The Dangerous Land

by Ralph Compton

  The next morning, Paul was up at dawn and riding at an easy pace as he gnawed on some jerked venison for breakfast. He washed it down with water that had almost become ice during the night, which snapped his eyes open just as surely as if he’d splashed the water onto his face. According to the map, the next closest village was five miles southwest of the one he’d found the night before. Since he wasn’t entirely sure how far he’d gone before making camp, Paul was on his guard every step of the way.

  His eyes darted constantly in search of other riders or figures in the distance watching him pass. Every sound he heard apart from the ones made by his horse caught his attention and tightened his grip on the reins. Before relaxing, he always patted the Schofield at his side both as a way to display the weapon to anyone who might be watching and to give some assurance to himself by its presence on his hip.

  When he spotted a high ridge overlooking the trail ahead, Paul steered toward a narrow slope leading up to the top. Less than halfway along the ascent, the path became too narrow for his horse, so he tied it off to a shrub and made the rest of the climb on his own. It wasn’t an ideal lookout point, being covered with jagged rocks and thick foliage, but Paul managed to stick his nose out far enough to get a look at the terrain stretched out before him.

  The village he spotted looked to be just under a mile away. It was larger than the first one he’d found and seemed to be just as quiet. Paul dug out his field glasses, put them to his eyes, and gazed down to verify his first impressions. As it turned out, he wasn’t entirely wrong. On his first sweep, he saw nothing among the long, neatly arranged rows of teepees. When he took another look, something darted between two of the interior rows. Paul remained focused on that area until he saw the movement again. Whatever it was, it was too small and too swift to be human. After waiting another couple of seconds, he saw it hop out from one teepee to stand in the row between it and its neighbor.

  Wagging its tail, the dog paced in a small circle before picking a spot on the ground and digging at it. Several seconds later, it plopped its back end onto the spot it had scraped and looked up with its tongue lolling from its mouth. When the dog’s gaze found him and stayed there, Paul froze.

  Could the dog be some kind of guard meant to watch for intruders? If so, what would happen now that it had found one?

  Paul was already mostly hidden behind the growth atop the ridge, but he suddenly felt very exposed up there. The instant he tried to ease himself down to one knee, the dog popped up to all fours and barked.

  Paul froze again. This time, he was caught halfway between standing and kneeling. For a man far from his twenties, it was not a comfortable position to hold for more than a few heartbeats.

  The dog barked again, its tail wagging and its tongue flopping in and out of its mouth with every quickened breath. Instead of watching it, Paul lowered the field glasses so he could get a wider view of the rest of the village. As far as he could tell, there was nobody nearby to respond to the dog’s voice. He looked instead to the land surrounding the village to find only a few more small creatures scurrying to and fro in their ignorance of any human dramas playing out in the world around them.

  Straightening up again, Paul let out a relieved breath as his knees returned to a more natural position. He didn’t know a lot about the Comanches other than a few of their trading practices, where to find a handful of friendly hunters during certain times of the season, and to give them a wide berth when their feathers were ruffled. Since he didn’t have time to learn any more than that, Paul turned around and made his way back to his horse so he could take one of the few viable options open to him. He climbed into his saddle, rode back to the main path, and headed straight toward the village.

  The Comanche settlement looked even larger than it did from above. Rows of teepees formed straight lines like the pointed tops of a barricade surrounding an army fort. Upon reaching the edge of the village, Paul was greeted only by the dog, who seemed more than happy to make his acquaintance.

  “Are you the only one living here?” Paul asked.

  The dog stood on its hind legs and playfully swatted at Paul’s horse with its front paws. Panting loudly, it opened its mouth and barked once through the closest thing a dog could manage to a smile.

  “You seem friendly enough.” Raising his voice, Paul asked, “What about the rest of the folks around here? Are they willing to be just as courteous?”

