by Neal Barrett
He was up, then, and running. There were dead men in the water beneath him, men crying out on every side. He could see nothing, but he knew he had to keep running. The gullies were filling fast. He stumbled, fell. A hand clutched his shirt and jerked hard. Howie yelled and swung his rifle blindly against whatever it was. The man cuffed him sharply, drawing his face close to his own. Howie stared.. He knew the face. One of the raiders, The man shouted but Howie didn’t hear. The raider pointed back behind him and Howie nodded and followed. There were four others, bunched together atop a muddy bank, sending fire back at the troopers. Without thinking, he took up his own position and began shooting in the same direction.
It was a crazy, senseless thing. His eyes were filled with mud and water and he could see only vague shadows past the end of his barrel. Who was he shooting at? Rebels? Loyalists? He realized, suddenly, that it hardly mattered who was out there. As long as he was slamming cartridges in the chamber and watching the fire flash from the end of his muzzle the fear stayed a respectable distance away. The time was marked for killing and maybe something more terrible than dying would meet the man who didn’t take his share.
The rain parted briefly, letting awesome sights and sounds fill the world. Howie was appalled to see he’d run no more than thirty yards or so into the gully. He was sure it had been a good mile.
A veil of acrid smoke masked the heart of the battle, but he could clearly see the Rebels at the edge of the ravine had broken. Still, stragglers quickly reformed their ragged lines a few yards back. They were dead men, but they made the Loyalists pay for every inch of ground. The rain had been Monroe’s ally in that first, terrible charge, but now his own mounts were as useless as Hacker’s. The dry ravines had turned to a thousand water-filled trenches, and it was one man against another.
A great cry went up from the mesa as a fresh wave of government troopers swarmed into the fight. The Rebels held a brief moment, then crumbled.
The fighting was over, but there was still killing to be done. Troopers roamed the trenches firing point blank at anything that moved. The cries of the wounded were quickly stilled with the butt of a rifle or the edge of a blade. As Howie watched, a great, dark figure rose up out of nowhere and nearly cut a Loyalist soldier in half with his axe before a dozen shots brought him to ground. Klu. Or Jigger, maybe. He couldn’t tell. The rain swept in again on a roll of thunder and covered the sight.
“Godamn!” rasped the man next to him. He turned his muddy, rainstreaked face to Howie, eyes weary with fear. “I seen enough. I sure don’t want to see no more.” He scrambled down the muddy bank, leaving his rifle where it lay, and disappeared into the rain. His companions looked blankly after him a moment, then quickly followed.
Howie suddenly felt terribly alone and vulnerable. Not that the raiders could have done much, but they’d been there, anyway. He slid down into the cold water, searched through the rain, and moved off to his right. A volley of shots brought him up short. He crouched low, squinting into the storm. The shots had been so close he’d seen the red blast of a muzzle. A man cried out. Another shot stilled him. A soldier called out cautiously and another answered. Howie knew immediately what had happened. The raiders had run right into a Loyalist patrol. A cold ball of fear knotted his belly: They’re behind me, now. In front and behind and me in the middle!
A figure rose out of the rain right on top of him. Howie brought his rifle up and fired. The man’s face disappeared.
Howie went down beside him and searched blindly through the water. He found the Loyalist cap with its sodden feather, tossed his own hat away and replaced it with the soldier’s. Then he stripped the jacket off the man and forced his arms through wet sleeves.
“Mark, you all right?” The voice was no more than three yards away.
“Yeah,” Howie mumbled, “I reckon.” He stood and moved quickly down the water-filled gully, away from the body.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The storm swept over the mesa an hour before sundown, leaving a dull, leaden sky behind. There were men among Pardo’s band and the Rebel army who would never curse bad weather again; only the raw power of the driving wind and rain had enabled them to escape the Loyalist slaughter. Even then, pitifully few gat away and fewer still once the storm abated. Monroe’s troopers meticulously combed the gullies for survivors, taking no prisoners.
