The ledge was behind some trees and close against the face of the cliff. At this point the cliff was not sheer, though it was very steep, and ended in a mass of rubble, fallen trees, brush, and roots.
I started working my way through the trees. The smell of charred wood grew stronger, andwith it the smell of burned flesh.
For the first time I felt real fear, fear for Ange. Andwiththe fear, came certainty. I was sure that when I found that fire, when I found that charred wood and burned flesh, I would find my wagon, and I would find Ange.
Chapter three.
The wire-like brush was thick, and there was no getting through it in my present condition, half naked as I was, without ripping my hide to shreds. What I had to do was seek out a way around and through, and finally I made it. My heart was pounding with slow, heavy beats when at last I came in sight of the burned-out fire.
I had found my wagon, and I had found my mules. But there was no sign of Ange.
The wagon and all that was in it had been burned.
The mules, I discovered, had each been shot in the head, then dumped over the cliff one by one.
Afterward, somebody had come around and piled brush over the lot, then set fire to it. The killing of those fine big mules hurt me ... there'd been no better mules west of Missouri, if anywhere.
A fine gray ash had been left by the burning of desert brush. And it was obvious that anything that scattered when the wagon struck bottom had been carefully picked up and thrown on the heap.
Whoever had done this had made a try at wiping out all sign, just as no tracks had been left on the mesa top. Suddenly it occurred to me that whoever had done this might well come back to make sure the destruction had been complete. If they returned and found me, I would be killed, for I was in no shape to defend myself, nor had I any weapon.
For several minutes I stood there, trying to think it out, and studying that heap of charred wood and burned mules, trying to figure out who could have done this, and why.
The destruction was not total, for all the work somebody put to make it so, and in thinking about it I could see why. This had been a hurried job.
Careful to disturb things as little as I might, I worked my way around the fire. A big wagon like that, made of white oak, doesn't burn so easy, in spite of the dryness of the wood. The hubs of the wheels were solid, the wagon bed was strongly made. ... And then I thought of our secret place.
It was a box hollowed out of a block of six-by-six timber and bolted to the underside of the wagon, and in it we kept a few odds and ends of keepsakes and five gold eagles for emergency money. By lifting a wooden pin inside the wagon-box a section of the bottom lifted out.
It made a lid for the box.
The canvas top of the wagon and the bows were gone, of course; the wheels were badly charred but almost intact, the body of the wagon was largely destroyed. Poking around in the mess that remained, I found the box, charred, but still whole. Breaking it open, I found the gold money, but whatever else had been inside was charred to ashes.
Poking around where the grub box had been, I found a can of beans that had tumbled from the box when it busted open, and had rolled down among the rocks. And there was also a charred and partly burned side of bacon. What I had hoped to find was some kind of a weapon--a kitchen knife or anything--but whatever there was must have been buried in the rubble.
There was no telling when the ones who had done this might come back, for they had been bound and determined to destroy all sign of me and my outfit, and I was feeling convinced they would return to make sure the job had been done. I'd been taking care all the time to leave no tracks; now I took a last look around.
There lay the ashes not only of my outfit, but of my hopes as well. Ange and me had planned to start a ranch in the Tonto Basin, and I'd spent most of what I had on that outfit and on the cattle to follow.
It was plain to see from the ways things had been piled up that somebody had stood here, carefully putting into the pile everything that was scattered, and it made no sense. In this wild country, who would ever know about what had happened here? Many a man had been murdered and just left for the buzzards, and nobody was the wiser. No, whoever and whatever, they not only wanted me dead, but everything wiped out to leave no slightest trace.
So what did that spell for Ange?
Always she was there in my thoughts, but I kept shoving those thoughts of her to the back of my mind.
There was nothing I could do to help her, or even to find her, until I could get a weapon and a horse. To think of her was to be frightened, to let myself waste time in worrying--time that I'd best spend doing something. One thing I'd learned over the years: never to waste time moaning about what couldn't be helped. If a body can do something, fine--he should do it. If he can't, then there's no use fussing about it until he can do something.
The day was almost gone. Every move I made was hurting me, and I had to move almighty slow.
I wanted to get back to that cave under the stone bridge, but before I'd gone a dozen yards I realized I just didn't have it in me. Like it or not, I was going to have to find somewhere close by, and go without a fire.
The ground was hard and my foot slipped on an icy rock, and I went down. The fall shook me up. It took me a minute or two to get up again. I realized that the cold was growing worse. The river, which had been open water when I'd taken my fall off that lookout point, would be frozen over by now.
Finally, when I was only a hundred yards or so from the ruins of my outfit, I found a place where some slabs of rock had tumbled off the mesa's edge, high above, and in falling had formed a low cave, not over five feet deep and just about large enough for me to curl up inside. There was dead brown grass near the cave, so I tugged on it and pulled enough for ground cover, and I crawled in.
And then I just passed out.
In the night, I awakened. My first thought was that of course I knew the names of two of my pursuers. The man who shot me had been called Macon, and then there was Dance, or Dancer. That name had been put to one of the men I'd overheard talking.
I was lying there shivering, when I heard them come back. Only it was not several men, it was only one. The horse came walking along, passing within a few yards of where I lay ... I could hear the creak of the saddle, and a faint jingle of spurs.
I was too cold and stiff to move, too badly hurt to be of any use to myself. I heard him rousting around in the dark, and once I heard him swear. Then there was a faint glow, and I thought I could detect the crackle of flames. Some little time went by, and finally I must have dozed off again, because when my eyes opened it was daylight.
For a while I just lay still, and then I half-crawled half-rolled out of my hideaway and, using my staff, pushed myself to my feet. It was not until then that I remembered the rider in the nighttime.
Going down to the dim trail, I found his horse's tracks, coming and going. They were sharp, well-defined tracks, made by a horse whose shoes were in good shape. I studied those tracks for a while, and I was not likely to forget them. Then I want back to the wagon.
I saw that he had piled on more brush and lighted it again. Everything was gone now except those black gum hubs for the wheels. They burn mighty hard, and these had only charrred over. The fire still smoldered, so I stayed there a few minutes, warming myself.
I didn't need anybody to tell me that I was in bad shape. Somehow I had to get out of that country and get to where I could be cared for, and where I could get a horse and some guns. And then I recalled talk I'd heard of Camp Verde.
Judging by what I'd heard, it could be not much more than thirty miles or so as a crow would fly; but to get there by covering no more than thirty miles a body would surely have to have wings, just like the crow.