Despite the darkness, the way Jacob rolled his eyes was more than easy to see. “You made your point. How many ways will that reward be split?”
“You’ll get a cut, but me and my partner get the lion’s share.” Before Jacob could protest, Gus held up a finger and added, “Smythe and his men will be coming for us, and if you back up me and my partner when they do, you’ll get the reward for those men all to yourself. Smythe’s got to have a price on his head almost as big as mine.”
“He does and I meant to get it at the end of this job, anyway.”
“Then since me and my partner have Abigail and you wouldn’t have gotten her on your own, anyway, any piece of the reward for her return is icing on the cake as far as you’re concerned.”
Jacob took a moment to think about that. Finally, he nodded and said, “I guess you’re right. That is . . . if you do have her.”
“My partner’s got her. I need to get to my partner in a damn hurry and that brings me right around to you. Take my offer and you’ll meet Abigail yourself once we catch up with Doyle. If we dawdle for too long, Doyle will either drag his feet waiting for me or will get ambushed by Smythe, because he don’t know how close them kidnappers are. If any of those things happen, Abigail’s as good as dead.”
“Fine. I’ll do it,” Jacob said. “But as a show of good faith, you should give me one of my guns back.” If Jacob didn’t see the scowl on Gus’s face, he may very well have felt the chill that rolled off of him like a stiff breeze coming from a graveyard. Therefore, he was quick to add, “We may run into any manner of things out there. Maybe even snakes or Indians or—”
“Indians won’t be able to pick us out in the dark and we’ll be riding too fast for a snake to catch up.”
“But,” Jacob said as he glanced around at the open inky blackness surrounding them both, “you can’t be thinking of riding any farther tonight.”
“Don’t tell me you ain’t never tracked a man in the dark,” Gus chided. “Maybe you ain’t any use to me after all.”
Jacob stood up in his stirrups as if he could suddenly see for miles in every direction. “Where was the last place you saw Doyle?”
“He would’ve made it to the spot where I got ambushed since he knew I was headed that way. Since he ain’t charged into Fort Verde with guns blazing, we know he struck out on his own. That’s where I need you to work your magic.”
“We should start riding that way, but it’d be foolish to go for too long,” Jacob said. “There’s a hundred different ways for a horse to snap its leg out here, you know.”
“I know,” Gus said. “Now get moving.”
Chapter 21
They rode through a good portion of that night with Jacob leading the way back to where Gus had been shot. Gus’s shoulder hurt like the devil, but the bullet that had knocked him from his saddle had only torn through the clothes and skin before glancing off the bone. Stitches would be a good idea, but until he got them, Gus made the best of it by wrapping a scarf around the upper section of that arm. Every breath caused his battered ribs to scream for mercy, but Gus was able to push the pain from his thoughts with some good old-fashioned stubbornness. Once they’d put some distance between themselves and Fort Verde, Gus was content to slow their pace to avoid recklessly charging into a gorge or tripping over one of the hundreds of rocks that blended in so well with all the shadows. Pale moonlight trickled down from the inky night sky, but wasn’t nearly enough to make riding anything less than a harrowing experience.
Jacob rode steadily onward, only stopping every so often to squint into the darkness and get his bearings. For the most part, he was merely retracing the same path that had brought him to Fort Verde. While Gus wasn’t about to put every bit of faith he had into the bounty hunter, he knew Jacob was leading him in more or less the proper direction. He allowed his gun hand to relax a bit, but kept the pistol ready to fire at the first sign of anything suspicious.
Pulling back on his reins, Jacob turned to Gus and announced, “This is as far as we’re going to get in the dead of night. Riding for a stretch under these conditions may be acceptable in small doses, but it’s plain loco for any more than that.”
“You got to find Doyle’s trail,” Gus snarled.
“What do you expect me to do? Crawl on all fours with a lantern held to the ground?”
Gus raised his eyebrows and glared at Jacob intently.
