Читать книгу Silvertip's Chase - Max Brand - Страница 7

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THE total surprise, the horror of the grinning mask of the wolf, the agony of the wounds, the hot gushing of his own blood, had unstrung even the steel nerves of Bill Gary—but only for a few moments.

When he recovered and sat up, he was lying in a pool of blood. And more blood was pumping out of his thigh and out of his wrist. Arteries had been severed in both places—big arteries.

He knew the extent of the danger by the frightful giddiness of his brain. There was still strength in one hand, however. As for the left hand, he would never be able to use that again. Or would the cunning doctors actually be able to tie severed tendons together?

To stop the blood was the first thing.

He knew that those few moments of unconsciousness during which he had lain on the ground had brought him to the verge of death, for his heart had been strongly pumping out his lifeblood every instant of that time.

Now, in a frenzy of panic, he wanted to stop both flows of blood at once.

He steadied himself. He could not do both things at once. That was impossible. It was a time to make every second count, to be calm and cool. So he made himself calm and cool.

He ripped off his coat with his right hand.

He kneeled on the coat, held one edge of it between his teeth, and with his hunting knife slashed off several strips. He took two of those strips, still working with teeth and hand, and twisted them together. The gaping wound in his thigh was what counted most. He ran the cloth around the top of his leg and knotted it. It was barely long enough to serve the purpose. He had to lean over and almost break his back, to catch one end of the cloth in his teeth. Then he worked the bandage up. He took a short stick, shoved it inside the bandage, and twisted.

As he twisted, he saw the compression of the flesh open the gaping mouth of the wound, but the flow of the blood diminished. He kept on twisting until the bandage pressed down through his flesh. The agony of it burned him to the bone. But he kept on until not a drop of blood was flowing from the wound. Then he took out a bit of twine—what man of the wilds will do without string or thongs of some sort in his pockets—and lashed the stick in place.

After that, he did the same thing with his torn wrist. The devil was in the wolf that it had been able to open arteries with each stroke of its fangs! The devil was in the wolf, and in the luck of Bill Gary.

Then he told himself that this was his payment. He had found incredible wealth. He had unlocked the ribs of the ancient mountains to get at it. Well, there is always bad luck in store for the finders of treasure. He was having his misfortune now.

Afterward, in the long years to come, he would be able to revel in the wealth. He would be able to look back on the day when he had fought with that incarnate fiend, Frosty.

Who in the world had ever heard of a wolf playing possum before? Yes, they had been known to do it. Coyotes will do it, too.

Then, as he finally sealed up the flow of blood on his wrists, he became very faint, and was nauseated. The trees spun around and around before his eyes.

He endured that, closing his eyes, stretching himself on his back. He was almost glad of the two hot bands of agony that were biting into his flesh on his leg and on his arm. That pain would bring him back to his senses. Or had he already lost so much blood that he was sure to die?

He put a hand over his heart and could feel nothing. He listened calmly, and made out by sense, not by sound, the fluttering pulsation.

Live? Of course he would live! He pushed himself to a sitting posture. His left arm was blackening and swelling with the checked currents of the blood. His leg below the bandage was numb. Half of him was dead already. He felt that. He was suddenly, calmly sure that he would in fact die before he ever managed to get back to the cabin.

If he got back to the cabin, he could light two fires in front of his shack. That smoke, as it rose, would be a signal to Luke Warner, three miles farther down the valley. He and Luke had arranged the signals long before. A man may get terribly ill or may have an accident which keeps him from traveling through the mountains. In case anything happened to one of them, they were to send the signal—two columns of smoke, steadily rising.

If he could get back to the cabin, he could manage to light the fires, and then Luke Warner would come. Luke was a fellow to be depended upon. Mean and hard, but dependable.

The nausea returned upon him. Something was sickening him, and he told himself that it was the smell of wolf.

That made him look at the motionless body of the great lobo, and he saw that from the place where the ragged back of the ax had torn the scalp of the wolf, blood was flowing. Well, blood does not flow from dead bodies, and, therefore, Frosty was still alive!

The mouth of Bill Gary twisted to the side. It was almost a smile. There was a chance—one chance in ten thousand—that some one might come up here and find the two dogs, the other wolf, and Gary himself lying dead—and Frosty still alive!

