They rode down the Rios Canyon gorge, watching the cold, quick white water rushing through the gray walls of the gorge. There was a well-marked trail running along the bank so there was no need to concern themselves with trying to ford the frothing river, now churning with the recent rain and snowmelt. Cody doubted the river could be crossed anyway. It was cool in the canyon bottom, a brisk breeze whipping past. The three men rode hunched in their coats, shoulders nearly to their ears. There was an occasional small stand of pine trees and isolated cedars. Some new grass was trying to prosper, but not doing well. The weather was not conducive to the growth. They spotted a doe mule deer watering with her two half-grown fawns, but left them alone, although hunger was beginning to gnaw at them.
‘Have you traveled this road before, Charlie?’ Wayne asked, shouting to be heard above the swirl and roar of the rushing river.
‘Once. The last time I got fired from a high country ranch,’ Charlie said with no apparent bitterness. ‘I made my way to the Triangle that time too and got hired on.…’
‘The reason I’m asking,’ Wayne said, not in the mood for one of Charlie’s long-winded tales, ‘is that the traveling is going to get pretty rugged unless we find some graze for our ponies and some grub for ourselves. Is there any kind of stop over ahead? A town, maybe, a small ranch?’
‘Not that I can recall,’ Charlie answered. ‘Of course the last time I was leading a pack-mule and didn’t need to stop for anything.’
‘You were so much smarter then,’ Wayne said, just to chip in something abrasive. ‘How about you, Cody?’ Wayne asked. ‘Have you ever ridden this way?’
‘No, sir. I never even been on this side of the mountains in my life.’
Where had he been? Cody thought to himself. Nowhere, really, in his entire life. The Domino ranch had been his home for a long while. His idea of a town was McCormack, a shanty town thrown up mostly to take advantage of the high country ranches in the area. In McCormack a man could find liquor and gambling, and there were always a few tired-looking women trying to dress fancy but looking like they were only marking time until they reached the end of their trail. Cody found out early that he had no tolerance for liquor, no liking for gambling, and the women of the type he had met in McCormack held only an intimidating sort of fascination for him.
The riders had emerged from the mouth of the gorge by noon, and the land fanned out around them in a long plain. There was not much green grass to be seen. The cold, driving rain the storm had delivered was not the nurturing sort.
With the sun high in the pale-blue sky they stopped to give their ponies a rest. There was nowhere to sit except on the muddy earth, so they just stood idly by and watched as their horses tried to forage a meal from what grass they could find.
‘If we do find a farmhouse,’ Charlie said, looking at the featureless land ahead, ‘I say we offer the lady of the house good money for some country home cooking.’
‘How much have you got in your purse, Charlie?’ Wayne asked.
Charlie looked at the man in surprise, his red, round face set in a frown. ‘Why, Wayne, we’re carrying enough money to buy a farm and cook a chicken for ourselves.’
‘No, we’re not,’ Wayne Tucker said with a harsh look that included Cody. ‘We don’t have that money. Understand? If we so much as flash one five-dollar gold piece, we’d better have our minds made up that we’re willing to fight for it. There’s plenty of thieves in this world, and we’ve still got a man wanting it back who figures it for his own.’
‘The man who killed the trapper back there? Why, he must be long gone. It happened so long ago.’
‘The killer will have a long, bitter memory of it. Maybe he thinks about it every morning when he rises and again before he rolls up for the night. He must have had a lot of dreams wrapped around that gold.’
‘Ah, Wayne!’ Charlie said in disgust. ‘It’s—’
‘That’s it, Charlie! Until we get somewhere where we can safely tuck that gold away, we show none of it. We don’t even whisper about it. That’s the only safe way.’
‘All right,’ Charlie said dourly. He knew that Wayne was right. He himself had seen a man killed for the boots he was wearing. There was a lot of poverty on the far plains, and a lot of rough men looking to remedy that.
They rode on into the afternoon, the lowering sun on their right shoulders. There was no trail and no need for any across the flat expanse. But that left them with little clue as to where they were going. Both men professed to know where the huge Triangle ranch lay, but there seemed to be no certainty in their direction.
By mid-afternoon they began to hear a new storm rumbling in the mountains they had just left and, looking that way, Cody saw black thunderheads stacked against the northern sky, shadowing the high country. It would storm again up there and probably the snow would fall heavily.
