The Savage Trail (10 page)

John knew that the closer they got to dawn, the more dangeroustheir journey would be. Not only were he and Ben tired, but the light would become trickier just before the sun came up, when the stars began to fade and the moon was setting. He did not know how far they were from Cheyenne, but he knew the horses were eating up the miles at a steady pace.

Ahead, he thought, Hobart and Rosa Delgado could be waiting in ambush, ready to pick them off with rifles. Or Hobartcould have met up with cronies in Cheyenne and returned to bushwhack them before they even got to the settlement. These were worries he kept to himself because he didn't want to alarm Ben. But his senses were prickling as the night began to age and he could feel changes in the temperature.

“I wonder if we might not want to get off this road until we get to Cheyenne,” Ben said an hour later.

“Have you been reading my thoughts?” John asked.

“You got that same feeling, Johnny?”

“What feeling?”

“About bein' the onliest ones on this road and it bein' dark as pitch. Hobart could be waiting in the brush for us, him and that Mexican gal.”

“It occurred to me. The closer we get to dawn, the harder it's going to be to see ahead of us.”

“Yeah, and might not see nothin' until it's too late,” Ben said.

“Wouldn't hurt to ride over some rough country until sunup. Keep us awake.”

“Yeah. Might just save our lives, too,” Ben said.

The two men turned their horses to the east and got off the road.

“Just let the horses pick their way through this brush,” Ben said. “Take it slow.”

“Good idea,” John said.

AFTER A TIME, THE SKY IN THE EAST BEGAN TO PALE. JOHN RUBBED his eyes as his vision shifted. Clumps of grass and brush changed shape, lost all definition. He could no longer see the ribbon of road off to the west and the mountains seemed to move toward them, then retreat, each time he looked in that direction.

Light spilled over the eastern horizon like cream rising in a bowl. Suddenly rocks and brush began to take shape and cast shadows. The mountains seemed to be etched out of darkness, and John could see the folds and contours of the foothills, the faint bristle of trees on the slopes. The dawn light moved slowly across the land, bringing nearby objects into sharp relief as if created on the spot by a master sculptor. He stretched in the saddle, yawned, and in his mind, he could hear a rooster crow, as if he had been transported back home to the family farm.

“Gettin' light,” Ben said, as if he had just now noticed it.

“No,” John cracked. “I thought it was getting darker.”

“Aw, Johnny. I guess I deserved that. But after all that dark, mornin's like a miracle to me.”

He, too, stretched in the saddle as if just awakening in his bed and John laughed at the mirror image of himself.

“Keep a sharp eye out, Ben.”

“Can't make out much now.”

“Just watch for anything out of place along that road yonder.”

“Like what?” Ben asked.

“Hell, I don't know. Anything. Hobart. The Mexican woman. Somebody standing on a rock with spyglasses up to his eyes.”

“A mite testy ain't ye, Johnny? Like your nerves was rubbed raw with sandpaper.”

“I'm tired, Ben. Bone tired.”

“Hell, who ain't? Horses, too. Look at 'em, all bleary-eyed and droopy. I was just wonderin' what you expect me to see, that's all.”

“I'm not expecting you to see a damned thing, Ben. Just keep your eyes peeled, that's all. I don't trust Hobart.”

“Me, neither,” Ben said and shot John a sullen glance. He made a show of looking ahead, over toward the road. He stood up in the stirrups, then sank back down in the saddle.

John wanted to swat him.

White streamers of clouds in the northern sky turned salmon, the air chilled a few degrees as the sun sucked up the cold from the ground, the scent of sagebrush and buffalo grass wafted to their nostrils. John scanned the horizon ahead, edged his horse toward the road for a better look at the way ahead.

There were no wagons, no riders, no carts at that hour. Ben followed him and they rode parallel to the road.

“Clean as a billiard ball,” Ben said after a time.

“What?”

“That road's empty as a pauper's pocket.”

“Yeah. He won't be on the road, Ben.”

