Ghost Dance (39 page)

Drum might, though, thought Chance, make a wide circle, perhaps behind those ridges in the distance. Probably not. That would take a long time, at least. He wouldn't figure there was a point in it. And if he did he'd probably still close his circle and come out ahead of me. At any rate, thought Chance, I'll worry about that in an hour or so.

Chance found himself thinking about having a smoke. He didn't have any more tobacco, of course, and if he had had, he would not have smoked it at the time; a wisp of smoke, the odor of burned tobacco, might have revealed his position.

The wind blew across the Bad Lands, moving driven snow in strange patterns through the irregular formations; the air was cold.

Chance had no taste for the killing of Drum, or any man, but he had not made the choice; one or the other of them must die.

Drum will not expect me here, said Chance to himself; Drum will underestimate me, because I am white; he underestimated me on the prairie, and he will do so again, and it will be his last mistake.

I am sorry, Drum, thought Chance, I am sorry to have to kill you.

In Chance's mind there passed the fantasy of returning to the Indian encampment, free, for Lucia, of holding her in his arms, of cutting her loose, putting her behind him on his horse and taking her from the captivity and the terrors of the Bad Lands, ending the nightmare of the Scalp Dance and the torture of Totter, the nightmare of the cold and the cruelty of bonds, of the halter on her neck, of the not knowing if she was to live or die, or to whom she would belong.

I am sorry, Drum, thought Chance, but I must kill you. I must lie here and wait for you, as quiet as the steel of a trap, and when you come I must kill you.

A shot rang out. The bullet struck Chance in the back of his left shoulder, smashing him against the rocks behind which he lay, moving upward, emerging through his upper left arm and breaking rock like popping glass about his chin and mouth. Not trying to turn and fire Chance threw himself to the side rolling to the edge of the arroyo and pitching over, falling down the steep side in a slide of gravel and snow, scrambling behind an outcropping of rock.

He knelt behind the outcropping, trying to brush the snow from his eyes and rifle.

He was aware, somewhat now as if it might be someone else, that he was hit.

But the bullet had come from his left, from behind somehow. Drum could not have been there.

There were no tracks, the snow was clean.

Chance's shoulder and upper arm felt numb, as though a sledge hammer had struck him.

Gradually, as Chance knelt with his rifle high, scanning the rim of the arroyo across from him, the shoulder, someone's, began to ache; then it began to feel heavy; the back of the inside of his shirt and his left sleeve started to feel wet and warm; Chance decided it was hot in the arroyo; he was covered with sweat.

Then he saw the tracks.

They passed his own in the bottom of the arroyo.

Damn, thought Chance, damn.

Drum had realized what Chance would figure him to do. Instead of doubling back on the top of the arroyo, as Chance had expected, the young brave had doubled back along the bottom, first having waited a time, long enough for Chance to clear the passage; then, in retracing his steps, he had of course found the place where Chance had climbed out, thus in effect determining the approximate position of his enemy; he had then continued on for several yards, climbed out himself, well behind Chance, where Chance would not expect him–found his target, and fired.

Chance realized bitterly that Drum, once having underestimated him on the prairie, was not going to do so again. Rather this time it had been he, Chance, arrogant Chance, who had underestimated the young Indian.

Lucia, he thought, Lucia.

Chance winced. The bullet, he knew, had it been placed four inches differently in one direction, or six in another, would have been the finish for him.

Another shot whined over Chance, disappearing smoothly into the snow on the far side of the arroyo, then exploding back a handful of rock fragments that took a bucketful of snow with them. It was only in his memory, or maybe his imagination, a second or so afterwards, that Chance had realized there had been a sequence.

Chance nearly squeezed off a shot for no reason, with no target, just to fire back.

He cursed his irrationality. He tried to gather his thoughts, forget the ache, the heat and the sweat.

That shot, he told himself, was not directed at the outcropping.

He doesn't know for sure where I am.

Only that I'm somewhere here, somewhere here in the arroyo.

He wants to draw my fire.

He has three cartridges left.

Chance began to pull off his plaid cotton shirt. It was hell to get it off his left arm and shoulder but finally he teased it from his body.

