the Rider Of Ruby Hills (1986)

by L'amour, Louis

  "I'll come too," the girl said impulsively.

  "You'll stay here!" His voice was flat. "When I whistle, then you come. Bring my horse along."

  He swung down and, slipping off his boots, pulled on his moccasins. Then he went forward into the darkness. Alone, she watched him vanish toward the dark bulk of the buildings. Suddenly a light came on-too soon for him to have arrived.

  Mike weaved his way through sage and mesquite to the corral and worked his way along the bars. Horses were there, but it was too dark to make them out. One of them stood near, and he put his hand through the bars, touching the horse's flank. It was damp with sweat.

  His face tightened.

  The horse stepped away, snorting. As if waiting for just that sound, a light went on in the house, a lamp had been lighted. By that time Mike was at the side of the house, flattened against the wall, peering in.

  He saw a heavy, square-faced man with a pistol in his hand. The man put the gun under a towel on the table and then began pacing around the room, waiting. Mike smiled grimly, walked around the house, and stepped up on the porch. In his moccasins, he made no sound. He opened the door suddenly and stepped into the room.

  Chapter IX

  Obviously the man had been waiting for the sound of boots or horses, or the jingle of spurs. Even a knock. Mike Bastian's sudden appearance startled him, and he straightened up from the table, his hand near the towel that covered the gun.

  Bastian closed the door behind him. The man stared at the black-haired young man who faced him, stared with puckered brow. This man didn't look like a sheriff to him. Not those tied-down guns or that gray buckskin stained with travel, and no hat.

  "You're Walt Sutton," Mike snapped. "Get your hands off that table before I blow you wide open! Get 'em off!"

  He drew his gun and jammed the muzzle into Sutton's stomach with such force that it doubled the man up.

  Then he swept the towel from the gun on the table.

  "You fool!" he said sharply. "If you'd tried that, I'd have killed you!"

  Sutton staggered back, his face gray. He had never even seen Mike's hand move.

  "Who are you?" he gasped, struggling to get his wind back.

  "I'm Mike Bastian, Ben Curry's foster son. He owns this ranch. He set you up here and gave you stock to get started with. Now you double-cross him! Where's Ducrow?"

  Sutton swallowed. "I ain't seen him!" he protested.

  "You're a liar, Sutton! His horses are out in that corral. I could pistol-whip you, but I'm not going to. You're going to tell me where he is, and now-or I'm going to start shooting!"

  Walt Sutton was unhappy. He knew Ducrow as one of Ben Curry's men who had come here before for fresh horses. He had never seen this man who called himself Mike Bastian, yet so far as he knew, no one but Curry himself had ever known the true facts about his ranch. If this man was lying, how could he know?

  "Listen, mister," he protested, "I don't want no trouble-least of all with old Ben. He did set me up here. Sure, I seen Ducrow, but he told me the law was after him."

  "Do I look like the law?" Mike snapped. "He's kidnapped the daughter of a friend of Curry's, niece of Voyle Ragan. I've got to find him."

  "Kidnapped Voyle's niece? Gosh, mister, I wondered why he wanted two saddle horses!"

  Mike whistled sharply. "Where'd he go!" he demanded then.

  "Darned if I know," Sutton answered. "He come in here maybe an hour ago, wanted two saddle horses and a packhorse loaded with grub. He took two canteens then and lit out."

  Drusilla appeared now in the doorway, and Walt Sutton's eyes went to her.

  "I know you," he said. "You're one of Voyle Ragan's nieces."

  "She is," Mike said. "Ducrow kidnapped the other one. I'm going to find him. Get us some grub, but fast!"

  Mike paced restlessly while Sutton filled a pack and strapped it behind the saddle of one of the fresh horses he furnished them. The horses were some of those left at the ranch by Ben Curry's orders and were good.

  "No packhorses," Mike had said. "We're traveling fast."

  Now, he turned to Sutton again. "You got any idea where Ducrow might be going?"

  "Well"-Sutton licked his lips-"he'd kill me if he knowed I said anything, but he did say something about Peach Meadow Canyon."

