Suddenly in front of him there was turmoil among the horses and, pushing forward, he saw, as far as he could see, that they had run into a lodge. The skin tent came down, there were yells of alarm. Thunder sounded then, rolling like angry drums through the dark sky. He rode on. In a flash of lightning he thought he saw a man, but he never heard the yell as the man went down under the hoofs of the horses.
A lodge ahead of him. He swerved the dun. Another lodge and another. He turned left and then straightened out again and found that the loose horses were no longer with him. A couple of men ran past him, shouting.
How far had he come into the encampment? Soon he must meet up with the creek. The dun came down to a trot. All around was the uproar of a vast collection of people, torn from their beds during a night storm. Indians seemed to be wandering about all over.
Suddenly, there were no people and no lodges. The dun stopped. McAllister slipped from the saddle and found that he was on the bank of the creek. Leading the dun, he set off along its edge. Now all he had to do was find Iron Hand’s lodge. It sounded simple enough but it was a tall order in this light.
He walked a hundred yards or more, crouching down against the pitiless rain, trying to count the tents. But that didn’t help him much. Pretty soon, there were no more lodges again and he knew that he had come right past the one he wanted. He started back again, the dun plodding at his heels.
There was a lodge in front of him, near its door was a man shouting in a bull-like voice. McAllister left the pony at the rear of the tent ground-hitched and hoped it would stay. He put his face close to the wall of the tent and thought he made out the chief’s insignia of the iron hand. He found that he still had his revolver clenched tightly in his right hand.
He walked around the tent and came on the man standing shouting at its entrance. The man turned and saw him. Whether he recognised him as a white man, McAllister never knew. He didn’t take any chance. He lifted the Remington and brought the barrel down hard on the man’s head. The blow was apparently not sufficient. The man was strong. He went down to his knees, but powerful arms reached out for the white man. McAllister drove his knee into the man’s face and felt himself caught in a bearlike grip. He struck again with the gun and kicked himself free. This time, the Indian went down and stayed down. McAllister stepped across him and stooped to enter the tent.
There was a fire burning low in there, in the center of the lodge. By its light, McAllister saw the forms of several Indians, mostly women and children.
“Mrs. Bourn,” he roared.
He saw a woman start. Her face turned to him.
‘I’ve come for you,’ he told her. ‘Let’s get the hell outa here.’
But she didn’t move.
Somebody else moved instead. A form launched itself from a bed of skins to McAllister’s right. His eye caught the glitter of metal and his brain registered the fact that an ax was being directed with the power of a good arm behind it at his head. He threw himself to one side and fired by instict. He seemed to catch the man in mid-air. The heavy ball at close quarters caught the man as if he weighed nothing and dumped him on the ground near the fire.
Burned powder stung his nostrils and eyes.
He darted forward and caught the woman by the wrist.
“Come on.”
“No,” she screamed.
If he heard her, it didn’t register. His whole being was keyed to getting her out of there and nothing else in the world existed. The women were screaming. He dragged the woman to the entrance and out into the rain. The full weight of her protesting body hung back against him. She stumbled over the Indian McAllister had stunned, but he pulled on her arm without mercy, dragging her around the tent to where he had left the dun.
He had a shock.
The horse was no longer there. He glanced around hurriedly and could see no sign of it. Women in the lodge were setting up a hell of a racket; almost enough to be heard above the general din of the camp. A man stumbled out of the dark and barged into him. He muttered something and went on. McAllister relaxed a little after bracing himself to strike the man down.
He would gain nothing by remaining there. The woman was still fighting to get free of his grip. He shook her a little and said: “Behave yourself, woman. I’m taking you outa here and there ain’t a thing you can do about it.”
He started dragging her toward the creek. She leaned back against the pull and tried to get her heels set Women came out of the lodge screaming at the top of their lungs. They found the unconscious Indian at the lodge entrance and then they screamed some more. A horse pelted by in the darkness; McAllister made a grab for it and missed because he was anchored by the woman.
Mrs. Bourn was yelling: “Let me go, let me go, let me go.”
They reached the edge of the creek. He got his arm around her and bent his head so that his mouth was near her ear.
“I’m from your husband, ma’am. He hired me to get you out of here,” he told her.
The white orb of her face turned up toward him and she said almost in horror: “Oh, no.”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Five hunnerd dollars to get you out and by God I’m going to earn ’em.”
She turned in his embrace and gripped his arms.
“I can’t go back,” she said. “Please let me stay. Please.”
“You’ll think differently when we get away from here.”
“I never want to go back. Can’t you believe that?”
“You mean it now, but you won’t mean it later. Come on.”
“Can’t you see? For God’s sake … I’ve been with the Indians … I can’t ever go back.”
