The horse scrambled, slipped and fought for footing. They were going down fast but so far the red horse was taking it well. He was taking enormous forward leaps when Jordan heard the shot.
The harsh bark of a heavy pistol. … then a second shot, both fired from near the house. Then, above the echoes of the shots and the falling of rock, he heard the high ringing cry. It was no cry of fear or pain but one filled with reassurance and hope.
She had fired to draw their attention from him, so they must be alerted and ready.
He plunged down the last few feet of the slide, the horse scrambling beneath him, and then they were at the bottom and the big red horse moved out, running on the hard-packed sand and running free.
Jacob Lantz heard the rocks of the slide. He swore softly, remembering the looks of it. A man who would come down that in the night — !
“Come on, Ben,” he said. “He can only go up or down the canyon. We’ve got him.”
Chapter Three
Ahead of him the shoulder of the canyon bulked black against the sky. It was near here he had seen the two riders earlier in the day. He slowed his horse, making only a small sound on the sand. There was a low mutter of voices, a shadow that moved. He slammed home the spurs and the startled horse gave a convulsive leap forward and broke into a gallop.
A startled curse, a man who lunged and shouted, a gun blasting off to his right and then his own gun smashed sound into the stone corridor and sent a racketing of sound off down the limestone cliffs.
He had fired point-blank at a moving spot of darkness and then he was away, his horse running up the canyon at breakneck speed. Behind him were other shots and shouts …
Deliberately he slowed his pace. Behind him he heard a rush of horses, startled shouts and replies. On his left a canyon mouth opened, almost choked with brush, but the horse found an opening. Brush slapped at his face and clothing as he pushed through.
High up the rock wall moonlight glanced off the rocky trail. Trees left a space for a rider and he forced a way through, finding the vague trail that led up the cliff. Ten minutes later he was white in the moonlight atop the mesa, yet already they were behind him and he heard hoofs click on the lower trail.
Swiftly he glanced around. Poised on the rim was a rock as large as a piano. He swung down and got behind it, trying its weight with his hands.
Below there was movement. He stooped, took the strain, paused to gather strength, then heaved. The rock tipped, grated, then hung. Overhead was the moon, his body smelled of sweat and dust, his boot toes gripped the mesa top … the rock tipped, grated, leaned further out. Alone on the mesa’s rim he stood, the veins swelling in his brow, throbbing in his throat. Suddenly there was a stabbing pain in his side and then the rock fell free.
He went to his knees, gasping, his mouth wide, feeling the blood inside his pants, perspiration dripping from his brow.
The boulder tumbled off into the vast blackness below, there was a rattle of accompanying gravel, an agonized cry of animal fear, a wild scramble and then the forlorn screams of a horse and a man falling away into darkness. A splintering crash then, a brief chatter of small stones following … and silence.
Alone on the cliff’s edge, his chest heaving with effort, he suddenly filled with some primeval berserk fury and he shouted, his voice rolling down the corridor of rock, “Come on, damn you!”
Sweating and trembling, his body shaken with pain, he leaned a moment against the saddle, gathering strength. They would think awhile before tihey tried that path again this night. He remembered the lost lonely cry of the man falling off into space and death. He asked for it, he told himself. They stole our horses, they killed my partner and they want to kill me.
He wanted to live … the night was cool and still as only a desert night can be … he wanted to live … and in his mind there was a memory of the feel of a woman’s body, the memory of her lips, of her silent waiting, not fighting, not denying, not accepting. Just waiting.
Over a mesa white in the moonlight he rode steadily, his torn side a throb of agony, and he rode until the sun was rising, until it seemed he had never known any other life than the saddle, never anything but pain, never anything but flight.
Before him in the gray light was a dull red finger of rock and at its base, an ancient cottonwood, white-limbed and dead. He pushed his horse through a curtain of willows into a pocket of rock and trees almost encircled by a tiny stream. The aspen were gray with morning, the grass dew-wet and heavy when he drew rein at last. An old rock house crouched like a tired hound against the cliffs face and there he slid from his saddle and drank.
For a long time then he lay still until the morning sun warmed his shoulders and crept along his tired muscles and ate away the night’s chill. He made coffee, ate some of the beef and tortillas and then he slept.
At first, when he awakened, he listened for a long time. Birds chirped and played among the branches, his horse cropped grass, the stream chuckled over its stones. Only when he was sure he was alone did he rise and strip off his shirt.
His wound had been torn open by lifting the rock but he bathed it, then bandaged it again with the same cloth. Then from near the steeple rock he studied the trail down which he had come and moved out to brush away the last few tracks. Most of the trail was over bare rock and, although there would be signs, there would not be many.
Every hour of delay was an hour’s gain. Would they be so anxious to pursue him they would not bother Maria Cristina? There was hope of that. In any event, he could do nothing. Yet the men who had shot into the back of a dying man would stop at nothing. They had started after him to avenge Bob Button’s death but now another man had died and, recalling the cry from the canyon … perhaps two.
Trace Jordan searched for and found a way out of the hiding place. He found it late in the afternoon, a trail screened by brush that led over the rocks and away to the south. He was, he knew, either in Mexico now or close to the border. The way north was barred to him, the way south lay through Apache country. Yet it was the only way that remained.
The killers of Johnny Hendrix were among the pursuers, yet there were honest cowmen there, too. He wanted his horses back and he wanted the killers to pay, yet if he stayed there would be no end to the killing. Johnny was dead but the Sutton-Bayless outfit had lost several men. It was price enough.
And there was Maria Cristina….
He had his first hot meal in days over a fire of dry curl-leaf, almost smokeless, back in the rocks. Yet he was restless. There was no telling what they might do to a girl alone. She had a brother but one man would be helpless against that crowd. He rolled a smoke and settled back. There was no sound of pursuit… nothing.
Below him the stream gulped and fussed among the rocks, a bird fluttered his plumage. Then far up the canyon, a hoof struck stone.
Trace Jordan came soundlessly to his feet and took up his rifle. He crossed the rocks to a position where he could see the trail. And then for a long time the night was still.
Vicente was at the table when Maria Cristina came from her room. Surprised to find him around so early, she went past him to the fire. Coffee water was on and she added coffee.
Vicente looked up from the table. “Do not take the sheep out.”
She turned to look at him. His face seemed older in the morning light, quieter than she had ever remembered it
“I will take them,” he said.
“You?” She was astonished.
“They must be saved.”
She stood up then and faced him. The sun was not yet up and the two were alone in the room. For the first time she saw the rifle by his chair and he wore an extra cartridge belt … it had been her father’s belt.