Towne nodded, speared a chunk of beef, and began to ladle beans to his plate. “This here,” he added seriously, “is no country for a pilgrim. A man who expects to stay alive had better keep his eyes open. There’s plenty of folks around here with secrets they want to keep, an’ if they get an idea somebody is too curious, they’ll shoot, an’ shoot quick.”
“Looked this country over yet?” Hopalong jerked his head toward the land beyond the Picket Fork.
“Thought I’d wait for you. There was plenty to do, anyway. I had to cut a stock of wood for Sarah and rustle up some rocks for a fireplace. From here, though, she looks mighty mean.”
The beans were excellent and the steak was broiled just as he liked it, thick and juicy. He ate more than he had planned, listening to the talk between Pike Towne and his wife. That there was a strong bond of affection between them was obvious.
Shep had come up to Hopalong, and after sniffing inquisitively of his sleeve, he lay down beside him and rested his nose on his paws. Pike glanced at him and smiled. “Reckon Shep figures you are all right,” he said. “He’s mighty touchy about strangers as a rule.”
“This afternoon,” Hopalong said, “we’ll scout a little. You go one way, I’ll take another. Make an estimate of the cattle you see, but mostly I want to find a large open space well back into the pear forest. I want a place that’s hard to find, with good grass, and water if possible.”
Towne looked at him curiously. “Yeah,” he said. “I think we can find a place like that. I hear there’s clearings back in there that are hundreds of acres in extent. After we find it, what then?”
“We’ll build a good-sized corral out here,” Hopalong said, “but we’ll also make a fair corral back in that clearing, mostly by working the limbs of the mesquite together. Probably we can find a place that will need only a little work to keep it safe so the cattle won’t stray.”
Towne chuckled. “I get it. You’re figurin’ to keep most of the cattle back inside so nobody will know how many you’re gettin’ out. Is that it?”
Cassidy nodded. “It seems to me,” he said, “that a certain hombre might let us get out, say, four hundred head or better. Then someone might run them off before we could begin to collect. I don’t figure to let anybody know how we’re fixed.”
“Good idea.” Towne started to speak, then said nothing further, but when he got up and wiped his hands on a handful of grass, he said, “I’ll head off toward Chimney Butte. I figure that might be a good place to look.”
“Go ahead,” Hoppy said. “I’ll work farther east.”
Hopalong got to his feet and glanced at Sarah Towne. “Thanks,” he said, smiling. “That was the best meal I’ve eaten in a long time. Pike sure found a good cook when he found you.”
She flushed with pleasure. “Pike likes good food,” she said. “He’s a big eater, and I like that. It’s no pleasure to cook for a man who picks over his food. He’s like you—he never leaves anything on his plate.”
Hopalong saddled Topper again and, putting the bit between his teeth, slipped the bridle over his ears. “It’s a long time since you’ve been in the brush, Topper,” he said, “but you’ll get a taste of it today.”
He went down the bank and waded the horse through the ten-foot-wide Picket Fork and up the opposite bank. The trees were thick, but he rode through them and found himself facing an impenetrable wall of brush. As he skirted it, searching for an opening, he studied the varieties he saw. Before him were thousands of acres of black chaparral, dense thickets of mingled mesquite, towering prickly pear, low-growing catclaw with its dangerous thorns that hook into the hooves of cattle or horses, and colima with its spines. Everything here had a thorn, long and dangerous, some of them poisonous, all of them needle-pointed. Once within these close confines, there were no landmarks, nothing but a man’s own trail to guide him.
Walls of jonco brush, all spines and ugly as sin, devil’s head, and yucca; it was all here in a dense tangle. And under it moved a myriad of life-forms: rattlesnakes, javelinas, and many varieties of birds and lizards. It was a morass without water, a maze without plan, a trap that could grip and hold a man for days. Once lost, only chance could help a man escape. Even when fairly cool where there was a breeze, within the black chaparral the air was close and sweat streamed down your body, soaking your clothing. Thorns snagged at the clothes and skin. You jerked free from one thorn to be stabbed by another. Only heavy leather, hot as Hades, offered protection. This was exactly like the dreaded monte of Mexico and Texas.
