“Follow me!”
“I’ve been following you,” the girl said, stepping down from her buckskin’s back. “Where are we going?”
Hunter leaped onto a narrow trail that twisted around the boulders comprising the ridge, steeply climbing. “Almost there!”
He climbed maybe twenty yards up the ridge, angling sharply to his right. He stopped at a thick pile of brush. Many rocks of all shapes and sizes were strewn down the steep slope, making a large pile at the bottom around and over which small trees and more brush grew, nearly concealing the old prospector’s mine tailings.
Hunter quickly removed the brush that he’d piled against the slope until the mine portal lay revealed before him. He’d piled the brush there to conceal the mine entrance from anyone else snooping around the cabin.
“What are you doing, Hunter?” Annabelle asked, deeply puzzled but also amused.
“Come on!”
“Where?”
“In here!”
Annabelle stopped and stared up at the splintery cross- and side-beams of the portal, hand-adzed from pine logs. The right side-beam was cracked down the middle and the upper beam sagged on that side.
Anna punched the side-beam with the back of her right hand. “Are you sure this will hold? Looks little more substantial than a matchstick!”
“Ah, hell,” Hunter said, punching the side-beam himself and taking Annabelle’s hand. “That’ll be there for the next hundred years. Come on!”
He’d just started to draw her into the mine when a chortling wail sounded. Annabelle gasped. She and Hunter turned to see Bobby Lee sitting on the slope below the mine, snout in the air, his bushy gray tail curled around him.
Again, the coyote yammered.
“What is it, Bobby?” Hunter called.
“Someone’s out there,” Annabelle said uneasily. “Someone must have followed us out from town.”
Hunter stepped out of the mine and looked around. He shrugged. “I don’t see anyone. I kept a pretty close eye on our back trail too.” He paused, looked around again.
Bobby Lee stared at him ambiguously, moaning in his throat.
“He’s just nervous from all the shooting in town.” Hunter took Annabelle’s hand again, drew her into the mine. “He’ll let us know if there’s real trouble. Come on.”
CHAPTER 8
As Hunter led Annabelle down the dark tunnel that smelled of mud and stone, Anna looked around at the crudely chipped walls and ceiling, braced by occasional wood supports like the portal, and made a face. “Aren’t there bats in here?”
“Oh, a few. Likely still asleep. If we move quiet-like, we won’t wake ’em.” Hunter squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Come on. Keep close. It’s only dark for a little ways.”
Hunter was tall enough that he had to remove his hat and crouch to keep his head from scraping the ceiling. Slowly but with resolute purpose, he strode forward into the darkness, holding Annabelle’s hand in his left hand, his hat in his right. The air was cooler in here, dank and rife with the stench of mushrooms and bat guano.
“Stinks,” Anna said, following on his heels, their feet occasionally colliding.
“You’ll forget about the smell in a minute.”
“I doubt it.”
“Trust me.”
She gave a snort but also squeezed his hand that clutched hers, letting him know that she did, in no uncertain terms, trust him.
Maybe thirty feet ahead, a shaft of dim light angled down from the ceiling. Hunter moved toward it, occasionally stumbling over a rock that had fallen from above or out of one of the walls, between the bracing pine timbers. When he came to where the light spread a murky, watery pool onto the cave floor, he stopped.
Anna was so close that she ran into him, giving a little gasp.
“End of the trail?” she asked dryly.
“End of the trail.”
Hunter released Annabelle’s hand and turned to the wall on his right. The light came from a cleft running clear up through the ceiling to the top of the mountain. The original prospector had probably used it as an airshaft. The light made visible several rocks set low in the cave wall.
Hunter dropped to a knee, wrapped both hands around one of the rocks, and, bunching his lips with effort, pulled it out of the wall. When it slid free he set it down, then removed two more rocks roughly the size of a wheel hub, and also set them down on the cave floor.
“Now I just have to hope no rattlesnakes slithered into my hole while I’ve been away,” Hunter said, turning sideways to the hole and thrusting his left hand inside.
“Hunter . . .” Anna said cautiously.
“Oh!” he cried, snapping his mouth and eyes wide in mock horror. “One’s got me! It’s got me!”
