Part 13 (1/2)
Hearing a sound close to the left in the trees, Blaze looked that way in time to see Shorty's loose pony, reins caught on the horn, trot deeper into the timber. The riderless Anchor horse had already worked the saddle down under his belly. Before long, if he stayed in the timber, he might catch the reins on a tree or bush or ruin the saddle. He was a good horse, a big-chested bay. Blaze, knowing the outfit might lose a good horse and saddle, reined off there. After a brief chase he caught up the loose animal, a little irritated at the thought of having to lead it all the way to Clark's where he could turn it loose in the open. Abruptly he had another thought. Joe needed a horse. It would cost him an extra hour at least to go up to the cave. But it would give him the chance to talk to Joe, and he was badly in need of talk with someone who could consider this new development rationally. Leading the dead Anchor man's pony, he turned up on the trail.
Plans.
So he's framed me with this, too,” Joe said. He gave Blaze a long, level look. ”In three days he's built up four counts against me. Murder, robbery, horse stealin', and now kidnappin' a woman. Can they hang a man more than once?”
”Not that I ever heard of. But it was me that brought the girl here. They can't saddle you with something I did,” Blaze argued.
”You didn't leave that note in Acme's box.”
”No,” Blaze admitted, ”he did. Who's he?”
Joe shrugged and hunkered down in the shade of a nearby pion. They were below the cave mouth, close to the spot where Blaze had two nights ago staked out Jean's horse on a patch of gra.s.s. Shorty's bay now grazed near the Diamond branded animal at the end of a picket rope twenty feet away.
Joe studied the animal, its st.u.r.dy clean legs, its big chest and high withers. ”Shorty cut himself out a nice chunk of horseflesh this mornin',” he remarked.
”He's a little hard-mouthed. Shorty liked to ride the bit.” Blaze picked up a pebble and flicked it into the narrow stream made from melted snow that foamed close by along the bed of the ordinarily dry caon. They'd had their brief words about Shorty, who had been too good a friend to both to occasion any more talk. ”You're still seein' Saygar tonight?”
Joe nodded. ”After I take care of something else.”
”What?”
”How fast is this bay?” Joe asked in seeming irrelevance.
”Plenty o' legs,” Blaze answered. ”But what's that got to do with this other thing you're takin' care of, Joe?”
”We want to stop a shoot-out between Vanover's bunch and the old man's, don't we?”
”Sure. But how?”
”With Shorty's horse.”
”All right,” Blaze drawled bitingly, ”let me in on it when you get good and set.”
”Don't think I will,” Joe told him. ”What you don't know can't hurt you. Since you're goin' back down there, you might give it away. Can you be up here tonight right after dark to side me across to Saygar's camp?”
”I'll be here,” Blaze said. ”But what's this other about Shorty's jughead?”
Joe smiled meagerly and gave a slow shake of the head. The motion set up the throbbing ache again and he held his head in his hands until it had pa.s.sed. Then: ”I'm going to send the girl on down.”
”With what kind of a story?”
”That'll depend on what she has to say when I talk to her. Hadn't you better head for Clark's?”
”I should've a half hour ago.” Blaze stood up. ”Ain't you goin' to let me in on it, whatever it is?”
”No.”
”You didn't make out so well the last time you were on your own. There's too many against you, Joe.”
”That's one thing I'm countin' on.”
”On too many bein' against you? I don't get it.”
”I don't want you to get it. You'd better hightail.”
Blaze showed his disappointment and a little anger as he picked up his reins and climbed into the saddle. But when he looked down at Joe, his expression softened. ”Whatever it is, be careful, son,” he finally drawled.
”I'll be careful.”
Joe watched the redhead until he rode out of sight around a near bend in the caon. Back there a minute ago he had caught himself when on the verge of telling Blaze what he was about to do, deciding on impulse that his friend already had too much to worry about and that he might not approve anyway. Now he was filled with a nervous anxiety to put his idea into motion. But a look skyward at the sun at its zenith told him it was too early to start.
