“Put it near my horse,” I said, “case I have to light out fast before morning. I always stow my gear where I can lay hand to it.”
She couldn’t see what I was doing back under the trees, and when I was saddled and packed, I walked back to the overhang. “Ma’am,” I said, “you-”
“My name is Lorna,” she interrupted.
“All right, ma’am.” I stood a good country distance off from her. “I got to look off down the valley. If anything happens I don’t get back, you just follow that creek.” I indicated the Cibecue. “It will take you down to the flat land.”
“Mr. Sackett” – she looked so almighty lonesome-like I almost changed my mind … almost – “Mr. Sackett, I am most afraid. Won’t you stay with me?”
Well, I swung a leg over my saddle. “Ma’am,” I said, “you get scared, ‘long about midnight you let out a scream and you’ll have all kinds of company. You’ll have those boys you got waiting back up there in the trees … they’ll come a-running.”
Then I grinned at her. “Miss Lorna, you scream. I’ll bet they’ll be mighty surprised when they find you alone.”
With that I touched a spur to my horse and went off down the trail toward the Cibecue. Then I doubled back and rode into still rougher country.
It was graying toward light on a wet, still morning when I finally found a place to hole up. It was right under the Tonto Rim, soaring more than a thousand feet above me, near a spring that showed no human, horse, or cow tracks – a sort of natural shelter made by trees falling off the rim and piling up on the rocks. And right there I sat tight for three days.
It was plain enough what they had tried to do. That girl’s fall was more than likely the real thing, but the idea was to have her up there with me, and then during the night she would begin to scream and they would come down there and find us together. I’d be hanged right on the spot, and any story I’d told previous would be put down as so many lies. Or they’d claim I got rid of my own wife and tried to lay it to somebody else. I hadn’t let her know what I was going to do until I was in the saddle, and if she started screaming then it wasn’t going to do much good. I never did hear tell of a man attacking a woman a-horseback.
There was reason to sit still here, for I had some studying to do. It was time to sit and contemplate.
All the while I figured I’d lost them and was riding off scot-free, they had known where I was. They had known right where I stopped and they had that girl ready. For now it wasn’t enough just to kill me – they had to scotch that story I’d told of my wife’s murder.
But how had they known where I was?
The only way I could figure it, was that they had all the trails watched, and maybe some way of signaling, like the Army heliograph they were using against the Indians. As soon as I’d taken direction, they could begin to concentrate until they had me pegged right to a spot.
And if that was so, they must know where I was now … or just about where. They might be closing in on me, surrounding me even now.
When I got to this point in my figuring, I came up off that ground fast. I taken up my rifle and a bag of extra shells and moved out to get my horses … but the horses were gone!
Slipping back into my shelter, I picked up what coffee and grub I could carry, took my blanket and poncho, made a quick bundle and a back pack, and then eased out into the open.
What were they fixing to do? They had my horses, what were they waiting for? Maybe for the man who wanted me dead. Maybe he wanted to see me die.
Standing close against a tree, I studied the lay of the ground about me. Right back of me a steep, brush-choked canyon led to the top of the rim. All around there were trees and brush, and the woods were silent … too silent for a place where there were squirrels and birds.
Every instinct told me they were out there, that they had me where they wanted me, and this time they did not intend to fail. If I went forward they would be waiting and they would take me, and hang me or shoot me; but what if I moved back, up that brush-filled canyon to the rim?
Then it came to me that that was just what they wanted me to do, that up there, others would be waiting for me.
Cold sweat was on my body, cold fear in my heart. I was downright scared. There was nothing in me that was ready to die … at least, not until I found the man or men who murdered Ange.
But it had to be one of the two. There was no other way. To go down the slope into the trees was surely death; to go up the canyon was maybe death. Me, I chose the maybe. Like a ghost I slipped from tree to tree, working my way back and up. Here they had no lookouts, here they could see no further and no better than me, or maybe even less well, for I was like an Indian in the woods … I’d spent time with them back in Tennessee.
Once I got into the mouth of the canyon it meant climb, for this was a run-off canyon, cut by water falling from the Mogollon Rim. That rim was up, almost two thousand feet in places.
Thick stands of pine grew along both walls, and among them it was a tangle of brush and fallen trees. The going was a nightmare, and sometimes it was easier to crawl. Down below me I heard a long call, as if somebody down there was signaling to someone up above. And after a while I heard a call from the right, but down below.
It came to me that I didn’t have to keep going up – I could go along the face of the canyon wall. Mostly it was covered with thick brush and trees, but in places it was bare rock. A wild, rugged place it was, home for rattlers, cougars, bobcats, and eagles, and no place at all for a man.
Suddenly a branch ripped my shirt. I stopped, sweating and listening, but there was no sound. Yet I knew they were there. I changed direction, easing off toward the left.
The mountain fell away below me and loomed up far above. Each step had to be taken with the greatest care, and each one seemed a dreadful hazard. It seemed almost certain that they were going to get me. I might kill one man, I might kill three or four, but there was an almighty slim chance that I could win out in the end.
Once, skirting a huge rock to which I clung with one hand, the ground gave underfoot, and it was only that I grabbed quick and caught hold of a bush that saved me. The bush started to tear free, but I threw myself forward and got a fresh grip on the rock.
I knew that there were places where I could fall five or six hundred feet, and though in other places I might not fall more than ten, almost everywhere there were jagged rocks or broken-off trees that I would fall on.
I kept on, and sometimes I stopped to rest, panting like a winded horse. My shirt was soaked with perspiration. It was coming on to sundown, and I feared the oncoming night. And I was thinking that by now they either guessed that I was going along the wall or they figured I had stopped somewhere in the canyon.
Presently I saw ahead of me a bare stretch, swept clean by a rock slide. It was a ragged, ugly slope where I would have to work my way across, depending on my hands. If I could get across there, I might find a place to sit down or lie down. Only there for a little space I’d be clean in the open.
My Winchester was hanging by a crude sling from my shoulder, butt up, barrel hanging near my right hand. With infinite care, I put my foot out and down. The rock was solid. It was like crossing a stream on stepping stones, only if these stones gave way, I’d fall a couple of hundred feet.
Me, I was shaking. Twice rocks moved under my feet, and I left them just in time to keep from falling.