“What are you doing?” she asked, seeing the Ranger make a loop around the muzzle of the horse who’d arrived first. He led it closer to another horse.
“Stringing a couple of them,” Sam said. “We’ll take them to the water hole, get them watered.”
“But you didn’t want to be there in broad daylight with no cover,” Mattie reminded him.
“That’s right. I didn’t, not if I could keep from it,” Sam replied, continuing to string the second horse. “Right now I can’t help it. These horses will get themselves in trouble out here on their own. There’s a stage relay station just north of the border. We’ll leave them corralled there for whoever they belong to.”
“It’ll cost us time,” Mattie said, stepping in, helping him string the horses together.
“I know,” he said. “If you want to ride on ahead, I’ll catch up to you along the trail.”
“No, I’ll stick,” she said, looping the rope around the third horse’s muzzle. “Fact is, if we’re going back to the water, I might manage to wash up some, if it’s all the same—if we have time, that is?”
“We’ll make time. It’ll take a few minutes for me to water these cayuses,” Sam said. He watched her add the horse to the string.
“Three will do it?” she said. “We’ve got more rope.”
“Three’s enough,” said Sam. “We’ve got the leader and these two to boot. The others will follow the string.” As he spoke, he looked across the hillside. “There could be others straggling behind, but they’ll follow as they show up.”
Sam took the remaining rope coil in his hand and swung up into his saddle. Turning his dun, he gave a slight pull on the rope, coaxing the first horse around beside him.
“They’re tired enough, they won’t be hard to handle,” Mattie said, seeing the other two strung horses fall in line behind their leader. She stepped up into her saddle and swung her dapple around beside the Ranger.
Giving his dun a nudge forward, Sam saw her give him a curious look.
“What?” he said.
“You,” she said, nudging the dapple forward with him, the lead string horse walking along between them. “You have a peculiar streak.”
“Do I?” Sam said. He looked himself over idly like a man searching for a bug on his shirt.
“Yes, you do,” Mattie said. “I see it whether you see it or not.”
“Circumstance changes its mind pretty quick where I live,” he said. “I’ve learned it’s best to change right along with it when I can. Most things happen as they should, whether we see it or not.” He gave a slight shrug. “Anyway, horses need water, whatever the circumstances.” The hard line of his face softened a little beneath his dark beard stubble.
“I know,” she said, glancing back, seeing the loose horses plodding right along behind the three on the lead rope. She let out a tense breath and relaxed a little in her saddle.
It’s all right, she reassured herself. The Ranger was a good man, she had come to realize. She could trust him. She felt safe with him, safer than she’d felt in a long time, she thought.
Safe . . . , she told herself, liking the thought of it, liking even the sound of the word, and she allowed herself to relax a little more.
She would kill Dad Orwick when the time came to do so; she had no doubt about that. She turned and looked at the Ranger as they rode along. And when it came time, she was certain the Ranger would do nothing to try to stop her.
Why would he? Every word she’d told him about Orwick was the truth.
—
As soon as the two had arrived at the water hole, Mattie galloped a few yards farther and stopped her dapple gray behind a waist-high stand of rocks. She dropped her horse’s reins and crouched low enough to keep from being seen while she shed her boots and clothes and stepped down into the tepid water.
Sam watched her guardedly until she was out of sight, and then he shifted his attention to the winding trail and the rocky hillsides in every direction. While the horses drank, he stepped back and forth along the water’s edge, his rifle cradled in the crook of his left arm.
So far so good. . . .
But no sooner had the Ranger thought it than he spotted a buckboard wagon racing toward the water hole at the head of a rising stream of dust. Not wanting to call out to Mattie and hear his echo resound along the hill line, he stooped and quickly hitched the lead rope around a stand of brush.
In the water behind the low rocks, Mattie heard the sound of the Ranger galloping toward her. She hurried out of the water and grabbed her clothes. Disregarding the wet long johns she’d washed and left lying atop a flat rock, she wiggled into her trousers, her wet hair hanging down her shoulders. She had reached for her shirt when the Ranger swung his dun around the low rocks and saw her clutch the shirt to her bosom, turning away from him.
Sam quickly tried to divert his gaze, but when she turned away, he stared, almost stunned for a moment, at the long, deep whip scars that crisscrossed her pale back from her neck down beneath the waist of her trousers.
My God. . . . The Ranger caught himself and turned away quickly.
“Sorry, Mattie,” he said, forcing his eyes away from the terrible scars, knowing they were a secret she would not want shared. “There’s a wagon coming. Get dressed. Hurry.”
“I’m hurrying,” she said, throwing her shirt around herself. She began buttoning it as she looked over her shoulder at him.
The Ranger saw a look on her face that he could not discern. Was it shame, rage, a plea for pity? All those things? He wasn’t sure, and she looked past him and out toward the buckboard too quick for him to determine.
“Since you’re here, stay here,” Sam said, seeing how soon the wagon would be upon them. “Stay down and keep me covered if I need it.”
Mattie finished buttoning her shirt and snatched her rifle up from against a short rock.
“I’ve got you covered,” she said.
