Valley of the Vanishing Men

by Brand, Max

  He had failed, then, and the chance of saving Clive’s life was gone.

  Then, down the road from the town, at a steady, moderate trot, he heard the beat of a single horse traveling toward him. The shape loomed.

  “Hi! Trainor!” called the loud voice of Doctor Wells.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  The Doctor’s Decision

  THE doctor had waited for a little while at the Golden Hope. He said that it was beyond human nature for him to leave and keep his appointment when the man with whom the appointment was made was being hunted up and down through the various rooms of the saloon. And then he realized, suddenly, that this was a challenge to his manhood. He ought to try to help. He ought to threaten Doc Yates with the law, and at least with the weight of his own hand.

  Said the doctor: “And my hand was shaking like a feather in a wind. My heart was sick inside of me, sick and crazy. I was no good. I knew that if I jumped into a fight, I would accomplish nothing. I had to stand there and curse myself. And I cursed the whisky, too. I don’t know, Trainor. It may be that I’ll relapse into the old ways, but I hope not. I saw myself dead and lost and gone out of the world. I was alive, but buried. I was not a man, because the only life I led was the life of a dog. And while I was feeling that, I heard your voice come thundering, daring Doc Yates to come and face you!

  “It was a shock to Doc Yates. He was there in a corner of the bar-room, shouting suggestions here and there, and when he heard you call, I saw him change color. He turned white.

  “He had to go, or his reputation was damned, of course. But it took a moment to gather himself. I felt that I had to go, also, and that was where my nerve failed me. All that I could do was to follow along slowly on the outskirts of the crowd that jammed into the pantry room off the bar. And there we could all see the barkeeper staggering about with big Doc Yates shaking him by the shoulders and trying to get news out of him. When the fellow could talk, he groaned out a few words about you, and talked of a fight, and pointed to the open window. Yates jumped right through the window. Half of the others flooded after him. I heard two or three men say outright if you’d gotten out of the Golden Hope under conditions like those, you were the devil himself, and they wanted no more to do with you on any trail whatever. And here I find you waiting for me, by thunder!”

  The doctor began to laugh. “How did you do it, man?” he asked.

  “I had luck. That was all,” said Trainor. “We’ve got to get along. They may send hunters out over this trail. It’s a wonder that they haven’t done it already. You have brought your medical kit?”

  “I’ve got everything with me, and a horse that will keep up with yours. Lead the way.”

  Trainor led the way, and he kept to the long, smooth-gaited trot with which Parade swept easily over the ground until the doctor, his horse pounding along at a steady gallop in the rear, shouted that the pace was killing off his horse. Then Trainor let Parade walk for a little distance, while the doctor caught up. His horse was so tired and blown that it stumbled repeatedly.

  “Lacks exercise,” said the doctor. “I’ve had the rascal in good trim, though, when it could cover the ground well enough to keep up with a buzzard in the sky. But that’s a fine horse you’ve got there.”

  Trainor laughed. “It’s Parade!”

  “Parade?” cried Doctor Wells. “You mean to say that Jim Silver is mixed up in this?”

  “He’s with my brother now,” answered Trainor.

  “If you’d mentioned his name, you would have had no trouble with me,” answered Doctor Wells, “or with anyone who dares to call himself a right man. You would have sobered me if you’d mentioned Jim Silver!”

  In fact, that name seemed to blow the last of the whisky fumes out of his head. He was a sober man entirely when they came up the narrows of the ravine, and then climbed the difficult slope to the point where Clive Trainor was lying. There Jim Silver rose from beside the patient, and the muttering voice of Clive began to rattle and rumble in delirium the moment the hand of Silver was removed.

  The big gray wolf stood bristling before the doctor until the word of his master sent him away. Parade, as Trainor dismounted, went to snuff at Silver and then tossed up his head like a happy colt.

  “Very smooth work; very fast work!” said Silver to Ben Trainor. He shook hands with Doctor Wells, who said:

  “Whatever I can do, I’ll do with all my heart, Silver.”

  Silver thanked him and stepped back with the younger Trainor while the doctor made his examination.

