“I have been fighting all my life, yet I believe in peace. That doesn’t do me one bit of good, though, against those men down there, because they have no idea of peace at all. The only thing they understand is violence. They would like for us to go down there and talk peace, but they would kill us all, and that would be an end to it. They would have peace over our dead bodies.
“I have sometimes noticed,” Callaghen added grimly, “that the people who preach peace so fervently are doing it from a comfortable place—often after a good meal. It’s quite another thing when you face armed men in the night in a lonely place, men who have no standards beyond their own selfish interests.”
“I think they are coming,” Malinda said. “Something moved down there.”
“It’s lucky,” Callaghen said ironically, “or I’d be needing a pulpit.”
He slapped his rifle. “This is one of the best arguments for peace there is. Nobody wants to shoot if somebody is going to shoot back.”
He moved the rifle forward a little. “They are coming up the hill because we are in their way. There are only two men, and they believe they can handle us. If there were four of them they would not have even stopped.
“They know Beamis is young, and they know from comments he’s made that he didn’t want to be a soldier. What they don’t know is what a lot of good stuff the young man has in him, and in the last few days it has hardened into real strength.”
It was lighter now—light enough for good shooting, and the horses down below were looking up the slope.
Callaghen looked around. On the far side of the hollow there was a space between the side of the mountain and a slab of fallen rock.
“Malinda, see where that goes, will you?” he said.
Callaghen did not like cul-de-sacs. One man could not defend the position they occupied, and if he himself were shot, the others ought to have some kind of escape route. Sooner or later a detachment from Camp Cady would come looking for the vanished stage, but until then there must be someplace where they could make a stand.
He watched for any further movement below. He was sure he had put at least one of the men out of action. But he realized that the men who were coming up the slope were not tenderfeet—they were taking their time, sure they had their quarry where they could not escape.
Once he saw a flicker of movement as a man moved into concealment behind a rock, but there was no chance for a shot. It was merely a shadow on the slope that flitted across his vision and was gone.
Malinda was back. “Mort, there is an opening back there. I don’t know whether it will be any help to us or not. I doubt if we can get your horse through.”
“Does it lead up the slope?”
“Not right away…I only went a few yards.”
“We’ll chance it. You take the horse, and you and Aunt Madge see what you can do. Tie the stirrups up. That might help you get through.”
He saw a hat appear alongside a boulder halfway down the slope, but it seemed an obvious attempt to draw his fire and so locate his position. He had no ammunition to waste, and had no intention of responding to such a crude tenderfoot temptation. When he saw something he could identify with some chance of scoring a hit, he would fire.
The sun was up behind Wild Horse Mesa, but his own position was shaded and cool. He located several possible approaches among the scattered boulders and sighted his rifle at those spots so his action, when it became necessary, would be quick and smooth.
It was the right and left flanks that worried him, for the area was too large for Beamis and himself to cover with any success. Their natural parapet was too low to allow them to shift position very much.
He moved over to Beamis. “Take your time, soldier, and don’t waste any shots. You saw where the women took the horse?”
“Yes.”
“When the time comes, run for it. Follow the trail until you come up to them. Then try to find another good position.”
“You think Major Sykes will send out a patrol?” Beamis asked.
“He will. My guess would be they are marching now. If they can find us, we’ll be lucky.”
A bullet struck a rock over their heads, showering them with fragments. Hurriedly, they moved to firing positions. Though Bolin was a dangerous man, as were the others, it was Champion who worried him most. The old outlaw was canny, and he could find a route where most men would not dream of looking. Moreover, he was not overly concerned with Callaghen. Whether Callaghen was alive or dead was of no interest to him as long as he stayed out of Bolin’s way.
—
A DOZEN MILES TO the north Captain Marriott rode up to the abandoned stage at Government Holes. Only a few miles back they had come on the body of the stage driver, and had buried it in a shallow grave.
