And still it was not revenge alone that drove him and would not let him rest. At last he was beginning to understand a little of what Ike and Cal Brunner were doing to these hill people. If the Brunners would lie to them about one thing, it stood to reason that they would lie again. Dunc thought about this. For the first time in his life he began to wonder if the hillfolks necessarily had to be always right, and the lowland people always wrong. Ike Brunner's argument that they had the right to plunder from the rich sounded good to people who were hungry and tired of being pushed around, but how much real truth was there in the argument?
To a hill boy like Dunc Lester, this was a strange trail for the mind to take. It was like a deer trace in the woods that twisted and turned and circled in upon itself and led nowhere. Still, he had glimpsed something here that bothered him. He had set out with hate for the Brunners alone, but now he was beginning to doubt the motives of his own people. His own family, for that matter.
Had his pa tried to stop him when he decided to join the Brunner gang?
Dunc smiled with vague bitterness as he remembered. His pa had given him his blessings and the only saddle horse that the family owned. “Son,” he had said, soberly shaking Dunc's hand, “we're proud of you. These Brunner boys, they've got the right idea on how to handle these outsiders!” Dunc's ma had made up a grub sack for him, and her faded eyes had glistened with pride. Her son was joining the gang. Dunc's father had presented him with his most prized possession, the, shotgun, and his brother-in-law had pitched in with a saddle.
Oh, it had been quite a day, Dunc remembered, when he first rode off to join the Brunners. He had never seen soldiers marching off to war, but that was the way it must have been, on a smaller scale.
This was a shocking line of thought for his mind to be taking, but the facts were much too clear to be ignored. A monster of the people's own making was loose in the hills. This, Dunc knew, was the core of the matter that had been gnawing at his conscience.
Then from some dark room of his mind came the memory of how, long ago, Gabe Tanis had found a young wolf pup in the woods and had brought it home. Wolves were bad in those days; they would come right up to the cabin and attack the livestock. Gabe claimed he was going to bring this wolf up like a pet and teach it to fight off the other wolves. He fed the pup the best of everything and spent hours every day training it, and people came from all over to see the pup and praise Gabe for his ingenuity. The only way to fight a wolf is with another wolf, Gabe said. But when the pup grew up it turned on Gabe and bit him through the hand, and finally it had to be shot.
Maybe, Dunc thought, the Brunner gang is working out like Gabe's wolf. At first it seemed like a good idea, but now it had turned. In one quick bite it had devoured the Lester farm and family. The harmless pup that everybody liked to pet and feed had grown into a full-sized wolf.
Dunc Lester slept fitfully that night beneath his roof of stone, and awoke the next morning stiff and sore and still bewildered in his mind. He swore at himself for showing himself to Sarah Sue Tanis. His position was much more dangerous now, for members of the gang would be out looking for him.
After a brief breakfast of more parched corn, he un-hobbled the bay and got the animal saddled. Where he would go now, he was not sure. He felt empty and defeated.
The small sound of a distant rifle punctured the quiet of the morning. Dunc came erect in the saddle, listening hard. Had some of the gang spotted him? Were they shooting at him?
This prospect did not seem likely, considering the distance separating him and the rifleman. Possibly it was a hunter after small game, but it was pretty early in the day for that. After a moment Dunc reined the bay around and headed cautiously in the general direction of the sound, and after a few minutes he heard a second shot and this time was able to pin-point the direction as due north, somewhere in a heavily wooded draw between his hill and the neighboring one.
Cautiously Dunc dismounted near the bottom of the slope, studying the woods about him. Now he saw that he was close to what had been the second outpost when the gang had occupied Ulster's Cave. He thought about this for a moment. Could it mean that the gang had moved back to this neighborhood?
Now he heard the sound of hoofs and falling rocks as another horse made its way down the side of the opposing hill. Dunc led his bay deeper into a stand of timber and tied it there. Unbooting the shotgun, he moved forward to some high ground where he could lie on his stomach and look down on the draw.
He could see nothing, but he could still hear the horse coming through the woods. Suddenly the sound of a coyote lay on the still morning air, and Dunc flattened a little harder against the ground as the voice echoed and reechoed between the hills.
For a moment there was complete silence. Then a voice called out, “I seen you, goddamn it! There's no use tryin' to hide!”
Although Dunc could not see him, he knew that the voice belonged to Wes Longstreet, the young Arkansas hellion that had belonged to the gang since its beginning. Dunc peered hard into the green umbrella of leaves and branches that spread out below, trying to see who Wes was after. He could see nothing, and the forest was quiet.
Then there Was the sound of a second horse, and a second voice called, “You got her spotted, Wes?”
Dunc heard his breath whistle between his teeth. That voice belonged to Cal Brunner! Wes called back something that Dunc couldn't understand, and then there was silence again and Dunc guessed that the two men had met and were planning what to do next.
Now he heard the two horses moving aimlessly and knew that Wes and Gal had dismounted to make the hunt on foot. But who were they hunting? As far as Dunc knew, he was the only one the gang had it in for. Maybe, he hoped, one of the other members had found out how the Brunners were using the gang for their own ends and had made a break for it.
But he doubted this, knowing how stubborn a pack of hill boys could be when they got their heads set on something. Right now they were set on the idea that Ike and Cal were their friends, and it would take a Jot more than guesswork to jar them loose from that.
He could hear the two men thrashing around in the brush at the bottom of the deep draw. “See anything yet?” Cal shouted.
“Not yet,” Wes called.
“Goddamn it!” Cal swore, and this time Dunc heard the rough edge of anxiety in the younger brother's voice. “Ike'll be fit to kill if he finds out we let her get away!”
Her? This was the first time Dunc had noticed that they were referring to the hunted person as a woman. He pondered on this, a certain tenseness straining at his nerves, a vague new worry appearing in the lines of his hard, young face. On his belly, he slipped over the top of the ridge and began crawling forward.
At last Wes Longstreet called wearily, “Hell, we'll never find her in all this brush.”
“We've got to find her!” Cal shouted angrily.
“I don't understand this. Why's Ike so het up about Mort Stringer's girl, anyway?”
“None of your goddamn business!” Cal snarled.
The two took up their search again, cursing and thrashing among the tall, tough saplings and thick weeds. Dunc Lester lay flat on the cool ground, the chill of winter spreading through him.