Uncertain Justice

"Found him twice ... we can do it again," he reassured his mount. The mare flicked her ears back at the sound of MacPherson's voice and then back to something off down the valley. With no better direction to go in, Cal clucked to get his horse into motion and reined her around to head down slope toward whatever it was that had attracted her interest.

He cursed when the packhorses resisted, yanking hard on the rope to bring them along. They wanted to stay in the shelter of the rocks. He didn't know that he blamed them that much. He wanted to stay there too, come to think of it.

§

The animal pawed at the ground, thrusting aside a light covering of snow and lowering her head to sniff at the spoor hidden in the pungent mass of last autumn's leaves. The bitter smell of blood was there and the beast's head came up nervously to look all around. The wind was strong and there were many odors carried down from the north. But other than the blood, there was no immediate threat.

She was close to the quarry she'd sought for many days and she hurried on, pausing occasionally to make sure her companions were coming along behind. Testing the wind again, she turned down a ravine, scoured clean by rushing water in the rainy season.

When she found the figure lying beside the big log, she paused again to check for unseen danger again but could find none. Her nostrils were filled with the scent of the man-thing and she paced forward eagerly. She bent her neck low to the ground and nudged the body of the man she'd trailed for so many miles.

§

Miles woke to sudden wetness on his face and a gentle jostling. Opening the one eye that still worked, he saw four monstrous shapes gathered around him. They shuffled closer, pressing their muzzles against him. Jarred awake, his heart pounded and he thought rationally for the first time in hours. The animals snuffled loudly, breathing in the cold air and blowing it out again.

Miles gasped. He pushed himself up to sit with his back against the big log and pawed at his right eye to see if it would clear enough so he could see the creatures around him. He pushed out his left hand to block a blow when one of the heads closed in. The huge beast nuzzled Miles' hand and bumped its head gently against Miles' shoulder. The animal whinnied inquiringly and Miles slumped in relief, leaning back against the dead log.

"What in the world are you doing here?" he breathed. The mare snorted as if in reply and pawed at the ground. The other three horses from Miles' small string of pack horses pressed close and Miles reached up painfully to put his hand somewhere on each one. Reassured, they retreated into the trees and began to feed on the long grass. The storm was closing in and they welcomed the shelter of the trees.

He looked around for other visitors but he could find no one. There were none of the People with him now. It was hard even to bring their memory to the fore. They were too distant ... remote and insubstantial. He yearned for their companionship but they were not there. The amulet was cold against his skin and he pulled it out of his shirt. He dropped his head to his chest and slept again.

§

He stirred in his sleep and roused to a dim awareness. He was cold but his wounds had ceased to trouble him; he couldn't feel them anymore. A sense of urgency flooded back and he struggled to get up. The weather was worsening but that didn't mean the manhunt wasn't getting nearer all the time. It took long moments for him to get on his feet and when he did, it was impossible to will them forward. He dropped to his knees and fell forward to catch himself on his hands. There was no strength in him. The desperation faded and he was calm.

It ended here. He didn't have the energy to keep going. Crawling slowly, he made his way deeper into the trees and found an old-growth deadfall. Putting its bulk between himself and the wind, he let himself slump to the ground and propped himself up against the trunk. Here he would stay; at least he wasn't dying an inmate in some miserable prison. There was little chance he would ever be found here, well off any trail used by man, and he was reassured. It was a tiny victory, but one to savor. His head drooped lower and he slept.

§

He'd accepted that he wouldn't wake and was mildly surprised when he did. He was comfortably warm for the first time in many days. His arms were confined but they hadn't been responding very well for a long time anyway. Ponderously, he turned his head ... there was a glow coming from his left.

There was a campfire over there, not far away and he could feel the heat from the flames against his face. How it had gotten there and who had put it together was a curiosity. He didn't think he'd done it ... but there were so many things he'd forgotten over the last few days. This might be one of them.

