Wolf was satisfied. As far as he could see, he had not seriously injured anyone in the posse, nor struck any of the horses—but he had been successful in scattering their mounts and discouraging immediate pursuit. In fact, Wolf would not be surprised if most of the posse now decided they had had enough.
Up until now they had been trailing the harmless hoof prints of a rider they could not see. Now they were face to face with the fact that the man they were following was armed—and was a hell of a fine shot. Wolf was certain that it was not lost upon the members of the posse that he had deliberately shot close enough to the horse’s hooves to spook them—that if he had wanted to, he could have picked whichever rider he wanted out of his saddle.
Perhaps the next time his aim would be higher and just as accurate.
Wolf pushed back off the ridge, taking his gear with him. A few moments later, he was riding north, following the crest of the ridge along a narrow but negotiable trail that led toward the Deer River basin on the other side of the Absarokas. As he rode he could already see patches of the green flatlands as they appeared between the vaulting rocks and rugged peaks of the mountains still to be put behind him.
As Wolf rode up to the dugout house, Bobby Tyler jumped down off the low corral fence and raced toward him. Wolf was surprised to see the boy, but he recognized it for what it was: a lucky break. Behind the boy, having just emerged from the dugout, Dan Tyler hurried toward Wolf as well.
Wolf waved, rode closer to the two of them, and then swung off his horse, wincing as he lit. His right foot was still hurting.
“Well, that’s right neighborly,” Dan Tyler remarked, shaking Wolf’s hand firmly. “You come to visit.”
“Just passing through,” Wolf said, roughing Bobby’s hair. “But I guess a visit might not be such a bad idea, after all my backside’s sore and my horse needs water and oats.”
“I’ll take the horse, Pa,” Bobby said.
“Thanks, Bobby,” Wolf said as the boy led the black toward the makeshift stable on the other side of the corral fence.
“You’re welcome to stay as long as you have a need to,” Dan said. “We can use a strong pair of hands. Soon now, the neighbors down the river will be coming to help me raise our cabin. I’ve just about got most of the logs cut and hauled.” As he walked, he pointed to a neat pile of sawed logs on the other side of the dugout.
“Nice spot you got here,” Wolf remarked.
“It’s prime land,” the man said with great enthusiasm. “Deep, black topsoil. The wheat’ll be high enough by this time next year to let me build a larger, frame house. We’re here to stay, Caulder.” Wolf nodded. He could see that.
And then they were inside the dugout. The place was damp, but reasonably habitable. Dan Tyler had dug it out of a sloping flank on a rise of ground. It was rectangular in shape and seemed to be about six feet deep, a short flight of dirt steps leading into it. The front and side walls were chunks of sod cut from the valley floor and were raised to a height of at least two and a half feet above the land’s surface. The roof over Wolf’s head was obviously the most substantial part of the structure and seemed fashioned of old boards, straw and more sod.
A table was thrust against one of the sod walls. Wolf sat down on a rough-hewn log that served as a bench seat as Dan went over to the stove and reached for a battered coffee pot.
“This coffee is real fresh,” he told Wolf. “I made it sometime yesterday.”
“That’ll be fine.”
As Dan began to build up the fire in the stove, he said to Wolf, without looking back at him, “What’s wrong with your right leg? Noticed your limp soon as you got off your horse.”
“Been shot—the tail end of a load of buckshot caught the calf.”
“That so?”
“There’s a posse on my tail, Dan. But I’d still appreciate the coffee.”
Bobby raced into the dugout then, pulling up abruptly as he saw Wolf sitting at the table. “Your horse is taken care of, Mr. Caulder,” he said. “I took off the saddle.”
Wolf grinned at the boy. “I’ll bet you could hear him sigh the moment you lifted it off his back.”
“I sure could!” the boy replied.
“Bobby,” his father said, “why don’t you go out there and finish piling those logs we drug in today? They’ll dry better off the ground.”
The boy seemed about to protest, but the look in his father’s eyes stopped him. He left, reluctantly.
