Flying Eagle

by Tim Champlin

  “Then, if there’s nobody within earshot, I’ll have a try at this ceiling,” Jay said.

  He climbed up the pile of loose firewood in the corner, picking up a thick piece of pine about two feet long as he went. A mouse scuttled out of the pile and darted under the bottom log of the wall. Jay wiped a sleeve across his face to clear the spiderwebs wrapped around his head. Selecting a likely spot, he pounded the pine log into the ceiling two, three times with all the strength in his arms. It felt solid. He forced the end of the log upward several more times like a battering ram, then stopped to catch his breath and rest. If there was any weak spot in this ceiling, this wasn’t it. He looked around. He saw no gaps or chinks or rotten spots.

  While he was still staring upward, a shot exploded and a bullet slammed into the top log of the wall near his head. He staggered back and fell down the sloping woodpile on his back, with a raucous laugh echoing in his ears.

  A rifle barrel was being withdrawn from between the wall logs at the far end of the shed.

  “Let’s not be destroyin’ Mr. Wright’s property in there,” Jack Bowlegs’ voice said. The laugh receded as Bowlegs moved away.

  “You okay?” Hall asked, getting up and brushing himself off. Cutter still cowered against the wall.

  “Yeah. Just startled me,” Jay answered, rolling off the woodpile. “So much for that idea. Wright left his favorite guard dog on duty.”

  The three of them stood and looked at each other as the narrow strips of sunlight illuminated the swirls of acrid powder smoke that eddied about the room. The smell was as bitter as their oudook for the rest of this day—possibly their last day on earth.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The sun was slanting down in the western sky when there was a thump at the door and it swung outward. Bowlegs stood there, hat square on his head, holding Gorraiz’s Winchester on them. “Time to go, gents.”

  The three of them moved outside into the fresh, cool air. Wright, dressed in a black suit and hat and a white shirt, was sitting on the front seat of a wagon, staring down at them through his gold-rimmed glasses.

  “Climb aboard.” Bowlegs gestured with the rifle.

  They silently got up into the rear seat of the high-wheeled wagon.

  “Mind if I have a drink of water before we go?” Jay asked.

  “Help yourself,” Wright said, pointing at the wooden rain barrel that stood full under a corner eave of the house. “But don’t make any sudden moves,” he called after them as all three jumped down and made for the water.

  Jay swept off the collection of fallen leaves and small water spiders that covered the surface and then took a long drink of the cool water. When Hall and Cutter had finished their turns, Jay splashed some of the water on his face and hair. He felt greatly refreshed.

  As they climbed back into the wagon, Jay noticed that Wright was holding his storekeeper’s model Colt in his lap. Bowlegs took the reins and slapped the team of Morgans into motion.

  Wright turned to hang over the back of the seat, his pistol held loosely in one hand.

  “Would it be too much to ask where we’re going?” Jay inquired.

  “You’ll find out soon enough.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t got us all tied up,” Jay continued, trying to goad the rancher.

  “No sense in doing that. If you tried to jump off and run, we’d gun you down before you got twenty yards. Besides, if we happened to run into a posse, we could always say we found you wandering in the mountains and were taking you into Rawlings. It would be our word against yours.”

  “Vincent Gorraiz would swear to what really happened.”

  “Who? Oh, the sheepherder. Yes. Well, we’ll be dealing with him tonight. Anyone who doesn’t have the sense to run in the face of such overwhelming odds deserves to be squashed like a bug. In fact, should your bodies ever be found, and any foul play is suspected, I can always put out the rumor that you were mistaken for sheep men who just got caught up in this nasty range war. How was anyone to know you were from the train? After all, you were traveling with a Basque sheepherder.”

  The wheels jolted in and out of a rut that had dried in a low wash.

  “You actually run a cattle ranch here, or is this just a front for all your other activities?” Jay asked.

  “Oh, I assure you, this is a legitimate cattle ranch. But I never miss a chance to do what I can to further the aims of my tong. But I was particularly incensed to discover that about half the gold from the mint was recovered, thanks to you and that Secret Service agent and that policeman friend of yours—what was his name?”

