Milo Talon (1981)

by L'amour, Louis - Talon-Chantry

  How much did she know about what was going on?

  Glancing at Molly, I saw her eyes were wide, her face whiter than usual. What had she seen? Or what did she suspect?

  My eyes strayed around the room, hoping for a clue, for some hint, some—

  Red velvet drapes, plush furniture, some framed photo graphs of vaguely familiar actors and actresses, all of them signed. I was not close enough to see the inscriptions.

  Had she^ been an actress? I did not know.

  “We are taking too much of your time,” I said. “I had hoped we could leave within the hour, within minutes, in fact.”

  “They won’t come up here looking for you,” she said. “They are not fools.”

  “But when we leave?”

  “I do not lend horses,” she repeated.’

  I arose. “Thank you. We will be going.”

  “Sit down,” she replied, and there was an edge to her voice.

  Suddenly she turned her head and looked right straight at me. “You visited Jefferson Henry in his car? Why?”

  “He hired me to find a girl.”

  “Her?” Maggie indicated Molly.

  “Another girl, the daughter of Nathan Albro.”

  “Have you found her?”

  “I know where she is. Or where she was, at least.”

  “And you have reported that to him?”

  “Not yet. However, I suspect he knows by this time. I was not the only person he had looking for her.”

  “And now you want to escape. To run away.”

  The expression did not please me. “To leave, yes. Molly should be away from this before she is killed.”

  “And you?”

  “I want to get away before I have to kill someone.”

  She drummed with her plump fingers, loaded with rings, then she said, “I will give you a horse, and I will let you go.” She indicated Molly with a plump finger. “She stays.”

  Chapter Twenty.

  There are times to talk, and there are times to act. With one quick step forward, and before she could grasp my intent, I whipped the gun from the holster on her chair. “Stay where you are, Maggie. I’ve never shot a woman, but don’t.’ push me.”

  Quickly, I stepped back to cover both her and the door.

  “Molly, we’re leaving. Let’s get out of here.”

  “You’re a fool,” Maggie said.

  “Many of us are,” I said. “I don’t know what you want from this, Maggie, but you’ve bought cards in the wrong game.”

  “Have I?” She spoke bitterly. “Have I, indeed? Do you, suppose I like living in this place? I live here because it is what I can afford. I live off the income from my share of that two-bit ‘ restaurant and the hotel.

  “She-^-” pointing a bejeweled finger at Molly, “knows where,’ there’s five million in gold. Or knows where the key to it can be found.

  “You leave her with me and I’ll see she gets a share of it. You take her away from here and she’ll be killed. I know Pride Hovey and I know Henry. One’s no better than the other.

  “For that matter, what’s your stake in this? You’re in it for what you can get, just like the rest of us.” She turned her blue eyes on Molly. “And if you trust him, you’re a fool.”

  “Molly? Shall we go?”

  She led the way down the passage into the kitchen. The, woman at the stove turned to look, she saw the gun in my hand but said nothing, and we stepped outside.

  The big Indian was waiting. I held the gun easy in my hand but not pointed at him.

  “Saddle two horses,” I said, “one with a sidesaddle. I am taking Molly where she will be safe.”

  Without a word he went to the barn and led out two of the finest looking horses I’d seen and saddled them quickly. I watched him and the house, making sure he did not leave me with a loose cinch.

  He saddled them, then went to the step where I had dropped the sack of food prepared by German Schafer and which I had forgotten. He tied it on back of the saddle of my horse, then went to the barn and led out a third horse.

  Glancing toward the town, I saw some riders bunching in the street. They would be coming this way.

  “Better mount up, Molly,” I said, stepping into the saddle, all my attention on the house.

  “She got a shotgun,” the Indian said. “She come soon. You go. I go, too.”

  “You’re leaving her?”

  “She no like me now.” He paused, considering it. “She no like me any time.”

  Molly was already moving away and I swung into the saddle just as the door slammed open. Maggie had a shotgun and she threw it up to fire, but the returning door banged her arm and the shotgun went off, blasting into the air over the barn.

