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  “What’s this?” Jeff asked.

  “Never you mind what it is. All you got to know is that if Morgan and I ain’t back here at the ranch by sunup tomorrow, you light a shuck for town and give that envelope to Lawyer Stafford at the Nadeau Hotel.”

  Jeff’s eyes widened. “You and the gunslinger are goin’ after the señora!”

  “You just don’t worry about where we’re goin’,” Linderman said.

  “Take me with you! I swear, Pete, I’ll do whatever you tell me, just let me come along and help. I got a powerful hankerin’ to shoot some of those drillers!”

  “Dad-gum it, just do what I told you!” Linderman roared. He started for the doorway, then stopped. “One more thing. You didn’t try to ambush Morgan three nights ago in town, did you?”

  Jeff looked utterly confused. “What? You mean after . . . after Lonnie got himself killed?” He shook his head. “No, you know I didn’t do anything like that, Pete. I just brought Lonnie’s body back out here to the ranch.”

  Linderman looked at Frank. “You believe me now, Morgan?”

  Frank nodded and said, “I believe I do.” He clapped a hand on Jeff’s shoulder. “We’re counting on you, son. Don’t let that envelope out of your sight, and take it to Mr. Stafford if we don’t come back.”

  Jeff nodded, his eyes still wide. “All right, Mr. Morgan. I’ll do it. But I still wish you and Pete would let me come with you.”

  “Maybe another time,” Frank said.

  They left the big ranch house. The barn roof had collapsed by now and the walls had fallen in as well. That had made the fire burn larger and brighter for a while, but it was dying down now. The hands continued to throw buckets of water on the rubble. It would smolder for days, Frank knew, an all-too-vivid reminder of the wanton destruction that had struck at Salida del Sol.

  Frank was looking forward to settling the score with the men who had done this, but that would have to wait. First, he and Linderman had to rescue Dolores. Once she was safe, then would come the showdown that had been building up for months in the San Fernando Valley.

  It had taken his arrival to make things blow up, Frank thought as he swung up into the saddle on Goldy’s back. Once again, he asked himself just how that had come about. He was starting to have an inkling, but he would have to find out more information before he could be sure.

  The two men rode out, taking an extra saddled horse with them. Dog loped behind them. Linderman looked back at the big cur and said, “That brute’s got some wolf in him, don’t he?”

  “More than likely, but I wouldn’t know for sure.”

  Frank was waiting for the rest of the comment he’d been getting from folks lately, about how they didn’t like dogs, but Linderman just nodded and said, “Looks like a fine dog.”

  That nudged the foreman up a notch in Frank’s estimation.

  As they rode, Frank went ahead and told Linderman where they were going. He described the box canyon in the San Gabriels and added, “That’s why I said a whole bunch of men couldn’t do this job. They’d be picked off going through that notch leading into the canyon.”

  “I’ve been around those mountains some, but I don’t recall ever seeing a place like that,” Linderman said. “The forest is so thick over there, you could poke around for days and never find what you were lookin’ for if you didn’t know right where it was.”

  “I probably wouldn’t have found the place if not for Dog. He can follow a trail better than any human tracker.”

  “I don’t doubt it.” Linderman paused, then said, “You know, Morgan, you’re not a bad sort of fella . . . for a gunslinger. It beats me why you’d go to work for a man like Magnusson. Maybe he’s not the one who’s behind all the rustlin’ and killin’, but he still wants to ruin the valley with his damned oil wells.”

  “He doesn’t see it as ruining anything. I think he believes he’s actually doing a good thing by pumping that oil out of the ground. Folks can get enough use out of it to make drilling for it worthwhile.”

  Linderman shook his head. “Maybe so, but I sure don’t see it. Seems like a waste of time to me. I know he can make money from it, but Lord, what a way to get rich!”

  “I’m afraid we may have to get used to it,” Frank said. “If you carry any weight with the señora, Pete, it might be a good idea to try to convince her to come to an agreement with Magnusson.”

