Cowhands rarely smoke cigars, and they know which wood will burn well and which will not. And they have learned about fires by building many.
When we started to go, we suddenly stopped. For there were no tracks.
He had come here, watered his horse, prepared a meal, then disappeared.
The rock walls offered no escape. The earth around the spring was undisturbed beyond a few square yards. The tracks led in … and none led out.
“We’ve trailed a ghost,” Mulvaney said, and I almost agreed.
“We’d best think of him as a man. What would a man do?”
“Not even a snake could mount those cliffs, so if he rode in, he rode out.”
There were no tracks, nothing had been brushed out. We scouted up the canyons, but we found nothing. Mulvaney tried one branch, and I the other.
Walking my buckskin, I studied the ground with care. Wild horses had fed up this canyon, browsing along slowly, evidently at least twenty in the group. Suddenly the character of the tracks changed. The horses had broken into a wild run!
Studying the hoof prints, I could see no indication of any tracks other than those of the wild horses.
What was likely to frighten them? A grizzly? Perhaps, but they were rarely seen this far south. A wolf—no. A wild stallion was not likely to be disturbed by a wolf, even a large one. Nor was a wolf likely to get himself into a fight with a wild stallion in such close quarters. A lion then? Certainly, a lion perched on one of these cliffs might make an easy kill. Yet no lion would make them run as they had. The horses would move off all right, but not in such wild flight.
Only one thing was likely to make them run as they had … a man.
The tracks were only a few hours old at most. They might even be less than an hour old. And then I saw something that alerted me instantly. In tracking, what the tracker seeks for is the thing out of place, the thing that does not belong. And on a manzanita bush was a bit of sheep’s wool!
Dismounting, I plucked it from the bush. It was not the wool from a wild sheep, not from a bighorn. This was wool from a merino, a good sheep, too. No sheep would ever find their way into this wild canyon alone, and who would bring them in and why?
The whole situation became suddenly plain. The man we had followed had tied sheepskin over his horse’s hoofs so they would leave no tracks.
Mulvaney was waiting for me when I rode back. I showed him the wool and explained quickly.
“A good idea … but we’ll get him now.”
The way out through the branch canyon led northeast, and finally to a high, windswept plateau unbroken by anything but a few towering rocks and low growing sagebrush. We sat our horses, squinting against the distance.
Far off the Blue Mountains lifted their lofty summits ten thousand feet into the sky, but even those summits gathered no clouds. And between us and the mountains was a Dante’s Inferno of unbelievable grandeur, arid and empty.
“We may never find him,” Mulvaney said at last. “You could lose an army out there.”
“We’ll find him.”
Taking my hat from my head, I mopped my brow, then wiped the hatband. My eyes squinted against the glare. Sweat got into the corner of one eye and it smarted. My face felt raw and sore. We rode on into the heat, the only sounds those made by our walking horses; the only change, the distant shadows in the canyon and hollows of the distant hills.
Some of this country I had known, much of it had been described to me by old man Ball or the Benaras boys, who were among the few white men to have ridden into this desolate waste. Far away, between us and the bulk of the mountains, I could see a rim. That would be Salt Creek Mesa, with the towering finger above it, Cathedral Butte. Far beyond, and even higher, but not appearing so at this distance, was Shay Mountain.
The man we were searching for was somewhere in the maze of canyons between us and those mountains. And he could not be far ahead.
With the sheepskin on his horse’s hoofs he would leave no trail but, knowing what to look for, we might find some indication of his passing. And his horse could not move fast.
We rode on, walking our horses. The heat was deadening, the plodding pace of the horses almost hypnotic. I shook my head, and dried my hands on my shirt.
Mulvaney’s face was hard and sweaty. There was deep sunburn along his cheekbones and jaw. He rolled a smoke and lighted it, clipping the cigarette tight between his flat lips, marked with old scars.
“Hell of a country!”
His eyes flickered at me. “Yeah.” He shook his canteen to guage the amount of water remaining, then rinsed his mouth, holding the water a while before he swallowed. My own thirst seemed intensified by hearing that slosh of water in his canteen. I took a long swallow from my own.
After I replaced the cork my eyes swept the country, searching it far away, then nearer, nearer.
Nothing.
We went on, seeing another bit of wool, and later a smudged place in the dust.
“Not far … he ain’t far.”
Mulvaney was right. We were closing in. But who were we following? What manner of man was this? Not a plainsman, not a cowhand. Yet a man who knew something of the wilds, and a man who was cunning and wary.
I mopped my face again, and swore softly at the heat. Sweat trickled down my ribs and I rubbed my horse’s neck and spoke reassuringly.
“We’ll need water,” Mulvaney said.
“Yes.”
“So will he.”
“Maybe he knows where it is. He isn’t riding blind.”
“No.”
Our talk lapsed and we rode on, our bodies moving to the rhythm of the walking horses … The sun declined a little. It must be midaftemoon, or later. I wanted another drink, but did not dare take it. I wanted to dismount for a pebble to put in my mouth, but the effort seemed too much.
Our senses were lulled by the heat and the easy movement. We rode half dozing in our saddles.
And then there was a shot.
It slapped sharply across our consciousness, and we reined wide, putting our mounts apart. We had heard no bullet, only the flat, hard report, not far away. And then another.
“He ain’t shootin’ at us.”
“Let’s get off the flat … quick!”
The shots had come from the canyon, the trail led there, so we went over the edge into the depths, and swung, right, always right, down the switchback trail.
If we were seen here we were dead, caught flat against the mountainside like paper ducks pinned to a wall.
TWENTY-ONE
At the bottom we swung our horses in a swirl of dust and leaped them for cover in a thick cluster of trees and brush. Even our horses felt the tension as they stood, heads up and alert.
All was still. Some distance away a stone rattled. Sweat trickled behind my ear and I smelled the hot aroma of dust and sun-baked leaves. My palms grew sweaty and I dried them, but there was no further sound.
Careful to let my saddle creak as little as possible, I swung down, Winchester in hand, and with a motion to Mulvaney to stay put, I moved away through the brush.
From the edge of the trees I could see no more than thirty yards in one direction, no more than twenty in the other. Rock walls towered and the canyon sand lay still under the blazing sun. Close against the walls there was a thin strip of shadow.
Somewhere near by water trickled, aggravating my thirst. My neck felt hot and sticky, my shirt clung to my shoulders. Shifting the rifle in my hands, I studied the rock wall with misgiving. I dried my hands on my jeans and, taking a chance, moved out from my cover, and into that six-inch band of shade against the wall. Easing along to a bend in the wall, I peered around the comer.
Sixty yards away stood a saddled horse, head hanging. My eyes searched and saw nothing more, and then just visible beyond a white, water-worn boulder, I saw a boot and a leg as far as the knee.
For a space of a minute I watched it. There was no movement, no sound. Cautiously, wary for a trick, I advanced, ready to fire. Only the occasional chuckle of water over rocks broke the stillness. And then I saw the dead man.
That he was quite dead was beyond doubt. His skull was bloody and there was a bullet hole over one eye. He probably never knew what hit him. It served also as a warning. A man who could shoot like that was nobody to trifle with.