Collection 2008 - Big Medicine (v5.0)

by Louis L'Amour

  After dark, he slipped out and covered the Indian better, and then he used a mesquite bush to wipe out as well as possible the signs of their fighting. Then he cat-footed it back to the hollow and tied a rawhide string across the entrance with a can of loose pebbles at the end to warn him if Indians found him. Then he went to sleep.

  At dawn he was up. He checked the Sharps, and then cleaned his .50 again. He loaded his pockets with cartridges, just in case and settled down for a day of it.

  Luckily he had shade. It was hot out there, plenty hot. You could fry an egg on those rocks by 10:00 in the morning—not that he had any eggs. He hadn’t even seen an egg since the last time he was in Fremont, and that had been four months ago.

  He bit off a chew of tobacco and rolled it in his jaws. Then he studied the banks of the draw. An Apache could move like a ghost and look like part of the landscape. He had known them to come within fifteen feet of a man in grassy country without being seen, and not tall grass at that.

  It wouldn’t be so bad if his time hadn’t been so short. When he had left Fremont, Sally had six months to go to pay off the loan on her ranch, or out she would go. Sally’s husband had been killed by a bronco down on the Sandy. She was alone with the kids, and that loan was about to take their home away.

  When the situation became serious, Old Billy thought of this wash. Once, several years before, he had washed out some color here, and it looked rich. He had left the country about two jumps ahead of the Apaches and swore he’d never come back. Nobody else was coming out of here with gold, either, so he knew it was still like he remembered. Several optimistic prospectors had tried it and were never heard of again. However, Old Billy had decided to take a chance. After all, Sally was all he had, and those two grandchildren of his deserved a better chance than they’d get if she lost the place.

  The day moved along, a story told by the shadows on the sides of the wash. You could almost tell the time by those shadows. It wasn’t long before Dunbar knew every bush, every clump of greasewood and mesquite along its length, and every rock.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow and waited. Sally was a good girl. Pretty, too, too pretty to be a widow at twenty-two. It was almost mid afternoon when his questing eye halted suddenly on the bank of the wash. He lay perfectly still, eyes studying the bank intently. Yet his eyes had moved past the spot before they detected something amiss. He scowled, trying to remember. Then it came to him.

  There had been a torn place there, as though somebody had started to pull up a clump of greasewood and then abandoned it. The earth had been exposed and a handful of roots. Now it was blotted out. Straining his eyes, he could see nothing, distinguish no contours that seemed human, only that the spot was no longer visible. The spot was mottled by shadows and sunlight through the leaves of the bush.

  Then there was a movement, so slight that his eye scarcely detected it, and suddenly the earth and torn roots were visible again. They had come back. Their stealth told him they knew he was somewhere nearby, and the logical place for him would be right where he was.

  Now he was in for it. Luckily he had food, water, and ammunition. There should be just eight of them unless more had come. Probably they had found his prospect holes and trailed him back this way.

  There was no way they could see into his hollow, no way they could shoot into it except through the narrow entrance, which was rock and brush. There was no concealed approach to it. He dug into the bank a little to get more earth in front of himself.

  No one needed to warn him of the gravity of the situation. It was 150 miles to Fremont and sixty miles to the nearest white young man, Sid Barton, a cowhand turned rancher who had started running some cattle on the edge of the Apache country.

  Nor could he expect help. Nobody ever came into this country, and nobody knew where he was but Sally, and she only knew in a general way. Prospectors did not reveal locations where they had found color.

  Well, he wasn’t one of these restless young coots who’d have to be out there tangling with the Apaches. He could wait. And he would wait in the shade while they were in the sun. Night didn’t worry him much. Apaches had never cared much for night fighting, and he wouldn’t have much trouble with them.

  One of them showed himself suddenly—only one arm and a rifle. But he fired, the bullet striking the rock overhead. Old Billy chuckled. Tryin’ t’draw fire, he thought, get me located.

