Blade 5 Read online

  From a good way off, after a wait of about ten minutes, Blade heard a horse clattering away through the rocks. But that was only one horse and he wanted to hear more before he came out of cover.

  He rose for a peek around when he heard footsteps and a man calling: ‘Blade.’ Doke walked towards him, his rifle held ready in his hands. Blade stood up and Doke said: ‘I reckon they went.’

  Blade said: ‘I heard only one horse.’

  Doke grinned good humoredly. ‘Well, I been walkin’ around an’ they ain’t shot me even the once.’

  Blade was more than a little mad that Doke could be so calm. His own scare of a few minutes before was still freshly with him. He snarled at Doke: ‘What’s so goddam funny?’

  ‘That Indian,’ Doke replied. ‘You should of seen the look on his face when you hit him. Laugh, I damn nigh died.’

  Blade was not satisfied. Now that Harry Lister was on the scene, the whole affair took on a different aspect. Harry was one of those men who brought notice to themselves through their hardiness, their recklessness or courage and their being one moment on the side of law and order, the next running with outlaws, thrown outside the law by a burst of anger and an unwise shot. The last meant that he had shot the wrong man.

  The question that now stood unanswerable in Blade’s mind was: Right this minute, on which side was Lister working? Was he riding the owl-hoot trail? Or was he working as a duly sworn lawman?

  Blade walked over and looked at his mule with something like disgust and regret. It was a big strong animal for which he had some affection. Not a beast that had been easy to get along with, but a strong creature that had worked hard. The bullet had taken it through the head. Blade considered the problem of whether to use a four mule team or arrange the gear so they had five mules pulling. He decided there was no time to fool around. The quicker he got the two girls to Denver the better.

  He said to Doke: ‘I’m going to fix the team. Keep your eyes skinned.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Doke. ‘What about Roxanne?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘I reckon she was hit.’

  Blade swore at Doke for a damn fool and walked around to the rear of the wagon. Here he found Salome wrapping rag around her cousin’s arm. When asked how bad the wound was, they told him that it was nothing. A mere scratch. Nothing to stop him getting them on their way. He wasn’t sure that he believed them, but he saw the wisdom of keeping on the move. He dragged the dead mule clear of the trail, using two of the other mules. They gave him a lot of trouble because they did not like the smell of blood. Then he hitched four mules to the wagon and tied the fifth on behind. It snapped disagreeably at Doke’s horse.

  That done, he told Doke to go ahead. He would track the attackers for a while. Doke gave him a strange look.

  ‘Joe,’ Doke said, ?just for the record, as they say. Play it straight with the girls. I wouldn’t want anything to happen to the pair of them.’

  Blade was not in the best of moods.

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’ he demanded.

  ‘I got a feelin’ you don’t trust the girls,’ Doke said. ‘That maybe means they can’t trust you.’

  ‘So?’ said Blade.

  ‘So watch your step.’

  Blade sneered: ‘You’re talking like a big strong hero, Doke.’

  Doke reddened. ‘One day you’ll talk to me like dirt once too often, Joe.’

  ‘When it’s once too often, you tell me,’ said Blade and stepped into the saddle.

  The girls came to the rear of the wagon to watch him go, but they said nothing. He picked up the Indian’s trail of blood without too much difficulty and followed it through the rocks. While he scouted around among those rocks, he heard the wagon start down the trail. He followed the blood trail east and came on the spot where the Indian had left his horse. There was no sign to indicate that there had been more than one horse there. The Indian must be seriously wounded, for there were dear signs that he had had some difficulty in mounting the animal. To judge by the hesitant way the horse had then moved on, it was also clear that the Indian was not fully in command of the situation.

  Blade found himself climbing, his horse picking its way carefully through a rock-strewn slope, and then they were in timber. Blade grew cautious. There was too much cover all around him for comfort. When the timber grew thick, he dismounted and led his horse. Physical weariness started to dog him. He was conscious of not being fully alert and the fact worried him a little. The Indian had dismounted here also and had walked, apparently holding on to his saddle. It was as if he were walking blind, if his tracks were anything to go by.

