The river was jammed with a tangle of logs. Water had backed up for half a mile and was rising, had broken the banks in some parts and was snaking across the flats and around the roots of the tall timber either side of the Lavaca.
The mill had been built just around a wide, sweeping bend where the water slowed its pace and the banks were flat and there were sandy gravel spits jutting out. Above this point, the river’s current was strong as it flowed down out of the Sierras, passed over several small waterfalls, one large set of rapids and two smaller ones. Then the water deepened as the river flowed through the ravine and the current raced between the thick timber lining the banks. It was a simple matter for lumberjacks to fell the trees here, lop the branches, saw the most useable sections out and then roll them down to splash into the river. A little effort with poles to get out into the main current and the timber was soon snatched away by the racing water and borne downstream to where the mill waited beyond the wide bend, several miles away.
As the timber was worked back away from the banks and up the slopes of the mountain, a log race would need to be built, but, at this point in time, it was unnecessary as the lumberjacks were still working the immediate banks of the river. But something had gone wrong, as it occasionally did with waterways. The current was stronger than normal or silt had come down and made part of the river shallower than it should have been. In any case, vagaries of current had started throwing logs out of the main stream and catching them in the shallows. It was unnoticed at first and then they jutted out far enough to catch other logs until there was a jam built up. And word reached the felling site too late to prevent a hundred trimmed trees from being rolled down the bank into the main stream.
When they came rocketing downstream and around the bend they cannoned into the logs already jammed there and, for a while, the foreman had hoped their sheer weight might break it loose and enable the journey to the mill to be completed. Instead, the logs rammed in harder and harder, jamming tighter, piling up like a handful of giant matchsticks spilled from a vesta box. It was dangerous work freeing a log jam, even for these expert lumbermen who could walk spinning logs while they rolled cigarettes, without losing a grain of tobacco.
Likely there were only a half-dozen key logs holding the jam. If these could be prised free, it would release the others and allow them to complete their journey to the mill. The trouble was, the key jammers were usually underneath and a man risked his neck crawling in between those piled-up trees, trying to prise them loose with a crowbar. Once he had found them, he could lead a rope in and it was sometimes possible to yank them free and get the jam going again. Horses were used, or, if the mill was close enough, the steam-driven donkey engine that drove the saws and milling machinery.
If they couldn’t be freed in this manner, the only way left was to plant dynamite and blast the jam loose.
No self-respecting lumberman took this procedure lightly, and used it only as a last resort. Blasting destroyed timber, shattering many of the logs in the jam, sometimes all of them if a man was heavy-handed with the dynamite. A lumberman’s job was to fell and mill timber, not spread it all over the countryside in heaps of useless splinters, so blowing the jam was something he didn’t like to do.
But Morgan Cole, foreman of the newly-formed Colorado Sierra Lumber Company on the Lavaca River could see no other way with the present jam. It was one of the worst tangles he had seen since coming down from Canada and up there he had seen logs piled seventy feet high and stretching back upstream for nigh on a quarter-mile. This was a bad one for the size of the river and the location of the mill. If it could be freed by yanking the key jam-logs, there would be no problem. But, if he had to resort to blasting, he was worried about the buildings and machinery. The way these logs were interlocked and stacked by the surging current, jamming tighter every minute as they piled up against the barrier, they would take a large charge of dynamite to blow them. And no man could say with certainty where several tons of wood were going to land.
This was the problem that was bothering Cole when he saw the two riders coming up from the direction of the mill, and he cursed. The last thing he wanted now was trouble with the Diamond-D men! But, hold up ... There was a woman there. And, what’s more, she looked like an Indian girl.
He straightened, moving his half boots expertly on the slippery log out in midstream, shading his eyes, as he watched Yancey and Cindy ride out along the riverbank to where some of his men waited for him to make a decision.
Cole stood on the moving log, instinctively shifting his boots to keep steady balance, hands on hips, watching the riders talk with his men. Ripping out a curse, the foreman started back across the logs, motioning to the men on the jam with him to hold up while he saw what was going on on the bank. Expertly, Cole jumped from log to log until he was on the sandy spit and he strode swiftly towards Yancey and the Indian girl.
“What’s goin’ on?” he demanded tersely.