  Billy Dunbar waited, grinning through his beard. There was another shot, and then more stillness. He lay absolutely motionless. A hand showed, and then a foot. He rolled his quid in his jaws and spat. An Indian suddenly showed himself, and then vanished as though he had never been there. Old Billy watched the banks cynically. An Indian showed again and hesitated briefly this time, but Dunbar waited.

  Suddenly, within twenty feet of the spot where Dunbar lay, an Indian slid down the bank and, with a shrill whoop, darted for the entrance to the hideaway. It was point-blank, even though a moving target. Billy let him have it.

  The old Sharps bellowed like a stricken bull and leaped in his hands. The Apache screamed wildly and toppled over backward, carried off his feet by the sheer force of the heavy-caliber bullet. Yells of rage greeted the shot.

  Dunbar could see the Indian’s body sprawled under the sun. He picked up an edged pieced of white stone and made a straight mark on the rack wall beside him, then seven more. He drew a diagonal line through the first one. Seven t’ go, he mused.

  A hail of bullets began kicking sand and dirt up around the opening. One shot hit overhead and showered dirt down almost in his face. “Durn you,” he mumbled. He took his hat off and laid it beside him, his six-shooter atop of it, ready to hand.

  No more Indians showed themselves, and the day drew on. It was hot out there. In the vast brassy vault of the sky a lone buzzard wheeled.

  He tried no more shots, just waiting. They were trying to tire him out. Dog-gone it. In this place he could outwait all the Apaches in the Southwest—not that he wanted to!

  Keeping well below the bank, he got hold of a stone about the size of his head and rolled it into the entrance. Instantly a shot smacked the dirt below it and kicked dirt into his eyes. He wiped them and swore viciously. Then he got another stone and rolled that in place, pushing dirt up behind them. He scooped his hollow deeper and peered thoughtfully at the banks of the draw.

  Jennie and Julie were eating grass, undisturbed and unworried. They had been with Old Billy too long to be disturbed by these—to them meaningless—fusses and fights. The shadow from the west bank reached farther toward the east, and Old Billy waited, watching.

  He detected an almost indiscernible movement atop the bank in the same spot where he had first seen an Indian. Taking careful aim, he drew a bead on the exposed roots and waited.

  He saw no movement, nothing, yet suddenly he focused his eyes more sharply and saw the roots were no longer exposed. Nestling the stock against his shoulder, his finger eased back on the trigger. The old Sharps wavered, and he waited. The rifle steadied, and he squeezed the trigger.

  The gun jumped suddenly and there was a shrill yell from the Apache, who lunged to full height and rose on his tiptoes, both hands clasping his chest. The stricken Indian then plunged face forward down the bank in a shower of gravel. Billy reloaded and waited. The Apache lay still, lying in the shadow below the bank. After watching him for a few minutes, alternating between the still form and the banks of the draw, Dunbar picked up his white stone and marked another diagonal white mark, across the second straight line.

  He stared at the figures with satisfaction. “Six left,” he said. He was growing hungry. Jennie and Julie had both decided to lie down and call it a day.

  As luck would have it, his shovel and pick were concealed in the brush at the point where the draw opened into the wider wash. He scanned the banks suddenly, and then drew back. Grasping a bush, he pulled it from the earth under the huge rocks. He then took the brush and some stones and added to his parapet. With some lumps of ear
th and rock he gradually built it stronger.

  Always he returned to the parapet, but the Apaches were cautious and he saw nothing of them. Yet his instinct told him they were there, somewhere. And that, he knew, was the trouble. It was the fact he had been avoiding ever since he had holed up for the fight. They would always be around somewhere now. Three of their braves were missing—dead. They would never let him leave the country alive.

  If he had patience, so had they, and they could afford to wait. He could not. It was not merely a matter of getting home before the six-month period was up—and less than two months remained of that—it was a matter of getting home with enough money to pay off the loan. And with the best of luck it would require weeks upon weeks of hard, uninterrupted work.

  And then he saw the wolf.

