The End of the Trail (16 page)

“Long as it stays narrow like this, it's a cinch we won't pass by their camp without knowin' it,” Sam put in. “We kin easy see any time we come to a road out.”

They kept their horses at a swinging walk that covered the ground at the rate of not more than five miles an hour. It was below zero here near the top of the Continental Divide, and the air between the narrow canyon walls was filled with moisture from the frothing, thundering stream on their left. The dampness was cold and penetrating to the men accustomed to the crisp dryness of Powder Valley on the lower slope of the Rockies.

They stayed in their saddles, grimly hunched forward and beating arms across their chests to keep up blood circulation, standing in the stirrups for long intervals and putting their mounts to a jolting trot to shake off the damp chill that ate into the very marrow of their bones.

None of them said anything about stopping. It became a grim test of endurance between them; and the remuda with Dock and Lily bringing up the rear remained doggedly on their heels, shaming them into continuing when they might otherwise have stopped.

Here, on the very rim of the backbone of the country, the first sign of daylight came much earlier than in the lower country. While the flat plains of eastern Colorado and Kansas were still blanketed in night, the early light of morning began to touch the high rim of the canyon above them.

It was Ezra who first noticed it, and who broke the silence that had gripped them for more than two hours.

“Looks like it's awready breakin' day up yonder. An' it ain't near as fur up to thuh top as 'twas back where we made camp.”

Pat craned his neck up for a look and said through chattering teeth, “Sunlight won't come too quick for me. Must be nearin' the top, all right.”

“If I
ever
git warm ag'in,” said Sam Sloan viciously, “I swear tuh Gawd I'll never stick my nose outside thuh house after sundown. You-all know what I bin thinkin' about thuh last hour?”

“I bet I kin make uh good guess,” Ezra snorted.

“Go ahead an' guess.”

“About Kitty an' that warm bed back to thuh Lazy Mare ranch.”

“A man'd think you was married yore ownself tuh hear yuh talk,” Sam retorted. “How-come you guessed so easy?”

“Man don't hafta be no fortune-teller tuh figger that out.”

Pat pulled his horse up abruptly and pointed ahead to the right. “Ain't that a break in the canyon right yonder?”

“Shore is,” Ezra agreed instantly. “Looks like another gulch cuttin' down into this-un.”

“Come on.” Pat spurred his horse forward into a trot.

The others followed a few hundred yards to a point where the sheer right-hand wall of the canyon was cut by a steep ravine leading up above timberline to the snowclad peaks now beginning to glisten redly with the light of a new day.

Here Pat dismounted and went on foot a little way up the ravine, spreading out his coat to form a shelter while he squatted on the ground. “Walk up here an' take a look while I strike some matches,” he shouted at Ezra. “See if there's hawse tracks turnin' up here while I hide the match-light from above in case anybody's lookin' down here.”

He waited until Ezra was beside him, then fanned out three matches in his hand and lighted them simultaneously. Ezra bent to study the ground in front of them.

“Yep. This is it awright. Same old tracks we saw back yonder with one set of fresh ones headin' up and back.”

Pat blew out the matches and stood up to look up the small ravine. “Still too dark to see anything,” he muttered. “Tell you what, Ezra. You-all ride on up the main canyon a ways. Be safer to top over the Divide, I reckon, 'fore you stop to build up a fire. Wait there for me.”

“What're you gonna do?”

“I'll ride up here a ways with Miss Lily. Make sure she's found her uncles' hideout, then I'll ride back.”

“They'll never let yuh ride back if they see yuh,” Ezra growled.

“I'll hope they don't see me.”

Pat strode back to the floor of the main canyon and down to Dock and Lily behind the remuda. They were both huddled in their saddles and looked cold and miserable.

“Push 'em on up over the Divide, Dock,” he told his son shortly. “Miss Lily an' me are turnin' off here.”

“Is this … the place?” she asked fearfully.

“Trail leads up a gully to the right,” Pat told her. “Get goin', Dock. Follow Sam an' Ezra.”

“What about you, Dad? Aren't you comin' with us?”

“I'll be along directly.” Pat waited until Dock pushed his small herd ahead, and then swung into the saddle beside Lily.

