by Dean Owen
“That’s Bolsa Boquete,” announced the deputy named Phil. “I never went through it.”
“What’s it mean—the name?”
“Boquete’s gap. Bolsa’s money—not jest the same as dinero. It’s the word they have on the bank winders down in Mexico. Exchange.”
“Money Gap? That don’t tell us a thing,” said Jordan. “But I’ll bet my star they’ve gone through it all right. We ought to be not much more’n an hour behind them.”
“They’re on about us getting the papers,” said Plimsoll. He had not said much on the trip so far. “Too much talk nowadays. You can’t whisper in a dugout but what the news is all over the county inside of twenty minutes. Bourke sabes that getting the girl out of the county won’t do any good; he aims to get her out of the state and any Arizona court or sheriff jurisdiction. He’s the brains of the outfit. We’ve got to get her, Jordan.”
“You ain’t tellin’ me a thing I don’t know, Jim. But there’s one thing you can tell me. Is that tip you got about Dynamite a sure one?”
Plimsoll, sitting beside Jordan, flashed him a look of contempt.
“Do you think I’m chasing this girl because I’m stuck on her? One of the party with this eastern crowd dropped into my place and talked. Showed some samples and I had a good look at them. He happened to leave a bit or two behind and I had them assayed. Here is where I get back the money I put up to grubstake Casey.”
Jordan gave him a grin of derision.
“You an’ yore grubstake,” he jeered.
Plimsoll said nothing more.
As they neared the gap, translated by Phil in the unconsciousness that Bolsa had two meanings in Spanish, Jordan slowed up.
“No shootin’ in this deal,” he warned. “Come to a show-down, Bourke won’t buck the law soon’s we show papers. So long’s he ain’t been notified the court is makin’ a ward of the girl they ain’t done nothin’ wrong. But—if he resists, that’s different.”
“I ain’t goin’ to be awful anxious to start shootin’,” said Phil. “They done some pretty shootin’ at the bridge that time. Sandy Bourke’s a two-handed lead flinger an’ Soda-Water Sam’s no slouch. Neither’s Mormon. Me, I’ll be peaceable ’less it’s forced on me otherwise.”
They entered the split in the mesa. The cliffs shimmered in the heat, their outlines fuzzy. Branched and pillared cactus showed in gray-green reptilian growths. The soft earth, through which here and there the volcanic cores of the range were thrust, seemed as if it could supply the paint shops of a nation with almost any hue desired, ready for mixing with oil or water. Waves of heat beat between the walls of the cleft. The floor was fairly smooth, swept clean by occasional cloud-bursts, save for the skeleton of a tree and another of a too-far wandering steer, both blanched white as the alkali-crusted boulders. It was nearly level going and the car pounded along, all the occupants looking for trail sign. The mesa corridor, nowhere more than thirty feet wide, twisted and snaked, three hundred feet of sheer wall on either side topped by sloping cliffs mounting far higher toward the actual top of the mesa.
“Keep an eye peeled for rain, Phil,” said Jordan, “I’d sure hate to get caught in here with a cloud-burst.”
“Right,” answered Phil. “I c’ud see better if I had a drink. Plimsoll, you got somethin’ on the hip, ain’t you?”
Plimsoll produced a bottle and the four of them drank the fiery unrectified, unstamped liquor. Ahead was an abrupt turn. Jordan slowed. Making the curve, a fence stretched across the gorge, reaching from wall to wall, a four-strand barrier of barbed-wire, strung on patent steel posts. Jordan braked with emergency. The sight of such a fence in such a place was as unexpected as the sun-dried carcass of a steer would be on Broadway. Plimsoll and Jordan cursed, the former in pure anger, the latter with some appreciation of the stratagem for delay.
“We can tear it down quicker’n they fixed it,” he said. “I’ve got a pair of nippers in the tool kit. They can’t have driven in those posts deep. Come on.”
A voice floated down to them.
“You leave that fence alone, gents. If you please. I went to a heap of trouble puttin’ up that fence. It’s my fence.”
They looked up, to see Mormon seated on the top of a great boulder that had land-slipped from the cliff into the gorge. From thirty feet above them he looked down, amiably enough, though there was a glint of blued metal in his right hand.
