Dave met Monte on the Deep Spring road an hour after he left Andrews. The puncher’s horse was lathered. “I been to Deep Spring,” he said. “Leslie is safe with Cass.”
“Where’s Vidal?”
“Damned if I know!”
“As long as she’s all right we’d better go back and help Andrews.”
They found Andrews and his two men half a mile from Ruins Canyon. “Damnedest thing I ever saw,” he said. “We scouted Ruins. Tracks all over. No cows. You sure they didn’t go south?”
“I know they didn’t!” said Dave.
Andrews spat angrily. “What do we do now?”
Dave looked up at the moonlit canyon wall to the west. “Sit tight. I’m going up there and look into another canyon I discovered.”
“How the hell could they get in there?”
Dave shrugged. “I’m willing to bet my claybank against a plug of Horseshoe that there is a way in there.”
“Then we’ll go into Ruins and look for it.”
“You’ll get bushwhacked! Spot yourself near the canyon mouth and watch to see if anyone comes out. Gather them up if they do. Monte and I will take a looksee up there. Maybe we can flush those birds.”
“You’ve got guts, Dave.”
Monte whistled softly as he looked at the cliffs. “Wa’al, I might as well go through with it. Damned if I can get to like the idea though!”
They picketed their horses in the hide-out canyon, got the ropes, and started the dangerous ascent. It was hard going in the darkness, for the moon did not light the hide-out canyon south wall. Dave hooked his slung Spencer on a projecting rock and it took Monte fifteen minutes to work up beside him and free it. They finally sprawled at the top, gasping for breath in the thin air. Monte closed his eyes. “I think I oughta get sick,” he said.
Dave snatched up the ropes and set off at a fast pace across the moonlit mesa with Monte plodding after him. They reached the brink of the mysterious canyon. Some of it was in deep shadow, unlit as yet by the rising moon.
Dave lowered his lines. “You ain’t goin’ down there, are yuh?” demanded Monte.
Dave nodded.
“You ain’t goin’ alone, though damned if I cotton to the idea.”
Dave gripped the line and worked his way down the rope. Halfway down he landed on a ledge. Monte struggled down beside him, cursing under his breath as he rubbed his lacerated hands on his pants.
It took them the better part of an hour to reach the bottom. They rested, inspecting their bruises and cuts. Monte stood up. “Listen!” he said.
A cow had bawled from somewhere in the darkness.
They skirted the base of the cliff, working west. Now and then the wind brought the sound of rushing water to them. The brush rustled. They had covered a good mile when Monte grunted. “Look,” he said.
The moon had begun to light a level area on the far side of the creek. Cattle dotted the area. “Must be about five to six hundred head over there,” said Dave. “We’ve run them to earth, Monte.”
“Yeh. Yeh. But what do we do now? No hosses. Miles from anywhere,” Monte spat.
“Look,” said Dave quietly.
A spot of flame had licked up west of them.
“What is it?”
“Looked like it came from the top of a chimney. Someone is starting a fire down there.” Dave walked west.
A horseman rode slowly past the herd. They could hear him singing. Dave and Monte faded into the brush and came out on a wide flat of rock. The moon revealed a rock house perched on a slope over a place where the creek had formed a deep pool. Four horses were tethered to a hitching rack. A door banged and a man was outlined in light. “I’ll take a pasear into Ruins then, Shorty!” he called back.
Another man came to the door. “If you see Dan Edrick, take a shot at him.” It was Shorty Ganoe. He looked back over his shoulder. “That okay with you, Bart?”
Dave and Monte could not hear the sheriff’s reply. “Did you hear what I heard?” asked Dave.
“Jesus! Ganoe and Bart Edrick! Slick as a greased hog. Who woulda thought of it?”
“Neither one of them, I’ll bet. They haven’t got the brains. This clears Dan Edrick all right.”
“What do we do now?”
“We could try to get Shorty and Bart.”
“Maybe somebody else is in there?”
“Let’s look.” Dave glanced at the distant herd. The man who had left the cabin was riding east. “Wait. You follow him. See if you can find out how they get these cows in here. I’ll watch the house.”
“Keno!” Monte drifted off through the brush.
