The Trail of the White Mule Read online

  CHAPTER THREE

  In a still sunny gulch which shadows would presently fill to the brim,Casey Ryan was reaching, soiled bandanna in his hand, to pull a pot ofbubbling coffee from the coals,--a pot now blackened with the smoke ofmany campfires to prove how thoroughly a part of the open land it hadbecome. Something nipped at his right shoulder, and at the sameinstant ticked the coffeepot and overturned it into a splutter of steamand hot ashes. The spiteful crack of a rifle shot followed close.Casey ducked behind a nose of rock, and big Barney Oakes scuttled forcover, spilling bacon out of the frying pan as he went.

  For a week the two had been camped in this particular gulch, which drewin to a mere wrinkle on the southwestern slope of the black-toppedbutte, toward which the Joshua tree in the pass had directed them.Nearly a week they had spent toiling across the hilly, waterless waste,with two harrowing days when their canteens flopped empty on the burrosand big Barney stumbled oftener than Casey liked to see. Casey himselfhad gone doggedly ahead, his body bent forward, his square shoulderssagging a bit, but with never a thought of doing anything but go on.

  A red splotch high up on the side of this gulch promised "waterformation" as prospectors have a way of putting it. They had found thewater, else adventure would have turned to tragedy. Near the water theyhad also found a promising outcropping of silver-bearing quartz.Barney's blowpipe had this very day shown them silver incastle-building quantities.

  Just at this moment, however, they were not thinking of mines. Theywere eyeing a round hole in the coffeepot from which a brown rivuletran spitting into the blackening coals.

  Casey was the more venturesome. He raised himself to see if he coulddiscover where the bullet had come from, and very nearly met the fateof the coffeepot. He felt the wind of a second bullet that spattedagainst a boulder near Barney. Barney burrowed deeper into his covert.

  Casey went down on all fours and crawled laboriously toward aconcealing bank covered thick with brush. A third bullet clipped atwig of sage just about three inches above the middle of his back, andCasey flattened on his stomach and swore. Some one on the peak of thehill had good eyesight, he decided. Neither spoke, other than to swearin undertones; for voices carried far in that clear atmosphere, andnothing could be gained by conversation.

  Darkness never had poured so slowly into that gulch since the world wasyoung. The campfire had died to black embers before Casey venturedfrom his covert, and Barney Oakes seemed to have holed up for theseason. Unless you have lived for a long while in a land altogetherempty of any human life save your own, you cannot realize the effect ofhaving mysterious bullets zip past your ears and ruin your supper foryou.

  "Somebody's gunnin' fer us, looks like t' me," Barney observedbelatedly in a hoarse whisper, from his covert.

  "Found that out, did yuh? Well, it ain't the first time Casey's beenshot at and missed," Casey retorted peevishly in the lee of the bank."Say! I knowed the sing of bullets before I was old enough to carry atune."

  "So'd I," boasted Barney, "but that ain't sayin' I learned t' like thesong."

  "What I'm figurin' out now," said Casey, "is how to get up there an' AT'am. An' how we kin do it without him seein' us. Goin' t' be kindaticklish--but it ain't the first ticklish job Casey Ryan ever tackled."

  "It can't be did," Barney stated flatly. "An' if it could be did, Iwouldn't do it. I ain't as easy t' miss as what you be. I got bulk."

  "A hole bored through your tallow might mebbe do you good," Caseysuggested harshly. "Might let in a little sand. You can't nevertell--"

  "My vitals," said Barney with dignity, "is just as close to the surfaceas what your vitals be. I ain't so fat--I'm big. An' I got all thesand I need. I also have got sense, which some men lacks."

  "What yuh figurin' on doin'?" Casey wanted to know. "Set here under abush an' let 'em pick yuh up same as they would a cottontail, mebbe? Wegot a hull night to work in, an' Casey's eyes is as good as anybody'sin the dark. More'n that, Casey's six-gun kin shoot just as hard an'fast as a rifle--let 'im git close enough."

