Woman of Three Worlds (24 page)

With a harsh, breathless sound, he put her from him. “That had better not happen again or I won't answer to Erskine for your condition.”

Mortified, she scuttled away. “You could always blame it on Kah-Tay,” she scorned. “I doubt the major would cancel the reward.”

Zach's eyes blazed. “Has that Indian—”

“My ‘condition' is none of your business.”

She darted out of the wickiup, but angry as she was, she set about her preparations. Before dusk, alternating trips to the cache and cave, near which late that afternoon she found the mules hobbled, she had all in readiness.

On her last trip to the cave her heart leaped and she blessed Sara from the depths of her being. Leaned against the rock wall beside the rawhide saddlebags were two rifles and pouches full of cartridges.

This priceless gift of trust made Brittany resolve even more firmly that they must not fire on any of the band unless absolutely driven to it, and on Kah-Tay not at all. There were many dangers besides pursuers from this camp between here and the post. The rifles greatly increased their chances of winning through.

While preparing the one main meal of the day, Brittany found an opportunity to whisper her thanks. She also took time to tell Jody several of his favorite White Eye stories, saddened to know she might never see him again but hoping that somehow he'd grow up free, that he would never be caged.

Kah-Tay's green eyes dwelled on her piercingly several times as she helped serve the meal. She couldn't trust herself to meet his gaze.

He had been many things to her: captor, protector, almost-lover. If it hadn't been for that barrier of inbred customs and attitudes, if she hadn't loved Zach, she might have been his woman and lived happily with him this unfettered life that, alien as it was, she would always remember with a sense of loss.

Glancing from Pretty Eyes, on the threshold of life, to Grouchy, near its close, she implored their Ussen and her own God to protect them.

As dusk changed to darkness, Brittany's taut nerves neared screaming pitch as families loitered about their cookfires and did chores they should surely have attended to much earlier.

Grouchy, after having been in a sulk since Zach's capture, waxed loquacious and seemed intent on telling every story in the whole Coyote cycle.

A sliver of new moon vanished behind the canyon wall. Disasters threatened and multiplied in Brittany's anxious mind. What if the mules broke their hobbles and wandered off? What if someone chanced upon them or the things in the cave? What if dogs barked as she and Zach stole out of the camp? Suppose someone saw them?

It seemed forever, but gradually one group after another drifted into wickiups. Brittany followed Sara into theirs. Zach shifted on his bed, but there was no way of guessing whether he was sleeping or awake.

Much as she wished to thank Sara again and tell her good-bye, Brittany sensed that the medicine woman was torn in loyalties and preferred as little acknowledgment as possible. Brittany didn't undress or even take her moccasins off but simply lay down and pulled the blankets over her.

Again, time crept. After what seemed hours, the camp was silent. Brittany was easing to her feet when a hand brushed her. Startled, she swallowed a cry.

Without a sound, noiselessly lifting the flap, she and Zach hunched over as they moved out into the frosty night, keeping low, stepping carefully, testing each advance. Brittany's heart seemed stuck in her throat, but it could only have been a few minutes before they gained the trees and could walk erect.

Fortunately scavenging for firewood had cleared the ground of dead branches that might have given a betraying crunch. Brittany led the way to the narrowing of the canyon, and by then her eyes were so accustomed to the night that she could make out the dark hulk of the mules.

A handful of corn made the animals easy to lure toward the cave. Brittany slipped on their bridles and handed the reins to Zach. “Let me saddle up,” she whispered. “We don't want you tearing that shoulder open.” She handed him one of the rifles and smiled in the darkness at his amazed delight.

“By God! A Winchester! Did Sara give us this?”

“Yes, and another, with lots of cartridges.”

“Our chances just quadrupled. But if there's any way to avoid it, I won't kill any of the band. I'll aim for their shooting arm or a leg. Can you use a rifle?”

“No.”

“Then I'd better show you how when it's light enough.”

Cinching the saddles, she loaded on the rawhide bags and tied the blankets behind. There were rawhide scabbards for the rifles. She fastened these at the front along with the water jugs.