“Hello, Jim Plimsoll,” he went on. “I ain’t seen you-all fo’ quite a while. You fellers out fo’ a picnic?”
Jordan advanced to the foot of the rock, producing his papers.
“I have a bench warrant here to bring into court for the appointment of a proper guardian, the child Molly Casey, she being a minor and without natural or legal protectors. I’ve got yore name on these papers, Mormon Peters, as one of the three parties with whom the girl is now domiciled. I warn you that you are obstructing the process of the law by yore actions. You put up that gun an’ come down here an’ help to pull down this fence, illegally erected on property not yore own. Otherwise you’re subject to arrest.”
“That is sure an awful long speech fo’ a hot day,” said Mormon equably. “But I don’t sabe that talk at all. Molly Casey ain’t here, to begin with. Nor she ain’t been here. An’ I don’t sabe no obstruction of the law by settin’ up a fence in a mesa cañon to round up broom-tails.”
One of the deputies snickered.
“Broom-tails?” cried Jordan. “That’s too thin. There’s no mustangs hangin’ round a mesa like this, ’thout feed or water.” He flushed angrily. He was short-tempered and he was certain the fence was a ruse to gain time, with Mormon left behind to parley. It all seemed to point to Sandy Bourke making for the railroad.
“You never kin tell about wild hawsses, or even branded ones,” said Mormon pleasantly. “Ask Plimsoll. He picks ’em up in all sorts of places.”
Plimsoll cursed. Mormon still held his gun conspicuously, and he restrained his own impulse to draw. Jordan wheeled on the gambler.
“You keep out o’ this, Jim Plimsoll,” he said. “I’m runnin’ this end of it. He’s talkin’ against time. You come down an’ help remove this fence,” he shouted up at the smiling Mormon, “or I’ll start something. It ain’t on yore property and it’s hindering the carrying out of my warrant.”
“It ain’t on a public highway neither,” retorted Mormon. “But I’ll come down. Don’t you go to clippin’ those wires an’ destroyin’ what is my property.” He slid down the rock and commenced to unbend the metal straps that held the wire in place. Jordan and one of his men followed suit with pliers from the motor kit. The job took several minutes.
“You’ll come along with us,” said Jordan. “You lied about the girl comin’ this way. I’ve a notion to take you in for that. But I reckon you can go back in the buckboard with yore partners.”
“Reckon I’ll travel in the buckboard, when you catch up with it,” said Mormon. “But I’ll come erlong with you fo’ a spell—of my own free will. I don’t see no harm in takin’ the gel visitin’ anyway,” he concluded as he took an extra seat in the tonneau.
Jordan made no answer but started the engine. The gorge began to narrow perceptibly, its floor slanted upward and the machine labored with a mixture that constantly needed more air. The way zigzagged for half a mile and then they came to a second fence. No buckboard was in sight. Beyond the wire the pitch of the ravine showed steeper yet, as it mounted to a sharp turn. Leaning against a post stood Soda-Water Sam, smoking a cigarette, his gun holster hitched forward, the butt of the weapon close to one hand. Jordan and his men leaped out as the car stopped, Mormon following more slowly.
“Afternoon, hombres all,” said Sam. “Joy-ridin’?”
Jordan wasted no more explanations.
“You take down this fence,” he fairly shouted.
“What fo’?”
“Ask yore partner.”
“Sheriff claims we’re cumberin’ the landscape with our li’l’ corral, Sam,” said Mormon. “He’s got a paper that gives him right of way, he says. Seen anything of Molly Casey?”
“Not for quite a spell. Go easy with them wires, Sheriff. Price of wire’s riz considerable.”
The second barrier down and the car through, Jordan ordered Sam to get in the car.
“Jump, or I’ll put the cuffs on you,” he said.
“Not this trip,” replied Sam coolly. “No sense in my climbin’ in there. Me an’ Mormon’s through with our li’l’ job. We’ll go back in the buckboard. It’s round the bend. I was jest goin’ to hitch up.”
Jordan glared unbelievingly, yet Sam’s words carried conviction.
“Yo’re sure goin’ to have trouble turnin’ yore car right here,” Sam went on imperturbably. “Kind of mean to back down, too. It’s worse higher up. Matter of fac’ the gap peters out jest round the turn. This is Bolsa Boquete. Bolsa means purse, Sheriff, one of them knitted purse nets. Good name for it. Look for yo’self, if you don’t believe me.”
