13

They started early, having a long day’s drive between them and the Arkansas Crossing. They had a fine morning and a good road, the best of both they had hit so far. Noon found them halted on a beautiful little stream which wandered into the Arkansas from the north. They had made smart time, near nine miles, had only six left to the Crossing. Kirby ordered the mules unhooked for a two-hour graze and rest.

Shortly after span-out, a lone horseman showed up, jogging their backtrail. The stranger was a smallish man, inclined to look a little pudgy, brown-haired, round-faced, altogether a very mild-appearing fellow.

After the first quick glance, Kirby dismissed him as a green-horn traveler without better sense than to ride the trail alone. Calling over to Sam, who was busy grinding a handful of skillet-roasted beans in the coffee mill, he opined superiorly. “We got company, Sam. Tinhorn sport a’ridin’ the trail alone.”

As he looked up to confirm his friend’s casual diagnosis, the old man’s eyes widened. Turning the most scathing of motherly snarls on the ignorant cub by his side, he snarled. “Tinhorn sport, huh? Ye wetnose fool, thet’s Chris Carson.”

“Kit Carson!” Kirby breathed the name the way a Texas sprout might worshipfully whisper “Sam Houston!” or a Mexican urchin, “Santa Ana!”

“Sure, Kit Carson, ye featherhead idjut!”

Further punishment from Sam was averted by the famous frontiersman’s arrival at the fire. “Hau, Sam. Whut ye doin’ down south? The Pied Noirs run ye out?”

“By God, I am glad to see ye, Chris. Get down! Get down! I was jest grindin’ the beans. We’ll have a can of fresh in a jiffy. This h’yar’s my boy, Kirby Randolph. Kirby, meet Kit Carson.” Sam leered vindictively. “Ye’ve heered of Mr. Carson, ain’t ye, young un? He’s the Injun fighter.”

Unshot by Sam’s arrow, or at least feeling no pain from the wound, Kirby put out his hand, a grin as broad as his drawl going with it. “Howdy, Mr. Carson. This h’yar’s a real treat. Sort of like shakin’ hands with Jesus, or Jed Smith.”

“Oh, I reckon it ain’t as bad as all thet. Happen ye’ve got a sprinkle of salt acrost yer own tail jedgin’ from the looks on ye.”

“I heered ye was workin’ fer old Blunt up to Fort William. How come? Whut ye doin’ up thar?” Sam’s question, interrupting the complimenting, turned the discussion onto the straight trail of business, bringing a quick nod from the famous scout.

“Sort of keepin’ a eyeball peeled on the Injuns, happen ye know what I mean, Sam.”

“I allow I do. Give ye much trouble do they, in these parts?”

“Considerable.” No word-waster, Mr. Chris Carson.

“Mostly Kioways and Comanches, ain’t they?” Sam’s question maintained the high quality of the oral economy, producing a slight qualification in the other scout’s answer.

“Wal, yes, some Kioways. But mostly Comanches. And I allow anyways ye figger them, the Comanches are the lowest Injuns God ever hung a warbonnet on. It ain’t no lie whut they’ll do to a white man. Or a woman or a kid, either. Happen ye get one in yer sights, leave him have it in the belly. I like Injuns and I know them. Most’s fine. But damn my soul, ye cain’t live with them Comanches. I’d gut-shoot the buzzards quick as I saw them anywhars.”

“Ye mean Blunt and St. Clair’s expectin’ trouble from the Comanches and are payin’ ye to let them know when it’s comin’?”

“More or less.”

Sam’s understanding head-bob was brief. “Ye out lookin’ fer any special trouble? Right now, I mean?”

“I was.”

“Whut ye mean, ye was?”

“I done found it a’ready.”

“Whar?”

“Behind ye. I allow ye’re gettin’ old, Samuel. Ye’ve had Injuns on yer tail since leavin’ yer last night’s camp.”

“Naw!”

“Sure. Not many, mebbe, but enough. And a real salty chief.”

“The hell! Me and Kirby figgered them cussed Kioways had gone home. Son of a gun, I hate to let a Kioway outfigger me like thet.”

“Ye didn’t,” observed Carson laconically. “It’s Comanches follerin’ ye.”

“Cripes,” said Sam, and, having said it, seemed satisfied to sit in squint-eyed and thoughtful silence.

After a minute, Kirby, self-assurance outbidding reluctance, picked up the old man’s end of the conversation. “Ye say Comanches, Mr. Carson? Ain’t this a leetle out’n their range? I thought we was in Kioway country as long as we was on the Arkansas. Ain’t the Comanches supposed to run mostly on the Cimarron?”

“Naw. It’s all the same. The two tribes is thicker then buffler scum in a bull waller.”

“Ye was sayin’ they got a big chief along. Who’s thet?”

“Canadian River Comanche. Big giant of a feller. And a bad Injun. Heads the raidin’ bands thet works the Texican settlements fer white captives. He’s collected some scandalous ransoms.”

“Whut’s his name?”

“Kioways call him An-gyh P’ih. Thet comes out ‘Heavy Foottrack’ in their lingo. ‘Big Foot’ in ourn.”

“Big Foot!” Kirby’s exclamation jumped out excitedly. “By cripes, we heered of him clear up on the Powder. Ye sure he’s the one thet’s follerin’ us?” The young scout had had enough hostiles to last him a spell; he hoped their famed guest might be guessing at the chief’s identity.

