“You want my advice,” said Luke, standing beside him, “I’d keep it to a small, fast-moving force. Not more than three or four men.”
Eagle arched a brow. “You think that’s enough?”
“The more men we ride out with, the more apt we’d be to get spotted ourselves,” Luke pointed out. “And the last thing we want on this particular outing is to end up trading lead with Ferris or any of his coyotes. Even if we took every available man, we couldn’t match them gun for gun. What’s more, if we got caught up in a shoot-out, that would keep us from looking for the kids, meaning they’d still be at risk for falling into bad hands.”
“I see what you mean,” Eagle grated. “A small handful of us riding fast and alert would have the best chance of catching up with the kids and then keeping all of us away from Ferris’s bunch until we can make it back here.”
“Jensen keeps on making good sense,” said Barlow. He added, “That is, as long as I’m still included in riding out with you.”
“And me. I mean to go along, too.”
Thrusting the tip of his crutch hard into the ground, Ben Pettigrew pushed his single leg into a long step forward. Then, replanting the crutch, he squared his broad shoulders and stood steadfast against the uncertain looks brought about by his declaration.
“I know,” he said, addressing Eagle directly. “I’m a one-legged gimp who can’t mount a horse without the help of a tree stump or fence rail or some such. But once in the saddle, I can stay there. And if it comes to it, I’m as good or better a shot than anybody here except you or Jensen. No getting around the fact you and I have our differences, Tom, and neither did me and Heath see eye to eye on a lot of things . . . but he’s my son. You can’t ask me not to go along to help bring him back.”
Eagle stood unblinking under Pettigrew’s gaze for a long moment. Then, the rigidness in his posture visibly easing, he said in a quiet voice, “No, I guess I can’t.”
Pettigrew’s wife placed a hand on one of her husband’s thick forearms. “Are you sure, Ben?”
His brows pinching together, the blacksmith replied, “Don’t you think it’s about time I started doing better by the boy? Yeah, Lucille, I’m sure I need to do this.”
Eagle cut his eyes to MacGregor. “Don’t ever think I ain’t grateful for your offer to ride with us, Howard. But as I guess you heard, it seems like a smart idea for us to keep our number trimmed down this time out. I hope you understand.”
MacGregor pressed his lips together and gave a faint nod. “Whatever you think is best, Tom.”
“For what it’s worth, it eases my mind considerable to know you’ll be keepin’ an eye on things here. And once we get things settled with these doggone kids, I promise we’ll soon be headin’ back out on another sweep, this time directly against Dixon’s gun wolves. Comes to that, I’ll make sure you’re a part of it.”
MacGregor’s tightly pressed lips curved up ever so slightly at the corners. “You can bet I’ll be holding you to that.”
“And you can double-down on bettin’ me and Red will be wantin’ in on some of that action, too!” barked Isaac Turley, one of the leathery old prospectors who happened to be standing nearby.
“We sure will be,” Red Baker, his partner, added for emphasis.
Isaac was tall and pinch-faced, with a shock of snow white hair that was always spilling down over his forehead and an equally white walrus mustache that he kept surprisingly well trimmed in contrast to his slouch hat, run-down boots, and worn out, overly patched shirt and trousers. Red was half a head shorter and, though of equal age, still had a headful of the rust-colored hair that had earned him his nickname despite the never cleanly shaven whiskers bristling on his jawline being spiked with silver. His attire was just as worn and patched as his partner’s, except he displayed a fondness for bright-colored patches that never came close to matching the garment they were sewn over.
“This is a real nice camp we’ve put together here,” Isaac said. “Far more comfortable livin’ than me and Red are used to, as a matter of fact. And that there is a problem, you see.”
“It is?” said Eagle, immediately regretting he’d given Isaac a reason to talk some more.