  The instant she appeared I had turned my horse down the back side of the house and out of range. She hustled around the corner and gave me the other barrel, but by that time I was around the other end of the house and streaking after Molly. Glancing back, I saw the Indian was nowhere in sight.

  Molly slowed down for me to catch up. As I drew abreast she said, “And now we’re horse thieves.”

  “We’ll turn them loose when we can get others.” I looked back. The horsemen I saw at the town’s edge were nearing Maggie’s, but a couple of them had seen us and turned off in our direction.

  The land before us seemed fairly flat but actually was rising toward the distant mountains. We were riding west toward the lowlying Hooker Hills. “They won’t catch us,” I commented, “We’ve too much of a lead and our horses are too good.”

  “What about the Indian? Do you suppose he’ll come with us?”

  There was no sign of him. I’d heard no more shots but I was far more worried than I was letting on. The Indian could have been a help as he knew the mountains better than I did, but he might never catch up now. That, however, was the least of my worries.

  The men from the town, whoever they were, would soon be on our trail. Probably they were Rolon Taylor’s men who would know the country. They’d probably ridden over it for years.

  Maggie had mentioned Pride Hovey and he was somewhere around. Though I didn’t know how he was involved Hovey was sure to want Molly alive and me dead, just as Jefferson Henry no doubt did. Hovey was a shrewd, dangerous man and he would be thinking, estimating our speed, our possible destination, and his chances of heading us off.

  Our only chance was to outguess him.

  We rode behind the Hooker Hills and into a draw that led off to the south. There was a little water running in the creek and we walked our horses into it, although I doubted if the water would wash away our tracks before our pursuers came up to this place. Yet it was a chance.

  We rode into the Huerfano River bottom, such as it was, and followed it toward some broken country to the west and south.

  Our horses were in fine shape and we had a start. We could make the hills but what then? They weren’t going to let us get away, not with the stakes possibly being five million in gold and whatever that railroad property was worth. Me, I didn’t want the five million. Probably I was crazy and maybe when I grew older I’d be smarter, but right now all I wanted was a horse between my knees and a lot of wide open country.

  To my way of thinking there was nothing finer than to top out on a lonely ridge and sit my saddle with the wind bringing the smell of pines up from the valley below and the sun glinting off the snow of distant peaks. There was an urge to drink from all the hidden springs, catch my fish in the lonely creeks, and leave my tracks on all that far, beautiful country.

  We didn’t talk much, Molly and me, not when out on the trail. I never did like to talk at such a time and she must have sensed it or felt the same way. In the first place, with folks chattering a body can’t hear. The trail was narrow and we’d no chance to ride abreast, so we rode watching the hills turn purple before us and the canyons gathering their cloak of shadows.

  Nobody knew better than me that mountains can be a trap. There are rarely more than a few passes, not too many tr
ails, and in this case Rolon Taylor’s men would be likely to know them better than I. Also, I knew that getting off the trail in the mountains can be risky. A trail takes you somewhere and usually if there’s no trail there’s nowhere to go. You may walk miles of rough country only to find yourself up against a cliff that drops away a thousand feet or more and you have to walk all the way back.

  No doubt they wished to kill me, but certainly they wished to kill Molly. If I could just get her away to some place where she would be safe, then I could find a way to straighten things out. Moreover, my job was done. I’d found Nancy Henry or Albro or whatever and she was the same girl I once knew as Anne. Now I certainly, didn’t feel protective about that Anne anymore. Both she and Jefferson Henry wanted their fingers in the same honey pot and they deserved each other.

  Molly could be a threat because of what she knew about Anne’s past. But if Molly knew something about Nathan Albro’s fortune she was marked for death by more than Anne. Pablo had told me of an old, dim trail that skirted St. Charles Peak, one on which I could swing around toward the head of Ophir Creek and go along the back side of Deer Peak.

