Redding was restless in his mind. A feeling that something was not as it should be destroyed the complete peacefulness of this firelight scene. That feeling persisted until, to satisfy it, he walked over to the piñon and made doubly certain that Darkin and old Jinglebob were securely tied.
He was returning from that job when a coyote’s howl, deceptively near at hand, caused the saddle stock across the creek to snort their alarm and head up from their grazing.
A sudden splashing of hoofs in the creek told Redding that one of the saddlers had broken its picket rope or jerked up its pin. He saw the shape of the loose pony as it bolted along the platinum ripples of the creek where it spilled over a long incline of glacier-scoured granite; and Joyce Melrose, pouring coffee over by the fire, called out chidingly, “You haven’t learned how to stake out a horse yet, cowboy?”
The runaway pony had vanished down the ravine now.
“It was your palomino, Joyce,” he said, and ran over to where he had left his saddle. “I’ll have to dab my loop on that renegade of yours. I’ll be back before those spuds come to a boil.”
Shouldering his saddle, Redding crossed the creek to where the remaining three horses, still spooked by the coyote’s predatory call, returned to their grazing.
He saddled his steeldust gelding and mounted, took a long look across the creek to satisfy himself that it was safe to leave Joyce there for even so short an interval as he expected to be gone, and then put his gelding down the ravine.
He believed the palomino would not travel far before snagging its rope in the brush or stopping to graze. Fifty yards downstream, the heavy undergrowth of willows and dwarf cottonwoods began closing in behind him, shutting off his view of the camp.
He reined up for another look, mentally wondering at his nervousness in leaving the girl behind. At the moment she was pulling pine knots out of a deadfall log to replenish the fire. The upleap of flames revealed the motionless shapes of Teague Darkin and the Wagonwheel man, securely trussed to the piñon at the edge of the clearing.
Redding touched the steeldust’s flanks with his rowels and pushed on into the total darkness of the ravine, concentrating his attention on locating the girl’s runaway horse.
* * * *
Back at the camp, Joyce Melrose tested the boiled potatoes with a tin fork, found them ready, and set them aside to cool. Her first inkling that all was not right came when she heard a horse whicker and blow its lips, from the direction of the North Gate road behind her; and her first reaction was to call Redding and tell him her palomino had somehow doubled back to the camp through the roundabout pines.
Turning, she saw a rider spur into the camp site from the road at the top of the ravine. Indistinct in the firelight, the horseman reined up at the edge of the clearing to stare at Redding’s two prisoners lashed to the piñon tree.
Joyce thought, This is one of the Wagonwheelers we saw coming in from roundup this afternoon. Then a shock of pure horror went through her as she heard Teague Darkin cry out, “Redding ain’t here, Blaze—watch the girl! Watch the girl!” Joyce opened her mouth to scream, thinking to warn Doug that somehow Blaze Tondro had trailed them here. But the cry froze in her throat as she saw a second and a third rider break out of the brush into the firelight and she saw the red ring of a rifle’s muzzle slanting from one of their saddle pommels, aimed straight at her.
It was not the menace of that Winchester which turned Joyce’s knees to water. The firelight shuttering on the first rider’s face showed the scarred, ugly visage of the half-breed Tondro, his black hair belted down the middle with a streak of white, like a skunk. Here, in the flesh, was the man whose name had filled her childhood nightmares.
Blaze Tondro dismounted. The two riders flanking his horse, Joyce now saw, were Mexicans, decked out in serapes and tall-crowned sombreros, flare-bottomed gaucho pants and gaudy jackets with gold-braided frogs.
The silence was broken once more by Teague Darkin, wrenching himself violently in his bonds. “Damn you, Tondro—if it was you that turned Joyce’s palomino loose, why didn’t you shoot Redding before he left?”
Tondro’s beady eyes were fixed on Joyce’s motionless figure. Her rifle was leaning against her saddle, ten feet away.
“What are you bellerin’ about, Teague?” the rustler growled. “I turned no caballo loose. We just pulled off the road to scout this fire.”
Darkin ground out an oath. “Cut me loose, you cabron!” he shouted in Spanish. “Redding may be back any minute.”
