Chapter XVI · —NAPOLEON BONAPARTE BRIGGS

For what seemed hours Nan and Rex stared across the fire at the man. It was Napoleon Bonaparte Briggs, but they did not know him. His closest friends would have had difficulty in recognizing him now. His head seemed to have been battered until it was out of shape. His forehead was swollen over his eyes, giving him almost the appearance of a gorilla, and on one side of his head the scalp had been torn loose, disclosing an ugly wound.

His eyes glittered brightly in the firelight, as he swayed on his feet, moving his head slowly, shifting his eyes from Nan to Rex, as if trying to make up his mind just what to do. Rex and Nan seemed incapable of speech. Neither of them had known Briggs. Suddenly his lips parted and he laughed insanely, disclosing two broken front teeth. Rex started to step forward, but the gun muzzle shifted toward him quickly.

“What ’r’ you doin’ here?” he asked gutturally.

“Somebody shot my horse,” said Rex weakly.

“What ’r’ you doin’ here?” he repeated, as if he had not heard Rex. “Keep back! I’ll kill you. I own this place, and I don’t allow nobody here.”

“We’ll go away,” said Nan quickly, getting to her feet.

“Woman, eh?”

He laughed foolishly.

“Woman came on my place. Woman and horse meat. Don’t move. Woman, horse meat and them damn buzzards. What ’r’ you doin’ here, I asked you?”

There was no question that the man was insane, dangerously insane. The fire was dying out now. Unconscious of the danger, Rex reached down to pick up a piece of wood, and a bullet smashed the dirt beneath his knuckles. The report of the heavy cartridge echoed back from the cliffs, and Rex almost fell over backward.

“I tell you I’ll kill you,” declared Briggs. “I own this place, and I don’t ’low nobody here.”

“Will you let us go away?” asked Nan, hardly speaking above a whisper.

“No! You’d tell somebody where I am. You can’t go.”

“We wouldn’t tell,” croaked Rex pleadingly.

“You’re a liar! You can’t go. I run this place. Don’t you try to pick up anythin’.”

“Where do you live?” asked Nan.

She wanted to change the subject, to get his mind away from killing someone.

“Never mind where I live. You’ll find out soon enough. That’s what they all want to know. Everybody asks me where I live, but I don’t tell. C’mon.”

He backed away from the fire, keeping them covered with the gun.

Away from the firelight the darkness was intense.

“No!” he grunted. “The woman goes first.”

Even though his twisted brain was a strain of intelligent cunning, he realized that he could not control both of them in the darkness. He moved back closer to Rex, peering at him closely.

“You stay here,” he ordered. “You move and I’ll kill you.”

“I won’t move,” promised Rex.

“Don’t move. I’ll come back for you. If you go away, I’ll find you. You can’t get away.”

He grasped Nan by the shoulder and shoved her ahead of him out into the blackness of the cañon. Rex dropped on his knees beside the fire, piling on more wood. His brain was in a whirl. This crazy man was taking Nan away, and he was letting her go.

In an access of fury at himself Rex flung a stick into the fire, sending up a shower of sparks and for the first time in his life he cursed openly, bitterly. From far up the cañon came the leering laughter of the crazy Briggs.

Then something snapped in the brain of the young man at the fire, and he ran headlong up the cañon, bruising himself against boulders, whipped across the face with branches, falling and swearing at times.

He had lost all sense of reason. After a fall he had picked up a club, and now he went sneaking along, alert to every sound, gripping the club in his right hand, his left hand extended ahead of him, feeling out into the darkness.

Gone was all fear of the darkness, of wild animals. Rex Morgan had reverted to the primitive. Another cave-man had stolen his woman, and he was going to get her. On and on he went, climbing boulders, stumbling over exposed roots, until he came to a spot where he could go no further.

In the darkness he discovered that he was at the bottom of what had been an ancient waterfall. There were high banks all around him, but he found a way out. It was a sort of trail up the left bank, twisting between giant boulders.

He reached what seemed to be the cañon level again and sank back on his haunches to listen. Then he heard voices. They were very indistinct, and he strained his ears. The wind whined among the boulders, drowning out the sound, but he thought he had located it.

