“Any idea who the men were?” one man asked.
“Well, they were ridin’ Ladder Five horses,” Conagher said.
Kris Mahler shoved back his chair and got up. For a moment he stood, hands resting on the table, staring down. Then he turned abruptly and strode from the room.
Chapter 13
*
WITH THE COMING of spring the wind blew cold and raw across the brown plains. Evie looked at the stock with fear in her eyes, for both horses and cattle were painfully thin. The past months had been hard. Bitter cold and frozen snow kept even the horses from finding grass beneath the snow’s surface. Unless there was grass soon she would lose the few calves she had.
But there was no sign of green. It was the time when the sun should be warming the soil, it was the time for rains, but there was neither sun nor rain.
The food that had been left her by Conagher more than two months ago was gone. The stage had stopped once, with a broken wheel to be mended, and fortunately there had been enough food then to feed the passengers. She had a little money from that, but she hesitated to try the long trip to the Plaza with the horses in their present condition.
And both of the children were thin. Laban had shot a couple of squirrels, but there was scarcely a bit of meat on either, and now they were in serious trouble. The flour was gone, the sugar was gone. With the last of the bacon grease she had fried slices of bread for the children.
She knew she should kill one of the calves, but she had never butchered an animal and had not the slightest idea of how to go about it. Moreover, she hated to lose even one of her small herd. But it had come to that.
Twice she had planned to flag down the stage and get McCloud or Logan to bring her something from town, but each time she had missed the stage. This morning she was going out early, to be waiting beside the road when it came.
Much of the carefully hoarded money from feeding the stage passengers was already spent. She had needed a coat for Laban and mittens for all of them.
*
FAR TO THE south Conagher saddled up and rode out. He had seen nothing of Parnell, and believed the lot of them had, for the time at least, left the country. There had been stage holdups on the road into Tucson, there had been others on the Black Canyon trail between Phoenix and Prescott. There had been a bloody attempt on the stage in the mountains near the Colorado, on the road to Hardyville.
Conagher swung wide now, checking for grass. There was none. Melting snow had frozen, and the stock could not break through. He opened up several water holes, found in a sheltered canyon some stock that was doing well, and then saw a patch of green up a canyon he had never entered.
He turned and started up the canyon, hoping to find grass. He had gone no more than half a mile when suddenly he saw, off to one side, dirt churned by the hoofs of shod horses. It was fresh…it had probably happened that morning. He swung his horse just an instant before the bullet struck.
He felt the slam of a bullet into his back and heard the report of the rifle as he toppled from the saddle. He fell, struck the ground on his shoulder, and rolled over. His horse went dashing on, and he knew instantly that they would be down here after him.
Fortunately he had carried his rifle in his right hand, hoping for a shot at a deer or antelope.
He caught the rifle up from the ground, and even as he heard a thundering of hoofs, he rolled over a slab of rock and slid a dozen feet to the bottom, where he crawled into a hole made by one rock toppled against another.
He scrambled through here quickly and down a steep dry watercourse, where he saw an opening and ducked into it. It was only a small space between rocks.
Behind him he heard a shout. “He’s wounded, Smoke! We got him!”
For the first time he remembered that he had been knocked from the saddle by a shot. He was wounded then, and there must have been some blood. No doubt he was numbed from the shock, which meant that it would not be long before he would feel the pain, and perhaps would not be able to go any farther.
Before him was a tilted slab of rock shaped like a rooster’s comb. He would be exposed on the face of it, but they were still out of sight around the corner, and there was a way a man might go where the face of the rock met the talus slope that fell away for several hundred feet. Gripping his rifle, he started to run. In an instant his brief respite was gone and the wound was throbbing with pain.
But he made it halfway along, and suddenly saw a place where two slabs of rock overlapped. The opening, which was V-shaped, was filled with stiff, wiry brush covered with thorns.
He had no choice. He could hear them coming, and once they rounded the rock back there he would be a clear target, caught against the face of the rock, a target that could scarcely be missed, in a place where there was no shelter. He dived at the stiff brush, fighting frantically to get past it.
Luckily, he had thrown himself on top of the brush, so he was squirming over it rather than trying to get through, which would have been almost impossible. He squirmed and scrambled, his breath coming in hoarse gasps of mingled pain and fear. Then he got hold of a large branch, and swung himself over into the space beyond, where he fell panting to the ground.
He lay there, stunned, his breath still coming raggedly, and for several minutes he could scarcely think.
When he looked around, he found himself in a sort of natural cup within a cluster of ragged peaks. It looked almost like a volcanic crater, though it was not.
There was not more than an acre of ground in the bottom of the hollow, with a thick covering of green grass. Against one wall there were some trees, and he could hear water rippling.
Painfully, he crawled across the little basin to the stream. The water was clear and cold.
He drank, and then lay on the ground beside the stream, where he must have passed out. When he awoke he was very cold, the sun had gone, and it was almost dark.
Despite the cold, he lay there trying to quiet the chattering of his teeth. He listened but he heard nothing. Using the rifle as a crutch, he pushed himself up and half staggered, half fell into the edge of the trees.
