Dark Canyon (1963)

by L'amour, Louis

  The sun had not yet cleared the mountains behind the heavy gray clouds when they rode into Trail Canyon and began the devious ride toward the Dandy Crossing of the Colorado.

  Darby Lewis remained behind to look after the saddle stock and to continue the work around the ranch house. He did not much like being alone, for he was by nature a gregarious man, yet he preferred being alone to the ride that lay before the others. And not for a minute did Darby Lewis believe they would return with cattle.

  Coker Beaman was loafing in a saloon at Spanish Fork when Gaylord Riley found him. He walked to the bar with Cruz and ordered a drink, glancing at Beaman. The man had a bottle in front of him and there was a disgusted look on his face.

  Riley glanced at him again. "You look like you were clouding up for a storm," he said mildly. "Let me buy you a drink."

  Beaman indicated the bottle. "I've already had too many, and I never knew anybody to drink himself out of a hole."

  "My name is Riley." He thrust out a hand. "What seems to be the trouble?"

  The man shook Riley's hand. "Beaman here. Unless you're a cowhand hunting a job you couldn't help me; in fact, you couldn't help me unless you were ten cowhands heading for Kansas."

  Riley chuckled. "I counted myself up a couple of times and I run short of ten. You sound like a man with cows to move."

  "Nearly three thousand head," Beaman explained woefully. "I figured to make a drive from Oregon to Kansas and make a lot of money. After all, they were driving cows from Texas, why not from Oregon?"

  "You'll have to admit," Riley suggested cautiously, "that it's a mite farther."

  "Somewhat." Beaman did fill his glass. "This is a lot bigger country than I figured it was. I've got an uncle, a doctor, who lives down south of here. I figured to make myself a stake and go visit him." "I've seen him . . . down to Rimrock. That is, if he's the same Doc Beaman."

  "There can't be two of them in Rimrock," Beaman agreed. "My favorite uncle-in fact, he's my only uncle. Now I won't get to see him."

  "You can ride down there," Riley suggested. Beaman tasted his drink. "I'm a man with cattle," he said, "and no place to go. I can't find any hands who will drive through Sioux country, and I can't move the cows south because of the farmers. I wouldn't go back across that desert for anything under the sun, and there's nothing but mountains to the north, and while I sit here those damn cows are eating me out of all the cash I've got. I had to rent pasture, and by the time the week is out, I'll have to rent more."

  He lowered his voice. "If I had a good horse I'd ride the hell out of here."

  Riley tossed off his drink. "I've got a good horse," he said quietly, "and we might make a deal on the cattle."

  Beaman laughed without humor. "Friend," he said, "I wouldn't wish it on you, but the grass is about gone from the pasture where I've been holding those cattle. It's going to cost me a dollar a head per month to graze them on the only pasture close by. That's close to three thousand dollars-and I pay in advance. Mister, I'm in trouble."

  He filled his glass again. "They've got me over a barrel here, and they know it. First thing you know, they'll have those cattle, they'll have my shirt, and I'll be walking out of here afoot wondering what hit me."

  He looked at Riley again. "Did you ever try doing business with a Mormon farmer? He's sharper than a Scotsman, and he'd trade a New England Yankee right out of his teeth."

  Riley reached inside of his coat and drew out a folded sheet of paper. He spread it carefully on the bar and took up a pen that lay beside an inkwell at the corner of the bar where the bartender had been working on his accounts.

  "Write me out a bill of sale," he said, `tat your lowest price, and I'll buy your cattle right now, for cash."

  Beaman turned his head and stared at him. "Now just a minute," he said. "I've got nearly three thousand head out there, and a lot of money invested in them."

  "You've got three thousand head that you're about to lose," Riley replied coolly, "and I've got the money to buy them.

  "Buying them," he lied, "is an idea I've just come on. I was figuring on buying myself a place around here. I may change my mind at any minute. In fact, if my wife hears about this she'll blow up. You know how women are."

  Coker Beaman wet his lips with his tongue. The pasture where he had been holding the cattle was down to the roots now, and soon the cattle would be fighting the fences to get out. If he moved them he had to come up with three thousand dollars-which he did not have-before he could take them to fresh pasture.

