Wet and miserable, they plodded on. The rain let up, then finally stopped as darkness approached, still punctuated by occasional flashes of lightning. Their luck changed for the better, however, when a glimpse of light flickered through the trees in a stand of young pines. “You see what I see?” Quincy asked. When Billy strained to see what he was referring to, Quincy said, “Look yonder.” He pointed toward the pine stand. “Looks like a campfire in them trees.”
Seeing it then, Billy replied, “That’s what it looks like, all right. Reckon who it is?” It was hardly likely it could be a miner this far from the diggings. “Might be Injuns,” he speculated.
“Maybe so,” Quincy replied. “Ain’t a very big fire, so if it’s Injuns, it don’t look like there’s many of ’em.”
“I hope they got somethin’ to eat,” Billy said.
Approaching as close as they thought safe, they dismounted and moved closer on foot to get a better look at what they might be riding into. It was hard to tell because of the trees, but they were unable to see anyone near the fire, so they decided to get even closer before announcing their presence. Pulling their pistols from their holsters, they stepped as carefully as possible through the short brush until reaching the edge of a small clearing with the fire in the center. There was still no one in sight, although there was a temporary lean-to beyond the fire with a hide roof to provide shelter from the rain. It was impossible to tell if anyone was inside it. Thinking it not worth the risk of getting shot by some cautious miner or Indian, Quincy announced their presence. “Hello, there in the camp.” There was no reply and still no sign that anyone was there. “Well, damn,” Quincy cursed after waiting for a reply, “don’t seem to be nobody here.”
“Maybe he’s takin’ a dump or somethin’,” Billy offered. “Hell, he can’t be far.”
Moving to the edge of the clearing, pistols drawn, the two outlaws were stopped, by a sudden flash of lightning, following almost immediately by a deafening clap of thunder. The trees were bathed in brilliant light for only a brief moment, but it was long enough to sear the ominous image of the tall powerful hunter onto their brains. Like a messenger of death, he stood at the edge of the forest of pines, gazing at them, his rifle hanging relaxed in one hand, his face dark and menacing under the shadow of his hat.
“Jesus!” Quincy exclaimed involuntarily, and he and Billy fired simultaneously at the spot, now dark, where the image had appeared. Their shots were answered a split second later, the muzzle blasts coming from a spot several yards to the left of where they had aimed. Billy cried out in pain and crumpled to the ground. Quincy did not wait for the next shot; terrified, he turned and ran for his life. He had no thoughts of checking on Billy to see if he was dead or alive. His only thought was to save his hide and to hell with Billy.
Rider walked out into the open when he heard the sound of hoofbeats pounding the wet turf of the mountainside. He paused momentarily to see if Billy was dead. The last flicker of life went out of Billy’s eyes as he stared up into his executioner′s face. Wide and unblinking, his eyes told of the fear and horror he seemed to see coming to greet him on the other side. Rider hesitated only long enough to make sure Billy was dead before plunging into the trees after Quincy. He was too late to stop him, but he was not discouraged. He assumed that God, or Man Above, was responsible for this chance encounter with the two remaining men involved with the attack on Johnny Hawk. In all this mountain wilderness, He had brought them right to his camp, and that was enough to convince Rider that it was his destiny to kill the one remaining of the three who had caused so much pain and suffering. Making his way quickly then to the trees on the other side of the clearing, he found three horses shuffling about in the low brush. Quincy had been too frightened to spend the time to take any of them with him. Even in the dark, Rider could determine the direction Quincy started in. There were enough broken bushes and limbs to indicate the hurry he had been in, but it would be very difficult to follow his trail after he left the pines. Feeling no sense of impatience, he was not concerned, for he would wait until daylight, track him down, and send him to hell with his partners.
Urging his horse on recklessly, Quincy fled down the mountainside, the image of death, patiently standing in the trees, still in his memory. Near the bottom of the mountain, his horse slid on a patch of shale and tumbled, throwing Quincy from the saddle to land hard on the rocky ground. In a terrified panic, he scrambled to his feet, thinking that Rider had caused the fall and that his horse had been shot. So frightened was he that he wasn’t even aware of the high-pitched whine escaping his mouth. Turning around in a circle, looking for his antagonist, he grabbed for his pistol, but found an empty holster. He had lost the weapon in the fall. He was startled again, when he heard a noise off to his left, only to find it was his horse getting to its feet. Almost crying out in relief to see that the horse was apparently all right, he forgot about the pistol and ran to get back in the saddle. Whipping the tiring animal mercilessly, he raced along the valley toward a notch between two mountains ahead.
Morning found him tired and thirsty, walking and leading his weary horse, pausing frequently to look behind him, afraid he might see the ominous hunter coming on. There was no sign of Rider, however, and the daylight lessened the panic he had suffered all through the night, allowing him to think rationally. One thing he knew for certain was that he was at a distinct disadvantage in the hills and forests. The demon that pursued him seemed to be a creature half Indian, half animal, and all predator. And the wilderness was his domain. So to be safe, Quincy was convinced that he had to go back to Helena, the town where Rider would likely be arrested or shot on sight if he followed him there. If I can just get to Helena, he thought, then the son of a bitch has to fight on my terms. His courage was immediately lifted and he scolded himself for his prior panic.
