A sea of dull pain seemed to wash over me, yet I forced myself to think, to fight back the pain. I must bathe my wounds. That meant hot water, and hot water meant a fire.
Yet there was such weakness in me that I could scarcely close my hand. I had lost much blood, I had not eaten, and I had ridden far with the strength draining from my body.
With contempt I stared at my helpless hands, hating them for their weakness. And then I began to fight for strength in those fingers, willing them to be strong. My left hand reached out and pulled a stick to me. Then another.
Some scraped-up leaves, some fragments of dried manzanitaâ¦soon I would have a fire.
I was a creature fighting for survival, fighting the oldest battle known to man. Through waves of recurring delirium and weakness, I dragged myself to an aspen, where I peeled bark to make a pot in which to heat water.
Patiently, my eyes blinking heavily, my fingers puzzling out the form, I shaped the bark into a crude pot, and into it I poured water.
Almost crying with weakness, I got a fire started and watched the flames take hold. Then I put the bark vessel on top of two rocks and the flames rose around it. As long as the flames stayed below the water level the bark would not burn, for the water inside would absorb the heat. Trying to push more sticks into the fire, I blacked out again.
When next my eyes opened the water was boiling. Pulling myself up to a sitting position, I unbuckled my gun belt and let the guns fall to the ground beside me. Then carefully I opened my shirt and, soaking a piece of the cloth in the hot water, began to bathe my wounds.
The hot water felt good as I gingerly worked the cloth plugs free, but the sight of the wound in my side was frightening. It was red and inflamed, but the bullet had gone clear through and as near as I see, had touched nothing vital.
A second slug had gone through the fleshy part of my thigh, and after bathing that wound also, I lay still for a long time, regaining strength and soaking up the heat.
Near by was a patch of prickly pear. Crawling to it, I cut off a few big leaves and roasted them to get off the spines. Then I bound the pulp over the wounds. It was a method Indians used to fight inflammation, and I knew of no other than Indian remedies that would do me here.
It was a slow thing, this working to patch my wounds, and I realized there was little time left to me. My enemies would be working out my trail, and I had no idea how far my horse had come in the darkness, nor over what sort of ground. My trail might be plain as day, or it might be confusing.
There was a clump of amolillo near by and I dug up some roots, scraping them into boiling water. They foamed up when stirred and I drank some of the foamy liquid. Indians claimed bullet wounds healed better after a man drank amolillo water.
Then I made a meal of squaw cabbage and breadroot, lacking the strength to get my saddlebags. Sick with weakness, I crawled under the brush and slept, awakening to drink deep of the cold water, then to sleep again.
And through the red darkness of my tortured sleep men rode and fought and guns crashed. Men struggled in the shadows along the edge of my consciousness.
Morgan Parkâ¦Pinderâ¦Rud Maclaren, and the sharply feral face of Bodie Miller.
The muzzling of my horse awakened me, and the cold light of a new day was beginning.
“All, right, Buck,” I whispered. “I'm awake. I'm alive.”
And I wasâ¦just barely.
My weakness frightened me. If they came upon me now they would not hesitate to kill me, nor could I fight them off.
Lying on my back I breathed heavily, trying to find some way out. I had no doubt they were coming, and that they could not be far behind.
They might have trouble with the trail, but they would figure that I was hurt and unconscious, that my horse was finding his own way. Then they would come fast.
High up the canyon wall there was a patch of green, perhaps a break in the rock. My eyes had been on it for some time before it began to register on my awareness. Sudden hope brought me struggling to my elbow. My eyes studied the break in the wall, if that was what it was. There was green there, foothold for a tree or two, and there seemed to be a ledge below.
Rolling over, I crawled along the ground to the waterhole and drank deep and long, then I filled my canteen. Now I had only to get into the saddle, but first, I tried to wipe out all the tracks I had left. I knew I could not get rid of allâ¦but there was a chance I could throw them off my trail.
Getting to my knees, I caught the buckskin's stirrup and pulled myself erect. Then I got a foot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.
