Over on the Dry Side (10 page)

“He looks worse than he is,” Chantry told Pa. “That's a tough son you got there, Kernohan.”

“He's a good boy,” Pa said. “He's always been a good boy, an a he'p to me. I figgered to take up land so's he could make a better start than me. But I don't know. All this, I might just—”

“Don't. You stay on. This is a good place.” Chantry suddenly changed his tone. “This is land bought legally from the Indians. When the time is right, I'll transfer title to it.”

Long after they had me inside and in bed, I heard the murmur of her voice out there with them. She wasn't blonde with golden curls and all, but she was pretty, she was almighty beautiful. And twenty wasn't so old. Why next year I'd be seventeen, and I was a man growed.…And she even said I had nerve.

Later, some time later, I heard Pa say, “If there's nothin' there, an' you know it, why don't you just tell 'em?”

“I tried to. They believe too hard, Kernohan. Men will give up anything rather than what they want to believe. And hate you for telling them there's nothing to believe. And even if you prove it to them, they'll continue to believe, and hate you for proving them foolish. Sometimes they give up, but they'll like you no more.

“I've seen men come to a ground where treasure was said to be buried, and with holes all over the hills, they'll dig another one, and then another.

“One thing I know, my brother was here for some time. If there was anything of value here, he would have found it. And being a methodical man, I believe he would leave some clue.”

Chantry paused. “Moreover, knowing him, he would probably leave such a clue as only I would be apt to discover.”

“What kinda clue could that be?”

Chantry shrugged. “I will have to remember what passed between us, and which of my tastes he knew best. Clive was a fine man, a much better man than I in every moral way. But he had a complicated mind, and so have I, and any clue he left would be useful to no one else.”

“Well,” said Pa, “for the life of me I can't figger out what kinda clue, or how you'd ever guess it.”

“I've got to go back,” Marny said.

Chantry turned toward her. “Don't. Stay here.”

“No, I've got to go back. At least one more time. I have things there.…Well, I want them. I'll need them.”

“Will they know you've been to the cabin?”

“No. I don't think so. But they'll go there now. Mac Mowatt will be certain he can find what there is. They'll tear the place apart.”

“Maybe not,” Owen Chantry said. “Maybe I'll be there.”

“Alone? Against them all?”

“I won't be inside. I'll keep some freedom of action.” I heard Chantry walk across the room. “Yes, I think I must do that. I must be there when they come. I want to keep that cabin.”

“It's lonely,” Pa said. “It's a mighty lonely place. Of a wintertime a man could be snowed in. That house must be nine thousand feet up.”

“I've been up high before.”

I never seen her go. She just taken off and was gone when I waked up, with only the faint smell of her perfume left in the air. But I was scared for her…
scared
. I had a bad feeling about her going back.

I tried to sit up and got such a stab of pain in my side that I laid down quick, gasping for breath.

She was gone. There was nothin' I could do.

If I just had my old rifle and was up in them rocks…well, maybe I couldn't do nothin', but could surely try.

Suddenly Chantry stood over me. “You all right, Doby? I heard you cry out.”

“Didn't mean to. Yeah, I'm all right. But I wish you'd bring her back. That's a bad outfit. I wish you'd fetch her, Owen Chantry.”

“I'll be at the cabin. She knows that.”

“If she ever gets there. Mr. Chantry, I'm scared. I'm plumb scared for her. She don't think they knew she knowed about that cabin, but they prob'ly seen the flowers there.”

Chantry looked grim, and he had a face for it. He was a right handsome man, but there was a coldness in him sometimes that would frighten a man.

“I'll just go see, Doby. I'll ride up there. Right now…today.”

He wasted no time. He got on the big black and taken his packhorse and headed for the hills. And seein' him ride out, I wondered what would happen when him and the Mowatts come together.

Maybe he was only one man and they was many, but she sure wouldn't be no one-sided fight. Not with him being the other side, no matter how many they had.

