The Hider

by Loren D. Estleman

  The rifle exploded, throwing me onto my backside. Leaves and needles floated down all around me.

  “What happened?” I gasped. I couldn’t breathe and my ears were ringing. I thought my shoulder was broken.

  Jack’s voice fell faintly on my whining ears. “You missed by a country mile, son. That’s what happened.”

  I sat up feebly, the smoking rifle across my lap. “I didn’t even touch the trigger!”

  “You touched it,” he said. There was a mischievous glint in his eye. “I forgot to tell you; after you pull the hind trigger, it don’t take much more than a slight breeze to set off the front one.” He chuckled softly and reached out a hand to help me to my feet.

  I slapped it aside. “Very funny!” I got up, swaying on unsteady legs. The air stank of gunsmoke. “How come you didn’t tell me it was a hair trigger? I could have busted my back!”

  “Well, maybe not your back.” He took back the rifle and strode over to his mule. “You should of asked me afore you fired it. Don’t never trust a strange gun.”

  “That’s one hell of a firearm,” said Logan, who was busy watching over the skillet in the campfire. The smell of cooking beans mingled with the acrid odor of smokeless powder.

  “Yeah.” Jack extracted a bore mop and a can of oil from his saddlebags and began cleaning his rifle barrel. “You can’t beat a Big Fifty for range. Old pard of mine bought fifteen of them back in ’79 and lit out for New Mexico. Figured he’d sell them for twice what he paid in the Lincoln County War.”

  “What happened?” I asked sulkily. I hadn’t forgiven him for his little joke.

  He snorted, “Nothing. War was over by the time he got there.” He lapsed into silence, and I thought he’d come to the end of his story. Then: “They caught him five years later in Arizona selling guns to Geronimo. Hung him.”

  Logan stood and stretched. “If you two are through playing with guns,” he said, “breakfast is ready.”

  I didn’t much like the way the Indian made breakfast. The bacon was so crisp it snapped in my fingers, the way I hated it, and the beans were too dry. The coffee tasted like iodine. I ate without complaining; kicking about the food is the quickest way I know of being made the cook the next time around.

  “Where to now?” asked Logan after we had broken camp and were seated astride our mounts once again. Armed to the teeth as he was, with Clyde’s revolver strapped to his hip and the Henry slung over his left shoulder, he looked much more like a savage Indian.

  “Just because he’s close don’t mean our plans have changed none,” said Jack. “Downriver.”

  Jack had been as right about the river as he was about most other things. As we left the hilly country behind us, the pull on the water lessened and the explosive rush gradually decreased, until, late in the morning, we stopped and faced a wide expanse of gently flowing water. Stretching before us, it looked like a small lake.

  “This is it,” said Jack. “It won’t get no calmer than this.”

  “It looks deep,” I ventured.

  “Nope. See that brown color? That’s mud. Can’t be no more than four foot deep.”

  Logan looked doubtful. “It’s wider than I thought it would be,” he said. “I hope this dun is used to crossing water.”

  “Any horse worth its price will cross.”

  That must have been good enough for the Indian, because he hit the water first, slapping his animal on the rump so that it didn’t have time to think about balking. Jack and I were right behind him: Actually, it was a little deeper than the four feet Jack had calculated—I soon became soaked to the hips—but the current wasn’t too strong and the bay, which had already proved itself in the swifter waters of the South Umpqua during heavy rainfall, had no trouble keeping its footing. Beneath me, the thrashing of its muscular legs sounded like explosions.

  The explosions became more distinct. I raised my head, listening. I suddenly realized that the sounds were not coming from beneath me, but from behind. They were rifle reports.

  I twisted around, squinting in the flying water to see where the shots were coming from, but my horse, sensing trouble, broke into a panicky lunge and kept me from getting a good fix on the tree-lined bank. I leaned forward again and dug my heels into its barrel sides for all it was worth. Bullets smacked the water all around us.

