“Why’d you think that?”
“I know you, Sis. You had that ‘I’m going to hell’ look. The one you get when you hate yourself so much all you want to do is destroy yourself.”
“Suicide ain’t my thing.”
“There’s a difference between suicide and getting yourself killed. I figured it would be Sam who came back if anyone did. He’s solid, even if he is from New York.
“Amber? Yeah, I can see her blowing herself up if she could take bad guys with her. She’d been too badly broken. But tough as nails when she needed to dally-up on a hard situation.”
Breeze snapped, “So, when—while you were branding calves and fixing fence— did you become the world’s psychiatrist?”
He ignored her. “You? I figured you’d be the last one out. That you’d make it an Alamo kind of last stand, with bodies piled all around. Given what I saw from up on that ridge, you gave it a fair shot, what with that D8 and all.”
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Nope. Made me a happy man when you showed up behind those poor people you rescued.” He paused. “But you’ve still got that self-destructive thing burning inside you. Pissed at the world, and damn the consequences.” He shot her a look. “What we are to each other? That mean anything to you?”
“Oh, hell, Brandon, of course it does. You’re the only person in the family that never passed judgment on me.”
“Then promise me that you’ll spend some time with Thomas. That’s all. After that, I won’t say another word.”
“So...I promise.”
“Good.”
They tackled another tough section of trail. Breeze considered herself an expert horsewoman, but several times she and Joker came within a whisker of disaster on the steep down hills where the trail descended over slithery-slick rocks. Rather than heart-stopping, she was wondering if her chest would burst from blood-pulsing cardiac exuberance.
Joker snuffled, as if he understood.
Not ten minutes later the echo of a shot carried through the clouds.
Brandon pulled up, asking softly, “You hear that?”
“Yeah, behind us. Definitely not Shanteel. Didn’t come from the canyon.”
Brandon let the horses blow and rest, his head cocked, listening for anything.
“Willy?” Breeze guessed.
“Yeah.” Beneath the shadow of his hat brim, she could see Brandon’s concern as he said, “Edgewater’s hirelings couldn’t have followed us this far without help. They’re not backcountry people. I’d say they drafted an outfitter. A local. Someone like Bradley Cole, but from the Cody area. Maybe one of the Mathew bunch. Or the Ackermans.”
“Hard hunting in this fog, little brother.”
“My money’s on Willy. He knows how to hunt men.”
“Damn them. They’ve got us killing each other.” She thought back to the day she and Sam had shot up the posse, how her first burst took Bradley Cole out of the saddle. Just a man hired to do a job.
“Horses are rested.” Her brother clucked Midnight onward.
Brandon did know her better than she knew herself. She had been at war with the world ever since she was a little girl. What the hell was wrong with her that she always had to fight her way through, only to realize she felt disappointed that the world had somehow let her win?
But then, Brandon hadn’t mowed down those men, women, and children on I-25. Guilty of no more than empty stomachs and an association with a desperate bunch of thugs in search of a way out.
A half-hour later they descended beneath the cloud layer to the point that she could see a couple hundred yards in every direction.
The mountain solidified on her left, rugged with cracked outcrops, talus slopes, rocky precipices, and peppered with whitebark pines and denser stands of firs and spruce. The trail led them out from the canyon head and dropped them just above the flat on the eastern side of Frying Pan Canyon. The gently sloping shoulder of the ridge lay before them—thickly timbered as it extended to the north. The trail here bent east, clinging to the base of the soaring basalt to finally top out on the ridge where it tied into the trail above the field camp.
For all intents and purposes, this was her back yard. Home.
The sound of a horse whinnying made her turn in the saddle. Back up in the clouds, a tumbling rock clattered and cracked as it bounced down a steep section. The faint strike of a shod hoof on stone could be heard.
“How the hell did they get so close?” Brandon asked, a note of disbelief in his voice.
Breeze chewed her lips, bringing Joker to a halt. Behind her, the pack string snuffled, one of the mules shaking its head hard enough to slap its ears back and forth.
