They were gaining fast. Rangle was making good time, but he and Benedict had been driving at a killing pace and it was paying off.
His cigarette finished, the big Texan flexed with his powerful arms and settled down to wait for the others to catch up. There was a good camping spot across the river near a clump of greasewood. They could rest up for a couple of hours here, then push on.
The river gurgled over its sandy bottom but, apart from that, the night was quiet around him. He sat on a sun-bleached boulder and wondered how long it had been since he’d been alone like this with nothing more to do for just a little while than to sit and think. Too long? It seemed a country mile too long.
His brows knitted as he thought of the old days, when Hank Brazos had been a simple Texas cowboy—before four years of war had ripped the country apart, before Bo Rangle and that never-to-be-forgotten day in Georgia, then the chance meeting with the Union captain at war’s end. And after that had come the hunting and the killing ...
Life had been so simple before the war. Everything had seemed so straightforward and uncomplicated. If he wanted to drink, he drank, even though he’d wake up sick as a dog the next day. If he wanted a little fun, all he had to do was shoot up a false front, or maybe pick up a saloon bouncer and hit him in the face with a table. He’d enjoyed fighting then; the clean, exhilarating excitement of a brawl with the hand-shaking and the drinking with your ex-adversaries that invariably followed. Had he ever been that free? Was it possible that he’d reached eighteen years of age without killing a man? He’d lost count of all the men he’d had to kill since.
He shook his head and got to his feet. It didn’t pay for a man to think too much. Pa had always told him that.
Brazos smiled now, recalling old Joe Brazos. Pa had always been too busy to worry about foolish things like sending his son to school or staying home on the ranch. He’d been too busy riding freights, working infrequently as a scullion in railroad cookshacks, and drinking. He’d dropped his teeth one by one in the gutters of the West, and had last been seen aboard a westbound stage, heading for sunny California. Old Joe had never been one to worry or think too much about anything. Was it envy his towering son felt for his father’s foolish, freewheeling way of life now, out here on the trail of the bloodiest killer ever to walk the West?
Brazos was distracted from his thoughts when he turned his head to see Bullpup sniffing about a scatter of stones some fifty yards downstream. Coyote scent, he guessed. The big trail hound could pick up the scent of a cat or a coyote in a cesspool.
But when the dog lifted his battle-scarred head and stared back along the bank at Brazos with his ears pricked in that way he had when he thought he’d found something significant, Brazos walked to him.
There were more hoofprints in the soft riverside earth.
Frowning, Brazos dropped to one knee and studied the sign. Two horses had crossed here, the imprint of one animal slightly deeper than the other. “Rider leadin’ a spare,” he thought aloud. Then, examining the tracks more closely, he determined that they had been made several hours earlier.
Bullpup waved his stubby tail in expectation of praise, but Brazos was oblivious to the hound, thinking hard. Then it hit him. They’d told him in Devil’s Fork that Brady Monk had quit the town right after Rangle had, taking along a spare saddler. There had been no sign of Monk’s tracks since they’d quit Devil’s Fork, and it hadn’t really occurred to him that Monk might have gone after Rangle. But it seemed certain that this was the case now.
A chill ran through the big man as the full significance of his discovery drove home. Rangle and Monk had fallen out in Devil’s Fork, now Monk was hunting Rangle. What for? To pay him out? It could be the only reason. And Monk was hours ahead. He might kill Rangle before they got to him ...
Brazos started slowly back to his horse, but suddenly he halted. Just a few minutes earlier, he’d been dreaming about the old days, and maybe he’d even tried to convince himself, subconsciously, that he could go back to that careless, easy way of life when this was all over. But the lethal anger that had come over him the moment he’d thought he might be cheated of his revenge had driven it home to him just how much he’d changed. There could be no going back to the past.
As for the future, it stretched bleak and uncertain ahead.
Chapter Nine
Of Love and Hate
It wasn’t a place where a man could sleep well, no matter how he tried. Those who slept did so fitfully.
