One Man, One Gun

by Matt Chisholm

  A man shouted.

  He turned slowly, lifting his gun and striving to cock it.

  “Don’t shoot.”

  He knew that voice. Slowly, he sank to his knees.

  “Bear up, old chap. Let me give you a hand.”

  He knew it was the Englishman, but he couldn’t put a name to him. He heard himself babbling a little. Wilder helped him to his feet and half-carried him back to the rocks. Half-lying there against the rocks, he looked around him. There were two men lying there and the flies were thick on them.

  Wilder said: “Poor old Straker’s dead. So’s Calthorp.” He sounded remarkably calm, as if two good dogs had been put down. Jody marveled a little.

  He croaked: “Get the horses an’ let’s git outa here.”

  “No point,” said the Englishman. “The Indians are either dead or gone. We really must bury our dead. I mean they would have done the same for us.”

  Jody said: “They’re dead and don’t bank on the Indians bein’ gone.”

  Wilder was somewhat indignant. “I really must insist, old man.”

  “Insist all you want,” said Jody. “I’m lightin’ a shuck.” He tried to rise and fell on his face.

  When he came to, he was lying on his back and his hat was over his face. He found that the arrow was gone from his shoulder and that both his shoulder and his arm had been neatly bandaged. He rose slowly uncertainly to his feet and saw that some twenty yards away the Englishman was busy digging. Jody wanted and to laugh insanely — he certainly had to raise his sombrero to this greenhorn. Wilder saw him and sauntered over.

  “Good to see you up and about, old boy,” he said cheerfully. “My sainted aunt, I really thought you were a goner. You took a real purler there. I’ve dug a couple of graves for the chaps. Not very deep, but then I haven’t really had time to do a really first-class job. Do you think you’re up to giving me a hand with them?”

  Jody gave him a hand at the grisly task. Wilder had neatly wrapped the dead men in tarpaulins and lashed them with ropes. They dragged them to the graves and simply rolled them in. Wilder shoveled on the earth and carried heavy stones to place over them. He then said a few good words over them and turned to Jody.

  “Pretty rough do, Storm. I was damned attached to those two fellows. They were jolly good pals. Wretched business. My God, I’ll have to go through the ghastly routine of telling their families.”

  He fetched the horses and saw to the loads. Jody mounted Blue and said: “Ever hear of a feller called Rolf?”

  Wilder’s face lit up.

  “By Jove, yes,” he said. “He put us up for a night about a month back. Capital fellow.” He thought a little and said cheerfully, “Perhaps that’s rather an over-statement. He’s really a cantankerous, bad-tempered, mean, pig-headed er — son-of-a-bitch as you would say. However, he possesses one redeeming feature.”

  “What’s that? demanded Jody.

  “His daughter is a damned pretty gel.”

  “Well, that’s somethin’,” Jody said and they turned their horses east.

  Jody wondered if he could stay in the saddle long enough to get clear of the Indians. He felt like hell.

  Chapter Five

  Apart from a certain anxiety on account of the Utes who might be trailing them with murder in their hearts, the two young men rode east for a couple of days in a fair state of mind. The anxiety grew less the further they rode from what they in their ignorance called the Ute country. Neither appreciated that the Indians who had attacked their camp would have happily ranged as far south as the Rio Grande if their medicine had been somewhat more propitious.

  It was only after a couple of days following a meandering trail and often turning back on themselves to watch their back-trail, for no other reason than for Jody to prove to the Englishman that he was a veteran Indian fighter, that they halted. They did so because, even though they had frequently changed horses, the animals were tired from so much continuous travel and were also badly in need of bait.

  Jody was sadly in need of rest. The wound in his left arm was smarting uncomfortably and the arrow wound in his right shoulder was a source of constant pain. Whether he had failed to keep it clean or it had been irritated by the constant movement of riding, it was badly inflamed and had begun to worry him gravely. His youthful belief in his own immortality was badly shaken. It dawned on him more than once, as he jogged along behind Wilder, that if some change did not take place in his condition soon, the consequences might be serious. He was starting to suffer periods of lightheadedness and dizziness that became increasingly alarming.

