"All right," I said.
"Get horses," he said, "and hurry.
We've far to go."
When I started for the door, he hooked my arm with a crutch. "The window," he said. "Our doors will be watched."
The window went up soundlessly, and I eased out into the still night. Stars were out, and somewhere an owl talked in a treetop. Moving on cat feet, I made the corral where my horses were. It taken only minutes to get them out and saddled, the two best of them. Then I led them back in the darkness close to the house.
I managed to get Old Ben through the window, but he helped me some. When I lifted him to the saddle, I was sure surprised. He was light, but there was power in his arms and shoulders and hands ...
I could feel that.
Mounting up, I led off into the night, and then he took over. He could ride, all right. He put his horse westward into the mountains, and I trailed behind, fearful all the time that he might fall off and hurt himself.
The wind was cool on our faces. The black of the mountains loomed above us. We rode steadily westward, and there was no talk between us, although, worried as I was about him, my eyes kept straying his way. But he rode steadily, although with his weakened, crippled legs, I could not guess how he managed it.
These were dark and silent hills. There were cattle here, and horses, but they slept their own sleep and we saw none of them. Once, we saw distant lights ... we slowed our pace and walked our horses carefully through the dust so as not to awaken the sleepers in the village surrounding a ranch. In those years much of the population clustered in such tiny villages gathered about the ranches.
We turned suddenly into the mountains, mounting by a narrow trail only faintly seen. The ground was lighter in shade where it was worn by the passing of men or cattle. As we climbed I fancied I could smell the sea; and suddenly, when we topped out upon a ridge, I knew it for truth. There it lay, broad upon our right, the great ocean of the Pacific.
He drew up then and looked seaward. I could not see his eyes in the darkness, but it seemed to me there was a longing in him, a longing for the deep waters.
It was in me to understand this, for I knew my own bit of longing for the wild places. I am a man not given to cities, nor the crowded walks of men. I like the long winds upon my face, the stirring of miles of grass bending before the wind, the cloud shadows upon the plain, the lure and lift of far hills.
Below us and a little behind us, dark against the moonlit sea, a point thrust into the waters. He swept a hand toward it, and along the shore. "Malibu," he said, "Rancho Malibu."
He glanced at the stars, and pushed on, although the trail was rough. By the feel of it, it was one rarely traveled. We dipped into hollows and emerged from them, and now he seemed to be doing his best to lose me, to prevent me from ever retracing my steps.
Suddenly he turned at right angles and dipped into a gap or pass in the mountains, and when he had gone but a short distance, he drew up.
"Help me down," he said, as I dismounted.
Reaching up, I lifted him from the saddle, and he sagged in my arms, then drew back.
"No crutches," he said. "They'd be no use to me here." Iron came into his voice.
"Wait for me here ... I shall be a while."
He could not walk, but crawled away into the black darkness where no moonlight fell. I lighted a cigar, cupping my hands well to conceal the point of flame, and prepared to wait.
To what strange place had he brought me? And why had he crawled off in the darkness alone?
Once, a long while after he had left me, I heard a stone rattle distantly in the night, and I knew that it fell off into space, for a long time later I heard it strike.
I was thinking that old Ben Mandrin was no fool, and I knew that whatever he did, it was something he wished desperately to do. But he was no man to be either questioned or doubted, so I just stayed there and listened into the night ... listening both for him, and for trouble that might come.
Several times I glanced at the stars to check the time that passed, and they gave me no comfort. It was a far ride back to the ranch for a tired old man, and daylight might find us on the trail.
What then? What if they carried his breakfast to his room and found him not there? Or what if his heart failed, on this ride and he died with me?
Would anyone believe my story?
Restlessly, I tramped up and down, impatient for his return. Was he only a few yards off, listening, perhaps with amusement, to my restless pacing? Or had he gone far away and fallen, injuring himself? But I heard no call for help, and the night was clear and cool.
Finally, I sat down, lighted a fresh cigar with caution, and waited. I thought of what odd turns there are in the life of a man. It was strange that I should be here with this old pirate of whom I had only heard as a boy, and had known now only a matter of hours.
There were no trees here, only the black chapparal. Some of the bushes were almost as tall as a man, but most no more than waist high, yet there were game tunnels beneath them, trails long used by lion or coyote or bobcat. They formed a maze that covered all this chaparral country with hidden trails, to be followed by wild creatures or by a man, if he chose to crawl. Here, atop this ridge, the chaparral was thin, for the ridge was broken by jagged rock outcroppings or by gigantic boulders, bare and time-eroded.
The stars waned. Impatiently, I ground out the stub of my cigar and got to my feet.
The horses, heads up, ears pointed, were looking off into the night, toward the direction in which Ben Mandrin had crawled. Nostrils dilated, they looked along the ridge.
Stepping out away from them, I spoke softly, "Ben?"
No answer came.
It was too dark to see tracks, and although I had risked lighting the cigars, to hold a light while trying to make out tracks seemed too chancy. This was a high ridge, and the country was alive with outlaws. If I started out to search for him, I might miss him in the darkness. I had no idea how far he had gone, nor even if he had persisted in the direction in which he started, for that might have been only to give me a false idea.
My head was aching, for the riding had set that wound on my skull to throbbing. It hadn't amounted to much ... a bullet that cut a furrow in my scalp and skinned away some hair, but it also left a lump there big as a hen's egg.
Waiting had given me time to think, and precious little time I'd had before for pondering. But I still didn't know who had been chasing Dorinda when I first met up with her, or why, although it began to look like she might have wanted to get out of this deal with Old Ben. But why?
What was her stake in all this? And who had got her into x? There must have been something promised to her.
... And where was Nolan Sackett?
Most of all, where was my gold?
Again I looked at the stars. The hour was late, and there was but little time left to us. I got to my feet and walked off into the darkness, listening.
There was no sound.
He was out there alone, and something had gone wrong, I was sure of it now. It wasn't in me to abide longer with that crippled-up old man out there on the rocks and in the dark of night.
So I started out after him.
We were high up on a hog-backed ridge, with the mountains falling away toward the sea on one side and on the other a deep hollow, * what in this country they call a potrero, because usually those hollows are good pastureland. There wasn't much chance of getting lost up here because a man had mighty little room to move around in.
* Where Lake Sherwood now lies, and the valley beyond.
It was the dark hour that comes before daylight, and I worked my way along carefully, straining my eyes to see if he lay on the ground, passed out. A couple of times I called softly, but nobody gave back reply.