Presently I said to Mims, “I never figured to see you again after you loaning me that horse. Main thing I wanted then was distance.”
“They had a rope for you, all right, and I never did see such an outfit.” Mims chuckled. “Mad? They were really scratching dirt and butting heads. Fact is, they talked some about lynching me on general principles.”
“What stopped “em?”
“I had me an old ten-gauge shotgun in the cabin. After you taken off I just went back and loaded her up. Time or two I’ve noticed that a ten-guage shotgun is quite a pacifier. Folks who get riled up and want to twist somebody’s tail sort of calm down when they see one.
“Well, they rode up, just a stompin’ and a-chawin’, so I showed ’em the shotgun and told ’em you wanted a horse in a hurry and I let you have one.
“I just wished I’d of had that shotgun ready when Sylvie showed up. I never did shoot no woman, but there’s one I figure I could shoot with a clear conscience.”
By now we had picked up Rabbit Ears Creek and were working our way around to the south side of the mountain, all the while scouting for tracks. And soon we found them.
They were buckboard tracks, leading north past the east side of the mountain. We slowed our pace and followed, riding with rifles ready for trouble.
We found a camp that had been used for a couple of days, but was deserted now. We could be only a few miles from the box canyon, and their next camp must be close by. We were getting smoke from the fire in the canyon now; it was thin, but there was a-plenty of it.
Harry Mims drew up. “Nolan, I ain’t much on the scare, but we’re sure askin’ for trouble. That outfit’s got to be close by, and they’ll be in a sweat to get that gold or our hides.”
“That girl needs help,” I said, “and I can’t ride off without seeing her safe. It ain’t in me.”
“What kinda outlaw are you?”
“I ain’t figured that out yet, but I surely ain’t riding away until she’s safe.”
We had started on again, keeping under cover of brush and trees, and pulling up every now and again to listen.
Suddenly we came upon the buckboard—or what was left of it. It had been pushed off a little bank, brush thrown over it, and then set afire. There was little left but the wheel rims, the hubs, and some charred spokes. A smell of smoke still hung over it.
Neither of us could make much out of the tracks except that somebody had charged off the side of the hill and stampeded the buckboard horses. There had been a fight, for we found some empty shells, a bullet scar on a tree, and the earth churned up by the hoofs of several horses.
“I’ll bet they didn’t get Flinch,” Mims commented. “From what you tell of that breed, he’d be a sly one.”
It was mid-afternoon now. We listened but there wasn’t a sound.
We rode on under a low sky made darker by the oily smoke still corning from the fire in the canyon. We held to the bottoms, alert for trouble. How Mims felt I could guess, and I knew that I was all in. Seemed like we’d been running and riding forever. What I wanted now was some sitting-around time and eating three square meals a day. I wanted coffee I didn’t make myself, and some restaurant-cooked grub.
We had come up the east side of the Rabbit Ears and had reached the creek again. Now we smelled woodsmoke, and we took our horses down to the damp sand along the edge of the creek.
There was a pack of trouble standing out for us somewhere close ahead, and we both knew it. You just don’t ride up to a crowd like that without expecting trouble. And there’d be one woman there, maybe two. The women worried me most of all. You might figure out what a man would do, but never a woman.
And old outlaw told me one time, “Look out for the women. You never know whether they’re going to scream, or faint, or go for a gun.”
And they were there, all right, both of them. When we rode up the two of them were facing each other alongside the fire.
Jacob Loomis was sitting on a rock facing, toward us, his blanket roll beside him. Noble Bishop was there, his face still, eyes watchful, missing nothing. And Fryer … I’d sort of figured him for one of those who died back in the canyon, but here he was, big as life and twice as ugly. And the Mexican was beside him.
Flinch worried me most of all. He wasn’t there.
Loomis’ eyes took on an ugly shine when we rode up through the trees. Bishop looked at me, but he made no move of any kind. With Bishop and me it was a cut-and-dried thing. Each of us had a reputation as a fast man with a gun, and each of us knew that if it came to shooting somebody was going to get hurt. Neither was eager to try the other, but each of us knew that events might push us that way.
What was going on when we rode up I didn’t wait to find out, but I knew it was something that had to be stopped.
“Penelope,” I said, “it’s all over now. We’ll ride with you to Santa Fe.”
Bishop turned his eyes to me. “What happened over there?”
“That canyon must have been full of gas from oil underground. It seeped out and, being heavy like, it held close to the ground in the low places. Me an’ Harry here, we were up on the rim, and one of them—I don’t know who—got skittish and fired a shot.
“You know how this black powder is. A flame jumped from the muzzle when he shot, and the whole canyon blew up all to once, with streamers of fire wherever gas had gathered. Those men never had them a chance.”
“We rode over that way,” Bishop said. “We couldn’t make out much, and we didn’t stay long. All we could see was rocks blackened by fire and that hole in the rocks shooting out a jet of fire.”
“How long do you reckon it will burn?” Fryer asked.
“Who knows? Years, maybe. It’ll burn as long as there’s anything left to burn.”
“What about the gold?” Ralph Karnes demanded.
I shrugged. “What about it? Looks to me like nobody’s going to get at that gold for a good long time.”
“Unless,” Slyvie said, looking right at me, “somebody got it out before the fire started.”
“There’s always that,” I admitted. “But it looked to me like all those fellows got it to once. I don’t think any of them got out alive.”
“I wasn’t thinking of them,” Sylvie said. “I was thinking of you.”
Nobody said anything for a minute, but Penelope was looking at me, her eyes bright with the questions in them. I was hoping they would wait.
“Well,” I said, smiling easier than I felt like, “if I had that gold I’d be splittin’ the breeze for Denver right now. I surely wouldn’t be wastin’ time talking to you folks.”
“Neither would I,” Fryer said. “What would he come back for?”
“For her,” Sylvie said. “Can’t you see he’s got an itch for Penelope?”
They were all looking at me, and I just shrugged.
I wasn’t looking at Pen when I spoke. “You’re funnin’ me, Sylvie. With all that money no man’s going to have to look for women; he’ll just have to look out for them. Why, if a man rides into Denver with all that gold he’ll be combin’ them out of his hair.
“Now, Penelope here is a nice girl. We promised to see her safe into Santa Fe. Mims here is a relative of hers.”
I knew about where we stood. Fryer believed me easy enough, and so did the Mexican. Bishop … well, he was holdin’ court in his mind—he hadn’t come to any decision yet. Sylvie and Loomis, they were so crooked they wouldn’t believe anybody and they were suspicious of everybody. Sylvie, I knew, would never let us ride out of there if she could figure some way to do us in. And I knew that, money or not, Jake Loomis wanted Penelope. He wanted her right out in these hills with nobody around. I could see the purpose in him, and the cruelty.
Right then, I guess, I made up my mind it was going to be a shooting matter.
The last thing I wanted was to swap lead with Bishop in that crowd. Likely he felt the same way, but Sylvie or Ralph or maybe Loomis would surely trigger trouble unless we could get out of here quick.