71. On Top of the Mountain 

“Oh, Adam… Adam, look!” Lilyah had sunk to her knees, thoroughly exhausted after that last, rough climb, but her dark eyes were wide with wonder and her whole face shone as if she had just spotted the greatest, most beautiful miracle in the world. They had finally reached the promontory; and the sea of grass gently waving in the mild wind brushing across the high ridge, radiantly lit by a golden forenoon sun and yet so deeply green, took her breath away. “Just look…”

Adam had allowed himself to unceremoniously fall on his left thigh, too exhausted to even pretend he still had any strength. Supporting himself with one hand and catching his breath, he still smiled – but neither at the sight of the promontory nor at that of the sheep running for the lush grass. All he saw was Lilyah’s face, smeared with dust and sweat, surrounded by tousled strands of hair and disarranged jewelry haplessly dangling out of place, and yet glowing with joy and happiness. She looked like a child under the Christmas tree and his smile intensified as he watched tears of joy forming in her eyes. All he wished for was to capture this lovely image and treasure it for the rest of his life.

“Isn’t it beautiful? Adam, just look at them… look at them munching away… so happily…” A little, delighted laugh broke from her lips before her eyes lost themselves in thought. “And they don’t just disappear…”

Adam questioningly wrinkled his brow, but before he could ask the memory came to him. The strays he had driven back to the main herd a few weeks ago, with Lilyah’s enthusiastic help. When those strays had melted into the mass of cattle on the Northern pasture, Lilyah couldn’t make them out anymore and to her it had been like they had vanished. He also remembered how he had told her that on a ranch as big as the Ponderosa all that would count were the numbers. Adam rubbed his nose, quietly smiling to himself. Maybe he had thought in numbers for too long. Watching her face from under the brim of his hat, he finally said softly, “No, they don’t disappear. And they’re not just numbers.”

She gave him a smile, extending her hand to touch his arm. “And look at all that grass!” She couldn’t keep her eyes from the luscious green stretching out before them, still visibly overwhelmed by the dazzling surprise of finding such bounteous vegetation after miles and miles of barren rock. “Allah truly must have blessed this place. Such a rich pasture so high on a mountaintop… it’s a miracle, Adam, a divine miracle!”

“Not quite.” Adam sat up, his hand pointing forward. “If you look closely, you’ll see that the promontory forms a slight hollow which prevents the earth from getting washed off by rains or snow melts. Then it’s surrounded by trees on two sides whose roots further help to stabilize the ground and keep the fertile earth in place. And lastly, those big mountains over there keep wind and storms at bay.”

Her fingers caressed his shoulder. “But isn’t it a miracle that it has such a form? And that those trees are growing there at all?”

“Uhm…” A dimple formed in his stubbly cheek. “That would be a less geological explanation, of course.”

She smiled at him. “And you brought us here.”

Adam vividly regretted watching her eyes becoming attentive and wary as she looked him over, watching her smile fade to make room for her ever present worry. He would have preferred to see that unrestricted, carefree joy continue on her face that he could have watched for hours on end, even hoping to boost it some more when he showed her the spring at the other end of the promontory. But he also knew that he had gravely overextended himself. He felt each and every muscle in his body burning and aching, he was cold in spite of the steadily rising heat of the day, and he knew that there was no way she wouldn’t notice.

“Lil, I’m alright. I’m just tired.” He tried to look as convincing as possible. “I’m just a little spent. We all are, aren’t we? Just look at him!” His chin pointed to a spot a few yards off where Pico had thrown himself backwards into the grass, stretching his arms and legs wide. Esma and Ruby had found a boulder at the edge of the cliff and sat there as they caught their breaths and rubbed their doubtlessly sore legs. It was true, they all were worn out. That last slope up to the promontory, almost 200 yards of steep and slippery rock and gravel, had been a particularly backbreaking climb.

Lilyah drew closer to him. “But no one else was ill before…”

“Hey, little girl.” He pulled her into his arms. “Has no one ever told you that big men don’t like to be reminded of such measly trifles?”

A weak smile glided over her lips as she took off his hat to feel his sweaty forehead. The smile faded fast. “Adam, you’re feverish…”

“I’ll lie down as soon as we’ve unloaded the horses and built a camp,” he promised. “Those prospectors had a cabin next to the spring. I’m not sure about its condition, it could have collapsed long ago, but I guess I can still make something of it. And some of the adits go deep enough into the rock to be used as caves. I’ll just have to have a look at them.”

