by Short, Luke;
The thing to do then was to pull out alone and find his way back to Kean’s Ferry, then to Indian Bend, as had been planned originally. He knew that Traf would object to this, saying he would be vulnerable to attack from the three remaining men. But he would be wrong. There were ways a lone man could hide and travel that four people could not. No, he would not tell them he was leaving. That settled in his mind, he slept.
Caskie did not know what time it was when he wakened. The fire had just been replenished, and by its light he could see Dickey sleeping on one side of the cross-cut, with Sophie sleeping on the other side, closer to the fire. Caskie pulled his blankets over his shoulder as if preparing for the night draft in the tunnel mouth. He picked up Dickey’s carbine, which was the same caliber as his own had been, and for which there were loads in his shell belt. As he passed the fire, he saw the pan holding the bread Sophie had prepared for their breakfast. Quietly Caskie helped himself to a generous chunk of it and took one of the filled canteens at Dickey’s feet. With the bread and canteen hidden beneath the blankets he wore as a robe, he moved on moccasined feet down the tunnel to its mouth. Traf was sitting at one side of the tunnel, his body silhouetted against the light of the newly risen moon. Caskie halted beside him and said, “Hit the blankets.”
Traf rose and said, “If you see anything, wake me, old-timer. Good night.”
Caskie took up his vigil, but now instead of listening for sounds outside, he listened for sounds within. As he listened, he put the canteen on his belt and rolled the bread into his blanket roll.
When he heard nothing from the tunnel except Dickey’s steady snoring, he stepped out into the moonlight. He could see the dead man, but there was no reason to go down and look at him again. Instead, he moved to his right and started to climb at a gradual angle that would carry him through a notch in the peaks to the western slope of the Gabriels, and away, he hoped, from whoever was waiting below on this slope. Once he made the stage road, he could flag down an eastbound stage to Kean’s Ferry.
12
It was Jim Fears who had howled the curses when he discovered the horses had been turned loose, and it was Tom Gore who quickly silenced him.
“My God, we’re afoot!” Fears said, softly but angrily.
“Let’s get out of here, and quick! If they knew where the horses were, they know we’ll be here to look for them. Let’s go.”
“What about the others?”
“I don’t reckon there are any. Don’t talk now. Move!”
Gore led the way over the fifty yards to the stony beach, angling north, and then halted. It was so dark that Fears bumped into him.
“Why we going around this side of the lake?” Fears asked. “We come in the other side.”
“If they’ve gone out the side they come in, they’d have crossed behind us and we’d have heard ’em. Let’s walk some further and then wait for the moon.”
The two of them walked slowly and almost blindly along the shore of the lake, stumbling on rocks and sometimes stepping into the water. Finally, when they came to a boulder big enough for them to sit on, Gore said, “Let’s wait here.”
After a moment he said, “I heard Kitch roll down that slope. Loosh quit shootin’, so they must’ve got him. I told Farney not to climb that wall, but he paid me no mind. They knocked him off there like a sitting duck, and he’ll never be deader. That leaves you and me.”
“What if Kitch and Loosh are only hurt and they talk?”
“Hell, all they can say is that Caskie was rustling and they were after him.”
“Is it safe to light a match?”
“Better get behind this rock.”
While Fears built his cigarette, Gore bitterly considered their predicament. They had their quarry cornered, but what could they do about it? The first thing to do was to find their horses and secure them in a safe place—if they could find them before daylight.
Fears went behind the rock, squatted, and his match flared. Gore listened to the night and pondered. When Fears came around the rock and sat down, his cigarette tip aglow, he said quietly, “God damn! It looks like we missed this one.”
When Gore didn’t answer, Fears went on, “Looks like I’ll be on the dodge, don’t it?”
“Not yet. They can’t stay in that tunnel forever.”
“If five of us couldn’t get to ’em, how can two of us?”
“We’ll fort up on both sides of the tunnel, and when Caskie shows, we get ’im.”
Fears snorted. “And then they get us. We’re afoot.”
