One of the Indians urged his pony forward, shouting. He stopped when Riley lifted the rifle. The Indians started jabbering among themselves and he shouted some more, waving his rifle at them and telling them that he’d shoot their goddam butts off if they came any nearer. They got his meaning all right. One of them gave some orders and at once they got their ponies on the move and started to scatter out along the side of the hill.
Riley’s heart turned over a couple of times. He knew they were outflanking him. Inside a few minutes they would come at him from all sides. And this wasn’t the time to stand and fight and be a hero. All he had to think about was saving Pete Hasso. He ran for the horse and it backed up from him. He jumped for the trailing line and the animal turned and stumbled off. Riley was cursing wildly now, panic rising in him, the shrill yells of the Indians in his ears.
It dawned on Ed Brack’s son that he wasn’t going to get out of this alive. A dead duck couldn’t do anything for Pete. If he couldn’t run, he would have to fight. He levered a round into the breech of the rifle and turned at bay. There wasn’t an Indian in sight.
He took a good look around. Nothing. Not a feather fluttered or a leaf stirred.
Had they gone? Hope rose in him.
Something whispered past his ear, hit rock and fell to the ground. He saw the iron-pointed, barbed and feathered arrow shaft. He ran for his horse again and the animal doubled back. Sweating and shaking, Riley glared around. Behind him came the crash of brush. He whirled, saw nothing and then the man was on him. There was a brief impression of the paint-daubed face, the extended mouth. Riley triggered, the rifle jumped in his hands and he missed. The man dropped out of sight. A gun cracked loudly, lead hit rock and whined into the heavens. Riley lost his head.
He charged, yelling, as savage and berserk as any Ute warrior with the blood-lust and in search of glory. There was probably no more astonished Indian on the whole frontier than that Ute at that moment. But he rose to the occasion and the charging man. His single-shot musket being empty, he came with stone-headed war-hammer, a powerful man with revenge in mind and uncluttered by fear. The only thing against him was that he was too slow. He was no sooner on his feet than Riley ran full-tilt into him and bowled him from his feet. The Indian, surprised though he was, landed well and was on his feet long before Riley had halted his downhill charge and turned. It was the Ute’s turn and he was not found wanting. He gave a cry that had come down to him from his forefathers and went at Riley like a charging mountain-lion. The man deserved a better end, but Riley was in no mood for justice. There was a savage warrior charging down on him wielding a very lethal stone-age weapon. So Riley did the only thing he could do. He levered the rifle as fast as he could move and fired. Having done that, not knowing whether he had made a hit or not, he levered and fired again and again.
The Indian jolted as the first slug plowed into him, jerked with the second, but his powerful legs carried him on past the white man. After a dozen paces, he seemed to trip on his own feet. He went down violently, crashed through some brush and rolled downhill.
Riley gazed at him as if he couldn’t believe his eyes.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, staring, but he was brought to his senses by the alarmed whicker of his horse. He looked up and saw the two Indians riding down from above.
He rammed the butt of his rifle into his shoulder and aimed at the nearest rider. He was surprised how calmly and carefully he shot. And there was a kind of cold satisfaction when he saw the man knocked clean out of his primitive saddle. The pony went on down the hill, rolling his eyes. The other Indian veered off to the north.
Riley stayed still for a moment, wondering where the others were. Then he started for his own horse and this time the animal seemed to have had enough evading him. He stood while Riley picked up the trailing line and vaulted on behind the saddle. Under the double load, the animal heaved its way up the steep trail. At the top of the ridge, Riley looked back and saw two Indians sitting their horses far below him, watching him.
‘You watch all you want,’ he said. ‘Just so long as that’s all you do.’
He went on and he rode with a chin on either shoulder, prepared for the remaining warriors to try a finish to the day’s work. When he was down off the ridge, he looked back again and could see no sign of them. Maybe they’d trail him and maybe they had had enough. He went due south and then turned along a break into the east. Once he stopped, thinking Pete dead, but there was still the flicker of a beat to his pulse.
Even so, he despaired of getting his partner home alive.