  “Fred Casey,” Jay said.

  “Ah yes, Casey. Our men in San Francisco will be dealing with him shortly also. No one gets away with trying to thwart the Chee Kong Tong and lives long afterward. Still and all, even though we lost half the gold, a million and a half will give us a good start on equipping a revolutionary army.”

  The diminutive rancher seemed to be in an expansive mood, so Jay tried drawing him out on a more immediate subject.

  “What do you plan to do with us?”

  Again, that mirthless smile played about his thin lips. “I don’t want to spoil your surprise. We should be there in less than a half-hour.” Still keeping one eye on his passengers, he slipped a gold watch from his vest pocket and glanced at it. Then he cast a look at the sun that was sliding down the slope of the western sky toward the horizon of low hills.

  “Ah, just right.”

  The team was pulling the wagon at a trot on a faint, two-wheel track of road that was going in a generally northwest direction, winding through the foothills of the Sierra Madre Range. It was a beautiful autumn evening, and Jay felt rested and strong, but slightly light-headed from not having eaten anything in about thirty-six hours. His body was low on fuel, yet he felt he still had some reserves to call on, if needed. He had no sensation of hunger, but knew that if he were not under such mental stress, his lean stomach would be growling for food.

  Bowlegs slowed the team and then pulled them into a tight turn off the road, angling upward through some widely-spaced pines and fir. Another ten minutes of weaving back and forth through the conifers that continued to grow thicker, brought them to an impassable mass of boulders and ledges of rock and fallen timber.

  “We have to walk from here,” Wright said, hopping lightly down, and holding his gun steady on them.

  The three climbed down and began walking ahead of the rancher’s leveled Colt. Jay saw Bowlegs tie the team to a fallen limb and follow them with the rifle. Jay noted that Jack Bowlegs had picked up the loose coils of a new hemp rope from under the wagon’s seat and carried it over his free arm. The thought crossed Jay’s mind that they were to be hanged, and his throat constricted at the horrible image this conjured up. If they were found, their deaths could very well be attributed to the range war. But then, hadn’t Wright said their deaths were to look like an accident? Jay silently resolved that if hanging was to be their fate, he would make a break for it. To his way of thinking, being shot was preferable to choking out his life at the end of a rope.

  Another ten minutes or so of walking brought them suddenly out of the dense pine forest almost to the edge of a sheer cliff.

  They halted and Jay’s eyes darted around, looking for an opportunity to make a break. He wasn’t about to wait to be forced over the edge of a cliff to his death.

  But, apparently that was not what Wright had in mind, either. The black-suited rancher nodded to Bowlegs who handed his rifle to Wright. Wright holstered his Colt and backed away a few steps, holding the rifle waist high, covering them.

  Bowlegs whipped the end of the rope around a nearby pine that was about two feet in diameter at its base, deftly threw a bowline into it, and yanked it a couple of times to be sure it was tight. Then he flung the coils of rope over the edge of the precipice.

  “There’s a cave in the side of this cliff about thirty feet down,” Wright said. “Grab that rope and slide yourselves down into it.�
�

  So that was it, Jay thought. They were to be marooned to die of hunger and thirst in some inaccessible cave where their yells for help would go unheard. He looked out and saw the cliff edge faced the west, and the setting sun. Looking down, he saw a talus slope about two hundred feet below that sloped off into a heavy stand of fir trees. Beyond that were the gently rolling hills and intervening valleys by which they had ascended to this ridge. The ranchhouse was somewhere out of sight to his left, Jay guessed, maybe two or three miles away.

  “Step lively, gentlemen! I must get home before dark!” Wright said, crisply. “You first.” He jabbed the gun at Cutter.

  “No, no. Don’t make me go,” he wailed, taking a step toward Wright. “Please. I’ll work for you. You know I’m not with them,” he whined, motioning toward McGraw and Hall.

  Jay heard genuine fear in the panicky voice.

