The Chili Queen (17 page)

Ned wished he’d bought a whip at the store to hurry the horses. He slapped the reins over their backs, and they ran like the devil for a minute or two, then exhausted themselves and settled back into their slow plod, and nothing would arouse them. From time to time, Ned turned around to see whether anyone was behind them, but there was no sign of the sheriff. After an hour or two, he relaxed. Without thinking, he slapped Emma’s knee and exclaimed, “I guess we got away with it.”

Emma stared at him a moment before turning away. “With what?”

Ned felt silly. She was right, of course. They hadn’t gotten away with anything. They had only gotten away. It had been a foolhardy adventure. Even if they hadn’t pulled off the robbery, they could have been arrested. He wouldn’t like it on his conscience that he was responsible for Emma winding up in prison. Hell, he wouldn’t like it to be on his conscience that he was in prison. He’d seen how upset Emma was when she heard the teller was knifed. What if Ned had shot the man? Would Emma have insisted they go for a doctor? And what if Emma had shot him? She’d have been as useless then as jelly in the sun. Maybe they were damn-fool lucky that they’d gotten away.

He slapped the horses with the reins again, out of frustration, really, since it still did no good. He glanced at Emma, who was staring out across the plains. A wind had picked up since they left Jasper, moving the prairie grasses like waves on the Mississippi. The wind was hot, but it felt good. It calmed him, and after a while Ned’s good humor returned. He smiled to himself when he realized that he and Emma would have to camp somewhere that night. Their plan had been to return to Nalgitas the way they’d come, driving all night. But going north, as they were, there was no way they could reach Nalgitas. They would have to spend the night together.

“We will have to find an encampment this evening,” Emma said, as if reading his thoughts. Then she laughed. “It is a good thing we bought those blankets and the provisions. Why, we even have a coffeepot and cups.”

“Are you sorry we did this?” Ned asked. “I wasn’t very smart, I guess.”

“No, you are smart enough. I will hand you that.” Emma shrugged. “But neither you nor I thought it through, and it will cost us. You will get something back for these horses, but we are out the price of the hotel and what we purchased at the store. If you will let me know the amount, I will reimburse you half when I get my money from John.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“Perhaps I will give you forty percent then, as you agreed to pay me only that amount from the proceeds.”

“But I intended to give you half all along,” Ned said, then laughed. “I believe you could make your living running a bank, not robbing one.”

They rode through the afternoon, not talking much. From time to time, Ned turned to look behind them. Emma did, too, but the road was deserted. Ned had convinced himself they were alone on the prairie and was thinking about a campsite when Emma touched his arm. “Behind us there is dust,” she said.

Ned turned and judging from the dirt that was stirred up, he knew there was more than one rider. He urged the team forward, then gave up, knowing his horses couldn’t outrun a cow, let alone men on horseback. Whoever it was would catch up in a few minutes. He removed his gun from the holster and placed it on the wagon seat between them, while Emma put her own gun beside her, under her skirt. Then she reached for her sewing basket. When the posse caught up with them, Emma was stitching.

The sheriff shifted painfully in his saddle as he stopped beside the wagon. “You folks seen anybody?” he asked.

“Not since we left Jasper,” Ned replied.

“Bank got robbed. We’re looking for two men.”

“We heard about that. The hotel clerk told us,” Ned said.

“He also told us the teller was hurt,” Emma said, putting her sewing in her lap and leaning forward. “Is he all right?”

“He died out. He said the Minder brothers done it. They’re as mean as they come. There wasn’t any need to smash Stingy Dan—God rest his soul—since he gave them the money.” The sheriff touched his hat again. “If it is the Minders, you folks best be on the lookout. There ain’t ever no knowing what they’ll do.”

“What makes you think they came this way?” Ned asked.

The sheriff jerked his thumb at one of the three deputies who accompanied him. “Wattie here says two men left out right after the robbery, heading this way. Could have been anybody, but we got to go in some direction, and this is as good as any. The information’s pretty scattering. Wattie says it could have been Ned Partner, too. He used to raise old scratch out this way, but I ain’t heard of him in a while.”

“Are there no honest people in this country?” Emma asked tartly.

