No Way Up

by Mary Connealy

  “Sadie, let’s go!” Justin’s voice boomed through the door.

  With a smile, Sadie said a quick goodbye to both ladies just as Justin stormed into the room. “We’ve got to . . .” Justin saw Angie in bed in her nightgown and fell utterly silent. He spun around. “Excuse me. I shouldn’t be in here.”

  Justin tried to leave as fast as he’d come in. But as he stepped toward the door, he glanced over his shoulder and looked again at Angie, then walked straight into the doorframe.

  That cleared his head enough he could rush outside. Sadie heard the door slam. He must have been embarrassed because he forgot to nag at her to hurry up, and Justin never forgot to nag.

  Shaking her head, Sadie said, “I’d love to stay longer and get acquainted, Angie, but things are terribly stirred up out at the CR right now. I’ve got to get along.”

  Sadie gave Sister Margaret a big hug and, with a wave at Angie, hurried out the door. What was going on between Sister Margaret and her niece? And what was it that had Angie so afraid?

  18

  “Read Ma’s letter, Cole. I don’t want to wait until after we eat.”

  Rosita had gone on ahead of them to the ranch, and they walked inside to a table laden with roast beef and gravy.

  “Rosita, you should have waited,” Sadie said in dismay. “Today is your day of rest. I’d have helped you.”

  Rosita slid a pie into the oven and straightened. “I love cooking, mi niña. Don’t fuss at an old woman who is doing what she loves. Now sit. The pie will be hot out of the oven when our meal is done.”

  Potatoes, mashed smooth and creamy, waited in a bowl next to the beef. Fresh biscuits were stacked beside a bowl of jelly and a ball of butter. Sadie’s mouth watered at the sight of it all. And seeing not one single thing left to do to help get the meal on, she sat down gratefully.

  Justin and Cole had insisted Heath and John both join them because they wanted to discuss the latest troubles at the CR. The four of them trooped in, and Rosita sat up to the table, as well. She usually declined to eat with the family, but she and John had been here when Grandfather Chastain had died. They knew more about this than any of them.

  “Eat first,” Rosita said. “It is hot now.”

  While the letter Cole had picked up nearly shouted to her, the savory meal won out, mainly because Sadie hoped they would linger over the letter.

  They ate in silence until they’d had their fill. Finally, Cole pulled out the letter, and his expression was almost equally hungry as he fingered the fat envelope.

  A smile twisted Sadie’s lips. “Go on and read it out loud to us.”

  He ripped it open and pulled out a thick sheaf of papers. “A good long letter, finally. She’s written so many brief notes just telling the basics of Pa’s condition.”

  His eyes slid back and forth as he scanned the papers, and after just a few moments, he looked up at everyone gathered at the table. “It will take a while to read all this, but Ma’s first sentence says they believe Pa is going to keep his leg. He may limp, though—”

  Justin shouted with relief. Sadie burst into tears. Cole quit reading. His silence was so heavy, Sadie knew it was because he couldn’t read more. His throat was swelled with emotion.

  Rosita rested an unsteady hand on Sadie’s back. She was so much more than a housekeeper to the Bodens. A grandmother, a wise elder, a pair of loving, comforting arms, stern taskmaster with Ma and Pa’s full support.

  It took a bit, but Sadie pulled herself together and found a handkerchief thrust into her hands. She looked sideways to see Heath, beaming at all of them. He wasn’t shouting or weeping or choked with emotion, but he was a happy man.

  Sadie matched his smile. “A lot of this is due to your care, Heath. It took fine doctoring and all the prayers we could manage, but your skill right after Pa was hurt made all the difference. I thank God you came to us and were here at our hour of need. Thank you.”

  Heath gave her a tight nod. His eyes flashed with pleasure at her thanks, but he said nothing else. Many a man would have brushed it aside, talk as if it were nothing. But to say such a thing was to diminish in some ways the miracle that Pa would survive and be whole again.