Hopalong rode slowly along that thorny rampart, alert for any opening that might allow him to enter. Twice he believed he had found what he wanted, but each time it proved to be only a deviation in the wall of brush, and there was no entry.
As he skirted the chaparral he thought of the problem that faced him. The wild cattle of the brush country had lost all domestication. They lived for the wilderness, and he had known of cases where, when removed from the brush, the cattle simply lay down and died, refusing to be driven despite torture and beating. And they were utterly savage, fighting anything that came into their path, possessed of the speed of a deer and the agility of a panther. He who has not encountered wild cattle in their native habitat can have no idea of their nature.
Now the wall bellied out before him, and swinging wide to skirt it, Hopalong suddenly saw a projecting corner of rock. Riding nearer, he found that a huge fault in the surface had thrust a rocky ledge from the earth on a steep incline. Beneath its shade the brush had not gathered, and it seemed to offer entry to the wall of brush. Topper went forward, his ears pricked with curiosity, and avoiding with dainty steps the reaching spines of the catclaw. Rounding the corner of the ledge, Hopalong saw a narrow avenue before him and he saw cow tracks, some of them amazingly large, along the earth and sand that formed the trail.
Carefully he pushed on, and the close, deadly air of the chaparral settled about him, confining and sticky with heat. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck and under his arms. Dust arose from beneath him and settled over his clothing. The reaching spines of the pear snagged at his clothing, only sliding off the stiff leather of his chaps.
Yet the trail continued. Once he had seen those tracks, Hopalong knew that he had found an entry to that backcountry of the bush. Somewhere far ahead he heard a steer lowing. It was a soft, distant, moaning sound. He moved steadily on, the walls of the chaparral so close that a lifted hand would be snagged by the spines. Overhead was a single strip of brassy sky. He halted, talking softly to Topper, and let the horse breathe a little, yet it was almost better to be moving. Once they entered a small clearing, about half an acre in area. Here they paused longer. There were cow tracks all about now, and here and there smaller alleyways led off into the brush waste.
Chimney Butte might as well have been a thousand miles away, for from here it could not be seen. He spotted a big steer, its huge horns all of five feet across. It lifted its head and stared at him, but made no move to attack, merely snuffing suspiciously at the scent of horse and man.
It was well nigh impossible to estimate distance in the chaparral. The trail twisted and turned, and occasionally he had to double back and try again. Usually the tracks helped, but the rock wall of the upthrust had long since fallen behind. Then he began to encounter more and more clearings, small but grassy, and in many of them the grass was remarkably green. Because of the roots, very little rain that fell on this land ever ran off. Yet these clearings would grow fewer and fewer as time went on, and eventually there would be none at all. The brush would have covered every available foot of it. This brush was a thorny-handed monster, an octopus of the plains and desert country, never satiated while anything remained to be taken and to be bound in the clinging tentacles of its roots.
Suddenly Hopalong rode out into a huge clearing that must have been all of half a mile long and more than a quarter of a mile wide. Here at least thirty head of cattle were feeding or lying about on the grass. They got up and stared
at him, and one bull came toward them, lowing deep in his chest and kicking dust over his back, his big head lowered, his eyes rolling. That bull, Hopalong reflected, must weigh all of twenty-two hundred and his head and sides were scarred by many battles.
Hopalong swung wide around him and, mopping sweat from his face, searched the opposite wall for a way out of the clearing. He found it, and then continued to search until he had located more cattle and more clearings. It was late afternoon before he started back. He had seen at least a hundred head of cattle, and heard many more, and he doubted if he had more than touched the huge mass of the chaparral.
It was dark when he reached camp, and he rode toward the firelight, hot and weary. Pike was already in, seated on a fallen log with a tin cup of coffee. He grinned at Hopalong. “Got into it, I see. Find much?”
When Cassidy had told him of his day’s venture into the brush, Pike nodded. “I reckon I saw about as many as you did. There’s plenty of cattle in there, all right, and from the way they act, they haven’t been bothered much. Notice any brands other than Box T?”