  “The other two are dead or dying,” explained Trainor. “I found Wells. He was drunk, but he sobered up a little, and here he is! I don’t think that there’s much liquor in his brain now. The ride seemed to get the alcohol out of him — that and the mention of your name.”

  “Where did you find him?” asked Silver.

  “In the Golden Hope. There was a bit of trouble, but I got out of it without any bumps to speak of.”

  Silver looked quietly at him. He said nothing, but that silent inspection told Trainor that he was being estimated with new eyes. Then the voice of the doctor called to them. The softness of gravity was in his words.

  “He’s been in hell,” said the doctor, “and the marks are still on him, as you know. He’s been half-starved, and that’s weakened his resistance. He’s been through such things that he’s suffering now from the shock. Bad shock. Shock can kill a man just as easily and almost as quickly as bullets can. I simply want to tell you Trainor, that I don’t want to alarm you, but your brother is an extremely sick man. I’ve got some medicine that may get his fever down a little. I wouldn’t try to move him in this condition. By morning he may be a lot better, or — ”

  Here he stopped and looked anxiously at the two of them.

  The inference was very plain. By the morning, Clive might be much better, or he might be dead.

  “Stay here with the doctor,” said Silver. “I have something to do.”

  “I’m going with you,” announced Ben Trainor. “If the doctor has the nerve to stay here alone, I’m going with you. The biggest thing that anyone can do for Clive is to finish the job that he laid out for himself.”

  “I’ll stay here alone,” answered Wells.

  “Wait a moment,” said Silver. “We’ve been spotted, not exactly here, but near here. It may be that they’ll come back to look for us here. In that case, you’d be in a bad place.”

  “Who’d be doing the looking?” asked the doctor.

  “Doc Yates and Barry Christian, with their men,” said Silver, bringing out the words almost brutally.

  The head of the doctor jerked under the impact of that news. He took a breath and then rubbed his knuckles across his forehead.

  “Very well,” he said at last. “I’ll stay here. The two of you carry on. I know what’s apt to happen if Yates and Christian come here together — but, after all, I like the gambling chance. I’ll stay alone.”

  Silver nodded.

  “Whatever we do, we have to wangle it tonight,” he explained. “This is brave of you, Wells. We both appreciate it.”

  The sick man cried out in a sudden, high voice; the doctor dropped at once to his knees beside him. He waved briefly at the other two, who stood waiting, reluctant to leave.

  “Start out!” commanded Wells. “I’m going to wish you luck — and pray for a short night. But get on your way!”

  CHAPTER XIX

  Three Horsemen

  A SEDATIVE, injected, made the locked and shuddering teeth of Clive Trainor relax. A fever potion was then worked past those teeth, and Doctor Wells, his forefinger constantly on the pulse of the sick man, finally leaned over and peered closely into the face. The forehead glistened with moonlight and with a small, fine sweat that was breaking through the skin. The breathing was deeper, slower. And the trembling pulse in the wrist began to throb more regularly.

  The doctor sat back with a sigh which he was cautious not to make too loud. This man, for all he had been
through, possessed a sound core of sturdy health that made his body respond swiftly to medication. An hour before, the doctor called it rather a bad gamble for Clive Trainor. Now he was certain that the man would get well. And he wondered, as he sat there and looked down at the calm face of the sleeper, how he, Wells, would have endured a similar strain.

  He was rotten to the core with alcohol. It had made his body flabby. It had entered his mind like a decay.

  He pulled out the fat flask he carried. There was a pint and a half of excellent whisky in that flask. He made a wry face, pulled out the cork, and let the dark stuff pour out on the rocks. It made a pool in a little hollow. He had a sudden desire to bend over and sup up the whisky from the pool. Instead, he stiffened his back and swallowed. His throat was dry.

  Fear of the coming time racked him. He knew what it was for a man to swear off after drinking heavily for years. He knew the nervous quaking, the terrible tremors of body and soul, the ghastly illusions that beset the mind, and the vast hunger for the stuff gnawing in the stomach.

