Blood on the Hills

by Matt Chisholm

  Chapter Thirteen

  It took them nearly a day’s hard riding for them to be convinced that they were following the wrong trail.

  After first heading north-east, Marler had swung west and kept on going. At the rate he was traveling he should have caught up with Shawn. But he didn’t and neither did they. They reckoned Marler had lost his nerve and had no intention of rejoining Shawn. That sounded feasible. However, they were not sure.

  They almost turned back, then, totally discouraged, but they didn’t. Which was maybe just as well. There was an hour of daylight left and they decided to ride the day out on the chance that they might come up with him and extract from him what information he had. It so happened that they continued after dusk had come down on them and it was thus that from a ridge, they spotted a fire below them.

  They couldn’t be sure that it was Marler’s fire, but they agreed they should stalk it. And this they did, Indianing up on it from two directions with their rifles in their hands.

  They came on a man with a few days” growth of beard on his gaunt cheeks, cooking bacon and beans over the fire. They warned he would be dead if he moved and came out of the darkness to him. He looked sick and scared and Bret said this was the one all right. So they disarmed him and tied his hands behind his back. With him out of the way, they sat down and ate his bacon and beans. After that, they drank his coffee, ignoring him for the time being while he lay back against his saddle and watched them out of alarmed eyes.

  When they had eaten their fill and Bret had rolled a smoke, they sat in comfort and looked him over.

  Bret said: “My suggestion, Jode, is we take them horrible boots off his horrible feet and brand him a mite.”

  “Maybe we’ll come to that,” Jody conceded, “but first off, we’ll offer him a deal. You ready to do a deal, Marler?”

  The man said: “What kind of a deal?”

  “You give us some information an’ you lead us to Shawn.”

  The man thought about that.

  Finally, he said: “What do I get out of it?”

  “You tell us what we want to know and you lead us so we can see Shawn an’ we forget you ever existed,” Jody told him.

  That called for some more thought on Marler’s part. Jody sounding so reasonable, some of the fear began to leave him. Just the same, he was a very worried man. Jody’s suggestion could get him killed. Shawn wasn’t a man easy to betray. On the other hand, these two had him with his hands bound behind his back. They looked like they meant business, too.

  “How do I know you’ll keep the bargain?” he demanded not unreasonably.

  “I gave you my word,” Jody said.

  “That’s somethin’ big is it?”

  Jody said: “Where I come from a man lives on his reputation. My pa, my whole family, we just give our word. Nobody never asked for a signed paper.”

  “It don’t cost nothin’ sayin’ a thing like that. I never heard of you.”

  “I’m Jody Storm. My pa’s Will Storm of Three Creeks. Lazy S brand.”

  “I heard of your folks.”

  Bret looked at Jody. He’d heard of the Storms too. Maybe having a family wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

  “You nephew to Mart Storm?” the man asked.

  “Yes.”

  The man thought some more. For a fellow who had placed himself in a dangerous position, he gave a lot of time to thinking. If he’d done some right thinking at the right time he wouldn’t be here now.

  “All right,” he said. “Minute we locate Shawn, I ride.”

  “Keno,” said Jody. “Now some information.”

  The man looked suspicious.

  “Such as?”

  “I want to know the set-up in town,” Jody said. “What’s between Shafter and Shawn for a start?”

  “I don’t know nothin’ like that,” the man said. “I’m a gun-fighter. They don’t tell me a thing. Shawn always said the less us fightin’ men know the better. Then we can’t talk.”

  That sounded reasonable to Jody. He thought the man was telling the truth.

  “But Shafter an’ Shawn work together?”

  “You could put it like that,” the man agreed. “It ain’t no secret.”

  “You mean Shafter’s the boss? He organizes?”

  Marler gave a snort of disgust.

  “Naw. Shafter’s a front. Shawn’s the boss. But I don’t know no more’n that. You’d waste your time askin’.”

