14

By late afternoon they were well down along the Western Slope toward the upper end of Sanctuary Flat. The old rutted stage road was easy to follow, and the clear afternoon sunlight embraced them warmly as they neared the first stage of their objective.

At this point it was easy to determine the broad outlines of the Flat, stretching west and southward. It was a wide, treeless plain; almost level but sloping gently toward the center where the Gunnison River cut a wide swath through the rich mountain grass, dotted here and there with small bunches of placidly grazing cattle.

Miles southward from the point where the stage road entered the upper end of the Flat, the scattered buildings of the TB ranch could be seen, enveloped by the soft haze that lay like a nimbus upon the tranquil mountain valley.

It was a scene of such peace and pastoral beauty that it brought an almost poetic grunt from Ezra’s lips as he gazed upon it from the slope above:

“Lookin’ at somethin’ like that makes a man sorta wonder why God lets people come into a place like this,” he confessed to Pat as the two of them rode together in the lead.

Pat glanced aside curiously at his partner’s ugly, one-eyed face. “What d’yuh mean by that?”

“I mean that people are the only ones mean enough tuh cause trouble in thuh world,” Ezra blurted out. “Look at it down yonder. Sanctuary Flat, they called it back in thuh beginnin’. Don’t that mean sort of a place tuh be safe? A place to re-lax an’ not be afraid of nothin’?”

“Sanctuary means something like that,” Pat agreed.

“I reckon that’s what it looked like to the ol’ timers when they fust follered out this road over thuh Divide. But when men come in an’ started runnin’ cows on that grass, things got diffrunt. ’Stead of bein’ safe an’ quiet like it still looks on the surface, there’s hard feelin’s and murder afoot.”

Pat nodded grimly. They were almost down to the level of the Flat now. The old road sloped down to the base of steep weathered cliffs on the north, and then swung back southward in a lazy arc below them.

They heard the light crack of a .22 carbine from behind, and an excited shout from Dock. They both turned in their saddles to look back and see the boy leave the road and turn up a broad arroyo, waving his rifle excitedly over his head and spurring his pony to a headlong gallop.

Sam Sloan had been riding back with Dock to keep him company, and he shouted reassuringly, “Dock saw a four-point buck on that ridge an’ took a pot shot at him. Looked like he winged him, an’ he’s gonna try an’ finish him off.”

Pat grinned but muttered, “The danged fool. Shootin’ at a four-point buck with his twenty-two. What’d he want to do that for?”

“I reckon it’s my fault,” Ezra confessed. “I was tellin’ him las’ night ’bout one time I killed a black bear with a twenty-two. I told him how all yuh had tuh do was hit a deer or bear in the right place tuh bring him down same as with a big rifle.”

“When did you kill a bear that-away?”

“I reckon I sorta made it up,” Ezra admitted sheepishly. “But a man could do it if he hit him right, you know that.”

By that time Sam had loped up to join them. The remuda scattered off the road and began eagerly cropping at the long grass of the Flat.

“Jest like a crazy kid,” Sam laughed. “He was carryin’ his popgun rifle crost his saddle-horn tuh shoot jackrabbits if he saw one, an’ he pulled down on that buck ’fore I could stop him. Hit him too, by golly. Front leg, I reckon. I saw him give a jump an’ go off the ridge limpin’.”

“Lord knows how far Dock’ll trail him,” Pat groaned with a glance at the sun sinking in the west. “If we waste much time here we won’t reach the TB ranch tonight.”

“What of it?” asked Sam indifferently. “We could make camp here jest as good as not.”

“I hate to have him do a fool thing like that,” growled Pat. “Next thing you know he’ll be tryin’ that twenty-two out on a bear or mountain lion.”

“I’ll ride after him,” offered Ezra, “an’ bring him back.” He swung off the road and went up the arroyo at a gallop.

Pat said, “We might’s well take it easy,” and dismounted.

Sam followed suit and they both squatted by the side of the road and rolled cigarettes.

They had them half-smoked when they heard a horse being ridden toward them furiously. It was Dock. His face was white and frightened.

“Crazy men have got Ezra,” he reported shakily. “I chased that danged buck down an’ finished him off with my huntin’ knife an’ Ezra rode up an’ was gonna help me skin out a hind quarter for supper tonight an’ all at once these crazy men slipped up an’ jumped us. Ezra fought back an’ I come for you.”

Pat and Sam were already running for their horses. “What kind of crazy men?” Pat demanded.

“Part animal, I reckon. Look like it anyhow. They just grunt an’ growl an’ don’t say nothin’. Back this way.”

Dock was off again at a gallop, followed by his father and Sam. He rode up the arroyo and over a low ridge at a breakneck pace, down into a grove of tall pines beside a small stream.

