the Shadow Riders (1982) (10 page)

The rawhide parted suddenly, and Jesse took the broken glass from Kate and went to work on the bonds on his ankles. A moment, and he was free. He chafed his wrists and ankles.

"They will be out in the woods somewhere," she said.

"I'll have to be lucky. There won't be any tracks." She had not thought of that. Of course there wouldn't be. The rain was falling in sheets. At the back of the wagon, Jesse peered out, hesitated a moment, and was gone like a shadow. One moment he was there, and then he was gone.

Quickly she drew the laces together and tied the canvas as tightly as she could. Straining her ears, she heard no sound but the roaring of the wind and the sea. She huddled with the others, frightened as they were that the wagon might tip over.

Suppose ... just suppose they all tried it? Suppose they went now, suddenly, running into the forest? They'd be drenched to the skin within minutes, and in their heavy clothes they would not be able to move swiftly enough, yet ...

Quickly, she went to the back of the wagon. She started to unfasten the laces when a rough voice said, "Just you set back an' set tight, ma'am. Ain't nobody goin' no place!"

Too late! In the confusion of the storm they had been forgotten, an oversight now taken care of.

She moved away. Had Jesse made it? Or was he lying out there now, stabbed or bayoneted to death, lying in the mud and slush, breathing his last?

It had been a good thought, but it had come too late. And just as well they had not gone with Jesse, for they would only have been an encumbrance, slowing him down until he, too, was taken or killed.

They could only wait ...

Chapter
Ten.

For one moment after his feet hit the ground, Jesse took a quick look around.

Nobody was in sight. There were only the two wagons, the horses standing heads down in the driving rain, and a few scattered tracks showing where the men had fled for shelter in that first, fierce thrust of the storm. On the edge of the forest several trees had been blown down in a bygone storm, and their trunks had been covered by debris, forming a natural shed that offered at least partial shelter.

The one look was all he needed. Jesse plunged into the forest, ran desperately hard, tripped over a root, and fell sprawling into the mud and leaves. Scrambling up, he took a hasty look around.

A man was moving toward the wagon from which he had just come! Jesse ran into the forest, ducking and dodging among the trees, his face lashed by blown branches and whipped by the driving rain. He fell again, got up again, glimpsed what seemed to be an opening and dove into it, running hard.

Distance ... distance was what he needed now. After that he could stop and look for a place to hide.

Where would Dal be, and Mac? Had they found shelter, or were they out in the storm?

He ran until he was gasping for breath, then fell against a tree, almost strangled by blown rain. He clung to the tree, then ran on. Time and again he fell, sometimes tripping, sometimes slipping. Weaving among the trees as he must he could not tell how far he had come.

This was snake country, but he need not fear them for they would have been smart enough to find shelter before this storm hit. As he ran, his mind began to work. The first blind panic gone, he tried to think, to decide what he must do, where he must look for his brothers.

Running as he had, the thought came to mind of an old argument he and his brothers had often debated, whether one ran because he was afraid or was afraid because he ran. For running contributed to fear, he was sure of that now. Deliberately, he forced himself to slow down, to look, to see where he was going.

He needed to find his brothers, but he also needed shelter, a place to hide, and weapons of some kind. The forest offered nothing beyond a club or a sharp stick, but there were plenty of both. Wind whipped the trees, and the driving rain continued. If he stopped to catch a breath he ended with a mouth full of water.

He stopped, leaned against a huge old cypress, and tried to rest a moment.

Escaping had been his only chance. As long as he remained with the girls there was no way in which he could help, and once they examined him again they would discover he was no longer badly hurt and could be imprisoned somewhere away from the girls. Now that he was free he must do what he could.

His brothers would not be far away. They would be within striking distance of the wagons, and probably where they could easily come within watching distance of the route the caravan would take when it started for the beach.

He tried to orient himself. He had run west, he believed, away from the shore, and although he had twisted and turned his general direction had been west. So what he must now do was to turn north or south and try to discover their hiding place. South would be best, for that was the direction in which the wagons would be moving.

