by Neil Hunter
A white flurry of dislodged snow spumed up off the ground as the rider forced his horse up over a thick hummock. Brand stood upright, lifting his rifle and firing all in the same movement. He saw his bullet hit. The rider’s head snapped back, a burst of red misting the air. He fell off his horse, landing on the back of his neck, but he was dead before he touched the ground. His limp body slid partway back down the slope, leaving a sticky smear of blood and brains in the white snow.
Brand had already moved off up the slope. He could see Virginia’s dark shape ahead of him. Breathing hard Brand closed the distance between them. He was yards away when he sensed movement in the timber off to his left. He jerked that way, swinging up the rifle. He knew before he pulled the trigger that he was too late. The rider, leaning over his horse’s neck, gun thrust forward, had a face Brand felt he knew. He didn’t know from where or when - he just had memory of having seen the man before.
He heard the sound of the shot. Something hit him in the chest, high up and Brand went over backwards. He landed hard, his shoulders taking most of the impact. A numbing pain was spreading across his chest. Brand fought to gain his feet. He struggled over onto his knees. He could hear the sound of the rider’s horse close behind him. Brand cursed weakly. His movements were slow, clumsy, even though his mind was active, racing ahead. He gained his feet, turning to face the oncoming rider. Out of the corner of one eye he spotted another horseman angling across the timbered slope.
He refused to accept defeat. He yanked the rifle up from his hip with an extreme effort, pulling the trigger as it ranged in on the looming horsemen. Nothing happened. The rifle failed to fire. There was another shot—and a searing flash of pain that burned into his very brain. Brand screamed against the agony. It was a soundless scream. Brand couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t see or feel sensation.
He didn’t feel the bruising his body received as it fell, twisting across the slope before it dropped over the edge of a rock-strewn gully. Luckily he was unconscious to the pain as he went down the steep side of the gully, smashing to a dead stop amongst the tangle of fern and thorn at the bottom. Disturbed snow followed his downward passage, piling up over his body. Once the small avalanche of snow had ceased there was no sign of movement in the gully bottom.
Chapter Nine
Stubbornly ignoring the protests of his bruised and lacerated body, Jason Brand clawed his way out of the deep, rock strewn gully. Inch by inch, his raw fingers leaving bloody marks on everything he touched, he finally rolled himself over the crest of the slope where he lay panting, his battered face pressed against the cold snow. There was a nagging ache threatening to burst his skull apart and with every breath a savage pain ripped across his chest. He knew he was a fool to go on without rest. He had been lucky to climb out of that gully. He realized he’d been closer to death than he’d a right to step away from. Waking into a world of pain, his snow-covered body half frozen, Brand had quickly become aware of his close escape. He hadn’t deliberated over the matter for very long. His position was particularly fraught with danger. Initially he had needed to get himself up off the ground. To draw life and movement back into his limbs. It had taken time. His first attempt to climb to his feet had reduced him to a trembling hulk, his very being screaming for release from the hurt. After that he’d taken things at a gentler pace, ignoring the insistent voice which kept reminding him of Virginia. He was unable to forget her, and he kept asking himself the same questions over and over.
Where was she?
How was she?
What had happened to her since he’d been shot? The need to know the answer was the driving force helping him to make the long climb out of the gully. Lurking on the fringes of his conscious thought was the knowledge of one possibility. That Virginia might be dead. Already he had been shown the ruthless lengths to which her pursuers would go. The deliberate hunting of Virginia and himself. The killing of Jack Bell. He needed little more to convince him.
The image of Virginia, possibly lying dead on some distant slope of the mountains, came to him with startling clarity. Brand dragged himself upright and stared around, his eyes searching the snow for tracks. It had stopped snowing during the time he’d been in the gully. By the condition of the light and the long shadows beginning to stalk across the landscape, he judged it to be close to the end of the day. He realized that he must have been unconscious for four or five hours. It was a long time. Too long? He refused to allow himself to become dismayed at the thought.
