The Line of Least Resistance/Chapter 8



HE sheriff was right; men were not lacking who knew of the Abilene tragedy. Within the week Dundee was divided into hostile camps. Kennedy's adherents were headed by Pres Lewis, Horsethief Fisher and Springtime Morgan. Their theory was plausible if not convincing. The methods used for abatement of Mr. Sleiter, they argued, were proof that Kennedy was one who fought fair. Such being the case, the episode was disposed of, according to their simple creed. As to the less venial charge of train robbery, they persistently regarded it as trumped up. Even men do not depend upon logic, once their unwordable intuitions are aroused.

The law has always stanch upholders, congenital or conscientious. Also, the T P, the Wells-Fargo and the state had offered large rewards. The Wells-Fargo had their own trouble-men on the spot; Smith-Leonard had money and friends. The chase was untiring—and fruitless. Many thought Kennedy was over the border.

He was not. His course may be explained, indeed, but with scant hope that explanation will make it clear to the law-abiding. Such a one would have surrendered to stand trial; to such, flight is confession of guilt. But the desert fosters, along with disputable qualities, a species of. The instinct of the desert-bred is hostile to law. To jail he is resolutely averse; on any attempt to entice or induce him thither he seeks the high places of the hills as surely as water seeks its level. With him this hiding-out is a matter of personal dignity and has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. The law-abiding then term him an outlaw, and he in turn describes the law-abiding as "halter-broke"—a mutual misjudging based upon insufficient premises.

So well is this state of affairs understood on the frontier and so generally is it sympathized with, that lawbreaker or fleer, resorting to lonely ranches for shelter, gives casual lighthearted explanation to a perfect stranger that he is "on the dodge," "running with the wild bunch," or "watering at night." Under such circumstances it is permissible, if imprudent, for the paragon of strangers to submit under protest, or even to decline to harbor the fugitive—permitted, that is, in the sense that he will forfeit no standing, though he may lose many friends by such indiscreet course. After protest at the time you are free for such action as you please. But, once having willingly sheltered the dodger, it is not the thing to have lot or part against him. You may and do extend your hospitality to his pursuers, but your lips are sealed; it is not correct to look unusually or suspiciously wise. So the wheel of negation swings full circle; this no-law is itself become a law, better served than most; having, perhaps, some faint apprehensive smatter of the Golden Rule. It is not known that such confidence has been violated—an absurd custom, not indefensible. Its injuries to society at large are obvious, its advantages to the individual at large undeniable—but the effect on the hostly character is worthy of consideration. The habit of unshrinking loyalty may be formed in a questionable cause, yet to do service in a good one. Among men—ladies will not understand this—clean honor is not always consistent with ill deeds. But it keeps faith, spoken or implied.

Kennedy, more than most, prided himself upon being a rational creature, observant of why he willed the thing he did. But he was really, like the rest of us, the creature of use and habit. On the warning of Uncle Jimmy he took to the hills, as his wild clan was wont to take to the heather, with as little exercise of pure reason as ever duckling waddled to water withal.

Had Smith-Leonard's denunciation been but a day later, Kennedy would have been on his expiatory way Arizonaward. Now, he would not go. Fight and surrender were alike distasteful.

Where the sheer, red hills buttress the pedestal of Timber Mountain there is a small, shallow cave. The two friends had found it; Hiram had named it in his note as meeting place and despite of watching foes, twice in the ten days had contrived to keep risky tryst, bringing tidings, comfort, aid and abetment. The robbery charge was a "frame-up"; Leonard had a man drilled to a confession certain to convict; it would be better for Don to leave. Hiram had but barely seen Lena; she was drooping and pale. She and Breese had gone to Silver City and were soon expected to come back after Aunt Polly. The Professor and Dorothy, too, were to go before long to California. Dolly stoutly refused to credit the charge against Don; the Professor gave him the doubt's benefit. The Professor was not looking well himself. No more was Hiram. But he did not tell Don.

He brought a spyglass, cartridges, supplies, which latter Kennedy stored in the cave—now known as Kennedy's Kitchen—slipping down at night to get them as required; his crooked path followed the rockier spaces where Noche, his horse, left no sign. For himself, he kept the topmost ridges—the western slopes in the morning, the eastern by afternoon, avoiding only the skyline; watching his enemies thread the bewildered and intricate maze of tangled hills. Once Leonard passed along the hillside, a short rifle shot below, circling for "sign." But Kennedy's precautions had been thorough, and he was left undisturbed. There were shallow surface tanks which held water for a few days after a rain. When these failed he went by night to the great tanks in the deeps of Palomas Gap.

