Without thinking about it, Michael thumbed back the hammer of the pistol and pulled the trigger. The gun cracked spitefully, and Laughing Fox staggered back, the tomahawk slipping from his fingers. He fell, landing on the backs of the horses hitched to the wagon.
That was more than enough to startle the already spooked animals into flight. They bolted, pulling the wagon behind them.
The sudden start threw Michael back against the seat. He felt a heavy bump and knew with a sickening certainty that it had been the wheels of the wagon passing over the body of Chief Laughing Fox. Michael grabbed the edge of the seat and hung on tightly. He wondered what had happened to the reins.
Fingers grabbed his throat, and Munroe cursed luridly as he tried to choke the life out of Michael. Michael's eyes widened. Munroe had caught him without any air in his lungs, and in a matter of seconds the world was swimming crazily around Michael. He brought the gun up and struck out with it, aiming by instinct. It thudded against the side of Munroe's head and the professor fell back again, this time out cold.
Michael pushed himself upright on the swaying seat. He didn't know what had happened to the other wagon or to Calvin and Letitia Dumont, and at the moment, he didn't care. He spotted the reins of the team lying on the floor of the driver's box and dropped the gun to lunge for them, grabbing them just as they were about to slip off.
The horses were running wild, and as Michael glanced around he saw that they were on Grenville Avenue, heading east instead of west, the direction the professor had no doubt intended to go when leaving Wind River. The crazed horses didn't care about that, though. They just wanted to run.
Michael hauled back on the reins as hard as he could and shouted for them to stop, but the horses ignored him. His gaze fell on the brake lever, sticking up to the left of the seat, and he let go of the reins to reach across Munroe's body and grab the lever. He threw all of his weight against it as he pulled it back.
He realized at the last instant that probably wasn't a very smart thing to do.
The wheels locked and skidded on the hard-packed dirt of the street, and the wagon listed suddenly to the right, the rear end beginning to swing around. Michael let out a startled yell as the wheels on the left side of the vehicle lifted from the ground. He pushed himself up and off the seat as the wagon went over.
Something slammed into him as he tumbled through the air, and then an instant later he hit the ground with bone-jarring and tooth-rattling force. He rolled over and over as the rending, grinding sound of the wagon crashing filled his ears. A horse gave a shrill whinny of pain. Michael heard yelling and then shooting.
He came to a stop lying on his stomach, his mouth and nose and eyes filled with dust and grit. He coughed and shook his head, then pawed at his eyes in an attempt to clear his vision. Several yards away, what was left of the wagon was lying on its side. Kindling-like debris was scattered around it. One of the horses was down, but the others seemed to be all right as they stood in their traces, trembling with fear.
"Michael!" a familiar, bull-like voice bellowed. "Is that you? Are you all right, brother?"
Michael pushed himself onto his hands and knees and looked over to see Jeremiah Newton striding quickly toward him. Tucked under Jeremiah's arm, struggling fiercely but futilely against his grip, was Letitia Dumont. Michael glanced past the blacksmith and saw the second wagon, which had been brought to a stop nearby. A huge shape lying next to it could only be Calvin Dumont.
Michael got to his feet as Jeremiah reached him. All his limbs seemed to work, so he said, "I'm all right, Jeremiah. What happened?"
"Seems like I ought to be the one asking that," the blacksmith rumbled. "I heard a shot, and when I looked out I saw these wagons careening past my shop. I thought I saw you on the first one, but I told myself I'd lost my mind. But then you came flying off of there and the wagon turned over, and then that big fellow chasing you in the other wagon—" He jerked a thumb at Calvin Dumont. "—stopped it and started shooting at you. He didn't pay any attention when I told him to stop, so I had to hit him, even though it pained me to do so."
Michael would have liked to have seen that. Any hand-to-hand battle between Jeremiah and Dumont would have been worth watching.
Letitia was still punching and cursing, and Jeremiah went on, "Please settle down, sister, and don't talk like that. It's an affront to the Lord."
"I'll affront you, you big, damned ape!" Letitia howled. "Let me go! What have you done to Calvin?"
