Rimrock Trail

"First-class," he announced. "That's sure a great scheme, Plim."

"Go on up to the tree and take a look," said Plimsoll. "Hahn, hand him my glasses."

Parson took them and climbed up to where a dead tree stood like a skeleton in a crotch of the rocks. It screened him from observation perfectly by outer approach.

"I can see Keith's kid," he said with a chuckle when he came down. "He's through the creek and he don't know which way to start. Looks as if he meant to follow down the creek."

"He'll not go far that way," commented Plimsoll. "Mount up. Cookie's getting grub and I'm getting hungry. He'll have to cook for the boys after we're through. They'll be showing up after a bit."

Below them, Molly saw the hidden park that lay so snugly back of the barrier walls. It was an irregular oval that appeared to curve at the far end. Gulches reached back, occasionally thick with timber that grew in clumps among the rocks and on the ledges, dotting the green grass of the floor. She caught the sparkle of a little cascade, the gleam of a streamlet. The cliffs were terraced and battlemented in red and white and gray. Their facades showed fantasies of weather sculpture that looked like ruined castles and cathedrals with cave mouths for entrances. Here and there a monolith of stone stood up out from the main cliff, spiring for a hundred feet or more. The grass was starred with flowers. Some horses were grazing a little distance away and stood at gaze, to break and wheel and gallop away with flying manes and tails. There was a good deal of underbush covering the talus.

The trail down was plainly marked. It forked after they reached the general level and the branch they took led into a side gulch where a log cabin stood, smoke coming from its chimney. Plimsoll took the rein of Blaze again and they broke into a canter. At the cabin Plimsoll took Molly from the saddle and carried her into the rude interior. There he set her on a chair. Cookie was busy at a stove frying ham and eggs, with coffee simmering.

"You'd better sit up and eat nicely, my dear," said Plimsoll as he unbound her. "You'll have to sooner or later, you know. No sense in being stubborn."

She said nothing but he saw a gleam in her eyes as she glanced toward the table where Hahn was setting out plates and cutlery.

"You'll eat with a fork, Molly," said Plimsoll. "Those steel knives are too handy for you. There's a nasty look in those blue eyes of yours that will have to be tamed – have to be tamed," he repeated as he took a demijohn from a corner and poured out a liquor that sent the reek of its raw strength sickeningly through the cabin. "Here's to your health, Molly – Molly Mine!"

The others laughed and drank their share before they ate the food that Cookie placed before them, talking louder, growing flushed with the crude whisky, while Molly sat facing the door, striving to catch something that might help, might give some clue. But the talk was all of the brawl at the Waterline with contemptuous mention of Wyatt and the rest. They seemed by common consent to ignore her once she had refused the food.

This attitude weakened her resistance though she strove against it. She had nerved herself to meet action. Now she seemed to count for little more than a bundle, of more or less value, that, having been secured, could wait its time for utility. Yet, before she had telescoped her vision to extend through and beyond Plimsoll, she had seen devils looking from his eyes, smug devils, but none the less menacing, risen from the man's own private hell pit.

Plimsoll looked at his watch.

"The horses should be showing up pretty soon," he said and rose, a little unsteadily. The effects of the liquor were patent on all of them. "Butch, you and Hahn go down with Cookie and keep 'em down at the south end. Get 'em to turn the horses loose. And get them out of the place as soon as you can after they've eaten. Better take what stuff you want, Cookie."

"I suppose you'd be jealous if we stuck around," said Butch, leering now at Molly. The whisky seemed to have been an acid test for his features, dissolving all that was not brutal. Hahn's cold sneering face was none the less evil.

"How long do you want us to give you, Plim?" asked the dealer. "No sense in our sticking round here that I can see."

"We've got to get the boys out of the way, haven't we? Keep your eyes peeled on Cookie," Plimsoll said in a lower voice as the ranch chef went out of the door with his arms piled with provisions. "He might take a notion to talk too much. We had to let him in, but he don't have to stay in. Soon as the boys are away you come back and we'll go out again this end, if all is clear."

"Where are you going to stow her?" asked Hahn "Leave her here in Split Rock Cave?"