  Jack was shouting something; I couldn’t make it out. I whipped my bay forward through the exploding water, not knowing where the opposite bank lay, nor even in which direction I was heading. I had lost all sense of time and place.

  An eternity later I felt the riverbed sloping upward and the water begin to recede. Hoofs scraped at the bank, found a footing. At last we lurched up and out of the river.

  “Kick it, boy!”

  I didn’t wait to find out where Jack was calling from. I did what he said and we took off, making fantastic time now that we were free of the river’s drag. I could still hear the rifle discharging behind me, but I knew we were well out of range.

  Up ahead, I spotted a cloud of dust and took off in that direction. It led me around a small clump of trees and over a low hill. In the hollow beyond, Jack, his mule galloping like nothing I’d ever seen, was tearing across the countryside with Logan running a close second. Jack had let loose of the burro; although it was running as fast as its spindly legs would carry it, it was falling behind rapidly. I caught up with it and took hold of its flying halter. It was then that I noticed it had lost its load. But I held onto it and hightailed it in my partners’ wake.

  We must have gone two miles before Jack and Logan finally slowed to a walk. I pulled alongside of Jack, my horse heaving beneath me.

  “You all in one piece, boy?” Jack and his mule were wet, but the dust they had kicked up since leaving the river had stuck to them grittily. His buckskins looked like sandpaper. I suppose I didn’t look much better. He was looking at me closely.

  “I’m all right,” I panted. I was nearly as short of breath as my bay. “What happened?”

  “George Crook happened.” Logan’s tone was bitter. “I should have figured he’d pull something like this.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Jack. “There ain’t no better time to kill something than when it’s thigh-deep in water. That’s how injuns hunt deer.”

  “What do we do now?” I put in.

  Jack spat out a few grains of dust. “We’re safe for now. The injun’s got to cross the river, too. Besides, he don’t cotton to the idea of taking on three men—two men and a boy, that is—head-on. Otherwise we’d of heard from him afore this.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” said Logan. “If he figured there was no other way to do it, George would take on the whole U.S. Army. He’s been playing it safe because he thought he had us where he wanted us. Not any more. He’s mad now.”

  “So what’s his next move?” I asked him.

  “I don’t know.” The Indian’s expression was grave. “That’s what worries me; I don’t have the slightest idea what he’ll do next.”

  The burro brayed loudly and shook itself, drenching me. I informed Jack of the loss of our supplies.

  “Strap broke in midstream,” he said. “That’s why I turned him loose. We got to stop in Reuben and pick up some more grub.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “For somebody who was dead set against me spending a dollar for that critter, you sure was quick to grab hold of him when it looked like we was going to lose him.”

  I had to smile at that. I said, “He’s proved himself. I reckon I was wrong.”

  “Just goes to show you,” said Jack.

  I looked at him, but he had already fallen back into his habit of searching the ground all around him for signs. He had meant something more than his words implied; I was sure of that, although I wasn’t sure what it was. For some reason I felt that I had just been given a rare compliment.

  We had been walking our mounts for several minutes when I realized my bay was limping. I got off to look it over, and found that its right thigh was co
vered with blood. A bullet had left a crease six inches long and nearly half an inch wide less than a hand above its leg, and it was bleeding freely all down the right side. The flesh flinched when I touched it.

  “Hold him there,” said Logan, and dismounted. I thought that he was going to come over and examine the wound for himself, but instead he left us and struck out on foot. He wandered in a seemingly aimless fashion for ten minutes, head down, studying the ground and swinging his feet in a circular motion to separate the tall weeds that covered it. The land where we were had been farmed at some time. Hard stumps of dry old cornstalks showed here and there among the choking weeds, but it was obvious that it had been many years since the field had been used for anything constructive. I grew impatient.

  “What’s he looking for?” I asked Jack.

