“More outlaws, you reckon?” Fred said.
“It could be anybody,” Tyree said. The delay annoyed him. He was so close to finding Dunn and Lute that the last thing he wanted was another delay.
“No, the marshal is right,” Aces said. “Whoever they are, they’re bad men. Creech wouldn’t hobnob like that with ordinary folk.”
“He did with the emigrants,” Tyree mentioned.
“He was a wolf mixin’ with sheep so he could shear them.” Aces nodded at the group below. “Do they strike you as sheep?”
“Enough argument, boys,” Fred said. “It appears they’re breakin’ camp.”
That they were. The fire was doused, they saddled their horses, and Creech and the new bunch parted company. Creech went on to the northwest. His new acquaintances crossed the valley and started up the ridge.
“Tarnation, they’re comin’ our way,” Fred declared in alarm. If Aces was right about them and they caught sight of his badge, he’d be a goner.
“We hide,” Aces said, crabbing backward. “Hurry.”
From the shadowy recess of a phalanx of firs, they watched the seven men come over the crest, riding in single file.
Fred swallowed. He’d seldom seen such vicious-looking individuals. Hard cases, each and every one. The very hardest. Some men bore their natures like a stamp, and these bore the stamp of killers.
Aces was worried that Creech had sicced the men on them, but none of the seven were looking for sign.
Tyree was tempted to shoot them. He’d come to have a powerful dislike for outlaws. It seemed to him that if all the lawbreakers in the world were rounded up and hanged, the world would be a better place. A place where a homesteader and his wife wouldn’t be murdered by those they’d invited to supper. A place where a baby wouldn’t be scarred for life. He put his hands on his Colts.
“Don’t you dare, pard,” Aces whispered.
They waited awhile after the seven were out of sight, just in case.
Fred didn’t breathe easy again until they had descended to the valley floor. They went to where the camp had been, the charred embers of the fire still giving off a little smoke.
Fred was past it and almost to the stream when his horse nickered and shied. He had strayed a little to the left of the others, near to some brush. Glancing over, he felt his skin crawl. “Tarnation!” he exclaimed.
Aces and Tyree reined around.
A body lay sprawled on its back. Long black hair and a beaded buckskin dress showed it was female. Little else was recognizable. Someone had taken a hatchet or a tomahawk to her, chopping and mutilating.
“That poor woman,” Fred said.
“Who do you reckon she was?” Tyree asked.
“I can’t tell which tribe,” Aces said. “Those men must have stole her and used her until they tired of her or else she made one of them mad, and there she is.”
“Should we bury the body?” Fred said.
“Hell no,” Tyree replied. They had lost enough time as it was. To his relief, Aces agreed.
“Whoever she was, we’ll let the coyotes have her. We can’t afford to lose Creech. Let’s push on.”
They thought it had been rough going so far, but it became worse. Creech appeared to be heading for a cluster of peaks that thrust at the sky like granite spear tips. They were so far in the range that the peaks didn’t have names. Not white names anyhow. In the winter they would be capped with snow, but now they were barren and gray.
“I should get out of my office more often,” Fred said in awe. Not that he would. If this trip had taught him anything, it was that he had no business traipsing over the countryside after a couple of killers. He was a town body, through and through. Give him his comforts, and his whiskey, and he would live out his days perfectly content. But he was also a man of his word. He’d said he would help Tyree and Aces, and he would.
Aces was captivated by the peaks, but not so fascinated that he’d give up the life of a cowboy to become a mountain man. To each his own, he’d always said, and for him, the prairie and a herd of cattle were as good as life got. Still, the mountains were beautiful, and he commented as much.
Tyree didn’t see what the fuss was about. Rock was rock and trees were trees. When Fred mentioned that he’d heard of a famous artist from Europe or someplace who once came to the Tetons to paint them, Tyree shook his head. One man’s beauty was another man’s ordinary, he reckoned.
