Robber's Roost (1989)

by Grey, Zane

  Lincoln was busy at some camp chore.

  "Wal, I don't give a damn for store bread," Hays was saying. "Give me sour-dough biscuits. . . . How about you, Jim?"

  "Me too. And I'd like some cake," replied Jim, dropping his load.

  "Cake!--Wal, listen to our new hand. Jack, can you bake cake?"

  "Sure. We got flour an' sugar an' milk. Did you fetch some eggs?"

  "Haw! Haw! . . . Thet reminds me, though. We'll get eggs over at Star Ranch. None of you ever seen such a ranch. Why, fellers, Herrick's bought every durn hoss, burro, cow, steer, chicken in the whole country."

  "So you said before," returned Lincoln. "I'm sure curious to see this Englisher. Must have more money than brains."

  "Hell yes! He hasn't got any sense, accordin' to us Westerners.

  But, Lordy! the money he's spent!"

  Jim sat down to rest and listen. These riders had accepted him and they were out in the open now, where one might expect frankness.

  "Rummy deal--a rich Englishman hirin' men like us to run his outfit," pondered Lincoln, in a puzzled tone. "I don't understand it."

  "Wal, who does? I can't, thet's shore. But it's an honest God's fact, an' we're goin' to be so rich pronto thet we'll jest about kill each other."

  "More truth than fun in thet, Hank, old boy, an' don't you forget it," rejoined Lincoln. "How do you aim to get rich?"

  "Shore, I've no idee. Thet'll all come. I've got the step on Heeseman an' his pards."

  "He'll be aimin' at precisely the same deal as you."

  "Shore. We'll have to kill Heeseman an' Progar, sooner or later.

  I'd like it sooner."

  "Humph! Thet ain't goin' to be so easy, Hank."

  "Wal, Brad, don't jump your ditches before you come to them," advised Hays, philosophically.

  "I don't like the deal," concluded Lincoln, forcibly.

  Presently they sat to their meal, and ate almost in silence.

  Darkness settled down; the staccato cry of coyotes came on the night wind; the little fire burned down to red coals. Lincoln essayed to replenish it with fresh fuel, but Hays made him desist.

  One by one they sought their beds, and Wall was the last. He did not lie awake long.

  Dawn found them up and doing. Wall fetched in some of the horses;

  Lincoln the others. By sunrise they were on the trail.

  It turned out to be a windy day, cold, almost raw, with only a pale sun. Blowing dust and sand shrouded distant landmarks. About noon they passed close to one of the buttes, a huge disintegrated rock, the color of chocolate, and so weathered that it resembled a colossal pipe organ. Not long afterward another loomed up through the dust--a mound with the shape of an elephant. Thereafter outcropping ledges of rock and buttes grew increasingly more abundant, as did the washes and shallow, stony defiles.

  The gray, winding wall sheered off more to the north. About mid- afternoon the trail led down through high gravel banks to a wide stream-bed, dry except in the middle of the sandy waste, where a tiny ribbon of water meandered. It was a mile across this flat to the line of green brush.

  "This here's the Muddy," announced Hays, for Jim's benefit. "Bad enough when the water's up. But nothin' to the Dirty Devil.

  Nothin' atall!"

  "What's the Dirty Devil?" asked Jim.

  "It's a river an' it's well named, you can gamble on thet. We'll cross it tomorrow sometime."

  Next camp was on higher ground above the Muddy, and as it was a protected spot, in the lee of rocks, the riders were not sorry to halt. Wood was fairly plentiful, but there was an entire absence of grass and water. The horses, however, would not suffer, as they had drunk their fill at the river. They were tied up for the night and fed grain.

  Hays and Lincoln renewed their argument about the Herrick ranch deal. It proved what Wall had divined--this Brad Lincoln was shrewd, cold, doubtful, and aggressive. Hays was not distinguished for any cleverness. He was merely an honest, unscrupulous robber.

  These men were going to clash. That was inevitable, Jim calculated; and for that matter he had never ridden with an outfit of hunters or cowboys some of whom did not clash. It was the way of men in the open. Jim remembered a posse with which he had once ridden, in pursuit of rustlers, whose members had argued and fought so much among themselves that they failed to catch their quarry.

