Fiddlefoot

by Luke Short

  Behind him and to the side now he heard a wild cursing. The night-herder, caught between two choices, had waited too late to quiet the horses and they were away from him. Now he shot, and Frank saw in the man’s hesitation that he had read this aright. He was heading for the string, shooting at it.

  Frank swerved his horse sharply, riding now to head off the night-herder, who was angling across the meadow toward the string, invisible now in the night. His course, Frank saw, would converge soon with his own, and he held his fire, knowing his own location was undetected.

  He stole a glance over his shoulder now, and saw that the two men at the fire had not mounted, and he knew their horses had been turned out with the bunch and they were afoot. They were standing in front of the fire now, waving blankets, trying to turn the oncoming stampede, and then he saw them dive for the shelter of the canyon wall as the wave of rampaging, terror-filled horses hit the camp. He saw the fire killed in an explosion of sparks, and then he turned his head to pick up the night-rider.

  At that very instant he was aware that he had overshot. He heard the night-rider’s horse upon him and then something slammed into his sorrel with the force of an avalanche. He felt his horse falling, and he kicked free of the stirrups before he was hurled into the air. He landed heavily on his shoulder, while to the side of him he heard his horse crash to the ground. And mingled with this was the sound of a mighty weight falling on his horse, driving the breath from him in a great growling, grunting squeal.

  Frantically, then, knowing the second horse had piled onto his sorrel, he drove his boots into the gravel, pushing himself away from the tangle. The night-rider’s horse seemed in that darkness to do a complete somersault over the sorrel, and he hit the ground with an earth-stirring impact only feet away from Frank’s head. Frank heard a bone snap, heard the squeal of terror, and he rolled wildly away from the thrashing animal. And with this cold urgency driving him, he heard the hoarse idiotic shouting of Cass in the dim distance, hazing the string into the canyon.

  He lay there only seconds, his shoulder numb, his breath coming in great gasping heaves and the sound of it drowned by the noise of the thrashing animal. When he heard a horse floundering to its feet a moment later, only then did he realize that he was afoot, and that he must catch his horse or fight his way out. Where was the night-herder?

  He stumbled to his feet, fell, and heard the horse walking in the night to his right. He rose and ran toward the sound, and then, despairingly, he heard the horse bolt, settle into a trot, and finally into a gallop. He could make out the shadowy form of the brute running for the canyon mouth and the other horses.

  And then, yards behind him, he heard Albie Beecham’s voice, wild and high-pitched in anger, calling, “Here’s a man down! Here’s one down, Pete! Build up the fire!”

  Chapter 12

  FRANK KNELT and lay down then, utterly still, realizing only now that his hand, as numb as his right arm and shoulder, still held his gun. They’ll hunt me down, he thought narrowly, accepting this as the price he knew he might have to pay. It was not important now that the string had got through and vanished: this was real and immediate.

  Behind him in the darkness he could hear the continued thrashing of the crippled horse, and he knew he must use the cover of this noise to move to safety. He rose and ran toward the road and the canyon wall. Suddenly, the night stillness was shattered by a single shot, coming from somewhere behind him, Albie had shot the horse so he could hear him, he knew, and now he was acutely aware of the cold and wicked threat of this.

  Even now, the man at the camp fifty yards ahead of him was kicking at the coals of the fire, fanning them with his hat into a small blaze. By its meager light he could see the watchful shape of Pete Faraday prowling the middle of the road, blocking the canyon exit. He knew that Albie Beecham behind him would have only to wait for more fire, then move slowly toward any near sound in the night, and he would have him silhouetted against the far blaze. Then a careful shot would do it.

  Go back? No, the threat was still there, and his friends were ahead. Try and ram through? Not with Pete ahead of him. With Albie behind him, and the third man at the side, he would have no chance he knew. If he moved across the meadow to the east, Albie was sure to pick up his silhouette. Only one route of escape lay open, and that was the canyon wall beyond the road some thirty yards away. He tried to remember the slope of the wall, and could not, although he recalled it was only thirty or forty feet high. Thinking of this now, he did not like it, but the urgency to get out of here was on him and he did not hesitate. He moved cautiously toward the road, bending far over to use the low screening brush for a shield, straining his hearing for the slightest sound indicating that Albie had picked him up.

