The Ferguson Rifle

Sliding my knife into xs scabbard, I grabbed at Lucinda's arm and ran. At almost the same moment, a rifle bellowed from across the way and a man ru

Suddenly I was in the darkness, ru

Scrambling up through the trees, the slope was steep. Letting go of her hand, I used my hand to pull myself up by grasping tree trunks and limbs, as she did.

Somewhere up here, there was a cave, but there was not one chance in a million I could find it now, not in the dark with men searching for me. Coming out on a ledge, pausing to gasp for breath, I fumbled with the reloading of my Ferguson, made it, then started on.

We hurried along the face of the slope, moving southward, climbing a little, then back toward the north on a kind of switchback path or game trail.

Down below the shooting continued. I heard a shrill Indian yell, then the bang of another rifle. We climbed on, coming out in a small meadow.

Lucinda pulled on my sleeve. "Ronan ... Mr. Chantry, I've got to stop. I ... I can't run another step!" We moved into the trees at the edge of the meadow and sat down on a log. She was not the only one who was all in. My breath was coming in ragged gasps and there was pain in my side.

Feeling for my knife, I slipped the loop back over the guard to keep it from slipping out.

I stood up. Behind us was a grove of aspen, before us what might be a trail used by Indians or buffalo or elk. "We must go," I said, and she got up.

The shooting down below had ceased. Soon they would be coming for us, and we had no place to hide.

CHAPTER 18

Yet I waited. I was tired of ru

Now I no longer wished to escape. I wanted to fight. But beside me I had a girl to consider. Lovely as she was, intelligent as she was--and I have always preferred intelligent women--I wished for the moment she was elsewhere. A man going into a fight for his life should have to think of nothing else; his attention should not be for the minute averted.

There had been a lot of shooting below and I could only guess that my friends had appeared... my friends, or some Indians. If the former, I should join them; if the latter, I had another reason for hiding.

Van Runkle had mentioned a cave... but how to find it in the dark?

Turning to Lucinda, I asked, "Can you be still?

As a ghost?" "Ghosts rattle chains. Is that what you mean?" "This is no time for levity. I want you to be still, to sit down in those trees yonder, and if somebody comes within inches, you are not to move... do you hear?" "Yes." "Very well, then. Into the trees with you." There was a good stand of spruce, dark and close growing, and the log on which we sat was a good landmark, smooth as it was and white in the moonlight, and the moon would soon be up.

"What are you going to do?" "Your uncle had some twenty men with him. He has fewer now... I think no more than sixteen or so. I'm going out to clip the odds a little more." "You'll be killed. You're a scholar. Those men are vicious... unprincipled." "And I'm principled. That, I suspect, places me at a disadvantage, and yet I'm not so sure that it does. At the moment I'm very much guided by several principles, and the first one is the desire to survive. The second one my family has used with some success. They believe in attack." "You'll be killed. You're no match for such men." It irritated me. Why do pretty women have the faculty of irritating? Almost as if they were trained for it. And, of course, they are.

When one is irritated, one is not blas@e.

One must be interested or involved.

"You're mistaken. Socrates was a soldier, and a good one. So was Julius Caesar, and the playwright, Ben Jonson. There have been many." She stood straight, looking into my eyes.

"Sir, I do not want you hurt. I do not want you killed." "Of course not. How could I help you obtain your treasure if I was dead? But I shall not be.

Sit in those trees, and for God's sake, be still!" Abruptly, I moved away from her. The moon was rising, and already it was growing lighter. Her doubt of my ability irritated me even more. I did not know who had attacked them after the horses were stampeded, but I knew that I had to carry the fight to them. Moreover, I must, if possible, free Davy and Jorge... if they yet lived.

There was silence upon the land. The aspen stood sentinel still in the moonlight, their golden coiffures shimmering slightly, gently, under the most delicate touch of the night air.

Down in the bottom, no fire glowed. No sound arose to meet me. There was a faint smell of woodsmoke from the extinguished fires, a dampness rising from the stream, and no other thing to disturb or impress itself upon the night.

Not only Lucinda's doubt rankled. There was also the quite obvious contempt of Rafen Falvey to spur me on. She doubted me capable of meeting him face-to-face, and he would have laughed at the idea.

When I had gone some three hundred yards, I squatted on my heels and listened. The stream rustled over its rocks, the aspens danced and whispered golden secrets to the moon. I heard nothing... and then I did.

Breathing. Someone breathing quite hard, a hoarse, rasping kind of breathing as someone after ru

No. Someone hurt... someone wounded.

Listening, I placed the sound. Moved ever so gently. The breath caught... gasped. I edged closer. I could smell wet buckskin... then a low moan.

Was the sound familiar? I started to move, then some instinct brought my eyes up. The dark figure of a man was standing not four feet from me, and as I glimpsed him, I saw the spark leap as he pulled the trigger. Throwing myself aside, I shoved up the Ferguson and fired ... not two inches from his body. The flash of his gun blinded me, and bits of powder stung my cheek, and then he was falling, falling right at me.

Almost automatically my fingers were fumbling with the reloading of my rifle. Dark as it was under the trees, my fingers felt true, and the gun was loaded, ready.

Again there was a low moan, then a whisper, "Scholar?" It was Davy Shanagan.

Quickly, I moved to him. "Davy! Who did I shoot?" "Don't... know." "Are you hit hard?" He took my hand and guided it to his side.

There was a lot of blood. A lot too much. And nothing to do with. There was my kerchief. Taking that off I packed some damp moss into the wound, then my kerchief, and tied it in place with his thick leather belt.

"Lie still," I whispered. "Are you armed?" "Knife. Rifle... empty." Charging his Kentucky, I placed it beside him, then edged over to the man I had shot. Moonlight had reached his side. He wore a beaded belt that I did not know. I found his pistol and loaded it, then his rifle. The rifle I left with Davy, and tucking the extra pistol into my belt, I eased myself away into the brush.

The two shots could not have gone u

Obviously two men had fired, and somebody was probably dead. Whoever else was out there had no way of knowing who.

Working closer and closer to the camp, I soon saw my efforts were wasted. It was deserted. One lone horse stood out on the meadow, cropping grass, but the others had scattered, as had the people.