Lost Trail

by Paul Lederer

  John Tanner didn’t really like his chances – but there was nowhere to run.

  He didn’t wait for Everly to land the first blow. As soon as the big man was in range Tanner jabbed out with two straight left-hand shots, the first one drawing blood from Everly’s nose, the second rocking his head back. Everly wiped a callused hand across his face, his expression not changing, and he came forward again, neck bowed, meaty fists held low, too low, Tanner thought, and so he feinted with his left and then arced a right-hand hook against Tanner’s ear, stunning the big man, but only slightly. Blood flowed from his left ear, and now Everly who had yet to land a blow formed a savage, angry sneer with his thick lips. He bulled forward so that Tanner could not hold him off and slammed John up against the side of one of the stall partitions, pinning him there briefly before he took half a step back and began hammering away with lefts and rights, first going down to Tanner’s ribs, then up to his head.

  John was able to bob his head away from Everly’s big fists just enough so that the blows bounced off the top of his skull. There was no dodging the body shots, and his ribs flared up with sudden fire. Knowing he had to get off the partition, John stepped down hard with his boot heel on Everly’s toes and then brought his elbow up into Everly’s nose, backing the big man up enough so that John could slide out into the middle of the barn floor. There his jabbing could be used more effectively, and he went back to it, throwing three straight left hand shots into the big man’s face. One of these split Everly’s eyebrow and blood began to seep from it into his right eye.

  This might have gone on forever, John thought – he having the advantage in the open, the big cowman trying to find a way to drive him up against a partition to pound away at his body with his huge fists. John decided he had had enough. He dropped his right hand to his holster and drew his Colt.44, halting Everly in his tracks.

  Everly looked surprised, perhaps even a little angry at ending a fight this way, but Ted Everly’s face had taken a beating and John thought that perhaps the big man was happy to have the fight ended, in a way that did not damage his reputation as a fighter in front of the ranch hands.

  ‘That’s the coward’s way out,’ Everly snarled, his voice reflecting not injured pride so much as an attempt to save face.

  ‘Maybe,’ Tanner agreed, backing toward the stall where his gray horse stood watching without concern. ‘I’m riding out anyway, Everly. Don’t you understand – I’m not planning on staying around the C-bar-C, I never was. I only need to saddle my pony and have a last talk with Ben Canasta and then I’ll be gone.’

  Everly wiped more blood from his face and then grumbled one last threat. ‘See that you are – or I’ll be back.’

  Then the big man spun on his heel and limped toward the barn doors, pausing to cast one evil backward glance at Tanner before he walked out into the bright new sunlight, his men following him toward the bunkhouse.

  Tanner found that his hands were trembling as he fixed saddle blanket and saddle into place, lightened the cinches, slipped the gray its bit and led it out toward the big house. He should have just shot the bastard, he was thinking, but that would have led to the entire crew grabbing their guns and coming after him. There are no men more clannish than cowboys riding for the brand. Their loyalties are fierce, if often misplaced.

  Tanner hitched his pony, glanced around seeing no one, and rapped on the door to the green house. Eventually Monique swung the door open. Her dark eyes searched his face and torn shirt with seeming satisfaction.

  ‘Mr Canasta hasn’t come down yet,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll wait inside, if I may.’

  ‘Think you’re safer in here?’ Monique asked.

  ‘A little,’ John said, slipping through the door before she could close it in his face. ‘Have you any coffee?’

  ‘I have,’ she said without expression.

  ‘Any chance of getting a cup?’

  Monique only shrugged and turned away toward a door which he knew led into the kitchen. Tanner followed her. He sat at an undecorated oak wood table and watched the new sun cutting a bright pattern across the table and floor, interrupted only briefly by the dark shadow of Monique moving through the sun rays. She returned eventually with a white ceramic cup filled with steaming, black coffee. Monique went around the table and sat staring at him as he blew on the coffee, trying to cool it.

  ‘They’ll be back to finish the job, you know,’ she said.

  ‘I won’t be here,’ Tanner said. ‘But why do they want to beat me up … why did you tell them to do it? I saw you last night, Monique.’

