Crow swung down from the saddle of the stallion, slapping it on the neck to quieten it. It could scent the river a thousand feet below and had been skittish all the morning.
Even from the height of the winding path the sound of the tumbling white water was loud. Trapped in the steep rocks that funneled the noise in, finally releasing it to the ears of the solitary man above. Crow had seen the trail of the Mexicans divide. Seven of them heading northwards, while the remainder of them carried on down into the beautiful green depths.
He scanned the land as far as he could see, but there was no trace of life. The place was too far from any kind of civilization for it to have become populated. There was no mining near. No stage lines. No towns. Nothing. He guessed that the Mexicans must have a camp somewhere nearby and he hoped that they’d have moved on by the time he’d led the wagon down the perilous track.
He tethered the horse, hearing the rig a couple of hundred yards back, rattling and groaning, the voice of Daniel, high and thin, as he urged the tired horses on towards the crest of the rise.
The cliff edge was littered with small, irregular stones and the shootist stepped carefully over them, aware of the sheer drop below. Working his way close, and looking over, his body craning away from the tumbling horror of the cliffs. The mountain was undercut, the edge of the trail overhanging, so that there was literally nothing but empty air clean to the floor of the valley, hundreds of feet down.
If Spangel could have seen the place, Crow wondered whether he might not have been tempted by its isolated splendor. If there was really as much money there as Ben Ford had suggested, then it wasn’t impossible to build your hopes in such a place. Though the trail was dangerous, at least it was there.
And there was plenty of water.
Maybe too much if there was a sudden rain. He leaned forward a little more, holding on the black hat, feeling the wind tug the long hair from around his lean, pale face. Watching the river as it coursed through the valley, thundering over rapids, then disappearing into a misty maelstrom of awesome ferocity at the southern end. Vanishing below ground to come out again the Lord only knew where. At its widest point it was around a hundred feet across, narrowing at one point, towards the north, to about fifty feet. It was at the narrowest point that the darker colors lightened, showing the possibility of a ford there.
“Whoa, there. Hold back! Whoa!”
Daniel was reining in the team, squinting at the solitary figure of the shootist, near the rim of the world. The boy tipped his head to one side, moving it round and round, almost as though he was trying to peer through a faulty telescope.
“Shall I hold ’em here, Mr Crow?”
“Sure. Keep the team well back from the edge.”
But he wasn’t sure if the boy heard him. Ben Ford was leaning out of the open back of the wagon, straining to see where they were. The Reverend Charles Spangel was already trying to climb down from the high seat, even before his son had kicked on the brake.
Mary was still inside, out of sight.
Daniel halted the rig, looping the reins over the brake handle, helping his father scramble down. The patriarch brushed himself down, combing back his long hair with craggy fingers. Almost as though he was preparing himself for a Sunday river crossing meeting. Taking his carved staff in his right hand, beginning to walk towards Crow, some fifty paces away from him.
“Is it good, Crow?”
“Looks fine.”
“Seemly for us to rest a whiles?”
“Mighty seemly, Reverend.”
“Any sign of those Mex bastards, Crow?” yelled Ford from the wagon.
“Nope. Likely gone further down the valley. Maybe out th’other end.”
“Raidin’ again?”
“Could be. But some have circled around north. Could be this lot are headin’ back home again.”
Crow saw the daughter fumbling her way down out of the Conestoga, taking off her glasses and rubbing at them with the hem of her skirt, as though she was having some trouble with them. But his attention was taken by the confident approach of the old man, striding closer to him.
“Take care,” he warned. “Mighty long drop to the bottom.”
“My eyes are those of the Lord, Mr. Crow,” replied Spangel, with the nearest thing to jollity and good humor that the shootist had yet seen. The fresh wind blew through the father’s clothes, whipping his mane of silvered hair out behind him so that he looked like a picture of the Old Testament prophets that Crow recalled from school primers.
“Take care the Lord don’t blink,” said Crow, stepping in to take Spangel’s arm, halting him a few paces short of the rock-littered edge.
“The rushing of waters is mighty loud,” commented the Reverend. “I can scarce hear a word from you.”
“Sure is a mighty fast falls. Rapids all white from rock to rock. Anything goes in that it won’t come up for miles.”
He had raised his normally quiet voice so that Spangel could hear him. The old man nodded, head slightly on one side, listening.
“It is a good noise. A gladsome sound that fills my heart with joy. Perhaps … Perhaps this might be the place I have sought these wearisome miles.”
Crow let go of the arm, conscious of the sheer physical strength of the old man. If it hadn’t been for the blindness, Charles Spangel would have been a fearsome adversary in a bar-room brawl. A head taller than Crow he outweighed him by at least a hundred pounds.
In his younger days he must have been a terrifying man and the shootist wondered just what it might have been that set him off on the path of religion.
“I wish that there could be a sign.”
“A sign, Reverend?”
“Yes, my friend. Some portent from the Almighty that will show his approval of this place for the final resting of his tabernacle.”
Crow remained silent, his eyes still raking the deeps below them, wondering where the Mexicans had gone. How long they might have gone for. If they’d return.
Though he was quite prepared to go along with the old minister’s lunacy in thinking he could create a city in this wild spot, he wasn’t prepared to go along so far that his own life was endangered. It crossed his mind that he would have a quiet talk with Ben Ford that evening. It would be as well to camp where they were, even though the animals needed water. The trail down was so dangerous that it would be madness to attempt it in failing light, with everyone tired.
“We’ll go down in the morning, Reverend,” the shootist suggested.
“I agree with that. I can feel the sun warm upon my face from the west.”
Crow squinted across the valley to the shadowed cliffs opposite. The sun was setting away and its light was bright gold. Like molten metal, dazzling. With the thunder of the falls, it created a strange, disorientating effect, so that you hardly knew where you were.
“We goin’ to stay here, Crow?” shouted the ramrod, his voice faint and barely audible.
The shootist waved a hand to show his agreement. Seeing Daniel was standing close to the heads of the horses, holding them and gentling them, blowing into their nostrils like a good handler.
“Where’s Miss …?” Crow began, spinning around and suddenly seeing her. Standing with her hands folded in front of her, lips moving in silent prayer. The sun glinted off her glasses so that he couldn’t see her face properly, and he looked away again.
“A sign, Lord,” whispered Spangel, at his side. “I beg a portent for your most humble servant. If there is nothing, then truly will there be no rest here. Send us a sign.”
Crow heard the crunching of boots in the stones close behind him and started to turn. Conscious of the girl moving towards him.
Towards the edge of the cliff.
“Watch out for the …” he began, distracted by the low voice of the Reverend at his elbow, still keening for a sign from God.
The feet still moving.
Towards the blinding sun.
The edge.
Stumbling.
“Crow ... I can’t …”
Reaching ... too slow . .. too far.
Over and down.
The odd thing was that she didn’t make a sound as she fell through the empty space.