Charlie Tuttle let out a yowl and his horse bucked furiously. Cody could no longer see him although they had been riding through the dark storm nearly side by side. There was nothing but the night, the pelting rain and the gunman’s threat.
‘Charlie!’ Cody circled back, his eyes searching the ground at his horse’s feet, but although he thought he could hear a man’s moans above the roar and rush of the storm, he could not find Charlie. Another bullet from out of the darkness halted his search. Cody felt his buckskin buckle at the knees and then pitch forward. Kicking out of his stirrups, Cody leaped to the ground to move away from the weight of the dying horse. Another bullet was fired, but this one seemed to miss him by a wide margin, but then perhaps Cody had not been the target.
Who was the shooting man? How could his rifle be so accurate when they could barely see through the gloom of the stormy night?
Cody took a wrong step and slipped to his knees. Rising from the sodden ground he slipped and stumbled his way forward, seeking some sort of shelter. As he went he called out again:
‘Charlie! Wayne?’
There was no answer. His knee knocked into something solid and he went down over it. It was a fallen cottonwood tree he hadn’t seen in the darkness. He hunkered down behind it, pistol in hand. The rain beat down the brim of his hat and he was forced to bow his head as the constant cold wind stung his eyes.
What was there to do? Without his horse, with a gunman behind him and his friends lost or dead, there was very little choice. He could strike out toward the Triangle ranch on foot, but he had no idea how far it was or if he could find it in this darkness. Nor, disoriented as he was just then, could he even be sure of the direction he needed to travel. But his mind’s image was of faceless riflemen finding him in the darkness of the storm and finishing him off.
He did not call out again; he didn’t want to lead any of the killers to him.
One thought cheered him slightly: if it was the Stanton brothers who were shooting – and it nearly had to be – they were also supposedly afoot, and they had traveled long that day already. With that faintly cheering thought in mind, he started on, away from the wind toward what should be southward, since the storm was blowing in from the north. The cold ground underfoot was goo. He slogged and slipped onward. Once he nearly walked into an oak tree in the darkness; twice he went down as he stepped into unseen dips, twisting his ankle and tearing hide from his knee on a rock.
He was cold, stunned and alone. The rain and wind continued unabated, the storm showing no mercy. Cody staggered on like a blind man. The only warmth he could feel was from blood trickling down his leg from his torn knee. His situation could not get much grimmer.
And then it did.
He tripped over the dead man in the darkness and fell again. He landed face first against the cold mud. In panic he sat up and turned toward the dead man. Lightning flashed and by its garish light Cody recognized the face of Wayne Tucker. There was a streak of black blood across his forehead and down over one open eye. The other dead eye stared blankly up into the rain. Wayne’s saddle-bags lay near his outstretched fingers, the leather sodden. Ashamed for sparing so little time for pity, Cody wondered where Wayne’s horse had gotten to. He told himself that Wayne was of no use to him then, whereas his horse was. It was a savage sort of survival instinct which drove the shameful but necessary thought.
Cody rose, taking the saddle-bags with him. He peered around in vain in the darkness, searching for Wayne’s horse, but could not find it. Probably it had been shot or had wandered off. It might have been captured by the sniper. This last worried him the most. The sky would clear some time; the sun would shine again and he would be afoot on the wide plains while the killer, now mounted, would be able to ride him down easily.
Staggering on as thunder rumbled again, close enough to rattle his eardrums, he started toward the south once more. There was a coulee to the east, he knew, for they had crossed it en route to the Stanton house, but then they had been following someone who knew the trail well. Crossing that sandy cut would not be easy in the darkness, and probably the coulee was filled with rushing water by now.
He slogged on, his legs heavy, his knee throbbing and starting to stiffen, his ankle wrenched. The night was turbulent, the skies dark and confused. As for Cody his confusion was as deep. He was not even sure what had happened, who had been shooting at them, how they had found the three travelers. He shambled on, his clothing heavy with rain, the gold-weighted saddlebags cutting a crease in the flesh of his shoulder.
The shadowy figure was suddenly there before him. Bright eyes studied Cody’s approach warily. For an instant Cody believed he had found Wayne’s gray horse, but it was not. A dun-colored burro stood miserably in the rain. On its back was a ragged pack; a lead rope was attached to its white muzzle. The animal did not shy away as Cody approached it. It seemed too weary and storm-beaten to run. No wonder: if it was the jackass that had belonged to the Stanton brothers, it had already been led all the way from Rios Canyon through the teeth of the storm.
‘Sorry to do this,’ Cody muttered, ‘but I’ve a use for you.’
It was the job of only a few minutes to remove the pack from the little animal’s back and let the Stanton brothers’ gear fall to the muddy ground. The canvas pack rattled as if it contained pots and pans, maybe a coffee pot, but there could have been little else in it. It was light, far too light to be containing any ore.
The burro shuddered with relief. Perhaps it was thinking that this human would now get him out of the storm, rub him down and bring food. It got none of this treatment; there was none to give. Instead Cody draped the heavy saddle-bags over its back, took its lead rope and walked the donkey onward.
