It took me some stretch of time before I reached my horses, even though they weren't far off. I moved along, keeping out of sight as best I could, and heard nothing. And then, just as dark was coming on the rim up yonder, I saw a rider top out there, hold fast for a minute, and start down the trail. All he could see from up there was a great black bowl of darkness.
As I edged closer, old Ap pricked his ears and took a step toward me, curious as to why I was down there on the ground. "Easy, boy!" I whispered. "Easy, now!"
He stood fast and my hand went out to gather up the reins. I drew the horse nearer to me, then, carefully, I got to my feet.
Suddenly, at my elbow, a voice spoke--a woman's voice. The shock of it sent a chill right up my spine.
"I believe I have been hurt. Can you help me?"
Chapter XXII
It was Fanny Baston.
She had a voice that was one in ten thousand--low, soft, inviting. Even in the darkness I could see there was blood on her face, her blouse and coat were torn, and she was favoring one leg.
"Your friends are close by." I wanted no part of her, just none at all. She was hurt, all right, but she had a brother and an uncle within call, and mayhap others as well.
"I think I am ..." she just let go everything and slumped to the ground, passed out.
I swore. Yes sir, I swore. The last thing I needed right now was to be saddled with a hurt woman, especially this one. She hadn't seemed to know me. Maybe that rap on the skull had done it, but there wasn't much a body could do.
If I called for them, I'd get shot. If I left her there, she might die. I'd no idea how bad off she was, and I couldn't see any way but to take her along. So I picked her up and put her in the saddle. Holding her with one hand I started forward. I hadn't gone that way more than a few minutes when Ap stopped. I tried to urge him on, but he wouldn't budge a step. Leaving Fanny Baston slumped over the saddle horn, I went forward and almost stepped off of the world.
My foot went off the edge, and it was lucky I had hold of the bridle. Pulling back, I knocked a small rock off into space, and it fell what seemed like a long time. I backed up and turned the horse, and we worked back into the scattered trees and into the grass.
What I needed now was a hideout. Wandering around in the dark at the edge of a cliff was no way to find one, yet find one I did. It was fool's luck, nothing else.
I came to another place where the horse stopped, but that time I could see trees ahead of me. I dropped a rock and it fell only a few feet and lit soft.
I worked along the edge until I found a place that sort of slanted off and I went down. I was on a lower level, maybe six or eight feet lower than where I'd been, and there was thick grass underfoot.
I had tied Fanny's hands to the pommel, and now I led the horses down and along under the trees. When I got behind a small shoulder of that ledge, I pulled up, knelt close to the ground, and took the chance to strike a match.
Some tall spruce, boles eight to ten inches through, were close around me. I was on level, grassy ground. I untied Fanny's hands and lifted her down. She was unconscious, or seemed to be. If she was shamming, she was doing an almighty good job of it. I put her on the grass, stripped the gear from my horses, and led them over on the grass and picketed them.
Coming back to the trees, I stood there for a moment, getting the feel of the place. All around me was darkness, overhead a starlit sky except where the limbs of spruce intervened. We seemed to be in a sort of pocket. One edge of it, I was quite sure, was the lip of that dropoff over which I'd almost stepped--the outer edge of the mountain itself.
Down here, and under the spruce, there seemed a good chance a fire would not be seen. In the dark I surely could do nothing for that girl, and I was hungry and wanting coffee.
Breaking a few of the dried suckers from the trees and gathering wood by the feel, I put together enough for a fire, then lit a small blaze. Fanny Baston was out cold, all right, and she was pale as anybody I'd seen who was also alive.
She'd had a nasty blow on the skull and her head was cut to the bone. One arm was scraped, taking a lot of the hide off. Her leg wasn't broken, but there was a swelling and a bruised bone. I heated water, started coffee, and bathed some of the blood off her face and head. I also bathed the arm a little, getting some of the grass and gravel out of the skinned place.
I took the thong off my six-shooter. If I needed a gun I was going to need it fast. My Winchester I kept to hand, but across the fire from that woman.
By the time I'd made coffee her breathing was less ragged and she was settling down into what seemed to be a natural sleep. She was a beautiful woman, no denying it, but here I was, so weary I scarce could stand, and I dasn't sleep for fear she'd wake up in the middle of the night and put a blade into me.
And she had one. She had it strapped to her leg under her dress, a neat little knife, scarcely wider than her little finger but two-edged as well as pointed.
I'd come onto it whilst I was checking that bad leg, but I left it right where it was.
After a bit I walked off into the dark and went back up on the level. There was no sign of that place from above, and the little fire I had was well hidden. I listened for a spell, then strolled back. Fanny Baston had not moved. At least not so's I could see.
Taking my blankets I moved back among those trees. Three spruces grew together, their trunks starting almost from the same spot. I settled down amongst them with my pistol hitched around between my legs and my Winchester handy. Wrapped in a blanket, I settled down for the night.
The trees formed a V and I put a couple of small branches across the wide part of it. To reach me they'd have to step one foot there, and I had a notion I'd hear them first. And there was always the horses to warn me of folks a-coming.
