Robber's Roost (1989)

by Grey, Zane

  Hays made a dive for his horse, and mounting, he leaned over to take up a rope halter around the neck of the horse Miss Herrick was riding.

  "You lied--to me!" she cried, angrily. "You assured me that if I'd come without resistance you'd soon arrange for my freedom. Here we are miles from Star Ranch."

  Hays paid not the slightest attention to her, but started off, leading her horse.

  "Jim Wall, are you going to permit this outrage?" She turned in her saddle to entreat him.

  "I'm powerless, Miss Herrick," he replied, hurriedly. "I'm only one of Hays' band. We are being tracked. If Heeseman catches us you'll be worse off."

  "Oh, how dreadful! I will not be dragged down into that ghastly hole."

  "Drive the pack-horses behind me an' keep 'em movin'," yelled Hays.

  "Once we reach the river I can give them the slip."

  "Aw, you're crazy," derided Smoky. "Heeseman knows this country as well as you."

  The leader did not answer that taunt. He headed down the slope, dragging Miss Herrick's horse. Sparrowhawk Latimer fell in with them. Jim could hear the girl's protestations. The other riders made haste to line the pack-horses. Smoky brought up the rear.

  The wash that Hays had come down was the one which led into the Red Canyon. It was shallow, dusty, hot. The dry stream-bed afforded easy progress. Jim could not see any sign of a trail or even of an old hoof track. No doubt about Hays knowing his way! He rode as one familiar with this red-clay and gray-gravel canyon. Soon it merged with another coming in from the left, and then all features were magnified. It began to drop, the stream-bed grew rough, the walls higher. All landmarks above were lost sight of; even the Henry Mountains disappeared. The pack-horses kicked up a dust like a red cloud; the riders pulled their scarfs up over mouths and noses. Their yells and curses sounded muffled.

  Jim kept unobtrusively working ahead until there were only three pack-horses in front of him and he could see Hays and the girl at intervals. Latimer hung close to them. The canyon deepened. No more places occurred where it might have been possible to lead a horse up. And not long after that the walls became so steep that a man could not have climbed them.

  The direction of this canyon appeared to be swinging toward the north, but how much Jim could not estimate. As it twisted, the sun was often in front, then to the right, and again almost behind.

  Short patches of shade were exceedingly welcome. The horses began to be covered with a lather of dust, sweat, and froth. Jim looked back. Brad Lincoln, his face uncovered, red and wet, rode close behind the last pack-horse. Then followed Jeff, Mac, Happy Jack, and lastly Slocum, dark harsh figures, their very attitudes expressing resentment at this unexpected flight. Slocum was the only one who betrayed any sign of their being tracked, and he kept looking back and up at the ragged rims.

  Gradually the sand and rocks and holes slowed the pack-horses to a walk. Hays yelled back for his riders to hurry. He pointed to the left wall as if any moment their pursuers might appear there. Jim thought if they did that, it was all up with Hank Hays' outfit.

  What to do kept harassing Jim, until that problem, combined with the heat and dust, wrought him far from his usual coolness of mind.

  From the first moment that he espied the girl in Hays' power he had conceived the idea of rescuing her. But how, when, where? He could only go on and await developments. The immediate necessity was flight, until some safe retreat had been found.

  An hour or more of this travel, the first half of which had been rapid, the last slow, brought them to a comparatively long stretch of canyon with a turn. This was too open and unsafe to suit Jim.

  And evidently it increased Smoky's concern, for he bawled out to push the pack-horses harder.

  The next sign from Smoky was a rifle-shot. It bellowed out from wall to wall. Jim wheeled to see that he was throwing in another shell, both gun and face pointed back and up toward the right wall.

  "What you shootin' at?" yelled Brad, jerking out his rifle. The other riders shouted hoarse queries.

  Jim espied something flash along the rim, high up and far back, out of range, if it were a pursuer.

  "Rustle!" shrilled Smoky. "I seen riders. They ducked back.

  They'll aim to head us off."

  Hays bawled back an order and pointed aloft. Jim, from his point, could not see the very evident danger. Halfway down this long stretch, on the right side, opened a deep canyon. That would surely block pursuers, at least until they had headed it, which might require miles of travel. At any rate, it relieved Jim.