Gripping his club tightly, he began working up the slope to the left, under the towering cliffs. It was slow work, this climbing in the darkness. He slipped and sprawled full length on a sloping rock, losing his club, but got back to his knees and kept going up over the ledges.

Then he saw the flicker of a fire, the scent of burning meat. Pulling himself up to the rim of the rock he looked into a cave. In reality he was in the cave himself, as the ledge above him projected twenty feet farther out over the cañon.

Nan was huddled on the floor near the fire, while Briggs towered over her, bulking huge in the firelight. Their shadows were huge, goblin-like things against the wall of the cave. In the fire sizzled a huge hunk of raw meat, which was sending off a strong odor.

Briggs was talking to Nan, but Rex could not hear what was said. Finally Briggs left her and came shambling past where Rex crouched on the rock and disappeared in the darkness. Rex slid off the rock and crossed the entrance of the cave to the fire, and Nan looked up at him wonderingly.

“How did you get here?” she asked.

Rex brushed a hand across his eyes and stared back at the entrance, seeking an answer to her question.

“I—I just came,” he said, and squatted down beside the fire.

“He has gone after you, Rex.”

“I suppose.”

“He’ll come back.”

Rex stared at her dully.

“Very likely,” he said.

“Don’t you realize what it means, Rex? The man is crazy. He says he will kill you, because he don’t want you here.”

“That meat is burning, isn’t it?”

“He said it was horse meat. But don’t you understand, Rex? That man will come back and kill you.”

“No, he won’t.”

Rex got to his feet and picked up a stone about the size of a baseball, swinging it in his hand to test the weight.

“I’m going to kill him first,” he said flatly, and went back toward the opening of the cave.

Rex knew just where Briggs would pass in entering the cave; so he climbed upon a slab of sandstone, several feet higher than the level of a man’s head, and stretched out flat. He was in the deep shadow, but by lifting his head he could see the fire in the cave where Nan still huddled. He turned his head and peered over the outer rim of the rock. Something was moving down there; he could see its dark outline.

It came closer, and he decided that it was the crazy man, sneaking back to the cave. Perhaps, thought Rex, he knows I am here, and is trying to surprise me. Inching carefully forward, he swung up his arm and sent the heavy stone crashing downward, where it thudded against some yielding object.

Came a spitting snarl, the rasp of claws on sandstone, and the object vanished down the cañon. Rex realized instantly that he had hit an animal instead of a man, because that snarl never came from a human throat. The animal was a mountain lion.

But now Rex was without a weapon of any kind. He slid off the sandstone shelf and went back toward the firelight, trying to pick up another stone. The lion had probably been attracted by the smell of the meat and was stalking the cave.

Rex secured another stone and turned back toward the shelf. He heard the man coming back, talking to himself. It was too late for Rex to regain the shelf, so he darted in beside a small ledge, crouching as low as possible.

He heard the scuff of leather soles on the rock, as Briggs came cautiously. Then he saw the huge bulk of the man pass him, going slowly, evidently peering into the cave, trying to see if everything was all right.

Rex straightened up, drew back his arm and flung the stone. But it slipped from his hand and crashed against the wall, far to the right of its victim, and Briggs whirled quickly, grunting with astonishment.

But Rex did not wait to see whether he missed. As he flung the stone, he also flung himself forward, locking both arms around Briggs, and his rush carried enough weight to send Briggs to his knees against the sandstone wall of the cave.

The heavy revolver went spinning across the stony floor, and the two men surged to their feet, only to crash down again, fighting with tooth and nail, but silently.

Although Briggs was past middle age, he was as strong as any man in the country, and his strength, added to his insane fury, would have made him a match for a professional wrestler. Rex was not particularly strong, but he was fighting for his life and for the life of Nan Lane, and he clung to Briggs like a burr.

He had his left arm around Briggs’s neck, his right locked beneath Briggs’s right armpit, the while his knees dug into the small of Briggs’s back. Briggs managed to get hold of Rex’s left ankle with his left hand, but Rex promptly locked his other leg around Briggs’s waist, spurring him in the stomach.

