HOPE LAY CROSSWISE on the bed, on her face, legs hanging off one side, arms stuck out at the other. Hurt, despair numbed her. She could not say what it was she felt for Lassiter, something that had made her try to protect him. She did know that she could not stand against Johno Wade.
She heard the door open, did not move, did not wonder that Wade was back so soon.
“Hope. Come on.”
She convulsed, rolled, doubled to sit up, gaped.
“Lassiter.”
He came forward, offered his hand to pull her up. “Let’s go, Hope.”
“I can’t. Johno told me to stay here.”
“Loud, isn’t he. I heard him across the hall. On your feet now.”
He took her arms, lifted her, steered her to the window. He stepped to the shed roof outside, reached back and pulled her through. She did not resist, but did not help. She was like putty. He led her toward the roof edge.
A man turned the corner below, his eyes up. He stopped, yelled, and slapped for the gun at his hip.
Lassiter jumped. His feet struck the chest, knocked the man down, cracked a rib. Lassiter caught his balance, took the man’s gun, and slashed it across his head. The man lay still.
Lassiter watched the alley entrance, ready. The single shout brought no help. When he was sure he stood under the eaves, called up softly.
“Come on, Hope. Sit on the edge and slide down. I’ll catch you.”
She came, with no volition of her own. He swung her to the ground, held her arm, ran with her across the alley, between two buildings, turned in at the livery where he had left the horses.
He flung a coin at the barn man, hoisted the girl into the saddle, stepped to his own, quirted her horse, drove it down the side street toward the open river valley beyond. He pulled alongside her, held the girl from falling, drove the horses to their utmost for five miles, stopped at the crest of a rock shoulder.
“You going to be able to ride?”
She was bruised, disheveled, her hair hanging wild, but the hard ride had brought some life back to her. She nodded. He turned to study the backtrack. The sun had dropped behind the western hills, did not blind him now. Far off there was dust, moving fast toward them.
“Company coming,” he said. “Time to go.”
Five miles back, on the plain, Sidney Blood rode at the head of twenty men. Cold fury rode with him. He had been caught aghast when Turk’s wounded guard was hauled into the Wells Fargo office. He had raged. At himself, not at the men. He should have known Lassiter would come into Spokane after the woman. It was in the old pattern. The unexpected. Always, the unexpected. And he never learned. But now Lassiter was out of the Hole, nearby, handicapped by the girl. There was time to run him down.
For company he had an experienced crew, with two Indian trackers. And a new recruit as furious as himself. Johno Wade. Wade wanted to race out hell-for-leather. Blood put him under his gun to hold him back. There was nothing to gain by exhausting all of the horses. Blood would take them out together, split the company into sections, send one ahead to drive Lassiter to keep a top pace. Bring up the others, send them on in relays. He would keep Lassiter running until the man’s horses dropped.
From his point of vantage Lassiter saw the dust separate. He read the pattern, set his course. He did not hurry. He knew exactly where he was going. How to get there. And he had no intention of playing Blood’s game. He headed for the north shore of Coeur d’Alene lake, the wilderness beyond. Unexplored, towering, sharp timbered ridges, narrow gorges, rushing streams. If he couldn’t lose Blood in the country it was time to quit.
He held his horses to a light trot. Let them slow on the upgrades, rested them at the top of each ridge.
The girl rode ahead, in panic. Lassiter herded her horse; she did not control it. The silent man behind her was crazy. Nobody she had known played with danger the way he did: put himself in jeopardy so carelessly. Broke Johno out of jail. Rode as a stranger into the Hole. Came right into Spokane when he knew Johno was talking to Blood. Took her away under the noses of Johno and Wells Fargo. Even if he could dodge Johno, he was bringing the whole power of Wells Fargo down after him.
