Chapter Twelve
They were deep in the hills, camped about five miles south of their original camp. They had been there two days, too long in one place so Will reckoned. The first day Joe had spent in fever, but he seemed lucid now and he sat propped up against a boulder and though he looked grey and drawn, Will knew he would mend. There had been whisky among the supplies that Joe had taken from Broken Spur and with it Will had been able to clean out the wound. There had been no lead in it and it looked pretty healthy. It was an unpleasant jagged wound, but Joe claimed that he had ‘good healin’ flesh’ and he’d had worse in his time. He discussed their situation calmly. In his opinion they should withdraw right away from the valley country until he and Mart were fit enough to resume the fight.
Will knew that the Negro thought that he, Will, was not capable of carrying on alone. Well, Joe had another think coming to him. Broken Spur had to be occupied till Clay and the crew brought in the cattle up the trail. And he was the only man left to do it. He’d show them all. The crazy rage had left him, but he still simmered.
One thing he knew for sure, he and Joe had surely hurt Brack. There must be a half-dozen wounded or dead men back there. By now some of the cowhands would have drifted out of the country. Men didn’t join a pay-roll to die and be injured. That, of course, might make the situation even more dangerous, because Brack would now start importing more gun-hands. But that would take him time. The trail to the settlement would have to be watched. If gun-hands coming fresh into the country could be shot-up some of their ardor would be cooled.
On the third day, he moved Joe south a couple of miles and forted up in a strong place. Will rode back to their first camp and fetched the horses. He knew that he was leaving sign, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
On a strong bay horse, he rode off in the night, crossed the valley to the north of Broken Spur headquarters and took up a position above the Spring Creek trail. He couldn’t afford to bait his horse because he wanted it tied and ready, but he hoped that he wouldn’t be there too long. However, he dozed through the day at the side of the trail and neither rider nor wagon passed. He was starting to be seriously worried about feeding his mount when he spotted two riders coming south from the direction of the Spring Creek settlement. The light was now starting to fail. The two riders came abreast of him and he recognized one of them as the cowhand he had robbed of his boots and started for headquarters on foot from the line-camp to the east. The fellow wasn’t going to take kindly to what Will was going to do now.
He let them pass him before the put a shot over their heads and told them to pull up. They obeyed and voluntarily put their hands above their heads. Will walked out on to the trail and said:
‘Git down. Do it nice an’ easy. Keep your hands high all the time.’
At the sound of his voice, the cowhand he recognized looked back over his shoulder and said bitterly: ‘Aw, no, not you again.’
‘Me again,’ Will said.
They threw their legs over their saddle horns and slipped to the ground, turning to face him. The man he knew was a young fellow with ginger hair. The other was a somewhat older man with a beard and sad disillusioned eyes.
Will said: ‘You hands want to git it into your heads us Storms mean business. You stay in this country an’ you end up dead. That’s a poor kind of ambition in my book. Ask yourselves: is it worth it? Thirty and found and you end up mutton. Don’t make sense.’
The ginger-haired boy licked his lips.
‘What you aimin’ to do?’ he asked. His voice shook a little.
‘I’ll dicker,’ Will said.
The older man looked suspicious.
He said: ‘Nothin’ crooked, mister. We take Brack’s money an’ we’re Broken Spur men.’
‘You stay here, you’re dead,’ Will said. ‘I’ll give you a chance to ride outa here right now. Alive.’
Ginger said: ‘We have money owin’ us.’
‘I’ll pay it.’
The two of them looked at each other.
The older man said: ‘We have three weeks owin’.’
‘I’ll make it the month and a ten dollar bonus on top. They your own horses you’re riding.’
‘Yeah.’
Ginger said: ‘Al, it sure sounds like a fair offer.’
The older man hesitated. He had his code.
‘How do we know,’ he said, ‘you don’t back-shoot us as we ride off?’
Will said: ‘Any man as knows us knows no Storm ever shot a man in the back. Jesus, man, I could kill you right here an’ now. I could of shot you down as you rid by an’ saved all this fool palaver.’
