Cobb and Gentry came over to take a look for themselves. “I don’t know,” Gentry answered his brother after studying the two deep marks left in the sandy soil, “but it sure looks like there was a shoot-out here over somethin’.”
“I’m thinkin’ we oughta find out if we can see where these tracks lead,” Dorsey decided.
Since there was no better suggestion from either of his brothers, they set out along the trail left by the two poles of the travois. After this much time, it was no easy trail to follow, but there were enough areas of soft dirt here and there to leave occasional imprints to tell them they were still on the trail. Leading away from the river, the riders paused when they lost the tracks in a wide field of shell rock at the base of the mountain.
“This don’t make sense,” Cobb snorted. “Ain’t no horse gonna pull a travois up that mountain.”
“Look around, dammit,” Dorsey snapped. “They sure as hell went somewhere.” He had a feeling about the bodies they had happened upon. Maybe it had nothing to do with the man who killed Franklin. On the other hand, it fit right in with the picture of a man hiding out in these mountains, bushwhacking some innocent souls, and scurrying off up to his secret camp with the plunder.
After a frustrating thirty minutes of searching the rocky outcropping, they were rewarded when Gentry discovered a pair of ruts leading through a thick forest of firs that led to a meandering game trail just wide enough to accommodate a horse pulling a travois. “By God, he did go up that mountain,” Dorsey pronounced solemnly. “I aim to see where this leads to.” His mind was beginning to work on the possibility that the rider of the horse pulling the travois and the man he’d hunted for more than two years might be one and the same. He could envision a scene where this squaw-stealer had bushwhacked the men whose bodies they had just left and hauled off the spoils on a travois. There were two unanswered questions. What happened to the victims’ horses—and why the one rocky grave? Maybe, he thought, he would find the answers at the end of the trail they were now following.
Late afternoon found the three brothers high up in the mountains with still no sign of human existence. “It’s gonna be gettin’ dark before long,” Cobb complained, “and we ain’t seen nothin’.” The trail had led almost to the top of the mountain and now started down.
“Dammit,” Dorsey snapped, “somebody hauled a travois up here. He’s gotta be goin’ somewhere.”
“Hell, maybe it ain’t even a travois,” Cobb commented. “There ain’t enough tracks to tell for sure.”
“Yeah, Dorsey,” Gentry chided, “maybe it’s a deer with a peg leg.” His remark caused him and Cobb to chuckle.
Their elder brother chose not to appreciate the humor in the suggestion. He was about to say so, when he suddenly paused and sniffed the air. “I smell smoke,” he said. All three looked around them, searching for a telltale column of smoke.
“There!” Gentry exclaimed, pointing to a thin ribbon of smoke on the mountain next to them.
“We’re on the wrong damn mountain,” Cobb complained.
Not ready to admit he had led them up a false trail, Dorsey frowned and peered through the maze of juniper ahead. “I ain’t ready to turn around yet. Them tracks was left by a travois, and they lead to somethin’.”
“Maybe,” Cobb muttered begrudgingly. He was not so sure. He looked at Gentry, who shared his lack of faith in the tracks, and shook his head. They were accustomed to following their older brother’s lead, however, so there was no vocal objection from either.
Half an hour later, when rounding the base of a rocky cliff, Dorsey was vindicated. A narrow hogback joined the two mountains, and the trail led across it. “I knew it, dammit,” Dorsey crowed. “It’s a good thing you two half-wits have me to tell you what to do.”
Levi walked from the edge of the clearing carrying an armload of wood for the fire Willow had built between the cabin and the lean-to where he kept his horse. She often cooked outside during the summer months. It was cool up this high, but cooking inside sometimes made the cabin too warm. He dropped his armload down next to the fire and started to add a couple of pieces onto the flame. “What’s the matter, girl?” he said, pausing to listen. The bay mare had heard something. He strained to listen, thinking it might be a mountain lion or a bear. It wouldn’t be the first time a mountain lion ventured this close to the cabin. Glancing back toward the door, he saw Willow coming out with the meat to cook. “Honey,” he called back to her, “fetch my rifle when you come. We might have a visitor.”
