THE GAP
The lifeless forms that littered the floor of Bryant's Gap had but
recently been men who lived a vital, hard life in the outdoors; men who
could shoot fast and straight, whose every sense was tuned to a pitch
that made them aware of any danger that lurked. The dead men had been
Texas Rangers.
In a roundabout way, these riders had been told that men they sought as
outlaws could be found in Bryant's Basin. To reach the Basin they had
ridden through the Gap--almost through the Gap--but Death had cut their
journey short. Killers, waiting behind protecting rocks, had fired
without warning. Half of the small band had spilled from the saddle,
either dead or wounded, at the first fusillade of bullets. The others,
with the intuitive action of men who live and often die by the gun, had
leaped to the ground to fight from behind the scant protection of fallen
horses. Empty cartridge cases gave mute evidence of their gallant stand.
The Rangers all had fallen, but in one a tiny spark of life still
glowed. The man, wounded in several places, looked dead. Even the
buzzards, circling ever lower, experts at recognizing death, were
deceived. The gaunt birds seemed to dart away in surprise when the lone
survivor moved. A dazed sort of consciousness came slowly to him. At
first he was aware of heat--heat from the sun overhead and the rocks
surrounding him. Then the heat became a frightful burning, concentrated
in his right leg and left shoulder. Blood, seeping from a gash across
his forehead, blinded him. He tried to move, but the effort made him
giddy. He fell back to rest, while he fought to gather his scattered
senses.
As the mists lifted from his mind he remembered sudden shots--his
comrades falling--stabbing pain shooting through his left side from the
shoulder down--left hand useless--a bullet in his foot--falling to the
ground--oblivion. Ambush--treachery--_must_ live--must bring the killers
in!
Sheer courage, and the will to ignore the pains that racked his entire
body, brought the wounded man to a sitting position. At the time, the
thought that murderers might still be lurking close at hand did not
occur to him.
His first thought was to see if any of the others needed help, but when
he tried to rise he was amazed at his own weakness. He realized that he
was beyond the point of helping others.
He could barely move. He wiped the blood from his eyes, but his vision
was fogged. Only large objects could be discerned, and these not
clearly. He tried to locate the horses, but all except his own had died
or disappeared. The white stallion that he himself had ridden stood a
short distance away, as if waiting for the next command of its master.
He tried to give the familiar whistle, but no sound issued from his dry,
bloodless lips. He called to the horse, and his own voice startled him.
It was an unfamiliar voice, one that he had never heard before--almost
croaking. But the stallion heard it and came obediently to the side of
the sitting man.
The big horse lowered its head at a whispered command. The reins fell
close to the hands of the man on the ground. He clutched for them and
had to grope before he found them. Then, clinging to the bridle, he
finally gained an unsteady footing. With the instinct of the hunted he
sought for his means of defense. His right hand fumbled at his waist for
the familiar cartridge belt and the brace of heavy guns. The belt was
missing. This discovery should have been cause for alarm, but in his
desperate condition, the loss of the weapons seemed of small consequence
to the Texas Ranger. He did, however, wonder vaguely where it had gone.
He couldn't remember taking the belt off, but there were many details of
the short battle that had escaped his recollection. He felt about his
waist once more before he would believe that his weapons were not in
their familiar place. Convinced then, he knew that but one hope
remained--flight.
Sensing that his master was in difficulty, knowing that something
unusual had taken place, the big horse stood motionless while the Ranger
dragged his body to the saddle. It called for an almost superhuman
effort to mount the horse. He made no attempt to sit erect. Instead he
leaned far forward, fighting desperately against the constantly
increasing nausea that threatened to deprive him of consciousness. He
nudged the horse with one heel, and Silver trotted forward. Direction
was a thing far out of the question, and the rider made no effort to
guide his horse. He clung to the saddle, fighting every moment of the
time to stay alive, while the horse carried him from the scene of sudden
death where buzzards circled lower, ever lower.
When he could gather the strength to speak, he whispered in a husky
voice, close to the ear of the horse, "Away, Silver--away." A trail of
red that continually dripped from his right boot warned the Texas Ranger
that he must stop soon and try to make some sort of inventory of his
condition. But he could inventory nothing. He could remember next to
nothing. He could not see fifty feet ahead or behind.
He knew, however, that the wound in his right foot was the one most in
need of attention. He managed to examine this without slackening his
speed. The sight inside his blood-soaked boot was anything but
reassuring. He rode on, sparing neither his horse nor his own condition.
Spells of dizziness, recurring with increasing frequency, made him
realize that he could not continue much further without stanching the
flow of blood from the boot. He pulled the white horse to a halt and
slid to the ground. With relief he found that his vision had improved,
and he could scan the Gap behind him. There was no sign of pursuit.
He cut open the boot and found that a bullet had severed a small artery.
Making a rude tourniquet, he succeeded in checking, to some extent, the
spurting flow that was sapping his strength.
