I suddenly remembered having seen the rifle flash from up on the hill off to my left, so, after another short rest, it was the first place I headed. After about a seventy-five to a hundred yard climb up the ridge, I came across the body of a dead chestnut mare. Judging by the wounds, my pistol shot had fractured its right front pastern.
At that distance mine had been nothing but a fluke shot. It may have thrown the assassin’s aim off, and probably saved my life, but I regretted having hit the mare nevertheless. Whoever shot me finished her off with a head shot, and then stole my bay.
As I sat down next to that dead mare, I resolved to get even, regardless of what it took. I studied the area carefully, taking my time to read the signs. That’s when I was reminded of Sprout.
Chapter Seven
The memories came painfully back. Sitting there with the stench of death around me must have triggered the recollections. It, too, had all started with a dead horse. About five years earlier I had been riding south into Texas, alone, and trailing a piebald pack horse. There was word of a big cattle drive out of San Antonio, and I was hoping to sign on before it left.
The area I was riding through had a scarcity of game, and for the last two weeks I’d been forced to live off of old hardtack, and buffalo jerky so tough you could sole a boot with it. I remember it was early afternoon on a landscape that stretched flat out between two horizons.
Those new to the prairie always describe it as wide, but it’s more than that. It’s so big it hurts the eyes that try to take it all in at once. I’ve never been to sea, but I imagine the sailor on the deck of his ship must have the same sensation as a rider on the plains, one of personal insignificance when compared to the immense beauty of Nature.
I wasn’t searching anything trophy-size that day. I was just looking for something edible, preferably bigger than the palm of my hand, and hopefully meatier. Prairie chicken gets mighty tiresome after a while.
Off in the distance to my right I noticed a small mound that looked out of place. For some reason it seemed the wrong color, or perhaps it was the shape that first attracted my attention. At any rate, there was a chance it might be a kneeling deer or maybe a small stray buffalo down in a wallow. I dismounted and drew my Henry.
I was able to get a good steady bead by laying the rifle across my saddle, but the more I stared across the sights, the stranger that mound looked. My pa had always made a point of teaching me not to shoot until I was sure of the target, even if it meant going without, so I waited. There was no sign of movement, although I felt sure it had to be an animal of some sort. After a minute or two the realization finally set in that what I was aiming at was a downed horse with its saddle still on.
I mounted back up and rode slowly over to it with the rifle slung across my lap. The mound did in fact turn out to be a dead gray gelding, covered in dust and wearing a McClellan saddle. One look at that horse told me there was something very strange about the way it had died.
Although the pony had crippling bullet wounds in its hindquarters and shoulder, they were not lethal ones, and there were no others in its head, chest, or belly. Instead, the horse’s throat had been slashed and it had bled out. More unusual still was the trail of blood that led from the neck to another smaller puddle, over a few feet. There were also tracks on the ground spotted with more drops of blood, leading off toward the northwest.
The footprints appeared to have been made by small feet wearing moccasins. The edges of the tracks were still relatively fresh and sharp, unmarked by wildlife, and no water or insects had collected in them. Had the prints been older, the natural process of erosion would have begun to round the edges off, and in all likelihood dust and débris would have filled them in. Whoever it was had passed this way not long before my arrival.
Intrigued, I followed the direction those tracks took for about an hour. From the size and spacing of that lone set of prints, I figured they belonged either to a young boy or perhaps a small woman. Trailing moccasin tracks isn’t smart in any man’s book, but there was an Army brand and a cavalry saddle on that dead horse, and as usual I was curious.
I knew I should be more careful, but even if the tracks were made by an Indian, I couldn’t just let him die out there all alone. Whoever it was obviously was in bad shape, what with the way the feet stumbled around and the amount of blood spilled on the ground.
Like I said, I couldn’t be sure who I was following until I finally came upon the body of a young boy, lying facedown on the ground. Although I’d considered the possibility, it still came as a surprise. The lad couldn’t have been more than twelve years old! I knelt down and rolled him over to check for a pulse and, to my relief, found him still alive.
“I wonder what the Sam Hill you’re doing out here by your lonesome?” I asked myself aloud.
His mouth had blood all around it, but no wound, so I reckoned he’d drunk from the horse’s jugular in order to keep himself going. His shirt was torn and there was more blood on his shoulder. At first I assumed it to have come from the horse, but, as it turned out, there was a bullet hole in his back, hidden up under his long black hair.
I kept some water in a goatskin bag hung on the pack horse and I used it to cool off his head and wash the wounds. I couldn’t tell enough from his clothes to know what tribe he was from, but he was a small boy and he was injured, so I cleaned off his face and shaded him from the sun. Indian or not, I felt it wrong to shoot a child, and was not about to abandon him now.
Fortunately the bullet must have been spent before it finally hit him, because the wound wasn’t deep. The lead fragment I found just under the skin was easily removed, but, even so, I remembered thinking how painful it must have been for one so young.
I sat there holding the boy until he regained consciousness, and then poured some water in his mouth. After a drop or two moistened his lips, he started to drink on his own, and opened his eyes. They were sky blue!
“Well now, what do we have here?” I asked.
He gasped and tried weakly to push himself away. My smile reassured him a little, and after a short time he finally calmed down.
“Whoa, there, sprout, relax, you’ll be all right. Just take it easy and drink slowly.”
He went limp, took a couple more swallows, and then collapsed back to sleep without saying a word. I carried him over to the horses and made him a bed out of my blankets and saddle.
He slept for the rest of the afternoon and all through the night, awaking only once to take some broth made from the ocotillo powder and other herbs I always carried. He was too dehydrated even to pass water till late the next morning. While he rested, I secured the horses, made some coffee, and kept watch all night with my Henry by my side. He was only a boy, but he was also a frightened plains Indian, a fact I wasn’t about to take for granted.
“Sure wish you spoke some English so I can decide what to do with you,” I said the next morning. He had been awake for over an hour and was trying to eat a little of the breakfast I’d fixed, but mostly he just drank. What food he did manage to keep down had to be chewed over and over, and swallowed slowly.
He had a shrunken stomach from not having eaten for so long. I’d been that way once before, and, contrary to what most folks might think, when a person’s that starved, as much as he may want to, it’s hard to get a whole lot to stay down. That kind of deprivation makes even the simple act of eating a painful task.