Norton, Andre - Novel 15

by Stand to Horse (v1. 0)

  Breakfast was enough hardtack to make two good bites. But Ritchie chewed it in a mouth so dry that he could hardly make an impression on the flinty flakes of the stuff. He eyed his canteen longingly. But until they found a real spring he knew better than to indulge that longing.

  "The wounded hero on his way home from the wars!" Sturgis' voice was not what it had been, but his mind was clear enough. He lay half-propped against the blanket and saddle support they had built behind him the night before. Rags of a blue shirt made a cumbersome bandage roll about the upper half of his chest, and his hand trailed limply across his thighs.

  “I can't shoot," he told Ritchie, ''but if we run into the devils, maybe I can load with one hand. Well, Sergeant, come to get me aboard?" he asked over Ritchie's shoulder as Herndon came up with a horse. "Hello—that isn't Blackie -it's Birke's-"

  "Blackie's a leetle too brisk for a one-armed man," Tuttle explained.

  Sturgis' head was up. "Birke isn't going to ride him! Blackie won't stand for that big ape beating him—"

  "No." Herndon bent over the Southerner. "I'll ride Blackie. I'm giving Birke Woldemar's mount."

  It took three of them to get Sturgis into the saddle. And Ritchie did not miss the look which Herndon and Tuttle exchanged when it was done. He had a moment of pure panic when he imagined what might happen if they were ambushed for the second time in one of the winding turns of this break country—ambushed with the helpless Sturgis in their midst.

  "Could do with a drink—" Sturgis murmured. Through the matted hairs of his neglected beard, his pale tongue licked paler lips.

  "We all could," agreed the Sergeant. He unslung his canteen and held it for the Southerner.

  Ritchie took that for an order. But he barely wet his lips with the flat, faintly odorous stuff inside. Birke swallowed three or four times from his canteen and even smacked his lips as he drove the stopper back in. Ritchie moved closer to Tuttle.

  "What chance of finding water?"

  "As good as any we got, son. We'll jus' hope the chips are runnin' our way today."

  When they had come into this stretch of country the night before, it had been too dark to see it clearly. But now raw color struck them face on. Bold slashes of it drew the sun until they had to squint their eyes against the glare. In the same rock wall Ritchie counted splashs of red, blue, purple, yellow, and white as clearly laid on as if by giant paint brushes. It was a wildly broken land, too, jagged colorful canyons opening in crooked patterns, with now and then a glimpse of a forest-crowned mesa high enough beyond their reach to torture them with its promise of coolness and concealment.

  The whole country was a maze of dazzling, sun-blazoned colored walls and blue-black shadows through which they moved half-blindly. Why, thought Ritchie hopelessly, half the Apache nation might crouch here undisturbed to watch the struggles of their quarry, able to pick them off at leisure.

  Tuttle scouted ahead. Now more than ever they were dependent upon his knowledge painfully acquired as a Mountain Man. If their circling would ever allow them to cross Sharpe's trail, it would be because of Tuttle's guidance. But every time the scout slipped ahead, a little shadow of fear darkened the day for Ritchie. They could not do without Tuttle.

  Birke tramped heavily, jerking Woldemar's patient horse at his heels. He carried his carbine at ready, and his eyes swept the rocky walls as might those of a cornered and so doubly dangerous puma. He had not spoken all morning, and during their rest halts he had sat apart.

  Taking turns, Herndon and Ritchie walked beside Sturgis, ready with a steadying hand when the wounded man needed it. They alternated this with duty as rear guard. But as the morning passed without incident, their fear of pursuit faded, and the hope that Diego had lost them in the dark grew.

  "How about a drink. Rich?"

  He looked up at Sturgis. Above the fine fair hair of the beard the Southerner's face was darkly flushed. His eyelids hung heavy and half-closed.

  "Seems like I have a bonfire inside," the slurred speech went on. "Could do with a little water to sort of dampen it down a bit. Got a drink for me, Rich?"

  Ritchie scrambled up on a rock and pulled the plug out of his canteen, putting it into Sturgis' good hand and helping him raise it. The wounded man's hand was like a coal of fire. And Ritchie had to pry the canteen loose when Sturgis had only taken a couple of swallows.

  '"Nother-?"

