Wildfire
Page 19
“I mean he saved me after you left me behind to burn up in the fire,” she said. “I was more than just a little grateful. . . .”
“You and the Ranger . . . ?” He let his question trail.
Gilley didn’t answer. Instead she left his mind free to conjure up whatever image it found within itself.
“Sam is a real man, Cheyenne,” she said, “not some phony like men I’ve grown accustomed to finding. We went through fire together, him and I. When most men would have fallen apart and given up, he kept his guts together—kept me together too. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him. He’s the kind of man any woman prays she’ll someday find in her life, in her bed, in her—”
“All right, I get your point,” Cheyenne said, cutting her off, sounding sour and envious. “He’s a hell of a fine fellow, this Ranger of yours.”
“You’re right, he is a fine man,” she said defiantly.
“Now where is he?” Cheyenne asked.
“I’m not telling you,” Gilley said.
Cheyenne looked back through the grainy darkness along the winding trail toward Iron Hat.
“If he tracked us to Iron Hat, he took the trail we took going in.” He grinned to himself. “But we took the steeper trail coming back.”
“It doesn’t matter what trail he took, or the trail you and your gang and all your womenfolk will take from here. Sam will catch you. When he does, you’re all through,” Gilley said.
“It should matter to you which trail me and my gang take, Gilley,” Cheyenne said. “Because you and your crippled Indian pal are going with us.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you, Cheyenne,” Gilley said, taking a firm stand for herself. “Not unless you want your womenfolk to see you in a fistfight with a woman half your size. They might get a kick out of that.”
“Oh, you’re going with me to Dutchman’s Gulch,” Cheyenne said, “and you’re doing it without a fistfight.” He drew his Colt from his holster and hefted it in his right hand, making sure she saw clearly what he was about to do. “Unless you want to count how many bullets I can put in Little Foot’s chest from here.” He raised the Colt as if to take aim at the helpless Indian.
“Don’t shoot him, Cheyenne,” she said. “I’ll go with you peacefully.”
Cheyenne cocked the Colt as if he didn’t hear her. He smiled to himself taking aim.
“I promise, Cheyenne!” she said with urgency. “I’ll go along without a fight!”
“Huh-uh, not good enough, Gilley,” he said. “You have to also promise you’re going to keep your pretty little mouth shut about stealing the bank money from me.”
“All right, I promise that too,” Gilley said. “Now lower the gun or I’ll start shouting it out about the money, right this minute.”
Cheyenne chuckled as he lowered the Colt and let it hang from his side. He liked that about Gilley, he recalled to himself, the way she would bargain and deal with a man. He hated to admit it, but maybe he’d cut her loose a little too quick. He looked her up and down and stepped over closer to her.
“Whatever turned us so bitter against each other?” he asked. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.
“Well, let me think,” she said, feigning contemplation on the matter. “Oh, now I remember. I think it was when I walked out the back door and overheard you telling your men you were going to kill me.”
“All right, that was a rocky time for us,” Cheyenne said. “But there was some good times too, huh?” he coaxed.
“Oh? You want me back, Cheyenne?” she asked.
“I can’t say I wouldn’t like things to be like they were between us,” he said, still standing close to her, running his hand up and down her shoulder. “What about you?” he asked softly.
Gilley looked at the silhouettes of the two women a few yards away in the darkness.
“What would you do, Cheyenne,” she asked, “fit me in between these other two women? You want to give each of us two days a week with you, and on the seventh day you can rest?”
Cheyenne stared into her eyes.
“Take me serious, Gilley,” he said. “Some men need more than one woman. Some need more than two or three. We could all four get along—”
“You’re a crazy bastard,” she said, cutting him off, “and you make my skin crawl.” She jerked her shoulder away from his hand. “If we’re all through talking, I want to get back to the others. I don’t like being alone with you.”
