My thoughts returned to Morgan Park. He had gone back to his ranch and was not seen around, but he was never really out of my mind. There had been no sign of the Slades, and I could imagine what Canaval would be thinking.
There were changes with me, too. The old devil-may-care spirit was there, but it rarely came out. The work was hard and I kept at it steadily. My house was completed, and the garden we had planted was showing signs of coming up. We had even transplanted several trees and moved them up to the ranch yard.
We built furniture and we bricked up the water-hole. We planted vines around the house, and one day we drove to town and loaded up household things to carry back.
That was the day I saw Moira.
She had come from the post office in the stage station and she was waiting for her buckboard which was coming up the street from the general store.
She came out of the building into the sunlight just as our wagon came by. I was behind, just putting my foot in the stirrup, and looked over my saddle at her, almost a block away.
I could not see her eyes, but as our wagon drew abreast I saw her turn to look at the pots and pans, at some rolled-up Indian rugs. Her face turned with the wagon and she watched it out of sight, and then I swung my leg over the saddle. As I turned the buckskin, she saw me and turned quickly away. Before I could reach her she got into the buckboard and was driving off.
It was a slow ride back to the Two-Bar, for wherever I looked I saw the pale, lovely features of Moira, saw her standing alone before the stage station, watching my wagon go by. These household things, these might have been ours. I wondered if she thought of that?
Jolly Benaras was waiting for me when I rode into the yard.
“Nick was over. Said he seen tracks over east of here. Three, four men.”
Three or four men … in the broken, lonely country to the east, the land where no man rode willingly.
“Where’d he see them?”
“Plateau above Dark Canyon … mighty wild country.”
“Might be Bodie Miller.”
“Might … he didn’t think so. Bodie sticks close to towns. He likes to brag it around, playin’ big-man.”
Who then?
The Slades …
“Thanks,” I said, “tomorrow I’ll ride that way. I’ll have a look. There’s a valley over there where we could run some cows, anyway. I’ll check it.”
If it was the Slades, what were they waiting for? Had the killing of Rud Maclaren made it seem too risky to take a chance on more killings? It could be … and if anyone wanted what Maclaren had, Canaval still stood between them.
We moved the rugs into the house, put the pots and pans in the cupboards. I walked in the wide living room and looked around. It looked bare, cold. It was a house, but it was not yet a home.
At night I was restless. So much was left unfinished. Bodie Miller was around, rustling Boxed M cattle, no doubt. Sooner or later the Boxed M hands would meet him, and from talk I heard around, the least he could expect was a rope.
And there were the unknown riders east of us, lurking back in those mysterious, unknown canyons near the Sweet Alice Hills.
Saddling up a tough bay pony, I rode out toward the Maverick Spring where Rud Maclaren had fallen. In the darkness my horse made little sound as he cantered over the bunch grass levels.
We stopped at the spring and I drank, then watered my horse. It had been hours later than this when Maclaren was killed … Suddenly my horse jerked up his head.
Instantly I was alert, and spoke softly to the bay. He had swelled his sides for a whinny but my low word stopped him. He looked off in the darkness toward the boxed M.
Moonlight silvered in faint strands, stretching away. The fence … Stepping into the saddle, my right hand resting on my thigh near my gun butt, I rode toward the fence, walking my horse from shadow to shadow.
Suddenly, I drew up.
There was a horse standing there in the darkness, a horse with his head toward me.
And in the night I heard a muffled sob … and my bay started walking again.
We were nearing the fence when the other horse whinnied. Instantly, a dark form sat erect in the saddle.
“Moira!”
An instant she sat stiff and still in the saddle, then with a low cry she wheeled her horse and spurred him into a run.
“Moira!”
Her horse ran on, but once I thought I caught the white flash of a face turned back.
“Moira, I love you!”
But there was no sound save the echo of my own voice and the pounding of hoofs, fading away.
For a long time I sat there beside that twin strand of wire, staring off into the night and the darkness, listening, hoping I’d hear those hoofs again, bringing her back.
But there was no sound … only a quail that called inquiringly into the night.
SIXTEEN
Jolly Benabas hunkered down and drew with his finger in the sand. His bony shoulders hunched against the morning chill, his right eye squinted against the tobacco smoke.
“Sure, that place you call the amphitheater, that’s here. Now right back of this here cliff is a trail. You can make it with a good mountain horse. When you get on top, that’s the mesa above Dark Canyon. The trail I seen was over across, nigh six mile. There’s a saddle rock over thataway, an’ when you sight it, ride for it. On the north side you’ll find that trail if the wind ain’t blowed it away.”
Jonathan had bunched forty head of cattle for me, and I walked to the buckskin and shoved my Winchester in the bucket. Then I stepped into the leather.
We started the cattle, but they had no mind to hit the trail. They had found a home in Cottonwood Wash and they aimed to stay, but we finally got them straightened out and pointed for the hills. Jonathan was riding along, but he would leave me when we got into the canyon.
He carried his Spencer in his hand, a lean, tall boy, narrow-hipped and a little stooped in the shoulders. His face looked slightly blue with the morning chill, and he rode without talking.
As for myself, I was not anxious to talk. My mind was not on my task. Herding the cattle up the canyon was no problem, for they could not get back past us, could only move forward. Nor was I thinking of the mission that lay ahead of me, the scouting of the group of men Nick Benaras had seen near Dark Canyon.
Had it really been Moira I’d seen? And if so, had she heard my call? Restlessly, I stepped up my pace. I was angry with myself and half angry with her. Why should she act this way? Did she really believe I’d kill her father? Both Canaval and Chapin had disclaimed any suspicion of me, although there were others who still believed me guilty.
Irritably, I watched the moving cattle, pushing them faster than was wise. Jonathan glanced back, but said nothing, moving right along with me.
At the amphitheater the cattle moved into the grass, lifted their heads and looked around. We swung away from them and slowly they began to scatter out, already making themselves at home.
There was no sound but that of water running over stones. Jonathan put his rifle in the boot and hooked a leg around the saddlehorn. He rolled a smoke and glanced at me.
“Want company?”
“Thanks … no.”
He touched a match to the cigarette. “I’ll stay with the cows for a while, then. Maybe some of ’em will take a notion to head for home.”
He swung his legs down and shoved his boot into the stirrup.
I was thinking of Moira.
“You take it easy, Matt. You’re too much on the prod.”
“Thanks … I’ll do that”
He was right, of course. I was irritable, upset by Moira’s action the night before, and I was in no mood for scouting. What I really wanted was a fight.
The trail that Jolly had told me about was there. Looking up, I backed off a little and looked again.
At this point the red sandstone cliff was all of seven hundred feet high. The trail was an eyebrow skirting the cliff face, and one which a spooky horse would never manage. But I was riding Buck, who was far from spooky, mountain-bred, and tough. He could have walked a tight wire, I think.
We started up, taking our time. It was nearing noon and the sun was hot. The cliff up which the trail mounted was in the mouth of a narrow canyon. The wall across from me was not fifty feet away, and as I mounted the distance grew less and less, until it was almost close enough for me to reach out and touch the opposite wall. I penetrated almost a thousand yards deeper into the canyon, then emerged suddenly on top.