"Sure, but when? I seen these spring storms go off and on for a week."
One man ripped out an explosive obscenity; he snapped the dregs of his coffee into the fire. "Well, damned if I'm gonna ride out any more of it. Like to catch my death as is."
The others looked at him. "You quitting?"
"Listen, we-all been beating our asses sore for three days. My old woman cusses me every night I get in, asking when I'm gonna get any work done. I'm wet and half-froze and purely miserable, and I ain't lost no breeds."
A short silence. Raindrops sputtered in the fire.
"Well, I ain't neither, Tommy," another man said. "I ain't shy about saying what McAllister was neither, a cardsharp bastard. That sweet lady he married, though, she done a lot of good for the town. I figure we owe her this."
"Why the hell you reckon I stuck this long? I feel for Miz McAllister aplenty; she nursed my youngest through the croup last spring. But we ain't giving her back no husband this way. Anyhow I ain't sure that breed didn't do her a favor."
"That's a hell of a thing to say."
"It's the goddam truth and you know it."
Nobody said anything for a while. One man had voiced what all of them had been thinking one way or another. Someone said at last: "Well, look we might's well knock off. Ain't no sense hanging out any longer in this weather."
"Yeah. We got a long ride back."
"Could be the weather'll clear up by tomorrow."
"Yeah."
Will-Joe had the feeling it was just talk. These men were about ready to quit the search. It showed in the spiritless, drag-footed way they moved to their horses and mounted. He watched them ride away toward the south. The slow rain fuzzed the outlines of men and horses, and then they were lost in the misting grayness.
Will-Joe climbed to his feet, swaying a little. He had no slicker, no heavy-weave poncho, to turn the rain. He was soaked to the skin and had been for nearly two days. The cold forced itself to his bones with a steady driving ache; his joints were stiff as boards from lying on the wet cold rock. He felt no satisfaction knowing he was still on his feet, still going, after hours of exposure to weather that would have put other men on their backs, raging with fever.
He was in bad enough shape and he knew it.
Soaked and chilled, he hadn't wanted to risk a fire. Hollow-gutted with hunger, he hadn't dared fire a shot at game. On top of that, he was running an increasing fever—his skin was uncomfortably hot in spite of the teeth-rattling chills that wracked him. The slight wound in his right arm, a bullet scratch he'd ordinarily ignore, had gotten infected. The six-inch crease was a livid line, purplish at the edges and fiery to the touch; the flesh of his whole forearm was hot and puffy.
Two days of snaking through rocks and brush, avoiding the scattered bands of possemen, had taken a lot out of him too. He'd stuck to ground that a dog or an Indian would have trouble tracking on, always keeping away from the trails. He'd pictured without much amusement the baffled flounderings of the searchers. He had already guessed that the number of Ulring's wet, tired, disgusted posse was dwindling daily; he knew the mood of the men on who he'd eavesdropped reflected that of the remaining diehards.
None of it, at this point, gave him much comfort.
Until a few hours ago he had been simply keeping on the move, taking time out for brief rests and snatches of sleep. He hadn't held to any particular direction, nor did he have any specific plan. Except that something in him refused to admit that slipping quickly and quietly out of the country was the simplest way out of his dilemma. He wasn't sure what it was. Maybe a rebellious outcry from his father's stubborn Scotch-Irish nature; maybe the deeper thrust of his Indian blood, the love of a land where he'd been born and seasoned toward young manhood.
Either way—he wasn't running anywhere. He'd decided as much after his escape from the box canyon. Keep on the move to avoid capture was his only thought. This in spite of the belly-deep sense of desperation and hopelessness he felt.
A temporary reprieve—if not a sure way out—had suggested itself almost from the first. That was to seek help from his mother's people. He'd rejected the idea for several reasons. There were those among Adakhai's band, friends of his boyhood, who would give him any aid he asked, hide him out, lie for him if need be. The trouble was, it might put them in jeopardy. Sheriff Ulring wouldn't overlook the Navajos in his efforts to head off the fugitive. He had probably gone to them already and issued a pointed warning…
Still—Will-Joe couldn't deny that his reluctance to seek Navajo help ran even deeper than a reluctance to put his tribes-men in danger. When he'd left their lodges three years ago, a bitter vow to never return had burned in his throat.