What to do?
“Bro, here. Take the pack string.” She walked Joker up beside Midnight and handed Brandon the lead rope.
“What are you going to do?” Brandon asked warily, his eyes thin-lidded.
“I’m going to hold them here.” She gestured at the trail. “It’s a bottleneck. Slope on one side, drop off on the other. Slow ‘em down at least.”
“And then what?” he asked harshly. “I mean after they shoot you dead?”
“I won’t let it get that far.” She pointed east. “When it looks like they’re coming through, Joker and I will make a run for it. I can stay just far enough ahead. Lead them over the pass and down the south side. Right into the headwaters of Horse Creek. Lose them in the timber above Dubois.”
“Why you and not me?”
“Because the woman you love is waiting for you down in those trees. Because you’ve got a future with her.” She grinned. “Me, I’ve got my war with the universe.”
He reached across, taking her hand, squeezing it. “You promise me you’re not going to get yourself killed just to say ‘fuck you’ to the world, all right?”
She gave him a bawdy wink. “Yeah, I promise. And I love you, too, little brother.”
“I mean it,” he called as he spurred Midnight off the trail, leading the pack string out onto a section of bedrock.
In a sweeping move, she doffed her hat, then wheeled Joker around. She slipped the M4 from beneath her slicker and checked the magazine. She had sixteen rounds left.
The hollow sound of a hoof on stone carried to her. Closer. They were coming fast.
Glancing over her shoulder, it was to see Brandon leading the pack string down into the timber. An instant later he was out of sight.
Looking at the ground, he’d barely left tracks. Good. As soon as she could see to shoot, she’d fire a couple of rounds to get their attention, do as much damage as she could. Once she had their blood up, she’d wheel Joker and run for the pass. The trick would be to stay just far enough ahead they could catch glimpses of her, but not be close enough that they could shoot her or Joker.
“You know what we’re about,” she told her buckskin horse, stepping down and showing Joker the rifle. He twitched his lips and pulled back on the reins, ears pricked.
Joker had never liked gun shots, but she’d trained him to tolerate them without pitching into a rodeo.
That had been a couple of years back. There was no telling what bad habits Dad might have instilled in her beloved gelding in the meantime. Just to be safe, she stepped off the trail, clipped the lead rope to Joke’s halter, and tied it off on a sapling.
Perching on a boulder, she shouldered the M4, flipped the fire control to semi-auto, and took a deep breath. The sound of hooves could be heard clearly now. Close.
Back along the trail, she could see two horses emerging from the low-hanging clouds. One, a black, was awkwardly leading the way. Riderless. The saddle had slipped down under the horse’s belly; the stirrups were flopping and bouncing off to either side. The second, a sorrel, limped along behind, ears pricked, what was left of the reins dangling. At least the sorrel’s empty saddle was still on the animal’s back.
Joker whickered, the black answered and galloped forward, in apparent relief. The sorrel hobbled along afterward, obviousl
y hurt.
“Here you go,” Breeze called, setting the M4 to one side. She stood boldly in the trail, reaching out and getting a hold on the black’s bridle. The nervous gelding tried to toss his head, eyes rolling.
“Easy there. Easy now.” Breeze patted the animal’s sweaty neck, felt it tremble under her hand. “Looks like you’ve had a tough morning.”
She led him to one side, used the single rein still dangling from the bit to tie him off, and walked over to where the trembling sorrel mare had stopped, head hanging, bloody foam lining her lips where the bit had cut into the mouth. Scrapes and cuts, a bloody gash the length of her left front cannon bone, and scuffs on the saddle showed where she’d taken a nasty tumble.
Breeze squinted back up the trail, picturing what the thick cloud now hid. Someone had pushed too fast, too hard. Or didn’t have the skills to keep his seat. Or the horses weren’t used to such difficult mountain terrain.
“Looks like you two dodged the bullet, doesn’t it?” she asked as she stepped around to the black, loosened the cinch, and pulled the saddle and blanket back into position. As she tightened the cinch, she said, “People sure make a good horse’s life difficult, don’t they?”
