by Darryl Brock
“What was he telling us?” Cait said.
“ ‘Hokahe,’ means forward to your destiny, it’s a good day to die,” Linc told her. “He went off singing his death song.”
Just totally fucking perfect, I thought.
Cait poked my arm. “Let’s go.”
We gripped the ropes and went down the slope much faster than we had come up. Dry brush and dead branches were plentiful, and soon we had a mound piled high beneath the overhang. We could tell the swamp hole from its yellowish edges; anybody veering a pace or two off the narrow trail would be in serious trouble. I looked up at Linc, who was intent on the boulders, rifle at the ready. Clever of Goose to pick a vantage point with sight lines to both the cave entrance and the overhang.
The sun had nearly vanished below the rim of the mountains by the time we climbed back up. The darkening air felt denser.
“Anything happening?” I asked.
Linc shook his head.
The canyon was eerily quiet.
Cait bent her head. “Do you hear it?”
We strained our ears. A whisper-like murmur seemed to come from the direction of the cave. And then, flitting around the susurration, forming airy counterpoints, came treble reedy notes.
We’d heard them before: Goose’s flute.
“The cave’s known as Washun Niya, or breathing hole,” Linc said. “Voices of the underground people whisper there. Goose is speaking to them now, saying that wasichu are in the entrance to their home.”
“But Tim’s there too,” Cait said anxiously.
The dusklight was now prickly with electricity, causing the hair on my arms to rise.
“Rain’s near,” Linc said.
Sure enough, a few scattered drops began to fall.
I finally realized what Goose had in mind. The overhang would prevent our fire from being drenched. If he could force McDermott and the others outside and down the trail, they’d find themselves trapped between the fire before them, the cliff wall to one side, and the swamphole on the other. With Linc on the hillside to prevent them from retreating to the cave, and Goose doing whatever it was he intended, maybe we wouldn’t be in such bad shape after all.
The noise from the cave had grown louder; if the flute still played, its notes were drowned in the insistent hiss.
Cait nudged me as Brown Hair emerged again, this time looking around nervously, rifle poised chest high. Seeing a lean, swarthy figure emerge behind him, I felt a fatalistic dread radiate from my bones. Until that moment I’d nursed a tiny hope that Cait had been mistaken, that LeCaron hadn’t been one of the men with McDermott, that he’d died in Saratoga Lake. But there he was. No limp now. No arm sling. What on earth did it take to kill him?
“He’s the prime target,” I told Linc, pointing. “After him, the others won’t be nearly as tough.”
Linc gave me a speculative look. “Would you finish him if Tim was out of it? Right now, from up here?”
I shrugged, wondering if I could do it in cold blood.
“I would,” Cait said fiercely. “I’d shoot all those child-stealers—especially Red Jim McDermott!”
We had no reason to doubt her.
The two men inspected the trail above them, then below. Finally they looked our way. We were well concealed. It seemed obvious that they were trying to find the source of the sounds. Equally obvious that they were agitated. LeCaron said something to Brown Hair, and they retreated into the boulders and out of view.
“According to Goose, nobody knows how far back in the mountain that cave goes,” Linc said. “Maybe they figure it’s safer inside.”
A rising wind rippled the air. Lightning flashed on the horizon. Moments later, a faint peal of thunder reached us.
“Our cue,” I said.
“I’ll cover you till I see the flames, then I’ll move wherever I need to,” Linc said. “If you hear me shoot before you get the fire going, it means they’re outside and heading your way.”
Rain was falling steadily by the time we reached the overhang. Waves of thunder buffeted the canyon walls. Wakan Tanka? Just then I wouldn’t have bet against it. Cait struck phosphorus matches to the brush and fire quickly began to crackle.
The world turned white and the ground shook as lightning hit the cliff a few hundred yards beyond the cave. Another bolt struck even closer to the cave. It was as if cosmic artillery were homing in. Rain drummed in heavy sheets, the watery din so loud that for a while even the thunder was muted. At length it slackened and finally tapered to a mist. We moved cautiously out from the protective overhang. Over the sounds of water dripping everywhere, we again heard an airy sibilance from the cave. Like a steam valve under mounting pressure, it rose in pitch and volume.