  ‘Why?’ She laughed. It was a brief, harsh sound in the back of her throat. ‘Just because you gunned down the only man I’ve ever loved – Matt Doyle – and got off with only two years in prison? You take a guess, Tanner.’

  ‘But, I didn’t….’ John Tanner swallowed his explanation. To tell the truth now would do nothing but expose Becky Canasta to prosecution – that would likely kill Ben. Besides, at this late date no jury would be likely to convict on Tanner’s word alone, and he did not want Becky convicted. According to the law, the crime had been solved, the penalty paid. He wanted to tell Monique something to exonerate himself, but there was nothing that could be said. Even if she believed him – most improbable – she would transfer her fury to Becky. He could do nothing but fall silent, and sip at his coffee until Monique told him:

  ‘Mr Canasta is coming downstairs now. You may as well go into his office. Take your coffee.’

  ‘Should I take a cup to him?’

  ‘Mr Canasta gave up coffee a few years ago,’ Monique said.

  Tanner made his remembered way back to Ben Canasta’s office and found the old man standing at the window, hands behind his back. He was humming aimlessly to himself.

  ‘Mr Canasta? It’s Tanner, I’ve come back to finish our business.’

  The humming broke off. Ben Canasta turned from the window to take his seat behind his desk.

  ‘Did you sleep well?’ Canasta asked.

  ‘It wasn’t the sleep, it was the waking up that went hard,’ Tanner said, and now Ben Canasta seemed to notice the torn shirt, the lump on John’s forehead.

  ‘I see,’ Canasta said, thoughtfully.

  ‘But we were going to talk about the trail you lost on the desert.’

  ‘Yes, we were,’ Ben said, folding his thin hands in front of him. ‘We lost their sign up at Split Rock.’ Which might have seemed like a vague description to someone unfamiliar with the area, but Split Rock was a landmark, some fifty feet tall which stood where three trails met. One leading to the town of Knox, not far distant, the other two forking off, south toward Ruidoso, and north toward Las Palmas. It was a well-known junction in this part of the country.

  ‘Well,’ Ben said wearily, ‘you know how many people ride those trails – we had been following eight horses – four of them mounted, now there were tracks in all directions – hundreds of them. And the ground is deep in red sand over that way, as you know. There was no way of finding the trail again.’

  ‘You still think that Morgan Pride is their leader?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘I know he is, damnit!’ the old man said, banging a fist against his desk. ‘A mask doesn’t hide your face from someone who has known you twenty years.’ Ben Canasta took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair. ‘I took that man in when he was only a pup – this is the way he’s repaid me.’

  ‘I’ll find him,’ Tanner promised, though how he was going to do it remained a question.

  ‘I don’t care if you do or don’t,’ Canasta said. ‘I suppose I don’t really care about the money, either. But find Becky for me, Tanner. Just bring Becky home.’

  Tanner walked out of the office, feeling low and beaten. His prospect of finding Becky Canasta was dim, and he knew it. His ribs ached; he was hungry; he was tired of the long-riding. Monique met him just as he crossed the living room toward the front door to the house.

  ‘Are you riding now?’ she asked
with her eyelids half-lowered. She still wore black on this morning.

  ‘I gave my word.’

  ‘I think you may not be riding alone,’ Monique said. ‘I think there may be some men trailing behind you.’

  ‘What are you telling me?’ Tanner asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said with a small shrug, ‘only that you cannot expect to be alone. And if you are so fortunate as to find Becky Canasta, I would leave her where you find her, because it would not be good for her if she shows up again and I am still here.’

  Her eyes, now wide open glinted wildly. Perhaps Monique was not mad, but she was driven by hatred – of Becky who had stolen her man, Matt Doyle, and of John Tanner whom she believed had murdered him.

  ‘I gave my word,’ Tanner replied briefly. ‘If you think that Ben Canasta would ever side with you against his own daughter, you are deeply mistaken.’

  ‘If you think that troubles me, you are badly mistaken, John Tanner. I will be surprised if he is alive to see his daughter return. I will be surprised if the old man does not have a serious reversal while you are riding the long trail.’