He had thought briefly of trying to ride the dumb animal, and it probably would have carried him, but how far? He instead simply trudged forward, pulling the reluctant little beast after him, carrying its burden into the drape of frozen darkness. As the rain settled in once more and each step became a small battle, with no sign of lessening, no indication of shelter ahead, Cody’s inconsequential thought was:
The skeleton has won the last hand again.
He came upon the winding coulee at last. As he had expected, water rushed rapidly through the sandy cut that time and centuries of earlier storms had gouged across the face of the prairie. Hesitating, Cody Hawk started the burro down into the cut following a path formed by a landslide. Below, the river raged; above, the sky rumbled. They would not cross the coulee bottom, not on this night, but what Cody was hoping for was some respite from the wind, some shelter from the driving storm.
He slipped on the uncertain footing and again fell. The sure-footed burro stood, ears twitching, studying Cody as he struggled to his feet in the ankle-deep sand. Again lightning forked across the sky, briefly revealing the coulee bottom. White water frothed southward. There was a narrow bank above the water and not far along it a dark hollow which might be deep enough to shelter in, however slight its protection might be. Anything in the way of cover would be welcome.
Struggling upward again to reach the bench Cody found the hollow in the sandy bank. It was no more than five feet deep, and from its roof dangled the roots of a tree which would soon be toppled by the storm. Would the bank cave in and leave Cody smothered? No matter, for now it was a place where the cold wind did not cut through his clothes and the rain was not driven like buckshot into his face. Cody crawled into the enclosure, which smelled of damp sand and tree root.
He sat panting for a time, legs drawn up. Beyond the opening to the tiny cave, lightning struck again, illuminating the tumbling sky and constant rush of rain. Cody could see nothing around him in the darkness, but then there wasn’t much to see. He tried once and once only to urge the donkey to follow him into the tight confines of the recess, but unlike a man, the burro could not duck down and curl up. With one disdainful look, the animal drew away on its lead rope, preferring to stand in the rain. No matter – trying to shelter up together would have made for an uncomfortable night for both of them, and at least the burro was out of the wind where it stood.
Cody tied the tethering rope around his ankle and lay back, exhausted and cold, trying not to think of what had passed and of tomorrow, but only of long-distant pleasant times. At last, despite the tumult of the night and the bone-chilling cold, he did at some point fall asleep, nudged out of the real world by his utter weariness.
Cody awoke to an unreal world. He sat up suddenly and tendrils of roots brushed across his face. There was a cold, brilliant shimmering in the opening to the cave and something was tugging at his foot. He rubbed a hand across his head to brush the roots away and found that his hair was matted with damp sand. He searched around for his hat, peering into the brilliance of the rising sun. The burro was moving around, probably trying to find some graze. Cody knew the animal could not have been fed for a long while, possibly for days. Sitting cross-legged on the sandy floor of the cave, he untied the tether from his ankle and then crawled to the cave entrance.
Below he could see the river still raging southward. Above, the sky was clouded, but these were broken clouds, the sun glinting on their skirts, making them into silver angels, not a dark assaulting force.
Cody tried to rise to his feet, but his injured knee buckled, and he nearly fell to the ground, saving himself only by grabbing hold of the steady little burro. The saddle-bags were still in place. The rain could have done no harm to their contents. After a long look around and a sigh, Cody started on again, leading the burro down the sandy path.
The rushing river water was loud in his ears. There was a mist cast into the air by its rapid passing over rocks and rough ground. Eventually they came to a place where the coulee bottom widened and the river slowed and they were able to ford the river and scramble up the sandy bank on the far side, fighting their way through a tangle of willow brush.
As they emerged onto the flat land, Cody paused, breathing heavily. His knee was throbbing with pain. He had not yet taken a look at it, of course, and did not wish to take the time to do so now.
‘We’ll find you something to eat,’ he told the patient burro, which glanced at him with its brown eyes as if understanding. If only it would be so easy to find himself something to eat. Even if he came across game to shoot, he dared not fire a gun without knowing where the killers were, if they were still stalking him. If it was the gold they were after, they certainly would continue on. And they would want to cut him off before he could reach Triangle.
Coming across a wide patch of buffalo grass, Cody loosed the donkey’s tether and let it graze, which it did without apparent eagerness, only as a matter of fact. The sun was now high, yellow, smaller. The clouds continued to scud past rapidly, casting their shadows against the long, flat plains.
Cody searched the featureless land in all directions, trying to orient himself toward where he believed Triangle ranch lay and searching behind him for any sign of hunting men. These, if they were the Stanton brothers, could not have started along the trail until sunrise, and he assumed they were still not mounted, though Emil Stanton had told them they possessed one plow horse and the men might have taken Wayne’s gray. That would leave both Daltry and Amos mounted, if poorly.
Was Charlie alive or not? He had certainly been shot back there and gone down. Maybe he had crawled somewhere and concealed himself in the confusion of the night. Perhaps he had been captured and taken back to the Stanton farm – though why they would bother to do that Cody couldn’t guess. No, the odds were that Charlie, like Wayne Tucker – both of his adopted fathers – was dead.