Dave inched forward. It took him a long time to get around behind the building. Now and then he could faintly hear voices. Shorty Ganoe had even fooled Dan Edrick, but it was beefy Bart Edrick who’d have to pay the piper’s bill when Dan caught up with him. Dave cached his Spencer and worked down behind the house. He edged up to the wall and stopped near a window which was open a few inches.
“Who was that who was following us down the canyon?” asked Bart.
“One hombre,” said Shorty. “Too dark to see who it was. Buck Casey scared him off with a few shots.”
“I don’t like it. You sure he didn’t see where we drove the cows?”
“Hell, no!”
“He’d be better off if he was dead if he did,” said a voice from the far side of the cabin.
Dave straightened up. The voice was vaguely familiar.
“Hell, Rileton!” said Shorty. “What’s the difference now? We got enough steers to drive west now. We can lay low for a while until the pressure is off.”
Rileton. Dave raised his head. Rile … Rileton. That was the name Cooper Jones had been trying to say to Dave. Dave bent to get a look into the cabin. His foot hit a pile of discarded tin cans. They clattered loudly. Dave ran lightly into the brush and slid down toward the deep pool.
The three men came out in front of the house with drawn sixguns. “What the hell was that?” demanded Edrick nervously.
Shorty walked behind the house and poked about in the brush. “What the hell is this?” He picked up Dave’s Spencer.
“Maybe it belongs to one of the boys?” said Edrick.
Dave lay low. He could hear them walking about the house. “Say,” said Shorty, “that nosy bastard Yeamans has a Spencer. None of our boys have.”
“I knew there’d be trouble tonight!”
“Let’s get to the herd,” said Shorty.
Dave saw the three of them mount and ride down the slope. Shorty was carrying the Spencer. A clump of brush cut them off from sight before Dave could see who the third man was.
Dave went to the house. The fire was flickering in an open fireplace. He jumped as a rifle crashed down near the herd. He slid down toward the pool and looked east. Dave followed the stream. Rifles flashed steadily. Dave started to run. They must have flushed Monte.
Something moved in the brush. Dave whipped out his double-action. Monte staggered through the shadows. He was gripping his left arm. “I got holed. I was close to the herd when I fell and dropped my Henry. The night hawk saw me and opened up. The rest of them are looking for me.”
The horsemen were quartering through the brush trying to cut sign. Dave trotted through the brush followed by Monte. “My arm is busted, I think,” said Hollis.
“What did you learn?”
“Up a slope is what looks like a big cave. Horseman rode in it and didn’t come out. I followed him. Helluva draft pouring through the cave so it must open up somewheres. I’ll bet it opens into Ruins Canyon.”
“Yeh. But where?”
“Damned if I know.”
The horsemen were on the far side of the herd by now. They sat their mounts with rifles across their thighs looking out across the moonlit brush. They started across the shallow stream. Monte cocked his Colt. “Hightail it. I’ll stand them off.”
“No.” Dave eyed the herd. They were restless from the shooting. It was only a matter o
f time before Monte and Dave would be flushed. “Hide. Don’t shoot unless they’re right on top of you.”
“What about you?”
“I aim to raise a little pure hell in this big hole.” Dave trotted at a crouch until he was west of the milling herd. The grass was dry. He squatted and lit a lucifer, cupping it against the west wind. He applied it to a dry bush. The flame flickered and then flared up.
“What the hell is that?” yelled Shorty.
Dave fanned the flame with his hat. Dave raced away from it, giving out a wild rebel yell. He ran the big Starr dry. The roaring shots echoed from the canyon walls. The wall of flame moved toward the excited herd. They began to move toward the four horsemen. Then the herd began to run. The men opened fire at Dave but he slid into a hollow and reloaded his Starr. Dave held up the handgun and ripped out six more shots like the ripping of heavy cloth. The herd was spooked. They took off at a steady run for the east end of the canyon, straight toward the four men.
