Hondo. Part 16

"Indians got a story," Hondo said, "about a hunter who chased a puma until he caught him. Then it was the other way around."

McKay smiled. "That story goes back further than the Indians know. It is originally attributed to the first Roman army to enter Tartary. The soldier caught a Tartar and yelled out. His officer called back to come in and bring his prisoner, and the soldier replied, 'The Tartar won't let me.'"

McKay chuckled at his story, but neither Hondo nor Buffalo was amused.

"It's one of the favorite stories of Colonel Mays, who teaches cavalry tactics at the Point. The story is worldwide."

Hondo rolled a smoke. "How long you been out of West Point, Lieutenant?"

McKay hesitated, not liking to answer. He was afraid he knew what the question implied, and he did not like to appear a greenhorn. "Graduated cla.s.s of '69, sir." His ears grew a little red. It was not long ago, and he resented the doubt of his ability the question seemed to imply, yet he was no fool. He had heard Major Sherry and even General Crook speak of Hondo Lane with respect.

"That story you told," Hondo said, "can be almighty true right here. You hear about Fetterman?"

"Lieutenant Colonel Fetterman, sir? You mean the ma.s.sacre?"

"Well," Hondo said, "call it what you like. Fetterman was a good man, I guess, but he made the mistake of takin' the Sioux too lightly. He said give him eighty men an' he'd ride through the whole Sioux Nation. Remember what happened?" Hondo touched his tongue to his cigarette. "He had eighty-three men, an' he lasted less than twenty minutes."

McKay flushed a little. "I know. Ambush, wasn't it?"

"In a way. Ambush they led him into because he was bigheaded." Hondo smiled. "You ain't that sort, Lieutenant, but don't take Vittoro lightly. Napoleon never knew anything that old 'Pache don't know."

"Oh, come now, sir!" McKay was astonished, half believing he was being led on. "You don't mean that!"

"I do mean it." Hondo was dead serious. "Lieutenant, what would you say was the main object of a leader facing a superior force?"

McKay's eyes searched Hondo's. He was curious, and suddenly aware there was more to the man to whom he talked than a knowledge of the desert and Indians.

"Why ... why, offhand, sir, I'd say to hara.s.s the enemy, to fight a delaying action until he could get him on ground of his own choosing, but at all costs to preserve his own force intact."

Hondo nodded, "I'm no military man, Lieutenant, but I'd say you couldn't go far wrong on that plan. And ain't that what Vittoro's been doing?"

Lieutenant McKay's brow puckered. "Well ... yes," he admitted, "after a fashion."

Buffalo grinned at Hondo after the Lieutenant had moved off to inspect the bivouac area. "Gave him somethin' to puzzle over, you did." He chuckled. "Got a sight to learn, that one." Then he nodded. "But he's all right, I think. I like him. Only I wish it was the Major out here in command."

Lieutenant McKay turned toward the house, where Angie had stopped at the door. "Mrs. Lowe, my orders are to make a clean sweep as far as Twin b.u.t.tes. We will go on to Twin b.u.t.tes tomorrow and return tomorrow night to escort you and your boy out to safety."

"We're safe. We have Vittoro's word."

"The word of an Indian criminal!" McKay was incredulous. "Even if Lane is willing to take the risk, I don't think you should."

"I'll take his word. We'd rather stay."

"I'm sorry. My orders are to bring out any settlers who have survived." He hesitated. She was such a pretty woman, and he did not like to think of leaving her here. He had been on the frontier only a few weeks, but he had already seen the bodies of some of the settlers. It had not been a pretty sight. "I ... if you will excuse me, ma'am."

Hondo and Buffalo had come to the house. "He's very nice," Angie said, "and very young."

"Yes, ma'am," Buffalo agreed, a shadow of worry in his tone, "He sure is."

"You been scouting for this patrol?"

"This is about the twentieth day I had them out, Hondo. Many a scalp's been took."

Angie looked down at Johnny. "You watch Lieutenant McKay, Johnny. That's the kind of manners I want you to have.' She turned back to the men. "And he has such handsome eyes. And that beautiful black, curly hair."

"That hair will be hanging from the top pole of an Apache wickiup." He looked over at Buffalo. "This little-boy lieutenant will get you killed."

Buffalo shrugged. McKay was not the first he had seen come to Indian country. Nor, with luck, would he be the last. Some of them had it, some of them did not. Some were only pretty, some were all spit and polish, and some of them sharpened down into first-cla.s.s fighting men. There had been Major Powell, for instance, up at Kearney. Had he taken the command the day Fetterman went out ... It was useless to think of that. Fetterman had outranked him, forced the issue, and gone glory-hunting with eighty-odd better men.

"You know how it is," Buffalo said. "Us scouts got to get these young officers educated."