“Go on, then,” Cheyenne said. He gave her a slight shove back toward the others. “Remember what you promised. Either keep your mouth shut or I’ll shut it for you—yours and your gimp-legged Indian. . . .”
At the horses, the men heard the two arguing on the way back.
Tarpis stepped forward leading his horse and Cheyenne’s. He handed Cheyenne his horse’s reins and said, “Boss, it looks like the whole damn world is burning down back toward Nawton.”
Cheyenne looked south and saw a swell of brown-black smoke and streaking flames that had risen rapidly while he and Gilley had been standing aside talking.
“Damn!” he said. “That came up fast.” He stared in disbelief, seeing the fire overtake the distant horizon on a wind blowing up from the southwest.
“Think this is blowback from sending Gantry and this woman’s idiot husband starting fires?” Dock Latin asked.
“I don’t know, let’s ask the Indian,” Cheyenne said. “I want to hear what happened to Gantry and Segan anyway.”
They turned to Little Foot, who stood with his hands still raised chest high, Tarpis’ gun still loosely pointed at him.
“Of course it is from the fires that we started,” Little Foot said. He eyed the bottle in Delbert Pace’s hand. “Handy, can I have a drink, before my bones rattle off my skin?”
“I’d almost pay to see that,” Pace chuckled. He pitched Little Foot the bottle.
The men watched as the Indian took a long swig and let out a deep hiss when he finished. Little Foot ran the back of his hand across his lips.
“Obliged, Handy,” he said to Pace.
Pace reached a hand out for the bottle, but Little Foot didn’t seem to see it. He held the open bottle clasped to his chest.
“Segan and Gantry started fires from the top of the hill line to the valley down there,” he said to Cheyenne, pointing a finger from atop the black shadowy hills to the east to the dark valley as far west as they could see.
“Instead of burning out, it’s coming this way,” Cheyenne speculated.
“Did you think the fire would get tired and stop to rest?” Little Foot asked him pointedly. “In this dry weather it will rage until there is nothing left in its path to burn.”
“What about Gantry? Where is he?” Cheyenne asked, getting away from the subject of the wildfire.
“Gantry tired to kill me and Segan,” Little Foot said, feeling the warm surge of whiskey. “I set him on fire—”
“You sumbitch,” said Tarpis, “you burned ol’ Red!” He cocked the pistol in his hand.
“He made the squealing sound a dying pig makes,” Little Foot said.
“Why, you . . . !” Tarpis aimed his pistol at the grinning, whiskey-lit Indian.
“Lower your gun, Roy,” said Cheyenne. “Can’t you see he’s lying? One drink and he turns into Geronimo.”
Little Foot let out a sigh and stood staring at Cheyenne as Tarpis let the hammer down on his gun and lowered it.
“Answer me without all the warrior talk,” Cheyenne said. “Gantry is dead, right?”
“Right,” said Little Foot without elaborating.
“What about crazy Segan?” Cheyenne asked, seeing the question in Caroline’s eyes.
Little Foot shrugged and looked back and forth between Caroline Udall and Cheyenne.
“So you let a cat eat him instead?” said Cheyenne, skeptically, seeing the look of horror come onto Caroline’s face. He jerked the bottle from Little Foot’s hand and passed it back to Pace.
Gilley watched and listened in silence. She knew Segan was alive the last time they’d seen him. He’d been getting himself sewn back together in Mandell. But she owed no explanations here. For two cents, she thought, she’d make a run to Little Foot’s horse, jump into the saddle and race away from here—warn the Ranger where Cheyenne and his men were, and where they were headed from here. But that would be leaving the Indian in a bad spot, leaving him behind with only her lame horse to ride. . . .
“Okay,” said Cheyenne, “I’ve heard enough. Everybody mount up. We’re all headed to Dutchman’s Gulch.”
“I can’t mount up,” Gilley said. “My horse is lamed-
up with a bruised foreleg.”
“You’ll ride him anyway,” Cheyenne said firmly. “Or else you’ll ride double with me, on my lap.”
