by Gary Paulsen
He pulled his rifle in closer, added wood to the fire, rolled his blanket over to make a cocoon and within minutes was fast asleep.
“Ahh, see here, Dubs, what fate has provided for us …,” a deep, professorial-sounding voice boomed.
It was a dream, Francis was sure of it. It simply wasn't possible that a human voice could be speaking and for a full hve seconds he refused to open his eyes and lose the relaxing comfort of sleep.
“Come now, lad. Don't be lazy. We have business afoot. Wake up.”
Francis opened his eyes.
At first it didn't matter. The sun was full up and when his lids opened the brightness blinded him.
He blinked, let his eyes adjust, turned away from the sun and opened them again.
He was staring at the dead fire, or more accurately across the fire. There was a man sitting, squatting back on his haunches. He looked old to Francis, over forty, and was so heavily bearded Francis could not see his face for the hair.
But the clothing was more startling. The man was short, almost fat, and dressed in a black suit including a black vest, black boots, black trousers and black frock coat, and a full top hat on his head.
“See, Dubs, the lad awakens.” The man smiled—his teeth broken and jagged; a bit of tobacco juice oozed out the side of the lip into the beard and the lines around his black eyes did not match the smile.
Francis slid his hand toward the rifle. Or where the rifle had been. He could not find it.
“Sec, Dubs, even now he reaches for his weapon. A true child of the frontier.” The man spoke to somebody else—Francis couldn't see anybody at first—but kept looking at Francis. The smile widened. Like a snake getting ready to hiss. A hair snake. “I have your rifle—and a nice piece it is, too.”
“What … who are you?” Francis at last found words. “What are you doing here?”
“Exactly!” The man nodded, waved a filthy finger. “That's exactly what I said, wasn't it, Dubs— when we came upon the lad, didn't I say just that? We came over the hill at dawn and I saw you sleeping there and saw your horse and I turned to Dubs and whispered—so as not to disturb your slumbers—and I said: Who is this, and what is he doing here?”
Francis sat up, or tried to. Something heavy, like warm iron, descended on his head and shoulders and pressed him back down. He swiveled his head back and saw that he was looking at a giant—a true giant. It was a man in crude buckskins, so large he seemed to blot out the sun, and Francis saw that the giant had put a hand down to keep him on the blanket.
“Dubs,” the man across the fire said by way of introduction. “Isn't he something? There are some who have questioned his humanity, thinking he was of another species—men, I should hasten to add, who are not with us any longer, Dubs having sent them to the nether regions—but I do not question him. I am grateful that he is my partner, my right hand. He is Dubs. I am Courtweiler, although most call me simply Court. And you?”
Francis stared at him. Part of his mind was still trying to awaken and part of him was trying to accept that apparently these men meant to harm him. If they had been friendly they would not have taken his rifle. He realized that what had bothered him last night was his acting like an amateur, a greenhorn. He should have placed his bedroll well away from the fire, hidden so he would have time to react if enemies came. Stupid. Well, nothing for it now. He had to buy time, time to think, time to come up with a plan. “Francis,” he said. “My name is Francis.”
“Ahh—a proper name, that. Francis. I would have liked to have been named Francis but my ancestors came into it and I had to take the family name. Courtweiler isn't bad, but Francis—now that's a name, isn't it, Dubs?”
Francis looked up again and if the giant was listening at all he gave no indication. He held Francis down with one hand while staring out across the prairie.
“It was a stroke of good fortune coming upon you this way,” Courtweiler added. “For us, that is. Not so good for you.”
“What do you mean?” Francis looked at his rifle, which was across the fire on the ground leaning against Courtweiler's leg while he squatted. He couldn't reach it. And his possibles bag and knife were somewhere in back of him—he'd never get to them before Dubs landed on him.
“I mean, Francis, that we have a specific need for just about everything you have. Our equipment has run into the ground and we aren't halfway to that golden coast we aspire to. I'm afraid we're going to have to relieve you of your belongings.”
