The Adam Chaser/Chapter 6

HE eastern rim of the valley stood crimson where the westering sun struck it full, bringing into bold relief each cañon and crag, the smallest fold and the smoothest boulder; as if a contour map had been painstakingly modeled on a gigantic scale in red sealing wax, or as if a world aflame had been paralyzed into utter silence.

Toward that garish pile of shattered hills, Abington and Bill Jonathan plodded with the low sun at their backs, which were burdened heavily with as much of their camp supplies as they had been able to retrieve and could carry.

The start that morning had been delayed until nearly noon while they searched vainly for some clew to the mystery that had in a few hours held an orgy of wanton destructiveness in two camps and had poisoned their water supply and killed three burros. Human malevolence had been displayed in that last attack, Abington was convinced.

Yet in spite of all his skill, all the careful attention to details which his scientific training had made second nature, he had failed to discover the slightest evidence of a human agency at work against them. Not a sign, not a track, save those enormous sheep tracks leaving the vicinity of the spring and going off up a narrow ravine in great strides which made it hopeless to think of overtaking it; for without water he did not dare attempt any prolonged search. Now, with a half mile of red sand to plow through before they reached the first bold hillside, their eyes clung perforce to the seamed, broken rampart they were nearing.

A dazzling light that flashed and was gone, then came again and stood motionless for a space while one might count fifteen, showed high up on a ridge as evenly serrated as a rooster's comb, and quite as red. Abington came to a full stop which he made a rest period by slipping the heavy pack from his shoulders. Nothing loath, Bill did likewise. The two sat down on the sand beside their bundles, mopping perspiration from faces and necks.

“Bill, when I get up and stand in front of you, look past me at the sharp peak just south of the mountain—the first one on the ridge straight before us. Tell me if you see anything that might be a reflection of the sun—from a telescope, we'll say, or more likely a pair of field glasses. No, don't look yet. Remember that with good glasses a man could read the expression on your face, read your lips, too, if he's had any training.”

At the first sentence Bill's face had hardened. “You don't have to preach caution to a man that's been on the dodge long as I have,” he muttered bitterly, under cover of lighting a cigarette. “Shoot. What d'you think—that it's an officer, maybe?”

“I'm not thinking past the field glasses that I believe are focused on us,” Abington parried, rising and standing so that his back was to the ridge while he held up his watch before Bill's face. “He may think I'm trying to hypnotize you, but it's an excuse. Look right past this watch, to a point between the second and third little pinnacles on the ridge. See anything?”

“Something moved, in the notch just below that pinnacle. I got it against the sky for a minute. There ain't any shine, though. Might have been a sheep.”

Abington put away his watch, stooped and shouldered his pack.

Bill slipped his arms through the rope loops and wriggled his own burden into place on his back as he got up. “Wouldn't think they'd be lookin' for me away down here,” he said uneasily, after a few rods of silent plodding. “Not unless you” He sent an involuntary glance toward his companion.

“Unless I informed on you when I went after supplies, and arranged for your capture after I had benefited by your information,” Abington answered the look. “You don't really think that, Bill.”

“I don't know why I wouldn't think it, if somebody's planted up there watching for us with glasses,” Bill retorted, not more than half in earnest but yielding to the ugly mood born of nerve strain and muscle weariness.

“Of course, you can think any idiotic thing you choose,” Abington returned, in that tolerant tone which he could summon when he wished to bite into a man's self-esteem. “Any other brilliant ideas on the subject, explaining why, if I were contemplating treachery, I should call your attention to that light on the ridge up there?”

“Yeah, I might have one or two,” Bill growled. “I was a fool to start across here in broad daylight. Now, if they come after me, I ain't even got a gun!”

BINGTON sent a quick, sidelong glance toward Bill's face. That gun question was becoming a touchy subject between them. “No, you haven't a gun. So you are not quite so liable to a few extra years—or a chair in the gas house—if you are caught!”