‘All right,’ said the man. ‘I agree.’
‘You ride clear outa the country,’ Will said. ‘You come back here and you git shot on sight, hear?’
‘I hear.’
Will passed his rifle into his left hand, drew his revolver and rested his rifle against his leg. Then he drew notes from his pocket and handed them to the man. The man counted them and handed his share to the younger man.
Will said: ‘I’m leavin’ you your guns. Don’t stop at the Springs tonight. Keep movin’.’
The older man said: ‘You’re a white man, Storm. In your boots Brack would of killed us.’
‘Glad you realize that,’ Will said. ‘Now fork your broncs and ride.’
They turned and walked to their horses, got aboard and rode past him. Will watched them disappear into the dusk, then went back to his own horse and rode away east. The other Brack riders would now be convinced that these two had deserted of their own volition. The rot would have set in after today’s fight; this would hasten it. Brack was going to be short-handed. It had been a good day’s work.
After an hour’s riding, he halted, stepped down from the saddle, unsaddled and let his horse graze and roll to its heart’s content. He sat with his back to a tree and chewed on some jerky. He thought about Martha and the rest of the family. He sure hoped they were making out in that wilderness. He wondered how he would have made out without Martha being the woman she was.
Later in the night with the horse rested and well baited, he saddled up and moved on. Around dawn, he came to the main cache that Joe had made. From it he took coffee and ammunition, some beans and bacon. It wasn’t until he was leaving the spot that he saw the tracks. He wasn’t the tracker that Joe was, but he wasn’t a slouch at the game either. He at once stopped and stepped down.
He took a careful survey of the whole area and knew that there had been one man there and he had been there recently. Certainly within the last twenty-four hours. This didn’t panic him, for he had expected discovery sooner or later. But it did alarm him a little. He knew that he had carefully covered his tracks in and out of the place and he knew just how good Joe was at the business. So either the man who had been here had come on the cache by accident or he had outsmarted Joe. Will couldn’t believe that the well-hidden cache had been found by accident, so that meant that Brack had a pretty smart tracker working for him.
There were two facts which needed thinking on. One, the unknown’s horse was shod. Two, the tracker himself wore moccasins. It wasn’t usual for an Indian’s pony to be iron shod, but it was possible, if the man was an Indian, that he had stolen the horse. It was possible that the man who had found Joe’s cache was just an Indian on the loose. He could have carried off what he could of Joe’s cache and aimed to return for more, possibly with some help. On the whole, however, realizing that the man walked like an Indian, Will was inclined to think that Brack had hired him an Indian tracker. That could spell out a whole load of grief for the Storms.
He followed the tracks south, then lost them after a few miles in a fast-flowing mountain torrent. He could have circled and tried to pick them up again, but he reckoned he’d best keep on the move and warn Joe. He quickened his pace and reached Joe soon after noon. The Negro was sitting up and looking pretty chipper. The unhealthy grey look had left his face. He said he didn’t feel much like laugh
ing, but he had felt worse in his time.
Will noted that Joe had killed the fire. And he had looked forward to coffee. He at once suspected that the Negro had something to tell him.
‘Somebody was at your cache before me,’ Will told him. ‘I lost his sign a few miles in this direction. I didn’t hang around to look for it. I reckoned we should ought to git you on the move.’
‘Jest one man?’ Joe asked.
‘That’s right. Shod horse, but the man was wearin’ moccasins.’
‘Likely I seen him,’ Joe said calmly. ‘Half-breed. Ridin’ a paint. Rid right past not an hour back. Knowed I was here all right, too. Smart feller. Didn’t let on. He ain’t up here to kill us, just to find us.’
Uneasiness settled on Will. He knew that he was out of his depth now. This kind of game was all Joe’s.
‘What happens now?’ he asked.
Joe said: T made a mistake. I should of killed him. But I wasn’t too sure if he was on his lonesome. So we light out. An’ we do it good, because that boy’s good.’
