Their progress was necessarily slow, and Nevada’s “mile or so” seemed longer. Johnny Buffalo remained no more than half-conscious and breathed painfully. Nevada invented a makeshift sunshade for him, breaking off and trimming a drooping greasewood branch and borrowing the squaw’s apron to spread over it. This Rawley held awkwardly with one hand while he steadied the swaying figure with the other, and so they came at last abruptly to the river he had left at sunrise.
The trail dipped down steeply to a small basin that overlooked the river possibly a hundred feet below. The canyon walls rose bold and black beyond,—sheer crags of rock with here and there a brush-filled crevice. Around the barren rim of the basin two or three crude shacks were set within easy calling distance of one another, and three or four swarthy, unkempt children accompanied by nondescript dogs rushed forth to greet the newcomers.
The old squaw waddled forward and drove the dogs from the heels of the burro called Pickles, which lashed out and sent one cur yelping to the nearest shack. The children halted abruptly and stared at the two strangers open-mouthed, retreating slowly backward, unwilling to lose sight of them for an instant.
Rawley stole a glance at Nevada, just turning his eyes under his heavy-lashed lids. A furtive look directed at his face was intercepted, and the red suffused her cheeks. Then her head lifted proudly.
“My uncle’s children are not accustomed to seeing people,” she explained evenly. “Strangers seldom come here, and the children have never been away from home. Please forgive their bad manners.”
“Kids are honest in their manners,” Rawley replied, “and that’s more than grown-ups can say. I reckon these youngsters wonder what the deuce has been taking place. I’d want an eyeful, myself, if I were in their places.”
Nevada did not answer but led the way past the shacks, which did not look particularly inviting, to a rock-faced building with screened porch that faced the river, its back pushed deep into the hill behind it. Rawley gave her a grateful glance. He did not need to be told that this was the quietest, coolest place in the basin.
“We’ll make him as comfortable as we can, and I’ll send for Uncle Peter,” she said, as they stopped before the door. She called to the oldest of the children, a boy, and spoke to him rapidly in Indian. It seemed to Rawley that she was purposely emphasizing her bizarre relationship.
A younger squaw—or so she looked to be—came from a shack, a fat, solemn-eyed baby riding her hip. Her hair was wound somehow on top of her head and held there insecurely with hairpins half falling out and cheap, glisteny side combs. A second glance convinced Rawley that she had white man’s blood in her veins, but her predominant traits were Indian, he judged; except that she lacked the Indian aloofness.
“Mr. King, this is my Aunt Gladys—Mrs. Cramer,” Nevada announced distinctly. “Aunt Gladys, Queo shot Mr. King’s partner, who had discovered him lying in wait for Grandmother and me and was trying to protect us. Mr. King ran down to the trail to warn us, while his partner crept up behind Queo. He fired, after Queo had shot at us, but he thinks he missed altogether. At any rate Queo shot him. So Grandmother and I brought him on home. He saved our lives, and we must try to save his.”
Aunt Gladys ducked her unkempt head, grinned awkwardly at Rawley, who lifted his hat to her—and thereby embarrassed her the more—and hitched the baby into a new position on her hip.
“Whadda yuh think ol’ Jess’ll say?” she asked, in an undertone. “My, ain’t it awful, the way that Queo is acting up? Is there anything I can do? It won’t take but a few minutes to start a fire and heat water.”
They had eased Johnny Buffalo from the burro’s back to the broad doorstep, which was shaded by the wide eaves of the porch. Now they were preparing to carry him in, feet first so that Nevada could lead the way. She turned her head and nodded approval of the suggestion. So Aunt Gladys, after lingering to watch the wounded man’s removal, departed to her own shack, shooing her progeny before her.
Rawley had never had much experience with wounds, but he went to work as carefully as possible, getting the old man to bed and ready for ministrations more expert than his. In a few minutes Nevada came with a basin of water that smelled of antiseptic. Very matter-of-factly she helped him wash the wound.
“I think that is as much as we can do until Uncle Peter comes,” she said when they had finished. “He’s the one who always looks after hurts in the family.” She left the room and did not return again.
With nothing to do but sit beside the bed, Rawley found himself dwelling rather intently upon the strangeness of the situation. From the name spoken by Nevada, he knew that he must be in the camp of the enemy. At least, Jess Cramer was the name of Grandfather’s rival who figured unfortunately in that Fourth of July fight away back in ’66, and there was furthermore the warning of the code, “Take heed now ... on the hillside ... which is upon the bank of the river ... in the wilderness ... ye shall find ... him that ... is mine enemy.” Rawley had certainly not expected that the enemy would be Jess Cramer, but it might be so.
He was repeating to himself that other warning, “He that keepeth his mouth keepeth his life,” when Nevada’s voice outside brought his attention back to the immediate exigencies of the case. He had already told her his name—she had repeated it to that flat-faced, hopelessly uninteresting “Aunt Gladys.” Nevada had taken particular pains, he remembered, to tell her aunt all about the mishap and to stress the service which he and Johnny Buffalo had rendered her and her grandmother. Was it because she wished to have some one beside herself who was well-disposed toward them? Partly that, he guessed, and partly because the easiest way to forestall curiosity is to give a full explanation at once. In Nevada’s rapid-fire account of the shooting, Rawley fancied that he had unconsciously been given a key to the situation and to the disposition of Aunt Gladys. He grinned while he filled his pipe and waited.
