Shawn, clinging to the sorrel’s leathers with one hand, wheeled to the rope hanging from his saddle and jerked it free with the other. Shaking out its coils, he started for the crumbling brink of the slope. Farther up the trail he could hear Gilder shouting at Brandon, informing him of the accident while he sought to control his horse and catch up the dragging reins of the buckskin.
Reaching the point where he had last seen Moody, Shawn threw his glance down the rock-studded incline. It was shining wet in the semidarkness, and a hundred feet below he could see the boiling water of a rushing arroyo where it emptied.
There was no sign of Moody. The thought crossed his mind that the man had plunged into the swollen torrent and had been swept away. And then through the rain dimmed murk his eyes picked up vague motion about halfway down. Relief coursed through him. Moody’s fall had been broken by a jutting shaft of rock.
“See him?”
It was Able Rome. Starbuck nodded, and pointing in the direction of the rock, waited out a long moment for a flash of lightning. It came suddenly, filling the canyon with dazzling brilliance.
“There—just above that hump.”
“I saw him,” Rome said, and began to lay out his own rope. Picking up the end of Shawn’s lariat, he joined them together. “It’ll take them both to reach him.”
Harry Brandon crowded in beside Starbuck and peered through the driving rain into the canyon. “He gone?”
“Caught on a rock.”
The lawman shook his head. “Tough break, cashing in like—”
“He’s not dead—I’m pretty sure I saw him move,” Shawn said, eyes on Rome now looping the rope around his chest and securing it with a hard knot.
“Body was just slipping, I expect. A fall like that’d kill a man for certain.” He paused, his gaze on Able. “What the hell you doing?”
“Going after him.”
Brandon straightened up. “Forget it—he’s dead.”
“I’m not sure of that,” Starbuck said.
“Well, I am ... No big loss anyway. Way he’s been acting, I’d say he was looking for something like this and found it—besides, we ain’t got the time to waste fooling around here.”
“We’re taking time,” Shawn said quietly and rising, looked about for something solid to which he could anchor the rope. He located a juniper on the opposite side of the trail. Gnarled and storm-tested, it had withstood the elements for years, and undoubtedly would serve the purpose well.
He crossed to it at once, threw a hitch about its rough trunk, knotted it close, turned to where Rome and Brandon waited.
The lawman, his features set, faced Shawn angrily as he hurried up. “I’m giving you orders, Starbuck, we ain’t taking time now. We can stop on our way back for the body—”
Shawn nodded to Rome. “All set ... I’ll ease you down slow.”
“You hear me?” Brandon shouted through the pouring rain. “‘He’s dead—and it won’t hurt to leave him.”
“Alive or dead, we’re bringing him up,” Starbuck shot back, and bracing himself, started Able Rome’s descent of the slippery grade.
The footing was treacherous. Water had soaked into the soil, converting it to a slick paste that provided no purchase for Rome’s boots. Rivulets of water were coursing downward in almost a solid sheet. Several times the man went down, slamming hard against the canyon’s side. With the aid of the lightning, Starbuck maintained a close watch on him. He could himself become injured, in which event someone else would have to follow. He’d be the one to do it, Shawn decided. Dave Gilder would have to stay above and see to their getting back; he felt he couldn’t trust Harry Brandon.
Brushing at the water clouding his eyes, he stared into the grayness of the canyon. The storm raged on, periodically filling the deep gap with blinding light and ear-splitting thunder while the rain continued to hammer at them relentlessly. The wet rope became slick between his gloved hands and he began to fight to keep his footing on the mushy soil of the trail. He turned to Gilder, hoping the man could come to his aid, but Dave was having his troubles with the nervous horses. Suddenly angered, he swung his eyes to Brandon.
“Give me some help here!” he snarled. “We’re not moving on till we get him up!”
The marshal, jaw clamped shut, hesitated briefly, and then as if realizing the truth of Shawn’s statement, stepped in behind him, and taking a grip on the lariat, threw his weight against the pull of Able Rome’s body.