  Dead tired, we made camp near Ophir Creek, west of the Deer.

  When I’d made coffee I dowsed the fire and we rode on for about a mile. Watering the horses, I picketed them on a small meadow among the trees. Only living thing we saw was a camp robber jay who hopped around picking up bits of food we dropped or threw away.

  Neither of us was sleepy. Tired, yes, but not sleepy.

  “Milo? I’m scared.”

  “That’s a mean bunch, back yonder.”

  “But Maggie! Somehow I thought-”

  “When there’s honey in the pot there’s bees to come for it. Maggie was no different than the others. She doesn’t have enough to live where and how she wishes, so she’ll get it if she can. They’re thinking about five million in gold, and whatever else there is. When you’re talking that kind of money I’d trust nobody.”

  “Even you?”

  Me, I looked it over a minute before I answered, and then I said, “You can trust me because I haven’t got sense enough to be hungry for money. Maybe my time will come. Right now I’m happy just to look at the country over the ears of my horse.

  When people start crowding up the valleys then maybe I’ll begin to take stock.”

  “What do you want, Milo?”

  “When I’ve covered some more country I’ll find myself a ranch the way Pa did. I’ll round up some unsuspecting girl who doesn’t know when she’s well off and get married.

  I’ll raise kids and flowers and horses and the hay and beef to feed them.

  “Some folks want the lights of cities, the admiration of women, and the fame that comes with success. Me, I just want the trail unwinding ahead of me, the view from the top of the ridge, and the smell of woodsmoke fire.”

  “You’re easily content.”

  “Maybe. Sometimes folks try for too much. That’s easy to understand. My brother now, he wants success. He wants to achieve, and he will. It’s just that some of us don’t ask so much of life. I’m for the simple pleasures.”

  “Do you think they will follow us?”

  “Uh-huh. You just bet they will. They’ll try to guess where we’re headed and then try to head us off. That’s where we have to outguess them. We’ve got to build an idea in their minds so they’ll believe they know where we’re going, then go somewhere else.”

  “I could come to hate them!”

  “Don’t. Isn’t worth it, Molly. I don’t hate anybody and never have. A man does what he has to do, and sometimes it’s not what I believe he should do. There’s no reason to use up energy hating him for it. Shoot him if you have to, but don’t hate him.”

  “You’re a strange man.”

  “Not really. I’m just a kind of simple one, that’s all. If a man comes at me, I defend myself. If he hunts me, I figure I can hunt some myself.

  “Now we’re going to rest some. Before daybreak we will ride out of here and head due north. We’ll ride west of Gobbler’s Knob and on up past Hardscrabble Mountain.

  I don’t know these mountains that well, but there’s a trail runs down Oak Creek.

  That’s where we’re headed.”

  We’re headed that way, I told myself, but we aren’t going that way.

  We bedded down on pine needles and grass, and nobody had to worry about us sleeping.

  We did a good job of it for the time we had, but before daybreak we were on our way.

  It was cold and dark when we arose. Brushing off the pine needles and leaving Molly to herself, I went off to the small meadow and pulled the picket-pins, then led the horses to water. While they drank I stood shivering in the morning cold and looking at the last reluctant stars.

  My mount lifted his head, water dripping from his muzzle. “Come on, boy,” I said quietly, “we’ve got a long day ahead of us.” He turned his head toward me and pushed at me with his nose and I rubbed him between the ears. They were fine animals and I would regret releasing them, which we must do. Already she might have brought charges of horse stealing against us.

  Molly watched me saddle up. “Milo? Will we get away?”

  “We will,” I said and wished I was as confident as I tried to sound. There were too many of them, and they knew the country better.

  Leading off at a good pace, I rode until we were abreast of Gobbler’s Knob, although some distance away, before I veered slightly to the west to round the shoulder of the mountain that lay ahead.

