Branded

by Eric Red

  The thundering rumbling roar of the avalanche was a complete deafening cacophony of ceaseless noise as, after the ice shelves collapsed, the million tons of snow they once held back was released like water from a burst dam. Those tons and tons of snow fell down the mountain in landslides of gargantuan size, crushing and burying everything in a relentless path of destruction.

  Half a mile down, the tiny figures of the bounty hunter and the marshal were directly in its deadly path. Joe Noose could hear the avalanche above them breathing down their necks. Bess Sugarland clung to his arm with both hands, holding on to her friend with all her strength and he didn’t let her go. Feeling the same raw terror so plain in her face.

  Locking eyes and exchanging desperate looks as they held hands, Noose and Bess felt themselves picking up speed during their tobogganing descent riding a landslide of snow. More snow came down on them every second and they were getting covered with it. Still they didn’t look back. Just at each other. And held tight to one another, holding on for dear life.

  Exploding down the mountain, the disastrous landslide snowballed in size and mass with every inch of its unstoppable advance, death by a million tons of snow bearing down on Noose and Bess. The bounty hunter could hear and feel catastrophe closing in. There wasn’t much time.

  A flash of gold caught his eye.

  Copper was still tethered to the tree Noose hitched him to, now a few hundred yards distant. The horse was looking up at the avalanche. Joe knew Copper could have chewed through those reins and been long gone after the avalanche started but the horse was waiting for Noose, would wait as long as it took for his master to get to him, even if it meant the stallion getting crushed in the avalanche. But that was one scared horse looking up at the mountain coming down on top of it.

  “Bess!” He pointed to his stallion. “Copper!”

  Get to his horse.

  If anything on earth could get them out of the path of the avalanche, Copper could.

  It was only a short distance on foot to the horse to saddle up . . . they might make it.

  “Now!” Noose threw his arms around Bess and heaved both of them off the landslide, tumbling onto the snowpack where the man and woman made for the horse in a dead run through snow up to their knees.

  The snow was just too deep.

  They had to trudge through it, Noose and Bess pulling each other, plowing through the snow using their knees to push the stalling weight of it out of their way, moving in slow motion as the mountain crashed down above them. Copper reared and pawed his forelegs in the air, warm brown eyes wide in urgency. It actually bellowed. In horse-speak that meant Move your ass!

  Because behind them reared an avalanche about to bury them under nature’s fury.

  As the awesome shadow of the landslide rose up and its darkness fell over them, Noose and Bess reached the saddle. The woman already had the knife out so she cut the tether, the man already up in the stirrups on the horse, grabbing the reins, reaching out a hand to haul her up, and she took it just as Copper launched into a hard gallop, the horse’s velocity lifting her boots off the ground, catapulting her up into the saddle, where her ass landed on the back behind Noose. Bess wrapped her arms around Joe and held on for dear life as he leaned into Copper, the good, fast horse giving them all it had, charging hard to get ahead of the avalanche chasing them, trying to outrun a falling mountain dropping on their heads.

  The stallion galloped through the snow in high powerful long strides, Noose and Bess tight in the saddle. The snow-covered terrain ahead was steep and uneven but Copper negotiated the hidden ruts in a display of prowess, taking leaps and jumps and tight turns, fleet on his hooves.

  “Go, boy, go!” yelled Noose, urging Copper on. His horse gave it more speed. The man’s voice was drowned by the wind and sleet blasting their faces and clothes. Looking over his shoulder, Bess was heartened by open country ahead.

  Feeling confident they had outrun the avalanche, Bess Sugarland did the one thing Joe Noose warned her not to: She looked back.

  And what the marshal saw was so terrifying she nearly fainted and fell out of the saddle, her face the color of ash “O-Oh. My G-God.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “W-W-W—”

  “Spit it out!”

  “We’re not going to make it, Joe!”

