Sweet Autumn Surrender

by Vivian Vaughan

  The thought of living without Kale now that she had known and loved him brought tears to her eyes over and over again. The idea that this vital, caring man might well be dead, like his brother before him, at the hands of a madman who hunted some elusive treasure enraged her.

  Fear and anger combined to create an almost unbearable combination of doom and urgency within her. Never had she felt so alone in her life. Never had she found herself in such desperate straits with no one on whom she could depend.

  Her life lay in her own hands, and she must not give up hope. Perhaps Kale was not dead…perhaps he had not even been abducted. In her wildest imaginings she could not see Armando Costello killing Kale Jarrett. The gambler could never have pulled off such a feat.

  That thought renewed her hope, and with hope her resolve returned. She would escape before morning. She would watch Armando’s every move and she would get away somehow.

  He couldn’t sit on that log all night. He would have to relieve himself. A madman he might be, inhuman in every aspect—except the physical. He’d have to get up at some point, and when he did she’d escape.

  She laid her plans. She wouldn’t take time to saddle her horse, rather she would carry the halter along to put on later. She would take Armando’s horse, too, leaving him afoot.

  Perhaps she could take even his rifle. Perhaps he would leave it propped against the log when he went back into the thicket to relieve himself. If so, she would take that too.

  But her chance never came. Never once did he move from his seat on the log. Not once until near dawn, when he called to her sharply to be up and on the trail, there was no time for breakfast.

  When he relieved himself, he did so in her presence, eliminating his body waste into the sputtering campfire. She had to turn her back to keep from seeing his nudity. Tears swam in her eyes.

  Tears of anguish, of frustration, of fear.

  But somewhere deep inside, a flicker of resolve remained, and through the morning, as she followed where he led—for Costello now pulled her horse by the reins—this flicker flamed into a raging firestorm.

  She would escape.

  If Armando had killed Benjamin and Kale, she would see he paid for the crimes.

  The image of his razor-sharp Bowie knife fixed itself in her mind. Perhaps she would even do the deed herself.

  Kale pushed his hat back on his head and ran a sleeve across his forehead. Sweat stung not only his eyes but every prickly pear wound in his body. His head throbbed and his left arm was getting stiff. After two hours of stumbling over boulders and fallen slabs of limestone, he had come to the fork in the canyon.

  Directly ahead rose the sheer limestone cliff, a hundred feet straight up. Cottonwood trees grew close to the cliff and towered upward to its height. The silvery green leaves of the wild mustang grapevines matted the trees, calling to mind his and Ellie’s visit to this spot.

  He had teased her about expecting him to climb that cottonwood to pick grapes for her jelly. Her laughter echoed through his brain.

  He dismounted to drink and water the bay at the spring, and even those simple activities reminded him of Ellie. But the icy-cold water cleared his mind, and after drinking he filled his hat and poured water over his head. The cold water relieved his headache somewhat, an ache which had intensified with the tedious climb up the canyon. He would be playing old Billy hell for sure, if he came upon Costello with anything but a clear head and a loaded gun.

  Despondently Kale thought for the hundredth time about Ellie’s fear of violence and a desperate need for haste spread through him.

  Costello’s tracks were everywhere, as were Ellie’s. No attempt had been made to conceal their movements, or so it seemed. Was Costello so sure he was alone? If so, the danger to Ellie was magnified tenfold. With no fear of being followed, Costello could kill her anytime he chose.

  Kale studied the cliff carefully. An old game trail led down to the spring. If he could manage to climb the hill, perhaps he could spot them. Then he might be able to circle around and meet them at the mouth of the canyon.

  The bay could do with a rest, anyhow. Quickly he stripped the saddle from his horse and rubbed its back with a few handfuls of summer-dried grass which sprouted around the cottonwoods. Then he staked the animal in the shade.