  “Go into business with that skunk! Good Lord, Morgan! I thought a man like you who’s lived his whole life in the West would have more sense than that.”

  “You ever try to stand in the middle of a river when it’s flooding, Pete?”

  “What? Hell, no.”

  “Well, you’d have just about as much luck doing that,” Frank said, “as you would trying to stand up to time and progress without getting swept away.”

  “Progress.” Linderman said the word like it tasted bitter in his mouth.

  “I know what you mean, amigo. I surely do.”

  They rode on in silence then. Frank hoped that Linderman would at least give some consideration to what he had said. Once all this ruckus was settled, the conflict at the heart of it would still remain. Each side would have to learn to adjust to the needs of the other, or sooner or later violence would break out again.

  Frank estimated it was around midnight by the time the thickly wooded mountains loomed dark and sinister above them. Even though the moon had risen and gave some light, Frank had to take it slow to make sure he and Linderman were headed in the right direction.

  He soon found the saddle in the ridge that led to the canyon, though, and held up a hand in a signal for Linderman to halt. He reined Goldy in as well. The two men dismounted, and Frank whispered, “We’ll leave the horses here and go in on foot, like I did this afternoon. Be as quiet about it as you can. They’re liable to have extra sentries out tonight, just in case somebody trailed them back here after all the hell they raised.”

  “I know how to be quiet,” Linderman said. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “I’m not worried about you, so much as I am about Señora Montero. Her life may be riding on us, Pete.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Linderman muttered. “Lead the way, Morgan. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Winchesters in hand, the two men started into the canyon.

  Chapter 29

  Dog padded along behind them, and this time Frank didn’t make him stay with Goldy. Having the big cur with them might come in handy before the night was over, and Dog could move as quietly as—or more quietly than—any human could.

  Frank knew he was putting a lot of confidence in Pete Linderman. The ranch foreman was a good man and plenty tough, but he wasn’t a professional fighting man. He had handled himself all right during the attack on Salida del Sol the night before, but this was a different situation that required stealth as well as guts.

  So far, though, Linderman was doing all right, Frank thought as they crept deeper and deeper into the canyon. He thought they were nearing the spot where the sentry had been posted earlier in the day when he heard a soft voice call, “Everything all right over there, Chet?”

  “Yeah, quiet as can be,” the reply came back, confirming two things for Frank—he was right about where he and Linderman were the canyon, and the assumption that the gang would have extra guards posted tonight was correct, too.

  He and Linderman had frozen in their tracks when the first sentry called out. With a man on the other side of the canyon, they couldn’t rely on silence alone to get them into the hideout safely, as Frank had earlier in the day.

  If the man on the far side was watching the canyon floor over here, he might see them slipping along. They would have to use every patch of shadow they could to conceal themselves. Luckily, the moon was low enough in the sky by now so that it wasn’t shining directly into the canyon.

  Frank leaned closer to Linderman and with hand motions communicated to the foreman that he was to follow exactly in his footsteps. Frank knew he could count on
Dog to stay in the shadows. The big cur was like a phantom in the night, unseen and unheard until it was too late for his quarry.

  Frank suspected that the men posted on the walls of the canyon wouldn’t be the only guards. The faint orange wink of a cigarette glowing up ahead told him that he was right.

  The sentry should have known better than to smoke while on duty, but the members of the gang still believed that no one knew where their hideout was. That belief led to the carelessness that Frank was counting on to help get him and Linderman in there.

  Frank couldn’t see the quirly glowing anymore, but he could still smell it. He let that guide him to the guard. Keen eyes finally spotted the man lounging in some scrubby trees that grew along the base of the canyon wall, cupping the cigarette in his hand now to keep it from showing.

  A shot now would ruin everything. Frank touched Linderman on the arm and then motioned for him to stay put. He slid his Colt from its holster and moved forward inch by inch, taking great care each time he put a foot down.