Ignoring Darkin, Blaze Tondro stalked across the camp ground to halt in front of Joyce. He flung a surly retort over his shoulder. “How did I know Redding was with you? The note O’Connor brought me said you’d nabbed Redding over at Crowfoot. You ought to count yourself lucky that I decided to collect our pay for that trail drive while I was in this part of the country. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come back to Wagonwheel.”
Through all this talk, Joyce Melrose had stood transfixed, knowing she would never be able to reach her saddle gun.
Now she saw Tondro suddenly reverse the rifle he was carrying and poise the gunstock over his head.
She divined his purpose too late. She saw the chopping blow coming and gave vent to a scream which resounded across the ravine like the wail of a banshee. That scream was cut short by the sodden impact of butt plate on bone.
Joyce Melrose slumped like an axed tree, blood welling from her bruised temple. Tondro turned to see one of his Mexican henchmen, wielding a long-bladed cuchilla, slicing the ropes to release old Jinglebob and Darkin from the piñon.
Kicking free of his bonds, Darkin snatched a six-shooter from the Mexican’s holster and, turning to face Jinglebob, thrust the gun against the roustabout’s belly and fired.
The old man fell back against the piñon trunk, and his legs gouged twin furrows through the leaf mold as he slid to a sitting position, his eyes holding their shock and anger as he toppled slowly over on his side.
“What in hell was that for?” demanded Tondro, stunned by the ruthlessness of his companero’s action despite his own familiarity with violent death.
“On the way over the Pass tonight Redding let slip he knew it was me who cashed in Duke Harrington’s chips,” panted the Crowfoot foreman in a demented voice. “Only Jinglebob knew that. He sold me down the river while I was knocked out back at the ranch.”
Darkin drove a kick into the fallen roustabout’s ribs and then wheeled to face the others.
“Ramon! Pedro! Pitch a blanket on that fire. If Redding heard Joyce holler he’ll be back and pick us off like sittin’ ducks.”
One of Tondro’s men threw a saddle blanket over the campfire, shutting off the light. Darkin sprinted across the area and waded the shallow creek to reach the hobbled horses.
Tondro called out uncertainly, “What’ll we do with your woman? She’s bad medicine. Always has been. I say we ought to kill her.”
Darkin’s shout came back through the gloom of the ravine. “We’re taking her with us back to Thunder Rock. She’ll be my ace in the hole in case we don’t nab Redding tonight.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Possemen Ride
Joyce’s cut-off scream carried to Doug Redding’s ears some hundred yards down the creek in a raveled, thin rope of sound which, in this tricky dark, he mistook for the screech of a panther that had scented the staked-out horses.
His attention at the moment was distracted by the business of tying his lariat to the headstall of the girl’s palomino. The runaway mount had been blocked by an uprooted tree which had toppled into the creek from the north claybank.
Above the sluicing of water over the rocks, Redding could not be sure he had even heard the scream. He wasted time getting the palomino out of the tangle of waterlogged brush, knowing the danger of the animal spooking and breaking a leg on the slippery boulders.
He was out of sadd
le, checking the frayed end of a broken picket rope dangling from the palomino’s head-stall, when the sharp crack of a gunshot drove its unmistakable echo down the ravine.
That could only mean trouble back at camp. Maybe Darkin or Jinglebob had somehow managed to loosen their ropes. Maybe Joyce had taken a shot at a panther stalking their livestock. Maybe—
Redding dropped the rope he had intended to use in leading the palomino back to camp and vaulted into saddle, putting his gelding up the slippery creek bed as hard as he could spur the animal in this tricky footing.
Before he got clear of the willow he saw the pink glow of Joyce’s campfire suddenly wink out, as if the coals had been drowned. It was only when he fought through the willows that his nostrils picked up a smudge of smoke and singed wool, and he knew that a saddle blanket had extinguished the fire.
He heard hoofs churning the river with great splashes, and a voice he recognized as Darkin’s shouting.
A confused rush of noise hit Redding as he raked the steeldust with his spurs, snaking his Winchester out of its boot and levering a cartridge into the breech.