Her fine brow wrinkled. “But only after you’ve slept…”

“We should at least make some sort of camp beforehand.” He gave her a sidelong glance. “And you wouldn’t want the poor horses carrying their heavy loads any longer than necessary, would you?”

She pressed her lips together. “Esma and I can unload the horses.”

“Nonsense.” He dabbed her nose with a fingertip. “Don’t you worry so much. I’ve made it up this mountain and I certainly can keep going for a little longer. Now smile, my love, and enjoy the sight of the grass. It’s much richer than I had thought.”

“It’s wonderful…” The green width didn’t fail to bring the light back into her eyes. “It’s like an oasis in the desert, bestowing joy on those who reach it.”

Adam smiled and scanned over the promontory where the sheep had thrown themselves into grazing, filling the air with their excited bleats. The ram was off the leash and proved that he wasn’t the leader of the pack for nothing as he went directly across the meadow towards the spring, drawing quite a lot of the bleating ewes after him. The only one faster on his way to the water was Chai, closely followed by Mariah. Esma’s two cobs seemed to be oblivious of such instincts, standing with their heads hanging down next to their owner. At least they had enough instinct left not to stuff themselves with grass after the profound exertion. Adam straightened his back, but he couldn’t see the spring from his position, or the cabin he knew was there. The meadow suddenly appeared to be a lot wider than he had remembered it, but maybe it just looked like this for a man who deep inside harbored some secret doubts about his ability to get up on his feet once again. From the corner of his eye he saw Esma standing up and he determinedly brushed aside all notions of staying where he was a little longer.

“Adam!” Lilyah hastily scrambled to her feet as he strained to get up.

“It’s alright…” He clambered to his legs and tensed his knees to keep standing, but it was of no use. His right leg gave way and if it hadn’t been for Lilyah bracing her whole weight against him, he would have fallen down again. A wave of heat flushed over his face and he felt the sweat breaking out on his skin.

“Adam, sit down again…”

“Lil, it’s alright… I just need a moment…” He struggled to stay on his feet, struggled to not put all his weight on her.

“Hopla, shabaro!” Esma scurried over in haste and arrived just in time to keep him from falling. “Seems you’ve finally reached the end of your rope, eh?”

Adam twisted his lips and fought off his sudden dizziness. “We should get to the other end of the promontory, where the water is. There we’ll find an old cabin and some adits and can decide where to make camp.” He tried to brush off the helping hands. “I can walk by myself.”

“Sure,” Esma dryly remarked. “And I can dance the Farfalla in the Butterfly ballet. Shabaro, you’ve brought us here. Let that be enough for the day.”

“Adam, she’s right!” Lilyah’s fingers glided over his face, brushing some dampened curls from his temples. “You better sit down again.”

Adam opened his mouth, but didn’t get to say anything.

“He’s right enough that we should get to the water.” Esma took his arm and placed it over her shoulder. “Take his other arm, child.”

Lilyah hastened to do so. “Be careful, Adam.”

“Thanks…” Torn between protest and defeat, Adam reluctantly gave in and accepted the support of both women’s shoulders as they made their way across the meadow. Esma was well his size and the circumference of Hoss, but Lilyah barely reached to his chin. Swallowing his pride, he tried not to drag his feet and not to recall that one woman was likely double his age and the other half his weight, and that both of them had the same backbreaking climb behind them that he did. Yet somewhere deep inside, he had to admit that he wouldn’t have been able to cross the wide meadow without their help. The valiant determination that had kept him going all throughout the long, hard hours of the difficult trail seemed to have bid him farewell after the promontory was reached – not much caring that he still didn’t consider his work complete.

Listening to Lilyah’s and Esma’s lively discussion about whether he should sleep or eat or take his medicine first, he took one stiff step after the other and strained his neck to catch a first glimpse of the cabin half-hidden behind a group of straggling elderberry bushes. While he couldn’t judge the condition of the walls, it was already obvious that the roof was missing, probably fallen in years ago.

“Grandma, look! There’s a house!” Pico shot past them like a little canon ball, unfazed by his sister’s angry call to come back to help with the team horses.