“That’ll take some doin’,” Gore said scornfully. “Remember, with Caskie dead, it’s one on one—if they’re crazy enough to try it. Sophie Barrick don’t count. Hold ’em off till night, then leg it to the horses.”
“If we find the horses.”
“We will.”
“All right, so we get Caskie. With Sam and Farney dead, where do we work out of?”
“The Reverse B is my spread,” Gore said simply.
Fears was silent a minute. “You never told me that.”
“You never asked me. We’ll go on just like always. In case you don’t know it, you’re Farney’s and Sam’s nephew. You’ll take over.”
Fears thought a moment, and Gore, waiting for his reaction, suddenly realized that he could see Fears. He turned his head and saw the moon beginning to rise over the ridge. Apparently Fears made the same discovery, for he turned his head and looked too. Then Fears said, “We’ll be short-handed as hell, Tom.”
“Ed Lacy’s got two brothers. I’ll have him send for them. No worry there, Jim.” He stood up now and said, “How you fixed for shells?”
“Nearly out.”
Gore unstrapped an extra shell belt from his waist, saying, “I took this off Farney. Let’s split it.”
In the thin moonlight they divided the ammunition, placing the cartridges in their own belts. When they had finished, Gore said, “Let’s go horse hunting.”
They started along the shore of this barren pocket and, save for a cursory glance when they entered the valley, it was the first close look they’d had at it. It was Fears who spoke what Gore had in mind. “Hell, Tom, there’s no feed here. Nothin’ but rock.”
“Yeah, but let’s keep goin’.”
In another half-hour they had come to the notch where the old road came through along the outlet, and they had not seen a single one of the loose horses. Gore waded across the shallow outlet and Fears followed and stopped beside him, saying disgustedly, “Looks like they’ve headed down for grass, Tom.”
“And we’ll need daylight to track ’em,” Gore said gloomily.
“We’ll, let’s go up the south shore. Maybe one of them strayed.”
By the time they had walked the equally barren south shore and halted among the abandoned buildings, false dawn was just beginning to break. They had not seen or heard a horse.
“You fort up on the slope that side of the tunnel, Jim, and I’ll take the other. If they think we’ve gone, Caskie is bound to show. Now get moving.”
13
Sophie was the first one to waken. She stoked the fire quietly so as not to disturb the sleeping men, then took the pot they were using as a water bucket and started for the fall of water just beyond the cross-cut.
As she reached the tunnel, she looked toward its mouth, expecting to see Caskie’s lean figure outlined against the light of the new day. The entrance was empty.
For a moment she stood there in puzzlement, and then looked past the sleeping men to where Caskie had bedded down last night. He was not there, and his blankets were gone.
Sophie went to the tunnel mouth and cautiously peered out into the gray dawn. Nothing moved among the wrecked buildings, but Caskie might be prowling about behind them. But he took his blankets, she thought wonderingly. Turning, she went back past the cross-cut, filled the pot, and returned to the fire.
It was only when she lifted the lid of the Dutch oven and saw that a big chunk of the pan bread was missin
g, that she felt a faint stirring of alarm. Had Traf raided the food supply when he came off his watch? Or had Caskie taken the bread when he went on guard? She was still puzzling over this when Dickey wakened, sat up, and yawned loudly enough to rouse Traf.
“Good morning to both of you,” Sophie said, and before they could answer, she said, “Did either of you make a raid on my pan bread in the night?”
Traf, on one elbow, said, “Not guilty, Sophie.”
“Me neither.”
“Well, some of the bread’s gone. Caskie’s blankets are gone, and he’s not at the tunnel mouth.”
Traf came out of his blankets in one swift movement and looked toward Dickey. “Where’s your rifle, Russ?”
Dickey felt the floor at the foot of his blankets, and said, “When I went to sleep it was here.”
Traf moved over to where the canteens were stacked and counted them. “We’re missing a canteen.”
“Does that mean Caskie’s gone?” Sophie asked.
“Blankets, gun, food gone, and no Caskie. I reckon so, Sophie, but I’m going to look around.”
Traf pulled on his boots, put on his dust-colored Stetson, and swept up his rifle; then he headed out of the tunnel.
