Rose nodded. She understood. “It’s a fact a gunman’s reputation is a fragile thing,” she commented. “Once the myth gets shattered, the man is sure to follow.”
“Then you understand how it has to be?”
There was more to Caldwell’s question than met the ear, Rose knew, and it alerted her to what was coming next. Her finger tightened on the Sharps’ trigger. “I’m sorry to hear that, Frank,” she said.
Later, it would bring her some small measure of consolation to know that, even before she’d finished speaking, Caldwell and Bud were reaching for their guns. Not that it would have altered her own response if they hadn’t, for, as soon as Caldwell announced his intent, Rose knew she’d have to kill him first, drop him before he could even get his hands on one of his pistols, if that was possible. So it was with the same breath that she confessed her regrets, as the two gunmen began their own moves, that Rose let the muzzle of the still-cocked Sharps swing abruptly toward Caldwell.
She was quicker by a hair, the Sharps’ blast slamming Caldwell into the side of the house, the bullet going all the way through his chest to chew a hole in the log wall behind him. Then she jabbed her spurs hard against the sorrel’s ribs, the stallion squealing and jumping even as Rose let the Sharps fall. Bud had already fired once and missed. Now he was darting out of the way of the sorrel’s flashing hoofs, bringing his pistol around for a second shot. Rose’s throat went dry as the horse leaped toward the porch. She knew she wasn’t going to be fast enough to palm her Smith & Wesson before the angry youth fired his second round at almost pointblank range.
Bud’s Colt seemed to explode in Rose’s face, so loud she thought the noise would surely unhorse her, even if the bullet didn’t. But his slug clipped her saddle horn first, the hard wood and thick leather deflecting the bullet however slightly. She felt a sharp burn across her side that was like a hot poker laid against her ribs, but she kept her seat. Even as the stallion landed on the porch with a thunder of stamping hoofs, she kept her seat.
Bringing the Smith & Wesson around, Rose fired intuitively. Bud cried out and tumbled off the porch. Then the sorrel nearly lost his footing on the tractionless planks. His rear hoofs skidded out, and he would have gone down if he hadn’t come up hard against the side of the house. Rose grunted as her leg and shoulder were rammed into the logs. She almost lost the Smith & Wesson. It jumped in her hand like a trout leaping clear of an icy mountain stream, then dropped neatly back in place.
As the sorrel struggled for its footing, Rose twisted in the saddle to snap a shot at Keyes. She needn’t have bothered. Keyes stood twenty feet away, his pistol drawn but pointed toward the porch, his eyes wide with fright. He didn’t move when Rose fired, and only flinched pathetically as her bullet zinged past his ear.
Bud’s was a grittier mettle, however. Rose spotted him in the yard, struggling awkwardly to his feet. His left thigh was bloody where her bullet had laid open the flesh. He lurched after his pistol, lying several yards away, the nickel plating glinting in the sunlight. Her next shot struck the Colt just behind the barrel, bouncing the pistol into the air and knocking the cylinder half out of its frame. Only then did Bud stop.
The sorrel got its hoofs under it at the same time and came to a trembling, splay-legged halt on the porch, facing outward. Keyes hadn’t moved, but the front of his trousers were dark where he’d urinated himself. Bud was breathing hard, glaring at Rose with a hatred that had been born on the day he and Axel and a black cowboy named Charlie Sims had tried to rob her above the Yellowstone.
At the summer kitchen’s door, the Indian woman stood as before, stoic and unaffected.
Puffing hard herself, Rose said to Bud: “That was some for slick, switchin’ places like we done, you on the ground now and me up here. I doubt we could do that again if we tried.”
“If you’re going to shoot me, get it done,” he replied harshly. “I won’t waste words with someone I intend to kill.”
“Well, you got fire in your craw, all right, but I ain’t keen on killin’ you if I don’t have to.”
“You’ll have to,” he promised. “Caldwell was a fool and Keyes is a coward, but I won’t make the same mistakes they did.”