The sheriff had snooped around and ascertained that Uncle Jimmy, leaving Dundee the night Hiram served on the posse, had reached his hay camp at daylight the next morning—a record-breaking trip for four miles—with one mule saltily sweat-marked and played out, while the other was miraculously fresh. By unwarranted and illogical inference the sheriff had taken this as an affront to both himself personally and the law's majesty. Against Uncle Jimmy, who was his own man, he had no recourse. But Kim Ki publicly dispensed with the services of Jimmy, Junior—with a private hint to "wait till the clouds rolled by, Jimmy," after which atmospheric readjustment he might be put to work again.

If Otis lingered in Dundee it was by no means to wait until Lena returned for Aunt Polly. Not at all. There was rich trove of buried pottery and such trinkets to be had for the digging in Palomas Gap, immemorial camp ground of Indians by reason of the tanks. The Professor had really intended to take this matter up all summer.

So he hired Uncle Jimmy's team with young Jimmy for driver and cook, and, with Dolly, set out for Palomas Gap forthwith, taking grumbling old Quinlan along as digger-in-chief. That they planned to come back to Dundee the day before Lena from Silver City was merely a coincidence.

The Professor was not unaware of why Jimmy, Junior, was now unemployed. Loyal, illegal service to a rival, presumably favored, might have been scant recommendation to a narrower man; but that was precisely why Lathrop Ormsby Otis selected Jimmy. A good sort, the Professor.

The excavations had been highly successful. While Quinlan was working, the Professor and Dolly had explored the black depth of Palomas Gap. It is to Caballo Mountain what a particularly deep and wide axe-notch is to a log—if you imagine it done by a particularly inexpert axeman—a deep-gashed chasm, rended and splintered and riven through the mighty range. In the six miles from eastern base to western there was a fall of three thousand feet to the level of the Rio Grande. Since Noah's time, great boulders, caught by some chance irregularity of the cañon floor, spun topwise by swift floods, had worn a score of burnished basins, round, symmetrical and deep, in the solid rock, and had themselves been ground to powder. These deep basins are the Palomas Tanks.

Dolly and her father had seen them all, as far down as they could safely go—sunless depths, shadowed mossy clefts, carven cliff and dizzy precipice.

This was the day set for their return. But on the last night the two mules had made a bee-line for Dundee, hobbles and all, and Jimmy was after them afoot.

As the Professor had already rather a surplusage of broken pottery, there was no more digging to do. So old Pat taught gleeful Dolly to pitch horseshoes. At dinnertime Jimmy had not returned. So Pat Quinlan acted as chef. Later came a miner, known to both Otis and Quinlan as a man friendless and discarded. Dinner was set out again for him.

He was camped at the foot of the mountain on the other side, he said. Coming through the Gap on the North Trail he had followed up a bit of float and found a likely-looking vein. Would Otis and Pat go back with him and witness his location papers? It was not far. He pointed out the spot; half a mile west and half a mile up.

They agreed, nothing loth. Dolly elected to stay in camp. It was rather hot and she was tired; she would sleep in her tent. Quinlan took up his rifle. "And we might see a deer along toward sunset," he said.

The vein was duly located, with all its variations, dips, spurs and angles, as the "Concho." From the location point they paced off two hundred and fifty steps toward the crest, with liberal allowance for the broken and boulder-strewn ground. The cool, deep shadows were about them; the sun was behind the peak. Here they built the "west-end center" monument, and the miner climbed at a right angle up the hill for an estimated hundred yards to put up the northwest corner monument. The southwest corner was dispensed with.

Then they retraced their steps to the central location monument, and stepped off the appointed seven hundred and fifty feet down the rough hillside.

"Oi'll build the lower monument and be on me way to stir up supper—drat the b'y!" said Quinlan. So Otis and the prospector erected the monument at the northeastern corner, and then turned down toward camp.

"Your boy Jim must 'a' had to 'a' gone clean to town for his mules," said the prospector. "But he'll be back some time tonight. He's some of a boy."

"I hope so," said Otis. "I want"

Something struck him a fearful blow in the shoulder. He pitched forward—a crash of rifle shots, bullets droning by, splintering on rocks. Half stunned, Otis was on his feet, the miner helping him, running madly down the hill. "’Paches!"

A hideous fear gripped at the Professor's heart. Oh, Dolly! Dolly! A bullet nipped his leg, burning like red-hot iron. He fell again. Wild yells of fiendish triumph. The miner dragged him to the shelter of a ledge close at hand. He put his six-shooter in an interstice between two rocks, and fired swiftly.

