The Hunted

by Ralph Compton

  “No, I mean it. If you didn’t have to carry me for half the day, you might have reached them by now. I propose that you leave me here and go on. Then you can come back for me.” She wouldn’t look at him, but prodded the coals with a stick. “Besides, there’s plenty for me to eat now.”

  “That’s exactly why I ain’t leaving you here, nor anywhere else.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Them?” Charlie jerked his head back toward the dead oxen. “How long you think all that fresh meat’s gonna last out here before it starts drawing critters?”

  “Oh, it’s all but frozen. Honestly, I can’t smell it at all. It’s not like it’s summertime.”

  “That’s true, but your sniffer’s a whole lot different than the nose on a wolf’s face, Delia.”

  “But, Charlie—”

  He stood, trying not to moan from the throbbing in his head and his shoulder. “No more arguing. I ain’t leaving you anywhere, and that’s that.” His voice came out harsher than he intended. He dragged more wood over by the fire and said, “Besides, who else is going to rap me on the bean and keep me awake?”

  • • •

  Charlie had arranged a half dozen smaller fires in a wider arc around their campfire, and he’d done his best to drag a couple of decent-sized lengths from deadfall trees close by. They weren’t much but would make a little something to hide behind. He didn’t want to light the smaller peripheral fires unless he had to.

  They’d eaten well, too much, as they each said, but it felt good to have food in the belly. Charlie missed a big, hot meal like that. The only thing that would have made it even better would be a cup of steaming hot coffee to top it off. But the thought didn’t trouble him for long. The taste of the meat was still fresh in his mind and on his lips. He’d even managed to sizzle up a couple more hunks. They’d keep in this weather for a few days on the trail.

  The cans of food he’d found were nearly depleted, though they’d eaten sparingly. Charlie was always ravenous, an ache he’d grown used to throughout his life. It was not a feeling he particularly liked, but it was not unfamiliar to him. Given his size, it had always been a chore to keep himself satisfied where food was concerned.

  He thought that if he wanted to keep himself topped up with vittles at his place in the mountain valley, he’d have to keep a few pigs, maybe rabbits and chickens.

  And a garden. He could taste the fresh pole beans and corn. He’d never been much of a hand at such things, but with his own place, he felt sure he could turn his hand to gardening. And of course, his valley would have a number of game trails close by so he might never run out of fresh meat.

  With all these pleasant, promising thoughts and a belly filled to brimming with roasted ox meat, Charlie’s head began to bob, and soon his chin touched lightly to his coat’s buttoned collar.

  In his sleep, which normally offered few dreams, Charlie found himself breathing harder as something awful drew closer, closer, panting in his ear. Then he heard a low sound like gravel being scraped between metal. No, that wasn’t quite it . . . and then he knew what it was—growling. The guttural throat-churning of a wild beast!

  He uttered a small cry as he woke, tensed and gripping tight to the shotgun cradled in his arms. Delia was asleep beside him, the laudanum keeping her pain quelled for the time being. They were still in the dark. The fire at his feet had dwindled but was still flaming.

  Charlie sat still, his chest working hard and his breath puffing out into the night sky. There it was again—only not in his head this time, not a dream at all. It was the rumble and snarl of animals fighting. Many animals. Wolves at the carcasses! He had hoped they might get away with one more night without them, but that was not to be.

  There was plenty of meat there to keep them occupied—but in his experience, wolves were tricky creatures prone to unexpected behavior. Just like men. But though he had a healthy fear and respect of wolves, Charlie knew better than to trust that he knew what they’d get up to. Though even knowing that, he’d sooner turn his back on a wolf than on someone like Rollie Meecher.

  He looked over at Delia again. He’d only wake her if he had to. Otherwise he’d keep this big fire going and hope they didn’t get curious. With all that raw meat to occupy them, it seemed they’d stick with that and not let their sniffers drag them elsewhere. But in case, he was prepared with a torch, the shotgun, loaded and cradled, and the shells at the ready in his coat pocket.

