They reached the horses without arousing a cry from Cushman and his men. Lockett made swift appraisal of the two Raker mounts, chose the husky bay that looked to be the stronger. Stepping hurriedly in close to the animal, he began to tighten the gear.
“Bridle him,” he said over a shoulder to Roxie.
She was staring back at the ruin of the ranch house when he spoke, as if taking a last look at what had once been home for her. The knuckles of her hands showed white as she gripped the rifle and there was a set grimness to her face. She turned at once at his words, and, sliding the Henry into the empty boot of the saddle, began to work the bit and headstall into place. Dade, moving fast, completed the job on the bay, wheeled to his own mount. It took only moments to ready the chestnut, and, freeing the remaining Raker horse so that he might wander, he glanced toward the trees.
“They’re coming,” he said tensely, and stepped into the saddle.
Roxie was already on the bay. She followed his gaze, the coldness of her features increasing. Her hand dropped to the butt of the rifle.
“Cushman …” she murmured. “I could wait …”
“There’ll come another day,” Lockett cut in, wheeling up beside her. “Right now we’re getting out of here.”
He did not wait for her reply but grabbed the bay’s reins close to the bit, brought him around. Roxie forgot the rifle, took up the leathers.
“Where …?”
“Head out for those buttes,” Dade answered, pointing to an area of broken, gray-faced hills a mile or so to the west. “We make it to there without them seeing us, we’ll be in good shape.”
But it was a false wish. They were scarcely started when a yell sounded back in the clearing. Lockett swore, threw a glance in that direction. The raiders were sweeping across the hardpan of the yard, stringing out in pursuit.
“Run for it!” he shouted to the girl, and raked the chestnut hard with his spurs.
Roxie bent lower over her horse, and side-by-side she and Lockett raced across the flat that separated them from the bluffs. Gunshots began to break out when they neared the area. Roxie turned, looked back. Dade shook his head at her.
“Too far … they’re just wasting lead!”
The girl crouched again over the bay’s outstretched neck. Shortly they swung into a broad arroyo that fronted the row of formations. Immediately the horses began to slow, laboring in the loose sand. Dade scanned the bluffs anxiously. Cushman and his men could quickly narrow the distance between them, bringing them within bullet range if they were compelled to follow the wash for any length of time.
The first of the ragged-faced buttes was just ahead, the beginning of the row of almost identical steep-fronted hills. Lockett studied them closely, searching for a break in the frowning façades, a wash, an intersecting gully, anything that would permit them to pull up out of the sand and disappear, if only briefly. He located such an opening just as the raiders turned into the far end of the arroyo—a fairly narrow but not too steep cleavage between adjacent hills.
“Through there!” he yelled to Roxie, and pointed at the escape route.
She veered the bay toward the gash. Guns were now hammering relentlessly at the head of the arroyo, filling the early morning with rebounding echoes. Here and there spurts of sand indicated that those men using rifles were now within range. Dade wheeled in behind the girl, guiding the bay into the wash. The footing was not too stable and immediately the chunky little bay began to scramble in the loose shale and the sand blown in by the winds. But he managed to keep from going down and within moments was topping out onto the flat above. Lockett, only a length behind on the chestnut, was quickly at Roxie’s side.
“Can’t stop,” he said in a tight voice. “They’ve seen where we turned off and will be following.”
She nodded her understanding, glanced around. “Where can we go?”
Lockett, after a hurried survey of the country, pointed toward the lower end of the buttes. “Somewhere down there. Ought to be a place we can hole up. You go on … I’ll meet you by those trees. Got some slowing down to do.”
She looked at him, puzzled. “Slowing down?”
Dade grinned, drew his pistol and nodded at the wash up which they had just come. “First man in there gets a surprise. Now, move on … and stay back from the rim so’s nobody’ll see you from below.”
Roxie rode on at once, and Dade, cutting the gelding about, walked the horse quietly to the wash. He could hear Cushman and the others urging their mounts through the loose sand.
