Wolf and Iron

CHAPTER 23

Jeebee had moved out to his left in his circling movement to the point where he estimated he would pass the fire at better than a hundred yards to its left.

Accordingly, he now altered his course back toward the foothills, heading toward the high blackness ahead where the stars speckling the night sky ceased at an undulating horizon of blackness. The moon was already down.

There was only the slightest of night winds cooling Jeebee’s right cheek, but the flames ahead burned brightly. As he got closer he could see that outbuildings, including the tall barn, were being fiercely consumed by flame. The ranch house at first had looked almost untouched. But now he began to see a little tongue of flame that appeared and disappeared, running flickeringly along the eaves on the closer edge of the roof, on the side of it he would be passing.

Also, as he got closer, he began to hear the sounds of voices—voices raised in yips and yells, like the voices of those at some wild revel. He also began to make out the black silhouettes of figures dancing and running about. Occasionally he saw a figure of a riderless horse among them.

The first thought of his weary brain was that he must be looking at the home of some unfortunate rancher who had incurred the enmity of his neighbors. The way Jeebee himself had is unconsciously done back in Stoketon, Michigan.

Then he rejected this idea, along with another, that perhaps the figures he saw were neighbors who had come to try and help. He could hear shots now, though whether they were being fired into the air, from the ranch house, or at the house, was impossible to tell.

He realized at last, with a cold clutching at his guts, that what was happening to the ranch house was most likely to be an attack and destruction by one of the large, semimilitarily organized bunches of nomadic raiders. If so, these were the kind of people Nick Gage had spoken of as the only real danger to Paul’s wagon.

Such gangs lived from moment to moment and had no interests in leaving even a peddler alive because they might want to trade with him again next year. By next year these later-day Comancheros might well be dead, or hundreds of miles away.

They literally lived off the land, and off what still remained on it. They survived by staying away from cities and moving continually, fast enough so that no local group could be mustered in time to oppose them successfully.

When he was level with the burning buildings—all burning now, because the roof of the ranch house was also on fire—he stopped. Awkwardly, he turned in the saddle enough to reach behind him with his good hand and fumble out the binoculars that had been Merry’s special gift to him.

He put the heavy pair of glasses to his eyes, then had to take them down again to readjust their focusing knob. After several adjustments and subsequent trying of the binoculars, he got the scene around the burning ranch in sharp focus.

There was a strange ludicrous effect to what he watched. The silhouettes of figures running or riding back and forth between him and the flames had an unnatural appearance, like black marionettes of heavy cardboard dancing to invisible strings before the fire. It was as if they held some wild celebration that had now gotten out of hand, so that something frenetic drove them to their antics before the leaping red light.

As he watched, one of the black figures fell, ignored by the rest. Apparently there were those still alive in the ranch house who were firing back at their attackers. But none of the defenders could last long. A good piece of the roof over their heads was now a-flicker in several places. Soon the house itself would become an inferno. He put the glasses away and rode on. The memory of what he had just seen—the lurid red flames, the black figures, and the air of orgy—was painted in his mind even as he himself passed, unseen. His own pains and discomforts took him back into them, and away from what he had just seen. He kept moving.

Almost immediately, he was away from the ranch and into sloped ground. Brute grunted and leaned to the slope, and Jeebee himself leaned forward in the saddle. He was empty with fatigue. After a while he stopped the horses for a moment and turned Brute’s head back so that he could look down at where he had traveled.

There was a ridge now between him and the ranch, so that he could no longer see the fire. But against the starry sky the glow of flames was much less. He knew he had not gone so much farther that with the glasses and on the ridge top behind him, he would not be able to see whether the raiders were still there when the sun rose. But he wanted only to go forward to personal safety. He started the horses moving again. Shortly, he was into trees, pine country.

The trees closed around him after a while. He told himself that if he could only find a stream to water the horses, he would stop at last. Luck was with him. He crossed a wide-open slope, slippery with shale rock, where the horses went gingerly, and came out through a fold to a little open spot among trees where he could hear water running. A few yards further brought him to a small flow of water that headed generally in the direction of the ranch buildings below.

With great and painful effort he dismounted, tied the horses to trees, and left them with some grass around them at the edge of the small stream.

He did not even have strength to unpack or unsaddle. It was hard on the horses but he had reached his limits. He slid down from the saddle, took the water bag from his saddle, and the crutch. He then worried a blanket out of Sally’s packload. Rolling himself in this, at the foot of one of the pines, he curled up in the blanket and took the Dilaudid he had held off from taking—for so many hours that his exhaustion-dulled mind could not remember their number.