Dan Tyler looked at Wolf. “You can stay here as long as you like, Caulder. Posse or no posse.” He pulled the coffee pot over onto the hottest part of the stove and then sat down across from Wolf. “And I’m not asking for any explanations. Now what about that leg of yours?”
Wolf undid the bandages and was astonished at how well the ripped flesh was healing. It was the salve, he realized—and as he saw how well it was doing, he decided he would not complain at the way it itched. Tyler was impressed also when Wolf told him the origin of the medication.
“Injuns know lots of things the white man don’t. But that don’t mean we have to sit by and leave all this rich land go to waste. No sir,” he finished emphatically. “It sure as hell don’t.”
Wolf had his own ideas on that, but he said nothing and started to rewind the bandage. Tyler stopped him and insisted on coming up with new, fresh bandages which he fashioned from some bed sheets he pulled from a large oxhide-covered trunk in the rear of the dugout. Wolf knew it would do no good to protest and accepted the new bandage with gratitude after limping out to where his saddle bags were hung to get the jar of salve.
By this time it was nightfall and Wolf was easily persuaded to stay on for supper. After supper they both saw to Bobby’s bedtime, after which Dan and Wolf went outside to the corral. Wolf built himself and Dan a cigarette and they stood in the starlit darkness smoking quietly. The sound of meadow mice scuttling through the bluegrass came clearly to them and a meadowlark was calling from the darkness near the Deer River. It was peaceful—and lonely. The immensity of the land was a comfort, the sky overhead a wonder that Wolf had never ceased to appreciate.
Someday, perhaps, he would put down roots like this man beside him.
“You come from Landusky, Caulder?” Tyler asked abruptly.
“That’s right, Tyler.”
“I was wondering ... my daughter Mary. I ain’t heard nothing and I was wondering if you might have seen her ...” he paused unhappily. “In one of the saloons.”
“I wouldn’t recognize her if I had,” said Wolf.
“She’s got a fine head of auburn hair—and there’s a lot of Bobby’s features in her face. The resemblance is noticeable.”
Wolf shook his head. Of the saloon girls he had noticed, none of them fitted Tyler’s description. And he was surprised at Tyler’s question. What could have made the man think his daughter had become a saloon girl? He must have heard something—and he was obviously quite disturbed by it.
Wolf made no comment and continued to pull on his cigarette.
“I guess I’m glad,” said Tyler. “A friend of that brother-in-law seemed to think she worked in one of the biggest saloons in the place. But I rode in there and didn’t see her.” He shook his head. “I was glad I hadn’t found her. But now ... well, I’m not so sure. I don’t care what Mary had to do just so she’s all right. That’s all I care about now.”
“I’ll keep an eye out,” Wolf told the man.
“I’d appreciate that, Caulder.”
There was nothing more to be said. After a few more minutes they both finished their cigarettes and Wolf limped back to the dugout with Tyler, more than ready for the cot the man had fixed for him.
The Indian River Range was a younger one than the Absarokas with more spectacular peaks, less trees and grassland. It was cut by a lacework of swift mountain streams fed by the two peaks that dominated the range, Horsehead and Bridger Peak. As Wolf rode into it, he had little confidence that he would be able to find easily the camp or hideout of the m
an Gabe had called George Carver, and he had even less confidence that this man was—as he suspected—Weed Leeper. But as long a chance as it was, it was the only one he had—and Wolf’s desire to find Weed Leeper was more than enough to drive him on.
By mid-afternoon he had left the foothills and was well inside the Indian River Range, moving along the Indian River, at this point in its career a swift-moving mountain stream. On both sides of it sheer cliffs loomed. Great masses of white rock leaned out from the sides of the cliff walls, like blisters of stone that had swollen, burst, then congealed on the massive flanks. Occasionally spectacular stands of pine, their white roots fixed into the sides of the cliffs like giant claws, somehow managed to grow and seemingly prosper upon a few narrow ledges. But for the most part the landscape was barren of trees and grass. Only rock, sheer, precipitous, and as gaunt as the ribs of dead men bleaching in the sun, seemed welcome in this place.
