by Alex Frew
Ryan was a young man of tender feelings. He had dispatched a fowl less than an hour before, but he had done it with speed and mercy, and he was not one to make an animal suffer unnecessary pain. Putting down the remnants of his meal, he came forward to try and comfort her in some way, possibly by putting his arms around her – a not unpleasing prospect – but she looked alarmed at his approach and backed away even further, turning briefly to make sure that she had a clear escape route from him.
He had seen the same kind of behaviour in deer when they were being hunted, but had never thought to see it in another human being.
‘Abbey, look here, I ain’t going to harm you. I want to look after you, if anything. If you really feel that bad, I’ll tell you what, I’ll lay in some more meat for you, find some more plants you can eat . . . I saw some wild radishes and green beans; you can eat those raw. Then I’ll go on my own and come back for you. I’ll just need your help pushing the trunk to the water.’ He backed well away from her to prove that he meant her no harm and went back to finish his meal.
She stood there where she was on the far side of the clearing for what seemed like an eternity, the silence between them only broken by the sound of the birds and the clear precise chirruping of the cicadas.
‘You think you’ll survive?’ she asked.
‘I know I will,’ he said to her with a degree of confidence he did not feel. The truth was, nobody knew what would happen once he was in the water; the current could be so strong it would sweep him right around the bend and down the falls, but he knew that it was better than waiting here at the mercy of his idiot cousin.
‘I’ll help you then,’ she said. There was no time like the present, and although they had just eaten, it would be at least an hour before he would actually enter the water.
The first thing they had to do was locate a suitable piece of wood. He had seen some fallen trees down near the shore. One of these he judged to be large and dried out enough to act as a makeshift canoe, one that had not been hollowed out. The trouble was, it had a few spreading branches. He did not want to risk the knife because he might need it later on, but luckily they had also found an old axe left by some careless former inhabitants – probably the same people who had built the lean-to. The axe might even have been left by Indians, but even so it was so old and rusty, having been half-buried in the sand, that he reckoned its owners had not returned for a long time. He was not about to test the theory.
Instead he went into the island and found a large, solid rock – sandstone was no good for what he wanted to do – and began to rub the blade of the axe back and forth against the grain of the rock, a sharp grating noise ringing through the air as he did so. The girl stood there with her arms folded and watched him.
‘Why are you doing this? You already have the axe and the tree you need.’
‘Yeah, and I guess I’m trying to make my job a whole lot easier,’ he said, continuing with his task. It was only after some ten minutes that he inspected the blade again and gave a grunt of satisfaction. He might have to come back after a while, but the blade was sharp enough to do what he wanted at that moment. It was a hand-axe with a handle made of solid cherry wood. He recognized the grain, and had used such tools before in his work on the ranch.
They went back and the girl began to break off some of the branches near the top of the tree, at which point Ryan stopped her.
‘Abbey, I know you’re helping and all, but there’s no point doing that. You’re just making work for yourself.’
‘Well leave them on,’ she said, ‘what’s the point of stripping them off at all?’
‘The point is that the spreading branches make the whole thing unstable,’ said Ryan, ‘I guess it’s got something to do with catching the water, but if you’ve ever seen a tree with all its branches being swept along, the whole thing is being moved, the branches keep catching the flow of water and it whirls around. Look, I’ll show you what we need to do.’ He went to where one of the branches began at the trunk of the tree. ‘See, it’s much thicker here, but this is the root of a lot of the spreading branches and twigs that come out. This is what I’ve got to cut off.’
He did not spend further time on explanations, because he could see that she was hurt at his rejection of her earlier efforts. Normally he would be more sympathetic, but they had a job to do and time was against them.
He did not chop at the node as an amateur might have done. It was about the thickness of a man’s leg, and such chopping would have been a long, boring process. Instead he made a v-shaped cut in the wood at one side, followed by another v-cut on the other, then he bore down on the branch from above. Surprisingly, he stopped chopping before the branch was severed from the main trunk.
‘Why did you stop before the branch was severed from the main trunk?’ she asked.