  Abruptly, the trees stopped a half-mile after Blade had entered them. In front of him there lay the shoulder of the hill, looking smooth and green under its thick robe of lush grass. Plumb through the center of it ran the Indian’s tracks.

  Blade told himself that he was not going to be fool enough to follow along them. That could be suicide. He decided to lose time and work his way east under cover of the trees. He mounted his horse again and put it to a trot though the deep shadow of the trees. He had to travel almost a mile in this way before he could swing east and still stay under cover. The trees followed the line of the hill’s shoulder and took him down into a steep sided, narrow valley that could almost be called a canyon. Here the creek became a torrent as it danced with a kind of cold savagery over the rocks, forming frequent waterfalls. Travel for a man on a horse became increasingly difficult and several times he was forced to dismount. After an hour or so, he came to a sudden leveling out of the land and before him lay a wide shallow valley. Here he perceived smoke about a half-mile to the north. He climbed at once on to higher ground until he had a pretty clear view of the location of the fire which gave out the smoke.

  There were a number of men around the fire. One of them lay flat on his back. Blade got out his glass from a saddle-pocket and took a closer look. The first person he recognized was Harry Lister. He knew now that his bullet aimed at Lister had found its mark. The man had his left arm in a sling.

  Turning the glass on the prostrate figure, Blade recognized the Indian. One of the men knelt at his side and seemed to be bandaging him.

  Blade was now faced with a decision. He dismounted and eased his horse’s girths, then settled himself on his haunches, loaded and fired his pipe and smoked placidly for maybe thirty minutes. That done, he made up his mind.

  Tightening girths, he led the horse down on to slightly lower ground and sang out: ‘Harry Lister.’

  All heads turned in the direction of the sound. Blade called the name again.

  Lister bawled back: ‘Is that Blade?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Talk.’

  He could see the men below were talking among themselves. There were eight of them—odds that Blade did not admire.

  ‘Come ahead,’ Lister called up.

  Blade mounted and rode down.

  They were an average bunch of men, all of the kind that worked cows or lived upon the fringes of the cattle industry. They all wore the garb of working cowmen or cowhands, even the Indian.

  The Indian lay very still with closed eyes.

  When Blade halted his horse a stone’s throw from the camp, he sang out to Lister: ‘How’s it going to be, Harry? Do we talk peaceable like sensible men?’

  Lister said: ‘When wasn’t I sensible, Joe? Fightin’ don’t ever make any sense when you don’t win.’

  Blade heeled his horse into a walk, halted short of the camp and stepped down from the saddle. The men stood silently watching him.

  ‘Coffee?’ Lister asked.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Blade squatted on his heels and one of the men filled a cup from the coffee pot on the fire and handed it to him.

  Lister followed Blade’s example and sank to his haunches. ‘Well, Joe,’ he said, ‘you sure made it uncomfortable for us back there.’

  ‘That was the ma
in idea,’ Blade said.

  There was a tall flaxen-haired man chewing a twig. His face was bovine, his eyes expressed nothing. He said: ‘You shot our Indian, Blade.’

  Blade said: ‘What do you do when a man’s trying to kill you?’

  Lister said: ‘Let’s leave that a moment, Ole. I think maybe Blade don’t know the facts of the case. I think maybe we have a misunderstandin’ here.’

  The fair-haired man said: ‘Sure. Blade misunderstands we have him by the short an’ curlies. He thinks he has a chance and he don’t. Maybe you should tell him, Harry.’

  Blade looked at Lister and he could see that under his calm he was getting pretty mad and it wasn’t with him, Blade.

  Lister said: ‘Joe, what do you know about those two girls?’

  ‘Enough,’ said Blade.

  ‘Enough for what?’

  ‘Enough for doing what I did?’

  Lister said: ‘Maybe if you knew a mite more, you wouldn’t do it again.’

  ‘Try me,’ said Blade.

  A man who looked like a disgruntled prairie dog, one of those awkward men who, whatever outfit they may wear, look as if they’re wearing other men’s clothes, said: ‘Talk and cups of coffee ain’t goin’ to get us nowhere. I thought we were going’ to stretch some necks on this trip. I’m looking now right at a neck that should of been stretched years back if what I hear is true.’

