Backed to the Wall

by C. M. Wendelboe

  He lay on his back, stifling a cry of pain when his leg hit the ground. He inched to the edge of the cave. He heard the clomp of feet and muffled words between men, and Tucker became aware he stared at the flank of a Sioux war pony. He scooted out another foot and saw a moccasined leg dangling over the horse’s back.

  The effort to crawl had exhausted him, and he sucked in great gulps of air before crawling out farther. Warriors sat astride their ponies as they talked. They were looking for him, and he thanked God that the storm concealed his tracks and his presence.

  He retreated into the cave and looked across the gully. The water had risen a foot since he’d crawled out to spot the Indians, and the torrent angrily chipped away at the soft bank beneath Tucker’s cave. Another two feet, he estimated, and the water would be high enough to trap him inside.

  Another snort of a pony, and he chanced another look. The war party talked amongst themselves. One waved the air toward the far bank of the river. They became silent and slowly rode off, and Tucker was certain other Lakota hunted him in other parts of the canyon. It was only a matter of time before one spotted him and moved in for the kill. But he also knew that if he stuck with those Indians, they would lead him to where they held Lorna. The thought of a crippled man on foot following Lakota on horseback made him laugh. But he had no other choice. If he could stay on them and bide his time, he could steal a horse when he had the chance.

  He took the bow and used it for a crutch as he stood. With a last look at his cave, he slung his saddlebags over his shoulder and stepped away from the outcropping. Mud clung to his feet, and he brought each foot up with a sucking sound as he walked. Another step, and he used his hand to help his bad leg up the slippery bank. He grabbed onto a willow root sticking out of the bank, but the ground gave way. The uprooted tree tore from the side of the hill. It fell into the water and raced on by as suddenly as a man blinks an eye.

  Tucker’s crutch give way, and he fell. Slick gumbo sucked him toward the torrent. Sliding. Slipping. First one leg, then the other dropped over the side of the bank, and he clutched at rocks with bleeding hands. The water soaked his boots, rising higher. He dropped his saddlebags, and his last thoughts were of Lorna.

  A cottonwood trunk caromed off the opposite bank, coming straight for him when strong hands clasped his collar, tore through, then another hand grabbed an arm. He felt himself being dragged up the bank, away from the river. His head grazed a cactus, and stickers imbedded in his cheek as someone pulled him across the muddy ground.

  Strong hands dropped Tucker onto the wet ground overhead. He shielded his eyes with his hands and looked down the bore of a rifle.

  CHAPTER 27

  * * *

  Jimmy Swallow grabbed his bow and notched an arrow as he scurried toward a boulder. “I hear him coming, too.”

  The rain had begun again, soft at first, then harder, nearly masking the sound of the approaching horse.

  Blue Boy nodded and grabbed Lorna by the arm. He led her toward the safety of a group of three boulders and set her on the ground.

  Lorna jerked free. “I’m not one of your other wives . . .”

  Blue Boy’s face had assumed the look he got when danger neared. “Do not leave this place.”

  She rubbed her arm while he grabbed his rifle and crouched behind a rock.

  The hoofbeats fast approached, the rider not caring if he was heard. He rode through the natural boulder doorway, and Blue Boy yelled to Swallow. “Do not shoot your arrow!”

  Blue Boy ran to Black Dog, slumped over in the saddle, and grabbed the reins of his pony. Water dripped down his scuffed cheeks, yet he still forced a smile. “Hau, tahanski.”

  Blue Boy eased him off his horse. The rain had washed his shirt nearly free of blood, but the flannel fabric remained pasted to the bullet wound in his shoulder. Blue Boy led Black Dog to a cottonwood stump under the protection of a rock ledge and laid him down.

  Jimmy Swallow ran to Black Dog. “You have been shot.”

  Black Dog looked up through glassy eyes. “You have learned something about being a warrior.” He grimaced. “You can tell when a man has been shot. Good.”

  Blue Boy grabbed medicine out of his saddlebag and used his knife to slice Black Dog’s shirt away. “Get the woman,” Black Dog said, and Swallow ran to the boulder to bring Lorna back.

  “He Who Follows”—Black Dog said as Blue Boy spread the wound apart to look at it—“killed Pawnee Killer.”