  Pete Faraday yelled now, “Sing out, Albie!” but Albie was quiet, unwilling to give his position away. The fire was slow in catching: even when built up, Frank guessed, its light would not reach here.

  He moved more swiftly now, the low brush giving him some shelter, and then he was across the road and against the cliff. He straightened slowly, feeling the texture of its surface. It was live rock, and would not crumble under his weight.

  Ramming his gun in his belt, he found a toe-hold and began to climb out of this trap. He had gone a silent and laborious ten feet when he felt his back tighten at a sound below him. Albie, emboldened, was cruising around now. Frank listened, feeling the skin in his back crawling, shrinking.

  Then Albie called sharply, “Pete, get up on the rim! He’s between us!”

  Frank watched narrowly while the man at the fire moved over to cover the road, while Pete vanished among the rocks at the canyon exit.

  With infinite caution now, Frank felt for a handhold and moved up. The first gentle slope of the canyon wall was straightening now toward the perpendicular, and he was sweating with the urgency and effort of silence. Surely, if Albie raised his eyes, he must see him. Below and back toward the dog-leg, he heard Albie’s swift and hungry prowling.

  He concentrated desperately now, moving with infinite caution. Above him he felt for a handhold, and his fingers slipped into a deep crevice, dislodging a pebble. He stiffened, feeling the pebble tumble, and he listened while it fell, hitting the wall twice, and sharply, before it spattered into the gravel at the bottom.

  Albie caught the sound. He yelled shrilly, “Hurry, Pete!” but he did not move, and Frank knew then that Albie could not see the canyon wall in the darkness.

  He worked desperately then; looking above him he saw the black rimrock silhouetted against the stars. And now agonizingly he could find no handhold, and he wasted precious minutes moving along the crevice where he had his foothold, until his hands encountered a crack that would give him a purchase.

  He pulled himself up, and heard Albie cursing softly, impatiently somewhere below him. The rimrock was dose now. He kept watching it, working toward it, and when he reached it he pulled himself up until his head was almost even with it. Pausing, he wiped the sweat from his hands, and sought a fresh toe-hold to his right now. He swung up, and his chest was against the smooth rock of the rim.

  Remembering that he would be silhouetted now, he paused stilling his breathing, listening for Pete. There was no sound, and reassured, his muscles were tensed for the final heave up when a faint sound reached his ears. It was a brushing, whispering sound that was there only a moment, and then was not. He lay motionless, listening, trying to identify the sound. And then it came to him. That damn Indian has taken his boots.

  Frank’s hand traveled to his gun now. He pulled it noiselessly, held it muffled against his shirt as he pulled back the hammer and stretched his arm out on the rock in front of him, the gun cocked. From his low vantage-point against the rimrock, anything moving along the canyon’s edge was silhouetted against the stars.

  He waited, breath held, hearing Albie’s bitter cursing below, listening beyond this distraction. And then a vague form took shape in the night, moving with the slow stealth of a hunting animal. Clo
ser now, it took the form of a man, and he was keeping back from the rim. Frank stilled his breathing. If the whisper of Pete Faraday’s sock feet once paused, he must shoot.

  Peter moved closer now, and like a wraith drifted in front of him, in front of his gun, and passed on. Some ten feet beyond Frank, he changed his course, feeling with sure feet for the edge of the rimrock. He was going to have his look over the edge.

  He halted, and now, almost hesitantly, his suspicions aroused by something, he began to move back toward Frank. Frank moved his arm to cover him, and his shirt whispered almost inaudibly against the rock as his arm moved.

