He saw a faint movement near the wall of the barn and the corral corner. And then the man came, bent low and running in his sock feet. Radigan stood up, the darkness of his body merging with the darkness under the wide eaves of the house. The man came up, running quietly, and failed to see Radigan until too late. The gun barrel swept down in an arc and caught the man behind the ear. He slumped, tried to straighten, and Radigan hit him again. He went down then, and lay still. Using some rawhide piggin strings, carried by every cowhand for the purpose of tying a calf’s hoofs together after it had been roped and thrown, Radigan tied the man up nicely, and then gagged him with a chunk of old sacking.
The man on the ground groaned, and tried to move. “You take it easy,” Radigan advised in a whisper. “It won’t do you any good to wear yourself out. You lie still and maybe I won’t slug you again.”
A slow hour passed, and nothing happened. Then a second man started from the barn, and Radigan saw him coming. He came with a rush, and evidently the prisoner heard him for he grunted loudly and tried to call out. The oncoming man slid to a halt and his gun came up. Radigan dropped to one knee and when the man fired, he replied instantly, and just as quickly, hit the ground and rolled. Over his head bullets thudded and smacked into the house and the bench at the door.
“You try that again,” Radigan said to the prisoner, “and you’ll get yourself killed by your own outfit.”
An hour went slowly by, and Radigan crawled to the door and scratched his signal to come in.
Gretchen was beside him instantly. “Tom, Tom, are you hurt?”
“Just hungry.”
“You got one,” Child said. “I saw him get it.”
“And a prisoner.”
Radigan sat at the table and drank coffee in the dark. There was food on the table, and when he had eaten he carried a cup of coffee to the window and drank it while eating a doughnut.
“All right,” he said finally. “It’s time.”
The stars were out when they reached the horses. It took them only a minute or two to saddle up. Child strapped on the packs and they led the horses off the slope into the trees. In the next few minutes they would know if they were going to make it without being discovered.
The trail led close along the mesa and with Child in the lead and Radigan as rear guard, they worked their way along under the trees and away from the house. When they had gone a quarter of a mile they got into their saddles and rode away.
Nobody talked, nor felt like talking. Behind them was the warm comfort of the ranch house and before them lay the forest, the night and the cold. No telling how long it would be before any of them slept under a roof again—if they ever did.
They rode west…and there was no trail. They rode west into the somber darkness of the forest, and only occasionally could they see the stars. It was cold…a wind from off the high peaks whispered the pines, moved restlessly, making violins of the pine needles, moaning low among the rocks and across the waste spaces above the timberline.
Tom Radigan moved into the lead, for only he knew where they now went, and in the darkness where there was no trail, and where all landmarks had mysteriously disappeared into a common darkness, he led on, knowing his way along the slope of the mountain and finding the openings among the trees as if guided by some mysterious thread.
From behind there came no sound as the besiegers waited for daylight. Two men had advanced to attack, and two men had disappeared, one surely dead and the other vanished. In silence they would be watching the dark house, worried, uncertain, angry.
How long would it be before they knew the house to be empty? Hours, perhaps. And every minute a minute of advantage. In these hills Tom Radigan knew it would take a lot of searching to find him—or an accident. It was like him that he did not discount the possibility of accident.
They might have held out at the house, yet if their horses were discovered there would be no escape at all, and it was always better to be mobile than to be pinned down by the enemy. Yet he did not retreat to escape, he retreated to be able to choose his own time for attack. The battle had been joined now and the time for negotiation was past. Whatever might have been done to avert the fight was now in the past. A man was dead.…
An hour they rode, and then they emerged from the trees on a vast slope, dotted here and there with the night black clumps of aspen, and they still rode west with the vast black bulk of the mesa on their right, towering five hundred feet into the sky above them. They rode in silence with only the wind for company and the ragged shadows of sentinel pines for lookouts. Radigan paused once and let the other two ride up beside him.
“How’re you coming?” he asked Gretchen.
“All right, Tom. I can ride all night and all day if you like.”
“Good girl.”
John Child was silent. The moon was up now and the stars faded into its greater light. Only on the horizon were there clouds.
“We’re turning north.” Radigan pointed west and south with a sweep of his hand. “See that line of mesas? They look like a fleet in battle formation. Well, they point our way north. I think we’ll bed down somewhere in the breaks south of Nacimiento Peak.”
As the crow flies they had covered no more than three or four miles, although the ground distance was twice that. Now, turning north with the distant, towering peak as guide, they rode again without a trail, riding in single file. Occasionally they were in forest, but much of the distance on long slopes with clumps of aspen and brush.
They traveled slowly for the terrain was unfamiliar even to Child and Radigan. Both men had ridden over it by day, but at night nothing looks the same, and there were no landmarks they remembered. Moreover, their activities had largely centered on the other side of the mountain, east of the ranch. On their left the land fell away in a long slope toward the valley of the Rio Puerco, but this was off the R-Bar range, and out of the territory where their cattle usually strayed.
The night was still. Several times Radigan drew up and listened for any sound of pursuit, but there was no sound but the sound of the wind, always the wind.
