The Last Hard Men (21 page)

An indulgence, he saw now. A cheap poetic fantasy. An old man’s pathetic dream, images of William S. Hart meeting a Shakespearean death in the last reel.

A corner of his vanity resented Hal’s wisdom. Hal, clear-eyed and sensible, had destroyed the dream.

But Hal had replaced it with something important.
She’ll need me
, he thought. The wonder of it made his old hands steady, made his jaw creep forward to lie in a hard line.
She’ll need me
.

How long had it been since anybody had needed Sam Burgade?

He sat there for hours, shifting his buttocks on the hard wood. Wind-stirred leaves made moving shadows along the moonlit ground. He kept checking his watch at close intervals and when it went past midnight he began to hear the beat of his own heart. The light seemed to grow brighter, every tiny sound louder. He played the field glasses over the pale silver meadow and his eyeballs seemed to scrape the sockets.

He’d told Hal half past midnight. Five minutes ahead of the appointed moment he picked up the .06 Springfield and jacked the bolt halfway open to make sure a cartridge was chambered in the breech. He snicked the safety off and hunched himself forward with his elbows on his knees, wrapping himself around the rifle like a ‘possum, holding the field glasses in one hand in such a way that he could drop them instantly and bring the rifle to bear in the same brief movement.

He heard crickets in the trees. Sweat prickled his scalp, breaking out like needles.

In the eight-power lenses he could see the horses plainly, the prone shapes of half a dozen figures, and two men sitting up with rifles, at opposite sides of the camp. One of them got up, restless, and walked back and forth.

The air was quite still. He’d told Hal to wait for a wind. His hands sweated and he wiped them one at a time on his trousers, and leveled the rifle again, locked it in tight in a marksman’s grip. The steel butt plate was cold through his clothing against his bony shoulder.

The cropped grass began to ripple, long silver glimmers like ocean swell. He locked the field glasses against the bridge of his nose and stared until his eyes ached. The breeze stirred his hair where it curled out under the hatbrim.

Abruptly, through the glasses, he saw a thin ribbon-stripe of light burst into sight at the bottom of the meadow. It looked like the crack of light under a closed door: trees and mountains grew darker behind it. It spread with a rush.

The pacing sentry stood bolt still. Burgade saw his shoulders lift when he filled his chest with air to give the alarm. The shout was thin in the distance. Figures on the ground began to stir.

The fire blasted forward like whitewater cascades. Unsteady winds spread it wider and wider. It raced forward, gathering brightness, throwing diamond sparks; whipped along, low to the ground and vicious.

Several men in camp were on their feet. It took them time to realize what was happening. Voices of surprise and querulous discovery rode the wind. Burgade held the glasses in rock-steady hands. He had them silhouetted against the fire now: he began to sort them out. He was looking for Susan.

The low racing blaze licked out at both sides, hungry for fuel, making its own hot wind now: rolling smoke shot forward from the crest. The fire’s heat expanded the air around it, accelerating the flames, turning them blue-yellow. Spreading like poured oil, it flashed out past its own edges, widening the swath—within seconds it covered half the width of the lower meadow. With quick fury it consumed its sparse spindly fuel and raced on to find more.

The camp was in panic. One man—it had to be Riva—had gone running toward the horses. Four or five of them were rearing and plunging. Riva dodged in among them, bent low in a crouch: Burgade caught the quick flash of light along an outstretched blade—Riva was cutting the hobbles. One by one the terrified horses leaped away and bolted forward until there were only three left. Evidently the three had not been unsaddled. Riva had them by the reins, he was fighting to keep them still. Out there, by now, the smell of smoke must be powerful. Burgade’s own nose caught a hint of it. Through the high-resolution lenses he saw two or three men break for it, running up on foot, not toward Burgade but off at an angle that would bring them into the trees two hundred yards to his right. He focused the glasses on them long enough to make sure Susan was not among them, and swung the glasses back.