The bounty hunter shook his head emphatically and groaned, “Not on your life. I am not about to do that. Searching for a needle in a haystack is one thing, but trying to fumble about for that needle at night is just asking too much.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Gus said reluctantly. “Wherever Doyle’s at, he probably made camp a while ago. We might as well do the same.”
“Oh,” Jacob with genuine relief in his voice. “I can make a fire and—”
“No fire,” Gus interrupted.
“But it’s a cold night and it’s bound to get colder before it’s over.”
Gus shook his head. “No fire. There’ll be men out looking for us before long and I’m not about to make their job any easier. And before you get any ideas, you should remember that Smythe and his men aren’t exactly partial to bounty hunters, either.”
“We should probably keep watch, then. You want to take a rest first?”
“No. You get your rest. You’re gonna need it.”
Jacob wasn’t of a mind to argue, so he got settled into a spot with his back nestled between a few large rocks. It was just as well that they hadn’t gotten their hopes up for a warm camp, since they didn’t have much by way of supplies. The horses Gus had stolen were carrying saddlebags, but they were mostly cleaned out. Gus’s was also carrying a bedroll, but its owner had left it strapped to the saddle for a reason. The thing nearly fell apart when Jacob unrolled it and every square inch of it was full of rips, tears and holes. Even so, Jacob put it to use and was resting on his side before long.
Gus spent a good portion of that night sitting against a rock that was slightly higher than Jacob’s. Due to the constant throbbing in his ribs and the aches that filled the rest of his body, just making that short climb to higher ground was a chore. Gus would never have admitted to anyone that he was too old or in too much pain to do anything. Even when the evidence pounded through his body in time to his own tired heart, Gus refused to give in to it.
He wasn’t an old man, but every wound from a bullet, blade or fist tended to add up and tack some years onto his battered hide. He’d ridden through hell so many times that it had burned away anything close to youth in his face or eyes, leaving him tired and sore. The truth rested in the back of his mind like a rock. He needed help tracking Doyle because the pain from being shot and beaten was causing his vision to fade. He’d wobbled in his saddle during the ride from Fort Verde, but covered it up so Jacob didn’t think him weak.
Now that he’d gotten to somewhat higher ground, Gus strained his eyes to stare at the northern horizon. He wished he still had his telescope, but didn’t know if it would truly be much of a help. If Doyle was trying to signal to him, Gus had almost as good a chance of spotting it with his naked eye as he would with a spyglass. Unless he was a whole lot closer to anything Doyle might use as a signal, it would just be swallowed up by the miles upon miles of blackened terrain.
Gus didn’t spot anything, but he wasn’t about to stop looking. He also wasn’t about to get any sleep. Jacob may have agreed to work with him, but that didn’t mean Gus was inclined to offer the bounty hunter a clear shot.
Gus was still awake to watch the sunrise. Jacob’s snoring stopped at about that same time. The bounty hunter kicked the bedroll away as if it had tried to bite him. “The only reason to keep that thing is for kindling,” Jacob grumbled.
“You’ll take it with you,” Gus said. “We both know better than to leave behind things like that.”
“You think someone might be tracking us while we track Doyle? That’s an awful lot to worry about.”<
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“I like worrying,” Gus said. “It keeps me alive. How long for you to pick up on Doyle’s tracks?”
Jacob stretched his arms, craned his neck and took a few slow steps to work the kinks from his legs. He looked toward the rising sun and then slowly let his eyes drift toward the south. “I’ll need to do some searching to find the tracks and that’s assuming he came by here at all.”
Resting his hand upon the Army model .44, Gus said, “If you need to waste so much time getting to it, I might as well do the tracking myself.”
“Then again,” Jacob quickly added, “it shouldn’t really take that long. I should be able to pick up the tracks pretty quick.”
“See that you do,” Gus snarled as he started walking to his stolen horse.
Jacob rode to the spot where Gus had been shot and shook his head after looking around for all of three seconds. He moved on to another spot and Gus followed.
Upon reaching the next place, Jacob looked around for about ten seconds before shaking his head and moving on.
