Norton, Andre - Novel 15

by Stand to Horse (v1. 0)

  "Kicked 'em in when I went down." Tuttle's weak laugh was a ghost of itself. "He didn't wait to fish 'em out agin. Must have lit out in a hurry."

  Herndon settled the old man back on the folded blanket Ritchie hunted out of the tangle of gear Birke had kicked into a mess in his search for supplies.

  "He took the best of the horses," the Sergeant observed bleakly.

  Tuttle hunched himself up a little on his new support. "Which ain't sayin' much, son. 'N we have water!"

  But Ritchie was thinking of Sturgis and Tuttle. Only he and the Sergeant were on their feet now. And the three horses unable to graze the forbidding stuff about them were walking skeletons. Had the odds become so weighted that the answer could only be death?

  15

  ''Camels 'n Apaches Dont Drink''

  The Sergeant and Ritchie sorted out the mess Birke had made and totaled the losses. Most of the ammunition was gone, all of their food supply, two blankets, and Herndon's gold watch, which he had left with Tuttle, being afraid of breaking it in the climb. Herndon's face was bleak when he finished. They still had the carbine and the rifle Tuttle had thrown into the spring with limited ammunition for both, their knives, two pieces of flinty hardtack that had spilled from the provision sack, and the no

  Sturgis lay unmoving, moaning now and again. Herndon made a swift examination of the bandaged shoulder. He got up from that too slowly. Tuttle cleared his throat before he spoke.

  "No use tryin' to git on today, son—"

  Herndon was arranging the edge of a blanket to shade the wounded man from the sun.

  "No use," he agreed.

  "We could sling a blanket between two of the horses," ventured Ritchie. The urge to get aAvay from the place was strong. If they could only reach the mesa top— but that was impossible.

  "It would kill him within the quarter mile. Any handling now might end the only chance he has. Listen." The Sergeant turned to Tuttle. "I took a look-see from up there. Do you know a peak which looks like this?" With a stick he drew a jagged outline in the dust.

  The scout squinted down at the wavery line. ''North, south 'r east?" he wanted to know.

  "Northeast."

  Tuttle was counting on his fingers, his lips moving.

  ''Is a sorta rounded knob to the west of it? A kinda leanin' knob?"

  Herndon thought and then nodded.

  "Seems like I saw it oncet then—a long way off. 'N it marks the Torreones country, Scott. Gotta git 'cross thar to reach the Gallina, then follow that down to the Chama—"

  Herndon's eyes dropped to his empty hands. "How long will it take us?"

  "Wal, now, that'd take a mite of figgerin'. Velasco, he went through the edge of that thar stretch of land—back in '55 it were. He says it's all breaks, rough stuff 'n hard goin'. Water mighty scarce. It'll be a tough trail—"

  Ritchie was watching Sturgis. If they were all able to walk, or if they had ample supplies and mounts—why, a tough trail was nothing. But now—

  Herndon dug at the soil with the point of his knife. Suddenly Tuttle laughed.

  "Gonna ruin the point, Scott, doin' that. 'N yo' ain't goin' to dig us outta here neither. We can't hit back trail, 'cause the Injuns ain't forgot us yet. The Apaches are right smart at trailin' when their dander's up, 'n Diego's with 'em to keep 'em to it. 'N ahead, thar's jus' the Gallina country. We're between the devil 'n the desert here, son. Either way we jump, we've got us jus' one slim chance in a hundred-thousand now—"

  "We have water." Ritchie clung to the one bright spot in their nightmare. “And there're the jacks up there. Suppose I go back up and do some hunting?"

  "Jacks!" Tuttle pounced on him and demanded details. When Ritchie had done, he began to give some orders of his own. "Hand me that thar stick of wood, son. Take a gun up thar 'n bang away, 'n yo'll bust 'em four ways from Sunday! A club—that's what yo' need." He used his knife swiftly as he talked, shaving away thin slices of wood until he was able to hand Ritchie a well-shaped club.

  Herndon brushed the sand and gravel from out a hollow that dented the top of a nearby rock. When he finished, there was a sort of shallow trough there about a foot across and several inches deep. Into this he poured—with the care of one mixing rare chemicals—the contents of one of the canteens. And then he brought up his horse. So they watered all three of the animals left. Then Ritchie prepared to climb again, Tuttle's club hanging from a thong about his neck.

