There was far to go and it was midafternoon. He would never reach the lake now before dark. There was not a chance of it. Not a chance.
NEAR A LONE waterhole high on Black Mesa, south of the KR ranch house, a big man crouched alone in the darkness, cleaning his rifle. That man was Jaime Brigo.
Hunted like an animal, he had contrived to escape. To the best of his knowledge, all on the ranch had been killed except Nita Riordan and Maria. The former had gone riding in the early dawn and so had missed the attack. Where she was he did not know, but he had infinite respect for her judgment, and she had been mounted on a good horse and had been armed. Further, he was sure he had later seen Kilkenny atop the ridge overlooking the ranch. As for Maria, she was an old woman and would not be harmed. They would need her services to care for the house.
Of Cain Brockman, Ed, and the other three men, he thought only with a dumb pain. He had known these men and worked with them. Ed he had seen go down shooting, trying to stem that awful mass of cattle. One of the other men had been roped and dragged to death by Andy Tetlow. So far as he knew, he alone was left of the KR outfit. He was an educated man, but beneath the knowledge he possessed he was first, last and always an Indian, a Yaqui. He was basically still a savage, and his home and his friends had been attacked. Now he was moving out on his own private war.
He had no horse. He had discarded his boots and made of his saddle bags a pair of crude moccasins. Now he was starting out and he was not thinking of prisoners. He was thinking of death. Huge, powerful and cleanly muscled, he was not disturbed by what lay ahead. In the darkness he moved out, and in the darkness he struck.
Carl Hadley was a tough young Missouri rider of the old Bald Knob breeding. He had killed three men in his time, robbed a bank and rustled a good many cows. The first job he had held had been with the Forty, and he had helped them to take over range before this. He was enjoying the power of the brand he rode for. He was happy to see the herd take over the KR. He had been one of those who looked upon the murder of Carson with satisfaction.
On this night he was riding along a dim trail north of Black Mesa. Ahead of him, a stone fell, then rolled. He rode forward, gun in hand. Above him loomed a boulder, and as he rode past it he had a sensation as of something huge and black dropping upon him. He was wrenched from the saddle and hurled to the ground.
Stunned, he started to stagger to his feet and was struck and knocked rolling. He came up and grabbed for the knife he always carried, but his knife wrist was seized by a big hand that shut down hard and the bones in his wrist crunched under that power and a scream of agony rang from his lips, and then another huge hand seized his throat and there was a brief instant of blind struggling before a darkness washed over him and he went limp and helpless.
Brigo dropped the body of Carl Hadley and walked to the horse. It shied slightly, then hearing the easy voice of the big man, it thrust out a nose at him. Brigo had a way with animals. They understood him and he them. He swung into the saddle and felt the scabbard. There was a rifle here.
Jaime Brigo started toward the KR. Somewhere his hat had been lost. The wind ruffled his straight black hair, his big jaws moved ponderously over the chew of tobacco. Enemies had moved against his beloved employer, the girl he had seen grow from childhood, whose father had meant more to him than any living being. He was counterattacking with all that was in him.
He struck again, later, with that knife, killing one of them and injuring the other. The injured man told a wild and incoherent story. Cowhands of the Forty listened uneasily and avoided each other’s eyes. They were superstitious men, but sometimes things happened, and…two men left the Forty that night. They just rode off.
Phin was found, still bound. He could give no good account of what had happened except that the man who struck him down had been Kilkenny. Jared Tetlow knew men too well not to realize what he must do if he was to keep his hands in line. The time had come to move.
THE MOON WAS high before Kilkenny reached the tiny lake. An hour before, Brigo had killed his first man. Fifteen minutes earlier, Phin Tetlow had been found and released. News had not yet come in of the attacks by Brigo.
In town the lines were being harshly drawn. Bob Early with his family had moved across the creek to Doc Blaine’s older but sturdier home, a home moreover that was backed by Dolan’s. Ernleven had deserted his beloved stove and come across the creek bringing with him two finely engraved pistols and a twin-barrel shotgun. He also brought a burlap sack of shotgun shells.
