Hell's Jaw Pass

by Max O'Hara

  “What do you mean—when it was still in operation?”

  “It’s not used anymore.” Lori shook her hair back from her eyes. “After the, uh . . . the trouble with my pregnancy, my father and Daniel’s father nearly came to blows one Sunday. They had to be physically restrained. Guns were drawn on both sides. War was on the verge of breaking out. I was horrified that I and Daniel had caused it.”

  She drew a fateful breath, released it. “The McCraes didn’t return to church after that, and I heard from Daniel that his family didn’t, either. Since both ranching families and their hands made up the bulk of the congregation, the church was closed. That was three years ago now, and it’s never reopened.”

  As they approached the simple structure, Stockburn saw that brush and weeds had grown long in the yard and around the stone foundation. The lilac shrubs standing to each side of the log steps rising to the small front porch were overgrown, their branches having wended their way onto the porch itself. The path that wound up to the church from the main trail had nearly gone back to sod.

  “There’s a stable around back,” Lori said, urging her buckskin around the building’s right side.

  The stable stood to the right of a privy. A shed attached to the side of the stable, opposite a small barked rail corral, offered moldering firewood. A roofed well with a winch and a wooden bucket fronted the stable.

  A small graveyard flanked the stable and privy—milky with moonlight and dappled with deep black shadows. It was peppered with stunt cedars and a few Ponderosa pines. Stone and wooden markers leaned here and there, nearly hidden by the knee-high grass.

  Stockburn sent Lori to the living quarters at the rear of the church, for she wore only a light jacket. It was cold now at two-thirty A.M., the temperature likely at freezing, frost furring the grass. Lori said she’d get a fire going in the stove and heat water for coffee.

  Meanwhile, Wolf unsaddled the horses, gave them each a handful of grain, and rubbed them down thoroughly with burlap. He drew water from the well and set the bucket in the corral in which he’d turned out the horses to graze the grass growing wild in there. He’d given Lori his war bag and his saddlebags, which contained his coffee pot and his pouch of Arbuckles.

  Now, carrying just his rifle and bedroll, he walked out of the stable and stood just outside the stable’s double doors, looking around carefully.

  During the ride from the line shack, he’d sensed someone on his and Lori’s back trail. It might just be his paranoia flaring. On the other hand, someone might really have followed them from the line shack. Possibly one of the Triangle men.

  Possibly the bastard with the large-caliber rifle.

  He stood for a time, looking around the moonlit meadow, listening. When five minutes had passed, and the only movement he spied was the breeze-nudged grass and branches, and the only sound he heard was the piercing cry of a rabbit likely being plucked off the ground by some raptor’s sharp talons, he walked slowly to the small door at the rear of the church.

  He turned to look around once more. He had more than only himself to worry about. He had to look out for Lori now, too. The last thing he wanted was for her to take a bullet meant for him.

  Again, sensing nothing amiss, he turned to the door. As he placed his hand on the latch, sobs sounded from within. Frowning, he pushed open the door and stepped inside. Lori sat at the small table to his right. She leaned forward, resting her face in her hands, sobbing.

  “Say, say.” Stockburn set down his blanket roll and leaned his rifle against the wall. “What’s all this about?”

  What’s all this about? an inner voice castigated him with a caustic chuff. What do you think it’s about, you simple fool?

  Lori looked up at Wolf with tears flooding her eyes, the tears glistening in the light of a lamp hanging over the table. “I don’t think he loves me anymore!”

  CHAPTER 25

  “Now, now,” Stockburn said, placing his hat on a wall peg near the door. He shrugged out of his coat, hung it over the back of a chair, then pulled the chair out from the table and sat down in it.

  He leaned forward, placing his big right paw over Lori’s left one, consuming it, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Why do you say that, honey?”

  “He’s different now. Somehow . . . I’m not sure how, but . . . he’s different now, Wolf. There was something in his eyes. Something . . . that I hadn’t seen before. A coldness.”

