Showdown (14 page)

He said absolutely nothing to Prine. He just galloped away and expected Prine to catch up.

T
hey rode toward the sun.

The land was a patchwork of changing topography. They rode through a long, wide stand of timber that had been divided down the center to create a road. They forged a river wild from recent rains. They traveled a stretch of desertlike land where the only things that seemed to bloom were timid-looking cactus and scruffy gray plants. Always, the distant mountains rose to the sky to their right. After two that afternoon, the temperature began to fall. Rain clouds with spider legs could be seen in the distance. It wouldn't be long before they'd get the rain and probably lose the tracks they were following.

The first place they'd stopped was the deserted farmhouse where Cassie had been kept. They'd found that two horses had headed toward the sun. They also found that the shoes on one of the horses had been put on at an an odd angle, making it reasonably easy to keep track of.

Most of the time they didn't talk much. A few times Prine heard Neville muttering to himself. Probably the rage got to be so much he had to express it. This was a very different Neville than the glad-hander he'd met at the mansion the other night. He felt sorry for this Neville, and ashamed that he hadn't done his duty as a lawman.

The rain started midafternoon. They continued to follow the tracks as far as they could, finally cresting a hill that overlooked a stage station.

"Looks like they might have stopped down there," Prine said. "I wonder why."

"Let's go find out."

Thunder rippled across the sky and a slash of lightning cast everything into a hellish, colorless relief that made the tracks they were following almost grotesquely dark. The devil would leave such tracks.

The stage station wasn't as bad as some. The barns and stables that held fresh animals and supplies looked well-kept and cleaned. The front yard wasn't a field of animal shit. It had been raked, and you could see that grass was trying very hard to pop up here and there. You could almost hear it straining.

They knew what awaited them if they stayed here. The food would run to tainted bacon and hard biscuits and water just starting to go bad. That was the usual repast, anyway.

They were lucky. The rain came smashing down, beads of hail and all, three or four minutes after they entered the sod-roofed stage station.

The layout was typical. Fireplace, three large, picnic-style tables, an open area for males to sleep on at night. Far in the corner was an extra-large bed where the station manager's wife slept, usually with a few of the female guests. The dirt floor didn't look like a barnyard, and the food smells surprised them. Some kind of stew bubbling in a pot.

From the outbuildings came the shouts of the station manager's three kids. They'd been battening everything down, given the ferocity of the rain.

The station man turned out to look like a parson—tall, grave, and disapproving of everything that passed before his eyes. He was probably thirty and looked sixty. His bald and gleaming scalp didn't help. Nor did his severe mouth and pinched eyes. He offered neither a hand nor a greeting.

"You didn't come in on the stage," he said.

"Good guess," Prine said.

"You were standing out there watching us come in."

"We're waiting for a stage now. There won't be any room for extras tonight."

"We're not looking to be put up for the night," Neville said. "We're looking for two men."

A woman came through the doorway. She was soaked. She bent over and wrung her dark hair out with strong but nicely shaped hands. When she looked up, they saw her face. She was everything her husband was not. She actually smiled at them.

Her husband said, "I told them there's no room."

She spoke in a joshing way. "Frank's getting old. He forgets things. There's plenty of room in the barn, if you don't mind the loft."

"We won't be needing a place if the rain lets up," Prine said. 'What we want is some information."

"Well," she said, elbowing old Frank in the ribs, "you came to the wrong place. Frank wouldn't tell you the time of day if you gave him the watch. He don't cotton much to strangers."

"Seems like he's in the right business," Prine said.

She smiled. "I'm Beth, by the way." She glanced impishly at her husband. "That's the way you have to talk to Frank. Make fun of him a little. God knows he deserves it, don't you, Frank?"

And then the damnedest thing happened. The hard face of Ichabod started reluctantly—very reluctantly—breaking into a tiny smile. Tiny, tiny, the way a kid will smile against his will when you start to tickle him.

"Damned women," he said, and then stalked out the front door and angled off, disappearing, presumably, for the barn or one of the other outbuildings.

She said, "He gets jealous. Sees two gents like you—nice-looking and nice manners and you with that badge—he always thinks I'm gonna leave him. That's what happened to his first wife. Up and left him for a traveling salesman. Took their only kid and he's never seen either of them again. I guess I wouldn't trust nobody either, somethin' like that happened to me. I better go talk to him. Settle him down some."

"Guess we may as well wait out the storm," Prine said.

"I hate to lose the time."

"We'll have a hard time finding their tracks in a downpour like this."

Neville's jaw muscles started to work. "Guess you're right."

Kerosene lanterns played chase with the shadows in the large, rectangular room.

They ate a passable supper of fried potatoes and beans. The stage arrived just as they were finishing up. The two men sat in the corner watching the people straggle in. The rain was finally letting up. The stage passengers settled in for the night. The driver was soaked and had to borrow clothes from Frank Barstow. You could hear that he already had a bad head cold. By morning it would probably move down into his chest.

The two gunnies didn't come until the rain was little more than a mist. Prine and Neville were already in their bedroll over in the corner. Most of the passengers were still at the tables, talking, though by now the words had gotten muffled from drowsiness. The majority of them would be asleep within half an hour.

Neville had the back of his hand over his eyes. He wasn't trying to sleep. Just rest.

"Bogstad and Case," Prine whispered to him.

"What?" Neville said.

Prine leaned down on an elbow and spoke softly. "I saw those two in town one day talking to Tolan. I got curious about them. They're gunnies and bounty hunters, it turns out."

