“Somebody, a long time back, spent a lot of time in this country and took out a lot of gold. He also explored a lot, and he claimed there were half a dozen entrances to the cave that he knew of, scattered miles apart. He located two of them—one on each map.
“The story is that he gathered a lot of nuggets. Had them sacked and ready to take out, but then the Indians located him and he had to fight his way out, leaving most of the gold behind.”
“Webb Bolin is comin’ here?”
“With two friends of his. They should be here today or tomorrow.”
Although the speakers were fifty yards away, Callaghen could hear the conversation easily. Bolin he knew, a thoroughly bad one, known to have robbed churches of their altar services, to have looted homes in Sonora, and to have killed several men. And he had a good idea who would be with him. Bigelow and Barber were two occasional horse thieves, claim jumpers, and worse, who had caused trouble in the gold fields of California and around the silver mines in Nevada.
Whatever he was going to do had better be done before their arrival, but all he wanted to do now was to get Malinda, Aunt Madge, and Beamis free.
Suddenly he realized that Beamis had moved. The soldier still lay on his face, but he was more than a foot from where he had been, judging by the edge of the rock near which he was lying.
Nobody had so much as glanced at him, taking it for granted he was unconscious; but he had edged, ever so slightly toward that rock…and closer to the women.
He was not only conscious, but he was alert. Though he was bound, he was obviously thinking of getting himself free and setting the women free; but he could not move much farther without being observed, unless the attention of the men at the fire were distracted.
Spencer had seated himself a dozen yards off and was holding his head in his hand. Callaghen had an idea that he had been badly frightened by his escape from death. Spencer had been a soldier only a short time, and had seen no action that Callaghen knew of.
Beamis needed some help, and he had to give it. Choosing a fist-sized stone, Callaghen hurled it so that it would fall into that deep hole beyond the fire. It flew through the air, struck a rock and rebounded, and fell into the pit.
Wylie turned sharply, drawing as he turned. Spencer came half to his feet, hand grasping a rifle, but whether to run or to fight it was hard to judge.
“Something moved over there, Champ,” Wylie said.
“A rock fell. Maybe it fell by itself.” Champion got easily to his feet. “We better take a look.”
Both men disappeared among the rocks, and Callaghen, knowing there was very little time, took his long chance. He left the ground, vaulting the natural rock wall and landing lightly on the ground not ten feet from Spencer, whose back was toward him.
The soldier turned sharply around, and as he did so Callaghen took two quick steps and laid a pistol barrel back of his ear. Spencer dropped as if he had been hit with an axe.
Callaghen drew his knife with his left hand and cut through the ropes on Beamis’s hands and feet; then he tossed him the knife. “Get the women free,” he whispered hoarsely, “and get Spencer’s rifle.”
Only a minute had passed. Callaghen moved toward the rocks that shielded the descent into the hole.
He heard a foot grate on rock. “Can’t see anything,” Wylie called out.
Champion did not reply, and it was Champion who worried Callaghen.
Beamis had the rifle, and Malinda and Aunt Madge were moving toward Callaghen. He pointed with his finger to indicate their direction, and stood, gun in hand, facing the opening through which Wylie and Champion had gone.
Beamis moved quickly, his rifle at the ready. For a man who wanted no part of the army, Beamis was doing well. He had the makings of a good soldier. As he closed in behind the women, Callaghen backed after them.
Suddenly Wylie came through the opening. “Spence—” he started to say. He saw the soldier, the women gone. “Champ! Look out!”
Then he turned sharply and saw Callaghen. Both men had guns drawn, but Callaghen was ready. As Wylie saw him, Callaghen shot him.
One moment their eyes met. Wylie’s gun was in position, his finger tightening on the trigger as Callaghen’s bullet struck him.
He buckled at the knees, his head lolling back, then it fell forward as he toppled, dead before he hit the ground.
Callaghen went down the rocks into the hole, bounding from one rock to another.
