Lonnie knew most of the men who lived and worked in these mountains, but he’d never seen these three. When he’d first seen that they weren’t Dupree’s bunch, he’d been relieved. Now that relief was tempered by a healthy, natural apprehension.
All types moved through the Never Summers, including cutthroats on the run from the law. The mountains were a haven for cattle rustlers who preyed on the ranchers’ herds, like human coyotes. And that’s what these three appeared to be—even the young, freckle-faced one.
Coyotes. Only more dangerous because they all wore at least one holstered pistol. Rifles jutted from leather sheaths strapped to their saddles. Lonnie thought he could see the glint of a running iron strapped to the third rider’s horse, partly concealed by the young man’s bedroll and saddlebags.
That marked them as rustlers, sure enough. Running irons were used to doctor cattle brands.
The first man, the one with the long hair, stopped his horse about twenty yards from Lonnie. The man looked Lonnie up and down, paying special attention to the cocked rifle in the boy’s gloved hands. The first man glanced behind at the old man, who reined his sorrel gelding to a halt about five yards behind the first man.
“It’s a kid,” the long-haired man said.
Then he turned his attention to General Sherman. So did the old man. There was a conniving hunger in their eyes. And Lonnie felt a rock drop in his gut.
The three newcomers, looking around curiously, let their gazes linger on the General, shrewdly appraising the valuable stallion.
The old man said, “You alone, boy?”
“Nope.”
The three looked around again from the backs of their horses. The long-haired man said, “Who’s with you?”
“That horse and this rifle,” Lonnie said, resting the Winchester on his right shoulder.
He eyed the three strangers directly, keeping his expression bland, his gaze resolute. There was no point in letting them know they’d spooked him. He wanted them to ride on. If they saw the saddlebags containing the money, all hell could very well break loose.
Lonnie wasn’t about to turn the money over to them. It wasn’t theirs any more than it was Dupree’s. Besides, he wouldn’t be robbed. Of his horse, the money, or of anything else. He considered the money his own until he could turn it over to the town marshal in Arapaho Creek, who would make sure it was returned to wherever it had come from.
The long-haired man, who looked particularly mean, grinned and looked at the old man and the blond young man. They all laughed, their eyes glinting at Lonnie holding his carbine on his shoulder, as though he’d told a joke they’d found amusing. The old man looked at the fire behind Lonnie and to his left. Lonnie wondered if the man’s eyes had found the bulging saddlebags, as well.
His chest was tight with the possibility.
“Say, now, you got a pot of coffee on. Mind if we join you?”
“Sure smells good,” said the blond young man, cutting his eyes devilishly between the old man and the long-haired man. Then he looked at General Sherman. For the time being, the young man’s main concern was Lonnie’s horse.
Lonnie felt another cold rock drop in his gut. It was the custom of the country to allow men to join you around your cook fire, and to share food as well as coffee. Not to allow it would be to commit an unforgiveable sin and to beckon trouble.
These men knew it. And Lonnie knew it.
They had him.
Lonnie faked a welcoming smile but he opened and closed his hand around the neck of the rifle resting on his shoulder as he said, “Light and sit a spell. I’ve a pot of coffee on the fire, and you’re welcome to what’s left. When that’s gone, I’ll make more.” He was saying the words automatically. They were the words he’d heard over and over again, and he’d been expected to say them, so he’d said them.
But if these men thought they were going to rob him of his horse or anything else, they had a big surprise in store.
At least, that’s what he told himself.
“That’s mighty kindly, partner,” the old man said, grunting as he swung heavily down from his sorrel’s back. “We’ll take you up on that.”
He tied his horse’s reins to a branch sticking up from a deadfall tree. As he did, he cut his eyes again toward General Sherman, who was eying all three strangers and their horses cautiously, twitching his ears and stomping his right front foot. The old man’s sorrel returned the General’s belligerent look with ears up and his tail curled.
