“Champion?”
“I don’t think so. He wouldn’t have spoken, and had it been Champion I’d be dead.”
“Don’t talk like that!” Malinda shuddered and moved closer to him.
He liked having her close, but not now. A man had to keep his mind on the business at hand and not be thinking about a woman at a tune like this.
“Get some rest, Beamis,” he said. “I’ll wake you up in a couple of hours.”
“We can watch,” Aunt Madge whispered. “Both of you need sleep.”
Off to the northeast Callaghan could see the flat outline of Table Mountain, low on the horizon, and to the north the bumpy ridge of the Mid Hills. Due west, not much over fifteen miles away, was the Marl Springs redoubt. Suddenly he realized he was behind the mountains at which he had gazed from Marl Springs.
Then he slept, and in the night he dreamed again of his battle with Nusir Khan when he and his wild tribesmen swept down from the Suleimani Hills. He stirred restlessly in his sleep, his hand gripping for the sword hilt that was not there. He awoke suddenly in the gray of dawn and lay still for a few minutes, trying to figure out where he was.
He sat up slowly, feeling the stubble of beard on his jaw, and hating the stiffness of his clothes the stiffness of sweat, dust, and bloodstains. His mouth was dry. He stared around him.
Only Malinda was awake. There was a faint grayness along the ridge, a fading of the darkness overhead.
“You were dreaming,” she said.
“I’ve not much to dream about… battles and blood and gunshots. It isn’t pleasant.”
“No women?”
“Here and there… one meets them.”
“You’ve fought a lot?” she asked.
“Most of twenty years… ever since I was a youngster in Ireland.”
He turned to look down the slope. It was rocky, and dotted with cedar and brush. He could see the hindquarters of one of the horses, so he knew they were still down there. It was a steep drop, some of it a tough scramble, some of it not too difficult for climbing, but there was a lot of cover, areas where one could not be seen.
Malinda sat close to him. She was wide awake now, and was not frightened. She had been somewhat conditioned for times like these by the tales her father and uncles had told; and there had been the time she first met Callaghen, when he had ridden up out of nowhere, a dashing and handsome man who had saved them all.
He did not look dashing and handsome now. She smiled at the thought. His clothing was torn from his scrambles through brush and rocks, but he looked tough, capable, and confident.
“Do you ever worry about how it will all turn out?”
He shrugged. “A man does what he can, whatever the situation. There’s only one way to fight: to win, and anybody who uses force without using it to the utmost is playing the fool.
“I have been fighting all my life, yet I believe in peace. That doesn’t do me one bit of good, though, against those men down there, because they have no idea of peace at all. The only thing they understand is violence. They would like for us to go down there and talk peace, but they would kill us all, and that would be an end to it. They would have peace over our dead bodies.
“I have sometimes noticed,” Callaghen added grimly, “that the people who preach peace so fervently are doing it from a comfortable place often after a good meal. It’s quite another thing when you face armed men in the night in a lonely place, men who have no standards beyond their own selfish interests.”
“I think they are coming,” Malinda said. “Something moved down there.”
“It’s lucky,” Callaghen said ironically, “or I’d be needing a pulpit.”
He slapped his rifle. “This is one of the best arguments for peace there is. Nobody wants to shoot if somebody is going to shoot back.”
He moved the rifle forward a little. “They are coming up the hill because we are in their way. There are only two men, and they believe they can handle us. If there were four of them they would not have even stopped.
“They know Beamis is young, and they know from comments he’s made that he didn’t want to be a soldier. What they don’t know is what a lot of good stuff the young man has in him, and in the last few days it has hardened into real strength.”
It was lighter now light enough for good shooting, and the horses down below were looking up the slope.
Callaghen looked around. On the far side of the hollow there was a space between the side of the mountain and a slab of fallen rock. “Malinda, see where that goes, will you?” he said.
Callaghen did not like cul-de-sacs. One man could not defend the position they occupied, and if he himself were shot, the others ought to have some kind of escape route. Sooner or later a detachment from Camp Cady would come looking for the vanished stage, but until then there must be some place where they could make a stand.
He watched for any further movement below. He was sure he had put at least one of the men out of action. But he realized that the men who were coming up the slope were not tenderfeet they were taking their time, sure they had their quarry where they could not escape.
Once he saw a flicker of movement as a man moved into concealment behind a rock, but there was no chance for a shot. It was merely a shadow on the slope that flitted across his vision and was gone.
Malinda was back. “Mort, there is an opening back there. I don’t know whether it will be any help to us or not. I doubt if we can get your horse through.”
“Does it lead up the slope?”
“Not right away… I only went a few yards.”
“We’ll chance it. You take the horse, and you and Aunt Madge see what you can do. Tie the stirrups up. That might help you get through.”
He saw a hat appear alongside a boulder halfway down the slope, but it seemed an obvious attempt to draw his fire and so locate his position. He had no ammunition to waste, and had no intention of responding to such a crude tenderfoot temptation. When he saw something he could identify with some chance of scoring a hit, he would fire.
The sun was up behind Wild Horse Mesa, but his own position was shaded and cool. He located several possible approaches among the scattered boulders and sighted his rifle at those spots so his action, when it became necessary, would be quick and smooth.
It was the right and left flanks that worried him, for the area was too large for Beamis and himself to cover with any success. Their natural parapet was too low to allow them to shift position very much.
He moved over to Beamis. “Take your time, soldier, and don’t waste any shots. You saw where the women took the horse?”
“Yes.”
“When the time comes, run for it. Follow the trail until you come up to them. Then try to find another good position.”
“You think Major Sykes will send out a patrol?” Beamis asked.
“He will. My guess would be they are marching now. If they can find us, we’ll be lucky.”
A bullet struck a rock over their heads, showering them with fragments. Hurriedly, they moved to firing positions. Though Bolin was a dangerous man, as were the others, it was Champion who worried him most. The old outlaw was canny, and he could find a route where most men would not dream of looking. Moreover, he was not overly concerned with Callaghen. Whether Callaghen was alive or dead was of no interest to him as long as he stayed out of Bolin’s way.
A dozen miles to the north Captain Marriott rode up to the abandoned stage at Government Holes. Only a few miles back they had come on the body of the stage driver, and had buried it in a shallow grave.
The stage itself showed no evidences of Indian attack. Those who had looted it and little there had been worth taking had known what to take and where to find it; and there seemed to be no Indian tracks anywhere near.
“It’s Wylie,” Marriott told himself. Haswell, a stocky Missourian, indicated the moccasin tracks. “Them’s Champion’s,” he said. “I seen ’em around Cady.”
Well, then: Champion, Wylie, and whoever else was with them probably Spencer had held up and robbed the stage. “A man was down yonder,” Haswell said, “and there was some blood. I figure that man is alive.”