Читать книгу Points West - B.M. Bower - Страница 7

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WITH the fading light of a cloudy sunset, Cole scrambled down into the cleft among his patient horses that greeted his arrival with little nickers of anticipation, expecting to be fed and watered after all these empty hours of inaction. Their eager faith in him hurt Cole beyond words, and added much to his bitterness against Roper and his gang. How long the search for him would continue he had no means of knowing, but it would perhaps be longer than he could endure the thought of hiding here and watching his horses suffer.

For the first time since he left home, Cole wished that he had some of the boys here to advise him. Billy Parrish had fought Indians; he would know what was the best thing to do in such an emergency as this. Gene and Art and Red—if they were here, they could ride out boldly and give the Roper bunch something to think about!

Johnnie reached out his nose and bunted Cole gently in the ribs, dumbly urging him to remember that this was supper time. Hawk pushed up and nosed him reproachfully; Mick and Eagle begged him for attention. With the imminent expectation of having to make a hurried flight from that retreat, he had left saddle and pack in place, and now his conscience smote him for putting that discomfort as a climax to the hunger and thirst of his mounts.

Sliding his palm along Eagle's smooth barrel to the rump as he walked, he ducked under the rope barrier and went to the corner of the rock wall, listened for a minute and peered out into the twisting alleyway. Nothing moved save the sand blown before the whooping wind; nothing save the whistling of the gale did he hear. From the swiftness with which dusk was falling in that dismal place it would soon be dark. The unknown Jim would have to postpone his spying for a time, and Roper's riders would be searching at random.

Billy Parrish had always taken advantage of night to steal out of whatever tight place he found himself in by day and make his escape, even when Indians lay watching for such a move. Cole hesitated, glancing back to where four sleek necks were stretched over the rope as four pairs of brown eyes watched him with hungry interest. He bit his lip as their silent pleading struck home, and went back to rub each satiny nose in helpless misery.

"All I'm afraid of is that you might get shot if any of them sees us," he whispered. "Far as I'm concerned, I don't care a damn; but I've got you to think about—and I'd rather see yuh dead than mauled around by them coyotes. I dunno; it's takin' a long chance——"

"Oh, hell!" he revolted suddenly against all caution. "I can't set here and watch yuh starve to death, either. I guess I can hold my own against 'em, if it comes to a showdown, so we'll go, hosses. You know where there's a creek full of water and grass growin' along the bank, and it's up to you boys to find the way back."

He felt better after that decision and moved briskly to Mick's side, digging into the pack for the extra cartridges he had tucked into the top of a kyack. Then with his rope once more coiled and tied to the saddle, he mounted and rode quietly out of the niche and down along the ledge.

Once headed back along the way they had come, he looped the reins over the saddle horn and let Johnnie take his own course. For himself, he rode with his hunting carbine in his hands and his eyes turning this way and that, straining through the growing darkness to watch for any movement, any glimpse of men on guard.

Left to himself, Johnnie stepped out briskly in the running walk that made these four horses famous for covering the trails with little effort; an easy pace that carried them down through the winding aisles and up to the ridge where they had lost Roper, before Cole had expected to cover half the distance. At least, the danger of suddenly meeting one of the enemy around some sharp turn was past, and Cole breathed freer as they swung into the faintly defined trail up the side of the ridge that led to the well-remembered switchback farther along. Certainly Johnnie knew where he was headed for, and meant to lose no time in reaching the spot.

Somewhat to Cole's surprise the switchback trail was left unguarded. Johnnie went down it almost at a trot, the loose horses crowding close to his heels and kicking rocks upon the lower trail in their reckless haste. Cole watched anxiously the trail behind him, though it was now too dark to see much beyond the tail of the hindmost horse, fully expecting some pursuit. But nothing appeared to be abroad in the Sinks that evening, and the boy's spirits rose to a jubilant mood that he had so neatly tricked that traitorously smiling man who had offered him a job, merely for the sake of coaxing him down in here where murder would be perfectly safe and easy of accomplishment.

Now they were passing over the great billowy ridges which Cole vividly recalled. He felt safe now, for he was sure he could have made his way back without trusting to the sure instinct of his horse. He wondered if Johnnie was as thirsty as he was; he certainly was not letting any grass grow under his feet, for now that the trail was fairly easy, he broke into a lope that gradually increased in speed until he flew over those ridges almost at a run. Cole laughed aloud as he listened to the clatter of those galloping hoofs over the gravelly sandstone and wondered if Roper's men would realize who was riding that trail in such a hurry.

Now they were at the steep incline of the long crevasse which led up out of the Sinks to the higher ridge that bordered the valley. Johnnie slowed to a walk and went scrambling up over the rocks like a mountain sheep, taking his time because he must, yet wasting no seconds either. If a bowlder lay in his path he would pause just long enough to lower his head and give the obstacle an inquiring sniff, and then up he would go, the three others following slavishly where he led.

Cole had put away his rifle in its scabbard beneath his leg, and now he rode with his hand on the butt of his six-shooter. He did not expect to need it now; he had left all danger behind him in the Sinks, he was telling himself, when without any warning he rode out of the cleft and came face to face with three riders who bulked vaguely before him in the trail very much as if they had heard him coming and were waiting for him there.