Yancey hipped in saddle and put his hard eyes on the big lumberjack. “Looking for sign of Wolf Duane and his crew,” Yancey told him.
Cole frowned. “Not around here. Who are you, anyway?”
“It’s a long story, but this ought to calm you down.” Yancey fumbled at the secret pocket behind his belt and took out his Commission papers signed by the Governor of Texas. He handed them to Cole and the big foreman squinted at them, lips moving as he slowly spelled out the words. He gave Yancey a sharp look as he handed them back then turned his gaze to the Indian girl.
“Ain’t you from the hotel?”
“She’s helping me right now,” Yancey told him. “Deane’s crew are chasin’ a couple of friends of mine, one of ’em’s wounded, maybe both by now. They were up on the Sierra and seems they might’ve had notions of getting to your lumber camp for protection.”
Cole’s jaw hardened. “Look, mister, I got me enough trouble of my own with Wolf Duane as it is without buyin’ into any more on behalf of some ranny he’s huntin’ down.”
“What’s that mean? You turned ’em away or you wouldn’t help ’em even if they did show?”
Cole flushed. “They ain’t been here. Now, I’m too goddamn busy to stand here fannin’ the breeze.” He gestured out to the river. “I’ve got a log jam to clear.”
Yancey looked at him hard. “Right. But if someone named Cato shows and I hear you threw him to the wolves, I’ll be back for you.”
Cole’s face flushed even deeper. “Never said I’d do that,” he muttered. “Just said I got enough troubles of my own. I hope your pard don’t show here, mister. But if he does, and Duane’s on his tail …” He shrugged. “I guess I’ll do what I can for him.”
“You better,” Yancey told him shortly. He gestured to the long base of the piled-up logs. “Gonna blow it?”
“Have to, looks like,” Cole sighed. “Knotted tighter’n an old maid’s knittin’ after the cat’s been at it. Gonna take a hell of a charge.”
“Why not several small ones?” Yancey asked.
Cole frowned, studying the logs. “Packed too tight.”
Yancey seemed dubious. “Saw one worse than that up in Canada. Foreman wanted one big charge, some old Frenchy quietly went out while he was gettin’ it ready, planted six small ones along the outside edge and blew it loose with hardly any timber destroyed.”
“Sure, it works. Sometimes. But not this time. Too much of a tangle underwater. Have to plant the charges too deep.”
“There’s an old British Navy trick for underwater charges. They set the dynamite or gunpowder in a keg, tack the fuse around the sides, light it, put on the lid and pour pitch or tar over it. Usually enough air in the keg for the fuse to burn all the way down.”
“Say, that sounds clever!” Cole said abruptly. “If I could get my dynamite planted deep enough, a couple small charges would jar ’em loose.”
“Have to anchor the kegs so they don’t bob up,” Yancey cautioned. “And it takes a bit of experimenting to get the right length of fuse. Too short and ...” He raised his eyes skywards, having no need for further description.
Cole nodded tightly. “Mister, you just might've given me the answer I want. You got no worries if your pard shows up here. Duane won’t get his hands on him.”
Yancey nodded and began to turn his mount aside but checked when he saw two men riding fast out of the timber, coming towards the mill. They waved and Cole waved back, frowning puzzledly as the men rode up and dismounted. One of them, big, bearded, slab-shouldered, came across, glancing curiously at Yancey and the Indian girl.
“What’s up, Jed?” Cole asked.
“Up-river, spottin’ the next stand of timber like you wanted, when we heard gunfire,” the man said. “Back in the ravine it sounded like, but turns out it was on top of the cliffs. Two rannies fightin’ off a bunch that looked like Duane and his men. They fell over into the ravine.”
Yancey stiffened and Cole whistled, looking sideways at the big Enforcer. “Sorry, Bannerman. Sounds like your pard’s finished. It’s a thousand foot drop up there.”
“Aw, they didn’t come down all the way, Morg,” Jed continued. “Caught up on a ridge, fifty feet or so from the top. But looks like a ton of snow on ’em.”
“What about Duane and his bunch?” Yancey snapped.
