Novel 1954 - Utah Blaine (As Jim Mayo) (v5.0) (15 page)

Reaching a place where the talus was overgrown with brush and grass, he climbed up among the trees and continued on, keeping away from the trail. It was harder going, but he worked his way higher and higher among the rocks. After awhile he became conscious of a dull roaring sound that he was sure was not imagined. It seemed to increase and grow stronger as he pushed further along.

Coming through the trees he stopped suddenly, seeing before him a clearing with a pole corral, obviously very old, and a log cabin. Beyond it he could see a spring of white water roaring from the rocks. At the corral he could see the black gelding cropping grass. He came out of the trees and walked toward the cabin, his eyes alert. Yet he saw nothing, and when he came closer he could see no tracks nor any sign of life but the gelding.

The black horse looked up suddenly and whinnied at him. He crossed to it, stripping off the saddle and bridle and turning the gelding into the corral. Then he walked to the cabin, broke the hasp on the door and entered.

Dust lay thick over everything. There were two tiers of bunks, each three high, some benches, a chair and a table. In the fireplace there was wood as if ready for a fire and there were some pots and pans.

He walked again to the door and sat down, his rifle across his knees. Had the gelding returned to the ranch his situation would have been exceedingly precarious by now, but having come here, he knew there could be no vestige of a trail after last night’s rain. Obviously nobody had been at this hideout in a long time, no doubt several years, and there was no reason to believe the place was even known of. Neal had known of it, but Neal was a close-mouthed man.

After he had rested, he got to his feet and finding an ancient broom, he swept part of the house, then lit the fire and made coffee. He had plenty of food in the pack on the gelding and he ate his first good meal in hours. Then he rested again, and when he felt better, went outside and looked carefully around. Back up in Mud Tank Draw he found another and better built shack and another corral. Further from the roaring springs, it was also more quiet, and its position was better concealed.

Catching up the gelding, which was tame as a pony, he went back to Mud Tank Draw and turned the gelding loose in that corral, then transferred his belongings to the second cabin and removed all traces of his stop at the springs. By the time he had completed this, he was physically exhausted. Rolling up in his blankets on one of the bunks, he fell asleep.

When he awakened it was night again and rain was starting to fall. There had been an old stable outside, so donning his slicker he went out and led the gelding into a stall and pulled several armfuls of grass for him. Then he returned again to the shack, made coffee and then turned in again. Almost at once he was asleep.

He awakened with a start. It was morning and then the rain was literally pouring down on the cabin. The roof was leaking in a dozen places, but the area around the fireplace was dry. He moved to it, then broke up an old bench to get the fire hot and started coffee again.

He felt better, yet he was far from well. The wound looked bad, although it did not seem quite so flushed as before. There was no question of going out again, so he dressed the wound with some cloth from his pack and sat back in the chair.

For the first time he began seriously to consider his situation. He was wounded and weak. He had lost a lot of blood. He had ammunition and food, but shooting game to add to the larder would probably only attract attention. For the time being he believed he was safe, insofar as there could be any safety with a bloodhound like Rink Witter on his trail.

Aside from the roof, the cabin was strong and he could withstand a siege here. Yet if he were surrounded they would fire the place and he would be trapped. He would have no more chance than Nate Champion had in the Johnson County War. To be trapped in this cabin would be fatal.

For two days he rested and was secure and then on the third day he saddled the gelding and led him back up the draw at a good point for a getaway. His instinct told him that he should move, and he started back to the crevice in the rocks. He was rolling his bed when he heard the horses.

“I tell you, you’re crazy!” It was Nevers’ voice. “He’d not be up here!”

“All right, then!” That was Wardlaw speaking. “You tell me where he is!”

“Boss,” another voice said, “I see tracks! Somebody’s been here!”

“Then it’s him! Look sharp!”

Utah Blaine was through running. Dropping his rifle and bedroll he sprang into the open. “Sure, I’m here!” he shouted, and he opened fire with both hands. The rider on the paint, whoever he was, grabbed iron and caught a slug in the chest. He let go with a thin cry and started to drop. Nevers jumped his horse for the trees, firing wildly and ineffectively, and Blaine dropped another man. A slug thudded against a tree behind him and Utah yelled, “Come on Wardlaw! Here I am! Here’s the thousand bucks! Come an’ get it!”