  He, with the riders behind, had the pack-horses loping, a risky thing, because if a pack slipped thereby stopping the horse, it would have to be abandoned. And to these fugitives, going down into this hole, packs were incalculably precious.

  Suddenly riders popped into view back on the point of the intersecting canyon. Hays and Latimer opened fire with their side- arms, the .45 Colts, the heavy bullets of which fell short, puffing yellow dust on the sloping point. The riders began to return the fire with rifles. Jim saw Latimer knocked off his horse, but he leaped up and mounted again, apparently not badly injured. He raced ahead after Hays, who rode fast, dragging the girl's horse, and at the same time shooting at the riders until he passed around a corner of the canyon. Latimer soon disappeared after him. Then the riders above turned their attention to the rest of Hays' outfit.

  "Come on!" yelled Jim to those behind. "Run for it! Our only chance!" And charging after the galloping pack-horses ahead, he let Bay find the way and threw up his rifle.

  The distance to the pursuing horsemen above, who were riding up and down, yelling, shooting, dismounting to run out, was close to four hundred yards--a long shot with the .44 Winchester from a horse.

  Heeseman's outfit had the upper hand. They could stand or kneel and shoot. Apparently they saw their advantage, for they did not take to cover. Jim heard their piercing yells, as well as the bellowing replies of the riders behind him.

  He had a quarter of a mile to ride to pass the corner ahead to safety. The pack-horses were scattered, tearing up the canyon.

  Jim gained on them. Then he began to shoot, aiming as best he could at that swift pace. Suddenly the canyon awoke to an infernal din. The reports banging from wall to wall magnified a hundredfold, until there was a continuous roar.

  One of Jim's first shots hit a horse, and his seventh connected with a rider, who plunged like a crippled rabbit back out of sight.

  The others of Heeseman's outfit took alarm, dodged here and there to hide, or ran back. Jim emptied the magazine of his rifle just before he passed round into the zone of safety. Neither Hays nor the two with him were visible, but the canyon ahead had another sharp turn.

  Jim hauled Bay to a halt, and soon the pack-horses galloped by, every pack riding well. From below came the slackening bellow of guns. Lincoln dashed into sight first, closely followed by Mac, Happy Jack, and Jeff, all with guns smoking. And lastly came Slocum, hatless, blood on his face, to rein his mount among them.

  "Smoky, did they--git you?" queried Lincoln, in alarm.

  "Jest barked," panted Slocum, spitting fire. "---- ---- ----! If we could only--fight it out! . . . Looks all right ahead. Load yer guns an' ride on!"

  Around the next turn they came upon Hays and his two riders. The pack-horses had slowed down behind them. With another big intersecting canyon on the right it looked as if their pursuers were held up.

  "Fellers, Heeseman will have to go back," declared Lincoln.

  "Thet'll take hours. I reckon Hank knowed what he was about."

  "Wal, thet was a hell of a close shave," replied Smoky. "Bullet hit my rifle an' glanced--skinnin' me over the ear."

  "Latimer," replied Jim. "I saw him knocked off his horse. But he was up, like a cat, and on again."

  "Ahuh. Luck's with us. Say, it's hot. If we don't come to thet river soon we're cooked."

  "Must be close now."

  That last hopeful assertion, however, was wrong. The Dirty Devil, expected at
every winding corner, failed to show up. Deeper and deeper grew the canyon, until its ragged, crumbling, colored walls, as denuded as the dry floor, rose three hundred feet, and everywhere slides and shelves of soil hung ready for an avalanche.

  Mid-afternoon found the fugitives entering a less constricted area, where sunlight and open ahead attested to the vicinity of a wider canyon, surely the Dirty Devil. And so it proved. Mud-holes appeared in the stream bed, and at last pools of clear water, from which the thirsty horses could scarcely be dragged.

  Then Red Canyon joined that of the Dirty Devil, a union which was startling in its nakedness. All was drab gray, yellow, and red, with the sullen river running shallowly over sandbars.

  Hays waited for his riders and the pack-animals to reach him.

  "Cinch up an' look to the packs," he ordered. "We've hell ahead, but nothin' no more behind."

  "No! Haven't we, though?" queried Lincoln. "Don't you fool yourself about Heeseman not follerin' us."

  "Wal, he'll track us this fer, an' thet'll be his limit," declared the robber. "There ain't no man in Utah who can foller me into the brakes of the Dirty Devil."

