The Lost Wagon Train

by Zane Grey

  “We’ll shore stand by that, Colonel,” rang out young Cornwall as Latch turned away toward the dark wall.

  He found the shelf where he had left his saddle, pack, and bed, and soon made ready to rest if not to sleep.

  Through the misty rain the camp fire shone dimly, crossed and barred by moving spectral forms. His own band stood in a group, talking low. Both factions seemed to have sunk their differences in the common cause of the moment. Latch watched them. How black and sinister! The hatred that had led to this pass for him could not wholly blind him to the truth. His intelligence kept pace with his imagination.

  In that hour, if never before or never again, he saw the naked truth. As sure as his ruin, so sure would be his death. Vain mad ravings of a defeated, frustrated man—these plans and hopes for riches, for revenge, to be of some use to the country which had cast him out! He saw all now when it was too late. Death, however, was nothing. He could welcome that. But death was insignificant compared with what he had invited. His soul sickened within him. Yet he had the appalling strength to accept his lot, to fight his better self and kill conscience, good, memory of home, even the thought of the brief, hopeless love which had helped to bring him to this degradation.

  How strange that in this devastating hour he should recall Cynthia Bowden! Yet not strange. Was this not the hour when all must pass in review before his tortured sight—for the last time? And Cynthia did come back, not soon to pass! That small regal head, with its crown of auburn hair, the proud dark eyes, the red lips that had been surrendered to his—they came back to make him shudder and sweat there in his cave. All of his misfortune dated from the blunder of that one year of college in the North. Why had he gone the way of wild college youths, sowing a whirlwind that gave his jealous rivals and Cynthia’s angered brother a weapon with which to disgrace and ruin him in her eyes? But for that would he be lying here in this Kiowa retreat, a consort of the bloodiest and cruelest of chieftains, selfplaced at the head of a border band of cut-throat outlaws? No! The downward steps from that fatal hour were easy to retrace. And his bitter, passionate soul revolted.

  Gradually the camp fires flickered and died out, leaving the canyon black as a cave. The trees were barely discernible. A mournful sighing wind breathed through them, with a steady accompaniment of low murmur of tumbling stream, in itself a lonely sound. Then a sharp cry of wild beast, high on the opposite rim, pierced the silence.

  It defined the status of Spider Web Canyon, wildest and most inaccessible hole known to the Kiowas. This place had been worn and weathered out of solid rock by the devil to fulfill a robber’s dream. But Latch thrilled no more in the blackness of night. Perhaps when the sun shone again, and the morbid cowardice had faded from his mind, he might feel the same as when he had first ridden into the strange, beautiful, purple rent in the rocks.

  The hours wore on, at last merciful to a spent spirit. And he slept. He awoke in the dim gray dawn, aware of a stir out under the trees. Where was he?

  A bulge of rock shelved out over his head. A cave had been his roof! Opaque gray gloom enfolded the space out there. Suddenly he remembered the place, the time, the meaning, and a terrible sick hatred of the dawn, of another day, pervaded his soul.

  CHAPTER

  2

  HARD on that sensation fell the bell-like voice of Lester Cornwall: “Mawnin’, Colonel.”

  “It’s hardly good morning, Lester,” replied Latch, as he flung his blankets back and sat up. “Gray dawn of an evil day, I’d say.”

  “Evil if Leighton has his way, Colonel,” rejoined the youth, in lower tone. “I don’t trust that man.”

  “Did you hear anything?” demanded Latch, hurriedly pulling on his boots. Opposition, some one or something to distrust, stimulated and hardened him to realities.

  “It’s enough to say now that I’m on your side,” returned Cornwall, deliberately.

  “Thank you, Lester. I hope you will be justified…. Did Leighton send you?”

  “No. Nor did he like my snooping into this. I made up my mind last night I was going, and I was the first up. Leighton has Sprall and that Texas gunner with him. They’re saddling a pack-horse.”

  “Humph! And where did you come in?”

  “That’s what he asked. I told him I’d call you. He thinks you included me in this rum-getting…. I’m not apologizing, Colonel. Take me or leave me. It’s all one to me.”

