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  ‘No, he’s just tired,’ observed Mister Sturdy, twisting about in the saddle. ‘I think we had better ride close together just in case, though, cos he might take a dislike to us in a dream. Seems his animal don’t amount to much neither.’

  Jeff said nothing. One hand had instinctively slithered down the weary horse’s neck, and was affectionately pinching the quivering flesh. If a quick break became necessary, he knew the other two would be floundering in those accursed sand-drifts far behind him and his gawky desert beast.

  As the miles drowsed quietly by Rand kept nodding then jerking up in sudden apprehension. He always found Sturdy, his thick-set body bolt upright in the saddle, watching him piercingly. When their gazes met Rand’s jaw stiffened, then Sturdy grinned widely behind his drooping moustache, obviously pleased by something, perhaps by the exchange of Crocker for this new gunfighter.

  Eventually Smily Merrick drew his horse close to the gaunt rider, and with a scowl of deep cogitation on his face, at the same time endeavouring to hide his admiration, he said:

  ‘ ’Scuse me, Mister Rand, but how come you larned such slick shooting?’

  The reply was an awful depth of silence, plainly disconcerting to Smily who shakily added a kind of apology, saying:

  ‘Well, a fella won’t get nowhere nohow without asking.’

  ‘Where was yuh headin’, Mister?’ Rand grunted.

  This question flung Smily into a state of embarrassment. He blushed, writhed, cursed because he blushed and writhed, then looked downright stupid.

  ‘Mebbe you was aiming at gunslinging, Mister. If so, you might stake out a claim on boothill,’ Rand looked at him with bitter contempt. ‘Bridle your tongue, sonny, and you’ve got control of most things else. Back yonder lies your saddle-buddy, a talkative fella, too cocksure, too tensed for speed. Damn fool kid!’ he ended in anger. ‘Now he’s dead!’

  Smily Merrick, mentally noting the professional information, and amazed by striking Rand’s hidden emotion for Ted Crocker, drew away his horse in an awe-stricken silence. Smily wanted to think.

  It was late in the night when Rand, concerned for his horse, quietly dismounted behind the other two riders who, when they at last noticed his absence, rode back in a sullen frame of mind.

  ‘Thought I said we would ride through the night,’ said Sturdy, an authoritative note in his voice.

  Rand remained mute, flung down his blanket-roll, unsaddled, and looked for a comfortable spot in the grassy hollow.

  ‘All right, Smily, make camp. We’ve plenty of time.’ Mister Sturdy decided to agree, laughing oddly. ‘We’ll pool our supplies too. We musn’t let this fella starve to death. We might lose a big pay-off.’

  ‘Just one moment,’ said Rand, suddenly pausing in his labours. ‘What pay-off? What is this here business offer?’

  ‘You’ll see, Jeff, you’ll see,’ Smily quickly assured him.

  ‘I ain’t going another step with you, neighbours, till I do see.’

  Sturdy and Merrick looked sadly at each other and shook their heads.

  ‘We can’t tell you yet, Mister. It concerns rich diggings.’ Sturdy nevertheless revealed.

  ‘Real downright sinful rich diggings,’ Smily added with excitement.

  ‘We can’t stop you from quitting right now, mister, but you’re losing a grand position for life,’ confided Sturdy.

  ‘A real up-jumping grand position – for life.’ Smily chuckled, rubbing his hands together in restless anticipation.

  If this concerned gold, mused Rand, obsessed by the robbery and death of his partner, might he not find some unexpected assistance in his search? He conceived a strange hope which he would have found difficult to define at that moment.

  ‘Let’s eat, if we can’t talk much,’ he dryly commented.

  A full moon was presently making those wastelands a sight more friendly and mellow. The atmosphere was sweet with the odours of coffee, beans and bacon. A small camp fire flickered across the outstretched forms of three men who, with their heads braced against saddles, breathed heavily in that satisfied air which a good meal provides. Night seemed like a mighty Presence hooded over the vast plain, and occasionally the soothing hush was broken by the distant howling of a coyote.

  ‘Sounds a piece nearer,’ remarked Smily.

  ‘Best tie up them hosses close by till daylight,’ Rand softly suggested.

  ‘A wise thing, that there,’ agreed Smily, jumping up, keen to please him.

