by Jory Sherman
Jingo shot him in the back. The man crumpled to the floor, a black hole oozing blood through his jacket.
Nat carried him outside and dragged him back of the cabin. That was good enough for now. "What did Garrison say?" he asked, when he came back in.
"He says Brand is blamed for the stage robbery. He was jailed and escaped. The vigilantes are hunting him."
Nat heaved a big sigh. He walked over to the table and poured himself a drink. "Then we can relax," he said, settling in one of the barrel-stave chairs.
Jingo looked at him with a strange glaze in his eye. "No, amigo, we can't relax," he said. "We must kill Brand."
"Why? The vigilantes will get him."
"We must kill Brand," Jingo said slowly, "or he will kill us."
* * *
Clay picked his way upstream slowly, crossing and recrossing at intervals. He didn't want his horse's hooves to freeze, but he wanted to make it hard for anyone tracking him this far. It was rough going. Huge boulders sometimes made it almost impossible to go on. Sometimes he had to get off his horse and lead him through seemingly impassable terrain. It had taken him some time to find Holcomb Creek. The way was steep, uphill mostly, but he knew it would lead him where he wanted to go. He was not worried about pursuit this late. His route had been circuitous enough to discourage any but a mountain man or a professional tracker. There probably weren't many of that sort up in Holcomb Valley.
The moon rode high, silvering the gurgling waters of the creek. The air was clear and crisp. He could see his breath frost when he let it out. His face was cold, but he knew he could rest soon. When he came to the spot, he knew exactly where he was. He eased his horse over some branches in the stream. The hooves rattled iron over the rocks. He could almost see Andy there, stooped over with his gold pan, swirling the water around, looking for the flecks of gold like goldenrod pollen.
The cabin was lit and he wondered why. He dismounted and anchored his horse to a rock, tucking the reins underneath. Cautiously, he walked up to the cabin and peered in a side window. Kathleen sat there, in a chair by the fire. She seemed to be asleep. Was she alone?
He drew the Walker from its holster and tiptoed around to the front of the cabin. He pushed on the door but it was latched. He knocked loudly, then stepped aside so that if the door opened he wouldn't become a target in the light. He heard stirring inside.
"Who—who is it?" Kathleen called.
"It's Clay."
There was the sound of feet rushing across the wood floor. The door opened suddenly and Kathleen stepped outside. Quickly, he went to her, pushing her inside. He closed the door behind him.
"Oh, Clay," she breathed. "Thank the Lord Himself, it's you!"
He saw that the door was latched and holstered his pistol. "Draw the curtains," he said. "I'll put out the lamp."
The fire in the fireplace threw their shadows around the room. She held him close for a long time, holding back the sobs that threatened to rumple her composure. "You're here," she breathed. "Tell me what happened. All of it. I know about my father."
Quietly, holding back the brutal details, he told her his story. He told her about Leffler and Perez, about his belief that the robbery had been planned long in advance.
When he was finished, she smiled wanly and rose from her chair. "I'll fix us some coffee and we must talk some more."
He fought back drowsiness until she served him coffee in a tin cup that had been her father's. The fire burned low and they sat close, looking at each other.
"What are you going to do, Clay?" she asked finally.
"Rest here tonight, if I may. Then, tomorrow, I'm going to follow the trail, if there is one, and find out what really did happen to that gold. Whoever took it went on up over the Lucky Baldwin. I'm convinced of that. It was the only way they could go. I'll track them and I'll get it back."
"You'll be in danger."
"The men I'm following will be in danger. The way I figure it, they're still holed up. They couldn't have gotten over the Cushenbery Grade while that storm was going on. They had to find shelter. They'll be moving tomorrow if the weather holds good."
"How will you get out of Holcomb Valley? They'll be looking for you—all of the people who think you're guilty."
"I'll skirt Belleville and Union Flats, stay to the rocks. I'll cut over to the main trail past Union Flats, pick up the road through there. They won't be looking for me back there."
"Be careful."
"One thing worries me, Kathleen."
"What's that?" she asked, leaning forward in her chair with the coffee cup between her hands. Her hair was like spun copper in the dying firelight.