“Well, I ain't caught yet!” Bill's upper lip lifted away from his teeth. “Not by a damn sight!”

Abington gave him another sidelong glance. The snarl was not lost upon him, though he made no reply. Like many another man who is agreeable enough in ordinary circumstances, Bill Jonathan's good nature did not always stand up under hardship.

That blustery impatience at the physical discomforts of a long grilling walk was beginning to crop out in Bill, mostly in the form of a surly ill temper and a grumbling against conditions which neither could help. Abington had reached the point of gauging the exact degree of surliness and to set up mental defenses against his moods.

Bill had taken the initiative in this quest and he was surely receiving full value for his efforts. From a sporting admiration for Bill's daring, and a certain liking for his whimsical shrewdness, Abington was consciously beginning to chafe at the man's crabbed temper; he felt a growing distrust, too, which was yet formless and only vaguely realized.

He caught himself wishing now that he had asked Park what crime stood against Bill Jonathan. No use asking Bill; he would say what he pleased and the other could believe it or not.

“If you've got any wild idea of finding out from me where them stone skeletons is, and then turning me over to the sheriff, you better revise the notion, professor,” Bill said abruptly, having brooded over it for five minutes. “I'm nobody's fool.”

“Then why talk like one?” Exhaustion was beginning to draw a white line beside Abington's nostrils and his bruised ankle ached cruelly. He began to feel that he'd had enough of Bill's grousing. “You've nothing to kick about, so shut up. I'm doing packer's work rather than have men along who might go out and betray you.”

“Yeah. You knew mighty well I wouldn't stir a foot if you brought in a bunch of mouthy roughnecks,” Bill growled back. “How do I know what you framed in town?”

Abington slipped his pack off his shoulders and swung toward Bill with a menacing glitter in his eyes. “That's going a bit strong, even for you,” he said sharply. “If you've any reason for saying that, out with it! If not, I'll thank you to keep such thoughts behind your teeth. You're getting quite as much as you are giving, Bill Jonathan—and by that I mean to include loyalty and fair play.

“For all I know,” Abington went on, “you invented the story of fossilized human remains as a temptation that would insure my protection and the food you'd need in case you made your escape from Park. Do you suppose I was so blind I did not see that possibility from the start? A fossilized man, as you knew, was bait I'd be pretty sure to swallow. Well, I did swallow it—but not with my eyes shut, I assure you. Please give me credit for that much intelligence.

“I took you at your word,” he continued, “and I have played the game straight. I shall continue to play it square, until I find that you have lied to me.”

E waited, balanced, ready for the blow he expected. Instead, he saw the expression in Bill's eyes change to a grudging mollification, as if the very abusiveness of the attack reassured him.

“I never said anything to put you on your ear,” Bill hedged morosely, after an uncomfortable pause. “What are you razzing me for? I said I wouldn't be caught and I won't be. That goes, professor.”

“Very well, let's have no more talk about it.” Abington lifted his pack to his galled shoulders and started on, leaving Bill to his own devices; wherefore Bill presently overtook him and walked alongside.

The truce held while the clouds flamed with the sunset, a barbaric pageant that could not rival the sanguine magnificence of that wild ensemble of towering hills slashed with deep gorges whose openings were frequently hidden away behind bold, jutting pinnacles.

“Looks like the devil was practicing on these hills, trying to make a world of his own with nothing but fire for building material,” Bill observed at last, wanting to appear friendly and awed in spite of himself before the spectacle. “When God came along and told him to knock off, looks like the devil just kicked it all to thunder and dragged his feet through the mess a few times and walked off and left it like that. Don't you think so, professor?”

“I've heard theories advanced that were not half so plausible,” Abington replied, his voice once more calm and slightly ironic, as if he still doubted Bill's sincerity. “A man could spend a lifetime in this country without exhausting its archæological possibilities.”

“Yeah—or without getting caught,” Bill added, speaking as had the other of the thing nearest his own heart.