  Unfortunately, when he entered the shadows under the trees, it was impossible to move without pine needles crunching underfoot, but by that time Frank was close enough to strike. As the guard realized someone was there and started to turn, saying, “Who—?” Frank lunged forward and lashed out with the butt of the revolver.

  It landed against the guard’s head with a solid thud and crunch of bone. The man folded up without making another sound. Frank knelt beside him and checked for a pulse. The one he found was fast and thready and fluttered to a stop after a moment.

  The fractured skull had been enough to kill the guard. That was one more man whittled from the odds against him and Linderman, Frank thought.

  Considering all the hell these hired killers had been raising, as well as the fact that they had kidnapped Dolores Montero, Frank knew he wouldn’t lose one second of sleep over this dead man.

  Linderman jumped a little when Frank reached out of the darkness to touch his shoulder, but the foreman didn’t make a sound. Barely visible in the murky gloom, even though only inches separated them, Frank pointed out the way he was going and Linderman followed.

  The canyon began to widen out again. Frank sensed as much as saw the dimensions growing larger. That meant they were reaching the area where the cabins were and where the rustled cattle were kept until they could be driven out and sold to unscrupulous beef buyers.

  He suspected that Dolores would be kept in one of the cabins, but as he knelt and studied the layout, he saw that he was wrong about that.

  She was under the overhang of the bulging bluff that formed the rear wall of the canyon, sitting with her back against a rock not far from the fire. Her hands appeared to be tied together in front of her.

  Three of the hardcases stood near the fire, smoking and passing a bottle back and forth. They had been posted there to keep an eye on Dolores, Frank decided. Her legs weren’t tied, so she could get up and run if she took it into her head to do such a thing.

  But where would she go? She couldn’t get out of the canyon without the guards seeing her. Chances are, she wouldn’t even make it that far.

  One of the men called something to Dolores. Frank couldn’t make out the words, but from the way she turned her head away and pointedly ignored him, he figured it was probably something lewd.

  Pete Linderman must have come to the same conclusion, because he stiffened at Frank’s side and a muttered curse came from him.

  “Take it easy,” Frank whispered.

  “But—”

  “It doesn’t matter what they say to her. All that’s important is that we get her out of here.”

  “How are we gonna do that? That fire’s big enough it lights up that whole area under the bluff. We can’t even get close to her without them seein’ us.”

  Frank had already realized the same thing, and he was already searching for an answer to the problem. After a moment, he thought he might have found one.

  “The fire’s far enough back under the overhang that it doesn’t shine on the bluff up above,” he pointed out, still whispering so that his voice couldn’t be heard more than a foot or two away.

  “What good does that do us?”

  “That’s the way we’ll come down. We’ll be on top of those varmints before they know we’re there. If we can take care of them without a lot of racket, we can slip the señora out of here before the rest of the bunch realizes what’s going on.”

  For a long moment, Linderman didn’t say anything. Finally, though, he whispered, “That’s crazy! The face of that bluff’s too sheer. Nobody could climb down it, and the señora sure as hell couldn’t climb back up.”

  Linderman was right about the second part of his statement. Frank said, “We’ll take her out the front door of this place. If we move fast enough, they won’t have a chance to stop us. As for getting down there, I got a good look at that bluff during the day, and it’s not as smooth as it looks. There are enough crevices and rough spots so that we can find some handholds and footholds.”

  Again, Linderman was silent for a moment as he mulled over what Frank had said. Then, not sounding all that convinced, he replied, “I reckon it’s worth a try. Lord knows we can’t just waltz in any other way.”

  “That’s right,” Frank agreed. “When all the other routes are blocked, you take whatever path is left.”

  “That don’t explain how we’re gonna get up there in the first place.”

  Frank smiled a little in the darkness. “We’ll have to climb up before we get there and work our way around.”

  Linderman breathed a curse and then said, “That’s gonna take forever!”

