“Who are you taking with you?” Vern wanted to know.
“Nobody. I’m going it alone.”
“That’s my brother they shot.”
“All the more reason for you to stay here and look after him. And help Fred look after the town while I’m away. That’s your job now, remember?”
“So you can stretch the limits of what your job is supposed to be, but nobody else can. Is that it?” Vern ventured.
“Yeah, it is. And if you can’t accept that, if you can’t take orders, then you can’t work for me. That means you can go charging out there on your own if you want. But if you do, you’d damn well better stay out of my way.”
Fred held up his hands, palms out. “Hey, fellas. Marshal. Vern. Everybody needs to calm down, okay?”
Bob and Vern continued to glare at one another for several beats. Then, finally, Vern looked away. Shoulders slumping, he said, “You’re right, Marshal. It’s your call to make. I was out of line. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Bob nodded. “That’s better. And you got nothing to be sorry for. Neither one of you.” He swept his eyes to include Fred. “You both did a helluva fine job last night. I couldn’t be prouder . . . Now, I need to know I can count on you to keep doing that kind of job while I go do what I have to. Try to understand. If you can’t do that, just trust me.”
“I trust you, Marshal. I always have,” said Fred.
Vern turned back to face them. “You can count on me, Marshal. I’ll follow Fred’s lead and we’ll take good care of the town while you’re away.”
Chapter 36
Entering his own house shouldn’t have felt so strange. After all, he hadn’t been staying away for that long. Bob suddenly realized it was neither the returning nor the length of time he’d been away that was bothering him. It was the fact he was coming back only to be leaving again . . . and he’d have to explain his reasons once more, this time to Bucky and Consuela.
He figured they would have heard all about the events of last night, so it came as no surprise they were up and waiting for him in the kitchen. Ordinarily, since it was not a school day, Bucky would not have been out of bed for very long, but he looked as if he’d been awake for some time. Consuela appeared as fresh and lovely as she always did.
“Wow, Pa. You look like a half-drowned cat,” Bucky greeted him.
“Bucky! What a disrespectful thing to say to your father,” Consuela promptly chided.
“That’s okay. Boy’s just being honest.” Bob grinned as he took a seat at the table. “Besides, if that’s how I look, then it’s better than I feel.”
Consuela said, “I have clean clothes laid out in your room. And I have pots of water ready to pour a hot bath.”
“Do you see any wings on her, Bucky?” Bob said to his son. “I swear she’s talking the language of an angel down from Heaven.”
“She’s the same Consuela as usual, Pa. She’s always thinking ahead for us,” Bucky reminded him. Then, scrunching up his face, he added, “All I ask is that you use up all that hot water or else she’ll get the idea I oughta take a bath, too.”
“Not that it would hurt you. But the first use I want to make of some hot water is a cup of that fresh-cooked coffee I can smell.”
Consuela rose to get it for him.
“Are things gonna go back to normal now, Pa? Are you gonna be comin’ home at nights and not makin’ us stay clear of the jail like you have been?”
“That’s the general idea, son.” Bob hesitated before he tacked on the next part. He knew neither Bucky nor Consuela were going to like hearing it, not any more than he liked having to tell them. “Here’s the thing. Before everything goes back to normal, I’ve still got some unfinished business to take care of. If you heard about the things that happened last night, you know the prisoner we had in jail was busted out.”
“I heard one of your deputies got shot.”
“That’s true. But he’s gonna recover okay.” Consuela placed a mug of coffee in front of Bob, along with the sugar bowl, some milk, and a spoon. Settling back into her seat, she said, “So you’re going after the escaped prisoner and those who broke him out.”
Bob looked at her. “How did you know? Who told you?”
She met his eyes. “No one told me. I know you, don’t I? I would expect nothing less from you.”
Bob stirred sugar and milk into his coffee, thinking that maybe the telling wasn’t going to be so difficult after all.
“Is it true, Pa?” Bucky asked.
“Afraid so, pal. A man got loose from my jail. A dangerous man it was my job to keep behind bars, keep away from honest folks he might harm. Same for those who helped break him out. So now I need to fix what got broken—to go after those dangerous skunks, get ’em in custody again before they do harm any more innocents, and see to it they pay for what they’ve already done.”
“You goin’ after them alone?”
“There’ll be others on the lookout for ’em, too. I sent notice out to make sure of that. But I’m the only who’ll be chasing them from here. It’s not a job for a posse, and I need Fred and Deputy Vern to stay and keep an eye on our town.”
“When will you be leaving?” Consuela asked.
“Soon as I can get ready. But I am gonna take time for that bath and those warm, dry clothes,” Bob assured her and took a big swallow of his coffee. “Have you two eaten breakfast yet?”
Consuela shook her head. “No. We were waiting, hoping you’d join us.”
“Now there’s more words that sound like they ought to be accompanied by the flutter of angel wings,” Bob declared. “And ones I’m not about to pass up on. Tell you what. Give me time for a quick soak to warm my bones and then, while I’m getting dressed, if you’ll make good on that breakfast offer with a big batch of scrambled eggs and bacon, you won’t be able to beat me out of here with a stick until I’ve eaten my share and more.”
