The door opened then and three men came into the room. The first was a tall, square-shouldered man with auburn mustaches and auburn hair that touched his shoulders. The second was shorter, a man with a square face and a square build who carried himself very erect, a man whose features were swarthy and handsome in a hard-bitten way. The third was even taller, very narrow across his rounded shoulders and with a small head atop a long neck, and a great beak of a nose.
Radigan said, “Howdy, boys.” He did not remove his eyes from Swiss Jack. “I’m selling tickets for a ball. You boys want to choose your partners?”
“If it’s your fight, Tom,” Loren Pike had grasped the situation at once, “we’re already tuning our fiddles.”
Charlie Cade and Adam Stark walked around Radigan to the bar and leaned their backs against it, looking at Swiss Jack.
“You really call this a fight?” Pike asked gently, indicating Swiss Jack.
“This is the soup. The main course is being served when Harvey Thorpe or Bob Harvey or whatever he calls himself comes back down the trail.”
Swiss Jack was getting stiff. He knew he was going to try moving soon, and he was glad there was only one man to reckon with for the men who stood before him were all very tough men.
Radigan walked slowly over to the table. “Your hands aren’t tied, Jack,” he said conversationally, “and I think you said something about holding me for Harvey. You want to make a start?”
Swiss Jack was looking up, his eyes on Radigan’s chest. If he did draw, would his gun clear the table? Could he jerk free of the table and get his gun up before he died?
“Seems to me you’re in a bind,” Radigan said. “Just get up out of the chair. You’ll get an even break. Just get up mighty easy and don’t make any sudden moves.”
Swiss Jack could not make himself believe it. He was going to have his chance. Slowly, he eased sideways out of his chair and straightened up and his eyes lifted to Radigan’s and Radigan hit him.
Swiss Jack never saw the blow coming. He was not set to take a punch and he was not yet on balance. The blow caught him alongside the jaw and lights exploded in his skull and the next instant he was seated on the floor and his skull was ringing. There was a smoky taste in his mouth and he started to get up but a big hand caught him by the scuff of the neck and slammed him back into the wall with such violence that a bottle on the bar tipped over. His skull hit the wall with a vicious rap and his eyes tried to focus and he tried to reach for a gun.
He had never been in a fist fight in his life. Guns were a gentleman’s weapon, and he had always relied on a gun. A hard fist caught him in the mouth and he tasted blood. He came off the wall swinging, but a wicked blow in his belly took his wind and doubled him up for the lifting knee that broke his nose.
“Swiss Jack,” Radigan spoke without anger, “I came in here a stranger, minding my own affairs, and you decided to take a hand.
“Now,” Radigan continued, “I’d suggest you settle down for the winter here, or you ride out to the north. But don’t come south of here because if I see you south of Loma Coyote and west of Santa Fe I’ll take it to mean you’re looking for me.”
He turned and walked to the bar. “I need some top hands,” he said to Loren, “who aren’t gun-shy.”
Gretchen spent the first day cleaning up the cave, checking the trail regularly, and during that first day she cooked not at all, only making coffee to go with the jerked beef and the cans of tomatoes she opened. She was, she admitted to herself, frightened.
On the second day the wind was blowing hard into the west, and so away from the ranch, and on that day she got out some dried apples and baked three apple pies. She had already decided on a party for them when they returned, and she had begun preparing.
What she did not know was that Bitner, scouting wide for the R-Bar cows, had swung even farther west than usual on what was to be the last venture in that direction before they started sweeping the mountains to the east of Vache Creek. And returning from that ride he caught a whiff of fresh baking.
It was impossible, he knew it was impossible, yet he knew that smell, and his stomach growled in response. He drew up and sat his horse in the face of the wind, trying to get another whiff of it, but none came. Just as he was deciding it was all imagination and wishful thinking, it came again.
For an hour he cut back and forth across the wind, trying to trace that vagrant aroma, but without success, although he did catch the scent several times, and by that time he was closer to the ranch by several miles.
When it was almost dusk he gave it up. It was nonsense. Probably they were baking at the ranch, and even if Radigan was holed up out here somewhere, they would hardly be baking pies or cake. Although, come to think of it, there had been some doughnuts left in a pan when they took over the ranch.
They had turned the barn into a bunkhouse and there were several men there when he rode in. After a few minutes he went up to the house to report to Ross Wall, who was talking to Angelina Foley.
When he opened the door he expected the odor of fresh baking to hit him with a wave, but it did not. His nostrils found no expected odors there, nothing but that of a wood fire and fresh coffee.
Bitner was a cautious man, and after a moment he merely reported what he had seen and found, which was nothing but empty country. He kept the smell of baking to himself. After all, it was probably his imagination.
The cattle were in bad shape. The grass they had found was eaten down to the grass roots and the cattle were not used to pawing snow away from grass to eat it and were poor rustlers. That Wall was worried, he could plainly see, and Miss Foley’s face looked drawn and worried.
And then a man rode in from Loma Coyote with the news that Radigan had been seen there, and Gorman told him while they were having a smoke, “I saw tracks over east of here, I’d swear they were the tracks of that big roan that the halfbreed rides.”
