Cash started after him and for the first time received a sharp reminder of the injuries he'd sustained when the bullet hole in his thigh caused the leg to cramp suddenly and drag him to a painful halt. By the time he got the cramp worked out, more than a minute had passed and Elmer was long gone. Trying to chase after him now, Cash told himself, would probably be futile and possibly risky since the cagey outlaw had been given time to lay a trap for anyone rushing in pursuit. Besides, even with the cramp loosened up, Cash was left feeling too damn weary and weak right at the moment to rush into anything.
It was his turn to do some cursing. Swearing at himself for missing those shots, swearing at tough, wily Elmer for punching a couple bullet holes in him and then giving him the slip.
* * *
The situation in the wagon camp was this:
Leonard Cory was dead. Alice Amberson was suffering a shoulder wound. William Hattner's left femur had been shattered by a bullet. Neither of the latter two conditions was immediately life threatening, but in both cases the bullets were still lodged in bone and muscle so the risk of further complication such as blood poisoning would become a concern before too long.
Luckily, Melanie Parsons regularly did charity volunteer work at one of Denver's hospitals and in the process had picked up some rudimentary nursing skills which now came in handy for treating her wounded companions. She also saw to Cash's injuries, plugging the bleeding and securing dressings in place. In his case, both of the bullets striking him had passed on through. Mostly only meat was torn out of his thigh, but the damage to the pad of muscle above his collar bone would require surgical attention if it were to heal completely and properly. For the time being, however, Cash knew he was going to have to gut it out and function impaired and sore.
As far as the surprise rifle shot that had wounded Elmer and helped put him on the run, the credit for that went to meek, unassuming Jonathan Kelsey. Cash had gotten quick introductions to all of the camp's survivors and made quick reads off each of them. He basically liked what he saw, except maybe for Alice, who'd obviously been too pampered all of her life. While none of them were exactly seasoned frontier types, Cash sensed the presence of enough down-deep grit in the other three to feel confident it could be called upon if needed. That was good, because he had a hunch that before this was over he might be relying on them as much as they would be on him.
Before anything else, the matter of Elmer Post had to be taken care of.
"Now more than ever," Cash explained, "I've got to go after him. He's like a wounded animal gone to the bush and it's up to me to finish him ... Besides, we need the horses that I know can be found back at his camp. Otherwise we got nothing to hitch to that wagon of yours."
"Do you want me to come with you?" Jonathan asked.
Cash shook his head. "No, you need to stay and take care of things here."
"I can help with that, too," William was quick to interject. "I may be slow and lame, but I'm not completely useless."
Cash nodded. "Good. Work together. Get everything ready for when I get back with a team. We'll need to head out as quick as we can in order to get the wounded to a doctor. Cheyenne's the closest place for that."
Jonathan's gaze was flat and steady. "No offense, but what if you don't make it back?"
"Jonathan!" said Melanie admonishingly.
Cash shook his head. "No offense taken. It's a good question." He turned and pointed. "Back toward the middle of the Vedauwoo, past that line of steep rocks and slightly to the east, there's a high, round-topped mound. Some call it the Turtle. At the eastern base of that mound, in case I don't make it, you'll find my horses—a pinto and a buckskin pack animal. They ain't broke for wagon-pullin', but if you work at it hard enough you'll find a way to manage with 'em."
"How long should we give you?" Jonathan said.
Cash glanced skyward. "If I'm not back by the time the sun is noon high, start after my horses." He raked the faces before him with a somber gaze. "There are pistols and a shotgun scattered out there amongst Elmer's men. You should all arm yourselves. Even her" —he jerked a thumb to indicate Alice, who lay pale and quietly moaning in the shade under the wagon. "That way, if you have to leave for my horses, Jonathan, the camp will still be protected."
Jonathan, William, and Melanie bobbed their heads in unison.
"One more thing," said Cash. "I have a friend who should be arriving before too long. He's an old Indian medicine man. For Christ's sake, don't be alarmed and shoot him when he shows up. In fact, if you give him the chance he can probably help with your wounds. His ways will seem strange to you, but they are ancient practices that have served the Arapaho people well for a very long time."
