Slade’s mouth tightened as he visualized what would happen did the racing horse stumble or fall. Instinctively he glanced over the crumbling lip of the trail and into the shadowy depths of the canyon which flanked it, down through five-hundred feet of nothingness to where swift water glinted and black fangs of stone reached hungrily upward.
And even in the tenseness of the moment his attention was momentarily distracted from his own appalling situation. Down there in the depths he was certain he had detected movement, a flickering of shadows among the shadows, that appeared to be horsemen riding parallel to the grim race with death half a thousand feet above.
Perhaps they had spotted the runaway and were racing to be present when the inevitable happened. Slade jerked his eyes back to the trail and gave his whole attention to negotiating the perilous turn that raced toward him with frightening speed.
A flickering glance over his shoulder estimated the space between him and the hurtling team, another the distance to the turn ahead. It was going to be close, horribly close. His hand tightened on the bridle. He put forth his strength steadily, surely, careful not to break the rhythm of Shadow’s stride. With a slow, steady pull he turned the black’s head to the right. Shadow snorted, curved his glossy neck, leaned toward the threatening bulge of the cliff; let him hit the jut of stone and he would rebound into the canyon. He knew it and his rider knew it, but Slade also knew he must crowd the cliff to the last possible inch if he were to take the turn.
Slipping and skating, Shadow rounded the bend. Once he was all but off his feet and his skidding irons showered fragments of stone over the lip of the ledge, but Slade’s steely strength steadied and held him. Behind him crashed the runaway, the breath of the lead horses hot on his flanks. Their squeals of terror shrilled in his ears. With a desperate lunge he whisked around the bulge and scudded down the straightaway like the glint of a sunbeam on a wave crest. Behind him sounded awful screams of terror and despair.
There was a rending crash as the wagon caromed off the bulge, a screech of sliding metal and an awful grinding sound. Slade, twisting in his saddle as he fought to master his frantic mount, saw the tangled mass of horses and wagon shoot over the lip as if hurled by a mighty hand. The dead or unconscious driver was flung from the seat as a stone from a sling. Arms and legs revolving wildly, he plummeted downward.
“God Almighty!” Slade gasped.
From the slowly overturning wagon, two more bodies had catapulted like pips squeezed from an orange. Down they plunged, after them a rain of what looked like sacks of grain, with the spinning wagon and the still plunging horses following.
The awful screams of the doomed horses thinned to an agonized wail. Up from the dark depths geysered a far-off thudding crash, followed by silence utter and complete.
Chapter Two
COLD SWEAT breaking out on his face, Slade finally pulled Shadow to a skittering halt. With another effort he turned the gasping horse and rode back up the trail. He reached the bulge, rounded it and pulled up on the very lip of the cliff edge. Leaning far out over the awesome chasm, he peered down. His lips formed a startled oath.
Sprawled among the dark fangs of stone he could see the splintered wagon and the crushed horses. Several men were running toward the pitiful debris. He spotted a clump of saddled horses a little distance up the canyon from where the wreckage lay. He leaned over the lip, peering with interested eyes at the activity on the canyon floor. Then with blurring suddenness he flung backward, dragging Shadow’s head up with all his strength.
On his hind legs, the snorting black surged back from the edge. And even as he did so, something screeched through the air and fanned Slade’s cheek with its lethal breath. From the canyon depths drifted the crack of a gun.
With Shadow hugging the inner cliff wall, Slade dismounted. He slid his heavy Winchester from where it snugged in the saddle boot and crouched low, glaring angrily at the cliff edge. For a moment he crouched motionless, then with infinite caution he crept toward the lip of the ledge. He was out of sight from the men below and should they fan out into the canyon he would see them as quickly as they could sight him. Cocked rifle at the ready, he waited.
With a smashing crack, a bullet slammed the cliff face scant feet above his head. He ducked instinctively as flying rock fragments showered him with stinging splinters.
Where the devil did that one come from? It could not have come from below and hit the cliff at that angle. It had to come from somewhere above. Slade’s head flung up as he felt the wind of the next one. This time he heard the rifle crack, following the arrival of the slug with an appreciable space between. His gaze flickered across the canyon, searching the ragged crest of the cliff that formed its far wall, where objects stood out hard and clear in the flood of morning sunshine. He hurled himself sideways and down as he caught a gleam of shifting metal.
“That one hit right where I was, but now I got a line on you!” he growled apropos of the distant rifleman.
He clamped the butt of the Winchester against his shoulder, his eyes glanced along the sights. A spiral of smoke wisped from the black muzzle.
Slade saw the puff of dust where the bullet struck a foot or two below the man crouching on the cliff top, barely visible against a straggle of growth, his position revealed by the telltale glint of sunlight on his rifle barrel.
Up came the Winchester muzzle, the barest fraction of an inch. Again Slade’s eyes glanced along the sights. He squeezed the trigger just as smoke puffed from the barrel of the distant rifle.
As he fired, Slade writhed sideways, shifting position as much as he could. Even so, the slug ripped the shoulder of his shirt and grained the skin beneath. The drygulching hellion could shoot!
But heedless of the burn of the passing lead, Slade raised himself and stared across the canyon as the distant gunman, looking little bigger than a doll, pitched over the cliff edge and, turning slowly in the air, plunged to the rocks a thousand feet below.
Slade instantly inched forward a few feet and shifted his gaze to the canyon floor. No one was in sight. His mind worked swiftly.
“Stay put, feller,” he flung over his shoulder at Shadow and began crawling around the cliff bulge, hugging the rough stone, his eyes never leaving the west half of the canyon floor, which was all that his restricted range of vision included.
But as he rounded the bulge, just as he had surmised, his range of vision broadened, due to the lessening angle as the trail turned more to the east. He stood erect, the rifle clamped against his shoulder.
Three men were riding away from the wreckage of the wagon, headed up canyon. Slade’s fingers tightened on the trigger. Hard upon the report came a distant yell of pain and anger. Slade saw the rearmost horseman reel in his saddle. He clutched the pommel for support and kept his seat. His companions twisted in their hulls, flung rifles to their shoulders. Bullets stormed about Slade, smacking against the cliff face, kicking up puffs of dust from the trail, but he was in the shadow while those below were outlined by the full glare of the sunlight. Rock-steady, his own barrel lined with the target below. Again he saw a man leap sharply in his saddle and knew he had scored another hit. But before he could line sights a third time, the group sent their horses charging around a bulge of the canyon wall and were out of sight.
“Guess that will even up for peppering me with hunks of rock!” El Halcon growled as he lowered the smoking Winchester. “Don’t know what this is all about, but gents who throw lead take the chance of getting some thrown back.”
For long minutes Slade stood with his gaze fixed on the bulge, but the dark edge discovered nothing of movement. Evidently the horsemen had kept going, with two of their members winged but not seriously.
“What the devil is this all about?” Slade wondered aloud.
Neither Shadow nor a querulous crow circling about overhead was able to answer the question. Slade glanced at the sun, then into the shadowy gorge which grew less shadowy as the sun climbed the long slant of the eastern sky. Coming to a decision, he mounted Shadow and rode swiftly