  "I've got nearly twenty thousand dollars in those cattle," he said.

  "That isn't the point," Riley said mildly. "How much will you have tomorrow? Or the day after?" He straightened up from the bar and reached for the sheet of paper. Beaman put a hand on it. "Wait."

  "I'll give you three thousand dollars," Riley said, "right here-now-in gold."

  "What?" Beaman almost screamed the word. "Three thousand? Why, I'd be losing seventeen, eighteen thousand dollars! Are you crazy?"

  "No-you were, when you started this drive without checking your facts." Riley started to button his coat. "I've got to be leaving. My wife is waiting, and-"

  "Hold on-just a minute now. Let me think." "About what? If I buy your cattle you'll have three thousand dollars in gold. If I don't buy them you're going to lose them and have nothing. What's there to think about?"

  Beaman looked at him with disgust. "You're worse than those Mormons," he said. "You sure grind a man."

  "I'm not grinding you," Riley said. "I'm offering you a way out." He turned to Cruz. "See if my wife is out there. If she's left the store, she'll be mighty impatient."

  Cruz came back after a minute, his face grave. "I do not see her," he said, "but no doubt she is anxiously waiting?'

  "Now or never." Riley put the money belt Cruz carried on the bar. "There it is."

  Beaman moppped a hand across his face, then opened the money belt. The shining gold pieces were there. He counted them, hesitated, then scratched his name on the bill of sale.

  "You"-Riley indicated the bartender-"will you sign this as a witness?"

  The bartender did so, and Riley shoved the change from ten dollars back to him. "Buy yourself a cigar," he said.

  He thrust out a hand to Beaman. "Better luck next time," he said.

  Out on the street, Cruz looked at him. "The senor is not married."

  "You know, I thought about that, but it seemed to me I had a wife waiting for me somewhere, and the chances are she would be against this deal." "Especially," Cruz said mildly, "as two men cannot drive three thousand head of cattle." His black eyes were interested, faintly amused. "What are you going to do with them?" But Riley did not answer. At the trading post they replenished their supplies, then turned toward the pasture where the cattle were held.

  It was a large, fenced area against a bluff, and when they rode up two men awaited them. A big bearded man in a black coat rode out to meet them, and Riley rode his horse slowly toward the two, then drew up.

  "How are you, gentlemen? Something I can do for you?"

  "You're Riley? You bought these cattle?"

  "That I did."

  "My land lies to the south, and not one head of cattle will cross my land . . . do you understand?" "Sure." He smiled. "They won't come anywhere near your land. I shall be driving east."

  "East? Then you are more of a fool than I suspected. There is a Sioux outbreak in Wyoming. Anyway"-and there was obvious satisfaction in his tone-"you'll find no cowhands. You can't move that herd without hands, or without a cavvy."

  Riley merely lifted a hand in farewell and, opening the gate, allowed the cattle to drift out, with Cruz pushing them a little. As the grass was gone in the fenced pasture, the cattle were only too pleased to leave it. A few hundred yards off to one side, the two riders watched.

  To the east there was open country with no fenced areas or tilled fields, and there was sparse grass. For that matter, there were few fenced areas to the south, and it was obvious that
some of the local people had hoped to have those cattle for themselves, and no doubt still expected to get them.

  Slowly, the herd strung out. Riley rode a good horse, and he needed it, for here and there a steer started for wider pastures to sight or left, and both he and Cruz were hard put to keep the herd pointed, roughly at least, toward the wide spaces.

  The herd had moved scarcely a mile when suddenly a rider emerged from a draw and fell in on the opposite side of the herd. There was a flurry of dust and two more riders appeared. Riley saw Cruz standing in his saddle to stare at them, but they worked steadily, ignoring him. The herd moved east and a little south, following the banks of the stream. The two men to whom Riley had talked were now standing in their own stirrups, staring at the strange riders as if unwilling to believe what they were seeing.

  The herd moved on steadily, falling easily into the movements of the drive, for they had been driven here from Oregon and were well broken to the trail. A big Durham cow had moved into the lead, and she stayed there.

