by E. R. Slade
“Hold on,” Riley said, thinking. “I reckon Calloway’ll be figurin’ we’ll follow his tracks. We want him to think he’ll get the drop on us, so we’ll follow the tracks instead of head right over the hill. It’s plain he went way out over the desert tryin’ to throw us off, and so that he could see us before we got there. Two Fingers, why don’t you go over the hill and box him in? We don’t want him leavin’ the back way, makin’ off with the gold, if’n say, he’s loaded it onto the horses, or maybe he has himself some mules waitin’ up there for him. We’ll come in from the front, just like he expects. He won’t get out of it.”
Two Fingers seized upon this idea, as Riley had hoped. Two Fingers had fallen prey to the white man’s gold fever. He thought that, since a straight line was a shorter distance from where they stood to where the cabin stood than it was to go way out into the desert and back, he and his braves could get to the gold first and capture it and make off with the whole haul. This while Riley and his men were still riding. Well, it was time to get rid of the Indian threat. If Two Fingers could be done away with, the problem would be solved, since it was unlikely that any of the other minor leaders in the small tribe hereabouts would dare try anything against the man who had killed Two Fingers. Riley felt little compunction about shooting Two Fingers, since in a similar situation Two Fingers might very well do the same thing to him. In fact, he had probably been planning it right along, for the moment when the gold was discovered and in the possession of the gang.
Two Fingers and his braves were eager. They went hurrying into the river, wading across and climbing out into the thicket on the far bank. Riley had meanwhile motioned silently to his men to take aim at the Indians’ backs with their rifles. He lined up his own sights on Two Fingers. They all fired just as the Indians were going into the thicket.
All seven Indians fell dead with hardly a spasm.
Riley grinned at his companions. “That does it,” he said. “They got no leader now. I don’t reckon we got any more problem with them.”
“What about her?” Baldy asked, pointing at Carmen.
“Cut her loose and bring her along. We might need her to do some hoss tradin’, or gold tradin’, as the case may be.”
~*~
Because of his uneasiness, Lee Calloway had continued to look down into the river valley from the hilltop, checking the other side only occasionally. Once or twice he was sure he saw movements down near a group of cottonwoods, and now he was keeping a close watch on them and the area around them. He wished he had a spy glass like old Captain Soames had back home.
Then he saw something that made him start: seven people, whose identity was impossible to determine at this distance, were wading in the river. They had not more than gained the near bank, disappearing from sight behind the bushes, when he heard the echoey faint sounds of gunfire, and presently little wisps of smoke floated out of the cottonwoods and over the river in the light breeze.
Lee didn’t wait for more. Something was going on that he couldn’t afford to ignore. He went running down the hill, grimly hoping that he could get some sort of reasonable speed out of one of the draft horses.
~*~
Harold Ford reached the river just as the shots rang out in the still, hot desert air. He emerged from a thicket onto the bank and looked down the river to see the Indians falling and fallen. He waited, watching, and then went right to the water’s edge to try to see into the cottonwood grove. He had not heard any screaming, and that gave him some hope that perhaps Carmen had not yet been tortured, perhaps wasn’t even going to be. Maybe she had been sensible and prized her life above her gold, which in fact she probably didn’t need anyway, if what he’d heard about the estate her father left her was true. He hoped that was the case and that she’d be all right. Whether or not, he was no longer in a position to help her. He’d tried and he’d failed. For him, death was likely just around the corner. Now it was he and Spike who needed help.
If only he could get one of their horses. It could make the difference between life and death. It wouldn’t be much of a walk back to the ranch—the nearest human habitation—for a healthy man, but for two men who belonged in bed resting with someone seeing to their bandages, the walk looked like an impossibility.
He weighed the odds of stealing a horse, realized they were so heavily against him as to be nearly hopeless, and yet, since they were balanced by the apparently even more hopeless alternative of walking, he decided to try. First, he had to find out where the horses were.
