the Riders Of High Rock (1993)

by L'amour, Louis - Hopalong 01

  Leading the palouse back into the shelter of a grove of aspens, he took his rifle and walked down the path. When he found the place where Red had fainted from loss of blood, he studied the place for a long time. Obviously Red was all in. Hopalong's weather-beaten face became hard and cold. He found the saddle, concealed it, and started on down the path. Soon he found the empty canteen, long dry. Gathering it up, he studied the cliff before him.

  Red was trying to get to water, and he would be needing it

  badly. Whether he made it or not would be a question, but he was making a try. No matter whether he did or not, he would be closer to the bottom than the top, and it behooved Hopalong to return to the crest, get his horse, and find some way to the base of that cliff.

  He had reached the top when he heard footsteps. Stepping back into the shade of a boulder, he saw a man leading his palouse come from the aspens. The man's own horse stood close by. Hopalong drew his gun and waited. The man had a narrow, dark face and looked like a half-breed. The Breed gathered up his own reins and put his foot in the stirrup. In that instant Hopalong stepped from behind the boulder and laid the barrel of his six-shooter behind the Breed's ear. The man crumpled and went down. Hastily, Hopalong gathered him up, stripped him of weapons and ammunition, and then tied him to his horse. Slapping the horse, he started it down the trail, then swung into the saddle himself and turned in the other direction.

  It was broad daylight before he finally found a way that showed possibilities of reaching the bottom of the cliff. When he started down he found it was even easier going than he had expected. Off to his right Hoppy could hear a sizable stream running across rocks. Reaching the bottom, he started through the trees, riding slowly.

  He passed through a grove of tall pines and then stopped suddenly. Swinging to the ground, he tied his mount and then, rifle in hand, began looking around.

  Unless he was much mistaken, this was the place where the trail from above ended, but he found no evidence that Red Connors had ever reached the stream. Climbing a rock for a long view, Hopalong immediately spotted Red and scrambled over the rocks towards him.

  He dropped to his knees beside the man, and placed a hand over his heart. Faintly he could feel it beating.

  Swiftly he stopped and checked his injured friend for broken limbs. Finding none, he lifted Connors in his arms and made his way to the stream, and then scrambled for his canteen. Carefully he lifted Red's head and touched water to his lips. With his hand he scooped water from the stream and began to bathe Connors's face and head.

  The puncher stirred and opened his eyes. He looked up and blinked slowly as he saw Hoppy.

  "Reckon," he whispered, "you didn't come none too soon!"

  Hopalong made Red as comfortable as possible. Then he uncovered his friend's wounds and examined them. Only one was dangerous. The flesh wound in his side was badly inflamed. Otherwise his trouble had been weakness from thirst and loss of blood. The wound needed attention, and with the few remedies he always carried in his saddlebags Hopalong treated it as well as possible.

  Loading Red's rifle and his pistols, he refilled his cartridge belt while keeping a sharp eye on the terrain. This place showed no evidence of visitors, and it was possible that nobody had ever entered the tiny hollow. Where the trail led out to the north he had no idea, and east or west, the walls of the canyon blocked all approach or retreat.

  Carefully he scouted the area and returned to find Red fast asleep. Remaining under cover, he scanned the approach to the canyon. There was nothing and no one in sight but the far reaches of the forest, the blue of the distant hills, and no sound but the wind in the trees and the now-distant chuckle of the stream over its rocky bed.

  For the time being it appeared they were safe. Unless they stumbled across his trail, nobody would know there was anyone here but Red, and they would probably believe him dead or more badly injured than he had been. Wherever he went, Hopalong found the tracks of a big lion. Evidently it made its den within the area of his search. But there were other tracks. Mule deer were plentiful, and several times he saw sage hens. Seeing a trout leap in the stream, he rigged a line and hooked three in the first thirty minutes. With dry wood gathered from under the pines he built a smokeless fire and began baking the fish. Red was awake when he looked around at him, and Hopalong studied him sourly.

