Two in the Field (54 page)

We’re in big trouble
, I thought, watching while the skinny little Lakota daubed zigzag patterns on his pony’s flanks and circled its eyes in black. From a saddlebag he produced an old-style tomahawk (mass-produced ones were now available with metal blades) that was elaborately tied with sinew and covered with ornamented buckskin. He hefted the stone head and lifted his eyes skyward.

“Asking his father’s spirit for guidance,” Linc said, “because today Goose expects to become a brave.”

“What’s his plan?” I asked. So far, our war council had produced no strategy or tactics.

“Most important of all, he says, he’ll count coup today. Do you know what that is?”

I had a flash of memory from my boyhood reading. “To show bravery by touching an enemy?”

Linc nodded, his face not revealing much.

My misgivings immediately multiplied. LeCaron would require one hell of a lot more than a mere touch.

“His plan is to drive ’em from the cave to a place where they can be destroyed.”

That sounded better, if vague, but it didn’t take Tim into account. I started to say something caustic, then checked myself. Where did I get off being irritated? Why should Goose have to do everything? He’d gotten us into the Hills. He’d found the kidnappers. He was guiding us to them. What more should I expect?

Very soon it would be up to Linc and Cait and me.

The afternoon was muggy, the sky piling with cumulus towers that seemed to be thickening like cream. Our footing on the shale slope was unstable. We moved up it laboriously, step by cautious step, seemingly taking forever to climb a few hundred yards. Goose had us tie ropes from tree to tree as we ascended. He said we might need to go down in a hurry, maybe in the dark. Finally he pointed to a craggy outcropping on the opposite side of the canyon.

“The entrance is through those boulders,” Linc said softly.

We peered cautiously through the trees, seeing nothing but the sheer canyon walls and those giant rocks. Two hawks circled in the middle distance.

“Somebody’s there,” Cait whispered.

The head of a bearded white man materialized among the boulders. He studied the trail below the outcropping for several moments, then he emerged, a rifle balanced in one hand. It took me a few seconds to recognize him as Brown Hair, McDermott’s
cardplaying confederate. After him came a smaller figure. Cait clutched her stomach and groaned. We were too far away to see Tim’s expression, but the boy’s scarecrow thinness and slumping movements, reminiscent of POWs in old newsreels, left no doubt that he was in bad shape. Head down, Tim moved a few paces from the entrance and urinated. Brown Hair kept his eyes on the trail and scarcely paid him any attention. Not once did he look across the canyon in our direction.

“I think maybe I could drill the bastard,” Linc said, assessing windage and distance.

“Tough shot,” I said. “And if you dropped him, what next? Tim looks too worn out to run.”

As the boy moved with painful slowness back toward the entrance, Brown Hair kicked at his leg to hurry him along.

“Oh God,” Cait moaned.

Goose offered pinches of powder from his medicine pouch to the Four Winds, the Earth, and the Sky.

“He’s fixing to talk to the spirits in the Cave of the Winds,” Linc told us, “and call forth the voice of Wakan Tanka, the thunder god, to bring our enemies outside.” He pointed down the slope. “Remember that swamphole where Goose sank a branch? There’s another one down there and he thinks maybe we can use it.”

I glanced at Cait. She was nodding in agreement as if this were a fixed military operation instead of what I feared it was—a lot of wishful thinking.

Goose spoke, then motioned to Cait and me.

“He says you’re to pile brush for a fire on the trail beneath that overhang.” Linc pointed to a portion of the cliff wall screened by forest from the cave. “The swamp hole’s right near it, so take care. I’m to stay here and cover you. When you’re finished, come back up. Later, when Wankan Tanka speaks, we’re to light the fire.”

I looked overhead. The clouds showed some yellow and purple
tints but no sign of rain. I was having trouble trying to stifle my misgivings. But the sad fact was that I lacked anything else to suggest.

“Hokahe!”
Goose exclaimed, then moved laterally along the slope and out of sight, chanting in sing-song tones.

“What was he telling us?” Cait said.

“ ‘Hokahe,’ means forward to your destiny, it’s a good day to die,” Linc told her. “He went off singing his death song.”

Just totally fucking perfect, I thought.

Cait poked my arm. “Let’s go.”