That lucky stranger would claim the scalp money! He would get the bounty that really belonged to a dead man!

And suddenly Bill Gary hated the entire living world of man. They lived, and little did they care how he lay in agony on the mountain, slowly dying!

They lived, and the wolf lived.

He crawled over to the tree. It was hard to hunch himself along on one knee and one hand. He put his ruined left hand down and used the left arm, also. The agony was only a little more frightful. What bothered him most was the thought of the pine needles and the dirt getting into the opening and shutting wound in his wrist.

He got the rifle, tied it to him, and crawled back to shoot Frosty. The blood was still trickling from the head of the stunned wolf.

Then another thought came to him.

If he died, and the wolf died, then his gold mine was lost. No man would ever find it, because these mountains had been prospected thoroughly for gold and the miners had given up. The secret of the mine would be lost. In a single year or so the weather would cover over the raw wounds in the ledge where the gleam of the gold still shone out.

The greatest thing in his life would then be as nothing! It would be almost as though he had not lived, in fact!

When he thought of that, he cursed softly. If he used too much breath, it started him gasping, and the trees and the mountains spun around him in dark, swift circles.

That was when he remembered the Red Cross collars on the dead dogs, and with a stroke of imagination his mind leaped the rest of the way. He went to Shock, the nearest body, and unbuckled the heavy steel collar. He took out his notebook, opened it, and wrote with his indelible pencil, under his last entry:

DEAR ALEC: Go to place described and find a ledge with a gold outcrop. I think I'm dying. Good luck to you. I give you the mine. It's as rich as thunder.

BILL GARY.

He tore the page out of the book and folded it small. On the outside, he wrote the address:

"Alexander Gary, Newlands. Please deliver."

He wrapped that folded bit of paper in some of the oiled silk, opened the little compartment in the dog collar, and placed the message inside. Then he crawled to the senseless body of the wolf and fastened the collar around the great neck. It fitted so snugly that he could be sure the beast would not be able to rub it off.

Watching closely, he could see the slight rise and fall of the ribs as the senseless monster breathed. He was glad. He was wonderfully glad that his messenger might live—if only the ax stroke had not shattered the skull.

He crawled to the rear leg that was fastened in the trap. He had to bear down with his ruined left hand and with his right to unspring the powerful trap. And his head spun around as he made the effort.

But at last the great wolf was free.

Bill Gary dragged himself to a little distance and got his back to a tree.

To lie down and die, like a silly fool, like a baby—that would be too horrible for speech. But to die sitting up, looking the world in the face—that was not so bad.

He wanted to see the wolf get up and start away before he gave up the ghost.

Then he remembered that he had a small metal flask of whisky in his hip pocket. It shocked him to think that he could have forgotten this until such a late moment. Instantly the flask was uncorked and half the contents flowed down his throat.

When he looked up from his drink, he saw Frosty actually rising to his feet. He swayed a moment, staggered, and then, with a motion as fluidly sliding as though there were not a wound on his body, Frosty faded away among the trees and was gone.

He was gone, but he could not escape men forever. He had learned much wisdom in his life. No doubt this one day had taught him several profound chapters. But nevertheless he could not hold out forever against the wiles of traps, poison, hunting packs of fast and savage dogs and, above all, high-power rifles. Some day he would fall. And when he fell, certainly the mystery of finding a steel collar around his throat would cause the collar to be removed. Might it start merely a legend that Frosty was not a wolf at all, but merely a dog that had run wild?

But surely, one day, men would open the little container and find therein the message.

So Gary's great enemy, Frosty, became his one link with the world, the hand which he reached out for the recognition of posterity.

For when the message was read, the mine would be discovered, and then—well, they could hardly do less than name the mine after him. For every drop of blood shed from his veins, an ounce of yellow gold would pour out into circulation. It would work evil and it would work good, here and there. And all that it accomplished would be the work of a dead man, Bill Gary.

It was a satisfaction to him. It was a foretaste of immortality. It made him smile.

And, above all, it seemed to Bill Gary most right and fitting that he should have fastened his gift to the world around the neck of a wolf.