by Paul Lederer
‘Shut up and sit still, Cornish,’ Singleton ordered. ‘I’ll take care of this. You are the one, then,’ he said to Joe. ‘The one that was sent up here, determined to retrieve the money for Tess?’
‘Yes,’ Joe said simply. The two men beside Singleton both began to snicker for some reason.
‘Quit it Cornish, Stiles,’ Singleton said. ‘Where’s the money, Joe Sample?’
‘I don’t know,’ Joe lied. ‘Look, I met Pierce Malloy the day he was killed in Yuma. I made him a promise that I would try to get the money to Tess. I think I’ve done about all I could to keep that promise. You’d better ask Marcie where it is. I’m done with the whole thing.’
‘He’s got it,’ the man named Stiles said. Cornish added:
‘He rode all this way to have it out with Trace, killed him, and then just gave it up? Don’t sound right to me.’
‘Nor to me,’ Singleton said, slipping a Colt revolver from his holster. ‘We’d better have a look in those saddle-bags of yours, Joe.’
‘Look,’ Joe responded without raising his hands. ‘Wherever that money is, it belongs to Tess Malloy, right? That’s all I care about, getting it to her. Her alone. Pierce promised his brother, Amos, that he would do that, and I promised Pierce. You boys rode with Pierce and Amos, shouldn’t Pierce’s last request be honored?’
‘Sure,’ Singleton said, cradling his Colt in his curled hand.
‘Ah, tell him, Frank,’ Cornish pled.
‘The girl you met – the redhead with a patch of freckles? – that’s Patsy Graves. She told you the same lie that Marcie had prepared for you. Banner and Marcie tied her up and stuffed her in the closet so that she couldn’t give them away. But Patsy figured she had no choice, the boys and me being gone, her not knowing how long we would take to get back. She lied to you just like Marcie did, trying to get her hands on the money.’
‘Then where…?’ Joe sat the impatient black horse staring at the men facing him, then looking into the distances. What sort of fool’s errand had he been sent on? ‘Then where is Tess Malloy?’ he asked plaintively.
The man named Stiles told him frankly, without expression, ‘When Tess got the word along the telegraph wire that Amos was dead, she cut her own throat with a butcher knife. We buried her out back under a pepper tree.’
‘It can’t be true!’ Joe said. Had this all been nothing but a tragic farce?
‘It’s true,’ Singleton said calmly. He still held his gun at the ready. ‘Now, if you have no objections, we intend to search your saddle-bags, Joe.’
‘All right,’ Joe said with apparent resignation. He swung to the side of his horse, but did not let his feet touch the ground. With his left foot still in the stirrup he slapped the black horse on the rump – hard. In surprise the horse bolted forward through the rank of gathered outlaws. One of them loosed a shot at him, but it missed wildly and Joe was in no position to fire back.
Clinging to the pommel, he glanced back and was able to swing into the saddle after a few hundred feet. Looking back, he saw that the Malloy gang was still turning their horses, deciding whether to rush after him or not on their bone-weary mounts.
Eventually they did decide to take up the pursuit, but if their hearts were in it, the flesh of the long-ridden horses was not. Nevertheless, Joe wasted no time in lining his horse away from them. They were only a few miles from Flagstaff, but Joe thought his best chance lay in taking to the rough country surrounding him.
Weaving the black horse through the pine woods he soon came to a craggy gorge where a river flowed freely with a white-water rush. Looking back, he could see the pursuing outlaws. They were gaining no ground on him, but neither did they show any intention of letting up the pursuit.
With the roar of rushing water in his ears, Joe started the black down the canyon edge. It was not his first mistake of the day, but proved to be his last. Joe heard the snap of leg bone, as sharp as the crack of a bullwhip, and the black horse stumbled, staggered and then went down. As Joe kicked free of the stirrups the animal began to slide down the rocky slope, its eyes wild, wide with pain and fear.
