When next my eyes opened the water was boiling. Pulling myself up to a sitting position, I unbuckled my gun belt and let the guns fall to the ground beside me. Then carefully I opened my shirt and, soaking a piece of the cloth in the hot water, began to bathe my wounds.
The hot water felt good as I gingerly worked the cloth plugs free, but the sight of the wound in my side was frightening. It was red and inflamed, but the bullet had gone clear through and as near as I see, had touched nothing vital.
A second slug had gone through the fleshy part of my thigh, and after bathing that wound also, I lay still for a long time, regaining strength and soaking up the heat.
Near by was a patch of prickly pear. Crawling to it, I cut off a few big leaves and roasted them to get off the spines. Then I bound the pulp over the wounds. It was a method Indians used to fight inflammation, and I knew of no other than Indian remedies that would do me here.
It was a slow thing, this working to patch my wounds, and I realized there was little time left to me. My enemies would be working out my trail, and I had no idea how far my horse had come in the darkness, nor over what sort of ground. My trail might be plain as day, or it might be confusing.
There was a clump of amolillo near by and I dug up some roots, scraping them into boiling water. They foamed up when stirred and I drank some of the foamy liquid. Indians claimed bullet wounds healed better after a man drank amolillo water.
Then I made a meal of squaw cabbage and breadroot, lacking the strength to get my saddlebags. Sick with weakness, I crawled under the brush and slept, awakening to drink deep of the cold water, then to sleep again.
And through the red darkness of my tortured sleep men rode and fought and guns crashed. Men struggled in the shadows along the edge of my consciousness.
Morgan Park … Finder … Rud Maclaren, and the sharply feral face of Bodie Miller.
The muzzling of my horse awakened me, and the cold light of a new day was beginning.
“All right, Buck,” I whispered. “I’m awake. I’m alive.”
And I was … just barely.
My weakness frightened me. If they came upon me now they would not hesitate to kill me, nor could I fight them off.
Lying on my back I breathed heavily, trying to find some way out. I had no doubt they were coming, and that they could not be far behind.
They might have trouble with the trail, but they would figure that I was hurt and unconscious, that my horse was finding his own way. Then they would come fast.
High up the canyon wall there was a patch of green, perhaps a break in the rock. My eyes had been on it for some time before it began to register on my awareness. Sudden hope brought me struggling to my elbow. My eyes studied the break in the wall, if that was what it was. There was green there, foothold for a tree or two, and there seemed to be a ledge below.
Rolling over, I crawled along the ground to the waterhole and drank deep and long, then I filled my canteen. Now I had only to get into the saddle, but first, I tried to wipe out all the tracks I had left. I knew I could not get rid of all … but there was a chance I could throw them off my trail.
Getting to my knees, I caught the buckskin’s stirrup and pulled myself erect. Then I got a foot into the stirrup and swung into the saddle.
For an instant my head spun crazily as I clung to the saddlehom. Then my brain seemed to clear and lifted my heavy head, slowly walking the horse forward. There was a trail, very narrow, littered at places with talus from above, but a trail. Kneeing the horse into it, I urged him forward. Mountain-bred, he started up, blowing a little, and stepping gingerly.
Several minutes passed and I clung to the pommel, unable to lift my head, needing all my strength to maintain my feeble hold. Then suddenly we rounded a boulder and stood in a high, hanging valley.
A great crack in the rock of the mesa, caused by some ancient earth-shock, it was flat-floored and high-walled, but the grass was rich and green. I could hear water running somewhere back in the rock.
The area of the place was not over seven or eight acres, and there was another opening on the far side, partly covered by a slide of rock. What I had found was a tiny oasis in the desert, but I was not the first to use this hideaway. An instant later I realized that.
Before me, almost concealed by the cliff against which it stood, was a massive stone tower. Square, it was almost sixty feet tall, and blackened by age and fire.
The prehistoric Indians who had built that tower knew a good thing when they found it, for here was water, forage, and fire wood. Moreover, the place was ideal for defense. Nobody could come up the trail had used, in the face of a determined defender.
Near the tower grew some stunted maize, long since gone native. Nowhere was there any evidence that a human foot had been here for centuries.
Riding close to the tower, I found the water. It fell from a crack in the rock into a small pool maybe ten feet across and half that deep.
Carefully, I lowered myself to the ground, then I loosened the cinch and let the saddle fall from the buckskin’s back. When I had the bridle off I crawled to a place on the grass and stretched out.
There was still much to do, but my efforts had left me exhausted. Nevertheless, as I lay there I found myself filled with a fierce determination to live, to fight back, to win. I was no animal to be hunted and killed, nor was I to be driven from what was rightfully mine. Regardless of what my enemies might do now, I must rest and regain my strength. Let them have the victory for the present.
There was food in my saddlebags���jerked beef, a little dried fruit, some hardtack. There was maize here that I could crush to meal to make a land of pinole. There was squaw cabbage and breadroot. There were some pinons … and I saw signs left by deer and rabbits.