God help us if they have them there in the cottonwoods, he thought. He went carefully along the river bank, taking the easiest path with the fewest obstructions. The wagon tracks went along here and then started out across the open space between the brush and the cottonwoods. Ford stopped and looked over into the trees, staying hidden himself behind the last of the bushes. The horses were indeed in the cottonwood grove.
Of course they would be, he thought. Riley didn’t stop to let the horses graze but to attend to the men following, and possibly to the torture of Carmen. Riley wouldn’t have left the horses in sight, or put them out of easy reach, in case a fast exit became necessary.
Ford was just pondering how to go about cutting out a mount when he saw men beginning to get aboard the horses. If he were to cross to the cottonwoods just as fast as he could go, he wouldn’t be able to reach them before the riders and their mounts were long gone, even if they didn’t bother to shoot him before he got halfway there.
He felt like a drowning man seeing the rescue boat rowing away from him. How were he and Spike going to make it back to the ranch?
He watched the Riley gang ride out of the cottonwoods, taking all the horses, including the ones stolen from Spike and himself. They had put Carmen on one, and simply led the other. A saddled horse with no rider. And two men in desperate need of that horse, with no hope of getting it.
Ford suddenly thought of the Henry rifle, which he was leaning on. He was going to die anyway. Why not shoot at them?
He tried to lift the rifle off the ground, but pain shot through his side, doubling him over. By the time he had recovered, it was too late. The riders were out of sight beyond the cottonwoods.
Having at last returned to Spike’s side, after going again to the river to drink and clean his wounds, he found his boss awake, sitting up holding his head. Spike seemed groggy. He looked at Ford in surprise.
“Thought you were through, cashed in,” Spike said. “Where you been? What’s happened?”
Ford brought him up to date. Spike looked at his wound.
“That’s pretty bad, kid. We got to get you to Doc Morris just as quick’s we can.”
Spike tried to stand up, and fell over at once. Getting slowly to his knees, wobbling, he shook his head.
“Sense of balance is gone,” he said wonderingly. “Can’t hardly stand up.” He tried again, bracing against the rock. After he’d leaned there a while, he tried to stand on his own, and this time it was better.
“Let’s go,” Spike said. “We got to get you back.”
So, together they began their journey, leaning against each other much of the way, Ford using the Henry rifle for support as well. They had to stop to rest every little way. Spike would get dizzy and find it difficult to keep upright, and Ford was getting weaker and weaker from loss of blood.
By the time they came within sight of the ranch buildings, it was nearly dark, and another long struggle finally brought them to the door. Spike fell against it, unconscious. Ford pounded on it weakly with his fist, and then collapsed also, though not losing consciousness.
“Oh my God,” Amanda said when she opened the door.
“Send some men,” Ford said. “A lot of men.”
Chapter Seventeen
The draft horse was not hard to control, but difficult to ride quickly bareback, particularly west around the end of the hill. He would have preferred to ride directly up over the top, but the going was just too steep, and Lee reluctantly realized that
the shortest horse route was west along the side of the mountain and then down onto the flat land. But even this route was rough and slow.
He at last gained the far western end of the hill, and drew up, seeing a cloud of dust out in the desert. It was raised by a group of galloping horses ridden by determined riders. Exactly how many and who they were was difficult to tell, but who else besides Riley and his men could they be?
Lee decided to ride a little further around the hill and get a look at the cottonwoods down by the river. From a vantage point on a rocky little piece of hillside, he was able to get a good view of those cottonwoods: there was no sign of human life. After a bit, he wrote that off and returned to the stronghold he’d prepared.
Lying on top of the rock wall above the fortified cabin, Lee watched the riders come in from the desert until they rode out of sight into the pine woods on the hillside below. By that time he was certain of two things: one, that it was indeed Riley who was coming (and in full force), and two, that Riley had Carmen with him. She was probably the explanation for the time it had taken Riley to arrive. Perhaps also it had something to do with whoever the people were who had waded the river only to be shot at.
