IT WAS AN hour after sunup when Dud Shafter rode the roan gelding up to the water hole at Pistol Rock. The roan had come up the basin at a shuffling trot, but the man who waited there knew that both horse and man had come far and fast over rough trails.
The waiting man, Navarro, could understand that. The trail this rider had left behind him lay through some of the roughest country in the Southwest, a journey made no easier by the fact that several Apache bands were raiding and their exact location was anyone’s guess. He glanced appraisingly at the sweat-stained, sun-faded blue shirt the red-haired man wore, noted the haggard lines of the big-boned, freckled face, and the two walnut-butted guns in their worn holsters.
As the man drew up, Navarro indicated the fire. “Coffee, señor? There is plenty.”
Shafter stared down at the Mexican with hard blue eyes, and when he swung down he kept the horse between them. He stripped the saddle from the horse and rubbed it down briskly with a handful of desert grass, then walked toward the fire. He had not even for an instant turned his back on the Mexican.
“Don’t mind if I do,” he said at last.
Squatting, he placed his cup on a flat rock, then lifting the pot with his left hand, he poured the cup full of scalding black coffee. Replacing the pot alongside the coals, he glanced across the fire at Navarro and lifted the cup.
“Luck!” he said.
After a moment, he put the cup down and dug in his pocket for the makings.
“You make a good cup of coffee,” he said.
Navarro lifted a deprecating shoulder and one eyebrow. His eyes had never left the big man’s carefully moving hands. It was simply something to say; Navarro was a good cook, coffee was the least of his achievements…and he had other abilities as well.
The Mexican wore buckskin breeches, hand-tooled boots, and one ivory-butted gun. His felt sombrero was fastened under his chin with a rawhide thong.
The sound of another horse approaching brought the heads of both men up sharply. Navarro touched his lips with his tongue, and Dud Shafter shifted his weight to face the opening into the basin.
A buckskin horse came through the opening at a walk, and a man sat that horse with a double-barreled express shotgun across his saddle bows. The man was a Negro.
“Howdy!” Shafter said.
“Join us,” Navarro added.
The Negro grinned and swung to the ground. He was shorter than either of the others, but of such powerful build that his weight would have equaled that of Shafter, who was a big man in any company.
He wore a six-shooter in an open-toed holster, but as he dismounted and moved up to the fire, he kept his shotgun in his hand. He carried his own cup, as did the others, and when he squatted to pour the coffee, the shotgun was ready to his hand.
Navarro smiled, revealing even white teeth under the black of his mustache. These were men of his own kind. After a moment or two, he took a burlap sack off his saddle and began to cook. Slowly he assembled a meal, such a meal as the two strangers had certainly not seen in many weeks. Tortillas were heated on a flat rock, lean shredded beef was cooked with peppers and onions, frijoles that he had soaked since he had camped the previous night were split into three portions. As Navarro worked his magic he carefully watched his new companions.
“It takes money,” he suggested, “to travel far. I know where there is money!”
Dud Shafter’s chill blue eyes lifted in a curious, speculative glance. “It takes money. That’s the truth.”
“If you’re travelin’ ”—the other man wiped off his seamed black hands—“and you know where there is money for the takin’, you’re a lucky man.”
“One man cannot get this money,” Navarro hinted. “Three men might.”
Dud Shafter let the idea soak in, staring into the fire. He picked up a mesquite stick and thrust it into the coals, watching a tongue of flame lick greedily at the dry wood.
He looked around casually. “Would this money be nearby?” he asked.
“Sixty miles by this road, but by a way I and only a few others know, it is but twenty. There is an Apache path through the mountains. We could ride over this trail, make our collection, and return. We could get water and some rest here, then head for the Blues.”
“You don’t think others know this trail…others we might have to worry about?” Dud asked.
Navarro shrugged. “Who knows. But we will be careful. At the right moment we will hide our tracks. Also, in going there we will learn the path well. It is a chance that I believe in.”
Dud Shafter rolled the idea over in his mind. He was not above driving off a few steers, especially if he didn’t know whose they were. But this sounded like crime, straight from the shoulder, out and out theft. Not his style, but he was going to need money. There was trouble down his back trail and a winter with no work in his future.
“There is an express box,” Navarro informed him, “on a stage. In that box are two small payrolls…small for payrolls, but good money for us. More than seven thousand dollars. Before the stage arrives at Lobo station, it passes through Cienaga Pass. That is the place.”