  Above he hesitated for a moment to try to locate the mountain peak Herndon had used for a guide. There it was against the cloudless sky, like a ripple of barren rock. And he was sure he could make out, just beyond, the knob which Tuttle had mentioned. But there was no time to waste now.

  He jerked up the guide rope and untied the blanket fastened to it. Inside were the empty canteens, and they were filled and sent down before he began his second task. When they were safely lowered, he took his knife and set to harvesting the grass of the pocket meadow, sawing it off as close to the roots as he could manage. Although the heap on the blanket grew, he knew that it would hardly more than tantalize the patient and starving animals below. But it was all they could give them. Perhaps after drinking, the mounts would be able to eat the prickly shrubs that the camel appeared to relish.

  Salty sweat stung his eyes and trickled down his back, biting through the kerchief on his head until he went to wet it in the pool and mop off his face and chest. He had cleared quite a patch of grass and had been able to lower the filled blanket more than once. But he was still hard at chopping when a jack popped up to watch him.

  Driven by hunger, which had advanced from a faint ache to the gnawing stage, Ritchie reached for the club. But when the wood fell true and the bundle of brown fur collapsed kicking, he could not pick up the body at once. He sent it down by rope as quickly as he could without looking too closely at it. The second jack that wandered out to watch him curiously was no easier to kill.

  With another blanket full of grass harvested, he was getting close to the end of the small field. Maybe there might be another pocket meadow on the other side of the wood. But the heat bit down so that he had to have water again. As he dragged himself wearily back to the pool, he started up a cloud of small butterflies, which danced into the air, sailing up and out over the edge of the parched canyon to mock the life which could not climb here.

  Ritchie splashed water across his head and shoulders. Maybe he should get back down and give Herndon a chance up here. Or Tuttle— But he guessed that the old scout could not make that climb now, not even with the help of the rope. Here was salvation for them, and they could not take it as long as two of the company were disabled. What a fool Birke had been to go off that way! If he had waited, he would have had both food and water. He must have been half crazy to do it-He went back to tie the four corners of the grass-filled blanket and push it over. Then he followed. The sun had passed over the slit of the canyon, and their camp was now shadowed. Along the flat rock the horses nosed with pathetic eagerness at the last of the grass. Tuttle tended a fire on which the bubbling contents of a pan gave out fragrant odors.

  "Rabbit stew. One of the best feeds I ever had. Oncet in the Mexican War when we was mighty beat out 'n hungry, we came 'crost a stray steer along the road. Took us nigh four-five minutes to git off its jacket 'n carve it up. We was hungry 'nough to eat rattlesnake 'long 'bout then. Yeah, any snake as was makin' a mouth at us would'a gone right into the pot 'fore he could shake his rattle—"

  "Where's the Sergeant?" Ritchie squatted down by the fire and inhaled the scent, which brought the juices swimming between tongue and teeth.

  "Gone for some more wood 'n to do a mite of scoutin'. Gittin' close to sundown, 'n he's wantin' to see if we've got us any neighbors—"

  Ritchie knew he had lost track of time, but he had not realized it was so late. It might be well to make one more trip for water before darkness. But he just had to eat first; his hunger was a harsh fist squeezing his whole middle.

  Herndon was back before
Tuttle pronounced the stew done. He had a brace of cactus rats and a lizard, and he was full of news as he threw them down. The "mule" camel had not gone away but was lingering near the camp as they had hoped. There was just a chance that the beast might become so accustomed to them that it would allow itself to be caught.

  “Jus' what we need for a jaunt up Gallina ways!" Tuttle said. ''Camels 'n Apaches, they don't drink. We 'n bosses do. Better git us the critter if he comes close 'nough. Now sit down 'n git some of this brew under yore belt."