  After waiting for a short spell, Paul became convinced that he wasn’t going to elicit a response that way. He flicked his reins and rode down one of the middle rows through the village. Although he tried to keep his mannerisms calm, Paul felt every muscle in his body tensing to the point of snapping off bone the deeper he rode into that village. Just over halfway within the settlement, he drew a deep breath, dismounted, and approached one of the largest teepees.

  Every step he took, Paul feared would be his last. When he made it to the entrance flap, he pulled it open and gingerly looked inside. The teepee was just as empty as the ones in the previous camp he’d found. That discovery, although not a welcome one, allowed him to relax just a bit. He checked a few more of the closest teepees and then climbed back into his saddle.

  The dog sat nearby, watching Paul expectantly.

  “I suppose if anyone was here, they would have said something by now. It’s not as though I’m such a fearsome man.” Once again raising his voice so it could be heard throughout as much of the village as possible, Paul added, “Or perhaps the Comanches have taken to hiding rather than showing their faces in the light of day?”

  The moment those words left his mouth, Paul cursed himself as a fool. His challenge was a last-ditch effort to draw a response, but he quickly decided that wouldn’t have been the response he would have wanted. Fortunately no one came to show him how a Comanche deals with a braggart, and the dog didn’t understand a word of what had been said.

  Paul flicked his reins again and rode out of the village. Even after the teepees were behind him, he still didn’t feel comfortable. It took every bit of courage he had to stop and twist in his saddle to get a look over one shoulder. The rows of braves he’d feared to see weren’t there. The only set of eyes looking back at him did so from beneath the dog’s brushy brow.

  “You hungry?” Paul asked.

  The dog lowered its head and tail while slinking closer to Paul’s horse.

  Paul dug into a saddlebag, tore off a piece of venison, and tossed it to the ground. “There you go, boy.”

  Devouring the treat in a few quick chomps, the dog looked right back up at him with its tail wagging in a blur of motion.

  “That’s all I’ve got,” Paul said while moving along. “It doesn’t serve any businessman well to give away too many free samples.”

  That bit of insight was lost on the dog but did nothing to dampen the animal’s spirits. It followed Paul anxiously, never losing hope that another bit of venison might come its way.

  The ride to the third camp didn’t cover a lot of distance, but the terrain was rougher to traverse. It consisted of deep streams overflowing with waters coming down from higher ground, flat rocks, and drop-offs that could easily break the bones of any man or beast foolish enough to move too swiftly at any given point. Paul took his time when necessary and pushed the limit whenever he could. By late afternoon, the hungry dog lost its interest in him and Paul had caught sight of something that made his heart pump a little faster. In the direction of the next Comanche village, thin wisps of smoke rose to smear the sky. Most likely, they were traces of cooking fires.

  Feeling as if he was becoming an expert at finding vantage points where the field glasses could best be put to use, Paul climbed down from his saddle and hiked to a spot that best suited his needs. Once there, he stretched out on his belly and dragged himself over a bed of cool dirt, gravel, and fallen leaves until he could get a look at the land below. Even before there was anything for hi
m to see, Paul knew this place was different from the others. He could hear movement and the soft echo of voices. The wind was flavored by scents of burning wood and meaty stews. Every reflex that had been honed over the last few days all pointed him to one conclusion.

  “This is the spot,” he whispered excitedly under his breath. “This is it. I just know it!”

  Settling into a place between the bases of two shrubs, Paul ignored the scrape of branches against the back of his neck and the occasional tickle of an insect skittering along his arm. His movements were more cautious now, as if he’d somehow known his previous scouting runs would turn up nothing of any value as he pressed his chest against the ground, emerged from behind the bushes, and brought the field glasses to his eyes. When he saw all of the activity bustling within the village, women carrying bales of wheat, children playing, men walking easily throughout the camp, Paul smiled widely. “Finally,” he said to himself. “I got you!”

  One step landed within inches of where Paul lay. Before he could do anything or even look in that direction, Paul felt the touch of iron against the back of his head.

  “That’s funny,” a man said in a strained, rasping voice. “I thought it was my place to tell you that same thing.”

  Chapter 16

  “Don’t move,” the man behind Paul said.

