The Ferguson Rifle (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 14

  Easing out to full length, my rifle across my upper arms, I squirmed out upon the grass, walking myself forward with my elbows. On my left I could hear the murmur of voices at the fires but could distinguish no words.

  My body length…again…I crawled on. Sweat beaded my brow despite the chill wind. The earth was cold beneath me; the grass felt stiff and old. Leaves in the trees rustled, and I crawled on. Glancing back, I saw I was at least a third of the way out…at any moment I could come upon a sentry.

  The thought occurred to me that I was in no position to defend myself if attacked, nor to attack myself. To accomplish anything I must rise, then strike, and it might be too late. Sliding my left hand down, I slipped off the thong that held my knife in its scabbard and drew it, then I took it in my teeth, the haft toward my right side.

  It seemed silly and melodramatic, for I had seen old pen drawings of pirates carrying their knives so when boarding ships and using both hands in the process. But with the knife in my teeth, I had no need to rise, only to seize it and strike. I think it saved my life.

  Inching forward, I fought down an impulse to rise and run for the trees, and held to my original pace, moving as silently as possible. Holding my head down, I suddenly felt the need to look up, and did.

  Not three feet from me was a guard sitting cross-legged on the grass. At the instant I saw him, he saw me.

  A moment we stared. He started to move, opening his mouth to yell, and in that instant I grabbed my knife by the hilt and swung it left to right, a wicked slash.

  He had leaned slightly forward as one will do when starting to rise, and my backward slash was with all my strength. I held a knife of the finest steel, with an edge like a razor, and it cut deep and back.

  The knife finished its cut and he was still trying to rise and draw his own knife when my hand came back. Making no effort to reverse the knife, I swung my arm in a mighty blow and struck him on the temple with the end of the hilt. He grunted and collapsed forward onto the ground, and then, in a panic, I was up and gripping rifle in one hand, bloody knife in the other, I ran.

  At the trees, I drew up, not wanting to smash into them, and skidded to a halt.

  All was quiet. Looking back, I could see nothing at all. Crouching, I slid my knife hilt deep into the earth and withdrew it, to cleanse it of blood. Rising, I slid into the trees and began working my way toward the corral.

  There was little time. What I would do must be done at once, for soon they would change guards or call out to them and the missing one would be discovered. Soundlessly, I moved through the trees toward the fire.

  Twenty feet back from the rope, I stopped. The horses had sensed me and were restless. I could see past their ears, for I was on somewhat higher ground, and in the camp I could see men eating, lying around, one man cleaning a rifle.

  At first I saw nothing of Davy, Jorge, or Lucinda, and then I did. Lucinda was near to me, seated at the base of a tree, tied hand and foot. Falvey was near her. Beyond, and across the fire, I could see Shanagan. His hands appeared to be tied behind him. I couldn’t spot Jorge.

  No chance to get to Davy, but she was close. So were the horses. So far nobody had noticed their uneasiness. Stepping down through the trees, my hand found the encircling rope. A quick slash of the knife and it fell apart.

  One of the horses jumped and snorted; the others bunched quickly. I ran at them, cutting the rope in another place and suddenly letting out a wild whoop.

  They started to mill, then lunged and ran. A few of them hit the loosened rope and went through it and into the camp on a dead run. Men scattered. I saw one knocked down. The running horses plunged through the fire, out the other side of the camp, and into the darkness. The others milled, then when I whooped again, they ran.

  I was within a dozen feet of Lucinda. Grabbing her by the collar, I lifted her bodily to her feet, and risking cutting her, I made a quick slash at the ropes at her ankles, then at her wrists.

  A gun roared, almost in my ear it seemed, and a bullet struck the aspen near me and spat bark and stinging slivers into my face. Turning quickly, I shot from the hip, aiming at Falvey who had been knocked down by a horse as he started to rise. My shot missed, hitting a man just beyond him.