  The snarling and yipping grew in intensity. Sounded as though more of the beasts were coming down out of the hills, and the more they all yipped, the more of them came. Seemed to Charlie like a foolish thing for the early birds to be up to—why on earth would they up and yell to anyone within earshot that they’d found a good feed? Maybe that was the human way of doing things, mused Charlie. Grab all you can, to heck with everybody else, and then brag on it.

  That sure was the way Rollie had it figured. No, sir, ol’ Charlie didn’t picture himself sharing any similarities with Rollie Meecher. He pushed the end of a long branch farther into the fire. Without an ax, he had to resort to dragging anything that might burn over to the fire.

  He was thankful that Delia was still asleep. He didn’t know much about their upbringing, but if he had to guess he’d say they grew up working folks in a tough Irish family, maybe in a city back East. He wasn’t much of a hand at placing accents. He could tell an Englishman from a Chinaman, and that was about it.

  For all the time he’d spent in mine camps all over the West, where you were liable to hear a dozen different tongues all gabbling away at once on any given day, deciphering where folks were from and maybe picking up a few handy words was something he’d never developed a knack for. Charlie sighed and leaned back, an ear cocked to the oddly musical yelps and growls of the far-off wolves savaging the oxen.

  If the noises were any indication, he doubted there’d be much meat left come morning, nor hide nor hair either. When a wolf tucks into something, you can be sure it will finish the job, or bloat up trying. Same with a grizz, though these carcasses would be much too fresh for a bear. An old-timer mountain man once told him that grizz like their meat rotted and swimming with maggots. The thought of it pulled Charlie’s mouth into a wide grimace.

  Then he sat up. Some of the quarrelsome yips sure sounded as though they were drawing closer. Down- trail, the night was as black as the belly of a bull. Every few seconds he heard soft sounds like panting, maybe footfalls in the snow. They started from the direction of the oxen and wagon, then seemed to quiet, only to start again off to the left, then right, almost as if whatever was making the sounds had wings and danced along the air in the frozen, dark night.

  He ought to wake the girl, in case he needed help with the fires. Though how much help she’d be, he wasn’t sure. At least she’d know what they were facing. Keeping low, Charlie slowly pivoted on a knee, scanning the dark. But it did no good. He’d only be able to see them when they were nearly on top of him. He kept the shotgun poised, butt rammed into his armpit, a sore finger featherlight on the twin triggers. With his free hand he reached down to tap Delia’s shoulder.

  And that’s when he saw the first one.

  Chapter 30

  “Are you ready, brother?” Son of Cloud looked at his brother and couldn’t help smiling. Despite the younger man’s grim intentions, Son of Cloud relished the feeling of being out, on the trail with his brother. He would have preferred it if they were heading out hunting elk, but he would make the best of this task and continue to try to keep Blue Dog Moon under some sort of control. How much longer he could do this, he was unsure. But he would continue to play this game. He had no love for the whites, but he did not like to see them die and more so, he did not like that it was Blue Dog who killed them, and in vicious ways.

  “They have but three wagons left. Perhaps if we leave them alone, that crazy man leading them will kill off not only all
the animals pulling their wagons, but his own people too. Counting him there are four men and one woman. Though they have her tied up like a dog. That is because she is braver than the men.”

  Son of Cloud had seen them too and knew what his brother was saying. “That younger man telling the others what to do is a bad sort. Such a man would not last long as a Shoshoni. He does not know how to work with others. Do you know why that is?” said Son of Cloud.

  “No, but I think you are about to tell me.”

  His brother nodded. “It is because of the whiskey. He drinks and drinks and so stays sickly and crazy all the time. Never once is his body without it.”

  Blue Dog knew why Son of Cloud brought this up. Whiskey had been a sore point between them many times. Whenever he found a bottle of it in the bags of one of the people he had killed, Blue Dog always drank it, and tried in vain every time to get his older brother to drink more than one swallow. But Son of Cloud would not indulge in much of it. He did not want to feel the warm feeling inside. That was a shame for him.

