Approaching as they were, Trent and Quince were coming down from the south toward the west end of the cup, where the scattered boulders lay. By working up close there, they could find and dislodge the attackers, or at least keep them so busy the pack animals could get across the open to the cup.
About three acres of land lay in the bottom of the cup. There was a fine, cold spring, the barn, horse corrals, and adequate protection. The cliffs were ringed with scattered cedar and rocks, so men there could protect the approach to the boulder. However, if a rifleman got into those rocks on the edge of the cup, he could render movement in the cup impossible until he could be driven out. It was the weak spot of the stronghold.
When they had ridden several hundred yards, the two men reined in and dismounted. Slipping through the cedars, Indian fashion, they soon came to the edge of the woods overlooking the valley of boulders. Not fifty yards away, two men lay behind boulders facing toward the Hatfield cup.
Trent lifted his Winchester and let go with three fast shots. One, aimed at the nearest man’s feet, clipped a heel from his boot; the others threw dust in his face, and with a yell the fellow scrambled out of there. Trent followed him with two more shots, and the man tumbled into a gully and started to run.
The other man started to get up, and Quince Hatfield made him leap like a wild man with a well-placed shot that burned the inside of his leg. Scattering their shots, the two had the rest of the attackers scattering for better cover.
Chapter VIII
Parson Hatfield walked out to meet them as they rode in. He grinned through his yellowed handlebar mustache.
“Well, I reckon we win the first round.” He chuckled. “Sure was a sight to see them ’punchers dustin’ out of there when you all opened up on ’em!”
“Who was the man we saw down?” Trent asked.
“Gunhand they called Indian Joe. A killer. He wouldn’t stop comin’, so O’Hara let him have it. Dead center.”
They walked back to the cabin.
“We got grub to keep us for a few days, but we got a passel of folks here,” Parson said, squatting on his haunches, “an’ I don’t reckon you’re goin’ to be able to hit Cedar Bluff again.”
Trent nodded agreement. “We’ve got to get to Blazer,” he said. “There isn’t any two ways about it. I wish I knew what they’d do now. If we had a couple of days’ leeway…”
“You know anythin’ about the celebration Hale’s figurin’ on down to Cedar Bluff? They’s been talk about it. He’s been there ten years, an’ he figures that’s reason to celebrate.”
“What’s happenin’?” Trent asked.
“Horse races, horseshoe pitchin’, wrestlin’, footraces, an’ a prize fight. King Bill’s bringing in a prize fighter. Big feller, they called him Tombull Turner.”
Trent whistled. “Say, he is good! Big, too. He fought over in Abilene when I was there. A regular bruiser.”
“That may keep ’em busy,” Quince said. He had a big chunk of corn pone in his hand. “Maybe we’ll get some time to get grub.”
Trent got up. “Me, I’m goin’ to sleep,” he said. “I’m fairly dead on my feet. You’d better, too,” he added to Quince Hatfield.
It was growing dusk when Trent awakened. He rubbed his hand over his face and got to his feet. He had been dead tired, and no sooner had he lain down on the grass under the trees than he had fallen asleep.
Walking over to the spring, he drew a bucket of water and plunged his head into it. Then he dried himself on a rough towel Sally handed him.
“Two more men came in,” Sally told him. “Tot Wilson from down in the breaks by the box cañon, and Jody Miller, a neighbor of his.”
Saul looked up as he walked into the house. “Wilson an’ Miller were both burned out. They done killed Wilson’s partner. Shot him down when he went out to rope him a horse.”
“Hi.” Miller looked up at Trent. “I’ve seen you afore.”
“Could be.” Trent looked away.
This was it. He could tell by the way Miller looked at him and said: “I’d have knowed you even if it wasn’t for that hombre down to the Mecca.”
“What hombre?” Trent demanded.
“Big feller, bigger’n you. He come in there about sundown yesterday, askin’ about a man fittin’ your description. Wants you pretty bad.”
“Flat face? Deep scar over one eye?”
“That’s him. Looks like he’d been in a lot of fights, bad ones.”
“He was in one,” Trent said dryly. “One was enough.”