Their climb brought them to a cleft wide enough for a Conestoga. On either hand reared stone ramparts, walls so high they had to crane their necks to see the tops.
“A pass, by heaven,” Fred said.
Aces regarded the lengthening shadows. “It’s almost sundown. We’ll make camp in those pines yonder and go through the pass in the mornin’.”
“Why not now?” Tyree said. His impatience was worse than ever. They were so close. He could feel it.
“Because dark will fall soon and we don’t know what’s waitin’ for us on the other side,” Aces answered.
Once the sun went down, the air turned chill. A wind from out of the north made it colder still.
The night was strangely quiet. Huddled close to their fire, they were quiet themselves until Fred cleared his throat.
“Tomorrow could see the end of our journey.”
“Could indeed,” Aces allowed.
“Anything happens to me,” Fred said, “I want you two to do me a favor. Send my badge to Sweetwater, to Mayor Crittendon, along with a note that he can go to hell and burn for all eternity.”
Tyree laughed.
“We never know what a new day will bring,” Aces said, and indicated the peaks and the vast wilderness below. “I never reckoned on ever being in the Tetons.”
“Me either,” Fred said.
“Old hens, the both of you,” Tyree said. “Marshal Hitch, I expect it. But, Aces, you surprise me.”
“All we’re sayin’ is that we never know what life will do to us,” Aces said. “You should know that better than anybody.”
“You’re welcome to go back, the both of you,” Tyree said. “If you don’t want to be here, you should have said so.”
“Damn it, Tyree,” Aces said. “That’s not what we’re sayin’ at all.”
“Through thick and thin,” Fred said, “we’ll be at your side.”
Tyree had draped his blanket over his shoulders to ward off the cold and now he pulled it tighter and bent toward the fire. “Don’t think I’m not grateful,” he said. “I am. I never had friends like you, and it would pain me if you wound up like that Injun gal.”
“It would pain me too,” Fred said.
Tyree looked up and for a moment thought he was seeing things. A figure in buckskins stood just within the circle of firelight, behind Aces, pointing a rifle at them. “Creech!” Tyree bawled, and went to unwrap his blanket.
“Don’t, you!” the outlaw declared. “Give me any excuse, any of you, and I’ll blow your head clean off.”
Fred was too shocked to do anything.
Aces twisted around, and froze.
Creech’s mouth split in a sinister smirk. “Have to admit, I was mighty surprised when my horse picked up a stone and I was pryin’ it out with my knife and looked back and spotted you. Careless of me not to have caught on sooner.”
Tyree was tempted to try him. If he could slip his hands under his blanket unnoticed . . .
“Go ahead, boy,” Creech said. “Die if you want to.”
“Tyree,” Fred said.
“He’s fixin’ to kill us anyway,” Tyree said. And he’d be damned if he’d sit there and let himself be shot.
“That’s where you’re wrong, boy,” Creech said. “You three don’t know it, but you can spare me from havin’ my throat slit.” He laughed, then added, “And have your own slit instead.”
Chap
ter 34
Aces surprised himself sometimes. There stood an outlaw who had no qualms about blowing him to Hades, and he felt no fear whatsoever. It was the same as all the other times he’d had guns pointed at him, or arrows were sent whizzing his way. He never felt afraid. Once a puncher he knew told him that wasn’t natural. People should be scared when their life was in danger. If they weren’t, something peculiar was going on inside their head.
Aces didn’t see it that way. He’d always prided himself on staying calm in a crisis. Even back when he was a boy, he practiced at it, to where now it came naturally. Most folks would cringe in fright at having that Sharps pointed at them. Not him. His first thought was stay calm.
Ace had a sister to thank, in part, for his calmness. She had been prone to hysterics, they were called. Fits of fear that paralyzed her or set her to trembling uncontrollably and sobbing in panic. Her grandmother was that way, their mother said, and his sister had inherited her fragile disposition.