  It was a split-second decision Noose made, as the rushing shadow of the avalanche fell across them again. Even Copper couldn’t outrun Mother Nature but the courageous galloping stallion kept trying. Swinging his gaze in the saddle, Noose looked east and saw the top of the canyon bluffs drop off. Out of view, a hundred feet below lay the Snake River’s powerful rapids raging through the mountains.

  Pulling on the reins and leaning hard, Noose steered Copper in a sharp left, straight for the cliffs.

  “Hold on tight, Bess!”

  “Look out! We’re riding straight at a cliff!”

  “Yeah, we’re jumping! The Snake River’s down there! Ain’t our first rodeo, Bess! We done this before, remember?”

  “That was in the summer!”

  The edge of the bluff rushed up at them as Copper closed the space between the cliff and them at full gallop. A hundred feet . . . seventy feet . . .

  Behind in the wake of the horse, the landslide rose and roared and blocked out the sun, crashing ice and snow coming down on them in detonations behind their stallion’s hooves. Thirty feet . . . twenty . . .

  “That avalanche is gonna kill us in about ten seconds, so listen up! When Copper jumps, get out of the saddle, fast! Fall as far away from the horse as you can, so he doesn’t land on top of you in the river. Once you’re in the water, swim back to Copper as fast as you can and hang on good and tight! Big rapids down there! And try not to hit the rocks when you land!”

  “You’re crazy, Joe!”

  “Here we go!”

  In a mighty jump, Copper leapt over the edge of the cliff with Noose and Bess in the saddle. A dizzying drop opened up yawning below them. And then they were falling fast through dead air, the roar of the avalanche in their ears, the thunder of the river rising in volume, the smell of the icy fresh water rapids filling their nostrils. Noose pushed Bess out of the saddle at the same time as he threw himself off his horse. Seconds later, the man, woman, and horse hit the white water simultaneously in an enormous splash.

  They missed the rocks and landed in deep white-water rapids whose raging force swept them violently downstream, somersaulting head over heels. The chilling temperature of the water was such a stunning shock to their system Noose and Bess almost lost consciousness. The woman choked from the bite of the frigid water. Noose let out a roar and reached out to grab for her, his big fist closing on her wrist as with his other hand he swam for Copper, the horse paddling its legs and neighing, trying to stay afloat. Fighting the currents with all his strength, in a few powerful strokes the bounty hunter reached his horse and grabbed an arm around the saddle. Pulling Bess to him, he helped get her arms on the saddle and they both clung to Copper, gasping for breath. The three rode the icy rapids swiftly downstream, bursting waves of white water hitting them in the face, the bracing cold bringing them back around to their senses.

  The deafening roar of the raging avalanche exploding over the cliffs filled their ears. It was a narrow escape. Noose and Bess clung on to Copper’s saddle, carried downriver in the frigid rapids, teeth chattering and soaked in subzero river water. The bounty hunter and the marshal were glad to be rid of the cold desolation of that place neither hoped they would ever return to.

  Looking back, they saw the bluffs behind them disappear under a million tons of avalanche snow, as farther and farther the Snake River took Joe Noose and Bess Sugarland out of the frozen place in the high elevations of Wyoming called Destiny, where some fulfilled their destiny and others wished they hadn’t.

  CHAPTER 39

  Beginning their long journey home, Noose and Bess rode side by side across a winter plain, taking their sweet time, in no hurry to get back
.

  The marshal had purchased a fresh horse, a lovely chestnut mare, from a small stable they had ridden past, and once she got saddled, Bess named her new horse Scout. Copper was instantly smitten with Scout whose tawny color complimented its own bronze coat, and the two horses had been flirting.

  Somewhere on a snowy road thirty miles south of Consequence, Joe saw Bess was looking over at him with a considering gentle gaze.

  “Penny for your thoughts, cowboy.”

  “Thinking about Emmett.”

  “Poor guy.”

  “He was a friend.”

  “I liked him. He tried to do his best, I think, but, I don’t know. For him, with his father, his brother, it was all so complicated. Too complicated in the end. But, yeah, he had a good heart, Emmett did, I do believe that. But he was a puzzle.”

