Jody took with him into the hills a somewhat subdued ego, a longing to reassert himself and a head that felt as though it had been cracked open like an egg. Every time his backside felt contact with the saddle under him, a trapdoor opened in his skull and slammed shut again. It was not long before he questioned how long he could stand it.
It was, he could see even under those unpleasant circumstances, a beautiful night. The stars hung brilliantly in the heavens and the moon rode serene and cold. A light refreshing breeze blew from the north and distantly a lobo sang to the night. Once, after riding up a steep incline, Jody stopped to let the horses blow, and there came to his ears a soft and musical sound. He headed toward it and found to his delight that it was a lively mountain stream. He would go no further, he decided. The evil that was Grebb’s was sufficiently far behind him and the drink that he had consumed earlier had worked up an appetite in him that demanded satisfaction.
He searched for a good camping place and found it — sweet green sward near the water. Here he unsaddled his horses, hobbled them and set them to graze. He gathered kindling and built a fire that was soon crackling merrily. He set the coffee pot on the stones and laid out his bed. He had some fresh meat with him and this he broiled in the flames on the end of a stick. Holding it hot in his fingers, he munched it. Meat had never tasted better. He started to be more cheerful. He drank three cups of scalding unsweetened coffee and built himself a smoke. Lying back against his saddle and listening to the night sounds, he started to recover himself, to forget the shame of the affair back at Grebb’s.
He thought about Grebb. The man was a damned fool. Only the year before he’d had a run-in with the Storms, for he had been the agent in the hiring of gunmen to kill Uncle Mart. It was only a matter of time before he was run out of the country. Jody couldn’t understand why his father permitted the man to stay. Will most likely had his reasons, or he would have taken some action. If he did, he wasn’t saying.
Maybe when I get back, Jody thought with a young man’s confidence, I’ll settle that sonovabitch’s hash.
That would be nice.
With that thought, he killed the fire, for a man never knew when it could be spotted by roaming Indians in search for easy horses. At the same time, it was a good thing to have a fire to keep off wild animals. It was a choice a man had to make.
He settled back and dozed off, his rifle his hand.
He awoke with alarm, hearing the horses whinny with fright. The time, he saw, was a short while before dawn. The dim pre-dawn ghost-light enshrouded the world. He heaved on his boots, picked up his rifle and ran in the direction of the horses. They were scared all right and Blue was shaking all over. Jody did his best to calm the animals and looked around for the cause of their alarm, knowing that it could be a mountain-lion or a bear. He heard a snuffling and grunting in the undergrowth and knew that there was a bear around. He started to drive his horses back toward camp, keeping an eye over his shoulder in case the beast should get it into its head to charge. Normally a bear would not do so if left alone, but this might be a mother with cubs. There was nothing more dangerous on earth. However, he reached camp and tied the two horses.
Dawn was now breaking and as light rushed over the land he saw that he was above a small valley, as lovely in its utter wildness as he had ever seen. It was good to be young, full of vim and alone on the wilderness trail. It seemed that he had not enjoyed the condition of solitude until that moment. Suddenly, he saw the world with new eyes. It was like a revelation. He stood and watched the sparkling water hurling itself lightly down the hillside, striking the rocks and disintegrating into a thousand diamonds of light. A deer ran out from cover far below and stayed for a moment poised and alert and for once the boy did not feel the urge to raise his rifle and kill. Something must have startled the animal for it darted across the grass reaching out with its frail forelegs, the epitome of grace and speed. It disappeared and the scene stayed still.
Jody realized that his headache was gone. In that moment, this solo trip was everything he had planned it to be. He was cheerful once more, full of hope and ambition. Suddenly, he knew that he would make the trip and return with that bull for his old man. Hell, when you came to think about it, there wasn’t much to bringing an old bull home.
He cooked his breakfast of bacon and beans with a new heart, humming softly to himself. He ate speedily and washed the food down with coffee, built himself the first smoke of the day and killed the fire. He was washing his plate and cup in the stream when Blue whickered again.
