Bannerman the Enforcer 11

by Kirk Hamilton

  He was standing on the rim of the ravine, looking down at the jutting ledge below, and the pile of drift snow that apparently covered the two bodies of Cato and Senator Jonas Locke. They had waited a long time for some sign of life from down there but so far there had been nothing stirring. Duane was growing impatient and he was angry that he might have been cheated out of the satisfaction of slowly killing his old enemy. He rounded now on his silent, uneasy men.

  “Hog, get a rope. You’re goin’ over the edge.”

  Hog stiffened. “Not me, Wolf! Hell, man, I got me a toe shot off!”

  Duane’s eyes slitted. “You brought Cato out to my place. If you hadn’t, the senator would still be in the shack. So you go down there and find out if they’re still alive or not!”

  Hog paled. “Judas, Wolf, I ain’t got any head for heights! I—I’ll be hogtied with this here foot. It’s hurtin’ like all get-out now. If I go hoppin’ down a cliff-face with it, I could easy miss my footin’ and fall.”

  Wolf Duane swung his rifle barrel up so that it touched the lower section of Hog’s jaw. His eyes were deadly and uncompromising.

  “Get a rope, Hog,” he said quietly. “Pronto. Or I’ll blow your head off!”

  Hog swallowed, swiveled his eyes around at the other men but they met his gaze blankly, glad that they hadn’t been chosen for the chore. He nodded slowly and backed off from the rifle, slogging back through the shallow snow towards the wind-blown horses. He took down his lariat and then moved to the mount alongside and took the grass-plaited rope from the saddlehorn. He walked back to where Duane stood impassively, covering him with the rifle.

  “I—I’ll need more than one rope, I reckon,” Hog stammered, fumbling to tie the ropes together.

  “Better make that knot tight,” Duane said. “You’ll be hangin’ out over a thousand feet of space.”

  Hog looked at him sharply. He didn’t need to be reminded of that. His hands fumbled and he muttered a curse, then yanked the knot tight, testing it with one end of the rope under his boot while he strained on the other past the knot. It pulled tighter and he was satisfied it would support his weight. Then he looked around for somewhere to anchor the rope to.

  There was a small boulder about four yards back from the edge. Hog walked to it with the rope, turned and looked at Duane. He opened his mouth to speak but took one look at his boss’ cold, unrelenting face and knew he would be wasting his breath trying to get Duane to change his mind. Sighing, feeling sick at the thought of going over the edge of the cliff, Hog tied the rope securely around the boulder. He tested it several times between the rock and the cliff edge, knowing that his life depended on it.

  “Got your gun?” Duane asked.

  Hog nodded, slapping his holstered Colt under his jacket.

  “Don’t use it unless you have to,” Duane ordered. “If they’re alive, that’s the way I want ’em. Even if they’re already dyin’, I’ll see they do it real slow.”

  Hog nodded jerkily, passed the rope around his back, over one shoulder, under the other arm and gripped it around his waist. He glanced at the others but they merely watched silently; there were no ‘friends’ on the Diamond-D. Hog nodded to no one in particular, backed up to the edge and closed his eyes swiftly as he looked down into the ravine far below. He quickly changed the focus of his vision to the narrow ledge with the snow piled up on it. Somewhere beneath that snow were Cato and Senator Jonas Locke. If it was up to him, he’d leave them there. If they were alive, they would freeze slowly to death. If not, it was as good a tomb as any, far as he was concerned.

  “Git!” Duane yelled at him suddenly and Hog took a deep breath and started to pay out the rope slowly, leaning back into the sliding loop, his feet braced against the cliff face. His wounded foot couldn’t take much weight and he grimaced as pain shot up his leg and into his hip.

  Hog lowered himself slowly down the cliff face, teeth grinding together, his stomach knotted up, in fear, as he worked his way down. On the edge above him, Duane stood with his rifle cradled in his arms, watching his every motion critically, impassively. The other men took a brief look at him and then moved back. None of them liked being too close to that edge: after all it had given way beneath Cato and the senator.

  Sweating, panting, Hog paused about halfway down. He looked up and immediately glanced away as clouds above the edge gave it the appearance of falling outwards. Downwards was no better, for the rope was twisting slowly and the timber falling away into the ravine seemed to beckon him. He snapped his gaze back to the cliff face a few feet in front of his face, swung in against it with his boots and yelled as pain knifed through his wounded foot and up his leg.