"Are you hurt bad?" he asked.

"I don't know. I think not. Dolly! Dolly!" Otis was half conscious and failing.

The miner stood with his back to Otis, watching for a chance to fire.

"I'm hit too. No difference. We're gone geese anyhow. Peek-Boo!" He fired. "Look! They've left their horses while they crep' on us. See 'em, back on the divide1? Maybe I can stand 'em off till old Pat gets the girl. There! I think I hit one! If they get me take my gun and watch that open space. But they'll go down beyond the ridge, of course, as soon as they see the girl."

Crack! Crack! An Indian, unseen before, rose from behind a bush, shrieking horribly, pitched over on his face and lay still. Quinlan was behind a boulder not fifty yards below them. Otis struggled to his knees. He had a glimpse of Dolly.

The miner cursed viciously as he fired. "The damned fool! What does he stay to help us for? Why don't he get the girl? It must be he's cut off."

The answer came. There was a shot, Quinlan crumpled down, in a heap, then staggered to his knees, crawled around, rested his rifle over the little boulder, and took a long, slow aim at—Dorothy, four hundred yards away. A dozen Indians fired at him. Quinlan's rifle jerked—then it grew steady on the rock as he pulled the trigger. A whiff of dust lashed out beyond Dorothy. He had overshot. He slid over sidewise, sprawling down the hillside; his rifle fell clattering.

Releasing Otis, the miner sprang to his feet and thrust the pistol into his hands. "Shoot! I'll try and get to the rifle. What's that?"

He turned his blood-stained face. The firing all stopped. On the south side of the Gap, down the steep edge paralleling that on which they fought, a cloud of dust whirled thundering, incredibly swift, zigzagged, billowed aside to show the heart of it—a black horse and a man! Loose stones rolled crashing from it, fire flashed through it as iron slipped and shrieked on bare rock. It hurled fiercely downward over bush and slide, talus and stair and rocky steep; rode triumphant, irresistible, on the very wings of Death. "Kennedy! By God, he'll do it!" the miner bellowed. He broke from cover in a desperate dash for Quinlan's rifle. The Indians were shooting across the chasm at Kennedy; the miner was halfway to Quinlan's rock before any shot was fired at him. Otis crawled to the open and shot wildly. If they would but shoot at him! To gain time! To spare but one little moment to the miner that he might give Kennedy the extra seconds! A delirium of shouts, shots, bewildering echoes—a hideous, painted face showed before him—was blotted out. The miner had got to Quinlan's gun, and he was a marksman. One moment he crouched behind the rock. Kennedy was safely down the terrible slope, racing on for the wagon. But below, beyond the ridge, rifles were spitting fire. Could he run that gauntlet?

A Beserk fury was on the miner. Firing as he ran, he made for the comb of the ridge, straight toward his yelling foes. Bullets touched him but did not check him. Through a red mist an Indian rose in his path. He pulled trigger, but there was no report. The magazine was empty. The redskin fired, almost into his fact, but missed! The clubbed rifle swept him down. The miner wrenched the Apache's rifle from the clenched fingers and dropped to shelter. From where he was now the three Indians below were in plain view and easy range. If Kennedy could pass them! A storm of bullets raged around him. Once, twice, he fired. Two of them floundered in death flurry; the third wriggled from sight. Kennedy was almost to the girl.

The miner rose and walked steadily down into the open. He was riddled; all his failing energies were concentrated on one steadfast purpose, one forlorn hope: one shot at that wriggling bronze body. A puff of smoke rose below. Kennedy had the girl in the saddle before him, shielded by his body. Another smoke puff! The miner planted his feet wide apart, a grim and terrible figure. From behind his back Indians rose from concealment and bounded down toward him, eager to capture him alive for torture. He brushed back the sweat and blood from his eyes; the prone brown body lay before the sights. He pulled the trigger; as the smoke blew aside, his dimming eyes looked again along the motionless barrel. The body was turned over, the arms outspread. The miner lowered the gun-muzzle, leaned heavily on the stock, swayed; the echoes dwindled to silence.

You want to know this man's name? I like to write his name. It is an honored name in Dundee, and men bear it proudly who are no kith or kin of his. If you would ask them why, in the space of a single eye-flight, no less than three several youths of five or six and twenty years or so have the same odd and cumbrous double name, the question will be evaded. But, when they come to know you well, it may be, some night when the friendly stars burn warm and low, and the soft wind ripples the bunch grass, and the fire glows faint through the banked ash, and all the songs are done—they may tell you how Adam Sleiter died.