Doubtful Canon

by Johnny D. Boggs

  “We need him,” Ringo said. “For now. He’ll point us to the spot. What did you say, freak? About two miles into the cañon?”

  No answer came, and the outlaws didn’t press the matter. “Doesn’t matter,” Ringo said. “It’s near this lady’s daddy’s grave. Let’s go find it.”

  “What about her?” Brocious pointed at Miss Giddings.

  “Bring her along, too,” Ringo said with a crooked grin. “After all, we’re all partners.”

  For the second time in my life, for the second time in as many days, I began the descent into Doubtful Cañon.

  Whitey Grey led the way on foot, his head down, thumbs hooked in his britches, downcast, knowing he had lost, had lost after twenty years of dreaming. I almost felt sorry for him.

  Miss Giddings walked along with Ian Spencer Henry, Jasmine, and me, about fifteen yards behind the albino, Ian Spencer Henry protecting us, or so he said, pointing the .44 Colt toward one side of the cañon, then the other. He had given me his slingshot, which I stuck in my back pocket. Twenty yards behind us rode Curly Bill Brocious, keeping along the left side of the cañon, as close to the wall as his horse would let him. On the opposite side rode Dutch Johnny Ringo.

  Rain had cleansed the ground, purified the cañon, it struck me, and the air smelled sweet, the clopping of the hoofs behind us in dark contrast to the desert landscape’s raw beauty.

  “Do you really believe what you said?”

  Her voice surprised me, for Miss Giddings had said nothing since attacking Whitey Grey back in the rock house. I looked up, never slacking my pace, and saw her staring at Ian Spencer Henry, who lowered his gun.

  “Ma’am?”

  “What you said about your parents? Your father?”

  He frowned, looked away. “My pa don’t care a thing about me. My ma, neither. She run off to Ann Arbor, left me. Me and Pa both. My pa don’t know I’m alive, just like he never noticed my ma.”

  His voice choked at the last few words, and tears glistened in my own eyes. I’d never really understood that about my friend. I never knew how much he hurt, perhaps because all of that time I had been so preoccupied with my own pain.

  “And, you, child?” she asked me. “Did your father really break both of his legs in a mining accident?”

  Refusing to let the tears come, I answered her coldly. “No, ma’am. He’s a drunk. He’s been a walking whiskey keg ever since….” I couldn’t hold back the tears, cursed as they streamed down my face, attacking them, sniffling, making myself stop crying. I made myself finish. “Ever since my mother and sisters died. Diphtheria.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “But you still have your father.”

  “No, I don’t!” I shouted, surprised to hear my words echoing across the cañon.

  “Shut up!” Ringo barked. “Don’t let half the territory know where we are.”

  I waited until we had traveled twenty more yards. “I don’t have my father. Whiskey’s got him.”

  I kicked a stone savagely. I wanted to run away, to catch up with Whitey Grey, walk with him, or maybe just keep running until Dutch Ringo shot me in the back. Yet I couldn’t. Staring ahead, I walked, fighting back the tears as they tried to blind me, tried to block out anything Miss Giddings said. Trying to, but failing.

  “How about you…Jasmine, isn’t it?”

  Jasmine Allison wet her lips. “That’s right,” was all she said.

  “Your father. He is dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “I really don’t mean to pry, children,” Eleora Giddings said, and Jasmine cut her off with a bitter laugh.

  “Oh, you ain’t prying, ma’am. No big deal. Everybody in New Mexico knows about my daddy. Cornwall Dan. That’s all I knew him by, all I ever heard him called, but I didn’t know him, you see. My mama didn’t know him, either. Not really. You see, my mother…well, we’re not talking about her, are we? Not quite a year ago, vigilantes hanged my father. Hanged him and a cowboy named King. Strung both of them up in the Grant House. But that’s all right. I didn’t shed any tears over Cornwall Dan’s passing. Neither did my mama. Like she won’t be shedding any tears over mine.”

  Curly Bill Brocious’s voice rang out: “Hey, Dutch, that girl child, the one you fancy ’cause she don’t say nothing, well, she’s talking up a storm now. Can’t hear what she’s saying, but….”

  “Shut up, Curly, and watch the walls.”

  Chuckling, Brocious kicked his feet free of the stirrups to stretch his legs, shifting the Winchester in his arms, enjoying his good humor.