The stage itself showed no evidences of Indian attack. Those who had looted it—and little there had been worth taking—had known what to take and where to find it; and there seemed to be no Indian tracks anywhere near.
“It’s Wylie,” Marriott told himself. Haswell, a stocky Missourian, indicated the moccasin tracks. “Them’s Champion’s,” he said. “I seen ’em around Cady.”
Well, then: Champion, Wylie, and whoever else was with them—probably Spencer—had held up and robbed the stage. “A man was down yonder,” Haswell said, “and there was some blood. I figure that man is alive.”
Marriott could do his own tracking, and he had come to the same conclusion. He was hoping that man was Callaghen…if he was alive.
“South?” Haswell puckered his forehead at Marriott’s suggestion. “Ain’t nothin’ off south. I ain’t been yonder, but they tell me it’s a wild country.”
Marriott was wary, but with scouts out, they started south. Haswell rode back after a few miles. “Somebody else follerin’ ’em,” he said, “and he’s poorly off.”
“You mean he’s been hurt?”
“Yes, sir. I figure he was hurt in that fight, but got away, and then he took after ’em. He’s holdin’ on, but we better keep a good lookout to right and left. He may crawl offen the trail somewheres.”
They found him before an hour had passed, almost at the end of the long western ridge running off from Table Mountain. It was Jason Stick-Walker, the Delaware, and he had been wounded and had lost blood, and had treated and bound up the wound himself.
After a drink of water, and one of whiskey, he told them about the attack, and also said that he had seen the dust of other riders crossing the basin.
“Callaghen’s after them. I trailed him to where he crossed this ridge heading south. He was afoot.”
Marriott was trotting his troop when they reached the hole in the mountain and the body of Kurt Wylie. “Gun battle,” Haswell said. “Wylie had his gun out, but he surely came in second.”
“One less,” the Delaware said.
CHAPTER 23
* * *
CHAMPION HUNKERED DOWN in the cool shade of a cedar. He dug in his pocket for his tobacco, eyed it critically, then brushing off a few crumbs of dirt, he bit off a sizable chew.
If those damn fools kept climbing up among those rocks, Callaghen was going to kill one or two of them. It made no sense for him to be one of the pursuers. He had suggested a flanking movement, but that was to get off on his own. He trusted his own judgment, but not that of the others.
He looked up at the cliff towering above him. It was almighty steep, but he had a hunch that Callaghen would try for the top. Callaghen was a knowing man, and canny.
Once you knew the kind of man you were hunting, you knew where to look for him. Callaghen would head for the top, and the toppest top around was yonder between those two shoulders of rock. And he would send the womenfolks first, with maybe that kid soldier. He himself would stay behind to stand off Bolin and them.
Champion took another look at the cliff, and started up. What a man wouldn’t do for a woman, especially a white woman! They wouldn’t last like a squaw would, but for a few weeks he’d have things his own way. He kept
on up the cliff.
It took an hour of climbing and scouting to locate them. They had themselves a little hideout among the cedars and rocks, and the black horse was with them.
He squatted down among the cedars and sized up the situation. No sign of either Beamis or Callaghen…which didn’t mean they weren’t around. From time to time a shot told him that the ones down below were still fighting.
Getting off the mesa would be the worst part, but afoot he could do it. Seemed a shame to leave that fine a horse, but it might still be here if he came back a few months from now.
He moved off through the cedars, assured himself that the men were not around, and then, gun in hand, he came out of the trees. “Well, now.” He spoke in a moderate tone. “Seems like I’ve found me some womenfolks, alone, and without no ess-cort.”
They looked at him from a dozen feet away. Both were tired, but both were wary, and neither one was frightened. Got to watch these two, he told himself. They ain’t scared, and they’re both thinkin’.
“You gals come thisaway an’ come steady. Don’t try nothin’ fancy, because if I have to kill one of you I’ll just naturally kill both. You figure iffen you’re thinkin’ to make a try, that you might kill your friend as well as yourself.”
Neither one moved. “Come!” he said sharply. “Come steady!”