  Ritchie drove in the stopper with a hand which shook a little. But he was able to say quite firmly, "Not now."

  "Hey—water!" Birke's shout brought them hurrying on.

  But the big dragoon's face was a mask of pure rage as they came up to the pool fed by a finger-sized trickle of spring. And even as Ritchie brought up his canteen, Birke kicked a rock into the water and pulled savagely at the trailing reins of the horse, which had made no move to approach the spring. Herndon dipped a finger in the liquid, smelled it, and then licked gingerly. He made a wry face and shook his head.

  "Salts and alkali—"

  With a sigh Ritchie reslung his canteen. He'd heard enough about what happened if you poured that sort of stuff down your gullet. He was almost moved to follow Birke's example and kick a few rocks. But instead he dropped into line as they plodded on.

  They were well away from the site of that disappointment when they came into the black flies ‘territory'. The creatures lit and stung almost before a man could sight them. And where they stung, the skin swelled and itched as painfully as it might after a brush with poison ivy. Sturgis began to moan feebly, flapping his good hand at his face and neck. Herndon's beard-shadowed cheeks showed the red blotches, and Ritchie gritted his teeth against the torment. A meeting with Apaches seemed the lesser of two evils now—in fact he could almost welcome such a diversion.

  Herndon had stopped, and when Ritchie looked up to see why, he motioned him up. As he came, the Sergeant spoke tersely through bitten and swollen lips.

  "Keep Sturgis quiet if you can. There're lizards here— might be able to get one—"

  He pointed to a rockslide which in times past must have thundered down the side of the canyon, bearing with it trees from the mesa to form a wild tangle of sun-bleached and dried roots and splintered trunks. Lizards, whose scales winked with the glints of jewels, swarmed in this reptile paradise, skimming like flashes of colored light between one hole and another. Herndon cut a long switch from a bush. Then he sat down and drew off his boots before approaching the hunting ground.

  Ritchie had heard that the Apaches ran down and killed with a switch the lizards of the desert, which they esteemed as food. But his stomach still was uneasy at the thought of touching such meat himself. However, the few scraps of hardtack and jerky they carried would not last long. And if they were to have the strength to go on, they must learn to live off the country. He resolutely swallowed his queasiness and hoped that Herndon would be lucky.

  But the Sergeant, perhaps made clumsy by his very eagerness, was not successful. He pounced and struck without results as far as Ritchie could see.

  Sturgis was growing restless; he was moaning regularly now. And once or twice he muttered, "Water!" The skin of his arms and body where not protected by the roll of bandage showed thick welts left by the fly bites. Ritchie put down his carbine and unbuttoned his own sun-faded shirt. He rebuttoned it capewise about the unresisting Sturgis. Then he tried to adjust his neckerchief to cover his own back as far as possible. He was still tugging at it when Herndon returned, the broken switch dangling from his fingers.

  As he came up, he snapped the stick in two and threw it away. And, saying nothing, he waved Ritchie on, dropping back to play rear guard. Birke and Tuttle had disappeared ahead while the lizard hunt was in progress, so that now the three were alone, walled in by the multi-colored rock of the endless canyon that led nowhere but deeper into the center of a maze of sun-baked, waterless rock and mocking mesa. They would just go on and on, thought Ritchie wildly for a moment, on and on and on until their feet could move no longer, and then they
would lie never to be found—

  "It's a grand morning." Those words came from the man at his side.

  Sturgis was erect in the saddle, looking about him with a show of real interest.

  "A grand morning," he repeated. "The scent will lie right, gentlemen. I'll wager Belle will find within the quarter hour. Have I any takers?"

  He waited courteously and then nodded in answer to some expected reply. "Fifty it is, Jeffrey. You hear that, gentlemen? Fifty that Belle will find within the quarter hour. She's a keen-nosed old girl, and there isn't a fox in the valley that can outwit her in the chase—"

  Ritchie had to look about him. Sturgis was conjuring up a picture so vividly that he could almost see those other shadowy riders, too. But Sturgis had forgotten his horsemen almost as quickly as he had summoned them. Instead he was now smiling at a greasewood bush, and the smile which lit up his flushed, bitten face was one Ritchie had never seen there before.

