Gear, W Michael - Novel 05 (32 page)

 
          
 
She lifted her head. Tendrils of smoke rose
from the ashes. Suppose she found a stick and managed to light one end. Could
she prop it so that the ember would burn the leather thongs in two?

 
          
 
Wriggling like an inchworm, she snagged up a
stick and hitched herself to within a length of the fire. She craned her chin
over her shoulder to see as she poked the stick in the coals.

 
          
 
How long did she have until Packrat's return?
The river was just over there, beyond the trees. If she guessed right, he'd
scrub and scrub, desperate to cleanse himself.

 
          
 
There. Smoke had begun to curl up around the end
of the cottonwood she held so precariously.

 
          
 
All right, Willow, let's see if this works.

 
          
 
Her neck had begun to cramp. She rocked
herself and wished she had a neck like a heron, but managed to pull her feet
close to the smoking end of the stick. If only the position weren't so awkward!
The harder she strained, the more the stick jiggled. The muscles in her neck,
back, and sides ached. Jaw cocked, tongue parting her lips, she managed to
touch the smoking branch to the thongs.

 
          
 
After a few moments the heat began to sting
the skin of her ankles. To her frustration, the ember went out. Grousing, she
prodded it into the fire again, glancing toward the river. Blood and dung, she
didn't have all day!

 
          
 
It took four tries, and painful burns, before
she could snap the thong that held her ankles.

 
          
 
"Thank you, Tarn Apo, and now, help
me!" She lurched to her feet, hands still bound behind her. With time, she
might use the bark on the cottonwoods to wear the thongs in two—as well as to
scrape the hide off her wrists. Better to get away now, and worry about that
later. . The horses foiled her attempts to loosen their rawhide hobbles. They'd
let her approach forward, but shied the second she twisted around to fumble at
the leather with her fingers. After the third time the mare dumped her on her
butt, she glared up.

 
          
 
"I hate horses! You've brought nothing
but trouble to my people! I hope a rock ogre eats you. Slowly."

 
          
 
Her time was running out. The hobbles were
hopeless, and she couldn't ride with her hands behind her back, unable to
control the horse with more than kicks to the ribs.

 
          
 
She studied the bluffs to the north, and broke
into a trot— the fastest pace she could manage with her hands tied. On foot as
she was, Packrat couldn't help but overtake her. She crossed the first of the
low ridges, slowed, and stepped out onto sandstone. With infinite care, she
backtracked to the crest of the ridge where the gramma grass lay in thick
patches interspersed with wind-deflated gravel. There she sidestepped, each foot
placed delicately so as not to disturb the coarse gravel.

 
          
 
Packrat would work it out, of course. She made
several steps, hopped to a patch of gramma grass, and hurried off to the west.
She ran desperately, throwing frightened looks over her shoulder, then tore
across yet another of the low ridges, dropped over the side until hidden from
the east, and sprinted northward again.

 
          
 
She'd bought time. If she could hide her trail
well enough, cut the bonds on her wrists, and hide in this flat land, she might
have a chance.

 
          
 
As the sun slid westward, she zigzagged to the
northwest. Topping a low rise, she glanced back and saw him, on horseback,
cutting for tracks.

 
          
 
Heals Like a Willow ducked low, scuttled over
the crest, and ran like a frightened antelope. Breath tearing in her throat,
she prayed to Tarn Apo for a miracle.

 
          
 
Richard awoke to a gray rainy morning. He sat
up, weak and wobbly in his water-soaked blanket. His gut tortured him, but he
crawled to the big stew pot and ate. The cold stew might run right through him,
but at least it didn't come back up. With careful fingers, Richard probed at
his belly and started at the tender spots. His raw butt felt like whip-sawed
meat.

 
          
 
Beyond the gunwale, the dense forest passed,
many of the branches no more than a foot beyond the laboring polers. They might
have been fingers, reaching out for the engages. Richard closed his eyes and
shook his head.

 
          
 
'Tm seeing monsters."

 
          
 
"How's that, coon?" Hartman asked as
he stepped around the cargo box.

 
          
 
"Monsters," Richard mumbled.
"Out there, in the forest. They've been after me for. . . well, since I
left
Pittsburgh
. You can feel them, sense them in the
shadows."

 
          
 
"Huh!" Hartman rubbed at his beard,
the scars looking paler on this gray day. "There be painters, black bears
hyar and there. Ye'd find a rattlesnake in amongst the leaves. Reckon a feller
might stumble onto a wolf on occasion. Them don't shine fer monsters, Dick. Not
like Old Ephraim. He be some. Some, indeed."

