As Brennan shook his head, his stony eyes never left the stranger's face. "It's on its way from Abilene. It shouldn't be more than a day or two behind us."
"Better not be. Roscoe's gettin' a little antsy." The stranger squared his shoulders. "Now listen close. Here's the way it's goin' to be. When you get that ransom money, you bring it to a place called Elysium. That's a little town 'bout thirty miles south of here. Ghost town, now, at least when we ain't there."
"So that's Wolfe's hideout," Brennan commented.
"One of 'em." The man grinned. "You sound like a lawman, mister. Reckon you star-packers ought to know by now that you ain't never goin' to catch Roscoe Wolfe. He's too damned smart for you."
"Just say what you came to say," Brennan advised. The gun was still in his hand.
"You bring that money to Elysium, and you send it into town with one man. You got that, lawman? One man. Any more'n that come ridin' in, that gal is dead."
Brennan nodded. "I understand."
The hardcase gave a curt nod in return, then wheeled his horse and spurred it into a gallop. Cully and Brennan sat still on their mounts and stared after him until he had disappeared into the rain and gloom. Then they turned and rode slowly back to the posse.
Roland and Pannier, too impatient to wait for them to return, urged their mounts forward despite Angus's telling them to stay where they were. "What was that about?" Roland demanded as he drew his horse to a halt in front of the two lawmen.
"Was that man a messenger from Wolfe?" Pannier asked.
Brennan nodded. "Wolfe sent him, all right. He had orders for us."
When Brennan paused, Roland burst out anxiously, "Well, what did he have to say? Is Elizabeth all right?"
"I think she's fine," Brennan said. "I didn't ask. I wouldn't trust that fella too much. I'd rather just believe your sister is all right until I know differently, Mr. Stockbridge."
Tightly, Pannier asked, "What does Wolfe want?"
"We're supposed to take the ransom money to a ghost town south of here called Elysium." Brennan had raised his voice so it would carry over the sound of the rain to the rest of the posse, which had ridden up slowly to join them. "Wolfe probably isn't too happy that the whole group of us came after him, but he still says he'll release the girl if one man brings the ransom into Elysium."
Pannier leaned forward in his saddle. "That's what we're going to do, isn't it? I'm sure that Mr. Stockbridge sent it on immediately when he got that note Wolfe left on the train."
Cully thought Pannier was being overly optimistic. There was no guarantee that Nicholas Stockbridge had decided to pay the ransom for Elizabeth. Even if he had, there was certainly no way of knowing how far behind them the money was—or whether it would end up anywhere near Elysium. It might be days before it arrived.
If it ever did... With the whole territory up in arms, that money might be stolen before it ever caught up with the posse.
From the thoughtful look on Brennan's face, Cully had a feeling that the marshal's thoughts were running along the same lines. After a moment, Brennan said, "We can't assume anything, men. The best thing we can do now is continue on to this Elysium place. Once we get there, we'll decide what to do."
"But...but Elizabeth—" Pannier began.
"I said, we'll decide what to do when we get there," Brennan said firmly. He wheeled his horse. "And we're wasting time right now."
Cully turned his mount and fell in beside Brennan. Behind them the other posse members urged their horses into motion. Pannier and Roland sat still, looking angry and confused. Hannah rode up beside Pannier and put a hand on his arm. "Come on,
Elliott," she said softly, "we have to push on. Like Mr. Brennan said, it's all we can do right now."
Pannier sighed heavily. "I suppose you're right." Wearily, he heeled his horse into a walk.
Cully turned in the saddle to check that the posse was following. They were spread out somewhat, as usual. Even in this miserable rain, Roland Stockbridge was proving to be a better rider than Pannier. He rode along with several of the men from Abilene, muttering complaints to them about the way Brennan and Cully were handling things. Though Cully couldn’t make out the words clearly, he sensed what the young man was doing. It had been plain from the start that neither Roland nor Pannier had been happy with the posse's leadership. Pannier had suffered in silence, but Roland wasn’t the type to do that. As Cully studied the men, the thought of going into battle with this bunch at his back made him very uneasy.
