Haxan (22 page)

I dismounted and canvassed the ground, yard by yard. Daylight was fading fast. One or two stars, or planets, I guess, since they didn’t twinkle, rose in the east. I traversed the ground in the fading light. To add to my anxiety there were clouds building in the north, their bottoms reefed with blood.

I cut a single track just as the sun disappeared with a final spray of light.

I squatted on my haunches and studied what I had found. I got on the ground, length-wise, and peered eye-level across the flat, overlapping sheets of rock.

No doubt about it. It was them—or someone like them. I could make out the shadow of wagon wheels and hoof prints. There was a bit of chipped stone where an iron horseshoe had scuffed the ground and a doodlebug hole on top of a second print.

So. They had travelled through this narrow valley after all. It was scaled with rock plates that overlapped like roof shingles. Damn smart way to break up their road sign. But now that I knew what to look for I could dog them.

It was easier to scout the cracks between the rock shingles, where dirt was piled from an ant bed, or stones dislodged from the recent rains. I followed the trail out of the valley and came upon patches of thin grama grass. Here and there blades and stems were broken or mashed. Not enough time had passed for the grass to spring back up. It was getting very difficult for me to see. When I spotted horse droppings I toed them apart with my boot, breaking the crust.

Judging from the moisture inside they were eight hours, maybe ten, ahead of me. They had gained a
lot
of ground. But I had their trail now. I would follow it to the end of the Earth if need be.

I had done it before, on other worlds, and in other times.

I made a cold camp that night amidst rustling cottonwood trees. There wasn’t enough grass, other than a patch or two of Johnson weed, so I stripped bark off one of the trees and fed that to my horse.

I didn’t like stopping but there was nothing else I could do. I couldn’t follow this faint trail with only the stars for illumination. I knew of posses who used lamplight and torches to scout a night trail—I had ridden with some of them—but I was alone with no fire. Besides, if I built a fire, Rand would spot the glow from miles away. I wasn’t about to give him that much of an edge over me.

Tracking a man through the back country is like that. You don’t know where he is, and he doesn’t know where you are, exactly. You know he’s going to try and fox you, so you are always on the lookout for tricks. He knows you know it. He tries to keep one step ahead because he doesn’t want to stand on the gallows. The mental aspect of this, trying to read the other man’s thoughts, gets complicated between hound and hare. It’s like playing a long distance game of tag with death for one, or both of you, as the only prize.

Of one thing I was certain. Rand knew I was coming after him. He knew I would not quit. Not with Magra’s life in the balance.

Which must mean he had a card up his sleeve he hadn’t yet played. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it was. Only time would tell.

I had a bad fright when I saw the night sky start to flash off to the north. Those damn clouds. It went on for hours. It was heat lightning. My luck was holding. Rain, even the briefest of showers, would wash these tenuous tracks away. I would lose them for good.

The weather held and I caught an hour or two of sleep.

When morning came I used the slanting sun trick again, with the sun in the opposite sky, and picked up their trail. By breakfast time I was riding hard. I cut their tracks again, and then again twenty miles on the western side of Cottonwood Butte. I slipped off my saddle so I could study them.

This was Rand and crew. No doubt about it.

The tracks jinked north, then northeast. I followed them, keeping a sharp eye out for ambush. After five miles we were approaching Cottonwood Butte again. Rand was circling. At the western base the tracks split.

The wagon and one horse arrowed off toward the northeast. A single track broke west for the snow-white line of White Sands, miles and miles away.

I turned after the single track, knowing full well I was heading away from Magra. I had no choice. If I caught this man’s horse I would be better mounted and could overtake the slower buckboard that much faster. If I turned away and left this man behind me, he could ride up while I was approaching Rand and shoot me in the back.

It was a hard decision to make but I had learned long ago never to leave an enemy behind. That was only asking for trouble.

It was obvious Rand wanted me to see he had split his forces. He wanted me to come after him, giving this other man a chance to blind-side me from behind.

I wasn’t going to fall into his trap. I rode on. It was hard, turning away from Magra like that, but I had absolutely no other choice. I had to kill this man first or he would kill me.

By midday I hit White Sands.