“No, not a one,” Hopalong admitted, “but most of this stock has never been branded. How about you?”
“Same as you. No other brands.” He hesitated, then reaching for the coffeepot, he said casually, “Found a place to hold our cows. Old corral back in there. The fence is all overgrown, but she was built tight. Now the brush has grown all through the posts and rails so it’s that much tighter. It’s big—big enough to hold a thousand head if necessary. I reckon somebody threw it up some years back. It was built about like you suggested, just pieced together wherever the brush wasn’t tight enough to hold ’em.”
“Water?”
“Yeah. Looks like she might be an old rustlers hangout.”
Hopalong nodded. “I imagine,” he said carefully, not looking at Pike Towne, “that they have been in this country. We’ll have to try to find if they had a way out on the other side.”
Towne’s face stiffened queerly. He shot a sharp glance at Hopalong and set his cup down on a rock. “You wasn’t figurin’ on rustlin’, were you?”
Hopalong was mildly surprised. “No. Why?”
“Nothin’. I didn’t figure you would, but anyway, I want no part in anything that isn’t legal.”
“My feelings, too,” Hopalong assured him, “but a way out might be convenient.”
“There’s an old trail,” Pike said thoughtfully, “east of here. You must have seen it. The trail leaves the road to the Box T about ten miles out of Kachina, heads north-east. That trail must pass close to the bend of the Picket Fork. We might find a way out that way.”
“We might,” Hopalong agreed.
He was growing more and more curious about Pike Towne, and he had been almost positive that Towne, if left alone, would find the kind of clearing they sought. If the big man had not at one time lived in the area, Hopalong Cassidy would be badly fooled. Whether he had been an outlaw himself, Hopalong had no idea. What he did know was that Pike was concealing something, but in his own good time he might talk.
Somewhere a coyote yapped shrilly into the night, and a nighthawk swooped close, then winged on away into the darkness. Stars came out, thick and bright, seeming so close about them that it appeared a man might reach up and knock them down with a stick.
He ate in silence, and again Shep came to lie beside him. Pike lit his pipe, and they dozed. And then, suddenly, it came!
Hopalong stiffened, almost dropping his cup. Pike Towne’s face blanched and his wife stared at him, her cheeks drawn and pale.
High and clear, sounding distant, yet close, there came the sound of voices on the wind. A long, hollow call. A pause, then an answering chorus. The sound faded, then swept back; although distorted as it was by the distance, they could hear the unmistakable rhythm of words and phrases.
The weird chanting reached out into the night and then ended. A strange cry filled with loneliness and memories of terror, a cry that chilled their spines and left the three staring, the echo of it hanging in their ears.
“What was that?” Hopalong demanded, of nobody in particular.
There was no answer, for there was none to be given. Then it came again, and again it sounded long and clear and somehow unearthly. It might have come from the range behind them. It might have come from up- or down-stream, or from the wastes of the chaparral, but they all knew it did not. It came from farther away, maybe miles away.
Nobody said anything for several minutes, and then Hopalong glanced over at Pike. The man’s face was haunted by memory, and when he turned, his lips started to form words, then stopped. The fire crackled and a stick fell, then sparks sprang up, following the trail of the smoke. After a minute a coyote lifted his plaintive voice high into a shrill yelping that chattered off down a long hill of sound, then died away.
“Now that was quite a sound,” Hoppy said. “Ever hear it before, Pike?”
Towne’s lips were tight, his eyes cold. A moment passed before he replied, and it was with a question. “Why ask me? What makes you think I might have?”
“A hunch.”
Pike studied Cassidy while Sarah Towne’s eyes went from one to the other, half-frightened, half-hopeful. It was the hopefulness that made Hopalong curious. Topper stamped in the tall grass and blew contentedly. Firelight flickered on his flanks and glistened on the shining coats of the darker horses.
“What you lookin’ for?” Pike’s voice promised nothing.
“I want to know who killed Pete Melford.”
“I don’t know anything about that. I’ve got my own questions to look into hereabouts.” Pike’s lids flickered ever so slightly. “We may be out here doin’ the same kinda thing, Cameron. But we ain’t doin’ it for the same reasons.”
