Stovepipe frowned.
“All that mistrust is gettin’ a mite annoyin’,” he said.
“I’m not splitting my men,” Boyd decided. “But we’ll circle around these mesas like you said, Stewart. That sounds like a good idea to me. Your friend’s right about one thing ... Those cows have to be somewhere.”
With Sam and Stovepipe leading the way, watched hawkishly by Lowry, the group started around the area dotted with mesas. It was pretty extensive, so circling it took more than an hour.
They found the place where they had followed the tracks among the mesas, but that was all. By the time they got back to where they had started on the far side, Sam had to admit that something odd had happened.
The rustled cattle had gone in there, but they hadn’t come out.
“There’s only one answer,” he said.
“Yeah, I agree,” Stovepipe said.
“What are you talking about?” Boyd asked.
Stovepipe pointed at the sky with a thumb. Sam nodded in agreement with him.
“What the hell!” Lowry exploded. “You’re sayin’ those cows sprouted wings and flew away? Because that makes as much sense as thinkin’ they climbed one of these mesas.”
“We just need to look harder,” Sam said. “We missed something.”
Lowry snorted to show how much stock he put in that.
The tops of some of the mesas were probably a square mile in area, Sam thought, maybe even a little more than that. There might be enough grass growing on one of those to support a small herd of fifty head, plus the horses of the rustlers who had stolen them.
If he was right about the motive behind the rustling—that it was intended solely to stir up Boyd and the other ranchers in the area to the point where they would support a war against the Navajo—then the thieves wouldn’t care about the money they could make from selling the cows. They could let the stock starve on top of a mesa and still come out ahead.
That still left the question of how the rustlers could have gotten the cattle up there, but Sam figured if they found the right mesa, they would also find the answer. For now, all they could do was look.
And that depended on John Henry Boyd.
The rancher rubbed his jaw again as he frowned in thought. Finally, he nodded.
“Let’s take a closer look at all these mesas,” he said. He added, “And get your rifles out. I’ve got a bad feeling crawling around in my guts.”
Sam understood that. He had the same feeling.
The men rode around the base of each mesa as they came to it, looking for some sort of hidden trail. In some places, it was hard to get close because over the centuries huge slabs of rock had broken loose from the sides of the mesas and fallen around them.
It was possible some of those slabs might conceal the start of a trail, Sam thought. It wouldn’t have to be very wide. With only fifty cows to hide, the animals could be driven up single file if need be.
The sun blasted down, making the air so hot and dry it seemed to sear the lungs if a man took a deep breath. Sam was grateful for the shade provided by the hat he had bought back in Flat Rock. As the search continued, the sweating men became more impatient and frustrated.
Finally, Pete Lowry said, “This is crazy. There aren’t any cows on top of these mesas, John Henry. It just ain’t possible.”
“Then we got to admit them critters vanished into thin air,” Stovepipe said. “And I’m havin’ a hard time believin’ that.”
“So am I,” Boyd said. “We’ll keep looking.”
“It’s already so late we won’t be able to make it back to the ranch today,” Lowry pointed out.
“The boys we left there will be able to look after things. I want those cattle. More than that, I want whoever shot two of my punchers. They’re not gonna get away with that, by God.”
Lowry grumbled to himself but didn’t argue anymore.
Sam gazed toward one of the largest mesas, which sat about three hundred yards away. It rose some eighty feet to its table-like top. Slabs of red stone littered the ground around its base, and lightning-like cracks in the rock zigzagged their way up the walls in places.
Sam frowned. There was something about the mesa ...
“That’s it,” he said under his breath as understanding dawned inside him.
“What did you find, son?” Stovepipe asked as he brought his horse alongside Sam’s mount. The range detective kept his voice pitched low.
Equally quietly, Sam said, “Look at those cracks, Stovepipe. On some of them, the slope is gentle enough a cow could make it up them.”
“Yeah, but most places, they ain’t. I’m lookin’, but I don’t see one anybody could climb that goes all the way to the top.”
“But look at the line connecting one crack to the next one.”
“What line? I don’t see any—” Stovepipe stopped as his eyes narrowed. “Son of a gun. Is that a ledge?”
“I think so. It’s narrow enough that it’s hard to see, but it runs almost level over to another crack.”
“And there’s another one a mite higher up leadin’ to the next crack after that,” Stovepipe said. “They’re like steppin’-stones, with little ramps in between. You don’t notice the ledges because your eyes are fol-lowin’ the cracks.”
Sam nodded.
“That’s the way it looks to me. The cracks are more pronounced, so you can see them better.”
“That ain’t no natural formation. The cracks may be, but the ledges connectin’ ’em ain’t. They must go all the way around the mesa.”
“The Navajo probably carved them, no telling how long ago,” Sam said. “They could put lookouts up there to watch for their enemies, and they could fire arrows down or throw rocks off to ambush those enemies.”
“You reckon those ledges are wide enough for cows, or a man on horseback?”
“Only one way to find out,” Sam said as he lifted his reins.
Before he could heel his horse into motion, Pete Lowry said, “Hold on there, breed. Where do you think you’re goin’?”
Sam hesitated.
