The Tenderfoot Trail Page 9

  The girl’s face revealed her confusion and fear. “But how? There are so many of them.”

  Garrett had no answer. “Somehow,” he said, managing a tight smile as he brushed past her and walked to Ready. He kneeled beside the old puncher and put a hand on his chest.

  “Yeah, I’m still alive, Luke.” Ready opened his eyes and gave the younger man a weak grin. “But I’m mighty close to taking the big jump. One of them hoss thieves got a bullet into me.” The grin grew wider. “Cleaned his plow for him though, didn’t I?”

  Garrett nodded. “You sure did, Zeb. You done real good.”

  “Listen, Luke, all my talkin’ is just about done. But I need to tell you something, a thing I never worked up the nerve to tell you afore. Luke, you were my boss, but to me you were a sight more than that, like a son.”

  Garrett opened his mouth to speak, but Ready held up a hand. “I’ve done said my piece and you don’t have to say anything your ownself. Sometimes silence can be a speech.” The old man reached inside his shirt and produced a small buckskin bag. He smiled and said, “I been holding out on you, Luke. I’ve set money aside every month since I rode for ol’ Charlie Goodnight.” He shoved the bag into Garrett’s shirt pocket. “There’s three double eagles in there. Figured we’d have it to fall back on if we ever come on hard times. Use it for that artesian well you’ve always wanted.”

  Ready’s breaths were coming fast and shallow and the blue death shadows were gathering under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. From somewhere Garrett heard the little brunette let out a shrill, outraged shriek, followed by Kane’s lion roar of a laugh and the bellows of his highly amused men. But he ignored the uproar around him, all his attention on the dying Ready.

  He patted his shirt pocket and smiled. “This is more than enough for the well, Zeb.” Ready had seen death in many forms and knew his time was short. There was no point in pretending otherwise.

  “I’ll put a brass plate on it somewheres with writing on it that says, ‘The Zeb Ready Memorial Well.’ ”

  The old man smiled. “Hell, Luke, that’s better than a mountain called for me.”

  Ready was fading fast, his voice barely a whisper, and Garrett leaned closer. “Luke, when we was riding the high country an’ camped near the aspens, do you mind that song we used to sing? It was always my favorite.”

  Garrett nodded, his eyes stinging. “Sure I do, Zeb. Let me see, how does it go now . . . ?”

  In a voice so soft it was barely a whisper, he began:As I was a-walking one morning for pleasure,

  I spied a cowpuncher a-ridin’ along.

  His hat was throwed back and his spurs were a-jinglin’,

  And as he approached me he was singing this song.

  Ready smiled, his eyes alight, and he joined in the chorus in a weak, unsteady voice:Whoopee ti-yi-yo, git along little doggies,

  It’s your misfortune, and none of my own.

  Garrett saw the old puncher’s eyes flutter, then close, the smile on his lips frozen forever. Zeb Ready had saddled up and was following a dim, narrow trail toward greener pastures. Garrett finished the song alone.

  Whoopee ti-yo, git along little doggies,

  You know that Wyoming will be your new home.

  Garrett laid the tips of his fingers on the dead man’s forehead. “Ride easy, pardner,” he whispered. Then he rose to his feet, the sense of loss in him a dull, cold ache that he knew would never leave him.

  Kane was stepping into the leather and a couple of his men who were already mounted were herding the horses of Garrett’s remuda toward the mouth of the arroyo, Jenny and the other women falling in behind them. The young rancher stepped quickly to his black, caught up the reins and had his foot in the stirrup when the towhead’s icy voice stopped him.

  “Leave that pony alone, cowboy,” the man said, taking a step toward him, his hand on his gun. “You ain’t goin’ with us.”

  “Going or not, I need a horse,” Garrett said, a feeling nagging him that something real bad was about to happen.

  The towhead turned and looked up at Kane, who was sitting his saddle watching, casually picking his teeth with a scrap of mesquite twig. “What do I do with the cowboy, Thetas?” he asked.

