Riders From Long Pines (7 page)

Sam made no reply, which in itself was answer enough for Maria.

“Someone will shoot him, won't they?” she answered for herself.

“Yes,” Sam said quietly, “I'm afraid so. That's what usually happens to an animal like this if no one can take the place of his master. They can't just turn him loose and let him run wild. It's no good for him or the folks around him. A wild dog becomes dangerous real quick, especially one this big and powerful.”

“Perhaps he will settle down and listen to you?” Maria offered.

“I doubt it, Maria,” Sam replied, “so let's not get our hopes up.”

“But if he will settle down, do you think he could stay with us? I hate to think that he must be shot simply because the man he belonged to was killed. That only compounds the injustice of what has happened here.”

Sam listened and considered, but before he could reply he saw the big cur loop unsteadily around the coach. The dog scratched once again at the door, then turned and moved away into the brush. “Uh-oh, there he goes.” As he hurried to catch up to the big dog, he called back to Maria, “Do you know what the colonel called him? Was it ‘Sergeant,' or ‘Tom' or what?”

“I don't know,” Maria replied. “I only know his name is Sergeant Tom Haines.”

“Nobody calls a dog by a name that long,” Sam said as he hurried to the edge of the brush. “Sergeant,” he called out, “come back here, Sergeant.” He paused for a moment, then called out, “Tom, here, Tom.”

The two listened closely, but they heard only the sound of the dog breaking farther and farther away, deeper into the thickening brush. Finally Sam walked back to where Maria stood. “Are we going after him?” she asked.

“No,” Sam said, “that's too big of a dog to be tracking into brush, him in the shape he's in. We best leave him alone. He might wear himself down and come back here, to where he left the colonel. As weak as he is he can't go far.”

“If he doesn't come back, then what?” Maria asked with a concerned look on her face.

“I don't know,” Sam said. He did not want to talk about all of the things that could happen to a wounded dog, on his own in rugged unforgiving terrain. “I expect we'll just have to wait and see. Things like this aren't always in our hands.”

“I understand,” said Maria. For a moment the two stared out into the dark hillsides in silence, and then she added, “We say things are not in our hands, yet isn't it up to us to decide which things
are
, and which things
are not
?”

The ranger didn't answer. Instead he walked back to the fire and sat down. Maria watched him sit there for a long time, his hands wrapped around the tin cup, his eyes staring into it as if matters of great importance lay beneath its metal rim.

As Maria lay wrapped in her blanket beside the fire, Sam sat for a long time, his rifle across his lap, his blanket thrown across his shoulders against the chilled night air. Finally, in the middle of the night, he stood and walked to the stagecoach at the edge of the firelight and took a folded handkerchief from the dead colonel's tunic pocket. He unfolded the cloth enough to find four pieces of jerked elk meat inside, then refolded it and stuffed it into his trousers pocket.

Moments later, Maria awoke to the feel of Sam's hand on her shoulder. “Maria, wake up.”

Her eyes blinked as she looked all around the outer edges of the shadowy campfire light. “What is it, Sam?”

“I'm taking a torch and going after the colonel's dog.” On the ground lay an unlit torch he'd made while he'd contemplated the task before him.

She sat up, awake now. “But you said ‘some things are not in our hands.' ”

“I know what I said,” Sam replied, “and you said it's up to us to decide which things are. I decided this one must be in my hands”—he grinned—“because here I go.” He handed her a cup of warm coffee. “I saved this for you, to help keep you awake until I get back.”

“
Sí, gracias
,” she said, taking the cup. “So I will know I'm not dreaming this?”

He reached out a hand and brushed a strand of dark hair from her face. “No, it's not a dream, you're hearing me right.” He stood, his duster and sombrero already on. Taking his rifle, he picked up the unlit torch in his right hand. “I figure he hasn't gone very far. He should be worn down enough for me to get close to him.”

“But if he is still dazed from the bullet . . .” Maria let her words trail.

“His thinking ought to be a little clearer by now. He took a hard knock on his skull, but that's been a good while ago.” On the ranger's shoulder hung one of the coiled ropes.

