well educated and seemed friendly enough, but deep down he’d the feeling they were hiding something.
“You both seem to be honest men,” Madigan said at long last, looking from one to the other, “but I feel there’s something you left out.”
The two men glanced at each other as if caught in an embarrassing situation, then seemed to reach an unspoken agreement.
“Speaking of honesty,” LaRue said, suddenly growing uneasy, “we were part of the bunch that tried to kill you a few weeks ago.” LaRue looked down at his hands nervously, beads of sweat broke out on his forehead. “In fact, I was the leader. For reasons that are now not even clear to me, I allowed those men to try to gun you down. Please believe me when I say there has not been a day gone by since that I have not regretted it.”
Coming to his feet, the big man came to Madigan’s side. “Shorty didn’t have anything to do with it. He’s just along for the ride, you might say. When you’re well again, if you want to have me pay for my actions, I’ll give you more than a fair chance at my hide. You deserve more, but that’s all I have at present.”
“Was it one of you that shot me?”
“Not us. We’re not ambushers. So, like I said, if you want a chance at my hide I won’t blame you.
“Thanks,” was about all Madigan could think to say, but he knew deep in his heart that the three of them would be friends. They were all too much alike not to be. Revenge would serve no purpose.
“How many of your boys did I get with the big bruiser?” Madigan asked.
“You mean that buffalo gun of yours? Madigan nodded his head. “Two out on the plains. But all told, you cost me five men, although two of them weren’t your doing.”
“What do you mean?” Madigan asked fully expecting the answer.
“Sent a couple after you with several horses to run you down.”
“Smart move on your part.”
“I thought so too. Only trouble was, they ran smack into a big old grizzly while it was feeding or wounded, I don’t know which. Guess he didn’t take too kindly to them intruding, so he made a meal of both of the men!
“Only thing I couldn’t figure out was why they got off their horses and went into the brush where the bear was, unless it scared the horses so bad they threw the riders. Could have happened so fast the grizzly killed them the second they hit the ground.
“Never really know how, but sure makes me have a lot of respect for those big bears. Be glad you didn’t have to see it. Those men were a mess. Believe me, it was gruesome.”
“I did see it!”
LaRue gave Madigan a startled look. “How?”
“I set it up so the men would take cover in the brush where the bear was. I chanced to see them coming right after I’d a run-in with the grizzly, so I worked my way around it, then waited for your men.” Madigan took in a deep breath as he remembered how he shook at the sight of the bear attack.
“When your men came hell-bent-for-leather around the corner, I was in the middle of the trail with my rifle pointed at them. Natural thing for a man to do is dismount and run for cover. That’s just what they did, only the bear was waiting for them.
“So you see, both of us will have to live with the regret of our actions for the rest of our lives. So unless you have a mind to, just forget about a showdown between us,” Madigan said sadly. “Now how about some more stew, and fill it up this time. That stuff makes a man’s belly cry out for more. By the way, if you don’t mind me askin’, what happened to the rest of your men?”
LaRue shot a glance at his partner and Madigan knew he’d hit a sore spot, but it was too late to take back the question.
“Renegade named O’Neill talked them into joining him.”
At O’Neill’s name, Madigan’s blood ran cold. So he was out there waiting and he had a gang with him now. Madigan thought of the attempt to kill him with the dynamite, and all of a sudden it dawned on him that it must have been O’Neill that shot him. Who else would have shot and left a man lying there without checking to see if he was dead? Then Madigan remembered the two women he’d saved and what O’Neill would do to them if he had gotten his hands on them. Somehow Madigan had to find a way to stop him, not just for what O’Neill did to him, but. . for her.
O’Neill quickly took charge of his men, many of whom were still stunned by what they’d just witnessed with the killing of Elegant. Looking from one man to the next, he seemed to be seeing into their very souls, and each man knew that there would be no turning back from this madman. You either followed him to the depths of hell or you died from his hand; there would be no other choice. Live or die, it was no longer their decision to make. Whatever reason they’d come along in the first place no longer mattered. They were completely under the will of this one man. From now on he would think for them and they would follow as of one mind. His control was absolute.
Chapter 14
The day dawned cold and clear as though washed by a giant waterfall before being dried out by the first ragged multicolored rays of the sun. O’Neill had barked out his orders for the men to break camp before the last stars reluctantly faded from the morning sky. Now they were saddled and ready to ride.
“We ride until we find the cave where I was camped,” he growled as the men started out. “Any man try to cross me and I’ll kill him no matter where he tries to hide on the face of the earth!”
His statement was irrational, but fear has a way of dulling the logical thought processes. And even though it would be an easy escape, fear gripped the men to their very depths so that it was as if their rabid leader held some mystical power over them, a strange magic they could neither hide from nor resist.
Just after dusk, they found the cave, sinister in the growing darkness, wind whistling from its mouth like a wailing banshee from hell, totally unnerving everyone but O’Neill, who took obvious delight in watching the men’s reaction to the place.
“Make camp here and at first light I’ll show you where this hole leads to,” O’Neill announced in a voice so eerie it made the hair on the back of a man’s neck stand on end. An hour later the men sat around the campfire in small groups talking amongst themselves while O’Neill sat alone by the cave entrance waiting for first light.
About twenty minutes later, Donoven nudged the man next to him. “Do you smell that?” he asked, taking another sniff of the air like a hound on the trail of a raccoon.
“Yeah, what do you make of it? Smells like roasting chicken to me. Can’t really tell, but one thing’s for sure- it’s hot food a cookin’.”
“I was thinkin’ the same thing. But where the heck’s it comin’ from?”
None of the men had eaten anything but beans and bacon with a little hardtack thrown in for some time, and little by little the aroma of the hot food was getting to each of them. Donoven came to his feet and cautiously started walking from one side of the camp to the next, all the while acutely aware of O’Neill’s gaze following him. Donoven kept sniffing the air as he walked, like a hungry grizzly trying to locate a carcass that was ripening in the sun.
Finally he stopped, and faced in the direction of the cave. But before he could say anything, O’Neill looked up from his bedroll next to the cave mouth and spoke in a quiet but commanding voice. Even though it was not much more than a whisper, it rang on the men’s ears like thunder.
“The smell is coming from the cave!”
A hush fell upon the camp at O’Neill’s words as the men realized the truth of the statement. The smell was indeed coming from the cave. But who could it be? If it was Indians, then why not a guard at the cave’s opening? These questions and many more flooded the men’s minds as they sat there in silence, fear capturing their minds once more.
“Now you know why I had to find this cave,” came O’Neill’s voice, barely louder than before. “It is the entrance to a hidden valley, a valley that will change all of our lives forever.
The shock of this statement showed on each man’s face as the excitement stirred them to life again. Could this man, this monster they were now forced to follow, be telling the truth? And if he was, how did he know? How
