As he listened, he heard another sound. In the opposite direction.
Water!
He lay thinking about that. Water was the only thing that could save him if they had the dogs out sniffing his trail. Maybe his luck hadn’t left him entirely after all.
The thought encouraged him to get on his feet again, muttering encouragement to himself now and going forward at an insanely fast pace, stumbling to his knees and getting up again in as many paces as he took.
He stopped to listen to the sound of the water again to check that he was going in the right direction, wondering if his warped senses had betrayed him, but he heard it, louder this time and something sang with hope inside him.
Urgency touched him when the baying of the hounds came loud and clear and the sound of a man shouting in a voice high-pitched with excitement. The dogs had got his smell.
He went on.
Suddenly he came to the glitter of water in the moonlight and he couldn’t remember ever having seen a more welcome sight in his life. He stood and stared at it, transfixed.
He started towards it…
Not a couple of paces and the earth seemed to drop away from him, not to be there under his feet any more.
Fright ripped through him and he yelled, threw out his arms to save himself, but he knew that he was dropping a long way. Once his feet touched something and he heard dirt and stones rattle; once a branch tore at his clothes, then he hit something soft and his face smothered and he was lying choking and spluttering, attempting to get out of this soft clinging thing that had embraced him.
He was in mud.
From behind him the eerie sound of the dogs told him that he hadn’t any time to lie there to recover from his fall. It was the water or the dogs and then the men behind the dogs with guns—or maybe a rope.
He started dragging himself through the mud and it tried to hold him fast, but he fought it and went on. He reckoned he’d go on through this scarlet haze or near delirium till the dogs and the men were no longer there—either that or they got him.
He reached the water and, not knowing if it were clean or dirty, sank his face into it and drank. For a moment fresh life seemed to flow in him. When he’d drunk he pulled himself into the water and lay in it full length, feeling it cooling his now burning body. He allowed himself the blissful luxury of that for no more than a matter of seconds before he impelled himself on again, dragging himself downstream along the line of the shore.
He hadn’t gone far before he got himself all tied up with a deadfall. It was too much for him to fight after his almost superhuman effort, so he gave up and rested against a bed of branches and twigs, the water lapping against his face, getting in his eyes and mouth. Maybe that restored some of his sense, because he found himself rationally listening to the approach of the dogs and men, realizing they had reached the high ground above the shore where the dogs were casting around, no doubt confused where he had pitched out into the mud.
Clearly he heard a man shout, ‘Scatter out. Either way. Joe, you take a coupla dawgs. Two for you, Harry. Git movin’ now, he’s hurt bad and he won’t have gone far.’
‘Light a torch.’
‘You wanta git yourself killed. He ain’t daid an’ he has a gun.’
But a match flicked, seemed to die before a torch suddenly flared, throwing a wavering pool of light, showing the heavily shadowed figures of the men. He wondered why they wanted torches with the moonlight so bright and he got the explanation when he saw them leaning over the cut-bank searching in the shadows at its foot. Another and another torch flared and the men seemed to take courage from the light even though it could make an easy target of them.
Spur knew he had to be moving.
He began to push his way through the dead foliage, found it resisted him and pushed harder, trying to get into deep water. There couldn’t be too much water between him and the dogs for his money. The deadfall stretched out into what he thought to be a fairly wide creek and he reckoned he could go along to the end of it and be lost in the deep shadow there. If they searched that way, he’d try swimming. Which was a laugh in his condition.
Still, he had to do something.
He heaved again, heard a branch crack under his weight loud as a pistol shot. He froze, knowing the men on the shore must have heard him, but was slowly and irresistibly carried off his feet. Straight off he weakly panicked and fought against the thing that had a grip of him until he realized that his heaving had loosed the trunk from its hold on the mud and it was now afloat.
He could have sung with relief. He got his feet under him and kicked out. His wounded leg failed him and he nearly went under, but he saved himself and felt his crude boat swing further into the stream.
The dogs on the bank were going crazy now, straining at the leashes and running this way and that. A man shouted for them to be freed and Spur could tell by the note of their voices that the leashes had been slipped.
The water was deeper now and when he put his feet down, they found nothing. He started to swim with his legs, holding on tightly to a stout branch and praying. It wasn’t long before the pain in his back made it hard to hold on. He tried to think of other things but he couldn’t, not even of the men after him. When the trunk started to roll, he went clear under the water and seemed to stay there for a hundred years; he surfaced with bursting lungs and kicked up such a noise there didn’t seem much doubt that his pursuers must have heard him. As soon as he managed to get some air into his tortured lungs, the deadfall made its return movement and put him under again. This time, however, he was prepared and went down with a lungful of air. But he didn’t enjoy it and began to think that the dead tree had fulfilled its usefulness.
Through the branches, he tried to see his position, wondering if it were possible to swim to the opposite bank, if he could swim at all with his wounds. But he had the incentive.
He heard men splashing into the shallows as he sighted a light in front of him. That he reckoned was the opposite shore and it didn’t look too far off.