His father had shocked Aces by informing him that some men were prone to hysterics too. That they would weep like babies or curl into a ball, and there was nothing they could do.
Aces had worried that if hysterics were in the family’s blood and his grandmother and sister had them, then he might come down with them too. So from an early age he’d made it his life’s purpose to always stay calm no matter what. Some might say that was silly. Some might say it was childish. He liked to think of it as keeping his head when all those around him lost theirs.
Aces kept his head now. He stayed still as Creech came closer, his gaze locked on the Sharps. He was the only one who noticed something. For the moment, he kept it to himself.
“What was that about slit throats?” Tyree asked. He was stalling, hoping the outlaw would make a mistake and he could resort to his Colts.
“Dunn and Lute, those gents the law dog mentioned,” Creech said. “They won’t be happy about your cowpoke friend there shootin’ Sterns. They might take it into their heads that I’m partly to blame. That I should have done something. That if I’d been quicker, I’d have shot your friend before he shot mine.”
“They’d slit your throat over that?” Fred said, struggling to hide the tremor in his voice.
“Those two are the most snake-mean two-legged critters I ever met,” Creech said. “Give them an excuse, any little excuse at all, and they will buck you out in gore. Thing is, you can’t ever tell what will set them off.”
“Yet you ride with them?” Fred said.
“They rule Robbers Roost, the only place in all the West where a man like me can go and not have to worry about a tin star takin’ him into custody. The only law in the Roost are Dunn and Lute.”
“I have never savvied the outlaw mind,” Fred said.
“Savvy this,” Creech said. “I aim to tie you three and take you with me. When Dunn and Lute hear about the cowpoke shootin’ Sterns, they’ll vent their spleens on him and not on me.”
“Clever,” Fred said.
“I think so.” Creech wagged his Sharps. “On your feet one at a time and shuck your hardware.”
“I’ll go first,” Aces said.
Marshal Hitch and Tyree glanced at him in surprise.
“Do it,” Creech barked.
Aces slowly stood, his hands out from his sides. Just as slowly, he moved his right hand to the buckle to his gun belt, and stopped.
“What are you waitin’ for?” Creech said. “Unhitch the damn belt and let it drop and step back.”
“I reckon I won’t,” Aces said.
Creech raised the Sharps halfway to his shoulder. “If you think this is a bluff, you’re addlepated. I’ve killed before. Plenty of times. One more won’t matter.”
“I agree there,” Aces said. “But I still won’t.”
Tyree started to rise but caught himself. “What are you doing, pard?”
“Shut up, boy,” Creech commanded. He appeared puzzled more than mad, and was looking Aces up and down. “You’d rather be shot than have your throat slit? Is that why you’re balkin’?”
“Most outlaws are amateurs,” Aces said. “I heard that somewhere and it’s true. If outlaws were smart they wouldn’t be outlaws.”
“Are you lecturin’ me?” Creech said in amazement.
“Take your friend Sterns. If he’d been smart, he wouldn’t have been on the prod. He would have ridden off with you and still be alive.”
“Are you drunk?” Creech sniffed a few times. “I don’t smell any alcohol.”
“No, I’m smart,” Aces said.
“Is that right?” Creech replied, and laughed.
“Remember the James-Younger Gang?” Aces said. “They rode all the way from Missouri to Minnesota to rob the Northfield bank and were practically wiped out. That wasn’t smart.”
“What the hell?” Creech said.
“Or how about the Renos? They went and hid in Canada but made such a nuisance of themselves they were brought back and hanged by vigilantes. That wasn’t smart.”
“You better stop,” Creech said.
“I have one more,” Aces said. “All of them were stupid, but not as stupid as you. You saw me shoot your pard, yet here you are.”
“Remindin’ me of that is just plain dumb. It only makes me mad.”
“You’re missin’ the point,” Aces said.
“What the hell is it?” Creech demanded angrily.
“You march in here and point your cannon at us yet you don’t have the brains to cock it.”
