The two horsemen reached a narrow gorge and reined their horses to a halt. Heavy snow fell upon the land, turning the ravine into a snaking band of solid white. Standing tall over the riders were two giant overhangs, a pair of leaning cliffs that rose against the gray sky. Clustered across the canyon floor were great, heaping piles of discarded timbers, the scraps of a devastated village, buried in tons of snow and stone.
The younger horseman squinted up at the lonely cliffs. “I reckon these are the Suffering Bluffs.”
The older horseman dismounted, planting his boots in snow that reached almost up to his knees. “Seems a danged avalanche took out much of the foothill. Someone made it out, though.” He pointed to a trail of boot prints leading out of the tumble toward the distant peak.
“I reckon we can follow those tracks to pass through. But we shouldn’t dally.”
In Hook’s Fort, where the horsemen had stopped to make a few inquiries, a Texan named Hamilton had told them that a trio of children had set out for the Suffering Bluffs. They got a decent head start on ya, the fellow had cautioned.
“How close do you reckon we are?”
The older horseman shrugged. “Hard to say. You know Mr. Blackwood. He’s a slippery little squirt. They could be fifty miles away by now.”
The man’s young companion lowered his head to the wind. “Hey, do you see that? There’s a person up yonder at the bend of the gorge!”
Sure enough, the older rider spotted a person waiting at a shallow curve in the canyon—a tall figure standing in the flurries, watching them.
“Do you think he’s the one that made them tracks?”
“Maybe.”
The older horseman returned to his saddle and thumbed away the strap over his Colt revolver. Perhaps the Suffering Bluffs were playing tricks on them, but he would be ready nonetheless. “Be careful. I reckon a traveler wandering out here without a horse might be trouble.”
As they approached through the frantic snow, the figure’s appearance sharpened, and the older rider gasped because the figure resembled Hamilton, the Texan they had interrogated at Hook’s Fort. “That ain’t possible,” he grunted.
The snowfall blurred the figure out of sight, and when the person reappeared, the horseman realized he’d been fooled, because he was looking at a much older man, just with a similar mustache and a mess of shaggy white hair.
“Old-timer?” The younger rider stepped his pony closer.
The traveler waved. “Why, hello there!”
“What are you doing out here without a horse?”
The fellow chortled. “Don’t you worry about a codger like me. Just worry about your mission.”
The younger rider jolted with surprise. “What do you know about our mission?”
The old man grinned. “I know yer huntin’ for a team of kids, and one kid in particular. Keech Blackwood. Am I right?”
The two horsemen traded a baffled glance. The older rider said, “Mister, who are you? I know you from somewhere, don’t I?”
The old man waved away the question. “I said don’t concern yerself with me. If you want to find the boy, you’ll do as I say right now. Time is of the essence.” Frozen flurries thickened as the white-haired man lifted a frail hand and pointed up the gorge. “There’s trouble at Skeleton Peak, and Keech Blackwood has found the darkness. Find the trail that leads to the pinnacle and meet him at the door. But hurry. The darkness grows.”
“Mister, that don’t make a lick of sense,” the older horseman said.
The blizzard gusted again, scalding their eyes. When the curtain of white dissipated, the figure was gone. Not even a boot print remained.
The two horsemen sat on their horses in stunned silence.
“Where’d he go?” the younger asked.
“No idea, son.” The image of the stranger’s face drifted through the older rider’s memory. Something about that fellow seemed so familiar. “Let’s get a move on. From the sound of things, we have a peak to find, and we need to do it fast.”
Clucking at their horses, the two horsemen forged on into the mountains and continued their pursuit of Keech Blackwood.