He shoved his back against the snow on the arroyo wall; with his right hand he scooped up more snow and packed it against the wound in his upper arm.

Slow the flow of blood, thought Chance, slow it.

Clinically he watched the snow held against his left arm turn red, how fast it did so.

Too fast, thought Chance.

He was satisfied to see the wound was reasonably clean; Drum had not cut the heads of the bullets.

He shoved the shirt he had taken off against the wound on his upper arm.

The sweat on his body had frosted now. He no longer felt hot. He was no longer sweating. He began to feel cold.

Chance sat there in the snow for a couple of minutes, feeling stupid, the rifle across his lap.

Then he pulled the cotton shirt from the wound and the way it stuck pleased him, though it hurt to tear it off the wound. Good, thought Chance. The wound began to bleed again. Chance then thrust the cotton shirt behind the outcropping of rock, a spot of color in the bleak whiteness of the arroyo.

Then, gritting his teeth, carrying his rifle, his right hand on the trigger housing, finger on the trigger, the barrel cradled painfully in the crook of his left elbow, Chance began to back down the arroyo, keeping his eye on the ledges, sweeping from the left to the right, looking for Drum.

The young Indian was nowhere to be seen.

At last, about forty yards down the arroyo, Chance sat down in the snow, leaning back against one wall of the passage. He was numb with pain. He seemed tired now. He speculated on how much blood he had lost, how much more he could afford to lose before he became unconscious.

His eyes blurred for a frightened moment, and he was afraid he was going under, but they cleared.

If Drum was crawling along the ledge he might be overanxious, he might fire on the shirt, especially if he came abruptly on the sudden color.

Chance might get a shot at him then.

But Drum was no fool. He might look for something like that. So far Drum had been a jump ahead all the way. He was cunning, too damn cunning. He knew what he was expected to do; then he would do the opposite, catching his opponent unawares.

All right, said Chance to himself, what do I think Drum will do?

The shoulder ached like hell now. That was good. He wasn't going into shock.

He could take that kind of pain, plenty of it.

He would have to.

Chance leaned back against the wall of the arroyo, packed snow again against the wound he could reach.

Mostly he watched.

And thought.

Too wildly maybe.

He must be slow.

Leave out nothing.

Drum might expect the trick with the shirt, or something like it. Drum knew he'd been hit, that he wouldn't be far, that he'd be laying low, and waiting. Given that much, the trick with the shirt, or something like it, would make sense.

Drum would reason that if Chance had done something like this he would have gone down the arroyo some yards, waiting for a clear shot when the Indian jumped for the bait.

In fact he would be right about where he was now, right about where he was.

Chance felt sick.

Drum knew his position, at least within yards.

But, Chance reasoned, Drum may not count on my knowing that he's figured me out. He'll try to trick me into firing, or into showing myself.

He can't know exactly where I am.

A few yards could make a hell of a difference.

Suddenly Chance heard a sound from the arroyo, about a hundred feet from behind him. Chance swung the rifle around. He nearly stepped away from the wall to fire.

No, said Chance, don't.

He stayed close to the wall.

It could have been, Chance thought, a rock, a rock thrown behind me, to pull me into the open facing the wrong direction. But it might be Drum, said Chance. I'll wait, he decided, I'll wait.

Chance sat in the snow, leaning against the wall of the arroyo.

He closed his eyes for a moment against the pain, the damned whiteness of the arroyo, the glare. When he opened them again they had blurred again. He shook his head. He wondered if he had lost consciousness for a few minutes. His eyes cleared. The world seemed very quiet, very bright, very cold, very pure.

He felt stupid sitting there, naked from the waist up, losing blood.

Somewhere in that bright, quiet, cold, pure world a man was hunting him, a young man but a good man, one who knew his business.

I can wait, thought Chance. Then he smiled grimly. I guess I can wait, he thought.

He felt tired, weak.

He thrust more snow against his arm, pushed back further into the snowbank. The cold numbed the pain; it slowed the bleeding.

He closed his eyes again.