“Fresh?”
“Yesterday or the day before. And if he went he’s still out there. I cut for sign all the way back and up and down along the creek. He hasn’t crossed back.”
Suppose, Bitner told himself, they have a hideout near the ranch? And suppose both men are gone? Then that girl will be there alone.
The girl alone.
She was a lot of woman, that one. Bitner’s narrow eyes closed over his thoughts. He was no chaser, but when a man was away from women for months he got to feeling it.
Bitner was out at daybreak and he rode west along a faint trail with the mesa towering over him on his right, and he had no idea in mind except to find where that smell of baking had come from. Not that the girl was not in the back of his mind, clinging there like some noxious vine, working its feelers into his thoughts with memories of the girl, her high-breasted figure and the way she walked.
Damn! That was a woman! And living with two men like that! No decent girl would think of it. Claimed Child was her father! Why, that breed couldn’t father a blonde like that out of—anything. Bitner knew what trouble could come to a man from fooling around with a woman in the West. He knew it, but he was not thinking about it. He knew a man could steal cows, commit a murder and even steal a horse and get away with it, but to fool around with a woman, especially a decent woman. The least he could get was a hanging.
He knew all that but he could not get the girl out of his thoughts. She was there, like a cocklebur in a horse’s tail, and nothing was going to get it out in any easy way.
He walked his horse along the slope, working his way west, and thinking it out. If they had a hideout close to the ranch the chances were it was somewhere around that mesa. It loomed up there, hundreds of feet above them, and no man could see what was on top, and so obvious nobody would ever think of looking there.
Radigan, he was a cagey one. Thorpe should have measured his man more carefully before trying to move in as he had, but Bitner, being no fool, could see a lot of things Thorpe had not considered. There was a good chance he would never get back from thi
s trip, and as far as that went, that Foley girl was mighty handsome…do her good, too. She was too high and mighty and too free with the orders to suit him. Bitner took a hefty bite from his chewing tobacco and rolled it into a corner of his jaws. Do her good, that’s what it would, but alongside this Child woman she was nothing. No wonder Radigan wouldn’t fall for the Foley girl. Bitner knew about that, for he had seen the gleam in her eye when she went after him. She made like she was an enemy, but if Radigan so much as showed a sign of interest she was ready.
The dim trail, ancient as time itself, played out somewhere near the mesa, but trending away from the wall. Bitner drew up and spat a blob of brown juice into the remains of a snowdrift. He tested the air for the smell of cooking but found nothing but good, clean pine forest. He sat his horse, waiting patiently, for Bitner was a man who knew patience.
He worked at it the rest of the day and came in at night without saying anything except that he had been hunting. He was tired and so was his horse, and knowing the man for a top hand, Wall asked no questions.
Half the night Bitner lay awake thinking of Gretchen Child, and turning over in his mind every possible approach with the slow patience of the confirmed hunter. Nobody, he remembered, had examined that mesa, and certainly nobody had ridden around it, and it was a good long ride and one he decided to make. After all, he might be in this country a good while and he might as well get acquainted. He settled down into his worn blankets and slept, and far to the north a small column of riders was filing into place beside the road where they would camp, and their goal was not far off.
Harvey Thorpe was feeling good. Suppose they had missed Radigan. The man was on the dodge now and eventually they would kill him or run him out. A few more miles of riding and they would be in position to make their strike: the word he had from Leadville was that the stage might carry seventy thousand in gold. It was better than the cattle business.
Sure, he would come out of it with a third, but it was enough for now. And he might do a lot of things with a fast count; he had handled a lot of money and knew how to make a count look better than it was.
Radigan was beat. The long ride atop the other rides and he was tired. He holed up at Loma Coyote to wait out the weather a little, and to recuperate. John Child would be back at the hideout on the mesa by this night, and he was not worried.
The trouble was, John Child was lying unconscious beside the trail twelve miles east of the ranch where he had been thrown when his horse was startled by a sudden flushing of birds from the brush. Child had been tired, too, riding half-asleep in the saddle, and now he was out cold and had been for an hour. And his horse was just slowing to a walk, a couple of miles farther on.
Gretchen awakened on her third morning alone with a distinct feeling of uneasiness. She dressed hurriedly and went to the window and peered out. She could see nothing. Her range of vision was better from one of the inner windows, which was, like the first, concealed by a break in the rock, so she went back into the cave and looked out. And she saw a rider.
He was not passing by, he was cutting for sign, and he was working the ground as carefully as an Apache. Gretchen had not grown up with Indians not to know when a man was hunting a trail and close to what he wanted to find. She watched him, frightened and fascinated. Yet her first thought was for John Child and Radigan. What if they returned and he saw them first?
She went back into the cave and fed the horses. She got a pistol and belted it on, then picked up a rifle. She was a good shot, and if she got the chance: she had no occasion to kill any man, but this one was a danger to those she loved. When everything was arranged she went to the entrance and looked down. No sign of him there.
