Catlow (1963) (2 page)

Ben Cowan's canteen was dry, and he was working his way toward the Cimarron, hoping to find some branch flowing into the river where he could get water. The river itself was a last resort, for at this season of the year, in this area it was too thick to drink, too thin to plow.

The Cross Timbers country was hell's borderland. It was a stubby forest of blackjack and post-oak mixed with occasional patches of prickly pear. Along the few small streams, most of them intermittent, were redbud, persimmon, and dogwood. Here and there were open meadows, varying in extent. In places the forest was practically impenetrable.

Blackjack, a kind of scrub oak, had a way of sending roots out just under the surface, and at various distances new trees would spring up from these roots. The result was a series of dense thickets, the earth beneath them matted with roots, their stiff branches intermingled.

There were trails made by wild horses and occasional small herds of buffalo or deer, and these usually led from meadow to meadow across the vast stretch of country covered by the Cross Timbers.

It was the spring of the year and the blackjack still held many of the past season's leaves, brown and stiff. Only along the occasional streams was there beauty, this provided by the redbud which grew in thick clumps, its dark, beautiful branches covered with tiny magenta-colored blossoms.

Except in the meadows, grass was scarce. Under the blackjacks there were thick carpets of matted leaves that seemed to crackle at the slightest touch.

It was hot and still. On a branch not far ahead a cardinal peered at something in the grass, and Ben Cowan drew up.

The bright crimson of the bird was a brilliant touch of color in the drab surroundings, but Ben Cowan had reason to be wary. A man in the wilderness soon learns to pay strict attention to the information that birds and animals can give him, and this bird was watching something he did not like.

The last officer out of Fort Smith who had trailed an Indian outlaw into the Cross Timbers had been found with a bullet through his skull, which for added effect had been bashed in after he had fallen.

Ben Cowan snaked his Winchester from the scabbard, and waited uneasily. Bees droned nearby in the still air. Sweat trickled down his face, prickly with dust. He listened, squinting his eyes against the salt sting of the sweat.

It was dreadfully hot where he sat his horse, and he desperately wished to move. The situation was not at all good, for there was only one direction in which he could go without turning back, and that was straight ahead. Off to the left beyond a thick patch of blackjack there seemed to be a clearing or meadow.

A fly buzzed annoyingly around his face, and he inadvertently lifted a hand to brush it away. Instantly a bullet thudded into the trunk of a tree near his face, spattering him with a hail of tiny fragments. Momentarily blinded by them, he fell from the saddle.

He did it without thinking. It was one of those instinctively right reactions that come to a fighting man who is constantly aware and alert. The position of his horse was such that quick escape was impossible, but there was space to fall in, so he fell.

He hit the ground and rolled over, then lay still. Fortunately, he had retained his grip on his Winchester. Now he put it on the ground and pawed at his eyes, frightened by the thought of being blinded with an enemy so close by.

That enemy had to be close. There was nowhere around where a man could see over thirty or forty yards at most, and even at that distance a shot was a chancy thing, with all the intermingled branches that might deflect the bullet.

Still feeling a few tiny particles in his eyes, Ben Cowan took up his Winchester and turned his eyes this way and that to locate himself.

He had fallen into a shallow depression, only inches below the level of the forest floor. Where he lay there was a small patch of dead brown grass. Right before his head rose the trunk of the tree, not over eight inches in diameter, from which he had received the shower of bark. To his left there was a dead-fall and the stark white skeleton of a lightning-shattered tree.

He lay very still. His head was in the shade, but the sun was hot upon his back. In a low-growing blackjack close by, he saw a blacksnake writhing in sinuous coils among the branches. The snake stopped moving and was still.

The Tonkawa Kid, he recalled, had several renegade cousins, and was reputed to travel with them on occasion. It might be there was more than one man lying in wait for a shot at him.

Ben Cowan was a patient man. Tall, lean, and handsome in a rugged way, he was inclined to be methodical. He was a painstaking man, without making any great issue of it. Bijah Catlow had often said that nobody, anywhere, could track better than Ben Cowan, and he might well have added that he never had met anybody who could punch harder. There was a thickening in Bijah's left ear that had resulted from one of Cowan's blows; and the faintly discernible hump in Cowan's nose marked where Bijah had broken it.

But Ben Cowan was not thinking of Bijah Catlow now. He was thinking of the Tonkawa Kid.

That Indian, wily as any fox and slippery as any snake, was somewhere close by, and even now might be working his way into position to kill him, yet Cowan could do nothing. To move silently with those stiff, crackling blackjack leaves lying about was virtually impossible--or was it?

Off to his right a blue jay started raising a fuss ... something was worrying it. The sounds the jay made were not unlike those it made when it saw a snake, but different, too. Ben Cowan slid his rifle forward a bit and, easing over on his left shoulder, he looked up into the tree above him.

The tree was actually one of two twin trees of about equal size, and the limbs grew low. There was a fair-sized branch, a relatively wide space, then another branch, and more above; the other twin leaned close up higher, the branches interwoven. It was a risk, but if he could pull himself up there ... His clothing was nondescript as to color and it might blend well with the tree and the scattered leaves that remained.

He studied the branches. A grasp there, a quick pull-up, a foot there, then another pull-up, avoiding those leaves.

Carefully, he lifted himself to his knees, cringing against the half-expected impact of a bullet, then he straightened to his feet, grasped the branch and pulled himself up. He got his boot on a lower branch, and then moved up again.

Not the brush of a leaf or the scrape of a boot, and he was there. His eyes searched the trees, the grass, the brush. What he saw was brown grass springing into position only a few yards away. He looked into the brush ... a faint stir of movement and he glimpsed the Tonkawa. Instantly, he fired.

And in the same instant he knew he had been suckered into a trap.