“My belongings?”
Courtweiler nodded. “Exactly. Gun, horse, saddle—essentially everything. I think I could even fit into that buckskin shirt.”
“My clothes, too?”
“Except your pants. I think we'll leave those in the interests of propriety. But everything else. And I don't want you to think I'm ungrateful. Indeed, if you will turn and look,” he made a sign to Dubs, who stepped back and let Francis rise, “you will see that I am in desperate straits indeed. Even my mule suffers.”
Francis rose to his knees and looked to the rear where an old mule, so skinny its ribs stuck out inches, stood with its head hanging nearly to the ground. On its back was a blanket worn until there were holes through it, no saddle, and instead of a bridle a loop went around the lower jaw. The miracle, Francis thought, was that the mule had gotten this far.
“You see what I mean.” Courtweiler pointed to the mule. “Dubs prefers to go afoot, and by the third day will outrun a horse. Hut given as I am to more intellectual pursuits and less of the physical I need to ride. And so wc must have your horse.”
“I have kin,” Francis said. “Just over that rise. They'll be looking for me …”
Courtweiler shook his head. “Dissembling won't help, my boy. We came from there. There are no people there, no tracks, nothing. I do not know how you arrived here but let me assure you, there is nobody close to help you.”
“I'll The if you leave me here with nothing.”
Courtweiler sighed. “Indeed. There is that possibility. Still, life on the frontier is very hard and we must expect these little setbacks and somehow muddle on, don't you agree? Now, please take off that shirt before I have to ask Dubs to assist you …”
Francis hesitated, saw Dubs move and decided not to anger the huge man. He shrugged out of his shirt, felt the morning coolness on his skin.
“Off the blanket, please.”
Francis moved from the blanket and Dubs snaked it off the ground and rolled it up in one fluid motion and stood again, still, waiting.
“And now. Francis, as fruitful as it has been to meet you, I'm afraid we must be off …”
Dubs had already caught the mare—Francis could not believe they had done all this without awakening him—and they saddled her, left the mule standing and rode off. Courtweiler holding Francis's rifle across his lap as they rode away, headed west while Francis sat next to a dead buffalo, a nearly dtad mule, and watched them go.
For a time Francis stood in a kind of shock. He could still see them when they were a mile away, heading toward the tail end of the buffalo herd, and then two miles, small dots on the prairie.
My life, he thought. I'm watching my life leave. For that time he couldn't, or wouldn't, think. He knew there were bad men in some of the wagon trains, had heard that some of them were kicked out of the trains and he thought Courtweiler and Dubs might be two of those men. Perhaps they had stolen, or worse, and been forced to leave.
It didn't matter. Francis shook his head to clear his thinking. What mattered was that he was in the middle of God knew where, did not have any sure idea of which way to go to find the wagon train he had left the day before, was nearly naked with no weapons and no tools, and his life, his horse and rifle and all thar he needed to live, was riding over a rise two miles away. That was what mattered.
As he thought, Dubs and Courtweiler vanished, hidden by the land, and Francis looked around, half expecting somebody to step forward and say it was a joke, or to help him.
There was nobo
dy and he frowned, thinking. There was an answer here somewhere, something they had said, or Courtweiler had said. What was it?
Was it about Dubs? Dubs didn't use a horse. He just trotted alongside, moving forward in a step shuffle—he looked almost exactly like a bear moving—and he easily kept up with the mare.
Something about the horse, some comment. What was it? Oh yes, by the third day he could outrun a horse. Wasn't that it? Francis looked north again. He guessed that north was the direction he'd have to walk—twenty miles or more—to find the wagon train. But it was only a guess. If the buffalo herd had turned in the dust while they ran—and he had no idea if they had or not—he would be wrong and miss the train. If he missed the tram he would almost certainly die—unless he ran into Indians who would help him. The problem was that some of the Indians might not help him.
