Roy Dudley The Spider Web Trail Page 1

Chapter 1

   A bitter north wind pushed a sluicing rain into the Trans-Pecos area of Texas. Black clouds swept across an angry sky, and virga framed the mesas. Visibility became uncertain, washed by the rain.

   Lea Allison tugged ineffectually at the rope that bound her hands and rubbed her wrists raw. The rope had been wrapped around her wrists, secured with half hitches and tied securely to the saddle horn. A longer rope led from her mare's bridle to the saddle ring of the horse in front of her. She had no protection from the rain or cold, her soggy clothing clinging to her slender frame like a blanket of ice.

   Lightning played tag with the clouds overhead, illuminating a bleak landscape of rock and mud, mud that the passing of cattle and horsemen had churned inches deep. The cattle were her father's cattle, some of the men her father's men.

   "Rustlers!" She spat the word aloud.

   A pallid figure slumped forward in the saddle of the lead horse, his spare frame weaving unsteadily with the motion of the horse. Red seeped from the left side of his chest, ran down his body under his poncho, to be washed and diluted by the rain. His thin face was white, set in a soundless grimace of pain. He knew that he died by inches, but with the grim fatalism his kind sometimes developed, he did not protest.

   Ten years in the Texas Breaks, ten years of fighting, gambling and dodging the law had left him few illusions. Kid Benson faced the fact of his dying almost indifferently. Life had little to offer but one gray day followed by another. He was tired of living and held little fear of dying.

   He did feel a faint stirring of conscience. It was too bad the girl had run into the raiding party and recognized her father's cowboys.

   For a moment remorse gripped him, then a wrenching pain gathered in his chest and washed it away. He coughed painfully, deeply, and spit a bloody froth.

   Dawn brushed the canyon lightly and daylight struggled against the gloomy overcast and blinding rain. Visibility increased to two hundred feet between wind-whipped walls of water.

   The herd was strung out in an uneasy line with men urging the flanks in and the stragglers forward. Sullenly, the cattle tried to circle and place their backs to the storm, but the men on point prodded them forward, pushing, cursing and shoving the cattle to the north.

   Lightning, thunder, wind and rain had made the cattle jumpy and the constant prodding by mounted riders made them edgy.

   Lea slumped forward in the saddle, shivering miserably, no longer conscious of the passage of time. Her thoughts dwelled within her, but she felt the bitter bite of the cold and welcomed it. Surely she would die before nightfall caught the rustlers and they camped. A rider passed close and yelled at her through the storm. She shut out the words.

   The norther pushed its way to the south. The lightning continued intermittently and the wind increased until it whistled in the crevices of the rock and down the funneling canyons. The herd entered the long avenue of Cañon del Muerte.

   In the meantime, Jim Malone had threaded his way into the mountains south of Fort Stockton, into the storm. A bitter northerly breeze played fitfully across the vast mountain tablelands south of the Pecos River. Clouds thickened and lowered, wrapping Twelve Mile Mountain in swirling gray mists and advanced down the flanks of Pikes Peak and Madera Mountain. The harsh planes of the eroded slopes softened under the pounding of the rain. He shrugged deeper into his denim jacket and turned the horse on an angle away from the rim of the Cañon del Muerte.

   The horse was a large chestnut gelding, but in spite of his size, he picked his way among the slippery rock almost daintily. With no trail to follow, the horse chose his own slow path without guidance.

   The rain became harder, beating down with a steady persistence, increasingly whipped by a wind backing to the northwest. It was a cold rain, little better than liquid ice, and the wind pushed the cold home viciously. The horse and rider continued, seemingly oblivious to cold, rain and wind.

   Dusk wrapped a pall of darkness across the land, a land already darkened by a heavy overcast and a beating rain. Thunder chased lightning across the northern peaks in erratic patterns, a ghostly light that danced across the bleak landscape, bringing transitory highlights to jagged rock and reflecting from running water. Thunder rumbled closer and the rain increased in intensity as the cold air mass moved deeper into the Big Bend area of Texas.

   Malone made a dry camp under the overhanging face of a huge mass of rock. He unsaddled, hobbled the horse and rubbed him down thoroughly with the saddle blanket. He patted the chestnut reassuringly, then sat Indian fashion near the front feet of the horse, warming his right hand inside his jacket. It was a habit that no longer reached surface awareness. His hand rested against the butt of a revolver in a spring clip holster. Tied low against his right leg was a mate for the one under his jacket.

   The horse stamped restlessly before standing, half-asleep, his head hanging. The chill from Malone's damp clothing bit deeper now that he no longer moved. He stirred himself long enough to change into dry clothing, and returned to his seat and his Indian-like immobility, his face bleak, tinged with bitterness and regret.

   The thunderstorm advanced relentlessly until lightning flashed under the overhang and thunder rumbled sullenly against the rock. Rain cascaded from the beetling brow of the rock overhead and joined other streams, all rushing to flood the arroyos. The horse grunted sleepily.

   Malone lay on his left side near the horse, and, using his saddle as a pillow, fell asleep.

   He awakened to a gray dawn swept by rain. Rousing himself, he fed his horse grain from the saddlebags and patted him absently while morosely studying the rain-washed landscape. The sullen rain and the mud would make for slippery and dangerous traveling.

   He salvaged dry wood from under the overhang for a small fire and set the coffee pot on to boil. His Spartan breakfast consisted of cold jerky washed down with scalding hot coffee. After this meager meal, he saddled the chestnut. A gray and lifeless dawn lightened the sky when he headed south.

   Within an hour, he reached the head of a long and steep path that swept down and across a slope to the canyon floor far below him.

