by Lauran Paine
Reuben and his wife fixed unmoving glances on the old mountain man’s face without Lige being aware of them at all. He was watching Allie disappear into the mellowness of the hushed encampment.
She threaded her way among sprawled men with their fingers curled numbly around guns, past the dry-eyed women and sleeping children, beyond the ragged little individual family units that were scattered among the trampled grass, and over to where Kit lay. She stood gazing at him for a moment before she got a solid shock. His eyes were open and fixed on her with unmoving, unblinking intensity.
“I thought you’d be asleep.”
He smiled and propped himself up on one arm, gazing up at her shadowed outline. “I have been. I reckon a man gets used to no more’n four or five hours of the stuff, after he’s gotten no more for the last years.”
She kneeled and put her hands in her lap. “Kit, I have a plan.”
“Good … So have I … Let’s hear yours.”
She studied his face with its stubble of rusty beard. “No, let’s compare them,” she said.
His smile widened. “All right. Shoot.”
“We could send Lige ahead by himself. He knows the country and the Sioux. He could make it to Fort Collins and bring back help.”
He let the smile fade slowly, looking at her. “You’re not far off, Allie. Only thing is, Lige’s more valuable here.”
“What do you mean? Who else could—?”
“Me.” He straightened up and crossed his legs under him. “It’s about like this. If we wait another day, we’ll be too close to the pass, and they’ll be expecting us to send out someone to try and get past ’em. Tonight, alone, one man who knows his way in the country just might make it. By dawn he’d be far enough toward the gap so’s they would have to have pretty flung out scouts to find him. Especially if he went north a long ways.”
“Not you, Kit. We need you here.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. Lige’s as good at this siege business as I am. Maybe better.”
“But it won’t be a siege, will it?”
“I think so,” he said slowly. “Did you hear that buck holler out? The one beyond the wagons? Well, he said we wouldn’t go any farther. That’s the same as saying they’ve got us surrounded. Maybe he was bluffing. I sort of think he was, in a way. In another way I think some of the hotbloods are out there.”
“You mean we can’t move at dawn?”
“Sure, we can … but we won’t, Allie. We’ve got water here and good grass. We’ll just do like the buck says. We’ll stay right here. You all will, I mean. Stay right here and wait while I ride for the fort.” He saw her interruption coming and waved it off.
“Allie, they’re split up. Half waiting on the cliffs above the pass, half or less down here. That’ll mean you’ll only have half of ’em to fight for a day or two, until they figure out what’s happened. It’ll save you that much longer. If you go any closer to the pass, they’ll jump you. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said in a low voice, “but Kit … not you.”
“It’s got to be me.”
“Can’t Lige do it?”
“No. I mean … yes, he could do it … but I don’t want him to. He’s better here. Besides, if I’m caught, maybe I could talk my way out of … what they’d do. Lige couldn’t.”
“You couldn’t, either,” she said with rare insight, settling lower on the ground and looking strangely defeated.
He didn’t argue with her about it. “Anyway, Allie, one or two might make it if they knew where to go and how to slip around them.” He frowned suddenly. “And maybe there aren’t any soldiers at Fort Collins, too … only don’t tell anyone that. No sense in knocking folks’ hopes out from under ’em.”
“There must be, Kit,” she said, looking up with widening eyes. “There’s got to be!”
“This isn’t the only part of Dakota country that’s afire, Allie.” He ran his hand through the blond thatch of his rumpled, curly hair and looked over where his horse stood sleeping, filled and rested. As though thinking aloud, he spoke again. “If I pull his shoes, they might think it’s just another warrior track. If I don’t, they’ll track me to hell and gone … but the horse’ll get tender-footed crossing the rocks.” He swung to face her with a rueful grin. “Sure’s a heap of decisions to make, aren’t there?”
“I’m afraid, Kit,” she said in a small voice, her smoky-gray eyes like a winter dawn in color.
