Shadow on the Sun (12 page)

“You're going with me?” Finley asked.

Boutelle stopped and looked around.

“Is there any reason that I can't?” he challenged.

Finley thought about it for a moment. “No,” he said. “Glad to have your company.”

“That I doubt,” Boutelle murmured, moving to the door again and opening it. “I'll meet you at the livery stable,” he said.

Finley watched Boutelle close the door. He was impressed. It would never have occurred to him that Boutelle would volunteer for such a trip.

He grunted with dark amusement as he turned back to the cupboard. Glad to have his company? he thought. Boutelle was right. He doubted it, too. At least he'd know where Boutelle was, though. That would prevent the younger man from riding to Fort Apache on his own and reporting Braided Feather's flight to Colonel Bishop.

A look of concern tightened his face again. Why
did
Braided Feather take his entire band away from their camp? He'd never
known the chief to evidence a moment's cowardice in the past. Now he was taking flight with all his people.

Something was driving them away. Something which obviously terrified them.

He looked at Dodge.

The little man was standing by the window, pressed against the wall, peering around its edge.

“Is he still there?” Finley asked.

His voice made the little man twitch and look toward Finley with a gasp.

“Is he?” Finley said.

Dodge drew in a shaking breath. “Yes,” he said, his voice thin. “You
are
going to take me to Fort Apache, aren't you?”

“No,” Finley answered.

Dodge looked at him in shock. “You're
not
?” he said.

“Why should I take you anywhere?” Finley demanded. “You're not willing to help me. Why should I help you?”

“Please,” Dodge said. “I can't tell you.”

“Then go by yourself,” Finley snapped.

“Damn you, don't you have the slightest idea of what we're all involved in here!” Dodge cried, startling Finley. “If you knew what that man really is!”

“What is he?” Finley demanded.

“
Something you don't want to know about
,” Dodge told him. “If you had the brains you were born with, you'd leave the territory with me and never come back!”

Finley looked intently at the little man. Clearly, Dodge was overwhelmed by dread.

He sighed. No use, he thought. He wasn't going to get anything helpful from the professor. He may as well forego the hope.

“You can go with me,” he told the professor. “But I can't take you to Fort Apache.”

“But you
have
to,” Dodge said in a panicked voice.

“It's in the opposite direction from the way I have to go,” Finley told him. “I'm sorry. You know what I have to do.”

“You can't just leave me,” Dodge said pleadingly.

“I'm sorry,” Finley said, gathering supplies together. “I'll stay with you as far as I can. Then I've got to head into the mountains.” He looked over at Dodge. “Maybe you want to come with me, see Braided Feather yourself.”

Dodge said no more. He stood by the window in silence, peering out at the man.

The next time Finley looked at him, the little man was slumped on the bench, bending over, holding his head in his hands. Finley had never seen a more defeated-looking man. He felt sorry for Dodge again.

But there was nothing more he could do about it.

A
s
they rode down Main Street, headed for the south end of town, they had to ride past the hotel. Across from it, sitting in the chair again, was the man. Seeing him there, it occurred to Finley that ordinarily if short-tempered Elbert Zweig, who owned the grain shop, saw anyone sitting in his chair, he'd charge out and roust him. That there was not a sign of Zweig made it obvious that he had no intention of confronting the man.

He glanced at Dodge. The professor was staring straight ahead, face set into a rigid mask.

Finley glanced at the man in the chair, shuddering as he saw that look again directed at him.

He felt a tightening of reactive anger. Damn the man anyway, he thought. If the Marshal had been around, Finley could have told him that the man had stolen one of the Corcorans' horses; that would be enough to get him thrown in jail.

But could the jail even contain the man, Finley wondered, remembering that glade and the sight of Al Corcoran torn apart like
the prey of some wild animal. The last time he'd seen a living thing so mangled was when he'd stumbled onto a hawk devouring a rabbit it had just caught. His startling of the bird had made it rush up suddenly into the air, scattering the bloody fragments of flesh in all directions.

“You really think that man is involved with what's happening?” Boutelle's voice made him start.

Finley glanced at the man in the chair to see if he'd overheard. If he had, he gave no indication of it.

“Ask the professor,” he answered.

Boutelle looked at Dodge. “Professor?” he asked. If the small man knew something about this situation, Boutelle could not fathom why he was so reluctant to reveal it.

“Not yet,” was all Dodge said, his lips barely moving as though he didn't want the man in the chair to think he was speaking.

Ten minutes later, they were out of Picture City.

After they were gone from sight, the man stood slowly and moved to Al Corcoran's horse. He swung his giant frame onto the saddle and reined the horse's head around.

He would not lose track of the professor this time.

 

They saw
the grayish-white smoke before they were close enough to see what was burning.

“What could that be?” Boutelle asked.

“Unless I'm wrong, it's Little Owl's wickiup,” Finley told him.

In several minutes, they could see the burning structure. Because of the heavy rain the day and night before, its hide walls were still damp, smoldering slowly instead of burning quickly as they would have in drier weather.

Little Owl's widow and children had just finished loading a
travois with their few belongings. They looked around apprehensively as they heard the approaching hoofbeats. Seeing Finley, Little Owl's wife said something to her children and they became less restive.

Boutelle looked at them with impolite curiosity as they rode closer to the burning wickiup. He had not seen Indian women and children before. His only exposure to the Apaches had been the meeting yesterday and the few minutes in town this morning, and that had only been with Braided Feather, his rancorous son, and whatever braves had come along with them.

Frankly, he was appalled by the sight of Little Owl's widow and children. They looked dirty and diseased to him, their clothes in wretched condition. Did they ever wash? he thought. But even as he thought it, he sensed the injustice of that observation. To live like this was scarcely conducive to cleanliness. Not that they care, I'm sure, he thought.