“You ain’t makin’ this easy,” Rose reprimanded. “You ought to shut up before you back me into a corner I can’t get out of.” Glancing at his leg, she added: “You’ve been shot, if you ain’t noticed.”
But Bud remained true to his word and refused to answer. Rose didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to kill him, but she was afraid that, if she didn’t, he’d force her hand. It was the Indian woman who came to her rescue. As she moved away from the kitchen’s shadow, all eyes turned toward her. She picked up the Sharps, then climbed onto the porch and handed it to Rose. Still without speaking, she jutted her chin toward the ridge where Rose had stopped earlier to study the Flying Egg’s layout. Coming over its crest at a gallop was a trio of horsemen, kicking up clouds of dust that swirled behind them like flapping banners. Rose shook her head in exasperation, but didn’t figure there was any need to speculate about their business.
Booting the Sharps, she said: “Listen, Bud, there ain’t no reason we gotta go around shootin’ at one another. You just let me slide outta this territory, quiet-like, and I’ll be one less burr under your saddle blanket.”
Bud glared daggers but didn’t reply. Keyes also remained silent, but Rose had already dismissed him. Nodding her thanks to the Indian woman, she gave the sorrel a gentle tap with her stirrups. Snorting his displeasure, the stallion gingerly approached the edge of the porch, then stretched for the long step down to solid ground. With terra firma under his hoofs once more, the sorrel’s old, cocky personality returned full bloom. Keeping a tight rein on the horse and her pistol on Bud, Rose glanced toward the rise. Although the approaching horsemen were still too far away to recognize, she knew who they were. Or at least she knew who their leader was. Every man and woman sat a horse differently, and she’d known Joe Bean too many years not to know it was he who rode at the van of the three Regulators.
Chapter
46
After crossing the Musselshell, Rose kicked the sorrel into a run. Joe Bean and his men were still half a mile behind, but she could tell by the fleetness of their ponies that they were riding fresher mounts than her own.
Coming to a well-defined trail that led south, the direction she wanted to go, Rose swung onto it. Far ahead were the northern slopes of the Bull Mountains, and, with her gaze on those distant heights, she suddenly knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to go home. She wanted to lay her hands on the cool log walls of the cabin she and Nora had built together. She wanted to slake her thirst in the cold waters of the creek, then wander through the garden to see how the pumpkins and corn were faring. And lastly, she wanted to stand on the high bluff that overlooked the valley of the Yellowstone and stare out as she had so many times before and wonder, however briefly, what the future held for her.
She wanted to say good-bye to Nora, too, but strangely, she was more eager to talk to Muggy. She’d judged him harshly for his death and the grief his gambling had brought her, but time had dulled the sharpest edges of her feelings. He was still a scoundrel in her mind and probably always would be, but she’d come to see him in a different light recently. If Muggy had been a rogue, he’d at least been up front about it, and hadn’t tried to hide his true colors behind a façade of pursed-lip propriety. And quite unexpectedly he’d caused her to recognize the worth of her own hard-scrabble existence. She’d once considered herself less than others because of her poverty and lack of education, but she saw now that she’d been wrong. She was a good woman, and neither poverty nor riches or an outlaw’s reputation would take that away from her.
There had been a time in her life when a trek such as this—returning home for a final visit, a last good-bye—would have wracked her with guilt and grief, but she experienced neither today. She thought
there might even be a trace of joy in the prospect of going back. She hadn’t thought she would ever see the place again. Now she figured there was a chance she might, as long as she could stay ahead of Joe and his men.
Rose had a good lead, and she played it for all it was worth. She kept the sorrel at a lope for most of what remained of the day, only pulling back to a jog or a walk for short stints, before spurring into a canter once more. Sweat soon darkened the stallion’s chest and shoulders, foaming up along the cinch to blow back over the legs of her riding skirt. His breathing was becoming labored, too, although not yet dangerously so. Had it been earlier in the day she might have fretted, but the afternoon was waning, the sun already slipping below the horizon.
