Knight in a Black Hat

by Judith B. Glad

  He whistled, knowing the shrill sound would carry farther than the human voice. Again and again, as he rode in a great circle, he inserted two fingers into his mouth and cut loose. At last, when he was about to turn back to camp, he heard a shot, faint but unmistakable. It came from the direction of the burn, over along the east side of the big lake. He whistled again, and another shot sounded. Trouble!

  Nellie was waiting at the entrance to the common tent when he got to the camp. "Go get the medical kit," he told her as he passed. He whistled Sheba to the fence and saddled her. "Mount," he told Nellie. "Hurry."

  Almost before the words were out of his mouth, she was astride Sheba, a fat carpetbag lying across her thighs.

  "Did you find him? Is he...?"

  "I don't know. Hurry." He set a fast pace, hoping the ass could keep up.

  As they approached the big lake he whistled again. No answer. But the shots had come from over there somewhere.

  At the edge of the burn, he stopped and whistled again. This time he heard a call, from up the hill, a steep, pine-choked slope leading to a high ridge. He and Dr. Kremer had ridden up there once and found nothing but young pines, growing so close that a horse often had to squeeze between the slender trunks with their stubs of fallen branches. A narrow game trail angled away from him, heading up. The call had seemed to come from directly above them, but he didn't think he could get a horse up that slope. He led Miss Sanders up the trail.

  Next time I'll put my foot down and say we stay together. If there'd been another man in camp, I could have left her there. Not be leading her into God only knows what danger.

  Another game trail angled back in the direction he wanted to go, so he turned onto it. His whistle brought an answering shout, this one from not too far away. "Tom? Tom Ernst?"

  "Here!"

  "Keep calling!"

  "Here. I'm over here!" The kid's voice was thready and shrill, pain-filled.

  He threaded his way through the trees until he came to a clearing. At the opposite edge lay Tom's horse, its neck clearly broken. Deep, bloody gouges gleamed along its shoulder and flank. Cat scratches.

  From under the horse's barrel, one scuffed boot protruded.

  Malachi cast a quick glance around the clearing, checking the lower branches of the trees. Several were big enough to support a panther. It wasn't likely the cat had stuck around, though. Not if the kid was able to shoot.

  He dismounted and tethered Buck to a shrub in the center of the clearing, said, "Don't dismount," to Miss Sanders, as he caught Sheba's reins and led her to stand close beside Buck.

  "I can help."

  "Wait." He walked around the dead horse, dreading what he would see.

  Tom Ernst lay half under the horse's body, one leg almost completely covered by the carcass, the other bent up under his pinned thigh. His leather vest was shredded across one shoulder, and the edges were blood-soaked. His face was dirty and tear-streaked, but unmarked. One of his six-guns was half-buried in the duff, just beyond his reach. He held the other one, its cylinder open, like he'd been about to reload. "Oh, God, Malcolm, get me out of here!"

  Malachi knelt beside him. "What happened?"

  "I was following a deer, trying to get a shot at him. Early. Just after sunup. I didn't realize how far I'd come from camp." He tried to raise himself on his elbows, but his pelvis was too tightly pinned under the hard leather of his saddle. "Shit! It hurts like hell!"

  "Can you move your legs?."

  "I can't even feel them." The words came out on a sob. Fear was plain in the kid's face.

  Malachi looked at how the dead horse lay, knew he'd never shift it without damaging the kid even more. But maybe, if he were to take some of the weight off..."Miss Sanders, can you come here?"

  In a moment she was beside him. "What can I do?" No fuss, no vapors, just a calm acceptance of the situation and a willingness to take orders. He'd seen seasoned soldiers with far less good sense.

  "We're going to have to get the horse off him first, then see how badly he's hurt. I don't want to leave him here while I go back after mules." The sun was behind the mountains now. They were losing daylight faster than he liked. "Can you pull him out if I take some of the weight off of him?" He knew he didn't need to tell her the danger to Tom when they moved him. The twin lines between her brows told him she knew.

  "Of course." She knelt down beside Tom, stroked his stringy hair off his brow. "Mr. Ernst, I will have to loop a rope under your arms to give myself something to pull on. When I do pull, it will be quite painful, I'm certain. Do you need some laudanum?"