  When they finally agreed to halt, Jody was only too willing to leave the preparation of the camp and a meal to the Englishman and to recline back against his saddle. Wilder, humming to himself, went cheerfully about his chores and soon he had prepared a meal of bacon and beans and hot coffee which, after so much hardship, seemed to be the most wonderful thing in the world to Jody.

  As they ate, the horses contentedly munching on grass nearby, surrounded by what seemed to be the wildest and most beautiful country in the world, Jody asked a question —

  “Henry, you sure you know where this Rolf’s place is at?”

  Wilder looked surprised.

  “Why, of course I do, old chap,” he exclaimed, “whatever gave you the idea I didn’t?”

  “Well, we’ve been wanderin’ all over an’ you ain’t exactly an old-timer in this here country.”

  Wilder laughed.

  “True enough, Jody, true enough, but you must remember that I was bought up in the country. I have an infallible instinct for direction. Tomorrow, I shall deliver you to Rolf in person. You have my word on it.”

  The Englishman sounded so confident that Jody was reassured. A short while after, Jody retired to his blankets and fell into the deep untroubled sleep of sheer exhaustion.

  He awoke to broad daylight. He opened his eyes and knew at once that he felt a little better. The sleep had done him good. He lay there for a few minutes, enjoying the early morning sunshine and telling himself he must stir himself and rise. He was a man of routine and the law said that when the sun was up, a man should be about his business. Today, that meant being in the saddle.

  Jody knew that something was wrong. At first, he didn’t know what. He sat up and listened.

  The breeze gently ruffled the trees. There was bird-song along the nearby creek. Far off a deer coughed deep in timber.

  He stood up, hurting his shoulder as he did so.

  He realized what was wrong.

  He couldn’t hear the horses.

  He looked around. Where the hell was Wilder? His bedding had gone.

  Jody’s instinct sang a note of warning. He turned to his bed for his gun. He didn’t see it. Pulling aside his blankets, and moving his saddle, he searched.

  Something cold and heavy sank like stone into his guts. His gun was gone. His rifle had been leaning ...

  Icy panic touched him.

  He walked as fast as he could to the stretch of grass where the horses had been staked during the night. There was no sign of them.

  His first thought was that the Indians had come under cover of dark, killed Wilder and lifted the horses. But that didn’t start to make sense. If they had killed Wilder, why hadn’t they killed him, Jody? His weapons had been taken.

  Then rage hit him.

  Wilder.

  The bastard had taken his guns and run off with the horses. Jody was left afoot and defenseless.

  “Looking for me, old chap?”

  Jody turned slowly.

  The Englishman was standing in the shadow of a tree, leaning nonchalantly against the trunk. The gun he held in his right hand was pointed at the ground at Jody’s feet. It was Jody’s gun.

  Jody took a grip on himself.

  “Reckon I was,” he said, “now you mention it.”

  Wilder laughed.

  It was a pleasant sound, joyful and innocent.

  “You have been suckered,” he said
, “if that is the expression in your vernacular. It’s quite comical really — you the old-timer and me the greenhorn.”

  “Why did you come back?” Jody enquired. “Why didn’t you jest light out?”

  “You could put it down to sentimentality” said the Englishman. “After all, you really saved my life. I owed you a decent farewell for that. Or you could put it down to the fact that I couldn’t remove your bulging money-belt without waking you.”

  Jody said: “I have to hand it to you — you’re the original mean sneaky bastard.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said Wilder. “But then a younger son of a younger son doesn’t have much choice, does he? Now if you’ve finished with the compliments, I’ll have the belt. Please do as I say. I’d hate to have to shoot you. There would really be bad feeling between us then.”

