Beyond Fort North

by Peter Dawson

  He had at first debated on turning the geldings loose right here. For the grass, though brown and very dry in places, was waist high to a man, and a small pond lay back close to the circling rim that seemed to wall in every foot of the meadow that wasn’t guarded by the malpais. But in the end he had decided that the risk of the animals being found was too great, for the post lay not quite twenty miles away. So he’d driven the herd on over the mountain, but following a trail off the back of the bench was as hard to find as the one leading to it. Right now those animals must be working their way down off the far east slope toward the plentiful water and grass around Caliente Creek, where they would stay until some stray prospector or Apache ran across them.

  It was over beyond the pond where Ewing had made his panicked break and tried to run for it the other night. That had been a close thing for Ash, a hard ride across rough ground in the dark. Even now the scout’s pulse quickened as he remembered the long minute he’d had to rein in and sit listening before he heard Ewing’s horse thrashing around in the cat-tails around the small lake’s edge.

  He was thinking of this, his eye still automatically scanning the ground ahead, when all at once he saw something that froze him in the saddle. The fresh tracks of a shod animal stared up at him, plainly gouged in the black soil and covering the older, dusted-over sign the herd had made coming through here.

  Instantly Caleb Ash dropped to the neck of the bay, sawed on the reins, and headed back the way he had come. He didn’t draw a full breath until he had dipped on over the bench’s edge and was sloping down toward the head of the ravine he’d followed up here. Then, stopping when he was sure he was out of sight of anyone who might be on the meadow, he slid from the saddle and took his rifle from the boot.

  Less than a minute later his bay horse was tied out of sight behind a cedar, and he was threading his way up through a maze of boulders, flanking the trail. He reached the bench’s edge a good hundred yards to the north of the trail, where the ravine wall climbed steeply to close off that side of the meadow. From behind one of the many outcroppings along the base of the wall he spent several minutes studying the broad, undulating reach of the meadow. He saw no living thing, not even a bird on the wing. But the back third of the bench dipped away from him toward the pond, and he could be sure of nothing there.

  When he moved on, he did it quickly, his ability at keeping out of sight uncanny for so big a man. Once a depression near the wall hid him for more than three hundred yards, and he ran most of the distance, crouching as he moved on to higher ground. Beyond, he reached a margin of pines lining the base of the rim. He eased through them at a tireless jog that shortly brought him within sight of the lake and that lower reach of the meadow.

  He saw Mike Clears’s roan horse the instant the pond’s bright reflection came into sight some two hundred yards ahead. The animal was saddled and grazing with reins trailing, standing very close to the spot where Ewing’s body should be lying hidden by the tall grass waving fitfully in the unsteady breeze.

  Just as his glance had picked out the precise point where he remembered leaving Ewing, Dan Gentry stood up out of the grass there and looked this way.

  Ash stood dumbfounded, for a moment hardly believing what he saw. And it was because he didn’t move so much as a muscle in his surprise, plus the fact of his buckskins blending with the neutral tones of the ground behind him, that Gentry’s glance moved on past the clump of pines and out across the meadow. Ash went flat then, still trying fully to take in the meaning of Gentry’s presence here. Only as an afterthought did he squirm closer in to the base of a low-branched cedar and really hide himself.

  Gentry stepped over to the roan now, looped the reins over an arm, and led the animal on back to the spot where Ash had first seen him. Only when Gentry had bent down and awkwardly lifted Ewing’s stiff shape out of the grass did the scout recover from his surprise and think about moving closer. He came to his knees and crawled on back through the trees, shortly reaching a depression that let him stand. Then he moved on in Gentry’s direction, keeping his back to the sheer granite wall.

  He had already picked the spot up ahead where he wanted to be. Over the interval it took Gentry to lift Ewing’s body behind the saddle, his back turned, Ash made better than half the distance. And each time Gentry stooped briefly to make several turns with the rope he was using to tie on the dead man, Ash worked in still closer.

