Star Toter (9 page)

The rifleman's swing was wider than he intended. He made an extra half-circle before his buckling legs pitched him sidewise. An outreaching branch caught his mask and tore it aside as he fell. It was Toomey Harris, of the Wagon Wheel, who had tried to kill Locke in town the other night.

That explained how the loot had been planted in the barn on the Wagon Wheel. Toomey had taken orders from Steele, and he had been ready to betray his employer.

That went a long way toward absolving Ray from the charges which had been leveled at him. But there was no time to think about such matters. Not one, but two additional men had burst into sight, running in a half-crouch. They had been fooled, believing that the stage was empty. Now they were uncertain as to how many men might be inside. They intended to slip around to a place where they could riddle it from the far side, while their companion controlled it from this one.

If they could flank him in a cross fire, it would be disastrous. Locke drove two quick shots and missed, but the bullets checked the men's rush, sending them diving for cover. The other man had moved behind a tree, and from that shelter he was shooting to spray his lead through the low part of the door.

Terrified, the horses were stamping and jerking restively, but that was all they could do. The stage could not be moved, and lead was coming through the flimsy panels of the door, beginning to trace a deadly pattern. Locke crawled through the opposite door. As he pushed it shut again, a bullet tore where his hand had rested a moment before.

He glimpsed a man dodging from one tree to another and snapped a shot. Bullets drove at him from two angles, kicking dead pine needles in a small geyser and stirring the solid earth beneath. The running man sprawled in a stumbling slide, falling with an arm reaching forward on either side of a tree.

The odds had been whittled in half, but there were two left, and they had learned caution. They knew by now that they had tangled with the sheriff, and Orin Locke was no man to trifle with.

They would plan to come at him from opposite sides, moving with all the stealth and skill they possessed. That way, one would be pretty sure to get him. Locke surveyed the trees overhead, but there was no chance to climb and perch unobserved. The lodge poles grew lean and tall, free of branches for half their length.

Nor was there any undergrowth, so a bold game would be less risky than a waiting one. Locke shrugged out of his coat, then draped it across a twisted trunk. It had the semblance of a crouching man, which grew stronger as he topped it with his hat. When that failed to draw a bullet, he moved on hands and knees. There was a slight depression a score of feet away, and his breath eased as he reached it, burrowing like a gopher among the waste.

The horses had quit stamping and snorting, and the silence crept back through the big trees as though it had never been broken. Then a gun tore it, three quick shots fired as quickly as a man could squeeze the trigger. One of the pair had glimpsed him.

Locke swung the muzzle of his own gun and fired once, with no waste of lead. The remaining outlaw, a hundred paces away on the opposite side, moved incautiously, confident that it was all over.

For him it very nearly was. Locke's shot was hurried, a near miss, but too close to please his target. There was to be no gun duel between them if this last man could avoid it. Having seen what happened to his companions, he had no relish for a battle at even odds. Locke sent a couple of shots after him as he ran, but the range was long, the trees a shield and the light deceptive.

The last man reached the horses which the quartet had ridden to the rendezvous. The pounding of hoofs came back before Locke could get close enough to see. He had a single glimpse of the man on horseback; then he was gone.

The horses which his companions had ridden were still there; he had been in too big a hurry to turn them loose or take them with him.

Safely beyond gun range, finding that he wasn't pursued, he would start to think clearly again. These hills were full of hide-outs, some of them occupied by the outlaws who had been preying on the miners. He would probably head for the nearest of these, then return with help. The gold was still waiting for whoever could take it.

The gold decided Locke.

Returning to the stage, he lifted Ted Foley and loaded him inside, where he had ridden on the trip out. The jolting on the trip back to town wouldn't bother Ted. That was the only good thing in the whole bad mess.

