The Delaware came to join him on watch. There had been no trouble, but the Indian agreed with him. “They are out there,” he said. “They will wait for us to come out.”
Together they held the watch until daybreak. Callaghen stared at the hill rising behind the spring. From the top of that hill an Indian could shoot right into the corral. Well-chosen for water and for other purposes, it was a poorly sited redoubt for defense.
After the sun was up he cleaned his rifle and his pistols, oiling them with care. Malinda came to join him, bringing coffee from the fire. “It was quiet last night,” she said.
“The Delaware thinks they will try to wait us out.”
“How long will they try that?”
He shrugged. “That is a guess for anybody. Indians are patient… They have to get close to game to make a kill, and they have learned patience. On the other hand, they might take a notion to pull out. If Sprague shows up they will just vanish, I’m sure.”
“Mort?” He looked up. “Mort, have you any idea where that golden river is? Wylie believes you have.”
“How do you know that?”
“This is a crowded place. I heard him talking to his friend. He’s also been talking to one of the soldiers the one called Spencer. I think Kurt Wylie knew him from before.”
“Thanks,” Callaghen said.
The sun came up and the day grew warm. They saw no Indians. Ridge and Becker watered the horses as the trough filled, leading them up one at a time. By noon all of them were watered and the canteens filled; as well as some spare canteens and jars at the redoubt.
Wylie was restless. Callaghen slept some, talked with Malinda and Aunt Madge, and occasionally with MacBrody or the Delaware.
Spencer, the trooper who had been seen talking with Wylie, was a tall man, slightly stooped, and he had narrow, shifty eyes. He was watchful and cautious, but he seemed to avoid Wylie.
In the stone cabin over coffee, while Callaghen slept, MacBrody talked to Aunt Madge and Malinda.
“I dinna know him in the old country, but I knew his people. He was an O’Callaghan from Cork… there’s others in County Clare… in Mayo and Tipperary, too, and some of them are kin. His own family lived in a small place, a lovely place near Leap” he pronounced it Lep “a village called Glandore, and a true spot of heaven it is, with a long inlet coming in from the sea.
“Where the water comes in it is like a river’s mouth, and there’s islands across the opening of it that break the force of any waves. The inlet runs back a few miles into the low green hills, as safe a harbor as one would wish for.
“Many an Irish lad took off from there to go abroad, either to find his education or to go to war with foreign soldiers. Sure, there was little to do at home, with the British permitting no schools, nor any way for a man to advance unless he walked in their steps. I’m not saying the British were a lot of criminals for what they did… in their place we might have done the same.
“Mort’s family was a good one, and an old one. They kept from the sight of the British, and they lived well and set many a traveler to their table, and many an Irish son returning from the wars, and the bards too. Mort grew up to stories of wars in foreign lands.
“The British dinna often come to the west of Leap in those days. They had a saying, ‘Beyond Leap, beyond the law,’ and there was something to it, you can believe me. There were some rough lads in those parts, and a Britisher might ride the roads in peace by day, and get his skull bashed once the dark had come.
“Had the times been right, Mort O’Callaghan would have been lord of a manor or a castle, but as it was he flew away with the wild geese, and somewhere along the way he dropped the O from his name and became simply Callaghen.
“You might not think it, ma’am, but he’s a finely taught man, with a knowledge of the classics, the law, and much else. He got his grounding in the classics from the hedgerow schools that were taught in the darkness of night with sentries out, a teaching that was without pen or paper, but by the ear only, in most cases.”
It was crowded in the small corral, and in the afternoon Ridge, Becker, and Spencer led the horses out to graze on the grass in the hollow. The two stage-company men held the horses on lead ropes while Spencer scanned the hills to watch for Indians. The Delaware and MacBrody did the same.
After an hour of grazing in which no Indian was seen, the horses were returned to the corral.
“I don’t think they’re out there,” Wylie grumbled. “I think we’re scared for no reason.”
“They are out there,” the Delaware said quietly, “and some of them are, close by. I think some of them can hear what we say.”
“Nonsense!” Wylie replied. “There’s no sense in our being cooped up here. We could go on.”
Callaghen ignored him, but he was wondering just how far Wylie intended to go. And where? And who was he to meet when he got there?
He thought of the copy of the map he himself had… what about that? After all, a lost mine belonged to the finder. And even a little of that gold would be enough to buy a ranch or establish himself in some city or town.
It was worth a try.
CHAPTER 14
The sun was hot, and there was not a breath of wind. Overhead the sky was clear and blue; across the valley the black range tantalized him with its unknown possibilities. They saw no Indians. MacBrody paced the corral irritably. “Where’s your lieutenant, Callaghen? Where is he? Where could twelve men disappear to?”
“In this desert?” Wylie remarked. “You could lose an army out there.”
“I’d like to have a look from up there,” MacBrody said, glancing up at the mountain that rose above them. It was not high, something a man might climb quite easily in a matter of minutes, but there might be Indians up there even now, watching them. A man would be exposed to fire from the rocks around.
“You’ve got time,” Callaghen said. He had been longing for a look from that peak himself, but he hesitated, not liking the thought of climbing up there with Indians around. “Have they ever tried a shot at you from there?” he asked MacBrody.
“Once. Three of us took dead aim at him when he showed himself, and we blowed the top of his head off. They ain’t tried it since.”
Callaghen got a government map from the blockhouse and studied it. It was roughly drawn, but everything seemed to be fairly definitely located. A dotted line indicated the Government Road to the east. It crossed the valley and disappeared into the Mid Hills, through Cedar Canyon. Beyond lay Government Holes and Rock Springs. According to his information, the valley farther along was freely sprinkled with Joshua trees, and beyond that, in the rocky hills, was Fort Piute or Pah-Ute, as most of the desert men called it.
Mentally, he placed his copy of the Allison map over this one, and it did not fit.
Whoever had drawn the Allison map had drawn everything from some point to the east, looking at the country with no true realization of which was north, east, south, or west… or perhaps he had done so deliberately. As no particular point was located, it seemed to him that oral instructions must at one time have accompanied the Allison map.
But the high mountains yonder were located, and also the Mid Hills. Cedar Canyon was not named, nor were the mountains named. The isolated peak some ten miles to the northeast was clearly indicated, and so were the Kingston Mountains further north. A flat-topped mountain south of Government Holes was also drawn with care, and a spring behind it. Rock Springs was on the map, but no trails were indicated at all.
There were no words on the face of the map, but there was something about the way the pen had been handled that inclined him to believe that had there been words they would have been in Spanish. It was an old map that Allison had a very old map.
One thing was obvious. If there was something to be found it must be found somewhere behind those mountains opposite, around Table Mountain, or in the Kingstons far to the north, and that was quite a spread.
“Looking for something?” It was Wylie, who had come up close to him, and was craning his neck to see what he was looking at.