  At dusk, several miles out from Spanish Fork, they suddenly saw a thin column of smoke ahead of them, and one of the strange riders moved to the point and began to swing the herd.

  Cruz, who had ceased to be astonished, glanced toward the fire as they drew near. Nearby was a cavvy of at least sixty horses, and while there was no chuck wagon, this was obviously a trail-drive camp. Cruz waited for Riley as he came around the herd to join him, and the two of them rode off toward the fire.

  A slight man with a narrow, tough face was drinking coffee at the fire. "Riley?" he asked. "I'm segundo. Everything all right?"

  "Couldn't be better."

  "Me an' the boys will ride night guard," he said. "You'll have company, come daylight."

  "Thanks."

  Cruz accepted the plate of beans and beef that was handed him, and glanced quickly at Riley. But Riley had settled down to eat, and Cruz, with a shrug, did likewise.

  Where the camp had been made the stream ran clear, and tall trees were close about. Riley liked the crackle of the fire, and the smell of woodsmoke. The coffee was good, and the grub even better. Occasionally a rider rode up to the fire, drank a cup of coffee, and rode away.

  At daylight the herd was moving again, and from out of nowhere a dozen riders had appeared, all top hands, judging by the way they handled themselves and the herd. And so it went as the herd headed south from Castlegate, finally making the swing on the fifth day out.

  From time to time a new rider would appear and there would be a brief conference, and then the herd would change its direction. Each change led them to water, though there was little enough, in any case. Often there were just pools from the rain, and occasionally a seep or spring. Sometimes there were low places in the river beds where water remained. Once Cruz joined Riley to watch the herd amble past. "They look good, amigo," he said. "We have been fortunate."

  "The rain saved us-and the other rains before that. It has been a wet spring, and there was snow left from the winter. Ordinarily you couldn't bring a dozen horses the way we will be riding, and to bring a herd of cattle would be out of the question." "Especially," Cruz added dryly, "with only two cowhands."

  Riley grinned at him. "Pays to have friends." Cruz hesitated, and then he said, "I have heard of the Outlaw Trail, amigo . . . is this it?"

  "Part of it. Canada to Mexico, right down the backbone of the country it goes, with stations all along the route. The Hole-in-the-Wall or Jackson's Hole in Wyoming, Brown's Hole at the corner of Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah; and Robber's Roost in Utah. Down in Arizona there is Horse Thief Valley near Prescott, and the Sulphur Springs Valley east of Tucson. Over in New Mexico there's a station near Alma, and away up in Montana there's one near Landusky, and another in the Crazy Mountains. "Up Montana way somebody steals some cattle and they push them into the Outlaw Trail. A rancher on the trail pushes the 'strays' south, and the others do the same. Actually, nobody is stealing except the man who sells them. The others are just moving strays off their places. Only those Montana cows are finally sold in Mexico, or maybe in Arizona or Texas."

  He indicated the hands driving the cattle. "They're just pushing them south to get them off their range, and day after tomorrow we'll have a new set of hands-maybe even a new cavvy."

  When Cruz had ridden away, Gaylord Riley watched the drag of the herd drift by. His future rode with this herd; but more than that, the futures of the men who had given him his chance to amount to something in the world. Everything depended on getting the -herd through . . . everything. And he was not at all reassured by the good start they had made, for the roughest, driest part of the trail lay ahead. All he owned lay with that herd. True, there was money in the bank, money needed to carry him over until he had cattle to sell, but it was little enough, and he would find no such bargain as this herd. Not again.

  Nor was it of himself alone that he thought, for the men who had given him his chance deserved a chance of their own. Mistakes they had made, just as he had made his, but they were not bad men, and the time was coming when they must end their riding. They would need a place, a place that was home.

  There is always that within man, as deeply seated as is the desire to wander-the desire for a home, for a place that belongs to oneself a shelter away from the world.

  His own home would be here among these fantastic canyons, these towering spires. Around him would be the ruins left by those others who had come from no man knew where, built their houses in the hollows up the cliff walls, and had planned to stay-had, indeed, stayed for a long time. And then they had gone . . . vanished . . . to where?