  It was no more than a glimpse, and a fleeting glimpse. Billy Dunbar saw the sharply pointed nose and bright eyes and then the swish of a tail. The wolf vanished somewhere at the base of the shelf of rock that shaded the pocket. It vanished in proximity to the spring.

  Old Billy frowned and studied the spot. He wasn’t the only one holed up here! The wolf evidently had a hole somewhere in the back of the pocket, and perhaps some young, as the time of year was right. His stillness after he had finished work on the entrance had evidently fooled the wolf into believing the white man was gone.

  Obviously the wolf had been lying there, waiting for him to leave so it could come out and hunt. The cubs would be getting hungry. If there were cubs.

  The idea came to him then. An idea utterly fantastic, yet one that suddenly made him chuckle. It might work! It could work! At least, it was a chance, and somehow, some way, he had to be rid of those Apaches.

  He knew something of their superstitions and beliefs. It was a gamble, but as suddenly as he conceived the idea, he knew it was a chance he was going to take.

  Digging his change of clothes out of the saddlebags, he got into them. Then he took his own clothing and laid it out on the ground in plain sight—the pants, then the coat, the boots, and, nearby, the hat.

  Taking some sticks, he went to the entrance of the wolf den and built a small fire close by. Then he hastily went back and took a quick look around. The draw was empty, but he knew the place was watched. He went back and got out of line of the wolf den, and waited.

  The smoke was slight, but it was going into the den. It wouldn’t take long. The wolf came out with a rush, ran to the middle of the pocket, took a quick, snarling look around, and then went over the parapet and down the draw.

  Working swiftly, he moved the fire and scattered the few sticks and coals in his other fireplace. Then he brushed the ground with a branch. It would be a few minutes before they moved, and perhaps longer.

  Crawling into the wolf den, he next got some wolf hair, which he took back to his clothing. He put some of the hair in his shirt and some near his pants. A quick look down the draw showed no sign of an Indian, but that they had seen the wolf, he knew, and he could picture their surprise and puzzlement.

  Hurrying to the spring, he dug from the bank near the water a large quantity of mud. This was an added touch, but one that might help. From the mud, he formed two roughly human figures. About the head of each he tied a blade of grass.

  Hurrying to the parapet for a stolen look down the draw, he worked until six such figures were made. Then, using thorns and some old porcupine quills he found near a rock, he thrust one or more through each of the mud figures.

  They stood in a neat row, facing the parapet. Quickly he hurried for one last look into the draw. An Indian had emerged. He stood there in plain sight, staring toward the place.

  They would be cautious, Billy knew, and he chuckled to himself as he thought of what was to follow. Gathering up his rifle, the ammunition, a canteen, and a little food, he hurried to the wolf den and crawled back inside.

  On his first trip he had ascertained that there were no cubs. At the end of the den there was room to sit up, topped by the stone of the shelving rock itself. To his right, a lighted match told him there was a smaller hole of some sort.

  Cautiously, Billy crawled back to the entrance, and, careful to avoid the wolf tracks in the dust outside, he brushed out his own tracks, and then retreated into the depths of the cave. From where he lay he could see the parapet.

  Almost a half hour passed before the first head lifted above the poorly made wall. Black straight hair, a red headband, and the sharp, hard features of their leader.

  Then other heads lifted beside him, and one by one the six Apaches stepped over the wall and into the pocket. They did not rush, but looked cautiously about, and their eyes were large, frightened. They looked all around, then at the clothing, and then at the images. One of the Indians grunted and pointed.

  They drew closer, and then stopped in an awed line, staring at the mud figures. They knew too well what they meant. Those figures meant a witch doctor had put a death spell on each one of them.

  One of the Indians drew back and looked at the clothing. Suddenly he gave a startled cry and pointed—at the wolf hair!

  They gathered around, talking excitedly, and then glancing over their shoulders fearfully.

  They had trapped what they believed to be a white man, and, knowing Apaches, Old Billy would have guessed they knew his height, weight, and approximate age. Those things they could tell from the length of his stride, the way he worked, the pressure of a footprint in softer ground.