Instinctively Cole's heels swung inward and Johnnie leaped forward, straight at the nearest horseman whose horse backed and sidled from the threatened collision.

"Hey, wait a minute!" another called sharply. "What's your hurry?"

"None of your business. Get outa the way!" Cole yelled, and fired a shot more or less at random, as he charged them.

"Git 'im, boys!" some one shouted, as Cole and his horses went thundering up the ridge.

They whirled and came after him, shooting as they rode. Cole sat twisted in his saddle, firing back at them, obliged to aim high because of his horses coming behind. Then Eagle gave a lunge and went clattering past Johnnie, the pack horse racing after him. Cole had the sense to pull out of the trail and let the frightened animals in ahead of him, shooting now with deadly intent at the dim figures that seemed to hesitate at coming in too close.

After all, it was a running fight that was quickly over; a rapid succession of shots, and then Cole was around a sharp curve in the trail, out of sight of the three. He waited a minute, but they must have expected him to do that, for they did not come on and Cole began to suspect that they meant to come at him from some other direction which he did not know, being a stranger to that particular ridge. He gave Johnnie his head and went galloping away after his horses that were making for the creek and their last camp ground under the lee of the ledge.

Cole would like to have stopped there but it seemed too risky, so he took the lead again when the horses stopped to slake their thirst at the creek, and went on down the winding road which led away from the Sinks. It did not seem likely that Roper's gang would follow him along the highway, deserted though it was. Still, he did not feel in the mood for further fighting—chiefly because of a bullet wound in his wrist which pained considerably and helped to impress upon him the risk he had run of being killed. No, decidedly he wanted no more encounters with Roper's men.

As best he could while he rode along, he bound up his wound with his handkerchief, thankful that the bullet had missed a bone; but it had passed clean through the flesh and there was a good deal of blood, and altogether Cole was in no happy frame of mind as he loped along through the windy dark on a trail he did not know; and when, far in the distance behind him he heard Eagle's high, shrill call and suddenly discovered that only two horses were following him, Cole Lawson, Junior, was closer to panic than he had ever been in his life.

Hawk answered with an anxious whinny as Cole pulled up and peered into the dark behind him. Roper's gang, he thought, must have ridden after him and managed to rope Eagle—and yet they could scarcely have done that without his hearing them, even if they would attempt such a thing without taking a shot at him. But something must be holding Eagle back against his will, for the horses always kept close together; whatever it was Cole could not go on until he had investigated, had got his little band together again.

To ride back up the trail in the dark would have taxed the courage of a more seasoned soul than Cole Lawson, faint with hunger and the pain of his wound, his nerves suffering from the strain of those long hours in the Sinks. But he went, guiding Johnnie with his knees, the reins wrapped around the saddle horn and his gun held ready in his uninjured hand. The revulsion of finding Eagle alone in the trail turned him so dizzy that when he dismounted and walked up to the horse he staggered and almost fell. The other horses were nosing around inquisitively, giving no hint of any strange presence in that vicinity. Reassured, Cole pulled himself together and gave Eagle a reproachful slap on the shoulder.

The horse flinched violently from the touch. With a heavy sense of premonition, Cole felt more gently the place and found it sticky and wet. He risked lighting a match to see what was wrong, and before a gust of wind blew it out he saw the ragged wound and groaned an oath of commiseration. Shot in the shoulder, the horse had gamely traveled these miles and kept pace with the others until the stiffening muscles and loss of blood had forced him to give up.

Cole sent a despairing glance around him in the starlight. He could not go on and leave the horse there, nor could he make camp so close to the road; for sooner or later he must sleep, and there was no telling when some of Roper's gang might ride that way. He led the horse slowly away toward a small butte dimly seen against the stars. Off there should be the creek he had crossed some miles back, and it was vital that he should find it. Where water flowed there should be grass, and Eagle would need food within easy reach. With himself and one horse crippled, he must do some careful planning, but Cole's brain did not seem to function easily in the face of this fresh catastrophe.

He felt that he should leave the horses there and scout ahead a little, but he was afraid that Hawk and Mick would follow him—indeed, they were certain to do that—and that would set Eagle to whinnying again; Cole had a nervous dread of that. So he went forward slowly, stopping every few yards to rest and encourage the horse. He must trust to luck for a feasible place to camp.

They were descending a slope, and he hoped that he was keeping out of sight of the road. A ridge seemed to rise this side of the butte, and as he approached nearer he could discern the faint outline of huge bowlders the size of a house, scattered here and there. These promised concealment, at least, though it was slow, painful work getting Eagle that far.

Finally he stopped, simply because he hadn't the heart to force the horse to further effort, and managed to get the saddle off Johnnie and the pack off Mick. Working awkwardly with one hand, he unrolled his bed and lay down, too worn out and wholly miserable to care whether he ever got up again or not, yet anxious for daylight so he could find water and dress Eagle's wound and his own; though his own injury seemed less important in spite of the pain, which would have occupied the attention of any man.

But as he lay there, his gloomy thoughts insensibly merged into the inconsequent fabric of dreams that mingled with the whoo-oo of the wind. Sunk deep in the reaction from the strain of the past thirty-six hours, he slept heavily and long, while the disabled Eagle stood drooping near by and the other horses foraged hungrily for grass amongst the sage.