In his saloon, Happy Jack sat staring at the cards he was riffling. Harry Lott had stopped drinking and was staring sullenly up the street. Aside from Macy, he had been king in this town. He was so no longer. He wore both guns and he was thinking of his own express gun upstairs in his room.
The streets were empty and still. Few men loitered around the bars and as the evening drew on, these grew fewer. Somehow the news that Kilkenny had been in town filtered through and was whispered around the bars and tables. Dee Havalik rode through in the afternoon accompanied by several men, but he had taken the road west and had not stopped in the streets.
Doc Blaine went with Dolan and Shorty to pick up Cain Brockman. They found him conscious and wary, and they got safely back to town. All he could tell them was that Nita had been away from the ranch when the Forty struck, and that he thought Brigo had escaped. He remembered Kilkenny coming for him, remembered his fight with Phin, and the beginning of the ride on the horse. He had passed out and recalled little else. He had awakened in darkness under the willows and found the gun and canteen. The rest he surmised and waited.
Elsewhere in the town people talked and there was much disputing about the rights and wrongs of the fight. And very little about the impending result. Agreement was unanimous that Forty could not lose. As the night drew on, the east side of town waited, breathless. On the west side, the people in Doc Blaine’s house went to sleep with their clothing on, ready to rise at a moment’s notice.
Shorty was on watch in the trees alongside the bridge. Pete was watching westward from Dolan’s roof.
KILKENNY APPROACHED THE lake carefully, but found no campfire, no one. Carefully he searched the place from a wide circle, but saw no hint that anyone was there. Twice he risked being shot to call out, but there was neither a shot nor a reply.
Daylight broke under lowering skies, and in the first light, Lance made a hasty search. He was tired and stiff from sleeping on the ground. It looked like rain and he had no slicker, but then, on the far side of the lake he found the kicked-out remains of a campfire. And he found where a horse had been picketed. Searching around, he found a place where a struggle had taken place, and then where Nita had walked away with three men. One of those men had very small feet.
Backtracking, he found their tracks. Four riders had come here, and three had dismounted and approached Nita’s camp while one remained with the horses.
Kilkenny paused and lighted a cigarette, carefully shielding the glow of the match. The logical place for them to have awaited him was right here. They might have ambushed him here when he came to meet Nita. However, Havalik was no fool, and having lived as a hunted man himself, he would guess that any camp Kilkenny approached would be approached too warily. Moreover, they had several times lost his trail before this and knew he was a skilled frontiersman, adept at woodcraft and with all the tricks of the trail.
So they had taken Nita and gone. To return to Tetlow? That was their best bet, but would that be the bet Havalik would make? He would be thinking more of Kilkenny and killing him than of anything else. And he had no doubt those small boot-tracks belonged to the gunman.
Mounting the gray, Kilkenny turned to trailing the party. The trail led east into the worst of the mountains, toward his own cabin and the Valley of Whispering Wind!
Dolan had not been mistaken about the gray, for the horse had a willingness for the trail equaled only by Kilkenny’s own buckskin. The tracks led plainly off toward the east and after crossing th
e plateau, dipped into a narrow gap between gigantic cliffs. Here the sand was hard-packed and the hoof scars were plain as print. Kilkenny gave some time to studying each hoof print, knowing that upon his memory of their characteristics might depend success or failure.
Kilkenny looked at the sky. He had left his slicker under Cain’s head and had no protection against the rain. He rode on, and the trail became increasingly bad. He was not worried about Nita, for she had been born to the saddle, nor much worried about these men as long as Havalik was along, for the gunman was not eager after women. He was a man who lived to kill, and Kilkenny doubted that he even thought of Nita as anything but a pawn in the game. That might not be true of the others, but in the West few men would risk bothering a woman. It was the one thing the frontier would not accept.
A few spattering drops of rain fell, and Kilkenny dug into his bedroll and got out his ground sheets and wrapped it about him as best he could. It was cumbersome and did not help around his neck, for it kept slipping down. It did, however, keep off the worst of the rain, and it was now raining hard.
