The Long Hitch

by Michael Zimmer

  Her expression softened. “I ain’t cheap,” she confided, “on account of I’m the prettiest one here.”

  “The prettiest what here?” Nick asked, toying with her.

  That flash in her eyes again, like miniature daggers. “You looking to get my goat, mister?”

  “Like I said, it’s just business. You’re a whore and I’m a man in need, but I’m not desperate. I’ll give you two-bits for a roll on whatever you call a mattress in this shithole of a town, providing you take a bath first.”

  The blonde woman’s mouth fell open, but only for a moment. Then it snapped shut and her face turned ugly. “You’re a bastard,” she hissed. “I wouldn’t sleep with you for all the gold in Idaho. I’ll bet your.…” Her voice caught in her throat and her face paled. She stood up and took a step backward as Nick casually laid a long-bladed clasp knife on the table; its steel blade flicked open with his thumb.

  “One thing about a whore,” Nick stated matter-of-factly. “No matter how bad she looks, she can always be made to look worse.”

  The woman lifted her chin defiantly, then spun and stalked back to the bar. Nick wasn’t surprised when she walked straight to the curly-haired kid’s side and started running her hand up and down his arm. Leaning close, she whispered in the boy’s ear. Nick folded his knife and put it away, feeling a keen anticipation for what was to come.

  The kid glanced uncertainly over his shoulder and Nick grinned cockily to encourage him. The whore was leaning into him now, her lips moving rapidly against his ear. The boy shook his head and the whore pressed closer, flattening a breast against his arm. He shuddered,, then turned to face Nick. Down the bar, a bearded miner said: “Let it go, Curly.” But the boy shook his head. “It’s too late for that, Dan.”

  There was a triumphant smile on the whore’s face as she sloped back against the bar. Nick noticed a small, brass-framed revolver in the kid’s waistband, but nothing intimidating. Curly crossed the room hesitantly, stopping at Nick’s table. “Mandy says you insulted her,” he announced, loud enough for the whole room to hear.

  “What about my insult to Mandy upsets you?” Nick asked in amusement.

  That seemed to stump the boy. “Well … I think you ought to apologize to her.”

  “Aw, hell, Curly,” said another miner, sitting at a nearby table. “Don’t go getting yourself shot over a whore.”

  “She ain’t a whore,” Curly flared.

  General laughter greeted the youth’s outburst; even Mandy snickered, and Curly’s face darkened. “Well, I reckon you’d better apologize anyway,” he said to Nick.

  “I reckon not,” Nick replied.

  Curly swallowed hard and looked around as if for suggestions. Everyone was watching, fearful of what he’d do. “I ain’t afraid of you,” he told Nick finally, although there wasn’t much conviction in his words. “I just think you should.…”

  Nick stood abruptly, kicking his chair back, and Curly flinched as if threatened with a whipping.

  “Easy, mister,” said the miner at the next table. “He’s just a kid. He doesn’t know any better.”

  “Maybe he ought to go back home until he does,” Nick suggested.

  “Likely he should, but it ain’t worth spilling blood over.”

  “It’s his call now,” Nick returned coldly, staring the kid in the eyes.

  “I … I got no quarrel with you,” Curly choked out, looking more confused than frightened.

  “Don’t let him buffalo you, Curly!” Mandy called, and several men nearby growled for her to shut up.

  “Jesus, mister,” Curly said, “I didn’t cause you no harm.”

  The kid was desperate to escape the corner he’d backed himself into, but Nick had no intention of letting him go. His pulse was thundering in his ears and his voice was raw with shame. “I’ll tell you what, Bonner, I’ve about had a gut full of your kind. Maybe it’s time I taught you a lesson.”

  Curly carefully raised his hands. “My name ain’t Bonner, mister, and I don’t want no trouble. I swear I don’t.”

  Nick shook his head to clear it. “If you didn’t want any trouble, you wouldn’t be standing there,” he snarled, but he was aggravated, too, for having let his feelings toward Bonner get the better of him for a moment. “If you want to leave, it’s going to cost you,” he added.

  “Sure,” Curly whispered, looking relieved. “How much?”