Jordan and Plimsoll strode on up the pitch. Mormon followed, Sam stayed with the two deputies. Around the bend stood the buckboard with the buckskins in a patch of shadow under a scoop in the ending wall that turned the so-called pass to a box cañon.
“I told you the gel warn’t erlong,” said Mormon. “She and Sandy was with us fo’ a spell. But they’re goin’ visitin’ an’ they shifted to saddle way back, out there by the spring beside the lava strip.”
Mormon’s bland smile masked a sterner intent than showed in his eyes. Jordan, furious at being outwitted, dared not provoke open combat. He had nothing on which to make arrest of the two Three Star partners and he was far from sure of his ability to do so under any circumstances. Mormon hitched up the buckskins, but followed the sheriff and the scowling, silent Plimsoll back to the car.
“See that notch, way over to the no’th?” said Mormon, bent on exploiting the situation to the full. “I reckon Sandy and the gel’s shackin’ through there about now. Hawss trail only. ’Fraid you won’t catch him, Sheriff. They aim to ketch the seven o’clock train at Caroca. It’s the on’y pass over the mesa. If Sandy had knowed you wanted him he might have waited. Why didn’t you phone? Ninety mile’ around the mesa, nearest way, an’ it must be all of five o’clock now, by the sun.”
He stopped, puzzled by the change in the sheriff’s face. Chagrin had given place to exultation.
“Catch the seven o’clock train at Caroca?” said Jordan. “Thanks for the information, Mormon. That schedule was changed last week when they pulled off two trains on the main line. The train leaves at nine-thirty an’, if I can’t make ninety miles in four hours an’ a half, I’ll make you a present of my car. Stand back, both of you. No monkey business with my tires. Cover ’em, boys. The law’s on my side, you two gabbing word-shooters.”
He handled the car wonderfully, backing and turning her, and, while Mormon and Sam stood powerless, the former crestfallen, the latter sardonically gazing at his partner, the machine went tilting, snorting down the gorge.
“You sure spilled the beans, Mormon,” said Sam finally. “I’d have thought them three wives of yores ’ud have taught you the vally of silence.”
“I ain’t got a damned word to say, Sam. But I’d be obliged if you’d kick me—good. Use yore heels, I see you got yore spurs on.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE PASS OF THE GOATS
In the throat of the gorge the sun shone red on the tawny cliffs. The trail, a scant four feet wide at its best, with crumbled, weathered margin, crept along the face of the cliff above a deep cañon where the night shadows had already gathered in a purple flood, slowly rising as the rays of the setting sun shifted upward, not yet staining the summit.
It was close to seven o’clock. Sandy’s lean face was anxious. The girl drooped in her seat tired from the long climb, not yet inured to the saddle. The horses traveled gamely, sure-footed but obviously losing endurance. Every little while they stopped of their own accord, their flanks heaving painfully in the altitude.
Sandy had only once crossed the Pass of the Goats and that was years before. There had been washouts since then. Several times they were forced to dismount and lead the nervous beasts, Sandy doing the coaxing, helping Molly over the difficult places. He rode a mare named Goldie and the girl a bay with a white blaze that Sandy had chosen for the mountain work and which had been brought to them at the lava strip.
The mare halted, neck stretched out, turning it to look inquiringly at her master. A sharp incline lay ahead, the path little better than one made by the goats for which the pass was named. Behind, Molly’s mount followed suit, blowing at the dust. Sandy patted the mare’s neck and dismounted.
“It’s late, ain’t it?” asked Molly. “Will we miss that train?”
“There’s others,” answered Sandy. “Or, if there ain’t any mo’ ter-night, we’ll hire us a car an’ keep movin’. Yo’re sure game, Molly;” he added admiringly, “you must be clean tuckered out.”
She shook her head with an attempt at a smile.
“I’ll be glad when we start goin’ down, fer a change,” she admitted, looking into the gloomy trough of the cañon through which the night wind soughed.
