Flint (1960) (6 page)

He could not be far from the entrance to the hideout The wall of lava was about fifty feet high along here, huge black blocks of it, and then in places great wrinkled bulges like the skin of a sleeping elephant He walked along a few steps, stepping from rock to rock where possible and holding close to the wall for fear of missing the entrance.

There was a lot of brush, stiff, wiry, and filled with thorns, clumps of prickly pear, and a few scattered pines. He had gone only a hundred yards or so when he felt a sickness in his stomach and he paused and leaned against the rock.

He was frightened.

The last thing he wanted was to die here, where he could be found. He must disappear, vanish completely. He waited, leaning against the rock. Finally he started on again. Only now his mind was made up. If he felt himself going he would use the last of his strength to crawl out on the lava bed. It would be a long time before they found him there.

The man called Kettleman crawled down through the rocks, and lowered himself into a hollow space where water had spilled over some boulders after heavy rains, then climbed up the bank. He had gone only a mile when he looked up at the wall opposite. There was a slash of white quartz there. Somehow he had missed the opening. How he could have done so he could not imagine, but miss it he had. Turning, he retraced his steps.

Twice he rested. It was almost noon before he found it. There was no brush concealing the opening, there was no jumble of boulders right at that point. The wall of lava took a slight bend, but in the open, where there was no evidence of any kind of an entrance. Kettleman had passed the place three times, thinking he had seen everything.

The lava was cracked and split in many places, and right before him there was such a split, a crack that seemed no more than three inches wide.

Yet when he stepped back he caught a glimpse out of the corner of his eye of what appeared to be an optical illusion. He looked again. There was something wrong with the perspective in that crack. He walked slowly toward it, and when he was right up to the rock, he saw what it was. The left edge stood out almost four feet from the other side, and there was an opening that ran back into the rock parallel to the face. It seemed to go no more than six or seven feet and end in a blank wall. Yet when he stepped inside he saw that it wound back into the lava.

Turning, he went back to the edge of the opening and, standing there, he carefully surveyed the lip of the cliff opposite. For a long time he stayed there, letting his eyes rove along that lip. Only then did he move out from the rock and carefully brush away the few tracks he had made.

Returning to the opening in the wall he paused again to scan the rim of the cliff, but there was no sign of movement.

He walked into the narrow, winding crack, which steadily grew narrower and dipped down deeper and deeper. It was wide enough for a horse if the stirrups were tied up, and the overhang would prevent its being seen from above, should anyone venture out upon the lava, an extremely remote chance.

No man would venture upon the lava. Deer had been driven there by wolves, but their feet and legs became so badly lacerated they could not walk farther, and they died there.

It took him almost an hour to reach the hideout in the lava beds, and when he arrived, he stopped, deeply stirred by the beauty of the little oasis. The sides rose steeply and curved inward at the top. The area at the bottom was scarcely an acre in extent, but a small stream ran from under the rock on one side, meandered across and lost itself under the lava again.

There were several fruit trees, planted by Flint, and a patch of chia, whose seed was used as food by the Indians. Until he had looked for several minutes he did not see the cabin, for it was merely the walled-up face of a rocky overhang, the entrance shadowed by a cottonwood.

He walked slowly across the open grass toward a slit in the rock wall that apparently served as a window. He went past it and he found the door. It was a slab door, thick and strong. The man called Kettleman unlatched it and stepped inside.

The room was larger than he expected, with two bunks built against the far wall. There was a table, two chairs, hooks on the wall, and a bench with a washbasin. There was a trickle of running water from the spring, and from both the door and the window the opening into the basin could be seen, and the entire basin covered.

There was a broom.

He dusted off the bed, then dumped his own gear on it. carefully, he swept, then built a small fire and made tea. When he had his tea and some hot broth he went to the door and sat down on the stoop, looking out over the hollow.

This was the place. It was here he was going to die.

Chapter
4

The man called Kettleman sat on the step of the rock house and looked out over the shadowing acres of green. He listened to the wind in the pines, and smelled the freshness of the high, cool air. Something stirred deep within him, something forgotten.

He had followed the lone trails, the ancient trails, the silent and mysterious trails with Flint. Wherever that strange and silent man wished to go, he seemed to know a hidden way to travel. For days on end they had ridden without speaking, their campfires surrounded by a vast and empty stillness.

He remembered the pungent smell of cedar, the smokiness of damp wood, the crisp crackle of pine, the deep red glow of dying fires, the sound of wind in the mesquite. How many fires had he fed with wood or buffalo chips? He had traveled the far rim of civilization, moving like a ghost across lands known only to roaming Indians.

Three years. Never once had Flint told him what they were about. Always he was left far behind to care for their horses and wait. Suddenly then, Flint would ride up and they would shift saddles and be gone again.

For Flint never directed his steps toward the saloons and gambling houses. After the jobs he did they would ride away into the wildest, most remote country, and then, sometimes, Flint would talk for long hours of the desert, the mountains, of how to survive under all conditions and how to live.

Kettleman got slowly to his feet and walked down to the water. He stood there, watching it chuckling over the stones. The gnawing in his stomach was always there now. There was but little time left.

Yet already some of the quietness of this place was seeping into him. The tension was going out of him, his muscles were mysteriously relaxing.

It was long after the stars came out before he slept, and then for a time he was dreamless, but he awakened, and sat up in the chill night and lighted his pipe. He walked to the door, and the air felt strangely damp, the stars very clear. He listened into the night, but heard no sound.