   Without dismounting, he changed from boots to a pair of moccasins. This trail was so narrow and steep that it precluded riding. With a grimace of distaste, he dismounted and slogged forward, the reins held loosely in his left hand. The horse was none too happy, but followed on the man's heels in his own fashion.

   Mud and slippery rock rendered the path treacherous underfoot, but that was the least of his potential troubles. The path narrowed at times until the chestnut's barrel brushed the upper slope; and to the side of the trail, the wall of the canyon dropped in an almost sheer sweep to the canyon floor. Malone moved cautiously, taking his time.

   The horse followed, cat-like, muscles bunched, fearful eyes wide and not liking the trail at all.

   Despite a peculiar delicacy in the placement of his feet, the horse slipped on a muddy swath, caught himself and slid forward on his haunches. Malone threw his weight against the reins, but was unable slow the horse's slide. Still holding to the reins, he fell on his back and slid helplessly ahead of the horse. The chestnut, the first to find solid footing, stopped himself with braced front legs, and after a moment, heaved himself erect.

   The taut reins halted Malone with one leg at the edge of the trail. He rolled away from the edge and pushed himself to his feet with great care. Behind the pair, a piece of the trail gave way and tumbled into the canyon.

   For only a moment, Malone leaned against the uphill side of trail, his face still and without expression. He inhaled, a long and slow breath, and exhaled noisily. The chestnut snorted his displeasure more audibly. Malone calmed the horse, his face softening and his voice a gentle murmur.

   After the horse had quieted, he returned to the slope, the mask dropping into place. His features closed out the light like a screen before a fire.

   With considerable slipping and some sliding, but no further accident, they reached the canyon floor. Malone climbed aboard the horse and turned to the south. While riding at a walk, he changed to his boots.

   Hugging the canyon walls and keeping to the denser shadows, he scouted each bend carefully. The rain had closed in like a wall, pounding down in a deluge, wind-blown and icy. It was so hard that Malone stopped in the partial shelter of the canyon wall and dismounted to wait out the worst of the flood. He absently warmed his right hand under his jacket.

   The leader of the rustlers drifted into a branching canyon, his face masked by a bandanna, his figure enveloped in an oversize poncho.

   For a moment he paused and glanced behind him as if savoring the success of the raid. With cursory glance at Lea Allison, he spurred his horse and vanished into the rain.

   Late afternoon brought an almost imperceptible deepening of the gloom, the clouds so low they brushed the rims of the canyon. The rain continued, grim and persistent, but had slackened as had the wind.

   The cattle plowed through the rain and mud ponderously, too tired to stampede easily. The riders were strung out, keeping the cattle moving, their senses dulled by the storm and by fatigue.

   Lea had been moved nearer to the center of the herd. A different man led her mare with the lead rope tied to his saddle horn. Kid Benson had fallen from the saddle, too weak to continue. The herd had not paused, but a few of the outlaws had moved him into the shelter of the canyon wall, covered him with a poncho and left him dying beside the trail.

   Lea's senses had awakened, and desperate plans of escape or death plagued her mind. Unaccountably, the penetrating cold had become more bearable, but she shivered uncontrollably at times. She had been born and raised along the Texas border, and now discovered that she was too tough to die easily. It was with some reluctance that she turned her mind to more of living and less of dying.

   Long ago, Lea had taught her mare to answer to the commands of her rider's knees her in the side. Now she planned to angle the horse toward the herd and to urge her into a run by drumming her heels on the mare's ribs. The suddenness and surprise would win time, but that wasn't likely to last long. When the mare reached the end of the lead rope, she would drag the man from his saddle and break her neck, or she would break the bridle and keep going, or would fall, possibly pinning Lea underneath. Before the men showed signs of stopping for the night, she planned to put her precarious plan into motion. Planning a break when so few options were offered was easy. How she would disappear should she escape was more difficult.

   She studied the canyon walls hopefully, seeking some break in their grim facade. The grim walls funnelled the herd to the north with no intersecting valleys. Her nervous study of the canyon's possibilities chanced across a rider and a large horse, just after they had detached themselves from the shadows of the canyon wall.

   She paused in her scanning to watch a trifle curiously. Horse and rider moved leisurely toward the group of men surrounding her, at an angle calculated to intercept them. She was inclined to dismiss this man as one of the gang, except for something unusual about the slow deliberation of his approach. She waited, her plans in abeyance, studying the pair with a touch of interest.

   The rider was less than one-hundred yards distant when one of the outlaws spotted the approaching rider, shouted something, drew his pistol and fired hastily. Three times a gun spat fire from the right hand of the stranger, the shots close-spaced and regular. Although startled and slow in responding, more of the outlaws' guns came into play.

   The stranger continued his slow pace for a short time, until he had emptied his revolver. He drew a second pistol from his side and kicked his horse to a gallop, straight into the small group of outlaws.

   Seeing a chance to create additional confusion, Lea kneed her horse suddenly. The mare, already prancing with excitement, lunged toward the herd.

   The lead rope drew tight against the back of the man riding the lead horse. Unbalanced, he kicked his feet free of the stirrups and hastily bailed out of the saddle. The man's riderless horse stampeded, tightening the rope between the two horses. The tight rope cleared the cantle of another saddle and swept a second outlaw from the saddle.

   However, this served to increase the slack in the rope and it caught the horn of the empty saddle, pulled loose and hung up on the cantle of a riderless horse. The three horses came to a ragged halt in somewhat of a tangle of reins and saddles.

   The confusion of the horses, Lea's sudden escape attempt and the deadly accuracy of the stranger's gun was demoralizing. Recognition of the stranger added an additional impetus that served to scatter the outlaws. As they fled, afoot and mounted, the stranger's pistol continued its slow fire.

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