After a moment Shafter nodded and then the Negro did too. He didn’t really like the idea but he was willing to go along. What he did like, however, was the Mexican’s food.
NAVARRO LED OFF because he knew the route. Dud Shafter and the Negro, who had said his name was Benzie, followed. Navarro led them into the cedars along the mountainside back of Pistol Rock, then crossed the hill and cut down its side into a sandy wash. Seven miles farther, he led them into a tangle of mesquite, cat-claw, and yeso. Steadily, their trail tended toward the blank face of the cliff, yet when they reached it, Navarro turned south for two miles, then entered a canyon. The canyon ended in a jumble of rocks, and beyond the tumbled pile of boulders was the cliff.
“Looks like you miscalculated,” Dud said. “There ain’t no way through there.”
“Wait, compadre.” Navarro chuckled. “Just wait!”
They rode on into the gathering dark, weaving a way among the boulders toward the face of the cliff.
The walls to right and left closed in, and the darkness shouldered its shadows toward their horses. Then a boulder-strewn, cedar-cloaked hillside lifted toward the sheer wall of rock, and the Mexican started up. Within only a few feet of the cliff, he turned his horse at right angles and started down a steep slope that led right up to the face. Concealed by the boulder-strewn hill was a path that slanted steeply down, then turned to a crevasse between two walls of rock. It was a trail that no man would ever suspect was there.
Between the walls, so close together their stirrups grazed the rock on either side, it was dark and cool. There was dampness in the air.
“It is like this for miles,” Navarro said. “No danger of going astray.”
They rode on and Dud nodded in the saddle, his horse plodding steadily forward. Finally, after nearly an hour’s ride, the crevasse widened into a canyon, and they still rode on. Then the canyon narrowed to a crevasse again, and they passed by a trickle of water. When they had gone only a little way farther, Navarro halted.
Dud Shafter, startled from a half sleep, slid a gun into his hand. He glared around in the darkness.
“There is no trouble,” Navarro said. “The trail is there.” He pointed toward the black mouth of a cave. “We will enter the cave and each of you will go exactly seventy-seven steps from the time your horse starts onto the rock floor, it will be very dark. Then you must turn left. You will see an opening covered with vines, push them aside and ride through.”
Navarro led the way and they rode into darkness. The echoes from the other horses’ hooves made it hard for Dud to count and he discovered it was better to plug his ears with his fingertips and feel the footsteps of his horse than to try to follow the confusing sounds in the cave. At seventy-seven he reined over and momentarily dragged his left knee against the rock.
“Guess that Mex has got a bigger horse than mine,” he grumbled.
Now the footfalls of their horses splashed in shallow water, then there was a dim light ahead and they pushed the vines aside and emerged into the evening air. A small trickle of water ran out from under the cover of vines and soaked the ground around their horses’ hooves.
Navarro turned to face them. “We will stop here,” Navarro said. “And I will tell you the way back in case I should be killed. You must follow the streambed in the cave and let your horse take thirty steps—no more.
“Turn your horse sharply right and ride straight ahead, and after you have been riding into darkness for a few minutes, you will see the trail down which we have come.”
“Suppose I take more than thirty steps?” Shafter asked.
Navarro shrugged. “You will find yourself in a great cavern, the floor is crumbling and filled with many holes. One man I knew made that mistake, and his horse and he went through the floor. We heard him scream as he fell. He fell a long way, señor.”
“I’ll count the thirty steps,” Shafter said dryly.
They bedded down and slept until dawn, then rolled out. Dud was the first one up, collecting greasewood and a few pieces of dead cedar for a fire. When he had the fire going he looked around and took stock of their position.
They had camped in what appeared to be a box canyon, and they were in the upper end of the canyon with a lovely green meadow of some thirty acres spread out before them. Not far away was a ruined adobe house and a pole corral.
When they had rested and eaten another of Navarro’s meals, they mounted and the Mexican rode into the meadow. The ruined adobe stood among ancient trees and beside a pool, crystal clear. Dud glanced around with appreciation.
“It’s a nice place,” he said thoughtfully. “A right nice place!”
In a wooden beam over the adobe’s door was carved a brand. “PV9” it read.
Benzie nodded, and shifted his shotgun. He carried it like part of himself, like an extension of his arm. He spoke little but never seemed to miss a trick.