  "Peach Meadow?" Bastian stared at Sutton.

  The canyon was almost a legend in the Coconino country. "What did he ask you?"

  "If I knowed the trail in there, an' if it was passable."

  "What did you say?"

  Sutton shrugged. "Well, I've heard tell of that there canyon ever since I been in this country, an' ain't seen no part of it. I've looked, all right. Who wouldn't look, if all they say is true?"

  When they were about to mount their horses, Mike turned to the girl and put his hand on her arm.

  "Dru," he said, "it's going to be rough, so if you want to go back, say so."

  "I wouldn't think of it!" she said firmly.

  "Well, I won't say I'm sorry, because I'm not. I'll sure like having you beside me. In fact"-he hesitated and then went on-"it will be nice having you."

  That was not what he had started to say, and Dru knew it. She looked at Mike for a moment, her eyes soft. He was tired now, and she could see how drawn his face was. She knew only a little of the ride he had made to reach them before Perrin's outlaws came.

  When they were in the saddle, Mike explained a little of what he had in mind. "I doubt Ducrow will stop for anything now," he said. "There isn't a good hiding place within miles, so he'll head right for the canyon country. He may actually know something about Peach Meadow Canyon. If he does, he knows a perfect hideaway. Outlaws often stumble across places in their getaways that a man couldn't find if he looked for it in years."

  "What is Peach Meadow Canyon?" Dru asked.

  "It's supposed to be over near the river in one of the deep canyons that branch off from the Colorado. According to the story, a fellow found the place years ago, but the Spanish had been there before him, and the Indians before them. There are said to be old Indian ruins in the place, but no way to get into it from the plateau. The Indians found a way through some caves in the Coconino sandstone, and the Spanish are supposed to have reached it by boat.

  "Anyway," he continued, "this prospector who found it said the climate was tropical, or almost. That it was in a branch canyon, that there was fresh water and a nice meadow. Somebody had planted some fruit trees, and when he went back he took a lot of peach pits and was supposed to have planted an orchard.

  "Nobody ever saw him or it again," Mike went on, "so the place exists only on his say-so. The Indians alive now swear they never heard of it. Ducrow might be trying to throw us off, or he might honestly know something."

  For several miles the trail was a simple thing. They were riding down the floor of a high- walled canyon from which there was no escape. Nevertheless, from time to time Bastian stopped and examined the sandy floor with matches. Always the tracks were there and going straight down the canyon.

  This was new country to Mike. He knew the altitude was gradually lessening and believed they would soon emerge on the desert plateau that ran toward the canyon and finally lost itself on the edge of the pine forest.

  When they had traveled about seven miles, the canyon ended abruptly and they emerged in a long valley. Mike reined in and swung down.

  "Like it or not," he said, "here's where we stop. We can't have a fire, because from here it could be seen for miles. We don't want Ducrow to believe we stopped."

  Mike spread his poncho on the sand and handed Dru a blanket. She was feeling the chill and gathered it close around her.

  "Aren't you cold?" she said suddenly. "If we sat close together we could share the blanket."

  He hesitated and then sat down alongside her and pulled the blanket across his shoulders, grateful for the warmth. Leaning back against the rock, warmed by their proximity and the blanket, they dozed a little.

  Mike had loosened the girths and
ground hitched the horses. He wasn't worried about them straying off.

  When the sky was just faintly gray, he opened his eyes. Dru's head was on his shoulder and she was sleeping. He could feel the rise and fall of her breathing against his body. He glanced down at her face, amazed that this could happen to him-that he, Mike Bastian, foster son of an outlaw, could be sitting alone in the desert, with this girl sleeping on his shoulder!

  Some movement of his must have awakened her, for her breath caught, and then she looked up. He could see the sleepy smile in her eyes and on her mouth.

  "I was tired!" She whispered the words and made no effort to move her head from his shoulder. "You've nice shoulders," she said. "If we were riding anywhere else, I'd not want to move at all."

  "Nor I." He glanced at the stars. "We'd better get up. I think we can chance a very small fire and a quick cup of coffee."

  While he was breaking dried mesquite and greasewood, Dru got the pack open and dug out the coffee and some bread. There was no time for anything else.

