Over on the Dry Side (18 page)

From time to time Chantry drew up, listening, trying the air for smoke. He doubted if the renegades were so far east, but they could be.

The night was cool and still, almost cold. The peaks were harsh against the blue black sky and bright stars. There was no sound but the creak of saddles and the fall of hoofs. Once Kernohan coughed. Owen Chantry looked ahead. The rifle felt good in his hands.

The old man dropped back to spell Doby at leading the packhorses, and the boy rode forward to join Chantry.

“Where you think they are?” Doby asked, low-voiced.

Chantry shrugged. “No telling, Doby.”

T
HE FIRE HAD gone out.

Mac Mowatt was hunched against a tree, chewing on a chunk of elk meat. He felt sour and old, and there was no pleasure in him.

Frank was gone. Pulled out. He'd never believed that Frank would leave him—although it was obvious he was discontented. Mac Mowatt was sore as an old grizzly with a bad tooth. He stared at Ollie Fenelon, who was rubbing his burned scalp, which was now beginning to peel. Then his eyes went to Pierce, at the fire.

Jake Strawn had drawn away from the others and was sitting by himself. Strawn was something of a loner, anyway. And tonight Mowatt was especially remembering what Chantry had advised. To get close to Strawn and keep him close.

How many of them could be trust? Mowatt knew the answer…probably not one of them, unless it was his own kinfolk, and he was none too sure about them. The losses they had taken, the wounded men, the man with the broken leg. They'd been out maneuvered by Chantry every time. It rankled. They'd spent too much time in these hills with nothing to show for it. And despite all his arguments, he knew some of the men were beginning to doubt there was anything here.

Frank was gone. Mac knew that some of them had set great store by Frank. He was solid. He was
there
, and you knew he was there. Strawn was just lingering on, and Tom Freka paid almost no attention to Mowatt's orders anymore.

They were a sorry bunch…a sorry bunch.

He lifted the coffee cup to his lips, and at that very moment he heard the horse. He saw Tom Freka come to his feet like a cat. Mowatt dropped his cup and got up fast.

Chantry had slowed his horse to let the old man come abreast. Doby had turned in his saddle to look for his father. And the next thing they knew they were right in the middle of the Mowatt camp.

The shock was complete on both sides. It was Freka who came to life first, leaping to his feet and grabbing for his gun. But Owen Chantry had quickly lunged his horse forward. The horse's shoulder hit Freka as his gun came up, and he was knocked sprawling into Strawn, who was just rising off the ground.

Wiley raised up, grabbing a rifle. Using his rifle in one hand like a pistol, Chantry thrust it at him and fired. Wiley gave a choking cry and fell backward, his arms and legs all spread out, his chest bloody. And then there was only a roar of sound, of guns and screams and yells, leaping men and charging horses. Mac Mowatt got off a shot, charged forward and then fell back just in time to escape being run over by the packhorses.

Then it was over.

It had been a wild, crazy two minutes of gunfire and screams. Then the gunfire was scattered, and clothes were burning, the coffee was spilled, and Mowatt's men were scrambling back around the burned out coals of their campfire.

The riders were gone. Freka, on his feet, was still grabbing about for his gun, dropped from his hand. When he found it, he turned and ran for his horse.

Mowatt swore and shouted orders. “Get your hosses an' git!” he yelled. “Get 'em, damn it!
Get 'em!
”

They followed his orders.

Strawn got up and brushed off his clothes. The others, save Mac Mowatt and Pierce, who was looking at their last shattered coffeepot, were already gone. Mac Mowatt had started for his own horse, then hesitated. After a moment he walked over and picked up his fallen cup. It was empty, and he swore.

“Let 'em go, Mac,” Strawn suggested. “They won't find anything. And if they do, they'll wish they hadn't.”

“You think they did it a-purpose?” Pierce asked.

“Uh-uh,” Strawn said. “They come up on us by accident. Surprised them as much as us.” He nodded to indicate Wiley's body. “You better have you a look. I figure he's dead. Owen Chantry don't miss very often.”

