Several hours later they spotted the chimney in the distance and rode for its base, only stopping long enough to allow the water to drain further before chancing to cross the swollen creek. Hours later, just after dark, they arrived at the cleft in the rock that marked the entrance to the hidden cabin. Not wanting to take any chances, they picketed their horses out of sight and walked the short distance to where they could scout the cabin without being seen.
LaRue was the first to suspect they weren’t alone. “Look over toward the corral,” he said, pointing to a spot beside the cabin. “There’s movement, maybe a horse.”
“Or maybe a deer. You did tell me this cabin wasn’t known by anyone but you and the old prospector, and he’s dead,” Shorty reminded LaRue.
The buckskin, having picked up the two men’s scent, let out a low warning.
“I guess somebody else knows about it now,” said LaRue nervously. “Let’s hope he’s friendly.
Madigan awoke with a start that made his head hurt. Waiting for his eyes to clear, he choked back the urge to sit up until he was sure of his surroundings. Was it his imagination or did he hear the buckskin give a warning? First thing Madigan noticed was the women were gone and the lantern was out, leaving only the light of the moon filtering in through a crack in the shutters to see by.
Swinging his feet to the floor, Madigan tested his strength before trying to stand. Reaching down, he felt for his gun belt and buckled it around his waist, then checked to be sure it was loaded. It was, except for the empty chamber he, like all cowboys, usually kept under the hammer. Slipping a cartridge from his belt, he dropped it into the empty hole and closed the loading gate.
Madigan wasn’t looking for any more trouble, but if it came his way he would be as ready as he could under the circumstances.
The way the cabin was built sitting back of the little canyon, there was only one way that any riders could come from. He peered through the crack between the shutters but could see no movement-not unusual, given the limited view from his position.
Somewhere in the darkness a horse snickered, answered by Madigan’s own buckskin. So, there was somebody out there after all. Overhead a cloud drifted across the moon, the land grew dark without the moonlight, making it impossible for Madigan to see if anyone approached the cabin.
He was in a dangerous situation and he knew it. His only chance was to take whoever was out there by surprise.
Moving slowly from the weakness, Madigan made his way to the small back window and crawled out without making a sound. As long as the moon stayed hidden he would be just as hard to see as they were to him.
He slowly inched his way to the corner of the cabin, listening for any sound out of place in the night. He was just easing up to the front corner when the moon slid out from behind the cloud, bathing everything in greenish light. Madigan froze, knowing that any movement on his part would give him away for sure.
Madigan wasn’t the only one caught off guard. There in front of him facing the porch was a big man holding a gun. Beside him was a boy, or at least Madigan thought it was a boy from his size. They hadn’t seen him yet.
“How about layin’ those guns on the ground,” Madigan ordered.
Neither of them moved for what seemed like minutes, and feeling the way he was, Madigan wasn’t sure he could make much of a fight if they chose to go that way.
“Anything you say, partner,” the big man said as they slowly bent over and laid their guns carefully on the ground. “Didn’t mean you any harm,” the big man said. “Last time I was here the place was deserted. Man can’t be too careful out here.”
Madigan covered them as he moved around the corner in full view. “Seems to me you took an awful chance coming up to the cabin the way you did. You left yourself open for someone to get the drop on you.”
“We weren’t hunting any trouble,” the big man replied.
“Then why’d you sneak up to the cabin without hailing it first?”
The boy turned toward Madigan and for the first time, Madigan realized he was not a boy at all, but a very small man.
“We ran into trouble back on the trail and weren’t sure who we might meet up with. You can see our point for being cautious. We just wanted to make sure it wasn’t any of the bunch that’s been trailing us, that’s all,” the little man said.
Well, maybe they were tellin’ the truth and maybe they weren’t. The main thing was that Madigan had gotten himself into a fix he couldn’t see an easy way out of. If he’d not been wounded, he would have the time to hear them out and get a feeling for if they were telling the truth. But even as Madigan stood there he could feel his legs start to weaken and was having a hard time keeping the gun up.
Why, Madigan thought to himself, did everything have to happen to him? He’d started for California not bothering anyone and not wanting to be bothered by anyone. Just a peaceful ride, seeing the country, doing a little fishing along the way, mayhap a bit of huntin’. But life has a way of changing the best-laid plans. Usually, it only threw you a few problems along the way to make things interesting, or annoying at most, although Madigan could honestly say this was not one of those times. In the space of a few weeks he’d almost been blown up, chased from here to hell and back, and finally shot, not to mention the men he had to kill.
Now Madigan was saddled with the added problem of trying to figure out what to do with two men that could be friend or foe and he had no way of tellin’ which. Of course, he could just shoot them on the spot and deal with his conscience later. Just thinking of it made Madigan realize that he must still be half out of his head. As it was, the decision was taken out of Madigan’s hands.
Standing there with his gun covering the two men, he suddenly became aware of a strange look on their faces. Then everything seemed to turn upside down as if he was being drawn down into a deep whirlpool from which there was no escape.