  “We know,” Blue Boy said. He grabbed a concoction of sage and chokecherries and worked them into a paste. “Pawnee Killer’s horse brought him faithfully back here.”

  Black Dog looked around the clearing pelted by rain. “Where . . . ?”

  “His pony brought him into our camp a few miles over there”—Blue Boy chin-pointed to the east—“with this stuck in his back.” He handed Black Dog the knife that had been stuck in Pawnee Killer.

  Black Dog nodded. “It is the one who follows. His eyes see where they should not.”

  “Not now—”

  “We followed his tracks to the white man’s town,” Black Dog interrupted with an urgency in his voice. “Pawnee Killer went to the north end of the town. I rode south of Cowtown to find the white man’s sign. I heard two quick shots in the direction of where Pawnee Killer had ridden. By the time I got there, all that was left was blood-sign telling me Pawnee Killer and his pony were gone.”

  “How this then?” Blue Boy motioned to Black Dog’s injured shoulder.

  “I set an ambush even He Who Follows could not have spotted. I notched an arrow. Let it go. But He Who Follows jumped from his mule, and the arrow flew past him and into the mule. I killed his mule, and He Who Follows shot me.” He grimaced as Blue Boy stuffed the sage poultice into the bullet hole. He looked about for something to stop the bleeding when Lorna approached, walking beside Swallow. “I have my . . . underthings. They are white and made out of the cotton plant. I can rip enough material for a dressing.”

  Blue Boy began to tell Swallow to follow her into the brush so that she did not run off. But he realized she would not shirk her duty at a time like this. She was developing into a Lakota woman after all. “It will make a good dressing. Please,” Blue Boy said.

  The rain had increased, but they were in no danger of being washed away. Under the rocks of their high camp, the ground was dry, and Blue Boy had built a small fire to warm Black Dog. “We will have to leave, Swallow and me.”

  “Going after He Who Follows?”

  Blue Boy nodded. “Sticking his knife into Pawnee Killer’s back was an insult we cannot ignore.”

  “And the woman?” Black Dog asked.

  Blue Boy looked into the far corner of their outcropping. Lorna sat with her back against a rock, knees bent, hugging them as she rocked back and forth. “She is in no shape to leave. Besides, she has a one-armed Lakota to watch her.”

  Black Dog swatted Blue Boy on the arm, but there was little conviction in his punch.

  Blue Boy tied the strip of petticoat around Black Dog’s shoulder and neck when Swallow ducked under the rock. “The ponies are ready.”

  “Go,” Black Dog said. “I will watch the woman until you return.”

  Blue Boy laid more branches onto the fire before duck-walking to Lorna. “Will you be all right here with Black Dog?”

  She motioned to the wounded man. “He is no Wild Wind. I feel safe here with him.”

  Blue Boy resisted the urge to kiss her good-bye. There would be time enough for that later. “Take care of my friend.”

  “I will,” Lorna answered.

  “And thank you again for tearing your petticoat for a bandage.”

  Lorna didn’t answer but looked from Black Dog to the opening of the cave, as if she had other ideas.

  CHAPTER 28

  * * *

  Jess Hammond grinned at Tucker through chipped teeth and winked with his swollen eye. Beside him, Philo Brown stood with his floppy hat pulled over his eyes against the rain pel
ting his face. He picked his teeth with an “Arkansas toothpick” and drew it across his throat as he smiled.

  “Why’d you save me?” Tucker shouted at them over the roar of the thunderstorm.

  “Because I told them to.” Aurand’s hat was pulled low, and water dripped off his nose. “I want you dead, Tuck ol’ salt. But I aim to do it myself. You killed Con back in Cowtown, and that doesn’t set right with me. You beat hell out of Jess—”

  “He got lucky,” Jess blurted out.

  Aurand looked sideways at Jess and shook his head. “And you almost got Philo here lynched.” He squatted next to Tucker. “I thought all I wanted was you dangling at the end of a rope. Now I realize I want you at the end of my pistol sights.” Aurand slapped Tucker’s wounded leg. Tucker gritted his teeth in pain, but he did not give Aurand the satisfaction of yelling. “Looks like you should have ducked a mite quicker when some Indian shot you.”

