Man in the Saddle

by Matt Chisholm

  For a moment, she was paralyzed with fear.

  The man had seen her. As soon as he hit the flat of the shelf, he turned and came for her, fitting an arrow to his bow.

  My God! her mind screamed.

  She had just enough presence of mind to fling herself flat as the feathered shaft hummed viciously for her. She heard it strike rock behind her.

  Raising her head, she fumbled the rifle forward into firing position, lifting herself on her elbows. The Indian, who had stopped to shoot at her, broke into a run again.

  She pressed the trigger as soon as he was in her sights and nothing happened. She looked down at the weapon with terrified incomprehension. Was it empty?

  The lever!

  She fumbled her thumb into the lever and heaved on it. The empty shell clattered on stone, she snapped the lever up and fired blindly. She missed. The Indian was now within a dozen yards. She tried to rise to her knees as she levered again and he bounded on to her.

  Her fear gave her an instinctive guile. She flung herself backward under his charging weight and her hard lithe young body answered to her demands. She somersaulted backward, assisting the man on his way with her feet, clinging all the time to the rifle as if her life depended on it.

  The warrior hit hard and mostly on his head. He came up quickly enough, but he was badly shaken. His head feathers were all crumpled and broken. Dirt smeared his face-paint.

  He struck at her with the butt of his bow and knocked her down. She allowed herself to go, rolled and came up on her knees. She was suddenly calm now, knowing that fear was no aid to her in this struggle not only for her own life, but for Spur’s.

  The two of them were about ten foot apart and she had the rifle in her hands, loaded. The Indian showed by the look on his face that he knew it and didn’t like the odds. But he made his try just the same.

  He swung his long bow at her and charged.

  She stepped back from the blow, avoided it and fired.

  The heavy bullet caught the man in mid-air. It spun him and dropped him almost on the spot. He lay very still.

  She approached him carefully, rifle pointed at his heart. She leaned forward. Blood seeped darkly from the right side of his chest. She wondered if a man died from a bullet there.

  A brown hand flashed out and grasped the muzzle of the rifle, wrenching on it.

  She retained her grip, but was heaved from her feet. She stumbled over the man and went down, sprawling. She heard the wheezing groan of his breath as he struggled to get up. She turned, her holding the stock of the rifle, him the muzzle. His face grimaced with the agony of his supreme effort. His gaze was fixed on her and he ground his teeth together. She sprang to her feet and wrenched the rifle from his weakening grasp. Next moment she was running along the bench as hard as she could go. When she glanced back, he was on his feet, making his last try. Even as she looked, he fell on his face and lay still.

  She kept going until she came to the horse. It whinnied a greeting to her and she put her arms around its neck. Its velvet lips worked on her arms.

  Her mouth was parched and she drank sparingly from the canteen on the saddle, then moved away from the horse, got among the rocks and waited.

  For the first time she realized that all hell had broken loose in the camp further down the valley.

  Now and then she thought she could hear faint screams and after a little the distant popping of guns. She seemed to wait a long time, so long that she wondered if she had not made a mistake and come to the wrong spot. But just as she thought she should mount her horse and ride to the village for a closer look and when the flames seemed to be near to the village itself, she heard the sound of approaching horses. Guns banged at nearer hand than before.

  She picked up the rifle and checked that this time she had a shell in the breech.

  Horses crashed through the line of timber below her amid a stutter of shots. The next moment, a horse burst from cover further along the bench and came toward her at a run. On its back a figure swayed as helpless as a doll tied there.

  She recognized the horse and jumped to her feet, overcome with fear and joy for the rider.

  He came nearer, somehow managed to sit himself upright in the saddle and then, unaccountably, seemed to throw himself to the ground.

  She jumped from cover and ran toward him. Nostrils flaring, the dun cantered past her. She tried to catch the trailing line as it went, but failed. Then she was down on her knees beside Spur.

  A fragment of consciousness seemed to come to him as soon as his bloody head was cradled in her arms. As she gazed in horror at the disfigurements that had given such delight to the Kiowa, he muttered: “Pagley.”