She untied Joker, retrieved her M4, and stepped into the saddle. Riding over, she took the black’s single rein, and stared thoughtfully back up the trail. If there was pursuit back there, they’d be busy cleaning up a nasty wreck.
She no more than started off on Brandon’s tracks than another horse whinnied, this one off to the east. Between her and home. And from the sound of, it, not far either.
Before she could react, Joker answered back, his returning whinny loud in the still air.
“Shit!” How many damn horses are up here, anyway?
Breeze pulled Joker up. The slight breeze was at her back, blowing straight toward the trees that masked the unseen equine.
A couple hundred yards to the south, just down in the timber, Brandon would be picking up the rest of the women. She didn’t dare try and head back up the trail. That would put her smack dab in the middle of her pursuers. That left her trapped betwixt and between.
She spurred Joker eastward, angling down the slope, wondering if she could get into the trees, cut lower on the mountain below the trail. With a little luck—and no more knot-headed horse interference—she might be able to just sneak around the side, get behind whoever this was.
Damn it! The only explanation was that Edgewater’s people had somehow figured out which way Breeze and Brandon were headed. They’d trucked men and animals to the ranch, headed them up the trail to intercept the girls before they could make their escape.
Breeze ground her teeth, a sinking feeling dragging her guts down. So close. They’d been so damned close.
“And you had to promise Brandon you’d try and get out of this alive.”
Well, shit. She’d meant it when she said it, but that was then.
Reaching back to her pack where it was tied behind the cantle, she fished the last hand grenade from the zippered pouch on the side.
Sure as shit they wouldn’t be expecting a grenade. Dropping it into her coat pocket, she grasped the M4 by its pistol grip, reins in her left.
She was crossing a decades-old burn on the mountain’s north slope; lodgepole and firs had come back over the years, growing up in a mosaic of timber patches. She wound her way around and through them at a walk, head cocked, listening for the slightest sound.
Assuming she heard them first, she could turn away at a right angle, seek to avoid contact. Once she was behind them, she could hit them from the rear. Shoot a couple, turn, and race for the pass, leaving the way clear for Brandon and the girls.
If she rounded a clump of trees and ran smack into the middle of them, she’d flip the fire control, fire a burst, and slap heels to Joker. If the gunfire over his ears didn’t send him into a bucking fit, she’d charge right through them, firing all the way.
In the process, she’d drop the two riderless horses to add to the confusion. Then, as soon as she was past, she’d pull the pin, toss the grenade over her shoulder, and light out for the Dubois side.
Brandon and Shanteel—hearing the gunfire and explosion—would be well aware of the danger.
Meanwhile, if nobody shot her, and if Joker hadn’t pitched her off, she’d lead the pursuers a merry chase down into the Horse Creek headwaters.
“Gotta love a plan.” She patted Joker’s neck and whispered, “It’s going to be loud, old friend. Don’t buck me off, all right? Get me out of this, and you’ll roll in oats for the rest of your life.”
Her heart began to hammer as she searched the screening trees, her ears cocked for the slightest sound.
“Where the hell are they? How many?”
Images flashed in her memory. She was living the I-25 checkpoint all over again. Her mouth had gone dry, every nerve on edge.
I’m tired of it. Let’s just get it over with.
She reined Joker downhill, skirting another stand of young fir trees. On the damp ground, the light drizzle falling, the only sound of their passage came from the labored steps the wounded sorrel was taking.
Water dripped from the fir branches; a chickadee sang melodically to the morning. In reply a squirrel chirred down in the trees below.
She thought she heard a stick snap somewhere up slope. Was that them? One thing was sure, this wasn’t any bunch of townies, clumping and clattering along. She heard no clink of metal, no nervous chatter, not even the strike of a hoof on stone.
The raven gave them away. The big black bird was flying from tree to tree, only to stop, peer down at something below, and then flap to the next tall conifer to repeat the process.