He raised a hand to rub his chest as a stab of pain caused him to gasp. He’d been surprised, and relieved, to find no bullet wound where he’d been hit. The explanation revealed itself to be lying in the snow at his feet. His rifle with its breechblock twisted out of shape. He remembered the sound of the shot, then the stunning burst of pain. The bullet had struck his rifle, driving the weapon into his chest, leaving him badly bruised. It was the reason it had refused to fire. That made two narrow escapes from death. Brand wondered how many more chances he had left.
He moved around the immediate area, picking out the marks left by the horses, the footprints. He spotted the slender shape of Virginia’s feet. He swore softly. Each time he was reminded of her the worry started again. He felt the swelling ache inside his skull again and touched the fingers of one hand to the crusted blood that had dried over the jagged wound. That last bullet had burned across his skull, just above his left ear. The wound had bled a lot, which was usual with superficial damage. What worried Brand more was the effect it might have on his already damaged memory. The long healing process going on inside his head might easily he set back by a further shock. It might even prevent the recovery he’d been hoping for. It was a cold and sobering thought, and not one on which to dwell. Concern over such a matter was something he could indulge himself in at a later date. He had more pressing involvements to handle first.
Brand took out his Colt, checking it thoroughly. Satisfied he put it away, searched around until he found his hat. He slapped the snow off it, buttoned his coat and moved off up the slope, stumbling through the deep snow. Even now his battered body was beginning to stiffen and he knew he was going to need to keep on the move. He followed the ragged line of tracks up through the boulder-strewn lower slopes and into the dark tree line. Here he was forced to slow his pace. During daylight it was gloomy and shadowed beneath the trees. Now, with the approach of evening, it was fast becoming difficult to see the tracks at all. Brand persisted, his aching eyes seeking the winding trail of hoof prints. He was forced to backtrack more than once when he lost the trail, wasting precious minutes locating his way again. He walked and fell and climbed to his feet and fell again. He moved like some dead creature that refused to lie down, determinedly dragging his aching, hurt body on through the tree line until he broke out into the open further up the slopes. Brand paused for a moment, staring up the steep, endless slopes, and he cursed through cracked, frozen lips.
With the coming of the darkness a cold wind spun down off the high peaks. It cut through Brand’s thick coat like a knife through butter, chilling him to the bone. He hunched his shoulders against the blast, his face bleak with the anger he was feeling for everything. It was an overpowering, raging sensation that suddenly exploded inside him, rising with a kind of self-generating power. It took control of him for a time and Brand stood motionless, helpless in its grip, a realization of what was causing his mood, but unable to do a damn thing about it. He lifted his face to the keen bite of the wind, letting it numb his flesh. He let the anger subside, let the pulse of rage settle itself. He felt calmer but still carried a mood of frustration, and he knew it wouldn’t leave him until he’d learned what was going on. And the only way to find that out, he told himself, was to keep moving. To find out where Virginia was, what had happened to her, and why.
Despite his need for urgency Brand found a yearning for rest sweeping over him. His body had taken too much in the last hours. It begged for relief, for a chance to heal itself. Brand found he was s
lowing down. Every step was a battle which had to be won. He was almost rigid with cold. Fumbling his way around he eventually located a sloping bank with a shallow overhang at its base. Here he scraped away the snow until he’d exposed the hard ground beneath.
He built up the snow in a semi-circle around the front of the overhang, making himself a low wall which would protect him from the full force of the wind. Stumbling and slipping in the clinging, freezing snow Brand groped about in the darkness for fuel. He gathered what twigs and dead wood he could find, piling his find behind his wall of snow. When he figured he’d got enough he crouched down behind the wall and felt with stiff, fingers for the box holding the few matches he had in one of his pockets, praying that they hadn’t got wet.
