the Mountain Valley War (1978)

by L'amour, Louis - Kilkenny 03

  Jack Moffit had insisted on coming along with the wagon. He stood up on the seat, looking all about. "Where are we now?" he asked.

  Nobody replied, and after a minute he said, "How far have we come?"

  "Maybe three miles," Quince said. "Might be less."

  Even though they carried no load but the kegs of water and the tools, the wagon was heavy, for the dust was rarely less than six inches deep and often they pulled through drifts that were as much as two feet in depth.

  After a few minutes Kilkenny mounted again, and once more they pushed on. Before them, something large and dark loomed through the dust. It was a long, low, basaltic cliff that might have been a flow of lava. Kilkenny knew little of such things, except a few words picked up here and there from surveyors or when working in the mines.

  The trail turned south, and after something over a half-mile it rounded the end of the obstruction and headed back north again, but northwest, actually. Twice they descended into deep water courses and climbed out of them. The tracks were all old. They saw little vegetation and no tracks of animals, not even of snakes or lizards.

  At the end of the second hour they paused again, this time in the shade of a low cliff. There was no talking. The heat was intense and all were tired. Kilkenny offered no comment, but he was sure they had made no more than two miles, if as far.

  Rising, he walked out from the shelter of the rock and climbed to a better position. There was a haze that seemed mostly heat waves now, but he could see little. Here and there a roll of the land, a butte, or some rocks. It was unbelievably dry, yet far ahead he could see what looked like a line drawn across in front of them. His glasses told him no more than his eyes because of the heat waves.

  They started on. The sand was deep, their progress slow. Time and again they turned from the trail to find an easier way, then came back to the trail after circling some obstacle.

  Quince came alongside. "Be glad when it's sundown," he said.

  Kilkenny nodded. "Something up ahead. Can't quite make it out. A low wall maybe, sort of dike."

  "I seen 'em. Outcrops that run for miles sometimes, but mostly only a few yards."

  Kilkenny glanced at the mules pulling the wagon. They would have to rest more often, as the mules were breathing heavily. And they were pulling an almost empty wagon.

  Suddenly the buckskin stopped. Before them was a wide, almost unbroken expanse of white marred by no black outcroppings of rock. He urged the horse on, but the buckskin refused to move.

  Quince rode up. "What's the matter?"

  "Don't know. Buck just stopped all of a sudden." He swung down and started forward and felt the earth suddenly turn to jelly under his feet. He cried out and tried to leap backward, but his feet were caught. Luckily he had hold of the bridle reins. He took a turn around his wrist. "Backup, Buck! Back!"

  The horse backed up and pulled him free. Quince helped him to his feet. "Quicksand," he said, "or something like it. Must be springs under there."

  "There's water under all this southern part of the territory," Kilkenny said, "and some of the biggest caves in the world, most of them never even seen by men. Most of the rivers run underground, and some of them in mighty deep canyons."

  The thought stopped him. That old Indian had said something about canyons.

  The wagon drew up behind them, with Saul and Jackie Moffit. "You sit tight," Kilkenny said. "I'll try to find a way around."

  "And I'll go the other way," Quince offered.

  Kilkenny turned the buckskin and let him have his head. The horse was no more anxious than he to get caught in quicksand, and would be likely to find a way around. A mountain-bred mustang like this one was almost as sagacious as a mule about such things.

  Yet when he had ridden for some distance, well over a mile, the quicksand seemed to be curving around toward him, and he turned the horse and rode back.

  Quince was waiting. "Just a few hundred yards yonder. There's higher ground. She's rocky but passable."

  "Good." He let Quince lead off, and he followed the wagon. What he had called quicksand might be an alkali sink, and might not be deep, yet certainly too deep to cross.

  Hour after hour they struggled on. It looked like a dry camp tonight. Weariness made his limbs leaden, and he knew the others were no better off. His sweat-soaked shirt had taken on so much of the white dust that now that it was drying it was very like cement. They stopped oftener now, and twice more they had sponged out the nostrils of the horses and mules and had given each of them a little water from a rag, squeezed into their mouths.

