Knowing it would be risky to push the issue any further, Pop settled back with everyone else while they sharpened their enthusiasm with corn whiskey and waited for Will to go to sleep. That is, all but Brock and Darlene, who retired to her cabin for a crude carnal tussle.
* * *
The object of the discussion around the supper table slow-walked his horses through the horse herd, so as not to create any disturbance among them that might alert their owners. Will knew he had been extremely fortunate to have been able to ride out while all five of the outlaws lingered around Elmira’s table. When he made his plan to leave that night, he had anticipated no more than a few minutes head start before someone realized what he was up to. In fact, he expected them to be in the saddle and after him in about twenty minutes. But he had figured that was all he would need, hoping to be able to disguise his trail enough to cause them to fall even farther behind him. He thought he might need the extra time to find a good place to wait for them, while they looked around to pick up his trail. But now, as he nudged Buster with his heels, and the big buckskin increased his pace to a gentle lope, there was still no indication that he had been missed. A big yellow moon was resting in the treetops on a faraway hill before him. With the clouds now breaking up, there was a good chance it would light up the prairie in a short while, and it should make it easy to follow his tracks.
When there was still no activity outside the cabins, now half a mile behind him, the head start he already had gave him plenty of time to find a suitable place to wait for them. Looking back over the way he had come, he could see that his trail was almost as plain as day in the lightly scattered snow. His goal now was to find a good spot to prepare a little welcome party for his pursuers, so he scanned the rolling prairie before him. The only place he could see that might give him the cover he wanted was the line of low hills that the moon was now rising above, so he guided Buster straight toward them.
After a ride of approximately a mile and a half, he approached the dark forms of the slopes, none of which rose more than a hundred feet above the prairie floor. The hills were sparsely covered with patches of gnarled post oaks, giving them a ragged profile against the night sky. He turned Buster and rode along the base of the hills, hoping to find a stream, although he knew that patches of blackjack and post oak were often found where there was none. Luckily, however, he was rewarded when he came to a narrow ravine with a tiny stream running down the middle. Little more than a trickle this late in the year, it would at least be enough to give his horses a drink, so he rode up the ravine, looking for a place to make his camp.
Following the ravine up the hill, he dismounted when he came to a grassy shelf and left his horses there while he continued to the top on foot. Looking back over the moonlit way he had come, he could see no sign of anyone following him. Satisfied that he still had plenty of time to set up his camp, he went back down to the shelf and the horses. He pulled the saddle off Buster, then unloaded the bay. After picking up an armload of dead limbs, he built a fire and unrolled his bedroll nearby. When the fire was burning steadily, he paused to decide whether or not to risk making a pot of coffee. He might soon become too busy to drink any of it. The need for coffee was paramount, however, so he got his coffeepot out of the packs and a handful of the coffee he had ground at Jack Burns’s store. He filled the small pot from the stream, although the water looked a little dusty in the moonlight. A little rust from off these rocks, he thought. It’ll boil off. He set the pot in the edge of the fire to boil while he hurried back up the hill to see if he was going to have any company before he could drink it.
There was still no sign of any riders on the open prairie, causing him to wonder if they were going to wait until daylight before coming after him. Maybe he had not been convincing in his charade after all and had not convinced them that he was in possession of a great deal of money. As soon as he thought it, he shook his head. No, he decided, they bought it. At any rate, he was going to have to assume they did, and would be coming after him as soon as they discovered he was gone.
It was his guess that he would be dealing with only Ben Trout and Brock Larsen. He couldn’t imagine the two outlaws cutting Pop Strawbridge and his two saddle bums in on what they figured to be a lucrative deal. As he thought about it, he reached in his pocket, took out his badge, and pinned it back on his vest. He went back down the hill then to pour himself a cup of coffee to warm his insides while he maintained the watch for his pursuers.