  The doctor pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. He stared again at the wan face of Clive Trainor. He thought of the brother in Alkali. He thought of big, brown-faced Jim Silver, quiet and capable. No appetite was the master of those men!

  And when he thought of this truth, a strength came up in him. He squared his shoulders, and looked away at the glimmering moonshine on Mount Baldy. He had been clean once and he could be clean again. He had been asleep, during these last years, and so he had sunk from depth to depth, sodden, until he wound up in Alkali, where a man like him need perform only one or two bits of work each week in order to keep drunk the rest of the time.

  He made a gesture that washed away and abandoned that life. He set his jaw and shook his head. The shame of what he had been struck him in the face.

  Then he heard, clearly, the trampling of horses that came swiftly up from the ravine beneath them. The doctor started to his feet, ready to call a welcome as Silver and Trainor drew in sight. Instead, he saw three strangers come over the ridge and ride up toward him.

  “Better cover him, Bud,” said one.

  “All right, Perry,” answered a second, and pulled from its long holster a rifle which he held at the ready, the muzzle toward the breast of the doctor.

  This scene was to the doctor a great unreality. His eyes perceived it, of course, but his reason said no to the images he beheld.

  The third man, who wore a big bandage around his head, forcing his sombrero up high, the doctor recognized as the town bully and the bouncer of the Golden Hope — Blacky. All three had dismounted.

  Blacky said, “Hello, doc. How’s every little thing?” He spoke very casually, and then put his hands on his knees and, leaning over Trainor, murmured: “Here’s the kid, again. I’ll be doggoned if I didn’t think he was rubbed so thin that he’d go all to pieces But he’s sleepin’ as sound as you please!”

  The doctor said: “Stand back from him, Blacky. Don’t disturb him. He’s a mighty sick man and he needs this sleep.”

  “Yeah, does he?” answered Blacky. “What’s the smell of whisky around here?”

  “I poured out a flask,” said the doctor calmly.

  “You poured out a flask?” exclaimed Blacky. “The hell you did! By thunder, you did, too, and there’s some of it caught in the holler of the rock!”

  He dropped on his hands, smelled the liquid, and then sucked up the stuff greedily and noisily. He stood up, coughing.

  “Mighty hot but mighty good,” said Blacky. “First time I ever heard of you spillin’ your drinks, doc. Damned if it ain’t. Where you get this idea of pourin’ things out?”

  “Be quiet, Blacky,” said Perry. “Listen to me, Wells. Jim Silver has been around here. Where’s he gone?”

  “I haven’t seen him,” lied the doctor smoothly.

  “That’s a lie,” said Blacky cheerfully.

  “It’s the truth,” insisted Wells.

  “Who brought you out from town?” asked Perry.

  “Ben Trainor brought me,” said Wells.

  “Yeah, he did, did he?” muttered Blacky. “He’s a slick kid, is that one. Maybe he’s too damn slick for his own good, one of these days. You didn’t see Silver?”

  “No.”

  “Well, we got the kid, anyway,” said Blacky.

  “The chief’s goin’ to be glad of that,” remarked Perry. “Tell the boys down below to bring up an extra hoss. We’ll mount the kid and start him goin’.”

  “If you ride him in the saddle, you’ll kill him,” declared the doctor, exaggerating a good deal.

  “Who cares if he bumps off?” demanded Blacky. “He’s been nothin’ but a flock of trouble, anyway.”

  “All you get out of any Trainor is a flock of trouble,” declared the man called Bud.

  “Wait a minute,” said Perry. “You mean it would kill him, all right? You mean that, doc?”

  “I mean that,” said Wells.

  “We’ll make a stretcher for him,” decided Perry.

  Bud had gone to the edge of the plateau and was shouting down at the unseen men for them to bring up extra horses. By the murmur that answered, it appeared that a crowd was down there. But that was understandable. Men did not go hunting Jim Silver except when they were in numbers. Even then it was a task which most of them had wisdom enough to decline.

  “Are you heeled?” Perry asked of the doctor.

  “No,” he answered, “I never carry a gun.”

