Double Mountain Crossing (16 page)

Thunderhawk's smile came slowly. “Use it well,” he said.

***

His first thought was his cheek was sore. Splinters of golden sunlight pierced the slits of his eyes and danced agonizingly in the lens of his brain. If this is Death, then I don't want it, there's too much pain. He blinked and tried to focus. No good. The fierce yellow light refused to go away. Body next. He flexed his right hand then adventurously bent his arm at the elbow. Pain sliced between his shoulder blades and his mouth opened in a silent yawning scream. Soil tumbled in to silt his tongue but that was merely discomfort. The pain was the thing. After the first immediate stab, the now open wound subsided into an ache throbbing rhythmically, pulsing in his back. It jarred and twisted his mind into seething chaos.

Morgan groaned once more and his eyes slid shut again for a long time.

Next time, things were clearer.
But for the golden light.
That was as constant as ever. He squinted against a surge of pain, narrowing his eyelids to bring his vision into focus. He grunted aloud. If he'd had either the strength or appreciated the irony he would have laughed. The source of the eerie golden light was in reality a nugget laying only inches from his face. He must be in the trench. He drew his head back, afraid to move his body. The merest thought of the agony brought a stark terror, a fear he would be unable to move and would lay there till he died.

Movement brought back the pain. Harsh, unbearable, but he bore it. He wasn't so simple as to believe it had all been a nightmare and had gone away.
Nothing else to do but endure it.
Pain in whatever quantity was still preferable to death. Slowly, teeth gritted, he brought his good arm beneath him and pushed himself up. Once raised on an elbow, he paused, mouth taut as he gasped, tortured nerves searing their way across his back in a river of fire. When it subsided a little he managed to turn his head.

The gold stash was gone.

He expected nothing less. Suddenly his stomach twisted as gnarled fingers had grabbed at him and were crushing his bowels. He vomited, retching time and again until it was pointless for there was nothing left to vomit. Head drooping, he swayed on his elbow, mouth slack, drawing down clear mountain air.

In an effort to forget his bodily ills, he concentrated on his predicament. So Sharp Eyes had trailed him after all. God knows how, but he had done it. Morgan had underestimated him. He was angry at himself, but knowing Alison had missed his shot gave him a glimmer of hope. Not that he had really missed, but Morgan was sure he should have been dead right now, so that could be claimed as a miss.
To a
pistolero
like Alison, anyhow.
Just his style, to shoot a man in the back.

Senses dulled by the raging pain of his wound, Morgan could not keep his thoughts running on one track, as an inner voice over-rode them, commanding, insistent.
Stay alive!
He caught hold of the notion and began to crawl. His breath came in broken gulps as each movement flooded his body with torment. But a man's instinct is stronger than love or pain.
Stay alive!
He slithered, clawing his way with broken nails over the mountain grass. His eyelids drooped with the effort.
Stay alive!
Keep moving. Find safety. Once you stop, that's it. You'll die then.
Danger?
Sharp Eyes
gone,
no danger there. What happens when night comes?
Wolves?
Yellowed fangs snarling in the darkness.
Lean grey shapes nursing a hunger in their bellies. He'd heard them calling every night, howls drifting on the breeze through the canyons. They look silver in the moonlight, eyes sickly bright, muzzles sniffing the wind for the hint of a kill. The scent of blood! He must be covered in it from head to toe. As he wriggled slowly he could feel the wetness on his right shoulder and there must be dried gore too, drawing them to him.
Stay alive!
How long till dark? He bent his head slowly back but the canopy of branches denied him knowledge.
A while until sunset at least, the shadows not too long yet.
Wolves.
What else?
bears
? He'd seen small black bears, but no grizzlies. But he could not discard that threat.
Mountain lions, another possibility.
Stay alive!

Crawl. It hurts like hell. It hurts as bad as the preachers say it must have hurt Jesus on the cross. But He was moving onto better things. You aren't. Keep moving. Oh Lord how it hurts.
Another yard nearer safety.
A foot, an inch, but for God's sake put an arm forward, then a leg and pull.
Pull!
Gasp. Screaming pain! Oh, sweet Jesus. Forget it, the pain. It's all in the mind.
Really?
Whoever said that didn't have a rifle bullet in his
back,
did he.
Stay alive!
Control it. Think of what you're going to do to Alison when you catch up. Think of all those days you spent blistering your hands, digging in the earth. All that time you've got to claim from him. How will he repay it? All he's got is his skin. Good, I'll take it out of that. If nothing else, if Alison is so greedy for gold you can ram nuggets down his throat until he chokes on them. Either that or they come out of his ass. He
laughed,
a dry rattle through split lips. That would be something.
A man who shits gold bricks.

Stay alive!
Crawl, dammit,
crawl
.

As he struggled to blot out the pain, only his willpower driving him onward, he was unaware of where he was crawling. He did not even notice the rain when it began to fall. Somewhere in the fog of his mind he associated the growing dampness of his shirt and the ground below him with the weeping bullet wound. Not daring to look, he crawled blind through visions of bloody grass and trees with dark red trunks.

Morgan Clay was a hard-headed man, strong and supple, but the growing loss of blood and the painfully slow mechanics of movement drained every ounce of his energy. It was only as he collapsed, sobbing with pain, when his passage was blocked by a solid rampart of
rock,
he realized where he had been headed all along.
The supply cave.
The renewed hope of shelter spurred him on and he summoned the last ounces of his strength to inch along the rock wall. Torn by thorns and scraped by branches, he pushed past the bush that disguised the entrance and sank to the floor, wedged between the flour sacks and the damp cave wall.