  "You sure you're hurt that bad?" he demanded. "Looks to me like you're just taking it easy at my expense. You always were a no-account."

  "Me?" Red exploded. "No-account? Why, you lowdown maverickin' coyote! I could work circles around you any day you ever saw, and I've done it many's the time!"

  "Yeah?" Hopalong sneered. "When did you ever put in a decent day's work?" Then before Red could make the angry retort that was forming on his lips, Hopalong interrupted, "What's the trouble, anyway? First thing that happens after I get to Tascotal is I hear you're getting yourself shot at. Who's back of this?"

  Red grunted, accepting the hot black coffee Hopalong handed him. "Hombre name of Jack Bolt. Has him a brand called the 8 Boxed H."

  "That brand don't fool anybody," Hopalong agreed. "Anybody who could handle a running iron could change that over from a 3TL."

  "It ain't that simple," Red said. "Nobody has ever killed one of those 8 Boxed H critters to get a look at the inside of the brand, and the job is done so slick I don't see how anybody could burn it with a runnin' iron. I mean, that work is smooth!"

  "But they are stealin?

  "Surest thing you know. I spotted a blaze-shouldered steer in their drive and braced 'em about it. They laughed at me and said I was wrong. Then they took me over their range and showed me their tally books, and if they've any extra stock on their range, I sure couldn't find it!"

  "So you kept watch?"

  "Naturally. I hid out in the hills and watched one big herd. Never saw 'em change a brand or move a head of stock. Then one mornin' as I was about to pull out I saw that herd was a whole durned sight smaller than it had been.

  "I hunted around in the hills and couldn't find hide nor hair of 'em, not anywhere. I knowed some of that stock had disappeared, but couldn't see where she'd gone. I hunted around, but all the Bolt hands were on the job.

  "Few days later I stumbled on a bunch of tracks 'way back in the hills and started following 'em. Then's when they closed in on me."

  "What about Gibson? What's he doing all this time? Sitting on his reservation?"

  "Nope. He's laid up with a busted leg. His horse throwed him. Him bein' short-handed like he was, I stayed on and stumbled into this. We'd had a talk, and he told me he was losin' stock, that if it didn't get stopped he'd be cleaned out before he could get back on his feet."

  "Where were those cattle headed? You see 'em?"

  "Nope. Just the trail. My guess is they are the same cows that slipped out from under my nose while I was watchin' from the hill. But swear to it? I couldn't."

  Hopalong nodded thoughtfully. Evidently Red had stumbled upon something hot or there would never have been an attempt to kill him. Did they believe he had trailed them all the

  way? Was that the reason they were so worried? Or was it because this was the first time anyone was in danger of getting evidence that might lead to conviction?

  Hopalong roamed the little valley ceaselessly, worried and restless. Red was in no shape to travel, but they should be moving. If this Jack Bolt had as good a thing here as Red believed, he would not risk the possibility of leaving Red alive. The manhunt would continue until he had been found and killed. In that case, sooner or later they would find this place, and then it would be only a matter of a few hours until they were bottled up tighter than a drum.

  He placed several runway snares and within an hour had two rabbits and a sage hen. Returning with these, Hopalong found some silverweed growing along the banks of the stream and gathered some of the roots for roasting. Back at camp, he took time to prepare a good meal from these and some of the supplies he had brought along. When Red awakened again he was h
ungry. Hopalong looked at him with a sour expression. "I'd sooner buy your clothes than feed you," he said. "You eat like you never expected to again!"

  "Mebbe I don't." Red was feeling good and refused battle, even with such a time-honored opponent as Hopalong. "This here Bolt hombre is a tough feller." He looked up suddenly. "You seen Mesquite?"

  "Seen him? How could I? He ain't around here, is he?"

  "You know wherever you are, he ain't far away. That lad sets a sight o' store by you, Hoppy. Reckon he'll show up?"

  Hopalong chuckled and grinned at Red. "Not unless he figures there's trouble over here, but if he gets wind of a scrap, he'll come a-floggin' it. You know him."

