The riders had stopped again, and were looking at something among the grass and rocks just off the trail, on a little bank, half facing toward us. Jimbo swung out and cantered up, anxious to talk to Colin, I thought, and I followed close so as not to give him a chance.
When I got there they were looking at an arrow made of stones. The earth clinging to some of the stones was still slightly damp—they had been plucked from their beds only a little while before.
Underneath the arrow was a sign with a word and a number: Fox 38.
“What the devil does that mean?” Colin demanded.
Nobody needed to tell me what it meant, but there was no need for me to tell them.
Reese was studying it, and finally he said, “You know what that looks like, Mr. Wells? It looks like one of those army signs, pointing out a company or battalion area.”
“There never was any army up here,” Colin protested, “and that’s a fresh sign.”
I knew the sign was intended for me, and for me alone. Both Pio and I had been with Fox Company—F Company, if you will—of the 38th. It was a tough, fighting outfit that made a name for itself, and we had done some of that fighting before being moved as replacements to another company. Pio Alvarez knew I would read that sign for what it was; and where that arrow was he might be. Either that, or he was showing me this was my chance to get out, to get clear before it was too late.
It wasn’t in me to let them rest easy. “If Reese is right, Colin,” I said cheerfully, “you may be in trouble. If that stands for Fox Company of the 38th Infantry there’s somebody around who was a first-class fighting man. They did a beautiful job in Korea.”
They simply looked at me, not knowing what to make of it, but it gave Jimbo the chance he wanted. “This guy claims he used to punch cows!” he said. “I mean this writer here.”
They didn’t believe it. Their minds had formed a picture, and what Jimbo told them didn’t fit into the frame they had accepted for me. Nor did it interest them very much, for they were wholly concerned with the fact that somebody unknown to them was obviously in the vicinity, and that interfered with their plans.
“That sign was probably made by the rider who came up the trail ahead of us,” I commented. “But aren’t we wasting a lot of time? I have to get back into town, and I’d like to see that Indian writing before it gets dark.”
“It ain’t far,” Reese said, almost absently. He was looking in the direction in which the arrow pointed, trying to follow along with his mind, trying to see the trail ahead and where it might lead. “You go on, boss. I’m going to see where that arrow points.”
“Let me go,” I said. “Belle and I—we can ride out there a little way and see what we can find.”
“You stay with us,” Colin said curtly. “You could get in trouble out there.” He hesitated, looking along the slope where Floyd Reese was riding. After a minute or two he swung his mount. “Come on,” he said, and started on along the trail.
Half a mile farther along the trail started to dip down in a series of switchbacks to cross Little Cougar. On our right the massive escarpment of Cook’s Mesa reared almost a thousand feet above us, and our trail mounted a spur. We had started up when from somewhere behind us there sounded a rifle shot, then another.
Jimbo swore, and Colin twisted in the saddle. Only Doris seemed cool. Suddenly I found myself watching her. She was listening, as calmly as she might have listened to some story told in her own living room.
“Colin!” Jimbo called. “Keep movin’! Let’s get off the mountain!”
Reluctantly, it seemed, Colin went on. Belle was right ahead of me now, and only Jimbo was behind. My bronc was growing increasingly nervous, craning his neck away from the awesome drop that lay close at hand.
Belle turned in her saddle. “That’s the Rincon.” She pointed ahead.
I knew it was the Rincon. I knew all of this country from the aerial photos, but all I could think of then was the fact that there was a trail that cut off to the west from a spring a little way beyond the Rincon. It was a trail that might offer an escape, a route by which I might get out of these hills and away. No story was worth the trouble I might be getting into, or the death of any man, and I had a sneaking idea that Manuel Alvarez was dead because of me. Just how or why I did not know, but it all seemed to tie in together.
That point ahead, that would be Black Jack Point, beyond which the trail dropped down into the Rincon.
Rincon is a Spanish word meaning a corner, a nook, a cozy place, a dwelling, or a remote place. Lost River lay nearby, and Lost River was the last place mentioned by John Toomey in his diary.
