Collection 1990 - Grub Line Rider (v5.0) Read online

  “I was afraid of that.” The black horse stopped as he spoke, and he heard water falling ahead. He urged the horse forward, but he refused to obey. Jim swung down into the darkness. “Pool,” he said. “We’ll find some place to hole up and wait for daylight.”

  They found a group of boulders and seated themselves among them, stripping the saddles from their horses and picketing them on a small patch of grass behind the boulders. Then, for a long time, they talked, the casual talk of two people finding out about each other. Jim talked of his early life on the Neuces, of his first trip into Mexico after horses when he was fourteen, and how they were attacked by Apaches. There had been three Indian fights that trip, two south of the border and one north of it.

  He had no idea when sleep took him, but he awakened with a start to find the sky growing gray and to see Lisa Cochrane sleeping on the grass six feet away. She looked strangely young, with her face relaxed and her lips slightly parted. Adark tendril of hair had blown across her cheek. He turned away and walked out to the horses. The grass was thick and rich there.

  He studied their position with care and found they were on a terrace separated from the end wall of the cañon only by the pool, at least an acre of clear, cold water into which a small fall poured from the cliff above. There were a few trees, and some of the scattered boulders they had encountered the previous night. The cañon on which they had come was a wild jumble of boulders and brush surmounted on either side by cliffs that lifted nearly 300 feet. While escape might be impossible if Wing Cary attempted, as he surely would, to guard the opening, their own position was secure, too, for one man with a rifle might stand off an army from the terrace.

  After he had watered the horses, he built a fire and put water on for coffee. Seeing some trout in the pool, he tried his luck, and from the enthusiasm with which they went for his bait, the pool could never have been fished before, or not in a long time.

  Lisa came from behind the boulders just as the coffee came to a boil. “What is this? A picnic?” she asked brightly.

  He grinned, touching his unshaven jaw. “With this beard?” He studied her a minute. “You’d never guess you’d spent the night on horseback or sleeping at the end of a cañon,” he said. Then his eyes sobered. “Can you handle a rifle? I mean, well enough to stand off Cary’s boys if they tried to come up here?”

  She turned quickly and glanced down the cañon. The nearest boulders to the terrace edge were sixty yards away, and the approach even that close would not be easy. “I think so,” she said. “What are you thinking of?”

  He gestured at the cliff. “I’ve been studyin’ that. With a mite of luck, a man might make it up there.”

  Her face paled. “It isn’t worth it. We’re whipped, and we might as well admit it. All we can do now is sit still and wait until the ranch is sold.”

  “No,” he said positively. “I’m goin’ out of here if I have to blast my way out. They’ve made a personal matter out of this, now, and”—he glanced at her—“I sort of have a feeling you should have that ranch. Lookin’ at it yesterday, I just couldn’t imagine it without you. You lived there, didn’t you?”

  “Most of my life. My folks were friends of Uncle Dave’s, and after they were killed, I stayed on with him.”

  “Did he leave you anything?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “I…I think he expected me to marry Jim.…He always wanted it that way, but we never felt like that about each other, and yet Jim told me after Uncle Dave died that I was to consider the place my home, if he got it.”

  As they ate, he listened to her talk while he studied the cliff. It wasn’t going to be easy, and yet it could be done.

  A shout rang out from the rocks behind them, and they both moved to the boulders, but there was nobody in sight. Avoice yelled again that Jim spotted as that of Wing Cary. He shouted a reply, and Wing yelled back: “We’ll let Lisa come out if she wants, an’ you, too, if you come with your hands up!”

  Lisa shook her head, so Gatlin shouted back, “We like it here! Plenty of water, plenty of grub! If you want us, you’ll have to come an’ get us!”

  In the silence that followed, Lisa said: “He can’t stay, not if he attends the auction.”

  Jim turned swiftly. “Take the rifle. If they start to come, shoot an’ shoot to kill. I’m going to take a chance.”

  Keeping out of sight behind the worn gray boulders, Gatlin worked his way swiftly along the edge of the pool toward the cliff face. As he felt his way along the rocky edge, he stared down into the water. That pool was deep, from the looks of it. And that was something to remember.