  Sturgis did not rouse. With Herndon's help Ritchie managed to get maybe a teaspoonful of broth between his gray lips, but the rest dribbled away, and there was no evidence that the wounded man swallowed. His skin was fiery to the touch, and his half-open eyes were glazed and set. Ritchie knew now—though they had not said it aloud —that St. George Sturgis would never move out of that camp. And the best thing for him—as well as for the rest of them—would be a final stop of that painful gasping breath which whistled between his shrunken lips. In that gray-white death's-head pillowed on the folded blanket Ritchie could see hardly any resemblance to the dashing young dragoon who had swept him out of loneliness in the Santa Fe barracks and who had welcomed this trip with such gay eagerness.

  Slowly Ritchie untied his neckerchief and spread out the silk, trying to smooth away the wrinkles. Tuttle licked the small iron spoon with which he had eaten his stew.

  "Bin doin' a leetle washin', son? This ain't a very good place for that. 'N washin' ain't never so good out here— mostly yo' jus' chase the dirt from one place to 'nother. That thar's a right purty scarf though—"

  "Yes." Ritchie's roughened fingers caught on the silk.

  “How about one more trip topside, Sergeant? Get another supply of water for tonight?"

  Herndon studied the changing color of the sky. "If you can make it, yes. But don't stop to cut grass or hunt. The horses will have to do with what they've had until morn-ing."

  Ritchie went up, filled the canteens, and brought them back to lower over the cliff. He looked out over the broken, saw-toothed ranges. The brilliant colors of late afternoon were on the mountain that was to be their guide out. Overhead the eagle was long since gone; there was nothing to break the smooth stretch of the sky. He might have been the only living thing in a country which even the Apache Spirit Uisin had forsaken. With a sigh he started to climb down.

  They watered the horses sparingly. All the grass was gone, even most of the single blades had been licked up from the rock. But the animals did not stand with hanging heads tonight, and Herndon brought the picket ropes out for the first time. Tuttle had the fire up, and by common unspoken consent they gathered around it as the shadows grew thicker and the sky faded into gray.

  Herndon, with a stone for a desk and a stub of pencil, was writing in the pages of the small book that always rode within his shirt while on patrol. Tuttle watched him lazily.

  “Puttin' us into history," the scout said to Ritchie. "Git-tin' all this writ down. Someday maybe we'll be in a book —explorin', that's what we're doin'. Only this time he'd better bribe some coyote to deliver it back to the post—"

  The Sergeant almost grinned. "All right. Then I'll get a coyote to ride mail for me if I have to. Sharpe'll want to know about this side road, and it doesn't do any harm to put it all down. Somebody else might want to come this way—"

  "Anyone who does is a plain durned fool!" observed the scout. "But thar's plain durned fools enough in this world. Write it down, boy. If they find the book with yore bones, it'll make yo' a name—maybe." Only a trace of the old zest lingered in his voice.

  Through the wave of fatigue that made Ritchie heavy-eyed, he sensed that. He had accepted Sturgis' fate—no friend could wish St. George to suffer any longer. And now he was even able to accept the fact that Tuttle did not believe they had a future. But Herndon still wrote, the small crisp lines of words marching across the page like dragoons at drill. Herndon had not given up. And he wouldn't.

  While there was life in him, he would go on and on-just as he had through the drifts of snow on that winter raid. And he would keep his mind and heart alive by just such devices as that book. Ritchie stared fixedly at the Sergeant, trying to puzzle out what made Herndon what he was. And now Herndon lifted his eyes and looked back at him.

  When the Sergeant's attention returned to the book, which he now had to hold at an awkward angle to catch the firelight, Ritchie sighed unconsciously. Perhaps there was a shell about the real Herndon, enclosing the man and making of him a levelheaded, efficient, fighting machine, the only machine which could stand up to this land and its native people—a machine without fear or weakness, which could save the man inside from feeling anything too deeply.

  The barracks and Santa Fe he could remember now only as a series of shadowy scenes that had once contained him for a space. And when he tried to go back to his life in the East—why, even his memory failed to make it true. Ritchie Peters must be growing a shell, too, layer on layer as the pearl was fashioned. He tried to focus on Laura's face and saw only a pink and white blur without any expression or meaning. Then he yawned.

  Herndon wrapped his journal in a twisted handkerchief, cleaner than his shirt. ''Roll in. I'll take first guard."

