Authors: Louis L'amour
It was a sudden move and it saved his life, for as he turned he tripped the trigger on the second trap. The arrow intended for his chest ripped his sleeve and dug deep into the muscle on the end of his shoulder.
He dropped to his knees, ready for a quick shot, sure it had been a direct attack rather than a trap, but after a minute or two there was no sound and his shoulder began to hurt. He put his hand up and it came away wet. He swore bitterly under his breath and got out his bandanna to stop the bleeding. Then he took up his rifle and went into the bowl, concealing himself in some brush.
Overhead the sky was but little lighter than the darkness within the bowl. Somewhere a small animal dislodged a rock and it fell softly into the grass. Water whispered over the stones. Buckdun eased his back against the rock and bit off a hunk of jerky. Methodically, he began to chew.
This could be a death trap. Suppose while he waited for Flint that Flint waited for him ?
When daylight came Buckdun saw a patch of cropped grass, a patch of garden, and a walled-in overhang with no visible entrance. There was no horse, no sign of life. He waited an hour, then another. Sunlight was bright above the rock house but the crack that gave entrance to the bowl was in shadow. With growing impatience, Buckdun waited.
Flint had spent the night in the inner basin close to the horses, and had slept soundly, knowing they would warn him of the approach of any man or animal.
He prepared coffee and a small breakfast, meanwhile scanning the basin pasture with care. When he had eaten he went to the cave and passed through the tunnel. Opening the manger-concealed door, he stepped into the house.
From well back inside he studied the entrance through his field glass. The trap was sprung. The area was only a few square yards but with the glass he could examine it thoroughly and, knowing every inch, he could see it had been entered.
A bee found its way in and droned about the room. In a cottonwood tree a mockingbird ran through his repertoire.
When an hour had passed he decided whoever was there would not make the first move. He went back through the manger and leaned a slab of rock against the inside of the door.
The idea came to him suddenly and he was amused by it. Slipping out of the inner basin, he crossed the lava. Coming down off the malpais, it took him only a few minutes to find Buckdun's horse. Mounting, he started up the trail for Alamitos.
It was midafternoon when he reached Alamitos and tying Buckdun's horse at the rail, he went into the Divide Saloon. Baldwin was at the bar with two strangers, obviously Eastern men. Baldwin glanced at Flint, and then at Buckdun's horse.
"That's right, it is Buckdun's horse. He's out in the hills hunting me."
"He'll find you, too."
"Isn't that what you hired him for? To kill me?"
Porter Baldwin fought back his anger. "I don't know what you're talking about," he replied, and his face turned a deep red.
Flint ordered a drink. "Who else has the money to hire Buckdun? Who does he see when he goes in the back door of the hotel?"
The two strangers looked uneasy, and glanced at Baldwin. Flint tossed off his drink and went out, walking to the hotel dining room. He was eating the best meal they offered when the door opened and Lottie Kettleman came in.
She looked at him suspiciously. "Jim, what are you doing here?"
"As you see, I am enjoying a good meal ... Lottie, you're not looking well. I don't believe this climate agrees with you."
"I don't know what you're feeling so good about," she said irritably. "Nothing has changed."
"Do you know Buckdun, Lottie?"
Her face was without expression. "Who? I don't place the name."
"You'd better go back to New York, Lottie. I want no more trouble with you."
"What are you talking about?"
"Only two people could afford to pay Buckdun. You or Baldwin, and I am quite sure you would not spend that kind of money if you could get someone to do it for you."
"Are you trying to frighten me?"
"You are like your father, Lottie. This scheme is like one of his -- all scheme and no achievement. Why don't you marry some nice guy and make an end to all this?"
"I am married -- to you."
"If I return I shall file suit for divorce, and if you contest it I will present the Pinkerton file as evidence. They may not hang you, but they will send you to prison. I want my freedom."
"So you can marry that ranch girl?"
"Merely to be free."
She was very pale and her eyes were bright and hard. "Suppose you don't come back?"
"Why, then, I shall leave you to Buckdun. You'd try to cheat him, and I know what will happen then." He refilled his cup. "Get on the train, Lottie, and go away from here as fast as you can."
The moon was over the mountains when he climbed back on the lava, but he saw nothing and heard nothing, and his horses were feeding quietly. Buckdun was still around, and when he found his horse with its saddle hidden, he would know it had been used.
Flint had ridden to Alamitos not on a whim, but deliberately, hoping to anger Buckdun into carelessness. Under no illusions about the man he faced, Flint knew he had been lucky to escape alive thus far.
Shifting to a corner of the lava wall away from his bed, Flint sat down and, leaning back against the wall, he slept.
Dawn was in the sky when he awakened, but the horizon was dark with thunderheads, laced with patterns of lightning. A dampness in the air warned of the coming storm.
For thirty minutes, Flint studied every cranny within reach of his eyes, and when he moved it was against the wall, utilizing every bit of brush for concealment At his camp he stuffed his slicker pockets with food, and the pockets of his pants and coat with cartridges. Then he risked a small fire under the overhang. After he had his coffee he doused the fire and took up his rifle.
As he moved away from the camp he was trusting the horses and almost missed the warning. He looked around in time to see the red stallion's head come up sharply, and he dropped to his hands, hearing the whip-crack of a bullet as he did so.
The horses had run off a short distance but were looking past him, so turning about he crawled and slid along the grass with his rifle across his arms in front of him. Reaching the front of the ice cave, where the ground fell away sharply, he took shelter and peered through a small space between the rocks. He was shifting his head to peer through at a different angle when a bullet struck the rock within inches of his face, then ricocheted into the depths of the cave.