  And certainly it was common knowledge to Westerners that gangs of robbers were continually at strife. Hank Hays was evidently a robber of some degree, though scarcely an outlaw yet. It was difficult to define an outlaw in a country where there was no law.

  Early the next day Jim Wall had reason to be curious about the Dirty Devil River, for the descent into the defiles of desert to reach it was a most remarkable one. The trail, now only a few dim old hoof tracks, wound tortuously down and down into canyons of gray, yellow, brown, violet, black earth where stone appeared conspicuous for its absence.

  At midday the sun poured down into this colorful hole so hotly that horses and men sweat tremendously, and suffered from thirst and choked with acrid dust. The tracks Hays was following failed and he got lost in a labyrinthine maze of deep washes impossible to climb and seemingly impossible to escape from. Their situation became serious, and they halted for a conference.

  "Hell hole!" gasped Happy Jack.

  "How much more of this, Hays?" asked Wall, seriously.

  "I wish I was shore. If we get off down into the brakes proper it's all up with us. For this ain't nothin' to the seventy miles between here an' the canyon country. I've heared of men bein' chased down in there, an' of prospectors goin' in thet nothin' was ever known of them again."

  "We've walked round and round a good many miles," said Wall.

  Lincoln got off his horse and went down the canyon, evidently searching for a place to climb to the rim above. But he did not find it. Nevertheless, he returned in an assertive manner, and mounting, called for the others to follow.

  "No. Thet's the wrong way," shouted Hays. "Thet's south an' if we keep on we'll never get out."

  "Wal, I hear the river an' I'm makin' for it," returned Lincoln.

  Jim had heard a faint, low murmur which had puzzled him, and which he had not recognized because he did not dismount. They all followed Lincoln, who halted at the mouth of every intersecting gorge to step away from his horse and listen. Eventually he led them into a narrow, high-walled canyon where ran the Dirty Devil.

  The water was muddy, the current mean, the sandbar treacherous, but as it was shallow the riders, by driving the pack-animals on a rim, and plunging after themselves, forded it without more mishap than a wetting. The great trouble with the horses was that they were so thirsty they would have mired down had they not been forced on. At last a gravelly bar afforded solid enough footing for the animals to drink, and the men to fill their water-bags.

  Still they were lost. There was nothing to do, however, but work up a side canyon, which fortunately did not break up into innumerable smaller canyons, as had those on the other side of the river. Eventually they got out, when Hays at once located himself and soon led them to a camp-site that never could have been expected there.

  "Fellers, I'll bet you somethin'," he said, thoughtfully, before dismounting. "There's a roost down in thet country where never in Gawd's world could anybody find us."

  "Ha! An' when they did it'd be only our bleached bones," scoffed Lincoln.

  "Wal, mebbe you won't need such a place," returned Hays, curtly.

  "Jim, what do you think?"

  "I never saw such a place in all my riding. Nothing would surprise me," replied Wall. "When will we get up high where we can see?"

  "Tomorrow. Just before we reach the foothills. Wonderfulest country I ever seen, an' different. Thet's what fetched the Englishman. He's plumb crazy over the view. Wal, it's grand, shore as shootin'."

  "Hank, you always had the same weakness."

  "Ahuh. A man has to have weaknesses, hasn't he? Yours is whisky, hard feelin', an' greediness," returned
Hays, deliberately.

  That sally did not set well with Lincoln, though it effectually silenced him. There never had been any love lost between these two men, Jim conjectured.

  A good camp-site left the men more leisure, except Happy Jack, who evidently liked to work as well as talk and laugh. He was capable, too. After supper Jim strolled away from camp, down to where the canyon opened upon a nothingness of space and blackness and depth.

  The hour hung suspended between dusk and night. He felt an overpowering sense of the immensity of this region of mountain, gorge, plain, and butte into which he was traveling.

  He heard running water over rocks, a welcome, soothing sound.

  Coyotes had raised their hue and cry; now and then a shrill whistle of a nighthawk rent the air; cracking of weathered rock and rustling of brush indicated the presence of nocturnal animals.