That damn bear, he thought.
The idea hit him. Kill a bear. Shoot a bear, maybe a grizzly standing bigger than a man. A trophy to take home. Admiring glances. He’d kill and skin the animal, cache the skin in a tree and pick it up on the way home. Take along a bear steak to eat on the trail. He’d never eaten one, but he’d heard old-timers claim that there was nothing like it to put hair on a man’s chest. And he didn’t have much more than fluff on his.
He dropped the plate and cup, ran to his rifle, put on his coat because the pockets were full of shells and started looking around for that bear.
He saw nothing.
He started stalking through the rocks and trees, every now and then glancing at the horses to see if they could give him a lead, listening for the tell-tale sounds. He neither heard nor saw a thing.
He looked back at the horses again now some hundred and fifty feet away. Blue was still spooked. There must be something about still.
He sank to one knee behind the bole of a tree, freezing in the way old Joe Widbee had taught him. Nothing becomes a hunter more than patience.
Suddenly, old Sox reared up, whirled and tried to run against the hobbles. The act nearly brought him down. Blue wheeled around and kicked up his heels, whinnying in alarm.
Jody looked beyond them, tensed and ready to shoot.
He heard a faint sound to his right and turned his head. A flash of movement. He swung his rifle. Undergrowth rustled softly. Then there was silence and stillness. Jody had seen something, but he didn’t know what he had seen.
Blue squealed.
Jody swung left, jacking a round into the breech. His eyes went to the blue roan and for a brief moment he was startled to motionlessness.
On Blue’s back was an Indian.
Jody’s first quick thought was that he wouldn’t get far because the hobbles would stop him. Then he saw that Blue was jumping and the hobbles were off.
Jody rammed the butt of his rifle into his shoulder and fired. He aimed high for fear of hitting the horse. He aimed too high and missed. His shot, however, had the desired effect. The Indian threw himself over the far side of the horse and landed in the grass.
Just then there was a whoosh past Jody’s left ear and something went thunk against the trunk of the tree.
Alarm blossomed in him. His left cheek almost rested against the feathered haft of an arrow.
Nerves screaming, he whirled around, jacking his rifle as he did so. He could see nothing. So he did what most men would have done in his case. His nerves demanded it. He fired again, not knowing what he was firing at. All he knew was that there was an Indian within bowshot of him and that same Indian was now in the process of notching a second shaft to the gut-string.
A sensible, but slightly panicking voice, said in his head: Get outa here.
Obeying this command seemed simple enough, but he didn’t know that there might not be a second or third Indian waiting in the direction in which he was headed. Just the same, he got to his feet and started to run.
Something whispered softly past his right ear and disappeared ahead of him. Which meant that there was at least one Indian behind him.
He dropped and rolled, reached the comparative safety of a tree and rose to one knee. He heard Blue race off down the hillside. Old Sox did his level best to follow him, but his hobbles were making it difficult for him.
There came the report of a rifle and a ball thudded into the tree behind which Jody was hiding. Or thought he was hiding. The shot came from the left and Jody knew that he was completely exposed to the man who had tried to get away with Blue. It was time for another strategic withdrawal. But this would leave both Indians above him and he didn’t like the thought of that.
He lay flat on the ground and starting crawling away to the right. He thought he was doing all right until that gun went off again and dirt was kicked into his face. Jody was sweating healthily by this time. Three Creeks seemed a long way off. The idea of bringing home the valued bull was as remote as heaven itself. There remained nothing but Jody Storm and two Indians trying to kill him for his horses. Ala and Pa would never know what happened to him. He would lie in an unmarked grave in the hills. Without his hair.
The idea of putting up a gallant fight and protecting his horses faded quickly from his mind. In the light of the circumstances, it seemed a much better idea just to get out of there and stay alive. He had the feeling that these two bucks were better at this game than he was.
