CHAPTER XIX: ’TWIXT SKY AND DEATH
Cultus was a little dubious himself about that climb up the fissure in the canyon wall, but he realised it was their one best bet. He watched Jane prepare for the climb and was silent in his admiration for this young woman, whose face was white with fear of those dizzy heights, but who was willing to go ahead.
“I’m sure we can make it,” she said evenly.
“That puts us over half-way up right now,” he smiled as he tied their boots to the back of his belt. “There’s just one thing to remember; don’t look up nor down. Keep yore eyes on the wall in front of yuh, and remember that I’m right under yuh. I won’t let yuh fall.”
“All right.”
Cultus smiled grimly at her faith in his ability to save her in case of a slip. Those shallow niches in the walls of the fissure merely afforded a toe-hold and in case she fell, the odds were sadly against him being able to sustain her weight and his balance at the same time. It was sort of as though they were climbing up a chimney, less than three feet across; they could easily touch the wall in front of them, but there was nothing but empty space in back of them.
But they went up and up, staring at the blank sandstone wall before their eyes, feeling for the niches, testing each one carefully. At time the sand broke away at the edges, and they could hear it trickling to the bottom far below them. Sweat poured down their faces, but as they climbed higher a draught seemed to whirl past them from below.
They didn’t dare look down, and to look up would throw them off their balance.
“Rest,” ordered Cultus. “We’re half-way to the top, Jane.”
“Only half-way?” she whispered weakly.
“I think that’s pretty danged good, if yuh ask me.”
He could see her knees trembling under the strain.
“Yo’re the gamest woman I ever met, Jane Kelton. And when we clear Blaze Nolan, I’m goin’ to bring him up to this place and show him the kind of a woman he’s got.”
The knees stiffened a little.
“Up,” said Cultus softly. “Don’t try to hurry, and remember I’m right below yuh.”
“Thank you, Cultus Collins.”
“Yo’re welcome, Miss Cliff Dweller.”
Cultus watched her feet and tried to keep as close to her as possible. His legs ached from the strain of gripping, gripping all the time, his body tensed to take the shock, in case she slipped. He stole a look down the shaft and was appalled at the distance they had already climbed.
The niches were not over eighteen inches apart on each side. Some of them were six inches deep, which afforded a good footing, while others were barely deep enough for their toes to take a grip.
Lift and brace, lift and brace, feet lifting cautiously from one niche, groping, groping for the next niche; sand drifting down, elbows bleeding from scraping along the rough sandstone walls. Would the top never come? Her knees were trembling, toes bleeding through her worn stockings.
Then Jane stopped.
“Tired?” whispered Cultus.
“It’s the top,” she breathed. “The top, Cultus Collins.”
“Keep yore nerve,” he warned her, trying to look up. “There’s more niches in the wall. Don’t quit now. Keep goin’ as long as they last.”
Three more niches. She spurred her aching feet to grope for them. Cultus could see the end now.
“Grip yore right foot tight and hook yore right elbow over the edge. Put yore left foot on my shoulder. Don’t be afraid to brace yourself. Take it easy now. Can yuh lean over the edge? Fine! Lay out flat and wriggle.”
Cultus braced himself and waited until the pressure of her left foot was released from his back. His knees were weak as he cautiously clawed his way up to the top. He hooked his right foot, swayed to the right and sprawled beside Jane, who was still crumpled up on her face, crying softly.
Cultus relaxed for a while before he sat up to consider their surroundings. A shelf of sandstone blocked their view of the canyon. To the left was a series of natural sandstone steps, leading to another crevice through the rocks.
He unhooked their boots and put his on. There was little left of his socks, and the ends of his toes were raw and bleeding. Finally Jane sat up cautiously, her hands still gripping at the rocks. Her face was dirty from a mixture of tears and dust, and her eyes looked as though she had just awakened from a terrible nightmare.
“That shore was a climb,” Cultus said wearily. “Want to take a peek and see where we come up?”
She shut her eyes quickly.
“I don’t want to ever see it again. I don’t even want to ever climb a ladder again. I—I thought I’d never make it. Can’t I just stay here a while?”
“Tired?”
“I don’t know. I’m just shaking inside, but the rest of me is just numb.”
“Well, let’s take it easy. I feel the same way.”
He rolled a cigarette, stretched out and relaxed.
“How are we ever going to get down?” she asked suddenly.
“I’ve been wonderin’ the same thing. We might have to go down the same way we came up.”
“Not me!” Jane looked at him wildly. “I’d starve first.”
“We won’t worry about that part of it. There must be other ways to get down.”
