Horses of the North Page 8

  But Gus Scott shook his head. "I like you, Chief Milo, and whatall you a-talking here, it's pure, quick suicide; them damn bastids, they'll shoot you offen your hoss five hunnert yards out! You got no way of realizing jest how damn far them bugtits' guns can shoot—ain't no living man as does, 'cepting of me and Jules and a few others of our folks as has seen 'em."

  But Milo was adamant, continuing to argue, and, at length, he gained the grudging agreement of Gus Scott. By that time, the nodding Chef Jules would grinningly agree to any questions put to him, not that Milo thought the spaced-out inebriate really understood any of it, but at least the forms had been served after a fashion.

  The very next dawning, while most of the camp still slept, Milo gathered the clan chiefs and gave them his instructions, then rode out of camp alone, mounted on a borrowed easily seen white horse. He bore only his saber and his dirk, those plus a headless lance shaft to which he had firmly affixed a yard-square piece of the whitest cloth he had been able to turn up in his camp. He set his horse's head toward the northwest, toward the certain death that Chief Gus Scott was convinced awaited him.

  As he rode through the main gate of the fort, disarmed and under close, heavy guard, Milo's glances to right and left took in the stripped, rusting shells of the self-propelled guns and other armored vehicles. He mentally noted that as the breeches of the long guns were carefully shrouded and the barrels plugged at the muzzles, they just might still be supplied with shells and capable of being safely fired, which boded exceedingly ill for Scott, LeBonne or any other men who elected to mount a charge in force against the fort.

  However, he also noted that of the men manning the wall walks, only a mere handful bore firearms of any sort, most of them being armed with crossbows, recurved bows and polearms. At the corners of the walls and on a wide platform above the gate squatted engines that looked very much to him like pictures he recalled seeing long, long ago of ballistae and catapults. Stacks of short, heavy spears stood by the former and piles of round rocks by the latter.

  But although they were well armed for this time and this place, every one of the men he had so far seen had looked thin to the point of gauntness, the eyes of many shining fever-bright, their movements not completely sure, their steps slow and plodding. He attributed this seemingly universal condition to either severe, wasting illness or malnourishment of long standing. With all or even a large proportion of a garrison in such poor health, even superior weapons might not be sufficient to save them from the blood-mad warriors that crouched just out of those weapons' ranges.

  Once within the gates, two members of his stumbling guard fell on their faces and just lay there, gasping and shuddering, clearly unable to arise, As he was led toward a large building of brick and squared stone, he saw women and a few hollow-eyed children, but not one chicken, dog or cat. From somewhere within the complex, a horse whinnied, and his white stallion raised his head, laid back his ears and answered. Milo guessed that these luckless people had eaten every animal with the exception of their cavalry mounts . . . probably more than a few of those, as well.

  Perhaps he and the clans might be able to trade these starvelings a score or so head of their cattle for an uncontested passage across the ford? Scott, LeBonne and the rest would not like it in the least, of course, but much as Milo admired Chief Gus Scott, his own people's welfare must and did take first precedence in any matter, at least in any matter of such real urgency and importance.

  At the foot of a short but broad flight of stone stairs that led up to an ancient but well-kept set of double-valved doors, the man commanding Milo's guard brusquely ordered the prisoner to dismount and ascend ahead of him and a brace of his men. After securing the lance shaft with the metal hook attached to the pommel for just that purpose in order to free a bowman's two hands, he slipped off the white's back and mounted the first step firmly, his face deliberately blank. He knew not what lay ahead within that ancient pile, but he was pretty sure that did they mean to kill him, they would have tried to do so long before this moment. After nearly two centuries of living among humans, he was confident of his abilities to read human character quickly and to reason, to argue a point successfully. Now if the leaders of these strange, archaic, ill-fed people were only reasonable and a bit intelligent . . .

  When the guard commander had gone through a formal report, the middle-aged man to whom he had reported had said, "Thank you, Leftenant Hamilton. You and your men may now return to your duties."

  With a salute, a stamp of the foot and a barked "Sah!" the younger man had spun about (a little unsteadily, Milo noted) and marched out of the room, closing the door in his wake.

  Dredging up from his memory the rank denoted by the insignia, Milo than addressed the middle-aged man himself. "Colonel, are all your people as half starved as your garrison so clearly is?"

  The officer addressed sprang up from his chair and leaned on his clenched fists, his face suddenly suffused, his veins abulge and throbbing with anger, but his voice at least under control. That was when Milo first noted that whereas the other two men in the small office wore what looked to be homespun recreations of battledress uniforms, the older man was clad in a Class A blouse—one that looked to be a much-mended original—and, of all things, a kilt and a sporran of a black-and-white fur that looked as if it had come off a spotted skunk—a rare beast this far north. He also was able to drub his memory and come up with the surname that most likely went with that kilt.

  Speaking coldly, the officer said, "The conditions of my garrison and that of the people of the station should not be of concern to you, prairie rover. It might be better, all things considered, if I did not allow you to leave here alive."

