“My husband was that way. And he’s made a good husband.”
Now all this here talk was making me uneasy. If Molly hadn’t been in such a sight of trouble I’d have taken out, right then, right fast.
“You’ve got a nice place here,” I said.
“We made it nice. The two of us, together.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I looked around. “You got a basin where I could wash up?”
“By the back door. There’s a towel there, and there’s soap.”
When I went outside to wash up for supper, the man was leading two horses up from the stable. Our gear was already on them. He tied them at the hitch rail. “You might have to leave fast,” he said.
“How much do I owe you?” I said.
He shrugged. “Sixty dollars a head if you want to buy them. If you want to use them, just turn them loose. They’ll come home.”
“I’ll buy.” I let him lead the way back inside, trusting no man behind me at such a time. His wife was putting some food on the table and Molly was pouring coffee.
Taking money from my pocket, I counted out one hundred and twenty dollars in gold coins. He stared at them, and then at me. “Not often we see gold hereabouts,” he said.
“It’s honest money,” I said, “and mighty little of it left.”
Now that wasn’t true but I didn’t figure to let anybody have an idea I was carrying.
Even some folks you’d expect to be honest can become greedy at such a time. I like people, but I count my change and I always cut the deck.
Yet resting awhile was a pleasant thing. Theirs was a comfortable place, with window curtains and rag rugs on the floor and all the dishes washed clean and shining. The floors looked like a body could eat from them, although I’ve no idea why anybody would want to.
Molly was talking to them and I was considering. We’d come a far piece and we’d held to it pretty well, but I’d no doubt those chasing us were far behind. It was likely that some of them had ridden right up the road to Canon City, which was the town nearest and the one we’d be likely to ride for if we wanted help from the law. They’d try to intercept us there. Only I had no such idea.
Molly was an easy talking girl and in her world there were no strangers. I kept thinking how she and Ma would get along and what company she’d be for Ma, but I shied away from the thought. Ideas like that are a trap. They can get a man into trouble. There were a lot of horizons I wanted to cross before I got into double harness.
“If you wanted to double back,” the old gent was saying, “you could head north for Lookout Mountain, then follow Copper Gulch. Headin’ north you are apt to get yourself cornered.”
“How’s that?”
“Royal Gorge. It’s a thousand feet deep and right across your trail. Canon City’s right at the mouth.”
Now I just sat there, cussing myself for a damn fool. Shows a man how forgetful he can become. I’d known about that gorge for years and then had clean forgotten it.
How could a man forget anything as big and deep as that gorge?
“These men know this country?”
“Seems likely.”
“Then they’ll be waiting for you at Grape Creek and Copper Gulch. Least, that’s the way to figure.”
He was right, of course. I finished eating, trying to think our way out of it.
“If you go north to Lookout,” the old man said, “you can take Road Gulch east to Texas Creek. That’s your best bet.”
Getting up, coffee in hand, I walked to the door. Turning there I said, “You’d better forget you ever saw us. They’ll find our tracks, so just tell them you and the wife weren’t at home, that we took a couple of horses and left.”
“I don’t like to lie.”
“Mister, some of these men would stop at nothing, torture and murder included. The best way is for you to know nothing except that you missed some horses and grub.”
“Well, all right. I’ll give it thought.”
Molly’s eyes met mine and she got up. She was tired but so was I, and we’d only started running. Now we had fresh horses and I had a new idea. A damned fool idea, but maybe a good one.
Molly came out, saying goodbye, and I gave her a hand to the saddle. I didn’t envy her, riding sidesaddle over all that rough country, but she’d handled it mighty well.
We took off, heading toward Lookout Mountain, and when we glanced back, they waved.,|
“Dickie?” The woman with the lovely blue eyes was thoughtful. “Did you see how thick in the waist that young man was?
Seems odd, somehow, a young man like him, so neat and trim except for that thick waist.”
“A money belt, more than likely, Bess. He paid us in gold, offhand like. I mean, not like giving up his last cent. More like a man who knew what he had and wasn’t worried about money.”
