Besides killing his brother, the cowpoke was a witness. He’d seen nothing, hadn’t he? How could he have? Fergus had never broken cover. But had Curly or Tulsa? They all three had that matching streak of white. Fergus might be picked out by that single feature.
“We ought to pack it in.” Tulsa had whipsawed back and forth between wanting the money and wanting a soft bed. Now he sat by the fire, foot tapping, fingers running round and round on his Winchester while they listened to those ghostly howls. “What’s say we head for town in the morning?”
“Go if you want. That cowpoke killed my brother. And if we find enough money in those saddlebags, we’ll be walking in high cotton for a long time.” Fergus knew the money was a bigger draw than avenging his brother.
Tulsa was a cousin, not a brother, so he didn’t care much what happened to Curly. Now Tulsa reached under his coonskin cap and rubbed that funny strip of pure white hair. Same spot as Fergus’s.
He didn’t think worse of Tulsa because of his caring about the money and not Curly. That was normal, and Tulsa’d throw in because of it.
Tulsa grunted his agreement, and Fergus knew the money was a stronger pull than the bullet hole in his saddle partner’s arm. They weren’t quittin’.
Fergus lay awake, his Colt six-shooter clutched in his hand, his bandolier refilled and within reach, listening to those haunting sounds as the wolves talked to the moon. He thought of that single gunshot they’d heard. Someone was definitely alive down here, but it couldn’t be that puny cowpoke. Fergus had seen his bullet strike. But if it wasn’t him, then who?
Whatever happened down here, Fergus had to track it down and make sure it wasn’t going to cause him trouble down the line. Fergus prided himself on being a thorough, careful man.
The next morning, it didn’t take ten minutes to find trouble. Fergus crouched by one of a thousand paw prints. “Those wolves weren’t here just by chance. This place is thick with wolf sign.”
A curl ran up his spine. The wolves were used to feeding on human flesh. They lived right down here. Waiting, probably, for food to come falling from the sky. Fergus had been feeding a wolf pack. Now they were prowling close by and not of a mind to be kind to the man who fed ’em.
“Look at that slope.” Fergus was daunted by what they were up against. He pointed up at the trees that seemed to grow straight out of the side of the mountain, point upward, and grow hugged up close to the rock face. “I don’t see the cowpoke or any sign of the horses. They could be snagged on that slope anywhere. We’d have to be mountain goats to find ’em. And that’s if the wolves didn’t drag them off.”
Tulsa snarled, as likeable as the wolf pack, and started scouting.
They found bodies all right, some they’d tossed down yesterday, some a lot older. Fergus kept looking up at those trees. The bodies were up there. Between the heavy woods and the wolves, it was looking like a long, hard job.
All day they worked, scaling the cliff a long way up.
“There’s nothin’ here, Fergus.”
Then Fergus spotted a horse. With a shout, he scrambled toward the dead critter and found a rich stash in the saddlebags. Waving the money over his head, he yelled, “This is enough to keep me on the hunt.”
They spent all day finding both horses and the rest of yesterday’s victims, but there was no sign of the cowpoke nor his rifle.
As sun began to set, Tulsa and Fergus set up camp again.
“Could he have survived, Fergus?”
“I gut shot him. He’s dead. Even if he survived the fall, the bullet I put in him would have finished him. Wolves must’ve drug him off.”
“Then who fired that gun?”
“Maybe he lived through the fall and got a shot off. A signal for help or something. But he can’t have lived. It’s still the wolves.”
Tulsa grunted and twitched. “Reckon. We’ll hunt farther down the cliff tomorrow. No wolf is going to drag a body far.”
Fergus tried to settle in to sleep, but the quiet started him into twitching as bad as Tulsa. Yes, they’d found enough money to make their day’s work worthwhile. But searching the ugly burial ground gnawed at his gut. He felt his sins crowding in on him as he saw the death he’d visited on people. Hunting for a dead man spooked him. A dead man who’d vanished.
