The Hunted

by Ralph Compton

  He also took care to keep his legs far enough apart that he kept what balance he could muster—too close and he could be knocked clean down by a rogue thrust of water. With each step Charlie felt sure he was about to topple downstream. He knew that if that happened, he had to aim his feet downstream, keep his arms above the water, and the back of his head upstream so that he might have a chance at breathing through the ordeal. He’d have to keep angling toward a bank, either side, and hope he didn’t take on too much water before he made it.

  Charlie glanced back once when he heard a raspy shout—his quick glance showed him that Everett, Rollie, Bo, and Shiner had arranged the wagon and lashed the rope to the tailgate, and each stood one behind the other, hands on the rope, ready to pull him back as soon as he muckled on to Norbert—if he could get to him in time.

  Charlie glanced back once more over his right shoulder and saw the two women, also at the shore but downstream. Both looked worried. The bigger girl held a hand to her face as if stopping herself from saying something. He thought maybe he caught a look in her eye that was softer than the ones she’d been sending his way all day. My word, but she’s not half bad, thought Charlie as his boot inched forward into a big hole in the river.

  The instant numbing pain stung him all over, like millions of tiny needles jabbing into him without letup, over and over. He wanted to scream, but his nose and mouth filled with river water, colder than ice. It froze his eyes into throbbing knots of gravel.

  Something tugged at him from behind and in a fraction of a second he felt convinced it was some great underwater creature snapping and tearing at him, unwilling to let him go. Was that what death felt like? Coming up hard on you like a fish on a worm?

  Charlie, you’re a fool, he told himself. So intense was the burning pain of the freezing water, he’d forgotten that a rope was tied around him and was probably being yanked by the men back on the shore.

  He thrashed and flailed and managed to drift downstream enough that he once again felt bottom beneath his boots. His arms swung up and broke the surface first, as if clearing a path for the near-solid water. Before his eyes, the flesh of his hands turned purple, the very color of a favor girl’s fancy dress.

  Where it had been a shallow, labored thing before, his breath now stuttered in and out with a freight-train speed that scared him. He was sure it would never again settle down. Having seen he had gained his feet, the men ashore stopped yanking the rope. For that he was grateful.

  Then, above the gush and roar of the water, so much louder in the river than from the bank, he heard a moaning that tapered off to a long, drawn-out whimper. To his left, not more than ten feet from him, he saw Norbert, as the man let go his feeble hold on the branch and slid into the icy, greenish flow.

  As Charlie dived forward, his teeth clacking together like seeds rattling in a gourd, he hoped the men onshore would give him slack enough to get to the man. It might already be too late. Norbert hadn’t drifted far, as the current here had slowed. It took Charlie two lunging dive moves forward to reach the man.

  Norbert floated facedown, as if he were trying to see something on the bottom through the murk. His long gray-black hair fanned around him, and a beaver-skinned stick had eddied and caught in his armpit. Charlie took one more hard step, felt sure he was not even moving since he couldn’t feel his limbs, and tried to grab Norbert’s waterlogged buckskin shirt. But his arm wouldn’t do what he asked of it.

  Charlie tried again, stumping his way forward, his mouth chattering beyond all control, and managed to swing a meaty arm onto the man’s back. Had to get him turned over or he’d be a goner for sure. Charlie put all he had into making his frozen arms work for him—they felt like two ice-covered lengths of stove wood—and it was enough to get them both on top of the man. He worked them forward up to Norbert’s neck, as if he were snagging something in a pond to drag it to shore, and in this manner managed to drag the man’s limp shape to him.

  “Get your head up, get your head up!” was what Charlie tried to say. But all he heard from himself were low moans. It worked and Norbert began to spin over onto his back.

  The men onshore must have thought he had good hold of Norbert, for they began pulling on the rope and pulled Charlie away from the drowning man. He fought against them and pitching forward, with his chattering teeth he grabbed a puckered ridge of buckskin shirt across the broadest part of the man’s back. It was enough to drag Norbert back to him.