  Jody looked at Bret. The man could be intending to lead them into a trap, but that was a risk they had to take. As a first precaution, they decided to move camp for the night. They caught up Marler’s horse and tied him in the saddle before moving a mile to the south. They made cold camp and slept in turns. The following morning, having warned Marler they would kill him if he played them false, they put themselves in the man’s hands and followed his lead. He headed south-east, guiding his horse with his pinioned hands. Bret had a line between the prisoner’s horse and his own.

  As they rode, Jody asked Marler: “Where is this place we’re headed for?”

  “You wouldn’t find it in a month of Sundays, Storm,” Marler answered. “It’s well hid. Hell, you could ride past it without knowin’ it was there.”

  “What kind of a place?”

  “A real classy house. Nothin’ but the best for Shawn.” The man told him. “He takes the risks, he does the thinkin’, he takes the best pickin’s. He’s a big man, Shawn. You know the risk I’m takin’, doin’ this?”

  “I can guess. Just think about the risk you take if you don’t.”

  “I am. It’s playin’ hell with my guts.”

  “How long do we ride?”

  “A day. Come night, we’ll be there. I show you the place. You check Shawn’s there. One of you while the other watches me. Then I ride an’ I keep on ridin’. I reckon I won’t stop till I reach Montana or Canada.”

  “You got some sense,” Jody allowed.

  They pressed on through hilly country. Toward the end of the day they climbed and Marler led the way with great caution, knowing his life was forfeit if they were spotted. Which suited Jody and Bret. When dark came down suddenly, he went on, walking his horse unerringly through a tangle of rocks and brush. At last, about two hours after dark, he stopped.

  “Now we walk,” he said. “There’s guards posted and they could hear the horses.”

  They dismounted and untied the prisoner’s feet from under the horse’s belly. They drew their rifles from their sheaths and filled their pockets with shells.

  Jody said: “Go ahead, Marler. Just keep it in your head my nerves is playin’ hell with me. You make a wrong move an’ you won’t never see Montana.”

  “You don’t have to tell me that,” Marler assured him.

  They went forward on foot with Bret holding a rawhide rope attached to Marler’s wrists. They covered a difficult half-mile before Marler started up a steep ridgeside that gave him a lot of trouble on account of his bound wrists. When they reached the top of the ridge, he turned abruptly right and moved with great care along the crest of it. Below them, trees appeared in the starlight. They covered another fifty or so yards and Marler stopped.

  “Down yonder,” he said. “You see them lights?”

  They looked and they saw them.

  “This is it?” Bret said.

  “Shawn’s down there,” Marler told him.

  “AH right,” Jody said, “take a weight off your feet, Bret, an’ keep that fire-stick pointed at Mr. Marler here, I’ll go take a look-see.”

  “Keno,” said Bret. “Lie face down, Marler. Don’t do nothin’ an’ don’t say nothin’.”

  Marler did as he was ordered.

  “Three owl-hoots as I come back in,” Jody said. “You shoot me an’ I won’t never talk to you again.”

  He heard Bret’s chuckle. There was a little shake in it, but he reckoned Bret would do. He headed down the ridge toward the lights. He was wearing his Ute moccasins and moved as silent as an Ind
ian. Joe had taught him how to move at night and he had taught him well.

  Almost at once, he lost sight of the lights of the house, but he had the direction fixed firmly in his mind. The great danger now was from guards. He should have asked Marler more about the guards.

  He came to another ridge and started up it and then he knew he should have found out more about the guards for sure. If the fellow above him hadn’t dropped the butt of his rifle on stone, he would have climbed right up the barrel of that same rifle. He froze and listened for a while, then, not hearing anything more from above, he moved off to the north, rounded the ridge and headed for the house again. He wondered if there would be more guards between himself and the house. But he doubted it.