“Let’s get out of this boot hill to sleep. Those wolves think they own that stretch of hill.” Truth was, Fergus wasn’t afraid of a few wolves. It was the ghosts that seemed to haunt this land. Not that he believed in ghosts, but if there was such a thing, then this would be the place for them.
Tulsa nodded and they rode off from the unholy graveyard.
They slept and went back to their search the next day. It was almost sunset when they finally found something that made no sense.
“What’s a pencil doin’ out here?” Fergus held it up. A pencil sharpened and showing no sign of being weathered.
“It just fell out of the pocket of one of ’em we shot, Fergus.” Tulsa kept working around the ground, moving farther and farther downhill.
“None of ’em fell here. Not all the way down this far.”
Tulsa looked at the cliff then at the pencil. “A wolf carried it away?”
“No teeth marks I can see. And no wolf tracks here. If a wolf dropped it here, it could have only been a day or two ago. There was a storm before that, and there’d be tracks if it was after the rain.”
A pencil? A strange pencil with thick lead. Fergus studied it then started looking for sign that someone else had been here.
“Down here, on the flat,” Fergus called over his shoulder.
Tulsa headed down. “A horse was picketed.”
Someone had ridden away from here.
Crouching to the ground, Tulsa pointed to a single set of footprints. “How could our cowpoke have ridden away? And how could he have a horse handy?”
“Looks like whoever it was carried a heavy load.” Fergus looked up that long, tree-covered mountainside.
“No one could survive that.” Tulsa stared and scrubbed his hand over his bristly face and felt his stomach growl.
“Nope. I know where my bullet hit. But maybe whoever was down here took the man off to bury him.”
“Why not just bury him here?”
Fergus shrugged. “He was carrying something heavy and the tracks are right to’ve been made the day we hit those sightseers. Even if it don’t make no sense, he must’ve taken that cowpoke off to bury him. And if he did, he stripped the gun and any money from the guy. That means he took what’s ours.” Fergus liked the idea of someone to hunt, someone to hate. He liked the wild places. And now, with someone to hunt, he felt like a wolf again … instead of a haunted man.
“Whoever took that cowpoke has his gun. He owes me.” Tulsa looked at his bandaged arm. “That means I’ve still got a chance at some payback. The tracks go off to the west in a straight line.”
“Two days’ head start.”
Fergus didn’t care, they could catch up.
A smile cracked on Tulsa’s face. “A slow-moving horse carrying a heavy load.”
A sudden rustling in the woods drew Fergus’s attention to the gleam of a pair of yellow eyes.
Wolves. Looking at him. Wondering if he’d make a good meal.
Fergus pulled his six-shooter. The wolf must have seen one before, because it darted from sight before Fergus could take aim. He shot in the direction of the wolf anyway but didn’t hear a yelp.
Too bad. It would have felt good to kill something.
Then, knowing just how the wolf felt when it locked eyes on prey, Fergus turned to Tulsa. “Let’s track that rider down.”
They mounted up and headed west, setting a fast pace.
Eight
Mandy shouldn’t have asked Sally to come. What had she been thinking? Mandy had to accept her life, and wanting her sister—any of her sisters—around was pure selfishness.
When she’d gotten the letter saying Sally was coming, she’d been so thrilled she�
��d had her hands full keeping her usual restraint in place. And the letter had come too late to stop Sally, which Sidney would certainly have done. But by the time word arrived, Sally was already on her way with the colonel and his party as escorts and the directions to Mandy’s mountaintop home in hand.
Mandy thought of Sidney’s bodyguards, Cooter and Platte. Sally might not even be safe. Although with Luther and Buff close to hand, no one would hurt Sally or Mandy. But her old friends weren’t here now. Mandy had always disliked and distrusted the men Sidney hired, but she’d never really feared them because Luther was always nearby.
Mandy suspected being far gone with child kept the guards away, and though she didn’t like all the workmen, they’d shown no signs of ugly intentions toward her. But she was coming close to the time of birthing her baby.
Her condition kept Sidney away, too, for which she was profoundly grateful. He still wanted her right beside him in the night. Said it was her place, and she reckoned it was. But mercifully, her rounded body didn’t inspire his husbandly attentions.
