The Cross Pull/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
The first faint streaks of gray lightened the sky above the eastern peaks and the marshal’s men arose—and found old Dad Kinney seated on a log. He called Moran aside.
“I left Flash with her,” he said. “Son, I’m going to mix into this deal myself. Nash was the man that sent Harte out to do his killing. Teton Jackson was my friend. I crave just one good look at Nash somewhere within three hundred yards before I die.” A relic of early days swung at his hip. The gun which had answered in the past was good enough for him now. It was the Frontier Model Colt, the Riera black powder forty-five of the Seventies.
A horse neighed from the meadow and another answered from the hills. Ten minutes later Harmon rode up to the fire.
It was Vermont’s plan to locate the trail at the head of the canyon that day and attack from both ends the next. Day was just breaking when the ranger, the marshal, Kinney and Moran put their horses into a steady trail trot down the Thoroughfare bottoms. Harmon’s horse snorted and shied away from the timber edge as Flash joined them a hundred yards from camp. Betty had known that no one could slip up behind Moran during the fight if Flash was with him; that Flash would fight like a fiend for him if occasion arose and she had sent the dog in spite of Kinney’s instructions to the contrary.
They left their horses in a wooded basin and Started up the slope of the divide on foot. The country was a veritable maze of bald ridges and intersecting canyons. It was noon when they stood at the head of the gorge they sought. A faint trail led from it.
“That’s all we need to know,” said Vermont. “Let’s get back before they spot us prowling around up here.”
The canyon widened rapidly, then narrowed down again. As the men started back they kept well away from the edge to avoid skylining themselves on the rims. At the widest part of the canyon Flash slipped toward the edge. Moran was watching him. Flash crouched flat a few feet from the brink and looked across at the opposite cliff five hundred yards away. During the days he had run wild up here he had often come to this point, the one place from which he could see the secret camp. Moran saw the hair fluff up along his neck. His ears were tipped sharply forward.
“Flash sees them!” said Moran.
The four men lay prone and crawled up to Flash from behind. Kinney cautiously pushed two stones near the edge and looked through the crack between. The others followed his example and after the first glance no one of them had a single doubt as to the whereabouts of the long rumored Hole.
The far wall of the canyon rose sheer and straight for half its height. From that point to the top a crescent shaped depression was nicked out of it. The floor of this dent was almost flat, forming a bench of several acres in extent. It was covered with a dense growth of spruce. The encircling walls which rose above it were as glassy smooth as the rims which fell away from its lower edge.
It seemed that there could be no possible way of entering this pocket in the cliff but the hill trained eyes of the four men detected the trail at once. A faint streak angled across the face of the wall, appearing above the trees farther down the canyon and inclining up toward the corner of the wooded bench set back in the cliff. At that distance it looked to be but a faulted vein but these men knew it for a ledge which traversed the face of the rock, undoubtedly wide enough to permit the passing of men and possibly affording a foothold for their horses as well. Somewhere in that pocket were the cabins which sheltered the men they sought.
As they watched, a string of horses appeared on the lower end of the ledge and moved in single file across the face of the cliff. They counted fifteen. A single man rode the last horse and urged the others on.
“I don’t know the man but the horses are Brent’s,” said Moran.
“Then we’ll bag him too,” Vermont predicted. “To-morrow moming’s sunrise will see the end of the hunt.”
Old Dad Kinney shook his head.
“That will be just too late,” he said. “They’re pulling out. You’ll have to strike to-night. I know the signs.” He spoke with a conviction which impressed his friends.