After a few moments he began to gather some sticks together. Did he dare build a fire? There seemed little likelihood that the flames could be seen, and as for smoke, it was already night, and the chances were small.
With trembling fingers he shredded bark, added twigs, and lit a small fire, to which he then added some larger twigs. The light cheered him, and the warmth felt good.
Carefully, he looked all around him. The rock wall of one of the pinnacles was at his back, trees and brush were around him, and the basin, so far as he could see, was empty.
Thinking back, he recalled the twisted way he had come, and how he had emerged along the face of the jagged rock. No rider could have reached that place, and, looking up from below, they could not have seen the break between the overlapping rocks.
So he had vanished.
Would they come back in the morning to look? It was possible, even likely. But from here he could control the opening, and nobody was going to get in as long as ammunition and strength held out.
With careful fingers he felt of his back and found a deep gouge where a bullet, or a fragment of one, had entered the flesh slightly above his hipbone and had cut through the flesh along his ribs, just nicking the thick muscle before going off.
It was a painful wound, but not a serious one. He had lost blood, and it was going to hurt when he moved, for his side was badly bruised, and possibly some ribs were broken, though they did not feel like it.
The bullet must have glanced up from the cantle of his saddle. The cold and perhaps the thickness of his woolen underwear and shirt had stopped the bleeding for the time being.
He had no coffee, nothing. He drank a little water heated in a dish he made from bark, an old trick he had often used. The flames heated the water but did not burn the bark as long as they only touched it below the water level. The water inside absorbed the heat.
The h
ot water helped to warm him, and then he dug out a place among the leaves and pine needles, cowered deep within his sheepskin coat, and went to sleep.
He awoke shivering in the cold morning, with the last stars solitary in the vast darkness. He started to sit up, felt a twinge of pain, and lay still again. He was going to have the devil’s own time of it, he could see that. He was miles from the ST headquarters, without a horse, without food, and wounded. Although the calendar said this was a month of spring, the weather gave no indication of it, and even a tenderfoot would have known he was in serious trouble.
After some struggle he got his fire going again. Fortunately there were a good many dry branches lying around, and there were the remains of a fallen tree and some pine cones. He could reach enough fuel to keep his fire going for some time without moving around too much. Once the flames leaped up, he eased himself into a sitting position, favoring his wounded side.
The effort left him gasping, and he sat still, letting the fire warm him, and reaching for an occasional stick.
If they came back they might find him, but they might not. The snow was gone from the top of the talus slope along which he had come, and the ground was frozen. He might have left no tracks on that frozen ground.
They might find some broken twigs where he had forced a way over the brush, but even that was a question. But did they need to find him at all? They knew he was wounded, they knew the cold was not over, and they knew how small is the chance of a wounded man, who has lost blood, in fighting off the cold.
They only needed to keep him bottled up here. They did not need to find him, and to run the risk of coming in after him, which would be like going into a den after a bear. They could just ride a patrol around the area and be sure he did not leave it.
Smoke Parnell had been out there. And the voice he had heard had sounded like that of Tile Coker…both tough men.
When he was warm enough to take an interest in his hideout, he looked around and assayed his situation. So far as he could see, there was only one opening, the one through which he had gained access. Because of the sheltered position, the grass had already begun to turn green, and there were leaf buds on the cottonwoods. On the far side of the hollow, where the sun reached only briefly, the snow had frozen into a bank of ice.
There was fuel enough at hand for some time, there was shelter in some of the rocky overhangs and there might be herbs with which he could treat his wounds. Using his left hand, he caught hold of a branch and pulled himself erect. Prowling along the slope, he found some cliff rose, a resinous, strong-smelling plant, sometimes called quinine bush. It was a plant important as winter browse for deer, cattle, and sheep; and judging by remnants he had found in caves, Conagher knew that the primitive pre-Indian peoples had used to braid the bark into sandals, rope, and mats. The Hopis used the wood for making arrows, but what was important for Conagher at the moment was that they used the plant to make a wash for wounds.
He gathered some of the bark, leaves, and smaller twigs and began to heat the lot in his improvised bark dish. When it had boiled, he stripped and, using his bandana and taking his time, bathed his wound with the decoction, his sheepskin over his shoulders to keep him from getting too chilled.
Whether it did any good he was not sure, although he knew that the Hopis swore by it. After that he wandered about, found some dry spectacle pod, crushed it to powder, and put it on the wound, another remedy used by both the Hopi and Tewa Indians.
After an hour or so of lying beside the fire, he began to think more about food. Conagher was a man who had often missed meals. Going hungry was not a new experience, though not a pleasant one, but food was a necessity now if he was to recover and regain the strength it would take to get him out of this situation.
Animals and birds must know of this place, he thought. Men, if they had ever discovered it, had left no signs here. But if animals came here, he should be able to trap or kill one for food.
After a time he got up and moved his camp to the overhang. This had the advantage of bringing him within range of a new supply of fuel. Sitting by the fire, he carefully studied the plants within range of his eyes. Meanwhile he chewed on a couple of leaves from the salt bush. How much food value they possessed he had no idea, but they gave him the satisfaction of chewing and the taste was pleasant.
