"Ridin' far?" one of them asked, I shrugged. "Yeah. Headin' to Mora to visit kinfolk. Name of Sackett."
"Heard of them." They looked at me with interest, for Tyrel and Orrin were known men in New Mexico.
The last thing I wanted those cowhands to know was that I was following Penelope Hume. They'd never tell me anything if they knew, for they'd all be on the side of a pretty girl, for which I'd not blame them.
"Seen a party of men north of here," I volunteered. "Look to be huntin' somebody."
The horse they traded me was a short-coupled black with some Morgan blood, and a good horse by any man's standards. Riding out of their camp, I came upon the place where she had left the gold hidden while making her horse trade. She had loaded up, pack saddles and gold, and lit out as if the heel-flies were after her. Likely knowing she'd lost time, she wanted to get on with it.
Now I thought of Fort Union ... she was headed for Fort Union. There were soldiers there, and she would be safe. The difficulty was that there would be a lot of questions asked about a young girl traveling across the country with all that gold.
But her tracks led right by the Fort, and by then I was actually within sight of her from time to time. I had no idea whether she had seen me, but if she had she knew she was headed for a showdown. I still wanted to know who had killed Harry Mims--shot in the back, at close range. Of the lone rider I had seen nothing in all this time. Nor had I seen anything of the others.
Suddenly I knew exactly where she was going. She was headed for Loma Parda.
The little town on the Mora Biver was rough and bloody, a resort for the soldiers at Fort Union, and for any number of drifters, male and female. They knew me at Loma Parda, but for her to ride into Loma with gold was like a lamb going to visit a lot of hungry wolves.
Chapter 15
When she reached the town I was no more than four or five miles behind her, but there was simply nothing I could do. By the time I got to the town her horses were turned into a corral and Penelope had disappeared. It seemed the last person she wanted to see was me.
Avoiding the saloon, where I knew Penelope would not be, I went to a Mexican eating place down the street from Baca's. It was an off hour, and they were glad to see me. They knew me there, and the woman who came to wait on table shook her head when she saw me and said, "Senor Nolan, what do you do to yourself? You are tired!"
Glancing around, I saw myself in the mirror, a big, rough, bearded man who needed a shave, a bath, a haircut, and new clothes. He also needed about three nights of sleep.
"Senora," I said, "have you seen a girl--a girl with several horses?"
"Ah? It is a girl now? Si, I see her. She rode in today, only a little while ago."
"Where is she? Where did she go?"
"Go? Where did she go?"
"Go? Where can you go in Loma Parda? She did not go, she is here."
"Where?"
The senora shrugged. "Here ... somewhere. How should I know?"
From where I sat I could look down the street and see anyone who moved, so I ordered a meal and stayed there, eating and drinking coffee and trying to stay awake.
There was not much out there in the street at this hour. In a little while the town would wake up, the soldiers would come in in one of the rigs that carried them over from the Fort, or they would hike, as many preferred to do. The town would be wide open. It was a town where killing was the order of the day, where the idea of gold would set the place afire. And somewhere in the town was Penelope, and three hundred pounds of gold.
Where did I fit in, anyway? I had given her a chance to get away, given Mims the same chance; but he was dead, murdered. And Penelope had not wasted any time looking for me, nor left any sign for me. And she had come here, to the least likely place. I couldn't even imagine her knowing of this place.
Rightfully, a piece of that gold was mine. I was the one who'd found it, I got it out of there, and now here I sat with about four dollars in my pocket and a nasty scar on my scalp to show for all I'd been through.
And then for the first time I remembered the money I'd been paid for guiding Loomis and Penelope. Fifty dollars ...
I wasn't broke, then. Fifty dollars was nigh onto two months' pay for a cowhand, and I'd known a few who had worked for less. While I sat there thinking about it, I saw Noble Bishop ride into the street. Jacob Loomis was with him, and Ralph and Sylvie Karnes. They come riding up the street, looking right and left, dusty and beat-looking, their eyes hot with the fire that only gold can light.
They did not see me sitting there, and if they went to the corral the big black horse would not be familiar to them.
But where was Penelope, and where was that gold?
And then I started to get really mad.
I'd been riding my fool head off, a good man had been killed and a couple of others less than good, and all for what? So one big-eyed girl could walk off with the lot, a girl with no more claim to it than any one of us. What if Nathan Hume was a relative? The gold had been buried for years, and without me she would never have had it.
I got up from the table so fast I almost upset it, dropped a half-dollar beside my plate, and started for the door.
The senora ran after me. "Wait a minute, senor! Your change!"
"Keep it. Feed me sometime when I come in here broke."
It was hot outside in the late afternoon sun, but I did not care. I strode up the street and pushed open the batwing doors of Baca's saloon. Baca himself was standing at the bar, and I saw his eyes turn to me, narrowing slightly.
"Baca," I said abruptly, "there's a girl in town who came in this afternoon, and she's hiding out somewhere. You know everything that happens in this town--I want that girl, and I want her quick!"
"I am sorry. I--"
"Baca, I'm Nolan Sackett. You know me."
