The Hunted

by Ralph Compton

  “And?” said Rafferty, his arms crossed.

  “And, Mr. High-and-Mighty, I could do one of three things.” He eyed both of them.

  The marshal didn’t move a muscle in his chair, but returned the mountain man’s stare. “Go on.”

  “I could call your bluff, I could raise the stakes, or I could sit tight with what I got. Hold for a spell.”

  “Now, see here,” said Rafferty, springing to his feet, his long face under his bald dome bright red and popping dewy beads of sweat. “I will not tolerate a man such as yourself threatening me or my legitimate business venture. You have no authority, no say in the matter, do you understand? You’ve only been granted an audience here at Marshal Watt’s behest and against my better judgment!”

  Throughout Rafferty’s little speech, Watt had tried to shout him down, but the merchant was too heated to have any of it. Finally the lawman sagged back in his chair and rubbed his forehead.

  Pawnee Joe had leaned back in the chair once again, his buckskin-clad torso wrapped in his long arms until it looked as though he were hugging himself. It appeared to the marshal that he was doing all he could to not break into a grin and laugh.

  “You about done, haughty man?”

  Rafferty was set to pull in a second wind and start in again when the marshal bellowed, “Enough, Jasper!” The two business partners glared at each other.

  Pawnee Joe sprang to his feet, still smiling, and headed to the door.

  “Where are you going?” Marshal Watt stood, his fingers steepled on the desktop.

  “Thinkin’ maybe I’ll go over to the Royale. Why?”

  “Pawnee, I’d prefer it if you stay here now, at least until we hammer out this, uh, agreement we all need to come to.”

  The mountain man leaned against the door. “Oh, Marshal. You really wanna dump lamp oil on this fire?” He regarded the lawman with a grim smile and a headshake. “Seems to me you and your uppity friend here ought to have more regard for me than that. I’ll be thinkin’ things through, but on my own, in my own way. Don’t need no mother-hennin’ from you.” He left the office and the marshal watched the door close behind him.

  “Why did you let him walk out of here, Watt?”

  “What would you have me do, Jasper?”

  “Why, you are the law in this town, are you not? You could have . . .”

  “Could have what?” The marshal filled a cup with hot coffee from atop the stove.

  “You should have detained him. Yes, that’s it—you should have locked him up so he wouldn’t wander around town drunk and blather all he knows about Gamble.”

  “Lock him up, eh? On what charges?”

  “Who cares? You’re the lawman, you think of something for a change.” Rafferty stood and faced the wall, rubbing his thumb and forefinger into his eyes.

  As the marshal returned to his desk, he heard the muttered word “incompetent” from Rafferty. That was all it took. He grabbed a handful of wool overcoat at the man’s shoulder and spun him around. He didn’t wait for Rafferty to settle and square off, but drove a solid right-hand jab into his jaw.

  Rafferty’s head whipped to the side, cutting off a strangled, confused shout. The tall shopkeep staggered, caromed off the door, and folded to the floor, one arm thrown up to protect his face.

  But the marshal had finished with him. He walked to his desk and once again, sat down with a tired sigh. To think, this day had begun so promising. . . .

  Chapter 37

  After a few hours of hard struggle, it seemed they hadn’t gotten all that far. And with the promise of snow greater with each minute that passed—the sky had turned a deep gray that reminded Hester of gun steel—they were all ready for a rest, especially the horses.

  “Find us a spot where we can fetch us some water for these no-account horses.” Rollie shouted the command forward, and Hester could see Shiner’s shoulders slump. He’d heard too and knew it meant Rollie had selected them to fetch the water. It also meant that Rollie would remain seated in the wagon, drinking whiskey.

  Without acknowledging Rollie’s request, Shiner walked on another dozen yards, glancing toward the barely audible babble of the brook down a slight slope to their left. They’d been traveling alongside the thin but frigid-looking flow most of the day since leaving behind the horrible campsite where Bo and the mules had been killed.

