THE CASTLE IN THE AIR
When a man flees for safety it is seldom into the unknown, for that
is always fearful. Nine times out of ten he heads for some old
stamping-ground, and generally he heads for home. Hall McIvor was lost
in a country so wild that not even a wagon-track entered it; four
trails led in and out and he took the one he knew, the one that went to
Tonto. It was night, but he had a horse that knew the way, or at least
that could follow a trail; and at the first flush of dawn he spurred
down Jump-Off Point and splashed into Turkey Creek. Then he rode
without stopping until, at Cold Spring, his horse threw up its head and
quit. Hall was back where his troubles had begun.
At this same spot, not a month before, Isham Scarborough and Red
had held him up and charged him with being a Bassett. Now the month
had passed and he _was_ a Bassett, and the Scarboroughs would be
hot on his trail; and if they caught him again the hangman's knot
in the cliff-dwelling would be something more than a grim joke. The
Scarboroughs were desperate; they had tried to kill off the Bassetts as
they would stamp out a nest of rattlesnakes; but the most dangerous
one had escaped, leaving his mark on three of them, and they would
ride like the wind to cut him off. And, next after Winchester and the
impetuous Bill, they would seek for Hall McIvor. Miz Zoolah would see
to that, now that she knew he was Allifair's lover, and Isham would
shoot him on sight. He looked around anxiously, casting about for some
hiding place, and his eyes came to rest on a cliff-dwelling.
It was stuck like a swallow's nest in a hole in the rocks, high up
against the base of the crag; and there, though he would have neither
food nor water, he would find shelter from his enemies. For that very
purpose the ancient cliff-dwellers had built it there, and every steep
trail and close-built rampart had been constructed with the idea of
defense. Yet if he left his horse below they would know he was hiding
near and hunt him down like a rabbit--he mounted again and spurred on
down the trail until once more he came to the creek. There he loosened
the horse's saddle and set him free, stepping off into the running
water.
The trail itself had struck over a long point which came down from
Baker Mountain to the west and he turned up the creek-bed, stepping
from stone to stone, until he had made his way back to Cold Spring.
Then he waded up the torrent which rushed down from the cliffs and
as he ducked under the wild grapevines his feet fell into a natural
pathway, worn deep along the sides of the chasm. It was an ancient
trail, half obliterated by cloudbursts and the rush of tumbling
waters, but as it led up higher and the chasm widened out, Hall had a
feeling that it was leading him somewhere. Not to the dwelling beneath
the crag, for that was far to the left, but to some sanctuary where he
might take shelter with Allifair. But the trail split and was lost in a
maze of huge boulders and he found himself up on the bench.
Behind him rose the cliffs, terrace above terrace of shattered
porphyry, but already his pursuers were in the canyon below--four
Texans and hard-riding Isham. He watched them from the rim as they went
whipping down the trail, then settled back and waited grimly. Down the
creek-bed they galloped, then up and over the point and down once more
into the creek; but as they saw his horse grazing they wheeled and took
cover, dropping off to reconnoiter on foot. For half an hour or more
their heads bobbed up as they crept along the bank of the stream and
then in disgust they strode down to the water and gathered about his
horse. He smiled as he saw them cutting circles for sign--they were
trying to find his tracks; but he had covered them too well and after
hunting for several hours they came back and camped at Cold Spring.
From his lookout among the crags Hall could hear their loud arguments,
and their guesses at where he had gone; he could see their food, almost
smell the can of coffee that they boiled over the mesquite coals; but
still he lingered, eating acorns to stay his hunger, until at last
they mounted and rode on. More than one had shrewdly guessed that
he was around there somewhere, but the brush was so thick as to make
pursuit hopeless and they were loath to work on foot. So they went
away and left him, agreeing to ride the trail first, and Hall began to
think about food. On the bench to which he had mounted the grass stood
knee-high and there were deer and bear tracks everywhere, but one shot
from his rifle would bring the Scarboroughs back so he prowled through
the oaks after turkey. They were there by the hundred, fat gobblers who
just escaped him and hens that ran like lightning through the brush;
but as he pursued a brood of young ones he discovered a nest of eggs
and the food question, for the moment, was solved. The eggs were still
fresh, and, after eating one raw, he hastened back to his lookout.
Already a feeling of security had come over him and as he waited for
their return he worked busily on a turkey trap, which he planned to set
at a spring. First he cut some long sticks, to make the top and sides,
and then with limber switches he wattled them together, and at evening
he took them down to the spring. It lay in the bottom of a brushy
gulch and the turkey tracks led down to it everywhere. Cutting out a
space above the spring he planted his wattled cage firmly; and then,
digging a trench to lead the turkeys up and under it, he staked off
the entrance inside. That was all it was, a fenced trench and a cage,
but if any turkey strayed into it and lifted his head he would try,
turkey-like, to find a hole between the slats instead of stooping down
to pass out at the hole. Hall concealed the trap with brush and strewed
acorns along the trench; and then, as no turkeys came, he built wings
leading up to it and hid himself in the oak trees below.
