Nighthawk

by F. M. Parker

  Raasleer shouted at Russ over the noise of the wind and pointed to the east. “You go fetch back those that went toward the mountain. And hurry it up for this delay will give the Englishman a chance to catch up with us.”

  As Russ urged the gray in pursuit, lightning flashed from the nearby thunderhead and rain began to spill just a short distance down the valley. The big horse, excited by the stampede, the gunshots, and the approaching storm, bolted across the plain. Like an agile antelope, he dodged the tall saguaro and ocotillo cactus and jumped the low-growing creosote brush and pear cactus.

  Russ concentrated his eyes in front, swept them over the brush, rock, and ground, anticipating what the horse might do next, and let the animal run. He was exhilarated by the race, by the feel of the broad muscular back moving between his legs and the sharp wind on his face. In the pure joy of the moment, he yelled at the top of his lungs and continued until his throat burned. He slapped the neck of the mustang. “Run you big bastard, run! Yahoo!” And he laughed.

  The horse finally slowed of its own volition and Russ began to scan the land. He had thought the tired heifers would soon run themselves out, but he did not catch up with any of them until he was close to a shoulder of the mountain that shoved out into the valley. When he came to the cattle, they stood with drooping, dry muzzles nearly touching the ground and sides heaving spasmodically.

  He began to circle through the brush, rounding up the cattle. It was a difficult task to find them, however; in twenty minutes, he had collected thirty.

  He left the bunched cattle and headed in a straight line for the foot of the mountain less than a quarter mile away. From that higher land, he could look down into the brush and perhaps locate animals he bad missed.

  He moved swiftly and soon was above the valley floor. The wind was much stronger. He surveyed the land spread below and spotted one heifer that had been overlooked.

  A lightning bolt lashed down to smite the side of the mountain and thunder crashed. Some animal, startled by the ear-splitting noise, stirred in the brush, an easy rifle shot away. Russ caught the motion from the corner of his eye and pivoted to look.

  He saw nothing now, but was positive there had been something there. Pulling his carbine and holding it ready across the saddle in front of him, he eased the gray through the brush and rock.

  Then Russ saw what had moved at the lightning strike. A horse lay in one of the larger patches of brush. It was an Indian pony carrying a cheap Mexican saddle and a leather halter. As Russ drew close, the pony scrambled to its feet and, as if awaiting instructions, looked down at a man sprawled on the ground.

  There were no visible wounds on the mustang. The well-trained horse had lain in the brush at the orders of its master, so they would not be seen by an enemy.

  Its owner was the young warrior Raasleer had shot. He lay in the dirt, unconscious and not knowing he had been found. A nasty wound gaped open on the top of his left arm. Blood leaked steadily, puddling in a large semi-congealed mass on the ground. He had already lost much of the precious fluid.

  Russ stepped down hastily, leaned over the fallen man, and clamped the bullet-mangled flesh with his hand. He squeezed until the red flow stopped.

  Wind whipped the brush wildly. Lightning flashed, searing bright, and thunder roared. Cool dampness rode the wind. It would be raining in a moment. What was he to do with the seriously injured Indian? If he left, the man would surely die.

  Russ began to pull his neckerchief free to make a tourniquet. At that instant, the end of a rifle barrel slammed into the side of his face. He rocked back under the hard blow, threw his eyes to the side to see the danger, and his bloody right hand plunged for his six-gun.

  He stopped his draw. He was too late. A large-bored musket was aimed point-blank at his heart by a tall Indian. At the close range, there would be no chance the Indian would miss.

  The black eyes in the hating face meant death for Russ. A brown finger tightened on the trigger.

  Another Indian, a small old man, was suddenly there. He grabbed the first man’s arm and shoved it up until the musket no longer pointed at the white man. In a tongue Russ could not comprehend, the old Indian spoke rapidly to the larger man.

  They stood locked rigidly together. The white hair of the old man, caught by the wind from behind, stood erect like the mane of some ancient lion. The muscular arm that could crush the old man with one blow made no effort to force the gun back down, but the menacing eyes of the man with the musket never left Russ’s face.