  Sliding my knife into its scabbard, I grabbed at Lucinda’s arm and ran. At almost the same moment, a rifle bellowed from across the way and a man running at me with a hatchet dropped in his tracks.

  Suddenly I was in the darkness, running up through the trees. Behind me were shots, yells, then more shots. Somebody was staging a minor war back there, but there was no time to look.

  Scrambling up through the trees, the slope was steep. Letting go of her hand, I used my hand to pull myself up by grasping tree trunks and limbs, as she did.

  Somewhere up here, there was a cave, but there was not one chance in a million I could find it now, not in the dark with men searching for me. Coming out on a ledge, pausing to gasp for breath, I fumbled with the reloading of my Ferguson, made it, then started on.

  We hurried along the face of the slope, moving southward, climbing a little, then back toward the north on a kind of switchback path or game trail.

  Down below the shooting continued. I heard a shrill Indian yell, then the bang of another rifle. We climbed on, coming out in a small meadow.

  Lucinda pulled on my sleeve. “Ronan…Mr. Chantry, I’ve got to stop. I…I can’t run another step!”

  We moved into the trees at the edge of the meadow and sat down on a log. She was not the only one who was all in. My breath was coming in ragged gasps and there was pain in my side.

  Feeling for my knife, I slipped the loop back over the guard to keep it from slipping out.

  I stood up. Behind us was a grove of aspen, before us what might be a trail used by Indians or buffalo or elk. “We must go,” I said, and she got up.

  The shooting down below had ceased. Soon they would be coming for us, and we had no place to hide.

  CHAPTER 18

  Yet I waited. I was tired of running and hiding. Slowly but steadily, anger had been building within me. Contemplation fits me better than rage. I am prone to consider before acting, and to take decisive action only when there is no other course. So far I had been guided by some instinct, some atavistic memory from warlike ancestors who had preceded me.

  Now I no longer wished to escape. I wanted to fight. But beside me I had a girl to consider. Lovely as she was, intelligent as she was—and I have always preferred intelligent women—I wished for the moment she was elsewhere. A man going into a fight for his life should have to think of nothing else; his attention should not be for the minute averted.

  There had been a lot of shooting below and I could only guess that my friends had appeared…my friends, or some Indians. If the former, I should join them; if the latter, I had another reason for hiding.

  Van Runkle had mentioned a cave…but how to find it in the dark?

  Turning to Lucinda, I asked, “Can you be still? As a ghost?”

  “Ghosts rattle chains. Is that what you mean?”

  “This is no time for levity. I want you to be still, to sit down in those trees yonder, and if somebody comes within inches, you are not to move…do you hear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well, then. Into the trees with you.”

  There was a good stand of spruce, dark and close growing, and the log on which we sat was a good landmark, smooth as it was and white in the moonlight, and the moon would soon be up.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Your uncle had some twenty men with him. He has fewer now…I think no more than sixteen or so. I’m going out to clip the odds a little more.”

  “You’ll be killed. You’re a scholar. Those men are vicious…unprincipled.”

  “And I’m principled. That, I suspect, places me at a disadvantage, and yet I’m
not so sure that it does. At the moment I’m very much guided by several principles, and the first one is the desire to survive. The second one my family has used with some success. They believe in attack.”

  “You’ll be killed. You’re no match for such men.”

  It irritated me. Why do pretty women have the faculty of irritating? Almost as if they were trained for it. And, of course, they are. When one is irritated, one is not blasé. One must be interested or involved.

  “You’re mistaken. Socrates was a soldier, and a good one. So was Julius Caesar, and the playwright, Ben Jonson. There have been many.”

  She stood straight, looking into my eyes. “Sir, I do not want you hurt. I do not want you killed.”

  “Of course not. How could I help you obtain your treasure if I was dead? But I shall not be. Sit in those trees, and for God’s sake, be still!”