As he rode Wolf became aware of two vultures lifting into the sky over his head. They were drifting heavily, sluggishly toward the lip of a ridge ahead of Wolf. Then, from that same ridge another vulture dropped, descending in ever narrower circles until it disappeared behind a wall of rock to Wolf’s right. Wolf pulled his black to a halt and studied the two vultures remaining in view.
They had reached the brow of the ridge by this time and though one of them immediately waddled out of sight, the other remained visible. Though this bird was better than six or seven hundred yards above the floor of the canyon, even at that distance Wolf could see the swollen stomach and the hooked beak gleaming wetly in the sun.
Wolf thought of Cal Swinnerton then.
Leaving the side of the river, Wolf rode closer to the wall of rock, looking for an opening or trail through it to the other side. He rode on for more than a half mile before he found a small stream trickling through the wall and above it a widening chasm. He dismounted, tied the black’s reins around a boulder, and climbed up through the stream. The water piled stiffly against his boots, threatening to sweep his feet out from under him at times, but he kept going.
After a few hundred feet the stream bed widened and Wolf hopped onto a narrow ledge that followed it through the mountain. Rounding an abrupt turn in the channel, he found himself at the foot of a thin waterfall, coming from such a height that the water was like a heavy spray by the time it reached the floor of the chasm. The rocks all around were black with moisture, the air filled with heavy water vapor. The chill of the place was delicious and for a moment Wolf stood under the fall, his back bent to it.
Then he looked around for another passage out of the place, found it in a narrow trail that descended steeply to what appeared to be another canyon floor beyond. He proceeded down it and found himself surrounded by immense columns of rocks, smooth-textured and looking like snow men that had melted and then been transformed into stone sculptures.
He threaded his way past them and came to a narrow trail which appeared to lead out of this rock wilderness and to the rear of the ledge. He was right. In less than a half hour, he emerged onto a small grassy meadow. He looked up. The vultures were still there, hanging above him in the sky. He watched and waited until one of them dropped. Following its plunge with his one eye, he saw the big bird disappear into a narrow fissure in the rock face just ahead of him.
Wolf groaned. It would be difficult getting in there. His right leg was throbbing dully by this time—and he did not know which was the most annoying, the itch or the throbbing. But he ignored the leg and climbed the face of the wall, using what niches and cracks afforded him purchase, until he was able to boost himself into the fissure.
He followed it around a sharp bend.
Cal Swinnerton—or what was left of him—was wedged into the trail just ahead, the man’s broken body already nearly clean of flesh. Two vultures were hunched over the torso, one of which was perched on the man’s skull as its beak tore into the meat behind the shoulders. The other was perched at the corpse’s feet, doing its best to rip off the flesh of that portion of the feet that was still enclosed in boots. Both birds were too busy to care about Wolf’s sudden appearance.
Wolf pulled his bandanna up about his mouth and nose to protect against the stench and walked closer, waving his arms to dislodge the feeding birds. Reluctantly, they spread their enormous wings and lifted from the body. With their shadows hovering over him, he looked down to make sure it was Swinnerton. There was nothing left of the face except the bone and one eye that shone glassily up at him—and Wolf knew that there was a chance this was not the body of the young cowpoke. He reached down and pushed back the battered Stetson. A splash of fair, sunny hair exploded from under it. From Gabe’s description of Swinnerton, Wolf knew he had found the Dawsons’ errand boy.
He stepped back, wilting from the stench, and looked up the wall of rock at the narrow window of blue sky visible. He might have been at the bottom of a well. From the look of Swinnerton’s shattered body, there was no doubt in Wolf’s mind that the cowpoke had been either thrown or pushed from the top of the ridge directly above this point. There was no other way to explain the body’s presence in this narrow defile.
Stepping back as far as he could, Wolf peered still closer at the ridge above him. Yes, it was the tip of a pine he saw. There was not just rock up there then. There must be a trail—and Swinnerton must have been riding along it.
