Grayfox

by Michael Phillips

  I galloped along, searching frantically for any of the signs he’d taught me that indicated water. With Demming not far behind, we didn’t have time to stop and coax water from a cactus.

  Direct ahead was what looked like a dry creek bed!

  I hurried on, then slowed and jumped off the horse.

  Water had run through here not long ago, that was for sure, though it was dry now. Hawk had taught me to see in the contour of the sand whether the patterns had been made by wind or water. These signs said “water.”

  I followed the creek bed with my eyes up in the direction of the hills.

  It came from a hollow through a slender ravine. That looked promising!

  I jumped back onto the pony and rode in that direction. I could pick out some of the other signs Hawk’d trained me to look for—slightly more greenery, grass that was finer and more delicate . . . yes, and that was rice grass here and there!

  I was sure there was water underneath me here someplace! So much of what Hawk had shown me and told me now came back to me. I could hear his voice speaking to me in my memory, and it all made clear sense.

  I reached the edge of the valley floor. Again I jumped down, looking around this way and that. The signs from the plants . . . the look of the sand . . . the shape of the ravine sloping down toward me from the mountains . . . and—yes, partway up there were some salt deposits! Everything looked just like that first place when Hawk had found water in what to me was the middle of nowhere, after telling me about how water disappeared and how the underground streams and sinks behaved out here.

  Frantically I looked about.

  Where would Hawk dig? I questioned in my head. How would he let his eyes see what was under the ground?

  Suddenly a wave of doubt swept over me. It seemed so hopeless! How could there possibly be water here, in the middle of a desert? What was I thinking?

  Learn to see, Zack, came Hawk’s voice once more as a reminder. There’s always more to be seen under the surface of things than most folks realize.

  Then I remembered another of Hawk’s constant lessons: Don’t be hasty, he’d said to me more than once. More mischief comes from rushing a job that takes time than anything else you’ll likely do wrong.

  I paused and closed my eyes.

  God, help me, I quietly prayed. Help me see. Show me what I know you can see with your eyes.

  I took another deep breath and then opened my eyes, trying to remain calm.

  I looked all around me again. I looked at the sand, the grass, the other plants, the hills, the ravine—everything. I was trying to take in every lesson I had learned, trying to steady my racing brain, all the while knowing that Laughing Waters was in danger . . . and that Demming was probably back to his horse by now.

  Chapter 39

  An Evil Strike

  Ten minutes later I was racing back toward where Laughing Waters still lay unconscious.

  I only hoped I wasn’t too late!

  I jumped down and ran to her, kneeling down. My heart sank. Oh, her face was so gray and her poor lips so cracked and dry!

  “Laughing Waters . . . Laughing Waters, wake up,” I said, gently stroking her face with my hand, then dabbing it with my wet shirt.

  At first there was no sign of life. I continued to talk softly to her, moistening her face and forehead as best I could, though already the hot sun had half dried out my shirt.

  Then impulsively I bent down and kissed her gently on the cheek. God . . . God, I whispered, wake her up . . . let her live and recover her strength again.

  Almost the same instant I felt her body stir . . . then a faint, high-pitched groan. Her eyes opened and she muttered something in Paiute.

  Then she saw me kneeling beside her, and smiled faintly.

  “Zack . . . Zack Hollister,” she whispered. “How long? . . . Are we still? . . . Why is my face wet? . . . That man—”

  “Shh,” I said. “Everything will be fine. Yes, we’re still out in the desert, and you’ve been asleep for fifteen or twenty minutes. But we’re still safe from Demming. And—guess what? I found a tiny spring of water.”

  “I felt wetness, and funny tickling here . . .”

  She reached up to touch her cheek. I was too embarrassed to tell her she had felt my whiskers. “I doused my shirt in the water,” I said. “That’s what you feel.”

  “Feels good,” she sighed. “I drink?”

  “It’s not here. We must go to it. Do you think you can get up and ride again?”

