The Kiowa came up on top of him, lips snarling hatred and his breath washing Alison in a stink of bark tobacco and rancid meat. Powerful hands closed tightly around his throat. He twisted and jerked frantically and by the time his lungs were screaming they had slithered another few feet and it was he who was on top. He smashed down into the rotten teeth and was rewarded as they broke away at the gums, the Indian howling. Alison struck until his knuckles bled and momentum reversed their positions once more.
Mercifully, the strong fingers had been torn from his windpipe. His chest heaved, grateful for the rush of sweet air, and the darkness at the edges of his vision cleared. His relief was brief. Still rolling, he slammed into the picket post on the basin floor. The post held.
Alison had cut it himself, but when he sank it he had been in a hurry so he had not trimmed the top. It was still ragged with splinters. He narrowly missed them, the post striking right across the width of his shoulders. The black horse screamed, wall-eyed, head thrown back as it backed away from the two struggling men to the furthest extent of the picket rope.
There was no time to consider pain. Crowfoot was onto him again, hooked fingers gouging at his eyes. Alison kicked him away but before he could move the Indian was on his feet again and closing in. A moccasined foot swung at his head. Reflex brought his hands up to cover his face, then his brain took control. As the toe hit him he snapped his wrist round and grabbed an ankle. He twisted on the ground and jerked the leg as he rolled. Crowfoot lost his balance as he followed through with his kick and fell heavily onto the picket post.
The scream rang in Alison’s ears. The post had smashed in Crowfoot’s chest, staving in several ribs. As he pulled himself, groaning, off the post, blood started to pour through his gaping flesh. With pink foam from a ruptured lung bubbling at his lips, Crowfoot held one hand to his ruined chest and in the other appeared a glint of steel. Although he was dying, determination to have done with the white man was written all over his pain-twisted features. Alison eyed the chest wound with revulsion. He was so close the blood was spattering him, but when he saw the scalping knife his hand dropped to his holster.
The roar of the Colt died on the breeze, smoke drifting slowly from the barrel. Crowfoot was dead on the trampled grass, his left eye blown out through the back of his head along with the grey matter of his brain.
The Kiowa had been strong. Alison was on his knees, panting. His ribs were sore from pummelling fists and his back throbbed where he had slammed into the post. His right hand still held the Colt, and he raised his left to probe his damaged face. One cheek was tender from jawbone to eye socket and his eye was already half closed with swelling. A dribble of blood ran from his right eyebrow and another from a split lip. He fingered his nose, and although the bridge seemed bruised there was no blood to indicate it was broken. He had come off lightly.
His breathing more even, he came to his feet and looked up to the rim. When the Indian had leapt at him the Henry rifle had been smashed from his hands. It had to be up there on the grass. Where guns were concerned, he was a man of habit, and as he ascended the slope he tipped the used shell from the Colt and pushed in a new one from a loop in his gun belt, then slipped the gun back in the holster.
The Henry lay at the crest and Alison swore as he picked it up. The breech was smashed. Useless. An old Springfield carbine lay near it, likely the one he had heard earlier when he had pinned down the Indians on the slope below the rim. The hammer was broken off. Angry, he threw it down on the grass, next to the Henry.
Well, he thought, the next thing to do is get the hell out of here. He still had the gold on the mule to weigh in at Clay Springs, then he could furnish himself with a brand new Henry. He turned back down the slope and as he walked he noticed his hands trembling. Just nerves. He’d soon leave this graveyard behind. His thoughts as he untied the black and mounted up were of dollar bills, rolls of them, or even more pleasing would be big golden double eagles. Paper stuff was just pretend money; nothing like heavy gold coins to give a man a good feeling. Then when he’d had himself a few luscious women and a gut full of beefsteaks and whiskey, he could come back and dig up the gold he had buried when the rattlesnake killed the other horse.
Yes, he was a rich man.