  Shiner headed down to the water, Hester made certain she was well out of range of Rollie’s whip, should he take it into his head to lay the lash on her as he had been doing to the horses and as he had done to Norbert. She wondered where he’d been taken by the Indians.

  It was Shiner’s strangled scream that answered her question. Hester ran toward the stream, but Shiner ran back toward her. “No, no, no, you can’t go down there. It’s terrible!” He was nearly hysterical, breathing in short gasps and shaking all over. He’d only been gone from sight for a few seconds. What could he have seen that was so bad?

  Hester shrugged away and pushed past him to see for herself. She didn’t have to go far before she saw a figure crawling up out of the frozen stream. But no, that didn’t make any sense. . . . The stream was mostly frozen, and the figure, partially covered in snow, wasn’t moving, now that she looked harder at it. She walked closer. Even from that distance and under a dusting of the newly fallen snow, Hester saw that it was Norbert, facedown, arrows sticking from him.

  “Aw, now, don’t that beat all?” It was Rollie. He’d come up behind her and looked over Hester’s shoulder at his former friend and employee.

  “We should cut him free.” Hester turned to Rollie and Shiner, a sudden thought occurring to her. “He might still be alive. We have to check. Cut my hands free so I can try.”

  “It’s no use,” said Shiner. “I already did—he’s gone. I lifted him up to see if he was breathing, but . . . he’d been gutted.”

  “But—” said Hester, taking a hesitant step toward the body.

  “No! Dang it, girl, you leave him be! I said he’s dead!” Shiner shouted the words and they all froze. The man had to this point been a quiet sort, rarely raising his voice, except to curse and laugh. Hester guessed he was telling the truth.

  “Well, there you have it,” said Rollie, shaking his head and walking back to the wagon. “Let’s get going before we’re forced to stay right here at this gruesome spot.”

  “But aren’t we going to—” Again, Hester was interrupted, this time by Rollie.

  “Going to what? Bury him? Too frozen. Besides, we ain’t got Big Boy here to dig for us!” He chuckled and climbed up into the wagon. “Now let’s go!”

  Shiner didn’t move. He shook visibly and kept stealing glances down toward the brook.

  “Shiner! Woman! Get your asses moving. Now!” Rollie cranked back on his Colt’s hammer and fired a shot. It whistled, a tight shot, between Shiner and Hester. They both yelped and headed back up the trail, the snow thickening slightly as they resumed their places before the horses, breaking a feeble trail for them to follow.

  Hester hoped the trip would not get any worse. She didn’t think it was possible to live through any more horrors and still remain in control of her mind. And then she knew that such a hope was foolish. Of course there were more horrible things to come, if only for the fact that there were still people alive for them to happen to . . . including herself.

  Chapter 38

  “Charlie?”

  “Yeah, Delia?” Charlie paused, worried about the new snow that had begun to fall, and looked back toward the travois. He’d rigged it up—two long poles that crossed at the top and a third about four feet wide at the base, all lashed together and dragged by him with straps he’d retrieved from the last wagon they’d come across.

  Truth be told, he was relieved for the rest. The task of punching boot heels in the snow had been anything but easy. Now with the definite promise of another fresh s
torm on the wind, the snow already falling, Charlie wanted to gain as much ground as he could before it hit fully. Something in the air—an extra-sharp snap when he breathed in, a tang, told him that this new snowfall was the early edge of a coming storm, and that it might well be a corker. He had been tromping in the high mountains for far too long to not recognize such hard-to-define symptoms.

  “Charlie, what do you think was wrong with those wolves?”

  She was still thinking about the attack. He had been mighty impressed with her and how she kept cool in the situation, but now he wondered if maybe her sickness wasn’t playing with her mind a little. She kept asking him about it. It was a good question, but one for which he had no answer that would satisfy anyone who knew much about wolves.

  “I believe they were caught up in all the excitement with the carcasses of those oxen.” At the mention of them, he thought back to the amazing sight that had greeted them when they inspected the carcasses the next morning.

