Beyond Fort North

by Peter Dawson

  Now, quite suddenly, a strong impatience was in him as he glanced toward the window once more. He was relieved at seeing the strip of light along the blind’s edge faded almost to darkness. Sight of that gave him a real sense of release, and at once he was pushing himself up and gingerly lifting his legs from under the blanket.

  The dull ache along his thigh took on a harder pound that he tried to ignore. He bent his bad leg and, reaching down, tied the two ends of the cut denim about his calf to hold together the torn material. He sat a moment after he had lowered his legs to the floor, letting an unsettling dizziness drain away. And shortly he stood up off the bed and limped to the door. There, leaning against the wall and breathing heavily, he took down the shell belt and quickly buckled it about his waist.

  He was pushing out from the wall again when he caught the slam of the kitchen door. Almost at once Sarah Blake’s voice sounded in to him, and after several more seconds Faith’s spoke in answer. As the two went on talking he crossed over to the bed, got down onto his knees and groped around beneath the bed. He found his boots there as he had hoped he would. Pulling them on quickly, he crawled on over to the window and came to a stand again. And now his forehead was beaded with perspiration, and the pain in his leg put a catch in his breathing.

  He let the blind up with only a slight rustle of sound. The closed sash was stubborn, the unpainted new wood at first refusing to slide upward. When it did suddenly move, Gentry came rigid at the scraping sound it made. He hurriedly sat on the sill, ducked his head outside, and then, holding onto the sash, laboriously lifted his legs on out. Surprisingly little pain resulted from this maneuver, and as he slid gingerly down and caught his weight with his good leg against the ground outside, he was feeling steadier than he had for some hours.

  The shapes of buildings along the alley were already indistinct in the gathering darkness. He was thankful for that as he hobbled down across the narrow yard to the gate in the picket fence. Twice when he hurried his bad leg caught his weight too abruptly, and a stab of pain shot into his hip. By the time he stood at the gate he realized he couldn’t go on this way.

  So he groped his way along the waist-high fence, feeling of each picket until finally he discovered a loose one. He pried it out from the others, jerked it loose. Using it as a cane, he tested it for a few steps.

  Not bad, he told himself as he limped on. The leg complained only little more than it did when he stood still, although the constant throbbing above his knee increased steadily until he knew he would be forced to stop often and rest.

  He made his first halt in the obscurity of a shed several doors below the Lucky Find. And as he leaned back against the shed’s wall to rest, letting his heavy breathing subside, he suddenly thought about the Colt being empty and lifted it from its holster.

  When it was loaded, the hammer resting on an empty chamber, he felt much better. He straightened again and hobbled on, wishing only that Ash’s stable yard lay closer than the far end of the street.

  * * * * *

  Lamps were glowing in the cabins across the parade as Mary Fitzhugh came to the window of her bedroom, having just finished packing the top tray of her trunk. A faint stirring of the curtains before the gentle twilight breeze seemed quite in keeping with her thoughts. She felt almost at peace now, only one small doubt ruffling the surface of a beatitude that had been with her since midday.

  She had today honorably acquitted herself in her obligations here. Proof of that had come late this morning there in the cemetery where she realized she had been the center of attention for officers and men alike. Not one of the troopers or civilians who had regarded her with such open respect and admiration — no, not even George Spires or Mike Clears — had known that her tears weren’t being shed for Robert Fitzhugh, but rather in outright relief at her problem having so simply resolved itself.

  She was free at last, free to go to Dan Gentry and humbly offer herself, offer to go with him to a new life remote from the grim and ghostly reminders of how weak and headstrong she had been. It still appalled her to look back upon her thoughts in that insane and brutal moment there in the cabin’s other bedroom when she hadn’t realized that the major lay there dead.

  She thought back upon her conversation with Gentry in the buggy behind the saloon the other rainy morning with much the same sense of shame. She hoped she hadn’t offended him, hadn’t said the wrong things about the Reed girl; it was jealousy alone that had made her try to turn Gentry against the woman.