“Pico, be careful!” Adam nearly lost his sensible balance in his attempt to get a better view. “The cabin might not be safe to enter! Wait ’til I’ve had a look!”

“He’ll find out.” Esma did not lose a grain of her calm. “Besides, little boys are indestructible, or else there wouldn’t be any men in this world.”

Adam bit down on his answer and tried to walk a tad faster, gritting his teeth as his legs refused to obey orders. The closer the cabin came, the more decrepit it looked. The door hung merely on a single hinge.

“Grandma, Grandma, I’ve found a LAKE!” Pico’s excited voice was followed by a big splash, indicating something the size of an 8-year-old boy being plunged in a pool of water. Loud squeaks and screeches were to be heard, along with even more splashing.

“A lake?” For a moment Esma halted in her tracks.

“Not that I know of…” Adam impatiently urged them forward, worried about the boy’s screams.

“Esma, he’s screaming…” Lilyah nervously gazed in the direction of the noise, but the cabin blocked the view. “Maybe he’s in trouble…”

Esma chuckled. “You wait a couple of years, child, and you’ll learn to tell the difference between screams of terror and screams of fun. But I do want to see that lake!”

The ‘lake’ turned out to be two connected trenches the prospectors years ago had excavated to build their sluices, neither of which was any bigger than maybe four feet by five and not much deeper than a yard. Adam well remembered how he and his brothers had dismantled the wooden constructions and dug out the pits even more to remove all remains of used mercury. They had not bothered to refill the shafts and so the spring water had continued running through them. The result was two waterfilled pools that now provided utmost merriment for a sweaty little boy.

“This is grand!” Pico wildly hopped up and down in one of the pools, splashing water all about him. “You should join me! It’s so much fun!”

“Some lake!” Ruby shook her head in teasing mockery and led the two cobs to the second pool to allow them to drink. “Ooh, stop that splashing!”

Esma laughed. “Well, it’s not quite the size of Walker Lake, but it comes close.”

“And it’s equally wet.” Adam couldn’t repress a groan as he lowered himself at the edge of the sink, but the boy’s obvious joy still brought a smile to his face. “Lil…” He sighed as he watched her scurrying to her stallion to retrieve one of her veils in order to wet it in the water. Within moments she was back and squatted at his side, carefully rubbing his neck and face with the wet fabric.

“That’s good…” For a short while he relaxed, enjoying her soft fingers on his skin, but then he spotted Esma and Ruby straining to unload the lamb basket. “Wait…”

Before he could even try to get on his feet, the basket was down and the lambs jumped off, their bright piercing ‘baaahs’ mingling with the never ending bleating that hovered across the promontory. Adam slumped back to his seat, twisting his mouth.

“You stay put, you’ve done enough already.” Lilyah lovingly brushed his tousled hair back with her fingers. “Allah has given you the strength to lead us to this wonderful place, but he won’t like you being so unreasonable with the gift. You must rest now!”

“Uhm…” he began, but she got sidetracked again when Esma called out to her.

“Child, if you wait a minute, I have a bowl in the package that will make it easier to get water!”

“Thank you, Esma. We should unload the beds and blankets, Adam really needs to lie down.”

“They’re on your horse! Pico, stop that splashing and look for firewood!”

“Yes, Grandma!”

“Lil…” Adam knitted his brow as she ran off again to unload the stallion. It went against his every fiber to watch everyone around him busily bustling all over the place while he just sat there. And Lilyah couldn’t possibly lift the voluminous load by herself. “Lil, wait…”

“Shabaro, you stay put. Lilly, hold that horse and I’ll get the load down!”

Adam furrowed his brow and watched as Lilyah held onto her stallion’s lead, trying to force him to stand. Chai however obviously disliked the idea of Esma handling the load on his back and kept on evading the older woman, tossing his head and dancing circles around his mistress. Adam tried in vain to get up and finally collected his breath for a thunderous “CHAI, STOP IT!”

The stallion stood, angrily stretching out one foreleg as far as he could to then slam his front hoof into the ground – again and again in a manner that made Ruby laugh. “What’s he doing?”

Esma chuckled as she unbound the ropes around the load. “Well, under normal circumstances this would look like an Oriental stallion trying to impress mares – but I reckon in this case it’s just a spoilt brat stomping his foot!”

