Harlen prompted Blue toward the ridge and the fresh horses that Thomas Jefferson and Manny had saddled and hobbled next to a stand of cottonwoods on the other side. But once Harlen hit the apex of that ridge, he lifted his hand to hold the others back. Reining to a sudden halt, Harlen saw the horses grazing. But he also saw at least a dozen waiting lawmen holding rifles with the barrels gleaming in the sun.
Jerking his finger, Harlen signaled an alternate direction, and the boys rode down the crest over the same trail they’d just come up. Without stopping to see if they’d been spotted by the lawmen, Harlen gave orders. “We’re going to have to split up. Nate, T. J., and Colvin take Kendall Peak. Manny and I’ll cross Bear Mountain. We’ll all meet down on the other side of the Mexican border as soon as we can get there.”
The men nodded and the group separated. Harlen steered Blue to the west, Manny keeping in stride with him. But they were unable to elude the lawmen. A cloud of dust to their right was a sign that horses were bearing down on them. They’d been spotted on the ridge and were being pursued. Blue had a lot of sand in him, and even though the distance was great enough for him to outrun the armed men, the tired horse couldn’t do so with the heavy load he was carrying. Manny would have to break away and Harlen would have to try and trick the posse.
Harlen motioned for him and Manny to part. Manny kept to the west while Harlen veered north—straight for the lawmen, only he had Blue hug the high brush and thickets of trees for cover. Changing course, he followed South Mineral Creek, sticking to the water to cover his tracks.
Knowing about a mining encampment called Eternity quite a stretch north of Silverton, Harlen headed in that direction instead of south with his partners. He was going to need a fresh horse if he wanted to cover some distance without stopping. And he had to do something with the money.
For endless hours, Harlen rode Blue hard. As nightfall neared, Harlen grew more convinced that he hadn’t been followed. He rode the steep trail on the mountainside that overlooked the camp. Eternity was nothing more than a newborn town with tents and hardly a real building. The San Juan range rose above the muddy street. In the impending dusk, lantern lights glowed from within the tent walls as miners were preparing their suppers.
Dismounting and leading Blue across the unstable rocks, Harlen found numerous crevices and nooks in which to hide the money. But it wasn’t until he came upon the lofty wooden cross, which seemed to be cast in gilt from a reflection of the sun’s fiery descent, that Harlen was satisfied he had a marker he couldn’t forget.
The impending cloudless night offered him enough light in which to see. A mound of trash littered the far edge of the clearing, and he searched the rubbish for something in which to enclose the satchels. Finding extra gallon Yellow Crawford apricot cans, he unstrapped the grain bags. They were too fat to fit into the cans, so he put all the coins into the oversized tins, which were still sticky from fruit syrup. With four remaining cans, he stuffed the satchels with the currency inside them to keep the paper protected against rain if it came in the next day or two. Then he selected a deep cache some hundred feet down from the cross’s base. The pale rock was loose and rough as he buried what he had figured to be sixty thousand dollars. He didn’t expect the cans to be there long. Two days at best. Then he’d come back when the lawmen tired of the chase, retrieve it, and ride down to Mexico.
When Harlen was finished, he stood and gave Blue an affectionate pat on the chest. The roan was too fatigued to go on. He bid the horse a silent farewell, knowing that he’d gotten too attached to this good animal, but also knowing that in his calling, nothing stayed the same for long. Since he couldn’t go into town and make a trade, he’d have to leave Blue in someone’s pasture and hope they’d take care of him.
As the burning sun went to bed for the night and darkness hid shady doings, Harlen snuck into Eternity unaware that the living grave of crime was closing in.
4
There is many a good man to be found under a shabby hat.
—Chinese proverb
There was an electrical storm brewing. One of those windy monsters that lay a hand on everything with enough of an annoying flutter to ruin a photographer’s day. Especially since Leah had to take an outdoor shot.
