wild goose I'd killed for meat. I taken a bead and squeezed off my shot. The rifle leaped in my hands and that knee disappeared. Only there was a red splotch of blood on the leaves.

  "You hit something?" he whispered.

  Me, I was reloading. "I never shoot unless I do," I said. "I don't like to miss."

  He just looked at me, and I figured: Echo, you're doin' what Regal warned you against. So I said, "His knee was out there, so I tried. He's one they'll have to carry back."

  "I wish I knew what happened to Archie."

  "So do I, but I think we'd better fetch ourselves out of here before they surround us." I got up. "Let's go."

  We eased out of those trees and found a game trail angling down through the woods. We taken it careful, keeping low and heading as near to south as we could, south and west.

  "Only way we can help Archie," I said, "is to stay alive. If he isn't dead already, they will try to keep him alive and sell him. We'll find him then and see he's freed, if I have to bring all the Sacketts down from the hills."

  "How many are there? Of the Sacketts, I mean?"

  "Nobody rightly knows, but even one Sackett is quite a few."

  We walked along the creekbed, which was scarcely ankle-deep, then crossed to the other side and went into a stand of slender trees. After a bit, finding a place where we could remain hidden yet see all that approached us, we sat down to rest.

  We had come several miles, and neither of us was up to further travel, and we were hungry.

  "You catch some sleep," Dorian said. "I'll watch."

  For a moment there my eyes were open, and then they were closed and I slept and dreamed, all sorts of wild dreams. It was dark when he shook me awake.

  "It will have to be you," he said. "I can't keep my eyes open longer."

  Sitting up, I drew my rifle across my lap. It was dark and we could see nothing but the shadows and the stars. In the moment his eyes closed, I heard that scream, that same wild cry, rising and falling weirdly.

  Dorian opened his eyes. "There it is again!" he whispered. "What can it be?"

  "Sleep," I said. "All's well here. You just rest."

  I didn't like to even think how hungry I was, but what worried me most was that cry. It was nearer this time, and it sounded like the cry of a hunter - hunting what or who, I did not know.

  "You sleep," I said aloud. "I'll keep watch."

  Yet my eyes were heavy. It was hard to stay awake.

  Chapter 20

  Patton Sardust squatted on his heels, rifle in hand, and studied the country below him and to the north. It had been some time since he had hunted this part of the country, but that should be the North Fork of the Clinch down there, and over beyond it, the Sinks.

  Felix Horst stood beside him, also staring at the country below. He was hoping for smoke, yet doubted they would be so foolish as to build a fire.

  "We been underratin' that girl," Sardust said. "We've got to settle down to trackin', movin' in slow an' easy."

  "I don't want that black man killed," Horst said. "He's worth an easy thousand dollars if he's in good health."

  "How much is she carryin'?" Sardust asked.

  Felix Horst knew, but it was not something he cared to tell. Elmer knew, and so did Timothy Oats. That was already two too many.

  "She's carryin'," he said, "enough to make it worthwhile. "

  "I think she's cached it," Elmer said.

  Horst looked around irritably. "Now, why would she do that? She's on her way home."

  "I caught a glimpse of her yonder in the trees. She didn't seem to be carrying a carpetbag. She had a rifle - "

  "What's a woman doin' with a rifle?" Collins asked.

  "She's a mountain girl," Sardust replied. "They grow up with rifles. Chances are she can shoot."

  "Somebody can," Elmer said. "Baker's knee is busted and he's in bad shape. We've got to get him to a doctor."

  "You get him there," Horst replied, his tone sharp. "I want that girl and her money."

  "You got three men laid up," Elmer insisted, "and I think she done it all. One man knifed, one with his face bashed in, and Baker's knee shot away. I think - "

  Horst turned angrily. "Close your trap! I know you're White's man, but any more talk like that and you get out of here! Do you get that?"

  "It ain't going to be easy getting those men out of here," Elmer said, and then he added, "if you intend to."

  For a moment there was silence, a cold, dead, heavy silence. Elmer involuntarily took a step back, but Horst ignored him.

  "You're the best tracker," he said to Sardust. "Can you find them?"

  "As long as she stays with him, we've got a chance. Those boots of his leave tracks, and he's no woodsman. She's easy on her feet and she's light anyway, so she leaves mighty little to see. Also, she's canny where she puts her feet."