  “Cornwall, I’ve an idea that whether we fight Indians or make friends with them, massacre caravans to turn honest, go to hell or not—it’s all one to you.”

  “I’d stick to you, Colonel.”

  It dawned on Latch then that this young outcast had answered to some strange attachment born of the inevitable dissension in the band. There was something nonchalant and dare-devil about him which appealed to Latch.

  “Heah’s my hand, Cornwall,” said Latch. “You might have noticed that I have not offered it to Leighton, or any other of our crew.”

  In the gray cold dawn the younger man’s grip closed like steel on the other’s hand. Latch imagined himself past any such thing as friendship or trust. Yet here he wondered. What would wild life at a wild period do to him? He realized that there were unplumbed depths in him. Then the gruff voice of Leighton broke that handclasp. Latch buckled on his gun-belt, and examining his six barreled pistol he returned it to the sheath.

  Dark figures moved away in the gloom. Latch, with Cornwall beside him, followed them with a stride which soon swallowed up the intervening distance. They kept close to the wall, moving to one side and then the other to avoid obstructing rocks and trees. Sounds of the encampment died away. The gray dawn had imperceptibly lightened.

  “Never was any good at location,” growled Leighton.

  “Wal, if I’d knowed where that gin was cached you can bet your life I’d never forget,” replied Sprall, with a hoarse laugh.

  “Keep quiet,” ordered Latch, in a low peremptory voice. “I don’t want the Indians to know where we hid this stuff.”

  “Hell! They could sure find out quick enough,” retorted Leighton.

  “Perhaps, if they had time. But there are ten thousand cracks and holes in Spider Web Canyon. It’s the damndest place I ever saw.”

  They crossed a brawling brook and went on at a snail’s pace. Latch had his especial signs by which he had marked the cache. And these were peculiarly formed crags on the rim, which at length he barely discerned. Straight into the tangle of trees and rocks he led, over thick grass that left no imprint of foot, and found a crack in the wall.

  “Sprall, you stay here with the horse,” ordered Latch.

  The outlaw demurred under his breath. Latch led into the crack, which was narrow and dark. But by measuring off a number of strides he arrived finally at the point he sought. Feeling with his hands, he located little holes in the wall on the right side, and knew then that he was right. Day had broken and there was light enough to see the caverned walls, pock-marked with holes of every size.

  “We should have brought Keetch,” said Latch. “Here, two of you help me on your shoulders. One foot on each.… There!” Latch reached for a shelf above his head, and laboriously clambered upon it. The wide portal of a cave, unseen from under the shelf, opened in the wall. Back a few feet from the entrance the cavern was full of kegs of rum—three wagon-loads. Latch remembered well, because it had taken days of excessive toil to get those kegs into that hiding-place.

  “Throw up the rope,” he called. Then he lifted one of the casks and carried it to the edge of the shelf. When receiving the rope he lowered the rum on that, and pulled up to perform the same task for the second keg. The men below quite forgot that he required their aid to descend and packed their precious burden out to the horse. Latch had to get down the best way available, which was not without receiving sundry scratches and a solid thumping fall. Whereupon he hurried out of the crack to the exit.

  Already one keg had been looped securely upon the pack-animal, and two of the men were holding u
p the other keg, while the third made it fast.

  “Thar!” ejaculated the Texan, who had been responsible for the securely tied hitches. “Firewater an’ delirium tremens for them damned redskins.”

  “One keg is for us,” declared Leighton, with satisfaction.

  Latch concluded it wise to hold his tongue. Sooner or later he would conflict harshly with his lieutenant, and a dark certainty suddenly formed in his mind. He followed at the heels of his men, aware that Cornwall, ever vigilant, kept track of him. The rain had ceased, but grass and trees were wet, and water trickled off the cliff. The clouds were breaking away to the eastward. Evidently the day would be favorable for traveling. Latch thought of the strenuous ride ahead and felt grateful for anything that would make it less onerous.

