“Who?”
“Clark O’Connor. Arrested him this mornin’ just after he got back from the mountains. Claimed he’d been fishin’.”
Anticlimax was like nausea in Redding. “Come inside, Sheriff,” he said wearily. “I’ve got some bad news for you.”
Night had come to Trailfork during the time it took Redding to recount Tondro’s trail drive to Wagonwheel, his encounter with the so-called Duke Harrington, and Joyce’s kidnapping.
“I figure they’ll reach Thunder Rock sometime tonight,” Redding wound up. “Whether Joyce survives that trip I won’t gamble on. The thing is, Sheriff, we’ve got to move out with a posse tonight.”
Val Lennon’s eyes took on a feverish glint. “I ain’t been settin’ on my haunches the past couple days,” he said. “I got a thirty-man posse ready to drift. The town’s middlin’ full of cowpokes in from the beef gathers.”
“Bueno. These thirty—you can count on ’em?”
“Picked ’em personal, son. Nary a Tondro spy in the bunch. Got ’em standin’ by, waitin’ for you to give the word.”
Redding’s look showed his disappointment. He had hoped to lead a posse of at least fifty riders into the Navajadas. Doc Stiles had said it would take two troops of cavalry to breach Tondro’s defenses.
“Twelve of that bunch,” Lennon went on hopefully, sensing Redding’s doubts, “are storekeepers and bartenders here in town. Willin’ to risk their hides to stamp Tondro out for good. They know Trailfork will die on the vine if they don’t make this range fit for decent folks to live in.” He paused. “If I had a month to work in I couldn’t muster more than thirty men, son.”
Redding got to his feet, fighting the weariness in him, but with Joyce Melrose’s fate resting in his hands he knew he must keep driving himself to the limit of his endurance.
“I’ll go eat,” he said. “I’ll have to touch you for the loan of another horse, Sheriff. It was your pet steeldust that Tondro shot out from under me at North Gate last night.”
The sheriff grinned. “You’ve about cleaned out my stable, son, but I know a good quarter horse I can borrow for you. Anything else you want attended to while you grab some grub?”
“I’d like to have four good stout lass ropes, each one fifty-sixty foot long, tied together and hung on my saddle, Val.”
“You’ll have ’em. When you takin’ us out?”
“I’m not,” Redding said. “I’ll ride out to where the Sangre de Santos Creek crosses the Paloverde road. I want you and your deputies to leave town in twos and threes, like they were heading for their home bunkhouses. That way, if Tondro has any spies in town they won’t get suspicious.”
Lennon chewed his mustache. “You’ll be waitin’ at the Santos ford to guide us to Tondro’s?”
“I’ll meet you there at midnight, Sheriff. Be sure you have those ropes ready before I ride.”
After Redding had left, Lennon felt a shiver of apprehension go through him. He had his doubts if any of them would live through this night ahead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Over Hell’s Rim
Waiting at Sangre de Santos Creek ford, Doug Redding counted the posse riders who rode in from Trailfork, in pairs or singly. It was midnight sharp when Sheriff Val Lennon arrived, and Redding knew the strength he would pit against Tondro was complete.
“Only twenty-three men?” Redding asked sharply.
“Few of the boys lost their nerve,” Lennon apologized, “so we’re better off without ’em. Couple too drunk to ride on such short notice. Is the tally too short, son?”
The cattle detective did not show the disappointment he felt. “It’s got to be tonight, Sheriff.”
In the starlight, Redding recognized men he had seen loafing on the gallery of the Emigrants’ Tavern; a roulette croupier and a bartender from the Fandango. Less than half of these men were ranchers or cowhands. All were heavily armed—rifles, sidearms, shotguns.
“This is Doug Redding of the Protective, men,” Lennon said. “Reckon you’ve got acquainted with him by now. You’ll take his orders from here on out, not mine. Speak your piece, Doug.”
Redding piled hands on saddle horn. Lennon had provided him with a chestnut quarter horse. From the pommel hung two hundred feet of lariats knotted together for Redding’s undisclosed use.
They were waiting for him to speak, little realizing the long chain of events, of bloodshed and gun smoke and deadly risks which had brought Redding to this climactic hour.
