by Janet Dailey
“Wrong? What are you talking about?” Luke frowned, letting the point of his shovel dip toward the ground.
“What’s the Biblical opposite of burial?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “It’s resurrection. Ascension. The gold isn’t ten feet to the right down here. It’s up there!” She pointed to an outcropping of rock above them.
All eyes turned their gaze to the ledge high above their heads, too high for anything on it to be visible from below.
“It makes sense.” The longer Angie thought about it, the more convinced she became. “No one would think to climb up there and look for it. And it can’t be seen from below. Anyone backtracking the outlaws would have been looking for indications of freshly turned earth.” She stepped back to study the canyon rim. “I’ll bet it can’t even be seen from above either.”
“How the heck are we gonna get up there to find out?” Tobe stared at the sheer drop below the ledge. “It must be twenty feet or more.”
“A better question would be—how did they?” Luke countered, visually inspecting the rock face.
Griff scurried out of the pit, his avid gaze fixed on the distant ledge. “Do you really think it’s there?” he asked, a thin thread of hope rising in his voice.
“It has to be.” Angie knew she had said the same thing before, but this time she was positive. “Once you got up there, it would be easy enough to haul the gold up with a rope. But Luke’s right—how did the outlaws reach it? It would take an experienced climber to scale that wall.”
“Or someone handy with a rope,” Luke corrected. “See that?” He pointed to a toothlike rock that jutted from the cliff face a foot to the right.
“That’s it.” Angie smiled with certainty.
“Tobe go get me a rope,” Luke ordered.
No second urging was required as Tobe raced over and hopped onto the ATV. He gunned the engine to life and took off for camp.
Little was said while they waited for Tobe to return with the rope. They had already had their hopes severely dashed once, they weren’t about to let their expectations get too high again. But the tension was palpable, thickening throats and tightening muscles.
A hundred yards away, Saddlebags caught the excitement in their voices, but he wasn’t close enough to catch what they were saying. After a moment’s hesitation, curiosity got the better of him, and he headed back to the site to see what all the commotion was about.
When he got within earshot, he saw they were all standing around—not doing any talking, and not filling in the hole like they’d been doing when he left. Puzzled as to the reason, he studied them closely. Their attention seemed to be centered on something along the canyon wall. Saddlebags scanned the cliff face, trying to see what interested them so much.
About that time Tobe roared back to the site, jumped off the ATV, and tossed a coiled rope to Luke. Saddlebags frowned.
“What does he need a rope for?” he wondered aloud to himself.
With narrowed eyes, he watched as Luke shook out the loop, moved into position and made a cast, aiming for a rocky tooth jutting from the cliff wall . . . The loop fell short by about two feet, producing a collective breath of disappointment from the others.
“Now, why would he want t’ tie onto that?” Saddlebags mumbled.
Silently Luke recoiled the rope to make a second try, shook out the loop and threw it again. This time it snagged the point of the rock tooth and hung there without sliding over the rock itself. With a practiced flip of the rope, Luke settled the noose over it, then pulled the rope tight, testing it with his weight to make sure it would hold.
“I’m going up,” he announced to the others and began a hand-over-hand walk up the canyon wall.
“What’s he want up there?” Saddlebags wondered with a deepening frown.
Then it hit him with the suddenness of a thunderbolt. His glance shot to the eagle rock, then to the spot where the rope was hooked—a distance of roughly ten feet.
The gold. Was it up there? The possibility was like a body blow, nearly buckling Saddlebags’s knees. He stayed upright with an effort, his eyes tearing at the thought that he had been so close to it all these years.
He watched along with everyone else, listening to the scrape of Luke’s boot leather on the rock face, feeling the strain and pull of muscles, his whole body tense with anticipation. As Luke neared the ledge, Saddlebags tightened his grip on the rifle.
When he got within reach, Luke grabbed onto the jutting rock, hooked a booted foot onto the outcropping, and hauled himself onto it, momentarily disappearing from view. The tension on the ground went up another notch.
“Do you see anything, Luke?” Tobe shouted from below as he waited by the dangling rope. “Is the gold there?”