“Me too,” he said, still grinning, feeling the fierce tug under his heart at the beauty of her, there in the soft, fragrant night. “I get scairt every time I get into a fix like this … and I get sick and tired of sitting around where there’s no chances to take. Hell of a note, isn’t it?”
“Don’t swear.”
“I forgot.”
She let her gaze fall away from the hot, bold stare he wore, but not for long. The troubled depths of her eyes were writhing with foreboding. “No other way, Kit?”
“You know there isn’t, Allie. You came over here with an idea like mine. If there was another way, we’d’ve thought of it. Going into that gap is plumb out, we all know that.”
“Yes,” she agreed, still in the small, strained voice.
He moved on his robe. She threw him a quick, frightened look. “No, Kit. Wait.”
How it happened neither of them knew. One moment she was three feet from him, rising on her knees and holding out both arms as though to stop him. The next moment they were clinging closely to one another, the deep, stifled thunder of their hearts making a surging pattern of excitement that raced in their veins.
He dropped his head and found her mouth. It was warm and moist. He moved his lips on hers and she clung to him with half-closed fingers that scored deeply into his flesh, under his shirt.
When he pulled back and looked into her eyes, they were almost black, with dilated pupils. The little pulse in the soft, golden V of her neck was throbbing without restraint, in an erratic, savage way.
“Don’t go, Kit. Please don’t go.”
“You’re not talking sense, Allie,” he said softly. “You know you aren’t.”
“Then take me with you.”
He smiled. “Wish I could,” he said, hugging her convulsively until she felt pain with the breathlessness that was robbing her of all strength. Bruising pain.
“I’ll be as quiet as an Indian.”
He shook her gently and frowned. “I’ll come back to you.”
She closed her fingers tighter, and the hurt flared outward along his nerves from them. He bent slowly, bringing her up a little. She sought his mouth with her own. There were startlingly long, black lashes, low over her gray eyes. He felt shut out a little by them, then he kissed her again, and she winced from the stab of his beard stubble, but held him tighter than ever.
When he released her that time, their faces were close. She could see the savageness in his eyes, the deep circles tinged with blue tiredness, the deep scores where lines met and scrolled their way into his bronzed face. She thought that she had never seen a man so handsome in so rugged a way. A man with such strength and force carved deeply into his features. His tousled hair was glistening dully, softly, from the milky wash of the moon.
He released her and pushed himself upright, held out a hand, and hauled her up by it. They stood very close, unaware of the universe and everything in it, looking at each other.
“Allie, will you be sorry we did that?” Kit said, tugging his boots on.
“No, Kit, I’ll never be sorry.”
“Don’t sound so glum.”
“How else should I feel?” she said with a break and an edge in her voice. “How would you feel if we were different? I mean—”
“I know what you mean, Allie. I’d feel about like you do, I reckon. Only it doesn’t help any. I’m leaving you behind, too. I don’t feel
very good about that. They may make an all-out effort before I can get back.”
“If you get back,” she said fiercely. “Kit … Kit, take someone with you. Two would be better than one.”
“No,” he said, with a quick shake of his head. “Lige’d be better’n going alone. Besides him, there’s no one here who could do it. You,” he said, his little, old-looking grin tugging downward at the corners of his mouth, “you move softly. I’ve watched you walk, Allie. You’d make a top-notch scout.”
“Then take me,” she said in her quick, breathless way.
His smile widened. “Like I said before … wish I could … but that’s plumb out.” He looked up at the purple night with its widening sickle of a moon. “Well, Allie, I reckon I’d best go tell Lige and get moving.” He groped for her hand and donned his hat. “Come on. We’ll walk up there together.”
Only Reuben Burgess and Lige were by the cold fire hole. They both watched them come up. Lige sat up with a lopsided yawn.
Kit held Allie’s hand until the girl was seated, then he dropped down on crossed legs and told Lige what he had in mind. Burgess didn’t say a word. He hardly breathed, in fact, and Lige didn’t look much different, until Kit was finished. Then he sucked in a large chest full of air and exhaled it slowly, fished for his twist of tobacco, and held it in one grimy paw, staring at it.