The acid fury his mother had felt against the white man who'd deserted her in pregnancy had never lessened. A burly, brawling trapper, Saul Cantrell had been a lighthearted footloose sort. Even old Adakhai, who had liked the white man enough to make him a blood brother, had warned her against entering into marriage with him. When Saul one day shouldered his rifle and his traps and went whistling his way across the mountains, she had been crushed. For years afterward her disgrace was aggravated by the twitting and teasing of the other women. And all this she had turned in hatred against her half-white whelp; he had felt the edge of her unspoken hate as long as he could remember.
He had been in his teens before his mother's long-stored venom had finally burst in his face with a hot bitter rush of words that could never be taken back, never forgotten. They were brand scars on his brain. Even when, a year after leaving the band, he'd gotten word of his mother's death, he had felt no inclination to return. The former goodness of that life was gone for him. Blurred to wooden and dust-dead memories by his exposure to the white world and the lonely way he'd forged for himself…
Early this morning, though, he'd had some sobering second thoughts about seeking out his tribesmen.
He had come sluggishly awake, dizzy and feverish, in the dripping thicket where he'd taken shelter, and found his arm bloated with infection. It needed treatment, and soon. Certain clans, he knew, guarded the secrets of tribal medicine: any member of such a clan would know the herbs, the brews and poultices, that would draw the fever and reduce the swelling.
Striking out north across the high country, Will-Joe had thought he could reach the Navajo village around nightfall. It wasn't far away, but the rough terrain made bitterly rough going for a man on foot, weakened by hunger and sickness.
Now—drenched and shivering—he began tramping north again, his shoulders hunched against the icy drizzle. Maybe it was only a middling cool rain, but he'd dogged it so long through the slashing wet gusts that he felt frozen to the bone. He had read in one of Miss Bethany's books about a torture the Chinese used: a drop of water falling every minute on a man's head till its monotony pounded the brain with madness. He judged that steady rain could probably do the same after awhile…
Hours later, he descended into a valley that bisected by a small tributary of the Winnetka. Usually a deep but mild stream, it was fed by the storm to a boiling yellow fury that spilled over its banks. About a mile upstream was a fording where it ran so shallow a rider could cross and hardly wet his mount's fetlocks. But it meant a long detour; he thought it would take too much out of him.
Even at this point he could ordinarily cross the chest-deep current with ease. He remembered that much. And lightheaded with fever, didn't hesitate. Stumbling-tired, his muscles sluggish as syrup, he plunged into the water.
At first he found solid footing. But at knee depth the bank fell away. Then he was floundering in the current, being swept down its roiling millrace. He was helpless as a cork: all he could do was strike out with his hands and fight to keep his head above water.
The clutch of fear lent him energy. He put it all into swimming hard for the north bank. It wasn't over two yards away, but he must have been carried a hundred feet along the muddy current before he was able to paddle within grabbing distance of some willow trailing in the water. Seizing
a fistful of the wiry fronds, he began pulling himself hand over hand toward the bank. The surging water fought to keep its grip on his trunk and legs and he fought back. Slowly, inching up the bank, he dragged himself free of the stream's angry pull.
Then he was face down on the ground, his last strength spent. He was battered numb; drowsiness seized him. He wanted to lie where he was and sink into the earth till he was one with it, flesh into soil, bone into rock. It was the madness of near-final exhaustion and he fought this too, rolling onto his side and then up to his haunches. He let his head hang between his knees, resting.
Finally he forced himself back to his feet and slogged doggedly on. It was twilight, or close to it. The drizzle had slacked off. The horizon west to north was a weird saffron band under the lead-gray sky. The land ran in black undulations below it, like a slumbering snake.
The country climbed steadily. It was full-dark as Will-Joe struggled the last few yards to the crest of a vast granite-spined ridge. He was trembling all over, his head swimming, legs rubbery with exhaustion. He had to rest again. He sank down on the stony cap of the bluff, head on his knees. The rain had stopped completely, but a damp wind off the heights hit his fever-hot flesh like icicles.
