“Maybe it’s Patton.”
“Doubt it. See, he wasn’t tracking him. Appears to me like whoever it is knows where Kuo is going.”
They looked at each other.
“How’re we gonna get your sister away from two outlaws?” Nat finally asked.
Easy to tell Nat was worried, Yester thought. He wasn’t alone in that. Yester worried, too, fear for Ketta running through him like a whole peck of rats gnawing at his innards. He had to bring Ketta home, safe and well. Ma had said so, and as poorly as she’d been when he left, he’d never be able to go home without his sister. Not and face his ma.
Never go home. He’d made a promise. Smart-mouth talk, and now he had to make good on it.
They’d gone more than a mile before Nat called Yester’s attention to the fact he hadn’t gotten an answer to his question. The one about rescuing Ketta from two outlaws.
“I dunno,” Yester said. “I’ve got the rifle.”
Nat snorted. “I’ve got a knife, which probably won’t do much good. Yester, we know Kuo is armed. Nobody who robs a store goes in barehanded. Anyway, you said you saw it. I expect anybody he deals with has a gun, too.”
“Yeah. I imagine so.”
The horses plodded on through yet another flawless summer day rapidly growing hotter and hotter, just like Yester’s temper. “Maybe I oughta sit out on the hillside and take pot shots at them from a distance.”
“While you’re hiding behind a rock,” Nat agreed. “Ambush. That’s one idea.”
“Safest.” Yester thought a moment. “Surest. I’m a pretty fair shot.”
“Just like shooting a deer.” Nat paused. “Except, Yester, they ain’t deer. Deer don’t shoot back.”
Yester kind of got the shakes just thinking about it. “So, I gotta make the first shot count.”
They rode a little farther, until they reached an area where trees grew more thickly and a smaller trail led off the larger one. Sure enough, both sets of the tracks leading them to this spot headed off into the narrow cut.
Nat drew rein. “I dunno, Yester. I got a bad feeling about this place.”
The walls of the cut towered above them, blue sky showing directly overhead, but deep shade overlay most of the trail itself.
Eyeing the way the tracks led into the distance, wending around blind corners and stone outcroppings easy for ambushers to hide behind, Yester’s feelings paralleled Nat’s. He stopped beside Nat and pondered.
“What do you think about leaving the horses here and exploring a bit on foot? Get above the trail.”
“You think somebody is watching for us?”
“Maybe not for us, but for somebody. Patton, maybe. Or maybe even my pa.”
“Your pa?” Nat gave him a look. “Your pa has his horses back, and he doesn’t care about Ketta.”
“Yes, but the Chinaman doesn’t know that. Or not for sure, anyway. Maybe he thinks . . .” Yester’s lips clamped together. “Might depend on what Ketta has told him.”
Opening his dark eyes wide in surprise, Nat said, “You think Ketta told him anything?”
With a sigh, Yester stepped to the ground. “She might. Depends on what those outlaws have done to her. And I don’t blame her,” he added.
“I don’t, either.” Nat slid down beside his friend and, slipping the bit from his horse’s mouth so it could graze, tied the cayuse to the spike of a branch on a downed log. He stood beside the animal. “You coming?”
KETTA
Ketta didn’t care for the way that awful old scar-faced Milt watched her, inspecting every move she made. No. And not his dim-witted, bull-nosed sons, either. Even once when she went to the privy, which was located down a well-worn path about fifty yards from the cabin. Cracks in the privy’s weathered boards made the little building less than private. She had good reason to fret, Ketta thought. Especially since there was Milt, a straw stuck between his crooked teeth and his lips all slack and hanging half open, waiting when she came out. He’d stood there for the whole time she was inside, legs crossed at the ankles as he leaned against a tree.
Kuo was sitting at the table drinking a cup of coffee when she returned to the cabin. She was almost running and breathless, eager to be back by her father’s side.
“What’s the matter?” he asked after a single glance at her face. He’d been watching Dunce mop the floor and, from the looks of all the water splashed around, making a fairly decent job of it.
“Nothing.” She slipped onto a chair at his side, trembling a little.
