Valley of the Vanishing Men (10 page)

A
SEDATIVE
, injected, made the locked and shuddering teeth of Clive Trainor relax. A fever potion was then worked past those teeth, and Doctor Wells, his forefinger constantly on the pulse of the sick man, finally leaned over and peered closely into the face. The forehead glistened with moonlight and with a small, fine sweat that was breaking through the skin. The breathing was deeper, slower. And the trembling pulse in the wrist began to throb more regularly.

The doctor sat back with a sigh which he was cautious not to make too loud. This man, for all he had been through, possessed a sound core of sturdy health that made his body respond swiftly to medication. An hour before, the doctor called it rather a bad gamble for Clive Trainor. Now he was certain that the man would get well. And he wondered, as he sat there and looked down at the calm face of the sleeper, how he, Wells, would have endured a similar strain.

He was rotten to the core with alcohol. It had made his body flabby. It had entered his mind like a decay.

He pulled out the fat flask he carried. There was a pint and a half of excellent whisky in that flask. He made a wry face, pulled out the cork, and let the dark stuff pour out on the rocks. It made a pool in a little hollow. He had a sudden desire to bend over and sup up the whisky from the pool. Instead, he stiffened his back and swallowed. His throat was dry.

Fear of the coming time racked him. He knew what it was for a man to swear off after drinking heavily for years. He knew the nervous quaking, the terrible tremors of body and soul, the ghastly illusions that beset the mind, and the vast hunger for the stuff gnawing in the stomach.

The doctor pulled out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. He stared again at the wan face of Clive Trainor. He thought of the brother in Alkali. He thought of big, brown-faced Jim Silver, quiet and capable. No appetite was the master of those men!

And when he thought of this truth, a strength came up in him. He squared his shoulders, and looked away at the glimmering moonshine on Mount Baldy. He had been clean once and he could be clean again. He had been asleep, during these last years, and so he had sunk from depth to depth, sodden, until he wound up in Alkali, where a man like him need perform only one or two bits of work each week in order to keep drunk the rest of the time.

He made a gesture that washed away and abandoned that life. He set his jaw and shook his head. The shame of what he had been struck him in the face.

Then he heard, clearly, the trampling of horses that came swiftly up from the ravine beneath them. The doctor started to his feet, ready to call a welcome as Silver and Trainor drew in sight. Instead, he saw three strangers come over the ridge and ride up toward him.

“Better cover him, Bud,” said one.

“All right, Perry,” answered a second, and pulled from its long holster a rifle which he held at the ready, the muzzle toward the breast of the doctor.

This scene was to the doctor a great unreality. His eyes perceived it, of course, but his reason said no to the images he beheld.

The third man, who wore a big bandage around his head, forcing his sombrero up high, the doctor recognized as the town bully and the bouncer of the Golden Hope — Blacky. All three had dismounted.

Blacky said, “Hello, doc. How’s every little thing?” He spoke very casually, and then put his hands on his knees and, leaning over Trainor, murmured: “Here’s the kid, again. I’ll be doggoned if I didn’t think he was rubbed so thin that he’d go all to pieces But he’s sleepin’ as sound as you please!”

The doctor said: “Stand back from him, Blacky. Don’t disturb him. He’s a mighty sick man and he needs this sleep.”

“Yeah, does he?” answered Blacky. “What’s the smell of whisky around here?”

“I poured out a flask,” said the doctor calmly.

“You poured out a flask?” exclaimed Blacky. “The hell you did! By thunder, you did, too, and there’s some of it caught in the holler of the rock!”

He dropped on his hands, smelled the liquid, and then sucked up the stuff greedily and noisily. He stood up, coughing.

“Mighty hot but mighty good,” said Blacky. “First time I ever heard of you spillin’ your drinks, doc. Damned if it ain’t. Where you get this idea of pourin’ things out?”

“Be quiet, Blacky,” said Perry. “Listen to me, Wells. Jim Silver has been around here. Where’s he gone?”

“I haven’t seen him,” lied the doctor smoothly.

“That’s a lie,” said Blacky cheerfully.

“It’s the truth,” insisted Wells.

“Who brought you out from town?” asked Perry.

“Ben Trainor brought me,” said Wells.

“Yeah, he did, did he?” muttered Blacky. “He’s a slick kid, is that one. Maybe he’s too damn slick for his own good, one of these days. You didn’t see Silver?”

“No.”

“Well, we got the kid, anyway,” said Blacky.