  Jody pulled up his shirt, unbuckled the money-belt, hesitated for one moment, then, as the gun was raised to point at his belly, threw it to Wilder. The Englishman caught it deftly and said: “Terribly grateful, old chap. And so — farewell.”

  He started to turn away.

  “Without a horse or a gun,” Jody said, “I’m as good as dead.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. You’re pretty ingenious. You’ll think of something.”

  “There’s one other thing.”

  Wilder turned back.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “You should of killed me,” Jody told him. “I’m goin’ to meet up with you one day, Wilder, an’ I’m goin’ to plant a slug between your eyes.”

  Wilder wagged his head.

  “Foolish headstrong boy,” he said. “Don’t tempt me. However, I may be a swindler and a rogue, but I’ve never had a tendency to murder. It’s my saving grace when you come to think of it.”

  He turned and sauntered away. Jody braced himself for the crazy charge, ready to fling himself recklessly on the Englishman to get back that money-belt, the one thing that stood between himself and complete failure.

  The thought was no sooner in his mind than Wilder turned, read his mind and said: “Because I dislike bloodshed it doesn’t mean that I would hesitate to shoot you, you know, old son. The little sum I have here in this belt is enough to make a fellow kill to retain it.”

  He disappeared into the trees.

  Jody let the breath out of his lungs, shuddering with control. He heard the horses start up. They went away south at a brisk trot. He stood where he was for a moment, feeling so helpless and defeated that he was on the verge of tears.

  Pa had known he wouldn’t make it. He was so damned green ...

  He walked back to camp and stared blankly at the ground, trying to think, his mind a blur of utter misery. He sat and stared at the dead fire. Then it same to him that the Englishman had gone with all the supplies. Nothing stood between him and starvation.

  Nothing?

  He drove his brains to some effort. He would have to make snares. Men had survived without weapons in the hills before. Joe would know what to do, why shouldn’t he?

  What the hell was he thinking of? Finding food didn’t matter a damn. All he should be concerned with was that money-belt. He had to get the money back.

  But what could he do without a horse or a gun?

  Wait a minute. He reached behind him and hurt his shoulder as he did so. His fingers touched the hilt of his knife. He drew it and laid his eyes lovingly on the blade. He had killed the Ute with it. Logically he could kill a sonovabitching Englishman with it. But how to reach the Englishman.

  His mind was churning now. The Storm character was coming through. He had legs, didn’t he? He would run and walk. What about his shoulder? Goddam his shoulder. By God, he’d run and walk till he caught up with that bastard and he’d cut his lights out for him. Nobody was going to make a sucker out of Jody Storm and get away with it. He’d give that smooth-talking English younger son of a younger son his comeuppance if it took him the rest of his life.

  He was on his feet, sheathing his knife and rolling his bedding. He found his Arapaho moccasins and put them on in place of his boots. He thought to discard the boots as a needless encumbrance, but rejected the idea. A pair of boots was a pair of boots and they were not easily come by. He could not turn up at Rolf’s wearing Indian footwear, they’d think he was a hill-nutty or something. He tied the mule-ears together with a piece of pigging string and slung them around his neck, draped his bedroll over his good shoulder, tightened his belt a couple of notches and started out.

  Following the sign gave him no trouble. The bunch of horses that Wilder had with him made a trail that a short-sighted pilgrim could have followed without hesitation. He stuck a wad of tobacco in his cheek, measured distance roughly into stretches of one hundred yards and set his mind to walk one hundred fast, one hundred slow and one hundred at a trot. The magnet that drew him on was the vision of Wilder caught unawares and that knife going into action.

  During the first hour, he caught sight of his quarry on several occasions from high points, but after that the Englishman drew too far ahead and he saw him no more. He knew that he had everything working against him, but he kept going just the same. He told himself that Wilder would be confident of his safety, that he would stop to rest, to water the horses, to graze them, to eat himself. But Jody wouldn’t stop, not till dark made it impossible to follow the sign. He would keep going until he came up with the man and gave him free gratis and for nothing what he had due to him. The man might go as far south as Pueblo, he might cross the New Mexico line, but Jody would be dogging him. He couldn’t travel far or fast enough to get away from Jody and his justice. It was a case of the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise had to win because he was determined to win.