  Raven released his hold on Sun Wolf and turned to Russ. “Stop the bleeding. Tie it tightly here.” He touched a spot above the wound on the young Indian’s arm.

  Russ jerked his neckerchief loose and cinched it firmly around the arm until the blood was forced to stop. Raven hurried to his horse, standing nearby, and dug a small deer-hide pouch from a saddlebag. He returned quickly, knelt beside Rock That Rolls, and spread the contents of the pouch on his slow-breathing chest.

  Raven handed a sharp iron needle and length of thread to Russ. “Thread this. My eyes are old and cannot see well.”

  Russ wiped his bloody hand, and took the thread and needle. Raven opened a small metal tin in preparation for using the brown salve it contained.

  As Raven accepted the needle from Russ, he said, “It is best to help a man while he still is not able to feel the pain. That way he will not cry out and dishonor himself.”

  Raven pressed the raw edges of flesh tightly together, and using all the skill gleaned by tending a hundred such injuries, sewed the red lips of the wound expertly closed. He liberally covered his handiwork with salve.

  Raven spoke to Sun Wolf in Their native tongue. “That will hold if we move him carefully.”

  “What should we do with him?” asked Sun Wolf and motioned at Russ.

  “He was helping your son to stay alive. Don’t you owe him much?”

  “It would be better to have one less enemy. One more white man dead.”

  “What does one more enemy mean when we have thousands of them? And this one perhaps could be a friend.”

  “I do not believe that could happen. But you have rightly asked for his life to be spared.”

  Sun Wolf jabbed a finger at Russ’s horse. “Go. But thank Raven for your life. For I would surely kill you. Go now!”

  Russ moved to his mount. As he hoisted himself astride, large cold drops of rain began to fall, striking the men, the horses, and drumming on the hard ground. He smelled the rain, tasted the fresh liquid on his lips.

  He started to rein his horse away, then hesitated and turned back to look at the gaunt Indians. The eyes of the old man called Raven glowed with savage pride. Russ knew the old Indian’s pride and belief in what was fair had saved his life.

  Russ held up his hand and extended all five fingers. Above the tumult of the storm he shouted, “Down there,” and he pointed at the heifers bunched in the rain. “I will leave you five cows. May you and your women and children live well this winter.”

  He spurred away from the Indians, down the rocky slope. From his blanket roll he pulled his rain slicker and tugged it on over his wet clothing.

  He glanced back once, and saw the chilling rain had wiped out the mountain. Had swallowed the Indians.

  CHAPTER 13

  Russ rode drag, bringing up the rear of the herd, following the heifers as they ghosted across the night shadowed plain.

  It was near midnight. The sky was cloudless, the fast-moving storm having already worked its way beyond the northern horizon. Now a great silver cannonball of a moon climbed its trajectory through the heavens.

  Russ had joined the main drive with his catch of stampeded cattle just at dark and in a driving rain. Raasleer had taken advantage of the pouring rain and had turned the herd directly west. For more than four hours they drove through the storm. Before the rain stopped they had crossed Growler Valley and climbed up and over the backbone of the narrow Granite Mountains.

  When the rain finally abated,
the rustier leader called his men together. They sat their horses silently in the murk and waited for him to explain the next move.

  Raasleer spoke. “That was a timely storm. We’re now in a valley about a mile wide that extends clear into Mexico. That mountain range we crossed will keep us out of sight of the Englishman—if he’s coming.”

  He surveyed the wet and tired riders in the moonlight. “We should be safe now. When it gets close to daylight, we’ll send someone up to just this side of the ridge of the mountain. He can watch the valley to the east. That way we won’t be surprised. Now let’s move these critters fast as we can to Mexico.”

  Russ measured the heifers. They badly needed rest and a chance to graze. But that would have to wait until much later.

  One animal stopped and Buss prodded the weary brute back into motion with a snap of the end of his rope on its rump.

