Valley of the Vanishing Men

by Brand, Max

“Go on. How big?” asked Trainor.

  “Ten thousand dollars. Not a promise. I’ve got the cash for you, here and now.”

  “It’s a lot of money,” said Trainor. “But it’s not enough.”

  “Think it over,” said Christian. “Ten thousand is a big pile. It will take care of you the rest of your life, if you invest it right and do a little honest work besides. Ten thousand — more than the savings of a whole lifetime.”

  “It’s a lot, but it’s not enough,” said Trainor.

  “You want to remember,” said Christian, “that you’ll be protected. We’ll fix up the escape so that it’ll look perfectly natural. It’ll seem that we managed to get out and surprise you — we’ll leave you tied hand and foot, if you want us to. Nobody in the world will ever be able to suspect that you sold out. We’ll fix it any way you want.”

  “Thanks,” said Trainor, “but you haven’t hit my price yet.”

  “All right,” said Christian. “You boost the figure, then, and tell me what you want. If I haven’t got it in cash, I’ll give myself into your keeping, until my men bring you whatever you want.”

  “You can pay my price without money,” said Trainor. “There’s a point of rock that juts out, down there in the ravine. Let me see a couple of ropes strung over that rock. Let me see Doc Yates hanging from one end, and you from the other — and I’ll let the rest of the boys go scot-free.”

  He heard a snarl of rage from Christian. Half a dozen rifles exploded in one heavy clap of thunder. And that was the end of the parley.

  He waited. Once he ventured to look out around the edge of the rock, and he saw the horses coming into a single cluster, apparently of their own volition. A rifle bullet dug up sand and threw it into his face as he risked this glance.

  He lay back to wonder what device was now in progress in the fertile brain of Barry Christian.

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Ropes to Freedom

  TRAINOR could only venture a spying glance now and again. Then he saw that the horses were being collected, without the hand of a man showing, because ropes had been flung over their heads, and in this manner they were drawn about until they were ranged in a compact line, a dozen of them. Then a voice sang out:

  “Are you ready, boys?”

  From closer to the mouth of the ravine the answer was: “Ready! Let her go!”

  Then suddenly those horses were started with a wild yelling and whooping and a discharge of guns behind them. They came like mad, their bridles interlinked, and Trainor, with a shock, saw the intent.

  The rifle fire doubled on his rocks, pelting this post all over with a close shower of bullets. And, in a moment, the solid wall of horses woud rush out of the mouth of the ravine. The instant that they passed it, behind them would come the men of Christian, sprinting. They would be so close to the rocks, by the time the horses passed, that Trainor would be unable to defend himself against the many-sided attack.

  There was only one thing to do, and he hated that almost worse than shooting at a man.

  He got a bead on the head of a horse in the center of the charging line, and dropped the poor brute with a bullet through the brain. Then the entangled bridle reins which were holding the horses in a solid line, making of them a perfect moving rampart, served to break up the charge instantly. The fall of the one mustang confused all the others and brought them up short as though on an anchor. Two or three of them tumbled head over heels. There was a great fighting and kicking among the horses. Then two or three of them broke loose and rushed singly out of the valley and across the desert. Others followed, drawn along as into a vacuum. The men of Christian vainly yelled and whooped and exploded guns near the mouth of the ravine, for the horses would not be turned. In a steady stream, rapidly, never in a charging cluster which might have served as a means of shielding an advance of the outlaws on their enemy, the mustangs shot away into the open plain and left their masters without the means of transport!

  What a howling they put up, then, like furious wild beasts. What a raging of oaths and execrations they poured out on Trainor. But he lay snug in his post. He was, in truth, like a small cork in a great bottle, and the powerful contents were held in check by his single gun, easily. Now that these fellows were dismounted, even if they were to escape from the valley at this moment, a good many of them would almost unquestionably be caught by the men who would soon be coming out from Alkali. Perhaps already Silver was in town, sounding the alarm to all good citizens and believers in the law.

