The Fighting Edge

by Raine, William MacLeod

  It seemed to him that the firing was now more distant. There was a chance that none of the Utes were still in the camp. Fever was mounting in Houck. He was in much distress both from thirst and from the pain of the wounds. Bob shrank from the pitiful appeals of his high-pitched, delirious voice. The big fellow could stand what he must with set jaws when he was sentient. His craving found voice in irrational moments while he had no control over his will. These were increasing in frequency and duration.

  Dillon picked up the flask. “Got to leave you a while,” he said. “Back soon.”

  The glassy eyes of Houck glared at him. His mind was wandering. “Torturin’ me. Tha’s what you’re doin’, you damned redskin,” he muttered.

  “Going to get water,” explained Bob.

  “Tha’s a lie. You got water there—in that bottle. Think I don’t know yore Apache ways?”

  Bob crept to the edge of the willows. From the foliage he peered out. Nobody was in sight. He could still see a faint smoke rising from the Indian camp. But the firing was a quarter of a mile away, at least. The bend of the river was between him and the combatants.

  Bob took his courage by the throat, drew a long breath, and ran for the river. Just as he reached it a bullet splashed in the current almost within hand’s reach. The cowpuncher stooped and took two hasty swallows into his dry mouth. He filled the bottle and soaked the bandanna in the cold water. A slug of lead spat at the sand close to his feet. A panic rose within him. He got up and turned to go. Another bullet struck a big rock four paces from where he was standing. Bob scudded for the willows, his heart thumping wildly with terror.

  He plunged into the thicket, whipping himself with the bending saplings in his headlong flight. Now that they had discovered him, would the Indians follow him to his hiding-place? Or would they wait till dusk and creep up on him unseen? He wished he knew.

  The water and the cool, wet bandanna alleviated the misery of the wounded man. He shut his eyes, muttering incoherently.

  There was no longer any sound of firing. The long silence alarmed Bob. Was it possible that his friends had been driven off? Or that they had retired from the field under the impression that all of the riders who had plunged over the bluff had been killed?

  This fear obsessed him. It rode him like an old man of the sea. He could not wait here till the Utes came to murder him and Houck. Down in the bottom of his heart he knew that he could not leave this enemy of his to the fate that would befall him. The only thing to do was to go for help at once.

  He took off his coat and put it under Houck’s head. He moistened the hot bandanna for the burning forehead and poured the rest of the water down the throat of the sick man. The rifle he left with Houck. It would only impede him while he was crossing the mesa.

  None of us know what we can do till the test comes. Bob felt it was physically impossible for him to venture into the open again and try to reach his friends. He might at any instant run plumb into the Utes. Nevertheless he crept out from the willows into the sage desert.

  The popping of the guns had begun again. The battle seemed to be close to the edge of the mesa round the bend of the river. Bob swung wide, climbing the bluff from the farther skirt of the willows. He reached the mesa.

  From where he lay he could see that the whites held a ridge two hundred yards away. The Utes were apparently in the river valley.

  He moved forward warily, every sense abnormally keyed to service. A clump of wild blackberries grew on the rim of the bluff. From this smoke billowed. Bullets began to zip past Bob. He legged it for the ridge, blind to everything but his desperate need to escape.

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXXIII

  “KEEP A-COMIN’, RED HAID”

  When the rangers and the militia stampeded after the Indian scout, Dud Hollister was examining the hoof of his mount. He swung instantly to the saddle and touched his pony with the spur. It shot across the mesa on the outskirts of the troop. Not impeded by riders in front, Dud reached the bluff above the river valley on the heels of the advance guard. He pulled up just in time to keep from plunging over.

  The Utes, under cover of the willow saplings, were concentrating a very heavy fire on the bluff and slope below. Dud’s first thought was that the troops had been drawn into a trap. Every man who had been carried over the edge of the mesa by the impetus of the charge was already unhorsed. Several were apparently dead. One was scudding for cover.

  Dud drew back promptly. He did not care to stand silhouetted against the sky-line for sharpshooters. Nobody had ever accused the Utes of being good shots, but at that distance they could hardly miss him if he stayed.

