CHAPTER XXII

 

THE TRAIL WAS plainly marked. Heavy snowdrifts made hard, slow going for the horse. But as soon as the canyon widened, Elias had shrewdly swung up onto the ridge where an old slide had split the rimrock away and dislodged it in a long ramp to the canyon floor.

Rather than breast the deep drifts, the Mexican was swinging toward the high ground. The trail swung along a northward ridge, holding along its broad summit where the blasting wind had swept the denuded rock almost clean of snow.

Now the sun broke in long shafting streamers through shreds of banked clouds; its bright midday blaze threw a glaring whiteness off the snow surface, hurting a man’s eyes, making him strain to pick out detail.

The air was bracing, no longer wet with swirling hail; it bit his lungs frostily. Beside the hot anger he sustained against Elias, a new feeling rose in him. Once again his dissipated soul caught the flavor and essence of the big country, the vast landscape rolling up to a rolling sweep of mist-girdled mountains; it was good to be alive in this land—and the thought was sudden and strange, as if he had come out of a green-swirling coma, like a moth emerging from its dusty cocoon.

The ridge tapered off at its far end and the tracks followed a steep winding trail to its base, wheeling and circling to avoid deep drifts. Beyond this a vast fault of rock lifted in monolithic massiveness, heaved up as if by a mighty convulsion. It rose sheer, some hundred feet, and ran east and west as far as he could see. Here the tracks twisted sharply left and followed the base of the cliff, where the steep overhang had kept it relatively free of snow.

Elias would be pushing west looking for a way around the cliff. Brand put his horse onto the bare rock along the cliff base and lifted it to a canter. He had to pick his way around tumbled slides of rotted shale and vast chunks of rock fallen from the rimrock above; and he came presently upon a pass, a great wedge driven from crest to base of the cliff, thrusting back broad and long into the mountain formation. Here the tracks swung in, headed for the timber country.

The floor of this wide declivity was bowl-shaped and largely free of rock litter, but snow hampered his progress until almost imperceptibly the gorge began to narrow and the walls grew steeper.

Vast drifts began to choke the cramping corridor, but here Elias had already broken trail and Brand had only to follow; but Elias would know he was being followed, and might have set up an ambush anywhere in these rocks. Brand had only his pistol, and regretted that; he held it cocked in his hand, and steadily scanned the rocks and shadows roundabout. He came around a canyon bend and saw, a quarter mile ahead, a flat, stark abutment of rock—dead end; the gulch Elias had blundered into was a box, and there appeared to be no way out.

It meant the Mexican was somewhere in the rocks ahead. The horse tracks led in; none came out. Realizing all this in a fractional time, Brand swung off the saddle—just when lead whined off a rock a yard to his left and a rifle shot cracked high and sharp.

Clutching the pistol, he ran for the nearest tumbled rocks while a second shot ricocheted at his feet and a third carved a white patch along the rock beside his head when he dived for cover. Gunshot echoes hung in the crisp air and he was briefly reminded of yesterday’s ambush; but this time the sound was higher, sharper—the crack of a .44-40 rifle.

He leaned against the slab, his cheek pressed to the cold rock, his eyes cold and steady on the rimrock, searching it with care. The shooting had stopped, and when a minute passed he had the feeling Elias was probably crawling around trying to flank him and catch him by surprise. Deciding to forestall that effort, he turned to his right and threaded the miniature gullies of fallen rock until he reached the base of the wall.

At that moment a horse came cantering around the bend behind him and he whirled in time to see Wayne Lutz, recognizing the riderless horse, rein in abruptly and slip from the saddle. Brand waved to him and Lutz came pounding forward afoot, lugging his rifle. When Lutz crossed a stretch of open ground, the rimrock gun opened up again and chipped the ground around Lutz, who flattened himself behind a rock and crawled the rest of the way. Brand placed Elias by the shooting—halfway up the wall on a ledge, well-guarded by a parapet of boulders.

Occasional flakes of snow drifted down, making vision uncertain at times. Lutz crawled forward bulkily through a slot in the boulders and flattened himself against the rock beside Brand.

