Valley Thieves (12 page)

Well, if the old man had not known Silver before, he would know him after this!

Then a tall form came around the corner of the building and leaped into a saddle with a fantastic bound. That was Jim Silver. And with the sweep of the whole procession of horses, we plunged away.

Two more figures came flickering around the corner of the house. They were shooting as they ran. One of our horses reared and squealed. I saw Silver shoot, and one of the shadowy forms spilled along the ground.

He fired again. The second went staggering.

The door of the house opened behind us, letting out a rush of light and of voices, but now we were tearing at full speed through the dark shelter of the trees.

REVOLVERS are bad business inside a house or at short range, but there's nothing so infernally convincing as the ringing explosion of a rifle at a little distance, and the way the rifle bullets went cracking through the branches kept me flattened along the neck of the mustang.

We came out into the open, beyond the trees. The long., dry grass swished like water around the legs of the horses, and the beat of the hoofs was so muffled that far away we could hear the squealing of half-wild bronchos as the Carys caught up fresh mounts and threw saddles on them.

We had a good lead, but not a secure one, for we knew that the Carys would get out of their horses all that savage Indians could get. That was what they were—Indians. And they had the blood thirst high in their throats.

Beyond the trees, I saw that a moon was rising, the big yellow circle just detaching itself from the hills. We were aimed right at it, and I remember that the light seemed to make a path over the flat of the ground, like a light's path on water. It was all very beautiful, but when that same moon was a little higher, it would furnish excellent light for the rifles of the Cary clan.

Silver swung over toward me.

"Avon," he said, "you know this country better than any of the rest of us, it seems. What's the best way out?"

"The way we came in," said I.

"We can't go that way. It takes us right back past the Cary house."

That was true. I looked rather wildly around me. It upset me to have to lead the way, even as a guide, because such men as Taxi and Silver ought to be ruling all of our movements. Besides, I really knew very little about the valley, except that two or three times, on long hunting expeditions, I had come to the verge of the cliffs and looked over that forbidden land. The high wall of stone was broken in only a few places, where creeks, large or small, had eaten through the barrier, but all of the creeks had not cut out valleys that were passable; some of the waters had dropped down through box canyons that even a mountain sheep could not wander through.

I looked along a glint of water ahead of us and saw by glimpses of brightness that it wound away toward a black, yawning mouth in the wall of the cliffs. Certainly that opened a good promise, and I pointed it out.

"That ought to be the next best way," I called to Silver.

He nodded in answer and turned his horse in that direction. We made time as fast as we could hoof it along, because the great object, of course, was to get out of sight before the Cary horsemen swarmed out on our trail; as I forced my broncho into a racing gallop, I kept looking back over my shoulder. The plain behind me was dark, because I was looking away from the moon, and the trees that screened the Cary house were like big storm clouds. Riders out of those clouds would be like lightning flashes to me, no matter how dimly they appeared.

But we pulled up to the mouth of the canyon without seeing a single pursuer. It was only as I kicked my mustang through the gap that it seemed to me something came out from the trees. It was like seeing shadows of shadows, but I knew it was real. That flick of a glimpse, that mere hint, was composed of riders on running horses. I could hope, however, that they hadn't seen us, for the shadows of the rocks fell down on us, thrown by the rising moon.

In the meantime, we poured through that canyon, and rounding a sharp elbow bend, we came smash on the end of our way. There was a big cliff of hard stone —granite, perhaps. It was glistening white with the moon, above and ink-black with shadow below, and the little wan brightness of the falling water streaked a glimmer of reflected moonshine down through the shadow. It was a whale of a cliff. It was a good hundred feet high, and instead of offering foothold, here and there, it actually swayed back from the top toward the base. A lizard would have grown dizzy looking at the thing, to say nothing of trying to climb it. And like measuring sticks to show up the height of the stone, there were some tall, slender trees, straight-shafted and arrow-tipped, that stood up from the floor of the valley.

