“Wha . . . what do you want?” Baird asked, struggling to get the words out. The gun muzzle was prodding painfully against his throat.
“What do you think I want? Get your keys out and unlock this door!”
“I . . . I can’t reach it.”
“You’d better try,” John Henry said in an ominous tone. “You’re no good to me if you can’t.”
Baird tried to swallow and couldn’t. He fumbled a ring of keys from his pocket and reached over to fit one of them into the cell door. It was almost out of his reach, but not quite, and after a few seconds, his awkward effort was rewarded. The key went into the lock and he turned it.
John Henry stood up, raising the deputy with him. They shuffled over to the door, which John Henry kicked open. He came out in a hurry and looped an arm around Baird’s neck from behind as he shifted the gun barrel from the deputy’s throat to his side.
“Now me.” Mallette’s voice shook a little, indicating that he was nervous. He probably wondered if his fellow prisoner was going to keep his word.
“Unlock Mallette’s cell,” John Henry ordered Baird.
Baird did so. “You can’t get away. There are half a dozen deputies right upstairs—”
“No, there’s not,” Mallette interrupted him. “Rasmussen doesn’t even have half a dozen deputies. More like three or four, and there are usually only two on duty at a time. Right now, since it’s after supper but the evening rush hasn’t started yet in the saloons, Carl may be holding down the fort for the whole town.”
“Is that right, Deputy Baird?” John Henry pressed harder with the gun barrel. “Don’t even think about lying to me. I don’t have a damned thing to lose by killing you.”
“If . . . if you kill me, you’ll hang for sure!”
John Henry grinned. “Maybe, but they can only hang me once, and that’s just what’ll wind up happening if I stay around here long enough for those Texas wanted posters to catch up to me. Now, tell me what we’re liable to run into up there, and tell me the truth.”
Baird sighed. “Nick’s right. Sheriff Rasmussen has gone to supper. None of the other deputies have come on duty yet. The sheriff and one of the other men will start on evening rounds later.”
John Henry’s instincts told him that Baird was telling the truth. The man wasn’t really cut out to be a deputy. He wasn’t tough enough, mentally or physically, for the job.
Mallette had come out of the cell. “If you want your things back, Saxon, I can show you where to find them. I’d like to get my derringer and a few other items as well. They’ll be locked up in a cabinet in the sheriff’s office.”
“And I’ll bet one of Carl’s keys will unlock that cabinet,” John Henry said. “Come on.”
The next few minutes in the sheriff’s office were tense ones. Rasmussen or someone else could come in at any time. John Henry knew he could always fall back on producing his badge and identity papers from his saddlebags, but he didn’t want to have to do that unless it was absolutely necessary.
Baird unlocked the cabinet, allowing John Henry to reclaim his gun belt and holstered Colt. He drew his own gun, then tucked behind his belt the revolver he had taken from Baird.
Mallette took a small, spring-loaded holster with a derringer in it from the cabinet and fastened it onto his right forearm, under his shirtsleeve. The cabinet also contained a sheathed dagger that he strapped onto his left forearm.
“You really didn’t have room up your sleeves for that fifth ace, did you?” John Henry asked.
“I don’t need to cheat to win,” Mallette said with complete confidence. He picked up a couple decks of cards on a shelf inside the cabinet and stuck them into inside pockets of his coat.
“Ready to get out of here?” John Henry asked.
Mallette took a black, flat-crowned hat from the cabinet and settled it on his head. “Now I am.”
“Give me that dagger of yours,” John Henry growled. “Unless you’d rather cut the deputy’s throat yourself.”
Baird made a little squeaking sound.
Mallette stared at John Henry. “We didn’t say anything about killing him!”
“Can’t leave him alive to sound the alarm.” John Henry made his voice as hard and grim as possible. It was all an act, of course, but neither of the other men knew that.
“Can’t we just tie him up and gag him? The sheriff won’t be back for a while. We’ll have time to get a good lead before anybody finds out we’re gone.”