Riva was with the horses, climbing up into a saddle, shouting something. The horses were dancing, rearing; nobody ran toward Riva, and after a brief moment more, Riva spurred the horse he was riding and led the other two horses away with him at a dead gallop, heading directly toward Burgade. Behind Riva, three men were moving across the camp on foot, starkly outlined against the flames. Zach Provo’s clawed praying mantis silhouette was unmistakable. Burgade sucked breath sharply into his lungs. Then, for a brief instant, he glimpsed Susan—on her feet, running. She’d been hidden, from his sight behind the horses.

But now Riva came veering forward, cutting off Burgade’s view of the camp: the three horses loomed heavy in the field glasses. Riva was drumming straight toward him, high and sharp-shouldered in the saddle.

He had to get those horses out of his line of sight. He braced the Springfield against his shoulder and dropped the glasses; took aim with deliberate care and fired, at four hundred yards.

Wherever the bullet went, it missed its target. Burgade racked the bolt open and slammed it shut, settled his aim and squeezed like a target-range shooter, not breathing, not closing either eye. When the Springfield went off it surprised him, as it should: and Riva threw up his arms and pitched back off his horse.

Freed, the three horses scattered in panic. Burgade fumbled for the glasses at his feet. The fire swarmed across the width of the meadow, crowding up with savage speed. The low angle of view made it hard to tell how close it was to the camp. Three of the men had run up toward the timber at Burgade’s right; they were almost into the trees now but he didn’t waste attention on them. One of the loose horses ran into the trees and he heard it crashing around. He could taste smoke now. He swung the field glasses to bear on the camp—the flames had almost reached it; but the four figures hadn’t begun to run for it.

Susan was out there. Burgade’s eyes went wide. He saw Provo shouting, making gestures. Provo had a grip on Susan’s wrist. She was trying to run; Provo held her back. Burgade hardly spared the two other men a glance; he didn’t care who they were. He saw Provo bend down and butt his shoulder against Susans midriff and straighten up with Susan across his back in a fireman’s carry, one arm across the backs of her knees; carrying her like that, Provo turned and ran back toward the other two men. The fire rushed forward, obscuring things in smoke, but Burgade caught fragmentary images: the three men wheeling through the smoke, jogging away from him—

—Provo was running into the fire!

In that sudden split moment of time he knew. Provo had not panicked. Provo had judged the speed of the flames, the sparse grass it fed on. Provo knew the fire had been set to drive him up this way. And Provo hadn’t fallen for it. Provo was going
through
the fire—he would break out of it, behind it, and run across the burned earth into the trees beyond.

He had a brief glimpse of one of them leaping high, running desperately, boots plunging through the low flames. Then they were gone—through and beyond, hidden from him by the blaze.

His eyes stared without believing. The whipping flames rushed forward—smoke began to burn his throat. His eyes started to water.
Got to think. Get a grip.
His head jerked around to the right—three of them had gone into the trees up that way. Possibly they’d seen the muzzle-flame of his rifle, shooting Riva down. He had to move away from this spot, keep from being ambushed. He swung his feet over the deadfall and went swiftly back deeper into the forest, lugging the Springfield and the glasses. He kept moving uphill; the low white moon ran along with him, above the treetops.

Out of breath, he stopped on a slope and looked down. Through the trees he could see the fire’s tail whip around, curling toward the trees off to the left. It would hit the rain-logged ground and the damp floor of the forest, and burn itself out against that moisture; not much chance of a forest fire catching. He searched the lower woods for movement. There was a good chance of picking it up against the firelight beyond.

He saw movement in two or three places but inspection proved it was only Riva’s horses, dashing around in fear. Burgade leaned against a tree and gulped wind. His chest heaved, his leg muscles trembled.
Think.

Provo had got away with Susan. Over on the far side. Instinct urged him to get over there as fast as he could and get after them. But a cooler second thought stopped him. No good to go after Provo with these three over here behind him. They might spot him, rig a crossfire. No. The thing to do was take these three out of the fight first. The fire had separated them from Provo. Fear would be working on them. They wouldn’t be thinking about Provo, or Susan, or even Provo’s gold. They’d be thinking about flight. Afraid of hidden guns in the dark forest. Get away from here—that was what they’d want.