For an instant my head spun crazily as I clung to the saddlehorn. Then my brain seemed to clear and I lifted my heavy head, slowly walking the horse forward. There was a trail, very narrow, littered at places with talus from above, but a trail. Kneeing the horse into it, I urged him forward. Mountain-bred, he started up, blowing a little, and stepping gingerly.
Several minutes passed and I clung to the pommel, unable to lift my head, needing all my strength to maintain my feeble hold. Then suddenly we rounded a boulder and stood in a high, hanging valley.
A great crack in the rock of the mesa, caused by some ancient earth-shock, it was flat-floored and high-walled, but the grass was rich and green. I could hear water running somewhere back in the rock.
The area of the place was not over seven or eight acres, and there was another opening on the far side, partly covered by a slide of rock. What I had found was a tiny oasis in the desert, but I was not the first to use this hideaway. An instant later I realized that.
Before me, almost concealed by the cliff against which it stood, was a massive stone tower. Square, it was almost sixty feet tall, and blackened by age and fire.
The prehistoric Indians who had built that tower knew a good thing when they found it, for here was water, forage, and firewood. Moreover, the place was ideal for defense. Nobody could come up the trail I had used, in the face of a determined defender.
Near the tower grew some stunted maize, long since gone native. Nowhere was there any evidence that a human foot had been here for centuries.
Riding close to the tower, I found the water. It fell from a crack in the rock into a small pool maybe ten feet across and half that deep.
Carefully, I lowered myself to the ground, then I loosened the cinch and let the saddle fall from the buckskin's back. When I had the bridle off I crawled to a place on the grass and stretched out.
There was still much to do, but my efforts had left me exhausted. Nevertheless, as I lay there I found myself filled with a fierce determination to live, to fight back, to win. I was no animal to be hunted and killed, nor was I to be driven from what was rightfully mine.
Regardless of what my enemies might do now, I must rest and regain my strength. Let them have the victory for the present.
There was food in my saddlebagsâjerked beef, a little dried fruit, some hardtack. There was maize here that I could crush to meal to make a kind of pinole. There was squaw cabbage and breadroot. There were some piñonsâ¦and I saw signs left by deer and rabbits.
The deer droppings were shinyâ¦evidence of their freshness. Deer still came here thenâ¦and I had already seen some of the blue quail that are native to desert country. So I would live, I would survive, I would win.
Near the wall of the ruined tower I made my bed. Working carefully, I erected a crude parapet of stones from which I could cover the trail up which I had come. Near it I placed my rifle and ammunition. At my back would be the spring.
Only then did I rest.
S
LOWLY A WEEK drifted by. I slept, awakened, cooked, ate, and slept again. Slowly the soreness left my wounds and my strength began to come back. Yet I was still far from recovered. Several times I snared rabbits, and once I shot a deer. Nobody came near, and if they came to the waterhole below I did not hear them.
When I was able to walk a few halting steps, I explored my hideaway. While walking through the trees at the far end, I killed a sage hen and made a thick broth, using wild onions, breadroot, and the bulbs of the sego lily.
Several times I found arrowheads. They were entirely unlike any I had seen before, longer in design and fluted along the sides.
But a devil of impatience was riding me. The longer I remained away, the more firmly my enemies would be entrenched. Despite that, I forced myself to wait. The venison lasted, and I killed quail and another sage hen. I ate well, but grew increasingly restless. Several times I managed to climb to the top of the mesa and lay there in the sun watching the canyon up which Buck must have come during the long hours when I had been in the saddle.
The mesa that was my lookout towered above the surrounding country, and below me lay mile upon mile of serrated ridges and broken land. It was a fantastic land of pale pink, salmon, and deep red, touched here and there by cloud shadows. It was raw and magnificent.
But impatience was on me, and the time had come to move. My jerked beef and venison were long since gone. The quail and sage hens had grown cautious.
On the morning of the sixteenth day I saddled my horse. It was time to return.