Last night Joe had slept fitfully after Blaze left. Waking at dawn, he had felt more like himself. He had tested his legs and found them weak. The throbbing in his head had eased off except when he moved too abruptly. He had spent a long time looking down at the sleeping girl, realizing what she had done for him. Then he had gathered some of the food stacked in the corner and crawled out of the cave as quietly as he could so as not to wake her. He'd built a breakfast fire of smokeless dry cedar on the shelf directly in front of the cave mouth. While waiting for his coffee to boil, he had walked upcaon and stripped and washed in the stream. The icy chill of the water had put new strength in him. He had relished his meal.
Twice before Blaze had ridden in, Joe had crawled back into the cave to see if Jean was awake. Each time he had found her sleeping soundly. She had moved only once during the night, a plain indication to him that she was exhausted and needed as much rest as she could get.
The clash between Anchor and Diamond seemed to be a part of a slowly emerging pattern Joe was beginning to recognize. The destruction of Singletree's and Anchor's herd and the note, pointing directly to him as being responsible for the girl's disappearance, were both pieces of that pattern. Mike Saygar was part of this puzzle, one of its key pieces, perhaps. But the outlaw was in no position to feel accurately the pulse of what was going on in town and on the mesa. No, someone was behind Saygar, a man shrewd enough to make the most of every chance, wise enough to stir up trouble between the cattle company and the mesa outfits to gain his own ends. What those ends were, Joe had no way of knowing. His hunch was that he would find out when he saw Saygar. But before Saygar came this other thing, the stopping of more of the killing that had already cost one loyal Anchor man his life.
Joe heard a sound above and looked up there to see Jean step into sight at the edge of the broad shelf fronting the cave mouth. Looking at her in that unguarded interval before she saw him, seeing her tall figure outlined against the sky, he was struck by something that had pa.s.sed unnoticed that early morning in the upstairs hall of the hotel and last night in the cave. The bright sunlight edged the girl's chestnut head with coppery highlights; her face held a startling quality of freshness and fragile beauty of which he was only now aware. And in this moment, for the first time since Blaze's outburst last night, Joe's thoughts turned briefly to Ruth Merrill. Then Ruth left his mind, obscured by the newly found loveliness of this girl.
Jean's glance came down to him and her look was momentarily startled before her face showed outright relief. As she hurried down the gravelly slope to him, he was keenly aware of her grace and poise and her swinging boyish stride.
She stood before him a little breathless, high color on her cheeks, giving him a glad smile. ”You are better,” she said. ”I thought you'd gone.” She seemed to realize only then how openly she was betraying her gladness at finding him. ”Is the head better?”
His hand went up to the bandage and he felt of it gingerly, a wide smile on his lean face. ”Lots,” he said. ”I had a good doctor.” His smile was gone then as he added: ”You got yourself in for something when you let Blaze drag you up here.”
”I'm glad he did, Joe. Besides, I knew where he was taking me.”
”You did?” Outright admiration came to his face. ”One day I'll try and make this up to you.”
”There's nothing to make up. You didn't deserve to just . . . just die.”
Joe's grin was wry. ”There's some that wouldn't agree with that.”
”I know. And maybe I'm a little selfish in wanting to see you get well. You see, some of the things that have happened lately have . . . well, they've been things neither Dad nor I could understand. Blaze has told me enough to let me know you couldn't give the answers to all those things. I think you're the only one who can help us.”
”And you're the girl who helped Keech get that gun on me,” he drawled.
”I'm sorry for that, terribly sorry. You must believe me.” There was no mistaking her sincerity. ”If I had known what I know now, I would have warned you, hidden you there in the room. You could have seen Ruth. That's something else.” She paused, studying him intently. ”I'll go tell Ruth anything you want me to. Perhaps that will help make it up to you.”
He tried to find something to say but couldn't.
She went on to cover his embarra.s.sment: ”Ruth didn't like it at all. I don't suppose we're friends now.”
”Let's forget her,” he drawled. ”What's more important . . . what will you tell your father?”