“Stampede!” one of them yelled. They sank in the hooks and cut across the front of the moving herd. The sound was like muttering thunder. The herd closed in on the hard-riding men. One of them went down as his horse stumbled and fell. The steers flowed over him, stifling a last agonized scream. The other three men lashed their horses toward the darkness of the cave, up a long rocky slope. One of them cut sideways to clear the herd. He crashed through the shallows of the stream but was engulfed by the herd. The last two men plowed up the loose rock of the slope, making hard going. One horse pitched forward. The man slid from the saddle and tried to reach the sheer wall of the canyon, scrabbling desperately for a hold but the mass of cattle crushed him against the wall. The last man buck-jumped his horse up the slope, slid from the saddle, gripped a stunted tree growing from the cliff wall and pulled himself up over the thrashing horns as the herd poured beneath him. Then everything was blotted out in a pall of thick dust.
Dave reloaded. He was a little sick as he realized what he had done, but there would have been short shrift for Monte and himself if they had tracked them down. One of them had possibly avoided a horrible death.
Dave found Monte seated on a rock. He looked up at Dave and shook his head. “Gawd,” he said, “you did things to a turn.”
Dave helped Monte to the cabin. He glanced back to see that the steers had vanished into the huge cave. “Sit tight here, Monte,” he said. “I’m going to find that one man who I think got away.”
Monte nodded as Dave helped him to a seat. “Where the hell did those cows go?”
“I aim to find out.” Dave reloaded his pistol and left the cabin, walking at a fast pace through the moonlit brush.
fifteen
DAVE PASSED A CURIOUS BLOTCH on the trampled earth and knew it for the first man who had gone down. A horse lay dead at the far side of the stream and a black hat floated in an eddy. It was Shorty Ganoe’s horse. A scrap of bloody cloth hung across a rock. “Two down,” said Dave.
The third man’s big body was wedged into a cleft which cut into the cliff. It was shattered and bloody. Drops of blood dripped to the rocks beneath the battered corpse. The moon glinted on something bright. Dave picked it up. It was smashed but Dave knew it for Bart Edrick’s big official star. Dave looked up at the body. “Anyway, Bart,” he said, “you won’t have to face your brother Dan.”
The wind blew dust against Dave as he plodded up the rocky slope toward the cave. Moonlight filtered through the dust at the far end of the cave. Dave drew and cocked his Starr. There was a wall of the cave blocking his way. He placed a hand against it. It was masonry. He followed it for fifty feet and rounded a sagging corner. Ruins Canyon lay below him, bathed in silver moonlight. “I’ll be damned,” he said softly. He kicked a rock accidently. A gun spat flame. He hit the ground and lay still. Something moved in one of the doorways of the ruins. Dave fired twice and chipped masonry.
Boots clattered on loose rock. A pistol flamed from a small window. Dave rolled over and crawled behind the long row of ruins. He eased through a doorway. The roof of the room had fallen in, filling the floor area with dried mud and crooked roof beams. Dave climbed the debris and looked over the low wall. A shadow moved into another room down the line. Dave snapped a shot, darted through the rear door and padded along the back of the line of ruins, under the great overhang of rock which sheltered the dwellings. He eased into another room, cracking his head against the low sagging roof. Dried mud pattered about him as he crawled through a small doorway into the next room.
Silence came, broken only by the dry patter of roof adobe behind Dave. Suddenly the roof collapsed, billowing the dust of ages toward him. Dave edged toward the next door. A gun barked, chipping masonry. He jumped through a back door and found himself in a long natural passageway behind the dwellings. He soft-shoed behind the line of ruins through a litter of potsherds and powdery animal bones.
Dave peered into a long room. A gun spat flame. The slug picked at the brim of his battered hat. He fired twice and then again as he saw a dim figure. Dave jumped back into the passageway, ran to the next door and stepped in. He raised his Starr as the man whirled. The Starr’s hammer clicked dryly. Dave pulled trigger again and then realized he had run the big handgun dry.
“So,” the dim figure said, “you haven’t a chance now, Yeamans.”
Dave stared into the shadows. Moonlight shone on Dave and pinned him stark against the back wall.
“Stand still!” The man moved out into the moonlight. It was Mack Muir. He raised his Colt.
“What is this, Muir?” asked Dave as he raised his hands.
“The name is Rileton,” he said quietly, “I use my mother’s name around here.”
“Then you ran the rustling deal?”
