The rock crumbled in his fingers, and with a wild gasp of despair he felt himself sliding back. Desperately, his hand shot out, caught a handful of brush. His arms jerked in their sockets, and then, slowly, he dragged himself up.
With his feet clinging precariously to a tiny ledge, he glanced back. His rifle lay where he had left it and as the fire spread across the roof the shells in the magazine began to explode … he heard yelling, what they thought was going on he couldn’t imagine, maybe they thought he was still shooting at them. Hand over hand, he pulled himself up into the hollow under the shelf.
The roof below was a roaring furnace now. The slightest slip would send him plunging into the flames. Smoke rose in a stifling cloud. He pulled himself higher until the shelf was directly over his back. As he clung there, fighting for breath, he heard footsteps grate on the rock only a few inches over his head.
There would be no chance to get over the edge of the shelf as long as that man remained there. Clinging to the brush, his feet resting on a small ledge, only a couple of inches wide, he turned his head. A black hole gaped in the stone face. A hole scarcely large enough for a man’s body, a hole under the shelf of rock.
Carefully, taking his whole weight on his arms, he lifted his feet and thrust them into the hole. Catching his toes behind a minor projection of rock, he drew himself back inside.
Dropping his feet, he felt around. Inside the opening, the hole was several feet deep. He drew back until he was on his knees, only his head in the opening. Less smoke was coming toward him now. He could hear shouts from below, and one from above him.
“See him?” The voice was that of Cornish.
“Blamed fool burned to death,” Schaum said in astonishment. “He never even showed.”
“I’m coming down!” Cornish shouted.
“You stay there,” Schaum bellowed. “I don’t like the look of this!”
Brad felt of the walls and top of the hole he was in. At the back it slanted down and around. But feeling at the top in back, he felt earth and roots. It was probably not more than two feet to the surface there, or very little more.
Where was Cornish? The question was answered when he heard the man shout another question at Schaum. He was probably at least thirty feet away.
Removing a spur, Brad Murphy dug at the earth. He worked carefully, avoiding sound. He dug at the soft earth, letting it fall to the bottom of the hole. Much of it fell on his own legs, cushioning the little sound. He had worked but a few minutes when taking a small root, he pulled down, a tiny hole appeared, and earth cascaded around him. Pistol ready, he waited for an instant to see if Cornish had heard him. There was no sound or movement, and he tugged at another root. More dirt cascaded around him. That time there was a muffled gasp and he heard pounding feet.
His gun was ready and it was all that saved him. Dave Cornish, his eyes wide and frightened, was staring down into the hole at him, gun in hand.
The man was petrified by astonishment. The man he thought had burned in the cabin below was coming up through the earth. Before Cornish could realize what was truly happening, Brad acted. The gun was ready. He shoved it up, and even as Cornish started from his shock, the six-gun bellowed.
The close confines of the hole made a terrific blast, and acrid fumes cut at Murphy’s nostrils. Cornish fell forward, and bracing his shoulders against the earth atop the hole, Brad shoved himself through. He scrambled out, rolling over flat.
ONE LOOK AT Dave Cornish was enough. The man was dead. He had been shot right through the heart. Excited shouts came from below. The shot, muffled by the earth, had reached them but dimly. Yet they were alarmed.
“Butcher!” Murphy yelled.
Schaum was walking toward the smoldering cabin, Moffitt a few feet behind him.
Butcher Schaum froze; terror had turned his face to an ugly mask as he raised his eyes.
He dropped a hand for a gun, and Brad Murphy whipped up his own. Shots stabbed into the hot still air, something struck his shoulder, and he staggered one step, then fired. Schaum swayed drunkenly, tried to get a gun up, and then Brad fired again.
Behind him, Asa Moffitt swept up a pistol and emptied it in a terror-stricken blast of fire. Then he turned and ran for the gully.
Remorselessly, Brad Murphy waited an instant, then fired. Once, twice! The outlaw and murderer fell, rolled over, and lay sprawled out on the lip of the gully.