McAllister said: “Aw, hell,” and started down the bank. A moment later he was up to his waist in water. The creek was filling fast now and the drag of the water was strong. He leaned against it and wondered if he would be able to reach the other side. The woman caught her breath noisily when she hit the cold water; the strong current almost swept her from her feet. McAllister took one pace and was up to his waist, he stumbled and nearly went down; the woman fought to get herself free. He turned, stooped, got an arm behind her knees and another around her shoulder and picked her up. She kicked, screamed and scratched and he cursed her roundly. When he reached the middle of the stream, the water was up to his chest and the woman was almost submerged. She was frightened now; she stopped her yelling and clung tight to him. He thought she’d strangle him.
Suddenly, the force of the water seemed to double itself, he was knocked sideways and his feet went from under him. The next instant, he was below the surface and floundering, the woman gone from his grasp. He strained back against the flow and got his feet on the bottom, surfacing and reaching out for the woman. He missed her, saw the dim white of her flesh and dove in full-length after her. When he got a-hold of her, the flow took them and whirled them over and over. She was fighting desperately and he guessed that she couldn’t swim. He managed to get over on his back with her half on top of him, his arm half around her neck and his hand gripping her clothing. He bawled for her to lie still and leave it to him. He started swimming with his feet and one hand, praying that he was heading for the shore he wanted.
It seemed that he swam like that for an eternity, kicking against the fury of the water, going under every other stroke, taking in pints of water, choking and gasping for air. When his muscles seemed that they could take him no further, he tried searching for bottom and found it. Then the water got its grip on him again and he went down, floundering helplessly, losing the woman again. Catching sight of her drifting away from him face down and still, he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the shore, picked her up and fought his way out of the water that tried its damnedest to reclaim him. But he made the top of the steep bank and laid her down for a moment, belching and retching on the water in his belly.
When he got to his feet at last, his legs were shaking like aspen leaves. He fought the weakness, got the woman on one shoulder and started off along the bank, hop
ing that the pressure on her belly would get some of the water out of her. After a dozen paces she started coughing and spluttering. He stopped, laid her on her face and started putting pressure gently but firmly on her back to get the water out of her lungs. She lay there coughing and moaning. He looked at the camp and couldn’t see much, but utter confusion reigned there. He hoped it would stay that way for a while. He worked on her for five minutes, then asked her how she felt.
“Like I’m dying,” she told him.
“Can you walk?”
She sat up.
“I’m not walking,” she told him. “I’m going back.”
“Across my dead body.”
“That’s the way it’ll be when they catch you.”
“They’ll kill you too if they catch us.”
“Iron Hand wouldn’t do that.” She seemed sure.
“Look,” he said. “I’m hired to rescue you. You’re rescued and you’re going to stay rescued.”
She leaned forward and laid a hand on his arm.
“You listen to me,” she said. “I can never go back to Bourn.” He didn’t miss that, the way she called her husband by his last name. “He wouldn’t want me.”
McAllister saw his five hundred dollars disappearing in a high wind.
“We’ll talk about that later,” he said firmly. “Right now, we’re heading out of here.” He got a grip on her wrist, pulled her to her feet and started out along the creekside. She hung back a little, felt the strength of his pull and decided to go along quietly. After a little while she said: “You really reckon you can get away?”
“I don’t reckon nothing, lady,” he told her. “There ain’t a buck back there that can’t track better’n a dozen whitemen. Come daylight they’re going to be after us. But I ain’t beat yet.”
She stopped walking and he stopped too.
“Just think,” she said. “If you let me go quietly back there and you went on like nothing had happened, they wouldn’t come after you.”
He laughed.
“They’ll come after me,” he said.
“Why?”
“I owe ’em a scalp.”
“What happened?”
“I shot up a passle of ’em.”
She made a funny little sobbing sound in the darkness and he started pulling her up the side of the canyon, going up the narrow trail that he hoped would take them to the top. It wasn’t easy climbing with a woman dragging on the end of your arm, but he wasn’t going to let her go. It turned out the trail didn’t go to the top but levelled out and started along horizonally. Then it dipped again and they were down on the creekside and able to walk side by side. She wasn’t walking too well, because she couldn’t walk on the loose rocks with no covering to her feet, but she didn’t complain and McAllister took notice of the fact. He assessed as well as he could in the dark as they walked because he and this woman had a long way to go together and whether they won through rested to a certain extent on what kind of a woman she was.
After a while, the rain stopped and the sound of their footsteps changed. McAllister stopped and tried to pierce the gloom with his eyes. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought they were in the side canyon. A couple of minutes later, he knew for sure because he walked into a wall. He realised then that he could not hear the creek. He stood still, holding the woman motionless, trying to get the feel of the place and didn’t do much good, so he pushed on, feeling the wall with his hand. He didn’t do that for long because he ran into rocks and brush. When he had groped his way around these, he stopped, knowing that he wasn’t doing much good. He thought back over his movements, looked at the plan of the country that he kept in his head and reckoned that the canelo was about three miles north of the spot he stood on.
“You good for a long walk?” he asked.