  ‘Once heard tell of an old prospector what tied his mules to tree stumps,’ Sturdy murmured with yawns, ‘and the fools got jittery of the coyotes, hauled up them stumps, and walked off into the night. Come morning the old man went raving mad. Yes, sir, he cussed himself as blue as flame. Then, in those very stump-holes, he saw something shining: it was gold.’

  ‘Lordy me! Luck sure plays funny things,’ exclaimed Smily, staking out the animals.

  Rand made no comment. But he had raised himself on an elbow and fixed a curiously boring look on the dozing Mister Sturdy.

  ‘I hope these here hosses get to dream-walking,’ whispered Smily to himself, returning to his blanket. ‘Maybe we’ll wake up rich men at dayrise.’

  ‘We needn’t worry. Digging ore is hard labour,’ Sturdy pointed out, turning over onto his side. ‘Like the boss said: it’s a quick and easy pay-off next time for all us boys. It’s all fixed up. We’ll get rich without digging gold.’

  ‘You bet,’ Smily Merrick answered drowsily.

  Rand continued to stare piercingly at the figure of Mister Sturdy. No emotion described itself on Rand’s face, yet his mind worked excitedly. Was it coincidental that Jim Miller had located gold in exactly the same fashion Sturdy related? Could it be that Fate directed his visit to Vulch City, joined him with these men, and was already drawing his long search to a close? But no; the whole thing was a coincidence; there were thousands of such yarns, of chance discoveries of gold. Every fortune-seeker that scraped the crust of God’s earth had his own stock of similar tales, just standing ready to console him when disappointment struck him low. Despite this reasoning, however, Jeff Rand, still determined to follow the faintest trail in a search that might take a lifetime, could not quell his astonishment. Ponderously he asked himself that same question; how much did Mister Sturdy know?

  Morning’s pallid glow revealed an expanse of grazing land over which the three riders were soon cantering.

  ‘This is old man Keller’s spread,’ Mister Sturdy informed Rand. ‘His ranch lies yonder in Grasshopper Valley. Old Keller used to be the richest cattle-rancher hereabouts, until a few years ago, when sand flooded his prairie. Now the sand’s drifting back, howsoever, and Keller looks like becoming cattle king agin, if he lives long.’ Sturdy next pointed an arm to the south. ‘A coupla day’s ride thataway, you will find the desert has started to move in. Herds are dying, crops are shrivelling, ranches sink under hellish gales, and folk are hungered to death’s door.’

  ‘Everyone’s got his private trouble,’ sympathised Rand, appreciating the information. ‘A fella has to fight or die.’

  ‘See them mountains straight ahead; those cloud-packs, I mean,’ pointed out Smily.

  ‘Yeah, I get them.’

  ‘Well, some say there’s gold up there, if only a fella could freight enough water from someplace. But beyond those ranges,’ continued Smily, ‘lies Flintstone, cattle and mining town, rich as blazes, and worse than Tombstone.’

  ‘Is that where we are headin’?’ asked Rand.

  Smily and Sturdy laughed in chorus, refused to answer, then went strangely quiet for a long time.

  Noonday found them once more in rugged country. The tall prairie grass had grown shorter, yellowed, then rotted to choking dust. Heaps of sand-like earth now lay in wide drifts, where the animals sank to their bellies. Every once in a while Sturdy dismounted, picked up a piece of flint, inspected it, and shoved it in his pocket. There was something really pathetic in this gold-searching craze of his, especially when his p
ockets grew so heavy he reluctantly emptied them. No one smiled at his behaviour, no matter how comical it was at times. Their journey continued. The land grew worse. A haunting melancholy lay over that once luxuriant prairie, and ragged crows raised a sad lament as they went bug-searching under the withering sun. Suffocating blasts of wind, interrupting an equally stifling stillness, began to rouse spinning dust clouds. Presently dust ran through one’s hair and clothing; dust filled eyes and nostrils; nothing escaped that burning, killing dust, forerunner of the flooding desert.

  Rand followed his companions across miles of sage-brush flats that day, a kind of shoreline between the sand and the mountains. They rested and ate dried fruits, well pitted with grit, when they entered the foothills. They then proceeded with interesting alertness. Expectation betrayed itself in the actions of Smily and Sturdy. It was sundown when, of a shocking sudden, a shot rang out, splitting the silence like a thunderclap. Two figures appeared in silhouette on a table-top hill.

  ‘Bang away, Smily,’ commanded Mister Sturdy.