"You think they had anything to do with the kidnapping?" Neville started to sit up, but Prine pushed him back down.

"Let's see what they're doing here. I doubt they had anything to do with the killing, or they wouldn't be around this close to town. But let's see why they're here."

Bogstad and Case were loud and insulting. They complained about the coffee, the food, the fire not being built up, and the lack of good-looking women on the stage. One of the male passengers spoke up in defense of his female traveling partners, but Case just told him to shut up or he'd be sorry.

They were wet and cold, they said, otherwise they'd leave this little hellhole. They looked like brothers—short, heavy, grimy, in need of a shave, a bath, and more than a little redemption. Prine had run dozens of men like Bogstad and Case into jail dozens of times. They just couldn't stand to see a peaceful situation, people getting along, enjoying themselves. Their pleasure was other people's misery. And they damned well made people miserable, too, threatening them, insulting them, humiliating them. They were especially good at embarrassing a man in front of his woman.

And that's where they got to around nine o'clock that night.

Frank and Beth sat at one of the tables with the passengers. They were talking about the forthcoming senatorial election. Everybody agreed that both men made pretty bad candidates.

Bogstad came up behind Beth and said, "I'd like the pleasure of this dance, lady."

She stayed sweet. "But there isn't any music."

"Don't need music. Now, stand up."

"I'd prefer to sit here with my husband and our guests."

Bogstad looked back at his partner and said, "She won't dance with me, Case. What should I do?"

"Kill her." He laughed.

"That sounds about right," Bogstad said.

An old woman at the table said, "We were having a nice conversation."

"Well, excuse me all to hell, old lady. But I want to dance with this here gal."

Bogstad had apparently assumed that nobody at the table would present him with any problem. Frank Barstow surprised everybody, maybe even himself.

Barstow brought up an early-model Colt that looked to weigh twenty-eight pounds. There were a lot better updated Colts on the market, but this one would do just fine, thank you. This close to his target, Barstow could put a considerable hole in Bogstad's chest.

"You and your friend git now. And I mean now." Bogstad grinned. "You shouldn't ever threaten a man when your hand is shakin' like that."

Prine saw what was going to happen and decided to step in. The first thing he did was stand up and quickly cross over to the chair where Case was sitting. Case was ready to draw when he thought he was needed. Prine showed him his badge and forced him to turn over both his gun and his Bowie knife.

Neville was up, too. He walked over to Bogstad and said, "Put the gun down. Your partner's covered. Nobody here to help you. Put the gun down and walk out of here, just as Mr. Barstow said. You understand?"

Bogstad wasn't a man of pride. He wouldn't fight on principle when he was outnumbered. He'd surrender his gun and his person, knowing that if you didn't kill Prine and Neville now, he would someday, some way have an opportunity to shoot them in the back and overtake them with a band of gunnies like himself. Patience was every bit as much a weapon as a six-gun. Prine always laughed at the dime-novel gunfights when they faced off many yards apart. Most gunfights involved the front of a pistol and the back of a human. Or an assassin in shadow. Most gunfighters were like Bogstad here. Cowards with Colts.

Bogstad handed his weapon to Prine. "Now, don't you go sellin' that on me. My ma gave me that for my third birthday." Since he didn't get a laugh, he said, "You're Prine. That deputy from Claybank. Maybe you should know that me 'n' Case over there're on the same side you are."

He turned around, faced Prine.

"Yeah, how's that?"

"We're after Tolan and Rooney, too. We don't think it's right that the pretty young gal shoulda been done that way."

"Of course, this wouldn't have anything to do with the reward, now, would it?"

Bogstad snorted. "Now, just because I don't look too good or smell too good or talk too good, don't mean I don't care about my fellow human beings."

"Where'd you get a line like that?"

"Theater," Case said from the back of the room. He pronounced it "thee-ater."

"Outside Kansas City. We was laughin' for days about it. Funniest daggone line I ever heard me."

Prine ignored him. "You have any idea where Tolan and Ronney are?"

Bogstad said, "Now, why would you think that?"

"Because I saw you talking to them at least twice in Claybank. Right before the kidnapping."

"We know 'em, sure," Bogstad said.

"From where?"

"Here and there. Around."

"That isn't very specific."

"We're sort of in the same line of work, you might say."

"But you wouldn't happen to know where they might have headed?"

"We got just about as much information as you do, Deputy."

Prine drove his fist hard into Bogstad's stomach. Bogstad doubled over. He looked shocked as well as pained. "What the hell was that for?"

"For interrupting these people. They were just having a nice time, and you had to ruin it for them."

He picked up Bogstad's six-shooter and emptied it of bullets, which he set on the table. "Now you and your partner get out of here, the way Mr. Barstow said." He handed Bogstad his empty gun.

Bogstad walked with some difficulty. He still couldn't stand up quite straight. The pain in his stomach was obviously still severe. He went to the door, and Case joined him there. Case preceded Bogstad outside.

Neville came up. "You're just letting them walk away? They may know something."

"I'm sure they do," Prine said. "And that's why we're going to follow them."

B
ogstad and Case took the route Prine had assumed they would. A town named Picaro lay twenty miles due north of here. It was the remnants of a boomtown notorious even among boomtowns for its violence and corruption. It was still innocent of any real law, so it would be a good place for two men on the run to put up for a while.

They climbed into the foothills again, the terrain rougher now, rocky on the one hand, muddy on the other. Bogstad and Case didn't make good time, nor did Prine and Neville.