“Oh, where will he be? A-floatin' like a hawk in that blue sky? Crawlin' through the brush like a lizard?”

“Eat another coffee bean, Ben. You're plumb delirious from lack of sleep.”

“Hell, I'm just conversin', Johnny, making light of the situation.”

John opened his mouth to say something clever or cruel, but something caught his eye and he held up a hand, reined in Gent, slowing the horse down.

“Hold up, Ben.”

“Huh?”

John pulled his horse to a halt. He stared across the road, fixed on a rocky outcropping some five hundred yards or so distant.

“I thought I saw something,” John said.

“On the road?”

“No, a hundred yards or so off to the left. See those spires yonder? That jumble of something that looks like rocks? Off there in the flat, with nothing much else around it?”

Ben swept the land with his gaze, his head turning slightly. Then he stopped.

“I see something. Rocks, I reckon. Can't make out much else. What'd you see, Johnny?”

“I don't know. Might have been nothing.” John's voice was very soft, almost a whisper.

He closed his eyes, squeezed them tight with his muscles, then opened them again.

He stared at the rocks, the thin reddish spires jutting up, making a visible silhouette.

“There,” John said. “See it?”

“What?”

“A glint. Like something silver or gold. A flash, just to the left of that rocky spire sticking up like a petrified stick.”

They sat there, both staring at the same place.

Several seconds passed as the sun rose higher in the sky. The land glowed with its light and the rocks stood out in stark relief. A light breeze blew warm against their cheeks.

Then a flash of light struck their eyes, and another, as if the sun's rays were glancing off a pair of mirrors.

“Shit, oh shit,” Ben murmured. “Right there in them rocks. Somebody's a-settin' there, just waitin' for somebody to pass by. Ooooohhhweee. Just a-settin' there pretty as you please.”

“Wish I had a pair of binoculars,” John said.

“Hell, you don't need 'em. I can see pretty good. There's at least two jaspers hidin' behind them rocks, and that sparkle was right off a couple of rifle barrels.”

“Hobart?” John breathed.

“Hobart, I don't know. But whoever's there ain't huntin' jackrabbits. We better light out, John, fast as we can git.”

“No, they've likely seen us.”

“We got a good head start. We ride east and put a hell of a lot of distance between us.”

“No. Hobart wants a showdown, we'll give him one.”

“Are you plumb crazy, John? We're out in the open. They got them rocks for cover.”

John thought about it. He surveyed the terrain, assessed their chances. He didn't know how many men they were facing,but at least two, maybe three or four. His empty stomach felt queasy.

He had a decision to make and their lives hung in the balance.

Neither man spoke for several minutes.

Quick spurts of dazzling lights shot from the rocks. Not quartz, not mica, not embedded gold. Rifles.

“John?”

“I've made up my mind, Ben. We can do it.”

“Do what?”

John didn't answer right away. He was still mulling over the skeleton of a plan. Seconds ticked by as he worked over the last details, went over every action in his mind.

The stillness was as loud as thunder in his ears. His mouth was as dry as desert dust.

He waited as his nerves stretched tighter and tighter like a thin wire holding a metal basket filling up with anvils, the basketgetting heavier and heavier, the wire tautening until it was as thin as a strand of the finest hair.

14

JOHN TURNED HIS HEAD AND LOOKED AT THE EASTERN HORIZON. Then he held up a hand in front of his eyes, closed off all but three fingers. He held the three fingers up to block off a space just above the horizon.

“What're you doin', John?” Ben asked.

“A little trick Pa showed me when we were hunting,” John said.

“Holding up three fingers?”

“We did it mostly at the end of the day, just before sunset.”

“I don't want to sound stupid,” Ben said, “but what the hell for?”

“Each finger is roughly fifteen minutes. If you hold your hand up just under the spot where the sun is, you can tell how long it'll be before sunset.”

“Does it really work?”

“Every time,” John said.

“So this is morning.”