“No missin’ it, boy. I’d know thet ‘heavy foottrack’ of his’n, anywhars. And it jest so happens thar was a moccasin print as big as a mule’s bottom, sprang alongside thet crick ye camped on last night. Oh, I allow Big Foot and me knows one another, all right.”

“I allow ye must.” Kirby backed off, suddenly remembering the great scout’s awesome reputation. “Ye got any idees why he’s follerin’ us? He kin see we ain’t got enough mules to fuss about.”

“Wal, yeah. Old Blunt he was worried about the gal—Miss St. Clair. Whut with the name Big Foot’s got as a kidnap and ransom chief, Blunt he figgered I’d best mosey down and have a look fer yer caravan. This h’yar is the train with the gal in it, ain’t it?”

“Yep.” Kirby’s answer was short, carrying no offer of elaboration.

“Whar’s the Spaniard? Don Pedro, ain’t it? Santy Fee Gov’-ner’s nephy, or somethin’ like thet. Whar’s he?”

“Over thar by thet leetle white spread of canvas whar the big Injun is cookin’.” Sam supplied the information, seeing Kirby wasn’t going to.

“Thanks, Samuel. I’ll amble over and tell him he’s got Comanches on his tailpiece. Mebbe he’ll know somethin’ about how come.”

“Happen he does, ye won’t find it out.” Sam nodded sourly.

The visiting scout threw his coffee grounds in the fire and got up. “All right, old hoss. I’ll see you boys along the trail. I suggest, meantime, ye get yer train rollin’. Thar’ll be a bright moon tonight, whut the folks out h’yar calls a ‘Comanche moon.’ And they ain’t bein’ romantic when they calls it thet-away, neither. Ye won’t want to be travelin’ in it. Them red sons dearly love a bright moon to work by.”

Toward nightfall, the weary (and by now, wary!) train pulled a long, climbing cross ridge, to look down on the long awaited halfway point of the journey. The Arkansas Crossing at last!

While the squealing wagons lurched and groaned past him over the brow of the rise, Kirby pulled Bluebell off to one side and looked down on the spot so perilously gained in earlier Trail annals, and to prove so swiftly fateful in his own history. The banks of the stream were level and fairly open, the various cut-downs and wagon approaches clearly marking all the numerous fords. There was no one main crossing, Kirby quickly saw, but as many as eight or maybe even a dozen, most of them above the small island in midstream, which marked this historic spot on the Arkansas. The famous “Ford of the Arkansas” was in reality a literal maze of wagon ruts for hundreds of yards above and below the island. The island itself was a pretty thing, the south side and lower end of it gracefully draped in green-lush willow timber. Kirby noted that a small camp was pitched on the open end of the island and, even in the poor light, from the conical structure of the tents, he called it for a Spanish outfit, Mexican really, and probably a military one.

They made their own camp on the flat, close up to the stream, receiving, by the time he and Sam had boiled their coffee and fried their pork, an unexpected caller. Don Pedro made known his errand without wasteful flourish. Kirby couldn’t remember having seen the boyish don so jubilant, naturally wondered why. And found out quickly enough.

“Boys,” this familiarity was a mild shock in itself, “I’ve had a stroke of luck. A double stroke. I’ve sold the cursed guns and been given the marriage promise of Señorita St. Clair!”

Much as he wanted to kill the handsome youngster, Kirby knew the don’s visit wasn’t inspired by the chance to gloat. He was a strange breed of cat, this Don Pedro, and a man couldn’t exactly hate him. Kirby couldn’t, anyway. He was elegant and overbearing, superior and highfaluting. He was a tight-pants dandy, probably as cruel as any Spaniard, kept his nails too clean, shaved every day, brushed his teeth with grit and ashes, prayed seven days a week and wore a cross around his neck. And had eaten off Spanish plate with a settlement knife and fork every last meal from Council Grove. Still, when you got through faulting him, you knew you weren’t horsing anybody but yourself. This black-browed sport was all hombre. And a man who was half-smart better believe that he was.

“Wal?” Kirby tried to make it sound like a simple question and not like he was calling the don a dirty name.

“Congratulations, comin’ and goin’,” said Sam, covering quickly for Kirby’s bluntness. “We fer sure won’t miss them blamed guns, though I allow I’ve sort of tooken a fancy to Aurélie.”

Don Pedro laughed again, his white teeth flashing in the gloom. “I’m sure we all have, old man,” he said, and saying it, stared flatly at Kirby. The young scout had no time to pick up the challenge as the don went ahead, talking to Sam. “And in your particular case, for her big Sioux friend too, eh, Anciano? Caray! May Dios grant me your powers when I am your age. Hijo! That night on the Arkansas you nearly caved the back of my tent in! Madre!”

Sam floundered around looking for an answer, awkward as a blind bear in a bramble patch. Kirby helped him out.

“Whut ye want, Don Pedro? We’re plumb tuckered and aimin’ to get some shet-eye.”

Ignoring the sullen address, the Spaniard bowed easily, his voice having all the patent restraint of a proud man speaking under studied control. “I would like you both to be my guests. I have been asked to invite you especially.” He paused to grimace the last sentence toward Kirby, went ahead smoothly. “You have seen the camp on the island. It is that of my uncle’s business associate, Colonel Juan Vicarrez, sent along with a detachment of Taos Indian Militia to locate us. Uncle feared we might have encountered some trouble. Caray! Some trouble? He puts it mildly, eh, compañeros?