‘You fit to ride?’
‘Man, if I ain’t fit to ride, I best be fit to die. That feller he gone right back to Mister Brack with the news.’
‘Joe, if this here feller’s so durned good, you reckon he could of found Martha?’
The Negro raised sad eyes to Will’s.
‘Mebbe.’
Will was torn then. If Martha was in danger, he wanted to be with her. On the other hand, if she wasn’t and he and Joe went into the west to her, they could lead Brack to her.
Joe must have read his thoughts.
He said: ‘We go to the missus that could show Brack jest where she at. We stay here, Brack get us’ns. So we don’t do neither. We go west on the edge of the valley where we kin watch it. If they move west, we cut down on ’em.’
It was a crude enough plan, but Will couldn’t think of anything better.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘we’ll do that.’
He caught up the horses and they moved out right away, going north again. Joe stood up well to the travelling and said that he was in no discomfort. Will didn’t believe him. Certainly when he inspected the wound and redressed it with rags torn from a clean shirt it looked healthy enough. But it must have made riding acutely uncomfortable.
They reached the first cache during the night, loaded the horses and moved on to the second one. They didn’t have too much time, for they were racing the darkness. They had to be on the further side of the valley come daylight, safely in the wilderness of the mountains. They loaded at the second cache and did their best to lose their trail in water before they set off across the valley. They scarcely made the further side by dawn. No sooner were they into the higher country than Joe took charge, tired as he was, and set about hiding their tracks. He led them south at a hard pace, then towards the end of the day when he was near utter exhaustion, started them on a course which took them back the way they had come. Leaving Will and the horses in a safe place on good grass and water, he then went back over their most recent tracks and rubbed them out. By dark he was satisfied that he had done his work sufficiently well to at least hold up a good tracker for a reasonable time. The position they now held high in the rocks would enable them to see out over the valley, to watch the trail into the mountains to the west and to also overlook their own southerly tracks. If there was anybody trailing them, they could cut down on them.
Will told Joe to catch up on his sleep. The Negro was indeed all in and was too sensible to deny it. He wrapped himself in a blanket and fell at once into a deep sleep.
Chapter Thirteen
Dawn found Will cold and dozing, Joe wide awake and refreshed.
‘Man,’ he said, ‘that sleep sure done me a heap of good.’
They ate a quick breakfast cold and washed it down with water. Fires were out of the question now. Joe told Will to get some sleep, it was going to be a mighty scarce commodity any time now. Will thought that the best idea he’d heard in a long time and stretched out. Joe moved higher up the ridge to watch.
Will didn’t know how long he slept, but he woke suddenly not knowing the cause of his waking. He raised his head and stared out across the green sweep of the valley, the range on range of high peaks beyond.
He heard a low whistle and raised himself on one elbow. Above him was Joe in the rocks, beckoning him urgently. Will pulled on his boots and climbed to join him..
‘Look yonder,’ Joe said.
Will looked down a rounded shoulder of the mountain and saw the bobbing heads of horsemen. A line of riders were crossing at an angle to them. They were too far off for any detail to show clearly.
Just the same, Will knew.
‘Jesus God,’ he whispered, ‘that’s Martha. An’ the girls.’
There must have been around a dozen riders accompanying them, slowly walking their horses through the grass. They moved in Indian file and he could see the sun glittering on the barrels of the rifles they all carried. They were ready for trouble. Will didn’t doubt that they both expected it and hoped for it.
He turned and scrambled down the steep incline to their camp.
He picked up his rifle and automatically checked the loads. Joe came running up to him.
‘What you aim on doin’?’ he demanded.
Will stared at him.
‘You was right,’ he said. ‘We should of killed them bastards when we had the chance.’
‘Don’t you go off half-cock, boy,’ Joe said. His very calmness maddened Will.
‘Half-cock!’ Will choked. There was Martha and the kids over yonder, not more than a rifle shot away in the hands of that Brack and .. ?
