The world I faced was wild and strange. Before me was a fairly flat area some hundred yards in width that stretched on ahead for some distance. On the left of it was a steeply rising mountainside covered with pines, and the area before me had scattered pines and a few cedars with a forest of huge, weirdly shaped boulders tumbled from the mountain in some bygone age. From under my hat brim, I studied the terrain as best I could.
Low clouds hung threateningly over the mountains, far down the sides and seeming only yards above my head. Thunder rumbled, and as the riders behind me scrambled up the bank, the rain came down in sheets. Starting my horse, I walked forward, my hand on my pistol butt, expecting anything.
Tufts of grayish cloud hung ghostlike into the space before me; thunder rumbled again. No trail led where we rode and there was no evidence that any living creature had gone before us. We wove single file among the tumbled boulders, isolated trees, or clumps of brush or cedar. What tracks we made would not last long in this downpour, nor was the land over which we rode liable to leave good tracks even without the rain. Yet we had no doubt we would be followed. Without adequate reason, with only an instinctive sense of danger, we had come to realize that he who pursued us was something beyond ordinary, although we had no inkling of who he might be.
Was it Falvey himself? Was it not a man who resembled Lucinda’s father, but the father? Had he somehow survived? But if so, why not make himself known to his daughter? Or was there some other thing here? Some hatred, some evil, some ugly thing of which we knew nothing? Did Lucinda know more than she told us?
I think these ideas were reaching all of us. I believe a certain doubt crept into our minds along with apprehension. An unknown enemy is always more of a threat than one known, and this was an enemy whose motives we did not know. Nor could we gauge his strength or his intent.
Bowed under the pounding rain, we moved steadily on, riding not one directly behind another, but a little scattered to leave less of a trail.
Davy Shanagan and Solomon Talley lingered behind, bringing up the rear at a distance of more than a mile. When they joined us at the nooning, they had seen nothing.
Our nooning was where a slide had thrown some logs and brush over a few rocks, making a partial shelter from the rain. Under part of it, we gathered our stock, and under the most solid corner, we ourselves. To anyone less exposed than we, it would not have appeared as shelter, for the great up-ended slabs of rock had simply caught the debris of a minor earthslide, including the trunks and branches of several trees. Yet it was shelter enough to hunch our shoulders against the few drops of rain and to put together a small fire where we made coffee.
One thing I had already learned was that exposure to the elements is a relative thing. The shelter a man demands who lives forever out-of-doors is considerably less than he who is used to four walls and a roof. And this I must say for Lucinda Falvey, she made no complaints, nor did she appear to be less comfortable than any one of us.
We talked less now, chatting a little of the commonplaces of travel, but not going beyond that. I will not say it was only apprehension that sat upon us, although it was there. Each knew we had entered upon a trail whose end must be trouble, serious trouble.
The nooning past, we wasted no time. Warmed by the coffee and still chewing on the jerky we had lunched upon, we moved out once again. This time it was Bob Sandy who fell back, acting as rear guard. The rest of us moved out, more swiftly for the first hour.
The scattered boulders had grown less, the trees thicker. We wove through the slender black columns of the pines, climbing higher as we went forward. Once for several miles we rode across a barren place of exposed sheets of rock, dark with rain, and in places running with a thin film of water. Then we dipped down into thicker forest where at times we rode in relative dryness.
Here we did find a trail, and not a game trail, but one evidently used by Indians. It was narrow, as theirs usually are, and followed the natural contour of the wooded hillside. It led, as naturally as could be, to an overhang where some ancient long-vanished stream had undercut the cliff. And there was shelter, blackened in one corner by many fires.
The light offered at least another hour of riding, but another such shelter as this was unlikely, so we drew up and swung down. There was some fuel partly protected by the overhang and we found more. Soon a small fire was going. Our horses were stripped and rubbed down, but Bob Sandy had not appeared.
Suddenly I went to my horse. “I’m going back,” I said, and then changed my mind.
“I’ll go afoot,” I said.
Kemble reached for his rifle.
“Stay here,” I said. “If he’s in trouble, one of us can handle it. It may be calculated to split us up.” Kemble hesitated. “Maybe you’re right.” He was reluctant to remain behind, but one man can often do much, and I had the Ferguson rifle, which they had come to respect.
My rifle under my slicker to protect it from the rain, I walked out of the overhang and back down the path. Walking has ever been my favorite method of locomotion, and I walked rapidly, my ears attuned for any sound but that of the rain.
When a mile lay behind me, I began to walk slower, pausing occasionally to listen. Bob had been following at about a mile behind, and although he could have fallen back, I now felt sure that something was wrong. Before me, not a quarter of a mile away, I remembered we had crossed a clearing.
Turning from the path, I went up through the woods, moving swiftly and soundlessly. The wetness of the forest helped, my moccasins helped as well, for I could feel any branch that might crack under my feet before I rested my weight upon it.
My new route took me higher up the side of the hill so the clearing lay below me. Suddenly, across the clearing at the edge of the trees, a good hundred yards away, I saw Bob Sandy’s horse. Closer by thirty yards, and down behind a deadfall, was Bob himself. His rifle was in his hands and he was facing back the way we had come.
Suddenly two men came out of the grass up there and started toward him. He swung his rifle to one, and there was no sound… missed fire!
Without thinking, my Ferguson came to my shoulder and I fired. One man stumbled, then fell.
Instantly, I reloaded. The other man had ducked behind a tree, mystified, I think, by the shot. It was likely they believed Bob dead or seriously injured, but now, after that shot, they believed his rifle empty, and the second man stepped from behind the tree and ran forward.
I took aim, held my breath, let it out easily, and squeezed off my shot. He had not seen where my first shot came from, and did not now.
The bullet struck him, but not effectively, for he merely drew up in stride, then threw himself into hiding. I was already reloading.
Probably it was the unexpected shot that stopped the man more than the effect of the bullet, for I was sure it was a scratch at best. But now he was sure he faced two men rather than one. My rifle was loaded, and I moved up through the trees, hoping for a better shot.
And in that instant, I heard the faintest stir behind me. Turning swiftly, I dropped to one knee, and the suddenness of my move and the drop saved me. A gun roared, at close range, and a tree that was now behind me spat bark from a grazing shot.
I did not fire. My sudden drop had left me, through no intelligence of my own, in an excellent position. Coming down, I was sheltered by the broken-off stump of a lightning-struck tree.
Over my head was the trunk of the tree itself, a portion of it still fastened to the stump.
Partial protection I had, and complete concealment. The unknown marksman had been too sure of me, silhouetted against the outer light as I was, but now I was hidden, and my drop had been so sudden he was not sure whether I had been hit or not. Above all, my rifle was in my hands, unfired. A pistol was a heavy weight behind my belt.