He hurried the gray, lifting the horse to a canter. If the rain continued the tracks would be washed out.
And within a half dozen miles, they were.
But not before they had told their story to Kilkenny. Havalik was hunting a place where there was shelter from the wind and rain. It showed in every deviation of the trail. He was hunting such a place, and he would not go much further. The rain eased a little, and lowering black clouds crowded down around the mountains, drifting in gray tendrils through the passes and between the cliff tops. The wind stirred and on the breath of the wind came a faint smell of woodsmoke!
It was late evening now, for the trail had been long. Kilkenny stripped off his ground sheet and rolled it, returning it to the place behind the saddle, and then he slipped into a worn buckskin jacket, but one that left his gun butts free. His mind was utterly cold, his eyes like those of a searching hawk. He walked his horse, keeping to the sand or soft earth, careful to strike no stone.
Again he paused. The smell of woodsmoke was stronger now. A gleam caught his eyes, and looking through the junipers he saw the fire. It was built in a cut back under a bulging cliff and several men stood about the fire. Their horses were picketed just beyond, and Nita Riordan stood alone on the outside of the fire.
Kilkenny hesitated for the wink of an eyelash, and then he slapped the spurs to the startled gray and palmed his Colt. The first shot rang out and he charged into the camp, yelling and shooting. A man spun and dropped, others dove for shelter, and Nita, her eyes suddenly alive, sprang quickly left. His gun exploding, Kilkenny hit the camp at a dead run, bending swiftly to sweep his arm around Nita’s waist. Instantly, her foot sought the stirrup and then the gray was past the camp and running while the frightened horses lunged and plunged. One jerked free a picket pin and stampeded out of camp.
Behind them a savage yell rang out, then a shot, but the shot was wild. Kilkenny did not halt the gray and Nita crawled quickly behind him despite his demand that she get in front. The gray loved to run and despite the added burden, he ran now, plunging through the wet junipers that slashed at their faces and drenched them with water. Looping the reins about the pommel, Kilkenny fed cartridges into the now empty Colt.
Then he slowed the racing horse and turned swiftly right. He descended into a canyon, and rode south at a trot, then coming to a branch, he turned north again. They had been riding for not more than ten minutes when Kilkenny drew up sharply. Far off, distant in the mountains, came a muffled roar!
His face went white and he felt his breath go out of him. Swiftly he glanced right and left. On either side were the broken but unscalable walls of the canyon, and behind him for more than a mile were the same canyon walls!
He did not hesitate, but spurred the frightened horse forward. The roar grew and behind him he felt Nita’s clasp tighten with fear. Nobody needed to speak, they all knew it was a huge wall of water roaring down the canyon toward them at express train speed! A wall of water running off the rocks of the mountains into the canyon. And behind them, there was no escape. Before them was the water.
Nevertheless, flight was useless. Their only hope lay ahead. Rounding a bend in the canyon, Kilkenny’s heart sank, for nowhere in sight was there anything that looked like escape.
Nita’s arms tightened. “Lance! On the right there! Isn’t that a ledge?”
It was. Swinging the gray, Lance cut across to it. The path was unbelievably narrow. Dropping to the ground beside the girl who had instantly realized the necessity, Kilkenny took the bridle. “Go ahead,” he said, “and hurry!”
Up she went and Kilkenny followed. It clung to the face of the cliff like an eyebrow of crumbling rock. Several times rocks fell away from under the feet of the horse and fell into the canyon, and now they were only six feet off the bottom. Yet the path switched back and led to a higher ledge, at least fifteen feet above the canyon floor. Nita turned and went up and Kilkenny got the gray to the switchback. It was close, but the horse made it, ears pricked at the trail, nostrils wide with fear at the now thunderous roar behind them. They climbed to the ledge, and Nita was already crawling into what was almost a crack that ran back in the direction from which they had come, but a crack floored with talus and wide enough for the horse. It might be a trap, but it did lead up.
