One! Two! … Three!
Ben Janish was on the ground, his gun three inches from his hand, and he was dead.
As the others went across the meadow and into the trees, Lang turned in his saddle and lifted a hand.
And then the meadow was empty, and Miguel Lebo came from behind the tree and lowered his rifle.
“You are quick, amigo. Very quick!”
Chapter Eighteen
Ruble Noon turned quickly and walked toward the sycamore. Over his shoulder he said, “Lebo, get the horses, will you? We’ve got to get out of here.”
He climbed up to the tree house. Fan Davidge was standing in the middle of the larger room, hands on her hips, looking around. Her Winchester lay across the table.
“I can’t find it. If it is here, I simply can’t find it,” she said.
But it had to be here, he was sure. He stood there and looked around slowly. Half a million in gold or bills, or in negotiable securities, was quite a packet.
The outer wall of the house against which the tree grew was some thirty feet above the ground. The house was actually a wind-hollowed cave, like many of those in Mesa Verde, and the builders had simply walled up the opening, leaving a space for a small door.
The roof of the cave arched overhead, smooth as if polished by hand, and at his left it sloped down hi a pleasant arch, under which was the bed. On his right a trickle of water came out of a crack and ran along the base of the wall for a few feet before falling into a crack in the cave floor.
Besides the bed, there were a table, a couple of chairs made from tree limbs, and a shelf supported by pegs driven into holes in the wall. The floor was solid rock.
The back wall was a man-made partition of stone, with a door at the right. He could see where the older stonework had been repaired and added to by skillful hands.
“What’s back there?” he asked, pointing to the door. “Have you looked?”
“You can see for yourself. There’s a fireplace, and there’s a hole in the roof.”
He went back into the smaller cave. Here was a f fireplace with a large stack of wood beside it. There were several iron kettles, an axe, some tongs, and a couple of old-fashioned bullet molds, each capable of making a dozen lead balls at a time.
Against the rock wall was an old canvas sack. He opened it and thrust his hand in. Bullets made from the mold were there, of the type used in the old muskets. He had not seen anything of the kind in years. They ran, as he recalled, sixteen to the pound; but the only musket in the cave had rusted from disuse.
He prowled around, glancing up several times at the hole in the roof. On the floor underneath it a couple of notches had been cut, obviously for the legs of a ladder.
He found several more sacks of the bullets. The man who had sought refuge in this cave had prepared himself for a stand if the Utes ever located him. No doubt he had made his own powder, too, and he had probably used a bow and arrow for most of his hunting, saving the lead balls for the Indians.
Where could anyone conceal half a million dollars in such a place? But did he really know it was half a million? Such figures are usually exaggerated … buried treasures always grew as the story was repeated. He searched carefully, but he could find nothing.
The partition wall intrigued him … it was thicker than need be-measuring at least twenty inches thick.He scanned it, looking for anything that appeared to be new work. Suddenly he found a place where there was little dust, and no cobwebs such as gather in the interstices between stonelaid walls. He worked a stone loose, and after a few minutes of jiggling it about, he found that it slid easily from its niche.
Behind it was a black metal box. With Fan at his elbow, he drew the box out. It opened easily. Inside were several deeds to lands, mostly in the East, and at the bottom of the box were ten tight rolls-thick rolls- of bills! Greenbacks . . . and they were large bills. Nothing else was in the hole.
“Fan,” he said, “there’s a good bit of money there. Maybe it’s the lot.”
“We’d better go,” she said. “They will surely be back.”
He stuffed the bills and deeds into his pocket, but left the box on the table where anyone could see it.
They went out, pulled the door shut, and slid to the ground. Miguel Lebo was waiting with the horses. “Did you find anything?” he asked.
“Yes … though not as much as we expected.” He swung into the saddle. “Now, if we had a couple of old muskets I’d say this would be a great place to fight it out. There’s enough ammunition up there for an army.”
“Ammunition?”
“Ball ammunition … for muzzle-loaders.”
Lebo looked puzzled. “I don’t remember any ammunition. I would have remembered, wouldn’t I?”
Ruble Noon swung down quickly and ran for the tree. “Lebo,” he said, “get over to the ranch, get a couple of pack horses and get them fast-and pack saddles if you can get them. Don’t waste time!”
“What is it?” Fan asked.
“Those musket balls, damn it! They’re gold!
He climbed the tree, and inside the tree house he hastily cut into one of the balls with his knife.
Gold, bright and pure!
There were eight sacks, two of them hidden in a recess behind the pile. He lowered them down with a rope.
When Lebo came racing back with the horses and pack saddles they filled them with the balls of gold. Within minutes they were moving.
Lebo pulled up beside Noon. “Where to?”
“Denver. There isn’t a bank this side of there where this gold would be safe.”
“That’s a ride. It must be four hundred miles. Where can we hit the railroad? At Durango?”
Ruble Noon hesitated. “Too close, I think,” he said. “How about Alamosa?”
Lebo shrugged. “You call it and I’ll play the hand.”
Ruble Noon looked back. The trail behind them was empty. They moved off swiftly, Winchesters across their saddlebows.
Peg Cullane was coldly furious. Her lovely features were taut and she rode stiffly in the saddle. Lyman Manly and John Lang rode beside her; neither was talking. Lyman was surly, but Lang was not disturbed – he was a veteran of too many wars. You won and you lost, but if you bucked a stacked deck you were a fool. From the first he had been reluctant, but Peg Cullane had wanted to go in.
There had been too much cover. He still did not know how many had been there; but three to four wasn’t enough odds when one of them was Ruble Noon and at least two others were under cover, with rifles.
Four … five if Peg Cullane had chosen to shoot, but he had a good hunch she did not intend to. Whether Henneker and Billing had been there he did not know, nor care. The odds were wrong, and the thing to do was ease back and ride out, waiting for another chance when the odds were different; and that chance always came.
Peg Cullane was not used to losing, and she wanted that money. Lang had no doubt that she wanted it all. From the beginning he had felt sure of that. He had been equally sure it wouldn’t work out that way. It always turned out to be every man for himself.
It was Judge Niland who broke the silence. “I suggest we stop, make some coffee, and settle down a bit. Then we talk this over and see where we stand.”
Peg started to reply, but Lang interrupted in his mild tone. “Seems like a good idea. That was kinda rough there for a minute.”
“He killed Ben,” Lyman muttered. “He cut him down.”
“Well,” Lang said philosophically, “Ben shouldn’t have missed that first time. He had him dead to rights.”
“Ben was too sure of himself,” the Judge said quietly. “If he had taken a moment more, none of this would have happened. By this time we would have divided half a million dollars and gone our separate ways.”
“So now what?” Lyman Manly wondered aloud.
“We go after them.” Peg’s tone was crisp. “We go get them. By now they have it, whatever it was, and are on their way.”
“I thought you said it was gold?” Lang said. “Tom Davidge’s brother-in-law told me it was bullion, gold bullion. There was some currency, too, I think.”
“How come he told you?”
“He hated Tom. He was drinking when he told me about it-facts, figures, places, and dates, and I checked on some of it to be sure the story was true. He got wind of it somehow and came down on me, wanting a share.”