"Perez and Leffler didn't figure this out for themselves. This was a special shipment of dust. Only a few people knew about it."
"That's what Wilson and Garrison said. That's why they think you did it."
Clay sat back, blowing on his coffee. His lean form stretched out from the chair, but he was like a coiled spring. "I found the tracks of another man meeting Leffler and Perez. He didn't make a mistake. He couldn't be tracked."
Kathleen looked at him quizzically. "I don't understand,'' she said.
"Who is smart enough and greedy enough up here to steal that much money from the miners? Who is cagey enough to cover his tracks that well? Who hired Leffler and Perez and another man to kill me in Barstow? Who knew I was coming here? Who didn't want me here in the first place? And, after I got here, who wanted to see that I was suspected of stealing $60,000 worth of gold dust?"
Kathleen sucked in her breath. Clay looked at her, trying to peer into the green depths of her eyes. The truth had already begun to dawn on him, but he wanted to see if it had struck her the same way.
The silence of the outdoors drifted into the cabin. They could hear themselves breathing, hear the fire crackling in its last attempts at life.
"Clay," she said finally, letting her breath out slowly. "I told Garrison you were coming here. I—I think he was in love with me. He was the man I was seeing before you came here. I—I told him we were going to be married."
"That's all right, Kathleen. I think we know most of it now. Between us."
"You mean. . . ."
"I mean Garrison Morfit was the man I couldn't track. He wasn't at the ambush, but he was the man who planned it."
Kathleen sat looking into her coffee cup for a long moment. Then she looked back up at Clay. She started to speak, then changed her mind. It was as though her thoughts had suddenly become so complicated she didn't dare try to express a single one of them.
Clay rose from his chair. He threw the last drops of his coffee into the fire.
"Get some rest," he told her, his hand on her hair with a soothing touch.
"You, too," she said. "Sleep in Andy's bunk."
He wondered if he could sleep at all now that he knew the truth. Why hadn't he seen it before? It lay there now, in front of him, like an open hand on a card table. It had been Garrison Morfit all along.
Tomorrow, somehow, he would have to face the man. But first, he had to do some hunting—for the gold, for the men who took it, and killed on Garrison's orders.
There would be some hell to pay!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Clay left the Shamrock early, before Kathleen was up. He left her a note.
I'm going after them, it said, and I'll be back. Stay here. Burn this note. I love you.
He followed the creek eastward, heading toward and to the north of Union Flats long before sunup. He had grained his horse last night and early this morning, filled a canteen of Andy's, checked his guns and the possibles bag. He munched on jerky he'd found in the miner's possibles. It was stale and moldy, but it helped. His shoulder was stiff, but a cold dunking in the creek had pulled the skin a little tighter.
He had to chuckle to himself, perhaps to relieve the tension he felt. This was April, the month the Sioux called the Moon of Red Grass Appearing. In the Dakotas, this was true. The desert perhaps was already blooming w
ith tiny flowers. But here, the snow still lay on the land. He had rubbed charcoal under his eyes before he left the cabin to prevent snow blindness.
He was glad he had done this as the rising sun threw light at him in flashing daggers. Heading east as he was, he faced directly into it and had to be careful, for the glare could prove dangerous if he were caught by surprise.
He found the place where the men had died. Their bodies were gone and the snow in the road roiled by hoof and wagon tracks. He rode on, up the grade toward the Lucky Baldwin. In places the snow had been swept clear and the wagon tracks were still visible. It was then that he discovered there was a second set of tracks. Puzzled, he started down the grade past the mine which was still shut down because of heavy snows. Smoke fires from the cabins of Doble and Bairdsville floated up in thin tendrils.
There was a road forking off from Gold Fever Trail that wound around Baldwin. The tracks he followed continued on toward the Cushenbery road. The sun was beginning to thaw the snow as it rose higher in the morning sky. At the top of Cushenbery the wagon tracks led off to the right. He rode in, following them. From there he could see the high desert far below, the mountains ringing Baldwin Lake behind him.
