The wind that swept over the plains was chill. It carried a tang that penetrated; that caused the men, especially in the early morning, to turn up the collars of their woolen shirts as they rode; a chill that brought a profane protest from the tawny-haired giant who had disclosed to Lawler the whereabouts of Joe Hamlin that night in the Circle L bunkhouse.
The first camp had been made on the Wolf—at a shallow about five miles north of the Two Bar, Hamlin’s ranch. And with the clear, sparkling, icy water of the river on his face, and glistening beads of it on his colorless eyelashes, the giant had growled to several of his brother cowboys, who were likewise performing their ablutions at the river:
“This damn wind is worse’n a Kansas regular. You lean ag’in’ it an’ it freezes you; you turn your back to it an’ you’ve got to go to clawin’ icicles out of your back. Why in hell can’t they have a wind that’s got some sense to it?”
“It ain’t c-cold, Shorty,” jibed a slender puncher with a saturnine eye and a large, mobile mouth.
“Kells,” grinned the giant; “your voice is froze, right now!”
And yet the men enjoyed the cold air. It had a tonic effect upon them; they were energetic, eager, and always ravenously hungry. The cook offered testimony on that subject, unsolicited.
“I never seen a bunch of mavericks that gobbled more grub than this here outfit!” he stated on the second morning. “Or that swilled more coffee,” he added. “Seems like all they come on this drive for is to eat!”
Toward the close of the second day corrugations began to appear in the level. Little ridges and valleys broke the monotony of travel; rocks began to dot the earth; the gray grass disappeared, the barren stretches grew larger and more frequent, and the yucca and the lancelike octilla began to appear here and there. The trend of the trail had been upward all afternoon—gradual at first, hardly noticeable. But as the day drew to a close the cattle mounted a slope, progressing more slowly, and the horses hitched to the wagons began to strain in the harness.
The rise seemed to be endless—to have no visible terminus. For it went up and up until it melted into the horizon; like the brow of a hill against the sky. But when, after hours of difficult travel, herd and men gained the summit, a broad, green-brown mesa lay before them.
The mesa was miles wide, and ran an interminable distance eastward. Looking back over the way they had come, the men could see that the level over which they had ridden for the past two days was in reality the floor of a mighty valley. Far away into the west they could see a break in the mesa—where it sloped down to merge into the plains near Willets. The men knew that beyond that break ran the steel rails that connected the town with Red Rock, their destination. But it was plain to them that the rails must make a gigantic curve somewhere in the invisible distance, or that they ran straight into a range of low mountains that fringed the northern edge of the mesa.
Lawler enlightened the men at the camp fire that night.
“The railroad runs almost straight from Willets,” he said. “There’s a tunnel through one of the mountains, and other tunnels east of it. And there’s a mountain gorge with plenty of water in it, where the railroad runs on a shelving level blasted out of the wall. The mountains form a barrier that keeps Willets and the Wolf River section blocked in that direction. It’s the same south of here, the only difference being that in the south there is no railroad until you strike the Southern Pacific. And that’s a long distance to drive cattle.”
When the herd began to move the following morning, Blackburn sent them over the mesa for several miles, and then began to head them down a gradual slope, leaving the mesa behind. There was a faint trail, narrow, over which in other days cattle had been driven. For the grass had been trampled and cut to pieces; and in some places there were still prints of hoofs in the baked soil.
The slope grew sharper, narrowing as it descended, and the cattle moved down it in a sinuous, living line, until the leaders were out of sight far around a bend at least a mile distant.
Blackburn was at the head of the herd with three men, riding some little distance in front of the cattle, inspecting the trail. Lawler and the others were holding the stragglers at the top of the mesa, endeavoring to prevent the crowding and confusion which always results when massed cattle are being held at an outlet. It was like a crowd of eager humans attempting to gain entrance through a doorway at the same instant. The cattle were plunging, jostling. The concerted impulse brought the inevitable confusion—a jam that threatened frenzy.
