Mad River

by Donald Hamilton

  Cohoon studied him for a moment, then shrugged, walked forward, took the water bottle from the saddle, and brought it to the girl, who drank greedily. Presently she looked up, almost guiltily, and passed the canteen back.

  Cohoon said, "Hell of a country. One minute you're drowning; the next you're dying of thirst." He took a mouthful of water and washed it around with his tongue before swallowing. "Maybe that's what makes it interesting," he murmured.

  "I have some news for Miss Paradine," Black said. "Bad news, I'm afraid."

  Cohoon nodded. "I'll go make a fire," he said, and walked away.

  From a distance, gathering wood, he saw the two of them talking together; abruptly the girl buried her face in her hands. Black hesitated, and took a step forward, and reached out to steady and hold her as she cried. Cohoon grimaced at some unformed thought, and knelt down to set the wood alight, discarding two damp matches before he found one that would strike. When the fire was burning well, he went to the horses for food and utensils. The meal had been ready for some time when the two at last came over to join him. They did not explain their conversation to him, and he did not ask.

  Presently Black rose to put away the remains of the food. When he was out of earshot, Claire spoke.

  "He wants me to go with him, Boyd."

  "Where?"

  "Anywhere. Away. He made a mistake of trying to live down his father's reputation here. He's going somewhere where no one ever heard of John Black or Black's Ferry or ... or the bodies slipped into the river in the dead of night. And I'm going with him, my dear. I can't go back to Sombrero, either. You'll learn the reason soon enough. I would have to spend the rest of my life living down the fact that I was a Paradine ..." She shook her head quickly, and looked toward the man by the horses, "We're the same kind, and we have the same problem. We'll get along together. Besides, he loves me."

  "l wish you luck," Cohoon said.

  "l know you do," she said. "I hope I'll deserve it. Goodby, Boyd."

  Bill Black came back to them, carrying a paper-wrapped object which he gave to Cohoon. "You'll have no trouble in town," he said. "I found enough evidence, asking around, to straighten things out for you. Your friend Van Houck is taking care of it."

  Cohoon watched them mount and ride away; then he unwrapped the thing in his hand, his father's knife, dull with dried blood. He cleaned it and replaced it in the sheath he still carried. The horse Black had provided looked adequate, but the saddle carried no rifle scabbard. Cohoon swung aboard holding the gun, and balanced it across the pommel as he rode. There was no longer any sign of the pair ahead of him except hoofprints in the dirt. Presently these swung left toward the main road. Rather than chance overtaking them, Cohoon turned west. He had said everything to those two that needed saying.

  Riding along, he felt a little lonely; and he knew that even during the past few days he had been clinging desperately to the remnants of a dream, now lost for good. It was a long ride down the length of the Grant, but he welcomed the opportunity to put his thoughts in order. Presently it occurred to him to ask himself why he was riding to Sombrero at all; he had horse, rope, and gun here, and a mule-load of supplies was still cached near the burned ranch house. Furthermore, it might be well to let the situation in town cool for a day or two before riding in to men who only yesterday had been ready to put a rope about his neck. . .

  Nevertheless, he continued to ride westward until he reached the point where the old road came steeply up through the cliffs from Yellow Ford. Here he paused, studying the ground: a light wagon had come this way since his last visit to the ranch. He dismounted, and walked out on a point to look the situation over before descending. Even from this height, he could see that men had spent some time along the riverbank quite recently—part of Black's posse, no doubt, now recalled. One fire still sent a dying spiral of smoke into the sky, but the The ford was not quite deserted, however. A single horse grazed on the far bank, moving with the crabwise gait of an animal trailing its reins. There was, Cohoon thought, a saddle on its back, although it was hard to be sure at the distance.

  Cohoon returned 'to his own horse, mounted, and proceeded down the steep road cautiously with his rifle ready. The river seemed strangely peaceful when he reached it; the rapids upstream made only a subdued murmur here. The grazing horse made no effort to avoid him. It bore a saddle, as he had thought—a fancy Mexican rig—and there was blood on the leather, some of it fresh enough to be tacky to the touch. Leading both animals, Cohoon began backtracking on foot. The trail did not lead far; there had been enough grass to keep the horse from wandering. He quickly found the spot where the rider had fallen.

