Valley of the Vanishing Men (7 page)

T
HERE
were other riders in the distance, trailing noises here and there, but this horseman came on with a frightful directness. The clanking hoofs pounded nearer. They thundered in the very ears of Ben Trainor. As he pulled one of Blacky’s guns, he looked up at the lofty silhouette of a rider who was swinging around the corner of the very boulder that sheltered them.

It was the tall figure of the gunman named Perry, who sat in the saddle, pulling his horse back on its haunches, and whipping out a revolver. So the two confronted one another. Trainor, to be sure, had the drop, but the noise of a gunshot would be certain to draw in the rest of the searchers. Perry stared down bewildered at the crouched body at the verge of the pool.

“By thunder,” said Perry. “You got him, did you?” He pointed to the limp body of Clive. He pointed to the horses.

“You got him — and the bosses to pack him on — from Christian and Yates. You knocked Blacky cold as a cork. And here you are, by the jumping thunder!” said Perry.

Deliberately he put up his revolver.

He pulled off his hat and mopped his brow. The mustang walked on, unguided, toward the pool, entered it knee-deep, and drank. And Perry paid no heed.

“I dunno what to do, and you dunno what to do,” said Perry. “If you plug me, those other hombres hear the gun, and that’s that. If I try to grab you, you drop me anyway. If I ride off from here, you can’t stop me without shootin’ and you daren’t to shoot. But if I ride off from here and turn in a gent that’s gone through hell for the sake of his brother, I’ll burn an extra thousand years with sulphur up my nose.”

He jammed his hat on his head again.

“Perry,” said Trainor, “pull off from them. Get out of the gang. Christian doesn’t mean well by you. When I was at the hut, I heard him say that a man who failed him once was no good to him. He’ll make you pay for it, Perry.”

“Maybe he will,” said Perry. “But you think I could pull out of this? You talking about me going straight?”

“It’s a big world. You could go places.”

“No,” said Perry grimly, “I’ve sold out, and I gotta stay sold.”

Trainor said nothing. He waited. Fear was in him, around him, and yet there was room for a quick and strange pity for this man.

“Well,” said Perry at last. “I’m doggoned if I know. If things had broke different, I’d ‘a’ been glad to pump you full of lead and get myself famous with Christian, that way. But the way things are breaking, I dunno. What the hell? I didn’t see you, and that’s about all there is to it.”

He pulled his horse out of the pool and turned it away.

“So long, and get whatever kind of luck is left for you, Trainor,” he muttered. He put his horse to a canter and was gone, swinging rapidly away from sight among the great rocks.

Just then Clive Trainor opened his eyes, and the madness was gone out of them. He looked straight up into the face of his brother and sighed. “You know, Ben,” he muttered, “I’ve been having a dream with a girl and a gold mine and Barry Christian and a lot of other stuff wrapped up in it.”

He raised his hand to his bandaged head, and groaned slightly.

“Ben, was it all true?” he asked.

“All true, but steady, old son,” said Ben Trainor.

“Where are we? What happened? I was back there in the stone house by the old mine and Blacky was going to — ”

He groaned again.

“He didn’t put the whip on the girl,” said Ben Trainor. “You started around the edge of the table, and bumped into it — and you fell and were knocked out. That’s all that happened. They threw you out on the sand with Blacky to fan you back to life. I had a chance to slam him, get you on one of the horses, and here we are. Steady, Clive. They’re all around us. They might spot us at any minute. You can hear their horses. Here comes one now!”

The clangor of the hoofs bore straight down on them, grew to overwhelming volume, and then passed on, the rider unseen.

“And Nell?” said Clive, pulling at his brother.

“I couldn’t get at her. They had her in talking to them. I had to come away. I’m sorry. It burns me up to think of leaving her behind, but I couldn’t stay.”

“She’s gone then,” said Clive, closing his eyes. “I sort of knew from the first time I laid eyes on her that she wouldn’t pull through with it. There was something too sort of clean about her. That kind doesn’t get to happiness, nor money, either. She’s so white, Ben, that I never knew a white woman before her — except mother. And now she’s gone.”

“Maybe not,” said Ben Trainor eagerly. “We’re not finished, Clive. It’s a game I’ll hang onto as long as you will. I’ve got to get you into a better spot than this, and then I’ll find help to come back.”

“They’ll be gone like birds,” said Clive. “But — ”

He shut his teeth with a click and said no more.

In the meantime, all the noises of iron hoofs on hard rock had ceased for the moment.

“Can you sit a saddle, with a little help?” asked Ben.

“I’ll try. I’m a little done in, Ben, but I’ll do what I can.”

When he was lifted up onto the horse, he was able to swing a leg across the saddle and then settle his feet into the stirrups. He gathered up the reins.

