“Bows and arrows against guns and machines?” Travis inquired bitingly. “We must know more before we make any warrior boasts for the future. Tell Buck what we have discovered. Also say I will join you before,” Travis calculated—”ten suns. If I do not, send no search party; the clan is too small to risk more lives for one.”
“And if these Russians take you—?”
Travis grinned, not pleasantly. “They shall learn nothing! Can their machines sort out the thoughts of a dead man?” He did not intend his future to end as abruptly as that, but also he would not be easy meat for any Russian hunting party.
Tsoay took a share of their rations and refused the company of the coyotes. Travis realized that for all his seeming ease with the animals, the younger scout had little more liking for them than Deklay and the others back at the rancheria. Tsoay went at dawn, aiming at the pass.
Travis sat down beside Kaydessa. They had bound her to a small tree, and she strove incessantly to free herself, turning her head at an acute and painful angle, only to face the same direction in which she had been tied. There was no breaking the spell which held her. And she would soon wear herself out with that struggling. Then he struck an expert blow.
The girl sagged limply, and he untied her. It all depended now on the range of the beam or broadcast of that diabolical machine. From the attitude of the coyotes, he assumed that those using the machine had not made any attempt to come close. They might not even know where their quarry was; they would simply sit and wait in the foothills for the caller to reel in a helpless captive.
Travis thought that if he moved Kaydessa farther away from that point, sooner or later they would be out of range and she would awake from the knockout, free again. Although she was not light, he could manage to carry her for a while. So burdened, Travis started on, with the coyotes scouting ahead.
He speedily discovered that he had set himself an ambitious task. The going was rough, and carrying the girl reduced his advance to a snail-paced crawl. But it gave him time to make certain plans.
As long as the Russians held the balance of power on this side of the mountain range, the rancheria was in danger. Bows and knives against modern armament was no contest at all. And it would only be a matter of time before exploration on the part of the northern settlement—or some tracking down of Tatar fugitives—would bring the enemy across the pass.
The Apaches could move farther south into the unknown continent below the wrecked ship, thus prolonging the time before they were discovered. But that would only postpone the inevitable showdown. Whether Travis could make his clan believe that, was also a matter of concern.
On the other hand, if the Russian overlords could be met in some practical way . . . Travis’ mind fastened on that more attractive idea, worrying it as Naginlta worried a prey, tearing out and devouring the more delicate portions. Every bit of sense and prudence argued against such an approach, whose success could rest only between improbability and impossibility; yet that was the direction in which he longed to move.
Across his shoulder Kaydessa stirred and moaned. The Apache doubled his efforts to reach the outcrop of rock he could see ahead, chiseled into high relief by the winds. In its lee they would have protection from any sighting from below. Panting, he made it, lowering the girl into the guarded cup of space, and waited.
She moaned again, lifted one hand to her head. Her eyes were half open, and still he could not be sure whether they focused on him and her surroundings intelligently or not.
“Kaydessa!”
Her heavy eyelids lifted, and he had no doubt she could see him. But there was no recognition of his identity in her gaze, only surprise and fear—the same expression she had worn during their first meeting in the foothills.
“Daughter of the Wolf,” he spoke slowly. “Remember!” Travis made that an order, an emphatic appeal to the mind under the influence of the caller.
She frowned, the struggle she was making naked on her face. Then she answered:
“You—Fox—”
Travis grunted with relief, his alarm subsiding. Then she could remember.
“Yes,” he responded eagerly.
But she was gazing about, her puzzlement growing. “Where is this—?”
“We are higher in the mountains.”
Now fear was pushing out bewilderment. “How did I come here?”
“I brought you.” Swiftly he outlined what had happened at their night camp.
The hand which had been at her head was now pressed tight across her lips as if she were biting furiously into its flesh to still some panic of her own, and her gray eyes were round and haunted.
“You are free now,” Travis said.
Kaydessa nodded, and then dropped her hand to speak. “You brought me away from the hunters. You did not have to obey them?”
“I heard nothing.”
“You do not hear—you feel!” She shuddered. “Please.” She clawed at the stone beside her, pulling up to her feet. “Let us go—let us go quickly! They will try again—move farther in—”
“Listen,” Travis had to be sure of one thing—”have they any way of knowing that they had you under control and that you have again escaped?”
Kaydessa shook her head, some of the panic again shadowing her eyes.
“Then we’ll just go on—” his chin lifted to the wastelands before them—”try to keep out of their reach.”
And away from the pass to the south, he told himself silently. He dared not lead the enemy to that secret. So he must travel west or hole up somewhere in this unknown wilderness until they could be sure Kaydessa was no longer susceptible to that call, or that they were safely beyond its beamed radius. There was the chance of contacting her outlaw kin, just as there was the chance of stumbling into a pack of the ape-things. Before dark they must discover a protected camp site.
They needed water, food. He had a bare half dozen ration bars. But the coyotes could locate water.
“Come!” Travis beckoned to Kaydessa, motioning her to climb ahead of him so that he could watch for any indication of her succumbing once again to the influence of the enemy. But his burdened early morning flight had told on Travis more than he thought, and he discovered he could not spur himself on to a pace better than a walk. Now and again one of the coyotes, usually Nalik’ideyu, would come into view, express impatience in both stance and mental signal, and then be gone again. The Apache was increasingly aware that the animals were disturbed, yet to his tentative gropings at contact they did not reply. Since they gave no warning of hostile animal or man, he could only be on constant guard, watching the countryside about him.
They had been following a ledge for several minutes before Travis was aware of some strange features of that path. Perhaps he had actually noted them with a trained eye before his archaeological studies of the recent past gave him a reason for the faint marks. This crack in the mountain’s skin might have begun as a natural fault, but afterward it had been worked with tools, smoothed, widened to serve the purpose of some form of intelligence!
Travis caught at Kaydessa’s shoulder to slow her pace. He could not have told why he did not want to speak aloud here, but he felt the need for silence. She glanced around, perplexed, more so when he went down on his knees and ran his fingers along one of those ancient tool marks. He was certain it was very old. Inside of him anticipation bubbled. A road made with such labor could only lead to something of importance. He was going to make the discovery, the dream which had first drawn him into these mountains.
“What is it?” Kaydessa knelt beside him, frowning at the ledge.
“This was cut by someone, a long time ago,” Travis half whispered and then wondered why. There was no reason to believe the road makers could hear him when a thousand years or more lay between the chipping of that stone and this day.
The Tatar girl looked over her shoulder. Perhaps she too was troubled by the sense that here time was subtly telescoped, that past and present might be meeting. Or was that feeling with them both because of their enforced conditioning?
“Who?” Now her voice sank in turn.
“Listen—” he regarded her intently—”did your people or the Russians ever find any traces of the old civilization here—ruins?”
“No.” She leaned forward, tracing with her own finger the same almost-obliterated marks which had intrigued Travis. “But I think they have looked. Before they discovered that we could be free, they sent out parties—to hunt, they said—but afterward they always asked many questions about the country. Only they never asked about ruins. Is that what they wished us to find? But why? Of what value are old stones piled on one another?”