If only he had a gun! Or even a knife with which to cut something, to form some kind of a weapon. He could make a bow and arrow. He had often made crude ones as a child, but they had been used to kill small animals when hunting. He could build one now that had greater power. But it would take time, more time than he was likely to have.

Once it was discovered that he had escaped, would they come hunting him? It was possible, but doubtful. There was an urgency about those men, a need to push on, to get something done, to meet their ship.

Wiping the streaming water from his eyes, he looked around, then turned left and started walking into the woods. He kept stumbling and slipping, for the earth was soggy with rain, and there were many exposed roots and fallen trees.

He was, he realized suddenly, desperately tired. His wound had caused loss of blood, and he had not regained his strength. Before he went much further, he must think of rest, of a place to hole up and shelter himself.

He stumbled on, pausing to lean against a tree from time to time to choose his way. He was very weak. He had not realized how weak, for lying in the wagon there had been no way to test his strength or stamina. Yet he was free, for the moment at least, and he must find his brothers and some way to help the girls.

Lightning flashed, and there was a crash of thunder. He believed he could see a partial track, the indentation of a boot heel. He started in the direction indicated.

Mac and Dal were both tall men, and each had a good stride. So allowing for that he began to search for further tracks and after a few minutes found what appeared to be a track, although it was almost erased by the rain. Pushing on, he walked for some distance and was in despair over losing the trail when he saw another track, clearly defined and probably less than a half hour old.

They would not continue in this storm but would find a shelter somewhere or build one. In this forest it would be simple to build a shelter and then cover the muddy earth with boughs. . . .

He saw the bars of a corral first, then a shed, and beyond it, a tumbled-down log cabin.

He hesitated, wary of a trap. The rain had eased for the moment, and he crouched, watching the cabin intently. He heard a horse blow. Swiftly, he moved to another tree, putting the shed between himself and the cabin. Then he ducked between the poles of the old corral and came up to the shed and peered between the logs.

The first horse was Bonnie Prince, the horse Dal had ridden away to war.

They were here then, but he must approach with caution. Who else might be there he did not know, nor whether they were free or prisoners, or even if they were not here at all and the horse had merely been stolen.

His brothers were quick to shoot, but he was not worried about that. He knew them too well. They would never shoot at anything they could not identify. Waiting just an instant longer, he dashed for the corner of the cabin and paused, flattened out against it. From inside he heard Dal speaking.

"Playin' games again, I guess. I don't know why he'd be standin' out there in the rain when it's dry in here. You reckon them Yankees knocked his brains out or somethin'?"

Jesse walked around the corner of the house and into the door, which stood open.

They had a small fire going in the fire-place and a coffee-pot on the coals.

Dal was squatting beside the fire. Mac was seated on a bench nearby, and Happy Jack was stretched out on the flat boards of a corner bed. The cabin was old, long abandoned, and barely hanging together, but the roof was intact and it was dry.

Dal passed him a cup of coffee, and Mac threw a blanket over his shoulders. Between sips of coffee, he explained what happened. "How are the girls?" Dal asked.

"Good as could be expected. That Atherton woman is game. She's cool and she's thinkin' all the while, and of course, you know Kate."

"What about Kate?" Dal asked.

Jesse sipped coffee and told them about Martin Connery. Dal swore as he listened, muttering under his breath. "Martin Connery? The man's a bloody pirate! He wasn't on speakin' terms with any of the family."

Happy Jack got up and came over to the fire. "Look here, boy, you'd better get some sleep. You look kinda caved in. We're not goin' to move out of here until daylight, anyway."

As Jesse went to the bed and fell on it, Jack squatted on his heels. "That Kate, now - there's a thinkin' woman. If she can talk Ashford into goin' to Connery she's maybe done the smartest thing she could do."

"Him? Martin Connery's a thief! The old devil stole a Navy pinnace right out of the harbor at Kingston, sailed her away right under the eyes of the Navy!