Nightfall slowed her, forcing her to a jog, then a walk. Finally she was obliged to dismount and lead the flagging stallion on foot, picking her way cautiously until an anemic quarter moon came up a couple of hours before midnight.
The country became noticeably more rugged as they climbed toward the top of the Bulls. Scattered groves of pine—trees largely absent along the more easterly route she normally followed—further blocked what little light the moon gave up, so that she was never sure what her next step would encounter. She feared rattlesnakes and precipices, but was more afraid of what lay behind her.
It was after midnight when she reached the summit. Dawn found her among the rocky foothills, tired but no longer exhausted. She’d passed the point where she didn’t think she could take another forward step somewhere on the descent. She knew now that she’d be able to go as far as needed, to face whatever this new day might bring.
When the light had strengthened, she led the sorrel behind a screen of scrubby pines, then climbed a nearby knob where she had an unobstructed view of the surrounding country. There was no sign of the three Regulators, no hint at all of another human being in all that vast expanse. It was as if she alone rode the hills south of the Bulls.
Rose didn’t trust it for a minute. Hurrying back to the sorrel, she swung into the saddle. “We’re gonna push on a spell,” she told her weary mount. “We’ll have breakfast down the trail, but we won’t tarry even then. I got me an uneasy feelin’ this mornin’.”
It was another hour to a narrow runnel winding out of some lichen-covered boulders. A pool not much bigger around than Billy Garcia’s sombrero held enough water for the sorrel, with half a dozen places upstream where Rose could satisfy her own thirst. Afterward, she checked the wound received in yesterday’s battle, relieved to find that it was nothing more than a scratch across her ribs.
“I’ve seen my pap cut himself worse than this shavin’,” she observed to the sorrel.
Keeping the stallion’s reins in hand, Rose finished off the last of the food Little Swan had prepared. Then she draped the reins over a nearby limb and went to the brook for another drink. As she bent forward, a shot rang out, the bullet smacking into the dirt less than a foot away.
“Damn!” Rose exclaimed, scrambling across the tiny stream on hands and toes. She ducked behind a boulder just as a second shot kicked up a geyser of water. She slid the Smith & Wesson from its holster but didn’t bother cocking it. She’d already spotted the cloud of powder smoke that marked her assailant’s position some two hundred yards away, and knew her .38 would never reach that far. She glanced longingly at the sorrel, less than twenty feet away, but dared not make an attempt to reach it, or the rifle booted under the saddle’s off-side stirrup.
A voice hailed from the distance. At first Rose thought it was directed at her. Then she realized it came from behind her attacker, and was meant for him.
“Don’t shoot!” the voice ordered.
“I’ve got her nailed down tight,” her assailant replied distantly. “Hurry up!”
“Don’t shoot, dammit. Joe wants her alive,” the farther voice called.
“But I’ve got her cornered!” her attacker repeated in frustration.
His dismay brought a taut smile to Rose’s lips. She’d needed an edge, no matter how slim. She figured this might well be the only one she’d get.
Pushing to her feet, she sprinted for the sorrel. Already skittish from all the gunfire, the horse spooked and jerked his reins loose as soon as Rose surged from cover; he might have bolted if she hadn’t called for him to stop in that no-nonsense tone she normally reserved for when he was acting up around other horses. A third round from her attacker inadvertently helped when it kicked up a cloud of dust in front of the nervously prancing stallion, causing him to hesitate just long enough for Rose to grab the reins.
Then the horse was running, breaking through the scrub with Rose clinging desperately to the chipped saddle horn. She got her feet under her just as her attacker opened up in earnest. Racing alongside, she gave a jump and made a flying leap—what the old-timers called a pony express mount—by letting the sorrel’s momentum help catapult her leg over the cantle, landing her squarely in the Mother Hubbard’s cradle. Bending low until the stallion’s mane snapped in her face like tiny whips, she raked the horse’s ribs with her spurs.