  Cole read a bit more. Ma asked them to continue their faithful prayers for Pa’s leg because he had a long journey ahead to reach full strength. She warned of long weeks spent in healing before the leg could be cast in plaster. Until that was done, he dared not move. Pa would stay in Denver until his bone was fully knit together, and then they’d have to see if he could walk without crutches or a cane. They weren’t to expect him back until spring. Ma included lengthy details of the doctor’s care. She spoke of being taken in by a parson and his wife and living comfortably in their home. Visiting Pa every day and helping with his care filled her hours. Once the bone was fully healed, which would take until after Christmas, Pa might be allowed to leave the hospital if he lived close by and could return often for checkups. Ma was searching for a boardinghouse or a hotel or even a vacant house to rent. But there couldn’t be stairs.

  She went on sounding lighthearted, nearly giddy with relief and full of high spirits. She asked them each to write back. Letters encouraged Pa and helped her to pass long days of idleness without her beloved home to care for.

  They talked over every detail as they savored Rosita’s pie. Everything tasted better than it would have without the good news.

  Heath had real bad news.

  “I’m climbing that mesa tomorrow and Sadie’s coming with me. Only Sadie.”

  He broke up the festive meal.

  Everyone at the table turned to him. Not a one of them started hollering. Instead they looked interested, if a little bothered. But there was respect in their eyes that had never been there before. Well, maybe from Sadie, but none of the others. He liked it and decided to enjoy it while it lasted. Good chance Justin and Cole would go back to yelling at him soon enough.

  “Why do you want Sadie along?” Cole eased back in his chair, cradling his coffee cup. It was a long way from the way Cole had forbidden it before, while Justin had kept busy yelling at him and firing him.

  Heath told them exactly why. He’d been hatching this plan ever since he’d seen that rifle aiming at them from the mesa top. “We leave before sunrise, just like before, but this time you all leave with us—all but John.”

  The foreman nodded. His part, though it might not seem like it, was as crucial to success as any of the others.

  “Are you sure your arm is strong enough?” Sadie snapped a hand up and shoved it almost flat in his face.

  Almost like she knew she was questioning his toughness.

  “I’m not questioning your toughness, Heath.”

  He was pretty sure she was.

  “I was on the side of that mesa with you. It’s exhausting. It took every ounce of strength we had to get as far as we did. And you weren’t swinging a hammer, knocking spikes into the mesa wall. We’re all eager to get up there, and I’m glad to go with you, but I want you to be ready.”

  Heath reached up and rubbed his arm, then flexed his muscle and raised his hand high. The swelling was down. The doctor hadn’t stitched it because no muscle had been cut. A little lingering pain was easily ignored.

  “I can do it.” Heath slid his eyes from one to the next—Cole, Justin, John, Rosita, Sadie. He stopped on Sadie. “We go tomorrow.”

  19

  The weight of the spikes was a burden his arm didn’t thank him for.

  “There’s one good thing about that climb we took when we were forced to turn back,” Heath called to Sadie, who was tied to him and following faithfully.

  “No, there’s not.” Sadie clung to the edge of the cliff. A quick look down told Heath she wasn’t having much fun.

  “The good part is we’re going twice as fast this time. We barely stopped to rest on that ledge because we scampered right up the side.”

  “Scampered?” Sadie said it quietly, muttered it, growled it even. He wasn’t sure he was s
upposed to hear, but he had.

  “We’ve reached the part where we couldn’t go on. Now we use my climbing skills.” It was almost a relief to pull the first spike out of his pack. At least if he hammered it into the stone, he wouldn’t be carrying it anymore. Not to mention the spikes would make much more dependable footholds and handholds than the ones grudgingly provided by Skull Mesa.

  He positioned the spike, but before he hammered it home, he paused in the quiet morning air. A breeze buffeted them, thankfully one not strong enough to be dangerous. The top of the canyon pass where they’d found the note drew his attention. Was there someone up there watching?

