Dead Man's Trail (9781101606957) (12 page)

To hell with all of them.

What the hell was he doing here?

Why didn't he just ride on? His only real obligation was to the man who'd saved his life.

He continued down the hill and into the trees.

Chapter 15

When he got to the bottom of the hill, he scanned the hill rising beyond it. It was a steep slope carpeted in forest duff and bristling with sparse pines, firs, and upthrust chunks of pitted dark gray granite. He saw an opening about halfway up the slope and led Wolf to it, slipping a couple of times on the slick needles and fallen pinecones.

He inspected the spot. Judging it relatively level and well sheltered by both trees and humps of granite and sandstone of various sizes, he decided he'd throw down here, build a small fire. He'd camp alone. He had no desire to be anywhere near the others.

Funny how at times when he was alone he felt a prickling need for human companionship. Only, when he found that companionship it was, more often than not, far from companionable. Humans were the rottenest of creatures. He had no delusions that he himself was any different, but he had no choice but to tolerate himself. Amongst others, he found himself yearning to be back alone in some remote stretch of mountain range or saguaro-studded desert plain—just himself, Wolf, and the wind.

He let the black graze on the slope beneath his own niche in the rocks and took his rifle and climbed to a high, rocky perch, where he had a good view to the south and east. Since the one cutthroat had come from the west, it was likely that more would come from a different direction, and he didn't want to get caught with his pants down.

As he sat there, cleaning the rifle with an oily handkerchief, voices and the snapping of pine needles rose on his left. The others from the stage were moving down the hill through the pines, the men hauling and dragging luggage. Yakima kept a sharp eye on the larger area around them, knowing they could be attacked at any time, but he glanced occasionally at the other passengers—the driver and the shotgun messenger must have been caring for the horses—setting up a camp in the crease between the hills.

Mendenhour chose a sheltered area abutted on Yakima's side by the steep, rocky hill and on the other side by the shallower slope and the trees. There was a thin stream farther south along the crease, and he saw Glendolene and the other young woman, Sally, walk toward it. Yakima watched the women closely, because the men seemed too careless about the women separating themselves from the group. The men themselves—the grumbling drummers, the young honyocker, and the prosecutor—conversed tonelessly while they set up a rudimentary camp, rummaging through luggage for whatever camping gear they had amongst them, and gathered firewood.

It was after three, and this time of year the sun sank fast. Soon it was down behind the Wind River Range in the west, and the crease was in shadow. Adlard and Coble led the horses down to the water and picketed them on a long rope strung between trees in the tall, saffron-colored brush.

The others sat moodily around their fire, Glendolene near her husband, the redheaded Mrs. O'Reilly near Glendolene, reclining against a steamer trunk, several blankets covering her. The wounded woman almost seemed to be enjoying the campout, for she stared dreamily into the fire, one arm hooked behind her head. The other arm was suspended by a cotton sling.

Yakima cursed under his breath, then climbed down out of the rocks and walked down to where Wolf stood ground-tied. He pulled the sack of gold out of the saddlebag pouch, hid it amongst the rocks, then mounted up and rode down into the passengers' camp. He stopped at the edge of the firelight, reached back for his saddlebags, and dropped them on the ground near where the young honyocker couple sat together in moody silence, sipping water from a single tin cup.

“Coffee and other supplies in there,” he said. “A couple pounds of jerky, salt pork, some beans.” He looked at Mendenhour. “If you're gonna have a fire, keep in mind them killers will see it, and you'd best keep a close watch.”

With that, he swung Wolf around and rode on up the hill through the trees. Passing the stage, he continued into the open country west of it.

* * *

“I don't know about him,” said Melvin Coble. He was staring suspiciously up the dark slope in the direction the half-breed had disappeared half an hour ago.

“What do you mean—you don't know about him?” Glendolene asked as she forked salt pork around in the half-breed's cast-iron skillet.

She and the young woman, whose name she'd learned was Sally Rand, had built up the fire for cooking, and they were throwing a meal together with Yakima Henry's generously proffered supplies. Glendolene looked again at the shotgun messenger crouched on the other side of the fire from her. Coble was still staring broodingly up the slope while absently poking a stick in the crackling flames.

“What do I mean?” the man said in his customarily snide, angry tone. “What I mean is, who is he really? And how do we really know about all that went on back in Wolfville?”