The deadfall gave him another ducking before he let himself slip free of his hold and tried to float away. He got himself caught up again, fought weakly to free himself and nearly drowned, before he found himself in clear water. He knew also that he was probably in full view of the men. So he dived and to his surprise hit bottom almost immediately. It was far shallower here than he’d thought. He stood up and found that the water reached only to his chin, so he stood there, leaning against the current, head barely above water and watching the antics of the men ashore.
So far as he could see they were all certain about where he had entered the water. Even if the dogs hadn’t been able to pick up his scent in the mud, the light of the torches would have revealed his marks in it. He turned slowly and started walking towards the light. He was very weak and it was all he could to stay on his feet. Every few paces the force of the water would stagger him and he’d flounder under. After a while, he came up from a ducking to find that the water reached no higher than his chest. He knew he hadn’t come to the further shore because he could see a fair stretch of moonlit water in front of him. Another couple of paces and he was exposed to his belt. He went on, crouched down to avoid being seen, though the distance between him and men was steadily growing greater and he could not distinguish the shouted words now.
He stood a little when the water was no more than knee-deep and reckoned he’d hit a sand-bank in the middle of the creek.
Another five or six yards and he felt the crisp sound of dry sand under his boots. He sat down and said to himself conversationally, ‘So far so good.’
Now what?
Boots … full of water.
He started heaving on the right one, but it was as tight as a drum and all he did was to make his back pain so badly it started him cursing. So he gave that up. He turned himself bodily so he wouldn’t hurt his back by twisting around and found he could still see the light ahead of him.
That was some sort of a guide.
If he headed towards that he couldn’t go far wrong. He only hoped that the water in front of him was shallow.
It wasn’t easy getting on his feet this time and he took a while to do it, straining and swearing as he did it, not knowing where he was going to get the strength to walk another pace.
But he made it and stood swaying drunkenly.
Thrusting one foot slowly forward he found he had to bring the other sharply beyond it or he’d have gone down on his face again. This way, he made four-five crazy paces before he walked into something and knocked himself on his back, going down in a tangle of arms, legs and incomprehensible oaths. The blood-red veil of delirium was thicker now and there wasn’t much he could see at all. There were stones and mud under his hands, he knew.
Sitting up slowly, he fought to make his mind work rationally, trying to divine what he had walked into out here in the middle of the creek, but his mind kept floating away, first touching on a horse he had wanted badly up in the Nez Perce country and had never gotten around to buy, beg or steal. Then it arrived at blueberry pie and it seemed his mouth would water enough to overflow the creek and wash the town away.
Which was a nice thought.
However, when the truth of what he had just accomplished came to him, he forgot all about even blueberry pie.
You plain damn fool, he told himself, you’re on the same side of the river you started out from. There’s a bend in it. The light you’ve been heading for is on the town side.
He tried to argue himself out of that, but it wasn’t any good, there wasn’t any way out of this, but to perform his herculean task all over—going in the right direction this time. That made him want to cry like a woman. Maybe he did cry. He didn’t know. He never knew, because the whole world seemed a home for madmen and life in it a grotesque nightmare. He seemed to flit from his own lunatic world into one that was chocked with cold reality, like the shouting of men that wanted his life and the baying dogs that were leading them to him.
There was a vague impression of wading through water that he became convinced was molten silver—certainly it took the last of his strength to go a few paces through it. He knew he fell on his face and the water was ice-cold against his burning flesh and he tried to get out of it.
After that there was a spasm of fear, that he would be caught and that there were men near him now getting set to drop a noose around his neck and strangle him to death.
But the fear passed, not because he didn’t think the danger wasn’t there anymore. Because he didn’t care. Death couldn’t be worse than this. Only an escape. His iron will melted in the heat of the fever.
He heard himself say, ‘Hand in your chips, Spur, and smile while you do it. Or they’ll think you’re scared.’
He wondered dreamily if he was scared and he thought maybe he wasn’t after all. Which gave him some satisfaction.
After that he didn’t think anything.
He just faded out in a kind of sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
When the woman opened the door to the knocking, she found herself looking into the china-blue eyes of a small man. Behind him she glimpsed the unshaven sweaty face of Roy Smelling, Ely Rutter, the deputy, and several other men. The lamp she held high cast a stark light on them, exaggerating their features, bringing to the faces she saw normally several times a week, a sudden and unexpected sense of drama.
‘Why, Mr. Wragg,’ she said and noticed that Smelling’s heavy lips were grinning a little. They usually did when he got his sharp, pig’s eyes on her. The other men seemed to brighten briefly, ducking their heads slightly. Ely sniffed his appreciation.
‘Sorry to come a-worryin’ you this late, Mrs. Overell,’ little Wragg said in his surprisingly deep voice. You expected a boy’s voice and you got a man’s. That would have given you the key to the man, if you were the kind that looked for keys. ‘We’re lookin’ for a man and he come this way.’
‘A man?’
‘Yeah,’ Smelling said edging forward, but not getting past Wragg’s rigid shoulder, ‘a killer.’
The hand that wasn’t holding the lamp took a hold of the door jamb.
‘A notorious outlaw,’ Wragg said and he danced on his toes a little. He was liking this. He was a man with a reputation and folks were showing signs of forgetting about it. Time they were reminded. ‘Shot and killed the parson.’