Calmly, Brad Murphy reloaded. He found the paint horse standing not far away, and mounting, rode down to the smoldering ruins.
A few minutes of search and he found his gold. The bag had hit and slid down the bank. It was lying there covered partially by dirt, visible but not likely to attract attention.
Shaking his head, he swung into the saddle and turned the horse toward town.
“Horse,” he said, “you’re takin’ me home. I got to buy me a ranch for Ruth and my boy…. I reckon,” he added, “they’ll be right glad to see me.”
He turned the horse down the trail. The nearest town was thirty miles away. Behind him the smoke lifted slowly toward the sky where a buzzard circled lazily in the wavering heat. Gravel rattled, and the horse felt good between Brad’s legs, and he liked the heavy feeling of the gold.
Secret of Silver Springs
It was an hour after sunup when Dud Shafter rode the roan gelding up to the water hole at Pistol Rock. The roan had come up the basin at a shuffling trot, but the man who waited there knew that both horse and man had come far and fast over rough trails.
The waiting man, Navarro, could understand that. The trail this rider had left behind him lay through some of the roughest country in the Southwest, a journey made no easier by the fact that several Apache bands were raiding and their exact location was anyone’s guess. He glanced appraisingly at the sweat-stained, sun-faded blue shirt the red-haired man wore, noted the haggard lines of the big-boned, freckled face, and the two walnut-butted guns in their worn holsters.
As the man drew up, Navarro indicated the fire. “Coffee, señor? There is plenty.”
Shafter stared down at the Mexican with hard blue eyes, and when he swung down he kept the horse between them. He stripped the saddle from the horse and rubbed it down briskly with a handful of desert grass, then walked toward the fire. He had not even for an instant turned his back on the Mexican.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said at last.
Squatting, he placed his cup on a flat rock, then lifting the pot with his left hand, he poured the cup full of scalding black coffee. Replacing the pot alongside the coals, he glanced across the fire at Navarro and lifted the cup.
“Luck!” he said.
After a moment, he put the cup down and dug in his pocket for the makings.
“You make a good cup of coffee,” he said.
Navarro lifted a deprecating shoulder and one eyebrow. His eyes had never left the big man’s carefully moving hands. It was simply something to say; Navarro was a good cook, coffee was the least of his achievements … and he had other abilities as well.
The Mexican wore buckskin breeches, hand-tooled boots, and one ivory-butted gun. His felt sombrero was fastened under his chin with a rawhide thong.
The sound of another horse approaching brought the heads of both men up sharply. Navarro touched his lips with his tongue, and Dud Shafter shifted his weight to face the opening into the basin.
A buckskin horse came through the opening at a walk, and a man sat that horse with a double-barreled express shotgun across his saddle bows. The man was a Negro.
“Howdy!” Shafter said.
“Join us,” Navarro added.
The Negro grinned and swung to the ground. He was shorter than either of the others, but of such powerful build that his weight would have equaled that of Shafter, who was a big man in any company.
He wore a six-shooter in an open-toed holster, but as he dismounted and moved up to the fire, he kept his shotgun in his hand. He carried his own cup, as did the others, and when he squatted to pour t
he coffee, the shotgun was ready to his hand.
Navarro smiled, revealing even white teeth under the black of his mustache. These were men of his own kind. After a moment or two, he took a burlap sack off his saddle and began to cook. Slowly he assembled a meal, such a meal as the two strangers had certainly not seen in many weeks. Tortillas were heated on a flat rock, lean shredded beef was cooked with peppers and onions, frijoles that he had soaked since he had camped the previous night were split into three portions. As Navarro worked his magic he carefully watched his new companions.
“It takes money,” he suggested, “to travel far. I know where there is money!”
Dud Shafter’s chill blue eyes lifted in a curious, speculative glance. “It takes money. That’s the truth.”
“If you’re travelin’”—the other man wiped off his seamed black hands—”and you know where there is money for the takin’, you’re a lucky man!”