  He stopped twice that day and that was to drink. Even at that altitude the heat was overpowering. Jody had no canteen and he had to rely on what water the country could offer him. It made him uneasy after he had drunk his fill, fearful to drink too much in case it slowed him, knowing that he had no idea where or when he would find his next drink. The first day was the worst. Anger swamped him like a living pain and he seemed to pass through a nightmare eternity denying the demands of his belly.

  He hit a hard patch of country that seemed to be composed of nothing but dust and rock, water seemed to evade him. His pace turned to a stagger. Once or twice he fell and he thought that he would never get on his feet again. But his will took over and he drove himself on, sticking rigidly to his three paces, knowing that only strict self-discipline would keep him going.

  By the time the first night fell over him, he was dried out and near complete exhaustion, but he kept moving until he could no longer see the sign he was following. Mercifully, unexpectedly, he came on water and there, with the heat of the day receding, he wallowed in water, filling his belly till it felt it would burst. He slept inert in the rocks, knife in hand.

  Next morning, he discovered muscles he never knew he had. He was so stiff that it was agony to move, but after a mile or two, some of the stiffness wore off and he found himself moving more easily.

  Now the sign curved slowly around into the east and the change of direction puzzled Jody. From the droppings he came on he knew that Wilder was now well ahead of him and going strong. Jody stuck to the same routine of travel that he had employed the day before — fast walk, slow walk, trot. As the sun climbed into a sky of brass, he pushed on like a man demented, talking a little to himself, nothing but the thought of Wilder keeping him on his feet.

  The wound in his shoulder was now giving him considerable pain and he dared not inspect it for fear that the sight would break his will to on. Without his knowing it, his pace started to slow. He started to stumble more often, he fell more frequently and each time he fell it took him longer to regain his feet.

  Only when dark came down again, did he stop and face the truth. If he went on like this much longer, he would be dead.

  When he woke the following morning, the sun was up. Breaking through the stiffness of his muscles a
nd refusing to accept the weakness of his body and the limitation of his strength was the greatest act of will he had ever demanded of himself.

  As he rolled his blankets and looked around, he realized that he had no recollection of having reached the spot the night before. He was in a barren jumble of rocks and sand. Here and there grew some dead-looking brush. It looked like the surface of hell. Somehow it suited his desolate mind. He slung his bed-roll and boots and started off walking.

  He didn’t know how long he staggered along before he became aware that the country had changed. Suddenly, he was aware of the sound of his feet in long grass, the distant glitter of water. Far off his heard the bellow of a steer. He headed for the water.

  It took him a thousand years to reach it. When he did, he fell on his face and drank as if he had never tasted water before.

  Chapter Six

  He felt as if he came slowly and gently from a deep sleep. He lay face downward with his head on his arms. He was aware of being in the state of delicious weakness that comes with convalescence. Nothing mattered any more. For a short while he had resigned from the human race. No problems, no trouble. No walking and trotting mile after mile beating his way through pain and exhaustion.

  Full realization came to him slowly.

  The name hit him like a sledge-hammer in the face — Wilder.

  He rolled over onto his back and raised a hand to guard his eyes from the glare of the sun. Very slowly, hurting his shoulder, he sat up. He was so stiff that every bone and muscle in his body seemed to be mostly composed of pain.

  He became aware that there was something between him and the sun. He squinted and saw that it was a man on a horse.

  Danger.

  He reached back for his knife.

  “Thank goodness, we thought you were dead.”

  He turned his head.

  A laughable thought came to him — he was dead and had somehow graduated to heaven. This girl must be an angel. But whoever heard of a man like Jody Storm going to heaven?