Around and around he went, deeper and deeper into the void, the faces of the men growing wider and wider until they stretched themselves into grotesque masks. Was he seeing the face of death? Then. . blackness. No sound, no pain, just total blackness. The blackest black Madigan had ever seen.
The first thing Madigan remembered was a flash of light, then blackness again. Next came a blast of sound as if the whole world was crashing in on him. Madigan’s hand tightened on the gun, but it wasn’t there. Slowly, ever so slowly, his senses crept back to him. The blackness turned to gray, then brown.
Noises kept entering his head to bounce back and forth in indiscernible patterns. At last a word filtered through, then another and another. “He’s coming to,” someone said.
A smell drifted by and Madigan’s stomach growled.
“He’ll be hungry when he wakes up,” another voice from some distant place said.
It seemed like hours, days, before his mind cleared enough to open his eyes. When he did, Madigan found himself lying back on the cot. What’s that smell, he wondered, not quite able to make out what it was yet.
Madigan felt a coolness on his forehead. A hand came into view and lifted a damp rag from him, and a drop of water fell into his eye. He blinked and his vision cleared some more, enabling him to see the big man sitting by his side on a chair that looked too small for the man.
“Well, you’re back to the land of the living, I see,” the big man said.
“Who are you?” Madigan asked weakly.
“You rest a while, then we’ll talk,” the big man said with a gentle smile. “When you feel up to it, we’ll fix you something to eat.”
Madigan must have dozed off, for when he awoke there was the smell of stew cooking. Seeing him awake, the two men came over and asked if he was strong enough to eat at the table. Madigan was, so they helped him to the table, where a bowl of hot stew and a cup of coffee waited. Over food they made friendly conversation.
Madigan found out the big man’s name was Pete LaRue and the other went by the name of Shorty. Both were well educated and seemed friendly enough, bu
t deep down he’d the feeling they were hiding something.
“You both seem to be honest men,” Madigan said at long last, looking from one to the other, “but I feel there’s something you left out.”
The two men glanced at each other as if caught in an embarrassing situation, then seemed to reach an unspoken agreement.
“Speaking of honesty,” LaRue said, suddenly growing uneasy, “we were part of the bunch that tried to kill you a few weeks ago.” LaRue looked down at his hands nervously, beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. “In fact, I was the leader. For reasons that are now not even clear to me, I allowed those men to try to gun you down. Please believe me when I say there has not been a day gone by since that I have not regretted it.”
Coming to his feet, the big man came to Madigan’s side. “Shorty didn’t have anything to do with it. He’s just along for the ride, you might say. When you’re well again, if you want to have me pay for my actions, I’ll give you more than a fair chance at my hide. You deserve more, but that’s all I have at present.”
“Was it one of you that shot me?”
“Not us. We’re not ambushers. So, like I said, if you want a chance at my hide I won’t blame you.
“Thanks,” was about all Madigan could think to say, but he knew deep in his heart that the three of them would be friends. They were all too much alike not to be. Revenge would serve no purpose.
“How many of your boys did I get with the big bruiser?” Madigan asked.
“You mean that buffalo gun of yours? Madigan nodded his head. “Two out on the plains. But all told, you cost me five men, although two of them weren’t your doing.”
“What do you mean?” Madigan asked fully expecting the answer.
“Sent a couple after you with several horses to run you down.”
“Smart move on your part.”
“I thought so too. Only trouble was, they ran smack into a big old grizzly while it was feeding or wounded, I don’t know which. Guess he didn’t take too kindly to them intruding, so he made a meal of both of the men!
“Only thing I couldn’t figure out was why they got off their horses and went into the brush where the bear was, unless it scared the horses so bad they threw the riders. Could have happened so fast the grizzly killed them the second they hit the ground.
“Never really know how, but sure makes me have a lot of respect for those big bears. Be glad you didn’t have to see it. Those men were a mess. Believe me, it was gruesome.”
“I did see it!”
LaRue gave Madigan a startled look. “How?”
“I set it up so the men would take cover in the brush where the bear was. I chanced to see them coming right after I’d a run-in with the grizzly, so I worked my way around it, then waited for your men.” Madigan took in a deep breath as he remembered how he shook at the sight of the bear attack.
“When your men came hell-bent-for-leather around the corner, I was in the middle of the trail with my rifle pointed at them. Natural thing for a man to do is dismount and run for cover. That’s just what they did, only the bear was waiting for them.
“So you see, both of us will have to live with the regret of our actions for the rest of our lives. So unless you have a mind to, just forget about a showdown between us,” Madigan said sadly. “Now how about some more stew, and fill it up this time. That stuff makes a man’s belly cry out for more. By the way, if you don’t mind me askin’, what happened to the rest of your men?”
LaRue shot a glance at his partner and Madigan knew he’d hit a sore spot, but it was too late to take back the question.
“Renegade named O’Neill talked them into joining him.”