When the other three had tied their own horses, they reached into their saddlebags for tin cups, and Lonnie met them at the fire, standing near where he’d been sitting on the rock, holding his rifle across his knees and continuing to gaze at the newcomers blandly. He felt a hard defiance and a cold anger, for he knew what they were after, and he kept telling himself over and over they weren’t going to get his horse or the saddlebags.
He wasn’t sure any of the three had seen the bags yet, but they were bound to. The strangers were within ten feet of where the pouches leaned against the tree near the General. They’d see Lonnie’s second set of bags near the fire, and they’d wonder about that. It wasn’t common to carry two sets of saddlebags.
Lonnie silently cursed himself for a fool for not having hidden the saddlebags before he’d built the fire. The fire is likely what had attracted these men. They’d likely smelled the smoke from below though Lonnie had chosen this place because he’d thought it was upwind from the canyon floor.
The old man grinned at Lonnie, said, “Much obliged, boy.”
He reached down and with the leather swatch lifted the pot off the rock Lonnie had placed it on near the flames, and splashed some into his cup and then into the cups of the other two.
He grinned again at Lonnie as he shook the pot, and said, “Reckon we cleaned ya out,” and then set the pot on one of the rocks forming the ring around the fire.
“Like I said,” Lonnie said, “I’ll make more.”
But he merely sat down on the rock he’d been sitting on before and held his carbine across his thighs. He had no intention of making more coffee because that would mean he’d have to set his rifle down.
The three strangers, each holding a smoking cup, squatted on the other side of the fire—the old man to Lonnie’s right, the young, blond-headed man in the middle and a ways back, and the long-haired gent on Lonnie’s left. They formed a half circle around Lonnie, on the far side of the fire.
The long-haired man had two pistols holstered on his hips. The old man wore a big horse pistol in a holster over his belly. The blond young man wore what appeared to be a Remington .44 in a holster thonged low on his right thigh, as though he fancied himself a gunslinger.
Maybe he was …
Lonnie stared at the men. He didn’t bother trying to make conversation, and neither did his new camp mates, who merely hunkered on their haunches, blowing on and sipping from their steaming cups and regarding Lonnie with expressions ranging from blandness to cool disdain.
The old man glanced over at the bulging saddlebags, raised his brows knowingly, and said, “Lookee there! Them bags is mighty full. You must be on a long trip! Say, what you got in there, anyway?”
CHAPTER 12
The other two strangers kept their eyes on Lonnie. The blond young man grinned, showing his small, rotten teeth. The old man cut his eyes at the bulging saddlebags again, and said, “What you got in ’em?”
“Ain’t none of your concern,” Lonnie said, his cool, even voice belying his trepidation. He’d found, however, that when he was his most fearful, acting brave edged him in bravery’s direction.
He was getting sick and tired of sparring with trouble not of his own making. Sick, tired, and more than a little angry. The anger also helped push back some of the fear. He knew he couldn’t take all three of these men if they started shooting, but if they started fiddling, as the saying went, he’d have no choice but to dance.
He’d dance one of them right on over the divide before the
others took Lonnie out in a hail of lead …
“Well, I’m right curious,” the old man said, glancing at the other two on either side of him, still sipping their coffee. “I’m so curious I think I’m going to go over and have a look inside them bags.”
Lonnie’s heart thudded.
He ran his tongue along the underside of his upper lip and said, “Those are my bags. Stay out of ’em.” He drew a deep, calming breath and, squeezing the carbine in his hands, said, “Or you’ll be sorry.”
The old man laughed. “I’ll be sorry, will I?” He glanced at the other two in turn. “What do you fellas think? Will I be sorry?”
“Nah,” said the long-haired man whose cold eyes reminded Lonnie of Shannon Dupree’s eyes. “Go on over and have a look inside, Wade. See what the kid’s carryin’. See what’s so valuable he’s willin’ to die to hold onto it.”
Lonnie grew dizzy. He fought against it. He also fought against involuntarily spurting pee down his leg. He drew another breath, said, “Them’s my bags. Stay out of ’em. I gave you coffee. Finish it and skedaddle.”