He remembered the horses and turned his head this way and that to find them. He couldn't find them, but he could hear something coming in from the dark. Alarmed, he struggled to think. Moving about, he found himself wrapped in a layer of blankets and tugged his right arm free. Exploring, he touched a rough bandage that covered the top of his head and interfered with the sight from his right eye. He pondered the importance of that, forgetting the danger posed by whatever was stalking toward him through the brush.

"Well, well, well," remarked a voice, "you've decided to rejoin the land of the living, eh?" Miles debated with himself for a long moment before deciding the question required an answer.

When he opened his mouth to speak, his throat was so dry he could only croak. A blue jean covered knee dropped to the ground beside his face and an arm slid around his shoulders to urge his upper body upward. A strong, darkly tanned hand held a water bottle to his lips and he drank for a long moment. Finally, he pushed the bottle away with an arm grown weak and clumsy. He struggled to get up on his left elbow to look around. He tested his voice with a few experimental sounds.

"Hello, MacPherson," he said finally. He'd finally made out the face of the Nez Perce hunting guide who'd already brought two groups into the wilderness to track him down. Miles looked around to see who was with the man this time.

"Ahhhhhh," MacPherson said approvingly. "You know who I am this time, huh? That's an improvement over yesterday." Miles looked at him, understanding the words but not comprehending their significance.

"How'd you get here?" Miles asked. His right hand came from beneath the blankets again to touch the bandage on his head. He pulled at the bandage to move it a little higher and allow him to see from his right eye. Everything was blurry. Discordant images from his eyes clashed in his brain and made him dizzy. He closed his eyes again and pawed at the bandage until it covered his right eye once more. That was better ... a little, anyway.

Miles looked up, watching MacPherson stir the contents of a medium-sized pan he'd nudged into the coals. The wounded man drifted off again. His upper body had been balanced precariously on his elbow but he lowered himself to the ground again. It was instinctive; his conscious mind had already gone dark.

When Miles next realized what was going on around him, MacPherson was spooning a thick stew into his mouth. It was good and Miles chewed the bits of meat and vegetables with growing enthusiasm. When he could eat no more, he lay down on his back, his head propped on the saddle MacPherson had put there. He looked around the lonely campsite hidden beneath spreading pines.

"How'd you find me?" Miles asked, his voice faint. The warm food in his belly gave him energy enough to stay alert for only a short time.

"I didn't," the Nez Perce replied shortly. He waved his hand at the darkness behind him. "My horses smelled your little herd and brought me along with them when they decided to visit them for a while. Your string was just a little ways off from where you were."

He stopped to look at Miles directly. "How'd you get away with all those horses?" he asked. "Or did you find them on the way?"

Miles tried to chuckle but it was too difficult. "Didn't get away with 'em," Miles explained. "They foun' me ... no' other way aroun'."

His words were getting progressively more slurred and his voice softer as he began to fade out again. "Musta' trailed me alla ... way from the valley," he whispered.

"Valley?" asked MacPherson. Miles didn't reply and MacPherson wasn't sure the other man had even heard the question. He sipped his cup of coffee, and watched tree limbs high above bumping against each other in the wind. The question from the other side of the campfire seemed to come from far away.

"How come you're here?" Miles asked. MacPherson twisted his body to look back at the injured man.

"Was sent to find ya," he replied succinctly. "Reckon folks think I'm getting pretty good at figuring out where you are." He swirled the coffee around in his cup and leaned forward to freshen it a bit.

" 'Long as I got a bunch of horses aroun' me, you can find me," Miles retorted slowly, trying to a grin a little.

He was pushing the words out against a wall of weariness though. He kept losing his place in the conversation and had to think hard when there was an opening for him to speak. It was easier to say nothing sometimes.

He let the air slip from his lungs in a long sigh. MacPherson frowned at his coffee and then nodded his head in Miles' direction. There was more than a little truth in the wounded man's rebuttal.

"Cold," Miles said in a whisper barely audible over the rising wind. "Did I sleep through the whole summer or something?"

"Nah, saw a forecast 'fore I set out ... Siberian cold front come across Canada and it's spreadin' clear down to Mexico," Cal explained. Miles nodded, the movement barely perceptible. He felt uncomfortable ... vulnerable. He wanted badly to sleep; if he could rest he would heal, but he had to take care of something first.

