by Ben Boulden
“I can’t help myself.”
Gentry pivoted from his saddle and followed Kate to the cliff. “I’ve heard about this place, but seeing it is something else entirely.”
“Joshua!” Kate said.
The boy, his horse already abandoned on the trail, was a few feet behind Kate. When he responded, Kate jumped.
J.D. laughed.
Kate said, “Did your tribe make these?”
Joshua shook his head. “No, Mrs. Kate. The ancient ones made these drawings.”
Gentry studied, his face close to the stone surface, what appeared to be the bastard child of a giraffe and a pronghorn. After a moment, he said to Joshua, “What do these mean?”
“No one knows, sir.”
“Are they stories?” Kate wondered aloud.
J.D., still seated on his horse, said, “I bet you’re right, Kate. Successful hunts, pleased gods and full bellies.”
Kate traced a spiraling line cut in the stone’s surface with her finger. “It’s carved right in the rock. The artist is dead, but not this. This is still here, telling us something important. But something we’re not smart enough to understand.”
Joshua beamed at Kate’s words. “My uncle says these are our ancestor’s stories.”
Kate patted the boy’s head. “They’re beautiful, Joshua. Is your uncle at Fort Duchesne?”
The boy shook his head. His bottom lip quivered. “No, Mrs. Kate.”
“Where is he?”
Joshua stared at the rock art. He shrugged his narrow shoulders.
Sheriff Gentry, not catching the boy’s mood, said, “These ancient people, they’re Ute Indians?”
Joshua turned away from the rock. A smile found his face again. “No. Much older. As old as the wind, my friend says. As old as the sky. As the stars.”
J.D. said, “Does that mean you don’t know how old?”
Joshua giggled.
Kate raised her eyebrows. J.D. knew she wanted to keep after Joshua about his uncle, but he shook his head. Kate grimaced, but kept her tongue.
A black bird circled in the sky above. It foiled upwards on the warm air. A lizard darted across the rock. Its flint colored skin a shadow.
Silence settled on the small group.
Finally, Kate said, “I feel like I’m trespassing.”
The lawman, his eyes on Joshua, said, “A special place, I think. You should be proud of it.”
The boy lifted his gaze from the ground and smiled shyly.
“We better keep moving if we want to reach Wiley’s place before dark,” J.D. said.
Kate led the group back to their horses. She pulled a drum canteen from her saddle and offered it to Joshua and Gentry. They both took a pull before Kate gave her horse several cupped handfuls and replaced the cap and reattached it to her saddle.
J.D. said, “None for me?”
Kate grinned; a little devil in it. “I didn’t think you needed any since you didn’t get off your ass.”
J.D. glared, a smile in his eyes, and pulled his own canteen from its pouch. He took a steady pull, then smacked his lips. “Mine’s better anyway.” Then to Joshua, “How far to the, what was it? Ames’ Star?”
“Ames-Moon Stagecoach Inn, J.D.,” Kate said.
“One hour, Mr. J.D.”
“I’m not a ‘mister,’ Joshua, just call me J.D.”
Kate said, “A few other names come to mind, but we save those for when he’s out of ear-shot.”
J.D. grunted. He dismounted his horse and gave it water. “You all ready?”
With Joshua in the lead the quartet moved farther into the canyon. Its floor continued to narrow and its walls grew taller, blocking the sun. The trail cast in shadow. There were several rock falls—splintered sandstone spires—crumbled on the narrow canyon floor.
* * *
Three men rode above, slashing across the plateau’s surface. Dust rising in their wake, sparkled white in the late-morning sun. The horses frothy with exertion as they made their way to the small outpost midway between Unity and the Ute Reservation. The man named Sullivan in the lead, Frank steady on his heels and the third man, a stranger, riding a large roan at the rear. The natural sounds drowned by thundering hooves, snorting, overworked horses, the squeak of leather.
CHAPTER 15
Joshua stopped a few yards from where the trail narrowed to a small opening, a steep canyon wall on one side, a red rock spire on the other. Kate urged her horse forward at a slow walk. Her eyes and ears alert for any unusual sounds. She pulled up next to Joshua and said, “Where are we?”