On his way down the slope he saw the motionless body of Loosh Wegner on the right, and farther down on the flats the body of Henry Kitchell. Inside the roofless cabin from which the heaviest fire had come last night, he found the body of Farney Bartholomew lying in a litter of cartridge cases. Why would the half-owner of the Reverse B brand over on the west slope of the Gabriels be siding a couple of Bar B hands in a hunt to kill Caskie? The presence of Bartholomew here made even less sense than the presence of the Bar B hands. Their two outfits were far apart and had nothing in common except the wish for old Caskie’s death.
Leaving this cabin, Traf searched the others, but found no sign of Caskie. On his way back to the tunnel, Traf tried to add all this up, and he came up with no answer.
Sophie had prepared their breakfast, and when Traf said laconically, “No sign of the old coot,” she handed him his plate and cup of coffee. She sat down on the blankets beside Traf and the three of them ate hungrily, without speaking. Traf noted that Sophie, without benefit of a mirror, had fixed her hair, gathering it at the nape of her neck and tying it with a red ribbon, just as she had done when she was a schoolgirl.
Dickey, his right hand tucked in his belt to favor his shoulder, had already had his eye-opener, Traf guessed, for the reek of whiskey was in the air.
When they were finished eating, Traf leaned back against the wall and clasped his hands around his knees. “Reckon you can travel, Russ?”
“Don’t see why not. I don’t ride on my shoulder.”
“Are we leaving today?” Sophie asked.
“With Caskie gone, there’s no reason to stay,” Traf said. He looked at Dickey and asked, “Why was Farney Bartholomew riding with those Bar B boys, Russ?”
“Was he?”
“Yes. He’s dead down in that nearest cabin.”
Dickey scowled in thought, and then said, “I couldn’t even guess why, Traf. He was no friend of Braden’s, was he?”
Traf looked at Sophie. “Was he, Sophie?”
“I never heard Anthony mention his name. I’m not sure I know Farney Bartholomew myself.”
“He and his brother have a spread on the other side of the Gabriels. It’s a good thirty miles from the Bar B. Yet those three dead men were hunting Caskie. Where’s the connection, Sophie? Why were they with Braden’s killer?”
Sophie shook her head. “Since last night I’ve stopped trying to figure this out, Traf. I just don’t know.”
Traf looked at Dickey. “Any ideas, Russ?”
“You’re the one that’s supposed to have ideas. This whole damn wild-goose chase was your idea. What’s it got us? Me shot, and Caskie on the run.”
“Well, you got some fresh air, Russ. That’s a change anyway.”
“Tunnel air,” Dickey said sourly.
“No. Some sunshine, some exercise, and all the comforts of a barroom except the cards,” Traf jibed.
“Traf, stop it,” Sophie said. “What do we do now?”
Dickey said, “Go home with our tails between our legs like whipped pups.”
“There’s your answer, Sophie.”
“You’re not going to try and hunt Caskie again?”
Traf shook his head. “It’s hopeless, Sophie. He’s afoot, and wearing moccasins on stony ground. And he’s got every point on the compass to choose from and a four-hour head start.”
“Why do you think he left us?” Sophie asked.
“To keep us all from getting killed,” Traf answered quietly. “I think he took a look at what happened last night and figured out what could happen if he stayed.”
“Where do you think he went?” Sophie persisted.
“I think we’ll find him at Indian Bend.”
Sophie’s mouth opened in surprise. “You don’t mean it!”
“Why not? Before this gang cut down on us, he was willing to go. He’s even madder now than he was then.”
Sophie seemed to ponder this for a moment, then nodded her head as if accepting its truth. “He’s a nice old man,” she said. “Even if he never shows up again, he’s a nice old man.”
“He’ll show.”
“Is it safe for us to leave, Traf?”
Traf rose and stood looking down at Sophie. “Absolutely, Sophie. It’s not us they want.” He looked over at Dickey sitting on his blankets. “Let’s move the horses out, Russ. Then we’ll move the dead men in here.” He paused a moment before he went on. “After that, I’ve got a job for you. And only you can do it.”
