"Go ahead," he yelled. "Slug me, you stiff-backed bitch. We've found it. We've found the gold!"
He let her down, but still held her. He would have danced, if she'd shown the least sign of cooperation. She pushed him away. ' ' ^■'
"Where?"
"Not half a mile away," he said, pointing. He started to throw the rifle down, then thought bet'ter of it. The safety was still on, and sometimes those things went off. He laid it carefully against one of the packs.
"I must have been by it a hundred times," he said. "I'd forgotten what it looked like, I guess."
"You saw it?" She seemed to be taking it calmly enough, but there was a little light in her eyes; he knew she was excited.
"Not the canyon," he said. "There's a high rock
wall, with a door in it. The canyon's beyond. The way I found it..."
He didn't want to take the fun out of it, not for her, not for himself, but there was no help for it. "There's someone up there. Somebody led off one of the horses last night. Probably some Apache who's been driven out of his band. I'll be able to take care of him all right."
She started to gather up the packs, but he stopped her. "No, we'll just take the saddle horses. Those pack horses will make too much noise. We'll come back for them later." He paused and looked at her, wondering what she was thinking about. Gold? Him? Nothing at all?
"This has been hell," he said. "There'll be some more of it, before it's over. But maybe when it is..." She'd been listening attentively. Now she looked away, and he was glad he hadn't finished. He drank a cup of coffee. Then he went out to bring in the saddle horses.
The going was easier in the light. There were even places where ihe cOijld see scrapes that the pack horse's shoes had left on the rocks. But when they hit the sage flat theiv wer. no tracks at all, and he had to get down to figure out why. The Apache had brushed them out. That meant he wasn't aware he was being followed, or he wouldn't have taken the time.
They cut straight across the flat toward the rock wall, and they were almost up against it before they saw the opening. It was behind a boulder that from a distance looked like only another solid outcropping. Once through the door they had to get down almost immediately and lead the horses. The walls pinched in on them and there was just enough room for the horses to pass through, the stirrups scraping against the sides.
Then the walls opened up, and the trail turned and dropped sharply, and they could see the canyon. The Place in the Rocks.
It was mostly as Logan had remembered it. There was a green meadow with water running through it and disappearing somewhere below. There was a stand of pine timber reaching down from the back end, where Old Pablo had shown up with his warriors. There were several clusters of creek willows. There was a sluice box. And a cabin.
A few things had changed. There had been bodies lying in the canyon when Logan had last seen it; now there were bones, clean and white in the sunshine. There were miner's tools scattered around the rocks ... a pan, a shovel, various picks... as if no one cared about them. And the cabin had been burned, though it was still standing, and it had a pack horse tied up outside.
"You stay here with the horses," Logan said. He slipped the Winchester out of the saddle scabbard, then handed her the gelding's reins. She took them, but held them limply; she was staring down at the canyon, her face drawn and pale. He followed her glance. Someone had come out of the cabin and was looking up at them. He wasn't an Apache. He was a white man. Or he had been once ... a long time ago.
She let out a scream that went bounding up the canyon, bouncing from wall to wall, and finally dying out gradually like the wail of a coyote. The man crouched lower and stared up at her. She started to scream again and Logan took her by the shoulders and shook her violently.
"What's the matter?" he shouted at her. "Get ahold of yourself. It's nothing to..."
"It's Jeffrey."
It came out as a half-sob, and he wasn't sure at first that he'd heard her correctly. But he let go of her and looked down at the man again. He'd moved. He was on his hands and knees and crawling back toward the cabin.
Jeffrey?It didn't seem possible. He was dead, for one thing. Or had Old Pablo been mistaken? Perhaps the old bastard had never learned to count. Stranger things had happened. Stranger things were happening...
Angela was leaning against him, her face buried in his shirt. She wasn't crying any longer, just hiding her eyes... as though what she didn't see she didn't have to believe. He tried to soothe her.
"It's all right," he said. "He's alive, you've got that much to be thankful for."