  Gentry was making his last tie to the cinch when Ash finally eased in behind a huge, square slab of granite some fifteen feet high. It was solid rimrock, a section that had broken loose and fallen from above better than half a century ago. The slab lay in a pocket of the rim’s base, right-angling the wall where its two joining faces were as straight up and smooth as though finished by a stonemason. There was just room enough between wall and rock for Ash to lie comfortably, his head at the slab’s base, his moccasins within inches of the wall itself.

  He carefully judged the distance between himself and Gentry, knowing it to be only a trifle more than sixty yards. As he drew back the rifle’s hammer, he knew he couldn’t miss, and the realization laid a slow, pleased smile across his blunt features.

  He saw his quarry lifting boot to stirrup now and waited until Gentry had made his ungainly swing up into the saddle, boot lifted high over Ewing’s body. Then almost at once the roan was walking obliquely this way. Ash lined his sights at Gentry’s chest.

  His finger was tightening on the trigger when all at once he was struck by the thought: Hell, might as well have some fun out of this.

  So he waited until Mike Clears’s roan had waded out of the tall waving grass and was walking a comparatively bare stretch before he looked out across his sights again. This time he aimed below the roan’s shoulder just ahead of Gentry’s shin.

  Then, very carefully, he squeezed off his shot.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The shudder of the roan under him and the rifle’s flat crack! came simultaneously. The reflex that sent Gentry in a headlong dive to his foundering animal’s far side was wholly automatic. At the last split second he reached for the Spencer and tore it from the scabbard.

  Because the roan was falling, giving him no firm footing, he hit the ground on his knees in an ungainly sprawl. His hat fell off as he was lunging out from the downed animal’s flailing hoofs, intending to run for the taller grass some thirty feet away. Then suddenly the rifle exploded again, and a hard blow along his right thigh drove his legs from under him. He fell hard, skidding on right shoulder, his face burning against the gravel.

  In that instant, as he went down the second time, pain knifing sharply along his leg, he knew that he could never reach the cover of the tall grass, knew also that he had never been closer to death than right now. And as that thought flashed starkly across his consciousness, he thrashed violently around, and with a broken, scrambling haste started back for the roan. The dying animal was neighing shrilly, trying to get his forelegs under him. At that threat of losing even this poor sanctuary, Gentry lifted the carbine, thumbed back its hammer, and put a bullet through the horse’s head.

  He threw himself forward then, lunging half the distance that would carry him in behind the roan, now collapsing and stiffening in its death agony. Once again came the brittle bark of the rifle under the rim. Gentry’s right wrist, dragging the carbine, twisted with a numbing wrench. The weapon flew from his grasp at the screaming whine of the bullet’s ricochet.

  He drove himself forward in a final half roll that slammed his upper body against the saddle, the roan’s bulk finally shielding him. He recoiled sharply as one boot kicked Ewing’s bent shape, still securely roped in place. And as he lay there, dragging in deep, gasping lungfuls of air against the pain and exertion, he looked back at the carbine lying only ten feet away, wondering what chance he had of going back for it.

  He had his answer the next moment as it skidded across the ground to punctuate still another
echoing report of the ambusher’s rifle. Then, in fast-timed cadence, came four more sharp explosions blended with the whine of ricochets and the metallic ring of lead slamming against the carbine’s action. The final blast bore an overtone of jangling metal, and Gentry saw his weapon’s action disintegrate, its stock now making a tighter angle with the line of the barrel.

  He was badly winded, the torment of his leg putting a catch in his deep, reaching breathing. But now as he sensed how helpless he was without the rifle, he felt the prod of the holster along his numbed thigh. He was half lying on it and quickly rolled to one side, drawing the .44 and cocking it, lining it upward against the saddle’s swell. He waited that way, tense and wary. He was as ready as he would ever be for what he was sure was coming.