  The fire made but little light, shielded by the rocks and kept very small, and there was less glow now because of the grayness of the sky. They ate quickly.

  When they were in the saddle again, he turned down the trail left by the two saddle horses and the packhorse he was following. Sign was dim, but could be followed without dismounting. Dawn broke, and the sky turned red and gold, then blue. The sun lifted and began to take some of the chill from their muscles.

  The trail crossed the valley, skirting an alkali lake, and then dipped into the rocky wilderness that preceded the pine forest. He could find no signs of a camp. Julie, who lacked the fire and also the strength of Dru, must be almost dead with weariness, for Ducrow was not stopping. Certainly, the man had more than a possible destination before him. In fact, the farther they rode, the more confident Mike was that the outlaw knew exactly where he was headed.

  The pines closed around them, and the trail became more difficult to follow. It was slow going, and much of it Mike Bastian walked. Suddenly he stopped, scowling.

  The trail, faint as it had been, had vanished into thin air!

  "Stay where you are," he told Dru. "I've got to look around a bit."

  Mike studied the ground carefully. Then he walked back to the last tracks he had seen. Their own tracks did not cover them, as he had avoided riding over them in case he needed to examine the hoofprints once more.

  Slowly, Mike paced back and forth over the pine needles. Then he stopped and studied the surrounding timber very carefully. It seemed to be absolutely uniform in appearance. Avoiding the trail ahead, he left the girl and circled into the woods, describing a slow circle around the horses.

  There were no tracks.

  He stopped, his brow furrowed. It was impossible to lose them after following so far-yet they were gone, and they had left no trail. He walked back to the horses again, and Dru stared at him, her eyes wide.

  "Wait a minute," he said as she began to speak. "I want to think."

  He studied, inch by inch, the woods on his left, the trail ahead, and then the trail on his right. Nothing offered a clue. The tracks of three horses had simply vanished as though the animals and their riders had been swallowed into space.

  On the left the pines stood thick, and back inside the woods the brush was so dense as to allow no means of passing through it. That was out, then. He had studied that brush and had walked through those woods, and if a horseman did turn that way there would be no place to go.

  The trail ahead was trackless, so it had to be on the right. Mike turned and walked again to the woods on his right. He inched over the ground, yet there was nothing, no track, no indication that anything heavier than a rabbit had passed that way. It was impossible, yet it had happened.

  "Could they have backtracked?" Dru asked suddenly. "Over their same trail?"

  Mike shook his head. "There were no tracks," he said, "but those going ahead, I think-" He stopped dead still and then swore. "I'm a fool! A darned fool!" He grinned at her. "Lend me your hat."

  Puzzled, she removed her sombrero and handed it to him. He turned and using the hat for a fan, began to wave it over the ground to let the wind disturb the surface needles. Patiently, he worked over the area around the last tracks seen, and then to the woods on both sides of the trail. Suddenly, he stopped.

  "Got it," he said. "Here they are!"

  Dru ran to him. He pointed to a track, then several more.

  "Ducrow was smart," Mike explained. "He turned at right angles and rode across the open space, and then turned back down the way he had come, riding over on the far side. Then he dismounted and, coming back, gathered pine needles from somewhere back in the brush and came along here, pressing the earth down and scattering the needles to make it seem there had been no tracks at all!"

  Mounting again, they started back, and from time to time he dismounted to examine the trail. Suddenly the tracks turned off into thick woods. Leading their horses, they followed.

  "Move as quietly as you can," Mike said softly. "We may be close, now. Or he may wait and try to ambush us."

  "You think he knows we're following him?" Dru asked.

  "Sure! And he knows I'm a tracker. He'll use every trick in the books, now."

  For a while, the trail was not difficult to follow, and they rode again. Mike Bastian could not take his mind from the girl who rode with him. What would she think when she discovered her father was an outlaw-that he was the mysterious leader of the outlaws?

