Yakima’s back stiffened as raw fury bit him. He held his ground, however. Glendolene stood nearby, watching him uncertainly, flicking her anxious gaze from him to the shotgun rider and back again.
Suddenly, she turned away with a disgusted chuff and walked back into the rocks to stand with Mrs. O’Reilly and the young Sally. Before Yakima could say anything to Coble, Adlard said, “We can’t expect the women to ride bareback to the station.”
“Maybe not,” said the other drummer—short and fat, slightly older than the first, and wearing a cheap brown suit under a long rat-hair coat—“but we two can.” He gestured at his younger, bespectacled buddy. “How ’bout if we ride to the next station on two of the stage horses? We’ll bring a wheel back in a wagon tomorrow morning.”
Yakima looked around at the others. They were staring at the two drummers.
Coble said, “How do we know you’ll come back?”
“We’d have to come back,” said the younger drummer, taking a pull from the flask. “How else we gonna get off this backside of the devil’s ass? No other coaches. No trains that I can see.”
“You might take saddle hosses,” said Adlard. “And leave us high and dry.”
“We stay together,” Mendenhour ordered. “There’s safety in numbers.”
“Frankly, Mr. Mendenhour . . . ,” said the older drummer, stopping when Yakima, having had enough, swung around and walked away from the group with a subtle, frustrated air. Let the cows chew their cud. He retrieved his horse and led him off the east side of the rocks and down a hill at the bottom of which stood ponderosa pines and aspens.
“Where you goin’?” the driver called, looking insulted.
Yakima stopped. They were all looking at him peevishly.
“I’m makin’ camp down there at the bottom of the hill. If any of you has any brains, that’s what you’ll do, too, and wait for tomorrow to fetch another wheel.”
He didn’t trust the two drummers farther than he could throw them together from one end of a large barn to the other. He didn’t trust any of the men from the stage, and he didn’t trust the women, either. Throw Glendolene Mendenhour into that category. He figured she’d married well. Any woman who looked like her could have about any man she wanted. But finally meeting the man she had married was a big disappointment.
She’d been right about one thing—the less they knew about each other, the better. He’d liked her better when he hadn’t known her name or who she was or anything else about her aside from the fact that she was beautiful and was even more beautiful naked and writhing on a crude cot in the summer sunshine. He trusted Trudy Shackleford more than he trusted Glendolene Mendenhour.
To hell with all of them.
What the hell was he doing here?
Why didn’t he just ride on? His only real obligation was to the man who’d saved his life.
He continued down the hill and into the trees.
Chapter 15
When he got to the bottom of the hill, he scanned the hill rising beyond it. It was a steep slope carpeted in forest duff and bristling with sparse pines, firs, and upthrust chunks of pitted dark gray granite. He saw an opening about halfway up the slope and led Wolf to it, slipping a couple of times on the slick needles and fallen pinecones.
He inspected the spot. Judging it relatively level and well sheltered by both trees and humps of granite and sandstone of various sizes, he decided he’d throw down here, build a small fire. He’d camp alone. He had no desire to be anywhere near the others.
Funny how at times when he was alone he felt a prickling need for human companionship. Only, when he found that companionship it was, more often than not, far from companionable. Humans were the rottenest of creatures. He had no delusions that he himself was any different, but he had no choice but to tolerate himself. Amongst others, he found himself yearning to be back alone in some remote stretch of mountain range or saguaro-studded desert plain—just himself, Wolf, and the wind.
He let the black graze on the slope beneath his own niche in the rocks and took his rifle and climbed to a high, rocky perch, where he had a good view to the south and east. Since the one cutthroat had come from the west, it was likely that more would come from a different direction, and he didn’t want to get caught with his pants down.