The callous reference to her as if she was something inanimate chilled Molly. If only she had a gun! She had laughed at Donald's tenderfoot insistence upon carrying the one he had brought west as a part of his outfit and had never attempted to use. The cook's too well thrown rope would have probably thwarted any move of hers if she had had a weapon. Her fingers crept up toward her throat touching a slender chain upon which, ever since she had returned to the Three Star, hung a gold disk, the coin with which Sandy had gambled, the luck-piece. To Molly, even now, it was a talisman that held promise. If they left her behind them, somehow Sandy would unearth her. But that hope died.

"She'll stay in sight and touch," said Plimsoll. "Then we'll know she's safe. We'll make Windy Gulch to-night and stay there. It's as good a place as I know. One of us can ride over the mountain to Redding and mail the letter."

Butch nodded. "Come on, Hahn," he said. "Let's leave 'em together."

Molly cast an involuntary glance at the opening door, watched it close after the pair of blackguards and braced herself. The issue was at hand.

Plimsoll slid a bolt on the door, brought over one of the makeshift chairs and placed it in front of Molly, seating himself. His alcohol-laden breath reached her nauseatingly and she turned her head aside. As if a trigger had been released Plimsoll's face became inflamed with a passionate fury. The veins on face and neck swelled and writhed like little blue snakes, his eyes congested.

"Damn you!" he said. "Don't you turn your head away from me. I'll train you to better manners before I'm through with you. You'll be jumping to do what you think I want you to before long. You'll be begging me for favors. You may think you're too good for me now. You won't presently."

She saw that she had gone too far in her disdain; that she must try to leash the devils that had broken loose in his brain.

"Just what do you want?" she asked, and her voice seemed not to belong to her as she uttered the words that showed no tremor.

"You! Not for love, my beauty! Because you are good to look at – yes. But I'll take my time. I'll sip at the dish, my dear. I've got a big score to settle and I'll do it properly. We'll go over some of the items."

He got up and emptied a bottle that still held a generous measure. He staggered slightly and fumbled the chair as he sat down again. Molly watched him intently. If only he got sufficiently drunk. Before the rest came back. Perhaps she could get his own gun? Plimsoll laid a familiar finger on her knee and instantly loathing showed in her eyes. He laughed.

"Using that busy li'l' brain of yours, eh? Figurin' I'll get drunk. Want to play Delilah? Nothin' doin', m' dear. I made that booze and I know just how it treats me, sabe? Now then.

"Your guardian angel Sandy chiseled me out of my share in the Molly Mine belongin' to me 'count of grubstakin' your father."

"That's a lie."

"That's easy to say when it nets you a fortune. Easy to go back on a dead man's agreement. Four-flushing Sandy Bourke…"

Molly suddenly slipped back into the primitive. Something seemed to click and the refinement she had learned and used so far fell like a cloak that is dropped for freedom in battle. With the malignment of Sandy and her father she was Molly Casey, daughter of a Desert Rat, once more.

"That's another damned lie," she said.

"Haven't forgotten how to swear, have you?"

"I've heard how Sandy Bourke chased your rotten-hearted jumpers out off the claim and gave you until sun-up to sneak out of town. I've heard how you were afraid to look at him through the smoke but went galloping off while the whole camp laughed at you. Sandy a four-flusher! A coyote'll fight when it's cornered, but you…"

She had heard the whole story from Keith. It was a favorite tale of the promoter's. He used it as publicity across his dinner table. It gave the right touch of adventure to Casey Town. Plimsoll grew slowly livid.

"Heard all about it, did you?" he said slowly. "Then you know some of the score. And I can wipe off what I owe Sandy Bourke through you. And there are more items. There was the first time we met. I haven't forgotten that. There was the kiss you said you tried to bite out after you'd burned the doll I gave you. You told about that the next time I kissed you in the hammock at Three Star. You tried to rub out that kiss, too. Maybe the next ones will stay put."

"That was the time Mormon manhandled you." She saw the blue snakes crawl on his purpling skin, and she kept her eyes on them though her mental vision was on the holster beneath his vest. She deliberately taunted him to provoke him to an uncalculated move. Molly knew her own litheness, her strength. If she could get inside his arms, if even to endure a moment of his beastly embrace and could get a grip on the gun?

But there was something in Plimsoll that delighted in playing with a victim he felt sure of. It soothed his broken vanity.