“You don't have to ride with me,” she argued weakly. “It'll be dangerous if they see you.”

“I'll try to turn back before they do.”

Pat showed her the turn-off and they started up the small ravine at a slow trot. The roar of the canyon behind them diminished in volume, and after a few minutes Pat was able to make himself heard with his normal voice again, “We got to figure what yo're going to tell yore uncles.”

“About what?”

“About us. There ain't much doubt they think we rode out of Fairplay on the trail of that reward yesterday mornin'. If they think we know the secret of the tunnels, they'll never believe they're safe from us. More likely suspect yo're workin' with us to find their hideout an' turn 'em in.”

“What shall I tell them?” Lily shivered uncontrollably with the cold and the new fear that tightened about her heart.

“I been thinkin' it over,” Pat admitted. “S'posin' they were watchin' and know we camped last night back of the slide. Then you pop up this mornin'. They'll want to know right away where we are.”

“What shall I tell them?” she cried out again.

“Why not tell 'em the blanket dodge plumb fooled us, an' after eatin' supper an' thinkin' it over, we gave up an' turned back. Tell 'em you noticed the tunnel behind the scrub oaks but didn't tell us. That you let us start back, and then slipped away an' came back through the tunnels by yoreself. They can check from the top an' see we ain't nowhere in sight this mornin' … an' maybe they'll believe you,” he finished grimly.

“Suppose they don't believe me?”

“Then they'll most likely put lighted matches under yore fingernails to make you tell the truth.”

“Oh no!” she cried out in a choked voice. “Not Uncle Cleve and Art. I told you back in Fairplay how they're the kindest men I ever knew.”

Pat swore softly under his breath. He said aloud, “That's the chance yo're taking. That they haven't changed too much.”

“I'm willing to take it. Don't you think you've ridden far enough? Shouldn't you turn back now?”

“I'll go a little more.” Pat glanced ahead calculatingly. “It's 'most daylight now. I'd like to be plumb sure …”

“There's a light up ahead,” Lily said tensely. “It just came on.”

“A lamp inside a cabin.” Pat pulled his horse up. “I reckon this is it, Miss Lily. I'd go on with you but I reckon that's the worst thing that could happen.”

“Oh yes. You mustn't be seen. They mustn't know you've found their hideout.” Lily put her hand on his arm and her face was strained and white in the dim light of the new day. “I don't know how to thank you … and the others. I've never known men like you before.”

Pat said savagely, “I hate like hell to leave you like this, Miss Lily. If anything happens …”

“It won't.” She sounded more confident than she looked. “Do you think they'll shoot … when I ride up?”

“Not if they get a good look at you first. Take off yore hat so's they can see yore long hair when you get close. Ride up slow with your hands in the open.” Pat held out his hand to her. “Good luck.”

She caught hold of his hand and lifted it to press her lips against it. Then she spurred her horse away from him, up the ravine toward the lighted window of the outlaw's hideout.

Pat looked down at his hand curiously. The back of it burned where she had pressed her lips as though it had been stung with a hot branding iron. He grinned sheepishly when he saw there wasn't any mark on the flesh. He wondered what Sally would say when he told her about Lily Lytell.

He swung his horse about and sent him back to the canyon at a lope.

It was, as they had reckoned, only a few miles to Timberline Pass. It was full daylight up there on top of the world when Pat reached that point, and a little distance below him on the old stage road, he saw his partners and son drawn up around a blazing fire.

He loped down to them, and Ezra had a cup of coffee poured for him as he strode up to the fire. All three looked at him questioningly, but Pat took a couple of gulps of hot coffee before reporting.

“I reckon she found her uncles all right. She was ridin' towards the lighted window of a cabin at the head of that gulch when I left her. Couldn't be anybody else hid out up there.”

“I shore don't like leavin' her like that,” Ezra said glumly. “No tellin' what'll happen.”

“It's her choice an' she's got to take her own chances on it,” Pat told him grimly. “Worst thing we could do to her would be to barge up there. An' we still got a job of our own.” He stood up to look westward, down along the steep, rugged slope of the Rockies toward their destination.