She had all his attention now. “Nothing?” he said. “Then why are you shaking? Did one of the men say something to scare you?” His voice went cold. “Did one of them touch you?”
Mute, Ketta shook her head. Just touched her with his eyes, that’s all. Bad enough.
“What then?”
She shook her head again, but this time, her fears bubbled to the surface. “He watched me. I went to the necessary, and he followed me. Just stood there. I think he can see through the cracks.”
“Who can?”
“Him.” Ketta glanced through the open doorway to where Milt was ambling across the yard to where Beaver—that was the name of Milt’s less addled son—was whiling away the morning with a game that seemed a bit like horseshoes.
“Milt? Or Beaver?”
“Milt.” She hated even saying his name.
Her father, zeroing in on the direction of her gaze, went still before shaking his head. “Not likely he can see through the cracks, child. But don’t go out again without telling me. I’ll watch, make sure he doesn’t step out of line.”
Ketta gave him a stare. “He’s a horrible man. I wish he would go away.”
“Yes, he is, and yes, I, too, wish he’d go away,” Kuo muttered, low enough she barely heard. His mouth, which had worn a half smile only a moment before, had straightened to a thin slit. He glanced at Dunce, still swinging the mop back and forth across the plank floor. Louder, he said, “Things aren’t that simple.”
One of Ketta’s feet kicked against a chair leg. “Why not? You said this is your place.” Her gaze traveled around the cabin’s dark and shoddy interior. “You could make him leave, I bet. Him and him,” she pointed at Dunce, “and the other one, too.” As a clincher, she added, “That’s what Big Joe would do.”
Kuo, his face settling into hard lines, slammed his tin cup of coffee onto the table.
Ketta jumped, wide-eyed as coffee splattered across the mess still littering the tabletop from other cups and other meals. The commotion caused Dunce to gawk their way.
“If I was Big Joe, little priss,” Kuo snapped, “you’d be missing your front teeth for taking a smart-mouth tone to your father like you done. Do it again, and maybe I’ll take a lesson from Joe Noonan. One you won’t like.”
Blinking violently, Ketta shrank into herself. She should’ve known. Men always took another man’s part, even if he was a bitter enemy. It was just something they did, fair or not. Well, that was all right then. She knew she had only herself to depend on when it came to escaping this whole nest of evil men. She placed her father among the group. Here she’d been thinking—wishing—he was better, kinder, than she knew, but she’d been wrong. He was a thief, after all, and worse. A horse thief, which, according to Big Joe, was the worst of the worst, more despicable even than a girl thief.
Resolve hardening, a list formed in her mind. She had to pick a time to collect something to eat, saddle a horse—not always an easy task for anyone as small as she—and find her way down the trail to the main road. All without anyone catching her at it. Tonight, maybe. The sooner the better, while she still remembered how they’d gotten here.
Tonight, for sure.
Although, and here a smidgeon of worry edged into her plans, coming here they hadn’t traveled at night. Everything looked different in the dark.
Meanwhile, threats or no threats, she planned on sticking close to Kuo.
Ketta settled herself and hung her head, her cloud of h
air hiding her face. “Sorry,” she said, hoping he couldn’t tell a lie from the truth. “I won’t do it again.”
“Better not.” Mollified, Kuo got to his feet. Raising his voice, he said, “Dunce, that’s enough. It’ll take two days for this floor to dry, as much water as you’ve slopped around. Go see if Milt has any chores for you to do.”
Ketta almost laughed at the way Dunce dropped the mop right there in the middle of the floor and high-tailed it outside. Almost. Because apparently her catalog of chores now included cleaning up what everyone else left unfinished, like the mopping and the stack of dirty dishes. She was pretty sure some of them had been used more than once between washings. Thoroughly revolted, she set to work with a will.
Come noon, the outlaws piled into the cabin demanding food. Ketta, not much to her surprise, had been charged with preparing the meal, and she ranged from stove top to stew pot to table as quickly as possible. Sooner done, the sooner they’d be out of there.
No doubt it was too much to hope there wouldn’t be a problem, that, it turned out, being the shortage of chairs. Although, Ketta thought, any excuse would’ve done.
