Sixty thousand dollars … in gold!
Considine looked at the mountains. He felt all hollow and empty inside. The damned old cantankerous fool! What got into a man that he would get his daughter into something like this?
But he knew. Spanyer was running away. He wanted to take her somewhere where he would not be known for what he was, he wanted to give her a chance, a start in life.
No start in life now. If they were cornered up there, off the usual trails, there was no hope of rescue. There was no hope of anything. The posse would be closing in by now. They had probably brought extra horses. Trust Runyon to think of that. And they might have been riding most of the night. By the time the posse got here, Spanyer and Lennie would be gone. “It ain’t far to the border now,” Hardy said. “I can almost see that Mex gal’s eyes a-shining!”
That old hideout on High Lonesome … It was a good place to defend—if they had made it that far. But it was a good place for four or five to defend, not two. Three … even three might have a chance. Considine remembered the firm wet body he had held in his arms, the quiet, proud eyes, the eyes that had waited while he held her, confident of him.
Damn it, what did she have to be confident about? What did she expect of a man, anyway? And how could she be so sure of him?
He fumbled with the piggin strings that tied the bag on his saddle. He tossed the sack to Dutch. “We’ll split this south of the border!” He swung his horse around. “You’d better high-tail it, boys! I’m a damned fool!” He wheeled the big buck and went up High Lonesome on a dead run. Dust rose and settled; it drifted back from where he had gone, and settled slowly in the hot, heavy air. They sat their saddles, listening to the drum of hoofs fading away.
“Why, that damned, hare-brained fool!” Dutch said. “He’ll go blasting right into the middle of them! That’s no way to fight ‘Paches!” The Kiowa wiped off the mechanism of his rifle and said nothing to anyone, but the Kiowa never had anything to say. He was a square, solid young man, with a square, solid face and black eyes that were flat and steady. Dutch gathered his reins. “All right, south to the border then.”
The Kiowa looked at him, then slid his rifle back in the scabbard.
“If he rides into the middle of ‘em,” Hardy said, “God help the Apaches!” Dutch had let his horse walk four steps. Now he turned and tossed to Hardy the bag Considine had given him, then the one he himself had carried. Then he jumped his horse, not at the canyon opening but at another draw that led up into the hills. It was a worse climb, but it would put him up there almost as fast as Considine could make it.
Considine ran his horse for half a mile, then slowed to a trot. You could kill a horse running it in the heat like this, and he had a feeling he was going to need a good horse if he got out of here alive.
There was small chance of an ambush in the canyon unless they heard him coming, and they would not be expecting an attack. He carried his Winchester in his right hand, and he rode carefully.
Ahead of him he heard the flat, hard report of a rifle, then several shots close together. Suddenly he went fast up that last hard climb and was racing his horse across the grassy meadow toward the hideout.
Another shot sounded, and he wheeled his horse, standing in the stirrups. They had stopped short of the hideout, then. They were there … in that circle of rocks!
An Indian came out of the rocks near him and threw a rifle to his shoulder, but before Considine could get his own rifle up, a shot nailed the Indian and he fell over the rocks into the grass.
Startled, Considine looked around to see Dutch sliding his horse down a steep gravel bank. “Run for it!” Dutch yelled. “I’ll cover for you!” Considine slammed the Winchester back in the scabbard and grabbed his six-shooter. He put spurs to the big black and went across the flat in a wild run, reins hanging loose. Behind him, Dutch was laying down a heavy fire from his Winchester.
He saw an Indian dead ahead of him lift a rifle to fire, and then the big black was riding him down, the terrible hoofs tearing the Indian’s body as they trampled him under foot. Considine fired and fired again. He saw another Indian fall, and then he felt the black’s muscles bunch under him and knew he was going down.
Kicking free of the stirrups, he grabbed the saddlebags with their spare ammunition and as the horse fell he left him, hit the ground, and rolled over. He saw an Indian break cover near him and start for him, and then a bullet from the rock circle ahead stopped him in mid-stride. Considine knew they would have marked where he fell, so he lay still, flattened out in the grass. Behind him he heard Dutch firing. Suddenly the shooting stopped, and the echoes cannonaded off down the canyon and lost themselves in the still, hot afternoon.
He smelled the sun-hot grass under his nostrils, smelled the crushed creosote brush near him, the warm, good smell of the earth under him, and he knew he loved life as never before.
He lay very still. Dutch was no longer shooting. Had they gotten the big fellow?
He doubted it … Dutch would die hard … and long. A bee, undisturbed by the fighting, buzzed near a cactus blossom. Considine rolled on his side and emptied the shells from his pistol and reloaded. Then he thrust a couple of shells into the magazine of the Winchester. The ‘73 would carry seventeen bullets, and he would need them. He dearly wanted to lift his head and locate himself, get his exact position, but he dared not. In this deadly game the first to move was often the first to die, and he did not want to die. He did not want to die at all. The Kiowa had sat very still, waiting. He glanced out of the corners of his eyes at Hardy. “You rode partners with Considine,” he said. “That’s why I’m going to look after his share. He will want it if he ever gets out of there alive.”
“Always said you had no guts.”
Hardy glared at the breed. The Kiowa was taunting him, but there was no malice in the taunt. He just seemed to be waiting for something he knew would happen. 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.