Riding along the slope the ground suddenly fell away into a small basin almost filled with a grove of aspen. In the midst of a horseshoe formation of aspen and boulders there was a hollow away from the wind and a faint sound of trickling water. Radigan pulled up. “We’ll take a break. Have some coffee.”
Child’s saddle creaked as he swung down, and Radigan dismounted, reaching a hand up for Gretchen. Her hand was surprisingly strong as she swung down.
“Tired?”
“We’ve only started.”
Despite the rain they found bark from the underside of a deadfall, and leaves in the same place. There were dry branches under the trees, and in a minute or two a small blaze was going. It was very small—a man could cover that fire with his hat—but it was enough for coffee, and small enough to be unseen, sheltered as it was by the low ground and the aspen.
Radigan went back into the darkness and located the spring. An owl went up out of the brush with a whoosh of sound and he dropped his hand to his gun, then grinned into the dark. He squatted on his haunches and filled the coffeepot after tasting the water. It was cold and fresh.
Only a trickle, it came out of some rocks and fell into a small basin before trickling off down the slope.
Firelight flickered on the flanks of the horses and reflected from polished saddle leather. Overhead a few stars sparkled, and Tom Radigan squatted on his heels and looked across the fire at Gretchen. There was no sign of weariness in her, and she looked excited and alive. Child caught his eye and grinned. “On the trail again,” he said, “I wonder if a man ever gets away from it.”
It was cool and damp in the hollow, but the coffee was hot and tasted good. Suddenly he felt exhilarated. All right, so they were in a fight, that Foley outfit weren’t getting any virgins if it was fight they wanted. He’d been through the mill and, as for Child, that breed was as tough as they came. He’d been around and
over the country, and he’d be in there fighting when that bunch of flatland punchers were hunting themselves a hole.
Firelight danced with the shadows among the slender trunks of aspen. The leaves pattered daintily in the brief wind, and Radigan huddled his second cup of coffee in his hands and thought about what was coming, but when he thought of that he thought of Angelina Foley. What was the relationship there? Foster brother? Or something more? And why had they come here?
True, she had a claim on this land, even if one that would hold water in no court, anywhere. But people who are doing well do not often leave the place where they are. She had an outfit of fighting men, and a foreman who was by all the signs a competent man, if a hard one. So then, why would they leave? An outfit with as many cattle as they had was in no trouble…unless they themselves had been driven off their range, or had other trouble.
That might stand some looking into. But none of this need have happened if Deputy Sheriff Flynn had taken a strong stand at the beginning, but now that it had begun there was no telling when it would end. Many such a fight went on for years: like that Sutton-Taylor fight, in Texas; it was not over even now.
When he had carefully put out their fire and smothered any coals remaining he did what could be done to wipe out any evidence of it, placing an old branch over the spot and holding up a handful of leaves to let them fall as they would over the ground below. It would stand no careful check by a tracker, but to the casual eye, if they came this way, it would offer nothing. Mounting up they rode on, pointing toward the dark bulk of Nacimiento Peak. They made camp just after daylight at the fork of Clear Creek back of Eureka Mesa.
They had ridden nearly twenty miles describing a rough half-circle around the ranch area. At their camp they were a mere eight miles from the R-Bar ranch, but the trail they had left would be difficult to follow. For several miles they had ridden across bare rock, and Radigan had used several tricks, such as doubling back on their own trail, following creek beds and the like, and twice he had them separate and make separate trails, later meeting at a chosen rendezvous up ahead.
Their camp was in a rocky gorge where water had hollowed caves from the canyon walls and then had cut lower into the rock leaving the cave levels well above any possible water. In one of these caves, screened by bushes and trees, they made their camp.
“You think they’ll trail us? Or just settle down and enjoy themselves?”
“They won’t enjoy themselves because we’re going back. We’re going to see what we can do to make them want to be some place else.”
Radigan got up and took his rifle. “I’ll take first watch, John. And I’m going to scout around a mite.”
It was growing light. Radigan took his Winchester and walked down through the rocks to the mouth of the gorge. Ordinarily he would not have stopped in such a place, but the canyon looked like a good hideout, and there was a chance that before the night was over they would need the shelter the cave afforded. There was also an abundance of driftwood for fuel. And small chance of the place being found. The brush growing before the water-hollowed cave screened it so there could be no reflection on the opposite wall of the canyon. Once away from the cave, it could scarcely be seen. What about up the canyon? He glanced up thoughtfully, but took a way down the canyon to see how much of the country could be seen.
The ranch was about eight miles due south and some of his cattle were not far from here on the Penas Negras. In this area he knew every bit of the country south, and much of it to the east. He remembered again some of the stories he had heard of those canyons to the north. There were outlaws there, and renegade Indians, bronco Utes mostly.
How long would they be stalled before they realized the house was empty? Had they discovered it yet?
He walked down to the mouth of the canyon which ended in a great jumble of boulders, many of them bigger than houses, solid chunks of rock tumbled together in grotesque shapes. And there were cliffs and a thick pine forest.