“Have you got a drink with you?” he asked.

“Not a drop.”

“Maybe it’s better without the stuff,” said Clive. “The strength a fellow gets out of a bottle burns out fast enough. I can ride, Ben, but not fast.”

“Here’s my arm,” said Ben Trainor. “I’m right here beside you, and you can’t fall. We’ll walk them. That’s the best we can hope for.”

And that was how they dragged across the boulder-strewn plateau, walking the horses, while Clive gripped the pommel of his saddle with both hands and endured as well as he could. Sometimes weakness made him sway dangerously, but when the hand of Ben had saved him, he always found a new reservoir of strength which he could call upon for the next few moments.

Twice they halted for a brief rest, with Clive Trainor stretched flat on the ground, breathing with a little rattling groan in the back of his throat. But he made no complaints. He did not refer again to Nell and her fate. His suffering, his weakness, he kept to himself, until failing strength made him waver almost to falling.

Ben Trainor, all this time and into the pink of the dawn, was equally silent. Words were not of any use to Clive, and words would not express what Ben felt about this quiet man.

Afterwards, he might learn what had actually happened while Clive was in the hands of Christian and the others. About that, Ben was not curious. Christian and Yates needed burning alive. That much was already certain. And for the rest, Ben wanted nothing except to get his brother to safety.

There was no refuge for them on the plateau. They would have to get down onto the desert and hope to be able to cut across it to the town of Alkali, though surely that was like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. But there was no other alternative.

A doctor was surely needed for Clive. And help — if help could be found in Alkali — for the girl.

There was no certainty. There was no real safety, as yet. And the beauty of the dim sunrise over the desert was lost upon the eye of Ben Trainor as he and his brother rode down the steep pitch of a trail that brought them onto the sandy flat of the desert.

They came through the narrow jaws of the gorge that had ushered them down from the plateau, but before they were a quarter of a mile out into the open, Ben Trainor saw a stream of five riders sweeping toward him, close to the cliffs, aiming to cut him off from a retreat and shunt him out onto the desert where he and Clive would be quick and easy prey. What good was the strength of their horses when three strides at full gallop would throw Clive out of the saddle, in spite of all that Ben could do?

They had to turn. Ben shouted to rouse Clive out of his deadly torpor. Then back they fled, daring no more than a rolling, easy canter, while those five hawks were coming at them across the sands.

First came Barry Christian. It seemed to Ben Trainor that he could have selected the man from ten million, even though all were, like Yates, almost exactly similar to him. There was something joyous and light and alert in his bearing in the saddle. There was something in the keen evil of his spirit that made his horse run more swiftly than the rest.

Right back at the mouth of the canyon through which they had just come, Ben Trainor now aimed their course. Christian, riding at unabated speed, put a rifle to his shoulder and started firing to head off the fugitives.

It seemed impossible that he should be able to hit any mark, as he sat a galloping horse, but hornet sounds of danger were presently humming about the heads of Ben and his brother. Ben groaned with unwilling admiration of such marksmanship.

He was glad when they passed the ragged rock jaws of the ravine’s entrance. They would not be able to get to the height above, into the shelter of the bad lands, but somewhere in the narrows of the ravine they might be able to put up a last fight. And — well, it was best not to think too far ahead.

Into the ravine behind them swept the uproar of the shouting man hunt. It seemed clear to Ben Trainor, now, that this was the end. And then, above him, from the edge of the right-hand cliff, he heard the clang of a rifle.

Who could be posted there to cut off their retreat?

He looked up and saw nothing. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw one of Christian’s men dropping sidelong from the saddle. The other four were already in full flight, zigzagging their horses from side to side to upset the deadly aim of the rifleman on the cliff.

Ben Trainor, looking to the side, suddenly saw a rider appear on a golden horse, rushing down the dangerous slope to join that pair of hunted men.

A
LL
fear left the desperate brain of Ben Trainor that instant. He had seen the rushing bore of a river, flooded suddenly by spring rains, and it seemed to him that the coming of Jim Silver was like that — a bright and powerful flood of rescue that would sweep all danger away.

Trainor turned, for he saw that Silver meant to go single-handed against those enemies, and Ben Trainor would not be left behind in the charge. Clive could shift for himself in the interim. But first of all the thought of driving into Christian and his allies was a wild joy to Trainor.

As he pulled his good horse about, he saw Clive slump weakly out of his saddle and collapse on the sand. Well, if all went well, they could return to Clive, but in the meantime Yates and Christian were to be handled. As he swung about, Ben Trainor saw that the man whom Silver’s bullet had wounded had been picked up by two of his comrades. One of those rescuers was Perry. And perhaps it was because the wounded man occupied the attention of two of the party; perhaps it was simply because even men like Christian and Yates would not trust themselves in open fight, in spite of numbers, against Jim Silver — at any rate, the whole crew had turned and were fleeing as fast as their horses could go. And leading the retreat, with many glances over his shoulder, was the great Barry Christian!