There was somethin' about that man that made you believe. Even me, who up 'til then hadn't wanted to believe much of anything 'bout Owen Chantry.

Somehow, busted ribs and all, I had to be there. I had to be up on that mountain when the shootin' started.

Chapter 9

O
WEN CHANTRY WAS a man without illusions. Nothing in his experience had given him the idea that he was protected by any special dispensation from Providence. He had seen good men die when the evil lived on, and he was aware that he was as vulnerable as any other man.

Yet a man doesn't command a cavalry outfit, scout for the army against the Indians, drive a stage and ride shotgun without acquiring a feeling for the possibilities.

Chantry's life was due to his own skill and to a certain amount of sheer coincidence. For if he was a foot past the spot where bullets struck, it was only circumstance and the fact that he was moving faster or slower than the men the bullets found.

Owen Chantry had asked no favors of destiny. He put himself in the hands of his own skills, a good horse, and a good gun.

Crossing the canyon at a place where another canyon joined it from the east, he climbed a rough but not too difficult trail. It was timber country. There were many dams among the aspens, which were favored by beavers and elks.

He took his time. At this altitude a man did not hurry, not even with a mountain-bred horse. Mac Mowatt was a tough old renegade who knew every trick in the book and could invent more on the spur of the moment. Nor were his followers to be taken lightly, for they were all bred on the frontier. To a man.

Chantry paused near a beaver pond, letting the horses drink a little while he studied the mountainside.

Always he was careful to stop against a background where his body merged easily into the colors. From a few yards away, he was almost invisible to the casual eye.

He studied the mountainside with no sweeping glances, but with a yard by yard survey, leaving no tree, no rock, and no shadow unobserved. Occasionally, he took a quick glance back over what he had just examined.

A squirrel leaped to a branch nearby and eyed him curiously. A few yards off, another descended a tree trunk headfirst, pausing to look around. Owen Chantry spoke to his horse and turned into the aspen, weaving through the slim and graceful white trunks, around deadfalls and occasional boulders, fallen from the mountain.

The hogback, a ten-thousand-foot ridge—timbered on top, the sides rugged and almost sheer—thrust out from the mountain just below a peak called the Helmet. Before him were the towering cliffs of the Rampart Hills. He avoided the route that he had first taken around to the back of the hills, but turned toward the trail Doby Kernohan had discovered.

His problem was simple enough. He was to get Marny Fox out of there and, if there was time, to get whatever it was they were all looking for. Not for a minute did he believe it was gold.

Tracks of deer and elk were everywhere, and twice he saw the tracks of a grizzly, distinguished from other bears by the long claws on the forepaws. He noticed a log the bear had ripped open to get at the termites.

Once he paused near a small stream to watch a dipper bob up and down on a rock. He saw a school of trout lurking in a shady place where a branch hung low on the water. No amount of seeing ever made nature old to him, and he was conscious of every movement and every sound.

It was very still. Sitting his horse among the trees Chantry could look up above the towering red cliffs at the clear blue sky, tumbled with banks of fleecy white clouds.

Somewhere he was conscious of movement. It was no sound he heard, but simply some feeling, some sense that alerted his nerves. He put a hand to the stock of his rifle, then stayed it. He could feel the weight of his pistol and sat quietly, listening.

No sound.…Touching a heel to the ribs of the black, he started forward, holding to the thickest stand of trees. He sat up straight, weaving among them, emerging suddenly into a small clearing. He crossed it at a fast walk.

He was now almost directly under the cliffs. Again he paused to listen, studying the narrow opening before him. Chantry swore softly under his breath. He had no love for such places. A man up in those rocks with a rifle.…

He rode forward swiftly, trotted his horse to the gap, and then started up. It was a steep climb, but the sooner up the better.

Topping out at the head of the draw he rode swiftly into the trees, then drew up and, dismounting, tied his horse with a slipknot as usual and, walked back through the trees. Taking a careful look around, he then moved to the head of the draw and crouched down among the brush and rocks, waiting.

