the Man Called Noon (1970) (17 page)

"Fan, put some grub together," he said. "There's some gunny sacks around. Get one of them and fill it with canned goods and whatever isn't too heavy. Put in a side of bacon and some coffee."

She did not ask questions, but did what he suggested.

"A canteen," he added, "and some cartridges."

"Now see here, Ruble," came the voice from outside. "We don't want to kill Miss Davidge. You're endangering her."

"You don't want to kill her? You mean you're going to rob her and then let her go, to complain about it? I don't think so, Judge."

He lifted his rifle and fired three quick shots, each one at a boulder or a rock face behind which he believed the men were hidden. He heard the bullets strike, heard their angry whine. Then he got up and put the shutters in place. There were loopholes that he could fire through if they began to advance.

"You've still got a chance to come out," Niland called "If you don't, we'll burn you out."

Bum them? There was nothing here that would burn but the wind was toward the front of the house and if they dropped burning material off the edge of the rock above, the smoke would come in through cracks and around the windows. Much of it might be kept out,

He made no reply, but turned toward the closet and pulled open the door. "We'll go this way," he said.

He helped Fan through the openings, and stood for an instant looking around. Would he ever see this place again? He was desperately weary. The loss of blood, the hot sun, and his long struggle to escape had sapped his strength. Without Fan, he would have stayed where he was and tried to fight it out, but smoke was one thing against which they had no defense.

He followed her through the doors, closing them carefully behind him.

She trusted him.

Ruble Noon squatted by the shaft and considered that. She had placed her faith in him, and he could not fail her.

From out of nowhere he, a lost man, had found this girl, and from the first moment they had been aware of something in each other that was worth protecting. From the first, their troubles had been theirs together. Somehow, even before his injury, he had felt as if he had been retained to free her from the outlaws who had taken over her ranch.

He could have escaped all this, but because of her he had remained, and now both their lives were in jeopardy. He stared down into the shaft. It seemed a simple way of escape . . . but was it so easy?

They knew of the ranch, they had tried to ambush him there. And even if no one waited for him down there, no horses would be available, and it was a long hike to the little station, part of it across open country. They might be able to arrive in time to catch a train; or they might be trapped in the open before they arrived, or while waiting at the station.

By now the others had probably located the shaft. It was not easy to find, nor under ordinary circumstances would they be likely to recognize it for what it was; but these circumstances were far from ordinary. They would have been trying frantically to find his escape route . . . and there was a good chance they had done so.

That shaft could be a death trap. They might not have men lying in wait at the bottom of the shaft, concealed in the rocks just outside ... they might not ... but he could not be sure.

It was then that he remembered the dark hole where the ancient steps disappeared.

It was no longer possible to climb up those steps. Rockfalls and erosion had destroyed them, but whoever had laboriously carved those steps in the beginning had not done so just to gratify a whim. Those steps had gone to somewhere, and for some reason.

A secret storage place for gram? It was unlikely. Carrying grain up those small steps in the baskets used by the early people who populated this place would be impossible. However, the place might have been used for certain ceremonies, or as a hiding place in time of danger. Or as an escape route?

He went to the peg driven into the wall where the lanterns were hung and took one down. He shook it-it was half full. Another was nearly empty.

The light was dim here, but near the shaft it was sufficient to see by. He peered into the corner under the lanterns and found what he sought - a can of kerosene, almost full, with a potato stuck over the spout.

He filled both lanterns, then, taking the can and a coil of rope from the wall, he went to the shaft. He handed Fan one of the lanterns. A moment longer he hesitated. He was committing them to a course from which there might be no escape; but without it there would certainly be none.

He motioned to the small platform. "Get on, Fan. It will be crowded, but we can make it."

She peered down. "Won't they be waiting for us?" she asked. "I mean ... suppose they know of this place?"

"We aren't going all the way," he said quietly. "Fan, we're taking a long gamble. If you want to stay and chance it here, I'll stay with you."

"No. I want to be with you . . . wherever you go."

He lowered them down carefully. The platform was so crowded they could hardly move. When they reached the dark opening of the cave, he stopped and tied the rope. After helping Fan to the ledge at the cave entrance, he lifted off the lanterns and the can of kerosene. Then hoisting himself aloft once more, he loaded the sacks of food and the ammunition onto the platform and went back down. By that time even the cave was filling with smoke.

"Will they find us?" Fan asked.

"I doubt it." He looked down the shaft once more. He thought he could see a boot track down there he had not seen before, but in the dimness and at that distance he might be mistaken. He turned toward her. "Do you trust me?"

"Yes," she said quietly.

Drawing his bowie knife, he slashed through the ropes. The platform hit the bottom with a crash, and dust lifted. The free end of the rope rattled through the block and fell to the bottom of the shaft.

Fan gasped, and clutched his arm. Far below, in the light that came into the lower part of the shaft, lay the platform and the rope. They were cut off now, completely isolated.

Two men rushed into the space below, looking quickly around, and then looking up. From where they stood they could see nothing but the darkness and the empty wheel. He could hear their voices, in astonished argument, but could not distinguish any words.

The lanterns had been set well back away from the shaft, and now they recovered them. Fan took both rifles, and he shouldered the sacks of food, and they went deeper into the cave.

Under their feet lay the dust of centuries. The light of the lanterns threw their grotesque shadows on the walls. The cave was a natural one, but there were no visible signs of habitation.

