The continuing racket of gunfire from above and below brought Sam out of his momentary reverie. The past might be fascinating, but the present was dangerous and needed his full attention.
He walked out onto the ledge, keeping an eye on the rim some seventy feet above him. After about fifty feet, he came to another of the zigzagging cracks and was able to climb it to the next man-made ledge.
As he moved higher and higher, his route carried him around the curve of the mesa, so he couldn’t see his companions anymore. He heard the shots, though, as the battle between the rustlers and the Devil’s Pitchfork crew continued.
Sam didn’t know how many men he would find on top of the mesa. It would have taken at least five or six to steal that herd and drive them out here, but once the cattle were hidden atop the mesa, fewer men would be needed to keep an eye on them. Some of the rustlers could have headed to town, leaving only a couple up there.
It had sounded like more than two rifles firing at him, however, and Sam figured there were at least four men he would have to deal with when he reached the top.
Those weren’t good odds. He would have felt a lot better if Matt had been here with him. Being outnumbered two-to-one didn’t mean much to the blood brothers. They had faced odds like that many times in their adventurous lives and were still alive and kicking.
But now that he had started up, there wasn’t much he could do except keep going. If he was able to come in behind the rustlers and get the drop on them, he could force them to surrender.
A sudden grating of rock somewhere above him made him jerk his head up.
Sam’s eyes widened as he saw a boulder almost as big as he was plummeting toward him.
He was on one of the ledges at the moment, so he threw himself into a dive that carried him out of the boulder’s path. It slammed into the ledge a few feet behind him as he landed. His momentum sent him sliding toward the brink of the curving ledge.
Sam had to drop his rifle to slap both hands against the sandstone and stop himself. Luckily the Winchester didn’t bounce off. The boulder rebounded from the ledge and fell the rest of the way to the ground, where it landed with a crash that raised a little cloud of dust.
Sam grabbed the rifle and scrambled to his feet. Obviously, the rustlers knew he was trying to climb the mesa, so he wouldn’t be taking them by surprise after all.
And if they could try to drop one boulder on him, probably they could make another attempt. He ran along the ledge toward the next crack in the rock. The mesa wall bulged out above it, so that would give him some protection.
His heart pounded as he climbed several feet up the sloping crack. He was safe here, but whether he retreated or forged ahead, as soon as he stepped out onto another of those open ledges, he risked having a boulder dropped on his head.
But he couldn’t stay here forever, Sam told himself. Boyd and his men might be able to lay siege to the mesa and starve out the rustlers, but they would be starving out Sam at the same time.
He looked up. The crack in which he had taken shelter became too steep after another ten feet for cattle and horses to use it as a trail ...
But a man could climb it, Sam thought.
A grim smile tugged at his mouth. It wouldn’t be easy—in some places the crack was almost vertical—but it could be done. And most importantly, the rustlers couldn’t get at him with either boulders or bullets while he was making the ascent.
He would need both hands, though, so he took off his belt and used it to rig a sling for the Winchester. When he had the rifle hung over his shoulder, he hurried along the slope until it turned upward at a steeper angle. Ignoring the ledge that had been cut into the rock, he started up the natural crack, crawling now because of the angle.
Somewhere above him, a man yelled, “Can you see him?”
“Blast it, no!” another man answered. “He’s found himself a hole somewhere!”
“Well, let him stay there,” the first man said. “Let him stay there and rot!”
Sam smiled again.
He continued climbing. The crack narrowed, grew steeper still, turned into a chimney. Sam pulled the Winchester around so that it hung in front of him, pressed his back against one side of the opening and his feet against the other, and worked his way up inch by inch.
After a while the strain set his muscles to trembling slightly. He slipped a little but caught himself before he fell.
There was nowhere for him to go except up, so he kept struggling to lift himself, again and again. Sharp places in the wall gouged his back through the buckskin shirt. He ignored the pain and continued climbing.
The shots would taper off, then flare up again. From down below, it would be very difficult for any of the men on the ground to get a clear shot at the rustlers on the mesa.
From the sound of it, though, Stovepipe, Boyd, and the others had found good cover for themselves, though, and continued throwing lead at the cattle thieves.
At the very least, that kept the rustlers occupied and gave Sam the chance he needed to make his way to the top.
The crack angled again, rather than going almost straight up. Sam stretched out in it to rest for a moment.
But not for too long, because the men who had come here with him were still at risk as long as they were trading shots with the rustlers. He had come to regard Stovepipe and Wilbur as friends, and the men from the Devil’s Pitchfork were allies, at least for the moment.