She turned her head slowly, unable to resist looking at the man in the canyon. She caught her breath and stared, horrified. "But why is he crawling? Why?"
"I" don't know," Lx)gan said, though he had an idea. Jeffrey must have been in that canyon all the time. A
month now. A man could live like an animal only so long
The man had crawled inside the ruins of the cabin. Logan gently pushed Angela away. "Stay here," he said. "I'll find out...."
But she clung to his arm. "No, Logan. Let me come. I'm afraid to stay here alone."
He relented; he couldn't blame her for being frightened. Not that there was anything to be frightened about, now that they knew the man was Jeffrey. Still, he kept fiddling with the gun... loosening it in the holster, and loosening it again ... all the way down the zigzag trail into the canyon.
The pack horse recognized them and nickered, and that seemed to be the only sound. But when they got nearer to the cabin they could hear the man inside. He was talking to himself, and for awhile they stood trying to listen. No words were distinguishable. There was just a dry, steady drone, with now and then a high cackle thrown in. Logan freed his arm from Angela's grip, drew the Colt and stepped into the doorway.
The cabin was mostly in shadow, with a few streaks of light coming in through the buckled walls. The man was in one of the streaks of light and there was no question now who he was: Jeffrey. He was still on his hands and knees, but he turned his face toward Logan, and the face was familiar. Except that it seemed smaller now... the nose pinched, the eyes narrower, the mouth tigthter... as though some giant fist had squeezed it in. Logan thought he saw a flicker of recognition cross it. Then Jeffrey drew a knife and got up in the crouch that he had used when he first saw them.
"Jeffrey," Angela said. She had come up behind Logan and was trying to crowd past him into the cabin. "Jeffrey, it's me. Angela."
Logan stopped her. "Don't go near him." "Why not?"
"I'm not sure," he said. "But that knife's reason enough.^'
Jeffrey held the knife far out in front of him. He reached back of him, feeling around in the rocks of the fireplace, and lifted a canvas sack. Beyond him Logan could see the tilted hearthstone. He thumbed the hammer of the Colt and waited for Jeffrey's reaction. There was none. He didn't even seem to see the gun, or care about it. He came toward Logan, knife outthrust, and Logan had to back out of the doorway.
"Why, he's crazy," Angela said. She was clinging to his arm again, and he felt her start to sag. He held her up.
"Jeffrey," he said. "Listen to me, Jeffrey. Don't worry about that gold. Not now. We're here to help you with it...."
There was no response. Jeffrey had dropped the sack near the pack horse. He started to back into the cabin, his eyes darting continuously between the sack and Logan.
"Can't you do something?" Angela said. "Do what?" Logan said. "Shoot him? I can try to jump him, maybe..."
Jeffrey stopped. He smiled, and the knife glistened in the early sunlight.
"I heard you," he said. "You think I'm crazy. You think you can jump me. Well, I wouldn't try it. No sir, heh, heh, heh. I know you Apaches, sneaking
around in the rocks "
He was crazy, all right. And somehow they'd assumed he was deaf and dumb besides. The sound of his voice surprised them. It took Logan a minute to figure out what to say next.
"We're not Apaches, Jeffrey," he
said. "It's Logan and Angela. We've come to help you."
The face shut down again, went blank and uncomprehending, Jeffrey backed through the doorway and disappeared.
"Keep talking," Logan whispered. "Say anything." He gripped the Colt by the barrel and moved to the side of the door. Jeffrey would be coming back out in a minute, head first, in that half-animal crouch of his. One sharp, clean blow was all it would take.
Angela stood rooted and silent. Logan motioned to her frantically. Finally she found her voice, without finding anything particular to say.
"Jeffrey, it's me. Angela. Angela and Logan. Jeffrey?
We've come to help you You need help, Jeffrey
We've come a long ways To help you, Jeffrey
She went babbling on senselessly and Logan tried to pick out the sounds from inside. A fallen roof timber being moved. A rock scraping against another. Then silence. He waited. Angela's voice was growing fainter and fainter; she was like a schoolgirl trying to recite before the class.