“Well, Colonel Vicarrez is delighted. He will take delivery of the guns here and now, tonight. And he insists on fêting me. I demurred, of course, but he had heard about Señorita St. Clair and me and, pues, well, you know how these Spaniards are, señores. He would not be satisfied.

“And I, in turn, shall not be satisfied unless you are my guests. Particularly you, Mr. Randolph. I would like you to study how the Latins display courtesy and chivalry—in its proper place, at the banqueta and over the wineglass. I insist, señor.”

“I ain’t goin’,” said Kirby, angry at himself for letting the girl’s whim upset him so, wanting, really, to attend the Mexican celebration.

“Señor—” The velvet voice stiffened. “Por favor. I have asked you like a gentleman—”

Sam, eager to lap up the wine of Old Spain, threw in his hurried weight. “Aw, c’mon Kirby. Fer the luvva Pete. Whar’s yer sportin’ blood? Lord Amighty, I should think ye would—”

“Will she be thar?” Kirby hadn’t meant to say that at all, was surprised to hear his voice asking it. Damn! Why did a man’s thoughts have to go running out his mouth?

“Por supuesto, but of course.”

Kirby heard the don’s answer without listening to it. He wanted the Spaniard to go away. Quick. He was getting mad now. His gut was closing up hard, like a fist. The small of his back beginning to squeeze in tighter and tighter. “Get him out’n h’yar, Sam. Go on, hurry it up!” The command came side-mouthed and sibilant, jumping the old man to his feet with its ugly vehemence.

If Don Pedro heard it, he gave no sign, but Sam knew the rare sound of his protégé’s voice in real anger, and he knew enough to act fast when he heard it. “Uh, Don Pedro, I allow the boy’s plumb wore out, like he says. Let’s me and you get on. Happen this un says he ain’t goin’, why, he ain’t.”

“But he was asking about the señorita. As though that might change his mind. After all, it was her request that he join us. Come along, Randolph—”

“I said I ain’t goin’.” The voice was as flat as the snap of a broken bowstring. “Now, get. I don’t want to turn ugly about it, mister.”

“As you will.” Don Pedro laid the words down most carefully, so as not to fracture the thin ice of their composition. “A courtesy refused is an insult offered. Buenas noches, Mr. Randolph. Come along, Old One. You shall taste such wines as you never dreamed could grow in a grape!”

Kirby watched the flames in the fire, trying to get them to show him what Aurélie might look like over there at the fandango on the island. He kept seeing her face, but that was easy. Any man who had lived out of doors knew that night fires were full of faces. It was harder, though, to get the full figures to show up. He peered more intently into the cheery glow of the cottonwood logs, the shouting, laughter, singing and guitar-playing from the island spurring his imagination.

She had fancy clothes, he knew. He had seen those rawhide trunks in number three wagon. As old Marcel St. Clair’s daughter, she was a rich girl. There would be no end to the finery and foofaraw she had brought out from St. Louis.

But what would it be tonight? Silks? Crinolines? Velvets? Probably some of each, one of those Spanishy-Frenchy getups. Mantilla, bolero, swirling skirt, little Morocco slippers. Yep, that was it. There it was in the fire, now. She was beautiful! Especially when she flashed that smile. And that voice, too. Low, easy, soft in the throat. Real female. All female. The kind of a voice that went into the pit of a man’s belly like a hard blow, left him wondering what had struck him, left him weak and on the edge of being sick, yet made him feel strong to want to bury his hands and face in every part of where that voice had come from.

“Kirby—!”

Whoa. Hold up, boy. That voice of hers, calling his name out of the fire just then, had been a little too real. Made a man wonder if he hadn’t been on the prairie too long, spent too many nights talking to shadows and looking into fire faces. He had best poke up the fire and roll in. A man didn’t want to get like old Sam and the others. By God, he wasn’t that far gone yet—

“Kirby! Answer me!”

He looked up then, startled. Closing his eyes, he counted ten, opened them again, still saw her standing there.

“Hau, Wasicun.” Her powdery voice shivered the tall scout clean to his moccasin soles. He came to his feet, not answering her, just standing there, staring back. The fire had been as all wrong about the way she was dressed as he had been about where she was.

Kirby had seen a thousand Indian girls on a hundred May nights look just the way Aurélie St. Clair was looking now. She had nothing between her and the warm breath of the river air but her moccasins and a simple Sioux camp dress. The rounded grace of the slender arms, bare to the boy-straight shoulders, shimmered copper-red in the lingering firelight. From beneath the hem of the doeskin, the full curve of the bare calves tapered into the chisel-cut ankles.

“Hau,” he answered, at last, his deep voice matching hers for softness. “Hohahe, welcome to my tepee.”

She slid around the fire and past him, into the shadow of the wagon behind them, past the prying light of the flames. Kirby was after her in three long steps, asking no questions, expecting none.

She was waiting for him there in the blackness, no gloom deep enough to hide the lambent green eyes, the copper glow of the flushed cheeks. Her arms came reaching for him as he bent to take her in his, the coiled seekingness of them weaving around his burning face and corded neck with a melting warmth that turned his kiss into a fury.

They clung thus, trembling and moving blindly while the earth floated beneath them and the stars swam crazily above. After a dozen sobbing breaths, she broke her mouth from his, buried her face in his shoulder, wept softly.

