the Burning Hills (1956) (2 page)

Twice in the days that followed Jordan wasted time on streams, yet each time he found the trail again and by that time he could identify the tracks of each of the six horses and those of several of the riders. He had studied their tracks around their camps and around the trails and by that time he knew something of their dispositions and manner.

One man rarely smoked more than half a cigarette. He occasionally took only a few nervous puffs, then dropped it. Another wore large-roweled Mexican-style spurs that left an imprint when he squatted on his heels.

After a week of such travel he rode into the street of Tokewanna. It was a single dusty street with the usual clapboarded false-front buildings and several of adobe. And a man loitering on the street took one quick, startled glance at the brand on his horse and ducked into a saloon.

Trace Jordan swung down from his horse and loose-tied him at the hitchrail. Yet when he went into the saloon there was no sign of the man he sought. Trace ordered a drink and looked around at the three men playing cards ... another man leaned against the bar. Trace Jordan glanced at his spurs.

"How about a drink?"

The man moved over as he spoke. He was young, rugged-looking, a working cowhand. When their glasses were filled he lifted his and looked at Trace Jordan. "Here's to you and the trail ahead."

They drank and Trace said quietly, "I may stick around for a while."

"My advice," the young man was smiling, "keep travelin'"

The implication was obvious. To the man in the street the JH brand on his horse had meant something and that had to mean the man knew about the killing of Johnny. He either knew or had been one of the killers. Obviously, in passing through the saloon he had said something to this man. Trace was now being warned away and that implied the six had friends.

"Had some horses stolen," Jordan said. "My partner was murdered. I trailed 'em here."

The young man was no longer smiling. He took the last drop from his glass and stepped back from the bar. "Depends on how much country a man needs."

Jordan waited the explanation, his eyes missing nothing in the room. The men at the table were alert and listening.

"Six thousand miles out there," the man said, "or six feet here."

The harshness of the trail had drawn him fine. He turned from the bar, a big tough lonely man suddenly showing all the danger that was in him. The young man took a step back, suddenly wary.

"I already bought chips," Jordan said. "They dealt the hand."

He turned from the bar and went through the door and then he saw the big old man coming up the street on the steeldust. Trace had gentled that steeldust himself. He had taken time with the horse. Next to the big red horse he rode, it had been the best of the lot.

The old man had a shock of white hair. His eyes were fierce and commanding. When he stepped down from the saddle there was something of the thing in his manner.

Trace Jordan stepped down from the walk and started across the street toward the old man, a tall man with an easy woodsman's walk and the knowledge that he was heading right into trouble. Down the street a man stopped ... another appeared in the entrance to the store.

The brand on the steeldust had been worked over and an excellent job. The JH had been turned into an SB.

The old man looked across the saddle at him,a strong old man with fierce unrelenting eyes. "What's the matter? Lookin' for something?"

Remembering Johnny lying in the dried mud beside the water-hole, Trace told him: "I'm looking for the man who stole that horse from me. He's mine. I caught him. I broke him. I branded him JH --"

Quick temper flared in the hard old eyes. "You callin' me a horse thief?" He stepped around the horse to face Jordan. He was wearing a tied-down gun.

"I'm only saying that's my horse you're riding. He's a stolen horse."

"You're a dirty liar!"

When the old man's hand dropped to his gun, Trace Jordan shot him through the stomach.

Jordan looked over the smoking gun at two bystanders. "Walk out there and lift that saddle skirt, both of you." When they started walking he said, "If there isn't a four-inch white scar under the saddle skirt, find a bar." The scar was there ...

"No matter," one of the men told him, "maybe this is your horse but that old man was no thief. You'd better ride before they hang you."

There was an instant then when Trace Jordan looked down into the dying man's eyes. "That was my horse," he repeated. "My partner was murdered when he was stolen."

All time seemed to stop while the old man struggled to speak but blood frothed at his lips and he died. But of one thing Jordan was sure. The old man had believed him.

From up the street a yell, "He's downed Bob Sutton! He's shot Bob!" And the doors vomited men into the street. Trace Jordan hit the leather running and took the big red horse out of town at a dead run. Behind him guns talked but no bullet hit him.

And now he was here, high on a sunlit mesa, dying in the saddle. There was nothing to see but distance, nothing but an infinity of far blue hills and nameless mysterious canyons. The mustang stopped suddenly, head up. Jordan turned painfully, searching all around, and in all that vast emptiness there was no living thing to be seen but a solitary buzzard. Heat waves shimmered the outlines of the junipers but nowhere was there movement, nor any sign of life ... and then he saw the tracks.

The tracks of a pack rat in the dust and the tracks of a deer.

They led to the cliff edge and disappeared there. Why did that seem important? His mind fumbled at the puzzle but the mustang tugged impatiently at the bit and Jordan gave the horse his head. The mountain-bred horse swung at once to the cliff-edge and, reaching it, stopped.

Below him was an eyebrow of trail that clung to the cliff face. To this trail led the tracks. Jordan tried to focus his thoughts on the trail. The tracks of a pack rat alone would mean nothing, yet the deer tracks on the same trail could mean water. And the smell of water would have stopped the horse, for the animal must be half-dead with thirst.

Despite his condition he realized at once the possibilities of such a place. His horse, bred to wild country and only a few weeks away from running wild, might take that trail. A wrong step could send them plunging a thousand feet or more to the bottom, yet those tracks might lead to water and a deer had negotiated the trail. And what had he to lose? Going on was impossible ... he spoke to the horse.