We put our hands over our ears.
From the cave came a roar that sounded more like a maddened animal than like thunder. Cait buried her head against my chest.
Then came a very different noise: the flat crack of a rifle. Our heads jerked around in time for us to see red flashes from Linc’s Winchester. Then shots came from below, sparks flying from the rocks behind him. Linc clutched at his head as he fell sideways.
“They’ve hit him!” Cait said in a shocked whisper.
“C’mon.” I led her off the trail and around the acid- yellow edges of the swamp hole. “Linc let us know they’re coming—we’d better be ready.”
We hid among scrub pines some fifty yards above the bonfire. The spot offered clear lines of fire to the trail, where I hoped to pin our adversaries against the wall. When they realized their position and didn’t know how many they faced, maybe they’d surrender. Maybe. With just Cait and me to oppose them, it seemed our only hope.
Where the hell had Goose gone?
I didn’t have much time to think about it, for suddenly they appeared, moving fast along the trail, Brown Hair out in front, McDermott in the rear, Tim sandwiched between. They looked scared half to death. I briefly wondered what they’d experienced, until a more urgent question arose: Where was LeCaron? Best case: Linc had killed him. Worse case: LeCaron had started up toward Linc, found our ropes, and by following them down the slope would emerge behind us.
Where in God’s name was Goose?
On the trail, Brown Hair stopped abruptly as he realized the blaze was not a lightning fire but a barrier. I heard McDermott say something, then they turned and started back. Cait lifted her rifle.
“Go ahead,” I said, doing likewise, thinking it was better to give away our position than allow them back in that cave. “We’ve got to get Tim.”
She squeezed the trigger and a shot spanged off the wall a few feet ahead of McDermott. He jerked spasmodically and yanked Tim in front of him as a shield.
“Leave the boy there,” I yelled. “Go back the way you came, and you’ll be safe.”
There was a silence. Brown Hair tried to wedge in behind Tim but McDermott elbowed him away.
“Fowler?” he called. “It’s you ain’t it!”
“Leave the boy,” I ordered. “There’s a whole lot of us out here. You don’t have a chance. We won’t shoot if you let him go.”
Brown Hair muttered something. McDermott shook his head and kept Tim before him as he retreated up the trail. I sent another shot behind him as he reached the edge of the swamphole but it didn’t stop him. McDermott knew he was safe as long as he held Tim close. By now he must be thinking that if there were so many of us, why hadn’t we surrounded him?
A shrill scream sounded on the trail below and Brown Hair cried out as Goose ran at him through the flames. Yes! But my elation thinned as I saw that Goose carried only his tomahawk, its handle thrust forward instead of its stone head. Brown Hair leveled his rifle but Goose was on him too fast. As Brown Hair spun sideways in desperation, one of his boots plunged into the swamphole. The tip of Goose’s tomahawk caught him neatly in the chest and sent him over backward. Brown Hair’s rifle flew from his hands as he flailed in the ooze, his violent thrashing causing him to sink faster.
&n
bsp; “Jim!” he yelled hoarsely.
McDermott was dragging Tim toward the cave. Cait and I fired behind him again, the bullets sparking off rocks near his feet. It was only when Goose came whooping at him that he paused long enough to aim. Flame erupted from his pistol. Only a few strides from him, Goose lurched crazily off the trail and seemed to run down into the earth just past the bog. His legs kicked a few beats longer, and then he lay still.
“God, no,” Cait moaned.
“For Christ’s sake,” Brown Hair was yelling, only his head showing now, “help me, Jim!”
McDermott ignored him as he stared down at Goose and seemed to debate whether to kick him into the swamphole a few yards away. With an anxious glance in our direction, he resumed backing along the trail with Tim as his shield.
Then LeCaron spoke.
Quietly.
Behind me.
I don’t know exactly what he said—something about a fine-haired sonofabitch—but after an instant of icy shock, I ducked and spun, hoping to get off a shot. But I didn’t. He stood behind Cait, one hand over her mouth, the other pressing his knife to her neck. Her terror-stricken eyes were huge. I felt hope ooze out of me.
We’d failed.