“I thought of that, Kit. Thought of it while I was lying here. Fact is, I figured I’d be able to make it better’n you would.”
“How, Lige?”
Lige bit off some tobacco and poked the twist back into a pocket. “Oh, just things,” he said vaguely, looking at Allie’s face from beneath shaggy brows, surreptitiously.
“Like what?” Kit persisted.
Lige looked at him in annoyance. “Well, for one thing, if you want me to talk right out … I’m leaving no one behind.”
Kit nodded quickly, understandingly. “Thanks, Lige,” he said. “I figured it’d be something like that. But I think you’re better here with these people. I might be able to get off if they catch me. You wouldn’t. White Shield Owner and Big Eagle are—”
“Huh?” Lige grunted dourly. “Twice they tried to talk you out of it, boy. Now … no! They’ll slit your hairline just like they would anyone else’s. Remember, Kit, we’ve led these people against ’em more’n once. They know who figured out that horse-stealing trick. That was Indian strategy … not white man. They know, Kit. Your blamed hair’d look fine on a coupstick. Don’t ever think you’ll wiggle out if they catch you, because you won’t, and I think you know it.”
“All right,” Kit said brutally, getting up with a lowering thundercloud on his face. “But I’ll chance it. Someone’s got to, and I think I’m the one most likely to make it. Lige, keep the wagons right here in this circle.” He talked fast, bluntly, watching Lige’s head drop lower as the older man listened. The sound of his voice was almost the only sound; the hour was late.
When he had finished speaking, Reuben Burgess got up and held out his hand across the dead fire. “If prayers’ll help,” he said, “mine’ll go with you, Kit.”
“Thanks.” Discomfited, he started to spin away. Allie was standing, facing him with a stricken look, like an illness, in her face. He groped for her hand with hot blood running inside him. “S’long, Allie. I’ll come back.” She held his hand, but he pulled away and walked swiftly back down where the horses were.
The night was mute with a filtering of small, inconsequential sounds. Horses stamped their hoofs, men snored, and cattle grunted. His horse was gray with dried sweat salt. He found a swathing of grass that hadn’t been foraged under a wagon, tugged it up into a switch, wet it at the creek, and went back to the horse and curried its back briskly. A sore back would be a hindrance, as much as tender hoofs.
He saddled and bridled the beast and led it to a place where two lanky boys, who had already pulled down the barricade, stood watching him with wide, wondering eyes, but saying nothing. He stopped and looked at them. Neither was the redheaded Houston boy. He smiled.
“Hold your fort, men,” he said in a quiet way. “Out here you get to be men almost before you’re boys. Hold your fort and keep ’em outside, and you’ll live to tell how it was done in the old days.”
“Are you leavin’ us, Mister Butler?”
“I’m going to Fort Collins and see if I can’t fetch back some soldiers, boys. When I get back, I want to see you two still standing up, so remember what I tell you. Don’t let a Dakota get inside your circle.”
“We won’t, Mister Butler.” The smaller of the two, possibly a late seventeen, made a shaky smile. “Hope you … I bet you make it, too,” he said. “It’ll be risky, won’t it?”
Kit nodded and toed into the stirrup. “Yep. It’ll be risky, but if you’ll do your share, I’ll do my damnedest to do mine. Is that a good trade?” he asked, swinging lithely into the saddle and grinning down at them.
“Yes, sir! Good luck, Mister Butler.”
“Good luck to you, too … men.”
He wheeled and rode slowly, very cautiously, northward. He knew there were Dakotas out in the grass somewhere. If he had to shoot his gun, it would alert every Indian who heard the shot. They’d place the sound beyond the wagon circle and guess the rest.
His horse’s ears plus his own trained vision were what he had to rely on. He used both, as well as an inherent caution and years of experience.
