The 7th Western Novel

by Francis W. Hilton

  The animal’s head reappeared and there was a terrified whinny as it started down again. Billy spurred the dun forward as the log hit with a thud just under the horse’s ear. He saw Thad go down as his mount went under from the blow.

  The others were yelling at him to come back; he knew they had seen the whirlpool now and figured better to lose one man than two. A rope whistled past him in the darkness, but it fell short of Old Thad’s struggling body by three feet. Then Billy felt the dun’s feet slip from under him and he knew the animal was too exhausted to recover in time. Kicking his feet from the stirrups he stood on the sinking withers and dove for the spot where he’d last seen Old Thad’s hand raised feebly above the black surface of the water.

  It seemed suddenly quiet down here, with only a gentle gurgling to tell where he was. His wet clothes were like lead from the weight of the water and he was wishing he’d had time to remove his boots. His outstretched hands touched mud and rock briefly as he swept along and he knew he was down too deep.

  He started back up and it seemed an eternity of struggle, with his tired, aching muscles refusing to respond to this last demand he was making of them. Inside his chest there was a bursting sensation of lungs pulsing for want of air. He wanted to open his mouth, but he knew it would be the last time if he did. The boots hung like the weight of rocks around each foot and he struggled to kick them free. In a flash it came to him that it was a foolhardy thing he’d done. Like as not Old Thad was already drowned, and it was his turn now.

  It surprised him to find he shot out of the water. He guessed he must have been down deeper than even he thought. The air poured into his lungs with an almost pleasant kind of pain and he felt a giddiness come over him. Then his head cleared at he treaded water, taking the air in deep gulps. He looked around at the dim objects spinning past him on the banks.

  There was a louder noise ahead, coming closer. The whirlpool.

  Something struck his arm and he drew back instinctively. The next instant he cursed the instinct when he realized the touch of human hair and skin. He grabbed again with one arm, struggling to stay afloat with the other. But Thad was gone. He looked around, fear rising in him. In the darkness the banks were indistinct, the water almost black. A dark object floated past him, barely visible. He made a grab for it, came up with a hat—Thad’s hat. He let it go and peered around him, straining his eyes in the darkness.

  The noise of the whirlpool grew louder. Billy found his strength ebbing fast, the weight of his boots a nightmare dragging at his legs. He swallowed water, coughed it up feeling the sand between his teeth. Something swayed him with a gentle motion, slowly, then faster. Realization of what it was made him flounder, splashing clumsily, straining to swim clear. He couldn’t help Thad now—he had to get free himself.

  Slowly, he saw the dim outline of one bank begin to move around him, then the other. Then they spun with increasing rapidity until they merged into one indistinct line. He heard the roaring in his ears as he was spun with dizzying speed, felt himself being sucked relentlessly down. In desperation he flailed the water, struggling.

  It was no use.

  Something bumped against him—something soft-hard. A body! He grabbed for it, encircling it with his arms. It felt limp and cold.

  “Thad!”

  The roaring was in his ears and he felt himself shooting down into the stygian depths. Water poured into his eyes and ears—and into his lungs till they were filled to bursting. He kicked with his feet, locking his arms about his burden, felt a strange lassitude come over him. The roaring faded—then blackness closed over him. Quiet, and peaceful.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Cold drops of rain pelted his face. He opened his eyes. There were faces above him peering down. Then he heard voices.

  “He’s come to,” somebody said.

  “Billy! Billy Condo!” It was Joe Metcalf, kneeling beside him. “Can you hear me?”

  Billy nodded, trying to keep from slipping back into the oblivion from which he’d just emerged. He heard himself ask, “Thad? What about Thad?”

  He heard Joe Metcalf give a low chuckle. “Told you that old cuss was tough as a boot. He fared better’n you did. He’d been knocked out—had a knot on his noggin the size of a wagon hub. We laid him over a horse and drained the water out of him and he come to.”

  Billy struggled to a sitting position.

  “How you feelin’?” Joe asked.