Hopalong examined Pike Towne narrowly, the shade of a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. “And I thought you were just working your way through to Oregon,” he said.
“I am.” Pike looked over toward Sarah. “But I’ve got to know that what’s past is behind me. We can’t make a new life until I do.” He got to his feet and looked down at Cassidy. “We’ve got a big job, boss. Let’s hit the hay.”
Hopalong Cassidy knew the man, and knew he had as much as he was likely to get. He shrugged, then got to his feet. “All right, but if you know of any good springs back in that nightmare, tell me about them.”
“In the morning,” he said quietly.
“One thing more. Where’s Sipapu?”
Towne hesitated, and for an instant Hopalong did not believe the man would reply, but when he did he spoke quietly. “East of here. It’s a ghost town on a trail to nowhere. It’s a town that was born quick, lasted only a little while, and then died hard with guns in the streets. It was another place where the vigilante idea didn’t work. They hung the crooks, and then each other, and finally died shooting.”
His face was twisted with bitterness. “It’s a place I’ve no wish to see, Cameron, nor any man who has ever seen hatred as I saw it in the streets of that town. Hatred and fear.”
“You said it was east of here. Just where?”
“You know that trail I mentioned? The one that runs off the Box T road toward the north? That trail used to take you, but it won’t anymore because the old canyon bridge is gone. It’s just as well. There’s no reason for anybody to go, and I don’t believe anybody has been there in years.”
“Thanks, you’ve helped me some, Pike. I’ve got a job here. Pete Melford, the man who owned this land before Tredway showed up, was a friend of mine.”
Pike looked at him carefully. “We’ll do our best. I’ve good reason to believe this Colonel Tredway is somethin’ different from what he wants everyone to think, and I think he’s capable of nearly anything. Of course”—he grinned at Hopalong—“I’ve reason to think the same way about you.” Pike Towne turned and walked to the wagon to join his wife.
Hopalong tossed another stick on the fire and then banked it a little so there would be coals f
or the morning. Moving back from the flames, he got to his feet and walked to the edge of the woods. The night was very still. The water rustled among the reeds along the banks, the wind stirred, and out in the chaparral there were myriad rustling sounds and stirrings as the creatures of the night came alive for their hunting.
Hopalong Cassidy scowled uncomfortably. He had the feeling of being watched by something he could not see, and he did not like it. He didn’t like it at all.
There were things happening about him of which he knew nothing. Pike Towne had been here before, an outlaw, perhaps. Maybe he knew a great deal, and perhaps very little.
He walked on, away from the horses. Behind him the fire dwindled as he moved away until it was scarcely more than another star, glimmering in the night. At last, on a low knoll beside the Picket Fork, he paused. Around him the night was very still. Suddenly a flicker of movement caught his eyes and he looked around. Far away over the top of the chaparral loomed the distant finger of Chimney Butte, pointing at the stars, and then beyond and to the east of it lay Brushy Knoll, a huge, ominous darkness blotting out the distant horizon. Yet he had seen movement there, and now he saw it again, visible at even this distance, the slow movement of lights upon the mountainside!
Cassidy narrowed his eyes, staring into the night. Had there been a trail through the chaparral, he would have saddled up at once, but there was not, so he stood still, watching while the trail of lights mounted higher, and then still higher. At last, after what seemed a very long time, the lights emerged on the very top of the knoll and merged into a group. They flickered there, danced, and held his eyes, and only after a long time did they slowly begin to burn down and vanish. Sobered, he wandered back to the fire. He glanced at his watch and was astonished to see he had been gone for all of two hours!
He crawled into his bed and scarcely felt the ground under him. He sighed, breathed deeply, and was asleep.
Far away, on Brushy Knoll, the lights appeared again, descended in slow, switchback movements until they vanished behind the pear forest. A wind lifted and stirred the leaves, and Topper pricked his ears and stared curiously off into the darkness. At the edge of the dimming firelight, a pack rat crept closer, watched, and sniffed, then moved into camp, curious as always, and alert for something that would interest him enough to steal.
The Hopalong Cassidy Novels 4-Book Bundle Page 63