  Barney did not want to be left alone and said so frankly. Neither didhe want to climb the butte. He could see no possible gain in climbingto meet an enemy or enemies who could hear the noise of approach. Itwas plain suicide, he declared, and Barney Oakes was not ready to die.

  But Casey could never listen to argument when a fight was in prospect.He filled a canteen, emptied a box of cartridges into his pocket, stuckhis old, Colt six-shooter inside his trousers belt, and gave Barneysome parting instruction under his breath.

  Barney was to move camp down under the bank by the spring, and dighimself in there, so that the only approach would be up the narrowgulch. He would then wait until Casey returned.

  "Somebody's after our outfit, most likely," Casey reasoned. "It ain'tthe first time I've knowed it to happen. So you put the hull outfitouta sight down there an' stand guard over it. If we'd 'a' run whenthey opened up, they'd uh cleaned us out and left us flat. They's twoof us, an' we'll git 'em from two sides."

  He stuffed cold bannock into the pocket that did not hold thecartridges and disappeared, climbing the side of the gulch opposite thepoint which held their ambitious marksman.

  To Barney's panicky expostulations he had given little heed. "If yorevitals is as close to your hide as what you claim," Casey had saidimpatiently, "an' you don't want any punctures in 'em, git to work an'git that hide of yourn outa sight. It'll take some diggin'; they's alot of yuh to cover."

  Barney, therefore, dug like a badger with a dog snuffing at its tail.Casey, on the other hand, climbed laboriously in the darkness a bluffhe had not attempted to climb by daylight. It was hard work and slow,for he felt the need of going quietly. What lay over the rim-rock hedid not know, though he meant to find out.

  Daylight found him leaning against a smooth ledge which formed a partof the black capping he had seen from the road. He had spent the nighttoiling over boulders and into small gulches and out again, trying tofind some crevice through which he might climb to the top. Now he wasjust about where he had been several hours before, and even Casey Ryancould not help realizing what a fine target he would make if heattempted to climb back down the bluff to camp before darkness againhid his movements.

  Standing there puffing and wondering what to do next, he saw the twoburros come picking their way toward the spring for their morning drinkand a handful apiece of rolled oats which Barney kept to bait them intocamp. The lead burro was within easy flinging distance of a rock, fromcamp, when the thin, unmistakable crack of a rifle-shot came from theright, high up on the rim somewhere beyond Casey. The lead burropitched forward, struggled to get up, fell again and rolled over,lodging against a rock with its four feet sticking up at awkward anglesin the air.

  The second burro, always quick to take alarm, wheeled and wentgalloping away down the draw. But he couldn't outgallop the bulletthat sent him in a complete somersault down the slope. Barney mightkeep the rest of his rolled oats, for the burros were through wantingthem.

  Casey squinted along the rim of black rock that crested the peakirregularly like a stiff, ragged frill of mourning stuff the gods hadthrown away. He could not see the man who had shot the burros. By theintervals between shots, Casey guessed that one man was doing theshooting, though it was probable there were others in the gang. And nowthat the burros were dead, it became more than ever necessary to locatethe gang and have it out with them. That necessity did not worry Caseyin the least. The only thing that troubled him now was getting up onthe rim without being seen.

  It was characteristic of Casey Ryan that, though he moved with caution,he nevertheless moved toward their unseen enemy. Not for a long, longwhile had Casey been cautious in his behavior, and the necessity galledhim. If the hidden marksman had missed that last burro, Casey wouldprobably have taken a longer chance. But to date, every bullet had gonestraight to its destination; which was enough to make any man thinktwice.

  Once during the forenoon, while Casey was stand
ing against the rim-rockstaring glumly down upon the camp, Barney's hat, perched on a pickhandle, lifted its crown above the edge of his hiding place; an old,old trick Barney was playing to see if the rifle were still there andworking. The rifle worked very well indeed, for Barney was presentlyflattened into his retreat, swearing and poking his finger through around hole in his hat.

