“Mighty pretty. Beautiful, even. Hair’s pretty, and a good figger. Looks well fed, but ain’t fat. Just nice-like. But … well, kind of worried. Upset, maybe.”
“Where’d they go?”
“Like I said, it was sundown when they showed. By the time they left, it was clean dark. I couldn’t even see to the gate, but I figure they went south.”
No matter how many questions I asked, that was all he could tell me, except that they had not let her out of their sight, and the one puncher he had seen before had this time stayed well away from the house.
“Mighty interested in you,” he added. “Asked a sight of questions.” He returned to washing dishes. “Seemed to me they picked that time to get here so’s they could leave in the dark. I figure it was planned.”
Descriptions of the men meant nothing to me, nor could he tell me if any one of the three seemed to have authority.
Liza had been treated politely and with respect, but they had never left her alone with him for a minute.
Mustang was sitting on the walk with his back against the wall of the building when I returned to the office.
I told him what had happened and showed him the note.
He frowned over it, reading poorly as he did, but then he looked up and said, “Man asking for you. He’s at the hotel.” Mustang got up. “It’s that gent from Denver. That Denison what’s-his-name.”
“All right. I’ll go see him. He say what he wanted?”
“No. Only he asked a lot of questions about you. Asked about Burdette, and about the fight at Billings’ place.”
The hotel was a long two-story building of unpainted lumber, some weathered by wind and rain. It had been put together in a hurry to accommodate the sudden influx of visitors while the town was booming.
Denison Mead sat by the fire alone when I walked into the lobby. The place was almost empty, usual for that time of day.
The room was big and there was a homemade settee, some huge old leather chairs, and the desk at one end of the room with the stairway to the rooms opposite it.
The floor was bare and there were only a few crude paintings on the wall, and one good drawing of a bucking horse, traded to the proprietor for a meal two years before.
Mead got up to shake my hand, and seemed really pleased to see me. His eyes searched my face curiously, and then he waved at a chair and sat down himself.
“Tyler, I’ll get right to business. When I first met you in Denver I was struck by your resemblance to somebody I knew. When you answered my questions, your answers told me without doubt you were the person whom I thought you to be.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite get you, mister,”
“I told you I was a lawyer handling mining property. My firm also handles the Blair estate. In fact, they are one of our oldest clients.”
This Mead seemed like a nice fellow, but whatever he had in mind, I didn’t know. And he was taking a long time getting to it.
“Tyler, do you have anything that belonged to your mother?”
“A picture, that’s all. Everything Pap kept was lost in that Indian raid.”
“A picture? Do you have it?”
When I settled in town I began carrying the picture in my pocket instead of keeping it in the saddlebags, so I had it with me. I took it out and handed it to him and he smiled. “Of course! Virginia Blair! I’d know the face anywhere, although I’ve only seen pictures of her myself.”
“Blair?”
“Her maiden name. The family was fairly well off, Tyler. Not wealthy, but substantially fixed. And with a good position socially.”
That meant nothing to me until he told me I’d been left some money. Rather, Ma had been left it. Some money and a good-sized farm in Maryland and Virginia.
It was more than a thousand acres.
“There’s a nice home on it, some stables. They used to raise horses in the old days.” He sat back and lit a cigar. “It’s all yours, of course. The family was upset when she married your father, but they were sorry for their attitude later, when it was too late. We tried to locate your mother, but had no luck.
“Now, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll give up all this and come East. You seem to know stock. You’ve had experience breaking horses. You could probably do very well back there.”
Nothing like this had ever come into my mind. I’d have to study it well, yet all the time I was explaining this to him, I was thinking that back East I wouldn’t have to carry a gun. And there was small chance anybody would have heard of Ryan Tyler, the gun fighter.
It would be a good thing … and then I remembered Liza.
Her note had told me to go away, but I read more into it than that. She was afraid of what would happen to me if I stayed, and if I persisted in trying to find her.
