Norton, Andre - Novel 15

by Stand to Horse (v1. 0)

  And back into the rain of leaden death was riding another man. As Ritchie fetched up by Tuttle, he saw that rider swing lightly out of the saddle and urge the marooned man to his seat. A bullet struck the rock between them. The unhurt horse reared, and the rider had to fight it as he tried to get the rescued man into the saddle. Ritchie came to life.

  Again he spurred Bess on, tugging the reluctantly led horse with a sharp jerk. As he passed the quiet body in the grass, he gave it a single glance. Sergeant Woldemar would have no more need for his horse, but the men in the break did. Ritchie rode on.

  By sheer force of will Herndon had the Lieutenant on the horse and his hand was raised to deal the slap that would send them away when Ritchie bore down upon them. The slapping hand grabbed for the dangling reins. Ritchie and the Lieutenant fired together into the shaking bushes as Herndon fought his feet into stirrups set for the shorter Woldemar.

  Then together the three pounded back, skirting Woldemar's body and picking up Tuttle who had been sniping at the enemy. Beside the scout rode Sturgis, firing with easy precision, a half grin quirking his lips.

  They wasted no time in putting the length of the valley between them and the break. There was a road out in that direction, the bed of a dried stream. This was rough country, broken by arroyos, stretches of rocky outcropping, and the shoulders of the mountains beyond. In the stream bed they overtook Birke. His mount was staggering, head down, pinkish foam dripping from its jaws. And yet the dragoon's arm still dealt heavy blows across its flanks.

  "Stop that, you damn fool!" Sturgis rode up beside him. "Want to put yourself afoot now?"

  "Birke!" Gilmore's voice echoed the Southerner's. "Slow down! We can't afford to lose a horse."

  But Birke's arm rose again. Sturgis leaned over, grabbing his wrist and twisting it. For the first time Birke looked at them. His face was a yellow mask, shiny with oily perspiration. There was no intelligence in his eyes, no humanity left in his slack-lipped, half-open mouth. He tried to pull away from Sturgis with the petulant motion of a peevish child. Tuttle came up on the other side.

  "The fella's loco," he announced. He leaned across and slapped Birke's face hard. On the yellow-white unshaven skin of the man's cheek the marks of Tuttle's fingers showed first pale and then red. Birke blinked and moved his mouth. Intelligence came back into his eyes. He scowled malignantly at the scout and tore his arm free from Sturgis.

  "Le' me alone!"

  The sharp crack of a rifle broke over the rocks. Gilmore gave a queer little grunt and caught at the horn of his saddle. There was a look of astonishment frozen on his face. Herndon threw one arm about the shoulders of the slumping man, crowding his mount against the other's.

  "Ride!" he snapped. "Get into cover—all of you!"

  It was hard to flog the tired horses into a shuffling trot, but they kept to it. Birke and Tuttle were ahead, then came Herndon still supporting the limp Lieutenant, with Ritchie and Sturgis bringing up the rear.

  "Going to be dark mighty soon," Sturgis said. The reckless half smile with which he had greeted their return from the ambush was fixed on his lips. "And we don't know this country. Good chance of having them beat us out—like pack rats out of a nest."

  He looked from side to side and then suddenly nodded his head as if he had found an answer to some question of his own. The stream bed they followed was boxed in by high walls now. If they were pursued, there was little chance of being sniped upon from above; the trailers would be forced to take the same path. The dried grass, grease-wood, and brush along the rocks would give little cover to either party if they did come.

  Sturgis jerked a beckoning finger at Ritchie and pushed up to Herndon.

  "How is he?" he asked baldly about Gilmore.

  Herndon's teeth showed in a dust-coated snarl. “Dead!"

  Ritchie dropped back. He didn't want to see Gilmore's face, still wearing its look of startled and eternal surprise.

  “Got an idea to cover our tracks," Sturgis went on unmoved.

  Their horses had halted of their own accord. They were too tired to move except under urging. Herndon, still supporting the Lieutenant, hunched over a little. The mask of trail dust and the fading light made him look like an old, old man.

  ''What—?" His voice was flat and as old as his face.

  "Wind's rising," Sturgis pointed out. "We're facing into it. Suppose we set a little fire. That fire would blow right back over our tracks. 'Nough brush in here to make a good hot blaze!"