  He worked his hands around the man’s shoulders and wedged them as best he could up under Norbert’s chin. The folks onshore pulled harder than ever.

  Charlie had no idea how long it took to get to shore. It could have been the time it takes to swallow a mouthful of hot coffee; it could have been a year. The next thing he recalled he was on his back on the bank, coughing and retching. He felt hands trying to push him onto his side. He tried to help.

  As his senses came back to him, he shouted, “Norbert? He make it?”

  No one answered for a few moments, and Charlie worked to lift his head. He saw the men hoisting Norbert upward by the middle, facedown, working his belly with a fist as if kneading dough. It looked as though it was working, for with each thrust, water gushed and then drizzled out of the skinny teamster’s blue mouth.

  Then someone shouted, “Yeah, he’ll live, I reckon.”

  Then he heard Everett Meecher shouting about getting a fire built. Charlie grabbed the spokes on a wheel beside him and worked to pull himself upright. Whoever had been pushing on him had left. He saw, as he was halfway to standing, the two women dragging deadfall wood, flood branches, anything that might burn, building a fire. Everett scurried to them, shouting something, and they parted away from him while he kneeled and put match to tinder.

  Charlie felt sure it would be too late. He’d never been so cold in all his days. So cold he was hot, in an odd way. Even when he’d been caught in that squall in Colorado, crossing that frozen lake while he had the ague a few years back, he thought he’d been ready to die then. The cold had racked his body for what seemed like days. Wouldn’t leave him be. Lucky for him he’d been traveling with an old sourdough who’d built a fire and helped drive the fever from him.

  But this time it was far worse than that. He tried to look around to find Norbert, but he couldn’t see him. Then he did, stretched out on a wool blanket that the men gripped in their white-knuckled hands as they hustled him to the new fire. Charlie felt as though he was about to lose his balance, but it was the women pushing him.

  “Can you walk?” the larger of the two said. He looked in her eyes and didn’t see the flash of anger he’d seen earlier, just concern. He nodded, unable to form any words, barely any thoughts.

  He managed lurching stumbling steps, a woman on each side of him, but though he couldn’t feel much, he could tell the one on his right side, the frailer of the two, wasn’t doing much more than being in the way. Should he fall he’d probably crush her.

  Everett Meecher must have seen the same, for he edged in between her and Charlie and draped Charlie’s big arms over his shoulders, never once letting up with shouting orders. “Get Norbert’s clothes off’n him, and someone help me with this big blasted bear of a man. I can’t hardly hold his froze limbs up myself, and the only other help we got is a couple of women.”

  His sputtering drew Shiner to Charlie’s side. The bald man tried to edge the big girl away, but she jerked her head to the side and said, “Help the old man over there. He’s weaker than he looks.”

  Meecher howled and shook his fists all the way to the supply wagon for blankets. By the time Meecher made it to the fire, Charlie had dropped to his backside beside the flames. All he wanted to do was stick his head right in the fire. He leaned around it and looked at Norbert.

  The man, he could see, was breathing. As they slid the buckskins from his legs, Norbert’s skin was a deep blue. Charlie looked down at his own hands and saw
they were now more red than purple. He took that as a good sign.

  His own legs felt funny, as though they were being moved. He worked to shift his gaze and saw the bold woman had straddled his leg and was tugging on his boot, yanking it off for him. He smiled—or thought he did. Mighty nice of her. And he got to watch her backside too. Then she stopped and saw him. He hoped he wasn’t still smiling.

  She started in on the other boot. His socks came off with the boots and he hoped his feet were presentable. They weren’t—they looked blue and purple and all splotchy. Not good, Charlie, old boy.

  “I’m going to have to help you with that shirt and those pants, mister. You can’t stay in these clothes—they’re keeping the heat out and the cold in.”

  “She’s right, dagnabbit. Now do as I say and get them duds off, Big Boy.”

  Charlie spun his head around—it was Meecher. He had no idea what they were both yammering about; he felt fine. Better every second, in fact. He reckoned that fire was doing the trick.

