Doubtful Canon (15 page)

“But….” Ian Spencer Henry obeyed, his face masked with confusion.

“Don’t look over there,” I whispered when he started to turn his head toward the fort of boulders, behind which lay the graves of Willie Spoon, a Wisconsin gunman called Bruce, and Eleora Giddings’s father.

On we walked, away from the buried $30,000, following a half-mad albino, letting him lead us, Curly Bill Brocious, and Dutch Ringo deeper into the cañon.

My eyes locked on the intense figure ahead. I kept going, wondering, praying that Whitey Grey knew what he was doing.

He vanished.

At the point the cañon twisted around a spot where a chunk of granite the size of Mr. Shankin’s mercantile had slid from the northern wall, across what must have been a bone-jarring ride in an old Concord stagecoach, the earth swallowed up Whitey Grey. I stopped, blinking. One moment he had been there. He had turned the corner, and by the time we caught up, nothing stretched before us but the vast emptiness, the solitude.

My gaze shot ahead, then up the cañon’s closest side, scanning the rocks for any sign of life. The grade looked too steep, almost sheer cliff, on the opposite side, and, even though the crevassed walls stretched higher in other spots, I just could not fathom how he could have made it even halfway up the rugged walls, couldn’t even find a game trail. It would have been hard for a squirrel to scurry up there, forty, maybe fifty feet above, through brush and boulders ready to tumble. He had to be somewhere else, hiding behind a rocky outcrop, a bit of yucca. Somewhere along the trail. Maybe even behind me. But where?

“You kids….”

Dutch Ringo never finished his command. He twisted in the saddle as he rounded the corner, drawing his Remington, looking, and cursing, spurring his mount to the near wall.

“What happened? Where’d that fool man go?” Curly Bill Brocious said, sliding from his saddle to use his horse as a shield.

“Grey!” Ringo screamed.

The echo came back. He whirled, spurred his mount toward a mammoth boulder up the trail, cursed again, loped back, looking one way and the other, keeping his eyes focused on the ground and the low edges of the walls, only daring to look toward the rim when he had ridden back to where we stood. Yet he quickly dismissed that notion, and concentrated on the lower elevations. Who could blame him?

“Grey!” Brocious yelled. “You get back here!”

Ringo urged his horse toward the cañon side, cautious. Sweat dotted his forehead.

“Grey!” Brocious repeated. “I said you get back here…now!”

The answer came, haunting.

Grey…Grey…Grey…back here…back here…back here…now…now…now….

Brocious’s sorrel gelding snorted, stamped its forehoofs nervously, and the outlaw spit out a glob of chewing tobacco while Ringo’s skittish buckskin danced about. Ian Spencer, Jasmine, and I stood near the fallen slice of granite. A hand pressed on my shoulder, and I let Miss Giddings pull me, and my two friends, close to her.

“Where could he be?” Ian Spencer Henry asked, but no one had an answer.

The report of the Winchester caused me to jump, and Brocious racked another round into his rifle while trying to calm his jittery horse. He had fired into the far wall, the gunshot reverberating, the bullet whining and whining as it ricocheted off the boulders.

“What are you shooting at?” Ringo yelled. “You see him?” His words bounced down the cañon.

“Trying to flush him out is all.” Tugging on the sorrel, fighting the reins, Brocious accidentally pulled the trigger and sent another .44-40 round, this one spanging off a low boulder, clipping another, and burying itself into wet sod underneath the Ringo’s horse’s hoofs. The buckskin danced in fright, snorting, circling, and Ringo lashed out at Brocious.

“Watch what you’re doing, you fool! You almost took my head off!” He jerked the reins savagely, turning the buckskin’s head, and, when the mare finally calmed down, or at least quit fighting bit and rein, Ringo looked up, higher this time, searching the shadows and the juniper and, finally, the darkened top.

Nothing. Not even a falcon, just more trees, more rocks, and a cloudy sky.

“You better light down,” Brocious said, still hiding behind his horse. “He’s got a clear shot at you.”

Ringo swore at his partner. “With what? He doesn’t even have a gun!”

The boulder, about the size of my chest, crashed inches from Ringo, spooking his horse, which screamed, reared, pawing at the air.

Brocious cursed.

And Ringo fell.

Another boulder. Well, maybe not a boulder, but a good-size rock, heavy enough to have crushed a man’s skull.

Like the skies had opened up, raining rocks.

Brocious fired, spooking both horses even more, and the buckskin dragged Ringo, desperately fighting to hold the reins, on his knees, over loose stones, and through a length of mud. “Stop shooting!” he yelled at Brocious, but he needn’t have, for Curly Bill had his own problems, now fighting to keep his horse from bolting.