  Tanner stared at the dark woman; her threat was implicit, but was she making it to frighten Tanner, or was she capable of murder? Either way, John could do nothing about it. His decision had been made, and his course of action was clear. Find Split Rock and follow the lost trail wherever it might lead.

  The rising sun was warm on Tanner’s back as he left the wooded knolls and lined out toward Split Rock on the Apache Canyon trail, the route Ben Canasta would have taken. Of course at this late date there was no sign of the passing horses Morgan Pride and his men would have left behind. Tanner was riding on blind faith, wondering what impulse had led him to believe he could do what the posse on the heels of the robbers could not accomplish.

  It was, of course, the only line of action possible. Becky had to be found and delivered to her father. Or was it only for him, Tanner wondered, as he remembered the girl in the moonlight. No matter, she could not be left in the clutches of three armed and desperate thugs.

  He rode on as the day grew warmer. Once through the canyon, the land turned long, flat and floored with red sand. Ahead, already he could see the huge formation of Split Rock, he hurried on a little before forcing himself to remember that the huge boulder was not the end of his trail, but only the beginning.

  And he was being followed. That was certain. Although he could not see them or estimate their numbers, there were riders behind him. On the desert flats, the dust rising from the hoofs of their horses was visible even at this distance.

  Tanner’s face was grim. Well, Monique had warned him – threatened him? that he would be followed. Monique did not want Becky to return to the ranch alive. Would these men actually kill the rancher’s daughter? If so, what sort of plan did they have for John Tanner himself? It didn’t take a lot of imagination. One more lost soul missing on the long desert. And to Monique’s mind it would be the man who had shot down her lover, Matt Doyle, on that moonlit night so long ago.

  The woman carried her grief well and long. Tanner rode on; there was no talking to Monique or the ranch hands. Only time could resolve this situation – if there was a resolution.

  Who was back there, following him? Certainly Ted Everly who had developed a grudge against Tanner. There were too many other possibilities for the remainder of the trackers. John thought they were a small group of men, no more than three or four, judging by the amount of dust they created in their passing. It was enough to do the work they had agreed to do.

  Split Rock was sweltering in the sunlight. The monument soared skyward, offering shade on its west side. The red behemoth was nevertheless too hot to touch. Tanner swung down from the saddle and loosened the twin cinches to give his gray horse some relief. Then he walked around the red granite boulder, noticing the residue of scores of campfire, seeing the hundreds of inscriptions carved in the rock by travelers, searching for some possible sign of Becky and her kidnappers.

  It was impossible, and he knew it even before beginning. Squatting on his heels in the warm shade he tried to logic it out. Tired men, weighed down with the wealth of their robbery riding weary horses – why would they not take the shortest route, the road to the town of Knox to regroup, re-equip and rest? That was what Tanner, himself, would have done, but that did not mean it was what Morgan Pride had done. The distant town of Ruidoso was an option, and the still more distant Las Palmas. But why not ride on on fresh, well-fed, watered ponies after spending a night in a Knox hotel, drinking some whiskey, eating a decent meal.

  Tanner rose – they had gone into Knox, he felt sure. And so he would follow, riding through the heat of the day. He tightened his cinches again and swung aboard the trustworthy gray horse which was going to be used hard on this day, and probably for many days to come. Possibly he should trade it for a fresh animal in Knox, but that seemed something like abandonment. No matter – he would see first what he could turn up in Knox, the town he had been tried and convicted in for the shooting of Matt Doyle.

  His homecoming would not be a warm one. He knew that there were not a few people in Knox who thought that he should have been hanged for killing Matt Doyle. Turning the gray’s muzzle westward, he traveled on through the heat of the day, glancing back frequently to make sure that the men from the C-bar-C were not gaining on him.

  The land now began to rise and fall. Small clumps of creosote cluttered the landscape and stands of mesquite cast lacy shadows across the red sand desert. If anything was living on the desert, Tanner saw none of them. If water had ever touched this sere land, there was no sign of it. No water-cut gullies creased the desert; there was no sign of ancient tinajas or seasonal ponds. There might not have been a tree standing for twenty or fifty miles.