The deer droppings were shiny … evidence of their freshness. Deer still came here then … and I had already seen some of the blue quail that are native to desert country. So I would live, I would survive, I would win.
Near the wall of the ruined tower I made my bed. Working carefully, I erected a crude parapet of stones from which I could cover the trail up which I had come. Near it I placed my rifle and ammunition. At my back would be the spring.
Only then did I rest.
Slowly a week drifted by. I slept, awakened, cooked, ate, and slept again. Slowly the soreness left my wounds and my strength began to come back. Yet I was still far from recovered. Several times I snared rabbits, and once I shot a deer. Nobody came near, and if they came to the waterhole below I did not hear them.
When I was able to walk a few halting steps, I explored my hideaway. While walking through the trees at the far end, I killed a sage hen and made a thick broth, using wild onions, breadroot, and the bulbs of the sego lily.
Several times I found arrowheads. They were entirely unlike any I had seen before, longer in design and fluted along the sides.
But a devil of impatience was riding me. The longer I remained away, the more firmly my enemies would be entrenched. Despite that, I forced myself to wait. The venison lasted, and I killed quail and another sage hen. I ate well, but grew increasingly restless. Several times I managed to climb to the top of the mesa and lay there in the sun watching the canyon up which Buck must have come during the long hours when I had been in the saddle.
The mesa that was my lookout towered above the surrounding country, and below me lay mile upon mile of serrated ridges and broken land. It was a fantastic land of pale pink, salmon, and deep red, touched here and there by cloud shadows. It was raw and magnificent.
But impatience was on me, and the time had come to move. My jerked beef and venison were long since gone. The quail and sage hens had grown cautious.
On the morning of the sixteenth day I saddled my horse. It was time to return.
Reluctantly as I left my haven, I was eager to be back. The deep, slow anger that had been burning in me had settled to resolution. Carefully, I worked my way down the trail.
At the waterhole I looked around.
There were the tracks of two horses here. They had come this far, given up, and gone back. My trail then, was lost. Knowing nothing of my position, I followed the trail of those searchers as the best way to get back to the Two-Bar.
Before I had ridden three miles down the canyon I began to see how difficult my trail must have been. I knew then that the two riders who had been at the waterhole had come there more by chance than by intention.
The canyon narrowed where a stream flowed into it, and following down the canyon the only trail lay in the bed of the stream itself. On both sides the walls lifted sheer. At places great overhangs of rock sheltered the stream and I splashed along in semi-twilight. Here and there the canyon narrowed to less than thirty feet, the entire floor covered by water.
Threading the boxlike gorges I came suddenly into a vast amphitheater surrounded by towering rock walls. Drawing up, I looked across the amphitheater toward a valley all of half a mile wide. Buck’s head came up and his nostrils fluttered. I spoke to him and he remained still, watching.
Coming toward me, still too far to identify, was a lone rider.
Chapter Eight
REINING THE buckskin over into the trees, I drew up and waited. Had I been seen? If so, would the rider come on?
The rider came on … studying the ground, searching for tracks. I waited, slipping the rawhide throng from my gun and loosening it in the holster.
The day was warm and the sky clear. The rider was closer now and I could make out the colors in the clothing, the color of the horse, the���It was Moira Maclaren!
Riding out from the shadows I waited for her to see me, and she did, almost at once.
My shirt had been torn by a bullet and by my own hands, my face was covered with a two weeks’ beard and my cheeks were drawn and hollow, yet the look of surprised relief on her face was good to see.
“Matt?” She was incredulous. “You’re alive?”
My buckskin walked close to her horse. “Did you think I would die before you had those sons I promised?”
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not joking.”
Her eyes searched mine and she flushed a little, then quickly changed the subject.
“You must go away. If you come back now they’ll kill you.”
“I’ll not run. I’m going back.”
“But you mustn’t! They believe you’re dead. Let them think so. Go away now, go while you can. They’ve looked and looked, but they couldn’t find you. Jim Finder has sworn that if you’re alive he’ll kill you on sight, and Bodie Miller hates you.”
“I’ll be riding back.”
She seemed to give up then, and I don’t believe she really had thought I would run. And I was glad she knew me so well.
“Jim Finder has the Two-Bar.”
“Then he can move.”
She noticed my full canteen, then waved her hand at the valley where we sat our horses.
“Father will be amazed when he learns there is water back here, and grass. Nobody believed anyone could live in this wilderness. I think you found the only place where there was either water or grass.”
“Don’t give me the credit. My horse found it.”
“You’ve had a bad time?”
“It wasn’t good.” I glanced back the way she came. “You weren’t trailed?”
“No … I made sure.”
“You’ve looked for me before this?”
She nodded. “Yes, Matt. I was afraid you’d be dying out here alone. I couldn’t stand that.”
“Rollie was good. He was very good.”
“Then it was you who killed him?”
“Who else?”
“Canaval and Bodie found him. Canaval was sure it was you, but some of the others thought it was the Benaras boys.”
“They’ve done no fighting for me.”