We gripped the ropes and went down the slope much faster than we had come up. Dry brush and dead branches were plentiful, and soon we had a mound piled high beneath the overhang. We could tell the swamp hole from its yellowish edges; anybody veering a pace or two off the narrow trail would be in serious trouble. I looked up at Linc, who was intent on the boulders, rifle at the ready. Clever of Goose to pick a vantage point with sight lines to both the cave entrance and the overhang.

The sun had nearly vanished below the rim of the mountains by the time we climbed back up. The darkening air felt denser.

“Anything happening?” I asked.

Linc shook his head.

The canyon was eerily quiet.

Cait bent her head. “Do you hear it?”

We strained our ears. A whisper-like murmur seemed to come from the direction of the cave. And then, flitting around the susurration, forming airy counterpoints, came treble reedy notes.

We’d heard them before: Goose’s flute.

“The cave’s known as Washun Niya, or breathing hole,” Linc said. “Voices of the underground people whisper there. Goose is speaking to them now, saying that wasichu are in the entrance to their home.”

“But Tim’s there too,” Cait said anxiously.

The dusklight was now prickly with electricity, causing the hair on my arms to rise.

“Rain’s near,” Linc said.

Sure enough, a few scattered drops began to fall.

I finally realized what Goose had in mind. The overhang would prevent our fire from being drenched. If he could force McDermott and the others outside and down the trail, they’d find themselves trapped between the fire before them, the cliff wall to one side, and the swamphole on the other. With Linc on the hillside to prevent them from retreating to the cave, and Goose doing whatever it was he intended, maybe we wouldn’t be in such bad shape after all.

The noise from the cave had grown louder; if the flute still played, its notes were drowned in the insistent hiss.

Cait nudged me as Brown Hair emerged again, this time looking around nervously, rifle poised chest high. Seeing a lean, swarthy figure emerge behind him, I felt a fatalistic dread radiate from my bones. Until that moment I’d nursed a tiny hope that Cait had been mistaken, that LeCaron hadn’t been one of the men with McDermott, that he’d died in Saratoga Lake. But there he was. No limp now. No arm sling. What on earth did it take to kill him?

“He’s the prime target,” I told Linc, pointing. “After him, the others won’t be nearly as tough.”

Linc gave me a speculative look. “Would you finish him if Tim was out of it? Right now, from up here?”

I shrugged, wondering if I could do it in cold blood.

“I
would,” Cait said fiercely. “I’d shoot all those child-stealers—especially Red Jim McDermott!”

We had no reason to doubt her.

The two men inspected the trail above them, then below.
Finally they looked our way. We were well concealed. It seemed obvious that they were trying to find the source of the sounds. Equally obvious that they were agitated. LeCaron said something to Brown Hair, and they retreated into the boulders and out of view.

“According to Goose, nobody knows how far back in the mountain that cave goes,” Linc said. “Maybe they figure it’s safer inside.”

A rising wind rippled the air. Lightning flashed on the horizon. Moments later, a faint peal of thunder reached us.

“Our cue,” I said.

“I’ll cover you till I see the flames, then I’ll move wherever I need to,” Linc said. “If you hear me shoot before you get the fire going, it means they’re outside and heading your way.”

Rain was falling steadily by the time we reached the overhang. Waves of thunder buffeted the canyon walls. Wakan Tanka? Just then I wouldn’t have bet against it. Cait struck phosphorus matches to the brush and fire quickly began to crackle.

The world turned white and the ground shook as lightning hit the cliff a few hundred yards beyond the cave. Another bolt struck even closer to the cave. It was as if cosmic artillery were homing in. Rain drummed in heavy sheets, the watery din so loud that for a while even the thunder was muted. At length it slackened and finally tapered to a mist. We moved cautiously out from the protective overhang. Over the sounds of water dripping everywhere, we again heard an airy sibilance from the cave. Like a steam valve under mounting pressure, it rose in pitch and volume.

We put our hands over our ears.

From the cave came a roar that sounded more like a maddened animal than like thunder. Cait buried her head against my chest.

Then came a very different noise: the flat
crack
of a rifle. Our heads jerked around in time for us to see red flashes from Linc’s Winchester. Then shots came from below, sparks flying from the rocks behind him. Linc clutched at his head as he fell sideways.

“They’ve hit him!” Cait said in a shocked whisper.

“C’mon.” I led her off the trail and around the acid- yellow edges of the swamp hole. “Linc let us know they’re coming—we’d better be ready.”