Cain Brockman! Even before he’d heard from Lee Hall, he had known this would come sooner or later. All that was almost two years behind him, but Cain wasn’t a man to forget. He had been one of the hard-riding, fast-shooting duo, the Brockman twins. In a fight at Cottonwood, down in the Live Oak country, Trent, then known by his real name, had killed Abel. Later, in a hand-to-hand fight, he had beaten Cain Brockman into a staggering, punch-drunk hulk. Now Brockman was here. As if it weren’t enough to have the fight with King Bill Hale on his hands!
Parson Hatfield was staring at Trent. Then he glanced at Miller. “You say you know this feller?” He gestured at Trent. “I’d like to…myself!”
“The name,” Trent said slowly, “is Lance Kilkenny.”
“Kilkenny!” Bartram dropped his plate. “You’re Kilkenny.”
“Uhn-huh.” He turned and walked outside and stood there with his hands on his hips, staring out toward the scattered boulders at the entrance to the Hatfield cup. He was Kilkenny. The name had come back again. He dropped his hands, and almost by magic the big guns leaped into them, and he stood there, staring at them. Slowly, thoughtfully he replaced them.
Cain Brockman was here. The thought made him suddenly weary. It meant, sooner or later, that he must shoot it out with Cain. In his reluctance to fight the big man there was something more than his hatred of killing. He had whipped Cain Brockman with his hands; he had killed Abel. It should be enough. If there was to be any killing—his thoughts skipped Dunn and Ravitz, and he found himself looking again into the blazing white eyes of a trim young man in buckskin, Cub Hale.
He shook his head to clear it and walked toward the spring. What would King Bill do next? He had whipped Hale. Knowing what he had done to the big man, he knew he would still be under cover. Also, Hale’s pride would be hurt badly by his beating. Also, it was not only that he had taken a licking. He had burned out a few helpless nesters, only to have those nesters band together and fight off his raiding party, and in the meantime they had ridden into his own town and taken a load of supplies, supplies he had refused them.
The power of any man is built largely on the belief of others in that power. To maintain leadership, he must win victories, and King Bill had been whipped and his plans had been thwarted. The answer to that seemed plain—King Bill must do something to retrieve his losses. But what would he do? Despite the victories the nesters had won, King Bill was still in the driver’s seat. He knew how many men they had. He knew about what supplies they had taken from the store, and he knew the number they had at the Hatfields’ could not survive for long without more food. Hale could, if he wished, withdraw all his men and just sit tight across the trail to Blazer and wait until the nesters had to move or starve. He might do that. Or he might strike again, and in greater force.
Kilkenny—it seemed strange to be thinking of himself as Kilkenny again, he had been Trent so long—ruled out the quick strike. By now Hale would know that the Hatfields were strongly entrenched. The main trail to Blazer led through Cedar Bluff. There was a trail, only occasionally used, from the Hatfields’ to the Blazer mountain trail, but Hale knew that, and would be covering it. There was a chance they might slip through. Yet even as he thought of that, he found himself thinking again of the vast crater that was the Smoky Desert. That was still a possibility.
O’Hara walked out to where he was standing under the trees. “Runyon an’ Wilson want to try the mountain trail to Blazer,” he told him.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t think much of it,” Kilkenny said truthfully, “yet we’ve got to have grub.”
“Parson told ’em what you said about Smoky Desert. Wilson says it can’t be done. He said he done tried it.”
Jackson Hight, Miller, and Wilson walked out. “We’re all for tryin’ the mountain trail,” Wilson said. “I don’t believe Hale will have it watched this far up. What do you say, Kilkenny?”
Kilkenny looked at his boot toe thoughtfully. They wanted to go, and they might get through. After all, the Smoky Desert seemed an impossible dream, and even more so to them than to him. “It’s up to you,” he said finally. “I won’t send a man over that trail, but if you want to try it, go ahead.”
It was almost midnight when the wagon pulled out of the cup. Miller was driving, with Wilson, Jackson Hight, and Lije Hatfield riding escort. Kilkenny was up to watch them go, and, when the sound of the wagon died away, he returned to his pallet and turned in.