The bothersome rustling put a northwestern spin in the weather vanes, caused the rosebush stems to make their flowers dance, and had the grasses in yards undulate to the wind’s tempo. It had to be this Monday that Wert McWhorter had chosen to have his esteemed garden and orchard photographed. Leah had tried to convince him to postpone, but he’d insisted on having a photograph to mail in the midafternoon post. The sudden rush was due to an advertisement he’d read in Illustrated American Gardener about a green-thumb contest. The prizewinning photograph and essay, to be sent to Wahoo, Nebraska, had to be postmarked today at the latest.
Mr. McWhorter had been in a tizzy all morning, sweeping and preparing his garden. He had a small orchard of nectarine, peach, apple, and plum trees. No more than five trees apiece, but a respectable amount and in lovely color this time of year. Leah had to admit, Wert McWhorter could grow things. Better than the Clinkingbeard sisters.
Gazing at the hazy sun beneath the arch of her hand, Leah saw the natural light was fading fast. Large white clouds scudded across the sky, giving way to a blanket of gray to the east.
“Mr. McWhorter. I’ve got to take the photograph immediately. Have you secured the owls?” she called from her position in the street.
Mr. McWhorter lived on State Street, one block up from Leah. His yard was immaculate and in prime condition from April to September. This was due in part to his endless toil, but also because of the wooden owls he had perched on swiveling stands. They were authentic replicas of great horned owls. Mr. McWhorter had meticulously carved and painted them himself. He’d put the fake birds of prey up to discourage sparrows and the like from feasting on his orchard fruits and garden delights. Apparently they worked, for her own garden had been picked clean of strawberries, while Mr. McWhorter was still getting a harvest from his plants.
“All I have to do is secure Clarence,” Mr. McWhorter said, putting a shim in the ball bearing beneath the circular platform on which the owl perched. He’d given all three of the owls names. Why anyone would want to personalize a fake owl, Leah couldn’t guess. She attributed his attachment to them to the fact that he was an elderly bachelor and perhaps desirous of companionship in his later years. A tabby cat would have fit the bill, but he’d chosen wooden owls. He’d never married, but that hadn’t stopped him from learning to do his own washing and cooking—an accomplishment Leah applauded, as her own left much to be desired.
Leah ducked beneath the cloth of her camera. In the ground-glass lens, Mr. McWhorter stood upside down next to his plum tree. The leaves were darker, lending a contrast to the snow-white summer suit he wore. It was too bad the deep red leaves were moving. They’d blur in places unless she chose the precise moment of vague stillness in the wind to snap her photo.
Coming out from the black fabric, Leah put her fingernail on her lip and studied the scene. The balance was off. The shapes and tones didn’t complement one another. She spied a lawn chair on the veranda.
“I believe the portrait would be much improved if you were sitting in that wicker chair.”
“Sitting?” Mr. McWhorter held onto a hoe. “But it won’t look like I’m a gardener if I’m sitting.”
“Of course it won’t.” She went to the picket fence covered with climbing morning glories. She stood on the street, and he on the inside of his fence. The orchard and garden stretched to the sidewalk, to the delight of many passersby. “You don’t want to appear too eager when entering a contest.” She knew. She’d entered the New York Amateur Photographer’s competition twice. This year she just had to win, because she would have form. The Stieglitzian form of the great Alfred Stieglitz. Relatively simple. More of a composition and balance than of rhythmic order. She’d been trying too hard to have shapes outdo one another.
“You see,” Leah said, while more firmly attaching her hat by its long pin, “in the world of art, one must make things relative. Since this is a contest for the best garden, you must impress upon the judges that it is because of their magazine that you have this lovely setting to enjoy. Thus, the chair. And while you are sunning yourself in that wicker chair, you shall be holding and faux-reading this month’s issue of Illustrated American Gardener to show them what their time-saving tips have meant to you.”
Mr. McWhorter’s Scotch golf cap blew off, and he quickly ran after the hat as it tumbled up the steps to his veranda. “I think you have something there, Mrs. Kirkland.” Grabbing the chair, he set the legs firmly beneath the shade of the plum tree as per her instructions. After a quick dash into his house with a slam of the screen door, he returned with the magazine and sat down.
Leah smiled as she looked through the camera. The scene was much improved. Just one last bit of direction. “Now Mr. McWhorter, you must imagine you are President Roosevelt, and you are in command of this orchard. Nothing can defeat you. No bird or bug is too great a problem for you. You are the master gardener.”