  At the cliff face, he stared up. It looked even easier than he thought, and at one time and another he had climbed worse faces. However, once he was well up the face, he would be within sight of the watchers below—or would he?

  III

  He put a hand up and started working his way to a four-inch ledge that projected from the face of the rock and slanted sharply upward. There were occasional clumps of brush growing from the rock, and they would offer some security. A rifle shot rang out behind him, then a half dozen more, farther off. Lisa had fired at something and had been answered from down the cañon.

  The ledge was steep, but there were good handholds, and he worked his way along it more swiftly than he would have believed possible. His clothing blended well with the rock, and by refraining from any sudden movements there was a chance that he could make it.

  When almost 200 feet up the face, he paused, resting on a narrow ledge, partly concealed by an outcropping. He looked up, but the wall was sheer. Beyond, there was a chimney, but almost too wide for climbing, and the walls looked slick as a blue clay side hill. Yet study the cliff as he would, he could see no other point where he might climb farther. Worse, part of that chimney was exposed to fire from below.

  If they saw him, he was through. He’d be stuck, with no chance of evading their fire. Yet he knew he’d take the chance. Squatting on the ledge, he pulled off his boots, and, running a loop of pigging string through their loops, he slung them from his neck. Slipping thongs over his guns, he got into the chimney and braced his back against one side, then lifted his feet, first his left, then his right, against the opposite wall.

  Whether Lisa was watching or not, he didn’t know, but almost at that instant she began firing. The chimney was, at this point, all of six feet deep and wide enough to allow for climbing, but very risky climbing. His palms flat against the slippery wall, he began to inch himself upward, working his stocking feet up the opposite wall. Slowly, every movement a danger, his breath coming slowly, his eyes riveted on his feet, he began to work his way higher.

  Sweat poured down his face and smarted in his eyes, and he could feel it trickling down his stomach under his wool shirt. Before he was halfway up, his breath was coming in great gasps, and his muscles were weary with the strain of opposing their strength against the walls to keep from falling. Then, miraculously, the chimney narrowed a little, and climbing was easier.

  He glanced up. Not over twenty feet to go. His heart bounded, and he renewed his effort. A foot slipped, and he felt an agonizing moment when fear throttled him and he seemed about to fall. To fall meant to bound from that ledge and go down, down into that deep green pool at the foot of the cliff, a fall of nearly 300 feet.

  Something smacked against the wall near him and from below there was a shout. Then Lisa opened fire, desperately, he knew, to give him covering fire. Another shot splashed splinters in his face and he struggled wildly, sweat pouring from him, to get up those last few feet. Suddenly the rattle of fire ceased, and then opened up again. He risked a quick glance and saw Lisa Cochrane running out in the open, and, as she ran, she halted and fired.

  She was risking her life, making her death or capture inevitable, to save him.

  Suddenly a breath of air was against his cheek, and he hunched himself higher, his head reaching the top of the cliff. Another shot rang out and howled off the edge of the rock beside
him. Then his hands were on the edge, and he rolled over onto solid ground, trembling in every limb.

  There was no time to waste. He got to his feet, staggering, and stared around. He was on the very top of the mountain, and Tucker lay far away to the south. He seated himself and got his boots on, then slipped the thongs from his guns. Walking as swiftly as his still-trembling muscles would allow, he started south.

  There was a creek, he remembered, that flowed down into the flatlands from somewhere near there, an intermittent stream, but with a cañon that offered an easy outlet to the plain below. Studying the terrain, he saw a break in the rocky plateau that might be it and started down the steep mountainside through the cedar, toward that break.

  A horse was what he needed most. With a good horse under him, he might make it. He had a good lead, for they must come around the mountain, a good ten miles by the quickest trail. That ten miles might get him to town before they could catch him, to town and to the lawyer who would make the bid for them, even if Eaton had him in jail by that time. Suddenly, remembering how Lisa had run out into the open, risking her life to protect him, he realized he would willingly give his own to save her.

  He stopped, mopping his face with a handkerchief. The cañon broke away before him, and he dropped into it, sliding and climbing to the bottom. When he reached the bottom, he started off toward the flat country at a swinging stride. A half hour later, his shirt dark with sweat, the cañon suddenly spread widely into the flat country. Dust hung in the air, and he slowed down, hearing voices.

