Snake Eyes (9781101552469) (5 page)

The women pulled at their hair and some scooped up handfuls of dirt and anointed themselves by splashing the dirt onto their heads. Many of them moaned in sorrow and rubbed their reddened eyes or wiped tear streaks from their faces.

One of the women broke free of the others and rushed out to the body on Bill's horse. She screamed when she saw the cut rope around the dead man's neck. She tore at her hair and wailed. Two other women ran out and grabbed the woman and carried her, screaming and kicking, back to their midst where they wrapped her in their arms and stroked her dirt-filled hair.

“That is the widow,” Mike said. “Her name is Leda. They have a son who is eight years old.”

Brad dismounted and helped carry the dead man into one of the huts. The women had prepared a table, clearing it off and covering it with a blanket. Bill and Brad laid the man gently atop the table, faceup, and then stepped out of the way while Joe slipped the noose from around his neck.

“Let us go outside,” Joe said. “Let the women come inside to grieve and wash our friend's body to prepare him for burial.”

When they went back outside, five men, ranging in age from eighteen to thirty or so, rushed up and started haranguing Joe in the Basque language. Brad stood aside, trying to look inconspicuous. Mike came over and put an arm on his shoulder. He spoke to the men.

“This is Brad Storm, the man I hired to help us fight the Snake who murdered two of our compatriots. He is a detective. He is the man who just shot one of those cowboys.” He turned and pointed to the body on the hillside. “Go and take your anger out on that dead man. Scatter his bones to the wind.”

Joe held a sheet of paper in his hand. He handed it to Mike, who read it and handed it to Brad.

“What does that paper say?” one of the men asked.

Brad handed the paper over to Bill.

“Joe found this inside Polentzi's shirt,” Mike said, in a loud voice. “It is a warning to all of us.”

“What does it say?” asked another man, the oldest in the group.

“It says, ‘Get out you filthy sheepherders or you will die.' ” The men grumbled and cursed in loud voices. Their anger showed on their faces. Then the oldest man pulled his knife from its sheath on his belt and held it high in the air. He said something in Basque, then started running toward the man Brad had killed. The others followed, all waving knives in the air, knives that flashed silver bolts in the sun.

A look of sadness came over Mike's face.

“By tomorrow,” he said, “the other herders will be here, and these valleys will flow with sheep. I hope you can find this Snake and kill him or take him to Denver to be hanged.”

“I'm going to see if I can pick up on the tracks of the men who hanged your friend,” Brad said. “I may be gone for a few days.”

“Do you wish me to come with you?”

“No. If I need help, I'll ride back and we'll put together some men to go after those killers.”

“I am glad you are on our side, Brad.”

“I wouldn't have it any other way, Mike.”

“Even though we are sheepherders?”

“Mike, when I see an injustice it makes my blood boil. I have had my share of troubles with law breakers. You and your friends have been wronged, brutally wronged. And I've been hired to help you. It will be my pleasure to bring this Schneck and his henchmen to justice.”

“What do you mean by justice, Brad?” Mike asked. “Personally or legally?”

“Personally. I think we both know what is meant by ‘legally.' ”

“Yes,” Mike said.

“Personally, justice to me is that the men I'm after will either face the gallows or the grave.”

“And, does it make any difference which?”

“I'd like to bring the murderer or murderers before the court in Denver. But if I am unable to do that, I will bring their dead bodies to Boot Hill.”

“That is good enough for me, Brad.”

“I hope it is good enough for the judge in Denver.”

It was then that three women emerged from the cabin. One of them was Leda Polentzi, the widow of Rafael. She, like the other women, wore a multicolored dress, consisting of layers of dyed sackcloth—red, green, black, and yellow. Lace-up boots, a woolen sweater, and a bright orange scarf completed her wardrobe.

“I have just learned that you killed the man who murdered my husband,” she said to Storm. “I am very grateful, and I will pray for you.”

She reached up and touched his hand. He looked into her hazel eyes. They were brimmed with tears. Her dark hair framed an oval face that was smooth and did not yet show lines of age or furrows of worry on her forehead. Brad figured her to be in her early twenties, although her eyes reflected a wisdom beyond her young years.

“I am sorry for your loss, ma'am,” Brad said and patted the back of her hand.

“There is much sorrow here,” she said. “Rafael was a good man, a good husband, and the father of our child. I am so sad that he has gone to heaven.”

“Yes'm,” Brad said, “so am I.”

He did not tell her that there were probably more men involved in the hanging than the one he had shot. He just looked at her until she broke their locked gaze and turned and joined the other two women. Together they went back into the gloom of the cabin where her husband lay dead on a table, already stripped of his clothing, naked, awaiting the cleansing of his corpse.

Brad glanced sidelong at the top of the bluff. He saw the tiny flash of light that told him someone was looking down on them with binoculars.

“Don't look at the bluffs, Mike,” he said, “but we are being watched. I'm going up there to see if I can flush out the other men who helped with the hanging.”

Mike resisted the impulse to look toward the bluffs. He was beginning to trust this quiet man who had given him confidence that the killing would stop.

“I wish you the good luck, Brad,” Mike said. “Take care when you go after them.”

Brad said nothing. He turned Ginger and rode off toward the far end of the bluffs, where the valley met yet another patch of thick forest. He hoped that the men atop the bluff would think that he was leaving and would continue to lie there in the brush passing a pair of binoculars back and forth. He knew he could ride up to the sloping far end of the ridge and perhaps come upon them before they lit a shuck and left their position.

