On elbows and knees, I wormed my way along the passage, if such it could be called.
All around me was thick brush, much of it blackberry brush with thorns like needles. But wild animals had used this opening, and I made my way through.
At the end it opened on a sheet of bluish rock scattered with pebbles fallen off the mountain.
There were slender aspens here, and I stood up and faced into them, loading the Ferguson as I went.
They were no more than a hundred yards away, and it would be only a matter of time until they found me. What I needed now was a place to hide.
Or a place in which to make a stand.
Falvey was shouting angrily. Suddenly I heard a shot, then a burst of firing... and silence.
A moment I listened, but they would be searching for me, knowing me trapped against the face of the mountain.
I went down the dry watercourse through the aspen, their leaves dancing overhead, and then turned and found myself with a sheer wall of rock on my right hand, a wall at least thirty feet high, and without a break!
The place was shadowed and still, dappled by sunlight falling through the leaves. I walked on, careful to make no sound. My enemies were close beyond the scattered boulders, brush, and trees on my left, and on my right a rock wall not even a squirrel could climb.
Soon they would discover it was not thick brush and boulders to the rock wall. They would find there was this ancient watercourse.... Suddenly it ended.
The rock bed along which I had been walking suddenly turned right, dipped slightly down, and came to an abrupt end.
From around that corner, back up the way, came a shout. They had discovered my hidden path. In a moment I would be fighting for my life.
Glancing quickly around I saw what I had not seen before, a black slit at the foot of the rock wall into wh the water had evidently poured. It was narrow, but there was just a chance. Suppose it dropped off fifty or a hundred feet into blackness? I'd wind up in a cave with a broken leg and no way to get out. The thought was not pleasant.
Nevertheless, there might be a foothold, something to which I could cling-- Dropping to my knees, I lay flat, then backed my feet into the hole. Squirming back, only my shoulders, arms, head, and rifle still outside, I felt for a foothold.
And something grabbed me!
Before I could yell, I was jerked bodily back into the hole and tumbled in a heap on the sand at the foot of it.
There was a moment when I saw a grizzled old man in ragged, dirty buckskins, and then he was fitting a stone into the slit.
"Shush now!" he whispered. "They're a-comin' on the run." I heard their boots pounding on the rock outside, shouts, then swearing as they found nothing.
We could hear the
threshing in the bushes, hear boots scraping on rock. "Hell," somebody said, "I'll bet he never came this way at all!" The old man whispered. "We got to set awhile, let 'em work off their mad. They won't stay long." I was too astonished to speak, and sat, clutching my rifle... only I wasn't.
My hands should have been gripping my rifle and they were not. It was gone!
Faint light came from a crack around the rock that blocked my point of entry. The Ferguson rifle was in his hands, the muzzle pointed right at me!
CHAPTER 16
The hands that gripped the Ferguson were gnarled and old, but they were also thick and powerful. "You jest set quiet, boy. I ain't about to let them find you. Or me," he added, with a faint chuckle.
Surprisingly, we could hear well. Their boots grated on the rock, they threshed in the brush, and then somebody spoke again, farther away, the voice coming faintly. "Nobody come this way.
He's hidin' in the bresh somewheres." Their footsteps receded, and I looked slowly around. The cave in which I sat was about twenty feet across, but longer, and growing narrower as it led away from the basin. Evidently the water had spilled through the crack, swirled around in here, then found its way out by a passage widened by years of erosion.
The floor of the cave was sandy with rock underneath.
There was a little driftwood lying about, and on a shelf an old pack rat's nest.
The old man stood up. In his day he must have been a man of enormous strength. Even now his wrists were thick and strong. His shoulders were slightly stooped, like those of a gorilla. He turned from me and picked up his rifle, which he had leaned against a wall. At the same time he extended mine to me. "I was afeared you might be skeered an' take a shot at me, grabbin' you like I done." "Thank you," I said. "You probably saved my life." "Figured on it." He turned toward the passage. "Let's mosey out'n here. Ain't no place to talk, this here. When a sudden rain comes, this place fills up mighty rapid.