He rolled downhill a few yards, dropped over a low ledge and found himself on the edge of some thick undergrowth. This might offer him enough cover to get away. He regretted losing his horses, but that would be better than losing his life. He wormed his way through the bushes and paused for a moment to listen, wondering if they would come after him, He heard one of the Indians call to the other. Jody didn’t understand a word.
The man immediately above him laughed.
That did it. If that man hadn’t laughed, maybe Jody Storm would have slipped away and crawled to safety, leaving those two braves the richer by two horses. But one laughed. Jody lay and fumed. That laugh mocked his courage and stuck a goad in his manhood. Two goddamned naked savages were up there on the hillside were thinking they had run rings around him. It was more than a man could bear. So they thought they were smart, did they? They thought they had chased off Jody Storm and gained two fine horses the easy way. Well, they had another think coming to them.
He worked his way south to where the bushes ended and gazed uphill.
A branch swayed. He fired. Leaves and twigs flew. He may or may not have hit a man.
He watched and listened. He could hear the horses moving about behind and below him.
He heard a faint twang.
Something hit the ground at his side, lightly touching his ribs. He tried to roll and found that he could not. He looked down and saw that he was pinned to the ground by an arrow that had driven through his coat and shirt. Fear rushed through him. That arrow had come from his left. He reached across himself with his right hand and tore the shaft from the ground, ripping it from his clothes. He grabbed his rifle and rose to rush into a crouching run. A gun banged and the dirt kicked up a foot to his right. Which way dare he run? He was going south now along the side of the hill, searching frantically for good cover.
At last he found rock and brush and dove into it. He landed hard and bruised himself badly. As he lay still and listened he heard a man moving at speed on a parallel course along the side of the hill above him. He glimpsed the racing legs, sighted above them and fired.
There came a crash of breaking branches as the man crashed down. The fellow threshed around. Jody could see no more than a blur of movement. He jacked a fresh round into the breech and fired again. He did not know if he made a hit. He crouched down and waited, ranging what he could see of the hillside with his eyes.
The movement above him stopped. The man called out. Jody waited for the other man to give his position away, but he was too smart for that.
The boy lay there, trying to put himself in the shoes of the man with the rifle. He would want to care for his comrade’s wound or tote him out of the fight. But it wasn’t safe to do that. So he had to kill the white man to make it safe. Jody toyed with the idea of creeping away downhill, getting on Blue and ‘lighting out as fast as he could go. Nobody would blame him for doing that. But his saddle and his gear were up there by the water. That was a forty dollar saddle. Cost more than a month’s pay. Besides, it sure hurt a man’s pride to run from an Indian with a single-shot carbine. It could even be a muzzle-loader. Certainly, there were long spaces between shots. There was one more consideration and this was probably the most important one. If he broke for his horse that same single-shot carbine might cut him down.
Jody decided to stay put.
He just wished that the son-of-a-bitch with the rifle would tote his wounded friend quietly away and end the fight. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen.
Jody heard a faint sound from above him. He peered out from his hiding place and listened. He thought the sound was that of something being dragged over the ground. He glimpsed slight movement through the foliage. It seemed to be going uphill from him. It looked like his wish had come true and the rifleman was dragging the wounded man away. Should he try and kill the second man? Play safe?
Or was it playing safe? If he killed a man wouldn’t he have the whole tribe down on his neck. He didn’t fancy the prospect of being hunted through the hills by a pack of blood-thirsty savages. Two were more than enough for him.
The sounds above him were growing fainter. He listened until he could hear them no longer. Then he gave them a good long time to get clear. It came to him that possibly the rifleman might return to kill him once he had carried the wounded man to safety. Which didn’t make him feel any easier. At that moment, it didn’t seem at all a romantic thing to be out on the trail alone. He could do with at least two other Storms along.
