Here the wind blew steadily. The terrain here was flat as a floor, tufted with sparse grass, and in the distance a few dark junipers looking like upthrust blades from a forest of spears.
Sitting very still, I scanned the mesa top with extreme care. From now on I would be moving closer and closer to men who did not wish to be seen. No honest men would gather here, and if these were the Slades, then they were skilled manhunters, and dangerous men.
Nothing moved but the wind. Overhead the sky was wide and blue, with only a few tufts of lonely cloud.
I walked my horse forward, looking out for the saddle rock. In every direction the mesa stretched far, far away. I could smell sagebrush and cedar. Here and there on top of the mesa were tufts of desert five-spot, a rose-purple flower with flecks of bright red on the petals, and scattered clumps of rabbit bush.
My horse walked forward into the day. The air was clear and the chill was gone. Suddenly ahead of me I saw the dark jut of the saddle rock, and closed the distance, keeping my eyes roving, wary of any rider, any movement.
At the saddle rock I dismounted to rest the buckskin, and let him crop some sparse grass. There was a niche in the black lava of the rock, and I led Buck back into it and out of sight.
Trailing the reins, I stretched out on the grass in the shade. It had been a long ride, and I had been late to bed and up early. After a few minutes, I dozed. Not asleep, nor yet awake. Several minutes must have passed, perhaps as much as half an hour, when suddenly I heard the sound of a trotting horse. Instantly I was on my feet and, moving swiftly to Buck’s side, I spoke softly. He eased down, waiting. The rider came nearer and nearer. I slid my Winchester from the scabbard and waited, holding it hip-high.
Then I realized the rider would pass on the far side of the rocks, where Jolly had told me I’d find the trail. Swiftly, careful to make no noise, I climbed up among the jumbled rocks toward the saddle itself. When able to see the mesa beyond, I settled down and looked past a round rock.
For a minute, two minutes, I saw nothing. Then a horse came into view, now slowed to a walk. A horse ridden by a huge man, and there could be but one man of that size.
Morgan Park!
Where he rode I could see the dim tracks of other horses. After a moment of watching, I drew back and slid down off the rocks. Leading the buckskin, I walked around to where I could stand concealed, yet could see the trail ahead.
Morgan Park rode on until he turned, over a mile away, to the edge of the cliff. There he disappeared.
Waiting, for he might have stopped to watch his back trail, I let three, four, five minutes pass. Then I mounted and rode out to parallel the trail he had taken. The hoof prints of his big horse were plain, and I studied them. Also, the other prints that were several days old.
The day was hot. A film of heat daze obscured the horizon. Shimmering heat waves veiled the Sweet Alice Hills in the distance, the hills that seemed to end the visible world. From time to time the trail neared the lip of the mesa and I could look out over an infinity of canyons.
Yet when I reached the place where Park had disappeared, instead of the trail going over the edge of the mesa as I had expected, it merely dropped to a lower level and continued on.
Before me the mesa stretched ahead, apparently to the foot of the Sweet Alice Hills. But knowing that country, I knew half a dozen canyons might cut through the mesa before those hills were reached.
There was no sign of Morgan Park. He had vanished completely.
Riding on, I came to a fork in the trail. Here there was only flat rock, and, look as I might, I could find no indication of which way Park had gone.
Finally, taking a chance, I held to the trail that kept closest to the mesa’s edge.
Suddenly the edge of the cliff broke sharply back into the mesa and showed a steep slide. From talks with the Benaras boys I knew this was Poison Canyon. So I went down the slide and ended in the bottom of a narrow canyon.
If I met a rider here, there would be nothing to do but shoot it out. No man could get back up that slide under fire, and one could only go along the canyon’s bottom. I slid my rifle out of the boot and rode with it in my hand, ready to shoot.
The canyon bottom was sand littered with rocks of all sizes and shapes. The walls rose sheer on either side. There was little vegetation here, but many tumbled and dried roots washed down in the freshets that swept these canyons after rains.
Suddenly, I smelled smoke.
Drawing up, I listened, waiting, sniffing the air again. After a moment I got a second whiff of wood-smoke.
There was no cover here, so I walked my horse on a little further. A brush-choked canyon opened on my right, filled with manzanita. Swinging down, I led my horse back into it, pushing through the brush until I found an open spot with a little grass. I tied the buckskin to a bush and worked my way back, then slipped off my boots and continued on in my sock feet.
No air stirred in the canyon. It was hot, stifling hot. Sweat trickled down my body under my shirt. The hand that clutched the rifle grew sweaty. Careful to avoid thorns, I worked my way out through the manzanita and in among the rocks. Here I hunched down behind a clump of mixed curl-leaf and desert apricot. Then, working forward on my knees, I crept deeper into the thicket.
The air was motionless … the heat was heavy … the leaves of the curl-leaf had a pleasant, pungent, tangy smell. I lay still, listening.
The smell of woodsmoke again … then a faint rattle of rocks, and the chink of a tin pan on rock.
Keeping inside the thicket of curl-leaf, I crawled forward. A lizard lay on a rock staring at me. His lower lids crept up, almost closing his eyes, his sides throbbed. My hand moved and he fled away over the sand. I crawled on, then waited, hearing a low mutter of voices.
Nearer, I could distinguish words. Settling down in the thickest part of the tangle of brush, with a rock in front of me, I listened.
“No use to shave. We won’t get to Hattan’s now.”
“Him an’ Slade are makin’ medicine … we’ll move.”
“I don’t like it.”
“Nobody ast you. Slade, he’ll decide.” Tin rattled again. “Anyway, what you beefin’ about? Slade will have the worst of it done before we move in. They’s two, three men on the Two-Bar, that’s all. ‘Bout that on the Boxed M.”
“Big feller looks man enough to do it himself.”
“Then you an’ me wouldn’t have the money.”
There was silence. Sweat trickled down my spine. My knee was cramped, but I did not dare to move. I could see nothing, for the curl-leaf thicket reached right to the edge of their camp.
I dried my hands on my shirt front, and took up the rifle again.
“Finder’ll raid today. Maybe that’ll take care of it.”
Finder … raid.
My place? Where else but my place? While I lay here in this thicket, Mulvaney and the Benaras boys might be fighting for their lives. I started, then relaxed. I could not get there in time now, and the Benaras boys were no chickens. Neither was Mulvaney. Their position was strong and they had food and water.
“Who gets Brennan?”
“How should I know? Big feller maybe.”
“He’s welcome.”
“Finish that coffee. I want to wash up.”
“You can’t. Slade ain’t et yet.”
There was silence then. Cautiously I straightened my leg, then eased away from the rock. Carefully, I began to retreat through the thicket.
A branch hooked on my shirt, then whipped loose, a dry, rasping sound in the thicket.
“What was that?”
I held very still, holding my breath.
“Aw, you’re too jumpy. Settle down.”
“I heard somethin’.”
“Coyote, maybe.”
“In this close to us? You crazy?”
Footsteps sounded, and I eased my rifle into position, mentally retracing my steps to my horse. Where were Morgan Park and Slade? I might have to ride in a hurry and I knew no way out but up the slide, which would be impossible under gunfire.
“You goin’ in there? If you do, you’re crazy.” The speaker chuckled. “You got too much imagination. An’ if there was anybody in there, what would happen to you? He’d see you first.”