In the house, when they laid McMasters on a tarpaulin and blanket, he opened his eyes and told them he felt like his head had been bust wide open.
Old Charlie raised himself up on his elbows and said: ‘Give the bastards the goddam gold. Men’s lives ain’t worth it.’
Wiping the blood from his face with the back of a hand, McMasters said indistinctly: ‘Like hell we give ’em the gold. Take a look at this head, Joe, and tell me the damage.’
They brought water from the river in the coffee pot and boiled it over a fire the Indian girl built. Then they washed his face and head and found to their relief that the damage was not so bad as the bleeding had led them to believe. But there was damage enough. To Blade it looked as if a bullet had shattered rock into McMasters’ face and also ricocheted against his skull.
They cleaned out the wound with what little whiskey they had left. The treatment caused the half-breed great pain, but he took it, as Blade told him with a smile, like a good Cheyenne. The man did not even draw his breath in sharply. Annie and the Indian girl went to keep watch, Annie with her spectacles firmly on her large nose, breathing fire and gripping her gun to her fiercely. Pilar Pelaez caught up and drove the remaining animals near to the house. There were three horses, Annie’s mule and the burros left to them.
Alone with Blade, McMasters said: ‘Give me a couple of days, Joe, and I’ll be as right as rain. Don’t you have any doubt about it. And, Joe, you don’t aim to pull out, do you?’
Blade said: ‘What makes you think I might pull out, George?’
‘No offense, but there ain’t no profit in a passle of women and a bunch of killers.’
Blade was silent for a moment and McMasters thought he would get an angry rejoinder. Blade just said softly: ‘I don’t aim to pull out, George. Bank on it.’
McMasters said: ‘I’ll do that, Joe.’
Blade walked out of the house and came on the Mexican girl tying a horse to a picket pin. She asked: ‘What do you plan to do now?’
‘Get myself a pair of boots,’ he said. ‘I’m plumb sick of walking around barefoot.’
She watched him cross the pasture to the dead man. He bent down and heaved off the fellow’s boots. She could not see Blade’s face, but he was smiling, pleased that the footwear was about his size and had flat heels. There was nothing he hated more than cowman’s boots. He liked to walk as well as ride. He pulled one boot on and tried it. The fit was miraculous. When he walked back to her, the dead man’s boots on and his pockets full of the dead man’s ammunition, Blade looked a different man.
‘Pilar,’ he said, ‘as soon as it’s dark, we’re pulling out. But we won’t go straight for Taos. We’ll head north first. Don’t fret about paying these animals for what they did to you. They’ll come to us in good time. We’ll travel during the night, rest and watch through the day. That’s the way we’ll get them in the end.’
‘And this man you are hunting, will he go free?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he told her. ‘He’ll come with them.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘I’ve seen him.’
She laid a hand on his arm and looked up into his face— ‘I think I can trust you.’
He looked at her straight and said: ‘You by-God best do so.’
He walked on into the house and she followed him. He sat on his heels in a corner. McMasters grinned and said: ‘I see you gotten yourself a pair of boots.’
‘Boys,’ Blade said, ‘I’m going to ask you to travel tonight. Charlie in a travois, George horseback. What do you say?’
‘All right,’ McMasters said at once.
Charlie Hedges groaned—‘Aw, Jesus, a goddam travois. The broken bones’ll grate together like tooth-saws, Joe.’
Blade said: ‘The Indian girl’ll make you real comfortable, Charlie.’
‘Annie’ll never let you do it to me,’ Charlie declared. ‘You’ll see.’
‘We’re trying to save you and your gold, Charlie.’ McMasters snarled: ‘Don’t argue with the old fool. He goes and that’s the end of it.’
Charlie looked like he was going to weep. ‘A man don’t have no rights when he’s old.’
McMasters said: ‘But he has gold enough.’
‘I won’t be takin’ no gold with me where I’m going when I hand in my chips in that goddam travois,’ said Charlie.
