Tall Rider Page 4

  Slowly, I moved my arms, my legs, my neck. Strong men in fairs win ten dollars for making less effort than I did for heaving myself up on one elbow. Then after another spell to catch my breath, I sat up.

  It was only then that I realized what a fix I was in.

  I had no idea how long Calthrop and his cronies had been gone. But even with my brains scrambled the way they were I knew they’d be back to finish the job. With Eli dead, they couldn’t afford to leave a witness alive to shoot his mouth off and make trouble. But I was in too bad a way to work up enough enthusiasm to figure out what to do next. Most of my concentration went on breathing.

  I finally got myself upright but soon realized I’d made a mistake: I preferred being on the floor. It was safer. So down I went again in a heap, waiting for the world to stop spinning. Putting weight on both legs had told me that neither was busted, that was something, but if I was going anywhere, I knew I’d have to do it on hands and knees. I also knew that if I was going to crawl any place, I couldn’t afford to wait. If I wasn’t out of there and away by the time they got back, then that was two Chandler boys Calthrop would have murdered.

  This thought put some urgency into the situation.

  I shuffled as best I could over to Eli.

  When I was sure he was dead, I told him goodbye. He’d been a good friend to me and I made a friend’s promise to take retribution on his killer.

  But if I was going to make that promise good, I was going to have to be in better shape than I was now. I had to get away – to fight another day. The verse went round and round in my head. It helped straighten up my thoughts.

  Maybe Calthrop hadn’t locked the door. Why bother? He had left two men in it, one dead and the other as good as. But the door led into the street and the street was not a good place to hide. What about the back way?

  Skate had shot the lock off the cell door which still hung open. Beyond it was the gaping hole Pete and John had made in the wall. I remembered that empty squared-off patch outside and the emigrants who had been unhelpful to Nat. The sun had set long ago, the moon was not yet up and it was now very dark.

  I decided to go out the back way.

  I dragged myself across the floor and into the cell. When I reached the wall, I hauled myself up by my right arm and let myself fall through the hole. That got most of me outside. When the pain subsided and let me think again, I pulled the rest of me through, negotiated a way across the rubble and began crawling across the square patch.

  When I’d looked at it through the cell window, I’d guessed it was maybe twenty yards to the paling at the far end. I must have got it wrong. From ground level, with a busted arm and cracked ribs, it looked like a prairie and the palings were some distant horizon at least twenty miles away. But I got there.

  I was even able to pull myself up by a paling post and climb over. Telling myself I was a man and that men walked on two legs not four, I leaned against the fence and looked around.

  Nobody was about. The emigrants’ tents and wagons were dark. Maybe they’d gone to bed early. More likely they were keeping their heads down.

  I took a few groggy steps. I didn’t like the feeling and stopped. But a breeze had started up. It cooled my face and blew some of the cobwebs out of my head.

  Hold it right there, pardner, I said to myself. No sense just walking. Got to work out where would be a good place to walk to. That was a hard one.

  Then I got the idea that riding was better than walking. That breakthrough didn’t tell me where I should head for, but it made me see that wherever I was going I’d get there quicker on a horse than on my own two feet. I remembered I had a horse once. When was that? Must have been … Got it! I’d come to town on a horse. With Eli and the broncos. To clinch the deal with old man Jebb.

  Jebb’s Livery. That’s where I’d left it. It would still be there.

  I felt a lot steadier now I had a purpose.

  There was a loose paling in the fence. I pulled it off and tucked the end under my right shoulder. That way I got along much faster. I could have been entered for a race with snails and stood a good chance of winning.

  Keeping the backs of the building that fronted onto Berry’s Crossing main street to my right, I shuffled along, easily covering a three minute walk in twenty. When I got to the back of Jebb’s, I found that the gate Eli and me had taken the broncos through was shut up for the night. I rattled the lock in frustration. To come this far, and be denied was about as much as I could stand.

  Then a voice said, ‘Who’s that? What you want?’