On his feet now, Luke came back into view, his head turned. “There’s something here.” His voice drifted down.
Fear clawed at Saddlebags’s throat—fear that it would be the gold that he’d spent practically his whole life searching to find.
Luke knelt down. “It looks like some old saddlebags,” he called the news to the others below. “The leather is dry and rotted.”
“Is the gold inside? Can you see?” Barely suppressed excitement gave a high pitch to Tobe’s voice.
In answer, Luke straightened, his gloved hands wrapped around something small and very heavy. He stepped to the edge of the rock shelf. “It’s the gold.”
Saddlebags moaned in anguish at the announcement while the others erupted with a shout of elation and hoots of laughter. Tobe threw his hat in the air while Fargo and Griff pounded each other’s back. Nearby Angie laughed in triumph and watched as Dulcie jumped around in a circle, clapping her hands and squealing with joy.
“Throw it down,” one of them yelled to Luke. “We wanta see it!”
“Stand back,” Luke warned.
Once the area directly below him was clear, he rocked his hands forward and let go of the bar. Sunlight glinted off its rich yellow color as it fell to the ground straight as an arrow. It landed with a solid thud, sending up puffs of dust on all sides.
They all rushed toward it. A kind of fury swept through Saddlebags at the sight of them swarming around the ingot. That gold didn’t belong to them!
He charged from his hiding spot. Once out in the open, he caught himself and stopped, certain one of them would notice him and shout the alarm. But they were too engrossed in the gold bar. Saddlebags began edging closer.
Tobe attempted to pick up the ingot and almost failed. “Man, this is heavier than I thought.” He stared in amazement at the ingot that required the support of both hands to hold it.
“It could weigh around ninety pounds,” Angie told him.
“How many more bars are up there, Luke?” Griff shouted.
“Eight or nine, I’d guess.”
“Throw ’em down,” Fargo urged with a wave of his arm.
“Move back.” Luke repeated his earlier warning and went to fetch the next one.
With all eyes once again trained on the outcropping, Saddlebags slung the rifle over his shoulder where it would be out of the way but accessible, pulled his skinning knife from its sheath and slipped up behind the group on the ground. He carefully positioned himself behind its weakest link, the one guaranteed to give him the upper hand.
As before, when Luke tossed the second bar down, the others advanced to claim it. Saddlebags clamped a hand on the child’s shoulder, halting her forward movement. She managed a frightened yelp before he could cover her mouth.
Luke saw it all from the high ledge. “Let her go, Saddlebags,” he shouted the order.
Fully aware that Luke was no threat to him as long as he was up there, Saddlebags didn’t even spare a glance in his direction. Instead he hauled the girl against him and held the knife to her chest, backing up a few steps to create space between himself and the others on the ground.
“I’ll turn ’er loose jest as soon as you hand over that gold. It’s mine, ya know.” He ignored the look of s
hock and dismay on that Angie girl’s face and watched the others. Just as he expected, it was the kid’s rash brother who made the first move.
“Let go of my sister, or—”
“Take one more step an’ I’ll rip her from gizzard to gullet,” Saddlebags warned, turning the point of the knife at a threatening angle.
Tobe froze in his tracks.
“Please, don’t hurt her,” Angie cried, raising a hand as if to restrain him.
“We’ll do whatever you say,” Luke promised from his place on the ledge.
“Yer durn right ya will,” Saddlebags declared. “An’ ya can start by throwin’ down the rest a that gold. An’ the rest a you can pick it up an’ stack it right there with the first ’un.”
There was a moment of resistance when no one moved. Then wisdom set in, and Luke turned away to fetch the rest of the gold bars. One by one, he tossed them to the ground. After each bar landed, it was retrieved and stacked with the first. With the addition of the last ingot, the total number came to ten.
Saddlebags let his glance linger a moment on the cross-stacked bullion, wanting to touch it, hold it in his hands, assure himself that it was truly his. But not yet. Not yet.
“Git down from there,” he told Luke. “An’ be quick about it.”
