Satisfied that he had plenty of meat to put back in case of a hard winter, he started back toward home. Leading the packhorse, he guided the paint down through a forest of young spruce trees interspersed with larger, burned-out trunks, the result of a lightning strike five years or so before. As he rocked along, his body as one with the easy gait of the paint pony, he thought about the young woman waiting back at the cabin. He had never set out to get married, never wanted to have a woman to worry about. And as he thought back over the past couple of years, he couldn’t remember a particular time when he had changed his mind. In all honesty, he had to confess, he never had changed his mind. Molly had changed it for him, and he freely admitted to himself that he was happy as hell that she had. The thought made him anxious to get back to his little family. Zeb had become like family. The old man was almost as excited about the arrival of Molly’s baby as she was, and had taken to referring to himself as “Uncle Zeb.” The thought made him smile. “Uncle Zeb,” he murmured under his breath, and the image of the old scout sitting in front of the cabin dandling a baby on his knee suddenly struck another thought. He was now a family man, like his brother Owen, and it occurred to him that he was ready for the transition. Having known so much violence in his young years, he felt he was now at a place in his life where he could live peacefully. With the war against the Sioux to occupy them, surely the army was no longer concerned with searching for him. He had a loving wife, a good friend, and good neighbors in the Crow village. Game was plentiful, as well as good grass and water for his horses. He paused a moment to look around him when he emerged from the burned-out forest and struck the game trail he had followed up the mountain. As far as he could see in any direction there were endless mountain peaks piercing the brilliant, blue sky. The sight never failed to stir deep emotion in his soul. He was where he wanted to be. “Let’s go home, boy,” he said, and gently nudged his horse with his heels.
* * *
“You two can get your lazy asses outta them blankets and go find that girl,” P. D. scolded. For emphasis, she gave each of the two a sharp kick with the toe of her boot. “It’s already daylight, and you’re still layin’ around this cabin.”
Reluctant to stir from his blanket, Arlo nevertheless roused himself, knowing that the next kick would be even sharper. Bo remained unmoving, the desire for sleep stronger than his mother’s badgering at that early moment. He and Arlo had stumbled around the slopes above the cabin in the darkness for almost the entire night before giving up just hours before dawn. There had been no sign of the woman. Even if there had been, Arlo was convinced that it would have been impossible to see. After the moon came up over the mountaintop, they had followed what they thought might be Molly’s trail. It turned out to be a trail left by a deer, or possibly a bear, and it led to a stone ledge and disappeared.
After a few moments, with Bo still unmoving, P. D. turned to Wiley, who was standing by the fireplace. “Hand me a dipper of water from that bucket.”
Bo bolted upright when the dipperful of water drenched his head. “Dammit, Ma! I’m up!” he growled.
“Don’t you raise your voice to me,” P. D. warned. “I’ll take the hide offen you with my whip. You two studs let that girl slip away, and I want her back. You ain’t the only ones didn’t get no sleep. Because of you and Arlo, me and Wiley had to take turns keepin’ a lookout for Slaughter.”
Bo, his face swollen and bruised from the beating Arlo had administered the night before, crawled out of his blanket and followed his brother out the door to empty his bladder. P. D. was waiting for them when they came back. “Get you some coffee and somethin’ to eat,” she said. “Then I expect you’d better saddle up and head back down the mountain. That little gal’s on the run, and I expect she might try to circle around and head down to that Crow camp by the river. Maybe you can be waitin’ for her if she does. We don’t want no damn Injun war party comin’ after us.” She stood over them while they gulped down their breakfast. “And Arlo,” she added, “don’t do nothin’ foolish. Kill her and be done with it.”
“Yessum,” Arlo answered respectfully. “Don’t you want me and Bo to stay here in case he shows up this mornin’?”
“I expect I’m more concerned about havin’ a Crow war party on my neck than I am about takin’ care of one man. Me and Wiley’ll set up a little welcome party for him.”