  I recognized old Jebb’s voice.

  ‘Brad Chandler. I left my horse here. I need it. Let me in.’

  I heard a rattle of keys, a lock being turned and the gate open. I fell through it. The old man caught me before I hit the ground and laid me down gently. He called out softly and moments later I felt myself being carried into the office where we’d done our deal all amicably just a few hours before.

  Jebb and Jebb’s man gave me a shot of whiskey and cleaned me up some.

  ‘You look a mess, boy,’ said the old man. ‘They gave you a good roughing up. Where’s your friend?’

  ‘Eli? Dead. They kicked him to death. If I’d stayed they’d have done the same to me. That’s why I need my horse. Got to get away – fight another day.’

  ‘Where’s Calthrop and his thugs now?’

  ‘Ain’t sure for certain. Maybe they went back to the Prairie Dog to fire themselves up some more.’

  ‘Hank,’ said Jebb, ‘go take a peek in the saloon and see if Calthrop’s there.’

  While Hank was gone, he left me to rest. I had just starting to float off down a quiet stream on some feather-soft raft which was being wafted along on a warm breeze when something shook my arm.

  ‘Wake up,’ said Jebb. ‘Calthrop’s drinking in the saloon and he’s fighting drunk and meaner’n hell. You’re in no fit state to go anywhere but you sure as Hades can’t stay here. You got to get out of town, and fast. When he’s ready, he’ll go back to his office. When he sees you’ve gone, he’ll start looking for you. On your feet. I’ve saddled your horse.’

  He told me how to get to the barn where the boys had taken Billy and wished me good luck.

  With a hand up from Hank, I got on to my horse and rode out of Jebb’s yard.

  I don’t know if I made much noise, but it didn’t matter, because I’d soon left Berry’s Crossing and was out on the road where there was no one to hear me. Old Jebb’s directions had gone clean out of my head. So I took a bearing by starlights which pricked little holes in the blackness above my head and slowed to a canter and then, when I started hurting again, to a walk.

  The motion was restful and there was a rhythm to it that got inside my head, going round and round to a chant which turned into words: got to get away to fight another day. I’d nod off and then be jolted back to wakefulness when a rib reminded me of its presence by shooting a pain across my chest.

  As I crested a rise, I stopped to take another mouthful from the bottle Jebb had given me. I wasn’t minded to dismount, because I didn’t think I’d be able to get back on again. The whiskey warmed me up and dulled the pain some. As I took a last mouthful, I looked down the length of the bottle and in the distance saw a cloud of dust, as if there were riders coming my way. They were travelling fast.

  They were too far away for me to tell how many they were. But they were following the trail I’d taken and would soon be upon me. In the state I was in, there was no way I could outrun them. I couldn’t even raise a gallop without passing out.

  I turned and scoured the way ahead for cover, a place to hide up until they’d gone by.

  About 500 yards further along, the trail dipped, crossed a stream and then went on through a pile of giant boulders, like a mountain pass only not on such a large scale. Maybe 2–300 yards off left was a copse of soapwood trees big enough to hide half a dozen horses. Not quite as far away on the right-hand side was a smaller patch of brushwood covering a ra
ised mound. I seemed spoiled for choice.

  But it wasn’t necessarily so. The pass through boulders was fine for an ambush, but I was in no shape for a fight. I needed to lie low and let the danger blow over. Since the copse was the first real cover on the road for a mile or two, I figured that whoever was trailing me might think it worth their while to spare a few minutes to check it out. That left the mound. It wasn’t perfect but it was my best shot.

  I urged my horse along the trail and crossed at the stream. Then I struck lucky. After about ten yards the trail on the other side became bare rock that would not show any trace of my passage. It would be hard to read my tracks. An Indian could do it, but not a bunch of red-eyed white men with too much liquor in them. I reckoned they’d figure I’d ridden on ahead and take off after me. Then I’d have time to work out which way I should go to put as many miles between them and me as I could.

