Con Vallian disappeared into the trees, parallel to the way they had come.
"His father must have been a well-educated man," Susanna commented, when he had gone.
Susanna knelt beside the fire, stirring a little broth made from jerky. Their only utensil was Con's cup. A cool wind fluttered the leaves, and moaned softly in the pines. Tom came in with an armful of wood for the fire. "It's getting dark out there," he said. "Pa? Will bears come up to a fire?"
"I don't think so, son. Most animals are afraid of fire, and afraid of the man-smell."
Susanna glanced at him. "Did you hear something, Tom?"
The boy shrugged. "You always hear things in the woods. There's always some kind of a sound out there. Mr. Vallian says you have to listen for the usual sounds until your ears only pick out the unusual. I am not very good at that yet."
The flames fluttered. Susanna glanced over at her husband. He was quiet now, his eyes closed, but still awake. He must be in pain, but he showed none of it. Suddenly she was very proud of him. But she was frightened, too. There was no telling when Vallian would ride off again, and they were alone in the woods, and Duncan was hurt. It would be days ... perhaps several weeks ... before he could ride again, or even walk.
"Tom? Keep Pa's rifle close by. I have the shotgun."
"I wonder if they took our powder and lead? We'll need it, Ma. I didn't figure on being out more than an hour or two."
"Have you got much?"
"Not more than eight or ten charges for the rifle, and I don't think Pa has more loads than he's carrying in the pistol."
Con Vallian moved along the edge of the woods, testing each step as he put the foot down for fear of a fallen branch. He favored moccasins for woods work, and usually carried some, but his last had worn out and he'd not gotten a squaw to make a new pair for him. Those Injuns yonder on the plains. They would have done it. They were good folks ... unless you met them on a war party.
When he was well away from even the smallest sounds of the camp he paused and began to sift the night-movements with his ears. A branch rubbing against another, leaves rustling, something, a bird or squirrel or rabbit, maybe, rustling a nest into the leaves. He listened and decided all was well here, but then he moved on, walking on cat feet.
The stars were out but clouds were scattered. There was a high wind tonight. He was up wind of their camp, testing for smoke. There was none.
That did not mean there was no cause to worry. The Shabbitt outfit might be very close and lying quiet. He looked back toward the camp, but could see nothing. The place was hidden, and approaching it would be difficult because of the enormous number of fallen trees from the blowdown. New trees had grown up, some of them towering up to forty to fifty feet, but the old trunks lay in a maze. Even by daylight a horseman could not penetrate that barrier, nor could a man on foot move with any speed.
Gloomily, he stared down the long meadow, gray in the starlight. Something moved down there.
A vague movement ... bear, maybe.
He stood still, waiting. Duncan McKaskel ought to go back to that cabin. That was a right nice place ... water close by, and meadows for cattle. There were beaver in those ponds and where there was beaver there were fish, and all manner of wild life. Elk favored aspens, and there were aspens aplenty around that cabin.
No more movement down there ... the wind was from him toward the lower end of the meadow and if it was a bear or elk they had his scent by now.
Why was he here, anyway? What did he want with those eastern folks? They were no kin. He hadn't never seen them until he drank their coffee that morning ... it was good coffee, all right.
He looked away from the end of the meadow, letting the corner of his eyes hold sight of it. The corners of the eyes were sometimes better for locating movement.
Yes ... there was something down there. Maybe fifty yards off ... no, it would be further. His ears caught no sound but whatever was down there was coming closer.
His clothing was neutral in color, his body would fade into the trees behind him, so he waited. His fingers went to the Bowie. It was a good weapon at night, and a shot might bring that whole outfit down on him. Anyway, it might be an animal ... only he no longer believed that.
He waited, unmoving yet prepared. Whoever approached was coming along as silently as he himself had moved. Was it the Huron? Con crouched low, trying to hear any slightest movement in the grass, remembering his father's stories of the Iroquois, deadly enemy of the Huron Indians, and how they had decimated the Iroquois in the battles that followed the arrival of the French.