Mr. McWhorter’s gray brows fell into a serious line. His expression was regal and confident. Wonderful! Now if only the wind would cease for one second, everything would be perfect.
* * *
Wyatt walked to work along a back road called State Street, hoping to avoid a run-in with that short-arm-of-the-law marshal. Yesterday, the hardware store—along with everything else except for the saloons—had been closed and locked up tighter than a chain gang, so he’d spent his Sunday excavating rock with a fat stick. The primitive method had produced more swear words than sandstone fragments. Poking around with a stick wasn’t his idea of time spent in a worthwhile manner. After more than eight hours, he didn’t have a thing to show for his effort.
Though he hadn’t wanted to admit it, he’d pinned too many hopes on finding that money by sundown. It had taken him less than fifteen minutes to bury the bags. How come he couldn’t exhume them in the same amount of time? By six o’clock, he’d called it a night and had saddled July for a ride. While loping over the hills as the sunset emerged, he’d accepted the fact that he was indeed a real dishwasher. It was a bitter pill to swallow and a humiliating one at that. He didn’t care how nice a guy Leo seemed to be. Washing dishes was washing dishes, and he’d done that line of work before. There was nothing satisfying in it.
This morning, Wyatt had been the first inside Carlyle A. Corn’s Hardware Emporium when he’d opened for business at seven o’clock. Carlyle was bald at the crown, wore denim coveralls, and had a wide gap between his front teeth that made Wyatt ponder the man’s ability to tackle eating the cobbed vegetable that was his namesake. Corn had been a real gabber, the kind of man that Wyatt steered clear of. Carlyle had questioned him on the prudence of his mining equipment purchase. No one had struck anything around these parts for years. Wyatt had lied and said he was thinking about doing some placering as a hobby in the near future if he could rummage up enough money to buy the required three hundred by fifteen hundred-foot parcel. He’d convinced Corn he wanted to be prepared in the event of an opportunity.
After buying the necessary tools, Wyatt had had to sink some money into a can of coffee and a pot in which to brew the grounds. Of course, that meant spending another forty-eight cents on a coffee mill. He’d been sorely tempted to have Corn write him up some cigarettes, too. But he couldn’t really afford them, and besides, a cigarette wasn’t fully enjoyed unless he had a whiskey to go with it. Wyatt could never pick up another shot glass of rye, so the smokes were out. He bought an M. M. Royal chocolate bar instead. That and a canister of Quaker Oats, a half-dozen Libby Luncheons that came with keys on the bottoms of the rectangular tins to open them, and a pack of tutti-frutti gum.
Afterward, he’d gone over to check on July’s treatment. It was hard for him to trust a modern smithy. Too many years had put a distance between his way of seeing things and theirs. Back in the good old days, he never had to question the service he was getting, because what was rendered was always reliable. Probably because he’d had a name for himself, and no one would dare cheat him. But now he was Wyatt Holloway and not known, which suited him fine. Only now he had the added worry of making sure July was properly taken care of. Stables tended to feed their animals too much grain and graze them on grass that was too hot, rather than give them a balance of straight hay and good exercise. Wyatt promised that no matter how tied up he got in his digging, he’d try and give July a workout for an hour each morning so he wouldn’t go sour.
He hadn’t been able to work the horse this morning, which he regretted but vowed to rectify tomorrow. Wyatt had spent the better part of the breakfast hour breaking in his new pick and ax, but with no luck. He had to be at the Happy City by eleven, so he’d headed out frustrated and agitated.
Wyatt tipped his head so the brim of his hat wouldn’t catch on the breeze. He’d never been partial to wind. In fact, he hated it. Many times up on Table Rock, he’d had to cut stone with flying sand putting grit in his eyes. With this kind of wind, usually a thunderstorm wasn’t far behind. That’s all he needed. Wet rock and mud to paw through. Wasn’t anything going to go right?