She nodded in agreement. “Be careful, Sam. I will call out to you if anyone arrives from Albertson.”

Sam nodded, then said as he walked away toward the brush in the direction the dog had taken, “I won't go too far. I just figured he might have wanted to come back but couldn't make it. I wouldn't feel right leaving him here thinking that was the case.”

“I understand,” Maria said with a slight smile. She watched him walk out of sight.

Inside the brush, with only the pale light of a half-moon overhead, the ranger followed a meandering path of brittle, parted brush as far he could. A thousand yards deep into the rocky hillside, when he reached a small clearing where the brush was replaced by scrub juniper and young pine saplings, Sam stooped down, took out a match, lit the torch and moved it back and forth near the ground, finding the dog's paw prints.

Seeing no blood on the dog's path was a good sign, he thought. It meant that the big confused animal had not opened any of the stitches in the tangles of brush.

“Sergeant . . . Sergeant,” he called out quietly as he moved along in the flickering firelight, not liking the idea of searching for a dazed and wounded animal in the dark.

He stood in silence listening for any sort of response, a growl, a whine, a rustling on the ground, anything. But he heard nothing. Moving forward out of the clearing, he followed the paw prints for another fifty yards and stopped beside a dead standing aspen. “Tom,” he called out, trying another variation of the dog's name. “Tom.” He stopped and listened, still hearing no response.

He walked deeper into a taller, older stand of pine and juniper and said to the darkness before him, “Sergeant Tom Haines.”

He waited for a moment, then started forward. But before he'd taken a step he heard a weak whimper and the thrashing of bracken and pine needles only a few feet away.

“Sergeant Tom Haines,” he said again. This time he expected a response and got it. In the darkness beneath a large pine less than twenty feet away, he heard the dog whining and thrashing harder as it rose onto its tired paws.

Hurrying forward, his torch high, Sam found the big dog standing shakily in a bed of dry pine needles, it paws spread for support. Sam could see that the stitches in its head were holding up well, save for a thin dry line of blood from the end Maria had left open for drainage. “Easy, Sergeant Tom Haines,” Sam said, feeling almost foolish calling a dog by such a formal-sounding name.

The dog looked exhausted, yet much clearer in his eyes as he stared at the ranger and offered a slight but uncertain wag of his tail. “Good boy, Sergeant Tom Haines,” the ranger said softly. “If that's what you're used to being called, I expect that's what I'll call you.”

Stepping forward slowly, giving the big dog all the time it needed to catch his scent and understand his intentions, the ranger lowered the coiled rope from his shoulder and held it low for the dog to see. “Come on, Sergeant Tom Haines, it's about time you and I got acquainted.”

The dog's nose probed the air before him, his eyes glittering with curiosity in the flickering torchlight. His hackles rose only slightly as the ranger stepped closer. The big cur even took a short step forward himself, his nose going toward the ranger's trouser pocket. “That's it, you check me out all you need to,” Sam said in a soothing tone. “I'm known as an honest man hereabouts.”

He eased his gloved hand close to the dog's probing nose, holding the rope for the dog to see, smell and understand. “I've got no surprises here, no tricks or sudden moves,” Sam said. The dog stood still as the end of the rope slipped under his collar.

Feeling the dog's skin ripple a bit as he tied the rope in place, Sam rubbed his neck gently, up near the thick jaw muscles that had supported the animal while he'd hung in the air. “You've got a sore spot there?” Sam said, taking his hand away when the beginning of a low growl rumbled in the dog's chest. “All right, duly noted,” Sam added quietly.

Standing with the rope tied to the dog's collar, the ranger took a step forward, giving only the faintest tug on the rope. “Come on, Sergeant Tom Haines,” he said, “let's take you home.”

The dog sniffed the ranger's trouser pocket, looked up at him in the torchlight and walked along beside him as if they'd known each other for years. Sam breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn't been afraid of the big cur, but he had dreaded what he knew he would have had to do if the dog refused his help.

