Rimrock Trail Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII

  THE PASS OF THE GOATS

  In the throat of the gorge the sun shone red on the tawny cliffs. Thetrail, a scant four feet wide at its best, with crumbled, weatheredmargin, crept along the face of the cliff above a deep canyon where thenight shadows had already gathered in a purple flood, slowly rising asthe rays of the setting sun shifted upward, not yet staining the summit.

  It was close to seven o'clock. Sandy's lean face was anxious. The girldrooped in her seat tired from the long climb, not yet inured to thesaddle. The horses traveled gamely, sure-footed but obviously losingendurance. Every little while they stopped of their own accord, theirflanks heaving painfully in the altitude.

  Sandy had only once crossed the Pass of the Goats and that was yearsbefore. There had been washouts since then. Several times they wereforced to dismount and lead the nervous beasts, Sandy doing the coaxing,helping Molly over the difficult places. He rode a mare named Goldie andthe girl a bay with a white blaze that Sandy had chosen for the mountainwork and which had been brought to them at the lava strip.

  The mare halted, neck stretched out, turning it to look inquiringly ather master. A sharp incline lay ahead, the path little better than onemade by the goats for which the pass was named. Behind, Molly's mountfollowed suit, blowing at the dust. Sandy patted the mare's neck anddismounted.

  "It's late, ain't it?" asked Molly. "Will we miss that train?"

  "There's others," answered Sandy. "Or, if there ain't any mo' ter-night,we'll hire us a car an' keep movin'. Yo're sure game, Molly;" he addedadmiringly, "you must be clean tuckered out."

  She shook her head with an attempt at a smile.

  "I'll be glad when we start goin' down, fer a change," she admitted,looking into the gloomy trough of the canyon through which the night windsoughed.

  "I'll tighten up yore cinches," said Sandy. "Worst of the climb's jestahead. Then we start to drop down t'other side. You don't have to gitoff. Trail's bound to be better once we git atop the mesa and startdown. Mesa's right narrer, as I remember. T'other side's away from theweather. There's a canyon with oak trees an' a stream of water." Hetugged at the leathers, his knee against the bay's ribs as she grunted.

  "You ain't much furtheh to go, li'l' hawss," he chatted on. "Downhillall the way soon an' then a drink to wash out yore mouth an' the bestfeed in Caroca fo' the pair of you."

  "Gits dark mighty quick up here," said the girl.

  A great cloud was ballooning above them, like a dirigible that had lostbuoyancy and was bumping along the mesa ridge. Its belly was black, itswestern side ruddy in the sunset. Sandy viewed it apprehensively. Insuperficial survey the mesa seemed much like the stranded carcass of amastodonic creature left behind when the waters departed from theseinland seas. A hard skeleton of igneous rock, with clayey soil forflesh, riven and seamed and pitted, crumbling and dusty in the sun, everdisintegrating with wind and water and frost. Under a rain the trail wasslimy as a whale's back. The cloud was soggy with moisture. Bursting, itwould send torrents roaring down every ravine, wash out weathered massesof earth, sweep all before it as it gathered forces and rushed out onthe desert, leaving the main canyons carved a little richer, the surfaceof the soil on the sink a little deeper, against the time when menshould control these storm waters or bring the precious fluid up fromunderground reservoirs and make the desert blossom like the rose.

  Where Molly and Sandy rode they were exposed to the first drench of acloud-burst. Deeper in the pass, where the flood would be confined,their chance for escape would be infinitesimal. Even on the heights itwould be precarious unless they could cross the remainder of theup-trail before the inevitable downpour.

  Sandy examined his own cinch and tightened it before he mounted. And hewhispered something in the mare's ear that caused her to lip hissleeve.

  "Let yore hawss have his own way, Molly," he said. "I'm lettin' Goldiedo the pickin' fo' the lead. Ready?"

  It was growing cold in the deepening twilight, the belt of sunshine wasrapidly climbing toward the topmost palisades with the purple shadows inthe gorge mounting, twisting and eddying in skeins of mist, twining uptoward them. One spire ahead glowed golden. The cloud drifted down uponit, glooming and glowing on its sunset side. The crag pierced it, rippedit as it glided along, like the knife of a diver in the belly of ashark. A cold wind blew from the riven mass. Then came the hiss ofdescending waters. There was neither thunder nor lightning, only thesteady rush of the rain that glazed the slippery trail, hid the opposingcliff from sight, sheeting it with dull silver, pounding, pitting,beating at them as they plodded doggedly on, almost blinded, trusting tothe instinct of their horses.