  Oats had been quiet until now. "Suppose Elmer's right and she's cached the money? Maybe we're chasin' her for nothing."

  "I want her," Horst said. "She needs to be taught a lesson."

  "Who does that pay off?" Oats objected. "I want the money."

  "So do we all," Horst replied. He turned to Elmer. "Where was she when you saw her without the carpetbag?"

  "It was just before Baker got shot. I saw her clear, but she was gone before I could get my rifle up. She did not have the carpetbag."

  "Then she's cached it," Sardust said. "We can backtrack her right to where it is."

  Horst did not like it, but he kept his mouth shut. He wanted her and he wanted the money and he wanted it all for himself, yet if she had cached it ...

  Well, when it came to that, he thought he was as good at reading sign as Sardust. In his years along the Trace, he had learned a lot. He had no intention of sharing what he found with any of them, and that included James White.

  "Elmer," Horst said, "those wounded men need care. You stay in camp and do whatever you can. Patch up that knee and put a splint on it. We can get him down to the river and float him down to a town.

  "Meanwhile, we'll scout around. They haven't gone far."

  Oats avoided Elmer's eyes. Elmer did not like it, but he knew better than to cross Felix Horst. He had already said too much. Yet he did not like it out here in the woods and he did not know a thing about wounds or wounded men. He had an idea all three were worse off than anybody admitted; Elmer also had a good idea that Horst intended to abandon them, and maybe him. He should have kept still about her not having the carpetbag. Then he could have looked for it himself.

  "I scouted around some," Sardust said, "and I think I know where they're at. Let's go get 'em."

  When they were gone, Elmer added grounds to the coffee on the fire and dug around in his pack for some cold biscuits.

  Baker looked over at him. "You goin' to patch up my knee?"

  "I'll try. I'm not much good at such things."

  "Get a splint on it and some kind of bandage. If you can get me down to the creek, we can float down and I won't have to walk, which I can't do anyway."

  Gingerly Elmer went to work. He cut away the pants leg a little more and removed the crude bandage. The sight of the smashed knee made him sick and he started to retch. Baker swore at him. "Shut up, damn you! You only got to look at it, I got to live with it."

  With a spare shirt from Baker's small pack he bandaged the wound, then rigged splints to keep it stiff. Baker was suffering considerable pain, but it showed only in his eyes or an occasional catch of the breath.

  "You get me out of this, young feller, an' my kinfolk will make it up to you. Just get me down to the river."

  He fill
ed a cup for Baker and then went to where Harry lay stretched out. Harry had been stabbed, a thrust from low down, driven sharply up. The knife had just cleared his belt and had gone in under the ribs.

  Harry stared at him as Elmer checked the wound. He knew nothing about such things, and although the slit was inflamed, there wasn't much blood this time. There had been quite a bit when they first got to him.

  "She was such a little thing," Harry muttered, "I didn't figure..." His voice trailed off into nothing, and he closed his eyes.

  Joe lay on his back, both eyes blacked and swollen shut, a great lump where his brows should be and his nose broken. She or somebody had hit him with a rifle butt, and he looked awful. There was nothing Elmer could do, and he went back to the fire and filled his cup.

  He had to get out of here. If he stayed, Horst would kill him. Horst didn't care about these men, either. They were thieves or river roughs hired on for the job.

  Suppose, just suppose he could find the carpetbag? Then he could get out of here and leave them all. He could go back to Philadelphia ...

  Maybe not. White would be after him for explanations. Maybe Pittsburgh, or even New York. New York? With money in his pocket ...

  He closed his eyes and tried to think of where they had been and how she must have moved. From time to time there had been glimpses of her. She'd still had the bag when she clobbered Joe, so she must have hidden it close by.

  Elmer thought it all out, trying to remember how Harry had gone out to catch her and where that fight had taken place. She must have been close by, perhaps within a few hundred yards.

  He sipped his coffee and thought it through, trying to remember the various places he had seen out there. In among the trees there wasn't much brush, although there were fallen logs, branches, occasional clumps of some brush he did not recognize. Some places under the trees were bare and could be eliminated. After all, the area was not that large, and he should be able to find it.

  He got to his feet. Baker had dropped off to sleep, and only Harry was aware. When he started to move away, Harry said, "You comin' back?"