She could barely stand to be close to him. She’d gotten to spending most of the night drowsing in her rocking chair. The children often woke up, which irritated Sidney something fierce if they disturbed him. This way she could see to them better, and the distance from Sidney was better for her chances to sleep anyway. Nightly, Mandy waited until Sidney fell asleep and began his raucous snoring then slipped out of bed.
Now, she settled in her rocking chair, made as comfortable as possible with blankets and a stump pulled in for a footstool, and regretted writing and inviting any of her family to come. She’d even managed to sneak the letter out to the mail, which had been no small trick because Sidney always read any letters she wrote.
But Luther had taken this one to town and mailed it for her, and now Sally was coming. And Mandy had put her little sister in danger, both on the long trail and here once she arrived—if she arrived.
Mandy looked down at the rifle that lay on the floor beside her chair and knew neither she nor Sally would be easy women to hurt, but where was Sally?
She was in danger certainly. Although perhaps Luther had found her already and was heading here. There was no way to send word, living up at the top of this treacherous mountain, a long, long ride out from Helena.
The new house was going to be nothing short of a mansion. Mandy marveled at it as she watched it being built. They’d used dynamite, the explosions terrifying, to clear a road to pull in timbers and stone. Gray stone. Sidney had been so excited when he’d told her it would be gray. Like his name.
He’d even named it. Gray Towers. Mandy had heard of such things, and a person often named their ranch, but a house? It just seemed plain boastful, and she knew Sidney meant it just that way.
The trail as it was now was steep, with high sides cut away by the blasting. Those trails were impassable last winter when they’d stayed here in the cabin, and before the blasting, they’d only come in and out on horseback. Now they were wider, but not much.
Sidney had his shiny buggy. Maybe, if she got lucky, the house would be finished and Sidney, with his bodyguards, and all the workmen would ride to town just before a big snowfall and end up locked away from her for the winter.
Mandy smiled at the very thought. And he couldn’t even blame her. She’d warned him of the certain winter blockage. And they’d lived it last winter. But instead of moving them down closer to Helena, he’d widened the trail leaving it even deeper and more prone to being cut off. Even widened, it was a dangerous trip down to the perfectly nice cabin they lived in before the gold strike. Worse yet, they were moving farther uphill even from the cabin they were in now. It was another mile up a path that would give a mountain goat the vapors, on a trail skirting sheer cliffs, to reach the new house site.
Mandy went out and looked at the slowly rising house every day, stunned by the site of it. They’d rattle around inside that monstrosity. How would they keep it warm? Did Sidney expect Luther and Buff to cut enough wood to fill that whopper of a house with heat?
A cry pulled her out of her dark thoughts and she rose quickly. Catherine was awake. She should want the little girl to sleep through the night, but Mandy always felt relief when Catherine cried. Now if Sidney came out and checked, it would be obvious that Mandy had been forced from their bed.
He liked her right there beside him. Like the idiot didn’t leave her alone for days at a time when he went to town.
Mandy hurried into the girls’ room and scooped her pretty baby out of the cradle Luther had built. She quickly carried Catherine back to the rocker Buff had built and settled in by the potbellied stove Luther had hauled from town. Then she settled in to sing quietly and nurse her baby. The little one barely fit around Mandy’s expanded stomach, but they’d learned to manage.
Mandy hoped the cow calved before the baby came. It should. Otherwise she’d be nursing both children because there was no milk. As it was, Angela was doing without. Not a good situation for a two-year-old. Not a good situation for an expectant mother. For a rich person, Mandy had quite a time feeding her family. Sidney might manage to get fat, but Mandy and the children were lean and now, with Luther and Buff away, downright hungry.
Mandy turned her thoughts away from her worries and brushed her hand over the bit of dandelion fluff that was Catherine’s hair. Catherine was soon done eating and fast asleep in Mandy’s arms. She just held the baby and rocked her for the pleasure of it now. The baby’s hair was white and fine, very much like Angela’s had been. She wondered if this time she’d have a son. Resting her hand on her middle, she pictured a rambunctious little boy around the house and almost wept for how much she missed her little brothers.