  Something crashed in the undergrowth along the bench and, looking up, she saw another horseman in the light of the fire. She guessed it was Pagley. He saw her at once and shouted a warning, signaling with an arm for her to get back into cover. And he was no sooner clear of the trees than she saw the Indians break from cover.

  Laying Spur down, she picked up the rifle and started firing. The Indians scattered at once under the fierceness of her fire, ran out either way on the bench, then turned in tight circles and galloped back into the cover of timber.

  Pagley pounded up, halted his heaving horse and tumbled from its back.

  “Go catch the dun,” he ordered. She started to say something, not wanting to leave Spur, but the Indian snapped at her curtly and she did as he bid her, running as hard as she could in the direction of the dun that was treading on the trailing rein and trying to escape it by sidestepping. By the time she had reached him, Pagley rode up with Spur draped across the horse’s shoulders in front of him.

  “Take Spur and go on,” he said. He gave her directions, as he slipped to the ground and handed the reins to her. He took the dun from her and she ran to her own horse, leading Pagley’s. She didn’t look back, but reached her horse, mounted and rode or! northward along the bench.

  Pagley hurriedly got the dun into fair cover and settled down in the rocks with the Henry.

  It took the Indians five minutes to get up enough courage to break cover again. They came trailing out of timber at a trot and Pagley counted them. Five. In the lead was an old man wearing a full war-bonnet and he reckoned that was old Two Bulls himself.

  Pagley laughed and wondered if his medicine would hold good. He decided to test it. He was strangely happy. He didn’t care anymore, any fear that he had had was gone, snatched away by the heat of excitement. This was a good day to die.

  He let them come to within a hundred yards. Eighty yards. Fifty yards. They were going to feel every bullet he had, except the chief and he had something else in store for him. If his medicine held good.

  He drew a bead on the second man now riding as a black silhouette against the flaming valley and squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet took the man clear out of the saddle.

  The riderless pony took fright and bolted, clattering past Pagley through the rocks and going hard along the bench.

  Two of the Indians at once took fright, turned their mounts and quirted them hard back the way they had come.

  Old Two Bulls, and Pagley was sure it was him now he was closer, pulled his horse to a halt and so did the remaining man. They sat their ponies close together, motionless. Pagley heard them talking calmly together.

  One of them started to croon his death song. Pagley thought that was appropriate.

  The two ponies jittered about a bit, then two pairs of deerskin heels drummed on bellies and they charged, going out a little on either hand to come at Pagley from two sides. Very coolly, the Delaware fired and knocked over the warrior. At that range he couldn’t miss.

  The death song continued, high-pitched and nasal as Two Bulls made what he thought to be his last charge.

  Pagley fired once and killed the pinto pony. The old man was thrown heavily not ten yards away from Pagley. He lost his muzzle-loader in the fall, but scrambled stiffly to his feet, snatching the hatchet that hung from
his waist. He started to finish the charge on foot, brandishing his skull-splitter, but before he had taken more than a half-dozen paces and was struggling through the rocks something whirred through the air above him. He was caught by the throat and whisked from his feet. He hit rock and yelled in alarm. He tried to get to his feet, but the grip on his throat tightened and he was dragged violently. He knew that he was roped and being choked down like a wild mustang.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Spur was sitting up sipping water from a canteen when he and the girl heard the approaching horse. The girl picked up the rifle and they both froze at the sound. Then came the call: “Jane.”

  She ran out of the trees and saw Pagley in the moonlight, sitting the dun. He saw her and came on. A moment later he was squatting with the two of them.

  “That bit’s over,” he said. He looked at Spur and thought he looked terrible. Jane had washed the worst of his lacerations, but he would bear the scars till he died.

  “Now,” Pagley said, “can we just ride out of here?” His head ached like hell from the tap he had received from the war-club.

  Spur looked at him out of eyes over which there seemed to be a film. Pagley was thankful. No man who looked like that would consider doing anything crazy like still trying to save the Grimes girl.

