“Got ’em downright puzzled. They got no idea what to make of me. Last winter after an’ almighty awful blizzard I found the ol’ chief’s squaw, his daughter, an’ her two young uns down an’ nigh froze to death.
“Well, sir, I got a f’ar a-goin’, built a wickiup, an’ fetched ’em meat. I fed ’em broth and cared for them until the weather tapered off some. I fetched fuel an’ meat to keep ’em alive, an’ then when I spotted some Injuns comin’, I cut a stick with nine notches, then a space, an’ I added four crosses to stand for them I took care of. Then I taken to the hills.” “You’re a strange man, my friend, but an interesting one. Mind telling me your name?” “Van Runkle. Ripley Van Runkle.
You jest set tight, now, an’ in awhile I’ll show you a way out of here. Your folks are holed up yonder. You say you got womenfolk along?” “A girl… Lucinda Falvey.” “Kin to Rafen?” “She’s his niece, but he’s a thoroughly bad one, and trying to get what rightly belongs to her.” “Hmm, now what might that be?” His blue eyes were shrewd. “What’s this country have for a young girl?” At that point, I hesitated. Dare I tell him anything? He knew this country better than any of us would ever know it, and given the proper clues could find such a treasure much sooner than we could. Yet if we were to find it, we must stay around and search… sooner or later he must know.
So I told him the story from the beginning, of our own meeting, of the death of Conway, and all that had transpired since. He listened, chewing on his old pipe.
“Figured as much,” he said at last. He knocked out his pipe, tucking it away in his pocket. “Won’t surprise you to know that’s why I come here.
“I had the story from a Shoshoni. I heard it again from a Kansa. Never paid it much mind until I found myself a clue, an’ that set me to huntin’.” “A clue?” “Uh-huh. I found a strange cross cut into a rock. Looked like nothin’ any Injun would make, so I set to figurin’ on it.” “You’ve found the treasure?” “No, sir. I surely ain’t.
Same time I figure I’m almighty close.
It was huntin’ about here that set me to findin’ caves, an’ I surely figured it would be hid away in one o’ them. I found nothing no white man left. Bones, an’ sech. I found enough of them.” “If we find it, it’s for the girl. You understand?” “That there gold belongs to who finds it, mister.
It might be me. I hunted nigh onto ten year … off an’ on.” “If you found it,” I said, “you couldn’t use it here. That would mean leaving all this. Leaving it behind forever.” He grunted, but said no more. More than an hour had passed while we talked, and I was wondering if my pursuers had moved along, but I said nothing.
We had been seated on rocks, talking.
Restlessness was on me. While I sat here in relative comfort, my friends might be fighting for their lives.
“All right,” he said, when I mentioned them, “we’ll go see.” He led the way into a branch cave that inclined steeply up. He had cut crude steps into the limestone to make the climb easier. Suddenly the cave split and he led the way into the narrower passage of the two. We were climbing in a rough circle now, climbing what had evidently been a place where water had found a crack or weakness in the rock and had run almost straight down.
Above us there was light filtering down and we emerged on a steep hillside among several spruce trees that grew where there was scarce room for a man to stand. But just outside the entrance, which was under a shelf of rock and no more than three by four feet, was a flat rock.
Van Runkle seated himself. “A body can set here an’ see whatever’s in the bottom yonder. We’re almost directly above the crack where you came into the cave, an’ that there’s the only blind spot for more’n a mile except for under the trees yonder.” I looked, and although I saw nothing of my friends, the first thing I did see was a jagged streak of white quartz on the rock wall opposite, just across the bottom and beyond the creek. From here I could see that creek, sunlight on its ripples. Hastily, I averted my eyes, not to seem too curious.
The wall along which I had run while following the dry watercourse that led to this cave had been of bluish stone, the jagged streak of quartz was opposite, and somewhere nearby Van Runkle had found a Maltese cross on the rock.
Somewhere here, perhaps within a few yards, the treasure was buried or hidden.
“Nobody in sight,” Van Runkle said, “and I surely can’t hear anything. She’s quiet as can be.” Suddenly something stirred up the valley, and then a deer appeared. Behind it were two others.
Tentatively they walked out on the grass and began to nibble.
Nothing happened; nothing disturbed them.
Down the valley I could see the bustling brown bodies of the marmots.
Across the way the slim white trunks of the aspen, under golden clouds of leaves, caught the sunlight. The grass of the meadow was green with patches of golden coneflower, the reds and pinks of wild rose and geranium.
“I’d like to own five thousand acres of this,” I told him.
“What would you do with it?” “Keep it. Keep it just as it is. I would not change it for anything under the sun. But it wouldn’t have to be five thousand acres, just a piece of it that I could keep as it is now, fresh, clean, beautiful.
“There’s no finer land than this before man puts a hand on it.” “You against men?” “Of course not. Only men must do. It’s in their nature to do, and much of what they’ve done is for the best, only sometimes they start doing before they understand that what they’ll get won’t be nearly as wonderful as what they had.” He grabbed my arm. “Look! An’ be quiet!” The marmots were scuttling. The deer turned their behinds to us and vanished into the brush; and there was for a moment stillness.
And into t stillness rode Rafen Falvey, and beside him was Lucinda. Behind them rode four men, armed and ready, and behind them Davy Shanagan and Jorge Ulibarri, hands and feet tied.
“Looks like he done taken the pot,” Van Runkle said.
“No,” I replied, “he has not. Not by a damned sight. I’m still holding cards in this game. Show me how to get down there, will you?”
CHAPTER 17
Yet for all my bold talk, when we reached the meadow, I had no idea of what to do or which way to go. Only that I must do something, and at once.
Where were the others? Had they been wiped out while I was in the deepest part of the cave and could not hear the shooting? Or had Falvey somehow captured Lucinda, Davy, and Jorge while they were separated from the group?
A moment only it required for decision. I could, of course, try to round up Degory, Solomon, and the others, yet in the meantime Davy, Jorge, and Lucinda might be put to the torture. I had no doubt that was intended, and no doubt that the reason Ulibarri and Davy were alive was simply to use them to compel Lucinda to tell what she knew… and they would never believe she knew so little.
Van Runkle stood beside me and I turned to him. “Is there a good camping place up the draw?” He shrugged. “I reckon. Depends on judgment. The whole draw is a good place to camp. There’s grass, fuel, and water. I don’t figure they’ll go far. If they reckon this is where it’s at, they’ll stay by.” True enough. And it was up to me to get my friends away, somehow to free them. If the others were alive, they would appear. If they were not, I would be foolish to waste time searching, especially as I was afoot. The fact that I was basically a walking man was a help. I was a rider, of course, but I always thought better and worked better on my feet.
“What d’you figure to do?” Van Runkle asked. His calm blue eyes studied me with curiosity.
“To get them away. I’ll have to get close, see what the situation is, and then move.
“It’s been a tradition in my family, when faced by enemies, to attack. No matter how many, no matter where. I had an ancestor named Tatton Chantry. He was a soldier in his time, and a fighting man always. He always said, “Never let them get set. Think, look around, there’s always someplace where they’re vulnerable.