Howie watched them and waited for darkness. He had stayed alive by moving with the troopers under cover of the storm. It was an unnerving experience. What if the rain let up, and the soldiers saw him there and knew he didn’t belong? He shook with relief when an officer called them back to the mesa. When the others answered, he hung back and let them pass him, then turned and started running as fast as he could. He had no idea where he was going. All he could think about was putting as many miles as he could between himself and the Loyalists. They’d be back. And he didn’t plan to be there.
He stumbled more than once, choking on muddy water that was waist-high in places. The last time he fell, something groaned beneath him. He shrank back, startled. A face looked up at him and grinned feebly.
“Harlie!”
He could see his friend was badly hurt. Only his head and shoulders were above the water. Howie started to move him further up the bank but Harlie shook his head painfully.
“I ain’t goin’ nowhere and don’t want to, boy.”
“Harlie. Where you hit?” Howie asked him.
“Belly. ’Bout twice, I figure. Godamn if once wouldn’t have been enough.”
“Is it… bad?” Howie didn’t need to ask.
“I ain’t walking out of here, if that’s what you mean,” said Harlie. He studied Howie, trying hard to focus on his face. “It ain’t too bad, boy. The water’s good and cold and I haven’t felt nothin’ for a while.” He tried to grin again but couldn’t. “Dyin’ don’t mean a lot, but hurtin’ sure does.”
Howie took off his trooper’s cap and draped it over the man’s head. The rain was letting up a little and the cap kept some of the water from Harlie’s face. He told Howie he’d been hit right at the beginning of the fight, when Monroe’s soldiers had overcome the Rebels and poured into the gullies.
“Tam got it, and then Gus,” he said. “Gus was right beside me when they come over. I tried to get him out but there wasn’t no use in it. There was ’bout… six of us. We left him there and kept Grin’ and moving back from one damn mud hole to the next an’ then I got hit and someone got me to here. Wouldn’t let ’em… take me no further.” Pain swept over Harlie’s face. His body arched, then relaxed into the water. “Wasn’t any of ’em fit to… anyway. I think Mac and that kid Raney got on out. And… maybe some others. I don’t know. Not many of ’em, for sure…”
He closed his eyes a minute and took a deep breath.
“Harlie…” Howie bent low to his face. “Did you… did you see the girl anywhere? Kari? Did Kari get out?”
Harlie opened his eyes and shook his head. “Didn’t see her.” He looked hard at Howie. “I wouldn’t count on it, boy.”
“Did you see her anytime? After they hit us?”
Harlie looked off into the distance, somewhere over Howie’s shoulder. “She was…back in the column. Wasn’t nobody got out of there.”
“Harlie , you don’t know that!” He knew, though, it was true. But he wouldn’t let himself believe it.
“I… seen Jigger go down,” said Harlie distantly. “And then Klu. Though that took some doing. They was all together, them two and Pardo.” He forced a terrible grin.
“Same as ever, Monroe’s got him, now. I seen that. Pardo, and them godamn pack animals in the bargain…”
Howie straightened. “They took Pardo?” He put his face against Harlie’s. “He ain’t dead? They didn’t kill him?”
Harlie didn’t answer.
“Harlie?”
Howie looked at him a long minute, then closed the empty eyes and covered them against the rain. For the first time, he noticed the storm was easing
up, passing swiftly to the south. Pardo. Alive. Only that couldn’t be. Maybe Harlie only thought he’d seen him taken.
With the rain moving out, the troopers would be back. And soon. If they found him… They wouldn’t, though. He’d keep one step ahead of them until the dark. They sure couldn’t search every hole on the mesa. And when the sun was down, they wouldn’t look anymore.
They had set up the camp half a mile to the south, away from the site of the battle. It was a big army. Howie couldn’t even guess how many men had pitched their tents on the ta-bleland, but there must have been a hundred or more big cookfires going.
He was tired, hungry, and shaking with cold. Lordee, he could smell meat cooking—fresh meat! He didn’t know anything about armies, but it had to be a big one if they carried their own live meat around with them.
