by Jake Logan
The sounds brought Kennard up from where he had hunkered down, cutting at something on the ground with his knife. A smile brought his lips up into a sneer.
“Yer back among the livin’, eh? Good. Now I kin kill you all properlike.”
Kennard reared up like a grizzly, the hunting knife flashing in his grip. Slocum wasn’t able to get a good look at him because of new clouds scudding across the sky and obscuring the diamond-hard points of the stars. Slocum grabbed for his fallen gun, not sure where it had gone. By rolling onto his side for it, he saved his own life.
Kennard’s heavy knife made a dull thunk as it drove hilt-deep into the ground where Slocum had been only an instant before. Slocum kept rolling until he came to his knees. He tried to drag out his six-gun but found himself bowled over as Kennard slammed into him. Arms around the bulky mountain man, Slocum fought to get a good grip. The furs Kennard wore were greasy—almost as greasy as the man’s skin. Try as he might, Slocum failed to get a grip adequate for fighting.
He found himself under the heavy man’s knees, pinned securely.
Slocum saw the man fumbling to pull free another knife sheathed at his belt. What had happened to the first one was anyone’s guess. It must have fallen from the mountain man’s grip during the scuffle. But this one was firmly in his fist. Slocum saw Kennard’s arm lift. The occasional light from the stars caught on the shiny silver blade as it paused at the top of a thrust. Slocum heaved with all his strength and caused Kennard to shift his weight. And then he went flying away.
Betty had gotten to her feet, put her head down, and charged full tilt into Kennard. Her shoulder caught him in the armpit, forcing him to not only drop the knife but also to leave his superior position atop Slocum.
“Run, John, run. Get away,” Betty cried out. How she had cut the rawhide gag, Slocum didn’t know. Unless she had chewed through it like some wild animal. From the ferocious look on her lovely face, Slocum could believe that. She kicked and pummeled Kennard, keeping him off balance.
Slocum got to his feet and found his six-shooter. He knew the instant he leveled it that it could not fire. Mud dripped from the barrel. One shot and it would blow up in his hand. Slocum had seen men with clogged barrels lose their hands and, in one case, a life. Fragments from the barrel would fly in all directions like a cannonball landing in the midst of an infantry position.
He crammed the gun back into his cross-draw holster and hunted for the knife Kennard had dropped. He was still a little woozy from being knocked down, but he saw silver on the ground and pounced on it. Only Kennard got there first. Slocum found himself pressing down into the bucking, writhing mountain man.
“Gonna kill you,” Kennard squalled. “I ain’t lettin’ nobody come ’tween me and her.”
Slocum tried to get his arm around the man’s throat. He was tossed off. Landing hard in a snowbank, Slocum lay stunned. He stared at the clouds coming in and irrationally worried about getting trapped in another snowstorm.
Again he would have died except Betty kept up her assault. She rose from the ground and flung herself forward, tangling Kennard’s legs. The mountain man toppled forward.
“Run,” she cried. “Get help. He can’t do much to me.”
Slocum moaned as he crushed more snow beneath him, getting to his hands and knees. He was no quitter, but Kennard was stronger, fresher, and more focused at the moment. Slocum still could not leave the woman to the mountain man’s lust.
Kennard scrambled over Betty and tried to get his footing in the snow and mud. Slocum saw his chance and took it. He shoved hard, catching Kennard on the shoulder. The man slipped and slid, off balance, and then went rolling down a small incline.
“Come on,” Slocum said, getting his arm around Betty and pulling her to her feet.
“You can’t leave him,” Betty panted harshly. “He’ll follow us to the ends of the earth. You, he’ll kill. What he’ll do to me will be worse.”
“I know,” Slocum said. “That’s why we’re getting the hell out of here.”
“But I can’t run, not like this,” Betty said, indicating how her hands were still tied behind her back.
Slocum knew there was no time to free her. He heard huffing and puffing like a steam engine behind them. Kennard had fought his way back up the slope and was coming after them again.
“There,” Slocum said, “we can hide over there.”
