Almost at the grove we stopped to listen and from the direction of the grove came the sound of running water. That was good, I thought. I was getting thirsty. The trees more than likely grew along the stream that ran down through the valley.
We moved in among the trees, half-blinded by the dense-ness of the shadows underneath them after the bright moonlight in the open and as we moved into the shadows Ipme of them rose up and clubbed me to the ground.
Chapter 11
I had fallen into a lake somehow and was sinking for the third and final time, strangling, with water on my face and water up my nose and no way I could breathe. I gagged and gasped and opened up my eyes and water streaming from my hair ran down across my face.
I saw that I was not in any lake, but rather on dry land, and in the light of a fire that burned a little ways away I could see the dark figure of a man who held a wooden bucket in both hands and I knew that he had thrown a bucket full of water in my face.
I couldn’t see his face too well, with his back turned to the firelight, but he flashed a set of white teeth at me, yelling something in an angry voice I did not understand. There was a terrible ruckus going on off to my right and when I turned my head in that direction I saw that it was Bronco, flat on his back, with a lot of yelling men around him, dodging in and out, trying to get at him. But they weren’t getting at him too well, for even with two busted legs, Bronco had six that weren’t busted and all six of them were busily lashing out at the men around him.
I looked around for Cynthia and saw her by the fire. She was sitting rather awkwardly on the ground and one arm was lifted strangely and I saw that a big man who stood beside her had the raised arm in his grasp and when she tried to get to her feet he twisted it and she sat down again, rather solidly.
I started to get up and as I did the man with the bucket rushed me, swinging the bucket as if he meant to brain me.
I didn’t get clear up, but did manage to get my feet in under me and was in a crouch and when I saw the bucket coming at me, shifted to one side and stretched out an arm. The bucket barely missed me and then, as he came charging in, I had him by the legs. As he fell toward me, I hunched down one shoulder and caught him at the knees and he went catapulting over me to land with a crash behind me. I didn’t wait to see what had happened to him or what he might be doing, but launched myself across the few feet that separated us at the man who had Cynthia by the arm.
He saw me coming and let go of her arm and clawed at his belt for a knife, but he was slow in getting it and I let him have it squarely on the chin, bringing my fist up from somewhere near my boot tops. I swear the blow lifted him a full foot off the ground and his body, stiff as any pole, went toppling backward. He hit the ground and lay there and I reached down and grabbed Cynthia to help her to her feet, although I suspect she had no need of aid.
Even as I helped her to her feet there was a bellowing behind me and as I swung around to face it I saw that the men who had been ganging up on Bronco had left him and were moving in on me.
From that moment when the bucket of water had struck me in the face and revived me from the blow upon the head, I had been too busy to take in much of the detail of the situation we were in, but now I had the time to notice that the men who were advancing upon me were an unsavory lot. Some of them were dressed in what I supposed were buckskins and some of them wore fur caps upon their heads and even in the feeble firelight I could see they were a ragged and a dirty lot and that they moved in slouching crouches, not upright and forthright as a man should walk. Some of them carried guns of some sort, and here and there there were flashes of metal from drawn knives and, all in all, I decided, I did not have much chance to stand against them.
“You better get out of here,” I said to Cynthia. “Try to find a place to hide.”
There was no answer from her and when I looked around to see why she had not answered, I saw that she was stooping and groping on the ground. She rose from her stoop and in each hand she clutched a club, awkward lengths of tree limbs that she had snatched off a pile of fuel that apparently had been hauled in to feed the fire. She thrust one out at me and, with a two-handed grip upon the other, ranged herself beside me.
So we stood there, the two of us, with the clubs clutched in our hands, and it might have been a brave gesture of a sort, but I knew how ineffectual it would be.
The group of men had stopped at the sight of us suddenly armed with clubs, but any time they wanted, they could close in and get us. Some few of them, perhaps, would take their lumps, but they’d overwhelm us by sheer numbers.
A big brute, who stood slightly in the front, said, “What’s the matter with you two? Why you got the clubs?”
“You jumped us,” I said.
“You sneaked up on us,” said the man.
“We smelled the smoke,” said Cynthia. “We were not sneaking up.”
Somewhere off to the left there were snorting noises and the sound of feet or hooves tramping on the ground. There were animals somewhere in the grove of trees beyond the fire.
“You were sneaking,” the man insisted. “You and that great beast of yours.”
While he talked others in the group were shifting off to either side. They were getting in position to take us from the flanks.
“Let us talk some sense,” I said. “We are travelers. We didn’t know that you were here and . . .”
There was a sudden rush of feet from either side of us and from somewhere in the woods rang out a ululating cry that stopped the sudden rush-a wild and savage war cry that froze the blood in one and made the hair stand up. Out of the screen of woods broke a towering metal figure, moving very fast, and at the sight of it the pack that had been about to swarm in on us were running for their lives.
“Elmer!” Cynthia shrieked, but he paid no attention to us. One of the fleeing men had stumbled when he had set out to run and Elmer snapped him up in the middle of his stride, lifted his twisting, frantic body high into the air and threw him out into the darkness. A gun exploded and there was a hollow thud as the ball hit Elmer’s metal body, but that was the only shot the fleeing men took the time to fire. They went crashing into the woods beyond the fire, with Elmer close upon their heels. They were yelling out in fright and between the yells one could hear the splashing as they fought their way across the stream that lay beyond the campsite.
Cynthia was running toward the struggling Bronco, and I ran after her. Between the two of us, we got him on his feet. “That was Elmer,” Bronco said, once we got him up.
“He will give them hell.”
The cries and whoops were receding in the distance. “There be more of them,” said Bronco, “tethered in the woods. They have no ill in them, however, for they are but simple creatures.”
“Horses,” said Cynthia. “There must be quite a lot of them. I think these people must be traders.”
“Can you tell me exactly what went on?” I asked her. “We were just entering the woods and there were some shadows. Then I came to with someone throwing water in my face.”
“They hit you,” Cynthia said, “and grabbed me and dragged us to the fire. They dragged you by the heels and you were a funny sight.”
“I imagine you died laughing.”
“No,” she said, “I wasn’t laughing, but you still were funny.”
“And Bronco?”
“I was galloping to your rescue,” Bronco said, “when I tripped and fell. And there, upon my back, I gave a good account of myself, would you not say so? As they clustered all about me, I got in some lusty licks with my trusty hooves.”