  Blade did not favor him with so much as a glance.

  ‘Those girls,’ Lister said, ‘have a false floor to their wagon. Did you know that? Hidden in that false floor is enough gold to make us rich men for the rest of our lives. That’s true bill, Blade.’

  ‘Is it a crime to have gold?’ Blade asked. He had a feeling that there was a good deal more to come.

  'It’s a crime to steal it from other men.’

  ‘So you’re lawmen,’ said Blade, ‘hunting two female criminals. Is that what you’re trying to tell me?’

  ‘Somethin’ like that,’ Lister told him.

  Blade said: ‘I don’t see a badge among you.’

  That seemed to worry most of the men there. They looked uneasily at each other and then returned their cold gaze to Blade.

  ‘There’s lawmen an’ lawmen,’ said Lister.

  ‘You prove to me that gold is yours, Harry, and I’ll maybe do something about it.’ He sipped at the coffee. It wasn’t very good.

  The man who looked like a prairie dog twitched his nose a couple of times and said: ‘Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t turn this into a necktie party, Blade?’

  Blade slowly turned his eyes on him.

  ‘Because if you kill me you’ll lose your Indian. If somebody who knows what he’s doing doesn’t do something for him pretty soon, he’s going to be dead.’

  They all looked at the Indian.

  Lister said: ‘You always were good with gun wounds, Joe. Can you fix him for us?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Blade. ‘That chest of his has to be a mess. I hit him dead-center. Somebody rustle up some boiling water while I take a look.’

  There was surprise and puzzlement on the men’s faces now. The prairie-dog man said: ‘Now I heard everythin’. If this ain’t the craziest thing.’

  They watched Blade approach the Indian and kneel down at his side. They had tied some rags around the man’s chest. These were now soaked through with blood. His breath was shallow and uneven. His face had the look of damp clay. His eyes were closed and sunken into his head.

  ‘I want him kept warm,’ Blade said. ‘Pile some blankets on him.’ A couple of men moved to obey him. The others watched him remove the rags and inspect the wound now exposed. The bullet had hit the ribs under the right nipple. Blade’s fingers probed gently. Over his shoulder, he said: ‘There’s carbolic in my left saddle pocket. It’s not in the whiskey bottle. And I know how much whiskey I had left.’ A man laughed and walked to Blade’s horse.

  Prairie-dog said: ‘All this goddam fuss over an Indian!’

  When the carbolic came, Blade washed his hands in hot water and carbolic. Then he washed the wound and poured some carbolic into it. The Indian drew his breath in hard and arched his back under the onslaught of naked agony.

  Blade said: ‘The lead’s still in there. If he’s going to live, I have to cut it out. So I want him still. Put some weight on his arms and legs.’

  Lister kneeled on the other side of the Indian from Blade and asked: ‘Where’s the bullet?’

  Blade said: ‘I don’t know yet I have to find it.’ He grinned at the man who had fetched the carbolic. ‘Maybe we’d best have that whiskey over here.’ The man fetched it. He took a short pull and poured some down the Indian’s throat. The man opened his eyes and sounded as if he were choking. Blade spoke to him like a man comforting a horse. Then the Indian lay back as still as death. Blade felt for a pulse, found a faint one and seemed satisfied. Once more he felt the surface of the man’s chest, touching the mauled flesh with the gentleness of a woman. Nobody watching him, seeing the utter calm of his face, could know the thoughts going through his mind. He recognized the irony of life that brought him here to save this man when it had been him who had driven a bullet into human flesh that he now tended. It was he who had brought this fine hard body near to death.

  He found the bullet lodged under the right collar-bone. His fingers found that, miraculously, the bone had not been broken.

  He told the men: ‘Now you hang on to him or he’s going to have my scalp. I’m going to cut to get the lead out.’