Rider reached down and picked up the revolver lying near a wide patch of loose shale. The picture of what had happened there was clear in his mind. There were small traces of blood on some of the sharper edges of the rocky ground to indicate either the horse or the rider had suffered some cuts and bruises—evidently not enough to cause serious injury, for he found the trail leading toward the head of the valley. The length of the stride indicated that the spill had not caused a slowdown in Quincy’s flight. He climbed into the saddle and urged the buckskin toward the notch at the head of the narrow valley, his packhorse and one extra horse following. He had picked the best of the horses Quincy and Billy had brought with them, and freed the others.
Once Quincy reached the town limits of Helena, he began to regain his old confidence almost immediately. His regret now was that he did not stand his ground, for having run, he lost the pouch of gold dust Billy Hyde had carried, and it angered him to think that Rider was now in possession of it. He’s only one man, he thought. I ain’t never run from one man before. But he had the jump on us. That’s the only reason I had to run. Wouldn’t have made sense not to. I might have gotten a shot at him when he gunned Billy down, though. If I had it to do over, that’s what I would have done.
He was able to put all the cowardly thoughts out of his mind once he rode down Main Street past all the stores and saloons. He was a high roller again, with gold dust in his pouch. He could put his horse in a stable and himself in a room at the hotel. Might as well enjoy myself, he thought, play a little poker, have a go-round with one or two of the ladies. Thinking again of the man following him, he thought, He’s a crazy son of a bitch, but he ain’t crazy enough to come into Helena looking for me. I’ll stay outta the Pay Dirt Saloon, though. That’s a bad luck saloon.
He picked a stable on the other end of the gulch from the Pay Dirt, a few steps down the street from the Montana Hotel. “That horse looks like he’s been rode hard,” Fred Potts said when Quincy dismounted.
“Well, now, that’s a fact,” Quincy replied. “And that’s why I need to rest him up real good. Give him a double measure of oats, and I might give you a little extra if you take good ca
re of him.”
“Yes, sir,” Fred said, “I’ll take real good care of him.”
Feeling his old sense of bravado again, Quincy took his saddlebag and made the short walk to the hotel, where he went in and looked the bar over before deciding to register. This will do just fine, he said to himself. There were already several card games in progress at the tables in the back of the bar. Checking in, he requested one of the hotel’s bigger rooms on the second floor at the front of the building where he could look out the window and see the street below. Dropping his saddlebags on the chair in the corner, he took a moment to look around at his room. A comfortable bed, a stout door, and a window with no balcony, he felt safe here. He’d be a damn fool to ride into this town, he told himself. He knows he’d likely be shot on sight. But even if he is that crazy, he’d have a hell of a time trying to get to me. “Let the bastard come,” he challenged confidently, and pulled his .44 and spun the cylinder to make sure all chambers were loaded.
In spite of the overwhelming odds against Rider showing his face in town, Quincy could not help taking every extra precaution against being caught by surprise. It took several days before he began to believe that he was actually safe from the grim assassin as long as he was in town where there was a sheriff and four deputies ready to arrest him. After all, the man was instantly recognizable. He wouldn’t get ten feet before somebody saw him and went for the sheriff, he thought. Still, he pulled a chair up in front of his locked door at night, and stood in the doorway of the bar and the hotel dining room, looking the room over, before entering. Gradually, even those practices were relaxed to the extent that Rider was no longer the constant thought in his mind, and Quincy settled into his assumed life of gambler and big spender. After a couple of weeks of this lifestyle, he realized that he was, indeed, safe in the midst of the town’s many people and the well-staffed sheriff’s office.
There came a day, however, much sooner than he had expected when the gold dust he kept in the hotel safe started to run out. His luck at the card table took a downhill turn, and he was faced with the realization that his finances were rapidly draining. He was discreetly notified by the hotel manager that he was behind in paying his bill. He reluctantly admitted to himself that it was time to return to his real occupation—robbery and murder—for he had become overly fond of his current existence. Faced with this dilemma, he pushed thoughts of Rider to the back of his mind, replaced by the more pressing need for money. The small prospectors he, along with Bodine and Billy, used to rob were not enough now. He needed a bigger score to continue his high-rolling lifestyle. If Helena had a bank, that would have been his first thought, but so far, the town had not progressed to that point. There were many businesses in town that were prosperous enough to have accumulations of cash and dust. The problem facing him now was his recent status as a well-heeled gambler. Too many men might be able to identify him if he were seen leaving a business after robbing it, even with a sack over his head.
The more thought he gave his problem, the more often the Pay Dirt Saloon came to mind. That unlucky place might, in fact, be the luckiest spot for the job that he needed to pull off. It was at the extreme end of the gulch, a good distance from his new base at the Montana Hotel, and busy as it was, it was operated by only one man—the perfect place, he decided. “And there ain’t no reason to wait,” he announced to his empty room. “I need the money now.”
