Over on the Dry Side (13 page)

“Pa! The Mowatt gang!”

Well, I never seen him act so fast or so sure. I didn't know he had it in him. Pa seemed to me a ord'nary sort of man, and when I picked out heroes he wasn't among 'em. But he wasted no time.

The saddle was already on my horse for I'd been fixin' to take off yonder to the hills. Pa had bound me up tight round the chest and waist, like I was in a cast, and although he didn't know what I aimed to do, he wanted my ribs to knit nice and clean so he done what seemed best to him.

So my horse was ready, an' my rifle was there with extra bullets. An' a bait of grub. An' when Pa seen that dust cloud he run for the house.

I started after him and he yelled back to turn the stock loose. That meant the cows he had up, the one we were milkin', and the heavy stock, so I threw down the corral bars and shied 'em out and into a run down the meadow.

Pa come out with clothes and a few extries. He'd been thinkin' on this. That I figgered out after, 'cause he knew just what to take. He run for the horses.

“Pa!” I yelled. “What about the house?”

“We didn't have a house when we come here, boy, but we did have ourselves and our stock. Let's go!”

We taken out.

The way Pa led off I knowed he wasn't just runnin' wild. He had a bee in his bonnet and soon I seen what it was.

He was ridin' right into Lost Canyon.

Sometime or other he'd found him a trail, and we went for it. Afore we got there, we rode through several big clump of trees, and he done what he could to cover our trail. Then he headed for that place he'd found.

Right where we hit the canyon she probably wasn't much more'n fifteen hundred feet rim to rim, but she was at least five hundred feet deep. And both walls was covered with trees 'cept right at the rim. It was thick cover.

We didn't waste no time. Pa went over that rim and dropped plumb out of sight. When I got that close I seen his horse slidin' on his haunches down a trail that made you catch your breath to look at.

I taken out after him. I wasn't goin' to have Pa sayin' I showed the white feather 'cause of no cliff. But I was sweatin' blue water by the time I'd gone down a hundred feet.

We bottomed out in that there canyon close by a stream, that went rushin' by—a fine trout stream if ever I seen one, and me with no pole nor no time to fish.

Sometime or other, Pa had done some scoutin' without sayin' a word to me about it. He'd been here afore and he led off almighty fast to a place where, sometime or other, the stream cut back into the cliff to make a holler faced off with trees. Some fallen logs had made a natural corral, and here we bunched our stock and Pa got down off his horse.

“You stay here, Doby. I've got somethin' to do up yonder.”

“You goin' back, Pa?”

“They ain't gonna burn that house 'thout me showin' 'em I disapprove,” he said. “I'll just fire a few rounds and then come on back.”

“I'll go along.”

“Now, son, you stay here with the stock. I ain't put in my years raisin' you from a penny-grabbin', candy-suckin' kid to a growed up man just to see you killed by no outlaws. You set tight and I'll be back, and then we'll plan what to do.”

“Pa, if'n you raised me to set still and watch my pa go into a fight by hisself, you surely wasted your time. I'm a-goin' with you.”

We went up together, me an' Pa, and I never felt closer to him than right at that time. We went up together and we run back through the trees. The Mowatt gang was circlin' round the house, yellin' and shootin'.

There was smoke from the chimney, and I guess they didn't know we was gone. It was too far away for good shootin', but we had to git back to that canyon if they took out after us, so Pa hunkered down among some rocks and he taken a long sight and squeezed her off. I seen that ol' rifle jump in his hands and one of them horses r'ared up like it was burned and its rider went tumblin'. Then you never seen folks scatter like they done.

But not before I put in some lead. I'd had my eye on one big gent with white suspenders, and I held my sight a mite below where those suspenders crossed on his back, and though it was a good long shot I tightened up the finger until that rifle went off.

I didn't kill him, but I burned him. I made him know he'd been shot at. I sent him a yippin' out of there. But they kept ridin' around. One of 'em throwed a torch at the house that fell on the roof an' rolled off.

Both Pa an' me we opened up an' dusted 'em around with lead. It taken 'em a few shots to realize we weren't inside but outside, and then they turned around and charged at us.