  Lori shook her head, deeply troubled. “I can’t put my finger on it, but . . .” Her voice broke. Quietly sobbing, she said, “I don’t think he loves me anymore!”

  She sobbed again, brushed tears from her eyes. She sniffed, trying to compose herself. “Not that I blame him. My mother intercepted our letters, so he probably thought I’d forgotten about him and Buster. I never did, though.”

  She stared down at the table, shaking her head. She’d stopped sobbing, but the tears still ran, dribbling down her cheeks and making little wet marks on the badly scarred table’s rough wooden surface. “I never did. I wouldn’t. All I’ve ever wanted was to be with Daniel and our son. The three of us. Despite our father’s so-called arrangement.”

  Lori had placed the pot on the little sheet-iron stove on the right side of the small room, the black tin chimney running up through the ceiling above. The pot was spewing steam from its snout.

  Stockburn slid his chair back, rose, and walked over to remove the pot from the stove. He set it on a small counter, dumped in a couple of handfuls of ground Arbuckles from his coffee sack, then returned the pot to the fire.

  When the coffee boiled again, he added a little water from a canteen to settle the grounds, then found two stone mugs on a shelf above the counter. He blew dust out of the mugs, filled them, and brought them over to the table.

  He set one in front of Lori. “What you need is a nice hot cup of coffee. Good and strong. It’ll make you feel better, give you a fresh perspective.”

  “Thanks, Wolf,” Lori said, lifting the cup in both her small hands and blowing on the coal-black liquid. “But I don’t think anything’s going to make me feel good . . . ever again.”

  Stockburn’s heart twisted for the poor gal. She was really up against it. She wanted to marry the father of her little boy, and she wanted them to all be together. She’d given up everything to achieve that goal, only to find . . . what?

  That Daniel had changed. That he was no longer as committed to that goal as she was.

  Stockburn sipped his own coffee then held the mug before him and frowned curiously. “Tell me, honey—in what way do you think Daniel has changed?”

  She was still staring at the table, the very picture of bleakness and sorrow, her features pale and slack. Again, she slowly shook her head.

  “Like I said, I can’t put my finger on it, Wolf. But while he said the words that he still loved me . . . and assured me that we’d be together . . .” She frowned across the table. “. . . I didn’t quite believe him. I’m not sure that even he believed it. I don’t know—he just seemed to have something else on his mind. Maybe an even bigger complication.”

  “Do you have any idea what that complication might be?”

  “No.” Deep lines cut across the girl’s pale forehead. “Do you?”

  Stockburn let the question go because he wasn’t sure how to answer it. He wasn’t sure what he himself was thinking at the moment. Those mysterious, unnamable clues kept fluttering like butterflies around in his head. All he knew for certain was that his thoughts kept returning to the line shack.

  He took another sip of his coffee and set the cup down. He frowned curiously at Lori again, who was studying him with her own befuddlement branded onto her face, as though trying to read his mind.

  “Did you know there was someone else in the line shack?” he asked.

  “Tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “No! What makes you think there was?”

  “I saw him.”

  “You did?”

  “Through a wi
ndow.” Stockburn nodded then took another sip of his coffee.

  “Who was it, Wolf?” Lori asked, concern now creasing her brows.

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe you would. Lean fella with long, straight brown hair on the sides, nearly bald on top. Kind of craggy-faced, looks older, weathered beyond his years.”

  Stockburn did not tell her about the cut on his cheek. Nor that the man had been eavesdropping on her and Daniel’s conversation. She was distraught and perplexed enough at the moment. She didn’t need to know about Wolf’s growing suspicions.

  About the man in the line shack . . . the large-caliber rifle that may or may not have been used in the attempt to blow Wolf’s head off . . . and Daniel Stoleberg.

  Lori shook her head. “Doesn’t ring any bells. Who do you think he was . . . is, Wolf?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I wonder why Daniel didn’t mention him to me.” Lori studied Stockburn closely, suspicion growing in her eyes. “What are you thinking, Wolf?” She paused. The frown lines cut deeper across her forehead. “You don’t suspect that—”

  Stockburn reached across the table and closed his calming hand around hers. “I for one can no longer think clearly about anything. Time to stop trying. I think we could both use a couple hours of sleep. It’s going to be light soon.”