The muted gleam of the outlaw gold was there in his side vision, but he knew better than to be distracted by it. He kept one eye on the group on the ground and the other on Luke as he descended the rope.
Saddlebags was barely conscious of the little moany sounds the girl made against his hand or the tears that dampened his fingers. But there was no attempt to struggle free. She held herself motionless, her body stiff with fright.
Once on the ground, Luke walked over to join the semi-circle facing Saddlebags. For the briefest of seconds, Saddlebags thought Luke wasn’t going to stop, that he was going to keep coming at him. In response, he backed up another step, but Luke halted level with the others.
“There’s your gold,” Luke stated. “Now, turn Dulcie loose.”
“Not yet, I ain’t,” Saddlebags retorted. “First, you ’n the kid gotta go t’ camp, saddle up them horses an’ bring ’em here.”
“Come on, Tobe.” Luke motioned to the young cowboy.
“You aren’t going to bring him the horses, are you?” Tobe said in protest.
“As long as he has Dulcie, we’re doing whatever he says,” Luke replied, shooting a flat and hard glance at Saddlebags.
“Smart thinkin’,” Saddlebags inserted, not entirely trusting him. “You jus’ keep thinkin’ smart. An’ don’t either a you git any ideas about one a you goin’ fer help. ’Cause if’n you do, there won’t be nobody alive t’ help when it does come. Remember that.”
“I’ll remember.” The very quietness of Luke’s reply made Saddlebags uneasy.
“Good. Now, git goin’.” He jerked his head in the direction of camp and added in warning, “An’ don’t be dawdlin’ ’r I might git nervous.”
When Luke started toward camp, Tobe hesitated, throwing a worried look at his sister. “We’ll be back as fast as we can. I’m not gonna let him hurt you, Dulcie. I promise.”
Saddlebags’s hand muffled the little sobbing cry she made as Tobe trotted after Luke. Immediately he shifted his position to keep both men in sight just in case Luke took a notion to circle around and sneak up behind him. Saddlebags kept moving, drawing the stumbling child with him until he had his back to the canyon wall.
“Don’t do this, Saddlebags,” the Angie woman said in a kind of pleading appeal for reason. “The gold will only bring you trouble.”
“It’s my gold,” he snapped.
“You won’t get away with it,” Fargo warned. “I’ll hunt you down if it’s the last thing I do.”
“You’ll try.” And there’d be plenty of others hunting him, too, Saddlebags realized. He needed to be thinking about that, planning how he was going to do this. And he couldn’t do that if they kept yakking at him. When Angie opened her mouth to say something, he cut her off, “No more talkin’, any of yas. Jus’ stand there an’ keep yore mouths shut if ya want t’ keep this little girl safe.”
He noted the ensuing silence with satisfaction. That last remark had been the kind of threat he’d known they would heed. Now he needed to be figuring out his next move. Taking their horses meant they’d be afoot, unable to follow him. Then his glance darted to the ATV, identifying the flaw in that plan.
“Come on, girlie,” he muttered to the child. “We gotta take us a little walk over there.”
With caution, Saddlebags made his way to the vehicle, never once loosening his hold on his young hostage. He didn’t waste time trying to figure out how to disable its engine, and settled instead for using his razor-sharp skinning knife to slice all of its tires. Nobody would be doing any traveling on it for a while.
Now all he had to do was wait for Luke and the kid to come back with the horses.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The minutes ticked away with all the slowness of a crawling insect. For the hundredth time, Saddlebags glanced toward the campsite and strained to catch the first faint sound of hoofbeats.
Worried by their absence, Saddlebags calculated again how long it should take to saddle the horses and glanced at the sun, trying to gauge how much time had passed. Even allowing for error, they should have been back.
“What’s keepin’ ’em?” he mumbled, lapsing into the old habit of talking to himself.
Saddlebags started getting nervous, anxious, the sweat rolling from under his floppy-brimmed hat. He had counted on them coming back with the horses. What was he going to do if they didn’t? Without the horses, he’d have no way of carrying all that gold.
