Hardy felt cold and empty inside. He knew what fighting Apaches meant, and he had seen what they did to men they captured alive. He had fought them before this, had seen his friends die in their hands.
It gave him a sick feeling to think of it…he knew he was afraid of them.
Considine was a fool, but then there was something between Considine and that girl. He had seen the way they looked at each other.
He took the saddlebags and tossed them to the Kiowa. “Cut it four ways and wait for us!” He wheeled his horse sharply and lit out on the trail Dutch had taken.
The Kiowa chuckled. None of his three companions had ever heard him chuckle.
He tied the bags in place, then turned his horse into the mountains. He took his time, thinking it out. He was more Indian than white now, and he knew what he was doing.
But he laughed when he reached the crest.
He had no God, no people that were really his own; he had no wife, no hero, no brother anywhere. He was a man who rode alone, even when in company with others. But he liked to fight and he liked men who fought, and he knew that if Hardy had not gone he would have killed him.
When he reached a place where he could look into the basin of High Lonesome there was nothing to see, nothing to hear. The afternoon was breathless. The grass stood motionless under the sun—and then within the circle of rocks he saw sunlight on a rifle barrel.
He watched, and presently he saw the girl. She was alive, then. And the man, too.
He could see no sign of Considine, of Dutch, nor of Hardy.
He loosened the reins and rode down the mountain, a square, dark man the color of the desert near lava, sitting easy in the saddle. Horse and man seemed one.
His Winchester was held out from his body. The flat black eyes were alert. He felt the sweat on his neck and chest.
Suddenly he chuckled again. He would have liked to paint his face. After all, he was an Indian and he was riding into a fight.
His sombrero was tilted back a little, and he swung his horse over to an easier descent, and then he saw two Indians crouched close together among some brush.
He drew up, not looking directly at them for fear his continued gaze would attract their attention. He lifted the rifle and sighted down the barrel, one eye closed, the other eye centering the muzzle on an Indian’s spine.
He sighted first at one Indian, then at the other. A fly buzzed near him and he brushed it away. His horse shifted its weight under him and he held still, waiting. When its feet were planted solid again he settled the stock against his shoulder, took a quick sight, eased back on the trigger…the rifle leaped like a thing alive, and the Indian screamed…a shrill, horrible scream. The second one leaped up, but the sight was already on him and a tearing bullet opened his throat and laid it red to the sky.
Lowering his rifle, the Kiowa walked his horse on down the hill.
Chapter 11
C
ONSIDINE HUGGED THE earth, but he drew one knee up slowly and dug his toe into the sand. His right hand slid the rifle forward. He tried to estimate the distance to a heap of brush and rocks just a bit nearer to the hide-out.
He heard a rifle boom behind him…that would be Dutch’s heavier rifle. From somewhere farther away, he heard another shot, then another. Suddenly he felt a strange warmth within him…that would be Hardy, or the Kiowa.
Digging the toe a little deeper, he pushed up suddenly and went forward in a charging run. He made four fast steps, then hit the ground and rolled over four times. He brought up behind the rocks with the memory of bullets snapping about his ears.
Considine lay still, gathering his strength and wind. Above and to his left, a little farther in front of him, he heard another shot. The rocks behind which he was hidden concealed all movement.
Sweat and dust streaked his face. His skin prickled and itched. The sun was hot on his back. He slid his rifle forward and searched for a target. Now, through the rocks, he could see the place where Lennie and her father were…only the smallest crack offered a view.
One more quick dash…A bullet from behind smashed against a rock ahead of him and he slid back hurriedly, his face stinging from granite fragments.
He waited, and for a long time there was no sound. This was the hardest part of battle, the waiting, the uncertainty of what might have happened or might be happening elsewhere.
Were they all dead? Was Lennie dead? Was Spanyer dead? And what of Dutch?