  "Hank, air you aimin' for thet roost you always give us a hunch about but never produced?" asked Slocum.

  "I've saved it up, Smoky, fer jest some such deal as this. . . .

  Pile off now. Once we hit the quicksand we cain't stop fer nothin' or nobody. Look to saddles an' packs."

  The riders complied. Jim, over the back of his horse, watched Miss Herrick when Hays made her get off. The long coat fell below her knees. She walked as if the use of her legs was almost gone. He saw her bend over stiffly, to rub them, and then lift her veil to let the gentle breeze blow upon her face. But presently, when Hays harshly called her to come back, she replaced the veil again. She was tiring and her head drooped.

  "Fellers, listen," began Hays. "The river's low. I was feared it might be up. It ought to be, 'cause by now the snow must be meltin'. Luck shore is with us. Wal, jest foller me. Drive the pack-hosses fast as they'll go. Don't stop for nothin'."

  "Ahuh. All right. But Sparrowhawk looks pale an' weak," replied Slocum.

  "He'll make it. We cain't stop now to doctor him up."

  "Sparrow, I ain't trustin' the boss so damn much. How bad air you hurt?"

  "Not so bad, Smoky," replied Latimer. "I was hit in the back, high up. The bullet's in there. Hurts like hell."

  "Ain't you spittin' blood?"

  "Shore, a little. I reckon my lung got nicked. But not bad; I can ride. Don't worry about me, Smoky."

  Hays laid a rude hand on Miss Herrick. "Git on, an' don't let me hear any more squawks out of you."

  The robber took up her halter and straddling his horse he spurred into the muddy stream. The going looked worse than it was. There was quicksand, but it had a stiff crust; it bent but broke only as the hoofs of the horses were being withdrawn. The pack-animals bunched on the shore; then one led, and the others followed. Jim was alongside the foremost. Bay feared quicksand, yet trusted his rider.

  Hays led into the middle of the river and then turned downstream.

  He was never in difficulties and the gray horse carrying the girl got along still better. The water was scarcely six inches deep and this fact no doubt rendered traveling easy at that point.

  Soon the whole cavalcade was splashing down the river, the riders behind and on each side of the pack-horses. They left no trace of their tracks now. Washes and gorges and canyons opened into the Dirty Devil on both sides. Half a mile down, the river made a sharp bend and the canyon narrowed again to a dark, forbidding, many-hued crack. Hays kept on, getting into swifter and deeper water, where he plunged his horse and dragged the gray. He passed one wide intersecting gorge from which a slender, muddy stream emerged. That, thought Jim, should have been a good place to go up. But this robber knew where he was heading. He had a goal in mind. Nothing but death could have stopped him.

  The pack-horses floundered in places. Some of them stuck, only to be beaten to violent exertion, when they freed themselves to go on.

  Jim's sight covered all the surroundings from moment to moment, always to be drawn back to that tan-clad form on the gray horse.

  Time and again water splashed all over her; her horse staggered, sank one hoof and then another, plunged to free himself, and got out; she swayed in the saddle; often she looked back, and no doubt, through her veil, could see Jim never far from her. Jim took it that she realized this was no accident.

  Hays passed other gorges breaking in from the left wall, and ever the way grew more forbidding. At last he turned into a crack that could not be seen a hundred yards back, and when Jim reached it he was amazed to see the robber leading up another narrow gorge, down which ran another swift, narrow stream. Jim appreciated that a man would have had to know where this entrance was, or he could never have found it. The opening was hidden by a point of wall which curved out and around. It opened down the river, and against the dark shade there was not visible from the opposite side of the canyon or from upriver any line of demarkation to show this secret gateway, which undoubtedly led into the wildest part of the brakes.

  This gash wound like a snake into the bowels of the colored, overhanging earth; and part of the time Jim could not see Hays ahead nor more than a few of the pack-horses behind. When, however, the water began to lose something of its muddy nature, Jim concluded that the loamy soil of this canyon changed, or else it was not long.

  The former proved to be the case. The canyon widened and the walls lowered; grass and shrubs made their appearance upon banks and shelves; a heavy, gravel bottom gave the stream a rippling murmur; huge rocks and caverned cliffs made their appearance. Still the volume of the stream did not diminish.