"Fair enough. We'll take all the help we can get," said Jonathan.
"His name is Twisted Root ... Tell him I said to wait for me here."
-TWELVE-
"Goin' somewhere, Flynn?"
Elmer's voice was a low, ragged rasp, scarcely more than a whisper. But the start it gave Remsen couldn't have been any greater if the clap of doom had sounded at his heels. So intent had Remsen been on trying to mount his horse that he hadn't caught a hint of Elmer's approach. But then, considering his drunken condition—which, along with the awkwardness of navigating on a wounded, heavily-splinted leg, was the main obstacle preventing his successful ascent into the saddle—he might not have noticed the approach of a freight caravan.
While the horse continued to stand very still and patient, doing everything it could to assist in the task being attempted, Remsen had been failing at his goal for nearly half an hour. He'd painstakingly gotten the animal saddled and led over from where it had been hobbled in a patch of graze, had gotten the bulging saddle bags secured in place, but then trying to haul himself up onto the hurricane deck had been beating the hell out of him ever since. His face was beaded with sweat and smeared with dirt and dust from all the times he'd fallen to the ground. And each of those times had sent pain screaming through his leg, giving him the excuse to guzzle down more whiskey.
Right before Elmer's voice sounded behind him, Remsen had managed to climb up on top of a shoulder-high boulder from which he'd intended to try and slide over onto the horse's back and into its saddle. He was in the process of coaxing the animal around into position when Elmer spoke and nearly caused him to topple off the boulder.
"Jesus Christ, Elmer, you tryin' to make me break my neck?" Remsen wailed as he stumbled back a step and sat down suddenly, the movement painfully wrenching his leg.
"Appears to me you're doin' a pretty good job of that all on your own."
Remsen reached with both hands to massage his leg. "Aw, man, this thing is killin' me, Elmer."
"Looks and smells to me like you're keepin' it well medicated."
"You're damned right I am. You would be, too, if—" For the first time, Remsen noticed the beads of clammy sweat standing out on Elmer's face and the smear of fresh blood staining his shirt front. "Holy shit, Elmer! You been shot?"
"No other word for it. Where you packin' that whiskey bottle?"
Remsen started to reach into his jacket pocket and Elmer's Colt instantly flashed to his fist. "Make sure a whiskey bottle is all you pull out of that pocket, Flynn."
Remsen looked startled. "Jesus. What kind of talk is that? Why the need to pull a gun on me?"
"Just bring out the bottle. Nothing else," Elmer said. "Then, after I've had me a swig, you can back up and answer that first question I asked you."
Licking his lips, Remsen slowly withdrew the bottle of whiskey. He gave it an easy toss to Elmer who wasted no time biting off the cork and gulping down several swallows, keeping a sharp eye on Remsen the whole time. Then, lowering the bottle and slipping it into his vest pocket, he said, "Now. How about it, Flynn?"
"How about what?"
"Don't play dumb with me." Elmer wagged the gun. "The horse. The loaded saddle bags ... You was cuttin' out, wasn't you?"
Remsen couldn't meet Elmer's eyes. "It's plain enough, I
guess. Yeah, I was."
"How much money is in those stuffed saddle bags? All of it?"
Remsen's face lifted. "No! Just my share, I swear. Dammit, Elmer, you know I ain't that low."
Elmer's eyes blazed. "But you're low enough to cut out and leave my poor, sick, wounded kid brother uncared for and all on his own, is that it?"
"I—I heard the shootin' a while back. I knew you'd be returnin' before long. I figured Virgil would be okay until then."
"What if we didn't make it back? Like Evert and Danton ain't gonna do—and like I damned near didn't. You was willin' to take the chance to just leave Virgil behind and let him starve to death?"
Remsen gritted his teeth. "Wasn't no chance of leavin' Virgil to starve, Elmer ... He's already dead."
Elmer's eyes darted toward the cavernous notch and then back, blazing anew. "That's a lie!"
"No." Remsen shook his head wearily. "He quit breathing a couple, three hours ago. When I made a check on him, he was already gone."