  “Give ’em a blow.” It was a man’s voice speaking. “Hear any more shootin’?”

  “Not me.” The second voice was thin and nasal. “Reckon it was my ears mistakin’ themselves.”

  “Let’s go, Eaton,” another voice said. “It’s too hot here. I’m pinin’ for some o’ that good XY well water.”

  Gatlin pushed his way forward. “Hold it, Sheriff. You huntin’ me?”

  Sheriff Eaton was a tall, gray-haired man with a handlebar mustache and keen blue eyes. “If you’re Gatlin, an’ from the looks of you, you must be, I sure am. How come you’re so all-fired anxious to get caught?”

  Gatlin explained swiftly. “Lisa Cochrane’s back there, an’ they got her,” he finished. “Sheriff, I’d be mighty pleased if you’d send a few men after her, or go yourself an’ let the rest of them go to Tucker with me.”

  Eaton studied him. “What you want in Tucker?”

  “To bid that ranch in for Lisa Cochrane,” he said flatly. “Sheriff, that girl saved my bacon back there, an’ I’m a grateful man. You get me to town to get that money in Lawyer Ashton’s hands, an’ I’ll go to jail.”

  Eaton rolled his chaw in his lean jaws. “Dave Butler come over the Cut-Off with me, seen this ranch, then, an’ would have it no other way but that he come back here to settle. I reckon I know what he wanted.” He turned. “Doc, you’ll git none of that XY water today. Give this man a horse and take him to Ashton, then put him in jail. An’ make her fast.”

  Doc was a lean, saturnine man with a lantern jaw and cold eyes. He glanced at Gatlin, then nodded. “If you say so, Sheriff. I sure was hopin’ for some o’ that good XY water, though. Come on, pardner.”

  They wheeled their horses and started for Tucker, Doc turning from the trail to cross the desert through a thick tangle of cedar and sagebrush. “Mite quicker thisaway. Ain’t nobody ever rides it, an’ she’s some rough.”

  It was high noon, and the sun was blazing. Doc led off, casting only an occasional glance back at Gatlin. Jim was puzzled, for the man made no show of guarding him. Was he deliberately offering him the chance to make a break? It looked it, but Jim wasn’t having any. His one idea was to get to Tucker, see Ashton, and get his money down. They rode on, pushing through the dancing heat waves, no breeze stirring the air, and the sun turning the bowl into a baking oven.

  Doc slowed the pace a little. “Hosses won’t stand it,” he commented, then glanced at Gatlin. “I reckon you’re honest. You had a chance for a break an’ didn’t take it.” He grinned wryly. “Not that you’d have got far. This here rifle o’ mine sure shoots where I aim it at.

  “I’ve nothin’ to run from,” Gatlin replied. “What I’ve said was true. My bein’ in Tucker was strictly accidental.”

  The next half mile they rode side by side, entering now into a devil’s playground of boulders and arroyos. Doc’s hand went out, and Jim drew up. Buzzards roosted in a tree not far off the trail, a half dozen of the great birds. “Somethin’ dead,” Doc said. “Let’s have a look.”

  Two hundred yards farther and they drew up. What had been a dappled gray horse lay in a saucer-like depression among the cedars. Buzzards lifted from it, flapping their great wings. Doc’s eyes glinted, and he spat. “Jim Walker’s mare,” he said, “an’ his saddle.”

  They pushed on, circling the dead horse.

  Gatlin pointed. “Look,” he said, “he wasn’t killed. He was crawlin’ away.”

  “Yeah”—Doc was grim—“but not far. Look at the blood he was losin’.”

  They got down from their horses, their faces grim. Both men knew what they’d find, and neither man was looking forward to the moment. Doc slid his rifle from the scabbard. “Jim Walker was by way o’ bein’ a friend o’ mine,” he said. “I take his goin’ right hard.”

  The trail was easy. Twice the wounded man had obviously lain still for a long time. They found torn cloth where he had ripped up his shirt to bandage a wound. They walked on until they saw the gray rocks and the foot of the low bluff. It was a cul-de-sac.