“You bet. Comfortable livin’ is the worst thing for old-timers like me and Red,” Isaac said firmly. “Layin’ around all comfortable-like is how a body’s joints start stiffenin’ up and their muscles turn flabby. And that’s when old age moves in and grabs hold and refuses to let go. Then pretty quick you got nothing but a codger who ain’t worth spit except for barely hobblin’ around.”
“That’s a fact, that’s how it happens,” Red echoed agreeably.
Isaac picked up again, saying, “And that’s exactly what ain’t gonna happen to Red and me. We’re men of action, used to hard livin’ and hard work. If we ain’t careful, the high livin’ and good eats pourin’ over us in this camp is gonna plumb rob us of our youth! We can’t let that happen.”
“No, we can’t,” said Red.
Pinning Eagle with an intense stare, Isaac said, “That’s why we need the same promise out of you that you just gave MacGregor, Sheriff. You gotta say you’ll be sure to take us along the next time you ride out on some kind of escapade.”
“We’ll stay behind this time and help MacGregor keep an eye on things around here,” said Red. “But if’n you make us wait too much longer, we might all of a sudden stiffen up and be too blamed hobbled to do you any good if’n you did need us.”
Barely managing to keep a straight face, Eagle made the two old-timers a promise. “You got it, fellas. The next time anybody rides out on any kind of ‘escapade,’ I’ll be sure to see to it that you two are included. I don’t want to have no part of robbin’ you of your youth.”
Red wagged a cautionary finger. “That’s smart thinkin’ on your part. You want us in tip-top form. You get that, you’ll be mighty glad to have us to call on.”
Chapter 22
“Off to the left of us—that’s east, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been out this way. All the land in that direction is so bare and, well, kinda ugly. Nothing but jagged, rocky hills and dry, twisted gullies. Barely any grass and only a few prickly-looking bushes. I wouldn’t want to live there. It looks downright depressing.”
“That’s why they call it the badlands. And why nobody does live there.”
“We’re not going through it, are we?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“But we’re kinda in it now, the way we’re going. Moving along the edge of it, I mean.”
“That’s the idea. Our way is south but I’m skirting the edge of the badlands because of all the rocky ground. It don’t hardly pick up any tracks, see, in case anybody tries following us.”
“You’re so clever. You think of everything, don’t you?”
Heath Pettigrew’s chest swelled under the words of praise. Praise wasn’t something he’d heard very much of in his eighteen years of life. He liked it. It sounded good, felt good . . . almost as good as Belinda Eagle’s arms wrapped around him. And having the words come from her, the girl he loved, made it all the better.
“I hope I’ve thought of everything,” he said in response. “I’m sure trying. I want to think of everything from here on out that will help us avoid problems and make our life together as good as it can be.”
“Just being together will make our life good. Finally and forever!” Belinda exclaimed. At sixteen, she was an exceptionally pretty girl on the brink of womanhood. She was somewhat on the short side, not quite four inches over five feet, trim and well proportioned, though a bit bustier than most girls her age, or even her own mother for that matter. Her most distinguishing features were her large, liquid dark eyes and her long, silky black hair that reached all the way to the small of her back.
“I like hearing you say that, that just us being together would be enough to make you happy,” Heath responded. “But I want to give you a lot more than that
. I want you to be happy, but I also want you to have nice clothes and nice things about you. I know it will take a while, but one day I mean to shower you in fineries like nobody in Hard Rock ever imagined.”
Two years older than Belinda, Heath stood just a whisker under six feet, taller than his father, but leaner in build. Still, he was square-shouldered and packed with sinewy muscle gained from helping out in the blacksmith shop. He had his father’s curly brown hair and heavy brow, which added to the brooding expression he often wore, but the latter was reasonably offset by the pale, intelligent eyes he’d gotten from his mother.
They rode on for a ways without further conversation, doubled-up on a tall, heavy-chested bay that Heath held to a steady but moderate pace. With a strong horse under him and Belinda pressed against his back, Heath felt like he could ride forever just like this. The climbing sun in a cloudless sky beating against the side of his face from the east, a faint breeze brushing past his shoulder from the northwest, and nothing but open, rolling country ahead angling away from the badlands for as far as he could see.