Presently the deep, masculine voice he had heard outside talking with Nevada ceased, and a firm, measured tread was heard on the porch. A big man paused for a few seconds in the doorway and then came forward; a man as tall as Rawley, as broad of shoulder, as narrow hipped. He was dressed much as Rawley was dressed, except that his shirt was of cheaper, darker material and the breeches were earth-stained and old, as were his boots. He carried his head well up and looked down at Rawley calmly, appraisingly, with neither dislike nor favor in his face. He was smooth-shaven, and his jaw was square, his lips firm and somewhat bitter. Rawley rose and bowed and stood back from the bed.
“My niece has told me all about the shooting,” he said, moving toward the bed. “I’m not a doctor, but I’ve had some experience with wounds. In this country we have to learn to take care of ourselves. Is your partner unconscious?”
“Dopey, I’d say. I can rouse him, but it seemed best to let him be as quiet as possible. He had over an hour in the heat, and the joggling on the burro didn’t do him any good, I imagine.” Rawley hoped Uncle Peter would not think he was staring like an idiot, but he could not rid himself of the feeling that somewhere, some time, he had seen this man before.
Uncle Peter bent and examined the wound. When he moved Johnny Buffalo a bit, the Indian opened his eyes and stared hard into his face.
“My sergeant! I did not think to—”
“Out of his head,” Rawley muttered uneasily. “It’s the first symptom of it he’s shown.”
Johnny Buffalo muttered again, pressed his lips together and closed his eyes. After that he did not speak, or give any sign that he heard, though Uncle Peter was talking all the while he dressed the wound.
“It’s going to take some time,” he said. “The bullet broke his shoulder blade, but if the lung is touched at all it was barely grazed. Nevada spoke of my taking him down the river to Needles, but it can’t be done. The engine in the launch is useless until I can get a new connecting rod and another part or two.” He stared down at Johnny Buffalo, frowning.
“Well, from all accounts the two of you saved the women’s lives to-day,” he said, after a minute of studying over the situation. “Queo was after the grub, probably—and he’s no particular love for any of us. He undoubtedly knew who was coming down the trail—he may have watched them go up, just about daybreak. Common gratitude gives the orders, in this case. You can stay here until this man is well enough to ride, or until I can take you to Needles.”
A little more of harshness and his tone would have been grudging. Rawley flushed at the implied reluctance of the offered hospitality.
“It’s mighty good of you, but we don’t want to impose on any one,” he said stiffly. “If he can stay for a day or two, I can get out to Needles and bring up a boat of some kind. It’s the only thing I can think of—but I can make it in a couple of days.”
The other turned and regarded him much as Nevada had first done, with a mixture of defiance and pride. His jaw squared, the lines beside his mouth grew more bitter.
“We may be breeds—but we aren’t brutes,” he said harshly. “You’ll stay where you are and take care of your partner. The burden of nursing him can’t fall on the women.” He stopped and seemed debating something within himself. “We’ve no reason to open our arms to outsiders,” he added finally. “If folks let us alone, we let them alone—and glad to do it. Father’s touchy about having strangers in camp. But all rules must be broken once, they say.”
“I think you’re over-sensitive,” Rawley told him bluntly. “You’re self-conscious over something no one else would think of twice. It’s—”
“Oh, I know. You needn’t say it. Sounds pretty, but it isn’t worth a damn when you try to put it in practice. Well, let it drop. I’ll send over some medicine to keep his fever down, and the rest is pretty much up to nature and the care you give him. It’s cool here—that’s a great deal.”
“We’ll be turning out your niece, though, I’m afraid. I can’t do that.” For the first time Rawley was keenly conscious of the incongruity of his surroundings. Here in a settlement of Indians (he could scarcely put it more mildly, with the dogs and the frowsy papooses and the two squaws for evidence) one little oasis of civilized furnishings spoke eloquently of the white blood warring against the red. The room was furnished cheaply, it is true, and much of the furniture was homemade; but for all its simplicity there was not one false note anywhere, not one tawdry adornment. It was like the girl herself,—simple, clean-cut, dignified.
“My niece won’t mind. I shall give her my own dugout, which is as comfortable as this. I can find plenty of room to stretch out. Hard work makes a soft bed.” He smiled briefly. Again Rawley was struck with a sense of familiarity, of having known Uncle Peter somewhere before.
But before he could put the question the man was gone, and Johnny Buffalo was looking at him gravely. But he did not speak, and presently his eyes closed. After that, the medicine was handed in by a bashful, beady-eyed boy who showed white teeth and scudded away, kicking up hot dust with his bare feet as he ran.
After all, what did it matter? A chance meeting in some near-by town and afterwards forgetfulness. Uncle Peter evidently did not remember him, so the meeting must have been brief and unimportant.