“You go to hell,” Gilley snapped back at him. “I’m not ruining my horse.” She planted her feet on the ground in her determination. “I’m not sitting on your randy lap, getting myself short-horned every step of the way.”
Cheyenne’s felt his face redden, grateful to have it hidden in the darkness.
“I’ll ride with Little Foot, or one of the others,” she said.
Cheyenne took a deep breath, wanting to put a bullet in her. But he knew how bad that would look to Silvia.
These damn women . . . , he thought. “All right, you and Little Foot mount up, if he can stand you.”
“I’m taking my horse too,” Gilley insisted.
“Jesus! Take your damn horse,” Cheyenne said. “Let’s get out of here, before this wildfire comes licking up our backs.”
Tarpis, Latin and Pace swung up into their saddles.
“Fellows,” Pace whispered to the other two, “this beats all I ever seen.”
“Hey, Delbert, shut up,” Tarpis whipped back to him. “This ain’t Dock or me causing the problem, is it?”
“No, I see it’s not,” said Pace, corking the whiskey bottle and slipping it back behind him inside his saddlebags. “But I always say, we’re only as good as the brand we ride for.”
Tarpis and Latin looked at each other in the darkness as the three of them nudged their horses over to Little Foot and Gilley and half circled them.
“Both of you get mounted,” Tarpis demanded, seeing Cheyenne step his horse over to Caroline and Silvia, as if he was leaving Gilley for them to reckon with.
When the two had mounted Little Foot’s horse, Gilley leading her lame horse by its reins behind them, Latin sidled close to them.
“I always liked you, Gilley. But one false move out of you or this Injun, either one, I’ll kill you both quicker than a cat’ll kill a cricket.”
“You won’t have any trouble from us, Dock. You’ve got my word on it,” Gilley said. “I want to stay alive long enough to see Mr. Cheyenne Kid get what’s coming to him.”
“Me too,” Little Foot said with a thin whiskey smile, his ragged blanket tightened around him against the cool of the night air.
Where the two women sat atop their horses waiting, Silvia gave Cheyenne a wry smirk as he rode up to them.
“Trouble with the little woman?” she asked.
“She’s not my little woman,” Cheyenne said. Not wanting to devote all his attention to the dove and leave Caroline out, he turned to her and said, “I’m sorry you had to hear about Segan.”
“I don’t care about Segan being eaten by a cat,” Caroline said stiffly, looking away from him. “I wanted you to kill him for me, remember? Or have you forgotten about us?”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Cheyenne said. He looked at Silvia and saw her smug grin. He’d have to deal with her later, he decided, when he had time to show her his better side—explain everything to her in a way she’d understand. “Both of you better stay close beside me,” he said. “It’s an all-night ride to Dutchman’s Gulch. We’ll need to stay clear of any wildfire on the way.”
Chapter 21
The Ranger had ridden halfway back along the same fork of trail the gang had taken out of Iron Hat when he saw the fire and smoke moving sidelong on the wind less than fifty yards to his left. If this was the same orange fire glow he’d seen from atop the apothecary roof—and he was certain it was, given the strength of the winds tonight—this new outburst of wildfire was traveling faster and wider than it had done for the past week.
Seeing the fire already encroaching dangerously close to his trail, he looked back into the darkness toward town and wondered if the colonel would have the good sense to turn his posse back. He hoped so, he thought, nudging the barb along the dark, rocky trail. He’d already begun to catch the familiar smell of burnt pine and brush wafting in around him.
“We’ve gotten used to this,” he murmured to the barb, keeping his reins taut as he patted the horse’s neck to keep it calm. But when they had gone another twenty yards, the barb began sawing its head and shying away from the rocky cutbank on their left.
All right, it’s not the fire, he told himself.
