Still, he waited. The huts had been built of brushwood piled against a framework of greasewood and juniper, all local plants, and the only available sources to use for construction. The small willows and cottonwoods growing beside the stream he’d passed were half a day’s walk away. To build on the grasslands, you used what the rolling hills offered, and that is generally a choice between tall grass and stunted shrubs or both.
Yellow light from oil lamps escaped through the many cracks of the walls in both occupied huts. Eventually, the lights went out. Shell checked his desire to rush ahead and slip into the camp, and hopefully convince them to leave him alone in the future. The third hut drew his attention. That one had looked empty and still was, as far as he knew. Near midnight he crept closer and carefully opened its door an inch. He froze and listened. Hearing no breathing inside, he opened it further and sniffed. A room containing a person smells different than an empty one, but he saw, smelled, and heard nothing.
Leaving the door open to shed a little starlight inside, he felt his way to an empty sleeping pallet and a crudely made chair. He continued working his way around the room, following the walls to a second pallet. A light would have hastened his search, but with the shoddy construction, enough light would spill from the walls for one of the others to see it if they were not asleep.
His hand touched a table made from a tree stump. On top of it, he found the first item he searched for, which was an oil lamp. A small jar filled with lamp oil sat on the bare floor. Carrying the lamp and oil, he continued his search, and behind the door discovered one of the things he’d hoped to find; a bow and quiver of arrows, both surprisingly well crafted from the brief inspection he gave them. They must have stolen these from another traveler. These are not the kind of people to own good weapons.
He slipped the bow over his head and adjusted it to fit comfortably on his shoulder. The quiver went over the other shoulder, with the arrows in easy reach. Filled with the satisfaction of the finds, his hand touched the jar of oil and the lamp again. Outside in the starlight, he dribbled oil around the base of the hut, then quickly, but quietly moved to the other huts. After emptying the oil jar on them, he went to the dying campfire and placed a dry stick on the red coals. When it caught fire, he used it to light the lamp.
With restraint, while hurrying, his heart pounded. He went to the hut where the two men had entered and touched the flame of the lamp to the spilled oil. The fire flickered, caught, and quickly spread. He hurried to the hut where the woman entered and did the same. On his way to the third hut, he paused, saw how fast the huts were burning and called out, “Fire!”
He knelt in the shadow at the base of the last hut as he watched the people spill out of the burning huts, confused and trying to wake up to face the emergency. He lit the last hut on fire and backed quickly into the shadows of the boulders that surrounded the area before the light from the flames could betray him. He went deeper into the dense brush to hide and watch. Turning, he made sure all three people were safely outside as they tried to put out the fires. That’ll keep them busy for a while.
They’d never look back at the incident the same as Shell. They would curse and blame him for their troubles because that’s the kind of people they were. Others were always at fault, not them. But if they had let him go unmolested when he tried to cross the river, their huts and belongings wouldn’t have burned. Hopefully, they would move on and find another place to rob innocent people instead of following him. Better yet, they might move on and take up new occupations.
More likely, they’d chase Shell until their boots wore out, but he hoped they’d had enough and feared chasing him would cause them more grief. He remembered an old joke about fools chasing a man until he caught them. But it would not be a joke if they did catch up. He would die, probably painfully, or they would. Shell decided the next encounter would end differently than they wished.
In his eyes, they were now even. They had tried to hurt him and steal his belongings. In return, he destroyed their huts and injured two of them. But if they followed with the desire to injure or kill him, he intended to end the situation for good. For now, he had a distance to put between himself and any highwaymen foolish enough to follow.
Shell traveled upstream in the darkness, always keeping the sounds of the river on his left since the three searching for him had gone downstream. He made satisfactory progress. The ground was drying out and the footing firmer than the last two days. When he caught a glimpse of the river, it had receded even more than the early afternoon. As he followed the muddy bank northward, the river widened, and the current slowed as the water grew more shallow. Ahead it seemed to narrow again and probably ran faster up there, so he decided he’d reached the best place to cross.
Glancing behind drew a frown as it clearly showed his footprints in the mud, so trying to hide his intentions was silly because the evidence was clear for anyone to see. He waded into the cool water and allowed the current to brush against his legs, testing both the water’s speed and footing. It moved gently, and his feet only sank in a little. He took another tentative step. Then another. And another. After ten steps, the water was only knee deep. He plunged ahead.
By morning the river would shrink again to become a wide stream, and later in the day a dry wash. The water rose to his thighs near the middle, and a touch of worry briefly filled his mind, but then he walked out of the water instead of into it, the depth growing less with each step. The level decreased to ankle high, and then he stood on the far bank, safe and reasonably dry.
Another look behind found a bright point of light against the depth of the night, where the huts still glowed, not as brightly as earlier. There had been no way for them to put out the fires he’d started, not with the oil he’d poured on the huts and the distance to the river for water to pour on them. By now only a few embers told where three huts had been, and his name would be cursed a hundred times before dawn. Shell stood on a sandstone shelf and instead of walking in the soft mud, he moved along the harder surface and continued slowly and carefully, leaving few tracks for followers.
The elevation of the land rose, and as always, when he reached the crest he saw another hill ahead. But as he followed a sandstone shelf he came to a depression that had already drained, the bottom dry. Looking behind again revealed the long upward slope he’d followed, he could see the river dimly in the distance.
He pulled a few sage bushes and uprooted two small junipers and placed them on the lip of the depression, on the downhill side where they helped hide him from being seen from the trail. From a prone position behind the bushes, he could watch his back trail and see anyone following long before they saw him. With luck, they could walk within twenty steps of him and never know he lay there, with his new bow strung and ready to let arrows fly.
But he also planned for a backdoor exit, also unseen from the trail. That provided his two options, again. Two choices.
After a last look, he unrolled his blanket and lay down on one-half, pulling the other half over him for a cover. Sleep had escaped him for a couple of nights, and he intended to make up for some of it. He woke half a dozen times before sunrise, carefully checking the path and surrounding area each time, but nobody followed. Later, after the sun came up, he continued napping the morning away, figuring that if they were going to follow him, it would be in daylight. So instead of leaving, he remained and caught up on his sleep.