Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories (7 page)

He gave a muffled groan at the touch, and
the girl started back. She turned to look down at his face. He
moved his head and opened his eyes, blinking painfully as if the
light hurt them.

“Don’t move,” said the girl, putting her
hand on his shoulder. “I don’t know how bad you’re hurt. What
happened?”

“Rustlers,” said Jim thickly, not fully
aware of himself yet, “blame rustlers. I found the way
through...was on my way back. Somebody tried to stop me getting
there, I guess.”

The girl did not answer at once. A close
observer would have seen that her lips had parted quickly as if she
drew a sudden breath, and her face had gone slightly pale.

She looked intently down into Jim’s face.
“You’re from Sorrel Creek, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” said Jim. “My name’s Jim—Jim Reid.”
He returned the look with mild, slightly dazed curiosity. “Who’re
you, anyway?”

“I’m Callie Lupin.”

“Lupin…Lupin, over on the other side?” He
endeavored to get the fact straight in his mind. “Lupin. I forgot
he had a girl.”

He tried to smile and made a rather weak
attempt at gallantry. “Guess I never saw you up close.”

Callie glanced over her shoulder. She sat
back on her heels and looked to left and right in the woods again,
as if she was afraid of being observed. “If they come back and find
you here—” She bit her lip again and then seemed to make another
quick decision. “Can you get up on my horse, if I help you?”

The first part of her speech had passed Jim
unnoticed. “I can try, I guess.”

Callie scrambled to her feet and ran back to
her horse. She led it over to Jim, then knelt again and slipped her
arm beneath his shoulders to help him sit up. He winced at the pain
in his side as he did so, but it was only a stinging, annoying sort
of pain; perhaps he was not so badly injured as he had thought at
first. But as he moved his left leg in preparation to rise he
brought up short, a gasp forced from his lips.

“My leg,” he said. His face had gone a shade
whiter. “My horse rolled over on it, I think.”

A fleeting expression of distress crossed
the girl’s face, but it did not deter her for more than a second.
She scrambled around to Jim’s other side and took hold of his left
arm. “You can manage just a few steps, can’t you? Lean on me.
Hurry,” she added with a strange intensity.

Somehow, she managed to help him up. She
struggled for an instant under his weight as Jim leaned heavily on
her slim shoulder, but reached for the reins to bring her horse a
step closer, and Jim got hold of the saddle horn. His left leg was
useless for mounting, so he took a deep breath and threw all his
strength into one effort to pull himself up and get his good leg
over the horse’s back. The trees and the sunlight whirled in a
blurry pattern around his head for a few seconds as he sought for
balance in the saddle, but gradually steadied again. Callie took
hold of the bridle, and with another quick worried glance over her
shoulder, turned the horse about and led him into the brush.

Her steps at first were hurried and
uncertain, but after the first moment or two she seemed to know
where she was going. She moved quickly, almost pulling the horse
along after her, glancing back now and then at Jim or at the woods
behind them. Jim paid little attention to what direction they were
taking; he was too occupied in keeping his balance on the horse and
gritting his teeth against the rivulets of pain that ran up his
injured leg at the least jar.

Callie stopped suddenly. A horse snorted
somewhere in the brush up ahead, and the muffled sound of hoofbeats
came after it. Hastily Callie pulled her horse aside out of the
trail, stumbling in the long matted grass beside it, the thin
fingers of branches catching at her sleeves and hair, and got him
deep into a thick tangle of weeds and bushes, coming to a
breathless halt with both hands clutching the bridle just seconds
before the other rider came in sight.

He drew rein directly across from the
thicket, about ten yards away. From behind the screen of weeds
Callie watched him look around—a dark-haired young man with an
open, good-looking face. Just now it bore a puzzled, perhaps
watchful expression—as if he thought he had heard something. He sat
still for a moment, his eyes roving over the tangle of woods
opposite him.

Callie was hardly breathing; her lips were
parted, her eyes fastened on the young man’s face. She stood with
her hand pressed over the horse’s soft muzzle, praying that no
sudden stamp of a hoof or swish of the tail would give them away.
Jim Reid, both hands gripping the pommel of the saddle, only half
understood what was going on, but enough of the situation
penetrated his brain to make him endeavor to keep his labored
breathing quiet.