  Hays had led up out of the barren network of canyons to the edge of a zone of life. The wind had a whisk, a tone, an icy touch of the mountain heights. While Jim Wall meditated there in the gathering darkness he was visited by an inexplicable reluctance to go on with this adventure. A blank, impondering fate seemed to stand up, vague, indefinable, yet more bitter than a fugitive life. He could not laugh it away. It needed daylight, and clear view of this calling wilderness, to dispel unrealities. He had had presentiments before, all of which had turned out incredibly true, but this clamped his soul somehow. He seemed to catch a glimpse of that soul, in the shape of a naked man, driven to and fro across the sand and the rock, tormented by horrors that were not physical, tortured by a spirit within.

  Jim ponderingly retraced his steps. He could make but little of such a visitation, and that little had to do with his youth, his home, his sister, his mother, all of whom were but ghosts of a dim past. Every man, even these brutalized robbers, had some caverns of memory, into which sleep or unsolicited turn of consciousness thrust them momentarily. It was singular that the instant he caught sight of Hays and Lincoln lying prone on the ground, dark, still, betraying faces turned up to the starlight, this strange feeling left him. It never returned. But Jim Wall went to bed with a feeling that right then he should have found his horse and ridden off into the unknown.

  Next morning he remembered something like a distorted dream, but he could not recall details. He had smoked too much these several days, and the strong drink Hays had brought along was not conducive to quiet nerves. Jim found himself confronted by a choice of drifting on in the ways of these men or returning to the lone-wolf character which had long been his. For the time being he chose the former.

  Despite the abundance of water and feed thereabouts, some of the horses had strayed. Lincoln came in with the last few and he was disgruntled. Hays cursed him roundly. They got a late start.

  Nevertheless, Hays assured Jim mat they would reach Star Ranch toward evening.

  The trail led up a wide, shallow, gravelly canyon full of green growths. Like a black cloud the mountains loomed ahead and above.

  Jim was glad to ride up at last out of that interminable canyon into another zone--the slope of the foothills. At last the cedars!

  Was there ever a rider who did not love the cedars--sight of their rich, green foliage and purple berries, their sheathed bark hanging in strips, their dead snags, their protection from wind and cold, their dry, sweet fragrance?

  But upon looking back Jim forgot the foreground. Had he ridden out of that awful gulf of colors and streaks? Hays caught up with him.

  "Come on, Jim. This here ain't nothin'. Wait till we get around an' up a bit. Then I'll show you somethin'."

  They rode on side by side. The trail led into a wider one, coming around from the northeast. Jim did not miss fresh hoof tracks, and Hays was not far behind in discovering them.

  "Woods full of riders," he muttered, curiously.

  "How long have you been gone, Hays?" inquired Jim.

  "From Star Ranch? Let's see. Must be a couple of weeks. Too long, by gosh! Herrick sent me to Grand Junction. An' on the way back I circled. Thet's how I happened to make Green River."

  "Did you expect to meet Happy Jack and Lincoln there?"

  "Shore. An' some more of my outfit. But I guess you'll more'n make up for the other fellers."

  "Hope I don't disappoint you," said Jim, dryly.

  "Wal, you haven't so far. Only I'd feel better, Jim, if you'd come clean with who you air an' what you air."

  "Hays, I didn't ask you to take me on."

  "Shore, you're right. Reckon I figgered everybody knew Hank Hays.

  Why there's a town down here named after me--Hankville."

  "A town? No one would think it."

  "Wal, it ain't much to brag on. A few cabins, the first of which I threw up with my father years ago. In his later years he was a prospector--before thet a Mormon. I never had no Mormon in me. We lived there for years. I trapped fur up here in the mountains. In fact I got to know the whole country except thet Black Dragon Canyon, an' thet hell hole of the Dirty Devil. . . . My old man was shot by rustlers."

  "I gathered you'd no use for rustlers. . . . Well then, Hays, how'd you fall into your present line of business?"

  "Haw! Haw! Present line. Thet's a good one. Now, Jim, what do you reckon thet line is?"

  "You seem to be versatile, Hays. But if I was to judge from our meeting with the fat Mormon at the ferry, I'd say you relieved people of surplus cash."

  "Very nice put, Jim. I'd hate to be a low-down thief. . . . Jim, I was an honest man once, not so long ago. It was a woman who made me what I am today. Thet's why I'm cold on women."

  "Were you ever married?" went on Jim, stirred a little by the other's crude pathos.

  "Thet was the hell of it," replied Hays, and he seemed to lose desire to confide further.

  Jim revolved in mind a story to tell this robber, if only to please him and establish some kind of background.

