Suddenly, above the crash of thunder and the rushing roar of the rain, they
heard another sound. The herd was running good now and Fallon fell back.
“Drive ’em!” he yelled. “It’s in the canyon!”
With rope and pistol they harried the cattle up the canyon before them, their
horses racing back and forth, nipping with their teeth at the frightened
creatures. Suddenly Fallon saw, looming ahead, the boulder that marked the cut
up which they must drive the cattle.
At the same instant they rounded into a straight stretch of wash that was all of
a quarter of a mile long, and even as they turned into the stretch, with the
boulder only a few yards ahead, a lightning flash revealed the rolling wall of
water. Twelve feet high; tossing logs on its crest, it came rushing toward them
at the speed of an express train. For an instant, Fallon was appalled.
They couldn’t make it. There simply wasn’t time. This time he’d bought it, and
for Josh Teel, too. Then urgency broke through his fear and he screamed.
“Teel!” He tried to make his voice heard above the roar of the storm. “Let’s
go-o-o!”
Teel caught the wave of his arm in the almost continually flashing lightning,
and together they broke for the gap. Almost at the same moment, a lead steer saw
the gap, too, and recognized the way home. Bawling frightfully, the huge ox
started for the gap, and in an instant, all were following. Caught up in the
rush, Fallon was swept along, and suddenly, through the bawling of cattle and
the roar of the rushing water, he heard a lost, despairing cry. Even as he was
swept upward to safety, he glanced back and saw that Josh Teel was down, his leg
pinned under his fallen horse.
He did not think, he did not pause to estimate the risks involved. He might kill
the horse, he might hit Teel, but there was only one chance for them. The horse
was lying still. He wanted to burn the animal with a bullet, to make it get up
or give Teel a chance to free his leg.
Fallon drew his pistol and chopped down, firing as the gun came level. The horse
screamed and lunged and, scrambling to its feet, it went for the gap, and made
it.
The roaring of the water drowned all other sound, but Teel, free of the horse,
threw his body around and grabbed for the rocky wall of the wash. And then the
flood rushed upon him and he was submerged, vanishing under the dark, glistening
water.
Dropping from his horse, Fallon took the rope from the pommel and rushed to the
bank. As he ran, he shook out a loop. Never better than a fair roper, and long
out of practice, he knew it was Teel’s one wild chance now … if the Missourian
was not already dead, already swept away.
The wash was filled with the racing water, running ten feet deep, tossing logs
and debris. How long would it last? An hour? Two hours? Three? Teel’s body would
be carried far in that time, carried down the canyon and out upon the desert.
Fallon worked his way toward the edge, watching out for cracks that might tumble
him into the wash. Even as he neared the edge, a huge chunk, a dozen feet long
and half as wide, was torn from the opposite bank and fell into the stream.
He drew closer to the spot where Teel had vanished. Here, clinging to his
loop—the other end was tied fast to the pommel of the saddle—he lay down in the
mud and peered over the edge.
Below him was a ghostly white hand, slipping on the wet rock. And below that was
Teel’s face, barely out of the water; his other hand clinging to the rock with a
precarious grip.
All that saved him from the violent current was a shoulder of rock that,
projecting scarcely a foot into the stream, broke the current just enough so he
had not been torn free. Yet even as Fallon saw him, Teel’s fingers began to
slip. Reaching over, Fallon dug his knees into the damp earth to give him
purchase, and grasped Teel’s wrist.
Slippery … too slippery.
With his free hand, depending on the slight grip with his knees to keep him from
falling over into the water, Fallon shook out a loop and dropped it. The loop
missed, but Teel was no fool. He was a tough man who had fought for life before,
and he did not weaken now. Deliberately, he bobbed his head into the noose, then
with a quick, desperate look at FalIon, he let go with his other hand and thrust
it through the loop.
Instantly his whole weight was on Fallon’s slippery wrist-grip, and the movement
jerked Fallon’s knees loose. His knees skidded in the mud, and with a gasp of
panic, Fallon felt himself going over.
Wildly, he grabbed out and caught the rope. It tore through his hand, but his
grip held. Then his body struck Teel’s with a thud, and the two men clung
together. Fighting for his life against the tug of the current, Fallon got his
arm through the same loop with Teel.
Rain beat at their faces with angry fingers, and the rushing water tore at their
bodies. Once a heavy chunk of wood struck Fallon in the side and he cried out in
pain, but the rope remained taut. Carefully, Fallon began to feel against the
bank for a foothold. If he could just get a little slack in the rope…
Teel, who knew as much about a roping horse as Fallon, caught on at once, and
dug for a toehold. If they could just get some slack.
They got it, and the black instantly backed up to keep the rope taut, and they
had gained a few inches. Again they tried, and Teel got a foothold, although
Fallon could get none, but Teel got an arm under Fallon’s shoulders and heaved
him up enough to get the slack they needed. Promptly the black horse backed up,
tightening the rope again.
But that was the end of it.
Only inches above them was the edge, and water swirled about their hips. They
could find no foothold. The only consolation was that Fallon knew the black
would hold. He would keep that rope tight until he fell from exhaustion.
That black horse had roped too many bad steers, mean longhorns, and bulls that
were fighters. It was his job to keep that rope tight, and it was thus he had
been trained. He would keep the rope tight until doomsday, and after.
Sagging in the loop, which cut into their bodies, they waited. Fallon’s arms
ached. His hand, burned on the rope, was raw and bloody, and the pain was
frightful.
The great roaring of the water had ceased, but it still rushed around them,
still tugged at their bodies; but the awful, tearing violence of it was gone. It
was still dangerous, but the black horse was holding them.
“She’s fallin’!” Teel shouted in Fallon’s ear. “Below my hip pockets now!”
After a few more minutes the fall was obvious. And now, on his right, Fallon saw
an outthrust of rock. Reaching out, he got a foot on it and pushed up; the black
horse instantly took up the slack. Fallon swung a hand up and got hold of the
edge. Teel’s boots fought for a toehold and dug in, and suddenly they both had
arms over the edge and the black took up the slack so suddenly that they found
themselves over the edge and sprawled in a muddy tangle.
Teel struggled to his feet and stood swaying. “You surely picked a lousy night
for a ride!” he said wryly.
Fallon got up and spoke to the black horse, which walked toward them. “I could
do with some coffee,” he said.
“Hell!” Teel said. “I could do with a drink, although I’ve sworn off the stuff.”
Riding double, they rode back into town.
It was breaking day when they came into the street, covered with mud, and
exhausted but hilarious. Damon was out, sweeping off his walk, and he looked at
them in astonishment.
“What happened to you two?” he asked.
Teel was not a man given to saving face or mincing words. Briefly, he told what
had happened. “We could have lost the herd,” he said at the end, “and you’ve
eight or nine head there yourself.”
“I can’t understand it,” Damon said. “Al wouldn’t—”
“He was drunk,” Pete Shoyer interrupted. Shoyer was a late-comer and owed no
loyalty to Damon. “I got up to close a window and saw him ridin’ up the street.
Chances are he’s back there in the stable, sleepin’ it off.”
Al Damon awakened slowly. The first thing he smelled was the fresh hay beneath
him; and opening his eyes, he found himself staring up at the low rafters in the