by Gwen Moffat
‘We have a small problem,’ Dolly said, ‘a small Ute problem.’
She stood at the cabin door, her back to the light. Miss Pink was drying her breakfast dishes. Dolly sounded casual, only a trifle put out. ‘Birdie,’ she went on, ‘the Indian child, is missing. There’s nothing to worry about – ’ as Miss Pink looked concerned, ‘ – it’s not the first time. The worst that can happen is she’ll get off her pony and go to sleep and the pony will wander home. She’s too small to walk far.’
‘How old did you say she was?’
‘Six.’
‘You mean, she goes riding alone, in this country, at six years old?’
Dolly shrugged and looked round the cabin. ‘I’ve brought lunch so you don’t have to prepare anything. It’s a gorgeous morning. We’re not going to change our plans. Birdie will have gone up Horsethief Canyon and that’s what I intended anyway, take you into Rustler Park. And Birdie will be headed that way. She did that last time.’
‘Why, what’s the attraction there?’
‘There’s an old cave, a ruin or something … This valley’s full of Indian ruins. I guess Birdie’s old enough to start looking for her roots.’
‘Aren’t her people worried?’
‘Paula’s always worried about Birdie, and Sam’s in trouble because he’s supposed to keep the child’s pony in a locked paddock. The idea is she’s too small to go off without the pony. And then she goes and jumps it over the rails – bareback! I ask you: she’s not going to come to much harm on the trail if she can do that, is she? Sam will be thinking that way too, so I guess he’s not bothered. Come on, let’s go before the sun gets too hot. You drive to John’s place; I’ll follow.’
A handsome, mouse-coloured horse was tied to a rail outside the cabin. Dolly handed Miss Pink a pair of saddle bags. ‘Put anything you want to take in those. Bring binoculars, if you have any; they could come in useful.’
‘I always carry them,’ Miss Pink said shortly, not liking this, thinking that the situation held sinister undertones, trying to stifle the thought with the reminder that a child who could jump her pony over rails bareback could not be incompetent on a trail.
At the ranch they found Forset saddling a muscular yellow horse which eyed the newcomers with interest. Miss Pink tied her bags behind the saddle and adjusted the leathers. She looked round and spied a section of tree trunk, solid as a rock. Using it as a mounting block, she climbed on, settled herself and started to walk the yellow horse in a circle. Dolly and Forset watched critically.
‘He may do a little buck on the grass,’ Forset said. ‘He hasn’t been out recently. Just keep his head up and that’ll be the end of it.’ He turned to Dolly. ‘You’re going into Rustler. Then what?’
‘Either Rustler or the Straight Canyons, I thought, but if we see Birdie’s tracks going up Horsethief into the Straights, we should go that way. We can go up Rustler another time.’
‘She won’t go into the Straights. She knows it’s in the Barrier.’
‘Is it?’
‘It has to be. Someone would have found it otherwise. Never mind Birdie; I want to know where you’re going to be.’
Dolly sighed. ‘There are two of us, John. Tell you what we’ll do: at the Y below the Twist, we’ll build a cairn in the middle of whichever trail we take. How’s that?’
‘All right as far as it goes, but if you go up Horsethief and into the Straight Canyons, how are we to know which one of those you’re in?’
‘You mean, if we don’t come back by dark? If we’d both fallen under our horses and been so seriously injured neither of us could get back? Come on, John; you’re as bad as Paula Estwick.’
She was mounted now. He looked up at her dumbly: an elderly greying man wearing his heart on his sleeve, forgetting that a third person was present. Miss Pink turned her horse and started to walk away. Suddenly Dolly was beside her and both horses sprang towards open ground. For a moment the women had their hands full. Miss Pink’s mount sketched a buck before she had him under control and then they turned and waved to Forset who was watching anxiously.
‘He’s getting senile,’ Dolly said. ‘He thinks I’m one of his daughters.’ She grinned tightly as her gelding danced. ‘Maybe he’s worried about old Yaller there.’
