So they had taken Nita and gone. To return to Tetlow? That was their best bet, but would that be the bet Havalik would make? He would be thinking more of Kilkenny and killing him than of anything else. And he had no doubt those small boot-tracks belonged to the gunman.
Mounting the gray, Kilkenny turned to trailing the party. The trail led east into the worst of the mountains, toward his own cabin and the Valley of Whispering Wind!
Dolan had not been mistaken about the gray, for the horse had a willingness for the trail equaled only by Kilkenny’s own buckskin. The tracks led plainly off toward the east and after crossing the plateau, dipped into a narrow gap between gigantic cliffs. Here the sand was hard-packed and the hoof scars were plain as print. Kilkenny gave some time to studying each hoof print, knowing that upon his memory of their characteristics might depend success or failure. Kilkenny looked at the sky. He had left his slicker under Cain’s head and had no protection against the rain. He rode on, and the trail became increasingly bad. He was not worried about Nita, for she had been born to the saddle, nor much worried about these men as long as Havalik was along, for the gunman was not eager after women. He was a man who lived to kill, and Kilkenny doubted that he even thought of Nita as anything but a pawn in the game. That might not be true of the others, but in the West few men would risk bothering a woman. It was the one thing the frontier would not accept.
A few spattering drops of rain fell, and Kilkenny dug into his bedroll and got out his ground sheets and wrapped it about him as best he could. It was cumbersome and did not help around his neck, for it kept slipping down. It did, however, keep off the worst of the rain, and it was now raining hard. He hurried the gray, lifting the horse to a canter. If the rain continued the tracks would be washed out.
And within a half dozen miles, they were.
But not before they had told their story to Kilkenny. Havalik was hunting a place where there was shelter from the wind and rain. It showed in every deviation of the trail. He was hunting such a place, and he would not go much further. The rain eased a little, and lowering black clouds crowded down around the mountains, drifting in gray tendrils through the passes and between the cliff tops. The wind stirred and on the breath of the wind came a faint smell of woodsmoke!
It was late evening now, for the trail had been long. Kilkenny stripped off his ground sheet and rolled it, returning it to the place behind the saddle, and then he slipped into a worn buckskin jacket, but one that left his gun butts free. His mind was utterly cold, his eyes like those of a searching hawk. He walked his horse, keeping to the sand or soft earth, careful to strike no stone. Again he paused. The smell of woodsmoke was stronger now. A gleam caught his eyes, and looking through the junipers he saw the fire. It was built-in a cut back under a bulging cliff and several men stood about the fire. Their horses were picketed just beyond, and Nita Riordan stood alone on the outside of the fire.
Kilkenny hesitated for the wink of an eyelash, and then he slapped the spurs to the startled gray and palmed his Colt. The first shot rang out and he charged into the camp, yelling and shooting. A man spun and dropped, others dove for shelter, and Nita, her eyes suddenly alive, sprang quickly left. His gun exploding, Kilkenny hit the camp at a dead run, bending swiftly to sweep his arm around Nita’s waist. Instantly, her foot sought the stirrup and then the gray was past the camp and running while the frightened horses lunged and plunged. One jerked free a picket pin and stampeded out of camp. Behind them a savage yell rang out, then a shot, but the shot was wild. Kilkenny did not halt the gray and Nita crawled quickly behind him despite his demand that she get in front. The gray loved to run and despite the added burden, he ran now, plunging through the wet jumpers that slashed at their faces and drenched them with water. Looping the reins about the pommel, Kilkenny fed cartridges into the now empty Colt. Then he slowed the racing horse and turned swiftly right. He descended into a canyon, and rode south at a trot, then coming to a branch, he turned north again. They had been riding for not more than ten minutes when Kilkenny drew up sharply. Far off, distant in the mountains, came a muffled roar!
His face went white and he felt his breath go out of him. Swiftly he glanced right and left. On either side were the broken but unscalable walls of the canyon, and behind him for more than a mile were the same canyon walls! He did not hesitate, but spurred the frightened horse forward. The roar grew and behind him he felt Nita’s clasp tighten with fear. Nobody needed to speak, they all knew it was a huge wall of water roaring down the canyon toward them at express train speed! A wall of water running off the rocks of the mountains into the canyon. And behind them, there was no escape. Before them was the water. Nevertheless, flight was useless. Their only hope lay ahead. Rounding a bend in the canyon, Kilkenny’s heart sank, for nowhere in sight was there anything that looked like escape.
Nita’s arms tightened. “Lance! On the right there! Isn’t that a ledge?” It was. Swinging the gray, Lance cut across to it. The path was unbelievably narrow. Dropping to the ground beside the girl who had instantly realized the necessity, Kilkenny took the bridle. “Go ahead,” he said, “and hurry!” Up she went and Kilkenny followed. It clung to the face of the cliff like an eyebrow of crumbling rock. Several times rocks fell away from under the feet of the horse and fell into the canyon, and now they were only six feet off the bottom. Yet the path switched back and led to a higher ledge, at least fifteen feet above the canyon floor. Nita turned and went up and Kilkenny got the gray to the switchback. It was close, but the horse made it, ears pricked at the trail, nostrils wide with fear at the now thunderous roar behind them. They climbed to the ledge, and Nita was already crawling into what was almost a crack that ran back in the direction from which they had come, but a crack floored with talus and wide enough for the horse. It might be a trap, but it did lead up.
Nita scrambled into the crack and mounted swiftly as an Indian, and Kilkenny followed. Nothing loath, and frightened by the roar behind it, the gray scrambled after them, fighting for hoof surface, slipping and scrambling. They gained another ten feet and then came out on a ledge that was forty feet above the canyon floor, and here they seemed to be stopped. Hastily Nita went searching about among the rocks for some means of escape, and then the roar mounted until the very mountains seemed crumbling and crashing about them. Turning, Kilkenny glanced back.
A huge, rolling wall of water, bearing great logs on its crest and tumbling them like chips, was sweeping down from the higher mountains. It was high, higher than their present ledge, and he saw at a glance they would be engulfed. Swinging his eyes to Nita, he saw her mouth wide. She must have been screaming but he heard no sound, but she was beckoning. Dragging the horse, he raced to her. She was pointing into a black opening whose floor slanted upward into the rock itself! She instantly scrambled into it and then the wave hit. Kilkenny felt the tug on the reins as the water caught the gray. Off on one side, the full force of the blow broken by the rocks about them, Kilkenny managed to keep his hold on the bridle even as the water washed over him. Water roared about him and he fought his way forward. Nita had disappeared somewhere in the darkness ahead but he managed to keep a hold on the bridle. His feet were on the sand and the horse was struggling to follow. “Lance!”
The cry was a faint sound from the darkness, lost in the thunderous roar that filled the cavern. His thrust-out hand, feeling into the darkness before him, suddenly struck wet cloth and excited fingers grasped his arm. Cowering together in the darkness, they listened to the sound of the water, the gray horse trembling beside them.