But me, I had my own ideas.
So I got up. “Mr. Mead, I’m taking your advice. I’ll go back East and make my home there. You go ahead and get it all fixed up so I can take over. But first I’ve got a job to do.”
He got up, too. “Tyler,” he warned, “be careful. I know something of the situation here. I’ve been kept informed. You’ve made this town peaceful, but only on the surface. There are men here who hate you and fear you. Make one slip and they’ll be on you like a pack of wolves.”
“Yes, sir. You get those papers fixed up. I’ll be back.”
So I walked out on the street, knowing as I walked that my decision was right. This was what I should do.
It was a good time to go … and, after all, why should I look for Liza? She was with somebody else. If she hadn’t made her choice, at least she was doing all right.
And I had no actual reason to believe she was living as she was through any reason but her own. So that was over. I’d go back East and stay.
Mustang was pacing the floor when I came in. He turned sharply around. “Got news for you! I went out and hunted up the tracks of those folks who visited Old Blue. They headed south, right into the rough country, and they took a trail that only goes one way.”
“Where?” I asked the question, knowing the answer.
“They went to the Roost. And one of those riders was a woman.”
Liza … and Ash Milo.
Everything had been pointing that way and I couldn’t see it until now. Sure enough, that had to be where Ollie Burdette had holed up after leaving the Crossing, and where he’d seen Liza with “a better man.” It tied everything into one neat package, and it was the explanation for Billings’ knowledge, and why he would not talk. It was common gossip around town that Billings had connections at the Roost.
It explained everything … or almost everything.
People all over this part of the country had a justified fear of the Roost and its riders. No rancher would talk.
Some were friendly to the outlaws, but even honest ranchers refused to risk incurring their anger. Robber’s Roost lay somewhere on a plateau among a network of canyons, a country unknown to any but themselves.
How many outlaws were in there? Some said fifty , but most said it was nearer a thousand. It was the main hideout on the Outlaw’s Trail, which stretched from Canada to Mexico through the Rocky Mountain region.
And at the Roost, and for miles around, Ash Milo was king.
Unless a man knew the trails, he had no chance of finding his way in. Or so they said. That was the story, all right.
The names of the leaders of the Roost gang were notorious. Ash Milo was the boss, but there were others, names feared all through the West; Sandoval, Bronco Leslie, Chance Vader, and Smoky Hill Stevens. All of them wanted in a half-dozen states, all men who were handy with guns.
And that was where Liza was, among a lot of outlaws.
But she didn’t want me to come. All right, I wouldn’t.
“This Milo,” Mustang Roberts said, “he knows you, all right. He knows a lot about you.”
“Stories get around.”
“Sure. And I thought I’d heard them all, but the grapevine from the Roost has one story
I never heard.”
“What’s that?”
Mustang Roberts took his time. He pushed his hat back on his head and put a boot up on the desk. His spur jingled a mite. He began to build him a smoke.
���One thing I never heard,” he said, touching his tongue to the paper. “That you killed a man named McGarry.”
Chapter 16
MUSTANG ROBERTS started me thinking again. He got me to wondering, and an hour before daylight I had my mind made up.
Mustang had turned in, as the night was quiet and he was tired from the riding he’d done that day. Me, I put a saddle on the gray, shoved the new Winchester 73 I’d bought into the boot, and then I belted on one gun and shoved the other into my waistband.
First thing, I switched my shirt and left my badge on the table. Where I was going a badge was an invitation to get shot. The shirt I put on had no pin holes left by the badge. Nor did I shave. Right then I was growing a mustache, which was well along, and I trimmed it a little, but let the stubble of beard stay. Then I shrugged into a coat and packed a bait of grub out to the gray.
We took the trail just as the sky was lightening. Nobody needed to tell me what I was riding into. There was no way this trail could miss leading into trouble. Maybe Liza wanted to live with outlaws. Maybe she was Ash Milo’s girl, and maybe she wasn’t. But I was going to know.