In light of all that, however, why in the name of God were they burning the one shelter they had, meager and mean though it was?

He asked, and Finley told him that it was because of Little Owl, that it was an Indian practice to burn their dwelling places after a death.

“With his body
inside
?” he asked, repelled.

“It's their way,” Finley answered.

Boutelle was silent for a few moments before asking, “Can you find out if she knows anything about the Apaches leaving their camp?”

“She wouldn't know anything about that,” Finley replied.

“Ask her about her husband then,” Boutelle said. “Maybe he knew—”

“Impossible,” Finley interrupted. “From the moment she knew
her husband was dead, his name never passed her lips, and in no way whatever will she ever refer to him for the rest of her life.”

“Really,” Boutelle said, not impressed by the information, merely reacting to it.

They stopped by the smoking, slowly burning wickiup, and Finley, dismounting, spoke to Little Owl's wife. Boutelle could not help but notice the kindness in his voice when he spoke to her. What did the man see in these people anyway? he thought. Their hideous depredations on the settlers of this territory and beyond would certainly seem to disqualify them from the status of acceptable human beings.

He looked over at Dodge. The professor was clearly unhappy about them stopping at all. He kept looking back toward Picture City, his expression deeply anxious. Did he think that man was going to follow them?

Boutelle tried not to allow himself to be misled by what appeared to be complications in what was going on. The facts were clear enough. The Apaches had signed the treaty in bad faith, promptly massacred those two young men, and now were fleeing from the obvious consequences.

The rest was extraneous. That man—as grotesque as he was to look at—could not conceivably be behind all this. Very well, Professor Dodge was terrified of him. Dodge seemed to be an educated man, but that did not prevent him from being credulous as well. Perhaps he'd done something to offend the man and feared reprisal.

As far as the so-called “Night Doctor” . . . Boutelle made a scoffing noise. He had no intention of succumbing to anything which remotely smacked of mysticism. God knew the man with the scar looked powerful enough to commit any conceivable variety of mayhem without being a mystical being. That the Apaches feared him
was not all that peculiar. They were a naive, superstitious lot at best and . . .

His train of thought broke off as Dodge said loudly, “Can't we go?”

Finley looked up at him without expression, then turned back to Little Owl's widow and said a few more things to her. Boutelle saw him pat her gently on the back and smile. Then he returned to his horse and mounted. Without a word, he pulled the mare around and nudged his heels against its flanks, causing it to trot away. Boutelle did the same, then Dodge. The three men rode off from what had been Little Owl's home and now was only a smoking framework of poles and burning hides.

“What did you say to her?” Boutelle asked, riding up beside Finley.

“I wished her luck,” Finley muttered.

“You didn't suggest she take her family to the San Carlos Reservation?”

“I wouldn't send a
dog
there,” Finley responded.

The bitterness in his voice shut Boutelle up. Obviously Finley was in no frame of mind to be rational, he thought. Let it go. Soon enough, the agent would have to accept the facts and have a troop of cavalry sent in pursuit of the fleeing Apaches.

Dodge followed them, relieved when Finley heeled his mare into a slow gallop. The further away from the man he got and the faster, the better he'd feel.

 

Finley pulled
up his horse and twisted around to look at Dodge.

“This is as far as I can take you,” he said. “The fort is that way.”

Dodge stared at him blankly. “You're really not going to—”

“You can still come with us,” Finley cut him off. “Talk to Braided Feather. Tell him—”

“No,” Dodge interrupted.

Finley's lips tightened. “Suit yourself,” he said. Boutelle saw him struggling with his anger and controlling it. Then Finley spoke again.

“Listen to me, Professor,” he said. “This is your last chance to prevent what could well be a catastrophe. You know a lot more than you've told us. Please . . .
please
don't hold back anymore.
Who is that man?
Why are the Apaches running from him? Why are
you
running from him? What does the Night Doctor have to do with it? For God's sake, what's that damn
scar
around his neck?”

It seemed as though Dodge was about to speak. His lips stirred soundlessly, his expression tautly anxious.

Abruptly, then, he looked behind them, hissed as though he saw something, and kicked his boot heels at the horse's flanks, galloping off toward the fort.

“I hope he makes it,” Finley said after a few moments.

Boutelle didn't know how to respond. Despite his resolve, his mind kept getting cluttered with these complications, all of them leading to one unanswerable question.

What
did
the tall stranger have to do with what was going on?

He watched Dodge galloping away at high speed.

As though pursued by the demons of Hell.

 

The campground
was built beside a running stream within a grove of trees, a thick windbreak of pine, spruce, and piñon.

There were eighty-seven tepees covering a clearing of almost four acres. They surrounded an open area of ground in which
stood an oversize tepee which Boutelle took to be a meeting lodge of some kind.

Each tepee was constructed of a tripod of poles tightly covered by buffalo skins, their flesh side outward. All of them looked slightly tilted to Boutelle, which he took to be deliberate.

The camp was deserted.

Boutelle's gaze moved across the quiet area. Several fires were still burning low, their wood embers dark red. Pots hung over them as though the Apaches had not even had the time to remove them. Boutelle could smell some kind of food now burning in them.

His gaze shifted to where an ancient-looking steer was standing, motionless, looking off into the distance.

“Why did they leave it?” he asked.

“Too old, too slow,” Finley said. “They didn't want to be held back.”

“How do you know that?” Boutelle asked.

Finley didn't answer, and Boutelle had the sudden impression that Finley knew a great deal about these people and their land. For a few moments, he felt alien and helpless, then fought it off. No need for that, he told himself.

“Now what?” he asked.

Finley gazed at him, and Boutelle had the impression that the agent wouldn't hesitate to leave him there if it served his purpose.