Several minutes passed with neither sound nor movement. Confident that he had not been followed, he moved back into the trees.

Mowatt now knew the cabin was there. If he hadn't already torn the place up looking for what he hoped to find, he almost surely would. Waiting where he was, Chantry sat down and considered again what he knew of his brother.

Had Clive hidden it there? Or had he hidden it elsewhere? Clive had always been a cautious man, who left no page unturned, no aspect unregarded.

What could the clue be? And where?

He and Clive had been much apart, yet there had always been understanding between them, and a taste for the same things. Clive had been more bookish and, if anything, even more of a loner than Owen.

His love for wild country had been deep and abiding. His understanding of it, also. There had been a kind of poetry in the man. He was a man who could live richly and well without money, as long as he had wild country and books.

He must try and place himself in Clive's position.

Clive had not intended to leave here, but to stay. He would have considered all aspects of what that meant—including being killed or dying. He would have planned to leave some word behind for Owen.

Mounting his horse again, Owen wove a careful way through the aspens. It was no simple thing, for the trunks stood close together, and there were many deadfalls.

The wood of the aspens broke easily and was subject to attacks from insects as well. Consequently they fell, making travel difficult. Many wild flowers that grew under the aspens sprang up quickly as a rule. It was an unexpected route he was taking, so his tracks might not likely be found.

When he drew near the cabin he dismounted and led the black into a shadowed place where the growth was thick. He tied it, leaving line enough so the gelding could crop the grass and flowers close by.

Moving out of the aspens into a thick stand of spruces, he worked his way closer to the cabin, then squatted down and watched it for several minutes. His eyes searched the grass and could discern no evidence of passage since dewfall. No smoke came from the chimney.

He must spend as little time as possible inside the cabin. He pictured it in his mind and went over each wall with a careful mental scrutiny. Then he devoted some time to the chimney, made of slabs of country rock, carefully fitted. He was mentally searching the cabin to cut down the time he must spend inside. But he found no likely hiding place there for treasure.

The walls were solid—carefully hewn logs fitted with care and precision. The windows, of which there were three, were actually little more than enlarged portholes, a little taller than wide, each closed by solid shutters that were tightly fitted and double-latched in the middle. They could thus be kept small, and the shutters could be set ajar to direct a breeze into any corner of the room. Yet the windows had been cut through solid logs and offered no hiding places.

The hearth was possible. But knowing Clive, Owen dismissed it at once. The hearth was too apparent, and whatever Clive might do he would never be so obvious.

No…it would have to be a clue that would be a clue to Owen alone. Some interest, some knowledge they shared; something Clive would know Owen would understand and that would be understood by no one else.

Rifle in hand, he left his cover and walked across to the cabin. Lifting the latch, he thrust open the door. It creaked on its hinges and swung slowly inward. The room was empty.

Standing just inside the door, Owen Chantry listened, but heard nothing. A quick glance around the house showed no evidence of anyone's presence there since his last visit.

Turning slowly around, he looked for anything he might have missed in his mental survey of the cabin. He found nothing. Unless one tore the cabin down, the house could reveal no hiding place. The planks of the floor were tightly fitted. The flagstones of the hearth offered no hidden crevice.

Where then?

For a moment Owen stood looking out the doorway, across the grass and into the distance. Then he looked through each window. He saw the timber from which he had come, the forest behind the house, and a rugged mass of rock, trees and brush.

If he knew what he was looking for, it might be helpful, he thought wryly. If he knew the size, the kind of thing. But he had no clue.

The number ten written on a step…A clue? Or something just written there in passing…

Ten what? Ten feet? Yards? Miles? And in which direction?

Chantry studied the earth outside, made a circle of the cabin, ten feet out from its sides.…Nothing.

He tried to find ten trees, ten rocks, anything in some shape or design or line that might provide the answer to that mysterious ten. He found nothing.

He looked up. There was a loft, or at least an air space between the ceiling and the peaked roof. He saw no sign of an opening, yet it could be there.

