Grit, unseen, ahead, was barking in staccato volleys. There was another sound, a faint shout, unmistakably; human. The men looked at each other with eyebrows raised.
"That ain"t no man"s voice," said Sam. "That"s a gal." He looked quizzically at Sandy, knowing his chum"s inhibition.
Sandy was woman-shy. Men met his level glance, fairly, with swift certainty that here stood a man, four-square; or shiftily, according to their ease of conscience, knowing his breed. Sandy was a two-gun man but he was not a killer. There were no notches on the handles of his Colts.
In earlier days he had shot with deadly aim and purpose, but never save in self-defense and upon the side of law and right and order. Among men his poise was secure but, in a woman"s presence, Sandy Bourke"s tongue was tied save in emergency, his wits tangled. Whatever he privately felt of the attraction of the opposite s.e.x, the proximity of a girl produced an embarra.s.sment he hated but could not help. He had seen admiration, desire for closer acquaintance, in many a fair face but such invitation affected him as the sight of a circling loop affects a horse in a remuda.
He gave Sam no chance for banter. Action was forward and it always straightened out the short-circuitings of Sandy"s mental reflexes toward womankind. He touched p.r.o.nto"s flanks with the dulled rowels he wore, and the pinto broke into a lope. A big boulder was perched upon the nigh side of the road. Grit came out from behind it, barked, whirled and seemingly dived into the canon. Coming up with the mare, Sam found Sandy dismounted, waiting for him.
What had happened was plain to both of them. The rotten, hastily made road collapsed under the lurch of a wagon jolting over outcrop uncovered by the rains. Scored dirt where frantic hoofs had pawed in vain, tire marks that ended in side sc.r.a.pes and vanished.
Sam got off the roan, the tired horses standing still, snuffing the marks of trouble. Far down the slope Grit gave tongue. The cliff shouldered out and they could see nothing from the broken road. How any one could have hurtled over the precipice and be still able to call for help without the aid of some miracle was an enigma. They listened for another shout but, save for the barking of the dog, there was silence in the grim gorge. In the sky, two buzzards wheeled.
Sandy poured a scant measure of water from his canteen into the punched-in crown of his Stetson, after he had knocked out the dust. Sam did the same, giving each horse a mouth-rinse and a swallow of tepid water so they would stand more contentedly. Each took a swift swig from the containers. Sandy untied the package of food and the leather medicine kit, Sam slapped his hip to be sure of his whisky flask. Aided by their high heels, digging them in the unstable dirt, they worked down the cliff, rounding the shoulder.
A wide ledge of outcrop jutted out from the canon wall jagged into battlements. Piled there was a wagon, on its side, the canvas tilt sagged in, its hoops broken. A white horse, emaciated, little more than buzzard meat when alive, lay with its legs stiff in the air, neck flattened and head limp. A broken pole, with splintered ends, crossed the body of its mate, a bay, gaunt-hipped, high of ribs. It lay still, but its flanks heaved, catching a flash of sun on its dull hide.
Between the wheels of the wagon knelt a girl in a gown of faded blue, head hidden behind a sunbonnet. She leaned forward in the shadow of the wagon. Sandy caught a glimpse of a huddled body beyond her. Grit sat on his haunches, head toward the road, thrown back at each bark. Sandy reached the ledge first. The girl did not turn her head, though his descent was noisy. He touched her gently on the shoulder, telling himself that she was "just a kid."
She looked up, her face lined where tears had laned down through the mask of dust. Now she was past crying. Her eyes met Sandy"s pitifully, holding neither surprise nor hope.
"He"s dead." She seemed to be stating a fact long accepted.
"He"s dead. An" he made me jump. You come too late, mister."
The man lay stretched out, head and shoulders hidden, his gaunt body dressed in jeans, once blue, long since washed and sun-faded to the green of turquoise matrix. The boots were rusty, patched. The wagon-bed, toppling sidewise, had crashed down on his chest. Rock partly supported the weight of it. Sandy picked up a gnarled hand, scarred, calloused and shrunken, the hand of an old prospector.
"Yore dad?" he asked, kneeling by the girl.
"Yes." She stood up, slight and straight, with limbs and body just curving into womanhood. "The hawsses was tuckered out," she said, "or Dad c"ud have made it. They didn"t have no strength left, "thout food or water. The d.a.m.ned road jest slid out from under. Dad made me jump. I figgered he was goin" to, but his bad leg must have caught in the brake.
We slid over like water slides over a rock. He didn"t have a h.e.l.l-chance." As she spoke them the oaths were merely emphasis. She talked as had her father.
Sandy nodded.
"Got an ax with the outfit?" he asked. Then turning to Sam as the girl went round to the back of the fallen wagon and fumbled about through the rear opening of the canvas tilt: "Man"s alive, Sam. Caught a flirt of the pulse. Have to pry up the wagon. Git that bu"sted end of the tongue."
The girl handed an ax to Sandy mutely, watching them as Sandy pried loose the part of the tongue still bolted to the wagon, getting it clear of the horses.
"Think you can drag out yore dad by the laigs when we lift the body of the wagon?" he asked her. "May not be able to hold it more"n a few seconds. May slip on us, the levers is pritty short."
