CHAPTER 3

The Thing had the man said?

Ray sat looking from Sally to the Indian who was expressionless.

“The Thing?” Ray asked.

“It’s nothing,” Sally said, brushing it aside. “An Indian legend. Mr. Featherskill won’t be working for me, Pita. There’s no point in going into all the local legends and lore.”

“Whatever you say,” Pita shrugged. The Indian lay back on the bunk, hat tipped over his lean face. “John Brown Bear quit today,” he added from under his hat.

“Not another man!”

“He told me he wanted to hunt for winter provisions for his family,” Pita said. “But some of the men told me he saw tracks and heard a noise.”

“All right. So, he’s gone. I’m sorry, Ray, none of this is your problem.”

“No, but it’s interesting.” Ray frowned, “Is this Thing of yours part of the reason you’re losing Indian riders?”

“Yes—there’s an old tale involved, and there’s been some signs they don’t understand.”

“Plenty sign,” Pita said. “Plenty bad sign.”

Ray was puzzled, but he felt sure it was only a tactic of someone who wanted Sally to lose her men. He mentioned it to her.

“Yes, I think you’re right. Jacklin, whoever is behind him. They want to scare my riders off. But the Coos don’t believe it, do they Pita?”

“No. They want no part of the Thing. They think it is Oh-na-Tami. Big creature with great strength, as the legends say.”

“And you?” Featherskill asked.

Pita lifted his hat and shrugged. “I have been around whites too long. I think maybe Jacklin, someone else. But,” he smiled, “I do not ride alone at night.”

“I still do,” Ray said. “I have no choice. And it is tonight I should be riding. There’s a man I have to find.”

He stood from the table, walking stiffly back to the bunk. His side had tightened up and his head still rang. Simply trying to pull his boots on was an undertaking. His side tore open and he felt the blood seeping into his shirt.

He managed to get his left boot on, but his face was raining perspiration, his side felt as if it were filled with broken glass. Glancing up, the right boot in his hand, he saw Sally and Pita studying him.

“I’ve really got to ride,” Ray said.

“Maybe you make the front gate, huh?” Pita said, leaning back once more. “You call me when you get that other boot on and I’ll help you. You’ll never lift a saddle.”

“You must want this man awfully bad,” Sally commented.

“Yes. Bad.” Ray was nearly trembling from the exertion of putting his boots on. It was obvious to them all that he was going nowhere, not tonight at least. Giving in finally, Featherskill sagged back, and with his boots still on he fell off to a pain-erasing sleep.

The silver-haired man rested in the lobby of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. His delicate hands were folded on top of a newspaper on his lap. On his right hand an emerald ring sparkled deeply.

He had been a tall man in his youth, and for all of his aristocratic appearance, there were the scars of a working man to be discovered under his gray suit.

He had a straight, nearly aquiline nose, and the eyes which were now closed in rest were gray, piercing. Boots clattered across the marble floor of the Palace and Dr. Spectros came suddenly awake.

It was Inkada, waving a letter.

“What is it?”

“Ray,” Inkada said, still breathing heavily from the steep climb up the hill from the docks. “He’s found the man. He’s in a place called Bear Harbor, Oregon Territory.”

The dark man sat down beside the doctor as he scanned the letter patiently. “He seems sure,” Spectros said.

“Quite sure,” Inkada agreed.

Spectros glanced at the letter once again, then carefully folded it and put it away. He looked at the angular, dark man sitting beside him, a man who always looked slightly out of place in his Western dress. A turban suited Inkada better.

“Find Montak,” Spectros said abruptly. “I believe he’s at breakfast.”

“We’ll be leaving?” Inkada asked.

“We’ll be leaving.”

The hotel clerk’s head bobbed up as the tall, dark man strode toward the restaurant. They were an odd group, these three. The old man, the Indian—if that was what he was, although he was taller than most Indians and had a slightly hooked nose, a darker complexion—and the other one! The clerk shuddered. The mute was amiable enough, always smiling. Yet the size of the man was enough to cause you to take half a step back involuntarily.

They were a strange outfit. The old man had not been out of the hotel, nor had the giant. The dark one had arrived only the day before, trail dusty and dead tired.

Whatever their business was, they kept it to themselves. The clerk decided that he preferred it that way.

Inkada pushed through the deeply varnished hotel restaurant door, and immediately spotted the shoulders and head of Montak across the room.

“We’re leaving,” he told the giant.

Montak glanced up and nodded, understanding that something was up. He stood reluctantly, wistfully studying the rest of the French bread and butter, the greens, corn on the cob and barbecued ribs.

“That was breakfast?” Inkada asked incredulously.

Montak’s gentle face broke into a grin and he stood, at the last moment reaching back for a handful of beef rib bones which he rolled up in a napkin.

While Inkada settled the bill and packed the doctor’s trunk, Montak went to the livery and began harnessing the four matched bays to the tall black wagon.

“You’re leavin’ now?” the sleepy-eyed stable hand asked. Montak nodded and continued working the harnesses, his thick, agile fingers slipping the buckles and ties with practiced skill.

“I guess you’ll be takin’ the other horses too.”

Montak again nodded, smiling as he hooked the trace chains to the enclosed wagon.

“That’s a magnificent set of bays,” the stable hand admitted, patting the lead horse’s neck affectionately. “But, Lord I hate to see you take the other one. Tell you the truth—it made me feel good just to have him around, to feed him and sit watching him. I’m a horse lover, and man, that’s a horse!”

