ON THE SECOND morning he opened his eyes on a tiny band of sunlight that streamed through the smoke hole, which was itself a mere crack in the rock above the fire. He had worried about their smoke being seen until Rimes told him it was covered by brush and a cedar that leaned above it. The rising smoke thinned itself out and vanished in rising through the foliage.
Rimes was asleep.
For several minutes the man who called himself Jonas lay perfectly still, staring up at the ceiling of the cave. He felt restless and on edge. He was too close to his enemies, whoever they were.
The day of rest and thinking over his problem had brought him no nearer to a solution. He had no memory of his past. He had no knowledge of who he was, where he had come from, or what he was supposed to be doing there.
Well, the solution to that seemed simple enough. He must first of all discover his identity, and from that he would know all he needed to know. Or so he hoped.
Rimes had commented on it. “Bronc fighter I knew one time, he lit on his head and it was seven or eight months before he knew where he was, or who. But I’ve heard of others who came out of it very soon.
“And then there’ve been some,” he had added slyly, “who could remember but didn’t want folks to realize it.”
“That isn’t true of me.”
“You ought to tie in somewhere.” Rimes was puzzled. “Of course, I’ve been out of touch, and I don’t know of any outlaw outfit working this country except ours—and if there was a range war I think I’d have heard of it.
“You dress like a city man, but I’ve got a hunch you’re not one. You might be a gambler who killed some citizen back yonder, but that wouldn’t fit you being shot from ambush, if you were.”
He had lighted his pipe with a stick from the fire. “What are you planning to do now?” he asked.
Jonas hesitated, wondering how much to tell; but this man had helped him, and seemed genuinely concerned.
“Did you ever hear of a man named Dean Cullane?” he asked.
Rimes’s eyes were on his pipe bowl. When he looked up they were bland, too bland. “Can’t say I have.”
“Or Ben Janish?”
“Everybody knows Janish.” Rimes drew on his pipe, then dropped the stick into the fire. “Seems to me you’re remembering things.”
“No, I heard them talking back there by the railroad. Probably there’s no connection.”
Now, lying upon his back in the cave, he considered the conversation. Had Rimes known Cullane’s name? And if so, why had he concealed the fact?
The more Jonas considered his situation the more he wanted to be alone. He needed to get away to some quiet place, where he might recover some memories while not risking his neck by encountering unknown enemies.
He needed time to think, to plan, time to remember. Rimes had explained nothing. He had not told him where he was or where they were going; he had only implied that he might encounter an enemy there…or anywhere.
Was Rimes truly his friend? Or was he trying to learn something from him, some plan, some secret? How had Rimes happened there so opportunely? Of course, that could happen. Many men rode freight trains, and it was logical enough that they should help each other.
Rimes was no youngster. He was a man who had been through the mill. His advice to Jonas had been good. “Tell nobody anything. Say you had a run-in with the law, and let it go at that. Folks’ll be almighty curious, being what they are, but if I were you I’d tell them nothing…nothing at all.”
Rimes had taken him up the steep, winding stair, part natural, and part cut by hand, to where the signal mirrors were placed on the mountainside.
The valley below was relatively flat, semi-arid country, the hillsides dotted with cedar, the bottom largely sagebrush. Beyond lay a string of small mountains, actually low, rugged hills, broken by canyons and cliffs. “There’s fifty trails going into those hills,” Rimes commented, “and most of them just circle around, or go nowhere.”
Jonas held up his hands and looked at them. What had they done? Why had men tried to kill him? Why, even now, did they search for him? Had these hands killed? Oh had they been used for some good purpose? Were they the hands of a doctor, a lawyer, a laborer, a cowhand? Had they swung a hammer or an axe? That they were strong hands was obvious.
He leaned back and closed his eyes. He might never discover his identity. He might be shot by the first person he saw; and if he was forced into a fight, what would he do? What manner of man was he?