He realized he needed something to start the fire with. Again he searched his pockets. All he found were a few crumpled dollar notes. A slow chuckle rose in his throat, forcing its way past his chattering teeth. Brand scraped one of the matches against a stone. It flared into life and went out before he had chance to touch it to one of the notes. He struck a second match, this time taking care to cup his hand around it as it burst into flame. He held the small yellow flame to the edge of one of the notes and watched the paper burn. Then he slipped it beneath the little pile of twigs he’d stacked up, feeding another note to help the first. The flames rose, smoke curling up from the damp wood. Brand watched the flame rise, then die down. He thrust in his last note. It caught, flared, flame rising. Then slowly the twigs began to burn, popping and hissing as moisture was boiled out of them. He watched his tiny fire grow and slowly feed it more fuel. It was a long, slow process, but gradually he increased the fuel until he was able to sit back and let it burn by itself. The orange-yellow flames threw out a comforting warmth and a soft circle of illumination. Beyond the ring of light lay what might have been eternal darkness. There was barely enough light to show where the trees ended and the sky began. Sitting before his tiny fire, accepting its meager warmth, Brand looked about him, troubled, weary, not knowing what the day would bring. For one of the few times in his harsh and violent life he felt very lonely.
He always imagined he had become so used to the loneliness and isolation his work brought him, that nothing could crack the armor he had built around himself. He existed in a self determining world of separation, where his days and often weeks, slid by without much in the way of contact existing. Trailing some fugitive across endless miles of emptiness, surviving on his own instincts and his knowledge of the land, he might go for long periods where human contact didn’t touch him at all. He accepted that and the silence imposed on his waking hours had the effect of making him taciturn, less likely to speak even when he was in company. It had become the norm. But there were other times when he did engage in contact with others and the longing for human closeness wormed its way inside his protective shell and he craved that company. His time with Virginia had ignited that spark and now he was alone again he found he was missing her provocative banter.
Brand stared out beyond the ring of firelight, his mind alive with distorted images, and a knowledge that facts had popped unbidden into his conscious stream of thought.
Facts about his previous life. Where had that come from? Perhaps a slow remembrance of the missing parts of his life. They said something about him. About his life and his experiences. He refused to push the matter, realizing it would be safer to just allow them to return gradually.
Leaning forward he fed more wood onto the fire, making certain he avoided staring into the flames. Something instinctive told him not to do that. A sudden need to look into the darkness beyond and his vision would be affected by looking at the fire, taking precious seconds to adjust. In those seconds he could be dead.
Another trait from his past?
He hunched over, drawing as much of the fire’s heat as he could, and as the warmth insinuated its way into his clothing, lulling him, he slept…
He awoke with a sudden start, his mind coming instantly alert, his sluggish body a second or so behind. Something told him, warned him, of an approaching danger. A presence which was close by. Brand fumbled his coat open, his right hand moving to the gun on his hip. His fingers gripped the butt hard, his thumb drawing back the hammer as he slid the gun free. He had pulled his body close against the low wall of snow jutting out from the overhang and he risked a quick glance over the top.
Nearby a handgun made a flat sound. Something clipped frozen snow from the top of the wall only an inch from Brand’s face. Cold particles of hard snow peppered his face like icy buckshot. The stinging pain made him gasp. A second shot sounded and this bullet, lower, tore through the base of the wall, clipping the edge of Brand’s left boot heel. Brand jerked his gun over the top of the wall, aiming quickly. He spotted the gunman now, catching a glimpse of powder smoke from the second shot. A dark figure standing close to the knotted trunk of a towering tree, early-morning light glancing from the barrel of his gun as he made to fire again. Brand shot first. His bullet chewed a slice of bark from the tree. Wood chips exploded in the man’s face. Brand heard him curse, saw him take a jerky step away from the tree’s sheltering bulk. Brand steadied the Colt in both hands and triggered two more shots. Both caught the man in the chest, driving him back. He struck a tree just behind him and seemed to bounce off, falling face down in the snow. Brand stayed his ground, watching the man. There was no movement but that didn’t tell him anything. The man might still be alive, wounded maybe, but still capable of delivering a fatal shot from the gun which was still gripped in his outstretched hand.