"Jeffrey?... We've come to help you We've got
food ... and water ... and ... and ... Logan, look out." It was said in the same exhausted monotone and he wouldn't have paid any attention to it... except that something pricked him in the seat of the pants. He swung around, raising the gun, and this time the knife jabbed at his stomach. Just a nick, but he could feel the blood run instantly. Jeffrey cackled. He'd found an opening in the wall and come sneaking along the side of the cabin.
"Heh, heh, heh, I know you Apaches," he chanted. "Think you can outsmart me. Heh, heh, heh."
i
He reminded Logan of a raven attacking a wounded deer. One moment pecking away, the next moment stepping back and looking as though such actions were far beneath it, then viciously pecking again. He started to circle Logan, started to take his sack of gold to the pack horse, changed his mind. He jabbed, and Logan tried to dodge and look for an opening at the same time. The night cold still lay in the canyon, but he was sweating. And angry. The knife slashed his arm, and he shifted his grip to the handle of the Colt.
"I'll kill the son of a bitch," he said, and cocked the gun.
What was to stop him? Jeffrey was his brother, but it was purely a technical relationship now. He wasn't the same man; he was hardly a man at all. More an animal, and you killed crippled animals, for the sake of mercy.
He couldn't quite bring himself to pull the trigger. The face leered up at him, crazed and animal-like, but it was still Jeffrey's face. No amount of gold, greed, fear could change it. Not entirely.
Jeffrey back away. He dropped the sack with the other one, circled Logan and slipped into the cabin again. This time Logan didn't try anything. He bolstered the gun and went over to stand with Angela. She looked worn and haggard and lifeless. She watched blankly as Jeffrey stalked back and forth between the cabin and the growing pile of gold sacks.
The sun climbed a little higher. Birds started to sing in the willows. A raven flapped across the -sky cawing hoarsely. The pack horse pivoted on its lead rope and tried to get at a sparse stand of grass. It was a peaceful scene: the birds, the horse, the man working quietly and patiently. Peaceful... and unreal. Jeffrey brought it back to life.
He had finished packing the horse; the sacks of dust and nuggets hung down on both sides, an even dozen. He looked up at the sun, then at Logan and Angela. The sun had seemed to remind him of something. He was still crouched, still holding the knife.
"You thought you'd catch me," he said, smiling. *'You figured sooner or later I'd have to come out in the light, and then you'd catch me."
"We didn't try to catch you," Logan said. It seemed senseless to keep on arguing with him, but no harm could come of it. "We came to help."
"Help?" he said. "Help?" For a moment there seemed to be a spark of understanding, but it blew out instantly; the look of cunning came over his face again.
"You can't fool me. I know you Apaches. Liars, that's what you are. You'd just like to get your hands on me, wouldn't you? You'd like to punish me, on account of what I did to that squaw. Well, you won't. You won't get my gold, either. You can't have it. It's mine. I worked hard for it, all these weeks. Worked and planned and ..."
Angela gasped, and he broke off. He looked at her, but sightlessly, like a blind man, the knife thrust out in front of him like a cane. Then he untied the pack horse and moved off. He seemed to have forgotten all about them; once he was under way, he never even glanced back.
Angela stared anxiously after him. "What did he mean, Logan, by 'planned'?"
"I'm not sure," he said, though he thought he knew. Jeffrey was crazy, but he hadn't always been. The massacre had been no accident. Neither had the rape of the squaw been a case of loneliness and high blood. Partly, maybe. But there'd been some thought be'.ind it; more thought than he had ever considered Jeffrey
capable of. Ramsey Moon was right; it wasn't some high-flown vagueness after all: "You never know what to expect, when gold's involved."
"It doesn't matter anyway," Logan said. "Not now. What matters are those horses."
"I don't understand."