I looked into LeCaron’s eyes and saw death.
Things were getting blurry. I sensed the milkiness lurking very near. All I seemed to see with sharp clarity was that steel blade pressed against Cait’s skin. When LeCaron ordered me to drop the rifle, I did so.
“Throw your coat down!” he commanded. “Don’t reach into a pocket or I’ll cut her.”
My revolver was in my right jacket pocket. I tried to visualize what would happen if I grabbed for it—and didn’t like the resulting picture. LeCaron had shielded himself behind Cait, leaving almost no target even if I were crazy enough to shoot so close to her. Which I wasn’t. If I tried to run at him, he could kill Cait with a swipe of his blade, continue to use her body as a shield, and have his revolver in hand well before I could get to him.
I pulled off my jacket and dropped it near my feet, trying to position it with the gun pocket up.
“Kick it away,” LeCaron ordered.
When I hesitated, he pushed the blade harder against Cait’s neck, drawing a thin line of blood.
I kicked the jacket out of reach. No decoy pockets now. No derringer in my boot. No tricks left.
“I got ’em!” LeCaron cried out, taking his hand from Cait’s mouth and yanking a pistol from his belt.
“Samuel,” she cried out. Fear threaded her voice, but something else, too. Her eyes held mine. She was trying to communicate something.
“Shut up!” LeCaron shoved Cait ahead and told me to walk behind her. He was careful to stay far enough back that I couldn’t surprise him with a sudden lunge.
For an instant I thought I heard a muffled drumming of wings, and then I thought I knew what Cait was trying to say: We aren’t alone.
If Colm’s here, I thought dispiritedly, he’d better get to work in a hurry. Our options were running out. LeCaron ordered me to halt at the edge of the swamphole. This is it. I calculated the distance, looking for a chance to charge him, thinking I’d rather end it that way than however he had in mind.
But that would mean abandoning Cait to them.
McDermott crashed through the brush with Tim in tow, his mouth curved in a triumphant grin. Cait called out to Tim, who seemed not recognize us. This close I could see tears streaked on his face and marks where they’d beaten him.
Holding fast to the boy, McDermott covered me while LeCaron collected our weapons and tossed them in a pile. He ran his hands slowly over Cait and pulled a second revolver from her jacket. With a leer he pressed against her from the rear and cupped his hands over her breasts. She twisted to claw at him, but he was too strong.
This isn’t happening, I thought, starting toward them. This isn’t real.
“Leave off that,” McDermott barked, both at me and at LeCaron, his threatening pistol bringing me to a halt. “I been waitin’ a long spell for the fancy bitch.” He shoved Tim toward LeCaron and advanced on Cait.
“We’ll do her together, the both of us,” LeCaron said happily, “while Fowler watches.” With that, he ordered me back to the edge of the swamphole and with a leer commanded, “Strip!”
One time in the past, after he tried to murder me, I’d left him bound and naked. Now it was his turn and he was relishing every instant of it. I moved slowly to the swamphole, my brain racing desperately to find a course of action. To garner more time, I pretended to have trouble unfastening my shirt buttons.
LeCaron guffawed and said to stall I wanted, he had plenty of time. McDermott, meanwhile, had retaken possession of Tim and dragged him near Cait, his pale blue eyes bright with hungry anticipation.
A movement caught my attention. It was Goose’s head rising ever so slightly, his face turned toward me. I saw the Lakota’s lift his eyes to the trees overhead. Then again. What the hell was he doing?
I noticed a small round stone several feet to my right. Exactly the type I’d skipped across lakes as a boy. Not much of a weapon, but it would have to do.
Staring at LeCaron with as much disdain as I could muster under the circumstances, I folded my shirt into a neat bundle and bent deliberately to place it on the ground. The instant my knuckles touched the earth, I snatched the rock and sent it spinning sidearm with all my strength, exactly like a third baseman after a barehanded pickup. It was a move I’d practiced hundreds of times in my youth. The stone rocketed at McDermott, whose eyes widened in surprise, then alarm. He dodged sideways but the missile seemed to follow him, curving in its flight and striking him squarely in the back.