‘Lucky we made it down,’ Cody commented, ‘before that settles in.’
‘Probably would have froze to death,’ Wayne said with a small shudder.
‘Probably would have starved to death,’ Charlie said in a complaining voice.
‘We’ll come across a place,’ Wayne said.
‘And do what? Stand looking at a pile of ham and sweet potatoes which we can afford to buy but don’t because you say that gold has got to stay hid? Why can’t we chip a few dollars out of it?’
‘It hasn’t come up, has it, Charlie?’ Wayne said, waving an arm around the empty land.
‘You won’t spend no money if it does!’ Charlie said irritably. ‘You already told us that.’
‘Would you rather be hungry or dead?’ Wayne asked angrily.
‘It gets to the point where there’s not much difference,’ Charlie grumbled. Then he fell silent. Cody knew that it was just their habitual bickering, sharpened by the long miles in the saddle, the ordeal in the mountains and mounting hunger. If the two were not arguing they were not happy.
The wind continued to rise; the skies behind them grew darker. Now and then Cody would glance back northward, to measure the storm’s progress. He did not wish to be caught out on the open prairie should the hard weather continue to approach. Once, as he shifted his eyes that way, Cody caught a glimpse of an unexpected sight.
He could not be sure in the tricky interweaving of light and shadow, it all being so distant, but he thought, believed, that if his eyes were not playing tricks on him, he had spotted a lone horseman following along their trail.
Cody said nothing about the horseman. It would lead to wild conjecture which would somehow become an argument between Charlie and Wayne. Anyway, he could not be positive. A man in lonesome country long enough starts to create familiar images in his mind where none exist. Still, Cody did not ride as easily as he previously had. For a single moment he had an unsettling, haunting thought:
The skeleton wants its gold back.
In the hour before sunset they began to see scattered cattle on the prairie.
Cody asked, ‘Are we getting close to the Triangle?’
Charlie answered, ‘No, we’re another day’s travel from Triangle. It looks like some boot-strapper is taking a gamble on the open range.’
Cody nodded. He understood what Charlie meant. Someone with nothing but a small herd of cattle and a lot of unjustified hope had apparently driven the animals onto unclaimed land. Cody had seen many men trying to make it like that. Sometimes it worked out for the new rancher; more often it was a desperate, ill-considered attempt that ended in tragedy for the rancher and his family.
‘Maybe they’ve thrown up a ranch house,’ Charlie said, his mind obviously still on his belly.
‘Do you see anything?’ Wayne asked, eager to maintain his sense of superiority. ‘Probably it’s a hole-in-the-ground outfit.’
Cody had seen some of those too. On the open plains where not a stick of timber grew, some shoestring ranchers had tried living there with nothing but a dugout hole in the ground as shelter. Covered over with brush as a roof and maybe some crude wattle, these brave, foolhardy types would sit out a winter in conditions as primitive as those endured by any nomadic tribe. Except the wandering Indian would already have ridden south, following the bison before heavy winter set in. People had been found, whole families, frozen or choked by smoke from fires which had only a hole in the roof to ventilate them. At times heavy snows would collapse the crude shelter, leaving those within with no protection from the weather, and no place for hundreds of miles to go.
Still men came and tried it. We are a resilient and a stubborn race.
They passed two red-backed cattle chewing away on their bovine cuds. These were neither contented with their lot nor disturbed at the prospect of a hard winter. It was doubtful they were able to understand either situation, and there was nothing they could do to change their fate. They were a useful, sad, enduring species.
‘Those two have a little fat on them,’ Charlie said, studying the cattle. ‘Maybe we could cut one out. We could have us some beefsteak instead of swallowing our own dry spit for supper.’ Charlie’s eyes were fixed unhappily on Wayne. ‘If anyone challenged us, we could offer to pay up.’
‘When would you do that, Charlie?’ Wayne growled. ‘Before or after they fitted your neck in a noose?’
‘Ah, everybody ain’t that unreasonable!’ Charlie complained.
He had more to add, but the sharp crack of a distant rifle and the slam of a well-aimed bullet brought the debate to a sudden end.