* * *
It was the middle of the morning when Matt reined the paint to a halt, and paused to look down at his little homestead in the valley below him. A matter of habit, he always took a few minutes to look over the cabin when he had been away for a day or two. There was no sign of anyone about. He was mildly surprised that Zeb was not already sitting outside, soaking in the sunshine, an almost daily ritual since being wounded. There was smoke coming from the chimney, so he figured Molly to be inside doing some chore.
He started to nudge his horse to descend the slope, but paused again. Something was not right. It was a feeling that just came to him. And then it occurred to him—the horses were still in the corral. Zeb had not turned them out to graze in the meadow below the cabin. Maybe Zeb was feeling poorly, he thought, which could explain why he wasn’t taking his customary sunbath. But Molly certainly knew to turn the horses out to water and graze. His natural instincts warned him to be cautious. He sat there for a while longer, watching to see if Zeb or Molly appeared. When they did not, he began to become concerned. “Easy now,” he counseled himself. “She’s all right. Don’t go gettin’ spooked.”
Impatient, but still cautious, he decided it wouldn’t hurt to traverse the mountain face, and come up to the cabin from below and behind, just to satisfy the feeling of suspicion that had descended upon him. There was a deep gully that cut a trough from the back of the cabin down a hundred feet or so until fanning out to form an apron on the western side of the valley. Created by the normal runoff of melted snow in the early summer, Matt had almost decided to locate the cabin more toward the edge of the meadow because of it. Zeb had insisted that it was unnecessary, so Matt left the cabin where it was. Zeb had been right. When the snow melted in the spring, the gully was a rushing torrent, but the water never reached the top, and by midsummer it was bone-dry. On this morning, it would serve as Matt’s approach to the cabin. He couldn’t help thinking that Zeb would no doubt find humor in his secretive return home if, in fact, his gut feeling was wrong.
Riding along a narrow cliff, Matt made his way carefully over the apron of shale to the entrance to the rugged defile. Leaving the horses at the bottom, he started climbing up the gully on foot. Halfway up, he suddenly dropped to one knee and quickly brought his rifle up, ready to fire. He had caught a glimpse of someone lying in wait, partially hidden by a sizable rock resting in the middle of the gully. He was trapped, caught in the bottom of the deep defile. He had no cover, and no chance to run. There was no choice but to prepare to exchange shots with whomever was lying in wait behind the rock.
Several tense moments passed in deathly silence, with no sound save that of a lonely crow somewhere in the pines above the cabin. Well, come on, then, he thought, anxious to get it done. A few more moments passed. Tense and impatient, he aimed his rifle at the rock, waiting. Then it occurred to him that the arm and shoulder he could see had not moved. He was at a standoff with a corpse. He was immediately overcome by a feeling of dread.
He scrambled up to the rock, knowing inside that it was Zeb, but praying that he was wrong. He was not, and the sight of the old scout lying in an awkward sprawl across the rock was enough to tear away at Matt’s very soul. This was the second time he had found his friend battered and discarded, thrown away like so much rubbish. As he gazed at the body that seemed so small and fragile in death, his vision began to blur, his eyes threatening to fill with tears. Molly! His inner voice cried out then, and he immediately hurried past the rock and charged up the gully.
The wave of sorrow that had overwhelmed him upon finding Zeb’s body had ebbed, replaced by the storm of anger that
now took control of his mind. One thought dominated his thinking—to go to Molly. All concerns for his own safety were lost in the desperate need to find her as he climbed recklessly up the rugged defile. As soon as he reached the top, his warrior instincts automatically caused him to pause to look things over before charging into an ambush. The moment’s hesitation served to restore a calmer sense of what he was faced with.
Scanning the area around his cabin, he could see no signs of activity. There were no strange horses in the corral or tied in front of the cabin. However, there was smoke coming from the chimney. Were Zeb’s killers gone? Or were they inside, and their horses hidden somewhere? And what of Molly? His anger started to rise again with the thought of her, and he cautioned himself to keep his emotions out of his thinking and try not to imagine what might be happening to her. He decided that he had better assume the killers were inside and act accordingly.