Another thirty minutes and he climbed again, this time the tall ridge that would take him down onto Three Creeks. He dismounted to lead the tired horse up. It was a stiff climb and when he reached the top, he stopped for a moment to rest the horse and take a good look at his back-trail to be certain that he had not been followed.
He started down and reached the shallows of the first creek. Here both he and his horse drank and he bathed Pete’s face. It was now that he heard a faint groan come from his friend’s lips. He at once led the horse to the stretch of rocky ground lying between the two creeks, untied the lashing that held the man on the saddle and eased him to the ground.
Pete opened his eyes and stared unbelievingly at Riley.
‘We’re doing all right, Pete,’ Riley said. ‘I’m going to get you home.’
‘What happened?’ Pete asked in a voice that sounded like two dead leaves rustling together. ‘I feel like I was hit by a cannon.’
‘You were shot sure enough,’ Riley told him. ‘I bandaged the wound. Mrs. Storm’ll fix you up just fine when we reach the house. It isn’t far now.’ He emptied his canteen and went into the shallows to fill it with fresh water. As he bent down, something in the sand caught his eye. At first, he thought he was deceived by the glitter of the sun on the water, but when he picked up a handful of sand, he knew he was right.
He went back to Pete, gave him a drink and received a grunt of thanks.
Pete come back and look, Riley told himself. He experienced a rush of excitement.
This time when he put Pete back on the horse, he got him astride and tied his ankles under the belly of the horse. For good measure, he lengthened Pete’s belt and looped it over the saddle-horn. Pete managed a small grin and said: ‘Belt and galluses.’
Riley now set off at a brisk walk, leading the horse carefully over the rough ground, through the shallows of the second creek beyond and mounting when he was once more on dry land. He wanted to hurry, but he dared not put the horse to a trot for fear of killing the wounded man. By the time they entered the yard, Pete was unconscious and lying back, a heavy weight in Riley’s arms. It was not late enough for the men to be home, but Martha and the two girls were there. It was Melissa that first spotted them. She called into the house and ran to help Riley with Pete. Martha and Kate’s faces were anxious when they caught sight of the slumped figure in the saddle. Together, they helped lift Pete from the horse.
‘What happened, Riley?’ Martha demanded.
‘Bushwhacked,’ Riley told her.
Kate went deathly pale.
‘Whoever could have done a thing like this?’ Martha said and added: ‘Put him in our bed.’
‘No,’ Kate said. ‘Put him in mine. There’s only one of me, ma.’
‘All right. ’Lissa, boiling water and hurry. Riley, catch yourself up a fresh horse and go get Mr. Storm. He’s over to Clay’s.’
‘I’ll help you with Pete.’
‘You do just like I say and don’t waste time. Get, now.’
Riley did that. He caught him the fastest horse in the outfit, a long-legged sorrel that Will boasted would run against any thoroughbred in the world. He went out of there like a bat out of hell.
Pete Hasso lay face downward on Kate’s bed in her small room. Martha uncovered the gaping torn wound and for one brief moment she was overcome by emotion. She had a deep affection for the homeless man she and Will had taken into
their home, a man young enough to be her son. She looked at Kate and saw that her daughter was weeping silently.
‘No, child,’ she said, ‘this isn’t the time for tears. This boy’s like to die and we have to do what we can for him.’
‘Die?’ Kate whispered and her face broke and twisted in anguish.
Martha went to the door and yelled at her younger daughter to hurry with that water. Then she swung on Kate: ‘Don’t stand there being feminine, Kate. This ain’t—isn’t the time for tears. Women in this country can’t afford ’em, Clean rags, whiskey. Hurry now.’
Kate gave her a look of despair and fled from the room.
‘My God,’ Martha thought, ‘is she in love with this boy after all? Does this have to happen for her to make up her fool mind?’
Will Storm rode in as fast as Riley had ridden out. Riley and the youngest boy, Jody, were with him. When Martha saw Will enter the house some of the self-assurance that she had lost since Pete had been brought in came back to her. Her husband might not stand as tall as some men and there wasn’t much width to speak of about him, but there was a calm about him that seemed to act like a balm on the torn feelings of others. The look he gave her seemed to say: No call to be a-feared, woman. I’m here.
