"All right, you—on your feet!" A hand hooked in the collar of his coat to jerk him up. Somehow Drew did find his feet and stood bent over, his hands to his bruised side, breathing in small painful gasps. A rib had either been broken in that assault, or it was cracked.
There were two—three—four figures moving in the moonlight. Then the one fronting him turned and he saw the face clearly. Shannon!
"Only three of 'em—Benito an' these two," one of the others reported.
"How's Benito?" There was authority in that inquiry, but it came from the one man who kept well back in the shadows.
"Got him a holed shoulder."
"Able to ride?"
"Dunno, suh."
"He'd better be. We need him to find Graverro. These two we don't need."
"That's where you're wrong, Colonel. This here's about th' best cover we could git us now." Shannon laughed. "Mister Drew Rennie, come outta Kentucky to find his pa—touchin' story, ain't it? Real touchin'—like somethin' outta a book. Well, does his pa find us, his sonny boy'd be real handy, now wouldn't he?"
"You have a point, Shannon. We'll take him."
"An' th' other one, Colonel, suh?"
Kitchell—if Kitchell that shadow was—came out into the moonlight. He wore the gray shell jacket of a Confederate[pg 210] cavalryman, and the light glinted on the cords of a field officer's hat.
"Who are you, boy?" He faced to the left and Drew looked in the same direction.
Anse stood there, the barrel of a Colt pushed against him just above the belt line.
"Anson Kirby."
Shannon laughed again. "'Nother big man—says he rode with General Forrest!"
"That true, Kirby, you were one of General Forrest's command?"
"It's true," Anse drawled. "Mean's nothin' now, th' war's long gone, hombre."
"Maybe it's over back east—not here! You stayed to the end, boy?"
"Yankees took me prisoner before that."
"Sergeant Wayne!"
"Yes, suh?" Anse's captor responded.
"Put him to sleep!"
* * *
[pg 211]
18
Drew lunged and then reeled back as Shannon laid the barrel of his Colt alongside the Kentuckian's head. He was half dazed from the blow but he managed to get out his protest.
"You murderin' butcher!"
"Kirby ain't dead, he'll just have a sore head tomorrow," Kitchell returned, as the man he called Sergeant Wayne straightened up from the Texan's crumpled form. "And you—you keep a civil tongue in your head when addressing a superior officer. Shannon, no more of that!" The order stayed a second blow.
"Oughta shot him for real, suh."
"No. Not a man who rode with General Forrest." Kitchell hesitated and then added, "We'll be long gone before he wakes. Tie this one in the saddle if he can't hang on by himself. You may be right, Shannon, about him having his uses in the future."
"Say, Colonel, this here gray hoss, he's got hisself all hurted bad. Can't nohow go 'long with us. Want I should shoot 'im?" That whine came from the meadow where they had left the horses.[pg 212]
"No, leave him. Won't do Kirby any good and that's a fine horse—might just see him again some day. Sergeant, you fill all the canteens; take any supplies you find here. Then we'll move out."
Drew, his wrists corded to the saddle horn, both ankles lashed to the stirrups, swayed in the saddle as Shannon took the reins of his horse and led it along. The pain in his head and the agony in his side resulting from even the most shallow breaths, brought on a kind of red mist which shut off most of the surrounding night. He had no idea how the outlaws had managed to jump the camp. And who was the extra man with them now? Only three had escaped during the horse fight, but four rode in the present party. He could not think straight; it was all he could do to will himself to hold on and ride.
Drew was thirsty, so thirsty his tongue was a cottony mass in his mouth. The day was light and sunny now, and they were single-filing through a region of bright, colored rock wind-worn into pinnacles, spires, and mesas. There was no water, no green of living things—just rock and sun and the terrible need for a drink.
Maybe he moaned; Drew could not be sure. He saw the man riding ahead turn in the saddle. Blue eyes, the man had, with no honest life in them. Once before the Kentuckian had seen eyes such as those. It had been in a cabin—a cabin back in Tennessee in the dead of winter. A young bushwhacker wearing Union blue, with a murderer's eyes in his boyish face, had watched Drew with the same incurious glance which held nothing of humankind. Shannon; the bushwhacker—two of the same killer breed. But to recognize that no longer mattered. Nothing mattered save water....[pg 213]
His mount stopped. Drew looked dully at the ground. Then his attention shifted to the man standing beside his horse.