  He had expected to see much more than he did see. But what they found were picked-clean bone racks surrounded by blood-pinked snow. True, there was still plenty of hide and gristle, some meat, but only in the hard-to-reach places. Charlie reckoned that by the following day there wouldn’t be much left but picked-and-licked bones, gleaming yellow-white against the cold snow.

  “You think they might follow us, don’t you?” said Delia.

  “I never said that, Delia. But you did—a handful of times already. I didn’t know better, I’d swear you are trying to get me to walk faster.” He smiled down at her, laid out on the travois. He’d managed to truss her in with soft wraps of cloth over the blankets, and all on top of a cushion of pine boughs for comfort. At least he hoped she was comfortable. He guessed that Delia wouldn’t complain if she had a mouthful of glass.

  What a trouper she was. And her sister too. He’d been heartened to begin seeing tracks that he could read, and he was sure of a couple of things—they were still following the freighters, and Hester and Mabel-Mae were still alive.

  But as good as it was to see tracks he could recognize, he hardly needed them since there was only the one trail for them to travel to get to Gamble. Charlie had never been much of a hand at tracking and trailing and reading sign. He reckoned he’d learned enough over the years to get himself into trouble.

  He decided to change the subject, get Delia off haranguing the topic of the wolves and worrying herself in circles. “You know how a while back I told you I believe I saw Hester’s boot prints?”

  “Yeah,” said Delia, as more of a hopeful question. She squinted up at Charlie, the sky’s clouded light keeping her eyes half lidded.

  “Well, I was right. And it looks like they still have Mabel-Mae too.” He smiled, hoping the good news would perk her up. It seemed to, but he knew she was in pain. And he had nothing to give her for it. “We best get cracking on if we’re going to gain more ground before snow or nightfall, whichever catches up with us first.”

  “Or wolves.”

  “Now, enough of that talk,” said Charlie, not a little irritated. He repositioned the travois straps over his shoulders and wrapped them around his meaty fists. And trudged slowly onward, each step sure and deep.

  “I’m sorry, Charlie. Tell me about Mabel-Mae. How’d you get her?”

  “Oh well, that’s a good story. But I tell you right now, you don’t ‘get’ a mule like Mabel-Mae. You find her, sort of like you find a good friend and you know you’re going to be friends for a long time.”

  “Sort of like us, right, Charlie?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Exactly like us. Fast friends for life.” Then as soon as he said it he felt bad—her life wouldn’t be all that long. But if she caught onto his slip, she didn’t say a thing.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Charlie. Now, about Mabel-Mae . . .”

  “Well, I was in a small mine camp in northern California, place called Bluebell, though there wasn’t a thing pretty about it, not like such a name would indicate anyway. More rock and mud than anything else—except for dumb rock hounds like me. I was doing myself some digging, not having much luck, and not doing myself any favors howling at the moon at night and waking up thickheaded and poorer with each sunrise.” He grinned and shook his head at the memory.

  “Well, along about my fifth month there, with my meager claim all but dug away, I was thinking about selling up, heading out, when an old man showed up at my claim. He was riding old Mabel-Mae. No, that’s not quite the truth. More like he was falling off her, hanging on to her neck with a couple of skinny old arms. I’ll never forget the sight. I’d had a few dry days—no money for whiskey, and not much around the place to do but shoot rabbits and work the rocker and a pan, hoping for gold with each swirl. So I was stone sober—otherwise I might have thought I was having what the Indians call ‘visions’—and I looked up and seen this old man a-hanging off this mule.”

  Charlie glanced back at Delia to make sure she was listening.

  “Go on,” she said, her face eager for more.

  Good, he thought. It might help keep her mind off her pain. “The old man raised his head. He had a shaggy knot of long gray hair that sort of mixed in with his beard, and he looked at me. I could tell he was sick and not long for the world.” Charlie clamped his teeth tight together. This wasn’t the sort of thing a dying girl should be hearing. Would he never learn?

  “It’s okay, Charlie. I want to hear the story as it happened. Don’t whitewash anything.”

