All he had to do was make his way to where the gang lay dead, secure a gun, then make his way back to the campfire so he’d be waiting when Heller came out of the thicket.
The bodies were about fifty yards distant, and downwind of the campsite.
First Bill had to do something pretty tough—stand up.
He flung aside the blankets, a bravura gesture. He paid for it, too. The effort sent sharp pains knifing through his upper body, firing all the aches and pains from having been shot. He squirmed around on his bed of boughs until the agony lessened.
Not such a good start. He found he was very shaky indeed. He could get upright, he felt, but he wasn’t so sure about his ability to stay that way.
He rummaged through what remained of the wood for kindling, finding a three-foot-long stick with a fist-sized knob at one end. It looked sturdy enough to support much of his weight if he used it as a cane.
Bill rose shakily to his feet. He felt hot, dizzy, and breathless.
His left arm hung down along his side like a piece of meat. He could wriggle his fingers, but he couldn’t do much else without the risk of starting his shoulder wound bleeding again.
Bill Longley pointed himself toward the bodies of the dead men and started forward. He moved slowly and carefully, shuffling along, parsing every step. A misstep could spell disaster.
A flicker of motion overhead caught his eye. A couple of flying V-shapes wheeled around way up in the sky, circling high above Dead Lake basin.
Vultures, thought Bill. That was only to be expected. They were overdue. Yesterday’s Vard gang kill-down had happened at twilight, with darkness swallowing up the bodies before the buzzards could get to them.
With daylight now burning, the scavenger birds had begun to make the rounds, scouting the territory in search of something with which to fill their bellies.
Blackbirds, too, were eaters of the dead. A number of them were arrowing into the site from all directions of the compass. Their numbers steadily increasing, they darted into the basin, circling, lowering, their harsh cawing cries making a considerable racket.
Bill ignored them, concentrating on cutting the distance between himself and the dead men. He crept along at a snail’s pace. He was exhausted. His legs trembled from the strain. He wanted to relieve them by sitting for a while but feared that once he did so he would be unable to get back up. He paused frequently, leaning hunched over forward, putting a lot of weight on his knob-topped walking stick.
The black birds were well in advance of Bill when it came to reaching the corpses. Considerable numbers of them had come down to earth and were grouping around the bodies.
They were a feisty lot, strutting along on the ground, heads bobbing, shrieking out warning cries when one got too close to another, making aggressive display of fluttering winged plumage, darting sleek shiny heads to peck at each other with their sharp bills, screeching their outrage.
Bill thought seriously about turning back, but by now he was closer to the bodies than the campsite. Having invested so much time and energy in his quest he couldn’t quit now. He pushed on, numbing himself to revulsion.
The scene had taken on a hellish aspect as the blackbirds mobbed the corpses. Some of the bodies could hardly be seen for the number of birds swarming them. Upturned leather boot toes protruded beyond the edges of seething crow mounds.
Yet Bill Longley was within reach of his goal, the nearest crow-covered mound being only several paces away. It was the body of Big Taw, Bill having marked it well before the invasion of winged carrion eaters.
That was the most unnerving part of the encounter for Bill. Any assumptions he might have had about human beings’ innate mastery over the animal kingdom were exploded at first contact with the ravens and crows. Not only were they unafraid of the looming two-legged intruder, they were actively hostile, as though they expected him to get out of their way.
Crows were constantly underfoot, nearly causing Bill to trip and fall over them. He kicked out at one bird, the bird darting a savage peck at his offending foot. Had he not been wearing tough leather boots the thrusting beak might well have done him a mischief.
Bill kicked again at the crow, which dodged his assault and flew away. It did not go far, fluttering to a safe landing beyond his reach.
Bellowing his outrage, Bill advanced on the mortal remains of Big Taw, laying on with his walking stick into the collected crows, striking and slashing.