  “Get down on your belly and crawl out that front door like a snake.”

  For a moment, the kid didn’t seem to understand. Then he slowly shook his head. “I can’t do that, mister. I’d rather be dead.”

  “Lay off the boy,” the bearded miner said angrily.

  “You want to take his place?” Nick snapped, but continued to stare at Curly. “What about it, boy? Are you going to pull that hogleg or crawl out of here on your … ?”

  Nick shut up abruptly as Curly started to sway back and forth. He jerked his Colt free but didn’t cock it. Curly’s face had turned as pale as whey, and his eyes did a slow roll up under his lids. Then his knees buckled and he tipped stiffly backward, hitting the floor flush and sending little puffs of dirt squirting out on either side.

  At the bar, Mandy screamed: “You killed him!”

  “God damn,” the bearded miner breathed, wide-eyed. “Curly done had a heart attack.”

  “He didn’t have a heart attack,” the miner at the table answered scornfully. “He passed out.”

  Nick straightened, returning the Colt to its cradle. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said softly. “I scared the boy witless.”

  The two miners came forward. One of them said: “We’re going to take him back to his claim unless you want to go ahead and shoot him.”

  “Get him out of here,” Nick said, pulling his chair back and sitting down. He looked at Mandy and smiled wickedly, and she turned away with an angry motion.

  The two miners didn’t return, but the crowd inside the Nugget grew larger and noisier as darkness fell. Nick felt good after his encounter with the kid, whole again, a man to be reckoned with. He figured the wide berth the citizens of Hawley City were giving him was proof enough of that. His exuberance was still running high several hours later when a trio of buckskin-clad men entered the Nugget. Nick didn’t know their names, but he recognized all of them. They were members of Bonner’s gang, and two of them were sporting bloody bandages.

  Nick stood and tugged his hat low over his eyes. Something must have gone wrong, he thought, otherwise these three would be on their way to Boise Camp with Jim Bonner and the Box K remuda.

  “Sons-of-bitches,” Nick muttered as he made his roundabout way to the front door. With the three mule thieves entrenched at the bar, Nick thought he was going to make his escape undetected, but he’d barely stepped through the door when he bumped into a tall, heavy-gutted man in leather clothing, smelling of grease and blood.

  “You!” the man grunted, clamping a hand firmly on Nick’s shoulder. “You double-crossin’ bastard, you led ’em straight to our camp.”

  “I didn’t lead anyone anywhere,” Nick protested, but the towering mountain man was shaking him like a dog shook a rabbit, and the words came out choppy and hard to understand.

  “Let’s go,” the big man said, shoving Nick toward the door. “The boys’ll want.…”

  The sound of Nick’s revolver was muffled against the outlaw’s belly. The big man staggered backward, wrapping his arms around his protruding gut, then slumped to his knees with a disbelieving curse. Nick stepped quickly past him and ran to his horse, glad that he’d neglected the animal earlier, that his saddle was still cinched tightly in place. He vaulted astride the horse just as a couple of Bonner’s men burst from the saloon, their pistols drawn.

  “It’s Kelso,” the man on the ground groaned. “He’s killed me.”

  Nick slammed two rounds into the saloon’s log wall, showering the raiders with splinters and loose bark. Then he gouged his spurs into his mount’s sides, racing down the crooke
d street heading east, the way he’d come in. Between the tall pines flanking the roadway and the gathering storm clouds, the darkness was nearly complete, and the raiders’ bullets flew past harmlessly.

  Nick knew he’d made a mistake by not putting a second round into the gut-shot outlaw’s head. Now he’d been identified, everyone knew his name, and word of what he’d done—even if it had been unintentional—would spread quickly. He would have to leave the mountains for good now, there was no way around that, but before he did, there was one last chore he intended to take care of. It waited for him along the road to Montana, and this time it was personal.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  No one was surprised when the rain changed to snow overnight. By the time the crew wiggled out of their bedrolls the next morning there were several inches on the ground, and more was falling. Buck could hear it in the inky blackness before dawn, the big, wet flakes striking the snow already on the ground with a gentle hiss. The storm muted the rattle of chains, softened the disgruntled curses of the muleskinners as they dug their harness from under its wintery blanket.

