“And please understand, David, I’m not saying you should make a decision on it now; just think about it, weigh it in your mind. As of tonight, we’re nowhere near where Erica was lost, and won’t be for a week or more at our present rate of march. Besides, I want to see the job well underway up ai the site of the landslide before I take any troops off on what well might well be a wild-goose chase and highly dangerous to me and my men, to boot.”
A few hours after the end of that radio communication, it began to rain, nor did it ever stop for more than a few hours at a time, day or night, for weeks. Moreover, with the rain and mist came a drop of temperature to a level unseasonably low for the area they were traversing. The thin layers of soil covering the rocks on the higher elevations of the track became slick patches of mud, making these stretches even more hazardous than usual for the riders and heavy-laden pack animals. Corbett often found it necessary not only to dismount the column but to have men detailed to garner large quantities of weeds and brush to cover the slippery spots and provide some manner of traction for both men and beasts.
Consequently, the formerly good progress was slowed to a mere crawl, nor did all but sleepless nights of shivering under wet blankets add to the daytime efficiency of the troops and civilian packers. Tempers waxed short and the generally easygoing officers and noncoms found it necessary to exact and enforce strict, harsh discipline in order to maintain a unit rather than a mob.
Nor did the march on lower levels of the track provide any rest for the weary column. Streams that Corbett’s mental map had recorded as hardly fetlock-deep were found, on this trip, to have metamorphosed into raging rivers, swirling, muddy, icy water between steep, slippery banks and belly-high for even a long-legged mule. Thicker layers of loam on the valley trails quickly developed countless and seemingly bottomless mudholes, from which cursing, mud-caked and thoroughly soaked men often had to extricate screaming, thrashing and terrified mules or ponies.
Due to these multitudinous difficulties, it was close to three weeks before the column wended its way between the high, rocky walls of that pass wherein Dr. Harry*raun had clubbed Dr. Erica Arenstein to earth and left her to the tender mercies of the cannibal Ganiks, while he galloped on after Gumpner and the wounded, leaving Corbett and the bulk of the force doggedly holding the northern mouth of the gap against hundreds of the savage Ganiks, and fully expecting to give their lives that their comrades and the two scientists might have a better chance at survival.
To their astonishment, all of the defenders had lived through the suicidal action, their well-used rifles having taken so heavy and ghastly a toll of the attacking Ganiks that the leaders of the savages had finally rounded up their own survivors and ridden back whence they came, apparently counting on a smaller contingent led by Johnny Skinhead Kilgore to chase down and slay Gumpner’s party.
Instead, Corbett and his force had surprised Old Johnny and his Ganiks camping along the trail and shot or sabered all of them save Old Johnny himself. Then Corbett’s group joined with Gumpner to continue on south, to Broomtown.
Now, arriving at the northern mouth of the pass, they confronted another difficulty, this one of their own making. What remained of the low breastwork of rocks they had had to erect so quickly before that long-ago battle was easy enough to shift aside with so many hands to join in the work, but the huge fallen tree that they had tumbled from one of the verges above proved another matter entirely.
There seemed to be no way that they could shove hard enough against the thick mass of splintery roots or heave on ropes hitched around the trunk to do more than shift the tree a few bare centimeters. The spread of branches that had spanned the defile from wall to rocky wall and thus provided so excellent an abattis in last year’s defensive battle now fought against their efforts to clear the gap. Those same branches that had forced the charging Ganiks to dismount and come slowly in afoot into the murderous fire of the rifles now sought out and wedged tightly into every crack and crevice and cranny of walls or floor and so added their resistance to the massive weight of hardwood against which the sweating, panting, cursing parties of men strained.
Nor, in the confined area, could enough mules to make a difference be hitched to either side of the stubby trunk of the mountain oak. Moreover, as the wood had had time to weather and season, efforts directed at the thick branches with axe or saber seemed endless and exhausting.
Finally, Old Johnny opined, “Gin’rul, I thanks the bestes’ thang we kin do is to burn the bastid out.”
Corbett shook his head. “I’d love nothing better, Johnny, and were we not now into Ganik country, I would. But on a clear, almost windless day like this, we’d be sending up a smoke you could see forty miles away. And since most fires are the work of men, just how long do you think it would be before we had a mob of your kinfolk on top of us?”
Kilgore shrugged. “Not lawng, gin’rul. Ganik’s is awl curious. But thin why not jes’ camp wher we is and do ‘er’t’night?”
Again, Corbett demurred. “Johnny, look up there.” He pointed at the verges ten and more meters above. “Against anything more original or innovative than a direct frontal assault, this gap will be a deathtrap for anyone fool enough to get caught in it. I want to be clear of it well before dark. If only there were some way to get a dozen span of mules through the mess up there…”
Johnny scratched at his bald scalp and commented, “If it’s jes’ mules and riders you wawnts to git out yonder, gin’rul, ain’ no trick to thet. R’member, me ‘n’ my boys, we rode raht roun’ yawl, las’ year?”
Corbett slammed clenched fist into palm. “Damn! What the hell was 1 thinking of? Of course you did. But those were mountain ponies you rode, Johnny. Do you think these big mules could negotiate those trails?”
The old cannibal sniffed. “Onlies’ really rough part’s gon’ be gittin’ ‘em down the bluff inta the valley yonder. The rest of it’s jes’ a wide swing th’ough the woods, is awl.”
Corbett nodded briskly. “All right, Johnny. Take any man you choose, trooper or civilian, and any animal. Gumpner, you go with him and see that he gets no lip from anyone, then report back to me when he’s on his way. Once you and your party get into the valley, Johnny, we’ll hook up the ropes and pass them through those damned branches to you.”
Johnny Kilgore proved as good as his word, and, with twelve pairs of brawny mules hitched to the tree and a clear expanse of valley before them, the heavy, unwieldy hulk soon was hauled clear of the gap, leaving in its wake only splinters and hunks of half-rotted bark. And the column moved on through.
Although there were several hours more of daylight, Corbett halted the bulk of the column in the meadow just to the north of it, along the banks of the wide, shallow brook that flowed southeast to northwest across it. They all waited there, setting up the night camp, until a strong patrol led by Lieutenant Vance and Old Johnny returned to report no sign of any nearby Ganiks or even of any recent movements of them along any of the network of smaller tracks.
At that juncture, Corbett announced that they would camp in their present location for two or three days. He thought that after the recent strenuous weeks of rain and cold, both the animals and the men needed a rest before they pushed on; it was a certainty that he, Jay Corbett, did.
On hearing this news, the indefatigable Johnny Kilgore found a fresh mount and a few kindred spirits and set out to fetch back fresh game. Corbett let the old man and his companions go with heartfelt wishes of hunter’s luck, for he too was sick unto death of the monotonous rations on which they all had been subsisting these past wet weeks.