Mustang Man (1966) (10 page)

His outfit had raided Trinidad, had even raided as far east as Dodge, and had stolen stock from Fort Union, government stock. They had nerve. If one of those boys rode for Coe, I'd be in trouble.

On the north side of Rabbit Ears all the ravines ran down toward Cienequilla Creek. The location of the box canyon was unknown to me, and it might be anywhere between the mountain and the creek, or even over on the other side.

After I'd walked and slid back down the mountain I shifted the dun's picket-pin to fresh gazing and made myself a pot of coffee from dry, relatively smokeless wood. In the corner where I was the fire couldn't be seen fifteen feet away.

A man on the dodge, or in Indian country, soon learns to watch for such a place as this. His life depends on it. And if he travels very much his memory is soon filled with such places. As mine was.

Sitting beside the fire, I cleaned my pistol, my Winchester lying at hand, just in case. Then I checked both of my knives. The one I wore down the back of my neck inside my shirt collar slid easy and nice from its scabbard. A time or two in passing through brush or under low trees I'd gotten leaves or bits of them into the scabbard, and I knew that in the next few days I might need that knife almighty bad.

Later, lying on my blankets, I looked up at the stars through the leaves. My fire was down to red coals and my pot was still full of coffee. Tired as I was, I was in no mind to sleep.

My ears began making a check on all the little sounds around me. They were sounds of birds, of insects, or of night-prowling animals, and were familiar to me. But in every place some of the sounds are different. Dead branches make a rattle of their own; grass or leaves rustle in a certain way, yet in no two places are the sounds exactly the same. Always before I slept I checked the sounds in my mind. It was a trick I'd learned from an old Mexican sheepherder and mountain man.

Of course the dun was there, and as I've said, there's nothing like a mustang to warn a man if he hears something strange. For that matter, I was of the same breed. I was a mustang man--a man riding the long prairie, the high mesa, the lonely ridges.

That Penelope now ...

This was no time to think of her. Forcing my thoughts away from her, I considered the situation. Sylvie Karnes and her brothers wanted that gold, and they would stop at nothing to get it. I'd never come across anybody quite like them, and they worried me. I'd known plenty of folks who would kill for money, for hatred, or for a lot of reasons, but I'd met nobody so willing to kill just to be killing as they were, or appeared to be.

Sure as shootin', that coffee she fixed for me had been poisoned. No telling how many dead lay behind them, or lay ahead, for that matter.

Loomis would be after that gold, but he wanted the girl too. He would need her until they got the gold and after that? That was when Penelope Hume would come face to face with a showdown, and all alone.

Had she really wanted to go on without me? Or had they forced her to get rid of me? She had not looked my way even once, there at the end. Maybe they had talked her into it, but it might be that Loomis had threatened her.

Law and order were made for women. They are hedged around by protection. But out in the wilderness they are only as safe as men will let them be. Penelope Hume was a long way from any law, and it was likely that nobody even knew where she was, or where she was going. Loomis would have seen to that. If she never appeared again, nobody would be asking questions; and if anyone did ask, no one would answer. Many a man and many a woman disappeared in the western lands, left in an unmarked grave, or in no grave at all.

Whatever, law there might be would be local law, administered only in the towns.

Few officers ever rode out into the unsettled country unless they were Federal officers, and most of those were active only in the Indian Territory.

These were my thoughts as I mounted up and worked my way on down the mountain, keeping to whatever cover I could find. That box canyon would not be easy to find, but should be simpler for me, who knew this kind of country, than for either Loomis or the Karnes outfit.

Suppose I could get there first and get that gold out? Finders was keepers, wasn't that so? That was how I felt, and yet the idea made me uneasy. There would be nothing for that girl, for Penelope. I wasn't worried about Sylvie ... her kind could always get along. Penelope was something else, and I couldn't leave her without a two-bit piece to her name.

She was pretty, and she was a city girl. Both qualities put her in a bad spot.

She was pretty enough to attract trouble, and had too much of the city in her to know how to cope with this kind of country.

Right beyond me was a place where the canyon down which I was riding sort of opened out. There were trees along the creek ahead, and trees and brush along the mountainside. Slowing down, I peered ahead, searching for any sign of movement. I'd slip down there, I thought, find that box canyon, find the gold if I could, and then round up Penelope and the others and get the girl out of trouble.

It seemed to me she was safe until they either found or failed to find the gold; after that she would be fair game. Only I was uneasy, leaving her at all. She needed somebody at hand to care for her.

Ahead of me was some low brush; on the side of the mountain a few pifion. I started to swing around a big boulder when the corner of my eye caught a flash of light and I ducked. Something hit me a wicked blow on the skull, and the dun shied violently. A report went racketing off down the canyon, followed closely by another, and then I was laying on the ground among some rocks, looking at a pool of red on the sand.

Instinct told me I must move from where I lay, and yet I couldn't move a muscle.

My brain told me to get up and get going, but nothing happened; and then I heard a voice call out.

"Ralph! You stop right there! I always was a better shot than you, and if you take one step nearer I'll break your leg!"

"Pen! Now, don't be foolish! We just came to help you. If you knew what we know about Loomis--"

"I don't need any help. You just turn back and leave that man alone."

"But he's after the gold, too! We've got to be rid of him, Pen!"

"You back up, Ralph! You and Sylvie and Andrew might just as well go home. You don't know where the gold is, and you'll never find it unless you know."

Ralph laughed, and it was an unpleasant laugh. "We don't have to find it, Pen.

We'll just let you and Loomis do that for us!"

"You heard me, Ralph. Back up and let him alone."

"I'm going to kill him, Pen. If he isn't dead already, I'm going to kill him."