Reluctantly as I left my haven, I was eager to be back. The deep, slow anger that had been burning in me had settled to resolution. Carefully, I worked my way down the trail.
At the waterhole I looked around. There were the tracks of two horses here. They had come this far, given up, and gone back. My trail then, was lost. Knowing nothing of my position, I followed the trail of those searchers as the best way to get back to the Two-Bar.
Before I had ridden three miles down the canyon I began to see how difficult my trail must have been. I knew then that the two riders who had been at the waterhole had come there more by chance than by intention.
The canyon narrowed where a stream flowed into it, and following down the canyon the only trail lay in the bed of the stream itself. On both sides the walls lifted sheer. At places great overhangs of rock sheltered the stream and I splashed along in semi-twilight. Here and there the canyon narrowed to less than thirty feet, the entire floor covered by water.
Threading the boxlike gorges I came suddenly into a vast amphitheater surrounded by towering rock walls. Drawing up, I looked across the amphitheater toward a valley all of half a mile wide. Buck's head came up and his nostrils fluttered. I spoke to him and he remained still, watching.
Coming toward me, still too far to identify, was a lone rider.
Chapter 8
R
EINING THE BUCKSKIN over into the trees, I drew up and waited. Had I been seen? If so, would the rider come on?
The rider came onâ¦studying the ground, searching for tracks. I waited, slipping the rawhide throng from my gun and loosening it in the holster.
The day was warm and the sky clear. The rider was closer now and I could make out the colors in the clothing, the color of the horse, theâIt was Moira Maclaren!
Riding out from the shadows I waited for her to see me, and she did, almost at once.
My shirt had been torn by a bullet and by my own hands, my face was covered with a two weeks' beard and my cheeks were drawn and hollow, yet the look of surprised relief on her face was good to see.
“Matt?” She was incredulous. “You're alive?”
My buckskin walked close to her horse. “Did you think I would die before you had those sons I promised?”
“Don't joke.”
“I'm not joking.”
Her eyes searched mine and she flushed a little, then quickly changed the subject.
“You must go away. If you come back now they'll kill you.”
“I'll not run. I'm going back.”
“But you mustn't! They believe you're dead. Let them think so. Go away now, go while you can. They've looked and looked, but they couldn't find you. Jim Pinder has sworn that if you're alive he'll kill you on sight, and Bodie Miller hates you.”
“I'll be riding back.”
She seemed to give up then, and I don't believe she really had thought I would run. And I was glad she knew me so well.
“Jim Pinder has the Two-Bar.”
“Then he can move.”
She noticed my full canteen, then waved her hand at the valley where we sat our horses.
“Father will be amazed when he learns there is water back here, and grass. Nobody believed anyone could live in this wilderness. I think you found the only place where there was either water or grass.”
“Don't give me the credit. My horse found it.”
“You've had a bad time?”
“It wasn't good.” I glanced back the way she came. “You weren't trailed?”
“Noâ¦I made sure.”
“You've looked for me before this?”
She nodded. “Yes, Matt. I was afraid you'd be dying out here alone. I couldn't stand that.”
“Rollie was good. He was very good.”
“Then it was you who killed him?”
“Who else?”
“Canaval and Bodie found him. Canaval was sure it was you, but some of the others thought it was the Benaras boys.”
“They've done no fighting for me.”
We sat there silent for a while, doing our thinking. What it was she thought I'd no idea, but I was thinking of her and what a woman she was. Now that I looked at her well, I could see she was thinner, and her cheeks looked drawn. It seemed strange to think that a woman could worry about me. It had been a long time since anyone had.
“Seems miles from anywhere, doesn't it?”
She looked around, her eyes searching mine. “I wish we didn't have to go back.”
“But we do.”
She hesitated a little and then said, “Matt, you've said you wanted me. I believe you do. If you don't go back, Matt, I'll go away with you. Nowâ¦anywhere you want to go.”
So there it wasâ¦all any man could want. A girl so lovely that I never looked at her without surprise, and never without a quick feeling of wanting to take her in my arms. I loved her, this daughter of Maclaren.