Valley of the Vanishing Men (5 page)

T
HERE
were a few shacks on the edge of the town where miners lived when they were out of work or when they were tired of sledge-hammers and drills. Trainor went to the first of these in which he saw a light, and he found a pair of grizzled old veterans in their red flannel shirt sleeves, playing seven-up on top of a cracker box, bending their stiff backs painfully to take up the cards.

He dipped down from the saddle without dismounting, and looked in through the doorway.

“Partners,” he said, “will you tell me the way to Mount Baldy?”

“Damn Mount Baldy,” said the bald-headed one of the pair.

“Here, here, Jake,” said the man with the broad beard. “That ain’t no way to talk. Tell him where Baldy is, will you?”

“Shut yer mouth, Pike,” said Jake. “Play the cards and shut yer mouth.”

“Damning Baldy ain’t no answer to him,” said Pike. “It ain’t a nacheral answer and it ain’t a right answer.”

“Why ain’t it a right answer?” demanded Jake. “Ain’t Baldy a hell of a place? Ain’t it right to damn it?”

“Not to a stranger that’s askin’ his way,” declared Pike.

“Perhaps you’ll tell me,” said Trainor to Pike, dismounting and impatiently slapping his leg with his quirt. “I’m in a hurry.”

“I’d tell you free and willing,” said Pike, “but there’s a bigger point in this here than you think. Here, have a drink, kid.”

“No, thanks,” said Trainor, his very brain burning with desire to be gone. For now danger might be gathering on his trail behind him, and forming to cut him off in the distance. “I only want to know the way to Mount Baldy,” he insisted.

“It’s about the first time,” said Pike gravely, to Jake, “that I ever seen a man refuse a drink of good corn whisky. Did you know that this was corn, young feller?”

“I’ll bet it’s great whisky, but I can’t stop for it. I’ve got to get on, please!” groaned Trainor.

“I’d tell you the way in a minute,” said Pike, “but there’s a big idea wrapped up in this here. The idea is this: Is Jake goin’ to act like a Westerner oughta act, or ain’t he goin’ to act that way? Is he goin’ to have real hospitality, or ain’t he goin’ to have it? I’ve knowed him for a long time, and now I’d like to know this here about him.”

“Shut yer old fool mouth or tell me what you bid?” demanded Jake.

“Are you or ain’t you goin’ to tell this here man, in a rush the way he is, the right trail to Mount Baldy?”

“Why don’t the fool go and look at the mountain and ride to it?” asked Jake. “What’s your bid?”

“Jake,” declared Pike, putting down his cards, “this here game has gotta stop till I find out what you’re goin’ to do by way of showin’ yourself a gentleman, or ain’t you one?”

“Well, what do you wanta know?” Jake asked Trainor.

“The way to Mount Baldy,” said Trainor.

“Aw, follow your nose,” said Jake. “You go right on down the street and take the straight trail and don’t do no branchin’. You can see Mount Baldy shinin’ in the moon right now, if you got an eye in your head. Pike, what you bid?”

Trainor pitched into the saddle, and heard Pike bid two.

“I shoot the moon!” shouted Jake.

The rush of his frightened mustang carried Trainor out of earshot of the rest of the game of seven-up, and he slipped rapidly out of Alkali into the desert. There before him was a squat mountain, to be sure, with glints on it from the rising moon, as though it were formed of ice. He could imagine that there must be great, transparent cliffs of quartz. The shape of the mountain was almost a dome, though just at the top it sharpened into a pyramid.

Toward that goal he kept at a steady jog, sometimes freshening the mustang into a lope, sometimes letting it drop to a dragging dog-trot, but it was never allowed to fall to a walk until it was on the steep ascent of Mount Baldy.

The lower slopes were hills of shifting sand. He got off and trudged on foot to lighten the horse through that difficult going. Nothing lived here. Out on the desert the lifelike forms of the Spanish bayonet had been jogging past him, and great cacti like vast spiders with legs gathered, ready to spring. But even these shapes had been better than the nakedness of Mount Baldy, white under the ascending moon.

Trainor was well up on the breast of the slope before the sand ended, and he climbed into the saddle to ride on over a rocky trail. It held on, fairly straight, and then began to twist to the right.

But that was not the direction required. It was just the opposite of the trail which was marked on Cormack’s sketch. Therefore, he turned back, and urged the mustang onto a higher shoulder. From the edge of a hundred-foot precipice, he glanced down, then to the sides. Finally, he spotted what he wanted, a trail that corkscrewed up the side of the mountain at just the angle which the map indicated. The moment he saw that, his heart leaped, because he became assured that the childish scratching on the paper was a map in actual fact.