  The soldiers and rangers gathered in a small clump of cottonwoods. Harshaw read his boys the riot act.

  “Fine business,” he told them bitterly. “Every last one of you acted like he was a tenderfoot. Ain’t you ever seen a Ute before? Tryin’ to collect him so anxious, an’ him only bait to lead you on. I reckon we better go home an’ let Major Sheahan’s boys do this job. I’m plumb disgusted with you.”

  The range-riders looked at each other out of the corners of meek eyes. This rebuke was due them. They had been warned against letting themselves be drawn on without orders.

  “That fellow Houck he started it,” Big Bill suggested humbly by way of defense.

  “Were you drug into it? Did he rope you off yore horse an’ take you along with him?” demanded Harshaw sarcastically. “Well, I hope you got yore lesson. How many did we lose?”

  A roll-call showed four missing. Hollister felt a catch at the throat when his riding partner failed to report. Bob must be one of those who had gone over the ledge.

  One of Sheahan’s troopers on scout duty reported. “Indians making for a gulch at the end of the willows, sir. Others swarming up into the bushes at the edge of the mesa.”

  A cowpuncher familiar with the country volunteered information. “Gulch leads to that ridge over there. It’s the highest point around here.”

  “Then we’d better take the ridge,” Harshaw suggested to Sheahan. “Right quick, too.”

  The major agreed.

  They put the troop in motion. Another scout rode in. The Utes were hurrying as fast as they could to the rock-rim. Major Sheahan quickened the pace to a gallop. The Indians lying in the bushes fired at them as they went.

  Tom Reeves went down, his horse shot under him. Dud pulled up, a hundred yards away. Out of the bushes braves poured like buzzing bees. The dismounted man would be cut off.

  Hollister wheeled his cowpony in its tracks and went back. He slipped a foot from the stirrup and held it out as a foot-rest for Reeves. The Utes whooped as they came on. The firing was very heavy. The pony, a young one, danced wildly and made it impossible for Tom to swing up.

  Dud dismounted. The panicky horse backed away, eyes filled with terror. It rose into the air, trembling. Dud tried to coax it to good behavior.

  The moments were flying, bringing the Utes nearer every instant.

  “We gotta make a run for it, Dud,” his companion said hurriedly. “To the willows over there.”

  There was no choice. Hollister let go the bridle and ran. Scarcely fifty yards behind them came the Utes.

  Even in their high-heeled boots the cowpunchers ran fast. Once within the shelter of the willows they turned and opened fire. This quite altered the situation. The foremost brave faltered in his pigeon-toed stride, stopped abruptly, and dived for the shelter of a sagebush. The others veered off to the right. They disappeared into some blackberry bushes on the edge of the mesa. Whether from here they continued to the valley the punchers in the willows could not tell.

  “Some lucky getaway,” Dud panted.

  “Thought I was a goner sure when they plugged my bronc,” said Reeves.

  He took a careful shot at the sagebush behind which the Indian had taken refuge. The Ute ran away limping.

  “Anyhow, that guy’s got a souvenir to remember me by. Compliments of Tom Reeves,” grinned the owner of that name. />
  “We’ve got to get back to the boys somehow. I reckon they’re havin’ quite a party on the ridge,” Dud said.

  The sound of brisk firing came across the mesa to them. It was evident that the whites and redskins had met on the ridge and were disputing for possession of it.

  “My notion is we’d better stick around here for a while,” Reeves demurred. “I kinda hate to hoof it acrost the flat an’ be a target the whole darned way.”

  This seemed good to Hollister. The troopers seemed to be holding their own. They had not been driven back. The smoke of their rifles showed along the very summit of the rock-rim. The inference was that the Utes had been forced to fall back.

  The two rangers lay in the willows for hours. The firing had died down, recommenced, and again ceased. Once there came the sound of shots from the right, down in the valley close by the river.

  “They’re likely gettin’ the fellow that wasn’t killed when he went over the bluff,” Dud suggested. “There ain’t a thing we can do to help him either.”