A bright three-quarter moon shown down on Last Chance Gulch, sharply outlining the dark shadows cast by the lone cottonwood tree left standing near the Pay Dirt Saloon. Impatiently waiting, Quincy watched as Pete Bender escorted the last drunken customer out the front door. Quincy could not see his watch to check the time, but he knew it was somewhere close to three o’clock in the morning. “Goddamned drunks,” he complained under his breath, and waited underneath the cottonwood until Pete’s patron had made his way unsteadily up the hill. Finally all was quiet in the saloon.
He hurried across the open ground to the front stoop of the building and rapped on the locked door. After a minute, he heard footsteps approaching and then Pete’s voice. “Who is it? I’m closed.”
“Won’t take but a minute,” Quincy answered. “I need a bottle of whiskey to take with me for medicinal purposes. Friend of mine’s got the shakes real bad. I’ll pay you double for it.” He listened closely for Pete’s response. There was a moment of hesitation; then a sigh was heard on the other side of the door, followed by the sound of the bolt being slid open.
“Come on in, then,” Pete said as he swung the door open. As soon as Quincy stepped into the light, Pete recognized him. “You’re one of those friends of that feller that got killed in here.” He immediately experienced a feeling of foreboding. In the next second, his fears were justified.
“That’s a fact,” Quincy said as he pulled his pistol, and aimed it at Pete’s stomach.
“You son of a bitch,” Pete gasped, hardly believing he was being robbed.
Quincy favored him with a malicious grin. “Now, if you behave yourself, and do like I tell you, maybe you won’t get hurt. So don’t waste my time. I need money and I want it right now.” He motioned him back toward the bar with his pistol.
Pete did as he was told, his mind racing as he tried to weigh his chances of getting his hands on his shotgun under the counter. Quincy hadn’t even bothered to tie a bandanna around his face, and to Pete, this meant that he wasn’t planning to leave a witness. “Mister,” he said, “I ain’t got enough money in here to make it worth killin’ a man for.”
“Ha,” Quincy retorted. “Who said anythin’ about killin’ you?” Then the smile was replaced by a scowl. “If you don’t get me that money quick, I am gonna shoot you.”
“It’d be a mistake.”
Startled, both men turned toward the door from where the voice had come to discover the grim figure with rifle leveled. In stark terror, Quincy fired at the same time Rider pulled his trigger, while Pete dived for cover behind the counter. Flustered as he was by his fear, Quincy’s shot was off, catching Rider in the arm, but Rider′s shot tore into Quincy’s gut and he dropped his pistol and fell to the floor clutching his stomach. Ignoring the wound in his arm, Rider walked unhurriedly up to his victim and kicked the revolver out of his reach.
His face twisted in agony, Quincy begged for his life. “It wasn’t me that shot Johnny Hawk,” he gasped painfully. “It was Bodine. I ain’t done nothin’ to you.”
“It’s the second time you took a shot at me,” Rider said. “The first time was on the Solomon River.”
Suddenly Quincy’s eyes opened wide as he grimaced with the fire in his gut and it struck him then why this buckskinned avenger looked familiar. “Jim Moran,” he uttered.
“That’s right, Quincy.”
“Wait, wait!” he exclaimed in a panic when Rider took a step back. “Don’t kill me, Jim. Hell, we rode together in the war. You don’t wanna kill an old comrade. Look, I′ve got gold dust we can split, partner.” He started to reach for his boot. He never made it. Rider′s rifle slug split his forehead and he slumped over against the counter. Rider reached down and pulled the derringer out of the top of Quincy’s boot.
He stood up then and turned to toss the weapon on the counter, only to confront Pete with a shotgun leveled at him. There was a brief look of uncertainty in Pete’s eyes before he lowered the gun and propped it against the counter. “Mister, I don’t know nothin’ about you except what I’ve heard—and that wasn’t nothin’ good. But I got a feelin’ you ain’t out to do me no harm, and I reckon you just saved my life.” He shook his head and frowned. “Now I reckon I’m gonna feel like a damn fool if you rob me and shoot me in the head.”
“I’m not a thief,” Rider stated simply, then turned and walked out the door.
“No, I reckon you ain’t,” Pete muttered softly under his breath, still astonished by what had just taken place.
Outside in the moonlight, Rider walked purposely toward his horses tied in the dwarf cedars whe
re he had waited every night, hoping that Quincy would return to the saloon he and the other two had frequented before. Knowing it was too risky to roam the town looking for Quincy, he had been forced to stalk the Pay Dirt, counting on luck. And luck had been with him.
Chapter 13
It was over and done with. He was tired and he hurt, another bullet hole in his body, and those in his leg and back were not even healed yet. But that was not the cause of his melancholy and feelings of emptiness. These were new sensations for him, when the prospects of returning to the solitude of the high mountains did not reach out to salve his wounds, both physical and mental. He thought that maybe he understood Johnny Hawk’s longing in his later years for the comfort of other people in his life, especially his Indian wife. He was unable to justify his longings. He was much too young to yearn for the company of other people when there were mountains, whole ranges of mountains, that he had not seen. Thoughts of those places still caused a quickening of his pulse. So why these feelings of melancholy?
Ride the High Range Page 23