Suddenly he heard a horse approaching. Turning quickly, he glanced through the window. One man, on a gray horse with black mane and tail—a long, rangy horse built for speed and staying power.

The man looked to be around forty-five…perhaps a year or two younger. He drew up outside.

“Chantry?”

Owen Chantry stepped to the door, and they studied each other.

The stranger was a quiet-seeming man with strong features and blue gray eyes. On this morning, he was unshaven. His gray handlebar mustache was shapely, however, and he was dressed neatly if roughly.

“I am Frank Mowatt.”

“I've heard good things of you,” Chantry said quietly. “Marny Fox said them.”

“She is with you?”

“With the Kernohans, I hope.” The question had surprised him. He had supposed she was with them, as she was not here.

“No, I just come from them…near them, at least. She isn't there.”

“And she's not with you? Your outfit, I mean?”

“No.”

“That doesn't make sense. If she's not at one of those places, then where can she be?”

Frank Mowatt's worry was apparent. “Look, Chantry, we may shape up to be on opposite sides in whatever happens next but I'm for that girl. She's a fine girl, and her mother was a fine woman. I want you to know.”

“We won't argue the point, Frank. There's no reason she should be caught in the middle. I'm with you all the way, as far as Marny is concerned. Now all we've got to do is find her.”

Frank Mowatt shoved his hat back on his head. “She come to me last night. Said she was pullin' out. I told her it was the smartest thing she could do. Said she was tellin' nobody else. Well, I got to worryin' about it and went to her shack.

“She was gone, all right, and her stuff with her. All that she aimed to take. I started out to trail her, but lost her sign back yonder on Turkey Creek. I cast about but couldn't find no tracks, so I decided to ride on over to the old Chantry place. She wasn't there, so I hunted for this place.”

Owen Chantry frowned. He looked up suddenly. “Frank, are any of your outfit missing? Tom Freka, for instance?”

“Why him?”

“He's had trouble before. A dance-hall girl was killed down Fort Griffin way. The murder was never pinned on Freka, but a good many figured he was guilty.”

“I didn't see him around, but that don't cut no ice. I don't see much of either him or Strawn at any time.”

Chantry waited, thinking. There was a kinship between himself and this man, this tired, lonely man tied by a blood relationship to men who seemed not to be his kind.

Where would Marny go? In all this vast wilderness, where
could
she go? Obviously, she'd try to ride to the Kernohans. They were close and she knew them, and she also knew Owen Chantry.

Knew
him? Well, possibly not. At least, they had talked. They had seemed to share a certain unspoken understanding, a certain warmth. Was it only their loneliness? Or was it something more?

One thing was certain: She must be found; she must be protected.

It was a curse of the Chantrys—and perhaps of all the Irish—that they belabored themselves with sorrow and old sadnesses, old griefs.

“Go back, Frank. If she returns, she'll need you.”

“I could do nothing for her. Among us it is my father who decides.”

“Even over the will of Strawn?”

Frank Mowatt stared at him. “Can you doubt it? If you can, you know nothing of Mac Mowatt. Wherever he is, he is in charge.”

“I came out today to find her, Frank. I may have to come your way.”

“They'll kill you, as they did your brother.”

“If they kill me, Frank, I promise you this, you'll have some dogs to bury at my feet. Don't judge me by what happened to Clive. He was more trusting than me…and not nearly so good with a gun.”

“Strawn said you were good. Very, very good.”

“I'm not proud of it. I do what has to be done when the moment comes. And no more than has to be done. I'll find her, Frank.”

“Are you in love with her?”

“I would like to find out. And so, perhaps, would she. It is not an easy thing to know.”

Frank nodded. “Yes. I do know.…”

“There is compassion, sympathy, companionship. All are important,” said Chantry.

“They are,” said Frank.

“Frank?”

He turned to look at Chantry.

“Can't you talk some reason into them? I don't think there's any treasure here. Nothing they could possibly want. They don't even understand anything but gold or treasure or money of some kind.”