We stopped our horses and looked around us. We could hear the panting of the horses, the saddle leather creaking a good deal as the mustangs heaved their sides. And I could hear the unspoken words of the men who were condemning me for pointing out a blank trail.

Then we swung around and hurried back to the mouth of the shallow little box canyon.

It was a whole lot too late to do anything in that direction, for the moon was brightening all this while and shaking silver dust over the grass of the plain. And in the middle of the plain came the men of the Cary clan.

They looked more terrible to me than wild Indians. Wild as Indians they were, and more cruel, and more formidable in wits. And the numbers of them! There was a cluster of twelve or fifteen at the head of the search, and others kept ripping out of the woods with whoops. Even at that distance, I could hear the thin yells walking across the air of the night. A fine sight, a stirring picture—to be looked at in a book!

I glanced aside at Jim Silver, sitting very still on his' horse, with a hand on his hip. The moon fell full on his face, so that I could see the tranquillity of it, and I knew the meaning of the phrase "ready to die." He was ready. He must always have been ready. Perhaps that was why he had rubbed shoulders with death so many times and escaped. But most of the time he had had with him a horse that nothing could match, or that wise devil of a Frosty. Now he was stripped of his tools—and Clonmel had stripped him.

It would not have been strange, when he saw how we were bottled up, when he saw that we could not venture out of our hole in the ground without being rushed by the hunters, if he had turned and cursed Clonmel heartily. Instead, I saw him put out his hand casually and drop it on the huge shoulder of that tattered figure. I heard Clonmel say in a choking voice: "Jim—" And Silver answered gently: "Hush, old son!"

There was something between the pair of them, something that would make Silver give more than horse or wolf, or even life, to this young giant.

"They're working the trail with Frosty. They'll soon be here," said Silver, after that.

I had not seen at first, but now I could make it out. I could see the figure of the big lobo on the end of the lariat, straining forward across the plain, and the riders cantering easily after him. They had brought out Frosty, knowing that he would follow the trail of his master with a perfect certainty. A horrible thought, it seemed to me, that the love of the beast for the man should have been used to kill Silver. And that was what they meant. The rest of us didn't count. Not even Taxi, not even the hugeness of Clonmel counted. Jim Silver was the man they wanted. If they got him, Barry Christian would flood their wallets with hard cash. Barry Christian himself, with that invincible enemy removed, would go on to build up for himself a new and greater empire of crime.

I could see one rider far loftier than the others, on a gleaming horse. That was Barry Christian, I had no doubt, on the silken brightness of Parade. And the whole current of fighting men was set directly toward us.

Silver said: "We'd better pull back from this."

Taxi broke out: "We can slip out and ride along the cliffs and, if they see us, we can make a running fight of it."

Silver simply said: "That won't do."

He didn't advance any arguments, and no arguments were needed. Cary rifles would not miss, even by moonlight, and all of us knew it.

Silver dismounted. We all did the same. He told me to take the horses back up the canyon. I did that and tethered them to trees. Then I hurried back.

We all had rifles from saddle holsters of the Cary clan. We had plenty of ammunition. If it came to a matter of siege, we could eat horseflesh and cut down trees to make fires, and there was water flowing through the ravine. But before long the Carys would be on the heights above us, as well as plugging the mouth of the ravine, and they would pick us off at their leisure. It seemed improbable that they would be able to scale the cliffs on either side of the ravine directly, but they could send back a party through the mountains, to come down from the headwaters of the little creek, and get at us in that way. I thought that out as I stood there, and saw the others ready with their guns.

Silver said: "I don't think there's any purpose in murdering them. There's only need to shoot one shot to turn them away from a charge."

"Murder?" broke out Clonmel. "Man, it wouldn't be murder—just plain justice!"

"There's only one Gary out there who deserves killing, probably," said Silver, "and that man is too old to be shot. He's trained the others up to be what we've found them. We might butcher half a dozen of them as they come on—but I won't have it."