“Hide? He can see our tracks in the snow. There’s no way—” Betty gasped when Slocum shoved her forward toward a crevice in the rock face. The mountainside was covered with snow, but Slocum saw right away there was no hope of duplicating an avalanche like the one that had carried away Grubstake. Even if he had had a pistol ready to shoot, there was not enough snow here.
Betty gave a loud cry and vanished suddenly from sight as Slocum pushed her in. Slocum looked back in the directionof Kennard struggling along behind them. The man moved with the implacable force of a storm blowing down from the higher elevations. Nothing short of death was going to stop him.
Slocum looked back to be sure Betty was safe. Then he saw that he had shoved her into a crevice seemingly without a bottom. He poked his head forward and saw movement almost ten feet below.
“Are you all right?”
“I can hardly breathe,” Betty gasped out. “That was too big a fall for me.”
“Anything broken?”
“No.”
Slocum wasted no time. He swung his feet around, let them dangle into space for an instant, then dropped. He tried to hang on with his fingers, gripping the edge of a rock. The frozen rock and his slippery fingers betrayed him. He landed atop Betty, much to her sputtering and cursing. Forcing himself to one side, Slocum sat in the mud and peered up at the crevice. Only a thin sliver of sky was visible, and that was rapidly being shut off by building clouds. Another snowstorm might drop a fresh white blanket before morning.
He tried to decide if they could weather the storm there, if Kennard might find and come after them, or if they had fallen into a trap where they would eventually die.
“Come on,” Slocum said, pulling Betty to her feet. “We have to explore.”
“Wouldn’t do having him see us, that’s for certain,” Betty said.
Slocum walked her a dozen feet along the narrow crevice until he found that they were trapped in this direction. He reversed course and went in the other. As they passed under the hole where they had fallen, Slocum saw Kennard sticking his head down.
“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you both! But her, her I’ll have fun with first. Mark my words!”
Slocum reached for his pistol, then remembered it was out of action until he cleaned it. Shooting Kennard would be easy. The man made no effort to hide himself.
“Come on,” Slocum whispered to Betty. “He might not be able to see us.” As if putting the lie to his words, Kennard began dropping rocks on their heads. Slocum worked his way through a narrowing in the crevice and then popped out on the far side into a tunnel that wound around.
“Is this a mine?” Betty asked. “And when are you going to get my hands free?”
“When we’re safe,” Slocum said. They had found the way out. Not ten yards off he saw starlight reflecting off bright snow. He tried to keep his bearings, but the way they had twisted around underground confused him. He needed to see the mountains and stars to get reoriented.
“He’s not going to . . .” Betty’s words trailed off when the opening was suddenly blocked by a huge body.
“You’re in there, ain’t ya? I kin smell you!”
“Stay behind me,” Slocum said. “I don’t think he can see us in the dark.”
He began edging forward. Kennard vented a constant stream of curses but did not move from his post blocking their escape. Slocum hefted a rock, pressed against the cold stone wall of the crevice, and got within five feet of the mountain man before Kennard heard him.
With a roar, Kennard grabbed for him. Slocum lifted the rock and brought it crashing down on the ma
n’s wrist. In the dark he missed connecting solidly, but he took away a little skin and sent a shower of blood spewing forth.
With this small victory came instant defeat. Kennard might have one injured hand but his other was still as strong as ever. He grabbed Slocum by the coat lapels and yanked. Catapulted from the crevice, Slocum tumbled over Kennard’s shoulder and rolled downhill a few yards. When he slammed hard into a rock, he was dizzy and unable to get his feet under him.
“You jist don’t wanna die, do you?” Kennard came downhill, knife swinging. Slocum blinked, thinking he was going blind, but it was only a light snowfall giving a bizarre aspect to the attacking man. Slocum got to his feet but was still half bent over when Kennard hit him at a full run.
The impact lifted Slocum off his feet and sent him rolling fast downhill. He felt every rock he hit until his head grazed a boulder. Then he was only vaguely aware of the world filled with falling snow and raging mountain men.