Just at that moment I saw a deer. It was no more than a dozen yards off the trail…and then I saw another, and another. They moved unhurriedly away, an indication of the remoteness of the spot, if any were needed. Surely they had never been hunted or fired on.
Nobody commented on them. All conversation had suddenly stilled…rather, I had suddenly noticed it was quiet, but my consciousness told me that no word had been spoken for some time before the silence broke in upon me.
I looked around carefully. We were descending the trail now into the Rincon. Here the trail was wider. There were places where a man could make a run for it if he had to.
I felt the whip of the bullet an instant before I heard the crash of the report, and instinctively I kicked my feet free to roll from the saddle just as the bronc went up on his hind legs with a scream. I hit the dirt behind him, knees bent to take the shock, and instantly dove into the wiry brush alongside the trail, and just as swiftly moved from there.
And lay still.
Colin was swearing, and I heard Jimbo shout, “Got him! Got him, Colin!”
“Shut up, you fool!”
Colin wheeled his horse, turning on a dime, and came racing back along the trail toward the place where I had fallen. But Korea had been a good training ground and I was sixty feet from there by that time, using the watercourse that ran alongside the trail. Then I left it and wormed my way through the brush and up the steep slope. They were making enough noise to cover me, so I went fast.
Jimbo, his pistol out, was scouting the trail. From where I stopped to take stock of the situation I could see Doris sitting her horse calmly. In fact, she was shaking out a cigarette, no more disturbed than if they were hunting a snake or a wounded animal.
Belle had not moved. I think she knew now for certain that she too was marked to die. Once she made a move as if to turn, then stopped. And I could see the reason why.
The two riders I had met on the trail when I first drove to the ranch were there, blocking the way. She was trapped, as neatly boxed as I was, and both of us without a weapon.
Now they had us, and they meant to kill us. Reese had accepted the arrow and its sign as an excuse to leave the column; had it not been that, he would undoubtedly have found another reason. He had ridden on and planted himself to wait, and if he had killed me, or if they did, it would be put down to Pio Alvarez.
They had me and they had their scapegoat; and worst of all, they had Belle. For some reason they wanted her out of the way, too.
Chapter 5
IT WAS PREPOSTEROUS. This was not the nineteenth century, the day of the rustler and the gunfighter; this was the day of satellites and moon voyages. Yet here I was, trapped in a corner of western range country just as neatly as John and Clyde Toomey must have been trapped ninety years ago.
The two riders came moving in slowly. Reese was on the slope above, so I had five men against me now, five men and a woman who, I was sure, was as deadly as any one of them.
Lying still on the hot slope, I calculated my chances. Right now it seemed a thousand to one that they would kill me within the hour. But no man dies willingly, and there was in me a fierce desire to live—and not only to live, but to win.
Watching them, I pictured the slope behind me. It was thickly covered with cedar and a variety of desert growth, with some bunchgrass too. Moreover, a little to my left
and back of me there was a saddle about six or seven hundred feet higher than where I now lay. That provided my best chance.
Floyd Reese was up there somewhere, I knew, but down here in front of me were four men, all mounted. To escape, to live, I must go where those four could not follow unless they followed on foot. Nobody in his right mind would try to take a horse where I was going. Unarmed though I was, I felt I could give them a run for their money on foot, for I doubted whether any of them had devoted much time to clambering around in the mountains, and I had.
Backing away a few feet, I found a hollow. It was only a few inches below the level of the ground and extended for only a few feet, but I squirmed along it, used a boulder for cover, and angled back toward the saddle. There I made it to a cedar, and with substantial cover I stood up and managed to climb several feet before I had to drop to all fours. By that time I had another cedar behind me.
From the sounds down below, they were stringing out, ready to move in.
“You might as well come out.” Colin spoke conversationally. “Pio won’t try another shot.”
