The man-killers

by Dane Coolidge

The trail itself had struck over a long point which came down from Baker Mountain to the west and he turned up the creek-bed, stepping from stone to stone, until he had made his way back to Cold Spring. Then he waded up the torrent which rushed down from the cliffs and as he ducked under the wild grapevines his feet fell into a natural pathway, worn deep along the sides of the chasm. It was an ancient trail, half obliterated by cloudbursts and the rush of tumbling waters, but as it led up higher and the chasm widened out, Hall had a feeling that it was leading him somewhere. Not to the dwelling beneath the crag, for that was far to the left, but to some sanctuary where he might take shelter with Allifair. But the trail split and was lost in a maze of huge boulders and he found himself up on the bench.

Behind him rose the cliffs, terrace above terrace of shattered porphyry, but already his pursuers were in the canyon below—four Texans and hard-riding Isham. He watched them from the rim as they went whipping down the trail, then settled back and waited grimly. Down the creek-bed they galloped, then up and over the point and down once more into the creek; but as they saw his horse grazing they wheeled and took cover, dropping off to reconnoiter on foot. For half an hour or more their heads bobbed up as they crept along the bank of the stream and then in disgust they strode down to the water and gathered about his horse. He smiled as he saw them cutting circles for sign—they were trying to find his tracks; but he had covered them too well and after hunting for several hours they came back and camped at Cold Spring.

From his lookout among the crags Hall could hear their loud arguments, and their guesses at where he had gone; he could see their food, almost smell the can of coffee that they boiled over the mesquite coals; but still he lingered, eating acorns to stay his hunger, until at last they mounted and rode on. More than one had shrewdly guessed that he was around there somewhere, but the brush was so thick as to make pursuit hopeless and they were loath to work on foot. So they went away and left him, agreeing to ride the trail first, and Hall began to think about food. On the bench to which he had mounted the grass stood knee-high and there were deer and bear tracks everywhere, but one shot from his rifle would bring the Scarboroughs back so he prowled through the oaks after turkey. They were there by the hundred, fat gobblers who just escaped him and hens that ran like lightning through the brush; but as he pursued a brood of young ones he discovered a nest of eggs and the food question, for the moment, was solved. The eggs were still fresh, and, after eating one raw, he hastened back to his lookout.

Already a feeling of security had come over him and as he waited for their return he worked busily on a turkey trap, which he planned to set at a spring. First he cut some long sticks, to make the top and sides, and then with limber switches he wattled them together, and at evening he took them down to the spring. It lay in the bottom of a brushy gulch and the turkey tracks led down to it everywhere. Cutting out a space above the spring he planted his wattled cage firmly; and then, digging a trench to lead the turkeys up and under it, he staked off the entrance inside. That was all it was, a fenced trench and a cage, but if any turkey strayed into it and lifted his head he would try, turkey-like, to find a hole between the slats instead of stooping down to pass out at the hole. Hall concealed the trap with brush and strewed acorns along the trench; and then, as no turkeys came, he built wings leading up to it and hid himself in the oak trees below.

There was a loud gobble from the hillside, the anxious quilp-quilp of a hen, and the great birds leapt out and came sailing down through the air to land with a thump by the spring. For a moment they crouched frozen as they saw the wings of the trap, but no one had ever hunted them and they soon recovered from their alarm while still others soared down from the heights. An old hen with her little ones came trailing up from the chasm, and Hall watched them with bated breath; but as even these refused to go near his trap he rose up and made a rush. The hen dodged away, calling loudly to her brood, but in the stampede which followed he drove three of them into the wings and up the trench into the trap. That evening he ate meat, and when the morning came he set out to explore his domain.

The chasm up which he had come cut its way through the crags to a level mountain-top far beyond; and that, according to Meshackatee, was preempted by Old Man Baker, who claimed the whole mountain for himself. Since the Indians had killed his son, no Apache dared venture up there; and Hall made up his mind to follow their example, for Baker had shot every Indian on sight. There was game enough and to spare on the first low bench; and farther up the canyon he discovered a hidden basin, where the deer and wild turkey swarmed. But what he sought for most was a hiding place among the cliffs, which would shelter him and his mate; and he clambered along the bear-track which led off around the point to the first of the dizzy cliff-dwellings.

It proved to be no more than some walls of broken rock, piled up in a shelving hole; and house after house, as he inspected them closer, turned out to be nothing but skeletons. Most of them had no roofs, they were all hard to get to and entirely too far from water; and the trails that led up to them made it absolutely certain that he would be seen going to and fro. There was only one place which would answer his purpose and it was like an eagle's nest above him. Within a great, arching cave, high up in the cliff, there stood a huge dwelling, with doors and windows sealed and a rampart across its front. It was a medieval castle, transported from dreamland and set like a jewel in the cliff. At the extreme southern side there was a rift in the solid roof that gave promise of a possible descent; but the path which led up to it, if path there ever was, had vanished with the passing of the centuries. Perhaps it had caved off and was buried in the talus which extended along the base of the precipice; but there his castle stood, aloof and unapproachable, whichever way he came.

The days passed and he became a wild animal, prowling the hillside like a mountain lion as he stalked the young turkeys or sought the hidden way to his castle. He knew it must be there, some cave or hidden passageway, for the rift from above had turned out a mere crack down which a rat could hardly crawl. He sickened of the taste of eggs and broiled turkeys, and of acorns ground up and boiled; yet the sight of that dwelling, high up above the canyon, held him on from day to day. It was a haven of refuge, if he could only reach it—and he knew there must be a path to it somewhere.

From the bench below he often stood and looked up at it, trying to imagine where the path might have passed; and at last he went back and began to explore the chasm, for there could be no other way to the cave. Above, below and far to the south of the dwelling the cliff rose sheer and smooth; but the gateway to the chasm was not so far from the castle that it could not give entrance from the side. Already he had threaded the narrow pathway that led up the bed of the stream; but now he climbed higher and, from the opposite side, looked across for some suggestion of a trail. The canyon wall was steep but not too steep; in places he almost imagined he saw a trail—a row of cat-steps here, a stretch of natural stairs, an ascent from shelf to shelf. But of what value was an ascent if it took him to no passageway—what he sought was a way to the cave. He lay idly in the shade, gazing across at the canyon wall, and as the silence came back he saw a shadow move down the stream-bed, pause stealthily and move again. Then, etched against the granite, a huge mountain-lion stood out, tawny red and almost invisible until it moved.

He looked on, still idly, for not since he had come there had he ventured to fire a shot; and the lion, which had been hiding from him, started stealthily up the path that he had been tracing from shelf to shelf. He padded softly up the cat-steps, took the stairs at a bound—and disappeared in a high, narrow crack. A half hour later Hall followed in his footsteps and at the mouth of his cave he received the last assurance that the pathway led to the castle. A cool wind breathed out of it, tainted with the strong musk of lions; and where could it come from but there?