They were paralleling that abrupt stone precipice that faced the hidden meadow to the south, curving out around it so neither they, nor the meadow below and behind them, were visible. Their trail was another of those buck runs, but here they encountered enough bear sign to warn them they were in a primitive area where few people ventured and where the mighty black and brown bears of the uplands reigned.
Marianne rode along with the confidence and ease of a person acquainted with this country, and Duncan marveled that she would ever have been up in here. It was neither an easy place to reach nor one that would appeal to most women.
When they began bending on around behind that stony mountainside, coming upon the broader, grassier spine of it, they again encountered immense stands of first-growth pines, and the silence was cathedral-like.
Duncan alternately watched the land ahead and the trail underfoot. It was clear that a horse had been ridden along here not long before. He felt that as long as young Parton did not leave the trail, they would have no difficulty tracking him down. It did not occur to him for some time in this kind of riding that Parton might be have stopped upon some stony headland to watch his back trail. But when he did think this might be so, he put Marianne behind him and took the lead, watching each promontory ahead of them with particular care.
Riding like this, they encountered some belled cattle. The way these animals acted convinced Duncan the man he was after had also ridden through here. They did not turn tail and run as cattle ordinarily did after seeing their first humans after months of being alone in the highlands. Instead, they threw up their heads and stood watching, motionlessly.
Marianne came up to Duncan as they began descending toward a far mountainside with a waterfall silvering its bony side. There was another of those secret parks between them and the waterfall. From their descending height they could see down into that meadow.
“That’s an old Indian campground down there,” she told Duncan. “And along the base of that cliff, where the waterfall is, there are some caves. If Parton took his time, he might have found one of them.”
Duncan considered what Marianne had said. As long as young Parton had no idea that he was being this closely pursued, and with the discomfort of his wound, he might very well have decided to rest in that park. Duncan halted while they were still halfway down off the hillside, in among a ragged and gloomy stand of old trees, to survey the meadow, seeking to find a horse down there. He saw several deer and two stag elks but no horse.
He raised his gaze to include the rugged onward escarpments, and Marianne, reading his mind, said: “Those high peaks are the top out. From there he’d be descending the far side toward the plains beyond. If he didn’t stop, then within another few hours he’ll be over the top and probably out of our reach.”
Duncan turned. “Why out of our reach?”
Marianne shrugged. “If he can make the plains, he’ll walk away from us on that fresh horse. Our animals are tiring.”
Duncan looked at their mounts, swore under his breath, and pushed on.
They continued down the hillside to the last row of trees before entering the meadow, made another little rest halt while Duncan again studied the surrounding grassy meadow. Marianne thought he would dismount as he’d done before and scout the place afoot, but Duncan reined off at a leisurely walk, leading the way on around the meadow, staying back several hundred feet in the surrounding forest where he could see out without being seen himself.
An hour later they were within hearing distance of that waterfall’s dull roar. Here, Duncan found another of those highland lakes. He stopped to gaze a moment at the lucid water, understanding why Indians would cherish this place, then turned sharply as Marianne spoke his name in a loud whisper.
She was pointing westward along the stone face, past the waterfall. Duncan looked, saw nothing, and swung back with a gathering frown.
“What is it?”
“A horse,” she said. “There ... follow along the cliff. Watch for movement against those backdrop trees.”
Duncan did and spotted the animal. It seemed to be standing, facing into the forest as though it might be tied there. What made it difficult to discern was that its dark color blended perfectly with the shadowy growth around it.
“Has a saddle on,” breathed Duncan. He swung down, looped his reins, drew out Marianne’s carbine, and hefted it. At that moment the two stag elks they had spotted earlier flung up their great heads, clearly alarmed by something they had scented or seen, and in a flash went bounding out of the meadow into the shielding forest.
“He’s over there,” Duncan said as Marianne stepped down from her horse. She tied her animal and moved closer to him as he said: “But he’s showing caution.”
“He might be thinking that cowboy back at the line camp could have gotten loose by now,” Marianne opined.
“Maybe,” agreed Duncan. “Come on. We can’t ride back around the meadow or his horse’ll smell our animals. We’ll have to walk it.”
They reversed their course because where that waterfall fell, there was no protecting growth at all. If they had gone directly across the meadow, they would certainly have been sighted.
Duncan walked with thrusting strides. At first Marianne had no particular difficulty keeping up, but after a while, panting, she asked Duncan to rest a moment. He did so, but with increasing annoyance. It was thinking that Berryhill’s posse could descend into this place while they were a mile away from their horses, and that since the cowboy Duncan had cut loose would undoubtedly tell the lawman which route they were taking, Berryhill’s riders could make even better time getting over here than had Duncan and Marianne.
He started on again, finally, without a word, leaving it up to Marianne whether or not she would go along with him. She went, but she shot him an indignant look as they started out again.
It took considerable time, even with the punishing gait Duncan set, to encircle the meadow on foot and get within easy sighting distance of that saddled animal. Duncan finally halted a quarter mile off, grounded his Winchester, and nodded.
“He’s tied all right, Marianne. Tied to a pine sapling. That wasn’t real smart of Parton, though, tying his critter with its rump out into the meadow.”
It did not occur to Duncan that this might not have been any accident. That in fact it might have been a definite lure, leaving that saddled horse out where it would be seen, and investigated, by anyone riding through.
“He must be lying back in the trees over there,” said Marianne, pointing. “There’s a little creek not far from where the horse is. Maybe he’s resting there.”