  Buck rode down the line of wagons to where Dulce and Gwen were standing close to a lantern that hung off a dead branch on a tree beside the road. Their horses were saddled and waiting, snow already powdering the hard leather seats. Arlen was in place as well, his manacled wrists connected to the seat’s railing with a length of chain. He was holding a blanket over his shoulders in lieu of a winter coat, and his porkpie hat was tugged low to cover the tips of his ears. All three looked miserable in the unexpected cold.

  Rossy, by contrast, looked comfortable inside a bear-hide coat with the hair still on. Sturdy wool gloves with leather palms protected his hands. He was standing beside the mud wagon’s rear boot when Buck rode past and made a motion with his brows that Buck acknowledged with a small nod.

  “Buck!” Dulce exclaimed as he walked his mule into the lantern’s light. She and Gwen were huddled close to the yellow glow as if it were a roaring blaze of warmth and security. “Can we travel in this weather?” she asked.

  “We’ll make it,’ he said, then looked around. “Where’s Collins?”

  “I assume he’s up front somewhere,” Gwen said. “He wasn’t here when we awoke. Fortunately Mister Evans was kind enough to strike our tent for us this morning.”

  Buck glanced at Rossy. The youth was staring back with an intensity that spoke loudly in the suddenly charged air. “We’re going on,” Buck told the women as he reined his mule away from the lantern’s light. “There’s not enough room in this cañon to turn around even if we wanted to.” Riding over to where Rossy waited patiently, Buck mouthed: “What’s wrong?”

  “Over here,” Rossy said quietly. He led Buck to the far side of the mud wagon, where an oblong bundle wrapped in wagon sheeting rested in the snow. Noting the obvious contours, Buck dismounted with a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. “Collins?” he asked.

  Rossy nodded somberly. “He was stabbed in the throat.”

  “When?”

  The young man shrugged. “I found him this morning. He was already cold and covered with snow, so I figure he’s been dead a while. Weren’t no tracks I could find, either.”

  Squatting on the balls of his feet, Buck tugged the canvas back. Collins’s face looked nearly as white as the snow surrounding it, the deep puncture in his neck a funnel of raw meat, as if whoever had done it had worked the knife around a bit. There were no signs of a struggle. Letting the canvas fall back over the dead man’s face, Buck said: “Who else knows about this?”

  “Just Fleck. I had him help me wrap the body.”

  “Your dad?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Let’s keep it that way. We’ve got a hard day ahead of us, then some more hard days to come. Another killing won’t help us.”

  “The women’ll know,” Rossy reminded him. “The crew doesn’t come back here very often and might not miss him for a few days, but Miss Kavanaugh and Miss Haywood will know soon as we stop tonight.”

  “I’ll tie Collins’s horse behind Peewee’s outfit and tell the crew he’s got a bad case of the trots. That’ll keep them away. I’ll tell Dulce and Gwen that I sent him ahead to scout the trail until Milo gets back.”

  “That’s a pretty flimsy lie,” Rossy commented.

  “I know, but I still think the fewer people who know about this, the better the odds of whoever did it tipping his hand.”

  Although Rossy nodded dutifully, he didn’t look convinced.

  “Let’s put him in the boot,” Buck said. “Cold as it is, we could probably haul him all the way to Virginia City if we had to.”

  It wasn’t hard to slip the body under the black leather cover at the rear of the mud wagon. Only Gwen’s wall tent and heavy oriental rug competed for space with the corpse. Buckling the leather cover in place, Buck said: “You got a gun, Rossy?”

  “Ain’t got a pistol, but I got an old Sharps that shoots paper cartridges.”

  “Is it loaded?”

  “It will be.”

  Buck handed the younger man Collins’s revolver. “Keep this hid but handy, and keep an eye on the women. I don’t want any harm coming to them.”

  “I reckon I’ll be keeping a damn’ close eye on all three of us,” Rossy promised.