He glanced at his own brown hand, gripping the rifle. It was a strong hand, skilled with rope and branding iron, a hand that had used an axe, a saw, many kinds of tools. It was a hand that could build as well as destroy, and with a kind of odd surprise he realized he had been and was a destroyer. He had been destructive of the labor of other men, and what had begun in the excitement of youth, almost as a lark had turned into an evil thing.
And he had nothing—not a cabin of his own, not an acre of ground, not even a horse. For the big black was dead behind him.
There was a sudden burst of firing and he left the ground as if shot from a gun himself, knowing instinctively that any Indian who was watching where he lay would be disconcerted, diverted by the sound.
He rushed, and saw an Indian rise up before him. He smashed upward with the barrel of the Winchester and took the Indian in the throat, the sight ripping a gash even as the muzzle jammed up into the juncture of throat and jaw.
Whipping the rifle down and round, he swung the butt with a solid
chunk
against the Indian’s skull, a short, wicked stroke.
The Apache, a squat man with an evil face, crumpled before him, and Considine sprang past him. He dropped a hand to the top of a rock and vaulted over and came down within the circle, and as he landed he saw Dave Spanyer facing him, his rifle trained on his stomach.
And Spanyer had said that the next time he saw Considine he would kill him.
For an instant they stared at each other, and then Dave Spanyer lowered his rifle. If anything happened to him, this man would have his daughter, and suddenly deep within him he knew this was good…this man would do.
“Pull up a chair, son. I’m afraid there’s enough for all.”
Considine grinned. “I’ll do that, Dave. But we’ve company coming…unless they ran into too many Indians.”
Dutch was next. He came charging his horse, vaulting the rocks at the lowest place, and throwing himself to the ground. There was an angry red gash alongside of his neck, and his sleeve was torn and bloody.
Spanyer looked at him affectionately. “You never could stay out of a fracas…and nobody was ever more welcome.”
Dutch moved to the rocks and carried an extra bandolier of cartridges with him. He found a place and settled down for a fight. And then out of a canyon mouth came Hardy.
They knew the horse, even though they could not see the man. The horse was running all out, nostrils spread wide, and Hardy was clinging to the flank, Indian fashion, with one hand and a foot.
Even as the horse seemed about to sweep past the hide-out, Hardy let go and came sailing into the open space, one boot flying off by itself. He skidded to a halt, then looked down at a big hole in his sock.
He grinned widely at Lennie. “Got to speak to my women folks about that!”
He turned and limped to the barrier. From that barrier four men now faced outward, awaiting the attack. And none came.
The basin on High Lonesome was a lovely place, and for outlaws it had long been an almost perfect hide-away. There was water, there was grass, and without doubt there was game. In some more peaceful time some wandering man would stop and build a home here, and start a ranch. He would stay, rear children, sink roots deep within the sparse soil.
In this place something would belong, something not hidden, not stolen, something built by work and strength. And that man would sit quietly of an evening with his chores done and see his own cattle grazing out there where Indians now lay.
That would be after the Apaches were gone, or when they had found peace themselves. It would be when men no longer rode by the gun and lived by the gun.
“Smoke,” Spanyer said suddenly.
Their eyes followed his pointing finger, to where a tall column of smoke lifted easily into the sky, a smoke that broke, then broke again. A signal calling more Indians, calling them in for the kill.
Behind them a stick broke, and as one man they turned.
Lennie was building a fire. “I thought you’d want some coffee,” she said, “and there’s a little meat.”
Considine glanced at her, and then away, his throat tight. She was so much the daughter of Dave Spanyer, and too much the child of rolling wagons and Indian fighting not to know what awaited them; yet she went quietly about the business of making coffee, a woman’s business. But her rifle lay close at hand.
What man would not want such a woman? Not one to follow only, but to stand beside him during the dark days, to work with him, plan with him, share with him, making their life a whole thing together.
H
IGH ON THE mountainside still, the Kiowa lay in the brush, his horse concealed. He had crawled after leaving his horse, but he carried his saddlebags, his canteen, and his rifle.