CHAPTER 21
* * *
BEHIND HIM HE heard a rush of hoofs, and somebody yelled. A bullet struck the rock over his head, showering him with fragments, but he had been only a fleeting, momentary target as he disappeared into the twisting passage with the overhanging rocks.
Malinda was waiting for him. “Are you hit?” she asked breathlessly.
“No.” He gestured up toward the place from which they had come. “But there’s somebody else up there now. It may be Webb Bolin.”
They waited, and Callaghen’s breathing returned to normal. Beamis was not in sight ahead of them, but after a few minutes he appeared.
“This hole cuts clear through the mountain,” he said. “We’re in a trap if they get on the other side of us.”
They had no water here, but there was a canteen on Callaghen’s horse. “Let’s go,” he said. He was thinking about a way out, hoping to find an escape route. His pursuers would not know there were two entrances. There was a place where one could see through at the top, but unless they were close to it they could not see it.
“Let’s go,” he said again in a whisper, and led off, worming his way through the winding passage, flattening himself when necessary over boulders, to reach the far side of the mountain.
Out in the open nothing was in sight except a buzzard circling overhead. Some distance off, opposite the opening, there lifted the massive wall of a mesa….Wild Horse Mesa it was called. Ahead of them was Wild Horse Canyon.
“If anything happens to me,” Callaghen told Malinda, “try to get up on that mesa, or in the rocks close to it, and stay still.”
Mounting both women on the black horse, he led the way along the side of the mountain from which they had come. There were scattered boulders, as well as some cedar and other growth. The greasewood grew in scattered clumps, enough of them to offer a measure of concealment.
He walked swiftly, then changed to a trot. Beamis came along in the rear, constantly looking over his shoulder.
Callaghen kept on, walking and trotting until they had put a mile behind them and were entering the narrower part of Wild Horse Canyon. He glanced back and heard a distant shout, but kept on going.
Beamis came up beside him. The young soldier looked nervously at the rock walls closing in on either side. “They’ll have us trapped, Sarge. We won’t have a chance.”
“It was this or open country,” Callaghen said.
Wild Horse Mesa rose seven or eight hundred feet higher than the dim trail they now were following. If they could find a trail up the mesa they might be able to defend it, but he was under no illusions. Bolin and Champion were dangerous men, as were Barber and Bigelow. And there was Spencer.
He slowed to a walk, and they plodded on. Continually, his eyes shifted to left and right.
The mountainside turned and twisted on itself. Its wall might be climbed, but to attempt it here would mean abandoning the horse, and they would likely be caught exposed on the mesa’s side. He knew they were in serious trouble. If he could cut back to the south, there was a route that might offer access to the mesa top. He turned and started up through the cedars.
How much farther could they go? Behind them were six tough men, but it was just possible they might give up. Webb Bolin might be more interested in the gold than in eliminating them, and he had not held up the stage, had not kidnapped the women and Beamis. That was Champion’s and Spencer’s problem.
The climb grew steeper. Ahead of them it led up through scattered cedar. A minor peak was on either side, but acc
ess to the mesa top was possible between them.
Beamis was some distance behind. “Sergeant,” he said, “they’re down there—all six of them!”
Callaghen led the horse into a small clump of cedars and tied it with line enough for a little grazing on the rough forage near the trees. Then he helped the women down.
There was no good defensive position here other than the natural outcroppings and scattered rocks and cedars, but it would have to do.
“We might as well settle down,” he said when Beamis had joined them. “It looks as if this is where it happens.”
“What became of the other man?” Aunt Madge asked. “The Indian who was on the stage with us?”
“He may be dead,” Callaghen said, and took a position in a gap between boulders that offered a little shelter. The field of fire was not what he would have wished. “He may have been shot when they attacked the stage.”
It was hot and still here. He could see the sun shining on the flanks of the horses down below, saw the men dismounting and tying their horses. They were taking their time, unhurried, unworried.