Lying on their bellies, concealed by a thick stand of pines, the three stalkers watched the man tending the fire beside the cabin. “Whaddaya think, Dorsey?” Gentry whispered. He waited for a few moments. When his brother failed to answer, he said, “There ain’t no real way of knowin’ if he’s the one we’re after or not.”
Dorsey was about to agree, but he was of a mind to bush-whack the man kneeling by the fire anyway, although he doubted there was much to gain in the way of plunder. Just as he started to speak, Willow emerged from the cabin carrying a rifle and some meat. “Now there is,” he said, responding to Gentry’s comment. “Lookee yonder!”
“That’s her!” Cobb blurted in a hoarse whisper.
“Keep your voice down!” Dorsey scolded, a sly grin forming behind his whiskers. It was her, all right. There was no doubt in his mind. He was not a patient man, but he had patiently searched for over two years for the man who killed his youngest brother. The Indian woman was of no real concern to him, but she was his property, bought and paid for, and he had been equally determined to find her. He would probably cut her throat once he and his brothers were through with her. Ignoring Cobb and Gentry’s anxious expressions, he took time to enjoy the moment he had been looking forward to for so long. “All right,” he finally whispered. “Be careful, and don’t hit the woman. We ain’t done with her yet.” He pulled his rifle up and aimed it.
“What is it?” Willow asked, bringing the rifle.
“I don’t know,” Levi said, “maybe nothin’, but somethin’s makin’ Bess nervous.” He turned to take the weapon from her when the late-evening air was suddenly shattered by the crack of a rifle. In the process of rising from one knee, Levi was struck in the shoulder, the shot spinning him around to drop at Willow’s feet. She screamed and dropped down beside him. “Git in the cabin!” Levi gasped desperately as she tried to help him up. A couple more shots snapped close beside them to strike the cabin wall with a solid thunk-thunk. With Willow trying to support him, Levi crawled to the cabin door under a hail of angry lead. Splinters of wood were sent flying as they just made it inside the door and Willow slammed it shut and barred it. Levi took only a moment to examine his wound before crawling over to the window. Dorsey’s bullet had caught him in the left shoulder. The shoulder felt numb at that moment, and he motioned Willow away when she started to tend to it. “It ain’t that bad,” he said. “I can still shoot. Stay low to the floor and get me that box of cartridges.” She immediately went to fetch them.
“There are not many left,” she said, her voice trembling with fright.
It was a fact that Levi already knew, but he sought to reassure her. “They may be enough. We can make it pretty hot for them to try to break in here. They might decide it ain’t worth the trouble.” He eased his head up to a corner of the window, trying to see where their assailants were hidden. With no way of knowing for sure who was attacking them, he could only speculate. He felt sure they were not Indians. The Indians on the other side of the canyon were Crow, and friendly. Simple logic told him that it was not a party that just happened upon his cabin on this remote mountaintop. It made more sense that it was someone who had come specifically to find him—and he feared who that someone might be. A few minutes later, his fears were confirmed.
“Hey, you in the cabin there,” Dorsey Braxton’s deep voice boomed out. “You know what we come for. You might as well come on outta there, and maybe we’ll let you go. We just come for the woman.”
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br /> “You go to hell,” Levi replied. It wasn’t very likely he’d be excused for killing their brother. He told Willow to crawl over beside the fireplace where the stones might better shield her. “Keep an eye on that back window in case they sneak around behind,” he said. She nodded and did as he instructed, pausing under the window long enough to reach up and close the shutters.
Outside, Cobb and Gentry moved a little farther away from Dorsey in case the man inside had pinpointed their older brother’s location by the sound of his voice. “Too damn bad you missed him with that first shot,” Cobb complained. “Hell, he was settin’ right there waitin’ for it.”
“He moved, dammit,” Dorsey blurted, “just when I pulled the trigger. I didn’t see any better shootin’ from you two.” All three had been overly cautious trying to target the wounded man as he struggled to seek cover—none wanting to hit the woman and spoil the sport they planned to enjoy with her.