He started up the hill, crawling, stopping every few yards to look and listen. If the two men had ponies nearby, he never heard them. At last he reached the spot where the man had fallen. There were still leaves wet with blood. He looked beyond and saw where the man had been dragged. With great caution, he followed the sign until at last he reached the crest of the ridge. The sign was blurred here, but he reckoned one man had carried the other from here on. Keeping low, he followed the tracks down into a tiny valley with steep sides, matted with trees and brush, scattered with rocks. After a while, he came to the place where the horses had been tied. Their tracks plainly led north. It looked like his enemies had departed. He hoped that was right. He hoped also that their camp was a long way off and there weren’t a hundred bucks waiting to come a-hunting him.
He decided that there was no time to lose. Climbing the side of the valley as fast as he could go, throwing all caution to the wind, he ran down the far side through the trees, collected his rope from camp and went down to catch his horses. There was no call for the rope. Both animals came to his call. He led them back into camp, hastily packed his gear, saddled both horses with many a glance around, and loaded Sox. As he did so, he tried to remember everything Joe Widbee and his old man had taught him about losing sign. He mustn’t try anything fancy that might be beyond him, nothing but the best would fool Indians. This was their country and they knew it well. His first need was running water that flowed along a bed which he could travel with two horses. He mounted and rode to the crest of the ridge, went down into the little valley and turned up it. This brought him out into a gully that reared above him high and steep on either hand, smelling dank and forbidding. It seemed as if it had never been trodden by man. He came out of this into a larger, untidy valley that looked as though it had been ruffled in some past age by a mighty hand. It was tumbled and broken from one end to the other, lying in seething movement under high craggy cliffs of gray and faded purple. It could have belonged to another world. He would not have been surprised if some fantastic monsters had appeared and challenged his presence there. As it was, he glimpsed nothing more than a small caballada of wild horses that tossed their manes and ran at his approach, led by an old white mare and bossed by a small wiry black stallion.
He rode across this place, looking for a way up the cliff that faced him, but he saw none. He did, however, come on water, a gently flowing creek that went south-east. He tested it with a stick and found it too deep to take his horses without swimming. This was a disappointment and he rode along its shore, taking advantage of the comparatively smooth ground to up his speed a little. Every mile counted. He rode with his chin on either shoulder, knowing that he must be clearly visible to any watcher on the valley walls.
At the southern end of the valley, he reached timber and was glad to get into this shelter. It slowed his pace, but it felt a good deal safer than the open ground. He cleared timber and came out into broken country with high hills on either hand.
And here he had a little luck. He came on a fairly wide creek that meandered here, there and everywhere. It pushed its haphazard way through a vast scattering of rocks, so that there was stone for fifty to a hundred yards on either side. The water proved to be shallow and the bottom sandy. He couldn’t ask for anything better. He put Blue into it as if he were going to continue on his present line of march upstream, but once in the center of the creek, he turned downstream and picked his way toward what looked like broken country that was well-covered with greenery. To have both water to wipe out his sign and foliage to hide his presence answered his every prayer.
The water was shallow enough not to slow him unduly and he hit a pretty good pace, often keeping the horses at a brisk trot for five minutes at a time. In this way, he followed the water till he could go no further, for the bed became rocky and would put the horses at risk. He halted and carefully chose the spot where he would land, coming ashore on a wide expanse of shale that would prevent him from making sign until he was in the cover of the trees beyond.
He rode into the timber for a hundred paces, halted the horses and went back to wipe out as much sign as he could. That done, he remounted and went on. By this time, having survived several hours, he was feeling pretty pleased with himself.
He found that he was climbing fairly steeply before he had covered another half-mile and it dawned on him by this time he had broken his father’s instructions arid was a long way from the trail he was supposed to be following. It was going to be necessary to have a good amount of luck if he was going to find Rolf’s place without asking the way. And where would he find anybody to ask in this wilderness?
As if his question was being answered, when he finally broke clear of the trees, he saw, at a distance of no more than thirty feet’ a solitary horseman.
The man so startled him that he halted abruptly and reached for his belt-gun.
The man said: “No call for that, sonny.”