  “Move, damn it!” called Duane and Hog nodded, easing the rope through his hands again, feeling it bite across his back and hip and he lowered himself down towards the snow-piled ledge.

  The cliff face bulged slightly and he swung in under the curve, getting a better look at the ledge. Snow was lying on it and piled up on crevices and he knew this was permanent snow, not the stuff that had given way beneath Cato and Locke. That snow was in an untidy heap on the outer edge of the ledge and now he could see an arm and a leg showing from beneath it. Looked to him like the senator and there was no movement from the man. Hog hung in space, twisting slightly, as he scanned the ledge for some sign of Cato. Could be the small man was buried beneath it but then he saw him, lying sprawled on the edge of the pile, legs out of sight under the snow, upper body with several inches on it, head almost covered, one hand lying limply on the cold rock, fingers curled loosely. The other hand was out of sight, covered, presumably, by more snow.

  Hog turned his face up the taut rope and saw the moisture spraying from the twisting fibers against the sun. He hung on tightly.

  “They look dead!” he yelled. “Half-buried, no movement out of either of ’em!”

  “Get down all the way and make sure!” Duane ordered.

  Hog sighed and eased himself down the cliff face, on the inward curve of the bulge. It wasn’t much of a bulge but just sufficient to prevent anyone on the cliff edge from getting a clear view of the ledge. The fact that Cato and the senator had landed here had been sheer luck. By rights, they should have been carried down into the ravine with the tons of snow that had collapsed from beneath them. But, somehow, they had been thrown onto the only piece of rock that could possibly have broken their fall. Luck of the devil, no doubt about it, he thought, grimly. Giving him more damn work, too. Hell, he still had to get back up that rope and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

  He dropped into the piled-up snow and grabbed frantically at the rope as he felt it begin to slide away from beneath him. He hung in space as several cubic yards of snow spilled over the edge and cascaded down into the ravine in a glittering white curve. Blowing out his breath in a long smoky plume, he swung inwards and dropped to the solid rock of the ledge. He hung onto the rope one-handed until he was sure of his footing and straightened slowly.

  He was closest to the senator and he knelt, scooping away the snow to uncover his body, mainly the head and shoulders, so he could see if the man was alive or not. His head had been in an air pocket formed by the curve of his arm and shoulder, and only a thin dusting of snow had hidden his features. Hog was surprised to hear the breath hiss through his blue-tinged nostrils and he pushed the rest of the snow off the man, rolled him onto the ledge on his back. A moan escaped Locke’s bluish lips but he gave no other signs of consciousness. Hog stood up, blowing out his cheeks as he grabbed his rope and leaned far out to look up to where Duane stood with his rifle.

  “Locke’s still alive, but I dunno for how long!” he called.

  “Long as it’s enough to get him back up here!” answered Duane coldly.

  Hog waved briefly and swung back onto the ledge proper, heaving himself upright. He walked over to where Cato lay and couldn’t be sure if the man was breathing or not as his hat had been knocked askew and half-covered his face. Hog stood beside Cato’s half-buried body
and his lips curled as he shifted his weight off his throbbing, wounded foot. Damn half-pint, he thought. Cause of all his troubles right now.

  Then he gave a crooked smile and lifted his good boot preparing to stomp it down on the limp, curl-fingered hand that protruded from the snow. “This’ll soon tell me if you’re alive or not, mister!” he grated and stomped down.

  Suddenly the snow erupted and Cato’s body twisted over with a muscle-wrenching effort, his right hand breaking through the masking powder, bringing around the cocked Manstopper he had been holding ever since he had gone over the edge.

  Hog yelled and stepped back, clawing at his own gun, startled. The Manstopper boomed and jumped in Cato’s numbed fist but the bullet sped true and took Hog just below the throat. He jerked backwards and the cry of agony was drowned in his throat as the impact punched him back and he flailed out past the edge to turn over and over as he plummeted down into the ravine.

  Cato rolled away from the freezing snow and huddled against the cliff wall, as far back from the edge as he could get. A rifle hammered from up on the cliff and bullets raked the ledge, zipped into the piled snow, brought down a cascade of great lumps breaking loose from up above.