  There was dried blood in the dust; and the crippled marks left by a man crawling. He followed these, and came upon the man, who had found shelter in a shallow draw. The gaudy costume caught his eye first, although soiled and torn; then the wearer looked up, showing his face.

  "I want no help from you, Cohoon," said Francis Paradine. Claire had told enough of what had happened at the bank that the surprise was less than it might have been. Cohoon knelt without speaking. The boy had been badly beaten, apparently after being disarmed: his holsters were empty. His scalp had been laid open by a blow from behind, and his face was bruised and swollen. Cohoon could not help thinking that this was not the day for the Paradines—remembering the disheveled state in which he had last seen this boy's sister.

  "Leave me alone," Francis whispered petulantly. "They finished it with a knife in the back; I'm done. Not your knife, Cohoon, another. I found good use for yours." There was malicious pleasure in his eyes and voice at the memory. "Too bad they didn't hang you. You might have found it harder to be a hero at the end of a rope than behind bars. Next time ... next time you save a man from prison, Cohoon, ask him first if he wants to be saved!"

  Cohoon asked, "Who did this?"

  "Never mind. If I can't . . . settle with him myself ... tried ... couldn't make ..." The boy's eyes closed, and opened again, bright and malevolent. "But whoever did it, robbed you, Cohoon."

  "Robbed me? Of what?"

  "Of vengeance." He smiled a terrible, bloodstained smile. "I shot your dad in the back, my friend. Why? Because he knew; he was the only one besides you and the family who knew who had ridden with Harry Westerman on the first, stupid holdup. He had taken care of me while I was wounded, remember?"

  "You killed him for that?" Cohoon whispered incredulously. Francis shook his head. "Not for that exactly. But, knowing, he guessed who was wearing the fancy uniform when the General began to operate on a larger scale; he challenged me with it. We met outside of town. He said that by God, if his boy thought enough of the Paradine family to go to jail to protect me, I was damn well going to stay protected; he wasn't going to have you Save me from the consequences of one crime just to have me hanged for another. Rather than that, he'd spill the beans entirely. He had enough evidence, he said, to get you out of prison and me in. If the General pulled one more job, he said, he'd go to .the authorities. . . ." The boy paused for breath, and went on calmly: "He laid down his ultimatum. When he rode away, I shot him, I knew Jonathan would be on my trail, so I rode to the ranch and took care of him, too, and set fire to the place in case your dad had thought to put anything in writing." Francis Paradine smiled. "It's a pleasure to tell you, Cohoon. To tell you and watch you sitting there gritting your teeth helplessly. What can you do to a dying man? But you're welcome to try. Hit me, shoot me, stick another knife in me; maybe it'll make you feel better. . . ."

  Cohoon moistened his lips. "I'll get some water," he said, rising. Later, he could never remember whether it was a sound or merely instinct that made him glance around in time to see the little nickel-plated revolver pointing directly at him, as he reached for the water bottle on the saddle.

  He threw himself aside, placing the horse between himself and the muzzle of the weapon. The animal reared at the first shot; the gun continued to discharge with a small, spiteful sound, but Cohoon was flat on the ground
now, and the boy, lying in the sheltering depression, could not, apparently, find strength enough to push himself up to shoot over the edge; his bullets either hit the dirt bank harmlessly or whined off overhead.

  Afterwards, the silence ran on interminably. When Cohoon raised himself at last to look down, Francis Paradine's eyes were closed, and the gun had fallen from his hand. Cohoon stepped into the wash, and started to kick the empty weapon aside, but the appearance of it caught his attention. He bent down and picked it up, examining it closely, with sudden apprehension. A slight movement made him glance at the boy, whose eyes had opened.

  "Recognize it?" Francis Paradine whispered. "Yes, It's hers, Cohoon. That uppity wench of yours from Miss Bessie's; too good to be friendly with the regular customers. She was snooping around the shack; she must have dropped it when they grabbed her ..." They took my guns; it was all I could find. His lips continued to move, but no more sound came out. Cohoon knelt beside him, and cried urgently: "Who has her, Paradine? Where's she been taken?"