  Ben Trainor heard the shouted arguments, now and again, the raging, the groaning of these lost men. He heard them damn Christian bitterly. And then silence followed. They were evidently about to make another effort.

  Presently he could make out what it was. He had already mentioned one of several rocks that projected near the top of the wall at the bottom of the box canyon and suggested that he would accept as a ransom for the rest the hanging of Christian and Yates. Now he saw a rope that mounted invisibly, slowly, toward one of those projections.

  No doubt a rock that was attached to a light twine or cord had been thrown over the rock first, and now hands that were protected from view on the floor of the canyon were pulling up a rope. It was brought up carefully. A shuddering and awful hope came to Trainor that perhaps the outlaws had actually determined to take advantage of his offer. That rope, invisibly drawn, reached the top of a projecting drop and then fell off the end of it like a thin-bodied serpent, curling in the air.

  Another try was made on another projection. This time, the curiously watching eye of Trainor enabled him to see the flinging of the rock, the small shadow showing dimly, in the moonlight, against the smooth of the cliff. He saw the rope begin to rise again, drawn by the invisible cord. And then he paid for the heedless manner in which he had exposed head and shoulder.

  He had his rifle at the shoulder, pointed, ready for any target that might present itself as he looked out, when a single gun spoke, and a rifle bullet clanged on the barrel and butt of his weapon. It slashed through his upper arm and lodged behind his shoulder. He could feel it like a fist inside his flesh.

  He lay flat on his face, for a moment, gripping his teeth to keep from groaning aloud in his misery. After that, he fell to work on the bandaging.

  The blood was running out of him at a frightful rate. He got his shirt off with difficulty and cut it into rags that he tied together and then twisted and retwisted around his shoulder and the mangled flesh of the upper arm. For all the pressure that he put on, he was not able to stop the bleeding entirely. The drain continued steadily, though, of course, in a much diminished degree.

  And the pain of the flesh, crushed together as it was by the binding grip of the bandage, sickened him. He looked up, feeling that the light of the moon had grown dimmer, and then he saw the dull and muddy color of the sunrise beginning in the sky.

  Well, Silver was far off in Alkali, by this time, and perhaps already he was galloping on the road of the return. Let his coming be swift!

  When Trainor ventured another glance, he saw that a doubled rope depended from the rock projection, near the top of the cliff — within arm’s reach of the crest, in fact. And then, grasping the two ropes and pulling himself up with the ape-like speed of a sailor in rigging, appeared Blacky. He was easily known, even in that baffling light of the moon and the dawn, by the build of his body and the bandage around his head. And there was something gallant in this desperate attempt of his that stopped the heart of Trainor.

  There was no time for admiration, however. The rifle fire was showering about him again, more rapidly than ever. It was at the risk of his own life that he exposed the tip of his head, took quick aim, and fired.

  He saw Blacky droop, and hang by one hand like a wounded monkey, so he ducked back under the rock with a shudder of disgust and remorse.

  A shout startled him. He looked again, and saw that Blacky, wounded or not, had resumed his climbing, and was now standing on the rock projection and actually reachin
g for the rim of the cliff.

  Again Trainor fired. He missed; and Blacky pulled himself right up on the edge of the rock as Trainor tried with a third bullet.

  He saw Blacky twist into a knot and roll over the verge of the height, then drop down, his heavy body spinning over and over.

  Very distinctly, Trainor heard the awful impact of the body against the ground. It sickened him, it weakened him through every nerve. He lay flat once more, thankful that the grisly business was ended. They would surely give over their efforts now and accept the fate that waited for them.

  In fact, a dead silence settled over the ravine and continued for so long that Trainor grew suspicious and looked out again. A swishing of bullets through the sand about him proved that the men of Christian were on the alert. But the ropes dangled naked from the cliff.

  There was this advantage — that he could see the upper portion of the ropes without exposing himself a great deal. So he kept his glance from time to time fixed on them, while the moon sank in the west, and the dawn turned red, and suddenly the dazzling eye of the sun was shining down upon him.