They were about four hundred yards away when the sorrel stumbled and nearly went down among some rocks. Rose tensed to jump, but the horse caught its stride and stretched out like a thoroughbred, the swallow’s feather Young Wolf had fastened to its mane dancing in the wind. The shots of her attacker began to fade out. Leaning forward, Rose whispered encouragement into the stallion’s ear, assuring him that nothing could catch them now.
• • • • •
It was noon when Rose reached the cabin. She half expected to find a Flying Egg brand on it somewhere—line riders in the house or Flying Egg cattle bedded down along the creek—but the place appeared pretty much as she’d left it, right down to the charred remains of the A-Bar-E’s furnishings in the front yard. Only the wind had been along to smooth over the ashes.
Rose supposed there was little to cheer about as she hiked into the yard, the sorrel gimping awkwardly after her. The stallion’s right rear fetlock was swollen, hot to the touch above the spot where the ambusher’s bullet had struck the hoof. Although the wound would heal, Rose knew it would take time. Until then, riding the sorrel was out of the question. She might use a horse hard out of necessity, just as she pushed herself from time to time, but she would never knowingly risk ruining an animal for her own greed. Not even if that greed was for her life.
“Well, I reckon this is the end of the trail for us, big fella,” she told the sorrel as she pulled off the Mother Hubbard. She stripped the bridle but left the swallow’s feather, then stepped back to look the horse in the eye. “You did good, in spite of your randy ways. Had things turned out differently, we might’ve made a fine team, you ’n’ me.”
The horse returned her gaze unblinkingly, head up, ears perked forward as if in concentration.
“Dang it, don’t start listenin’ to me now. I’ve been talkin’ your ears off ever since we left Fred and Della’s, waitin’ for you to make some kind of reply.”
The horse whickered softly, his rubbery lips fluttering.
“See, I knew you was capable of holdin’ a conversation,” she said, grinning. “Now I’m gonna ….”
“Rose!”
She started, turning to the barn. Joe Bean stood in its entrance, pistol in hand. Behind him was a pair of lathered horses, and she knew instantly what he’d done. It had been a neat trick, she had to admit, confiscating one of his men’s mounts and coming on to the A-Bar-E the long way around. By switching off from one horse to the other, he’d been able to make better time than the three of them could have done together—better time than Rose could have made on the sorrel, even without the stallion having been clipped in the hoof—yet his men could easily follow along on one horse if they took their time. It also explained where Joe had been that morning, when his men had ambushed her at the stream.
Moving clear of the barn, Joe said: “This is the end of
the line, Rose. Drop your gun belt.”
She stared back in indecision, flexing her fingers. Before she could make up her mind, her attention was drawn to the creek near Nora’s grave, where a patch of color had moved. At first she thought it was a bear, a large silvertip perhaps, coming onto the plains in search of food, but the shading was wrong, the shape confusing in the brush below the spring. Then her pulse quickened and she said, under her breath: “No ….” Tears sprang to her eyes. “It can’t be.”
But it was. After breaking free of the brush, Albert shifted his course toward her. Blinking back tears, Rose went to meet him.
“Stay where you are,” Joe ordered, but she ignored him. “I’ll shoot,” he added.
Rose stopped, but only because the roan had broken into a trot. A smile lit up her face even as the tears spilled across her cheeks, and she thought: Now I’m gonna bawl like some love-sick gal, and Joe’ll hang me with puffy red eyes.
It didn’t matter. Not anymore. She had come home, and although she’d thought nothing could beat that, something had. Her friend was here. Her old pard who had comforted her during her gangling teenage years, who had listened to her and been there for her when her pap and brothers and Muggy never were.
As the aging gelding slowed to a walk, Rose went to meet him. Albert pressed his graying forehead against her chest and pushed gently into her. Rose scratched his bridle path. She wanted to tell him how much she’d missed him, and how leaving him behind had turned her cold inside, but the words wouldn’t come. Finally she squeezed her eyes shut, content to scratch the rangy gelding behind his ears, raising a fine dust.
Was I gonna live, she thought fiercely, I’d trim that mane close, and get them burrs outta his tail.
The Poacher's Daughter Page 45