  "I'll be okay, ma'am."

  Malachi heard the tremor in the kid's voice and was reminded how young he was.

  "Well, then, while we wait for Mr. Bradley to lift the horse, we will see what can be done about your shoulder."

  It didn't take long for Malachi to throw a line from the horn of Tom's saddle around a thick lower branch of a nearby pine. When he turned around, he saw that she had cut the kid's vest and shirt off and was dabbing at his chest with something white. Four parallel scratches went from just below Tom's ear almost to his waist. They didn't look too deep, but Malachi would give odds they hurt like blazes. She had run a loop of rope under the kid's arms and around his back, with two long ends laid on the ground in the direction she'd pull.

  Malachi went back to the horse. Nellie looked up at him, her lips in a tight line.

  He nodded. It's going to hurt him, maybe kill him, when she drags him free. His greatest fear was that Tom was injured inside.

  Understanding was clear in her eyes. But so was determination. She had not quailed when she'd pulled him from under the logs. Now she was equally steadfast when he needed her help with Tom.

  "When I lift, you pull," he said.

  She stood, took hold of the rope ends with both hands. She had cleared the duff away from the soil so her feet wouldn't slip, and now she braced them. "Ready," she said.

  Malachi knotted the end of his rope around his own saddlehorn. "Okay, Buck, let's see just how slow and steady you can pull." He took hold of the halter, tugged Buck forward.

  Looking back over his shoulder, he watched as the rope went taut. I sure hope that branch holds. He urged Buck another step forward. The rope bit into the rough bark of the branch. The carcass shifted.

  "Now!"

  Nellie pulled.

  Tom screamed as his body moved, slid back.

  Malachi made sure the kid was free, then let Buck back enough to put slack in the rope. He tethered Buck to a nearby pine before he turned around. "How bad is he?"

  Nellie shook her head. "I can't tell yet, but it doesn't look like either leg is broken. Tom, does it hurt when you breathe? When you move?"

  "No, ma'am. I can't feel much of anything below my belt." His voice was unsteady, like he was fighting back tears. The bold, defiant, would-be gunfighter was gone, replaced by a scared boy.

  Malachi knelt beside him ran his hands along each leg in turn. "I can't tell," he said, looking across the kid's body at Nellie's worried expression. "He could be hurt inside, or he could have just lost all feeling because he's been lying under that horse all day."

  "We can't move him then," she said, her hand once again stroking the kid's forehead.

  "We'll rig something," he told her, "to get him back to camp."

  It was early dusk when he finally had a crude travois put together and fastened to Sheba. Buck wouldn't stand for such a contraption hanging from him. Nellie had contributed her petticoat to pad the ropes he'd strung between the poles, since they hadn't thought to bring a blanket or anything else that might serve as a sling for him to lie on. Tom was going to be uncomfortable.

  "Did I hear you say you had laudanum?"

  "Yes. Shall I give him some?"

  "You'd better. It's going to be a rough trip back."

  She poured several drops of the drug into the small collapsible cup from the medicine kit, added water from the canteen, and helped Tom sip from it without r
aising his head much.

  Malachi was relieved to see that Tom lifted his own head. Maybe his back's not broke. I hope not.

  "I'd sure hate to lose that saddle," Tom said,.

  "I'll come back and get it in the morning. Your rifle, too." The rifle was in its scabbard on the underside of the saddle. Malachi sure hoped it was still in working condition.

  "I shot once," Tom told him, "but I missed. The horse reared."

  "Fat lot of good a six-gun is against a panther, anyhow. Why didn't you use your rifle?"

  Silence. Finally Tom said, in a low, sheepish tone, "I never even thought about it."

  "Next time keep it in your hand, ready to fire." Malachi knew Tom wasn't much of a shot with a rifle. If he'd fired at the buck he was following, chances are he would have missed. The kid was so obsessed with being a fast draw shootist that he'd never learned to respect a long gun.

  Tom's words were already slurring when he said, "That cat, he was the biggest damned thing I've ever seen. He just came at me, like he'd dropped out of the sky."