That girl on the train. He remembered the clear, honest way she had looked at him, the grace of her movements. Why had he not met such a girl when he was still alive?

For now he would die, like a wolf as he had lived, a lone wolf, in a dark place, snapping at his wounds. He had lived with bared teeth, and it was proper that he die that way.

That Gaddis now, Kettleman reflected. He liked the fellow. He had a slow, easy, half-amused way of talking that Kettleman liked.

There was a fight building. The straw-haired man on the train -- a warrior if he had ever seen one.

And suddenly then he thought of Porter Baldwin.

A shrewd, tough, dangerous man. A promoter. Hardly a Western man, but one who never moved without a purpose, and one with considerable experience in the knock-down and drag-out world of finance. He had been a blockade runner during the Civil War, running cotton and rifles through to the Confederate side, and selling information to the North.

He had been involved in the efforts to corner the gold market that Jim Fisk and Jay Gould had supposedly started.

If Porter Baldwin was out here, it was not because of cattle. There was money in cattle and they might be a side line for Baldwin, but he would not involve himself personally unless there was more behind it than the profits from cattle.

Well, it was no business of his. He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and went inside. When he awakened the sun was high, and it was the first good night's sleep he had had in a long time.

The gnawing pain was in his stomach, so he got out of bed and prepared a light breakfast. He moved slowly, taking his time about everything. As he ate, he planned his day. He must first of all find the passage to the inner island of grass. It was doubtful that, after these years, any horses remained, though they had been fine stock, young and in good shape and, Flint had assured him, there was feed for a dozen head and a water supply fed by the same stream that flowed through this oasis.

The few articles of food he had brought with him were scarcely sufficient for three days of sparse living, so he must go after supplies, and he wanted to pick up a box of books he had shipped to himself at Horse Springs.

Two other cases of books and supplies he had shipped to Alamitos, not wanting to attract attention by appearing in either place too often, but he would need pack animals to get the stuff back here. However there was no hurry about anything but grub, and he wanted to get enough to last.

Flint had left the horses, a stallion and two or three mares, in the inner and larger basin. If they were alive they would be sixteen or seventeen years old. But there might be young stuff. The way to the basin lay through one of the long lava tunnels with which this place was riddled.

He walked down the passage Flint had made to join the cabin to the stable. He had simply taken slabs of rock without mortar and walled in an overhang of the cliff. In the back of the stable there was a manger built against the wall, a dark alcove behind it. Going into that stall he laid hold of the manger. It swung out on concealed hinges and he stepped back into the alcove and swung the manger into place behind him. The tunnel was there before him.

A shelf, head-high was on the right.

He put his hand up and found a few candles. He lighted one of them and walked into the passage. The height was uniform, not over eight feet, and the tunnel was for the greater distance about twice that in width. He counted nearly a hundred steps before he saw light.

He walked out into a little park.

There were perhaps three hundred acres of good grass here. Along the far side there were a dozen cotton-woods and some willows, and there were scattered pines.

Standing at the mouth of the lava conduit, he counted seven horses, heads up, staring at him. He took three steps into the open so they could see him plainly.

One horse, a big bay standing at least seventeen hands, threw his head up sharply and blew loudly. He trotted forward a few steps, then pawed the ground.

"Want to fight, do you?" Kettleman talked softly to the horse. "I'm friendly, old man. Don't hunt trouble from me."

His eyes went to the other horses. Young stock -- a couple of three-or four-year-olds, and a couple that were not such young stock. There was another horse, a mare, that was considerably older.

Flint had been a quiet man with horses, but he made pets of them all. Kettleman called them, the long, crooning call that Flint had used.

The old mare's head came around sharply. Did she remember? Did she remember enough?

Some said a horse did not remember for long, yet others claimed the opposite. He called again, and walked a few steps farther, holding out a piece of sugar as Flint always had.

Several of the horses began to walk away, the red stallion standing guard, head up, nostrils flared. The old mare stared at him. Tentatively, she came a step or two nearer, stretching out her nose as if to sniff.

He stood still, liking the warmth on his back. The sun was bright, a bee was droning among the brush near the wall of the park. He called again and went another step. The stallion shied, trotted a few steps to one side, then wheeled and trotted back. The mare stood her ground.

Yet she was nervous, and he did not want to frighten her. He waited awhile longer and then went toward her. Just as she was about to shy away, he tossed the sugar toward her. She flipped her head, but moved off only a few steps, and when he left, she came up and sniffed the grass to see what he had thrown. He saw her nibbling at the sugar, but he did not go back.

The day was early and he had brought a book. He sat on a flat rock with the sun on him and read. The stallion circled nervously for a time, and then went to feeding as had the others.

After an hour he put the book aside and studied the layout of the big pasture.

It was a near perfect oval, with lava walls fifty to sixty feet high. There was a permanent water source from the same spring that provided water for the cabin. It flowed under the lava and into this park, but Flint had told him there was another waterhole on the far side.

He was still tired from his walk of the previous day, and his leg muscles were stiff. There were few places a man might climb out of the oval, but nowhere a horse could escape. He was certain he was the only man these horses had seen, with the exception of the mare.

He spent most of the afternoon wandering about close to the tunnel mouth or reading, and then he retreated through the tunnel to the cabin and made some beef broth. Kettleman ate it slowly.

A few days more...

Pete Gaddis leaned on the mahogany of the Divide Saloon. It was early evening and he had been in town only a few minutes. There were a lot of strangers around, most of them riders for the Port Baldwin outfit.