A glory came over Ben Trainor as he shot his gelding away at full speed. He was hardly under way before the swift beat of hoofs caught up with him and passed him. The enormous stride of the golden horse, Parade, carried Silver off like a bird on wings. He gave one shout of greeting to Trainor, who saw the brown face of the wanderer set with a fierce resolution, and the eyes burning with savage hope.

Ben Trainor, as he vainly urged his horse in the pursuit, losing ground every instant behind Silver, knew why there was exultation in the soul of that famous man. For perhaps here, on this rim of the desert, the long pursuit of Christian was to come to an end. Here the long struggle might terminate.

Far back, as Trainor glanced over his shoulder, he saw the gray wolf, Frosty, running at full bent but hopelessly outdistanced by the speed of the horses. Parade and Silver would be the only ones of the trio present at the end of the hunt.

They rushed out of the mouth of the ravine, and there it was seen that Christian’s party had separated. Even the fear and respect in which they held their leader could not induce these men to stand together and receive the shock of Silver with a united front. They fell away to this side and that. Off to the right rode the two who supported between them the wounded man. Straight ahead dashed Doc Yates. To the left the great Barry Christian was scurrying, flattening himself in terror over the pommel of his saddle, abandoning all shame in the presence of his most famous enemy.

So, it seemed to the excited mind of Ben Trainor, good has to triumph in the end. The crook succeeds for a little while, but before the close there is a day of accounting, a sudden rout and a downfall.

After Christian, like a hawk after a bird, sweeping with a strength and speed that made the limitless flat of the desert seem small, Parade drew rapidly farther and farther away.

Suddenly Trainor drew rein. He would never come up with the chase in time to be of use during the battle. And in the meantime, if he rode away, Yates and the others might decide to cut back and get at abandoned Clive Trainor, because of the priceless secret which was still locked behind the lips of the man.

So Ben Trainor halted his horse and strained his eyes until a cloud of dust grew up and made the wavering images thin, and finally they disappeared around a highland that projected well out from the main mass of the plateau.

After that, he turned back slowly, unwillingly. Over his shoulder he still saw Frosty legging it vainly after his master, the shaggy pelt humping in waves above his shoulders as he strained forward in the gallop. The tongue of the exhausted wolf hung like a red rag from his teeth, and he would never get to the scene in time to fight for his master.

Not a single one of the riders was now in sight, as Trainor rode back into the ravine. There he found that Clive had recovered enough strength to drag himself into the shadow of a rock. But the heat was very great. He panted continually, heavily. It seemed to Ben Trainor that each breath his brother drew might be the last one in his life.

That still, oven-hot air of the ravine would be the death of him, certainly, and one glance was enough to show that Clive could not be taken on to Alkali to find a doctor. Instead, the doctor would have to be brought to him. In the meantime, he must be put in a place where there was a greater stir of fresh air.

Clive was so far gone that when Ben offered a canteen of water at his lips, the older brother simply shook his head.

“I’m passing out,” he said. “It’s no good working over me. Get to Silver. Get him to help Nell. Don’t waste time on me. I’m dying, Ben. I’m almost glad to die!”

He was sick with weakness and his wounds. The long ride had drained almost the last bit of his strength, and it was not strange that he was ready to give up the battle.

Ben Trainor said calmly: “What a cheap hound you’d be if you threw up the sponge while there’s a drop of blood left in you or one beat left in your heart! Christian is being run down like a rabbit by Jim Silver. Yates is on the run, too. Perry has his hands full with a wounded man. We have our chance now to break through and win.”

Clive Trainor groaned, as though the prospect of fighting his way back to life sickened him more than all else.

Then, lying back against the sand, he said: “I’m sorry I showed the white feather, Ben. But I’m tired. I’m damned tired. It seems as though the life’s been running out of me for days. For weeks. Whatever life is in me is boiling out now. It’s cooking out of me. Don’t waste your time here. Back there at the old mine, there’s only Blacky to keep an eye on Nell, and you say you’ve hurt Blacky badly. If you go straight back, you may have a chance to get her away from them. Don’t think about me. Go to her, Ben.”

“Perry and the rest are sure to go back past the mine,” answered Ben Trainor. “Yates will be back there, too. As soon as they see that Silver has taken after Christian and is out of the way, they’re certain to head for the mine. You can see that, can’t you? My job is here with you. We’ll climb up that side slip and get you up on the plateau where there’s better air.”