‘Cool off,’ Joe said. They ready for us. There’s too much open ground here. We do it later.’
‘Later, you damn fool,’ Will almost shouted, ‘that could be too late. You know the kinda scum Brack has with him.’
‘I ain’t goin’ to let you do it.’
‘Git outa my road, you black ape.’
Joe blinked just the once.
‘I know how you feel,’ he said, ‘but you ain’t a-goin’ to do it.’ His gun appeared in his hand with the speed that Will could never credit. ‘Mebbe I have to put a bullet in your fool leg. All right, I tote you outa here.’
Will knew he could do it. More than that, he knew he would. He let the breath run out of him.
‘My God, man,’ he said, ‘that’s my wife an’ kids.’
‘Go back up there,’ Joe said. ‘Don’t take your rifle. Have a good look through your glass. You see somethin’ mighty interestin’.’
Will laid his rifle down, found his glass and climbed once more to the top of the ridge. The riders were closer now. He extended the glass and had laid it on them.
He saw Martha plain. Her head was down and she rode huddled in the saddle. The picture of dejection. In front of her rode little Melissa. Behind them came Kate, riding with a straight back, staring ahead of her.
He ran the glass down the line of riders. He didn’t find the face he was looking for. He tried again and failed.
Where was Mart?
He turned to find Joe lying beside him.
He caught hold of his arm—
‘Mart ain’t there. He must be dead, Joe.’
Joe said: ‘Dead? He jest ain’t killable that Mart.’
‘He wouldn’t be alive, not with Martha an’ the girls took.’
‘Mebbe you don’t know your missus so good. Mebbe she lead ?em away from Mart, She reckon no man daresn’t hurt a woman in this country.’
There was a slim chance that Joe was right. That sounded like Martha. If she had to be taken, she would want the two girls with her. But Will shuddered to think of Kate and her ripe beauty in the hands of these men. He’d seen the way that damned foreman, Dwyer, had licked his lips over her. He lay there boiling, hating himself for making this situation possible.
‘We pay ’em,’ Joe said. ‘Don’t you fret, boy, we pay ’em.’
‘We gott
a git ’em away before they reach their headquarters.’
Joe wasn’t listening.
He said: It wasn’t only Mart wasn’t there.’
‘Dwyer,’ Will said. ‘I didn’t see Dwyer.’
‘Nor that tracker,’ Joe said. ‘You’n’me is goin’ to move right now or we in trouble.’
Will watched Martha and his two girls go slowly from sight. It was a living agony to him.
Once they were gone, it seemed that his brain started working. Joe was right. He had to be cool. He had to out-think and out-dare Brack. He couldn’t afford to clutter his mind up with emotion.
So what had he going for him?
There was just him and Joe. And Joe was hurt. He had suffered no more than a bullet burn on his shoulder, but was conscious of little more than a minor irritation. Mart was somewhere back in the hills, either dead or wounded. There was something like a dozen men with Martha and the girls. If Joe was right and that half-breed was sniffing on their trail right now, he could have more men with him led by Dwyer. Now he and Joe had killed and wounded a tolerable number of men in the fight on the ridges above Broken Spur headquarters. So it seemed that, taking into consideration that some men must have deserted by now and the two Will had sent on their way, to have this number of men, Brack must have brought fresh men into the valley. If that was so, it meant that they were not cowhands, but gun-hands. The fighting they had experienced up to now would seem like a picnic to what lay ahead of them.
‘All right,’ he said, ‘let’s get outa here.’
They climbed down from the ridge and collected their gear together. They caught up two of the strongest and freshest horses, having decided that they could no longer hold on to the rest of the stock they had with them. They would have to bank on their staying on the good grass and water there was around here. Both of them would now have to be ready to travel light and fast. They saddled up and mounted, moving off west. It took a lot of doing for Will to go in the opposite direction from his family, but he knew he had to do it. He and Joe had to stay alive at all costs.
Riders West Page 11