Cal watched Miles' right hand search along his waist under the blanket. The hurt man became progressively more agitated, trying to rouse himself. MacPherson grunted and got to his feet to step to Miles' other side. He knelt to push a small, heavy bundle closer to Miles. Cal took Miles' hand and put it on the pistol grip and tucked the blanket back around Miles' body. Miles relaxed, his fingers exploring the thong that held the revolver in its holster.

"Reloaded it," MacPherson commented gruffly. "Figgered you'd want it that way." Miles nodded, letting the gesture take the place of words. MacPherson went back to his side of the fire and his sleeping bag. It was getting late. He paused.

"Miz Waters said to tell you everything would be okay," he said. "Said she was gettin' a place set up where you could stay for a while." He waited for a reply but Underwood was silent, motionless under the blankets. MacPherson snuggled down into the blankets and rested his head on the empty pack he'd fill up and put on a packhorse in the morning.

"Shouldn't have bothered you," Underwood whispered. "Not your fight." There was a small silence. "I 'preciate it though," he said softly. MacPherson settled back down when the silence lengthened.

Both men slept fitfully, uncomfortable in the howling wind and deepening snow.

In the morning, MacPherson put together a travois, one his grandfather would have instantly recognized, and strapped the thing to one of Miles' horses. After a short period of getting used to the strange burden, the animal accepted the load and pulled it along behind him without protest. Miles' other three horses followed along behind, comfortable with the other horses and the man they'd sought out.

They moved north and then back west through high passes leading to wild country. Already deep in the vast chain of mountains called the Rockies, they moved deeper. The Nez Perce hunting guide found a place so remote it had never been fully explored.

The last visitors here had been a party of mountain men hunting the elusive beaver nearly two hundred years earlier but they'd passed on without finding any. MacPherson and Miles could stay here, well hidden in heavy forests and tangled canyons, while Miles got well.

The horses gouged big piles of snow with each step and the two long poles of the travois drew parallel lines in the shallow carpet of white. The two men's direction of travel was marked as clearly as if drawn by a pencil on a map.

The wind blew, and more snow fell. An hour after they slipped down into the secluded box canyon, there was no indication anyone had ever been there.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"In a decision announced early this afternoon in the Bexar County courthouse, Superior Court Judge Roy Farmer ordered most of the criminal charges against fugitive Miles Underwood dismissed. The ex-Army Non-Commissioned Officer was tried last year for the rape and killing of a young San Antonio woman. Based on new evidence submitted by attorneys for Underwood, Judge Farmer determined there was insufficient evidence to sustain the allegations.

"In an unusual move, the judge barred the District Attorney from attempting to revive the charges against Underwood at a later date. Underwood is not out of the woods yet, no pun intended...." The young reporter looked into the camera lens and smirked so the viewers knew the pun most definitely had been intentional.

"The judge left in place other charges--allegations that are unique in that the District Attorney bringing the charges is also the complainant, accusing Underwood of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, breaking and entering, home invasion, and arson. Also, the United States Department of Justice has confirmed Underwood is still wanted for interstate flight to avoid prosecution in connection with the Texas charges and he is also a suspect in the kidnapping of two Colorado police officers last spring.

KSAA Channel Nine

San Antonio Texas

"Evening News at Six"

July 11

§

The two sat quietly, facing each other across a low fire that could have been covered with a dinner plate. It had been put together using small, dry twigs beneath the spreading branches of a small group of Lodge Pole Pine trees. Delicate tendrils of smoke drifted upward through the pine needles and dissipated into nothingness before they reached the tops of the trees. The fire, purposefully constructed in a hollow, couldn't be seen for more than two yards in any direction.

They'd moved here near noontime to watch the broad expanse of valley spread out before them. Most of the three weeks since the cold weather had faded back into summer had been spent deep in the canyon behind them where detection was all but impossible. But if they could not be seen, neither could they see. Now they felt the need to be able to observe the surrounding terrain.