Callaghen mopped his forehead. This was a long way from Ireland, a long way from the cool, green shores of the Bay of Glandore.
He rested his Henry on the rocks, and waited. Nobody felt like talking.
—
MAJOR SYKES, WITH two troops of cavalry, rode out of Camp Cady following the thin line of the Mohave River.
The day was hot, and he kept his command to a walk. The sky was serenely blue, the desert was still. It was sixteen miles to the caves where they would camp for the night.
The hours passed. They made their nooning and then rode on. He had tasted the water of the Mohave and did not care for it, but there was nothing else. The riverbed was wide and there were high banks; evidently the river carried, at one time or another, a great volume of water.
Major Sykes squinted against the glare and swore softly. He sat straight in his saddle, however, and carried himself with style. He was autocratic, but no fool; this country worried him.
During a short break when he dismounted the men and gave the horses a brief respite, he spoke to Marriott about it. “There’s been a good deal of talk of ambush, but the country seems very open.”
“It seems so, sir, but it isn’t. There are folds and creases and watercourses everywhere. And this country has been subject to earthquakes…they had a bad one at Fort Tejon a few years ago. The worst of it is, our route of travel depends on the water channels.”
Sykes was seated on a slab of rock, and Marriott squatted facing him. “Sir, one of my men who served here before says the canyon ahead—Cave Canyon—is tricky. It seems to be all abrupt walls and very high cliffs, but there are ways a man on foot can get down…and get away after an attack.”
“All right,” Sykes said, “let’s get a couple of scouts out.”
Cave Canyon was about five miles long, and the walls were high, over four hundred feet in some places. They were a kind of conglomerate, and their sheer, fluted sides dwarfed anyone who sheltered in their shade.
There were hiding places, too, in those walls, hollows washed out by water falling from the cliffs, and concealed spots behind the convolutions of the cliffs.
Major Sykes liked nothing about this place, where the walls closed down on them. The men were hot and tired, and did not seem eager to go on. He himself had been glad to swing down and get his feet on the ground.
The volley came out of the lengthening shadows, and the crash of sound cut the stillness, the echoes racketing away down the canyon.
Only an instant, and several shots replied; but Sykes saw nothing that could be called a target. Hastily the horses were led aside, and the men fell into firing positions.
“We’ve got some wounded, sir,” one of the men said. “Two men seriously, three with scratches.”
“All right, Corporal—see to their comfort. I think the enemy may have pulled away.”
He got up to reach for his canteen and stopped, feeling a chill down his spine. Across the seat of his saddle, from which he had just stepped down, there was a neat groove. A bullet would have cut right through his hips had he stayed in the saddle a moment longer.
For an instant he felt the coldness of fear—actually not the fear of injury so much as the fear of dying disgracefully, or ungallantly.
He did not want to die at all, but if he must die he wanted it to be in a dramatic charge, or even in a last-ditch defense, not shot from his saddle by a sniper’s bullet.
“No sense in looking for them,” Marriott said. “They’d just fade away in the darkness.”
“Double the guard, Marriott,” Sykes ordered. “They may make another try.”
He was in no mood for conversation as he sat at the mouth of the cave and finished his supper. For the first time he was beginning to see what the warnings meant. It was hard to find an enemy that struck and then vanished. But he might be able to trap them into the open. If they could effect an ambush, so could he.
No enemy appeared, however. Sykes detached four of the men to take a litter and return one of the wounded men to Camp Cady. The other man died during the night.
The twenty miles to Soda Lake was covered without incident, and the next day the march to Point of the Mountain, a further nineteen miles, was equally uneventful until a scout rode in.
“Sir, there’s tracks out there—the stage, sir.”
“The stage here? But that’s impossible. The stage was bound for Vegas.”
“Nevertheless, it was the stage, sir. It was accompanied by one rider. I believe it was Sergeant Callaghen.”