  By sunset Jim calculated the horses had traveled seven or eight miles without stepping once out of the water. The heat and dust had vanished. Twilight thickened between the cliffs. And at last, at a point where the walls were scarcely a hundred feet high the canyon forked. Hays took the left fork, which was dry. And darkness soon hid from Jim any distinct features. Seldom did he see a gleam of Miss Herrick's gray horse. The rims grew black; stars burned in the strip of sky above; the weary hoofs cracked on stone.

  Two long hours later Hays led up out of the boxing canyon. A hummocky, lonely, black-and-gray landscape rolled away on every side to the horizon of stars. Up and down, on through grass and weeds, across flats and ridges, the robber led for two or more hours longer, until Jim began to wonder how much more the pack- horses could stand. Then abruptly they began to descend into a black, round hole the dimensions of which were vague. Presently they reached a bottom from which weird, black, bold walls stood up, ragged of rim against the sky. Jim felt thick grass under his feet. He smelled damp earth; he heard a rustle of cottonwood leaves.

  "Hyar we air," called out Hays. "Throw saddles an' packs. Let the hosses go. No fear of hosses ever leavin' this place."

  Jim alone heard the chief, and he passed the word back to his nearest follower, and presently the pack-horses stood drooping, gray-backed in the gloom. The riders were not too weary to express themselves after that grueling trip.

  "Where'n hell air we?"

  "Smells good."

  "Dawg-gone! I cain't eat, but I shore can sleep."

  "Sparrow, how air you?"

  "Alive yet, an' not bleedin'."

  In the gloom Jim's night-owl eyes discerned Hays lifting Miss Herrick off her horse and half carrying her off toward the rustling cottonwoods. Jim, making pretense of leading his horse, followed until Hays stopped at the border of what appeared a round grove of cottonwoods impenetrable to the sight. He heard the tinkle of water near and a musical flow farther away and down.

  "Oh, for God's sake--let GO of me!" gasped the girl, and sank down on the grass.

  "You may as wal get used to THET," replied Hays, in low voice. "Do you want anythin' to eat?"

  "Water--only water. I'm--choking."

  "I'll fetch some an' a bed for you."
>
  Little did Hays realize, as he strode back to the horses, that Jim stood there in the gloom, a clutching hand on his gun and mad lust for blood in his heart. Jim knew he meant to kill Hays. Why not now? But as before, he had the sagacity and the will to resist a terrible craving.

  With nerveless hands he unpacked his outfit and turned the wet, raw- shouldered pack-animal free with the others. Then he sat down upon his bed-roll, exhausted by the physical and mental excess of the last twenty-four hours.

  Above him a few rods the men were unpacking, their relief voiced in low talk. Hays passed with a bed-roll on his shoulder. Jim heard it thud to the soft turf close by in the shadow.

  "Any wood around this bloomin' hole?" Happy Jack shouted. "It's midnight, but I'll hatch up a snack of grub an' coffee if we can start a fire."

  "Darker'n hell," growled Smoky. "An' I shore got a headache. I'd like to meet the hombre who bounced thet bullet offn my head."

  Hays returned. He was full of energy and his voice vibrated.

  "Plenty firewood," he said, cheerfully. "I'll pack some up, Happy.

  Tomorrow you'll see the greatest roost fer robbers in all Utah."

  "It needs to be," growled Lincoln.

  Jim listened, while he gazed around. He appeared to be down in a round hole, the circular walls of which stood up a hundred or more feet above him. Only a couple of notches, one V-shaped and large, to the west, and another small and shallow to the north, broke the level rim of the insulating walls. The stars turned very white in a dark blue sky. The low voices of the men and rattle of packs and the cutting sound of horses grazing seemed only to make the deep silence more permeating. The place fascinated. An owl hooted down somewhere in a canyon, and far away a wolf bayed blood-thirstily.

  Soon a crackle of fire turned Jim to see a growing light, and dark forms of men. Happy Jack was whistling. His cheerfulness was irritating. Could nothing upset him, tire him? Jim waited until he saw Hays pass in the shadow, back to the camp fire, and then he, too, joined the men.

  "Boss, any guard tonight?" asked Lincoln.

  "Nope. We won't stand guard except in daytime," replied the robber. "Tomorrow I'll show you the lay of the land."