LATER, THEY SWUNG down behind a clump of juniper on the crest of a low hill just off the stage road. Here the team would be slowed to a walk. It would be the best place.
They rode back into the juniper and dismounted. There was plenty of time. Benzie sat on the dead trunk of a tree and lit a smoke, staring bleakly off across the blue-misted bottomland of desert that stretched away toward purple hills. He had never stolen anything before.
Navarro stretched at full length on the sparse grass, his hat over his face. Dud Shafter idly flipped his knife into the end of the log. Shafter wondered about his Mexican and Negro companions, but asked no questions—and they volunteered no information.
Shafter swore softly and stared down the road. There was a warrant out for his arrest back along the trail. He hadn’t stolen that bunch of cattle but he’d been with the men who did. He might as well stick up the stage; might as well have the pay as well as the blame. Still, this was a point, a branching road where a man turned toward the owl hoot or along a trail with honest men. Warrant or not, he was sitting in a fork of that road right now.
Keen as Dud’s ears were, Benzie heard them first. He started up. “Some men are comin’,” he said.
Navarro was off the ground like a cat. Dud ground his cigarette into the sand and moved to his horse’s head, a hand over the nostrils. The three stood there like statues, waiting, listening.
At least four horses, Dud thought, listening to the hoofbeats. There was no noise of rigging or rattle of wheels…it was not the stage. The horses slowed and stopped.
“This is the best place,” a voice said. “We’ll draw back into the trees.” Over some brush Dud glimpsed a flash of white as one of them moved; the man who had spoken was wearing a light-colored hat.
Holding his breath, every sense alert, Dud Shafter waited. Navarro looked at him, a droll, humorous glint in his eyes. The new men took the brush on the opposite side of some rocks. The air was clear, and a man’s words could have been distinguished at a much greater distance but the voice echoed slightly.
“They’ll be slowin’ up right here.” The same voice was speaking. “We make it a clean sweep. Joe, you take the driver. Pete, the messenger. Nobody must be left alive to tell who did it. Above all, get that old man. We’ll make him talk!”
There was silence, and the three men on the other side of the trail stared at each other. Here was a complication. To speak aloud would be to give themselves away. Even the movement of their horses might have that result, for if a hoof struck stone, that would mean discovery, and each of them knew from what had been said that the men across the way were utterly ruthless.
Taking careful steps, Dud moved over to Navarro. Benzie leaned his head near.
“We don’t want no killing on our hands,” Dud whispered. “Stealing is one thing, killing another…especially if we ain’t gonna get the money.”
Navarro and Benzie both nodded.
“Looks like they be wantin’ an old man for some reason.”
Dud Shafter stared unhappily at his boots. The struggle within him was short and one-sided.
“You fellers can do as you’re a-might to,” he said at last. “I’m a going to butt in.”
“We are partners, no?” Navarro shrugged. “We are with you!” Benzie nodded. It had an odd kind of logic and none of them was about to let someone else get away with a robbery they had planned, even if it meant losing the prize themselves.
At that moment, they heard the rattle of wheels and a shout from the stage driver. The three leaped for their saddles even as the first shot sounded. Racing their horses through the brush, they heard a burst of firing. Then their own guns opened up.
Dud Shafter came out of the scrub with both guns ready. A big, bearded man loomed before him and turned sharply in his saddle to stare with rolling eyes; Shafter fired twice. The big man went out of the saddle and his horse leaped away.
Behind Dud, Benzie’s shotgun coughed hoarsely, and he could hear the sharp reports from Navarro’s smoothly handled pistol. There was a flash of light from the trees and a crashing of brush. In a matter of seconds, it was all over, and four men lay on the ground. Dud stared at the brush, for there had been a fifth. The man with the white hat was gone!
He swung down, and the passengers poured from the coach. The shotgun messenger walked up and thrust out his hand.
“Thanks, partners! You-all saved our bacon! That outfit came in shootin’!”
“You hurt?” Dud asked, staring at the man’s pale face.
“Winged me,” the messenger said.
Shafter turned, feeding shells into his guns, and saw the passengers gathering around. A tall man in a beaver hat, a flamboyantly dressed woman, a solid-looking man with a heavy gold chain, a hard hat, and muttonchop whiskers. Then an old man with a beard, and a young girl evidently his daughter.
This must be the man the robbers had mentioned. He was short with pleasant blue eyes and a glint of humor in his face.
“Some shootin’, boys! Thank you.”