He got to the beginning of that twisting trail. He followed it over the shoulder of Baldy onto a high plateau, and beside him rose a quartz cliff for hundreds of feet, brilliant, dazzling, with the quicksilver of the moonlight.

The trail went out like a light. He rode on for a quarter of a mile and still could not find it. In this blighted land there was no grass, no brush. There was nothing but the scalded face of a dead world, and the moonlight could not heal or cover its wounds.

He cut for sign, opening up in wider and wider circles. And suddenly he found the beginning of the trail again, a thin shadow that wound among the rocks.

He went on until he came to a point where the trail deepened, and again he reached a place where it spread into three forks. This was exactly the way it had been marked down on the map, so he took the farthest right-hand trail and rode along it, jogging the mustang, working his eyes rapidly here and there across the landscape to make out the least stir of life.

Yet, for all his precautions, he rode straight into the trap. He passed down a sort of gorge among enormous boulders, and as he came out on the farther side, a voice said briskly:

“Stick ‘em up, brother! Grab the edge of that moon, and chin yourself on it!”

The quiet of the voice was even more convincing than the words it spoke. He heaved up his hands instantly, and the mustang stopped without a command.

Three men surrounded him. They looked very much alike — they were all big, all wore great sloppy slouch hats, all carried rifles and revolvers hanging down their thighs. Their work in life was not with picks and shovels, surely.

“Get off, and keep your hands up while you climb down,” said one.

He was the fellow with the matter-of-fact voice.

Trainor obeyed, swinging one leg over the cantle and then dropping lightly to the ground.

“Your name’s Trainor, eh?” asked the leader.

“Trainor?” said Trainor. “I don’t know any Trainor.”

“Oh, don’t you? Come here, Les. Take a look at this hombre.”

One of the men stepped close and pulled over the sombrero of Trainor. It was the third of that trio which had tried to murder him in the saloon, he who had come in with May and Cormack.

Trainor braced himself for the recognition.

“Why, sure it’s Trainor,” said Les.

“All right,” said Trainor, “you can call me any name you like. Bud is what I answer to, mostly. If you boys are looking for hard cash, take my wallet. There’s something in it; not much. But let me get my arms down before they break off at the shoulders.”

“Maybe something more than your shoulders is due to be broke,” said the leader. “Get his gun, Les.”

The gun of Cormack was instantly taken. Would they recognize him through that, also?

But for the present no one paid any attention to it, except that Les said:

“This hombre fans it. I didn’t think that he was that good.”

“If you’re not Trainor,” said the leader, “what’s your real name?”

“Bud is what I answer to, mostly, but a couple of times in my life I’ve been called Mr. Somerville.”

The leader chuckled a little. “That ain’t so bad,” he said. “You sound all right to me, kid, but this is a busy night. Listen to me, Les,” he added. “By what we know about Trainor, he’s an ordinary cowhand. He wouldn’t ‘a’ had the time to waste learning how to fan a gun, would he?”

“No. That sort of stops me.”

“Sure of his mug?”

“I wouldn’t be sure of that,” admitted Les. “When I had my eye on Trainor, he was moving pretty fast, and there was a flock of guns in the air. You know how it is. You just get a kind of quick impression, at a time like that.”

“If you’re not Trainor, what you doing up here on this trail, Bud?” asked the leader.

“I’m on the way to Mount Baldy,” said Trainor calmly.

“Yeah, and then where? Going to camp at the spring?”

“I didn’t know there was any spring,” said Trainor. “Fact is, I’m bound for Alkali to try to get a job. They say some of the old mines are opening up big.”

The leader was silent for a moment.

“This sounds all right,” said Les.

“Yeah, it sounds all right,” said the leader. “You’re on the wrong trail, Bud,” he added, almost kindly. “If you turn around and shove straight back, you’ll come to Baldy, and you’ll get a trail down him for Alkali. Here, Les, give him back his gun. He’s all right.”

In fact, the leader reached for the gun to pass it back. But as he grasped it, he started violently.

“By thunder!” he shouted. “That’s Cormack’s gun!”

That was the end, Trainor knew. But he had gone into action the instant he saw the start of the leader. He made one step forward and slung himself along the side of his mustang, which bolted straight up the slope. One foot had found the stirrup. The other leg was hooked around behind the cantle, one arm was curved over the neck of the pony. He could thank his stars that he had learned that Indian trick when he was a youngster, for now he offered to his enemy only the mark of a running horse.