Callaghen with the stage? How could that be? Sykes’s lips tightened with sudden anger. He had deliberately assigned Callaghen to the Sprague patrol to get him away from the stage and from Malinda…now he was with it. This could only mean that he had deserted his command to join the stage…but why was the stage here?
“Are they headed for Marl Springs?”
“It seems so, sir. The rider was leading. I mean his tracks are sometimes wiped out by the stage tracks…an’ sometimes he rides beside the stage. There’s been some trouble on the Vegas road, sir.”
“Perhaps,” was all that Sykes said.
The command moved out at his signal and he stifled his anger. But it remained within him, a cold, hard knot in his stomach.
Damn the man! Was there no way he could keep them apart? Callaghen was no fit match for Malinda. He was only a common soldier, and Irish into the bargain. She was the daughter of a diplomat, the niece of a general—retired, but nevertheless a general. She had some foolish schoolgirl infatuation for him, no doubt because of those stories that he had once been an officer—if he ever had been.
From their camp tonight they must go on to Marl Springs. There would be a showdown then.
When daylight dawned at Point of the Mountain they had lost three horses and a rifle. The weapon had been stolen from a stack within six feet of a guard, and within a dozen feet of sleeping men.
Noon was scarcely past when Major Sykes led his command around the shoulder of the mountain and into view of the redoubt at Marl Springs. There was no sign of life or movement around the fort until they were within a hundred yards of it, and then the gate opened slowly.
Sergeant MacBrody stood inside, and he saluted as Sykes rode up. “It’s good to see you, sir. We’ve been out of rations for two days.”
Sykes rode into the stockade, where three men manned the walls. “Where is Lieutenant Sprague, Sergeant?”
“Dead, sir. He was in bad shape after Sergeant Callaghen brought them back here, but he was killed during an attack after they left…shot through the head, sir.”
“After who left?”
“The stagecoach, sir. Lieutenant Sprague assigned three men to escort it, hoping they’d get through. There was no food for the lot of us, sir, and it seemed best they make a break for it. I believe they got away, sir.”
Four wounded men lay inside the stone house. S
ykes turned to Marriott. “Captain, will you see these men are cared for? And unload rations for the others. We’ll noon here, and be prepared to move out.”
“This evening, sir?”
“We will see. I want the sergeant’s report first.”
MacBrody detailed the events of the past ten days—the continual sniping, the arrival and departure of the stage, Callaghen’s rescue of Sprague’s command.
“And you say Lieutenant Sprague assigned him to escort the stage?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Were you a witness to that, Sergeant? I mean did you personally hear Sprague give that order?”
“Well, no, sir, I didn’t, but everybody knew—”
“I am not interested in what ‘everybody knew.’ Usually, MacBrody, when everybody knows something it turns out that nobody actually knows anything.”
“Yes, sir. It was said, sir, that Lieutenant Sprague, knowing the sergeant’s discharge was overdue, wanted him out of it, and Beamis also. He did not believe we had much chance here, sir.”
“But Lieutenant Sprague is dead, Sergeant. And we have no direct evidence that Callaghen was ordered anywhere. He may have taken it upon himself to go.”
“But sir—”
“Yes?”
“Somebody had to go with the coach, sir. Becker was dead, and Ridge had to handle the horses. The mail and the women had to be guarded.”
“I agree.” Sykes considered the subject and then asked, “And what about the civilians—Wylie and Champion?”
“They left before, sir. Spencer deserted, and they stole horses and left, sir. I believe they are hunting that mine, the one everybody is talking about—the cave with the river in it.”
For half an hour more Sykes questioned the sergeant on every aspect of the events of the past few days. At the end of it he was fairly certain of a few things. The stage had left, and had gotten away safely…as far as those at Marl Springs could see there had been no attack, nor had they heard any shots, and in the clear desert air the sound of shooting would carry for a long distance.
Callaghen (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 16