Rileton nodded. “Had everybody fooled until you blundered along.” He jerked his head. “Who’s out there in Ruins Canyon?”
“The men you stole cattle from.”
“They just got a lot of them back.”
“Yes.”
Rileton leaned against a post. “I always knew it would be a showdown between us, Yeamans.”
“You’ve got the aces. How did you work the rustling?”
“Easy enough. Shorty Ganoe helped me. Bart Edrick got a big split. Bart kept Dan busy on wildgoose chases while we ran off his cows. John Waite trailed us in here once. He was going in for Bart Edrick when he died.”
Cold sweat trickled down Dave’s sides. “You did it.”
Rileton smiled. “Yes. John told me he was cutting through Shadow Canyon to avoid the creek road. I got there ahead of him. Threw suspicion on everyone but me.”
“You cold-gutted shark!”
“Mort Hastings got a dose of the same. I’ve lost the cattle but I’m in the clear. Bart and the boys can’t talk. After I take care of you I’ll go back into the canyon and ride west. I’ll show up later on, talk Leslie into marrying me, and end up owning my spread and the Double W too.”
Dave shifted. Rileton stepped back. “Don’t move! How do you want it? Belly or head?”
Dirt sifted down from the sagging roof. Rileton raised the Colt. Dave threw himself sideways just as the Colt roared. Dave hit a roof prop. The roof sagged. Rileton cursed. He fired again. The slug winged past Dave’s head. He hit the post again with all his weight. Rileton was veiled in falling dust and mud. Then with a soft rush the heavy dried adobe poured down, engulfing Rileton, smashing him down under the debris. The earth stopped sliding. Dave coughed. He turned away and stepped into the back passage. He limped to the end of the building. He stepped out on the terrace.
A horseman leveled a Henry rifle down on the slope. “Calf rope!” he yelled. It was Frank Andrews.
“It’s Yeamans!”
“Thank God! We’ve got the whole herd, Dave! Lazy E, Bar M, Lazy L, Double W, and my own Box A.”
Dave wiped the sweat from his face. “Monte is back in the hidden canyon sporting a broken arm. Get me a horse.”
Dave sat down and rolled a smoke with the last
of his tobacco. It was all over. The rustling was, in any event. Yet he had a score to settle with Jesse Vidal of the two matched Colts. It wouldn’t be easy. He lit the smoke and leaned back. He had traveled a bitch of a trail since the day Dan Edrick had surprised him in his hunting camp.
sixteen
IT WAS CLOSE TO DAWN when Dave and Monte neared Deep Spring. Andrews and his men had penned the herd up in the hidden canyon. Monte’s arm had been set and then Dave and Monte had ridden one horse to the hide-out canyon to get their own horses. Dave had taken the time to put on the clean clothing Monte had brought him from Deep Spring. Monte, despite the battering he had undergone, was downright cheerful. “I feel better’n I have for years,” he said.
“Doing something honest?”
Monte grinned. “Yeh, now that you got the bad manners to bring it up.”
“You were just a misguided boy, Monte.”
“You expect to find Jesse in Deep Spring?”
“I’m going to see Leslie. I’ll bet Jessé” is around somewhere. If he is I’ll straighten him out.”
Monte shook his head. “He’s sheer twinkling magic with the sixes, Dave. Not that you ain’t a good man,” he added hastily.
Dave turned up his collar against the cold wind. It was going to rain. “Maybe he won’t get a chance to use his Colts,” he said.
“I hope so. Just don’t take any chances with him, Dave.”
“I don’t want any more killing, Monte. I’ve had a gut-ful of blood.”
“Yeh. I’m lookin’ forward to a nice quiet job of breakin’ up stampedes, tamin’ wild hosses, or lassoin’ mountain lions.”
The eastern sky was pale when they saw the first buildings of sleeping Deep Spring. They clattered over the plank bridge which spanned a branch of the creek. A big man stepped from a doorway and hurried toward them. There was a spit of rain in the cold wind as they drew near him. It was Dan Edrick. He looked up at Dave. “Well?” he asked quietly.
“It’s all done,” said Dave. “Some of your steers are with the herd we got back. Four of the rustlers are dead.”
Range Rebel (Prologue Western) Page 13