He was instantly asleep.

When he woke, it was dawn of the next day. The sun slanted through the green branches over him.

For a moment he felt perfectly ordinary. Then with a rush, pain and exhaustion closed in on him once more. He was still weak and hungry for rest. For a moment he thought he could not even get to his feet.

The pain in his damaged left leg reminded him of how it had been crooked across the saddle through most of the long ride.

He dragged up his left pants leg as far as he could, to look at the wound. But he could not pull it up far enough. In fact, it was too uncomfortable to pull further, since at this point the cloth of the lower leg was tight against the swollen limb. It seemed to him, however, that the leg was more swollen than it had been twenty-four hours before, and fear of infection passed briefly through him. But at that point the pain registered on him.

He glanced at his watch. Certainly it had been over eight hours since he had gone to sleep.

He turned to his backpack, got the pouch behind his saddle that held the medicine, took out the Dilaudid, and washed it down with water from the water bag. He lay for a little while clutching the bag, occasionally drinking a little bit more from it, waiting for the Dilaudid to take effect.

Slowly, it began to work. Slowly, the pain receded somewhat. He was able to think beyond his own body and look beyond himself. The first thing to catch his attention was the fact that Wolf was not there. Also the two horses were looking at him. Sally had a literally piteous look in her eyes, and even Brute’s gaze held an unusual appeal.

He waited a little longer to get the most out of the Dilaudid. Then he got to his feet with the help of the crutch and went first to Sally, limping badly but being able to bear a little of his weight for a very short time on the hurt leg. He loosened the cinch strap that held the saddle blanket with the load above it, and the load itself fell with a thump to the ground.

Sally gave what was literally a sigh of relief. Jeebee held himself to her backbone for a few moments while he took the weight off his bad leg, then made his way around her body to within grabbing distance of Brute, who, for once, did not try to move away from him.

He had to go around Brute to get at the side where the cinch strap was fastened by the buckle. He did so, for once not thinking of Brute’s heels, and, again, Brute did not try to take advantage of this to kick him. Slowly, under the difficulty of working with one hand, Jeebee loosened Brute’s cinch strap as well and let the saddle slide off.

This much done, Jeebee went over to the little stream and sat down beside it. He unbuckled his belt, with difficulty, pulled off his pants and left boot and sock. He then immersed his left leg in the running water.

It was icy, but after the first shock it felt good on his leg. It was not as swollen from his ride as he had feared. Now he took the time to roll up his sleeve and put his hurt arm into the water, too.

He lay this way for some time. The stream here seemed clearer than the one among the willows, below, and eventually a pleasant numbness came to reinforce the effect of the Dilaudid in both limbs.

As the personal, physical side of his problems receded into the background, Jeebee’s mind began to concern itself with larger matters. He had realized on waking that he was in no shape to travel any farther—today, at least.

Not only was he not up to it, the horses were not up to it. Both of them had already lain down, a sure sign that they were at their limits. It was to be expected. Particularly after their carrying saddle and packload for so many hours. They should be given a couple of days to rest and eat, anyway. There was a fair amount of graze in this little opening among the pines, here and around the stream.

Here, he should be fairly safe. For the moment, anyway, there was no need to search further for a resting place.

There was nothing in these hills to attract raiders, and any neighbors who came to investigate the results of the raid would hardly travel any distance into the hills to see if anyone was still lurking in the vicinity. Nor was there any reason for one of those who’d recently killed and burned to stay around. So he and the horses were probably safe here for the present. He could have stumbled on worse spots.

Meanwhile, it was of vital importance that his wounds go on healing. Above all, it was important that he get physically able as soon as he could.

He lifted his left leg out of the stream and was certain that the swelling had gone down by more than a little since he had put it in. He made allowance for the fact that he was possibly letting himself be influenced too much by the fact that the skin was white and shrunken into ridges from being underwater as it had been. Still, he was sure the leg looked better.

Incredible that he could make such a ride and be so well. Perhaps the good food while he was with the wagon and the exercise of past months had not only strengthened him, but made him more fit to resist injuries than he had ever been before in his life.

How much fitter he actually was, he discovered when he put his pants back on and struggled back up on to his feet with the help of the crutch. There was more flexibility in his left leg than he thought.