  “I will,” she replied, the mere thought of water filling her with energy. She struggled to rise. I gave her my hand and lifted her carefully to her feet.

  “Can you get on the pony?”

  “If you help,” she said.

  I steadied her. She put one hand on my shoulder, then gave a leap that I could tell taxed her, but she managed to struggle up. I jumped up, scrambled in front of her, and called out behind me.

  “Hang on tight,” I said.

  Her hands clasped themselves around my midsection. I put my left hand over her two and clasped them tight so she wouldn’t lose her grip. As soon as I was sure she was safe, I kicked the pony forward, though not as fast as I’d come, and we loped gently southward.

  We reached the tiny oasis in six or seven minutes.

  “It’s not the best,” I said. “It tastes like sulfur, but it’s wet.”

  I jumped off, helped Laughing Waters down, and the next instant she was on her knees, scooping tiny handfuls from out of the hole I’d dug. It was probably a foot and a half deep and barely big enough to fit a hand into. In the time I’d been gone, it had filled to five or six inches in the bottom of it. The arrow and sharp rock I’d used to dig in the ground still lay beside the hole.

  Her vigor seemed to return almost instantly.

  After several handfuls had found their way down her parched throat, she threw the next two on her face and neck, then sat back laughing, water glistening from her skin.

  “Oh, so good it feels!” she exclaimed. “I alive again! You save me, Zack Hollister.”

  She gave me a look of loving gratitude such as I don’t think I’ve ever seen.

  The next moment she was down in the hole again, grabbing at the water with her small hand, bringing up as much as she could without losing it between her fingers.

  I stood and walked to the pony, who had to be thirsty too. But one look at him, and I suddenly saw something I hadn’t thought of before. His long nose was too big to fit down the hole I had dug!

  If only I could find a larger stick with a sharp point to widen the little well with. I glanced around, then walked up a few paces among the rocks and boulders of the hill to see what I could find.

  Laughing Waters looked up then and called out to me.

  “Zack, do not go up there!”

  “I’m just going to find something to dig with,” I said, turning around.

  “No, Zack,” she insisted, “come back. Rocks behind you . . . I don’t like—”

  “The pony can’t drink,” I said, backing up the hill as I spoke. “I won’t be but a minute or two. I just want to—”

  My words were interrupted by a terrible scream.

  “Zack, no—stop—!”

  But I hadn’t heeded her first warning, and this one came too late. Something dreadful seized the back of my thigh, just above the knee.

  A sudden chill swept through me. Instinct told me what it was, though I felt no pain for those first seconds.

  I tried to run but felt a great weight holding me back.

  I struggled a few steps, then looked back.

  Terror nearly paralyzed me. A great rattler was stretched out behind me, probably to a length of six feet, its wicked fangs still embedded in the flesh of my leg.

  Suddenly the pain from the strike caught up with me, and an awful fear of death at the same time.

  I felt myself going faint, then starting to fall, and at the same instant the snake released its grip.

  I hit the groun
d and was conscious the next moment of Laughing Waters running toward me with the full attacking fury of a Paiute warrior. All her previous weakness seemed to have disappeared in an instant. In a single bound she reached me, caught up a great rock from the ground, and pummeled the snake to a quick and gruesome death before it could recoil and strike either of us again.

  Almost the next instant she produced a cord of leather from around her neck and tied it tightly about my leg above the bite.

  She was running again, back to the watering hole, where the pony was doing his best, with slender nose and long tongue, to lap up a few precious drops from the bottom of it.

  Laughing Waters grabbed up the arrow, ran back to me, threw me over onto my front with amazing strength for one so small and in such a weakened state, and began slashing away with the arrowhead at my trousers.

  I hardly had time to take stock of what was happening when suddenly a terrific pain exploded in my thigh, far more intense than the bite itself.

  By the time I realized she was digging into my leg with the tip of the sharp arrow, I felt her mouth close over the wound and begin sucking frantically. She released me, then spit with revulsion.