Dud walked slowly from one dead man to the other. None of them was familiar to Dud.
The man with the muttonchop whiskers thrust out his hand.
“My name is Wendover,” he said. “James T. Wendover of Wells Fargo. You men saved our shipment and I can assure you you’ll be rewarded. Can you tell us where you live?”
Shafter hesitated, then with a jerk of his thumb, he indicated the box canyon where they had camped beside the ruined adobe.
“We got us a sort of a ranch back up in there,” he said. “The three of us.”
“Good! Now what do you call it, and what is your name?”
“My name’s Shafter,” Dud replied. “The ranch is the—”
“The Silver Springs Ranch,” Navarro added smoothly.
At the name, the old man started and his eyes hardened as he stared from one to the other. Puzzled, Shafter noticed the girl had put her hand on her father’s arm, and the grateful light was gone from her eyes.
Wendover turned away to where the other woman passenger was dressing the messenger’s wound. That left Shafter and his companions standing with the old man and the girl.
She stared at him with accusing eyes. “So you’re the ones!”
Shafter shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean, ma’am,” he said simply, “but we probably ain’t. Actually, we’re just sort of riding through, like.”
“You told that man you owned Silver Springs!” she protested indignantly.
“No, señorita,” Navarro protested. “We have to tell him something. We could very much use the reward. It is a good place to wait.”
“We’d been warned to expect trouble,” the old man said. “My name is Fanning, and this is my granddaughter, Beth. Silver Springs belonged to my brother, a long time ago. We were goin’ to get off when we got there, but the driver wasn’t exactly sure where it was. Are we there now?”
“Yeah,” Dud agreed, “this is it. But you folks better know this. Them fellers we shot it out with, they were aiming to kill everybody on that stage, when we overheard ’em. What they was after was you, Mr. Fanning. They said they were going to make you talk.”
“So that was it?” Fanning’s jaw hardened. “Well, I’d like to find who was behind this! He’s the man I want!”
“One of ’em got away,” Benzie suggested. “Could be ’twas him.”
Navarro and Benzie appointed themselves a burial committee for the dead men, and Dud walked back to the stage to unload the baggage belonging to Fanning and Beth. Wendover was obviously nervous, wanting to get on to the stage station at Lobo Wells.
Leading the Fannings’ horses that had been tied to the back of the stage, and with the girl’s bag in his hand and a couple more hung to the saddle horn, Shafter led the way back toward the ruined adobe. As he walked, he explained about the little valley, and the condition of things, but Beth was not disturbed. She walked into the ruined building, took a quick look around, and then came out.
“We can fix it up!” she said. “You’ll help, won’t you?”
Dud, caught flat-footed, assured her that he would.
“Good!” Beth said. “Now if you’ll get on your horse and ride down to that stage station and just get us some supplies—” She opened her purse, searching for money.
He turned and started for the Wells. Yet as he rode his thoughts were only occasionally with the girl. He was thinking more of the man in the white hat, and the fact that Fanning knew something, something that would cause men to contemplate murder.
The stage station was one of four buildings at Lobo Wells. There was a rest house and eating place in the station, and the station’s office and a storeroom. The other buildings were the Lobo Saloon, the freight office of Bert Callan, and the Mickley General Store. Dud swung down at the hitching rail in front of Mickley’s and walked in.
Ben Mickley was in low conversation with a tall man in a fringed buckskin coat. Both men turned to look him over, seeing his big-boned freckled face and the shock of rust-red hair under his battered sombrero. As he collected his order, he was conscious of their scrutiny.
“New around here, ain’t you?” Mickley suggested conversationally.
Dud grinned at the proprietor. “Not that new. I spent a moment or two out there tying my horse up,” he said, and added tentatively, “going to start ranching on the Silver Springs place.”
“I’m afraid not.”
Shafter’s eyes shifted to the man in the buckskin jacket. He was smooth-featured with a drooping mustache and dark eyes. His jaw was hard, and there was a tightness in his expression that Shafter read as well as he read the low-hung, tied-down guns. The man was bareheaded.
“I reckon yes.” Shafter’s voice was calm. “We moved in there, my pards and me, and we figure to stay. We’re riding for Jim Fanning, who owns the place.”
“Corb Fanning filed on that place, a long time ago,” said the hard-jawed man. “He was killed, and it lapsed. That spring now belongs to me.”
“Lapsed?”
