For two miles he skirted the jungle of prickly pear, cat claw, mesquite, and greasewood until he was almost directly behind Black Mesa.
Looking up, he was aware that he was seeing the mesa from an unusual angle. The area was a jumble of upthrust ledges and huge rock slabs and practically impenetrable, yet from where he sat he could see a sort of shadow along the wall of the mesa. Working his way closer, he could see that it was actually an undercut along the face of the cliff. It was visible only because the torrential rains had left the rock damp in the shadow of the cliff. It might be that it had never been seen under these circumstances and from this angle before.
Forcing his horse through a particularly dense mass of brush, he worked a precarious way through the boulders until he was within a few feet of the wall, and near it, of a gigantic earth crack. In the bottom of this crack was a trickle of water, but it was running toward the mesa!
Leaving his horse, he descended to the bottom of the crack. At the point where he had left his horse it was all of thirty feet wide, but at the bottom, a man could touch both walls with outstretched arms.
All was deathly still. Only the faint trickle of the water and the crunch of gravel under his boots broke the stillness. Yet he was aware of a distant and subdued roar that seemed to issue from the base of Black Mesa itself!
He came suddenly to a halt. Before him was a vast black hole! Into th trickled the stream he had been following, and far below he could hear the sound of the water falling into a pool. Recalling the small hole on the opposite side, he realized that under Black Mesa lay a huge underground pool or lake. By all reason the water should have been flowing away from the Mesa, but due to the cracks and convulsions of the earth, the water flowed downward into some subterranean basin of volcanic formation.
But if it did not escape? Then there 117 would be a vast reservoir of water, constantly supplied and wholly untapped!
When he emerged, he looked again at the shadow on the wall, revealing a wind- and rain-hollowed undercut that slanted up the side of the mesa. And while he looked he had an idea.
The following day he rode north again, seeking a way through the chaparral. Beyond the belt of brush Sue had told him the green petered out into desert. Although she had not seen it herself, she also told him that only one ranch lay that way, actually to the northwest of Black Mesa, and that was the Pitchfork.
Suddenly he came upon the tracks of two horses. They were shod horses, walking west, and side by side. The tracks ended abruptly as they had begun, at an uptilted slab of sandstone, but seeing scratches on the sandstone, he rode up himself. It was quite a scramble, but the ledge broke sharply off and a crack, bottomed with blown sand, showed horse tracks.
When he reached the bottom he was in a small meadow and the belt of chaparral was behind him except for scattered clumps. The riders had worked here— he puzzled out the tracks—rounding up a few head of cattle and starting them northwest up the edge of the watery meadow.
Realization flooded over Matt Calou like a cold shower. Wheeling his horse, he started back up the meadow and had gone only a short distance when he came upon a Slash D steer! That was the brand of Dyer, the saloon keeper. Farther along he found another Slash D and three KR’S.
Grinning with satisfaction, he retracted his steps and rode back to his own ranch.
Sue was in the kitchen and a frying pan was sizzling with bacon and eggs when he returned.
“Eggs!” He grinned at her. “Those are the first eggs I’ve seen in months!”
“We keep a few chickens,” she replied, “and I thought I’d surprise you.” She dished up a plate of the eggs and bacon, then poured coffee. “You’d better get ready to leave, young man. Foster, of the Pitchfork, is coming over here with his crowd and the crowd from Wagonstop. They say they’ll run you out of the country!”
Calou chuckled. “Let ‘em come! I’m ready for ‘em now!”
“You look like the cat that swallowed the 119 canary,” she said, studying him curiously. “What’s happened?”
“Wait an’ see!” he teased. “Just wait!”
“You’ve been working,” she said. “What are you
going to do with that pasture you dragged?”
“Plant it to crop. After a few years of that I’ll let it go back to grass. That will take care of the loco weed.”
“Crops take water.”
“We’ll have lots of water! Plenty of it!
Enough for the crops, all the stock, an’ baths every night for ourselves and the kids.”
She was startled. “Ourselves?”
“My wife and myself.”
“You didn’t tell me you had a wife!” She
stared at him.
“I haven’t one, but I sure aim to get one now. I’ve got one in mind. One that will be the mother of fifteen or twenty kids.”
“Fifteen or twenty? You’re crazy!”
“I like big families. I’m the youngest of
twelve boys. Anyway, I got a theory about
raisin’ ‘em. It’s like this—“
“It will have to wait,” Sue put her hand on his arm. “Here they are.”
Matt Calou got to his feet. He was, she realized suddenly, wearing a tied-down gun. His rifle was beside the front door and standing alongside it was a shotgun.
Outside she could see the tall, lean figure of Foster of the Pitchfork and beside him were Russell, Knauf, and a half dozen others. Then, coming up behind them, she saw Old Man Karr, Dyer, and Wente. With them were a dozen riders.
Matt stepped into the door. “Howdy, folks! Glad to have visitors! I was afraid my neighbors thought I had hydrophobia!”
There were no answering smiles. “We’ve come to give you a start out of the country, Calouffwas Foster said. “We want nobody livin’ here!”
Calou smiled, but his eyes were cold as they measured the tall man on the bay horse. “Thoughtful of you, Foster, but I’m stayin’, an’ if you try to run me off, you’ll have some empty saddles, one of which will be a big bay.
“Fact is, I like this place. Once I get a well down, I’ll make an easier livin’ than you do, Foster.”
Something in his tone stiffened Foster and he looked sharply at Matt Calou. Russell 121 moved up beside him and Knauf faded to the left, for a flanking shot.
For a moment there was silence, and Matt Calou laughed, his voice harsh. “Didn’t like the sound of that, did you, Foster? I don’t reckon your neck feels good inside of hemp, does it? I wonder just what did kill Art Horan, Foster? Was it you? Or did he just get suddenly curious an’ come back to find out what happened to all the lost cattle?”
Dyer stared from Calou to Foster, obviously puzzled. “This I don’t get,” he said.
“What’s all this talk?”
“Tell him, Foster. You know what I mean.”
Foster was trapped. He glanced to right and
left, then back to the author of his sudden misery. This was what he had feared if Matt Calou or anyone lived on the Rafter H. His fingers spread on his thigh.
Sue spoke suddenly from a window to the right of the door. “Knauf,” she said, “I know why you moved, an’ I’ve got a double-barreled shotgun that will blow you out of your saddle if you lay a hand on your gun!”
“What’s goin’ on here?” Old Man Karr demanded irritably. “What’s he talkin’ about, Foss?”
“If he won’t tell you”—Matt Calou suddenly stepped out of the door–?I will. While you folks have been tellin’ yourselves ghost stories about Black Mesa, Foster has been bleedin’ the range of your cattle.”
“You lie!” Foster roared. “You lie like–!” He grabbed for his gun and Matt Calou fired twice. The first shot knocked the gun from Foster’s suddenly bloody hand, and the second notched his ear. It was a bullet that would have killed Foster had he not flinched from the hand wound.
Russell’s face was pale as death and he gripped the pommel hard with both hands.
Dyer’s face was stern. “All right, Calou! You clear this up an’ fast or there’ll be a necktie party right here, gun or no gun.”
“Your cattle,” Matt explained coolly, “hunted water an’ found it where nobody knew there was any. Then Foster found your cattle. Ever since then he’s been sweepin’ that draw ever’ few days, takin’ up all the cattle he found there, regardless of brand. You lost 123 cattle, but you saw no marks of rustlin’, no tracks, no reason to suspect anybody.