He watched the glow. “They are the intangibles. Nothing, not even fire, can destroy a dream.”
A single shot sounded, then the quick reply of several rifles. She caught his arm. “Jim, one of my boys is back there.”
“He’s all right, believe me. And if he’s not, there is nothing we could do but go back and get ourselves shot at. No.” He paused, listening to the night. “Whoever it is came upon them firing the ranch. He knows you are not there or there would be shooting at the ranch, so he is just taking a few shots for himself.”
“Will he get away?”
“I think so. He knows they are there, and he knows you aren’t. I think he planned what he would do before he fired those shots and by now he is probably a half-mile from where he was.”
Gaddis was waiting when they caught up. “You’ve got to know where to ride when you cross the lava,” he said, “some of this solid-looking stuff is eggshell thin. Here and there you can see places where the roof of some blister has fallen in, leaving a pit nothing could climb out of.”
Gaddis led the way up on to the lava. Their hoof-beats sounded like iron upon iron as they followed in single file. They went only a short distance, then descended into a hollow where there was dampness in the air and their horses rode through grass.
“The trail was smoothed long ago,” Gaddis said. “Some Indian before Columbus came, probably. You have to know how to find it.”
Firelight flickered on Otero’s face when they dismounted. They were deep into the great twelve-thousand-acre pasture, surrounded by walls of lava nowhere less than twenty feet high.
“Do your other riders know this place?”
“Most of them. They have been with us for years, and when a man works range as long as they have, they get to know it. Also” — she gestured — “this was used to hide cattle from Utes and Apaches. The Hopi and Zuni Indians knew of the place, I think, but the raiders were always strangers.”
Bent was breaking branches to make a bed for Flynn. Thomas had propped himself against a pine trunk and was building a smoke. His face looked ghastly under the leather-brown skin, but when he caught Flint’s eye he winked.
“My advice is to sit tight. I’m pulling out.”
Nancy turned on him. “You’re leaving?”
“I want to send a telegram.”
Gaddis was watching Flint make coffee. “I’d say more coffee. We like it strong.”
Flint added more coffee, glancing up at Gaddis. “Something bothering you?”
Gaddis’ eyes seemed to shade over. “Should there be?”
Flint got up. “Not that I know of, Gaddis.”
He walked away from them toward the mare. She looked beat. She had been ridden steadily of late and she was no longer young. He made his decision then. He was going to ride the red stallion.
Sending the telegram would destroy his carefully arranged disappearance. Everyone would know where he was. But they would never know about the hideout in the lava bed. Once the land fight was over he could go there to die, as planned.
The trouble was Flint did not feel like dying. He had been warned that when his time grew near he would feel better, and there would be less pain.
He wanted to live. There lay the trouble. Before he had not cared. The prospect of death had been almost a relief after the failure of his one grasp for happiness.
The reason was obvious. Nancy Kerrigan made the difference, and even if he were to live he could not marry her.
She came to the fire just then, stretching her fingers to the warmth of the flames. “What can we do, Jim?”
He put a few drops of cold water into the coffee to settle the grounds. “Leave it to me,” he said.
“What can you do against them all?”
“They aren’t so many. In any such fight it is not only what you do, it is where and how you do it. An enemy has many fronts, and if one seems impregnable, attack on another.”
Hoofbeats sounded and Gaddis reached a hand for his rifle. Flint faded into the shadows, waiting.
Two riders showed suddenly at the edge of the firelight. “Our boys,” Gaddis said, and Flint recognized one of them as Scott. The other was introduced as Rockley. Scott was a powerfully built man who rarely smiled; Rockley, narrow-faced, with a wry twist of humor to his lips and a dry way of speaking. Both were seasoned men.
“Mornin’, ma’am,” Rockley said. “Nice weather for a picnic.”
“How’s Ed?” Scott asked.
“He stood the ride better than we expected.” Nancy indicated the pot. “The coffee’s fresh, hot, strong enough to float a mule shoe.”
Scott walked to his horse and stripped off the saddle. As he did so he glanced at Flint, who was tightening the cinch on the mare. “Better ride Flynn’s horse. Your mare’s done up.”
“I’ve another horse.”
Rockley glanced at Gaddis but said nothing. He was wondering what they all were. Where did Flint keep his other horse? And who was Flint?
Flint returned to the fire for a cup of coffee, and picked up his rifle. Rockley glanced at it enviously. “That’s quite a weepon. You never bought that on cowhand’s wages.”
Flint looked over at the cowhand and smiled, realizing with surprise it was the first time he had smiled at any of them.
“I could if I robbed stages and got away with it,” he said. “But that wasn’t how I got it.”
“No.” Rockley shot him an appraising glance. “I’d not say it was.”
Flint put down his cup and, with the rifle in the hollow of his arm, walked to the horse and took up the bridle. He did not look at Nancy, just started away.
“Come back soon, Jim,” she said.
He walked away, making no response. How could he promise to come back? No matter how much he might wish to return, how could he promise?
Rockley filled his cup again. “Six-Shooter brand — that’s one I never heard of.”
Gaddis said nothing at all, watching the rider walk away across the shimmering grass. Day had come, but he was not thinking of that. He was thinking that he liked this man, and he might have to kill him.
“I’d say that was pretty much of a man,” Rockley said. “I don’t know where he came from, but wherever it is they cut them wide and deep.”
Scott said nothing, watching Gaddis with curious eyes.
“I’m a right curious man,” Rockley said, “and I’m wondering where a man could leave a horse and be sure he was still there?”
“He said something about sending a telegram,” Thomas said. “He didn’t say where.”
They were silent then, and they could hear Flynn’s heavy breathing. If he survived this ride, it would be a miracle.
Nancy walked from the fire and stood looking after Flint. He had almost reached the path across the lava.
“Who is he?” Rockley asked.
“The name is Jim Flint,” Otero replied, “He had a run-in with Nugent over east of here, and told him where to get off. One of Nugent’s own men tells it.
“He had a run-in with some of the Baldwin riders out on North Plain, when he was bringing Flynn to the ranch. He killed one of Baldwin’s gunhands, then he faced Baldwin down in some kind of an argument and Baldwin’s hands set on him and beat him up.
“When he came out of that, he went up the street and shot the devil out of Baldwin’s crew. I’d say it isn’t important where he comes from or who he is as long as he’s on our side.”
“Now that telegram,” Rockley mused. “Where could he send a telegram that would help us?”
Nobody said anything further, and the sun was up, and the fire was going out.
Chapter 11
Jim Flint studied the big stallion with some trepidation. The horse had become quite a pet, but how would he react under a saddle?
And how would he take to going into the tunnel?
The stallion came for the sugar and made no fuss except to jerk his head a little when the bridle was slipped on. He worked his jaws and tongue over the unfamiliar bit, and quickly accepted another chunk of sugar. When the saddle was put on he side-stepped only a little.
When the saddle was cinched tight, Flint gathered the reins, put a foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. The stallion took a couple of quick steps forward under the weight, and then stopped, looking around inquiringly as if to ask what Flint was doing on his back.
However, the stallion had seen the mare ridden frequently, and when Flint booted him lightly in the ribs, he walked off a few steps and stopped. When Flint booted him again, he walked off again. Flint rode him slowly around the pasture, followed excitedly by the other horses, and then Flint mounted and dismounted several times.