  Smily Merrick slid the Winchester from his saddle-holster. He gave three shots.

  Rand, narrowly watching both men who now waved their arms, had an uncanny foreboding of disaster: by tying up with them he was behaving uncommonly rash. He must go on, however; he must follow any flickering hope of regaining his gold and avenging Jim Miller.

  ‘Whiskey, grub, sleep and comforts galore afore long, Mister Rand; you’ll see,’ promised Merrick, gleefully reloading his Winchester as they rode slowly onward.

  ‘Just leave everything to me,’ cautioned Sturdy, gravely patting the dust from his legal-like garb and sliding a well-chewed cigar between his stained teeth. ‘I’m the mouthpiece. Remember this, Jeff: keep hands off guns. I’ll explain the Vulch City affair sensibly to the boss and Crocker’s brother.’

  It was these last words, naturally unexpected, which firmly established the grim foreboding conceived by Jeff Rand.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The three riders climbed upward and round a monstrous slab of rock. They halted abruptly. Far below them, between towering mountain-sides stretched a rich green gulch. The sudden path of colour, surrounded by the barren landscape, came as a shock to Rand: the place looked unbelievably grand. He could count about two dozen horses way below there, behaving as though they had found Paradise. Against one vertical side of smooth rock, stood three cabins.

  Grapevine Gulch, as Mister Sturdy informed Rand, was a hideout more difficult to find than gold quartz. As they descended Rand surveyed the place with mounting curiosity. It was obviously not wide enough for running cattle, nor did those soaring lava-rock walls appear to be gold-bearing. Furthermore it was too remote for use as a health resort. A stronger presentiment of danger gathered in Jeff Rand.

  The air grew refreshingly cool as they went lower. With awful grandeur the mountainsides reached over them, forming row upon row of terraces and ramparts, high as heaven itself. Like Smily said: ‘One felt as humbled as a no-account bed-bug, riding out between twin knees.’ Grapevine Gulch with its two uncannily echoing sides, with its long narrow carpet, possessed a kind of sacred atmosphere, like a cathedral.

  ‘How-dee, boys!’ greeted a thin old-timer who, wearing a long grey beard, and with his rearmost end lodged inside half a barrel, sat dozing outside the main cabin.

  Rand noticed that the old fellow had a large jug of brew on one side of him, while on the other, cocked and ready, was propped a shining new Winchester.

  They dismounted at a spring which spurted and trinkled merrily from the mountain side. As Rand drank thirstily he listened to noises around him: he could hear the clink of dominoes from the nearest cabin, together with greedily chuckling voices and sudden curses of disappointment. To judge by the quality of the curses issuing through that open doorway, the company he was heading into was as tough as the devil, maybe tougher.

  ‘Got a visitor for yuh,’ Mister Sturdy announced as he stepped inside.

  The result was a silence like death. Rand entered. The blood-red sunset pouring through the window revealed the place. Above him the beams were deep in tobacco smoke; below him the floor was stained with tobacco juice; around him the walls were adorned with crudities from cheap literature; and the air reeked with fried food, whiskey fumes and dirty sweating bodies. Savage eyes watched him intently, studying him from scalp to toe. If hell has any evil stewing places on earth, then this was surely one of them, and Rand was in it.

  There were four burly and unshaven fellows at the table, each looking like a private armoury with his guns, bandoliers and knives, either slung round his body, over a chair-back or on the table. Several other less distinct figures sprawled, snoring like sotted beasts, on heaps of supplies and ammunition. The largest man at the head of the table, wrapped one beefy fist round a water-jug, grunted, poured the water over his hairy chest to cool himself, and said: ‘Who are you, bony?’

  ‘Picked him up at Vulch City, Bruce,’ sang out Smily Merrick, leaning on the doorpost and looking nervous. ‘He’s a rip-snorting gunslick.’

  ‘Is that right, bony,’ Big Bruce asked, pugnaciously jutting his chin.

  ‘The boy said it, fatty,’ Rand calmly replied.

  ‘Kill it!’ the big fellow seemed to explode. A murderous growl rattled in his throat, and he leaped upright with a flaming red face. ‘Kill it, Mex! Cut its throat and drag it out o’ here. Then let’s get on with the game.’

  A black-bearded and grinning Mexican ripped out his knife.

