Cowboy PI (16 page)

It didn’t last. Trouble surfaced late that afternoon. It was nothing serious. Or at least it didn’t seem to be serious. At first.

He and Samantha had gotten temporarily separated when he dashed off on his roan to check on a steer lagging behind the others. But though she’d been left on the far side of the herd, he made sure he kept her in sight.

Roark was on his way back to her after seeing the steer rejoin the herd when she shouted to him across the tableland over which the drive was currently traveling.

“Irma is missing again! I’m going after her!”

“Samantha, no! Wait for me!”

She either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore his command. Wheeling on Dolly, she trotted away, disappearing down a slope. He was going to strangle her! With a possible killer in the outfit, she should know better than to go off like this on her own. And all for the sake of that damn precious heifer of hers! Angry and alarmed, Roark urged his mount into a gallop.

He expected to see her below him when he reached the top of the slope, but she was nowhere in sight. There was a path of sorts, probably a deer trail, that descended in easy stages through the shrubby growth. He followed it on horseback, searching for Samantha ahead of him, but he caught no glimpse of her.

So gently did the path sink into the floor of the mesa, and so anxious was he about Samantha’s welfare, that Roark paid only scant attention to his surroundings. Not until there were walls that embraced him on either side to shoulder height did he realize the path had gradually become a narrow defile.

Irma or no Irma, what was she doing in this place? Or had she not come this far? Maybe he had missed her. He started to swing his horse around, intending to go back, when he saw the fresh droppings left by either the heifer or Dolly, evidence that she must have come this way.

“Samantha!” he yelled. There was no answer to his call, no sound of either her or her horse ahead of him. Where the hell was she?

Wherever she was, he had to find her. Taking off again in pursuit of her, he followed the winding route, his concern deepening with the crevasse. He was submerged within the very fabric of the mesa now. Close on either side of him, perhaps seventy feet or more in height, rose the sheer, solid walls of the passage.

The stone was ruptured everywhere by fissures. Stunted junipers and stubby pines sprang from them. In other places the vertical faces were so fractured that narrow shelves supported layer upon layer of broken rock reaching toward the rim of the mesa. The stacks were so precariously balanced they looked like they were in danger of collapsing if the slightest movement disturbed them.

“Samantha, where are you?”

Again there was no answer except for his own voice bouncing hollowly off the walls of the trench. The sunlight was far above him now, his only companions his horse and the silent shadows. The roan didn’t seem to like the place, moving at a nervous pace.

Roark didn’t call out for Samantha again, fearing the reverberations of his shouts would be enough to bring those lofty piles of rock tumbling down on them. There were already scattered rocks on the ground, evidence of
earlier falls. Spurring the roan, he went on along the tortuous route.

Come on, Samantha, show me where you are so we can both get out of this damn hole.

He was sick with worry by the time he came to a spot where the walls met each other above him, forming a stone arch that spanned the defile clear to the top of the mesa. The passage beneath it was so deep it was more like a tunnel than an archway. Without hesitation, Roark urged his mount into the gap. Its ceiling was low and he had to bend almost double in the saddle to avoid scraping his head.

It wasn’t until he emerged on the other side that he was able to hear it, the sound of a female voice calling for help. His gut tightening with fear, Roark hurried the roan forward. Rounding a corner, he came upon them suddenly. There they were in front of him, two obstinate creatures locked in a battle of wills.

He took in the situation at a glance, his rigid body sagging with relief. It was all right. She was in no danger, though how she and the blasted Irma had gotten down inside that wide cavity, where she was swatting the heifer’s rump with her Stetson in an effort to urge her out of it, he couldn’t imagine.

For a few seconds he just sat there, amused by her frustrated performance. Then his anger kicked in. “I ought to take that hat away from you and spank
your
bottom with it!”

The thunder of his voice startled her into a squeak of alarm. She whirled around to face him. “You scared the wits out of me!”

“You didn’t have any to scare, or you wouldn’t have chased after the fool cow. Or come all this way to get her back.”