Cody had heard the bullet strike before he heard the report. The lead slug had whistled across the intervening space and whined off of the saddle-bags Wayne’s horse was carrying. The sound of the impact was like a muffled blacksmith’s strike. The horse reared up in angry confusion; it had felt the impact of the bullet against its body and did not care for it even though it had caused no lasting harm.
Cody eased his own buckskin horse forward and grabbed the bridle of Wayne’s horse. Nearly unseated by the rearing horse, Wayne was clinging to the dancing animal with the saddle pommel and a hand grasping the horse’s mane.
Now Charlie had drawn his rifle from its sheath and was looking westward toward where the shot had originated. Cody saw nothing, no one. And then he did. Four armed men were walking toward them, only small shadows in the distance. They must have been hidden in some coulee that cut the land.
Or had they risen from their underground shelter?
Cody released his grip on the bridle of Wayne’s horse as it settled, shaking its head in annoyance. He drew his own revolver and rested it on his lap, his hand firmly on the butt.
‘Just hold up there!’ a voice called in a distant, angry shout. ‘We can pick you off those ponies one by one.’
‘Why would you want to do that?’ Charlie bellowed out in answer before realizing he did not want to get into a shouting match. More quietly he said to Cody, ‘Don’t they think we can hit them as well?’
‘Just rest easy awhile,’ Wayne said in a low voice. ‘We’ve got too much to live for to get into a shooting match with a bunch of range rats.’
The term was hardly complimentary, but Cody could see why it came to mind to describe this ragtag outfit. One of them was a bulky, tall man dressed in furs. His hat was torn, his beard unkempt. He carried a double-barreled shotgun, and seemed to be the patriarch of the group. Of the three others one was tall and slender, dressed in furs and rags. He carried an old Spencer repeating rifle. Between them were two more clan members. They were both wearing ground-dusting skirts so they must have been women, but it was hard to tell at a distance.
It wasn’t much easier as they drew nearer, plodding purposefully across the grassland. The larger of the two women wore a blue bandanna over her hair, which trickled in a few iron-gray strands across her broad forehead. The younger was a mere squirt. She looked about five feet tall, was shod in worn boots and wore a dirty flop hat. She carried a Winchester rifle. Cody would have bet that she was the one who had fired the shot.
They stood before the horsemen, woebegone and dirt-poor but proud. The younger woman’s eyes flashed with hatred or remembered grievances. The eyes were a hazy sort of blue-gray; her mouth was small and pouting, her jaw set.
‘Y’all get off our land!’ the girl said with an anger which throttled her throat and caused her to tremble.
The older man shushed her. ‘Sorry about the shooting,’ he said, not looking a bit sorry. He stroked his silver-streaked beard as he studied the horsemen and the weapons they were carrying, measuring them. ‘You are on private property, you know.’
‘We didn’t see anything posted,’ Wayne, who was angry, answered. He would take charge as usual. ‘There’s no fence, no corner marker, nothing. In this country a man takes his right of passage for granted.’
‘I still think they’re rustlers,’ the girl said, rocking excitedly on her feet. The wind shifted the shapeless brown skirt she wore. Her eyes continued to flash warning signals. Her hands still gripped the Winchester tightly. ‘I saw them looking our cattle over.’
Charlie spoke up now. ‘Ever see a cowhand ride past a stray steer without even looking at it?’
‘They ain’t stray, they’re our’n,’ the wide-built older woman said. Her voice creaked as if it had risen from some seldom-used depth of her body. Probably, Cody thought, she was just nervous. She looked to the older man for leadership.
‘That was just a manner of speaking,’ Wayne said with more unction than was usual with him. Obviously he wanted no trouble with these people. ‘The cattle are widely scattered, not bunched. That’s all my friend meant. Hard to tell where they came from. A cattleman will always study the brand the beef carries.’
‘Ain’t branded yet,’ the tiny girl said, stepping even nearer. She lifted her face to Wayne. ‘No need to slap iron on them – we ain’t never had no rustlers out here before.’
These were rough-talking, rough-living, independent folks. Cody had seen nothing like them since the time he had met up with some of the Clinch Mountain boys – a clan of untamed mountain men who had moved from their Appalachian stronghold in the east a few years back to migrate to the west and skipped all civilization along the way. He wondered if these people could be some offshoot of that family of lawless men. He took his turn at trying to calm matters down.
