Novel 1963 - Dark Canyon (v5.0) Page 4

  Riley was thinking now about Cruz. He found himself liking the lean, whiplike Mexican. The man missed very little, and he was a good worker. He was altogether a different kind of a man from Darby Lewis, who had ridden to Moab for the cattle.

  Lewis was a casual, lackadaisical sort, an efficient cowhand, but the sort who would one day draw his time and ride into town, simply because he had enough money saved, or was tired of working. Also—and it was a quality Riley did not welcome—he was inclined to be talkative. With the visitors he must expect, such a quality was not desirable.

  They stripped the gear from their horses and made camp. Again and again Cruz looked at the country about them. “It is beautiful, amigo,” he said at last. “I do not wonder that you like it here.”

  They camped in the open, under the trees. The walls of the house had been started, and Riley had built a pole corral. Their camp was only a few yards from the corral where they left their horses, but from the camp they had a good view of the country around and of the trail over which they had come.

  Sheriff Ed Larsen might be as innocent as he seemed, and he might also be willing to let bygones be bygones if he did guess that Gaylord Riley was one of the old Colburn gang; but Riley was not buying it.

  At daylight he rolled out of his warm bed, and in the chill air he hustled a fire together and got the coffeepot on. The morning air was incredibly clear, and as he worked he listened, for sound would carry far.

  Cruz rolled out, dressed, and went to the corral to catch up their horses, saddling them both without comment and returning to the fire. While breakfast shaped up, Riley scanned the country. Twice he saw movement in the distance; at least once it was a deer. As to the other movement, he was not sure. The glimpse was too momentary to offer anything but a suspicion, but he believed it to be a man—and there should be no other men anywhere around.

  While Cruz straightened up around camp, Riley walked a wide circle around, checking the ground. He saw no tracks but those he had seen the night before, but he did find a dim and ancient trail that apparently led to the top of the Sweet Alice Hills, about five hundred feet above the ranch. He would remember that, and try it. From up there a man could see just about all over the country.

  All the long day through, they rode, down Fable Canyon and by a dim trail over the shoulder of Wild Cow Point and into the basin. They scouted the two springs, located a seep in another place, and chose a couple of spots for small dams.

  Moving away from the southernmost of the springs, Riley suddenly saw the tracks near the mouth of a canyon. At least six horses, all shod, traveling in a bunch. He did not wish to draw attention to the trail, so he scarcely glanced at it.

  He was riding some dozen feet away from Cruz at the time, and the tracks were off to his right and out of the range of the Mexican’s eyes, so Riley veered over toward him and they rode up the canyon, across the shoulder of the mountain, and back to their own ranch. By the time they arrived it was dark.

  Six horses … four men and two pack animals? Or six men of a posse? The tracks were fresh—very likely made that morning, around sunup. Possibly even later. Cruz was no fool, and if he saw those tracks he would be curious.

  “We’ll work on the house tomorrow,” Riley said, “if you’ve no objection to working off a horse.” Many cowhands would do no work that could not be done from a saddle, and were offended by the suggestion. “There’s plenty to do right here.”

  Worried as he was about Colburn and the others, Riley became fascinated by the task before him. He was building a house … a home. Never in his life had he had what might properly be called a home, and most of his years had been lived out under the sky. But these very logs he was laying in place, these were the walls of the house where, with luck, he would live out his years.

  Obsessed by the thought, he drove himself, working harder and faster, until Cruz finally straightened up and drew back. “There is always tomorrow, amigo,” he said gently.

  Riley straightened up, a little embarrassed. “Of course.” He looked across the building at Cruz. “It is just that I never had a home before.”

  “Ah?”

  Cruz lit a cigarette. “All the more reason then, to build carefully, build to last.”

  He indicated the blisters on Riley’s hands. “I think it is a long time since you have worked with your hands, amigo.”

  He said no more than that, and Riley offered no comment, nor any explanation. Cruz missed very little, and the longer Riley worked with him the better he liked him.