  “Kind of weak,” Billy admitted.

  “You ought to, by God! You was so full of water I never thought we’d bring you around.”

  Old Thad came up, shivering a little in his wet clothes. Billy got to his feet. He felt the wind strike his own wetness and began to shiver himself.

  “I never thought I’d see the time,” Old Thad said with forced gruffness, “that I’d need anybody to try to help me acrost a creek. If you hadn’t jumped your horse out at me like that and scared my mount out from under me neither one of us would have got wet.”

  Billy’s face broke in a slow grin. He knew that this was Thad’s way of saying thanks without having to come right out with it. “Do me a favor, will you, Thad? Go to hell!”

  “When you two get through passin’ compliments to each other,” Joe Metcalf said, “there’s a herd of cows needs tendin’ to.”

  “Anybody seen a dun horse, slightly wet?” Billy asked.

  Joe told him, “Your mount and Thad’s too came swimmin’ ashore about a hundred yards down. One of the boys caught ’em. They’re over there with the rest.”

  Billy turned in the direction Joe indicated. The others were already mounted. He found his legs were wobbly as he tried to walk. But he was lucky, he guessed, not to be floating, face down, a mile or more down Wolf Creek. Still… He looked up at the blackness overhead, squinting his eyes at the rain pelting down. He hoped Shorty had the herd under control. Tired as he was, the last thing he felt like doing was trying to hold thirteen hundred head of cattle from a stampede on a stormy night.

  He found the dun, and as he dragged himself into the saddle he was thankful for the darkness that hid the wounds his spurs had made. As he turned to follow the others he promised himself that he’d let this horse have a good long rest with the remuda for this day’s work.

  The rain came down in sheets now, making their progress slow in the darkness and mud. But there was no thunder, no lightning. Evidently the worst of the storm had broken to the northwest. Billy guessed that would account for the condition of Wolf Creek. Well, he told himself, it wouldn’t make him a bit mad if the thunder and lightning never came.

  * * * *

  It was around four in the morning, Billy guessed, when a couple of the horses pricked up their ears and let out a whinny. A series of answering whinnies came from up ahead.

  “That must be the remuda,” he said to Thad who was riding alongside him.

  “Better be,” the old man grumbled. “And Shorty better have that herd bedded down for the night—what’s left of it. I aim to catch me a change of clothes and some shuteye, damn soon.”

  They called out their identity to the nighthawk, It was a proper precaution, under the circumstances. The rider held them at bay with a saddle gun till satisfied of their identity. They rode wide of the herd that moved restlessly in the driving rain and came to the wagons on a little knoll. They found Shorty Long huddled under the bed wagon smoking a cigarette.

  “I couldn’t move ’em no further,” he said by way of apology as he crawled out. “I was afraid it would storm and figured I’d better hold ’em while I could.”

  “You did right,” Billy told him wearily. “Another two miles and we wouldn’t have caught up with you.”

  “Anything happen?” Shorty asked.

  “Enough,” Billy said, sliding out of the saddle and feeling the chill soreness in his limbs. “But it’ll keep. Now how about a fire and some dry clothes. You
got any dry wood?”

  “Cook’s got dry stuff in the chuck wagon, but he’d counted on it for breakfast. I didn’t light a fire on account of what you said about Thornhill.”

  Billy nodded approval. “But we got wet men who need hot coffee,” he said, starting around the chuck wagon.

  While the others dug slickers out of the bed wagon and hunkered around the fire in dry clothes, Billy got a bottle of liniment and treated the dun. The spur cuts were as bad as he expected, but no worse, and he was glad of that. He dumped the saddle by the fire and changed clothes under the wagon like the rest had done. Then he made his bed and spread a tarpaulin over it to keep out the rain and went to the fire for coffee.

  Shorty Long cut him off. “Got something here you ought to see,” he said quietly, drawing Billy aside. From inside his shirt he pulled something long and murky white and handed it to the trail boss.