“Kirby—” Her voice, small and weak, seemed calling from far off.

“Yes, Wastewin?”

“Kirby, we’ve got to talk. I must talk to you, Wasicun.”

“All right, honey. Whar’ll we go? We cain’t get nothin’ said around h’yar. Camp’s still wide awake.”

“I walked out in the dusk tonight. Found a little place. Above the island. A little stream coming in—”

“Yeah. I mark the place. Seen it from the hill comin’ into camp this afternoon. Crick forks in from the north. Lots of willow timber and a leetle sandspit whar she jines up with the Arkansaw.”

“Yes, oh yes. That’s it, Kirby. Meet me there in half an hour. We can’t go together.”

“I reckon not, honey gal. I’ll be thar.”

She stood looking up at him, lips parted. Standing on tiptoe she kissed him quickly on the mouth, the words rushing with the lips to caress him. “Kirby, Kirby. Oh, Wasicun, I do love you so!”

She was gone then, around the wagon, circling through the dark, keeping the bulking bodies of the other Conestogas between her and the remaining company fires. Watching her fade noiselessly away, Kirby muttered half aloud.

“Cuss it, she sneaks around like a Pawnee, talks like a Sioux, and makes love like a Arapahoe. And by cripes, I’ll have her anyways! I’ll have her if it takes the last gasp I got. If I have to spend the rest of my life gruntin’ Sioux and strappin’ cradle boards on thet god-beautiful back of yers, Aurélie gal, I’m goin’ to have ye fer my squaw. God he’p me, I mean it—and color be damned!”

* * * *

Kirby, following the sandbanks of the Arkansas west toward the creek fork, felt fit to whip a dozen bears. It was one of those nights and a blind man couldn’t miss it. Late May, warm, the moon fat and just edging up behind the sandhills beyond the crossing. The air tepid and fragrant and just moving enough to bring a prairie man the smells he lived on. Warm sand, new grass, old hay, gray sage, fresh water, damp loam, naked rocks, willow pungence, woodsmoke and simple ozone. Just pure, unadulterated prairie air. Air that got down in a man and tasted so mouth-watering good he would swear he had eaten his belly full of it, instead of just breathing it into his lungs.

A night like that and air like that made a man feel the way he was put together. Made him suck in his breathing slow and deep, to make him know his chest was wide and powerful. Made him flex and twist his arms as he walked, that the loop and roll of bicep and forearm could tell him that here were arms that could cradle a child or break a man’s neck, easy either way. Made him stride long and bent-kneed, feeling the whole singing play and counterplay of the forces that were in him repeating the thought at every step: this is the hour and the night to remember. Feel them now, man. And remember them. There may be other nights with other wonders. Other hours. Minutes. Seconds. But these exact ones will never come again!

The sight of the creek fork ahead slowed the scout’s racing thoughts, threw them out of the whirling channels of rare introspect, into the straight stream bed of customary reality. He turned up the creek bank, ears tuned, eyes searching.

Ahead lay a high cutbank, sheltered along its top and upstream edge by crowding willows. At its base lay a tiny white beach, closed in by the bending willows. She was waiting for him there, standing centered on the little beach, her braided hair glowing ash-silver in the moonlight.

As he approached, she reached beneath the bank to bring forth a buffalo calf robe. This she unrolled and spread at his feet. “Woyuonihan, Wasicun. I honor you, white man. Hiyota ka, come and sit down.” By the mock bow she gave him and by the way she said “Wasicun” (it could be said a dozen ways), he knew the mood of the wagon-shadow was gone. Here was the cryptic, keen-humored Shacun back again.

Kirby wouldn’t have known a Roman from a Rumanian. But he knew enough about Indians to savvy that when you were in their country, you did as they did. Here in this willowed-in rendezvous on the middle Arkansas, he felt, somehow, that he was in Aurélie’s country. Returning the bow with equal mock ceremony, he smiled. “He-hau, well, well! The leetle Shacun knows the rules. She is not waohola sni, not without respect. Ha-ho, thank you.”

He lowered himself to the soft curl of the robe, squatting on his haunches, Sioux-fashion, Aurélie sinking to her knees by his side. She held something out to him and he saw the dull glint of a stone pipe bowl in the moonlight. He took it, nodding acknowledgment while she brought a smoldering punkstick out of a little rawhide carrying bag.

With the pipe going, he settled down, cross-legged, handing it gravely back to the girl. She took it, blew a puff in the directions of each of the four winds, and one straight upward to Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit of the Dakota Sioux. With the return of the pipe, Kirby, in turn, blew a puff toward the stars, muttering, “Tunka sila le iyahpe ya yo, Father receive my offering.” Aurélie greeted the little prayer with a moonflash smile, and he knew he had pleased her. After a moment she began to talk.

“Something has happened, Kirby. I’m not going to go through with my promise to Don Pedro. I can’t now.”

“Why not? Whut happened?”

“It was something I didn’t know when I told him I would marry him. Something I really didn’t know myself until tonight. But now I know, and I’m afraid.”

“I don’t foller ye. I guess I’m jest dumb.”

“When he came to me tonight and told me about the celebration over on the island, the first thing I did was ask him if you were going to be there. I don’t know why. It wasn’t in my mind to do that. But when I opened my mouth those were the words that came out.”

“Yeah. I guess we got it fair bad. I done the same thing. Same way, too. Wasn’t thinkin’ about ye but blatted out about ye.”