From his tone he apparently believed me to be closer than I was, but the sound of his voice carried clearly. A few feet farther on, I reached an open spot where I would be without cover. Beyond that was a gash in the face of the mountain which, if I could reach it, would allow me to climb up for some distance well concealed.
“Maybe he’s hurt,” Colin said. “You sure he wasn’t hit?”
“I don’t see any blood.” That was Jimbo speaking. “He was just scared. He still is.”
“I don’t believe he’s scared,” Doris said, “and if you stand there talking he’ll get away.”
Standing up, I walked right out onto the open space for five steps before I lost my nerve and dropped.
“Hey!” That was one of the riders from the road. “Something moved up there on the slope!”
The shirt I wore was olive-green wool, my slacks were slate gray. A man lying perfectly still on a mountain slope—or an animal, for that matter—is almost invisible. It is movement that draws the eye, and so I lay perfectly still.
“Might have been a bird—maybe a quail or a rabbit,” Jimbo said.
“Go up there and find out,” Colin said. “He can’t be that far, but if something moved…”
“I might have been mistook,” the cowhand said. “I see the wind movin’ the cedars a mite.”
There was nothing for it but to lie still. Right out in the open that way, a move now and I would be a target for more than one rifle.
The minutes edged by, and I heard no sound. “Hell,” Jimbo said presently, “there’s nothin’ up there.”
“Go look,” Colin said, but he spoke less positively this time.
Now I heard movement, and after a long moment of indecision, I risked the chance of turning my head to one side so I could look downhill. My vision was obscured by grass and heavier growth, but I could see the two riders working along beside the trail, searching for me.
Belle Dawson chose that moment to move. She had been sitting her horse, almost forgotten. A known quantity, they were apparently not worried about her. They felt sure they had her there when they wanted her. Belle knew that, but it seemed that she might be trying to create a diversion for me. In any case, it worked.
She slapped the spurs to her horse and went down the trail at a dead run. Not back toward the ranch, but down trail toward the spring.
It was my chance and I took it, leaving the ground in a sprinter’s start, and making for the cut in the mountainside in swift charging steps. Behind me yells sounded, but whether they had seen me or were all yelling at Belle, I did not know.
At the cut I slid to a stop and dropped to the edge. Then I turned around and lowered myself by my hands, feeling for a toehold. I could find none and the bottom was fifteen feet down, so I took it half sliding, half falling.
Shaken, I hit bottom, but got up and swung around to start climbing. What had happened to Belle I had no idea, but I knew that for both our sakes I had to get away, and fast.
My condition was good, and I was wearing hiking boots rather than those usually worn for riding. I made a dozen fast steps, pulled myself over a waist-high dry waterfall, and began to climb. The cut took a small bend and this gave me added protection. I kept on climbing steadily.
Down below I could hear shouting and swearing. Pausing for breath after climbing a hundred yards or so, I glanced back. Jimbo was standing on the trail, his horse and mine close by. The others were not in sight. The shouts came from far down the trail.
I wondered how well Belle knew this country, but I knew she had lived part of her life on a ranch on the Cougar, and must have ridden over it many a time. She might know of a place to hide, and I hoped she did.
After a minute or so I went on climbing. Several times it was almost straight up; but each time I found footholds and was able to go on. I was within a dozen feet of the top when I heard a faint movement above me. I was caught in a bad place, but went on for a few steps before looking up.
Floyd Reese, rifle in hand, was seated at the point where the steep watercourse began, right on the lip of the mesa. His hat was tilted back, he held his rifle easily, and he was smiling. It was not a nice smile.
Stepping to a better foothold, and just a little closer, I looked up at him again. “Well,” I said, “it looks like you got me.”
“Dead to rights,” he said. “I’m goin’ to kill you, writer.”
I met his look squarely. “Was it your grandfather who met the Toomeys when they crossed the Staked Plains?”
He was startled. “Now how in hell could you know that?”
The only weapon I had was bluff, and I didn’t believe it would work. “John Toomey left a diary,” I said, almost offhand. “Everybody knows that.”
“Like the devil, they do.”