The Colt trembled dangerously in Elmer's hand. "You killed him, you sonofabitch! That's why you were fixin' to make a run for it."
"I was tryin' to make a run for it because I knew this was how you'd react," Remsen insisted. "All along you've been crazy obsessed about Virgil gettin' better and healin' up from those bullets he took—when everybody else could see right from the beginnin' he never had a chance."
"Yes, he did, damn you! He was young and strong. He was a Post!" Elmer raised his left arm to sleeve away tears of rage and grief. The Colt in his other hand drooped a little and Remsen's eyes, even in their bleary condition, locked on this and narrowed shrewdly, thinking he might have one slim chance to still make it out of this alive.
"He was soft and weak, Elmer," Remsen sneered. "You should have sent him home right at the start, never let him ride with us."
"You sayin' it's my fault, what happened to him? You bastard, you got no right to—"
From inside his jacket, Remsen suddenly pulled a large bore over-under derringer and extended it arm's length. Without hesitation he fired both barrels, one after the other. At that distance, even in his drunken state, he couldn't miss. Both slugs tore into Elmer's chest and knocked him back, staggering. As his knees started to buckle, Elmer leveled his Colt and got off one shot of his own that ripped through Remsen's lungs and splattered the rocks behind him with flecks of leaking crimson tissue.
Both men were dead before the echoes of their shots finished rolling across Vedauwoo.
Remsen's horse, having skittered away briefly during the exchange of gunfire, returned after a minute or so to stand patiently, still saddled and ready, near the boulder where Remsen's body lay.
That was the way Cash found things when he edged cautiously into the camp some time later.
-THIRTEEN-
By the time he made it back to where he'd left the others at the wagon, Cash was feeling exhausted, sore, and foul-tempered. The bullet holes in him accounted plainly enough for his physical discomfort. As far as his sour disposition, it was due primarily to being faced with the prospect of having to depart from Vedauwoo without accomplishing his main goal in coming here—to intercept Vilo Creed and prevent him from distributing the rifles cached so many years ago by Harley Boyd.
Nevertheless, chafing as coming up short on his original mission might be, Cash couldn't see where he had any choice. There simply was no time to waste getting the wounded ambush victims somewhere where they could receive proper medical treatment. Plus, it remained uncertain when—or even if—Creed would make it this far. Further balancing things somewhat was the consolation of being able to report that the Elmer Post gang, responsible for both the ambush here as well as the robbery of the Omaha Flyer, had been dealt with and the money from said robbery was being returned.
Cash tried to sooth his dark mood by telling himself these things. But he couldn't help also thinking that if Creed subsequently managed to get those rifles into the hands of Kicking Bear and his Ghost Shirt hot bloods kicked off an uprising that ended up claiming scores of lives, then the trade-off might not seem so justifiable.
Still wrestling with these thoughts, Cash skirted the line of aspen trees and high grass and started down the slope toward where the wagon sat. He rode astride Paint, leading his own pack animal along with two horses from the Post gang's camp, their saddle bags stuffed with the train robbery money.
The sun was high in the sky directly overhead and the day was warming steadily.
Cash had half expected he might encounter Jonathan Kelsey, already on his way to the Turtle since the marshal had been gone so long. But there'd been no sign of the young man, who apparently was showing more patience than Cash gave him credit for.
When he'd left the wagon camp earlier, Cash had had similar expectations of running into Twisted Root as he made his way in slower pursuit of his vision regarding the threat to the "innocents". Lacking that, however, Cash hadn't been particularly concerned since he knew the myriad game trails and twists and turns of the Vedauwoo terrain provided numerous paths to any given destination. He figured he and Twisted Root had simply been following different routes.
Coming in sight of the wagon again now, however, Cash was surprised to see that the old medicine man still didn't appear to be present amongst the others. Seemed curious that he wouldn't have made it here by now.
"I am too slow ... I will catch up," he had promised.
Scanning the camp closer, Cash saw William Hattner seated on the ground with his back and shoulders resting back against one of the wagon wheels. The Henry rifle leaned against the wheel beside him. Melanie Parsons was kneeling nearby, her face turned away, busy with something but Cash couldn't tell what. The form of Alice Amberson was as it had been before, lying in the shade under the wagon. Seeing no immediate sign of Jonathan, Cash wondered if he had missed the young man on the trail after all.