Joe half ran, half slid down the hillside after it, but he already knew there was nothing that could be done for the injured animal. Stopping beside its heated, frantic body, Joe did all that he could with regret. He withdrew the cash box from the saddlebags and positioned his Colt .44 beside the horse’s ear. He triggered off and the black horse ceased its thrashing. Joe made for the canyon bottom, his pursuers gaining precious time.
Joe ran, he slipped, he slid toward the bottom of the gorge and its frothing, raging water. He tore his elbow, his knee, twice lost his grip on the green metal box as he sprawled against the rough ground, and continued on. Pausing for breath behind a white-streaked gray granite boulder, he looked upslope and with a tinge of panic saw that the outlaws, far from giving up their quest, were closing ground on him. Their horses, weary, perhaps, but seemingly more sure-footed, far more nimble than Joe’s black had been, were making their way steadily down the face of the rocky, pine-studded bluff.
The riders must have seen the black horse by now; they must have made up their minds that Joe Sample did indeed have the stolen money.
Why did he have it? Joe was no longer sure. He felt like just surrendering the box, throwing it out on to the trail for them to find and keep. Joe didn’t want the money, and all it had brought him was misery – yet it belonged to someone else. Perhaps to someone far away who needed it badly: a bank on the verge of collapsing with all of its depositors paying the price; some cattleman who had worked for years to build up his spread, risking all on a long drive to market … there were many possibilities. Joe, who had risked all for the sake of the dead woman, Tess Malloy, now decided that he had the same obligation to some unknown entity.
He clutched the green box tightly and raced on as the horsemen made their patient way down the long slope.
The hill slope was slick, mostly shingles of rock and slippery green grass. Below, white water rushed through the channel of the gorge. Joe knew instinctively that he was making a mistake. It is always the high ground that should be taken by a fighting man. But he saw no way up. No way out except into the rush of the river current, and he did not wish to dive into that cold water carrying the strongbox.
The land was flatter now, and he wove his way through the pines standing there, hoping that the pursuing horsemen could not follow quickly. The scent of the trees was heavy, the ground underfoot spongy with fallen needles. He startled a group of crows who had been peacefully hunched among the treetops, and they rose to wing in a black swarm, certainly giving away his direction of travel if it had not previously been known to his followers.
Joe looked around frantically as he came to the river’s edge. He was bent over, panting heavily, the useless green box gripped tightly in one hand.
It was either into the river or back up. He ran on a little way downstream, eyeing the frothing current of the creek. He knew he was not going into the water. When he paused, needfully, for breath he found himself at the base of a sheer gray bluff which, at its height, towered even over the tall lodgepole pines. Joe doubted he could scale it, but events were leaving him with few options. As he stood there, looking up the craggy bluff one of his pursuers fired a shot. Much too close, the bullet whined off the rock a foot or two above his head, powdering him with stone dust.
Liking none of this, Joe fashioned a hasty sling out of his scarf, wrapped it around the box and tied the ends to his belt. Then in a near-panic, he began his ascent. His fingers clawed at narrow, weather-formed crevices and his toes scrabbled for any purchase. Looking upstream and below he could now see Singleton and his men emerging from the deep forest. All three had slipped their rifles from their scabbards and now they began firing from horseback.
Joe wondered if he should have tried the raging river which would at least have swept him away from the flying lead – before it tugged him under and drowned him – but he had made his choice and there
was nowhere to go but up.
If he could make it up.
His right hand lost purchase as rock crumbled away under his fingertips and he nearly fell. Fortunately the toe of his right boot was wedged tightly into a small crevice and he managed to find a new grip. Two of the crows he had frightened had returned to slowly circle, watching him with yellow eyes. A flurry of shots from below sent them squawking away.
Joe automatically ducked his head, knowing that it was a futile move. He drew his face away from the stone far enough to look up. It was not that far to the rim, and hanging over the edge of the bluff was an exposed pine root. If it were strong enough to support his weight… . He would not know until he tried it.
