Last Ride of Jed Strange (9781101559635) (4 page)

“No, and he won't be pestering Miss Lenore for a long while, either,” said Belden with a self-satisfied air.

Hobart moved away and then Colter stared at the sky as he sucked more air into his heaving chest and spat more and more blood out of his mouth. Suddenly, Belden was standing over him again. The lieutenant was wearing his hat, cocked at its usual rakish angle. He had one glove on and was pulling on the other.

In his slow, softly rising and falling Virginia accent, he said, “Sometimes it takes some harsh teaching for the stable-mucking ilk of Mr. Farrow here to learn their proper station, and the respect due their betters.” Belden got his glove on and let his arms fall to his sides, staring coldly, arrogantly down at Colter. “And that the women of their betters are given a very wide berth. But when you're asked how you got those little cuts on your face, you just say you came out here drunk tonight after the dance and climbed aboard the wrong hammerhead. Hear?”

Colter had no idea where the sudden strength came from. It was as though lightning struck him, filling him with blue-white fury and just as much concentrated energy. He raised his left leg, and, gritting his tender teeth, hurled the leg hard to the right and against Belden's left, high-topped black cavalry boot.

Belden must have just started lifting that foot, because Colter's ankle sliced through it like a knife through lard. And then it sliced through the other one, and both Belden's boots flew out from under the man.

“Oh!” The lieutenant's scream was shrill and short.

Colter stared up dully, incomprehendingly, as the tall, willowy man's upper torso slanted down to Colter's right so fast that it looked like the shadow of a night bird winging over quickly. There was a hard thudding, crunching sound and a dull grunt. And then the heavier thump of a body slamming into the ground.

Silence.

A boot crunched gravel.

Hobart's low, tentative inquiry: “Pres?”

No response.

“Holy hell,” whispered McKnight.

He crouched to Colter's left, staring down at something on the ground. Colter didn't have the strength to lift his head. All he could see in the periphery of his vision was a thick black oblong shape on the ground to his left, under the two crouching lieutenants.

McKnight didn't say anything for what seemed a long time until he whispered, “He's not movin'. He's not movin' one damn muscle.”

Another short silence before Hobart said, “And he's not breathin', neither.”

Chapter 5

Colter must have passed out.

All he knew was that time seemed to skip ahead until he was looking around and realizing that both McKnight and Hobart were gone, and that Pres Belden lay on the ground nearby, flat on his back near the wagon's open tailgate. Something dark was dripping off the end of the tailgate and pooling on the ground below it, beside Belden's head.

Then Colter realized what had drawn him up out of shallow unconsciousness—the trilling of spurs and the thudding of boots moving toward him fast. He'd know the skip-scuff shamble of Willie Tappin anywhere.

“Colter, what the . . . ?”

Colter groaned and lifted his head, trying to push himself up to a sitting position against the searing pain in his ribs. As Willie approached dressed in buckskin pants, boots, and underwear shirt with an army blanket thrown over his shoulders, Colter gave up and rolled onto his left hip, spitting more blood from his lips and casting his gaze toward where Belden lay unmoving near the wagon's open tailgate.

Willie slowed his pace and stooped to place a hand on Colter's shoulder, but then, seeing the dark hump of Belden, he stepped over Colter and continued on over to the wagon. He dropped to a knee and placed a hand on the lieutenant's throat, then glanced over at Colter. “Dead. By the way he's lyin' I'd say his neck's broke.”

Colter blinked, just now beginning to comprehend what had happened. He'd caught the lieutenant off balance and kicked him off his feet. His head had slammed into the tailgate as he'd gone down. The crunching sound had been Belden's neck breaking. The realization slowly gathered steam in Colter's head.

Belden was dead. Colter had killed him.

“I got up to take a piss,” Willie said, walking back over to Colter, “and I'd just stepped out of the bunkhouse when I seen two soldiers running off toward the fort, like two donkeys with tin cans tied to their tails.”

“McKnight and Hobart.”

“Colter, what for the love o' Jehova happened out here?”

“I got the shit kicked out of both ends.”

“I see that.”

“Somehow, I managed to give that son of a bitch one helluva mule kick, and”—Colter leaned on an elbow and fingered his chin, still trying to remember and work it all through his mind—“and beefed the bastard.”

“Well, beef is what he is, all right.” Willie stared in awe at the dead lieutenant, then dropped to a knee in front of Colter. “How bad you hurt?”

“I feel like I still have one of his boots up my ass.”

“You look like a bobcat done tried to drag you off down the wash for supper.”

Willie stared toward the main fort across about a hundred yards of desert bristling with rocks and catclaw. The adobe buildings sat slouched and ash-colored in the moonlight. The major's house was at the far right end of the parade ground—a big Victorian affair that looked as out of place here on the Arizona desert as would a peacock in a chicken coop. No lights were on there, either.