"So," he said, "I'm going to get even with Sandy and with Mormon and that bow-legged fool Sam Manning who call you the Mascot of the Three Star, all at once; while I get even with you. And get what should have been mine at the same time. We'll have you tucked away while we mail the letter that will bring your ransom. Never mind the details of handling the money. I'll attend to that. But we'll bleed you dry. The price of all your stock and that of the three suckers at the Three Star at par – and all they can borrow on the ranch – that will be the price for you, my lady. With three days to deliver in."

"You talk like a crazy man, or a drunken one. They can't sell the stock in that time. And if you lay a finger on me they'll trail you to hell, Jim Plimsoll, and the devil himself won't stop them from skinning you alive."

Plimsoll shrugged his shoulders, but his eyes flickered and, for a second, his cowardly soul shrank.

"I'll look out for that," he said. "If you are delivered back to them as damaged goods they'll never know it till you tell them. Maybe you won't be over-anxious to do that." His eyes grew moody, his manner sullen. He was passing into another alcoholic phase. Molly sensed imminent danger.

"I'll take those kisses now," he cried and lunged for her, catching her about the waist as she rose from the chair. "And more to boot," he added thickly as he drew her to him, one hand at the back of her head, fingers twining in her hair, twisting her face forward, upward. She had both arms inside of his, her hands on his chest. With all her strength she strained and pushed away, her right hand slid up to the holster, groping.

The gun was not there. Plimsoll had reloaded it during the meal and left it on the table. His breath sickened her. She got her arm clear and struck him viciously on the mouth, breaking the lips against his teeth. Fighting like a cave-woman, she scored his cheek with nails that dug deep from the corner of his eyelid and brought the blood. As he shifted his hold she wrenched loose, leaving strands of brown hair in his fingers, and jumped for the door. In her spring she saw, too late, the pistol on the table. She drew the bolt, half opening the door before he caught her and dragged her back again.

"You wildcat," he panted. "I'll fix you."

Like a panther Molly fought, matching her young muscles against his, striking, clawing, biting. Her riding coat ripped, the neck of her waist was torn away. Maddened at her resistance he struck back. Once he got her about the throat, but her fingers were at his face, tearing at his eyes and he had to beat her off. The girl fought with all the sublimated despair of attacked womanhood, the man like a gorilla. The struggle was unequal, with more than forty pounds in favor of Plimsoll though, if Molly had possessed the puniest of weapons, she might have won. He held her at last, close to him, one arm wrapped about her, his right hand forcing the heel of the palm under her tucked-in chin, slowly, inexorably forcing it back while his bleeding, distorted face lowered. This time her arms were locked in, bent double, useless. Her kicks were futile, she had only her teeth left and she was going to try those. But she knew her strength sapped, knew in another moment or two she would be at the mercy of this brute who did not know the meaning of the word.

A shadow barred the half-open door, low down. A pointed head appeared with blazing eyes, with a neck-ruff flaring high. White teeth showed as red gums bared in hate and, forgetting the wounded leg that had held him back, Grit hurled himself in a staggering but magnificent leap. He could not reach Plimsoll's throat, he had lost much of his momentum through the damaged leg, he lacked power from loss of blood, but fury gave him strength for the spring that brought his teeth within reach of Plimsoll's right wrist, exposed; the cuff half-way up the forearm. Grit's teeth slashed like chisels, ripping through flesh, tendon and artery, sending jets of blood spurting before Plimsoll, with a yell of surprise and consternation, flung Molly into a corner, dazed and weak, and threw up his left forearm to guard against the dog's second leap.

It fell short. Plimsoll's right hand, scattering blood, groped blindly for the gun on the table behind him. He found the barrel and brought the heavy butt down with a crash on Grit's head, back of the ear. The dog dropped like a length of chain. Plimsoll kicked the body viciously, taking the bandanna from his neck and tying it tight about his wrist, fastening the knots with his teeth. With a look at Molly, crumpled unconscious in the corner, he sought for more liquor, found it and poured himself a big jorum, gulping it down while the blood dripped heavily from the bandage. He was soggy with shock and fatigue, the strong stuff half paralyzed his faculties and he dropped into a chair, gazing stupidly at his wrist.

His imagination was a curse to him. He had seen Grit's slavering jaws as they rose in the leap, the crimson glare in his eyes. To all intents the dog was mad. It had been lying wounded in the sun. Only madness could have given it strength to track so far. What if it meant lockjaw – hydrophobia? Through his dulled brain ran like a black thread the impression that he could feel the virus stealing through his veins, stiffening his body. How long did the damned thing take. And the horrible ending! He had seen a man die of it once, bitten by a mad collie, the same breed as the brute under the table. He had done for him, anyway.