  On the third day Riley rode out again with Cruz, and killed a deer. It was a good shot, a running shot, and he broke the deer’s neck just above the shoulder.

  That night, they talked long beside the fire, and Riley added a little to what he had learned from the file of newspapers in the office of the Rimrock Scout. The picture he was getting was filled in a little here and there, and from the picture three men were beginning to emerge.

  Dan Shattuck … Martin Hardcastle … and Sheriff Ed Larsen.

  He sorted them over in his mind, put a label to each, and dealt the cards again, studying them with care. For he was a stranger in a strange land; he was a man with much behind him, and a lifetime yet to live, and those three might all take a hand in his game. It would be well to know them, to understand them thoroughly.

  That was something, too, he had learned from Jim Colburn, for Jim’s success was due not only to careful planning of the robberies and the escapes, but to his study of the men employed in the various banks, or the drives on the stages.

  Which would be apt to take a chance? Was this one trying to build a reputation? Was that one nervous? Was he angry with his wife and apt to take it out on anyone? Was that one cautious? This one reckless? Which ones had families to think of?

  So now Riley studied the men in the case. Shattuck with his vast acres, his whiteface cattle, and Marie, his niece. Of these things he was proud; of his family background, too, and of his honor and integrity.

  Martin Hardcastle? A pusher and a climber, a man of vast ego, vastly sure of himself, a man with a lust for power, for name.

  Sheriff Ed Larsen? An old man, a careful man, a man unafraid. He was a Mormon, and in good-standing with the Church. He had come west with the Handcart Mormons as a child—the Mormons, most of them from Europe, who walked across the plains pushing their few belongings in handcarts.

  And in Rimrock, loitering around Hardcastle’s saloon, and occasionally riding out of town on what missions nobody knew, was Strat Spooner. And Spooner harbored his own lusts and his own desires.

  A rawboned man who thrust his big bare feet into his boots without the benefit of socks, whose shirt collars were greasy and long-unwashed, Strat Spooner was Martin Hardcastle’s man only up to a point. The West held many riders who rode for the brand, men who were feudal retainers in all that term might imply, possessed of fierce loyalty to the outfit, the brand, and the boss. Strat Spooner was not one of these. He was a mercenary, a man with a gun for hire, occasional rustler, thief, and killer, a dangerous gunman whose only loyalty was to himself. He served, but he served for money. His loyalty always appeared obvious, but it was always given with reservations.

  Strat Spooner had often been contemptuous of those for whom he worked, but he was not contemptuous of Martin Hardcastle. He knew the saloonkeeper was a dangerous man, but he had no idea that Hardcastle was interested in Marie Shattuck. Had he known, it would have made no difference.

  Strat Spooner wanted Marie Shattuck with a savage lust that he was shrewd enough to realize could get him killed. He knew enough about the temper of western towns to know that a hanging would be the least he could get from molesting a woman—if he was caught.

  Nor did he like the look of old Pico. The Mexican was a hard, capable man, an excellent tracker, a bad man with a gun, and a man who seemed to have a sixth sense of guessing what another man might do.

  Marie Shattuck was not merely a pretty girl, not merely a bright one with character; she
was a girl born with that particular something that brought excitement to every man who looked at her.

  Even as Hardcastle was making his plans, Strat Spooner sat on the walk outside thinking of his own. He had no such concrete plans as Hardcastle had, for he was not that sort of man. He would wait, and he would watch, and when the opportunity came he would take it … and her.

  THIRTY-TWO HEAD of whiteface cattle arrived at Rimrock on the drive from Moab. Darby Lewis and two hands working for Hardcastle drove them, rounding them up to bed down on a small meadow just outside of town. Standing in the door of his saloon, Hardcastle saw Lewis and one of the other hands ride into town.

  They had made good time—better than he had expected; and now that they were here the first part of his plan could go forward. Before he was through Dan Shattuck would be broke and broken, and Marie would be glad to have any man who would take her.