  "I hardly think that an officer of your obvious gentility and training would violate the sanctity of a man who rode in bearing a flag of truce, whatever your reasons, Colonel Lindsay. And please believe me, I had no aim of angering you when I asked my first question. Perhaps, if the hunger of your folk is as severe as it looked to me, we two can be of some service, each to the other."

  "Which one of those loose-tongued fools gave you my name?" the officer snapped. "Their orders were to carry on no conversation of any sort with you, other than that necessary to bring you here."

  Milo shook his head and smiled to himself at his shrewd guess. "No one of those guards spoke to me of you, Colonel Lindsay. It was, rather, the sett of your plaid told me your clan."

  A good measure of the flush drained from the officer's face, and his veins ceased to pump quite so furiously, even as his bushy eyebrows rose a few notches. "Is it so, then?" he said, wonderingly, while slowly sinking back into his chair of dark, ancient wood. "And what may your own clan and patronymic be then?"

  "Clan Murray, Colonel Lindsay. My name is Milo Moray, but I'm not a Scot by birth, I am . . . rather would at one time have been considered to be an American, a citizen of the United States of America, that is. Only my heritage is Scottish, like that of a good many of my tribe out there on the prairie."

  "Say you so? Sit down, Mr. Moray. Emmett, drag one of those chairs over here for our guest and let's at least hear him out about how he thinks we can help one another.

  "Oh, don't frown so, Emmett. This one seems at least head and shoulders above those others in intelligence, and he speaks a decent English, as well.

  "Mr. Moray, I fear that I have nothing more substantial than cool water to offer you. We ran out of whiskey some time back, but of well water, we've plenty."

  He rapidly scribbled something short on a slip of paper with a quill pen and, after folding it, handed it to the other officer—a captain, Milo noted, probably the colonel's aide—and spoke a few words in the man's ear, words inaudible to Milo. The captain saluted and speedily departed, leaving Milo with the colonel and the man Emmett, who was about of an age with the older officer.

  * * *

  Colonel Ian Lindsay had first become aware of his daughter's telepathic abilities when, as a child of five years, she had branded a well-m
eant parental lie the falsehood that it assuredly was and, when commanded by him to tell how she knew, had innocently divulged to him that she could "hear it in her head." Other tests he had devised now and then had affirmed that with age, her rare talent had not faded away but had become both stronger and surer. But he had sworn her to silence and had never himself mentioned it to another soul. Upon a very few occasions, he had had the girl delve into the minds of men in cases in which it had been patent that one of two was lying. Just now, it was very important that he ascertain whether or not this prairieman was trying to lure him, lull him and then entrap or attack him and his weakened people. Perhaps Arabella could get to the full truth of the matter for him, and this was why he had sent for her. He was, of course, completely unaware that this strange man with whom he now was dealing was, himself, a trained and powerful telepath, with far more years of experience than Arabella or Colonel Lindsay, in fact, had of bare existence.

  While the colonel talked and Milo sipped politely at the mug of cool water, he felt the first indescribable mental tickling that told him that another of telepathic ability was striving to read his thoughts.

  Almost without conscious intent, he raised the barrier that shielded his mind from prying, while beaming out a strong, silent demand: "Who are you, telepath? What right have you to pry into my thoughts?"

  Then, simultaneously receiving no reply and realizing that the mind that had made to enter his was open, completely lacking a shield, he penetrated it and read the answers in a matter of seconds.

  Arabella, outside, in the hallway beyond the office door, leaned half swooning against the wall, her suddenly and unexpectedly violated mind in utter turmoil. What she had done to so many others over the years—both with and without her father's leave—had now and with no slightest hint of warning been done to her! Even worse, her attempt to enter the mind of that prairie rover had been the most dismal of failures. It had seemed in a way as if she had flung herself into a brick wall.

  But she was her father's daughter, and she stood there in weak puzzlement for only a few minutes. Then she made her way down the hall to their shared quarters, armed herself and returned resolutely to the office, using the little-known, seldom utilized side door that looked from the office to be but a part of the hardwood paneling.

  All three men—Colonel Lindsay, Emmett MacEvedy and Milo Moray—looked up in surprise when the secret door creaked agape and a gorgeous young woman with flaming-red hair and a worn but well-kept .380 revolver strode purposefully into the small room.

  "Arabella," began Lindsay in his best command voice, "what is the meaning of—"

  But her torrent of words interrupted him. "Oh, Father, Father, he . . . this man, this stranger, he knows! He . . . he's like me, just like me. I couldn't get into his mind at all, but he ... he got into mine! He must be killed, now!"

  So saying, she held the heavy revolver at arm's length just as she had seen her father and other officers do, then pulled the trigger, the heavy pull taking all the strength that her small hand could muster. The .380 roared and bucked so hard that she could not retain her grip on it and it fell to the floor. All three seated men were showered with granules of burning powder and so nearly blinded by first the flash of flame from the muzzle and then the dense cloud of reeking smoke from the black powder with which the piece's cartridges had been loaded that for a moment only Milo was aware that a 130-grain lead bullet had plowed into the right side of his chest, exited below the right shoulder blade, and splintered into the backrest of the chair in which he sat.