He wasn't five miles from the plateau where the Navajo village was, but he was almost used up. He needed a warm fire, food, sleep. He wondered if he could flail his tortured body back to the agony of movement.
He could feel his senses slipping away. No… he couldn't pass out now. Not this close. It took a concentrated effort to force himself to his feet again. He crossed the ridge summit to begin the long descent of its other side.
He stopped. A ruddy fan of light spilled up from the ridge base. A fire. But whose? It was a watery orange blur in his sick eyes. He squinted, trying to pick out detail. The scene focused a little. It was a well-made camp. He could tell that much. A man was squatting in front of the fire, but the bright backing of flames gave only a nameless silhouette to his head and shoulders.
Faintly the aroma of coffee and bacon swept up along the ridge slant. Will-Joe's young stomach squirmed with a healthy violence. Fever had partly deadened his hunger pangs; they rushed back. Saliva churned in his mouth.
Was the camper friend or foe? He didn't know. All he was sure of, he was faint with hunger and the man below had food. That was enough. Risk or not, he was going to get some of it…
He slipped down the side of the ridge, dropping into a heavy scrub of young spruce. It cut off his view of the camp. He had to feel his way downward, working toward his deep right, keeping the rough location of fire in mind. The ground began to level off; firelight tinged the black brush ahead. He crept forward, his pistol out.
He came to a mass of rock that rimmed one side of the clearing. Making no more sound than a cat would, he thumbed back his pistol's hammer and slid fast around the rock, wanting to surprise the camper.
He was the surprised one: he froze in a half-crouch. Everything was as it had been from above except that the fire flickered over a deserted scene. The man was gone.
Hearing a whisper of sound behind him and to his right, he dived for the ground without even a glance toward the noise. He lit on his side, body doubled so he could let his impetus roll him over once. He did it just that quickly. And flipped up in a squatting position on his heels so that he was facing the spot where he'd heard the sound.
The man chuckled quietly. It was Caspar Bloodgood. He stood in front of the brush that had concealed him. His rifle was leveled on Will-Joe's head.
"You 'most caught me napping, young 'un. You tripped a pebble offen the slope, though. Made a mite o' noise."
"So did you," Will-Joe said thinly.
The two eyed each other a moment, wary as foxes. Neither had caught the other: it was a dead stand-off. Will-Joe's gun was up and centered on Bloodgood's chest.
"You want something, boy?"
"Something to eat."
Bloodgood gave his rusty chuckle and moved his rifle slowly, slowly, till the muzzle pointed offside at the fire. Bacon sizzled in a skillet; a sooty coffeepot bubbled. "Well, best get at 'er or she'll all burn up on you."
Will-Joe rose and moved to the fire and crouched beside it, never taking his eyes or his gun off the trapper. He pulled the skillet and pot off the fire to let them cool. Bloodgood catfooted over and squatted down a couple of yards away. He grinned. He still had all his teeth, yellow and sound.
"You don't need to be skittish o' me, boy. I don't run with no tame pack. I hain't after your scalp."
Will-Joe said nothing. He knew Bloodgood from the occasional encounters any two men might have who plied lonely trades in a solitary stretch of country. He didn't like the man. Never had. He couldn't say why. He judged men as he did the horses he broke, intuitively and unthinkingly. Some had a streak of pure mean, that was all.
He fished a piece of bacon from the skillet with his fingers.
"Bread there." Bloodgood's fire-flecked glance nudged a canvas sack by the fire.
Will-Joe opened it and found a loaf of stale bannock. He tore off a chunk with his teeth and ate one-handed, keeping the gun on Bloodgood. As he ravenously bolted down the food, he looked over the camp. There was a businesslike disposition of gear, a pile of traps set off by a tight-looking shelter: sapling trunks bent over and lashed crosswise and thatched with interlaced spruce boughs.
He soaked up the last bacon grease with the bannock and finished it off. He didn't see a cup, so he drank the coffee straight from the pot, straining out the grounds with his teeth.
He felt better. The food in his belly behaved as if it meant to stay down; the fire was starting to thaw his cold-stiff limbs. He felt almost human again. And suddenly sleepy.