  "Well, Hank, my story isn't anything to excite pity, like yours.

  And sure not friendship."

  "Ahuh. I had you figgered, Jim," replied Hays, wagging his head.

  "Shore Jim Wall ain't your right handle. Wal, any handle will do out here. . . . Don't be afraid to tell me about yourself, now or some other time."

  "Thanks, Hank. A man gets to be cautious. A rolling stone gathers no moss."

  "Wal, I'd rather train with enemies than alone. I can't stand bein' alone much."

  "That accounts for Lincoln. He rubs you the wrong way, Hank."

  "Brad's a cross-grained cuss, but he has his good points. They don't show in times like this."

  Jim had to make conjecture about the times that did bring out a desirable side of Brad Lincoln. And he had his doubts about it.

  The trail narrowed into rough going, which necessitated single file, and gradual separation of the riders. The morning was bright, cool, beautiful, with air full of sweet smells of sage, which soft gray growth had come down to meet them. Blue jays squalled, mocking-birds sang melodiously; ring-tailed hawks sailed low over the slopes. Deer loped away among the cedars. As there were three riders ahead of Jim, none of whom got off to shoot, it appeared no time for him to do so, either. Star Ranch probably abounded with game. Jim wondered about this new ranch. It would not last long.

  They rode into the zone of the foothills, with ever-increasing evidence of fertility. The blue, cloudy color of the still pools of water in rocky beds gave proof of melting snow. But Jim's view had been restricted for several hours, permitting only occasional glimpses up the gray-black slopes of the Henrys and none at all of the low country.

  Therefore Jim was scarcely prepared to come round a corner and out into the open. Stunned by the magnificence of the scene, he would have halted Bay on the spot, but he espied Hays waiting for him ahead, while the others and the pack-animals disappeared round a gray rock-wall bend.

  "Wal, pard, this here is Utah," said Hays, as Jim came up, and his voice held a note of pride. "Now let me set you straight. . . .

  You see how the foothill
s step down to the yellow an' gray. Wal, thet green speck down there is Hankville. It's about forty miles by trail, closer as a crow flies. An' thet striped messy pot of hash beyond is the brakes of the Dirty Devil. Reckon a diameter of seventy miles across thet circle wouldn't be far wrong. Thet's the country nobody knows. My father told me of a hole in there I'd shore like to see. Wal, where the green begins to climb to them red buttes--there you're gettin' out of hell. An' beyond lays grassy plain after grassy plain, almost to Green River."

  Jim's silence was eulogy enough. In fact, he could not think of adequate expression.

  "Now shift an' look across the canyon country," went on Hays, stretching a long arm. "There's two hundred miles of wind an' water-worn rock. You see them windin' threads, sort of black in the gray. Wal, them's rivers. The Green runs into the Grand to make the Colorado, less'n sixty miles from where you're sittin' your hoss. An' look at the threads meetin' the Colorado. Canyons!

  I've looked down into Escalante, San Juan, Noki, Piute. But thet was when I rode with my father. I couldn't take you to one of them places. We heard of great stone bridges spannin' the canyons, but only the Injuns know of them. . . . Thet round-top mountain way across there is Navajo. An' now, look, Jim. See thet high, sharp, black line thet makes a horizon, level as a floor. Thet's Wild Hoss Mesa. It's seventy-five miles long, not countin' the slant down from the Henrys. An' only a few miles across. Canyons on each side. It reaches right out into thet canyon country, which makes our Dirty Devil here look like a Mormon ranch full of irrigation ditches. Nobody knows that country, Jim. Think of thet. My father said only a few Mormons ever got on top of Wild Hoss Mesa. . . . What you think of it?"

  "Grand. . . . That's all, Hank."

  "Ahuh. I'm glad you ain't like Lincoln. We'll get somewhere together, Jim. . . . An' now, comin' nearer home, there's the Black Buttes, sometimes called Bears Ears, an' here's Gray Bluff-- thet wall thet dances toward us from the gray out there. . . . An' this mess of rocks across the valley is Red Rocks. An' so on, as you'll come to know. Round the corner here you can see Herrick's valley an' ranch. It's a bit of rich land thirty miles long an' half as wide, narrowin' like a wedge. Now let's ride on, Jim, an' have a look at it."