Not as much as I am, Miss Pink thought. She had no time for the view, not even to notice their direction. She was waiting for more bucks. They came to the creek and plunged through, scattering diamonds in the sun. Their jeans were drenched. As they came up the far bank Dolly shouted: ‘O.K.?’ on a rising inflection which Miss Pink recognised with a sinking heart. ‘Keep behind me,’ Dolly shouted, and they were off.
The yellow horse moved like a dream and in a moment her qualms evaporated and she was enjoying herself, remembering just in time to stay on the trail where the mousey rump ahead effectively blocked Yaller’s attempts to break into a gallop. Dolly was going at the brisk lope of a range rider and Miss Pink admired the control she had over her mount when another animal was pounding on its heels.
After half a mile they came to a loop of the creek and slowed to a walk. The trail ran along the bank, in places eroded by flash floods. Suddenly the ground crumbled under the yellow horse and his hind quarters went down. Scrambling with his front feet he clawed his way back like a dog, emerged on the bank and tried to take off as he felt the grass under his feet.
‘Hold him,’ Dolly called – softly so as not to exacerbate matters.
Miss Pink did so. Restrained on the spot, the yellow bucked, bucked higher, his rider clutching the horn. Then Dolly walked her horse deliberately past his nose and he fell into place behind, mild as a lamb.
‘Now we can settle down,’ Dolly said over her shoulder. ‘How do you like him?’
‘He’s great fun,’ Miss Pink said. ‘Smooth as silk – most of the time. But an appalling name – Yaller.’
Dolly dropped back and walked beside her. ‘John is devoid of imagination. This one’s Mouse.’
‘I thought that was your horse.’
‘John gave it to me.’ Miss Pink was silent. ‘You might have noticed,’ Dolly said delicately, ‘that John’s taken a shine to me. His wife died years ago, and his girls live in the East and he’s lonely.’
‘He’s also in love.’
‘Is it all that noticeable?’
‘Perhaps I’m more observant than most people.’
‘Yes, well— ’ Dolly was defiant, as if the question had been asked. ‘I’m not going to marry him. I value my independence.’
‘We all do.’
Dolly shot her a glance. ‘You saw how protective he was. I couldn’t stand that. At the cabin I can stay out all night, visit with friends in Grand Junction, wherever. How could I lead that kind of life with John? Old men are terribly possessive. I like things as they are. I’ve got my horse and my home and a studio; I’ve got enough money for good food and nice clothes and pay the vet’s bills, and I’ve got my freedom. What more could I want?’
‘You never married?’
‘Ladies like me don’t marry; they have relationships.’
‘And children. You never wanted them?’
‘No, I didn’t.’ She turned innocent eyes on her companion. ‘And you? You never married?’
‘Touché!’ Miss Pink smiled. After a moment she said: ‘I’m not all that different from you; I write romantic novels where you paint, and perhaps there were fewer – relationships – but, I agree, one does cherish one’s independence. Of course, being able to earn a comfortable living puts one in a position to choose.’
‘A lot of women marry just to be supported. They’re kept women.’
‘An old concept.’
‘It’s true, though.’
Conversation lapsed. They had come to another loop of the creek which meandered all the way down this level section of the valley. Now they were approaching that side stream which Miss Pink had noticed last night, and across from the confluence stood the cabin with the goats that belonged to
the organic Stenbocks. Miss Pink looked right, up the course of the tributary, and saw rock rising in massive benches to a shadowy cliff that must be showing a false summit, for its crown of spires was hidden from this point; they were too close underneath. About a hundred feet above them, above a black stain on the slickrock, the cliff was gouged: scooped out like an enormous cove in a sea coast. The walls of this cove, what they could see of them, were several hundred feet in height and overhung gently.
‘What an intimidating place,’ Miss Pink observed. ‘Can you get into it?’
‘Climbers might, with ropes, but I wouldn’t advise it. There must be a spring, you can see the tops of trees, and this stream has to come from there. It will go underground for a way. The black stain down the rock is just a bit of seepage. But a spring means rodents, so that big bay will be crawling with snakes. Why are you interested?’
‘It’s fascinating to think that we’re looking at a place where no one’s ever been.’
‘I doubt that. The Ancient Ones will have been in there. They’ve been everywhere. A lot of their ruins are inaccessible without ropes. The Indians used ladders to reach them.’