It was like handling a half-filled sack, whose weight continually threatened to slip through his hands, but finally Ben Trainor got his brother into the saddle, and walked beside the horse, steadying its burden, until they were up on the plateau again. There a single scrub of a tree offered shade, and Ben Trainor bedded down the wounded man there, while a slow stir of air instantly made breathing easier for Clive.

But it seemed that the life which Clive was so willing to give up was, in fact, rapidly leaking out of his body. Ben Trainor, caring for him, found more than one reason, and the broken statements of Clive pieced together the story of what had happened to him.

He had come to Alkali to try his fortune in the mines, but fortune, shortly after his arrival, had seemed to be hunting him out. A mere chance had brought him in contact with Nell Weston, newly in from the desert with a horrible story to tell.

She had gone with her father when that elderly man, broken in health and fortune, determined to try his luck prospecting through the barren hills near Mount Baldy. Luck and death came to him almost at the same instant. He had uncovered what he thought was a strike and he had drilled a hole and set a shot, but through a mistake in his clumsy operation, the explosion had occurred before he got to a safe distance. Weston was killed by the same blast which opened up a ledge of black rock in which there were bright yellow headings that might be gold.

Out there in the desert, the girl had buried her father, and then she had come wearily into Alkali with some specimens of the ore. How to develop the mine she had not the slightest idea. She guessed that it would need capital, and how to raise capital she did not know. When she reached Alkali, she knew that the place was thronging with scoundrels, and, therefore, when she met and learned to trust Clive Trainor as an honest man, she gladly confided her problems to him.

The first thing he had done for her was to take a specimen of the ore to the assayer’s office. Perhaps that was the first great mistake that brought on all the other evils in its train. No doubt the chief clerk in the assayer’s office was in touch with Yates and the other crooks of Alkali. From that day forward, Clive Trainor had had a sense of being followed and watched.

However, the assayer’s report was so staggeringly promising that he was inspired to invest his small capital to open up operations of the mine, on a small scale, at once.

He had bought drills, double jacks, powder, fuse, caps, provisions, four mules to carry the packs, and had hired three strong men to take over the major portion of the physical labor at the mine, all three representing themselves as experts. The other part of the story was revealed by the names of the trio, for they were the hired hangers-on of Doc Yates — Josh May, Cormack, and Blacky.

However, Clive Trainor suspected nothing. He felt it was a main point to get out of Alkali without being followed. The girl left in the late afternoon, riding out of Alkali in one direction. Clive Trainor went out after dark. Still later, Blacky and the other two left the town. The party of five assembled two miles outside of Alkali and went on through the night.

But trouble was in the air. Blacky was thoroughly drunk and could not speak without cursing so vilely that Clive Trainor had to speak to him sharply about it. That small thing started a quarrel, and Clive Trainor ordered Blacky to go back to the town. He was amazed by a downright refusal. When he told the other pair to speed Blacky on his way back, they laughed in his face. A moment later, Clive Trainor was a prisoner, tied to the stirrups of his horse, and the girl was likewise under guard.

That had not been the original plan of Yates, of course. He had intended to let the girl and Clive show the way to the mine, which was hard to find. But at any rate, the thing was not taken seriously, because it was known that the girl had told Clive Trainor the exact location of the mine, and, therefore, the information could be beaten out of him. Blacky on the spot started the beating. But Clive stuck to his silence until he was knocked senseless.

He and the girl were taken up into the ravine where the old Spanish mine had been worked centuries before. That stone hut became a torture chamber for Clive Trainor. His body was reduced by every privation. Twice he was given no water for three days. Once he was hung up by the-thumbs and a fire kindled under his feet, but he fainted so instantly, through the pain and his weakness, that they cut him down before he was seriously injured.

They tried the effect of a whip more than once. His body was half raw and covered with welts from those beatings. But still his iron endurance had held out until Christian, drawn into the difficult affair by the troubled Yates, finally suggested that the girl be tormented in the sight of Clive Trainor.

That crisis had been witnessed by Ben Trainor, of course. And the rest of the story he knew.

This tale from Clive Trainor did not come out smoothly, but in broken fragments which had to be pieced together by some guesswork on the part of Ben. But finally he had the thing clearly in his mind.

In the meantime, he had found a beggarly runlet of water a half mile from the spot — a mere trickle which disappeared among the rocks almost as soon as it lifted its head. There Ben filled the canteens again and again, making trips on the run in spite of his badly damaged feet. With that water he bathed the racked body of Clive and made him more comfortable.

It was all he could do, except wait for night and pray that strength would return to Clive so that in the cool of the night he could be taken back to Alkali. But in the mid-afternoon, Clive went out of his head with fever. He babbled, laughed, and chattered, or, turning his head from side to side, groaned heavily, deeply.

That day was a continued agony for Ben Trainor, who waited, praying for night or the return of Silver. And in the early dusk Silver came.