  “You’re very young to be carrying such bitterness,” Miss Giddings said. “All three of you. I don’t know you, don’t know your father, Ian, or your father, Jack, or your mother, Jasmine, but I bet they love you dearly, and at least you knew all of your parents.”

  I snorted, the only comment.

  Ignoring my sarcasm, Miss Giddings kept on preaching while we walked. “You think of this, children. You were blessed. I never knew my father. Never knew what he looked like, never got the chance for him to rock me to sleep, to tell me stories, never heard his voice, never felt his touch, never felt his love. Think about this.”

  With another snort, I faced her. “You might want to think about this,” I said savagely. “You might want to think about how we’re going to get out of Doubtful Cañon alive.”

  “I think Ringo’s right,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “I think the Apaches have fled.”

  My wrath turned to my best friend. “It’s not the Apaches I’m talking about, you idiot. Get your mind out of those fool novels you read. It’s them!” I hooked my thumb toward Ringo and Brocious.

  “Huh? What…?”

  “Let’s quit that confab!” Brocious ordered. “No more talking up yonder. Just walk.”

  So…we focused on where we were going, twisting and turning into the cañon’s depths, past strewn boulders, patches of catclaw and yucca, even a pool of water here and there, through the juniper. Walking…following a killer like Whitey Grey, being followed by two more ruthless murderers.

  Ahead, the white-skinned man never looked back, making a beeline, plodding on and on.

  I noticed it first. Well, maybe not, for Jasmine could have recognized where we were—so could have Miss Giddings—and said nothing. Our location dawned on Ian Spencer Henry, too, and, looking up ahead at the albino, then glancing from side to side, he stopped.

  “Hey…,” he began.

  “Shut up!” I snapped in a frightened voice, fearing my friend would give everything away. I never slowed down. “Keep walking!”

  “But….” Ian Spencer Henry obeyed, his face masked with confusion.

  “Don’t look over there,” I whispered when he started to turn his head toward the fort of boulders, behind which lay the graves of Willie Spoon, a Wisconsin gunman called Bruce, and Eleora Giddings’s father.

  On we walked, away from the buried $30,000, following a half-mad albino, letting him lead us, Curly Bill Brocious, and Dutch Ringo deeper into the cañon.

  My eyes locked on the intense figure ahead. I kept going, wondering, praying that Whitey Grey knew what he was doing.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He vanished.

  At the point the cañon twisted around a spot where a chunk of granite the size of Mr. Shankin’s mercantile had slid from the northern wall, across what must have been a bone-jarring ride in an old Concord stagecoach, the earth swallowed up Whitey Grey. I stopped, blinking. One moment he had been there. He had turned the corner, and by the time we caught up, nothing stretched before us but the vast emptiness, the solitude.

  My gaze shot ahead, then up the cañon’s closest side, scanning the rocks for any sign of life. The grade looked too steep, almost sheer cliff, on the opposite side, and, even though the crevassed walls stretched higher in other spots, I just could not fathom how he could have made it even halfway up the rugged walls, couldn’t even find a game trail. It would have been hard for a squirrel to scurry up there, fort
y, maybe fifty feet above, through brush and boulders ready to tumble. He had to be somewhere else, hiding behind a rocky outcrop, a bit of yucca. Somewhere along the trail. Maybe even behind me. But where?

  “You kids….”

  Dutch Ringo never finished his command. He twisted in the saddle as he rounded the corner, drawing his Remington, looking, and cursing, spurring his mount to the near wall.

  “What happened? Where’d that fool man go?” Curly Bill Brocious said, sliding from his saddle to use his horse as a shield.

  “Grey!” Ringo screamed.

  The echo came back. He whirled, spurred his mount toward a mammoth boulder up the trail, cursed again, loped back, looking one way and the other, keeping his eyes focused on the ground and the low edges of the walls, only daring to look toward the rim when he had ridden back to where we stood. Yet he quickly dismissed that notion, and concentrated on the lower elevations. Who could blame him?

  “Grey!” Brocious yelled. “You get back here!”

  Ringo urged his horse toward the cañon side, cautious. Sweat dotted his forehead.

  “Grey!” Brocious repeated. “I said you get back here…now!”

  The answer came, haunting.