Nick Beecher had dozed for an hour in his blankets with the wind whispering through the greasewoods, but he’d been awake for some time when he saw the girl rise and wrap her blanket around her shoulders. Tara stood staring towards the bluff where Hank Brazos could be seen standing watch.
“Tara?” he called softly.
The girl turned her head, then came slowly towards Beecher, stepping around the dark shape of Peter Chalkey. “Yes?” she said.
Beecher patted the earth beside him. “Set and talk a spell.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Hell, I ain’t gonna make a grab for you,” the hatchetfaced hardcase assured her. “Women I can take or leave.” He paused, then added, “Dinero is the only thing that sparks me, gold in particular. I reckon that’s somethin’ we got in common, huh?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Then set and I’ll tell you.”
The girl looked uncertainly across at the tree where Benedict sat wrapped in a dark blanket. Benedict’s head was tilted forward, his flat-brimmed gray hat angled low. Finally, Tara shrugged and sat down, not where Beecher had indicated, but several feet away. “Well?” she asked.
He leaned towards her, resting his weight on his elbows. “We must be gettin’ close to the trail’s end, blue-eyes. And trail’s end means big dinero, correct?”
“Perhaps.”
“No ‘perhaps’ about it. You and Brazos and Benedict have all been carryin’ on a treat about how all you’re interested in is making Rangle buzzard meat, but none of you have fooled me any ... least of all you. I reckon I had you tabbed right from the start, Tara. I looked into them big blue eyes of yours in Whetstone and I said to myself, ‘This is a woman who knows what really matters in life—money.’ And that’s why you joined up with this broken-winded posse, ain’t it, blue-eyes? You want to get your pretty hands on Rangle’s gold?”
“You’re boring me, Beecher,” she said coldly. “Get to the point.”
“You’re a cool one,” Beecher said admiringly. “But all right, I’ll get down to cases.” He inched a little closer, lowering his voice. “It’s time to level with you, blue-eyes, because I figure you and me can help one another. Why do you reckon me and Cody joined the posse in Whetstone?”
“The gold?”
“Got it in one. We figured that so much dinero was worth any sort of risk. It was bad luck that Cody folded, but that means one less to divvy up with. And now I’ll lay it out plain, Tara. I reckon you know where that gold is stashed. But I also reckon you know that you ain’t gonna get a smell of it with Brazos and Benedict around ... that is, unless you’ve got backin’.” He tapped his chest. “Me, blue-eyes. I reckon you and me ought to get together and start figurin’ out how we can get that gold away from them two. How does that grip you?”
“I think I’ll just forget you ever spoke to me, Mr. Beecher.”
Beecher’s eyes flared. “You turnin’ me down?”
Her lips curled in contempt. “I’m turning you down ... small-time.”
She uncoiled gracefully to her feet, Beecher’s cold eyes following her.
“I was wrong about you, blue-eyes,” he breathed. “I figured you had brains as well as good looks. I—”
He broke off at a sudden sound. Brazos was returning from his lookout. The girl gathered her blanket about her and returned to her place. Brazos came into the camp and shook Benedict awake. The two stood talking quietly for several minutes before Brazos retired to his blankets and Benedict
climbed the hill to take the next watch.
Feigning sleep, the girl waited until she was sure that Beecher had dozed off again. Then she sat up and stared across at Brazos. Deep snores lifted the battered gray hat that shielded the giant Texan’s face. Her expression became uncertain as she looked up at Benedict’s position, but finally she rose again and made her soft-footed way to the ridge.
The wind was tugging at Benedict’s coat as he turned to watch her climb towards him. She smiled at his silhouette. He was without question the handsomest man Tara Killane had ever seen. But why was it that the handsome ones had never really attracted her, only the violent ones?
Benedict continued to watch her as she reached the crest and moved past him to stare westward across the pocked and pitted landscape which to the eyes of an easterner would have looked as ugly and alien as the back side of the moon. In the distance, so faintly blue that they seemed more part of the earth than the sky, were the Rocky Mountains.