As he sat there, cleaning the rifle with an oily handkerchief, voices and the snapping of pine needles rose on his left. The others from the stage were moving down the hill through the pines, the men hauling and dragging luggage. Yakima kept a sharp eye on the larger area around them, knowing they could be attacked at any time, but he glanced occasionally at the other passengers—the driver and the shotgun messenger must have been caring for the horses—setting up a camp in the crease between the hills.
Mendenhour chose a sheltered area abutted on Yakima’s side by the steep, rocky hill and on the other side by the shallower slope and the trees. There was a thin stream farther south along the crease, and he saw Glendolene and the other young woman, Sally, walk toward it. Yakima watched the women closely, because the men seemed too careless about the women separating themselves from the group. The men themselves—the grumbling drummers, the young honyocker, and the prosecutor—conversed tonelessly while they set up a rudimentary camp, rummaging through luggage for whatever camping gear they had amongst them, and gathered firewood.
It was after three, and this time of year the sun sank fast. Soon it was down behind the Wind River Range in the west, and the crease was in shadow. Adlard and Coble led the horses down to the water and picketed them on a long rope strung between trees in the tall, saffron-colored brush.
The others sat moodily around their fire, Glendolene near her husband, the redheaded Mrs. O’Reilly near Glendolene, reclining against a steamer trunk, several blankets covering her. The wounded woman almost seemed to be enjoying the campout, for she stared dreamily into the fire, one arm hooked behind her head. The other arm was suspended by a cotton sling.
Yakima cursed under his breath, then climbed down out of the rocks and walked down to where Wolf stood ground-tied. He pulled the sack of gold out of the saddlebag pouch, hid it amongst the rocks, then mounted up and rode down into the passengers’ camp. He stopped at the edge of the firelight, reached back for his saddlebags, and dropped them on the ground near where the young honyocker couple sat together in moody silence, sipping water from a single tin cup.
“Coffee and other supplies in there,” he said. “A couple pounds of jerky, salt pork, some beans.” He looked at Mendenhour. “If you’re gonna have a fire, keep in mind them killers will see it, and you’d best keep a close watch.”
With that, he swung Wolf around and rode on up the hill through the trees. Passing the stage, he continued into the open country west of it.
* * *
“I don’t know about him,” said Melvin Coble. He was staring suspiciously up the dark slope in the direction the half-breed had disappeared half an hour ago.
“What do you mean—you don’t know about him?” Glendolene asked as she forked salt pork around in the half-breed’s cast-iron skillet.
She and the young woman, whose name she’d learned was Sally Rand, had built up the fire for cooking, and they were throwing a meal together with Yakima Henry’s generously proffered supplies. Glendolene looked again at the shotgun messenger crouched on the other side of the fire from her. Coble was still staring broodingly up the slope while absently poking a stick in the crackling flames.
“What do I mean?” the man said in his customarily snide, angry tone. “What I mean is, who is he really? And how do we really know about all that went on back in Wolfville?”
Lee was standing a ways off, smoking a cigar while he stared southward along the dark crease between the hills, his back to the fire. He glanced over his shoulder, gray smoke billowing around his head. “You mean, you think he’s lying?�
�
The others were looking at Coble now with interest. “How would I know? But if he was in jail in Wolfville, how do we know he didn’t escape and kill them lawmen himself? How do we know he wasn’t in with Betajack and Hendricks? Maybe he got crossways with them over somethin’.”
“Over what?” asked Charlie Adlard.
“Have you seen how one of his saddlebags pouches?” Coble shrugged and grinned at his partner, showing a chipped front tooth glowing in the firelight. “Maybe he stole loot off of ’em. In fact, maybe them killers ain’t after Mr. Mendenhour at all. Maybe they’re after the breed.” He arched a wolfish brow at the prosecutor.
“So, what’s he doing here?” Mendenhour asked, turning around to face the fire, holding his stogie down low by his side, turning it thoughtfully between his thumb and index finger.