‘You mean the Anasazi Indians, like the ones who built the cliff houses at Mesa Verde?’
‘All over the South-West. Mesa Verde, places like that, are just the best examples. The people who lived here weren’t nearly so sophisticated. Their art is good, though. Superb sometimes.’
They stared up at the impending walls. ‘What is Birdie looking for?’ Miss Pink asked quietly.
‘It’s just a legend. She’s heard a rumour, that’s all. You know how kids embroider things.’
‘A ruin? Or something else?’
‘There’s a story about a cave. Of course there are caves all over the place. Look around you.’ She was right; the cliff walls were pocked with caves, large and small.
‘But this cave is special,’ Miss Pink pressed.
‘They call it the Cave of Hands. It’s only a story.’
‘What is the story? Real hands?’
‘Oh no! Nothing like that. Just a cave with handprints, you know? They often signed their pictures with a handprint, the Ancient Ones, but this cave is just hands, nothing else. I mean, that’s the story.’
‘And no one knows where it is?’
Dolly turned to the trail. Miss Pink fell in beside her. ‘It’s like the stories about lost gold mines,’ the younger woman continued. ‘Someone found the Cave of Hands and told someone else where it was and then died. The second man went to find it and never came back so no one knows where he went. That kind of thing. You ask me, someone made the whole thing up to attract the tourists except the tourists never caught on. I don’t believe the place exists at all.’
‘John said it had to be in the Barrier.’
‘Because everyone’s been all the other places: Mormons, miners, ranchers. And no one’s been in the Barrier or the Maze except probably Indians. So that’s where Birdie thinks it is. I suppose the kids think it’s there and she got it from them. But she’s living in a fantasy world! She’s only a little girl; she can’t reason.’ Dolly’s voice dropped. ‘She’s not a secure child,’ she muttered. ‘She can’t be, with her background. I suppose it’s not long since she understood Sam wasn’t her father, that she’s Indian. And she’s looking for traces of other Indians. It’s ironical when you think about it. It’s the Pueblo Indians down south in New Mexico that have the Anasazi blood, not Utes. If the cave exists someone ought to take her there, let her see it. She might be quieter then.’
Miss Pink made to respond but Mouse broke into a trot and Yaller followed. As they advanced, the rock behind quickly blocked the cove from view. The formations above them now were different from the elongated spires; these were squat towers in shades of red with pale caps like solidified dough. In places the caps overhung as if they had been petrified the moment before they started to drip. Here and there an outer tower had subsided, like a high-rise on poor foundations, and the cap had slid off to shatter at its foot.
The pastures ended at a point where the towers came close to the creek. The trail was overhung with cottonwoods. They could hear children calling in the distance. They were passing the Olson place. On the other side of the water the bank rose high and rocky. A butte appeared with a strange triangular rock on its summit.
‘That’s the Blanket Man,’ Dolly said.
‘Do all the features have names?’
‘The unusual ones. I named some of them. Look, that’s the Stone Hawk.’
Above on their right, aloof from the towers, was a grey image like a perched bird, its head sunk between its shoulders as if it were watching the valley. It must have been fifty feet high.
‘I didn’t notice that last night,’ Miss Pink said.
‘It wouldn’t show up against the cliff. You see it best from Rustler. If you stand under a column called the Pale Hunter at the side of Rustler, and you get Stone Hawk in line with the Blanket Man, there’s supposed to be a way down to the valley through the Maze. Rustler’s just above us: a mile away perhaps, but there’s the Barrier and the Maze between. The Barrier is the needles and the Maze is these old towers. When you go round, as we’re going to do, it’s nine or ten miles to Rustler.’
‘And is there a short-cut?’
‘John says there isn’t, and he was born here. Or if there is, no one’s found it, so far as I know. It’s played down anyway; no one wants the kids in the Maze, looking for a way through and getting lost. I’ve flown over it; John gave me a trip in a plane my last birthday. It’s terrifying to look down on. The towers have what are called joints all the way round them but they’re not always continuous. If you tried to get through you wouldn’t be able to walk in a straight line for more than a few yards.’
‘In mazes you can leave threads, string … You could build cairns.’