Nita scrambled into the crack and mounted swiftly as an Indian, and Kilkenny followed. Nothing loath, and frightened by the roar behind it, the gray scrambled after them, fighting for hoof surface, slipping and scrambling. They gained another ten feet and then came out on a ledge that was forty feet above the canyon floor, and here they seemed to be stopped. Hastily Nita went searching about among the rocks for some means of escape, and then the roar mounted until the very mountains seemed crumbling and crashing about them. Turning, Kilkenny glanced back.
A huge, rolling wall of water, bearing great logs on its crest and tumbling them like chips, was sweeping down from the higher mountains. It was high, higher than their present ledge, and he saw at a glance they would be engulfed. Swinging his eyes to Nita, he saw her mouth wide. She must have been screaming but he heard no sound, but she was beckoning. Dragging the horse, he raced to her. She was pointing into a black opening whose floor slanted upward into the rock itself!
She instantly scrambled into it and then the wave hit. Kilkenny felt the tug on the reins as the water caught the gray. Off on one side, the full force of the blow broken by the rocks about them, Kilkenny managed to keep his hold on the bridle even as the water washed over him.
Water roared about him and he fought his way forward. Nita had disappeared somewhere in the darkness ahead but he managed to keep a hold on the bridle. His feet were on the sand and the horse was struggling to follow.
“Lance!”
The cry was a faint sound from the darkness, lost in the thunderous roar that filled the cavern. His thrust out hand, feeling into the darkness before him, suddenly struck wet cloth and excited fingers grasped his arm. Cowering together in the darkness, they listened to the sound of the water, the gray horse trembling beside them.
Then slowly the sound began to die and the water receded suddenly as it had come. Clinging together, soaked to the skin, they waited in the cave’s darkness.
They were free. They were safe. The water was gone.
Chapter 7
LANCE?” NITA STIRRED in the wet darkness. “Do you think they were killed?”
“No telling.” He got up and, holding her hand, led the way down the slanting floor into the gray light of outer day. Wet and bedraggled, they looked down the canyon, unchanged except that now the sand was hard-packed and the walls were wet and dripping, Painstakingly they made their way to the canyon’s bottom.
They walked on, anxious to keep moving. Slowly warmth returned to their flesh and watching ahead, Kilkenny could see they were bearing directly into the heart of the Blues.
“Where are we going, Lance?”
&
nbsp; “Home. We’re going home.”
Mounting an alluvial fan, they found their way through a shattered opening in the canyon’s upper wall and came out on the plateau.
Before them was the towering rampart of the Blue Mountains. Three mighty peaks loomed against the sky, and forward of their position, three more peaks. The sky was heavily overcast, the peaks shrouded in black masses of cumulus. About them the desert was gray, tufted with midnight blue clumps of shrubbery. The scene was shocking in its majesty, breathtaking in its power. The great shoulders of the mountain vanished into the clouds, the gray earth was streaked with the white trails of runoff water.
Turning, they looked over a vast panorama of foothills and valley. Despite the clouds the rainwashed air was piercingly clear, and miles to the south a few faint trails of smoke marked the town of Horsehead. Nearer the terrain was slashed with ragged canyons, ripped deep into the rocky terrain and tufted here and there with juniper.
“We’re going up and through those mountains.” Lance indicated the vast jumble of peaks, black under the clouds.
“Now? In this storm?”
“Now,” he said grimly, “right now!”
They mounted the gray, who switched his tail at the added burden. There was no trail, for they followed along a mountainside with the vast sweep of forty miles lying below and beyond them. In the distance gray rain drew a veil across the valley. Twice they passed the paths of small slides, and once worked their way through a great gully ripped from the mountain by a rush of water.
There was nothing to be gained by worrying of what might happen in Horsehead. The men were seasoned in frontier warfare and he had first to get Nita to a safe place, and the only one that might be secure was the Valley of Whispering Wind.
Despite the lateness of the hour the sky retained a strange afterglow as of distant fire, but now that had gone and they were left in utter darkness broken only by far-off lightning and the mutter of thunder among the canyons. They could go no further in the unknown darkness.
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