He would keep it at hand. He should put on a belt gun but hesitated because of the women and as he rarely wore one around the house.
He had never thought of the night as an enemy. Now he was no longer sure. Ben had a means of crossing the canyon. How, he could not imagine, but it worried him that others might discover that route: Ben’s success had been due to keeping it a secret and to the fact that no one suspected he had a reason for crossing.
He blew out the lamp in the living room, returning to the kitchen where the girls and their mother were already seated for supper.
The night was very still. He sat down, and there was little talk where usually there was much, only a pleasant rattle of dishes and-an occasional low-voiced request for something. Voyle kept his ears sharp for the slightest sound from outside.
Why couldn’t all this have waited until the roundup and trail-drive hands were here?
That was why it was happening now. Or was he just worrying too much? Maybe that cowhand who was looking them over was just shy. He had known them to be. Maybe there was nothing to worry about at all.
A soft wind blew down the ranges, whispering in the pines, stirring the leaves of the aspen. Out on the open country beyond the canyon an antelope twitched its ears, listening.
A sound whispered across the stillness, a far-off sound as of something moving. The antelope listened as the sound faded, and then it rested again. A cloud blotted out the moon, the wind stirred again, and a tumbleweed rolled a short distance and stopped as the wind eased.
Overhead a bat swooped and dived and searched for insects in the night. At the V-Bar the women had gone to bed. Voyle Ragan blew out the last lamp and walked to the porch to listen. The night was still.
Walking back through the house he went down the back steps and crossed to the bunkhouse.
Garfield was sitting outside.
“Better get out in front of the house or on the porch,” he suggested. “You can hear better.” Garfield got up. Taking his rifle he walked around to the front steps: This was kind of silly. What was Voyle afraid of, anyway?
He put the rifle down and lit his pipe He looked at the stars. Mighty pretty. A man out in this country looked at the stars a lot. The trouble was a man was so busy he forgot to take time to enjoy.
Garfield did not know he was looking at the stars for the last time. He did not know that within a matter of hours he would be dead, sprawled on the ground, cold and dead.
Mike Bastian awakened with a start. For a few minutes he lay still, trying to remember where he was and why he was there.
He sat up. His guns were there, and his rifle.
He was in a small stone house and he could hear the river. He was supposed to cross that river, although from the sound he could not imagine anyone crossing it. The old Indian was seated by the fireplace, smoking. He glanced over at Mike. “You had better eat something. The moon is rising.” He paused. “Not even he ever tried to cross at night.” “You speak very good English,” Mike commented, thinking his own was none too good.
The Indian gestured with his pipe. “I was guide for a missionary when small. He was a kind, sincere man, trying to teach Indians something they already knew better than he, although the words were different.” “He taught you to speak well, anyway.” “He did. I spoke English with him every day for six years. He taught me something about healing, and I think my mother taugbt him something about it. She was very wise about herbs. “He asked me one time why I never went to church, and I told him that I went to the mountains. I told him my church was a mountainside somewhere to watch the day pass and the clouds. I told him, “I will go to your church if you will come to mine.” I think by the time he left us he liked mine better.” The old Indian turned to Mike. “When you are tired and the world is too much with you, go to the mountains and sit, or to some place alone. Even a church is better when it is empty. So it is that I think, but who am I? I am an old Navajo who talks too much because he wishes to speak his English.” When Mike had eaten disthey walked together to a trail that led them up even higher and then to a place where there was a ledge. “Ben Curry needed two years to build this bridge,” the Indian said, “and nobody has crossed it but him, and only a few times.” Mike stared into the roaring darkness with consternation.
Cross there? Nothing could. No man could even stay afloat in such water, nor could any boat live except, with luck, riding the current downstream.
The river was narrow here. At least, it was narrower than elsewhere. The water piled up at the entrance to the chasm and came roaring through with power. Of course, this was spring and snow in the mountains was melting. “disThere l You see? There is the bridge. It is a bridge of wire cable made fast to disrings in the rock.” He stared across the black canyon where two thin threads were scarcely visible, two threads of steel that lost themselves in the blackness across the canyon, one thread some five feet above the other. On the bare cold rock he stood and stared and felt fear, real fear for the first time. “You mean . . . Ben Curry crossed that?” “Several times.” “Have you crossed it?” The old Navajo shrugged. “The other side is no different than here. If there is anything over there I want I shall ride around by Lee’s Ferry or the Crossing of the Fathers. I have too little time to hurry.” A faint mist arose from the tumbling waters below.
Mike Bastian looked at the two wires and his mind said Nol He wet his lips with his tongue, lips gone suddenly dry. Yet, Ben Curry had done it.
How far was it across there? How long would it take?
He was deep in the canyon, deep in this vast cleft cutting to the red heart of the earth. Around him were rocks once bare to the world’s winds, rocks that had been earth, pounded by rain, swept by hail, crushed down by eons of time’s changing. Looking up he could glimpse a few stars, looking out across the deep he could see nothing but looming blackness. Somewhere, somehow, the cables were made fast, and if they were strong enough to hold Ben Curry, who was forty pounds heavier, they would be strong enough for him.
He put his rifle over his head and across one shoulder. Again he hesitated, but there was no other way. Kerb Perrin was riding to the V-Bar. He must be there before Perrin arrived. Taking hold of the upper cable he put a tentative foot on the lower and eased himself out. A moment passed, then he glanced back. The old Navajo was gone.
A slow wind whispered along the canyon walls, stirring the night with ghostly murmurings, then was lost down the blackness of the canyon. Mike Bastian took a deep breath. He had never liked heights and was glad the depths below were lost in darkness except where white water showed around the rocks, catching the few last rays of light. He edged out. It was not too late. He could go back. He could return for his horse and ride back to Toadstool Canyon, but what of Drusilla and Juliana? What of their mother? And the cowboys . . . would they be warned? Would they have any idea until death swept down upon them?
He edged out further, clinging to the upper strand, not lifting his feet above the cable but sliding them. One slip and he would be gone. How far to the water? Two hundred feet? More like five hundred, although be was already deep in the canyon. He remembered now, hearing some talk of this when he was a small boy and. it was being done. Roundy it had been, he told Ben of finding an iron ring in the wall, wondering why it was there. No doubt the idea had come from that.
He tried to keep his mind away from the awful depth below, and the roaring waters of the spring floods.
Many times he had seen the river when it was like this, although never from this point. He moved on. At places the wire was damp from mist thrown up from the raging waters. Once he slipped, his foot touching some mud left from the boot of a previous traveler. His foot shot from under him and he was saved only by his tight grip on the wire. Slowly, carefully, he pulled himself erect once more, feeling for the cable with his foot.