“This won’t be easy,” he said. “Some of us won’t return to the Basin. Each of you has got to believe in his own heart that this business is worth the price, or you don’t belong here.”
The gambler from the Fandango said, “We all got our reasons. I’m doin’ this for Zedra and old Doc.”
Redding nodded, touched by this loyalty to a woman whom many Trailforkers regarded as just another dance-hall jezebel. The sheriff had apparently revealed Zedra’s secret to his posse riders, knowing the recruiting value of Doc Stiles’s story.
“We should reach the approaches of Tondro’s canyon an hour before daylight,” Redding said, coming down to cases. “On the way there will be no smoking, no talking, no backing out. If any of you family men want to pull out, now is the time. No man will question your motives. I don’t have to tell you Tondro won’t cave without a lot of bloodshed.”
Redding waited. No man spoke. Throats were cleared; bodies twisted in saddle, making the leather creak. Lennon had chosen his deputies well. Scared, most of them, but willing to ride into the jaws of whatever hell awaited them back in the brooding Navajada uplands, gambling on coming back.
“’Stá bueno,” Redding said. “Let’s ride.”
Within twenty minutes the file of posse riders were following Redding into the canyon of Twelve Mile Creek. Soon the lifting pine-clad walls of granite swallowed them up, as they sloshed up the shallow stream as Clark O’Connor had done a few days ago.
At five-mile intervals Redding signaled halts, conserving horses and men alike for this assault on Tondro’s bastion. The man hunters needed no urging to maintain a strict silence, knowing that danger might meet them head-on at any twisting of this rustler trail.
Dawn was a good two hours off when they reached the avalanche pile which filtered the waters of Twelve Mile Creek. Redding guided the party up the steep flank of this gorge and waited at its crest until the last riders had gathered around him. The moon was behind an overcast which dulled the landmarks hereabout; the crest of Thunder Rock Falls was a blurred nimbus at the box end of the canyon, too faint for the possemen to discern had Redding not pointed it out.
Redding pointed to the black, mysterious gulf which marked Thunder Rock Canyon. “This mining road leads to the old shaft house where Tondro holes up,” he whispered. “It’s guarded around the clock by at least one sentry, but I think you’ll get to the bottom of the gorge before sunrise, without any trouble.”
Lennon spoke uneasily. “How about that escape tunnel you were tellin’ me about, Doug?”
Redding said, “I’m leaving you here, to take care of that. The mine tunnel opens on the other side of the divide, I reckon, and probably on Mexican soil, out of your jurisdiction. I’ll block that leak.”
“Singlehanded? Don’t be a fool!” someone objected.
“I’m carrying enough rope to let myself over the rimrock into Tondro’s camp,” Redding said. “It’s got to be a one-man job. I’m the only one who knows the lay of the land over there.”
Lennon stirred uneasily, aware that the SPA man was taking the brunt of the risks from here on.
“You move your men down into the canyon yonder, Sheriff,” Redding went on. “Tondro won’t be expecting you. Your risk will be taking his guard out of the play. When the guard spots you, he’ll probably fire a shot to rouse the camp. The only way to do this thing is bull your way th
rough and stampede Tondro’s bunch into heading for their escape tunnel. I’ll be there to meet ’em. And don’t worry about me. One man can hold back an army, inside that tunnel.”
Men nodded, getting the picture and not liking it. They were going to box Tondro’s owlhoot legion against the dead end of the canyon, striking by surprise and showing no mercy. In that way they stood a chance to buffalo the rustlers into a mass surrender.
“Give me an hour before you head up the canyon,” Redding said. “I want to do what I can to locate the two women who are up there, Zedra Stiles and Joyce Melrose. Hasta la vista and luck to you.”
With that parting word, Doug Redding spurred away from the group and headed along the steep, brush-mottled slope of the mountain ridge which overlooked Thunder Rock Falls, the slope he had scouted a few days ago. Fifty feet away from the posse he was lost to view.