“Good thing we're moving on mule legs,” Zach grunted. “My own are about to go out from under me.”

“You haven't opened your wound?” Brittany asked in quick alarm.

“No. But to make sure I don't, I'm going to climb aboard from the top of this rock. Don't worry,” he added reassuringly. “I'll get better fast now that I can move around.”

She did worry, but there was nothing for it but to ride.

They traveled steadily all that night. It was bitter cold. Brittany kept flexing her toes to keep them from going completely numb. When the mules' hoofs began to click as they struck rock, Brittany dismounted and, fingers clumsy from cold, tied on new rawhide “shoes,” grateful that these were patient beasts that didn't kick. They had to ride east for hours before they reached a pass turning north across a valley.

During all that time Zach scarcely spoke, and though it was no time for chatter, Brittany felt increasingly troubled about him. When she put fresh rawhide on the mules, she insisted that Zach drink and munch some jerky. Dread grew in her like slow poison. When the faintest beginning of light revealed the way he slumped, her heart plummeted.

Riding abreast, she said urgently, “Zach, you can't keep this up! Let's find someplace to hide till you're stronger.”

“Mules … would give us away,” he said in a thick voice.

“I'll turn them loose,” she said desperately. “Let's find a cave just as fast as we can.”

“They'll find us by nooning.”

“If we go on, you'll be slipping off your mule and they'll catch us anyway!”

With great difficulty he lifted his head and stared at her. The glassiness of fever made his eyes brilliant even in the gray light. “All right. We'll hunt a hole if you'll promise me something.”

“What?”

“If they find us, don't try to hold them off. You'll just get yourself killed. I'll fight if I'm able, but if I'm not, prop me up where they'll shoot me or do it yourself.” He grinned weakly. “I don't want that sweet old grandma to get hold of me.”

Brittany couldn't make such a promise. If they were trapped, she didn't know what she'd do, but she evaded Zach's demand by saying, “Before we go any farther, maybe you'd better show me about the rifle.”

She pulled hers out of its scabbard and passed it to him. “Sara did us proud with these,” he muttered. “Magazine holds fifteen shots. Here's the loading port, where you stuff the shells in, just in front of and above the trigger.” He handed it back to her. “Now fit the stock to your shoulder and look down the sights. You want to get your target lined up with them, front and rear. Then you pull the trigger—and try to keep your eyes open and your aim true till at least you've fired! It'll help a lot to lean the rifle on a rock or log to keep it steady.”

“Thank goodness it's easy to load,” Brittany said, fitting it into the scabbard.

“That 1873 forty-four–caliber model is a damn good rifle. Hope Kah-Tay doesn't raise hell with Sara for letting us have them.”

“They were probably Sara's,” Brittany said, trying not to think of the men from whose dead hands they had almost surely been taken. “She's a warrior as well as a good nurse. Kah-Tay couldn't help you, because he's the chief, but I think he'll be glad if you can get away.”

“Not with you along,” Zach growled. With obvious effort, he straightened and gathered the reins. “Let's hunt our burrow. Might as well follow that wash up this next canyon. Might be a spring.”

The twisting course between jagged walls of rock revealed many shallow grottoes but nothing that offered concealment. Zach's head drooped. For a time he kept dragging it up, but as the sun rose over the cliff rim it seemed all he could do to keep in the saddle.

A small side-canyon branched off. Thick with trees, it seemed to offer better cover. Brittany rode down it and Zach's mule followed.

Rocks fallen from above nearly choked the narrow passage a short way along it. Brittany was starting to turn her mule when she saw a triangular opening in the cliff beyond the rockslide, close to a lightning-blasted tree. It looked too small, but she was frantic to get Zach to a resting place and run off the telltale mules.

Tethering the mules, she said to Zach, “I'm going to look up here.”

He didn't answer. His dark eyelashes were closed against his flushed cheeks. Brittany clambered over boulders and rubble to a ledge that angled to the jagged hole. Peering in, Brittany rejoiced to see a long though narrow hollow almost high enough to stand up in. The walls and stone floor were dry. Also, as if fate were deciding to be kind, she tested the charred tree and found she could drag it in front of the entrance.