One blow was nowhere nearly enough. They all but ignored it. His angry cries, meant to frighten and intimidate the birds, sounded thin and unconvincing even to his own ears, especially when weighed against the shrill stridency of the crows’ piercing volume.
The walking stick was a far more formidable persuader. The crows erupted up and outward to escape it, loosing a violent outburst of black beating wings and shrieked derision. They flew aloft in a fan-shaped vortex of swift, whirling motion. They came so close that Bill recoiled with a start, nearly losing his footing. Dagger-sharp bills and ripping talons surged toward his head, causing Bill to cross both arms in front of his face to protect it.
He stumbled and felt himself falling, forestalling a tumble by dropping in a huddle to his knees. Bill beat the air over his head with the walking stick to ward off the birds.
Big Taw was momentarily uncovered. The crows had made an unholy mess of his exposed flesh. Bill wasn’t squeamish but couldn’t help looking away from the red ruin of what had been Big Taw’s face.
Such weakness could be his undoing, Bill knew. Steeling himself, he scuttled forward on hands and knees to the body. Big Taw was a two-gun man, which Bill had taken note of yesterday. He was on Big Taw’s left side and grabbed for his holstered gun.
There wasn’t any . . . the holster was empty.
That was a setback but not one that Bill would allow to slow him down. He reached over the body, battening on the holster on the big man’s right-hand side . . .
It, too, was empty.
That was a setback that did give Bill pause. Where were Big Taw’s guns? He couldn’t have lost both at once, could he?
He came face to face with a raven perched on Big Taw’s head, yellow-orange talons digging into the top of his skull. The bird was much bigger than the crows Bill had already learned to be wary of.
Eyes like flat black beads regarded Bill with cool hostile intelligence. Its inky plumage glimmered with iridescent highlights.
Clamped between the upper and lower halves of its long needle-sharp bill was something round and white—
A human eyeball.
“Gaaah!” Repulsed, Bill instinctively thrust the walking stick at the bird, trying to lance it.
The raven took wing, lofting itself into the air and out of Bill’s reach. It flew away, cawing its mockery.
Shaking his head as if to clear it of that nightmare image, Bill set himself to the task of finding Big Taw’s guns.
He crawled around the body in a clockwise circle searching for the weapons. The ground was hard packed, there were no layers of dirt for the guns to get lost in, no weedy growths to hide them.
When he came around to his starting point he reversed direction and began again, this time moving counterclockwise, once more scanning the ground for the hard bright welcome gleam of metal and finding none.
There were no guns within a wide radius of Big Taw’s body. Yet Bill was sure that this was the place where he’d seen the big man go down.
Bill Longley gnashed his teeth in frustration. Here was a complicating factor he hadn’t reckoned on. What were the odds of finding Big Taw minus not one gun but two? Of all the rotten luck!
Yet Bill Longley would not, could not, give up. It was a case of letting himself be defeated. Big Taw was only the first of more than a half-dozen dead gunmen. Where there were gunmen dead or alive, there were guns.
Bill Longley moved on to the next body, the one that lay closest to him.
Perhaps because of its nearness to Bill the vultures were keeping their dist
ance from it and him.
Bill hauled himself to his feet, standing there gathering his strength. He stood leaning forward, gripping the tops of his thighs. He was breathless and panting from the exertion of rising up on two legs.
The clamor of many-throated harsh raucous cawing and the buffeting of squadrons of wings beating empty air was a constant din in Bill’s ears.
The blackbirds took flight at his approach, perhaps sensing he was seriously off-kilter. Bill stumbled over the corpse and fell, the corpse breaking his fall. The tumble didn’t help his open wound any.
Blackness began creeping in around the edges of his vision, but Bill continued his search. The results on this third try had the same yield as the previous two: zero.
No gun. Empty hands, empty holsters, ground bare of firearms.
The light of dawning realization broke in on Bill. It would have come to him sooner if he wasn’t so worn down, played out, used up.