  During his absence the horses had been rounded up and fetched in, the score or more belonging to his band contrasting markedly with the several hundred lean and ragged mustangs of the Kiowas. Keetch, a capital camp cook, was dealing out breakfast to the men who had not accompanied Latch. At sight of the rumladen pack-horse they roared merry welcome. It jarred on Latch. Rum had obsessed these outlaws. Perhaps it contained the oblivion Latch craved, as well as the spirit for evil deeds.

  The Kiowas’ camp hummed like a beehive, two hundred and fifty half-naked savages, gorging meat before a raid, made a picture Latch had never seen equaled. What would Satana’s entire band look like when about to charge a wagon train, or especially in the moment of triumph over the whites? Latch stumbled, having unconsciously closed his eyes. Amid the rough acclaim of his men he sat to his meal.

  “Latch, our red pards are aboot to move,” called out Keetch. “It’ll shore be hell keepin’ up with them today.”

  “Pack light and rustle,” was Latch’s reply.

  In half an hour Latch rode out with his men at the tail end of Satana’s band. Just then the sun burst over the eastern rim, transforming the canyon from a dark, gray-fogged, stone-faced crack in the wilderness to a magnificent valley of silver and gold iridescence. The wisps of clouds lifted as on wings of pearly fire, the white cascade tumbled out of a ragged notch in the black rim, to fall and pause and fall again, like fans of lace; the great oaks, walnuts, and cottonwoods, full foliaged, dripped strings of diamonds and rubies and appeared festooned with rainbows; the long grass, emerald velvet, spread away into every lane and patch and corner and niche, and green moss climbed the walls; deer with long ears erect trooped away into the timber; and above the murmur of the stream rose the songs of innumerable birds, over which the mockers held a golden-voiced dominance.

  Latch thought it a hideous dream that through this beauty and glory of nature he was riding down to heap blood and death upon innocent people of his own color. Must he steep his brain in rum to carry through this dark project? He divined that he must continually fortify himself against a background of childhood and youth and young manhood. He had not been intended for this devastating business. Strength must come from the past, from betrayed love and frustrated hope, from the poison that ran in his veins. To these he called with despairing passion.

  Spider Web Canyon stepped down between narrowing rugged walls, silver reaches and green patches vying with the groves as they all loped down toward a high irregular gap, black and mysterious, where the walls converged. On either side, myriads of rents split the walls, giving them the appearance of colossal fences, with pickets and spaces alternating. Far down, the larger of these were choked with foliage. What singular contrast between this lower end of the canyon and that at the upper where the walls were sheer and in many places for rods without a crack. The eastern wall was lower and perpendicular for all of its full four hundred feet. Keetch had claimed there were places where a wagon could be driven right to the rim. This had given Latch the nucleus of an idea. Why not haul all their stolen wagons to this rim, if that were possible, lower the supplies on ropes, and topple the wagons over, never to be seen again by freighters or scouts of the plains? It was an absorbing thought.

  The last red-skinned rider and his ragged wild pony vanished in the green-choked apex that led out of the gap. Keetch, with the pack-horses behind him, slowly approached the entrance to the pass.

  Latch, behind the rest of his band, brought up the rear. He took a last look around, the conscious act of a man who hated to leave the peace and solitude of this extraordinary canyon. It was no sure thing that he would come back. The upper and wider part of the canyon could not be seen from his position—only the wild ramparts that seemed to defy invasion of their secrets. But on his right opened the deepest and darkest cleft so far discovered in the wall, and here a slender ribbon of water fell from ledge to ledge. An eagle soared above the notch. Huge boulders fallen from the cliff lay surrounded by magnificent trees, some of which barely reached to the tops of these broken sections of cliff. The sweet, fresh, cool wetness of the morning, the glorious bright radiance on every tree, rock, bush, and plot of grass, the melody of innumerable birds, the presence of wild turkeys, deer, rabbits on all sides, the swallows flitting like a shower of steely sparks, the ripples on dark still pools of the meandering brook, and in the distance the faint roar of the waterfall—all these entered into Latch, and he felt that they were the last of good he would absorb in this life.

  What folly to love this canyon—to want to own it all himself—to have it to come to as a refuge! Still he loved and wanted. The perversity of his nature dominated here.