  Herndon was already nodding. "It'd give us some time—"

  "Then you get on—you and the Lieutenant. Rich and I'll see to the fire—" He hesitated and then added softly "sir." And there was no mockery in that word.

  Herndon did not seem to hear. He was already plodding on, his iron grip fast upon his burden. Sturgis slid to the ground and jerked a thumb up canyon.

  "Come on, fireman, let's get to work!"

  With their belt knives they hacked at the brush and grass, pulling handfuls, which tore the skin from their fingers, dumping their booty into piles, working feverishly against time.

  "I always did like to play with fire," panted Sturgis as he came up on the run with an armload of inflammable stuff. "But I like to do it a little more leisurely. Hm, feel that wind, boy? That's what is going to put the finishing touch to this little bonfire of ours. Yes, siree!"

  "All right," he said minutes later. Ritchie had lost all track of time. It seemed to him that they had been days and days on this trail and hours and hours lugging bush to choke the back road. "You start on with the horses," Sturgis went on. "I'll tend to the lighting."

  Without argument Ritchie went, stumping to where Bess and Blackie waited, their heads drooping spiritlessly. He didn't have energy enough left in his aching body to mount. Instead he shuffled along on foot, towing both horses with him. There was a crackling sound, and flames shot up in a sudden wind-fed spurt. He could feel the wind on his face. The grit of the dust and sand it carried crunched between his teeth and sifted down between his neckerchief and his open collar. The crackle behind was now almost a roar. But why didn't Sturgis catch up? Surely the fire had start enough now and did not require tending!

  Ritchie stopped. And for the second time that day he turned back.

  "Sturgis?" His voice echoed hollowly from the walls of the cut. Blackie tugged at the reins, and Bess added her weight, too, when she saw that she ^vas being led back toward that terrifying light and sound.

  "Sturgis!" Ritchie shouted now. He stopped trying to pull the horses along and dropped the reins.

  "—get away—" The answer was coming out of the bed of the dried-up river. Then, against the curtain of the fire, in the overhang of a flaming skeleton of a bush which had toppled off one of the piles, he saw the dark shape trying to crawl along.

  Ritchie ran. The crawler sat up, trying to fend off the bouncing flame-wrapped bush. But Ritchie reached it first and sent it rolling back with a thrust of his scarred hand. In its light he saw the feathered shaft which protruded at a crazy angle from Sturgis' shoulder.

  "Get away!" The Southerner tried to wriggle out of Ritchie's grasp. "He may still be alive—"

  But Ritchie hooked his hands under the other's arms and dragged him back from the fire.

  "Got me just as I stooped over to light the fire." Sturgis jerked out the words. "Lucky—maybe—might have been through the throat if I hadn't been all bent over that way. Hey, not so fast, Rich. Think I can make it on my own feet if you'll just give me a hand."

  "What—about—the—Apache?''

  "May be roasted for all I know. He was on the wrong side of the bonfire. Just a minute! Let—me—get—my— breath—" His voice was broken by painful gasps, and he raised a shaking hand to his mouth.

  Ritchie got Sturgis into the saddle, an eternity of painful effort for both of them, and they went on through the long blue shadows, Ritchie walking beside Blackie and holding Sturgis in his seat. Bess came behind, now and again betraying her feelings with a lit
tle mournful whinny of self-pity and distress.

  Sturgis' grin was a crooked grimace, and he held onto the horn with an iron grip.

  "Forward!" His voice took on a little of the cracked roll which carried in the Colonel's. "Forward! If any man falls, I’ll make him a corporal! Bet I’ll get m' stripes first of 'em all. Rich-"

  Ritchie shook his head. "Not you—too tough. Get along with you, Blackie—" He slapped the dusty hide halfheartedly.

  "Talk sweet." Sturgis' words were a little blurred as if the effort to shape them properly was a task almost beyond him. "Blackie don't cotton to your Yankee push. Looks as if we sure started a right smart fire back yonder, doesn't it?"

  The rocks about them were a faint yellow-pink. Ritchie glanced back. Tongues of flame shot up. It would take something even tougher than an Apache to break through that barrier.

  "If the wind doesn't change, we've sealed 'em off all right. Oh!" The last was a grunt of pain as Blackie stumbled. Ritchie steadied his companion and wondered if they could keep going. But they didn't have to, for a long arm covered with buckskin protruded out of the rock ahead and waved them on.