Dorsey called out again. “Mister, you ain’t got much sense. We’ve got you cornered. You ain’t got no place to go.” The cook fire caught his eye then. “There’s a nice little fire goin’ out here. We just might decide to burn you outta there.”
“Why don’t you just do that?” Levi called back. “I got a clear shot at that fire and the first one that tries to get across the yard from them trees you’re hidin’ behind is a dead man.” He ducked quickly away from the window seconds before a volley of shots ripped into the shutter and the frame.
The siege continued until it was almost dark, with sporadic shots from the three in the pines, borne mostly out of frustration. “It’s gonna be dark before long,” Dorsey said, his eyes studying the tiny cabin. “One of us can get around behind that cabin while the other two keep that bastard pinned down.”
“There might not be a window in the back,” Gentry said.
“We could smoke him out,” Cobb suggested. “When it gets dark, I could climb up on the roof and stop that chimney up with somethin’—smoke ’em out.”
Dorsey didn’t bother to comment. Gentry did. “You ain’t got brains God give a tumble-turd,” he said. “Do you see any smoke comin’ outta that chimney? Whaddaya think they built a fire outside for?”
Cobb had to think about it for a moment before coming up with an angry retort. “Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you think of somethin’?”
“How ’bout you walk up to the door and knock, and when he opens it to see who it is, I’ll shoot the son of a bitch.”
“Shut up, both of you.” Dorsey had tired of the senseless drivel between the two. His frustration with the situation was wearing upon his nerves. Over two years in tracking down the man who shot his brother, and it had come down to a standoff. “We’re gonna rush that son of a bitch as soon as it gets a little darker. Gentry, you go ahead and work your way on up the slope, and get around behind that shack. See if there’s a window in back. Then get back here and let me know.” Gentry nodded and backed away from the edge of the trees.
Smiling to himself, Gentry Braxton made his way up through the thick forest of pines, climbing for several dozen yards before sidling along the slope to descend toward the cabin again. If there was a window in the back of the cabin, and he could get a clear shot, he didn’t plan to wait for Dorsey and Cobb. The death of his brother, Franklin, didn’t sorrow him as much as it did Dorsey. He was more interested in the Blackfoot woman. She was a right handsome woman, and from the glimpse he got of her a couple of hours ago, it looked like she hadn’t changed.
Darkness had already found the thick forest by the time Gentry slid down a steep mound that landed him in a little patch of fir trees. From there he could see the rear of Levi’s cabin and a single window in the back. The shutters had been closed, but he figured he might be able to squeeze a gun barrel through the strap hinges on the side. It’s gonna be you and me, little missy, he thought as he made his way carefully up to the rear log wall.
As he had figured, the shutters, though drawn and latched from the inside, were hung using leather straps as hinges. Working as quietly as he could, he took his knife and cut enough of the leather away on one side until he had a hole big enough to see into the cabin. There she was! Huddled over next to the fireplace, a gentle creature, small and timid, like a rabbit cornered by a coyote. Gentry felt the lust filling his veins, even stronger than his excitement over killing the man who had stolen her. Moving slightly, he could see most of that man crouched by the front window. The hole he had cut in the strap was big enough to stick a gun barrel through, but would not allow him to aim his rifle at Levi. Stumped for a second, he then realized he could cut through both leather hinges and jerk the whole shutter away. With a wide grin upon his face, he immediately set to work with his knife.
Back in the pine trees facing the front of the cabin, Dorsey began to wonder why Gentry was taking so long to report back. “Maybe you oughta get around behind that cabin and see what the hell he’s doin’ back there. Dammit, I told him to come back here as soon as he found out if there’s a window or not.” With a quick nod, Cobb backed away from the tree that hid him, and followed the route his brother had taken up the slope.
Having already cut through the bottom strap, Gentry was working furiously away at the top. Timing was going to be important he told himself, so he propped his rifle against the wall next to his leg. He had heard no shots for perhaps ten minutes or so, telling him that Dorsey and Cobb had tired of plinking away at the solid log wall. They’ll shit, he thought. By the time they figure out what happened, I’ll already have that little squaw bedded down. He pictured Cobb’s look of jealous anger, and smiled.