  Then he rode on down the winding green lane, into the willows and at last into the brook. Here all signs of tracks and trails vanished. And that brook would be the road of travel for many hard miles. A corner of bronze cliff bulged out over him, and when he turned it he was in the pass where the walls were scarcely forty paces apart, and had begun to sheer up frowningly.

  The brook flowed over smooth hard rock that left no imprint of the hoof of a horse. There was a decided current, and in places little steps down where miniature waterfalls babbled and gurgled. Sand and gravel and small rocks had evidently been washed down the floor of this tortuous pass. Willows and cottonwoods fringed the shore lines, except where the wall came down abruptly. At times Latch could see a hundred yards ahead and catch sight of the line of riders lounging in their saddles. The only sounds were watery ones. Latch had as a boy been an ardent angler, and he absorbed himself in watching for trout and other little fish in the deeper places. He was rewarded sometimes by the flash of a silver side spotted with red, and occasionally a fuller view of a lusty trout. And he thought of what wonderful hunting and fishing he would enjoy during the long period when it would be imperative to hide in this fortress.

  Some slants in the brook had made it necessary to dismount and wade carefully down where a horse could easily break a leg. And while he amused or interested himself in the course of the stream—anything to keep his mind off the deed for which this travel was necessary—the miles of canyon pass fell behind, and the volume of water mysteriously began to lessen and the walls to grow closer, steeper, and higher until at last only a narrow belt of blue sky showed something over three hundred feet above.

  Thereafter the light failed perceptibly and the hour arrived when the walls were so close that only dusk, strange and wan, prevailed under them. Then the green verdure disappeared and nothing but stark, somber rock overhung the subdued and drab brook. Slides of earth and stone from above had choked the space many times, to be washed away. Huge blocks of granite obstructed places, so that it was difficult for a horse to get by. In many cases the packs had to be slipped.

  All these details of escape from Spider Web Canyon augmented and at length terminated in a split so narrow that Latch could touch the wall on either side with half extended hand. Last came the deep water, where for long stretches the horses had to swim, and in several instances the men also. Latch’s horse was a good swimmer, otherwise Latch would have been hard put to an almost insurmountable task, for he was but a poor hand in the water. The current carried him through narrows where he knocked his knees again
st the walls. It was these swift places, fortunately short, that had played havoc with the band of outlaws on their way up the pass into the canyon. If the water had not been low the ascent would have been impossible. Also to be trapped there when a freshet came down would have been extremely dangerous.

  This constricted part seemed endless in length. Each man had to keep his ammunition dry, and as some of Latch’s band used powder-and-ball pistols, this cardinally important task grew almost insupportable if not impossible. But at last, far beyond midday, they got through the Paso Diablo and entered the widening and rapidly descending canyon below. Here again the sun found them and Latch warmed to the golden rays and the ever-broadening stream of blue above.

  At sunset the outlaws rode abruptly out of the rock rent into a vast level valley the like of which Latch had never imagined. The Indians had pitched camp in groups under wide-spreading trees; fires were sending up columns of smoke; the mustangs in droves grazed on the green grass. Far down this magnificent stretch, ragged black patches showed against the sunset gold.

  “Wal, boss, hyar’s your field,” called out Keetch, sonorously. “Look down the range.”

  “Buffalo!” exclaimed Latch, suddenly sighting Indian riders in a chase.

  “Shore. An’ we’ll have rump steak for supper,” replied the outlaw scout, cheerfully.

  Latch sat his horse and gazed long. He could not see the extent of this field, but it certainly contained thousands of acres. From where the pass opened, the bluffs extended in wavering lines in an oval curve, growing lower until at length they smoothed out upon the open prairie. Groves of cottonwoods dotted the great field, and a long irregular green line, thick and dark, marked the course of the stream through the range. There were isolated knolls, some circled by big walnut trees, and others with a single tree to distinguish them from their fellows. The golden sun rays paved the meadows and aisles.

  “No wonder the red man hated the white man!” soliloquized Latch. “To seek to rob him of this!”