He found the wagon, filled with rocks. Dismounting, he inspected it. It looked familiar and he was sure it was one he had seen at Wilson's Stamp Mill. But was it one of Garrison's or did it belong to someone else? Wilson himself, perhaps ? Whosever it was, it had been used as a decoy.
The stagecoach was still missing. Someone had wanted him to think it had gone over Cushenbery and on into the desert. They had counted on the snow continuing for several days. But where, then, was the stage?
He rode back, hurrying now. At the Doble forks, he looked for tracks of the stage. There had been none leading off past that point, between there and the top of the Cushenbery Grade. So, the stage wasn't likely in Bairdsville. It wasn't in Doble, either.
He rode around Baldwin Lake, but the snow was so deep where it had drifted that he had to turn back. This could have been the direction they had taken the stage, he reasoned. Toward Bear Valley and Starvation Flats? Could be. It was something he'd have to puzzle out.
He rode up toward the Lucky Baldwin. Instead of taking the trail back to Belleville, he rode along the ridge, looking down. The wind had swept the ridge clear of snow and the going was easier. The mountains circled Baldwin Lake here and he rode the ridge clear to where it rose above the road to Starvation Flats.
He looked down at the lake. A dark shape caught his eye. Two dark shapes. One, he identified as a huge boulder below the water level. The other, nearby, seemed to change shape. The water was deep from the spring runoff and would get deeper as today's thaw continued to supply snow water to the lake.
Men wanting to hide a stage for a while might well run it into the lake. They might have had time to make it before the snow got too deep. He angled down the side of the mountain, his horse picking its way carefully. In some places the drifts were belly deep.
He kept looking at the shape in the water near the sunken rock. Closer, now, he began to get a better impression of its outline. It was the Concord coach, in twenty feet of water. It would take a team to pull it out.
He gained the road and doubled back, then angled in to the spot where the stage had to come. He braced himself for what he had to. He tied his horse as near to the water as he could. The stage was close to shore, but the bottom dropped off steep from where he stood. He could just see the dark blobs of the rock and stage if he stood on tiptoe. He uncoiled the lariat from the saddle, securing one end to the horn. Was it long enough? It was fifty feet. He would have to make the horse swim in with him. He coiled the rope and remounted. The horse balked at going into the cold waters. He spurred him and yelled encouragement to the animal. Then, he was swimming, heading toward the stage. Clay took a deep breath. The water was icy. Neither he nor the horse could stay very long. He had to work fast. They swam up beside the stage. The horse spooked, but Clay gentled him with his voice.
He leaned over and secured one end of the rope to a strongbox. He ran the lariat through the side handles, knotted it at the top. He kept a short hold on the rope. He didn't want to lose the box if he dropped it. He cut the box loose from its stage ropes, leaving only his own on it.
He urged the horse back to shore, pulling the box out of the stage rack. He sagged to the right from the weight, had to lean left hard to avoid losing his balance. "Come on, boy," he coaxed, "we'll make it. Almost there, boy. That's a boy."
His arm ached from the strain. His fingers were numb from the water. He managed to hold onto the heavy box until they reached shore. The sun was warm enough so that they could dry out before freezing to death. If the wind didn't rise, he and the horse would be all right. He could barely move his fingers.
"Steady, boy," he said, as he dismounted once again. The strongbox lay where he had dropped it, on a mound of snow. He took the Walker out and cocked it, aiming at the lock on the strongbox.
The big .44 bullet ripped into the metal. He fired again, the smoke billowing out from the barrel. The lock twisted crazily, crumpled from the lead slugs. He jerked the lock and it came free. He opened the box and looked at the bags, neatly tied with thongs. He took the Bowie and slit one open at the top. Clay whistled when he ran his fingers through the contents of the bag. He slit the rest of them open. They were all the same.
He loaded them in his saddlebags, three to a side. He retrieved his rope, coiled it and put it back on the saddle. He left the strongbox where it lay. He was sure the other one in the stage would prove out the same as this one.
"Come on, boy," he told his horse when he was back astride him, "let's dry off."