Without another word, Sam turned the dun and raced back the few yards to where the horses stood drinking. He swung down from his saddle and gave the dun a shove on its rump.
In the wagon seat, two men saw the Ranger take a stand as his dun moved out of the line of fire. They watched the Ranger’s big Colt come up from his holster, in no hurry, but they noted that he cocked it as he held it down his thigh.
“Swing around, Bud,” the man in the seat beside the driver said. “Put me clear and close. I’ve got him.” As he spoke he jerked a long-barreled shotgun up with both hands, slammed its butt against his shoulder and started to cock its hammer, taking aim.
But as the wagon driver swung the buckboard around sideways to the Ranger, Sam’s big Colt came up level and fired.
The man’s eyes flew open wide, seeing the Colt buck in a cloud of smoke—hearing the shot explode, feeling the hard hammering jar as the bullet struck the low side panel of the wagon seat, only an inch from his behind.
The long-barreled shotgun flew from the man’s hands, spun in the air and hit the ground butt first. A blast of blue-orange flame erupted from its barrel.
The Ranger reached a hand up and opened the lapel of his riding duster as he took aim, smoke curling up the Colt’s barrel.
“The next one’s going to take some meat with it,” he called matter-of-factly.
“Whoa! Don’t shoot!” the man called out, throwing his hands up, rising from his seat a few inches, still feeling the impact of the bullet in the wooden side panel. “I think I’m hit!”
“Jesus, Breely, he’s a lawman!” the driver said, jerking the buckboard to a sudden halt, one hand holding the team of horses’ reins, the other raised chest high in submission, away from a holstered Remington on his hip.
“I see that now,” said the passenger. He stood up into a crouch, both hands raised. “I’m shot here,” he called out to
the Ranger.
“No, you’re not. It just feels like it,” Sam said, stepping forward, the smoking Colt still in hand, pointed up, raised at his elbow.
“Damn it, I know when I’m shot!” the passenger insisted.
“Go on and check yourself,” Sam said, stopping close enough for both men to see his badge.
As the passenger felt around all over his buttocks, the driver set the buckboard brake handle, hitched the reins around it and stood up. He leaned and looked the other man’s butt over good and shook his head.
“You’re not shot anywhere, Breely,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “Stop feeling your ass.”
The passenger looked at both hands and, seeing no blood, appeared relieved. “Why’d you shoot me anyway, Ranger?” he said.
“You were getting ready to shoot me,” Sam said. “Besides, I didn’t shoot you. I shot a hole in the wagon seat, just to settle you down.”
The wagon driver chuckled under his breath.
“You sure did that, Ranger,” he said. “Can I step down from here?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “But stay away from that six-shooter.”
“You got it, Ranger,” said the driver. “I’m Ollie Haines. This is Dan’l Breely with the sore bottom.”
“You think this is funny?” Breely growled. He idly reached a hand back and kneaded his stinging rear end.
“No, I don’t,” Haines said. “I felt it all the way over on my side. So I know it hurts. But it’s over and nobody’s dead. Be grateful for what you got.”
“You be grateful,” said Breely. “I’m most likely looking at a bad bruise out of this.”
Ollie Haines only shook his head and turned back to the Ranger.
“Anyway, those are our horses. We come to get them,” he said, gesturing over at the horses. “They stayed a jump ahead of us all night and morning.”
The animals had flinched and turned quickly at the sound of the gunshot. But now they had gone back to their water as if nothing had happened.
“What are they doing out here?” Sam asked. As he spoke he raised a hand and motioned for Mattie to come over from behind the short rocks and join him. Both men looked at her as she swung up into her saddle and rode toward them.
“We work for the mines, up there,” Haines said, nodding to the high hill line. “We were put upon by bandits. They stole our payroll and rode off with all the guards’ horses. They led them a few miles out and turned them loose, I reckon. We found their lead rope a few miles back on the high trail. The sons a’ bitches thought of everything.”
“Yep, I’d say they did,” Sam replied. He stopped in front of the team of horses and rubbed one on its muzzle. Mattie brought her horse to a halt and stepped down beside the Ranger. Both men eyed her appreciatively, her wet silver-streaked hair clinging to the front of her drenched shirt.
“This is Miss Matilda Rourke,” Sam said. He turned to Mattie and said, “These men work for the mine.”
Mattie looked them up and down, her rifle in hand.
“Ma’am,” the two said in unison, peeling their hats from their heads.
“Looks like this team could use watering too,” Sam said. He started to touch his gloved hand to the horse’s nose again. But the animal stiffened at his touch and collapsed to the ground, almost taking the other horse with it.
The Ranger looked stunned, but only for a split second. He took a step back as the sound of a rifle shot resounded from high atop a hillside.
“Down!” he shouted at Mattie, even as he hurled himself against her and took her to the ground under him. Beside them a bullet thumped into the hard dirt. The sound of the shot followed a second behind it. Sam rolled with the woman pressed against him, until he heard Dan Breely let out a deep, hard grunt and fall to the ground. Sam rose, dragging Mattie with him, taking cover on the other side of the buckboard, where Ollie Haines already lay crouched against the front wheel.