  Reflexively, Paul lowered his arms and squirmed on the ground.

  “I told you not to move,” the gunman hissed. “You deaf or something?”

  “No,” Paul replied. “This is just the first time I’ve been held at gunpoint.”

  It was difficult for Paul to decide whether the sound he heard after that was a muffled cough or a scoffing laugh. Whichever it was, the sound was followed by a few more shuffling steps and the thump of a boot against Paul’s side.

  “Come back here before one of them savages sees you,” the gunman ordered.

  Paul scooted backward until the lowest branches closed in front of him. He could still hear and smell the village, but it suddenly felt a long ways away.

  “Roll over,” the gunman said. “Then sit up.”

  Once Paul was seated and facing the other direction, he got a good look at the man who’d crept up behind him. Since he was hunkered down low, it was difficult to tell how tall the man was. He was definitely a skinny fellow, dressed in filthy clothes that hung on a bony frame. His face was sunken and covered in thick stubble. The eyes set above those angular cheeks left no doubt that he would put the gun in his hand to use if he was even slightly provoked.

  “Who are you?” Paul asked.

  “I got the gun in my hand,” the man said while waggling a .44-caliber Colt. “I’ll ask the questions.” After a pause and an uncomfortable shift of his weight, he asked, “Who are you?”

  “The name’s Paul Meakes. I own a store in a town not too far from here.”

  “Keystone Pass?”

  “Yes,” Paul said as his face brightened. “You know of it?”

  “Course I do. It’s the only town worth mentioning within a day’s ride from here. You own a store?”

  “That’s right.”

  “No,” the gunman snapped. “That’s a load of dung is what that is. What would cause a shopkeeper to crawl around on his belly scouting Injun villages?”

  “I want to have a word with one of the elders.”

  “Which one?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Paul replied. “But I’m here on business that must be resolved quickly. I assure you, whatever reason you’re here, I’m no concern of yours.”

  “You got that right. Toss that pistol.”

  Paul’s finger had barely grazed the grip of his holstered Schofield when the man in front of him tensed. “What’s wrong?” Paul asked.

  “Shut yer mouth.”

  Although the gunman’s attention had been caught first, Paul could now also hear what had distracted him from his task. The steps were light, but too steady to be the wind and too heavy to be a wandering fox or wolf. The gunman’s eyes darted in another direction less than a second before the next set of footprints reached Paul’s untrained ears.

  The gunman shifted his eyes back to Paul and scowled down at him. The muscles on either side of his jaw flexed before he snapped himself around to take aim with the .44 in his hand. Following the other man’s line of sight, Paul spotted a dark-skinned figure closing in on them like a predator cat stalking a rabbit. Dressed in the scant amount of garb worn by Comanche hunters, the dark man moved erratically to make it even more difficult for the gunman to take proper aim.

  Scrambling to his feet, Paul turned toward the sound of footsteps coming from the other direction and saw a smaller dark-skinned man rush toward the gunman’s exposed back. The second Comanche’s face was set in a mask of deadly resolve and a short knife was clenched in one fist. Before he could think otherwise, Paul leaped at the smaller Comanche and shouted, “No!”

  If Paul had been thinking clearly, he would have had a better grasp of what happened immediately after he’d made his first move. Of course, if he’d been thinking clearly, he wouldn’t have moved at all. The only things to truly register in his mind were the rush of movement, the burning of labored breaths filling his lungs, and the sharp jab of pain as one bone within his left arm ground against another. From there, Paul was tossed to one side as a gunshot blasted through the air.

  Reaching out with his other arm, Paul kept himself from falling as his legs somehow got beneath him once more. Once he was mostly upright, he realized the smaller Comanche still had a solid grip on his gun arm. Gritting his teeth, the warrior twisted Paul’s arm again in an attempt to force him to drop the pistol. Since he wasn’t particularly handy with the firearm anyway, Paul was more than willing to comply. He flicked his hand toward the Comanche to make certain it was clear that he’d given up the Schofield. Not only did the pistol thump against the Comanche’s shin, but it scraped skin from bone all the way down before smashing onto a moccasined foot.