  The old hider was studying the horizon. I don’t think there was ever a minute when his mind wasn’t on that buffalo. “If he wanted you to know,” he said, “I reckon he’d tell you.” I got the impression he knew the answer, which annoyed me. Nothing in this world can make you feel more ignorant than the conviction that everyone knows what’s going on but you.

  Logan had found something. He bent and rummaged through the grass with both hands for a moment, then straightened and began striding back toward us. He had something in his hand.

  “Yarrow,” he said when he got to within earshot, triumphantly waving a handful of green stalks of something. “You usually find it in old fields.”

  “You reckon you got enough?” said Jack, studying the fernlike plants in the Indian’s hand. “That bay is bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  “This will do it.” Logan got out Jack’s little skillet and set it on the ground. Squatting, he placed the fuzzy leaves in the bottom and used the butt of his revolver to grind them into a pasty substance somewhat resembling overcooked spinach. The plant had a pungent, medicinal odor that reminded me of the inside of Doc Ingersoll’s office back home. “Hold on to the horse,” Logan told me as he got to his feet.

  He used the water from his canteen to cleanse the wound. Then, as I held on to the bridle, the Indian took a handful of the green mess and smeared it right into the open cavity. The bay whinnied in pain and tried to rear, but I dug my heels into the earth and held on. Logan stood back while it kicked out with the injured leg in an attempt to drive him away. When it stopped, he moved in again and finished applying the last of the yarrow. Finally he untied the kerchief from around his neck and tied it loosely around the torn thigh to hold the poultice in place.

  “What is that stuff?” I asked when he was finished.

  Jack supplied the answer. “In Texas they call it milfoil,” he explained. “Up here it’s yarrow. Injuns been using it to nurse their wounds for hundreds of years. It stops the bleeding and makes healing quicker.”

  “Does it really work?”

  “Sometimes.” This time it was Logan who spoke. “At the end of the Nez Percé War, there was not a single stalk of yarrow to be found in Idaho for a hundred miles. It had all been used to heal wounds put there by the pony soldiers.” He was looking at Jack. His expression was the same as it had been when he was talking about the extermination of the buffalo.

  Jack seemed unmoved by the thinly disguised accusation. “You’d best lead that horse from here on in, boy,” he advised me. “We’ll see about getting you a good one once we get to Reuben.”

  I shook my head. “I started with him, and I’m going to finish with him,” I said.

  “Out here, you got to have a mount you can depend on. You ain’t doing him no favors by asking him to do something he ain’t up to.” His eyes slid toward his mule. “Mule saved me from a grizzly once. Kept him busy while I clumb a tree.”

  “Is that how he lost his ear?”

  “Yeah. See them claw marks on his flanks? Wished I had some milfoil with me that time. Stayed up with him all night. He pulled through, but just barely.” The mule must have known what he was talking about, because it gave its master a haughty, sideways look, as if warning him to watch his tongue. They were a lot alike, the animal and the man.

  I said, “Then you should know how I feel about the bay.”

  “Nope. If we was out in the open when it happened, with a buffalo in front and a injun behind, I would of put a bullet through his head and left him there. When it’s a matter of dying with him or living without him, I’ll choose living every time.”

  I stroked the bay’s neck. It stepped closer and rooted its nose under my hand. “He’s a healthy horse,” I said. “He’ll heal.”

  Jack said, “Well, I hope he’s healthy enough to heal afore we get to town,” and swung up into his saddle. “That’s where we’re trading him in.” He kneed the mule forward.

  I wanted to protest, but no words came. I turned to the Indian, who was just mounting. “Logan.” I guess some of my frustration showed in my voice, because he shot me a quick, hostile look. I softened my tone. “Thanks.”

  “Forget it,” he said, and he was off in Jack’s path.

  But I would not forget it. I had noted the gentle, almost reverent way he had ministered to my injured mount, and while I wasn’t ready to trust him completely, I thought a lot better of him from that time on. No, I said to myself as I led my horse onward, the Indian was not all bad.

