"Of course." She flattened a palm against her temple. "An eye for an eye… isn't that the law you live by, Frank?"
"I don't make the laws, Beth. I don't set the price."
"But you think it's a fair one."
Ulring lifted and settled his shoulders. "Is a life for a life fair?"
"Fair or not—collecting your sort of price ten times over, a hundred times over, won't bring Dennis back."
"You're too gentle for this world, Beth."
"Weak is the word, I believe."
"No. You're tough. Gentle is different."
"I don't feel tough. Not at all." She raised her hurt, searching eyes to his. "Frank…"
Ulring picked up his hat and walked to the door, pausing there. "I'll try to take him alive, Beth. I can't promise any more."
A grin lurked at the corners of Ulring's mouth as he headed up the street. Boy, he told himself, you missed your calling: you should have gone on the stage. He would see her tomorrow; by then she'd have had a good private cry or two and he could talk with her some more. It wasn't too soon, he thought, for a round of self-congratulations. He'd set the wheels in motion; time and loneliness would do the rest, moving Bethany McAllister steadily toward the closer, always closer comfort that an understanding friend might offer.
Frank Ulring. Friend of the grieving widow. He almost chuckled aloud.
He made his face grim as he tramped up on the porch of the Pink Lady Saloon and shouldered through the batwing doors. Claude had gotten the word around fast; a dozen men had already assembled at the bar. They broke off talking and looked expectantly at Ulring as he bellied up. Bert Stang, owner of the place, was behind the bar: a chunky, florid man with pomaded hair and flowered sleeve garters.
"Howdy, Frank. What's all this ruckus Claude's been talking up?"
"In a minute, Bert. Give me a shot of skullbuster."
Ulring glanced along the line of faces. Most of the men were merchants or clerks; one between-jobs cowpoke was there, and a couple of teamsters. Ulring nodded at them all, called several by name, then looked over his shoulder at the lone customer sitting at a table, the far corner one.
It was old Caspar Bloodgood. Down from the mountains to get his spring shearing and dicker a price for his winter's cache of furs. His presence here could be a stroke of luck…
Ulring gave the old man a civil nod. "Howdy, Bloodgood. How's trapping?"
Bloodgood raised his face from his mug of beer, wiping the foam from his whiskers with a horny forefinger. "Better'n this stinkin' Spurlock beer o' yourn. I tasted horse pee outshined it."
Bert Stang folded his massive arms on the bar. "Old man, you likely have." He grimaced.
Everyone laughed but Caspar Bloodgood, who didn't give a solitary damn for either compliments or catcalls—or for humanity in general. He came down to Spurlock twice a year to sell his furs or buy his meager needs. Close to seventy now, he was one of the last of the mountain men who'd tramped and trapped this region two generations ago. He stood over six feet in his blackened smoky-soft buckskins—a dessicated loose-strung bundle of wire and rawhide: you almost expected him to creak when he moved. Even the cowboys and the teamsters, toughly weathered men, seemed pale and almost soft beside him.
Ulring took his whiskey in a swallow; he motioned Bert to set up a round and then began talking. He told them what he'd told Bethany. None had reason to question it; there wasn't a detail that couldn't be verified. All the evidence was there: the cattle trail to Leggett's, the dozen cows hidden in the timber, the kid's dead horse, the bodies of Sid Leggett and Dennis McAllister. Leggett had been friendless and without family; Dennis had claimed no large fund of affection in the community. No one was likely to be particularly interested in how either man had died. Excepting Bethany, who had already accepted the Ulring version.
"One way or another," Ulring added in a mild voice, "I'm going to track that breed kid down. Any of you know where his camp is?"
"Sure," said Cap Merrill, the middle-aged cowpoke. "I can lead you straight to 'er, Frank. But she's a ways back in the hills and there's a heap of mean country to cross. Anyways he'll know we'd look there first."
"He's afoot, no gun," Ulring said. "I'm gambling he's got some horses and supplies, maybe a spare gun too, back in that camp and will figure it's worth the risk of trying for 'em. He's got to get there on foot from Leggett's, remember. How far, Cap?"
