The storm held off throughout the night, and then as Brandon’s posse moved onto the trail that next morning under a sullen, gray sky, the first spatter of raindrops struck.
They came in a gusty blast, cold and stinging in their intensity. Immediately Starbuck halted the sorrel and drew on his slicker. A few paces away Able Rome also donned his rain gear as well as pulling on a pair of worn, leather chaps as further protection from the wet. Brandon, cursing steadily at the inconvenience, followed their example, but Moody and Gilder, not similarly equipped, were forced to choose between using their blankets or nothing. Both elected to drape themselves with the woolen covers.
Lightning, with its accompanying hammer of thunder, quiet during the early hours of the morning, again began to flood the slopes and canyons with its brilliance and rock the land with resounding echoes. There was a difference, however; where before there had been broad flashes succeeded after a pause by deep rumblings, there now were swift, jagged flashes, and the thunder, crackling and deafening, came almost in the same breath.
The trail, in only short minutes, became a narrow, muddy stream bed surging with water racing downslope, washing topsoil, small rocks, loose brush and other litter before it. The horses, moving slow at best up the fairly steep grade, dropped to a yet more deliberate pace, their hides glistening in the wet, eyes showing white with each garish flare of light.
“That’s the hell of this goddam country!” Brandon shouted above the howl of the storm when they paused under the partly protective bulk of a pine that overshadowed their course. “Always too much of something. It’s too hot or too cold, or maybe too dry and then we’re getting flooded out by a damned cloudburst that takes half the land with it.”
A vivid streak of lightning slashed through the murk. A hundred yards back up the slope a tree split with a thunderous crash, and became a flaming torch. The horses began to mince nervously, frightened by the fire, the sizzling sound of water dashing against it.
Again a jagged, blue line of light split the wet gloom. A ball of fire struck high on a ridge of rocks above them, rolled a short distance and exploded against the face of a glistening butte.
Starbuck, wiping the water from his eyes, glanced at the men huddled beside him under the pine. They were all staring at the hogback as if transfixed. Thunder crackled, seemingly right upon them. He reached out, touched Harry Brandon’s arm.
“We stay here or go on?”
The lawman shook his head. “Won’t get no wetter riding than standing.”
Shawn mentally agreed. There was the possibility they were in the center of the downpour. Climbing higher could put them on its fringe, or perhaps entirely out of it.
A new sound began to fill the air, rising above the chatter of the drops. It was the deep, rushing roar of wild water, pent up by natural dams in the higher canyons, suddenly released and now pouring down the steep slopes for the flat land far below. Gouging and slashing, the torrents were following none of the prescribed channels cut by previous, more gentle storms, but were knifing new troughs in a turbulent, irresistible race to low ground.
The posse moved out from beneath the tree, horses reluctant, taking each step with hesitant care, fearful of the unstable footing and frightened by the persistent pushing of the swirling water around their hooves.
Shawn tried to look ahead, to determine if there were canyons coming in at right angles to the trail. If so they could expect to encounter a rushing wall of silt- and brush-laden floodwater, perhaps even come to a point where a gash had been cut in their path.
He could tell nothing about it. Rain was a gray sheet before his eyes and even when the almost continuous lightning spread its eerie, blue glow over the mountainside, his vision was limited to a dozen yards.
There was a good chance they would be spared the problem. The trail appeared to be following along a spine that lifted its way steadily toward a crest lying somewhere in the soaked distance. Very likely the canyons drained to either side of the ridge, and if so, they were in luck.
Another flaming torch appeared on the slope below them as they drew to a halt once more, this time under a shoulder of granite that extended over the trail. There was no room there for the horses, but the men, by crowding close, were able to get out of the driving drops, wipe their faces and breathe deeper.
He glanced at Dave Gilder. The man was shivering from the cold. His eyes were partly closed and water dripped steadily off the tip of his nose. Moody appeared more withdrawn than ever and there was resentment in the look he gave Shawn when his gaze met the tall rider’s. Able Rome alone appeared unperturbed, his black skin shining with wet as he stared off beyond the rocks.
“Best we start leading the horses,” Brandon said. “Trail gets narrower on up a ways.”
Shawn agreed silently. The last quarter-mile had been dangerous. Dave Gilder, the glow of the burning tree upon him, shook his head.
“I’m figuring it’d be better to hold off, marshal, wait for the storm to pass. This here’s a pretty good place.” Dave was shouting to make himself heard above the drumming sound that filled the air. Brandon’s wide shoulders shifted.
“It ain’t passing—not for two, maybe three hours. And we can’t wait. Them killers’ll keep right on moving.”
“There any caves, places like that where they could hole up?” Shawn asked.
Again the lawman stirred. “Nope, ain’t none they can reach for a couple of days. Trail just runs straight on to the top of the mountains with nothing on either side but slopes, same as it’s been since we left camp.”
At least there was no need to worry about arroyos cutting the path out from under them, Starbuck thought, but now something else was becoming apparent. Both Moody and Gilder were showing signs of strain. The constant spurts of lightning striking nearby, the crackle of thunder and the sound of rushing water coupled to the never slackening drive of the rain, were unnerving them.
He glanced at Rome, caught the man looking at him. Able forced a smile, one designed to reassert his self-assurance as opposed to the apprehension being displayed by the two others. But the smile was only on the surface and there were tight lines around his eyes.
Their anxiety was warranted and Shawn could not blame them for their concern. Being trapped in the heart of a wild storm high on a mountain while lightning crackled and shattered mighty trees as though they were matchsticks and set the earth to trembling underfoot with thunderous accompaniment, was far from a tranquil experience.
For himself he tried not to dwell on possibilities too much. He avoided such circumstances whenever possible, feeling that any man was a fool to tempt fate by exposing himself, but once involved in a situation of danger, he accepted it, realizing that there was little he could do to avoid whatever was inevitable, and the less thought he gave it, the better. Long ago he had learned that all the worrying and stewing he did affected the end result not at all.
“Let’s move out—”
At Harry Brandon’s order, he looked up. The marshal stepped from beneath the slanting canopy of granite, and taking up the reins of his horse, nodded.
“Could be letting up a mite at that,” the lawman said. “Don’t seem to be stinging so hard.”
Starbuck could note little difference. The raindrops were still coming down with slashing force, the lightning continued to rip the wet pall clothing the mountain, and thunder rolled and thudded ominously. It would be good if they could find shelter, wait for a time as Dave Gilder had suggested, but he could see Brandon’s point, too.
The outlaws knew that a posse was at their heels hoping to close in; they would not risk a halt, but press on regardless of conditions. With the store of gold they had killed to obtain as well as their own lives at stake, they would throw caution aside in their hurry to escape.
Starbuck peered from under the cupped shelter of his hand. The footing was slippery as mud steadily deepened on the trail, narrower here as Harry Brandon had said it would be. The lawman was well ahead of Gilder, second in line, and moving slowly. Moody followed next, with Able Rome, from choice, again bringing up the rear.
A blinding flash of lightning, striking close by, filled the air with a pungent, scorched odor. The ground rocked with the concussion of thunder.
Starbuck, hanging tight to the sorrel’s reins, saw Brandon’s horse balk, go to his hind legs, paw at the hammering rain with his front hooves, as if doing battle with an invisible stallion.
In the next fragment of time Walt Moody’s buckskin jerked back, attempted to wheel on the narrow, slippery surface of the trail. His hindquarters slapped hard against Moody, knocked him aside. For an instant the man tottered on the edge of the ridge, mouth blared in a soundless cry of fear, and then he was gone.