"Ralph"--Pen spoke matter-of-factly--"you make the slightest move this way and I'll not stop with breaking one leg--I'll break them both and just let you lie there. Nobody would ever find you except the buzzards."

Ralph must have believed her. I didn't see how he could, but maybe he knew her better than I did. All that time, I simply couldn't move. I was all sprawled out among the rocks, and I seemed to be paralyzed. I could hear, all right, and I could see, but I couldn't move. But all the while I knew that if that girl had not stood there with a rifle, Ralph Karnes would have killed me.

After a bit, Penelope spoke, just loud enough for me to hear. "Mr. Sackett? Are you all right?"

Well, now, that was a foolish question. Did she figure that I'd be just a-lyin' here if I was all right? I tried to speak, and finally made a kind of weak sound. Then I tried to move. I made a real effort, and I felt a sort of spasm go through me, but nothing else happened.

Then I heard her coming. At least, I hoped it was her.

She came down over the rocks as if she was born to them, and she kept looking around to see if anybody was closing in on her. Then she was standing near me and looking down, and I looked right into her eyes.

"You're alive then," she said, and then she kind of bent down close to me. "We can't stay here," she said. "He'll be back with the others. He knows you're hurt."

She pulled my arm across her shoulder and tried to pull me up, but she wasn't strong enough. My lips worked, and finally I managed to shape words. "Horse .. . get my horse."

She got up quickly, and as quickly was gone.

Meantime I tried to move my head, and managed it, then wrapped my fingers around a rock and tugged. The rock held, and I moved myself a little. With care, I managed to work that hand up the side of a slab of rock, but I had no strength at all in it, and it fell back to my side. I couldn't seem to make my fingers work as they should, and my head was starting to ache with a dull, heavy throb.

I didn't think I was seriously hurt. Maybe I just didn't dare think so, for to be badly hurt here was almost the same as being dead; yet I had been shot, hit in the head, it seemed, and had been temporarily shocked into some kind of paralysis.

To a man who has spent his life depending on his muscles and his reflexes, there could be nothing more frightening than the state I seemed to be in now. I'd made my living with strength, and with my skill in any kind of shooting, and without that, I had nothing. I'd never had no chance for schooling, and if I couldn't count on my muscles there'd be nothing left for me.

I found I could work the fingers of the other hand like a claw, opening and closing them. I got my hand on an edge of rock and tugged myself up, one-handed, to a kneeling position.

I knew I had to get out of here. Those murdering Karneses would be coming a-hunting me. If I was dead they'd be wanting to see the body; and if I wasn't, they had to know it and finish me off.

Penelope was coming back, leading the dun. I was surprised he had let her come up to him, he was that shy of strangers. But that girl had a way about her ... and nerve too.

When the dun came alongside me he snorted nervously, smelling blood, which was trickling down my face now. I spoke softly to him. "Easy, boy, easy now." With my one working hand I reached out and caught hold of the stirrup leather.

Penelope slipped her arm around my waist, and with her lifting and my grip on the stirrup I managed to pull myself erect. But when the horse took a step, I almost went to the ground; it was only Penelope's tight grip that held me up.

We started to move off, my feet trying to work but dragging. We hadn't made more than twenty feet before Penelope, glancing over her shoulder, let go of me, and I grabbed wildly with my one good hand to hang onto the stirrup.

Her rifle went to her shoulder and she fired in the same instant. Then she fired again. The dun was still walking dragging me toward the brush. "Go, boy, go!" I said to him, and he went. A shot came from somewhere and a bullet hit sand near me. Another shot, and it struck somewhere above me and the dun jumped, but I hung on until we got into a clump of jumper. Then I let go, and fell face down in the sand. Penelope shot once more, and then I heard her scrambling in the rocks. After that silence.

The dun had stopped among the trees, nostrils wide. My face was wet with blood and sweat, and I was trembling all over. My Winchester was in the boot, but I couldn't reach it.

Had Penelope been shot? Everything was so quiet. The sun was hot. I could smell dust and blood and sweat. Reaching back, I got the thong off my Colt and fished it out and up where I could shoot.

Nothing moved, and there was not a sound. The dun switched his tail, nosed at some brush, then pricked his ears to listen. Struggling, I managed to lift my head. All I could see was roots and rock. Underneath me there was blood on the sand, my blood.

What had happened to Penelope? And where was Loomis? For some reason I hadn't given a thought to him, nor to Flinch.

It was the Karneses who worried me. It must have been the Karneses shooting. And where was Steve Hooker and his outfit? For they must have heard the shooting if they were anywhere within miles, for sound carried on those wide plains.

Reaching out, I caught my fingers over a root and tugged myself closer to the trunk of a tree. It was a mighty slim tree, but I was in no position to argue about cover.

The worst of it was, I couldn't see a thing. I had cover of a sort, but I couldn't even see if anybody was moving out there. Was Penelope alive? Was she hurt? I'd no way of moving to find out--all I could do was lie there and wait, gun in hand.

The dun stamped his feet. Somewhere a pebble rattled. I shifted my gun and wiped my palm dry on my shirt. After a minute I put the gun down on a piece of bark and started to knead the muscles of the other arm, trying to get some life into it. My head ached heavily, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. Presently I took up the gun again, fearing to risk any more time with it out of my hand.

The throbbing in my head had me wrinkling my brow against it, and my throat was dry, needing water. There was water in the creek, and in my canteen on the saddle, but one seemed as far off as the other.

Reaching out now, I gripped the trunk of the tree and pulled myself further along. It was much too quiet out there, and I was scared for Penelope. Looking out over the low brush and rocks, I searched for her, but could see no sign of her. I looked across the mouth of the canyon, and let my eyes move slowly across the rocky wall and the scattered boulders at the canyon's mouth, then down on the tree-dotted flatland that sloped away toward the creek.