Before he relinquished his hold on consciousness he remembered what had kept him going.
The nagging reminder.
Stay Alive!

***

The white man's camp was deserted. Pots and pans were strewn around, and no fire had been lit for two days. The scout, Littleman, pointed out the rain soaked ashes. At the clearing's edge Thunderhawk and the other braves waited on their ponies, keeping clear of the camp so that the scout could read the sign. It had not rained for long, but enough to scour away most of the tracks.

Littleman traced the trail down to the gold workings. The ground there looked more promising. Five shod horses leave a lot of tracks, especially if four are loaded with gold ore. The scout's mouth flickered with what passed for a smile. The sign was pretty much washed out, but what was left was all he needed. If need be, he would have tracked the white man by scent alone, so great was his desire to please Thunderhawk. A war chief who has ridden for twenty sleeps and many miles with a war party was unlikely to be discouraged by the rain washing out a few tracks. It might slow them down, but then they had all the time in the world. They would hunt the white man from the coming of the sun in the east to its dying in the west each day, and for as many days as it took. He pointed to the tracks that led off to the east then vaulted onto the back of his chestnut pony. He waited as Thunderhawk prodded his black war pony forward,
then
craned over the animal's neck to look down at the confusion of hoof prints before he glanced up at his scout.

Littleman held up five fingers.

“Five horses? Good,” Thunderhawk said. He grunted, looking off to the timber. “This white man took the life of my brother, so I shall take his horses. He will lose them one by one until he slinks on the ground before us like a wolf, then he will lose the greatest of his possessions.
His life.”

***

“Look!” Coyote said to the horseman, Running Dog, raising his arm to point through a break in the pines.

“I see him,” Running Dog replied, glancing at Thunderhawk to see if he was watching. Through the break Littleman could be seen squatting in the shadow of a huge boulder perching precariously at the crest of a sharp ridge. He was intent on something down in the canyon ahead.
Below the summit stood his chestnut pony, head hanging and reins trailing.
Littleman rose and mounted his pony, then seeing the war party approaching he wheeled the chestnut in a tight circle, the signal for “Enemy in sight.” Thunderhawk leaned forward, kicking his pony into a canter through the pines to bring him out on the ridge, the others following.

Before the black came to a halt, the chief was off its back and crouched in the shade of the rock. After a few seconds he beckoned the boy forward. “Is this the man?” Thunderhawk asked.

Soldier raised himself on his elbows and peered over the crest to consider the wide timbered canyon between the two peaks where a rider leading three laden horses and a pack mule crossed a glade.

“No.”

“No?”

“No. The white man I spoke of wears the hair on his face and it is marked with the grey of many summers.”

Thunderhawk grunted his dissatisfaction and looked away, but he had noticed Soldier was still staring at the rider through the breaks. He jerked his head, questioning.

“This white man rides the other's horse.”

The chief's head swivelled, interest sparking in his eyes. “Tell it,” he commanded. Soldier turned his gaze to the war chief then back at the rider below.

“The lineback dun he rides is the riding horse of the white man with the big killing gun. The second pony in the line is the bay with the black ears that Swift-Foot made moon eyes at.”

“You speak straight?”

“Straight as an arrow,” Crowfoot interrupted, having come to crouch next to them. “There had been much work done at the white man's camp. The scratching was deep in the earth where the yellow iron had been taken out. These white men, these fat-takers, worship it. A strong man must have done all that work. That rider down there is too slender. He has the physique of a boy, and his clothes are not those of a dirt-scratcher, yet he is the one with the sacks on his ponies.”

“Perhaps they contain bullets and flour, maybe even some candy,” Soldier asked hopefully.

“Black medicine too,” Thunderhawk suggested.
“Coffee.
He might even carry whiskey.”

“Firewater!”
Crowfoot spat. “I think not. I think he has stolen the yellow iron from the other white man, and as he rides the two horses Soldier saw before, I think he has killed the one we seek.”

At the mention of his vengeance being taken away, Thunderhawk grew angry. “We shall see. We shall have much fun with this fat-taker before he dies. If he has robbed me of my revenge, then he will pay. After all, it is enough that he should die for having a white skin, for he is as worthless as all the others. If his sacks are full of the yellow iron then he is truly foolish. He shall die. I have spoken.”

The warrior chief rose and walked proudly back to his pony, his war bonnet swaying regally in the breeze.

***

“Sweet Jesus,” Shuck Alison whispered under his breath. “They're lined out like crows on a dead tree, fahcrissake.”

The flicker of movement in the corner of his eye had caused him to turn his head a fraction and squint up at the canyon rim. His back stiffened when he saw them. Seven Indians still as stone
, sitting
their ponies as they looked down on him, skylined against the crest of the ridge for all the world to see. He knew enough about Indians to know if you saw them it was because they
wanted
you to see them. Without letting
them
know he was aware of their presence he kept the dun gelding walking straight ahead.

They were well out of range but he dropped his right hand slowly down the blind side of the horse and tugged his Henry rifle loose from the scabbard. The burnished wood of the rifle butt was little reassurance but he eased it up until the barrel lay over the saddle horn, aimed negligently up the slope.

Above him the Kiowas remained motionless as he continued on his way, the ore laden pack animals strung out behind him. For a moment, as he cut through a grove of cedars, his silent watchers were invisible, but when he emerged on the other side he saw they had swung their ponies and had begun to walk along the ridge, keeping pace with him. All was silent, the solitude broken only by the horses' footfalls and the wind whispering among the trees. His whole body was tense, nerves pulling taut until they were screaming for the release action would bring.
Any action.
He wished to God they would just disappear behind the ridge and vanish from the face of the earth but each time he crossed a clearing they were there, his silent outriders.