This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [64]
“I blame myself, sweetheart, for not having a man down here. You’ll not be left alone again.”
Evening came before Pud finally opened his eyes. Jack was sitting beside him.
“Miss Summer . . . ?” he whispered.
“Jist fine. Everybody’s jist fine,” Jack answered, his voice soft, sure.
“Did he . . . hurt her?” he asked anxiously. “Did . . . he?”
“No, boy. She’s fine.
“I ort to of . . . had a gun.”
“Wouldn’t of helped, son. You did good. Real good. Saved Miss Summer.”
“What . . . where is . . . he?”
“Dead. Sadie killed him with that old six-gun they keep for firing a signal.”
“Sadie done . . . good.” “Yup. She shore did.”
Pud’s eyelids fell and the grip of his hands on the covers relaxed. Jack touched his head; it was slightly moist. He leaned back in his chair and breathed a sigh of relief. Now, barring a fever, he believed the kid would be all right.
John Austin was fascinated by the Indian. He had hardly left his side. The man was so weak from starvation and thirst that he hadn’t stirred from where he sat leaning against the house. At first, he drank sparingly and ate very little. The boy couldn’t understand his lack of appetite, and brought more and more food to tempt his new friend.
“His stomach is so shrunk up he can’t take up but a little bit at a time, boy,” Bulldog explained. “If’n he filled it up too fast, he’d throw it up.”
John Austin sat beside the Apache. He studied everything about him, from his moccasins and fringed leggings to the rag wrapped about his head. After a while, he tried to engage him in conversation, but the Indian ignored him. Finally, he got a stick and drew pictures in the dirt. The Indian was interested, and although the expression on his face didn’t change, he watched, and when the boy looked up and smiled, he nodded.
The afternoon passed. The Apache seemed to get his strength back. He stood up several times and flexed his muscles, walked a few steps, but always returned to the spot beside the house and sat down. His pony and the dead man’s horse had been turned into the corral. The dead man’s body was taken out behind the outbuildings and buried.
When evening came, Slater came and sat down, cross-legged, beside the Indian, and talked to him in the Apache tongue.
“I am the one your people call Tall Man.”
The Indian looked at him without a flicker of surprise. “I know of you, Tall Man. I am Bermaga.”
“You are welcome here. Stay until you are strong.” John Austin’s eyes went from one man to the other. Slater was talking Indian-talk! He had to know how to speak like that. His cunning little mind plotted a course. He wouldn’t bother Slater now, but later . . .
“I will stay, then go soon,” Bermaga said in his guttural tone. “My people are in the hills. The white man take our young men, our women. I look for my sister.” The flat black eyes made no change. His face might have been hewn from wood.
“Have many of your people been stolen?”
“Two warriors, one woman, since one moon pass.”
“These men are my enemies. I do not want them on my land. I watch. I guard our women.”
“I do not know how we come here.” He bent his head and spread his hair, showing a clot of blood. “I come on pony.” He touched his stomach with his hand.
Slater nodded his head thoughtfully. “I will tell my people to give you safe passage back into the hills. Stay, my brother, until you are strong, but when you go, I will send gifts of food to your people, and you must take the horse of the man who did this thing to you.”
The Apache’s eyes turned toward the corral and the handsome animal standing beside his pony, then swung back to Slater. He held his gaze and nodded.
“Your woman, the one with eyes like the mountain flowers. I owe her my life.”
“She only wants your friendship and that of your people,” Slater said gravely.
Again the Indian nodded, and looked off into the distant hills.
For over a week, Pud lay in Sadie’s bed. For the first few nights, someone sat beside him. Jack had come to stay in the shed until the bunkhouse