The strain on Shawn eased considerably with that and he turned his attention to the slope. In the next flash of lightning he saw Able reach the finger of rock against which Walt Moody had lodged and felt the drag on the rope slacken.
“He’s reached him,” he shouted over his shoulder, and going to hands and knees, stared down into the murky depths of the canyon, searching for a sign from Rome as to Moody’s condition.
It was difficult to determine what was taking place.
The rain was like a curtain and he could make out only blurred motion on Able’s part. Then, faint through the howling storm, he heard a yell. There was a tug on the rope. Rome was signaling.
Shawn got to his feet hurriedly, braced himself. “Haul in!” he shouted to Brandon.
Together they began to draw in the rope. It would have been a simple task for one of the horses, but the narrowness of the trail and its condition plus the nervousness of the animals made that out of the question. But it was not too difficult.
Shortly the head and shoulders of the man appeared at the lip of the canyon. Starbuck dug his heels deep into the mud, set himself and barked at the lawman.
“Get him!”
Brandon stepped around Shawn, bent over the limp form of Moody and dragged him up onto the trail. Immediately Starbuck moved to him, began to remove the rope looped under his armpits. Moody stared up at him from his tired eyes.
“Ain’t dead,” Brandon muttered, hunching over him. “Banged up plenty, but he’s alive.”
Shawn returned to the edge of the slope. Locating Rome, he bunched the soaked rope and tossed it at the near-invisible shape crouched beside the shaft of rock. After a moment he felt a jerk on the line, Starbuck again braced himself, called to Brandon.
“Let’s haul him up.”
Rising from where he knelt beside Walt Moody, the lawman took his position behind Starbuck and once more they began to retrieve the rain-slicked line. It was easier. Where Moody had been unable to give any assistance and offered only dead weight, Able Rome helped by digging his feet into the slope and grabbing onto the rocks and few brush clumps that were available.
In a short time he was on the trail, plastered with mud that was slowly washing away under the driving raindrops. He grinned at Shawn as he began to loosen the coil about his body and in his eyes there was a look of satisfaction, as if he had demonstrated an ability others might not have suspected.
Shawn smiled back and turned to Moody. The dazed, worn stare was gone from his eyes and he had pulled himself to a sitting position. Pain distorted his features as he felt at his left arm.
“You hurt bad?” Starbuck asked, crouching beside him.
Dave Gilder was yelling again, this time wanting to know about Moody’s condition. Rome, coiling the ropes, moved toward him to give a report.
“Only—my arm,” Moody replied.
“Lucky,” Harry Brandon said gruffly. “Mighty goddam lucky, I’d say. Was the mud being soft that did it.”
Walt started to rise, winced at the effort. Shawn, taking him by his uninjured arm, assisted him to his feet.
“Got to be getting on,” the marshal continued, mopping at his streaming face. “You make it?”
Lips tight, Moody nodded and turned to start up the trail. Starbuck halted him.
“That arm’s got to be set.”
Again Walt moved his head. “I know that—but later on, when we stop.”
“He’s right,” Brandon said. “Hard to do it here on this ridge. Farther up there’ll be a place where we can pull off.”
“How far?”
“Couple hours—maybe less.”
Shawn peered closely at Moody through the gray curtain. “Can you stand it that long?”
“Guess so—”
Then let’s get started,” Brandon said briskly, crossing to his horse. “We lost too damned much time already. Going to have to hurry things some.”
Moody stared at the marshal woodenly and then faced Starbuck. “Walking’s going to be a little hard—mind looking after my animal?”
“I’ll see to him,” Shawn answered. “‘Just hang tight until we can get to where that arm can get fixed.”
Walt Moody smiled wearily. “Fixing it will be easy. It’s what’s inside me that I can’t do anything about.”
Starbuck watched him head on up the trail and then crossed to where Dave Gilder waited with the horses. The injured man’s words trickled slowly through his mind. Whatever the trouble was that plagued Moody, it weighed heavily on him.