  As darkness drew nearer, Hopalong became increasingly restless. Red's fever was mounting and there were times when

  he lapsed into delirium. Hopalong made broth from the sage hen and fed it to the wounded man, then drank some coffee himself.

  With Gibson short-handed and laid up with a broken leg, no help was to be expected from that quarter. Moreover, this was far to the east of his holdings, for Red had trailed the stolen cattle for some distance after he found their tracks. Red needed rest and quiet, and before that could be had they must get out of the mountains and down to civilization. Still farther east was the town of Charleston, but from all Hopalong had heard along the trail, that was an outlaw town and a tough one.

  A stranger in the vicinity, especially if he wore a badge of any kind or looked like he might represent the law, was sure to draw rifle fire. The inhabitants had long since discovered that one way of keeping their privacy inviolate was scattered shooting at any doubtful-looking stranger. The sheriff who could ride into Charleston and out alive was rare, although there was a rumor that one had done so and lived to brag about it for years. Actually, only a couple of misguided strangers had been found dead. The rest had taken the hint when a few casual rifle shots came too close.

  Charleston might be a place to investigate, but that would come later, and it was certainly no place to take Red in his present condition. Other towns were too far away, so that meant a lonely ranch somewhere, or a hideout camp.

  Chapter 3

  A Horse for Red.

  That night Hopalong bedded down near Red and lay awake, watching and listening. Several times he dipped a cloth in water and placed it across the wounded man's forehead, caring for him as much as he could. Once, when he walked towards the mouth of the canyon, he thought he saw the slinking form of a big cat, and several times an owl hooted. At the canyon mouth all was still. A cricket sounded in the brush, a night bird called, and the wind sounded on the strings of the tall timber.

  Red awakened early and stared at Hoppy. "Been awake all night, I bet. You get some sleep. You look like you need it."

  Without a word Hopalong rolled up in his blanket and dropped off. Red rolled a smoke and stared at him. Did ever a man have a better friend? All along it had been Hoppy he wanted to see, Hoppy who he knew could pull them out of this, as he had so many times before.

  Red's eyes scanned the cliffs. It was unbelievable that he had actually gotten down from there, wounded and only partly conscious, yet he had done it. He had done it and was alive to tell the tale, although had Hopalong not found him he would have been dead for hours now.

  Red's mind returned to the trail he had been following when attacked. There had been at least thirty head in that bunch and they had been pushing them fast. None of the riders were known to him and it was a complete mystery where they were headed with the stolen cattle. He suspected all were recently rebranded 3TL steers--ample evidence to stretch a few necks if delivered to the right sources.

  They would never rest now until they had him. A cowboy named Grat had been in that crowd before the cattle were delivered to the strange riders. He knew the horse he rode and had followed its tracks more than once, often on Jack Bolt's range.

  He checked his rifle and grinned when he saw it was loaded. He threw sticks on the fire and, without moving from his propped-up position, succeeded in getting the fire going and the coffee on. It was boiling when Hopalong opened his eyes and came awake.

  Hopalong Cassidy checked his guns and belted them on, then accepted the cup Red offered him. "You look better," he said at last. "I'm going to leave you in this hideaway. Nobody seems to have come here for years, and if they do, you're well hid. The trees and rocks give you cover, and you're sure not going to let many of 'em get close with that rifle."

  "Where you goin?" Red demanded.

  "To get you a cayuse. You can't walk out of here, and I'm not going to load my horse down with your carcass."

  Red snorted and Hopalong swung into the saddle of the palouse and started off. Leaving the canyon, he took to the rocks, careful to leave no trail. In so doing he looked for his incoming tracks but found none.

  It was an hour later when he found fresh tracks of the

  cordon of riders that had been beating the canyons and valleys for Red Connors. The tracks looked less than an hour old, as nearly as he could judge, and they led down along the mountainside through the trees.

  Four riders were gathered over the ashes of a fire under the shade of a huge slab of granite. One of them he recognized at once, from the description Red had given, as Grat. Big, rough-looking, Grat was leaning against a rock, smoking a cigarette.