  "Louisa—" He was eager, welcoming. But a moment later some of that eagerness died, the shade of boyish gaiety faded out of his eyes. "Louisa," he said again, not welcomingly but questioningly. Then the smile disappeared altogether, and he added sharply, "You do not understand. A friendly wager between gentlemen—" He stopped short as if interrupted and then went on almost bitterly.

  "It shall be as you wish then, Louisa. I shall not come to Greenhaven again unless you signify I am welcome. Good day."

  Ritchie pulled the reins. The horse, head hanging, followed. But Sturgis was still stiff-backed in the saddle. His face was dusky red, and his eyes watched what Ritchie could not see. Then he laughed recklessly and harshly, as if anger not pleasure had brought that sound out of him.

  "Won again, eh, Jeffrey? For you the old saying doesn't hold, does it? You're lucky both ways, aren't you, man? What do I mean? Why"—he laughed again and it was all anger—"you are infernally lucky with the ladies, too—"

  Sturgis stopped and drew a deep breath. When he spoke again, his voice was chill and cold.

  "Haines will act as my second, I believe. You will excuse me, please, gentlemen—"

  They went on. Sturgis was so deeply lost now in that other world that he had no touch with the present one. He did not try any longer to beat off the punishing flies that traveled with them in spite of Ritchie's ineffectual efforts to brush them away. Then, for the third and last time, he brought his dream world alive for Ritchie, too.

  "You are mistaken, Louisa." His voice was still cold and infinitely remote. "The matter is no longer a private one. I was struck. Only a public and complete apology can answer that. And do you honestly expect Jeffrey to make that gesture? No, we shall not discuss this further—this is an affair of honor, which has only one answer now—a meeting." He paused, his attitude that of a man listening with strained courtesy to a plea that appeared to him to be utter folly.

  "Do you realize, Louisa, that were I to follow that suggestion I could no longer live in this county? Dueling is an accepted procedure among gentlemen. Men forgive in time most of the sins—but they do not forgive cowardice. You want me to play the coward before my own kind. That is not worthy of either of us, my dear. I think you had better go now—before we both speak those things better left unsaid—"

  Ritchie could not stand to listen any longer. He dared to give Sturgis a slight shake and then was conscience-stricken when a little cry of pain answered him.

  "Sturgis! Sturgis!"

  The Southerner shook his head as if to dislodge some dizziness.

  "A cold morning, Haines," he continued, now so enmeshed in the dream that not even pain could break through to him. "No sun, I think. That is good—"

  His right hand came up from the saddle horn, its fingers crooked as if they encircled something. He raised that hand, pointing the invisible weapon before him. For a long moment he sat so; then the trigger finger moved, moved with the ease of long practice. Ritchie could almost hear the sound of that shot.

  Sturgis turned his head and looked over Ritchie as if consulting someone standing a little beyond.

  ''Through the heart, I think, Haines. Jeffrey always did tend to fire—to fire—to fire—wide—" The red-welted face crumpled about the mouth like a child's, and like a frightened and beaten child Sturgis gave an odd little wail. Slowly he began to slip, and as Ritchie sprang forward, he fell, a dead weight which carried Ritchie with him to the ground.

  For a moment Ritchie was too winded to move. He sat there with Sturgis' weight resting across him. And to his horror he saw the red stain seeping again through the bandages.

  "Sergeant! Herndon!"

  The blue eyes opened as he tried to move the limp body. And Sturgis said, in the conversational tone of one discussing the weather: *'I killed him, you know, killed my cousin Jeffrey. It was very quickly done. Only I killed myself, too, just as neatly. Bullet through Jeffrey—through me, too, me, too—" He was quiet as the Sergeant came up.

  Herndon made a quick examination and then shook his head.

  "We can't stay here." Ritchie looked about the barren cup of rock where they stood. "If we had water—"

  Herndon shrugged away that vain wish. "We can't manhandle him much further, Peters. His wound has opened, and a shaking might bring on a hemorrhage—it's too near the lung. We'll try to get along as far as we can—"

  Together somehow they put that limp body back across the horse, and steadying him from both sides, they inched along at a snail's pace. A sudden turn in the canyon brought them out in another of the small valleys. Horses stood with lack-luster eyes and trembling legs around a basin that held water. Birke sprawled some distance away face down. And Tuttle sat on a rock in a curious hunched position. To Ritchie's surprise, though the scout looked up when they came, he made no move to aid them.