He touched her arm as he went past her, following her gesture to Kate’s room. They all crowded into the tiny place. He bent down to listen to Pete’s breathing.
When he straightened up, he said to nobody in particular: ‘there just ain’t too much left to him, is there?’
He walked out into the big main room and they all followed him. He hooked his thumbs in his pants’ belt and put his chin on his thin chest.
‘Jode,’ he said, ‘go fetch Joe.’
‘Now, pa,’ Jody said, ‘in the dark?’
‘Yessir, boy, right this minute an’ don’t you stop for nothin’ till you get to him. You tell Joe I want him real bad.’
As Jody went out, Will thought: Strange. I have trouble an’ the first person I think of is that no-account negra. But he knew why he wanted Joe. He and Mart and Joe had been reared together, they were so close words weren’t necessary. They knew. He’d take on the world for Joe and Joe Widbee would do the same for him. Added to which Joe was the best hombre del campo he ever knew. When it came to tracking, there wasn’t a man alive who could equal the Negro. Up to a year ago, Joe had lived alone and at peace in his wild world a half-day’s ride to the west, deep in the hills, catching wild horses and hunting, content. Now he had with him his equally wild Mexican Indian wife, Serafina. Will reckoned their offspring should be mighty interesting products. So Jody rode for Joe and then Will, as usual when he called on the man, felt a terrible qualm, as if he had no right to put Joe at risk, not after all he had done for the Storms in the past. He had earned his peace like no man ever had done. But he knew Joe would come. He always came. Maybe one day he would get smart and tell the Storms to go to hell.
Martha said: ‘Joe will find out what happened.’
‘I reckon.’
Will walked out into the starlight. Martha signed for the others to stay and followed him.
‘Will,’ she asked, ‘what did Riley tell you?’
They sat side by side, Martha in the rocker they had brought from Texas. She said that life would not be the same without that old rocker. It had been her mother’s before her. Will lowered his lean frame into a cowhide chair.
‘What he told,’ Will said, ‘didn’t pleasure me none, wife. I think maybe we got trouble. We’re lucky only Pete was hurt. There’s a dead Indian out there in them hills. Maybe Pete killed him an’ maybe he didn’t. There’s no way of knowin’, I reckon. It’s no-never-mind. Rile was jumped by a half-dozen bucks. He shot the asses off ’em, if you’ll pardon my French. Looks like they had enough. He killed one of ’em for sure. That makes two dead Indians an’ that’s trouble in anybody’s book.’
‘What Indians were they?’ Martha asked. ‘The Cheyenne and the Arapaho surely wouldn’t give us trouble, Will. We always fed them when they came this way.’
‘Would you feel kindly to anybody shot a coupla your men? Would you?’
‘No, I reckon I wouldn’t at that.’
‘So that’s how it stands.’
‘Did the Indians shoot Pete?’
‘Looks that way.’
He held up a hand as he heard the distant roll of horses’ hoofs.
‘Maybe that’s George,’ he said. He walked into the house and fetched his rifle. Riley Brack appeared with his. Will said: ‘Just go in the house, Martha. You can’t be too sure.’ She didn’t say a word, but went inside. Will knew she would take the old single-barrel shot gun down off the wall. ‘Rile, you put yourself just inside the barn.’
But it was George. The middle Storm son brought his horse to a halt, stepped from the saddle, said: ‘Hello, pa,’ and then looked askance at the rifle in Will’s hands.
‘Get some grub down you, boy,’ Will said. ‘there’s some more ridin’ to do tonight. Pete got hisself shot. Maybe Indians. We have to warn the folks.’
George said: ‘Is Pete hurt bad?’
‘Couldn’t be worse.’
George went into the house. Will called to Riley Brack: ‘Rile, you ain’t through ridin’ tonight. Get a fresh horse and head for Mart’s place. Tell him what you told me an’ then head for the Quentin’s.’
Riley didn’t say a thing. He was tired to the bone, but he found his rope and caught himself a chunky little dun that was a stayer. When he had it saddled and led it into the yard, he said: ‘Mr. Storm, I think you ought to know—I found gold up there in the creek.’
