Tall Rider Page 7

I turned over and lay on my back, fighting the fear and forcing myself to concentrate.

  Fact: the trail had come to an end.

  Question: if it was a dead end, why was my candle flame still sloping back the way I had come?

  Answer: air was coming in all right, blowing the candle, but it was passing through spaces too small for a man to pass through.

  Once upon a time, when it was a water course, the cave had been open. That was obvious. But since those days it had dried up and its mouth must have got clogged and sealed by falls of rock and rubble.

  That was a likely explanation. But there was no way of telling how much rubble there was blocking it, no way of knowing how far I was at that moment from the sunshine. It could have been feet. It could have been yards.

  I decided to go back and break the news to Harry. Maybe he’d have an idea about what we could try next.

  As I turned on to my stomach so I could start the long crawl back, I knocked the candle over. It went out.

  I was plunged into darkness.

  Almost.

  As I reach for my matches, my eyes started to get used to the dark. To my amazement, I saw, to my right, just below the level of the roof, two, three small specks. At first, I thought they were some of those luminous gnats and flies you often get in caves and old mines. But as my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I realised I was seeing daylight.

  I relit the candle and held it up on that side. The flame bent away from it and then I knew I had found the source of the air current and our way out.

  The cave wall there was formed of massed rubble. I pushed and poked it, but it was jammed tight. I managed to get a few pebbles out with my knife, but it was too solid to let me get any further.

  That figured. If I was right and Calthrop had been prepared to block the cave because he knew he could always use this tunnel to get at his goods, then this was his back door. He’d want to make very sure no one would know it was there. He’d have seen to it that the tunnel was as tightly sealed as he could make it to hide it from straying Indians or curious prospectors. Still he wouldn’t have plugged it so tight he could never use it if the need arose. But I didn’t give a man lying on his side with the use just of his bare hands many chances of breaking through and getting out.

  But maybe there was something in Calthrop’s trove we could use for a tool.

  It took me some time to get back to Harry.

  I told him what I had found, the good news and the bad.

  To my surprise, he laughed and thumped me on the back.

  ‘Chin up, Brad. We’re as good as home.’

  If I’d known then what he told me later, that he’d been a prospector who knew all there was to know about mines, I’d have been less surprised.

  ‘Now it’s my turn to go a-roving,’ he said. ‘Give me a leg up. Not there,’ he said, when I started to make for the side of the chamber with the tunnel I’d just been through, ‘this one. I need a few things if I’m going to spring us from this trap.’

  I hoisted him up to the tunnel that led back to Calthrop’s treasure dump. I guessed he’d gone looking for something we could use as a pick.

  He wasn’t gone long.

  When he got back he was holding a solid silver casket about six inches by four, a bottle of brandy and a length of cotton cloth.

  He brushed away my questions and set down the items he had brought on the rock.

  ‘Now to work,’ he said. ‘Give me your gunbelt. And this is what I want you to do.…’

  By the light of the candle, following his instructions, I tore the cotton into narrow strips and plaited them loosely together until I had a length of about twenty feet.

  Meanwhile, Harry took all the bullets from my gun and belt and was removing the gunpowder from them. In those days, a Colt used paper cartridges. So it took him no time at all to fill the casket.

  ‘Trouble with powder is it just burns. It don’t explode until it’s fired in a confined space. Nearest thing I could find to a confined space for it was this handsome, tight-closing silver casket. Seems a shame to waste such a valuable article, but it’s the best I can do.’

  ‘What’s the cotton and the booze for?’ I asked.

  ‘Fuse. I never pulled a stunt like this before. I hope it works. Let’s go. I’ll explain on the way.’

  We wrapped everything we needed in what was left of the cotton cloth and tied the four corners together. Then I stood on his shoulder, hoisted the makeshift bag into the tunnel and climbed up after it. Then, with some difficulty, for Harry was a big man, I hauled him up after me and we started crawling along the tunnel.

  When we got to the last chamber but one, I stopped while Harry went the rest of the way, to size up the job. He took my knife with him.