“Only yourselves, I reckon,” the sheriff said in way of a joke. “Say, you wouldn’t have buttermilk on you, would you? This is agitation work, and I sure would like a glass of buttermilk.”

“I would like one myself. I could drink buttermilk all day,” Ned told him, although he hated the stuff.

The sheriff seemed in no hurry to move along. Then Ned remembered the man’s pains and knew he sorely did hurt and would want an excuse to sit longer. So Ned said, “I guess we’d best hurry along home. We wouldn’t want to meet whoever did the deed.”

“Where was you farming?” the sheriff asked.

Ned swallowed. “The Johnson place,” he said.

The sheriff cocked his head and thought a moment, then nodded. Ned knew he’d never heard of anybody named Johnson but didn’t want to admit it.

“We are not buggy riding. If you have no further need of us, we must be on our way,” Emma said.

Ned rolled his eyes to show that Emma was an exasperation. The sheriff touched his hat to her and muttered, “Ma’am.” Then he led the posse past the wagon and rode off.

“Sheriff Tate is meek as a sheep and dumb as a calf,” Ned observed, as he urged the horses down the road the posse had taken. “Still, I don’t like the idea of my name festering in his mind.”

“Out here, we’re as plain to see as an elephant in a watch pocket,” Emma told him. “Perhaps we should leave the wagon behind and ride the horses.”

Ned had thought the same thing, although he did not know how much faster they would go riding bareback on a pair of old plugs. Perhaps they could acquire horses at a farm, but he doubted it. Then he remembered a man he’d once ridden with who’d gone to farming. He had a place not far away and was known to accommodate his old friends. Ned told Emma to climb back in the wagon and put on her shirt and pants. She did so without a question, and when she was dressed, Ned asked her to make two bedrolls out of the blankets, wrapping up inside them as much of the rations and anything else she wanted as two horses could carry. While Emma picked through their things, Ned turned the wagon off the road onto a trail that wound through a gully. He stopped at a protected spot and said Emma should wait there for him with the bedrolls. Taking a shovel from the wagon, he asked her to bury any clothes she hadn’t wrapped in the blankets, while he went on alone to see about horses. He didn’t want his friend to know he was with a woman. Ned promised to be back in an hour. He clicked his tongue at the team and took off as fast as they could go, before Emma could ask what he’d do if his friend wasn’t there or couldn’t spare the stock.

But the man was at home, happy to provide Ned with two horses and saddles, although he drove a hard bargain. Ned had to give him the team and wagon along with the provisions left in it and pay him fifty dollars. Ned didn’t have time to argue, however. As he told Emma later, it was root, hog, or die, and he was lucky to get the horses at any price.

The sky had turned crimson by the time Ned returned to Emma, who was waiting next to a mound of dirt covered by rocks. The shovel stuck out of one of two fat bedrolls, lying next to Emma’s portmanteau. As he fitted the bag’s handle over his own saddle horn, Ned explained that there was a canyon to the west where they would camp. He picked up a bedroll and said they couldn’t have made it with the wagon, for the trail into the depths was suitable only for horses. He wished the light would last longer, but he thought he could find it in the dark. The ride would be a hard one, Ned said, glancing at Emma to see if she was up to it.

Emma only nodded, as she finished securing the second bedroll. Ned was impressed at the expert way she fastened it to her saddle, and for an instant, he wondered where she had learned such a thing. That wasn’t something a farm girl would know, but it didn’t matter, and the thought left his mind. He mounted and galloped off, Emma behind him.

They crossed the main road and angled west across the prairie, to avoid the posse if it returned. Ned would be hard-pressed to explain to the sheriff why he and his sister had abandoned their wagon and were mounted on horses, and why Emma was dressed like a man. There was no trail, and they rode through the long dried grass until it was dark. If they had to, they could make a campsite on the prairie, Ned supposed, although he wouldn’t feel comfortably safe about it. But Ned was good at remembering trails, and he spotted a rock formation that looked familiar and led Emma to it. He dismounted, and leading his horse, he looked for a cut between two rocks that marked the entrance into the depths. It took nearly thirty minutes, but at last, he found the spot and told Emma they would reach the bottom in an hour or so.

He looked at her face to gauge how tired she was, but by then, it was too dark for him to make out her features. Emma seemed to know what he was thinking, however, and she said, “I will make it.”