‘Gold?’ Will exclaimed. ‘Where at?’ There was complete disbelief in his voice.
‘Below Mile Rock.’
‘Aw, for Gawd’s sake, boy. You already brought me in a nugget from up that way. Fool’s gold.’
Riley swung into the saddle.
‘Mr. Storm,’ he said, ‘I hate to argue with you. But I know gold when I see it and I saw it in that creek.’ He spurred away and Will looked after him with a sigh.
He walked back to the house wondering what decisions the neighbors would make, what they would consider the priority in Indian trouble—their women or their stock. He supposed the safest place for the women to fort up in was Prescott Harrison’s place to the south. The building was like a Spanish fortress with walls several feet thick and a defensive tower. Maybe if this affair came to anything, it would be a good thing if the women went there. There was Clay’s wife, Sarah, and their child to be considered, but they were on the far eastern range and they might be safe enough there. With these thoughts on his mind, he wandered into Pete Hasso and took a look at him. To his surprise, the man was conscious. Pete, lying on his face with his head cradled on his arms, twisted his neck to look up at Will out of shock-filled eyes.
‘Hello, boss,’ he whispered.
Will sat on the edge of the bed.
‘Who shot you, Pete?’ Will asked.
The man frowned—‘Never saw him before.’
Will started. A white man didn’t speak of an Indian that way. They weren’t individuals to a white man under those circumstances.
‘You mean it wasn’t an Indian?’
‘Whiteman.’
That gave Will something to think about. He asked: ‘Riley found a dead Indian. You kill him?’
‘No, sir.’
‘You reckon this feller that shot you was the one that stole the cows?’
‘Yeah.’ Pete drew in a deep breath and shuddered. ‘He killed the Indian.’
My God, thought Will, this is a Hell of a tangle. But all that really mattered was that Pete was hurt and there was some angry Indians in the hills.
He patted Pete on the shoulder. ‘You sleep, son,’ he said. ‘You’re goin’ to be all right.’
He stood up to find that Kate was standing in the doorway, staring at Pete. There was no avoiding the anguish on the girl’s face. Was the reason, Will wondered, only that Pete, one of the outf
it, had been badly hurt? He went and put an arm around her. She clung to him. Will loved all his children, but Kate made a different appeal to him from the others. Maybe it was because she was so unlike both himself and Martha. She possessed a flashing instinct that was all her own, a beauty that belonged neither to the Storms nor Martha’s family.
‘Pa,’ she said, ‘is he going to die? Is he?’
‘Can’t tell,’ he told her bluntly. ‘But the boy’s pretty tough. I seen him live through worse.’
‘He mustn’t die ... if he dies—it’s my fault.’
Will pulled his head back to look down at her.
‘You mean he was doin’ somethin’ for you when this happened?’
She nodded—‘Yes.’
‘Can I ask what?’
She looked away from him—‘I met a man in the hills. I didn’t tell you or ma. I don’t know why not. But that’s not true. I thought you’d stop it and I didn’t want it to stop. Can you understand that?’
‘Sure. Why shouldn’t I understand it? I ain’t a complete fool because I’m over forty.’
‘Pete trailed these cows and ... he found us. I managed to get away without Pete seeing me. But he knew. He was loyal, pa. That’s why I feel so bad. Pete was so loyal. What makes a man like that?’
‘How the Hell should I know? Git on.’
‘Pete disarmed this man and set him afoot in the hills without boots. Pete wanted to kill him, but he didn’t because of me. If he’d done what he wanted, this would never have happened.’
Will was confused. He said: ‘You got me all mixed up, girl. You love this feller or don’t you? I mean this mysterious feller you been meetin’.’
‘I don’t know. I lost my head over him. I didn’t fool myself though—I knew he was no good and there wasn’t a future in it. But I couldn’t leave him out there ... to die. I made Pete go after him. I know he shot Pete.’
Will said: ‘Thanks for tellin’ me. Things is beginning to add up. Who was this feller, Kate? I have to know.’
Battle Fury Page 6