Samantha looked around in surprise, as though just now realizing how far she had traveled in pursuit of the heifer. “I guess the distance sneaked up on me, and by the time
I realized I’d come too far and ought to turn back, I heard Irma bawling so pitifully I knew she was in trouble. I couldn’t just leave her. I had to go on and try to help her.”

“You should have waited for me.”

“Oh, but if I’d done that, it might have been too late to save her.”

Her logic exasperated him, but he guessed he could understand it, even if he didn’t approve of it. The heifer was Samantha’s responsibility on the drive, her one and only way to prove herself, and she had no intention of abandoning that responsibility, even if meant risking herself. Sensible or not, he liked her for that.

“Anyway, I knew you’d find me if I kept hollering. And don’t ask me how Irma landed in this trap. Nothing she ever does makes sense. How are we going to get her out?”

“Climb out of there, and I’ll show you.” Dismounting from the roan with lariat in hand, Roark stepped down into the hollow, approached the heifer and dropped the loop over her head.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Samantha said, clambering out of the hole. “All
you
have to do is look at her, and she stands there and lets you rope her.”

“Charm,” he said. “Come on, Irma, if you managed to get down in here, you can get yourself out.” He made quick work of the rescue, tugging at the heifer until she obediently scrambled up and out of the depression.

“Is she okay?”

“She’s fine. Mount up and let’s get out of here.”

Roark led the way. The heifer, docile now at the end of her lead, trotted willingly behind him. Samantha brought up the rear on Dolly.

Did he imagine it, he wondered as he started out of the other side of the arch, or had he heard the sharp crack of something high over his head? Drawing rein, he listened.

“What is it?” Samantha demanded. “Why are we stopped?”

She was behind him under the wide arch, where she had
apparently heard nothing. In any case, there was silence now. He was ready to move on again when the first tiny grains rained down on him, settling like sand on his head and shoulders. They were followed by pebbles the size of hailstones striking the floor of the trench. Larger stones tumbled after them, signaling disaster.

“Back!” Roark bellowed a warning. “Get back! The whole thing is coming down!”

Horses and riders, together with the heifer, retreated through the arch, scrambling for safety. Above the panicked cries of the animals came the ominous splitting noise of tons of rock parting from the high face of the wall. The ripping sound became a rumble that grew to a roar as the avalanche descended, crashing to the floor of the defile with such force that the earth trembled beneath them.

In the aftermath came the rattle of a last few stones falling, and then there was silence again. A cloud of dust rose like thick smoke from the mouth of the arch. When it cleared, they could see from where they huddled under an overhang that the opening on the other side was buried by massive boulders from ceiling to floor.

Roark cursed. “Blocked! Not so much as a gap!”

Samantha voiced her own frustration. “Nature has lousy timing.”

But Roark wasn’t so sure it was an accident. That crack he’d heard just before the landslide had sounded very much like the one that had stampeded the cattle the other night. Could the blast of a firearm trigger a rock fall of that magnitude? If so—

He didn’t get to finish his thought. Samantha interrupted him anxiously. “Even if we wanted to leave the horses, the walls in here are much too steep for us to climb, aren’t they? But there
must
be a way out.” Before he could stop her, she goaded her mare out from under the shelter of the overhang to investigate the possibilities for herself.

“Samantha, no! Keep back!”

He didn’t hear the bark of gunfire, not this time, but the
ping of a bullet biting into the sandstone within inches of Samantha’s exposed body was unmistakable. Leaping from his horse, Roark dashed forward and dragged her from the saddle, throwing his own body in front of her to shield her.

Another bullet struck, missing them again but so close he felt the bit of rock it chipped hit his shoulder. He didn’t wait for a third bullet. Gathering Samantha into his arms, he flew with her back under the protective overhang.

Dolly had the good sense to join them, but neither the horses nor the heifer liked being targets any more than Samantha and Roark did. They were snorting in fear and threatening to bolt. As soon as he’d released Samantha, Roark dealt with them. They shied away from him, dancing nervously, but he was able to catch their reins.