  The warmth of it soaked like hot water into the increasing agony of his wound. Shooting, if he had to do any, would be more difficult, now, because the arm was half numb from the pull of the bandages and the pain of the flesh.

  The sun climbed higher in that mortal silence. And why did not Silver appear? Yet when Trainor turned his head, again and again, he saw no sign of a dust cloud across the broad face of the desert.

  At last, it seemed to him that the ropes were jerking a little. When he ventured a glance, it was to see a coat-less, bootless man climbing up the face of the rock on the ropes. His long hair blew out in the wind. The power in those long arms and the broad shoulders made Trainor think of Jim Silver — and by that token he knew that it was Barry Christian!

  Christian, at last, for a target! And perhaps it would be for Silver’s rifle, in the hands of another, to end the long trail of Barry Christian!

  Trainor drew his bead. It was not easy, because Christian, as he climbed, was swinging his body violently, and this caused him to sway in strong, irregular pulsations from side to side. He had a rifle strapped at his back, and the barrel of the gun flashed in the sun.

  Trainor fired at that wavering image.

  The report of his gun brought a crashing volley from both sides of the valley, close to the mouth of the ravine. In order to center their shots and aim with a better chance, the men of Christian were exposing themselves recklessly, standing up from their rock screens. They were sheltering their leader, but they were fighting for their own lives.

  A bullet slicked across the side of Trainor’s head. It was a mere graze. It felt as though a sharp edge of ice had been whipped across the scalp. Then the blood rushed out.

  He fired again, and again he knew that he had missed that dangling, swinging target!

  Now Christian reached and pulled up on the projecting rock. The time had come when he would have to straighten and haul himself up to the edge of the cliff, and this was the chance of Trainor to place a careful shot in the target.

  So he waited, tense, calm, sure of himself, only wishing that the ghastly throbbing in his right arm would ease for the important instant. He took his aim as Christian rose on the rock. He began to squeeze with his whole hand.

  And then Christian leaped like a stag, right out of the intended path of the bullet. For he had gripped the verge of the cliff with one hand, and then sprung up as a man would do in vaulting a fence. Trainor fired, cursing his luck at the very instant that he pressed the trigger, and Christian rolled — untouched, he knew — into safety over the lip of the rock.

  A babel of mad rejoicing rose out of the ravine, at that. What a cheering and what a mighty yelling went up in honor of a great leader!

  For, of course, the battle was won now. Christian had merely to creep out to a vantage point high up on either side of the entrance to the ravine, and from that place he could shoot down at an angle that would make the rocks of Trainor a useless shelter for his body.

  But Trainor could not stand up and flee. The watchers inside the valley would riddle him instantly with bullets. There was nothing for him to do but lie there and wait for the coming stroke of agony and death.

  There were no calm thoughts, there was no remorse in his mind. There was only a savage rage because the great plan was balked, in this fashion, at the very last moment.

  Eagerly he scanned the upper ridges of the rocks. It might be that Barry Christian would expose himself a trifle when making his shot, and in that case —

  The minutes grew. An impatient shouting began in the valley.

  “Barry! Hey, Christian! Come to life! Come to life! Do something! I can hear them coming now!”

  Yes, it was true. A beating of hoofs sounded softly in the ears of Trainor. He turned his head, and out of a growing cloud of dust, he saw riders coming; he saw the golden flash of the great stallion, running far in the lead.

  And Christian?

  Why, from the height he had seen the coming danger, and instead of staying to liberate his imprisoned men by firing a single bullet into the man who had blocked the way to freedom, he had simply sped away to give himself a better start.

  CHAPTER XXV

  A Reformed Town

  THERE might have been a battle to the death, of course. Or at least the outlaws might have waited until the enemy had mounted the rim rock that overlooked the ravine, and so made resistance useless. But the desertion of Christian seemed to take the heart away from the other men. They simply threw up their hands and walked out to be tied hand to hand by the directions, not of Jim Silver, but of the deputy sheriff.