He felt their eyes on him as he crossed the valley and saw the few head of sheep grazing on the shoots of grass that were pushing up from the soil. He thought of his own cattle streaming into just such a foraging place on his ranch and longed to be home with Felicity in time for the calving that was sure to come.

Brad disappeared into the timber and followed a game trail up the slope, careful to make as little noise as possible. His nostrils filled with the heady scent of pine, spruce, juniper, and fir. A chipmunk squealed and dashed away ahead of him, its tail wagging a frantic semaphore until it disappeared into a hole behind a rock. Blue jays screeched, sending out a warning to all who would hear, their calls reaching both the valley and the escarpment in the thin mountain air.

Ginger stepped on earth enriched by the snowmelt and still soft and damp under the canopy of pines. Brad saw wolf tracks and cougar tracks and could smell their scents mixed in with the heady aroma of loam. He reached the top and wended his way toward the place where he had seen the flash of sunlight on glass, making a wide semicircle to come up behind the man or men who lay there, watching the sheep camp.

The timber thinned, and he avoided the decomposing deadfalls that were strewn in the underbrush. He felt at home there, high above the valley, slipping through the tall pines and past old elk rubs on shattered juniper trees. A hawk floated in the sky above him and the jays followed, flitting from branch to branch, oddly silent, as if they had accepted him as just another denizen of the forest and the mountains. Small clouds flocked the sky, white against the stark, eye-breaking blue, and sunlight streamed through the trees and danced with dust motes that were like ghostly fireflies in the shafts of pale golden light.

He wondered where the cattle ranchers were grazing their herd. He wondered how big the herd was and how many men Schneck had brought with him to the high country. So many questions, so many doubts.

Now he concentrated on making a beeline for where he had seen the light. He rode by dead reckoning, sure of his grasp of terrain and distance. He sniffed the air for the smell of horses, their droppings, the leather saddles. He trusted his nose, his sense of smell. In the wilderness, he knew a man must be always aware of his surroundings, which meant that he must pay close attention to the feel of the air on his skin, the scent in his nostrils, and whatever sounds, distant or close, soft or loud, that reached his ears.

A blind man could do no better than Brad when it came to the full use of his senses. The senses were his way of seeing without seeing in the thick timber or out on the prairie.

As he drew closer to the rim of the bluffs, he reined up Ginger and stopped him in his tracks.

He waited long moments and listened for the slightest sound, the wheeze of a horse, the clump of a footfall, the clearing of a man's throat.

He waited and listened with the patience of a hunter, the stalking intensity of a mountain lion.

It was very quiet, but he knew he was close to men who might be waiting in ambush.

For Brad knew that the hunter could also become the hunted.

He sat there on that solemn and silent edge of consciousness where all of his senses were tuned to the highest pitch, waiting for that moment when prey might step out from hiding and stand still for a fraction of eternity, suspicious and wary in the deep and invisible silence.

Halbert Sweeney handed the binoculars to the man next to him, LouDon Jackson.

“That sure as hell ain't no sheepherder,” Sweeney said.

“Did you see how fast that bastard drew his gun?” Jackson said. “No, he ain't no sheepherder.”

“I never knowed nobody to slap leather that quick. Poor Rudy never had a chance.”

“Why in hell did Rudolph stand up right out there in the open? Like he was scared or somethin'?”

“I don't know, but that was some fancy shootin'. I wish Rudy had ducked or run away.”

They watched as Storm went through Rudy's pockets, then saw Storm walk over to talk to the other sheepmen.

The two men continued to observe Storm through the binoculars. Finally, they watched him ride across the valley alone. They only saw a few sheep and one sheepdog with a shepherd tending to the small flock.

“I guess that jasper's leavin', LouDon,” Sweeney said.

“Yeah, but where's he goin'?”

“Hell, I don't know. Probably someplace where he don't have to listen to them hysterical women. Did you ever hear such a caterwaulin'?”

“I don't trust that soddy,” Sweeney said. “There's somethin' about the way he sits that horse and the way he shot poor Rudy. I'll bet them sheepherders done hired themselves a gunslinger.”

“Well, Snake ain't goin' to like it none.”

“To hell with Snake. I didn't sign on to rope no boy and string him up.”

“Otto wants them sheep out of the valley,” Sweeney said.

“Hell, there ain't enough sheep to make a stew,” LouDon said.

“I don't see what's got Schneck in such a dither, then. Unless they's more sheep on the way.”

“That's probably it, Hal. Snake don't want no sheep gob-blin' up all the grass up here.”

The two men continued to watch as Brad disappeared into the timber. They looked down at the sheepherders for a few minutes, and then LouDon took off the binoculars and put them back in their case.

Both men crawled backward away from the rim of the bluffs. They stood up and started to walk toward their horses, which were ground-tied to a pine some yards away.

As they neared their mounts, Sweeney halted suddenly and put out a hand to stay LouDon.

“Listen,” he said. “I thought I heard somethin'. Off yonder.” He pointed to the thick woods beyond where they stood.

“Yeah. I think that gunslick must've rid up here to get after us. They's somebody out there, sure as hell.”

“Let's get out of here,” Sweeney said in a loud whisper.

The two men tiptoed to their horses, untied the reins, and stepped into their saddles.

They had begun to ride away when Storm stepped into view. He was on foot and held a Winchester rifle in his hands.

There was no time to think.

The two men put spurs to their horses and galloped away. They disappeared into the deep timber, turning their horses to race away in a zigzag pattern. They both looked back, expecting to hear a rifle shot at any time.