When he’d managed to calm them, including the heifer, he turned back to a bemused Samantha. Her eyes were wide with fear and disbelief. “Who?” she whispered.

“Couldn’t tell.” But whoever it was, he’d wager it was the same someone who had fired on Joe Walker in a similar situation back in Texas.
And none of us believed the old man,
he thought wryly. Not then. “Maybe I can find out. Stay here and try to keep the animals quiet.”

“You’re not going out there again!”

“I’ll be careful.”

Sliding his gun from its holster and hugging the wall, he sprinted a few yards along the passage, trying to keep under the overhang as he searched for a place to get a look at whoever was up there on the rim above them. His movements must have been detected because they drew a rapid fire. Bullets ricocheted all around him, but none of them came close to touching him.

Sounds like a rifle, Roark thought, though he couldn’t be certain of that. Ernie Chacon had a rifle, but then so did the others in the outfit, including Ramona.

Roark returned the fire. The angle and height were impossible, both for him and their assailant. But one of
Roark’s bullets must have found his target. He could swear he heard a yelp from the rim. Either he had wounded the enemy or come so close that he’d scared him into a retreat. A long silence followed. The bastard had gone. He must have realized how useless it was to try to keep them pinned down. He hoped.

In any case, Roark had been unable to identify him. Only briefly had he caught glimpses of a figure up there, no more than a shapeless shadow against the blinding glare of the sunlight on the mesa above him.

Roark waited, and when the silence remained unbroken, he turned and made his way back to Samantha’s side. “Couldn’t recognize him,” he reported, returning his gun to its holster. “I think he’s gone, though.”

“What now?” she asked. “Do we stay here?” She glanced up nervously at the rock hanging over their heads. “Maybe it isn’t safe. Maybe this will come down, too.”

He shook his head. “This section looks solid enough.”

“The others must have missed us by now. They’re probably out searching for us.”

And one of them found us,
Roark thought grimly.
And at this moment he’s hoping we never find our way out of this place, that we die down here trying.
But he didn’t say that to Samantha. She was upset enough as it was.

“Roark, I’m so sorry. It’s my fault we’re in this mess. If I had been thinking at all—”

“Don’t,” he interrupted. “You did what you felt you had to do. Beating yourself up over it is just a waste of time. We need to figure out what we’re going to do.”

Her gaze strayed to the cell phone clipped to his belt. “Do you suppose we could call out for help?”

He looked up at the towering walls that surrounded them on all sides. “Not much chance of any reception in here, but it’s worth a try.”

Roark paused with his hand on the instrument. Shep had a cell phone of his own, which made him the logical
choice. Providing he wasn’t the enemy himself, and he could be. Well, he would have to risk it.

Samantha watched him tensely as he turned on the phone’s power and checked the display. It informed him there was no signal.

“No good?” she asked.

He shook his head and returned the phone to his belt.

“Then we’re trapped down here!”

“Not necessarily. Just because we can’t go back the way we came in doesn’t mean there isn’t some other way out. We’ll try the other direction.”

“Do you think it’s safe to move? What if you’re wrong and he’s still up there just waiting for us to show ourselves again?”

“My instincts say he isn’t, but let me go first.” Leading the roan out from under the overhang, he lifted himself into the saddle and waited. Silence. “All right, let’s risk it.”

There was no further threat from the enemy when Samantha emerged with Dolly, mounted up, and with the heifer trailing behind, followed him along the twisting defile. But he knew she was nervous about another sudden burst of gunfire. Hell, he was nervous himself. They were vulnerable down here.

The possibility of another ambush lessened as they proceeded along the winding trench, only to be replaced by other concerns. The loss of daylight, for one. This blasted gorge had already been as dim as a cavern, but Roark judged by the slowly fading light that the sun was low in the sky now. It would go down in another half hour or so, leaving them caught here in the darkness.

Bad enough, but what if there was no way out? That was also a possibility, as they discovered when the channel divided. Roark chose the left branch. They had traveled along it for a hundred yards or so when it abruptly dead-ended in sheer rock.