  I left the stream and rode on for a couple of dozen yards. Then I stopped, retraced my steps and went this way and that on the bank, creating many tracks that led every which way. Next I rode back into the stream and turned along it, leaving it only when I reached a point opposite the mound. I headed straight for it. A real scout would have no difficulty working out where I had gone, but it was the best I could do in the circumstances.

  The mound was high enough to hide my horse. I dismounted with difficulty and tethered him to a bush. He started to graze. I crawled on my belly and looked over the top.

  I had a good view of the crossing which was maybe a hundred yards off. The moon was high and bright and it turned the land a bluey-silver colour.

  I had not long to wait.

  The first I heard of the horses was the sound of hoofs which came like the dull roar of a distant torrent. Then I saw their dust, a cloud which grew bigger the nearer they came. Then I picked out three galloping horses and finally their riders. The moon glinted on something one of the men wore on the front of his shirt. It had to be a badge.

  The riders reached the stream and halted. They stared at the ground, unable to make anything of the tracks. One rode along the stream towards the soap-wood copse, looking down at both banks as he went. When he got there, he dismounted and looked for tracks in the sandy earth. He stayed where he was a while but when he found nothing, he rode back to the others. A second men came along my stretch of the stream but gave up while he was still a good way off. The third rider cantered along the trail through the boulders. After a while he came back too. My trail had died on them. I could hear the sound of voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. But it was clear they were arguing. One of them (Calthrop, I supposed) wanted to go on. But the others wanted to call off the chase.

  In the end, Calthrop won. And all three rode off.

  I lost sight of them after they entered the pass between the boulders. But I went on hearing the sound of their horses which grew fainter and fainter and finally disappeared.

  By that time, finally able to stand my defences down, my aching body had got the better of me. I did not relax so much as pass out.

  When I came to, the sun was high. But that wasn’t the first thing I saw.

  What I saw was the face of an Indian looking down at me.

  And the tomahawk in his hand which was aimed at my head.

  5

  DEATH IN A QUIET CANYON

  I watched helplessly as the tomahawk scythed down. Instinctively I shut my eyes, turned away and tensed my muscles against the inevitable.

  Even that movement was torture. My legs complained, my ribs made me wince and my broken arm was such agony that I almost passed out again. I thought they were the last sensations I would ever feel.

  Then I heard a thud on the ground near my right ear. The Indian had missed!

  I opened my eyes and saw him raise his tomahawk again. But instead of striking a second blow, he was looking at the blade, now wet and glistening. He wiped the blood off it and returned it to his belt.

  Then he knelt beside me and pointed at something on the ground where I had heard the thud.

  I turned my head and found myself looking directly into the evil face of a rattlesnake. A dead one.

  He said something in his language. I didn’t understand, but I didn’t need to. It was as plain as if he’d drawn me a picture. He’d seen the rattler crawling in my direction to investigate. He had crept up on it and, just as I regained consciousness, he had removed its head before it could strike.

  Then he broke into a broad smile and started jabbering in his lingo.

  Now I was in no state for long parleys with my best friend, let alone with an Indian I could not understand. I’d had dealings with Indians back home and had picked up a few words. I managed to pick out isantanka, meaning an American, hoecah (surprise) and sufficient others to gather that he was amazed but pleased to see me. Later I would have plenty of opportunity to learn the Indian language of his tribe. But just then, he might as well have been talking Chinese.

  When he saw the blank looks I gave him, he stopped, reached for his belt and took out his knife. I tensed again but he reassured me with a gesture. He mimed throwing it away and suddenly I knew him.

  He was the Indian who had been thrown by his horse when the hostiles had stampeded the herd and cornered us under the wagon.

  And he was grateful, so grateful he tried to pull me upright. I nearly passed out again.

  He stopped when he saw how badly hurt I was.

  ‘Aie! Kakeshya? (How terrible! Have you been tortured?)’