His chill lasted a long time, but the sun gradually dried his clothes. He reloaded the Walker as they rode along, checked the Sharps. He fired a round through it and reloaded after he passed the Lucky Baldwin. He was able to pick up speed, after that.
* * *
Nat and Jingo listened to the miners arguing in Octagon House. They were pleased and tried not to show it. The two stood at the bar, facing the door.
"Maybe these galoots'll do our job for us, Jingo," Nat said low.
"Maybe. It is a thing worth considering. We will wait here. He will eventually return from wherever he has been."
"You think he went back to the ambush?"
"I am counting on it, amigo. Brand is a very thorough hombre."
The miners were haggling at three tables pulled together. Ken McElves kept bringing them drinks. Arnold Lang, Josie Grudzinski, whose husband had been killed in a flash flood on the desert, Gumbo, Willie Bill, Bob Mizener, Doc Davis, Ron Zack, whom they called "Olaf," because he looked like a big Swede and Cisco Hollister, all listened impatiently to Revard Lunt.
"You all want a posse," he said, "but none of you wants to go out in the snow. I say we wait and see what happens."
"We could block all the trails out of the mountains," said Lang.
"Hunt him down like a dog," Josie cackled. She had run her husband's mine better than he had and the men respected her.
"Find him and string him up," said Zack.
At that moment, Kathleen O'Keefe came into Octagon House. The place went suddenly silent. She had never been in there before. She walked up to the table. "I heard about your lynching meeting," she said, "and if you'll all listen for a minute I'll tell you why you shouldn't be talking about hanging Clay Brand."
Doc Davis stood up. He was a veterinarian who had struck a rich claim along the Van Dusen Canyon. He took off his hat. His thin beard gave him the look of Abraham Lincoln. He was tall and spoke with authority in his voice.
"We know you're grieved over the loss of your father, Miss O'Keefe. We all liked Andy. You should be the first one to see his murderer brought to justice. He did it, from all indications, and we're just trying to figure out how to catch him."
Jingo and Nat listened intently, their faces dark with scowls. This young lady must be the daughter of one of
the men they killed.
Kathleen looked at each person before she spoke. Her face flamed the color of her hair, but she fought for control. "Doc," she said slowly, "I know you all mean well, but Clay didn't kill my father. He didn't rob the stage either."
Willie Bill and Gumbo guffawed. They were flushed with drink and thought it funny that a snip of a girl knew something they didn't.
"How do you know this, Kathleen?" asked Hollister, a mustachioed miner who worked a placer on the flats and had the windburned face to prove it, the strong muscled arms that could dig the dirt, shake a rocker, or pan the dust.
She waited for them to be quiet once again. "Because he told me," she said. "And I believe him."
They all rose at once, talking excitedly. Jingo and Nat looked at each other meaningfully.
"Quiet!" Josie shouted finally. "Let's listen to the girl!"
"You saw Clay Brand?" asked Mizener. "When?"
"Last night," she said. "He broke loose so that he could prove his innocence. He wouldn't kill my father. They were good friends. We're going to be married."
There was a flurry of whispers and broken conversation.
"Maybe you can tell us who did it, if Brand didn't," Zack said.
She was about to reply when a horse rode up outside, fast. They all heard and turned toward the door. Jingo Perez edged nearer the wall. To his right, Nat Leffler slipped the thong from the hammer of his six-gun.
"It was . . ." Kathleen began, when the door opened and Clay Brand stepped into the room, his eyes moving over everyone there in a quick instant. The miners sat frozen by stunned surprise.
"Don't anyone move," he said, his voice booming in the sudden silence. "Get out of the way, Kathleen," he said. "It's those two at the bar I want."
Everyone's eyes went to Jingo and Nat. They had scarcely noticed them before, but now they saw that they knew Clay Brand and they didn't like him. Kathleen edged around the tables where the miners sat and her boots sounded hollow on the wooden floor.
In Clay's left hand he held one of the sacks he'd taken from the strongbox earlier. "Anyone recognize this sack?" he asked. "Jingo, you and Nat should be interested in this. Taken from the stage."