Well, you never seen such a fine sight.

There must've been fourteen or fifteen of 'em an' they was all mounted up on fine horses and they come at us like cavalry chargin'. It was a real sight. A better sight I never saw nor had, lookin' right down the rifle barrel at 'em, and that time when I fired there wasn't no mistake. A man just throwed up his hands and fell off his horse. He hit dust and rolled over and he lay all sprawled out. And Pa took a shot and then he said, “Son, let's get out'n here.”

So we taken off.

We taken off a-runnin'. Pa was a better runner than I thought. He was really a-leggin' it when we heard a yell behind.

They'd seen us.

“Here, boy,” Pa said. He dropped behind a log and he hadn't hit dirt 'fore he fired. And me, I was just a hair behind him, firing standin' up behind a good thick tree.

They'd set the house afire. We could see the smoke goin' up.

Them riders split around us and we hightailed it. We was close to the rim then and bullets was kickin' the dust all around us when we went over the rim and flopped down. We was shootin' fast.

They turned right and left into the trees and I started reloadin' and looked over at Pa. And there was blood all over his shirt, and his face had gone white and me, I was scared.

I crawled over to him and slung him over my back, and carryin' both rifles I slid and fell and crawled to the bottom of the canyon. It was no way to handle a hurt man, but I didn't have no choice. I got him to our corral and bathed off his face a little, then tried to peel off his shirt.

I got it off and his undershirt down to his waist. I seen the bullet had hit his shoulder bone and tore through the meat on his shoulder, and down his back a mite. It was pressin' against the skin of his back, a bluelike lump, and I figgered the thing to do was get shut of it. So I slid out my bowie and cut a slit in the skin and the bullet, it just popped out in my hand.

He'd lost some blood. He'd lost a-plenty of blood, but it didn't look to me like no death wound. Still, a body couldn't be sure. So I plugged up the wound with pieces of his undershirt, bathed him off some, and stretched him out.

The bullet hittin' that shoulder bone must have been a shock 'cause he'd passed out, somewheres.

I taken his rifle and reloaded it and set a-watchin' for the Mowatt gang. But didn't none of 'em come. I was all set for 'em, and I was aimin' to kill me some men. But they never come.

I guess they thought they'd killed us. Or scared us off, or somethin'. Or maybe they didn't relish comin' into that canyon against two rifles that had the drop on them from the trees.

So there I was in the bottom of Lost Canyon, with Pa bad off from lost blood and me not knowin' a thing 'bout what to do.

Time to time, I'd figgered Pa didn't know much. But he was always able to patch up folks or doctor 'em somehow. And me, for all my windy talk, I didn't know what to do.

Right then I surely wasn't thinkin' of no blonde and blue-eyed girls. I was just wishin' I know what to do 'cause there wasn't nobody else around to help.

I kindled us a small fire and started heatin' water in one of the kettles Pa had slung on the horse. I swear, he must have thought it all out ahead of time 'cause he'd took along everything a body might need.

Unpackin' the horses I started rummaging around to see what I could find. I come on a can of white powder Pa had been give by an old man once that was supposed to be good for bob-wire cuts. Now I'd never seen no bob-wire, but I'd heard of it, and a bob-wire cut was a scratch. And this here wound wasn't too different, so when I'd bathed it again, I scattered some of that white powder around it.

Them days, when folks was far from doctors, they just concocted their own medicine, and some of it worked almighty good. I put on the coffeepot and scouted for firewood. And I built our cover a little higher.

For all I knew they might just be a-settin' up there atop the rim waitin' 'til it was sure-enough dark to come at me.

Leavin' Pa for a moment I slipped down and got some water to heat up for broth after I'd made the coffee.

When I got back Pa was stirrin' a mite. How long he'd been bleedin' before I seen he was wounded I don't know. It might have been after the first burst of gunfire, but the way his clothes was soaked up with blood had scared me somethin' awful.

Nobody showed. I guess they never come down off the rim but I wasn't takin' no chances going up there. If they nailed me, Pa would be left to die down here. Or tough it out alone.