  Tuttle came up to bring them in, walking with the same unhurried stride with which he had crossed the barracks yard so many times.

  "Stopped a mite of lead?"

  "Arrow," Ritchie returned. "In his shoulder. But the Apache was on the other side of the fire when he shot—"

  Tuttle pushed him aside and went to Sturgis. Ritchie had only his own uncertain steps to mind as he followed into a shallow cave. A dust-grimed, wooden-faced man worked with stiff mechanical precision there, fitting into place as a barricade some small stones and rock lumps. Birke just sat, a lump of sullen mutiny, against the back wall. Ritchie made a vast effort and unsaddled their two horses. Tuttle was already working over the recumbent Sturgis, and Herndon stopped building to join the scout.

  He was cutting away the blue shirt carefully. The arrow shaft still stood up in the flesh, moving a little with the rhythm of the panting breaths Sturgis could not control as well as he did his voice. Ritchie flinched as he watched that work. His hands fell upon a stone and he added it to the Sergeant's crude wall. Here was something he could do. But Herndon had a question for him.

  "The fire?"

  "Burning. He lit it, and the Apache shot at the same time—but from the other side. It was roaring right down the stream bed when we left—might have caught the fellow before he got away."

  Herndon straightened up and stood for a moment with his hands on his hips looking out into the gathering forces of the night.

  "We can't count on that holding them up long," he said half to himself and then spoke to Ritchie harshly. "What's the matter with your hand?"

  Ritchie examined with real surprise the fingers he had been holding at a stiff angle. They smarted some. But he was almost too tired to feel it. "Guess I was scorched—"

  "Antelope tallow's good for burns." The Sergeant was absent again. He went back to Tuttle and Sturgis.

  "Well?" That was a demand for a straight answer.

  "I can git the shaft out, the point's in the bone—" Tuttle was matter-of-fact.

  "Didn't jump quite fast enough this time, did I?" Sturgis' voice was only a thin shade of its usual tone. "All right, butcher, go get those saddler's pliers and have this damn thing out!" His words suddenly ran together up the scale.

  Tuttle turned to Ritchie. "Build up that fire a leetle, son. How about water?" he asked the Sergeant.

  "Yes." The word came out in a lopsided fashion between Sturgis' set teeth. "How about water? I could do with a drink."

  Herndon produced a canteen. He was down on his knees now, lifting the Southerner's head and watching him swallow with an eagerness which betrayed parched need. Ritchie grew very busy with the fire-feeding. He couldn't watch. Fire and water—they needed both for survival.

  Survival—that word snapped across his drugged fatigue. Two of them hadn't survived that sudden dash across the valley. And now they had been driven into unknown territory with no chance of retracing the trail which had brought them. He bit down on his lip and laid out the sticks the Sergeant or Tuttle had brought in. Meanwhile, there was Sturgis to think about.

  That was a bad job they were doing. But halfway through, the patient mercifully fainted, and the faint became a deep feverish sleep. Tuttle tossed a broken arrow shaft into the fire.

  "Best we could do!" His fingers twitched as he laid down the bloodstained pliers.

  Herndon's face was wet and shiny. He mopped it with his sleeve, wiping off a paste of sweat and dust, and leaving streaks, like war paint, across forehead and cheeks.

  "Well?" For the second time he asked that question of the scout.

  Tuttle shrugged almost angrily. "It broke, yo' saw. It'd take a regular sawbones to git it outta him now. If it poisons him—"

  "He's daid!" That came from the back of the cave, and all three started. They had forgotten Birke. Sunk in his own world, he had made no move to help. "He's daid— we're all daid. Only we ain't buried yet. Why don't yo' plant us under stones, Mr. High-n-mighty, jus' like yo’ did the Lootenant? We're all daid, ain't we?"

  "Keep quiet, Birke!" Herndon's voice was a lash.

  "Keep quiet, Birke!" the other mimicked. "Why don't yo' make me be, Mr. High-n-mighty? We ain't got much food ner water. The Injuns are behind us, 'n our bosses are daid—or thereabouts—same as us. 'N lookit that compass of our'n—"

  Herndon's fingers snapped to the small metal case, which swung on a buckskin thong from one of the buttonholes of his shirt. The glass cover was gone, and in the face was the leaden butt of a bullet.

