Rawley was rattled. What was worse, he knew that his men were rattled too. But he knew also that there was nothing better than a good stiff fight to unite a body of men. Just so long as they won.
The horses were gone, most of them, any road, and there seemed to be Indians all around them. Not only that, they seemed also to be among the rocks in which Rawley and his men were sheltering. But his men, good as they were with weapons of all kinds, were doing terrible damage to the savages. The Apache were fighting with the ferocity for which they were famous, often charging upon the heavily armed white men with nothing more in their hands than butchers’ knives. But the firepower of the white men told and slowly the Indians were driven out of the rocks and back along the narrow trail, until an hour after the attack began, those among the Indians who possessed firearms contented themselves by keeping a safe distance and lobbing shots into the camp.
Rawley now rallied his men and charged into the rocks and slowly drove the Indians before them, cleaning them out of the rocks one by one, until at last the warriors slipped away to their horses and sped away through the hills.
Rawley and his men went slowly back into camp and Rawley counted heads. The result was not a reassuring one. Five men had been killed, three more were wounded and added to this, the horses were gone. All except three, which Rawley had had the good sense to keep close at hand in camp. Among these was his own favorite saddler.
Carlos was in a funk and one or two of the other men seemed to be in the same state, but most of them were elated and relieved that they had been able to repel the Indians. They were tired to a man with that peculiar exhaustion which is as much a part of the spirit as the body that comes after the killing of men. Rawley badly wanted to move camp, but without the horses that was plainly impossible, for he could not leave the gold. He was under the impression that the Indians had got clean away with the animals and was feeling close to despair when one of the men said that he heard a horse neigh.
Rawley set out with a couple of men in the direction of the sound and found to his surprise that eight or nine horses and mules had been abandoned in a draw. This piece of luck at once lifted some of the depression and they drove the animals back into camp. Rawley now made his decision. He knew that he could not get out of this country without the help of the others, much as he would have liked to cut adrift and run for it with as much gold as he could carry. So he decided that as the gold could not under any circumstances be left, that he would use the animals for its transportation and that the men could walk. This news they received with groans. What, one of them asked, happened to the wounded? That was a nasty one for Rawley, for he wanted to leave the wounded. This he dare not do, though, or he would have had the men against him, for at any moment one of them could be hit and be in the same position as the wounded men. So he made a show of tender-heartedness and said that they could ride on the pack-animals. To himself he cursed the necessity of further burdening animals that would be already heavily laden. But that was the way it would have to be.
So they started loading the animals. There were enough pack-saddles to go around and the animals were soon loaded, the wounded were heaved aboard and the train started slowly forward. The men walked and they hated it, for they were to a man of the conviction that only human garbage walked. A man’s place was in the saddle. But they had the gold in their minds and they were reconciled to the suffering they would put upon their feet. They paced awkwardly in their high-heeled cowmen’s boots and within an hour they were all pretty footsore and hating it. Rawley, as an example, was also forced to travel on his feet and he longed to lay his hands on the men responsible for such an indignity.
McAllister’s escape was gnawing at him among other things. He had looked forward to satisfying his cruel humor by killing the man and now that pleasure had to be foregone. However, he thought now that he had only to contend with the Indians and that McAllister and Spur would light out of the country as fast as they could go, now wary of Rawley and afraid of the Indians. One thing he was determined on – he would get the gold into New Mexico if he had to sacrifice every man with him.
He walked with his rifle in his hands, ready to shoot, his eyes forever searching the surrounding country, eating the dust of the animals, hating the experience to the depth of his soul.