As he proceeded down the slope, Cash's eyes flicked to either side, touching on the bodies of the two men he had killed earlier—Danton, and the black whose name he never caught. Whoever had come up from the camp to strip the men of their guns, in accordance with Cash's suggestion, apparently had felt compelled by some sense of decency to leave the bodies covered with a couple of bedroll blankets, weighting down the corners with fist-sized rocks. Proper enough thing to do, Cash guessed ... But it was a damn sight more than he would have bothered with for the likes of such trash.
The marshal moved on past the bodies, leading his horses through the gap between them.
When Cash was less than a half dozen yards past where "Danton" lay, the blanket suddenly flipped back and away and—unseen by the marshal—the bulky shape of a man sprang fluidly to his feet. Although he wielded Danton's long-barreled shotgun, the shape was not James Danton. As the man raised the gut-shredder and took a long step forward, the only warning Cash had was a faint rattling from the numerous strings of beads and bones that dangled around the man's neck.
"Rein up and hold tight, law dog, or I blow you clean outta that tin star pinned to your shirt!"
The guttural command was accompanied by the singular sound of the shotgun's hammer being thumbed back.
Cash tugged Paint to a halt and froze in the saddle. He kept his face aimed straight ahead but his eyes cut hard to the left as the man moved up on that side of him. Cash already had a sinking feeling for what he was about to see. When the man stepped into full view, it was confirmed ... None other than Vilo Creed stood there aiming a shotgun at him.
Creed's broad, fleshy face split with a menacing smile. "Old Apache trick, hidin' under a dead body—or in place of one, as the case may be. Always wanted to try it, but never had the chance before. Real obligin' of you to leave your victims scattered around so's I could give it a try now."
"Glad I could be of service," Cash said tightly.
"You want to oblige me even more, how about you shuck your gunbelt and let it slide to the ground? Real slow, it should go without sayin'. Then, reachin' over with your left
hand, bump that Winchester out of its saddle boot and let it fall, too."
Cash did as he'd been told. All the while—hands going through the motions slowly, automatically—his eyes were locked on the adornments dangling from around Creed's neck. His heart hammered faster and faster as he focused on them, his mind fighting against accepting what their being there could only mean ... The beads ... the small animal bones ... and the large buffalo horn hanging separately on its own leather thong. When Cash swallowed, his throat had gone so dry that to his ears the sound of his throat muscles working was like gravel crunching under a boot heel.
Creed saw where he was looking, was able to read his deep reaction even though Cash was trying to mask it. "The old medicine man mean something to you, did he? You'd be proud to know, then, that he died well. Old bastard was tough as salted rawhide ... 'Course, to be fair, I didn't have a lot of time to spend on him. Had I more, I bet I could've set him to squealin' right pretty."
Cash's piercing blue eyes bored into the black, soulless ones of Creed. "Your time to squeal will be comin' soon enough ... in Hell."
Creed laughed in his face. "Mister, Hell ain't got nothing to show me I ain't already seen twice over." He gestured with the shotgun. "Now ease on down out of that saddle and shake out a pair of handcuffs from wherever you keep 'em stashed."
When Cash had produced a pair of cuffs, Creed instructed him to go ahead and fasten them onto his own wrists and to "be sure and ratchet 'em real tight". Watching, the fugitive beamed with satisfaction when the task was completed. "Always wanted the pleasure of slappin' a set of irons on a law dog," he said. "Now there's another wish I can check off my list. Mister, you're dishin' out gifts to me like it was Christmas mornin'!"
"I'm in a real charitable mood," Cash said through clenched teeth. "There's plenty more I'd like to dish out to you."
Creed swung the shotgun without warning, slamming its butt square into Cash's stomach. All the air exploded out of Cash and he sagged to his knees, folding forward, barely able to keep from pitching face-first to the dirt.
The Guns of Vedauwoo (Cash Laramie & Gideon Miles Series Book 6) Page 9