They stood still. Both had realized that it was the thing to do; they doubted he would shoot them where they stood.
Malinda remembered something Callaghen had once said to her. “Don’t go with anybody who has a gun on you. A person of criminal mind just wants to get you away from help where he can do what he wants without interference. Wherever you are, you are usually safer than where he would take you.”
“I couldn’t walk another step,” Malinda replied calmly. “I’ve just climbed all the mountains I am going to. Besides, I haven’t had time to enjoy this place.”
He looked at her, admiring her in spite of himself. She’d be the one to watch. Turn his back and she’d have a knife in his ribs. He chuckled. “Ma’am, I like your spunk, but you’re surely goin’ to walk.”
He stepped out and walked toward them. “You walk, else I’ll bat one of you right across the skull.”
A moment they hesitated, then started to move. At that instant Beamis appeared. “Hey! What’s this?” he shouted.
Champion spun and fired from the hip. The rifle bullet hit Beamis and turned him half around, his own shot going wild.
Champion swung back. The women were gone!
Cursing, he scanned the cedars and rocks with a quick, overall glance. “You git out here!” he shouted. “Or when I find you I’ll whup the livin’ tar out of you!”
The sand told its story. One look at the tracks and he turned into the brush, swearing as he went.
Suddenly from down the mountain there was a tremendous roar and a crash, and then silence. Dust rose over the edge of the mesa.
Callaghen heard shooting from the top of the mesa, two quick shots within seconds of each other. He straightened up, fired two shots downhill, and turning, ran from the opening into which Beamis had disappeared some moments before. Through the hole, he turned quickly to see if pursuit was close. His hand touched the wall and sand trickled from under it.
Glancing up, he saw a huge boulder anchored in the side of the cliff. The sand had trickled away from beneath it, and only a few rocks seemed to hold it in place. Such a boulder could hang so, sometimes for years, until rain or wind supplied the necessary push and down it came.
Standing back, he smashed at the bank’s face, knocking out great chunks of dirt and rock. The boulder gave a lurch; he started to stab at it again, and jumped back, barely in time.
The boulder slid a couple of feet, hung a moment precariously, then fell. Tons of earth and debris followed it. Turning, he ran up the trail.
What had fallen would stop them only for the time being, and in the meanwhile—
“Hold it!”
He spun sharply around. They were there, three of them. He had not stopped them at all. By crawling among the rocks, they had already gotten around him. And they were boxing him on three sides. There wasn’t a chance.
“Private Spencer!” His voice rang with command. “If that man”—he pointed a finger at one of the strangers who stood on his left—“if that man moves a muscle, kill him!”
“Yes, sir!” Spencer’s rifle came into position.
“Hey! You damn fool!” Barber yelled. “It’s him we’re after! Turn that gun around.”
“Private Spencer,” Callaghen said, and his voice was cool. “As far as I am concerned, you are not a deserter. You have been on a scout under my orders. Bring this off as you should and I’ll see you are made corporal.”
“You damn fool!” Bolin shouted to Spencer. “Whose side are you on, anyway?”
Spencer’s thinking was slow. He did not like these men very much. He’d had it rougher than in the army, and had been eating less. They’d paid him no mind, and they didn’t seem to care very much about him.
Sergeant Callaghen was a man all the soldiers liked. He was a square-shooter—and he’d recommend him for corporal! Spencer had never had any recognition in his twenty-odd years of life, and this was it.
“Yes, sir,” he said, “I been on a scout. You sent me.”
“Why, you—!”
Bolin’s rifle was in his left hand, but at the moment of decision, he went for the pistol. His anger was toward Spencer, but his target should be Callaghen, and in a moment when the greatest concentration was essential he was for an instant without focus. Something struck him hard in the wind as he made his decision, something that struck, and then seared like a branding iron laid across his belly.
Bolin took a step back and stared up at Callaghen, stared right into the bullet that killed him. There was an instant when he saw it there before him…knew it for what it was.