"Down with you, fella."
Gray jacket, torn and threadbare—yet gray. Drew frowned.
"Sergeant Rennie, Buford's Scouts...." He tried to identify himself to this strange Confederate, but the words that got out were a thick mumble. Then, somehow he was on the ground and the man was holding a canteen to his mouth, dribbling blessed liquid over that choking cotton. Drew drank.
"Sergeant Rennie ... must report ... General Buford...." He was able to talk better now.
"Wot's that he's sayin'?"
"Somethin' 'bout some General Buford. Don't know who he is."
"Buford? Buford rode with Forrest." Those words were spoken by a different voice, sharper, better educated.
Drew opened his eyes, and for the first time actually saw the men he had been traveling with. The officer, who was maybe in his mid-thirties, had a beard trimmed to a point and eyes half sunk in his head. And Shannon—he had a half-grin on his lips as he stared down, enjoying what he saw when he surveyed Drew. The one Kitchell called Sergeant Wayne was a big fellow, even though he was thinned down. He had a square sort of face—jaw too heavy for the rest of it. Then, Drew's eyes came to the last man and stopped.
To the first three there was a uniformity; the remnants of military training still clung to them. But this shrunken figure with a wild gray beard, watery, bloodshot eyes, a matted[pg 214] thatch of hair on which a broken-rimmed hat perched, ragged and filthy clothing ...
"Not gonna haul th' Mex much farther, you ain't!" observed this scarecrow with a touch of relish in the relaying of bad news. "He's outta his head now, gonna be clean outta his skin come sundown."
"All right!" said Kitchell. "We'll camp here ... in that shade." His gesture indicated some point beyond Drew's range of vision.
"They're gonna be sniffin' 'long right behind us," the sergeant said dubiously.
"You're forgettin' we've got us sonny boy here!" Shannon loomed over Drew. "He'll buy us out."
"Maybe from Rennie—not from them Yankee troopers."
"I told you"—Shannon lost his grin—"th' Yanks ain't gonna come all th' way down here! There's too much pointin' in th' other direction. That is, if you was as good as you said you was, Lutterfield!"
The old man grinned in turn, widely set yellow tooth stubs showing ragged. "Ain't never failed you yet, boy. Old Amos Lutterfield, he's got him those wot believe wot he says like it was Holy Writ—he sure has! Them troopers'll go poundin' down th' Sonora road huntin' wot never was, till they drop men an' hosses all along. Then Nahata an' his bucks'll tickle 'em up a bit—an' they'll forgit there was anyone else t' hunt."
Drew lay in the position where they had dumped him, his hands still tied, the ropes on his ankles now knotted together. Had the season been high summer they would have baked in this rock slit, but it was still uncomfortably warm. He heard a low moaning and saw Kitchell and Lutterfield[pg 215] bending over the Mexican. It was plain that the wounded man had suffered from his enforced ride.
Some time later the Kentuckian was pulled into a sitting position. His hands loosened, he was allowed to feed himself, but the carne tasted like wood splinters when he chewed it.
"Not much like th' Range?"
Shannon asked him. "Don't worry none—it won't last long, Rennie, no, it won't!"
"You did take my papers."
"I sure did! You thought I was clean outta m' senses back there in th' Jacks when that fool Texan called out your name—didn't you now? Well, I wasn't an' what he said sure made me want to know a little more—seein' as how Hunt Rennie might well be m' pa. He owed me a Pa, you know. M' real pa was killed gittin' him outta prison. I didn't want no drifters cuttin' in on what was rightly mine, in a manner of speakin'. So I just waited m' chance to get at that belt of yours. Found what I wanted—an' that sorta made up m' mind.
"Colonel Kitchell here, he wanted me to go south with him. They have them a war goin' on down there; a man can always git ahead in wartime does he like soldierin'. But I weren't sure 'bout goin', till I found out as how I might jus' be pushed out, anyway."
"Why did you think that? Hunt Rennie's always treated you as a real son, hasn't he?"