T
HEY
had rifles after him in a moment. The spattering of the revolver shots had given him an instant of hope, for the way the mustang was dodging among big rocks, he had a reasonable guess that they might keep on missing their target. But when they opened up with rifles, he knew the trouble was on him.

He heard, he almost felt, the sickening spat of the bullets as three of them in rapid succession hit the poor little horse. It went on, staggering, wavering, but still at a gallop. It reached the top of the slope before the crash of three guns at once dropped it like a stone, dead.

Trainor rolled headlong down the steep of the slope, found a nest of rocks, ran straight through it as fast as he could bolt, and then, with the rattling of the hoofs of approaching horses beating in his ears, he threw himself right down in the open. There was merely a shallow scoop in the flat of the rock, and he flung himself down in full view of anyone whose curious eyes might examine differences inside that meager shadow. In fact, the full moonshine was beating down upon most of his body, but the chance he took was that the enemy might not search for him at all in such an open spot.

Over the ridge he saw them come hurtling, right beside the spot where his horse lay dead. They scanned the ground there, as though hoping that they might find him pinned to the ground. Then they scattered out and rode around in a circle, the leader taking one side of the big arc, Les and the other man taking the second half of the circumference. They covered a margin much larger than a man could possibly have reached on foot in the short time that had been at the disposal of Trainor. He admired, grimly and grudgingly, the manner in which the search was conducted, as he saw the riders skilfully wind back and forth and in and out among the rocks. He could thank his instinct that he had not chosen to secrete himself among those obvious shelters.

The leader, rising in his stirrups presently, shouted to the men to go back on the ground and try again. The man had to be there. He must be there.

So they went back, again, and yet again, and widened the field of their search, and then assembled in a close group, the hoofs of their horses lifting and gleaming not five paces from the spot where Trainor lay flat on his face, waiting every dreadful moment for bullets to tear through his flesh.

The leader said: “Les, you might have used your eyes back there in the saloon.”

“I thought it was him when I first looked, but he was so damn cool,” said Les. “You know how it is. I saw him by lamplight, movin’ fast, and this was by moonlight, standin’ still. And then he didn’t give away no chances. He’s a nervy hombre.”

“I’ll nerve him if I can daub a rope onto him,” said the leader. “Where’d he go to, anyway?”

“Suppose,” said the third man, “that he was layin’ there close to the hoss, somewheres right by the ridge? We might ‘a’ galloped over that ridge a mite too fast, and he sneaked off down the other side?”

“He couldn’t ‘a’ done it,” answered the leader.

“Well, where else is he?”

“It’s the damnedest thing that I ever seen. Let’s go back to the ridge and take a look-see.”

They climbed up the slope to the ridge and sat there against the moon, black, gigantic silhouettes. Their voices came small but clear to the ears of Trainor.

“Where could he ‘a’ gone? Why, back there through the rocks, down the slope. That’s the only thing that he could ‘a’ done. It’s dead certain that we’d ‘a’ found him if he’s been over yonder. He’s scuttlin’ off a coupla miles away, by this time. No matter what else we did, we scared the shirt right off his back, and I’m dead sure of that!”

“Don’t be too sure of nothin’. This hombre seems soft, don’t he? Sure he seems soft when he walks into the picture. Blacky says that there wasn’t nothin’ to him. Blacky says that he pretty nigh busted the neck of Trainor, and throws him into the street, and Trainor goes and hollers to the sheriff. That sounds soft, don’t it? Well, maybe Trainor was soft when he come to Alkali, but he ain’t soft now. He’s walked right through Yates, it looks like, and got out here. He’s slammed May and Cormack in one little go, and they’re tough hombres. Besides all that, how in hell did he learn that this was the trail to foller?”

There was no answer, and the leader said: “Maybe he ain’t scuttlin’ off through the rocks, doin’ a mile a minute. Maybe he’s sneakin’ up toward headquarters. And if he gets there — boys, Christian is goin’ to take off our hides in chunks and burn them right in front of our eyes!”

“What’ll we do, then?”

“Go straight back, search all along the way, and make a report that we met Trainor, and that we lost him, but we hope that he’s scared off.”

There was a silence, then one of the others said: “You can do that job, Perry. I don’t hanker to stand up to Christian when he’s sour. I seen him sour just once, and that was enough for me.”

They rode suddenly over the ridge. They disappeared, and the hoofbeats of the horses rang farther and farther away as Trainor rose to his feet. Luck, he saw, had at last given him a golden chance, for the beating hoofs of those horses were like so many bells, guiding him on the way he wanted to go — if only he were able to keep them within hearing.