More citizens were running up, drawn by the commotion, and Michael knew he was going to have to explain what had happened. First, though, he had to find out if Deborah and the professor were all right.
Munroe was lying in the street, in what appeared to be a puddle of Chippewa Tonic that was leaking from the wrecked wagon. Every bottle of the elixir in the vehicle must have shattered when it overturned, Michael thought. Munroe didn't appear to be injured too badly; he was moving around and moaning as he regained consciousness.
"Keep an eye on him," Michael said to Jeremiah, then trotted over to the wagon itself. The side with the door in it was facing upward. Michael clambered onto the wreckage, grasped the latch of the door, and wrenched it open. One of the curtains from the window was on fire, set ablaze by the overturned lantern. The light from the fire showed him Deborah, lying unconscious amidst a welter of broken glass and a pool of spilled tonic. A stink that reminded Michael somehow of a saloon assaulted his nostrils.
Michael let himself down through the door and dropped lightly beside Deborah. He bent and got his arms around her, lifting her clear of the pool of tonic and keeping her away from the burning curtain.
"I say, do you need a hand, Michael?"
He looked up to see Dr. Judson Kent looking down through the open door. "Help me get her out of here, Doctor," Michael said.
With Kent pulling and Michael pushing, they hoisted Deborah's dead weight out through the door, and Michael scrambled after her.
He knew she was still alive, because he had already felt her pulse beating strongly as he lifted her. Kent took her shoulders and Michael took her feet as they carried her away from the wrecked wagon toward the boardwalk.
Just in time, too, because the next moment, a huge ball of flame erupted inside the overturned vehicle, completely engulfing it.
The heat staggered Michael. He heard a scream and looked around to see that the flames had shot out of the wreckage, following the trail of leaking tonic, and Professor Munroe was ablaze, too, although it seemed that only his tonic-soaked coat was burning at the moment.
Several of the townsmen grabbed him, threw him down, and rolled him in the dirt of the street to smother the flames. When the fire was out, Munroe lay huddled on the ground, sobbing.
"Good Lord preserve us," Jeremiah said fervently as he looked at the blazing wagon. "What were they carrying in there? Hellfire and brimstone?"
"Just about," Dr. Kent said crisply. "I did some analyzing of my own on that so-called tonic. It's more than half alcohol, you know." The doctor looked at Michael. "You seem to know what's going on here. Why don't you tell the rest of us?"
Michael glanced past him at the body of Deborah Munroe, who was lying on the boardwalk where he and Kent had put her. She was starting to move around now.
"I'll tell you," Michael said hollowly. "I'll explain everything."
Chapter 28
Cole reined in and motioned for Casebolt to do likewise. Beside them, Frenchy LeDoux brought his horse to a stop as well. Once all three men had halted, the sound of hoofbeats came clearly to their ears.
And those hoofbeats were drawing closer by the second.
"Better get your rifles ready," Cole warned the other two men. "We don't know who this is coming toward us."
They were on Latch Hook range now, having ridden through the pass between the two ranches. They hadn't heard any shooting, but that didn't mean anything. The rustlers could have struck already and been on their way out of the valley.
As
soon as they were through the pass, Cole had led his companions toward the big bluff to the north without explaining why. He was certain there was some sort of passage there that was not easy to find without some searching.
That was how the rustlers had gotten the stolen cattle out of the valley, by following the strip of rocky ground to the bluff and then hazing the animals through a hidden cleft or a tunnel or some such. Had to be the answer, Cole thought.
He just hoped they weren't too late already.
From the sound of the approaching hoofbeats, he was afraid they were. There were no cattle noises to go with the horse sound, no lowing, no clashing of horns. Just riders. That would mean the wideloopers had already made their escape through here or had gone some other way entirely.
He spotted figures moving in the darkness and lifted his Winchester, pointing the muzzle toward the sky. He fired three times, as fast as he could work the rifle's lever. The oncoming riders swung directly toward Cole, Casebolt, and Frenchy.