From a distance the rockslide would probably persuade searchers that their quarry had continued down the main canyon. Though she might have quite a hunt for water, this seemed as good a spot as she would find. Hurrying down, she coaxed Zach's mule up the rocks and ledge.

“Zach!” she called softly. “Here's a place we can hide.”

He didn't seem to hear. “Zach!” she said more loudly. “Can you get down?” He stirred, blinked frowningly at her. “Get down,” she urged, giving him a careful tug.

He got his other leg out of the stirrup and half fell, half climbed, down. Staggering under his weight, she maneuvered him inside, leaned him against the wall while she spread his blankets. Once he was stretched out and well covered, she unburdened the mule and led him to where the other waited.

When her mount was unloaded she climbed on his bare back and led the other one back through the narrow gorge and down the canyon the way they had traveled. In the broad valley she slipped off, freed the mules of their bridles, and sent them off with slaps on the rump.

They'd probably go back to the
ranchería
, but the “shoes” ought to muffle their tracks till they were far from their point of release. Though glad to be rid of their give-away presence, Brittany hated to see them go, for the journey would have been much easier with them.

Afoot, she and Zach would have to stay in the gorge till he was strong again, which might be weeks. She chilled to realize that winter was truly Ghost Face, the poorest time for finding wild food. It would have been sensible to kill one of the mules for meat, but she couldn't have done that till she and Zach were close to starving.

More cheeringly she reflected that if they weren't discovered before their supplies ran out, it would doubtless mean that the hunt had been dropped. It would be fairly safe then for Zach to shoot some game, or if he wasn't able to, she'd have to try.

What they couldn't go without was water.

Since sleep was the best medicine for Zach right now, she decided to search down the main canyon for a spring. About a mile from the gorge, she began to find stretches of gray stone smoothed and polished by sand and flood. Where a shallow basin lay beneath an overhang of rock, she saw whitish rings where water had been before it evaporated or was used up by thirsty wild creatures. Perhaps the basin only served as a natural cistern, but there might be a seep farther up.

There was, and only a little beyond the basin, but it had been a dry year, with little rain or snow to feed the trickle from the rocks. A coyote or some other animal had dug out a hole in the sand so water could collect to drinking depth.

Brittany improved on this with a sharp stick, washed her hands, cupped them beneath the seep, and drank. By the time she got back with the water jugs, the coyote well should have filtered enough water through the sand to fill them. She'd also look for water in the gorge, but at least this was in reasonable distance.

Their most crucial problem solved, she hurried back to the cave, taking care to brush out any visible tracks with a stalk of dried desert broom.

Her heart sank when she found Zach still feverish, though she could hardly have expected anything else. She got him to drink deep, fed him ground berries mixed with acorn meal and water, and held him close to her for a long while before she poured what remained of their water into a gourd and went out to refill the jugs.

A brief search proved the gorge to have no water. She went to the seep as speedily as she could, filled both jugs, and was back at their refuge by noon.

Weary from strain and the long ride, she drove herself to find enough grass to pad Zach's bed. When she had stuffed this beneath his blanket, she placed her own beside him, curled close for comfort as much as warmth, and fell into slumber.

XVIII

She opened her eyes to thick duskiness, lay for a moment without knowing where she was. The moment Zach stirred she remembered everything and thought with a rush of relief,
It's almost night and they haven't found us! Maybe they won't
.

Leaning over Zach she touched his forehead. He still burned. She got him to drink. In the gray light she peered at his wound. Pus seeped from it. She thought it looked more puffy and swollen than it had for several days. A big mescal plant grew at the end of the ledge. She went out now and trimmed off a leaf.

Taking the thick lower part, she pounded it to a mass with a rock and placed this astringent pulp on the angry wound. Zach flinched at the sting and started to drag the poultice off, but she spoke to him sharply and, with an incoherent murmur, he let it be.