  That was one way of putting it, I suppose.

  I made signs that I was thirsty. I also felt hot. A man don’t take a beating like the one I’d been given without feeling the effects. My busted arm seemed to be burning up and I was suddenly afraid that if it wasn’t tended to soon, I could lose it.

  ‘Can’t move this arm,’ I said. ‘It’s broke.’

  He didn’t understand my words either, but he got my meaning plain enough. He said something that meant I should stay right where I was.

  ‘I ain’t going no place,’ I said.

  He disappeared into the brushwood where I heard him beating around. When he returned, he was trimming a branch of brushwood about a foot and a half long. He cut strips off the sleeve of my shirt and used them to bind the splint lengthwise on my arm, just like I’d seen my Pa do when one of us or a hired man bust an arm or a leg.

  I’d rather not recall the time he spent doing it. It wasn’t his fault it hurt so much. He was careful enough. But the break was maybe sixteen hours old and had become inflamed.

  I guess I must have passed out again.

  But he revived me with another drink from his waterskin and managed to prop me on my horse. He had no horse and led mine.

  Later he told me he was not mounted because he was still making his way on foot back to his tribe after the attack on our wagon.

  I can’t say I remember much about that trip, nor of the way I was treated when we got back to the place where his tribe was camped. It must have been a good few days before I became aware of what was going on around me.

  When I woke, I found myself staring up at a smoke-hole at the apex of an Indian tepee. I was lying naked on a couch raised a few inches from the floor under a buffalo skin which was as hot as Hades and smelled like the fleece room in a tannery. When I moved my legs, they didn’t hurt at all now. But my arm throbbed and, when I tried to sit up, the pain in my ribs took my breath away.

  An old crone squatted at the fire in the middle of the tepee stirring something in a pot with a wooden spoon. When she saw I was back in the land of the living and trying to get up off my couch, she turned in my direction.

  ‘Anoptah! Bes! (Stop! Be careful!)’ she said.

  She made me lie back and then spooned some of what she had been stirring in her pot down my throat. It tasted like pond scum would taste if you went to the trouble of warming it up. I tried to brush her off, but she was strong and I was pretty weak, and all the time she kept spooning and saying words which I
didn’t understand but doubtless were no different from what Grandma used to say when she used to make us take our medicine when we were little.

  And, like Grandma, she knew best and was right. My nose stayed out of shape and didn’t make me look any prettier. But the fever had gone and didn’t come back, my arm began to mend and my ribs turned merely sore and then stopped hurting altogether.

  I grew stronger and started to take notice. One day, I received a visit.

  Squawking Crow, the brave who had rescued me in return for saving his life, had continued to take an interest in me and came to see me pretty regular. I picked up a few words from him and the old woman, but not enough to say more than how the weather was good or bad or how I was getting on. But one day, he came with a tall, powerful-looking Indian in ceremonial regalia and full headdress. This was Kla Klitso, ‘He-who-has-copper’, Chief of the Kepwejo. He was called this on account of the necklace he wore made of spent copper bullets fired by fusees, those old flintlock muskets they used to use in the fur-trade.

  I got up best I could, to show respect, and said, ‘How!’

  With a gesture, he said, ‘White man sit.’

  I sat on the buffalo skin. He sat on another, cross-legged and stared at me.

  Turned out he could speak English more than moderately.

  With an Indian, you take time over the preliminaries. I said how it was a great honour for me to be in his camp and so well received. I said that, seeing how I came to be there, I was sorry I had no gifts for him.

  He waved his hand.

  I told him how I regretted not being able to tell Squawking Crow thanks for saving my life twice, once from the rattler and once from the effects the beating I’d had.

  He brushed my words aside and said that Squawking Crow could never repay his debt to me, ‘Bringer-of-Fire’, as I was now known in the camp. The life I had saved was mine for all time.

  I said I was sorry we’d killed those young men of his tribe, but they had attacked us without provocation and shot one of my friends.