"Like a real son? Like his idea of a son, you mean. Work hard—an' havin' books pushed at me. Always jawin' about education an' bein' a gentleman! Do this, don't do that—this's right, that's wrong. Bein' soft with Injuns—Lord, I was sick of bein' his kind of son when I went off with Howard. Rennie wasn't even ready to fight th' war proper—big [pg 216] man here, 'fraid to try it where he wasn't! Rightly he was sick of me, too, only his precious duty wouldn't let him say so.
"But as long as he didn't know 'bout you, he'd try, an' keep on tryin'. I had me a good place to hole up on th' Range. With you there he might'n't hold on to his patience. First off I thought I might settle you permanent, then you got took up by Bayliss." Shannon laughed. "That sure was a switch! Captain thought you was Kitchell's man, when he shoulda looked a little closer in a coupla other places."
"But you were shot—by Kitchell's men."
"I was creased by th' shotgun rider on th' stage we tried to stop. Boys brought me in close to town an' dumped me on th' road—gave us a chance to make up another tale to fool Bayliss. Me, I've been ridin' with Colonel Kitchell since '64. We come west from Kansas 'long th' end of that year. Th' Colonel, he saw what might be done out here where it's a long ride between sheriffs an' th' army hadda think 'bout Injuns most of th' time—what army there still was in th' territory. Me an' old man Lutterfield, we could help th' Colonel better not ridin' with him, but for him, as you might say."
"And now you're goin' to Mexico?"
"In time, Rennie, in time. Th' Colonel's thinkin' out some plans. Don Cazar, he was too lucky at th' pass."
"You're not goin' to get back those horses or mules—or what they were packin'," Drew said.
"We'll see, we'll see." Certainly Shannon's confidence was in nowise shaken. "Th' Colonel, he didn't want to call in Nahata an' his bucks—now maybe he'll have to. What we need is a lay-up till we can make some good plans. An' Benito, he'll arrange that."[pg 217]
"If he lives." Drew closed his eyes wearily. His face was one bruised ache where Shannon's blow had landed, and his side was constant pain.
"You'll see," Shannon promised. "We've got us a big ace in th' hole—th' Range boys don't know as how I'm with Kitchell, not yet. That's how we took you so easy back to th' water hole. I jus' rode up to José—got that there Pima listenin' to me till Lutterfield sneaked up an' put him outta business. Lutterfield, he don't look much, but he was runnin' in this country with th' Injuns thirty years ago. He's got th' Apaches lissenin' to him good. An' I can talk us through th' posses—maybe even into th' Stronghold later."
"You're a clever man, Shannon," Drew commented dryly.
"An' you're too free with that lip!" Drew's head rocked under a stinging slap which made fiery wheels of pain roll in his head. He must have been sent very close to the edge of unconsciousness for a moment or two.
"That's 'nough, Johnny," said Sergeant Wayne. "Th' Colonel says to keep him ready to move. You battin' him 'round like that don't do no good."
So Topham had been right—Johnny Shannon was Kitchell's man. Not that it mattered now. Even if, by some miracle, Drew could get away from this pack of wolves, he had no idea of where he was or which way to go. One man alone and lost in this country faced death as certain as the bullet Johnny Shannon had already loaded for him. There was only one thing—he was still alive, and as long as a man lived he had hope.
Nye and Greyfeather had trailed this bunch from the water hole. Perhaps the wind and sand storms had muddled the tracks, but Drew still had faith in the Pima. And Rennie's party had followed with the knowledge of the Mexican's[pg 218] bolt hole to the south. Why, right now they could have circled ahead—could be waiting for Kitchell again as they had at the pass. An attack could give him a thin chance of escape. He had best keep his mouth shut and not provoke Shannon, maybe feign being more helpless than he was.
The outlaws had difficulty in getting the Mexican on his horse when they were ready to move on in the evening. Drew, seeing the man's swollen face, his half-closed, set eyes, thought he was in high fever, probably no longer conscious. Kitchell ought to have sense enough to know Benito might not last out the night. But it was plain they were now pushed for time.
They had been on the way for a while before Drew noticed that Lutterfield was not with them. His reappearance was far more dramatic than his going. A horse clattered up from behind at a pace not in keeping with the rough footing, and the rider drew level with Kitchell.
"Soldiers comin', Colonel. Got 'em a couple o' them Pima Scouts sniffin' th' trail an' some o' Rennie's men with 'em, too!"