“He was angry.” Aurélie went on, passing Kirby’s statement. “Stomped away, proud as only a Spaniard can. Then he changed, the way he does. Smiled and bowed and said he would go personally to invite you. When he came back and said you had refused to go, I told him I wasn’t going, either. I know he was furious but Sam was with him and he never let on at all. Went away, arm in arm with Sam, laughing and talking as natural as anything. He’s a devil, Kirby. He scares me.”

“He scares me, too,” said Kirby, simply. “But I don’t see whar thet gets us. Ye ain’t refusin’ to marry him jest because ye’re ascairt of him.”

“No, that’s not it.”

“Wal, whut is then?”

“Kirby, when I spoke right out about you to Don Pedro, I knew I had to quit lying to myself. I knew that no matter how you might feel about a half-breed girl, I couldn’t do anything about the way a half-breed girl feels about you.”

“Yeah, I know. I guess ye got it figgered how I feel about ye, too, ain’t ye?”

“Yes.”

“And thet it don’t make no difference no more, about the ‘breed’ part of it? Ye know thet, too, don’t ye?”

“I think so, Kirby.”

“I allus had my mind clamped down on the idee I was goin’ to get me a white woman. I reckon, now, my heart knowed better than my head, all along. It started tellin’ me how I felt about ye when I was layin’ in thet gutter in St. Louie. And it ain’t quit tryin’ to hammer it into my thick head thet ye’re my woman fer a single damn minute, since.”

“When did you really know, Kirby?”

“Tonight, I reckon. Last night, when I heered ye was marryin’ Armijo, I jest give in like a whupt yeller dawg. My pig head started to tellin’ me all over again thet ye was still a breed. And rotten. And crazy. With no more morals then a Mandan. I was still listenin’ to it, I guess, when ye come to my fire tonight.” He paused, raising his head for the first time, and seeing the moonbeam flash of the running tear before she could duck her face to hide it.

His voice came to her as slow and gentle as the big hand which followed along behind it to lay on her shoulder. “But honey, when I looked up and see’d ye standin’ thar acrost from thet blaze tonight, I knowed my ears was covered fer good. I’ll tell ye, gal, I ain’t never goin’ to listen to my head again. I don’t know much about love, Aurélie, but I allow it ain’t give to many to feel like we do about one another. Ye’re jest a kid, really, but I ain’t never see’d no more of a woman growed. I got nothin’ only a hard life to offer ye but if ye’ll have me I’ll go down the trail with ye till we cain’t neither of us see to foller it no more.”

“Kirby, oh, Kirby! I’ll ride any trail with you. You know that. But I still haven’t told you everything about me. Maybe you won’t want me to share your trail after I tell you who—”

“I don’t want to know nothin’. I’ve allus understood a woman’s got herse’f a right to change-up her mind. Thet’s good enough fer me, Aurélie.”

“Kirby, I’ve got to tell you.”

“The hell. All ye got to tell me is thet ye don’t love Don Pedro.”

“I don’t love him, Kirby. I don’t have to tell you that.”

“Yeah, I reckon even I ain’t thet dense.”

They sat silent then, a long time, his great paw patting her shoulder, stroking her bowed head, playing with the thick braids of her hair. Funny how when a man and a girl started talking about love they stopped making it. Times like right now, with the moon fat and sassy, the river running quiet and nothing but the grassfrogs and crickets presuming to argue about it, a man could just sit and look at a girl, patting her shoulder and smoothing her cheek and forgetting all about her body, and his, too.

When Aurélie looked up, she was dry-eyed, the quick smile that was such poison to Kirby’s backbone playing around her mouth corners. “Can you swim, Kirby?”

“Thet’s a hell of a question.”

“Want to? Now, I mean. You’re not scared?”

“To swim? Me scared? Whut’s eatin’ ye, gal?”

“Well, I just thought—oh, you know. Last time you went in swimming, you nearly didn’t get out. I thought maybe—”

“Oh, shucks, thet!” Kirby’s laugh was quick to catch up. “C’mon, let’s go. Satank ain’t within three hundred mile. And besides. No two hundred Kioways is goin’ to keep me out’n thet crick, if it comes to follerin’ you into it!”

Aurélie, her head cradled in the warm laxness of Kirby’s arm, stretched languorously, feeling the goodness of the long relief ease slowly down her arching back.

Kirby, one knee up, the other angled carelessly into Aurélie’s soft side, idly pressed his back down into the robe, reassuring himself that he was still lying on firm ground, not floating in space as he felt. The moon, slanting low now over the crossriver sandhills, was in his eyes.

And a little of it in his heart.

There was no woman in this world but the slim, dusky one by his side. He knew it now if he never had before. Maybe for other men there were other worlds. He didn’t know. A man could set his store by a sight of different things, likely. For some it was books, like as not. Or maybe battlefields. Or just a big bellyful of food. For him, it was this woman.

Well, maybe there were other things, but he had never found them. They had yet to show him a better reason for a man being alive than just being the right man for the right woman at the right time.

“Kirby—”

“Yeah, honey?”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinkin’ it’s gettin’ late.”

“Not that—You know I don’t mean that!”

“Wal, mebbe it’s turnin’ cool.”

“Kirby!”

“Smart, ain’t ye?”

“Just a woman, Kirby. What was it?”

“Wal, it was jest somethin’ I’ve allus thought about. Thet out’n all the things in the world, thar ain’t really nothin’ past a man and his woman.”