“Of course, there’s that little of’ trail by way of Gem Mountain. You didn’t think to mention that to him.”
“Man on a good horse, like the sorrel, he could get to the Road Gulch near Texas Creek maybe a half hour before them.”
“You could have your lunch there, Dickie. I’ll just fix it for you while you’re saddling up.”
She paused. “You’d better take your heavy coat, Dickie. It’s apt to be chilly, waiting up there.”
She hesitated again. “Such a nice young couple. I did enjoy talking to her.”
When he returned with a saddled horse she was at the door with a lunch rolled in a thin towel. She put it in a burlap bag. “I was thinking, Dickie. I did so enjoy talking to that young woman, and she seemed real handy around the house.”
“Now, Bess, don’t you be thinking that way. She might be suspicious of us.”
“Even for a little while? After all, there’s been no trouble about the others.”
“We’re kindly people, Bess, that’s the reason. But a sharp young lady around, and especially if she saw his horse or guns or even the gold. Now don’t you be thinking of it. I know how you’d like company but it’s taking too big a chance.”
“Only for a couple of weeks? One week, even?”
“Now, Bess, I’ve got to be going. If I’m to be there first it’s a hard ride.”
“You do as you think best, Dickie, but do wear the coat while you’re waiting. Those old rocks are chilly and you could catch your death.”
We topped out on a shoulder of Elkhorn Mountain and I glanced back. It lay all green and still under the morning sun. Turning away, my eye caught something-I looked back.
Dust? It was too far off to see. Might be smoke. Or maybe just a change in the type of vegetation. I felt myself frowning. It did look like dust.
The old man had been right. There was every chance Rolon Taylor or Pride Hovey would have somebody watching at both Grape Creek and Copper Gulch as they were the only routes east over the mountains. Turning west was the right idea.
Texas Creek? I considered that. If we crossed the Arkansas near Texas Creek we could head into the hills and to Denver. There, with a good lawyer, we could probably get things settled. Yet the idea bothered me.
Jefferson Henry knew a lot more about the courts and law than I did and, for that matter, so did Pride Hovey. Nor did I want to get tied up in any long legal argument.
I wanted to be over the hills to yonder.
There were shadows in the canyon when we reached it, but only here and there, for the hour was not yet late.
“I’ve been thinking, Molly. Maybe it would be better to go back to town, back to German Schafer and the railroad. They won’t be expecting it, certainly, and the answers all seem to be there.”
“Are you sure? Weren’t we trying to get away from there?”
“Yes, but they’ve all followed us. Or most of them have. I don’t know, maybe it’s a foolish idea.”
Yet the more I thought of it the better I liked it. We had pulled them away from the town, and they would scarcely expect us to return. Back there I could be in touch with Portis, and through him the United States
Marshal’s office.
There were scattered trees and some clumps of rock where we emerged from the gorge.
We were walking our horses when I glanced off to the south in time to catch a wink of light. I spurred my horse and startled, he leaped, bumping Molly’s horse. Something rapped me hard on the skull and I felt myself falling. My horse sprang from under me and I fell among some rocks, rolling over and dropping into a dark space between them. I clawed at the rocks, trying to catch myself, then I hit bottom and all was blackness. Through the closing darkness in my skull I heard, I thought I heard, another shot.
Molly’s horse sprang away, following Milo Talon’s horse. She tried to rein in but, remembering that other shot, she rode on into the shelter of a clump of rocks. Drawing up, she turned in the saddle.
Something stirred in the rocks and her heart leaped. Then-it was the old man! The man from whom they bought the horses!
Relieved, she said, “Oh? It’s you! Thank God!” She looked back toward where Milo had fallen. Nothing stirred. A pleasant stretch of green grass, some trees and brush, here and there clumps of rocks. The shadows were growing longer.
“We’d better ride back to the ranch,” the old man said gently. “He’s been shot, I think, and killed. I’ll come back in the morning for the body.”