  They slowly headed in the direction of the whites’ camp, and slipped from their horses when they were still a long distance from it. Sound from the snow would work against them if they were not careful. Also, it would not do to have their horses try to talk with those of the whites. Son of Cloud whispered low and close to his brother’s ear, “You run off the horses, enough to stop another of their wagons. I will bring back someone. If we scare him enough, we will learn something from him.”

  In the dark, he saw Blue Dog’s teeth flash in a grin. “Or we could kill him, as I will do eventually anyway. This way, we will have to work less, you see? And maybe we can get more than one at a time.”

  “No! That is not what we agreed to do.”

  “I do not understand. I can kill a lot more than one man tonight. Then we would be done with it!”

  “Again, I say no. I am the older brother here, not you. Until that changes, I will tell you what we will do and not do. It is important that we try to find out information from this man.”

  “Information? He knows nothing we care to know, has nothing we want—nothing useful except his whiskey. No, I do not care about him. I care about Father and Mother and the others of our people. Who will mourn for them? You will and I will, that is all. It is up to us to avenge their deaths and drive the whites from this land. They have no right to be here!”

  Son of Cloud could only sigh and watch as his impatient young brother crept off into the night toward the camp of sleeping whites. Then he too moved low, from rock to tree, aware that on such a dark, clouded night, the snow would not share much of the moon’s light. But that was no reason for him to not use caution.

  In his opinion, whites were tricky creatures prone to deceit at the best of times, and were frequently much worse because most of them were drunk on whiskey. How they ever bested great Indian warriors in battle he could not figure out.

  Long minutes later, something passed before the low flames of the campfire. Son of Cloud froze, crouching, holding a Colt revolver in his hand. He liked how it felt, as though it were made for his hand. Yet another thing the whites did that he could not figure out. A few of them must be very good at making the most of what little time they had when not drinking whiskey. If Blue Dog was not careful, the white half of him would win the game in his head and Son of Cloud would lose his brother to whiskey.

  It was a still night, only a soft breeze whispering in the trees. He sniffed at the air—mostly wood smoke, sweat from the unwashed whites, and the warm smells of horses. It pained him to know his brother would kill horses and mules, not merely run them off. But in the end, it would be one more thing to help frighten the whites, to make them scream when they awoke.

  These whites still had a day or so before they would get to the town in the hills. He wanted them to be so frightened by the time they arrived that they locked themselves up in those smelly log houses with the rest of the whites. It would not take much to make that happen.

  Somewhere in the dark across from him, he knew that Blue Dog would by now be trailing down past the camp. Son of Cloud shifted his eyes back to the campfire. One of the white men had awakened and now leaned against a tree, fumbling with his leggings.

  Staying downwind and crouching, Son of Cloud used the man’s own animal sounds of grunting and coughing to mask the slight noise his soft-soled moccasins made punching through the snow. This would leave a trail, but there would be no way for the whites to follow once daylight came. He knew, from watching them for many days now, that they would be too frightened to follow.

  He came nearer now and recognized the man as the tall, thin one wearing buckskins that carried the smell of sweat and smoke and the bloody gut-stink of many animals. The man also had been a bent, lame creature since he swam in the river days before. He would be easy prey.

  Son of Cloud slipped the pistol back into the holster and thumbed his tomahawk up and out of his belt. He waited until the man jigged up and down, nearing the end of making his water; then Son of Cloud ran full out, one, two, three strides, his feet making no more sound in the soft deep snow than they would in tall, summer grass. He did not wait for the man to jerk his head around in wonder at the new night noises close and coming closer.

  The blunted end of the tomahawk rose in Son of Cloud’s grip, sure and true. It dropped down toward the side of the smelly crippled man’s head. His homely fur hat fell to the snow as the ax smacked hard into the freighter’s head above his right ear. The softest spot and a place where success in knocking out someone was nearly guaranteed. Son of Cloud slipped closer and encircled his long hand over the white’s gasping mouth, already close to blurting out an oath that would rouse the other whites.