  Pete caught the sound: his movement was swift then. Frank sensed it, and swung his gun around and fired immediately. He heard the slug hit, heard Pete grunt, and saw him jerk around, and then there was a raking sound against the rock, followed by three full seconds of silence before the heavy, soft thud below him told him Pete had fallen. He scrambled over the rimrock now, careless of the noise he made, as he heard Albie calling wildly, “Pete, Pete! Who’s hit?”

  Afterward, Albie shot, but it was only temper, and he was shooting at nothing. Frank lay on his belly, pressing his cheek against the warm rock, and he was shaking and angry at himself for it. When he heard a man running below, he raised his head and saw that the man at the fire, attracted by Albie’s shot, was joining him in the meadow.

  He should move, he knew, but he lay there a moment longer before he rolled over, pulled off his boots, and rose. Moving back from the rim now, he traveled at a steady pace to the south, until he had placed the fire far behind him.

  The next fifteen minutes he spent finding a way down the canyon wall, and when he was presently on the road in the canyon’s cleft, he halted. There was little danger of being followed, for both Albie and the other man were afoot. Frank wondered now whose downed horse had been silenced by Albie’s shot, his own or Albie’s. If it was his sorrel, then the evidence was there for Rhino to read. Whoever it was, he didn’t care. Rhino had a man hurt or dead, his horses scattered, his crew afoot, and, unless something had happened to the string, Rhino stood to lose a five thousand dollars sale of horses. Frank felt a deep and wicked satisfaction in that as he turned down the narrow canyon road.

  It was some minutes before he picked up the sound of a horse being carefully ridden toward him. He drifted back against the canyon wall, and when the rider finally was abreast of him he called softly, “Ray?”

  “Who is it?” Ray Shields’ voice was wary and hard.

  “Me. Frank.”

  Frank walked over to him and he heard Ray swearing softly in relief.

  “I never even saw you after we started, Frank. What happened?”

  Frank told him, and afterward asked, “Did the string get through?”

  “They ran for four miles before they could be stopped. No horses hurt, nobody hurt. They weren’t even shot at.” Ray laughed with relief. “Rhino’s bunch are strung along the Gunnison Canyon for five miles.”

  Frank said, “Did you run across a loose horse down the road?”

  “Albie’s. I hid his saddle and choused the horse up a canyon.” He hesitated. “That all right?”

  It’s all wrapped up for you, Rhino, Frank thought, and he answered quietly, “That’s fine.”

  Chapter 13

  FORT CRAWFORD was a new post, begun in early spring as a counterthreat to Ouray and his restive Utes who had declined to submit to reservation authority. Two troops of cavalry from Fort Garland, three hundred miles to the east, had been sent to construct and garrison the post, which lay on a dry triangle of sage flats between two creeks that funneled out from the beginning foothills of the Rockies’ western slope.

  Approaching it now from the north and the west, its few log buildings and its ranks of Sibley tents which still housed the troopers seemed lonely and insignificant against the vast backdrop of towering Blade Mesa behind it. The flag drooped lifelessly in the blazing midday sun from its pole at the head of the parade ground, stirred only by an occasional scurrying dust devil blown in from the desert to break on the far foothills.

  A few Ute lodges, their skins rolled up from the ground to catch any stray breeze, were clustered to the south, and Frank, who had delivered a bunch of Rhino’s replacement mounts to the post in the spring, saw little change. The adobe corrals and stables to the east were finished, the drop logs of a few more buildings around the rectangular parade ground laid, and a few rows of logs added to the long barracks on the north side. Stacks of fresh-cut pine lumber from the mills in the mountains lay darkening in the sun. Riding ahead of the string now, Frank could hear a lackadaisical hammering, and there was already the air of deliberation and timelessness about the place that characterized all Army establishments.

  A handful of troopers strolled out between the tents to watch the string pass on the way to the quartermaster corrals. Frank dropped back to chase off a pair of yapping Indian curs who were snapping at Johnny’s leaders, and he glanced over the outfit. The crew was sun-blackened and dusty, their shirts ringed with the white salt stains of sweat, but the horses were in good shape.