He was very thirsty and went often to the stream to drink. He saw rabbit droppings near the water and the tracks of several small animals in the sand near the stream.
After a while he lay down again, feeling very tired. It was only with an effort that he could replenish his fire, but he kept it alive. The wood was dry and gave off almost no smoke.
He slept, but awoke suddenly, feeling the chill of night. Evening had come and his fire had burned itself down to gray ash. Only one small branch still glowed. He fed it gingerly with tiny bits of shredded bark, then with twigs.
Conagher stripped off his shirt and, hanging the coat over his shoulders for warmth, bathed his wound again with hot water and cliff rose, then powdered it with the crushed spectacle pod.
After he put on his clothes he walked with great care down to the bank of the stream. In the brush close by he rigged a couple of snares, and then went over to the notch through which he had crawled.
Peering out, he could see only a patch of sky, and below it the darkness where the earth lay, the valley below the rim where he had taken refuge.
Kneeling down, he began with his bowie knife to cut the brush away so that he could tunnel through to the other side. He would work a few minutes, then stop to rest and to listen. Once he believed he heard movement, but when he continued to listen for a long time there was no further sound. After a while, having scarcely made a dent in the clump of brush, he went back to his camp, added fuel to the fire, and lay down, huddling as much of him as possible under the sheepskin coat.
He slept, dreaming wild dreams, and he awoke in a cold sweat. His side hurt him and he wanted to change his sleeping position, but every movement hurt, so he lay quiet listening to the leaves whispering and the subtle movements of small creatures. When morning came his snares were empty.
On this day he chewed some of the leaves from the salt bush, drank water from the stream, slept, and woke again. He found and ate some juniper berries, and rigged another snare.
In the night he awoke, built up the fire, and huddled near it with the back wall of the overhang as a reflector that threw the heat back toward him. His head ached and he was very tired, but he did not feel like sleeping. He heated water, crushed some of the juniper berries into it, and drank the liquid. He had heard that the Hopis sometimes made a tea from juniper berries. After a while he slept again, and when he awoke it was raining.
For a time he huddled over his fire, his feeling of irritation growing. Finally he lurched to his feet, moved everything inflammable away from the fire, and taking his rifle, went back to the opening.
Listening, he heard nothing. Then he hacked at the wall of thorny brush until a partial opening was made. He had started to go through, then stopped, went back and tore down his empty snares. He wanted nothing to be trapped there to die uselessly.
He forced his way through the brush, paused, and listened, but he heard nothing except the soft fall of rain.
Weak though he was, he had decided that to stay here longer would only mean that he would grow weaker. He worked his way along the comb-like ridge, and found a place where he could climb down slowly and painfully.
Off to the right he saw what seemed to be the glow of a fire, and he started toward it. He needed food and he needed a horse, and he would be damned if he was going to go without them when his enemies—if that was who they were—had both.
Judging by the stars, it was past midnight when he came close to the fire. It was burning brightly under a crudely made shelter.
First he noted where the horses were tied, and then he saw his own horse there among them. Evidently they had found the horse running loose on the prairie, and had roped and
kept it.
He looked around the camp. There were three men there, two of them in their beds, sleeping; the other was dozing beside the fire.
Conn Conagher was weak as a cat, but he was mad clear through. He had a bitter anger that drove him recklessly, and he did not hesitate. He walked right into the camp, kicked the rifle away from the hands of the man who dozed, and put a bullet into the ground between the two sleeping men.
One of them was young Curly Scott, the other was Smoke Parnell himself. The man by the fire was Pete Casuse.
The two sleeping men jerked erect and Conagher held the gun on them. “Damn you, Smoke,” he said, “if I wasn’t weak as a cat I’d beat you within an inch of your life. Now you lay right there, and you make a move, even to scratch, and so help me, I’ll put a bullet in your belly.
“You,” he said to Casuse, “dish up a plate of that grub, and hurry.”
“Si.” Casuse started to rise.
“Stay where you are. Just reach over and ladle it up, and use your right hand. I never shot a man who wasn’t holding iron, but right now I just don’t give a damn.”
He lowered his rifle, slid his six-gun into his hand, and proceeded to feed himself with his left hand.
“I hope you try something,” he said grimly. “I just hope you do. I’d like to bury the three of you right on this spot.
“Now, Smoke,” he said, “I’m going to ride out of here. You boys are then going to get up and leave the country, and if you stop this side of Tascosa or Trinidad, you’re crazier than I think you are. You’ve had your try at me and you failed, but as of noon tomorrow I’m hunting you, and I’m going to shoot on sight, without any warning whatsoever. I am going to ride your sign until you’ve killed me or I’ve put lead in all of you.”
Parnell stared at him. “You’re loco! You’re plumb, completely loco!”
“Maybe…but you’ve given me grief, and I’ll take no more from any man. All I’m going to give you is a running start.”
He finished the plate of food and threw down the plate, then he drank three cups of coffee. Parnell made a slight move, and a bullet burned his shoulder.
Novel 1969 - Conagher (v5.0) Page 11