“Do you think they will?” Belinda asked abruptly, her breath warm on the back of his neck.
Belinda had a sometimes maddening habit of suddenly blurting out a comment or question that was perfectly in tune with a thought passing through her mind but on a subject that might be minutes or hours or even days removed from any prior discussion of the matter. Over time, Heath had found himself being able to once in a while recognize the genesis for such remarks and respond without missing a beat. But this morning wasn’t one of those occasions.
So he had to ask, “Do I think who will do what?”
“Do you think someone from the camp will come after us, try to track the way we’re going?”
Heath twisted his mouth sourly. “I’ve been wondering about that myself. If it was only up to just my old man, I don’t expect he’d bother. He’s been telling me for most as long as I can remember how worthless I am, what a big disappointment. I figure he’d be glad to get rid of me. One less mouth to worry about feeding.”
“I know your father is a hard man, it’s his nature,” Belinda said. “But I find it difficult to believe he truly dislikes you, his own son. Besides, there’s also your mother. She doesn’t treat you so bad, does she?”
“No. Ma’s okay as far as how she treats me. But that don’t mean she ever spoke up against the old man for the way he carried on. Leastways not that I ever heard.”
“I’m sorry for you, sorry you grew up in a home where you doubted your parents loved you. That’s so sad. But if it helps, when we’re off on our own and have a home of our own, you’ll never have to doubt that it will be filled with my love for you.”
Heath’s ears burned and he knew he was blushing. It made him feel funny to hear Belinda talk like that, but at the same time it thrilled him. He never wanted her to stop thinking about him that way or to stop telling him. And he never wanted to do anything that might cause her to stop.
“Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about your parents, especially your father,” he said. Regretting his choice of words as soon as they were out of his mouth, he quickly added, “I don’t mean it’s unfortunate your folks love you. I meant that, because they do, I figure there’s a good chance your dad will come after us. After you. If he does, everybody knows what a good tracker he is—my puny attempts to hide our trail probably won’t slow him down much at all.”
“If he does find us,” Belinda said through gritted teeth, “it won’t make no difference. Not in the long run. He can tie me up and haul me back if he’s a mind to, but unless he’s prepared to keep me in chains I’ll just run away all over again. And again and again, however many times it takes. Sooner or later they’ll all have to get it through their heads that we’re in love and we’re determined to be together and there’s nothing they can do to stop us.”
“Unless your dad decides to shoot me or run me plumb out of the territory or some such,” Heath said glumly. “He’d never hurt you, but I can see him being a lot less charitable toward me.”
“He wouldn’t dare!” Belinda declared. “If he did, I’d never forgive him. I’d . . . I’d hate him forever!”
Heath put one of his hands gently over hers, where they were clasped together just above his belt buckle. “I wouldn’t want that,” he said. “As big a grudge as I got against my old man, I don’t reckon I really even hate him. I wouldn’t want us being together to be the cause of so much bitterness.”
Belinda was quiet for a long moment, until she asked, “What hope do we have then? If you’re convinced my father is going to come after us and catch us, yet you’re not prepared to fight back, then what are we even doing this for?”
“We’re doing this, like you put it a minute ago, to show everybody how determined we are to be together,” Heath told her. “And I never said I wasn’t willing to fight, I just said I didn’t want it to end up in hate.”
“What if they’re as determined as we are? If both sides keep refusing to give, how can hard feelings not start to build?”
“Maybe,” Heath said, “because other hard feelings will get in the way. Maybe that’s gonna turn out to give us a chance. Maybe what the two of us are doing won’t rate the full attention of even your father.”
“That didn’t make any sense.” Although Heath couldn’t see it, Belinda’s pretty face scrunched into an annoyed scowl. “Don’t tease me with riddles at a time like this!”