I could see the point of it. We couldn't kill enough of them to clear our path; the death of a few would simply make the rest more savagely bent on ending our lives. But more than these practical reasons, Silver would not shed blood without a more bitter necessity than this. I felt a cold sense of awe as I looked at him. There was no one like him. There would never be another cut out of the same metal. His ascendancy over us was so complete that there was no argument about it, whatever.

He was to fire one shot, and I wondered how he would direct it. I saw the sweep of the coming horsemen. We gathered in the thick of the shadow that slanted across the throat of the valley. Silver stood at wait, his rifle ready.

The riders were so close that I could make them all out—Christian riding at the front, and a man I couldn't name beside him. Yes, I
could
name him. It was Pete, who had stood guard and who had been knocked silly by Silver earlier in the night. He was the one who had Frosty on the lariat, holding the rope in one hand, with a loop of the slack around his arm.

I distinctly heard Silver mutter: "I'm sorry!"

Then he brought the butt of the rifle into the hollow of his shoulder and, the instant it settled there, fired. It was as casual a shot as though he had been firing at a stump, but it made Pete's mustang pitch on its nose. Pete himself sailed through the air in a clumsy spread-eagle. He lighted, rolled, actually came to his feet, staggering straight on toward us, though the rest of the cavalcade had split to this side and that, running for cover.

Frosty, in the meantime, had leaped on ahead and had come to the end of the rope. One lunge more untwisted the rope from the arm of Pete. Frosty came to his master's whistle so fast that the rope stood out in the air in a straight line behind him. And Pete, swerving, sprinted for shelter.

Clonmel jerked up his rifle to fire. Silver struck it down again.

"No murder!" he said.

That was the only reason the Carys were able to bottle us up without spending human blood.

NOW that we were safely bottled up—of course the Carys knew that they had us—the yelling of those devils ran chills through me, and fevers, too. I could hear them laughing and shouting. They began to howl filthy insults at us. They were ready to run amuck with the sense of power. They had helpless things to handle now, and they wanted to get at the work of torment.

But after a time, I heard a voice calling out: "Hey, Silver! Hey, Jim Silver!"

Silver answered instantly.

Said the other: "The old man wants to talk to you. Can he come in?"

"Why not?" asked Silver.

"You gotta give your word that nothin' is goin' to happen to him or the gal with him."

"All right. I'll give you my word," said Silver.

"All right, Grandpa. You can go in!" shouted the voice.

It staggered me, that. I mean, for those savages to be willing to take the word of Jim Silver at a time like that! It might be that the old man had not known about Silver the day before, but he certainly had had a chance to learn more about his character in the meantime.

We would not have trusted the Bible oaths of the whole gang, but they were ready to risk their lives if Silver gave his casual word! In a sense, I've always thought that that was the finest tribute that any man could have received.

A little after this, Old Man Cary came into view, riding along with his long legs dangling down on either side of the little mule that carried him. He looked a good deal bigger than the mule. Half a length behind him was Maria on a mustang as pretty as a deer and just as wild. It minced and danced and curvetted in great style, and she sat it out like an old-timer.

When Old Man Cary was well inside the mouth of the valley, he saw us and held up his hand, pushing the flat of it forward, like an Indian.

"How!" said he.

"How are you, Chief?" asked Silver calmly.

The old villain slid down from his mule. He was strong enough in the riding muscles to keep his place in a saddle, but he was not so sure when he stood on the ground again. The girl frisked off the back of her pony, threw its reins, and slipped under the extended, limp arm of her grandfather.

I hardly ever had had a chance to see her except in these attitudes of filial devotion, but I never suspected her of any special love for Old Man Cary. I dare say that her father and her mother were glad to have her near the old devil, because he probably handed out choice presents in the way of lands and opportunities to the couple on account of Maria, but the girl herself simply accepted the job and did it skilfully, calmly, like a doctor. While she supported the arm of her grandfather over her shoulders, her head kept turning, her bright eyes kept glinting at us, one after the other, until the gaze landed on Clonmel. That was enough for her. She ate him up steadily.