The water was clear and pure, coming down from the Staked Plain that loomed above and to the west of us. None of us relished that ride, but we had it to do.
'Marcy named this stream after McClellan,' Orrin said. 'He believed McClellan was the first white man to see it. Marcy was exploring the headwaters of the Red and the Canadian rivers on that trip.'
'We'll camp,' I said.
We scouted the stream for the best location for a camp and found it at a place where a huge old cottonwood had toppled to the ground. The upper branches and some leaves that still clung to them were in the water, but the trunk of the tree made a good break from the wind, and the other cottonwoods shaded the place. There was a kind of natural corral where we could bunch the horses.
First we staked them out to graze. The Tinker set watch over them whilst Judas whipped up the grub. Orrin and me, we nosed around.
The way we figured, we were right on pa's old trail, and we were wishful of looking about to see if he left sign. Now all men have their patterns of using tools, making camp, and the like. Time had swept away most things a man might leave behind, and this was a country of cold and heat with hard winds and strong rains coming along all too often.
This was likely a camp where they'd spend time. A long trek was behind them, the Staked Plain before them, and they knew what that meant.
It was a snug camp. When the horses had grazed enough on the bottom grass, the Tinker brought them in and we settled them down in the corral.
A man riding wild country keeps his eyes open for camping places. He may not need one at that spot on the way out, but it might be just what the doctor ordered on the way back. Camps, fuel, defensive positions, water, landmarks, travel-sign ... a man never stops looking.
We'd traveled steady, if not fast, and we'd lost time here and there trying to leave nothing an Indian would care to follow, yet I was uneasy. Too many attempts had been made to do away with us, and it wasn't likely we'd gotten off scot-free.
Leaving camp, I wandered off upstream toward where the creek came down from under the cap rock. It was good sweet water and there wasn't much of that hereabouts, for most of the streams were carrying gypsum, or salts, or something of the kind.
Andre Baston had evidently been with the parry when it reached here, so he would know of this water and would come to it. How many he would have with him I wouldn't be able to guess, but he would pick up some hard cases along the way and he'd be prepared for trouble.
The feel of the country isn't right, and something inside tells me, warns me.
What is it? Instinct? But what is instinct? Is it the accumulation of everything I've ever seen or smelled tickling a little place in my memory?
This is the kind of place I like. It is one of those lonely, lovely places you have to go through hell to reach. Many a man's home is just that, I expect.
Thin water running over sand-water so clear the whole bottom is revealed to you, and even a track left an hour ago may still be there ... like that one.
The track of a horse, and beyond it another. I waded the stream, following them.
A slight smudge of a hoof on the grassy bank, tracks going away toward the cliffs. I was careful not to let my eyes look that way, but turned and strolled casually along the stream bank for thirty or forty yards, and then I walked back to camp.
I stopped twice on the way back. Once to pick up some sticks for fuel, another time to look at a place where a rabbit had been sleeping. At camp I dropped the fuel.
Orrin had gone off downstream, and I had to get him back.
'Tracks,' I told them. 'Get your rifles and keep a careful eye open all around.
That was a shod horse, so they're here--or somebody is.'
'How old was that track?' the Tinker wondered.
'Hour--maybe more. That water's not running so fast. It isn't carrying much silt, so it's hard to say. A track like that will lose its shape pretty fast, so I'd surmise not over an hour, and we've been here about half that time-- maybe more.
'My guess would be they've seen us coming and they figured we wouldn't pass up a good camp spot like this. I think they are out there now ... waiting.'
I took my Winchester, and I shoved two handfuls of shells into my pockets. I was already wearing a cartridge belt, every loop loaded.
'Take nothing for granted. They may wait until night and they may come just any time.' Thinking about it, I said, 'Make out to be collecting fuel, but sort of pick up around. Get everything packed except grub and the frying pan. We may move suddenlike.'
The brush was thicker downstream, and there were more cottonwoods and willows. A few paths ran away through the brush--deer, buffalo, and whatnot. Moving out, I hung my Winchester over my shoulder by its sling, just hanging muzzle down from my left shoulder, my left hand holding the barrel. A lift of the left hand, the muzzle goes up, the butt comes down, and the right hand grabs the trigger guard.
With practice, a man can get a rifle into action as quickly as a six-gun.
Thick blackberry brush, some willows, and some really big cottonwoods. Orrin's tracks were there, and then Orrin.
He turned when he saw me coming. 'Whatever happened, must have happened there--in the mountains, I mean, or on the way back.'
'You think they found the gold?'
'Found it, or sign of it,' he said. 'Maybe it was late in the season before they located anything, and all of a sudden Andre or Pierre or somebody suddenly got the idea they should have it all.'
'Andre got back, and Hippo Swan. They must have been the youngsters of the group.'
Quietly then, I told him of the horse tracks and my feeling about them. We started back toward camp, taking our time and returning by a somewhat different route. We were only a few hundred yards downstream, but I'd caught no pattern to Andre's thinking, so I'd no way of knowing how he might choose to attack.
He was a fighting man, that much I knew, and I gathered that he'd not step back from murder. He didn't strike me as a man of honor, and from what I'd heard of his dueling and of his approach to LaCroix, I figured him to be a man to take any advantage.
'Orrin, there's no use in setting by an' lettin' him choose his time. Besides, we're lookin' to find what happened to pa, not to have a shootout with Andre Baston.'
'What are you suggesting?'
'That come nightfall we Injun out of here, back south for the Red, follow it right up the canyon as far as we can go, then take off across the Staked Plains for Tucumcari or somewhere yonder.'
We left our fire burning where the grass wouldn't catch, and we Injuned out of there, holding to the brush until it was fairly dark, then heading off to the south. For four mounted men with packhorses we moved fast and light and made mighty little sound.
By sunup we were twenty miles off, following along the route McClellan had taken in 1852. We camped, rested an hour or two, then turned west across the plains toward the canyon of the Red.
Finally the sandy bottom of the stream played out and the water was sweet where it ran over rock. The last tributaries must have been bringing the gypsum into the water.
We found a trail where a steep climb and a scramble would get us out of the canyon and we took off across country. I knew about where Tucumcari Mountain lay, a good landmark for old Fort Bascom. Twice we made dry camp, and once we found a spring. We stopped again when we met a sheepman who provided us with tortillas and frijoles. Our horses were taking a beating, so when we spotted a herd of horses and some smoke, we came down off the mesa and cut across the desert toward them.
Orrin eased his horse closer to mine. 'I don't like the look of it,' he said.
'That's no ordinary bunch of stock.'
We slowed down to come up to the herd at a walk. We saw four men: three hard-looking white men and a Mexican with twin bandolier loaded with rifle cartridges. They were set up as if for a fight.
'Howdy!' I said affably. 'You got any water?'