  But if she was halfway ashamed of the way she had acted, she was even more certain now that a few minutes with Gentry would settle their differences. What she was offering would make him forget her lapse. She had a supreme confidence in her ability to attract him, or any other man, physically. All she wanted now was the opportunity.

  The packing of her belongings over the afternoon hours had been a necessary thing, a coming to grips with her new freedom. No one need ever know that she had ignored common decency to the point of being ready to leave here almost before the dirt had been smoothed over Fitzhugh’s grave. She was taking no chances. Dan Gentry might be on the point of leaving, or taking the stage out tomorrow morning. If he did take it, she would be with him.

  She wondered just now how she could explain a visit to the town tonight if anyone became curious. And, wondering, she happened to glance obliquely down this near side of the parade and made out George Spires’s buggy standing before his quarters in the settling darkness. Not at all curious as to why the buggy was there, she thought only of how easy it would be to make the medico some excuse for wanting to borrow it.

  She turned from the window, snatched her light coat from the bed, and was pulling it on as she went out and down the porch steps. But, a quarter minute later, she was feeling a strong disappointment at seeing no light in the window of Spires’s cabin. Even so, she went up onto the porch and knocked at his door. There was no answer.

  She was standing there, eyeing the buggy and wondering what to do next, when she heard the solid crunch of boots approaching from farther along the path. Then shortly a man’s shape moved in on her out of the gloom. She recognized Lieutenant Peebles.

  “Good evening,” she said as he came up on her. He saluted, and without waiting for his reply, she asked: “Have you seen the doctor?”

  Peebles glanced at the darkened cabin. “He’s probably at Headquarters, ma’am.”

  “Perhaps.” Mary was undecided for only a second. Then, her mind made up, she said: “Would you mind giving him a message for me, Lieutenant? I would like to go down to town to see the dressmaker.” She was wondering as she worded the lie if she would ever again have to give this overworked excuse to anyone. “I know the doctor wouldn’t mind my using his rig. But I’d like him to know where it’s gone.”

  “You’re going alone?” Peebles’s concern showed strongly. “I should be honored if you’d let me accompany you.”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” she said quickly. “I’ll be perfectly all right. The fact is, I rather enjoy the prospect. It’s so long since I’ve been able to come and go as I pleased.”

  “Indeed it has,” Peebles said respectfully. Then, moving over to the rig, he offered his hand.

  Stepping up into the buggy she said — “Thank you, Lieutenant.” — in that low and purposely intimate tone she invariably used when alone with an attractive man. And again, as he unsnapped the tether weight from the horse’s bit and came back to place it on the floor at her feet, she murmured: “Thank you. You are very kind.”

  The next moment she was regretting her coquettishness, for Peebles removed his hat to say haltingly: “I’ve been hoping you will...that you’ll stay on with us for a time, Missus Fitzhugh. At least until the major’s affairs are settled. Have you made any plans?”

  “None as yet.” Her tone had changed, taken on a brittle quality. She sensed at once a stiffening in him and hastened to add: �
�Though it’s nice of you to be thinking of me, Lieutenant.”

  The smile she gave him as she lifted the reins and put the horse in motion left Peebles as he had been a moment ago, worshiping her charm and beauty. He saluted hastily, smartly, and she was very careful not to let her smile fade until the darkness hid him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Never had she enjoyed the drive down along the rough bench road as she did this evening. The stars were brightening overhead, the cool breeze was like a tonic, and her thoughts were filled with longings and vividly imagined scenes of what it would be like once she and Gentry were together. She wasn’t listening to the one small doubt that centered about the Reed girl. Instead, she thought of what an attractive couple she and Gentry would make. Walking the street of some city, Denver, perhaps, people would turn and look at them as she strode along with her arm through his. She had a vision of being in Gentry’s arms, whirling to the strains of a waltz across a polished ballroom floor reflecting the light of hundreds of candles glowing softly in crystal chandeliers. Her gown would be of pure white in contrast to her recent dress of severe mourning; it would accent her dark hair, and its cut would be subtly revealing. She had no illusions about her attractiveness, and it excited her to think of the countless ways she could make Gentry aware of her.