I
had no problem following his tracks through the white sand drifts.

He wasn’t riding hard or fast at all. He wanted me to close up because he thought he could take me. If I didn’t, if I lost my nerve and turned back for Magra, he would swing around and put a bullet between my shoulder blades.

I presumed he had drawn the short straw last night. Maybe they had a pow-wow, the three men huddled together, furtive eyes scanning the dark horizon for signs, when Rand decided that come morning one of them would saddle his horse and kite me east.

They knew I would go after the single man like a duck after a June bug. If I could eliminate him, it would cut their numbers by a third when I confronted Rand. Furthermore, it would ensure I didn’t leave an enemy behind when I caught up to the wagon.

Either way, it worked out for Rand from a tactical standpoint. In his view if I took the single man first he had time, and more opportunities, to throw me off his trail.

This was the long distance game I mentioned earlier. Rand and I were trying to read each other’s mind across miles of hard country. You get to know a man you’re trailing. Even though there are miles separating you it’s like you’re closer to him than anyone else at that moment in time.

I followed the single line of hoof prints into White Sands. Their edges were crisp and had not degraded. He was four, maybe five hours ahead. Taking it real slow. Daring me to catch him.

The pristine, snow-white landscape was shattered here and there by a clump of yucca or tuft of wind-whipped grass. He headed deeper into the interior. Before long there was nothing but serried waves of frozen white sand marching into eternity all around me.

It was very quiet. The only sounds were my horse’s hooves scuffing through sand and the creak of saddle leather. The sun glare off the white sand was awful. I found myself starting to go snow-blind. I had to blink rapidly and find small shadows, or concentrate on the back of my horse’s neck, to break the monotony.

From what I could judge by the tracks, my prey remained hours ahead. Like a fool, I crested a dune instead of going around. It was a bad position. For a brief moment I was perfectly silhouetted against the flawless sky.

The rifle shot creased my left shoulder. I spun off the saddle, falling with a crunch in an awkward way, my gun hand trapped under me. My horse bolted.

Before I could spin over and clear my gun hand he was on top of me. I saw a grinning shadow before he crashed a rifle butt across the back of my head.

A splash of water on my face brought me back.

He stood with the sun behind him. Smart men always have the sun with them. He had a Barlow knife in one hand. His sorrel stood at ease a good piece away alongside my blue roan.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“What you need to know for?” His voice bubbled in his throat, like marbles rattling across dry wood. “You thinking to arrest me?” He laughed at the thought.

I was hogtied, lying on my right side. The white gypsum sand was eerily cool against my face and I was grateful for how it felt. My left shoulder was molten fire. I think the old wound in my side had opened up, too. I felt something wet trickle down my ribs. My leg was numb.

My captor squatted on his thin haunches, watching me like a hungry lizard watches a doomed cricket. He had a bleak, wind-raw face. He pulled makings from his shirt and rolled a cigarette.

“I drew low card.” He blew tobacco smoke and watched it drift over the white sand. “We figured you would try for the single man first.” A crisp smile broke the brown skin and rough, three-day-old whiskers of his face. “Didn’t think it would be this easy to take you, though. Hell, all I did was double back. Guess you thought I was still ahead. An easy trick.”

He smoked and looked disappointed in me. I was disappointed in myself, too.

“I don’t know.” He took another drag on the cigarette. “Maybe you’re not as good as they say.”

I couldn’t argue with that. I was the one hog-tied. He had a horn-handled knife and a gun on his hip. The rifle was back in the scabbard on his horse.

The cigarette bobbed in the corner of his mouth. “I woke you up, Marshal, because I wanted you to feel this here hurt I’m about to do you. I’ll start once I finish my smoke.”

“Take your time.”

Ash dropped from the end of his cigarette. He tested the blade of his knife with the ball of his thumb. It wasn’t quite up to snuff so he removed a whetstone from his shirt pocket and stropped it half a dozen times.

“Ain’t fun skinning an unconscious man,” he said, testing the blade again and grinning. “You can’t hear him squeal and beg for you to stop the hurt.”

I wondered if he was the one who drove the iron spikes into Shiner Larsen, or if they had all taken turns. No matter what happened this man would have wanted his turn doing that.