‘Because we have another job to do now and I need a hand from you,’ he said. He stood up. His back was aching a little and the muscles in his arms were sore. He put down the axe and showed her where to grab, further along from where he had made the cuts. She grasped the idea instantly, and they acted in unison moving the spreading branches back and forward.
There was a satisfying crack and the branch with all its outspreading offshoots was parted from the main body of the tree. They pulled away their efforts so that they had more room to work. This left them only a couple more to do.
The girl picked up the axe. ‘My turn,’ she said. Ryan was about to object, but something held him back. She had been watching him intently, and although her arms were slim she was young and strong, and worked with a will. Barely ten minutes later, she too put down the axe and they worked the offshoots back and forth. He grabbed the axe and set to work with renewed vigour, having had a rest while she was chopping, and the last branch was soon dealt with.
This left only a few outgrowths down the trunk and he soon dealt with those. When he stood up he saw that she was still watching him, but this time with interest instead of fear.
‘We did it,’ she said, ‘we got it ready,’ and for the first time since they had met she gave a laugh of delight and smiled at him. As he had expected, her smile was pretty too, her laugh a welcome distraction.
‘Job well done,’ he grinned back at her, ‘I could hug you with delight.’ He stepped forward, dropping the axe with a soft thud and for a moment he was overwhelmed with a desire to take her in his arms. Moreover, he could see from her slightly parted lips and the look in her eyes that she was not about to resist. Then he tripped slightly over the uneven ground and the moment was gone. She stepped away from him and her wary manner returned.
‘Help me roll this down to the water’s edge,’ he said. She obeyed, looking at him from time to time. It was hard work. He stood up and looked across at the curving mainland.
‘Yep,’ he said, ‘guess this is the right place. I should be carried up against that curve and make landfall.’
‘No,’ said a choking voice, and his arms were suddenly full of the warm, perspiring girl. ‘No, don’t.’
Chapter Nine
Hawk was not known for his tracking abilities for nothing, and one of those abilities was stealth. As Yancey snarled and ran forward, Hawk stepped backwards and vanished. His attacker stopped in mid-rush and looked bewildered, and that was when Clay took his turn, came forward and put a gun to Yancey’s head.
‘Stop there, big fella, or you’re going to get that crown of yours blown off.’ Yancey froze, and the other kidnappers who had started to run in the opposite direction from their would-be captors found that they, too, were under a threat of their own when Flynn and Holt came out of the woods with their own weapons ready.
‘Get your hands up, all of you,’ said Hawk in a world-weary voice as he stepped forward again. ‘Yancey, you made a bad mistake falling in with these two. What the hell’s the matter with you? I never figured you as a criminal.’
‘Don’t say anything.’ McArthur looked at Yancey and shook his head. ‘You don’t need to say a
thing, big stuff.’
‘You shut up,’ said Hawk. His lips were pulled back thinly across his teeth and it was obvious that there was suppressed fury in his voice. ‘Tell me, Yancey.’
‘Money,’ said the big man. ‘Thousands of dollars, that’s what they said. A lotta dollars, divided three ways, they said.’ He lifted one big hand and tried to count off on his fingers. ‘More than them in thousands.’
‘Yancey, I’ll tell you what they were going to do,’ said Hawk. ‘They were going to use you to get the kidnap money, then they would’ve shot you in the head. Your share would’ve been a bullet to the brain.’ This was not some kind of conjecture; this was what he really thought. His black eyes bore into the milky gaze of the bulky man in front of him, and Yancey suddenly seemed to believe what he was being told. The muscles in his broad face began to quiver, and despite the guns on him he turned and looked at McArthur.
‘You,’ he said, ‘you, I’ll rip apart, I’ll stamp on you.’ He gave a roar that resembled the bellow of a particularly angry bull and sprang forward in the direction he was facing.
‘He’s lying,’ said McArthur desperately, ‘you’re one of us. Amigos, the three amigos, Yancey.’ The big man stopped his advance, looking uncertain again, breathing heavily. Wisely, Hawk’s men were keeping out of the argument.