Then he heard the distinctive three-beat cadence of cantering horses, and the worry was eliminated. Seconds later, two riders leading three more saddled horses emerged from the trees. Saddlebags quivered with relief at the sight of them.
“Lookee there,” he told the girl. “Here comes yore brother jes’ like he promised.” This time Saddlebags felt the tremors of gladness that went through her. “Won’t be long now, girlie,” he whispered, then called to Luke when he pulled up near the ATV. “Took ya long enough.”
“It takes time to saddle five horses,” Luke countered and swung out of the saddle. “Now what?”
“Snug up all them cinches. I wouldn’t wanta be slowed by a saddle slippin’. An’ don’t try nothin’ funny. I’ll be awatchin’.”
One by one, Luke and Tobe checked all the cinches, tightening two and leaving the other three as they were. After dropping the stirrup on the last saddle, Luke announced, “You’re all set.”
“I will be once you git that gold stowed in them saddle pouches. An’ make sure they’re tied tight t’ the saddle,” he warned.
While they loaded the gold, Saddlebags moved closer, frog-walking the girl with him. If there was going to be trouble, it would come now when he was close to getting away. Recognizing that, Saddlebags was doubly alert.
As soon as the last ingot was tucked in the saddle pouch, Saddlebags issued the next order, “Now, tie them horses nose to tail—’cept fer that big gray. Leave him loose.”
Luke did as he was told, then swung around to confront him. “All right, we’ve got the gold loaded on the horses. Now let Dulcie go.”
“Please,” Angie inserted quickly, unable to bear the look of terror on the girl’s white face a minute longer. “She’ll only slow you down.” She hesitated a beat, then rushed, “If it’s a hostage you want, take me instead.”
The old man smiled slyly. “I planned on it.” He nodded toward the lead horse in the tied line of four. “Get on that first horse.”
When Angie moved to obey him, Luke reached out to stop her. “No. Don’t go with him.”
“I have to,” Angie insisted, unable to shake the feeling of responsibility.
“If you want this ’un free, you’d better let her get on that horse,” Saddlebags declared.
&n
bsp; Grimness ridged all the muscles in Luke’s face as he released her and stepped back, giving Angie a clear path to the chestnut horse. In her side vision, she was aware of Saddlebags moving sideways toward the gray gelding as she gathered up the reins, stepped a toe into the stirrup and swung aboard.
From her vantage point astride the chestnut, Angie had a clear view of the old man. With his mount’s muscled chest partially blocking him from the sight of the others, Saddlebags let go of Dulcie with a quick push, sheathed the knife and swung the rifle off his shoulder, all in one fluid motion.
Dulcie stumbled forward and sprawled hands-first onto the ground with a frightened cry, distracting the others while the old man mounted the gray. By the time Tobe rushed forward to pick up his sister, Saddlebags had all of them covered with the rifle.
“Git goin’.” He motioned Angie forward with a slight wave of the rifle barrel.
Without hesitation, Angie urged the chestnut into a trot rather than give Saddlebags a chance to reconsider and decide her hands should be tied. What advantage the lack of restraint might give her, she didn’t know. And she wouldn’t know until some opportunity presented itself.
The trot quickly accelerated into a canter, with Saddlebags taking up a position on her left flank and the rest of the horses trailing in a line behind her. She couldn’t help noticing the way the old man clung to the saddlehorn, his body bouncing in the seat with all the grace of a feed sack. But he maintained the pace until they reached the mouth of the canyon. There, he slowed the gray gelding to a fast walk and glanced over his shoulder at their back trail.
Angie did the same. “They’ll follow us. You know that.”
“McCallister, he might,” the old man agreed with a thoughtful nod. “But the kid’ll have t’ worry about the girl. Ole Fargo, he’s too crippled an’ Griff, he ain’t in any shape t’ go more than a mile ’r two. Yup, McCallister’s the one, an’ the others’ll slow him down.”
Angie was afraid he was right. She couldn’t count on anyone coming to her rescue. The rifle, she noticed, was once more slung across his back out of the way. But she had also previously observed how swiftly he could bring it into play.