  The trail led into acres and acres of black outcrop-pings of an old lava flow, crumbled and broken and drifted with dust and sand. Time had ceased to matter, and they lived only for the brief stops and their dreams of the coolness of the night before them.

  Kilkenny was no longer sure of the compass. Mineral outcroppings might disturb it, and he was hard put to check their various weavings and turnings.

  They lost the trail. It suddenly vanished on hard-packed sand and gravel, undoubtedly all evidence of it having blown away long since. Kilkenny drew up and waited for Quince.

  "They were pointed that way"--he gestured--"so I guess we'd better keep going until we see some reason to change direction."

  He pushed on, and the sun slowly died behind the western mountains and the cool evening came, and Quince came up to him again. "The mules are done in, Kilkenny. We've got to stop."

  "I know. I've been looking for a place. You know, they camped somewhere, those other people did. I've been watching for a campfire site, charcoal maybe, or a circle of stones."

  "We'd better stop."

  "Just a little farther."

  Kilkenny started on, and he heard the wagon creak in protest as it started after him, and then just fifty yards farther along he found it.

  The ground broke sharply off, and the road turned hard right and went down on an easy grade. There was a good four acres of ground shielded by cliffs all around, except where an ancient stream had entered, then left. The stream had long since dried up, but there was a seep of water from the rock, and a shallow pool of only a few inches' depth and a few feet in diameter at the base.

  He led the way down. Black basaltic cliffs around, nowhere more than fourteen or fifteen feet high, and there were the charred rocks of an old fire circle, a few bits of charcoal not quite covered by the white dust. Piled in a corner of the wall away from any possible rain was a small stack of firewood.

  "They brought that with them," Bartram commented. "There's not a tree within miles."

  "When we come back," Kilkenny said, "we'll bring some and drop it off."

  They stripped the harness from the mules and let them roll, then took them to water. Kilkenny tasted it. "All right," he said, "a mite brackish."

  Bartram took the lid from one of the kegs. "I'll use what we brought for coffee."

  Quince put a small fire together, and Bart put the pot on, then went to preparing supper. Quince stretched out on the ground, looking up at the stars.

  Kilkenny took his Winchester. "Come on, Jack. We'll scout around."

  The sun was gone, yet some light remained. Slowly they skirted the small hollow. Here and there the river that had once run through here had hollowed the walls until there was some overhang. It was not too dark to see tracks, but they saw none. It was a bleak and lonely place.

  Under one of the overhangs they found some Indian writing. Kilkenny indicated it. "Very old," he said. "Maybe before the white man."

  He looked around. "There's some water, there's shelter from the wind, and some shade. You can bet men and animals have been coming here for thousands of years."

  "Can you read the signs?"

  "Me? No ... not really. Some of them I can figure out because they are like the sign language, like talking with the hands."

  One symbol was a man's open hand with five fingers. "Could mean several things. Maybe he's just trying to show us that he, too, had a hand. That he could grasp,
feel, touch."

  "How long do you think it's been since anybody was across here?"

  Kilkenny shrugged. "A big tree like that one we cut would take no less than seventy years to decay, and it could be much longer. Those younger trees were at least ten years old, but I'd think they were more. My guess is that somebody built this road or used it a few times somewhere back in the 1850's. Probably they found an Indian trail for starters."

  At daybreak they started on once more, but the day began with a gust of wind and a few spattering drops of rain. That was all the rain there was, but the wind continued and soon the air was filled with choking, blinding, clinging dust particles, and with it all, stifling heat. They lost all thought of food or family, thinking only of getting across, of escaping.

  Kilkenny was no longer sure of the compass, but the buckskin plodded on as though guided by some mystic means known only to him. Dazed with heat and weariness, they moved on, bund to all but the longed-for end of their journey at some impossible distance ahead.

