Nelson Nye - Rafe

Rafe pulled his animals down to a walk. Now that he had managed to drop out of sight those watchers would likely be expecting him to head southeast; they would anyway if they were some of Spangler's crowd, because southeast was the shortest way to reach his father's ranch.

Rafe looked up. About another hour to sundown. The animals needed rest and he could do with some himself. When the walls twisted around to where the floor was draped in shadow Rafe got off Bathsheba, relieved the gelding of its pack and unsaddled the mare. Next thing he did was dig the carbine out and examine it; it wasn't what he'd asked for but it would serve till he could come onto something better.

He found the glass and tucked it into his waistband and checked the foodstuffs, flour and beans and salt and sowbelly. He found two boxes of shells and loaded the saddle gun, dropping the rest of the cartridges in his pockets. He checked his belt gun and then sat down with his back to a wall to better consider strategy and figure out his chances.

They'd be expecting him back. Nobody was in this thing for laughs. What they had going was too profitable and desperate to put up with the risk represented by Rafe. Next time he got in their way they would kill him—or damn well try! Duke, especially.

It was while he was moodily chomping salt pork that it come over Rafe he might not be giving this guy Spangler his due, might be selling him short. A man who could hold off Alph Chilton like he was, sure wasn't no kind to go stamping your boot at. Spangler would be playing for keeps. Duke was into this up to his eyeballs, but Spangler was the one who'd be passing out the orders, and any guy smart as him would be too shrewd to think a feller who'd taken the beating they'd give Rafe would come charging back by the shortest route. Spangler would think Rafe had learned more caution. The one place they wouldn't be like to look for him now was the part of these badlands closest to the ranch.

This decided, Rafe got busy. Within five minutes he was on his way, riding with the carbine ready across his knees. The shadows around him had thickened up considerable. Be some pretty tough hombres hanging out around the home place, but he would worry about these when he got to them. The big worry right now was getting out of this maze.

He kept turning left every time he reached a fork. Twice, going into blind canyons, he was forced to come back. It was full dark now with not much showing but the stars. Rafe reckoned he had come about five miles. It was fairly open here but he kept to a walk, thinking he could better afford time than noise.

Another hour slipped by, then another thirty minutes. Rafe, by this time jumpy as a cat, began uneasily to wonder if he'd got turned around. Ground underfoot seemed to be still slanting down when, by his calculations, they'd ought to be climbing up out of this. Wall seemed to be pinching in again, too. What few stars he could see failed to offer any notion of which way he was pointed.

His disquiet grew. The mare, ears flat, moved as though she were trying to step between eggs. Now the ground commenced climbing in a spiraling twist, and there was a lot of cold air coming up through Rafe's pantslegs. In this swirling stillness the drop of each hoof was like a tiny explosion, the skreak and pop of straining leather scratching against Rafe's ears with all the stridence of a yell.

Bathsheba stopped, both ears jerking forward. Rafe, peering ahead, couldn't see a thing but the goddamn black that was everywhere about them. He could feel the mare tremble. With a shake of the head and a sudden snort she spun on bunched legs and would have frantically bolted if Rafe, hauling hard on the reins, hadn't stopped her. He reined her about and kicked with one heel.

Bathsheba squatted. You'd have thought, by grab, there was somebody up there!

It didn't make sense. This would be the east rim—some part of it; there hadn't been time for them to reach any other. This was the one place Spangler wouldn't be looking for him.

The mare was blowing like she had rollers in her nose. Catching hold of the lead rope he booted her again. Whickering, she went stiff-legged forward, her evident reluctance rankly steeped in distrust.

With the lead rope, his carbine and a balky mare to hold onto, Rafe had his hands full but kept going; and now, against the stars, he saw the rim's ragged flip. He could feel the mare stiffening up again.

He let her stop and got out of the saddle. She stood there, trembling, ears flat against her head. The feel of this place tightened his grip on the carbine. It was too stinking still. Forced to believe he'd miscalculated somewhere he twisted the reins about the pommel so that if trouble was up there she wouldn't get tangled. He let go of the lead rope. With both hands damply clamped to the carbine he started cautiously putting one foot before the other.

Another three steps would have put his head above the rim when a stone twisted harshly under his boot. A rifle belted flame across the dark a yard above him. Someone viciously cursed. Behind Rafe, with a panicked snort, Bathsheba slammed into the pack horse. Squealing and kicking it was knocked off its feet, the wail of its whimper wildly diving through a space as the mare, in a scramble of hoofs and loose rock, tore off down the backtrail like hell emigrating on cart wheels.

XI

With his belly squeezed flat against the wall's rotten rock, Rafe listened to the racketing of rifles being emptied so close he wondered they didn't take the top of his head off. In such a deafening bedlam there wasn't much chance for scuffing the wrinkles out of plans gone to pot. Like some rattlebrained kid he'd come bumbling right into Spangler's trap, and none of the things that were flapping inside him even remotely held out much hope.

The guns had quieted but their clamor was still caterwauling and tumbling around through the gulches. Left afoot against the face of the cliff, Rafe knew better than to imagine the bugger responsible was about to go off without a good look around.

His bunch was listening, stretching their ears to lay hold of Rafe's whereabouts. The stillness throbbed like a toothache. Then someone said, "Hell! He's prob'ly piled up down at the bottom with them broncs."

Spangler growled, "I wouldn't bet on it. That peckerneck's got more lives than a cat! Get some brush stacked along the edge here."

Boots tramped off, began scuffling around. It was hard for Rafe to stay where he was, never moving a finger, while his carbine got heavier and time inexorably moved nearer to the moment when inevitably they would find him. Yet to move was to bring the whole pack hellity larrup. He scarcely dared breathe with Spangler standing right over him. One false step, one sound....

With careful pressure, infinitesimally applied, a rounded stone from the wall came loose in his fingers and, with a silent prayer, he tossed it into the black that had swallowed his pack horse. About the time he was ready to burst from held breath, a rattle came up off the rocks far below. Flame came out of the dark above him. The crew came running. "You see him?" Duke cried.

Spangler, not answering, said, "Get that brush blazin'."

"Ain't no brush," grumbled one of the other. "Couldn't find—"

"Get some of that dead grass then."

"Think you got him?" That was Duke again.

"We're stayin' right here until we know for damn sure."

Even if he could have found one Rafe wouldn't have risked plopping another rock down there. He thought of taking off his boots and trying to ease back down the trail, but the hazards looked worse than the risk of remaining; right now they thought he was down there. Boots clomped again. "Brill," Spangler growled, "you and Fentriss light them grass twists. Rest of us'll clobber anything that moves."