Leaving town by the trail, I turned off up a dry canyon.
It was a long ride I had before me, so I let the gray make his own speed. In later years they said the Roos t was farther south, but the time I rode into that country the outfit was located in a canyon back of Desolation, not far off the Green River.
It was very hot. Back in the canyons there was no breeze. Soon my gray shirt turned dark with sweat and my eyes had to squint to stand the glare.
There was no sound but the sound of my horse’s hoof s and the creak of the saddle. Once in a while a stone rolled underfoot. So it was I started into that rough, wild country, unexplored except by Indians and outlaws, and most of it unknown even to them.
The way I figured, it would be midafternoon before Mustang Roberts realized I was gone. Then he would figure out where I’d headed. Shrewd as he was, he’d guess right the first time. But I’d be long gone then and he’d resign himself to sitting out my stay.
Several times I saw antelope, and once I frightened a mountain lion away from a big-horn sheep.
This was far-off country, wild and lonesome country.
It was big country, and I’d seen city men shrink from the immensity of it. Some men are built for this kind of country, and some aren’t. I guess my Maker shaped me for the land that we had to shape. I liked it.
There was small chance any of these outlaws would know me as the marshal of Alta. They had been denied the town by Ash Milo, and if I was lucky I’d get well back into that country, looking like an outlaw on the drift.
The gray liked it. He was always a good trail horse, happier when he was going. He was a saddle bum like me, liking the dust of far trails, the smell of pines and sweat, and he would prick his ears at every hill we came over, at every turn we rounded.
Most of the time I rode off to one side of the dim trail. I rode alongside the pines, or took the far side of a ridge, or kept under cover. It was smart in two ways: It would keep me from being seen as long as possible, and if I was seen I’d look like a man on the dodge.
Twice I made short camps and slept a little, then I pushed on. Time enough to take it easy when I began to get close. Then I would have to look careful.
Nobody in Alta knew where the Roost was. Maybe Ben Billings, but he never went there. He was never out of sight long enough. Oh, probably some of the men who came and went around town did know, but nobody who would talk to me or who would have helped me. So I’d never tried to find out, and now I was glad.
I wouldn’t want anybody remembering that the marshal of Alta had been inquiring about trails.
Once into the rougher country, I took my time. Skirting Indian Head peak, I crossed the end of the Roan Cliff s and rode into Nine Mile Valley. It was long and empty , unmarked by trails, and pointed southeast, the way I wanted to go. There were cliff dwellings along the canyon walls, and rocks covered with Indian writing. Several times I saw arrowheads and broken pottery.
With a three-day growth of beard on my face and my clothes dusty from travel, I was beginning to look the part.
Also, I was getting wary.
Everywhere was rock. Rocky cliffs and crags, great mesas rising abruptly, shelves of rock and plateaus of rock. It was pink and white, with long streaks of rust red or maroon, all carved by wind and rain into weird shapes and giant forms. Huge pinnacles pointed their ghostly fingers at the sky. It was a land shaped like flames, a land riven and torn, upset and turned over and upset again.
I rode down long corridor canyons to the echoing of my horse’s hoofs against the sounding boards of the great walls, walls that sometimes pressed close together, and at other times spread wide.
Suddenly the canyon bent northeast, and I followed it.
Here was a creek, and I watered the gray, then loosened the girth.
It was late afternoon. It was very hot and I was very tired. In all this vast desert through which I was riding there seemed to be nothing and no one. Lying down on the grass beneath some willows, I stretched out with my hat over my eyes.
Awakening suddenly, I saw that the gray’s head was up and that his ears were pricked. With one quick move I was on my feet. When I see a horse like that, even swelling himself a little as he gets set, I know he’d going to whinny. My left hand grabbed his nostrils and my right his neck just as he started, and I stopped him. He shied a little, frightened at my sudden move, then stood still.