  Through the steady patter began to sound the savage voice of torrentsfalling over cliffs, rapids rising and surging in deep gorges. Thewetness and the cold sapped Molly's vitality. She shivered, her fleshseemed sodden, her hands and wrists began to puff and she saw theirflesh was purple in the fading light. She rode with hands on the saddlehorn, her head bowed, water streaming from the rim of her Stetson, thethud of the rain on her tired shoulders heavy as shot. The bay slipped,lurched, scrambled frantically for footing, hind feet skidding in theclay, haunches gathering desperately, heaving beneath her to the effortthat brought him back to the trail. She saw Sandy ahead, dimly, like asheeted ghost, twisted in his saddle, watching her. From the hips downhe was a part of the mare he rode, from waist up he was in suchexquisite balance while keeping his individuality apart from the horsethat, despite her present misery and a presentiment of coming evil thatwas beginning to encompass her, Molly realized what a magnificent riderhe was, and clung to his strength and skill, sensing the comfortingpower of his manhood.

  To her right was the cliff, slimy with water, the trail so narrow thatnow and then her elbow dug into the soft stuff. To the left wasblackness out of which mists ascended, writhing, like steamy vapors, therain pelting into the gulf, far, far below; the thunder of augmentingwaters. Masses of broken cloud swept on above their heads, purple andcrimson and orange as they streamed across the summit like the tatteredbanners of a routed army. The light rayed upward at an acute angle. In afew moments it would be dark. But they were close to the top. The marealready stood on a level ledge of side-jutting rock, a horizontalprotuberance that marked the extreme height of the Pass of the Goats,from which one could look down into the canyon of the oaks and theunfailing stream.

  Sandy heard a cry from Molly and saw, through the curtain of the fallingrain, the wide-flared nostrils of her horse, its eyes protruding as thebrute, with the ground slopping away beneath him, slid slowly downtoward the gulf, the girl, her weight flung forward on the withers, herface white as paper, turning to him mutely for help. It was a badmoment. Sandy and his mount stood upon an island in a shifting sea. Thewhole cliff seemed working and crawling, slithering down.

  He had no space to turn in, no chance to whirl his lariat, even for aside throw. There was no time to spin a loop. But his hand detached therope, flying fingers found the free end as he pivoted in the saddle,thighs welded to the mare.

  "Take a turn about the horn!" he shouted. "Hang to the end yo'se'f!" Hesent the line jerking back, whistling as it streaked across the girl'sshoulders. She clutched for it, with plenty of slack, snubbed it aboutthe saddle horn, clung to the end, made a bight of it about her body.

  Sandy spoke to the mare.

  "Steady, li'l' lady, steady!" The rope was about his own horn; hethanked God that he had examined the cinches of Molly's saddle. The baywas cat-footed; with the help of the mare Sandy believed he could digand scrape and climb to safety. It was the decision of a split-secondand he did not dare risk dragging the girl from the saddle past thestruggling horse.

  He felt Goldie stiffen beneath him, braced against the strain she knewwas coming. The taut lariat hummed, it bruised into Sandy's thigh.Behind, the bay snorted, struggling gallantly. They were poised on thebrink of death for a moment, two--three--and then the mare began to moveslowly forward, neck curved, ears cocked to her master's urging,
whilethe bay sloshed through the treacherous muck, found foothold, lost it,made a frantic leap, another, and landed trembling on the ledge. Sandyleaped from his saddle and caught Molly, sliding from her seat in sheerexhaustion and the revulsion of terror, clinging closely to him.

  "It's all right, Molly darlin'," he said soothingly. "All set an' safe.Rain's oveh an' stars comin' out. We're top of the pass. We'll git downinter the canyon a ways an' then we'll light a fire an' warm up a bit,'fore we go on."

  She found her feet and cleared from his hold, gasping for recovery ofherself.

  "I'm all right," she said. "I was scared an' yet I knew you'd pull meout. I'm plumb shamed of myself. Jest like a damned gel to act thatway."

  "Shucks! You wasn't half as scared as the bay. Wonder did he strainhimself?" He passed clever hands over the bay's legs, talking to it.

  "Yo're all right, ol' surelegs. Right as rain." Goldie, the mare, stoodstock-still with trailing lariat, watching them intelligently in thedusk that was growing quickly luminous as star after star shone throughthe flying wrack. A clean, strong wind blew through the throat of thepass. Sandy recoiled his lariat, gave Molly a hand to her foot to lifther to her saddle, mounted himself and they rode slowly down. The trailwas in better shape this side, though half an inch of water still toppedit. The turmoil of running waters far below burdened the night, but thedanger from the storm was over.

  Train time was long past. Sandy knew nothing of the change of schedule,but he was confident of winning clear. He knew a man in the little townthey were aiming for whose livery stable was, in the march of the times,divided between horses and machines. There he expected to put up thehorses until they could be returned to Three Star, and there he figuredon hiring a car and a driver if, as he anticipated, there were no moretrains that night. He believed that Mormon and Sam had delayed thesheriff. Probably the latter had given up the chase, but there was notelling. Jordan's best attribute was his pertinacity. They should loseno time in getting out of the state.