“He’s pinned, up there,” Lutz said. “This is Oxbow Canyon—no way out except the way he came. We can wait him out.”

“He’ll take a lot of waiting,” Brand said. “It won’t work. Come dark, he’ll sneak past us.”

“We could build a fire.”

Brand shook his head. “No good.” It was impatience more than reason that goaded him. He put his head our again and surveyed the ledge where Elias was posted. He was aware of Lutz’s broken breathing. Looking overhead, he studied the curving wall of the gorge. In a number of places the rimrock had crumbled into long shale slides of shattered rock by which a man aloft could negotiate an ascent to the heights. Elias had done so, to lay himself up in ambush.

Brand said, “Let’s get up there. We can’t hit anything from here.”

“We’ll have to circle back and climb if farther down the canyon. Otherwise he’ll pick us off that wall like flies.”

“All right. Let’s go.”

Brand cocked his gun and left cover, lunging in a low-bent run back down the canyon. He heard Lutz pounding behind him. Elias opened fire now, but they achieved a bend that cut him off. Brand picked a slide and, reaching it, began a half-crawling ascent, scrambling nimbly over the rough fallaway. Lutz was close behind, breathing heavily, heaving his great bulk upward.

They achieved the rim and swung back along it, moving slowly and with care. The rimrock was eroded and rotted, and any slight jar might start a fresh slide. By now, Brand knew, Elias would have guessed ahead, and would be waiting for them. But here the chances were better of getting within accurate range and perhaps catching the outlaw in the open.

His foot dislodged a loose slab, and he jumped aside while a small avalanche tumbled down the cliff, clattering hollowly when it hit bottom.

Lutz said gruffly, “Easy, now. This stuff’s all ready to give.”

“Slow down,” Brand answered. “He should come in sight pretty soon.”

They went around an odd solitary stunted tree and climbed the gradual lift of a rise, the sloping wall of a continuing cliff against their shoulders.

And then, abruptly, Brand felt the rimrock quake unsteadily. He heard his own shout and started a run, too late. A massive chunk of rim broke away almost at their feet, tumbling ponderously outward, leaving only a loose shale slope and a two-foot ledge on which they stood; and the earth began to dissolve under their feet, dragging them helplessly downward.

Brand clawed and dug, almost losing his gun. The crumbling slide struck a ledge and spewed off; Brand tried to ride the sliding rock, bracing himself and finally desperately snatching an outthrust slab that, by some chance, supported his weight. The world spun and a falling fist sized rock bounced painfully off his bicep; the tumble of rock was a clattering roar in his ears, and a sudden cake of snow shattered against his head.

Then, slowly, the rattle of failing earth subsided. He found himself stranded on the face of the cliff, hanging by his arms, the gun dangling by its trigger guard from one finger. The hammer was down—in the confusion the gun must have gone off, but he had not heard it.

He scrambled and clawed his way up to the remaining few inches of ledge, and looked around to find Lutz standing calf-deep in rubble, not two yards away. Dust and powder snow settled slowly.

He said quietly, “You all right?”

“I hurt like hell,” Lutz said. “But I guess it’s just bruises. You can’t knock down a mountain like me.”

Brand looked forward along the cliff. There was a jutting overhang that stood between him and Elias’ position; he could not see that fortification, and Elias could not see him. It might be that Elias thought he and Lutz had gone down with the slide. He looked at his hands—knuckles skinned raw, one finger bleeding. He cocked the gun again and began a careful climb of the loose rock.

The ledge widened ahead, where the tumble had not split away from it. At his shoulder the cliff lifted a further sixty feet; below him yawned the depth of the canyon. The ledge jutted out, then went around a slight turn beyond which he could not see. And when he put his head around that corner, a shot came.

Rock dust puffed close to his head; he threw himself back. Now Elias’ high, taunting laugh rang across the air, echoing against the flat faces of rock.

