Norton, Andre - Novel 15 (24 page)

 
          
 
Ritchie shook his head. "Not you—too
tough. Get along with you, Blackie—" He slapped the dusty hide
halfheartedly.

 
          
 
"Talk sweet." Sturgis' words were a
little blurred as if the effort to shape them properly was a task almost beyond
him. "Blackie don't cotton to your Yankee push. Looks as if we sure
started a right smart fire back yonder, doesn't it?"

 
          
 
The rocks about them were a faint yellow-pink.
Ritchie glanced back. Tongues of flame shot up. It would take something even
tougher than an Apache to break through that barrier.

 
          
 
"If the wind doesn't change, we've sealed
'em off all right. Oh!" The last was a grunt of pain as Blackie stumbled.
Ritchie steadied his companion and wondered if they could keep going. But they
didn't have to, for a long arm covered with buckskin protruded out of the rock
ahead and waved them on.

 
          
 
Tuttle came up to bring them in, walking with
the same unhurried stride with which he had crossed the barracks yard so many
times.

 
          
 
"Stopped a mite of lead?"

 
          
 
"Arrow," Ritchie returned.
"In his shoulder.
But the Apache was on the other side
of the fire when he shot—"

 
          
 
Tuttle pushed him aside and went to Sturgis.
Ritchie had only his own uncertain steps to mind as he followed into a shallow
cave. A dust-grimed, wooden-faced man worked with stiff mechanical precision
there, fitting into place as a barricade some small stones and rock lumps.
Birke just sat, a lump of sullen mutiny, against the back wall. Ritchie made a
vast effort and unsaddled their two horses. Tuttle was already working over the
recumbent Sturgis, and Herndon stopped building to join the scout.

 
          
 
He was cutting away the blue shirt carefully.
The arrow shaft still stood up in the flesh, moving a little with the rhythm of
the panting breaths Sturgis could not control as well as he did his voice.
Ritchie flinched as he watched that work. His hands fell upon a stone and he
added it to the Sergeant's crude wall. Here was something he could do. But
Herndon had a question for him.

 
          
 
"The fire?"

 
          
 
"Burning.
He lit
it, and the Apache shot at the same time—but from the other side. It was
roaring right down the stream bed when we left—might have caught the fellow
before he got away."

 
          
 
Herndon straightened up and stood for a moment
with his hands on his hips looking out into the gathering forces of the night.

 
          
 
"We can't count on that holding them up
long," he said half to himself and then spoke to Ritchie harshly.
"What's the matter with your hand?"

 
          
 
Ritchie examined with real surprise the
fingers he had been holding at a stiff angle. They smarted some. But he was
almost too tired to feel it. "Guess I was scorched—"

 
          
 
"Antelope tallow's good for burns."
The Sergeant was absent again. He went back to Tuttle and Sturgis.

 
          
 
"Well?" That was a demand for a
straight answer.

 
          
 
"I can git the shaft out, the
point's
in the bone—" Tuttle was matter-of-fact.

           
 
"Didn't jump quite fast enough this time,
did
I?" Sturgis' voice was only a thin shade of
its usual tone. "All right, butcher, go get those saddler's pliers and
have this damn thing out!" His words suddenly ran together up the scale.

 
          
 
Tuttle turned to Ritchie. "Build up that
fire a leetle, son. How about water?" he asked the Sergeant.

 
          
 
"Yes." The word came out in a
lopsided fashion between Sturgis' set teeth.
"How about
water?
I could do with a drink."

 
          
 
Herndon produced a canteen. He was down on his
knees
now,
lifting the Southerner's head and watching
him swallow with an eagerness which betrayed parched need. Ritchie grew very
busy with the fire-feeding. He couldn't watch. Fire and water—they needed both
for survival.

 
          
 
Survival—that word snapped
across his drugged fatigue.
Two of them hadn't survived that sudden dash
across the valley. And now they had been driven into unknown territory with no
chance of retracing the trail which had brought them. He bit down on his lip
and laid out the sticks the Sergeant or Tuttle had brought in. Meanwhile, there
was Sturgis to think about.

 
          
 
That was a bad job they were doing. But
halfway through, the patient mercifully fainted, and the faint became a deep
feverish sleep. Tuttle tossed a broken arrow shaft into the fire.

 
          
 
"Best we could do!" His fingers
twitched as he laid down the bloodstained pliers.

 
          
 
Herndon's face was wet and shiny. He mopped it
with his sleeve, wiping off a paste of sweat and dust, and leaving streaks,
like war paint, across forehead and cheeks.

 
          
 
"Well?" For the second time he asked
that question of the scout.

           
 
Tuttle shrugged almost angrily. "It
broke, yo' saw. It'd take a regular sawbones to git it outta him now. If it
poisons him—"

 
          
 
"He's daid!" That came from the back
of the cave, and all three started. They had forgotten Birke. Sunk in his own
world, he had made no move to help. "He's daid— we're all daid. Only we
ain't buried yet. Why don't yo' plant us under stones, Mr. High-n-mighty, jus'
like yo’ did the Lootenant? We're all daid, ain't we?"