We sat there silent for a while, doing our thinking. What it was she thought I’d no idea, but I was thinking of her and what a woman she was. Now that I looked at her well, I could see she was thinner, and her cheeks looked drawn. It seemed strange to think that a woman could worry about me. It had been a long time since anyone had.
“Seems miles from anywhere, doesn’t it?”
She looked around, her eyes searching mine. “I wish we didn’t have to go back.”
“But we do.”
She hesitated a little and then said, “Matt, you’ve said you wanted me. I believe you do. If you don’t go back, Matt, I’ll go away with you. Now … anywhere you want to go.”
So there it was … all any man could want. A girl so lovely that I never looked at her without surprise, and never without a quick feeling of wanting to take her in my arms. I loved her, this daughter of Maclaren.
“No,” I said, “you know I must go back. Ball told me I was never to give it up, and I will not.”
“But you can’t! You’re ill���and you’ve been hurt!”
“So … I have been hurt. But that’s over and I’m mending fast. Sixteen days now I’ve rested, and it’s more than time enough.”
She turned her horse to ride back with me, and we walked a little in silence. “Tell your father to pull his cattle back,” I said. “I want no trouble with him.”
“He won’t do it.”
“He must.”
“You forget, I’m my father’s daughter.”
“And my wife … soon to be.”
This time she did not deny it. But she did not accept it either.
At the edge of the badlands, after miles of argument and talk, I turned in my saddle. “From here, I ride alone. It’s too dangerous for you. But you can tell Morgan Park …”
So I sat and watched her ride away toward the Boxed trail, thinking what a lucky man I’d be to have her.
She sat her saddle like a young queen, her back straight and her shoulders trim and lovely. She turned as if aware of my eyes, and she looked back, but she did not wave, nor did I.
Then I reined my horse around and started for town.
Often I shall live over that parting and that long ride down from the mountains. Often I will think of her and how she looked that day, for rarely do such days come to the life of any man. We had argued, yes, but it was a good argument and without harsh words.
And now before me lay my hours of trouble. There was only one way to do it. For another there might have been other ways, but not for me. My way was to ride in and take the bull by the horns, and that was what I meant to do. Not to the Two-Bar yet, but to town.
They must know that I was alive. They must know the facts of my fight and my survival.
I was no man to run, and it was here I had staked my claim and my future, and among these people I was to live. It was important that they understand.
So I would ride into town. If Jim Finder was there, one or both of us would die. If Bodie Miller was there, I would have to kill him or be killed myself. Any of the riders of the Boxed M or CP might try to kill me. I was fair game for them now.
Yet my destiny lay before me and I was not a man to hesitate. Turning the buckskin into the trail, I rode on at an easy gait. There was plenty of time … I was in no hurry to kill or to be killed.
Rud Maclaren was not a bad man, of this I was convinced. Like many another, he thought first of his ranch, and he wanted it to be the best ranch possible. It was easy to see why he wanted the water of the Two-Bar���in his position I would have wanted it too.
But Maclaren had come to think that anything that made his ranch better also made everything better. He was, as are many self-made men, curiously self-centered. He stood at the corners of the world, and all that happened in it must be important to him.
He was a good man, but a man with power, and somewhere, back in those days when I had read many books, I’d read that power corrupts.
It was that power of his that I must face.
The trail was empty, the afternoon late. The buckskin was a fast walker and we covered ground. Smoke trailed into the sky from several chimneys. I he
ard an axe striking, a door slam.
Leaving the trail, I cut across the desert toward the outskirts of town, a scattering of shacks and adobes tha offered some concealment until I’d be quite close, close.
Behind an abandoned adobe I drew rein. Rolling a cigarette, I lit up and began to smoke.
I wanted a shave … sitting my saddle, I located the barber shop in my mind, and its relationship to other buildings. There was a chance I could get to it and into a chair without being seen.
Once I had my hair cut and had been shaved, I’d go to Mother O’Hara’s. I’d avoid the saloons where any Finder or Maclaren riders might be, get a meal, and try to find a chance to talk to Key Chapin. I would also talk to Mrs. O’Hara.
Both were people of influence and would be valuable allies. I did not want their help, only their understanding.
Wiping my guns free of dust, I checked the loads. I was carrying six shells to each gun. I knocked the dust from my hat, brushed my chaps, and tried to rearrange my shirt to present a somewhat better appearance.
“All right, Buck,” I said softly, “here we go!”
We walked around the corner and past a yard where a young girl was feeding chickens, past a couple of tied horses, and then to the back of the barber shop. There was an abandoned stable there, and swinging down, I led the buckskin inside and tied him.
It was a long, low-roofed building, covered with ancient thatch. There was a little hay there, and I forked some into the manger, then stood the fork against the wall and settled my hat lower on my head.
My hands were sweating and my mouth tasted dry. I told myself I was a fool���and then stepped out into the open. There was no one in sight.
Walking slowly so as not to attract attention, I crossed toward the back door of the barber shop.
The grass of the backyard was parched and dry, the slivery and gray old steps were broken and creaked as I mounted them. I looked through the glass in the door and saw that the only man in the shop was the barber himself. Opening the door, I stepped in.
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