  But as he lay there, wincing at the throbbing of his leg, the seconds passed with no sound reaching him to tell him that he was being stalked. And with a faint hope that he might after all be safe for the moment, he edged on back until his head was close alongside Ewing’s waist. He raised himself up slowly then, until he was looking out through the slit between the body’s lashed arm and the roan’s sky-pointed flank

  He was peering out past the back of Ewing’s blond head at a narrow segment of the rim’s base blurred by tall, waving grass. And now he began deliberately searching it, foot by foot, for a glimpse of a man. That man would, of course, be Caleb Ash.

  The first conscious labeling of his ambusher came wholly without surprise. Some ten minutes ago, there by Ewing’s huddled shape near the pond, he had found one clear moccasin print in the dust, a print big enough to rule out any question whatsoever as to who had made it. Even then it hadn’t surprised him to find this unmistakable proof that Caleb Ash was the killer. For the suspicions, he had voiced to Mike Clears last night at his camp had strengthened over the intervening hours until finally, accidentally discovering how the horse herd had been driven up through the malpais bed, he knew he couldn’t be wrong. There were few men but Ash, few Apaches even, who would have known of the narrow trail winding up across that seemingly impassable barrier.

  Now Gentry’s wary glance pried at each likely spot that might be hiding a man off there along the wall’s base. And as the seconds passed without his discovering anything, a strong alarm built up in him until finally it crowded him into calling loudly: “Try again, Caleb!”

  He was afraid that a momentary strengthening of the wind at his back had drowned out his words. Then all at once Ash’s deep tones rolled across in answer. “Don’t worry! I will, friend!”

  A vast relief flowed through Gentry. Here was proof that the scout wasn’t wriggling through the grass toward him or circling for another shot. His glance shuttled certainly to the huge slab of rimrock now, knowing that to be the spot where Ash had forted up.

  But then his thankfulness became short-lived as he realized how nicely the scout had him pinned down. He couldn’t move ten feet in any direction from the roan’s carcass without being seen. And he had nothing but the Colt, a short-range weapon, to match against the uncanny accuracy of Ash’s rifle. He knew now that the big man was simply playing with him, knew it because of the ease with which Ash had ruined the Spencer.

  As though to point this out, Ash abruptly called out again: “Leg hurtin’, Captain?”

  Gentry crowded back the impulse to thrust the Colt in under Ewing’s arm and empty it at the base of the granite slab, into the angling of the wall. He would wait, wait until he had something to shoot at before betraying the fact that he knew where Ash was hiding. That gave him at least a slender chance, for the huge chunk of rimrock was within nice range of the .44.

  And now it came to Gentry how absurdly simple it was going to be for Ash to pack his body and Ewing’s back down to the fort and give a convincing story. He would say he had found the bodies lying close to each other in mute testimony of a shoot-out. He wouldn’t have to remind Sam Grell or any of the others who had witnessed the ceremony the other morning that here was a full explanation, along with evidence of a strong motive, for the theft of the horse herd. He, Gentry, had tried to even the score for their taking away his commission. And in his attempt he had done away with his sergeant, who had done nothing to defend him during the courts-martial.

  The pain in Gentry’s leg was an increasing torment now, and as it burned up into his hip joint, he looked down, for the first time seeing the small, ragged hole in the denim cloth half a hand’s spread above his knee. A dark crimson stain was spreading out from it. Though the leg seemed numb, he could feel a moistness there.

  He started to think of what this might mean. Then, wanting to close his mind to that rather frightening possibility, he started pulling his belt from its loops, at the same time looking out through the slit under Ewing’s bent arm. He could see nothing in the wall angle or along the base of the rimrock slab. So he rolled over and wound the belt about his leg high in his groin. Then, buckling it, he wedged the Colt in under it and twisted until he could feel a solid pulse pound that made him hope he had closed off the bleeding.

  It was with a panic then that he realized he hadn’t been watching Ash’s hiding place for perhaps a quarter minute. He rocked his head around, caught his breath at what he saw. The scout’s arm and one shoulder were showing plainly beyond the rock slab’s straight inner edge. Gentry’s hand stabbed to the Colt, then abruptly relaxed. For in that instant Ash edged slowly back out of sight again.