“I ain’t puttin’ up with you no more,” Kennard declared. Slocum felt himself rolling faster. He tried to stop himself but only jerked his arms and legs around to the point of damaging his joints. Changing his tactics, he pulled his arms in close to his body to protect his face and head. This kept him from being knocked out entirely.
He came to a halt against a dead tree trunk. He lay stunned for several seconds. In the distance he heard Kennard coming for him and knew it was death to remain where he was. But his legs refused to obey. His arms were bruised and curiously weak. Most of all his head spun in wild, crazy circles. Slocum heard wild cries but could not figure out who was responsible. Some were high-pitched enough to come from Betty, but they could as easily be from Kennard.
“Got you now, you miserable li’l wart,” Kennard said. There was no confusing this with anything Betty might be saying. Slocum pushed to hands and knees and caught a foot in the gut, driving the wind from his lungs.
“I reckon you done kilt Grubstake. Ain’t no loss. I git his share of ever’thin’,” Kennard said. Slocum felt himself flopped onto his back and his hands being pulled toward the nighttime sky. It took him a few seconds to realize that Kennard was securely tying his wrists with more rawhide strips. By the time he fought the bonds on his hands, Kennard had turned his attention to Slocum’s ankles. A new loop of rawhide circled his feet, making certain he was completely hobbled and helpless.
“Fight like a man,” Slocum got out. His mouth had filled with cotton and his tongue must have been the size of a German sausage. He kicked, but with his feet bound together there wasn’t a lot of force. He swung his balled fists, but Kennard easily avoided him. Slocum was as weak as a kitten after the beating he had received.
“Cain’t unnerstand you, but then I don’t have to now. I figure you’re going to fly real good all trussed up like that.”
“Fly?”
“You don’t know we’re standin’ on the edge of a big cliff? We are!”
Kennard dragged Slocum to his feet and held him so he could see downward into blackness. From the distant sound of rushing water, a river made its way down the valley. They stood on the rim of a steep precipice. Slocum could not even guess how far it was to the bottom, but it would be more than enough to ensure his death. He fought, kicking out. Kennard held him like a rag doll.
“Over the side with you, you pain in the ass!”
Slocum prepared to die, only to hear Betty cry out. She attacked Kennard again, driving the mountain man to his knees. Slocum stumbled but could not get away.
“I’ll kill you, I will,” raged Betty. She hit the ground hard and writhed about, coming up next to Slocum.
“Here,” she said urgently. “Take it!”
Something hard pressed into his hands. He gripped it only to feel his feet lifted from the ground again. This time Kennard grunted as he flung Slocum out into space to his death.
7
Slocum let out a throat-tearing scream as he sailed through the air and plunged downward into emptiness. Another scream ripped from his lips as he came to a sudden stop upside down and slammed hard into the rocky face of the cliff.
Clinging fiercely to the knife Betty had shoved into his hands before Kennard had thrown him out into space, Slocum fought to make sense of what had happened. He finally worked through the bigger facts, ignoring details until his life wasn’t in danger. He hung upside down. Somehow the rawhide strip Kennard had used to tie his ankles had looped over a rock outcrop jutting from the cliff side. This had not only kept him from falling to his death, it had swung him back under the lip of the cliff, out of Kennard’s sight.
With the good came the bad. Slocum was upside down. His head felt as if it would explode as blood rushed into it. He wasn’t sure whether blood trickled from one ear, but that was a detail. He held up the knife and stared at it. Straining, he tried to flip the knife around to cut the bonds on his wrists. That proved impossible without dropping the knife. When a wind began blowing along the canyon, which was cut by the roaring river below, Slocum swung gently. He felt the rawhide strip around his ankles begin to stretch—soon it would break.
Turning frantic, he worked to cut the bonds on his wrists but could not reverse the knife without dropping it. If that happened, he was a goner.
Inspiration hit him. Slocum crammed the knife handle down under his gun belt so the sharp side of the blade was up. Tensing his belly tightened the gun belt against the knife handle even more. He began sawing. The knife was not as sharp as it should have been. Slocum cursed the lazy mountain man for not dragging it over a whetstone more often. As he gasped and panted, the knife slipped from his belt. Slocum almost doubled up to force the knife back under his belt.
