The Guns of Hanging Lake

by Short, Luke;

  They pushed on all day, and just before dark Traf moved over for a look at the valley. The snow was not so deep here, and the cliff seemed less sheer. He saw a creek down there, too. And in the far distance he could make out through his binoculars what seemed to be a wall like the one he was standing on, which, if true, meant the valley below was pinching toward the west.

  In camp that night Benjy was gloomy, and didn’t bother to hide his discouragement. He didn’t even have to restate his conviction that they were on a fool’s errand; his whole attitude proclaimed it.

  The next morning they were off at sunup, and Traf had a feeling that things would change today. Some ten hours later, when he had his fifth look of the day over the rim, he saw a cluster of cabins and corrals along the stream that had not been in sight before, and Traf felt a quiet exultation. Cattle were scattered over the valley as far as he could see, and putting the glasses on them, he could make out the Reverse B brand.

  The stream ran past the log cabins and disappeared into the V of a tight canyon. Traf turned his horse and went back to tell Benjy of his discovery.

  They rode west again, well away from the rim, discussing what they should do. It was agreed that they should get close enough so they could put binoculars on the cabins.

  When at last they had dismounted and tied their horses in the screening timber, they approached the rim cautiously. They could see over it that they were opposite the cluster of cabins and corrals.

  Traf said, “I’ll have my look and then you have yours, Benjy. You stay here.” Stooped over, and finally on hands and knees, Traf got down beside a boulder on the rim and looked through his binoculars at the layout below. There was smoke coming out of the cook-shack chimney. A man sat on a bench under the overhang of the bunkhouse roof, but because he was in shadow Traf could not make out his features. By the flour sacking apron gathered at his waist, however, Traf guessed this was the cook taking a breather from the heat of his stove.

  Now Traf shifted the glasses to the sagging bunkhouse, whose door was open. After that he had a look at the big cabin. Its veranda was cluttered with feed sacks, tarps, boxes, and barrels. Although no smoke was coming from its stone chimney, there was shimmering heat waves above it, as if from a dying fire.

  Traf heard a whistle and looked over the binoculars and saw a loan rider hazing half a dozen horses toward the corral, where the gate was open.

  He put his glasses on the horses, looking for a brand, but he was to the right of them and they would be branded on the left hip. A cook, a wrangler, and maybe a third man in the big cabin seemed to comprise the present crew.

  Traf edged around to the other side of the boulder and looked over the rim. The rock formation was different here—here it was a soft sandstone that the creek had managed to penetrate in some long-gone time. The sandstone also allowed growth for brush spreading from the cracks. One crack terminated where a stunted cedar tree had managed to take hold. Traf calculated the distance from the boulder he was hidden behind to the cedar tree, and then judged the distance from the cedar tree to the valley floor. Access to the valley on horse would be possible only back through the V the stream had cut, but maybe a man could make it here.

  He looked at the sun and saw that it would be gone shortly. If Benjy was to have his look, Traf had better get the glasses back to him.

  Back again in the screening timber, Traf handed the glasses to Benjy. “As far as I can make out, there’s a cook and a horse wrangler, and maybe another man in the main cabin. See what you think.”

  Benjy approached the boulder in the same manner as Traf had done and bellied down, binoculars in hand. He stayed long after the sun was gone. Traf heard the clanging of the triangle that would call the crew, and still Benjy stayed on.

  Presently he backed off and returned in deep dusk. Handing the glasses to Traf, he said, “Three men come out of that shack for the supper call, Traf.”

  “Get a look at them?”

  “Too dark, but I saw somethin’ else. Fella come out of that cook shack with a rifle. He saddled up a horse, then circled the corral and angled his horse up the slope right there where the creek breaks. There’s a ledge maybe forty feet above the creek. He got down, rolled a smoke, buttoned up his sheepskin, and then sat down with his back to the wall.”

  “Why the horse?” Traf asked.

  “You got me,” Benjy said. “Maybe there’s another way off that ledge downstream. If it come to a fight they’d have him out of the canyon and free to ride for help. That’s all I can figure.”