Seen it a time or two." He led the way into the passage. It was completely dark there and I had no liking for it, but he walked along fearlessly so I judged he not only knew the place well but also that there were no obstacles.
"Weren't always like this. I cleaned it up. Never know when a body might have to git out an' git, an' when I take to runnin', I don't want nothin' in the way." After sixty counted steps, I saw light ahead, and then another twenty steps and we emerged in a much wider room where a little light filtered in from some crack above.
Several openings left the cave.
"Seen you from above." He indicated with a lift of his head the mountain above us. "Seen them folks a-huntin' you. Seen you turn down the crick bed yonder, figured to help." "Thanks again. That's a bad lot." "I seen him before. Two, three years ago he came up here, poked around all over the country. I seen a Injun he got holt of.
... That's a mighty mean man yonder." His buckskins were worn and dirty, and his hands showed him to be old, but there was no age in his eyes.
"Are you a trapper?" I asked.
He chuckled. "Time to time. I'm a hunter, too, time to time. I'm whatever it needs to get what I want." "My name is Ronan Chantry. I joined up with some others to trap the western mountains but we ran into a girl in trouble, and we've been helping her." "Girl?" He snorted. "They're mostly in trouble, an' when they ain't, they're gettin' other folks into x." He loaded his pipe. "Who's with you?" "Solomon Talley, Degory Kemble, Davy Shanagan--was "Huh! I know Talley. Good man. An' that crazy Irishman... I know him, too. The others?" "Bob Sandy, Cusbe Ebitt, Isaac Heath, and there's a Mexican lad with us named Ulibarri." "I knowed some Ulibarris down Sonora way. Good folks. Sandy, he's that Injun hunter. I never cottoned to him much. I always get along with the Injuns. The Blackfeet.
well, they're hard folks to get to like, although I expect a body could. The Sioux... they're huntin' me all the while.
"Take pleasure in it, I reckon, but they can't find me." His eyes glinted with humor.
"Good folks, them Sioux! I wouldn't be without 'em. They come a-huntin' for my hair an' they keep me on my toes.
"Can't find me, nohow. This here mountain is limestone. Don't look it, because she's topped off with other rock, but this here"--he waved a hand about--"is limestone. This whole mountain is caves... must be hundreds of miles of them.
I got me a hideout here with twenty-five or thirty entrances.
"I don't hunt trouble with no Injun, but when they hunt me, I give 'em a-plenty. Ever' time I kill a Sioux I post a stick alongside the body with another notch in it.
nine, last count." "And you?" "They got lead into me oncet, arrers a couple of times, but I got more holes'n a passel o' prairie dogs, an' I always crawl into one of them an' get away. One time I ducked into a hole I didn't know an' it taken me three days to find my way to caves I knowed.
"Got 'em downright puzzled. They got no idea what to make of me. Last winter after an' almighty awful blizzard I found the ol' chief's squaw, his daughter, an' her two young uns down an' nigh froze to death.
"Well, sir, I got a f'ar a-goin', built a wickiup, an' fetched 'em meat. I fed 'em broth and cared for them until the weather tapered off some. I fetched fuel an' meat to keep 'em alive, an' then when I spotted some Injuns comin', I cut a sti
ck with nine notches, then a space, an' I added four crosses to stand for them I took care of. Then I taken to the hills." "You're a strange man, my friend, but an interesting one. Mind telling me your name?" "Van Runkle. Ripley Van Runkle.
You jest set tight, now, an' in awhile I'll show you a way out of here. Your folks are holed up yonder. You say you got womenfolk along?" "A girl... Lucinda Falvey." "Kin to Rafen?" "She's his niece, but he's a thoroughly bad one, and trying to get what rightly belongs to her." "Hmm, now what might that be?" His blue eyes were shrewd. "What's this country have for a young girl?" At that point, I hesitated. Dare I tell him anything? He knew this country better than any of us would ever know it, and given the proper clues could find such a treasure much sooner than we could. Yet if we were to find it, we must stay around and search... sooner or later he must know.