  “Look.” Tucker struggled to sit up. “I’ll face you. Just you and me. With a town full of witnesses. But only if you let me go to find Lorna Moore.”

  “Lorna Moore’s out here?”

  “Lakota took her from town.”

  “I told you I figured Blue Boy’s bunch has a woman with them.” Red Sun ran his hand over one of his mare’s white stockings. He stood up straight and arched his back. The rain beat down on his bald head, but he seemed to be impervious to the storm. He pulled his hat low and wiped water from his eyes. “I could not imagine Blue Boy taking one of his women on this raid. I figured it was that missing shopkeeper.”

  Aurand scanned the far ridge they’d just come from. “You mean one of those two Indians sitting on that ridge over yonder was Blue Boy?”

  Red nodded and retrieved papers and a pouch of tobacco from his pocket. He bent over against the rain and rolled a smoke.

  “My guess is Lorna’s daddy put up a reward for her,” Tucker said. “Let me go, and I’ll give it all to you when I bring her home safe.”

  Aurand seemed to be weighing Tucker’s proposition when a smile creased his face. “Wouldn’t matter if the reward was twice that. The only reward I want is you standing tall in the street.”

  Aurand nodded to Jess, and Tucker turned his head in time to see a rifle butt smash squarely on his chin.

  Tucker fought for consciousness, but the last thing he saw before he went under was the grimace of hatred crossing Aurand’s face.

  Tucker awakened from a fitful sleep. His chin throbbed from Jess’s rifle butt. A large welt had formed on the side of his jaw, and dried blood caked his chin stubble. He remained silent and listened. The rain had stopped, and the only thing he heard was sap popping from a nearby campfire.

  He opened his eyes and shielded them from the morning sun as he looked about. Shackles secured his legs together, and the swelling of his injured leg seemed to have diminished. That was the one small thing in his predicament to be grateful for.

  He stood and hit the end of a chain wrapped around a cottonwood log five feet away. He thought at first that Aurand had left him chained here, when he spotted a form lying ten yards off in some reed grass. His snoring rose and fell with the pitch of the wind, the sound muted under the man’s floppy hat. “That you, Red?”

  The snoring stopped.

  “Least you can do is get me a swig of water.”

  Red pushed his hat on the back of his head. He propped himself up with an elbow and shook his head. “You’re a mess.” Red stood and walked to packs sitting beside the fire. “Never thought it would be so easy to get the drop on Tucker Ashley.”

  Tucker rattled the chain. “I’m kind of handicapped. Pass that water over.”

  Red handed Tucker a deerskin water bladder and stayed well away from the end of the chain. Tucker took a shallow sip first to lose the raw in his throat, then a longer pull as he considered this to be the last water he’d have for a time. If Aurand were here, Tucker was certain he would have overridden Red’s generosity. “Where’s Aurand and the others?”

  Red broke off a chew of his plug and pocketed the rest. “Aurand and Philo rode out for meat. Philo saw a herd of pronghorns fleeing that gully washer we had.”

  “And Jess?”

  “Out there.” He waved his hand over the prairie. “He seems to think those Sioux have doubled back and are looking for our camp.” Red laughed.

  “But you don’t believe it?”

  Red spat a string of tobacco juice that the wind took dangerously close to Tucker’s head. “With last night’s rain, those Lakota couldn’t find buffalo tracks in this mud, let alone men holed up here.” He waved his arm around the campsite shielded by boulders and thick sandstone spires. “No, if they find this camp it will be with the help of their Wakan Tanka. And a lot of luck.”

  Tucker stretched his arm toward Red and handed him back the water bladder. “What’s Aurand got planned for me?”

  Red set the bladder beside a saddle and squatted in front of Tucker. “Aurand aims to see you dead. But he wants what he calls a fair fight.”

  “One on one?”

  “One on one.”

  “But Aurand knows even on a good day I couldn’t beat his draw.” Tucker rubbed the stiffness out of his leg and massaged his broken knuckles, which had bruised black. “And it seems like it’ll be some time before I have another good day.”

  “Does not matter to him.”

  “So all he really wants is for me to be able to stand up long enough for him to put a slug in my gut?”

  “You do have a grasp of your predicament.” Red turned back to his saddlebag. “So I guess the least I can do is doctor your leg some more.”