After an hour of relaxation, in which the sun had dropped below the western peaks, Jane managed to put on her boots, and they got to their feet. Her feet were swollen and very sore, but she hobbled bravely after Cultus, who was as badly off in that respect as she.
They went up the sandstone steps and through the crevice, where they came out on sort of a ledge, overshadowed by a projecting ledge, like the eaves of a huge dwelling. Under this ledge was the well preserved home of an ancient cliff dweller. Cultus had seen them before, but possibly not in such good state of preservation.
Fine dust was a foot deep on the hard-packed floor, where no moisture had ever reached it. But they were not interested in prehistoric dwellings just now; so they followed the sandstone trail to the west, where it forked, and then they followed the left-hand trail, which led up over a stretch of broken sandstone to another higher tier of dwellings.
Up here the dwellings were not as well preserved, owing to the fact that no ledge projected over their tops. They could not see the canyon, except by climbing to the tops of the dwellings, and neither of them felt like climbing any more that day.
They worked back to the east, following the old pathways, which were almost obliterated, but wondering where they led. It was getting late now, and they were both growing hungry. Jane was so stiff she could hardly walk, and when they came to the last of the dwellings she decided that her feet were too sore to carry her farther that day.
“I was shore hopin’ that there might be a way down from this end,” said Cultus, “but there don’t seem to be. Anyway, it’s too late to look any further. We’ll just have to make a dry camp, tighten our belts and wait till mornin’.”
“I’m just ready to drop,” confessed Jane, sitting down on a boulder of sandstone. “I’m hungry and thirsty, but I’m tired the most.”
Cultus nodded seriously. He was tired too.
“I reckon this place is as good as any other,” he said. “There ain’t a darn thing to bed down on, Jane. Use the ground for a mattress and the sky for a blanket. We’ll get in beside that sandstone wall, where the wind can’t hit us, and we’ll be all right.”
They talked of many things as the Arizona night closed down upon them, and the stars seemed to dangle against the tops of the higher cliffs. And then the moon came up to flood the world with a blue light. As far as warmth was concerned they were comfortable, but sandstone makes a poor bed, and they were hungry.
Finally Jane fell asleep. Cultus rolled another cigarette and walked out along the sandstone parapet. The world seemed unreal up there in the moonlight, which made the place almost as bright as daylight. Cultus was at a loss to know who had attacked them. He had been suspicious of that note, and now he swore at himself for being fool enough ever to have entered the canyon. The losing of the note was an accident.
His big problem now was to get down. He felt sure that Jane would never be able to negotiate a descent where they came up. Cultus was doubtful of his own ability to go safely down that funnel. At least, he was assured that nobody could or would follow them up that ladder, and that they had given up trying to find them by this time.
Cultus was sitting on the edge of that sandstone parapet, finishing his cigarette, when he saw something move below him; something which threw a heavy shadow against the blue-white of the broken rocks. That it might be a lion flashed through his mind, and he wondered how the lion ever got down for his hunting.
Then the thing came out in plain view—a man. It was quite a shock to see a man up there, and Cultus wondered if it was one of the men who had fired the shots at him and Jane. It was possibly a hundred feet from where Cultus sat to where the man stood, and between them was a yawning abyss.
Cultus sat perfectly still and watched the man. It was impossible to determine whether it was a big man or a small one. Finally the man started westward, disappearing behind the broken sandstone. Cultus slid back to the trail and went cautiously back, trying to see the man again.
After a while he again saw him. From his actions he was either looking for something or examining something. Cultus and Jane had not been along where this man was; so it was evident he was not tracking them. Finally he turned and went back the way he came. Cultus paralleled him back to where he had first seen him, and then the man disappeared, still going east.
Cultus went back to Jane and shook her by the shoulder. He had some difficulty in arousing her and making her realise where she was. Then he told her about the man.
“Is he looking for us?” she asked anxiously.
“Mebby he is, Jane; but no matter what he’s doin’, there’s a way off these cliffs, and we’re goin’ to follow him right now. We’ve got to go back quite a ways to get down to the level where I saw him. Can yuh walk that far?”
She got to her feet, every muscle protesting.
“If we don’t go too fast,” she said painfully.
Cultus led the way back to a place where they might climb down to a lower trail. They both walked like people with wooden feet. The twisting way seemed endless, and they tried to go cautiously. Finally they came to the spot where Cultus had first seen the man, but there was no sign of him now. Still that broken old trail continued, twisting around spires of broken sandstone, and always going down.
Cultus went first, six-shooter in hand, eyes strained to see any movement on the trail ahead, which began to be more steep, angling back and forth down the sides of the cliffs, but always masked from the canyon. They did not talk now. Every foot downward seemed to bring them nearer to the level of Painted Valley.