Con Vallian listened straining all his attention to hear. He had met the Huron only once, and had nearly lost his life. But this time—
There was a whisper of feet in the grass, a sudden rush from the night, starlight on a blade.
He threw himself to one side and felt the cold steel of the blade as it grazed him. His rifle in his left hand, he hit low and hard and up with the blade. It struck, something ripped and then he was hit hard on the shoulder. He rolled back, throwing up his feet to catch the Huron as he dove at him. His feet churned, smashing hard into his attacker's face, and then he was up, swinging his rifle with both hands.
It hit nothing but empty air. He dropped, groping for his fallen knife, and then he moved swiftly, silently off to his left, holding the rifle before him like a sword to guard off a sudden attack. Again the rush of feet. He dropped to his knees and the Huron spilled over him. He thrust hard with his knife again and again ... nothing.
Dammit, where was the man? Even as the thought flickered in his consciousness, a shadow loomed before him, striking his rifle aside, lunging at him again.
Vallian struck the side of the attacker's head with his fist. He felt the Huron stagger under the blow. He struck again, but the Indian was gone. Crouching, gasping for breath, Vallian waited, every sense alert, for the next attack.
He waited, then slowly straightened up.
All was still. Overhead were the stars in a vast and empty sky. The wind stirred the grass and the aspen leaves whispered mysterious sounds. Slowly his breathing slowed. The Huron—and it had surely been he—was gone.
Dropping to one knee he felt for his rifle and found it, then got up slowly.
"Damn!" he whispered softly. "Dammit to Hell!"
For the first time in his life he wanted to kill a man, and for the first time in a long while, he knew he was afraid.
Chapter XV
When Con Vallian moved off into the night, Susanna listened to the faint sounds that lasted only as long as there was a shadow of him, and then they stilled. He was gone.
Duncan had finished his broth, and fallen asleep. Once, when he started to move, he moaned softly, and she felt fear go through her like a chill.
What if he had been injured internally? He had taken a bad fall, and would be relatively helpless for a time. What if she should be left alone here, with Tom?
It was a frightening thought. She was independent of mind but Duncan had always been there, as her father before him. Without him, in this wilderness, what could she do?
Her independence, she suddenly realized, had not in fact been independence at all, for she had depended on the law, on society, on all those things that gave her freedom and entitled her to respect. And out here there was none of that. Out here she was alone.
The firelight moved weird witch-shadows against the darkness, and a soft wind came through the leaves, fluttering the fire. Duncan muttered in his sleep, and she glanced to where Tom lay. He was also asleep, curled against the faint chill.
Susanna added sticks to the fire, then looked again to the shotgun. There were two shells in the barrels and she had two more in her pockets. It was little enough. They had left everything back at the cabin. What if it was destroyed? Duncan had only a little money.
She looked into the fire, loving the warmth and the hot coals that now lay in its bed. Fortunately there was no end of fuel.
Something stirred in th
e forest and she felt the skin prickle along the back of her neck. She glanced toward the shotgun. It was over there, out of reach ... how could she be such a fool? Con Vallian never moved without his rifle. It was almost an extension of himself, and now she knew why.
She straightened up from the fire, adding a few sticks, as she did so, then she drew her shoulders together as if experiencing a chill. She went to the blankets as if to pick up her coat. Instead she took up the shotgun and turned.
A man was standing at the edge of the firelight. It was the dark man in the buckskin jacket, the one who had been with the flat-nosed man at the cabin.
"How do you do?" she said quietly. "Is there something I can do for you?"
His eyes went from her to the man. "He is not well?"
"Yes, he has been hurt. A lion jumped on his horse. He was thrown."
"That was very clever ... with the shotgun."
"I am learning."
He laughed, suddenly, pleasantly. "Yes ... yes, I think you are."