Three days, he thought again. And there it was—the answer. If that big ox could outrun a horse in three days Francis should be able to do it in two. Wearing nothing but moccasins and leather leggings he should be able to do it in one.
He should be able to keep up with them. That was the answer. He would follow them and wait, hang back where they couldn't see him and watch and wait and maybe, when they slept, he could turn it around—do what they had done to him.
He shrugged, loosened his legs from days of riding and when he turned he saw the mule. For half a second he thought of trying it, riding the mule bareback until he played out and went down. But the animal was too far gone—looked our on his feet—and Francis shook his head.
“Sorry, mule—you'll have to stay alone.” The wolves would come for him, Francis knew. It was pure luck they hadn't found the dead buffalo yet. Coyotes had come during the night but not the wolves—huge, gray, slab-sided beasts that followed the herds of buffalo to get the old and sick and young. They would make short work of the mule and Francis felt sorry for it; to have come this far just to get torn apart by wolves seemed a cruel fate.
But again he shook his head. His own situation wasn't much better. He'd never heard of wolves attacking men but he would have felt much more comfortable about it if he'd had a rifle or even a knife.
“Enough …”
He started off, following the mare's tracks in a shuffle that approximated Dubs's—his toes in, feet almost not leaving the ground.
There was still morning coolness, but the sun was well up and felt warm on his back, and inside of fifteen minutes he was covered with sweat. He watched the tracks moving through the torn ground where the buffalo had gone, fixed on them and kept up the pace for an hour—he figured maybe five miles—when he breasted a rounded rise and could see out ahead again for several miles.
He stopped, catching his breath, and squinted, trying to see ahead as far as possible. For a full minute he stood, could see nothing except small stands of buffalo—two here, three there—and then way off, so small it seemed like bits of dust on his eyes, he saw them. He thought he might have gained—he guessed them to be three miles away— and it was unmistakably the mare with Courtweiler on top and Dubs trotting alongside.
“Good …” He took another deep breath and was just ready to step off into the shuffle again when he heard a sound to his rear and turned to see the mule standing there, its head down, eating grass.
“You followed me?”
The mule twitched one ear but kept eating and Francis shook his head. He'd heard that mules were tougher than horses, but this was an old mule and it didn't seem possible that it could have stayed with him, or that it would want to.
“Well, it's good to have company …”
He set off again in the easy trot and when he looked over his shoulder he saw the mule take one last bite, raise its head and start off, moving in a shambling, fast walk-trot that easily kept up with Francis.
He must be made of iron, Francis thought. Iron and leather.
He thought of slowing some—he didn't want to catch up to them enough for them to know he was following and the mule, which stood taller than Francis, would show from a long way. But he figured he would slow naturally as the day went on and he didn't want to fall far enough back to lose them.
So he kept the same pace, trotting along. Another hour passed and he saw them again, estimated that he hadn't gained and from then on there was nothing but running.
At first he grew tired. At midday when the sun was overhead, it seemed that he would drop. He was viciously thirsty and it would have stopped him —sweating without water—but he found a small spring on the side of a mud buffalo wallow and he drank enough to slake his thirst. It restored his energy and picked him up enough that the ache in his legs and thighs turned to a dull burn and then, finally, disappeared entirely.
By midaftcrnoon he felt as if he could run forever. The exhaustion had gone, was replaced by a lifting of spirits that almost made him happy—or as happy as a half-naked, unarmed man in the middle of the wilderness can be.
The mule was still with him, shambling along, and as evening approached he found another spring and drank and the mule drank with him, next to him, and Francis realized that he'd told the truth earlier; it was nice to have company, even if it was just a mule.