  He glanced at the room’s single bed on the far side of the narrow quarters. It was outfitted with several Indian blankets and a pillow. “You take the bed. I’m going to go out and sleep in the stable. I scoped out a nice pile of hay in there.”

  “Moldy hay, you mean,” Lori said. “You take the bed. I won’t be able to sleep, anyway.”

  “Please, darlin’,” Wolf urged her, giving her hand another squeeze. “You have to try. You’ve had a long day. A long couple of days.”

  Lori looked at him, drew a breath, and pulled her mouth corners down in appeasement. “Oh, all right. If you insist. I’ll try. I wish you’d stay in here, though. I feel safe with you around.”

  Stockburn didn’t tell her that the opposite, in fact, was true. Under the current circumstances, anyway.

  “You’d want to shoot me once I set to snoring.” Wolf chuckled, finished his coffee, and rose from his chair, stretching and yawning. “That hay just started calling me loud, of a sudden.” He set his hat on his head then grabbed his rifle and blanket roll and turned to the door. “Good-night, gal.”

  “Wolf?” She sat staring up at him worriedly. “What’s going to happen tomorrow?”

  “What would you like to have happen tomorrow?” he asked her, gently. “If you decide to go home, I’d be happy to ride—”

  “Never!” A flush rose in her otherwise pale cheeks.

  “All right, all right. I just thought after you slept on it, you might have a change of heart, is all.”

  Her expression transformed into one of desperation. “I know I’m in a bad place. But I refuse to return to the Triangle with my tail between my legs. I need to get my son back. If not Daniel, then at least my boy. Somehow, Buster and I will build a life together despite everything.”

  Wolf smiled, nodded.

  “Wolf?” she asked suddenly.

  “Yes, honey?”

  “My heart is so sore over what I did . . . about allowing my parents to take my baby away from me . . . to give Buster to the Stolebergs . . . that sometimes I think I just can’t go on.”

  Tears returned to her eyes. “Do you know what I mean? Has your heart ever been so sore . . . for such a long time . . . that you often think it can’t possibly keep beating, feeling as sore as it does?”

  Tears trickled down her cheeks; her upper lip quivered. “Have you ever felt that way, Wolf?”

  Stockburn returned her gaze with a grave one of his own. Just hearing her words conjured his own deep, bitter sadness, so that his heart began to thud heavily, achingly at the memory of his own grave mistake and what it had cost him.

  He nodded. “I have. I know how you feel.” He smiled. “Good-night, Lori.”

  “Good-night, Wolf.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Stockburn drew the church’s rear door closed and looked around.

  The moon was almost down behind the western ridges, so it was darker now than it had been before. Long, dark shadows slanted across the ground before him, nearly hiding the corral, stable, and woodshed. It totally concealed the cemetery. Black as velvet over there.

  Anyone could be hiding out here—in the cemetery or behind the stable, say, and Stockburn probably wouldn’t know about it until the bullet from that big Sharps cored his skull like an apple. Which is to say, he’d probably never know about it. He’d be dead before the blasting report reached his ears.

  He clamped his bedroll under his left arm and took his Yellowboy in both hands. Holding it out from his right side, he strode toward the stable.

  He shifted his gaze from left to right and back again. He turned full around as he continued walking, in case a bushwhacker had sequestered himself to either side of the church building.

  Something moved on his right.

  Wolf stopped, swung the Yellowboy right, cocking it, drawing his finger back against the trigger. The bedroll fell from his side. He eased the tension in his trigger finger as the gray blur of a figure disappeared into the darkness of the cemetery, the beast’s padded feet thumping softly, making the grass and brush rustle.

  Wolf off-cocked the Winchester’s hammer, exhaling. Only a coyote. Maybe a gray fox.

