Two antelope were near the spring. They moved off as we drew near, evidence enough that no one else was close by.
Yet among the trees we found the remains of a fire, a faint tendril of smoke rising, and when we stirred the coals, a tiny gleam of red still existed.
Carefully, I looked about. Day-by-day my small skills in the wilderness were returning, and I was gathering more by watching and listening.
Walks-By-night held up three fingers, and swiftly made the signs for man, woman and boy.
“A woman? Here?” It was incredible. He showed me the print of a riding boot, too small to belong to anyone but a woman.
There had been four horses, but the horses were gone, and there were no packs. We knew the whereabouts of the man, but what of the others?
Five men had come here searching. Walks-By- Night studied the ground with care, and then as we rode away, he explained. Much of it I had seen myself, but I could not read sign with his infinite skill.
“Five men come in the night… they find nothing.” “Then there’s a woman and a boy out here alone?
We must find them, my friend.” “You know her?” He was puzzled by my anxiety. “She is of your people?” “She is a woman alone, with a boy. She will need help.” He asked many questions, and I tried to explain.
No, I did not want the woman as a woman.
I did not know her tribe.
Obviously the idea was foreign to him, for to most Indians any stranger was a potential enemy, and chivalry, by our standards, was alien to their thinking.
Yet the Indian had his own chivalry, and that was the way in which I explained.
“It is like counting coup,” I said. “To strike a living armed enemy is to count coup. To take a scalp is to count coup. According to the code of chivalry, to help the helpless is to count coup.” He was immediately interested, but he was growing restless. There were enemies about, both Indian and white, and our companions were drawing farther and farther away. We took time for a quick swing around to see if we could pick up the trail, and we could not.
As for the five men who had come to the camp, without doubt they were those who had killed the man whose body we found, but whom they had not found. Why?
The question was a good one. The trail had been easy to follow, the body lying at the end of it, but there had been no tracks to indicate discovery, nor had the body been searched except by me.
Had they been so sure he was dead? Or didn’t they care? Then why shoot him at all?
Obviously they wanted something he had, yet nothing had been taken from him. Hence it was something he had that he did not carry on his person.
or somebody.
Perhaps it was not he whom they wanted, but those he accompanied?
That would explain why once he had been shot and put out of the game they had not followed. They had followed the others.
Yet someone had slipped into our camp, stolen bacon, meal, and a little powder and escaped… not a girl, surely. But a lad now, a healthy, ambitious lad? There was a likely thing.
We rode swiftly to overtake the others, but the problem nagged at my attention. If the lad had come to rob our camp, and the now dead man had gone off in another direction, where was the woman?
Or girl or whatever she was?
And what were they doing out here in the wilderness, and why were they pursued?
We rode down into the bed of the North Fork.
There was much sand, little wood except driftwood, most of it half buried in sand, although growing on the bluffs in the distance appeared a few low trees that I took to be cedar.
When we came up to our party, they were encamped in a little valley where a fresh spring sent a small stream meandering down through a meadow. Near the spring there was a scattered grove of pines and cedars, gooseberries and currants growing in great profusion. We camped near them, their thorny wall offering protection from intruders on two sides.
There was wood, fresh water, and grass for our animals.
All heads turned as we rode in. As I was stripping the gear from my horse, I explained what I had found and what we suspected.
Solomon Talley squatted on his heels, chewing on a long stem of grass. “Peculiar,” he said, “mighty peculiar.” “I don’t like to think of no woman out yonder alone,” Ebitt commented. “Still, it ain’t our affair.” “I’ve decided it’s mine,” I replied.
“Do you go on and set up winter quarters. I’ll follow when I’ve discovered what’s happening here.” “You’ll be killed,” Kemble warned. “A man alone has small chance.” “Somewhat more than a woman,” I said. “Still, if one of us is to be a damned fool, let it be me. I’m better fitted to play Don Quixote than the rest of you.” “Don who?” Sandy demanded.
“Don Quixote,” Heath explained, “was a Spanish knight who mistook a windmill for a giant.” Bob Sandy stared at him. “Why, that’s crazy! How could a–to ” He looked from one to the other of us, sure we were making a joke of him.
“There ain’t no such thing as a giant,” he scoffed. “Those are tales for children.” “I don’t know,” Kemble replied. “If you’ve never seen either a windmill or a giant, one is as easy to believe in as the other.” He glanced at me. “If you want company, I’ll ride along.” “Thanks,” I said, “but this is a concern of mine. Do you ride on to winter quarters. If I find a woman out there, she’ll be in need of shelter, and the lad as well.” “Are you sure they’re together?” I shrugged. “I think it unlikely there’d be several people out here alone. I think for some reason the man we found dead, a woman, and a lad started out upon the prairie. I think their reason was drastic indeed, to attempt to cross the prairies alone, and I think the five men pursuing them plan to recapture or kill the boy and the woman as they killed the man.” “You reckon that was what the Spanish captain was after?” Shanagan looked up at me. “His eyes were all over the place, lookin’ at everything we had, like he expected more.” To tell the truth, I wished to go alone and I think they understood. Companionship is often to be desired, and to go alone into the mountains or the wilderness is seldom a wise course. Only a little help is sometimes needed to escape from some difficulty, but on this occasion I wished to be alone.
For one thing, a man alone does not depend.
When a responsibility is shared, it grows less, and two men alert are rarely as alert as one man who knows he cannot depend on anyone but himself. It is all too easy to tell oneself, If I do not see it, he will, and so a little alertness is lost.
“Davy,” I told Shanagan, “I think we’re watched. Once the caravan marches, keep them changing places for a while. I’d prefer they don’t get an accurate count and realize I’m not among you.” “I’ll do it.” He looked at me doubtfully. “You’re takin’ a long chance, Scholar.” He was right, of course, yet the more I considered the situation the more I decided I was right. The lot of us, if we turned from our route, would immediately excite curiosity from those who sought the woman and the boy, and if two dropped out, that would not be missed, yet one would arouse doubt that they had seen correctly. Moreover, I liked being alone, and was sure that I could find them… or what was just as likely… they would find me, if alone.
Some distance from our camp there was a rugged sandstone ridge, broken and shattered like a massive, uneven wall, with fragments fallen out from it and mingled with outcroppings. There was some cedar scattered among these ruins, and it was there, under cover of night, I took shelter with my horse.
With me I carried a good supply of dried meat, and so lay quietly. As the sun arose and our party prepared to move out, I lay motionless in the shadows of the rocks and watched and waited.
Finally, they took the trail. Gnawing on a piece of jerky, I watched them trail away and disappear, and still I lay quiet.
When the strangers appeared, it was suddenly and without warning. They topped a low ridge and rode down to our camp, looking all about, examining tracks. Alt they spent the better part of a half hour, just looking about. None of them were men who had ridden into our camp with Captain Fernandez.