Edging up through the gullies he got close enough to see there were few guards posted along the perimeters. One or two every hundred yards or so and maybe a dozen outriders on horseback, patrolling the dark. They weren’t expecting trouble. Not after today.
It would be easy enough to get in, then, once things settled down for the night and the fires burned low. But… then what? If Pardo was still alive, how would he find him? In a camp of over a thousand men—and he was sure there were that many—where would you start to look for one?
It took him a good two hours to circle the camp. Most of that on his belly to avoid the guards. It was easier when the fires burned down some, but harder to see what was going on. In the end, though, he decided he had a fair idea of how the camp was put together. The mounts were roped off away from the men, and well guarded. He’d have a time stealing one, but that wasn’t something to worry about yet. The supply tents and wagons were bedded down near the small herd of stock. The regular troopers were grouped together and the officers to one side.
He decided that was where Pardo had to be if he were alive, near the officers. If Monroe was with the army, he’d sure have Pardo close at hand. Howie couldn’t think of anything that would please the Loyalist officer more.
From the stars that peeked through gray tails of cloud he decided it must be two in the morning, or later. Something would have to be done soon. He watched the officers’ tents, trying to figure what they were doing. One tent seemed to be busier than the others. It was all lit up inside by an oil lamp. Men wandered in and out every few minutes, and he watched to see where they went.
Another hour went by and he learned nothing. If anyone in the camp had anything to do with Pardo, he couldn’t figure it. Maybe Pardo wasn’t even there. Maybe Harlie was wrong; Pardo could have escaped. Or he could be dead in the gullies…
Suddenly, Howie sat up straight. Two men came out of the lighted tent. Instead of walking past the front of it and going to the left or right, they moved out behind it.
That was important. Because it was different. No one had done that before.
They went straight to a smaller, darkened tent some thirty yards away. Howie had noted it earlier, figuring it held supplies or something. If it did, though, why would the men be going there now? In the middle of the night?
When the two officers came out, Howie crawled past the guards and straight into the camp. There was no time to worry about whether he was right or wrong. If the sun came up and caught him there, he wouldn’t have to wonder about Pardo or anything else.
The tent was old and the cloth parted quickly and silently under his bone-handled knife. He stopped where he was and waited a long moment. It was dark inside, but the other end of the tent facing the officers’ area was still open. Pale yellow light spilled over the bare ground. There were dark patches above where the tent had been repaired, and a rent that let the stars through. Howie froze. To the right, in near darkness—something else.
At first he thought it was a trick of the night. There was nothing in the tent but a few sticks of firewood—old, dried branches with the bark peeled off. Like wood you found on the river bank. Howie looked again. Bile rose up from his empty stomach. It wasn’t wood at all. It was Pardo. He was staked out naked on the ground and someone had neatly stripped all the skin from his body.
Howie bit his lip until blood came and crawled closer. You could hardly tell who the man had been. There was no hair on the head. The scalp had been carefully peeled away from right above the eyes. The nose and lips were gone and the rest of the face had been carved away. There was bone showing on one cheek and under both eyes.
Howie started and almost cried out aloud. The hollow eyes suddenly opened and looked at him. The terrible, ruined mouth parted like a raw wound and tried to talk!
“P-Pardo?” God help us all. Ain’t nothing like that ought to be alive! “Pardo? It’s me. Can you… talk?”
The mouth opened and a noise came out. It wasn’t a voice at all. It was a horrible, rasping thing. Sound scraping against bone. A chill crawled up Howie’s spine.
“You?”
“Yes, Pardo.”
“You…” The sound tried, failed, then tried again. “You… doing here…”
Howie looked at the terrible face. “I had to know, Pardo. They… Harlie said you was taken. I had to know if you was alive. I promised myself that.” He stopped a minute. It was hard to look at the man and make the words come. “It was… for Cory, Pardo. I come to kill you. Like I said I would.”
It seemed a useless, empty thing to say. But he made himself say it. The eyes stared up at him a long moment.