He hesitated. Within call he might have fifteen, twenty tough men. If he called them I was in for one hell of a fight. But right then I didn't care, and I think he realized it.
"She's down at Slanting Annie's. Not her crib--her cabin. You take your own chances. She's got a gun, and I hear she's ready to use it."
"She won't use it on me." But even as I said it, I wasn't sure.
I walked outside. The sun's glare hit my eyes like a fist, and I stood blinking.
The anger was still in me, and I wanted only to see Penelope and know the truth.
I had fought for her, helped her escape, found the gold for her--and then she had gone off on her own.
Mims was dead. Had she killed him? How else could anyone have come up on him?
These thoughts went through my head, but in the back of my mind I didn't want to believe it.
Slanting Annie's cabin was under the cottonwoods on the edge of town. I walked down the dusty street, wishing I had a horse. No cowhand worthy of the name ever walked far on a street if he could avoid it, but there was no time to get a horse and the distance was short. All the time I knew that Bishop and the others were in town and would be hunting the girl, and me as well.
Annie herself came to the door. Slanting Annie had worked in a dozen western towns, and I had known her in both Fort Griffin and Dodge.
"Annie, I want to see Penelope Hume."
"She isn't here, Nolan."
"Annie," I said roughly, "you know better than to tell me something like that. I know she's here, and she'd better know that Loomis, Bishop, and all of them are in town."
"Let him come in," Penelope's voice said.
Annie stepped aside and I came into the shadowed room and removed my hat.
Penelope was wearing a gray traveling outfit of some kind, and she was actually beautiful. I hadn't realized before just how beautiful she was, although I figured her for a mighty pretty girl.
"Mr. Sackett, I thought you were dead!"
"Like Mims, you mean?"
"Poor Uncle Harry ... he never had a chance. Flinch did it."
"Flinch?"
Now, why hadn't I thought of him? There w
as Injun enough in him to be able to close in on a man without his knowing it.
"You expect me to believe that?" I said.
"Of course I do. You can't believe I would kill that fine old man!"
"You seem to manage pretty well when the chips are down." I dropped into a chair and put my hat on the floor beside it. "We've some talking to do."
She glanced at Annie. "Not now."
Annie looked at her, then at me. "You want me to leave so you can talk? You're perfectly safe with him," she added to Penelope.
I grinned at her. "Now that's a hell of a thing to say!"
"I mean that you're a gentleman. An outlaw, maybe, but a gentleman."
"Well... thanks."
"I'll go up the street. I want to see Jennie, anyway."
She took up her hat, pinned it on, and went out and closed the door.
"You're pretty good at getting across country," I said grudgingly. "That was a neat trick with the sheep."
"It didn't fool anybody."
"Yes, it did. It fooled them." I looked hard at her. "It didn't fool me."
"As for getting across country, I had a good teacher. Probably the best."
"Who?"
"Who else? You, of course. I watched you when you minded us, watched everything you did. You're a very careful man."
She was watching me with a curious expression that I couldn't quite figure out.
"You haven't asked about the gold," she said.
"I was coming to that."
"I'm afraid you're not much of an outlaw, Mr. Sackett. I imagine a really successful outlaw would have asked about the gold first."
"Maybe."
I looked around the room. It was a small, room in a small adobe house, but it was well furnished--there was nothing tawdry about it. I didn't know a lot about such things, but now and again I'd been in enough homes to know the difference between what was right and what wasn't.
"How'd you happen to know Annie?" I asked.
"Her aunt used to sew for my mother. I knew she was in Loma Parda, and I knew of no one else I could go to. I suppose you think a nice girl shouldn't even recognize Annie."
"I think nothing of the kind. Annie's all right. I've known her for quite a spell ... in a manner of speaking.
"You know what would happen if anybody realized you had that gold? It would blow the lid off this town. And right at this moment they're hunting you."
"Annie knows a freighter. She was going to get him to help me get to Santa Fe."
Then she said, "I had just made coffee--would you like some?"
While she went into the kitchen for the coffeepot and some cups, I sort of eased back in that plush chair. I didn't rightly trust the furniture. Benches and bunks or saloon chairs were more what I was used to, and I'm a big man. This sort of fine furniture didn't seem exactly made for my size. But it was a comfortable place and, looking around, I admired it. Even to the butt of the gun that showed from under a bit of sewing on the table.
Penelope returned with the coffee, poured some for me, and then seated herself, near the gun.
"The freighter was to leave tonight," she said. "He has ten wagons. Annie is arranging for me to have one of them."
"Where's the gold?"
She didn't answer that, but said, "I want you to have a share of it. After all, without you I might never have found it, and certainly I couldn't have kept it."
"Thanks," I said. "I can't set here waiting for them to come. I've got to find Loomis ... and Flinch."
"Be careful of him. I had to run, you know. After Flinch killed Mr. Mims there was nothing for me to do. I was afraid of him."
I still held my coffee cup, but I was doing some fast thinking. Not that I don't trust folks, but it began to seem to me she had been out of the room after that coffee just a mite longer than she should have been. I swallowed some coffee, put the cup down, and stood up.