 
          
 
"Keep quiet,
Birke!"
Herndon's voice was a lash.

 
          
 
"Keep quiet,
Birke!" the other mimicked.
"Why don't yo' make me be, Mr.
High-n-mighty? We ain't got much food ner water. The Injuns are behind us, 'n
our bosses are daid—or thereabouts—same as us. 'N lookit that compass of
our'n—"

 
          
 
Herndon's fingers snapped to the small metal
case, which swung on a buckskin thong from one of the buttonholes of his shirt.
The glass cover was gone, and in the face was the leaden butt of a bullet.

 
          
 
"That compass ain't gonna git us nowheres
now," Birke continued. "Better say we're daid 'n speak the truth of
it—"

 
          
 
But the Sergeant was staring at the punctured
case in his hand until Tuttle took it from him.

 
          
 
"Luck was sure breathin' down yore neck
this afternoon, Scott. That thar pill might have got yo' through the
heart-"

 
          
 
"Naw.
That ain't
luck," prodded Birke. "Them what dies clip 'n clean, they's the lucky
ones. We'll git it with thurst or Injuns or starvin'."

 
          
 
"Mort a cheval a galop/' Herndon's eyes
were still for the compass.

 
          
 
"Morty what?" demanded Tuttle.

           
 
Words long forgotten repeated themselves in
Ritchie's head.
" 'Mort
a cheval a galop’ death
on horseback in battle—the best death for a cavalryman—"

 
          
 
'Is that so?" Tuttle's words had more
than their usual drawl.
"Mighty educatin', lissin' to
yo' boys.
So yo* didn't morty proper, Scott? Wal, that ain't sayin' as
how yo' mightn't even yet."

 
          
 
Birke crawled out into the firelight. He had
the same attention for the compass that its owner had shown.

 
          
 
"Broke
. '
N with
it broke, how're we ever gonna git outta these mountains? They run all the way
to the
Utah
country! 'N if we have to lug him—" He
glanced at Sturgis.

 
          
 
"You won't have to lug me, Birke. I can
still fork a horse." Sturgis' eyes, suspiciously bright, were open and
regarding them. "Give me a little rest, and I can take the trail all
right. You aren't heaving dirt over me yetl"

 
          
 
"We certainly aren't." Herndon was
back in his calm shell again. "If you can ride in the morning, Sturgis,
you'll more than pull your weight—"

 
          
 
"If there's anything left to ride!"
Birke broke in again. "Them bosses are 'bout ready to drop
. '
N if the Apaches come up—"

 
          
 
"We'll be able to handle them,"
Tuttle said. "We've got the Lieutenant's carbine 'n Woldemar's ammunition
extra
. '
N his canteen and provision sack came through,
too. We can eat all right 'til we git us a deer or a bear. 'N we'll git through
all right, circle back 'n catch up with Sharpe in three-four days—"

 
          
 
"Yeah?"
Birke was beginning when the Sergeant turned on him.

 
          
 
"That's enough, Birke. If we pull
together, we can make it. That fire down the canyon will hold back pursuit,
maybe turn it off altogether. They don't know what condition we're in or how
well prepared for the trail."

 
          
 
"Wal, lots have got through narrower
squeaks than this here." Tuttle was separating some strips of jerky.
"Think yo' might favor this some, son," he asked Sturgis, **if we
boiled it up a mite?"

 
          
 
But those too bright eyes had closed again,
and Sturgis had sunk into an uneasy sleep. He twisted once and moaned. Herndon
eased him back on his uninjured side and tried to wedge him in that position
with two of the horse blankets.

 
          
 
Ritchie ate his share slowly, but Birke
grabbed and chewed avidly, his little eyes on the stores Tuttle had taken in
charge.

 
          
 
"We'll keep sentry go." Herndon
pulled his watch out of his money belt pocket. In the firelight its gold case
was a blot of soft color. "Two hours each. Guard will take his own carbine
and keep the Lieutenant's loaded one within reach."

 
          
 
Ritchie tightened his belt before he inspected
the gun he had been nursing.

 
          
 
"Ready, sir."

 
          
 
"You take first tour then," the
Sergeant continued.
"Wake Tuttle at the hour.
Keep the fire
going if you can-but not too high. The rest of
us had better turn in."

 
          
 
Ritchie settled down by the rude wall they had
built. At first the darkness outside was a black curtain to eyes dazzled by the
fire. But slowly outlines grew, sharper shadows came into focus. There was no
moon, and he could not see the stars. It would be good to be able to whistle or
even hum-to
make
some sort of familiar noise.

 
          
 
Then something familiar and natural did sound
through the dark. But it made the flesh crawl between his shoulder blades.
Somewhere, out in the wilderness of the night, a little dog had yapped happily
and busily, as if welcoming a friend or master. And in those hills tonight he
knew of only one dog!