The gunmen didn’t have any guns. Someone must have taken them away. Who else could have done that but Sam Heller, if only to make Bill Longley out even more of a poor damned fool than ever?
Bill rolled off the corpse, using the momentum to rise to his feet and take a few staggering steps forward. He looked around, scanning for the campsite. He had trouble making it out because he couldn’t see so well, what with the shades of blackness that kept rolling and unrolling up and down his field of vision.
He found the site at last and started toward it. He had taken no more than a few steps before he fell down, and out.
SIXTEEN
“You’ve got a lot of sand, my friend,” a voice said. “But that’s no substitute for brains.”
The voice was Sam Heller’s.
“What happened?” Bill Longley asked, now fully returned to consciousness.
“You went for a walk to visit Vard and the gang. Your wound opened again. You passed out. I came back down the hill and found you there, brought you back, and patched you up. So here we are again,” Sam said.
Bill had been returned to the bed of boughs beside the campfire, now cold and dead. He sat up with his back propped up against a fallen log. He was bare from the waist up, his torso wrapped with fresh homemade bandages, to which Sam had just completed the finishing touches. A folded blanket was draped across his shoulders.
“We won’t be here long,” Sam added. “The birds are a signpost pointing straight to us.”
With an upward tilt of his head he indicated the sky above them. Bill’s gaze followed the other’s lead. The heights over Dead Lake basin were thick with low-flying vultures circling the site.
Sunlight now slanted directly into the basin, the light of midmorning.
“You’re an active fellow, Bill. Too active. A man could get tired playing nursemaid to you,” Sam said.
“I didn’t ask for help, I can take care of myself,” Bill said.
“So I noticed,” Sam said with a sardonic grin. “You sure were riding high, wide, and handsome down there in the dirt with the dead men and the vultures and the crows . . .” He laughed. “Strange place for a morning stroll, but to each his own, I reckon. I’ve got to take some of the blame. I should have told you about the guns.”
“What guns?” Bill said sharply.
“The gang’s guns. I took care of them yesterday. I gathered up all their weapons and disabled them, busted the firing pins so they wouldn’t work.”
Anger pasted two red spots on Bill’s cheeks. “What’d you do that for?”
“Couldn’t leave them laying around where passing Comanche or outlaws could find them, somebody might have got hurt. I covered them up with rocks and brush lest some enterprising badman take them to a gunsmith to get the firing pins replaced to put them back in working order.”
Bill swore, long and feelingly.
“Feel better now that you’ve got that out of your system?” Sam asked when Bill was done.
“No. What’d you do with my guns?”
“They must have got lost in the shuffle. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to get some new ones in Hangtree. No shortage of guns there. Anyhow, the last thing a man in your condition needs is a firearm.”
“My condition? What do you mean?” Bill demanded.
“Youth—you’ve got too much of it,” Sam said. “Though you seem to be doing your level best to use it up, and yourself, too.”
“That’s my lookout,” Bill said.
“So it is,” Sam agreed. “Best we clear out of here quick. Hangtree’s a-waiting.”
* * *
The basin had no trees to speak of, only scrub brush, dwarf mesquite, and the like. That’s why Sam had gone to the thicket on the hill, to cut some wood for poles, which he had then brought to the campsite on the back of the quarter horse.
He used the poles to build a travois. The travois was a Plains Indians horse-drawn carryall for transporting cargo. The travois consisted of two long poles with several crosspieces tied to them by lengths of rope. The two main poles were each about ten feet long. They were tied together at one end and open at the base to form a triangle shape. A horse blanket was secured sling-style to the wooden framework to serve as the carrying platform. The sledgelike construction was capable of carrying weights of up to several hundred pounds for long distances overland.
Big Taw’s quarter horse was pressed into service to haul the travois. The animal was strong, and broad beamed.
Sam Heller gave the travois a final inspection and found it good.
“That’s your traveling rig?” Bill Longley was interested despite his resolve to remain aloof from the Yankee and his ways.
