“You start it. When we find Kate, I’m going home. At least,” Mac added, “I’m going back where we came from.”
They rode again into the woods, weaving their way deeper and deeper, then turning south again.
Mac was tired, and he knew Dal was. They had been riding and fighting … how long since they had slept? Or eaten? Yet they could not think of that now. Kate was out there, perhaps in dire need.
“Hell of it is,” Dal said, “we don’t know what she’s riding, if she is riding anything. We don’t even know what to look for.”
It was hot. Dal mopped the sweat from his face and looked around. So much of this wooded place looked like any other. They pushed on.
Something over an hour later they rode into a grassy clearing to see a standing horse and a man sprawled on the ground.
Mac stepped down from his horse and turned the body over with his boot toe. The man’s nose had been broken. There was an ugly welt on his cheekbone and the skin was split, but his throat had been pierced and torn.
“What in God’s world?” Mac said. “Would you look at that!”
“Kate,” Dal said.
“Kate? Are you crazy?”
“No, sir. Kate, with the end of a stick. I showed her how. Don’t you remember what we learned from that character named Dugan? To thrust with a stick, not strike?”
Mac stared at the body. “Dal, take some advice from your big brother. If you marry that girl, be nice to her. You hear me?”
Sixteen
Night was coming, and Kate was alone. The big horse she was riding was fractious and difficult. She was tired and wanted to rest. Twice she had riders pass within a few yards of her, but now they seemed to be riding back toward the beach. From a word or two she had overheard she was sure the ship she had glimpsed was now at anchor.
If so, Ashford would be meeting with them, but what did he now have to offer? Perhaps there was money in one of the wagons; she did not know. She knew of none in her wagon, but she had heard of secret compartments in the floors of such wagons.
Now she wanted, desperately, to rest. She was hungry, but it was sleep she needed most. But where? How? There must be two dozen men roaming through the woods aside from the Travens. From time to time she heard outbursts of firing.
Suppose she rode to Connery’s ranch? To do so meant she must ride across open range for some distance, and in clear view of anybody who was watching. The big horse she rode was tired and could not stand a long run.
She had seen nothing of the girls, although a glimpse of the wagons indicated no movement, not even guards, hence nothing to guard. They had been taken away or had escaped.
Martin Connery had offered to let her stay, but she had chosen to return to help the girls. They had needed her, but now they were gone. Where, she did not know.
There was a small chain of lakes that ran parallel to Mission River. So for there had been no movement or action there, and if she could find her way she might find a place where she could simply lie down, if only for a few minutes.
She had checked the rifle and pistol she had acquired along with the horse. Both were loaded, both ready for use. Yet she had only the ammunition they carried, no more.
Stopping by a small stream she let the big horse drink, and lying down, she drank from the stream near her horse, holding the reins.
It was a quiet place. She looked around a small clearing, then went back to the edge of the trees, leading the horse.
There was a place there under the trees, a mossy green place. There was a rope on the horse, and she picketed him on the grass, tying the rope to the tree near her. Putting the rifle on some leaves at her side, she slid the pistol back under the leaves but where it could be quickly reached. Only then did she lie down. Almost at once, she was asleep.
Darkness gathered in the forest, and stillness was its companion. Small animals began to prowl, and in the trees birds ruffled their feathers. An owl questioned the darkness, then flew past on silent wings, a ghostly predator sweeping through the trees. A red wolf, seeking prey, smelled the sleeping girl, the horse, the sweaty leather of the saddle, and shied away, interested but wary. A snake crawled by within a few feet, but the horse snorted and stomped his feet, and the snake moved away, headed toward the nearby lake and the frogs it heard.
Bats swirled and dived and fluttered in the starlit darkness above the stunted forest. The sleeping girl turned on her side, and the rider heard the movement and drew up to listen. He heard the horse cropping grass, then slowly and carefully dismounted. The leather creaked as he swung down, and for a moment he stood very still, afraid the sound had awakened her. After a moment he tied his horse to a tree.
Tip-toeing to make no sound he went near her, looked down at her for a moment, then crossed to a nearby tree and sat down where he could watch her. He took off his wide sombrero and laid it, crown down, on the grass. After a moment he took off his boots and placed them carefully alongside his hat. Then he drew a pistol and laid it in his lap.
The girl turned restlessly in her sleep, and his hand went to the pistol, but she relaxed into deeper sleep.
In the deep stillness of the night a great flock of the whooping cranes swept in to a landing on the lake, settling like a white cloud upon the dark water. For a long moment the lake and the forest were silent, then slowly the night sounds renewed their strength. In the last hour before dawn frail streamers of mist floated in from the sea, huddling among the trees like so many ghosts called to picnic upon the damp grass. The man with the pistol returned it to his holster and shaking out his boots, drew them carefully on. Then he tip-toed to his horse and returned with a coffee-pot. He dipped water from the stream where a spring bubbled beneath the surface, and gathering dry wood from underneath old logs or breaking tiny twigs from the trunks of trees, he put together a small fire.
A thin tendril of fire lifted its questioning smoke, and the man selected a larger bit of dry wood from near a lady-slipper. The man looked at it. “You are the tricky one,” he whispered. “You are the deadly one.”
He walked back to his fire and added wood to boil the water. “Beautiful,” he whispered, “and deadly.” He glanced at the sleeping girl. “She is the same, I think.”
When the water was boiling he added coffee and went back to sit by his tree.
Kate Connery opened her eyes to a gray sky above a canopy of leaves. Streamers of light touched the wraiths of fog, and they shuddered like virgins approached by lechers and disappeared. The sunlight remained. The girl lay still, not quite awake, not quite free from dreaming, only slightly aware of the coffee smell.
She sat up abruptly, and the man smiled and doffed his hat. “Buenos dias, senorita. I am Fraconi.”
“I remember you.”
Her rifle was still beside her. To place the situation in proper perspective, she drew her pistol from under the leaves and placed it in her lap.
He smiled. “Coffee will soon be ready. The bacon, I regret, must be grilled over the fire. It will lose something, yet when one is hungry …?”
“I will enjoy it.”
He got to his feet in one swift, graceful movement. “There …” he pointed, “is a sheltered place where this stream enters the lake. If you wish to bathe or wash your face and hands, it is yours.” He smiled again. “I regret the amenities are less than I would wish.”
“You work for Captain Connery?”
He smiled again, a very different smile. “We are associated. Occasionally he has things for me to do. I do them. Otherwise, I am indolent. I live upon his bounty, on his ranch. I have fine horses to ride, enough to eat, occasionally a bottle of wine. Such a life is very simple, senorita. I prefer it so.”
“He is near?”
“He is on the ranch, I believe. With Captain Connery one is never sure. He shares his decisions with no one. He might be there, he might be here. He sent me to find the Travens. Instead I have found you, which is better.”