There were no windows in the back of the little cabin he and Zeb had built, so he scrambled up over the edge of the gully, and quickly moved to the back wall. He waited a few moments, listening to see if he could hear anyone talking inside the cabin. Hearing nothing, he moved along the log wall, turned the corner, and eased up to the side window. There was no sound coming from inside. He tried to peer in at the bottom of the window, but it was blocked by a deerskin hung over it to keep out the cold. Moving to the front corner of the cabin, he knelt on one knee while he scanned the open area between the corral and the stream once again. Seeing no one, and still hearing no sound of voices, he stood up and went directly to the door.
Dreading that he might find Molly’s body inside, he raised his foot and kicked the door open. His rifle ready, he burst into the cabin poised to fire. It was empty—no one, and to his relief, no corpse. He glanced at the fire. New logs had been recently added to the flames. The thought struck him too late as he realized he had walked into a trap.
The solid smack of lead against the cabin wall reached his ears only a fraction of an instant before he heard the sharp report of rifles. He dropped to his knees and crawled to the front window. Like the side window, it was blocked by a deerskin. As soon as he pulled the corner of the hide away to try to locate his assailants, a volley of rifle shots ripped through the pelt. Why, he wondered, had they permitted him to enter the cabin, and refrained from simply shooting him outside when he was defenseless? He paused to consider his options. They were few and not very promising. They could keep him pinned down for as long as they wanted, or until they decided to burn the cabin down around him. Maybe the side window, he thought. Apparently they had been unable to see him when he had paused there before. To refute that possibility, the window was suddenly splintered by a volley of rifle shots that ripped holes in the deer hide. He knew then that there were at least two assailants, for they had the front and side of the cabin covered.
Lying behind the trunk of a pine tree, P. D. was momentarily stunned. The man she had allowed to enter the cabin was the same man who had come to her rescue when they had been attacked by the Sioux war party. Though properly astonished, she could nevertheless appreciate the irony of it. All the trouble she had gone to, all the way to Virginia City and back here, and he had been standing right before her at point-blank range. It was him all right. There was no mistaking the tall, buckskin-clad rifleman. She wondered if Wiley had recognized him as well. What was it he said his name was? Johnson? It was almost enough to cause her to chuckle.
P. D. looked across toward the corner of the corral, and gave Wiley a sign of approval. As she had instructed, he had held his fire until Slaughter had entered the cabin. P. D. wanted Slaughter trapped with no way out but the door. It made him easier to deal with. If Wiley had fired too soon, and missed, Slaughter might have dived back in the gully and scrambled away. It would have been the easiest thing to simply put a bullet in Slaughter’s back while he was standing outside the cabin door. P. D. would have preferred to do it that way, but Mathis had offered an extra two hundred and fifty dollars if Slaughter was brought back to stand trial.
“Slaughter!” P. D. called out. “If you leave that rifle in there and come out peaceful-like, we won’t kill you.”
“You mean like you didn’t kill Zeb?” Matt called back.
“Were that his name?” P. D. returned sarcastically. “Hell, he looked like he was half dead, anyway. Nah, I ain’t gonna shoot you if you come outta there peaceable. You’re worth extra money to me if I deliver you alive. That wore-out old man weren’t worth nothing.” She paused a moment, waiting for his response, then added, “I could use the extra money, but if I have to burn that cabin down around you, I’ll sure as hell do it.”
“Where’s Molly?”
“That little deef and dumb gal?” P. D. answered with a slight chuckle. “Why, she’s all right. I got her safe and sound, waitin’ for you.”
“Who the hell are you?” Matt demanded, listening closely to P. D.’s responses in an effort to try to pinpoint her location. As well as he could guess, the person doing the talking was somewhere near the twin pines by the head of the path. The other, the one who had shot the side window full of holes, had to be positioned at the far corner of the corral.
“Never you mind that,” P. D. responded to his question. “I’m the one come to take you back to Virginia, where you murdered that feller, so you might as well make up your mind to that. I always get who I go after. The only choice you have to make is whether you go back settin’ in the saddle or belly-down across it. So why don’t you lay your rifle down and come on outta there, and we can do this thing without a whole lotta fuss.”