Ah, it was a sad and tragic world sometimes!
Now Cody found himself alone and lost on a cold, unknown land. He was very rich – that made no difference at all. There was an irony buried in that thought, but Cody decided not to dwell on it, but to continue on, moving as rapidly as he could. The Triangle was ahead somewhere. There he could find shelter, a meal, possibly a job to see him through the winter. It might even be a permanent position; he would have to see how that all played out. If not, he told himself, he would purchase a horse, ride to the nearest town and hole up for the winter. He could afford it now.
If he ever made it to the safety of the Triangle alive.
He trudged on across the muddy ground, the burro plodding behind him on its tether, showing neither eagerness nor reluctance. He was beginning to understand why so many solitary men, prospectors, trappers and such, set such store by their burros. They had few needs and seemed always willing to fall to their work without complaint or balkiness. The same could not be said for horses, Cody thought with a faded smile, recalling the many time his buckskin pony had nearly refused to acknowledge its master’s behests out of what seemed to be sheer obstinacy.
The land continued long and empty, the skies cold and gray. But now they often came across ponds left by the rain, and the grass, though not flourishing, grew there. The burro at least could be fed and watered at intervals. Cody preceded the animal to water and drank his fill of the muddy water, lying on his belly, rinsing his filthy face. Then as the jackass filled its stomach with the bunch grass near by, Cody would take long minutes to survey his backtrail and to look ahead hopefully.
Once, while resting, Cody thought he saw sun glinting off metal in the far western distances, and peering that way with anxious eyes, he thought that he could see a lone horseman across the plains. It was impossible to be certain at that distance, which was over a mile, but he thought that it was the lone rider he had first spotted following them back along Rios Canyon. Perhaps that was just a notion. In any event, it made no difference; the horseman was not closing and in another minute he had vanished once more.
So long as he was not one of the Stanton brothers Cody supposed it didn’t matter who the rider was. He could have even been an outrider from Triangle, for now Cody knew that he was coming closer to the vast ranch. He began passing stray cattle, probably scattered by the rainstorm, healthy-looking steers and at least one cow with a nursing red calf. All except the calf wore the simple, distinctive Triangle brand. They showed no interest in the passing of a stranger. Placidly they continued to shear grass as Cody limped past followed by the equally stoic donkey.
The sun was overhead by now and a strange mist was rising from the plains – a ground fog caused by the heating of the damp earth returning moisture to the sky. It was still cool when the wind blew, but oddly warm and humid as the sun rode high and the fog grew dense.
Cody marched doggedly on, hoping for some sign of working men or ranch buildings. For all he knew he had strayed badly off course, but there was no choice but to continue as he had been. Even the poorest of settlements, a lone sod house where he could purchase a meal and pause long enough to look at his damaged knee, would have been welcome. There had to be some sort of town near by, but he didn’t know in which direction it lay. He knew that there would be a town, because a huge ranch like Triangle needed supplies and services on a constant basis, and in many places towns were thrown up near by only to serve the ranches and their working men. That had been the genesis of the small town of McCormack, which served the Domino ranch, fed liquor to its cowhands and offered crude diversions to them as the town provided services to the ranch proper. There were flour mills, hay and grain stores, hardware shops, bootmakers in McCormack, even a poor two-room infirmary. Services even the most self-sustaining ranches could not provide.
Thinking along these lines, Cody had halted the burro once and almost guiltily opened the saddle-bags it carried. He slipped a few gold pieces from them and shamefully tucked them into his pockets. If he happened upon an opportunity for food and rest, he meant to be able to pay his way. He was stealing from no one; still, he felt as if he were pilfering from Wayne and Charlie or perhaps robbing the skeleton hand of its just possessions.
He staggered on, wondering if he were not growing a little delirious. The gold gave him small comfort. He wanted to find a shack, a grove of trees, a bite of food, a place out of the weather. He removed his hat and wiped his eyes free of perspiration with his kerchief.
Still, as he kept his eyes fixed on the horizon ahead, he would take an occasional worried look back the way he had come, but he saw no one following him. That suited Cody – he was in no shape to put up much of a fight if he were attacked. His stiff leg had reduced his pace to a hobble. He was light-headed from hunger, his vision blurry from long hours of squinting into the sun.
The sun sank lower at his back. Looking that way Cody could see it glinting off the snow that had recently fallen in the high mountains, coloring it brightly. He had no more than two hours before sunset, possibly less. The wind still blew hard and he knew he was facing another desperately cold night in the open once the ball of the sun rolled off the table in the west.
He trudged on with his head down, each step causing a bludgeoning pain in his knee. He had developed a heavy, throbbing headache. His shadow was long before him when he again glanced up and saw them coming.
Four horsemen in a ragged line were approaching him from out of the east. They had to be Triangle riders, didn’t they? Perhaps looking for the scattered steers he had seen earlier. They rode with deliberation like cavalry soldiers approaching a battle. Their hats were tugged low against the glare of the dying sun. Cody halted and let them approach. If these were Triangle cowhands, the worst of his nightmare was ended.
If they were enemies, this hour on the plains could prove to be his last.