the Trail to Seven Pines (1972) (20 page)

Jacks shrugged. "Didn't think Dusark had it in him."

"No." Laramie shifted his seat. He stared disconsolately at the bare table and the bottle. Was this all it came to? Hiding, dodging, waiting to trap a good man and shoot him down? "Makes an hombre think," he said suddenly. "Poker Harris was tough.

I'd of said he was one of the ring-tailed terrors, and blam! He's out like a candle!

If he can get it so easy, anybody can."

They sat silently, and in the distance thunder rumbled. Both men looked up. "Rain!

Man, we can sure use it! Cool things off."

"Lucky, you knowin' about this place," Laramie said. "A man couldn't find it in a year, just lookin' without knowin'."

"Dakota Jack found it. He was ridin' ahead of a posse and ran up this draw. Back there where the stone gate is, there was a lot less opening than now. He dodged in there and the posse lost him. He found the spring and holed up here for a week, eatin' what grub he had left, a few rabbits, and some prickly pear. There was some maize growin' wild here then, too, he said.

"We used it from time to time in the next year or so, but after the outfit got shot up there was nobody left but me who knew where it was. I packed in a stock of grub and began usin' it for a hideout when I was on my lonesome."

"Wonder what caused it? That sure isn't washed out by any stream! Those jagged edges look like the ends of a broken bone."

"Man in El Paso told me it was an earthquake fault. He said the line of fault might run for miles."

"What happens durin' a quake?"

"She grinds around some. I've never been here when there was one and I don't think anybody ever was, but there's been cracks in the floors, and once a whole wall was shaken down."

The two men smoked in silence, and then Clarry walked back to the fire, stirred it a trifle, added wood, and began to make coffee.

"What's the deal on Cassidy? We let him come in, you say?" Laramie asked.

"Sure. And we take him from the front, and Bale from behind. He'll be caught in the open and he won't have a chance."

Hopalong Cassidy was already in the canyon while Duck Bale still watched outside.

The afternoon was well along, and the clouds were piling up higher and higher above Seven Pines. In the bottom of the canyon Hopalong neither realized this nor cared.

He was intent upon one thing only, to get within shooting distance of the man or men who had been responsible for the murder of Jesse Lock. Whatever else they had done was beside the case in his consideration.

To shoot a man already sorely wounded and helpless put the killers beyond the pale.

Close to the wall, partly concealed by an angle of rock, he considered the situation.

Smoke was rising now from the house in the amphitheater, and that told him that there were men not only in the outer canyon where his fight with Frazer had taken place but also here in this reconstructed Indian house among the evergreens.

There was cover in plenty here, and he used it, moving carefully around by the rocks and working his way closer and closer to the house. The two men within were men worthy of his guns in every sense. Either might prove his equal; together they might be far superior. In any event, it did not pay to take chances with such men. One mistake was all anyone could expect -and that one would be fatal.

Thunder rumbled again, nearer this time, and Hopalong paused, noting it and carefully considering what it might mean to him. Then he moved on.

A half mile away, at the mouth of the fault, Duck Bale arose and stared off toward Seven Pines. All was blackness over there, a blackness shot through with vivid streaks of lightning. The front of the storm was rolling down upon him, and he did not like his situation one bit. Any fool could see that he was going to get wet if he stayed where he was, and maybe struck by lightning on that high, exposed knob of stone.

He turned, and glancing back toward the canyon, he felt himself start. Someone was creeping along the far wall of the amphitheater!

Instantly realization came to him. Hopalong Cassidy was already inside the canyon!

No sooner had he realized this than he began to scramble down the rock, just a minute too soon to see a rider turn in the mouth of the draw and stare his way. That rider was Shorty Montana. He had finally lost Hopalong's trail and was hunting for it in that maze of uptilted rock.

Bale hit bottom and broke in a run for the shack in which Laramie waited. Now they had Cassidy! Had him bottled up!

But how had he gotten in here? There was only one alternative, and that was the rockslide, but Bale had examined it, and it had not looked too practical, as a man was sure to make noise descending it. He hurried to the door of the stone building and shoved it open. Laramie was sprawled on a cot, reading a magazine.

"Cassidy's inside!" Bale gasped out. "How he got in I don't know, but he's in! I saw him!"

Laramie got to his feet and belted on his guns. His heart pounded and his mouth was dry. He knew what he was going up against, and despite the odds, he was not comforted.

Hopalong had reached the back of the hollow and was now near the corrals. The paint horse he had seen in the holdup was still there, and with it now were six other horses.

There were no saddled horses in sight. If Clarry Jacks had intended to return to the outfit at Poker Gap, he had changed his mind or left his horse in the outer corral.

The stone building was rectangular and two-storied, although the upper story had not been entirely repaired. Its back was close to the wall of the cliff itself, and the corrals were a short distance away.

Scattered pines and firs completed the picture, and several of these were close around the house, three or four between it and the corral. The cliff wall, a part of the fault, was of sandstone, and projecting layers of it formed a partial roof over the house itself. Sliding carefully around the corral, Hopalong worked his way through the debris that lay between it and the wall. Here there were several niches, which his mind noted and filed away for future reference.

The easiest way into the building appeared to be through a ruined corner on the second floor, but it left open the possibility that they would hear his footsteps below.

Yet if this house was like many others, the intervening floor would be of stone, and he might be able to cross it without noise to warn those below.

Clouds were rolling over the canyon now, and someone inside struck a light. He was about to move forward to the wall of the house when he saw the ears of the horses go up sharply. All of them were looking inquisitively toward the entrance, and Hopalong crouched quickly, his right hand on his gun, waiting.