His belly ached and his wrists were cut from the rawhide strip. As his blood soaked into it, it would harden and probably begin to contract. This goaded Slocum to work harder, but he knew he had to work more methodically. He caught the tip of the knife under the rawhide and slowly moved down until he was sure the knife wasn’t going to slip out from under his belt again or turn. It took several more strokes, but the rawhide finally parted.
Slocum could not help himself. He let out another cry of pain as circulation returned to his deadened hands. Worse, the wind was whipping up, causing him to swing to and fro like the pendulum in a Regulator clock. Slocum held back any more outcry, then rubbed his hands together until he was certain he would not drop the knife. It was his lifeline.
Gripping the handle firmly with one hand, Slocum grabbed his pant leg with the other, trying to inch upward so he could cut the rawhide strip around his ankles. His strength petered out before he could succeed. He flopped back. Then he realized how lucky he had been. If he had cut the only thing keeping him from falling, he would have died.
Swaying in the increasingly chilly wind, Slocum thought hard. He finally flipped the knife around so he could use it for stabbing. Twisting toward the cliff face, he saw a crevice the knife blade might fit into. He thrust out and drove the blade securely into the tiny crevice. Using the knife as a handhold, he pulled himself around until he could grab a nearby rock. Hurriedly working the knife free, he repeated the maneuver until he took the pressure off his legs. He forced them down and pulled up and turned and struggled and finally worked himself around to sit on a narrow rock ledge. Only then did he cut the strap binding his feet.
Again relief flooded over him. Slocum had to fight to keep from falling off the narrow ledge. Taking a longer time than he liked to get his strength back, he was finally ready to find a way back to the top of the cliff—and Kennard. He had a powerful big score to settle with the mountain man.
He got his feet up on the ledge, then stood. Occasional gusts of wind threatened to tear him away from his aerie, but Slocum moved with great deliberation, finding secure toeholds and handholds until he planted both elbows on the rim. Poking his head up, he looked around. All he saw was a sea of white. The wind was blowing the snow about, erasing old footprints. With a huge heave and his feet kicking fast and hard like he was rid
ing one of those bicycle contraptions, he slithered away from the edge of the cliff and lay in the snow and mud.
“Kennard,” he muttered over and over, focusing his anger and hatred to give himself strength. When he got to his feet, the blunt knife with a chipped blade in his hand, he was ready to tangle with a pack of wildcats.
But Kennard would do for a start.
The wind was blowing harder now, forcing Slocum to pull up his bandanna to protect his nose and lips. Before he located the tracks of Betty and Kennard heading back toward the camp where the lean-tos were still pitched, the soft wet flakes turned into hard snow pellets and hammered at his eyes. Slocum plunged on through the increasing storm, knowing what Betty’s fate would be if he did not reach her quickly enough.
She had saved his life by grabbing the knife and pressing it into his hands. It was his turn to save hers.
His first hint that he approached the camp was the faint flicker of a fire. Kennard had not built it up too high, so the wind wouldn’t whip the flames about. Most of the heat would be lost to the storm in any case. Slocum doubted Kennard intended to depend much on the fire for warmth when he had Betty to keep him warm all night long.
First he saw the faint fire. Then he heard a woman’s shrieks over the rising wind. Slocum wanted to rush forward but forced himself to hang back and reconnoiter. He remembered how he had been wrong before and would have shot Betty rather than either Grubstake or Kennard. This was no time to make a similar mistake. He would get only one chance to strike. He was weak and his hands shook. His vision was blurred, and if he had to walk more than a mile farther, he would simply collapse.
He was at the end of his rope. He had to be sure Kennard was at the end of his life.
“Don’t go makin’ me mad, girlie,” Kennard’s voice came. The lean-tos had been repitched so they were together. Slocum approached from the blind spot. He saw faint shadows on the canvas. One was larger; that was Kennard. He knew it because the other figure was bare to the waist and cast the most delectable female shadow possible. Slocum could even see the outline of the woman’s breasts.