When they had gone perhaps fifty feet from the shaft they came suddenly into a fairly large room, partially lighted by a crack in the roof high above their heads. Here fires had once been built in a circle of stones.

"A temporary camp," Ruble Noon said. "I don't believe these people lived in caves. There's got to be a way out."

"Why?"

"I've seen villages, probably of these same people, built up on the mesas. I think they liked to live under the open sky. I mean, they built their houses in the open. Back yonder" - he pointed toward the east - "I've seen remains of houses, a double line of rooms, not quite square, often definitely rectangular, and always on mesa tops."

Here it was absolutely still. Fan Davidge looked around the half-lit cave, trying to picture the kind of men they must have been, how they had camped briefly here ... or perhaps this had been a ceremonial cave, only visited for some special occasion.

Ruble Noon nudged an ancient ear of corn from the dust with his toe, and picked it up. It had been shelled at some far distant time, but the rows from which the kernels had come were still visible. He counted them ... ten rows.

"Do you think we can find where they lived if we keep on through the cave?"

He shrugged. "There's no village near the cabin, and none down in the canyon, either, although I wouldn't expect it there. These people didn't care for canyons. That came later."

He listened, but there was no sound.

"I've been all over this country, and several times I've found smashed-in skulls in the rows of ancient ruined houses. I think they were attacked and driven out. Over west of here there are some great houses built in hollows under the overhanging cliffs. I think they moved there and built them to defend themselves."

He shouldered the sacks, took up his lantern, and ducked into the tunnel beyond. There was little room to spare, and often the sacks on his shoulder brushed the roof. He counted his steps, and when he reached a hundred, with no widening of the tunnel or change in direction, he paused.

It was hot and close in here. The air was difficult to breathe. He mopped perspiration from his forehead, and started on. The lanterns had grown dimmer ... there was less oxygen.

Another hundred paces, but this time he did not stop. Still another hundred. How far had they come? He had been keeping track, and judged that they must now be about eight or nine hundred yards into the mountain. He was not sure of their direction, but the tunnel seemed to be going east, away from the ranch.

When he had gone another hundred steps he stopped. The lights were very low, and his breath was coming in gasps. Fan's cheeks were streaked with perspiration and dust.

"We've got to keep on," he said. "There's no point in turning back."

He shouldered the sacks again and went on. The tunnel suddenly took a sharp turn and opened out into a large chamber.

"Ruble . .. look! The lanterns!" Fan exclaimed.

The flames had flared up, as if the rounding of the corner had brought them into better air. And even as they flared, the flames seemed to bend a little. At the same time he felt a faint, fresher coolness on his cheek.

Hurrying on, they came suddenly to a ledge at the cave mouth. The ledge overhung a valley several hundred feet below, a valley Ruble Noon had never seen before. It was narrow, and the ledge itself was no more than fifteen feet across. The cave mouth was merely a gouge in the side of the cliff.

At the side there was a crack that provided a steep, hair-raising climb to the top of the mesa, more than a hundred feet above. Here on the ledge was a small spring, and they saw that there had been fires here, too. Scattered about were shards of broken pottery, most of them having a red and black design.

He glanced up the steep chimney that led to the top of the mesa. One misstep in the climb might send one crashing down and over the brink into the valley below; and anyone caught midway in the climb by someone approaching from above would be helpless.

"Will they follow us?" Fan asked.

"They've got to be rid of us. We know too much, and Ben Janish knows I've been sent to kill him."

"Could we get out if we went back there?"

"I doubt it. I dropped the rope, and I hope they accept that as an accident and think we're trapped. If they buy that idea they won't follow us. In any case, a man with a rifle could shoot down that long passage and stop them."

"But you're not back there . . . why?"

He shrugged again. "Maybe I just don't want to kill unless I have to ... maybe I'm hoping there's a way out up there." He indicated the chimney.

It was about four feet wide at the bottom, narrowing to less than three toward the top. Broken rock, all of it loose and jagged, lay along the bottom or along the side along which they must climb. Behind them as they climbed would be the vast gulf of the canyon, its bottom far below.

Obviously the people who had come to this spring, the growers of corn and the makers of the black-on-red pottery, had climbed this chute, but conditions at that long-ago time might have been far different. Much erosion had taken place, and wind and rain, ice and roots had operated here; and once they started to climb, rocks and earth in the chute might suddenly give way and slide right over them, and there would be no escape.

He lay down and took a long drink from the cold water of the spring. When he rose, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he looked up at the chute. "Will you try that with me?" he asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Once we start, there will be no turning back. Climbing down would be just as hard as climbing up. We'll have to keep going."

"All right."

Still he hesitated. Perhaps as Ruble Noon, the hunter of outlaws, he had been fearless; but if so he was not fearless now. He knew how uncertain such slides can be; he realized well the danger.

"Isn't it strange?" Fan said. "I know so little about you, but I feel safe with you. I always have."

"I don't know much about myself. I do know that my name was once Jonas Mandrin, that I had been a journalist of sorts, and that later I had an arms company. But that doesn't tell very much."

"May I call you Jonas?"

"If you like." He took up one of the sacks, "We'd better be going now. I have no idea what's waiting up there. They could have found another route to head us off."

"How would they know where we will appear?"

That was true, but he did not underrate Niland, nor Ben Janish either. They were shrewd men, and Niland was playing a dangerous game, risking not only his respectable reputation but his life.