“I don’t want to walk anywhere,” she told him.
“Look, girl,” he said. “We’re getting outa this, you and me. We’ll get out, you’ll see. And when you’re out, you’ll be real glad. Believe me.”
“I keep trying to tell you,” she said. “There’s nothing for me to go back to.”
“There’s your husband. He thinks you’re worth five hundred dollars.”
“Not the way I am now. Like this I’m not worth ten cents.”
“That’s between you and me. No call for him to know.”
“You’d lie for your money?”
“I’d shoot my grandmother for five hunnerd dollars.”
“If you’re that kind, there’s nothing more I can say.”
“Sure I’m that kind. It takes that kind to get women like you away from a passle of Indians. Come on.”
He pulled her on down the canyon and they walked. He had to admit that she was game. She swung along sturdily at his side and he never had a complaint out of her though she must have been going through hell with her bare feet. Once or twice she stumbled, but he held her on her feet. They pushed through the blackness of the night never pausing.
Ten
He didn’t know for how long they had walked, but it was a long time. The wind had dropped and it was warmer. At any other time he would have been concerned at their being in the cold night air in their wet clothes. Now he had only the thought of their reaching the canelo.
He stopped, listening.
From up ahead, a little off to one side, he heard the soft whinny of a horse. Was it his?
“We’re halfway out of the wood, girl,” he said. “That sounds like my horse.”
She gave a little sobbing sound, her wrist was torn from his grasp and he heard her hit the ground. Dropping on his knees beside her, he knew a kind of pity. The ordeal of the last few hours had been a strain on him. It must have been a hundred times worse for her. Picking her up, he walked with her in his arms. She was a solid weight. He whistled and heard the horse shuffling toward him, hampered by the hobbles. In a few moments, the canelo’s soft nose touched his face. He spoke to the horse and it whickered gently in happiness. This was a one-man horse and they both knew it. McAllister walked on with the canelo plodding beside him until they were in the little rincon sheltered from the wind. He laid the girl on the ground, felt her pulse and found that it was beating regularly. She was no more than bushed and he couldn’t be surprised after the pace he had hit. When he had fetched his rifle and saddle and after he had thrown the hull on the horse, he returned to her. After some water had been trickled down her throat and he had chaffed her wrists a little, she started to come around.
He asked her how she felt and she said she was all right, but he knew that she was tuckered out. But there could be no stopping. The rain had stopped and the Indians would find their tracks in the daylight. Really he had to have the mule he had left at Islop’s place, though he weighed the pros and cons of letting the canelo struggle along with a double load. He would lose time if he went back for the mule, but the canelo would be played out in no time at all if it carried double. So he decided on the mule.
“Feel strong enough to ride?” he asked Mrs. Bourn.
“Yes,” she told him and he gave her a boost into the saddle. The canelo thank heaven did not seem to object to her, but then McAllister was there leading it. He hit a jog-trot that he knew he could keep to for hours. His gun troubled him banging up and down on his backside, so he took off his gun-belt and hung it on the saddle-horn. Then he hit a good pace again and kept to it. The sky had cleared a little and there were a few stars out so that he could see a little of what was around him and that helped. Mrs. Bourn rode hanging onto the saddlehorn. He couldn’t see, but he reckoned she had her eyes shut and that ride was something of a nightmare of weariness for her. But she didn’t complain. She stuck up there on the canelo’s back and stayed with it. He felt a twinge of admiration and pity for her. He got his second wind and loped along like a hound-dog. After a while, the sky started to turn a cold, pale gray and he knew that dawn was at hand. He didn’t like that one little bit. Chances were that he and the woman would be caught slap-bang right out
in the open. But one good thing happened that cheered him a little – the sky clouded over and the rain started to fall again.
They came to the end of the canyon and faced a steep climb. He halted and looked at Mrs. Bourn. She was crouched forward in the big saddle, her face drawn and gray, her eyes shut. Her hair was plastered to her face and she looked pretty wretched. Maybe old man Bourn wouldn’t have thought her worth five hundred dollars if he could have seen her now.
She opened her eyes and looked at him, but it was as though she didn’t see him. Her eyes had the faraway look that comes with utter tiredness.
“Get down,” he said. “We have to climb now.”
He helped her down and her legs buckled under her so that she would have fallen had he not held her in his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
“Could happen to anybody,” he said. “Take it easy. Couple of minutes and your legs’ll be as good as new.”
But it was a good fifteen before she could stand on her own and McAllister was champing at the bit to go. He told her to get climbing and she did go a few feet, but her legs gave under her again and he was forced to put her up on the canelo again. It was tricky getting the horse up the narrow trail that was little more than a goat track and they were compelled to stop several times when they came to difficult spots, but finally they made it to the rimrock and McAllister, his muscles aching from the steep climb, set off running again with the canelo with the woman up trotting behind him.
McAllister Rides Page 9