  Taking his field glasses and rifle and slinging a coiled rope over his shoulder, he lit out up the trail. He figured it must have been made by mountain goats, but somehow he managed to keep his footing.

  Fifteen minutes later the icy spring below was but a memory. Sweat again trickled down his face and smarted in his eyes and in the wound on his head.

  Slightly below the crest, a slab of limestone lay where it had fallen from the face of the cliff years before, scotched in its journey down the hillside by a couple of close-growing cedar bushes. A large agave plant grew from a crack in the slab.

  Kale slid down behind this rock, his tan clothing blending into the landscape. He settled an elbow on top of the slab to steady his field glasses.

  The hillsides were aglow with green, yellow, and gold as the afternoon sun glanced off the tops of trees clothed in autumn finery.

  Silence filled the air. Heat waves danced with an intoxicating rhythm from the mass of jumbled boulders in the canyon below. The sun touching his shoulders contributed to a lazy feeling. What he really needed right now was to stretch out in the shade of the boulder and take a good, old-fashioned siesta.

  Instead he began a systematic search of the country ahead of him. His field of vision was not nearly so good as he’d hoped. The draw up which Costello disappeared wound around far below. A couple of miles from the spring it curved back to the left and possibly connected with the other arm of the canyon behind this very hill where he sat.

  He rose and started for the top in order to get a better view. He had no intention of climbing down the other side and leaving his horse over here unless he was pretty sure of intercepting Costello and Ellie.

  At his first step bullets ripped through the agave plant, ricocheted off the boulder, and sent pieces of limestone flying in all directions.

  Kale dropped behind the boulder an instant before the report of rifle fire shattered the stillness in the canyon.

  Another second passed before Kale realized the shots had come from across the draw to his right. Someone was shooting at him from behind, not from the trail ahead.

  Had Costello circled the hill and doubled back? Kale decided that was unlikely, because he was sure he heard the reports of at least two separate guns, possibly three. But if not Costello, who?

  Touching the wound on his head, he thought of the gambler’s killers. Had they learned that he lived through their attack and followed him to finish the job? If Costello paid them to kill him, as he was sure to have done, then their own lives would be worthless if they failed.

  Kale crawled further under cover and assessed his position. From this pinnacle no one could get to him without making an awful lot of racket, and there was no place except directly overhead from which a man could fire into his hiding place. If he stuck his head up, though, he would be as good as a turkey at a turkey shoot for any rifleman sitting on that opposite hill.

  Working his way behind the branches of the cedar bushes, he eased himself up enough to scan the opposite hillside with his field glasses. Nothing moved, but several places within rifle range offered good cover.

  Kale considered the situation and found himself literally between a rock and a hard place. His horse was undercover directly below, but he would be twice the fool not to expect them to have his campsite covered. If he could come in from behind and get his horse, he might have a chance of escaping, but at present, the only way down appeared to be the way he came up—in full view of the riflemen across the way.

  He could wait until dark, which was still a couple of hours off, but it was unlikely that anyone who had tracked him this far would give him a chance to escape, come nightfall.

  Burrowing himself further into the ce
dar, he tried to visualize the layout of the hill as he had scanned it from below. The sun was dropping behind him to his right, which put him on the north side of the bluff. The trail he had taken wound from east to north, so these cedars must be on the brink of that sheer cliff he had approached below.

  Edging a bit closer to make sure he wasn’t turning his back on an easy trail to safety, he was left with no doubts. A rock gave way beneath his hands and plunged to the ground. He fell forward, his head and forearms draped over the precipice.

  Bullets hit all around, pelting his face with fragments of rock. He quickly pulled himself back to his refuge behind the boulder.

  It was hot, very hot for this time of year. The pungent smell of cedar, which could be pleasant enough in small wafts, stung his throat and caused his eyes to water.

  He wiped his face with his sleeve and considered how to get down off this mountain.