“Keep at it! Keep at it!”
The rancher’s voice was an impatient, strident sound on the warming air.
“We lose them, by God, you’ll spend the day … night, too … tracking them down!”
“We’ll get them, Mister Cushman!” someone shouted reassuringly.
“See that you do … and don’t be forgetting there’s a little extra cash for the man that does!”
Lockett waited in silence, listening to the thudding of hoofs, the creaking and popping of leather as the riders drew nearer. The rancher was determined to leave no one alive who was in any way connected with the Raker family; he wanted no witnesses, as Roxie had observed. Apparently he did not fear the men who rode for him; likely he had something on all those he employed for such lawless purpose and in that way maintained control over them.
“Went up through here!” a man shouted from the arroyo. “Little wash. Got a kind of a trail.”
“Well, god dammit, follow them! If they climbed it, we sure as hell can, too.”
Dade rode nearer to the edge of the gash. Leveling his pistol, he waited until he heard the noisy entering of the first rider, and then moments later a wild thrashing about as the horse struggled for solid footing. Leaning forward, Lockett aimed his weapon at a flat rock far down in the gully and pressed off a shot.
A yell went up from below, the sharpness of it slicing through the echo of the gun’s blast. It was succeeded by a frantic crashing as the rider apparently fought to control his mount. More shouts, interspersed with curses and protests, lifted, accompanied by a dry crackling of brush and the steady rattle of displaced rocks and gravel spilling into the arroyo. There was a solid thump. The rider and his horse had evidently fallen, and judging from the fresh burst of oaths, had slid downward, piling into those who had followed him into the wash and swept them back into the arroyo.
Lockett swung off at once and put the gelding to a fast gallop. He could see Roxie in the distance, her bay loping easily along over the grassy mesa. As he surged in beside her, she turned a questioning look to him.
“Worked fine,” he said. “A right smart of a mix-up going on at the bottom of that draw when I left.”
Roxie smiled faintly, sobered. “Will they give up now, do you think?”
“Not Cushman. I don’t figure him for the giving-up kind. Plain can’t afford to, not after doing what he’s done.”
“Then we’ll have to stop somewhere … fight him again?” There was no fear or resignation in her voice; instead, there was a note of eagerness, almost one of hope.
“You can bet on it,” Lockett said, gazing off in the distance. “Those hills over to the right … you ever been there?”
Roxie shook her head. “I’ve never done any riding in this part of the valley … it was always closer to home.”
Lockett nodded, continued to scrutinize the sprawling, low formations as the horses pressed on. Then: “Expect they’re what we’re looking for. Country looks rough and there’s plenty of brush and trees.”
“I remember someone saying there were old silver mines over here somewhere,” Roxie said.
“That’d be fine. Can’t think of anything I’d rather see than a mine shaft. But I reckon we don’t have a choice other than heading that way and taking our chances. One thing sure, we’ve got to get off this flat. If Cushman can’t get up through that wash, he’s bound to send his men around the ends.”
At once Lockett began to veer their course toward the ragged hills in the near distance. They should be able to find a cave, or a deep cañon—or possibly an abandoned mine shaft—that would enable them to elude Cushman. The buttes would have provided the same sanctuary had they been able to reach them before the rancher spotted them.
The wooded formation drew nearer. Lockett began to relax somewhat. The hills were higher and more extensive than they had appeared at first glance. They should have no problem locating a good hideout, and there lie low until things cooled off a bit.
“There’s two of them …”
At Roxie’s quiet words Dade glanced around quickly. Two riders were coming up onto the mesa from the south. Cushman had done exactly as he’d expected—only sooner; he had sent men to circle the buttes in order to gain the mesa above. There would be others showing up at the opposite end. He swung his attention to the north, swore. Three riders were coming into view at that point. Lockett settled his attention on the slopes ahead. They had a long lead on the rancher and his party, and while their whereabouts would now be no secret, they still had a good chance of losing their pursuers.
He nodded to Roxie, grinned. “Just keep riding.”