The top hinge was hanging by a thread now and Gentry prepared for the sudden move. Finally, his knife cut through. The wooden shutter was held in place by nothing more than the tightness of the fit and a latch on the inside. Easing his rifle up with one hand, he placed the other on the edge of the shutter between the severed straps. When he thought he was ready, he suddenly gave the shutter a hard jerk and flung it aside. With a triumphant roar, he quickly brought his rifle up to sight on the startled man at the front window. Before he could pull the trigger, he was staggered by the impact of the arrow that slammed into his throat. His eyes, blown wide-open by the shock, stared in horror at the Indian woman who had just released the bowstring. Too stunned to do anything but drop his rifle and clutch his throat with both hands, he stumbled backward and fell on his back.
Startled as Gentry had been, Levi reacted quickly. Scrambling to his feet, he ran to the back window to discover his would-be assailant struggling to get up from the ground, the arrow protruding all the way through his neck. Gurgling with each panic-stricken breath he attempted, he managed to get to his knees before Levi sent him on his way to hell with one rifle slug through his brain.
Levi looked at Willow, his face reflecting the devastation of his life if he had lost her. She tried to give him a brave look in return as she drew another arrow from the quiver by the fireplace. Thanks to her quickness, there was one less assailant to deal with, but Levi now had to be concerned with an open window behind him while he watched the front. Guessing his concern, Willow notched her arrow, and giving him a reassuring nod, moved closer to the open window.
Halfway down the hill, Cobb Braxton was stopped in his tracks by the sound of the rifle shot from the back of the cabin. Pausing to listen, he wasn’t sure whether it sounded like Gentry’s rifle or not. He heard no additional shots, so he clamored on down the slope, stopping again about twenty yards from the back corner of the cabin. Although darkness had set in, he could clearly make out the form slumped under the back window. It could be no one but Gentry. The first reaction in Cobb’s simple brain was disbelief. It had never entered his mind that anyone but the man in the cabin, and eventually the woman, would die. The sight of Gentry lying dead upon the ground brought confusion and then anger. “You’re a dead man, Mister!” he suddenly roared out. “I’m gonna cut you up in little pieces.” Unaccustomed to making decisions on his own, ho
wever, he knew that first he had to get back to tell Dorsey. He turned then to confront a shadowy figure standing in the trees above him. Surprised, he stopped and called out. “Dorsey?”
“Yeah, Dorsey,” Cade Hunter uttered through clenched teeth and pumped two rounds into Cobb’s belly. Cade remained where he stood for a minute or two, making sure Cobb was dead before moving off through the forest to take care of the last of the stalkers.
What the hell’s goin’ on? Dorsey Braxton wondered. Cobb seemed to have been gone for a long time when Dorsey heard the shots on the other side of the cabin. The gunfire worried him. Something was wrong. What had his brothers run into? As a precaution, he decided to change his position and drop back closer to the horses. He suddenly felt a clammy uncertainty about the new quiet that settled around the small cabin after the last two shots. After a few minutes more, he called out. “Cobb? Gentry?” He waited, but there was no answer. With a strong certainty now that something had gone wrong, he decided he’d better move again, this time even closer to the horses.
Inside the darkened cabin, there was an equal amount of uncertainty. Mystified by the last two shots that came from off the back corner of the house, Levi decided to back away from the front window. He motioned for Willow to follow him, and then crawled over to station himself in the middle of the side wall. With his wife behind him, he sat next to the wall where he could watch both front and back windows. There was nothing to do then but wait.
Dorsey shifted his body slowly, making a concerted effort not to cause a sound. Something had happened to his brothers. He was certain of that now. It had been too long without hearing from at least one of them. The leaden quiet of the mountain weighed heavily upon his senses. It was as if all life had ceased, and the longer he knelt there in the dark, the more uneasy he became. He called out to his brothers again and waited for their response. As before, there was only silence, and his mind started working on the possibility that he was alone. The man by the fire with Willow—he had shot him—he was certain of that. There had to be someone else or something prowling these dark woods.
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