Where the Long Grass Blows (1976) (7 page)

A moment only he hesitated, then with many an upward glance at the poorly balanced chunks of rock, many of them weighing tons, he followed the trail of the elk into the cleft.

He felt his heart pounding. Even the Appaloosa was wary, taking the trail with great care as they went down, the horse almost on his haunches. For a half mile or more the trail wound steadily downward, and he was soon well below the level of the surrounding country. He rode on, however, despite the gathering darkness, already pitch-black in the closest parts of the cleft. Suddenly the trail opened out and he drew up with a startled gasp.

Before him lay a great circular valley, an enormous valley for such a situation, surrounded by towering black cliffs which in many places shelved out over the edge. The bottom was almost level and covered with rich green grass. There were a few scattered clumps of trees and from somewhere the sound of running water.

He walked his horse out into the meadow, looking up and around. The valley lay far below the rims of the cliffs, and the unending sameness of the view from above safely concealed its existence. It was, without doubt, an ancient volcanic crater, perhaps the very one from which all the lava had flowed. Some such craters were filled with lakes, but this was simply meadow. And the grass was dotted with cattle, most of them in excellent shape. There were also some horses, descendants of those left by Jim Burge.

Despite the growing darkness, he pushed on, wondering at the towering walls, the green grass and the slim white trunks of the aspens. The cattle gazed at him curiously, seemingly unafraid.

In a small glade among the aspens, he drew up and stepped down. Stripping the gear from the Appaloosa, he made camp. This would end what supplies he had brought along, and tomorrow he must start back. Yet this would be a place to start such a cache of supplies as Scott had advised.

Night brought coolness to the valley. He built a fire and made coffee, talking to Rio meanwhile.

Then he became aware of movement. Looking up he saw himself surrounded, but well back at the edge of the light, by a dozen cows and a bull. They were staring at the fire and at him with amazed bovine eyes. Apparently they had never seen a man before, and more than likely this was their first fire.

From all appearances, the crater had been a large one, several miles across and carpeted with rich grass. Twice during the night he heard the cry of a cougar, and once the howl of a wolf.

He gathered wood from under the trees and made a little stack close by the fire. There were many fallen branches, toppled trees, and bits of bark, fuel enough to keep a fire going for the rest of his life.

The water was excellent, and there was game.

Literally, a man could live here forever ... and if that passage should be blocked, he might have to.

The thought worried him. He walked out away from the fire, the cattle moving back as he neared them, and looked around at what he could see of There was no break that he could see, and it was very likely there was none. A man caught in the bottom of this crater would have to spend his life here unless he was a good enough rock-climber to find a way up the cliffs.

At this altitude there would be snow, and during most of the winter a man would be snowed in.

He walked back to his camp feeling distinctly uneasy.

He had no desire to be trapped, even in such a beautiful place as this.

With daylight, he was in the saddle once more.

But by day the crater seemed smaller than it had the previous night. There were several smaller craters that broke into this one, and while riding about, scouting the area and making a tentative count of the cattle, he saw several ice caves. These were caused, no doubt, by the mass cooling so unevenly that when the surface had become cold and hard the material below was still molten. As the fluid drained away, the caves were formed under the solid crust Because lava is a poor heat conductor, the cold air of the caves was protected. Ice formed there, no matter how warm it might be on the surface, and here and there pools of water had gathered on the floors. And these had been used as watering places by wild horses, deer, elk, and bighorn sheep.

When at last he started back toward the cleft through which he had gained entrance to the crater, he was sure there were four or five hundred head of cattle in the bottom, too many for the area now.

Probably there had been an unusual increase due to natural factors.

Yet when he reached the place where he believed the cleft to be, it was not there. For a moment he sat his horse, studying the cliff, and several minutes later he thought he had it. But it was only when he found his own tracks that he was able to locate the cleft.

The landmarks he had chosen at night had proved useless by day.

He started into the cleft, and for part of the distance it proved a scramble for Rio. Yet from time to time, Canavan drew up to let the Appaloosa catch his wind. Glancing up at the overhanging rocks, he made a mental note that someday he would climb up there and see just how secure they were.

It was dusk of another day before he cantered into the main street of Soledad and rode up to the livery stable. A Mexican came to the door, glanced at the brand on his horse and then at him.

"Do you ride for Senor Pogue or Senor Reynolds?" he asked, warily.

"Only for myself," Canavan replied. "What's the matter? The town seems too quiet."

"Si, Senor. There has been a keeling. Roily Burt of the CR was in a shooting with two hands from the Box N. One was killed, one wounded, and Burt, I think, was wounded also. He is gone."

"Left the country?"

"Who knows? He was wounded, they say, and I am sorry for that, for he was a good man, Senor Burt." The Mexican lighted a smoke and said reflectively, "Perhaps he was no longer wanted on the CR, either."

"Why do you say that?" Canavan asked quickly.

There had been trouble, much trouble with Senor Berdue. Senor Burt told me himself."

Berdue had trouble with Burt, yet Burt was attacked by two Box n hands? That did not seem to tie in, yet why not? Maybe that was one of the results of the conference at Thousand Springs. In any event, this would start hostilities again.

Roily Burt was a good man, the Mexican said, and if the Mexican thought so the chances were he was right. This was an area where Mexicans were not always treated well, which hinted that Burt was a friendly man, not apt to take advantage.

He was also good with a gun. Facing two men he killed one and put lead into the other. Not bad ... not bad at all.

Roily Burt might be a man he could use.