Suddenly he opened them, startled, fully awake.

The shadow of a figure, a man with a rifle, was falling on the arroyo side opposite where he sat.

He's on top, on the left, thought Chance, there!

Chance silently, painfully, gathered his legs under him, to spring to the center of the arroyo, turn and snap off the killing shot at the figure on the rim.

If I move fast, thought Chance, I'll have one clean shot before he can bring his gun around.

Chance's legs knotted under him like springs; he tensed to leap to the center of the arroyo, turn and fire; he stopped; he didn't move.

Why would Drum stand upright?

Why would he let his shadow fall into the arroyo?

With his thumb Chance clicked back the hammer on his rifle.

He wanted Drum to hear the noise.

Then, with his back to the ledge where Drum must be, he stepped to the center of the arroyo, facing toward the shadow, away from the object which cast it.

He held the rifle painfully high, steadied in the crook of his left arm.

Chance stood that way for an instant, waiting for the bullet in the back.

The bullet did not come.

Chance smiled.

I have won, he thought, I have won.

He crouched in the middle of the arroyo; with agony he struggled to keep the weapon steady; its weight seemed incredible to him; then the front sight, wavering only minutely, fastened on a patch of blue sky above the arroyo, over the place where the shadow fell.

"Yah!" yelled Chance, the sudden shout ringing in the still arroyo. Almost at the same instant, above the shadow, Drum's figure reared into view with incredible swiftness, his rifle pointed downward.

Chance squeezed the trigger and Drum caught the bullet in the chest. His eyes looked startled for an instant and then he toppled into the arroyo, falling in the snow at Chance's feet.

Drum wore no shirt and his body looked dark in the reddening snow. Chance kicked away Drum's rifle.

Drum's eyes were half shut; he was fighting for breath.

Chance stood up wearily, dropped his own rifle into the snow. It was too heavy to hold any longer.

Chance saw that the shadow, of course, still fell calmly on the arroyo wall. He turned, looking upward and behind him. There on the rim of the arroyo opposite, casting the shadow, was Drum's shirt, hooked on a stake of brush. One stick had even been thrust into the brush, looking in the shadow as if it might be a rifle.

Chance, his left arm hanging at his side, knelt beside Drum. He looked at the wound, its placement, considered the angle at which the bullet had entered.

I'm sorry, he thought, kneeling in the snow, I'm sorry.

Drum's eyes opened. In them there was no anger, no fear.

Chance, to do something, not because there was much point in it, scooped up some snow, trying to press it on the wound in Drum's chest.

Weakly Drum pushed his hand away. "No," he said.

Chance was silent.

There was nothing much to say or do. The handful of snow had been a gesture, nothing more. The heart would stop long before the body had lost much blood.

And so Chance knelt in the snow in the bottom of the arroyo, near the young Indian, watching him, listening to him breathe, with his physician's ear marking the change of breath from minute to minute, the alternation of its rhythm, its frequency, the change in the sound, parameters and gradients familiar to Chance; soon gases would no longer be exchanged; a certain natural process would terminate; a man would be dead.

Drum had turned his head toward him, was looking at him.

"My heart is heavy," said Chance. "You will ride the death trail." He looked at Drum. "Tonight," said Chance, "your pony will trample stars and among the stars a second rider waits for you, that you will hunt with him, and there will be antelope and buffalo, and together through the high sweet grass under the blue sky you will ride with him, and all the Indians will say these are the greatest of our hunters, they, Kills-His-Horse of the Hunkpapa, and Drum, who is his son."

Drum smiled at Chance weakly. "No," he said.

Chance said nothing, looking down at the snow.

"I am proud it was you," said Drum. "No Long Knife could kill Drum."

Chance looked at him. "No," he said.

Drum put his right hand over the wound in his chest. Then, weakly, he tried to lift his hand to Chance's wound. Chance took the hand in his own right hand and put it, bloody, to his shoulder.

"My Brother," said Drum.

"I am proud," said Chance, softly.

Drum closed his eyes, and Chance speculated that it was the end. But before he died he opened his eyes once more, and said, "The blood of the badger is true."