Three more rifle shots, six, pinged off the rock face, ricocheting away into the distance. Joe kept climbing now, frantically, his back, chest and face dripping perspiration. The wind did nothing to cool him, but it toyed with his shirt and trousers as if it might fitfully tug him off of his precarious perch. Joe did not look downward, but he knew he had climbed at least a hundred feet from the river.
His pursuers were nearer, their aim surer now. Joe heard and felt a bullet whine off the rock only inches from his foot. Another just over his head dusted him with powdered rock again. He looked up, saw the tree root within his grasp and lunged for it. His right hand caught a grip, slipped off and fell away in a shower of earth and debris. Frantically he clawed at it again, this time got a firm grip and risked using his left hand as well, as bullets peppered the stone around him.
Joe had to give up the purchase his boots had found in the cracks of the cliff face and attempt to ascend with only the strength of his arms if he were to make it to the rim, to safety. He had left himself no options and so as the bullets continued to fly, he gripped the tree root with both hands and climbed it. Dirt and rocks fell on to his face, but he paid these no mind. Half blind, he struggled up the root, dangling out into space as the bullets continued to follow him up the bluff.
His shoulders ached and his heart was racing with fear. His lungs were burning when a minute, five minutes later — time had lost all meaning – he was able to swing his right leg up and on to the flat ground of the cliff rim. Reluctant to let go of the root, he was encouraged by another group of shots to throw his right hand up as well, and claw for purchase against the rim rock.
Rolling, he was up and over in seconds to lie panting, aching, against the short grass of the rim. After a few minutes he sat up, sucking air into his lungs. Looking around he saw a dozen or so wind-bent pines, a small stand of twisted manzanita and a clump of thorny mesquite, all surrounded by the yellow-green short grass. The wind continued to blow, ruffling all in its passing. Joe could hear the hostile murmur of the creek far below.
He was safe, then. Or was he? He could not tell by the lay of the land which way Flagstaff was situated. He did not know if there was a trail on the back side of the bluff which would allow the horsemen to catch up to him. He untied the scarf from his belt and used it to mop his perspiring face. Looking down at the green box, he considered leaving it where it lay, thought about winging it off the cliff to those below who were so determined to reclaim that which was never theirs.
Joe did neither. Some twisted sense of honor forced him to carry on. He rose unsteadily to his feet and started through the trees in the general direction of Flagstaff, the strong box still held beneath his arm.
NINE
It grew darker, cooler in the pine forest. Joe Sample knew he was not alone on the mountainside. Now and then he heard a horse whicker and at least once what he thought was the voices of men in low conversation. He had a problem.
To simply stroll down the pine-clad hills in the direction of Flagstaff would be a mistake. The men following him would surely know that this was the only destination possible, and although they were not strictly local men, they were from the area, and probably knew the trails and the lay of the land better than he did. Their predations took them far from the home ranch frequently, or so ‘Tess’, now identified as Patsy Graves, had told him. They must be at least somewhat familiar with the area, whereas Joe had never seen this country before.
He could make it more difficult for them by circling toward town – not in the direction of the river, certainly, but toward the east where the pines grew even more closely together and the land leveled somewhat. They would have to spread out to find him instead of riding in a bunch.
Or so he believed.
He trudged on as the day aged and the cool shadows beneath the pine forest lengthened and grew cooler. He was high enough off the desert that he knew night would settle quickly and bring a harsh chill with it. The wind still blew, rattling its way through the tall timber, dropping an occasional dead branch and multitudes of pine cones along his chosen path. He startled a foraging five-point mule deer buck as he trod on, and later came across a badger which, for a moment, seemed ready to fight for possession of its domain but finally waddled away with an angry hissing sound.
Night would soon be settling, but Joe saw not a single light across the land below where Flagstaff should have been found. And then he did – a brief flaring arc of light – and he froze in his movement, reaching for his holstered Colt revolver.
The light was insignificant, quickly extinguished. It was followed by the wafting scent of tobacco burning. They had found him, or at least one of the three trailing riders had. By skill or chance, it did not matter. He had to get past this man – he had had the briefest glimpse of the big bony roan horse the man in the duster was sitting, and believed the man to be the one called Stiles.