  Peering cautiously around the boulder, he studied the trail, his umbilical cord, his lifeline. Devoid of obstructions, it slanted straight down for about fifty feet, then turned at a sharp right angle around the opposite side of a small boulder.

  Could he make it to that boulder? The trail was steep, mostly rocks. He was amazed he had made it up. Going down would stir up a ruckus a blind man couldn’t miss. But did he have a choice?

  Not with Ellie in trouble and needing him, he didn’t. He had no choice except to find a way down from this mountain, and in one piece. He would do her no good shot up like one of Buffalo Bill’s clay pigeons.

  A diversion…that’s what he needed. If he could fool them—somehow make them think he was going down the opposite side of the cliff, perhaps…

  Quickly he began cutting branches off the cedar bushes. They scratched his hands and arms even through his shirt sleeves, and the vapor started his nose to itching.

  When he had a good-sized pile of branches, he took off his belt and tied them together around the middle. Then he threaded his rope through the bundle, tied one end of the rope to the tree trunk, and threw the free end over the side of the cliff, giving it an extra jiggle to be sure it could be seen from the opposite hill. After a moment he jiggled the rope again, then checked the trail behind him one last time.

  Very carefully he slid the bundle to the edge of the precipice. He had tightened the belt enough that the bundle should slide slowly down the length of dangling rope.

  At least, that was what he banked on. He had no illusions that a bundle of cedar branches belted around the middle would resemble a man except from a distance, but since this side of the cliff was already in shadow, it might fool them momentarily.

  After all, they were looking for him to try to escape, and a man often could be tricked into believing something he wanted to believe. All Kale needed was enough time to get to that boulder…fifty feet.

  Slinging the rifle across his back, he tightened the belt and gave the bundle a shove. Then he plunged around the slab and hit the trail with both heels dug into the ground to keep from tumbling headlong over the face of the cliff.

  A barrage of shots rang out, but as nothing flew apart near him, he trusted they’d taken the bait.

  Thick white dust swirled in his face, choking him with its chalky substance. He flung out his arms wildly to keep his balance but failed, and his hands hit the rocks, losing skin and stinging as dirt ground into raw flesh. He skidded the last ten feet on his rear and careened bodily into the boulder as pieces of limestone flew under another volley of bullets.

  The boulder behind which he protected himself was actually two vertical limestone outcroppings. He wiped the blood off his scraped palms with dried grass, slid his rifle into position, and took aim at the far hill.

  After a few minutes a bullet hit the hill above his head, and Kale shot at a fiery Spanish oak. A form darted to the right, and he fired directly in front of the man, who immediately dived for cover.

  The trouble with Kale’s situation as he saw it was that the men shooting at him had the cover of a wooded hillside, while he was on a practically barren cliff, where gully-washers in the past had taken their toll of vegetation and topsoil.

  Kale cursed himself for playing the tenderfoot and getting himself caught in such a situation. He had been a fool not to realize those men would come after him.

  Ellie’s life hung on his mistakes.

  He studied the trail as it curled around the right side of the outcropping and then headed straight down. There was hardly enough cover to conceal a rattler from here on down.

  To his right all was barren for fifteen to twenty feet, then there was a sheer dropoff. On the left he could see the tops of the cottonwoods growing along the base of the cliff. Somewhere under those trees his horse grazed. The creek flowed. There he could find safety, or at least the hope of safety. Here he didn’t have a rusty bucketful of hope.

  He waited. Things were quiet across the way…too quiet, he thought. Using his field glasses, he scanned the brush. At first he saw no one. Then he got a glimpse of flying black coattails.

  Before Kale could make the connection, Holt Rainey dashed from one cover to another, and Kale let loose a string of swearwords. His situation had definitely deteriorated…and with it, Ellie’s.

  Instead of facing two greenhorns, he had a trigger-crazy cowman and a couple of would-be gunfighters on his tail.

  And from the looks of things, they had him treed. They could sit back and wait for dark. But would they?