"Fisk!" Cole shouted, knowing he was asking for trouble if he had guessed wrong and these were really the raiders galloping toward them. "Fisk, is that you?"
A shout came back. "Who's that?" Cole recognized the voice as Austin Fisk's.
"Marshal Tyler from Wind River!" he called. "Hold your fire!" He urged Ulysses forward, riding out to meet the other men.
A few moments later, the two groups, small and large, came together. Fisk was accompanied by about a dozen men, probably all of his crew except for the cook and the wrangler, who would have been left back at Latch Hook headquarters. As Fisk reined in and faced Cole, he asked, "What are you doing out here, Marshal? And who's that with you?"
"Heard that rustlers hit your spread again," Cole replied. "This is Deputy Casebolt and Frenchy LeDoux, from the Diamond S."
"I know LeDoux," Fisk said. His voice was anxious as he went on, "Did my daughter Alexandra find you?"
"We ran into her on the other side of the pass," Cole said. "I sent her on to Sawyer's place for more help while Billy and Frenchy and I came right on. What happened?"
"They have my daughter and my foreman," Fisk answered bitterly. "And damned near all that was left of my herd. They killed two more of my nighthawks and came in this direction. You didn't see them?"
Cole shook his head. "They must've beaten us to the back door they're using to get out of here."
"Back door?" Fisk repeated. "What the devil are you talking about, Marshal?"
Cole swung Ulysses toward the bluff. "Come on. I’ll show you."
He hoped his hunch was right. Otherwise, he was going to look mighty foolish, and more importantly, the outlaws who had captured Catherine Fisk and Wilt Paxton would have an even larger lead on the pursuit.
Cole's theory was correct, however, as they discovered a quarter of an hour later when they reached the bluff. Cole had a couple of men make some torches and light them, and a few minutes of searching revealed the narrow, slanting passage through what appeared, even from as short a distance as fifty yards, to be solid rock.
"I didn't know that was there," Fisk said in amazement as he stared at the narrow canyon that was concealed by a jutting shoulder of the bluff.
"I reckon not many people did," Cole told him. "But those rustlers did, and they put it to good use—after starting the stolen stock toward the pass leading to the Diamond S, just so you'd be more likely to blame Sawyer for your troubles."
"And I fell right into their trap," Fisk said. "I was an idiot, a complete fool." His voice was filled with self-loathing.
Casebolt leaned over and spat. "Don't much reckon feelin' sorry for yourself's goin' to do much good right now," he said to Fisk. "What we'd better do is get after them sorry skunks."
Cole was about to nod in agreement when he heard more horses moving somewhere in the night. The sounds didn't come from inside the hidden passage, however, but from down the valley toward the pass.
"Let's hold up a spell," he said, raising a hand to forestall Fisk's protest at any further delay. "Sounds to me like we're about to get some reinforcements."
Sure enough, a sizable force of men led by Kermit Sawyer swept up a few minutes later. Cole rode out to meet them. "It's Cole Tyler, Sawyer!" he called. "Tell your men not to get itchy trigger fingers! The rustlers are gone."
Sawyer reined in, his black hat and clothes making him almost invisible in the darkness. He said, "What's goin' on here, Tyler? Has the whole damn country gone crazy?"
"No, we just got outsmarted by those owl hoots. They hit Latch Hook again tonight."
One of the rider's among the newcomers pushed forward. "I told Mr. Sawyer and his men all about it," Alexandra Fisk said.
"Alexandra!" her father exclaimed. "What are you doing here? I want you to go on back to the ranch house right now."
"I won't do it," she said stubbornly. "Catherine's my sister, and I'm going to help find her."
Frenchy edged his horse forward. "You can't do that," he said sharply.
"Oh? And why not, Mr. LeDoux?" Alexandra's voice was cool.
"Because it's dangerous, that's why! You might get hurt."
And why should you care about my safety?
Fisk growled, "I don't think I want to hear the answer to that, LeDoux. Bad enough I had to ask a bunch of Texans for help."
"You want your daughter back, don't you?" Sawyer snapped.
"Of course I do!"
"And them rustlers dealt with?"