  “I feel sorry for him, Bess. He was a good man who came from bad stock, that’s all. He wanted to do good but all his good intentions got twisted up and tied in knots because of his family upbringing. Kinda like light through cracked glass. Being a Quaid, Emmett never had a chance. But he would have if he could. I always saw the struggle in him to rise above the bad in himself, the Quaid side, to find the better angels of his nature he knew he had in there. Guess he reminded me of me, Bess.”

  “I can see that, a little, I suppose. But Emmett wasn’t you, Joe, not even close.” She threw him a glance. “He got to you, didn’t he?”

  He shrugged. “We were both branded by the same man, Emmett and me, in different ways but branded just the same. That night I got the hot iron we all did, Willard included. The same bad thing happened to all of us but we took it different, went different paths when we grew up, and I’m alive and they’re dead. Been asking myself how I come through and they didn’t, having the same thing done to us and each of us turning out so different. Think I know.”

  “Go on.”

  “It’s not what happens to you, it’s what you make of it. What you do with what life hands you makes you what you are. My brand made me who I am, because I chose to do the right thing because of it. My actions aren’t because of an old flesh wound, but because of me.” He shrugged.

  “Of course.”

  “It was on my mind.”

  “What else is on your mind, Joe Noose?”

  “Family.”

  “Well, there’s good ones and bad ones. I had a good one with my pop. Quaid boys had a bad one. Abraham Quaid was the devil. He destroyed his two sons. You, too, nearly, when you were a kid.”

  “Yeah, he branded his own sons like he branded me, but I was lucky, I see now. I could get away and they couldn’t. I wasn’t kin. They were. Emmett and Willard had it worse than me because they were branded inside, for life. My brand was a flesh wound, Emmett and Willard got their souls branded and souls don’t heal.”

  “I don’t know about that, Joe.”

  “Been wonderin’. Is that what family does, brand you? Never had me a family, never even knew my folks. You know all that.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “So I been thinking. Time was I thought that not having no parents or knowing who they are was a bad thing, now I ain’t so sure. Got to be the man I wanted to be because my family didn’t stop me ’cause there wasn’t one. Now I’m glad I never had a family.”

  Noose felt Bess’s eyes on him.

  “You do have a family, Joe.” He looked at her, fell into her strong and steady gaze. “You’re riding one and riding beside the other.”

  “Family is who you ride beside. I like that.” Joe Noose had to smile, couldn’t help himself. The man felt a flood of warmth through his entire body, from his fingers to his toes and it started at his heart.

  Right then, the sun came out.

  * * *

  Two days later at the town of Wind River, Marshal Bess found a telegraph office and sent a wire to the U.S. Marshal’s office in Jackson Hole three hundred miles south. She checked in with her deputy Nate Sweet to see how things were back in Jackson the whole time she was away. He telegraphed back promptly that the town was quiet except for a few cattle and sheep rancher disputes he had to intervene with, but nothing he couldn’t handle. Reassured that her competent new lawman hire had things under control. Bess wired back that her mission was over and the killer was dead, and that she was riding back, although with the weather conditions, it could take several weeks. Sweet told her not to rush, and they agreed to check in with each other by telegraph at several terminals that her deputy had already identified, aware of his boss’s movements over the preceding weeks.

  After Bess and Noose had reprovisioned and ridden out of Wind River into the northwestern Wyoming hill country, Joe Noose saw his friend Bess Sugarland seemed more relaxed about things regarding her job and responsibilities in Jackson Hole. That turned out to be a good thing, because they were about to experience a few delays.

  The following week, the bad chest cold and chills that had dogged Bess since their difficult ride down the freezing rapids in Destiny resulting in her weakened condition on the ride back, got the better of her. Despite being hardy and tough, the woman was suffering from exposure. One morning, seized with an attack of chills, she simply fainted and fell out of the saddle.