* * *
Will had been gone no more than half an hour before Ben Trout became bored with the company sitting around the supper table. Not really listening to Pop Strawbridge ramble on about what a good team the five of them would make if they joined up, he stared blankly at the empty whiskey jar on the table. The longer he sat there, the more impatient he became, and he decided that as soon as Brock returned from his tussle with Darlene, they would pay Walker a visit. Why did I let them talk me into waiting until Walker was asleep? he asked himself. I don’t give a damn if he’s awake or asleep, he thought. Brock was really the reason he was sitting around waiting. Brock couldn’t delay his lust for the gangly prostitute. He was the one who said they should wait until Walker was asleep.
Sensing the gruff outlaw’s impatience, Pop suggested, “Why don’t me and the boys go on back to the cabin? If he’s asleep, we’ll take care of him quick enough. If he ain’t, then he won’t think nothin’ of it, since it’d be just us comin’ to bed. Then one of us could let you and Brock know to come on, or wait a little longer.”
“Ah, to hell with it,” Ben said, not willing to trust the three rustlers. “I’m goin’ to see what that jasper’s holdin’ right now. If he’s asleep, that’s fine—if he ain’t, I’ll put him to sleep right quick.”
“Ain’t you gonna wait for Brock to get back?” Slim asked.
“No,” Ben replied. “I don’t need no help to take care of one man.”
“That’s a fact,” Pop said, “and we’ll be right there to make sure you don’t have any trouble.” He said it to remind Ben that they were all in on the deal together.
The big man pushed his chair back from the table and stood up. As a matter of habit, he hefted his gun belt to make sure his .44 was riding comfortably on his hip, and then he headed for the door. Pop and his partners scrambled to their feet and followed him. When Eddie started after them, Elmira caught him by the arm. “It’s best you stay right here,” she said. “I got a feelin’ if that feller ain’t asleep, there’s gonna be some shootin’, and he’s gonna give as good as he gets. Ain’t no sense in you takin’ a chance of gettin’ hit with a stray bullet. Maybe we’ll be lucky and he’ll get one or two of ’em before they kill him, and we won’t have to split whatever he’s got so many ways.”
Having formed somewhat the same opinion of Walker as had Elmira, Pop made sure he was the last in the line following Ben as he crossed the narrow footbridge over the creek. He was content to let Coy and Slim hurry along behind the impatient brute. Walker had not impressed him as being a careless man, so Trout might have a surprise awaiting him when he went bursting in the door. At any rate, it always paid to be careful, a trait that had certainly contributed to Pop’s longevity in the occupation he had chosen. And being a cautious man, he was the only one who noticed that there was not much smoke coming out of the chimney—odd for a man who left the supper table early to build up the fire. Young Eddie had told them that Walker was chopping wood for the fire, but Pop didn’t see any wood stacked up by the cabin door. Come to think of it, he thought, I don’t remember hearing anyone swinging an ax while we were sitting around the table drinking. He was certain then that Ben was going to charge into an empty cabin. Walker had gone. A moment later, he heard his confirmation.
“What the hell?” Ben roared. “He ain’t here!” He turned to Slim, who was right behind him, and demanded, “Where is the son of a bitch?”
“I don’t know,” Slim stammered, flustered by the assumption that he might be responsible for
Walker’s absence. “He said he was goin’ to bed,” he offered weakly.
“He took off, all right,” Pop said as he looked around the cabin. “His saddle, packs, everything’s gone—while we was just settin’ around jawin’.” He might have expressed some humor in the fact that Walker had put one over on them, if it hadn’t so obviously angered Trout. “Whaddaya wanna do, Ben?” he asked.
Trout didn’t answer at once. Ignoring the questioning faces of all three, he stormed back out of the cabin, looking right and left, as if searching for the missing man. He glared up at the moon, now climbing higher in the sky of broken clouds, its light reflecting from the light blanket of snow. “We oughta be able to track him, if we find his trail outta here,” he said. “Oughta be easy with this snow.” He turned to face Pop. “You boys look around over by the horses. See if you can find his tracks. I’m goin’ to get Brock.” Assuming they would follow his orders, he hurried back across the footbridge, and headed toward the cabin next to Elmira’s.
In a few minutes, Ben returned with his saddle on his shoulder and a complaining Brock following, still tucking his shirttail in and buckling his belt while trying to drag his saddle behind him. “You coulda given me a little more time,” Brock grumbled.