  A bull elk stepped out of the trees. The old boy still had his full rack of antlers, although he would be shedding them soon. Heath thought of the wild critters wandering around his Colorado home and was struck by the similarities between the two places. A herd of cow elk grazed peacefully down the slope from the watchful bull.

  Smiling at the beauty of it, he realized no bunch of wild animals would stand grazing if there was a man close by. The elk proved the area was free from intruders.

  At least until now. Heath raised the hammer, positioned the spike, knowing he was about to break up the silence and peace of the day.

  He slammed the spike home. The ring of metal on metal sent the bull elk bounding toward his cows. They all vanished into the trees.

  Heath finished seating the spike, making sure it was as solid as the rock it stuck out of. Satisfied, he continued upward. Slow and steady, he drove the iron pegs until they were anchored deep, then used them for handholds and toeholds.

  “What are you doing?” Sadie’s voice distracted him, almost knocking him off the cliff.

  He hadn’t bothered to explain the details of climbing to her. He figured she’d learn from watching. And he didn’t have time for a lot of talk now. He had to keep moving, because this kind of climbing was exhausting. He had to get to the top as fast as he could.

  “Just keep climbing, Sadie,” Heath called down without looking away from his work. “We’re going all the way up.”

  He went back to building himself a ladder in solid rock.

  You can’t build a ladder in solid rock. Everybody knew that.

  At least she knew it because it was so obvious. She hugged up against the side of the mesa and waited for Heath to figure it out.

  The hammer blows finally stopped. But instead of Heath deciding this wasn’t working and coming back down, he took a few steps higher and started hammering again.

  Demanding to know what exactly he’d done was a waste of her breath, so Sadie followed along as she’d been doing all day, only now she was completely focused on Heath. She watched as he worked his way up the mesa.

  The spikes he drove into the mountain were solid as . . . well, solid as a rock. They stuck out farther than most of the little ledges they’d clung to, so the going was much faster, even though they had to pause at each new step so that Heath could drive another spike.

  Yet he was good at it. A few more ringing blows and up they’d go again.

  At last Heath rolled out of sight at the top. Seconds later, his head popped back over the ledge and he smiled down on her. “Come on, Miss Sadie.”

  Sadie climbed up, the sturdy rope around her middle giving her the confidence to move quickly.

  With Heath’s strong hands reeling in the rope, she seemed to almost fly to the top. She arrived and scrambled to her feet. And there they stood, facing each other, on top of the unclimbable Skull Mesa. Sadie had gotten here before her brothers.

  Grinning like a fool, she said, “This is the biggest accomplishment of my life! It feels wonderful.”

  Heath nodded. “That it does, Miss Sadie.”

  “I think I want to climb more mountains.”

  Laughing, Heath said, “The spirit of an explorer. You’d like the cavern on my land back in Colorado. We should—”

  She looked past Heath, and heaven knows what her expression was like but it must’ve been attention-getting, because Heath stopped talking and whirled around, his gun drawn and cocked.

  Then he froze, and the gun lowered. “What is that?”

  But of course they both knew what it was. Sadie said, “Someone lived up here.”

  There was a cluster of what appeared to be ancient buildings, collapsed until they were crumbling, built out of adobe. Battered-looking things, but unmistakably huts. No bigger than that, and yet so ruined she couldn’t say what they’d once looked like.

  “Looks like this place has been deserted for a thousand years.” Heath spoke in a near whisper, like a man might at a cemetery. He was staring at a long-dead settlement of some kind. He started toward the ruins.

  They were more mounds of rubble than buildings, but Sadie saw dozens of distinct areas built up. She hurried to catch up with Heath.

  “They look ancient.” Sadie was struck by the solemnity of the place. When they reached one of the buildings, Heath touched a stack of weathered adobe blocks. Sadie saw a broken piece of pottery and went to pick it up.

  “Well, this sure isn’t ancient.” Heath’s voice stopped her in her tracks.

  Turning, she saw him crouching by something. She stepped closer to see what he’d found and soon realized it was a tin can. Opened and empty and not a spot of rust anywhere. There were traces of beans in it. The can was only a few days old.

