Frank nodded his head. “I reckon I’m worth considerable, for a fact.”
“But you’re just drifting around,” Betty Ellington remarked. “Don’t you have a real home?”
Frank smiled. “I have all this,” he said, waving a hand at the sky and the land around him.
“But don’t you want more?” Judith asked.
“I have a nice home in the mountains west of here.” Frank replied. “I’ll retire there someday. Raise cattle and horses. But that is years down the road.”
“So for now you just . . . drift around?” Dixie asked.
“I enjoy life,” Frank replied.
“And take life occasionally, so I hear,” Randall said, but without any detectable note of malice in the statement.
“If I’m pushed,” Frank said. He turned his gaze to Steve. “So if you’re not going to farm in Colorado, what are you people going to do?”
“Hunt for gold,” Steve replied, his voice almost a whisper.
“Gold?” Frank asked.
“Yes, sir,” Able said. “In the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. That’s west of Canon City. So far only a few people know about it. We’re going to be among the first to stake our claims.”
“It’s also Ute country,” Frank reminded them.
“Oh,” Steve said, waving a hand, “I was told the Utes are no longer much of a problem. Besides, these good folks are not looking to get rich. Just enough of a stake for them to start businesses in the town itself.”
“I see,” Frank replied. Something wasn’t ringing true with Steve’s remarks, but Frank let his suspicions slide for the moment. Frank sat quietly and drank his coffee, listening to the others talk while supper cooked. It was evident that they all held Steve in very high regard. Frank sure would have liked to have more information about Steve Wilson, but there wasn’t a town with a telegraph within a three days’ hard ride.
“I know a way that will cut days off your trip,” Frank said. “That is, if you’re interested.”
“Oh, I think not,” Steve said very quickly. Too quickly to suit Frank. “I know this way, and I think it would be best to stick with the planned route.”
“Well, that might be best,” Frank replied. “It was just a thought. Say, this is really good coffee. Mind if I have another cup?”
“Certainly, Mr. Morgan,” Dixie said, leaning forward to take his cup and refill it from the big camp pot. “Here you are.”
Frank smiled at her. “Much obliged, ma’am. I am a coffee-drinkin’ man, for a fact.”
With the sun low in the late afternoon sky, Dixie had taken off her bonnet, her honey-blond hair framing her face. Really a very lovely woman, Frank thought. Very shapely, with blond hair and blue eyes, but with a certain degree of sadness in her eyes. Frank wondered about that. Then, after a quick glance at her sour-faced husband, Frank ceased to wonder. He had yet to see the man smile.
Frank leaned back against a pile of boxes and listened to the travelers talk. But he was very conscious of Dixie’s eyes occasionally touching him. Frank tried to avoid her gaze, but he was not always successful. There were curious questions in her eyes, and a number of silent promises.
“Don’t mess with another man’s wife,” he thought. “It only leads to trouble.”
“You plan on riding along with us for a ways, Morgan?” Able Branson asked.
“No,” Frank replied. “I think I’ll pull out come the morning. But I want to warn you folks to stay out of the strip just south of us. It’s a mean place, filled with all sorts of trouble.”
“Don’t you worry about that, Frank,” Steve said quickly. “I’ll keep us out of no-man’s-land.”
“I thought you were going to ride with us for a time, Mr. Morgan,” Paula said.
“Oh, I changed my mind, Mrs. Freeman,” Frank said with a smile. “That’s the nice thing about riding alone. A man can shift directions like the wind.” Frank cut his eyes to Steve. The man looked relieved at the news of Frank’s pulling out.
Something is definitely wrong here, Frank thought. Very wrong.
The next morning, several hours before dawn, as Frank was rolling up his blankets, Dixie slipped quietly through early morning mist to where Frank had camped.
“Mrs. Carpenter,” Frank said. “You’re up very early.”
“I brought you a cup of coffee, Mr. Morgan. It’s strong. Warmed up from last night.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate it.” Frank sipped the strong brew and met the woman’s eyes in the darkness. “Something on your mind, Mrs. Carpenter?”
“I don’t trust Mr. Wilson,” the woman said bluntly.
“What does your husband think about him?”
“Oh, he thinks the man hung the moon and the stars.”
Frank said nothing of his own reservations about Steve. “What’s made you so suspicious of Steve?”
Dixie hesitated for a few seconds. “He’s . . . well, devious, Mr. Morgan.”
“Devious how?”
“When I asked him about all the other groups he’s guided West, he gets very defensive, almost surly. Then he gets . . . oily is the best word I can think of to call it.”
“But he won’t give you a straight answer about the others?”
“No. Says he doesn’t know what happened to them. Says they’re spread out all over the West and that’s all he’ll say.”
“Spread out may be true, Dixie.”
“I know. But I still don’t trust him. We’re carrying a lot of money, Mr. Morgan. All of us. We sold everything we had before we left home, and many of us had money in the bank. And I’m not ashamed to admit, I’m scared something is going to happen.”
Before Frank could reply, Steve Wilson’s voice cut through the early morning air. “Fooling around with another man’s wife can get a body dead out here, Morgan.”
Frank turned to face the voice. “Nobody is fooling around with another man’s wife, Wilson. Mrs. Carpenter was kind enough to bring me a cup of coffee before I pulled out.”
“Then I beg your pardon . . . from both of you. I was wrong assuming the worst.”
Dixie held out a small hand. “I’m glad we met, Mr. Morgan. I hope you eventually find what you’re seeking.”
Frank gently took the hand. “Thank you, Mrs. Carpenter. You and the others have a safe journey.”
Frank released her hand, and Dixie was gone into the early morning darkness.
“So you’re pulling out, Morgan?” Steve said.
“Right now, Wilson.”
“Maybe we’ll meet again.”
“Count on it Wilson.”
“What does that mean?”
“Means we’re heading in the same direction, but taking different trails to get there.”
Without another word, Wilson turned and walked away. Frank finished his coffee and set the empty cup on a wagon tongue.
“I just don’t trust that fellow,” Frank thought. “Something about him makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.”
Frank looked down at Dog, sitting on the ground, looking up at him. “You ready for the trail, ol’ boy?”
Dog growled low in his throat.
“All right, boy, let’s travel.”
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-3276-1
Copyright © 2004 by William W. Johnstone
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