“You said it yourself, sir,” said the older of the two drummers, whose name was Kearny. “There’s safety in numbers.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Glendolene said, unable to keep from laughing in exasperation. “Why would he throw in with us when he’s obviously much more capable of taking care of himself than any of us are!”
She shot a quick, vaguely accusatory look at her husband, who scowled as though he’d been slapped.
“Hold your tongue, Glen,” he said with a mild threat in his voice. “He might have gotten the drop on those cutthroats earlier today, but any one of us could probably have dropped as many as he did. I’m right handy with that Winchester over there.”
“For heaven’s sake, Lee,” she said, wishing she could stop herself from continuing, “he gave us the food we’re about to eat! And he’s the only one out there in the darkness, probably keeping an eye on the camp!”
“How do we know he’s keeping an eye on the camp?” asked the younger drummer, Kimble Sook, who was carefully filling his traveling flask from a whiskey bottle. “Maybe he just dumped this gear to lighten his load.”
Adlard looked down at the saddlebags. “Yeah, and look there—he took whatever was bulging his saddlebag pouch right along with him! That’s it! I got a feelin’ Melvin’s right. I got a feelin’ it’s the breed himself that Betajack and Hendricks is after. Not Mendenhour at all!”
“What about Preston Betajack?” Glendolene said. “You think his father has forgotten about him?”
“No,” Lee said, “but how would he know I was aboard the stage?”
“I don’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “He wouldn’t do that.”
All eyes turned to her. She felt the heat of them, hotter than the fire. She glanced at Lee, who stood frowning at her curiously. Glendolene turned away from him, silently castigating herself for having taken part in the conversation as she resumed forking the side pork around in the pan. She hadn’t eaten all day, but she wasn’t hungry; in fact, the food was making her feel queasy again.
Sally Rand huddled down in her old, patched wool coat and gave a shiver against the intensifying chill. “Injuns scare me. What’re we gonna do about him? If he’s not gone, I mean?”
“Don’t you worry, honey,” her husband, Percy Rand, said, hardening his eyes and fumbling an old cap-and-ball pistol out of his coat pocket. “He comes near you, I’ll put a bullet in him.”
“You ask me, I think you’re all crazier’n bedbugs!” Lori O’Reilly hadn’t said anything all night, and all eyes turned to her now, incredulous. “And we should think about nice things, not bad things—like what we want to do to Mr. Henry just because his skin is a little darker than ours. After all, as Mrs. Mendenhour said, we will be eating his food tonight. Good Lord, folks!”
“Ah, shut up, Lori,” intoned the driver. “We all know where the doc found you. You probably preferred men like him!”
Glendolene gasped in shock, staring from the driver to Lori O’Reilly, who seemed to take umbrage with neither the man’s harsh tone nor what he’d implied. In fact, she seemed quite amused by it, laughing heartily, throwing her head back against her steamer trunk.
“That ain’t no way for you to talk to Mrs. O’Reilly,” scolded the old prospector, Elijah Weatherford, sitting on a rock at the far end of the firelight from Glendolene. He heaved himself to his feet, crouching and pointing at the jehu. “You apologize, Charlie, or by God I’ll drag out my bowie knife and cut your guts out!”
His eyes flicked down to the bone handle of the knife jutting from the top of his stovepipe boot.
“Stop it!” squealed Sally Rand, closing her mittened hands over her ears and squeezing her eyes closed. “Please, stop! I can’t take any more of this!”
Her eyes snapped wide as a rifle spoke twice in the distance.
* * *
Fifteen minutes before, Yakima had ridden Wolf into a dry wash half a mile west of the passengers’ camp. He slipped out of the saddle, tied the reins to an upthrust branch of a log that had been deposited here by a previous spring flood, one end buried in the sand and gravel, then very quietly pumped a cartridge into the rifle’s breech.
He stood staring up a low hill on the far side of the wash. Stars were out and a thumbnail moon rose in the southeast, showing a strip of solid gray rock topping the rise. From the other side of the rise, smoke rose. He couldn’t see it, but whenever the slight breeze gusted like an exhaled breath, he could smell it.