In a low-pitched voice that the others couldn’t hear over the steady sluicing of the rain, Brennan said, "I guess you know I'm not going to give Wolfe that money, Cully, even if it does show up."
Cully kept his eyes forward, not looking over at the marshal. The slanting rain made the whole world wet and gray. "Don’t think it'd do any good to pay Wolfe," the deputy said slowly. "Chances are he'd kill Elizabeth anyway, along with the man who delivered the money."
"That's exactly what he'd do. The only chance that young lady has is for us to get her away from Wolfe before it comes time to deliver the ransom. One thing's for sure—I'm not going to let scum like Roscoe Wolfe get away with hurting innocent people." Brennan's voice was every bit as cold as the rain falling from the leaden skies. "I'll stop him one way or another if it's the last thing I do. And then he'll be where a murderer like him belongs—at the end of a rope!"
Cully said nothing for a long moment. He looked over at Brennan and saw that the marshal's face was set in an expressionless mask despite the vehemence in his voice. Brennan's hate for Wolfe seemed to run awfully deep, deeper than a lawman's feelings toward an outlaw normally did.
It seemed to Cully that Elizabeth's life wasn’t the most important thing to Brennan. She was only an excuse for the lawman to go after Roscoe Wolfe again.
"I think I'll go talk to Angus for a few minutes and see if he knows anything about this part of the country," Cully finally said.
"Good idea." Brennan nodded.
Cully turned his horse's head away from Brennan and rode back toward the rest of the posse. He spotted Angus and dropped back until he was riding beside the Scotsman.
Nodding toward Pannier, Cully asked, "How's the tenderfoot doing?"
"’Tis a good, big heart the man has," Angus replied. "But he has no business being out here. I'll be keeping an eye on him."'
"I appreciate that." Cully took a deep breath. "I want to talk to you about Brennan, Angus."
Angus glanced shrewdly at him. "Something about the man troubles ye?"
Quickly, Cully explained his feeling that Brennan was more interested in catching Wolfe than he was in saving Elizabeth. He finished by saying, "I'm afraid that when it comes down to it, Brennan might sacrifice Elizabeth if it meant he'd get a chance to face down Wolfe."
"Aye, I can see how tha' would worry ye. If it comes to tha', lad, what are ye ginna do?"
Cully grimly stared into the rain. "I'll stop him," he said. "Somehow, I'll stop him."
11
The rain stopped in midafternoon as the storm moved away from them to the south. The posse members were glad to see it go, for there was nothing more miserable than riding in a soaking downpour.
Cully shook the rain off his hat and jammed the soggy item back on his head. Remembering that Hannah Stockbridge had been forced to make do with the piece of oilcloth to protect her from the elements, he turned his horse and rode back along the line of men until he reached her.
She had undraped the oilcloth and was folding it up as he approached her. She looked up at Cully with a grateful smile. "Here," she said, holding the cloth out to him. "I appreciate it, Cully. It worked just fine."
Indeed, as Cully had suspected, Hannah didn’t look any wetter than the rest of them. If anything, her head was a little drier. She shook it, dashing a few droplets of water from her blond hair. The clouds overhead were parting in places, letting the afternoon sun shine through, and the rays struck highlights in Hannah's thick hair.
&nbs
p; "How long do you think it'll take us to get to this Elysium place?" she asked.
"Wolfe's man said it was about thirty miles south of where we met him. We can't cover that much ground today, but we ought to get there sometime tomorrow, by the middle of the day if we're lucky."
Hannah nodded. The smile had vanished from her face, replaced by a solemn look. "I'll be glad when we get there," she said. "Elizabeth must be having an awful time."
"I don't think they'll hurt her," Cully tried to assure her. "She's no good to them unless she's alive."
Hannah shot him a meaningful glance. "That doesn't mean they have to return her in the same condition she was in when they took her."
"That's true enough," Cully said. For some reason, he didn’t feel like lying to Hannah.
"Besides, even if we try to pay the ransom and get her back that way, what are the chances that Wolfe will just kill her anyway?"