“The chief’s goin’ to be glad of that,” remarked Perry. “Tell the boys down below to bring up an extra hoss. We’ll mount the kid and start him goin’.”

“If you ride him in the saddle, you’ll kill him,” declared the doctor, exaggerating a good deal.

“Who cares if he bumps off?” demanded Blacky. “He’s been nothin’ but a flock of trouble, anyway.”

“All you get out of any Trainor is a flock of trouble,” declared the man called Bud.

“Wait a minute,” said Perry. “You mean it would kill him, all right? You mean that, doc?”

“I mean that,” said Wells.

“We’ll make a stretcher for him,” decided Perry.

Bud had gone to the edge of the plateau and was shouting down at the unseen men for them to bring up extra horses. By the murmur that answered, it appeared that a crowd was down there. But that was understandable. Men did not go hunting Jim Silver except when they were in numbers. Even then it was a task which most of them had wisdom enough to decline.

“Are you heeled?” Perry asked of the doctor.

“No,” he answered, “I never carry a gun.”

“Well, doc,” said Perry, “I ain’t even goin’ to fan you to see if you tell the truth. But watch yourself. We’re kind of in a hurry and we don’t want to be bothered. You come along and keep your face shut, and maybe things’ll be all right with you.”

The doctor said nothing, and Perry, unshipping a small hand ax, which he carried behind the saddle on his mustang, attacked the straight branches of the tree. At the sound of the blows, Clive Trainor groaned, stirred, but did not waken, so deep was his exhaustion and so effective the sedative which Wells had injected.

Other men appeared over the ridge from the canyon, with led horses, and Bud took up an argument with Perry.

He said: “What you goin’ to do, Perry? Load us all up with a lot of trouble? The chief didn’t say anything about bringin’ Clive Trainor in alive. He just wants his damned tongue fixed so’s it can’t waggle!”

“That’s true,” said Perry.

He stopped in his work, then added: “It ain’t hardly human to leave him out here to die, though.”

“Take the doc away from him, and he’ll be done for by the morning,” said Bud. He was a short, ape-faced man, and he talked with a great deal of decision and force. “We want to get this job done quick and turn back. That’s what the chief wants us to do, and we’d better mind our step. Understand, Perry?”

“And the doc?” asked Perry.

“Oh,” said Bud, “he’ll keep his face shut. If he won’t, maybe he’d better go with the kid, there.”

“Look here, Wells,” said Perry. “Will you keep your face shut about what might happen here?”

“If you murder young Trainor, do you mean?” said the doctor.

“You hear him talk?” muttered Perry to Bud. “He’s goin’ to blab everything he knows, when he gets back to town.”

“Then don’t let him get back,” advised Bud.

“We can’t wipe out the whole of everybody,” declared Perry. “We’ll let the chief pass on this. We’ll take ‘em both back to the boss.”

“He’ll give you hell for thanks,” stated Bud. “Bang ‘em both over the bean and let ‘em lay, I’d say.”

“There’s Les, back there, shot through the middle,” remembered Perry. “Poor old Les would be glad to see a doctor, I guess. And he might as well see this one. I’ve made up my mind. Come on, boys. Lend a hand, and we’ll fix up a horse litter to pack this hombre along. The chief can do what he wants, but slammin’ gents that are half dead already don’t please me none too much.”

The doctor, taking a very long and deep breath as he heard these remarks, examined the face of Bud, and saw the features twist and the teeth glint. The man was simply a beast, and his appetite was for blood. Even if the peril of that moment had been averted, Wells knew that there was more danger in the future, and that he would be lucky if he lived to see the dawn rise on this day.

He looked up at the sky, as even irreligious men will do when they have been relieved from a mortal peril. The moon shone very brightly, but off toward the northeast the lower stars were obscured by a mist. It was like a cloud that was rising out of the earth, not the heavens. The doctor was puzzled by it, not a little. The air was windless. A hush lay like a weight over the earth, and it was more than a little difficult to breathe. Yet in these conditions, which should have gone hard with Clive Trainor, he continued to sleep so profoundly that the doctor leaned and listened again to his breathing, and took his pulse.

Clive was much better, both in pulse and in respiration. The soporific was still working perfectly, and strength was flowing into that wasted body from sleep, like water flowing from a well into dry, dead ground.

In the meantime, the making of the stretcher was quickly completed, and two poles were tied into the stirrups of two horses. A blanket stretched across made the bed on which Trainor was laid. And even when he was lifted and put on the litter, he did not waken, nor when the horses were led stumbling down the steep slope to the level of the desert. He groaned faintly, once or twice, but nature was resolved on oblivion for the time being, and the sleep went on.