"Who is he? That other man?"
"A friend. He has been very helpful."
The Huron came a step further. "Who is he? I must know."
There was a deep cut on the Huron's cheekbone, and his buckskin jacket had been slashed.
"Are you hurt? Your face seems to be cut."
"It is nothing. Tell me who he is."
"His name is Con Vallian."
"Ahh!" The sound was a sudden, sharp exhalation, startling in its intensity. "You tell him this for me, that next time I shall kill him."
"Why? Why should you kill him? Or anybody? Isn't that rather savage?"
He turned his attention to her. "I am a savage. I am the Huron."
"I do not think you are a savage. When you came to the cabin it was you who spoke for me. That man ... the other man. If you had not spoken there might have been trouble."
"Red Hyle would have killed him. He has spoken for you."
"He has? You may tell Mr. Hyle that I am married, happily married."
The Huron looked at her thoughtfully. "Hyle would kill him. He would kill your husband. Then he would take you."
"And you would let him?"
"Why not? What are you to me?"
"I am a woman. You are a gentleman."
For the first time there was a shadow of a smile on his face. "You are clever, to put that burden upon me, but ask anyone and they will tell you the Huron is a savage. Ask your friend."
"Mr. Vallian?" She indicated his face. "Did he do that?"
"It was our second meeting. I thought I had killed him the first time. I look forward to the third."
"He is a good man, Huron."
"I think so. But I will kill him. Nobody escapes the Huron twice."
Suddenly, he was gone.
She stood staring, then turned swiftly. Con Vallian was walking into camp. He paused, looking beyond her. "I thought I heard someone talking."
"It was the Huron."
"Here?" Vallian stared at her. "You were talking with him?"
"He speaks very well ... excellent English. I thought there was a shadow of French, but I cannot be sure."
"Well, I'll be damned."
"You had better eat, Mr. Vallian."
He glanced at McKaskel. "How is he?"
"In some pain, I think, but he is sleeping. I fed him some broth."
So the Huron had been here and knew their location. Would he bring the others? It was likely, but then one never could outguess the Huron.
"What are you thinking of?"
"That Injun ... next time we meet one of us will get killed. He moves like a ghost. Makes a man right uneasy, with him around. The first time he almost killed me."
He ate the food she gave him, yet there was a restlessness about him, an unease. Twice the Huron had come upon him unheard, something he believed no man could do. He got up suddenly. "We're going back."
"Back?"
"To your cabin. You had decided to stay there, and it is a good place. They may come back looking for you, and they may not, but there is a time to stop running, and the time is now, the place is there."
With help they got McKaskel into the saddle. Con Vallian led the way, not along the dim trail by which they had come, but up through the aspens, on a winding route among the trees. Suddenly they emerged on the slope of the mountain. Below them, bathed in moonlight now, lay a wide flat, a high, grassy plateau.
They crossed it at a gallop, then entered the trees once more, weaving among them through the filtered moonlight. The rain had softened the leaves under foot and their horses made little sound. When they came at last to the cabins it was upstream, from below. They were under the cottonwoods.
Near the house they saw their wagon, and Con stopped them. "I'll go up there," he said.
There was no way to approach the house under cover, so he walked his horse across the meadow to the cabin, watching the house and prepared for anything. Nothing happened.
The door swung on hinges, and nothing seemed disturbed. "Better get some sleep."
"We left the other mules in a corral." Tom pointed. "It's back there."
"You get some sleep. I'll have a look at them."
Susanna turned at the door. "You will stay? You will be here in the morning?"
"I'll stay."
He walked away, pausing only when he was in the blackness under the trees. He turned to glance around. It was a good place they had chosen.
He found the corral and it was what he had supposed. The original owner of the cabin had simply pulled deadfalls into place among the close-growing aspens to form a crude fence. Probably the little he had done had been done from horseback, simply swinging logs into a better position. Yet it permitted a nice bit of grass and grazing for the mules.