She had no courage. She could never stand against the tricks life had played on her. Like a leaf tossed about by the wind. Wade’s anger reached out, terrified her. The grim men, like bloodhounds baying behind paralyzed her. She felt naked to a winter blast. Alone. With no help. Nothing to save them but Lassiter’s guns. Lassiter’s wits. Guns, killing, made her sick. Worst of all, she did not want to die.
Lassiter was not afraid of death. Long back he had met it, danced with it, courted it. They were engaged. He belonged to her. One day the black lady would claim him. Until then he was free. The black lady. It made him think of the dark shadowed woman on the Crazy Woman creek. He still rode her black horse. It was good. Better than the bay he had brought for Hope. But that was a good animal too.
He used both with respect, kept his balanced pace. Let Blood’s relays gain. But not catch up.
Darkness came. He rode through it, climbed into heavy timber. Watching the skyline, he found what he looked for. The gap of a side trail. He passed it a hundred yards, called to the girl. They turned off into the black timber.
A good tracker could find their trail. But not in darkness. The needles made a silent sponge underfoot. He made a wide swing, came back to the side trail a quarter of a mile from where it cut off from the main way. The track was a straight, steep rise below and above. An old lumbering skid. In winter the logs cut high in the mountain were dragged to the skid, sent shooting down the snow slope, loaded on wagons at the bottom, hauled to the mill.
He pulled the girl from the saddle, sat her on the ground to rest, waited, listened. Blood’s crew would take one of two courses. They would either drive by on the wagon road or camp at the base of the skid. Trying to hunt down their prey across this forested mountain face at night would be a fool’s waste of energy. Sidney Blood was not a fool.
He heard the first relay, the jingle of harness. It swept by below him, faded beyond the muffling trees. He waited. Another came up, and went on. Four of them, a mile apart.
The last one stopped, wheeled. Lassiter could picture the conference. That would be Blood, making his decision. Lassiter guessed what it would be. His smile broke when he was proved right. The harness jingled again. The horses ran by.
He mounted the girl, turned up the skid. Up, up, over the saddle. Rested there. Put the horses down the far side. Now there was a quarter moon. Below them it reflected a shimmer off water, showed the faint shadow of the lake shore. He did not drop that far, kept to the height.
At daylight he called a halt, made coffee, rested the horses for two hours. He buried his fire then wet it well. Left to itself it would eat underground, feed on the pitch in the soil, become a live, burning serpent, surface in some distant spot, blaze into forest fire. He waked the girl. She was pale now, tired.
They moved ahead. They crossed rocky ground now, shoulders of basalt angling down to the lake, bald, dry rock. Three miles of that. Then a side draw opened. Water sluiced over the rock planes in a sheet. He turned upgrade, ankle deep. No chipping, no scar left by a shod hoof could be seen beneath the fast-running water. But it was slippery. Dangerous going. He took time and care.
They reached the crest, pulled off to dry ground, camped. The horses stood splay legged, head down, near exhaustion. The girl sank to lie full length. He brought water, lifted her head, held the cup to her lips, forced her to drink.
“Sleep now. There’s a long way yet.”
She coughed, whispered. “Where are we going?”
“Where they won’t expect us.”
“Where do they expect us?”
He smiled. “They headed for the Hole. When it’s dark we’ll circle back west.”
She slept without stirring. Confident that he had lost pursuit, he backtracked to be certain. He found no sign, no movement other than a deer, some small animals belonging to the vast, silent land.
Three nights later they rode up the grade below the Homestead mine. A hundred miles north of the Hole-in-the-Wall. A hundred miles from the hidden line of men Sidney Blood had flung out to intercept them.
The Homestead was a gravel operation. One of the biggest gold mines in the country. The open pit stretched two miles across. For twenty years men, like ants, had worked it down, scooping out the rich sands. Twenty-four hours a day. By night flaming torches fought back the dark. Donkey engines raised the scoops, like feeding dinosaurs, dumped them into cars. Laboring engines hauled the cars up from pit to surface. The ore was washed. The gold was molded into bars on the property, stacked in the stout log storehouse, held for shipments in large lots. For the same twenty years men had fought for ownership of the mine. In the recent fight the store had doubled, tripled, to the horde that Sidney Blood must soon ship safely east.