Cully didn’t tell her that he and Brennan had discussed that possibility and found it highly likely. Instead, he smiled thinly and said, "Well, I don't think we'd let Wolfe do that. He's up against a posse of good men here."
"Maybe," Hannah didn’t sound convinced, "but you and Marshal Brennan and Mr. MacQuarrie are the only ones who have much experience with outlaws like Wolfe. Elliott and my brother had never even been on horseback before all this."
Cully glanced at Pannier and Roland Stockbridge, who were riding several yards ahead of them. Pannier seemed to be sitting his saddle a little better; he knew now that Elizabeth was only a short distance away, and that knowledge seemed to have strengthened him. He was no longer dragging at the rear of the posse.
"They'll be all right," Cully said. "Both of them really love Elizabeth."
"Elliott does," Hannah admitted. "I'm not sure Roland really loves anything except money and power, and Father doesn't allow him a great deal of either."
Cully looked at Roland Stockbridge and asked, "If that's true, why did he come along with us?"
Hannah shrugged prettily. "I'm not sure. I suppose his feelings for Elizabeth could be stronger than I thought. Or it could be that he's just angry that anyone would dare to attack the Stockbridge family this way."
Cully hesitated and then said, "And why did you come, even after I told you you couldn't?"
"Maybe I just wanted you to know you can't push me around," Hannah replied with a grin; then the quick grin faded, and she became more serious. "Elizabeth is my sister. I love her, and I have to help her if I can."
"From what I saw back in Abilene, it can't have been easy all the time, being Elizabeth's sister, I mean." Cully realized that he was venturing into matters that were none of his business, but he liked Hannah and found it easy to talk to her. He was honestly interested in what she had to say.
Hannah looked thoughtfully at him for a moment. "If you're saying that I had to spend a lot of time in her shadow," she said, "you're right. I was never the belle of the ball like Elizabeth. But I never wanted to be. The things she took such a great interest in, like clothes and parties and boys...well, I was happier concerning myself with other things."
Cully was unsure how to reply to that, so he said nothing. It was hard to believe that a young lady as attractive as Hannah had not had some suitors. She might not be as flirtatious as her sister, but she was nowhere near as flighty.
He looked again at Elliott Pannier. The easterner was moving his head slowly from side to side, alertly scanning the horizon ahead of them. As Cully studied his profile and saw the intensity on the man's features, he was struck by the depth of feeling that Pannier carried for Elizabeth.
Cully grimaced. Now that he understood things a little better, he was sorry that he had even briefly considered a liaison with Elizabeth Stockbridge. She had easily manipulated him, just as she had done with every man she had met.
After a moment, Hannah went on, "Don’t get me wrong, Cully. I like men just fine. It's just that I got bored pretty quickly with the kind of boys who were always flocking around Elizabeth."
Cully looked over at her and met her eyes. There was admiration in them, and maybe a hint of something else, too.
"I think I'd better get back up to the front with Brennan," he said quickly, turning his eyes away from hers. "I'm never sure what's going on in that old boy's brain."
"What do you mean?" Hannah asked with a frown.
Cully shook his head, not wanting to share with her problems he had already discussed with Angus. "Nothing for you to worry about," he said as he heeled his horse into a trot.
When he reached the head of the posse, he posed the same question to Brennan that Hannah had asked him. "When do you think we'll get to Elysium?"
"If we stop and camp tonight, like we've been doing all along, it'll be tomorrow sometime," the white-haired marshal replied.
Something in Brennan's tone made Cully glance at him sharply. "You're thinking about not stopping?"
"Before, we stopped and camped because we needed the daylight to follow Wolfe's tracks." Brennan nodded toward the muddy ground over which they were riding. "Well, there're no tracks to follow anymore. If the clouds break up enough, the stars will keep us heading south. And Wolfe probably isn't expecting us until tomorrow."
"So we ride on through the night?" Cully asked.
Brennan said slowly, "I'm thinking about it. Haven't made up my mind for sure yet. What do you think, Cully?"