"I'd hazard a good twenty mile as the crow flies. But he ain't no crow. He won't reach his camp before dark."
"Good. How far to the camp from here?"
"Mebbe fifteen mile. But we ain't crows neither and he's got a long head start. You aim to set out first light, Frank?"
"We've got horses," Ulring said. "We've got a couple hours daylight left. Then a full moon to travel by. First light? Hell, Cap, we'll be close onto his camp by then—and be there ahead of him. Lay up for him."
One of the teamsters rumbled a laugh. "Count me in. I ain't dusted off a blessed red hide since I sojered at Fort Yuma."
Bert Stang cocked his brows at Ulring. "How about that, Frank? You aim to take the breed boy dead?"
"Well," Ulring said gravely, "I never could see reading Scripture to any posse of grown men. Particularly when the lad they're after has killed in cold blood. I sure as hell don't advise a man taking any chance with a killer."
"That's sense," Bert nodded. "Kid's part Injun too… any man who's fought siwashes knows better'n to fool around. With an Injun you best get in the first shot and make it count."
Mutters of agreement. Ulring spun his glass between his fingers and listened, half-smiling. Any man here would normally need only the thinnest of excuses to throw down on an Indian. Primed as they were now, they'd need no excuse at all. The Cantrell kid would be dead the instant he crossed any of their sights. He wouldn't live long enough to carry tales…
Ulring looked at the old mountain man. "How about you, Bloodgood? Join the posse?"
Caspar Bloodgood took an unhurried pull at his beer before glancing up. His leathery elfin face was seamed with a mesh of crinkling weather lines, giving it a look that was sly and irascible and puckish. The barber had cropped his long hair off so close to his gaunt skull that his scalp showed pink as a baby's under the sparse white fuzz.
"I cut this Navajo boy's sign a few times. He is tougher'n whangs and smarter'n a whip. You hosses don't bust him straight off, he'll have you all runnin' in circles. Take another Injun to find him. Or me."
"Seems a fair reason for asking your help," Ulring said. "What about it?"
Bloodgood drained his mug and set it down, fingering a few drops off his whiskers. "How much it worth to you?"
Ulring felt a mixture of surprise and anger. "Not a damn cent. Matter of a citizen's duty."
Bloodgood snorted. "You don't take this citizen on for aye." He picked up his rifle from the table and stalked noiselessly to the doorway.
Ulring said: "Know something, old man? As sheriff of this county, I can deputize you into service and not ask your aye, yes or no."
Bloodgood stopped just short of the doors. He pivoted on a moccasined heel with all the long-muscled grace of a young catamount. When he stopped, his rifle was pointed at the sheriff's belly. A wicked light quivered in his eyes.
"How much you reckon a deputy worth to you, boy?"
Ulring stared at him. "All right… forget it."
"Smart idee if you did too."
Bloodgood backed out through the batwings, heeled about and tramped away.
"Independent bastard, that old boy," said Bert.
Ulring swung back to the bar and reached for the bottle. He poured another drink and swallowed it, feeling it curdle around the hot gut-nettles of his anger. He said thickly: "The hell with him. All I need is a little moonlight and a few men with bark in their bellies. We start out now, we can finish this before the night's over."
The big teamster took a slug straight from the bottle and wiped his mouth on a hairy wrist. "Suits me. You know, though,
that old buckskin bastard got hisself a point. They ought to pay bounty on every Injun carcass a man skins out."
Will-Joe doubted he'd walked so far in his life as he had through this night and the previous afternoon. He'd been a horseman for so long, using horses in all aspects of his work, that his walking muscles had slumped sadly out of shape. The country between Leggett's ranch and his own camp was bitterly rough; it sloped up and down one ridge after another. Even traveling by moonlight, using trails whenever he could, he found it slow going.
After leaving Leggett's, he'd detoured into the sandy wash where he had first found the tracks. He located the deer he'd cached and hacked some strips from the hindquarters to take along. He might not be able to return to the meat before it spoiled, and there was little food at his camp. He faced a brutal prospect of days, maybe weeks, of hunger and discomfort, of hasty break-up camps that would be dry and fireless, of evading parties of men on the hunt for him.