  "That compass ain't gonna git us nowheres now," Birke continued. "Better say we're daid 'n speak the truth of it—"

  But the Sergeant was staring at the punctured case in his hand until Tuttle took it from him.

  "Luck was sure breathin' down yore neck this afternoon, Scott. That thar pill might have got yo' through the heart-"

  "Naw. That ain't luck," prodded Birke. "Them what dies clip 'n clean, they's the lucky ones. We'll git it with thurst or Injuns or starvin'."

  "Mort a cheval a galop/' Herndon's eyes were still for the compass.

  "Morty what?" demanded Tuttle.

  Words long forgotten repeated themselves in Ritchie's head. " 'Mort a cheval a galop’ death on horseback in battle—the best death for a cavalryman—"

  'Is that so?" Tuttle's words had more than their usual drawl. "Mighty educatin', lissin' to yo' boys. So yo* didn't morty proper, Scott? Wal, that ain't sayin' as how yo' mightn't even yet."

  Birke crawled out into the firelight. He had the same attention for the compass that its owner had shown.

  "Broke. 'N with it broke, how're we ever gonna git outta these mountains? They run all the way to the Utah country! 'N if we have to lug him—" He glanced at Sturgis.

  "You won't have to lug me, Birke. I can still fork a horse." Sturgis' eyes, suspiciously bright, were open and regarding them. "Give me a little rest, and I can take the trail all right. You aren't heaving dirt over me yetl"

  "We certainly aren't." Herndon was back in his calm shell again. "If you can ride in the morning, Sturgis, you'll more than pull your weight—"

  "If there's anything left to ride!" Birke broke in again. "Them bosses are 'bout ready to drop. 'N if the Apaches come up—"

  "We'll be able to handle them," Tuttle said. "We've got the Lieutenant's carbine 'n Woldemar's ammunition extra. 'N his canteen and provision sack came through, too. We can eat all right 'til we git us a deer or a bear. 'N we'll git through all right, circle back 'n catch up with Sharpe in three-four days—"

  "Yeah?" Birke was beginning when the Sergeant turned on him.

  "That's enough, Birke. If we pull together, we can make it. That fire down the canyon will hold back pursuit, maybe turn it off altogether. They don't know what condition we're in or how well prepared for the trail."

  "Wal, lots have got through narrower squeaks than this he
re." Tuttle was separating some strips of jerky. "Think yo' might favor this some, son," he asked Sturgis, **if we boiled it up a mite?"

  But those too bright eyes had closed again, and Sturgis had sunk into an uneasy sleep. He twisted once and moaned. Herndon eased him back on his uninjured side and tried to wedge him in that position with two of the horse blankets.

  Ritchie ate his share slowly, but Birke grabbed and chewed avidly, his little eyes on the stores Tuttle had taken in charge.

  "We'll keep sentry go." Herndon pulled his watch out of his money belt pocket. In the firelight its gold case was a blot of soft color. "Two hours each. Guard will take his own carbine and keep the Lieutenant's loaded one within reach."

  Ritchie tightened his belt before he inspected the gun he had been nursing.

  "Ready, sir."

  "You take first tour then," the Sergeant continued. "Wake Tuttle at the hour. Keep the fire going if you can-but not too high. The rest of us had better turn in."

  Ritchie settled down by the rude wall they had built. At first the darkness outside was a black curtain to eyes dazzled by the fire. But slowly outlines grew, sharper shadows came into focus. There was no moon, and he could not see the stars. It would be good to be able to whistle or even hum-to make some sort of familiar noise.

  Then something familiar and natural did sound through the dark. But it made the flesh crawl between his shoulder blades. Somewhere, out in the wilderness of the night, a little dog had yapped happily and busily, as if welcoming a friend or master. And in those hills tonight he knew of only one dog!

  13

  “If We Had Water”

  An impatient shake brought Ritchie out of a horrible dream. He hunched up. The Sergeant had already turned away.

  “Up 'n out." Tuttle slid, as easily as a black-tailed rattler, over the barricade. “Diego's fool dog may have done some barkin' in the night, son, but he ain't hangin' 'round now. Leastwise thar's no sign. We can hit the trail 'fore the sun starts broilin'."