Free The Searchers by Alan LeMay Page B

be taught or learned, but had been born into Brad’s muscles, was what made
     the difference. Mart was three furlongs back as Brad sifted into the low hills.
    Up the slopes Mart followed, around a knob, and onto the down slope, spurring his wheezing horse at every jump. From here
     he could see the last little ridge, below and beyond as Brad had described it, with the smoke of Comanche campfires plain above
     it. Mart’s horse went to its knees as he jumped it into a steep ravine, but he was able to drag it up.
    Near the mouth of the ravine he found Brad’s horse tied to a pin-oak scrub; he passed it, and rode on into the open, full
     stretch. Far up the last ridge he saw Brad climbing strongly. He looked back over his shoulder, watching Mart without slowing
     his pace. Mart charged through a dry tributary of the Warrior and up the ridge, his horse laboring gamely as it fought
     the slope. Brad stopped just short of the crest, and Mart saw him tilt his canteen skyward; he drained it unhurriedly, and
     threw itaway. He was already on his belly at the crest as Mart dropped from his horse and scrambled on all fours to his side.
    “God damn it, Brad, what you doing?”
    “Get the hell out of here. You ain’t wanted.”
    Down below, at perhaps four hundred yards, half a hundred Comanches idled about their business. They had some piled mule packs,
     a lot of small fires in shallow fire holes, and parts of at least a dozen buffalo down there. The big horse herd grazed unguarded
     beyond. Most of the bucks were throwing chunks of meat into the fires, to be snatched out and bolted as soon as the meat blackened
     on the outside. No sign of pickets. The Comanches relied for safety upon their horsemanship and the great empty distances
     of the prairies. They didn’t seem to know what a picket was.
    Mart couldn’t see any sign of Debbie. And now he heard Brad chamber a cartridge.
    “You’ll get Debbie killed, you son-of-a-bitch!”
    “Get out of here, I said!” Brad had his cheek on the stock; he was aiming into the Comanche camp. He took a deep breath,
     let it all out, and lay inert, waiting for his head to steady for the squeeze. Mart grabbed the rifle, and wrenched it out
     of line.
    They fought for possession, rolling and sliding down the slope. Brad rammed a knee into Mart’s belly, twisted the rifle from
     his hands, and broke free. Mart came to his feet before Brad, and dived to pin him down. Brad braced himself on one hand,
     and with the other swung the rifle by the grip of the stock. Blood jumped from the side of Mart’s head as the barrel struck.
     He fell backward, end over end; then went limp, rolled slackly down the hill, and lay still where he came to rest.
    Brad swore softly as he settled himself into firing position again. Then he changed his mind and trotted northward, just behind
     the crest of the ridge.
    Mart came to slowly, without memory or any idea of where he was. Sight did not return to him at once. His hands groped, and
     found the rocky ground on which he lay; and next he recognized a per sis tent rattle of gunfire and the high snarling of Comanche
     war cries, seemingly some distance away. His hands went to his head, and he felt clotting blood. He reckoned he had got shot
     in the head, and was blind, and panic took him. He struggled up, floundered a few yards without any sense of balance, and fell
     into a dry wash. The fall knocked the wind out of him, and when he had got his breath back his mind had cleared enough so
     that he lay still.
    Some part of his sight was coming back by the time he heard a soft footstep upon sand. He could see a shadowy shape above
     him, swimming in a general blur. He played possum, staring straight up with unwinking eyes, waiting to lose his scalp.
    “Can you hear me, Mart?” Amos said.
    He knew Amos dropped to his knees beside him. “I got a bullet in my brain,” Mart said. “I’m blind.”
    Amos struck a match and passed it before one eye and then the