‘We’re only three wandering men who lost our jobs on the high mountain ranges, due to winter lay-offs. We’re trying to make our way to the Triangle in hopes of finding a situation there. We were studying the brands to see if we might be closer to the ranch.’
‘Triangle thinks it owns all of the land west of the Pecos and south of the Canadian line,’ the younger man, who had not spoken before, said in a peculiar piping voice. The other members of the family nodded their heads in agreement.
‘I guess maybe we made a mistake,’ the patriarch said after a moment’s thought. ‘We’re kind-of pinched out here, you see. We can’t afford to lose an inch of graze or a head of cattle. I guess maybe you’re what you say – honest, hard-working men looking for a rack.’
The old man had relaxed a little, as had the younger, thin one. The little girl seemed to be still tightly wound. Cody thought she resembled a child’s toy, which if the right lever were pushed would go bounding and tumbling away from them in odd directions, squawking all the way.
‘If that’s settled,’ the plump older woman said, relaxing and revealing her motherly side, ‘maybe it would be neighborly to offer these boys a bowl of hot soup and some bread, Emil.’
‘Maybe so,’ the man, Emil, said uncertainly. ‘If they wouldn’t have any objection to eating poor fare in poor circumstances.’
‘I’ve eaten in holes in the ground before,’ Charlie said unwisely.
‘We’re not diggers, mister!’ the girl spat back. ‘We’ve got a fine house – it just ain’t finished yet, as timber and all are hard to come by out here.’
‘Hush, Lonnie,’ Emil said. ‘The man didn’t mean nothing. He was just saying he’s eaten in all sorts of places when he was hungry enough. No need to brag about our poor house.’
‘They’re like the Triangle people, looking down their noses at us!’ the girl, Lonnie, said moodily.
‘Then Triangle isn’t far off?’ Wayne asked.
‘Half a day’s ride,’ Emil answered, ‘but I don’t think you boys have enough light to make it today – besides,’ he said, lifting his chin toward the north, ‘there seems to be a storm right on your heels.’
It was true; the storm clouds they had seen earlier were now stacked high above the mountains, and Cody could see a spike of lightning crease their black, rumpled depths. Thunder made the earth tremble and hurried their decision.
‘Looks like we’d better, boys,’ he said, and to Emil, ‘if you’re sure you have the room.’
‘We’ve enough. I’ll not leave any man out in this,’ Emil said through his beard. The wind had begun to fairly race across the plains and the clouds cast long, menacing shadows. They started on unhurriedly. Though the weather suggested urgency, Emil and his family were afoot and could travel no faster.
‘How’s your horse?’ Emil asked Wayne as they walked on through the blustering day. ‘It seemed that Lonnie tagged it. There must by a frying pan in your saddle-bags from the sound it made.’
‘I carry implements,’ Wayne said tightly. ‘The horse will be all right. It just got spooked.’
‘Sometimes Lonnie don’t think before she acts,’ Emil said. ‘It seems to be a common failing in our family.’
Wayne just nodded, and both men fell silent as the thunder roared and the cold wind slapped against their bodies. The sun was beginning to die in the west and it painted the underside of the towering storm clouds a blood red.
Topping a rise now they caught sight of a clump of live-oak trees, and built among them stood a very long, very low structure. It was of poles and used lumber, carelessly fitted together. The roof was sod. One end of the long house had been daubed with whitewash, but the material apparently had given out before the other end was reached. Smoke rose in a flattened curlicue from a native stone chimney.
Cody felt the tug on his stirrup and looking down he saw Lonnie walking close beside him. The first cold drops of rain were beginning to fall and there was a definite chill to the wind. He looked at her in puzzlement. She trudged on methodically, her eyes kept straight ahead. What did she want? He was about to ask her when she whispered above a gust of tree-rattling wind:
‘I was only talking mean to you to drive you away. When I shot I was just trying to give you warning. I wasn’t trying to hit the horse. My shooting’s not so good, I guess.’
What was she gabbling on about? No one else was looking their way and Lonnie was still not looking at Cody. The oak trees shuddered in the wind as they passed through them toward the house.
‘You should have gone away,’ Lonnie whispered. ‘Once you’re inside the house, they’re sure to kill you.’