this. He reasoned that, if Chase’s crew was really fired up to kill, one or the other of them, at least, would have answered the cowman with gun-shots.
Finally a voice Rufe knew belonged to Fenwick called out: “We’ll make a trade with you fellers! We’ll leave Miz Cane settin’ here tied up, like she is, and we’ll take the horses and head on out…providin’ you fellers agree not to shoot, and not Tomake an at-tempt to interfere with us getting away. All right?”
Rufe answered quickly: “Send Miz Cane south-ward on her own first.”
For a moment there was no answer, then it came, apparently after a heated discussion by the men hiding in the underbrush.
“We got a better notion. We’ll take her along with us for a mile or two, just to keep you fellers honest, and, if you don’t go and try to interfere with us heading out, we’ll set her loose. And that’s the only terms we’ll talk about, so you either agree or don’t agree.”
Rufe sighed, waited for Jud or Evart Hartman to speak, and after a minute, when neither of them had made a sound, Rufe called out agreement to the terms.
XVI
Those agitated saddle animals were perfectly willing to settle down, once the gunfire ended. Rufe could see men’s legs in among the horses, but that was about all he could see, until two men brought up a third person. He recognized the high-topped dark boots and the riding skirt of Elisabeth Cane, and watched as Chase’s men put her astride one of the horses, then, by pulling back a few yards and peering over the tops of the tallest bushes, he could see her head and shoulders.
They had bound her arms behind her back, but with a short length of rope hanging loosely enough so that she had a little room to move her wrists, which struck Rufe as a charitable thing to do.
She sat her horse, looking scornfully around where the men were completing their arrangements to get astride, then she turned, looked over the tops of the bushes—and saw Rufe. He smiled and winked. She winked back, but did not smile, and a moment later she looked dead ahead, southward, as though she had seen nothing.
She looked regal, up there atop that horse, shoulders squared, head tilted just a little, her firm mouth set in an expression of acceptance without compromise. Rufe thought again that she was an unusually handsome woman, then a dry voice called from the east, but much closer than the same voice had sounded earlier, as Evart Hartman addressed Arlen Chase.
“As a matter of curiosity, Arlen,” said Hartman. “If you run for Mexico, you’re leavin’ an awful lot behind. If I was in your boots, I’d face it…and at least salvage something.”
It struck Rufe as good advice. Perhaps it also struck Arlen that way, but he certainly gave no indication of it. He did not respond at all, and moments later Rufe could see them getting astride.
They acted wary, once they were exposed atop their horses. It was an understandable reaction, only moments earlier they had been shooting at the unseen watchers around them, and those same watchers had been shooting back. Now they were sitting ducks, except that a verbal agreement had been reached. The men had guns in their hands and kept casting glances around, somewhat fearfully, as though they expected to see a gun barrel aimed their way.
The last man up held a Colt that looked very new. The bluing was not rubbed off in any place that Rufe could see. Rufe watched as this man looked left, then right. While he was facing in Hartman’s direction, he said: “Why are you worrying about what I’m leaving behind, Hartman, if you didn’t have some notion of comin’ up here after I’m gone, like a lousy vulture, and gleaning everything that isn’t tied down?”
Hartman was an honest man. “I had something like that in mind,” he admitted calmly. “Only I don’t steal, Arlen. I had in mind rounding up the stock I might want, then finding whoever represented you, and buying it from’em.”
“You can buy it from me,” stated Arlen Chase, and the dry answer he got back indicated just how far old Hartman’s opinion of Chase had sunk this morning.
“I wouldn’t buy an old trade blanket from you, Arlen.”
Fenwick urged his horse up beside Chase’s, leaned and growled something. Chase nodded, turned away from Hartman, and gestured for the little band to move out.
Rufe stepped back, got clear of the brush, then trotted down to where his horse was. When he arrived there, Jud was already snugging up a cinch on the animal he had led up from a more distant hiding place. They were listening to the progress of Chase’s band moving through underbrush when Evart Hart-man came up, panting. He grabbed the reins Jud offered, climbed up across leather without testing the cinch, and hauled his animal around just in time for them to be able to hear the riders to the east of them, moving over in the direction of the stage road, al-though Rufe did not believe Chase would actually go that far east. And he didn’t. When Hartman, Jud, and Rufe angled so as to stay behind the retreating riders, it became clear that Chase was paralleling the road, but was not going Tomake an attempt actually to reach and use it.
Rufe was speculating aloud with Jud and Evart Hartman what Chase’s course would be when they got down closer to Clearwater, and got his answer in a way neither he nor the men with him expected. Two riders appeared coming upcountry from the direction of town. They had evidently been instructed about where to abandon the roadway and head into the desert, because, although they were heading in the correct direction, they seemed quite unconvinced of it, right up until the moment someone riding with Arlen Chase called out a warning, and Chase reined over close to Elisabeth Cane, then looked all around before spotting the oncoming men.
Rufe saw no one. Neither did Jud, but old Evart Hartman had picked up a fresh presence from his horse, and was riding along, watching intently over easterly in the direction of the stage road. He did not actually see those two men, but ultimately heard them coming, heard Chase’s man growl, and finally, standing in his stirrups, he saw something that could have been fresh horsemen passing in and out among the southerly undergrowth. When old Hartman settled back down in his saddle and leaned slightly to tell Rufe what was down there, someone fired a pistol.
It was an unexpected sound. It not only startled every man; it also made the horses of Rufe and Jud and Evart Hartman throw up their heads. Dead ahead, Rufe heard Fenwick cry out in protest, and then the other one in Chase’s party started to yell, but without warning another gunshot rang out, then a third and fourth gunshot erupted.
Hartman grunted and hauled his mount around to spur eastward. The same singing lead coming up-country had similarly inspired Rufe and Jud to get clear. They were riding low in the saddle, peering back in the direction of those gunshots, when a powerful sorrel horse suddenly plowed through a stand of brush heading arrow straight right at Rufe and Jud.
They had about four seconds to adjust to being at-tacked, and fortunately they were already looking in that direction, so the plunging horse did not catch them entirely unaware. The animal was gathering momentum each time it sank its hind hoofs down after bursting through the underbrush. Within another ten or fifteen yards, the horse would be run-ning belly down straight toward the old trail up to the mesa.
Rufe yelped and Jud swung wide to allow the sorrel to come in between them, its reins flopping wildly from a looped position over the saddle horn. There was no way for the rider, with both arms bound behind her back, to control the running horse, except in a very unreliable way through knee pressure. How she had turned and got free, Rufe did not dwell on as he jumped his horse out to come in running beside the big sorrel. Leather strained, stirrups grated together, and Elisabeth’s face was close enough for Rufe to see the fear in her dark eyes when he leaned far out to grab for the reins under the sorrel’s jaw.
On the far side, Jud, aware of his partner’s intention, made no attempt to grab reins, but he leaned his own straining mount into the sorrel on Elisabeth’s left side, forcing her horse over against Rufe’s animal. That way, Rufe was able to get a double hold on the reins, and ease back, bringing both horses down to a jarring, slamming halt.
He looked at Elisabeth. She showed a shaky small smile as Jud moved in with his clasp knife to free her arms. As he reached for the rope, Jud said: “How did you get away?”
Her answer was a surprise. “I didn’t. One of the men turned my horse and struck it over the rump, when that shooting started. The horse was heading straight for the trail up to my home atop the mesa.” She smiled with more