There had been other firing, too. Callaghen took a step back, and looked.
Barber was down, shot twice through the chest. Spencer was staring at him, dazed, and suddenly aware for the first time of what had happened.
“That was a good job, Spencer,” Callaghen said. “You’re a good man.”
He turned swiftly and ran up the trail and into the cedars.
—
CHAMPION HEARD THE shooting, prowling among the trees and searching for the women. He’d have them. If that Callaghen would just hold the others off…
He stepped for a moment out on high ground with a long view off to the northeast. He could see Table Mountain, he could see…It was a column of blue-clad soldiers, riding rapidly toward the head of Wild Horse Canyon.
Soon they would be coming up the mesa. They would have heard the shooting, and they would be coming fast. And there were a lot of men down there—maybe fifty or more.
Champion was not a man who wasted time making up his mind. The mesa was all of three to four miles long and there was a good horse down yonder. If he made it to the end of the mesa, left the horse, and went down the steep side and disappeared into the Providence Mountains yonder they wouldn’t have much chance of finding him.
He knew where there was water and a cave or two, and…He went for the horse with a rush.
Callaghen came up the slope and saw his horse standing before him. His rifle was empty, and he reached up to slide it into the scabbard when he heard a scramble of feet. Startled, the horse sprang forward, and Callaghen found himself, empty-handed, face-to-face with Champion.
He did the logical thing. He swung a left to the head and followed it with a plunging dive that knocked Champion back into the cedars.
Champion’s rifle was knocked from his grip, and he went down fighting. Both men rolled free and came up fast. This was the sort of thing Champion loved. At a dozen trappers’ camps he had never been beaten, at rendezvous and barroom he had been tested, by cattle camp and buffalo pit, he had fought.
He went in swinging, a bear of a man, mostly rawhide and iron by th
e feel of him.
Callaghen was up and Champion’s rush swept him backward. Unable to brace himself, he caught Champion’s shoulders and let himself fall, letting the drive of his opponent’s lunge carry him on over.
Champion hit hard, but rolled over and came up fighting. Callaghen split his lips with a straight left, but Champion came on in, slugging and clawing for Callaghen’s eyes. It was a fight for life. Callaghen went down again, but hooked both hands hard to the face as he hit on his back, then smashed upward with his head to meet Champion’s descending face.
Champion stabbed with thumbs for his eyes, and clamped him hard with a scissors-hold on his ribs, slashing with his thumbnails, allowed to grow long for just such a purpose. Callaghen felt a stab of pain as one slashed at his cheek, then threw up his legs and hooked them under Champion’s chin, forcing his head back.
He tried to grip Champion’s legs to hold them tight so he could break the man’s neck, but the mountain man was too old a fighter for that. He suddenly released his grip on Callaghen and rolled back, turning his head slightly to sink his teeth into the calf of Callaghen’s leg.
Callaghen let go his hold, and then again both men were on their feet.
Champion was shorter, but much heavier. He wiped the blood from his lips and came in swinging. Callaghen caught him with both fists as he came in, but Champion wasn’t even slowed down. Callaghen met him head-on and they stood, toe-to-toe, slugging viciously. Both men were cut, both were bleeding. Callaghen’s breath was coming in great gasps, for he had just run up the trail and the fight had caught him unawares.
Champion was grinning. He landed a right in Callaghen’s midsection and Callaghen felt his knees going. Champion took a step back and hit him on the chin. Callaghen went to one knee, and as Champion stepped closer he lunged forward, throwing his right arm around Champion’s leg for a single-leg pickup.
Champion’s leg was swept high and he fell, coming down hard into the dust on his shoulder blades. Callaghen backed off, glad of a chance to catch his breath, but as Champion got to his feet Callaghen went in again, ducked under a right swing and, thrusting an arm between Champion’s legs, he dumped him again with a fireman’s carry, slamming him into the rocks.
Callaghen (Louis L'Amour's Lost Treasures) Page 18