Stopping the horse, he stepped down from his saddle and hitched the reins around a spur of rock. He drew his Winchester from his saddle boot and checked the rifle as he stepped forward, his eyes scanning the darkness along the inside edge of the trail. When he saw the tan creature stretched out along the bottom of the cutbank, he stopped and raised his rifle to his shoulder, recalling what Segan Udall looked like after his brush with the mama panther. As he stood ready to fire, he heard the muffled whine of the young cub, its face buried against its mother’s belly.
“You again,” Sam whispered under his breath, recognizing the familiar streak of dark dried blood still on the dead mother cat’s shoulder.
He remained frozen in place with his rifle for a moment until he realized the mother cat wasn’t going to spring up onto her paws and fling herself at him. He heard not so much as a warning growl from the still, silent animal, only the soft whimpering of the cub.
Inching forward, his rifle ready to fire until he stood directly over the animal, he stared down at the cub. The weak, barely conscious animal nursed at its dead mother’s breast.
“Oh no . . . ,” Sam whispered in regret. To be on the safe side, he reached down and poked the rifle barrel into the mother cat’s furry neck. She didn’t move. Then he sighed to himself, lowered the Winchester’s hammer and stood in silence a moment longer, hearing only the roaring voice of the distant fire and the soft whimper of the orphaned panther cub.
When he crouched down and looked closer at the mother cat, he saw a gaping, blood-crusted wound on her side. He saw the glazed look of death in her open eyes and he felt a compulsion to close them with his gloved hand. But he didn’t. Instead he reached down and raised the cub by the nape of its neck and turned it in his gloved hand and looked at it—a little female. He looked off again in the direction of the fire, already feeling the drifting heat of it nearing him on the night wind. Then he looked back at the half-conscious cub pawing weakly in the air toward his face.
“What’s to become of you, little gal?” Sam asked, as if the helpless cub might speak up for itself. He shook his head and cradled the thin, furry animal in his arms as he stared down at its dead mother. With his rifle leaned against his chest, he stroked the dead mother cat’s fur. You did all you could, ol’ mama. I’ll attest to that for you. . . .
He stood up with the cub against his chest, the animal too weak and stunned from traveling throug
h smoke and fire to resist him. He’d known since childhood that it was wrong at worst, and foolish at best, to interfere with the will of nature. Yet he couldn’t walk away and leave this cub to die, not after having witnessed how hard its mother had struggled to protect it.
He stared back at the silvery gray smoke forming down the hillside toward him, advance warning of the darker smoke and flame soon to come. How much of this devastation had resulted from Segan Udall’s mind-
less action—man’s hand—and how much had come from the forces of nature—drought, winds, lightning—he did not know. But there is such a thing as humanity, he told himself, and humanity need not explain its actions to either nature or itself. He clutched the cub to his heart as he lowered the tip of the rifle barrel an inch from its mother’s head.
“You’re coming with me, little gal,” he whispered to the cringing cub, “see where this life takes you.”
Sam was certain the mother cat was dead, but for the cost of a bullet he would never question himself. The Winchester bucked in his hand; the cub stiffened at the sound, then burrowed itself against his chest, its head hidden behind the open lapel of his riding duster.
When he walked back to the barb, the horse chuffed and grumbled and stomped a hoof at the scent of the cat. But Sam settled the protesting animal, shoved his rifle back into the saddle boot, unhitched the reins and swung up on the horse’s back.
“I’m not asking you to be best friends,” he said to the barb, putting the horse forward, the cat tucked inside his riding duster resting exhausted on his crossed forearm.
He pulled his bandana up over his nose and rode on, feeling the scorching heat begin to press him on his left.
Descending the trail two miles farther along, Sam stopped again and looked ahead warily. He could tell by both the closeness and the intensity of the wind-driven smoke and flames that there would be no reaching the three-fork junction on horseback. The fire was moving down in front of him like some element on attack, bent on stopping him.
This time he left the Winchester in its boot as he swung down from his saddle. When the panther cub stirred and growled a little behind his duster, he rested a hand on it to settle the animal.