  “I don’t have anywhere else I have to be right now, do you?”

  “You know damn well that I don’t.”

  “I reckon we’d better get started then. We’ll get as close as we can before we head up.”

  Staying next to the canyon wall, they catfooted their way toward the fire. The guards’ laughter became louder as Frank and Linderman approached. Frank could understand some of what they were saying now, and as he had thought, they were talking about what they were going to do to Dolores as soon as they got the chance.

  He knew that Linderman had to be hearing those things, too, and hoped that the foreman would be able to control the rage he felt. It would be satisfying as all get-out to walk into the firelight with gun in hand and blast the hell out of those varmints, but that wouldn’t help Dolores in the long run.

  Finally, Frank judged that they were close enough to begin their ascent. Any closer and they ran the risk of being spotted as they climbed. He touched Linderman’s shoulder in a signal to halt. They had already discussed how they were going to proceed from there.

  Linderman carried pigging strings in his pocket, as most cowboys were in the habit of doing in case they had to bulldog a calf. The two men took their boots off, used the pigging strings to tie each pair together, and slung the boots around their necks. Clambering around on the rocky walls of the canyon would be a lot easier in stocking feet.

  Then Frank knelt beside Dog, ruffled the cur’s thick coat, and told him to wait there. Frank knew that Dog would do just that, unless and until he was summoned.

  The little whine that Dog let out told Frank that he didn’t like being left behind, though. “Believe me, I’d take you with us if I could, big fella,” Frank whispered. “You’d have to be part mountain goat instead of wolf, though, to go where we’re going.”

  He wouldn’t have minded being part mountain goat himself right now, he thought as he regarded the dark canyon wall looming over their heads.

  Then he reached up, felt around until he found a good handhold, and dug the toes of his right foot into a small crevice. He pulled himself up and reached above him to search for another handhold. A few feet away, Pete Linderman did the same thing.

  They maintained their silence as they climbed, except for the occasional faint grunt of effort. Frank’s fingers and toes began to ache from supporting
his weight, and he knew that Linderman had to be going through the same thing.

  It was so dark Frank found it difficult to judge how high he was when he looked back over his shoulder. He figured they needed to be at least twenty feet off the ground as they worked their way above the overhang where Dolores was being held prisoner next to the fire.

  When he decided that they had to be high enough, he began angling to his right. That would take him above the cavelike area. The light that spilled out from the fire would be his guide. Linderman followed.

  One slip, one rock that pulled loose, one wrong move would doom them—and Dolores.

  Because Frank was convinced that he and Linderman represented her only chance to get out of here alive. Even if Jeff delivered the note to Stafford and the lawyer managed to get a posse up here, the pack of gun-wolves that held Dolores would never let her go.

  So far, so good, though. No one had raised an alarm down below, so Frank knew he and Linderman hadn’t been seen. And they were almost where they needed to be. He could tell that from the glow given off by the fire.

  He reached for the next handhold, but couldn’t find one. The face of the bluff wasn’t perpendicular; it leaned inward slightly. That was the only thing that allowed Frank and Linderman to make their way across it like human flies as they had been doing.

  But there was a limit to how long they could hold on. Frank stretched a little farther, running his fingers over the rough rock. Finally, the tips of them slipped into a narrow opening. He wished it was deeper, but there was nothing he could do about that.

  He swung out, searching with his toes. They slipped on the rock for a second, which meant that all of Frank’s weight was hanging from his fingertips. He gritted his teeth against the strain on his hands, arms, and shoulders.

  Then his toes found some purchase and eased that terrible strain. He leaned against the rock for a moment to rest and catch his breath. A couple more feet and they could start down, he thought.

  Two feet away, Linderman’s hand scrabbled at the rock as he started to slip. Frank let go with his left hand, which shot out and clamped around Linderman’s wrist. Again, his jaw tightened as he strained to hold on to the foreman and keep Linderman from toppling off the bluff.