  There was nothing in the mind of Martin Hardcastle that allowed for half measures. When he set out to destroy an enemy, it was with the idea of doing so utterly and completely, for he wished nothing left behind that might rise to take revenge on him.

  He was going to destroy Dan Shattuck and have Marie, and Gaylord Riley was going to be the instrument of their destruction. The small herd of whiteface cattle was the opening wedge. The further steps in his plan were awaiting execution.

  The words came to him, and he liked their sound. He repeated them to himself: awaiting execution.

  CHAPTER 6

  WHEN RILEY WORKED at the walls of the house he was building he could look out over the country around him, and it was an empty land. Yet it had not always been so.

  There were cliff dwellings in Fable Canyon, there were other ruins in several of the neighboring canyons and in the basin. Who were those people? Where had they come from, and where had they gone? Above all, why had they gone?

  Since the Navajo had been moved from Bosque Redondo and settled in northern New Mexico, a few had drifted into the vast lands south of the Colorado and San Juan rivers, but none had come up into this country. Occasionally, Ute war parties had ridden through, but they had been few and far between.

  It was a haunted, mysterious land, and the ghosts of those all but forgotten people lingered. The thought of them was often at the fringes of Riley’s mind.

  During the weeks that followed his arrival in the Sweet Alice Hills he had prowled about several of the ruins. An olla that hung under a large tree, keeping water cold for them, had been found in one of those ruins and carefully cleaned. There were fragments of pottery, arrowheads, a few scrapers—these things he recognized. The problem of the vanished people intrigued him, but there was little time for his mind to dwell long on such things.

  Among the whiteface cattle that had been driven down from Moab were a few good ones, but most of them were no better than average. The bull was old, but showed evidences of good breeding. They kept the cattle close herded on the mesa close by, letting them get acquainted with their new home and the route to a seep in nearby Dark Canyon.

  During the first week they killed two mountain lions, one of them while it was engrossed in feeding on a young deer. It was more than a week after the discovery of the tracks of the six horses in the basin before Riley managed to go back to the place alone. Here and there the passage of deer or flurries of dust had almost wiped them out, but Riley worked out the trail.

  They had followed a wash out of the basin and had gone along the mesa’s top, over a saddle and into a deep pocket in the hills that lay under the east rim of Horse Mountain. Here a camp had been made, but now the camp was deserted.

  Restless and worried, Riley prowled about, studying the sign. On the edge of the fire he found a tiny fragment of blood-stained cloth, charred along the edges, evidently a bandage. He found the footprints of three men, and a place where grass and pine needles had been heaped up to make a cushion beneath a bedroll. Around this there were a number of boot tracks.

  Three men on their feet, then, and one down. Riley walked about, checking every aspect of the camp.

  There was no water. The nearest spring was about two miles south, and they had carried water to this place—evidence that they feared pursuit and wanted to be away from any known water hole. Following a dim trail to the crest of Horse Mountain, over a thousand feet above the Pocket, he discovered where a man had waited, keeping watch. From that point on the mountain all the trails could be watched.

  Returning to the deserted camp, he looked around a while longer. There was enough evidence to convince him that it had indeed been the camp of Jim Colburn and the others. He knew all the little tricks and devices they used for making a camp easier, knew them too well to be mistaken.

  On the mountain, Kehoe and Colburn had taken turns watching the trails. He knew this from the cigar and cigarette butts he found there. And he was quite sure it had been Weaver who was hurt. They had remained in camp for at least a week, and four men had ridden away, with two pack horses.

  Reassured, Riley left the camp and turned his horse and followed the mesa toward the southwest, picking up an ancient Indian trail, barely discernible at this hour—for night was coming on. He followed it across the head of Trail Canyon to Dark Canyon Plateau, and had just started to climb out of the hollow that headed Trail Canyon when he heard, some distance off, a stone rattle against rocks.

  He drew up, listening.

  The coming of darkness had brought coolness; not a breath of air seemed to be stirring. He listened for several minutes, and heard nothing more, yet he was positive there had been something down in that canyon … something not an animal, but a man. He could not have explained why he was sure that what he had heard was a man, but his every instinct warned him that it was so.