Jed looked at him and shrugged. “They was just standin’ around the top lookin’ over. We vamoosed before they spotted us. We were in territory Duane claims is his range and Cole don’t want us to make any more trouble than we have to.”
“You figure they’re still alive on that ridge?”
Jed shrugged. “Lots of snow to cushion their fall, I reckon. But it'll be mighty cold.”
“Any way of getting up to it from the ravine?”
Cole and Jed both shook their heads slowly. “Dunno. That’s Duane’s neck of the woods. If there’s a way to get down there from the top or up from the bottom, he’ll know about it. But we don’t, Bannerman. Sorry.”
Yancey’s mouth tightened. “How do I get there from here?”
Cole pointed up-river. “Just follow the river for seven-eight miles. Jed, you show ’em. Get ’em started on the right trail, then get back here. We’re gonna blow this jam.”
Yancey nodded his thanks as Jed mounted again and he and the girl turned their horses and followed the big lumberjack back along the spit to the riverbank.
~*~
“I want to know if they’re still alive!” snapped Wolf Duane, the wind whipping his words away from his purple lips, squeezing tears that turned to ice almost immediately from his eyes.
He was standing on the rim of the ravine, looking down at the jutting ledge below, and the pile of drift snow that apparently covered the two bodies of Cato and Senator Jonas Locke. They had waited a long time for some sign of life from down there but so far there had been nothing stirring. Duane was growing impatient and he was angry that he might have been cheated out of the satisfaction of slowly killing his old enemy. He rounded now on his silent, uneasy men.
“Hog, get a rope. You’re goin’ over the edge.”
Hog stiffened. “Not me, Wolf! Hell, man, I got me a toe shot off!”
Duane’s eyes slitted. “You brought Cato out to my place. If you hadn’t, the senator would still be in the shack. So you go down there and find out if they’re still alive or not!”
Hog paled. “Judas, Wolf, I ain’t got any head for heights! I—I’ll be hogtied with this here foot. It’s hurtin’ like all get-out now. If I go hoppin’ down a cliff-face with it, I could easy miss my footin’ and fall.”
Wolf Duane swung his rifle barrel up so that it touched the lower section of Hog’s jaw. His eyes were deadly and uncompromising.
“Get a rope, Hog,” he said quietly. “Pronto. Or I’ll blow your head off!”
Hog swallowed, swiveled his eyes around at the other men but they met his gaze blankly, glad that they hadn’t been chosen for the chore. He nodded slowly and backed off from the rifle, slogging back through the shallow snow towards the wind-blown horses. He took down his lariat and then moved to the mount alongside and took the grass-plaited rope from the saddlehorn. He walked back to where Duane stood impassively, covering him with the rifle.
“I—I’ll need more than one rope, I reckon,” Hog stammered, fumbling to tie the ropes together.
“Better make that knot tight,” Duane said. “You’ll be hangin’ out over a thousand feet of space.”
Hog looked at him sharply. He didn’t need to be reminded of that. His hands fumbled and he muttered a curse, then yanked the knot tight, testing it with one end of the rope under his boot while he strained on the other past the knot. It pulled tighter and he was satisfied it would support his weight. Then he looked around for somewhere to anchor the rope to.
There was a small boulder about four yards back from the edge. Hog walked to it with the rope, turned and looked at Duane. He opened his mouth to speak but took one look at his boss’ cold, unrelenting face and knew he would be wasting his breath trying to get Duane to change his mind. Sighing, feeling sick at the thought of going over the edge of the cliff, Hog tied the rope securely around the boulder. He tested it several times between the rock and the cliff edge, knowing that his life depended on it.
“Got your gun?” Duane asked.
Hog nodded, slapping his holstered Colt under his jacket.
“Don’t use it unless you have to,” Duane ordered. “If they’re alive, that’s the way I want ’em. Even if they’re already dyin’, I’ll see they do it real slow.”
Hog nodded jerkily, passed the rope around his back, over one shoulder, under the other arm and gripped it around his waist. He glanced at the others but they merely watched silently; there were no ‘friends’ on the Diamond-D. Hog nodded to no one in particular, backed up to the edge and closed his eyes swiftly as he looked down into the ravine far below. He quickly changed the focus of his vision to the narrow ledge with the snow piled up on it. Somewhere beneath that snow were Cato and Senator Jonas Locke. If it was up to him, he’d leave them there. If they were alive, they would freeze slowly to death. If not, it was as good a tomb as any, far as he was concerned.