The big gunman slammed the spurs to his mount and came at Utah on a dead run, but Blaine stood his ground and drove three bullets through Wardlaw’s skull, knocking the man from the saddle. The horse charged down on him and Blaine, snapping a shot at the remaining man, caught up his bedroll and rifle and sprang to the saddle. He rode off up the draw, hastily swapped horses and took off swiftly.

Yet now he did not run. He circled around to the cliffs above. Three men were on the ground below and two were bent over them. As he watched, rifle in hand, Nevers came from the brush with a fourth man. That Wardlaw and at least one other man were dead, Utah Blaine knew. Now he intended to run up a score. Kneeling behind a flat rock he lifted his rifle and shot three times at Nevers. Yet he shot with no intention of killing. He wanted Nevers alive to take his defeat, at least to see the end.

A shot burned Nevers’ back and he swung around staggering as the other bullets slammed about him. One of them burned him again for he sprang away, stumbling and falling headlong. One other man grabbed his stomach and fell over on the ground, and then Blaine proceeded to drive the others into the brush, burning their heels with lead and his last shot shattered a rifle stock for one of them. Reloading, he saw Nevers start to crawl and he put a shot into the ground a foot ahead of him. “Stay there, damn you!” he yelled. “Lay there an’ like it, you yellow belly!”

A rifle blasted from the brush and Blaine fired three times, as fast as he could work the lever. He fired behind the flash and to the right and left of it. He heard a heavy fall and some threshing around in the brush. He came down off the little rise and, reloading his gun as he walked, mounted the black and started back for the ranch.

He was far from being in good shape, he knew, but now the running was over.

Utah Blaine rode swiftly, dropping down to find a cattle trail that led to the top of Deadman Mesa. Far ahead of him he could see Twin Buttes and he rode past them. He crossed Hardscrabble and dropped down into the canyon right behind the Bench, from where Angie’s ranch could be dimly seen.

Would Angie be there? Suddenly, for the first time in days, he grinned. “It would be something,” he told the black gelding, “to see her again!”

He rode slowly down the trail, circled, and came up through the sycamores. There was no movement at the cabin, no smoke from the chimney. He slid from his horse and slipped the thongs back off his guns. Carefully, he walked forward, up the steps. He opened the door.

The room was empty and cold. He touched the stove. It was cold. Angie was gone. Some of the mid-day dishes were on the table, and that could only mean she had left suddenly at least one day before, possibly even prior to that.

His stomach sick with worry, he looked slowly around. Her rifle was gone. And her pistol.

He looked at the calendar. It was marked to indicate the 5th was past—this then was the sixth. She had been gone but one night. At least twenty-four hours.

Utah Blaine walked outside and looked down the trail. Beyond the hills lay Red Creek. To the northwest was the 46. Which way?

Chapter 17

A
NGIE KINYON LOOKED coolly at Lee Fox. Inwardly she was far from cool, for she could see that Fox, always eccentric and queer, was now nearing the breaking point. She realized it with a kind of intuitive knowledge that also warned her the man was dangerous.

Yet Angie had heard stories about Fox. His father had been a hard-working, God-fearing pioneer, his mother a staunch woman who stood by her family. Something of that must be left in Fox.

“I want the horse,” she said quietly. “It belongs to Utah Blaine.”

“That’s why I’m here,” he replied, watching her with his strange eyes. “He’ll come back for the horse.”

“I doubt it. If I believed that, I wouldn’t have come for him. I’m taking the horse home to be cared for. This is too fine a horse to be left like this.”

Fox nodded, but she could not tell what he was thinking. Then he said suddenly, “What is he to you? What is Utah Blaine to you?”

It was in her to be frank. She looked directly at Lee, Fox and spoke the truth. “I love him. I do not know whether he loves me or not. We have not had time to talk of it, but I love him the way your mother must have loved your father. I love him with all my heart.”

A kind of admiration showed in the man’s eyes. He laughed suddenly, and with the laughter the burning went out of his eyes. “Then he’s a lucky man, Angie. A very lucky man. But let’s take the stallion out the gate, no use to ruin a good corral.”