Lee was standing a ways off, smoking a cigar while he stared southward along the dark crease between the hills, his back to the fire. He glanced over his shoulder, gray smoke billowing around his head. “You mean, you think he's lying?”

The others were looking at Coble now with interest. “How would I know? But if he was in jail in Wolfville, how do we know he didn't escape and kill them lawmen himself? How do we know he wasn't in with Betajack and Hendricks? Maybe he got crossways with them over somethin'.”

“Over what?” asked Charlie Adlard.

“Have you seen how one of his saddlebags pouches?” Coble shrugged and grinned at his partner, showing a chipped front tooth glowing in the firelight. “Maybe he stole loot off of 'em. In fact, maybe them killers ain't after Mr. Mendenhour at all. Maybe they're after the breed.” He arched a wolfish brow at the prosecutor.

“So, what's he doing here?” Mendenhour asked, turning around to face the fire, holding his stogie down low by his side, turning it thoughtfully between his thumb and index finger.

“You said it yourself, sir,” said the older of the two drummers, whose name was Kearny. “There's safety in numbers.”

“That's ridiculous!” Glendolene said, unable to keep from laughing in exasperation. “Why would he throw in with us when he's obviously much more capable of taking care of himself than any of us are!”

She shot a quick, vaguely accusatory look at her husband, who scowled as though he'd been slapped.

“Hold your tongue, Glen,” he said with a mild threat in his voice. “He might have gotten the drop on those cutthroats earlier today, but any one of us could probably have dropped as many as he did. I'm right handy with that Winchester over there.”

“For heaven's sake, Lee,” she said, wishing she could stop herself from continuing, “he gave us the food we're about to eat! And he's the only one out there in the darkness, probably keeping an eye on the camp!”

“How do we know he's keeping an eye on the camp?” asked the younger drummer, Kimble Sook, who was carefully filling his traveling flask from a whiskey bottle. “Maybe he just dumped this gear to lighten his load.”

Adlard looked down at the saddlebags. “Yeah, and look there—he took whatever was bulging his saddlebag pouch right along with him! That's it! I got a feelin' Melvin's right. I got a feelin' it's the breed
himself
that Betajack and Hendricks is after. Not Mendenhour at all!”

“What about Preston Betajack?” Glendolene said. “You think his father has forgotten about him?”

“No,” Lee said, “but how would he know I was aboard the stage?”

“I don't believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “He wouldn't do that.”

All eyes turned to her. She felt the heat of them, hotter than the fire. She glanced at Lee, who stood frowning at her curiously. Glendolene turned away from him, silently castigating herself for having taken part in the conversation as she resumed forking the side pork around in the pan. She hadn't eaten all day, but she wasn't hungry; in fact, the food was making her feel queasy again.

Sally Rand huddled down in her old, patched wool coat and gave a shiver against the intensifying chill. “Injuns scare me. What're we gonna do about him? If he's not gone, I mean?”

“Don't you worry, honey,” her husband, Percy Rand, said, hardening his eyes and fumbling an old cap-and-ball pistol out of his coat pocket. “He comes near you, I'll put a bullet in him.”

“You ask me, I think you're all crazier'n bedbugs!” Lori O'Reilly hadn't said anything all night, and all eyes turned to her now, incredulous. “And we should think about nice things, not bad things—like what we want to do to Mr. Henry just because his skin is a little darker than ours. After all, as Mrs. Mendenhour said, we will be eating his food tonight. Good Lord, folks!”

“Ah, shut up, Lori,” intoned the driver. “We all know where the doc found you. You probably preferred men like him!”

Glendolene gasped in shock, staring from the driver to Lori O'Reilly, who seemed to take umbrage with neither the man's harsh tone nor what he'd implied. In fact, she seemed quite amused by it, laughing heartily, throwing her head back against her steamer trunk.

“That ain't no way for you to talk to Mrs. O'Reilly,” scolded the old prospector, Elijah Weatherford, sitting on a rock at the far end of the firelight from Glendolene. He heaved himself to his feet, crouching and pointing at the jehu. “You apologize, Charlie, or by God I'll drag out my bowie knife and cut your
guts
out!”

His eyes flicked down to the bone handle of the knife jutting from the top of his stovepipe boot.

“Stop it!” squealed Sally Rand, closing her mittened hands over her ears and squeezing her eyes closed. “Please, stop! I can't take any more of this!”

Her eyes snapped wide as a rifle spoke twice in the distance.

