Shadow on the Sun Page 10

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.

  “Now we find them,” Finley answered.

  “Where?”

  Was that a scornful smile on Finley’s lips? The Indian agent pointed. “Thataway,” he said. Boutelle was going to question him regarding how he knew, then realized that to someone with Finley’s experience finding tracks would present no difficulty. He decided not to speak.

  “If nothing else,” Finley said, “this should make it clear to you how frightened these people are. Indians can pack and move very fast, including their tepees. That they’ve left them here—even left cooking utensils—well . . .” He looked at Boutelle grimly. “You’ll have to take my word for it,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He swung up onto his mare and started off. Boutelle swallowed, trying to repress a sense of apprehension.

  They were heading for the mountains.

  Dodge knew he was driving his horse too hard, but he couldn’t help it. He cursed himself for not demanding a different horse from the one he’d ridden on his trip into the hills. He should have a fresh mount, one that could move faster.

  He looked down at the horse. Its neck was covered with lather. He should let it slow down; it needed a break. He couldn’t allow it though. He kept kicking his boot heels against its flanks and uttering demanding cries for more and more speed. The Appaloosa’s legs drove down like pistons against the still wet earth, casting up sprays of mud. Dodge glanced down at himself. He was filthy with the stuff.

  Forget it, he told himself. Forget it. For the seventy-third time since he’d left Picture City, he looked behind. No sign of the man, he saw. Which didn’t mean the man was not pursuing him. He had to guess that Dodge was headed for the fort. It wouldn’t even require a guess if he’d spotted the place where Dodge had separated from Finley and Boutelle.

  He tried to stand a little in the stirrups to relieve the pounding of his body on the hard saddle. He wished to God he were a better rider. It had never seemed a necessity before.

  Now it did.

  He looked over his shoulder toward the mountains. Already, they were darkening. For God’s sake, what had happened to the day? he thought angrily. He had to reach the fort before sunset. The vision of him being forced to gallop in the dark terrified him.

  He reached up his left hand and rubbed it across his sweating neck. Despite the chilly air, he felt hot. He should stop and remove his coat, but he didn’t dare take the time. He had to keep going. Until he reached the fort, he was in constant danger.

  The horse struggled up a rise, and Dodge reined it to a skidding halt, twisting around on the saddle to look again at—

  The sound he uttered in his throat was something between a sob and a cry of fear.

  In the distance, riding hard, the man was following him.

  “God,” Dodge whimpered.

  He drove his heels into the horse’s body, and it lurched forward with a frightening groan. Don’t fail me now, Dodge thought desperately.

  The Appaloosa half-ran, half-slid down the slope on the opposite side, reached level ground and broke into a gallop once more. Dodge caught his breath. Was it his imagination or had the horse just lurched as though the strain was too much for it?

  He couldn’t even let himself consider the possibility. The horse would get him to the fort. It had to get him there. He looked over his shoulder again.

  And cried out in despairing shock.

  The other horse still followed him.

  But it was riderless.

  “No!” Dodge ground his teeth together, kicking wildly at the horse’s flanks. He needed a whip, a whip! Dear God! It wasn’t possible.

  He looked up at the leaden-colored sky. “No, please,” he whimpered. “Please.” His heart was pounding violently. His mind kept pleading.

  He was looking at the sky again when the Appaloosa’s legs collapsed.

  Screaming with horror, Dodge was hurled from its back, landing in a twisted heap. Uncontrolled, his frail body tumbled, somersaulting down a rocky slope, the back of his head striking a boulder with violent impact at the bottom.

  There was a rushing sound above, a dropping shadow.

  Then the man stood at the top of the slope, looking down at Dodge’s motionless body.

  Ignoring the fleeing Appaloosa, the man moved down the slope, boots crunching on the layers of small rocks.

  At the bottom, he stopped and looked down at Professor Dodge’s dead body, his dark eyes filled with hatred for the little man.

  Abruptly, then, he leaned over and dragged up Dodge’s body with one hand, raised it effortlessly above his head and hurled it away with a snarl of feral rage.

  The professor’s bruised and bleeding corpse landed more than twenty feet away.

  11

  Finley looked around at Boutelle and saw the younger man kneading at his right leg. Reining back his mare until he was beside Boutelle, he asked him what was wrong.

  “Nothing,” Boutelle answered. “I just haven’t ridden such a distance in a long time.”

  Finley looked at the sky. “Well, we should stop soon anyway,” he said. “We can’t go much further today.”

  Boutelle frowned. He hadn’t planned on spending the night out here.

  “Shouldn’t we be turning back for help?” he asked. “You really intend to confront the Apaches all by yourself?”

  “Better than confronting them with Leicester’s troops behind me,” Finley said. “That would really be a mistake. Braided Feather wouldn’t trust me for a moment if I did that.”

  Boutelle was inclined to disagree but sensed that it would be a waste of time. Grimacing, he removed his glove and dug the fingers of his right hand into his cramping leg muscles.