‘It’s not that simple. Rustler’s a few hundred feet higher than this point, so any route would be descending. Imagine jumping down to a lower level and then finding you’ve got to retreat because the next jump is about fifty feet – and then finding you can’t get back. Or you’ve forgotten the way back. Or someone’s kicked away a cairn by accident!’ Dolly shuddered.
‘But no one has been lost there – that you know of?’ Miss Pink’s smile was replaced by an expression of horror.
Dolly shook her head vehemently. ‘Birdie would never leave her pony – anyway, she’s got enough Indian blood in her not to attempt to get through the Maze on foot. When they found her the other times – once in Rustler, asleep under a juniper with the pony tied to the tree, the other time in the Twist – each time they heard the pony first. It neighed. Let’s move on. We’re too close to the Estwicks’ place and I can’t stand Paula in hysterics. Or anyone else for that matter.’
After a mile or so the trees ended at a wire gate and beyond was a flowery meadow between the rocks and the creek. Dolly closed the gate and they cantered towards buildings in the distance. At the far end of the meadow the Duval brothers were trying to cut a bull out of a herd. Dolly went to help them and, with the approach of another rider, the bull turned meekly into a lane that ended in a corral.
The Duval men did not look like brothers. Bob was dark and intense and he regarded Miss Pink seriously, even critically – or was he, she wondered, resenting the interruption and thinking of whatever they were about to do with the bull? Alex Duval, on the other hand, was a big bluff man, a jolly fellow, beaming at her, crushing her fingers in a powerful grip, naïvely expressing his surprise that an English lady should be mounted on old Yaller: ‘You didn’t come off when he bucked?’
Nothing was said of Birdie until Dolly remarked that they were probably going into Rustler, to see if the child were at the old line camp.
‘That’s where she’ll be,’ Alex said, smiling: ‘Fast asleep in the shade with that ol’ pony standing guard; there or somewheres in the Twist.’
His brother threw him a glance, then studied the bull in the cor
ral. ‘She’ll come to no harm,’ he said tightly. ‘Nothing to hurt her in the valley.’
‘No one’d hurt a little girl,’ Alex said, varying it slightly, his smile fading to be replaced by a frown.
‘She’ll be thirsty.’ Bob’s tone was suddenly loud, his eyes jumping in the shadow of his hat brim. ‘She’ll be wanting home. We won’t keep you.’
‘That was rather a curt dismissal,’ Miss Pink said as they rode away.
‘Bob’s like that.’ Dolly was casual. ‘Terribly intense about everything. And of course: two ladies interrupting men at work – with a bull!’ She hooted with laughter.
‘They’re very different. You’d never take them for brothers.’
‘You think not? Bob’s the elder, and Alex is a bit – naïve. Not very worldly, you know? I think he’s illiterate, so that could imply he’s simple – but harmless. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘That was my impression.’
Beyond Wind Whistle ranch they left the main valley and turned up that canyon, called Horsethief, which Miss Pink had noticed the previous evening. ‘This is magnificent,’ she announced with sudden fervour. ‘To be entering a canyon which a few hours ago represented the Unknown. I feel like a pioneer.’
Dolly was closing the last gate. Miss Pink held Mouse’s reins and stared up the swath of cottonwoods in the bottom to the rock that formed the headwall. Dolly relieved her of the reins. ‘This is where it gets a bit hairy,’ she said. ‘Keep in my track. I never asked: you don’t mind heights?’
The canyon was steep-sided and, upstream of the gate, water fell over a band of rock – the Lower Jump, Dolly called it. The trail doubled back on itself. After a long gradient there was a hairpin and the path continued, gently rising, graded for horses, the exposure increasing.
Miss Pink was disturbed when she thought of Birdie above these drops. She found herself thinking: but the child is an Indian; she may have some ingrained sense of danger like an animal. She shook her head. ‘Do you see any tracks?’ she called, herself seeing only trampled dust.
‘There’s a pony ahead of us,’ Dolly shouted. ‘The Duvals have been up here recently, or someone, but the small prints are the latest.’ She rounded a couple of hairpins, gave Yaller room to complete the top turn, and stopped for a breather. They studied the slopes ahead.