John Henry pretended to think about it. The gambler’s reaction to his threat to kill Baird told him a lot about the man. He had a hunch Mallette wasn’t a cold-blooded killer and there was at least a good chance the shooting back in Kansas City had been self-defense as he had claimed. That meant helping him escape from the Kiowa City jail wasn’t as bad as it might have been.
John Henry expected to hear a few choice words about the subject from Judge Parker anyway . . . providing the rest of his plan worked and he made it back to Fort Smith alive.
After a couple of heartbeats, John Henry snapped, “Make it fast.”
Mallette did so, finding some cord in the desk and using it to bind the deputy’s hands behind him. He used Baird’s own bandanna to gag him.
John Henry marched Baird back downstairs to the cell block and shoved him into the cell Mallette had occupied. Baird stumbled and fell onto the bunk.
“That’ll hold him,” John Henry said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I’ll need a horse.”
“We ought to be able to do something about that.” Adding horse thief to the list of his bendings of the law wouldn’t make things too much worse, John Henry thought.
They left the courthouse through a side door. The streets of Kiowa City weren’t busy at the moment. As Baird had said, it was the lull between supper and the rowdiness that would begin later in the saloons.
John Henry and Mallette stuck to the shadows as much as possible anyway, but they had to come out into the open when they reached the Paradise Saloon. Iron Heart was still tied to one of the hitch racks in front of the saloon.
John Henry picked another likely looking mount and pointed it out to Mallette. “Ever stolen a horse before?” he asked dryly.
“No, but I think I’m about to,” Mallette said.
Without hurrying, they moved to the rack and untied the reins. No one paid much attention to them. John Henry swung up into the saddle with the ease and athletic grace of a born horseman. Mallette mounted a little more awkwardly.
He had just settled into the saddle when a man came out of the saloon, stopped short, and yelled, “Hey! What the hell? That’s my horse!”
John Henry whipped out his Colt and put a bullet into the boardwalk at the man’s feet, causing him to let out an alarmed yelp and dive back through the batwings.
“Come on, Nick!” John Henry wheeled Iron Heart around, making sure he headed northwest.
It would be better if Mallette could keep up, but it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
The gambler managed to hang on and gallop out of Kiowa City as people shouted behind them. “Now what?” Mallette called to John Henry over the pounding hoofbeats.
“Now we see if we can find that Silver Skull of yours!”
Chapter Eight
John Henry had all the confidence in the world in Iron Heart’s speed and stamina, and he had tried to pick a horse for Mallette with those things in mind, too, but he couldn’t always tell from looking at an animal how it would hold up.
He thought they had a good chance of outdistancing any posse in pursuit. He knew Sheriff Rasmussen wouldn’t allow two prisoners—one of them a wanted murderer—to escape from his jail without going after them. The darkness would help, too. The moon was only a thin sliver in the sky. Even an Indian couldn’t have tracked them by its meager light.
John Henry kept them moving at a fast pace for the first few miles, then hauled back on Iron Heart’s reins. “We’d better walk the horses for a ways and let them ha
ve a breather.”
“That’s all right with me,” Mallette said as he slowed his mount, too. He groaned. “I’m used to riding in stagecoaches, or buggies belonging to pretty women. A saddle really hands out a pounding to one’s, ah, nether regions, doesn’t it?”
John Henry laughed. “You’ll get used to it. A good horse is better than a stagecoach any day of the week.”
“I guess I’ll find out,” Mallette said ruefully. “I’m on the dodge now more than ever before, since I’ve got jailbreaking and horse stealing to add to my list of crimes.”
“I could have left you back there,” John Henry pointed out.
“And I’m glad you didn’t,” the gambler said. “Don’t get me wrong, Saxon. I couldn’t afford to stay locked up any more than you could. In the long run, it would have been the death of me, just like it would for you.”