The perturbed look on Lilyah’s face caused Adam to laugh, and for a moment he forgot his frustration with his own weakness. “Esma, you’re misjudging him. Chai is a shining example of the ancient art of Arab horse discipline.”

“Adam!!” Lilyah shot him a look, but the twinkle in her dark eyes revealed the laughter lurking behind the mock frown.

Adam grinned and watched the busy unloading of Chai and one of the cobs, who apparently had carried the pots and dishes. The second cob stood a little apart, waiting his turn, while Mariah, still carrying her load including the wounded ewe, decided to close in on her master to give him a soft blow. A small smirk glided over Adam’s face as he patted the mare’s nose. He wasn’t able to get up all by himself, but he could manage while holding on to his horse’s tack.

“Good girl…” He clutched the bridle and fought himself to his feet. “Time to get rid of that bleating passenger, isn’t it, big girl?”

“Adam!!”

“What do you think you’re doing, shabaro?”

Adam rolled his eyes, still clutching the bridle. He would have loved to elegantly wheel around and flash the ladies a superior smile, but it seemed wiser not to let go of the handhold. “I’m unloading my horse.” He looked up and frowned as the ewe lowered her head to him and bleated straight into his face. “And I’d like to check on the cabin and on that adit over there. I seem to recall that…”

“Adam, please, sit down again. You’re so tired and we can unload Mariah as well!” Lilyah nervously turned towards him and it was clear that she would have run over to him, had she not been forced to hold her horse. “Adam!”

Esma pulled the last tack from Chai and waited for Lilyah to remove the bridle before she gave the stallion a slap on the quarters. Throwing up his head, Chai kicked his hindlegs and whinnied in protest while running off – not so much because the slap was in any way hard but more for the anger of being slapped by a stranger at all. Looking after the stallion, the old woman shook her head. “Lilly, Lilly, you seem to have a special liking for those pesky males!”

Lilyah hardly heard the words, having flown to Adam, flinging her arms around him. “Adam, why don’t you just sit down and rest? We can handle everything, you shouldn’t exhaust yourself even more now.”

Adam sighed. “Lil, it makes me itchy to just sit around doing nothing.”

“I understand…” She ruefully brushed over his cheek. She understood indeed – Adam was a man of action, she just had to think back to their stay at Old Grumpy’s cabin. How he had whirled about there, taken charge of everything, working three times as hard as all others combined and yet so happy, so contented and fulfilled. But she also noticed the freshly broken sweat on his face, the strangely stiff posture with which he held onto his horse. “Adam, we’ll just unload the horses and drop everything where it falls. We won’t do anything more until we all have slept.”

He bit his lower lip, trying to ignore that nagging little voice inside telling him that he was stubborn, unreasonable even. Why cause Lilyah even more worries? And yet, the thought of simply sitting down again chafed at his pride. Not that it felt any better to just stand there and watch Esma and Lilyah hastily unload the big mare, to look on as the old woman carried the ewe to a spot beneath an elderberry bush.

“I’ll just have a look at the cabin…” He took a firmer grip on the reins of the still bridled, but now bareback mare.

“Adam…” Lilyah gave him an almost begging gaze.

“Let him go, child, let him go!” Esma remarked while sorting through the bags and boxes. “We can always pick him up after he’s fallen on his nose.”

Grumbling under his breath, Adam led the mare to the cabin, trying his best to not lean too obviously against the horse.

The cabin’s walls were surprisingly solid and sturdy, but the roof had indeed fallen in. Apparently built of branches and twigs rather than solid boards, its remains made a rotten heap of rubble covering the dirt floor and sparse furniture inside. That whole mess would have to get cleared out before the cabin could be used again. Adam let go of the reins and took a cautious step inside, using the wall for support. Some of the poles that once had held the flimsy roof were still there, and maybe they were sound enough to carry a new roof. Chewing his lower lip, Adam relinquished the thought to climb up there and check the wood at once, however curious he was to find out about its condition. It would be too embarrassing if he were to fall…

“Women!” He pushed himself from the wall and landed safely at Mariah’s side, clasping her reins and mane for support. “Ruled by emotion rather than reason! No offense, big girl. You’re the glorious exception.”