Fear was a retching sensation in his throat as he realized that his prisoners had somehow gotten loose, that Joyce had uttered that scream. He remembered now how that scream had been cut off, and he had a sickening fear that she was dead.
The fire had charred a hole in the saddle blanket and a quick ribbon of orange flame leaped up, to give Redding a pinched-off glimpse of the mad activity going on up the ravine.
He spotted Blaze Tondro and a Mexican lifting Joyce’s limp figure across a bare-backed horse, the one belonging to Jinglebob. Teague Darkin leaped astride that horse, getting an arm around the girl’s body.
The fire glow ebbed when Redding was within fifty yards of the camp. But there was light enough for Redding to see Tondro and two other riders swinging into saddle to quit the clearing as Darkin, holding the girl ahead of him, sent his horse pounding up the ravine slope toward the Basin road.
Redding’s horse stumbled, nearly throwing him. As it struggled to regain itself in the rush of water against its chest, Redding lifted his rifle to shoulder and drove a shot toward the last of the escaping riders. He saw a man’s body lurch to the strike of his lucky bullet and pitch out of stirrups.
The horse under him regained its feet, and Redding lost precious time fighting it under control again. From the timber above the camp the darkness was broken by the nozzling sparks of gun flashes, and Redding knew by the whine and whip of lead bracketing him that Tondro and the others were shooting at the smudge of gun smoke which, catching the moonlight, showed them his location.
Darkness ran into the pit of the ravine as the moon edged into a fleecy nest of clouds. The campfire had ebbed under the smoldering blanket. Hoofs were pounding up the slope toward the road. Gun flashes continued to break the shadows up there as one of the riders held back to delay Redding’s pursuit.
Redding was unaware that his horse had been struck by one of those fusillading slugs until, swinging out of the creek into the campfire’s thick smudge, he felt the steeldust go down, a whimpering scream in its throttle.
He narrowly missed getting a leg caught under the falling horse as it toppled sideways into the turf. Jumping free, he swung his gun toward the road, then held his fire, knowing that without a definite target to draw down on, a random bullet might hit Joyce.
The moon slid momentarily from its cover, and a yell in Spanish, from high up the slope, told Redding that Blaze Tondro had seen him. “Redding is down—his horse is down.”
As the moon faded again Redding saw a Mexican’s sombreroed shape sky-lined on the Basin road up there. He fired at once, and through the confusing echoes of the shot he heard Teague Darkin shout, “Come on—we’ll drift. He could hole up in that timber and pick us off like he did Ramon.”
Redding groaned. Joyce’s kidnapers were quitting this fight, withdrawing by way of North Gate. Hoofs were beating up sodden echoes, eastbound toward the Basin.
Desperation drove Redding at a slogging sprint across the clearing. He stumbled over the Mexican he had shot from saddle, but he knew the man was dead by the inertness of him, and he clawed his way through the whippy undergrowth until he reached the edge of the wagon road.
He flung himself belly down there, knowing how Tondro worked, knowing the rustler might have held back to cover Darkin’s getaway with the girl.
But that fast-ebbing rush of hoofbeats floating back on the breeze told its own story. Three horses. Tondro’s and Darkin’s, the latter carrying double, and the other vaquero. They had no stomach for the job of cornering Redding, even afoot, in timber where a fugitive could move at will without detection.
A crashing in the brush up the road toward the summit to Redding’s left, made him spin around with rifle lifting. Then he relaxed as he saw a riderless pony, saddle leather flapping, bolt from the roadside chaparral and head out of sight toward Wagonwheel. That would be the dead Ramon’s mount.
Redding came slowly to his feet, a sick despair blunting the fact that he wouldn’t have to fight off heavy odds here in the North Gate tonight. A lucky bullet had left him afoot. His only hope of riding in pursuit depended on catching Joyce’s palomino, deeper down the ravine. That would take time, precious time. Joyce’s kidnapers already had a long start.
He made his way down the slope toward the blood-red glare of the burning saddle blanket, which put its flickering glow over the black and scarlet edges of the campground.
At the edge of the brush he again stumbled over the Mexican’s body. Redding’s slug had drilled the vaquero’s chest, passing completely through him. He thought bitterly, Why couldn’t that have been Tondro?
