The Sixth Western Novel MEGAPACK ®: 4 Novels of the Old West by Jackson Gregory & Walker A. Tompkins & Allan K. Echols & Will Cook

Author:Jackson Gregory & Walker A. Tompkins & Allan K. Echols & Will Cook [Gregory, Jackson]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: old west, rustlers, cowboy, gunslinger, western
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2015-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Underground to Mexico

Redding withdrew into a jumble of time-furbished glacial boulders to ponder his next move. Any attempt to trail Clark O’Connor farther would mean inviting a bushwhack bullet from the sentries Tondro kept on duty around the clock. For all he knew, this spot might be within gun range of a guard post.

His horse concealed, Redding sized up the rugged country between him and the rimrock which overlooked Tondro’s hideout. He saw no cross chasms breaking that brushy slope, no indication of a ledge or avalanche scar which would block a man on horseback.

To be spotted out on that sun-baked expanse of steep, naked slope would be risky business, but was a chance he had to take. Darkin’s message called for Tondro to send a crew from Thunder Rock large enough to move a sizable cattle herd onto Wagonwheel range. He was tempted to remain where he was, on the supposition that within a short while O’Connor would be returning, perhaps with Tondro’s rustler crew.

Then he remembered what Doc Stiles had told him of a mine tunnel which served as an escape outlet from the gorge in case of emergency. It was possible that Tondro might dispatch the men Darkin had asked for through that exit.

Checking the magazine of his Winchester and the cylinders of his Colts, Redding put his horse out of the rocks and along the mountain slope, heading in the general direction of the canyon-end waterfall.

He could make good time along here, for the slope carried a webwork of hard-beaten game trails. With luck, Redding believed he could reach the rim directly above Tondro’s hideout before O’Connor reached his destination.

Redding had estimated the waterfall to be two miles from the ridge where he had had his first glimpse of it. But, reversing the usual error in underjudging distances in this high arid country, he found himself nearly abreast of the plunging waters within an hour’s riding.

Redding off-saddled in a brushy rincon, staked out the steeldust gelding, and provided himself with a hunk of rye bread and a can of peaches from the sack Lennon had supplied him. Then, unencumbered by his Winchester, he picked his way down an eroded barranca, eating as he traveled, until he found himself at the edge of the cliff, facing the dizzy abyss of Thunder Rock gorge.

He bellied down on the hot granite shelf and worked his way with infinite caution to the rimrock’s verge.

He was directly above Tondro’s shaft house; he could have thumbed a pebble into space and landed it in the outlaws’ horse corral. A dozen Mexicans were lolling in siesta in the shade of a loblolly pine, down by the boiling whirlpool at the foot of the falls, the showering white spray giving them welcome surcease from the sweltering heat of the day.

A maul made its metallic music on an anvil in one of the aguista-thatched outbuildings down there. The place had an almost pastoral atmosphere of undisturbed peace, which Redding took as evidence that Clark O’Connor had not yet arrived with his message.

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