  Kane smiled, spat the twig from his mouth and drew at the same time. His gun roared and Garrett felt a red-hot sledgehammer crash into his chest. Suddenly he was falling . . . plunging headlong into a yawning abyss of scarlet-streaked darkness.

  Chapter 13

  Awareness slowly returned to Luke Garrett, stark and merciless. The agony in his chest was a fire that threatened to consume him, made worse by sharp lances of pain that spiked along his ribs on the left side.

  He opened his eyes to darkness. The sky above the walls of the arroyo shimmered with stars, as though the hand of God had scattered diamonds across a backdrop of black velvet. A longhorn moon was riding high, surrounded by a halo of silver and pale pink, and the breeze that touched Garrett’s face smelled of dust and heat. Nowhere was there a sound or a movement.

  For a few minutes Garrett lay still, fearing to sit up and look at the bullet wound in his chest. Out here, miles from any possible medical help, he knew he was done for and his time would be short.

  Slow and careful as a naked man climbing a barbed-wire fence, Garrett raised his head. He looked down at his shirt and saw a brown stain of dried blood, about dead center in the pocket of his shirt.

  He tried to move and was surprised that he had the strength to sit up, though his head swam and his forehead beaded with sweat from the effort. With unsteady hands, he began to unbutton his shirt.

  The hushed rustle of lightly stepping feet padding through sun-dried grass carried like a thin whisper across the quiet of the night.

  Garrett froze, his hands on the front of his shirt. The footfalls were coming from his right and he turned his head and looked into the darkness. He saw nothing but night shadows, here and there the silver sheen of the moonlight gleaming on the high slopes of the arroyo.

  Had the Crows come back?

  Garrett tensed. He was all shot to pieces and his strength was running out fast. But he was determined to sell what remained of his life dearly. He had no gun, but he reached into his pants, found his pocketknife and opened the blade. It was a puny weapon and any fighting he did with it would have to be up close and personal, but it was all he had and he was determined to make the most of it.

  The stealthy padding of feet stopped suddenly and the silence again fell around Garrett. “Who’s there?” he yelled, his voice sounding hollow as a drum.

  The quiet taunted him, the darkness crowding closer, blacker.

  A soft stirring in the grass . . . and Garrett knew his time of waiting would soon be over.

  He gripped the knife, holding it out in front of him at waist level and braced himself for what was to come. “I’m ready for you, Injun,” he called into the night, loss of blood and his own dry fear making him reckless.

  But the shadow that emerged from the gloom and took form was not an Indian—it was a timber wolf. The animal’s amber eyes glowed in the darkness as it stepped to within five yards of Garrett and stopped, giving him a slow, searching look, its nose lifted to the smell of blood.

  Garrett’s breath caught in his throat. He had seen wolves before when he’d ridden the high country, but then only at a distance as they moved like gray ghosts through the aspens.

  But this big lobo was like no other wolf he’d ever seen.

  The animal was much larger than the average male, standing nearly three feet at the shoulder, and Garrett guessed its weight at a hundred and fifty pounds. For long moments the wolf studied him, then it stepped closer, placing each huge paw on the grass with infinite care, its head carried low, though its eyes, reflecting the moonlight, never left Garrett’s face.

  “Damn you, I’m ready,” the young rancher whispered, all his uncertainty and fear leaving him. He gripped the knife harder and shifted his body so he was facing the wolf.

/>   It was then he saw the white scar across the big lobo’s face, a deep furrow angling from its muzzle to under its left ear. Only a bullet could have caused a mark like that. At one time in its life, this wolf had been real lucky. An inch farther to the right and it would have been a goner.

  The animal came closer, so close its nose was just inches from Garrett’s face, its breath hot on his cheek, the intelligent amber eyes calculating and wary. Garrett made no move to use his knife. So far the wolf had shown no aggression. It was curious, as though looking for something.

  For long, tense moments, man and animal remained like statues, neither moving, the night closing in around them. Finally the wolf turned and trotted away, soon swallowed by the darkness.

  Garrett waited, still grasping his knife in a sweaty palm. A minute ticked past, then another.

  From high atop the arroyo, an echoing wolf howl haunted the hushed night, a savage song that spoke of grief and loss and emptiness. Garrett listened, strangely moved, until the song died away and was lost among the hills.