 
          
 
Richard glanced up uncertainly.

 
          
 
Hartman pulled his pipe from his possibles,
gesturing toward the trees with the stem. "Them woods be plumb dull, Dick.
Right friendly when ye comes down ter it. Why, a feller can hide himself like a
tick on a dog. He can feel safe, comfortable. Everything a man needs right
there to hand. Deer, coons, and squirrels fer meat. Nuts fall like hail every
fall. All a feller has to do is pick 'em up. Wind don't blow a man till his
eyes sting, and the deep cold don't settle until a man's fingers freeze,
blacken, and fall off. Sun don't burn ye so dry yer pizzle shrinks up and
fergits what it's fer. Wood and water everywhere. The forest's safe. It's the
plains and mountains as will kill ye."

 
          
 
"Why do I feel it, then? Like eyes,
always watching."

 
          
 
Hartman tapped tobacco out of his little
leather pouch, pressing it into the pipe's bowl with a hard finger, the cracked
nail lined with dirt. "Taking yer measure, I'd guess."

 
          
 
"Taking my measure? What are you talking
about?"

 
          
 
Hartman cocked his head. "Judging ye, Dick.
What do ye think? That the land's dead? Hell, look at it, ye ignerant Yankee!
Everything ye sees out thar be alive."

 
          
 
"Only men have souls, Travis."

 
          
 
Hartman hawked and spit into the river.
"Do tell, Dick? Prove it."

 
          
 
Richard scowled. "The philosophical works
of—"

 
          
 
"Painter crap! Ye been living all yer
life in buildings and cities a-reading books. Get out there in the forest,
Dick. Listen, boy! That's what yer ahearing . . . feeling. It's the soul of the
land, the trees, and critters."

 
          
 
At Richard's blank look, Hartman shook his
head in disgust. "Aw, ter hell with ye! Damn Yankee son of a bitch! Gets
ter feeling the land, and 'cause he's never felt it afore, he figgers it's old
Hob hisself spinning evil."

 
          
 
"I didn't mean to make you mad."

 
          
 
Hartman's lips pinched. "Ye cain't larn
everything outa a book, Dick. Some things ye got ter larn with yer soul. Now,
how're ye feeling?"

 
          
 
"Better. Weak, miserable, but
better."

 
          
 
Hartman pointed at the engages who'd been
poling along the passe avant, listening to the conversation. "Reckon ye
can fetch a pole, then. A body mends quicker when it's a-working."

 
          
 
"I'm just better, not well! If I strain I
have—well— accidents."

 
          
 
"Hell, I never said ye was plumb fit, did
I? A man's got ter haul his pack. Go do what ye can, and run squat when ye got
ter."

 
          
 
"Travis, I—"

 
          
 
"Reckon I'll go find me an ember fer me
smoke. By the time she's lit, ye'd better be a-hustling yer butt, Dick."

 
          
 
"But you don't—"

 
          
 
"We just slid them four days back, Dick,
on account of ye being down with the scours, and all. Green's still aching ter
shoot ye, and old Trudeau there, he done put a month's wages that yer a gonna
be dead afore then."

 
          
 
Hartman disappeared around the corner of the
cargo box and Richard stared dully at the battered oak deck. He could barely
stand up, so how was he supposed to pole?

 
          
 
Glancing up to the side, he could see
Trudeau's smile, so wide the white teeth gleamed below the black mustache.

 
          
 
Richard gathered himself, pulled a pole from
the top of the cargo box, and worked in between the boatmen.

 
          
 
"Don't shit where we walk, mon ami,"
Louis hissed. "And stay back, yes? Don't spread your contagion around
us."

 
          
 
"Sleep well?" Trudeau asked as they
made the next trip. "About time zee booshway get some good out of you,
non?"

 
          
 
"You're all nothing but a pack of—"
Richard caught himself. "Leave me alone. I'll do what I can today."

 
          
 
Someone snickered.

 
          
 
To Richard's relief, Henri began the
"Ding-ding-a-dong" song, and the voices turned to singing instead of
tormenting him. Then his gut twisted, and he almost lost his pole as he ran for
the far gunwale.

 
          
 
Packrat's life was shattered like a dropped
pot, his soul wounded and broken. She would pay for this!

 
          
 
He pulled his horse up and scanned the country.
What appeared to be flat grassland was in reality a deceptively rolling terrain
cut by shallow drainages working their way down toward the river. The scrubby
gramma and buffalo grass was broken by low patches of sagebrush and gray-green
splotches of prickly pear, none of it tall enough to hide a person. A small
herd of antelope watched him from a distance while a hawk sailed above,
uninterested in his plight.