“I filed on it, mister. It’s private property now…my property.”
Dud did not smile. He did not even feel like smiling. He turned around to face the other man, and in his dusty, trail-worn clothes, with his uncut red hair and big freckled hands, he looked like what he was—a hard-bitten man who had cut his eye teeth on a gun butt.
“Where’s your hat, stranger?” he asked quietly.
“Don’t you go to proddin’ him! That’s Bert Callan and he’s no stranger to me. He runs the freight company hereabouts.” Mickley warned Dud, “And I don’t want any shooting in my store. You understand?”
The icy blue eyes held Callan’s eyes and Shafter spoke slowly. His hand rested lightly on his gun butt.
“All right, Mickley, throw that sack of stuff over your back, and walk out the door ahead of me—alongside of this hombre. Unless this hombre wants to try some six-foot distance shootin’!”
Bert Callan stared into the cold blue eyes and decided uncomfortably that he didn’t want to try it. At a distance, yes, but six feet? Neither of them would live. It was out of the question. He shrugged and followed Ben Mickley to the door.
Dud Shafter threw the sack of groceries over his saddle bows.
“Now you two can go back inside,” he said coolly.
“You-all better move off that spring and fast!” Callan’s face flushed dark with anger and his hand moved toward his gun.
“You just put on that white hat, if it’s yours, and come on up. You come up and tell us to move!”
He swung a leg over his horse and turned the horse into the trail. Then, at a canter, he moved out of town.
Ben Mickley stared after him, hard-eyed. “That’s a mean one, Bert. You better soft-pedal it with him!”
“Mean, huh!” Callan flared. “The man’s a fool! Go to shootin’ in there, we’d both die!”
“That’s right,” Mickley said thoughtfully, “you would.”
SHAFTER RODE UP to Silver Springs shortly after sundown; as he drew up to the adobe, he saw a man move in the shadows. It was Benzie, with his shotgun.
“All right?” Benzie asked. “No trouble?”
Navarro walked up as Dud explained briefly.
“There will be trouble,” he ended. “They want this place. In fact they may own it.”
Beth Fanning called to them.
“Come and get it before I throw it away!”
When they were eating, she looked over at Dud.
“What did you three plan on doing? Riding on when you get your money?”
He detected the worry in her voice and leaned back on his elbow, placing his plate and coffee cup on the ground.
“Maybe we’d better stick around,” he said. He looked over at Jim Fanning. “You want to tell us what this is all about?”
Fanning hesitated, chewing slowly. “Reckon you fellers have helped us a mite,” he finally said. “What do you think, Beth? This is your say-so as much as mine.”
The girl lifted her eyes and looked at Dud for a long moment, then at Navarro and Benzie.
“Why, tell them,” she said, “I like them all, and we have to trust our friends.”
Dud swallowed and looked away, and he saw Benzie’s face lighten a little. The Negro looked up, waiting. It was something, Shafter thought, being trusted that way. Especially when you didn’t deserve it. A little one way or the other, and they might have robbed that stage themselves.
“We’ve got a map,” Fanning said. “My brother, Corbin, he filed on this place. He come west with six wagons, and he aimed to stay right here. He brought a sight of money along, gold coin it was. Had it hid in his own wagon, nigh to forty thousand dollars of it. It was cached here on the place, and he sent me the location in a letter.”
“What happened to him?” Navarro asked softly.
“Injuns. At least they say it was Injuns. Now that these fellers are lookin’ for me, I don’t know. Beth and I came here to restart the place and that money was goin’ to help us do it.”
“Can you find it?” Dud asked. He was thinking of forty thousand dollars, and that all three of them were broke. It was a lot of money. How far could Navarro be trusted? Or Benzie? Or himself?
“Maybe. Now that I’m settin’ here the directions aren’t as clear as I’d like.”
“You could let us help you,” he said. “But maybe it would be a good idea to have us ride out of here an’ you find it on your own…you shouldn’t trust anyone you don’t know.”
“No,” Beth interrupted. “You saved our lives. I say we should get it now and deposit it with the Wells Fargo. Then it’s their worry.”
Shafter nodded. “Well, that’s best, I’m sure.”
He scowled, remembering the man in the white hat and the man at the stage station. Too bad their glimpse of the rider who escaped had been so fleeting. He had taken no part in the fighting, and when Shafter and the others broke from the brush, he had fled at once, as if fearing to be seen.