  Without a pause, she repeated the sucking and spitting process, then did it a third time.

  I arched my head around as best I could.

  Beside my leg, a small pool of blood, splotched with ugly yellowish venom slowly sank into the sand.

  Laughing Waters paused to take a breath, then dug at my leg once more with the arrow. I knew she was probably saving my life, but the pain was almost unbearable, and I could not help screaming.

  She paid no attention, but went back to the sucking work with her mouth, squeezing all around the wound with her fingers to coax all the venom she could out through the wound instead of allowing it to flow into my bloodstream.

  She kept at it for probably five minutes, until both of us were exhausted and her efforts yielded no further hint of yellow. Then she returned to the hole and rinsed out her mouth.

  Following this she scurried around nearby and grabbed at a few weeds that I knew Hawk used, too, crushing them in her hands as she ran back to me. She stuffed some of the dried herbs in her mouth, chewed violently at them, then spit the green mass out onto her hand and slapped it into the wound, packing it down and then holding it in place by tying some of my torn trousers against it.

  “Must not delay,” she said. “Now it is my turn to ask if you can ride.”

  “And my turn to say, I will,” I answered, struggling back to my feet. By this time my leg hurt something awful, and I knew I was weak.

  Chapter 40

  Riding for Our Lives

  I didn’t realize how much all the exertion and the snakebite had taken out of me until I went to spring up onto the pony.

  All at once I felt a numbness in my leg. I turned faint. It might not have been from the bite yet, but whatever it was, I started to feel very strange. If Laughing Waters had not helped pull me up, I don’t know if I could have mounted.

  She wasn’t very strong yet, but at this point she was stronger than me. The water, or something, seemed to have given her new energy. I didn’t question it!

  Once on the pony’s back, I tried to shake the faintness off. I dug in the heel of my good leg and we galloped away. She pointed in a direction away from the mountains, probably to the northwest, though I had just about entirely lost my bearings by now. I would never have made it back alone.

  Feeling Laughing Waters’ arms around my waist gave me a surge of energy for a while. It reminded me that we were all alone and depending on each other for our very life. I couldn’t get sick or faint now!

  We took out across the plain, but by now my head was spinning and I didn’t feel good at all. I was kicking the pony to go faster with my one good leg and hanging onto the pony’s mane for dear life, afraid every moment that I was going to fall off. That poor pony had been through a lot that day and must have been exhausted!

  We weren’t even halfway across the plain when suddenly a crack of gunfire sounded behind us. I felt Laughing Waters’ hands grab all the more tightly at my waist.

  I glanced around as best I could.

  Demming was on his horse and pounding straight toward us!

  I saw the explosion from his gun barrel even before the next sharp report caught up to my ears.

  We’d left him up in the hills. How had he gotten on our trail so soon?

  I turned back around, kicking at the poor pony and yelling at him to go faster.

  Another shot sounded!

  Laughing Waters gasped. Her restrained terror right in my ears sent chills up and down my back.

  I glanced back again.

  Already Demming was closer and gaining rapidly! His horse was fresher and had only one rider. Our pony was not only smaller, but was nearing the point of exhaustion.

  There was no way we could outrun him!

  After his threats there was no doubt what he’d do when he caught us. He’d kill me, and once he had his hands on the half-breed, he’d probably kill Laughing Waters too, just for spite!

  For a few seconds more we continued on, but I knew it was no use. He was gaining fast.

  Suddenly I pulled on the reins, slowed the pony, reached back and took the bow and quiver from Laughing Waters. Handing her the rope, I jumped to the ground, almost losing my footing from the numbness in my leg.

  “Go!” I yelled.

  “I won’t leave you,” she yelled back.

  “You have to,” I cried. “Get back to your people.”

  “I didn’t suck the poison out of your leg to let that wicked man kill you!”