By Lawler’s orders the men drew off, and the cattle, relieved of the menace which always drives them to panic in such a situation, began to filter through and to follow their leaders down the narrow trail.
Down, always down, the trail led, growing narrower gradually, until at last cattle and men were moving slowly on a rocky floor with the sheer wall of the mesa on one side and towering mountains on the other.
The clatter of hoofs, the clashing of horns, the bellowing, the rumble of the wagons over the rocks and the ring of iron-shod hoofs, created a bedlam of sound, which echoed and re-echoed from the towering walls until the uproar was deafening.
Shorty, the tawny-haired giant, was riding close to Lawler.
He never had ridden the trail, though he had heard of it. He leaned over and shouted to Lawler:
“Kinney’s cañon, ain’t it?”
Lawler nodded.
“Well,” shouted Shorty; “it’s a lulu, ain’t it?”
For a short time the trail led downward. Then there came a level stretch, smooth, damp. The day was hours old, and the sun was directly overhead. But down in the depths of the cañon it was cool; and a strong wind blew into the faces of the men.
The herd was perhaps an hour passing through the cañon; and when Lawler and Shorty, riding side by side, emerged from the cool gloom, they saw the cattle descending a shallow gorge, going toward a wide slope which dipped into a basin of mammoth size.
Lawler knew the place; he had ridden this trail many times in the years before the coming of the railroad; and when he reached the crest of the slope and looked out into the hazy, slumbering distance, he was not surprised, though his eyes quickened with appreciation for its beauty.
Thirty miles of virgin land lay before him, basking in the white sunlight—a green-brown bowl through which flowed a river that shimmered like silver. The dark bases of mountains loomed above the basin at the eastern edge—a serrated range with lofty peaks that glowed white in the blue of the sky. South and north were other mountains—somber, purple giants with pine-clad slopes and gleaming peaks—majestic, immutable.
Looking down from where he sat on Red King, Lawler could see the head of the herd far down the ever-broadening trail. The leaders were so far away that they seemed to be mere dots—black dots moving in an emerald lake.
The cattle, too, had glimpsed the alluring green that spread before them; and at a little distance from Lawler and several of the other men they were running, eager for the descent.
“She’s a whopper, ain’t she?” said Shorty’s voice at Lawler’s side. “I’ve seen a heap of this man’s country, but never nothin’ like that. I reckon if the Lord had spread her out a little mite further she’d have took in mighty near the whole earth. It’s mighty plain he wasn’t skimpin’ things none, anyway, when he made this here little hollow.”
He grinned as he rode, and then waved a sarcastic hand toward the cattle.
“Look at ’em runnin’! You’d think, havin’ projected around this here country for a year or so, they’d be better judges. They’re thinkin’ they’ll be buryin’ their mugs in that right pretty grass in about fifteen seconds, judgin’ from the way they’re hittin’ the breeze toward it. An’ it’ll take them half a day to get down there.”
Shorty was a better judge of distance than the cattle. For it was afternoon when the last of the herd reached the level floor of the basin. They spread out, to graze industriously; the men not caring, knowing they would not stray far
from such a wealth of grass.
By the time the chuck-wagon had come to a halt and the cook had clambered stiffly from his seat to prepare the noonday meal, Lawler and the others saw the horse-wrangler and his assistant descending the long slope with the remuda. The horses had fallen far behind, and Lawler rode to meet them, curious to know what had happened.
When he rode up, the horse-wrangler, a man named Garvin—a stocky individual with keen, inquiring eyes—advanced to meet him.
“Boss,” he said, shortly; “there’s somethin’ mighty wrong goin’ on behind us. Me an’ Ed—my helper—has been kind of hangin’ back, bein’ sort of curious. They’s a bunch of ornery-lookin’ guys trailin’ us. I first saw ’em after we’d struck the bottom of that cañon. They was just comin’ around that big bend, an’ I saw ’em. They lit out, turnin’ tail—mebbe figurin’ I hadn’t seen ’em; but pretty soon I seen ’em again, sort of sneakin’ behind us. I reckon if they was square guys they wouldn’t be sneakin’ like that—eh?”