All the previous planning had to be discarded, since he could not try to fight the Riley gang with Carmen in their midst, where she might be hurt. Riley obviously must expect to use her to trade with. Which suggested his ruse had worked and Riley actually was convinced the gold had indeed been brought here in the wagon. If so, the question then became: could Riley be persuaded to let Carmen go without first seeing gold with his own eyes? The answer to this question was no, in all likelihood. The worrisome thing was that if Riley found out that the gold was not here, the first thing he’d likely do would be torture Carmen to try to make her reveal the gold’s whereabouts.
Carmen’s presence was something Lee had not figured on. It appeared to finish his plans for Riley and the gang. How could this thing be handled so that Carmen wouldn’t be tortured, but freed instead?
Lee went down the cleft in the rock to the meadow and looked at the cabin thoughtfully. The basis of his plan had been the hope that Riley would think he had the gold in the cabin and was fighting for it. That was what he had been counting on to bring Riley to the attack. Lee had been counting on his own marksmanship to take care of the gang. But, if he didn’t fight for the cabin, because of Carmen, and yet would not allow a look at the gold in trying to get Carmen back in a trade, Riley would be sure to suspect there wasn’t any gold here. The problem now was to keep Riley convinced that it was here long enough to allow Lee to find some way of getting Carmen out of his clutches again. It was an apparently hopeless situation.
Lee pondered, looking over the cabin, the rock cliff, the meadow with the two draft horses cropping grass peacefully, the cleft in the rock with the spring water running down.
Then came an idea. He went back up onto the cliff top, walked past the live oak to the huge boulder standing beside it. It was certainly big enough to squash the cabin below, if it could be rolled off the rock. But how likely was it he’d be able to move the thing?
He found a crooked pole after a short search and got a purchase against the base of the boulder. With all his might he was unable to get it started. He tried another method. With a heavy rock used as a hammer, he drove other, wedge-shaped rocks under the backside, pounding first one, then the next, then the next, and so on for all of them, and then went over them all again, and then again and again. It was backbreaking work, but the boulder moved slightly. He went back to prying again, with a longer pry and all his weight, to little effect. Cautiously, he worked at some pebbles and dirt under the downhill side, worrying them out by pounding with his stone.
He felt motion and stepped quickly clear. There was a crunching as the boulder moved ponderously forward over the ledge, gathering momentum on the slight incline. It rolled to the edge of the drop down to the cabin, teetered a moment, and then fell from sight.
There was a splintering crash, a rending of timbers, the sound of smaller rocks bouncing. He rested a few seconds and then went to look down at the cabin.
It was almost completely demolished. The middle of the rock was over the place where he had originally planned to be waiting in the door of the cabin, looking out over the pile of rocks and the upturned wagon. The only question left was whether he should immediately try to rescue Carmen, either by talk or by gunplay, or instead attempt to convince Riley that Lee Calloway had died under the boulder. One thing: If Riley thought the gold was under it, he would be sure to stay around and try to remove it, which would keep him occupied while Lee tried to figure some way to capture the gang and rescue Carmen.
Lee finally opted for staying around, facing Riley directly. It was the only sure way, or rather closest thing to sure way, of convincing Riley that the gold was indeed under the rock and had not been hauled off by the elusive Calloway in some fashion. Also, Lee wanted to be right there should Riley decide to hurt Carmen. Her welfare had grown increasingly important to him, without his being quite aware of it.
He climbed down from the ledge and found a convenient rock to sit on in the shade, and waited for Riley’s gang to arrive.
~*~
Doctor Morris reached the opening in the hillside in the middle of the afternoon. He dismounted and walked his horse on past the opening to a grassy area that was between two groves of pine and a steep face of rock. The open end faced away from the trail, somewhat uphill, so he figured the chances of anyone seeing the horse was minimal. Then he walked back to the opening in the hillside.