  Chapter Eight

  I had been to Reuben once before, when Pa had gone there to see a lawyer about ironing out some problems with Olaf Peterson next door over the ownership of six acres along our western property line. I remembered it as a big town compared to Citadel, with brick buildings three and four stories tall and a street so wide you could sling a dead cat from one side to the other without breaking a window. That’s if you could ever find a lull in the traffic long enough to sling it without taking the chance of having it land in someone’s buggy as it rattled past. It was that busy most of the time.

  The sun was a pink glow in the western sky when we came within sight of the Presbyterian church, which at dusk was hung with colored lanterns that could be seen for miles. By the time we reached the town itself, the street lamps were burning and the faces of the buildings that lined the main street were ghostly white. There were people all over the place. They thronged the sidewalks and milled around in the street, making it difficult for us to maneuver our mounts through the heavy traffic. Twice we were forced to stop while a gang of fifteen or twenty people trickled by. Logan cursed them bitterly, but Jack, who had once been forced to stop a supply wagon for twelve hours while a herd of buffalo rumbled past, took it all in his stride. It was a strange sort of traffic, because it all seemed to be flowing in one direction. Most of the congestion seemed to center around a building at the north end of the street. It was lit with flaming torches, but the crowd was so thick in that area that it was impossible to see what was drawing them there.

  “I’ll meet you north of town.” Logan, who had gotten off earlier to lead his horse beside Jack and me, mounted again and gathered up his reins.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Jack.

  “Too many people. I can’t take a chance on someone recognizing me from that wanted circular.” He gave his reins a flip and trotted off down the street. Soon he was lost among the wagons and buggies at the other end.

  “Think we’ll see him again?” I asked Jack.

  He shrugged. “Reckon we won’t know for sure till we get north of town.”

  The sign on a two-story brick building on the right side of the street read “Reuben Emporium.” Jack and I stopped and looped our reins around the rail in front, then went in.

  The storekeeper was a middle-aged woman with a heavy, freckled face and hair the color of rusted steel. From her Jack ordered coffee, a sack of salted beef, another of dried apples, five pounds of potatoes, a wedge of cheese, a canned ham, and, wonder of wonders, four cans of peaches. He asked her if she had any sourdough starter and she said that she didn’t, so he didn’t bother to order flour. When the items were before him on the counter, he reached for the wa
d of bills in his hip pocket and said, “Lot of commotion up the street. Medicine show in town?”

  The woman looked at him suspiciously. “Where you been, mister?” She had a voice like a bull’s bellow.

  “South. Why?”

  “I guess you didn’t hear about it then. Ben Granger and his gang tried to hold up the bank this morning. The law was waiting for ’em when they come out. They got the bodies laid out there on the sidewalk in front of the undertaker’s place.”

  “I’ll be damned,” said Jack. “Ben too?”

  She nodded, and jerked her head toward the front window, through which we could see the torches burning two blocks up the street. “It’s been like this all day. Folks coming from miles around to see ’em.”

  Jack paid for the food and we carried it out. We had barely finished loading the burro when he left it and began striding up the street. “Wait here,” he said.

  “Where are you going?” I called.

  “To pay my respects to Ben Granger. What else?”

  I hesitated only a second, then took off on his heels.

  They had the bodies, stripped clean and only half covered by sheets, propped up on wooden slabs on the boardwalk. The crowd pressed forward to get a better look at the bullet-riddled corpses of Ben Granger and his brothers Bob and Charlie, ignoring the attempts of stern-faced men with badges and shotguns to keep them back. I recognized the Granger brothers from pictures I had seen of them on wanted posters and in the papers, but I needed Jack’s help to identify the bodies of gang members Al Walker and Pima Pete Lindquist. The crowd laughed when a photographer who had set up his boxlike camera in front of the display told the dead men to hold still, and gasped when the powder in the flashpan went up in a blue-white blaze of light. Nearby, a small man with a round face whom I took to be the undertaker stood in the doorway of his shop and beamed at all the free publicity.