There was a loud gobble from the hillside, the anxious _quilp-quilp_
of a hen, and the great birds leapt out and came sailing down through
the air to land with a thump by the spring. For a moment they crouched
frozen as they saw the wings of the trap, but no one had ever hunted
them and they soon recovered from their alarm while still others soared
down from the heights. An old hen with her little ones came trailing up
from the chasm, and Hall watched them with bated breath; but as even
these refused to go near his trap he rose up and made a rush. The hen
dodged away, calling loudly to her brood, but in the stampede which
followed he drove three of them into the wings and up the trench into
the trap. That evening he ate meat, and when the morning came he set
out to explore his domain.
The chasm up which he had come cut its way through the crags to a
level mountain-top far beyond; and that, according to Meshackatee, was
preempted by Old Man Baker, who claimed the whole mountain for himself.
Since the Indians had killed his son, no Apache dared venture up there;
and Hall made up his mind to follow their example, for Baker had shot
every Indian on sight. There was game enough and to spare on the first
low bench; and farther up the canyon he discovered a hidden basin,
where the deer and wild turkey swarmed. But what he sought for most was
a hiding place among the cliffs, which would shelter him and his mate;
and he clambered along the bear-track which led off around the point to
the first of the dizzy cliff-dwellings.
It proved to be no more than some walls of broken rock, piled up in
a shelving hole; and house after house, as he inspected them closer,
turned out to be nothing but skeletons. Most of them had no roofs,
they were all hard to get to and entirely too far from water; and the
trails that led up to them made it absolutely certain that he would
be seen going to and fro. There was only one place which would answer
his purpose and it was like an eagle's nest above him. Within a great,
arching cave, high up in the cliff, there stood a huge dwelling, with
doors and windows sealed and a rampart across its front. It was a
medieval castle, transported from dreamland and set like a jewel in
the cliff. At the extreme southern side there was a rift in the solid
roof that gave promise of a possible descent; but the path which led
up to it, if path there ever was, had vanished with the passing of the
centuries. Perhaps it had caved off and was buried in the talus which
extended along the base of the precipice; but there his castle stood,
aloof and unapproachable, whichever way he came.
The days passed and he became a wild animal, prowling the hillside
like a mountain lion as he stalked the young turkeys or sought the
hidden way to his castle. He knew it must be there, some cave or hidden
passageway, for the rift from above had turned out a mere crack down
which a rat could hardly crawl. He sickened of the taste of eggs and
broiled turkeys, and of acorns ground up and boiled; yet the sight of
that dwelling, high up above the canyon, held him on from day to day.
It was a haven of refuge, if he could only reach it--and he knew there
must be a path to it somewhere.
From the bench below he often stood and looked up at it, trying to
imagine where the path might have passed; and at last he went back and
began to explore the chasm, for there could be no other way to the
cave. Above, below and far to the south of the dwelling the cliff rose
sheer and smooth; but the gateway to the chasm was not so far from the
castle that it could not give entrance from the side. Already he had
threaded the narrow pathway that led up the bed of the stream; but now
he climbed higher and, from the opposite side, looked across for some
suggestion of a trail. The canyon wall was steep but not too steep; in
places he almost imagined he saw a trail--a row of cat-steps here, a
stretch of natural stairs, an ascent from shelf to shelf. But of what
value was an ascent if it took him to no passageway--what he sought
was a way to the cave. He lay idly in the shade, gazing across at the
canyon wall, and as the silence came back he saw a shadow move down
the stream-bed, pause stealthily and move again. Then, etched against
the granite, a huge mountain-lion stood out, tawny red and almost
invisible until it moved.
He looked on, still idly, for not since he had come there had he
ventured to fire a shot; and the lion, which had been hiding from him,
started stealthily up the path that he had been tracing from shelf
to shelf. He padded softly up the cat-steps, took the stairs at a
bound--and disappeared in a high, narrow crack. A half hour later Hall
followed in his footsteps and at the mouth of his cave he received the
last assurance that the pathway led to the castle. A cool wind breathed
out of it, tainted with the strong musk of lions; and where could it
come from but there?
He turned back eagerly to gather pitch-pine from a piñon stump; then
entered, holding the torch like a club. There was a rustle before him,
an uneasy growl, the flash of startled eyes; but still they fled on
and he followed through the darkness until he saw a cleft of light
overhead. It merged into an orifice that let in a soft glow and the
vision of a skulking form; and then the invisible path, which had held
his feet through the darkness, took him out into blinding day. He
was standing in the court of his castle in the air and the lion was
crouching by the door.