“You mean if they’re really right for each other. Like you and me.”

“Yeah. Like ye and me.”

“It’s funny, Kirby I was thinking that, too. Not just like you were, maybe. But the same thing, anyway.”

“It works all over the world, I reckon,” nodded the scout, stretching to greet the strength that was beginning to come back into him. “Look at old Sam and thet Sioux ox, Ptewaquin. I reckon mebbe the old coon would be tyin’ his pony out front of her tepee flap if they was up in Oglala country.”

“Kirby—I wonder if you’ll ever tie Bluebell in front of my tepee?” The girls question echoed a wistfulness that wasn’t lost on the mountain man.

“I figger to. When the time comes.”

“Oh, I hope it comes soon, Wasicun. I want you in my lodge. I promise you your pipe will always be in its rack and your moccasins mended.”

“It’ll mebbe come sooner then we know. Somehow I got a feelin’.”

“When, Kirby?”

“I dunno, Shacun. Mebbe in a month. Mebbe tomorry. Depends on a couple of things. Mostly on Don Pedro, I’d say.”

“I’m afraid of him, Kirby. When he finds out about us, especially about me, he’ll—”

“Wal, don’t fret yerse’f frantic.” Kirby kissed her gently. “I allow we kin handle him if it comes to thet.”

“He’s very dangerous, Kirby. You know that, I guess. Not open and strong like you, maybe. But, well, he’s—”

“Yeah. I know. He’s inside-dangerous.” Kirby had stood up with the slow words. “I bin watchin’ him, don’t worry. Come on, Aurélie, honey. We got to drift.”

Arm in arm they moved down the bank of the Arkansas. Above the island they separated, the girl to continue on along the bank into camp, Kirby swinging wide, inland, to come in across the open prairie. Before they parted, Aurélie leaned quickly up, putting her cool lips on his chest where the open collar bared it.

Bending his head, Kirby kissed the fragrant hair, let his cheek lie in its waving warmth. She nestled into his arms, turning her head so that her cheek lay over the driving beat of his heart. They stood a moment thus, wordless, then she was gone, running lightly through the cottonwoods and on down the moonlit bank below, leaving him to ponder the queer, pagan ways of this Indian girl-child of his.

Back at the wagon, Kirby had no more than rolled into his blankets than Sam came cat-footing it up through the dark. Not content to let the old dog lie down to a deserved sleep, Kirby sat up and launched cheerfully into him. “Sam, old hoss, throw a few chunks on them coals. I got news fer ye thet won’t wait till mornin’.”

The old trapper merely nodded, stirred up the fire, threw on a handful of cottonwood limbs, opined drily, “Must be a big night fer it. I was jest goin’ to roust ye out. Got a fair to middlin’ piece of gossip fer ye, too, Casanovy.”

Ignoring his companion’s answer, Kirby, no master of suspense, let the oldster have it square-on. “Sam, ye was right about Injuns and color-blood all along. I got to admit thet. Me and Aurélie’s done made it fer keeps tonight. She told me it’s me she loves, and by God I love her. We’re goin’ to marry up, proper.” The young scout’s excitement spread into a reaching grin. “I hope thet idee don’t onsettle ye none, Mother dear.”

“Oh, I ain’t onsettled none by it—” Agreeably surprised as he was by Kirby’s ebullient revelation, Sam had a source of his own from which to draw enjoyment, suspense, as always, seeking and wallowing in company. “But I allow ye might be. Happen ye was half-smart, thet is.”

The coffee of Sam’s affected complacency shortly began to filter through the thick strainer of Kirby’s mind. “I don’t foller ye, old hoss. Whut have I got to worry about?”

“Oh, nothin’ special. Jest thet yer gal seems to be havin’ herse’f a big night tellin’ tales about yer love affair. Last I seen of her she was blabbin’ to our Mex friend.”

“Hold up, Sam! Ye ain’t sayin’ thet Aurélie was blabbin’ about her and me to Don Pedro?”

Sam cut him short. “I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ else. Armijo and me come acrost the river jest as she come walkin’ down the bank. He started climbin’ her about whar she’d bin thet hour of the night. And mister, she don’t climb worth a damn. She up and told him whut fer, ye’d best believe me.”

“Whut did she say?” Kirby wasn’t exactly nervous he reckoned, but a man gets edgy about being in love. Especially if the girl went to talking about it to the other fellow.

“Wal, I couldn’t rightly say, seein’ as how she was layin’ him out in Spanish mostly.” Sam measured his statement very thoughtfully. “But I got the drift. Ye couldn’t miss it, whut with the Sioux signs she threw in. Thar was somethin’ about whut he could do with his uncle’s mansion in Santy Fee, his ranches, his hosses, his bullion, his elegant ancestors and a few other things. I swear thet gal’s a wonder. One minute she’s duckin’ and crawlin’ around coy as a pet cat. And the next, she’s spittin’ and clawin’ like a crazy panther.”

“After she told him she wasn’t going to marry him, whut happened?”

“Seems he jest stood thar a minute, sayin’ nothin’ and grinnin’ easy. Then he up and grabbed her and let off another batch of Spanish thet added up to ‘How the hell come ye ain’t?’ She looked him squar in the eye and let him have it. ‘Because I’m marryin’ Kirby Randolph!’ she says. ‘And how come I’m marryin’ him is thet I love him. I’ve always loved him. Sabe Usted, primo hermano?’”