  “Okay, then,” he said, keeping an eye on the trail, pressing his lips together to melt the ice on his beard and mustache whiskers. They were running close by a stream and he thought he might stop in a few minutes. They could drink their fill and he could catch his wind again. Ever since Rollie and his boys took a few rounds out of him, he’d been healing but mighty slow. At this rate, it would take a long while.

  “The old man fixed me with a look and then groaned and fell right off that mule. I dropped my pan and stomped on over to hm. He’d fallen half in that old silty stream, so I yanked him out of there and laid him on my bed. He was a skinny drink of water, not much more on him than raggy clothes and hair.”

  “Then what happened, Charlie?”

  “Well, I was convinced he was going to . . . well, that he might up and die on me. I looked him over, didn’t see any signs of a fight, nor wounds of any kind. So I guessed he had a sickness of some sort—that scared me, I can tell you. But I couldn’t turn him away, so I tended to him as best I could. No one would come around once word got out that I was harboring a sick man. Some folks claimed he had cholera, others scarlet fever, still others said pneumonia. One crazy old woman who prospected by herself shouted to me that she was sure he had something called leprosy. Said parts of him was going to fall off, can you imagine?”

  “Did he fall apart or die on you?” Delia asked.

  “No, sir, the old rig lived. After a while, why, he up and lived! Got better and better. I reckon he was old, tired, and hungry, though maybe not in that order. Insisted on paying me once he got well. Course, I didn’t want nothing, only happy to see he was alive. He didn’t have much to his name anyway. Turns out he was an old prospector name of Mac Winkler. He had taken to prospecting when his wife died years before. Named every mule he ever had after her—Mabel-Mae.”

  “So what happened to him?”

  “I swear, Delia, you sound disappointed that he didn’t turn out to be a wanted man or that his head or legs didn’t fall off.” Charlie chuckled. “Well, ol’ Mac told me he was too old and tired to keep on moving. Said he wanted to settle down. I, on the other hand, felt the opposite. I was too young to be stuck on my claim, trapped there with nothing to do, no way to leave. So you can guess what was coming, right?”

  “You didn’t swap your claim for Mabel-Mae?”

  “Naw. I give him the claim, fair and square. I was getting close to up and walking off it
anyway. So I came up with the idea that he would have to put me up whenever I was in town.”

  “So how did you get Mabel-Mae?”

  “Well, like I said.” Charlie blinked hard to melt the snow from his eyelashes. “Ol’ Mac insisted on paying me for helping him get well. Then when I up and gave him the claim with my little shack on it, why, he insisted. I didn’t want the mule, truth be told, figured she’d be another mouth to feed and I have trouble enough keeping myself in vittles. But in the end, he grew downright ornery. I never saw such a cross old man. Acted like I was insulting him. Can you imagine that? So I took the mule off his hands to keep him quiet, figured I’d sell her down the road somewhere.”

  He trudged on, slowing more with each step, ready for a break. “Funny thing happened, though.”

  “Hmm?”

  “Mabel-Mae ended up helping me out more ways than I can say. She provided me with transportation now and again, though in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m on the big side, so I don’t like to burden her with too much of that sort of thing. But she also carried freight. I began hauling light loads of goods up into the hills for lone miners too poor, too busy, or too plain dumb to come down and get their own supplies. They paid me gratefully in dust and I got by. She’s also a pretty good listener. A lot like you.”

  “I will pretend you didn’t compare me with a mule, Mr. Chilton. Now, whatever happened to Mac Winkler?” said Delia.

  “You won’t believe it, but a while back somebody told me that old man struck a sweet spot on that worthless claim of mine and made himself a tidy little sum. Enough to get him to Frisco. Now, I don’t rightly know what happened to him there. Could still be there to this day. Could be he owns the whole waterfront. Myself, I never did cotton to big towns, so I reckon I’ll never find out what happened to ol’ Mac Winkler. But I do know what happened to his mule.”

  Charlie smiled, looked back at Delia, but her attention had been pulled away by something else. She was squinting downslope to Charlie’s left, toward the half-frozen brook they’d been traveling alongside for most of the day. She had a sock-covered hand visoring her eyes as they focused on something down there.