  Grey…Grey…Grey…back here…back here…back here…now…now…now….

  Brocious’s sorrel gelding snorted, stamped its forehoofs nervously, and the outlaw spit out a glob of chewing tobacco while Ringo’s skittish buckskin danced about. Ian Spencer, Jasmine, and I stood near the fallen slice of granite. A hand pressed on my shoulder, and I let Miss Giddings pull me, and my two friends, close to her.

  “Where could he be?” Ian Spencer Henry asked, but no one had an answer.

  The report of the Winchester caused me to jump, and Brocious racked another round into his rifle while trying to calm his jittery horse. He had fired into the far wall, the gunshot reverberating, the bullet whining and whining as it ricocheted off the boulders.

  “What are you shooting at?” Ringo yelled. “You see him?” His words bounced down the cañon.

  “Trying to flush him out is all.” Tugging on the sorrel, fighting the reins, Brocious accidentally pulled the trigger and sent another .44-40 round, this one spanging off a low boulder, clipping another, and burying itself into wet sod underneath the Ringo’s horse’s hoofs. The buckskin danced in fright, snorting, circling, and Ringo lashed out at Brocious.

  “Watch what you’re doing, you fool! You almost took my head off!” He jerked the reins savagely, turning the buckskin’s head, and, when the mare finally calmed down, or at least quit fighting bit and rein, Ringo looked up, higher this time, searching the shadows and the juniper and, finally, the darkened top.

  Nothing. Not even a falcon, just more trees, more rocks, and a cloudy sky.

  “You better light down,” Brocious said, still hiding behind his horse. “He’s got a clear shot at you.”

  Ringo swore at his partner. “With what? He doesn’t even have a gun!”

  The boulder, about the size of my chest, crashed inches from Ringo, spooking his horse, which screamed, reared, pawing at the air.

  Brocious cursed.

  And Ringo fell.

  Another boulder. Well, maybe not a boulder, but a good-size rock, heavy enough to have crushed a man’s skull.

  Like the skies had opened up, raining rocks.

  Brocious fired, spooking both horses even more, and the buckskin dragged Ringo, desperately fighting to hold the reins, on his knees, over loose stones, and through a length of mud. “Stop shooting!” he yelled at Brocious, but he needn’t have, for Curly Bill had his own problems, now fighting to keep his horse from bolting.

  The stone came from the rim. This time I saw it, watched as it arced across the blue sky, then I lost it in the gray and brown of the cañon walls, couldn’t find it until after it hit with a sickening thud, and the buckskin cried out in terror and pain. It must have hit the horse’s croup. She bucked savagely, thrusting her head, and the stone bounced and rolled to the center of the road. Ringo yelled as the leather reins burned his fingers and palms, and slid out of his hands. Kicking, fighting the unseen demon, the buckskin exploded down the cañon, away from us, then shot into a gallop, head down, ears laid back flat on her head, and took off for the San Simon Valley in Arizona.

  Releasing a roar of anger and pain, Ringo reached for the Remington he had dropped in the mud, shoved it into a holster, pulled the Thunderer. He winged a shot at the rim, another, and darted to the wall, diving behind a juniper.

  “It’s your fault, Bill!” Ringo yelled.

  Brocious answered him with a curse, tugging his horse up the cañon a few rods, fishing out hobbles from his saddlebag, then cooing at his mount, trying to secure the sorrel’s front legs while keeping his Winchester close, trying not to be kicked in the head by his own horse, or crushed to death by Whitey Grey. When he finally had the hobbles on, he wedged himself between an outcrop of rocks and a yucca.

  Both men gasped for air, still sweating, nervous, angry, scared.

  “You shouldn’t have let him get so far ahead, Dutch!” Brocious snapped. “Don’t blame it on me.”

  “I told you we’d gone too far!” Ringo fired back. “I told you that!”

  “But you didn’t stop that freak, that crazy rapscallion, did you, Dutch? You let him lead us right past that gold, I warrant, let us walk right into an ambush!”

  Another rock was launched, and both Ringo and Brocious fired, but we never saw Whitey Grey, no one, just spotted the rocks, the brown against the blue, sailing almost effortlessly, building up speed during the descent, smashing into road or rocks.

  “He could be going back!” Brocious said. “Could be going to dig up that gold!”