He had no idea how the showdown would come. Now that they knew he was here it might be approached more carefully, for they would know about Con Vallian.
But seven of them? Duncan McKaskel would be a help, and so would the others, but they'd be better off holed up in the cabin. For himself, he preferred to be outside. He had always believed in a war of movement, and was not given to occupying static positions.
Standing in the shadows near the cabin, he studied the layout. The approach from the creek could be covered by fire from the house, and so could the trail down from the bench. Except for the windows, nobody was going to get a bullet into that house ... well, the door was a risk, but a lesser one.
The dangerous area was near the bench where land broke off sharply and dropped away to the area of the beaver-dams. A rifleman, or several of them, could get close to the house from there and there would be no way to smoke them out.
Con Vallian looked from the bank across the beaver ponds and the naked tree trunks lying on the green and marshy ground. Beyond were the still pools where the beaver had gathered water.
It was a good place the McKaskels had chosen, rich with the quiet of trees and still water. Over there, just down the way a bit was the river, running pleasantly over the stones.
Once a man had been here, perhaps with a family. He had seen and loved this place and had built this cabin, and then somehow he had gone away. Had he tired of it? Had he fallen and died? Been killed by Indians or renegades? Did he lie buried in some mine tunnel only he himself knew? Or had he simply gone off to Cherry Creek, which people were beginning to call Denver, and never come back?
Susanna came out from the house. "Are you listening? Should I be quiet?"
He shrugged. "I was thinking that this is the best life, always the best I was thinking that cities are no place for men."
"You may be right, Mr. Vallian, but cities have much to offer. They have better educational advantages, and culture."
"Maybe. I wouldn't be knowin' about such things."
"Do you think they'll come tonight?"
"Doubt it. But I'll never try to outguess that Huron. He's a canny one, and the next time they come, ma'am, it'll be root hog or die, no two ways about it."
&nbs
p; VaUian pushed his hat back. "You're fresh out of the eastern lands, so get it straight in your minds. When they come back they'll be killin'. No matter if they say, 'you do this an' you'll get off scot-free', or 'do that an' we'll not harm your boy,' Ma'am, don't you believe them.
"When a man starts out to do violence there's only one way. You got to defend yourselves.
"Now these men. Purdy's a bad one, but he might give you a break. His brother Ike wouldn't even give Purdy a break, and neither would Red Hyle. Doc Shabbitt is mean, dirty, and a coward, but he'll kill you just as quick, an' the others gather someplace between."
"I ... I wanted a home out here, Mr. Vallian. I did not think I'd have to fight for it."
"No, ma'am, but you have to fight for most of the things worth havin' ... or somebody does."
Chapter XVI
For a time Con Vallian walked about, gathering sticks, hauling deadfalls closer to the house, building up a pile of wood for the fire. He had always enjoyed working with his hands. Moreover, he thought better while working.
There were seven tough men in Shabbitt's lot, as opposed to McKaskel and himself. Susanna and Tom would fire some, would load for them, and could be helpful, yet he had to find some way of shortening the odds.
He was not a man who wanted to kill, yet the men he had to face had no such compunctions. He doubted whether any of them actually liked to kill, unless it was Ike Mantle but the others did it just the same.
Aside from Hyle or Purdy Mantle, Con doubted whether any of them would stand up to a man in a fair fight. The trouble was, they could choose their time and their direction.
Con Vallian did not like the idea of fighting from a position, such as the cabin. He preferred to be outside, under the trees. He paused, straightening up and leaning on the thick branch he held in his hand. Slowly he surveyed the area.
They might be already out there, watching. But suppose they were not? Suppose instead of waiting inside the cabin for an attack, they waited outside?
The attackers could come across the stream, down from the bench, or they could come downstream. The only other route was across the beaver ponds. Possible, but difficult owing to the great number of fallen trees and the marshy ground.
The Quick And The Dead Page 10