It seemed an eternity that the rider sat
there with the reins in his hand, looking, his other hand resting
on his thigh, and that slightly mistrustful expression…and then at
last his face cleared and he gave an almost imperceptible shrug, as
if to say he must have been mistaken, touched heels to his horse’s
sides and rode off.

As soon as he was gone Callie quickly guided
the horse out of the cover and led him on as quickly as she could,
deeper into a trail crowded more thickly with brush, as the
afternoon turned gradually to gray about them.

* * *

Jim heard faint noises somewhere near him,
and opened his eyes. He saw nothing but blackness, and the
atmosphere felt unfamiliar. There was an odd, thin chill in the
air, and the quality of the silence was strange as well.

He heard a clatter of wood, like kindling
being gathered or piled, and it echoed somewhere far off, but did
not seem to touch the larger silence. He made out that he was lying
on some kind of a pallet made from folded blankets, and at the same
time he saw a small glow of light, which seemed to be coming from
the same place as the sounds. He turned his head and looked around.
Callie Lupin was kneeling by a small fire, built against some kind
of wall that he could not identify, made even stranger-looking by
the fire’s faint dancing illumination.

Callie heard him move and looked over her
shoulder toward him, then got up and came over.

“That you?” said Jim. “What happened?”

She got down on her knees beside him. “You
fainted when I was helping you slide down off the horse—I sure had
a time of it dragging you in here.”

Jim looked up into the blackness overhead.
“What is this place, anyway?”

“It’s an old mine. I think I’m the only one
who even knows about it. Most people have forgotten there ever was
a mine around here, and the outside of the hill is so overgrown
you’d never guess it had ever been touched.”

“Sounds familiar,” said Jim. “I wonder how
many more holes there are in these hills that only one person knows
about—or two, now.”

Callie did not answer this. “I bandaged your
side as best I could,” she said, leaning over to touch the bandage
bound around him under his half-open shirt. “It wasn’t bleeding
much. I think the bullet just glanced off your ribs.”

Jim gave a grunt of acknowledgement. “I
remember my horse jumped just as the gun went off behind me—must
have spoiled his aim some. Otherwise I’d have got it right in the
back, I guess. You didn’t see anything of my horse, did you?”

“No…he must have drifted away.”

“What about my leg?” said Jim, lifting his
head a little to look down toward it. A fine needle of pain that
ran through it at the movement answered his question well enough,
and he put his head back with a grimace.

“It must be broken—I don’t know how badly. I
didn’t try to do anything besides pulling your boot off—I figured I
might as well do that when you couldn’t feel it. I can make a
splint for it if you want me to.”

“Better leave it like it is. I’m not going
anywhere, that’s for sure—there’s no way I’m going to be able to
get up again.” He tried to shift his head and shoulders to a more
comfortable position on the blankets, and gave a short sigh. He
turned to look at Callie. “You’ll have to go down to Sorrel Creek,
then. Tell ‘em what’s happened and the boys can come up and get
me.”

“All right,” said Callie slowly. Jim was not
paying much attention to her at that moment, or he might have seen
her biting her lip again, as though trying to come to a
decision.

He moved his head again, and swallowed,
finding his throat rather dry. “Got any water, by the way?”

“Yes,” said Callie, getting to her feet, and
dismissing for the moment whatever thoughts might be in her mind.
She stepped into the shadows beyond the fire, and came back with a
canteen and another blanket folded under her arm. She knelt down by
him again. Jim pushed himself up somewhat painfully onto both
elbows, and she held the canteen for him to drink. Then, as he let
himself back down with a sigh of relief, she unfolded the blanket
and spread it over him, taking care not to disturb his injured leg.
“Thanks,” said Jim in an exhausted voice, for the initial strain
and excitement which had borne him up for a while had ebbed.