Twice during the night he awakened with a start, to lie there listening in the stillness, his body tense, his mind fraught with worry, but despite his expectations there were no sounds of shots, nothing.
When daybreak came, he ate a hurried breakfast and swung into the saddle. He left the cup on a lope and followed the dim trail of the wagon. He followed it past the charred ruins of his own cabin and past those of Moffitt’s cabin, yet, as he neared the Blazer trail, he slowed down, walking the buckskin and stopping frequently to listen. He could see by the tracks that Lije and Hight had been riding ahead, scouting the way. Sometimes they were as much as a half mile ahead, and he found several places where they had sat their horses, waiting.
Suddenly the hills seemed to fall away and he saw the dim trail that led to Blazer, more than forty miles away. Such a short distance, yet the trail was so bad that fifteen miles a day was considered good. There was no sign of the wagon or of the men. There were no tracks visible, and that in itself was a good thing. It meant that someone, probably Lije, was remembering they must leave no trail.
He turned the buckskin then and rode back over the trail. He took his time, and it was the middle of the afternoon before he reached the ledge where he could look down into the awful haze that hung over the Smoky Desert. Once, in his first trip up over this route, it had been clearer below, and he had thought he saw a ruined wagon far below. Kilkenny found the place where he had stood that other day, for long since he had marked the spot with a cairn of stones. Then slowly and with great pains he began to seek. Time and again he was turned back by sheer drops of hundreds of feet, and nowhere could he find even the suggestion of a trail.
Four hours later, with long fingers of darkness reaching out from the tall pines, he mounted the buckskin and started down toward the cup. Jackson Hight could be correct. Possibly he was mistaken and the Indians were wrong, and there was no trail down to the valley below and across that wasteland. In his long search he had found nothing.
Parson met him as he rode through the notch. Ma Hatfield had come to the door and was shading her eyes toward him.
“They got through to the trail,” Kilkenny said. “Maybe they’ll make it.”
Sally was working over the fireplace when he walked inside. Young Bartram was sitting close by, watching her. Kilkenny glanced at them and smiled grimly. Sally caught his eye and flushed painfully, so he walked outside again and sat down against the house.
Quince had gone after deer into the high meadows, and Saul was on guard. Runyon was sleeping on the grass under the trees, and Jesse Hatfield was up on the cliffs somewhere. Kilkenny sat for a long time against the house, and then he took his blankets over to the grass, rolled up, and went to sleep.
Shortly after daybreak he roped a black horse from his string, saddled up, and with a couple of sandwiches headed back toward the Smoky Desert. There must be a route. There had to be one.
When he reached the rim of the cliff again, he dismounted and studied the terrain thoughtfully. He stood on a wide ledge that thrust itself out into space. The desert below was partially obscured, as always, by clouds of dust or smoke, yet the rim itself was visible for some distance.
Actually, studying the rim, he could see that it bore less resemblance to the crater he had previously imagined than to a great sink. In fact, it looked as though some internal upheaval had caused the earth to subside at this point, breaking off the rock of the ledge and sinking the plateau several hundred feet. For the most part the cliffs below the rim were jagged but almost sheer, yet at places the rim had caved away into steep rock slides that led, or seemed to lead, to the bottom. This great rift in the plateau led for miles, causing the trail to Blazer to swing in a wide semicircle to get around it. Actually, as best he could figure, Blazer was almost straight across from the ledge where he now stood.
Again he began to work with painstaking care along the rim. The Indians had said it could be crossed, that there was a way down, and Lance Kilkenny had lived in the West long enough to know that what the Indians said was usually right.
It was almost noon before he found the path. It was scarcely three feet wide, so he left his horse standing under the cedars and started walking. The path dipped through some gigantic slabs of ragged-edged rock and then ran out to the very edge of the cliff itself. When it seemed he was about to step right off into space, the path turned sharply to the right and ran along the face of the cliff.
He hesitated, taking off his hat and mopping his brow. The path led right along the face of the cliff, and at times it seemed almost broken away, but then it continued on. One thing he knew—this was useless for his purpose, for no man could take a horse, not even such a sure-footed mountain horse as the buckskin, along this path. Yet he walked on.