* * *

Fifteen minutes before, Yakima had ridden Wolf into a dry wash half a mile west of the passengers' camp. He slipped out of the saddle, tied the reins to an upthrust branch of a log that had been deposited here by a previous spring flood, one end buried in the sand and gravel, then very quietly pumped a cartridge into the rifle's breech.

He stood staring up a low hill on the far side of the wash. Stars were out and a thumbnail moon rose in the southeast, showing a strip of solid gray rock topping the rise. From the other side of the rise, smoke rose. He couldn't see it, but whenever the slight breeze gusted like an exhaled breath, he could smell it.

A wood fire. Rabbit roasting on it. Coffee cooking, too.

Wolf turned to him but did not nicker or even jangle his bit chains. The horse knew from experience something was about to happen, though he didn't know what, and his own blood was up.

Yakima ran a reassuring hand down the black's long snoot, over the white blaze, staring toward the gray rock topping the rise, then stole slowly forward and up the far side of the wash. Just as slowly, striding assuredly, avoiding all obstacles, he climbed the rise at an angle toward the western end.

It was a cold night, the sky so clear that he imagined he could hear the stars crackling. Far to the west a pair of wolves howled. As he continued climbing, the sound of voices came to him.

His heartbeat quickened. That the voices belonged to members of Floyd Betajack's and Claw Hendricks's crew he had little doubt. How many were holed up on the other side of the ridge? If it was the entire crew, he'd have his work cut out for him.

He climbed to where the caprock protruded from the top of the rise's west end, and crouched down, looking around the stone spine and into the hollow down the other side.

Three men hunkered around a low fire, the flames dancing and twisting like several separate devils, smoke and sparks rising from their jagged tips. Two big, skinned rabbits roasted on sharpened willow branches far enough back from the flames that they wouldn't burn. Yakima could see the grease glistening against the cooking meat, dribbling down the sides, sputtering in the fire, and his mouth watered.

The meal at the relay station hadn't held him.

He looked at the three men, saw the furs and leather they were dressed in. One was a black man. Many guns and knives flashed about them in the fire's flickering light.

One had a rifle across his knees as he sat looking at the other two lounging against their saddles. This man wore wool mittens with the fingers cut out. They were all holding smoking tin cups.

Three unsaddled horses milled down the slope beyond them, maybe fifty yards away. Two of the mounts stood head to head, still as dark statues, while the third grazed a little farther off. The wind was from the south, so they shouldn't detect Yakima until he no longer cared.

Soundlessly, weaving between small boulders, the half-breed stole straight down the slope on his moccasin-clad feet and then swung toward the fire, moving in.

Chapter 16

“What was that?” one of the three men around the fire said.

“What was what?”

Yakima rose from behind the boulder he'd stolen up to, and snapped the Henry to his shoulder, raking the hammer back. “I think he means this.”

They all jerked at once, reaching for near rifles or sliding hands toward pistols on their hips.

“Uh-uh,” he said. “Now, why would you wanna go and kick up a racket on such a peaceful night . . . and get yourselves killed?”

They all froze at once, dark eyes finding him now in the darkness about fifteen yards southwest of their camp. The one in the middle wore buckskins and a long sheepskin coat with a wool collar on the outside of which three guns and two knives were holstered. His dark face was decorated in black and white war paint. He had one hand wrapped around a knife handle, the other around pistol grips.

“Raise those hands above your head,” Yakima said.

When they all hesitated, he said it again, more softly: “You got one second before I kick up a helluva racket myself.”

They raised their hands shoulder high.

“Get 'em higher.”

They did. The one on the far right—a black man in a gray wolf coat and black, round-brimmed hat with a red scarf underneath—began to rise. “Uh-uh,” Yakima said. “I prefer you sittin'.”

The black man relaxed, the silver trimmings on his brown leather leggings flashing in the firelight. Yakima stepped out from around the boulder, keeping the Yellowboy aimed straight out from his right shoulder, narrowing that eye as he aimed down the barrel, his jaw hard, lips a dark red knife slash.

“What're you doin' out here?”

He had a good idea, but he wanted to be sure. He'd thought there'd been a slender chance they weren't part of Betajack and Hendricks's crew, but with all the weaponry around them, that chance was getting as fine as a cat's whisker.

They slid their eyes to each other, and then the man on the left, a beefy white man with a cream felt sombrero shoved back off his broad forehead, said haltingly, “We . . . we're just—”

No point in letting him waste time making up a lie.