"You're not going?"
"You'll be seeing me around. And when the time comes for that freighter to leave, I'll be back here."
Bending over, I picked up my hat. Her hand was near the gun--was that just accident? I took my time straightening up and saw she was looking at me, all bright-eyed. The trouble was, I wanted to trust her and almost believed that I could, but just wasn't able to gamble on it.
I went past her quickly and into the kitchen, opened the kitchen door, and stepped outside. On the small back porch I turned my eyes to the sun, and blinked a couple of times before stepping clear of the porch.
Back here there was a small stable, and the yard and the house were shaded by the cottonwoods. Somebody moved swiftly inside the house, and then I was at the front corner, looking across the street and up and down it. The first glance was swift, to locate any immediate danger, the second slower, carefully searching each possible hiding place.
It was a faint whisper of movement behind me that warned me. Turning sharply, I was in time to see Loomis lifting a shotgun. I palmed my gun and shot him through the middle, and both barrels of his shotgun emptied into the ground with a dull roar.
Instantly I was back under the cottonwoods and ran behind a long building, slowed down, and then walked out into the street to join a few others from the saloons.
"What happened?" somebody was asking.
"Shooting down the street," I said. "Maybe somebody killing a turkey."
I turned and walked up to Baca's, where things were stirring around. But there was no sign of Bishop. The corral was my next stop. I got the black out, saddled him up, and left him tied outside the corral but well in the shadows.
A thought came to me, and I looked around the corral. Her horses were there, including the pack horses. But I saw no sign of the pack saddles. I had not been far behind her when she rode into town, and she must have known that. She could not have known where Slanting Annie lived, so she could not have taken the gold there. A young girl riding through Loma Parda's street with three horses, two of them pack horses, would have aroused interest, and this she would have guessed.
So what then?
She would not have brought the gold to the corral, for she would have to unload it by herself, piece by piece ... unless she just loosened the cinches and let the saddles fall. She could not have done that in town for fear of the packs bursting, or somebody seeing them and becoming curious at their weight.
So the gold must be somewhere out of town, quickly unloaded and left there before she rode in. Standing with my hand on the saddle, I thought back along the trail. The sort of place she would need to hide the gold, where it could not accidentally be discovered, would be rare. Moreover, I had followed her trail in to Loma Parda, so how could she have veered off without my being aware of it?
Then I recalled that I had not actually followed her trail all the way into town. When her tracks merged with those of others coming or going, I had ceased to follow them and had merely taken it for granted that she was going on into town.
Stepping into the saddle, I skirted around the far side of the corral and rode down the alley toward the edge of town, and so out of sight of any watcher not in the stable itself.
There was another trail, I remembered, that led westward from Loma Parda toward the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, and then went south to Las Vegas and so on to Santa Fe. That trail was occasionally used by freighters, I knew. Supposing Penelope had skirted the town, come up close to that trail, and hidden the gold there?
In less than ten minutes I was riding along that trail, looking for possible hiding places. If I wanted to dump a heavy load, to be easily picked up again, where would I leave it?
It was still light, but the sun was down and it would soon be dark. My horse made no sound in the soft dust of the trail. But look as I would, I could find no place such as I sought.
Then at the last moment, with darkness closing around, I saw a patch of grass pressed down and almost yellow, some scattered pine neddles and cones upon the grass. Drawing up, I studied the place. Something had been on that spot, something t
hat was there no longer.
The mark, I saw, had clearly been made by a fallen pine tree, a tree no more than ten feet high that had been blown down or broken off and had rested there.
The tree was there, but it was now a few feet over to one side, still fastened to the stump by a strip of wood and bark. Somebody had picked up the top end of the tree and pulled it to one side, leaving uncovered the place where it had originally fallen and where it had been lying for at least several weeks.
Leading the black off the trail, I left it tied, and went over to the tree. When I had pulled it aside I found the pack saddles, fully loaded and not more than a few feet off the trail the freighters would take. Each saddle held a hundred and fifty pounds of gold.
Reaching down, I caught hold of a loaded saddle with each hand and straightened my knees. I walked off about fifty feet and paused, resting the saddles, and then after a moment went on. Twenty minutes or so later I returned and rode my horse all around the area, trampling out all the tracks. Then I rode back into town and tied my horse to the hitch rail in front of a store, now closed for the night.
Carrying those three hundred pounds had been no trick for me, for I'd grown up swinging a double-bitted axe, wrestling with a crowd of brothers and cousins, and then going on to handling freight on a river boat. After that I'd wrestled mean broncs--and thousand-pound longhorn steers. I guess I'd been born strong, and anything I could pick up I could carry away ... and often had.
But moving that gold would only help me for a matter of hours. By daylight there'd be other folks hunting it. However, if a freighter was pulling out with a train of wagons, I figured to be along. I'd driven a team a good many times, and handled a jerk-line outfit as well.
Standing in the darkness alongside my horse, I checked my gun and my knives, for if ever a man was bucking for a fistful of trouble it was me. If there were freighters about I figured they'd be in Baca's saloon, and it was there I went.
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