  Billy examined the feather closely, turning it over in his hands, trying to see its markings in the dim light of the fire.

  “I figured I’d better show it to you, first, since you’re to guide this outfit through the Territory. What do you make of it?”

  Billy knitted his brows, looking again at the feather in his hand. It had been stripped on the lower third, and the quill end was wrapped with a loop and thong for fastening to the hair. The upper end was tipped with red and a tuft of red-dyed horsehair fastened to it.

  “Probably Comanche,” Billy said tersely through pressed lips. “The buck who lost this wasn’t out for buffalo—that’s a war feather. I remember seeing them when I was a kid on trips I made with my dad.”

  “I figured it wasn’t too good,” Shorty told him. “That’s why I kept quiet. Didn’t want to stir anybody up. I figured the guard we had out for Thornhill would serve as well for Indians.”

  Billy nodded. “Where’d you find this?”

  “Under the wagon when I first crawled in there out of the rain. Just an hour or so before you came.”

  It looked to Billy as if the feather hadn’t lain too long on the ground. It was spotted a little from the rain, but not bedraggled. A day or two it had lain there, not much more. And a day or two could mean that a war-party could be miles away. They traveled light and fast, he knew. But what worried him was the fact that the Comanche was out of the Territory. He’d counted on giving away a few head of beef along the way, but a war party…

  “Any of your men had sleep?” Billy asked.

  “One’s asleep now,” Shorty told him, “and one had an hour when we bedded the herd. Couldn’t let more’n one man go at a time, things the way they were.”

  Billy fell silent. A few minutes ago he could have slept in a bed of prickly pear. Now he was wide awake and tense. He knew he was running on his nerves now, but that couldn’t be helped. If things smoothed out tomorrow, maybe he could grab a few winks in the bed wagon if he had to. Joe Metcalf had had a few hours rest, he guessed, even though there’d been some strenuous hours since. Two of Shorty’s boys had rested since the herd had been moved. The others had been in their blankets when they’d been called out to head off Thornhill’s men. Billy guessed he’d ask for volunteers first. He turned to Shorty. “Come on,” he said, “let’s break the news.”

  They took it stoically when Billy told them and showed them the feather. The thought ran through his mind that this at least, was one thing he’d had no part in bringing on. To a man they volunteered for nightherd when he asked them.

  “It’s not long till daylight,” he told them. “A couple of hours, even with this weather. We’ll stop early tonight and get some sleep. Those who turn in now can take first guard then. Agreed?”

  They all nodded and the relief men gulped the remainder of their coffee and went for their horses. Billy turned to Shorty.

  “Let me have your roan, will you? My horse got pretty badly cut up. I’ll switch back as soon as I can get another out of my string when it gets light.”

  Shorty looked at him. “Hell, man! You been in the saddle nearly twenty-four hours now! Are you crazy?”

  Billy grinned feebly as he turned away. “I been accused of it,” he said as he picked up his saddle and blanket. “You better hit the sack, Shorty. You got to rassle the remuda tomorrow. Indians like good horses, you know.”

  The rain had abated somewhat by the time Billy reached the herd. He passed the relieved riders coming in. “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “They’re a little restless,” Tooker Cobb told him, “but they’ll make out as long as we get nothing worse than rain.”

  Billy rode on, thinking that they could get a lot worse than rain. Comanches, for instance. He circled the herd, letting his presence be known to the four men on nighthawk who had just gone out ahead of him. Then he made a wide circuit in the darkness. He didn’t find anything, but then he told himself he didn’t really expect to. Just riding off his restlessness, he guessed.

  It came to him then that he’d been kind of glad when Shorty had shown him that feather. Not that he wanted any trouble with the Comanche. But he’d have taken a lot of problems to sleep with him, and now that he was wide awake again he was glad for the chance to think them out.