Maneuvering the mare around the elderberry bushes, he aimed for the first and biggest adit in the side of the mountain. If his memory served him right, it should be big enough to at least build a bedstead there. Holding onto Mariah with one hand, he ripped away some ivy that was covering the entry. As he let go of the mare to make his way inside, he quickly lost balance and stumbled to his knees, but got immediately up again to find a hold at the rocky wall.

Alas, not soon enough…

“Adam!” Lilyah hastened through the bushes and caught up with him in the adit’s entry. “Adam, you’re not reasonable!”

“Oh, but I’m very reasonable! We need a place to sleep, don’t we?” Supporting himself at the wall, he glanced into the adit which stretched into a rather spacious side cave. “I’d need a lantern to have a closer look into… Lil?”

She had turned on her heels and run off.

Adam raised an eyebrow and started to rip off more ivy from the entrance to allow more light into the adit. One of the elderberry bushes had also straggled its branches against the rock. All that shrubbery had to have sprouted during the past few years, as Adam couldn’t recall the adits being so overgrown the last time he was there. Before he could clear much away, Lilyah returned, with Esma in tow. Both women were packed like mules with blankets and sheep skins. To Adam’s dismay they caused Mariah to move a few yards off to make way, thus robbing him of his much needed support.

“We might need some light in there.” Esma dropped her load next to the entrance and bent down to light a lantern.

Lilyah had also unloaded her baggage and snatched the lantern before Adam could even get close. Without giving him a look, she disappeared into the cave. “Oh, Esma! It’s perfect!”

“Fine, child!” The old shepherd woman picked up her load and followed her. It took only a few moments before she came out again. “I’ll get the pillows!”

Adam cautiously made his way alongside the wall to the entrance, but before he could enter it, Lilyah came out.

“I’ve found the medicine!” A steep line had dug in between her eyes.

“Oh, good…” Adam managed to produce a joyful smile.

She slammed her fists to her hips. “You’ve hidden it from me!”

“But of course not!” He made round, innocent eyes. “I only wanted to protect the bottles from breaking. It would’ve been such a pity if one of them had been lost…”

“The pillows, child.” Esma had returned, carrying a load of pillows and her shepherd’s crook. Lilyah took up the load she had dropped before and both women disappeared into the cave again.

Adam bit his lip, torn between curiosity about what was going on inside and the vague notion that it might be better to climb on Mariah’s back and ride for dear life.

The women came out again. Esma settled herself next to the entrance, smugly leaning against her shepherd’s crook, while Lilyah approached him with the sweetest smile on her lips – a smile that reminded him of a cat that had just swallowed the mouse.

She lovingly took his arm. “And now, my dear husband, you’re going to sleep!”

“Uhm…” Adam broke into a slightly sheepish smile. “Ehm… actually, I wanted to check the two other adits farther below. My brothers and I used one of them to store…”

“That all can wait!” Lilyah cut him off. “You go to sleep!”

Adam tried to straighten out. “Lil, I should also check on the spot where the promontory can be entered from the second way up, because this would be the spot…”

“Shabaro,” Esma interrupted, her smug expression broadening into a smirk he found rather unsettling. “Just in case you’re wondering why I brought the crook – you wouldn’t be the first stubborn, addlepated mule who got it over his head!”

His smile became a tad strained while his brow furrowed at how completely he’d been outmaneuvered and trapped. Clearing his throat, he rubbed his jaw. “Shakespeare was right… Two women placed together makes cold weather… what frightening truth in those words.”

“Adam…” Lilyah’s hands glided up his chest. “You wouldn’t want to have one more bruise on you for me to worry about, would you?”

Adam gave up. Half laughing, half grumbling, he allowed Lilyah to lead him into the cave. The lantern lit the side room in which the women had built a broad berth on a heap of sheep skins and blankets. The moment he had lowered himself on the bedstead, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to get up again. He merely mumbled a vague protest when Esma came in and helped to remove his boots, he barely heard her announcing that she would get some water. He felt Lilyah’s hands unbuttoning his shirt and removing it, felt her gently pressing him down on the bed. The darkness came like a wave when his head hit the pillow, and within moments he had fallen into the deepest sleep of total exhaustion.

Lilyah covered him with a blanket and smiled as her fingers tenderly caressed his black curls.