  “So he can kill me quicker?”

  Red ignored him and rooted in his beaded possibles bag. He came out with a tin cup and a small deerskin pouch. He untied the pouch and withdrew another, smaller one. He sprinkled powder into a cup before he dribbled water over it and mixed the paste with his finger. “You ain’t going to try anything on ol’ Red, are you?”

  “I will if I get a chance,” Tucker answered.

  “That’s what I figured.” Red unsheathed his knife and stuck it in the ground beside him. “Insurance.” He knelt close to Tucker and set the cup on the ground. “Bring your leg closer.”

  Tucker felt his leg hit the end of the chain, and he gingerly dragged it closer to where Red could work on it. Red pulled the cloth away from the wound and peeled some hide stuck to Tucker’s trousers. “Sorry,” Red said.

  “And I’d like to think I’m sorry about Con,” Tucker spoke between gritted teeth. “But I’m not. Heard you and him hunted now and again.”

  Red shrugged as he examined the arrow hole. “Just once when Aurand saddled me with the kid. We did not exactly develop a lasting friendship.” He mixed the poultice with his finger. “So I will lose no sleep over your gunfight with him. The kid knew he could go any time if he met someone faster.” He looked around as if people lurked about to hear him and lowered his voice. “My opinion? The kid deserved an early grave. Lord knows he sent enough men to theirs who were no gun hands.” He nodded to Tucker’s leg. “Or men not quite up to a fight. So I’m not losing any shuteye over his demise.”

  Red dribbled water over his bandana. He cleaned the dried poultice he’d applied before and dripped water over the stitches he’d put in. He scooped fresh poultice from the cup and smeared it over the wound with his finger. Tucker gritted his teeth and stiffened with the pain. Red wiped excess blood and poultice off on his pant leg before he wrapped a bandana snugly around the leg.

  He stood just out of Tucker’s reach and looked down at him. “Just so you know, I don’t hold no grudge agin’ you. When Aurand kills you, I will not dance a happy jig over your grave.”

  “That’s mighty white of you,” Tucker said. He leaned back against the rock and massaged his leg. “Least you can do is tell me if you heard what happened to Jack Worman?”

  Red spat his tobacco out and reloaded his cheek with fresh plug. “Now that’s kind of funny. Ironic
, them educated people would claim. When the cowboys lit out after the killer of that shopkeeper—I imagine it was you who gave them the wrong directions—some hung back. When they spotted Jack—”

  “Jack was in Cowtown?”

  “He was there looking for you, be my guess. When those cowboys who stayed in town spotted Jack . . . well, they was looking to string somebody up.”

  “You’re saying Jack’s been lynched?”

  “I never seen it myself,” Red answered. “But the way Sadie at the saloon tells it, Jack was a stranger they did not recognize. It would bother them none if they hung an innocent man as long as someone paid. Old Clive was a popular man in Cowtown.” Red bit off a chunk of jerky and chewed on the side opposite his tobacco. He tossed Tucker the jerky. “That must be some woman you’re chasing after.”

  “What do you know of her? Is she all right?”

  “Whoa.” Red held up his hand. “I ain’t seen her since I bought that box of rifle ammo in her store last month. Only thing I know is she is with Blue Boy’s band.”

  “You sure she’s still with him?”

  “Son,” Red said, “I was tracking Indians when you were an idea in your daddy’s mind. Of course I am sure. No one makes deep tracks like that murdering bastard.”

  “So you know she is alive?”

  “She was two days ago.”

  “You seen her?” Tucker pulled at the chain.

  “I said I ain’t,” Red answered. “Just her sign where they camped off Bear Lodge Creek. By the looks of the tracks, there is some buck always close by her. My guess is they guard her almighty close.” He caught the jerky Tucker tossed back. “But she was alive.”

  Tucker fell back against the rock. Lorna’s still alive. Still fighting. He looked over at Red, who had stood and walked back to his bedroll. I’ve got to get away. Far enough away from Aurand and his bunch, but close enough that Blue Boy could pick up his sign. For Tucker had no doubt that Blue Boy would want to avenge the death of the braves Tucker had killed. And he’d find Tucker’s trail. He was counting on it.