him, sprang up, and wheeled out of the barn in a long lope.
Parker Travis was by habit and inclination an early riser. Even in a land where all men arose at sunup or shortly after, he was an early riser. He did not know it, but this long-standing habit kept him from a grilling by Hub Wheaton, for as soon as he appeared in the lobby, the night clerk came over and handed him an unaddressed envelope.
“Left for you last night…or early this mornin’…whichever you prefer.”
Parker stood, gazing at the envelope. The clerk stood there, too. Parker dredged up a coin, dropped it into the clerk’s hand, and walked on out into the predawn coolness of the empty, hushed roadway. He knew no one in Laramie.
It occurred to him, after his surprise abated, that the letter was not intended for him at all, that it was meant for someone else and had been mistakenly handed to him.
He gazed up the road and down the road. There was no one abroad. Laramie was quiet as a tomb. He went along to a bench, dropped down, broke open the envelope, and drew forth, not a note at all, but a hastily drawn map. The only writing on it was at a place that had been encircled. There it said simply: I’ll be waiting here at ten o’clock.
There was no signature, either. Parker’s brows ran together in a perplexed frown. He studied the map, made sense from it, then closely examined both map and envelope for some hint of the sender. There was none.
He sat a while, putting pieces of this puzzle together in his mind’s eye, and came to a sound conclusion. He remembered his trail into Laramie vividly enough; he could check off each blaze on that trail against landmarks on the map. They led him eastward back beyond that big ranch where Frank’s blood bay was. After that, he did not know the land at all, but he recalled the peaks and forms well enough to be confident of locating the spot indicated by those written words. It was somewhere deep in the forested foothills where the Laramie Plains were pinched out by mountain flanks.
He stood up. The town was still except for a rooster crowing in the middle distance. The sun was not yet up, would not be up for another hour. He paced thoughtfully over the roadway onward toward the livery barn.
No, he told himself, this was no mistake. There was a connection of some kind between the blood bay’s new home and the appointed meeting. The longer Parker considered this, the more convinced he became. Obviously the meeting place was within the confines of that big ranch where his brother’s horse now was. Someone out there, someone with a reason, wanted to see him.
He halted where the liveryman stumped forward to yawn and nod—then turn stiff all over. Parker, an observant man, noticed this quick change. He waited, giving the night hawk time to speak. When no words came, he wrinkled his eyes at the night hawk and said: “What’s your name?”
“Toby.”
“I’ll remember that,” Parker said, strode on past, and went along to rig out his mount, step over leather, and strike out of Laramie in a northward direction. He paused once to look back. Toby was in the doorway. He sucked back instantly, whipping out of sight. Parker swung back forward and continued on out of town. He didn’t smile but he felt a little exultant. Someone had guessed who he was. From that it wouldn’t be hard to guess why he was here. He reined east upon the stage road, thinking that in a small, garrulous place like Laramie it wouldn’t be long before everyone connected with his brother’s killing would be remembering or fabricating personal excuses and defenses. The word would spread like wildfire.
He speculated a little, as he rode through the faultless gray softness of predawn, on the identity of the person who had discovered his identity. He also wondered how this had come about. Well, a man’s footsteps on earth may not be enduring, but as long as he’s around to leave them, other men will watch him, think about him, rummage for his secrets and his motives. He had to let it lie like that because, so far, he had met only one person to whom his presence had been electrifying: Toby, the hostler back in town. Of course, there were others, but thus far he’d encountered none of them.
Where Lincoln Ranch’s boundary lay, marked by a stone cairn, Parker considered the richness of that good land. Later, when buildings were in faint sight, he knew that before this day was past he would meet another one who knew his identity, someone connected with that large cow outfit.
He came even with the pasture fence where the blood bay had been, saw that he was no longer in that enclosure, and to break the monotony of this ride lifted his gelding into an easy lope.
When he slowed his mount a mile beyond Lincoln Ranch’s hushed buildings, the land began to lift a little, to break into gentle rolls and adobe gulches. Still farther he encountered individual pine trees standing as sentinels to the onward hills. A very faint pink streak stained the eastern horizon, widening, broadening, altering its color chameleon-like until the palest blue imaginable began to tint the eastward heaven.
The hills came on to meet him, bulky, coarse, and crumpled, their deeper canons still holding that night smokiness that was elsewhere beginning to give way before the paling eastern sky. Where he came upon a shallow creek with glass-clear water and visible gray pebbles on its bottom, he paused to offer his animal water. The horse drank, rinsed his mouth, and stood a moment, head still down, looking ahead where the first forest tier began.
He had left the stage road a mile back, had swung northeast while the road meandered slightly southeast. But even so, at this shallow ford where he now sat, there were signs that this crossing was much used. He found tracks that were no older than the day before. Under these tracks were older ones. He was interested in determining how many riders had passed up into the hills recently. Yesterday there had been only that one rider. Other times there had obviously been several at a time.
Out upon the Laramie Plains the sun jumped up, a faint-lighted world turned abruptly bright, hard yellow, and another sizzling day had commenced. In the forest that light came cathedral-like, long, broad beams of it spilling in arrow-straight lines where it could get through stiff-topped pines, and lie golden upon the carpeted floor. It found Parker Travis now and then, where he passed across openings, caught his shadow, and made it run on ahead.
He plodded along through the peacefulness of this cool, soft-shadowed place with the blue jay always 100 yards ahead making his warning cry. The trail passed through a damp clearing where forest ferns grew stirrup high. Here, because these ferns were jungle-like plants that covered tracks within days, he had to dismount and feel his way along ahead of his horse.
The trail upon the fern bed’s far side emerged and went, faintly discernible, into the forest again. It rose sharply over a hogback, plunged into a narrow little gloomy canon, swung suddenly due north, and ran along a shale ridge for 100 yards, then angled downward again into a secret dell where a creek ran brawlingly southward. Here, it seemed to end.
Parker tied his horse where trees were thick and darkness still lay. He unshipped his carbine, paced up to the very edge of that little glen, and halted to stand a long time, just looking. Neither making a sound nor moving at all, just looking.
Someone visited this place often, and yet, although he had no difficulty tracing out the pathways this person had made, he found no indication of fresh human sign, or that which he particularly sought—an established place of concealment.
He stepped out into the glen. He stepped along to the creek, halted, stared downward, put aside his Winchester, and dropped to one knee. The boot track there was no more than twenty-four hours old, which did not surprise him, but it was small, narrow, delicate—which did surprise him. He stood upright, reached for his carbine, and looked a moment at the hurrying little white-water creek. This secret place was not the refuge of a man at all. This belonged to a woman! No man had feet that small or that made so light an imprint upon creekbank soil.
He returned to his horse, brought it down into the glen where emerald grass was plentiful, loosened the
He had a feeling of safety in here. Partly this came from solid knowledge. On the way in he’d watched the