  “Shut up! He won’t go anywhere.”

  “And your horse run off with our whiskey, Dutch!”

  “I told you to shut up. Keep your eyes open.”

  An eerie silence fell upon the bottom of Doubtful Cañon, and a gray cloud hid the sun. How many minutes passed, I’m not sure. Not many, although at the time it seemed like ages. Miss Giddings’s hands felt comforting as we watched, waited, wondered.

  “He’s like those Apaches,” Brocious said after a while. “They’d never waste powder and lead on a Mexican. Just stove in their heads by rolling boulders on their heads. By grab, Dutch, we’ve done that ourselves in this very cañon.”

  Ringo let out a mirthless chuckle. “Now we know what it feels like.”

  Another stone tumbled through the air, but this one came maybe twenty yards up the cañon, as if Whitey Grey were running in one direction, then the other, trying to keep the gunmen off balance, which is exactly what he did. The baseball-size brown rock crashed harmlessly against an old cairn, possibly another grave, maybe twenty feet from Ringo’s hiding spot.

  “You see where that came from?” Ringo asked.

  “No! But I think….”

  Another rock. Ringo’s shot came three seconds after Brocious’s. The chunk of yellowish stone smashed ten feet in front of us. We backed up, seeing nothing, not a trace of Whitey Grey.

  “How could he get up there?” Brocious yelled. “Must be half mountain goat, that old codger. Or raven.”

  “Got to be a trail.”

  “You see it?”

  “No. In the shadows maybe, behind one of those trees.”

  “For a guy as white as he is, that Grey’s pretty much Apache, Dutch!”

  “Shut up, I say.”

  Yet Brocious couldn’t shut up. I suppose it was nervous chatter. “Maybe he’ll run out of rocks,” he said. “How many can be up there?”

  I felt a tug on my shoulder, craned my neck, saw Miss Giddings, her lips taut, tilt her head to one side. Understanding, I nodded.

  A rock sailed. Two bullets fired. And Miss Giddings inched along the face of the fallen section of granite, toward the road. Jasmine, Ian Spencer Henry, and I followed, quietly, slowly, moving around the corner, out of sight of the two frightened gunmen. I held my breath, bu
t Ringo and Brocious had their minds elsewhere, more concerned with Whitey Grey than their other prisoners.

  We kept walking backward a few more rods, three or four steps at a time, then stopping to listen. Gunfire blasted ahead, the echoes booming.

  “Now, children!” Miss Giddings spun Jasmine around, pushed her forward, and Jasmine took off as fast as her bum leg would carry her. Ian Spencer Henry and I ran after her, Miss Giddings following us, taking her time, looking back every so often to make sure we were not being pursued.

  Curses and gunfire came from around the fallen chunk of cañon wall. Miss Giddings tripped, and I stopped, turned, started back for her, but she had recovered, merely skinning her knees, and told me: “Keep running! I’m all right.”

  From the other side of the rock, Brocious swore and yelled: “Them kids and that lady! Dutch, they’re…!”

  “Forget them. They can’t go far!”

  We sprinted down the cañon, away from Ringo and Brocious, away from Whitey Grey, and I felt myself smile as we ran.

  Why, that old fool had outsmarted them after all.

  Of course, Dutch Johnny Ringo was right. We couldn’t go far. We still carried our canteens, but had no food, and only a slingshot and Ian Spencer Henry’s antiquated cap-and-ball pistol, which so far had proved ineffective as a weapon. Besides, Jasmine’s limp grew more pronounced, and she clutched her left leg as it stiffened.

  A shot roared again. Muffled voices. Yet no pursuit.

  Not now, at least.

  Jasmine slowed, and Miss Giddings said to let her walk, that we all needed to rest.

  “Where are we going?” Ian Spencer Henry asked.

  Miss Giddings had to catch her breath. “I…don’t know.”

  “The ranch house?” Jasmine asked.

  “No,” I said. “They’d look there. We can keep on walking, out of this place, back to Stein’s Peak station. Those velocipede cars are there…maybe….” Doubts again. What if Southern Pacific officials had discovered our plunder and confiscated the stolen handcars? There was no water at Stein’s Peak, and we didn’t have enough in our canteens to make it back to the Playas. Besides, for all I knew, the water in Valle de Las Playas had dried up by now anyway.