Joe paused, his back against a huge woodpecker-pocked old pine, peering into the near-darkness. The purple shadows allowed him to glimpse no more than he already had seen: Stiles, if that was who it was, leaning with his hands on the pommel, a freshly rolled smoke dripping from his lips.
As silently as possible, Joe placed the strongbox down and crept forward.
He had to take his try at Stiles before the other two could show up. Any shot would bring them on the run, but if he could get Stiles’s horse away from him, he had a chance at out-racing Cornish and Frank Singleton to the safety of Flagstaff. Perhaps not a good chance, but a chance. All three of the horses he had seen were worn to a frazzle, and Joe knew he might not be able to get any speed out of the roan.
If there were a way to take the horse without alerting the others with a gunshot … then that chance was lost: Joe’s boot cracked a dry pine twig in passing, and Stiles, who made his living with his own alertness, spun toward Joe, snatching at the pistol hidden beneath the flap of his coat. There was no choice at all. Joe moved to one side and fired up at the horseman at the same time that Stiles fired at him. That one short step to the side might have saved Joe’s life, for he was certain that the outlaw was a practiced shot. The bullet from the flaming muzzle of Stiles’s gun whipped past Joe’s head and slammed into the big pine with a sound like an ax cleaving wood.
Stiles was not so lucky.
Joe’s bullet ripped into the bad man’s chest, inches below his shoulder and shredded muscle on its way to his heart. Stiles threw his hands into the air, his revolver dropping free, and then fell from the saddle, his cigarette still alight in his mouth. The light from the ember of the cigarette was extinguished as Stiles hit the ground and his startled roan horse danced away and took to its heels. Joe stood looking at the dead man as the horse ran downslope, leaving the scent of dust in the sundown air.
Cursing his luck, Joe checked Stiles for signs of life. Finding none, he rose with his heart pounding, returned to the green box, hefted it and started on. At least, he thought, that was one fewer of them. What good it would do him without a horse, he could not have said. Two mounted riflemen would have every good a chance as three to bring him down, and he knew it. He tried to hurry on, but the light was getting very poor and he did not know the way. Twice he tripped and went sprawling, nearly losing the box in the dusky evening.
He heard horses coming in
his direction.
He had expected it, of course, after the shots were fired, but hearing them lifted his already accelerated heart rate to a thundering in his ribcage. In blind panic he continued on. He began weaving through tight copses where the trees grew so closely together that a man on horseback would have difficulty following him. He looked for dropoffs, stony declivities a horse could not maneuver down. In the near darkness over unknown ground it was nearly futile.
Joe Sample halted for breath, doubled over with the strain of exertion. His leg had begun to ache again; he no longer had the speed of his youth. Ahead, now, through the dark ranks of the pines he could see a hint of light, of many lights twinkling like so many fireflies. That was Flagstaff, then, and safety….
If he could make it that far before the killing men behind him ran him down.
Clutching the strongbox tightly to his side, he started on. There was no other choice left to him. By the poor light of scattered stars and the glow of the slowly rising moon, he found a trail – little more than a rabbit run – descending into the darkness of a canyon below. It seemed too narrow for a horse to follow, and so he made up his mind and plunged ahead, following the unknown trail into darkness.
Slipping again, he skidded forward, nearly to the edge of the steep path, and ended up on his back, falling hard. Lying there, the breath driven from him, he thought again of simply tossing the metal box into the abyss at his right – but what good would that do? His pursuers could not find it in the darkness, would follow until they could confront him. They would decide that he was lying, and do whatever they had in mind. No, there was no point at all in hurling the green box away. It would do nothing to save his skin; would fail to restore the money to whomever it rightly belonged.
Feeling that the blows he had taken to his head along the way had caused him to be more than usually stupid, Joe rose and continued on his way. At one point he realized that the lights of Flagstaff had grown brighter: they no longer flickered as they shimmered through the atmosphere. The town was not far off. If his leg, his heart could hold out for just a little longer….