  The stars were bright overhead when the Sergeant prodded Ritchie out of sodden sleep. There was a chill wind blowing down canyon, and the horses stirred restlessly. He spread his beat in a wider circle about the camp, pulling his protesting, sleep-drugged body from rock to cactus grove, to the side of the tainted spring.

  "Rich-"

  That came hardly above a whisper, as strained and cracked as the lips which shaped it. He hurried across to Sturgis.

  "Water-Rich?"

  "Sure!" Relief ran through him at the sound of that rational question. He reached gladly for the nearest canteen and lifted up the tousled head. But the first swallow brought on a fit of coughing, and wet spray was on his hand. Hurriedly he lowered Sturgis.

  "Rich-?"

  "Right here, Sturgis. Want to try another drink?"

  "Why waste water?" The faint ghost of gay humor clung to that. "I'm going. Rich. If you get out—"

  "Yes?" He forced his voice to remain steady.

  "Good luck! Didn't I tell you once"—the blurred tones sharpened into almost their old-time strength and clarity— "that it's darn hard work, this snatching the laurels from the brow of fame?"

  A strangled sound, which might have been a laugh, followed the words. And then there was nothing more. Ritchie got to his feet. With the carbine across his arm he walked along the boundary of the guard post he had set for himself. He walked steadily and at an even pace, and he did not look back.

  They buried Sturgis in the morning, scooping out with hands and knives a shallow hole under an overhanging rock. Before they moved the blanket-wrapped body to its last resting place, Ritchie pulled away the harsh woolen stuff to spread over the quiet face the smooth silk of the scarf Sturgis had envied him. Then it was a quick business to put in place the rocks and thorny branches of cactus that would keep inviolate the best grave they could make. They avoided each other's eyes as they worked, and Ritchie fought to keep his hands from shaking betrayingly.

  Now they could move on. Ritchie packed their meager belongings while Herndon paid a last visit to the mesa for food and water. They shared out a last blanket-load of grass among the horses, gave them water, and filled every canteen to the brim, all without speech. Tuttle mounted Herndon's horse, and the Sergeant started out, Ritchie bringing up the rear.

  Birke's trail was still to be read. Ritchie wondered dully what would happen to the deserter. His only hope would be to find water, and their luck on the mesa top might not be repeated within several hundred miles.

  Tuttle slumped in the saddle, and he rode with one hand on the horn as if to steady himself. As the day wore on and the heat, reflected back by the rocks, grew worse, the old scout shriveled as if he were withering away from his own bony frame. But he made no comp
laint, nor did he ever urge that the rest periods Herndon observed scrupulously be prolonged by as much as a minute.

  They chewed on bits of cooked rabbit and rat they had brought with them. There was forage of a sort—sun-withered grass which the horses grazed with no show of relish. As they started on again, Ritchie did as his companions and picked up a smooth pebble to hold under his tongue in the fight against thirst.

  "Blisterin' country—hotter 'n the hinges of hell," Tuttle remarked.

  "Wonder what a thermometer would read here?" Ritchie worked the words around the pebble.

  "Any thermometer as was fool enough to git brought here would blow up."

  The horse Herndon was leading shied, jumping side-wise with a quick jerk of the reins, which pulled the Sergeant off balance and so saved his life. He swung Tuttle's rifle, bringing it down twice with vicious force. Still threshing, a whip-shaped body disappeared into a crack between stones.

  "That's one rattler what ain't goin' to sound off no more." Tuttle greeted the happening with satisfaction. "Best keep yore eyes peeled, boys. Whar's thar's one of them devils, thar's like to be more. This is jus' the country for 'em."

  They had some difliculty forcing the horses past the stone the rattler had died upon. Beyond that they passed under a natural arch of burnished red rock, as bright and metallic as copper, into a seamed land where they could see down slope into a maze of breaks and sharply cut mesas ringed with pinnacles of painted rock.

  "Green sign!" Tuttle's eyes were still keen enough. He had sighted that telltale bit of coolness among the red ridges.

  To them green meant only one thing now—the hope of water. They headed for it without question. It had been so long since they had seen Indian signs that they had almost forgotten the menace which might lie in wait.

  The slip of green arose out of a cut small enough to be almost termed an arroyo. But as they hurried toward it, Tuttle snapped out a single word which stopped them short.