Anna gave a startled scream, then slapped his shoulder. “You idiot! I hope it fills you full of poison!”
Hunter gave a raking, snorting laugh and pulled his arm out of the hole. His hand was wrapped around the neck of a burlap pouch roughly the size of a ten-pound bag of sugar.
“What on earth . . . ?” Annabelle said.
“Hold on.”
Hunter set the pouch down against the base of the cave wall and reached into the hole three more times, pulling out three more burlap pouches around the same size as the first one. He looked at Annabelle, who knelt beside him, sliding her curious gaze between the pouches and Hunter.
Hunter smiled enticingly, then picked up one of the pouches and scuttled over to where the light slanted directly into the cave from above. “Come here.”
Anna scuttled over to him. She knelt just across from him, on the other side of the shaft of weakening, pale-salmon light.
“What’s in those?” she asked in a voice hushed with awe, as though she had already anticipated the answer.
Hunter grinned at her again, then untied the rawhide binding the neck of one of the bags. He dropped the hide, opened the bag, and dipped a hand inside. He pulled it out, opened it palm up.
Gold dust glittered in the light angling down through the shaft.
Annabelle gasped. She stared wide-eyed up at him, her lower jaw hanging, the gold dancing in her eyes. “Is that . . . is that pure gold?”
“About as pure as it comes, Annabelle.”
“Where did you get it? Did you find it here in the mine?” She glanced around the tunnel.
“I panned it.”
“What?”
“I panned it out of a wash about a mile from here. An underground spring busted out the side of a ridge. Blasted gold out with it, for almost two hundred yards along the wash. I found it when I was helping Kinch Early brush-pop strays a couple of falls ago.” Early was a neighbor to the south of the 4-Box-B Ranch whom Hunter occasionally hired out to when Kinch, who also hailed from Dixie, was shorthanded. Most men in the Hills preferred to look for El Dorado than wet-nurse beef on the hoof, so it was often hard for ranchers to find capable hands.
“I’ve been panning it a couple of days a week, mostly at night after ranch chores and supper. This is what I got so far. Pa an’ the boys think me an’ Bobby Lee are just out running around the mountains, looking for artifacts like old arrowheads an’ such, like I used to do back home . . . before the war. I haven’t told ’em. Shep goes to town and gets liquored up from time to time . . . shoots his mouth off.”
“How much is there?”
“A little over thirty thousand worth, I ’spect, figuring on the current rate. Maybe closer to forty by now.”
Annabelle stared at him, her lower jaw hanging. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Again, Hunter grinned. “It’s our secret, Anna—yours an’ mine.”
She frowned. “What do you mean—our secret?”
“This gold’s our stake, Anna.” Hunter paused, licked his lips, then dropped the gold back into the sack. “There’s a ranch for sale west of the 4-Box-B. It’s been for sale a couple years now. I know the man selling. He’s having trouble finding a buyer because everyone around here is more interested in go
ld than rangeland, cattle, and hosses. But the man, Orrin Johnson, has a weak ticker, an’ he just wants to go back down to Texas and retire.
“Pa and the boys an’ me have trapped broncs on his land. It’s good range—stirrup-high brome and needle grass, good water, nice high ground for the summer, a spring-fed creek with plenty of cottonwoods for winter cover, and a roomy lodge house with a big, fieldstone hearth. It sits high on the top of a low bluff. You can see for miles in every direction. Four bedrooms upstairs. A kitchen and parlor I’d get lost in! They’re both one big room with heavy wood an’ leather furniture an’ such. Orrin an’ his sons—all four of whom ran off to be either lawmen or outlaws—built most of it themselves—back when they weren’t fightin’ Injuns. I figure we could run a whole passel of young’uns in the upper story, an’ . . .” Hunter let his voice trail off. “Anna—are . . . are you crying?”
He reached up and brushed a tear from her cheek with his thumb.
Anna sniffed and, eyes averted, brushed her hand across her nose. She sobbed.
“Anna, I don’t understand . . . what’s wrong? Don’t you . . .” The thought was almost too painful to be considered. “Don’t you want to marry me?”