  Herndon started for the pool, but Tuttle shook his head.

  " 'Nother of them stinkin' surprises, Scott. Got enough salts in it to kill even an Apache, mean as the critters are. If we could git up thar now, maybe we'd find us better drinks—"

  "Up there" was the top of the mesa that provided part of one wall of the valley. From below, the green of the foliage growing there was a restful band to greet eyes burnt by the vivid paints of the rocks. And where all that green made such a carpet, surely there must be water too.

  "Tried to git me a look-see," Tuttle went on, " 'n got me a tumble instead. Kinda shook the breath clean outta me for a while." He held both hands to his right side, and he was breathing in short gusts as if it hurt him to move his ribs. Herndon watched him with a frown.

  "How bad?" the Sergeant demanded harshly.

  Tuttle did not raise his head but peered up through the half screen of his bushy eyebrows. "Jus' lost my breath a trifle, son. Nothin' to git all betted up 'bout now—"

  "Yeah." Birke braced himself up on one elbow. His lips worked as if he wanted to spit but had no moisture in his mouth to spare. 'Tell down 'n busted his fool self. Now he'll have to be toted, too, 'les yo' git wise, Herndon, 'n leave all the crocks. Else we won't never git out!"

  Herndon's fist tightened, but he did not use it on the lounging dragoon. Instead he kept most of his attention for Tuttle. With a little sigh, which was more like the wheeze of air expelled from aching lungs, the scout straightened and took his hands away from his side. But the knot of pain was still etched deeply between his blue eyes.

  "How's Sturgis?"

  The Sergeant indicated the body they had eased down from the horse. He lay very quietly now, a huddle of drab blue and brown without any life. Tuttle got slowly to his feet and came over. For a minute or two he examined the still oozing bandages.

  ''Better call it a day, Scott," he said to the Sergeant, " 'n make camp here. The water's bad, but maybe the bosses will drink. 'N if yo' can figure a way to git up that thar cliff, we maybe can have us somethin' long 'n cool down our throats, too—"

  "So we're gonna be flies now?" Birke's voice rose. "Well, I ain't! I ain't goin' up a cliff 'n take a tumble to bust me all up like yo', Tuttle. I
'm damn hungry, 'n I'm eatin' 'n drinkin' right now!"

  Before they could move, he drew Gilmore's six-barreled revolver. The blast of the shot was not followed by any cry. But the horse which had borne Sturgis all day sank forward and rolled across the trampled soil. Birke, with the suppleness of a striking cat, was on the carcass and his knife plunged deep. Ritchie's stomach heaved violently. He buried his face in his sweating hands rather than watch what followed.

  The sharp smack of flesh meeting flesh snapped him out of his sick horror. Birke sprawled full length, but his fingers groped in the dust for the knife he had dropped, even as his eyes glared with a wild beast's fury at Herndon. Blood not his own was smeared and slobbered over his mouth and chin.

  The Sergeant kicked, and the knife was gone. Ritchie darted out and scooped it up. Birke got to hands and knees and scrambled hastily between a cactus and a boulder, screaming obscenities which echoed fantastically from the mesa heights.

  Herndon walked steadily forward and gathered up the revolver Birke had dropped in his short flight and the dragoon's carbine. His face was as unmoved as if the horrible scene had never been.

  "All right!" the Sergeant snapped. He handed the revolver to Ritchie and dropped Birke's carbine by the scout. "There's a barrel cactus down there aways—"

  "Rats, eh?" Tuttle nodded. "Try it, boy. They ain't bad eatin'—kinda like squirrels—"

  For once their bad luck did not hold. The barrel cactus had been hollowed out by the sharp rodent teeth of the bushy-tailed cactus rats until it was only a shell housing several families, all of whom were not quick enough to move. Swinging half a dozen small shapes by their tails, the hunters came back to camp. But Herndon's eyes measured the rocky top of the mesa.

  "How are you for heights?"

  Ritchie shrugged. "All right, I guess. I've never done much climbing, but I don't get dizzy easily."

  "We're going to try that one tomorrow." Herndon nodded toward the cliff. "We'd do better on water—if can find it!"