“Git!” Duane yelled at him suddenly and Hog took a deep breath and started to pay out the rope slowly, leaning back into the sliding loop, his feet braced against the cliff face. His wounded foot couldn’t take much weight and he grimaced as pain shot up his leg and into his hip.
Hog lowered himself slowly down the cliff face, teeth grinding together, his stomach knotted up, in fear, as he worked his way down. On the edge above him, Duane stood with his rifle cradled in his arms, watching his every motion critically, impassively. The other men took a brief look at him and then moved back. None of them liked being too close to that edge: after all it had given way beneath Cato and the senator.
Sweating, panting, Hog paused about halfway down. He looked up and immediately glanced away as clouds above the edge gave it the appearance of falling outwards. Downwards was no better, for the rope was twisting slowly and the timber falling away into the ravine seemed to beckon him. He snapped his gaze back to the cliff face a few feet in front of his face, swung in against it with his boots and yelled as pain knifed through his wounded foot and up his leg.
“Move, damn it!” called Duane and Hog nodded, easing the rope through his hands again, feeling it bite across his back and hip and he lowered himself down towards the snow-piled ledge.
The cliff face bulged slightly and he swung in under the curve, getting a better look at the ledge. Snow was lying on it and piled up on crevices and he knew this was permanent snow, not the stuff that had given way beneath Cato and Locke. That snow was in an untidy heap on the outer edge of the ledge and now he could see an arm and a leg showing from beneath it. Looked to him like the senator and there was no movement from the man. Hog hung in space, twisting slightly, as he scanned the ledge for some sign of Cato. Could be the small man was buried beneath it but then he saw him, lying sprawled on the edge of the pile, legs out of sight under the snow, upper body with several inches on it, head almost covered, one hand lying limply on the cold rock, fingers curled loosely. The other hand was out of sight, covered, presumably, by more snow.
Hog turned his face up the taut rope and saw the moisture spraying from the twisting fibers against the sun. He hung on tightly.
“They look dead!” he yelled. “Half-buried, no movement out of either of ’em!”
“Get down all the way and make sure!” Duane ordered.
Hog sighed and eased himself down the cliff face, on the inward curve of the bulge. It wasn’t much of a bulge but just sufficient to prevent anyone on the cliff edge from getting a clear view of the ledge. The fact that Cato and the senator had landed here had been sheer luck. By rights, they should have been carried down into the ravine with the tons of snow that had collapsed from beneath them. But, somehow, they had been thrown onto the only piece of rock that could possibly have broken their fall. Luck of the devil, no doubt about it, he thought, grimly. Giving him more damn work, too. Hell, he still had to get back up that rope and he wasn’t looking forward to it.
He dropped into the piled-up snow and grabbed frantically at the rope as he felt it begin to slide away from beneath him. He hung in space as several cubic yards of snow spilled over the edge and cascaded down into the ravine in a glittering white curve. Blowing out his breath in a long smoky plume, he swung inwards and dropped to the solid rock of the ledge. He hung onto the rope one-handed until he was sure of his footing and straightened slowly.
He was closest to the senator and he knelt, scooping away the snow to uncover his body, mainly the head and shoulders, so he could see if the man was alive or not. His head had been in an air pocket formed by the curve of his arm and shoulder, and only a thin dusting of snow had hidden his features. Hog was surprised to hear the breath hiss through his blue-tinged nostrils and he pushed the rest of the snow off the man, rolled him onto the ledge on his back. A moan escaped Locke’s bluish lips but he gave no other signs of consciousness. Hog stood up, blowing out his cheeks as he grabbed his rope and leaned far out to look up to where Duane stood with his rifle.
“Locke’s still alive, but I dunno for how long!” he called.
“Long as it’s enough to get him back up here!” answered Duane coldly.
Hog waved briefly and swung back onto the ledge proper, heaving himself upright. He walked over to where Cato lay and couldn’t be sure if the man was breathing or not as his hat had been knocked askew and half-covered his face. Hog stood beside Cato’s half-buried body and his lips curled as he shifted his weight off his throbbing, wounded foot. Damn half-pint, he thought. Cause of all his troubles right now.