  “Well, doc,” said Perry, “I ain’t even goin’ to fan you to see if you tell the truth. But watch yourself. We’re kind of in a hurry and we don’t want to be bothered. You come along and keep your face shut, and maybe things’ll be all right with you.”

  The doctor said nothing, and Perry, unshipping a small hand ax, which he carried behind the saddle on his mustang, attacked the straight branches of the tree. At the sound of the blows, Clive Trainor groaned, stirred, but did not waken, so deep was his exhaustion and so effective the sedative which Wells had injected.

  Other men appeared over the ridge from the canyon, with led horses, and Bud took up an argument with Perry.

  He said: “What you goin’ to do, Perry? Load us all up with a lot of trouble? The chief didn’t say anything about bringin’ Clive Trainor in alive. He just wants his damned tongue fixed so’s it can’t waggle!”

  “That’s true,” said Perry.

  He stopped in his work, then added: “It ain’t hardly human to leave him out here to die, though.”

  “Take the doc away from him, and he’ll be done for by the morning,” said Bud. He was a short, ape-faced man, and he talked with a great deal of decision and force. “We want to get this job done quick and turn back. That’s what the chief wants us to do, and we’d better mind our step. Understand, Perry?”

  “And the doc?” asked Perry.

  “Oh,” said Bud, “he’ll keep his face shut. If he won’t, maybe he’d better go with the kid, there.”

  “Look here, Wells,” said Perry. “Will you keep your face shut about what might happen here?”

  “If you murder young Trainor, do you mean?” said the doctor.

  “You hear him talk?” muttered Perry to Bud. “He’s goin’ to blab everything he knows, when he gets back to town.”

  “Then don’t let him get back,” advised Bud.

  “We can’t wipe out the whole of everybody,” declared Perry. “We’ll let the chief pass on this. We’ll take ‘em both back to the boss.”

  “He’ll give you hell for thanks,” stated Bud. “Bang ‘em both over the bean and let ‘em lay, I’d say.”

  “There’s Les, back there, shot through the middle,” remembered Perry. “Poor old Les would be glad to see a doctor, I guess. And he might as well see this one. I’ve made up my mind. Come on, boys. Lend a hand, and we’ll fix up a horse litter to pack this hombre along. The chief can do what he wants, but slammin’ gents that are half dead already don’t please me none too much.”


  The doctor, taking a very long and deep breath as he heard these remarks, examined the face of Bud, and saw the features twist and the teeth glint. The man was simply a beast, and his appetite was for blood. Even if the peril of that moment had been averted, Wells knew that there was more danger in the future, and that he would be lucky if he lived to see the dawn rise on this day.

  He looked up at the sky, as even irreligious men will do when they have been relieved from a mortal peril. The moon shone very brightly, but off toward the northeast the lower stars were obscured by a mist. It was like a cloud that was rising out of the earth, not the heavens. The doctor was puzzled by it, not a little. The air was windless. A hush lay like a weight over the earth, and it was more than a little difficult to breathe. Yet in these conditions, which should have gone hard with Clive Trainor, he continued to sleep so profoundly that the doctor leaned and listened again to his breathing, and took his pulse.

  Clive was much better, both in pulse and in respiration. The soporific was still working perfectly, and strength was flowing into that wasted body from sleep, like water flowing from a well into dry, dead ground.

  In the meantime, the making of the stretcher was quickly completed, and two poles were tied into the stirrups of two horses. A blanket stretched across made the bed on which Trainor was laid. And even when he was lifted and put on the litter, he did not waken, nor when the horses were led stumbling down the steep slope to the level of the desert. He groaned faintly, once or twice, but nature was resolved on oblivion for the time being, and the sleep went on.

  CHAPTER XX

  The Treasure

  IT WAS not long after that that Yates and Christian and three more rode out of the desert into one of those many ravines which cut into the edge of the upper plateau. The girl was with them, and she led the way to the head of the gulch. There she halted her horse and looked vaguely around her.

  Christian suddenly joined her, caught the reins of her horse, and shook them angrily.