  “That would be on our side then?”

  “That’s right.”

  They went back to their horses, mounted, and rode farther back in the timber. Presently Traf reined up and said, “Here’s as good a place as any for a cold supper.”

  25

  While Traf grained the horses, Benjy in the darkness broke out their supper of jerky and the morning’s pan bread. They sat cross-legged facing each other in the dark, and when the edge was off their hunger, they discussed what they had seen.

  “With that guard posted, it’s a pretty hard setup to bust into,” Benjy said. “If those are Bar B cattle in there, this outfit would shoot on sight.”

  “Sure,” Traf said.

  “So what do you do?” Benjy asked coldly. “Stay on the rim with binoculars and look ’em over? Once you find your man, how do you get to him?”

  “I’m going to have a look tonight.”

  “The hell you are! How you aim to get it?”

  Traf told him of the cedar tree below the boulder. “We tie our two ropes together and I can reach that tree. You free the rope and I tie it to the cedar. Then I’m down on the canyon floor.”

  “You sure are. Forever.”

  Traf rose. “Well, it’s as dark as it’ll get, Benjy. Let’s go.”

  Benjy got up too. “What about the horses?”

  “Let’s get our ropes, and leave the horses here. If those horses below get to squealin’, ours would answer.”

  In minutes they were standing openly on the rim. There was a lamp lighted in the cook shack, in the bunkhouse, and in the third building. Aside from those lights, everything was dark. Traf shook out the two lariats, tied them together, and secured the loop of one over the boulder. Then Benjy said, “You ain’t thought this through very good, have you?”

  “How’s that?”

  “Suppose they don’t blow your head off—how you goin’ to get out? You can make it back to that tree you say you saw, but you ain’t goin’ to make no sixty-foot throw straight up standing on a side hill in the dark.”

  “If I have to,” Traf said quietly.

  “You get in any trouble, what do you want me to do?”

  “Go home and tell Dickey what we saw.”

  “What if your man ain’t down there?”

  “I’ve got the glasses and I’ll hide out until he comes.”

  Benjy hesitated a moment, and then he said, “You were crazy to start this and you’re even crazier to go on. Give it up.”

  Traf spoke as if he hadn’t heard him. “I’ll see you when I see you.”

  Throwing the rope out into the night, he choked up on it, put a leg over, swung the other out, and was momentarily suspended. After that the descent was easier than he had expected, and his only fear vanished when he found the tree would sustain his weight. He tied to the tree, and at his signal Benjy freed the rope up above. It came whistling past him, and in moments he was on the talus of the slope that led to the valley floor.

  Though lamps were burning in all three buildings, he calculated the crew would probably be in the large cabin. Accordingly, he made his way across the stock-trampled flats past the corral, crossed the creek, and swerving wide of the cabin, stopped by a plum thicket and turned the glasses on the upvalley window.

  They showed three men of four playing cards; neither the man he could see in profile nor the man facing him fitted Caskie’s description. That left the man with his back to the window and the fourth
one out of sight, and to see them he would have to circle the cabin and look through the west window.

  His half-circle accomplished quietly, he lifted the glasses again. The cook was the man he couldn’t see before. That left only the man whose back had been to the window.

  And there in the lens was the man Caskie had described—the same black hair and swarthy face, the same heavy sloping shoulders, and, above all, the same wild green eyes that the lamplight made glitter.

  Traf felt his heart leap. He had found his man—but only found him. How to get him out? Traf knew bleakly that even if he could surprise them and disarm them, there were too many hidden guns and too many men to watch while he took his prisoner and escaped with him past the lookout.

  And then the decision was taken from him. The four men stood up, exchanged talk, and moved to the door. One of them opened it, and two hands came through, heading for the bunkhouse. The cook paused in the doorway and called back, “Bosses ain’t supposed to win, Jim. They get dry-gulched for it.” He laughed, closed the door, and followed the other two.

  So it was Jim who was boss, and he would be alone and easy to surprise. But getting him back up the cliff was impossible, so it meant taking him down the creek past the lookout.