“Forget it. Where's Betajack and Hendricks, the rest of your bunch?”

They slid eyes around again before the Indian said, “Who, mister?” His voice was low, toneless.

“I want a straight answer from one of you in three seconds, or that racket I just mentioned is going to occur in half a pull of a whore's bell.”

The beefy man said, “West, fer chrissakes! You wanna go over and say hi?”

“How far west?”

“Half mile. Hell, I don't know. Maybe a mile.”

“We didn't measure it,” said the black man, holding his gloved hands about around his black hat brim.

“All right, good,” Yakima said, sliding the rifle barrel from the black man to the beefy one, then slowly back again. “Here's what I want you to do. . . .”

The Indian's eyes widened as he dropped a hand toward the big bowie knife he wore in a beaded sheath against his belly.

The Yellowboy roared.

The Indian jerked backward, grunting as he continued to slap at the knife handle.

Yakima levered another shell and fired again, watching dust puff from the dead center of the man's sheepskin. The slug blew him off his heels before he twisted around and fell on his belly, grunting and jerking.

The other two had just closed hands around gun handles when Yakima's second spent cartridge clinked off the rock behind him, and he aimed down the barrel of the freshly cocked rifle, planting a bead on the center of the beefy gent's ruddy forehead.

That stopped them both. They stared wide-eyed and tight-lipped at Yakima.

The half-breed looked at the Indian, who lay belly-down on the fire's far side, quivering as though he'd fallen on a nest of rattlesnakes. “Nope,” he said, “that wasn't what I had in mind.”

He planted the Winchester's sights on the black man's wrinkled forehead. The black man raised his arms higher above his head, as did the beefy gent. “Now, see all the racket that made?”

“Shore did,” said the black man solemnly.

The beefy white man shifted his weight from one knee to the other, fidgeting.

“I know why you three are here,” Yakima said. “Because it's easier for three to move in on a camp on a night this quiet. Which means you know where me an' the others are camped.”

“What's your piece of this, breed?” asked the black man with frustration, spreading the fingers of his hands thrust high above his head. “What's your stake in it? We're just after Mendenhour. What the hell you care what happens to him?”

The beefy gent said, “Mendenhour hanged the wrong Betajack, see? We ride for Betajack, and we know for certain sure that young Pres did not rustle them hosses, like the prosecutor said he did. The man Pres bought them horses from done lied and Neumiller and Mendenhour believed him because they been wantin' to make an example of Betajack ever since he got elected.”

Yakima stared at him. He didn't really care what was true or not true. At this point, it didn't make any difference. He'd bought chips in this game, so he had to play it out.

Yakima cursed as he walked over to the black man. Keeping the gun leveled on his belly, he reached down and pulled the man's saddle blanket out from beneath his saddle. He tossed it down in front of the fire, kicked the corners wide so it lay flat. He ordered the two men before him to disarm themselves as well as the dead Indian, and to toss the Indian's and their own pistols and knives onto the blanket.

They did so reluctantly.

Just as reluctantly, they tossed over their and the Indian's carbines.

“Now your boots.”

“Now our what?” said the black man.

Yakima just stared at him.

When both men had kicked out of their boots and stood there glaring from across the dwindling flames at Yakima, who stood behind the blanket heaped with guns, knives, and boots, the half-breed said, “When you see 'em again, tell your bosses I aim to kill 'em.”

The two men glanced at each other, incredulous. The beefy man squinted one eye and arched the brow over the other eye at Yakima. “Tell them what?”

“Tell 'em I'm gonna kill 'em if they keep comin'. Tell 'em Yakima Henry sent you. I'm the man who beefed about six of Claw Hendricks's men the other day, and I intend to finish off the whole damn bunch of his men and Betajack's men . . . if you keep movin'.”

The beefy white man laughed. “That's what they said about you. They aim to cut your ears off, breed. And I think they got a better chance because, hell, you're only one man!” He laughed again.

“You'll see how many men I fight like if your bosses keep comin'.” Yakima narrowed a hard green eye. “You tell 'em that . . . when you see 'em again.”

Quickly, keeping his rifle aimed on the two cutthroats, he folded the blanket into three points and then tied the points together with a strip of rawhide he found among the cutthroats' gear. Rifle barrels and rear stocks stuck out of the pack as he tossed it over his shoulder, gave a parting glance at the two men before him, then backed over to where their horses grazed from picket pins.