Finally she turned, moonlight shimmering in her hair. “It will be soon now, won’t it, Duke? The end of the trail, I mean.”
“Most likely.” His tone was distant.
“You still haven’t forgiven me, have you?”
He smiled humorlessly. “Her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.”
“What did you say?”
“Just a proverb. It’s from the Old Testament. Whoever wrote it must have known a thing or two about girls like you.”
“Does that mean you hate me?”
“Does it matter one way or the other?”
“I’m not sure. But perhaps I can tell you something that might make you think a little better of me.”
“Oh? And what’s that?”
She gestured at the camp. “I was talking with Beecher a while ago. He’s not to be trusted, Duke. He’s going to try and steal the gold. He wanted me to help him.”
Benedict’s eyes narrowed. “Well that doesn’t surprise me much. Johnny Reb and I realized from the start that Beecher and Cody weren’t to be trusted, but we needed their guns.” He shrugged. “We’ll keep a sharp eye on him from now on ...” Then his brow furrowed in puzzlement. “Why did you tell me about this?”
“I just don’t want to see any harm come to you. I’ve caused you enough trouble already.”
“Touching if true.”
“You really don’t believe anything I say, do you?”
“I believe what you told me about Beecher.”
“But nothing else?”
Benedict’s cynical expression faded. “You puzzle me, Tara.” he admitted.
“In what way?”
Selecting a cigar from his silver case, Benedict cupped his hands and set the Cuban alight before he went on. “I agreed to let you ride with us because, like Brazos, I thought you might be of some assistance in running Rangle down. And you were a big help when you took us to Devil’s Fork. But something about you didn’t ring true to me. When you got to talking about Rangle and how you hated him for what he’d done in Whetstone and wanting to see him dead and the rest, I didn’t believe it. I sensed that you still loved him, and I guessed that you’d elected to ride with us, not because you wanted to see Rangle dead, but because you wanted to be back with him again, and we represented your best chance of achieving that.”
She smiled. “You’re a very clever man, Duke.”
His eyebrows lifted. “You mean it’s true?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head in wonder. “He tried to kill you—left you for dead, and you still don’t hate him ...”
“Bo had no choice but to act the way he did at Whetstone. Everything went wrong. They were supposed to take care of Brazos quietly, then come for you while you were, shall we say, occupied? But when the shooting started and you were alerted to the danger, Bo had to kill you any way he could. I understood.”
“And I thought I knew a lot about women,” Benedict said. “How can a woman love a man who’d done that to her?”
“Now it’s the past tense,” she said.
“I don’t follow.”
Tara folded her arms over her breasts and her eyes grew cold. “I loved Bo Rangle, Duke,” she said unevenly. “That may be hard for a man like you to understand. But Bo and I are the same. He’s cruel and ruthless, but I’m not any different. I’ve known a lot of men, but Bo was the only real man. When we were together, it was as if all the bad things in my life suddenly were right.” She shivered in the wind. “I knew Bo was a killer and I didn’t care. I loved him and he loved me.” Her mouth twisted. “Or so I believed. He swore that, no matter what might happen to us, he would never betray me with another woman.” Her voice shook. “He promised ... he vowed he wouldn’t ...”
Understanding glimmered at last in Benedict’s eyes. “Are you thinking about the girl who left Devil’s Fork with him?” Her eyes blazed and Benedict had never seen more hatred in a human face.
“He went back to Ruby Ballard,” she said fiercely. “I could forgive him anything but that ... and I’ll see him dead for it. Do you believe me now, Duke Benedict?”
Without waiting for his reply, she suddenly turned and rushed back down the slope towards the camp. Benedict watched her and it seemed that the cool night wind blowing across the Charko Badlands had suddenly grown icy cold.
“Yes, Tara,” he said softly, “I believe you now ...”