He made his awkward and uncomfortable way back to the saddle he had dropped off Brute. There, he allowed himself a fair allowance of the trail mix that was all that was left in the backpack. He told himself that if he had to stay here at least another day, he would get the flour and salt out of the pack goods Sally had been carrying and make bannock. This was not quite bread, but baked on a stick slowly over the coals of a fire, it was the closest thing to bread, and it had food value. It would be some time yet before he could hope to do any hunting, even if he wanted to risk the sound of his rifle carrying perhaps to other people on the flatlands down below. The .30/06 was really too heavy for small game like squirrels and rabbits.

Once back in the rugged and wooded part of these foothills, near the real beginnings of the mountains, he should be far enough away to shoot at anything that looked eatable with some safety. At least, he would have a reasonable certainty that the shot would not be heard.

Even if it was heard, with reflecting rock surfaces all around him, a single shot would probably not pinpoint his location. In Sally’s pack there was also bacon, but he was saving that for real needs later on, when he could save the fat and use it as an extra part of his food.

As soon as he could set up a semipermanent camp in these hills he must go down and try to slaughter one of the ranch’s range cattle for beef. The carcass would probably be blamed on the raiders if he was able to go in the next week or so. Even if he could not get it within that time limit, the body would soon be attacked by Wolf, or other predators, and it would look as if these had been responsible for its death.

Meanwhile, if his leg held up to it, it would probably be a good idea to ride Brute back to a place where he could take a look, with the binoculars Merry had given him, at the ranch that had been raided. Certainly, the raiders must be gone. But it would be wise to check.

His first idea of riding Brute, however, foundered on the fact that neither Brute nor Sally would be ready to be ridden for several days at least. Jeebee considered the distance to the highest ridge behind him. It was not more than about three hundred feet; if he took it in slow stages…

He remembered a first-aid training class, which was one of the things he had managed to take when he had first begun to have the sense to accumulate the electric bike, the watch with the one-hundred-year battery, and the other items he had carried out of Michigan with him. He could not see the page that it had been on in his mind’s eye, but the orderly, academic part of his mind knew it had been on page one hundred and twenty-nine of the manual that had come with the course. It had been in the paragraph on bruises, particularly severe bruises.

Exercise, the manual had said, “is indicated as soon as the swelling is down enough and the patient feels capable of using the limb. Exercise at this point will hasten recovery, helping to pump the engorged blood out of the tissues and promote healing.”

He looked down at his leg, remembering it as it had looked when he had taken it out of the water. He had no way of telling whether the swelling was “down enough.” But certainly he was able to bend it further. It felt better—although probably that was because of the Dilaudid rather than any natural healing process. He felt a wild animal’s need to be able to move. If he took the trip from where he was now to the top of the ridge, in easy stages, maybe he could do it and help the leg rather than hurt it further.

However, first he needed something more solid in the way of a crutch—something better than the stick with a wad of cloth at one end. He still had the Swiss army knife, and a somewhat larger folding, lock-bladed knife for ordinary work, in a button-down sheath on his belt. He got the latter out now and proceeded to see if he could spot any dry timber close by that looked capable of giving him the material he needed.

There was nothing close. However, some of the young trees, or larger saplings—it was hard to know which to call them—might still be stout enough. A piece of one of them might bend a little, as green wood might, but still support the weight he would want to put on it as the staff of a new crutch.

He found a likely sapling about an inch in diameter and cut a piece from it. He worked away at it with his knife until he got himself a length to fit comfortably under his left armpit.

He deliberately made it a little long, figuring he could always whittle it down if necessary. He put a point on the upper end of it and found another, shorter and thicker section in which he made a hole for the pointed end of the staff, using first, the point of his knife and then the leather punch of the Swiss army knife.

He pushed the hole in the crosspiece down on the pointed end of the staff as far as he could and bound it firmly with leather thongs. Then he put the lashed end under the water of the stream and held it there until it was thoroughly soaked.

It was hard to give it time to dry, but he waited a good hour. Finally, he put the still-damp end under his armpits and began his trip.

Wolf had not shown up at all since he had awakened, for which he was grateful. He was more certain now of Wolf’s concern, if that was the right word for it, on the evidence of Wolf’s licking of his wounds. But especially since he had read the books on wolves, Jeebee was wary of what the reaction of the other’s instinctive system might be to the sight of Jeebee hobbling along in an obviously vulnerable condition. Disliking himself for doing it, but without any real hesitation, he stuck the revolver in his belt, where it would be easier to get at in his present crippled condition, and took the rifle as well as the binoculars. He was no longer sure he could bring himself to shoot at Wolf. Even months back, coming up from the root cellar, he had reversed the rifle to use its butt as a club.

But in any case, Wolf was far from being the only danger he might have to face. He felt better having the loaded weapons with him.