  ‘I hope to God I got this right,’ said Harry when he got back. ‘Listen up and I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. I’ll set the casket with the charge as far as I can into the section of wall with the air-holes. If I’ve used too much powder or not enough, we’ve had it either way. If the charge is too small, it won’t shift the blockage and there’s not enough gunpowder left to try again. If it’s too large, it could bring the whole roof down and bury us alive. But whatever happens, there’s going to be an almighty bang. You want to go back a stretch? Might be easier on your ears.’

  ‘No, I’ll stay with you. But I thought about the blast. I’ve got a candle left. There’s enough wax in it to make earplugs for us both.’

  ‘Good. I’ll string the cotton along the tunnel and loop much as I can around the casket. When it’s all doused in the brandy, it should generate enough heat to set the charge off. If not, I’ll shoot it. A direct hit would do it all right. But I don’t want to do that unless I have to. To shoot at it I’d have to see it, and if I can see it I’d take the full force of the blast. I’d rather be here out of the direct line in this cosy little chamber with you. Ready?’

  Grabbing the casket and the brandy, he crawled into the tunnel, hooking the loosely plaited material to the roof as he went. On the way back, he soused the cotton with the brandy. Preceded by alcoholic fumes, he reappeared feet first and lit the improvised fuse. One on each side of the tunnel, we watched as it burned its way to the casket.

  Once it seemed to go out and Harry was about to go in and relight it. But it caught again.

  With ears full of candle-wax and mouth and nostrils protected by what was left of the cotton, we cowered as close as we could get to the floor of the tunnel. I hoped most of the blast would go straight past us. But I knew we’d only get limited protection in the chamber were in.

  Suddenly the silence was shattered by an almighty bang, the air was full of dust and my head felt as if ten men had sat on it.

  But the roof had not fallen in.

  Then Harry was shaking me by the arm.

  I couldn’t hear what he said for the ringing in my ears. I saw him mouth: ‘Still there, pardner?’

  I reached for the candle which had been blown out. I was still thinking of lighting it when I realized there was no need to.

  I could already see Harry.

  He had a broad grin on his face.

  ‘Let’s go!’ he said

  And we crawled over the rubble and out into God’s fresh air.

  8

  STRIKING BACK

  We didn’t whoop none nor holler. We were both too bushed. But it sure felt good to be outside and see the clouds, breathe free and feel the sun on your face.

  Harry’s home-made charge had blown a neat hole in the slope about fifty feet below the entrance to Calthrop’s cave and maybe some fifty to the left. This brought us out more or less on a level with the floor of the canyon and the course of the dried-up arroyo.

  Our hearing returned and soon we could hear the wildlife singing and chittering and clicking again. I liked the sound better than the silence. Silence in such a place was scary.

  Harry thought the same, though he said silence outside was nothing like as bad as silence inside a cave.


  ‘I spent a lot of time in mines,’ he said. ‘Now a mine a man digs with his hands is a live thing. The walls drop stones, the roof drops dirt, and the earth you cut through goes on moving and shifting and settling long after you’ve moved on. You bring in timbers to shore up the ground over your head and they get squeezed and twisted and they sure let you know all about it. What with the falling dirt, the grinding of the rock above you, the groaning of the props as they take the strain, there’s noise above, below and to both sides of you. The only time it goes quiet is when something’s wrong and the tunnel you’re in is about to cave in. When it goes quiet and all a man can hear is his own heart beating, that’s the time to get out. Fast. A natural cave did all the settling it’s ever going to do long ago. It’s not alive: it’s dead. That’s why a man who’s spent time in mines gets uneasy in caves. He feels that it ain’t safe, that he got no business being there. Is that your friend?’

  Abruptly changing the subject, he gestured to the pile of brushwood I had put over Squawking Crow.

  ‘I must get him back to his people,’ I said. ‘That’s what he’d have wanted.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Harry. ‘But first things first. We’d better take us a looksee. We made a powerful noise back there. Might be nosy folks round about who could be friendly or maybe not so friendly, you never can tell.’

  We picked our way cautiously through the pass and scoured the plain. We saw and heard nothing. We could have been the only humans on the planet.