Then he gave a crooked smile and lifted his good boot preparing to stomp it down on the limp, curl-fingered hand that protruded from the snow. “This’ll soon tell me if you’re alive or not, mister!” he grated and stomped down.
Suddenly the snow erupted and Cato’s body twisted over with a muscle-wrenching effort, his right hand breaking through the masking powder, bringing around the cocked Manstopper he had been holding ever since he had gone over the edge.
Hog yelled and stepped back, clawing at his own gun, startled. The Manstopper boomed and jumped in Cato’s numbed fist but the bullet sped true and took Hog just below the throat. He jerked backwards and the cry of agony was drowned in his throat as the impact punched him back and he flailed out past the edge to turn over and over as he plummeted down into the ravine.
Cato rolled away from the freezing snow and huddled against the cliff wall, as far back from the edge as he could get. A rifle hammered from up on the cliff and bullets raked the ledge, zipped into the piled snow, brought down a cascade of great lumps breaking loose from up above.
The snow began to break away from under Duane’s feet and he stopped firing, cursing savagely, as he flung himself backwards and watched the edge of the cliff fall away into the ravine. There had been tons of piled snow up there and they smashed into the ledge, depositing a large quantity there before tumbling and spewing on down into the ravine.
“You’re through, Cato!” Duane yelled wildly, sitting up, holding his smoking rifle, crawling to the edge. “You’re through! You can’t get down from there! I’ll wait around till you freeze or starve if I have to! You’re finished, little man!”
Cato didn’t waste his breath in reply. He looked at the new pile of snow that had just been deposited on the ledge, shivering in his wet clothes, and figured that if its weight didn’t collapse the ledge, it would form a good barrier against the wind. Now, if he could only find something to build a small fire with ...
He crawled across to where the senator lay, his legs under the fresh snow again. Cato holstered the Manstopper and grabbed Locke under the arms, heaving him backwards, free of the snow. The senator moaned in pain but he was alive, near-frozen, but alive. Cato figured they might be stuck on the ledge but they weren’t dead yet and with a little more luck they might even get out of this with their necks intact ...
But not if Wolf Duane could help it.
He knew he couldn’t get his men down to that ledge by ropes now. Cato still had ammunition. True, he couldn’t have much left, but he was a deadly shot and any man swinging in space on a rope from the cliff top would be as good as dead the moment he rounded that outward curve of the cliff face. Duane called his men together. Five of them. All he had left, and two of those were nursing wounds, thanks to Cato. He could tell by their faces that they had had enough of this hunt, this misery and cold and hunger, and he knew he wasn’t going to be popular when he told them what he had in mind, but he had never been a man to worry about what his men thought of him. As long as they did what they were told, that’s all he asked.
“We’re gonna get them two off that ledge and see ’em die painful and slow!” he announced.
Two of the men, the wounded ones, groaned aloud at the prospect and Duane’s mouth hardened, his eyes narrowing.
“You still work for me!” he snapped. “You want to quit, do it. Now. But you ride out just as you are, no pay comin’, nothin’. You get off my land pronto or I’ll shoot you for trespassin’. On the other hand, the men who stay and help me get the senator and Cato off that ledge, stand to earn themselves a mighty good bonus.”
He raked his bleak eyes around his men and though a couple shuffled their feet uncomfortably, no one made a move to leave. He nodded curtly, but he wouldn’t be surprised if someone pulled up stakes when he told them the details.
“We’re goin’ down there to that ledge,” he announced flatly. “Dunno if any of you recollect, but there’s a trail of sorts down there from way round the far end of the butte. It don’t lead down to it so much as it leads up. You got to get down the face of the butte over yonder ...” He gestured to the south face of the mountain “… and then start climbin’ back up. It’s narrow and it’s dangerous but we can get to Cato and the senator that way so we’re gonna do it. Link, you can stay up here with a rifle, if that there wound’s botherin’ you some. Rest of you come with me.”
Link looked relieved and the other wounded man muttered but said nothing as Duane gave them one final, raking cold look, then walked back towards the horses.