Creech glanced at the Sharp’s hammer and then at Ace’s right hand, inches from his holster. “Son of a bitch.”
“See what I mean?” Aces said.
“I reckon I’m stupid at that.” Creech grinned, and flicked his thumb.
Aces drew in a blur. He fired just as the Sharps went off with a thunderous blast, the slug kicking up dust at his feet. He fired again, and a third time, putting all three within a hair of one another over where the heart would be.
Creech tottered. A look of incredulity came over him. He tried to speak, tried to raise the Sharps even though it was a single-shot. He sputtered, spitting blood and red spittle. His knees buckled, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he pitched to the ground with a thud.
“Whew.” Fred let out a long breath.
“Slick as anything,” Tyree said, and laughed.
“We were lucky,” Aces said. If Creech had cocked the Sharps before showing himself, he might be the one lying in the dust. He began to reload.
Luck, Tyree thought. There it was again. “I don’t even carry around a four-leaf clover,” he said out loud.
“How’s that?” Fred asked. He was rattled. He couldn’t get over how casual and quick the bloodshed had become. It didn’t bode well for when they reached Robbers Roost.
“If this were a card game I’d win every pot,” Tyree boasted.
“Don’t get cocky,” Fred advised. The boy wasn’t taking things seriously enough to suit him.
“So far my plan is workin’ out,” Aces said as he slid a cartridge into the cylinder. “All that’s left is bracin’ Dunn and Lute in their lair.”
“Is that all?” Fred said.
Tyree helped Aces drag the body away in case the scent of blood drew a grizzly or wolves. He went through Creech’s pocket and found a poke with over forty dollars. He gave a third to Aces and offered a share to Fred Hitch, but the lawman refused.
“I couldn’t take tainted money.”
“You’re loco,” Tyree said bluntly. “How is it tainted? By Aces shootin’ him? He was an outlaw and had it comin’.”
“The money is probably stolen,” Fred said.
“So?” Tyree said. It wasn’t as if they could give it back to its rightful owners. “I hope I never become a stickler for always doing right like you are.”
“M
y pa used to say that a man who always does right doesn’t ever need to fret about being in the wrong.”
Tyree snickered. “So that’s where you get it from.”
“You shouldn’t insult him,” Aces said.
“By sayin’ he’s silly?” Tyree chuckled, and said to Fred, “I like you, Marshal. I truly do. You’ve stood by me where I doubt few would. So don’t take it wrong of me if I laugh a little at some of the things you do.”
“I was young once,” Fred said.
“What happened to you?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I grew old.”
They took turns keeping watch. Tyree offered to go first and sat drinking coffee to keep him awake. He was excited that they might finally reach Robbers Roost the next day. His quest for revenge could soon be over.
Marshal Hitch was slow to wake to take his turn. He listened to a pack of wolves serenade the night and moodily mused on how best to stay alive when the final fight came. He had no illusions about being a match for Dunn and Lute. His wits would serve him better than his pistol, but his wits weren’t cooperating.
When it came time for Fred to wake Aces, he didn’t. Fred let him sleep another hour or so. Of all of them, Aces needed to be sharp as a honed bowie when they rode into the Roost. Aces could use the extra rest.
His own eyes were drooping when Fred shook his friend’s shoulder. “Nothin’ much doing,” he reported.
Aces stood and walked in a circle a few times to get his blood to flow. The coffeepot held enough for a last cup, and he nursed it as the wind gradually died and the sky to the east went from black to gray.
Aces always liked sunrise. It was his favorite time of the day. The rising sun never failed to fill him with a mix of pleasure and vigor that the whole world was new again.
Most days were mysteries of opportunity, but not this one. Today there was Robbers Roost. Today there were Dunn and Lute. Today might be the day he drew his last breath.
“Up and at ’em,” Aces hollered to wake the others. “We have an outlaw town to tree.”
No one was hungry. No one cared for coffee.
Ralph Compton the Evil Men Do Page 25