Despite which he wore a shirt that came from one of Sam’s saddlebags. It was too big for him, especially in the shoulders, hanging on him like a tent.
“You said it was for damaged goods. What goods?” Bill asked.
“You,” Sam said, pointing a finger at Bill.
“Huh? Wha—?” Bill was taken aback.
“Your chariot awaits,” Sam said, indicating the travois. “Get on, we’re moving out.”
Bill’s gaze went flat, hard eyed. “I’m not riding in that.”
“What are you going to do, walk?” Sam returned.
“I’ll ride one of the gang’s horses. I’m sure you won’t begrudge me that, hardhearted Northerner though you are.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you could sit a horse for more than a couple of minutes without falling off it.”
“I’m the judge of that, not you.”
Bill was pacing back and forth around the campsite to show how vigorous he was when a wave of dizziness overcame him. He sat down hard on the ground to keep from falling. He leaned far forward, head hanging down near his crossed legs.
Several minutes passed before the dizzy spell subsided. Sam handed Bill a canteen.
“You want to get to Hangtree in one piece? You’ve got something to do there, something important? The travois is what’s going to get you there,” Sam said.
“I’m not going to ride in that; it’s for squaws and sick old men.” Bill showed a face of disgust.
“You’re a shot-up young man, and if you want to get much older you’d best haul ass into the travois before some of Vard’s pals come looking for him and find us.”
“You’ve got all the answers, don’t you?”
“That’s how we Yankees are.”
“I know you think so.” Bill looked up, studying Sam’s face. “How come you’re so all-fired anxious to get me to Hangtree?”
“I like to help people,” Sam said blandly.
“Uh-uh,” Bill said. “I don’t have time to waste jawing with you. If that’s what it takes to get out of this charnel house I’ll do it.”
Their section of the basin quadrant where the vultures were feasting was pretty gamy now with the sun’s heat coming on.
“Give me a hand and let’s get out of here,” Bill Longley said. I’m played out for now, he admitted to himself, but not out loud.
He went along as Sam he
lped him to his feet and half-carried half-walked him to the nearby quarter horse and the travois yoked to it. Bill eased himself into the rig.
“There’s a rope here for a safety line to hold you in if you need it. Try not to fall out, I don’t want to lose you,” Sam said.
“You won’t be rid of me that easily,” Bill said. “How about a gun? If we’re attacked I want to defend myself.”
“If we’re attacked I’ll give you one,” Sam said.
Sam hauled a metal flask out of his hip pocket. “This is the last leg of the trip so let’s start it off right.”
Bill sat up straight. “So you had some left after all you son of a—”
“Ah-ah,” Sam said, wagging a cautionary finger.
“Gun, you son of a gun,” Bill said.
Sam uncapped the flask. There were about two solid belts left. Sam had a good enough idea of Bill’s character to drink first so there would be sure to be enough for him.
“Health,” Sam said, “and you sure could use some.” He tossed his drink back, then passed the flask to Bill.
Bill gulped greedily. “Ah . . . that’s good.”
* * *
Sam Heller was mounted up on Dusty at the head of a string of horses that formerly belonged to the Vard gang.
Bill Longley had described his missing bay, but the animal was nowhere to be found. After Bill had been shot out of the saddle the horse had kept on running, clear out of the basin. It ran off for parts unknown and failed to return last night or this morning. For all Sam knew it was still running.
He promised Bill to keep an eye out for the bay and try to rope it in if he saw it, doubtful though he was that there was much chance of that.
One end of a long lead rope was tied to Sam’s saddle horn. The rope stretched out behind him, trailing a string of Vard gang horses each of which was secured to the lead line so as to proceed in single file.
Big Taw’s oversized quarter horse followed next in line after Sam and Dusty. Bill Longley was nestled in the travois harnessed behind the big horse. Bill had to eat only the dust churned up by two horses, Sam’s and the quarter horse.
Seven Days to Hell Page 13