  Kilkenny drew up, trying to peer through the blinding dust to see some landmark, something.

  The buckskin tugged at the bit impatiently and then started on of his own volition, and Kilkenny let him go. They might be wandering in circles; his only hope was that he thought the horse was climbing a little, that the saddle was tilting under him. Abruptly the buckskin stopped, and he found himself staring at the black upthrust of a cliff. It loomed before them, black and sheer, yet at the base the dust seemed a little thinner.

  The mules came up close. "Pull up here!" he yelled. "I'll scout along the face!"

  Quince shook his head. "Better get some rest first, an' let your boss have some. That was a rough pull."

  Kilkenny swung down, and taking the piece of sacking, he began sponging out the nostrils of the horse, and then of the mules. Bartram did likewise.

  Lifting a keg down, they led each horse to it, and then the mules. They emptied one keg, then another.

  They rested a half-hour and then Kilkenny could wait no longer. He had never been able to stop short of a goal, and he could not now. "We're across," he said to Bartram. "Now we've got to get up on top."

  Leaving the buckskin to rest, he walked along the face of the cliff, stepping over rocks and fallen trees. He had always had this something in him that kept driving him on, even when all good sense suggested he rest or wait. Yet now he had walked no more than three hundred yards when he saw what he was looking for. He stopped, unable to believe their good fortune. With all then- weaving back and forth, they had succeeded in holding to the trail often enough to have brought them to where they wished to go. Before him a rough trail wound up the cliff face!

  It was dusk when they reached the top of the road and pulled up under the pines. There they built a small fire, made coffee, and warmed some food. There was a small meadow close by, and there they hobbled the horses and mules and let them rest. There was a seep at the edge of the meadow with a trickle from a spring and a little standing water with some cattails growing at its edge.

  Kilkenny drank the strong black coffee and it tasted good, but his lids grew heavy and he almost dropped the plate of food from his hand. He looked around, and Bartram was already stretched out and asleep without even taking the time to unroll his bed.

  "I slept some in the wagon," Jack said. "You go to sleep. Come midnight, I'll wake you up."

  He slept like he was drugged until Quince shook him awake. "The boy woke me up," he said, "but you'd better take over now."

  Refreshed, he went to the blackened pot and filled his cup. The night was still except for the subdued snores of Bartram. A wind rustled leaves on an aspen not far off. The wind had blown the dust away, and the clouds as well. The sky was clear and spangled with stars. Walking to the seep, he stripped off his shirt and washed the dust from his face, body, and hair. He shook out the shirt and put it back on, drank deep at the spring, then walked back to the fire.

  He listened. It was very still out there. Hitching a six-shooter into position just in case, he proceeded to wipe the Winchester clean and then he ran a ramrod down the barrel. Then one by one he cleaned his six-shooters.

  In the darkness, thoughts came easily and he sat near the fire but back from it a little to observe the shadows better, and his thoughts considered the situation at Cedar.

  If he could get the fight with Tombull Turner, he would have a chance to speak to Halloran. There would be others there, but he had a very special reason for talking to Halloran, and if he was not mistaken, a very special reason for claiming his attention, and perhaps his sympathy as well.

  He would be going into the fight as an underdog, which gave him a little edge on their sympathy. He was also the smaller man, and he was the unknown amateur against a professional of proven ability. Kilkenny was perfectly aware that he could expect a beating. On the other hand, few men were in better shape than he was, and he was sure he could last long enough to make an impression.

  The fight would, of course, as were all fights under the London prize-ring rules, be a fight to the finish. A knockdown was the end of a round, which might mean only a second or two or might mean nine or ten minutes or longer. A slip could mean the end of a round if a man fell, or one or the other could be thrown, for much was legal under the bare-knuckle rules. Kilkenny had seen a fighter get a headlock on another and then pound his face with the free hand for several minutes.