Breeze had seen it before. During hunting season when the ravens acted just like this. Following hunters. Knowing that after the gun went off, the humans would leave a hot, steaming pile of entrails. A perfect raven feast.
Here we go.
Breeze pulled Joker to a stop, raised the M4, and flipped the fire control with her thumb. Joker tensed, every muscle bunched. His ears were pricked, attention fixed in the same direction the raven was headed.
The faintest creak of saddle leather could be heard through the trees. Then a soft clumping sound as a hoof knocked a bit of dead wood.
Please. Just ride past.
Her breath went shallow, the tingle of fear and worry eating at her nerves. The wall of green between her and her nemesis seemed so fragile, as if at any second it would be torn by bullets.
She heard the soft thunk of a rifle butt on a saddle horn.
Okay, so it was the worst. She took a deep breath, fished out the hand grenade, and aimed the M4 at the break in the trees where the rider would appear in the next few seconds.
When the voice spoke right behind her, she flinched so hard she almost triggered the gun.
“Please don’t shoot Meggan. That would really piss your grandfather off.”
She whirled, heart in throat, to see her father, leaned forward on his saddle, a grin on his face as he walked Jackpot out from behind the screen of trees.
“Daddy?”
“Good to see you girl. Now, where’s your brother and these mysterious women? We’ve got things to do, places to go, and people to see.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The courtroom looked pretty much like Sam figured a courtroom would look: Judge’s raised bench made out of fancy wood in the back, the jury box with cushioned chairs off to the left. Two tables, one for prosecution, the other for defense out front. Off to the right the bailiff and recorder’s tables. A railing, and then bench-seating all the way to the back of the room.
Governor Agar—freshly arrived from Cheyenne, having flown up special despite the weather—sat in the judge’s chair behind the raised desk. The man’s close-cropped black hair actually shone in the light. His brown eyes had a thoughtful look, and he leaned slightly to the side, head cocked.
Evan Holly, along with Court and two of the governor’s aides, sat
in the jury box. Senator Briarson and Sully Richardson both hunched forward over the prosecutor’s table, and four Highway Patrol officers—two women and two men—stood in the rear, guarding the door.
Sam sat uncomfortably in a wheelchair just inside the railing. His ribs were tightly bound; his bruised body felt distinctly uncomfortable as he shifted to ease the sore spots.
Old Bill Tappan, wearing a leather vest, his battered black cowboy hat on his silver head, sat with his arm extended on the first-row pew. The man’s 1911 could be seen in the holster at his hip.
Every eye was on Director Kevin Edgewater where he hunched in the defendant’s chair. His body appeared more bulbous than it had been last time Sam had seen him. The mousey brown hair had grown down over his ears and reached to his collar. If anything, Edgewater’s cheeks were rounder, his nose smaller, but his blue eyes had gone from lazy to quick.
Sully Richardson’s troopers and a collection of picked deputies and Cody city police had moved with precision the moment the word had been radioed north. In force, in the wee morning hours, they’d raided the top floor of the Irma Hotel where Edgewater had set up residence in the Phonograph Jones room.
They’d arrested him neatly, quietly, and efficiently, handcuffing his five-remaining bodyguards. The rest of his lackeys—it was no secret—were up in the Carter Mountains, looking for “the paramilitary commando force” that had destroyed Clark Ranch. Sources from within the Sheriff’s Office also reported that any stray women that might be found up there were also to be rounded up and “interrogated”.
“You really don’t want to make this worse for yourselves than it already is,” Edgewater insisted in his high-pitched voice. “I am the duly authorized federal authority. And you’re playing with trouble like you’ve never seen.”
Governor Agar mildly said, “Under the Wyoming criminal code you’re charged with kidnapping, rape, sexual trafficking, extortion, theft, first-and-second-degree murder, assault, brandishing a deadly weapon, nonpayment for products and services rendered, destruction of cultural property, theft of antiquities, rustling, and, well, just about everything in the code when you get right down to it.”
Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One Page 37