He pulled up to let the others come abreast him, pointed ahead and gasped, “Right yonder. See them! Looks like they’ve killed Ezra.”

Sam and Pat drew their guns as they galloped up on an amazing scene. The carcass of the buck lay beneath a tree, and Ezra lay on his back beside him. Grouped together beyond were three men who regarded them with mild curiosity as they rode up.

Two of them were heavily bearded, as big as Ezra, dressed in shaggy wolfskin coats that came below their knees, with round, coonskin caps on their heads. They both appeared to be unarmed.

The third man was as tall as they, but much thinner. He was clean-shaven and bareheaded, with long black hair tied in a knot at the back of his neck. He wore a goatskin jacket and tight breeches of tanned calfskin, and had a cartridge belt slung over his right shoulder and under his left arm. A gun was holstered under his arm but he made no move to reach for it as Pat and Sam rode up with drawn guns.

The three of them stood their ground without uttering a word as Sam covered them and Pat leaped off to kneel beside Ezra.

The big man’s one eye was closed, but he was breathing evenly.

He had a big lump on his forehead, and he stirred as Pat examined it. He opened his eye and tried to sit up, muttering weakly, “How-come that house fell on me?”

Pat helped him sit up. Ezra’s eye fell on the three men and he started violently. “Comes back tuh me now. They come outta nowhere an’ jumped me when my back was turned an’ I was dressin’ out Dock’s buck. What in hell’s the matter with ’em, Pat? Who are they?”

Pat said, “I aim to find out.” He got up and faced the three. “Why’d you jump my pardner?”

None of them answered him. They eyed him with cold hostility and evident disdain. They didn’t seem to be afraid, but neither were they in any mood to press the fight.

“I reckon I know you now,” Pat muttered disgustedly, holstering his gun. “Yo’re Hey, You, an’ Slim, ain’t you?”

They all nodded their heads politely as he spoke the names given to them by the baffled riders of the TB who had never been able to get them to state their real names.

One of the bearded men nodded and pointed to his chest and said solemnly, “Me Hey.”

The other one said, “Me You.”

Pat looked at the beardless one and guessed, “You must be Slim.”

Slim didn’t reply. He folded his arms and regarded Pat coldly.

“What’s this here crazy stuff all about?” Sam demanded heatedly. “Who are these guys dressed up like cave-men, an’ why’d they jump on Ezra?”

“They’re the original inhabitants of Sanctuary Flat, near as anybody knows,” Pat told him drily. “I reckon they jumped Ezra ’cause they think all the game hereabouts b’longs to ’em an’ they don’t like the idea of strangers hornin’ in. That right?” he demanded of the strange trio.

Hey said, “Him kill,” pointing to Ezra. He pronounced the two syllables slowly and awkwardly.

Ezra was getting to his feet. There was a comical look of dismay on his scarred face. “They’re all three strong as mules. I didn’t have no chance tuh pull my gun.”

Pat turned his back on the three and said swiftly, running his words together to make it difficult for those behind him to understand, “Le’s try to make friends with ’em. They may be the ones we’re after but we dunno yet.”

He turned back and pointed to the carcass of the buck, asked slowly and distinctly, “Can we eat?”

Slim said, “We cook. All eat.” He muttered something to his bearded companions in a guttural voice.

They nodded and produced long keen-bladed hunting knives from under their coats, fell on the buck and started rapidly skinning him.

“Where you live?” Pat asked Slim.

He pointed over his shoulder to the base of the cliffs a short distance away. “You come from mountain?” He looked up toward Timberline Pass.

“That’s right. Come long way. Tired. Hungry.” Pat rubbed his belly. “Sleepy.”

Slim smiled and suddenly appeared anxious to please these strangers who had come from the other side of the mountain. He stepped forward and took Pat’s arm in a friendly grip. “You stay. All stay.” He waved to the others who were grouped behind Pat waiting to see what happened.

Pat said, “Good. We stay.” A strong animal smell came from the man who stood close to him. It offended his nostrils, but Pat stood his ground. He didn’t want to offend these three curious hermits who lived alone and spoke to no one on the Flat. If they were the killers he sought, right now seemed to him the time to find out.

He told Sam and Dock, “Round up the pack hawses an’ drive ’em over here where he pointed. How about you, Ezra? Feel like walkin’ along with us?”

“Shore. I feel awright.” Ezra grinned and held out his hand to Slim. “No hard feelin’s, huh?”

Slim returned his grin but didn’t seem to know what to do about Ezra’s extended hand. He said, “We go,” and then muttered something unintelligible to his two bearded companions who were busy dressing out the buck. They looked up and nodded and went on busily about their task.