Lassiter saw the red glow of the torches from the distance. He detoured the pit, kept well clear of the mill, the cluster of mine buildings. He took the private road to the big house alone on the shelf, high above the din of the mine. It was after midnight. The house, the shelf were dark.
He left the girl mounted beside the corral, left his horse, walked around the house, rattled the front door. Boyd Arkland was a heavy sleeper. Lassiter gave up knocking, threw a rock through the open upper window, heard it strike wood, loud.
Light bloomed in the room. Arkland’s head, in nightcap, stuck out of the window. His voice was nervous.
“Who’s there?”
“Lassiter.”
There was a choked squawk. The head disappeared. The light came down stairs. The door bolt was drawn. Lassiter pushed the plank inward, walked through. Arkland was barefoot, grotesque in a long nightshirt. He bolted the door, scuttled to the living room, pulled heavy drapes. The lamp in his hand shook.
“You’re out of your mind, coming here. If Blood should see you …”
“Blood’s a long way back, watching at a rathole.”
Fear oozed from the mine manager. He bleated. “If he ever found out I’d … I’d …”
“Spilled the beans to me?”
Lassiter’s contempt came through his voice. He despised a sneak. Arkland was a sneak. Mine manager here for ten years under the old control. Wells Fargo had won the court battle, Arkland was due to lose his job. In peevish bitterness he had betrayed his trust to Lassiter.
“Don’t wet yourself. Sidney Blood is too busy right now trying to waylay me somewhere else to wedge in the idea I might be here. When he doesn’t catch me he’s going to be worried over how to out-fox me.”
Arkland went pale. “He doesn’t know about us?”
“He knows I know the gold is slated to go out on the Oriental Express.”
“How did he find out?” It was a whisper.
“I sent him word.”
The nightshirt trembled. Arkland danced as if on hot coals. “Get away from me. Get out. I won’t have another thing to do with it.”
“You will. Unless you want me to send him the letter you wrote to me.”
Arkland collapsed to a chair beside the table, nearly dropped the lamp, clattered it to the table, traded it for a whiskey bottle there, swallowed, cried with his mouth still full.
“Why? Why? What are you trying to do to me?”
“You I don’t care about. I’m trying to make sure that Sidney outsmarts himself. If he sends that gold out on the Express with a coach load of armed guards in front and behind I’d need an army to get to it. I haven’t got an army.”
Arkland was miserable. “You knew that was the plan when I first told you about it.”
“I did. Now I’m trying to change the arrangement. If you want to keep your skin, listen. Listen good. Blood now knows I mean to hold up the train. He’ll make the shipment another way. Make him a suggestion, that he ship it in a cattle train, on the floor of a car, covered with straw, a car filled with cows.”
Arkland drank again. Lassiter took his bottle, shook the bony shoulder.
“Pay attention. Suggest that he put enough guards on the Express to shoot up anybody who stops it, send it out with the cattle train behind it, and a Special with guards behind that. I want him to feel nice and secure.”
The manager looked up, stupid. “He’d murder you …”
“I mean him to think so.”
“But what about me? If you hit a train like that he’ll know I …”
“By then you’ll be in Canada. You’d better be in Canada. I’ll send a gold bar up to you. For a keepsake.”
He leaned down, took the man’s narrow face in his hand, held it, held the weak eyes hypnotically.
“Make it good, Arkland. And when you know what Blood will really do, wire me at the Wyoming Hotel in Casper. Send it to Cliff Jones. You know the code.”
He left the man, left the house, went back into the night. It was a lovely, cool, star filled night. He enjoyed riding through such a night.
Hope wanted to know where they were going next. He did not tell her they were going to the Hole.