The blow on his skull had wiped clean the slate of memory, so why not pull out now? Why not go far, far away and begin anew?
Yet how did he know that some memory, now in his subconscious, might draw him right back to the scene of his trouble? How could he go far away when he did not know in which direction to go? His enemies might be anywhere. What he had to do now was find out who and what he was.
He got up, tugged on his boots, and stamped his feet into them. He belted on his gun and reached for his hat.
“Well,” Rimes said, “you’re no cowhand. A cowhand always puts his hat on first.”
Rimes threw off his blankets. “You go up on the lookout and see if you see anybody. I’ll put some breakfast together.”
It was bright and clear on the morning side of the mountain. He glanced across the valley, picked up a tiny cloud of dust, looked away and back again. It was still there, still coming.
Rimes came up to look. “It’ll take them an hour to get here,” he said, “the way they’ve got to come. Let’s hang on the feed bag.”
As they ate, Rimes explained. “Place we’re heading for is a ranch. Owned by a girl whose pa just died a while back. Her name is Fan Davidge. Her foreman is Arch Billing. They are good folks.”
“Running an outlaw hangout?”
“It’s a long story. It’s come to a place where they no longer can control it. Arch Billing is a fine man, but he’s no gunhand.”
“Don’t they have a crew?”
“Only man left is an oldster. The outlaws do the ranch work, and do it almighty well.”
Together they gathered up, washed the frying pan and coffeepot, and stowed them away in the corner. By the time they reached the mountainside they could see a buckboard, only a mile or so off, and coming on now at a spanking trot.
There were at least two people in the buckboard. Rimes studied it through his field glasses. “Fan Davidge is aboard. Leave her alone.”
“Is she somebody’s woman?”
“No…but she’s spoken for.”
“By whom?”
They had started down the slope and they went six paces before Rimes replied, “Ben Janish.”
“Is he the bull of the woods around here?”
“You bet your sweet life he is, and don’t you be forgetting it, not for a moment. He won’t be home right now, but Dave Cherry will be, and he’s nearly as bad. You cross them and you won’t last a minute.”
The man who called himself Jonas considered that. “I am somehow not worried,” he said after a moment. “I have searched myself and found no fear, but one thing I can tell you. I remember nothing, though, as I told you, I heard Ben Janish’s name mentioned.”
“So?”
“He was the man who shot me. He was hunting me.”
Rimes stared at him. “You mean Ben Janish shot at you and missed?”
“He didn’t miss. He just didn’t hit me dead center. Rimes, you’d better leave me here. I don’t know why Ben Janish wants me. I have no idea except that somebody must have paid him to kill me. Now I’d be a copper-riveted fool to ride right into his bailiwick, wouldn’t I?”
The buckboard clattered up over the rock-strewn desert and came to a halt opposite them. The dust drifted back and started to settle, and J. B. Rimes walked down, greeting Arch Billing. Jonas was not looking at Arch, but past him, at Fan Davidge.
“There’s little time,” Billing said. “Mount up, boys.”
“There’ll be just one of us, I—” Rimes began.
“There will be two, Rimes. I am going along.”
Rimes glanced at him, and then at Fan. “Your funeral,” he said, and gestured toward the pile of blankets in the back of the buckboard. “Climb in, then. But you’d better be good with that gun.”
The buckboard started off, and they went at a fast trot. Obviously Billing did not wish to linger in the area. Their presence in such a lonely place would be difficult to explain, as far off a reasonable trail as they were.
After a few minutes, Rimes asked, “Arch, is Ben in the valley?”
“No. He hasn’t been around for a couple of weeks. El Paso, I reckon.”
El Paso…Dean Cullane’s town.
The man who called himself Jonas, and who might be Dean Cullane, drew a blanket around his shoulders, for the wind was chill. He did not know who he was, nor where he was going, but now he knew why. He was going to the ranch because a girl lived there.
A girl named Fan…who had merely glanced at him.
He was a fool.