Another bullet spattered bark in his face and something struck his leg a wicked blow and knocked it from its perch. He fell, with the sound of other bullets echoing in his ears. A branch broke as his body hit it, and then he struck the ground with a thud. His horse leaped away, blowing with fear, and Ben Cowan heard the rush of feet in the grass.

He had lost his grip on his rifle and he clawed wildly for his six-shooter, coining up with it just as an Indian broke through the brush, gun in hand, eyes distended with excitement.

Ben Cowan triggered the .45 ... he fired upward, firing quickly and aiming, he thought, for the Indian's broad chest. The bullet was high, striking the man's chin and smashing upward, driving a bloody furrow along his chin, tearing his nose away, and entering the skull at the top of the eye socket.

Cowan whirled, felt a bullet burn his cheek, and fired blindly at a leaping shadow. The shadow broke stride and fell, the Indian dead before he hit the ground.

Two down ... how many were there? Neither of them was the Tonkawa Kid.

Ben Cowan twisted around, found his rifle, and pulled himself to it. His leg felt numb, and when he put his hand up to his cheek it came away bloody ... a bullet had grazed the cheekbone.

He eased himself back into a better defensive position and, reaching out with his rifle, tried to draw the rifle of one of the Tonks a bit closer.

The forest was silent again. He gripped the other rifle, put it close at hand, and then with care ejected the empty shells from his pistol and reloaded.

Nothing happened. The slow minutes passed and Ben Cowan suddenly felt sick and weak. His leg was throbbing. Gingerly, he reached down and felt of the leg. The bullet had cut through the muscle of the calf, and his pants leg and sock were soaked with blood. He must get that boot off and get his leg bandaged ... but somewhere around was the Tonkawa ... perhaps more than one.

Delicately, he began to work at the boot to get it off, trying to make no sound. After a few minutes he did get it off, and removed the blood-soaked sock.

His horse, frightened by the shooting, had disappeared, and with it whatever he had, which was little enough, to treat his wound. So he packed grass around it and tied it with his handkerchief, then struggled into his boot. At intervals, he paused to listen.

By this time the Kid undoubtedly knew his friends had run into trouble, if he had not actually seen what happened. Hence, he was either going to run or wait and try again; and if Ben Cowan was any judge, the Kid would wait and take his chance.

His eyes seemed to mist over, and when he tried to move he felt a sudden weakness.

Suppose he passed out? It was possible, for he had lost a lot of blood. If he did pass out, he would be killed.

He must hide.

Somehow, in some way, he must hide. Carefully, he looked about him, but there was nowhere to hide. Only the clumped blackjack, the black trunks of the trees.

But he had to move. He could no longer remain here--if he passed out where he was he would get his throat cut while unconscious. Far better to take his chances in trying to do something.

The nearest Indian had been carrying a Winchester also, so he stripped the man's cartridge belt from him, and his knife. Then he eased from behind the tree and began inching his way through the grass.

He succeeded in moving without making any noise but the slightest dragging sound ... that was inevitable. But, it was less than he had expected, and at times he even made no noise at all. His eyes continually searched the ground, the trees, the shrubs. He had gone at least thirty yards when he heard a chuckle.

It was the faintest of sounds, but he froze in place, listening. After a minute, he started on.

"Go ahead," a voice said, "you ain't goin' no place."

The voice was harsh and ugly. It was the Tonkawa Kid. Ben Cowan could not see him, but he knew the Kid must be where he could watch Cowan. Where was that?

He pulled himself a little further along, sorting the places in his mind. When the Kid spoke again, Cowan threw his rifle around and fired at the sound.

From a few feet away, the Kid laughed again, and fired. A bullet tore a furrow in the grass just ahead of Ben Cowan, almost burning his finger. And then he saw the gully that lay only a few feet ahead and to his right. That gully was only inches deep, but it was enough to offer shelter. Moreover, it deepened further along.

Using his rifle, Ben Cowan suddenly pushed himself up and dove forward. A rifle bellowed behind him even as he fell into the gully. Instantly, despite the tearing pain in his leg, he threw himself further along and began to scramble to get further away.

He heard a rush of feet in the grass and wheeled around, throwing his gun up. As the Indian sprang into sight, swinging the gun muzzle down on him, Cowan fired.

At the same instant, from off to the left, there was another gun-shot.

The Tonkawa's body was caught in mid-air by the bullets; it was smashed back and around. Still he tried to bring his gun down on Cowan, but two more bullets ripped into him from the left and he fell into the bottom of the gully, landing only inches from Ben Cowan.

Cowan heard horses walking in the grass, and then a voice singing: "As I walked out in the streets of Laredo, as I walked out in Laredo one day ..."

A horse appeared on the edge of the gully, and a grinning face looked down at him.

It was Bijah Catlow.

Chapter
Three.

Ben Cowan opened his eyes and looked up into an evening sky where a few scattered clouds were touched with a faint brushing of rose, and along the horizon a dark fringe of trees shouldered against the coming night.

Something stirred near him, and he turned his head to see Old Man Merridew standing by the fire holding a coffee cup.

"Come out of it, did you? You lost a sight of blood, boy."

"I guess I did."

"You done all right," Merridew acknowledged. "You nailed two of them, and your bullet would have killed the Kid even without ours ... only maybe not soon enough."

"Where'd you come from?"

"Pushin' a herd to Dodge. Bijah seen your horse, so four, five of us, we left the herd and back-trailed the horse. Figured you to be in some kind of trouble, losin' your mount that way, and your rifle gone.

"Then we heard the shootin', so we closed in kind of careful-like. We found them Tonks you salted down, and one of our boys who used to hang out up in the Nation, he figured it was the Kid you were after. He knowed those Tonks for his kin."