The Eye of the Hunter (13 page)

Henry pulled the horse in, threw the whip away, and snatched at the “Let 'er Rip” carbine, but it hung up in the scabbard and he ran back and pulled his Winchester from the saddle scabbard. He worked the bolt of the gun, reassured by its oily action. One side of his mind was saying,
The Grand Army's at it again!
Or,
Somebody's trying to bluff me out
, but another was saying,
Take it seriously!—spot him and go to work. Probably Budge Gorman has gone crazy. Or Ben Ambrose is getting something off his chest
....

Henry squeezed Frances's hand, peering into her face to see what he might be up against here. Would she run hysterically down the road? The pupils of her eyes were enormous; her face was chalky. But he thought she could still follow orders.

“Just stay put!” he said. “Right here. That fool's trying to scare you. Or the Grand Army's up to some nonsense—kind of a chivaree.”

She nodded, swallowed, sagged back onto the leather pillow, and began to shiver. Still nodding. Still shivering.

Juggling the rifle in his hands, Henry considered the huge castellated rock between the buggy and the shooter. Scrub oak filled one of the gaps at the crest of the stained rock, where he could probably take up his observation post without much chance of becoming a target. And once in position with his fifteen-shot '95 gun, he could lay down some intimidating fire. Before leaving Allie's, he had dropped a handful of shells in his coat pocket.

After a switchbacking climb through gnarled trees and a tangle of manzanita, he crawled into the thicket at the top. From here he could see the ridge to the south. The range looked like about two hundred yards, and he discounted the slight wind.

Looking for signs of smoke or movement, he found a grayish haze in an oak thicket at the crest of the ridge. In his initial shock, he had paid no attention to the sound of the gunshot, but the haze drifting through the tangle of branches had come from a black-powder shell. The seamed visage of General Miles Stockard rose to grin at him, for, like many old-time shooters, the general apparently distrusted such innovations as smokeless powder.

But Stockard had blinded his shooting eye, so how could he be the hunter? And surely he had better sense than this.

He decided that only an idiot like Budge Gorman would commit such folly. Yet, to be fair to Gorman, there was still another field-grade fool in town: Ben Ambrose. The editor wore his ego like a Congressional Medal, and Henry had certainly dented it a bit. But had he the guts to use a rifle to purge himself of his shame at letting a Kansas City gunsmith waltz out of town with a smile on his face and a pretty woman on his arm? Why not?

In his blind he waited, while in his own covert, the shooter counted the seconds.

Henry yearned to yank out his bandanna and wipe his face, but could not risk the movement. Sweat tickled his ears. Either the sun was growing hotter, or his fever was rising. Perspiration plastered his shirt to his shoulders.

He decided he had better make the first move—test the state of the man's nerves. There were boulders in the thicket, and he picked out a white facet of rock, held his breath, and locked the sights up—square peg neatly filling square hole. Then had to stop and scrub the sweat from his eyebrows. He tried again, restored the pattern of the sights, slowly closed his hand on the gun stock until the hammer fell. The gun roared and jolted his shoulder. White dust exploded in the thicket.

Finally, teeth bared, he let his intentions be known by sending ten rapid-fire shots across the swale, ripping branches and raising dust.

Frances's voice came in a scream. “
Henry?
”

Waiting, he slipped more shells into the tube under the hot barrel. His ears rang.

“It's all right,” he called, not sure she could hear him. “I had to make sure of something.”

“You can be sure I'm not going to stay here! I'm going to drive on to the ranch!”

“Wait ...” He half raised, like a lizard, to see what was happening. “Okay! He's quit.”

Dust drifted from the far side of the ridge, the military crest—the hunter was disengaging. A shod horse was clattering through the rocks, and presently he saw him in the brush alongside the road.

Driving through a grove of oaks toward the ranch, Henry greedily gulped most of the water in Frances's woolly canteen. Had he brought that stuff the doctor had given him for fever? He was unsure. And Frances was so overwrought, he feared she would fly apart like a windup canary if he let her know he was going to need about fifteen hours of sleep pretty soon.

