Here the wind blew steadily. The terrain here was flat as a floor, tufted with sparse grass, and in the distance a few dark junipers looking like upthrust blades from a forest of spears.
Sitting very still, I scanned the mesa top with extreme care. From now on I would be moving closer and closer to men who did not wish to be seen. No honest men would gather here, and if these were the Slades, then they were skilled manhunters, and dangerous men.
Nothing moved but the wind. Overhead the sky was wide and blue, with only a few tufts of lonely cloud.
I walked my horse forward, looking out for the saddle rock. In every direction the mesa stretched far, far away. I could smell sagebrush and cedar. Here and there on top of the mesa were tufts of desert five-spot, a rose-purple flower with flecks of bright red on the petals, and scattered clumps of rabbit bush.
My horse walked forward into the day. The air was clear and the chill was gone. Suddenly ahead of me I saw the dark jut of the saddle rock, and closed the distance, keeping my eyes roving, wary of any rider, any movement.
At the saddle rock I dismounted to rest the buckskin, and let him crop some sparse grass. There was a niche in the black lava of the rock, and I led Buck back into it and out of sight.
Trailing the reins, I stretched out on the grass in the shade. It had been a long ride, and I had been late to bed and up early. After a few minutes, I dozed. Not asleep, nor yet awake. Several minutes must have passed, perhaps as much as half an hour, when suddenly I heard the sound of a trotting horse. Instantly I was on my feet and, moving swiftly to Buck’s side, I spoke softly. He eased down, waiting. The rider came nearer and nearer. I slid my Winchester from the scabbard and waited, holding it hip-high.
Then I realized the rider would pass on the far side of the rocks, where Jolly had told me I’d find the trail. Swiftly, careful to make no noise, I climbed up among the jumbled rocks toward the saddle itself. When able to see the mesa beyond, I settled down and looked past a round rock.
For a minute, two minutes, I saw nothing. Then a horse came into view, now slowed to a walk. A horse ridden by a huge man, and there could be but one man of that size.
Morgan Park!
Where he rode I could see the dim tracks of other horses. After a moment of watching, I drew back and slid down off the rocks. Leading the buckskin, I walked around to where I could stand concealed, yet could see the trail ahead.
Morgan Park rode on until he turned, over a mile away, to the edge of the cliff. There he disappeared.
Waiting, for he might have stopped to watch his back trail, I let three, four, five minutes pass. Then I mounted and rode out to parallel the trail he had taken. The hoof prints of his big horse were plain, and I studied them. Also, the other prints that were several days old.
The day was hot. A film of heat daze obscured the horizon. Shimmering heat waves veiled the Sweet Alice Hills in the distance, the hills that seemed to end the visible world. From time to time the trail neared the lip of the mesa and I could look out over an infinity of canyons.
Yet when I reached the place where Park had disappeared, instead of the trail going over the edge of the mesa as I had expected, it merely dropped to a lower level and continued on.
Before me the mesa stretched ahead, apparently to the foot of the Sweet Alice Hills. But knowing that country, I knew half a dozen canyons might cut through the mesa before those hills were reached.
There was no sign of Morgan Park. He had vanished completely.
Riding on, I came to a fork in the trail. Here there was only flat rock, and, look as I might, I could find no indication of which way Park had gone.
Finally, taking a chance, I held to the trail that kept closest to the mesa’s edge.
Suddenly the edge of the cliff broke sharply back into the mesa and showed a steep slide. From talks with the Benaras boys I knew this was Poison Canyon. So I went down the slide and ended in the bottom of a narrow canyon.
If I met a rider here, there would be nothing to do but shoot it out. No man could get back up that slide under fire, and one could only go along the canyon’s bottom. I slid my rifle out of the boot and rode with it in my hand, ready to shoot.
The canyon bottom was sand littered with rocks of all sizes and shapes. The walls rose sheer on either side. There was little vegetation here, but many tumbled and dried roots washed down in the freshets that swept these canyons after rains.
Suddenly, I smelled smoke.
Drawing up, I listened, waiting, sniffing the air again. After a moment I got a second whiff of woodsmoke.
There was no cover here, so I walked my horse on a little further. A brush-choked canyon opened on my right, filled with manzanita. Swinging down, I led my horse back into it, pushing through the brush until I found an open spot with a little grass. I tied the buckskin to a bush and worked my way back, then slipped off my boots and continued on in my sock feet.
No air stirred in the canyon. It was hot, stifling hot. Sweat trickled down my body under my shirt. The hand that clutched the rifle grew sweaty. Careful to avoid thorns, I worked my way out through the manzanita and in among the rocks. Here I hunched down behind a clump of mixed curl-leaf and desert apricot. Then, working forward on my knees, I crept deeper into the thicket.
The air was motionless … the heat was heavy … the leaves of the curl-leaf had a pleasant, pungent, tangy smell. I lay still, listening.
The smell of woodsmoke again … then a faint rattle of rocks, and the chink of a tin pan on rock.
Keeping inside the thicket of curl-leaf, I crawled forward. A lizard lay on a rock staring at me. His lower lids crept up, almost closing his eyes, his sides throbbed. My hand moved and he fled away over the sand. I crawled on, then waited, hearing a low mutter of voices.
