The Andre Norton Megapack - 15 Classic Novels and Short Stories

lessen the odds. We have to catch them in the open. Otherwise, they can hole up forever in that ship-fort of theirs.”
    “And just how do we let them know our ship is here? Send out another scouting party and let them be trailed back?”
    “That’s our last resource.” Travis continued to frown at the map. Yes, it would be possible to let the Reds sight and trail an Apache party. But there was none in the clan who were expendable. Surely there was some other way of laying the trap with the wrecked ship for bait. Capture one of the Reds, let him escape again, having seen what they wanted him to see? Again a time-wasting business. And how long would they have to wait and what risks would they take to pick up a Red prisoner?
    “If the Tatars were dependable.…” Buck was thinking aloud.
    But that “if” was far too big. They could not trust the Tatars. No matter how much the Mongols wanted to aid in pulling down the Reds, as long as they could be controlled by the caller they were useless. Or were they?
    “Thought of something?” Buck must have caught Travis’ change of expression.
    “Suppose a Tatar saw our ship and then was picked up by a Red hunting patrol and they got the information out of him?”
    “Do you think any outlaw would volunteer to let him self be picked up again? And if he did, wouldn’t the Reds also be able to learn that he had been set up for the trap?”
    “An escaped prisoner?” Travis suggested.
    Now Buck was plainly considering the possibilities of such a scheme. And Travis’ own spirits rose a little. The idea was full of holes, but it could be worked out. Suppose they capture, say, Menlik, bring him here as a prisoner, let him think they were about to kill him because of that attack back in the foothills. Then let him escape, pursue him northward to a point where he could be driven into the hands of the Reds? Very chancy, but it just might work. Travis was favoring a gamble now, since his desperate one with the duel had paid off.
    The risk he had accepted then had cost him two deep wounds, one of which might have been serious if Jil-Lee’s project-sponsored medical training had not been to hand. But it had also made Travis one of the clan again, with his people willing to listen to his warning concerning the tower treasury.
    “The girl—the Tatar girl!”
    At first Travis did not understand Buck’s ejaculation.
    “We get the girl,” the other elaborated, “let her escape, then hunt her to where they’ll pick her up. Might even imprison her in the ship to begin with.”
    Kaydessa? Though something within him rebelled at that selection for the leading role in their drama, Travis could see the advantage of Buck’s choice. Woman-stealing was an ancient pastime among primitive cultures. The Tatars themselves had found wives that way in the past, just as the Apache raiders of old had taken captive women into their wickiups. Yes, for raiders to steal a woman would be a natural act, accepted as such by the Reds. For the same woman to endeavor to escape and be hunted by her captors also was reasonable. And for such a woman, cut off from her outlaw kin, to eventually head back toward the Red settlement as the only hope of evading her enemies—logical all the way!
    “She would have to be well frightened,” Travis observed with reluctance.
    “That can be done for us—”
    Travis glanced at Buck with sharp annoyance. He would not allow certain games out of their common past to be played with Kaydessa. But Buck had something very different from old-time brutality in mind.
    “Three days ago, while you were still flat on your back, Deklay and I went back to the ship—”
    “Deklay?”
    “You beat him openly, so he must restore his honor in his own sight. And the council has forbidden another duel or challenge,” Buck replied. “Therefore he will continue to push for recognition in another way. And now that he has heard your story and knows we must face the Reds, not run from them, he is eager to take the war trail—too eager. So we returned to the ship to make another search for weapons—”
    “There were none there before except those we had.…”
    “Nor now either. But we discovered something else.” Buck paused and Travis was shaken out of his absorption with the problem at hand by a note in the other’s voice. It was as if Buck had come upon something he could not summon the right words to describe.
    “First,” Buck continued, “there was this dead thing