Riding carefully, for the trail was very narrow and the lava on both sides black and rough, he kept on, following the elk. It was easy to see how such a trail might exist for years and never be found, for at times he was forced to draw one leg up and lift the stirrup out of the way, as it was too narrow otherwise.
The trail wound around and around, covering much distance without penetrating very far, and then it dipped down suddenly through a jagged and dangerous-looking cleft. Ross hesitated, studying the loosely hanging crags above with misgiving. They looked too shaky and insecure for comfort. He well knew that if a man was ever trapped or hurt in this lava bed, he might as well give up. There would be no help for him.
Yet, with many an upward glance at the great, poorly balanced chunks of rock, many of them weighing many tons, he rode down into the cleft on the trail of the elk.
For over a half mile the cleft led him steadily downward, much of the going very steep, and he realized that he was soon going to be well below the level of the surrounding country. He rode on, however, despite the growing darkness, already great in the dark bottom of the cleft. Then the trail opened out, and he stopped with a gasp of amazement.
Before him lay a great circular valley, an enormous valley surrounded by gigantic black cliffs that in many places shelved out over the edge, but the bottom was almost level and was covered with rich green grass. There were a few scattered clumps of trees, and from somewhere he heard the sound of water.
Drifting on, he looked up and around him, overcome with astonishment. The depth of the valley, at least a thousand feet lower than the surrounding country, and the unending sameness of the view of the beds from above safely concealed its existence. It was without doubt an ancient volcanic crater, long extinct, and probably the source of the miles of lava beds that had been spewed forth in some bygone age.
The green fields below were dotted with cattle, most of them seemingly in excellent shape. Here and there among them he noticed small groups of horses. Without doubt, these were the cattle and horses, or their descendants, left Jim Burge.
Despite the lateness of the hour, he pushed on, marveling at the mighty walls around him, at the green grass and the white-trunked aspens. Twice he found springs of water, in both cases bubbling from the ground. Later, he found a spring that ran from a cleft in the rock and trickled down over the worn face of the cliff for some thirty feet to sink into the ground below.
None of the cattle seemed in the least frightened of him, although they moved back as he approached, and several lifted their noses at him curiously.
When he had ridden for well over two miles he drew up in a small glade near a spring, and stripping the saddle from his horse, he made camp. This would end his rations, and tomorrow he must start back. Obviously, this would be a good place to start such a cache of supplies as Scott had advised.
Night brought a strange coolness to the valley. He built a fire and fixed his coffee, talking to Rio meanwhile. After a moment he became conscious of movement. He looked up and saw that a dozen or more cows and a bull had moved up. They were staring at the fire and at him with their amazed bovine eyes. Apparently they had never seen a man before.
From all apearances, the crater was a large one, several miles across and carpeted with this rich grass. The cattle were all in good shape.
Twice during the night he heard the cry of a cougar and once the howl of a wolf.
With daylight he was in saddle once more, but by day the crater proved to be smaller than he had at first believed; there were probably some two thousand acres in the bottom. But it was all level ground with rich grass and a good bit of timber.
Twice, when skirting the edges of the crater, he found ice caves. These he knew were caused by the lava mass's cooling so unevenly that when the surface had become cold and hard the material below was still molten. As the fluid drained away, caves were formed under the solid crust. Because lava is a poor heat conductor, the cold air of the caves was protected. Ice formed there, and no matter how warm it might be on the surface, there was always snow in the caves. At places, pools of clear, cold water had formed. He could see that some of these had been used as watering places by the deer, elk, and wild horses.
When at last he started back toward the cleft through which he had gained entrance to the crater, he was sure there were several hundred, perhaps as many as six hundred head of wild cattle in the bottom of the crater.
He rode out, but not with any feeling of comfort. Some day he would scale those cliffs and have a look at the craggy boulders on the rim. If they ever fell into the cleft, whoever or whatever was in the bottom would never come out.