With his field glass he searched the terrain to the south, studying it with extreme care from the greatest distance to the closest. He picked up several deer, and once a black bear, but nothing human. The view to the west was good, but there, too, he could see nothing.
They would rest for a few hours, and he would make some plans. Despite their long ride they were again within striking distance of the ranch, and he had no intention of allowing the Foley outfit to get settled on the place. Fortunately, the horses he had on pasture were not far from here, held in a small valley that served as a corral with its sheer walls, plentiful grass and water. There were twenty-two head of horses there, most of them wild horses Radigan had himself broken to the saddle. Throughout the early part of the day they loafed and slept, and meanwhile Radigan did some serious thinking. He was a tenacious thinker, who wrestled with an idea until every detail was worked out, and now he realized that with the winter staring them in the face the first thing they needed was a base of operations that was warm, comfortable, and hidden from discovery.
Moreover, he had a few moves to make to render his own position secure. He anticipated no assistance from Flynn, nor would there be any forthcoming from the authorities in Santa Fe, although they would appreciate that right was on his side. But he intended to appeal to both, and to get his case on record. These steps were merely to secure his own position from attack by the law; the counterattacks he would make on his own. He neither expected nor wanted the help of the law.
He finally dropped off to sleep and awakened suddenly to find the canyon filling with shadows. The fire crackled and there was a pleasant aroma of coffee. Gretchen sat by the fire watching him. John Child was still asleep.
Radigan sat up and scratched his head. “Have you slept at all?”
“I’ll sleep later. Everything is all right. I took a walk around down the canyon, but there was nothing in sight.”
“You’ll do to ride the river with,” he said. “Did you learn that in a convent?”
“I learned that from Uncle John,” she said, indicating Child. “He’s as careful as you.”
“It’s a way of life. And there’s times when it is the only way if you want to live.” He rolled a smoke and lighted it with a twig from the fire. It was going to be a cold night. “John told me the Indians wiped out your family.”
“I remember so little…we seemed forever coming west that we lost track of time. At least I did. Sometimes I thought the rumble of wagon wheels was the only sound in the world, that and the wind; there was always the wind in the grass.
“There was my father and mother, and I believe there was an uncle…it’s so hard to remember. I had gone to the creek after some water with my father, and suddenly we heard shooting and yelling. Oh, I was frightened! Father made me hide in some willows and then he went to see what was happening, and I waited a long time and then went to find him and the Indians saw me.”
“They treat you all right?”
“Oh, yes! They were excited about my yellow hair, and they were kind. But they smelled so funny, and I tried not to cry. After that they made me work but they were nice to me and the Indian who found me treated me like is own child.”
Radigan walked out into the canyon and, catching a deadfall, dragged it to within easy reach of the cave mouth. It would provide fuel for the night. He walked up the canyon and gathered several large chunks and brought them back to the fire. The rim of San Pedro Mountain was crested with gold from the setting sun, and a deep rose lay along the flank of Nacimiento Peak. The sky was clear.
When he had saddled up he returned to the cave and accepted a cup of coffee. “No time to waste,” he said. “I want to get started before the light goes.”
“Be careful.”
“That I’ll be.”
He went out to his horse and slid his rifle into the saddle scabbard. Gretchen had followed him out. “Tom—be careful.”
A lost ray of sunshine caught her golden hair in a web of gold light.
“Sure,” he said,
and reining the horse around he cantered down the canyon.
An hour later he was seated on the side of a rugged peak something over a mile from the ranch, studying it with his field glasses. The cattle were standing about, and a horse was tied at the corral. After a moment he saw a man come from the house with a rifle. There was no other movement.
Then when some of the cattle moved he saw the faint flicker of a campfire at the base of the promontory. Several dark figures moved about. Some of the cattle had strayed up almost as far as his own position and he studied them thoughtfully. If a stampede started…it was just a thought.
Darkness came suddenly and he came down off the slope and rode down among the cattle. Drifting back and forth across the valley, which was narrow, he started the cattle moving south. He worked slowly and with care, and a cold north wind helped. The cattle turned their tails to the wind and drifted. By the time he was a quarter of a mile from the fire he had at least two hundred head moving south. Suddenly he drew his pistol. For an instant it lay across the pommel of his saddle as he watched the dark figures of the plodding cattle, and then he fired and at the same time let go with a wild Texas yell and spurred his horse into the cattle. They broke and ran with two more shots and his wild yells to urge them on.
More than four hundred head were between his own group and the fire, and they started with a lunge.
There was a wild yell and a shot from the fire and then it was blotted out by a surge of bodies. The stampeding cattle swept over and beyond the fire and went charging off down the canyon. From the house there was a shout and the slam of a door, and then a pound of hoofs. Tom Radigan turned his gelding and walked it across the valley and lost himself against the blackness of the trees.
Skirting the marsh, Radigan found the Cebolla Trail and followed it over the mesa to the cluster of houses that marked the village.
At a house on the edge of town he drew up amid the yapping of dogs and when the house door opened he said, “Pedro, it is Radigan.”
Radigan Page 7