So I set and waited and listened, longing for
somebody
to come. Only there wasn't nobody goin' to, 'less Owen Chantry come back, and he'd not find us easy, way down in this hole.

I was real scared for Pa and never felt so helpless in all my days.

I
T WAS LONG after midday 'fore Pa opened up his eyes. I was right there with some coffee, and I held the cup for him and let him have a sip or two.

“What happened?” he asked.

“You caught one, Pa. Ain't too bad, but you surely lost blood. You got to sit quiet an' rest. Ain't nobody come. I got the stock took care of and some
dee
fenses built up an' the guns loaded an' I been settin' by just a-waitin' for 'em to come.…”

He closed his eyes, then taken a mite more of coffee. It seemed to do him some good, and so I shaved off some jerky into a kettle and stirred it up real good with a fire under it. Soon I'd have us some broth.

“Chantry'll come,” he said. “We'll be all right then.”

Well, that sort of ired me. “He won't find us, if'n he does. An' even if'n he does come, he'll likely run afoul of them Mowatts. We got to set here 'til you feel better, then climb up yonder and get out of here.”

“This here's our home, boy. We're not goin' to leave. We're goin' back an' build up that house again. I've done wandered all I'm a-goin' to, son. I've been a mover all my born days, but this here's where I intend to stay. Maybe it ain't the finest land, maybe it's far from city places, but it's land I can say is mine. We'll stay.”

By the time I'd fed him all he would take of that broth, the sun was out of sight and shadows were climbin' the walls of the canyon. I drank what was left.

Then I taken the stock to water and found a patch of open grass along the stream. I dragged some poles into place and made a corral, using rocks, trees, and the side of the canyon. That would keep my stock a-feedin'.

Then I taken up my rifle. “Pa?” I said.

He answered somethin'. Only what he said weren't right. He had him a fever and was wandering in his head. I'd figgered on going up to the rim for a look around.

I was turning back when I noticed the ears on Mary. Mary was a plow horse, and she was a big, powerful brute, but gentle as could be. And she could sense whatever was goin' on around. Mary had her head and ears up.…Something was a-comin'.

There wasn't no sound. Not a smidgin. And I listened hard.

Mary's ears were still up, though she seemed less concerned. Maybe it was a varmint of some kind, a catamount, or the like. I started to set down my rifle when somebody spoke.

“Doby? Is it all right to come in?”

It was that Chantry. It was him, sure 'nough.

“Come on in,” I said. I was never so relieved in all my born days. I wasn't alone no longer with nobody to help with Pa but me.

Chantry come out of the trees afoot and stopped there 'til I had a good look at him. Then he come on up to the fire. He looked at Pa. “How bad is he?”

So I told him. Pa was sleeping, so Chantry said to let him sleep, which was the best doctor of all. But when Pa was awake he'd have a look at the wound. And then he said, “Marny is with me, and an old man.”

“An old man?”

“He's been here in these mountains for years.…Or so he says.”

“I never seen no old man round here. You sure he ain't one of them?”

“He's not. We've been doing some shooting of our own.” Chantry went to the edge of the woods and called softly.

They come in. There was that girl, lookin' tired-like but still almighty pretty, and an old, old man who looked like somebody had woke him up from his grave, he was that gray an' old. But he moved about spry enough, an' the way he taken for that coffeepot, you'd a thought he owned it.

“Get some sleep, Doby,” Chantry said to me. “I'll look after your pa.”

Well…I was tired.

They built up the fire some and when I'd stretched out to sleep they set around drinkin' coffee.

Our house had been burned, our stock scattered, an' Pa was wounded. I had me a couple of busted ribs, and there was folks up on the canyon rim that wanted to kill us, but I slept. I just taken off to sleep, and it was full day 'fore my eyes opened up. And there was no more sound than nothin'.

I sat up and looked around. There was Marny Fox, a-settin' by the fire. Pa was a-layin' on the ground not far off, his head on a folded coat.

Chantry was nowhere about.

“Where's Chantry?” I asked.

“He went up to the house.”