A wood fire. Rabbit roasting on it. Coffee cooking, too.
Wolf turned to him but did not nicker or even jangle his bit chains. The horse knew from experience something was about to happen, though he didn’t know what, and his own blood was up.
Yakima ran a reassuring hand down the black’s long snoot, over the white blaze, staring toward the gray rock topping the rise, then stole slowly forward and up the far side of the wash. Just as slowly, striding assuredly, avoiding all obstacles, he climbed the rise at an angle toward the western end.
It was a cold night, the sky so clear that he imagined he could hear the stars crackling. Far to the west a pair of wolves howled. As he continued climbing, the sound of voices came to him.
His heartbeat quickened. That the voices belonged to members of Floyd Betajack’s and Claw Hendricks’s crew he had little doubt. How many were holed up on the other side of the ridge? If it was the entire crew, he’d have his work cut out for him.
He climbed to where the caprock protruded from the top of the rise’s west end, and crouched down, looking around the stone spine and into the hollow down the other side.
Three men hunkered around a low fire, the flames dancing and twisting like several separate devils, smoke and sparks rising from their jagged tips. Two big, skinned rabbits roasted on sharpened willow branches far enough back from the flames that they wouldn’t burn. Yakima could see the grease glistening against the cooking meat, dribbling down the sides, sputtering in the fire, and his mouth watered.
The meal at the relay station hadn’t held him.
He looked at the three men, saw the furs and leather they were dressed in. One was a black man. Many guns and knives flashed about them in the fire’s flickering light.
One had a rifle across his knees as he sat looking at the other two lounging against their saddles. This man wore wool mittens with the fingers cut out. They were all holding smoking tin cups.
Three unsaddled horses milled down the slope beyond them, maybe fifty yards away. Two of the mounts stood head to head, still as dark statues, while the third grazed a little farther off. The wind was from the south, so they shouldn’t detect Yakima until he no longer cared.
Soundlessly, weaving between small boulders, the half-breed stole straight down the slope on his moccasin-clad feet and then swung toward the fire, moving in.
Chapter 16
“What was that?” one of the three men around the fire said.
“What was what?”
Yakima rose from behind the boulder he’d stolen u
p to, and snapped the Henry to his shoulder, raking the hammer back. “I think he means this.”
They all jerked at once, reaching for near rifles or sliding hands toward pistols on their hips.
“Uh-uh,” he said. “Now, why would you wanna go and kick up a racket on such a peaceful night . . . and get yourselves killed?”
They all froze at once, dark eyes finding him now in the darkness about fifteen yards southwest of their camp. The one in the middle wore buckskins and a long sheepskin coat with a wool collar on the outside of which three guns and two knives were holstered. His dark face was decorated in black and white war paint. He had one hand wrapped around a knife handle, the other around pistol grips.
“Raise those hands above your head,” Yakima said.
When they all hesitated, he said it again, more softly: “You got one second before I kick up a helluva racket myself.”
They raised their hands shoulder high.
“Get ’em higher.”
They did. The one on the far right—a black man in a gray wolf coat and black, round-brimmed hat with a red scarf underneath—began to rise. “Uh-uh,” Yakima said. “I prefer you sittin’.”
The black man relaxed, the silver trimmings on his brown leather leggings flashing in the firelight. Yakima stepped out from around the boulder, keeping the Yellowboy aimed straight out from his right shoulder, narrowing that eye as he aimed down the barrel, his jaw hard, lips a dark red knife slash.
“What’re you doin’ out here?”
He had a good idea, but he wanted to be sure. He’d thought there’d been a slender chance they weren’t part of Betajack and Hendricks’s crew, but with all the weaponry around them, that chance was getting as fine as a cat’s whisker.
Dead Man's Trail (9781101606957) Page 12