“Like what kind of a job?” Dickey asked sullenly.
“Why, your deputy sheriff’s job. We’ll have buried two Bar B hands. It’s your right and duty to ask Tom Gore why they were trying to kill Caskie. He’ll give you the wrong reasons, but ask him.”
“Then why bother talking with him?”
“For just one reason, Russ. To tell him that Caskie was killed in the fight, and that we buried him along with the others.”
14
From his vantage point behind a rock on the slope to the peaks, Tom Gore watched Dickey and Traf lead the four horses out of the tunnel. They were tying them to one of the cabins when Sophie Barrick, her arms loaded with blankets, came out of the tunnel and moved over to the horses.
Gore levered a shell into the chamber of his carbine and waited. Caskie would come next with the rest of their stuff, he judged, and Gore watched the tunnel mouth.
Next, Dickey and Kinnard went into the cabin where they were forted up last night. Almost immediately they came out carrying Farney’s body. Together they climbed to the tunnel mouth and went inside with the body. Moments later, they came back and got Henry Kitchell’s body and lugged it into the tunnel. When they appeared again, they went to the body of Loosh Wegner, picked it up, and carried it into the tunnel. Afterwards, Kinnard came down to the horses, took the rope off Dickey’s saddle, and rode his own horse up the slope.
Once at the tunnel mouth, he dismounted, tied his and Dickey’s ropes together, and vanished into the tunnel with them. Dickey followed him. Gore looked longingly at the horses Sophie was guarding. Then his glance again shifted to the tunnel mouth. Where was Caskie?
Dickey and Traf came out of the tunnel carrying more blankets and gear, which they put down outside the tunnel. Traf picked up the end of a rope and dallied it around the horn, and then put his horse in motion. The rope grew taut and the big gray strained against it. Suddenly something gave. From the tunnel there came a low rumble and a muffled crash, and in seconds a cloud of dust sifted out of the tunnel mouth. Traf kept riding until Dickey called to him, and Gore watched as Dickey freed two heavy roof timbers from the second lariat.
Momentarily Gore was puzzled, and then he understood. They had pulled out timbering which would create a cave-in that would bury the bodies.
Bu
t where was Caskie?
He watched Dickey and Traf return to the horses, assemble their gear and pack it on the fourth horse, which would be Caskie’s. Why were they putting a pack on the horse Caskie would ride? The thought came to him then that maybe Caskie, like Farney, Kitch, and Loosh, might have stopped a bullet in last night’s fight. If he had, then he was dead, for they wouldn’t abandon him here. The more he thought of it the more certain he was that this was what had happened. When the three of them mounted, with Traf leading Caskie’s horse, and headed in the direction of the outlet, he was certain of it.
A feeling of overwhelming relief came to him. They had succeeded, and Fears would never be identified by Caskie as Braden’s killer. Now they could loot Bar B with nothing to worry about. He would pay off the Bar B crew, install the Bartholomews’ Reverse B crew, and siphon off all those steers he had persuaded Braden to hold over another winter.
From his position on the slope, he could look over the buildings to the lake’s outlet, and when he saw the four horses disappear through the notch he came out from behind his shielding rock and started down the slope to the tunnel mouth. Halfway there he saw Jim Fears come out from his hiding place and start down toward the rocky flats.
Gore waited for him at the cabin, and when Fears came up to him and halted, Gore said, “You watch all that, Jim?”
“Yeah, but where’s Caskie?”
“I think we got him last night.” There was a smile on Gore’s lean, thin-lipped face. “Figure it out. If he just got hurt, they’d take him out with ’em to get him patched up. He’s got to be dead and buried alongside Farney and my boys.”
“He could have snuck out last night,” Fears said.
“But his horse was here. The one they put the pack on.”
“He could’ve got out by foot.”
“When he had a horse to ride?” Gore asked scornfully. “Talk sense. Why wouldn’t they have gone with him?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t they?” Fears agreed. “They fought like hell to keep him, so they wouldn’t turn him loose, would they?”