She stooped, taking hold of a wrinkled boot in each hand, back of the heel. A tear splashed down on one of them and she shook the salt water from her eyes impatiently as if she had faced tragedy before and knew it must be looked at calmly.
The two men adjusted the boulders they had set for fulcrums and shoved down on the stout pieces of ash, their muscles bunching, the veins standing out corded on their arms. Grit ran from one to the other with eager little whines, sensing what was being attempted, eager to help.
The wagon-bed creaked, lifted a little.
"Now," grunted Sandy, "snake him out."
The girl tugged, stepping backward, her pliant strength equal to the dead drag of the body. Sandy, straining down, saw a white beard appear, stained with blood, an aged seamed face, hollow at cheek and temple, spa.r.s.e of hair, the flesh putty-colored despite its tan. Grit leaped in and licked the quiet features as Sam and Sandy eased down the wagon.
"Whisky, Sam."
The girl sat cross-legged, her father"s head in her lap, one hand smoothing his forehead while the other felt under his vest and shirt, above his heart.
"He ain"t gone yit," she announced.
The old miner"s teeth were tight clenched, but there were gaps in them through which the whisky Sandy administered trickled.
"Daddy! Daddy!"
It might have been the tender agony of the cry to which Patrick Casey"s dulling brain responded, sending the message of his will along the nerves to transmit a final summons. His body twitched, he choked, swallowed, opened gray eyes, filmy with death, brightening with intelligence as he saw his daughter bending over him, the face of Sandy above her shoulder. The gray eyes interrogated Sandy"s long and earnestly until the light began to fade out of them and the wrinkled lids shuttered down.
Another swallow of the raw spirits and they opened flutteringly again.
The lips moved soundlessly. Then, while one hand groped waveringly upward to rest upon his daughter"s head, Sandy, bending low, caught three syllables, repeated over and over, desperately, mere ghosts of words, taxing cruelly the last breath of the wheezing lungs beneath the battered ribs, the final spurt of the spirit.
"_Molly--mines!_"
"I"ll look out for that, pardner," said Sandy.
The eyelids fluttered, the old hands fell away, the jaw relaxed, serenity came to the lined face, and no little dignity. For the first time the girl gave way, lying p.r.o.ne, sobbing out her grief while the two cowmen looked aside. The bay horse began to groan and writhe.
"Got to kill that cavallo," said Sam in a whisper.
"Wait a minute." The girl had quieted, was kneeling with clasped hands, lips moving silently. Prayer, such as it was, over, she rose, her fists tight closed, striving to control her quivering chin--doing it. She looked up as the shadow of a buzzard was flung against the cliff by the slanting sun.
"We got to bury him, "count of them d.a.m.n buzzards."
"We"ll tend to that," said Sandy. "Ef you-all "ll take the dawg on up to the hawsses...."
"No! I helped to bury Jim Clancy, out in the desert, I"m goin" to help bury Dad. It"s goin" to be lonesome out here--" She twisted her mouth, setting teeth into the lower lip sharply as she gazed at the desolate cliffs, the birds swinging their tireless, expectant circles in the throat of the gorge.
"Dad allus figgered he"d die somewheres in the desert. "Lowed it "ud be his luck. He wanted to be put within the sound of runnin" water--he"s gone so often "thout it. But--" She shrugged her thin shoulders resignedly, the inheritance of the prospector"s philosophy strong within her.
"See here, miss," said Sandy, while Sam crawled into the wagon in search of the dead miner"s pick and shovel that now, instead of uncovering riches, would dig his grave, "how old air you?"
"Fifteen. My name"s Margaret--Molly for short--same as my Ma. She"s been dead for twelve years."
"Well, Miss Molly, suppose you-all come on to the Three Star fo" a spell with my two pardners an" me? You do that an" mebbe we can fix yore daddy"s idee about runnin" water. We"d come back an" git him an" we"ll make a place fo" him under our big cottonwoods below the big spring. I w"udn"t wonder but what he c"ud hear the water gugglin" plain as it runs down the overflow to the alfalfa patches."
Molly Casey gazed at him with such a sudden glow of grat.i.tude in her eyes that Sandy felt embarra.s.sed. He had been comforting a girl, a boyish girl, and here a woman looked at him, with understanding.
"Yo"re sure a white man," she said. "I"ll git even with you some time if I work the bones of my fingers through the flesh fo" you. Thanks don"t amount to a d.a.m.n "thout somethin" back of "em. I"ll come through."
She put out her roughened little hand, man-fashion, and Sandy took it as Sam emerged from the wagon with the tools. The bay mare groaned and gave a shrill cry, horribly human. Sam drew his gun, putting down pick and shovel.
"Got any water you c"ud spare?" asked the girl. Sandy handed her his canteen.
"Use it all," he said. "Soon"s it"s dark, it"ll cool off. We"ll git through all right."
He picked up the tools and moved toward Sam as the bay collapsed to the merciful bullet. The girl washed away as best she could the stains of blood and travel from the dead face while Sandy sounded with the pick for soil deep enough for a temporary grave.