  “Go!” I repeated again, then swatted the pony’s rump as hard as I could. He jumped to a gallop again. I turned around to face Demming.

  He was riding up fast—luckily so fast that he couldn’t get off a good straight shot with his wobbling pistol.

  My only hope was to either shoot Demming, or else disable his horse. I only had three arrows left. I would have to make them count.

  Hastily I fumbled with the first arrow, got its slot into the bowstring, and pulled back. My head felt twice its size, but I aimed as best I could and let it fly.

  In answer, another shot sounded from Demming’s gun, the bullet kicking up the dust ten feet away from where I stood. I’d missed badly.

  Quickly I restrung another arrow. The result was no better.

  I grabbed at my last arrow.

  Slow down, Zack . . . don’t be hasty . . . the best things are never rushed. God’s never in a hurry, and his purposes are always straight and true.

  Again Hawk’s words came into my spinning brain, speaking their wisdom softly and slowly but with a quiet force and power.

  Straight and true. That’s how this arrow had to fly, or else I would be dead inside a minute.

  I paused and took in a deep breath. Don’t be hasty . . . the best things are never rushed.

  On came the man who wanted to kill me. I could see Demming doing his best to aim his sights right at my head. I had to wait . . . wait . . . wait until he was so near I could not miss.

  He was closing ground rapidly! I could hear the thundering hooves like they were right inside my head.

  Why hadn’t he shot me! Was he waiting to take aim so that he wouldn’t miss, either?

  I could see his face now, sweat pouring down it, an evil, angry expression of delight at having me such an easy prey. Maybe he was just going to run me down and save the rest of his shots for Laughing Waters!

  Still I waited . . . another second or two . . . now drawing back the string . . .

  The arrow released from my fingers.

  A great inhuman scream filled the air. I heard what I thought was more gunfire.

  My sight began to fade . . .

  There was a great commotion all about . . . I heard shouts and could feel dust flying . . . confused sounds of hooves pounding and screaming whinnies flying about in every direction . . .

  I cou
ld feel consciousness slipping away. I felt no pain, but the last thing I remember was thinking Demming’s bullet had found me at last.

  I felt bumping and jostling. Hands were on me. I knew I was falling, though everything felt strange and unreal. Voices and sounds I didn’t recognize.

  Then finally everything went black.

  Chapter 41

  Back in Camp

  The next thing I knew, I was laying on my back, opening my eyes. My first thought was bewilderment. Where was I . . . what happened?

  I tried to glance around, but every part of my body felt stiff and sore and heavy. I could barely move my head back and forth.

  Slowly I began to remember. Laughing Waters . . . the ride . . . Demming chasing us . . . gunfire . . . jumping down and trying to stop him with an arrow . . .

  I could remember nothing more. In a way, it seemed like it had all happened an hour ago, but in another way it seemed like a month.

  I heard footsteps. I tried to twist my neck around, but a familiar voice spoke before my eyes found its owner.

  “You are awake at last, I see,” it said.

  Even as the words reached my ears, the lovely face bent down over mine. Never have I felt such relief. I must admit that seeing her again, instead of Jack Demming or the desert or a cave filled with snakes, or the inside of a dark grave, for that matter, filled me with such a sudden feeling of happiness that tears came to my eyes.

  She saw them and smiled sweetly down at me. Enough time must have passed for her to get back to normal. Her cheeks were full and flushed, her lips no longer cracked, her black hair sparkling, her clothes clean.

  And the eyes!

  In the two or three seconds that I lay there gazing up into their dark-green depths, I knew why this girl was called Laughing Waters. Though her eyes were nearly black, they had just enough of a hint of green in them that even out there in the middle of the high desert of the Great Basin, they sparkled and danced with a liquid shine that could make you think of an emerald mountain lake or one of the laughing, splashing, tumbling little streams that ran into it. I found myself wondering if she had those same eyes the moment she was born, if the chief had seen the laughing waters in his daughter’s face from the very beginning.