He said matter-of-factly, “I would guess that somebody was having some fun at your expense, Frances. Maybe Ambrose, maybe Budge. I don't think he'll be back.”

“Or that crazy old general! He and his popinjay of a partner make me an offer every few months. Offer? Insult. With Rip dead, missing”—she glanced at him—”I suppose they think they can intimidate me.”

“I'll ask around. You've got so many enemies, Frances, I hardly know where to start.”

She punched his arm. “Yes, there's always a humorous side, Henry.” Suddenly she pointed. “See the flagpole? We're home—that's in my yard. Crazy old fool didn't know whether he was building Fort Stockard or a ranch house.”

Henry looked over the lay of the land, considering it as a military problem. The big adobe ranch house could certainly withstand a siege, especially if the Engineers had built it for a general. Stockard wouldn't feel comfortable in anything fragile, a saltbox with a widow's walk on the roof, a cottage of some sort. All along the front of the house, at the roofline, protruded round beams that looked like the mouths of cannons. The land was flat within a hundred feet of the house, with little cover for an infantry rush—mainly mesquite and cactus. That was good, of course, but the problem was a cliff that rose fifty yards north of the house. Trees softened its rusty base, but a lesser cliff reared another twenty feet above the first, with a narrow bench separating them.

A fieldpiece or automatic weapon could be placed up there and blow the ranch house to kingdom come! A spot like that should always be under guard. But instead of a sentry, what he saw—judging by the man's appearance—was a kneeling prisoner, dispiritedly tapping away with a sledgehammer, as though cracking nuts. Henry was outraged. Where the
hell
was the sentry?

Nor did he see any sign of a work detail anywhere, and as for the horses, he made out only three old nags in a corral. The rest must be pastured somewhere. He reddened with annoyance, thinking of how to phrase his report—and yet confused, aware that there was something important to say to Frances, something he knew he had better say soon or forget. He had to struggle, in fact, to remember what it was.

“Frances,” he said, “could Rip be the Hunter?”

“The Hunter? Well, I hope he wasn't hunting us. No, I don't think Richard would be the one.”

“I mean, what if he sashayed down to Mexico and got himself hurt bad—or got one of those tropical fevers—went kind of crazy, you know—” And his mind stalled, addled by one of those tropical fevers.

“It doesn't seem likely,” Frances said. “Not like Richard at all. He's more forthright, I think.”

“Who is?”

She looked quickly at him, with an expression of amused vexation. “Richard, of course! Who else?”

“Oh—oh, I ...” Rubbed his brow. “So you don't think he might come back here and haunt you? Has anything like this happened before?”

“Twice. Well, like stray shots. Once it hit near where Alejandro—the Mexican boy, my maid's grandson—was digging up on the cliff. Once it nicked the flagpole. The shots always sound far-off.”

“In that case,” Henry said, “I'll take my horse and reconnoiter a little before we go into the yard. What's the trooper's name?”

“Alejandro. He's not a soldier, Henry—don't you remember?—he's my maid's grandson. He's been drilling a month for a dynamite charge. I've got to break through the cliff behind the house to bring a sweetwater line to the kitchen.”

“I see,” Henry said. “Why don't you wait here, ma'am? Got some mares, haven't you? My horse wants to meet them. I call him Sniff—got a hell of a nose.”

As he rode away, carbine in hand, Frances called after him, alarmed, “Henry?” but he deemed the matter of the loose prisoner more crucial than the wishes of some officer's wife....

When the Mexican youth saw the sorrel-haired American riding toward him on the bench, he slowly stood up. He was holding an eight-pound maul with which he had been hopelessly tapping at the bright stub of a miner's drill, driving it right into the solid heart of the bench, as though drilling for tea from China. And Henry could have laughed, knowing what would happen if he ever managed to drill a hole and set off a dynamite charge.

He looked about, and, in a ferny cleft in the second rise of red stone behind the boy, saw a small rock-and-stone dam, penning up the sweetwater Frances had spoken of. A length of wooden pipe ran from the basin into a sawed-off whiskey barrel, and in his thirst he could almost smell the water. Around the basin grew spearmint and fragrant cliff rose and some kind of tough little fern. The Spanish prisoner smiled and raised his hand. Too bad—so many of them were just children.