"They been crowding you, hey, boy? You look like you been up the mountain and down again."
Bloodgood's face had a primitive hard-boned look in the raw dance of light. Will-Joe studied it, wondering if the trapper were here by mere accident. Sheriff Ulring might enlist the aid of a man as woods-wise as Caspar Bloodgood. No… he was too suspicious now. Bloodgood always moved around, never staying at any camp long.
"You know about it."
"Was in town three days ago."
"You are not interested in taking me in?"
"Now why'd I do that, boy?"
"Maybe for money."
Bloodgood whacked his knee. His mouth laughed; the rest of his cold elfin face never twitched a muscle. "If that ain't a caution, now. You think so, boy, you best keep that gun p'inted."
"I will."
"You wanted to dust some 'un, you should o' picked Ulring 'stead o' that sorry dude."
"Dude?"
"Feller you shot at Leggett's place. Name was McAllister, as I recall. Ulring hired him for a deppity."
"Dennis McAllister?"
Bloodgood grunted.
Will-Joe stared at the fire a while, the flames rippling between his half-shut eyelids. Finally he said: "Is that what the sheriff told? That I killed Mr. McAllister?"
"What'd you reckon he'd tell, boy?"
Will-Joe shrugged. "Something like that, I suppose. It is a good story."
"You saying it ain't so?"
"What does it matter what I say?"
Bloodgood scratched his stained whiskers. "Mebbe naught. Mebbe plenty. If they's a different story, you best tell me it."
"Why?"
"Right now, boy, you are on the short end for friends. Better start figuring if you want to slip your tail outen the crack it's in, you gonna need a friend."
"You could be a friend, eh?"
"Might be. Might be. Years back I knowed your pappy, old Saul. He warn't a bad sort, for all you might think. He allus dealt me square. For old time's, now, I could see his boy got dealt square."
Will-Joe watched his face. It told him nothing. But he couldn't see the harm in telling Caspar Bloodgood what had really happened. As long as he didn't trust the man any other way, how could Bloodgood use the information against him?
He talked for some minutes.
"So Ulring done it hisself." Bloodgood grimaced. All the sly seams of his face meshed in a genuine animation. "Set up the whole thing, run them cattle off and all, to murder that sorry dude. Hey? That it, boy?"
"I saw him shoot Mr. McAllister. I did not see him take the cattle, but the thief rode his horse. The tracks said so."
"Ain't that a caution. Why you reckon he done all that?"
"I don't know."
"Boy, that is a fine tight crack your tail's in. I'll poke around some. Can mebbe find out summat."
"What can you do? There's no proof. Even the tracks of his horse… the rain has wiped those out."
"Just lea' me poke around." Bloodgood pulled at his nose, his eyes fire-bright. "Lea' me do that. Suppose'n I found out why he wanted McAllister dead… ain't no telling what might happen."
Will-Joe got to his feet. Some of the stiffness had left his body and his head felt clearer. Bloodgood grinned.
"Reckon you'd be bound for the Navajo lodges."
"No," Will-Joe lied.
"Don't make no mind to me, boy. Only thing, I find out summat, how do I tell you?"
Will-Joe said nothing.
"You don't need to trust me none. I be around these parts any time you hanker to find me."
Will-Joe nodded. "Thank you for the food."
He backed out of the camp, keeping his gun pointed till he was deep in the trees. Then he continued on his way, feeling stronger, hurrying now.
He didn't know what Bloodgood had in mind. Nor did he really hope for anything. He wasn't surprised that Ulring had thrown the blame for McAllister's killing on him.
The real and bitter shock that came with Bloodgood's revelation was realizing that Miss Bethany would believe it was he who'd murdered her husband. An intolerable pain twisted in his chest. She would loathe him—she would hate him.
Somehow he had to see her. To let her know the truth. Even if she didn't believe it, she had to be told what had really happened at Leggett's ranch…
Will-Joe tramped steadily north. The night was moonless, but now he was following trails he knew so well he could almost have felt his way along them blind. Weariness tugged at his heels, but Bloodgood's grub sat warm in his belly, renewing his energies a little. His arm throbbed steadily, occasionally giving a knifelike stab of real pain.
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