Of course, there weren’t any wanted posters out there for John Saxon, since that alleged killer and badman didn’t exist, but Nick Mallette didn’t know that and it was best to keep him in the dark.
While they were walking the animals, John Henry checked their back trail frequently, even stopping completely a few times so he could listen for the sound of distant hoofbeats. He hadn’t seen or heard anything.
He thought it was likely that Rasmussen was back there somewhere, but with luck, the sheriff would give up the pursuit by morning.
After a quarter hour, John Henry said, “That’s enough walking. Let’s get some speed up again.”
They heeled their horses into a run.
The hours and the miles rolled past. The moon and stars wheeled in their courses through the night sky.
John Henry and Mallette alternated running and walking their horses until John Henry finally called a halt. “Might as well get down. We need to let them blow for a while, or we won’t be going anywhere.”
“I’ll defer to your judgment in such matters,” Mallette said as he dismounted. “I’ve probably ridden more tonight than I have in the entire rest of my life.”
He was unsteady and had to grab one of the stirrups to keep from falling when his feet hit the ground. He got his legs back under him in only a few moments.
John Henry took down one of the canteens slung from his saddle, unscrewed the cap, and swallowed a long drink of water before offering the canteen to Mallette.
The gambler grunted his thanks and took it. “You wouldn’t happen to have a good cigar in there, too, would you?”
“Afraid not,” John Henry said. “Not even the makin’s. I don’t use the stuff.”
“Just as well. We probably shouldn’t be striking matches. Someone might see the light.”
John Henry grinned. “That’s right. We’ll make an owlhoot out of you yet, Nick.”
“Yeah, I’ll be a regular desperado in no time.” He took another sip of the water and handed the canteen back. “How are we going to find that ranch? Neither of us know where it is.”
“We’ve been headed the right direction, if what that fella told you was true. How trustworthy do you think he was?”
“I’m sure no one ever lied over a poker table before.”
John Henry laughed again. “Well, for now we’re going to assume that he was telling the truth. It’ll be light in another hour. We’ll scout around then and see what we can see. The important thing is that we’re miles from Kiowa City and the sheriff isn’t right on our tail.”
“Yes, and I’m thankful for that.”
When John Henry judged that the horses had rested long enough, they mounted up again and rode on, continuing in a generally northwestward direction.
Like nearly all of Kansas, the terrain was considered flat, although it had a gentle roll to it. Here and there, ridges or rocky knobs stuck up to break the monotony.
As the sky began to lighten to gray behind them, John Henry spotted a dark line along the horizon up ahead. Some sort of escarpment or similar formation jutted up from the plains.
Dawn broke in a hurry. The sun seemed to leap into the sky, flooding the prairie with light. The illumination washed over the two fugitives and rolled on like a tide until it hit the ridge John Henry had noticed earlier.
Both riders reined in abruptly, and Mallette let out an awed exclamation. “I’ll be damned.”
Perched on the edge of that escarpment, glowing silver in the dawn light, was a gigantic skull.
After a couple of seconds, John Henry laughed. “I’ve seen some odd rock formations in my life, but I reckon maybe that one is the most eye-catching.”
“That’s what it is? Just a rock formation?”
“Unless you think a hundred-foot-tall giant died and somebody stuck his skull up there. You can see the way the elements have rounded it off and bored holes in it that look like eyes. It probably only looks like a skull from a distance like this. Up close, you’d be able to see all the other irregularities.”
“Well, it certainly made a chill go up my spine for a minute. Why is it silver like that? It’s almost like it’s . . . glowing.”
“Something in the mineral composition, I suppose. I doubt if there’s any actual silver ore. We’re not in the right part of the country for that. But some other mineral that resembles it could be mixed in with the rock.”
Mallette frowned. “You sound sort of educated for an outlaw, John.”
John Henry’s mother had been a schoolteacher, but of course he couldn’t explain that. Instead he said, “No rule says that a man can’t read, even when he’s on the dodge.”
“I suppose that’s right.”