CHAPTER XIV
LAWLER’S “NERVE”
When Lawler spoke to Blackburn regarding the news that had been communicated to him by the horse-wrangler, Blackburn suggested that himself and several of the Circle L men ride back to ascertain the object of the trailers.
“We’ll ride back an’ make ’em talk!” he declared, heatedly.
Lawler, however, would not agree, telling Blackburn that the trail was free, and that, until the men made some hostile move, there was no reason why they should be approached.
So the men ate, selected new mounts from their “strings” in the remuda, and again started the big herd forward.
Lawler rode for a time with Garvin, keeping an alert eye on the back trail. But though he could see far up the cañon, where the trail—white with dust from the passing of the herd—wound its sinuous way upward into the dark recesses between the towering mesa walls, he could see no sign of life or movement.
The nonappearance of the mysterious riders was suspicious, for if their intentions were friendly they would have come boldly on. In fact, if they were abroad upon an honest errand, they must have found the slowness of the herd ahead of them irksome; and they would have passed it as soon as possible, merely to escape the dust cloud raised by the cattle.
When the afternoon began to wane the herd was far out in the basin, traveling steadily toward a point where the little river doubled, where Blackburn intended to camp for the night. And though both Blackburn and Lawler scanned the back trail intently at intervals, there was still no sign of the riders Garvin had mentioned.
Nor did the riders pass the herd in the night. Blackburn threw an extra guard around the cattle, making the shifts shorter and more frequent; and when daylight came a short conference among the Circle L men disclosed the news that no riders had passed. If any riders had passed the cowboys must have seen them, for there had been a moon, and the basin afforded in the vicinity of the herd, was clear and unobstructed.
Enraged at the suspicious nature of the incident, Blackburn took half a dozen cowboys and rode back, while the remainder of the trail crew sent the herd eastward. It was late in the afternoon when Blackburn returned, disappointed, grim, and wrathful.
“There’s a bunch trailin’ us, all right,” he told Lawler; “about a dozen. We seen where they’d stopped back in the cañon a ways—where Garvin said he’d seen ’em sneakin’ back. We lost their tracks there, for they merged with ours an’ we couldn’t make nothin’ of ’em. But at the foot of the slope we picked ’em up again. Looks like they separated. Some of them went north an’ some went south. I reckon that durin’ the night they sneaked around the edge of the basin. It’s likely they’re hidin’ in the timber somewhere, watchin’ us. If you say the word I’ll take some of the boys an’ rout ’em out. We’ll find what they’re up to, damn ’em!”
“As long as they don’t bother us we won’t bother them,” said Lawler. “It’s likely they won’t bother us.”
Again that night the men worked in extra shifts; and the following morning the herd climbed out of the basin and straggled up a narrow trail through some foothills. At noon they passed through a defile between two mighty mountains; and when twilight came they had descended some low hills on the other side and went to camp for the night on a big grass level near the river they had followed for three days.
The level upon which they camped was much lower than the floor of the big basin, for the water from the river came tumbling out of a narrow gorge between the hills through which the herd had passed.
They were in a wild section, picturesque, rugged. There was plenty of water; and Blackburn and Lawler both knew that there would be water enough for the herd all the way to Red Rock. There was a section of desert before them, which they would strike before many days; but they would cross the desert in one day, barring delay; and there seemed to be no reason why the long drive should not prove successful despite the mountain trails—most of them hazardous—through which they must still pass.
And yet the men were restless. The continued presence of an invisible menace near them, disturbed the men. They had not seen the mysterious riders again, but there was not a man in the outfit who did not feel them—not a man but was convinced that the riders were still trailing them, watching them.
Long ago the younger men had ceased to laugh and joke. During the day they kept gazing steadily into the gulf of space that surrounded them, carefully scrutinizing the timber and the virgin brush which might form a covert; and at night they were sullen, expectant; every man wearing his gun when he rolled himself in his blanket.