Matt did not doubt that P. D. was truthful in saying she would not shoot if he surrendered, for he definitely had presented an easy target when he had been standing before the cabin door. He knew by now that he was dealing with a bounty hunter, and he was obviously worth more alive than dead, just as his assailant had claimed. He also knew that Zeb was lying dead halfway down the gully behind the cabin. Someone was going to have to pay for that, and he had nothing more than the word of a bounty hunter that Molly was alive. “Where’s Molly?” Matt demanded once more. “I wanna see her.”
“I got her somewhere safe,” P. D. lied. “You throw down that rifle and come on out, and I’ll take you to see her.”
“Yeah, I reckon,” Matt mumbled cynically under his breath, and crawled to the other side of the window in an effort to spot the partner of the person doing all the talking. Though it gave him a bit more of an angle, he still could not see all of the corral from there. Calling out to P. D. again, he said, “If you show me the girl, I’ll come out.”
“Dammit, I told you she ain’t here,” P. D. replied heatedly. “I’ve got her somewhere safe.” It was beginning to dawn upon her that it had not been a good idea to permit Slaughter to get inside the cabin. I shoulda just shot him in the leg while I had the chance, she thought. “I ain’t got all day. You come on outta there now, or I’m gonna hafta burn you out.”
“I reckon you’re gonna have to come and get me,” Matt yelled back. He was pretty confident now that his assailants numbered only two, and it was going to be damn difficult for them to set fire to his cabin—at least without giving him a shot at one of them, maybe both.
Seething with frustration over what she realized too late had been a poor decision in an effort to collect a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar bonus, P. D. paused to ponder her next move. Over by the back corner of the corral, lying flat on his belly, Wiley was still trying to reconcile his mother’s order to let Slaughter get inside the cabin. In the past, the policy had always been to shoot whenever the opportunity presented itself, and he had had his sights on Slaughter from the moment he moved along the cabin wall. It had occurred to him that he had seen the man before, but he couldn’t recall where. Then another thought occurred to him—while P. D. kept Slaughter talking, he could hustle to the side window, and get the drop on him. Maybe, he thought, that was what his mama hoped he would do, and that was the reason she kept talking. Smiling
with satisfaction that he had figured it out for himself, he got up on one knee and prepared to make a run for the cabin wall.
“Wiley! No!” P. D. screamed when she saw what her youngest son had in mind. But it was too late. Inside, at the corner of the front window, Matt caught the movement by the corral. It was an opportunity he had not expected, but his reactions were swift enough to respond before Wiley could take two steps toward the cabin. The Henry rifle spoke twice in rapid succession, each shot finding its mark, slamming Wiley in the chest, knocking him to the ground. He swept the rifle quickly back toward the twin pines by the path, seeking a target. He could not spot anyone, but he was sure that’s where the voice had come from. Unconcerned with attack from another quarter, for he was confident now that he was left facing one man, he kept the rifle trained on the pines. While he waited, it occurred to him that when the person screamed out to stop Wiley, the voice had sounded almost feminine in its high pitch.
From her position behind a small boulder just a few feet from the pines, P. D. Wildmoon was stunned by the sight of her youngest, her favorite, when he was dropped awkwardly by the lead slugs, his arms flailing mindlessly, his legs wobbling drunkenly and collapsing beneath his body. Wiley! My baby! She screamed silently, the outcry exploding in her brain. Somehow, it had never entered her mind that she could lose one of her sons, and especially not Wiley, her pet. He was the son she had imagined would take care of his mama in her old age. “Wiley!” she screamed again, her brain boiling with the fury of a mama grizzly over the loss of a cub. Unable to control her rage, she rose to one knee and peppered the front window of the cabin with lead, firing until her rifle’s magazine was empty.
The barrage caused Matt to pull away from the window while splinters of pine from the window frame went flying all about him. Sensing the situation as it now stood, he moved immediately to the side window and climbed out, landing on the ground beside the cabin. The advantage was now his. There followed a brief silence that lasted for the time it would take to reload a rifle, and then the barrage was resumed as shot after shot tore into the front of the cabin. It was a senseless waste of ammunition, for the bullets would not penetrate the heavy log wall, and Matt paused to consider what manner of maniac he was dealing with.
Vengeance Moon Page 13