The stone came from the rim. This time I saw it, watched as it arced across the blue sky, then I lost it in the gray and brown of the cañon walls, couldn’t find it until after it hit with a sickening
thud,
and the buckskin cried out in terror and pain. It must have hit the horse’s croup. She bucked savagely, thrusting her head, and the stone bounced and rolled to the center of the road. Ringo yelled as the leather reins burned his fingers and palms, and slid out of his hands. Kicking, fighting the unseen demon, the buckskin exploded down the cañon, away from us, then shot into a gallop, head down, ears laid back flat on her head, and took off for the San Simon Valley in Arizona.

Releasing a roar of anger and pain, Ringo reached for the Remington he had dropped in the mud, shoved it into a holster, pulled the Thunderer. He winged a shot at the rim, another, and darted to the wall, diving behind a juniper.

“It’s your fault, Bill!” Ringo yelled.

Brocious answered him with a curse, tugging his horse up the cañon a few rods, fishing out hobbles from his saddlebag, then cooing at his mount, trying to secure the sorrel’s front legs while keeping his Winchester close, trying not to be kicked in the head by his own horse, or crushed to death by Whitey Grey. When he finally had the hobbles on, he wedged himself between an outcrop of rocks and a yucca.

Both men gasped for air, still sweating, nervous, angry, scared.

“You shouldn’t have let him get so far ahead, Dutch!” Brocious snapped. “Don’t blame it on me.”

“I told you we’d gone too far!” Ringo fired back. “I told you that!”

“But you didn’t stop that freak, that crazy rapscallion, did you, Dutch? You let him lead us right past that gold, I warrant, let us walk right into an ambush!”

Another rock was launched, and both Ringo and Brocious fired, but we never saw Whitey Grey, no one, just spotted the rocks, the brown against the blue, sailing almost effortlessly, building up speed during the descent, smashing into road or rocks.

“He could be going back!” Brocious said. “Could be going to dig up that gold!”

“Shut up! He won’t go anywhere.”

“And your horse run off with our whiskey, Dutch!”

“I told you to shut up. Keep your eyes open.”

An eerie silence fell upon the bottom of Doubtful Cañon, and a gray cloud hid the sun. How many minutes passed, I’m not sure. Not many, although at the time it seemed like ages. Miss Giddings’s hands felt comforting as we watched, waited, wondered.

“He’s like those Apaches,” Brocious said after a while. “They’d never waste powder and lead on a Mexican. Just stove in their heads by rolling boulders on their heads. By grab, Dutch, we’ve done that ourselves in this very cañon.”

Ringo let out a mirthless chuckle. “Now we know what it feels like.”

Another stone tumbled through the air, but this one came maybe twenty yards up the cañon, as if Whitey Grey were running in one direction, then the other, trying to keep the gunmen off balance, which is exactly what he did. The baseball-size brown rock crashed harmlessly against an old cairn, possibly another grave, maybe twenty feet from Ringo’s hiding spot.

“You see where that came from?” Ringo asked.

“No! But I think….”

Another rock. Ringo’s shot came three seconds after Brocious’s. The chunk of yellowish stone smashed ten feet in front of us. We backed up, seeing nothing, not a trace of Whitey Grey.

“How could he get up there?” Brocious yelled. “Must be half mountain goat, that old codger. Or raven.”

“Got to be a trail.”

“You see it?”

“No. In the shadows maybe, behind one of those trees.”

“For a guy as white as he is, that Grey’s pretty much Apache, Dutch!”

“Shut up, I say.”

Yet Brocious couldn’t shut up. I suppose it was nervous chatter. “Maybe he’ll run out of rocks,” he said. “How many can be up there?”

I felt a tug on my shoulder, craned my neck, saw Miss Giddings, her lips taut, tilt her head to one side. Understanding, I nodded.

A rock sailed. Two bullets fired. And Miss Giddings inched along the face of the fallen section of granite, toward the road. Jasmine, Ian Spencer Henry, and I followed, quietly, slowly, moving around the corner, out of sight of the two frightened gunmen. I held my breath, but Ringo and Brocious had their minds elsewhere, more concerned with Whitey Grey than their other prisoners.

We kept walking backward a few more rods, three or four steps at a time, then stopping to listen. Gunfire blasted ahead, the echoes booming.

“Now, children!” Miss Giddings spun Jasmine around, pushed her forward, and Jasmine took off as fast as her bum leg would carry her. Ian Spencer Henry and I ran after her, Miss Giddings following us, taking her time, looking back every so often to make sure we were not being pursued.