Nearer, I could distinguish words. Settling down in the thickest part of the tangle of brush, with a rock in front of me, I listened.
“No use to shave. We won’t get to Hattan’s now.”
“Him an’ Slade are makin’ medicine … we’ll move.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Nobody ast you. Slade, he’ll decide.” Tin rattled again. “Anyway, what you beefin’ about? Slade will have the worst of it done before we move in. They’s two, three men on the Two-Bar, that’s all. ‘Bout that on the Boxed M.”
“Big feller looks man enough to do it himself.”
“Then you an’ me wouldn’t have the money.”
There was silence. Sweat trickled down my spine. My knee was cramped, but I did not dare to move. I could see nothing, for the curl-leaf thicket reached right to the edge of their camp.
I dried my hands on my shirt front, and took up the rifle again.
“Finder’ll raid today. Maybe that’ll take care of it.”
Finder … raid.
My place? Where else but my place? While I lay here in this thicket, Mulvaney and the Benaras boys might be fighting for their lives. I started, then relaxed. I could not get there in time now, and the Benaras boys were no chickens. Neither was Mulvaney. Their position was strong and they had food and water.
“Who gets Brennan?”
“How should I know? Big feller maybe.”
“He’s welcome.”
“Finish that coffee. I want to wash up.”
“You can’t. Slade ain’t et yet.”
There was silence then. Cautiously I straightened my leg, then eased away from the rock. Carefully, I began to retreat through the thicket.
A branch hooked on my shirt, then whipped loose, a dry, rasping sound in the thicket.
“What was that?”
I held very still, holding my breath.
“Aw, you’re too jumpy. Settle down.”
“I heard somethin’.”
“Coyote, maybe.”
“In this close to us? You crazy?”
Footsteps sounded, and I eased my rifle into position, mentally retracing my steps to my horse. Where were Morgan Park and Slade? I might have to ride in a hurry and I k
new no way out but up the slide, which would be impossible under gunfire.
“You goin’ in there? If you do, you’re crazy.” The speaker chuckled. “You got too much imagination. An’ if there was anybody in there, what would happen to you? He’d see you first.”
The footsteps stopped … hesitated. A sound of brush against leather came to me, and I put my thumb on the hammer of the Winchester. I knew right where the man was standing and at this distance with a rifle I could not miss. Whatever happened afterward, that first man was as good as dead.
He didn’t like it. I could almost see his mind working. He suddenly decided he had heard nothing. He still stood there, and I gambled and eased back a little further. There was no sound, and I withdrew stealthily to my horse.
Mounting, I walked the horse out of the brush-choked canyon and started back toward the slide. But when I reached it I went on past.
Around a bend I drew up and taking out a handkerchief, mopped my face.
Then I walked my horse deeper into the unknown canyon. I’d found what I wanted to know. Slade and his gang were here. They were waiting to strike. Even now they were meeting with Morgan Park.
Tomorrow?
Chapter Seventeen
IT WAS midafternoon before I found a trail out of Poison Canyon. It was at the head of the canyon, and I came up out of it heading almost due east. Rounding the end of the canyon, I started back along Dark Canyon Plateau.
At sundown there still was far to go, and when my horse began to tug the bit toward the north, I let him have his head. Ten minutes later we had come up to a spring.
My horse was dead beat and so was I. It would soon be dark, and the trail was only vaguely familiar to me. The spring stood in a small grove of aspens over against the mountain. There were tracks of deer and wild horses, but no tracks of shod horses, nor of men.
Stripping the saddle from the buckskin, I gave him a hurried rubdown with a handful of dry grass, and picketed him out on a patch of grass. Impatient as I was, I knew better than to arrive home on a worn-out horse.
Behind me the Sweet Alice Hills lifted their rough shoulders, all of a thousand feet higher than the spring where I was camped. Eastward the sun was setting over the Blue Mountains and, hunkered down over a tiny fire, I prepared my supper, worried and on edge because of all that might be happening.
Yet, as the evening drew on, my anxiety left me. The hills were silent and dark. There was only a faint trickling of water from the spring, and the comfortable, quieting sound of my horse cropping grass.
Putting on more coffee I sat back, watching the fire, but far enough away from it to be out of sight. But I was not worried. I had strayed well away from the trail across the plateau, and if Morgan Park elected to return that night, there was no danger that he could find me.
Finally, banking my fire, I rolled in my blankets and was ready to sleep. But in those last minutes before I slept I decided what to do. Up to now we had been attacked; now I would stage a one-man counterattack. I would strike at the home ranch of the CP.
At daybreak, when long streamers of mist lay in the canyons, I was up and making coffee. As soon as I had eaten I saddled up and started back, and I rode swiftly.
The CP lay among low, rolling hills covered with sparse grass and salt-bush. Here and there were were clumps of snowberry. Along the slopes were scattered pifion and juniper, and weaving among them I worked my way close to the ranch.
It lay deserted and still. A windmill turned lazily, and there were a few horses in the corral. Watching, I saw a big-bellied, greasy cook come to the door and throw out a pan of water.