“I have an idea where the men we’re looking for might be,” he said. “But they’re probably watching us right now, and I don’t want them to realize that I’ve figured out their secret.”
“I don’t believe you,” Lowry said. “I still think this is some sort of trick.”
Boyd rode over and asked, “What’s going on here?”
Lowry nodded toward Sam.
“The ’breed says he’s figured it out. I think he’s just tryin’ to get away from us, though, so his friends can open fire on us.”
“That’s not true,” Sam said. “Look at that big mesa in front of me, Mr. Boyd. I think I see a trail leading up to the top.”
Boyd frowned.
“Where? I don’t see any trail, just a bunch of cracks like the whole thing’s about to come tumbling down in an avalanche.”
“I’ll bet it’s a lot more stable than it looks. I want to amble over there and take a closer look, but if the rustlers are up there, I don’t want them to realize that I know they’re there.”
Boyd nodded slowly.
“That makes sense, I reckon. Go ahead, Two Wolves ... but Stewart and Coleman stay here, and if any lead starts to fly, they’ll die before we do. You’ve got my word on that.”
When Sam hesitated again, Stovepipe said, “Go ahead, son. We’ll take that chance, won’t we, Wilbur?”
“Do we have any choice?” the redhead asked gloomily.
“Not a dang one,” Stovepipe said with a grin.
“Keep an eye on the top of the mesa,” Sam told Boyd. “If I was trying to set up an ambush, I wouldn’t tell you where it was coming from, now would I?”
“Likely not,” the rancher agreed, although Lowry still looked skeptical.
Sam started his horse toward the mesa, moving at a deliberate pace. Several of the Devil’s Pitchfork hands were still searching around the other mesas, so what he was doing didn’
t look too suspicious ... he hoped.
Because he could feel eyes on him. The same instincts that had warned him of danger many times in his adventurous life were setting off alarm bells inside him now.
That warning was justified, too, because he was still a hundred yards from the base of the mesa when a rifle cracked and a bullet whistled past his ear.
Chapter 29
The hot breath of the slug was much too close for comfort. Sam leaned forward in the saddle and kicked his horse into a gallop as more shots blasted. Dirt and rocks spouted from the ground as bullets struck around him.
The closest cover was at the base of the mesa itself. The riflemen on top of the formation would have trouble firing straight down at him. The big slabs of fallen rock would give him some protection as well.
As he raced toward the mesa, Sam glanced over his shoulder at his companions. Stovepipe, Wilbur, Boyd, Lowry, and the other men from the Devil’s Pitchfork were scattering as bullets whined among them, too. The riders hunted cover as fast as they could.
One man wasn’t fast enough, though. He went backward out of the saddle as a slug smashed into him. One of his feet caught in the stirrup, and the panicky horse dragged him across the rough ground, causing his body to bounce grotesquely.
As Sam reached the rocks at the base of the mesa, he yanked his rifle from its sheath and swung down from the saddle. He dropped the reins and hoped the horse woudn’t run off too far.
Bringing the Winchester to his shoulder, Sam cranked off several rounds as fast as he could toward the top of the mesa. He had seen spurts of gunsmoke from up there and had a general idea where the ambushers were.
He didn’t expect to hit any of them, but with luck he could force them back for a second, which would give Stovepipe and the others more time to find shelter.
As slugs began to search for him, Sam ducked behind a chunk of sandstone that was taller than he was. Bullets smacked into the top of the slab, some drilling into the sandstone and others whining off as ricochets.
But none of them reached Sam, and that was all that mattered right now.
Sam slid along the rock, reached the corner of it, and snapped a couple more shots at the mesa’s rim, working the rifle’s lever swiftly between rounds.
Then he sprinted toward another rock that brought him closer to one of the cracks in the mesa wall.
When he reached cover again, he looked out over the flats in front of the mesa. The rest of the men who had come here with him were out of sight now, hidden behind boulders and some of the smaller rock formations that gave this landscape something of an alien look. Sam heard shots booming out from them as they returned the fire of the rustlers on top of the mesa.
While his companions were keeping the rustlers busy, Sam worked his way closer. When he reached one of the cracks, he saw that it ran deep enough into the rock to form a ledge angling upward. That ledge was wide enough for a couple of cows to ascend it.
Driving cattle up to the top of the mesa by this route would be difficult, and once the beasts were up there, getting them down would be even harder. But maybe the rustlers didn’t intend to bring them down, Sam thought. As he had reasoned out earlier, selling the stolen stock had never been the goal.
Once the Navajo had been moved out, the rustlers could leave those cattle up there to starve if they wanted to. Such cruelty wouldn’t be beyond men who had set out to start an Indian war.
Sam started up the crack in the rock. For several yards, the climb was an easy one. When it grew steeper, he came to one of the connecting, man-made ledges that were hard to see from a distance.
Up close like this, it was obvious that the path had been hewn out of the stone by hand. All the sharp edges had been rounded away by erosion, though, which indicated that long years, maybe even centuries, had passed since the work had been done.
Sam had heard legends about Old Ones, people who had been in this part of the world even before the Navajo, and he wondered if this path was some of their handiwork. Those Old Ones had disappeared mysteriously, sometime in the dim past, so if they had turned this mesa into a watchtower, obviously that hadn’t been enough to save them in the end.