He yelped in pain but by then I was oblivious to him. Nerves screaming, brain shrieking Here I come, Cait! I was charging at LeCaron, praying he’d been distracted long enough for me to reach him. But almost from the first I knew it was hopeless. I was still twenty feet away and already he was training his revolver on me. I zigzagged desperately, my guts going icy.
Unnoticed on the ground near LeCaron’s feet, Goose raised the bloody arm that held his tomahawk. The stone hatchet brushed LeCaron’s calf, startling more than hurting him. He brought the gun down to finish off Goose. Then he would deal with me. There was plenty of time.
I looked in vain for another rock to throw.
Something moved in the branches overhead. As if by magic, an arrow appeared in LeCaron’s chest. It made a solid chunking sound as it struck. He froze in wonderment, eyes staring down at the shaft. I stopped in my tracks, mesmerized, and everything seemed to go into milky, frame-by-frame movement.
Goose had risen to one knee and was trying to force himself to his feet. Chunk! Another arrow thudded into LeCaron, this one below his heart. Chunk! A third lodged in his thigh. Clutching at the feathers protruding from his chest, LeCaron screamed like an agonized cat and stared at Goose, who stood upright now, as if somehow he had done this.
Goose raised his tomahawk.
Realizing what was about to happen, LeCaron tried to bring up his gun. Chunk! A fourth arrow emerged from his eye. His final wail was extinguished by the tomahawk smashing into his brain, the effort sending Goose to the ground atop his victim.
“I’ll shoot yez all!” McDermott was yelling, looking around balefully as he yanked Tim back to him. “Keep away!”
The boy tried to wrench loose.
“Goddamn you!” McDermott swiped at his head with the barrel of his pistol. He missed. With a move worthy of the prize ring, Tim slipped the blow and landed an uppercut to McDermott’s exposed jaw. The punch was too weak to do much harm, but it enabled Tim to spin free.
“All right, then,” McDermott snarled, and leveled his pistol at the boy.
“No!” I bellowed.
The sound was deafening.
But instead of emanating from McDermott’s weapon, it came from behind me. I wheeled and saw Cait kneeling with a revolver. She must have snatched it up from LeCaron’s weapon pile. Staring a
t her dumbly, my ears ringing, I wondered why she didn’t fire again.
Then I turned and saw the reason.
A hole gaped in McDermott’s throat and an agonized gargling came from him. He reached for the wound but his hands made it only part way. His eyes rolled upward, showing white; he fell hard to his knees and onto his face.
Cait ran forward to gather Tim in her arms. They held fast to each other, crying. For my part, I was still quaking from fear and rage and relief, equally mixed. I bent over LeCaron and prodded him. No pulse. His one eye stared up at the sky. I studied him tensely, half expecting him to spring at me. But he remained still.
This time, finally, he was gone.
McDermott’s lifeless body must have nearly matched my weight, but I scarcely felt the effort it took to throw him bodily into the swamp hole. He sprawled on the surface for a moment, then began to sink. In a minute or so, all that remained visible of him were concentric circles on the surface.
“Samuel,” I heard Cait say in a soft warning tone.
I turned and saw an Indian lifting Goose. He was tall and fairly light-skinned, with sharp features and scar tissue running across one cheek; his face was painted with zigzags similar to Goose’s; a single feather emerged from his braided hair.
I stepped forward but stopped when Goose motioned me back. The tall Indian turned and regarded me. His black eyes seemed to burn into my soul as he tossed his head contemptuously. He could kill me before I took another step, and we both knew it. With LeCaron’s knife he cut the arrows from the corpse, then fitted one to his bow and drove it deep into the ground. He pointed to it, then slid his hand laterally in a swift gesture that said clearly to leave LeCaron where he was.
I nodded. Fine with me.
The Indian pointed at Cait, at Tim, at me, and finally up toward Linc’s position. He thrust out his arm imperiously, pointing southward.
Telling us to get out of the Hills.
Again I nodded. Nothing I wanted more.
He steadied Goose on his feet, and together they moved slowly toward the trees. Just before they passed from view, he glanced back with the same contemptuous look. If we hadn’t been with Goose, there was little doubt what our fate would have been. A few moments later, the clopping of a pony’s feet came to us.