* * *

Ben Cartwright impatiently urged his buckskin to a faster canter, hearing the hoofbeats all around and behind him picking up as well. They had already lost enough time on the open range. It had taken hours to drag all the cadavers to one spot, hours to get enough oil and petroleum from Carson City to burn them, hours to drive the unaffected cattle to the farthest spot of the range to keep an eye on them there. Dawson, the veterinarian Frank Miller had brought, had agreed to check each and every animal for suspicious symptoms. A good number of hands were still busy on the open range where clouds of black smoke bore mute witness of the ghastly burning going on, but nonetheless Ben had managed to assemble enough men to build a sizable posse. The bad news of the fate that had befallen his herd and the general outcry against the hated sheep had riled up many a decent soul in righteous wrath. Ranchers, cowboys, farmers from all around were up in arms to put a swift end to that menace once and for all. Little Joe and Frank Miller also were part of the posse, as was Sheriff Coffee who rode at Ben’s side.

Ben did not slow down until he reached the spot in front of the canyon where he’d placed his guards. The men were on alert, one of them sitting in the rocks from where he could watch the canyon, the two other immediately coming towards them.

Raising one arm to hold the posse, Ben halted his horse. “Has anything moved here?”

“No, Mister Cartwright. Absolute silence all night… and all morning.” The cowboy’s face bore an unspoken question as he looked past Ben into the sky where the black cloud rising from the open range could still be seen. They had been told to guard the canyon during the night, as Ben had planned to return early in the morning. But it was almost high noon.

Ben drew a deep breath. “We have an outbreak on the open range. A third of the herd is lost, maybe more.” He did not wait for the men to say anything. Their shocked faces were reaction enough. “My son did not try to talk to you?”

“No, Mister Cartwright., he did not. No one came here at all.”

“Good.” Ben grimly nodded his head. At least Adam had been obedient enough to not try and talk the guards into letting the sheep out of the gorge. “That means the sheep are still in there.”

“They sure are, Mister Cartwright. We had our eyes and ears open all night.”

“I knew that I could count on you.” Ben turned his horse to face the posse, rising in the stirrups. “Men! We’re going in there and do what we have to do, and this time there will be no delay! And no talking!”

Calls and murmurs of affirmation greeted his words.

“But let me say one word of warning,” Ben continued. “We’ll be only shooting at sheep! There are women and children in there, and if any one of them comes to harm, you’ll have to answer to me for that!”

Again the voices all around mumbled in agreement. “We’re not fighting against women and children!” someone in the background made himself heard. “We’re only protecting our livestock!”

“Right!” Ben nodded his head.

“But what about…” another voice began, but broke off before finishing the sentence. Of course everybody knew who the speaker was referring to.

Ben raised his chin. “My son?” he curtly asked. His face turned dark. “That’s why we have the sheriff here. If my son decides to stand against us again, Sheriff Coffee here will handle it. There’s no need for anyone else to get involved.”

“That old woman with the shotgun is quite a handful, too…” Frank Miller chimed in. “She might not give up peacefully.”

Sheriff Coffee pushed back his hat. “I reckon I can handle the lady as well. You men will take care of those sheep, but you’ll leave the dealing with the people involved up to me.” He looked about the group of riders assembled. “Besides, we’re more than twenty men. I don’t think the lady will give us too much trouble. There are no more men left except for Adam and he won’t go against the law. She’ll realize that the game is finally over.”

“Alright, men!” Ben raised his voice again so that everyone could hear him. “We ride in there, and if my son tries to get in the way, just ignore him and ride on. You all know him – he might threaten to shoot, but he will not shoot at any of you. Let the sheriff deal with him and do what you have to do!” He barely waited for the murmur of approval from everyone and kicked his horse into motion. “Let’s go, men!”

The whole posse poured into the first canyon whose walls multiplied the rapid beating of the many hooves, increasing its loudness to an amount that sounded like there was an army on its way. The sharp ratcheting of several rifles getting readied added to the aggressive racket and filled Ben with grim satisfaction. Such a vast superior force would convince even a man as stubborn and muleheaded as Adam that the game was up, that he had no chance but to give in. That would teach him to stand against his own father and put the whole Ponderosa at risk with his book smart theories. And whatever flights of fancy his wayward son might indulge in, the dead cattle on the open range should do to pull him back to the ground of reality real quick.

The men kept their fast canter all throughout the mile to the gorge, only slowing it down a tad when they passed the spot where Adam had held them up the day before. When they realized that no one was there to stop them, they sped up their horses again, readying their rifles at the same time. The posse made an impressive sight as the riders stormed out into the small gorge.