Joshua pointed to the narrow passage. “It’s through there, Mrs. Kate.”
J.D. and Gentry left their horses in the trail and approached Kate and Joshua on foot. J.D.’s spurs jangled in the afternoon’s stillness, Gentry’s denim trousers whisked with each step.
“Well?” J.D. said.
Kate swiveled from her saddle. She pulled her well-trained horse to the trail’s edge and left it ground-tied before walking back to where the men had gathered. “Joshua says the Ames-Moon is down slope from here. I’m going to reconnoiter”—Kate smiled as J.D. raised an eyebrow—“It means, ‘look around,’ J.D.”
“I know what it means, but I had hoped to save it for some dark moment when I needed to impress you.”
Gentry looked from J.D. to Kate and back again. “You two are plain odd.”
“J.D. is an odd duck, Sheriff, but a good bird nonetheless.”
Joshua joined the group.
J.D. looked at the boy, tousled his hair with his big right hand. “Gentry said, ‘you two’; as in both of us, Kate. Me and you.”
Kate placed her hand on J.D.’s shoulder. “I heard, but chose to interpret its exact meaning.”
Gentry shook his head, chuckling. “You two need time to figure this out?”
A glimmer shone in J.D.’s eyes, he opened his mouth to speak, but Kate beat him. “Don’t say what you’re thinking, J.D.”
The boy laughed, hands on his belly, until tears started streaming down his face.
“You think this is pretty funny, do you?”
Joshua straightened. “Yes, ma’am. You and J.D. are exactly like the books make you out to be.”
Kate gave J.D. a headshake and a stern look, knowing his low opinion of the unauthorized yellow-back Blaze! tales sold across the country and purporting to be based on factual happenings.
J.D. scratched his three-day beard and winked at Kate. “You know, Joshua. You shouldn’t believe anything you read. That goes double for anything with an exclamation point in its title.”
Joshua’s eyes narrowed with bewilderment, then widened with a pleased understanding. “Like Blaze!?”
“Exactly.”
Kate shook her head, smiling. “If we’re done with the horse play, I have a proposal. I’m going to peek past that narrow passage. I want you three to stay here. If you hear any trouble I expect a hasty rescue. Do you think you can do that?”
Joshua said, “Yes, Mrs. Kate.”
The two men nodded.
* * *
Kate moved through the narrow entrance. The cliff walls tailed away to reveal a sun soaked valley surrounded on one side by varnished sandstone and on the other by broken white stone and dirt rising to a tabletop plateau. The change from varnished red to pale white stunned Kate’s senses. She blinked at the brightness, brought her hands over her eyes.
Kate studied the valley floor. The landscape bland and dry. An empty wash with its jagged bank rising above a seemingly flat bottom, curled along the far canyon wall. Three small rectangular stone buildings crowded to the sandstone on the valley’s left side. The trail widened around the buildings before narrowing again and continuing its march northward.
A corral against the varnished sandstone held five dusky red horses. A wide and low stone barn at one end. A bunkhouse at the other. At the front, forming a misshapen triangle with the other buildings, sat a large two-story house, glass windows, a porch running along its wide
face.
The small enclave of buildings appeared deserted. Nothing moved in the yard or the surrounding valley.
“Looks quiet as the grave.”
Kate jumped, startled by J.D.’s voice.
“Damn you, J.D. Blaze! You scared me half to death.”
J.D. rubbed Kate’s back with his palm, which she took as an apology. “We sure anybody’s here?”
“I’m not sure of anything, but there are horses in the corral.” Kate’s eyes taking in the plateau’s baked white rim on the valley’s western edge. “It is mighty quiet.”
“Let’s find out.” J.D. whistled and Gentry appeared, trailed by his and J.D.’s horses. Joshua followed with his paint and Kate’s horse.
Kate said, “We going to ride straight in?”
“Yeah, but be watchful since I have a bad feeling about this place.”
“Me too,” Kate said.
J.D. led the small group into the valley. Kate dropped back to the rear as protection against an ambush, Gentry and Joshua at the center. The clop of hooves. Dust rising with each step, a rattling snake’s tail in the distance, the quartet’s only accompaniment.