Flight meant horses. Those three would be coming down this way, where Riva’s horses had entered the trees. They’d come not for Burgade but for the horses.

That was it, then. Get close to the horses and wait for the men to come. Burgade nodded. His breath had evened out. He began to work his way down through the timber.

The horses were easy to follow. Innate herd-habit had drawn them together and they made plenty of noise, banging around in the trees. As soon as they had got beyond smell of the smoke they had begun to calm down. When Burgade caught up with them they were moving slowly through the forest, starting to browse leaves and grass tufts. Three were saddled. In a short while they began to mill. He counted six, and that gave him pause: there had been nine to begin with—the other three had drifted off in some other direction, or Provo’s men had captured them. In the latter case, it meant no one would be coming after these six horses. Not for quite a while, at least.

The chances were diminishing: he cursed the shift, but there was no point speculating about those missing three horses. He’d picked his strategy; now he had to play it out. If nobody came looking for the horses in an hour or so, he’d have to try something else, but in the meantime—
Lord Jesus!

He wheeled on his feet and stared back the way he had come.
Of all the fool stupid things to do
… The ground here on the hill was still dew-damp from last night’s downpour. His own tracks, superimposed over the prints of the idling horses, were clear for anybody to follow.
Right out in front of God and everybody. You’re getting senile.

Well, he could hardly try to wipe them out, he’d only be obscuring the horse prints too.

He was old, he was dead tired, and it took him four or five minutes standing there in the silence to figure out what thirty years ago he’d have done instinctively. It left him profoundly depressed, more so than before, because now for the first time he felt the crawl of uncertainty in him as his self-confidence, which was the one thing that had kept him going, began to drain. He had pumped himself full of arrogance: now all of a sudden he was allowing himself to realize how poor his chances really were—of getting near Provo at all, of getting Susan away, of even staying alive through the next six hours.

He knew what to do to solve the immediate problem. The knowledge didn’t cheer him, because it had taken him such a long sluggish time to work it out in his head. Provo wasn’t going to give him that kind of time. So he did what had to be done, but he did it without heart. He kept on walking boldly ahead until he was within a few yards of the horses and they had stopped grazing to peer at him in spooky suspicion. Then, where one of the horses had stood and churned up the ground a little as if waiting for a rider to get mounted, he dug his right boot-toe deep into the earth, to leave a sharp toe-print of the kind that might have been left by a man putting his left foot into a stirrup and pushing himself up on his right tiptoe to get mounted.

Then he backtracked, carefully. Walked backward in his own tracks, careful to put his weight on his heels. He backed up until he was beside a mossy patch of rocks. Stepped to one side onto the rocks, leaving no tracks, and faded back into the woods, walking on brush and deadwood, leaving no sign that a casual eye would discern. He circled close in alongside the track again and posted himself at a crouch, hidden from the trail by heavy bushes and tree trunks but within three or four feet of the line of his own footprints. He cradled the rifle and waited for them to come.

He was counting on the three of them coming together—not in a tight-packed bunch, but spread out behind another for mutual protection. But it would work as well if fewer than three came; it would only mean he would then have to find whoever hadn’t come this way, and that would take longer. He was up against the factor of time, partly because time would fray Provo’s nerves, partly because he himself needed sleep badly and could not go much longer without.

He didn’t trust his old brain: he worked it out step by step in his mind to make sure he had not made some stupid mistake. Assume all three of them came, looking for the horses. In the moonlight they wouldn’t have counted the number of horses by the tracks; they wouldn’t know whether there had been six horses or seven. They would come along here, following the tracks, following Burgade’s bootprints. The bootprints would make them wary and they’d be spread out quite wide of each other, but at least one of them would be on this trail. Or they’d be single file, separated. In the former case he’d jump the nearest one and try to put him away silently, without alarming the others. In the latter case he’d let the first two go by and then jump the third one, then close in behind the other two while they reached the sudden end of his bootprints. They would assume Burgade had mounted one of the horses and ridden away on it; by the time they spotted the fact that there were no hoofprints leading away from the six remaining horses, Burgade hoped to be on top of them.