Movement showed suddenly, then vanished, and he knew someone from the outer canyon had slipped in. Someone who moved warily. He had no friends around of whom he knew, unless Ben Lock had found this place, which was improbable. The only alternative was an enemy, and one who knew he was here.

The man before him was Duck Bale, gun in hand, coming around the wall, still some distance away but on Hopalong's very trail.

Crouched at the corner of the corral, Hopalong considered his position anew. There was a chance he might be able to shoot his way out of the corner he was in and get away safely, yet it was not his nature to turn from a course once planned. At the same time, he did not wish to commit suicide.

Long experienced in affairs of the gun, he knew full well that the best way is often straight ahead, and that was the course he chose now. He had planned to face the killer of Jesse Lock, and the man was inside this house. He was going in after him; then he would face things as they came.

Leaving the corral in a quick dive, he reached the corner of the stone house. The space here between the house wall and the sandstone of the canyon was narrow, and the light was not in the back of the house. Pausing only an instant, he gathered himself, then jumped straight up and caught the roof edge in his fingers. He chinned himself, got an arm over the parapet, and then a leg. A moment later he lay flat on his back on the roof.

Laramie had not seen this movement. Neither had Bale. Both men were looking around the corral. Behind Laramie a boot crunched and he whirled, gun in hand. Already it was nearly dark and he could just make out the face of Bale.

"So where'd he go?"

"Durned if I know! I sure saw him here, honest! Where could he go?"

Hopalong had already answered that question by two quick steps into the upper room of the house. Here he paused, listening. Outside he could hear whispers of more than one man.

Feeling his way along the wall of the windowless room, he came to a pile of rubble, evidently the remains of an earlier roof. Working around this, he heard a low mutter of voices and then saw a vague light from the floor.

He moved nearer and found himself standing over a trap door, but no ladder descended into the darkness. Yet not far from the opening of the trap was a crack in the ceiling of another room below, and through this opening there now came both light and the sound of voices.

Clarry Jacks was speaking. "Not out there?"

"Duck must be nervous . . . seem' things."

"Well, he knows of this place. He'll come eventually. He'll be looking for me."

"Suppose Lock told him anything?" It was Laramie talking.

"I doubt it. From where I was hid I could see them plain. Lock talked some, all right.

I could hear his voice. After Hopalong had the fire goin' I could see them both, and then when light came, Hopalong took off and I knew I had to get down there fast."

"Maybe Lock never saw anything?"

"He saw something, all right. He got a good look at me when the lightning flashed, and he'd know me, mask or no mask."

"You were lucky to run into Harper like you did."

'Yeah. When I spotted them I swung around a hill so I could ride down on them from behind. They were hurryin' to catch Harrington then, and I told 'em I'd chased 'em all the way from town, which accounted for my horse being hard-ridden. Harper knew the tally all right, but Doc never suspected."

Hopalong put his feet through the trap door and lowered himself full length. Then he dropped.

"What was that?" Clarry demanded.

"What?"

"I thought I heard somethin'."

Laramie rose. "Any way into this place but the door?"

"None I can think of. There's a hole in the wall of that upper room. If a feller got on the roof-"

Both men turned like cats. Hopalong Cassidy stood in the dark doorway to the inner room, elbows crooked, his big hands poised above the guns that had ended the career of many an outlaw or professed gunman.

Jacks stared at the hard-boned face, the weather-beaten countenance and blazing eyes, and something turned over within him, something happened that he had never believed could happen to him. His courage seemed to ooze from him. Yet at the height of his terror a thought raft through him, cold and chilling.

He had no choice.

This man had come here hunting him. Despite their elaborate plans, he had come without warning. Jacks uttered a low cry and grabbed for his gun.

Hopalong's crooked, waiting hands flickered, and then the blur ended with stabbing flame. Clarry Jacks, his gun lifting, felt a blow alongside the head and went down.

Something else struck him in the side, knocking him to the floor. He hit hard, and his bullet buried itself in the ceiling.

Laramie's gun leaped to his hand, and his first shot grooved the doorjamb where Hopalong stood, and again Cassidy's guns began to flame.

Then suddenly the floor heaved, a wall rippled, and the ceiling caved. From outside there was a wild yell of fear, and wheeling, Hopalong leaped for the door. He lunged into the outer darkness, saw a weird flare of lightning, and beheld the serrated edge of the fault moving against the sky. Stone ground against jagged stone, with an awful sound that turned his bowels to weakness. Hopalong sprang for his remembered escape route.

The next instant a rider charged through the rocking darkness and swung broadside to Hopalong, a gun lifted. Lightning flashed, and Hopalong saw the man was Lock.

"Ben!" he yelled. "It's Cassidy! Get out of here! This fault may close up!"

Lock urged his horse nearer. "Up!" he yelled. "Behind me!"

Laramie charged into the open from the ruins and, seeing Hopalong springing to the horse behind Lock, skidded to a halt and swung up his gun. Ben Lock's long-barreled six-shooter dropped down, and the two guns blasted at almost the same instant. Laramie stepped back, turned half around, and fell full length to the hard-packed earth.

Hopalong felt the powerful muscles of the mustang hunch beneath him, and then they were racing for the outlet of the fault. Another horseman loomed before them. "Hoppy?"

The yell was from Shorty Montana.

"Get out!" Cassidy yelled. "Ride, you souwegian!"

The rain was coming down now in torrents, but the earthquake was not over, for after a brief respite it trembled again, and behind them stones cascaded into the fault, roaring long after they were beyond the mouth of the fault. Lightning crackled and rumbled among the distant peaks, and looking for the finger of the granitic upthrust, Hopalong saw nothing. The horizon at that point was empty!