“I’ll tighten up yore cinches,” said Sandy. “Worst of the climb’s jest ahead. Then we start to drop down t’other side. You don’t have to git off. Trail’s bound to be better once we git atop the mesa and start down. Mesa’s right narrer, as I remember. T’other side’s away from the weather. There’s a cañon with oak trees an’ a stream of water.” He tugged at the leathers, his knee against the bay’s ribs as she grunted.
“You ain’t much furtheh to go, li’l’ hawss,” he chatted on. “Downhill all the way soon an’ then a drink to wash out yore mouth an’ the best feed in Caroca fo’ the pair of you.”
“Gits dark mighty quick up here,” said the girl.
A great cloud was ballooning above them, like a dirigible that had lost buoyancy and was bumping along the mesa ridge. Its belly was black, its western side ruddy in the sunset. Sandy viewed it apprehensively. In superficial survey the mesa seemed much like the stranded carcass of a mastodonic creature left behind when the waters departed from these inland seas. A hard skeleton of igneous rock, with clayey soil for flesh, riven and seamed and pitted, crumbling and dusty in the sun, ever disintegrating with wind and water and frost. Under a rain the trail was slimy as a whale’s back. The cloud was soggy with moisture. Bursting, it would send torrents roaring down every ravine, wash out weathered masses of earth, sweep all before it as it gathered forces and rushed out on the desert, leaving the main cañons carved a little richer, the surface of the soil on the sink a little deeper, against the time when men should control these storm waters or bring the precious fluid up from underground reservoirs and make the desert blossom like the rose.
Where Molly and Sandy rode they were exposed to the first drench of a cloud-burst. Deeper in the pass, where the flood would be confined, their chance for escape would be infinitesimal. Even on the heights it would be precarious unless they could cross the remainder of the up-trail before the inevitable downpour.
Sandy examined his own cinch and tightened it before he mounted. And he whispered something in the mare’s ear that caused her to lip his sleeve.
“Let yore hawss have his own way, Molly,” he said. “I’m lettin’ Goldie do the pickin’ fo’ the lead. Ready?”
It was growing cold in the deepening twilight, the belt of sunshine was rapidly climbing toward the topmost palisades with the purple shadows in the gorge mounting, twisting and eddying in skeins of mist, twining up toward them. One spire ahead glowed golden. The cloud drifted down upon it, glooming and glowing on its sunset side. The crag pierced it, ripped it as it glided along, like the knife of a diver in the bell
y of a shark. A cold wind blew from the riven mass. Then came the hiss of descending waters. There was neither thunder nor lightning, only the steady rush of the rain that glazed the slippery trail, hid the opposing cliff from sight, sheeting it with dull silver, pounding, pitting, beating at them as they plodded doggedly on, almost blinded, trusting to the instinct of their horses.
Through the steady patter began to sound the savage voice of torrents falling over cliffs, rapids rising and surging in deep gorges. The wetness and the cold sapped Molly’s vitality. She shivered, her flesh seemed sodden, her hands and wrists began to puff and she saw their flesh was purple in the fading light. She rode with hands on the saddle horn, her head bowed, water streaming from the rim of her Stetson, the thud of the rain on her tired shoulders heavy as shot. The bay slipped, lurched, scrambled frantically for footing, hind feet skidding in the clay, haunches gathering desperately, heaving beneath her to the effort that brought him back to the trail. She saw Sandy ahead, dimly, like a sheeted ghost, twisted in his saddle, watching her. From the hips down he was a part of the mare he rode, from waist up he was in such exquisite balance while keeping his individuality apart from the horse that, despite her present misery and a presentiment of coming evil that was beginning to encompass her, Molly realized what a magnificent rider he was, and clung to his strength and skill, sensing the comforting power of his manhood.
To her right was the cliff, slimy with water, the trail so narrow that now and then her elbow dug into the soft stuff. To the left was blackness out of which mists ascended, writhing, like steamy vapors, the rain pelting into the gulf, far, far below; the thunder of augmenting waters. Masses of broken cloud swept on above their heads, purple and crimson and orange as they streamed across the summit like the tattered banners of a routed army. The light rayed upward at an acute angle. In a few moments it would be dark. But they were close to the top. The mare already stood on a level ledge of side-jutting rock, a horizontal protuberance that marked the extreme height of the Pass of the Goats, from which one could look down into the cañon of the oaks and the unfailing stream.