"Naturally," Fisk said. "I want to see justice done."
"Then you came to the right folks." Sawyer hipped around in his saddle and called to the punchers he had brought with him, "Come on, boys. We got some rustlers to chase down!"
The Diamond S hands whooped in anticipation.
Cole took a deep breath. Tracking down the rustlers was going to be difficult enough without having to deal with budding romances and hard feelings between the two ranch crews. But that was the hand he'd been dealt, and he had no choice but to play it out.
"Let's get one thing straight here," he said to Sawyer and Fisk. "I'm in charge of this posse."
"The hell you say!" Sawyer exclaimed, and Fisk added, "That's my daughter—and my cows—those bastards have stolen!"
"That's right, but we've got to have some sort of command or we're never going to catch up to them. I figure since Deputy Casebolt and I are the only duly authorized lawmen in the bunch—and since both of you dislike me about the same—that I ought to be the one giving the orders. If you don't like it—" Cole started Ulysses into the dark, forbidding passage through the bluff. "—you can go on home. I'm done talking."
Casebolt fell in behind him, and as the two lawmen disappeared into the cleft, Sawyer and Fisk looked at each other in the moonlight. After a couple of seconds, Sawyer muttered, "Oh, hell. Come on, Fisk."
"All right," the Kentuckian said. "Alexandra . . ."
"Don't waste your breath, Pa," she told him. "I'm coming along."
"Well, for God's sake, be. careful. I don't want to lose both of my daughters."
Cole overheard that and thought that with any luck, Fisk wouldn't have to lose either of his daughters.
But it was going to take luck, all right. A lot of it.
* * *
Dawn came late to the little valley hidden in the mountains, shadowed as it was by towering peaks all around. The posse reached it about the same time as the first slanting rays of light from the sun edging over the mountains to the east. Cole reined in, knowing they had found the rustlers' hideout.
Unfortunately, it appeared that the place was deserted.
It had taken them several hours to work their way through the twisting passage that led from the bluff. Cole would have thought that during that time they would have caught up to the men driving the stolen cattle, but obviously the rustlers had enough experience at escaping through this cleft that they were able to push the rustled stock pretty fast.
At one point the posse had come across another narrow canyon joining the one they
were in from the west, and although some of the men had wanted to explore it, Cole had decided against that idea.
"This is likely the way they brought the stolen stock from the Diamond S. If we follow this canyon, well just come out somewhere over there in Sawyer's valley."
"You can't know that," Fisk had protested.
Cole had pointed north. "That's the way they went," he said. "I'd stake my life on it."
"It's my daughter's life you're risking, not yours," Fisk had reminded him grimly.
Cole's decision had prevailed, however, and the posse had moved on, finally emerging from the canyon onto a winding trail that eventually brought them here to this isolated valley.
In the dawn light, Cole saw a couple of crudely constructed cabins and some large pole corrals, all of which were now empty.
"They've been holding the stock here," he said. "But now they've cleared out. I guess they decided they had gotten away with all they were going to get."
"We can trail them," Fisk said. "We have to."
Cole nodded. "That's exactly what we're going to do. But I reckon I already know where they're going. They'll probably swing east once they're out of the mountains, then cut back down to Cheyenne to get rid of the herd. If they keep going north, there's nothing in that direction until you get to those gold camps in Montana Territory, and there's a lot of rugged ground in between."
"They could get a mighty nice price for them cows in those gold camps," Casebolt pointed out. "Them miners are hungry for beef, from what I hear."
"Yes, but they can get almost as much by taking the herd to Cheyenne, and the drive would be a lot faster and easier." Cole shrugged. "That many cattle leave a trail that's easy to follow. We'll be dogging them whether they go north or south."
There was a spring-fed pool in the center of the little valley. The posse stopped there for half an hour to water their horses and let the animals rest. That gave the men a chance for a cold breakfast, too. The cook from Fisk's ranch had sent a bag of biscuits with the Latch Hook riders, and the Diamond S men had brought along some jerky. When the food was combined, there was enough for everybody.
Medicine Creek (Wind River Book 4) Page 21