So I told him the story from the beginning, of our own meeting, of the death of Conway, and all that had transpired since. He listened, chewing on his old pipe.
"Figured as much," he said at last. He knocked out his pipe, tucking it away in his pocket. "Won't surprise you to know that's why I come here.
"I had the story from a Shoshoni. I heard it again from a Kansa. Never paid it much mind until I found myself a clue, an' that set me to huntin'." "A clue?" "Uh-huh. I found a strange cross cut into a rock. Looked like nothin' any Injun would make, so I set to figurin' on it." "You've found the treasure?" "No, sir. I surely ain't.
Same time I figure I'm almighty close.
It was huntin' about here that set me to findin' caves, an' I surely figured it would be hid away in one o' them. I found nothing no white man left. Bones, an' sech. I found enough of them." "If we find it, it's for the girl. You understand?" "That there gold belongs to who finds it, mister.
It might be me. I hunted nigh onto ten year ... off an' on." "If you found it," I said, "you couldn't use it here. That would mean leaving all this. Leaving it behind forever." He grunted, but said no more. More than an hour had passed while we talked, and I was wondering if my pursuers had moved along, but I said nothing.
We had been seated on rocks, talking.
Restlessness was on me. While I sat here in relative comfort, my friends might be fighting for their lives.
"All right," he said, when I mentioned them, "we'll go see." He led the way into a branch cave that inclined steeply up. He had cut crude steps into the limestone to make the climb easier. Suddenly the cave split and he led the way into the narrower passage of the two. We were climbing in a rough circle now, climbing what had evidently been a place where water had found a crack or weakness in the rock and had run almost straight down.
Above us there was light filtering down and we emerged on a steep hillside among several spruce trees that grew where there was scarce room for a man to stand. But just outside the entrance, which was under a shelf of rock and no more than three by four feet, was a flat rock.
Van Runkle seated himself. "A body can set here an' see whatever's in the bottom yonder. We're almost directly above the crack where you came into the cave, an' that there's the only blind spot for more'n a mile except for under the trees yonder." I looked, and although I saw nothing of my friends, the first thing I did see was a jagged streak of white quartz on the rock wall opposite, just across the bottom and beyond the creek. From here I could see that creek, sunlight on its ripples. Hastily, I averted my eyes, not to seem too curious.
The wall along which I had run while following the dry watercourse that led to this cave had been of bluish stone, the jagged streak of quartz was opposite, and somewhere nearby Van Runkle had found a Maltese cross on the rock.
Somewhere here, perhaps within a few yards, the treasure was buried or hidden.
"Nobody in sight," Van Runkle said, "and I surely can't hear anything. She's quiet as can be." Suddenly something stirred up the valley, and then a deer appeared. Behind it were two others.
Tentatively they walked out on the grass and began to nibble.
Nothing happened; nothing disturbed them.
Down the valley I could see the bustling brown bodies of the marmots.
Across the way the slim white trunks of the aspen, under golden clouds of leaves, caught the sunlight. The grass of the meadow was green with patches of golden coneflower, the reds and pinks of wild rose and geranium.
"I'd like to own five thousand acres of this," I told him.
"What would you do with it?" "Keep it. Keep it just as it is. I would not change it for anything under the sun. But it wouldn't have to be five thousand acres, just a piece of it that I could keep as it is now, fresh, clean, beautiful.
"There's no finer land than this before man puts a hand on it." "You against men?" "Of course not. Only men must do. It's in their nature to do, and much of what they've done is for the best, only sometimes they start doing before they understand that what they'll get won't be nearly as wonderful as what they had." He grabbed my arm. "Look! An' be quiet!" The marmots were scuttling. The deer turned their behinds to us and vanished into the brush; and there was for a moment stillness.