  Spur said: “We don’t have the Grimes girl.”

  Pagley groaned. He had never meant a groan more in his life.

  “Look,” he said. “You’re more dead than alive, my head’s singing like a saloon tenor. Why don’t we get on those damned ponies, go home an’ you get married to this nice girl here and we forget all about the Grimes girl.”

  Spur took the girl’s hand and tried to smile. “That’s a fine idea,” he said. The Delaware’s heart lifted. But it plunged to the depths again mighty quickly when Spur added, “But it’s not possible. We didn’t ride all this way to get ourselves all mussed up and ride home again. You’re not serious when you say it. It’s just your warped Indian sense of humor.”

  “Yes,” Pagley said bitterly. “That’s right. The thing I like to laugh at best is me stayin’ alive. Real comical.”

  Jane said: “Spur, nobody could be expected to do more than you did.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Spur reminded her. “It mostly happened to me.”

  Pagley snarled: “The Kiowas just had plenty done to em.

  “I’ll kill my own snakes,” Spur said. - Pagley gave a long sigh.

  “Girl,” he told Jane, “you gotten yourself the stubbornest man this side of the Missouri.”

  Jane took both Spur’s hands in hers.

  “Spur, do this for me, honey. I want to take a live man back with me.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Spur said, “you think I enjoy this? Get off’n my back, the pair of you. Take the girl and get out of here, Pagley.”

  Pagley yawned. It had been a long hard day and he was ready to drop.

  “We stay together,” he said. “There ain’t nothin’ a whiteman can do a Delaware can’t do better. You’re the biggest damn fool I ever met - exceptin’ me and maybe this girl here. We stay together.”

  “There’s no call—”Spur began, but Pagley waved him to silence.

  “Save your breath. Come mornin’, Pagley will solve all your problems. Come noon, we’ll have the girl.”

  “What in hell’re you talking about?” Spur demanded.

  Pagley looked wise beyond all knowledge of man. He openly smirked.

  “The Kiowas, God damn their heathen souls, have somethin’ we want. We have somethin’ they want.”

  “What do we have they want?” the girl asked.

  “Not another word,” Pagley said grandly and stood up, hefting his rifle. “Now, from here on out, I’m bossin’ this outfit. I’ll stand first guard and Jane the second. Spur sleeps all night - he has to get his strength back and we have to be mighty active tomorrow.”

  With that he walked off into the darkness.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the dawn, the girl touched Pagley on the shoulder and he came awake at once and reached for his rifle. He caught sight of the girl and his wide slash of a mouth widened in a brief grin that lit his somber face. He’d slept in his boots, so all he had to do to be fully dressed was to put on his hat.

  The girl wakened Spur, who rose stiff and aching, but refreshed from his night’s sleep. When Jane asked him how he felt, he replied, “All right,” with early morning surliness. They ate a cold breakfast hurriedly and washed it down with water. Pagley filled the two canteens with water from a nearby stream and watered the horses. Both the dun and the bay seemed to have fully recovered from their efforts of the night before. They saddled and mounted and Pagley led the way along the bench, climbing its slight slope into the rise of the hills beyond and into a gully almost overgrown with brush. Though Spur looked around sharply, he could see no sign that anybody had been there before them.

  But somebody had.

  Halfway up the gully, they found a figure lying prone and motionless. He could have done nothing else, because he was bound tightly hand and foot.

  Spur rode up close and stared down into the baleful eyes of Two Bulls.

  The whiteman said: “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “Ain’t he nice?” Pagley said with pleasure. “I roped the ole mossyhorn myself. Had to strangle him down some, but he’s real gentle now.”

  Spur chuckled. “He doesn’t look too gentle to me. If looks could kill, our throats’re all cut.”

  Pagley slipped from his horse, drew his knife and cut the rawhide thongs that tied the old man’s ankles. He signed for Two Bulls to rise.

  The old man glared back at him with the fierceness of a captured cougar. His eyes defied his captors, his lipless mouth was clamped tight.