“Skedaddle, huh?” the blond-headed young man said, chuckling through his teeth. “I like that. Skedaddle!”
“Your ma teach you that, boy?” said the long-haired gent, scowling over the small, leaping flames at Lonnie. He gave his left hand a sudden flick, tossing coffee out of his cup. It splattered over a rock.
In a near tree bough, a squirrel began chittering angrily. For some reason, the squirrel’s reprimand caused Lonnie to feel ever more nervous. Cold sweat was dripping under his arms.
The long-haired gent dropped his cup straight down to the ground between his brown boots, rested his wrists on his knees, and said, “Skedaddle on over there, Wade, and see what the boy’s carryin’ that’s so precious.”
“Should I?”
“I said you should, didn’t I?”
“Well, okay, then,” Wade said, rising slowly, staring directly into Lonnie’s eyes.
“I wouldn’t,” Lonnie said, keeping his voice hard and cold though every fiber of his being was trembling like an autumn leaf in a chill wind.
The squirrel was chittering loudly now. The unceasing sound seemed to fill Lonnie’s head.
Keeping his eyes on Lonnie’s with open challenge, the old man began sidestepping toward the saddlebags. His heart banging inside his ears, Lonnie watched him. He cast frequent glances toward the other two, in case they should suddenly pull their guns.
But as the squirrel kept reading them all the riot act, those two remained on their haunches, both staring at Lonnie—the long-haired gent’s eyes dark and threatening, the blond-headed young man’s eyes brightly mocking but also threatening in their own way.
The old man continued holding Lonnie’s gaze as he edged slowly over to the saddlebags. As Wade began to reach down toward the flap of the first pouch, a rifle crackled loudly, shutting the squirrel up and tearing a fist-sized chunk of bark out of the tree about six inches left of the old man’s shoulder.
Lonnie blinked as the old man yelped and hooked an arm up as though to shield himself.
Lonnie glanced down in surprise to see that he was holding his carbine straight out at the old man, and that gray smoke was curling from its barrel. Then he remembered squeezing the trigger, but it felt as though someone else had squeezed it. Automatically, he pumped a fresh cartridge into the chamber, but before he’d even gotten the cocking lever rammed up against the underside of the rifle’s breech, the two men by the fire jerked to their feet and reached for their pistols.
Lonnie knew instantly he was a goner. They were both fast, and Lonnie was still turned toward Wade. When the shooting started, Lonnie felt himself being punched back—either by bullets or fear of bullets—until his boots clipped a log and he fell hard on his butt.
He glanced to his right, to where the old man was pulling the big horse pistol out of the soft, brown leather holster over his belly. As he stared at something above and behind Lonnie, Wade got a weird, terrified look on his face.
He dropped the pistol and went dancing off down the slope as though with some invisible partner before dropping to the ground and rolling.
The shooting stopped.
Lonnie blinked. He shifted his gaze from where Wade had fallen toward the other two men. They were down, as well. Dark-red blood oozed from several places in both of them.
Lonnie looked down at himself, expecting to see red oozing from his own body, as well. But he saw no such thing. He wasn’t so much grateful at that instant as he was surprised. And then he remembered that Wade had been staring at something behind Lonnie, who twisted around to gaze up the wooded slope toward the ridge.
A man in a broad-brimmed hat was straightening from a crouch and slowly lowering the smoking rifle in his hands.
CHAPTER 13
Lonnie looked around him at the dead men once more. He looked at himself, wondering if he, too, was dead but for some reason didn’t know it yet. But, no, there was no blood on him. His heart was still beating and he was still raking air in and out of his lungs.
He felt as disoriented as if he’d been hit in the back of the head with a two-by-four. But he was alive, all right.
He looked behind him. The man who’d shot the three strangers was walking down the slope toward Lonnie’s smoldering fire. He carried what appeared to be an old-model rifle in both hands up high across his chest.