Pierce crossed to the fallen man. “Dead, all right. Through the heart, looks like.” He turned to Mac. “Let's get out of here. Next thing we know it'll be one of us.”

“Get out?” Mowatt rumbled. “I'll be damned if I will! There's gold up there, I tell you! Gold!”

Jake Strawn glanced around. “And what if there is? How far do you think it would take you with this outfit? They'd murder you for what's in your pocket, most of 'em. I say we get out and stay out. And then, after a while, we come back nice and quiet like, with only a few of us…the ones who can be trusted.”

Pierce nodded. “I like that. I really do. Catch 'em off guard, an' by that time Chantry'll have the gold.”

“Will they leave for good?” Mac Mowatt asked.

“They will…chances are, except for Freka. He wants Marny.”

“What?”
Mowatt's head came up. “Tom Freka? I'd kill him first!”

“You ain't noticed?” Strawn asked. “Well, I have. And the man's not normal. Not human. There's something wrong with him.”

“I'll kill him,” Mac Mowatt muttered.

“You may have to,” Strawn said quietly. “You may just have to.”

Chapter 18

T
HE CABIN ON the rampart lay still and cool under the dawn light. The sentinel pines stood straight and dark, austere as nuns at prayer. The leaves of the aspens trembled, and the high peaks of distant mountains were crowned with the gold of sunrise.

Their horses walked into the stillness, tired from the miles behind them, grateful for the scent of water and the end of their journey.

Owen Chantry dismounted and reached up to help Marny down, just a second before Doby reached her. Doby scowled and dropped his hands as if to imply that he had not even intended to help. Then he walked to his father, helped him from the saddle, and half-carried him into the house.

“Old man,” Chantry said, “do you want to explore out there? Have a look around? You're probably the best scout among us.”

“Maybe. Y'do pretty well your own self. Ain't nothin' to fear from this place right here. A man could come up, but he'd make a powerful lot of noise gettin' through all that brush.”

When the gear was stripped from the horses, the packs carried inside, and a bed made for Kernohan, Owen Chantry took his rifle and went out along the rim. The shadows were pulling back from the vast expanse to the west, where hundreds of miles of land lay open to the eye.

The land at the rim sloped off, then ended abruptly in a tremendous escarpment, a sheer wall of two hundred feet dropping away to talus slopes below.

Yet the cliffs were not smooth, but were fluted and broken. Suddenly, near the place where the walls of two escarpments met, he saw a narrow gap between a boulder and a raised portion of the wall. He peered through.

Here, hidden at the edge of the escarpment, was a secret place—a descent to the ground below, but an excellent firing position also. Several possible trails were in full view from here, and a man with a rifle—

“It shall be me,” he said aloud. “Or the old man. Somebody who's good with a rifle.”

Marny came up to meet him. “Can you see them?”

“They haven't found us yet.”

“Have you found out where it is? I mean, whatever it is that's hidden?”

“I think I know how to find it now.”

She looked out over the forest and meadows below. “It is beautiful. With all God's bounty, why must there be so much trouble?”

“That is the hardest question of history, Marny, the question people have asked in every age, in every time. Many men want what other men have. Men are often greedy, jealous, and vindictive. Or they look across the fence at what they think is greener grass. They pursue will-o'-the-wisp dreams, such as this ‘treasure'.”

Chantry scanned the horizon. “Men have died, months of time have been wasted, and all to get something for nothing, to profit from someone else's spoils. And the end is not yet in sight.”

“What will happen?” Marny looked up at him.

“They will come after us. They have committed themselves to a course of action. If they gave up now, all their efforts would go for nothing. So they will not give up.”

“When will they come?”

“I don't know. But we must stop them…if we can.”

“I hope that Mac Mowatt does not come with them. I wouldn't want to see him shot.”

“Nor I.”

Bright now was the land below, bright with the early sun, with the clearness of the sky.

It was a good land. Grazing land for the most part, but here and there a plain where something could grow well. A man could make a living here. And as mining increased—as it was bound to—he could sell beef cattle to the miners. And vegetables and grain also.