“Whut did he do then?” Kirby asked the question like a man dazed by a hard blow on the head, moving his mouth and making words, but not thinking them.

“I dunno. About thet time I was backin’ away. But before I got out’n earshot, I heered him say, ‘Congratulations, querida. It is all fer the best. Ye’ll make a fascinatin’ widdy. Hasta la proxima.’”

“Whut ye reckon Armijo will do?” Kirby was thinking now, his words low.

“I figger him to come lookin’ fer ye. The average hombre would give up, oncet ye’d beat him to the bedstead, but not thet buzzard. He’ll come arter ye, boy.”

“When ye figger he will?” Kirby asked the question idly, poking at the fire with a speculative moccasin toe. A shower of red sparks ballooned upward—and with them Sam went suddenly rolling, hip over shoulder, under the wagon. His answer came hissing from behind the covering shadow of the rear wheel.

“Right now, boy. Watch him close. H’yar he comes. Don’t let on ye know a thing. I’ll lay whar I be. I don’t think he see’d me.” Glancing up with the old man’s warning, Kirby saw the gracefully lounging figure of the Spanish don approaching across the camp ground. He came to the fire’s edge, bowed slightly, addressed Kirby with his gentlest smile.

“Buenas noches, señor.”

“Whut do ye want?” Kirby stood up, muttering his words deep in his throat.

Under the wagon, Sam, hearing that throat-sound, stiffened. It was a way the youngster had, letting that hollow growl get into his voice. It had an animal sound to it, that growl, a sound Sam had always likened to one he could remember an old dog wolf making when he had come on him caught in a fox set, up in the Bad River country. If a man knew Kirby Randolph, he knew what that throat-growl meant. Happen he didn’t hear it often, and happen when he did hear it, it wasn’t loud or showy. But if he knew the boy, he knew what it meant.

Kirby never looked for trouble and would make a long trail to walk around it. But when it cornered him, when there was no way out, no way to go around or back off, that trouble better come walking up mighty soft and with its eyes for sure wide open.

Don Pedro neither heard nor cared for Kirby’s growl. But he was walking soft and keeping his eyes open. “I want you, señor.” The smile didn’t vary the least mocking curve.

“All right—” The animal sound still purred in Kirby’s throat. “H’yar I come.”

As the mountain man made to step around the fire, Don Pedro flashed the double pistol on him. Kirby stopped, his moccasins almost in the fire. “Ye aim to use thet thing?” His query meant just what it asked. There was no fear in it, no contention, no backing off, no going around. It was just the straight-on request of the gambler asking the price of the game before buying into it.

“I do, Mr. Randolph. Indeed I do. I am going to shoot you like I should have shot Tuss—in the gut. Only you are not to have the chance Tuss had. No chance at all. Remember? I told you that before. You’re not armed and men of your blood would call it murder. As you did with Tuss. In your eyes he was murdered. But in mine, señor, executed. The word implies the carrying out of a due sentence of guilt. I excused myself on these grounds with Tuss. I shall of course apply the same high sense of justice in your case. Comprende Usted?”

Kirby crouched wordless, without motion, every nerve in him keyed to the next second.

“Very well.” The thin smile was still on the don’s lips, long-gone from the slant black eyes. “I shall count before I fire. I enjoy the suffering before the actual pain is felt. Once I have shot you, the finish will come at once. You have my word. Three, I think, makes a pleasant count. No es verdad, amigo? Pues—

“One … Two …”

Up in the beaver country a man learns to make many useful noises. To call like a crow or a whippoorwill. To whistle like an elk, to chatter like a magpie, bleat like a Big Horn, whicker like a wild stud, growl like a grizzly, scream like a painter. Usually, if he is an old one at it, like Sam, he can do them all pretty well. But always he has a favorite. One noise he makes best of all, and prides himself mightily on. In Sam’s case, Oglala admirer that he was, this favorite noise was the panther scream. With its combination woman-in-labor, bowel-knifed squaw and guts-drawn-alive screech, it would lift the hair off a dead dog. Or, as the case might be, off the neck-nape of an elegant Spaniard.

“Thr—” The don’s final count was begun, and no more than begun, when Sam let go.

“Hiii-yeee-hahhh!”

The Oglala panther scream leapt out from under the wagon and pounced on the Governor’s nephew like a live thing. The Spaniard’s fiddle-tight nerves snapped so loud Sam swore he heard them go. Kirby, timing the move a hair behind Sam’s awesome screech, drove his right moccasin into the fire, kicking a flaring splatter of burning wood, live coals and choking ash up into Don Pedro’s face.

The Spaniard fired twice, fast and blind. But the shots, triggered into where Kirby had stood when Sam’s howl broke up the soirée, missed by feet. The twin echoes were still banging around under the wagon when Kirby’s knee pile-drove into the pit of the don’s groin, jackknifing him forward to bring his chin smashing into Kirby’s right fist. It was a slicing, cross-swinging blow, not clean and flush-on, and while it nearly tore the Spaniard’s jaw off and sent him spinning into the ashes of the fire, it didn’t finish him.

Clutching his groin, face fish-belly-gray with the painsickness, Don Pedro struggled to rise.