There for a time I slept, dozed, slept again, and dozed. Then I was awake for a spell. Easing out of my place I added a few small sticks to the fire, checked Fanny, covering her better with the blanket, then went back to my corner.
It was not yet daybreak when I finally awakened, and I sat there for a bit, thinking about pa and about this place and wondering what had become of him.
Wherever he'd come to the end could not be far from here unless he taken that ghost trail clean out of the country. Knowing pa, he might have done just that.
I was wishing I had ol' Powder-Face with me. That was a canny Injun, and he'd be a help to a man in sorting out a twenty-year-old trail.
When the sky was gray I eased out of my corner and stretched to get the stiffness out of me. I was still tired, but I knew that this day I had it to do.
First off I strolled over to the rim. There was a drop of around a thousand feet, and, at the point where I'd almost stepped off, a sheer drop. Far oft I could see a red cliff showing above the green, and still further the endless mountains rolling away like the waves of the sea to the horizon.
There was no easy way into that vast hollow, but on a point some distance off there was the thin line of a game trail, probably made by elk. It might lead into the basin.
I started back to camp.
Nobody needed to tell me the showdown was here. It was now; it was today.
Andre Baston had followed me from New Orleans, and with him Hippo Swan. They knew what happened here twenty years ago. That Fanny Baston had come with them was a measure of their desperation.
They'd lived mighty easy most of their days. They'd built themselves a style of life they preferred, and then they discovered that money did not last forever.
Ahead of them was loss of face and poverty, and all that would go with it, and they had no courage to face what many face with dignity their life long.
They had staked everything on what would happen today. Not only to prevent the discovery of what had gone before, but if possible to find the treasure--or a part of it--for themselves.
When daylight came I could see that I was on a sort of ledge that sat like a step below the rim. It was covered with grass and scattered with tr
ees and it seemed to curve on around until it lined out along a great barebacked ridge.
The ledge varied in width, maybe a hundred feet at its widest point, narrowing down here and there to no more than a third of that. It was a place that no one would suspect until they were right on it, and I couldn't have found anything better.
From anywhere on that ledge a body could see most of it, and I could see no movement yonder where Fanny Baston was lying. I went to my horses and moved them further along. This was good grass and they were having a time of it; and they deserved it.
Nevertheless, being a man who placed no trust in any future I had not shaped myself, I packed my saddle yonder and slapped it on the appaloosa. Then I put together most of my gear and took it down behind a shoulder of rock near the buckskin.
Right above the ledge was a high, rocky knoll that overlooked everything around.
From the ledge I could crawl out and climb that knoll and have a good view of the whole basin.
First I walked back to camp. Fanny Baston was sitting up, her arms around her knees. She looked up at me, her eyes blank.
"Where is this place?" she asked.
"On top of a mountain," I said. I did not know what to think of her, and I was careful. My right hand held my rifle by the action, thumb on the hammer in case of unexpected company. "You had a fall. Your horse jumped off the trail."
She looked at me. "Are you taking care of me? I mean ... why are we here?"
She seemed genuinely puzzled, but I was of no mind to play games. I knew the showdown was close to hand. "You followed me to kill me," I said. "You and your uncle and them."
"Why should we want to kill you?" She looked mystified. "I can't imagine wanting to kill you, or hurt you--you're-you're nice."
She said it in a little girl's voice. "And you're so tall, so strong looking."
She got up. "Are you strong? Could you hold me?"
She took a step toward me. Her dress was torn and her shoulder was bare above that scraped-up arm.
"Your brother and your uncle are right over yonder," I said, "and if you start walking that way, they'll find you."
"But-but I don't want to go! I want to stay with you."
"You must have taken more of a rap on the skull than I figured," I told her.
"You're a right fine lookin' figure of a woman, but I wouldn't touch you with a hayfork, ma'am. I don't think you've got an honest bone in you."
She smiled. "I do like you!"
She came toward me, moving in close. "Tell, please! Let's forget all this! Let's take the horses and go back down the way we came! We could keep right on to California! Anywhere!"
"Yes, ma'am. We could, but--"
Suddenly, she jumped at me, grabbing at my rifle with both hands. She latched on to it and then she grabbed my wrist. "Now, Paul! Now!"
Scared, I threw her off me, sending her tumbling on the grass. She cried out as she hit, and I lost balance and went to one knee.
Paul was standing there, a rifle in his hands, and, even as I looked, its muzzle stabbed flame.
Chapter XXIII
Paul was no such killer as his uncle. He shot too quickly and at a moving target, and his bullet missed. Mine did not.
Yet it was an almost miss. The bullet I had intended for his body was high. It struck the action of the rifle, ripping into his hand, cutting a furrow along his cheek, and taking the lobe from his ear.
He screamed, dropped the rifle, and ran.
Fanny, crying hoarsely with anger, scrambled to her feet and ran for the rifle.
I struck her aside, knocking her into the grass once more. I picked up the rifle and threw it.
It cleared the edge and fell, disappearing from sight.
Someone shouted, "They've found him! Come on!"
I turned and ran swiftly back toward my horses, keeping trees between me and them. I heard a shot, and a bullet scattered twigs and bark over my head, so I swung behind a tree, gasping for breath, but ready to shoot.