  “I’ll do anything you want. Please! Just don’t put me over that edge.” He dropped to his knees in front of Wright, sniveling.

  In spite of his own fear, Jay was embarrassed for the thief.

  Wright seemed startled at first, but quickly regained his composure. “Get away from me, you useless piece of dung,” he almost sneered. ‘Take hold of that rope or Jack will throw you over.”

  Cutter, looking like a man ascending the scaffold, picked up the rope and, backing carefully to the edge, felt with his slick-soled shoes for some sort of footing and went over the lip. The rope grew taut as he walked himself down the cliff face and out of sight. After a couple of minutes, the rope grew slack.

  “Next!”

  Hall glanced at Jay and then picked up the rope and proceeded to follow. Hall slipped the rope under one leg to take some of the strain off his arms and expertly rappelled himself over the edge.

  Wright’s eyes were positively glowing with delight, Jay thought as he glanced at the rancher.

  “And, last but not least, Mr. McGraw!” Wright announced with a flourish.

  Jay could see no immediate chance of escape, so he grasped the rope and eased himself over the edge after his companions.

  The last thing he saw as he went down was the small rancher holding the rifle on him, and the impassive face of Bowlegs as he stood by the tree with his hand on the rope and the westering sun glinting off the silver conchos on his leather vest.

  Then, all his concentration lay on getting safely down into the cave. Once, his shoes slipped as some loose rock rolled under them and his body swung in against the cliff face, jarring the wind from his chest. But he again planted his shoe soles and pushed back, letting the rope slide slowly as he walked backward down the sheer face. He didn’t look down; he only felt with his feet. It seemed as if he was never going to reach it, but he steadfastly kept his eyes dead ahead, seeing only the weathered granite slowly slide past.

  Finally, his probing feet found nothing and he grunted as his shins scraped sharp rock. He hung on his arms and let himself down hand over hand another half a body length. Then there were hands grasping him and easing him into the declivity and down to the slanting cave floor. As soon as he let go of the rope, it began to jiggle and dance as Bowlegs pulled it back up. On an impulse, Jay reached out for the rope that was fast rising in front of him, grabbed it with both hands and threw all his weight on it in one motion. He felt a heavy tug at the other end, like a huge fish on a line. Then came a muffled curse. He yanked hard again, pulling a few feet of the line inside the cave. But the element of surprise was gone now. They would not see the startled cowboy hurtling past them to his death on the rocks below.

  “Might as well quit playing tug-o’war with him,” Hall said. “They’ve got us.”

  After his first mighty jerk, Jay also realized the futility of it, and now let it drop, feeling the slight friction burns on his hands.

  The rope vanished upward and then there was silence. There was no conversation from above, nor did they hear the men leave. The three of them looked at each other. They had been placed in a niche on the wall of the mountain, and left to die of starvation and thirst. Jay had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  With nothing better to do, he used the last rays of the setting sun that were slanting into the mouth of the cave, to examine their prison. The cave itself was only about twenty feet deep and about twice as long, its slightly uneven floor from side to side, slanting at about a thirty-degree angle. It had apparently been carved by wind and water action on the face of the granite cliff. When Jay lay on his belly and thrust his head out, looking up and down, he could see the whole upthrust stratum of granite ran diagonally. The talus slope was still a good hundred and fifty feet below. It would take an expert mountain climber with plenty of gear to scale or descend that rock face, he thought, withdrawing his head and pushing himself to his feet.

  Here and there on some of the seams of the weathered rock face, a few small evergreens had somehow found enough nourishment to take root. Unfortunately, they were out of reach from the cave, and were too widely spaced to help. Jay wondered if they were deeply rooted enough to hold a grown man’s weight even if they had a rope. Idle speculation, he concluded. Of more immediate concern was finding food and water. Hall and Cutter were also silendy examining their new home—with looks of dismay on their faces.