Duncan nodded, said—“We’ll edge up a little closer.”—and resumed his advance, but more slowly now, being especially careful to make no sound and to present as little of himself as he could, staying in the deeper shadows of the forest and keeping Marianne always behind him.
Once, that saddled horse raised its head looking westward, but whether it had heard anything or not, it did not seem particularly disturbed and shortly after this dropped its head and resumed its drowsing stance.
Duncan got a good look at the beast from three hundred feet off. It did not look very fresh to him. In fact, it looked as ridden down as his own horse. He twisted to murmur to Marianne: “The Flying L cowboy’s got an odd idea of what a fresh horse is.”
She said nothing back. She was also considering that tethered beast, only she was frowning, looking puzzled and curious. She seemed, after a long moment, to be on the verge of speaking, but at the same moment Duncan put back a rigid arm warning her to stillness. She forgot the horse at once, sensing from Duncan’s stiffening stance that something was wrong. She strained over his shoulder, searching for whatever it was that had alerted him.
A half-grown black bear came ambling out of the deeper forest, making its grunting, complaining sounds. It shambled along swinging its head unconcernedly from side to side. Once, it halted to tear at the rotting bark of a small deadfall pine, sniffed for grubs, then stepped on over the little tree and shuffled another hundred feet ahead, its weak eyes seeing only what was close but its sensitive nose constantly wrinkling. Then, very suddenly, it stopped, threw up its head, keened the air for a moment, then reared back on its hind legs, coming up off the ground to increase its sniffing height. It was as tall as a man and weighed about six hundred pounds. In itself it was not dangerous, or at least it wasn’t dangerous unless it thought it was threatened. But clearly now, it had caught an alarming scent, for the hair along its back stood straight up.
Watching with his entire attention, Duncan thought the bear had smelled man. He’d seen his share of wild bears, knew from experience how they reacted to the scent of people, and this one was acting true to form.
The bear dropped back down on all fours, pointed southward beyond the tethered horse, and Duncan thought he knew about where the owner of that horse was. He bent cautiously, picked up a round stone, threw it, and when it struck the bear’s ribs he gave an astonished grunt, looked fleetingly in Duncan’s direction, then swung around and went running off back the way he had come.
Parton’s tethered horse, though, was no longer drowsing. He’d unmistakably caught the smell of a bear. He was trembling and fighting his tether. It seemed to Duncan that he would break loose at any moment. It puzzled him that young Parton was not coming out to investigate that stamping and frightened snorting, but he did not appear. For a little while longer this roiled atmosphere went unchanged.
Marianne put her lips close to Duncan’s ear and said: “He’s south of us the way that bear was looking. You go ahead and I’ll stay back here and cover you.”
Duncan turned. Their faces were very close. The bear had not frightened her, he could see that, yet she was troubled by something else. He mistakenly thought it was the tension in this gloomy, perilous place, and he smiled at her, his first smile at Marianne Dudley since he’d met her.
“You’re quite a girl,” he whispered back, and saw surprise widen her eyes. “When we get out of this, I’ll apologize for being mean to you.” His smile broadened, deepened, then he swung away. Over his shoulder he said: “All right ... just remember which one is me, if you have to shoot.”
He left her, paced a hundred feet onward, swung to look back at her, and discovered that she had dropped down, and because of her dark attire and the gloominess of this place, he could no longer see her at all even though he knew exactly where to look.
He eased ahead furtively, came abreast of the tethered horse, watched the beast’s diminishing nervousness, and stepped farther to his right so as to be deeper in forest shadows.
A definite uneasiness began to nag at his awareness. He stopped, rummaged the roundabout places for a man shape, found none, and swung to look out at the horse. There was something definitely wrong. Young Parton had not rushed out when his horse was close to setting him afoot miles from anywhere. He had not even made any attempt to chase the bear away, and now, although he’d obviously come here in a hurry and thought it unwise to offsaddle, he was wasting precious time as though he had no troubles at all.
It occurred to Duncan that Parton’s shoulder might be weakening him. Perhaps the killer was lying back somewhere near, sleeping.
Out of nowhere an exultant voice struck Duncan squarely in the back: “Drop that gun and freeze, mister!”
Duncan jerked up stiffly. His knuckles tightened around the Winchester. He half twisted from the waist to look behind.
“Mister, you make one more move and I’ll kill you. Now drop that gun!”
Realization came finally. Duncan had been adroitly trapped. That horse tethered out in the open, instead of back beyond view in the forest, had been Parton’s bait to draw anyone on.
He did not know young Parton and yet that sharp, menacing voice behind him coming from among the gloomy old trees was familiar. He put out his arm, leaned the Winchester against it, and dropped his arm, waiting. He wanted a good look at his captor. For the moment he had entirely forgotten Marianne.
A man’s spurred boots came stepping carefully forward, passing warily far out around Duncan from back to front. Once, they halted as though the unseen gunman was carefully inspecting Duncan from a distance for other guns. Then they continued on until, by turning his head the slightest bit, Duncan caught the blur of movement, and, a moment later, the definite lank, lean, easy-moving silhouette of a rider as tall as Duncan came into view. Again, something stirred in Duncan’s mind. This man, whoever he was, was definitely familiar.
Then Duncan saw him. It was the youngest of those three tall posse men Sheriff Berryhill had brought with him to the cottonwood spring when Duncan had first been arrested. The man who’d argued so fiercely in favor of hanging Duncan. He remembered this one’s name now—Tom Black. He remembered something else, too. This one was a killer!
Black stepped into full view and he was smiling broadly. “Walked right into it, didn’t you?” he chortled. “Couldn’t resist investigatin’ a tied horse, could you?”