by Ray Hogan
“Keep ‘em busy!” Shawn yelled, turning to the horses.
Grabbing the sorrel’s leathers, he led the gelding to the mouth of the trail, pointed him upgrade, and slapped him sharply on the rump. As the big horse, startled, leaped away, Shawn seized the bay’s reins, sent him into the cleft in quick pursuit.
Immediately he wheeled, dropped back to Mason’s side. A rifle cracked. The bullet spanged into the wall of the butte behind him, screamed off into space. A wry grin on his lips he wiped sweat from his face, hunkered beside Mason. That had been a close one.
He looked toward the mound. Another of the braves had snatched the fallen rifle and was making use of it. He had reached the rocks, finding his opportunity while Starbuck was attending the horses and Mason was concentrating on the Apaches coming in from his side, was now firmly entrenched just below the crest. Only the top of his head and a small glint of the rifle were visible. More bucks were coming into the open now, weaving and dodging in and out, taking courage from the belief that shortly they would have the men behind the rock pinned down. That fact dawned swiftly on Shawn Starbuck also.
“Come on!” he yelled at Mason, and emptying his pistol at the Apaches, raced for the mouth of the trail.
Three
Heaving for breath, sweat cutting channels in the dust clothing his face and neck, Shawn gained the summit of the trail. He glimpsed the horses off to one side on the plateau, mentally recorded their location as he thumbed cartridges into his weapon, and wheeled back to the edge of the plateau. Mason swung in beside him, gasping from the hard climb.
“They’re coming!” he managed.
Starbuck dropped to his knees, looked down into the sink. A dozen Apaches were swarming across the sandy stretch of open ground that separated the mound of earth from the rock behind which he and Mason had stood, and racing for the mouth of the trail. Raising his pistol, he snapped a shot at the brave in the lead. The bullet, too hastily fired, missed its weaving target, but did have its effect; instantly the glistening, sweaty figures melted into the nearby brush.
“Take the horses—head that way,” Shawn directed in a quick, hard voice and pointed to the path leading southward. “I’ll be coming shortly.”
Mason, recognizing the wisdom of the plan, moved off immediately, and catching up the trailing reins of the two mounts, started down the trail. Shawn wheeled again to the sink. The Indians were still in hiding, crouched low in the underbrush and behind the rocks.
He was not visible to them, he knew, and that alone was keeping them pinned down, since they were not anxious to brave guns positioned they knew not where. But they would throw off their reluctance, patience at such times not being one of their virtues; two or three of the bolder ones would work their way around, attempt to close in from the sides. It would require an hour at least—and that was long enough to permit Mason and him to get clear of the area.
He should take full advantage of the situation, however; buy as much time as possible. Glancing about, he noticed a thick stand of wolfberry growing among a scatter of rocks at the edge of the flat. Bulling his way into its center, he drew several of the tallest stems into a sort of column. Holding them together, he removed his hat, perched it on the tips of the thorny uprights, then returned to the open ground.
Hunkered on his heels, he considered his handiwork, grunted in satisfaction. The hat had settled down to just the proper level when the stems had straightened. From the sides, the angle at which the Apaches would first view it, there would appear to be a man forted up in the rocks and brush. It was costing him a good hat—but better no headgear than no hair.
Such would further delay the renegades, and while they were figuring out a means for coping with this danger, he and Mason should be able to get well beyond their reach. But it would be wise to play it for all it was worth. Staying low, he returned to the rim of the plateau, and flat on his belly, peered down into the basin. At first he saw nothing, no signs whatever of the Apaches—and then the moving of a clump of sage drew his attention.
A smile pulled at his lips as he brushed away the sweat slipping into his eyes. The Apaches were up to an old trick—that of holding clumps of weeds or thickly leafed branches over themselves to mask their advance. Muffling the click with the cupped palm of his left hand, Starbuck thumbed back the hammer of his forty-five, kept his gaze on the brush-pocked ground at the foot of the butte.