  The snow began to break away from under Duane’s feet and he stopped firing, cursing savagely, as he flung himself backwards and watched the edge of the cliff fall away into the ravine. There had been tons of piled snow up there and they smashed into the ledge, depositing a large quantity there before tumbling and spewing on down into the ravine.

  “You’re through, Cato!” Duane yelled wildly, sitting up, holding his smoking rifle, crawling to the edge. “You’re through! You can’t get down from there! I’ll wait around till you freeze or starve if I have to! You’re finished, little man!”

  Cato didn’t waste his breath in reply. He looked at the new pile of snow that had just been deposited on the ledge, shivering in his wet clothes, and figured that if its weight didn’t collapse the ledge, it would form a good barrier against the wind. Now, if he could only find something to build a small fire with ...

  He crawled across to where the senator lay, his legs under the fresh snow again. Cato holstered the Manstopper and grabbed Locke under the arms, heaving him backwards, free of the snow. The senator moaned in pain but he was alive, near-frozen, but alive. Cato figured they might be stuck on the ledge but they weren’t dead yet and with a little more luck they might even get out of this with their necks intact ...

  But not if Wolf Duane could help it.

  He knew he couldn’t get his men down to that ledge by ropes now. Cato still had ammunition. True, he couldn’t have much left, but he was a deadly shot and any man swinging in space on a rope from the cliff top would be as good as dead the moment he rounded that outward curve of the cliff face. Duane called his men together. Five of them. All he had left, and two of those were nursing wounds, thanks to Cato. He could tell by their faces that they had had enough of this hunt, this misery and cold and hunger, and he knew he wasn’t going to be popular when he told them what he had in mind, but he had never been a man to worry about what his men thought of him. As long as they did what they were told, that’s all he asked.

  “We’re gonna get them two off that ledge and see ’em die painful and slow!” he announced.

  Two of the men, the wounded ones, groaned aloud at the prospect and Duane’s mouth hardened, his eyes narrowing.

  “You still work for me!” he snapped. “You want to quit, do it. Now. But you ride out just as you are, no pay comin’, nothin’. You get off my land pronto or I’ll shoot you for trespassin’. On the other hand, the men who stay and help me get the senator and Cato off that ledge, stand to earn themselves a mighty good bonus.”

  He raked his bleak eyes around his men and though a couple shuffled their feet uncomfortably, no one made a move to leave. He nodded curtly, but he wouldn’t be surprised if someone pulled up stakes when he told them the details.

  “We’re goin’ down there to that ledge,” he announced flatly. “Dunno if any of you recollect, but there’s a trail of sorts down there from way round the far end of the butte. It don’t lead down to it so much as it leads up. You got to get down the face of the butte over yonder ...” He gestured to the south face of the mountain “… and then start climbin’ back up. It’s narrow and it’s dangerous but we can get to Cato and the senator that way so we’re gonna do it. Link, you can stay up here with a rifle, if that there wound’s botherin’ you some. Rest of you come with me.”

  Link looked relieved and the other wounded man muttered but said nothing as Duane gave them one final, raking cold look, then walked back towards the horses.

  Nine – River Of No Return

  Yancey and the Indian girl, following the lumberjack called Jed up through the tall timber, had heard the echoing gunfire from farther up the ravine. Of course, they didn’t know it was Cato gunning down Hog, or Duane firing a savage, ragged volley in his frustration down onto the ledge. But they could guess that the shots had been exchanged between Cato and Duane or his crew.

  There was only a general direction: from up the river ravine somewhere.

  “Did that sound like it came from where you saw those fellers fall onto that ledge?” Yancey called to the lumberjack.

  The big, bearded man hipped in leather and nodded. “Guess so. Hard to tell way down here, with all these trees and the high walls. But I guess that’s where it’ll have to be from.”

  The Indian girl’s face was impassive and she continued to ride, sitting straight in the saddle, staring directly ahead. Yancey knew she was itching to get her hands on Wolf Duane. He had ordered Hammond, her lover, killed and she would not rest until she had his scalp, too, swinging at her belt. She had worked in the hotel at Wildcat Falls for five years and yet ‘civilization’ had barely scraped the surface of her. She could speak broken American, could and did wear white man’s clothes, made beds, cleaned rooms and floors and kitchens and even cooked white man’s food. Yet, as soon as her man died violently, she reverted straight back to the ways of her people.