Gus gritted his teeth and followed.
By the time they reached the fourth spot, Gus was ready to draw the .44 if the bounty hunter so much as started to shake his head again. To his surprise, Jacob climbed down from his saddle to get a closer look at the dusty ground.
“They were here,” Jacob announced.
“You sure about that?” Gus asked.
“As sure as I can be. Come see for yourself.”
Wary of a double cross, Gus swung down from his saddle and walked over to get a look at what had caught Jacob’s eye. He kept his hand on the .44 as he studied the ground for himself. Sure enough, there were telltale signs that someone had ridden past there not too long ago.
“There’s only tracks from two horses, but one of ’em’s got to be yours. The fresher tracks are deep, though. It looks like there were two people in one saddle.” Turning to look at Gus, Jacob asked, “Does that sound right?”
Gus didn’t give a hint one way or another. When he looked at Jacob, he wore less expression than the rocks that cropped up around them.
Jacob shrugged and said, “Anyway, these here tracks were made by a single horse carrying more weight than just a single rider. See how these scrapes in the ground are so deep?” Following them for a few yards, Jacob stopped and crouched again. “This horse was running pretty good and they were headed north.”
Gus could see the tracks for himself, but the pain rolling through his head might have caused him to pass them by if he was on his own. It seemed he’d made the right decision in asking for help, but Gus wasn’t happy about it. “Just follow those tracks as quick as you can,” he said. “Doyle should be headed north, all right.”
“Good. That gives me something to work with. Anything else you can tell me?”
Gus settled into his saddle and stared blankly down at Jacob.
This time, the bounty hunter wasn’t about to just do what he was told. “Look,” he said as he angrily pulled himself up onto his own horse’s back, “I know I’m supposed to be the one doing the tracking, but it’s not all just some trick of looking at the ground and such.”
“You hunt men, so get to hunting.”
For the first time since Gus had laid eyes on the man, Jacob had a look about him that made it seem he was truly ready to lock horns. He set his jaw into a firm line, straightened up and even lifted his chin a bit so he looked down his nose at Gus when he said, “For a man who earns his money by stealing it, you say those words like I’m the crooked one. Every man I track is running from the law.”
“Is that so?” Gus snarled. “At least the law is doing their job by trying to enforce some bunch of rules. Bounty hunters just go about licking up what’s left behind like dogs beggin’ for scraps.”
“Then why the hell did you bother trying to work with me when you could have just—”
“Could have what?” Gus asked as he drew the .44 in a quick snapping motion of his arm. The draw wasn’t as fluid as it would have been before his shoulder wound, but it got the job done. The pistol was in his grasp and it was soon pointed at Jacob. “If you’re thinking I should have just put a bullet through you, that sounds like a hell of a good idea to me!”
Jacob didn’t flinch. Normally, Gus didn’t like to make threats without backing them up and this was the reason why. Anyone with a backbone could grow accustomed to seeing a gun pointed at him and would figure out sooner or later that the trigger wouldn’t get pulled. In Jacob’s case, however, it was a case of one man finally deciding to make a stand.
“Look here, old man,” Jacob said. “If you’re going to shoot that gun, then do it. I know I’m probably living on borrowed time, but if these are the last few hours I got on this earth, I ain’t about to spend them flinching every time you reach for that holster.”
Gus squinted over the top of his barrel. Suddenly, it seemed he was looking at a new man.
“I can follow these tracks and find Doyle quick enough,” Jacob continued. “You want me to track him like I was hunting him? Fine. If I was hunting him, I wouldn’t just go off of what’s left on the ground. I’d go by what I know and what I seen and what I’d heard along the way. I go by instinct, and if that ain’t enough, I look back to the ground. You think it’ll make things go smoother if I get my nose shoved into the dirt?”
Slowly, the scowl framing Gus’s eyes loosened a bit.
Jacob obviously feared he may have gone too far, but held his ground.