He cut the ropes tying the horses to the pins and fired two shots over the horses' heads. The mounts whinnied and galloped off into the night.

Yakima strode toward the west end of the ridge. He looked back toward the fire several times. The two bootless cutthroats hadn't moved. They continued staring at him in hushed awe until he'd disappeared along with their horses in the night.

* * *

Yakima stopped Wolf west of the stage trail. Ahead, the stagecoach sat silhouetted in the darkness, moonlight glistening on the brass rail that ran around the roof. He'd heard something—the slightest squawk of a thoroughbrace in the coach's undercarriage.

A figure squatted atop the roof. A gun flashed against the figure, and Yakima threw himself off Wolf's back to hit the ground on his shoulder. He came up firing his Colt, purposely missing his target, watching the man give a terrified scream and drop to the stage's roof, squealing.

Wolf gave a shrill whinny, turned sharply, and, trailing his reins, galloped wildly off to the north. His hammering front hooves missed Yakima by mere inches. “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” shouted another man crouched behind the stagecoach's slanting tongue. “Goddamn it, that's Coble!”

“I figured.” Yakima heaved himself to his feet, pistol smoking. He glanced to his left. Wolf was still galloping, though beginning to slow, snorting angrily.

Fury was an exploding keg of dynamite in the half-breed's chest. He stared through his pistol smoke wafting around him toward the stage, where the shotgun messenger was rising to his knees. “Who's
that
?” he asked.

Charlie Adlard said angrily, “The breed, goddamn it!”

“Well, hell,” Coble said, “how was I supposed to know that?”

“You weren't,” Yakima said, his calm tone belying his fury. He was walking toward the stage, shaking the spent shells from his Colt's wheel and replacing them with fresh from his cartridge belt. “You were just supposed to start shootin'.”

As he stopped in front of the stage, the shotgun messenger stared down at him, holding his pistol down low but aimed cautiously at Yakima. His voice was slow, defensive, as he said, “Figured you'd pulled out.”

Yakima reached up quickly, grabbed the man's left ankle, and jerked it out from beneath him. “Hey!”

Thump!

“Ah, you son of a bitch!” Coble yelled, writhing around supine on the coach's roof. His pistol bounced off the roof, as well, and dropped over the edge to land at Yakima's feet.

“What the hell is going on over here?” It was Mendenhour, stepping out around the far side of the stage to stand beside the driver. “Don't we have enough trouble without you men shooting at each other?”

His wife walked up behind him, though Yakima could only see her silhouette in the darkness. Because of the shooting, she was sticking close to her husband. That was wise. Yakima didn't like it in some vaguely primitive way, but there it was. He didn't like anything about this night. Or the past three days . . .

“I think he broke my back!” complained Coble, leaning forward on his knees and hooking an arm behind him.

Yakima looked from Mendenhour's wife to the prosecutor to the driver. “You'll find a blanket full of guns and knives out there where my horse left it. I suggest you haul it in and do something useful with them.”

“Such as?” Mendenhour asked.

“Make sure everyone's armed. And I'd move your camp. The horses, too. They know where we are. No more fires.”

Yakima walked away to the northwest.

“Where're you going?” the driver said.

“To fetch my horse,” Yakima said, staring forward. “Where the hell you think I'm goin'?”

* * *

When Yakima had walked down Wolf, he rode back to his niche in the rocks on the far side of the crease between the hills. He watched as the others doused their fire and moved their camp farther north along the crease, their jostling shadows disappearing behind him.

He sat there atop the scarp, his legs hanging over the edge, his Yellowboy across his knees. The cool air kept him awake. That and the knowledge that Betajack and Hendricks could be stealing up on him and the others from any direction.

He knew that his message to the cutthroat leaders could very well be taken as a challenge, and it likely would be. But it would also give them something to chew on, too. Some men knew his name, as he'd had to kill quite a few men in his thirty-odd years. Some of the living might think twice—or at least one and a half times, anyway—about taking him on.

It might make Betajack and Hendricks hesitate. Men who hesitated were easier to take down than men who didn't. He'd become one of those who didn't. Not when the chips were down and all players were showing their cards. Word had gotten around.

It was a quiet night.

The morning was a little louder.

“Hey, breed,” Melvin Coble said, yelling up from the bottom of the scarp. “Come down here. Wanna have a little chat with your half-breed ass this mornin'.”