“I told you,” Ben shot back, “we’ve set around here twittlin’ our thumbs while that Walker feller up and rode off.”
“Well, there ain’t nothin’ we can do about it till mornin’,” Brock said, still complaining.
“The hell there ain’t,” Ben shot back. “If we wait till mornin’, we might lose him for good. He’ll play hell tryin’ to hide his tracks in this snow.” They heard a shout from the bank of the creek beyond the side of the hill. When they looked that way, they saw Slim waving his arm. Ben knew that was a signal that meant they had found Walker’s trail. “Come on,” he said to Brock. “Pick up your saddle and get ready to ride.”
“This here’s where he lit out, all right,” Pop announced, and pointed to the fresh tracks Will’s horses had left in the snow on the bank. “Headin’ straight north.”
“Reckon where he’s headin’?” Brock wondered. “What’s up that way?”
“Nothin’ much,” Pop said. “If he keeps goin’ the way he started out, he’ll strike the Arkansas River in about twenty miles. And there ain’t nothin’ but wild prairie north of the Arkansas. He was always talkin’ ’bout needin’ to get up to Kansas Territory, and it’s a good fifty miles from the Arkansas to the Kansas border. I expect he’s plannin’ to change directions one way or another—go west to hit Arkansas City, or east to strike Coffeeville. Both of them towns are right on the border.”
“He said he was goin’ up to Coffeeville,” Slim reminded him.
“He said a lot things,” Pop replied. “Trouble is, how many of ’em is true?”
“Sounds to me like we’ve got plenty of time to catch up with him, if we quit lollygaggin’ around here,” Ben said, looking up at the broken clouds. “And with that moon shinin’ up there, there won’t be any trouble followin’ his trail. If we’re lucky, he might stop somewhere tonight to get a little shuteye.” He started toward the horses then. “All right, me and Brock are fixin’ to ride. Anybody thinkin’ ’bout goin’ with us, better get saddled up, ’cause I ain’t waitin’ for nobody.”
* * *
As Ben had anticipated, it was an easy task to follow the ribbon of fresh tracks out across the prairie with the lightly scattered snow—so easy, in fact, that it brought a faint smile of amusement to his harsh face. Ain’t he gonna be glad to see us, he thought. He glanced back over his shoulder briefly at the three small-time scoundrels who had invited themselves to join the party. He told himself that it was probably a mistake to have let them talk him into joining up with him and Brock. Maybe they might come in handy, but he could not imagine that Walker would be any trouble for him and Brock. Thinking of Pop and his two cohorts again, he decided their fate rested in large part on the size of the jackpot they found on Walker. If it turned out to be too small to provide a decent share, Ben had no qualms about reducing the number of shares by three. When he thought about it a minute longer, he decided that the same rule might apply in the event the shares were much greater than expected. Further speculation was interrupted when Brock’s horse pulled up even with his. “What?” Ben asked when he didn’t understand Brock’s comment.
In response, Brock pointed toward a line of hills ahead. “Smoke,” he said.
“Where?” Ben asked, and pulled his horse to a stop. The other three men pulled up beside them, and Ben said, “Brock says he sees smoke, but I don’t see no smoke.”
They all stared in the direction Brock pointed out, and after a few moments, Slim exclaimed, “I see it!” He pointed to the same ravine that Brock had. Soon, they all spotted the thin gray column of smoke drifting up from the top of the ravine, barely defined in the moonlight. “Whaddaya reckon that is?” Slim asked.
“It’s a campfire!” Ben answered him. “He’s done stopped to camp!” He couldn’t believe his luck. “He thinks he’s hid up in that ravine. This is gonna be easier than I figured, but we gotta be careful now and make sure he don’t hear us comin’.”
“The way that smoke’s risin’ up outta that ravine, I’d say his camp is about halfway to the top of that ridge,” Pop speculated. “That ravine ain’t very wide. We’d have to ride damn near single file up it, and that idea don’t sound too good with him layin’ up there with that Winchester rifle.”
“I wasn’t figurin’ on ridin’ up that ravine,” Ben informed him sarcastically. “I ain’t that big a fool. We need to circle around to the east side of them hills, so we can come up on him where he can’t see us. That ravine’s so narrow, he won’t have no place to hide.”