“But maybe he’s only hurt! He may be lying there-!”
“He’s dead. Gone. It was a perfect shot. Besides, didn’t you hear that other shot?
They are still around. We wouldn’t dare look. Not now. You come along with me. You’ll be with us.”
“Well,” she was reluctant, “maybe. Until they are gone.” Then she said passionately, “He just can’t be dead! He can’t!”
The old man smiled, taking her bridle rein. “You will feel better after you’ve had something to eat, and Bess is waiting for you. She’ll be surprised, but she’ll be pleased. She’s a lovely woman and I like doing little things to please her.”
“But Milo?”
He smiled. “Tomorrow’s another day. He’ll keep until tomorrow.”
Chapter Twenty-Two.
Cold … it was cold, very cold. Starting to turn over, I banged my head hard, then put out a hand. A cold wall, something cold and hard above me.
I was dead. No, not dead. I could feel cold. I could feel pain.
I was buried alive. I was in my coffin. They believed I was dead and they had buried me.
There was a moment of sheer panic, then I fought myself to calmness. Tentatively, I put out a hand. Stone. It was a stone wall, a rock wall. My hand went down. I was lying upon sand.
I could lift my hand; it moved but a few inches until it came in contact with stone.
Now my eyes were wide open. It seemed a little more gray on my left side so I put out my hand.
Emptiness. No rock wall there. Starting to ease myself over, I stopped suddenly.
Something had moved, something above me. A slight trickle of sand, a small pebble that bounced off the rock wall, then again, and again.
Something was up there, something that moved with incredible softness. I was afraid.
My hand went to my hip. My pistol was still there, held in place by its thong, so was my bowie. I slid the knife from its scabbard and held it ready. Something was crawling about up there. It was a man. Rough cloth rubbed against rock.
He was above me. How high? Maybe fifteen feet. Slowly, my memory was fitting circumstances to recollection.
I had been shot. I started to lift my hand and pain shot through me like a knife. My arm was hurt. With my other hand I felt of my skull.
There was blood, caked, matted blood in my hair and on my face. Gingerly, my fingers touched my scalp. A cut, raw and tender. A bullet must have hit me, cut my scalp, given me a concussion.
Lying still, I listened. A rock fell near me. Then a voice, a familiar voice. “Talon?”
It was the old man from the ranch.
Starting to speak, I suddenly closed my mouth. Why was he here? How could he know where to look for me? I lay quiet, wanting to speak, yet every sense warning me not to.
“Talon? If you’re alive, speak to me. I want to help you. Molly is with us. She’s at the ranch with Bess. We’ve got her now. We’ll keep her, for a while.”
Lying very still, I tried not even to blink. Why had he come out in the dark to find me? And how had he come upon this place? Tracks? Did he follow tracks? But we had left few tracks, very hard to find. I would wait. I would think.
Why was he here? Why had he spoken so strangely of Molly? “We’ve got her now. We’ll keep her-for a while.” What had he meant by that?
Slowly, it was coming back. The old man had told us how to go, by Road Gulch to Texas Creek. Nobody else knew where we were, yet I had been shot? By whom? Could Rolon Taylor’s boys have found me so quickly? Or Pride Hovey’s men? It was scarcely possible.
I had been shot. I remembered that, just a sharp rap on the skull at the time, then falling, hitting rocks, rolling over, falling again.
Blackness. I’d been knocked out. Now it was night, hours later. Molly was at the ranch, he said, so he must have taken her to the ranch and come back here.
He was just trying to help. He seemed a kindly old man, and he had been helpful and courteous.
Yet why had he taken Molly all the way back to the ranch and then returned here?
Had she been hurt? I felt a surge of fear.
Molly? Hurt?
I held myself very still. If not hurt, why had he come back alone? Why had he not kept Molly with him, to help in the search? Either she had been injured or he wanted nobody around when I was found.
Why?
Suppose it was he who shot me? He had known where I would be. He had known I had money. He had sold me two horses. But that was silly. They were such nice people.
