Born To Track

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Born To Track - book excerpt

Prologue

In the early part of the Twentieth Century, Reuben Cole, one-time army scout, known to the Indian Nations as ‘He Who Comes’ is nearing the end of his blood-soaked career. Hard, unrelenting years of effort and violence have taken their toll. No longer the man he was, his final case almost cost him his life. The reality is he is old and slow, and he now accepts this, albeit reluctantly, as so many ageing people do. Announcing his retirement to his long-suffering lover, she tells him a magazine writer has arrived at their home, eager to record Cole’s career to an avid readership thirsty for tales of the ‘wild west’. Hesitant at first, Cole agrees and relates the formative part of his career during which time he learnt about tracking and how to stay alive in the harsh, unforgiving landscape of the West.

As he himself told the magazine writer, ‘What you have here is the story as I lived it. I was not present for everything that happened, and such scenes were told to me at a later time. But it is all true, every word of it.’

This is his story.

Chapter 1

His mother is close to death. He knows this without being told. Doc Miller used to visit every other day but recently it is twice a day. Reuben, fourteen years of age, would sit in the corner and watch the comings and goings without speaking, never asking. There is no need. He sees everything in the lines on their faces and the ghastly shade of his mother’s rice-paper skin. Also, in the way his father shuffles around the house looking old and bent, barely able to meet his son’s gaze.

Doc Miller squeezes his shoulder and gives him a reassuring nod. Reuben holds the old man’s stare. “Will she get better?”

The Doc presses his lips together and shakes his head.

He steps away, leaving Reuben to his thoughts.

Reuben sinks deep within himself, turning his mind to memories and he puts his face in his hands and quietly weeps. She is his mother, and she is going to die. It is like his entire world is collapsing and he is helpless to prevent it.

On this morning, when he finally goes downstairs, the men stand in the parlour, glasses in their hands, none willing to meet his stare, so he decides to go out. He feels torn. His mother lies in her bed, and no one is with her. He should stay, stroke her fevered brow, but Doc Miller has warned him. He must not touch her. He even said it would be best to not even go in the same room as her. Taking that advice, throughout every day, Reuben would crouch in the hallway outside, head against the door, listening to her ragged breathing. But following advice does not take away the pain or the guilt. Now, with heavy treads, he slips out of the house, not knowing or caring if anyone sees him leave.

Outside, it is cold. Snow has already fallen in the night and, in the heavy whiteness of the sky, more threatens. He cares not. He mounts old Nora and takes her far away from the ranch. He loves the ranch. He loves the way the breeze moves through the fields, the way the sky stretches on forever, the distant mountains a purple smudge against the blue backdrop. Everything he sees is owned by his father and one day everything will belong to him. Reuben Cole. A boy whose future is guaranteed.

Except he doesn’t want it.

He doesn’t believe he wants to be a rancher. Not yet, not with his mother about to leave him forever. No more will he listen to her kind words, her guidance and encouragement. She is leaving him with his whole life still ahead of him, with all its uncertainties, excitement, adventure, and adversity, all for him to encounter alone.

So, he rides. His mind is a windswept landscape of constantly changing emotions, his fears tinged with sadness, mingling with dreams of the unknown. The big wide world is all around him and he finds it breathtaking but so daunting. So unpredictable.

He rides with his mind far away until the memories loom large and vivid. He recalls his mother’s smiling face, her perfume filling his nostrils. If he closes his eyes, he can see her again. How she used to be before the sickness ravaged her features, made her stick thin and sallow-skinned. Beautiful. Smiling, forever smiling.

He reaches a place he does not know. Snapping himself from his reverie, he takes in the landscape. Around him, jagged, wind-scarred cliffs soar, so high he cannot see their summits. Birds fly there, no doubt buzzards eager for a feast. He shudders, twists, unhooks his canteen, and takes a long drink. Nora is breathing hard. They must have been riding for hours and often the snowdrifts were deep. He chides himself for not concentrating more on where he was heading. He steers her towards a tangle of trees and gorse, and dismounts. He strokes the old mare along the neck and, working quickly, he unbuckles the saddle and relieves her of it. Pressing his face against her muzzle, he kisses her flared nostrils, and she responds, nickering softly.

Leading Nora amongst the overhanging branches, he puts down the saddle and loosening his pants, relieves himself against an outcrop of rock, closing his eyes to luxuriate in the feeling of relief. Nora snorts in disgust at the stench. He has held the contents of his bladder for too long.