  Raasleer came riding in from the left, drifting soundlessly through the desert brush and drew near Russ. “Everything all right?” he asked.

  Russ looked at the man’s face, distorted and animal-like in the moonlight. He did not trust the man. Caloon’s suspicions were catching. “I need some help. It’s hard to see all the stragglers and I may lose some.”

  “Yeah, we lost three last night. I’ll send someone to give you a hand.”

  “How many head do we have since the stampede?”

  “I counted 183. Still plenty to make a good payday. There’ll be somebody back here in a little while to help.” Raasleer angled off to the right, continuing his circuit of the herd, and was soon lost to sight.

  A quarter hour later a horseman materialized from the gloom and came toward Russ. “Hello,” called Caloon.

  “Hello, yourself. Do you plan to work drag with me?” asked Russ.

  “Yep.”

  They rode along together. Neither spoke. The herd had long since left the land wet by the storm and the smell of dust hung heavy in the men’s nostrils.

  “I’ve eaten enough dust to start a potato patch,” said Russ.

  Caloon chuckled and Russ joined in. Even as he laughed, Russ reflected that there was damn little to joke about while driving a stolen herd of cattle with the owner maybe just out there in the edge of the darkness ready to come in shooting. The humorous feeling vanished.

  Russ let his mind recall the beautiful girl of the Growler Mountains. He pictured her face in his mind, remembering the gentle tones of her voice and eyes clear as crystal. Was she still safe in this perilous land? He rode with Raasleer and thus knew where that danger was. There were the Indians, however. They seemed intent on stealing cattle. What would they do if they happened upon the isolated ranch?

  The moon crested the highest point of its flight and began the long fall to the western rim of tire world. The night became darker just before dawn. Russ pondered his questions.

  “What do you think of driving cattle at night?” Caloon’s voice yanked Russ back to present.

  Russ hesitated a moment before answering. “I guess as rustlers we had better get to liking it.”

  “Russ, you don’t have to get used to it. Why didn’t you leave when you had a good chance?”

  “I’ve killed two lawmen, and another man who was not my enemy. Now I’ve stolen a man’s cattle. Hell, I’m as bad as any one of Raasleer’s gang.”

  “Yep, you’ve done all those things. And none of it means as much as a fart in a windstorm.”

  “What do you mean? How can it be anything but murder and stealing?”

  “If you could look into the backtrail of all the men in the Arizona Territory, you would find that just about every one of them had done something against the law. They’ve either robbed somebody of their hard-earned money, or put their brand on someone else’s calf. Several of them have even killed other men. But, you know, the difference between this gang and those men is they up and called it quits and now play it fair and square. You can do the same if you want.”

  “I would like that,” said Russ, thinking of the girl again, “but I don’t believe I can ever feel right around honest people again.”

  “You got a kink in your mind that needs to be straightened out,” said Caloon. “You’re as good as anybody else. Remember this, the longer you wait to try going it law-abiding, the less chance you’ll have in carrying it off.”

  “What you say makes some sense. I just can’t do it now.”

  “It’s your life.”

  “Yes it is,” said Russ sharply. He was instantly sorry for the tone of his answer for he felt Caloon was his friend. The man’s statement had a lot of truth in it.

  To get his mind onto another track, Russ spoke to Caloon.

  “I didn’t see Berdugo after the stampede. Where did he go?”

  “Raasleer sent him off on a fast rile to the south soon as the storm got over. I never heard what the trip was for. Maybe to line up buyers for the cattle.”

  “If that’s so, I hope he finds somebody who’ll pay a fair price.”

  “Yeah, but what’s a fair price for stolen cattle?” asked Caloon. He glanced at a knot of heifers. “I think I see some animals that are acting like they want to stop and lay down. I’m going to mosey over there and change their minds.” He reined away.

  * * *

  The sun was a sullen red orb, hanging low in the evening sky as the Englishman, Jeffery Edmonton, led the way, riding hard. His band of twelve heavily armed cowboys followed after him along the tracks of the herd of heifers.