It was dusk of another evening before the palouse cantered down the one street of Soledad and drew up at the livery stable. A Mexican came to the door, glanced at him, and then accepted his horse. He looked doubtfully at the strange brand.
"You ride for Senor Pogue or Senor Reynolds?" he asked hesitantly.
"For myself," Ross said. "What's the matter? The town seems quiet."
"St, Senor. There has been a killing. Roily Burt of the RR was in a shooting with two hands from the Box N. One of them was killed and the other wounded, and Senor Burt has disappeared."
"Left the country?"
"Who knows? He was wounded, they say, and I am sorry for that. He was a good man, Senor Burt." The Mexican lighted a smoke, glancing at Haney. "Perhaps he was no longer wanted on the RR, either."
"Why do you say that?" Ross asked quickly. "Have you any reason for it?"
"Si. He has told me himself that he has trouble with Senor Berdue."
Berdue had trouble with Burt, yet Burt had been attacked by two Box N hands? That didn't seem to tie in-or did it? Could there be any connection between this shooting and the meeting at the springs? In any event, this would probably serve to start hostilities again.
Chapter VII
Manhunt
Leaving his horse to be cared for, Ross returned to his room in the Cattleman's Hotel. Kinney was not in the lobby when he crossed it, and he found no one on the stairs. He knew how precarious was his own position, for while the house he was building was reasonably safe from discovery, there was no reason to believe that someone would not soon discover that the ground had been plowed back under the trees. It wasn't much, but enough to indicate he was working on the place.
Uneasily, he surveyed the situation. So far everything was proceeding according to plan, and almost too well. He had his water rights under control. He had found the cattle. He had in the crater and on the mesa two bases of action that were reasonably safe from attack, yet the situation was due to blow up at almost any moment.
Berdue seemed to be playing a deep game. It might be with the connivance of his uncle, but he might be on his own. Perhaps someone else had the same idea he had, that from the fighting of Pogue and Reynolds would come a new system of things in the Ruby Hills country. Perhaps Berdue, or some other person or group planned to be top dog.
Berdue's part in it puzzled Haney, but at least he knew by sight the men he had met today and would be able to keep a closer watch on them. Also, there were still the three strange men, of whom he had seen but two, who lived on the VV. Somehow they did not seem to fit with what he had seen of the Vernons. "The next order of business," he told himself, "is a visit to the VV."
A dozen people were eating in the saloon when he entered. He stopped at one side of the door and surveyed the groups with care. It would not do to walk into Berdue or Reynolds unawares, for Berdue would not, and Reynolds dared not, ignore him. He had stepped onto the scene in Soledad in no uncertain terms.
Suddenly he saw Sherry Vernon at a small table alone. On an impulse, he walked over to her, his spurs jingling. She glanced up at him, momentarily surprised.
"Oh, it's you again? I thought you had left town."
"You knew better than that." He indicated the chair opposite her. "May I sit down?"
"Surely." She looked at him thoughtfully. "You know, Ross Haney, you'
re not an entirely unhandsome sort of man, but I've a feeling you're still pretty savage."
"I live in a country that is savage," he said simply. "It is a country that is untamed. The last court of appeal is a six-shooter."
"From all I hear, you gave Sydney Berdue some uncomfortable moments without one. You're quite an unusual man. Sometimes your language sounds like any cowboy, and sometimes it doesn't, and sometimes your ideas are different."
"You find men of all kinds in the West. The town drunk in Julesburg, when I was there, could quote Shakespeare and had two degrees. I punched cows on the range in Texas with the brother of an English lord."
"Are you suggesting that you are a duke in disguise?"
"Me?" he grinned. "No, I'm pretty much what I seem. I'm a cowhand, a drifter. Only I've a few ideas and I've read a few books. I spent a winter once snowed up in the mountains in Montana with two other cowhands. All we had for entertainment was a couple of decks of cards, some checkers, and a half dozen books. Some Englishman left them there, and I expect before spring we all knew those books by heart, an' we'd argued every point in them."