“Bitch!” Brady Monk spat as he lay stretched out on a broad slab of rimrock under the rising sun.
Two hundred feet below, Ruby Ballard stood by the tethered horses with her arm around Bo Rangle’s lean middle.
Behind Monk, their heads drooping with exhaustion, stood the two mounts that had carried him across the brutal badland miles. Monk had spotted his quarry making camp a mile south of the timber at the mouth of Lizard River Canyon. It had taken him two hours to reach his present vantage point. The horses were played out, but not Brady Monk. His shoulder had swollen alarmingly, and fever had him alternately shivering and sweating, but his powerful body, driven by his iron will, was ready for whatever lay ahead.
Beyond the outlaw campsite, timber-covered hills stretched all the way to the canyon, and the hills beyond the canyon were thickly clothed with pine, spruce, box and birch. In the distance, a thin plume of smoke rose from the timber camp, the first sign of human habitation since Devil’s Fork. It was a small camp, operated by a handful of hardy lumberjacks who dragged their cut timber across the hills and floated them down the Rattlesnake River to the sawmill town of Bonito.
Southward, the craggy badland rock folded away into a series of sharp-backed ridges until they were lost in the Blue Rock Hills, and looming over the whole rugged landscape in the morning sunlight, the snow-covered peaks of the Rockies.
Monk watched the party sit down to a cold meal and licked at his lips. All he’d eaten since Devil’s Fork was the jackrabbit he’d shot yesterday morning. He’d had to eat the meat raw, not daring to light a fire. He’d ridden through the rough country flanking the trail most of the way, just in case Rangle should elect to backtrail to see if he was being followed.
It had been a hell of a ride ...
Monk’s big head turned so he could see the mountains. The foothills were less than a day’s ride off. The cache had to be close now. When he’d stormed from Devil’s Fork, Monk’s sole thought had been to kill Rangle. But long before dawn that first day, he’d come to realize there was a way to exact greater vengeance. He would let Bo lead him to the gold, then he’d burn him down. That would be sweet. But he wasn’t deluding himself that it would be easy. Bo was a handful on his own, and he still had backing down there. The one big thing in Monk’s favor was the fact that Rangle didn’t know he was here.
Rangle was taking his time over breakfast down there. Was this an indication that he was close to the trail’s end?
After a while, Monk bellied back from the lip of the rise and got to his feet to roll a cigarette. His shoulder was throbbing, but he hardly noticed it any mor
e. As soon as this was over, he would heat his Bowie knife in a fire and slice the wound open to let the badness out. He turned his broad back to protect tobacco and papers from the west wind, and as he did his eyes caught the distant stir of movement.
The cigarette dropped from the killer’s hands as he stared. In the distance, angling down the long, sloping face of the same high yellow hill he’d crossed during the night, came a line of riders.
Brady Monk had no idea how long he stood there rooted to the spot. Then he heard a shout drift up from below. Dropping flat, he bellied back to the crest lip again and peered down. Rangle’s lookout, posted on a knoll on the north side of the camp, was shouting to the men below and gesticulating backtrail.
Bo Rangle plunged up the face of the knoll, field glasses swinging from his hand. He climbed to the top of the crest and fixed the glasses to his eyes. Monk saw the tall, powerful figure stiffen. Then Stonehill shouted up.
“Who is it, Bo?”
The glasses slowly lowered and Monk could see that Rangle’s face had gone pale. His words went through Monk like a hot knife.
“Brazos and Benedict!”
Bo Rangle was calm by the time he reached the camp. He was no longer concerned about how Benedict and Brazos had done it. They were there, and they were coming fast. Now he had to figure out a plan of action.
Rangle’s brain hummed as the others gathered around him. It was still a long ride to the mission. If they started off now, they could make the mission well ahead of their pursuers. But what then? He could set up an ambush, but what about the gold? There was no guarantee they could take both Benedict and Brazos out. The best he could hope for was to fight his way clear and run without the gold ...
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