Yet as he rode over the lip of the basin and set off to where the mule was hidden in a timber copse, he felt disgruntled. The feeling crawled underneath the warmth he felt at his escape, or even his new found affluence. He could only put it down to the loss of the Henry. A rifleman at heart, he felt naked without one nestling in the saddle scabbard, the hard line of the barrel beneath his right leg.
Then he remembered.
The Kiowa boy had used a Winchester. It would be up on the rim. He pulled back on the reins and the black stopped in its tracks. He turned in the saddle and looked back. The rim was only a hundred yards behind him. He would go back and pick it up.
***
Eks-a-Pana, the Soldier lay gut shot, dying on the grass so far away from his home. No time now to think of how his life might have turned out. He would never hunt again, or break the sleek grey pony his uncle had promised him from the herd, or pick a wife from the clutch of maidens who had already shown an interest in him. There was only time to think of his nearing death and the long walk over the trail of stars. He wondered who would bury his body to protect it from the carrion eaters, but knew there was nobody. There was not one of them left. The white man had seen to that.
From his awkward position, flat on his ruptured stomach, he had seen Crowfoot die. If he had not been dying himself he would have enjoyed watching the fight. Also, if the white man had not had the pistol, then Crowfoot would have taken his scalp, of that Soldier was sure. But the speed of the white man’s hand! If he had not seen it with his own eyes he would not have believed it. It had been chain lightning! The hand had appeared to remain stationary, and yet there had suddenly been a gun in it, and the muzzle flash testified to the image. With the seeing of it, Soldier had immediately understood how the fat-taker had been so swift with the rifle.
His mind closed in self protection from the pain and his thoughts stumbled around in confusion. Images flooded in from all corners, overlapping each other, a fresh one quickly superseding the last, and always he was aware death walked close beside him. As one powerful image expanded it blanked out all the others, a vision of his meeting with Thunderhawk in the afterlife. The setting was the fertile valley where the water was sweet and the game was plentiful at the other end of the star trail. The chief said nothing, but his steely eyes beneath the eagle war bonnet stared reproachfully at the boy. The look said, “I put my trust in you, naming you Soldier, and bestowed on you a fine weapon to do my bidding. I should have known better. You failed me.”
The hallucination tormented him. His eyes snapped open and fell on the Winchester still clutched in his right hand. He concentrated through the circles of swirling pain, the concerted effort draining him as he strove to flex his numb fingers. Slowly, he screwed his head round and his gaze found the receding figure of the white man riding away down the slope towards the bottoms where the timber was grouped in patches. Soldier painfully manoeuvred himself into a shooting position, the Winchester’s barrel resting on a clump of earth.
If the ability was still left in him he would do it.
He blinked slowly, forcing his eyes open against the ache throbbing in his stomach. It was a downhill shot, awkward at best, but he could only try. If he failed he would have to endure Thunderhawk’s wrath throughout the endlessness of eternity.
But at least he would have tried.
He steadied the rifle, pausing while he retched, then squinted over the sights. As he took up the slack on the trigger he was amazed to see his target stop. The sight resting squarely on his chest, the horseman looked back, still as stone.
It had to be an omen. Soldier could not believe providence had thrown this one last chance for him to grasp with open hands. With a death’s head smile he adjusted for wind and
squeezed the trigger.
The Winchester barked. Soldier winced as the butt plate battered his shoulder, then feebly tried to reload. He had no strength. He switched his flagging attention back to the fat-taker, waiting for the smoke to disperse. Long seconds later he could see.
Both man and horse were down.
For minutes he remained watching, shaking his head when the pain blurred his vision, waiting for it to clear so he could squint again into the near distance. In all the time he watched neither man nor horse moved.
It was done. It was finished.
Slowly, like a slim shark rolling over in deep water, Eks-a-Pana, the Soldier, turned over on the springy grass until his back flattened against the earth he loved and his sightless eyes stared at the unbroken vista of blue sky.