* * * *
Dawn was a pale-pink promise beyond the saw-toothed spires of the Navajada peaks when Redding reached the rincon where he had left his horse on his previous visit. He lifted the heavy coil of lariats he had tied together at the sheriff’s office in Trailfork, hoisted it over his shoulder, and, carrying his Winchester, headed down the roof-steep declivity toward the sheer jump-off of the cliff.
Reaching the lava ledge, Redding paused to study the dim outlines of the shaft house below. The waterfall’s thunder was an even roar on his eardrums; a restless vortex of wind currents carried the moist breath of the river to him.
He could make out no details, but lights glowed in the shaft house. That was bad. Lennon’s possemen, even now making their way up the canyon toward Tondro’s sentry post, had counted on the element of surprise in attacking this camp.
He worked his way along the rimrock with infinite caution, knowing death would be the price of a misstep, yet moving as rapidly as he dared, for daylight must not catch him at his work.
He estimated there was another half hour of darkness remaining when he rounded the box end of the gorge, approaching the glossy crest of the waterfall.
Fifty feet from the plunging cascade he selected a hardy jack pine, its roots thrusting deep into fissures of the rock, and tied one end of his rope coil securely to its trunk.
Approaching the rimrock on hands and knees, Redding dumped the remainder of the coil off into space. It plummeted down into the blackness and was lost to his view in the swirling mists from the falls.
He had tied four fifty-foot lariats together. That should give him rope to spare at the bottom.
Tondro’s rustler camp was shrouded in a deep and brooding silence. Redding felt a moment’s panic, wondering if Tondro and Darkin had brought Joyce here, as old Jinglebob had told him. If they had headed directly for Mexican soil instead, then Joyce was doomed.
He tied the Winchester around his shoulder with a makeshift sling created out of thongs he had cut from his saddle skirts. Seating himself on the dizzy edge of the chasm with his legs overhanging the rim, he gave his twin Colts a final checkup, thrusting cartridges into the empty chambers under the firing-pins.
All was in readiness. Redding got his secure grip on the hair rope which was the first of the four lariats he had knotted together. Some deep-rooted superstition caused him to reach under his shirt and rub the golden lizard ring he carried, slung around his neck, for luck.
Then, nudging the walnut stock of his rifle into better position over his back with an elbow, Redding swung his weight over the cliff’s edge. He had no fears of the ropes not holding his hundred and eighty pounds. Each lariat had been designed to take the snap of a thousand-pound steer from its dallies on a saddle horn.
Dawn was beginning to gild the granite teeth of the Navajada divide as Redding kinked his left leg around the slender lifeline, to serve as a brake, and began his hand-over-hand descent of the rope.
The beetling overhang of the cliff prevented him from touching the granite wall with his toes. His palms would be blistered and bleeding by the time his boots touched solid bottom.
There would be no returning from Thunder Rock Canyon by this method. He had his last chip in the pot this time. All or nothing. It depended on how fate flipped the cards in the hour ahead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Thunder Rock Showdown
“That’ll fix her for the time being, Zedra.”
Doc Stiles put the finishing touches on the turban of bandage which girdled Joyce Melrose’s head, having stitched the bloody welt on her skull where Tondro’s rifle stock had dubbed her.
They were inside the partitioned cubicle in Tondro’s shaft house which the outlaw had set aside, years ago, for the privacy of Zedra Stiles. Zedra knelt beside the bunk where Joyce lay now, holding the other girl’s hands in hers.
Joyce had only the haziest recollection of their nightmarish flight across Lavarim Basin. She knew only in a vague way where she was now. Only the friendly presence of Zedra and her father kept her from hysteria.
The lantern hanging from a ceiling beam over the bunk flickered as the door of the cubicle opened and Teague Darkin, his jowls and chin covered with a two-day growth of stubble like fine rusty wire, entered the cubicle.
“I got to talk to Joyce—alone,” Darkin gruffed at the old doctor. “It’s a matter of life or death for all four of us, Doc. Tondro’s given me an ultimatum to deliver to Joyce.”
Stiles’s rheumy eyes held a venomous glitter as he said, “Miss Melrose needs rest, Darkin. I’ll give you five minutes with her, no more.”
