She smiled. “I do like you!”
She came toward me, moving in close. “Tell, please! Let’s forget all this! Let’s
take the horses and go back down the way we came! We could keep right on to
California! Anywhere!”
“Yes, ma’am. We could, but—”
Suddenly, she jumped at me, grabbing at my rifle with both hands. She latched on
to it and then she grabbed my wrist. “Now, Paul! Now!”
Scared, I threw her off me, sending her tumbling on the grass. She cried out as
she hit, and I lost balance and went to one knee.
Paul was standing there, a rifle in his hands, and, even as I looked, its muzzle
stabbed flame.
CHAPTER XXIII
Paul was no such killer as his uncle. He shot too quickly and at a moving
target, and his bullet missed. Mine did not.
Yet it was an almost miss. The bullet I had intended for his body was high. It
struck the action of the rifle, ripping into his hand, cutting a furrow along
his cheek, and taking the lobe from his ear.
He screamed, dropped the rifle, and ran.
Fanny, crying hoarsely with anger, scrambled to her feet and ran for the rifle.
I struck her aside, knocking her into the grass once more. I picked up the rifle
and threw it.
It cleared the edge and fell, disappearing from sight.
Someone shouted, “They’ve found him! Come on!”
I turned and ran swiftly back toward my horses, keeping trees between me and
them. I heard a shot, and a bullet scattered twigs and bark over my head, so I
swung behind a tree, gasping for breath, but ready to shoot.
There was no target.
Then I heard Fanny shouting, her voice hoarse and angry. “Paul had him! He shot
right at him and missed! And then he ran like a rabbit!”
It was easy to cast blame. Chances were Paul had never faced gunfire before.
Like a lot of others he was ready to hurt or kill, but not to be hurt or killed.
Many men avoid battle not from cowardice but from fear of cowardice, fear that
when the moment of truth comes they will not have the courage to face up to it.
Paul had no such nerve, and he had been hurt—perhaps not badly, and certainly
not fatally, but he had seen his own blood flowing, a profound shock to some.
“It is no problem,” I heard Andre’s voice, calm and easy. “No problem. I know
the place where he is, and there’s no way out. It worked before and it will
again.”
Before?
I looked around me.
Here? Had this been where pa died? I looked toward the corner where the horses
were. There?
I had seen no bones, no grave. Wild animals might have scattered the bones, or
the body might have been thrown over the edge into the hollow below.
Here … had pa come to an end here? And was I to follow him?
The situation was different, I told myself. I had a good Winchester, plenty of
food, ammunition … I could stand a siege. Unless there was something else,
some unknown factor.
Some time back Judas had said that Andre Baston had ten men with him. It might
be an exaggeration, but there were several. I could hear their voices.
After a moment, seeing all clear, I retreated to where the horses were. Here the
cul-de-sac narrowed down, and the drop into the basin below was steep. Even had
a man been able to get down there, until he could reach the trees, he would be
wide open for a shot from the rim. And Andre wasn’t likely to miss, as Paul had.
It looked like there might be a narrow way along the rim, a way that might be
used by man or horse, but it showed no tracks, no trail, no sign of use. There
was also a good chance that a rifleman would be waiting at the other end, with a
certain target. There’d be no chance of missing if the target was approaching
over a way not three feet wide.
Some rocks had been heaped up here, one slab on another, and some had fallen
from a higher barricade. Now there was a fallen tree, the needles still clinging
to the dead branches.
When I reached the horses I broke open a box of cartridges and filled my coat
pockets. My Winchester ’73 was fully loaded, and I was ready as a man could be.
Right over beyond that bare knoll that towered above me was the basin, and from
the lower side of the basin a trail went down La Plata Canyon to Shalako.
At Shalako were at least three Sacketts and some friends, but that was six or
seven miles away, maybe further, and they might as well be in China for all the
good they’d do.
What happened here was up to me. And only me.
I just had a thought that worried me. It passed through my mind while I was
considering other things. Something was suddenly nagging me … what could it
have been?
There was some factor in my setup here …
I had a good field of fire down the ledge from where I’d chosen my hiding place.
There were a few dips and hollows, some fallen logs, some of them almost rotted
through.
Getting the horses into as safe a spot as could be, I settled down and gave
study to the situation. Over my shoulder I could see the almost bare flank of
that ridge where the ghost trail led. Now if I could get over there …
Nobody was coming. Evidently they were sure they had me and would let me worry a
mite. I smelled smoke … they were fixing some breakfast.
Well, why not me?
I gathered some sticks and put together a bit of a blaze and set some coffee to
boiling. Then I got out my skillet and fried up some bacon. Meanwhile I kept an
eye open for those gents who were hunting me.
If this was where they had cornered pa, where were his bones? And what became of
his outfit? And the gold?
Pa was a canny man, and he’d not be wishful of them profiting by his death. If
this was where it happened, then he would have made some show of hiding things
… Yet, how had it happened? True, pa only had a muzzle-loader, and, fast as he
was, he’d not be able to fight off a bunch of them for long. But he had a
pistol—or should have had.
Thing that disturbed me was the fact that Baston and them were so sure they had
me. Now if I could just see what they were about …
Suddenly a cold chill went through me, like they say happens when somebody steps
on your grave. All of a sudden I knew why they were so sure of themselves.
They had a man atop that knoll who could shoot into this place where I was.
He was probably up there now, and, when the attack began and my attention was
directed down along the ledge, he’d shoot me from the top of that hill.
Actually, it was a peak, standing higher than anything close by. Looking up at
it, I could see where a man up there, if willing to expose himself a little,
could fire at almost every corner of this ledge—almost every corner.
Well, cross that bridge when it came. Now for the bacon. I ate it there, liking
the smell of it and the smell of the fire. What would I miss most, I wondered,
if I should be killed here? The sight of those clouds gathering over the
mountains yonder? The smell of woodsmoke and coffee and bacon? The feel of a
good horse under me? Or the sunlight through the aspen leaves?
I hadn’t a lot to remember, I guess. I’d been to none of the great places, nor
walked among people of fame. I’d never eaten very fancy, nor been to many
drama-shows. I’d set over many a campfire and slept out under the stars so much
I knew all their shapes and formations from looking up at them time after time.
There’d been some good horses here and there, and some long trails and wide
deserts I’d traveled. I had those memories, and I guess they stacked up to quite
a lot when a fellow thought of it. But pa was away head of me when he settled
down here to make his stand. He had a wife back home, and some boys growing,
boys to carry on his name and carry on his living for him. I hadn’t a son nor a
daughter. If I went out now there’d be nobody to mourn me. My brothers, yes. But
a man needs a woman to cry for him when he goes out.
Still, I’d want to be the last to go. I’d want to see her safely to bed before I