Willie said, “And you're gonna look a lot worse if you don't get the hell out of here.”

Colter shook his head, rose off his hands, straightening his back to a kneeling position, grimacing as he sucked a little more air into his lungs, both of which felt strangled. But he didn't feel any bones moving around, so maybe no ribs were broken. Bruised certainly. Maybe cracked. But not broken.

“It was an accident. I lashed out, caught him off balance. Besides, he beat me like a rented mule while those two tinhorns, McKnight and Hobart, held my arms.”

“Colter, it don't matter. Belden's old man is in tight with the territorial governor of Arizona. They're business partners. Hell, I think they might even be cousins.”

“What're you sayin', Willie?”

“I'm sayin' you have to hightail it the hell away from here. Now. The governor and Belden's old man are powerful men, and if you know powerful men, you know they're gonna want blood.”

Again, Colter shook his head. “Forget it. I'm gonna tell it the way it happened. Besides, the son of a gutless cur had it comin'!”

Willie stared at him, his eyes round and serious above his beard stubble and below a wing of mussed brown hair. “And what about that price on your head? The one them shooters was huntin' this afternoon?”

Colter stared back in shock. He'd never told Willie anything about Bill Rondo or the bounty Rondo had placed on his head. He'd thought Willie had swallowed his story about that afternoon's bushwhacking, too.

“I spent the last coupla summers in Colorado,” Willie said. “Workin' a ranch in the San Juans, just close enough to the Lunatics for word about what happened in Sapinero to spread there like one o' them late-summer lightning fires. I heard what Rondo did to your foster pa, Colter. And I heard what Rondo did to you . . . before you give back the same to him. This is gonna draw a helluva lot of attention, kid. If you don't hang for this”—he jerked his square chin toward Belden, keeping his eyes on Colter—“you'll hang for Rondo.”

Colter looked once more toward the main part of the fort. Still no lights. Where had McKnight and Hobart gone? What were their intentions? Were they going to let someone else find Belden or would they spill the beans themselves about the ungallant and proscribed ass-kicking they'd taken part in?

Hard to say. Both men were drunk. They might not say anything, or they might wait and report what had happened out here to Major Fairchild after they'd sobered up in the morning. Whatever happened, the trump card was always going to be that a civilian horse breaker, Colter Farrow, had killed a young lieutenant who not only hailed from a prominent family but who'd also intended to marry the major's daughter.

And then, as Willie had said, there was the not so little matter of the price on Colter's head, not to mention the federal warrant for his arrest. It seemed that shooting and branding even a scum-wallowing lizard like Bill Rondo was against the law. If he didn't hang for that, he'd hang for Belden.

“Holy shit,” he said, turning to Willie with warning bells now clearly clanging in his head. “I guess you're right, partner.”

“Ain't I usually?” Willie set Colter's hat on his head, threw an arm around his shoulders, and helped the young man to his feet. “Let's get you fixed up, and then I'll saddle your horse.”

“What about you, Willie?” Colter said when Willie had gotten him into the shack and eased him down on the edge of his bunk. “They're gonna ask you a lot of questions.”

“Ah, hell,” Willie said, grabbing a wool army blanket off a shelf. He did not light a lantern. “Everyone knows how much I drink at those things. They'll believe me when I say I didn't see or hear nothin'. When I woke the next mornin', you were gone, and I figured you was just gettin' an early start at the snubbin' post.”

The older horse breaker grabbed his bowie knife off a table and used it to carve a notch in the end of the blanket. He gave a grunt as he ripped the blanket in two, discarding one half while folding the other half once.

“I don't want you getting in trouble over me,” Colter said as Willie pulled him to his feet and then wrapped the blanket around the young man's waist.

He pulled the blanket taut around Colter's battered ribs. Colter grunted and drew a sharp breath, cursing.

“This'll hold them ribs in place, kid. If any're broken, ridin' a horse'll likely kill ya, but I reckon it's a chance you'll have to take.”

“Like I said . . .” Colter's face heated up like a steam iron as Willie tied a knot in the two ends of the blanket at Colter's lower back.

“Don't worry, kid,” Willie said. “You know what a good liar I am.”

In the moonlight angling through the window, Colter saw his partner give him a wink. Then Willie turned and grabbed a bottle off the tomato crate standing on end in front of the window, handing it to Colter. “Take a few sips of that. Hell, take the bottle. It was brewed by old Salty over at the store, with a dead rattler at the bottom of the vat, but it'll keep those cuts and bruises from squawkin' loud enough to wake every 'Pache in southern Arizon.”