Anna looked up at him, tears flooding her eyes. “Hunter, don’t you know by now you don’t need to buy my love—with gold or anything else? I love you, you big galoot. I don’t care how rich or poor you are!”
“Well . . . I . . . I just thought . . . you know, considering how you were raised . . .”
“In spite of how I was raised, I could live very happily for the rest of my life in that old, mouse-infested cabin with you. I could raise a whole passel of your boys an’ girls there, and die there, and be just as happy as I would be in that big ranch house you just described.”
Hunter shrugged, smiled crookedly. “Well . . . this’d make everything a whole lot easier, though—don’t you think?”
Anna laughed through her tears and threw herself into his arms, wrapping her arms around his thick neck.
“So . . . you’ll marry me?”
“Of course, I’ll marry you!” She pulled her face away and beamed up at him, placing her hands on either side of his face. “I was born to marry you, Hunter Buchanon. I will be proud to be your wife and bear your children. But . . .” She frowned, shaking her head. “Why now?”
“Because of the trouble, I reckon. I reckon I just realized how short life can be. I also realized that I need to get farther away from Tigerville. Johnson’s ranch is twenty miles west of the 4-Box-B. Our supply town would be Roseville. We wouldn’t have to have any more dealings with Tigerville, but I’d still be close enough to the 4-Box-B to help Pa and my brothers out, if they need it.”
Anna kissed him, then smiled up at him once more, running her fingers through the sweat-damp blond hair curling behind his ears. “Sounds like a plan. Why wait?”
“What about your pa?”
Annabelle sighed. “He’s not going to like it. You know he wants me to marry Kenneth Earnshaw. I told him I wouldn’t, and I guess we’re at a Mexican standoff, as the saying goes. But I’ll tell him tonight that I’m going to be your wife, and he’s just going to have to get used to the idea.
“He will, I think. In time, he’ll get used to it, come to accept it. I’m his only daughter, and he wants grandchildren, after all. I doubt Cass will be getting married any time soon, though I wouldn’t doubt it a bit if, knowing how Cass likes to sow his seed, that my father has a few—or more than a few—grandchildren running around these hills. Born to several different mothers, no doubt. Most of the sporting variety.”
Cass Ludlow was known throughout the Hills as a firebrand and ladies’ man. Clad in gaudy Spanish-cut clothes, he gambled and rode through the Hills displaying his gun prowess. Having been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he’d never held an honest job.
It was said that he also rode the long coulees, holding up stagecoaches and rustling beef—mostly just for fun and because he liked the camaraderie of other young men who fancied themselves owlhoots—but he’d never been arrested. That was probably due to the fact that he was Graham Ludlow’s son, and no one wanted to make accusations they might suffer for. Ludlow had a good many hardtails riding for him, and they, like Stillwell, had always protected the mine owner’s interests, whether they were business or personal interests.
Or a little of each.
“Right,” Hunter said. “Why wait? Let’s meet here tomorrow. Say, around noon? I’ll leave the gold here ’til then. It’s safe here, and it’s close to the Cheyenne trail. We’ll ride down to Cheyenne and exchange the dust for silver certificates . . . and get hitched. We’ll take our time riding, sleeping out under the stars.”
He wasn’t too worried about Stillwell gunning for his father and brothers at the 4-Box-B. He had a feeling that while he might not have seen the last of Frank Stillwell, he’d seen the last of him for a good long time. It would take months or longer for the lawman-for-hire to form another small army like the ones he tended to have backing his play.
Besides, after Stillwell’s display of cowardice, Hunter wasn’t sure he’d find any more men willing to throw in with him.
Hunter hadn’t realized before what a coward the man was. He’d no doubt try to exact his revenge, and when he did, Hunter would be standing with his father and brothers against him. They’d be ready.
“Noon tomorrow,” Annabelle said, throwing herself into Hunter’s arms once more, kissing him long and deep. She pulled away and stared gravely into his eyes. Her voice was soft, warm, intimate. “But first . . . I think we should celebrate with a visit to the cabin.”