Momentarily, ears pricked, the horse hung back; but the urging of the rider and his own promptings decided the matter. The inside stirrup scraped hard on the canyon wall and the outer hung in space but the mustang, walking on delicate feet, went on down the trail, no more than an edge of sloping rock stratum, to a place some forty yards along where the trail widened to ten feet. Here Jordan swung from the saddle and, trailing his reins, he went back up the trail on hands and knees, unable to risk walking in his weakness.

With a handful of bunch grass he brushed out the tracks leading to the cliff-edge and then, taking a handful of dust, he let it trickle from his hand and, caught by the wind, spray over the ground, leaving the earth apparently undisturbed. Then he edged back down the trail and climbed to the saddle.

Concealed from above by the overhang of the cliff, the trail became increasingly dangerous. At one point there was only slanting rock but the big red horse scrambled across while Jordan sat his saddle only dimly aware of what was happening.

Suddenly, after more than a half-mile of trail, it ended in a half-acre of shelf almost entirely overhung by the cliff and entirely invisible from above. The outer edge was skirted by manzanita and juniper that gave no indication from across the canyon of the space that lay behind it. Here, concealed from all directions, was an isolated ledge ... and at one side of the ledge, a ruin.

Without waiting to be guided, the horse walked toward the ruin with quickening footsteps ... and Jordan heard the sound of running water.

Almost falling from his horse, he staggered to the basin where clear cold water trickled from a crack in the rock to fall into a rock basin some dozen feet across. When he had drunk deep of the water he rolled on his back and tried desperately to think.

Wrinkling his brow against the dull throb of pain, he went back over his trail in his mind. Not even Jacob Lantz would find it a simple one. Much of the mesa had been bare rock, nor was there any indication from above of this place he had found. Nor would any man in his right mind attempt the trail to it.

He drank, and drank again, feeling the slow penetration of the cold water through all his thirst-starved tissues. After a time he stumbled to his feet and stripped saddle and bridle from the horse, picketing it on the thick grass.

He would need a fire ... dry sticks that would make no smoke. The ruin would shield the reflection. He must have hot water to bathe his wound. He must ...

A long time later he opened his eyes into darkness. Listening, he could hear no sound but the trickle of water. The night was cold.

Crawling to his saddle, he fumbled at the knots and finally loosened them enough to get at his blanket roll. Wrapping himself in his blankets, he lay still, his head feeling like a great half-empty cask in which his brains seemed to slosh around like water. His lips were cracked by fever ... outside a lone star hung over the rim of a far cliff.

Through the fog of his delirium Jordan listened to the trickle of water. He must be careful ... careful. His enemies might be far away but in the still of a clear desert night, sound carries. And by daylight they would be all around, thirty or forty belted blood-hungry men. And at dawn he must be watching that thread of trail, rifle in hand.

Pain gnawed at his side like a hungry rat... such a little wound but it needed care, it needed cleansing. His eyes found the lone star above the canyon's rim and held to it and a long time later, he slept. A pack rat appeared at the edge of the trail, peering curiously at the sleeping man, then went on, wary but unfrightened, to the water's edge. Out in the canyon a small stone, long poised by erosion, fell into the depths with a faint, lost sound.

On the mesa's top a long wind stirred, moaning among the junipers and fluttering the campfires of the searching men. A man had been slain and it was the law of their time that the killer must die in turn. A coyote yapped at the moon, a weird cacophony of sound suspended a moment, then scattered by the wind and then the night under the lonely moon was voiceless and still. Only the water trickled and the hunted man moaned softly in his delirium and his sleep.

Through the day-long heat that followed the night, Trace Jordan wavered between delirium and a sick exhausted consciousness. Shortly after daybreak he heard the drum of hoofs overhead and later heard the riders return more slowly. He got his rifle and lay quietly, waiting. If they found him, some of them would die.

He had no animosity for these men other than the six who had murdered Johnny. The code by which they operated was his own but it was his nature to fight. There was water here and he had two hundred rounds of ammunition. There was no food, so all he could do was to wait until he starved to death or died of his wound.

He dozed or became unconscious ... vaguely he recalled drinking and bathing his face and his fever-slaked lips. He remembered getting sticks together for a fire to heat water in the bottom of an ancient jar found in the ruins. He removed the bandage to look at the wound. It was ugly and inflamed, frightening to see.

He never succeeded in bathing it. Somewhere along the line of his planning he lost consciousness again ... when he opened his eyes again his head was throbbing, his side a knot of raw pain. He wanted water desperately but was too weak to crawl to it.

The first thing he realized was a sense of movement where no movement should be. He listened, aware of danger, trying to place that faint, mysterious rustling ... petticoats! But that was ridiculous.

He felt cool now and comfortable. There was a dull throb in his side but some of the stiffness was gone. His head felt heavy and he did not wish to open his eyes. Something cool touched his brow and he lay still, afraid it would go away. He tried to identify the sounds, fearing he was delirious or dying.

The trickle of water, as always. The horse cropping grass ... a faint wind stirring among the junipers. There was a smell of sage and of wood smoke. This was very close but slight. He kept his eyes shut and tried to place the exact location of his gun. He had no friends within many miles, so anything here, man or animal, was dangerous to him.

The coolness on his brow went away but he felt fingers unbuckling his belt, moving his shirt aside. Fingers cool and deft touched the wound and then something comforting and warm was placed against his side.

He opened his eyes and stared up at the rock overhang. The coolness on his brow was a memory but the pleasant warmth at his side remained. He looked down.

A woman knelt beside him but at first all he could see was a smooth brown shoulder, from which the red blouse had slipped, and a wealth of intensely black hair.

He was delirious ... he had to be. No such woman could be in this lonely place. He was hiding on a wind-hollowed shelf in the face of a cliff, miles from human habitation. And then she turned her head and looked at him.