He hung his cartridge belt and holster around his middle, feeling the weight of the Peacemaker, and set out again, this time working through the thickening dark down the far slope where the killer had lain in wait. He did not look for sign; the killer had gone this way, and could go no other because the place was hemmed by giant shoulders of the mountains. He had never been in this country, but knew that the drainage would lead to the Elkhorn River, and that river would flow past Centerville perhaps forty or fifty miles distant.
He let the bay pick its way through timber, and found himself trusting the surefooted animal. Even as dusk turned into pitch black night, the bay worked cautiously down the drainage. Blue could hear the music of a creek, and once in a while the rustle of a nocturnal animal. A moon rose, and Blue found himself tracing a narrow valley with vaulting rock on one side, and brush and gentle slopes on the other. He halted at an overhang. There was grass for the bay, water, and shelter from the rain he suspected would deluge the mountains before dawn. He could smell the pungency of animals there. He supposed it was close to midnight. There was no reason not to build a fire and boil some of his parched corn, so he set to work.
He often did his best thinking when he was busy at small tasks, and now, as he unloaded the bay and organized his gear, his mind was chewing on the day’s events. The killer had chosen not to kill him when he had the chance, and that spoke loudly in Blue’s mind. He had yet to fathom what was happening here: whether the killer was luring him along toward some fate, planting a body at his fishing hole and leaving a trail behind, with no effort to conceal it, or whether it was all coincidence. Who was stalking whom?
The killer could be ahead, following this drainage, which would take him to the river and Centerville, or the killer might have quit, urged his horse up towering slopes and headed some other direction. Blue would find out in the morning. If the killer was luring him, what was the purpose? If Blue, the hunter, was being hunted, what was the purpose? If the killer intended to ambush him somewhere ahead, but had spared him at the pass, what was the purpose of that?
Hell, there were things beyond a man’s ken, and until something else happened, he would just treat it as it was: he was a lawman after a murderer and one way or another he was going to get his man.
The overhanging ledge projected about five feet over a hollow carved in the limestone by ancient floods, which was fine with Blue. He found ample kindling in the surrounding woods, built a fire downwind of the hollow, boiled up some parched corn into mush, spooned the vile stuff down, and rolled into his blanket. He awakened to a dawn drizzle when a gust of icy air sprayed rain across his face. The bay stood where he had been picketed, head low, his coppery back black with water. Blue’s gear was dry. The shotgun needed to be wiped down. The saddle was safe. He would ride, probably catch up with the killer, who would not expect him in the cold rain. Blue stood, stiffly, pulled on damp boots, ate some cold corn mush, donned his slicker, and collected the horse.
That’s when his blood ran cold. Tied to the horse’s neck was that straw hat with the pink streamers. It lay lightly on the black mane. He had left it at the pass, tied to his panniers which lay beside the dead mule. The straw brim dripped water, and the long ribbons were sodden. But it was the same hat. And here it was. Sometime in that long bleak night, the killer had tied it there. Blue wondered, suddenly, whether he was the hunter or the hunted. He untied the hat, wondering what it meant. It was a familiar hat, somehow. There was something about it that stirred memories, but he could not fathom what they might be. He rotated the hat in his hand, trying to understand the message in it. Maybe there was none. Maybe this stalker was simply amusing himself. He peered into the mist, wondering if some cocky killer was peering at him. There was this about it: the killer was not far off, and Blue figured that might work to his advantage. He led the bay under the overhang, wiped it down, tossed a saddle blanket over it, saddled up, and then rode downslope, feeling the drizzle roll down his slicker, and the mist in his face, sliding down his weathered cheeks like tears.
Chapter 6
Blue picked up the trail easily enough. Hoofprints incised the soft earth, and the misting rain failed to wash them away. They led down the valley, which widened steadily as the creek that carved it tumbled off the mountains and picked up tributaries. At times he rode through lodgepole forest; other times, through verdant parks rife with deer. He carried the shotgun across his lap but doubted he would use it. Anyone who was more intent on leaving clues than on killing him was unlikely to ambush him. But one never knew. Not that he had much faith in the shotgun just then. This killer was a skilled marksman with a rifle, and if ambush was his intent, Blue would be dead before he knew what hit him.