Kirby let him get to his knees before he kicked him. When it came, the huge foot whistled with the throw of two hundred and ten pounds behind it, crunching viciously into the soft ends of the ribs, directly over the heart. The young don’s breath exploded in a piercing burst. His head, arms, shoulders, all seemed to sag and melt aimlessly. He pitched straight forward into the burned-out ruck of the fire, not even the gentle motion of breathing marring the stone stillness with which he lay.

“By damn, I think ye’ve kilt him,” muttered Sam, scraggly beard wagging a worried circle.

“No, I ain’t,” said Kirby, the old Virginia softness moving back into his voice. “I ain’t kilt him, Sam. But I wisht I had.”

“Whut do ye mean, boy? Ye ought to be glad ye didn’t!”

“I mean, now I got to kill him anyways. Sure as a wet dawg stinks, I got to kill him now, Sam.”

The old man paused, bright little eyes puckered in thought. “Yep, boy,” the admission dragged with reluctance, “I allow ye do.” Another pause stretched ahead of the conclusion. “And happen likewise, I allow ye will.”

“Happen,” nodded Kirby, and said no more.

* * * *

When Kirby awoke it was lead-gray in the east and the towering form of Ptewaquin, Aurélie’s Sioux shadow, was bending over him. “Ha ye’tu mani,” said the Indian woman, “I have been walking in the night.”

“Woyuonihan,” nodded the mountain man, sitting up, “I respect your eyes. Nas’i s’ni? What appeared in your sight?”

Quickly the squaw told him. When the Spaniard awakened from his beating, he had sent for his servant, Chavez the Comanchero, the little brown frog who had been here at the Crossing awaiting his master’s arrival from the east. The two had talked and Ptewaquin had heard the mention of a name which had a bad sound to Indian ears. An-gyh P’ih, Heavy Foottrack, the Comanche!

“Big Foot!” The name burst from Kirby’s clamped lips. A bad sound, indeed. There wasn’t a red son on the Prairie with a harder-earned reputation in a nastier profession: ransom-grabbing white victims out of the Texas settlements and the Santa Fe Trail traffic.

Aye, the squaw had nodded, Big Foot. Well, the little brown one had departed, very suddenly. And he had departed south. Across the Jornada, the Desert Crossing. Toward the Cimarron. Toward the land of the Comanche. Toward Big Foot. Iyu’ha, that was all. Ptewaquin had thought the Wasicun scout should know.

As the slit-eyed giantess turned to go, Kirby quickly reached out to place his hand on her shoulder. “Ta ye’ e’ ca’ no we,” he murmured, earnestly. “You have done well, Mother.”

* * * *

An hour after the next night’s cookfires had burned down, Ptewaquin came again to Kirby’s fire. Hau, Ptewaquin gave greeting. And would the Wasicun scout go now to see the Spaniard? Chavez the Comanchero had returned from the Jornada, his eyes very big with excitement, and the Spaniard had immediately wanted to see the wagon scout.

At Don Pedro’s tent, Kirby noted that the young hidalgo moved with difficulty, placing his feet gingerly and hunching his body carefully, as a man might, say, who had been gut-kicked something fierce and recent. Beyond that physical one there was no other reference to last night’s affair, Don Pedro saying what he had to say, direct and level as usual, his first words shooting Ptewaquin’s story about Chavez and Big Foot, dead center, leaving Kirby without any support for his suspicions of Chavez’s business with the Comanche leader, except his own dislike of Don Pedro.

“Randolph, we’re in trouble. My man, Chavez, who has a brother among Big Foot’s band of Comanches, met me here at the Crossing with a story he had heard from some Comanchero traders at Blunt’s Fort. That story was that Big Foot was waiting at the Lower Cimarron Spring beyond the Jornada to ambush the train and abduct Miss St. Clair. Last night I sent Chavez to visit his brother. Tonight he has returned. The story is true. The Comanches are waiting for us across the Jornada.”

Kirby, his racing mind returning at full gallop to that long-past day he had ridden into the Blunt & St. Clair camp at Council Grove, found himself suddenly remembering the dark fears there expressed about just this danger by little Popo Dominguez, the arriero. The mountain man hadn’t thought Popo was talking idly then, and he didn’t think the don was, now.

“Go on,” he grunted, noncommittally. “I’m listenin’.”

“My plan is a simple one,” nodded the don. “If you can better it, I am ready to listen, of course.”

“Go on,” reiterated Kirby, flatly.

Don Pedro would take the St. Clair girl, along with her Sioux guardian and all the Mexican arrieros, and leave tonight, riding hard on up the Arkansas for Blunt’s Fort. There he would obtain additional Mexican guards and bring Aurélie over Raton Pass and down the mountain route of the Santa Fe, meeting up with Kirby and the wagons at Mora River Crossing, where the mountain and desert branches of the Trail came back together. Kirby and Sam would of course stay with the train, taking it across the Jornada by the regular route. Forewarned as they were, they should be able to sustain any Comanche attack. Don Pedro respectfully suggested that it would be well for Kirby to leave early, scouting the way for the wagons, riding well ahead of them. Así, no más, it was that simple. Did Señor Randolph see it any more clearly?

It developed that Señor Randolph did not. After a brief discussion of details, the mountain man arose to depart, saying he had best mosey over and say his goodbyes to the girl.

“Por supuesto, but of course!” the young Spaniard was his complete smiling self again. “Are not such enforced separations the very headiest wines for the further heating of true young love?”

“I’ll be damned if I know,” grunted Kirby. “I ain’t the true young type.”