This old strategist of the hills had pieced his bits of knowledge together and arrived at a conclusion of his own. The outlaws had retired to their hidden retreat as soon as the marshal’s posse had come in. They had undoubtedly spied upon his camp with glasses from some commanding point. Moran had discovered at once that Vermont’s party was no camp of hunters and he had known them for what they were. The men they trailed were no less keen. The signs which Moran had found the previous day had indicated that Brent usually held his horses on Atlantic Creek when here on his frequent trips. This time he had departed from the custom through fear that their presence would betray the spot. Instead he had held them in some distant pocket of the hills where their discovery would mean nothing at all. Except from urgent reasons he would not now have sent them back. In all probability some of the band had seen Harmon coming in the night before at the head of a dozen men. The signal flashes had been the call for Brent.
“They’re afraid the hunt will get too hot for them,” Kinney said. “They’ve got saddles cached up there. They could make thirty miles if they rode all night. Then they could scatter, each man for himself, until the hunt died down. Better get your men here to-night.”
The four men drew back from the rims. Vermont was a man of quick decisions and he recognized the logic of Kinney’s words. They had no time to waste.
“We can’t take that chance,” he said. “But we’ll have to work fast to block them in to-night. Harmon’s men will have the longest trip so I’ll bring my boys to cover the upper end and work down the trail on foot. Harmon should be able to reach the mouth of the canyon an hour or two after dark by riding hard. You two stay here to watch which way they go if they leave before we get back. Then join Harmon’s men to-night. They can hardly miss that broad trail up the creek.”
Time was precious. Kinney and Moran watched the other two go back the way they had come.
When the marshal and the ranger reached their horses they rode together until late in the afternoon. Then Harmon turned up a creek which branched from the Thoroughfare in the direction of his own camp. Both horses were tired but the distance was now short and neither man spared his mount. Vermont reached his destination first. Half an hour later the Bar T foreman saw Harmon’s horse swing round a bend. The horse was lathered and running hard. The foreman spoke to the man who had been detailed to wrangle the horses for the day.
“Run ’em in,” he said. The wrangler mounted and whirled up the valley.
“Every man throw his saddle on a horse,” the foreman ordered. “One of you catch up a fresh horse for Harmon. We’re about to make a ride.”
Ten minutes later Harmon and the twelve Bar T men were pouring down the valley. Just before dusk they turned into the bottoms of the Thoroughfare. Harmon noted tufts of grass and dirt loosened by the feet of running horses.
“Vermont’s men are ahead of us,” he said, “and going strong.”
Back on the rims, Kinney and Moran watched the trail which angled down the cliff until too dark to see. Three men had gone up to the pocket during the day but not one had left it.
With the coming of dusk Flash felt the restless urge to be off; to get back to Betty and the cabin which was home to him. Moran wrote a brief note in the waning light, promising to return to the cabin the following day.
“I want to see her even more than you do, old boy,” Moran said to Flash. “Go!” Flash darted away into the gathering dusk.
Not until night obscured even the outlines of the opposite rims did the two men quit their post. When they left they did not return to their horses but made a wide detour which would bring them out near the mouth of Atlantic Creek. They threaded their way along the dividing ridges between the many yawning canyons and eventually came out upon one long spur which led away in their chosen direction.
When halfway along its course both men stopped with one accord as a voice spoke to them out of the night. Moran knew the voice. It was that of Nash. Forty feet from them a figure loomed on the brink of the rims, hazy and indistinct except for the sharp silhouette of the broad brimmed hat. Moran involuntarily closed his fingers on Kinney’s arm.
“Nash,” he whispered.
“Brent! Is that you, Brent?” Nash called huskily. “I tried to locate you and lost the way. I left the horses down in the bottoms and climbed this point to try and flash a signal to you.” The voice trailed away. When it came again it held a note of fear. “Why don’t you answer? I took the wrong trail, I guess.”
Moran felt Kinney gently disengaging his arm and drawing away from him.
“All right, Nash,” Kinney said soothingly. “You’re going to get started on the right trail at last.”
The roar of Kinney’s gun crashed in Moran’s ears. The figure on the rims tossed up its arms and swayed for a single second, then disappeared. A sound floated up to the two men on the ridge—the sound of a heavy body crashing through the spruce trees hundreds of feet below.
