Allison must have told him something to enlist his aid, if that was the way it had come about, and that information might have led them to this place. There were caverns in the rugged mountains to the west, but so far as Callaghen had heard, they were not connected with the legendary caverns that lay under the whole of the eastern Mohave.
In any event, the chase had now come down to a shooting affair, and he was going against three tough men. Worst of all, in crossing Black Canyon he might be exposing himself, for there was little cover. Callaghen turned east along the face of the mountain, utilizing whatever cover he could. He kept his rifle in its scabbard, for nothing picks up and reflects light quicker than a gun barrel.
When he was almost a mile south of where the smoke showed, he crossed the valley at its narrowest point, coming in behind the ridge. He rode his horse up among the cedars, finding a cul-de-sac where he could hide him. There was some grass there, and he picketed the horse.
Not taking a rifle, but only the two handguns, he started up into the rocks.
It was a weird formation. Here and there it looked as if great splotches of liquid rocks had been squeezed from the mountainsides and poured down, only to stiffen and become hard. The rock itself was a Swiss cheese of holes. Halting behind an outthrust, he studied the odd formation and could not decide whether it was volcanic, or whether at some far distant time there had been a hot spring there, a geyser that played itself out. He had seen somewhat similar formations in other lands, where water, with chemicals in solution, had eaten away at the limestone. In among the rocks around him, which were of many colors, the heat was intense. At no place could he see for more than a few yards.
Apparently there was a sort of passage through the rock formation. It was not a cave, but a passage open to the sky, except where rock leaned above him. The floor of the passage was of sand. Moving as silently as possible, a pistol close to his hand, he worked his way through the place.
He had never seen anything like this. The hair on the back of his neck rose with suspense and dread. It was such a place as one might imagine to be inhabited by monsters; there was something evil and grotesque about it.
He touched his tongue to his dry lips, and longed for a swallow of water. Then he could smell smoke… wood-smoke.
He listened, and heard faint voices. He moved ahead cautiously, from one rocky projection to another. The passage had many turns, and the rock was pink or red, and in some places of an odd greenish hue. Just ahead of him the passage branched one branch seemed to end in an abrupt wall; the other twisted among boulders and offered access to the top.
Hesitating, he heard a sharp clickand looked up. He could see Spencer standing on the ledge at the top of the rock wall with a rifle pointed straight at him. Callaghen had heard the cocking of the rifle.
He drew and fired, the pistol leaping in his hand even as the rifle belched flame and the bullet clipped rock only inches above his head. He dived for cover, risking another shot as he moved. A second bullet struck rock near him. Only the fact that Spencer was shooting down at his target and misjudged it had saved him. He felt sure that he himself had scored a miss.
He ran swiftly forward, scrambling up the rocks, gun in hand. He had to get close now, and fast.
He heard startled yells, and somebody was demanding of Spencer what had happened. He heard the answering yell: “It was Callaghen!”
“You’re crazy!” Wylie called back. “Callaghen’s dead I killed him myself!”
Callaghen ran forward lightly and eased himself between two slabs of rock and up into a corner overlooking a cove in the side of the mountain. From there, on a sandy stretch, a sort of half-moon surrounded by rocks, he could see their camp. He was looking right into it from behind a slab of limestone whose face on his side, was covered with the ripple marks of an ancient sea. On the other side the rock bulged out. Perhaps it had long ago been heaved up from the floor of that prehistoric sea.
He could see Malinda and Aunt Madge, hands and feet tied, sitting against the rock wall. There was a fire, a coffeepot on it, and he could see Beamis a few yards off. He, too, was tied, but he was lying on his face and there was blood on his head. Champion appeared suddenly, wearing a dirty buckskin coat with fringe, and the same battered hat he always wore. He was a big man, not so tall as broad and powerful. “You set still,” he said to Malinda. “I’ll be a-comin’ back. Kurt may not have much use for you, but I do the both of you.”
Then Spencer came into sight. There was blood on his face. Wylie was with him. “What did you see?” he was demanding.
“I seen Callaghen, I tell you! He was down in a hole back yonder. I drawed a bead on ‘im an’ when I cocked he looked up. How he got that gun into action so fast I’ll never know. I fired, but he shot a shade ahead of me, an’ if that durned Spencer didn’t kick so much he’d of nailed me!”
“Now talk sense!” Wylie was angry. “You say there’s a hole back yonder. Even if Callaghen was alive, how would he get here and get into that hole? I ask you that.”
Champion had hunkered down on his heels. “You all better quit your squabblin’ an’ find ‘im. If’n he’s hereabouts he surely ain’t gone far, an’ ifn I know Callaghen he’s huntin’ scalp right now. Yours an’ mine.”
“I killed him,” Wylie insisted. “I shot him dead.”
Champion shrugged. Spencer took a bloody hand away from his head. “If you shot him, he’s sure got a lively ghost.”
“We should’ve scouted yonder,” Champion said. “I never figured it was anything but a wall of rock an’ boulders.”
“You never seen anything like it looks like it’d been burned out by the fires of hell. It’s like one great big clinker.”
Callaghen eased his position slightly. His firing position was excellent, but to shoot from here would endanger everyone in the camp. His eyes went suddenly to Beamis. Had he seen a movement there?
“Wylie,” Spencer said, “we’d better light a shuck.”
Wylie shook his head. “No. This is where they said they’d come, and here is where we’ve got to be. Champ, you’re the woodsman. Why don’t you go down in there and find out who it was that shot at us?”
Champion chuckled without humor. “Kurt,” he said dryly, “you got plenty o’ sand, an’ it is surely your idea. I had a look at that hole. You want somethin’ down there, you go get it. I wouldn’t go into a place like that even if there was nobody down there. I think Spencer saw somethin’ move, an’ shot. I think he was hit by his own ricochet.”
Spencer started to speak, then he merely swore and walked off, dabbing at his head with a torn red neckerchief.
Wylie, six-shooter in hand, went through a cleft in the rocks. He disappeared from sight, but after a few minutes he returned. “Can’t see nothing. That’s quite a hole back there looks like a volcanic blowhole or something. Anyway, if he’s down there he can’t get out. It must be sixty feet straight down maybe twice as much. He’d have to have wings to fly out of there.”
Champion remained squatted against the rock wall. Callaghen had to smile. The old mountain man had his back to the wall, and he could be seen only from in front. He might not believe all this, but he was taking no chances.
“Who’re those folks you’re a-waitin’ for?” he asked. “How’d they come to know of this place?”
Wylie lit a cigar. “Ever hear of Webb Bolin?”
“That renegade who was in Sonora? Sure, I heard of him.”
“He was a stepbrother to Allison, and he has the other map.”
Champion looked up. “Othermap?”
Wylie’s smile was not pleasant. “There were two that fitted together, but each was made to look as if it was the whole map. Bolin and Allison got the map from their pa, who spent most of his life down Mexico way. Where he got it nobody knows.
“Somebody, a long time back, spent a lot of time in this country and took out a lot of gold. He also explored a lot, and he claimed there were half a dozen entrances to the cave that he knew of, scattered miles apart. He located two of them one on each map.