He did not see me, for where I lay there was shadow, and if he saw anything of me at all, it was merely a form half outlined in the darkness. He was looking at Lucinda, and he held a knife in his hand. He started to move, then hesitated. He must step past Shanagan as well as the boy, and he did not like it. The slightest wrong move or sound and those around her would awaken, and he would be caught.
He did not like the odds. I could see the hesitation, the debate in his mind. One of them and he might have chanced it, but two he dared not chance, and with both Kemble and myself close by as well.
The dogs had quieted. There was no sound but that brief spatter of rain. For a moment I was tempted to shoot, yet I did not know the stranger, and he might well be a friend, although not for a moment did I believe that.
Who was he?
He was no man I had ever seen before.
Certainly he was not Fernandez or any of his men.
He was a stranger, but that he was a man of evil I had no doubt. Nor had I any doubt that he wished to either kill or capture Lucinda.
Gently I eased back the edge of my buffalo robe and thrust out the muzzle of my pistol. Yet even as I did so the tall man turned slightly and I saw his other hand held a pistol. He lifted it and aimed it not at me, but at Lucinda. His eyes were boring into the darkness as if he could actually see me.
“You might kill me”–he spoke very softly -com?b I would certainly kill her.” My pistol still covering him, I stood suddenly to my feet.
But he was gone.
Swiftly I stepped over the others to the edge of the woods, and there was no one there, nor was there any sound. At that moment the rain began to fall harder and I stepped into the woods. There was no one there.
Davy Shanagan was sitting up. “What is it?” “There was someone here,” I said. “Keep an eye out.” A swift search of the small patch of woods brought me nothing. Wherever he had gone, he had done so swiftly and with no nonsense about it. Beyond the patch of woods, there was open prairie and there seemed no place where a man could hide.
Skirting the woods, I returned.
“Sure you weren’t dreamin’ then?” Davy asked.
“He was a tall man, very pale… with black eyes.” “Maybe it was a ghost you saw,” Davy said.
“What man could come to this camp without arousing the dogs? And never a yelp from them, not a yelp. Not from the horses, either.” Had I been dreaming?
“It was no ghost,” I declared, “and he spoke to me.” “I heard nothing,” Davy said, “and I’m sure I would have.” Both of us lay down again, but I slept fitfully from then on, disturbed that any man could approach our camp so easily. When morning came, I scouted around but found no tracks, nor did Davy. I began to doubt my own senses, and when I opened the subject at breakfast with Lucinda, she shook her head.
Yet when I described the man, she turned very pale. “Why! Why, that’s what my father looked like!” “But your father’s dead?” “Of course, he is! At least I was told so, and I believe it. But if it were my father, he would have come into camp. He would have spoken to me.” “A ghost,” Davy insisted, “you’ve seen a ghost, man.” “Bah!” Bob Sandy said roughly. “There’s no such thing as ghosts. He had a dream… or a nightmare, if you like. I’ve had them myself, and often enough. But mine were mostly with Indians in them, and I had a many in the years after my family were killed by those screamin’, howlin’ redskins.” “After this,” Talley said, “we’ll post a guard, tired though we may be. I want no man, nor ghost either, for that matter, coming into our camp unknown to us.” Our plans had been made, and now we went among the Cheyennes to trade for extra dried meat, and to make our preparations for the north. We would ride north, skirting the eastern face of the mountains, and once past them we would turn east of the mountains toward the villages.
“We will be coming out on the open plains in the winter,” Kemble said. “It’s asking for trouble unless we’ve more luck than we deserve.” “I can take them alone,” I said.
Isaac Heath turned on me. “Are you more gallant than we are? I think not, Scholar. We will go with you, for alone you would never make it through. No offense intended.” “I take none. I know it would be difficult.” “We’ll trap on the way,” Ebitt said.
“We must have something for supplies for another season.” My eyes went from one to the other, knowing what this meant to the lot of them. This was their life. To me it might be my life, but also might be only an interlude. I was not dependent upon furs as they were. A little money remained in an eastern bank, and a profession whenever I wished to return … if I ever did.
“Thank you. I appreciate this, and so does Miss Falvey.” “I do!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I do!” And so we prepared ourselves for the march to the north, and said nothing more of it.
Yet I remembered the tall man with the pale face. Of one thing I was sure. He had been no ghost.
CHAPTER 11
There was no immediate taking off. There was planning to do, and equipment to put together. I sat long with Walks-By-night and talked of trails, of game, of mountains. He had often hunted far to the north, and had gone north on raids against the Crow.
Finally, I showed him the map. After some thought, he recognized the place and gave me clear directions. Of this, I said nothing.
Meanwhile Walks-By-night presented me with a lean, powerful Appaloosa, a horse he swore to me was the finest buffalo horse he had known. My own horse went to Feather Man, who traded me a buckskin and a zebra dun for packhorses.
Finally, we put our packs together. The Cheyennes had little food to spare, but they let us have what they could, and it was noble of them, with a long winter to come.
The morning was frosty but clear when we started out, a few stars still hanging in the sky. Solomon Talley led off, riding beside Degory Kemble, Sandy and Shanagan followed, and then the dozen packhorses, followed by Lucinda and I, with Ulibarri riding herd on the packhorses.
Cusbe Ebitt and Isaac Heath brought up the rear.
We rode out, down into the riverbed and along it at a good clip. We wanted distance between ourselves and the encampment, hoping our disappearance would not soon be known.
We no longer feared pursuit by Captain Fernandez–we were going north, clearly out of Spanish territory–unless he was after the girl.
And we did not think it was he who had followed her from Santa Fe.
Leaves were falling from the trees that morning, yet many had only turned red and gold with autumn. We left our friendly stream bed and turned up another, strange to us, but one that flowed down from the north.
Lucinda was silent, reluctant to go, yet appreciating the fact that we had no choice but to move and swiftly. As we rode, she became increasingly disturbed and I noticed her eyes going to the sun as if trying to determine our direction.
“If you have anything to say, better say it now.” “What?” Her eyes were suspicious. “What do you mean by that?” I shrugged. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?
Someone follows you from the Spanish colonies.
Why? Because he believes you have something he wants, or you can tell him where it is.
“The man I saw, the one you said resembled your father, he didn’t look like a man who would follow a woman for love. He might take a horsewhip to one, but follow her… no. He looked like a man interested in only two things: money and power.” “I don’t know him.” “He knows you, and he’ll be following us.” “You don’t think we’ve slipped away from him?” “That man? There isn’t a chance. He’d be like a wolf on the trail. To be rid of him, you must give him what he wants.” “I will not!” I chuckled. “And neither will I. But we must be prepared to run, to fight, and to run again. These men” -comI gestured at those with us–“they risk their lives as well as their season’s trapping for you.