When Annie came back into the house and heard, she bellowed that nobody was treating her Charlie that way. Blade rose and walked out of the house, leaving her to bellow. He took up his position in the high rocks and looked across to the mountains, wondering if he would ever get this collection of folks into them safely. His hopes lay with McMasters who knew these hills like a man knew his backyard. He inspected himself and his state of mind and found he did not feel too bad at all. It was having the boots, he reckoned. A man without boots sure felt low. The day drifted on. The whole country seemed quiet and empty. At dusk, the Indian girl took his place and he returned to the house to get organized. He had left preparations till now so that any watchers would not suspect their simple plan.
Ten
When they packed Charlie into the travois, Annie declared they were killing him. Her voice must have echoed to the Sangre de Cristos. Blade told her if she broached the subject just once more, they would leave her and Charlie behind. She believed it and shut up.
The Indian girl did Charlie proud. This was not the first time she had packed a wounded man on to a travois. With two straight willow poles and a rawhide reata, she fashioned a first-rate bed for him and he had to confess she did a good job.
For McMasters, the going would also be hard, but he did not utter one word of complaint. Blade and the Indian girl somehow got him into the saddle and looped his belt over the saddlehorn to keep him there. His movements were so uncertain and his mind now so obviously confused that Blade had a last minute regret for his decision and he almost changed his mind. The half-breed must have read his thoughts. He reached down from the saddle and gripped Blade’s shoulder—‘You’re doing the right thing, Joe. Just keep going. Sweep your back-trail clean.’
Annie, they hoisted on to her mule. They agreed there was no sense in making her walk, for she would make enough noise to wake the dead. Pilar took the lead, walking, holding the line of McMasters’ horse. Then came the horse pulling the travois, tied to the horse ahead of it. Keeping her eye on Charlie came Annie. The Indian girl brought up the rear with a heavy willow switch with which she wiped out their tracks as they moved almost silently along the narrow beach of the river. Blade gave himself a roving commission up and down the little column. He kept his eye on the little burros and their precious burdens.
A half-mile along the river, McMasters’ belt snapped under his dead weight and he pitched from the saddle. Not even the fall daunted him. Luckily he fell into soft sand. They put him back into the saddle and lashed him there with a rope. Then they went on.
Two miles along the river, their passage was barred by rocks and Blade took this opportunity to travel for a while through the shallows, which gave the Indian girl a rest from her labors. She climbed up behind McMasters to hold him upright and generally comfort him. Blade got himself in the lead with Pilar and found the ideal place to leave the water, going over gravel for a way and then across flat rock. They then went painfully and slowly over a wide sweep of loose shale which brought them to a rocky shallow canyon that took them north-west. Blade consulted McMasters, carefully describing the area to him and the half-breed said, yes, this was the place. They headed down the canyon no longer attempting to wipe out their tracks. Blade told Pilar to ride the travois horse and she gratefully climbed aboard.
An hour later under a high clear moon, they were out of the canyon and heading through the foothills which grew wilder every mile. Once they stopped while Blade consulted with McMasters and learned that, if they continued as they were, they would come to a good spot to fort up through daylight. Around midnight, it came on to rain and within minutes they
were all chilled through to the bone. Charlie declared he would likely die from pewmony and McMasters seemed to go into a kind of delirium. The Indian girl made signs to Blade that she wanted them to stop so that McMasters could rest and be warmed by a fire. Blade allowed her to tie a tarp around the man, but refused to stop. He knew he had to have them all out of sight and safe through the hours of daylight. And he hoped to God that he was doing the right thing. Annie declared that he was a goddam murderer and she hoped his conscience would give him pure naked hell if her Charlie died.
‘Just ole Annie’s luck to come up with a wonnerful sonvobitch like my darlin’ there an’ have him snatched away by a crewel fate.’
The Mexican girl said nothing.
It rained clear through to the dawn when McMasters halted his horse and seemed to regain some of his senses. He lifted a shaking hand and pointed to the black face of a monstrous pile of rock to their right.