He picked the cigarette from his mouth, hawked and spat to one side. “Except, I never stop once I start to cutting.”

I tested my knots. My hands were lashed near the tops of my boots. He had done a professional job. I was completely immobile.

“I’ll start on your face.” He pointed the knife at me and drew curlicues in the air. “Then I’ll throw the skin over there on that dune so’s you can see your own face while I slice the rest of you.”

“Can I have water?”

“I don’t waste water on a dead man.” He took another drag on the cigarette. He rose to his feet and stretched.

“Gotta get limbered up. You know, it ain’t easy, skinning a man. Human leather don’t come off muscle easy like you’d think. Ain’t that funny?”

His bones cracked as he worked his arms back and forth.

My fingers were numb from the leather thongs biting my wrists. I used them to search carefully along the top of my right boot, trying to interpret what I was feeling with their tips.

“Let’s get this over.” He flipped his cigarette away in an arc. “Gotta ride hard to catch the outfit once I’m done fixin’ you. It’s my turn to have me a slice of that squaw meat.” He laughed. It was an ugly sound and I hated him for it. “I don’t want to miss my chance before we sell her to the Comanches.” His face twisted in a feral sneer. “Hell of a waste if you ask me. They’ll just cut her up for dog meat. Goddamn savages.”

The blade of his knife reflected silver as he started for me. I let him come. I wanted him close. I wouldn’t have a second chance.

“Sometimes a man will piss himself when he’s gettin’ skun,” he said. A bead of sweat rolled down his face into his dirty beard. I smelled his stink. His tongue touched his bottom lip in concentration. He bent low.

I rolled over quick, kicking up a flurry of sand and looking over my shoulder for the target. A professional would have done for me right there, but he dropped the knife and went for his gun when he saw what protruded from my fist. That was the mistake that killed him.

The little double-barrelled derringer from my boot barked twice. Both .41-calibre slugs hit him low in the stomach. His gun spun out of his open fingers. He folded to his knees and crawled off to die, one claw-like hand clutching his belly in unbelievable agony.

I rolled over toward the knife he dropped. I grunted with pain every time I came down on my bad shoulder.

No matter what I wanted that knife. He might be made of sterner stuff and remember the pistol he left behind. He was dying, but he wasn’t dead. Not yet. I sawed the blade through the knots fast as I could, flaying skin and not caring. When I had my hands free I cut the rope around my ankles and stumbled to my feet.

He had made a big, nasty mess in the sand, crawling around a high dune to hide himself in a patch of shadow and die in peace. I found my Colt Dragoon on his horse. I broke the cylinder open. It was loaded.

I walked around the opposite side of the dune.

He was hunched up trying to hold his guts in, his face a twisted mask of pain.

“I ain’t heeled, mister,” he wheezed between gritted teeth. “You shoot a dying man who is unarmed?”

I lowered my pistol and holstered it. I went back to my horse and dug through the saddlebag for a hand axe. When I came back to the dune he had crawled farther away, leaving a nasty blood trail.

Crimson on snow.

My shadow drew up on him. He was doubled up, knees drawn toward his chest. His bloodless lips skinned away from his teeth as he said, “Guess you don’t stop, neither.”

He breathed in hissing jerks of fear and pain.

“Never have yet,” I told him.

He watched me come on.

When I finished I left him for carrion and put what I wanted in an old flour sack. I caught his horse along with mine and started out of White Sands. His bullet had cut me, but the blood was stanched and I didn’t need to be sewn up.

It was a long, lonely ride out of that white, featureless desert. I was glad to leave the immense quiet behind. The pain in my shoulder crested in waves, like the dunes of white sand the two horses kicked through. Black clouds amassed over my head, like ladders with rungs made of feathers. I kept riding until they were behind me, towering.

All those clouds building up and no shadow to cut the sun. Why didn’t it rain if there were so many clouds in the sky, I wondered.

It was late afternoon when I emerged from the soundless desolation of White Sands. I came out of the northern edge of the waste. Only after I hit prairie scrub did I look behind me.

The desert sky was black with buzzards whirling over the feast I had laid out for them.

I reined my horse around and rode away.