Chapter
VII

Leaving Rio to be cared for, Canavan returned to his room in the Cattlemen's Hotel. Kinney was not in the lobby when he entered, and he found no one on the stairs. He realized how precarious was his own position. Although the house he was building seemed reasonably safe from discovery, there was every chance someone might stumble on the land he had plowed back in the trees. What he had done was not much, but enough to show that somebody was working on the place.

Uneasily, he studied the situation while he changed clothes, bathed and shaved. So far, everything was proceeding according to plan ... and almost too well. He had his water rights nailed down.

He had found the cattle. In the crater and on the mesa he had two bases of action that were reasonably safe from discovery, yet the situation was due to blow wide open at any moment Berdue seemed to be playing a deep game, and it might be with the connivance of his uncle, but Canavan found himself doubting it. Perhaps he had the same idea Canavan had, that from the range war would come a new situation where Berdue or someone like him would be in command.

Berdue's part puzzled Canavan, but at least he knew by sight the men Berdue met at the Springs, and he would be able to keep an eye on them. Of course, there were some strangers at the W, and he wanted to have a look at them. In fact, a visit to the W seemed much in order.

A dozen or more people were eating in the Cattleman's Cafe when he entered. He stopped, surveying the various groups with care. He had no desire to run into Berdue or Reynolds unaware, for Berdue would not and Reynolds dared not ignore him. He had stepped into the scene in Soledad in no uncertain terms.

Suddenly, at a small table alone, he spotted Dixie Venable. On impulse he walked over, spurs jingling.

She glanced up, momentarily surprised.

"Oh? It's you again. I thought you had left town!"

"After seeing you? How could I?" He indicated the chair opposite her. "May I sit down?"

"Surely." She looked at him thoughtfully. "You know, Mr. Canavan, you're not an unhandsome sort of man, but I've got a feeling you're pretty much of a savage."

"I live in a country that is savage," he replied simply. "No one has ever discovered how to tame a wild land filled with untamed people, both white and red, without some savagery. This is a hard, hard land, and a lovely land, too. But it does not want the weak and the submissive. The land demands the best one can give it, and will settle for nothing less.

"Oddly enough, I feel the land demands honor, too. That may not seem to fit with savagery, but as a matter of fact, it does. The wrong kind of man may seem to win for a time, but never for long. ... The wild country has too many ways of tricking man because of the fatal defects in his character."

"I had no idea you were a moralist," she said ironically.

He shrugged a shoulder. "Call it what you will.

I'm not a gospel shouter, just a man who has lived around and watched his fellow man. You find a man who is heedless of others and it will often carry over into other things. And the wild country, the desert and the mountains, leaves one very little margin for survival.

"You ride down a corridor, and as long as you stay within the limits, you are safe. But if you get out of line you're in trouble.

"If a man crosses a mountain or a desert, he is well advised to stay on the beaten trail. ... The trail is there because people have found it the right way to go, and if you take another route you may have to come back, or find yourself without water and with no way to get back.

"It is much the same with other things. Because a custom is old is no reason for junking it. ...

Men have found it the best way to go, and to deviate too far is to ask for trouble."

"How are you progressing with your invasion?" she asked. "Are you like Alexander, looking for new worlds to conquer? Or have you decided to stay and work on this one?"

"I'll stay." He looked at her and smiled.

"There's something about the atmosphere that makes me want to stay."

"You wear a gun. Can you use it?"

"If need be. I'd prefer not to. But I've worn it since I was a youngster, riding range. I'd feel undressed without it."

"From what I hear, you made Sydney Berdue very uncomfortable without it. You're an unusual man, Mr. Canavan. Sometimes you sound like any cowhand, and sometimes you come up with unexpected ideas and attitudes."

"Think nothing of it. When I was in Julesburg, the town drunk could quote Shakespeare by the hour.

He'd been a professor at some eastern university until he got to hitting the bottle too hard. I punched cows on the range in Texas with the brother of an English lord."

"Are you suggesting you might be a duke in disguise?"

"Me? I'm just about what I seem. I'm a cowhand and a drifter. I spent a winter once snowed up in the mountains with two others just like me. We had four books, and by spring each of us knew them by heart, and we'd argued every point in them."

He changed the subject. "I hear there was a shooting in town?"

"Yes, and I am afraid it has started something nobody can stop."

"What sort of man was this Roily Burt?"

"One of the best. You'd like him, and I did ... I do. Hard as nails, loyal to a fault, but no youngster. He must be forty or better, but he says what he thinks and he thinks a good deal"

Canavan sipped his coffee and then said, casually, "Saw one of your hands in town the other day. ...

At least he was riding a Box n horse, and I understand that's one of your brands. A tall, slope-shouldered man wearing a checked shirt. You know the one I mean?"

She looked straight at him, her eyes cool and direct.

He had an uncomfortable feeling that she knew a lot more than he suspected. Of course, this was the man she had seen meet with Berdue at Thousand Springs. Probably she had overheard their conversation.

"Of course. That would be Kerb Dab. He rides for us. Why are you interested?"

"Wondering about him. I'm trying to get folks placed around here."

"There are a lot of them trying to get you placed, too."

He laughed. "Are you one of them?"

"Yes, I believe I am. Remember, I overheard your conversation with your horse, and I am still wondering where you plan to be top-dog, as you phrased it"

"You shouldn't have heard it, and I am sorry you did. But I back down on none of it. I know how Reynolds got his ranch, and how Pogue got his. And neither has any moral or other claim beyond possession.