  “Apaches believe that involuntary muscle spasms are signals of evil events to come,” Finley observed. Was that the hint of a smile on his lips? Boutelle wondered. He grunted as Finley moved away from him. Naturally, he didn’t believe a word of such nonsense, but after everything that had happened, he would have preferred that Finley kept that bit of Apache lore to himself.

  Fifteen minutes later, Finley stopped his mare by the side of a small creek in an aspen grove. The chilling October wind was causing the undersides of the aspen leaves to twist around, making the tree appear as though it was dancing with light.

  “Don’t get down too close to that brush,” Finley told him.

  But Boutelle was already dismounting.

  He gasped at the sudden buzzing noise beneath him. He felt something thick and soft beneath his boot, then cried out at the fiery sensation in his right calf. He looked down to see a thrash of tan-brown movement in the brush and heard another buzzing sound.


  He never knew how Finley got to him so fast. All he knew was that the agent had a long knife in his hand and was stabbing down at something. The buzzing and thrashing increased, and Boutelle saw then what he’d stepped on: a brown and tan rattlesnake at least seven feet long.

  “My God,” he murmured. Now that the initial shock had passed, the pain in his leg was increasing. I’m going to die, he thought incredulously. Out here. Like this.

  He saw that Finley had driven his knife blade through the snake’s neck, pinning it to the ground. Pulling a folding knife from a trouser pocket, the agent opened it and started slicing a piece of flesh from the still living snake. The rattler kept striking, but the blade through its neck prevented it from reaching them.

  “Quickly,” Finley said. He grabbed Boutelle by the arm and half-pulled, half-shoved him to a piece of open ground where he threw him down. He pulled up Boutelle’s trouser leg and slapped the piece of rattler flesh on the puncture mark.

  Boutelle caught his breath. Despite the pain, he felt a drawing sensation, and in less than a minute, to his amazement, the white snake flesh started turning green.

  “Hold it against the wound,” Finley told him.

  Boutelle did as he was told, and Finley quickly returned to the still thrashing snake and cut another chunk of flesh from its body. Bringing it back, he took the greenish piece of flesh away, threw it aside, and replaced it with the new white piece. Boutelle felt the drawing sensation once more and watched in awe while the second piece of flesh began to change in color as the rattler’s venom was sapped from his blood.

  Boutelle lay immobile on the ground as Finley kept applying chunks of snake meat to the puncture wound until the flesh ceased turning green. It took almost the entire snake before that happened. It was almost dark by then. Finley had to take out his match case and light the wick of the tiny candle so he could be sure the poison had been totally extracted.

  “There you go,” he said. “You’ll be sore, maybe a little dizzy. But nothing more.”

  Boutelle swallowed dryly. “Thank you,” he murmured.

  “My pleasure,” Finley said, smiling a little.

  “That was a big snake,” Boutelle said. “I could have died.”

  “Easily,” Finley agreed.

  Boutelle shuddered. “I never heard of treating it that way,” he said. “Cutting a crosshatch in the skin and sucking it out, yes, but—”

  “That doesn’t always work,” Finley said. “This way is more certain. Hated to kill the snake, but I had no choice. He bit you, he had to cure you.”

  “Where—” Boutelle swallowed again, the impact of what he’d just gone through getting to him more and more. He could have died. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  Finley chuckled. “From Braided Feather,” he answered.

  Boutelle had no idea what to reply. Finley grinned at him.

  “Bet that leg cramp isn’t bothering you now,” he said.

  While Boutelle rested, Finley unsaddled the horses and tethered them to graze after first letting them drink their fill from the creek.

  Then he broke off a pile of aspen twigs and branches for a fire.

  “Good wood,” he told Boutelle, trying to prevent the younger man from brooding too much about what had happened to him; he knew the danger of that. “Makes a smokeless fire.”

  Boutelle wondered why it mattered that the fire was smokeless. That man with the scar was interested in Professor Dodge, not them.

  “Just as soon no smoke shows,” Finley said, as though reading his mind.

  When the fire was burning, Finley took supplies from his saddlebags: a slab of bacon, a can of beans, some flour, and a small sack of coffee. “Common doin’s,” Finley said. “Keep us from starving though.”

  “You must have known we were out for the night,” Boutelle said, trying not to sound accusing.

  “I wasn’t sure,” Finley responded. “I hoped we’d find Braided Feather right away but knew I couldn’t count on it.” He glanced over at Boutelle. “I’m sorry I can’t take you into town to see Doc Reese,” he said.

  “Do I need to see a doctor?” Boutelle asked uneasily.

  “I don’t think so,” Finley said. “Just thought you might feel better seeing a real sawbones.”

  “I doubt if he could do any more than you,” Boutelle replied. He was still flabbergasted by the memory of what Finley had done. There was no doubt in his mind that he would have died if Finley hadn’t acted so immediately.

  It made him feel off balance to owe the agent so much. In a matter of seconds, their relationship seemed to have changed completely.