He caught the worried look on the girl’s
face as she rose and stood looking down at him for a moment, in the
half-light from the fire. “I’ll be all right,” he said. He managed
to wink one eye. “You just tell Virg and the boys where I am and
they’ll take over. I’ll hang on all right till they come.”

She moved away. As she came to the edge of
the light she looked back over her shoulder, a doubtful, troubled
look in her dark eyes, and then turned her head away and vanished
into the old tunnel. Jim heard her feet on the rocky floor for a
few steps, and then silence.

Left alone, with the prospect of some
painful hours to endure before help came, his mind reverted to the
subject of the cattle rustlers that had gotten him into this
situation. The fact that the unknown thief had tried to kill him
from ambush strengthened his interest in the question of their
identity somewhat. He weighed the suspects in his mind. There was
Scully, to the north, and Brearton’s place a little between him and
the hills. Brearton was right up against the divide. On the other
hand, young Dave Nolan’s place was probably nearest to the mouth of
the passage, Jim thought. A small outfit, but growing fast—Nolan
must be a good manager. Then Lupin’s just to the south of him.

It could be anybody, he thought restlessly.
Which one? Brearton—or Nolan? One of them had followed him, had
hidden in the bushes and tried to shoot him in the back with a
rifle. Which had the best access to the passage? But that didn’t
necessarily mean anything; anybody could snake a few stolen cattle
through their nearest neighbors’ range, with a little luck. It
might be any of them.

Jim’s mind was beginning to go in circles.
He was getting feverish; he could feel it, and that was no time for
clear thinking. He gave it up. But that left him with nothing.
Callie’s fire had dwindled down until there was almost no light
left. The dark was oppressive; it seemed to weigh down upon him the
sense of his own solitude and helplessness. He could not move, and
he did not know his surroundings—not even the shape of the rock
walls or what they looked like. He had the uneasy feeling that if
he put an arm out or leaned sideways to feel about him he might
fall off the uncomfortable bed into some uncharted space. That was
the fever talking, he told himself, and managed to be convincing
enough in the telling that after a few minutes he could shut his
eyes and rest.

At some point he must have slept. He had a
vague consciousness of drifting partly awake, then dropping off
again, any number of times. When eventually he found himself lying
awake, with a clearer brain and forehead damp with sweat, he was
convinced that a significant amount of time had passed. Though the
dark inside the mine had not changed, he had the feeling that
somewhere outside it was daylight. He wondered why Callie had not
come back, and what was taking the Sorrel Creek boys so long to get
here.

After he had lain there restlessly a little
while longer, fretted by the persistent sharp ache in his leg, he
heard a noise in the tunnel. In a moment it resolved into
footsteps, echoing a little off the rock walls—and then after a
slight pause, the little fire flared up and revealed Callie Lupin’s
face as she stirred up the coals. She was carrying a small covered
tin pail in one hand, and had a coat folded over her arm. She set
them down and glanced toward Jim, who had half lifted his head to
regard her in puzzlement.

“Where’s the boys? Aren’t they coming?” he
asked.

“I haven’t been to Sorrel Creek yet,” said
Callie, piling sticks on the fire. “By the time I got home Pa was
wanting his supper and I had to make it for him.” She was putting
the pail over the fire as she spoke, on an old rusty hook fixed
between some rocks. “I couldn’t slip away afterwards; I had to wait
till he went to bed. Then I couldn’t ride all the way down to
Sorrel Creek in the dark, but I figured I ought to bring you
something to eat.”

Jim stared at her without speaking as she
uncovered the pail and stirred it, and pushed another piece of wood
into the now brightly glowing fire.

“I may have been a little under the
weather,” he said at last, “but there’s no earthly way I’ve only
been here a few hours. It can’t be before midnight, not by a long
stretch.”

Callie shrugged her shoulders—a little
diffidently, he thought, for a girl who had shown such clear-headed
decision in the way she had come to his aid. She did not look at
him as she spoke. “You must have been feverish, I guess.”

Jim said nothing, for he had just made a
discovery. The watch that he usually carried in his vest pocket was
gone. He felt about under the blankets and alongside his body in
case it had somehow slipped out on its own, but it was not
there.