  He drew the knife from its sheath at the rear of his belt. He honed it carefully on stone and then washed it in carbolic. Then, holding the blade delicately between finger and thumb, he sliced into the flesh. That done, he eased in the point and, a moment later, the dark pellet of lead lay on the blood-stained flesh. Now he rolled some of the cleaner rag into a pad and, after soaking it in carbolic, he placed that on the entry wound. Next, he took another pad, bathed that in carbolic and laid it on the exit cut. Then he encased the man’s chest in a tight bandage to hold the pads in place, loping it over the right shoulder to anchor it. Last of all, he picked up the whiskey bottle and took a good swig. He looked up to find some of the men smiling with him. But the prairie-dog didn’t smile.

  Blade stood up and said: ‘Now, you keep him warm. He’s as healthy a man as you’re likely to find. Give him a day or two and the wounds will knit. I could have sewed him up, but I reckon he’s been through enough. They’ll heal jagged, but they’ll heal.’ He walked to his horse and put both bottles in the saddle pocket. When he turned back, he found Harry Lister standing in front of him.

  ‘What’s it to be, Joe?’

  Blade cocked his head on one side.

  ‘I’ll have a think,’ he said. ‘Harry, don’t you jump me before I’ve studied on this a mite. Or this bunch will be going home depleted.’

  He turned and stepped into the saddle.

  One of the men said: ‘We’re thankin’ you, Blade.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure,’ Blade said and told his horse to go ahead. He had gone no more than fifty paces when the man who looked like a prairie dog said: ‘All our troubles are over if one of us has the stomach to knock that son-of-a-bitch off.’ He gave a short hacking laugh. ‘Maybe you don’t, but I sure do.’ He raised his carbine to his shoulder.

  Lister moved with smooth speed. He knocked the carbine up and it went off. Then he hit the man hard in the side of the head and he went down like a felled ox.

  One of the men said: ‘You was right to do it, Harry, but by God he was right. We won’t get any place with Blade alive.’

  ‘That’s the difference between us,’ Lister said. ‘I can kill him any time I want.’

  From the ground the man who looked like a prairie dog said: ‘You shouldn’t of done that, Lister. Maybe you’re the greatest with a gun an’ all that, but nobody ever knocked me down and got away with it.’

  Lister looked at him coldly: ‘You’ll need to back-shoot me, Halliday.’

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sp; Chapter Six

  Blade caught up with the wagon by nightfall. By that time he had done a lot of thinking and the process had got him precisely nowhere. He knew for sure that somebody or everybody was lying. But that did not help him much, except it told him he could not trust anybody.

  He cheered up a little when he found that Salome had cooked a good meal. Doke had caught some rabbits and as they simmered over a hot but smokeless fire, they gave off a delicious smell that worked on his stomach juices. He put his thoughts away for a while and enjoyed the meal. He was so pleased with Doke and his catching the rabbits, not to mention the showing of sense by building a smokeless fire that he gave Doke a drink of whiskey. Sure, Doke finished the small bottle before he could take it away from him, but not even that was enough to rob him of his good humor.

  He cursed Doke quite kindly and said: ‘You’re a damn fool, Doke. You just finished the whiskey. Now you don’t get a drink till Denver. You’re your own worst enemy, man.’

  Doke whined: ‘You nag me like a goddam woman.’

  ‘What do you want me to do? Kick your butt like a goddam man?’

  Roxanne said: ‘Quit bullyin’ the poor darlin’. I don’t know what your complaint is, for heavens’ sakes. Where’s the harm in a man takin’ a drink once in a while?’

  ‘I’ll tell you what the harm is,’ Blade said. ‘He’ll sleep like a hog and I’ll be doing his watch tonight.’

  She stuck her tongue out at him.

  There was silence around the camp fire. Doke was as good as Blade’s word. He fell asleep and they had to drag him off before he fell into the fire.

  Blade loaded his pipe and lit it from a burning twig. When he had it going to his satisfaction, he said: ‘Girls, I talked with the opposition.’

  If he had exploded a grenade, he could not have startled them more. They stared at him with open eyes.

  ‘You what?’ demanded Salome.

  ‘You two-timing son-of-a-bitch,’ declared Roxanne.

  Blade ignored them and went on: ‘It’s their opinion you stole the gold from them.’