Without a word they resumed their way, working down the point of the spur. Once in the bottoms they turned into the mouth of Atlantic Creek and took the broad trail which followed it. When they reached the rocky bar they removed their boots and crossed it without a sound, resuming their footgear as soon as they reached the far side. It had been prearranged between them to wait just within the mouth of the canyon for Harmon’s arrival with the men from the Bar T. They moved cautiously ahead for a hundred yards. Then Moran touched Kinney’s arm and they stopped. It was inky black between the towering walls of the gorge. They sat down cross-legged on the ground. Before they were well seated a horse gave a whistling snort of surprise from the brush nearby.
Out in the darkness a man cursed fretfully.
“The horses are getting spooky,” he said. “It’s blacker than hell in here. Let’s have a light.” A second man gave a grunt of assent and they moved toward Kinney and Moran.
Both rose silently and drew back flat against the base of the cliff. A match flared up near them, glowing pinkly through the fingers which shielded it, and throwing a dim light across an unshaven face. Kinney stretched his hands up along the wall and felt the edge of a break a few inches above his head. He gripped it with his fingers, placed his foot on a projecting point of rock and drew himself up. He swept one arm out to determine its width and leaned down to touch Moran. It was only an irregularity in the cliff, a little shelf some two feet wide. The two men were breaking dry sticks for their fire and under cover of this noise Kinney and Moran mounted the shelf and lay flat upon it, screened by the low hanging branches of a spruce.
A blaze sprang up within fifty feet of them. As its brilliance increased they could see that it had been kindled in the center of a small open glade only a few feet across. The branches of the surrounding spruce almost met above it, roofing it in. Several men rode down the gorge, tied their horses among the trees and joined the first two at the fire. The newcomers were scarcely seated when more arrived. They came in straggling groups of twos and threes until there were fifteen men around the fire. Every word of theirs reached Kinney and Moran.
They discussed the possibility of the posse finding their retreat. All were agreed that their present plan was best—to ride all night and scatter through the hills in little groups, returning to the Hole once more as soon as the hunt died down. They now only waited for Brent and Nash to come before starting on their nightlong ride. The two men on the shelf heard things which turned their blood to ice. Both had taken it for granted that Nash and Brent had planned to leave by themselves a few hours earlier than the rest; that Nash had lost the way, which accounted for his unexpected appearance on the ridge. They had guessed as much from his speech.
The things they now heard forced them to put a different, more sinister interpretation upon the few words he had spoken prior to Kinney’s shot. Brent had been bribed to go to the cabin for the purpose of killing Moran and bringing the girl to Nash. Nash was to take the horses and wait for Brent a few miles from the spot, leading a third horse for her. Several of the men laughed at his timidity; his sending another instead of doing the thing himself.
Moran reconstructed his ideas of the reason for Nash’s sudden appearance on the rims. The harrowing picture was plain to the last detail. Naturally they had avoided the bottoms on their way to the cabin but had held to the hills instead. Nash, a novice in the woods, had been confused by these unfamiliar trails and failed to make the appointed spot by dark. Already far from it he had blundered on in the wrong direction until at last some landmark which he knew informed him that he was nearer the spot from which he had started than the one where they were to meet. He had climbed the ridge to flash a signal of his whereabouts to Brent. Moran could see it all. Nash now lay dead in the bottom of some obscure canyon and Betty was somewhere off there in the hills with Brent. It was not a pretty picture.
Moran’s hands were clenched and beads of moisture rolled down his face as he realized his helplessness. He silently cursed himself for entering into this hunt at all; cursed Harmon and Vermont for idling on the way and Kinney for leaving her alone. There was no slightest chance of his getting away to hunt for her. If he was killed in the attempt she was lost. By sheer force of will he fought off the impulse to make a run for it and he strained his ears to catch some distant sound which spoke of approaching help.