  Squawking Crow’s horse and mine were where we had left them, in the patch of mesquite, and his water-bottle was still slung round the animal’s neck. He wouldn’t need the water in it now. I shared it with Harry. Mounting the two ponies, we rode round the outside of the hidden canyon till we reached a pile of rocks. Beyond the rocks was Harry’s camp.

  While we rode, I told him my story, about how Calthrop had killed Bart and Eli in cold blood and how I wouldn’t rest until I got justice.

  Then Harry told me why he was all fired up about Calthrop. He’d gone out West for a prospector. He’d struck pay dirt but he’d been bounced off his claim by a fancy talker in a black suit and a red sateen waistcoat.

  ‘Looks like there’s a crowd of folks lining up to get him,’ I said. ‘The way things have turned out has made you and me allies.…’

  At that moment a shot rang out, my hat was whipped off my head and I dived into a patch of prickly pear bushes.

  I looked out and saw Harry, still on Squawking Crow’s pony, laughing helplessly. In the end, he got his breath back and said I could come out.

  ‘Don’t fret. That was Rusty being friendly! Camp’s behind those rocks.’

  I said something about how some people have a twisted sense of humour; I recovered my hat.

  ‘Lead on, Harry,’ I said. ‘Let’s hope Rusty’s got some tasty chow in the pot. I’m so hungry I could eat a mountain lion.’

  We rode into Harry’s camp.

  I saw a covered wagon. There was a fire that made no smoke.

  Then from back of the wagon, still carrying a gun, out stepped Rusty.

  She was eighteen and her hair was flame-red. Turned out she was the daughter of Harry’s partner in the Sacramento diggings, a man named McColl whom Calthrop had shot in the back. Harry had taken her under his wing, though she warn’t no shrinking violet.

  ‘Where’n tarnation you been, Harry?’ she said. ‘I was beginning to think Calthrop had got you.’ Then she turned to me and said, ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Hold hard, Rusty, and stop pointing that gun at folks,’ said Harry. ‘Look, I ain’t eaten for the last couple of days, nor drunk much, nor slept at all. I got a power of recuperating to do. Never saw a girl like you for asking questions. This here is Brad Chandler. Brad, meet Rusty McColl. And watch out, Brad, this one bites.’

  ‘Nice to know you,’ said I, holding out my hand.

  ‘Mutual, I’m sure.’

  She spoke the words as dainty as if we were in a Sunday parlour. But I could hear mockery in her voice.

  ‘Well, if I’m not going to get anything out of you until you’re fed and watered, you’d best sit yourselves down and eat.’

  With upturned buckets for seats, we gathered round the fire, each of us holding out a tin plate, and soon we were spooning up a mess of hard-tack, bacon and beans washed down with strong coffee that tasted as if it had been grown and brewed in heaven.

  When we’d eaten our fill, we lit up and Harry told Rusty about how he’d found Calthrop’s cave, how he’d been jumped and left to die and how we’d blown our way out.

  ‘You know, Harry, that’s just dandy,’ said Rusty. ‘It’s a mighty fine tale for yarning round a camp-fire. But it don’t get us no further forward than we were before. We’ve even gone backwards. Before, Calthrop didn’t know we were on his tail. Now he knows and when he finds you’re gone he’ll be on his guard. By letting yourself get caught, you’ve lost the advantage of surprise. Same goes for Brad here. From now on, he’ll be watching out for the pair of you.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But before there’s any more talk of going after Calthrop, I got to get Squawking Crow back to his people so they can give him a proper send-off to the Happy Hunting Grounds. I owe him that. He saved my life: I owe him.’

  ‘Squawking Crow?’ asked Rusty.

  I told her how my Indian friend had taken care of me and how he had been killed. But most of my story of how I had vowed to get even with Calthrop for shooting Bart I left for another time.

  I judged by the sun it was still some time off noon. That gave me plenty of time for what I had to do. Harry said he’d come with me. But I said no. A white man bringing a dead brave back to camp can’t rightly know for sure what sort of welcome he’ll get. At least, Squawking Crow’s people knew me.