Zedra gave Joyce’s hand a reassuring squeeze and followed her father out of the room. Darkin regarded Joyce through eyes like burned-out coals, bespeaking his own exhaustion. The flight from North Gate had been as hard on him as it had on Joyce.
Joyce clutched the blanket about her and turned to the wall, flinching as Darkin touched her arm.
Darkin cleared his throat. “Joyce,” he said in a rasping voice, “you got to talk to me. I know you hate my insides.”
“We have nothing to talk about, Teague.”
“This thing has passed out of my control, Joyce. Tondro has given me an ultimatum. Whether or not either of us lives to see daylight depends on you.”
Joyce pulled herself to a sitting position on the bunk and turned to regard her erstwhile foreman with a loathing intensity she would have given a coiled rattlesnake.
“You ask me to help you—you, the beast who shot my father in cold blood! You made love to me only because you wanted my ranch as a rustling base for Tondro. And you think I would help you!”
Darkin licked his lips. “Tondro still wants Crowfoot,” he said hopelessly. “You’ve got to become my wife if either of us leaves this place alive. It—it won’t have to be a real marriage, Joyce. I realize I’ve forfeited your love. I—”
“You never had it, Teague. I accepted your ring because Dad set such store in you.”
Darkin lowered his gaze. “I know, Joyce, I know. The thing is, you have your own life to think about. Unless you accept me on Tondro’s terms, that half-breed will torture the both of us. And Zedra and Doc as well. That’s how it stacks up, Joyce.”
Joyce Melrose’s lips twisted into an ugly caricature of a smile.
“Tondro can’t touch Crowfoot unless I agree to marry you?”
A faint hope sprung alive in Darkin’s eyes. “It is a small price to pay for the lives of four people.”
The door opened, and the bearded face of Doc Stiles appeared there. “Your time’s up, Darkin. Miss Melrose is in no shape to argue anything with you. If she wasn’t made of whang leather and sawdust like her father before her, she wouldn’t have survived the trip here.”
Darkin stood up, staring down at Joyce with a slow desperation growing in his eyes. “Tondro’s given me an hour to get your answer,” he said hoarsely. “For God’s sake don’t let your hatred of me cause Doc and Zedra to lose their lives.”
Dark
in walked past Stiles into the blackness of the main shaft house, its walls confining the chorus of snoring from the Mexican renegades. The Crowfoot foreman stumbled over to the bunk Tondro had assigned to him. He saw Zedra step into the cubicle to join Joyce, saw the lantern go out.
Doc Stiles picked up his kit bag and spoke softly to the two women in the room. “I guess we’d all better make our peace with God. Tondro wasn’t bluffing when he gave Darkin his orders.”
The old doctor left the shaft house, feeling the need of fresh air. Stiles, so long a prisoner in this place that he could not be sure an outside world even existed, welcomed this coming dawn which he was sure, in his secret heart, would be the last he would ever see. The nearness of death’s release had a paradoxical power to exalt his spirits now.
Doc Stiles’s steps took him across the canyon floor toward the base of the waterfall. It was his habit to bathe in the crystal water of the vast pool to one side of the plunging cataract. That was his intention now as he stripped off his ragged coat and sat down on a rock to tug at his warped boots.
“Doc! Doc Stiles.”
A voice was calling him, barely audible above the thunder of tumbling waters so near at hand. For a moment Stiles believed that his sanity had cracked, that his brain was playing him tricks. He twisted around, squinting through the half-light of the approaching dawn.
Then he caught sight of a tall chap-clad figure standing in front of the getaway tunnel which made its black oval against the base of the cliff, fifty feet from the waterfall. Staring at the apparition like a man in a trance, Stiles came jerkily to his feet.
“Doug Redding!” he gasped out. “It—it cannot be.”
But it was true. The stock detective was no ghost, no figment of his imagination. Doug Redding stood waiting at the tunnel’s mouth. By what miracle had he breached the heavy iron gates which Tondro had built inside that shaft?
Stiles stumbled his way up the sprawl of old mine tailings, half expecting Redding’s shape to dissolve like a wisp of smoke. A moment later their hands met and clasped.
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