As it developed, however, the usually canny Ganiks waited one day too long. Intermittent showers throughout the next two days persuaded them to delay while the water amplified the melting of the accumulated ice and snow, the process aided by the fact that on neither of those two nights did the temperature dip to the freezing mark.
But with the rising of the bright sun of the dawn following that second, wanner night, grim death came to call.
9
The shaggy, filthy, verminous-looking man had woven leaves into his disheveled mop of dull, dirty hair and his scraggly beard. Streaks of a claylike mud now adorned the highlights of his already dusty, dirty face. Even while flies explored his ears and nostrils, even while tiny, maddening no-see-ums swarmed and whined about his head, he remained absolutely motionless, his gaze locked upon the firestick-armed man who stood alertly some few yards ahead of him.
The unkempt warrior had left his two ponies tethered a quarter mile back in the woods, most of his weapons and equipment with them, retaining only his dozen or so knives. The largest of these—both sides of its fourteen-inch single-edged blade liberally smeared with greasy soot and dust to prevent a telltale reflection of light along its length—was now grasped in his right hand, ready for slash or stab or throw, whatever the occasion might demand. This man had had years of experience at bushwhacking the unwary.
Almost imperceptibly, the shaggy man moved closer to his quarry. Not even a rustling leaf or the crackling ‘of a single tiny fallen branchlet bespoke his passage, however. Soon, now. Very soon he would be close enough to arise for that last, lightning-quick and viper-deadly rush; then a knee in the small of the sentry’s back, left hand clamped over the mouth and pulling the head back to bare the throat for its brief, sharp acquaintance with the edge of the blade, and it would all be over save the stripping of the victim of his weapons and any other desired loot, then a safe withdrawal to where the ponies waited, browsing the tender, green new growth of the springy underbrush.
Closer. The wind was right, blowing gently from the hunted down to the hunter, bearing on it the mixed scents of man sweat, mule sweat, gun oil and tobacco, all registered by the flaring nostrils of the shaggy man. Closer. The shaggy man stopped in midmovement, froze like a statue, for the man with the firestick seemed to be staring directly at him.
But then the searching gaze wandered on and, ever so slowly, the shaggy man smoothly recommenced his interrupted stalking of his soon-to-be victim. Closer still. The keen eyes of the man with the long knife locked onto his quarry. He was come close enough; now he only need wait for the moment when the standing man turned his back.
That moment came at last, and, like a coiled spring suddenly released of tension, the shaggy man was on his booted feet and, in an eye-flickering rush of movement, behind the watcher. In a rhythm born of long practice, the left hand was clamped cruelly tight over the mouth and the body bent painfully backward over the knee sticking into its spine. The long, cruel knife blade came around for the throat-slash…
Old Johnny Kilgore waved the sooty knifeblade before the eyes of his “victim.”
“You daid meat, Jimmy Lewis. I done kilt yer ass, by naow.”
“Not quite, Johnny, not quite.” There came a sudden popping and crackling of brush and fallen branches from at least three points behind the shaggy man. Then the officer who had spoken and two troopers armed with rifles—scoped, sniper models—came from out the woods, their faces soot-darkened and the nets covering their helmets festooned with plant materials, the metal itself smeared with random patterns of mud.
The officer added, with a grin, “You’ve been under close observation almost from the time you left your ponies. Where did you get the smaller one, anyway? He looks like a real Ganik pony.”
Kilgore released the sentry and sheathed his big knife. Shaking his head, he remarked, “Gump, you’n yore boys is a-gittin’ good, dang good. Yawl won’t be gittin’ bushwhacked by no Ganiks, not if yawl stays thet sharp.”
Smiling warmly, the officer nodded and holstered his big pistol. “We all had a good teacher, Johnny. Generations of Broomtown men will bless your name and memory, you know.
“But, back to that scrawny bag of bones you’ve acquired… ?”
Old Johnny shrugged. “I foun’ ‘im wand’rin’ up yonder a ways, and he won’t awl I foun’, neethuh. Foun’ whutawl ‘uz lef of a Ganik, too. A wild bunch Ganik looked fer to be, to me.”
In a tight voice, the officer demanded, “Did he see you?”
“Not hardly!” The old cannibal chuckled. “Some critter, some dang big critter, had plumb chawed the life outen thet Ganik. An’ whutawl the littler critters an’ the birds an’ awl had done lef of Mm, won’ much fer me to see ‘cept his clo’s an’ boots an’ knifes an’ awl.”
Johnny shoved aside the close-fitting cap stitched together from two well-matched human scalps and scratched at his bald pate with filthy, cracked fingernails. Then puzzled, he added, “But fer the life of me, I cain’t figger haow one pore bunch Ganik got hisse’f this fer south by his lonesome to git chawed to death.”
“You’re certain he was alone then, Johnny?” probed Gumpner.
The old man shrugged again. “Had to be, Gump. Been any mo’ boys with ‘im, eethuh he wouldn’ of got chawed a-tall, or they’d of took awl his knifes an’ his boots afore they lef ‘im fer the critters. Ganiks, they lives hard an’ they don’ let nuthin jes’ go to waste.”
Gumpner tugged at his neat, iron-gray chin beard for a moment, then said, “Johnny, that bear we had to kill—could that bear have been the animal that killed this Ganik you found?”
Johnny bobbed his head once. “I thought ‘bout thet, too, Gump. Could be, could sure be. It ain’ thet much distance less’n you stick to the trail, ‘long here, an’ ain’t no cawse fer no bar to. Bars don’t eat folks often, but thet ’un, he might of come after the pony an’ thet pore boy he darted him too fer back. So the dang pony, he got away, and the bar, he chawed thet pore dumb Ganik to death. Mighta happund, Gump.”
“So, it was just the one man and his pony, then, Johnny?”
Kilgore gave another single, curt nod. “I backtrailed ‘im, Gump. Foun’ wher he camped up the trail the night afore he ‘uz kilt. Won’ nobody but him an’ the one pony. An’ thet ain’t no particul of right in it, neethuh, Gump. Ganiks, they ain’t nevuh liked bein’ alone; the bigger the bunch they rides with, the better they likes it. Suthin’ damned funny musta happund up nawth, elst thet pore boy, he woulda been with two, three othuh Ganiks, enyhaow.”
The officer turned to the two snipers. “Go fetch in those two ponies.” Then, to Johnny, “There’s a little brook between here and the camp. You can wash the worst of that stink off and then we’ll go on in. I’m certain that the general will be relieved by your message.”
Corbett was vastly relieved at the prospect of not having to fight Ganiks yet. Old Johnny, on the other hand, seemed aggrieved, attesting, as he squatted by the cookfire, “It jes’ ain’t no fun no mo’, gin’rul. Thesehere boys is done got so sharp, I cain’t hardly nevuh ketch ‘em no mo’. I spent me a whole passel of time a-plannin’ an’ awl, lef the ponies way, way back, then took up close to two hours fer to go the las’ lil ways aftuh Jimmy Lewis, an’ it awl looked perfic’. Then I come fer to fin’ out it’d been rifuls awn me dang near the whole damn way. It jes ain’ no fun no mo’!”
Corbett sipped at a metal cup of strong coffee and grinned. “It’s your fault, then, Johnny. You’re too good a teacher for your own good, apparently.”
The old Ganik still looked and sounded hurt and offended, however. “But, gin’rul, it won’t fair fer to tell Gump an’ them I wuz gonna try to jump ‘em today.”