At O’Neill’s name, Madigan’s blood ran cold. So he was out there waiting and he had a gang with him now. Madigan thought of the attempt to kill him with the dynamite, and all of a sudden it dawned on him that it must have been O’Neill that shot him. Who else would have shot and left a man lying there without checking to see if he was dead? Then Madigan remembered the two women he’d saved and what O’Neill would do to them if he had gotten his hands on them. Somehow Madigan had to find a way to stop him, not just for what O’Neill did to him, but. . for her.
O’Neill quickly took charge of his men, many of whom were still stunned by what they’d just witnessed with the killing of Elegant. Looking from one man to the next, he seemed to be seeing into their very souls, and each man knew that there would be no turning back from this madman. You either followed him to the depths of hell or you died from his hand; there would be no other choice. Live or die, it was no longer their decision to make. Whatever reason they’d come along in the first place no longer mattered. They were completely under the will of this one man. From now on he would think for them and they would follow as of one mind. His control was absolute.
Chapter 14
The day dawned cold and clear as though washed by a giant waterfall before being dried out by the first ragged multicolored rays of the sun. O’Neill had barked out his orders for the men to break camp before the last stars reluctantly faded from the morning sky. Now they were saddled and ready to ride.
“We ride until we find the cave where I was camped,” he growled as the men started out. “Any man try to cross me and I’ll kill him no matter where he tries to hide on the face of the earth!”
His statement was irrational, but fear has a way of dulling the logical thought processes. And even though it would be an easy escape, fear gripped the men to their very depths so that it was as if their rabid leader held some mystical power over them, a strange magic they could neither hide from nor resist.
Just after dusk, they found the cave, sinister in the growing darkness, wind whistling from its mouth like a wailing banshee from hell, totally unnerving everyone but O’Neill, who took obvious delight in watching the men’s reaction to the place.
“Make camp here and at first light I’ll show you where this hole leads to,” O’Neill announced in a voice so eerie it made the hair on the back of a man’s neck stand on end. An hour later the men sat around the campfire in small groups talking amongst themselves while O’Neill sat alone by the cave entrance waiting for first light.
About twenty minutes later, Donoven nudged the man next to him. “Do you smell that?” he asked, taking another sniff of the air like a hound on the trail of a raccoon.
“Yeah, what do you make of it? Smells like roasting chicken to me. Can’t really tell, but one thing’s for sure-it’s hot food a cookin’.”
“I was thinkin’ the same thing. But where the heck’s it comin’ from?”
None of the men had eaten anything but beans and bacon with a little hardtack thrown in for some time, and little by little the aroma of the hot food was getting to each of them. Donoven came to his feet and cautiously started walking from one side of the camp to the next, all the while acutely aware of O’Neill’s gaze following him. Donoven kept sniffing the air as he walked, like a hungry grizzly trying to locate a carcass that was ripening in the sun.
Finally he stopped, and faced in the direction of the cave. But before he could say anything, O’Neill looked up from his bedroll next to the cave mouth and spoke in a quiet but commanding voice. Even though it was not much more than a whisper, it rang on the men’s ears like thunder.
“The smell is coming from the cave!”
A hush fell upon the camp at O’Neill’s words as the men realized the truth of the statement. The smell was indeed coming from the cave. But who could it be? If it was Indians, then why not a guard at the cave’s opening? These questions and many more flooded the men’s minds as they sat there in silence, fear capturing their minds once more.
“Now you know why I had to find this cave,” came O’Neill’s voice, barely louder than before. “It is the entrance to a hidden valley, a valley that will change all of our lives forever.
The shock of this statement showed on each man’s face as the excitement stirred them to life again. Could this man, this monster they were
now forced to follow, be telling the truth? And if he was, how did he know? How could he possibly know what was in the cave?
O’Neill was now on his feet and came quickly into the light of the campfire. After some thought, he turned toward the rest of the men and addressed them.
“You think I’m crazy, that I’ve gone loco, you lazy trash of the earth. You ask yourselves how could I possibly know where the cave leads to.” O’Neill looked each man in the eye before continuing. “When you found me on the desert, you figured I had wandered out there to escape whoever killed Thomas.
“I heard some of you say I was insane when you found me. Maybe so, but I think not! I know what is in the valley because I have been there! I have seen where they keep the gold and I have felt their mark upon my very soul!”
As the men watched wide-eyed, O’Neill took a firm hold of his shirt and tore it open to reveal a hideous burn across his chest. The men, most being cowboys, had at one time or another branded cattle and knew the unmistakable mark that a red-hot iron makes on flesh: the grisly puffed up skin, the red-black scar tissue, and blue-green scab that forms inch by inch to protect the new skin as it forms underneath. That he had been to hell, they all now agreed. But was hell at the other end of this tunnel, or was it their destiny?
It was Donoven who first broke the silence. “How were able to get away from the ones who did that to you?” he asked suspiciously.
O’Neill let a sinister smile cross his face. “When they put the hot iron to my flesh,” he said, letting the effect of his words soak in, “I pretended to pass out.
“When they thought I was out, they relaxed their hold on me. It was then I pulled a derringer out of my boot and shot one of them through the head. I took the other one hostage and made him show me where the cave went. After I saw, I made him lead me out again.”
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