And into t stillness rode Rafen Falvey, and beside him was Lucinda. Behind them rode four men, armed and ready, and behind them Davy Shanagan and Jorge Ulibarri, hands and feet tied.
"Looks like he done taken the pot," Van Runkle said.
"No," I replied, "he has not. Not by a damned sight. I'm still holding cards in this game. Show me how to get down there, will you?"
CHAPTER 17
Yet for all my bold talk, when we reached the meadow, I had no idea of what to do or which way to go. Only that I must do something, and at once.
Where were the others? Had they been wiped out while I was in the deepest part of the cave and could not hear the shooting? Or had Falvey somehow captured Lucinda, Davy, and Jorge while they were separated from the group?
A moment only it required for decision. I could, of course, try to round up Degory, Solomon, and the others, yet in the meantime Davy, Jorge, and Lucinda might be put to the torture. I had no doubt that was intended, and no doubt that the reason Ulibarri and Davy were alive was simply to use them to compel Lucinda to tell what she knew... and they would never believe she knew so little.
Van Runkle stood beside me and I turned to him. "Is there a good camping place up the draw?" He shrugged. "I reckon. Depends on judgment. The whole draw is a good place to camp. There's grass, fuel, and water. I don't figure they'll go far. If they reckon this is where it's at, they'll stay by." True enough. And it was up to me to get my friends away, somehow to free them. If the others
ere alive, they would appear. If they were not, I would be foolish to waste time searching, especially as I was afoot. The fact that I was basically a walking man was a help. I was a rider, of course, but I always thought better and worked better on my feet.
"What d'you figure to do?" Van Runkle asked. His calm blue eyes studied me with curiosity.
"To get them away. I'll have to get close, see what the situation is, and then move.
"It's been a tradition in my family, when faced by enemies, to attack. No matter how many, no matter where. I had an ancestor named Tatton Chantry. He was a soldier in his time, and a fighting man always. He always said, "Never let them get set. Think, look around, there's always someplace where they're vulnerable.
Attack, always attack... and keep moving." "Good advice, if a body can do it." "Well, I got nothin' to gain, but I'll sort of traipse along an' see what happens, but don't you go to dependin' on me.
I'm like as not to disappear into the bresh come fightin' time." We started off, walking fast toward the north.
We kept along the edge of the woods, under the trees when a route offered itself, out at their edge when there was none.
My heart and lungs were acclimated to the altitude by now, and my condition was good. I moved out fast, keeping the Ferguson ready for a quick shot. The afternoon was well along and I had no doubt that in the leisure provided by a campfire they would try to learn whatever Lucin
da knew.
Yet warily as I moved, my mind was busy with what could be done. To attack them head-on was out of the question. There were too many men and too many skilled woodsmen. So I must attack them where they were vulnerable, create confusion, and then somehow get their prisoners away. It was rather too much to expect of myself, but when one begins there is a certain impetus given by the fact of beginning, and I kept going.
Possibly because I had no idea of what else to do.
Being the man I was, eternally questioning not only my motives but those of others, even as I moved forward my mind asked questions and sought answers.
I suspect what I was doing would be called courageous. If I rescued them, it might even be considered an heroic action, but was it? Was I not conditioned by reading, by hearing, by understanding what I should do?
To simply sit by was worse than to do, for then I should have no idea of what was happening, of how my destiny was being influenced by people over whom I had no control.
The sunset was spectacular. The sky streaked itself with rose and the region of the sun became an indescribable glory. All my life I have used words, and yet I find times when they are totally inadequate.
So it was now, and not only because of the backlight left by the sun, which had vanished beyond the mountains, but because I had come upon Rafen Falvey's camp.
There was no attempt at concealment.
Obviously he was not worried about Indians, which indicated he was rather a fool. It was, I assumed, an instance of his arrogance. One hates Indians or loves them, tries to understand them or simply guards against them, but one never takes them for granted.
Of course, he had a motive for display.
He wanted me, and he wanted whoever he did not have. His idea was to lure us to approach... which meant he probably had pickets posted rather well out.
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