Suddenly he remembered. "Say, you reclect how you whupped me at the post? My medicine must have been bad. You busted off a tooth and it went to hurting so bad I had to go to the barber so he could pull out the rest of that tooth. Partner, that hurt! Did I catch you that day, I'd have set your sun for you. You'd never have seed another morning."

Angie came to the door, drying her hands. "Hondo, I notice the soldiers are starting their food fires. I naturally can't invite very many to eat with us in the cabin, but if your friend Mr.--uh ..."

"Yeah, Buffalo will eat with us." he turned to look at the big buffalo hunter. "We've known each other eight or ten years. You got to have a last name. Or have you?"

Buffalo looked up sharply, offended. "Sure I got a last name. What do you think I am?" He tried to emulate the Lieutenant's bow. "Mrs. Lowe, my name is ..." He hesitated, and his face got red. "Baker. That's what it is, Baker." He sneered at Hondo. "Didn't think I had any last name!"

Buffalo looked around slowly. "Been tryin' to figure what this place reminds me of, Hondo. It's that ranch of your'n in California. Where we stayed before we went to fight with those people up north. Under a bluff just like this, creek and mesa spreading out ..."

Angie looked up at Hondo. "You have a place that looks like this?"

"East of San Punas. Just like this. Reminds me all to ..." He hesitated, took a quick look at Angie, and ended weakly, "Reminds me. It sure does."

"You can wash in the basin on the bench. Towel hangin' right there."

"Wash? Towel? Oh, sure."

"It's wonderful, Hondo. About your place, I mean. That our tastes are so similar. You picked a basin with a creek, as I did."

"I guess we could winter in the same lodge without n.o.body getting their throat cut in the night."

They stopped at the door, watching the camp settling down. There was an Indian up on the bluff again, but that was to be expected and Hondo said nothing until Buffalo walked up, drying his hands. Buffalo mentioned it, and he nodded. "Seen him. No use mentionin' it to the Lieutenant. He'd send out a patrol to catch him, an' these boys need their sleep."

Buffalo hung the towel on a peg near the door. "Don't you peg the Lieutenant too low. He's young, but he's different than some. He'll listen, an' he ain't afraid to ask questions. Most of 'em figure they got to know it all."

Buffalo looked awkwardly at the table. Angie had taken out her red-checkered cloth and there were napkins of the same color by the plates. Buffalo looked around, embarra.s.sed. "I ain't et--ate--at a table like this in a c.o.o.n's age, ma'am. Reckon I'm some rusty."

She smiled. "We're hoping you'll eat with us often, Buffalo, so don't be afraid."

Buffalo blushed, then as the significance of her remark reached him he looked quickly at Hondo and started to speak, but Hondo scowled at him and he closed his mouth.

When they had finished, Angie got up and took down an apple pie and started to cut it, then she turned. "Hondo, would you like to ask the Lieutenant to join us for pie and coffee? I'm sure he'd like it."

When Hondo was gone, Angie turned quickly and looked at Buffalo. "Mr. Baker," she said quietly, "I want to ask you a question. Did you know Ed Lowe? My husband?"

"That no-a--" As the significance of her last words reached him, he broke off sharply. "Yes," he said after a minute, "I knew him."

She hesitated, then turned back to her pie. That explosive beginning answered her question in part, at least. Buffalo Baker said no more, and when the Lieutenant came in, she was talking about the Indians.

Buffalo excused himself and the Lieutenant sat down. He glanced quickly at Johnny, then smiled. Lieutenant McKay might know little of Indian fighting, but he understood the things a lonely woman wants to know. He talked briefly of things at the post, then of what women were wearing in Washington, New York, and Richmond. After several minutes he switched the subject. He glanced sharply at Hondo. "What do you think Vittoro will do now? Will he keep running?"

"No. Not far, anyway. He's ready to fight."

"Mr. Lane, my business is to command, but I've been thinking of what you said. I'm not above taking advice. You know the Apaches. What would you advise?"

Hondo looked at his coffee. There was no doubting the earnestness of this man, and he had a sudden hope that whatever happened, this man might live. They needed men on the frontier who could learn.

"Can't advise you, Lieutenant. Only when you come up to him, it'll be because he's ready. If he's ready it'll be because he figures he can beat you or hurt you mighty bad. So when you come up on him, look around, because whatever you don't expect, that's what he'll do."

Chapter Twenty.

When Buffalo had finished sharpening his knife, Hondo moved to the grindstone. Lennie Sproul lounged near the barn, and Hondo felt irritation strong within him. Lennie Sproul had been on the frontier for fifteen years, a lean, saturnine man with a cynical eye and a way of showing up with unexpected money.