  King Bill would certainly have his guests in ringside seats, which would put them close to the ropes and in a good position to talk. Time would be the thing, and the choice of the right moment. Hale would be expecting a quick victory, and Turner as well.

  Coldly Kilkenny appraised himself. Like all fighting men, he had confidence in his own ability. He had fought many times in the rough-and-tumble scraps of the frontier, and even as a boy he had fought a good deal at school. During the days when he lived in the East he had learned boxing from Jem Mace, onetime heavyweight champion of the world, and one of the cleverest of the old-time fighters. Mace was an English gypsy fighter who boxed much on this side of the pond. He was a shrewd and clever man who used his head for something other than a parking place for a couple of ears.

  King Bill did not know that Kilkenny had ever boxed. No doubt their fight had given him some inkling, but not enough. Years of rugged life in the open had also given him hard physical condition and superb strength as well as staying quality.

  These were considerable assets, but he had something else that was just as important. He had seen Turner fight. This could make the difference, for Turner knew nothing of bun.

  Yet in all honesty he could hope for little more than to make a game fight of it and win some sympathy and at least a friendly hearing.

  When he returned to the Cup he would soak his hands in brine, and he would plan to wear driving gloves in the ring. They not only protected the fists, but they would cut like a knife. Some of the younger fighters had been doing just that, and he had tried it and liked the feel of them.

  Now there was no sound but that of the forest. Dawn was not too far off. He added a little fuel to the small fire and poured another cup of coffee. Sitting with it, he slowly and methodically went over in his mind every move he had seen Turner make.

  When dawn came he slept for a half-hour or so and felt fresh and ready. Quince had finished breakfast and they sat together.

  "Quince," he said, "you know Blazer. What do you think about it?"

  Hatfield shrugged. "Reckon they won't be expectin' us to come from here. I been givin' it thought, and it seems to me we'll come into town from the far side, so we got a good chance of gettin' right into town before they know we're there."

  "Good!" Kilkenny turned to Bartram. "You know the team. Stay by the wagon and keep your gun handy. At the first shot, well come to you.

  "Saul, you an' Jack hustle the grub to the wagon, and Quince will stand by to cover you."

  "How about you?" Bart asked.

  "I'll make the deal for the supplie
s and then I'll nose around to see what I can find out about the other wagon. Lije and the rest may be all right, but I want to be sure."

  Mounting up, they started out. The road they followed showed no evidence of travel, and soon they discovered why. It had long since been fenced off. They took down the bars of the worn fence and drove through into a well-used road. Kilkenny waited and replaced the bars, although he did not rebind them with rawhide.

  There was very little to the town. Two rows of ramshackle saloons and a store faced each other across the street. The usual assortment of town loafers sat on benches before the Crossroads and the Temple of Chance. Two cow ponies stood three-legged in front of the Wagon Wheel.

  Lance Kilkenny took the thongs from his six-guns. He wanted no trouble, but this was a hard town, and there were men here who even if they knew he was Kilkenny wouldn't care. Names and reputations meant little to the average western man, and for every gun-fighter with a reputation there were four just as good whom nobody had ever heard of. And they liked it that way.

  Chapter 13

  Lance Kilkenny rode past Perkins' General Store and dismounted in front of the Wagon Wheel. Bartram pulled up parallel to the walk in front of the store and began to fill his pipe, his rifle beside him.

  Saul and Jack walked into the store, and Quince leaned against a corner of the store building and bit off a chew of tobacco. His rifle was in the hollow of his arm and he wore a huge Walker Colt.

  A rider turned into the street and swung down in front of the Wagon Wheel not far from Kilkenny. The rider glanced at him briefly, then went inside. The man was big, with red hair and a beard.

  Quince crossed the walk to Kilkenny. "That gent who just came in was wearin' an ivory-handled Colt with a chipped ivory on the right side." His narrow face was cold, his expression bitter. "That's Jody Miller's gun he was packin'."

  "Jody was with the first wagon," Kilkenny said.