It had taken ten days for Miles' vision and thought processes to begin a recovery from what had clearly been a severe concussion. Even now, there were gaps in his memory he couldn't account for. Physically, his side was still tender where the stray round had passed through his body but it was healing quickly. The deep bruise on his upper shoulder had never been anything to worry about.

The scalp wound was mending and no longer sensitive to the touch but he'd clearly been scarred permanently. Where Cal had sewn up ragged fragments of flesh torn by a bullet, the hair was coming back in as a ragged streak of white.

The early mountain men found that injuries in the high mountains became infected far less often than in the lowlands and so it proved with Miles. Neither bullet wound ever showed the slightest sign of pus and healed quickly.

Miles had been weak ... both injuries bled profusely before Cal had found Miles, but Cal pumped enough fresh meat--first through broths and stews, and then with big steaks and roasts--into Miles for his body to make good the loss of blood already.

Both men's need for fat had been satisfied with the meat from a black bear that had strayed within range of Cal's rifle.

Cal had been concerned about Miles' fingers and toes at first. Miles hadn't been wearing any gloves and every digit had looked at first to be frozen but they'd returned to their normal pinkish color in a couple of days. Though not completely healed, Miles was well on the way.

Their evening meal complete, the men nursed twin cups of strong coffee as they waited for the sun to disappear behind the mountains to the west. When the daylight faded, their fire would be put out. If they left it burning, the flames would be a bright beacon in the night, drawing all who might be watching.

Shadows cast by the closest of the peaks crept closer to the mouth of the small box canyon. Nocturnal creatures, predators and prey alike, began to wake, stretch, and trot a few steps into the open to test their strength for the coming hunt. Their movements were marked and tracked by the men beside the campfire.

Both men assumed there were those out there in the dusk who stalked them too, though the pair had no evidence of any searchers. It was foolish to think otherwise, and they were not foolish men.

"Good coffee," Miles said, his voice low. The other man grunted in concurrence, mildly pleased with the compliment. Miles swirled the last dregs of liquid around the bottom of his cup and swallowed them in one gulp. He picked up Cal's new, but already dented coffee pot and hefted it to judge the amount remaining and poured himself a full cup. Gesturing for Cal to hold out his cup, Miles filled that one to the brim too. He sat the pot down and pulled a few sticks from the fire so their burning tips would cool and go out.

"Gonna miss it," Miles continued. His eyes followed the antics of a wolf or coyote far down slope. It was probably a coyote from its smaller size and a barely perceivable slimness to the muzzle, but it was already too dark to tell that far away.

The animal had been cavorting in an open meadow a few hundred yards lower down the gentle slope when it suddenly stopped and began sniffing the air. The animal dropped its body to the ground and slinked toward a clump of brush that skirted a small stand of trees.

Without warning, another canine leaped from the bushes, ambushing the first and knocking him sprawling for a moment in the tall grass. The abused animal rose and ran hard for clear ground with the attacker in pursuit. The pair began to tumble and race around the clearing--play that was also mock combat.

A larger figure, clearly a female wolf rather than a coyote from her size, stalked from the brush and quieted the two with a reproving glance. The half-grown cubs, took station behind their mother and the family trotted into the gathering darkness.

Miles relaxed and took another sip. He glanced around at Cal and then back to the panoramic mountain slope in front of them. Neither was given to expressing their feelings much and now they groped for words.

"Appreciate everything you've done for me," remarked Miles offhandedly. He continued to study the terrain. "Probably wouldn't have made it if you hadn't come along," he added.

"Nah," Cal answered. "Horses are the ones who found ya, I was just along for the ride." He swallowed more coffee himself, his eyes twinkling in a brief glance at his companion. Miles shook his head in disagreement and grinned back.

"Uh-huh ... but lots 'a folks wouldn't a' had the sense to let their horse lead 'em to a hurt ol' man," Miles said, more lightly than he felt. His eyes made another quick circuit around the arc of open ground from north to south. The light was fading fast and there was little to see but poorly defined shapes. He looked back to the man who'd found and cared for him while he was unable to take care of himself.