“One man cannot get this money,” Navarro hinted. “Three men might.”
Dud Shafter let the idea soak in, staring into the fire. He picked up a mesquite stick and thrust it into the coals, watching a tongue of flame lick greedily at the dry wood.
He looked around casually. “Would this money be nearby?” he asked.
“Sixty miles by this road, but by a way I and only a few others know, it is but twenty. There is an Apache path through the mountains. We could ride over this trail, make our collection, and return. We could get water and some rest here, then head for the Blues.”
“You don’t think others know this trail … others we might have to worry about?” Dud asked.
Navarro shrugged. “Who knows. But we will be careful. At the right moment we will hide our tracks. Also, in going there we will learn the path well. It is a chance that I believe in.”
Dud Shafter rolled the idea over in his mind. He was not above driving off a few steers, especially if he didn’t know whose they were. But this sounded like crime, straight from the shoulder, out-and-out theft. Not his style, but he was going to need money. There was trouble down his back trail and a winter with no work in his future.
“There is an express box,” Navarro informed him, “on a stage. In that box are two small payrolls … small for payrolls, but good money for us. More than seven thousand dollars. Before the stage arrives at Lobo station, it passes through Cienaga Pass. That is the place.”
After a moment Shafter nodded and then the Negro did too. He didn’t really like the idea but he was willing to go along. What he did like, however, was the Mexican’s food.
NAVARRO LED OFF because he knew the route. Dud Shafter and the Negro, who had said his name was Benzie, followed. Navarro led them into the cedars along the mountainside back of Pistol Rock, then crossed the hill and cut down its side into a sandy wash. Seven miles farther, he led them into a tangle of mesquite, cat-claw, and yeso. Steadily, their trail tended toward the blank face of the cliff, yet when they reached it, Navarro turned south for two miles, then entered a canyon. The canyon ended in a jumble of rocks, and beyond the tumbled pile of boulders was the cliff.
“Looks like you miscalculated,” Dud said. “There ain’t no way through there.”
“Wait, compadre.” Navarro chuckled. “Just wait!”
They rode on into the gathering dark, weaving a way among the boulders toward the face of the cliff.
The walls to right and left closed in, and the darkness shouldered its shadows toward their horses. Then a boulder-strewn, cedar-cloaked hillside lifted toward the sheer wall of rock, and the Mexican started up. Within only a few feet of the cliff, he turned his horse at right angles and started down a steep slope that led right up to the face. Concealed by the boulder-strewn hill was a path that slanted steeply down, then turned to a crevasse between two walls of rock. It was a trail that no man would ever suspect was there.
Between the walls, so close together their stirrups grazed the rock on either side, it was dark and cool. There was dampness in the air.
“It is like this for miles,” Navarro said. “No danger of going astray.”
They rode on and Dud nodded in the saddle, his horse plodding steadily forward. Finally, after nearly an hour’s ride, the crevasse widened into a canyon, and they still rode on. Then the canyon narrowed to a crevasse again, and they passed by a trickle of water. When they had gone only a little way farther, Navarro halted.
Dud Shafter, startled from a half sleep, slid a gun into his hand. He glared around in the darkness.
“There is no trouble,” Navarro said. “The trail is there.” He pointed toward the black mouth of a cave. “We will enter the cave and each of you will go exactly seventy-seven steps from the time your horse starts onto the rock floor, it will be very dark. Then you must turn left. You will see an opening covered with vines, push them aside and ride through.”
Navarro led the way and they rode into darkness. The echoes from the other horses’ hooves made it hard for Dud to count and he discovered it was better to plug his ears with his fingertips and feel the footsteps of his horse than to try to follow the confusing sounds in the cave. At seventy-seven he reined over and momentarily dragged his left knee against the rock.
“Guess that Mex has got a bigger horse than mine,” he grumbled.
Now the footfalls of their horses splashed in shallow water, then there was a dim light ahead and they pushed the vines aside and emerged into the evening air. A small trickle of water ran out from under the cover of vines and soaked the ground around their horses’ hooves.