  She had turned from the foot of the bench road and was walking Spires’s horse up the alley before she quite realized she was in town. Idly, she happened to notice the new room on the back of the cabin surrounded by the white picket fence. This dwelling was the only one in town that made much pretense of being well cared for, and always as she came along the street she would notice it. Now she wondered vaguely whose it might be.

  She had a bad moment as she drew in at the tie rail beyond the Lucky Find’s rear platform. What would Mike Clears think of her, coming here at night so furtively asking about Dan Gentry? But after a second or two’s hesitation she stepped aground, hardly caring what he might think. She knew what she wanted, and none of these petty difficulties mattered any longer.

  She knocked at the door almost timidly. Then, having had no answer, she rapped on the panel with all her strength. Abruptly the door swung open. An old, stooped man with a hawkish face stood there glaring out at her.

  It was Ben Qualls and he began gruffly: “All you got to do is turn the knob and walk straight....” He saw who it was, surprise washing over his wrinkled face. “Oh, beg pardon, ma’am.” And he opened the door wider.

  Mary drew herself up stiffly and she entered the room holding her long sweeping skirt clear of the floor. She caught the taint of whiskey and tobacco in the air and didn’t like it; that showed in her crisp tones as she asked the oldster: “May I speak with Mister Clears?”

  “Not now, you can’t.” Qualls wasn’t particularly impressed by her haughty manner. “He’s down at Ralph Blake’s waitin’ for the doctor.”

  “Not Doctor Spires?” Mary was thinking of having taken the buggy when the medico might be wanting it.

  “Ain’t no other I know of.”

  Mary tried to ignore the ready sarcasm and even managed to smile. “Then would you happen to know Dan Gentry?”

  “The captain? Sure do.”

  “Is he in town tonight?”

  “Couldn’t be much of any place else. Not with that leg.” Mary was puzzled, taking a moment to make any sense of what he had said. “His leg? What about it?”

  Qualls forgot his testiness as he told her: “You must not’ve heard. Gentry stopped a bullet today. Crippled him bad, accordin’ to what Mike said.”

  She caught her breath. Wide-eyed, she asked hollowly: “Where is he? Can you take me to him?”

  The oldster shook his head. “Got to watch things here. But it’s only down the street a ways. Ralph Blake’s house. Know where it is?”

  “No,” Mary answered in a small voice, what she was imagining making her feel faint and deeply afraid.

  Qualls tilted his head toward the alley. “Go back the way you come till you sight a white fence. That’s Blake’s. Maybe sixty or seventy yards below the....” He swore soundly then as the closing of the door interrupted him, for Mary hadn’t waited to hear him out.

  The moment she was on the buggy’s seat once more she began sawing at the reins, trying to turn Spires’s horse in this narrow space. She was frantic now, and when finally the scraping of the wheel rim against the box abruptly stopped and the buggy began rolling she reached for the whip and used it fiercely. Then almost at once she was having trouble pulling the animal down out of its run as the picket fence came up grayly out of the darkness.

  She managed somehow to bring the horse to a stand before she had reached the end of the fence. Forgetting him then, she dropped the reins, jumped aground, and ran on in through the gate. There was a lighted window alongside the cabin’s rear door. As she knocked she looked in and saw a stout woman slicing a potato into a frying-pan at a coal stove along the room’s far wall. The woman only looked around, made no move to come across to the door, and in sudden anger Mary twisted the knob, pushed the door open, and started in.

  She took one step only, then stopped. Faith Tipton stood there, had been about to open the door. It had nearly struck her as it swung so suddenly open. Now, as Faith saw who it was, her startlement gave way before a smile and she said graciously: “Do come in, Missus Fitzhugh.”

  Mary saw Mike Clears then as he came up out of a chair alongside a table to her right. And as the shock of finding Faith in the cabin, of understanding why she must be here, subsided, she ignored the girl and spoke to Clears. “I understand Dan’s here. A man at your place told me he’s been hurt.”