  "Didn't Willard warn you about looking up as well as to the ground? The big cats like to lay on rocks and branches, so they can drop down on their prey."

  "Yeah, he told me, but I wasn't thinking."

  "Maybe this will teach you something then," Malachi said. "You have to be thinking all the time. It's the only way to stay alive." He doubted Tom had heard him. His head lolled to one side and one hand dragged nervelessly off the side of the travois.

  Even if he'd heard Malachi's words, he wouldn't have paid them heed. Tom Ernst was too full of pride in his ability to outdraw and outshoot the whole world. He'd forget again and again, and one day he'd get himself killed.

  If he hadn't, this time.

  The journey back to camp took them several hours. Malachi blessed the long summer twilight. Otherwise, their travel would have been even slower, as he picked and chose the easiest route through timber and across the rock-strewn flats. Even so, he worried that they'd made Tom's injuries far worse with the unavoidable jolting and bouncing.

  At last they reached camp, and Malachi settled Tom for the night in a corner of the common tent while Nellie took care of the stock. He hated to let her do it, but having her cut Tom's clothes off of him had seemed a worse choice.

  When he emerged from the tent, she called to him. "I've heated up the stew we had last night. You should eat something before you go on watch."

  Gratefully Malachi accepted the tin plate she handed him. The biscuit was left from breakfast, and a little hard, but he sopped some of the gravy up with it and didn't care. He could have eaten rocks about now and been happy.

  She watched him eat. When he set the empty plate aside, she said, "I'll take the late watch. Wake me about two."

  "Not on your life!"

  "Oh, don't be nonsensical! I may not be a good shot, but I can certainly fire into the air. That should wake you."

  "You're not going to be out there alone in the night, where any hungry cat or bear can get you."

  "No, I'll be in here, guarded only by an exhausted man who's going to be falling asleep on his feet." She shook her head. "Men! Your protective instincts are all very well and good, but they sometime get in the way of your common sense. If you are up all night, you'll be no good at all tomorrow. You said yourself that bears are more active in the daytime and panthers at night. So don't argue with me. We will sleep in turn, two hours at a time, and that way someone will always be alert."

  Much as he hated to admit it, she was right. "Go get your shotgun," he told her. "You'll be safer with it than with a rifle."

  She went, while he stood at the doorway of the common tent and watched. He still didn't like the idea of her wandering around alone at night. It wasn't men who were a danger right now, but the wild critters who were keeping an eye on that corral full of tempting horseflesh. What worried him was that if a tender female came their way, they'd take her just as quickly.

  Malachi almost had to laugh at the way she carried the shotgun--as if it was about to bite her. He took it when she held it out and broke it.

  "It's not loaded."

  "Well, no, I didn't want a loaded gun in my tent."

  "An unloaded gun isn't much good for anything, not even as a club."

  "I know that." She sounded as if she was speaking to a child. "I would have loaded it before I went on watch."

  "I'll load it now. And you leave it that way. Understand?" In the dim, flickering light of the fire, he saw her bite her lip. "You will leave it loaded, and keep it with you all the time. Do. You. Understand?"

  Her full lips firmed into a narrow line. She glared at him, eyes flashing.

  Malachi glared back.

  At last she dropped her stubborn little chin. "All right. I'll keep it loaded."

  "And with you. All the time."

  "With me, all the time."

  He held the shotgun out to her. "Show me how you'll fire it."

  She took it with both hands, wrapping both around the stock and letting the barrel hang down. He saw her tongue come out to moisten her lips.

  "Aim it."

  The barrel came up a fraction of an inch, but there would still be a good crater in the dirt if she were to pull a trigger.

  "It's not loaded," he assured her. "Now, Miss Sanders, I'm a big, bad bear and you're a tempting morsel. I haven't eaten for a day or so and my belly's growling." He raised his arms, clawed his fingers, and growled.

  She, squeaked, dropped the shotgun, and took a step backwards. "Don't do that! You startled me."

  "A bear or a panther would do more than startle you. Pick it up."

  Bending, she picked the shotgun up and stood. This time she held it more like a weapon, although her fingers were nowhere near the trigger. She jabbed it toward him. "Go away, bear, or I'll shoot." Her voice quavered.