  It continued to snow heavily as the caravan snaked its way toward the distant summit. Although Buck kept the wagons moving steadily—and they were making excellent time considering the conditions—he couldn’t shake the hollow feeling he’d gotten that morning when Rossy showed him Collins’s body. There was a killer among them., and he was showing far too much interest in the women. What was their connection to this race between the Box K and Crowley and Luce?

  Or was there one?

  Sensing his rider’s agitation, Zeke began to forge ahead. Soon, the train became lost behind veils of falling snow, leaving man and animal alone in an ever-shrinking world of white. It was several hours later before Buck finally checked the mule’s progress. The narrow avenue he followed continued its upward climb, but the familiar landmarks were hidden beneath a mantle of snow, so that he wasn’t sure how far he’d come or how far he had yet to go. He was about to turn back when movement on the trail ahead caught his eye. He eased a gloved hand back to the butt of his Colt, then relaxed. It was Milo coming toward him, the spotted molly lifting her hoofs high above the snow.

  “Hey, boss!” Milo called as he drew near. He looked half frozen in just his thin buckskin jacket. His nose was red, his fingers white where they gripped the reins.

  “Didn’t you take along any heavy clothing?”

  Milo gave him a peeved look. “Sure, but I loaned it to a frostbit jack rabbit a while back and ain’t had time to shop for something new.”

  Buck smiled and let it drop. “Did you find C and L?”

  “I saw them from a distance, already starting down the far side but moving slow in this mess.”

  “You’ve been over the top?”

  “Uhn-huh, a couple of hours ago.” His expression was serious. “It doesn’t look good. The snow’s already a foot deep on top and still coming down.” He glanced at the road behind Buck. “They’re probably a mile or so back yet. Damn,” he said softly, shaking his head. “That’s too far.”

  “We’ll make it,” Buck replied, unwilling to contemplate anything less. “Does C and L know we’re behind them?”

  “I don’t think so. They aren’t pushing very hard if they do.”

  Buck’s enthusiasm stirred for the first time in days. By God, it was about time something went in their favor. He began unbuttoning his heavy coat. “I want you to go back and keep an eye on C and L for as long as you can. We ought to be on top before dark, maybe started down the other side a little way. Take my coat, but, unless something happens, plan on being back at the wagons by nightfall.”

  “You just keep that coat,” Milo said as if insulted. He pulled his molly around and started back along the track he’d made coming down
.

  “Dang it, take the coat!” Buck called. “Don’t be stubborn.”

  “It’s not so much being stubborn,” Milo flung back with a grin, “as that I figure any man damn’ fool enough to ride out without his coat ought to be damn’ fool enough to finish the job that way.”

  “You’re gonna freeze your ears off!” Buck shouted.

  Milo’s reply was muted by the falling snow. “It’s not my ears I’m worrying about. It’s not my fingers or my toes, either. It’s my.…” But his words were lost in a sudden gust of wind, and sheets of snow whipped across the road between them. When it settled, Milo was no longer in sight.

  There was still some daylight left when the train reached the top of Monida Pass. The snow had continued falling throughout the afternoon—nearly eighteen inches since midnight, on top of what was still there from last winter—but the wind was calm and they had that to be thankful for. Drifting snow would have put an end to travel for days.

  With the wagons on level ground, Buck ordered a halt, then went back to check on Rossy. He was aware of the dark looks the men gave him as he rode past. They were concerned about the weakening condition of their stock, and Buck couldn’t fault them for it. The mules were suffering, their muzzles hanging low, their long ears at half mast.

  Rossy was standing beside his nigh-leader when Buck came up. Arlen was still in his seat, his shoulders hunched under a frosted blanket. Gwen and Dulce sat their horses close together in the caravans’ snowy wake, several rods behind the coach. Buck averted his eyes from their tired stares. Gwen looked pitiful with the shadowed flesh under her eyes and her chapped lips, but Dulce had the appearance of someone in search of a fresh scalp, and Buck tugged his hat down a little tighter before turning his full attention to Rossy. “Everything all right on this end?” he asked.

  “Right as rain.”

  “How’s your prisoner holding up?”

  “He’s been quiet. I think he’s too cold to cause trouble.”

  Buck studied Arlen thoughtfully. “If we turned you loose, do you reckon you could stay close and not try to escape?”