My horse was gone, and with it the saddlebags and Simon Prather’s money.
But I had no time to contemplate the disaster that had befallen me. I had to get to the buckskin and go after those robbers.
The rain was still painting the sides of the surrounding buttes and mesas bloodred, and the sentinel trees stood soaked and silent. The wind had dropped some, but the rumble of thunder was much closer and every now and then as the sky banged and flashed white, the buckskin raised his head and stood stiff-legged in alarm.
The horse was getting spooked and I was in no shape to be chasing him down.
I couldn’t tell how badly hurt I was. My head ached and when I put fingers to the right side of my scalp they came away stained with blood.
The men who had bushwhacked me had taken my horse, but they’d left my guns, and I figured, with the arrogance of youth, that they’d made a big mistake.
That I was too sore wounded to follow them never even entered my head. And that was my mistake.
Slowly I fetched up to my feet, and immediately the land around me spun like a weather vane in a whirl-wind, then lurched right and left, so that I figured the mesas were standing on end and the trees were dancing. Nauseous, I sank to my knees and was violently sick, retching up all the coffee I’d drunk a short time before.
I didn’t need anybody to tell me right then that I was as weak as a two-day-old kittlin’ and in a whole heap of trouble.
Off to my left, a lean coyote stepped out of the trees again and looked at me with keen interest, every now and then tossing his head as he licked his chops. To him, I was just a poor, wounded creature that might die pretty soon and provide an easy meal or three.
I directed all my pent-up anger and despair at that coyote, yelling at him to stay the hell away from me and go find himself a rabbit to kill.
Of course, all my hooting and hollering did nothing to ease the mind of the buckskin and he trotted maybe fifty yards closer to the base of the bluff, stirrups bouncing, figuring me for a crazy man.
I guess the coyote studied on things some and reckoned I was still mighty spry because he slipped back into the trees and was gone like a puff of smoke.
Desperately I tried to concentrate, summoning up whatever little strength I still possessed.
Somehow, I had to make it to the buckskin.
Fury drove me. I swore to myself that when I caught up with the long-haired man called Lafe, there would be a new face in hell for breakfast in the morning.
Slowly, painfully, I crawled on my hands and knees toward the grazing buckskin.
As I inched closer, he’d raise his head now and then to look at me, trot away a couple of steps to maintain the same distance between us, then go back to his grazing.
Thunder rolled across the iron sky and lightning forked among the hills around me, plunging again and again into the wet earth with skeletal fingers. A lone cedar growing on the gradual slope of a hill just beyond the bluff suddenly took a direct hit. A deafening crack, accompanied by a searing flash of light, and the tree seemed to explode, branches scattering into the air every which way. Fire spurted as the blasted cedar lurched on its side, the flames dying immediately in the teeming rain.
All this was way too much for the jittery buckskin.
The horse turned in my direction, arched his back, then took off, galloping across the distance between us. Neck stretched out, his eyes rolling white, the buckskin pounded past, his kicking hooves beating on the wet grass like the cadenced thump of a muffled drum.
“Hold up there, boy!” I yelled, in a totally futile effort.
The buckskin was gone, splitting the wind and skinning the ground, and soon he was lost to sight among the crowding grayness of the rain-lashed hills.
Me, I knew I had to go after the horse.
I rose to my feet, staggered a few steps, then stumbled, stretching my length on the grass. I rose again, fell again, got to my knees and looked around.
The land was spinning wildly and the pain in my head was a living thing, eating all the life out of me. I tried to struggle to my feet, crashed hard onto my back and mercifully knew no more.
I woke to a dark face bisected by a huge walrus mustache looking down into mine. Guttering firelight revealed concern and a hint of amusement in the black eyes, and I saw the flash of white teeth as the face split into a smile.
“Ah,” the man said, “young Lazarus awakes.”
Another robber!
I grabbed for my Colt but it wasn’t there. The black man had followed my movement and now his smile widened. “Is that how you thank a man who just saved your life? Gun him?”
Then, reading the panic in my eyes, he said, “Your Colt is close by, young feller, and so is your rifle. And I brung in your horse.”
I opened my mouth to speak, failed, then tried again. “My paint?”
The man shook his head. “Big buckskin. I found him out there in the hills. I whistled an’ he came to me, nice as you please.” My rescuer frowned. “Here, are you telling me he ain’t your bronc?”
I shook my head slightly, a movement that caused me considerable pain. “My horse was stole.”
Right then I didn’t know if I could trust this man, and I guess it showed in my eyes because he pulled his yellow slicker aside, flashed the badge pinned to his coat and said: “Name’s Bass Reeves. I’m a deputy U.S. marshal for Judge Isaac Parker out of Fort Smith with jurisdiction over the Indian territory.” He smiled. “Does that set your mind at ease, boy?”
“What . . . what are you doing out here?” I asked, understanding nothing.
Bass Reeves shrugged. “Hell, boy, out here is where the desperadoes be.”
I glanced around me. The rain had stopped and I was back in the shallow cave at the base of the gypsum hill. Beyond Reeves’ wide shoulder the cobalt blue sky was streaked with bands of gold, lilac-colored clouds building high above the horizon. The fire crackled and I smelled wood smoke and bubbling coffee.
I struggled to rise, but Reeves pushed me back with a firm but gentle hand. “Best you lay there still for a spell, boy,” he said. “I think maybe your head might be broke.”
Gingerly, I reached up to feel my wound, but my fingers touched only a thick bandage.
“Spare shirt I found in your blanket roll,” Reeves said. “I tore it up for bandages. Used it on your ribs too. Figure they might be broke as well.”
That shirt was brand-new. It had cost me three dollars in Dodge and I’d expected to wear it and cut a dash when I met Sally and commenced to courting her. That Reeves had ripped it apart chapped my butt, but I didn’t think it polite to tell that to a man who’d saved my life.
Instead, I said, “How did you find me?”
The lawman jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Found three men out there. Two of them dead, all shot to pieces, one half-dead.” Without even a hint of a smile, he added, “The half-dead one was you, of course.” Reeves sat back on his haunches and rolled a cigarette. “You smoke, boy?”
“Name’s Dusty Hannah,” I said. “And, yes, I smoke.”
Reeves nodded. “Smoking is bad for a young feller, Dusty. Stunts his growth and takes his wind.” He lit his cigarette with a brand from the fire, the scarlet flame casting bronze shadows under his eyes and in the hollows of his cheeks. “Want to tell me about it?” he asked.
“Are you asking me in your capacity as my savior or as a deputy U.S. marshal with jurisdiction over the Indian territory?”
Reeves nodded. “A little of both, Dusty. A little of both, I’d say.”
I was irritated that Reeves was so obviously enjoying his smoke and hadn’t thought to share, but I fought that down and in as few words as possible told the lawman the story of how I came by thirty thousand dollars only to lose it to bushwhackers.