But this was good, Sam told himself as the two walked along quietly through the rocky, brushy terrain, Sam holding the torch high. Getting the dog used to him made it more likely that the animal would get used to others. He was certain someone in Albertson would want to make a home for a big strong dog like this one.
Wouldn't they?

The two proceeded without incident until they reached a spot less than thirty yards from the campsite, where suddenly the dog stopped and gave a low growl toward the darkness lying ahead of them. So intense were the dog's actions that the ranger took heed and crouched down beside him. “Easy, boy,” he whispered, “I got your message.”

The dog's growl ceased; he stood stiff and silent, his full attention riveted on something in the darkness to the right of the campsite ahead.
The men from Albertson?
Sam asked himself. He hoped so. But to be on the safe side, he rolled the torch back and forth in the rocky dirt until the light disappeared, replaced by a gray plume of smoke that dissipated sidelong through the brush and trees.

Standing in a crouch, he stepped forward, the dog right beside him. “Come on, Sergeant Tom Haines,” he whispered, “let's see how good you are at your job.”

 

Peyton Quinn and Grady Black sat in the grainy darkness, awaiting the return of Antan Fellows. Fellows, a half-breed, had slipped down from his horse and scouted ahead on foot to investigate both the campsite and the torchlight that they'd seen moving across the hillside. “I figure it was just one of them had to go to the jake,” said Black. He spit a long stream of tobacco juice.

Peyton Quinn looked at him. “That light was a long way from camp just to be going to the jake.” Behind them stood a team of large powerfully built workhorses they'd brought to pull the big coach back to town.

Black grinned and shrugged in the darkness. “Maybe he took that dark-haired woman on a moonlight stroll. What else is there for a man to do, a night like this, a woman like her? If you know what I mean.” His voice carried lewd suggestion.

“Yeah, I know what you mean all right. I can think of a thing or two, a night like this, a woman
like her
,” said Quinn, crossing his wrists on his saddle horn. “Nothing that would require a torchlight or a walk in the woods either.”

“So you've seen her too, I take it?” asked Black. He spit again.

“Oh, you bet I've seen her,” said Quinn. “I've seen much more of her than you or anybody else ever saw her. She didn't know I saw her, but I saw her.”

“Huh, what do you mean?” asked Black.

“I never told anybody this, but I saw her bathing herself in a stream down near Cottonwood, over a year ago.” He grinned in the darkness.

“Holy cats and rabbits, you didn't!” said Black, sidling his horse over closer.

“What did I say, Deputy?” Quinn replied in an abrasive manner. “Don't you believe me?”

“Yeah, I believe you, but, my Gawd, Quinn!” said Black. “Did you see her you-know-whats?” As he spoke he held his hands up in front of his chest, his fingers wide and cupped.

Quinn grinned again, slyly. “Oh, I saw her
you-know-whats
all right. I saw them standing proud as ripe peaches, wet and shiny in the morning sunlight—saw her wash them for me nice and slow-like. I watched her wash all over. I mean her belly, her thighs. I'm talking
all over
.”

“Gawd, I can't stand it!” said Black. He fidgeted restlessly in his saddle.

“Are you going to need to be alone for a while, Deputy Grady?” Quinn said sarcastically.

Black ignored the question, but settled down and sat more still. “Tell me more about it, Quinn—you know, what you saw, how she done and all,” he coaxed.

“No, we've got important business to take care of out here,” said Quinn. He nudged his horse forward a step. Black nudged his right along beside him. A lead rope in Black's hand jerked the team of workhorses along behind him.

“Did you see her out of the water—I mean see her real good when she walked out and got dressed?” Black asked, not having enough.

“I saw everything,” said Quinn, giving him more to visualize. “I mean
ev
-
ery
thing. Front to back, top to bottom.” He paused for a moment as if in wistful and tortured reflection. “And I'll tell you the truth, I saw almost nothing but her bathing naked in that stream for the next solid month.”

“Jesus . . . ,” Black whispered. He pushed up his hat and wiped a hand across his moist brow. “Just hearing about it makes me feel like I was right there.”