Locke gathered up the reins and climbed to the box, then backed the team, no easy task with the trees close on either side. It was necessary to back, then edge ahead half the length of the stage, among the trees, to a point where he could back again. Presently he realized that there was only one way to do it: by unhitching the two front teams, thus shortening the total length by half. Even then, it required all his skill to move in a such restricted space.

Finally he had the teams hitched back in place. The horses were rested and anxious to run, as leery of the place as himself, anxious to put distance between them and it. Tooling a stage along such roads was a job for a master reinsman like Ted Foley, but Locke had been raised in the hill country and he knew horses. His chief worry was that the outlaws might come upon him from ahead and strike from a fresh ambush, or come from behind, giving no warning. He hardly hoped to get back without having to fight again.

On the heights the air was rarefied and cool. Out among the trees, the wind nearly always blew. Below, in the valley bottom from which they had climbed, where Queasy Creek took its uneasy way, there would be a breathless hush; the air would be humid, flies a sticky torment.

The hush, the heat and the flies were signs of a storm. In addition, other signs were visible—clouds in the northwest were beginning to pile at the rim of the mountains until they seemed in danger of toppling like a mighty avalanche. They were rolling, tumbling, turning from white to a near-black, evil hues like licking flames running through and over. A lightning storm at those heights could be as evil as they looked.

Now the road was leading back down. The sensation was something like sliding down a corkscrew, since some of the grades had been built, not by engineering calculation, but by the simpler expedient of digging wherever there was room for a set of wheels to cling. The breeze from the heights was gone, and the heat made itself felt. Abruptly they were among trees again, these more massive though no taller, and the light dimmed.

A rifle bullet whined like a hungry mosquito, the sharp crash of the gun sounding an instant later. The sound came from behind, back half a mile. At that range it had been dangerously good shooting.

There was a side valley, narrow and deep, and the gunman had come out from there. He did not ride alone, for a quick look showed half a dozen others flogging their horses in an effort to overtake the stage.

This was what Locke had feared. The one outlaw, not handicapped by any need to follow the road, knowing where it wound, had taken a short cut. They had hoped to get through the canyon ahead of him; that hadn't worked, but it had been close.

There was not much likelihood of running into anyone who might help until he got closer to town. This would be settled, one way or the other, long before. Off ahead was the waterfall; the brawling waters of the creek were close beside the road.

Some of the horsemen were making a race of it, but a couple chose another method. Halting on a high point, they were depending on lead to bridge the gap. The stage and six horses made a good target, and the riflemen were shooting down-slope.

The wisdom of their course was demonstrated as the off-leader squealed, then floundered in the traces, badly hit. It kept going for a few steps, partially held up by its mate, then fell, dragged the others to a ragged stop. Luck saved the stage from overturning in the sudden confusion, as it must have done a scant fifty feet back, where the pitch had been sharp.

But if this was luck, it was badly mixed. Having stopped him, the outlaws would not be long in catching up. So confident were they of having full control of the situation, the gunmen were coming on. Like their companions, they were temporarily hidden by bends and dips in the road. But that was only an illusion of safety.

Locke jumped down, intending to cut loose the dead horse and go on with the remaining five. It would be a hopeless race, but to try and stand the outlaws off was still more unthinkable.

He hesitated, studying the troubled waters of Queasy Creek, so conveniently at hand. Here the side stream which came from the waterfall, recovered from its rude tumble, had just gathered itself together. Charging forward after its mishap, it spilled its unsullied ride into Queasy, so that for a short distance half the creek ran clear, the yellow refuse from the gold camp pushed to the side.

He might take a horse and ride on, leaving the spoils to the victors. If the gold were left for them, they would probably be willing to let him go for a while.

But there was a stubborn streak in Locke, and here was a possible chance. His glance ranged back to the creek; then he jerked open the lid of the boot and tugged at the box under it.

Not far from the creek bank stood a hidden boulder, a stone set solidly in the stream's path. It was a monster which had refused to budge despite all that the water could do. The creek shoved against it persistently, making a swirl which showed below in angry froth. Here, years before, when all the water had been crystal-clear, Locke had pulled more than one big trout from behind the barrier of the boulder.