There was no target.
Then I heard Fanny shouting, her voice hoarse and angry. "Paul had him! He shot right at him and missed! And then he ran like a rabbit!"
It was easy to cast blame. Chances were Paul had never faced gunfire before.
Like a lot of others he was ready to hurt or kill, but not to be hurt or killed.
Many men avoid battle not from cowardice but from fear of cowardice, fear that when the moment of truth comes they will not have the courage to face up to it.
Paul had no such nerve, and he had been hurt--perhaps not badly, and certainly not fatally, but he had seen his own blood flowing, a profound shock to some.
"It is no problem," I heard Andre's voice, calm and easy. "No problem. I know the place where he is, and there's no way out. It worked before and it will again."
Before?
I looked around me.
Here? Had this been where pa died? I looked toward the corner where the horses were. There?
I had seen no bones, no grave. Wild animals might have scattered the bones, or the body might have been thrown over the edge into the hollow below.
Here ... had pa come to an end here? And was I to follow him?
The situation was different, I told myself. I had a good Winchester, plenty of food, ammunition ... I could stand a siege. Unless there was something else, some unknown factor.
Some time back Judas had said that Andre Baston had ten men with him. It might be an exaggeration, but there were several. I could hear their voices.
After a moment, seeing all clear, I retreated to where the horses were. Here the cul-de-sac narrowed down, and the drop into the basin below was steep. Even had a man been able to get down there, until he could reach the trees, he would be wide open for a shot from the rim. And Andre wasn't likely to miss, as Paul had.
It looked like there might be a narrow way along the rim, a way that might be used by man or horse, but it showed no tracks, no trail, no sign of use. There was also a good chance that a rifleman would be waiting at the other end, with a certain target. There'd be no chance of missing if the target was approaching over a way not three feet wide.
Some rocks had been heaped up here, one slab on another, and some had fallen from a higher barricade. Now there was a fallen tree, the needles still clinging to the dead branches.
When I reached the horses I broke open a box of cartridges and filled my coat pockets. My Winchester '73 was fully loaded, and I was ready as a man could be.
Right over beyond that bare knoll that towered above me was the basin, and from the lower side of the basin a trail went down La Plata Canyon to Shalako.
At Shalako were at least three Sacketts and some friends, but that was six or seven miles away, maybe further, and they might as well be in China for all the good they'd do.
What happened here was up to me. And only me.
I just had a thought that worried me. It passed through my mind while I was considering other things. Something was suddenly nagging me ... what could it have been?
There was some factor in my setup here ...
I had a good field of fire down the ledge from where I'd chosen my hiding place.
There were a few dips and hollows, some fallen logs, some of them almost rotted through.
Getting the horses into as safe a spot as could be, I settled down and gave study to the situation. Over my shoulder I could see the almost bare flank of that ridge where the ghost trail led. Now if I could get over there ...
Nobody was coming. Evidently they were sure they had me and would let me worry a mite. I smelled smoke ... they were fixing some breakfast.
Well, why not me?
I gathered some sticks and put together a bit of a blaze and set some coffee to boiling. Then I got out my skillet and fried up some bacon. Meanwhile I kept an eye open for those gents who were hunting me.
If this was where they had cornered pa, where were his bones? And what became of his outfit? And the gold?
Pa was a canny man,
and he'd not be wishful of them profiting by his death. If this was where it happened, then he would have made some show of hiding things ... Yet, how had it happened? True, pa only had a muzzle-loader, and, fast as he was, he'd not be able to fight off a bunch of them for long. But he had a pistol--or should have had.
Thing that disturbed me was the fact that Baston and them were so sure they had me. Now if I could just see what they were about ...
Suddenly a cold chill went through me, like they say happens when somebody steps on your grave. All of a sudden I knew why they were so sure of themselves.
They had a man atop that knoll who could shoot into this place where I was.
He was probably up there now, and, when the attack began and my attention was directed down along the ledge, he'd shoot me from the top of that hill.
Actually, it was a peak, standing higher than anything close by. Looking up at it, I could see where a man up there, if willing to expose himself a little, could fire at almost every corner of this ledge--almost every corner.
Well, cross that bridge when it came. Now for the bacon. I ate it there, liking the smell of it and the smell of the fire. What would I miss most, I wondered, if I should be killed here? The sight of those clouds gathering over the mountains yonder? The smell of woodsmoke and coffee and bacon? The feel of a good horse under me? Or the sunlight through the aspen leaves?
I hadn't a lot to remember, I guess. I'd been to none of the great places, nor walked among people of fame. I'd never eaten very fancy, nor been to many drama-shows. I'd set over many a campfire and slept out under the stars so much I knew all their shapes and formations from looking up at them time after time.
There'd been some good horses here and there, and some long trails and wide deserts I'd traveled. I had those memories, and I guess they stacked up to quite a lot when a fellow thought of it. But pa was away head of me when he settled down here to make his stand. He had a wife back home, and some boys growing, boys to carry on his name and carry on his living for him. I hadn't a son nor a daughter. If I went out now there'd be nobody to mourn me. My brothers, yes. But a man needs a woman to cry for him when he goes out.
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