  Pagley signed for him to get up again. The Kiowa growled his refusal deep in his throat.

  “You won’t get that old devil to move till he’s good and ready,” Jane said. “I know him.”

  The Delaware said: “Give me a hand, Spur.”

  The whiteman dismounted and together, one on either side of Two Bulls, they heaved him to his feet.

  “Put him on my pony,” Pagley said.

  Which was easier said than done. The girl had to give them a hand before they had the old man astride with his legs fastened under the animal’s belly. That done, Spur asked: “Now what? You say you’re the boss-man.”

  “Now we find the heathen,” Pagley told him, “an’ we trade this old hoss for the Grimes girl.”

  “Maybe,” Spur said, “they don’t fancy this old buzzard any more than we do.”

  Pagley took his rope from where it was tied on his saddle-horn and dropped the loop over the chief’s head. “Any Kiowas jump us, point your guns at this one, not at them.”

  Spur and Jane mounted and Pagley led the way down the coulee. They traveled through the hills for maybe half an hour till they came to the main valley in which the Kiowa village had stood. All three of them were brought to stillness by the devastation the fire had caused. As far as the gleaming water of the creek and small lake at the southern end, the valley had been burned out. The whole place was a black and gray waste; here and there a few small spirals of smoke still drifted into the hot air. The open space where the village itself had stood showed the smoldering remains of no more than two or three lodges, showing that the Indians had had time to throw the tipis on travois and haul them out of there. Great patches of timber on both sides of the valley had been burned almost to the ground by the raging flames and it seemed that only the water to the south and a break in the timber had prevented the fire from spreading out into the whole country.

  Spur looked at Jane. The girl seemed badly shaken by the result of her effort to save him.

  “The women and the kids,” she said. “Did they get away?”

  Pagley nodded.

  “Sure,” he said. “Indians ain’t so dumb they can’t rustle out of trouble. Even savages like Kiowas.” His eye caught T
wo Bulls looking off to the south. “Yes, old-timer. That’s where they went and that’s where we go.”

  He pulled on the split rein of the bay and led the chief along the rim of the canyon. Spur and the girl followed, the stench of burned out grass and timber heavy in their nostrils.

  They kept going until noon, not hurrying in the heat. To protect the naked top half of Spur’s body, Pagley gave him his coat. The whiteman was starting to feel the after effects of his ordeal by now. He rode drooped in the saddle. As soon as they reached water, Pagley called a halt, they lifted Two Bulls down from the bay and at once the old man made a vain effort to escape, simply by starting to run as soon as his feet touched ground. Pagley brought him down with a flying tackle, knocked the wind out of him and that was that. Spur slept in the noon heat for an hour and then they went on again.

  They picked up the broad trail of the Indians and followed it in a wide swing into the west. This led them into even wilder and more broken country. The hills were higher and more heavily timbered. Water became more frequent and usually appeared as steep rushing streams. Here and there a waterfall sang noisily. Visibility shortened and Pagley showed that he was becoming increasingly uneasy. He told the others that they were now riding almost up the butts of the Indians and could expect trouble any minute. By now most likely the Kiowa scouts had them spotted.

  He called a halt in a strong position among rocks that could only be approached by a narrow way and which was protected from the rear by a high steep cliff and told them that he was going to scout ahead.

  ‘‘Spur,” he said, “you stay awake. Keep an eye an’ a gun on the old man. He’s all we have between stayin’ alive and losin’ our hair.”

  He walked off into the hills, leaving Spur and the girl with their nerves taut. Two Bulls lay trussed up like a mummy. Spur settled himself with his back to the cliff and lay his pistol on his thigh for quick action.

  At the tail-end of the afternoon, Pagley returned to say that he had located the camp and reckoned they could do a whole lot worse than staying where they were for the night. They would reintroduce Two Bulls to his people tomorrow morning. Mid-morning, say. He did not relish the idea of approaching the camp in the uncertain light of dawn when an eager warrior might not spot the chief with them and get trigger-happy.