As their right, Kuo and Milt had claimed the two chairs. Dunce, a goopy grin on his face, snagged the stool, which left Beaver gaping about.
“There’s a bench over there,” Kuo said, attempting to forestall the battle he saw coming. “Grab it, Beaver.”
Kuo’s instruction fell on intentionally deaf ears.
Already piqued, Ketta snorted with disgust when Beaver shoved Dunce out of his way and yanked the stool out from under his brother. Dunce, clumsy at best, fell backward into the table. A bowl’s worth of stew spilled as Dunce landed in Milt’s lap, Milt having been the first to the table. Or pig to the trough, as Ketta termed the competition to herself. Milt, compounding the foofaraw, pushed Dunce away, causing the bread Ketta had sliced into fifteen precise slices, to sway on its stack and three pieces tumble to the floor.
Without a word, she picked the bread up, brushed it off, and put a slice onto each of the three outlaws’ plates.
Milt, of course, set loose an explosion of curses. “The hell. I ain’t eating that.”
“Why not?” Ketta said. “He,” she pointed at Dunce, acting as if she didn’t know his name, “just mopped. The floor’s cleaner than your clothes. You’d eat the bread if it’d fallen on your shirt, wouldn’t you?”
“Sass,” he yelled, fist plunging through the air somewhere close to where her ear had been a fraction of a second ago.
Adept at ducking, due no doubt to Big Joe’s training, she no longer stood in that spot.
Bent on going after her, Milt lunged to his feet even as Dunce and Beaver stood back. Dunce’s mouth hung open as he settled in to watch the fun of a girl being beat to a pulp.
They weren’t attending to Kuo, who grasped Ketta’s shoulders and set her out of the line of fire.
“That’s enough,” he said. “Settle down, all of you. And quit your grousing. You’ve all eaten worse than a slice of bread that’s been dropped on the floor.” His lip curled. “Even on this floor. Judging by the filth you left on my table, none of you are any better than a bunch of hogs.”
Gratefully, Ketta glanced at him, amazed their thoughts coincided so precisely. How odd.
“What the hell, you damn Chink? You don’t talk to a white man like that.” Hard-faced and showing his temper, Milt’s hand moved toward the pistol at his side before seeming to think better of it. Then, smiling with what looked like evil intent, he stepped in with his fists raised to pound the smaller man instead.
Kuo, ready for him, looked almost as enthusiastic. He fended off Milt’s first swing, catching the blow on his forearm. Although the slighter man by twenty pounds or so, he pushed the outlaw out the door and onto the narrow porch. They squared off there.
Beaver and Dunce followed, jumping around and Dunce yelling his support for Milt. After a pause, Ketta ventured out, too.
Milt looked to have the advantage. At first. And it was apparent he thought so, as he went into the fight with his lips pulled into a grin. The larger man by far, with a longer reach, he barreled in ready to surround Kuo in a bear hug and squeeze the life out of him.
But Kuo’s first quick, solid blow to the ear changed Milt’s mind about grappling. The outlaw stepped back, landing a roundhouse punch on Kuo’s upper arm that made the smaller man shake out his hand like it’d gone numb.
Ketta, feeling more than a little sick, reached back inside the cabin and grabbed the carbine one of the men, she thought it was Beaver, had brought inside and left by his chair.
She didn’t really trust her father much. Barely more than the others, truth to tell, but the fact remained she couldn’t let Milt kill him as seemed his intention. Kuo stood between her and the outlaws. In more ways than one.
Like right now, as the men bobbed and shifted and swung about, so fast Ketta could barely follow. The carbine hung useless in her hands. She didn’t want to be the one who killed her father. Unfortunately, he literally did stand between her and Milt. Holding fire, she waited for the two to turn about.
One of the two uttered a pained sounding grunt as a blow landed. Air wheezed out of someone’s lungs. A second meaty thud sent both of them to the splintered porch floor. Sweat flew in big salty drops from both men.
Kuo, first up, landed a blow on Milt’s mouth that made blood spurt all the way to the yard. His knuckles came away scarred and bloody.
Roaring his pain, the outlaw barreled in with a punch aimed for Kuo’s jaw. It missed, instead striking Kuo in the eye socket as he ducked. Kuo dropped, falling onto his back.