When morning had come, Jim Fanning left the breakfast table and returned with a fold of papers. They all walked outside. Carefully he laid out the letter in a patch of sunlight.
“This here drawing,” he said slowly, “don’t nowhere make sense as I’d like. There’s the ’dobe all right. Over yonder is the flat-faced cliff, an’ here’s the stream from Silver Springs. But lookee here, this says, ‘gold buried under the…ne.’ The ink is smudged, it don’t make sense.”
Navarro looked up sharply, his eyes meeting Shafter’s across the fire. Slowly he got up and walked around the fire and knelt over the map. Dud knew what he was thinking, and what Benzie must have in mind. The cave was under a vine, or behind a vine, if you wanted it that way.
Shafter stared down at the map. In the cave then. But he didn’t speak up and neither did the others.
“LOOK OUT!” HE said softly. “Watch it!”
Dud got to his feet and Jim Fanning smothered the letter in his fist. Navarro and Benzie got up, too. A tight-knit bunch of riders were walking their horses up the canyon toward them. One of the two men in the lead was Bert Callan.
Eight of them. No, there was another rider following.
Nine to four, and a girl in the way of the shooting. Dud Shafter’s jaw set hard.
“Callan—he’s one of them men—will want me,” he said quietly. “The rest of you stay out.”
“We’re partners, amigo,” Navarro said softly. “Your fight is my fight.”
Benzie moved out toward the adobe, then halted. Jim Fanning was by the fire, and the girl close to him.
“So? Caught up with you, did we?” Callan stared hard at Shafter. “You’re on my place and we’re gonna clear you out. First, though, we’re gonna have a talk with the old man here.”
There could be no backing down. One sign of weakness and none of them had a chance. Then he recognized the ninth rider.
“You in this, too, Mickley?” Dud demanded sharply. “If you’re not, ride out of here!”
“You’ve got gold hidden on this place,” Mickley said. “Let us have it and you can all go on your way. If there’s shootin’, you’ll all die—and so will the girl.”
“And so will some of you,” Dud replied stiffly. “I think we can handle it.”
“No,” Navarro said suddenly. “I do not wish to die!”
Shafter could scarcely believe his ears. He would have backed the Mexican to a standstill in any kind of a fight, but here he was giving up!
Before he could speak, Navarro said quickly:
“I will tell you, señors, so do not shoot! I think of the lady, of course!”
Callan snorted, but Mickley nodded eagerly.
“Of course! So where is the gold?”
Navarro reached over and took the letter from Fanning’s surprised fingers before the older man could close his fist.
“Here! You see? It says the gold is under the vine.”
Mickley stared at the letter over Navarro’s shoulder. The other men held their guns steady. If that had been Navarro’s plan—to take them by surprise and shoot—it was wasted. This bunch had their rifles over their saddle horns, ready for action. No, there was no question, much as Dud hated to admit it, Navarro had gone yellow.
“Under the vine?” Callan stared. “What vine?”
“But surely, señor,” Navarro protested, “you know of the vine that covers the cave mouth? It is there, where the spring flows from the rock. Behind that hanging vine there is a cave. And I think I know where the gold is!”
“You know?” Mickley stared at him suspiciously. “Where?”
“There is a ledge, señor, with something upon it. You walk in, say forty paces on your horse, and there you are!”
Forty paces! Shafter’s face stiffened, then relaxed, and he tried to keep the gleam from his eyes.
“Damn you!” Shafter burst out furiously. “You sold us out!”
“Let’s go!” Mickley said eagerly. “Let’s get it!”
“The box will be ver’ heavy, señor,” Navarro warned. He rolled a smoke with nerveless fingers. “It will take several men.”
“That’s right,” Mickley agreed. The storekeeper bound up a piece of a canvas ground sheet around a three-foot stick to make a torch. “You”—he motioned to three of the men—“you come and help move the money. Bert, you stay and keep an eye on these folks. I don’t trust ’em. Nor you,” he added, turning on the Mexican. “Come with us!” He handed Navarro the stick and set a match to the bundle on the end.
Navarro’s face paled, and his eyes lifted to meet Dud’s. He started to speak, to voice a protest, but Navarro gave a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head.
“Of course, señor,” he said gently. “Why not?”
Mickley turned abruptly toward the cave entrance. As he turned, the bright silver on the butt of his pistol caught Dud’s eye. He remembered the flash he had seen during the robbery. It was Mickley! The store owner had planned all this!