  At last, with the lowering sun beaming directly into his eyes as day began to sigh into darkness, Tanner caught a glimpse of Knox, a tiny settlement appearing like a group of matchboxes at this distance. It gave him a false sense of satisfaction to have made it this far; his horse was faltering slightly as he neared the town. His pursuers were no nearer.

  Day settled into purple dusk as he rode along the main street of the small town. He glanced automatically at the hitched horses along the street although he had no idea what the kidnappers had been riding. There were a few weary ponies tied here and there, salt-streaked from a desert run, but that did not mean that Becky’s kidnappers had ridden them. Tanner searched for a stable where his tired gray could be fed, watered and rested. It wasn’t hard to find one. In fact two competing stables sat facing each other across the dusty main street. Flipping a coin mentally, Tanner chose the one on his left for no particular reason.

  Swinging down from the saddle, he walked his horse in the open double doors of the stable and called out. After a minute a nearly hairless, Spanish-looking man appeared. Tanner had spent the time looking at the stabled horses.

  ‘I was looking for a party with eight horses – four ridden, four spare – who might have come in here,’ Tanner said. ‘Three men and one woman. Have you seen them?’

  ‘Are you a lawman?’ the stable man asked in a deeply accented voice.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then I don’t see nothing,’ the man said truculently.

  ‘All right,’ Tanner answered, seeing that he was not going to get anywhere with this one. Then he instructed the stable hand on how to grain his horse, something the sullen man listened to with disgust as if Tanner had impugned his knowledge of animals.

  Arrangements made, Tanner went out into the near-darkness of the desert dusk and trudged across the street to the other stable. He might have more luck there. The stars were clear in the high sky. The moon had not yet made its debut. Somehow that lifted Tanner’s spirits.

  ‘Hello!’ he tried at the stable door and after awhile a grubby little man, scratching at his pot belly came out of the shadows to meet him.

  ‘Looking for some people,’ Tanner said, repeating their description.
>
  ‘No, sir,’ the stable hand replied. ‘Seen no one like that tonight – I would have remembered a young woman.’ Then he leaned closer to Tanner in the lantern light and said, ‘Say, aren’t you…?’

  John had already turned to go. He seemed to vaguely remember the man. He may have been on the jury that had convicted Tanner of manslaughter. There would be others in Knox who would recognize him, he knew. He would not be welcome in their town. Killer. No matter, he decided. He had to find Becky and get her safely home for Ben Canasta’s sake … and hopefully for his own. The moon had now begun rising slowly, seeming large and reddish-gold on the eastern horizon where red desert merged with dark skies. John turned his eyes down. He knew too much about the moon. It always showed a perplexing face.

  The town of Knox was pretty much shut down for the night. The storekeepers had gone home to their wives and kids. The bank was locked up tight. The night people had begun to emerge; the saloons were kicking in, ready for the rude onslaught of the drinkers, gamblers and brawlers.

  John Tanner headed for the nearest bar – the long-riders would be wanting refreshment. John had long ago tired of the saloons, of the shouting, pushing, cursing and fighting, but his best hope of finding Morgan Pride and his men was to search them. What about Becky? Where would they have stashed her, women not being allowed in saloons – mainly for their own protection.

  And what about the men on his backtrail – Ted Everly and whoever was riding with him? They were bound to catch up with him, and soon. With guns in front of him and guns behind him, Tanner was caught in a trap he had laid for himself.

  He stepped from the boardwalk to pass toward the bright lights of the saloon beyond the alley. That was where they jumped him.

  THREE

  Passing, Tanner was jerked back into the alley by strong hands. There might have been three men waiting for him, possibly four. He didn’t take the time to count. Each one of the men wanted his turn to hit John, though. He took three hammer-like blows to his ribs and three or four shots to his head. Fighting back in the darkness against an overwhelming foe was virtually impossible. The most he could do was hide his face behind his forearms, although once he did manage to drive a boot heel into one of their knees, causing the man to turn away cursing. That did not leave the final outcome in any doubt. The last Tanner knew was that someone had raised a club of some sort – or possibly it was a rifle stock – and driven it down against his temple and all of the lights across the world blinked out.