Curses and gunfire came from around the fallen chunk of cañon wall. Miss Giddings tripped, and I stopped, turned, started back for her, but she had recovered, merely skinning her knees, and told me: “Keep running! I’m all right.”

From the other side of the rock, Brocious swore and yelled: “Them kids and that lady! Dutch, they’re…!”

“Forget them. They can’t go far!”

We sprinted down the cañon, away from Ringo and Brocious, away from Whitey Grey, and I felt myself smile as we ran.

Why, that old fool had outsmarted them after all.

Of course, Dutch Johnny Ringo was right. We couldn’t go far. We still carried our canteens, but had no food, and only a slingshot and Ian Spencer Henry’s antiquated cap-and-ball pistol, which so far had proved ineffective as a weapon. Besides, Jasmine’s limp grew more pronounced, and she clutched her left leg as it stiffened.

A shot roared again. Muffled voices. Yet no pursuit.

Not now, at least.

Jasmine slowed, and Miss Giddings said to let her walk, that we all needed to rest.

“Where are we going?” Ian Spencer Henry asked.

Miss Giddings had to catch her breath. “I…don’t know.”

“The ranch house?” Jasmine asked.

“No,” I said. “They’d look there. We can keep on walking, out of this place, back to Stein’s Peak station. Those velocipede cars are there…maybe….” Doubts again. What if Southern Pacific officials had discovered our plunder and confiscated the stolen handcars? There was no water at Stein’s Peak, and we didn’t have enough in our canteens to make it back to the
Playas.
Besides, for all I knew, the water in
Valle de Las Playas
had dried up by now anyway.

“We’d be out in the open,” Ian Spencer Henry said, and I knew he was right. “And Jasmine can’t walk that far. Look at her now.”

Resting on a rock, she bit her lip, gently massaging her ankle, saying nothing.

“The house.” Miss Giddings’s head bobbed.

“But,” I argued, “that’s the first place they’d look.”

“I know, Jack,” she said. “But remember…they threw my rifle, the one Mister Spoon gave me, out the front door. It still shoots, the stock’s just busted. And they threw the other rifle out there, too.”

“Mister Grey’s Colt, too.” Ian Spencer Henry liked her idea, whatever it was. “I don’t think they picked up any of those guns. Might have, but I’m certain sure they didn’t get those rifles.”

“We couldn’t fight those men,” I complained. “That’s Johnny Ringo and Curly Bill. They’re killers. They’ll gun down every last one of us.”

Eyes flaming, Miss Giddings raised her voice, and almost waved a finger in my face, stopping herself at the last moment. “We don’t have any choice, Jack! We have to go to the house, get those guns.”

Jasmine let out a little sob. Her head shook, and she dropped her head. “I don’t think I can make it to the house. That’s at least two miles from here.” She brushed away a tear. “Y’all leave me here.”

“We’re not leaving you!” I said angrily. “If I have to carry you….”

“You’re not going,” Miss Giddings said. “None of you shall go to the house. Like Jack said, that’s where they’ll look.”

I felt confused. “But you just said….” I started, only to be interrupted one more time by my best friend.

“We can’t stay here!” Ian Spencer Henry looked at the sky. “It’ll be dark soon. Well, not soon, but…well, soon.”

Miss Giddings glanced up the cañon, then down, wet her lips, and offered a faint smile. “You can stay here. All of you. I’ll go to the house, get the guns, hurry back.” Another smile, even weaker than her first effort. “With luck, maybe Ringo and that other man, maybe they’ve given up. Rode off up the cañon, trying to find Ringo’s horse. I don’t think either is so hungry for gold. I think they’re both scared.”

“Not Curly Bill Brocious,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “And sure not Ringo.”

“Ringo the most,” she said. “He’s scared of dying. Petrified. Scared of his own mortality. I’ve never met a man as scared as he is. You saw it, Jack.” Her eyes held mine, but I didn’t know what she meant. “When you told him he’d be dead in two or three years. He went straight to the bot-….”

Both of our eyes fell as we thought about my father.

“You were very brave, Jack.” Miss Giddings tried again. “Very brave.”

“Then I should go for those guns,” I said.

“No.” Her head shook.

“Maybe we don’t have to,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “Like you said, ma’am, maybe Ringo and Brocious turned yeller and ran. Rode double. Got out of the cañon, went on to Arizona.” His head nodded as the idea grew on him. “Yeah, that’s what I think. So we’re safe.”

“No, Ian.” Miss Giddings was the only person I ever knew who called him only by his first name. “We have another person to consider, and I don’t think he’s about to give up his search for that money.”

I mouthed his name.
Whitey Grey.
Then I said: “I’ll go. You three hide. I’ll come back for you. I promise.”