In spite of the fact that he had spent such a share of his life in the saddle, he could run, and he ran now, keeping his chin down and his arms swinging straight. He got the sound of the hoofbeats before him, now dim, now closer, now suddenly far away.

His high-heeled boots, the worst running gear in the world, he jerked off and threw away. He ran on in his thick socks and now and again a rock point tore his flesh. He merely gritted his teeth and lengthened his stride.

If this were the worst pain that he ever had to endure, it would be very well. If he had to run till his feet were worn to the bone, he would do that, also.

He could remember in his boyhood when Clive had run for him and climbed for him — yes, and fought for him, too. He could remember how they had stood back to back and held off the savage little mob when they went to the new school in the mountains. He could remember how Clive had stood by to see fair play when he had his celebrated fight with “Stew” Murphy, and how Clive had knocked flat the bully who tried to trip Ben up in the middle of the go. He could remember days when they were older, and always it had been Clive who came to the rescue.

Now he had his chance to pay back a little portion of the old debt. Even if there had been no debt at all, there was the claim of blood that gripped him. The home was gone. Their mother and father had been dead for years, and that was all the more reason for them to hang together in this world.

Yet he felt helpless. He was running hard, he was running toward his duty. But what would he be able to accomplish when he got there? What could he do against Christian and Doc Yates? The mere thought of them made him feel like a child.

He dropped suddenly flat on the ground, for he had entered a naked valley, without rocks, and the three riders were in clear view before him. When he looked up again, they had disappeared!

He got slowly to his knees, thinking that his wits were gone, that he had been dazzled by a hallucination. Not only were the figures gone, but the hoofs no longer rang bell-like on the rocks, or muffled on hard ground. He leaped up and ran on again, bewildered. It might be that they had glimpsed him and had scattered to the shadow at the left of the valley, waiting for him to come on, but somehow, that seemed a small risk. If he missed this way, he would have lost the chance to follow the trail to the end, and he would have lost it forever, perhaps.

Then, when he came close to the spot where they had seemed to be before vanishing, he saw, suddenly, a narrow cleft in the high, sheer wall of the valley. How deep the crevice went he could not tell. But into this, surely, the three must have passed.

There was almost utter darkness within the lips of the close ravine. He had to look up toward the sky to see how the opening ran between its crooked walls. Then, turning a sharp corner, he came on quite another prospect, for the crevice opened into a fair-sized gulley, sand-bottomed. That sand had hushed the hoofs of the horses, of course. And still the thin dust which they had raised in passing hung in the air, and was acrid and tingling in his nostrils.

He climbed the easy slope. The moon brightened on it. He could see where the horses had stepped not long before, and the sand was still running down the sides of the depressions. Now, topping the slope, he saw a thin, yellow eye of light, and made out, at once, a cluster of small buildings that were apparently made of rock, flat-roofed, squat, and low. In front of the one shack which was lighted, he saw three horses, with riders in the saddles of two, and with the other of the trio standing in front of the door of the hut.

Trainor could hear the knocking of the hand as he dropped to his knees and crawled off to the side until he gained the shelter of a little mesquite which managed to send its roots down to water even through this sandy hell. In that meager shadow he lay flat, for he heard the squeaking of hinges, and then the voice of none other than Barry Christian, inquiring:

“Who’s there?”

“Perry,” came the answer.

“Perry, will you kindly tell me what you mean by being away from the place where I posted you?”

“Because Trainor came up that way — ”

“Trainor, eh? Where did you bury him?”

“That’s what I want to explain. We got him, and took his gun, and had him helpless — ”

“And he got away? Perry, you mean to say that he got away?”

“I don’t know how to say it, chief. The fact is that he nearly fooled us, for a minute, and just as I made out for sure that he was really Trainor, he jumped for his horse, and rode the side of it like an Indian, and we shot the horse down, and went in search of him, but he managed to melt himself right into the ground. I never saw anything like it. It might have beaten even you, chief.”

There was a silence, a dreadful silence for Perry, no doubt.

Then Christian said, his voice muffled by the control he put upon his passion: “It’s the first big thing I ever asked you, and you’ve failed, Perry. But go down now and guard the mouth of this ravine, here. You were on horses and he was on foot. I suppose he couldn’t have got here before you?”

“We came as fast as the rocks would let us. He couldn’t have got here before us.”

“Then go down there and watch for him, and if you get your hands on him the second time, smash him like a snake. He’s got to die!”