  So, leading the dead Indian’s pony which Harry had used after we broke out of the cave, I got back on my horse and rode back to the canyon.

  I sat for a while with Squawking Crow and made my peace with him.

  Then I thought about what Rusty had said, how Calthrop would know the two of us were on his trail. The hole we had blown in the side of the hill was a giveaway. He’d know for sure we had both got out. But if the hole was stopped up, all he’d know is that Harry was still inside and that whoever tripped the rock fall was in there with him and just as dead. So I had to cover our tracks.

  It took about an hour to block up the opening so it looked as undisturbed as it had been before.

  I roped Squawking Crow onto his horse. This time I didn’t try to hide my tracks but left plenty of signs to suggest that some of his tribe had taken him away. Then I headed out to where the Indians were camped.

  As I approached, word spread like wildfire. Men, women and children lined my route to Kla Klitso’s lodge. Before I got there, he came out to greet me.

  By this time, the squaws were into their breast-beating and caterwauling and some of the braves looked mighty angry as if they thought their brother was dead on my account, which he was in a way.

  I told Kla Klitso how Squawking Crow had died, how I had laid him face up so his spirit would be free to leave his body, how I had brought him to his people, and how I had sworn to avenge his death.

  ‘Who did this thing?’ said Kla Klitso.

  I told him.

  ‘I know this man. Bad man.’

  And he told me again how bad Calthrop was. The world was full of people telling me how bad Calthrop was.

  I said his enemy was my enemy.

  He took this as a new sign of friendship and we smoked a pipe. When they saw this, the men of the tribe stopped watching and began to make preparations for the ceremonial burning of Squawking Crow’s body.

  I stayed a while, as courtesy required, but then left. A white man is out of place at such times.

  I rode back to camp, got some much needed shut-eye, woke feeling refreshed, shaved for the first time in days and put away another helping of Rusty’s chow.

  While I ate, she told
us what she had been up to while Harry and I had been catching up on our beauty sleep.

  ‘A girl, not this girl at any rate,’ she said, ‘can’t just sit around all day, just waiting and watching the clouds blow by. I thought I’d go take a look at this hidden canyon of yours. And you know what?’

  She looked me in the eye.

  ‘They’ve been back!’

  ‘Who have?’ Harry said.

  ‘When I got to the defile that leads into the canyon, I saw tracks. A couple of riders had passed that way, and not long before. I hid my horse in the mesquite, like you did, climbed the slope and made my way along the side of the hill. From there, I saw two horses but no riders. Then I heard voices and Calthrop and Ames appeared suddenly out of the side of the hill. Something was worrying them. Ames looked down the slope away to his left. He shook his head. Calthrop said something back and shrugged his shoulders. Then they left. I gave them enough time to get a good start and came back here.’

  ‘Don’t sound like they spotted the back entrance had been blown,’ I said.

  Harry said, ‘I guess we can take it Calthrop thinks we’re still buried in that cave and don’t suspect the pair of us are out and gunning for him. That buys us time. But time for what? What’s our move to be?’

  ‘The odds are against us,’ I said. ‘We got to shorten them in our favour.’

  ‘Where’ll you start?’ asked Rusty.

  ‘With old man Jebb. Runs the livery stables. He’s a fair-minded sort and no admirer of Calthrop. If it hadn’t been for him, I wouldn’t have left town in one piece. He’ll know as much as anybody about Calthrop and his set-up. He’ll be only too pleased to help us any way he can. He might even know what happened to my pardners. I know Eli’s dead. But last I heard Billy was recovering. Maybe the others stayed to tend him. If they’re still around, they’ll want to be counted in.’

  As action plans went, this one wasn’t as actionful as going in with six-guns blazing, but it was better than sitting around doing nothing. And Harry and Rusty relaxed now that something definite had been decided.

  By this time the sun was going down and the light was draining slowly from the sky. That suited me fine. If I was going to ride into Berry’s Crossing, I had to do it under cover of darkness. Calthrop had eyes everywhere and even after nightfall stepping on to his territory was like walking into the lion’s den.