Then the head tried to nod understanding. The effort, though, was too great. The mouth-thing started working again, dark teeth looking hideous and unearthly without lips to cover them. It was costing Pardo everything he had to talk. Pain spread over the awful face and rippled in a great wave down the ruined body. Howie brought his face close to hear.
“Do it… boy…”
Howie jerked up and stared at him. Understanding came and he shook his head angrily. “No! No, godamn you, I ain’t goin’ to give you that, Pardo. Not me!”
No, he told himself flatly. I won’t. It’s too late for that. Cory had to hurt. And Harlie. And everyone else who’s touched him. Everyone’s hurt but Pardo.
“It’s your turn, now,” he said aloud, “and by God it’s a long time coming!”
The eyes pleaded with him.
“No!”
The mouth twisted pain into words again.
“No,” Howie cried, “I won’t, Pardo. You can just quit asking!” His eyes filled with hot, angry tears. He could hardly see anymore.
“You got no right,” he said. “You don’t, Pardo.”
The eyes refused to let him alone. They reached out, holding him.
Howie forced a laugh through his tears. “You can just hurt, ’cause I sure ain’t goin’ to help. I’m… not, Pardo.”
He felt the bone-handled knife in his fist. It burned, like there was fire in it.. His arm was heavy as iron. He remembered the first time he’d seen the knife in the window of the store in Bluevale, and how Papa had said if the meat sold good maybe there’d be enough for the knife, and some sweet sugar candy… .
“Well, now.”
Howie straightened, blinked back his tears. The bright torch blinded him a moment. Then he saw the gaunt face above yellow light, the thin smile. He knew the face. He blinked again. Roundtree. The skinny man in the alley in Roundtree.
The man’s eyes moved down and fell on the knife. The smile faded. “That, was a bad thing to do, Howie. We wasn’t through with him.”
Howie wondered if he could make it out the rear of the tent before the man shot him, and decided he couldn’t. He was too tired to try, anyway. Then he saw the smaller figure behind the man, outside the tent. Slim, with a wide mouth and Kari’s curious eyes.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
His name was Lewis, or so he’d told Howie. He didn’t wear a uniform, just plain clothes like anyone, but you could tell he was important by the way the guards treated him.
Howie didn’t look at him. He gazed past the man across
the empty room to the window with the thick wooden bars. It was a bright, clear day outside. White clouds sailed by like big, lazy beasts and he could hear people talking and moving about in the busy street below. If he got up and went to the window he could look down and see them; merchants hurrying from one place to another, women going to market, and soldiers—plenty of soldiers. Beyond were the high walls of the city where swarms of workers labored all the day, and at night under torchlight. And past that, far on the horizon, the dim blue shadow of the mountains.
The skinny man smiled at him and blinked watery eyes. “Sure a nice day, ain’t’ it? Reckon a boy like you’d enjoy being out there takin’ in the sunshine. Maybe squiring a pretty girl ’round or something.”
Howie looked at him curiously. “Well that ain’t real likely, is it?”
Lewis shrugged. “Now you don’t know that.”
“Uhuh.”
“Things can happen,” Lewis assured him. “They sure can?’
Howie laughed out loud. “I figured that’s why you brung me here,” he said dryly, “so you could round up all them pretty girls. That’s it, ain’t it?”
Lewis looked pained and disappointed. “Howie, Howie…” He shook his head and let a shallow breath through his lips. “Remember what I told you back in Roundtree? How you had friends and didn’t know it? How they could help, if you wanted them to? That still goes, Howie.”
Lewis was perched on the only piece of furniture in the room, a three-legged stool. He’d brought it with him and Howie figured he would take it with him when he left. They sure weren’t leaving him anything he could tear up, or get his hands around.
“Why you reckon I’d believe that?” said Howie. “You lied to me about knowing Cory. You never even seen Cory.”
Lewis looked thoughtful a moment. “All right. That’s true enough. I didn’t know him, but I knew all about him, didn’t I? I knew about Cory, and what happened to him, and I’m dead right in saying Pardo killed him—and everyone else who wasn’t in on that deal with him. Is that true or ain’t it?”