CHAPTER 14
…Alison was drifting, suspended in a limbo in which he could find no way up, down, or more to his liking, out. The patches of grey thickened and swirled and in there too was pain that made him dizzy and nauseous. Gradually, he fought his way up through the layers, seeking, striving towards the light that shone through the back of his eyelids to draw circles of purple sparked with crimson.
He groaned and came up on one elbow. Behind his head was the rock that had knocked him out. The black horse lay near him, flat on its side. Looking at the position of the felled animal he counted himself lucky his boots had come free of the stirrups or he would have been trapped underneath, probably with a broken leg. Dizzy, he struggled onto his knees, then onto his feet. For a moment he stood as still as possible, warding off the darkness that threatened to engulf him. When things evened out a bit he tested his legs and arms. There was no damage. How come he had been knocked sideways out of the saddle? He walked over and inspected the black. It had been killed by a bullet in a neck artery. On closer examination he discovered the bullet had cut through the front of the pack-saddle and then ploughed into the horse’s neck. But why had he been thrown to the ground?
The answer became apparent when he checked his gun. As the Colt cleared leather the cylinder fell out of the frame and the six shells scattered on the ground. The Winchester bullet must have ricocheted off the handgun before it hit the saddle. The rod which held the cylinder was broken, leaving the gun useless. The force of the bullet striking the Colt before it was deflected must have thrown him from the saddle and also accounted for the dull ache in his hip.
He was lucky the ricochet hadn’t set off the six bullets otherwise his right leg would have been shredded. That would have made enough leaks to drain his body dry in seconds.
He was lucky. But it was uncanny how both his pistol and his rifle had been broken, but stranger things had happened. The Colt on his hip had probably saved his life, but the cost of that was the horse.
But there was still the mule. And the gold.
***
“What makes you so darned sure that he’ll come here?” Morgan asked, looking up from his seat on the front porch of the Clay Springs Hotel. He had taken to sitting down since the accident for he tired quickly. His back was still extremely painful and the stagecoach ride had been purgatory.
Anne Marie relaxed momentarily from her vigil and looked down at him. She had been watching the street since shortly after dawn. “Nearest place for him to go.”
“Why not back to Redrock?” he asked, although he had a fair idea of the answer.
“Because I was there,” she replied simply, mouth taut. Something flickered deep in her eyes, perhaps reluctance to admit to anyone but herself Alison could leave her so easily. Her eyes dropped to the bleached planks of the boardwalk then back at the street. She opened her mouth to speak, but sighed instead, shoulders sagging. There was a mixture of sadness poorly concealed by fatigue as she continued. “Whatever else he is, he’s a son of a bitch.”
“Why did you put up with it?” he asked quietly.
She flashed him a disbelieving glance and snorted softly at the furrows creasing his forehead. How could she expect him to understand? “Because, when he had no money he had to rely on me to earn it for him.” She faltered, looking up at the sky, tears brimming her eyes. “I loved his reliance on me, yet I despised myself for the way I earned the money. I never wanted to bed down with other men, I only wanted to be his woman.”
“What most women want, I reckon,” Morgan said, head down as he rolled himself a cigarette.
She glanced down at him sharply. “Oh no,” she said, “not all of us. Most yes, but some, no. At one time I didn’t want all that, slaving away for some man in a shack in the backwoods on a little square of land that’d only grow scrub, but now that’s all I want.” She laughed at the irony, spreading her hands in supplication. “And when I do tag on to a likely man I get used like a spittoon.”
Morgan sniffed and touched a match to his cigarette. He drew deeply and jetted smoke at the sky. “You can change that.”
“That’s why I’m here.” Her voice was flat, devoid of emotion yet he sensed determination lurking behind the thin lips.
His eyes narrowed. “If you’re right about him heading this way, then when there’s shooting to be done, I’ll be the one to do it.”
“I know. I’m just here to see he gets what’s coming to him.”
“He’ll surely get that.”
She turned with a half smile, eyes glittering. “I keep forgetting. He’s the man who ran away and left me, but to you he’s the man who shot you in the back and stole your gold.”