  The Comanche twitched and grunted in pain, which was enough of a distraction to loosen his grip. Thanks to sheer desperation on Paul’s part, he pulled his arm free from where it had been trapped and bolted from the small clearing. A second later, the smaller Comanche ran after him.

  The larger Comanche had dived to one side to avoid being shot by the man with the Colt. Not wanting to waste another bullet on a target he could no longer see, the gunman scuttled backward. The large Comanche had ducked into the foliage surrounding the clearing. As he watched for a sign of him, the gunman thumbed back his hammer and planted his feet.

  “Come on out, boy,” he said, sneering. “’Less you’d rather run and hide behind—”

  The insult wasn’t even fully formed before it was answered. Charging with his head and upper body down low and his arms stretched slightly in front of him, the big Comanche emerged from behind a tree to the gunman’s left. Even though he’d been hoping to spark an attack, the gunman was surprised at just how close the Comanche had gotten to flanking him. His finger clamped onto the Colt’s trigger, sending another bullet through the air. Either the Comanche could tell by the angle of the barrel that the shot would miss or he simply didn’t fear being hit, because his steps didn’t falter as he rushed toward the gunman.

  The skinny man’s sunken features twisted first into an expression of surprise and then into panic once the Comanche had closed some more of the distance between them. Moving in a flicker of perfect timing and well-trained muscles, the gunman stepped to one side and then looped his left arm around the Comanche’s right elbow. Using both of their momentum to his advantage, the gunman twisted his body and drove the Comanche’s chest into the dirt. From there, he rolled to one side until a wet crunch announced the separation of the Comanche’s shoulder from its socket.

  “I’ll take that,” the gunman said as he scooped up the knife that had fallen from the Comanche’s twitching hand. A
s soon as he’d picked up the weapon, the gunman snapped his arm out like a whip to send the blade spinning through the air toward another pair of Comanches that approached the clearing.

  While the blade only slammed into the trunk of a tree a few inches away from one of those two approaching warriors, the gunman’s Colt was much more accurate. It barked once and knocked the closer of the two approaching Comanches off his feet. The other Indian let out a sharp battle cry while sending a spear toward the gunman. Rather than stand still and be skewered, the gunman rolled over the back of the Comanche with the dislocated shoulder a split second before the spear sailed by.

  The Comanche who’d thrown the spear wasted no time before plucking the knife from the nearby tree and rushing toward the gunman. He closed the distance between them in a few powerful strides and drew a knife from his own scabbard along the way. Now gripping a blade in each hand, the Comanche came at the gunman like a wild animal.

  After firing one shot from the hip, the skinny gunman didn’t have time to aim and fire another before he had to dodge two Comanche blades. The sharpened stone weapons sliced through the air in a flurry of swings that came less than an inch from carving the gunman’s face and neck like a Christmas goose. For a few seconds, it was all the gunman could do to keep bobbing and swaying to avoid attacks coming one after the other. When he spotted an opening, he thumped his left fist against the Comanche’s side. The punch didn’t do much in the way of damage but provided another opening that the gunman immediately put to use.

  The Colt came up and around to point directly at the Comanche’s chest. Before its trigger could be pulled, however, one of the Indian’s knives slashed across the gunman’s right wrist. Yelping more from surprise than pain as the pistol fell from his grasp, the gunman threw himself at the Comanche to rob him of the space needed to make another swipe with the blades. His gambit worked just long enough for him to deliver a few chopping uppercuts to the Comanche’s stomach. Next, he dropped straight down to one knee to avoid being wrapped in a suffocating bear hug. From his lower vantage point, the gunman scooped up his pistol with one hand and grabbed hold of the Comanche’s ankle with the other. One powerful tug was all it took to sweep the Comanche’s leg out from under him. When the gunman jumped to his feet, he had no problem whatsoever in knocking the warrior down.