As he lowered the .44, Gus felt a reluctant grin creep onto his face. “You got sand, Jacob, I’ll give you that much. Most bounty hunters I seen would be content to grovel and crawl until they had a chance to run. Some would even rather beg for their lives than strike a fair deal with a man like me. Not you, though.” Resting the pistol across his knee, but keeping it in his grasp, he said, “Just don’t get lippy with me and don’t call me old man again.”
Knowing he’d been granted a reprieve, Jacob nodded and said, “Sure thing. Is there anything else I should know?”
“If there’s anything that might help in finding Doyle, I’ll tell you. Other than that, you should know that Doyle will be looking for someone dogging him by now. I’ve been missing for too long, so he’ll move on but he’ll be keeping an eye open for me. If he spots you, he’s likely to take a shot at you before doing anything else.”
“Won’t he see you along with me?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Gus said with a shrug. “Even if he does spot me, he may figure he’s doing me a favor by knocking you out of that saddle.”
“We can’t have him thinking that.”
Gus bared his teeth just enough to form half a grin and half a snarl as he eased the .44 back into his holster. “Yeah,” he said, “we wouldn’t want him thinking that.”
The little bit of confidence that Jacob had shown evaporated quicker than a drop of water on a desert rock. He held on to it for as long as he could, but Gus’s ugly scowl didn’t make it easy. “Yeah . . . well . . . the tracks head off in that direction,” he said as he pointed toward a slope to the northeast. “If your partner slowed up at all in the hopes of you catching up to him, we should be able to find him sooner rather than later.”
Gus didn’t say anything to that. He merely nodded and watched the bounty hunter ride on. Despite his better judgment, Gus was actually starting to like the younger fellow. His hand stayed close to his holster, however, and the scowl remained carved onto his face. No need for the younger man to be too pleased with himself.
Chapter 22
It was a hard day’s ride. Jacob remained in front and practically kept his nose to the ground the entire time. If he wasn’t studying a piece of land, he was jumping down from his horse to examine a set of scrapes on the side of a rock. Every so often, he would stop and think for a moment before pressing on. Other times, he would simply pull on the reins to steer in another direction without so much as a wave to let Gus know what he was doing.
By the middle of the day,
Gus didn’t fret about those sudden changes in direction. If Jacob was trying to get away, he was doing too bad of a job to be of much concern. Since he knew all too well what it was like to make up a plan as he went along, Gus did one thing he never thought he’d do: He put his faith in a bounty hunter.
Jacob picked up on the same tracks that Gus would have found if he was at his best, only he did it a lot faster. He led the way north for a bit until he met up with the Rio Verde. He stopped there and studied the northern horizon before looking to the west. As Gus came to a stop beside him, Jacob looked to the north once more before his eyes were inevitably drawn westward.
“You said Doyle would be heading west?” Jacob asked.
“That’s right.”
“I think this is the spot where he turned that way and tried to make up for lost time. The tracks are spreading out and getting harder to spot, so it’s just a hunch. We’ll have to go a ways before I know I’m right or not.”
Gus made a show of thinking it over, but didn’t have to think for long. Now that he was in that spot, he could tell this was where Doyle would strike out to the west. The river was running quicker in that stretch and Doyle always preferred to avoid crossing whitewater if at all possible. Also, Gus could see the remains of a signal fire not far from the spot where Jacob had been circling and studying the ground. There weren’t enough tracks or other signs to mark the spot as a camp, but the scorched pile of wood was easy enough to see.
Rather than let Jacob know how good of a job he was doing, Gus said, “Follow your hunch, then. Just don’t be wrong.”
The bounty hunter mumbled something and started riding again.
As the day wore on, Gus figured he was moving at close to double the pace with the bounty hunter’s help than without it.
As one last test, Gus allowed Jacob’s horse to pull away farther than he’d been able to get since they’d left Fort Verde. Gus knew Jacob was aware of the distance between them and gave the bounty hunter credit for being able to do something with that distance, but nothing came of it. Jacob kept leading the way toward Prescott and picking up speed as the sun drifted toward the western horizon.
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