‘Ask him what he was going to do with the money, where the two of them were going to go,’ said Hawk. ‘They were going to go back to the big city. Is that somewhere you would belong, Yancey? They were just using you for your strength; they don’t care about you at all. No, a bullet to the head is what it would have been.’
There was such calm certainty in Hawk’s voice that Yancey believed him and advanced again.
‘Don’t do anything to them,’ said Hawk calmly. ‘There’s a way of settling this, Yancey; nobody has to get hurt or shot.’ Yancey lumbered around again and stared at Hawk with narrowed eyes.
‘What be that thing to do, Indian man?’ he demanded.
‘Just tell me, let me know where my son is, and I’ll guarantee that you’ll be helped, and even rewarded. Otherwise this could end badly.’
Scott, who had been watching this exchange with a bunched jaw, suddenly lost all caution. He spoke in a voice that seemed to come from a deep, dark well, with a fixed look on his face. ‘You . . . You bastard. What you did to my paw, that money, it’s mine; all mine. You let him die poor, and you took everything he had.’
‘What did he tell you? He had the chance to become a partner in the business. It wasn’t my doing that he upped and left for Houston with the family because he couldn’t do his work and make it, because of his need for the bottle.’
McArthur, too, gave a roar, and while it was not as deep or as loud as that previously done by Yancey, it was just as heartfelt. He ignored the guns trained on him and ran at the man whom he had targeted. He was not able to go far because Yancey gave a sweep of his big right arm and knocked him to the ground. He gave a groan and tried to get up, but Yancey stood over him with a look that indicated he would not be too pleased if Scott tried to rise.
In the meantime, Jardine looked around at the four grim-looking armed men, the others having stepped into view. The look on his face was one of abject surrender.
‘Can I put my arms down?’ he asked. ‘They’re getting tired.’
‘Nope, in a minute,’ said Hawk, ‘but now it’s time for business. Where is my son?’
‘Don’t tell ’em,’ groaned Scott from where he lay on the ground, half-sitting and holding his head.
‘I don’t know who you are, son,’ said Hawk, ‘but ’less you start to ’fess up this is going to end real badly for you.’
‘Don’t say a word.’
‘Water,’ said Yancey suddenly, ‘goin’ real fast. And the oars made my arms sore.’
‘What?’
‘You’ll never get to him,’ said Scott McArthur, a humourless grin spreading across his face. ‘He’s lost to you.’
Far from being lost, Ryan was stepping away from the not unwelcome touch of a young woman with whom he was trapped.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but the truth is, these men are armed. If I had a firearm of some kind I could fend them off, or more sensible like, wait until they landed and challenge ’em for their boat. As it is, all I got is an old knife and an axe, and the knife looks as if it would break with one good blow.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ Her face was white now, whiter than it had ever been in their short acquaintance. ‘I’m going to do it; I’m coming with you.’
He did not say anything or even thank her, but in his heart he was grateful for her desire to come with him. He had not told her so, but he felt that his weight alone would not be enough to prevent the log from sweeping around the bend of the river. However, with the two of them holding on, there was a fighting chance that the weight would be great enough to bear down on their wooden saviour and bring them close enough to the mainland. There was only one way to find out.
‘Let’s do it then,’ he said.
The girl paused and looked at him. ‘I just want to know one thing: why does he hate you so much?’
‘Who?’
‘Scotty, as his pal calls him. Bastard. I saw his face when you were in the boat and when he was tying you up. He really wants to do something bad to you – and he will.’
He saw what she was doing; she was trying to distract them from their immediate peril by speaking of other matters. It was not a ploy he would have welcomed, but the answer surprised him. ‘I guess he feels let down and vengeful against my family. He thinks I got everything he should have got and he didn’t. I guess he’s been on the receiving end of some mighty persuasive rhetoric against me and my kin.’
‘From whom?’