“I want to see how long it will take the sun to rise above the horizon so that it shines directly into the eyes of whoever is laying for us behind those rocks.”

The sun was just barely above the horizon. It glowed with an orange flame, shimmered with a blinding brilliance.

“And how long do you figure?” Ben asked.

“A little over fifteen minutes should be about right.”

“You don't aim to ride straight into them guns?”

“I sure do,” John said.

“You're plumb crazy. We ought to just hightail it and ride east in a big old loop.”

A quail piped a solitary lyric somewhere to the north of them. In the thin, still air, the sound carried a long way. Nothingstirred nearby and John kept staring at the rocks. Every so often, he saw a glimmer of light.

“They'd be on us like hair on a bear, Ben. We'd run our horses to death trying to stay ahead of them. No, I've got a plan that might work. A little risky, but the odds are in our favor.”

“You a gambler now?” Ben's voice was thick with sarcasm.

“We've got the sun at our backs. If we start riding toward them real slow, they'll sit tight until we're within a certain range.”

“Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of. We get within a hunnert yards and they'll pick us off like turtles on a swamp log.”

“We're going to ride toward those rocks single file, Ben. Me in the lead. We're both going to hunker down so we don't give them a target until we get close to a hundred yards from them. Then, when I say the word, we're going to put the spurs to these horses and ride like hell, pistols cocked. If I zig, you zig. If I zag, you zag.”

“Suicide, that's sure as hell what it is, Johnny.”

“I'm counting on those bushwhackers to get all rattled when we charge in on them. By the time we get within pistol range, they'll have empty rifles and wet pants.”

Ben slid his hat back and scratched his forehead.

“That's the craziest idea I ever heard,” Ben said.

“Maybe, but it's the only idea I have.”

“It might work.”

“They won't expect us to ride straight at them.”

“No, 'cause they're probably not loco.”

“That sun's going to blind them for fair.”

“If we time it right, it might play hob with their eyes, all right.”

“We can cover a hundred yards at a gallop faster than they can figure out what we're doing, I think.”

“Still, we're out in the open. They got rocks to pertect 'em.”

“My guess is they'll step out and try to pick us off with their pistols. Once we're close enough, I'll yell and you break off from behind me and start spitting lead at them. First bullet they hear coming, they'll dive for the dirt.”

“You think.”

“Well, I have to figure they're not just going to stand there with empty rifles or try to stuff cartridges in the magazines.”

“You give this a heap of thought, did you, Johnny?”

John looked at the sun again, a quick glance so he wouldn't burn his eyes. More of the blazing disk had slid up over the horizon, and more was coming.

“Let's start now,” he said to Ben. “You fall in right behind me and hunker down low. Stay as close as you can and just watch Gent's rump.”

“Not an appetizin' sight, Johnny.”

“It'll keep you alive, Ben.”

“So you say.” Ben spat and reined Dynamite in behind Savage.

John took one more measurement with his fingers, then touched the blunt spurs to Gent's flanks. They started moving toward the rock pile. Now, Savage thought, he would have to tick off seconds in his mind. Keep track of time and hope he was right. The timing was everything, and still, he knew he was taking a big chance. He didn't know how many men he was facing, but he figured at least two. And it could be Hobart and that Delgado woman.

He kept his eyes on the rock spires, kept Gent on a straight line. His stomach knotted up as the distance shrank. He still couldn't make out how many rifles he was facing, but he was looking for movement. Whoever was behind those rocks must be wondering what he was doing riding straight at them. Maybe they were counting their chickens before they were hatched, thinking he was just curious.

He sat straight in the saddle. When he looked at Ben out of the corner of his eye, not moving his head very much, he saw that Ben was hugging his horse's neck, flattened out on the saddle like a griddle cake.

He had to figure time and distance. He measured the distancewith his eyes, hoping he was right. He would soon know. They were still at a walk and the rocks looked closer. Were closer. He figured they were less than four hundred yards from the rifles by then. And none of the bushwhackers had moved from their hiding place.