"What were they?" she asked curiously.
"Plutarch's Lives, the plays and sonnets of Shakespeare, some history-oh, a lot of stuff. And good reading. We had a lot of fun with those books. When we'd played cards and checkers until we were black in the face, we'd ask each other questions on the books, for by the time we'd been there half the winter we'd read them several times over."
He ate in silence for a few minutes, and then she asked, "Do you know anything about the shooting?"
"Heard about it. What sort of man is Roily Burt?"
"One of the best. You'd like him, I think.
Hard as nails, and no youngster. He's more than forty, I'd say. But he says what he thinks, and he thinks a good deal."
Ross hesitated a few moments and then said, "By the way, I saw one of your hands in town yesterday. A tall, slope-shouldered fellow in a checkered shirt. You know the one I mean?"
She looked up at him, her eyes cool and direct. He had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew more than she was letting on. Of course, this was the man she had watched from hiding as he had met Berdue. Probably she had overheard their talk.
"Oh, you mean Kerb Dahl! Yes, he's one of our hands. Why do you ask?"
"Wondering about him. I'm trying to get folks placed around here."
"There are a lot of them trying to get you placed, too."
He laughed. "Sure! I expected that. Are you one of them?"
"Yes, I think I am. You remember I overheard your talk on the trail, and I'm still wondering where you plan to be top dog?"
He flushed. "You shouldn't have heard that. However, I back down on none of it. I know how Chalk Reynolds got his ranch. I know how Walt Pogue got his, and neither of them have any moral or other claim to them aside from possession, if that is a right.
"You probably heard what I told Chalk in here the other night. I could tell him more. I haven't started on Pogue yet, and I'd as soon you didn't tell anyone I plan to. However, in good time I shall. You see, he ran old man Carter off his place, and he had Emmett Chubb kill Vin Carter. That's one of the things that drew me here."
"Revenge?"
"Call it that if you like. I have a different name." He leaned toward her, suddenly eager for her to understand. "You see, you can't judge the West by any ordered land you know. It is a wild, hard land, and the men that came west and survived were tough stern men. They fought Indians and white men who were worse than Indians. They fought, winter, flood, storm, drouth, and starvation.
"We have a sheriff here in town who was practically appointed by Chalk Reynolds. We have a jail that stands on his land. The nearest court is two hundred miles away, over poor roads and through Indian country. North of us there is one of the wildest and most remote lands in North America, where a criminal could hide for years.
"The only law we have here is the law of strength. The only justice we have must live in the hearts and minds of men. The land is hard, and so the men are hard. We make mistakes, of course, but when there is a case of murder, we try to handle the murderer so he will not kill again.
"Someday we will have law, we will have order. Then we can let the courts decide, but now we have none of those things. If we find a mad dog, we kill him, for there is no dog- catcher or law to do it. If we find a man who kills unfairly, we punish him. If two men fight and all is equal, regardless of which cause is right, we let the killing stand. But if a man is shot in the back, without a gun or a fair chance, then the people or sometimes one man must act.
"I agree that it is not right. I agree that it should be different, but this is yet a raw, hard land, and we must have our killers, not punished, but prevented from killing again.
"Vin Carter was my friend. Of that I can say nothing, only that because he was my friend, I must act for him. He was not a gunfighter. He was a brave young man, a fair shot, and on the night he was killed, he was so drunk he could scarcely see. He did not even know what was happening. It was murder.
"So I have come here. It so happens that I am like some of these men. Perhaps I am ruthless. Perhaps in the long run I shall lose, and perhaps I shall gain. No man is perfect. No man is altogether right or altogether wrong. Pogue and Reynolds got their ranches and power through violence. They are now in a dog- eat-dog feud of their own. When that war is over, I expect to have a good ranch. If it leaves them both alive and in power, I shall have my ranch, anyway."
She looked at him thoughtfully. "Where, Ross?"