Navarro turned to face them. “We will stop here,” Navarro said. “And I will tell you the way back in case I should be killed. You must follow the streambed in the cave and let your horse take thirty steps—no more.
“Turn your horse sharply right and ride straight ahead, and after you have been riding into darkness for a few minutes, you will see the trail down which we have come.”
“Suppose I take more than thirty steps?” Shafter asked.
Navarro shrugged. “You will find yourself in a great cavern, the floor is crumbling and filled with many holes. One man I knew made that mistake, and his horse and he went through the floor. We heard him scream as he fell. He fell a long way, señor.”
“I’ll count the thirty steps,” Shafter said dryly.
They bedded down and slept until dawn, then rolled out. Dud was the first one up, collecting greasewood and a few pieces of dead cedar for a fire. When he had the fire going he looked around and took stock of their position.
They had camped in what appeared to be a box canyon, and they were in the upper end of the canyon with a lovely green meadow of some thirty acres spread out before them. Not far away was a ruined adobe house and a pole corral.
When they had rested and eaten another of Navarro’s meals, they mounted and the Mexican rode into the meadow. The ruined adobe stood among ancient trees and beside a pool, crystal clear. Dud glanced around with appreciation.
“It’s a nice place,” he said thoughtfully. “A right nice place!”
In a wooden beam over the adobe’s door was carved a brand. “PV9” it read.
Benzie nodded, and shifted his shotgun. He carried it like part of himself, like an extension of his arm. He spoke little but never seemed to miss a trick.
LATER, THEY SWUNG down behind a clump of juniper on the crest of a low hill just off the stage road. Here the team would be slowed to a walk. It would be the best place.
They rode back into the juniper and dismounted. There was plenty of time. Benzie sat on the dead trunk of a tree and lit a smoke, staring bleakly off across the blue-misted bottomland of desert that stretched away toward purple hills. He had never stolen anything before.
Navarro stretched at full length on the sparse grass, his hat over his face. Dud Shafter idly flipped his knife into the end of the log. Shafter wondered about his Mexican and Negro companions, but asked no questions—and they volunteered no information.
Shafter swore softly and stared down the road. Ther
e was a warrant out for his arrest back along the trail. He hadn’t stolen that bunch of cattle but he’d been with the men who did. He might as well stick up the stage; might as well have the pay as well as the blame. Still, this was a point, a branching road where a man turned toward the owl hoot or along a trail with honest men. Warrant or not, he was sitting in a fork of that road right now.
Keen as Dud’s ears were, Benzie heard them first. He started up. “Some men are comin’,” he said.
Navarro was off the ground like a cat. Dud ground his cigarette into the sand and moved to his horse’s head, a hand over the nostrils. The three stood there like statues, waiting, listening.
At least four horses, Dud thought, listening to the hoofbeats. There was no noise of rigging or rattle of wheels … it was not the stage. The horses slowed and stopped.
“This is the best place,” a voice said. “We’ll draw back into the trees.” Over some brush Dud glimpsed a flash of white as one of them moved; the man who had spoken was wearing a light-colored hat.
Holding his breath, every sense alert, Dud Shafter waited. Navarro looked at him, a droll, humorous glint in his eyes. The new men took the brush on the opposite side of some rocks. The air was clear, and a man’s words could have been distinguished at a much greater distance but the voice echoed slightly.
“They’ll be slowin’ up right here.” The same voice was speaking. “We make it a clean sweep. Joe, you take the driver. Pete, the messenger. Nobody must be left alive to tell who did it. Above all, get that old man. We’ll make him talk!”
There was silence, and the three men on the other side of the trail stared at each other. Here was a complication. To speak aloud would be to give themselves away. Even the movement of their horses might have that result, for if a hoof struck stone, that would mean discovery, and each of them knew from what had been said that the men across the way were utterly ruthless.
The Collected Short Stories of Louis L'Amour, Volume 7 Page 34