  Chapter X

  Pine trees thinned out, and before them was the vast blue and misty distance of the canyon. Mike slid to the ground and walked slowly forward on moccasined feet. There were a few scattered pines and the cracked and splintered rim of the canyon, breaking sharply off to fall away into the vast depths. Carefully, he scouted the edge of the canyon, and when he saw the trail he stopped flat-footed and stared, his heart in his mouth.

  Had they gone down there? He knelt on the rock. Yes, there was the scar of a horse's hoof. He walked out a little farther, looking down.

  The cliff fell away for hundreds of feet without even a hump in the wall. Then, just a little farther along, he saw the trail. It was a rocky ledge scarcely three feet wide that ran steeply down the side of the rock from the canyon's rim. On the left the wall, on the right the vast, astonishing emptiness of the canyon.

  Thoughtfully, he walked back and explained.

  "All right, Mike," Dru nodded. "If you're ready, I am."

  He hesitated to bring the horses, but decided it would be the best thing. He drew his rifle from the saddle scabbard and jacked a shell into the chamber.

  Dru looked at him, steady-eyed. "Mike, maybe he'll be waiting for us," she said. "We may get shot. Especially you."

  Bastian nodded. "That could be," he agreed.

  She came toward him. "Mike, who are you? What are you? Uncle Voyle seemed to know you, or about you, and that outlaw, Perrin. He knew you. Then I heard you say Ben Curry had sent you to stop them from raiding the ranch. Are you an outlaw, Mike?"

  For as long as a man might have counted a slow ten, Mike stared out over the canyon, trying to make up his mind. Now, at this stage, there was only one thing he could say.

  "No, Dru, not exactly, but I was raised by an outlaw," he explained. "Ben Curry brought me up like his own son, with the idea that I would take over the gang when he stepped out."

  "You lived with them in their hideout?"

  "When I wasn't out in the woods." He nodded. "Ben Curry had me taught everything- how to shoot, to track, to ride, even to open safes and locks."

  "What's he like, this Ben Curry?" Dru asked.

  "He's quite a man!" Mike Bastian said, smiling. "When he started outlawing, everybody was rustling a few cows, and he just went a step further and robbed banks and stages, or planned the robberies and directed them. I don't expect he really figured himself bad. He might have done a lot of other things, for he has brains. But he killed a man-and then in getting
away, he killed another. The first one was justified. The second one- Well, he was in a hurry."

  "Are you apologizing for him?" Dru said quickly. "After all, he was an outlaw and a killer."

  He glanced at her. "He was, yes. And I am not making any apologies for him, nor would he want them. He's a man who always stood on his own two feet. Maybe he was wrong but there were the circumstances. And he was mighty good to me. I didn't have a home, no place to go, and he took me in and treated me right."

  "Was he a big man, Mike? A big old man?"

  He did not look her way. She knew, then?

  "In many ways," he said, "he is one of the biggest men I know. We'd better get started."

  It was like stepping off into space, yet the horses took it calmly enough. They were mountain bred and would go anywhere as long as they could get a foothold on something.

  The red maw of the canyon gaped to receive them, and they went down, following the narrow, switchback trail that seemed to be leading them into the very center of the earth.

  It was late afternoon before they started down, and now the shadows began to creep up the canyon walls, reaching with ghostly fingers for the vanished sunlight. Overhead the red blazed with the setting sun's reflection and seemed to be hurling arrows of flame back into the sky. The depths of the canyon seemed chill after the sun on the plateau, and Mike walked warily, always a little ahead of the horse he was leading.

  Dru was riding, and when he glanced back once, she smiled brightly at him, keeping her eyes averted from the awful depths below.

  Mike had no flair for making love, for his knowledge of women was slight. He wished now that he knew more of their ways, knew the things to say that would appeal to a girl.

  A long time later they reached the bottom, and far away on their right they could hear the river rushing through the canyon. Mike knelt and striking a match, he studied the trail. The tracks turned back into a long canyon that led back from the river.

  He got into the saddle then, his rifle across his saddle, and rode forward.

  At the end, it was simple. The long chase had led to a quiet meadow, and he could smell the grass before he reached it, could hear the babble of a small stream. The canyon walls flared wide, and he saw, not far away, the faint sparkle of a fire.