And a much less impressive one when they came to a rather uncoordinated halt, pulling up their horses in utter confusion, staring all about them in disbelief, mouths hanging open.

The valley was empty.

An abandoned chuck wagon stood at the far end of the small space, but there were no sheep, no people, no horses. Merely two rabbits jumped up from the dry ground and fled in wild crisscross hops to the surrounding boulders.

And then there was nothing.

All eyes focussed on Ben.

Ben sat in the saddle and stared. “Fire and brimstone…” His head flew around to one of the unlucky guards. “You slept on guard!”

“No, Mister Cartwright, no!” the hapless fellow defended himself. “None of us slept, honest to God! We’ve been up all night! We would’ve noticed them sheep if they’d gone by us!”

His companions hastened to confirm his words. “They couldn’t have gotten past us, Mister Cartwright!”

“I can believe that, Ben,” Sheriff Coffee threw in. “Sheep are noisy animals. Even if the men were sleeping, they’d have woken up as soon as the herd got close.”

“And WHERE are they NOW?” Ben eyes had turned black, shooting daggers all around him. “There’s no other way out of here, is there?”

No one could answer that question and he watched in rapidly growing anger as the members of the posse cluelessly rode about the place, looking behind boulders and bushes as if a couple hundred sheep could be hidden there. Two of the men even searched in the abandoned chuck wagon.

“They must have left some traces…” Frank Miller set his palomino in motion, his eyes fixed on the ground. Several other men followed his example.

“I’ve found something!” The call came from the far end of the small valley. Within moments the whole posse had assembled around the cowboy squatting on the ground. Ben was the first among them, having managed to upset his placid buckskin so much the horse was dancing in circles.

The cowboy stood up and announced with some pride, “They must have climbed up the mountain!”

“Nonsense!”

“Impossible!”

“Not a chance!”

Everybody started talking at once, looking up the steep mountainside, examining the ground, standing in each other’s way and stepping on each other’s toes.

“There are far too few traces!” Someone tried to talk down all others. “We’re not talking about five critters here, that was a herd of at least 300 head!”

Sheriff Coffee had dismounted and searched the ground, pausing for thought, searching some more. “They’ve wiped their traces… you can see it here – and here! They used branches to smooth the dry ground, but they weren’t very careful and missed some spots.” He turned around and sought Ben’s eye. “They must have climbed up here – unless they’ve flown out of the valley.”

“Jumping Jehoshaphat!” Ben was seething now, fists white-knuckled where they clutched the reins. “Dad-rat that flim-flamming trickster!!”

“We can follow them, Mister Cartwright!” One of the guards, eager to please his boss, valiantly tried to ride his mount up the steep slope, but it was a hopeless attempt. The horse struggled and fought, but haplessly slipped back and nearly fell. A few other riders tried to manage the slope as well, with the same result. There was no way anyone could ride up there. Some men started to express their doubts that it was even possible to get a horse to climb up that mountainside at all, let alone a herd of sheep.

“There must be another way out!” Ben angrily reined in his horse that was nervously stomping about. “There must be, and we’ll find it!”

The riders swarmed out like a bunch of chicken after a hawk had landed. They rode all the way back to where the guards had had their camp, searched every stone and every pebble on the way, looked behind every shrub and every boulder, returned to the valley and searched it once more. In the end, they all wound up back at the steep mountain slope again, doubtfully gazing up the breakneck ascent. A few men tried once more to ride up there, with the same fruitless results as before. They gave up after one horse fell, luckily without suffering any serious injury. And the heated discussion about whether such a climb was possible at all flared up again.

Little Joe sat quietly on his pinto, thinking back to a hot afternoon a couple of years ago, when he and Adam had taken an excursion into the mountains. He also had made several futile attempts to ride up a steep slope, until his older brother had shown him how to do it. Joe could still hear Adam’s voice, “If you can’t go straight ahead, you got to beat to windward like a ship that has to go upwind. That means you go in a zig-zag-course.” Joe’s eyes glided up the steep slope, trying to pick out a path that Adam could have chosen. It still seemed impossible, but Adam was Adam. He always found a way.

But Joe didn’t say anything. Nobody asked him, anyway.

* * *