As he mounted his horse and led the way, Ned felt a drop of rain on his hand, then another. “By zam! It hasn’t rained in five years, and we get it tonight. It’ll be slow going.”

“But the rain will cover our tracks,” Emma replied. “No one can follow us.”

The canyon wall was no shelter against the storm, and the going was miserable. The trail that hugged the side of the cliff was steep, and Ned feared the moisture would wash it out, so he went slowly. After a while, the rain turned into hail that seemed as big as guinea hen eggs. Ned hoped it wouldn’t make the horses skittish and considered waiting for the hail to stop. But the horses were just as likely to panic while standing still, so Ned kept on. As they descended into the canyon in the heavy dark, the hail turned to a steady drizzle. Once, Ned’s horse stumbled, and Ned pulled him up tight, sweating a little despite the rain that made the night as cold as November. On one side of the trail was a sharp drop-off, and if the horse lost his footing, both he and Ned would fall hundreds of feet onto the canyon floor. He wondered what Emma would do if he disappeared over the edge. Behind him, Emma’s horse dislodged a stone that rolled past him and fell so far into the canyon that he didn’t hear it land. Then he heard Emma cry out and turned quickly, but he couldn’t see her in the blackness.

“A branch hit me,” she called.

Ned wondered if he should dismount and lead his horse, but he wasn’t sure there was even room to do that. Besides, the trail was slick, and the horse was surer footed than he was. So he kept going, letting the horse feel the way. After a long time, there was a flash that showed they had reached a wide place on the trail. Ned waited for Emma to come up beside him. “You going to make it?” he asked her.

“You will not find me wanting,” she replied. “But I wish I had bought a heavy coat. I would find it a more agreeable companion than the rain.”

Ned could think of a number of more agreeable companions, but he didn’t mention them. “Not much farther now,” he told her, although he knew they had come only a little way down the trail.

He led off into the darkness again, staying as close to the rock wall as possible, Emma behind him. The rain didn’t let up, but after a while, the wind no longer penetrated the canyon. Another flash of lightning lit up the trail, illuminating the drop-off beside them. Ned wondered if Emma was afraid of heights. There was nothing he could do about it if she was, so he didn’t ask.

Ned judged it was nearly midnight when the trail finally leveled off, then widened. It had taken them four, maybe five hours to make the descent. He stopped his horse and waited for Emma, who was farther behind than he’d thought. But in a few minutes, she stopped beside him, breathing heavily.

“Done?” she asked.

“A little farther. There’s an adobe somewhere down here. It’s better shelter than a tree.”

“Can you find it?”

Her voice shook, and Ned knew she was shivering and tired, but she didn’t complain. He was tempted to leave her there and look for the shack, but he wasn’t sure he could find his way back to her. So he said they would search together. But after half an hour of looking, Emma begged Ned to camp where they were. He picked a spot under a rock overhang, and they unsaddled the horses. Since it was too wet to make a fire, they wrapped themselves in their blankets, then Ned opened the sardines that Emma had stuffed into one of the bedrolls, and they ate them with damp crackers. Ned stashed their other things, pleased that Emma had brought along the coffeepot and a pound of coffee. She would wake to the smell of camp coffee. Ned told her as much, as he opened the lid of the pot and braced it against a rock where it would catch the rainwater. He wished they had bought sausages and pork ribs so they could have a decent breakfast. “Do you think a shovel would work as a frying pan?” he asked Emma. She didn’t reply, and Ned looked closely at her, but he had talked her to sleep. He gently pulled the blanket up to Emma’s chin, then studied her shape in the darkness before he lay down a few feet away from her and fell into a deep sleep.

As it turned out, Emma wasn’t awakened by the smell of coffee, but by the toe of a boot pressed against her. So was Ned, although the boot toe gave him a sharp kick. He awakened in an instant, and his first thought was that the posse had followed them into the canyon. But as he slowly raised his head, he was overcome by a feeling of revulsion, even before he recognized Earlie’s sly face. Earlie was drunk and stinking very bad, and he held a gun in his hand. It was pointed at Ned.

“We don’t see you for maybe four, five years. Now we see you twice in one day,” Black Jesse told him.