  Though there were no more guards there was a dog, but fortunately he heard the animal before it got scent of him and, as luck would have it, at the same moment, he came on water. It was a small stream no more than a few inches deep. He walked along this, stopping every now and then to hear the animal prowling through the undergrowth, The thought of the creature made him sweat. However, the bed of the stream took him nearer the house and it wasn’t long before he saw the lights again.

  The stream curved here and he could no longer follow it, so he climbed onto dry land and found himself working his way through trees. It was good ground for his purpose and the going was silent except for one occasion when he stepped on a dry twig which snapped with a noise that sounded to him as loud as a pistol shot. He froze for several minutes after this, but nothing happened.

  He went on.

  He came to the edge of the trees, looked across an open space to a low crumpling adobe wall and there, around twenty or thirty paces beyond was the house. Two bright patches of light threw shafts of brightness into the night. A gallery ran around the lower part of the house, roofed with tile.

  Jody bellied across the open ground, reached the low wall and slipped over it. Here was a Mexican can with two massive wheels. Crouching for a moment here, he looked and listened, then bellied across the open yard to the side of the house, laid his rifle down and shinned up an upright of the gallery, reached the roof and pulled himself up to it. Why he knew that Shawn was in the upper room he was never sure, but he just knew. This time of night, the man would be in his own room.

  He wormed his way along the narrow roof of the gallery and came to the lighted window. He could afford no more than a quick look inside, for he dare not show himself for long against the light in case some watcher outside spotted him.

  He found himself looking into a bedroom.

  He caught his breath and almost fell off the roof.

  He was staring at a naked girl.

  Raven hair covered her shoulders and the tops of her perfect breasts. The remainder of her was so marvelous that, for a moment, Jody forgot the reason for his being there and the danger he was in. She was smiling at somebody out of sight. Stepping from the small pile of clothes at her feet, she pirouetted, so that Jody and the invisible person could see all the aspects of her person. Jody was fascinated.

  He was brought abruptly to himself when he heard a man say in Spanish, very bad Spanish: “Come here, little one. I grow impatient.”

  “Do you like me?”

  “I could eat you.”

  She laughed—“That is not what was intended.” She ran toward the corner of the room out of Jody’s sight.

  He sank down to the roof and leaned his back against the wall.

  Phew! he thought. The prisoner ate a hearty breakfast. This one was having a midnight feast before he was taken. The villains seemed to get all the luck.

  One thing was sure—Shawn was in this house. It was his voice Jody had heard.

  He crawled back along the roof, feeling the pain in his knees from the edges of the tiles. Sliding down the upright, he picked up his rifle and made his way to the cart. Pausing there, he heard music coming from the lower part of the house. From the sound of it, he knew there were Mexicans in there.

  Slipping over the low wall, he crawled to the trees and rose to his feet. Before he knew what was happening, he heard a low growl, a blood-curdling snarl and the dog was on him.

  It must have been as big as a full-grown wolf. It landed on Jody at chest height and Jody went over backward, dropping his rifle and landing so hard that the wind was knocked out of him. At once, the animal was at his throat. Jody rolled, covering his throat with his arms. He felt the sharp fangs rip into his shoulder.

  He reached down.

  Inside his head he heard the advice: No gun. The dog hasn’t barked. The alarm hasn’t been given yet.

  He rolled again and the dog followed him, teeth in his clothing. Jody pulled back his right leg, got foot purchase against the animal and kicked it clear. Growling and snarling ferociously, the animal whirled and came in from another direction. Jody kicked again and the animal sank its teeth into his leg. Jody kicked it free with the other foot and then he had his knife out.

  The dog seemed to know what a knife was. It stopped, stood stiff and menacing, a prolonged snarl trembling its upper lip. Then the growl started as it crouched for the leap. The warning was plain. As it launched itself, Jody side-stepped and drove the knife home. The animal yelped loudly then, stumbled and fell when it landed, scrambled to its feet and charged again. It was an instinctive action with no force in it. Jody caught it by the scruff of the neck and killed it.