“There’s five of us,” Pop pointed out. “Instead of all of us climbin’ up behind him on that ridge, we could fan out and cover him from both sides.”
“And one of us could set up at the bottom of that ridge, in case he tries to run out the front,” Coy added.
“That’s what I was fixin’ to tell you,” Ben said, although the notion had not occurred to him. “We need to surround him, hit him from both sides and from the top of that ravine, too. But the first thing we gotta do is to get around to the other side of that ridge, so he don’t see us comin’.” He turned his horse to head toward the lower end of the line of hills, and the others followed.
When they reached the point behind the lowest in the line of hills, they rode up to the top of it where they dismounted, tied the horses on the branches of the oaks, and went on foot to the top of the next hill in the line. “That ravine he’s camped in is on the other side of this ridge,” Brock said. “We oughta be able to see down in there if we can get down to where it runs out at the top.”
“Mind where you’re walkin’,” Ben cautioned. “We don’t wanna kick some of this loose gravel over the side and wake him up.” They worked their way down through a small pocket of dead trees, apparently the result of a lightning strike at some point in time, until coming to a rock outcropping at the head of the ravine. “Stay here,” Ben said to Pop. “Me and Brock’ll slip down to the edge of them rocks and take a look.” So the three rustlers remained in the dead trees while Brock and Ben moved carefully out on a rock shelf some fifty feet above the pocket where Will had made his camp.
“Well, now, ain’t that a peaceful sight?” Ben said softly. “Sleepin’ like a baby.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Brock whispered. He was not as sure as his partner that the scene below them was as peaceful as it appeared. Walker had made his camp on a level shelf halfway up the ravine. There appeared to be a body rolled up in a blanket close to the fire. Walker’s two horses were tied away from the fire, closer to the top of the ravine. It looked like a perfect setup—the sleeping man an easy target, and his horses out of the line of fire—too perfect, Brock was thinking. “I think we’d best be damn careful,” he said. “That ol’ boy might be smarter than we think. He might be tryin’
to make us fall for one of the oldest tricks in the book. Maybe he thinks we’re that dumb.”
“Hell,” Ben scoffed, “he ain’t that smart. He just thinks ain’t nobody likely to come after him till daylight, and he’ll be long gone from Sartain’s by the time anybody starts after him. Probably thinks he’s hid his camp pretty good and won’t nobody know he’s back up in this ravine. He didn’t count on anybody seeing smoke from his campfire comin’ up outta there.”
“I don’t know, Ben,” Brock said, still not convinced. “We been starin’ at whatever’s wrapped up in that blanket down there for about five minutes, and it ain’t ever give so much as a twitch.”
Impatient to get on with the business of killing Walker and seeing what was in those packs, Ben groused, “Hell, he’s asleep. If he was twitchin’ and turnin’, he’d be awake. Let’s get on with it.” Indicating an end to the discussion, he turned and signaled Pop and the other two to come on down.
“What if he ain’t in that blanket?” Brock insisted, still suspecting an ambush.
Annoyed by his partner’s caution, Ben growled, “Well, what if he ain’t? It won’t do him much good, ’cause I’m fixin’ to kill him wherever he’s hidin’. He ain’t goin’ no place without his horses. And if he’s tryin’ to ambush us, he didn’t count on us climbin’ up the back of this hill, so I know he ain’t behind us.” He glared at Brock, angry now at his apparent hesitation. “He’s in that blanket,” he grumbled low as the other three joined them. “Take a look,” he said to Pop. “He’s sleepin’ like a baby down there by the fire.”
“Ain’t that handy?” Pop replied as he edged closer to see for himself.
“Looks too easy, don’t it?” Slim mused.
Coy moved up close beside Pop and brought his rifle up, ready to fire. “Hold your horses!” Ben cautioned. “Remember what I said. We got to make sure this ain’t no setup.” He glanced briefly at Brock. “We’re gonna surround that camp and make sure he ain’t hidin’ someplace away from that fire.”
A Stranger in Town Page 9