  He wasn’t surprised to find that he was thinking about Mary Thornhill. She’d been pretty unhappy, he knew, about the way she’d had to leave him after he’d asked her to ride for help. He was sorry he’d done that, the way things turned out. But, somehow, it increased his admiration for her—if that were possible—the way she’d stuck to her loyalties. She’d be the same way with him, he imagined, if she ever came to be his wife. He wondered, as he pulled his slicker up around his neck, if that time would ever come.

  It came to him, also, that he’d never had a chance to ask her about what Jase had said about her marrying Ace Ackerman when they got to Abilene. But then he guessed he didn’t need to ask her how she felt about that. Not after what had happened there in the trees in the moonlight. The thought of it made him brush his lips unconsciously with the back of his hand, as though expecting to feel something she had left there. No, she’d never be Ackerman’s wife—not willingly, that is.

  Why was it, he wondered, as he reined the roan to a stop at the crest of a rise, that Jase was so all-fired set on having her marry Ackerman all of a sudden? She’d never mentioned it before. It didn’t seem likely that Jase would marry his own sister off to a rummy like Ackerman just to spite a man named Billy Condo. Yet—he shook his head and eased the roan down a slippery draw—Jase Thornhill seemed to have done a lot of loco things lately. And they seemed to get worse all the time.

  A thought was gnawing at the back of his mind. A thought he’d tried to put out before, only it kept coming back. Jase might change—but most likely he wouldn’t. If it had been anybody else—anybody who might have held Billy’s Northern sympathies against him for a time—it might be different. People forgave and forgot. But not Jase. Instead, Jase’s hatred grew more vile each day that passed. And that was the thought that troubled Billy. Someday there’d be a showdown. Someday…

  A faint grayness in the dark blanket of clouds to the east brought his thoughts to earth. He looked around him and noticed that he could see a little better, now that dawn was not far off. The rain had subsided to a steady drizzle that promised to hold through the day. But there was a chance, he knew, that daylight might just as easily see the clouds breaking up. He hoped that would happen. It would mean a lot in terms of miles covered. Boggy earth made a slow trail.

  He halted the roan on a knoll and looked back the way he’d come. In the darkness he guessed he’d ridden farther than he’d intended. The grey light was spreading, and already he could make out the roll of the land in the distance. But there was no sign of the herd. He let the roan ease forward, picking its way down a bank of sloping shale to a wash that held a trickle of water from the night’s rain. It was then that his eyes told him that something in the landscape was out of place.
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  Right away he stopped. Just why, he didn’t know. But long years of experience, and his time as a cavalry scout, made him wait till whatever had made him stop was right in his mind. He glanced quickly up and down the wash, then let his eyes wander slowly over the sloping shale on either side. Maybe, he was thinking, whatever he had seen had been from the top of the bank before he’d come down. He remembered trying to locate the herd. But that wasn’t it. As far as he’d ridden, it could be hid behind the swell of the land. No, there was something else, something…

  Then he saw it.

  Just beyond the trickle of water in the bed of the wash, not ten yards away. A hoofprint. He felt an involuntary chill run up and down his spine. He ran his eyes farther along. There—another.

  He looked about him quickly once more, then back to the hoofprints. Right away he found himself discarding the thought that they might have been made some time back. For one thing, the watermark on the wash told him that at some time during the night a lot of water had run down here and drained off. That would have been enough to cover hoofprints. There was only one way to figure it. Whoever the rider was, he’d been through not long before. Half an hour, maybe. An hour at most.

  Billy found himself untying his slicker so that it didn’t cover the butt of the .44. Then he eased the roan forward and sat staring down at the horse sign. It didn’t surprise him to notice that there was no sign of a shoe. He rode along to the other, and followed it to one more before they were lost where the rider had ridden down the water in the bed. No sign of a shoe on any foot.

  The only kind of rider he could think of offhand who would be riding an unshod horse would be an Indian. And, in this case, a Comanche scout.

  He followed the wash down to where it trailed off into a small creek, but he didn’t pick up the trail again. He rode back to where he’d seen the first and followed the wash to the head. There were more tracks here, and they answered the question in his mind. The scout had come from the same direction as himself—from the direction of the herd.