Brionne (1968) Page 8

  "Keep your eyes open, Mat," he said to his son. "You might hear or see something I might miss. We are riding into trouble."

  "What shall I do?"

  "Watch, and learn. At your age that is all there is to do. Don't be frightened. Above all, keep out of the way. Remember who those men probably are ... don't trust them--not for a minute."

  "What about Miranda Loften and Mr. Mowry?"

  "I think they are both good people, Mat, but we do not know them well yet. Don't trust anybody too much too soon." He paused. "We are all human, and being human we can all make mistakes. There's a silver mine up there; and when there is wealth to be had, even people who know better sometimes become too greedy."

  "Do they think that way about you?"

  Brionne smiled. "If they don't, they should. If they knew me better they would know I am to be trusted. I never wanted wealth that much, but they do not know that. There's only one thing I want now ... I want to see you grow up to be a fine man. I am a little afraid that anyone who tried to hurt you might run into quite a bit of trouble with me ... Now let's move on, and we must be quiet."

  The peaks began to point shadows at them. They were riding northeast now and some of the ridges were already behind them. They dipped down into the forest again, and their horses walked on needles, making no sound; there was only the creak of the saddles.

  Again and again Brionne drew up and paused; then suddenly he veered sharply into the trees. A lake was before them, and on the shores of the lake was a small fire.

  He studied the scene through his glasses. It was Dutton Mowry and Miranda Loften who were beside the fire. It was burning quite brightly, with no shelter of any kind around. Brionne was disturbed by this. The fire was too conspicuous. It was sure to attract attention.

  He started his horse, and Mat followed. They took a route that kept them well back under the trees, and went slowly in a semicircle that skirted the fire and more or less followed the lake shore. Once, because of an arm of the lake, they had to ride deep into the forest.

  When they reached a place where the canyon of Rock Creek was on their right, a ridge of the mountain on their left, Brionne drew rein. "We'll wait for them here, Mat," he said.

  "Who?"

  "Mowry and your friend. They'll be coming along in a very short time, unless I miss my guess."

  They waited as the air grew colder. The wind came down from the higher peaks to the north. Several times something stirred down in the canyon. Whatever it was made the horses restless. "Mountain lion," Brionne whispered to Mat, "or maybe a bear."

  They heard the other faint sound before they realized they were hearing it. And then it was a gentle but definite sound that brought them sharply to awareness--the soft footfalls of walking horses.

  As they came nearer, Brionne began to sing softly, "We're tenting tonight on the old campground, give us a song to cheer

  ..."

  The sounds ceased.

  "... our weary hearts, a song of home, and friends we ..."

  "A fella could get himself shot thataway." Mowry spoke in a low, conversational tone. "He surely could."

  James Brionne rode out into the open. "I was waiting for you," he said, "and I thought you should have some warning before I came riding out on the trail."

  "How'd you know we were comin'?"

  "We saw your fire, so we figured you'd be along in a little while."

  "But how did you know it was us?" Miranda questioned. "Mr. Mowry was so sure we'd fool them--those men following us."

  "I think you have. They don't know Mowry here, and that's just the sort of fire a romantic girl might build. By now, they're probably safely bedded down and waiting for light."

  "Romantic?" Her voice raised a little. "Why do you say I am romantic?"

  Brionne smiled into the darkness. "Put it down to too much reading of Sir Walter Scott."

  "We'd best move on," Mowry said dryly. "This here ain't just the place for no tea-party talk."

  They rode on, with Mowry leading. Brionne asked no questions, and made no comment. Obviously the girl was either so sure of herself that she could go on in the dark, or more likely the landmarks she was going by were so obvious they could not be missed.

  He dropped back until Mat was ahead of him. He knew the boy was tired, and he wanted him where he could see him--as much as anybody could be seen in such a place on such a night.

  If Brionne's memory served him right, Deadhorse Pass was somewhere ahead of them, or to the east. Were they going to cross over the pass? Or was the mine on this side? If so, they were getting close.

  Tomorrow... tomorrow all hell might break loose.

  Chapter 10

  Cotton Allard drew up and waited in the small clearing. As Hoffman, Peabody, Tuley, and the others closed around him, he indicated the trail. "They got together," he said. "Brionne, the girl and whoever's with her."

  "The boy, too?"

  "Of course, the boy. You figger he'd leave him somewheres on the mountain?" Cotton stared up at the peaks, not far distant now. "I never heard of no mines up this high."

  He lit the stub of a cigar. "We got 'em. They ain't got a chance." He turned to a small wiry man with a patchy beard. "Cricket, you think they'll cross over?"

  "I doubt it. This here leads to Deadhorse Pass, though." He stared at the peaks, then spat into the damp earth. "That girl surely knows somethin', Cot. She surely does. Now, you take the trail she's been layin' out--an' we've seen from the tracks that more'n half the time she's been the guide--she couldn't have found that trail without she had some knowledge aforehand."

  "You think there really is a mine?"

  "Well, she ain't just goin' for a ride. That Brennan must've told her somethin'. Or maybe he give her a map. Anyway you look at it, she's got to know somethin'. Why, long as I been in this country I couldn't have done better myself. She ain't missed a trick."

