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 hideout. 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 XII
Darkness 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.
Across the small circle Dutch and Spanyer lay side by side, sleeping. Hardy had found a high perch among the rocks where he could see all around, so far as the darkness permitted, but where he could not be reached by any prowling Indian with a knife.
Lennie worked over the fire, making a broth from jerked beef, throwing in some squaw cabbage and wild potatoes. There was no light but the red glow of the fire, purposely kept small, invisible outside the circle. A faint breeze came between the rocks and fanned the embers, and for a moment a blaze leaped up, lighting the girl’s face. She turned her head and saw Considine watching her. Their eyes held, and then she looked away.
Up on the rock, Hardy shifted his feet. “Wonder what became of the Kiowa?” he said.
Considine shifted his shoulders, trying to find a better place to lean than the sharp rock where they were.
Hardy answered his own question. “Mexico, I reckon.”
“Not the Kiowa. That Indian loves a fight.”
Hardy made no comment. After a moment he asked, “How many do you think are out there?”
“Dozen to twenty. There’ll be more, come daybreak.” Hardy thought of the bags of gold. Sixty thousand in gold. He had never seen so much money. Yet he would gladly have shared it with a dozen if they were here to help.
He looked around, although he could see nothing. So this was High Lonesome. He had heard of it. Another canyon led out of the basin toward the southeast … he had seen the opening.
“Halfmoon Valley,” Considine said, in reply to a question from Hardy. “Opens into a wide valley and a straight shot into Mexico.” Lennie passed a cup full of stew up to Hardy, and gave another to Considine. He took his and went back to the rocks. The Apache does not like to fight at night, but some of those Indians out there were renegades from other tribes, and he did not trust them.
Lennie was beside him before he realized it. “It is so quiet!” she said.
“They’re out there.”
“Do you think we can hold them off?”
“Maybe.”
He ate the stew slowly, enjoying every mouthful. But while he ate, he listened.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
“Well …”—he was at a loss for words—“I came.” They were standing close together in the darkness, each conscious of the other, yet wanting no more than this now.
The call of an owl quavered lonesomely in the night. Then again.
“Don’t the Indians frighten them away?” Lennie asked.
“That was an Indian.”
“That owl? How can you tell?”
“Something in the tone. Any sound a man makes will echo. A real owl’s call has some quality a man can’t put into it … its call doesn’t echo.” Suddenly there was a shrill, high-pitched scream, breaking off sharply. Lennie turned in startled horror.
“What … what was that?”
“A man died.”
Her father came up beside them in the darkness. “Did you hear that?” he asked.
“Uh-huh.”
There was no further sound. After a few minutes Considine said to Spanyer, just loud enough for Hardy to hear too. “The Kiowa is out there.” “The Injun?” Dave Spanyer looked around.
“Could be.”
His eyes searched for Considine’s in the darkness. “You think they got him?” “No, he got one of them … maybe more. Maybe only one of them had a chance to yell.”
There was no further sound. The wind rose, and after a while Hardy came down from his perch and wakened Dutch. Dave Spanyer took Considine’s place, and the two younger men turned in.
Lennie watched them roll up in their blankets, then prepared stew for the two older men.
Considine opened his eyes in the gray of morning. The sky was overcast and dull.
He sat up, combing his dark hair with his fingers, then reaching for his boots. Spanyer was standing guard at a place where he could watch a wide area, and Lennie was asleep on her blankets. Dutch was nowhere in sight. The grass seemed gray, the trees were a wall of darkness, the brush was black. It was shivering cold. Standing up, Considine slung his gun belt about his lean hips and picked up his Winchester. He checked his guns, one by one. “Quiet?” Spanyer nodded. “Yeah … too quiet.” Considine saw Dutch then. The big man was wedged between two rocks, somewhat forward of their position. Dutch motioned and Considine ducked behind a rock and went up to him, crouching low. “What do you make of that?” Dutch indicated an Indian, standing bolt upright and still on the edge of the brush. He seemed, at this distance, unnaturally tall. The Indian made no move. Considine stared hard, straining his eyes to see better. “Dutch,” he whispered, “that Indian’s dead.” “Dead?”