His pulse leaped at the use of his first name, and he smiled suddenly. "Does it matter now? Let's wait, and then I'll tell you."
The smile left his face. "By the way, as you left me the other evening, a man told me you were a staked claim and to stay away."
"What did you do?" she looked at him gravely, curiously.
"I told him he was a fool to believe any woman was a staked claim unless she wanted it so. And he said nevertheless, you were staked. If it is of interest, you might as well know that I don't believe him. Also, I wouldn't pay any attention if I did."
She smiled. "I would be surprised if you did. Nevertheless," her chin lifted a little, "what he said is true."
Ross Haney's heart seemed to stop. For a full minute he stared at her, amazed and wordless. "You mean-what?"
"I mean that I am engaged to marry Star Levitt. I have been engaged to him for three months."
She arose swiftly. "I must be going now." Her hand dropped suddenly to his with a gentle pressure, and then she was gone.
He stared after her. His thoughts refused to order themselves, for of all the things she might have said or that he might have expected, this was the last. Sherry Vernon was engaged to Star Levitt.
"Some hot coffee?" It was May, smiling down at him.
"Sure." She cleaned up the table and then left him alone. "Sure," he said again, speaking softly into empty air. "That's the way it would be. I meet a girl worth having and she belongs to somebody else!"
"Mind if I sit down?"
He looked up to see Allan Kinney, the hotel clerk, standing by the table. "Go ahead," he suggested, "and have some coffee."
May delivered the coffee, and for a few minutes there was silence. Then Kinney said, "Ross, you'd do a lot for a friend, wouldn't you?"
Surprised, he glanced up, and something in Kinney's eyes told him what was coming. "Why, sure!" But even as he said it he was thinking it over, thinking over what he knew Kinney had on his mind.
Of course, he should have guessed it right away. There was no other place. This was a Walt Pogue, Chalk Reynolds town.
"Do you regard me as a friend? Of course, I haven't known you long, but you seem like a regular fellow. You haven't any local ties that I can see."
"That's right! I just cut the last one. Or had it cut. What do you want me to do? Get him out of town?"
Kinney jerked sharply. "You mean-you know?"
"I guessed. Where else
would he go? Is Burt hurt bad?"
"He can ride. He's a good man, Ross. One of the best. I had no idea what to do about him because I know they will think of the hotel soon."
"You've got him here?" Haney was incredulous. "We'd best get him out tonight. That Box N crowd will be in hunting him, and I've a hunch the RR outfit won't back him the least bit."
"He's in the potato cellar. In a box under the potatoes."
"Whatever made you ask me?" Ross demanded.
Kinney shrugged. "Well, like I said, you hadn't any ties here, and seemed on the prod, as they say in Soledad. Then, May suggested it. May did, and Sherry."
"She knows?"
"I thought of her first. The VV is out of this fight so far, and it seemed the only place, but she told me she would like to, but there were reasons why it was the very worst place for him. Then she suggested you."
"She did?"
"Uh-huh. She said if you liked Burt, she knew you would do it, and you might do it just as a slap at Reynolds and Pogue. She didn't seem to believe Reynolds would help, either."
Haney digested that thoughtfully. Apparently Sherry had a pretty good idea of just what undercurrents were moving the pawns about in the Soledad chess game. Of course, she would have heard at least part of Berdue's meeting with Kerb Dahl and the others.
"We can't wait," Haney said. "It will have to be done now. The Box N hands should be getting to town within the hour. Have you got a spare horse?"
"Not that we can get without everybody knowing, but May has one at her place," Kinney answered. "She lives on the edge of town. The problem is to get him there."
"I'll get him there," Haney promised. "But I'd best get mounted myself. I know where to take him, too. However, you'd best throw us together a sack of grub from the restaurant supplies so there won't be too many questions asked. After I come back again, I can arrange to get some stuff."
the Rider Of Ruby Hills (1986) Page 5