Logan took out the Colt. There was a pine tree at the corner of the cabin. He walked to it, leaned his left arm against it and laid his gun hand across the wrist. Jeffrey had turned onto the trail and gone out of sight behind the rocks. But the rocks opened up again, up where the saddle horses were standing. Logan took aim just behind them.
"I forgot about those horses," he said. "There were other things on my mind. Now there aren't. If he so much as touches those horses, I'll kill him."
"You can't. He's sick. Logan, I won't let you."
"You can't stop me," Logan said; he began to take up the slack in the trigger. "And I wouldn't try. You've done enough. Most of it you couldn't be blamed for, but you could be blamed for this. He's sick, all right. And he needs help. But we won't be able to help. Not if he takes those horses. We'll be dead."
She didn't say anything more, and he was grateful. It would be a long shot with a six-shooter, longer than he had ever tried before. It would be just as easy to hit a horse as it would be to hit Jeffrey. Easier. The barrel of the Colt began to sag and he relaxed his grip for a moment. Jeffrey appeared on the open trail, and he raised the gun again. Jeffrey stopped. He came into the sights, drifted out again, came back, drifted out. He was looking at the horses, or seemed to be at first. But he was really looking beyond them, at the sun. The sun bothered him. He shaded his eyes against it and crouched down as though he could sneak away
from it. He disappeared into the shadows of the rocks without appearing to have noticed the horses at all.
Logan lowered the Colt and saw that his hand was shaking. He put the gun away and tried to roll a cigarette, but finally had to give it up. Angela had slumped down on a rock. He went over and sat beside her.
"We'll rest for awhile," he said. "Then we'll follow him. It's all we can do. Just keep him in sight and hope that sooner or later we get a chance to surprise him."
She nodded her head, but vaguely; it was obvious she hadn't been listening to what he'd been saying. "You could have killed him," she said. "You had every reason."
"It was close," he said. "I waited till the last minute. I'm glad I did."
"Are you?" she said. "I mean, are you really? Because I'm not sure that I am."
It took him by surprise, but he gave her no sign of it. His hands had steadied now. He took out makings and began a cigarette, and she turned her head to watch him, her chin cupped in her hands.
"You're not surprised?"
"No," he lied.
"I am," she said. "I'm surprised about a lot of things ... about myself."
"It's the country," he said. "It does things to people."
"No, it's not the country. It's not gold, either, though that's what you thought. When I heard that story about you from Old Pablo, I wanted to believe it and I did. I believed all the worst about you. Do you know why?"
"No."
"I had to," she said.
"If that story were true, then you were worse than me. Not much, maybe, but enough. This isn't the first time I've wished Jeffrey
was dead. I've wished it before. That night you lay with your head against my ... when you lay against me and told me Jeffrey wasn't coming back, I was glad then. Not that I admitted it. I couldn't; it would have been as though I had killed him myself. And then it turned out that you had killed him... it seemed as if you did... and that made it better. For awhile, anyway."
"And now?" he said. He held the unfinished cigarette in his two hands, not going any farther with it. A faint breeze moved through the canyon and stirred the dry tobacco flakes.
"Nothing's changed," Angela said. The tension had gone out of her voice; it was calm, almost lifeless. "Everything's changed, really, but it won't make any difference. I just wanted you to know how I felt, that I was sorry, that..." She paused and brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. "That I love you."
The breeze had blown all the tobacco out of the paper. He let the breeze take the paper too and turned to her, holding her in his arms. She tilted her head up to him. Then:
"No, Logan. I said nothing had changed. Can't you see that?"
He could still kiss her, he could see that much. She wouldn't resist. But her face was just as calm, patient, lifeless as her voice had been. He let go of her.
"Hell, I don't see anything," he said. "If you think I'm going through a few more years of this ..."
"Don't be angry, Logan," she said, dropping her chin in her hands again and gazing thoughtfully at the stream running by them. "It's nothing I can help. I wish I could. I should have done something before, a long time before we thought Jeffrey was dead. But he needed me, and I couldn't bring myself to leave him.
Secret of the Malpais Page 8