‘His father, Uncle Wyatt. He was my maw’s younger brother. They was close in age really, just a year apart and when he married, she got Granpaw to give him a patch of land and a start on the ranch. There was even talk that through time he would become a partner, but he turned out to be a bent ticket.’
‘Why, what happened?’
‘Turned out he was a little too fond of the bottle. Liked a bit of a gamble too. The upshot was that just a few years after Scott was born he gambled away the homestead he had been given by Granpaw, who had died in the interim. Me and Scott, we was boys together; played in these hills until we was eight. Mack too, at times.’
‘So your father didn’t help him?’
‘Oh, Paw did what he could, but the ranch went through bad times too. On Maw’s persuasion he took off with Scott and my aunt to the big city, and failed there too from what I hear. He went from one job to another and he always failed at those, too, and got involved in some crooked deals. It broke my mother’s heart. But he never talked about coming back to ranching. The work is hard and he wasn’t going to work hard unless he really needed to.’ It was as if he had forgotten where they were, on the shore of an island with the river practically lapping at their feet. ‘When Maw heard about Wyatt’s death, it set her back. I just hope Paw’s hid this business from her; she’s real bad just now.’
‘No wonder Scott hates you,’ she said, ‘he sees you as the little golden child who gets everything handed to him on a plate.’
‘Then he doesn’t know my father,’ said Ryan. ‘Everything I get, I worked for. I even had to work to pay for my own schooling past fourteen. There’s a big world out there; I intend to leave home and get my own business before I’m twenty. Talking about business,’ he looked down at their makeshift craft, ‘I guess it’s time.’
Together they pushed the log into the water at the trajectory he had worked out earlier. They would soon find out whether or not he had made a mistake. The air around them had been fairly warm for the time of year, but the waters that swelled the Brazos came down from the mountains, and the water was so cold that it took their breath away. Luckily, though, they had the presence of mind to continue with their plan and cling to the log.
&nbs
p; As he had suspected the whole event was over in one tumultuous rush. The furious waters carried them forward towards the bend in the river, but the log was over twenty feet long and an awkward shape, especially when the two of them were clinging on. This meant that it was whirled around and pushed into towards the mainland. He had often seen logs caught like this on a piece of land, but he also knew that they often did not catch for long, and as this one wallowed in a shallow eddy by the mainland he knew that they did not have much time. He threw his body into the shallows and grabbed at the thick plant life that grew on the banks of the river. He began to heave his body up, and then he remembered the girl. She was still clinging to the wood for dear life when she should have been letting go and pushing into the shallows.
‘Your arm, lift your arm!’ he yelled over the sound of the rushing water. Luckily she did as she was asked and reached an arm towards him. He grabbed her hand and held on. ‘Let go of the log now,’ he yelled. Luckily, now that her hand was in his she obeyed his instructions and he pulled her in towards him with almost the last of his strength. ‘The grasses . . . cling on to ’em,’ he said, and she did as she was asked. Now that he had let go of her, he used both hands to pull his body on to the grass. His whole body ached and he longed desperately to lie on his back and gasp like a newly landed fish, but he had other business to deal with.
He got hold of the girl and pulled her up by her arms – she would have some interesting bruises later on – and made sure that she was safe before giving way to his first impulse and lying there gasping like the aforementioned piscine creature. They couldn’t lie there for long, because they would grow colder than they were, and die of hypothermia. He got her to her feet and the two of them staggered towards the woodlands. Just before doing so the girl turned, water dripping from her long hair and down her slim arm as she pointed.
‘Look, Ryan, look.’ He followed her gaze and saw the log they had so painfully prepared for their short trip. After spending a little while wallowing at the bend of the river, it was caught by a sudden current. It was pulled away from the bank like a matchstick and swept away on the main river and around the bend towards the roaring falls, a fate that would have been theirs if they had waited a minute longer. One more thing caught his attention: further along, where the grass gave way to a sandbank, was the very boat that had brought them over. He ran to this and with a shout of fury he used some of his ebbing strength to push it into the water, where it was soon caught up in the rush and would share the fate of the log.