“That’s got to mark the location of the Silver Skull Ranch,” John Henry went on. “You can sure enough see how the place got its name.”
“How far are we from Kiowa City?”
“At least twenty miles.”
“I guess that’s far enough out in the middle of nowhere for a place like I heard about. A place where . . . men like us . . . would be welcome.”
“Let’s go find out,” John Henry suggested.
The skull-like rock formation gave them something to steer by as they rode toward the ridge. They didn’t know if the outlaw ranch lay below that height or on top of it, but John Henry figured they could locate it without much trouble.
In the brightening light, he suddenly noticed a plume of dust rising in the air ahead of them. He hauled back on Iron Heart’s reins and pointed to the telltale dust. “Hold on, Nick. Somebody’s coming.”
“But if they’re ahead of us, they can’t be a posse from Kiowa City, can they?” Mallette asked.
“No, but we still don’t want to run right into them without knowing who they are. That’s never a good idea.” John Henry turned the gray to the left. “Let’s see if we can find a place to hole up for a few minutes.”
Mallette had been following his lead ever since they left the settlement, and that didn’t change now. The two men quickly rode south.
It was hard to find hiding places out on the open prairie, but after a few minutes John Henry spotted a dry, shallow creek bed. He led Mallette down into it.
They dismounted, and John Henry got both horses to lie down. He handed their reins to Mallette. “Hold them. Hang on tight. Iron Heart won’t give you any trouble, but I don’t know about that other horse.”
“What are you going to do?” Mallette asked as he took the reins.
“Have a look at whoever that is.”
John Henry took a pair of field glasses from one of his saddlebags and stretched out at the edge of the creekbed. A long, gentle slope rose in front of him. The riders came into view near the top of it. He put the glasses to his eyes and focused on the horsebackers.
There were half a dozen of them, and they were too far away for him to make out many details. All but one of the men wore range clothes.
The one who rode in the lead was better dressed. His profile was hawk-like under an expensive, broad-brimmed hat. He had the look of a successful cattleman, but of course John Henry had no way of knowing whether that was
true. He had never seen any of the men before.
He would recognize that hombre in the lead if he ever saw him again, though.
The riders passed on without noticing the two fugitives. When they were out of sight, John Henry took the reins back from Mallette and let the horses get up again.
“Who do you think they were?” the gambler asked.
“I don’t have any idea. But they can’t tell anybody they saw us out here, can they?”
“No, I suppose not. Is that what life as an outlaw is like, always hiding and dodging trouble?”
“You were on the run before you got to Kiowa City. You ought to know what it’s like.”
Mallette sighed. “Yes, but I was doing my hiding out in towns, not in the middle of nowhere.”
“That didn’t work out very well for you, did it?”
“No,” Mallette replied with a wry chuckle. “No, it did not.”
They mounted up and rode on toward the ridge. John Henry’s prediction proved accurate—the closer they got to the big knob of rock, the less it looked like a human skull. All the odd lumps and extra holes were visible now.
John Henry saw a few cattle grazing here and there, but didn’t get close enough to read their brands. There was no ranch house below the ridge, which meant it had to be up above somewhere.
He studied the face of the escarpment, looking for a trail, and finally picked out a line that zigzagged back and forth up the ridge, which rose about a hundred feet from the surrounding plain. “There’s the trail.” He pointed it out to Mallette.
“Whoever owns the ranch can’t bring cattle down something like that, can he?”
“Why would he want to do that? He can make a living taking a cut from the loot gathered up by the men who come looking for a hideout.”
“Is that how that works?” Mallette shrugged. “That makes sense, I suppose. But you’d think he would at least try to give the appearance of operating a working ranch.”
“There could be another trail down somewhere else along the ridge that’s easier.” John Henry looked over at the gambler. “You’re a curious hombre, aren’t you?”
“No reason a man who’s on the dodge can’t be curious about things,” Mallette said with a smile, paraphrasing what John Henry had said to him earlier.
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