  One of Edmonton’s riders had discovered the high-grade cattle missing from the meadow on the Gila River in mid-afternoon. In less than an hour and leading a loaded packhorse, the men had struck the trail. The pursuit was swift, yet the tracks, growing indistinct in the weakening light, stretched empty before them.

  Edmonton suddenly pulled his horse to a halt. His crew drew rein beside him. “No more tracks,” said Edmonton. “They have all vanished, been washed away.”

  Ken Shallow, a large muscular man and the ranch foreman, guided his mount up beside his boss. “That storm we saw from a distance had heavy rain in it. We won’t find sign again until we get beyond the bounds of it.”

  “This will slow us down a great deal,” said Edmonton. “It’s getting dark fast and I doubt we can straighten this trail out before we can’t see the sign at all.”

  “No need to waste time here. The rustlers are surely heading for Mexico, taking the most direct way to get there.”

  Edmonton looked at Shallow through the deepening darkness. The man was good, had proven it many times during the past several weeks, most recently by correctly interpreting the sign the outlaws had made in the dry wash back a few miles. There he had told the men where to dig for water. In twenty minutes enough of the precious liquid had been found to satisfy the men and horses.

  “I understand you’re suggesting we strike out due south and hope to see the rustlers at daybreak. But we might angle off from the route they take and be miles from them. Then we wouldn’t know whether to go east or west to pick up their trail once again.”

  Shallow measured the ranch owner. The Englishman was smart and trying hard to be a cattleman. But he was too damned inexperienced. Old John Blackaby would not need to be told how to follow the cows through the night. However, Shallow knew that was why Blackaby had arranged for him to be foreman, to protect his half interest in the new ranch.

  “I was thinking of a better idea than that,” said Shallow. “Every two or three miles a dry wash drains down from the Growlers. The sides of the cuts are usually steep and the bottoms have little vegetation. Now, two hundred cows tear up the ground quite a bit and the moon will be full tonight and be up in an hour or so. It won’t be easy, but once we get beyond where it rained, we’ll be able to find sign in those washes. When we strike one, the bulk of the men will stop and rest their horses while a man goes each way along the bank on foot until one finds tracks. He’ll call out and we’ll all continue south, at the same time angling toward the location of the rustler’s rout
e.”

  “Has a good chance of working,” said Edmonton. “It’ll take a lot of riding and looking if we’re to catch them before they cross into Mexico.”

  “We’ll find their trail even if one of us has to walk the full distance to the Mex border.”

  Edmonton laughed savagely. “Goddamn, even with the storm, I feel like we’re going to have good fortune and capture them. We’ll have a hanging party tomorrow.”

  Shallow liked the toughness in the Englishman’s voice, but he was less certain about catching the men with the cattle. If this was Raasleer’s gang with the cattle, and he felt strongly it was, then their quarry might slip away as they had done from other posses so many times before.

  Further, several horses had come in from the east and joined the herd at the water hole. Were they additional gang members or fresh mounts for the outlaws to use to outrun any pursuit? If nine or ten more rustlers were with the cattle, that would mean a deadly fight. Shallow looked at Edmonton. How would the Englishman’s courage hold up when the lead started flying past his ears?

  “Ken, you take the lead, straight south toward the border,” said Edmonton.

  “Yes, sir,” said Shallow and moved off into the grayness with Edmonton close beside him.

  “Do you think we’re gaining on them?” asked Edmonton.

  “Yes, I think so,” said Shallow. “The cattle must be worn down and traveling slow for they’ve covered many rough miles. Soon they’ll drop down and refuse to move. That’s when we’ll catch them.”

  “The rustlers must know we could ride them down if we found the cattle missing soon after they were taken. They could be waiting in ambush for us.”

  “You’re right,” agreed Shallow. “If we’re following their trail at daylight, that could be a dangerous time. But we’re a long ways from getting so close they would feel threatened enough to try to ambush us. Just in case, though, we’ll be ready when light comes.”

  “Do you think it’s the rustler called Raasleer?”