Brand waited for almost half an hour. He wasn’t in a fit enough condition to take risks. So he stayed where he was until he was damn sure the man was dead. Even when he climbed to his feet, unsteadily jerky-limbed after his long, cold night sleeping on the ground, he kept his Colt trained on the still figure. He’d taken time to reload while he’d been waiting and he was in the kind of mood where he would have pumped all six bullets into the man if he so much as quivered. By the time he’d reached him, standing over the body, Brand saw that he needn’t have worried. The man was dead and had probably been that way from the moment he’d gone down. Both of Brand’s bullets had gone through his heart, blasting out between his shoulders. The snow beneath the body was stained a deep pink. Brand rolled the body over, staring down into the face of the man who had just tried to kill him. Something stirred in the tangled depths of Brand’s mind as he looked into the face of the dead man. There was something very familiar about the features. The dark skin, black eyes, the broad, heavy-boned face. The tangled hair was black too. His name?
His name?
Brand struggled to draw it from his memory.
It came by itself. As if it had been waiting for his summons.
Puma.
That was his name. A half-breed killer. A gun for hire who would kill anyone, anywhere, any way. In a rush now the images came flooding back.
Puma.
A man Brand had almost tangled with once before.
There it was again. Another faint sliver of information that told him of his previous association with the man he had just killed. No hard detail. Just a shadowy recall that confirmed he did know Puma. There had been a close confrontation, he remembered, but something had happened to break it up. Somewhere down in the on the flatlands. A cattle dispute. He couldn’t recall any more. It was unimportant now. What did matter was the fact that he had remembered something more from his past. A face and a name. If it could happen once it could happen again.
Brand walked away from Puma’s body. If Puma had come looking for him it implied he was in with the people who had taken Virginia. It also told Brand that there was a horse nearby. He had only been retracing Puma’s footprints for a couple of minutes when he came on the horse tethered to the low branch of a tree. Brand checked the animal thoroughly. It was a strong, powerfully-built animal, the kind needed for riding through conditions which existed on these mountain slopes. A Henry .44-40 rifle lay in the saddle shea
th, a filled canteen hung from the saddle horn. In a sack behind the saddle Brand found ammunition, food and cooking gear. There was coffee, too, and a half bottle of whisky. Even a bundle of cheap cigars. A crumpled box of matches wrapped in a scrap of oilcloth.
He took the horse back to his resting place and tethered it. He built up his fire, which had almost gone out, and when the flames were high he put on a pot of coffee. From the supplies on Puma’s horse Brand fried thick slices of salted bacon. He was ravenous but he forced himself to eat slowly. Too much food in an empty stomach could leave him a damn sight worse off than before he had eaten.
He could see the body of the man named Puma from where he was sitting. A chill that had nothing to do with the weather ran through him when he realized how close he’d come to dying. It could have been over before he’d been able to register what was happening. Yet something had brought him out of sleep, warning him, giving him the chance to defend himself. He couldn’t put his finger on what it might he. Only some kind of instinctive capacity for survival. Whatever it was he had reason to be thankful for it.
He finished the food and downed as much of the hot coffee as he could. Then he packed away the gear, checked the horse and the rifle Puma had carried, climbed into the saddle and moved off.
He picked up the trail Puma had made on the way in and followed it back through the trees, finally breaking out on the edge of a flat meadow. He rode across the meadow, skirting the rim of a small, narrow lake, its frozen surface streaked with powdered snow. A pale sun threw warmth across the land. It brightened the day but did little to reduce the low temperature. The air tasted fresh and sharp. It was crystal clear, letting him see for miles across the white landscape. Brand estimated that Bannock couldn’t be more than a day’s ride away. But had Virginia’s captors taken her direct to the town? The trail he was following still led him north, but there was plenty of time for it to change direction. All he could do was to stay with it and hope that they wouldn’t be expecting him.