The bay horse hurried along, happier going downhill than laboring up. The valley widened and leveled, and Blue knew he was not far from the great grassy basins to the west, where cattlemen raised thousands of beeves. The eastern horse was not obedient, at least not in the western sense. It wouldn’t neck-rein and he had to saw its head one way or another to steer it. It trembled on slopes. It sidestepped when he tried to mount. But it was a willing and eager animal, and that counted for something. He cursed the death of Hector, and cursed the man who had shot him.
Then, surprisingly, the hoofprints veered to the right, away from the roaring river, and straight toward a hogback ridge that hemmed the valley to the north. Blue followed, suddenly more alert. He scrutinized the terrain ahead, finding it dangerous. Talus lay on the steep slope. Copses of aspen and juniper and jackpine dotted the ridge, along with stratified rock, no doubt limestone. The trail led straight upward, toward a ridgeline a thousand feet above. The killer had urged his horse over shelves of rock, along narrow game trails, over downed logs, ever higher. Blue admired the skills that had guided a horse up a slippery slope without mishap.
Blue reined in his horse, trying hard to remember what lay on the other side of that ridge. Probably another like it, and valleys reaching northwest into the Paraguay, as that stretch of desert on the west edge of the county was called. The killer could head that way and out of the area, out of the Territory if he knew how to find the water hole. There was only one in forty miles of parched land, and that so alkaline an animal could hardly stand it. Blue had once chased a gang of stage coach robbers out there, and caught them when their horses gave out from thirst. It was raining harder, and the gumbo was treacherous underfoot. Blue ran a hand along the neck of the flatlander bay, under its mane, and decided not to follow the hoofprints scrambling upward. Half of tracking was simply guessing where the quarry was heading, and Blue suspected that this one was still heading for Centerville and pretending he wasn’t. It was hard to make up his mind. A mistake could cost him his man. But Blue decided to head for Centerville and a visit with Zeke, the town marshal there. Among other things, the marshal might be able to identify the bay horse, and Blue would have the name of the victim, and maybe even the name of the killer. He stared at those fresh hoofprints, the shape so familiar to him now. There was something fishy about this sudden turn right, something that suggested that Blue was being played like a trout by a man skilled at con. He sighed, hoping he wasn’t playing the fool.
He could reprovision and get word back to Barlow, and pick up any news that Barlow had passed along.
Still, he hesitated. He peered upward at that slope, wrestling with a wild itch to race over the top and land on the killer. But that killer was heading for Centerville, and Blue decided to form a little reception committee when the outlaw rode in. Reluctantly, he abandoned the trail, rode back to the river, and headed through delightful ranch country, marked by riverside meadows, copses of willows, some jackpine and juniper.
Here was evidence of cattle, grazing, the dominion of some stockman over on this west side of the county. He rode another five miles before the mist lifted, and two more when he passed into hazy sun, so he took off his slicker, tied it behind the cantle, and rode through a thick moist afternoon. He didn’t know how far Centerv
ille was, but if he kept going, he should be sleeping in a real bed that night, and he would welcome it.
He spent his time in the saddle mulling things.
Maybe he was making some wrong assumptions. Maybe he was not following the killer but someone who wanted to lead him somewhere, or toward some conclusion. He had no way of knowing whether these hoofprints were really those of the murderer of the unknown victim at the fishing hole. Maybe it was even someone trying to give him clues, help him out. Maybe it was all coincidence.
What of that woman’s hat? What did it say? Whose hat was it? Was the owner dead? Or was the owner the killer? Or was that hat a message, a threat to some living woman? And why did he keep sensing that the hat was significant to him? It was nothing that Olivia ever wore. Nothing he had ever seen on a mother or aunt or grandmother.