A very old, very tough mule. And as it turned out, a very dangerous mule. Just before dark Francis stopped. He felt sure Courtweilcr and Dubs would camp for the night and he didn't want to run up to them. As soon as he stopped the wolves found them. It was not a full pack, just three young ones. But they were still dangerous, at least to the mule, and there was little Francis could do. They came in on the mule, who stood, his ears laid back and his head down. Francis threw rocks at them but they merely growled and didn't run and grew bolder with each moment and one of them, the largest, finally had enough of waiting and went for the mule's rear end.
It was his last act on earth.
Francis had never seen anything like it. The mule raised one back hoof when the wolf made his move—Francis thought later it was like cocking a rifle—and kicked so hard and fast Francis couldn't see it move. One instant the wolf was making an attack and the next the whole front of his head was caved in and he hit the ground a full ten feet back, absolutely stone dead. He didn't even twitch.
The other wolves saw it happen; one of them went over to the dead wolf and smelled the body, then looked at the mule, shook himself, and the two trotted off into the evening.
Francis watched them go and smiled at the mule. “Well, if I can't have a rifle or knife you're the next best thing—like a cannon.”
He stood close to the mule. In the evening the heat of the day was going fast and he had perspired all day. A chill came into him and he found that by standing against the mule while it ate he felt warmer, and listening to the mule pull grass and chew somehow made it more peaceful, protected, and let him think on his next move.
It would be dark soon. He didn't know how close he might be to them, or even if they were going to stop for the night—although he somehow couldn't see them traveling hard—but he thought they might be fairly close. A mile or less.
Just before the wolves had come he had moved to the top of a low knoll and scanned ahead. A mile to the west there was a streambed thick with low trees running along its side, and if it were his choice he would camp there where there was wood for fire and water for the horse.
He leaned against the mule—which was still, and Francis guessed would forever be eating—and absorbed the warmth from the bony shoulder and waited.
Finally, when it was pitch-dark he left the mule and climbed the knoll again, looked in the direction of the streambed. For a second there was nothing. Then he saw it.
A flicker, then, when his eyes locked on it he could see the full glow of a campfire.
He had found them.
Now all he had to do was wait.
It was a wonderful dream. He had dreamt many times since Braid had taken him from the wagon train and he had trapped with Jason Grimes, most often of his parents. Some of them were nightmares, some were happy. But this one
was best of all.
He dreamt about beans. His mother had a large pot of beans on the stove and she had put a ham hock in them so the fat and taste went into the beans and it had cooked to perfection, and his mother had ladled some into a bowl and put a chunk of butter on top and was handing it to him, just handing it to him …
His eyes opened.
He had no real way to tell time but there was a sliver of a moon and it had risen to halfway across the sky. He guessed that half the night was gone and if they were ever going to sleep they would be by now.
Francis had been sitting on a rock dozing and he rose, stretched, rubbed his arms and set off in the dark. The day's run had worn a hole in his right moccasin and it kept scooping dirt which he shook out periodically. When he stopped to shake his moccasin the third time he turned and saw that the mule was with him.
It is one thing to sneak into camp and try to steal my stuff back alone, he thought, looking at the mule. It is something else again to do it with a whole mule walking in back of me.
There was a very real danger. If the mare smeiled the mule she might whicker or whinny and the sound would awaken the two men. If they were asleep. If he could get close enough. If. If.
He couldn't stop the mule if it wanted to follow him and he finally decided to chance it. He would need luck but the way it was going he would need all the luck in the world anyway. He might as well push it.
He turned and trotted off again, sensed rather than heard the mule following him, clumping along.
Things looked dramatically different in the dark. Twice he saw coyotes, once a single wolf that moved off into the darkness, and several times he passed buffalo. A ratdesnake buzzed as he passed, but it was well away from his path and stopped as soon as he was by. The streambed didn't show at all at first, and then when he thought he would never get to it he was suddenly in the trees and low brush that grew along the watercourse.
He stopped, listening, but could hear only the sound of the mule eating in back of him. The mule ate every time he stopped, had been eating all day every chance it got, but the sound wasn't loud and after a moment he moved on.