“The sons a’ bitches left a man staked over this watering hole,” he said in a trembling voice. “Now they’ve killed ol’ Dan’l.”
Sam and Mattie gave each other a look, both knowing how lucky they’d been to stay away from the water hole in daylight. Whoever was up there had seen the buckboard coming and decided to wait until everybody was gathered here.
Mattie’s horse had spooked and galloped away. The string stirred and chuffed for a second, but went back to their drinking.
Sam noted the rifle Mattie still managed to clutch to her bosom as another bullet thumped against the other side of the wagon.
“Can you cover me here?” he asked.
“You’re going up after him?” she asked.
“Yes,” Sam said. “If not, he’ll sit up there and pick us to pieces. I just need you to keep him busy—throw him off.”
“You’re covered,” she said. As she spoke, her eyes went up to a drift of rifle smoke and her fingers raised the long-distance sights on her rifle. “I’ll do more than keep him busy. If I get a glimpse of him, he’s dead.”
“Here I go,” Sam said, seeing the dun standing over by the water’s edge, milling restlessly. He patted a hand on her shoulder, turned and raced toward the dun. Mattie braced the rifle against the front corner of the wagon and took aim in the direction of the smoke.
Chapter 8
A shot thumped into the ground as the Ranger leaped atop the dun and raced across the short stretch of flatlands in the cover of rocks. No sooner had the shot resounded than Mattie began a vicious string of return fire. When the firing slowed, another shot from up the hillside whistled past Sam’s head. He rode the dun dangerously fast up a narrow path in the direction of the shooter, seeing the fresh drift of smoke.
A third shot from above him ricocheted off a rock and spun away. But this time instead of hearing Mattie lay down a barrage of return fire, Sam heard only one single shot from the buckboard. Yet this shot sounded prolonged, more important somehow than the shots proceeding it. The sound of it seemed to stretch all the way from the buckboard to the hillside, echoing off rock as if it could have come from either direction. He glanced back down toward the buckboard and saw Mattie stand up for a second and wave a hand back and forth slowly before lowering herself back down out of sight.
“She hit him?” the Ranger said aloud to himself. He looked up toward the drifting smoke. She must have. . . . If the shooter wasn’t hit, why wasn’t he firing?
Sam deliberately slowed the dun and continued on, but not without caution. Even if the shooter was hit bad or dead, there could still be another shooter, just waiting for him to slow down enough or stop long enough to present a good target.
Nice and easy, he warned himself, keeping the dun at a slower but steady pace until higher up the trail he submerged both the horse and himself in the cover of boulders.
At a level where he’d judged the shooter to be perched on a cliff, he stopped the dun, stepped down from the saddle and let the reins fall to the dirt. In a silence broken only by the low whir of a breeze across the rocks, he slipped around a corner of stone. Colt drawn and ready, he moved along a narrow ledge with nothing beneath him but an airy drop onto the tops of spiky scrub pines and hard rock three hundred feet below.
He turned at the next rounded edge of a boulder and he felt relieved as he came upon the ledge where the shooter lay facedown in a puddle of fresh dark blood. Looking around warily, seeing only a horse in a small clearing back away from the ledge, Sam stepped forward and noted the gaping exit hole in the back of the shooter’s bloody head.
Standing over the body, Sam reached out with the toe of his boot and rolled the dead ambusher over onto his back.
“You’re no more than a kid,” he whispered, a look of surprise on his face. He stared at the bullet hole in the young man’s forehead just above his left eye. The dead man’s hat lay nearby with a bullet hole just above its
brim. What were you doing riding with outlaws like these?
He had to remind himself that Dad Orwick had more than just outlaws riding with him. He had disciples, churchmen, perhaps even members of his flock of all ages, doing his bidding. On the ground he saw a small ornament, a silver wagon wheel on the end of a horsehair watch fob. He picked it up and looked around at boot prints interspersed with a small, round indentation.
A peg leg? Could be, he told himself, sticking the silver wheel trinket into his vest pocket. At any rate, the shooter hadn’t been here alone.
Sam shook his head and considered whether or not to tell Mattie how young this shooter was. After a moment of staring at the dead boy lying at his feet, he shook his head, reached down and took the shooter by his shoulders. Still feeling warmth through the young man’s shirt, he dragged the body into a stand of brush.
No, he thought, he wasn’t going to mention the shooter’s age to Mattie unless she asked, and why would she ask? It served no purpose, he decided, letting out a breath. She had killed the shooter who was out to kill them. Let that be the end of it.
He walked to the standing horse and led it around a thin path to where his dun stood waiting. When he searched the dead man’s saddlebags and found nothing of any importance, he stepped atop his copper dun. Leading the shooter’s horse behind him, he took his time descending the steep trail to the stretch of flatlands, then moved at a gallop. He slowed down as he neared the buckboard where Mattie stood watching, the hand above her eyes acting as a visor. Ollie Haines stood beside her, having stripped the harness and reins from the dead team horse and backed the wagon away from it.
“I got him, didn’t I?” Mattie called out confidently as the Ranger drew nearer.
“You sure did,” Sam said, slowing his horse and the horse beside him. “Good shooting,” he said, not wanting to think any more about how young the shooter was.
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