But everything changed when Kate saw lightning flash, dirt geyser close to J.D.’s horse. Thunder hammered across the valley. The scene moved in slow motion; the horse reared back with fright, J.D. lost the saddle and seemed to hang in the air for minutes before slamming to the ground with a thud.
The world came back to speed and chaos erupted.
CHAPTER 16
J.D. twisted in the air to his left as his horse bucked. His intention was to clear the terrified animal and land on his feet, but J.D. misjudged the distance to the ground, over-rotated and took the impact on his left hip and lower back. His head snapped and bounced with a meaty thud on the hard ground. Stars exploded in his vision, faded in a narrowing black circle. He opened and closed his eyes trying to will away unconsciousness, his jaw worked itself wide, refused to close.
J.D. tried to breathe, but his lungs refused air. He gasped. His head throbbed. His thoughts confused and jumbled. He knew a shot had been fired, but not from where. The shooter could be a few feet or yards away. J.D. pushed himself up on an elbow. The fine dust burrowing into his mouth. He forced himself to relax and worked his lungs with wheezy, ragged breaths.
He rose to his feet and pulled the large bore Colt from its cross-draw rig. The white velvety dust stunted his vision, made his eyes water. A helplessness settled on him; fear rising with raised voices, shouts, horses rushing across flat ground. A harsh buzz in his ears. His eyes saw only white trimmed in ragged black, throbbing in and out with each heartbeat.
J.D. moved on liquid legs. His knees wobbled, head pounding. The world swirled around him. The .44 at arm’s length. Its barrel unsteady, J.D.’s finger pressed tight against the trigger guard as he looked for a target.
Chaos erupted around him as his head began to clear. Indecipherable shouts. The crack and boom of gunshots. J.D. moved forward, still blinded by dust and pain. He stopped with every step to keep from falling. The fog-like dust began to settle and drift back to the ground. J.D.’s horse a ghost as it galloped across the valley toward the ranch house and corral. Gentry, standing next to his horse, a long gun across its saddle aimed high on the plateau, fired, levered another round into the chamber and fired again.
A hand roughly grabbed J.D.’s elbow and pulled. He jerked away and swung around with his Colt extended, finger on the trigger.
“It’s me!” Kate lurched backwards, her hands raised in the air.
J.D. dropped his gun hand to his side. “I nearly killed you, Kate.”
Kate stepped close to J.D. and cupped her hand over his ear. “We need to get over there.” She pointed toward jumbled white sedimentary slabs fifty feet down trail.
J.D. stood still, trying to keep his feet on the swirling ground.
Kate stepped past him. She pulled the Winchester to her shoulder, aimed, and fired another shot toward the plateau. When she turned back, concern in her eyes, she said, “You okay, J.D.?”
J.D. shook his head and pain blistered his skull. He stumbled and fell to a knee before Kate grabbed his arm. She steadied him then slapped his face.
“You’re not leaving me, J.D. Not now. We need to get into those rocks and I can’t carry you.”
J.D. blinked.
He looked at the Colt in his hand and shakily replaced it in the holster.
“Help me up.”
Kate retrieved her Winchester from where she had dropped it, placed a shoulder inside J.D.’s arm and lifted. The two staggered, but kept their feet. A dirt geyser jumped a few feet away from a bullet’s impact.
“We need to hurry,” Kate said. Then she shouted to Gentry over her shoulder, “Cover us!”
Gentry’s response was an ear-splitting rifle shot.
Another geyser erupted from solid ground no more than a yard away. Then another.
Kate twisted back and triggered her rifle at the plateau. She levered a fresh round with one hand while helping J.D. walk with the other.
J.D.’s head cleared with each step. His legs strengthened. The pain still alive, but the shock and darkness ebbing.
J.D. pushed Kate away. “I can make it.”
Kate looked at his eyes. A scowl on her face as she studied her husband. She nodded after a moment and released J.D.
She moved a few steps away and dropped a knee in the dirt. Kate pulled the rifle to her shoulder and fired. She worked the lever, the spent casing flipped upwards and away, its brass flashing sunlight. A fresh round slammed into the chamber.