He expected the news to shake anyone, just like it had shaken him, but he hadn’t expected it to affect the woman like it did. Even in the yellow light of the lamp, he could see how pale she went, saw the sudden change in the eyes that looked black, but which he knew were the darkest blue. Her whole body seemed to shudder and nobody missed that because most of them were looking at her body. Men mostly did and it wasn’t surprising.
Smelling added, ‘Gut the sheriff down, murdered George Gudlip. We gotta search the house, Mrs. Overell.’
She jerked her head up when she heard that and Wragg brought his head half-around in a snapping movement, booming, ‘No call for that. I’ll handle this, Roy.’
The grin came off Roy’s face.
‘You ain’t handlin’ nothin’, Wragg.’
Ely came pushing forward, saying, ‘As deputy-sheriff—’
‘All we want to know, ma’am, is if you’re heard or seen anything of this man,’ Wragg told her.
They had to wait a full second for the answer.
‘No,’ she said in no more than a whisper. ‘Everything’s been quiet here. No one’s been near.’
‘He mighta crep’ in someplace,’ Smelling declared. ‘Outhouse, barn … he’s hit bad. He’ll crawl into a hole like a rat to die.’
Wragg chuckled.
‘If he has,’ he said, ‘you’d best be real careful or he’ll bite you if you go pokin’ into it.’
Smelling growled in his throat, ‘I’ll take care of the son.’
‘The man’s not here,’ the woman said. ‘If you want to search the barn—go ahead. He’s not in the house.’
‘Thank you,’ Wragg said and brushed back the long skirt of his Prince Albert. She saw the butt of the gun to the left side of his belt. It seemed as big as a cannon on the little man, but she knew there wasn’t anyone in town that was handier with firearms than he. He tilted his hat politely and said over his shoulder, ‘Light those torches, boys, and step around. Do it mighty careful. This man’s dangerous even with one foot in the grave.’
They pondered that and slowly scattered out.
Wragg told the woman, ‘You’d best stay inside, ma’am.’ The woman stared at him briefly, then she shut the door.
Inside she leaned against the door for a moment, frowning, staring at the rich shine the lamp cast on her table, which stood in the center of the large room. She turned her head on one side slightly, listening to the sound of the men as they moved about the yard. She heard extreme caution in every move they made.
Walking to the table, she laid the lamp on it.
Outside the range of the light a small voice said, ‘Ma, they’s men all ‘round the house. With torches. Mr. Wragg’s there and he has a gun.’
Without looking around at the speaker, the woman said, ‘I know. I spoke with them at the door.’
‘What’re they lookin’ for?’
‘A man. An outlaw. They reckoned he came this way. Go back to sleep.’
‘Cain’t. I ain’t bin to sleep.’
‘Then go to sleep.’
A short silence and the voice said, ‘How in hell kin I sleep if’n them jaspers is creepin’ all around?’
‘Watch your language, young lady, if your pa was alive he’d—’
‘If’n pa was alive he’d be a-cussin wuss an’ you know it.’
The woman’s mouth tightened up and she started hastily towards the voice. She stopped when she heard the rapid intake of breath followed by a slammed door and the patter of bare feet. She smiled briefly and the tight mouth became momentarily warm.
She stopped smiling when the sounds outside intruded on her,
making her wonder about the man they were hunting, wondering how many men among them would be hunted themselves one day. Who could ever tell in this country? A man was a lawman or a posseman one day and a name on a ‘wanted’ poster the next.
A worry fretted in her and she couldn’t define it—as if she were a part of that moonlight man-hunt. She tried to dismiss the idea, but it persisted.
She looked around her at her warm, dry house, full of the things that she and Will had collected in the ten years of their married life, good things made to endure, too good, some thought, for a frontier town like this. People laughed and said she put on airs. They said other things as well, adding lurid stories about her sister, scandalized because neither of them had accepted men and married again. They would never know that a woman like her couldn’t take another man easily after being married to a man like Will.
She’d grow old here, digging herself into her rut, she and the child, with Sarie, her sister, coming visiting every once in a while. They weren’t bringing the child up right, but at least she was loved and being fed well, growing strong and healthy.
Sitting down in Will’s old rocker, she waited patiently till the sounds of the search died away. The yelping of the dogs down by the creek had died away too. Somehow that made her feel oddly happy. She decided she’d sleep in the chair for a while. If the hunted man was still alive, he might be out there in the moonlight wounded but free. He might come to her door. She felt she owed him something.
After all, he’d killed the parson.
Dawn found her dozing in the chair, stiff and cold. Rising, she went quietly into the yard and washed her face and hands under the pump. Drying herself on her apron, she looked around.
Last of all, she looked at the barn and she stopped when her eyes fell there.
The door was open. Maybe the men had left it that way last night, maybe the hunted man had crawled in there to hide after they’d gone.
It took her a long time to get up enough courage to go and take a look, but finally she did it, feeling a little foolish and yet wishing she’d thought to take Will’s old shotgun down from the wall and load it. But surely not even a desperado would harm a woman.
The Gun is my Brother Page 4