So clean and so neat.
Something about that was familiar but I could not place it. There was a thought there, fleeting, tantalizing, something to be remembered, but there was no way I could put a rope on it.
Something Ma had said once, commenting on how some visitor had referred to somebody as “clean and neat.” “See?” she had said. “People remember such things. Keep yourself looking nice, Milo. Dress well. Keep clean.”
Ma was great on that. “What’s the difference between a rat and a squirrel?” she’d say. “Mighty little, but everybody likes squirrels and nobody likes rats. Why? Because a squirrel is dressed a lot better. He looks pretty, and he’s always around trees.
A rat is always in the walls or the gutter.”
It just seemed funny to me at the time, but the idea stuck, as she intended it to.
But what had that to do with this?
This visitor, and I’d been only a youngster then. Must be twelve, fifteen years back.
He’d been talking about some folks. “Doing well,” this man had said, “got a nice place there. Clean and neat. Don’t see how they do it as he’s got no hands, doesn’t seem to be running many cows.”
Lying still, I listened. He was still, too, listening, as I was.
What else had been said back then? “Clean and neat,” the man had repeated, then he’d gone on to say, “Had a chestnut there, handsome horse.
I tried to trade him out of it but he wouldn’t trade.
“Handsome horse, one of the finest I’d seen. He’d traded for it, he said.”
Pa had looked around at him, I remembered that, because Pa was different suddenly.
“Chestnut with a blaze face? Three white stockings?”
“That’s the one. I’d give plenty for that horse. Plenty. But he wouldn’t swap.”
Pa was tapping his fingers on the chair arm, a way he had when he was thinking. “I know that horse,” he’d said. “I wonder how he ever got it?
I offered Moon-Child a hundred dollars, and when she refused I doubled it, and she told me she would not sell. The horse had been captured from the wild by her man, just for her.”
If there was more talk I
did not hear it because Ma had come along, insisting I go to bed; but it had stuck in my mind, all this time. “Moon-Child”-I loved the name, and I expect I was romantic enough to think she wouldn’t sell the horse her man had given her, and how fine that was. An Indian could buy a whole lot with the two hundred dollars Pa had offered her.
Maybe it was this same old man who’d had that horse. “Clean and neat,” well, they were all of that.
“Talon? If you need help, I’ll help. Take you back to your girl.”
He was impatient, I could tell it by his voice, but I lay quiet. It was so dark I’d no idea what kind of a fix I was in. This place where I’d fallen, it was down among the rocks somehow. Maybe it was a crack, maybe just a hole among some boulders. He either couldn’t get down here or didn’t want to try, especially as he did not know whether I was alive or not, or what kind of a mood I was in.
After a long while I heard him moving around, muttering to himself, then his footsteps going away. But how far away?
Putting out a hand, I felt of the grass, sand, rocks, then a drop-off. It might be inches, it might be fifty feet. I lay quiet, thinking.
What was I? A damned fool? Why hadn’t I answered the old man? What had he ever done to me? He was taking care of Molly.
Maybe I passed out. Maybe I fell asleep, but when I opened my eyes it was light.
I could see around me. Maybe it was the light woke me up, and maybe it was that sixth sense a wandering man develops from living wild.
When my eyes opened I heard something. Just the faintest whisper of something. Then I heard it again. Somebody wearing jeans or some rough cloth was crawling up on me.
Crawling, working his way through the tumbled rocks, and me lying under an overhang not over two feet above my head. Lying where I could scarcely move and with one bad arm.
Now if whoever was coming had been friendly he’d have come right along, paying no mind to what sound he made or didn’t make. But if somebody was wishful of killing me?
He was coming from the direction my feet lay. What had happened was that I must have fallen down between these rocks and kind of rolled over, getting myself under this overhang; and here I was, flat on my back now, the bloody side of my head toward the opening, my left hand holding the bowie knife under my side, out of sight.
Milo Talon (1981) Page 16