“You bet,” he agreed, then shuffled his feet. “At one time I thought you were both in it together.”
“We were,” she replied, ashamed to face him. “I had a dream of living as a lady up in San Francisco or somewhere. Big fancy house and everything. But somewhere along the line I realized that no matter what I pretended to be on the outside I’d still be the same on the inside. Nothing would change that.”
“You’re right, and you’re wrong too,” Morgan said. “The money wouldn’t change you any, but you could change by being honest to yourself. So you earn your money the hard way, but at least you don’t steal it, so where’s the harm? Women have been earning a living in your line of work from the first time a man wanted to buy what they had to sell. In frontier towns it’s a real service.”
He glanced away along the street to where the prairie began. “It can get mighty lonesome out there sometimes. It’s a big country and it can carve a great big hole in your heart. You can ride for days and never see another man. I’m not saying that’s bad, most of the hombres you meet you wish you hadn’t, but it gets so bad you end up talking to your horse. That ain’t so bad, but you start getting worried when you think the horse is answering you back.”
She smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “You’ve helped me some.”
Morgan shook his head and tapped his free hand on his shirt that hid the thick strapping of bandages around his chest. “I figure you helped me quite a bit.”
“It was nothing. I would have done it for any man.”
Morgan watched her and his eyes seemed to probe deep into her very soul. He held his stare for a long moment then he raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Would you?” he asked, expecting no reply.
***
“Sweet son of a bitch,” Alison swore as the mule slipped, jogging his tender buttocks. His legs hung either side of the mule’s skinny flanks, boot heels almost grazing the ground. Each jar sent fire racing up the inside of his thighs where the flesh was raw from the packsaddle. His head too. He constantly altered the tilt of his hat without relief. When he had been knocked from the black’s saddle the rock had split his scalp and now an ugly red bump poked through his lank hair right on the spot his hatband rested. He had tried riding without the hat, but the sun blinded him with his own sweat and his eyes ached intolerably. The lesser of the evils was the chafing hatband.
He swilled another mouthful of tepid water from the canteen. The mule stopped walking. Alison lowered the canteen and scowled, quickly glancing round to see what
had upset the animal but could see nothing amiss. He swung his legs and kicked the mule’s scrawny flanks. The animal did not move.
“Come on, you knuckle-headed bastard,” he urged, kicking harder. The mule swelled out its belly, then spurted a long stream of urine onto the rocky ground. The steaming liquid splashed all over Alison’s boots and the powerful stench of ammonia swept up to clog his nostrils.
“Jesus wept!” he screamed. “If I had me a gun right now, I’d blow your damned head clean off!”
The mule swung its head a little and lazily twitched an ear. He’d had just about enough. Not content to load him with sacks of rock, this man had started to ride him as well. That was too much. Worse, he had been kicking and cursing him from dawn to dusk, pushing him without rest. His hooves were sore and he was sway-backed from all the weight, his belly moaning for a taste of sweet grass.
“All right, you blockhead,” Alison cursed as he swung down, inspecting his urine stained boots with disgust. He stepped back and swung his leg as hard as possible at the mule’s ribs. His effort was rewarded by pain searing up his abused thighs, and only the smallest of snorts from the mule. He raised his foot again as his mount craned its neck round, lips pulled back to expose a vicious set of yellow teeth. The huge tombstone incisors snapped experimentally and Alison abruptly decided against further provocation. He walked round to the rear and began to push at the bony buttocks. The mule’s neck craned even further to see what the man was up to.
With just the flat of his hands Alison could not gain enough leverage, so he put his shoulder to the job. He made no progress. The harder he pushed, the mule only peered at him a little more inquisitively. Angrier by the minute, Alison cursed fluently between clenched teeth, wheezing with the strain. It was like trying to push a ten ton rock. Panting, he rested for a while, drawing his strength together for one last push. If only he could get the mule moving, then with any luck it would keep on going.
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