  He looked around once more then stopped to pluck his bedroll off the ground.

  He continued to the stable, opened one of the doors, then stepped back and to one side quickly, half-expecting the bright flash of a gun maw.

  Nothing. Only silence. The smell of the moldy hay Lori had mentioned pushed out through the half-open door.

  Wolf shifted his gaze to the corral off the left side of the stable. Both his horse and Lori’s buckskin stood close together, watching Stockburn curiously, each twitching an ear. Neither looked nervous, like there was an interloper about. They were just wondering what had the tall man in the buckskin coat and black sombrero so on edge.

  The horses’ non-reaction was a good sign.

  Still, Stockburn felt that someone was near, watching him, waiting for the right opportunity. It had to be the bastard with the big rifle. He hadn’t finished the job he’d been sent out to do. His employer—whoever he was—wouldn’t like that. Not one bit. The man or men who’d arranged the rail-crew massacre wanted Stockburn scoured from their trail.

  The man with the big rifle would try again.

  Stockburn stepped into the stable, looked around, then stared out through the half-open door. “You’re out there,” he said beneath his breath, sliding his gaze around the meadow to each side of the church building. “You’re out there somewhere . . . aren’t you? Biding your time. Wanting to get it right next time . . .”

  He drew the right door toward him, leaving a one-foot gap between that one and the closed one. He backed up, sat down in a pile of musty hay, and leaned back against the stable wall.

  He held the Winchester across his legs and stared out through the one-foot gap in the door. From this vantage point, he could see the entire back wall of the church, and a good chunk of the yard between the stable and the church building.

  If anyone moved around out there, maybe made a play on the church, Stockburn would know about it. Maybe, just maybe, he could take the bastard with the big Sharps alive. If so, the man might very well be a font of valuable information. Stockburn knew how to extract such information from even the most unwilling of stubborn souls.

  It wasn’t pretty, but it was effective.

  He settled himself back against the wall, squirmed around a little in the hay, getting comfortable—if it was possible to get comfortable in a small pile of moldy hay on a cold, high-mountain autumn night with a killer with a big rifle most likely on the lurk, intending to blow your head off.

  No, it wouldn’t be the most comfortable
of nights. Morning, rather. Dawn soon.

  But Stockburn had known such nights in his past. Plenty of them. They were all part and parcel of the life he had chosen. Most men his age, forty, were settled down, raising families. At such an ungodly hour, they were snuggled down in warm, soft beds with their warm, supple wives.

  Not Stockburn. He had no wife, no family. He never would. He’d chosen to go it alone, to live the mostly itinerant and dangerous life of a Wells Fargo rail detective.

  Why?

  The single word and the image slipped into his brain, instantly making his shoulders tighten.

  Mike.

  The only close friend he’d ever had. For some damn reason, Stockburn had betrayed that friend. He’d slept with the woman Mike had been going to marry. Mike had found them together, in a hotel room when the three of them had taken a gambling trip to San Francisco.

  Mike had been so distraught he’d walked into the busy street fronting the hotel, and into the path of a cable car, which had run over and killed him.

  Stockburn had no idea why he’d gone to bed with Mike’s girl, Fannie. He hadn’t loved her. In fact, he’d found her only nominally attractive. Of course, he and Fannie had been drunk, and they’d found themselves alone when Mike had been called away on a family matter.

  Neither was an excuse to betray a friend.

  Why? The question had plagued him.

  Wolf had decided there was a deep darkness in him. A black creature lolled at the bottom of the well of his being. That black creature corrupted the well. That’s why he’d never married. Why he preferred to live alone.

  He couldn’t trust himself in friendships or in love. He could never know when that black creature was going to raise its ugly head again, and destroy someone else—another good friend, maybe even a wife . . . a family.

  He kept to himself and he rode the outlaw trails. That was the only life for a man with such darkness in him.

  He hated thinking about Mike. The guilt, the self-recrimination, the self-hatred bit him deep. He turned his thoughts now to his sister. That was the one bright spot in his personal life.