A bush somewhat apart from the others stirred, moved forward a few inches. Shawn leveled his weapon at the clump, squeezed off a shot. The bush erupted instantly, coming apart into several sections. A lank figure leaped upright, spun, scurried for the more substantial cover of the nearby rocks.
Starbuck pulled back quickly. It wasn’t necessary to see what the remaining braves, so painstakingly advancing under their camouflage, would do; they’d simply stall, debate with themselves, and shortly abandon the ruse, realizing the white men entrenched on the plateau above were onto their plan. Their next logical move would be to pull back, circle wide, and come in from opposing points, whereupon their attention would be focused at once upon a man lying in wait for them in the brush.
Keeping low and well back from the rim of the butte, Shawn moved off down trail at a trot, being careful to plant his feet in the soft, yielding sand and deaden the sound of his retreat. He was already feeling the lack of the hat he’d left in the wolfberry; the sun’s rays had slackened little in their ferocity although the afternoon was growing late. But darkness would soon prevail, and with it would come relief.
He saw Mason a short time later as he rounded a shoulder of granite. The older man halted at once, wheeled, faced him unsmiling.
“That shot—they come at you again?”
Starbuck took the sorrel’s reins into his own hands, shook his head. “Just letting them know I was there. Longer they think they’re pinned down, the better for us.” Swinging onto the saddle, he kicked his foot free of the stirrup, extended his hand to Mason. “Let’s go.”
The man frowned, hesitated, and then as Shawn reached farther, more insistently toward him, he took the proffered arm, slid his toe into the wooden bow, and settled himself behind Starbuck.
“Can’t go far in this country, riding double,” he said, pulling the bay in behind the sorrel with the reins as a lead rope.
“Don’t aim to—only until we’re far enough from here to be safe. Other side of that hogback ought to be about right.”
“That’s Cibique Ridge,” Mason said.
Starbuck, glancing back over the trail to be certain it was still empty and they were as yet not followed, touched the sorrel with his spurs and moved the big horse out. Apparently Mason was no stranger to the land, yet he seemed oddly reserved concerning the fact. There was a reason, he supposed, and further guessed that if Mason wanted him to know about it, he’d speak up.
“You lose your hat?”
Starbuck nodded. “Sort of. Planted it back there on the flat, in some brush.”
“Tricking the Apaches?”
“Hoping to.”
“Have to rig you up something before tomorrow. Man sure can’t be out in this sun for long without covering up his head. Bake your brains.”
“Got an old one in my saddlebags. I’ll dig it out in the morning. Not much, but it’ll do until I can get to where I can buy another.”
They rode on in silence after that, and a time later, with sunset a flaring explosion of color beyond the purple Mazatzal Mountains to the west, they pulled into a small clearing at the foot of a high palisade.
“Man never knows about Apaches,” Starbuck said, staring at the dully gleaming face of the formation, all light and shadow from the cloud-reflected rays of the sun, “but I don’t think they’ll bother us any more tonight. If things worked like I planned, it’ll be full dark by the time they learn there’s nobody under that hat—and then it’ll be too late to track us.”
Mason nodded, slipped from his perch on the sorrel. Shawn dismounted, began to tug at the gelding’s
cinch buckles. Glancing at Mason, stolidly removing gear from the bay, he let his eyes run swiftly over the man’s equipment. He traveled light, that was certain; no brush coat, no chaps, no slicker—only a canteen and what appeared to be totally empty saddlebags and a single wool blanket. Mason was no working cowhand, that was evident.
“That got water in it?” he asked, ducking his head at the almost new container.
“About half full,” Mason replied, laying his saddle aside. The hull was old, badly cracked, with the lining of the skirt torn and missing in several patches. “Filled it this morning.”
“Grub?”
“About out. Bite or two left, I reckon.”
“Got plenty for the both of us,” Shawn said. “Be in Lynchburg tomorrow. Can stoke up on supplies then.”
“Obliged to you, but I’ll get by,” Mason replied, his tone making it clear he asked for no favors.
