"I thought--oh, I don't know what I thought! When I came back here after getting that first piece of meat, that was when grandfather died. I told him about you."
"He died then?"
"He told me to go to you, that you would take me out of here, and that most men were good to women."
"When I saw the grave I thought he'd been dead longer than that."
"I wasn't sure of the date. We lost track of time, up here."
She must have had a rough time of it. I thought of that while I went to work and made some more broth, only this time with chunks of meat in it.
"How did you get into this place?"
"We came up a trail from the north--an ancient trail, very steep, or perhaps it was a game trail."
From the north, again. What I wanted was a way down on the west The way I figured, we couldn't be much more than a mile from Cap right now, but the trouble was that mile was almost straight down.
Ange Kerry was in no shape to leave, and with all the men hunting me that had a figuring to fill me full up with lead, I wasn't planning to go down until I could take Ange along. Suppose I was killed before anybody knew where she was?
Just in case, I told her how things were. "We got us a camp, Cap Rountree and me, down on the Vallecitos, west of here. If something happens to me, you get to him. He'll take you to my folks down to Mora."
Seemed likely that with another few days of rest she might be ready to try coming down off that mountain. Mostly she was starved from eating poorly. I went out and went across the canyon. There I looked back, taking time to study that cliff. A man might climb that slope of talus and work his way to the top of the cliff through the crack that lay behind it. A man on foot might.
Chances were that right down the other side was camp. Studying it out, I decided to have a try at it. Down by the stream I had seen an outcropping of talc, so I broke off a piece and scratched out Back Soon on a slab of rock.
Taking my rifle, I rigged myself a sling from a rawhide strip, and headed for that slope. Climbing the steep talus slope was work, believe me. That rock slid under my feet and every time I took three steps I lost one, but soon I got up to that crack.
Standing there looking up, I was of a mind to quit, though quitting comes hard to me. That crack was like a three-sided chimney, narrow at the bottom, widening toward the top. The slope above the chimney looked like it was just hanging there waiting for a good reason to fall. Yet by holding to the right side a man might make it.
I hung my rifle over my back to have my hands free, and started up that chimney and made it out on the slope. Holding on to catch my breath, I looked down into the canyon.
It made a man catch his breath. I swear, I had no idea I'd climbed so high up. The creek was a thread, the cave mouth looked no bigger than the end of a fingernail, and I was a good two thousand feet above the floor of the valley. My horse, feeding in the meadow where I'd left him on a picket-rope, looked like an ant.
Clinging to the reasonably solid rock along the side of the rock slide, I worked my way to the top, and was wringing wet by the time I got there.
Nothing but sky and cloud above me, and around me bare, smooth granite, with a hollow where there was snow, but nowhere any trees or vegetation. I walked across the top of that ridge, scoured by wind and storm ... the air was fresher than a body could believe, and a light wind was blowing.
In a few minutes I was looking down into the valley of the Vallecitos.
A little way down the forest began, first scattered, stunted trees, then thick stands of timber. Our camp--I could see a thin trail of smoke rising --was down there among them.
From where I stood to the point where camp was, I figured it to be a half-mile, if it was level ground. But the mountain itself was over a mile high, which made the actual distance much greater. Here and there were sheer drops. And there would be no going straight down. One cliff I could see would take a man almost a mile north before he could find a place to get down.
Off where Cap and me had laid out the town site there was a stir of activity. There were several columns of smoke, and it looked like some building going on, but it was too far to make out, even in that clear air.
It was sundown when I got back to the cave, and Ange broke into a smile when I showed up.
"Worried?'
She smiled at me. "No . . . you said you'd come back."
She was looking better already. There was color in her cheeks and she had started to make coffee. Coming back I had killed a big-horn sheep, and we roasted it over the fire, and had us a grand feast. That night we sat talking until the moon came up.
After she went to sleep I sat in the door of the cave and watched the moon chin itself on the mountains, and slowly slide out of sight behind a dark fringe of trees.
At dawn, five days later, we pulled out. We crossed toward that stream that ran down to the north or northeast and followed the old game trail Ange had mentioned. She showed me where they had lost their pack mule with some of their grub, and then she told me that there was a way which would lead down to our camp, a deer and sheep trail off to the south of the canyon.
With Ange riding and me leading the appaloosa among those rocks and thick forests, it was slow going and it took a long time to get to the bottom. I led the horse on through the trees until I reached a point maybe a half-mile from the town site.
There must have been forty men working around over there, with buildings going up, but I could see no sign of Cap. Somehow the set-up didn't look right to me.
I helped Ange down from the horse. "Well rest," I said. "Come dark, we'll go to our camp. That bunch over there look like trouble." I'd no idea of facing up to a difficulty with a sick girl on my hands.
Dark came on slowly. Finally, thinking of Cap, it wasn't in me to wait longer. I helped Ange back into the saddle, and took my Winchester from the scabbard.
It was a short walk across a meadow and into the willows. Nothing stirred except the nighthawks which dipped and swung in the air above us. Somewhere a wolf howled. The sun was down, but it was not yet dark.
We turned south. Wearing my moccasins, I made little sound in the grass, and the appaloosa not much more. There was a smell of smoke in the air, and a gentle drift of wind off the high peaks.
All I could think of was Cap Rountree. If that crowd at the town site were the wrong bunch--and I had a feeling they were--then Cap was bad hurt or killed. And if he was killed I was going up to that town and read them from the Book. I was going to give that bunch gospel.
The first of the three men who came out of the brush ahead of me was Kitch.
"We been waiting for you, Sackett," he said, and he lifted his gun. He thought sure enough he had me.
Trouble was, he hadn't seen that Winchester alongside my leg. I just tilted it with my right hand, grabbed the barrel with my left, and shot from the hip. While he was swinging that gun up, nonchalant and easy, I shot him through the belly. Without moving from my tracks I fired at the second man, and saw him go spinning.
The third one stood there, white-faced and big-eyed, and I told him, "Mister, you unloose that gun belt. If you want to, you just grab that pistol . . . I'm hoping you do."
He dropped his gun belt and backed off a step.
"Now we're going to talk," I said. "What's your name?"
"Ab Warren ... I didn't mean no harm." He hesitated. "Mister, Kitch ain't dead ... can I do for him?"
"He'll get another bullet 'less he lies still," I replied. "You want to help him, you talk. Where's my partner?"
The man shifted his feet. "You better high-tail it. The others'll be down here to see."
"Let 'em come. You going to talk?"
"No, I ain't. By--"
By that time I'd moved in close and I backhanded him across the mouth. It was a fairly careless blow but, like I said, my hands are big and I've worked hard all my life.