  "The devil with it!" Grat was saying. "He's dead or gone out of the country!"

  "Well, someone slugged the Breed here," Bones explained. "But I don't think it was our fella. Anyway, what difference does it make? If we go back, we'll be ridin' fence and brandin' cows. This here ain't a bad life."

  The others were a dark-faced man who wore his hat high over a makeshift bandage on the back of his head--Hoppy recognized him as the man he had hit with his pistol--and Hoyt, who had been one of the watchers left on the crest after Red had disappeared.

  Hopalong circled warily up the hillside behind them, then left his horse and worked his way down through the trees towards the rustlers' camp. He had heard a few words and wanted to hear more, but he also wanted a bay that he could see picketed about twenty-five yards downhill from where the men were relaxing. On second thought he picked a gray. At a distance that bay might look enough like a sorrel to warrant investigation, and he wanted no trouble while Red was wounded.

  He studied the four men individually and found them true to type. All were tough-looking, all packed guns low, and all

  looked like men accustomed to using them. If this was the brand of men Jack Bolt had doing his rustling, they were no pushovers in any kind of a scrap.

  Nobody spoke for a few minutes. Hoyt was lying on the ground now, his head pillowed on his sombrero. He drew deep on his cigarette and looked up at the blue sky and idly drifting clouds.

  "The boss said he was takin' a couple of us into Tascotal tonight," he said. "I hope it ain't me. This is the first rest I've had in months."

  "I could go for some of that panther sweat they sell in there," Bones said thoughtfully. "This ridin' is mighty dry work."

  Hopalong had moved down now within pistol shot of the horses, who were beyond the riders in a grove of trees. With infinite care, and taking all the time in the world, he eased himself through the trees and reached the picket rope of the grey. The horse jerked his head up, and Hopalong spoke gently to him. Curiously, the horse came nearer, and Hopalong murmured to him and scratched his shoulder, then his chest near the foreleg. The grey liked it, and after a minute or so Hopalong turned and led the grey back into the trees and tied him. Returning, he released the other horses. They seemed ready to go, and began drifting off.

  Mounting his own horse and leading the grey, Hopalong allowed his tracks to merge with the others in the trail, then cut off the traveled way, keeping to the flat rock of the country alongside the road and moving from one wide, wind-swept rock shelf to another until he had put a half mile between himself and the camp.

  After a couple of miles he cut off through the timber towards the canyon. Several ti
mes he made abrupt turns; once

  he made almost a complete circle, working his way farther back into the hills. It was almost sundown when he reached the canyon.

  Red looked at him and grinned as he came up. "Saw you comin'," he said. "You got a horse."

  "What did you want--a cow? Although," he added dryly, "she might be easier for you to ride."

  "Huh! I can ride anythin' you can put a saddle on!" Red bristled. "I've seen you get piled a few times!"

  "You dream a lot!" Hopalong looked at him critically. "You figure you can stay in that saddle if I put you there?"

  "Try me!" Red hitched his way along the ground. "Let me get a hand on that stirrup and I'll get in the saddle by myself."

  "And get your head kicked off!" Hopalong replied.

  When Red Connors was in the saddle he grinned at Hoppy. "There was a time back there when I didn't know whether I'd ever get up here again," he said. "I figured maybe they had my number up at last."

  "Let's go!" Leading the way, Hopalong started down the canyon. They were careful to leave no tracks and once out of the woods near the canyon, Hopalong turned back into the higher mountains towards the north. At all costs, even at the risk of a longer ride, they must avoid trouble. Red was in no shape for a fight right now.

  "What about this Jack Bolt, Red? Know anything about him?"

  "Only what Gibson told me. He came in here about four years ago with two riders and bought a small spread. He paid cash for it, I hear, and the owner who sold to him left town right after. Seems somethin' happened to him, because a year later they found what was left of him over near the Bruneau. He was long dead, just his skeleton and a few rags of clothes.