Then he realized that Jinglebob was unaccounted for. Swinging toward the piñon, he caught sight of the oldster’s sprawled body, blood guttering from a powder-burned hole punched through his shirt, belt-high.
Either Tondro or Darkin had shot the Wagonwheel man. That was the gunshot Redding had heard, his first intimation that disaster had struck the camp during his absence.
A horse whickered from the grassy pocket across the creek, and Redding was surprised to see Darkin’s horse still on hobble there. This, at least, was a break of luck; the outlaws had been in too much of a hurry to get away from the camp, before he returned, to unpicket the Crowfoot pony.
He waded the glassy run of the creek and led Darkin’s mount back to where his steeldust had dropped, got his saddle free, and cinched it aboard the other mount. At least this spared him having to hunt down the palomino on foot.
Redding led the horse across the campground and knelt beside Jinglebob. He was startled to see the old man’s rheumy eyes open, refracting the campfire light; Jinglebob’s lips moved, and as Redding bent low he caught the man’s expiring whisper.
“They’re takin’—the Melrose girl—to Tondro’s hideout—in the Navajadas—son. Wish I could tell you—how to git thar.”
A rush of thanksgiving welled through the cattle detective as he gripped the dying man’s arm. “Thanks for tellin’ me that, Jinglebob. I know where Tondro dens up. I’ve been there.”
Something like a grin softened the tautness of the roustabout’s lips. “Glad—glad. That’s what—the Duke meant—when he said the girl would be his—ace in the hole—if they didn’t tally you—tonight—” Jinglebob’s voice trailed off in a rattly exhalation, and Redding stood up, knowing the old man was across the Big Divide, wishing he could tarry here to give Jinglebob decent burial before the timber wolves were drawn here by the scent of spilled blood. But that was impossible.
He rode up to the Basin road, the dust and smell of the running horses still clinging to the night air. The wind off the Basin was in his favor; and when Redding reached the foot of the grade where the Basin flats began, he distinctly heard the distance-muted drumming of hoofs, headed southeast.
He reined up to let his ho
rse have a breather and tried to reason this thing out. Somehow, Darkin had been rescued by Tondro and his Mexicans, who had apparently been the trio of riders Redding had mistaken for homeward-bound Wagonwheel punchers as they were leaving the ranch.
Armed with the knowledge old Jinglebob had given him with his last breath, Redding knew why Darkin had bothered to take Joyce Melrose with him in his last flight out of the Basin.
Joyce was the hostage Darkin would bargain with when the final showdown came at Tondro’s hideout in Thunder Rock gorge. It suddenly occurred to Redding that neither Tondro nor Darkin knew that their lair was no longer a secret. Redding had not mentioned, back at Wagonwheel, how he had trailed Clark O’Connor into the Navajadas the other day.
Darkin would feel safe in the refuge of Thunder Rock. He might choose to join Tondro in the border smuggling trade, now that he was forever cut off from Crowfoot and his alter-ego role as Duke Harrington.
As long as Joyce Melrose was alive, Darkin might try to win back Crowfoot as the ransom for her life.
Full daylight found Redding heading south on the Basin flats. He traced the tracks of the escaping trio to a line-camp shack with a Rafter B burned into its door and found evidence where the fugitives had pumped water in a trough for their horses.
Beyond this point, the trail became lost where Rafter B had driven a beef herd toward Paloverde.
At noon, the gaunt-faced lawman rested his horse at a chuck-wagon camp, where he wolfed down a meal; the cook’s curious stare followed him as he headed south again, picking up a county road that would bring him to Trailfork.
Sundown was burning in the west when Redding reached his journey’s end at Val Lennon’s office in the Trailfork jail. It was a far different ending to this trek from North Gate than he had anticipated yesterday at this time.
The grizzled old sheriff met him at the door, grinning.
“I got another prize specimen in my hoosegow to keep Joe Curtwright’s cell occupied, son.”
A wild irrational hope surged through the core of Redding’s being. Was it possible that Lennon had stumbled across Tondro en route across the Basin?
The Sixth Western Novel Page 41