  Francis's eyes opened slowly. "Why, I'll be nice and tell you," he whispered. "Westerman has her, Cohoon, if she's still alive; or even if she isn't. Couldn't leave a witness to spread the news that he was the General's partner . . . in a wagon, heading for the mine, deep shafts, tons of rock, never a trace; who'll waste time hunting for a missing Creek Lane wench ... Go find her, Cohoon!" he breathed. "Go find her. And Westerman too, I wish I could see the two of you shoot it out. It would almost be worth ..." He winced at some intolerable pain, but a hint of a smile remained. "I hope you shoot straight—both of you!"

  26

  THE MINE LOOKED small down in the rocky canyon; just a few weathered shacks and some battered machinery showed above ground. Cohoon rested his horse at the top of the pine ridge to the west, and studied the place carefully despite the urgency within him; presently he rode on up the ridge, gradually angling down the slope to the left, keeping in the shelter of the trees. At last he dismounted, tied the horse, and went forward on foot.

  All of this country was in shadow now, but the sun still shone on the higher Candelaria peaks, making the bare granite glow with reddish light. The air was suddenly quite cool after the heat of the day. The smoke from the cookshack below rose straight into the evening sky. The cook was splitting wood by the door of the shabby structure. Cohoon watched the man sink his hatchet into the chopping block, gather up the split sticks, and disappear inside.

  Off to the left, another man, his shirt removed to expose faded red underwear, was shaving by the aid of a mirror fastened to the outer wall of the bunk-house, presumably in preparation for a visit to town. Half a dozen others were rolling dice nearby, in the eager and careless fashion of men whose pay was heavy in their pockets. Cohoon recalled that the last payroll had been stolen; apparently the loss had been made good today by Westerman, providing an official reason for his visit.

  It was a peaceful scene. Beside another flimsy frame cabin that probably served as an office—the name LUCKY SEVEN MINING co. was painted on the board above the door—stood a light wagon. The team, unharnessed, grazed in a nearby corral with some 'mules and saddle stock. The wagon seemed quite empty except for a tarpaulin tossed into the bed of it, The heavy canvas took up a good deal of room, but no more, perhaps, than could be accounted for by its stiffness and the careless manner in which it had been stowed. . . As Cohoon watched from the slope, a miner came around the corner of the building and paused by the vehicle; immediately Jack Rudy stepped out of the cabin door and spoke sharply. His words were inaudible at the distance, but his meaning was clear. The miner made an equally sharp retort, but moved on, pausing at a safe distance to look back at the wagon with obvious curiosity.

  Cohoon forced himself to think clearly: There's Rudy. Where's Westerman? There was anger and fear and a sickening apprehension inside him; and he knew now what had drawn him toward town this afternoon, but this was no time for dramatic emotions. He watched Jack Rudy stand in the doorway forming a cigarette in a leisurely fashion; a large, bearded, confident man. Somebody spoke inside, and he answered, turned, and disappeared from sight. Both of them inside, Cohoon thought, waiting for darkness. They would tell the miners it was money they were guarding, brought here for safekeeping from bandits, perhaps. Is she •alive? The question slipped into his mind unwanted, destroying the coolness he was trying to maintain; and suddenly he was running forward. A crevice let him down through a rocky rim to the talus slopes below, and he continued to the right at a lope, heading for a patch of mountain spruce that clung to the hillside ahead.

  Reaching this, he pushed his way through and found himself lying in adequate cover within a hundred yards of the cookshack, the office, and the wagon standing beside it. He forced himself to rest briefly, letting his whole body go slack until he had recovered somewhat from his exertions. When his breathing had returned nearly to normal, he pushed the rifle forward, and took careful aim at the nearest window of the building. He hesitated for a moment; there were better ways of doing this, but they would take more time, and he pressed the trigger. The weapon crashed, and the window shattered.

  Jack Rudy came charging out, bull-like, rifle in hand. Cohoon waited.

  The miners, startled by the shot, had drawn back; gun business was apparently none of their business. Presently, when no second shot followed the first, and Rudy remained unharmed where he stood in the open, Paul Westerman stepped warily through the doorway, holding a revolver ready.