Dud Shafter stared after him, and Benzie swallowed, his eyes wide and white. Neither Fanning nor Beth understood, and they could only believe Dud looked so because of the betrayal.
“They’d better find it,” Bert Callan warned. He sat his horse beside the remaining three men.
Well, Navarro’s attempt to cut the odds had helped some. It was three to four now, if the shooting started. If only Beth were out of the way!
He looked at her, trying to warn her with his eyes, but she failed to grasp his meaning, and moved closer.
He glanced around, and saw with panic that the group had disappeared behind the vine. Mentally, he counted their steps. Suddenly his hard, freckled face turned grim.
“Run, Beth!” he yelled.
Callan’s face blanched, then suddenly his hands swept down for his guns and they came up spouting fire. But too slow, for Dud Shafter’s gun was blasting almost before Callan’s cleared the holster!
But at the same instant, there was a great crash of falling rock from within the cave, and screams of agony! Then more falling rock, and in the midst of it the roar of guns as Shafter, Benzie, and Fanning opened up on the remaining riders!
Shafter’s first shot struck Callan high in the chest and rocked him in the saddle, unsettling his aim so that Callan’s bullet went wild. Then Dud, firing low and fast, triggered two more slugs into the gunman. Suddenly, loose in the saddle, as though all his bones and muscles had turned to jelly, Callan rolled and fell, like a sack of wheat into the grass.
The first blast of Benzie’s shotgun had blown a rider clear out of his saddle even as his hands lifted his rifle, and for the rest, that was enough. The two remaining men held their hands high.
Dud turned, thumbing shells into his gun, and started at a stumbling run toward the cave. One of his legs felt numb and he remembered a stunning shock when something had struck his knee as the shooting began. Yet as he reached the cave mouth, the vines were shoved aside and three men rushed out. Two of the would-be robbers, and behind them—Navarro!
Shafter let out a whoop of joy and held his gun on the two riders, but they had no fight left in them. They looked pale and sick.
Dud stared at the Mexican. “You’re safe? I thought you’d betrayed us, then I thought you’d committed suicide!”
Navarro looked white and shaky himself, and his black eyes were large in his handsome face.
“You forget, amigo, that I knew what was to happen! At the moment we reached the thirtieth step, I stopped and, holding my torch high, pointed ahead! There was a ledge, and on it a fallen rock that in the shadows did not look unlike a chest. They rushed forward, and poof! They were gone! It was awful, señor! A horrifying thing which I hope never to see again!”
“Mickley? Mickley was the man who wore the white hat. When he started for the cave, I recalled the flash of silver from his gun, the same I saw on the trail!”
“Sí, Mickley and one other, who was close behind them. These? They were frightened and ran. It was most terrible, amigo.”
They walked back to the adobe. Beth, her face stark-white, her teeth biting her lower lip, was standing beside Benzie, who held the two riders under his shotgun.
“You two”—Shafter motioned with his six-gun to the men from the cave—“line up over there with them others!”
They obeyed, avoiding the bodies of Callan and the man Benzie had killed. Dud’s hard face was remorseless.
“Your boss died back in the cave,” he said, “and there’s the other one.” He motioned to Callan. “Now who do you hombres work for?”
A lanky man in a worn vest swallowed and said, “Shafter, I reckon we all done run out of a job! We shore have!”
“Then I’ll give you one.” Dud Shafter’s voice was quiet. “Plant these two hombres over against the cliff and plant ’em deep. Then if I was you, I’d climb into leather and light a shuck. They tell me,” he added grimly, “they are hiring hands up in the Wind River country.”
Gingerly, Shafter examined his knee. It was already turning black, but evidently a chunk of rock from the foundation of the house had ricocheted against his leg, for there was no sign of a bullet.
Fanning shrugged hopelessly. “An ugly fracas,” he said, “and we ain’t no closer to the gold!”
Dud glanced up, pulling down his pant leg. “I don’t know where it is but I’ll lay a bet Navarro knows! He wouldn’t have taken them into the cave unless he knew that wasn’t the right place.”
“Sí.” The Mexican nodded. Turning, he pointed to the brand chiseled into the cliff behind the adobe. “See? Corb Fanning’s brand—the PV Nine—which the vaqueros, of which I was one, shortened to call the Pea Vine! Where else would a man bury his gold but under his own brand?”