Whoever was escaping from him was also toying with him, and he was very good at it. Maybe this was someone he knew. Maybe someone he had arrested or jailed or caught in times past. Maybe that trail upslope was intended to decoy him away from something, put him far away from some other crime about to be committed, a crime he might well stop while on duty in Blankenship, like a bank robbery. The more he pondered all this the more Blue fell into bewilderment. He finally decided to go with his intuitions, honed by decades as a law man, and forget the reasoning and brain-beating that led him nowhere. He would meet that son of a gun in Centerville, and it was as plain as that.
He arrived late in Centerville, and had it not been June he would have arrived in darkness. It had been a couple of years since he had ridden into this far southwest corner of the county. The town had shrunk; he could see that. Storefronts were boarded up. The gold and silver miners had ditched it for other Eldorados, and the remaining establishments served the local ranchers and cowboys and their families, a few two-man mines and a few dozen prospectors still combing the canyons and dreaming of bonanzas.
Blue rode past the town marshal’s office, a tiny room at the city hall, and headed for the Lady Ann, where he suspected the marshal would be playing poker with his cronies, as he did most every night. Zeke Dombrowski was a bachelor, and the saloon was his parlor, and he roomed upstairs. Blue tied the eastern horse to the hitchrail, not trusting it to stand untethered, and pushed inside. One overhead light, with two lamps burning, kept twilight at bay. He saw his man at the table, chewing on a dead black cigar.
“Hullo, Zeke.”
The marshal peered up. “You, is it? Half expecting you.”
He turned to the rest, four weather-beaten old-timers who constituted the entire patronage of the place this warm evening. “I’m out. Tally me and I’ll settle later.”
Zeke led him toward the door and into the twilight. “Don’t want to talk too much around them gossips,” he said.
“Expecting me?”
“Yeah, since Barlow sent that picture. I’ve seen that fellow around here. No way not to see a man dressed in a black suit and boiled shirt like that.”
“You have a name?”
“Nope, he just rode in, got himself a nice room at the Aspen, hung around a few days and vamoosed.”
“He must have signed the register.”
“He did, but no one can read the signature, big blot on it. Mrs. Grubbe thinks it was something like Horatio Hancock, but she can’t remember.”
Blue pushed out onto the boardwalk. “That his horse?”
Zeke started. “By damn, it is, can’t miss it, horse like that, never did see another so copper colored.”
“The man’s dead. Six bullets did it, and I found his body at my fishing hole.”
“No! Dead? That city dude? When was that, Blue?”
“Few days ago.” He could hardly count all the damned days.
“Few days ago is when he quit here.”
“Alone?”
“How should I know? One day he’s here, next day he ain’t. I don’t go poking around if a man’s got lawful business, and this one sure wasn’t robbing banks.”
“Did he talk to anyone? Anyone meet him?”
Zeke shook his head. “Any other strangers poking around here?”
“Nope, not as I know of.”
“Maybe I’ll stay around a few days and find out a few things. You can help me, Zeke. See if anyone knew this man. See if you can come up with a name.”
“I’ll get right on it, Blue.”
“What did you think of the man?”
“Fancy dresser; black suit, cravat, boiled shirt with clean cuffs. And that horse! So rangy it looks like a running horse to me. Sort of a Philadelphia man.”
“Thought so, too. Not a likely horse for this country.”
“No, it would be too tall for working cows.”
“Why would anyone have a horse like this one around here?”
“Good traveling horse, Blue. A get-around kind of horse. Might walk or jog pretty good on flatland.”
“It does that,” Blue said.
“What are you going to do with it?”
Blue sighed. “Whoever killed the stranger shot my horse and my mule to slow me down. So I’m borrowing this one until I find whose it is. I think the deceased wouldn’t mind, seeing as how it’s all the transportation I’ve got.”
“Any brand?”
“I’ve been over it and can’t find none,” Blue said, “and with my hands, too, not just eyeballing.”
“Eastern horse.”
“Western saddle.”
“Where’s that?”
“It’s back on a pass I crossed. This one is mine.”
“Nothing there, I suppose.”
“Naw. Nothing there, nothing in the man’s pockets either.”