Tramping slowly through the night while the moon waned west, he wondered what his next move should be. Aside from the obvious one of avoiding capture. He was a loner: his first instinct was to run, to hide, to fight a lonely fight… almost anything except seeking help from someone else.
Could he prove his innocence? He didn't see how. Who'd believe that Sheriff Ulring had cold-bloodedly murdered Sid Leggett and another man? Nobody that would do him any good. He thought briefly of Miss Bethany McAllister. But he knew that she had a kind of friendship with Ulring. And suppose she did believe his own story, what could she do?
Frustrations swarmed in his mind. He couldn't just lie low forever: that big blue-eyed wolf of a man wouldn't give up till he was run to ground. Thinking of it, a thin chill washed through him. There were stories about what happened to people—unimportant people—that Ulring went after.
One story in particular. Several years ago when Ulring had been waging his crusade against Navajo thievery, the three Hosteen brothers—members of old Adakhai's band—had run off a few scrawny cows belonging to valley ranchers. Ulring had caught up with them back in the hills. He'd captured two of the brothers; the third, Billy Hosteen, had escaped. Billy had followed at a distance, out of view, as Ulring herded his prisoners toward town. Presently he'd heard shots. A little farther down the trail, he came on his brothers' bodies. Both had been shot through the head, the bodies left for their tribesmen to find.
No mistaking the message. It didn't say merely that Frank Ulring would kill an Indian as casually as he'd swat a fly. It was also an arrogant statement of power, declaring plain as any words that the only justice in Grafton County was white-man justice. That it made no difference how many Navajos knew how the Hosteen boys had died because if any white man were told, he wouldn't believe it. Or if he did, wouldn't care.
The night heeled over its crest and sank toward dawn. The moonlight lost its raw edges where it limbed rocks and brush; a beige of false dawn blurred their outlines. And still he tramped on, the numb ache in his legs turning to shooting pains. The hard parfleche that soled his moccasins had begun to flap loose. He could hardly feel his feet any more; they had the thick deadness of stumps. He was close to his camp; it was all that kept him going.
The land rimmed into a jagged dark ridge against the pearly fan of dawn. Beyond it, he knew, he would see his camp. Birds were starting up in the trees and rocks; he felt a clear singing rush of relief. But caution tempered it even before he topped the ridge.
Suppose Ulring was waiting for him below? It was possible. If he hadn't known where the camp was, the sheriff could easily find out from someone in town, then get there ahead of Will-Joe. Had he had time enough? Will-Joe wasn't sure… a stubborn gambler's instinct told him to go on, take the chance, find out. There were things in that camp he needed, they were his, he meant to claim them. For there'd be no coming back.
He moved downridge at a careful trot, studying the scene. The dawn light was spreading, freshly defining what had been beige-dull outlines. The camp was valleyed between smooth rises, a little brush and timber fringing their flanks and summits. From where he was, everything seemed quiet, the camp undisturbed since he'd left it yesterday morning. Some rough-broken mustangs confined in a crude corral stamped and whickered as he approached. He was alert: he saw nothing, heard nothing and he walked into camp and lost no time preparing to clear out.
He unwrapped his gear and rifled swiftly through it, taking only what he needed. He had a pistol that he never wore ordinarily; Adakhai had given it to him as a boy. It was at least twenty years old, one of the earliest cartridge-firing models; all the bluing was worn off the frame and barrel, and the butt was reinforced with rawhide patching. He'd always kept it clean and oiled against an emergency he couldn't foresee. He thrust it into his belt, jammed a box of loose shells in his pocket, then made a bedroll of a couple blankets, wrapping them around some jerky and cold biscuits, along with a change of clothes and spare moccasins. As he lacked a saddle, he cut a length from his extra lariat to make a harness for securing it over his shoulder.
For a mount, he singled out the toughest and most manageable mount in his rough catch: a piebald mare with a short-coupled build. Dabbing a quick loop on her, he led her from the corral and fashioned a hackamore, then slipped lithe as an eel onto her back. After a few half-hearted cavortions to settle her rough edges, she steadied down.
