Through Darkest America

again but couldn’t. “Dyin’ don’t mean a lot, but hurtin’ sure does.”

Howie took off his trooper’s cap and draped it over the man’s head. The rain was letting up a little and the cap kept some of the water from Harlie’s face. He told Howie he’d been hit right at the beginning of the fight, when Monroe’s soldiers had overcome the Rebels and poured into the gullies.

“Tam got it, and then Gus,” he said. “Gus was right beside me when they come over. I tried to get him out but there wasn’t no use in it. There was ’bout… six of us. We left him there and kept Grin’ and moving back from one damn mud hole to the next an’ then I got hit and someone got me to here. Wouldn’t let ’em… take me no further.” Pain swept over Harlie’s face. His body arched, then relaxed into the water. “Wasn’t any of ’em fit to…  anyway. I think Mac and that kid Raney got on out. And… maybe some others. I don’t know. Not many of ’em, for sure…”

He closed his eyes a minute and took a deep breath.

“Harlie…” Howie bent low to his face. “Did you… did you see the girl anywhere? Kari? Did Kari get out?”

Harlie opened his eyes and shook his head. “Didn’t see her.” He looked hard at Howie. “I wouldn’t count on it, boy.”

“Did you see her anytime? After they hit us?”

Harlie looked off into the distance, somewhere over Howie’s shoulder. “She was…back in the column. Wasn’t nobody got out of there.”

“Harlie , you don’t know that!” He knew, though, it was true. But he wouldn’t let himself believe it.

“I… seen Jigger go down,” said Harlie distantly. “And then Klu. Though that took some doing. They was all together, them two and Pardo.” He forced a terrible grin.

“Same as ever, Monroe’s got him, now. I seen that. Pardo, and them godamn pack animals in the bargain…”

Howie straightened. “They took Pardo?” He put his face against Harlie’s. “He ain’t dead? They didn’t kill him?”

Harlie didn’t answer.

“Harlie?”

Howie looked at him a long minute, then closed the empty eyes and covered them against the rain. For the first time, he noticed the storm was easing up, passing swiftly to the south. Pardo. Alive. Only that couldn’t be. Maybe Harlie only thought he’d seen him taken.

With the rain moving out, the troopers would be back. And soon. If they found him… They wouldn’t, though. He’d keep one step ahead of them until the dark. They sure couldn’t search every hole on the mesa. And when the sun was down, they wouldn’t look anymore.

They had set up the camp half a mile to the south, away from the site of the battle. It was a big army. Howie couldn’t even guess how many men had pitched their tents on the ta-bleland, but there must have been a hundred or more big cookfires going.

He was tired, hungry, and shaking with cold. Lordee, he could smell meat cooking—fresh meat! He didn’t know anything about armies, but it had to be a big one if they carried their own live meat around with them.

Edging up through the gullies he got close enough to see there were few guards posted along the perimeters. One or two every hundred yards or so and maybe a dozen outriders on horseback, patrolling the dark. They weren’t expecting trouble. Not after today.

It would be easy enough to get in, then, once things settled down for the night and the fires burned low. But… then what? If Pardo was still alive, how would he find him? In a camp of over a thousand men—and he was sure there were that many—where would you start to look for one?

It took him a good two hours to circle the camp. Most of that on his belly to avoid the guards. It was easier when the fires burned down some, but harder to see what was going on. In the end, though, he decided he had a fair idea of how the camp was put together. The mounts were roped off away from the men, and well guarded. He’d have a time stealing one, but that wasn’t something to worry about yet. The supply tents and wagons were bedded down near the small herd of stock. The regular troopers were grouped together and the officers to one side.

He decided that was where Pardo had to be if he were alive, near the officers. If Monroe was with the army, he’d sure have Pardo close at hand. Howie couldn’t think of anything that would please the Loyalist officer more.

From the stars that peeked through gray tails of cloud he decided it must be two in the morning, or later. Something would have to be done soon. He watched the officers’ tents, trying to figure what they were doing. One tent seemed to be busier than the others. It was all lit up inside by an oil lamp. Men wandered in and out every few minutes, and he watched to see where they went.

Another hour went by and he learned nothing. If anyone in the camp had anything to do with Pardo, he couldn’t figure it. Maybe Pardo wasn’t even there. Maybe Harlie was wrong; Pardo could have escaped. Or he could be dead in the gullies…

Suddenly, Howie sat up straight. Two men came out of the lighted tent. Instead of walking past the front of it and going to the left or right, they moved out behind it.

That was important. Because it was different. No one had done that before.

They went straight to a smaller, darkened tent some thirty yards away. Howie had noted it earlier, figuring it held supplies or something. If it did, though, why would the men be going there now? In the middle of the night?

When the two officers came out, Howie crawled past the guards and straight into the camp. There was no time to worry about whether he was right or wrong. If the sun came up and caught him there, he wouldn’t have to wonder about Pardo or anything else.

The tent was old and the cloth parted quickly and silently under his bone-handled knife. He stopped where he was and waited a long moment. It was dark inside, but the other end of the tent facing the officers’ area was still open. Pale yellow light spilled over the bare ground. There were dark patches above where the tent had been repaired, and a rent that let the stars through. Howie froze. To the right, in near darkness—something else.

At first he thought it was a trick of the night. There was nothing in the tent but a few sticks of firewood—old, dried branches with the bark peeled off. Like wood you found on the river bank. Howie looked again. Bile rose up from his empty stomach. It wasn’t wood at all. It was Pardo. He was staked out naked on the ground and someone had neatly stripped all the skin from his body.

Howie bit his lip until blood came and crawled closer. You could hardly tell who the man had been. There was no hair on the head. The scalp had been carefully peeled away from right above the eyes. The nose and lips were gone and the rest of the face had been carved away. There was bone showing on one cheek and under both eyes.

Howie started and almost cried out aloud. The hollow eyes suddenly opened and looked at him. The terrible, ruined mouth parted like a raw wound and tried to talk!

“P-Pardo?” God help us all. Ain’t nothing like that ought to be alive! “Pardo? It’s me. Can you… talk?”

The mouth opened and a noise came out. It wasn’t a voice at all. It was a horrible, rasping thing. Sound scraping against bone. A chill crawled up Howie’s spine.

“You?”

“Yes, Pardo.”

“You…” The sound tried, failed, then tried again. “You… doing here…”

Howie looked at the terrible face. “I had to know, Pardo. They… Harlie said you was taken. I had to know if you was alive. I promised myself that.” He stopped a minute. It was hard to look at the man and make the words come. “It was… for Cory, Pardo. I come to kill you. Like I said I would.”

It seemed a useless, empty thing to say. But he made himself say it. The eyes stared up at him a long moment.

Then the head tried to nod understanding. The effort, though, was too great. The mouth-thing started working again, dark teeth looking hideous and unearthly without lips to cover them. It was costing Pardo everything he had to talk. Pain spread over the awful face and rippled in a great wave down the ruined body. Howie brought his face close to hear.