  As it lay quivering at his feet, he knew regret. The animal had died for its loyalty to man, blindly.

  Jody knew he had been scared and a sort of shame came over him. He cleaned his knife in the ground, sheathed it and searched around for his rifle. When he found it, he stayed still and listened, frightened that the alarm had been raised.

  He thought he was safe when he heard the guard on the ridge calling. Working his way through the trees, stopping and listening every few paces, he heard the man coming down off the ridge, calling to the dog. Jody located the voice and centered on it. He met the man on the edge of the trees and shoved the rifle in his face.

  “Still,” he said.

  The man didn’t have to be explained to. He had been in this situation before. He knew the form. Dropping his rifle, he raised his hands above his head.

  “Turn around.”

  The man obeyed. Jody searched him quickly for weapons, found a belt-gun and knife and tossed them away.

  “Walk ahead of me up the ridge.”

  They walked. Jody remembered just in time to give the three owl hoots. Bret replied and they scrambled up.

  “Tie this one up,” Jody said.

  The guard stared at Marler in the starlight.

  “So you did this,” he said.

  Marler said: “They would of killed me.”

  “You’re as good as dead,” the guard said.

  Bret tied the man’s hands behind his back, kicked his feet from under him and tied his ankles to his hands. Then he gagged him.

  “Well,” Marler asked. “Was Shawn there?”

  “He was there all right.”

  “Do I get to ridin’? You keepin’ your word?”

  “I gave it.”

  “I don’t have a gun.”

  “That’s right, you don’t. It stays that way.”

  “A man can’t travel this kind of country without a gun,” the man said.

  “That’s your problem,” Jody told him. “Hell, you’re lucky I ain’t takin’ you in. Now get outa here before I change my mind.”

  Bret cut the man’s hands free. “I’d best walk him back to the horses or he’ll take ours. You stay right here an’ I’ll be back.”

  “Make it quick,” Jody said. “We don’t have all the time in the world.”

  The wait seemed interminably long. Jody had almost given Bret up when the cowhand came panting up the ridge.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  They made their way off the ridge and Jody led the way through the trees. When they came within sight of the house, he stopped and said: “This is as far as
you go.”

  “You ain’t goin’ in there alone,” Bret said.

  “I need backin’,” Jody told him. “Anythin’ goes wrong you come on the run. Hear?”

  “I don’t think…”

  “What you think ain’t no-never-mind,” Jody said. “Do like I say.” He thought he had given a fair imitation of Froud. Bret seemed to take it.

  “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “Shawn’s in the upper room with a girl,” Jody told him. “There’s men playin’ music in that lower room. You hear shootin’, you open up on that window. That should take their minds off me.”

  “Keno.”

  Jody patted Bret on the shoulder in a fatherly way and crawled out of the cover of the trees. He reached the wall, went over it and paused under the high cart.

  Now he rose to his feet, worked his way carefully around to the other side of the house and found a door. This was fastened by a simple latch. He lifted it with great care, opened the door a fraction and peered inside.

  He could see a crack of light in front of him coming from a door open a few inches and could not judge the distance. Slipping inside the door, he quickly closed it behind him and stayed still, listening. He could hear nothing but the music coming from the room ahead of him.

  There must be stairs somewhere around here. He closed his eyes for a few seconds to accustom them to the intense dark, but when he opened them he still could make nothing out. He found a match and struck it, holding the flame high. He saw the stairs at once to his left. Dropping the match at once, he headed for them, found them and started up. They creaked a little, but he thought the music drowned most of the sound. His heart seemed to thud in time to the music. His mouth and lips were dry. When he tried to swallow, he could only do so with the greatest difficulty.

  Jode, boy, he told himself, you’re scared plumb silly.

  He heard a sound.

  He could hear it plain above the noise of the music. A horse was approaching the front of the house on the run.

  He heard a voice screaming: “Shawn! ... Shawn!”

  God Almighty, he thought, that’s Marler.