Listening, I could hear voices. They were some distance off, but seemed to be coming nearer.
My position was behind the willows and out of sight, if nothing attracted their attention. Gray knew he was supposed to keep quiet now, so I released him and dropped my hand to my holstered gun. It was in place. So was the one behind my belt.
Then I picked up my hat and moved back beside my horse, listening and ready.
At first I heard nothing. Whoever it was had stopped talking. Then I heard their horses’ hoofs, and, peering through the willows, I saw them.
Neither was a man I had seen before. One wore a black vest over a dark-red shirt. He was a lean, dark man. The other was sandy-haired and freckled, and from his saddle he could have been a Texan. They drifted on by and were almost past me when I heard the redhead call the other one “Bronc.” This could be Leslie, the Malheur County badman.
Stepping into the leather, I slow-walked my horse to a point where I could watch them. The afternoon was almost gone, but here was a chance to find my way right to the hideout at the Roost.
If I tried getting closer alone, I might manage it, but if I rode in with Bronco Leslie, I’d be asked few questions. Pushing the gray, I moved out into the open until I could see them plainly.
About the same time they heard me and drew up, waiting.
Bronco Leslie had a scar over one eye and his eyes were the blackest I’d even seen. His face was thin and drawn down, and he had a quick, nervous way about him. That I saw right off.
“Where you goin’?” he asked, mighty rough.
Drawing up the gray with my left hand, I said, “Hunting the Roost. I figured you boys might be heading that way.”
“What made y’ figure that?” Red demanded.
This was touch and go, and I knew it. Any moment a wrong word could start somebody shooting, but in some ways it was less risky with men like this. They were good men with guns, and a man who knows guns doesn’t fool around. He knows they can kill.
I grinned at them. “Where else would a man go in this God-forsaken country?”
Red looked thoughtful. I saw his eyes taking in the build of my horse, obviously no cow pony, and the rig of my saddle.
“Do I know you?” Bronc asked.
“Damned if I know,” I said frankly. “But this ain’t my country. Had me some trouble over to Leadville and decided to head west.”
This was safe enough, because just a few days before three men had broken jail in Leadville. The three had never been identified, and little was known of them. It had been rumored they were members of the James gang.
“Far’s that goes,” I said, “I don’t know you.”
Leslie stared at me. I could see he had no liking for me and was suspicious. I could guess he was figuring what would happen if he’d open the ball with a gun.
But Bronc Leslie was a careful man. He looked me over a little and decided matters could wait. Anyway, if I had a chance out here, I would have none at the Roost.
Red made the peace move. “I’m Red Irons,” he said. “This here is Bronco Leslie.”
“I’m Choc Ryan,” I said, “from down in the Nation.”
We drifted along, not saying much. Leslie took to dropping back a little, and as I liked nobody behind me, I’d drop back with him. He didn’t like it much, but he didn’t make an issue of it, either.
“I’m mighty hungry,” I said. “Will we make it tonight?”
“Late,” Red told me.
Can you imagine country like that country was then?
And not much changed, even now. A lost land, a land quiet under the sun, where only the wolves prowled and where the buzzards swung on lazy, easy wings. A land unpeopled and still, where the sun slowly sank, and from the cliffs the shadows reached out, filling the canyons to the brim with darkness.
Ghostly footfalls echoed against the walls, saddles creaked, and Red lifted a lonesome voice in song, singing “Zebra Dun,” and then “Spanish Is a Lovin’ Tongue.”
It was mighty pleasant riding, mighty pleasant. Only, up there ahead of me waited a bunch of men who, if they guessed who I was, would kill me quick. Up ahead waited death, and I rode alone into a lonely land from which no officer of the law had ever returned alive, and where Ash Milo, the man I sought, was king.
Every footfall might be taking me closer and closer to my death. Yet each took me closer to Liza, and closer to the solution of my problem. And after this, if I lived, I would be free.
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