  “That’s it, I reckon. They’re collectin’ him now. Wonder which of the boys it is.”

  Dud felt a twinge of conscience. There was nothing he could do to help the man hemmed in on the riverbank, but it hurt him to lie there without attempting aid. The ranger making the lone fight might be Bob Dillon, poor Bob who had to whip his courage to keep himself from playing the weakling. Dud hoped not. He did not like to think of his riding mate in such desperate straits with no hope of escape.

  The battle on the ridge had begun again. Hollister and Reeves decided to try to rejoin their friends. From the north end of the willows they crept into a small draw that led away from the river toward the hills beyond the mesa. Both of them were experienced plainsmen. They knew how to make the most of such cover as there was. As they moved through the sage, behind hillocks and along washes, they detoured to put as much distance as possible between them and the Utes at the edge of the bench.

  But the last hundred yards had to be taken in the open. They did it under fire, on the run, with a dozen riflemen aiming at them from the fringe of blackberry bushes that bordered the mesa. Up the ridge they went pell-mell, Reeves limping the last fifty feet of the way. An almost spent bullet had struck him in the fleshy part of the lower leg.

  Hawks let out a cowboy yell at sight of them, jumped up, and pulled Dud down beside him among the boulders.

  “Never expected to see you lads again alive an’ kickin’ after you an’ the Utes started that footrace. I’ll bet neither one of you throwed down on yoreself when you was headin’ for the willows. Gee, I’m plumb glad to see you.”

  “We’re right glad to be here, Buck,” acknowledged Dud. “What’s new?”

  “We got these birds goin’, looks like. In about an hour now we’re allowin’ to hop down into the gulch real sudden an’ give ’em merry hell.”

  Dud reported to Harshaw. The cattleman dropped a hand on his rider’s shoulder with a touch of affection. He was very fond of the gay young fellow.

  “Thought they’d bumped you off, boy. Heap much glad to see you. What do you know?”

  “I reckon nothing that you don’t. There was firin’ down by the river. Looks like they found one o’ the boys who went over the bluff.”

  “An’ there’s a bunch of ’em strung out among the bushes close to the edge of the mesa. Fifteen or twenty, would you think?”

  “Must be that many, the way their bullets dropped round Tom an’ me just now.”

  “Tom much hurt?”

  “Flesh wound only—in the laig.”

  Harshaw nodded. His mind was preoccupied with the problem before them. “The bulk of ’em are down in this gulch back of the ridge. We met ’em on the summit and drove ’em back. I judge they’ve had a-plenty. We’ll rout ’em out soon now.”

  A brisk fire went on steadily between the Utes in the gulch and the whites on the ridge. Every man had found such cover as he could, but the numbers on both sides made it impossible for all to remain wholly hidden. The casualties among the troopers had been, however, very light since the first disastrous rush over the bluff.

  Dud caught Harshaw’s arm. “Look!” he cried, keenly excited.

  A man had emerged from the bushes and was running across the flat toward the ridge. Dud and Tom had kept well away toward the foothills, not out of range of the Utes, but far enough distant to offer poor targets. But this man was running the gauntlet of a heavy fire close enough to be an easy mark. Blanco valley settlers, expert marksmen from much big-game hunting, would have dropped the runner before he had covered thirty yards. But the Indians were armed with cheap trade guns and were at best poor shots. The runner kept coming.

  Those on the ridge watched him, their pulses quick, their nerves taut. For he was running a race with death. Every instant they expected to see him fall. From the bushes jets of smoke puffed like toy balloons continuously.

  “Fire where you see the smoke, boys,” Harshaw shouted.

  The rangers and militia concentrated on the fringe of shrubbery. At least they could make it hot enough for the Indians to disturb their aims.

  “He’s down!” groaned Hollister.

  He was, but in a second he was up once more, still running strong. He had stumbled over a root. The sage was heavy here. This served as a partial screen for the swiftly moving man. Every step now was carrying him farther from the sharpshooters, bringing him closer to the ridge.

  “By Godfrey, he’ll make it!” Harshaw cried.