“It wasn’t a riddle,” Heath said defensively. “Look, you asked me a minute ago what hope I think we have, right? Well, I put a lot of thought into that before I ever gave you the sign that last night was the night we were going to light out. Did you ever wonder why I suddenly decided then was the right time, after we’d talked about it but put it off so many times before? Well, the reason why was on account of that Jensen fella showing up.”
“Him? What difference does he make to our situation?”
“Because I got a hunch that he might cause your dad to have a whole different set of things demanding his attention. Didn’t you see the two of them together? The kind of excitement they generated, like sparks flying off two chunks of steel striking against one another? It was there when they first got back to camp and talked about how Jensen had tangled with Hack Ferris’s curly wolves and how your dad pitched in to help him. And then it was there again, maybe even more so, after they got done killing Ol’ Rip.”
“I still don’t see . . .”
“Look, what’s the biggest thing that’s been driving your dad ever since he gathered everybody together in that mountain camp?” Heath said. Not waiting for an answer, he went on. “He wants folks to stick with him and rise up to reclaim our town and valley, right? That’s the dream of everybody who’s holed up with him, ain’t it?”
“Of course. Most of them have no place else to go.”
“But other than the stuff your dad has been doing on his own—the harassing, stealing supplies, cutting the telegraph wire, and whatnot—what has anybody else done in the way of anything you could actually call striking back against Dixon’s thugs? Let’s face it, if you add up all the other men in our camp, you’ve got pretty sorry makings for any kind of effective army.”
“But we’ve got several good men,” Belinda countered. “Mr. Barlow and Mr. MacGregor are strong and stout. And your dad is plenty rugged.”
“Yeah, my old man’s still got plenty of bark on him and could tear it up in a close-in fight—but not riding out against Ferris and the rest of Dixon’s hired guns.” Heath snorted derisively. “It’d take my old man a half hour to even climb on a horse. Face it, the only two men in our camp who are proven fighting men, actual war veterans, are a couple cripples as a result. My dad and goofy ol’ Dewey Akron. One crippled physically, the other crippled in the head.”
“That’s mean. And I don’t see what any of it’s got to do with Mr. Jensen or why it might make a difference as far as whether my father may or may not come after me.”
“Because,” Heath said, “Jensen gives your dad exactly what he’s been lacking. At least the start of a fighting force against Ferris and the others.”
“But how much difference can one man make?”
“Plenty, from what he’s shown so far. Your dad claimed he left four or five of Ferris’s thugs laying in the dirt back in Hard Rock. And then he went after Ol’ Rip last night with nothing more than a knife. Besides, it ain’t just what he can do himself, it’s what he can help stir inside the other men. Including your father.”
“My father doesn’t need anybody to stir anything in him. He’s been carrying this fight against Dixon practically all on his own since the very beginning,” Belinda pointed out.
“And that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make,” said Heath. “Now that he’s got an equally strong man to stand beside him and help prod along the others, I’m thinking he’s bound to be mighty anxious to finally hit back against Dixon’s gun toughs. Especially now when they’re smarting from tangling with Jensen the first time. Strike while the iron is hot, as the old saying goes.
“Which brings me to the point of thinking that your dad might not be as quick to come chasing after us as he would be if he didn’t have to balance it against leaving that iron to cool down. After all, by taking off like we did, we’re not only showing how much we want to be together but we’re also abandoning the dream and the cause of all the others. The cause, like you said a minute ago, nobody has put more into than your dad and everything he’s had to do practically alone up until now.”
Belinda was quiet for several moments before she said, “You really think he might see it that way? That my father would put the fight against Dixon ahead of coming after us?”
“I can’t say for sure. I’m just telling you what went into my thinking.” Now it was Heath who went quiet for a spell before speaking again. “You almost sound like you’d be disappointed if your father didn’t track us down. That’s not how you feel, is it?”
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