It was simple as that. Something she had said, or her very honesty, had impressed Fox. He walked around the corral and roped the dun for her. She put a lead rope on him and mounted up. Fox walked to his own horse. “No need for me to stay here, then. You’ll tell him.” He mounted. “I’ll ride with you. Nevers and his lot aren’t the men to be around good women.”

They rode quietly, and suddenly Fox began to talk. “You knew about my mother, then? I never knew a woman more loyal to a man. I’d admire to find her like, as Blaine has found you. Maybe after he’s dead you will forget him.”

“He will not die. Not now. Not of any gun this lot can bring against him.”

Fox shrugged. Now he seemed normal enough. “Maybe not, but everything’s against the man. Nevers will not quit now. Otten has come off the fence, there’s nowhere in this country Blaine can hope to escape. His only chance to live is to cut and run.”

“And he won’t do that.”

“No, he won’t.”

He left her at the Crossing and turned away, and seemed headed for Red Creek. She sat her horse, watching him go. Would he go far or circle around and come back? That, probably. Lee Fox, sane or insane, was Western—a good woman was always to be treated with respect. He might kill her husband, brothers and son, but he would always be respectful to her.

Crossing the river, Angie rode up the far bank and turned toward the cabin in the sycamores. It was as she had left it, quiet and alone. When she had stabled the horses she went inside. Nothing was different, and it was not until she went to her dressing table and picked up her comb that she saw the note. She smiled when she saw it. Leave it to him to put the note in the place she would first come. The note read:

Stay here. Gone to 46. Back later.

“Let me see that!”

She had heard no sound. She turned, frightened, to find Rink Witter standing behind her. His hand was outstretched for the note.

Although she had known his name and his deeds for ten years, she had never seen him at close range. She looked now into the pale, almost white blue eyes, the seamed and leathery skin, the even white teeth, and the small-boned, almost delicate facial structure. She saw the hand outstretched was small, almost womanly except for the brown color. She saw the guns tied low, those guns that had barked out the last sound heard by more than one man.

Rink Witter, a scalp hunter at sixteen, a paid warrior in cattle wars at eighteen, a killer for gamblers and crooked saloonkeepers at twenty. Rustler, horse-thief, outlaw—but mostly a killer. He had ridden with Watt Moorman in the Shelbyville War. Deadly, face to face, he would kill just as quickly from hiding. He was a deadly killing machine, utterly without mercy. She had heard that the wilder the shooting, the hotter the fight, the steadier he became. He was a man who asked for no breaks and gave none.

There was no way out of it. If she did not give him the note he would take it. She would have to give it to him, play for time, watch her opportunity. Without a word, she handed the note to Rink.

He took it, studied her coolly for a minute, then read what it said.

He turned. “Hoerner,” he said, “you stay here. Tell the others to head for the 46. Utah Blaine was here and he’s headed there. If they don’t get him there or lose his trail, they are to head for Red Creek. Tell ’em not to come back here.”

Rink crumpled the note and dropped it to the floor. “Make us some coffee,” he said abruptly, and then turned and picked up her rifle and pistol and walked outside.

She went to the cupboard and got out the coffee mill and ground the coffee slowly. As she worked, she tried to study this situation out. She was helpless, and getting frantic would not do a bit of good. Her only chance to help Utah was to wait, to watch, and to find some way out.

She kindled the fire and put the water on. Utah would be careful. He was too shrewd a campaigner to take chances. She must trust in that, and in his good sense. Also, he might get to the 46, find the dun gone and see her tracks.

As a matter of fact, Blaine had passed within two hundred yards of them when she was returning to the Crossing with Fox. Utah Blaine stopped under the trees near the 46 ranch house and built a cigarette. He felt better this morning. His side was sore, but he was able to move more easily. He studied the ranch house for several minutes while he smoked the cigarette. Finally decided it was deserted. He was about to leave the brush when he saw the small, sharp prints of Angie’s boots. He studied the tracks, saw where she had waited under the trees as he was now doing, and then how she had circled to get behind the barn. Somebody had been at the house then.