The horses stamped fretfully back in the timber beyond the circle of firelight that danced in the little opening and threw fantastic shadows on the trees that fringed it. The hard faces and varied attire of the men completed a wild picture which held no appeal for the two men on the shelf.
Moran’s one devout hope was that they would go and leave him free to hunt for her. Kinney viewed it more coolly and in a different light. If these men should make an all night ride and scatter in some distant spot Brent would follow with the girl. If they made a move to leave before help came it would be far better to scatter them here.
They were growing restless. Nash and Brent were long overdue. It was evident that they would soon start without them. Seely yawned and stretched. He spoke of Harte and wondered why he had never returned. They did not know of the double killing at the cabin. Their words were conclusive proof that they had not even known of its existence until Nash had described its location to Harte. They did not know of Kinney’s arrival or that Moran had not been staying there of late. Nash had undoubtedly taken it for granted that conditions there would be the same; that Brent would find Moran and Betty there alone.
Siggens, Fox Jarrat and Cole rose to their feet. Their impatience was reflected a thousandfold in Moran. The men moved restlessly about the fire. Hanlin paced back and forth.
“Oh, hell! Let’s go!” he said. “Brent will know where to look for us.”
Kinney had risen to his knees. The branches which had shielded them in such friendly fashion now seemed only to hamper him as he peered down the barrel of the big Colt at the men around the fire. He shook his head and lowered the gun as he leaned over to Moran.
“Watch your chance to slip away and look for her,” he whispered. “Good luck, Son.”
The old man dropped from the ledge and began to shoot.
The next second Moran stood beside him, the sharp crack of his automatic alternating with the terriffic roar of the black powder forty-five.
Siggens and Cole sank down beside the fire. Jarrat took three jerky steps and collapsed. Hanlin reached for his gun but his fingers fell away from it. The murderous fury of his face faded to a look of blank surprise. He placed his hand over his heart, turned on his heel and pitched down upon his face.
The rest were leaping for the shelter of the trees as the thought flashed into every mind that they had been ambushed and surprised. Their frantic horses reared and plunged as they sought to untie them with one hand while with the other they shot back across the open space. The flashes of their guns showed in red splashes among the purple shadows under the trees and the balls flattened with a nasty splintering of rock against the cliff back of Kinney and Moran.
One horse, unmanageable from fright, stampeded with his rider into the firelit opening, Seely shooting as he came. Kinney was cramming fresh shells into the Colt. Moran steadily fired his last cartridge and the horse swerved. Seely sagged limply in the saddle and slipped to the ground as the horse plunged back among the trees.
Every man thought the marshal’s posse was upon them. As each one succeeded in mounting he crashed away through the brush.
There was a sudden sound of drumming hoofs which increased to a clattering roar as a dozen hard running horses struck the rock bar coming in. With exulting yells the Bar T men flung from their saddles and blocked the mouth of the gorge.
Some few of the outlaws whirled their horses and headed up the canyon, only to turn back again as the marshal’s posse opened on them with a deadly hail of rifle fire. Every sound of their progress drew an answer from some fast shooting Winchester. The fight shifted from a general engagement to scattered individual duels and the gun flashes cut vivid crimson streaks through the night.
Moran slipped toward the mouth of the canyon, keeping close to the wall. He reached it safely and mounted the first Bar T horse he found. One of his own friends emptied his gun at him as he clattered across the rock bar. He headed the horse down the trail and urged him on. His one idea was to get to the cabin with all possible speed. For the first time he thought of Flash. If he found him at the cabin he could put him on Brent’s trail. Then suddenly he had the one single comforting thought which had come to him since hearing of Nash’s devilish plans.
When he recalled having dispatched Flash to her at dusk he fervently blessed the inspiration which had led him to train Flash in this work of carrying messages. If Flash reached the cabin and found her gone he would take her trail. Moran knew his terrible fighting qualities when aroused. If he suspected that Brent meant to harm her there would be a savage fight and she might escape under cover of his attack. If only he learned this in time—discerned the man’s intentions before Brent had time to see him and use his gun.