  Once more he raised his arms as if about to attack her. "Grrrr!"

  The barrel of the shotgun jerked upwards, pointed straight at his face. Malachi heard one click, then another as she convulsively pulled the triggers.

  He swallowed.

  Even unloaded, the wide maws of shotgun barrels were ugly things to look in the eye. "That's good. That's real good. Next time try to remember not to jerk when you pull the trigger."

  "I didn't think I could do it." The quaver turned into a sob. "If I knew it was loaded--"

  He wanted to take her into his arms and tell her she'd never have to shoot a gun, that he'd take care of her, protect her, cherish her. Instead he slapped her gently on the upper arm, as he would another man. "You don't have to aim to kill," he said, soothingly. "Just making a loud noise is enough, sometimes. A shotgun makes a real loud noise."

  She handed the gun back to him. "You'll wake me, then?"

  Knowing he had no choice, Malachi said, "I'll wake you. Get some sleep now."

  She looked at him again, this time with a half-smile on her lips. "Good night." Turning quickly, she trotted to the necessary. In a few minutes she emerged and hurried to her tent, where she paused at the entrance and looked back.

  Although her face, at this distance, was little more than a pale oval in the moonlight, he thought she smiled. Then, with a sketchy wave, she disappeared between the canvas flaps. No candle lit her tent tonight.

  After a while Malachi remembered where his duty lay, and he strode to the corral.

  Chapter Seventeen

  "What for'd you do that, Buttercup? You don't even like horsemeat."

  The cat ignored her, intent on cleaning between his claws.

  Gertie sat up on top of the hill with Buttercup, watching as Her Girl helped the feller in the black hat untangle the youngster from under his dead horse. She'd heard the horse's scream and come runnin', but it'd been too late to stop the attack. It'd been all she could do to get Buttercup away before he got hurt. The kid had been shootin' wild.

  The cat finished with his paw and stood up, lookin' down the hill. His ears cocked forwards.

  She
laid a hand on his neck, grabbed hold of loose skin. "Yeah, we'll go down there and take what we need, but not 'til they're done. I don't want My Girl scairt." Her mouth watered at the thought of horsemeat. Not her favorite, but far, far tastier than rabbit, and not so gamy as deer or elk.

  "If you was gonna scratch him up, I don't know why you couldn't have done a proper job of it," she grumbled, as she watched Her Girl makin' much over the kid. After he'd been so forward, he didn't deserve her kindness.

  Her Girl was so sweet, so gentle. Just the best daughter any woman could have.

  "I've missed you, My Girl. Purty soon we'll be together again."

  She surely hoped Her Girl liked cats. She'd growed right fond of Buttercup.

  * * * * *

  In the morning, Tom reported that he could feel his legs and feet. "Sure hurts like hell when I move 'em, though," he said, when Malachi uncovered him to check his injuries, "and they feel like there's pins stickin' in 'em, all over."

  "You bruised them good." Malachi had trouble believing the kid wasn't seriously injured. His lower belly and thighs were black and blue, the foot that had been caught under the horse had big pools of blood under the skin. That ankle was probably broken, too. Malachi would wrap it when the swelling went down. Right now both legs were about twice their normal size. "It's not likely you'll be on your feet for a week or so."

  I sure hope those cat scratches don't get infected. They worried Malachi far more than the injuries to Tom's legs. Already the shallow gouges in the skin of the kid's shoulder and chest were bright red and weeping. He wished he had some coal-tar to put on them, but he hadn't thought to bring any.

  He checked on the kid off and on all morning. Although he couldn't be sure, it seemed to him that each time Ernst's skin was a little hotter, a little drier. When he went in a little after dinner, the kid seemed to be asleep. But when Malachi tried to get him to drink a little, he wouldn't rouse. There was no doubt now that he had a fever.

  Much as he hated to, Malachi sent Nellie to sit with the kid. He had to tend to the stock and check his snares. If they were empty--as they often were, now that they'd cleaned out most of the small game around the camp--he'd need to hunt. The last edible piece of the last deer he'd shot was in the stewpot.