The continuing racket of gunfire from above and below brought Sam out of his momentary reverie. The past might be fascinating, but the present was dangerous and needed his full attention.
He walked out onto the ledge, keeping an eye on the rim some seventy feet above him. After about fifty feet, he came to another of the zigzagging cracks and was able to climb it to the next man-made ledge.
As he moved higher and higher, his route carried him around the curve of the mesa, so he couldn’t see his companions anymore. He heard the shots, though, as the battle between the rustlers and the Devil’s Pitchfork crew continued.
Sam didn’t know how many men he would find on top of the mesa. It would have taken at least five or six to steal that herd and drive them out here, but once the cattle were hidden atop the mesa, fewer men would be needed to keep an eye on them. Some of the rustlers could have headed to town, leaving only a couple up there.
It had sounded like more than two rifles firing at him, however, and Sam figured there were at least four men he would have to deal with when he reached the top.
Those weren’t good odds. He would have felt a lot better if Matt had been here with him. Being outnumbered two-to-one didn’t mean much to the blood brothers. They had faced odds like that many times in their adventurous lives and were still alive and kicking.
But now that he had started up, there wasn’t much he could do except keep going. If he was able to come in behind the rustlers and get the drop on them, he could force them to surrender.
A sudden grating of rock somewhere above him made him jerk his head up.
Sam’s eyes widened as he saw a boulder almost as big as he was plummeting toward him.
He was on one of the ledges at the moment, so he threw himself into a dive that carried him out of the boulder’s path. It slammed into the ledge a few feet behind him as he landed. His momentum sent him sliding toward the brink of the curving ledge.
Sam had to drop his rifle to slap both hands against the sandstone and stop himself. Luckily the Winchester didn’t bounce off. The boulder rebounded from the ledge and fell the rest of the way to the ground, where it landed with a crash that raised a little cloud of dust.
Sam grabbed the rifle and scrambled to his feet. Obviously, the rustlers knew he was trying to climb the mesa, so he wouldn’t be taking them by surprise after all.
And if they could try to drop one boulder on him, probably they could make another attempt. He ran along the ledge toward the next crack in the rock. The mesa wall bulged out above it, so that would give him some protection.
His heart pounded as he climbed several feet up the sloping crack. He was safe here, but whether he retreated or forged ahead, as soon as he stepped out onto another of those open ledges, he risked having a boulder dropped on his head.
But he couldn’t stay here forever, Sam told himself. Boyd and his men might be able to lay siege to the mesa and starve out the rustlers, but they would be starving out Sam at the same time.
He looked up. The crack in which he had taken shelter became too steep after another ten feet for cattle and horses to use it as a trail ...
But a man could climb it, Sam thought.
A grim smile tugged at his mouth. It wouldn’t be easy—in some places the crack was almost vertical—but it could be done. And most importantly, the rustlers couldn’t get at him with either boulders or bullets while he was making the ascent.
He would need both hands, though, so he took off his belt and used it to rig a sling for the Winchester. When he had the rifle hung over his shoulder, he hurried along the slope until it turned upward at a steeper angle. Ignoring the ledge that had been cut into the rock, he started up the natural crack, crawling now because of the angle.
Somewhere above him, a man yelled, “Can you see him?”
“B
last it, no!” another man answered. “He’s found himself a hole somewhere!”
“Well, let him stay there,” the first man said. “Let him stay there and rot!”
Sam smiled again.
He continued climbing. The crack narrowed, grew steeper still, turned into a chimney. Sam pulled the Winchester around so that it hung in front of him, pressed his back against one side of the opening and his feet against the other, and worked his way up inch by inch.
After a while the strain set his muscles to trembling slightly. He slipped a little but caught himself before he fell.
There was nowhere for him to go except up, so he kept struggling to lift himself, again and again. Sharp places in the wall gouged his back through the buckskin shirt. He ignored the pain and continued climbing.
The shots would taper off, then flare up again. From down below, it would be very difficult for any of the men on the ground to get a clear shot at the rustlers on the mesa.
From the sound of it, though, Stovepipe, Boyd, and the others had found good cover for themselves, though, and continued throwing lead at the cattle thieves.
At the very least, that kept the rustlers occupied and gave Sam the chance he needed to make his way to the top.
The crack angled again, rather than going almost straight up. Sam stretched out in it to rest for a moment.
But not for too long, because the men who had come here with him were still at risk as long as they were trading shots with the rustlers. He had come to regard Stovepipe and Wilbur as friends, and the men from the Devil’s Pitchfork were allies, at least for the moment.
Sam moved the Winchester around to his back again and resumed the climb, once more proceeding on hands and knees. A few minutes later, he saw the end of the crack not far above him.
His first impulse was to climb out right away, but he stopped where he was instead and listened intently. He heard the shots coming from the other side of the mesa, but he heard something closer as well: a man clearing his throat.
He’d suspected that the rustlers might leave a man over here on guard, in the area where they had seen him last. If he just poked his head up without being careful about it, he would probably get a bullet through the brain.
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