The Ferguson Rifle

Falvey himself had sunk back on his heels, holding the wound with his hand. "Damn you, Scholar," he spoke calmly now, "you tricked me. What books did you read, anyway?" "I'm sorry. You left me no choice." "Thought it would come in a night at sea," he mumbled, "never like this... not here." "Isaac," I spoke without turning my head, "get Lucinda to the horses. That bunch may change their minds and come back." Reluctantly, Heath moved back, and Ebitt and Kemble helped Davy. Solomon Talley said, "I'll cover you from the rocks.

Come when you're ready." Yet I stood there, curiously reluctant to leave. The man was dying, and I did not want to see him go alone, here in the gray light before the dawn.

He looked at me. "You're a good man, Scholar, a good man. Believe me or not, I've known a few." He jerked his head toward the way his followers had gone. "Rabble," he said, "a thieving lot. That's the trouble with crime." He smiled. "The company's bad." He coughed, holding himself against a spasm of pain.

"Ah, Scholar! What a team we'd have made!" "Can I do anything for you?" "You did it, friend. You did it with that scurvy blade. It's all you can do for any man." He coughed again and I thought for a moment he would fall. "Go on with you, man. I need no pity.

Let me die alone... it's the way I've lived." Talley called from the scarp above and I backed away and then climbed the rocks. When I stood on the edge, I looked down. The light was graying and I could make him out dimly. He had fallen over on his side... a bad man, but a man of courage for all that.

The men were taking the last of the treasure from the opening through which Davy Shanagan had fallen when I reached the top. Davy had pointed out the way and they had crept down a slanting break in the scarp's edge to reach the entrance. Sacked up, it made a good load for two horses, although it was bulky in part, ornaments and such, as Talley commented.

"We'll go then," I said. "Did you get it all?" Degory shrugged. "There's some odds and ends down there, a few coins... maybe a ring or so. We didn't want to scrabble in the dark for them." "I know, Deg. You were thinking of Van Runkle." "Well, the man's looked for a long time.

Let him have what he finds, Lucinda won't miss it." We rode away in the breaking dawn, our horses' hooves and the creak of saddles our only sound.

When from the rise of the pass I glanced back, turning in my saddle to look, it was all merged into one; gray and green and lovely, with a mist on the lowlands.

Somewhere over the horizon were the Mandan villages, and although I had no furs and the treasure we carried was not mine, I rode with hard memories grown softer with time, a new lust for life within me, and the Ferguson rifle over my saddle.

And, of course, there was Lucinda.

The End

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