  Beyond the far side of the sloppy camp, where the others lay in their sleep, Son of Cloud knew, his brother was even now busy slicing his knife deep into the throats of the animals. Soon they would become agitated on the picket line, the stink of blood clouding their faces. This would wake the rest of the whites, unless they were so drunk they snored through it. The woman, though, she would be another concern. She was smart and seemed to hate the other whites as much as the brothers did.

  The buckskin man collapsed into Son of Cloud’s arms, against his chest. He spun, grabbing the thin man about the neck, and dragged him back the way he had come. He would lash the smelly man to the back of his horse, wait a few minutes, and then when he sensed his brother’s approach, Son of Cloud would mount up and ride back down the trail. A day behind, the big white man and the sickly white woman would find this smelly man waiting for them, hopefully alive, if Son of Cloud could keep Blue Dog from killing him.

  If Blue Dog had his way, the smelly white would be killed, and it would not be quick or kind. Son of Cloud was halfway back to their own horses when he heard the animals of the whites begin to nicker and fidget. It would not be long before the whites, if there were any not laid low by the whiskey, might try to come after them.

  He guessed instead that they would stand around their camp like dumb cattle and carry on and cry and wonder if the Indians were still around—and what they would do next to them. This was the part that Son of Cloud liked—making the whites shiver and sweat in fear.

  “Brother!” Blue Dog whispered in the dark.

  “Did you have luck?”

  “Yes, I only slit the throats of two—the ugliest beasts. They were mules. I have never liked the look of them. But the others were once fine horses. I could not do it.”

  “That is a relief to hear. Seeing two and hearing the fear in the others—as I can now—that will be enough. Plus . . .” Son of Cloud waved a hand at his horse, on which he’d draped the man in buckskins.

  “Good. I knew as soon as I saw that one get up that you would have him. Is he dead?”

  “No. We may make use of him yet. But let’s go before they decide to trail us. But, Blue Dog . . .” Son of Cloud looked
at his brother.

  “What?”

  “We do not need to kill this one. If we kill again, there may be a war with the whites—and that would be a war we cannot win.” Son of Cloud turned from Blue Dog and lifted the unconscious white man’s head to peer at his homely face.

  Blue Dog Moon felt the muscles in his neck tighten, stiffen as if made of wood. Once again Son of Cloud made him feel as he felt when a white looked at him before he slid his knife into his soft belly. And Blue Dog felt the red rage drip down inside his own head, coloring his eyes and making his head tremble.

  He stared at his older brother’s back and it was as if he looked upon a weak old woman, fussing and simpering over her cooking. And it felt so very good and right to him to slip his tomahawk from his wide leather belt, raise it high, and drive it once downward, hard and fast, into Son of Cloud’s head.

  His brother stood upright, stiffened, and turned to face him. Son of Cloud’s eyes opened wide and gleaming in the mooned night’s reflection off the snow. “Brother . . . ,” he gasped. “Why . . . ?” Then he collapsed to the snowy ground. His horse fidgeted and sidestepped away.

  Blue Dog Moon grabbed his dead brother under his arms and dragged him to sit against a tree. “Because,” he said, bending Son of Cloud forward and yanking the tomahawk from his head. “You are too white and I am not. I am nothing and I am everything.”

  He led Son of Cloud’s horse, burdened with the white man, over to his own horse. He mounted up and walked his horse back toward Son of Cloud. “Good-bye, brother. This war was not your fight.”

  • • •

  While the booze-addled men were slowly roused by the thrashing and whinnying of the wounded and freed animals, Hester O’Fallon lay still, hardly daring to breathe during the previous few minutes.

  She had heard Norbert get up—it was difficult not to, what with all the groaning and grunting each of the men did every time they moved in their sleep or awake. Norbert had more reason than most, though, having been dunked in the river days before, and then whipped raw by Rollie that day. She had heard him make water close by and had hoped she wasn’t lying downhill of him.