The grass made soft whispering sounds, barely audible, as he rode through it. Far out, he reined up and looked back. The wagon circle looked a hazy white, like a monstrous glow worm curled into a sleeping circle. It was a ghostly specter from where he swung down finally, laid flat, and pressed his ear to the ground. He expected to hear nothing; it was simply an added precaution.
But he did hear something—a horse coming, and in a trot. He pressed hard, biting his underlip, concentrating on the direction of the sound. South. South and little east. He stood up quickly, scowling with a black anger surging in him. Someone was coming from the direction of the wagon train, and by the time they got out as far as he was, it would be too late—too much of a delay to him—to send them back.
“Damn that Lige,” he murmured.
He mounted swiftly and rode back in a fast walk, seeking the fool who had ridden out so recklessly, hoping to find him before the Dakotas, who might be close, sunk an arrow—as silent and deadly as the vaulted night itself—into his body.
The rider slowed his horse a little, as though precaution had come belatedly. Kit frowned. That wasn’t like Lige. Maybe those boys back at the …
“Ki-itt!”
It came so softly, so gently and quietly, he wasn’t sure he had heard it. Like a sigh on a little breeze, borne outward in an echo. He stopped and saw the outline. His heart sank.
“Allie!”
She rode up beside him and only slowed, but didn’t stop. He had to turn and urge his horse to keep abreast of her.
“Allie, what in the devil …?”
“Please, Kit. You said I could walk like an Indian.” Her voice acquired a hardness to it he never heard her use before. “And … I’m not going back, so make your mind up to that. Anyhow, I don’t think we ought to talk out here. Sounds carry.” She turned her head and looked at him. As quickly as she’d flared out adamantly, she switched back to a soft, pleading tone. “Oh, Kit, don’t be disagreeable.”
Dumbfounded as he was, the need for speed was uppermost in his mind. Not horse speed, but a steady traveling until they got into the forest, then an even steadier hurry that might put them well above the farthest-ranging Dakota scouts before dawn. He locked his jaws and stared straight ahead, afraid to say anything at all, feeling tricked and defeated and helpless all at the same time. He rode like that, holding his cold, angry silence, until they were across the valley floor and rising toward where the first dark mass of forest showed a straggling fringe
of new growth.
He swung in among the trees and left her to follow. His anger was fed by fear for her safety and the nagging knowledge of what might lie ahead for both of them. There were no trails, and in his bleak frame of mind he only glanced back occasionally. She was riding a good horse—thank God for that—and she was sticking to him like a leech. He grunted finally, and slumped in the saddle. Ahead was a swift-rising hill with tier after tier of tall black trees.
He traveled by instinct, like an Indian. Despite the detours he was compelled to make past giant, ghostly old deadfalls, he held to the northerly direction with unerring accuracy—but he made no move to rein up until he saw the skyline over the bony back of a humped-over mountain ridge.
Up there, where the air was raw with predawn chill, he stopped and looked back at her. She put a finger over her lips and smiled at him. In a way it struck him funny; in another way it exasperated him very much. He swung down and walked back beside her. She stopped her horse and gazed into his face with the reflection of starlight in her hair and gray eyes. Very gravely she kissed the finger over her mouth, leaned over, and touched the finger to his mouth.
He stared at her for perhaps a long, roiled minute, then shook his head like an annoyed bear, and sighed. “All right, Allie … doggone you … you win. But that was a tomfool thing to do. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said in her small voice. Then she smiled and swung low from the saddle. “Kiss me, Kit. I was never so frightened in my life.”
He kissed her and felt the wildfire flame along the length of his body. “Oh, Lord,” he said in a low, despairing whisper. “What can a man do?”
“Nothing … just get back on your horse and lead the way. I’ll follow you.”
He studied her in a puzzled way. “You told me, once, you didn’t want anything to do with an Indian lover.”
“No, I didn’t. I told you I … well, what I meant was … I wasn’t sure what I thought of you.”
“Harder to outguess than a Dakota,” he said, still looking up at her.
“I hope I am,” she said tartly, in a low whisper. “You can think like an Indian too well. I’d hate to think you could outthink me, Kit.”