  Abruptly, I moved away from her. The moon was rising, and already it was growing lighter. Her doubt of my ability irritated me even more. I did not know who had attacked them after the horses were stampeded, but I knew that I had to carry the fight to them. Moreover, I must, if possible, free Davy and Jorge…if they yet lived.

  There was silence upon the land. The aspen stood sentinel still in the moonlight, their golden coiffures shimmering slightly, gently, under the most delicate touch of the night air.

  Down in the bottom, no fire glowed. No sound arose to meet me. There was a faint smell of woodsmoke from the extinguished fires, a dampness rising from the stream, and no other thing to disturb or impress itself upon the night.

  Not only Lucinda’s doubt rankled. There was also the quite obvious contempt of Rafen Falvey to spur me on. She doubted me capable of meeting him face-to-face, and he would have laughed at the idea.

  When I had gone some three hundred yards, I squatted on my heels and listened. The stream rustled over its rocks, the aspens danced and whispered golden secrets to the moon. I heard nothing…and then I did.

  Breathing. Someone breathing quite hard, a hoarse, rasping kind of breathing as someone after running. No. Someone hurt…someone wounded.

  Listening, I placed the sound. Moved ever so gently. The breath caught…gasped. I edged closer. I could smell wet buckskin…then a low moan.

  Was the sound familiar? I started to move, then some instinct brought my eyes up. The dark figure of a man was standing not four feet from me, and as I glimpsed him, I saw the spark leap as he pulled the trigger. Throwing myself aside, I shoved up the Ferguson and fired…not two inches from his body. The flash of his gun blinded me, and bits of powder stung my cheek, and then he was falling, falling right at me.

  Almost automatically my fingers were fumbling with the reloading of my rifle. Dark as it was under the trees, my fingers felt true, and the gun was loaded, ready.

  Again there was a low moan, then a whisper, “Scholar?”

  It was Davy Shanagan.

  Quickly, I moved to him. “Davy! Who did I shoot?”

  “Don’t…know.”

  “Are you hit hard?”

  He took my hand and guided it to his side. There was a lot of blood. A lot too much. And nothing to do with. There was my kerchief. Taking that off I packed some damp moss into the wound, then my kerchief, and tied it in place with his thick leather belt.

  “Lie still,” I whispered. “Are you armed?”

  “Knife. Rifle…empty.”

  Charging his Kentucky, I placed it beside him, then edged over to the man I had shot. Moonlight had reached his side. He wore a beaded belt that I did not know. I found his pistol and loaded it, then his rifle. The rifle I left with Davy, and tucking the extra pistol into my belt, I eased myself away into the brush.

  The two shots could not have gone unnoticed. Obviously two men had fired, and somebody was probably dead. Whoever else was out there had no way of knowing who.

  Working closer and closer to the camp, I soon saw my efforts were wasted. It was deserted. One lone horse stood out on the meadow, cropping grass, but the others had scattered, as had the people. The woods would be full of them, and somewhere Jorge Ulibarri was also, perhaps safe, perhaps dead, perhaps wounded, and needing help as Davy had.

  Yet the futility of my efforts became obvious. In the darkness I could not tell friend from enemy, nor could I hope to find them, scattered as they were. Slowly, I worked my way back to Davy. He was still there, sleeping now.

  Edging back beside him, I waited, listening. To stay with him or return to Lucinda? Reason told me she was safe, but it also told me Davy was sleeping and there was no more I could do to help him for the time. I decided to return.

  Fifteen minutes it must have taken me to go the last hundred yards, and I am a good judge of time. The log with the bark scaled away lay white like a fallen temple column in the moonlight. I went into the trees. No Lucinda.

  I could not believe it.

  I listened, and heard no breathing. I spoke softly, and had no answer. I felt about, and touched nothing.

  Lucinda was gone.

  I had told her to stay where she was, and she had not done so. My irritation changed to anger, then to fear. Suppose she had been taken? Suppose Rafen Falvey had found her, or some of his men?