  He looked down at his partly unbuttoned shirt. Had the giant wolf joined him in the darkness to tell him it would sing his death song? Garrett had no answer. He undid the rest of his buttons, opened his shirt and saw the wound on his chest.

  When he pulled the shirt away, the wound reopened and bled. Garrett’s fingertips probed around the bullet hole and touched metal, causing him so much pain in his ribs that he gritted his teeth and a low groan escaped him.

  Had his ribs stopped the bullet?

  Garrett probed his wound again, his breathing short and fast, hissing between his clenched teeth. He touched something round and hard. The rim of the bullet? Forcing himself to stay conscious, Garrett pinched the rim between his thumb and forefinger and pulled. Pain hammered at him, but the slug refused to budge. Exhausted, he quit for the moment and wiped bloody fingers on his chaps.

  The moon was dropping lower in the sky, horning aside a few fleeting clouds, and the breeze touched Garrett’s fevered face, bringing him a welcome coolness. The wolf was gone, but the coyotes were yipping out in the darkness and closer something small and stealthy rustled through the grass.

  It was time to try again.

  This time the bullet moved a little. Again Garrett wiped bloody, slippery fingers on his chaps and grabbed the protruding rim. He pulled the object free—and found himself looking at a bent twenty-dollar gold piece, one of the double eagles Zeb had given him.

  Garrett picked up his shirt and took the bloody buckskin bag from the pocket. He tipped the remaining coins into his hand. One had been holed dead center by Thetas Kane’s bullet, and the other had a half-moon clipped out of the rim. He figured the round must have gone through one coin, clipped a second then hit the third, bending it and forcing it between his ribs.

  Zeb had given him the money to have a well dug, but the double eagles had stopped Kane’s bullet and saved his life.

  Garrett looked into the darkness, toward where Zeb’s body lay, and he whispered, “Thanks, old man. Thanks for everything.”

  As far as he could tell he had no broken ribs, but the wound in his chest where the coin had penetrated was raw, nasty and painful.

  Garrett rose to his feet, swaying a little as his head spun. When the world around him righted itself, he picked up his shirt, followed the moonlight deep into the arroyo and found what he was looking for, a thick stand of prickly pear.

  He kicked off several pads, then he carefully used his knife to filet one, digging out the soft, pulpy center. This he pressed against his wound, holding it in place with the palm of his right hand. The pulp would help keep the wound clean and stop any infection from getting started. It was another thing old Zeb had taught him, a remedy the old man had learned from the Comanches.

  There were still several hours until daylight, and, a dragging weariness in him, Garrett spread his shirt on the grass and lay down on top of it. He fell asleep holding the cactus poultice against his chest and knew no more until the darkness surrendered to the light of the new day.

  Garrett woke to a bright dawn. He sat up, blinking against the light, and looked at his chest. At some point during the night he had moved his hand and the cactus pulp had dropped to the ground. But the wound looked clean and he felt less pain, so long as he didn’t try to move.

  He got up and put on his shirt, gingerly adjusting his wide suspenders over the wound, then found his hat. His mouth was dry and he had a raging thirst. But the water was gone with Kane and the wagon, and there was none to be had in that parched country unless he walked clear to the Marias. And he’d never make it that far.

  Slowly, every step its own moment of agony, Garrett walked from the arroyo and onto the prairie. The Indian dead were gone, spirited away during the hours of darkness, and so were their ponies. Around him lay a vast emptiness, nowhere a sound or a movement.

  Brown blood still stained the grass where the Weasel and his Crow warriors had fallen and Garrett began to cast around, searching for the Colt that had dropped from his hand during the fight. To his joy he found the gun after a few minutes of searching. He punched out the spent shells and refilled the cylinders from his cartridge belt, suddenly feeling less naked and vulnerable.

  But he knew it was an illusion.

  Summing it all up in his own mind, he was alone on the Whoop-Up Trail, where it seemed that every man’s hand was turned against him. Zeb was dead, his herd was scattered all over hell and half of Montana, never to be seen again, and he had no horse. He was weak from loss of blood, thirsty and getting thirstier by the minute, and he was miles from water in a harsh, hot and unforgiving wilderness.