  Traf watched the man through his glasses; he poured himself some coffee, sat down, back to the door, pulled the lamp to him and hunched over the table as if doing some paperwork.

  A plan came to Traf then, a reckless one, and it would take time. He sat down on the chopping block and settled into a wait of patience.

  Fully an hour passed. Jim had made more coffee and had brought pot and tin cup back to the table. Traf could only surmise that it was paperwork he was doing, for he could not see the table.

  Lamps in the bunkhouse and cook shack had been extinguished. When Traf judged that the hands would be asleep, he circled around the house on the creek side. And then he made his move.

  Drawing his gun, he walked quietly onto the veranda, crossed it, softly lifted the latch, and edged the door open. Jim was still seated, his back to the door, and Traf could see the stub of a pencil in his big fist and a tally book open before him.

  Traf stepped softly inside onto the dirt floor. He was not more than eight feet away from Jim when he saw the flame in the lamp gutter from the draft through the open door. Jim looked up at the lamp as if puzzled, and then Traf raised his gun and lunged for Jim.

  Jim heard the movement and began to turn when Traf savagely brought the barrel of his gun down across Jim’s head. Jim simply folded onto the table, knocking over the cup of coffee.

  Traf closed the door and looked around the gear-cluttered room. Chaps and jackets were hanging on wall nails, guns and rifles were stacked in the corner, and boxed goods were on the floor, but he did not see what he was looking for.

  He turned the lamp up and set it on a stack of cases by the window, then he opened the door and stepped out onto the veranda. The close lamplight now showed him what he wanted. There were two saddles straddling a sawhorse, bridles hanging on their horns, and Traf moved over and took a lariat from the closest saddle. If the lookout man could see him, he might wonder what Jim was up to, but it wouldn’t occur to him to question anything the boss did.

  Traf went back inside, put the lamp on the table, then pulled the slack body of Jim off the bench and stretched him out on the floor on his back. He took off Jim’s neckerchief, pried the slack jaws open and stuffed the neckerchief in Jim’s mouth, securing it by tying his own neckerchief over Jim’s. Then he rolled Jim over on his face and bound his hands behind him and his feet with a single lariat. Next he went over to the inner wall where a lantern was hanging and took it down. Placing it on the table, Traf knelt beside Jim, rolled him over, and heaved the slack body upright. Then, making a sudden ducking motion, he let Jim fall over his shoulder and came erect. His left arm was wrapped around Jim’s legs, and now he maneuvered so he could grasp the bail of the lantern in his left hand. After that, with his right hand he turned down the lamp and blew it out, and then moved out onto the veranda. Taking the saddle with its lariat and bridle from the sawhorse, he headed for the creek and the corral.

  As he let himself through the corral gate, he knew this would be the riskiest part of the scheme. When he moved across the corral, the half-dozen horses there moved away from him in the darkness. Where the corral joined the log barn, Traf eased the still unconscious Jim into the corner. This corner would be hidden from the lookout, but would be wide open to view from the bunkhouse and cook shack.

  His next move was to determine if there was a gate in the lookout’s side of the corral. He did not find a swing gate but he did discover a slip-pole gate. The three horizontal poles here were loose so that they could be slid out to make an opening.

  He left the poles in place, returned to the corner, and boldly lit the lantern. Afterwards, he took the second lariat, shook it out and then moved across the corral where the horses were watching him. As he approached, they began to circle, and Traf, with careful moves, his loop built and trailing on the ground, maneuvered them into the corner where the lantern hung from the corral pole.

  The horses waited warily until Traf was too close for their comfort and then they broke. Traf ran right at them. The last horse, seeing he was cut off, reversed directions, and then Traf made his throw. Of necessity his loop had been too big, and the horse got one leg through it before Traf could close the loop. The horse fought and Traf dug in his heels, giving ground when he had to, but pulling himself hand over hand along the rope toward the horse. When he was a few feet from the horse he spoke soothingly.

  The horse, seeing what was inevitable, quieted down, and Traf freed the horse’s foot, led him over to the corner, and saddled him. Then in plain view of the dark bunkhouse and cook shack, he lifted Jim across the back of the horse and, with the free end of the lariat, tied his hands to his feet under the horse’s barrel.