Kate sighted down the barrel and fired again.
J.D. dropped behind a boulder. His back against its warm surface, his butt on the ground. He pulled the .44 from his cross-draw rig, twisted so he could see Kate.
“Your turn!”
Kate shot again. She levered her rifle.
“Gentry!” Kate shouted.
The lawman, lying prone behind his now dead horse, pounded bullets toward the shooter. He waved his hand at Kate without looking back and fired another shot, then racked a fresh round into his rifle.
Kate ran toward the rock field. Her knees bent. A flash appeared from a vertical shadow near the plateau’s ridgeline. Dirt splashed a few feet behind Kate, the explosive report echoed across the valley.
J.D. aimed and fired his Colt. He thumbed back the hammer and fired again. The long shot made J.D. wish for his rifle still attached to his saddle. Another flame popped from the dark shadow, a whine sizzled past J.D.’s head, sparked rock several feet behind him.
J.D. threw another round at the shooter.
Kate moved into the rocks in a hurry. She tumbled between two slabs and using the rock as support for her Winchester smashed more lead into the plateau.
J.D. said, “Where’s Joshua?”
Kate pointed across the valley to the plateau’s base where the boy was lying flat, his face a few inches from the ground as he examined his surroundings.
“Is he hurt?”
“No!”
A bullet whistled past. J.D. and Kate instinctively ducked below the rocks.
Kate’s flat-brimmed hat lopsided on her head, face slick with sweat, eyes squinting against the desert light.
“He’s serious.”
“There are at least two shooters.” Kate lifted her head high enough to see over the rocks and pulled her Colt from its leather and fired in a single smooth motion.
“How do you know?”
“One man would need to reload sometime, but these bastards have their timing down.” She fired another hopeless shot with her Colt. “We need to get Gentry over here.”
J.D. crawled to the boulder field’s edge and crouched below a long flat stone, cupped his hands around his mouth, “Gentry!”
The lawman fired another round and levered a fresh load. He turned his head to J.D.
J.D. motioned Gentry over with his right arm.
Gentry hollered a war cry, or cursed.
J.D. couldn’t decipher exactly what.
Kate returned to her long rifle. She fired as quickly as she could pull the trigger and rack fresh lead.
The lawman pulled down tight to the ground before pushing up from behind his dead horse. His legs moved like steam pistons. His rifle held low in his right hand.
J.D. and Kate fired at the shadow darkened cliff hiding the sniper.
A cry of wounded animal pain caught J.D.’s attention. Gentry tumbled forward. A red halo shimmered in the afternoon light.
Kate rose from her cover and started toward the Sheriff. Another bullet slammed into the ground next to the lawman, dirt cascaded over his prostrate form.
J.D. shouted, “Kate, no!”
CHAPTER 17
Kate jumped onto the boulder’s flat surface. Her boots slippery on the smooth stone. The bootheels clacking as she ran to the fallen lawman. She switched the Winchester from her right hand to the left, palming the fore stock with a tight grip and drew the Colt from its leather and fired off two rounds before it clacked on a spent shell. She re-holstered the Colt as she moved from the boulder field and across the ten feet separating her and Gentry.
Dirt exploded so close Kate felt it against her arm and face. She dropped into a slide a few feet from the wounded man. She spun tightly so her feet swung wide and her upper body matched up with Gentry’s. The lawman perfectly still, his face in the dirt, pooling blood beneath his right shoulder.
Kate feared him dead.
She placed a finger against the artery in his neck and felt the reassuring pulse of life. She rolled onto her side, towards J.D. where he was firing his Colt at their hidden sniper, shouted his name. When he looked she hefted her rifle in the air and motioned her intent to throw it to him.
J.D. nodded, shouted something stolen from Kate’s ears by the echoing booms.
Kate worked her rifle’s lever, ejected the live round, pushed the incoming shell down and closed the rifle’s action on an empty chamber. She palmed the barrel in her right hand, used her left as a guide and tossed it underhanded. The rifle landed a few feet from J.D.