Carrying the box, he hurried toward it. If weight was any indication, the gold was there. He staggered into the stream, and the current struck with a rush, almost upsetting him. Only the added weight enabled him to keep his footing. Reaching the boulder, he lowered the box behind its shelter. The gold inside would hold it in place, and the water would not harm the contents.

Locke scrambled back, cut the dead horse loose and climbed back to the box. The outlaws must be close, though they were still hidden from sight. Queasy's waters hid the box; since the stage was going on, the riders would assume that the gold was still in it. Once they found out their mistake, they might figure that he had cached it near where the horse had died.

But by then, with luck, darkness would make a search of the creek impossible. In the morning, if he was still alive, Locke intended to return.

The creek was left brawling by itself as the road wound and twisted, returning to the valley lands south of Highpoint. Here were scattered clumps of trees, cottonwood and pine and box elder, even occasional aspen, but never enough for adequate shelter. The outlaws were coming into sight behind.

Driving five horses was harder than steering six. The lone leader had a tendency to swing too far to the side. Locke had considered cutting it loose but had decided against it. Shifting the lead reins would waste precious moments.

All the cayuses were nervous, strung to a high tension, running like antelope. Even so, the pursuers had the advantage, and they were again starting to make Locke a target.

A wild yell rose above the clatter of hoofs and rasp of wheels. They were gaining, strung out along the road. Some rode masked, but others had not bothered to hide their faces.

Shifting the reins to one hand, Locke reached for one of his own guns. The odds were as long as the range for a six-gun as opposed to rifles—Thunder let loose overhead with a crash which sent lightning streaming through. As though it had torn a hole in the clouds, rain began to spill in a solid blanket which shut away sight of those who came behind. The valley had narrowed. At its edge, a solid heavy wall of rain pushed above the rim, seemed to hang poised, then advanced. Sight of it sent terror through the horses; they tried to stop, to turn.

The nameless dismay which had taken possession of them also possessed Locke. He had seen many bad storms, had been out in more than one, but none had been comparable to this gray column of water, split and shaken by lightning as it advanced. About this storm there was a primeval force, descended out of the ages when chaos had ruled the earth.

All at once it closed over them, wet and smothering. It might have been a lake dropped on them. This was a cloudburst, in the sense which old-timers used the term.

The horses stopped, dazed and uncertain, no longer trying to run. Above the marching beat of the storm another sound began, a mounting rumble to rival the thunder. It was the death agony of trees being uprooted or snapped off, of landslides tumbling down the slopes and spilling across the valley as the torrent of water sought escape.

Tons of water were falling all around, too fast for the thirsty ground to drink. Rivulets were streams even as they began, and in a matter of seconds the horses were splashing fetlock-deep. There was no longer any sign of their pursuers. Locke tried to hold the team steady. An untimely darkness shrouded the land, and it would be better to wait, for the hazards of the murk were beyond guessing .

What had been dry ground minutes before was a lake, and to judge by the wild turmoil it was demon-haunted. The lake was taking on motion, becoming a river. They would have to risk the hazard of blind travel, for the only safety was to reach higher ground. As the horses splashed ahead, they snorted and tried desperately to turn, tangling themselves in the traces.

It was impossible to see far, but Locke glimpsed what the horses had sensed before it hit—a wall of water plunging out from a side coulee. Then it engulfed them.

The stage teetered precariously, then went over like a drunken man trying owlishly to keep balanced. Debris poured from the coulee along with the current—dirt and trees and rocks, swept relentlessly; boulders tossed like marbles.

In the water, Locke was one added bit of helpless flotsam. Buffeted, half-drowned, he was swept against a tree which still stood defiantly. He clutched a branch which normally would have been well out of reach, was almost torn loose, then clung and climbed to an uneasy perch.