Colter hefted the three-quarters-full bottle in his hand, his stomach recoiling at the thought of the stuff burning the cuts in his mouth. Besides, he'd never acquired a taste for tanglefoot of any kind though he'd taken a beer now and then, just to be sociable. “Thanks,” he said, making a face.

Willie walked over to the door, opening it a crack and looking out. He cursed sharply.

Colter's heart thudded. “What is it?”

“There's a light on in the old man's house.” The “old man” was Major Fairchild.

Colter set the bottle down, hurried to the door, and shoved Willie aside. “Forget it, Willie. You get in bed. I'll saddle my own horse and ride out. They'll think you were asleep the whole time.”

Willie grabbed Colter's arm firmly and hardened his jaws. “We haven't known each other long, Colter, but there's been damn few people in this world I've ever called a friend. Even fewer I'd risk my neck for.”

He stared hard at Colter, letting his eyes add the rest. Colter stepped back away from the door. “All right. Hurry!”

Willie bounded out the door and under the ramada and ran limping down the front of the stable. Colter glanced out once more. The major's lower-story windows were lit. The house was a couple of hundred yards away, but he thought he could see shadows moving around in front of the windows.

Colter ran a frustrated hand through his hair to which grit and flecks of hay and straw still clung. So McKnight and Hobart had reported the killing to the major. Why hadn't they just taken him into custody themselves rather than look like a couple of tinhorns? Too drunk to think of it, maybe.

Colter closed the bunk-shack door and stumbled around, dizzy and sore from the beating, filling his saddlebags and remembering to include the bottle though he couldn't yet bring himself to take a drink of the sutler's snake venom. He filled the burlap sack that he used for stowing his cooking supplies, rolled his soogan inside his rain slicker, tied it closed, and headed out the door just as Willie came out of the stable, leading Colter's blaze-faced coyote dun whom he called Northwest for the way the horse had always faced back home when he was grazing.

Colter paused to dipper water out of the olla hanging from the ramada, and swished a mouthful around before spitting it out into the yard, trying to get rid of the coppery taste of blood. Probing his mouth with his tongue, he discovered one tooth missing, one chipped, and another one loose. Most of the blood had come from his lips and his tongue, which he must have bit while being used as a human whipping post by Belden.

That was all right. He was still alive, which made him better off than Belden. Besides, he hadn't been too worried about his looks since Rondo had burned that S into his cheek.

“Thanks, Willie.”

Willie handed Colter the bridle reins. “You best head on up to that cave above White Tanks. Water there, and no one'll find you. Be damn hard to track you in that rocky country. I'll check in on you after the dust has settled, bring you some grub.”

He helped Colter into the saddle. The maneuver made sweat bead on the young redhead's forehead. “Don't take any chances, Willie.”

“Don't worry—I'll make sure the dust has settled before I come.”

Voices sounded from the direction of the parade ground. Likely, the major had rousted soldiers and would be bringing a contingent out here in a few minutes.

Colter reined the gelding out away from the bunk-shack. “Have a drink and get back in bed, Willie. They'll be here soon.”

Willie tried a grin. “Now, those are orders I don't mind followin'!”

Colter booted Northwest around the bunk-shack, past the privy and trash pile, and across a shallow dry wash angling toward the San Pedro. His ribs grieved him something awful, and it was hard to draw a breath, but he'd had broken ribs before, and Willie had been right. If any were broken, just riding this far would likely have killed him or at least have caused him to pass out.

Without the moon, Northwest would have had trouble picking his way across the desert. As it was, Colter was able to give the horse his head and close his eyes and try to rest as much as he could despite the jostling. Northwest headed toward the Galiuro Range that was a vague black bulk rising ahead of him, toward Aravaipa Canyon.

He and Willie had stumbled across a cave in the Galiuros when they'd been driving a string of broncs they'd trapped on the far side of the range of jutting stone cliffs and massive strewn boulders, and they'd holed up there for a night. Colter had returned to the cave once since then, when he'd been out hunting alone on a day off—because of the bounty on his head, he never went to town, as the soldiers and Willie usually did—and he hoped like hell he'd be able to find the cave again tonight near the White Tanks.

Every now and then Colter glanced over his right shoulder. The fort was growing more and more indistinct in the shallow bowl it sprawled across, surrounded by several craggy mountain ranges. He could see the pinprick glow of a couple of lights but nothing more. If soldiers were on his trail, he couldn't tell it from here.

He thought about Willie and hoped the stove-up horse breaker was as good an actor as he seemed to think he was. The worry was short-lived. A wicked scream rose on a low ridge to his right, and Northwest gave a shrill whinny as he pitched wildly off his front feet. Colter must not have had a good grip on the saddle horn, because he suddenly found himself tumbling ass-over-teakettle over the horse's rump and into open air before once again he met his old nemesis—the cold, hard ground.