  Clears nodded politely. “Yes. But he’s doing well enough.”

  His words dulled the apprehension in her. And then, still acutely aware of Faith, she asked: “Why didn’t you let me know about this?”

  Clears gave Faith a puzzled look. He shrugged, drawling: “No one thought of it, I reckon. Or maybe we’ve been too busy looking after him since it happened.”

  Mary decided to overlook his mild reproach, not caring what he might be thinking as she asked: “May I see him?”

  Again Clears’s glance went to Faith, this time in a mute questioning. And it was Faith who said quietly: “Of course you may. He’s asleep. But we’re having to waken him for the doctor in a few minutes anyway.”

  She stepped on away from Mary now, leading the way to the bedroom door after taking the lamp from the table alongside Clears. It was galling to Mary to realize that Faith was so plainly in charge of the patient. Her anger must have been quite obvious then, for she noticed Clears turning away with a faint smile, and the other woman was staring at her in a way that only further provoked her.

  Faith had opened the door and gone in through it. Mary, following, caught her choked outcry. The next instant Faith was calling in a small voice: “Mike, he’s gone!”

  Mary stopped just short of the door; Clears pushing hastily past her and on into the room. From where she stood Mary could see a rumpled blanket on the empty bed, could also see the open window beyond. And now Sarah Blake came over from the stove, looking in at Clears and Faith to ask solemnly: “How does it happen we didn’t hear?”

  Clears, coming out of the room hurriedly, shook his head in a baffled way. “Let’s don’t worry about how it happened. The thing now is to find him.”

  He took his hat from the back of the chair he had been sitting in. As he put it on he said brusquely: “If George arrives before I’m back tell him to stay right here. I’ll get some help and we’ll bring Dan to him.”

  He went to the outside door and hesitated there, looking at Faith who had come back into the kitchen. Seeing how pale she was, he said gently: “It’s not your fault he’s so bull-headed! Don’t worry, nothing’s happened to him.” He slammed the door heavily as he went out.

  Hardly had that sound died in the room’s smal
l confines before Mary, her eyes ablaze, was saying: “So this is the way you look after him!”

  For a moment Faith’s look was one of deep hurt. But then some thought brought a subtle change to her expression and more color came to her face. Then, paying Mary not the slightest attention, she came on across to set the lamp on the table. “Sarah,” she said quietly, “I think I know where he may have gone. I’ll get Mike and take him with me. Will you wait for the doctor?”

  “Of course.” Sarah Blake watched her go to the door. “You’re not going without a coat! Take mine, you’ll be cold.”

  But Faith only shook her head and went on. The door stayed ajar after she had gone, and for several moments both Mary and Sarah stood listening to her quick steps fading out across the yard and up the alley.

  Then Sarah Blake’s voice abruptly cut across the stillness. “She’ll find him.”

  Mary’s blazing glance swung around on the woman. And Sarah, misreading it, said worriedly: “Here, honey, you sit down and rest, and I’ll pour you some coffee.”

  * * * * *

  The stable yard lay empty and shadowed. Only the faint pinkish glow of the forge’s dying coals under the blacksmith’s lean-to relieved the heavy obscurity. Along the back fence, the corral poles grayly streaked the blackness below the barn’s hump-roofed shape. Now and then a horse’s muffled hoof thud would sound over the sibilant trickling of the feed-pipe at the log trough. The high-bodied shapes of two freight wagons rose over the low roof line of the ranked stables. Beyond them lay an open stretch, plain in the starlight. This wide wedge of the yard was what Gentry was watching.

  He stood leaning in the open rear door of Ash’s new building, the intended hardware store, knowing that he was well hidden in its black rectangle. He judged he had been here perhaps twenty minutes. Occasionally he would reach down and gently rub his thigh to ease its constant ache when it threatened to turn to numbness. This and the unwavering glance he fixed on the open stretch of the yard were the only two things that held his attention.