  The roof of the cave at its mouth was about ten feet high, but it sloped down quickly to meet the floor at the back, maybe twenty-five feet at its deepest, Jay estimated. Where the ceiling met the floor was a crack about four inches high and roughly ten feet long. Jay got down on his hands and knees and examined it. No cool air issued from it. Apparently it didn’t go anywhere. There was only one heartening thing about this crack. Water had seeped out of it and run down to the lower end of the cave floor where it had collected in a pool. However, that pool was dry now. Only a little damp moss and a trace of mud remained. Evidently, water seeped through this layered rock in rainy weather, but it had not rained lately. The dry autumn season was upon them. And Jay suspected, from the size of the seepage, they would all be long dead before enough water collected here to sustain the three of them.

  He straightened up and looked around, feeling as hopeless as he ever had in his entire life. They were marooned without food, water, blankets, matches, fuel, or weapons. If he had known what was coming, he would have made a break for it earlier. A quick bullet would have been preferable to a slow death from exposure and starvation. But he had held off, assuming he would have a better opportunity to escape. But not even an aeronaut like Hall could escape from this place without wings. It was more secure than the Tower of London. He ground his teeth and swore softly to himself in frustration.

  The floor of the cave was covered in soft dust, apparently blown in from somewhere outside. There were no marks in this dust and no sign of black smoke on the ceiling to indicate that fire-making humans had ever occupied this place, even briefly. But that was understandable, since, except by rope ladder from above, it was completely inaccessible.

  One thing Jay did notice before their own walking around obliterated them was some tiny, wavy ridges in the dust from the upper end of the cave to the back. Some quirk of the wind had ridged the dust like tiny, wind-made sand dunes, he guessed.

  One five-foot cedar tree was growing in the scant soil, its roots clinging precariously to the cracked rock just at the upper end of the cave, but there was hardly enough wood in this tree for one campfire—even if they had any matches, a knife or a hatchet, which none of them did.

  They were all lost in their own thoughts, gloomily assessing their chances of survival. No one spoke as the sun settled and shadow crept into the cave along with the first cool air of the evening chill to follow. A fire might attract somebne’s attention at night, if the light could be seen from the road they had come up on. Maybe if they could get a fire going by stripping off some of the small, resinous limbs of the cedar with their hands and striking a piece of granite and steel . . . Jay’s thought trailed off into hopelessness. They had no steel, unless one of them h
ad something metallic in his pocket. As for tinder, maybe some threads from their clothing would be flammable enough. None of them wore spectacles. The magnifying eyeglasses of Wright would be perfect for focusing the rays of the sun and starting a fire. But they had none.

  Finally, the gloomy atmosphere was settling in deeper than twilight, and Jay felt he had to take the lead and say something to dispel the mood.

  “Hell, boys, we aren’t whipped yet. We’ll figure a way out of this.” His words sounded hollow, even to himself. They didn’t reply. He tried again. “If we put our heads together, we can come up with something.”

  He walked over toward the lone cedar to inspect it a little closer. He had already resolved in his own mind to make an attempt at climbing down, or up, the rock face before he became too weakened by hunger and thirst to try it. And he had already gone almost two days without food. He couldn’t wait much longer.

  Just as he reached for the cedar, he caught a movement out of the comer of his eye at the base of the tree and leapt back, startled. His heart was pounding as he instinctively reached for the Colt that was not there. Then, in the shadows of the mountain cave he saw it, and knew what the wavy marks in the dust meant. At the same time he heard a noise like the wind rattling dry reeds as the rattlesnake reacted to his presence and threw himself into a coil, the upright tail buzzing its warning.

  “Oh, damn!” Cutter breathed behind him.

  Jay froze with fear. His legs felt paralyzed. He willed himself to move, but his body would not respond. Other rattlesnakes were gliding past the first. Two of them, sensing the human body heat, coiled, tails buzzing, forked tongues flicking in and out, heads drawn back to strike. Other reptilian forms slithered toward the crack at the back of the cave.

  With the dying of the warm sunlight they were returning to their underground shelter. Probably getting ready to den up for the winter, Jay thought. But the thought was no comfort as the night came down and the deadly buzzing continued only a few feet away.