Starbuck shrugged, pulled his saddle free of the gelding, and placed it carefully on its side under a nearby clump of brush.
“Glad to share what I’ve got. . . . You want to work on your horse while I throw a meal together?”
Mason paused. “Not a hell of a lot I can do for him.”
“Main thing you need is water—and we’ve got enough to get by if you use what’s in your canteen.”
“You mean I ought to soak his hoofs?”
“Only thing to do. Mix up some mud, then take rags, pack it around his hoofs, like a poultice. Keep things sort of wet all night and he may be in shape to ride in the morning if we take it easy.”
“You think it’ll help?”
“Know it will. Had the same trouble with the sorrel. Hoofs dry out, usually because some dunderheaded blacksmith gets careless with his rasp and scrapes off too much of that coating—varnish, I’ve heard it called—when he’s fitting shoes. That happens and the horse gets to traveling in country like this where it’s all hot sand and never any mud, cracks open up. . . . You soak his hoofs good, then soon as you can start treating them with oil—-neat’s-foot or maybe linseed, whichever you can get—and you’ll cure him.”
Mason smiled for the first time, a brief, ragged pulling of his lips. “Guess I’d forgot that,” he said, and taking the bay’s reins, led him off to one side.
Shawn, staking out the sorrel, opened his saddlebags, dug out hardtack, dried beef, a can of peaches, coffee, along with a lard tin and a blackened spider. Moving to the end of the palisade, he cast a long glance to the slope, now almost wholly dark, saw no signs of the Apaches, and then crossed to the foot of the towering formation and built a small, compact fire. Placing the water-filled tin over the flames, he paused to study his companion.
Mason had given the two horses their drink, was now stirring up an amount of mud. He had produced an old undershirt, either from the flat-looking saddlebags, or perhaps utilizing the one he wore, and had ripped it into four strips.
The treatment wouldn’t cure the bay’s problem, but it would help. The horse should be able to make it in to Lynchburg if they took it slow and kept to soft ground. Drawing the slim-bladed Mexican knife from the sheath stitched inside his right boot, Shawn squatted, began to cut the beef into chunks, drop it into the skillet. He hesitated again as a thought came to him; he had assumed Mason was heading for Lynchburg, but in truth, he did not actually know that.
“You riding for any place in particular?” he asked, resuming his chore.
Mason was apportioning the mud onto the strip of cloth. He did not look up. “Lynchburg—then I’m going on south to the Mescal Mountain country. Got some land there.”
“Was close by the Mescals once, never right down in them. Guess Lynchburg’s the only town around here.”
Mason nodded but made no further comment as he began to work with the bay’s hooves, affixing the baglike poultices of mud, tying them securely in place while Starbuck continued his supper preparations.
The night closed in quickly and they finished the last of the coffee with only the faint glare of the fire flickering against the wall of the granite behind them to hold back the shadows. Stars had broken through the flowing blackness overhead, and a pale radiance had settled over the country, softening its harshness, shrouding all things, changing them to mysterious, unfamiliar objects. Night birds began to call, timidly at first, and then more boldly; far back in the regions of the higher peaks a wolf howled, challenging one and all to dispute his dominion.
Starbuck sighed contentedly, forever moved by the matchless beauty of the night, and reaching out, picked up a handful of dry branches, tossed them into the flames.
“You born around here?” Mason wondered.
“No, Ohio’s my home. Little town called Muskingum.”
“What brought you west?”
“Looking for my brother. Could be you’ve run into him if you’ve done much drifting around.”
“Doubt it,” Mason replied listlessly.
“Be a man around twenty-five. Probably has dark hair, sharp blue eyes. Could be on the stocky side. Always sort of favored my pa in that.”
“Talk like you ain’t seen him in quite a spell.”
“Ten years or so since he ran away from home. Pa’s dead now. Need to find him so’s I can clear up the estate.”
“What do you call him?”
“Ben—Ben Starbuck, that’s his real name, but I don’t reckon he’s using it. Swore he never would when he lit out that day. About all I can go on is what I think he’ll look like and the fact that he’s got a little scar over his left eye.”