Cackling his glee, Milt flung himself onto Kuo’s weakened body, only to fly backward as Kuo twisted, caught the outlaw on his feet and, with a strong thrust of his legs, sent him tumbling. Milt bucked up onto his hands and knees, breath wheezing in and out of his lungs like a broken concertina as he struggled to breathe.
Kuo rolled twice as Beaver started forward. Kuo sat up onto his rear end, spun, and, with a strong sweeping motion of one foot, took Beaver’s legs out from under him. Beaver ended up stretched out beside Milt. Dunce, wisely, considering his intellect, made no moves but stood with his arms dangling.
Which was just as well as Ketta brought the carbine up into shooting position. She worked the lever, drawing a cartridge into the chamber.
“Stop,” she cried. “Everybody just stop.” The carbine pointed first at Dunce, the only one besides herself still standing, then Milt, Beaver, and, finally, even Kuo, who got slowly to his feet.
“Easy, child.” Kuo touched the knob forming on his forehead. “We’re done.” He looked at Milt out of his one good eye. “Aren’t we?”
Milt wiped his hand across his bloody mouth and spat a tooth attached to an inch-long root onto the ground. He grinned, even as his eyes glared with hate. “For now.”
“Until next time.” Kuo nodded and said to Ketta, “Put the gun down.”
If Ketta’d had to make a guess, she’d have said there was a promise in Kuo’s few words to the outlaw. The “until next time” part.
She didn’t want to obey. Maybe this very instant was her chance to get away. But they were all watching her, each man ready to jump her if she gave him the chance. Yes, even her father, whom she felt certain she’d saved from a terrible beating, at the least. After a while, she let the carbine drop.
Ketta spied the horse and rider before anyone else. Easy enough to do since she was the only one not involved with a game utilizing cards, dice, and the frequent exchange of money, all accompanied by a great deal of swearing. Her father, to her dismay, appeared to have forgotten the fight. Overlooked it, at any rate. He lost himself in the game, to the point of being blind to his surroundings. Although that may have been caused by his left eye, swollen almost shut from the fight with Milt.
She had to tug three times on his sleeve in order to gain his attention. And he wasn’t pleased with the distraction.
He shook her off,
his good eye narrowing as he scowled. “What do you want? Don’t bother me when I’m busy.”
Busy? Ketta thought, disgusted. “Someone is coming,” she said, also for the third time.
Apparently, this finally sank in, with Milt also taking note, as a small grin skewed his face and made his lip bleed again.
“Is it him?” Beaver asked Milt, the only words Ketta had ever heard him utter. Alert now, Kuo looked up. His gaze shifted from Milt to Beaver and back again. “You expecting somebody?” he asked Milt.
“Who, me?” But Milt’s question pretty much answered itself if the grin on his ugly face meant anything.
And Ketta, glancing up into her father’s face, clearly saw unease paint itself there, even masked by his black and swollen eye.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: YESTER
“Slow down, we don’t want to barge into a trap,” Yester said, studying the terrain in front of them. The way the path narrowed and forced anyone on horseback into riding single file worried him. He didn’t like the way the tall, narrow canyon shut out the sun, either. Shadows dappled the fallen stones, perfect cover for anyone hiding in ambush. “Let’s scout the way ahead for a mile or so, then come back for the horses. I don’t want to leave them along the trail for long. Never know who might come along and leave us afoot.”
“You think there’s more of these damn outlaws coming up behind us?” No mistaking the alarm in Nat’s voice.
“I don’t know. But I ain’t forgot there were four of the bastards that”—Yester hesitated, then went on—“that burned our ranch, stole our horses, and took Ketta.”
He didn’t miss the quick look Nat shot him. Figured he knew what it meant, too. Nat was wondering about Ma, but Yester couldn’t bring himself to talk out loud about what had happened to her. It wasn’t a thing he felt free to discuss. Not even with a sympathetic friend.
And what had Pa meant when he said “maybe the woman wouldn’t be there, either.” Did he mean she’d just be gone? That he’d throw her out like a used-up broom? Or did he mean she’d be dead?
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