Sidney didn’t comment much on the children, but he seemed to think it was fitting that Mandy remain constantly in a family way. Except for the unpleasantness involved with becoming so, Mandy didn’t mind the babies either. Her life made sense when she held her girls in her arms.
A sharp squeak came from the porch that ran along the front of the little cabin, right near the window that was beside the door.
Mandy’s blood ran cold. She moved without even thinking. She had the rifle in one hand and the baby in the other. She rushed, silently, into the girls’ room and laid sleeping Catherine down, praying silently that the little one would stay asleep.
Then she stepped back into the main room, her nerves cool, her ears focused on the outside. She swung the door open to her own bedroom. “Sidney,” she said, keeping her voice low so whoever was out there wouldn’t hear. She heard her husband mutter and snort. She hissed, “Sidney, get up.”
It didn’t sit right to go on into the room. She wanted her own body between whoever was out there and her children. But Sidney wasn’t going to respond without some encouragement. She walked to his side and shook his pudgy shoulder. “Wake up!”
“What? What’s going—”
Mandy slapped her hand over his mouth, and even in her desperate hurry to get back to investigate that sound, she might have slapped a bit too hard and enjoyed it a bit too much. It almost pushed back the cold because of the heat of that bit of violence. “Shhhh. Quiet.” Her eyes had adjusted to the dark enough that she could see him looking at her. “There’s someone outside our door.”
His eyes narrowed and he jerked his chin to show he understood her.
She removed her hand, resisted the urge to wipe his touch off her palm, jacked a shell into the chamber of her Winchester, and left him. He needed to know, but she honestly doubted he’d be any help.
She went out into the room she’d left only moments before and moved quickly across the split log floor. Pressing her back against the wall, she positioned herself with the front door on her left and the window where she’d heard that footstep on her right. Their table stood in front of the window. She held her rifle in two hands, against her chest just above her round belly, barrel pointed up, her finger on the trigger.
The curtain was pulled shut. She
was always careful about that because of the workmen and the two bodyguards who stayed in the bunkhouse. She hated the idea of their walking past the house and looking in the window at her.
Her senses were alert. Her nerves like steel. Steady as a rock. And cold as death.
She looked to her right, at the window, but she listened the way she and her sister Beth had learned to listen, with total attention, eyes and ears and nose focused. Her hand was steady on the trigger, trusting her instincts. Instincts could be a simple whisper of warning from God. Mandy was always open to that.
Who was out there at this time of night? The workmen and Sidney’s guards slept in the bunkhouse closer to the new house.
Sidney came to their bedroom door and she was surprised to see a six-gun in his hand. And he looked comfortable holding it. “Where?” He moved his lips but Mandy understood.
She jerked her head at the window.
Sidney came across the room to the other side of the window, the table between them, and pressed his back to the wall just as Mandy had. His belly stuck out almost as far as Mandy’s did, too. To Mandy’s surprise, he was taking her very seriously. Mandy had never seen him like this. Sidney was a pouter, a city boy. He hired people to defend him—bodyguards.
Mandy supposed, in their way, Luther and Buff were her bodyguards, though no one had ever called them such. She knew Sidney tolerated them simply because he couldn’t get rid of them. Luther had made it clear from the beginning that he wasn’t leaving and that was the end of it. And Sidney didn’t fuss much. After all, Luther and Buff did almost all the work a man should do to run a home—hunting, skinning and tanning hides, cutting firewood, making shoes, doing the heavy work in the garden, and caring for the livestock.
Mandy wished so much that it was them making that noise. That in a few moments a knock would come at her door and Sally would call out, with Luther right behind her, both of them grinning, safe and happy to see her.
No knock sounded. No shout of hello.
She should have felt fear. In a detached way, Mandy knew that. But instead all she felt was calm, nearly irrational calm. Her eyes met Sidney’s. A lot passed between them with a look. Who was out there? They’d never had trouble with thieves.
Sophie's Daughters Trilogy Page 38