The deputy considered the possibilities for a long moment. What Brennan had said made sense. "Sounds like that might be the best thing for us to do. But you've got to remember, if we don't make camp, we're going to have a bunch of tired men and horses when we finally get to the place."
"True enough. We'll need to take a short rest along about sundown, maybe. Let the men get a little sleep and some grub. Think that might work?"
Cully nodded. "It's probably the best we can do."
He wondered, as he rode along, if that best would be good enough to save Elizabeth Stockbridge's life.
The posse pushed on through the afternoon, their progress slowed by the mud that the storm had left in its wake. Several of the creeks and gullies that lay across their path were full of fast-running water, and the posse had to ford them carefully.
As Brennan had hoped, the thick bank of clouds continued to move to the south. By the time the sun was lowering toward the horizon, the sky overhead was clear and bright. During the night, the posse would be able to chart its course by the stars.
Brennan held up a hand to halt the riders behind him. He turned in the saddle and said, "We're going to stop for an hour or so. Get something to eat, try to catch a little sleep if you want to. But then we're going to ride on."
A murmur of protest ran through the posse. The men had complained very little so far, but with every grinding hour spent in the saddle, they drew closer to the end of their reserves of strength. One man called out angrily, "Brennan, these horses can't go on all night. They've got to get some rest!"
"Listen, you men!" Brennan's harsh voice cut through the grumbling. "Wolfe won't be looking for us to reach that ghost town until tomorrow sometime. If we ride hard tonight, maybe we can get there by dawn. We can surprise those renegades, maybe wipe them out if we're lucky!"
The vehemence of the marshal's words drew mutters of approval from some of the men, but others still thought he was asking too much of them. Elliott Pannier urged his horse to the forefront of the group and demanded, "Do you mean to attack the town as soon as we reach it, Brennan?"
"I haven't decided that yet," Brennan replied coolly. "But I don't mind having that choice to make, rather than letting a skunk like Wolfe call all the shots."
"You'd take a chance on getting Elizabeth killed, then!"
Leveling icy blue eyes at him, Brennan leaned forward in his saddle and said, "Mr. Pannier, there's been a chance of that ever since Wolfe dragged her out of Abilene. You've known that all along."
"But you said you'd wait for the ransom money to arrive!" Roland Stockbridge cried.
Brennan shook his head. "I don't recollect saying that, Mr. Stockbridge. And even if I did, things sometimes change. We have to follow whatever plan the circumstances dictate."
Cully watched the exchange with interest. What Brennan said made sense, but Cully couldn’t shake the feeling that the lawman had another priority—to get Roscoe Wolfe in his gunsights any way he could.
Looking over the posse and trying to read the expressions on the faces of the men, Cully sensed that a good number of them agreed with Brennan. That could cause trouble if Cully had to oppose the marshal. He was sure Angus would back him up, but there was no way of being certain what the other men would do.
"We're wasting time right now," Brennan said firmly. He glanced at the setting sun, its red glare lighting his face. "Like I said, take a rest for a while." He swung down from his saddle and led his horse to a clump of grass. The animal started to graze contentedly.
The other riders followed his example, and within a few minutes all had dismounted. As the sun set, they broke out a little food from the meager store they had left and began to eat.
Cully looked around for Hannah and found her sitting with her back against a scrubby tree. He joined her, noting that the tree was on a slight mound of earth where the ground wasn’t quite as wet as the surrounding area. Hannah was chewing on a stale biscuit, and she offered what was left of it to Cully.
He shook his head and lifted the saddlebag he had taken off his horse. "I've got some left," he said. "Be glad to share them with you."
"No, thanks," Hannah said. "I'm not very hungry."
"Thinking about your sister?"
"We're closer to her now than we've been before," she said softly. "Another day—or less—and it will all be over."
"This trip hasn't been easy for you, has it? No matter how you made it look."
She shook her head, not meeting Cully's eyes. "I keep remembering those...those men that I shot. I had never shot at a man before that day, Cully, let alone killed somebody." She took a deep breath. "But I'd do it again. For Elizabeth...and to help save the rest of you...I'd do it again."
Rattler's Law, Volume One Page 52