Through Darkest America

Chapter Thirteen

The trail was an hour old before the sun broke over the ridge at their backs. Howie welcomed the meager heat that filtered through low branches and mottled the forest floor. Frost edged the dark carpet of fern and grayed the trunks of tall pines.

He was hungry. And cold to the bone. If his old jacket had been threadbare to begin with, it was less than worthless now. KW and Jigger had taken care of that. Nothing he had was worth keeping anymore—trousers, shirt, and shoes were near gone. But he didn’t dare toss anything aside. Next to nothing, he figured, was better than going naked.

The handful of hard corn and jerky he’d wolfed down for breakfast didn’t begin to fill his belly, and his shoulder was a dull ache that wouldn’t go away. If there was something right with the world, he’d be danged if he could see what it was.

Pardo, riding beside him, was no help at all. “You’re plain lucky that soldier was so all-fired eager to start shoot- in’,” the man advised him. “It ain’t a bad wound, or deep. Best kind to git, s’matter of fact. Come far enough to slow down some and straight on, so you don’t have to dig all twisty-like to get it out.”

To hear Pardo talk, Howie thought dismally, getting shot and near killed was about the finest thing that could happen to a person. Only it didn’t feel all that good if it was your own arm doing the hurting. He was sure his whole shoulder would drop off if the mount stumbled over one more curly root.

And if it did, he’d get no help from the two brooding giants at his back. They’d as soon see his neck broke as not. Pardo wasn’t more’n a hair better.

The whole business puzzled Howie more than a little. They’d saved him from the soldiers, patched him up, put a little food in his belly. And for what? They weren’t the favorgiving kind, for sure. Whatever they had in mind, he 1 probably wasn’t goin’ to like it. It seemed better to be alive than dead, and feeling another morning when you didn’t figure to. But you couldn’t trust that kind of thinking. He’d already learned plenty of things could come along to make you wish you were deader’n a stone. A couple had already.

Just before noon, Pardo stopped and motioned him forward. “Down there,” he pointed. “Just to the left of where the river makes that little bend. You see it?”

Howie wasn’t sure what he saw, but he saw something. There was a break in the trees where you could look down on a muddy ribbon of water in a far valley.

“It’s Old Chattanooga,” said Pardo. “Where you was when them soldiers got you.” He gave Howie a smug grin. “Didn’t know the name of it, did you?”

“I might of heard it some time,” Howie admitted, “but I don’t reckon—”

“Hearing ’bout something and knowing what it is is two different things,” snapped Pardo. “Two different things, boy.” He flicked his eyes away and kicked the horse forward, leaving Howie to watch his back.

Pardo was a hard man to figure. He talked enough when he had a mind to, but mostly about stuff that didn’t matter much. When it came to something you wanted to know, he was about as wordy as a stump. You might as well be talking to Klu and Jigger.

Pardo was different, though—most of the time, anyway. Klu and Jigger were big, lumbering oaks; Pardo was a tough, gnarly pine. His small frame had been twisted and hardened in the raw winds; his face shaped by hungry winters. There was a power in the man, but it was a thing that came from inside somewhere. The eyes told you that. Klu and Jigger knew it, too. Either of the two could snap Pardo in half like a twig, but Howie was certain that would never happen. Like as not, Pardo could stare down the Devil himself if he took a mind to.

When the sun was straight up, they stopped at the edge of a high meadow and let the horses graze on short grass. There was a hurried meal of bread and jerky, and time to see to your business if you wanted, then they were back on the trail again.

Howie gave up trying to pry answers out of Pardo. Where were they going, exactly? What had really happened back in the City? Pardo replied with interesting facts like what kind of berries you might find near a creek or the best way to tickle a catfish. Still, Howie had guessed a lot on his own, by looking and figuring.

Wherever Pardo was going, he was taking a care about getting there. He sure wasn’t looking to be seen, or followed. There was reason enough for that, of course, with two dead soldiers back there in the river. But Howie was sure there was more to it than that. These three had been up to something long before he came along.

He’d pieced most of the business at the river together and guessed the rest. Klu and Jigger had been watching him some time before he made that dumb move with the frog and let the soldiers spot him. Why, was easy to figure. They’d made that clear enough back at the cave. As to the terrible thing he thought he’d imagined just before passing out in the shallows, that had bothered him more than a little. He didn’t see how it could be, though it’d seemed awful real at the time. Well, he had two vivid answers, now. They dangled from Klu’s broad belt—long hanks of hair still attached to raw, bloody flesh.

Pardo hadn’t been happy about that and he’d let Klu know it. Soldiers got killed all the time, that being part of the trade, he said. A man could lose his life and his horse and his weapons and no one’d think much about it. But a man’s companions didn’t view trophy-taking too kindly. It made them look all the harder and that wasn’t exactly what Pardo wanted at the moment.

Howie shifted on his mount and stretched his sore shoulder. The day was just half over and he was already tired to the bone. He remembered something Papa had said, when he was maybe ten or so. Lordy, could he ever have been ten? Papa said men were peculiar creatures to be as smart as they thought they were. The seasons feel the same every year, Papa said, and a man knows this as well as his name, but he gets fooled every time. He welcomes each season for the good it offers and never thinks about the bad. But before it’s half finished, he’s itching to see it go, ready to take on the next one!

It was true as it could be, Howie told himself. Look at where he was now. Safe from the soldiers after running his heart out—near gettin’ killed a hundred times or so. Compared to that bunch, Pardo and Klu and Jigger were almost family! If you could imagine such a thing.

More’n likely, though, what he’d done was just what Papa said: traded one set of troubles for another. He wasn’t as bad off as he could be, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t get that way soon enough. And he sure didn’t plan on sticking around long enough to find out.

Just before sunset Pardo left the others to make camp and disappeared into thick woods. The trail hadn’t changed all day. Pardo kept them to the deepest part of the forest; the high ridge to their left, the valley a half mile or so below. The foliage was so heavy here the woods were near dark at noon and the fern beneath the animals’ hooves buried all sound in thick blankets of green. A good tracker might have found them—if he knew where to look. But he’d have to be quieter’n breath to do it without ending up under Klu’s big belt.

Howie would have bet on any of the three. They were all natural woodsmen and they could sniff out sign in a rainstorm better’n most men could count their toes in bed. It was something Howie could understand, and appreciate. He already knew staying alive in the wilderness was no easy business.

It was dark before Pardo came back, walking and leading his mount. Both Klu and Jigger knew he was coming; their noses came up and their dark eyes switched about. To Howie, though, he appeared like a ghost in the clearing. He looked about once; searching out the shape of things, then gave his mount to Howie and squatted down with Klu and Jigger.

Howie didn’t even try to listen. Catching talk from those three was like overhearing the grass sprout up. Later though, after a cold meal, Pardo wiped a sleeve over his mouth and stalked out of camp, telling Howie to follow. He was glad enough to go; most anything was better than riding or squatting. And sitting around with Klu and Jigger made him itch all over. They hadn’t tried anything since Pardo’d caught ’em, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t if they got a chance to.

Pardo led him a quarter mile through thick trees, then stopped. When his eyes got dark-sense again, Howie could see the forest ended abruptly at the edge of a high, rocky face. The cliff tumbled almost straight down. Below, campfires and lanterns dotted the valley in bright clusters and threw pale light across a broad river.