We hid among scrub pines some fifty yards above the bonfire. The spot offered clear lines of fire to the trail, where I hoped to pin our adversaries against the wall. When they realized their position and didn’t know how many they faced, maybe they’d surrender. Maybe. With just Cait and me to oppose them, it seemed our only hope.

Where the hell had Goose gone?

I didn’t have much time to think about it, for suddenly they appeared, moving fast along the trail, Brown Hair out in front, McDermott in the rear, Tim sandwiched between. They looked scared half to death. I briefly wondered what they’d experienced, until a more urgent question arose: Where was LeCaron? Best case: Linc had killed him. Worse case: LeCaron had started up toward Linc, found our ropes, and by following them down the slope would emerge behind us.

Where in God’s name was Goose?

On the trail, Brown Hair stopped abruptly as he realized the blaze was not a lightning fire but a barrier. I heard McDermott say something, then they turned and started back. Cait lifted her rifle.

“Go ahead,” I said, doing likewise, thinking it was better to give away our position than allow them back in that cave. “We’ve got to get Tim.”

She squeezed the trigger and a shot spanged off the wall a
few feet ahead of McDermott. He jerked spasmodically and yanked Tim in front of him as a shield.

“Leave the boy there,” I yelled. “Go back the way you came, and you’ll be safe.”

There was a silence. Brown Hair tried to wedge in behind Tim but McDermott elbowed him away.

“Fowler?” he called. “It’s you ain’t it!”

“Leave the boy,” I ordered. “There’s a whole lot of us out here. You don’t have a chance. We won’t shoot if you let him go.”

Brown Hair muttered something. McDermott shook his head and kept Tim before him as he retreated up the trail. I sent another shot behind him as he reached the edge of the swamphole but it didn’t stop him. McDermott knew he was safe as long as he held Tim close. By now he must be thinking that if there were so many of us, why hadn’t we surrounded him?

A shrill scream sounded on the trail below and Brown Hair cried out as Goose ran at him through the flames.
Yes!
But my elation thinned as I saw that Goose carried only his tomahawk, its handle thrust forward instead of its stone head. Brown Hair leveled his rifle but Goose was on him too fast. As Brown Hair spun sideways in desperation, one of his boots plunged into the swamphole. The tip of Goose’s tomahawk caught him neatly in the chest and sent him over backward. Brown Hair’s rifle flew from his hands as he flailed in the ooze, his violent thrashing causing him to sink faster.

“Jim!” he yelled hoarsely.

McDermott was dragging Tim toward the cave. Cait and I fired behind him again, the bullets sparking off rocks near his feet. It was only when Goose came whooping at him that he paused long enough to aim. Flame erupted from his pistol. Only a few strides from him, Goose lurched crazily off the trail and
seemed to run down into the earth just past the bog. His legs kicked a few beats longer, and then he lay still.

“God, no,” Cait moaned.

“For Christ’s sake,”
Brown Hair was yelling, only his head showing now,
“help me, Jim!”

McDermott ignored him as he stared down at Goose and seemed to debate whether to kick him into the swamphole a few yards away. With an anxious glance in our direction, he resumed backing along the trail with Tim as his shield.

Then LeCaron spoke.

Quietly.

Behind me.

I don’t know exactly what he said—something about a fine-haired sonofabitch—but after an instant of icy shock, I ducked and spun, hoping to get off a shot. But I didn’t. He stood behind Cait, one hand over her mouth, the other pressing his knife to her neck. Her terror-stricken eyes were huge. I felt hope ooze out of me.

We’d failed.

I looked into LeCaron’s eyes and saw death.

Things were getting blurry. I sensed the milkiness lurking very near. All I seemed to see with sharp clarity was that steel blade pressed against Cait’s skin. When LeCaron ordered me to drop the rifle, I did so.

“Throw your coat down!” he commanded. “Don’t reach into a pocket or I’ll cut her.”

My revolver was in my right jacket pocket. I tried to visualize what would happen if I grabbed for it—and didn’t like the resulting picture. LeCaron had shielded himself behind Cait, leaving almost no target even if I were crazy enough to shoot so close to her. Which I wasn’t. If I tried to run at him, he could kill Cait with a swipe of his blade, continue to use her
body as a shield, and have his revolver in hand well before I could get to him.