Water – that was the test! There was water that Cookie had brought in for coffee, half a bucket, by the stove. He felt a sudden repugnance toward it. The slashed veins in his wrists burned and throbbed as if they were oozing molten lead instead of blood. And he was growing weak. If he didn't get a tourniquet fixed he might bleed to death. But what was the use?

Grit, who had opened a way out for Molly, lay still beneath the table. Molly, overtaxed, was in a swoon. Plimsoll sat in a stupor. The door swung wide. Cookie rushed in, his face muddy with alarm.

"The show's gone wrong," he cried to Plimsoll, who stared at him half-comprehending. "For Gawd's sake what's happened here? Gimme a drink." He snatched at the bottle and swallowed from the neck. "Here, you need a swig. We got to git out of here, pronto. Have you scragged the gel?" He thrust the bottle at Plimsoll who drank, senses rallying by the urge of danger that emanated from the cook like the sweaty stench of a frightened animal.

"Brandon's gang has come back," said Cookie. "It's the damndest streak of luck. They must have fell in with Wyatt or some of his pals. They must have been to the ranch. They cut off the boys and the horses over by Sand Crick! Reynolds got clear. He saw them comin' an' streaked it. They were shootin' like hell, he said. But he got a start an' he fooled 'em. Lost 'em, if they tried to foller him."

"And led 'em straight here," said Plimsoll with a curse, getting to his feet.

"Not him. He c'ud lose 'em twenty times between here an' Sand Crick. They were throwin' lead hard an' fast an' too busy to trail him if they saw him. He's gone out ag'in through the south end. Case they've got some one who does know the way in, he'll side-track by Spur Rock an' git through the pass at Nipple Peaks. It's hard goin', but we can make it unless we can git out this end. Hahn an' Butch has gone up to the lookout to… Hear that?"

That was a single rifle-shot, followed by two others, the last almost as one.

"Hell!" cried Plimsoll, "they've got us this end. It's Wyatt. Just my damned luck for him to meet up with Brandon."

"Butch says it was the deal with that chap from Phoenix. He allus spotted him for a crooked one. They've planted hawsses on us to prove up. And Wyatt has been in touch with Brandon ever sense you took his gel away from him. Come on, I'm goin'."

He ran outside and Plimsoll followed to the door, lethargy leaving him in the face of disaster though he could not think fast or clearly. Hahn came clattering over the rocks on his horse, his face chalky white. He was reeling in his saddle, the horse spraddling, wild-eyed, almost out of control. Cookie jumped for its bridle as Hahn slumped sidewise in the saddle, clutched for the horn, missed it and was falling when Plimsoll caught him and helped him to the wall of the cabin where he leaned weakly. A blotch of blood showed on his left shoulder.

"Go get him a slug of whisky," Plimsoll ordered Cookie.

But Cookie, his face twitching with fright, jumped for his own mount and went galloping down the valley to the south.

Plimsoll sent curses after him, reaching for his own pistol before he remembered it was inside, dragging Hahn's half out of its holster and then quitting as the fleeing cook tangented and disappeared behind some timber.

The handkerchief about Plimsoll's wounded wrist was now a sodden rag, but the loss of blood had cleared his brain. He set his left arm about Hahn and helped him into the cabin. Molly was stirring and Plimsoll scowled blackly at her. He gave Hahn a drink.

"Brace up," he said, "what happened? I know about Reynolds. I mean at the lookout."

Hahn finished his glass, pushed it out for another, gulped that.

"Got to make our getaway," he said. "Butch is done for. They got me here under the collar-bone. I reckon they touched the lung. I never saw such shooting. But Butch got Wyatt."

"Tell it straight," demanded Plimsoll. "How many of 'em? What did they do?"

"We no more than made the lookout," said Hahn, "before six men came riding along, heeled for trouble. One of them was the black-bearded guy from California who was here with that Brandon, first time they came nosing around. And another was Wyatt, God blast his rotten soul in hell for a twisting hound! Wyatt was just starting to point 'em out the entrance when Butch lets him have it. Hits him smack in the forehead. Before he could show 'em the way in. He may have told 'em about it on the way up. But Blackbeard must have caught the shine of Butch's barrel. He fires back – they all had their rifles handy cross the pommel – the bullet goes plumb through the tree and knocks Butch down. Went through both hips. He falls against me and I show in the open, sliding on that damned slippery boulder, sliding inside and out of range, but they got me.