He stood on the steps, mopping his face with a towel, then turned back inside. When the door closed, I swung to the saddle again, rode close, then suddenly spurred my horse and went into the yard on a dead run.
As I had planned, the sound of the racing horse brought the cook running to the door. He rushed outside and I slid my horse to a stop, with my gun on him.
His face went pale, then red. He started to speak but I dropped off my horse, turned him around, and tied him up. Then I grabbed him by the collar, dragged him inside, and rolled him under the bed. He promptly began to yell so I rolled him out and gagged him solidly.
Outside once more, I took down the corral bars and hazed all the fresh horses out and drove them off. Rummaging around in the tool shed, I found some giant powder that had been used to blast rock. I went back into the house and raised up a stone in the back wall of the fireplace and put the can of powder in the hole, then trailed a short fuse from it into the fireplace itself.
Finding several shotgun shells, I scattered them around and brushed ashes over them. Then I placed a few logs carefully over them, and filled a can with water for coffee and placed it on top.
Returning to the brush on a little bench overlooking the ranch, I settled down for a long wait.
A slow hour passed. The leaf mold upon which I lay was soft and comfortable. Several times I dozed a little, weary from my long ride. Once a rattler crawled by within a few feet of my head. A packrat stared at me, his nose twitching. He came closer and looked again. Crows quarreled in the trees above me.
And then I saw the riders. One look was enough.
Whatever had happened at the Two-Bar, these men were not victorious. There were nine in the group and two were bandaged, one with his skull bound up, the other with an arm in a sling. Another was being brought home tied over his saddle, head and heels hanging.
Lifting my rifle, I waited until they were down the hill and close to the house. Then I put my rifle to my shoulder and fired three times as fast as I could trigger the rifle.
A horse screamed and leaped into the air, half-turning and scattering the group. A man grabbed at his leg, lost balance and fell, his foot catching in the stirrup. His horse raced fifty yards, then stopped.
As one man they had scattered, some for the barn, others for the main house or the bunkhouse.
Two bullets I put into the barn wall, and then turned and shot at the hinges on the kitchen door. Two bullets in the lower hinge, then two in the upper. Taking time out, I reloaded.
The door hung in place, but I was sure the shots had gone true. Shifting my aim I smashed a window, holding the sight just above the sill where a head would be apt to be. Then I shifted and broke another window, swinging the rifle further to fire at an ambitious cowhand who was trying to get a shot at me from the barn door.
I took aim at the top hinge again, and taking up the slack of the trigger, eased back. The rifle leaped in my hands and the door sagged. Hastily I shifted my aim to the lower hinge and finished it off with two more shots.
My position was perfect. I lay among rocks and brush on a bench overlooking the ranch yard, where the barn door, the rear of the house and every inch of the space around the bunkhouse door were visible. Nor was there any way for a man to slip out and get into the brush without exposing himself. There was no cover away from the ranch buildings.
The door was open now, and I put two rifle bullets through the opening, heard a startled yelp from one of the men, then fired again, knocking more glass out of the window. Although I still had shells in the rifle, I took time out to refill the magazine.
Several minutes passed. I put the rifle down and rolled a smoke. Shifting my position to one more comfortable, I waited. A couple of tentative shots were fired from the house, both wide of my position.
One man suddenly ducked from the barn and darted toward a heavily planked water trough. I let him run, then as he dove behind the trough I put two bullets through it, right over his head, letting the water drain out over his head and shoulders. When he made a move, I put a bullet into the dirt beside him.
Waiting, I saw his rifle barrel come up. His position was a little better, but obviously he was trying to reach the corner of the corral from which he might outflank me. His rifle barrel was steadied against the post at the end of the trough. Taking careful aim at the edge of the post just above the rifle, I fired.
The afternoon wore on. It was time I was moving, but I waited, wanting to see what would happen when they started a fire to make coffee.
Once I put a shot through the door to let them know I had not gone.
Crawling back to my saddlebags, I took a piece of jerked beef and my canteen from the saddle. Then I returned and settled into place again.
It was almost evening before a slow trail of smoke began to lift from the fireplace. Chuckling with anticipation, I waited. There was very little time left to me. Once it was dark I could not keep them under cover; and my position would speedily become untenable.
Now the smoke was lifting. Easing back to my saddle, I replaced the canteen and got my horse ready for a fast leave-taking. A shot through the barn door was enough to let them know I was still there.
The smoke increased, and suddenly there was an explosion within the house.
A shotgun shell … suddenly three others went, one, two, three! There were startled yells within the house and one man sprang for the door, but a bullet into the step nearly tore his toe off, and he ducked back into the house. Running back, I swung into the saddle, and almost at the same instant there was a heavy concussion and flame blasted out of the chimney. The chimney sagged, and smoke and fire burst from a hole at ground level.
It was enough for me. I swung the buckskin and took to the hills. Behind me there were shouts and yells, but they had not seen me. Then another crash … from the ridge I looked back, and saw that the chimney had fallen. There was a hole in the end of the house where the roof had been smashed in, and smoke was coming out.
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