He looked at the other horses. A damned shame, after all the labor of catching and rough-breaking, to leave them for someone else's use or profit. Reining back to the gate, he unlatched it and rode the mare inside, trotting her back and forth, yelling, swinging the doubled-up remainder of his lariat at the horses' rumps. They milled confusedly toward the gate, then broke out through it and poured off over a saddle that ran between the flanking rises.
Will-Joe followed them, hoorawing them constantly, knowing the half-wild animals would scatter far into the hills. He headed them onto an ungrassed plain that bisected the low hill range. Their hoofs hammered up yellow billows of dust that made him fall back, eyes stinging. As the bitter clouds settled, he sat the mare and watched the mustangs fan away toward the hills and freedom.
He caught a movement. Just a sky-rimmed flicker of movement on one of the hills off west of him. Men were crossing it, coming over its dark backbone, themselves nothing but dark shapes in the sallow dawn hour. They weren't close to him, probably hadn't spotted him as yet, but he was caught in the open: he'd be seen as soon as he moved.
They were moving this way, they would see him anyway when they were almost on him. He hesitated, but not long: this had to be a posse from town. Coming for him. What else would a large bunch of riders be doing out in the pre-dawn… and heading straight into his camp? Ulring could have given them any kind of story. Whatever it was, it had been enough to bring them out in force for a long night ride.
No time to think about it now. No time to think of anything but escape.
Wheeling the mare in a sudden quarter-circle, Will-Joe kicked her into a run. He headed south by east toward the rugged country that ended at the lower Winnetka basin. The dun earth blurred by; men's faint shouts reached him, not quite swallowed by the mare's thrumming hoofs. The ground began to climb. Ahead, the country was etched like broken saw-teeth on the pallid sky. He felt the mare stumble and slowed with a sharp instinct. Ground contours were still hard to pick out by this light, but their feel was rugged and rock-strewn.
He pushed into a shallow gully and continued to climb, following its dry tortured bed upward. Spired boulders grew around him like monuments; he felt locked in by the rising flanks of rock and cold sweat washed his back and belly. He knew this country, but not in so many details; he could run himself up a blind alley easy as not With the posse so close, he couldn't be selective about an escape route: he had to feel his way just this blindly and hope for the best…
He looked back. For the moment they were lost to view, but within minutes they'd be swarming up the gully. If he were to shake them, it had to be now: he was still cut off fro
m them.
For another fifty yards the gully twisted snakily upward. Then suddenly a canyon mouth yawned to his right. Its breadth seemed to promise a way out; he plunged unhesitatingly into it. He rode as fast as he dared. Hoof echoes clattered off the massive sloping walls with stony fury.
But the canyon didn't widen. Nor did it lift toward higher ground. The walls grew steeper and began to pinch gradually off. Fallaway fragments from the rimrock littered the gorge floor, forcing him to go slower. Panic threaded his guts: it was a bad place to be caught in, and the worst part was his ignorance of what was ahead.
The canyon rims shelved closer together till they nearly met, blocking out the scanty light. He was riding in semi-gloom. Then the walls began suddenly to broaden again; hope surged in him. He must be close to the canyon's end…
He was. He came around a bulging angle of wall and he was in a great rock-strewn amphitheater. This was canyon's end: a flat-bottomed bowl circled by high-faced cliffs.
And no trail out. He was boxed here. Trapped.
He'd come too far to turn back. Probably the posse would split apart at the canyon mouth; some would continue up the dry gully, others would follow the canyon. Turning back now, he'd meet them about halfway. And face two options: fight and get shot to pieces. Or surrender and be promptly shot or hanged.
The dawnlight had increased, its stark pearly glow filling the bowl, highlighting the knobby pitted face of the enclosing walls.
Enough light, he thought, to scale them by… if it were possible.
If. He made the decision with no confidence. It was his only choice. The posse must be in the canyon by now, leaving him only minutes to spare and not a second to lose.
Already, as he slipped off the mare's back, he was scanning the cliff for what seemed the easiest line of ascent. He started upward then, driving his toes hard at the talus slant. The first twenty feet weren't impossibly steep, and then he was scaling bare rock, using hands as well as feet. The footing seemed solid; he went up swiftly as a goat.
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