  Yes, he was there to glory in the work to which so long he had not dared to put his hand. He was there to greet by name and special insult all of the men from the ravine, except one.

  It was after the others had come, out that a single shot was heard from the canyon.

  “That’s Yates,” said Perry. “He’d never live to be tried. He’d rather go out this way than be shamed!”

  They found Yates, in fact, sitting against a rock and looking east at the blazing sun with open, dead eyes. He had shot himself through the temple. As the gun fell to the sand, his hands had dropped folded into his lap. He seemed to be smiling in contemplation of another world. He was buried beside Blacky.

  Jim Silver was not there for the funeral ceremonies, brief as they were. When he learned that the great prize had actually escaped from the canyon, he had thrown up his long arms with a cry that tore the soul of poor Trainor with remorse. Then, without a word, he had rushed with Parade and Frosty in the pursuit.

  But the rest of the party went slowly back across the desert toward Alkali, and the whole town came out to meet them.

  It was a wonderful thing to Ben Trainor to see that greeting! He had thought that in the whole of the town there was hardly a single man that really cared about law and order. Now it appeared that everyone, nearly, had been terrorized, and now that the terror had been removed, there was a great wave of rejoicing.

  They made a hero out of Trainor in spite of himself. They pointed him out to one another. Except for his wounds, they would have ridden him through the streets on their shoulders. They had to content themselves with striding beside his horse and cheering themselves hoarse.

  So Trainor came past the Golden Hope.

  It was a wreck. Axes and hammers were battering it to pieces. The gambling machines were being thrown out into the street, at that moment, under the supervision of a fat man, who spoke with an authority that was obeyed by everyone. That was Doctor Wells.

  He came hastily to Trainor. From the suffocating strain of the sand storm he had quite recovered. He was only a little pale, and the sweat of labor ran down his face, because he had organized the smashing of the Golden Hope. There was already a murmur running through the place that a reformed town needed a reformed man for mayor, and that Wells should be the one for the job.
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  He gripped the hand of Trainor and shouted:

  “Everything’s all right! Clive’s asleep like a baby. He’s too tough to be more than dented by what he’s been through. The girl’s happy as a queen, and I’m happy as a king. It’s all owing to you, Ben! The town knows it. I know it. More power to you, lad!”

  Then the crowd poured on, carrying Ben Trainor with it.

  Wells came after him to dress his wounds. But before Ben Trainor would let his hurts be touched, he looked in for a glance at Clive, in the hotel room where he lay, and saw him smiling in his sleep, while Nell sat beside him, brooding, happy forever.

  The loss of blood hurt Ben Trainor almost more than the tearing of his flesh by the twisting bullet. He lay in a semi-stupor for two days and nights; after that, he began to recover rapidly.

  When townsmen representative of the newly organized vigilance committee came to ask what they could do for him, he requested only one thing — freedom for Perry. It was granted at once, and Perry came to see him before leaving town — under escort.

  Big and rangy, brown-faced, with a careless blue eye, Perry sat beside Trainor for a long time.

  He said, smiling: “I’m through, Trainor. I thought I was tough enough to hit the high spots with the wildest hombres on earth. But all I turned out to be was a mama’s boy that was playing hookey. Now I’m going back to the range and punch cows. You’ll be hearing from me one of these days.”

  Perry was not the only visitor who came to see Trainor as he lay in the sick bed. Others dropped in, from time to time, and the most persistent were the reporters who were wanting to make him famous. Nell came, too, several times a day, with reports about the progress of Clive, and how the mine was being opened, offering a tide of wealth that increased the more the vein was developed. She and Clive had declared a third interest in favor of Ben.

  “You ought to have half, at least,” said the girl, “but we knew that you wouldn’t take it.”

  She was almost stunned with happiness. The marriage was to take place as soon as Clive was pronounced fit and well by the doctor.