Turning about, he left the broken remains of Cal Swinnerton behind him and climbed back down to the grassy spot he had just left. Then he looked about him for some trail that would take him to the brow of the ridge. His eye finally picked out one that appeared possible. He would have to go all the way on foot, however, and then hope that the trail he found on the ridge would lead him back to the canyon floor on the other side.
The climb left him winded, his right foot protesting angrily; but when he reached the ridge, he realized he had found what he had been searching for: directly above the body of Cal Swinnerton, the prints of two horses were clearly visible on the narrow trail.
Wolf went down on one knee to inspect the hoof prints. The horse on the outside, closer to the edge, was missing a shoe. That would be Swinnerton’s gelding. The hoof was not yet split, since that must have come later, Wolf realized, on the long rough ride back to Landusky. And it was the right front foreleg—to settle it conclusively.
Straightening up, Wolf followed the two sets of tracks back along the trail. In many places the shoes had nicked small pieces from the rock. The trail climbed slowly and was lost to sight around a rocky shoulder. He went back then to the place where Swinnerton had left his horse and fallen into the ravine. As he had noticed earlier, the second horse and rider had gone no further. Swinnerton’s mount had galloped on alone, lighter by one cowpoke, after which the other rider had turned back. This last set of tracks was the clearest.
The rider of that other horse—and Wolf was pretty sure now who he was—had forced or knocked Swinnerton from his mount, then slapped the animal on the rump to send it on back to Landusky, secure in the knowledge that horses couldn’t talk. Only this one had—with his split hoof.
Wolf started down the trail, following the gelding’s tracks. They would lead him, he realized, back to the canyon floor. Once there he would go back for his black and return here to that other set of tracks which he knew now would lead him to Weed Leeper: Weed was that other rider. He had killed Swinnerton rather than return to Landusky and reveal that George Carver was really Weed Leeper. Or perhaps it was just that he was tired of pulling the Dawsons’ chestnuts out of the fire.
Poisoning Tinsdale had been his last chore for them.
The trail’s descent was gradual and Wolf came out at least two hours later behind a compact stand of scrub pine. The pines were along the crest of a foothill resting against the range, a good distance from where the Indian River emerged from the mountains. Wolf had passed the pines earlier on his way toward the river but had not given them more than a glance.
It was a long walk back along the Ind
ian River where he had left his black; and once aboard him, he rode back to the pines and followed the trail onto the ridge and past the narrow path where Cal Swinnerton had gone over, following thereafter the single rider’s tracks. He was fortunate that it had not rained in more than a week; the horse’s prints were still reasonably fresh, with only a few filled completely by blown sand.
The trail followed the crest of the ridge, which shouldered higher and higher, affording Wolf at last a spectacular view of the mountain range. Far down to his right the gleaming band of silver that was Indian River wound its way through defiles and narrow canyons, and beyond it—on the other side of Bridger Peak—gleamed the blue cup of water that was Indian Lake, out of which spilled the river.
To his left he saw only badlands, peaks and ravines, with Horsehead looming over it all. From this angle the peak no longer resembled the head of a horse, but it dominated the landscape completely. And then Wolf was noting the trail ahead of him. It appeared to drop out of sight. He pulled up and then gently coaxed his horse to the lip of the ridge. As soon as he neared the edge, he found the trail again swinging off to his left, winding close around a huge boulder.
The trail dropped swiftly then, almost too steeply, before leveling off. In that instant Wolf got a quick glimpse of a green land far below, surrounded on all sides by precipitous walls. Abruptly, the jutting fingers of rock closed off the view. But Wolf knew now where he was heading: into a hidden valley that only a rider with a map—or a fresh pair of tracks such as these—could have found.
And Cal had that map. Gabe had seen him consulting it.
Wolf found the trail vanishing on a smooth rocky ledge that had nothing beyond it but a swift mountain stream piling headlong between two smooth walls of rocks. He backtracked. There was no sign of the rider pulling off the trail before the ledge. And there was no other set of tracks going back up the trail.
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