The end was abrupt. He started to work his way around a thread of path that clung to the precipice, but when he could see around the corner, he saw the trail had ended. An hour of walking had brought him to a dead-end. Clinging to the rock, he looked slowly around. Then his eyes riveted. There, over 300 feet below, on what even at this distance was obviously a trail, he could see a wagon wheel.
Leaning out with a precarious handhold on a root, he could distinguish the half-buried wagon from which the wheel had been broken. Of the rest of the trail, he could see nothing. It vanished from sight under the bulge of the cliff. He drew back, sweating.
The trail was there. The wagon was there. Obviously someone, at some time, had taken a wagon or wagons over that trail. But where was the beginning? Had the shelf upon which it ran broken off and ruined the trail for use?
Taking a point of gray rock for a landmark, he retraced his steps along the path. By the time he reached the buckskin again, his feet hurt from walking over the rough rock in his riding boots, and he was tired, dead tired. He had walked about six miles, and that was an impossible distance to a horseman.
Chapter IX
When he rode into the cup that night, Parson looked up from the rifle that he was cleaning. “Howdy, son! You look done up!”
Kilkenny nodded and stopped beside the older man. He was tired, and his shirt stuck to his back with sweat. For the first time he wondered if they would win. For the first time, he doubted. Without food they were helpless. They could neither escape nor resist. He doubted now if Hale would ever let them go, if he would ever give them any chance of escape.
They ate short rations that night. He knew there was still a good deal of food, yet fourteen men, if he included those who were gone, and six women had to eat there. And there were nine children. Yet there was no word of complaint, and only on the faces of those women who had men with the food wagon could he distinguish the thin gray lines of worry.
“Any sign from Hale?” he asked O’Hara.
The Irishman shook his head. “Not any. He’s got men out in the rocks. They ain’t tryin’ to shoot nobody. Just a-watchin’. But they’re there.”
“I don’t think he’ll try anything now until after the celebration,” Bartram said. “He’s pla
nnin’ on makin’ a lot of friends with that celebration. It means a lot to him, anyway.”
Jesse Hatfield pushed back his torn felt hat. “I took me a ride today,” he said. “Done slipped out through the brush. I got clean to Cedar Bluff without bein’ seen. I edged up close to town, an’ I could see a lot of workin’ around. They got ’em a ring set up out in front of the livery stable near the horse corral. Ropes an’ everythin’. Lots of talk around, an’ the big wonder is who’s goin’ to fight Tombull Turner.”
Kilkenny listened absently, not caring. His thoughts were back on that ragged rim, working along each notch and crevice, wondering where that road reached the top of the plateau.
“This here Dan Cooper was there, an’ he done some talkin’. He looked powerful wise, an’ he says Turner ain’t been brought here by accident. He’s been brought to whip one man…Kilkenny!”
“Did he say Kilkenny?” Kilkenny looked around to ask. “Do they know who I am?”
“He said Trent,” Jesse drawled. “I don’t reckon they know.”
Tombull Turner to beat him? Kilkenny remembered the bullet head, the knotted cauliflower ears, the flat nose and hard, battered face of the big bare-knuckle fighter. Tombull was a fighter. He was more; he was a brute. He was an American who had fought much in England, and against the best on both continents. He had even met Joe Goss and Paddy Ryan. While he, Kilkenny, was no prize fighter.
An idle rumor. It could be no more, for he was not in Cedar Bluff, nor was he likely to be. Studying the faces of the men around him, he could see what was on their minds. Despite their avoidance of the subject, he knew they were all thinking of the wagon on the road to Blazer.
The food was necessary, but four men were out there, four men they all knew, men who had shared their work, their trials, and even the long trip West from their lands in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Missouri. Lije Hatfield was gone, and, knowing the family, Kilkenny knew that, if he were killed, no Hatfield would stop until all the Hales were dead or the Hatfields wiped out.
Kilkenny 02 - A Man Called Trent (v5.0) Page 18