He had brought several candles with him. Inside the cave, he lit one and set it in a niche in the rock where it was obvious that many other candles had burned before, presumably while Haversam was at work on the images of himself and his wife and daughter.
Morris spent a little while just admiring the sculptures. Then he began to take a good look at them. He discovered that the gold had apparently been cast in molds. And the statues were not single pieces of gold either, but were made up of many smaller pieces, which were fitted together perfectly, so perfectly that it required a decent light and close observation to detect the joints. Morris tried the top half of Haversam’s head, and found it lifted off without too much difficulty.
This put a whole new complexion on the thing. He no longer had to worry about breaking up the statues or hauling them around as complete units. All that had to be done now was figure out how to get an ore wagon up here without being noticed. Once it was loaded, he would have to get it out as quickly as possible. If he could get well into the desert on the way to San Pablo, with a good supply of food and water, and a rifle with plenty of ammunition by his side on the seat, he would have it made.
The obvious thing to do was wait for nightfall, and then ride to one of the mines and steal a wagon, come here and load it, and then pick up a cache of supplies somewhere along the trail.
Doctor Morris smiled with satisfaction, took one more proprietary look at the gold, blew out the candle and left.
~*~
The tracks were clear all the way. Riley had decided to go the whole route, just as he’d told Two Fingers he was going to. The reason was the same. He wanted Calloway lulled into a false sense of security. Once into the pines on the slope, however, he pulled up and sent Gomez and a couple of other men up the hill, to get around behind the cabin.
“I’m going to talk Calloway out of there,” Riley explained to them all. “When he comes into the open, Gomez and Eliot and Hayes will shoot him from behind. Then we’ll just go in and get the gold. Got that, everybody? Simple. But it’s got to be done right.”
They all nodded in agreement. Even Pirate, though he had a peculiar gleam in his eye that bothered Riley. Riley had an idea that Pirate was planning something. That was why he’d sent Gomez off with the others instead of sending Pirate. The man could no longer be trusted.
They waited for five minutes before continuing on along the rough track. It was another ten min
utes before they looked up a steep incline in the trail and at the top saw the sun glaring on a face of rock. It had to be the one the cabin was against. Certainly the track didn’t go up over it.
Riley led the way, very cautiously, up the steep trail, his horse’s hooves sending a trickle of pebbles and dirt down the washed-out ruts. When he had gone sufficiently far up, he saw the top of the rock and drew rein to scan it. Three men were outlined up there against the blue sky. They were lying down, rifles trained over the edge of the precipice.
Riley moved up the trail a few more feet, and the meadow at the base of the rock came into view, with two draft animals cropping grass there, and at the left, a huge boulder that appeared to be sitting in a nest made of timbers and boards, with a wagon on its side in front, the wheels towards them.
Just to the right of the boulder, sitting on a rock in the sun, tattered hat tipped down over his eyes, was Calloway. Just as calm as a toad in the sun.
He didn’t bother to get up as they approached. In his right hand was a Colt Peacemaker. He was practicing spinning it around his trigger finger, a stalk of grass hanging from the left corner of his mouth, like a farm boy taking a break, practicing to be a gunslinger.
Riley was puzzled. He realized that the cabin Two Fingers had been talking about must be under the boulder. Had the boulder fallen on its own? Or had Calloway rolled it down? Calloway had to have rolled it down: just too much of a coincidence otherwise.
Undecided as to how to proceed, Riley rode up in front of Calloway, reined in and sat his horse loosely, looking down at the man he’d been pursuing.
“Reckon it’s a pretty hot afternoon, ain’t it?” Calloway said sociably.
“Yeah,” Riley said, and looked across at the boulder, considering the timbers and boards and smaller rocks under and around it.
Carmen’s horse, led by Baldy, came to a halt nearby, and she looked down silently at Calloway. He looked back and smiled faintly, tipped his hat and said, “Howdy, Miss Carmen.” She acknowledged with a weary smile.