“
Buenas tardes, señor!
” he said.

Henry frowned at him, definitely not approving of giving prisoners the run of the camp. Looking things over, he saw a rusty blue enamel cup among the ferns, and he went to drink long and greedily, then poured water over his head, shook the drops from his air, and put his hat on.

“
Agua dulce!
” said the prisoner. “Good for drink!”

Henry held his eyes sternly. “Where's the guard?” he said. “
Dónde es—es—?
”

Alejandro shrugged. Turning his head, he waved at Frances, who had driven the buggy into the yard. “
Bienvenidos, señora!
” he called. Henry stared down at the fort—long and low and with a flagpole before it. The barracks was about fifty feet to the right, shaded by oaks and hackberries.

“Carry on,” Henry said to the prisoner. He would discuss the incident in private with the sergeant of the guard—no use making trouble for him with the brass. He led his horse down the narrow trail to the yard. After arriving, he pretended to loosen the cinches, as an excuse for leaning against the horse while his eyes cleared. In his ears he heard a pounding like that of the sledgehammer on the cliff. He realized that he was sick, and tried to remember whether he had heard the bugle announcing sick call today.

Then he turned, brisk and soldierly, but swaying. Water soaked the shoulders of his shirt and his sweaty face was still beaded. A pretty black-haired woman standing beside a buggy laid a finicky eye on him as he approached—she was actually frowning! Some of these Eastern women! He paid his respects with a sweep of his black town hat. She smiled quickly but seemed puzzled.

“Is everything all right, Henry?” she asked.

“Oh, indeed, ma'am. I wonder if I might ask a favor, though? You're the captain's wife, is that correct?”

“Henry,
what
is this nonsense? I know it
looks
like a fort, but—”

“Ma'am, I'm sorry if I shouldn't have addressed you. I wanted to ask you ... tell you ... inform the sergeant of the guard”—he rubbed his brow—”that I'm going on sick call.”

“Merciful heavens,” Frances gasped, and she turned and raised her voice: “
Josefina! Vénte! Ayudeme!
”

In the jungles of his delirium, Henry floundered through hissing dens of snakes and lay sprawled facedown in muddy ditches, stung to shouting agonies by mosquitoes and spiders. Later he lay tied on a cot and a fat old woman placed on his back a bit of wool, which grew and grew until he was suffocating beneath a mountain of trash.

But in moments of partial consciousness, he knew he was sick and that the hospital was far from the front line, that it was vastly superior to the first-aid tent where he had first been treated. Though perspiration soaked him, the steaming jungle rains no longer slashed through the tent flap, and the insects were gone. Two nurses came and went in his ward: an old Cuban or Spanish woman, and an American girl who was efficient and quick and kept the cool water and cold cloths coming.

And one day Colonel Teddy himself entered! The other sick men shouted greetings, but Roosevelt patted Henry's brow and said, “Don't cheer, boys—the poor fellow is dying.” And he exhibited a copy of Henry's own book,
The Law of the Gun
, which was marked in a dozen places.

One night Henry heard his platoon leader screaming for help, and the two nurses together could scarcely keep him from going to cut him out of the barbed wire in which he was being crucified.

Then one night he woke and was conscious of a cool and peaceful stillness in a long dusky room. He had been carried to a small barracks. The structure was low-ceilinged and snug, with eight cots, all unmade except for his own, and one other where a black-haired trooper slept. A small lamp burned near the other trooper's cot. A cross was fixed to the white plaster wall, and brown glass bottles rested on a nightstand. Henry muttered and tried to sit up. He called, hoarsely, “Hey soldier!”

The other man raised his head and looked at him. Henry wanted suddenly to go over and have a drink with the man and swap war stories; but as soon as he swung his legs over the side of the cot, the trooper pulled on a blue robe with a white collar and hurried down the aisle to him. But there was something very odd about this soldier, who had unbelievably effeminate features and spoke in a girlish voice.

“Henry?” he said. “Do you need something?”

Embarrassed, Henry muttered, “Neh' min', fella. Thought we might have a couple of drinks.”