  Cohoon took careful aim. No one here deserved mercy, or even the favor of an even break; yet he found himself reluctant to press the trigger. In the moment that he hesitated, Westerman felt or saw something wrong and stepped back into shelter, crying a warning. Rudy dropped to one knee and fired into the trees; the bullet dropped a twig on Cohoon's head. The bearded man was levering a second shell into place when Cohoon caught him squarely in the sights of the old Henry. The cartridge fired, and Rudy rose to his feet, took three steps toward the corral, and fell heavily on top of his gun.

  Westerman was shooting from the broken window. Cohoon put a bullet through the glass and another through the flimsy boards beside it; a sharp cry told him that either the bullet itself or a flying splinter had taken effect.

  "Westerman!" he shouted. "This is Cohoon. Come out with your hands up and you'll live to stand trial. Don't make me smoke you out; this gun holds enough shells to make a sieve of that shack."

  There was a brief silence; then Westerman's voice answered: "All right. Don't shoot. I'm coming out."

  The small, important figure appeared in the doorway, arms raised. Westerman's face was bleeding. He moved forward in a docile enough manner, yet at an angle that did not bring him directly into the open, or toward Cohoon's hiding place. . .

  "Hold it right there!" Cohoon shouted.

  Instantly Westerman threw himself aside, toward the wagon that was now within reach. As he lunged past the corner of the building, Cohoon saw him grasp for the butt of the revolver he had concealed beneath his belt at the small of his back. His intention was obvious: to use the wagon and its burden as a shield.

  Cohoon swung the sights with—and slightly ahead of that racing figure; then the barrel of the old Henry wavered oddly. He found himself losing control of the gun, for some reason he had no time to determine. It was too late, however, to check the movement of his trigger finger, and the piece fired wild. Instead of the recoil against his shoulder, he felt a sharp blow in the face, close enough to his eye to partially blind him for a moment or two.

  Shaken and slightly dazed, Cohoon found himself holding a rifle that had separated into two pieces, the spliced stock having given away again under the repeated shock of recoil following the battering it had received in the river. He shook his head and found himself thinking that it was just as his father had always said: with a firearm, just about the time you got to depending on the thing, you found yourself in a spot where you couldn't use it because of the noise. Or you ran out of ammunition, or it broke down on you,
or blew A knife or a tomahawk, now, or your bare hands, had none of those drawbacks....

  A hundred yards away, Westerman was kneeling in the wagon box, waiting for a target. He had thrown the tarpaulin aside and raised the cruelly bound and gagged figure of Nan Montoya before him as a shield. Cohoon rose deliberately to his feet and reached back for the knife; then he was running forward, weaving from side to side. Westerman awaited him calmly enough, saving his ammunition for a certain shot. Cohoon balanced the knife as he ran, knowing that the odds were against him here; the other could pick him off easily before he was close enough to make his throw good.

  It occurred to him that his judgment seemed always to be at fault where this girl was concerned. Once, thinking she had betrayed him, he had unnecessarily tackled half a dozen men single-handed, too angry to retreat; now, seeing her limp and bound, he was charging foolishly into the muzzle of a loaded gun to save her. . . . The girl moved as Westerman fired, throwing the shot wild. There was a brief, uneven struggle in the wagon bed; Nan was flung aside, but she picked herself up to hurl her weight against Westerman as he shot again. The shot missed, but the girl's position forced Cohoon to deflect his throw at the last instant. The knife glinted harmlessly through the air, struck the side of the building, and fell to the ground.

  Westerman laughed—a short bark of triumph—and rose from his knees to level the gun more accurately at his disarmed adversary. Nan rolled against him and he kicked at her viciously, and looked up to aim again. Then Cohoon, still running forward, had wrested the cook's hatchet from the block into which it had been sunk and, in the same motion, hurled it at the man on the wagon. Westerman saw the heavy weapon coming too late. It caught him in the shoulder and threw him back off the wagon box. For a moment he seemed to be leaning stiffly against the wall, then his body folded and slipped through the space between the wagon and the building, and lay there, quite still.