  Right now they thought they had him. But if they got to his horse and met him at the bottom of this hill, they would be sure of it, even under the cover of darkness. And Newt Boswell and the man called Saint drew wages to be sure.

  Kale took another look around. A thick foliage of grapevines covered the tops of the cottonwoods. He remembered the tart sweetness of Ellie’s jelly. The black grapes should be about gone by now, but the vines remained.

  Studying the vines through his glasses, an idea began to develop in his mind. The stalks, three or four inches in diameter, appeared firmly attached to the trees. The leaves were large and dense—dense enough to provide cover all the way to the canyon floor.

  As he stared at the silver canopy, he recalled swinging on grapevines back home in Tennessee. Could he make it? It would be a move they wouldn’t expect, so it might work.

  It must work, he corrected. Without another thought, he shouldered his rifle bandoleer style and moved out.

  One step. Two steps. Four.

  Dashing across the hillside, he fixed his eyes on the center of the mass of foliage. He leaped. Shots rang out. One leg took a sudden impact then went numb, a development he refused to consider just then.

  He landed in the midst of vines and limbs, grabbing wildly as he fell, branches catching him here and there. The thick vines strained and sagged under the weight of his body. The few remaining grapes crushed beneath his raw hands, shooting his flesh with searing pain.

  The vines gave way; his shoulders landed on a large limb. Rolling over, he caught hold and worked his way hand over hand until he could drop to the ground.

  The bay lifted his head when Kale threw on the saddle and tightened the cinch. He had taken a bullet in the leg, but there was no time to tend it. He tore a strip from his shirttail and stuffed it into the wound until he could get to a place of safety.

  For the next hour he rode among the shadows close to the base of the cliff, keeping limestone boulders between himself and the open canyon where possible.

  Night was fast approaching now, and he began to look for a place which would afford a measure of protection and give him a chance to see to his wound.

  The bay sensed the rock shelter even before Kale saw it. The entrance was partially obstructed by a small but bushy mesquite tree.

  Quickly stripping the bay, he staked him inside the opening of the shelter, where he could feed on mesquite leaves and beans, and where he would warn of visitors.

  Then Kale built a small fire and set about tending his wound. He bathed it with hot water
and made a poultice using drops of gum he was able to pry from the trunk of the mesquite. He also applied the gum to his palms, feeling immediate relief, and to the gunshot wound on his head.

  Before putting out his fire he made some extra slashes around the trunk of the tree. With luck, come morning he would find more teardrops of mesquite gum to dress his wounds. He put out his fire then, not wishing to draw his attackers to him before he was ready.

  But when would that be? Tomorrow? His hands wouldn’t heal by tomorrow. And his leg would be stiff. But ready or not, tomorrow would be the day. Tomorrow he must find Ellie, and tomorrow he must protect her not only from that madman Costello, but from the gunfighters behind them.

  No small task…but the most important one he had ever faced.

  After leaving the spring at the foot of the cliff, Armando Costello followed the canyon’s curve to the north. The going was rough, but he knew the canyon would soon give way to rolling hills. By traveling hard, he figured they could make the painted cliffs on the banks of the Concho River before dark.

  A feeling of triumph gripped his heart; his body quivered with jubilation when he thought of the treasure that was soon to be his…his. After a lifetime of searching and deprivation…his…to luxuriate in, to squander as he pleased.

  The substance of the treasure had never taken form in Costello’s unimaginative mind. He had been too concerned with finding it and taking it for himself. Now, however, mental pictures began to dance among the heat waves in the canyon. It had to be gold. The yellow half-moon on the plat indicated that much. And the cross beside it probably meant the treasure had been buried by a man of the cloth. Costello had learned well the symbols used in marking buried treasure.

  When a sudden burst of rifle fire erupted from down the canyon, he hurried Ellie beneath some trees while he studied their back trail.

  The shots had come from the direction of the spring and sounded to be about that far away.