  ‘Just one moment.’ Mister Sturdy stepped forward, clutching at Mex’s wrist, darted a reproachful look at Smily who had stolen his place of spokesman, then addressed himself to the boss.

  ‘Don’t refuse the dish afore you try it, Bruce,’ he softly advised. ‘If it’s fighting you want, then just allow me to get out before Rand blasts you all wide open.’

  The name hushed everybody. A new expression came into the eyes that scanned the desert-drifter’s lanky figure.

  ‘Thought Rand was a big man.’ mumbled Bruce, slightly humbled. ‘Sure, I’ve heard tell of him. But see here,’ he went on, angry once more, and crashing down the empty water-jug; ‘we’ll get around to Rand in a minute. Where’s the drunken bum you was sent to haul back here? Where’s Ted Crocker?’

  ‘Dead!’ Smily could not resist interrupting, admiration in his voice. ‘Shot stone dead!’

  A restless growling and mumbling broke out among the men. But in the corner the drunken snoring continued incessantly.

  ‘Don’t talk crazy!’ bellowed Bruce. ‘Crocker ain’t such a slouch with a gun, nor his brother neither.’ He directed his narrowed eyes towards Rand. ‘What’s gone and happened, Sturdy?’ he growled. ‘Did Ted start talking or something?’

  ‘No. Leastways not about what you’re thinking,’ Sturdy answered thoughtfully. ‘It’s like this, there are some gents who don’t like being called a sham, least of all Mister Jeff Rand.’

  Another deeper hush settled upon them all. The black-bearded Mexican sank back quietly into his chair, slyly sheathing his knife. Even the snoring had ceased now. Big Bruce was nervously wiping his hairy mouth, while self-consciously levelling a sidelong look at the stranger.

  ‘Well!’ he bawled, reluctantly trying to sound amiable. ‘Seems it’s not a bad exchange after all. Mebbe it serves Crocker right, for being a drunken yap-mouth, too big for his pants.’

  ‘But derned fast with a gun,’ murmured one awed-looking fellow sprawled over the supplies.

  ‘Why don’t you die or something?’snarled Bruce, restlessly massaging his brawny arms.

  ‘It’s all right a-talking that way, but what when Jake Crocker hears of this?’asked a hulking individual close to the boss. ‘He taught young Ted to shoot; served him like a father; and when he comes in – well, fellas, I think I’ll sleep somewhere’s else till after the burials.’

  ‘Don’t bother, talker,’ sneered Bruce; and thereat he crashed his fist into the man’s face; it was a vicious, sickening blo
w from close quarters. ‘Best sleeping tonic I knows,’ he muttered, licking his bruised fist and grinning at the bleeding and unconscious man still seated there. ‘Very well, Mister Rand, everybody’s heard something about you, yet it’s actions what carry true weight with our outfit. Just understand this, I have no personal liking for gunwork. Any fella can pump lead; it don’t take brains. Simply try hard not to kill too many of my boys. Death grieves me at times. That’s all, Mister. You’re on trial.’

  ‘For what?’ Rand gave him a sleepy-eyed look.

  Big Bruce’s head jerked up and he glared malevolently at him, while clenching and unclenching his fists: he never did like a sign of contradiction, it made him think he was losing his authority, to which he clung with anxious greed. Mister Sturdy, observing the clash of wills, and being a born diplomat, judged it expedient to intervene once more. Leaning across the table, he started to whisper confidentially in the big man’s thick red ear, which whispering drove away all violent feeling like an extra-marvellous medicine.

  Meanwhile the other men toyed with dice and coins, drank from bottles, chewed tobacco, spat with machine-like regularity, and kept directing narrow-eyed looks at Mister Rand. To Rand their behaviour was of persons long confined, quick to quarrel, impatient through much tense waiting, while all the time guarding some tremendous secret with passionate greed and fear. If Rand had conceived foreboding thoughts before, then now, as he waited there under continuous inspection, he had a strong desire to race outside, leap into the saddle, and flee for life’s sake. No such inclination was recorded on his face, however. His whole bearing was that of a man who was perfectly at ease, accustomed to riding with all types of men, even anxious about being left all alone, and prepared to shoot down any person who happened to rouse his dislike. He even seemed to be watching hopefully for such persons, for his long white fingers, covertly regarded by all the fellows, kept thrumming his holsters.

  ‘Where’s Crocker’s brother?’ Mister Sturdy presently raised his voice.