  Jed slowed his mount and waited for Cindy and Yancey to come up. He pointed into the narrow ravine, shadowed with the tall trees and the high walls.

  “Follow the trail we blazed through the timber and you’ll come out in a clearin’ by some rapids. That’s where we were when we saw them fellers go off the cliff. You’re on the same side of the river but if you ask me, there’s no way up there.”

  “Thanks, Jed. We’ll take it from here.”

  Jed nodded and began to wheel his horse slowly. “I better get back and give Morg a hand with that log jam. Good luck.”

  Yancey lifted a hand as Jed rode back the way they had travelled. Cindy stared ahead into the shadowed ravine and he knew she was thinking only of Wolf Duane. If he was going to help Cato and the senator, he reckoned he would be doing it alone. Her interest was only in revenge.

  ~*~

  There was nothing on the ledge that Cato could use to build a fire, small or otherwise. It was bare, except for some patches of moss which were far too wet to burn, even if he tried to start it with powder from one of his few remaining cartridges.

  The senator was shivering uncontrollably and Cato was bone-marrow cold himself. He slapped the other man’s wrists and rubbed them briskly, pinching his cheeks and rubbing his legs and arms, getting some circulation going. The exertion helped warm his own body and he soon had Locke stirring, and conscious, though he was scarcely any warmer.

  “By Godfrey, John, is that you?” Locke asked through chattering teeth. “After that fall, I fully expected to wake up in hell!”

  “Well, we came out of it somehow, Senator, on this ledge,” Cato told him. “Fifty feet down from the cliff top and the snow cushioned our fall. But we’re nigh on a thousand feet above the river.”

  Locke exclaimed, “How in hell can we get down?”

  Cato shrugged. “Dunno. Duane sent one of his men down and I nailed him, but, far as I can tell there
’s only one man up top right now and I dunno how long he aims to stay there. Heard the others ride off, headin’ south, I think, across the mountain face.”

  Locke frowned. “Well, it’s not like Duane to ride off and leave us alive. He might be happy at the thought of us freezing or starving to death, but I’ve a notion he’d stick around to watch it happen, too. I reckon he’s looking for some sort of trail to get at us here.”

  Cato nodded slowly. “Could be. I’ve had a look over the side yonder and the ledge kind of peters out into a narrow strip of rock, just where the cliff curves. I couldn’t see if it goes on beyond that or not, but it’s possible, and we might be able to make it down before he starts up if there is some kind of trail. Be better than sittin’ here for him to shoot at like fish in a barrel.”

  Locke nodded, lips pulled back tightly against his teeth as he studied the narrow, broken strip of ledge that Cato indicated. It would be risky trying to get along that, even with a rope to help. But with no rope, an armed man above, and his back giving him hell ...

  “What you say, Senator?” Cato asked, interrupting his thoughts.

  Locke sighed. “Well, I sure ain’t eager to get started, but like you say, John, anything’s got to be better than staying here.”

  Cato didn’t waste any more time. He got Locke onto his feet and they shuffled past the pile of snow, clinging to the rock face for what grip was offering. The senator couldn’t edge along, with his back against the rock, like Cato, because of his wounds. He had to turn face inwards and it inhibited his vision so that he had to depend on Cato’s directions, groping forward blindly with a foot and gingerly easing his weight onto it before letting go with his numbed fingers and sliding on to the next precarious grip.

  Cato looked upwards as they came out from under the bulge of the cliff and he saw the armed man sitting on the rock on the cliff top, looking miserable, a bloodstained bandage tied around his head. The man saw Cato at the same time and started, bringing up his rifle instantly. He sighted and fired even as Cato held up one hand for the senator to stop where he was and dragged out the Manstopper with the other. The rifle slug streaked across the rock face and pieces of stone bit into Cato’s forehead and neck. The lever worked again up there as he bared his teeth and brought the Manstopper’s barrel slanting up across his body. He fired and the concussion jarred loose a few pounds of snow from a crevice above him. He almost lost his footing as it cascaded down onto him and momentarily blinded him. He clawed it out of his eyes, fighting for balance on the precarious ledge.