I
T WAS
not long after that that Yates and Christian and three more rode out of the desert into one of those many ravines which cut into the edge of the upper plateau. The girl was with them, and she led the way to the head of the gulch. There she halted her horse and looked vaguely around her.

Christian suddenly joined her, caught the reins of her horse, and shook them angrily.

“This isn’t the place!” he exclaimed. “The mine isn’t here. My girl, if you’re playing with us, you’re going to remember tonight!”

She lifted her tired face to him as he spoke. Weariness takes the place of courage, sometimes, and she was very weary.

“You don’t quite understand,” she told him. “It may be that Clive has been taken away to safety by his brother. It may be that he’s dead in the desert hours ago. But I’ve had to keep you occupied a little so that he could have a better chance of coming clear.”

“Do you hear, Yates?” demanded Christian savagely.

“I hear,” said Yates. “I told you that she was a tough little hombre, didn’t I?”

“She may be tough, but she’s going to be softened,” answered Christian. “I’m going to soften her myself — and now.”

He dropped the reins and grabbed the wrist of the girl.

“Are you going to take us where we want to go, or aren’t you?” he shouted.

“My father died when that strike was made,” she said to Christian. “Don’t you think that he’d rather see me dead than have me be a guide to a pack of murderers and thieves?”

The steadiness of this voice made Christian stiffen in his saddle. Then he leaned and struck her across the mouth with the back of his gloved hand.

Her head jerked far back. One of the men yelled:

“Don’t do that to the gal, Christian!”

Christian whirled his horse around with savage spurs and faced the speaker, with one hand on the butt of his revolver.

“Don’t do it, eh?” cried Christian. “No, I’d rather do it to you, you fool! Are you talking up to me?”

“I’d rather have you do it to me than to her,” said the fellow sullenly. “Damn it, Christian, she’s a woman, after all.”

“You’re one of those chivalrous crooks, are you?” demanded Christian, forcing his dancing horse closer. “You’d shed your blood for the lady, would you? Why, if you open your mouth and speak another word, blood will be shed, and now!”

The other, tense, and bowed a little to be in readiness for action, endured the terrible eye of Christian only for another moment. Then his glance and his head fell a little. Christian made a contemptuous gesture of dismissal.

“Rats that squeak are not the rats that get the bait out of the trap,” he said.

He jerked his horse savagely around toward the girl, again.

“I start now, with her,” he said. “Yates, get off your horse and pull the fool out of the saddle, will you?”

There was no need to drag her. She dismounted quickly and stood with her hands clasped behind her, facing Christian who, on the back of his tall horse, looked like a giant. The man who had offered the first protest groaned a little, and turned his head away.

“You’ve brought this on yourself,” said Christian. “You know that?”

“I know it,” said the girl.

“I’m going to make you talk straight,” said Christian, “and tear the truth out of you if I have to tear your heart in two at the same time.”

“You’ve torn my heart in two already,” said the girl.

“I’ve only scratched it,” answered Christian. “I’m going to have you screaming, inside of ten seconds; screeching so that some of these milk-and-water fools will be pretty sick. I’m giving you your last chance to talk up. Will you do it?”

She looked straight at him, and then her head tilted back, and she looked far behind him. She said nothing.

“Hold on!” called an eager voice. It came from the same fellow who had turned away. “Someone’s coming on the pelt. I know him. It’s Perry. He’s signaling. Here’s Perry, and without his gang. What the devil could have happened?”

“Silver!” muttered another of the men. “They’ve run into Silver, and he’s smashed ‘em flat!”

“You lie,” said Christian, his voice strained by fear. “It can’t be that Silver has blundered onto them twice in a row. He can’t have that much luck in a row.”

Perry, swinging up rapidly, called out: “We’ve got Clive Trainor, chief. We’re bringing him along.”

The cry that came out of the girl’s throat rang thin and high; it stopped in the middle of the note of terror and of grief. For Christian had begun to laugh.

“All the little chickens come home to rest. You see, Yates? I told you that the bad luck couldn’t continue. Brains have to beat fortune, in the long run, and they’re starting to beat it now! Well done, Perry! Well done, boy! You’ve brought luck back to us! I see ‘em coming in now.”

For the group which was coming at a walking pace, guarding the litter, was now in view around the corner of the ravine’s wall.

“We found Doc Wells with him,” said Perry. “Didn’t know what to do with him, and so we brought him along, too.”