He recalled that Moody had been about to tell him, take him into his confidence the night before, but he dropped off to sleep. Likely that had turned the man inward more than ever. He’d try and square it, explain that exhaustion had simply gotten the best of him, and that he’d like to hear about his problem—and perhaps be of help. Maybe Walt would listen to an apology and open up. That was what he needed to do—talk, unload, get whatever it was eating at him out into the open.
The rain had finally ceased, leaving behind a damp, chilled world of dripping trees and soggy ground. Walt Moody sat on a rotting log in a small clearing off the trail where they had halted for the night, and watched the other men moving about making camp. Starbuck and Rome had taken their slickers, hooked them together and suspended them, lean-to fashion, between four trees for a shelter under which they could spend the hours until morning.
Gilder, his eyes sunk deep in his head as the craving that everybody by now recognized, gripped him, was endeavoring to scare up dry wood for a fire and was not having much success. The marshal, irritated by the delay that the storm and the accident had occasioned, was a short distance up the trail, looking to the south as if hopeful of catching sight of the outlaws.
Walt Moody shifted, carefully holding his repaired arm with the right hand so that it would not move. Starbuck and the black man had done a good job setting it and pinning it firmly between the straight sticks they used as splints. It throbbed dully, like a bad toothache, but he guessed he’d live through it.
For what?
The question seeped its bitter way into his brain. Why the hell couldn’t he have done the job up right and tumbled all the way down that damned slope into the floodwater—and ended it all once and for good? No—it was his luck to have a rock waiting there to catch him, keep him alive ... Nothing ever went his way.
Morose, he watched Starbuck and Able Rome now busy stretching a rope near where the fire was to be built so that the soaked blankets could be dried. The pair worked together smoothly and efficiently, talking little, each seemingly aware of the other’s capabilities.
He had thanked Starbuck for his part in dragging him out of that canyon—had to remember to thank the colored man also. He’d been the one who did the climbing down with the rope ... He’d say what he should when they all gathered around the fire if Gilder ever got one going.
But the thanks would be for nothing as far as he was concerned. He’d a thousand times prefer to be dead and floating down that arroyo than sitting where he was, alive, able to think and a prisoner of all the tormenting recollections that were stuck fast to his mind, like bottom land chiggers, and never let him rest.
Yesterday—last night to be exact—when he and Starbuck had been talking, he had sensed a sympathetic and perhaps understanding heart on the part of the tall, hard-jawed rider, and something had come over him, a lift—a hope; and for the first time since it had all happened it seemed he could see a light at the end of the interminable tunnel of despair through which he had been groping for so long ... But it had turned out just as things always did for him.
He had told Starbuck of Rozella, of what they had meant to each other, and how she had died that terrible day when they had been boating on the lake. It had been his fault, cutting up, acting the fool the way he did, and then when the small craft overturned, he had clung to it, paralyzed, horrified and unnerved by her screams, powerless to save her.
He was no swimmer but he could have saved her. He could have gotten to her, managed somehow to drag her back to the boat where they both could have hung on until help arrived—but he hadn’t. Instead he’d just stayed there, fingers locked to the bottom of the craft, listening to her piteous cries and watching while the dark water swallowed her. He knew then that he was a coward.
And later, when the full realization of the tragedy hit him, he knew also that Rozella was dead by his own hand as surely as if he’d held a pistol to her temple and pulled the trigger.
At that point in the narration he had paused. It came to him that he was baring his soul to the wind; Starbuck had fallen asleep, had heard none of what had been said.
That had finished it for him. He had never before unburdened himself to another in his desperate search for understanding—now he would never do so again.
But it was done and he was back, mentally, where he started, still facing the accusing fingers that pointed at him from a hundred dark hiding places in his mind, still torn by doubt and the fear of fear that constantly reproved him.
No one was ever interested in another’s troubles, anyway; he should have remembered that ... He’d find his own answers alone—unaided.