  There was no wind and no sound but the soft hoof-falls of our horses. Suddenly I switched our route-no use making it too easy for them-and rode into Junkins Creek and held to it as much as possible for a good two miles. Coming up out of the streambed, I led the way over a saddle into the basin of the Hardscrabble. With Bear Mountain looming over us we stopped for a nooning, a bit shy of the hour. There was water and grass, so we ate a little food ourselves and let the horses rest.

  We’d passed scarcely a word since riding out. She was scared, and so was I. Scared for her more than me, but I knew when they came up to us, as they would, there’d be some shooting, and I was one man against only God knew how many.

  The coolness was gone when we mounted up. Now I began to be careful, leaving them as few tracks as possible and careful to have those heading north and a mite east.

  I was hoping they’d figure I was heading for Oak Creek and the trail to Canon City.

  At the mouth of the canyon I left some tracks for them, not too obvious, but indications we’d gone down the Oak Creek Trail. We rode a half mile up the creek then came back by a different route, riding in the creek or wiping out what tracks we made and sifting dust and leaves over the ground.

  We skirted the base of Curley Peak, followed Grape Creek a ways, and then turned up another creek that came down from the west. We were dead tired and so were our horses. So far we had seen nobody, although twice we had startled deer.

  Suddenly my mount’s ears went up and a moment later I heard it.

  Right ahead of us, not fifty feet away, a man and a woman, talking!

  Chapter Twenty-One.

  As we saw them, they turned their heads and saw us. There was no help for it, so we rode on up to them.

  Their eyes went from one to the other, then to our horses. They were western people and nobody was needed to draw them a picture.

  “Sir,” I had taken off my hat, “an’ ma’am? We’re in trouble, mighty serious trouble.

  We need some grub and we need fresh horses.

  “These,” I added, “are not ours. We’ve got to turn them loose to find their way home.”

  For a moment they hesitated, then the man said, “The house is yonder. You ride over and we’ll be right behind you.”

  As we drew up in the yard of the ranch house, Molly said, “Milo? What will we do?”

  “Be ourselves. Tell them the truth. Nothing was ever gained by lying but the risk of more lies.”

  We st
epped down, me helping her from the saddle. For a moment she clung to me. “Milo, I’m beat. I can’t do it.”

  “We’ve no choice. We get out of here if we have to walk. Stay here and we’ll have these folks pulled into trouble.”

  Stripping the gear from the horses, I turned them into the corral. “Better let them drink and eat a mite,” I said.

  “Might as well go inside,” the man said. “Bess will fix you some grub.”

  “I’ll need a couple of horses,” I said, “and I can buy them.”

  He gave me a straight, hard look then said, “We’ll talk after we’ve et.” He ducked his head at our horses. “Where’d you get those?”

  “They belong to Maggie. Woman runs a restaurant off down the way. Owned by she, German Schafer, and the young lady, yonder.”

  “She’s not your wife?”

  “No, sir. She’s a friend, I’d say. A young lady in trouble.” I had taken off my hat and wiped my brow, then the hatband. “Only fair to tell you, it’s shooting trouble.”

  At his expression I shook my head quickly. “Not woman trouble. It’s money trouble.

  If they catch her, they’ll kill her.”

  “And you?”

  “Sure. They’ve got my number up, too. I’m used to it, and she ain’t. I been shot at a few times, here and there.”

  He looked at my six-shooter. “Can you use that?”

  “I reckon.”

  Molly had gone inside and I followed. Molly was nowhere to be seen but the woman was fixing something at the stove.

  She turned and looked at me out of very beautiful eyes. She had graying hair but she was still a handsome woman, and kindly, by the look of her. J;

  “Are you in love with her?”.^

  Me, I was startled. “Well, now, ma’am, we been on the,SS run. There’s been no time to take stock, even to talk much.”

  “She’s very lovely. It’s the kind of beauty that grows on one.” “Yes, ma’am, she’s right pretty. Only I’m a drifting man.

  I’m loose-footed, don’t belong nowhere. You show me a trail: and I got to follow it wherever it goes. That’s no life for a woman.”