  Casey seized the opportunity created by the diversion and scurried likea lizard across a bare, gravelly slide that had been bothering him forhalf an hour. By mid-afternoon he reached a crevice that lookedpromising enough when he craned up it, but which nearly broke his neckwhen he had climbed halfway up. Never before had he been compelled tomeasure so exactly his breadth and thickness. It was drawing mattersdown rather fine when he was compelled to back down to where he hadelbow room, and remove his coat before he could squeeze his bodythrough that crack. But he did it, with his six-shooter inside hisshirt and the extra ammunition weighting his trousers pockets.

  In spite of his long experience with desert scenery, Casey was somewhatastonished to find himself in a new land, fairly level and with thickgroves of pinon cedar and juniper trees scattered here and there. Faraway stood other barren hills with deep canyons between. He knew nowthat the black-capped butte was less a butte than the uptilted nose ofa high plateau not half so barren as the lower country. From thepointing Joshua tree it had seemed a peak, but contours are never sodeceptive as in the high, broken barrens of Nevada.

  He looked down into the gulch where Barney was holed up with theiroutfit. He could scarcely distinguish the place, it had dwindled sowith the distance. He had small hope of seeing Barney. After thatlast leaden bee had buzzed through his hat crown, you would have to digfaster than Barney if you wanted a look at him. Casey grinned when hethought of it.

  When he had gotten his breath and had scraped some loose dirt out ofhis shirt collar, Casey crouched down behind a juniper and examined hissurroundings carefully, his pale, straight-lidded eyes moving slowly asthe white, pointing finger of a searchlight while he took in everysmall detail within view. Midway in the arc of his vision was a ledge,ending in a flat-topped boulder.

  The ledge blocked his view, except that he could see trees and a higherpeak of rocks beyond it. He made his way cautiously toward the ledge,his eyes fixed upon the boulder. A huge, sloping slab of the graniteoutcropping it seemed, scaly with gray-green fungus in the cracks wheremoisture longest remained; granite ledge banked with low juniperswarped and stunted and tangled with sage. The longer Casey looked atthe boulder, the less he saw that seemed unnatural in a country filledwith boulders and outcroppings and stunted vegetation.

  But the longer he looked at it, the stronger grew his animal instinctthat something was wrong. He waited for a time--a long time indeed forCasey Ryan to wait. There was no stir anywhere save the sweep of thewind blowing steadily from the west.

  He crept forward, halting often, eyeing the boulder and its neighboringledge, distrust growing within him, though he saw nothing, heardnothing but the wind sweeping through branches and bush. Casey Ryanwas never frightened in his life. But he was Irish born--and there'ssomething in Irish blood that will not out; something that goes beyondreason into the world of unknown wisdom.

  It's a tricksy world, that realm of intuitions. For this is whatbefell Casey Ryan, and you may account for it as best pleases you.

  He circled the rock as a wolf will circle a coiled rattler which itdoes not see. Beyond the rock, built close against it so that the rearwall must have been the face of the ledge, a little rock cabin squattedsecretively. One small window, with two panes of glass was set highunder the eaves on the side toward Casey. Cleverly concealed it was,built to resemble the ledge. Visible from one side only, and that wasthe side where Casey stood. At the back the sloping boulder, untouched,impregnable; at the north and west, a twist of the ledge that hid thecabin completely in a niche. It was the window on the south side thatbetrayed it.

  So here was what the boulder concealed,--and yet, Casey was notsatisfied with the discovery. Unconsciously he reached for his gun.This, he told himself, must be the secret habitation of the fiend whoshot from rim-rocks with terrible precision at harmless prospectors andtheir burros.

  Casey squinted up at the sun and turned his level gaze again upon thecabin. Reason told him that the man with the rifle was still watchingfor a pot shot at him and Barney, and that there was nothing whateverto indicate the presence of only one man in the camp below. Had he beenglimpsed once during the climb, he would have been fired upon; he wouldnever have been given the chance to gain the top and find this cabin.