“What’s that straw hat, Blue?”
“Damned if I know. It was in the field near where the body was. Then the killer got aholt of it and sent me a message with it.”
“Message?”
“He got it and tied it to the horse while I sheltered from rain, and I found it.”
“What do you figure the message is?”
Blue sighed. “I have no idea.”
“Mind if I see it?”
Blue motioned the marshal forward. The Centerville lawman stepped into the manure next to the rack and plucked up the hat. He untied it, took it into the saloon where he could put some light on it, and ran it around his fingers a few times. Then he returned to the dark gallery out front.
“Blue, I think I know this here hat. I’ve seen a gal we both know wearing that thing when she comes in town to shop. It belongs to your daughter.”
Chapter 7
Tammy’s hat. That was it, all right. She had worn that thing last summer, when she and her husband, Steve Cooper, and her young ones came visiting. Pink band around the crown, running down to tie under her chin.
“That’s it, Zeke,” Blue said. “Her hat! That killer had it. Knows she’s my daughter...I’ve got to warn her.”
“Of what?”
“Her life’s in danger.”
“How do you see that?”
“Killer got that hat.”
The marshal stood in the twilight, not making sense of it. But Blue crawled with worry. “You sure that was the killer, put that hat on that horse in the rain?”
Blue wasn’t very sure, but he wasn’t going to admit that to Zeke. “I’m taking off,” he said.
“Whoa up, Blue. How many miles you come today off the mountains?”
“Forty, maybe more.”
“It’s near twenty more out to Cooper’s place. You figure that’s some magic horse?”
“I’ll ride light. I know how.”
“You better put that flatland horse in the livery barn, get him grained and rubbed, and sit down for a bowl of beans. Then we’ll see.”
“Got to get out there.”
“You’re being stubborn. You get yourself a room, grain that horse, and I’ll go talk to her. I haven’t done a thing all day anyway. I’ll take the hat, and if it’s hers, I’ll warn her, warn Steve, to stay in and stay ar
med.” Zeke paused, skeptically. “If that’s what you think. Myself, I don’t know about this. Might be lots of hats like that. Someone pulls a prank on you just when you’re doing something else, and you think it’s a threat to your daughter. You got some reason to think it?”
Blue thought it because his gut told him to think it and that was all. “I do,” he said.
“Blue, you get some rest, fix that horse a bucket of oats, and first thing in the morning we’ll see. I’ve a notion to take you around town, see who talked to the stranger, maybe find out his name. Get a name on that the dead man, get his business, and you’re half way home.”
Blue puzzled it. “Zeke, it’s not just to warn Tammy. I need some information from her. If she knows who got her hat, or where she left it by accident, and gives me a name, I’ve got my man figured out.”
Zeke sighed, and Blue sensed the marshal was out of arguments. “I guess maybe the livery’ll rent you a fresh hoss,” he said. “You want company?”
“No, Zeke, information. You find out who that dead man was, whether he got any enemies, all of that. I’ll ride.”
“You want some beans?”
Blue nodded. He was stiff, and his legs hurt as they always did when a saddle had split them too long. His banged up knee had been tormenting him all day.
“Well it’s too late for Maisie’s Place, but they always got a pot of beans in here.” Zeke undid the reins of the bay and led him toward the livery barn down at the east end of town.
Blue decided a half hour break wouldn’t hurt anything, and ordered up some beans from the barkeep. “Want some eggs too, sheriff?”
“Sure, and a beer.”
He was tired. He wanted nothing more than a good bunk and a long sleep, but worry was crawling in his gut, and he knew he wouldn’t indulge himself. Not with Tammy in trouble. A killer took her hat. That could mean anything. Tying it to Blue’s horse could mean anything from a threat to a prank. But somehow, this was no damned prank. Zeke returned and slid onto a bench across from Blue. “Hostler knows that horse, but doesn’t know the name of the owner. He didn’t ask, and the man didn’t say. But the man told him that horse is a walker, goes forever at a jig. You ever jig a horse much?”
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