He bandaged the wound as best he could with dressings torn from his
shirt. He tried to stand, and found that the loss of so much blood had
sapped his strength to a surprising degree. He could, however, support
his weight by the aid of his horse. His mind was clearer. He found
himself trying to analyze the events that had led up to the massacre,
while his eyes studied the Gap. Why had the Texas Rangers been sent for?
If they were not wanted in Bryant's Basin, it would have been a simple
matter to have ignored them as had always been done in the past. Someone
had sent for the Texas Rangers. Someone had objected with bullets to
their coming.
Did outlaws actually live in Bryant's Basin? If so, why were they there?
Why had the Rangers been sent for? What could possibly happen in the
Cavendish domain that the stern old man could not handle himself? These,
and countless other questions, raced through the Ranger's brain while he
continued to observe the Gap.
He noted that the sun was gone, and it was growing dark. This left him
in less danger of capture, but increased the difficulty of the ride. The
rocky footing was hazardous under the best of conditions. In the dark,
this peril was increased tenfold.
He remounted after a struggle with weakness. At first he tried to guide
the horse away from Bryant's Basin, but this seemed only to confuse the
beast, so he gave up the attempt and let Silver have his head. At
intervals he was compelled to steady himself like a drunken man.
A starless night fell into the Gap, and with its coming the danger of
pursuit was ended. A chance encounter was all the rider had to fear, and
there was little likelihood of this. For a while his mind went blank. He
was roused from a sort of stupor by the sound of running water. The
horse had halted, while the Texas Ranger dozed, and was drinking from a
creek. A sudden uncontrollable thirst assailed the man. Once more he
climbed painfully from the saddle. Slumping to the ground, he crawled
toward a stream that gurgled over stones.
Cold water had never tasted sweeter. He sipped slowly, then raised his
head to let the cool draft quench the burning in his throat. About to
drink again, he paused and grew tense. The sound he heard might have
been a night bird, but the trained ear of the Ranger detected a peculiar
quality in it.
"Odd," he thought. "That sounded as if it came from a human throat."
He waited to catch the next call if it were repeated. He didn't see that
Silver, too, was tense. The birdlike trill sounded again, nearer this
time. The horse reacted unexpectedly to the call. Silver jerked back,
and the reins slipped from the wounded man's hand. While he watched in
consternation, the white horse scampered off in the direction of the
sound.
Stunned by this new misfortune, the wounded man listened to the
hoofbeats until they were swallowed by the night. Not until then did he
try to call. His voice was barely a whisper. Desertion by Silver was the
worst possible thing that could have happened. Pursuit of the horse was
out of the question. The wounded man couldn't even stand alone. With
such philosophy as he could muster, he turned and finished the drink
that might cost him his life. Then he dashed water over his face, which
had become caked with blood, sweat, and alkali dust. The wound on his
forehead was a minor one, but it smarted frightfully as the water
touched it.
He determined to make himself as comfortable as possible while he had
the opportunity and plenty of water. He turned his attention to his
other wounds. Removing his shirt, he felt gingerly of his left shoulder.
His left arm had been useless to him. Now he knew why. The bullet was
embedded in the flesh. He realized that this might cause considerable
trouble later on, but there was little he could do there in the
darkness, other than to wash the wound and bandage it clumsily. The
bullet was sunk deep, probably to the bone. He rightly reasoned that
some of the force had been lost by the bullet's first striking a rock,
and entering his arm on a ricochet. Otherwise the bone would have been
broken.
His shoulder fixed to the best of his ability, he looked at his wounded
foot again. It was difficult to determine much about the wound in the
darkness, but the bleeding seemed to have stopped. When he had bathed
and redressed the foot, he found that he could stand. He had to support
himself by clinging to a rock, and most of his weight was taken on the
uninjured leg, but he was definitely stronger.
One thought remained uppermost in the Texas Ranger's mind. "Must live,"
he breathed, "must fight through somehow so I can tell what happened to
the others. Come back with more men--learn what's going on at the
Cavendish place."
If he could stay in the stream, he'd leave no trail. He started slowly,
working his way along against the current, clinging to rocks when they
were within reach, crawling on his stomach when his wounded leg gave
out. Frequently he paused to rest, still remaining in the stream. He was
soaked through, but the cold water was pleasant. It chilled the burning
of his wounds and made the pain more tolerable.
The stream took him close to one wall of the canyon, the wall on his
left. Against the current, his progress was painfully slow, but it was
progress.
Somewhere in the darkness ahead, he heard the sound of falling water.
This animated him. A falls might mean some sort of gorge, a tiny cave
perhaps, in which a man might hide until his wounds were healed. By
resting frequently, the wounded man kept going longer than he thought
possible. At length he reached the falls.
The water dropped a scant four feet from a ledge. With his one good
hand, the wounded Ranger pulled himself up on the ledge, and there his
strength abandoned him. He slumped half in the stream, half out of it,
and sank, completely spent, into a dense void of unconsciousness.