Slim turned and glided away on his moccasined feet, moving as silently as a lynx over the pine needles. Pat and Ezra followed him, leading their horses.

“Plumb crazy, ain’t they?” Ezra said in a hoarse whisper. “You reckon they’re all human, Pat?”

Pat quickly told him what little he had learned about the three men in Denver. “Chances are they’re the ones we’re after,” he warned Ezra. “Only thing is, I can’t quite figure how fellows like them would know about the Burns detective an’ Nate Morris that got killed. An’ nobody ever saw these three have a rifle.”

“What makes ’em talk so funny?”

“Out of practice mostly,” Pat explained. “Folks say they have a sort of language all their own for each other.”

“Shore. We heard it back yonder when he tol’ them others something. I couldn’t understand a word he said.”

“We got to treat ’em nice,” Pat warned him. “Find out all we can. Don’t blame ’em for jumpin’ on you about that buck. I reckon they sort of think everything in the Flat b’longs to ’em.”

Slim was a hundred feet ahead of them, gliding along under the trees in a half-trot. He looked back over his shoulder and slowed to wait for them, then turned into a well-worn footpath leading up a small coulee that had a tiny stream trickling down it.

Choke-cherry bushes lined the coulee thickly, and there was a tangled growth of them at the head of it. As they progressed upward, the heavy smell of decaying meat and rotting bones tainted the still air, and when they were fifty feet from the head of the coulee, the cause of the odor became apparent.

The side of the trail was lined with the discarded bones and carcasses of animals. There were piles of them on both sides of the path, and green flies rose in swarms as they went by.

Slim went straight on to the matted tangle of underbrush at the head of the coulee, and suddenly ducked out of sight through a small opening in the tangle that might have gone unnoticed otherwise.

Pat stopped and parted the bushes to peer through the opening. A huge overhanging rock formed a natural shelter at the base of the limestone cliff beyond. In the semi-darkness, he could see a big cave with a fire in the center of it and with bundles of furs and hides piled around the smokestained walls. The odor from inside the cave was overpowering.

Ezra stopped and muttered, “I reckon that bang on thuh head did somethin’ to my stomach. Do I hafta go in there, Pat?”

Pat said, “You’d better go back to the head of the coulee an’ help Sam an’ Dock hobble out the hawses there. Make camp far enough away so’s we can sleep tonight without this stink in our noses. I’ll try to get them to eat supper with us, ’stead of the other way around.” He took a last deep breath of fresh air and stooped to go through the opening in the brush to the cave where Slim awaited him.

There was a queer expression on Pat’s face when he came hurrying down the path by himself half an hour later. He looked like a man who’d been conversing with ghosts, or who’d just awakened from a nightmare.

He found the other three making camp on the grassy flat beyond the coulee, and before he could say anything, Dock ran toward him crying excitedly, “Guess what we saw, Dad. I bet you can’t guess what Sam an’ me found.”

Pat shook his head with that dazed look still on his face. “I reckon I can’t.”

“It’s a stage-coach, Dad. That’s what. A reg’lar old stage-coach, Sam says. Turned over back yonder near the road an’ it’s been there for years an’ years an’ years. Sam says he bets it’s the last one that made the trip out of Fairplay thirty years ago. The one that was s’posed to be caught in the snowslide. But Sam thinks …”

“Sam’s right,” Pat said gruffly. He walked on up to the others, slamming one fist into the palm of his hand. “That stage-coach is the answer to this whole thing. I found the craziest kind of stuff back yonder in the cave. An old hair trunk full of women’s clothes like my mother usta wear. A lady’s parasol, all rotted and rusted.” He paused to catch his breath.

“There was only one passenger in that last stage,” Sam reminded him hoarsely. “A lady with a baby.”

“That’s right. But you remember they said she was going to have another baby right soon. That coach must of wrecked right here … there was a bad blizzard, you know, an’ that other baby must of been twins.” Pat grinned crookedly, shaking his head in incredulous bewilderment. “I reckon nobody’ll ever know the whole of it. How that lady found the cave with her baby an’ all. And how she brought ’em through. Something must of happened to her later. But the three children didn’t die. Nobody’ll ever know how come. I don’t reckon they know. I got Slim to talk some back in the cave. Seems like he don’t know nothing except the three of ’em livin’ here in that cave.”

“An’ that’s why they don’t talk much,” Ezra put in. “When they was little, they must of made up a language of their own. Well, I’ll be dog-blasted if I ever heerd thuh like.”

“I got Slim to say they’d come down here to eat with us,” Pat told them. “’Stead of us goin’ up to that cave. Don’t push ’em none with questions. I reckon they like this way of livin’ and aim to keep right on with it.”