  How could he argue with a man who’d saved his life?

  “Coffee’s ready,” Finley said. He poured some into a metal cup and handed it to Boutelle. “Hope it doesn’t curl your hair. It’s cowboy coffee.”

  “What’s that?” Boutelle asked.

  “If a silver dollar floats on top of it, it’s done,” Finley answered, grinning.

  Boutelle managed a smile. Despite Finley’s incredible rescue, he still felt achy and a little hot.

  “You all right?” Finley asked.

  “Considering the alternative, I’d say yes,” Boutelle answered.

  Finley smiled and sat down with his cup of coffee. “Drink,” he said. “If anything can neutralize rattler venom, it’s a good, strong cup of Arbuckle’s.”

  Boutelle took a sip, the taste of it widening his eyes. “God,” he murmured.

  “Little strong?” Finley asked.

  “Just a bit,” Boutelle sniffed at the coffee, then took another sip and whistled softly. “I may never sleep again,” he said.

  Finley smiled, then looked serious.

  “Listen . . . Boutelle,” he said. “All right if I call you David?” he sidetracked himself.

  Boutelle hesitated.

  “If it bothers you, I won’t,” Finley told him.

  “No, no,” Boutelle said. “That’s fine.” He paused. “Billjohn, is it?”

  Finley explained how he got the name. “Both my folks were satisfied,” he said. “At least, they claimed they were. I doubt it, though.”

  He took a sip of coffee, then removed a cigar case from his inside jacket pocket and held it out. “Want one?” he asked.

  “Not right now, thank you,” Boutelle answered.

  “Understandable.” Finley put a cigar between his lips and lit the end of it, drew in deeply, then blew out smoke. “Good,” he said.

  Boutelle waited. He believed that Finley had been about to say something serious to him a few moments earlier.

  “David, do you still think the Apaches are responsible for what’s been going on?” Finley asked.

  Boutelle felt cornered. Before the rattler bite, he would have responded instantly that of course he did. Now it was a bit more difficult than that.

  He elected to do the sort of thing he saw in Washington all the time, the political thing. He reversed the question.

  “Do you still think it’s that man?” he asked.

  Finley’s lips stirred in a faint smile, and Boutelle sensed that the agent was aware of what he’d done.

  “Look at it this way then,” Finley said, confirming the impression. “Does it make sense to you that, on the very day of signing a treaty with the United States—after ten years of war, mind you—Braided Feather would let his braves kill and mutilate the Corcoran brothers—on their way home from the signing ceremony?”

  Boutelle could not deny that Finley’s point was well-taken. Still . . .

  “And that, knowing full well that one of the main conditions of the treaty is that they keep their distance from Picture City, he’d ride into town with his braves the very next morning?”

  “Well . . .” Boutelle felt his conviction fading.

  “They came in to see that man,” Finley said. “If they’d come as hostiles, they could have wiped us out at that time of morning. You know that.”

  “I don’t,” Boutelle said. “I’ll take your wo
rd on it, though.”

  “You do admit they were afraid of that man and left within seconds of seeing him?”

  “I . . . suppose,” Boutelle had to admit, albeit reluctantly.

  “David,” Finley said. Boutelle tensed a little at the admonishing tone in Finley’s voice; that he did not appreciate. “These aren’t dime-novel Indians. These are bone-seasoned Apache warriors. Believe me, there is very little in this world that frightens them. But that man frightens them.”

  Boutelle nodded slightly. “Well, he certainly seems to frighten Professor Dodge,” he said.

  “Terrifies him, David,” Finley said. “Terrifies him.”

  He hesitated, then said, “I’ll tell you something. He kind o’ scares the bejesus out of me as well.”

  He told Boutelle about his rejected inclination to await the marshal’s return and try to put the man in jail for horse stealing. “Not to mention murder,” he finished.

  Then he told Boutelle about finding Al Corcoran’s butchered remains.

  “I’ve seen victims of Apache raids,” he said. “They did some pretty god-awful things. But nothing like that.”

  “Which has been my point—” Boutelle almost said “Billjohn,” then couldn’t make himself do it. “The Apaches—the Indians—are well-known for their atrocities. You can’t deny that.”

  “I don’t deny it,” Finley said. “I’m just saying that these atrocities go way beyond what I’ve seen them do.”

  “Then how could that man be responsible?” Boutelle challenged. “How could any one man be responsible for these things?”

  “I don’t know,” Finley murmured. He added something in such a low voice that Boutelle couldn’t hear it.

  “What?” he asked. It made him uneasy to see how obviously Finley swallowed.

  “I said, if he is a man,” the agent said.

  Boutelle felt himself shudder involuntarily. “What do you—” He cleared his throat. “What do you mean?”

  Finley didn’t answer at first. All Boutelle could hear was the crackle of the low fire and sounds in the night, birds and animals. He stared at the agent’s face, firelight reflected on it.

  Finley looked away, troubled.