Montak’s broad face smiled with understanding, yet he had not slowed his busy pace a bit. The bays were hitched and ready. Now he strode to the back of the livery barn, the stable hand following him.

Khamsin’s head came up and he nickered as he recognized Montak. The giant swung open the gate and the big black stamped the ground impatiently. He knew he would be going now, and he was born to run, to race across the long empty plains.

“That’s a horse,” the stable man said again in awe.

All of eighteen hands high, the black had muscles like polished obsidian, a deep chest and a silver mane and tail. There was not another horse like this one in the nation; perhaps there had never been one like it.

Khamsin was tethered to the tall wagon and the stable hand threw open the doors to the livery barn as Montak drove the prancing bays through into the outdoor light.

In half an hour they were on their way, Montak in the box, with Inkada riding ahead on his appaloosa pony. The doctor rode inside, his thoughts leaping ahead to Bear Harbor, and wandering back to the time when this mad chase had begun, to that time when the world had been young, new, with all of time spread out before him, before time and expectations had been smothered, extinguished in one brief, brutal moment.

There it was. The castle the young man had seen from the beach. Shimmering white in the sunlight, the spires were crowned with gold. Tall palms waved in the slight breeze. Dense jungle surrounded the castle, climbing the flanks of the mountains beyond.

The tall young man from across the western seas strode into the great chamber where the Yahif sat his throne, his head capped by a golden conical crown. All eyes turned toward the man in outlandish dress. Ladies in silk giggled or drew slightly away as the stranger wearing pointed boots and trousers, a torn black shirt, and the brashness of youth strode toward the throne.

“I am sorry,” a short man said, intercepting him. “You may not speak to the Yahif.”

“But I’ve got me a problem,” the cowboy smiled.

“Perhaps,” the harried minister said, looking with distress at this tall, dark-haired man, “if you would tell me what the problem is, I may relay it to the Yahif. Perhaps tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Or the day after. The Yahif sees no one but by audience.” The minister, whose name was Popo, insisted.

“Well—just tell the Yahif there that I’m stranded here and I need me a horse, an elephant, or a what have you to get back to a seaport.”

“Yes, yes,” the minister said.

He waddled away toward the throne where the Yahif gripped the lions’ head arm rests, and bowing low, he approached, speaking to the Yahif.

The two guards who stood near their sovereign held long swords in their hands. The Yahif glanced up and shook his head just slightly. Popo, bowing again backed away to where the stranger stood smiling at the ladies and lords of this remote country.

“No. It is impossible. Not this week,” Popo whispered.

“But it’s possible next week?” the cowboy asked. “How could that be? Look here, just tell him…” He shook his head and started walking toward the throne.

“What are you doing?” Popo hissed. “You could be killed.” He grabbed the cowboy’s arm, but the man walked on, bowing as he reached the throne. The guards had tensed.

“Beg pardon, Yahif, sir,” the cowboy said, still grinning. “But I got me a problem and it seems you’re the only one can help me.”

A guard stepped toward the stranger, but the Yahif’s hand raised, stopping him. “I will forgive your ignorance,” the Yahif said coldly.

“Thank you, sir. Yahif, sir. I do beg your pardon, but you see we got no king or nobles, what-have-yous, where I come from, and I’m not too sharp on this bowing and scraping.”

The Yahif smiled thinly and allowed the stranger to continue.

“What happened is that I was beached not far from here and I seen your castle through the jungle. I figured to find some help getting to Calcutta or some other port where I can get me a ship back home.”

“Home?” the Yahif said. “And where is that? Just how did you come to our country?”

“Well,” the cowboy said slowly, taking a deep breath, “I come from across the western ocean. Place called Texas. One night in a town called Galveston I walked the wrong alley and I got myself jumped, clubbed over the head.

“Next thing I know I’m out where there’s nothin’ but deep blue sea. Shanghaied, as we say. This pirate called Tear Degas, he needed him a man or two—”

“Tear Degas! That bandit! We know of him. Twice he has raided our shores. A blackguard, a criminal!”

“Yes, sir, he was all of that. We took a ship or two, and finally we came near to your shore. Well, I figured it was now or never so me and a couple of the other boys we up-turned a cannon and blew the hull out of Tear Degas’ ship.

“The powder magazine went too and we got us a hell of an explosion. I found myself floating in the water hanging to a spar. When I beached, I waited to see if anyone else had made it. But there was no one. I guess I was the only one who came out of it.”

“And Tear Degas?” the Yahif asked, leaning forward anxiously.

“Him? You’ll never see him again, Yahif. I know that for a fact. The foremast toppled on him as he was wavin’ his sword and cussin’ us through the smoke. I’m afraid his ways caught up with him.”

The Yahif sat back again, thoughtfully studying the tall stranger. How much had been left out of the story? How much bravery and strength it must have called for, all understated by this smiling young man.

The cowboy scratched his head and awaited a reply. It was then that he saw her. Behind a brass screen a dark-eyed girl in white. Shy, beautiful eyes watching back curiously before she was hurried away.

She was the Yahif’s daughter. Her name was Kirstina.

The wagon bumped over a rock and swayed heavily. Spectros’s eyes opened and he wiped away the dream. It was a moment before he remembered. Bear Harbor. The man was in Bear Harbor.