Hondo Lane possessed no quality of the hypocrite. He was a man whose likes and dislikes were obvious. His distaste for Sproul was especially obvious. The scout lounged nearer in his greasy buckskins and stood watching the knife edge on the grindstone.

"Mighty fine rifle in your saddle scabbard. Always envied you that there gun. Hard to come by, that new issue."

"Keep your hands off it." Hondo was short.

Lennie Sproul watched the grindstone for several minutes while Hondo Lane's anger mounted. Sproul was not here by accident. There was something on his mind.

"Knowed you ten years," Sproul said. "Never worked a day beside you."

"Don't like you," Hondo replied, testing the edge of the blade.

"Figured you didn't. But now I think you might admire to give me that there rifle."

Too astonished for reply, Hondo looked up, staring at Lennie, who answered with a broken-toothed smile. "Ways out of the post I come across some bodies. One of 'em was this lady's husband. Horse tracks around there, an' one set belonged to your lineback."

Hondo waited, his heart pounding heavily, anger building hard within him. Not the irritation he had felt for a disliked and disagreeable man, but the hard anger of a man.

"Nice setup you got here. Nice ranch, pretty woman."

Hondo took a slow, deep breath. He knew himself and he wanted no violence. Not the kind to which he was impelled.

"You can get yourself killed acting like this." He said the words slowly, taking his time, hoping the words would be a warning, that Lennie Sproul would know when to stop.

There was no stopping in the mind of Lennie Sproul. He had felt Hondo Lane's dislike keenly, but there had been nothing he could do. Now he saw the gun fighter's strength and skill humbled, his proud, easy manner broken. Why, the man had a ranch here. There was no telling what all he might get from him, given time.

Knowing triumph, he felt no discretion. "Could be I could get killed," he said with a smirk, "or I can get that new-fashioned Winchester. You didn't bushwhack that lady's husband, but it could look mighty like it. Did she know what happened, I don't reckon you'd set so well around here.'

Hondo Lane dropped the knife and came up in one smooth, perfectly timed flow of motion. Lennie, too late, tried to step back. Hondo Lane's right fist caught the angle of his jaw and knocked him thirty feet into a heap on the ground.

The last staggering steps had carried Sproul past the lean-to stable and he had fallen in view of the cow corral.

Hondo Lane rushed after Lennie, who started to get up. He scarcely reached his feet before Lane struck him. Two hard punches, left and right. He hit the ground hard and Lane lifted a moccasined heel to stomp him when he saw Angie.

She was just rising from the stool beside her cow, the milk pail in one hand, the stool in the other. Nothing was needed beyond her expression. She had heard it all.

For a long moment their eyes held, searching, measuring, then she turned to walk away. Lennie seizing his chance, crawled a few feet, then got to his feet and hurried away, a hand to his jaw.

At that instant Lieutenant McKay walked up to them. He looked at Lane. "We are about to leave, Mr. Lane." He faced Angie. "Mrs. Lowe, I hope you will not mind if Hondo accompanies us for half a day. We'd like him to go with us as far as Single b.u.t.te. Its rough country, I heard, and none of the other scouts knows that country. He can be back by tonight, so you will not be alone long."

"No, of course not."

McKay bowed, then turned to Hondo. "If you will saddle up, Lane."

"Can't go."

McKay looked at him as if he had not heard aright. A slight frown gathered between his brows. "You said you were not going?"

"That's right."

"But why?" McKay was incredulous.

"Gave my word I wouldn't."

"Your word? To whom?"

"Vittoro."

"Surely," Lieutenant McKay expostulated, "a word given to an Indian desperado can't be--"

"Lieutenant," Angie interrupted, "As an officer and a gentleman, surely you must agree that one's word given to anyone is binding."

"Of course." McKay flushed a little. "Sorry you must remind me, Mrs. Lowe. I forgot myself. Good day."

"Lieutenant," Hondo called after him, and the officer turned, "you won't have any trouble if you keep north of the b.u.t.te. See it to the southwest about six miles out of here. You keep north. Country south looks flat, but she's broken into canyons and washes."

"Thanks."

They stood together watching the Lieutenant walk away, carrying his back straight and walking as if on a drill field. The men were in the saddle, waiting. The sun was hot and the horses stamped restlessly, eager to be moving.

Lennie Sprout rode by, moving to his place near the head of the column. His jaw was badly swollen, his right eye closed. An ugly cut had opened his other cheekbone. He did not look at them as he pa.s.sed, and when Buffalo Baker drew up near them he looked curiously at Hondo Lane.

"Lennie must've run into something," Buffalo commented, biting off a corner of his plug tobacco. "Had it comin', I reckon." He gathered his reins. "Wish you was with us, Hondo."

"Sorry."

Buffalo lifted a hand. "See you." He moved off to join Lieutenant McKay at the head of the column.