  It began to look that way. The bullets were still falling all around him, but he was close to the foot of the ridge.

  Dud made a discovery. “It’s Bob Dillon!” he shouted. Then, to the runner, with all his voice, “Keep a-comin’, Red Haid!”

  The hat had gone from the red head. As he climbed the slope the runner was laboring heavily. Dud ran down the hill to meet him, half a dozen others at his heels, among them Blister. They caught the spent youth under the arms and round the body. So he reached the crest.

  Blister’s fat arms supported him as his body swayed. The wheezy voice of the justice trembled. “G-glory be, son. I ’most had heart f-failure whilst you was hoofin’ it over the mesa. Oh, boy! I’m g-glad to see you.”

  Bob sat down and panted for breath. “I got to go—back again,” he whispered from a dry throat.

  “What’s that?” demanded Harshaw. “Back where?”

  “To—to the river. I came to get help—for Houck.”

  “Houck?”

  “He’s down there in the willows wounded.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER XXXIV

  AN OBSTINATE MAN STANDS PAT

  A moment of blank silence fell on the little group crouched among the boulders. Bob’s statement that he had to go back through the fire zone—to Houck—had fallen among them like a mental bombshell.

  Blister was the first to find his voice. “You been down there l-lookin’ after him?”

  “Yes. They hit him in the leg—twice. An’ once in the side. He’s outa his head. I got him water from the river.”

  “Was that when I heard shootin’ down there?” Dud asked.

  “I reckon.”

  “Well, I’ll be d-dawg-goned!” Blister exclaimed.

  Of life’s little ironies he had never seen a stranger example than this. It had fallen to Bob Dillon to look after his bitter enemy, to risk his life for him, to traverse a battle-field under heavy fire in order to get help for him. His mind flashed back to the boy he had met less than a year ago, a pallid, trembling weakling who had shriveled under the acid test of danger. He had traveled a long way since then in self-conquest.

  “Houck was down in the open last I seen him,” Hawks said. “Did he crawl to the willows?”

  “I kinda helped him,” Bob said, a little ashamed.

  “Hmp! An’ now you think we’d ought to let two-three men get shot going after him across the mesa,” Harshaw said. “Nothin’ doing. Not right away anyhow. Houck’s foolishness got
him into the hole where he is. He’ll have to wait till we clean out this nest in the gulch. Soon as we’ve done that we’ll go after him.”

  “But the Utes will rush the willows,” Bob protested mildly.

  “Sorry, but he’ll have to take his chance of that. Any of the rest of us would in his place. You’ve done what you could, son. That lets you out.”

  “No, I’m going back,” Bob said quietly. “I told him I would. I got to go.”

  “That wouldn’t be r-right sensible, would it?” asked Blister. “N-not right away anyhow. After we get those b-birds outa the blackberry bushes, time enough then for you to h-hit the back trail.”

  “No, I promised.” There was in Bob’s face a look Blister had never seen there before, something hard and dogged and implacable. “My notion is for half a dozen of us to go on horses—swing round by the far edge of the mesa. We can drop down into the valley an’ pick Houck up if we’re lucky.”

  “And if you’re not lucky?” Harshaw demanded.

  “Why, o’ course we might have trouble. Got to take our chances on that.”

  “They might wipe the whole bunch of you out. No, sir. I need my men right here. This whole thing’s comin’ to a show-down right soon. Houck will have to wait.”

  “I got to go back, Mr. Harshaw,” Bob insisted. “I done promised him I would.”

  “Looky here, boy. You’ll do as you please, of course. But there’s no sense in being bull-haided. How much do you figure you owe this Jake Houck? I never heard tell he was yore best friend. You got him into the willows. You went to the river and brought him water. You ran a big risk comin’ here to get help for him. We’ll go to him just as soon as it’s safe. That ought to content you.”

  Before Bob’s mental vision there flashed a picture of a man in fever burning up for lack of water. He could not understand it himself. It was not reasonable, of course. But somehow Jake Houck had become his charge. He had to go through with the job.