State Street cut through the foothills and dirt swirled in the road in tiny whorls. As Wyatt approached the city block where homes were built, he figured all the houses had to be owned by bankers and well-to-do merchants, because they were all two and three stories with wraparound verandas and chimneys for practically every room. He’d seen these types of homes in Boise City on Warm Springs Avenue, but few if any before that. Ranch houses were single-storied and plain, with simple accommodations that put a man at ease. These grandiose residences weren’t his idea of comfort.
Too late, he saw Leah Kirkland standing smack in the middle of the street with her camera. The breeze fluttered her light-colored skirt, showing a good display of her ankles. He couldn’t see her face. She was ensconced beneath the camera cloth. She popped out and spoke enthusiastically to a man sitting at the base of a tree.
“I believe I got a good shot,” she said as the first plump drop of rain hit Wyatt on the jaw. “It won’t take me too long to develop the photograph. You’ll make the post.”
As she turned to reach for a case, she spied him. An uneasiness pressed down on Wyatt. He couldn’t exactly change directions and go back the way he’d come. The doodad trimmings on her hat seemed to wave at him, but she said nothing. He couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t been very congenial toward her at the restaurant.
“ ’Morning, Mrs. Kirkland,” he offered in an amicable tone, trying to make amends.
She hesitantly smiled. “Hello, Mr. Holloway.”
He had no opportunity to say anything further. A flash of lightning went off brighter than the sun. The wind kicked up in a great flurry. An object sailed toward him on this sudden gust that shook all the leaves on the nearby trees.
“Look out!” she cried.
It was too late. An owl sailed from the yard and buffeted him in the side of the head. His hat was knocked from him, and he swore a clump of his hair had been ripped off with his Stetson. Raising his hand, he fingered the lump forming behind his temple, feeling as if he’d been given a blind punch.
“Damn,” he mumbled, gazing at his feet where the great horned owl rocked on its back. The bird was dead. In fact, petrified. Wyatt toed the wooden owl with the tip of his boot, then bent down and grabbed his Stetson before it blew away.
“Damn,” he repeated, thinking the only explanation for the bird’s state was that it had been struck by a bolt of lightning.
“Clarence!” A man’s hoarse cry came from the yard.
Leah spun on her heels and ran to Wyatt. “Mr. Holloway, are you all right?”
She instantly laid her palm on his forehead, her fingertips light on the rising bump beneath his hair. Her tender and caring ministration was totally unexpected. Before he got to thinking
too much about her satiny hand against him, he reminded himself that she was a mother and prone to nursing. The gesture was more of an automatic thing for a woman.
Wyatt shifted his weight to get out from under Leah’s touch. “I’ll live,” he assured her, but the relentless pounding of his head brought to mind a cattle drive being ridden across his skull.
Rain began falling in a splash of heavy droplets as the gentleman in the white suit came over, picked up the owl, and cradled it in his arms as if the bird was a sick child. “Clarence! You’ve got a chip on your shoulder.” Glancing at Leah, the man spouted, “I’ve got to get Clarence inside and repair him. All this moisture could ruin his insides and he’ll puff up like a dandelion.” He sheltered the owl within his coat. “Thank you, Mrs. Kirkland. I’ll call on you at twelve-thirty to pick up my photograph.”
Leah nodded against the rain that was now making a stinging descent. “I think you’ll be pleased, Mr. McWhorter.”
McWhorter sprinted through the open gate and went quickly into his house as another flash of lightning lit the gloomy sky.
Wyatt had to ask, “Was that a fake owl?”
“Yes. The wind must have jimmied the shim right out of his base and picked him up. I’m sorry you got hit with it. Mr. McWhorter should have apologized, but I’m afraid he’s not himself right now. Are you sure your head is all right?”
“I’ll let you know as soon as my double vision clears.”
“Truly?” she gasped. “Then you must go directly to Doctor Hochstrasser’s.” She took him lightly by the upper arm. “Can you walk?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my legs,” he replied. “And I was only kidding about the double vision.”
Leah paused and gazed at him, blinking the rain off her thick lashes. The bobbles on her hat had gone limp, and the wisps of hair framing her face were stuck to her cheeks. Soon she’d be soaked through. So would he—a predicament he could think on no further without a provocative picture coming to mind. “You can’t see two of me?” she questioned.
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