  They yammered some more, but he didn’t care a whit what they were saying. Now that he was warm, he thought he might as well take a bit of a nap. He closed his eyes and felt something touch his face. Maybe it was rain or snow. There it was again. He opened his eyes, not really wanting to, and it was that woman, pestering him again.

  “You can’t go to sleep, you have to stay awake. Do you understand me?”

  “Keep slapping on his face like that. I’ll get these duds off’n him,” Meecher shouted as if the entire camp needed to hear everything he said. Charlie found it annoying, especially for someone trying to get some shut-eye.

  “No, no, no, lady. We’ll attend to his long-handles. You keep on whomping his face, keep him from dozing off. That’s it. I don’t know what you ladies are used to, but this here is a workingman, and this ain’t no pleasure palace. Now avert your eye!”

  Meecher was in high dudgeon and Charlie almost had the strength to chuckle or beg him to stop tossing his wordy abuse at the ladies. But he gave up on either and worked to will strength back into his hands. All of a sudden they hurt like the dickens.

  Seemed as if a lifetime had passed, and then Charlie was coming around again and his body was starting to throb like a hammer-struck thumb. He’d rather sleep, but darn if they weren’t letting him. Felt like someone slapping him. Who on earth would dare to do that to him?

  He forced his eyes open again and saw that it was near dark. The fire was snapping and blazing to beat the band right beside him. And right in front of him, he saw a woman’s face, that woman, the bold one, who had kept chucking hard looks at him all morning. There she went again, with a hard look—and she followed it up with a slap! Then another!

  “Wake up and stay awake, mister. I have plenty to do without you dozing off all the time.”

  She certainly didn’t sound friendly. But just the same, Charlie figured he’d better heed her dire warning and work to keep his eyes open, for what reason he wasn’t sure. But she seemed serious.

  Soon enough, he found it all too easy to stay awake, for his body pained him something fierce. It must have been worse for Norbert, because Charlie heard him howl like a kicked dog every time anybody tried to drape the blankets back on him.

  Chapter 12

  Son of Cloud closed his eyes and tilted his head back, sniffing the air. It smelled to him like snow. Not tonight, but maybe late tomorrow. He pulled in a bracing draught of crisp air. Yes, tomorrow night would be a stormy one. He missed the long season of cold. It had been far too long since he’d felt the promise of heavy snow. Others of their tribe had complained and constantly sung the songs that would hasten spring’s arrival. Not Son of Cloud.

  Soon the snow would slow down the travelers. And if they received enough of it, the wagons will be useless. Yes, thought Son of Cloud as he watched his brooding brother, for the hundredth time, paw through the white man’s bags. What did he find so fascinating about the white? The only thing of value he had to offer was the fine adornment his face hair had made to his lance.

  He looked up at the dangling beard, the puckered knot of skin to which it was attached mostly covered by the long, thick hair the color of sooty snow.

  Since the rest of the tribe did not want them and would no longer work to rid the whites from the mountains, then Son of Cloud and his brother, Blue Dog Moon, had decided that they would be the ones to do so. They might never see eye-to-eye with the rest of their people, but they would die one day knowing they had done all they could to keep their home free of the whites.

  As if reading Son of Cloud’s thoughts, Blue Dog said, “The whites made much of the river today. Those two fools acted as if they were thirsty enough to drink the whole thing.”

  Son of Cloud smiled, nodded drowsily, his eyes still closed. “They are the whites—of course they want it all.”

  “I want only to kill them and be done with it.”

  “Have patience, brother. We will wait until they are deeper into the mountains, where it will be harder for them to run.” He opened his eyes and looked at the young man whom he had raised without much help by the tribe. He smiled. “And then we will have fun, eh?”

  The younger man returned a grin.

  “Don’t forget that no matter how many whites you kill, you cannot kill the part of you that is white.”

  Blue Dog threw the bags to the ground. “You say this over and over—reminding me that I am tainted, that part of me is white!” He spat the word from his mouth as if it were poison.

  Son of Cloud barely moved, and still smiled. “Yes, and part of me is too. We must grow to accept it and live our lives, or fight against it and die with them.”