Chantry stooped and picked up a handful of the soil. Good…very good.…Many trees and plants grew here, and others could also grow. Down there on the flat, still others could grow. There was more water there. A man might choose crops by studying what already grew in the soil, and choosing those crops which needed the same soil, water, and climate.

He leaned on the rock and put his rifle beside him. His eyes again swept the vast green land that lay below. What a place Clive Chantry had chosen for his cabin! The rampart! There could not be a more beautiful view anywhere, nor one encompassing a wider lookout.

He was tired. The warm sun baked his muscles and he slowly relaxed.

“When this is over, Owen, where will you live?”

“Here.…If I'm alive. Or down there,” he gestured below.

Then he saw them. Four riders in a small, neat group, coming out of a narrow draw near a canyon. They rode up out of the draw and came at a canter across a meadow, rode into the trees, then emerged again.

He pointed. “Marny? Look!”

She looked. They rode in a tight group, occasionally stringing out, then coming together again like figures in a square dance. “From here,” she said quietly, “they look beautiful!”

“Yes,” he agreed, watching them appear and disappear along the trail they followed.

“How far away are they?”

He shrugged. “A mile and a half. Two miles. They're slowing down now, and I think they're looking at us.”

“You mean they see us?”

“No. They couldn't pick us out from here.…I think they're scanning the wall for a way up.”

“We'd better tell the others,” Marny said.

“All right.” But he hesitated, his eyes reaching out to the horizon. “There will be others, you know, coming by some other route.”

“Do you want Doby?”

“No, tell him to check on his father, then locate the old man and work with him. They will have to cover the trail from the spring side. This may be a long fight, and it may be over quickly.”

The riders below were closer now. Chantry caught the gleam of light from a rifle barrel. He watched them, and there were few places their trail led that could not be seen from his vantage point.

He tucked the rifle butt against his shoulder and lowered his cheek to the stock, sighting along the barrel, tracking them. They were too far away for a shot, but he was in no hurry. Nor had he any wish to waste his ammunition.

Suddenly, he was anxious. The riders must know they were up here. The riders must surely know that they could be seen. Then why…?

He turned sharply and ran to the cabin.

He got to the door and saw Kernohan inside. He was sitting up in bed. “What's happened? What's wrong?” Kernohan asked him.

Kernohan's rifle was in a corner near the door, and Chantry caught it up with his left hand and threw it to the sick man. “We've got trouble,” Chantry said.

He ducked away from the door and started for the trees. Suddenly a shadow loomed in the trees. He saw a rifle come up and then he shot from the hip. The bullet hit a tree near the man's face, scattering splinters and bark. Chantry worked the lever and fired again. The man's gun banged but no bullet sound followed. Chantry saw the man clinging to a tree, one arm around it. The man was staring at him with wide, empty eyes, his lips working with words that would not come out, that would never come out.

Owen Chantry ran past the dying man, catching up his rifle as he went. It was a Henry, and a good rifle. Suddenly he halted and went back to the man, now down on the ground, his shoulder and chest against the tree, his head hanging forward.

Without ceremony or hesitation, Chantry unbuckled his gun belt and jerked it free. There were twenty loops in the man's belt, all filled with .44s.

They had timed it nicely. The four horsemen below must have waited under cover until the others had circled around to come up to the house. While Chantry was watching the riders below, the men near the house had simply closed in. Luckily, he had guessed their strategy in time. Or had he?

There must be others. Where were they? Where was Marny? Where were the old man and Doby?

No sounds, no shots.

Was the man he had wounded or killed the only one near the house? He didn't think so. Where were the others?

He crouched behind a thick ponderosa at a point where another had fallen against it, offering a kind of cover.

A voice called out from somewhere in front of him. “Come on out, Chantry! Give yourself up! We've got the kid and we've got Marny Fox!”

“Is Mac Mowatt with you?” Chantry called back.

A momentary silence. Then: “No, he ain't. That ain't got nothing to do with it. You come out or we'll kill 'em both.”