  The place looked deserted. His practical, everyday mind told him itwas empty for the time being. But he felt queer and uncomfortable,nevertheless. He sneaked along the ledge to the cabin, flattenedhimself against the corner next the gray boulder and waited there for aminute. He felt the flesh stiffening on his jaws as he crept up to thewindow to look in. By standing on his toes, Casey's eyes came on alevel with the lowest inch of glass,--the window was so high.

  Just at first Casey could not see much. Then, when his eyes hadadjusted themselves to the half twilight within, his mind at firstfailed to grasp what he saw. Gradually a dimly sensed dread took holdof him, and grew while he stood there peering in at commonplace thingswhich should have given him no feeling save perhaps a faint surprise.

  A fairly clean, tiny room he saw, with a rough, narrow bed in onecorner and a box table at its head. From the ceiling hung a lanternwith the chimney smoked on one side and the warped, pole rafter aboveit slightly blackened to show how long the lantern had hung therelighted. A door opposite the tiny window was closed, and there was nolatch or fastening on the inner side. An Indian blanket covered halfthe floor space, and in the corner opposite the bed was a queer,drumlike thing of sheet iron with a pipe running through the wall; someheating arrangement, Casey guessed.

  In the center of the room, facing the window, a woman sat in a woodenrocking chair and rocked. A pale old woman with dark hollows under hereyes that were fixed upon the pattern of the Indian rug. Her hair waswhite. Her thin, white hands rested limply on the arms of the chair,and she was rocking back and forth, back and forth, steadily,quietly,--just rocking and staring at the Indian rug.

  Casey has since told me that she was the creepiest thing he ever saw inhis life. Yet he could not explain why it was so. The woman's face wasnot so old, though it was lined and without color. There was aterrible quiet in her features, but he felt, somehow, that her thoughtswere not quiet. It was as if her thoughts were reaching out to him,telling him things too awful for her thin, hushed lips to let pass.

  But after all, Casey's main object was to locate the man with therifle, and to do it before he himself was seen on the butte. Hewatched a little longer the woman who rocked and rocked. Never once didher eyes move from that fixed point on the rug. Never once did herfingers move on the arm of the chair. Her mouth remained immobile asthe lips of a dead woman. He had to force himself to leave the window;and when he did, he felt guilty, as if he had somehow deserted some onehelpless and needing him. He sneaked back, lifted himself and tookanother long look. The old woman was rocking back and forth, her facequiet with that terrible, pent placidity which Casey could notunderstand.

  Away from the cabin a pebble's throw, he shook his shoulders and pulledhis mind away from her, back to the man with the rifle--and to Barney.Rocking in a chair never hurt anybody that he ever heard of. Andshooting from rim-rocks did. And Barney was down there, holed up andhelpless, though he had grub and water. Casey was up here in a mightydangerous place without much grub or water but--he hoped--not quitehelpless. His immediate, pressing job was not to peek through ahigh-up window at an old woman rocking back and forth in a chair, butto round up the man who was interfering with Casey's peaceful questfor--well, he called it wealth; but I think that adventure meant moreto him.

  He picked his way carefully along the edge of the rim-rock, keepingunder cover when he could and
watching always the country ahead. Andwithout any artful description of his progress, I will simply say thatCasey Ryan combed the edge of that rampart for two miles before dark,and found himself at last on the side farthest from Barney withouthaving discovered the faintest trace of any living soul save the womanwho rocked back and forth in the little, secret cabin.

  Casey sat down on a rock, took a restrained drink from his canteen, andsaid everything he knew or could invent that was profane andcondemnatory of his luck, of the unseen assassin, of the country andhis present predicament. He got up, looked all around him, sniffedunavailingly for some tang of smoke in the thin, crisp air, reseatedhimself and said everything all over again.

  Presently he rose and made his way straight across the butte, goingslowly to lessen his chance of making a noise for unfriendly ears tohear, and with the stars for guidance.