‘See that there green shelf, Joe. There’s a goat track goes up. You’ll find a cave. You can build a fire there. It’s a natural chimney. Hell, you could stand off a regiment of U.S. cavalry.’
They found the track an hour later and just the sight of it was almost enough to make Blade give up. It was made for goats arid little else. Or so it seemed at the bottom. But it made its way steeply into a tangle of undergrowth and stunted trees and then opened out so wide that even the travois and the bitterly complaining Charlie made a fairly comfortable passage. Annie’s mule took it in her stride and the little burros pattered up it without any trouble at all.
By the time the sun had come out and driven the rain away, they were on the shelf and could see the giant proportions of the cave in front of them. The hill itself reared high above them like a dark satanic cathedral, pushing its head into the very sky itself. The entrance to the cave must have been two hundred feet high. Beyond that was a smaller archway; beyond that another and another as the massive hole seemed to march into the bowels of the hill. For a moment, the little party halted to gaze up in awe at the gloomy pile to which they had come for shelter.
Slowly, Blade led the way across the sweet-scented grass, heading for the great open maw of rock. From below, the shelf had looked flat, but now they were on it they realized that it in fact constituted a pretty stiff climb. It took them nearly an hour to cross it. Finally, however, they were clattering into the great entrance to the hill.
Annie was goddamed if she liked it. No, sir, it gave her the goddam creeps. The horses wanted to stop and graze. The little burros hastened their steps, as if they knew that once they had shucked their packs they would fill their bellies with good lush grass.
At first they met shale, but as they pushed forward under arches that grew lower and lower, the footing grew firmer. Finally, they found themselves in a long hallway that appeared dry and fairly light. Blade could see that the cave continued on into the hill, but he thought this a good place to stop. He turned to McMasters who was looking around in a somewhat dazed manner, but with a look of some satisfaction.
‘All right, here, boy,’ he whispered. ‘Get me down.’
They unlashed him while old Charlie complained they were leaving him lie. Annie fussed about him and added her complaints that they were neglecting him. Gently, Blade, Pilar and the Indian girl lifted McMasters from the saddle and made a bed for him at the side of the cave. Annie and the Indian girl then attended to Charlie while Pilar and Blade relieved the animals of their saddles and loads. Blade did not want to let the stock go free to be spotted by anybody on the shelf, but it seemed he had no choice. They badly needed feed. But McMasters stopped him and pointed to further into the cave.
‘There’s grass a-plenty down yonder,’ he said. Blade thought he was light-headed again. He took the risk of putting the animals out on to the grass, reasoning that their having wiped out their tracks at the river would have delayed any pursuit for a good few hours. Pilar and the Indian girl gathered brushwood around the mouth of the cave and built a good fire, the smoke disappearing up into what appeared to be a natural chimney in the roof of the cave. Soon there was hot coffee for everybody. Charlie complained he was hungry. A sick man like him got hungrier than a bear and needed some good solid chow.
‘An’ you shall have it, my darlin’,’ crooned Annie, ‘as soon as I can rustle it up for you. I shall have to get you good an’ strong or I shan’t get no fandoodlin’ this side of Christmas. It ain’t fittin’ a good Christian woman should be starved of love.’
The Indian girl would not move far from McMasters’ side for long, so Pilar took up her post at the mouth of the cave, McMasters’ Winchester in her hands, to watch for any movement below and to see the stock did not stray. Blade entered the long dark passageway into which the cave developed.
It twisted and turned and he was soon in total darkness and cut off from the main cave and its dim daylight and firelight. But he was not in darkness for long. Suddenly there was light on his face and, looking up, he saw a small patch of daylight high above him.
He pushed on and suddenly was in full daylight.
He stood motionless, unable to believe his eyes.
He had walked into a steep-walled canyon, strewn with rocks, brush and stunted trees. Going forward, his boots brushed through lush grass. Away to his left he heard the soft orchestra of a rushing mountain stream. He went in the direction of the sound and found where the water dropped from two or three hundred feet overhead. So George had told only the truth. They could put their stock safely in here.