It was not fear that had seized them. They were rugged, hardy, courageous men who had looked death in the face many times, defying it, mocking it; and no visible danger could have disturbed them.
But this danger was not visible; it was stealthy, secret, lurking near them, always threatening, always expected. It might stalk behind them; it might be flanking them as they rode; or it might creep upon them in the night.
Blackburn had fallen into a vicious mood. His eyes glowed with the terrible, futile rage that surged in his veins, it was a reflection of a wrath that grew more and more intolerant as the days passed and the danger that portended did not materialize.
“Boss,” he said to Lawler on the tenth day following that on which Garvin had reported the presence of the riders behind them; “the boys is gettin’ jumpy. They’re givin’ one another short answers, an’ they’re growlin’ about things they never noticed before.
“I’m gettin’ fed up on this thing, too. It’s a cinch them riders is following us. I seen ’em dustin’ north of us this mornin’. I ain’t said anything to the boys, but it’s likely they’ve seen ’em, too—for they’ve got their eyes peeled. It’s gettin’ under my skin, an’ if they don’t come out into the open pretty soon and give us an idee of what game they’re playin’, me an’ some of the boys is goin’ to drag ’em out!”
Yet Blackburn did not carry out his threat. He knew pursuit of the riders would be futile, for there were no further signs of them for several days, and Blackburn knew the riders would have no trouble in eluding them in the vast wilderness through which the herd had been passing for a week. They went on, continuing to watch, though there were no further signs of the men.
They had been on the trail twenty days when at dusk one day they moved slowly down a wide, gradual slope toward a desert. At the foot of the slope was a water hole filled with a dark, brackish fluid, with a green scum fringing its edges. The slope merged gently into the floor of the desert, like an ocean beach stretching out into the water, and for a distance out into the floor of the desert there was bunch grass, mesquite, and greasewood, where the cattle might find grazing for the night. Beyond the stretch of grass spread the dead, gray dust, of the desert, desolate in the filmy, mystic haze that was slowly descending.
The cattle came down eagerly, for they had grazed little during the day in the mountainous region through which they had passed. They were
showing the effects of the drive. They had been sleek and fat when they started from the Circle L; they were growing lean, wild, and they were always ravenously hungry.
But where they could feed they required little attention; and the cowboys, after halting them, helped Garvin establish the lines of a rope corral into which they drove the remuda. Then they built a fire and squatted wearily around it—at a respectful distance—to watch the cook—and to listen to him as he complainingly prepared supper.
The men had finished, and the long shadows of the dusk were stealing out over the desert, when Lawler—sitting on the chuck-box—heard Blackburn exclaim sharply:
“Hell’s fire! Here they come!”
Blackburn had sprung to his feet, his eyes blazing with the pent-up wrath that had been in them for many days. He was tense, his muscles straining; and his fingers were moving restlessly near the butt of the huge pistol that swung at his hip. The fingers were closing and unclosing, betraying the man’s passion.
Lawler got to his feet. Following the direction of Blackburn’s flaming eyes, he saw, perhaps a mile away, a large body of horsemen. They were descending the long slope over which the herd had been driven.
Lawler counted them—thirty-nine. But the menace was no longer invisible; it was now a material thing which could be met on such terms as might be, with the law of chance to govern the outcome.
Lawler did not doubt that the on-coming riders were hostile. He had felt that when he first had been made aware of their presence behind the herd. He saw, too, that the men of his outfit felt as he did; for they were all on their feet, their faces grim, their eyes glowing with the rage that had gripped them over the presence of the unseen menace; their muscles were tensed and their lips were in the sullen pout which presages the imminence of action.
Shorty, the tawny giant, was a terrible figure. He seemed to be outwardly cool, and there was not a sign of passion in his manner. His hands swung limply at his sides, not a muscle in his body seeming to move. Unlike the other men, he was calm, seemingly unperturbed. So striking was the contrast between him and the other men that Lawler looked twice at him. And the second time he saw Shorty’s eyes—they were gleaming pools of passion, cold, repressed.
The Charles Alden Seltzer Megapack Page 97