He was a medium-tall, bandy-legged man wearing a broad-brimmed gray hat so old and weathered it appeared a dusty cream color. It was torn, and the brim flopped. It looked like the kind of hat Lonnie had seen some Confederate soldiers wearing when they’d returned home from the War Between the States. The man’s badly faded and patched gray trousers were from the same type of uniform, though the man’s calico shirt and his boots appeared newer. He wore a brace of old pistols in soft, black holsters on his hips.
“Any of ’em still movin’?” the man asked as he approached the camp, staring beyond Lonnie at the men he’d shot. He waved a gloved hand at a fly buzzing around in front of his face, which was lean and craggy and trimmed with a thick, salt-andpepper goatee and mustache.
He spat a wad of chaw on a rock to his left, brushed a sleeve of his shirt across his mouth, and continued moving forward, his pale-blue eyes dancing around deep in their bony, heavily ridged sockets.
“Who … who are you?” Lonnie had climbed to his feet and was staring in awe at the man who’d saved his life, still trying to work his mind around all that had happened.
The man walked past him, not saying anything. He walked around the fire, the mule ears of his boots flapping, audibly sucking and working the wad of chaw bulging out his left cheek. He looked down at the long-haired gent, then moved to the young, blond-headed man. Apparently satisfied he’d get no more trouble out of either of those two he walked down the slope a ways to where the old man lay tangled up against a pine stump.
Lonnie’s most recent visitor stared down at the old man, spat a wad of chew to the side, wiped his mouth, and leaned his rifle against a tree. He dropped to both knees beside the old man and started rummaging around in the old-timer’s pockets. He grumbled and muttered unhappily to himself, apparently not satisfied with anything he found, until he pulled a knife out of a sheath strapped against the old man’s hip.
The newcomer studied the knife, pooched out his tobacco-brown lips, and nodded his approval. Turning to Lonnie, he held up the knife and said in a thick Southern accent, “This might be worth a spud or two. You want it?”
Lonnie shook his head.
The newcomer frowned and then poked his knife in the direction of the other two dead men. “You might as well check ’em out, pull anything off ’em you can use. They won’t be needed it where they’re headed, and they were within about one blink of reintroducing you to your Maker.”
“Were you a Confederate soldier?”
The newcomer stared at Lonnie, mildly befuddled. He rose to his feet and shoved his new knife down behind h
is cartridge belt. He picked up his rifle and walked up the slope toward the other two dead men.
“I reckon you could say that,” he said with a dry chuckle. “Once a Grayback, always a Grayback.”
“My pa fought in the war,” Lonnie said. He supposed it sounded like a stupid thing to say under the circumstances, but it was the only thing his brain could spit out. It still hadn’t quite wrapped itself around the three dead men, nor around the fact that he very nearly had been, as the Confederate had said, reintroduced to his Maker.
Twice in twenty-four hours. Three if you considered Dupree’s nearly strangling him the night before.
“What side?” the Confederate asked as he poked around in the pockets of the blond-headed young man.
“What’s that?”
“What side did your pa fight on during the War of Northern Aggression?”
“Oh,” Lonnie said, his thoughts still sluggish. “He fought for the North.”
“Figures.”
The Confederate pulled a gold-washed watch out of the breast pocket of the long-haired man’s bloody shirt. He wiped the watch on the dead man’s denim trouser leg, and flipped the lid and held the piece up to his ear. “Still runs,” he said. “I reckon I’ll take it. First come, first served is how I see it. Besides”—the Confederate gave Lonnie a slit-eyed grin—“your old man’s a blue belly.”
He stood and looked around. His gaze caught on something, and he turned to Lonnie. “Them’s yours?”
Lonnie followed the man’s gaze to the overstuffed saddlebags. The boy’s heart gave a hiccup. Amidst all the gunfire and death and destruction, he’d forgotten about Dupree’s money. When Lonnie started to wonder if he’d been thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire, the Confederate grinned and came around the fire to stand in front of Lonnie. He whistled.
“You’re stocked for a long trip.” The man’s smile faded from his deep-set, dark-blue eyes. “You best keep those hid if you aim to make a man one day.”
Lonnie Gentry Page 5