  “Wait a minute,” Gatlin said. “Look at this.” He indicated the tracks of a man who had walked up the trail. He had stopped there, and there was blood on the sage, spattered blood. The faces of the men hardened, for the deeper impression of one foot, the way the step was taken, and the spattered blood told but one thing. The killer had walked up and kicked the wounded man.

  They had little farther to go. The wounded man had nerve, and nothing had stopped him. He was backed up under a clump of brush that grew from the side of the bluff, and he lay on his face. That was an indication to these men that Walker had been conscious for some time, that he had sought a place where the buzzards couldn’t get at him.

  Doc turned, and his gray white eyes were icy. “Step your boot beside that track,” he said, his rifle partly lifted.

  Jim Gatlin stared back at the man and felt cold and empty inside. At that moment, familiar with danger as he was, he was glad he wasn’t the killer. He stepped over to the tracks and made a print beside them. His boot was almost an inch shorter and of a different type.

  “Didn’t figger so,” Doc said. “But I aimed to make sure.”

  “On the wall there,” Gatlin said. “He scratched somethin’.”

  Both men bent over. It was plain, scratched with an edge of whitish rock on the slate of a small slab—CARY DONE—and no more.

  Doc straightened. “He can wait a few hours more. Let’s get to town.”

  Tucker’s street was more crowded than usual when they rode up to Ashton’s office and swung down. Jim Gatlin pulled open the door and stepped in. The tall, gray-haired man behind the desk looked up.

  “You’re Ashton?” Gatlin demanded. At the answering nod, he opened his shirt and unbuckled his money belt. “There’s ten thousand there. Bid in the XY for Cochrane an’ Gatlin.”

  Ashton’s eyes sparkled with sudden satisfaction. “You’re her partner?” he asked. “You’re putting up the money? It’s a fine thing you’re doing, man.”

  “I’m a partner only in name. My gun backs the brand, that’s all. She may need a gun behind her for a little while, an’ I’ve got it.”

  He turned to Doc, but the man was gone. Briefly Gatlin explained what they had found and added: “Wing Cary’s headed for town now.”

  “Headed for town?” Ashton’s head jerked around. “He’s here. Came in about twenty minutes ago.”

  Jim Gatlin spun on his heel and strode
from the office. On the street, pulling his hat brim low against the glare, he stared left, then right. There were men on the street, but they were drifting inside now. There was no sign of the man called Doc or of Cary.

  Gatlin’s heels were sharp and hard on the boardwalk. He moved swiftly, his hands swinging alongside his guns. His hard brown face was cool, and his lips were tight. At the Barrelhouse, he paused, put up his left hand, and stepped in. All faces turned toward him, but none was that of Cary.

  “Seen Wing Cary?” he demanded. “He murdered Jim Walker.”

  Nobody replied, and then an oldish man turned his head and jerked it down the street. “He’s gettin’ his hair cut, right next to the livery barn. Waitin’ for the auction to start up.”

  Gatlin stepped back through the door. A dark figure, hunched near the blacksmith shop, jerked back from sight. Jim hesitated, alert to danger, then quickly pushed on.

  The red and white barber pole marked the frame building. Jim opened the door and stepped in. A sleeping man snored with his mouth open, his back to the street wall. The bald barber looked up, swallowed, and stepped back.

  Wing Cary sat in the chair, his hair half trimmed, the white cloth draped around him. The opening door and sudden silence made him look up. “You, is it?” he said.

  “It’s me. We found Jim Walker. He marked your name, Cary, as his killer.”

  Cary’s lips tightened, and suddenly a gun bellowed, and something slammed Jim Gatlin in the shoulder and spun him like a top, smashing him sidewise into the door. That first shot saved him from the second. Wing Cary had held a gun in his lap and fired through the white cloth. There was sneering triumph in his eyes, and, as though time stood still, Jim Gatlin saw the smoldering of the black-rimmed circles of the holes in the cloth.

  He never remembered firing, but suddenly Cary’s body jerked sharply, and Jim felt the gun buck in his hand. He fired again then, and Wing’s face twisted and his gun exploded into the floor, narrowly missing his own foot.