"It ain't true!" Shannon's protest was loud.
"I seed em—bright an' clear—mos' up to where we stopped last. Iffen you wants to sit 'round waitin' for 'em, do it! I'm clearin' out—ain't nobody can say Amos Lutterfield was here."
"Nobody but us," Shannon said coldly.
"Lutterfield!"
Even Drew's head came around at that. The moonlight was silver bright on the barrel of the Colt in Kitchell's grasp. "Sergeant, suppose you take precautions to insure the continued company of this man. I don't intend, Lutterfield, to[pg 219] let you curry favor by pointing out our trail to the army. I'd answer your proposed desertion as it deserves—with a bullet—but a body on our trail would provide an excellent signpost for any pursuers."
The rope which had been coiled on Wayne's saddle swung out in a perfect loop and tightened about Lutterfield, pinning his arms to his sides. His protests and roars of anger went unheeded and he rode on as much a prisoner as Drew.
"Move out." Kitchell motioned with the Colt. "Those two peaks ahead—according to Benito, the cut we want is between them. Across that we're free. The army can't follow us into Mexico."
But Kitchell still kept to a cautious pace. The risk of losing a mount was one he dared not run. Drew debated the idea of booting his own horse from their line of march and trying to ride for it. He need only hide out and wait for the troopers to pick him up. If he had had hands free and been able to move in the saddle to dodge bullets, he might have tried it.
The night wore on and Drew was driven to admiring the outlaws' nerve. Kitchell did not hurry; in fact he followed the old cavalry custom of resting mounts at regular intervals, seeing that each of the weary horses had nostrils and mouth wiped out with a dampened cloth. At the third halt he allowed them a drink of water before a smaller portion was given the men. Whatever else the outlaw might be, he was an experienced field commander.
They had the peaks looming above them when Benito gave a gurgling gasp and stiffened, tall in the saddle, before he looped into a limp, dangling bundle of a man. Kitchell[pg 220] called a halt. He dismounted to examine the Mexican before he beckoned to Wayne.
"He's dead. We'll need his horse. Put him down behind those rocks over there, Sergeant."
"You know where we're goin', suh?" Shannon asked.
"Enough to get us across the border. We can take cover there, make some other arrangements. Benito's patrón would not welcome us with empty pockets. Hurry, Sergeant!"
"I only got tw
o hands, suh." Wayne had freed the body of the Mexican but was having trouble dragging it into the appointed hiding place.
"You help him, Shannon. We have no time to waste."
"What about him?" Shannon's thumb indicated Drew.
"I don't see how he can get away. Hurry up!"
Johnny dismounted with visible reluctance, but not before he blasted Drew's hopes by looping the reins of the captive's horse around his own saddle horn. And in addition Kitchell stood there with drawn gun. They had disposed of the body and Johnny was back when a sudden command boomed out of the air.
"Freeze!"
Shannon leaped, putting his horse between him and the open. He had the reins of Drew's mount in his hand. Kitchell went into a half crouch, and was startled into snapping a shot in the general direction of the voice.
Drew sat statue still. It was only too easy in this tricky light, bright though the moon was, to seem one of the men those ahead were hunting. He had no desire to stop a bullet now. But Johnny had ideas of his own. Under his direction Drew's horse broke to the left. There were shots and Drew flattened himself as best he could on the saddle horn,[pg 221] but not before he saw Kitchell spin around in a crazy dance and fall.
"All right, all right!" Shannon's voice was broken, ragged, almost as if he were sobbing. "You ain't got me yet—not by a sight, you ain't!" A knife flashed, cutting the ties which kept Drew's left boot to the stirrup. The Kentuckian was dragged down and held while the knife sliced again. Two more shots—then silence. Drew lay face to earth. The fall from the saddle had brought him down on his injured side, and he was in too great pain to take much interest in his surroundings.
Then he was dragged, pulled over on his back.
"I got Drew Rennie here." The call was one of desperation. "Yeah, hear that? Drew Rennie—th' Old Man's son.... I read them letters he had—it's th' truth! You come t' take me an' he gits a knife clean across his throat. I want me a hoss, water, an' an open road south. Do I git 'em—or does Mister High an' Mighty Rennie git him a son who ain't speakin' no more?"
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