  They had trapped a white man, and a wolf had escaped! Now they found his clothing lying here, and on the clothing the hair of a wolf!

  All lndians knew of wolf-men, those weird creatures who changed at will from wolf to man and back again, creatures that could tear the throat from a man while he slept and could mark his children with the wolf blood.

  The day had waned, and, as he lay there, Old Billy Dunbar could see that while he had worked the sun had neared the horizon. The Indians looked around uneasily. This was the den of a wolf-man, a powerful spirit who had put the death spell on each of them, who came as a man and went as a wolf.

  Suddenly, out on the desert, a wolf howled!

  The Apaches started as if struck, and then as a man they began to draw back. By the time they reached the parapet, they were hurrying.

  Old Billy stayed the night in the wolf hole, lying at its mouth, waiting for dawn. He saw the wolf come back, stare about uneasily, and then go away. When light came, he crawled from the hole.

  The burros were cropping grass and they looked at him. He started to pick up a pack saddle, and then dropped it. “I’ll be durned if I will!” he said.

  Taking the old Sharps and the extra pan, he walked down to the wash and went to work. He kept a careful eye out, but saw no Apaches. The gold was panning out even better than he had dreamed would be possible. A few more days—suddenly he looked up.

  Two Indians stood in plain sight, facing him. The nearest one walked forward and placed something on a rock, and then drew away. Crouched, waiting, Old Billy watched them go. Then he went to the rock. Wrapped in a piece of tanned buckskin was a haunch of venison!

  He chuckled suddenly. He was big medicine now. He was a wolf-man. The venison was a peace offering, and he would take it. He knew now he could come and pan as much gold as he liked in Apache country.

  A few days later he killed a wolf, skinned it, and then buried the carcass, but from the head he made a cap to fit over the crown of his old felt hat, and, wherever he went, he wore it.

  A month later, walking into Fremont behind the switching tails of Jennie and Julie, he met Sally at the gate. She was talking with young Sid Barton.

  “Hi,” Sid said, grinning at him. Then he looked quizzically at the wolf-skin cap. “Better not wear that around here! Somebody might take you for a wolf!”

  Old Billy chuckled. “I am,” he said. “You’re durned right, I am. Ask them Apaches.”

  Trail To Pie Town

  Dusty Barron turned the steel-dust stallion down the slope toward the wash. He w
as going to have to find water soon or the horse and he would be done for. If Emmett Fisk and Gus Mattis had shown up in the street at any other time, it would have been all right. As it was, they had appeared just as he was making a break from the saloon, and they had blocked the road to the hill country and safety. Both men had reached for their guns when they saw him, and he had wheeled his horse and hit the desert road at a dead run. With Dan Hickman dead in the saloon it was no time to argue or engage in gun pleasantries while the clan gathered.

  It had been a good idea to ride to Jarilla and make peace talk, only the idea hadn’t worked. Dan Hickman had called him yellow, and then gone for a gun. Dan was a mite slow, a fact that had left him dead on the saloon floor. There were nine Hickmans in Jarilla, and there were Mattis and three Fisk boys. Dusty’s own tall brothers were back in the hills southwest of Jarilla, but with his road blocked he had headed the steel-dust down the trail into the basin.

  The stallion had saved his bacon. No doubt about that. It was only the speed of the big desert-bred horse and its endurance that had got him away from town before the Hickmans could catch him. The big horse had given him lead enough until night had closed in, and after that it was easier.

  Dusty had turned at right angles from his original route. They would never expect that, for the turn took him down the long slope into the vast, empty expanse of the alkali basin where no man of good sense would consider going.

  For him it was the only route. At Jarilla they would be watching for him, expecting him to circle back to the hill country and his own people. He should have listened to Allie when she had told him it was useless to try to settle the old blood feud.

  He had been riding now, with only a few breaks, for hours. Several times he had stopped to rest the stallion, wanting to conserve its splendid strength against what must lie ahead. And occasionally he had dismounted and walked ahead of the big horse.