  He tied the saddled horse to the corral pole, and walked over to the three bars and slid them back, leaving an opening. There was just enough light cast by the lantern for the horses at the far end of the corral to see the gap.

  Traf mounted, and moved his horse toward the others. They started their slow circle, and when they approached the gap Traf lifted his horse to a trot, heading off the leader. The leader stopped, saw the gap, and lunged toward it, the others trailing.

  They were headed for the V and the lookout at a smart trot. The leader hit the stream and crossed, and Traf kept silent, his horse bringing up the rear.

  “Jim! Jim!” The call came from the lookout high across the creek. “Sing out! Sing out!”

  Traf said nothing, and the clatter of horses’ hooves was the only sound in the night.

  “You said ever’body’s gotta sing out!” the voice called down.

  Traf knew that the lookout’s night vision was better than his own just now, since he himself was only seconds away from the lantern light, while the lookout had been in darkness for hours. Still, if he answered his voice would give him away.

  There was only one thing he could do. He gave the horse-rousing rebel cry: “Eee-yi-i-i-i!”

  The horses ahead lifted out of a trot into a gallop. Traf reckoned he was at the V, the lookout directly on his right.

  “Jim! Stop, or I’ll shoot!” the lookout called in near panic.

  Traf didn’t answer. He leaned forward over the saddle horn, trying to make the smallest possible target.

  “Jim!” There was both a plea and a command in the high shriek.

  A second passed, and then the shot come. Traf’s horse, at full gallop, flinched and swerved at the sound, and he instantly drew his feet from the stirrups, sure that the horse would go down. But nothing happened; the horse steadied and was straining to overtake the horses ahead of him.

  Roughly Traf reined him in, and listened. Above the murmur of the stream and the diminishing clatter of the horses ahead, he picked up another sound. It was the racket of a horse at dead run on the opposit
e bank.

  He listened, heard the horse hit the water and then grunt as he climbed the shallow bank in front of him. He could see nothing moving, but he listened as the lookout took up the chase for the horses ahead.

  Traf crossed the creek and then, to lighten the load, he dismounted and began leading his horse up the steep side of the valley. Once on the flats above, he circled back to where he and Benjy had left their horses, and after another few minutes he heard a horse snort out in the timber, and then came a whinney.

  He moved toward the sound, and a voice called softly, “Sing out!”

  “It’s me, Benjy.”

  He was listening for Benjy’s approach when his voice almost beside him said, “God Almighty, you made it!”

  “With our man.”

  “I know. I watched it. What a burglar you’d make!”

  “Get a fire goin’, Benjy. They’re afoot down there. Hand me a canteen. I’ve got to bring him around. I slugged him too hard, I reckon.”

  Benjy moved off in the dark and returned with the canteen. As Traf took it, he said, “Strike a match, Benjy.”

  Traf was unscrewing the cap of the canteen as Benjy struck the match. The sudden flare almost hurt Traf’s eyes.

  And then his hand stilled as he looked at Jim’s hanging head down across the horse. Jim’s dark head was covered with blood. So was the top half of his jacket, starting from the bullet hole in the middle of the back.

  “You’ve been totin’ a dead man, Traf. Was that the shot I heard?”

  Traf nodded. “From the lookout.”

  Benjy let the match go out and then said, “Now what?”

  “Why, we take him back to Caskie. What else?”

  26

  It was late afternoon of the third day later when Traf and Benjy rode into Kean’s Ferry. Traf held the lead rope of the Reverse B’s branded horse that carried the tarpaulin-wrapped body of Jim Fears jackknifed over its back, still hands lashed to unfeeling feet by a rope under the horse’s belly.

  There was no disguising what the horse carried, and people on the boardwalks halted and stared at them, curious but silent in the cold bright afternoon. They passed the hotel, turned down the side street, took to the alley and halted by the hotel’s loading platform. Both men dismounted stiffly. They were dirty, unshaven, and strangely quiet.