“Not much to work with.”
“Found that out a long time ago. Plenty of men fit the description I give, but nobody yet has filled it.”
“You think he’s in Lynchburg?”
“Not exactly—maybe on a ranch nearby. I was told about a cowhand there who sort of fit the picture. Only way I ever know for sure is to do a bit of talking, have a look for that scar.”
Mason was staring into the small knot of leaping flames. He opened his mouth to speak, hesitated as the wolf bayed again into the depthless night, drew this time a coyote’s querulous response.
“Expect you’ll maybe ride till doomsday and not find him with no more’n you’ve got to go on,” he said finally. “This cowhand you’re going to see, he got a name?”
“Jim Ivory. Ever hear of him?”
“Nope, can’t say as I have. What outfit he work for?”
“Ranch called the Box C.”
“Heard of it,” Mason said, his tone altering. He continued to gaze into the fire for a time, then raising his eyes, made a motion toward the ornate, engraved belt buckle Shawn wore. “That’s mighty fancy. Silver, ain’t it? And that figure of a fighter on it—that ivory?”
Shawn nodded. “It was my pa’s.”
“He a champion fighter in that newfangled boxing style?”
“Never was a champion—a professional, but I expect he could’ve been, had he wanted. Nobody ever beat him.”
“He learn you?”
“Taught Ben and me both. Said he wanted us to know how to take care of ourselves.”
Mason stirred, wagged his head. “Sure is a wicked way for a man to fight. Once heard about a fellow mixing it up with a boxer—a professional—got himself so bad whipped folks thought somebody’d used a knife on him.”
“Fists can be terrible weapons if a man knows how to use them.”
“And I reckon you do.”
Starbuck moved his wide shoulders slightly. “When I have to,” he said, and rising, walked again to the end of the palisade where he could look back over the trail they had covered. Moon and starlight now flooded the slopes, brought all things into soft-edged focus. Nothing moved in the ethereal glow; the Apaches, he hoped, as he had hoped earlier, had given it up. Wheeling, he returned to the fire, resumed his place.
“You know,” Mason said, “a thing like that could be a way to find your brother. You hear of a fighter, the boxer kind, it’d be smart to go have a look at him.”
“Has brought me close a couple of times,” Shawn admitted. “One of these days I’ll hear about it in time, get there before the man’s moved on. Need a lot of luck in what I’m trying to do.”
“What you need most, seems to me,” Mason said, tossing the last dregs of his coffee into the fire. “Like chasing a moonbeam. Well, reckon I’ll turn in. Apaches sort of took the sand out of me. You figure we ought to stand watch?”
“No use taking chances. You go ahead, I’ll take the first turn.”
Mason raised no objection, simply reached for his blanket, rolled himself into it.
Starbuck’s eyes were on the man curled up near the fire; he was asleep almost at once. There was something about Mason he couldn’t quite fathom—something in his manner that mystified, even disturbed, him. True, he had opened up a bit during the evening, become more talkative, but thinking back Shawn realized the man had revealed little of himself—and nothing of his past.
It was Mason’s own business, he decided, again coming to his feet. Drawing his rifle from its scabbard, he walked slowly toward the end of the palisade and the outcrop of rock that would provide a sentry post from which to observe the trail. A man has a right to keep his personal history to himself if so inclined. One thing sure, Mason didn’t seem too pleased by the fact they would soon be in Lynchburg.
Four
They were up well before dawn, both realizing that with the coming of light came also danger from the Apaches. The night had passed without incident, but now a new day faced them and the odds were the renegades, at that very moment, were searching out the tracks of the two horses.
In a tight silence they ate hurriedly, packed their gear, and by the time the first raw sunlight was tipping the crags of the more distant ranges and flooding down the long slopes, they were mounted and on their way—Shawn wearing the battered old hat he had dug out from the bottom of his saddlebags, Mason considerably more at ease now that he was again mounted.