He shoved the door inward and it ripped from its rotten hinge and went crashing to the ground. Gently he eased his rig to the ground and stepped into the cavelike darkness of the dugout. Once this place had meant hope to someone, maybe to some awkward cowhand like himself who had held visions of owning his own land, being his own boss, in some vague way hoping to make something of himself.
But from the looks of things, the man who built this dugout had come on bad luck, too. Likely the cavalry had routed him out of here, as they had so many of Captain David L. Payne's misguided Boomers.
Grant searched his windbreaker for a match and held the flaming sulphur above his head as he surveyed the place. A lot of work had gone into the building, a lot of useless work. First the clay creek bank had been dug out, and then Cottonwood logs had been cut and split to side the dirt walls of the cabin. A crude sod fireplace stood against one wall, and a chimney fashioned of sticks and mud had once reached up through the top of the dugout. And perhaps there had been furniture here once, homemade or hauled in by wagon, but the floor was bare now. Only the fireplace remained; the mud chimney had long since crumbled and disappeared. And dirt sifted down like sporadic rain between the huge log beams of the ceiling, and before long it would fall in completely and fill up with more dirt and no one would ever guess that a man—a family perhaps—had lived here once.
Grant dropped the match and let the flame go out. There was too much here that reminded him of himself and he didn't want to see any more of it.
In the failing fight from the outside he opened his roll and spread his blanket in the corner of the room; then he propped the door in place, blocking out the cutting wind, and a sheet of blackness came down on the only available light.
I'll wait, he thought. That's all I have to do. Valois helped me once—twice—and he'll do it again.
And he felt his way to the corner and sat on the thin blanket, cursing himself for not thinking to bring provisions. But there hadn't been time to think of provisions. There had been time to run and that was all.
He didn't want to think, but there was little else to do in the tomblike darkness of the dugout. He drew his revolver from his waistband and busied himself with cleaning it, but that wasn't enough to stop the aimless procession of thoughts that passed through his mind.
It was too late for regrets. He should have thought of that before robbing the bank in Joplin. Too late for anything now except to wait, and run when he got the chance. And he smiled grimly, rubbing hard along the barrel of his .45. Who would have thought that it would have ended like this?
It was early morning when he awoke with the steel-hard light of winter slanting through the cracks of the propped-up door. There was a new smell to the air, a sharpness that had not been there the night before. He threw off the thin blanket and got to his feet numbly, knowing what he would see even before he pulled the door inward.
A long shelf of slaty, stonelike clouds had slipped in from the north during the night, and a gun-steel case was on the sky. The wind had settled and an uneasy hush lay over the prairie, and a prickle of warning started at Grant's neck and worked its way up to his scalp. There was snow and sleet in those clouds, and the kind of wind that only the plains country knew. He stepped outside into the funeral-like silence, a silence so heavy that the nervous stirring of prairie chickens startled him.
Then, from a distance, he heard the sound of hoofs, and his heart pounded a little faster in the hope that it might be Valois. But when he climbed the creek bank and lay belly down in the tall weeds, he saw two Creeks driving a small bunch of cattle to the south, ahead of the storm. When they over on his back and studied the sky thoughtfully. Already, in the east, the slablike clouds were shredded with sleet and snow, and the horizon shimmered behind a gauzy curtain of ice.
In a way the snow was good—it would cover any tracks that he might have left. At the same time it might hold up Valois. And—despite his resolutions—he found himself thinking of Rhea again. There was no telling how long a norther would last—it might hold up construction of the well for days. And there, he thought grimly, would go Rhea's dream, wiped out in a storm of snow and ice, and Ben Farley would have his way, after all.
He lay there for a long time, feeling strangely empty. And the loneliness at that moment was heavier than anything he had ever known before.
Almost too late did he hear the approach of more horses-several of them this time, coming from the north. Grant lay motionless in the rattling stand of mullein as the six horsemen broke out of a thicket at the far end of the creek and rode a plodding crow line cross-country toward Sabo. Grant heard his compressed breath whistle between his teeth when he recognized the lead rider as Jim Dagget.
Evidently the marshal hadn't wasted time trying to trail Grant from the lease but had picked up a posse and headed for the border to cut him off. Evidence of failure was etched like saber cuts at the corners of Dagget's hard mouth. The other riders glanced warily over their shoulders at the gathering storm, or slumped heavily in their saddles, sodden with fatigue and cold. Only the marshal rode stiffly erect, his restless, flashing eyes gouging at every bush and thicket.
Instinctively Grant pressed harder to the frozen ground as the marshal reined up a scant hundred yards away, and one of the riders said, “You see somethin', Marshal?”
“No. But it would be better if we spread out on either side of the creek and follow the stream back to Sabo.”
The rider grunted uneasily. “That norther's goin' to hit any minute now. Don't you think we'd better stick together?”
“Any fool can find his way home by following the creek, even in a snowstorm,” Dagget said. He tossed his head like an angry mountain lion and sniffed the air. “Grant's out there somewhere, probably between here and Sabo.”
“If he is, the storm will get him.”
“I don't want the storm to get him!” Dagget turned in the saddle and raked the riders with his anger. “That's a job I set for myself!”
The horses tramped nervously, betraying the emotions of their riders. “Well,” one of the horsemen said at last, not returning the marshal's gaze, “I guess we can spread out until the storm hits.”
The voices carried like bullets on the still air, and Grant could see the puffs of frost as the men talked; he could almost smell the warm animal odor of the steaming horses. As the riders quartered toward the creek, below the dugout, Grant let out the breath that he had been holding. This was too close for comfort. The sooner he got out of the Territory the better he would like it, storm or no storm. For he had glimpsed the marshal's rage, he had felt Dagget's iron-hard determination on the morning air. Dagget was a bulldog. He would never turn loose.
In spite of the cold, Grant felt his palms clammy with perspiration as he eased himself back down the creek bank. Then another thought occurred to him. What if Valois had started out with the provisions? What if the runner ran into Dagget as the posse followed the creek back to Sabo?
Then, suddenly, the air was no longer still. He could hear the storm coming like the subdued purr of a powerful locomotive from a great distance. The tall buffalo grass bent before the first gust, the weeds rattled, and the naked cotton-woods clacked their arms. A scattered volley of sleet slashed like buckshot against the creek bank.
Quickly Grant skidded down the creek bank, grabbed up an armful of driftwood, and made it back to the dugout before the storm struck full force. He propped the stockade door against the wind and packed loose dirt against the bottom. And now the snow came, and the slashing sleet; a dazzling white sheet seemed to have dropped in front of the dugout door so that Grant could not even see the other side of the creek. In this kind of weather cattle lost their way and died going around in circles, men froze to death on horseback, even the coyote and lobo wolf became confused and sometimes died.