Radigan had showed her a rock she could push down. It might not kill a man but it could give him some uncomfortable moments and might make him think again before he tried to come up the slide a second time. She tested that and it moved under her hand. Yes, she could roll it. She checked the windows, and the man was no longer in sight. That frightened her more than ever, because not being able to see where he was she could imagine all sorts of things. And the worst of it was, Radigan and her father were due back at any moment.
She looked out again, and saw the man farther down the slope, working through the trees. Had he failed to find any tracks? Or was he aware he was being watched? Suppose he waited until dark and then came up?
The day wore on slowly, and she went ahead with her plans for the party she had promised herself she would provide for their homecoming. Into her small pack she had hidden one very nice dress. It was right for a party, and she got it out hoping some of the wrinkles would hang out. She hung it up and looked at it, then went back to the window. There was no sign of the man.
Taking the rifle she went up to the top of the mesa and worked her way close to the edge, keeping off the skyline. He was there, riding back toward the ranch and some distance off. That did not mean he could not come back.
Gretchen had never thought of herself as brave or lacking in bravery. As a child she knew the Indians had thought her courageous. But bravery, she realized, was not a simple thing. Anyone could be brave under familiar circumstances, but put that same person in a strange place, among strange people and subjected to a different brand of fear and he might not be so brave. Many a man who was afraid of high places could walk into gunfire without hesitation, and a man who might ride any dangerous, man-killing horse might hesitate to rush into a fire to save someone. Usually a man was brave in a situation where he understood the risks, and what she thought of now was not in her estimation a matter of bravery or lack of it. She had a job to do and she decided she would do it.
If that man returned she must stalk and kill him. She could not run the risk of him lying in wait for Radigan and her father.
She covered several miles along the other side of the mesa, staring off into the gathering dusk, looking into the trees and over the bare hillsides, hoping they would return. She returned to the cave and built a small fire to make coffee, and she knew she was afraid.
It was very dark in the cave. The only comfortable feeling was the sound of the horses chomping on their grain in the stalls in the main cave.
She took straw from the pile near the horses and scattered some of it in the opening, hoping the rustle of it would arouse her if anyone walked over it. Farther inside she placed several little rows of stones that a man might kick in walking, and these would rattle on the bare floor of the cave. Yet she was frightened, and she lay awake for long hours, listening into the dark.
At daybreak she awakened suddenly, conscious that she had overslept. For a long time she lay absolutely still, listening, straining her ears for the slightest sound, and heard nothing. She got quickly to her feet and, taking the rifle, went to the windows, then the cave opening. There was nothing, no one in sight anywhere. Perhaps she was being foolish, the man might have lost something or—But she knew she was not. She knew the man had been looking for her, for them.
She made coffee and ate more of the jerked beef and some cold corn bread, and at intervals she went to look and saw nothing. She fed the horse only a little for the hay was all but gone and the corn was precious.
Her dress was hanging out surprisingly well and she longed to put it on. She had planned to wear it when they arrived and she was sure that would be soon. Again she checked the openings, but nothing was in sight. Taking her rifle she went to the top of the mesa and worked close to the edge, but there, too, she saw nothing.
From the other side of the mesa she studied the country to the north from which either Radigan or her father must come, but she saw nothing. She was sure once, that she did, but then there was no further movement so she gave up and went back.
Suppose they never came back? Suppose both of them had been ambushed and killed? Suppose once more she was to be an orphan with no one to turn to, no place to go, and no money?
She shook her head, refusing to accept the idea, and then she went back to the cave, and suddenly d
etermined, she changed into her dress. Excitedly, she looked in the small mirror she had but could see only a little of herself at a time. She had put her hair up the night before, but now she let it down and combed it out. When her hair was put up properly she looked at herself in the mirror and knew she was beautiful, and it was the way she wished to look when Tom Radigan returned home. The dress was white, with only a little color.
“I…I look like a bride!” she said aloud.
The voice came from behind her. “You sure do, lady!”
Suddenly she was cold, utterly cold. For a long moment she did not move, her mind working swiftly and with astonishing clarity. She knew she was in dire trouble and there was no help to be expected unless—unless—but their coming now was too much to hope for.
She turned slowly to see Bitner standing in the opening from the larger cave, and she recognized him at once. His face and name were familiar for when she arrived on the stage she had seen him and heard him called by name.
He was a lean, tall, sour-smelling man, unshaven and dirty, the juice from his tobacco staining the whiskers about his mouth.
“I was wondering when you’d get here,” she said. “You certainly took long enough.”
Bitner blinked. He had expected fear, screams, protests, anything but her present calm. And her appearance. Her very beauty left him awkward and uncertain as to his next move, for he was unused to women of such beauty and they robbed him of self-possession. But her shoulders were very white, and he stared at her, his mouth growing dry with eagerness. At the same time her attitude and appearance confused him and the fact left him angry. She was only a girl, and she was alone.
“I’m here now,” he said crossly, “and I guess you know what I’ve come for.”
“I saw you searching for the trail,” she said. “I’ve watched you for several days. I could,” she looked at him steadily, “have killed you.”
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