Rex’s grip around Briggs’s neck was shutting off his wind; so he let loose of the ankle, using both hands to tear Rex’s arm away from his throat.

It gave Rex a chance to release the right arm, but before he could do anything, Briggs had caught his left wrist with his left hand, reached back with his right, grasping Rex’s shoulder, and flung him ten feet away.

Rex landed on one knee, his left arm numb to the shoulder. For several moments Briggs stood there, trying to get his balance. Perhaps his disordered brain caused him to forget what was happening for a moment.

Rex had got back to his feet now and was silhouetted against the light from the fire.

Nan had heard the scuffle and was trying to see what it meant. Then Briggs laughed harshly and started toward Rex, who began backing toward the fire. He did not care to get caught again in those viselike hands.

Briggs did not hurry. Perhaps he realized that Rex could not escape him, and was playing with him. Nan uttered no sound, as the two men came into the firelight. Rex’s shirt had been almost torn from his body and one cheek was bleeding from a rasping contact with the wall of the cave.

Rex glanced behind him. He could not go much farther. He tried to edge to the left, but Briggs blocked him. It was only a matter of moments before he would be caught. Suddenly he remembered the gun.

“Nan—the gun!” he panted. “Near the entrance—he dropped it, Nan!”

Briggs shifted his eyes to Nan. He was close enough to stop her if she started. But as he shifted his eyes Rex sprang to the side of the cave, trying to get past Briggs.

He was not successful. As quick as a flash Briggs reached out and caught part of Rex’s torn sleeve. Rex tried to back away, but the cave wall was too close. Briggs was slightly crouched, and as he yanked Rex toward him, the young man struck with every ounce of his body in a sweeping uppercut, which caught Briggs flush on the point of the chin.

Briggs’ head snapped back, his heel caught on a stone, and he fell flat on his back, his head fairly bouncing on the sandstone floor.

Rex fell to his knees from the force of his blow, his right arm and hand paralyzed for the moment, but he got to his feet and staggered out to the entrance, where he found the gun. Nan was sitting against the wall, crying, as he came back, and he looked at her curiously. Briggs had not moved.

Rex picked up some scattered wood and threw it on the fire.

“This is a better place than we were, Nan,” he said calmly. “At least we have a roof over our heads.”

She took her hands from her face and stared at him. It was such a ridiculous thing to say after what had happened.

“Rex, are you all right?” she whispered.

He looked at her and grinned.

“You’re damn’ right! Isn’t that what Hashknife would say?”

“Oh, I’m glad, Rex. I don’t know what to say. It is all like an awful dream. I thought you had lost your mind, too.”

“Me?” Rex blinked some of the blood out of his eye. “Perhaps I did, Nan. I don’t remember much about it. But I was sane enough to realize that he would kill me. I guess I missed him, with the stone. I wonder whether I killed him.”

Cautiously he examined Briggs. The man’s heart was beating, but he was unconscious. The blow on the jaw and the drop to the stone had given him a double knockout.

“He’s not dead, Nan. I’m glad of that.”

“But what will we do when he wakes up, Rex?”

“That depends on him entirely. If he still persists in trying to be boss of this place, I shall shoot him with his own gun.”

“Let me see that gun, Rex.”

He handed it to her and she looked it over carefully.

“Every cartridge has been fired,” she said wonderingly.

“You mean it is of no value?”

“Not unless he has more cartridges in his pockets.”

Briggs was wearing no belt, and a search of his pockets failed to show any ammunition.

“Give me the gun,” said Rex. “I can bluff with it.”

“But he must know it is empty, Rex.”

“If he did, why was he carrying it? You try and get a little sleep, Nan; I’ll watch him. If he wasn’t born in this cañon, there must be a way out, and we’ll find it. That meat don’t make a very pleasant odor, does it?”

“He was cooking it for me,” said Nan. “He said it was horse meat. He picked it up off the dirty floor and threw it on the fire—for my supper.”

“He may be hungry when he wakes up,” grinned Rex.