  "What do we do now, Cotton?" Tuley asked.

  Cotton Allard rolled the stub of the cigar in his teeth. "Why, we ride up there. We kill Brionne an' that drifter she's got wranglin' stock for her, and then we make her talk."

  "What about the kid?"

  Cotton shrugged. "Womenfolks are soft on kids. If she don't want to talk, maybe what we do to the kid will make her feel like it."

  "I never killed a kid," Hoffman muttered. "I don't like it."

  Cotton turned his cold eyes on Hoffman and stared at him until the man shifted in his saddle and the sweat broke out on his forehead.

  "You been handy," Cotton said, speaking around his cigar. "You been mighty useful, knowin' about trains an' such; an' when the gold shipments start from Californy you'll be handy again. Don't you make us forget that, Hoff. I tell you what you do. When we start to work on the kid, you just go for a walk in the woods. But," he added, his icy look fixed on Hoffman, "I wouldn't go too far. We wouldn't want to figure you runnin' away now, would we?"

  They started on through the forest. The trail was difficult to follow, but the problem was not one to worry about, for there was simply no place for their quarry to go but straight ahead.

  The trees around them were spruce and alpine fir. Occasionally, when they rode out on some knoll, over the tops of the trees they could see the peaks and ridges above timberline. White streaks of snow showed on the bare rock, while above on the peaks themselves were the remnants of ancient glaciers, the ice and snow of many winters. Here and there a stunted fir or a lightning-struck lone tree would indicate an effort by the forest to advance beyond the limit set for it, an attempt to encroach upon the domain of the lichen and the moss.

  "We'll come up with them before they get to the pass," Cricket said. "It ain't far now."

  Hoffman was riding last. He was frightened. He had come from the same part of Missouri as the Allards, had known them for years, and when they found he had worked for the railroad they enlisted his help.

  At first they had stolen horses belonging to the stage line. They had raided a couple of railroad cars where Hof
fman had told them there would be rifles, ammunition, food, and liquor. Once he had been able to indicate where there would be a chest of silver dollars to be used in paying off some Indians.

  He had told them, too, that there would be shipments of gold from the California mines, and that he could find out when the shipments were to be moved. He had used his friendship with the conductor, as well as a small cash payment, to get their horses into the baggage car, but he had bargained for nothing like this.

  Killing Brionne would create a stir, but they could survive that if it happened in some out-of-the-way place. Killing a young boy and a woman ... well, that was something else again, and he did not like it. However, he was afraid of Cotton Allard.

  "We'd better pull up," Cricket suggested suddenly. "We got to ride into the open up yonder, and I'd say we'd best look it over."

  "You sit tight," Cotton ordered. "I'll do the lookin'."

  James Brionne took a cigar from an inside pocket, bit off the end, and lighted it, and then squinting his eyes against the smoke, he looked past the match toward the way they had come. As the day had gone on he had become somber and still. Again and again he delayed to study their trail, and he felt growing within him an old fierceness, a feeling he had had only once or twice since the end of the war.

  He had felt it on that awful night when he had come to find his house in flames, flames already dying down as day was coming. He had felt it during those months of search when he had thought of nothing but finding the men responsible.

  Now he knew they were behind him. They were back there, coming along his trail.

  Dutton Mowry had told him what he had suspected, and now once more that deep and terrible rage, never quite extinguished, was mounting within him. There was in him something of the old Viking berserker, who threw all caution to the winds and charged, blade in hand, thinking only to cut down his enemy.

  Devine had known that quality was in him, and feared for him. So had Grant.

  They were down there somewhere now, those men who had attacked his home, and who were responsible for his wife's death. The men who had sent his son into hiding, and who now were trailing them.

  They would find him. He had already decided on that. He would find the right place somewhere farther on, and from that point he would go no further. If they wanted him, they were going to find him.

  He drew slowly on the cigar. It would not be long now ... perhaps sometime later today, or the following morning.

  But he wanted them to know what was to come. He wanted no doubt about that.

  Beside the trail was a flat gray slab of rock. Dismounting, he hunted around over the remains of one of the old, lightning-struck trees to find a few pieces of charcoal. When he had them he stooped over the flat rock.

  After a few moments he mounted and rode on.

  The men heard Cotton Allard swearing before they came up to him, and when they drew alongside they saw the slab of rock.

  It was propped up, squarely in the center of the trail, and on it were the words: I shall be waiting for you.

  Tuley stared at it uneasily. "What d'you suppose he means by that?"

  "Well," Hoffman said, "he knows we're coming."

  "I don't like it, Cot," Peabody said. "I don't like it none a-tall."

  Cotton looked at the words written on the rock, then looked ahead at the trail. He would not have said it aloud, but he did not like it either. There was no question of surprise now. They would be ready for a fight. He scanned the rugged slopes, the jutting crags, the tumbled talus, and the slabs of fallen rock. They might be anywhere up there ... waiting.

  "What's it mean?" Tuley said again. "Where'll he be waiting? And what's he waitin' for?"

  "Got to hand it to him," Peabody declared. "He sure don't sound like he's scared none."