"They'll be through any minute, Plim. They'll go careful until they find there's no one firing back at them, then it won't take 'em long to figure out the way in. You can't tell how much Wyatt told 'em on the way up. They've got me. I can't ride. My lungs are filling up. Butch is paralyzed – if he ain't dead. A hell of a wind-up! You can make it out the way Reynolds did. None of the gang that left with Wyatt knows about the side-trail by Spur Rock. But you'd better beat it. Me, I've turned my last card. The case is empty!"

His head fell forward on to his arms. A trickle of scarlet came from the corner of his mouth. Plimsoll looked at him calculatingly. Hahn could not ride. But he wouldn't die for a while. To leave him here where the raiders would find him might mean a confession wrung from him that would tell of the getaway trail by Spur Rock and Nipple Peaks. He shook Hahn by the sound shoulder.

"Brace up," he said. "You can hide in Split Rock Cave. I'm going to put the girl in there. Take another drink. Pick up some grub. There's water in the cave. You can come out soon's the coast is clear."

"I'll not be coming out," said Hahn huskily. "But it's a good move." He weakly collected the bottle, some scraps of food.

Plimsoll stooped over Molly, coming out of her faint, and gagged her with her own scarf as her eyes opened and looked at him. He took off her belt and strapped her arms behind her back. Then, despite his wounded wrist, he lifted her easily enough and strode with her out of the door, Hahn following.

Hahn's horse was standing there obediently with pendent reins anchoring it! Blaze and Plimsoll's black were nipping grass in the little corral where they had been placed. Blaze whinnied at the sight, or the scent, of his mistress. Plimsoll passed the corral and went through a grove of quaking asps close to the wall of the side-gulch, keeping to the rock as much as possible. He turned into a cleft, stopping at a rock whose almost flat surface was level with his feet, a great mass of granite that some freak of weathering or convulsion of earthquake had split almost in half. Into the crevice a wild grape-vine had twined, and died.

"Can you make it, Hahn?" he asked.

The dealer nodded and knelt, using his sound arm to aid himself by the tough fibers, bracing with his knees. Down some ten feet in the crack he looked up, his ghastly face pallid in the shadow, with an attempt at a grin.

"Good-by, Plim," he said. "Good luck! What do I do with the girl?"

"Keep her from calling out. She's gagged but she might try it. Make her nurse you. Do anything you damn please with her!"

Hahn dropped out of sight. Plimsoll did not wait but picked Molly up from where he had deposited her, a helpless bundle, on the rock.

"The bottom's soft down there," he said. "Sand. It ain't more than fifteen feet. Down you go, you hellcat! They'll have a fine time locating you. And you've got a dying man for company. He'll be a dead one before morning."

He lowered her, feet down, released her and watched her disappear. He swung about and ran back to the corral, his hurt arm throbbing with his exertion. He had entertained a brief thought of hiding in the cave himself, but the fear of madness from the bite had not left him, the suggestion of it coming on in an underground cavern sickened him with horror. He craved the open. He flung himself into the saddle of the black horse, once leader of a slick-ear herd of wild mustangs, magnificent for speed and symmetry, worthy a better master, and galloped out of the corral, out of the side-ravine, into the open park. The rough towel about his arm was becoming soaked. Every jump of the black horse seemed to increase the bleeding. The spurt of fictitious energy that had carried him through since the arrival of Cookie was dying away. But he was on a mount that none could match, he was going on a trail that was hard to follow, practically unknown. Unless he was headed off, he could break through. At Nipple Peaks he could rest, attend to his wound.

A shout, a bullet whistling past that nicked the stallion's ear and sent him plunging and bucking, warned him that his enemies had found the way in and were after him. He did not look back, but bent forward in his saddle and sunk the spurs into the black's flanks. The half-tamed mustang's indignant bounds spoiled the aim of the marksmen, and, though the steel-nosed missiles hummed like bees about them, they gained the shelter of the same trees that had covered Cookie. Belly almost to ground, the black swept over the cropped turf at racing speed, the drum of his hooves like distant thunder, crest high, crimson-satin nostrils flaring, mad at the sting of the red notch in his ear.