He chuckled to himself. They only wanted some beef on the hoof in here and they could hold out for ever.
Next he tried to find a way out. In a place like this, he told himself, there must be some way out, even if it were nothing more than a goat-track. But there was nothing. The sides of the canyon were sheer, in places as smooth as glass. There was, so far as he could see, no way in or out. Satisfied, he returned to the others.
He wanted to apologies to George for thinking him a crazy liar, but the half-breed was asleep. The Indian girl sat stone-faced beside him.
‘Moony-faced cow,’ Annie said. ‘Jest a-moonin’ there, not turnin’ a goddam hand while I do all the work. And that stuck up little Mex madam sittin’ on her high-class ass. There ain’t no goddam justice.’
Blade went out to Pilar and told her what he had found. She looked skeptical.
‘Are you trying to fool a poor Mexican girl?’
He laughed.
‘I never saw an unpoorer Mexican girl than you,’ he told her. ‘I’m damned if you don’t look as if you’re enjoying this.’
She nodded. ‘But maybe “enjoy” is not quite the right word. In some ways my life has not been soft —I have ridden like a man all my life. I have fought the bulls and ridden the wild ones. But I have always been safe, protected.’ Her face became somber. ‘Until the time at the rancho when those animals found me. Now there will be nobody willing to marry the Pelaez heiress. Not all the money in the territory will make a Mexican gentleman want me for a wife. But I am alive. And never more alive. I think maybe it is because I never had a purpose before.’
They caught up the animals and drove them through the cave and were cursed heartily by Annie when her own mule trod on her fire and scattered burning embers. To get the animals through the dark passageway presented a problem. The horses and the mule baulked until Pilar led a burro while she carried a burning brand. Even then they only consented to go when Blade urged them on from behind. At last, however, they were safely in the canyon and Blade was able to feel assured that nobody in the valley below would suspect that there were men, women and stock hidden away in the heart of the hill. Just the same, he kept one guard all the time during daylight hours in front of the cave, from which position a pretty clear view of the valley below could be had.
Around noon, he found McMasters pretty clearheaded and took the opportunity to question him.
‘George, as we came along the valley, I thought I saw signs of cattle.’
�
�Maybe,’ McMasters said. ‘Strays most likely. There’s a couple of spreads some twenty-five to thirty miles north-west of here. They ain’t much. Both of ’em a couple of partners. Shirt-tail outfits. Mostly they’re busy bein’ scared of getting wiped out by Indians. The Kiowas hit ’em last spring, at least so I heard.’
‘Maybe I could get us some beef before we starve,’ Blade said. ‘I’ve a mind to fort up here for a few days till you’re mended enough to ride.’
‘It ain’t a bad idea at that,’ McMasters agreed. ‘You’re kind of short-handed and no mistake.’
‘Any sense in trying to get word to the cowmen the fix we’re in?’
McMasters grunted—‘Maybe they’d come. Maybe they daresn’t. Who wants to tangle with the crowd from the Elbow?’ He thought on it. ‘Who’d you send? You’re needed here. They wouldn’t believe the Indian girl. Annie’s so damned slow . . . There’s only Pilar. I can see by your face you don’t think that a good idea. Kind of fancy her, huh? Can’t say I blame you.’
Blade said: ‘Two men jumped the horses at the river when you got hit. There was one a mite crippled when I laid into him. I reckon he didn’t take any part in the attack. That makes three. What happened to the fourth?’
‘I’ve been thinking of that. You must be thinking what I’m thinking.’
‘Those burros of Charlie’s are heavy with gold. Enough for everybody. That damned gold has made us the target instead of the outlaws.’
‘Simple answer is dump the gold.’
‘You voting for that?’
‘Do I hell? After what those bastards did? You ain’t thinking of giving up, are you, Joe?’
Blade said: ‘If you can stick it out, George, I reckon I can.’
Outside the cave, watching the valley through half-closed eyes, he found Pilar. He dropped down beside her, admitting to himself he liked being in her company. He had never known anybody quite like her before.
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