  Crawling to where I had left her sitting, I felt all around…nothing.

  And then my hand touched a knife. My fingers explored it in the darkness. Almost no guard…single edge. She had no knife that I had ever seen, and this was a skinning knife.

  Someone had been here. She had been taken…but where?

  There had been no outcry. In the silence of the night I could have heard it for a great distance.

  Easing back into deeper shadow, I settled myself to wait for daybreak. To crawl around now would only disturb what sign was left, and there was nothing I could do, either to fight or run, until the day came again.

  I thought of deliberately building a fire. It would probably call some of them to me, friends or enemies…but the problem was to know one from the other in the darkness. So I huddled tight against the bole of a spruce, under the dark, down-bending branches, and waited.

  It was very still. The small sounds of the night seemed only to make greater the silence. Somewhere an owl spoke mournfully across the moonlit meadow, a bird ruffled its feathers nearby, a pine cone dropped, whispering through the needles, then falling to the ground.

  Under the spruces it was very dark. I sat, rifle across my knees, listening and waiting. Alone in the night there are many sounds to hear, sounds always present but only heard in moments of stillness and waiting. How often, I thought, men had waited like this. The Greeks, concealed in their wooden horse outside the walls of Troy, must have heard such sounds as they waited. Would the Trojans accept the bait? Would they leave the horse where it was? Draw it inside as booty? Would they destroy it? Set it afire? The Greek soldiers had only to wait, to hope, and to remain absolutely silent.

  Now I could see the fires down below were not as cold and dead as I believed. I could see red coals, like the eyes of beasts, waiting.

  Not far away was Davy Shanagan. Had my quick treatment helped him? Had the bleeding stopped? Long ago Irish soldiers at the Battle of Clontarf had used moss to stop the bleeding of their wounds, so perhaps my reading of history had taught me something after all.

  What had happened to Lucinda? Why had she not stayed where I left her?

  Dawn was going to bring many things to a climax with so many armed men in so brief a space. I must sleep. Even if only a little. And if I was inclined to snore, I hoped on this night I would not.

  When tomorrow came, there would be much to do. Get those of our group that survived together again. Find Lucinda, get the treasure, if treasure there was, then escape.

  To achieve this we must have some freedom of action, which meant freedom from attack. Hence, I must locate the enemy and move against him in su
ch a way that he must defend himself. I must immobilize him for a time, at least.

  He had lost his horses by my first action. If he had recovered them, or some of them, I must act to disperse them once more. What was it Sun Tzu had said in 496 B.C.? Speed is the essence of war. Take advantage of your enemy’s unreadiness, move by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.

  Well…if possible. And in the morning.

  I went to sleep.

  * * *

  —

  Within me was wariness…fear, if you like. My eyes opened upon a cold light, the gray, dim light before the sunrise. Lying still, I listened and heard nothing. Slowly, group by group I began to flex my muscles, pumping blood into them that my actions upon rising would be quicker. Carefully, I sat up.

  A quail called…another answered.

  Wiping the Ferguson clean of dew, I crept away from the bole of the tree to a better view. First I swept the area with a quick glance, then a more searching one. Then I directed my attention toward where Davy lay, but could see nothing of him, which was as it should be.

  Rafen Falvey would try to assemble those men who remained with him. I believed he had lost at least four, but there had been further shooting, and the numbers might have been trimmed still more.

  First, Lucinda.

  Easing from my cover after a careful study of my surroundings, I went back toward the place I had left her. The log where we had rested was there.

  Getting to my feet, I looked all around. Our tracks were plain enough, but she was gone.

  A stir in the brush across from me and my Ferguson came level at waist height. Then a man emerged from the brush and it was Cusbe Ebitt. Behind him was Heath.

  “They’re movin’,” Ebitt said. “Falvey has a skirmish line started up the slope…maybe two hundred yards back. Looks like they’re aimin’ to sweep the woods clean.”