  Luckily for them both, the lady marshal’s collapse occurred ten miles out of the town of Sawyer, Wyoming. Noose got Bess back on her horse, and with Scout in tow, galloped for the town without stopping. Copper, somehow sensing Bess’s dangerous condition, ran with exceptional power and stamina and got them there within two hours.

  The growing mining town had an excellent doctor, and Noose carried her into the hospital in his arms. She was given immediate excellent treatment. For the next two weeks, Bess was confined to bed rest and a steady diet of liquids, soups, and vitamin concoctions of some kind. Noose spent most of every day at her side and, even though he checked into the local hotel, visited her several times every night. Her friend knew his presence was a great help to her. While they never talked about it and he didn’t bring it up, Joe Noose knew it wasn’t just exposure that had made Bess Sugarland sick, but the built-up tensions and stress of their dangerous hunt for The Brander her body only now was able to deal with because she couldn’t in the midst of it.

  And there was something else bothering Bess, making her distant and brooding. Noose didn’t ask her what it was as he sat by her bed ten days into her hospice. He knew she would tell him when she was ready. They had been quiet for several hours, looking out her window at the people passing on the street, when a bluebird lit on the windowsill outside, and at last she came out with it.

  “I killed six men, Joe. One by my gun. The rest by my direct action.”

  “It was them or you.”

  “Why don’t that make me feel better about it? You killed a lot of men, Joe. How do you live with it?”

  “Just do.”

  “That doesn’t help.”

  “It comes with the job. You and me have different jobs, but we do the same thing. We are the law against men and women whose only law is the Law of the Gun. Those men you killed, the men and the one woman I killed, they died by the law they chose to live by: the gun.”

  “True. That’s a good way to look at it.”

  “If we hadn’t been there, they’d have killed a lot of folks who couldn’t protect themselves, the ones we take responsibility to protect.”

  “Also true.”

  “Did you ever ask your daddy how he felt?”

  “I did not. And I don’t know if he would have told me.”

  “And these bad guys we bury, there’s one last thing to remember, even if you forget all the rest.”

  “What’s that, Joe?”

  “If you didn’t kill the bad guys, somebody else would.” She laughed. He did, too.

  “So you gonna quit?” He cast a glance at her badge on the table beside her.

  “What? No! Why the hell would I do that?”

  He raised an eyebrow at her. Because of what we just talked about.

  �
��That’ll be the day.”

  That afternoon, Marshal Bess Sugarland was out of bed and back in the saddle, and with Joe Noose at her side, they had put twenty miles between them and the town by sundown.

  * * *

  Homeward bound, they were taking the ride slow.

  Four days later, fifty-two miles farther, Noose and Bess rode through empty hill country. They could smell cows. As their horses crested a rise, the sprawling view of a big valley opened up before them occupied by five hundred head of steers standing stationary on the plain. Noose and Bess had happened upon a cattle drive but the gigantic procession of horns and hooves stood at a dead standstill spread across the plain. Off to the right, unmanned wagons were parked. Fifteen horses, saddled and riderless, were hitched to them.

  “Where are all the people?” Bess wondered.

  Noose pointed. “There.”

  Far off across the valley at the edge of the forest, a group of wranglers stood in a circle, hats off, heads bowed, somber figures very small at this distance. The ramrods were all men, but there appeared to be a female in their midst at the head of the circle. Her blond hair beneath her Stetson was recognizable even at this distance.

  “Is that?” Bess wondered.

  “I best believe it is.” Noose grinned.

  “Let’s say hello.”

  The two of them spurred their horses and rode down across the plain, galloping past the enormous herd of cattle the size of which became more impressive the closer they rode. Noose and Bess cleared it, cantering toward the grim gathering of the wranglers, who now saw them coming. A pall hung over the group and the faces who watched their approach looked sad.

  But Laura Holdridge smiled, her face brightening like the sun, as she whipped off her Stetson and flagged it over her head at Joe Noose and Bess Sugarland as they waved back and rode up to her. “Joe Noose and Marshal Bess Sugarland. I’ll be damned. What are the odds of running into you way out here?”