“Why didn’t you tap the drunken fool over the head and leave him there?” demanded Christian. “Nobody would have found him, and if they did, nobody would have cared.”

“There was Les,” said Perry. “Poor Les needs a doctor right bad, I guess.”

“The devil with Les!” said Christian. “At a time like this, we can’t afford to look behind us. Les is back at the shack, and he can stay there.”

He turned to the girl again. “Here’s your man again,” he said. “Now, honey, are you talking with a straight tongue? Are you taking us out to the mine that the dear old father died for? Answer me, you white-faced fool!”

“I’ll show you the way,” said the girl slowly. “I give up — I give up if you’ll let me have Clive safe!”

“Have him then,” said Christian. “Get her back on her horse. Lead on, Nell. Be a little sprightly now. Get your horse into a gallop, and go fast. We’ve wasted most of the night, and it looks as though a sand storm may be blowing out of the northeast, yonder, to fill up the rest of our time! Go on! Go on! Right past ‘em. You can see your man later on and mewl over him.”

She put her horse to a good gallop and, in fact, rode straight past the group of riders, seeing among the horses the litter on which poor Clive Trainor was stretched.

Perhaps this last promise to her would be broken, as other promises had been broken in the past, but she dared not believe so. Out of the canyon she led the way and then angled off to the side a short distance into the desert.

Christian shouted to her: “You don’t mean to say that you’re fooling us again? There can’t be a mine out here in the sand! You can’t have made a strike out here!”

She halted her horse presently, and pointed at a small shadow that appeared in the moonlight, a mere head of dark stone that broke the watery surface of the moonlit sand.

“There!” she said. “And God forgive me! That’s the strike!”

Christian leaped from his horse and knelt by the rock. He flashed the ray of a torch over it, but that was not necessary. The light of the moon was strong enough, and he found now, a great shattered place where an explosion had torn the soft, brittle rock apart. The whole face of the gash was glittering with a thin beadwork of gold, like that sample of ore which had come into the assayer’s office in Alkali, not many weeks before.

Christian stood up, his face working. His eyes considered the men before him, and the others who were approaching from the distance, and he muttered:

“We’ve found it at last. We’ve found it! We’ve got it here!”

He laughed breathlessly. He turned to the girl and said: “I don’t know why, but I can almost forgive you for being such a fool about young Trainor. You’ve brought us all to luck, at last. But there’s no telling how far this runs. It may be only a boulder that’s sunk here in the desert!”

“The blow sand has washed up over most of it,” she answered. “Thirty or fifty yards of it were showing when I was here the last time.”

“Out here in the desert, like a raft loaded with treasure on the open sea! There’s something silly — there’s something romantic about it! Look it over, boys! Look it over!”

The litter holding Clive Trainor had come up, by this time. Gusts of wind began to blow heavily. The cloud which Doctor Wells had seen in the northeast now covered half the stars, and in the air was an acrid smell of fine desert soil. Certainly the sand storm was growing on them rapidly.

Around that rock, heedless of the storm, the men of Yates and Christian were dancing, laughing. Some of them had found little shards of broken rock, and they waved these as drunkards might have brandished beakers of wine.

And then the heavy, sheer weight of the wind struck down on them all and blew the laughter away from their lips.

“It’s coming!” shouted Christian.

He heard the girl appealing to the riders to turn back and take poor Clive Trainor into shelter among the ravines; otherwise, in his weakened condition, if he were left there, he would certainly be stifled under the thick blasts of the wind and sand. Even men and horses were sometimes overcome and choked by such a storm. Certainly an invalid would have but little chance.

“No!” thundered Christian. “I promised the girl that she could have her man. Where else would a man like to be? Put him down by the gold mine, and leave the girl with him. If the wind chokes him — why, that’s too bad!” He laughed as he spoke. Then he added: “Give ‘em a doctor, too. Let old Wells stay by ‘em. He’ll know how to help. Leave ‘em stay here. Take the horses, and let ‘em stay here and enjoy themselves with a gold mine for company! What more can they ask than that?”

It was done. Doctor Wells, standing, stupefied, looked into the face of the increasing wind until the flying sand began to sting his skin. When he turned, he found himself alone with the two helpless victims, and far away, the troop of riders were retreating into the mouth of a ravine which Doc Yates had said, “had walls so high and tight that not even a fly could crawl out of it, and, therefore, damned little wind would get in.” Then Wells looked down at the girl, who lay weeping beside the litter of Clive Trainor. And only now the sick man commenced to waken.