  Nor were they the first men who had come to this lonely land, for the strange paintings on the walls could not all have been of their making. What of the pictures he had seen not far from Spanish Fork -pictures of strange llama-like beasts of burden and their drivers, near the remains of what may have been an ancient mine? What people were those? What manner of beasts did they drive?

  He was thinking of these things when a rider drew up near him. "We'll need beef. Is it all right to cut one out?"

  Riley laughed. "Did you ever ask before?"

  The rider was one-armed, Riley saw as he turned away. The fellow shot him an amused look. "Not often," he said, chuckling, "not very often."

  Chapter 9

  Day after day the drive rolled southward under its hovering cloud of dust, south toward the five towering peaks of the Henrys, across the Dirty Devil, across the forty miles of parched desert that lay beyond. On across the Maidenwater Sands, and down the long arroyo of the Trachyte to Dandy Crossing, on the Colorado.

  When Gaylord Riley and Jim Colburn, pointing the drive, reached the Crossing, Cass Hite walked out to meet them.

  "Howdy, Cass!" Riley said. "Had many visitors lately?"

  Hite came up to him, and spoke in a low tone, knowing how well sound carried in that rocky land. "We never have many visitors, an' you damn well know it," he said pleasantly. "This here is about the loneliest place there is, unless it's that ranch site you picked.

  "One thing, though. There's been a gent up on the mesa with a glass, a-watchin' for somebody. I'd not say it was for you exactly, but he showed up right after you went through, and he's been up there ever since."

  The Colorado at this point described a lame bend like a letter C with the open side toward the east. Dandy Crossing, and the "town" named for Hite, lay at the top of the C, the easternmost point, while within the bend was a mesa, roughly a thousand feet higher than the Crossing itself.

  From up there a man with good glasses could watch not only the Crossing, but the approach to it along the canyon of the Trachyte.

  "What do you think, Riley?" Colbum asked. "Could be somebody layin' for you."

  "More'n likely."

  "You've got to go back, Jim. If that's a posse up there, they'd have you trapped. There's no other crossing in a good many miles downstream, and nothing up the river. If they're waiting for you over there, you'd never have a chance." />
  "We'll see you across the river, boy. From there on you'll be on your own."

  "Riley," Hite suggested, "if you need he'p, I've a couple of loafers you can have. They owe me, and if I say they work for you, they dasn't say no." "Send them along. I'll promise them three days' work. If they shape up, I can use them longer. Meanwhile," Riley added, "keep your eyes open for good men. I'd like to hire two more, full time." "I'll shake hands now," Colbum said, "because when your cattle are across the river we'll take out for the faraway hills. Any posse hunting us is going to see plenty of dust and country."

  For two weeks after the drive ended, Riley had no time for anything. When the cattle were turned into the basin, the branding was begun. There had been no time even to run a trail brand on the herd before leaving Spanish Fork.

  The smoke of branding fires was in his nostrils, mingled with the smell. Of burning hair and dust. Only at night under the stars could he be free of it, and smell the soft wind, the cedars, and the sage.

  It was hot, grueling work, with no let-up, but Cruz was a fast and a hard worker, a good roper, and a fine horseman. Darby Lewis knew his business and worked without lost motion, but even so the job went slowly.

  On the first day of the third week, Cruz rode over to Riley. "Rider coming, amigo. A stranger."

  Riley straightened up from the branding fire and wiped the sweat from his face, then moved a hand back to slide the thong from his six-shooter.

  The rider came on, riding a lineback dun and leading two pack horses that looked like good stock. He was a tall man wearing a buckskin shirt and a battered black hat. He drew up alongside the fire. "Riley? Cass Hite, down to Dandy Crossin', said you were needin' a hand."

  "If you can ride an' rope, you're hired. Thirty a month an' found."

  The man stepped down from the saddle, and he stood two inches taller than Riley's six-one. He squatted on his heels and picked up the coffeepot. "Soon as I get myself a cup of coffee, I'll be workin'," he said. "My name is Tell Sackett."

  Riley had started to turn away, but he glanced back over his shoulder. "Sackett? Are you kin to the Sacketts of Mora?"