There is hardtack in one of his bags. He takes a bite, clamps his teeth around it, munches until he can swallow. It tastes like old, dry rope, and he washes it down with water from his canteen. His father sometimes would bring whisky or rye with him to drink on longer rides. Reuben has yet to experience whisky. He wishes he had.

Returning to the shade, he puts a blanket over Nora’s back before stretching himself out on the ground. The second blanket he puts around his shoulders. Although many small rocks jab into his back, he is tired, the day mild thanks to the sun and soon his eyes grow heavy. Within moments he is asleep.

Something forces him awake. A distant cry jerks him bolt upright. For a moment he is disorientated. Rubbing his eyes, he looks around. Nora stands still, her ears pricked. The sound comes again. Sharp shouts, too far away to recognise individual words, but close enough for Reuben to know these are the voices of several, angry men.

He gets up, throws off the blanket and shakes himself. Moving to where he put down the saddlebags, he pulls the squirrel gun from its sheath. It is an old gun given to him some years before by Floyd Henderson, one of the boss ranch hands. Proving himself something of a natural, Reuben would often take himself to higher ground, draw a bead on the main barn, and shoot the rats as they scurried to and fro. Henderson said he was a ‘dead-eye shot’, whatever that meant, but he basked in the big man’s praise. He never expects to use the gun in anger. A tremor runs through him.

Darting from his shady spot, he crosses to an outcrop of rocks and settles himself down to watch.

Across the rugged terrain, there comes a man running. He is half-naked, long black hair trailing behind him like a horsetail. His pants are made from rough cloth, possibly animal hide and in his hand is a bow. Reuben sucks in air. An Indian. Henderson told him once that Kiowa hunt close by and if ever he saw any he was to tell his folks straight away. Savages are what Henderson calls them, but Reuben has never laid eyes on one, until now and, from where he squats, the man does not look very savage at all.

He is running with an easy grace across the snow, his long stride relaxed, his head still as if he is in deep concentration.

Given what is looming up behind him, this could well be the case.

There is a rider, using his hat to beat his horse’s rump, urging the animal on. It is not this man who is shouting however and Reuben strains to see if he can catch anyone else out there on the plain.

There is no one within sight so he returns to watching.

The rider is gaining on the Indian. The ground underneath the snow is treacherous, broken by rocks, large and small, strewn all about, any of which could prove hazardous for the horse. Its canter is awkward, the animal taking care, but the rider appears oblivious, “Come on you paltry good-for-nothing!” But the horse is not stupid, and Reuben cannot help but laugh.

His amusement immediately leaves him when he sees the rider drawing his pistol. Several shots ring out, none of them hitting their target, and Reuben sees the Indian increase his run. He swerves from side to side in a ragged, unpredictable way. Reuben understands this is a way to disrupt the rider’s aim. And he wonders, as he watches, why the savage does not stop, turn, and fire the bow.

As he focuses in, he sees why. The savage has no arrows.

He then sees a most remarkable thing.

The Indian does stop. He turns and waits, arms dangling by his side. Has he given up, thinks Reuben? Has he accepted his fate, resigning himself to the doom awaiting him?

But no. As the rider draws nearer, loosing off wild, inaccurate shots, the Indian moves at the last moment, swerving to one side, catching the reins, and pulling them down violently. The horse’s head snaps to the side, a terrifying scream spouting from its foaming mouth. The rider lashes out with the revolver, now obviously empty but, like his shooting, this is ill-judged and the Indian grapples with his arm and swings him around in the saddle. Now all three, horse, rider and Indian, commence a macabre dance, as they move in a tight circle. The horse kicks up great plumes of powdered snow and the rider tries desperately to release himself. The Indian manages, at last, to pull the rider from the horse, which off-balance and terrified, keels over. The Indian leaps backwards to avoid the maelstrom of human and animal limbs as both crash into the dirt.

The hapless rider, caught beneath the bulk of his mount, struggles frantically. The Indian moves nimbly, the knife appearing from nowhere in his hand. The stricken rider holds out a palm, his voice, when he speaks, brittle with fear. “Please,” he says, “please, no!” But the Indian ignores the man’s desperate pleas. Swift and decisive, he plunges the heavy blade into the rider’s flesh, slicing through his throat. An eruption of thick black blood follows but if this is to be the end then everyone is wrong.