The horse which Moran rode stumbled under him, recovered his balance and staggered on. Moran guessed the truth and dismounted. The horse stood with drooping head and the light of a match revealed a red stream bubbling from his flank with each labored breath. One of the shots fired at Moran as he crossed the bar had found the horse.
The firing had long since ceased and he knew the outlaws had been killed to a man. He made a rapid calculation of distances, determining whether to keep on and go to his own horse or to turn back for another. He drew his gun and inserted a fresh clip of shells. As he led the horse aside so its body would not obstruct the trail, Moran prayed that Flash had found the girl.
But Flash had not.
He had reached the cabin only to find that she had left it long before. Her cold trail mingled with that of Brent. The hair along his spine stood straight and stiff, and Flash snarled deep in his throat. Without an instant’s hesitation he swept away on the trail, and as he ran there seemed to be two of him—two spirits urging the same flesh along on this double trail left by the one he loved the best and the one he hated the most of all these on earth. The dog strove to overtake the girl and protect her with his love; the wolf hungered to reach Brent and fall upon him with murderous hate. So often in the past one extreme had been swayed from its course by the opposing force of the other. Now, for the first time in his life, both combined to drive him on and on over the trail from which nothing but death could shake him.
Their course led along the ridge which stretched to the low divide between the Thoroughfare and the Yellowstone. It was rougher but much shorter and more direct than the longer trail through the bottoms by way of the forks. On the divide they had stopped long until Brent was satisfied that Nash was lost. But Flash did not stop, and he found the trail much warmer as the plunged down the far slope. The roar of the fight at the canyon thundered in his ears as he ran. It had ceased when he reached the bottoms. The two he followed had forded the Yellowstone and the trail led straight away to the mouth of Atlantic Creek. It was warm and still slippery from the water which dripped from their soggy clothing.
While still a mile from the mouth Flash heard a single shot from a short distance up the creek—the shot which ended the misery of Moran’s wounded horse. It was followed by a sound which turned Flash to a raging fiend.
Half a mile inside the mouth of the creek Brent had stopped at the outbreak of the fight ahead. He had turned back when the shooting ceased. The sound Flash heard was Betty’s cry for help sent out to the man who had fired that last single shot. There was no second cry, for Brent clamped his hand on her mouth. But one had been enough and Moran and Flash were both leaping toward the sound.
Flash swept on with every ounce of his terrific speed, knowing that he followed this trail to kill. He ran now with the froth slobbering from his fangs and spattering back on his silky coat. The yellow eyes were streaked with red. His whole heart was driving him with the seething lust to sink his teeth into the man who had caused that cry.
The body scent came from just ahead. Then he saw Brent coming toward him down the trail, his left hand clamped on the girl’s wrist as he pulled her after him.
Brent half turned, reaching for his gun as he heard Moran bounding down the trail behind him.
Then a dim shadow drove at him and savage teeth slashed at the arm which held the girl. The instant his grip relaxed she tore away and fled. Moran almost ran over her as he tumed a bend but checked his rush and caught her, holding her close in his arms.
Brent’s gun spoke once and the flame scorched Flash as he sprang the second time. Then his teeth closed on the hand and crunched the bones as he tore the gun away. Brent was a powerful man. He lunged and struck, kicked terribly with his heavy boots. His head struck a dead limb and with one wrench he tore it from the tree. It whistled through the air as he whirled and struck again and again. He screamed like a fighting animal as he sought to drive off this thing which had pounced on him out of the night.
The fight was short. Brent lurched to his knees, and before he could rise again the teeth which had torn the life from many a tough bull elk closed on the soft throat of aman. There was no sound under the trees.
Then a cry filled the valley and echoed among the tims—the savage, triumphant cry of the killing wolf.