“Sanctuary Flat's down yonder somewheres. A day's ride, maybe. How do you-all feel? Want to make camp here an' get some sleep to make up for las' night, or would you rather push on today?”

“I say le's eat some breakfast an' get goin',” Sam Sloan voted. “I cain't never sleep in thuh day-time.”

“How 'bout you, Dock?”

“I feel fine, Dad. Now that I've got warmed up again.”

“Suits me,” grunted Ezra. “I'll beat up some flapjacks first an' then we kin get movin'.”

14

By late afternoon they were well down along the Western Slope toward the upper end of Sanctuary Flat. The old rutted stage road was easy to follow, and the clear afternoon sunlight embraced them warmly as they neared the first stage of their objective.

At this point it was easy to determine the broad outlines of the Flat, stretching west and southward. It was a wide, treeless plain; almost level but sloping gently toward the center where the Gunnison River cut a wide swath through the rich mountain grass, dotted here and there with small bunches of placidly grazing cattle.

Miles southward from the point where the stage road entered the upper end of the Flat, the scattered buildings of the TB ranch could be seen, enveloped by the soft haze that lay like a nimbus upon the tranquil mountain valley.

It was a scene of such peace and pastoral beauty that it brought an almost poetic grunt from Ezra's lips as he gazed upon it from the slope above:

“Lookin' at somethin' like that makes a man sorta wonder why God lets people come into a place like this,” he confessed to Pat as the two of them rode together in the lead.

Pat glanced aside curiously at his partner's ugly, one-eyed face. “What d'yuh mean by that?”

“I mean that people are the only ones mean enough tuh cause trouble in thuh world,” Ezra blurted out. “Look at it down yonder. Sanctuary Flat, they called it back in thuh beginnin'. Don't that mean sort of a place tuh be safe? A place to
re
-lax an' not be afraid of nothin'?”

“Sanctuary means something like that,” Pat agreed.

“I reckon that's what it looked like to the ol' timers when they fust follered out this road over thuh Divide. But when men come in an' started runnin' cows on that grass, things got diffrunt. 'Stead of bein' safe an' quiet like it still looks on the surface, there's hard feelin's and murder afoot.”

Pat nodded grimly. They were almost down to the level of the Flat now. The old road sloped down to the base of steep weathered cliffs on the north, and then swung back southward in a lazy arc below them.

They heard the light crack of a .22 carbine from behind, and an excited shout from Dock. They both turned in their saddles to look back and see the boy leave the road and turn up a broad arroyo, waving his rifle excitedly over his head and spurring his pony to a headlong gallop.

Sam Sloan had been riding back with Dock to keep him company, and he shouted reassuringly, “Dock saw a four-point buck on that ridge an' took a pot shot at him. Looked like he winged him, an' he's gonna try an' finish him off.”

Pat grinned but muttered, “The danged fool. Shootin' at a four-point buck with his twenty-two. What'd he want to do that for?”

“I reckon it's my fault,” Ezra confessed. “I was tellin' him las' night 'bout one time I killed a black bear with a twenty-two. I told him how all yuh had tuh do was hit a deer or bear in the right place tuh bring him down same as with a big rifle.”

“When did you kill a bear that-away?”

“I reckon I sorta made it up,” Ezra admitted sheepishly. “But a man could do it if he hit him right, you know that.”

By that time Sam had loped up to join them. The remuda scattered off the road and began eagerly cropping at the long grass of the Flat.

“Jest like a crazy kid,” Sam laughed. “He was carryin' his popgun rifle crost his saddle-horn tuh shoot jackrabbits if he saw one, an' he pulled down on that buck 'fore I could stop him. Hit him too, by golly. Front leg, I reckon. I saw him give a jump an' go off the ridge limpin'.”

“Lord knows how far Dock'll trail him,” Pat groaned with a glance at the sun sinking in the west. “If we waste much time here we won't reach the TB ranch tonight.”

“What of it?” asked Sam indifferently. “We could make camp here jest as good as not.”

“I hate to have him do a fool thing like that,” growled Pat. “Next thing you know he'll be tryin' that twenty-two out on a bear or mountain lion.”