  For a long moment Gentry felt weak and completely defeated at realizing what a chance he had missed. But then came the faintly heartening realization that Ash might purposely have exposed himself and, his move not having drawn a shot, that he might grow careless now. Though he had undoubtedly seen the Colt, he might be deciding that Gentry was too badly hurt to defend himself.

  Everything depended on making Ash think he didn’t have to be careful. So now Gentry put a deliberate break in his voice as he shouted weakly: “Caleb, I’m...sure of one thing. You were in with...you rigged that tangle with the Apaches when I lost my detail. But what about Tipton’s...his wagons being caught? Did you pass the word to Sour Eye on that, too?”

  Watching the wall corner, Gentry saw Ash’s right hand move suddenly into sight beyond the edge of the granite. He started reaching for the .44 again. Yet, hoping for an answer, he hesitated in drawing the weapon and lining at this poor target.

  Ash’s answer came then, his deep tone nearly smothered by a strong gust of wind. “Save your breath, Captain. You’ll need it!” And as he spoke, the big man’s hand moved slowly back out of sight.

  The arrogance and sureness of those taunting words roused a fury in Gentry that made him fist a hand tightly about a clump of dried grass alongside his bad knee. Savagely he pulled the roots from their poor anchoring in the dust. Then, about to toss the grass aside, he looked down at his hand wonderingly, his rage slowly subsiding before a strong lift of hope.

  Why didn’t you think of it before? he asked himself. And quickly then he reached to a shirt pocket with his other hand and took out some matches. He laid the matches close beside him and began pulling more grass. Every few seconds he would turn his head and look back into the wall corner. And now a strong excitement eased the lines of pain from his lean face; he was almost smiling.

  Finally he had pulled as much grass as he could hold wadded in one hand. He lay back then, struck three matches at once, and lit the ragged ends of the bundle. The dry blades blazed up fiercely at first. Then as they were dying the thicker matting caught, and shortly one whole end of the bundle was alight.

  Gentry rolled onto his back and pitched the grass out over Ewing’s bowed body in Ash’s direction, well beyond the carcass and downwind. Then he pulled the Colt from the belt twisted about his leg, thrust it in under Ewing’s arm, and waited.

  Hardly had he gone motionless when he felt a strengthening of the wind at his back. Several tongues of flame were licking upward through the thick grass some ten feet
away. The wind was fanning the blaze, sweeping it out from the carcass toward the wall base. And as thick curls of smoke lifted up out of the grass he thumbed back the hammer of the .44 and aimed into the angling of the walls.

  He had no sure target; he was gambling on a ricochet, on his bullet glancing off the wall toward the spot where Ash was standing.

  The gun exploded and bucked sharply against Ewing’s stiff arm. Hard on the heels of that first shot, Gentry threw another. Over its thunderclap echo he caught Caleb Ash’s startled outcry. He was lining the Colt once more when he saw the big man’s left shoulder appear abruptly beyond the far side of the granite slab.

  He brought the .44 around and squeezed the trigger. He saw his target jolted back at the bullet’s impact, and he savagely tried to throw another shot. But Ash’s lunge for cover came too soon.

  Now he rolled onto his side and reloaded the Colt, excitement welling up in him at realization of the luck that had backed his gamble. His lead had either hit Ash in glancing or had come close enough to panic the scout into momentarily exposing himself. And there was no doubt about his third bullet having found its mark.

  Out ahead of him the smoke-fog thickened now until it was hard to make out the detail along the wall’s base. He pushed the Colt under Ewing’s arm again. The next moment he recoiled violently and dropped face down to hug the ground as the trooper’s body jerked at the flat report of Ash’s rifle. Pain stabbed along his bad leg as he wormed his way on back to the hindquarters of the carcass. But he ignored it, warily peering out past the roan’s rump, laying the .44 in line with the boulder once more.