From out of the white, frosted air, more riders appear, galloping forward, whooping with rage, guns drawn. Their shots go wide but, as they draw closer, it will not be long before the decreasing range will result in the Indian being hit. Reuben, who crouches low, locks his eyes on the unsettling scene enacting before him. He is torn between intervening and remaining as an impassive observer. The stories of these Indians, the horrors they have perpetrated, run through his mind. But something, the injustice of what he sees, causes him to react. He swings up his rifle, meaning to frighten the horses with a well-placed shot between their hooves and force them to veer away. This could give the Indian a chance to run or stand and make a fair fight of it.

Reuben is good with his rifle.

Squirrels move fast and he can hit them from a hundred paces, sometimes more. And a horse, it is so much bigger. A few evenly spaced shots in the ground between the animals’ hooves will spook them, throw the riders perhaps, at the very least cause confusion.

He squints down the barrel, pulls in a breath, measures himself and eases off a shot.

He often looks back at that moment. In quiet times, alone in his bed, the early hours so black, so full of terror, he relives every detail as if he were there again. And each time the horror never diminishes.

The first shot hits the ground inches ahead of the lead horse. Exactly as he hopes, the horse screams, rears up, and throws the rider clean out of the saddle. Reuben does not need to check to know that the man hits the ground headfirst with such force that his neck breaks. Worse swiftly follows. As the man’s body slams into hard, impacted earth, the gun still held in his hand goes off. Whether it is the angle or simply sheer fate, Reuben can only guess. Whatever the reason, the misplaced shot hits the rider following in the chest and he too falls.

The man writhes for a few moments before he grows rigid, one frozen arm extended upwards as if grasping for some invisible means of help.

There is none.

Two dead men in the space of a couple of dozen seconds.

The surviving riders battle to control horses wild with terror. They turn away and, spurring their mounts’ flanks and whipping them with their reins, they gallop off in a billowing cloud of snow and a good deal of fear.

Standing watching, Reuben tries but finds he cannot move. Rooted to the spot in abject horror, he sees the two riderless horses bucking and kicking as they disappear into the distance, leaving the dead men on the ground.

The rifle slips from Reuben’s fingers. He does not react. His mouth hangs open, his eyes unblinking, trying to come to terms with what he has done. For it is all down to him. His responsibility, his blind stupidity in arriving at a plan so ill-thought-out it could only ever result in disaster. He wishes he could run, but he has no strength.

And then something unheard and unseen presses against his back. A strong hand grips him under the chin as another holds a heavy-bladed knife against his throat.

Reuben feels his stomach lurch.

It is the Indian. He has sneaked up behind and is now about to kill him.

All strength leaves Reuben’s legs and he buckles. But the man’s hand slips from his throat grip him under his armpit and holds him up. Pressing against his ear, a thickly accented voice says, “Don’t faint on me, boy.”

He turns Reuben around and stares. Reuben is drawn into those eyes, hypnotised by the moment, the danger. He wants to beg, to plead for his life, to make this savage understand but even though he forms the words in his mind, nothing escapes from his lips. It is as if he has lost the power to speak. He is at this man’s mercy.

“Why did you help me?”

The question deserves an answer. Reuben knows this and yet he can conjure up no explanation. He is fearful that the savage will lose patience, strike him, beat him to the ground.

“Are you mute?” The Indian tilts his head. “Do not be afraid. You saved my life. I am not about to harm you. But if you are mute … Give me a sign.”

This savage is no idiot, no bumbling simpleton, but a thinker, a man who comprehends.

Reuben clears his throat, a huge effort as he believes any sort of movement or reaction will galvanise the savage into action. So, he waits and slowly his lips part. “I didn’t … I didn’t mean to kill anyone.”

“I am certain of that my young friend. But you have. That will mean they will come back. More of them. They will come back, and they will hunt us down, the both of us. So, we must leave this place, cut across country, and find somewhere to hole up. I cannot return to my village – to do so would bring danger to the women and children there. So, we must go, alone. Pick up your rifle and run with me. My name is Brown Bear.”

“I’m Reuben. Reuben Cole.”

“So then, Reuben. We must go.”

“I have Nora. We could both ride her.”

“That nag?”

“She may be old, but she is game.”

“I trust you. I have little choice. You have given me the gift of life.”

Reuben takes Nora and gingerly lifts himself into the saddle. He reaches out an arm and lifts his new friend to sit behind him. Reuben is young. Fear and uncertainty force him on. He silently prays that something similar will keep the strength in Nora’s tired legs.

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