  Gritting his teeth against the pain, he silently prayed that neither of the other two men would notice that he had been hit, dealt what would have been a fatal wound to any other man in this time and place. But such was not to be. Even as many feet pounded up stairs and down corridors throughout the building, their shouts and commands preceding their arrivals, MacEvedy, furiously blinking his still-smarting eyes, gasped, "Sweet Jesus, Ian, she's killed the poor bastard! See the powder burns on his shirt? And there's a bleeding hole in his chest. Now what do we do?"

  Quick of both mind and action and no stranger to wounds, Ian Lindsay tore a slicker from its wall hook behind his desk and, striding quickly to the side of the stricken man, wrapped it firmly around his body, sealing both the entrance and the exit wounds, mildly surprised at the paucity of blood from them, the near lack of air bubbles in that blood and the calm of the victim.

  "Emmett? Damn your arse, Emmett, look at me, not at him! Go reassure those people in the hallway before they break my door down. Then send a runner to fetch Dr. MacConochie and tell him to come up here prepared to treat an air-sucking chest wound. D'you hear me, damn you? Then do it!"

  "No, wait, Colonel, Mr. MacEvedy," said Milo in as strong a voice as he could just then muster up. "Do not call anyone else in here, not for a while. But I would appreciate it mightily if one of you would make sure that revolver is out of reach of Mistress Arabella yonder. Her bullet didn't really injure me, but it hurt—hurts!—like blue blazes."

  Not until he had stripped off his hide vest and his bloody, twice-holed shirt and exposed to three pairs of wondering, wide-staring eyes the rapidly closing, bluish-rimmed holes in his chest and back, however, would any of them credit the fact that he was not speaking to them out of an understandable stare of wound-induced shock, that he really was not in imminent danger of death. Arabella Lindsay just continued to stare at him after that, her heart-shaped face expressing nothing of her thoughts. Emmett MacEvedy stared at the floor, looking up now and again, mumbling incomprehensible things to himself and cracking the knuckles of his knotted, workworn farmer's hands.

  Colonel Lindsay, too, stared long and hard at his guest, at the revolver now on the desk before him and at the splintered backrest of the side chair. Then he visibly shook himself and cleared his throat before softly saying, "Mr. Moray ... if that is really your name . . . what are you? Are you a man, a human man? There are old, very old stories, fright tales, of manlike things, evil creatures who can't be killed by steel or lead. I had never before put any more credence in them than I did in the old tales of flying horses, dragons and such obvious fabrications . . . not until a few moments ago, that is.

  "I repeat, sir, what are you? And what are your intentions with regard to me, Emmett and our people?"

  Milo pulled his shirt back over his head and began to tuck its long tails back under his belt and trousers as he replied. "Insofar as I know, Colonel, I am a human man, just like you. I am considerably older than any other man I've recently met, and I happen to be, as you have just witnessed, very difficult to kill, although I experience just as much pain as would any other human so wounded."

  "How old . . . just how old are you, Mr. Moray?" asked Colonel Lindsay, his firm voice cracking a bit with the strain.

  "Something over two hundred years, Colonel," Milo replied, adding, "I was nearly a hundred years old at the time of the War, and I looked then just as I do today; for some reason, I don't age, you see. Don't ask me to explain it, sir, any of it, for I can't; nor could the few carefully selected doctors and scientists I took into my confidence in the last few years before the War. All that any of them were able to come up with were things that I already knew—that I don't die of deadly wounds and, rather, seem to regenerate tissue very fast, that my teeth are of an exceeding hardness and are replaced within a few weeks if I do lose one or more, that I appear to be a man in his middle to late thirties and never age beyond that appearance, and that I am gifted with a very strong telepathic ability. I also seem to be immune to all the diseases to which I ever have to my knowledge been exposed, though I do come down with the occasional mild and short-lived head cold. Once I lost two fingers in a war, and they grew back within a couple of weeks; on another occasion, I had an eye gouged and deliberately punctured by enemies who had captured me. It grew back to full vision within a week.

  "But Colonel, you have my word of honor that I am nothing more than a human man, a bit extraordinary in s
ome respects, I freely admit, but still just a man. That you may find it possible to believe me, despite your understandable doubts, I now am going to lower my mindshield, that your telepathic daughter may enter my mind and testify to you the verity of all that I've said here."

  Within seconds, Arabella had done that for which she had originally been summoned by her father. She solemnly assured him and Emmett MacEvedy that Milo Moray had imparted to them the full truth, as he knew it, adding that she could discern no malice or ill intent toward any of them—even toward her, who had endeavored to kill him short minutes before—in his mind.

  Ian Lindsay sat back in his chair and whistled softly. "Mr. Moray, I know not what to say, what even to think. This entire business is far outside my experience or those of my predecessors, I am certain. You make claim to mortality, yet you freely admit to being of an impossible age and I have just seen not only you survive a fatal bullet wound, but the very wounds, themselves, close up of their own accord. Who has ever seen the like in a mere man?

  "Yet you seem a man of honor, and you swear upon that selfsame honor that all you have told me of yourself is no less than true. Further, I have the testimony of my daughter and her unusual talents to back up your oaths, and she never has been proved in error in her reading of others' minds.