Jane did not complain; she was content to hobble along behind Cultus.
Suddenly he stopped and sniffed at the air. An acrid smell, something he had smelt before, but could not place now. Jane sniffed at the tainted air.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I dunno. Smells familiar, somehow.”
They went on along the trail, which doubled back below the place where they had smelt the queer odour, and then continued well to the westward again.
Suddenly the whole world behind them seemed to erupt in one great explosion, which rocked the very cliffs. Cultus was knocked to his knees, but turned quickly and grasped Jane, who had been knocked against him. The air was full of sand and dust, and in a dazed sort of a way, they could hear the rocks falling down the canyon walls. Neither of them spoke for several moments. Jane trembled violently. Cultus sneezed rackingly.
“I know that smell now,” he told her. “It was a fuse burnin’; dynamite fuse.”
“But why the explosion?” breathed Jane. “What was it, Cultus? What does it all mean? Were they trying to kill us again?”
The sounds had died away now and the air seemed very still.
“I dunno,” he replied. “Let’s keep on goin’.”
They went on again, following the trail, down and down, until there seemed no end to it. And then it ended abruptly against a thick screen of mesquite. Cultus lighted a match and made an examination. Some one had gone around the right-hand side of the thicket. The marks of his boots on the soft ground told this much.
They followed him as well as they could. The moonlight did not strike down there. Then they came out suddenly on flat ground, the level of Padre Canyon. They could see the moonlight on the peaks and spires as they stood there hand in hand, looking foolishly at each other. Cultus looked back at the spot, wondering where their trail had been, but only the tangle of mesquite and sheer walls stared back at them.
But who had caused the explosion, and why, he wondered? Who would be dynamiting those cliffs at night? Who could be the man who— Suddenly it struck him.
“Jane, do you know what we’ve done? We’ve come down over the Lost Trail! Just as sure as fate.”
“The Lost Trail? You mean, we’ve found it? But who—” She hesitated for a moment, and then whispered, as though afraid some one else might hear, “Blaze Nolan knew. Maybe he told Kendall Marsh where it was, and, for fear they might not give him a chance to tell us he dynamited it to-night, Cultus. Don’t you understand? Blaze Nolan has fixed the Lost Trail so that no man can use it again.”
“Well, that’s a good theory,” whimsically.
“Maybe he knew we were up there, and he waited until we got past the spot before he blew it up.”
“Yeah, he might have done that, Jane.”
But Cultus knew better. The man who had set off that blast had used enough slow-burning fuse to allow himself plenty of time to get off the cliffs, and the gods of luck had allowed them to get past the danger point before it exploded.
“Do yuh think yuh can stand it to walk to yore ranch, or will yuh wait here until I can get there and bring a horse?” he asked.
“I’ll walk. I can spend the rest of my life resting. But I’ll never close my eyes without seeing that cliff man’s ladder. I get weak all over when I think about it. That last ten feet was a nightmare.”
“It shore twisted my nerves,” laughed Cultus, “and I hope I’ll never have to do a thing like that again. Can yuh imagine the nerve of the man who cut them niches? Climb two and cut two, all the way to the top.”
They started toward the entrance to the canyon, limping along, avoiding the heavier brush. Suddenly Cultus halted and grasped Jane by the arm. Just in front of them, not fifty feet away, a man was mounting a horse; a tall, gray, ghost-like animal in the moonlight. It reared with him, as he managed to scramble on its back, and whirled wildly.
It was then that Cultus whistled a shrill note; the same note he had whistled at the Circle M the day he wanted to prove ownership of the tall gray animal.
The gray lunged wickedly, and the rider went sprawling in some low bush. Again came the shrill note, and the tall gray threw up its head, circling nervously. The rider gained his feet, and it must have been that he saw Cultus and Jane, because he scuttled down through the brush like a frightened rabbit.
“Amigo!” called Cultus sharply, and the gray horse came toward them, treading cautiously.
“Hello, compadre,” said Cultus, and the horse came willingly now. He came up close to Cultus, muzzling at him.
“Your horse?” queried Jane wonderingly. “The horse you had stolen from you?”
“This is Amigo, Jane; the horse of horses.”
“You recognised him in the moonlight?”
“Shore. I knew he was in the valley.”
“That’s wonderful, Cultus. The man was riding him bareback, too.”
“Playin’ safe. Yuh can identify a saddle, yuh know. C’mere and I’ll help yuh get on.”
“Will he ride double?”
“Amigo will carry all I put on him.”
The horse stood patiently until they were on, and then moved away slowly while Cultus kept a close watch. Once clear of the canyon, the horse swung into an easy lope down across the moonlit hills.