Brand put himself down on his belly and felt Lutz’s weight behind him. He wormed forward, slowly rounding the bend, and found a litter of loose rock on the ledge that covered his progress, protecting him from Elias’ gun unless he should stand up. In this manner he was able to crawl through the belly-cutting rocks, slowly closing on Elias’ position until he knew he was well within pistol range. He poked his gun out ahead of him, aimed at the cliff overhanging above the rock fortification where Elias hid, and began to fire methodically into the abutment.

Behind him, Lutz was talking curiously: “What’s that for?”

“Enough shooting may cut that overhand down. We can’t get a clean shot at him, but this may drive him out.”

His gun empty, he reloaded methodically and again raked the rock, raining chips on Elias. And presently there was an audible crack, a groan from the rock—rotten and loose, it was shaken by his gunfire.

That was when Elias’ voice shot forward: “All right, amigo. Enough.”

Brand trained his gun on the spot. “Toss your guns out.”

Soon thereafter he saw his rifle come over the rocks and tumble clattering into the canyon.

“The pistol, too.”

The revolver came out, and Brand called, “Come on out now. No quick moves.”

Elias appeared from behind the rocks, moving slowly, his right arm held stiffly straight as if it had been injured. He stood with his feet braced a little distance apart, a tall lean figure, and the old insolent smile drew itself across his face. “What now, amigo?”

Brand stood up; Lutz came around behind him and Brand said, “Go on ahead of us. We’ll have to climb down.”

Elias walked forward along the ribbon of ledge, grinning steadily, appearing unconcerned; when he drew near he shrugged and said, “A man cannot win all the time, eh, amigo?”

“Where’s the gold?”

“On the horse,” Elias said, and nodded casually down toward the canyon.

“All right. Let’s go.”

Elias was passing in front of them when he made his move. Brand had been half-expecting it; only now did he realize he had forgotten about the man’s ever-present knife. He saw the flash and glimmer of it as it came up, but that was too late; Elias had his arm locked around Lutz’s throat and the knife quivered at Lutz’s Adam’s apple. “Don’t anybody move,” Elias breathed. “Drop the guns, both of you.”

Thus the tables turned. Brand uncocked the revolver and let it slip from his fist; it dropped near his foot. The rifle clattered out of Lutz’s fist and Elias reached down to lift the man’s revolver from holster.

In that vague moment of opportunity, Lutz whipped his thick arm up, snatching Elias’ knife wrist, holding the knife away from his throat with a supreme effort of energy, and wheeled.

But Elias had Lutz’s pistol in hand now, and Brand saw the Mexican’s thumb earing back the hammer. Brand dove forward, making a grab for that rising gun. His rush set them all off balance and they fell in a heap of confused limbs against the cliff wall. Lutz was underneath.

Brand felt himself tossed aside by the wildly scrambling Mexican. He saw the gun come up and he kicked out savagely, and had the satisfaction of feeling his boot connect solidly with Elias’ wrist. The arm flew back and the gun bounced away out of reach; and Lutz still had his grip on the man’s knife hand. But Elias was wiry and fast; he plunged his fist against the big man’s groin and, crying out with pain, Lutz loosed his hold. Elias swung back, poising the knife, and Brand hit him.

His fist came up from the ground, swinging crosswise against the shelf of Elias’ jaw, knocking him back and taking the knife precious inches away from Lutz. Having caught the man off-balance, Brand followed up his advantage by swatting the side of Elias’ face and driving a full-powered fist into his belly.

Elias coughed and bent at the waist; his knife hand was flailing wildly and Brand caught it, snapping it across his knee between both hands, breaking the man’s hold and making him drop the knife. Elias jerked away and was scrambling to his feet when Lutz, rolling over, shot his boot between the Mexican’s legs and tripped him.

Elias lost all equilibrium. His arms windmilled and, too late to do anything, Brand saw his tall form tip backward and spill over the end of the ledge. Then Elias simply disappeared from sight. There was no cry; there was only, a moment later, the flat-sounding crush of flesh against earth, forty feet below.

Lutz went to the edge and looked down; his big shoulders shuddered and he averted his face. “He hit face down,” was all he said; he knelt to pick up his gun.