At midnight, I stirred Fuentes with a boot. He opened his eyes at once.
“I’ll sleep,” I said, “call me about three.”
“Bueno,” he agreed. “Do you think, amigo, that they will come?” I shrugged. “Let’s just say they will. I don’t know. But if we figure it that way we’ll be ready.”
For several minutes I lay awake, listening. There was a frog somewhere nearby in the creek or near it, and there was an owl in one of the cottonwoods. A hand on my shoulder awakened me. “All is quiet. Joe is asleep.” I shook out my boots in case they had collected any spare spiders, lizards or snakes, and then pulled them on, stamping them into place. Fuentes lay down and I went to the sick man. He lay with his head turned on one side, breathing loudly. His lips looked cracked and dry. I walked to the fire and added a few sticks. Sitting down in darkness with my back to a huge old cottonwood, I tried to sort the situation out.
Balch was not stealing, nor were we. I doubted if the major was … but what about Saddler? I had never trusted the man, never liked him, yet that was no reason to believe him a thief.
An unknown? And was the unknown some connection of Lisa’s?
What do do?
First, try to find where Lisa came from, locate her, study the situation, possibly eliminate her as a possibility. Perhaps the next thing would be to scout the Edwards Plateau country.
From time to time I got to my feet and prowled about, listening. I stopped by the horses, speaking softly to each one. The night was very still, and very dark.
My thoughts went to Ann Timberly, and to China Benn. It was rare to find two such beautiful girls in one area. Yet, on second thought, that wasn’t unusual in Texas, where beautiful girls just seem to happen in the most unexpected places. Moving back to the small fire, I added a few sticks, then went back to the shadows at the edge of camp, keeping my eyes away from the fire for better night vision. A wind stirred the leaves, one branch creaked as it rubbed against another, and far off under the willows something fell, making a faint plop as it struck the damp ground.
Uneasily, I listened. Suddenly I shifted position, not wanting to stand too long in one place. I did not like the feel of the night. It was wet and still … but something seemed to be waiting out there.
I thought of the unseen, unknown marksman who had shot at me. What if he came now, when I was tied to this place and the care of a wounded man? Something sounded, something far off … A drum of hoof beats … A rider in the night.
Who … on such a night?
Again the wind stirred the leaves. A rider was coming. Moving back to the edge of darkness and firelight, I spoke softly: “Tony?” He was instantly awake. There was a faint light on his face from the fire, and I saw his eyes open. “A rider … coming this way.” His bed was empty. As suddenly as that, he was in the shadows and I caught the gleam of firelight on a rifle barrel. He moved like a cat, that Mexican did. The rider was coming up through patches of mesquite, and I could almost hear the changes of course as the horse moved around and among them—but coming on, unerringly. This was no casual rider, it was someone coming here, to this place. Suddenly the horse was nearer, his pace slowed, but the horse still came on. A voice called from the darkness. “Milo?”
“Come on in!” I called back.
It was Ann Timberly.
19
She stared at me, shocked. “But … but I heard you were wounded!”
“Not me. Joe Hinge caught one. Tory Benton shot him.” “Where is he?” She swung down before I could reach out a hand to help her, bringing her saddlebags with her. Before I could reply, her eyes found him and she crossed quickly to his side and opened his shirt. “I’ll need some hot water, and some more light.”
“We’ve nothing to heat it in,” I protested.
She gave me a disgusted look. “Tony has a canteen. Hang it over the fire and it will heat fast enough. And don’t look at me like that. I’ve treated wounds before. You seem to forget that I grew up in an army camp!” “I didn’t know.” Tony was stripping the covering from his canteen, and rigging a forked stick he could prop it over the fire with. I broke sticks, built up the flame.
“How’d you get here?” I asked.
“On a horse, stupid. They’re bringing a rig, but I knew it would take too long.
So I just came on ahead to see what I could do.” She was working as she talked, cleaning the wound as best she could, using some kind of antiseptic on a cloth, after bathing it with water. Nobody had any illusions. She might know a good deal about gunshot wounds, as well as other kinds, but doctors themselves knew mighty little, and there were no hospitals anywhere near. Survival usually meant reasonable rest and a tough constitution—and mostly the latter. Yet I’d seen men survive impossible injuries time and again.
Tony had taken her horse, walked him around a little and was rubbing him down. That horse had been running, all-out and too long. Seeing her there bending over the fire, I could only shake my head in wonder. She hadn’t hesitated, but had come as fast as a horse would carry her.
I asked about that. “Switched horses twice,” she said, “at the Stirrup-Iron and at the Indian camp.”
My hair stiffened on the back of my neck. “Indian camp? Where?”
“About twenty miles east. A bunch of Kiowas.”
“You got a horse from Kiowas?”
“Why not? I needed one. I just rode into their camp and told them a man had been hurt and I needed a horse, that I carried medicine in my bags. They never asked another question, just switched horses and saddles for me and watched me ride off.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! Of all the gall!”
“Well, what could I do? I needed the horse and they had a lot of them, so I just rode right in.”
“They had their women with them?”
“No, they didn’t. It was a war party.” She looked up at me and grinned. “I startled them, I guess, and they just gave me the horse without any argument … Maybe it was the medicine bag.”
“More likely it was your nerve. There’s nothing an Indian respects more, and they may have thought some special kind of magic rode with you.” I looked at Fuentes, and he merely shrugged and shook his head. What could you do with a girl like that? Nevertheless, we both felt relieved. Neither of us knew too much about wounds, although Fuentes was better than I. We had nothing with us to treat such a wound, and I knew nothing of the plants of the area that an Indian might have used.
After a while, she came out to where I stood. There was a faint gray light in the east, and we stood together, watching the dark rims of the hills etch themselves more sharply against the growing light. “I thought it was you,” she said. “I was frightened.” “I’m glad you came. But you shouldn’t have, you know. You just lucked out with those Indians. If they’d seen you first, the story would be different now.” “Tory shot him?” she asked.
So I told her how it was, and just what had happened. “Now that you’re here, Fuentes and me will ride up on the mesa and bunch those cattle again. They won’t have strayed far.”
“What will happen now?”
Considering that question had got me nowhere, and I’d done a lot of considering since Tory fired that shot. We could only wait and see. “I don’t know,” I replied.
It could be a shooting war, and I knew how that went. It could begin with scattered gunfights, and then it could turn into drygulching and no man would be safe—not even passing strangers, who might be shot simply because if they were not on the shooter’s side they must be on the other. A thought occurred to me that I’d not considered before. “I rode in from the northwest,” I said, “an’ had no reason to think about it. But where’s your supply point? This is a long way from anywhere.” “San Antonio,” she replied. “We get together. Your outfit, ours and Balch and Saddler. Each of us sends two or three wagons and each sends drivers and a couple of outriders. Sometimes the soldiers from Fort Concho meet us and ride along to protect us.”