  When he rode back to the ranch site there was a good fire going. Cruz was sitting near it, tending the supper. Darby Lewis was working at a riata he was braiding from thin strips of cowhide.

  Cruz glanced up at Riley, but offered no comment. It was Darby who spoke. “Ridin’ late,” he said. “I was hopin’ you’d shoot us a deer.”

  “Only saw one—too far off.”

  Riley dismounted and stripped the gear from his horse. He would have to ride into Rimrock, he was thinking. They needed more horses, and he wanted to look around for cattle.

  MARIE SHATTUCK WAS curious. She had met Gaylord Riley for only a moment, but he kept coming back to her mind … and he was good-looking.

  Peg Oliver met her as she was leaving her buckboard. “Marie, didn’t you tell me you’d met Gaylord Riley? That new rancher?”

  “Yes, I met him.”

  “We’re having a party at the ranch. Why don’t you invite him?”

  “I don’t know him that well.” She hesitated. “Anyway, I don’t think Uncle Dan would like it.”

  “You’re the only one who has met him, and all the girls have been hoping he would come over. He hasn’t been to a party yet.”

  “He’s pretty busy, I expect. Anyway, it is a long way from his place to yours.”

  “Marie, you know darned well that never stopped anybody! Why, some of the boys ride thirty or forty miles for a dance.”

  “Well … if I see him.”

  SHERIFF ED LARSEN sat in the Bon-Ton with Sampson McCarty, and the newspaperman knew that, no matter how placid Larsen might look to others, he was worried.

  “Peaceful community,” Larsen mumbled, at McCarty’s question. “I want to keep it that way.”

  McCarty glanced at him sharply. “Is something in the wind?”

  “Too much riding arount at night,” Larsen said grumpily. “And no sign of the Colburn outfit. Dey dropped clean off the edge of the worlt.”

  Just then Darby Lewis opened the door and walked in, waving a hand. McCarty gestured to the chair opposite. “Sit down … buy you a cup of coffee.”

  Darby grinned. “I’ll do that—although I will say that Mex makes good coffee.”

  “Cruz? He’s a good man.” McCarty paused. “How d’ you like you
r new job?”

  “Ain’t bad—but he ain’t got enough cows to make it a good ridin’ job. To much damn handwork. Buildin’ the house, fences, and the like.”

  “Fences?”

  “Uh-huh—he’s fencin’ off some of the plateaus. That way he can keep track of his stock until they get to know where home is.”

  Darby Lewis sipped the coffee appreciatively. “That Riley knows cattle,” he said.

  He went on to tell them about the house, the corrals, the dams. Larsen listened, but asked no questions. It was obvious that this Riley was a man who had come to stay. He was doing work that would have long-range effect.

  “Has he said anything about mining?” Larsen asked, trying to find out more about him.

  “Not much. He’s done some placer minin’—he mentioned that, one time.”

  McCarty’s back was to the door, but Larsen was watching when the two strange riders drew up before Hardcastle’s saloon. They were dusty, and their horses were weary. When the two riders stepped down from the saddle they stood for a moment, straightening their backs, as men are apt to do who have ridden far.

  The men were strangers to Rimrock and one of them wore two guns. Their brands were strange, and both rode double-cinched saddles of the Texas kind.

  Gunmen … ?

  “Ain’t seen Spooner around for a few days,” McCarty commented suddenly.

  “He’s here now,” Darby said. “He rode in just after we did.”

  Gaylord Riley walked slowly along the short street of Rimrock. He had seen Strat Spooner ride into town, and he had seen him take his horse to the livery stable. And that horse had seen some riding.

  Was it coincidence that Spooner had arrived so soon after Riley and Darby Lewis had reached town? Or had Spooner been following him?

  His two years on the outlaw trail and his years before that of hunting down the men who killed his father had made him wary. He watched his back trail always, and he was suspicious of sounds, of motives, of movements.