  "There's nothin' up there but two men, a girl, an' a kid," Cotton stated matter-of-factly. "An' they ain't goin' much further."

  "That's a mighty tough man up there," Hoffman said. "He was an Indian fighter before the war, they say."

  "You scared?" Peabody sneered at him. "He won't have no more chance than a treed 'coon."

  Cotton looked again at the sign. "All right," he said. "Let's go get him!"

  They started on, holding to what cover the trail offered. They rode with caution now, their seeking eyes uneasy upon the slope. It was one thing to be following a group they expected to ambush or capture when the time was right; quite another to have one or more of that group lying up there in the rocks watching for them with a rifle.

  Hoffman's horse was lagging. Hoffman had no stomach for this. He had never fancied himself a fighting man, although he had, like most western men, had a few brushes with Indians. There was nothing about his memory of James Brionne that gave him any feeling of security.

  They were strung out single file. They could see what seemed to be a zigzag trail toward the top of the pass. The sign bothered Cotton. Why would a man do a thing like that? Why take time to stop and write that notice? It made no kind of sense.

  The thought nagged at him and worried him. He himself would never have done such a thing, and it disturbed him that Brionne had ... there must be something behind it.

  He glanced up at the cliffs. There were plenty of places up there where a man might hide, and a good man with a rifle would be hard to get at.

  But no shot came. The trail grew steeper, and somewhat more narrow. Now they could not see what was above them, but in front of them the trail dropped steeply as they dipped into a hollow. Off to their right the slope fell away, too abruptly for a man to negotiate on a horse.

  Only two miles further along, Miranda Loften had pulled up short. The landmarks given her by Rody Brennan, who had them from Ed Shaw, had failed her for the first time.

  Until now they had been easy to find ... obvious in a country of many lakes, many peaks, many spots that could be used to indicate a route. But the canyons that cut through the plateau had restricted the possible ways they could go.

  Mowry came up beside her while James Brionne turned his horse to watch down the mountain behind them. From where they sat their view covered a wide stretch of open country, but on the gray, white streaked slope below, clear to the edge of the trees, nothing moved. Of course, there were places along the trail that were hidden from view. He considered the situation, and liked none of it.

  This delay would allow the Allards to gain ground, and he was not yet ready to make a stand. First, he wanted to get Miranda and Mat into a safe place where they would be out of range of any gunfire.

  The mine had to be close by, if there was a mine. He was quite sure that, given time, he could find it. In the first place, Shaw's directions had been explicit. Without them, it was unlikely the mine could be found. And it would be like Shaw to be explicit in somehow marking the mine.

  Brionne suddenly thought he saw, far below on the slope, something stir, then immediately vanish.

  "Major," Mowry said just then, "Miss Loften's run out of trail. We got to have time to look around."

  "There's a lake just below the pass," Miranda said, "a small lake with some rock walls on its shore line. There are springs flowing down one of those walls. The springs make quite a bit of mist, falling as they do. There's a place in there to camp."

  They moved on, Mowry in the lead, and Miranda fell back near Mat. The girl certainly could ride, Mowry thought, and she had not complained even once at what had been a rough, grinding trip.

  Brionne let them ride ahead, then noticed something on the rock wall alongside the trail that set him smiling. A fallen log had wedged itself so that it lay crossways, held in place only by a small rock. Behind and above the log was a great pile of debris of broken rock and slabs, a pile amounting to several tons. Working with care, Brionne took a dead limb from one of the stunted trees and placed it across the trail by the log in such a way that if it was lifted the log would shift and the whole mass would come toppling down. It took only a few minutes, and then he rode on after the oth
ers.

  The dip in the trail had taken them back into the timber, but now the trail began to leave the trees behind. Twice Brionne stopped to prepare possible traps.

  His first one, using the rock slide, could kill a man if he tried to move the tree limb without looking the situation over. It could even kill the whole lot of them. The other "traps" were merely tricks to slow up the pursuit and make the pursuers more wary.

  When they reached the lake they found that it was closed in between two rocky cliffs. The air was damp with mist from the springs, but there was a ready and easy water supply for themselves and their horses.

  At a corner of the rocks Brionne found the perfect hideout, a small glade unapproachable from above and offering only one approach on the level. This space was littered with boulders, too small to afford hiding places, but too big to charge through on horseback. There was a good field of fire, and excellent cover.

  Behind the glade a narrow crack in the rock wall gave access to a sand-floored shelter under the rock wall that could have stabled twenty horses. There was access, too, to the springs by a narrow footpath, and there seemed to be a vague trail up through the rocks toward the pass.

  They saw the remains of old campfires, some where the charcoal was worn smooth by time; but one fire must have burned only a few weeks or at most a couple of months before.

  Stripping the riding saddles and pack saddles from the horses, they turned them out on the sand-floored semicavern and let them find their way to the lake for water. Meanwhile, Brionne moved a few rocks near the opening, building the wall higher, and closing a few gaps.

  He was cool and methodical now. Their trouble was upon them, and there was no avoiding it, nor did he wish to. This was the conclusion he had expected would come, and for which he had hoped.