  “Bah. You talk too much and say too little.” Blue Dog Moon stalked off toward the horses.

  Son of Cloud sighed. For once, he wished they had more whiskey.

  Chapter 13

  By the time the bold woman brought him a tin plate of hot food, stewed meat hunks swimming in beans, Charlie could feel his legs again and had been working on willing his toes to move. It had taken some doing, but the little nubs had roused to life after a while.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  She nodded but said nothing. Charlie held the plate by one edge, and with the other hand he pinched the wool blanket closed. Still she stared at him. Finally he realized that she was offering a tin cup of coffee too. He set the plate in his lap. All this awkward maneuvering seemed to amuse her. Charlie couldn’t be sure, but in the dancing orange glow of the fire, he swore he’d seen her smiling.

  “Lucky it’s only October, I reckon.”

  “Yes, you are. Any later and . . .” She spoke in a low, quiet voice, and shook her head.

  “Something wrong, ma’am?”

  “You . . . risking your hide for him?” She nodded across the fire.

  Charlie’s spoon paused halfway to his mouth. “I reckon he’d have done the same for me.”

  She snorted a laugh. “You really think that?”

  “Well, yeah. Yeah, I do, as it happens.”

  “Did you see any of his so-called friends diving in to save him?”

  Charlie kept his mouth closed, knowing what she was driving at, then shook his head.

  “And do you think he’s any different?”

  Charlie swallowed a mouthful of coffee. “That ain’t the point.”

  “Then what is, might I ask?” She stood then, and folded her arms across her chest.

  “I reckon it ain’t something I can explain. Thanks for the food.”

  She walked away, still shaking her head.

  That is one perplexing woman, thought Charlie, shifting his attention back to the plate of hot food. He could eat ten of them.

  Everett Meecher toed Charlie in the leg with his boot. “You going to make it, Big Charlie?”

  Charlie smiled and nodded. “I reckon so, Mr. Meecher. Questi
on is . . .” Charlie’s face darkened and his brow furrowed. “How’s ol’ Norbert doing?”

  “Don’t you worry ’bout him. Norb’ll be fine come tomorrow,” Rollie Meecher piped in, gesturing with his chin toward his sleeping friend. “Wasn’t any big deal. Man fell in the river, is all.” He upended a bottle and swallowed long on it.

  That got his uncle spinning again. “Not a big deal? I swear you fell out of too many trees as a youth. Must have landed on your head.”

  “You had any sense you would have rolled the wagons right across. Any man could see you don’t need to go telling one of us to wade out there. That was foolish, Uncle Everett. Plain and simple foolish. You’re the one was dropped on his head. And you’re the one to blame for Norbert nearly dying out there!” He thrust an arm toward the river, a source of constant rushing sound not far away in the dark.

  “I don’t recall seeing you or any of them other useless fools over there trying to save Norbert’s hide. ’Bout time you tighten up.”

  “You ain’t my father, old man. I don’t need you telling me what to do.” Rollie dragged his shirt cuff across his mouth.

  “No, but you need my money, don’t you? And my booze, I see. Yes, sir, always take, take, take, but what do you give? Nothing. And why? Because worthless trash don’t give, it takes. Bah, you wouldn’t make a patch on your father’s trousers.”

  “You’re right, I ain’t like my father. He was just another stupid old man, like you.” Rollie must have known what his words would do, because he handed the bottle off to a grinning Bo and squared off, away from the fire.

  For a moment Charlie thought maybe the men were playing games with them all, putting on some sort of show. He had thought they were fond of each other, being uncle and nephew and all. But then Everett ducked his head low and, growling, drove himself like a charging woods pig at Rollie’s legs.

  Rollie must have experienced this display of ferocity in the past, because he sidestepped at the right moment, grinning as he did so, and immediately squared off again. His growling uncle spun, undeterred, and as if spurred on by Shiner’s and Bo’s hoots, he lunged at Rollie once more. This time the younger man muckled on to Everett, driving blows tight in. Charlie heard the thumps of bony fist on solid flesh.