  He lifted his horse into a lope and went on ahead, turning past the north stable and heading for the big quartermaster corral. Lieutenant Ehret, he knew, would remember him, and since Rhino’s horses were expected, the lieutenant would assume Frank was still working for Rhino. This might help in the inspection but Frank didn’t really care; these horses were good, and he knew an honest vet or line officer could not turn up faults in any of them.

  He dismounted by the big corral where a dusty blue-clad trooper was already opening the gate, and dispatched him for Lieutenant Ehret. Frank waved the string on into the vast corral, closed the gate, and then, leading his horse, he tramped over to the trough, where fresh water was running from a pipe. He drank deeply from the pipe, and then, while he waited for his horse to drink, he went back in his mind over the routine of the inspection. The trouble, of course, would come when the check for payment was made out and Lieutenant Ehret was requested to make it out to him instead of Rhino. For Lieutenant Ehret, when allowed to use discretion in buying, had his favorites, and Rhino, wise in the ways of horse-dealing, had long since cemented his friendship with the quartermaster by presents and gifts. As a result whenever Lieutenant Ehret was directed to buy horses from the local market and not through requests for submission of bids, he sent a letter to Rhino stating his requirements and Rhino complied. By allowing other horse-dealers to remain in ignorance of those requirements, the whole thing was made easy and profitable to them both, and impeccably legal. When a little pressure was needed, that could be used too.

  Frank remembered when another horse-dealer had tried to interfere, and this recalled a necessary chore. He left his horse and tramped across the corral to the fence separating the quartermaster corral from the north stable corral. There were twenty-odd horses in the small corral, most of them clustered in the shade of the stable roof’s overhang. Frank only had to glance at them to identify the Starcross brand on three of them, and as he turned back he thought grimly, I learned a lot of things from Rhino and Hugh.

  A half-dozen men in blue field uniform and black campaign hats came into the corral now, and Frank walked toward them. Lieutenant Ehret saw him coming and smiled, and stepped toward him, holding out a soft, white hand. He was a paunchy man, with a fold of belly overlapping his belt, and he had a ragged roan mustache, worn full, that covered a loose-lipped mouth.

  He seemed tired and harried, but pleasant enough, and Frank guessed the post construction was largely his chore. He said, “How are you, son? How’s friend Rhino?”

  Frank told him, but already Lieutenant Ehret was looking at the string across the lot. They were still in line, for Frank wanted to keep them from water until the inspection was over. Frank shook hands with the contract veterinary, an old and mussed and amiable man in a careless uniform who remembered him from the spring and introduced him to the two young officers with him, Lieutenants Hardy and R
elitch. Two troopers carrying saddles crossed over to the string.

  Lieutenant Hardy was lean and young and ramrod-straight, just out of the Academy, and there was a kind of cheerful impudence latent in his face. He regarded the string a moment, then said, “How many are you buying, Ehret?”

  “Forty, I asked for.”

  Hardy looked at Frank. “Not counting the buckboard team, you’ve got thirty-nine there.”

  Frank pointed to his own horse, which was still at the trough.

  “Still that’s only forty.” Hardy grinned. “Don’t you allow for rejections?”

  “Not on this bunch,” Frank said.

  Hardy laughed and shook his head, and now they moved over to the string. Cass and Johnny had unharnessed the lead team, and now Cass led the first horse out in front of them. Lieutenant Ehret, already bored, sought the shade of the stable wall and sat down, while the vet and the two lieutenants looked over the horse for faults of conformation. Then the vet examined mouth and feet, and, finished, signaled one of the troopers to saddle the horse. Lieutenant Hardy mounted now, and Frank supposed he was substituting for Lieutenant Ehret as inspecting line officer. Hardy tried the horse for gentleness, and then galloped him to the far end of the corral and back, and reined up before the vet. This was the test for wind. The vet listened, and said, “Sound. Bring on the next.”

  Frank drifted over and squatted by Lieutenant Ehret in the shade, willing to let the horses show without help from him. Ehret observed pleasantly, “They’re all the same brand, and they’re a good bunch. Rhino ought to remember that brand.”