He crouched, hesitating. Would Buckdun expect him to move to right or left? One thing Buckdun would not expect would be a shot from the place where the bullet struck.
Risking a glance, Flint decided the only place Buckdun could use for shelter was a hummock of lava on the rim about sixty yards away. From his study of the terrain he recalled that the hummock was not thick, and most lava was quite porous in that area. Lifting the rifle, he drove three fast shots at the hummock of rock, then moved off twenty yards in a crouching run and took another shot. His standing for that shot was perfectly synchronized with a movement by Buckdun, but Flint fired too quickly and the bullet missed.
For an hour, nothing happened.
Then he heard a stone strike rock. From the force of the impact he knew it was thrown. After a brief wait he worked his way back to the ice cave, remembering that a few days before he had seen a crack or blowhole that allowed a little light to fall into the cave. He had not investigated to see if the hole was large enough to permit him to get through, but now he did so. It was a vent made by escaping gases long ago. He climbed through, and scrambled out into a clump of rock slabs and brush, tearing his hand cruelly on the rough lava.
Momentarily blinded by a flash of lightning that struck somewhere hear, he lay still, awaiting the crash of thunder. It came, and with it, the rain.
It came with a roar and a rush. Lightning crashed and the smell of brimstone was in his nostrils and thunder rolled and reverberated against the walls of the mesa. The rain swept across the malpais in driving sheets and then, through the downpour, he saw Buckdun.
Dimly visible, Buckdun was running across the lava five hundred yards away. Snapping his rifle to his shoulder, Flint squeezed off three shots, saw Buckdun veer sharply to break his line of fire, then vanish into some crack or hollow.
There was no shelter atop the lava, but Flint was determined to waste no time. Rising, he moved as swiftly as possble over the lava to get around the end of the basin. Once he heard a dull boom under his feet and felt an instant of fear, but his next step took him to solid rock.
Avoiding smooth patches that might conceal death pits beneath them, he scrambled over rough and broken lava, slipping once and skinning his knees. When he was around the end of the basin, he slowed down. His slicker was close to the color of the basaltic rock, and he moved now with great care.
A shot came from nowhere and something struck his shin a wicked blow. His leg buckled and he went down. But when he pulled up his pant leg he saw only a great, rapidly growing swelling, split along the top. He had been struck by a fragment of rock knocked loose by the bullet.
He hunched behind a hummock of lava until the numbness went out of his leg, but when he started to move, it was with a limp. He had a badly bruised shin-bone, nearly as painful if not as incapacitating as a break.
There would be no letup now. He was in a fight to the death, and with an opponent superior to him in bushwhacking skill, and he must never remain for long in one place. Whatever else he was, Buckdun was a master hand at his business.
Flint moved now, half running, half crawling, utilizing every bit of cover. Once a shot clipped a bush near his head, another time a bullet burned the back of his calf as he jerked it from sight.
He saw nothing at which to shoot Apparently Buckdun was working with some scheme in mind. Suddenly, Flint looked around, and his quick glance took the wind out of him. For an instant he felt as if he had been hit in the belly by a stiff punch. Behind him was a wall of rock all of thirty feet high. Here the lava had come up, poured over and flowed away, leaving the cliff a sheer face that blocked all passage.
He had been cleverly herded like a sheep into a cul-de-sac from which there seemed no escape. To go back the way he had come he must first advance, going directly toward Buckdun's gun. And that was exactly what Buckdun would expect him to do. louis He was under cover. For the moment he was invisible to the hunter, and he glanced quickly around. There was a dip in the rock, a gully worn by water pouring down over the lava toward the depression at the foot of the wall. Ducking into it, he ran bent over, straight to the wall.
To the right there was a blank wall, then one of those pits. He went that way, but there was a sheer drop, the edge running back under his feet. In the bottom was the jagged rock that had once been the roof of the pit. Among the rocks grew a few pines, some of them seventy feet, but their tops still below the rim.
Turning, he went back in the opposite direction. He had but a few minutes, and there was no cover here, nor any concealment.
He paused, knowing that a little thought was better than a lot of running. He could wait, but he could be butchered from cover if he waited, without ever seeing a target for return fire.
He went on to the left, and there the wall took a sharp bend, falling back several feet before continuing on. Nowhere was there a break, nor was there any cover.
And then he saw his chance.
Here, where the rock wall jogged, there was a chimney. It was a crack in the wall that widened toward the top. Here at the bottom it was about level with his head, but only a few inches wide. Toward the top it became at least four feet wide.
Yet, if he was in that crack when Buckdun came upon him, he would have no chance. He would be caught there, trapped like a rabbit in a snare, to be shot at will.
And he did not even know if he could get into the crack and reach the top. He might fall. He had heard of rock climbers doing such things, but had never attemped it himself. But it was his only chance, and he was going to try.
The corner of the wall was out of sight of Buckdun until he came far toward this side, and he would have to hope that Buckdun did not make it until he had reached the top ... if he could do it at all.
He looked up at the V-shaped crack. There was no place to get a proper handhold. The sharp V left no room for the fingers of even one hand.
Somewhere behind him a foot scraped on stone. He took one quick glance up, slung his rifle, and jumped upward.
Chapter
19
With his left fist lifted high, Flint jumped and thrust the closed fist into the crack. The fist jammed there and he muscled himself up until he could get a hold on the side of the crack with his right hand. Releasing his fist, he took an opposite hold with it and worked his way higher until he could get a foot in the crack.
When the crack was wide enough he put his back against one side, his knee against the other, and worked his way up until he could get both knees against the side of the rock chimney. He struggled upward, opposing his back to his knees until he could grasp the edge with his left hand.