  “But on the positive side,” Garrett whispered aloud, smiling at his own misery. He waited a moment, then added, “Well, there’s sure no positive side to this here situation that I can see.”

  He took off his hat, wiped his sweating brow with the back of his hand, then beat the hat against his chaps, freeing it of dust, before settling it on his head again.

  The corrugated ribbon of the Whoop-Up Trail lay just to the west, and Garrett studied it for a long while, deciding on his next move. He looked to the south, searching the horizon. In the distance a faint veil of dust lifted against the pale blue of the sky. The mysterious rider, whoever he might be, was still there and, at least for now, seemed to be keeping to the main trail.

  Garrett wondered who the man might be. Friend or foe? He had no way of knowing, but he guessed that question might be answered one way or the other very soon. Until then there was no point in harrying the subject.

  After a few more minutes of thought, Garrett made up his mind. He’d given Charlie Cobb his word that he would take his women along the trail to Fort Whoop-Up, and that’s what he would do, no matter the odds facing him. And there was the matter of the Red Angus bull. Garrett needed the animal if he was to improve his herd, and that was no small consideration. And he had yet another personal stake in the matter. Jenny was out there somewhere with Thetas Kane and his wolfers and he had promised the girl he’d save her.

  The only question was how.

  Every man is afraid of something. What did Kane fear?

  Again, it was a question without an answer, but an answer Garrett decided he must seek if he was to have any chance of saving Jenny and the others and getting through this alive.

  But before he took to the trail, he had one last duty to perform.

  Garrett returned to the arroyo and laid out Zeb Ready as best he could. There was no question of a burial, but he stood beside the old puncher’s body and whispered, “Zeb, I’m not a praying man, but I guess you know that if I had the words I’d sure let ’em rip.” He got down on one knee and placed his hand on the old man’s forehead. “So I reckon I’ll just say . . . adios, viejo amigo.”

  Rising to his feet, Garrett walked out of the arroyo and into the plain. He didn’t look back.

  Chapter 14

  The sun rose in the sky, burning across the silent, empty land and there s
eemed to be no limit to its heat, lying heavy on Luke Garrett as he walked. Ahead of him the Whoop-Up Trail stretched on forever until it was lost against the horizon, where shimmering waves danced, blurring the line between earth and sky. On either side of the trail rose shallow hills, cut through by narrow arroyos, and out there nothing moved—not a bird, not a lizard. Even the insects had fallen quiet.

  Garrett stumbled on, awkward in high-heeled boots that were never built for walking. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth and his thirst was a greater pain than the wound in his chest, a searing dryness that threatened to devour him.

  After two hours, as the fiery ball of the sun climbed to its highest point, he left the trail and sought shade in one of the arroyos. But there was no shade, not in the arroyo, not anywhere.

  Exhausted, Garrett sat down heavily on the canyon’s sandy bottom, no more than a dry wash strewn with rocks. He picked up a pebble and put it in his mouth, trying to work up saliva. But after a few unsuccessful minutes he spat the rock out, his mouth as dry as it was before.

  The sun seemed to be suspended in the sky, a brassy ball hanging right above him, so close it looked like he could reach out and touch it and let it burn his fingers.

  His head hanging, Garrett made himself think, searching for a solution to his present problem. Before anything else, he had to find water—and soon. He calculated he was about ten to fifteen miles south of the bend of the Marias, an impossible distance under a blazing sun. He would never make it—unless he traveled at night when the heat was less intense.

  The more Garrett thought about it, the more he decided it was the only way. He would hole up for the rest of the day and set out for the river at dusk.

  He unbuttoned his shirt and looked at the wound in his chest. It was red and angry, painful to the touch, but showed no sign of poisoning. At least that was good news.

  Garrett buttoned up and rose to his feet. He walked to the mouth of the arroyo and his eyes scanned the trail to the south. He saw no dust. It seemed that the mysterious rider on his back trail had also sought shade away from the heat.