Hunter looked at the sumptuously beautiful girl before him . . . this girl who’d promised to spend the rest of her life with him . . . and he felt a warm stirring low in his belly. He cleared a knot of lust from his throat. “I couldn’t agree more . . . Mrs. Buchanon.”
“Oh, I like the sound of that,” she said, rising, taking his hand and lightly raking her fingers across his palm.
CHAPTER 9
Stillwell bulled through the brush behind the sheriff’s office, thorns ripping the sleeves of his black frock coat, and fell headlong into the dry wash tracing a jagged course through the heart of Tigerville.
He rolled wildly, groaning, gasping, dropping his pistol, and smacking his head on a rock as he hit the wash’s dry, sandy bed. He could still feel the menacing nudge of the last bullet Buchanon had slung at him, which had nipped the edge of his left boot heel.
He could still hear the mocking laughter and the jeering howls of his prisoners.
He knew the wash ran along behind his office, but in his haste—in his terror—he’d forgotten about everything except his deputies lying dead in the street behind him, and the savage look on Hunter Buchanon’s face as the big ex-Confederate had busted into his office like a blood-hungry grizzly out to tear him limb from limb and clean his bones.
Stillwell had never known such fear. It had possessed him like some demon out of Indian legend. It had been as though he were watching some cowardly stranger run screaming across his office and hurl himself through the window in the rear wall, then scramble madly to his feet and sprint off for the safety of the wash while his prisoners howled and yipped like a pack of moon-crazed coyotes behind him.
Stillwell sat up, leaned back against the cutbank.
Buchanon . . .
Remembering that unhinged look in the Confederate’s eyes, Stillwell scrambled back up the cutbank and edged a look over the top. He shot his frightened gaze through the brush back toward the rear of his office from which the prisoners’ yells were still sounding. He expected to see the big Southerner striding toward him, a pistol in his hand, that kill-crazy fire in his eyes.
Thankfully, the yard behind the jailhouse was empty. Buchanon was still inside.
Stillwell lowered his head. He had to catch his breath. His heart hammered insanely against his breastbone. He was bathed in sweat. Fear sweat.
Christ!
For some reason, he became aware that he wasn’t wearing his hat. He felt naked without it. Naked in his fear. He peered down the slope. No sign of the felt topper. He looked through the brush toward his office again.
The hat lay in the yard outside his office, amidst the glass from the window peppering the sage and tufts of buck brush. Amidst the glass he’d broken out of the window when he’d fled. Fled like the most cowardly of soldiers on the field of battle.
The hat lay there, crown up, tilting off a sage plant, taunting him, jeering him every bit as loudly as the prisoners yelling through the barred windows of the cellblock.
Stillwell cursed and crawled back into the ravine. He was like a whipped, chicken-thieving dog. Fear was still alive inside him. He couldn’t deny it. It wouldn’t budge.
He shook his head, trying to clear the cobwebs, the terror, and looked around for his Colt. It lay beside a rock, half covered with dirt. He picked it up, brushed if off. His hands were shaking. He cursed his hands, the demon fear inside him, and opened the revolver’s loading gate. He shook out the spent cartridges and replaced them with fresh from his shell belt.
Having a fully loaded weapon made him feel a little better. Not much but a little.
He glanced up toward the lip of the wash. The prisoners had fallen silent.
He considered his next move.
Maybe he should go back up there, confront Buchanon, the man’s father, and two brothers . . .
“No,” Stillwell said aloud, his heart quickening again, cold fear spurting through his veins, oozing out his pores. “No, no . . . no.”
The Buchanons could wait. He had to compose himself. He had to rid himself of the fear that was a living beast inside him. When it was gone and he’d returned to the man he knew himself to be, then he could sit down and think out a plan to exact his revenge and reclaim his dignity.
What he needed now was a drink.
He glanced once more toward the lip of the wash and then slid the pistol into its holster. He trudged heavily down the wash to the south. When he’d followed a bend to the east, he climbed up out of the wash and shambled along a path that skirted an abandoned prospector’s cabin. He walked straight south through the sage and scattered bits of trash. Wood frame houses, stock pens, shanties, and whores’ cribs slid past on both sides of the horse- and footpath.
The Black Hills Page 6