“If you had done as much research as I have,” I said, “you’d know all about it. Why, I know of two articles in the Kansas Historical Quarterly based on it.
“Toomey was writing home,” I continued, “mailing pieces of it back so his folks in Texas would know about it.” The lie was an easy one, for many pioneers had done just that. “Nobody ever tried to investigate what happened on this end, that’s all.”
I went on as casually as I could. “It wouldn’t do you a bit of good to kill me. Everything I’ve found out about it is tape-recorded in Los Angeles. As soon as they started investigating my death or settling my estate they would play those tapes. After that you boys wouldn’t have a chance.”
About half of this was true, but he wasn’t buying it. “Won’t do you no good,” he said. “You’ll be dead.”
“Look at it this way,” I said, and I dove for him.
He fired.
Something plucked at my shoulder, but I had lunged forward, throwing myself against the slant of the cliff as I grabbed for him. He hadn’t time to depress his aim enough, and my fingers caught at his pants leg.
Ever since learning judo in the army I had worked at it, and always kept in shape. When my fingers gripped the leg of his blue jeans, I jerked hard.
He slid off the rock and cannonaded into me and we both rolled a dozen feet before bringing up hard on a ledge that was about a dozen feet across. He gripped his rifle and swung it at me, with a kind of half swing that caught me on the shoulder, and then I smashed into him. He was lean, tough, and mean.
Had he let go of the rifle he might have whipped me, but he tried to bring it up and I clipped him with a short left on the chin, then a right into the body, and stamped my foot down along his shin and drove my heel hard into his instep. He let out a grunt of pain and stepped back and I kicked him in the groin.
He fell and let go of the rifle. It flew a short arc through the air and went clattering among the rocks ten or twelve feet below.
Desperately, I wanted that rifle, but when I made a start for it, a bullet clipped rocks near me. Jimbo was down there, his rifle ready for another shot, and out
in the open where I had to go he could scarcely miss.
My chest heaving from the exertion of the fight, I stepped back against the cliff. Reese gathered himself and came off the rocks. He was sick from that boot in the groin, but he was going to try. So I hit him again, and he went down to a sitting position. I took a swing at his face. He tried to duck, and my blow glanced off his cheekbone, but he went down. His pistol was gone from the holster and there was no time to look for it, so I ripped the hunting knife and scabbard from his belt and shoved them behind my waistband.
Whipping around, I scrambled back up the cliff. As I went over the edge of the mesa I looked back. Reese was on his hands and knees, looking for his gun.
There might be a horse trail here on the mesa, so I wasted no time. Taking a route that led southwest which should eventually take me to the trail along New River, I started to run. Running fifty steps and walking fifty, I had covered half a mile and was running out of wind when glancing back, I saw a rider. A strange rider on a mouse-colored horse.
He was some distance off, but coming toward me. I looked around the other way, and saw another. This one was Dad Styles, who had come up behind me. Sunlight gleamed on a rifle barrel, and I started to run again.
There was no shot.
They were closing in on me, gaining a little. As I ran I dipped into a hollow where there was a dry watercourse going off to the left, and I took it.
In spite of the bad footing I ran even harder. Once I fell. For a moment I lay there gasping. Then, slowly, I pulled myself up, and when I started on again it was at a walk. No horse was going to follow me from now on.
The dry watercourse ended abruptly in a fifty-foot drop, which was a waterfall after a rain. At one side I thought I saw a possible way down, though most of the rock was water-worn and smooth. Every step down would be a risk.
Somewhere I heard a hoof click on stone. It was unlikely they could get to me here, but I could not chance it.
Dropping to my knees, I lowered myself over the edge. I clung with my fingers and felt with an exploring toe for the tiny ledge I had seen from above. If I should fall now, it was unlikely anyone would ever find me in this remote, narrow canyon, scarcely more than a crack in the rocky edge of the mesa. Not even a coyote could get to me, and I would be left to the buzzards.
Novel 1966 - The Broken Gun (v5.0) Page 5