  “Someone opened it recently,” she said. “Probably that man who was up here with a rifle. But look—there are dozens of cans. He’s been up here many times.”

  “We knew we’d find something like this.” Heath studied the whole area, then looked up. His blue eyes flashed wild. “I reckon this is no surprise after our friend started shooting at us.”

  Rising to his feet, he kept his eyes on the ground and started walking straight for the cliff edge. The flat mesa top was more oval than round, and right here the edge wasn’t far away from them. Heath moved with such purpose that Sadie felt the need to hurry after him. She caught up to him just as he neared the edge.

  Heath stopped abruptly. “Will you look at that.”

  “What is it?”

  Shaking his head, Heath dropped to his hands and knees, crawled to the edge and peered down. “It’s a trail. Come close, but get down. I don’t want a strong wind giving you a shove over the side.”

  She very carefully approached, crawling like an infant. When she got to his side, he smiled and then jerked his head to the spot he’d been looking at.

  “It is a trail.” Sadie frowned at the mystery of it. “How can there be a trail up here, but not one down at the bottom?”

  “I wonder if there used to be a trail all the way down. No, that’s wrong. I don’t wonder. There had to be one if folks climbed up here and built homes. What I mean is, look at the rubble at the bottom. That’s a rockslide. I think the trail collapsed at the bottom. But if you picked the right spot, maybe a very unlikely-looking spot, you could climb, holding on to ledges, for just a little ways until you gained this trail. It’s so obvious from up here. But I don’t remember anything noticeable on this side at the base, and I’ve been around the base several times.”

  “Should we try to climb down this way?” Sadie asked.

  Heath shrugged. “This looks to be easily used for a long way down. And I’ve got enough spikes left that if we run into trouble, I can use them to help us climb down the rest of the way. Or we’ll climb to the top again and go down the way we came up.”

  “But that man who shot at us was gone fast, because Justin went after him right away. I think we’re going to find we can get down the mesa without much fuss.” Sadie smiled, and it must have been a crazy smile.

  Heath asked, “What’s so funny?”

  “We’ve come up the hard way and now we’re going down the easy way. I’m imagining what Justin’s going to say when we tell him there are now two trails to the top of Skull Mesa, and he never figured out either one of them.”

  Heath chuckled, then turned and stood
, reaching his hand out to help her up. “Come away from the edge. I want to look around for a while before we follow this trail. See what else the old ones who left these houses behind can tell me.”

  Then all trace of amusement was gone. “And see what I can learn from the tracks of the man who has been watching over Boden land—plotting your father’s death, and plotting your and your brothers’ deaths, too.”

  20

  They walked to the far side of the mesa and stared down at the ranch yard.

  “It’s a perfect place to keep watch over our family.” Sadie quit talking for a moment. “If that man had wanted to shoot us the other night, we’d be dead.”

  “Not true. It wasn’t our time, and we prove that by standing here fully alive.” Then Heath’s voice dropped. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, the ranch house is elegant and large without being huge. The bunkhouse and the houses of John and Alonzo are neat and strongly built, with some time given to make them attractive buildings too, even though they’re all the same shade of adobe.”

  Sadie paused, then added, “They’re in such a neat row along the southwest side of the yard, but from down there, I didn’t realize what a strong defense they are, almost like fortress walls. With the barn beside them, that whole side of the ranch could be defended against an attack. And the hill rising up behind the bunkhouse is another wall. The woodlands and river protect us on the north. The west is open on past this mesa, but the mesa itself takes a big swath out of the possible ways anyone could approach the ranch. My grandfather chose this spot and laid out those buildings, and they’ve been there my whole life. But I didn’t realize until now how wise he was, how much thought he put into this place.”

  Turning to Heath, she asked, “Is this part of what Pa meant by our legacy? Did he see how thoughtless I was about Grandfather’s wisdom?”

  Heath just smiled at her. “You don’t think like a warrior, Sadie. I doubt your pa was overly upset by that.”