He had found a place where there were no rocks and but little grass. The earth was discolored by a scattering of rusty, quartz-streaked rock. It was perfect cover for him, and he settled himself deeper.
From where he lay he could see the hide-out, but he could see nothing within it. Occasionally he saw an Indian.
It was growing late. Already the afternoon sun was over the western hills. That sun was still hot and bright, the air was very clear. But night would come, and the Kiowa could wait.
Waiting was the first thing an Indian learned, and now, more than ever, the Kiowa was an Indian. He carried his white blood casually, without ever thinking of it. He was a man of simple, elemental tastes, taking food, whiskey, and women as he found them, and when he did not have them he neither fretted nor worried. He knew there was an end to everything. So one waited.
Lying here like this in the sparse grass he liked best of all. The sun was warm, the position good, and soon he would be fighting…if he decided to fight.
Yet that decision had never been his—it was made long ago, it was deep in his flesh, in his blood, bred deeply into the bone. It was the manner of man he was.
And being a true fighting man he knew there was a time to fight and a time not to fight.
He could have killed several Indians during the time he lay where he now was, but the time was not yet. He could wait, and when the proper time came he would do what was necessary.
From his pocket he took a dusty bit of jerked beef and, biting off a piece, he began to chew. He rolled it in his wide jaws, letting it soak with saliva, and chewed it with his strong white teeth. From where he lay he was visible to nothing but the buzzards, but they were not interested in him…yet.
The Kiowa watched the shadows crawl out from the cracks and the canyons, and watched the sunlight retreat up the mountainside and crown the ridges with golden spires and balustrades.
Coolness came to the desert. He watched the signal smoke rise to call more Indians, but he merely chewed his beef and waited.
Fainter smoke came from the hide-out. The girl was alive, then. No man would take time to cook in such a place at such a time. This was a woman’s work, a woman who even under stress did not forget her men or the work there was to do. She was not spoiled, this one. She was a man’s woman.
The Kiowa did not know the word for love. His people had songs, but they were songs of war, and he had no books or poetry to condition his mind for love. He knew what a woman was worth by the looks of her body and the way she worked. And sometimes there was another feeling, the warm, pleasant feeling when a certain girl was near.
He had known that feeling several times, once for a girl in Mexico, and a long time later for a Navajo girl in whose hogan he had stayed for a time. When he rode away he felt strangely lost and alone without her and he had returned, but in the meantime she had been killed by a grizzly she accidentally cornered in a canyon.
He had gone to the place where she had been killed and stood there for a while and smoked a cigarette, and then he got on his horse and rode away and never went back to that part of the country again.
He had started rustling cattle because he was hungry. He killed a beef he found loose on the plains when he was nearly starved. Two cowhands found him and drew their guns on him. The trouble was they drew too slow and one of them was falling from his saddle before the gun cleared leather, and the other made it back to the home ranch with a bullet through his chest.
They had come after him then, a whole posse of them, and he circled around and reached their ranch while they were gone and he butchered a beef in their dooryard and broiled a steak on their own fire. Then he took what supplies he needed—a new Winchester rifle and a hundred rounds of ammunition, as well as a couple of Navajo blankets.
Ten years later he met Considine, and he stayed with him because Considine was faster with a gun than he was, was as good a tracker, and as good a horseman. Also, Considine was quiet, confident, and careful, and the Kiowa understood those qualities.
Now he watched the basin turn from twilight into darkness. It was a beautiful place, if one forgot the Indians, but being an Indian, he did not forget.
As he waited for darkness he located one by one the hiding places of the Indians. Most of them would bunch together now, but a few would remain where they were, and that pleased him.
He watched the first stars appear, and then he got up.
Chapter 12
D
ARKNESS BROUGHT PEACE to the basin called High Lonesome. Somewhere a quail called, a lonely, pleading call.
Considine leaned against a rock and sipped the scalding coffee. It tasted good, and he took his time with it, relishing each swallow. His stomach was empty, and he could not recall when he had last eaten.