Half an hour later, following the bath, Bob was in his room getting dressed. In addition to the socks, long johns, trousers, and shirt that she’d laid out, Consuela had also included his heavy sheepskin-lined coat. On the bed she had also placed his old war bag, taken from deep within the closet. It was a sturdy affair made of fringed buckskin and had endured many hard miles—most of them in the possession of none other than the Devil’s River Kid. Of the items that always stayed with the bag, most prominent was the backup Schofield revolver he periodically took out and oiled. Consuela had also added fresh, waxed-paper-wrapped packs of beef jerky and hardtack. Bob smiled, remembering Bucky’s words. “She’s always thinking ahead for us.”
He packed the bag and carried it to the kitchen.
Breakfast was delicious and plentiful. It felt good to enjoy a meal together again, after avoiding it for the past couple days. But weighing to some degree on each of them was the knowledge that another lapse was in store before they would be doing it again.
When it was time, Bob put on his heavy coat, slung his war bag over his shoulder, and moved toward the door. He squatted down, facing Bucky. “Don’t know how long I’ll be gone, pal, but I’ll be back. You can count on that.” He reached out, ruffled the boy’s fiery red hair. Sundown Bucky. “You behave while I’m away, keep those school grades up, okay? And take care of Consuela.
“Now, since I’m gonna be gone for I don’t know how long a spell, I don’t think you’re too big to give your ol’ pa a big hug before I head out, do you?”
The strength with which Bucky squeezed when he threw his arms around him told Bob that his son didn’t mind hugging the old man too much at all.
Bob straightened up, surprised to find someone else who didn’t mind giving him a hug. The delicate, never-spoken, never-acted-upon feelings he and Consuela shared went momentarily past their restraints when she stepped into his embrace and pressed her warm cheek to his.
“Vaya con Dios, Señor Bob,” she whispered. “Come back soon, and come back safe.”
And then the moment was past and it was
time to leave.
Light flakes of snow were starting to fall when Bob stepped outside.
Chapter 37
Homer Wilby scowled at the swirling, wind-whipped flakes of snow. “Well this is a fine howdee-do, that’s all I got to say. A fine howdee-do! If good luck came in buckets, we wouldn’t have enough to fill a teaspoon.”
Conjuring up a menacing scowl of his own, Dewey Hinkson aimed it at Wilby. “Yeah, and if bellyachin’ came in spoonfuls, you could fill a damn barrel. So, after a while, what’s the point?”
“The point of what?” said Wilby, looking genuinely puzzled.
Hinkson rolled his eyes in an exasperated manner. “The point of bellyachin’ all the stinkin’ time. What ya think I was talkin’ about?”
The two men were crouched under a sheet of canvas stretched between two rock faces and propped in place by broken-off tree branches wedged into crevices in the rocks. A fire had been built near the front of the tentlike shelter, but because it was fueled by nothing but damp wood, its feeble flames were giving off more smoke than heat.
Wilby was a heavyset man, fortyish, with prematurely gray hair, a lantern jaw, and dull blue eyes set too close on either side of a blunt nose. Hinkson had skin as dark as uncreamed coffee, a shaved head, a cruel slash of a mouth, and wide-set, suspicious brown eyes that seldom stopped moving. Both men wore coarse clothing patterned with horizontal stripes of faded blue and stenciled yellow lettering across the back that read PROPERTY OF LARAMIE FEDERAL PRISON.
From farther back in the shelter, a third man stirred and leaned up closer behind Hinkson and Wilby. He was dressed the same as the other two, younger, lean and narrow-faced, with commas of curly brown hair spilling over his forehead above thoughtful eyes and an earnest expression.
“Since it seems neither one of you fellows has noticed,” Milt Macready said in a Tennessee drawl, “I’ll point out that a ray of sunshine ain’t exactly how I’d describe either one of you. How would you like to be in my position—listenin’ to both of you sourpusses carry on all the time?”
Wilby grunted. “Right about now, I wouldn’t mind bein’ in just about anybody else’s position . . . Well, except either one of you two, that is. On account of you ain’t no better off than me.”
“See, that’s what I mean,” said Macready. “Yeah, we ain’t sittin’ here in the lap of luxury. You think I don’t know that? But we ain’t behind prison bars no more, either. No concrete walls squeezin’ in on a body, smotherin’ our every breath, blockin’ out the sun and stars twenty-three out of twenty-four hours every day. No guard bulls breathin’ down our necks, clubbin’ us down every time they want to have a good laugh. You tellin’ me this ain’t better than that?”
“If it was warm and dry maybe,” muttered Hinkson. “Well, dry . . . Those damn cells were always cold, even in the summer. I got that cold so deep in my bones I don’t think I’ll ever get it out. For sure not in this setup we got here.”
“Havin’ the weather take this lousy turn right after we busted out with no warm clothes on our backs ain’t to nobody’s liking,” Macready said. “But my point about us bein’ out is still valid. These are spring storms, both the rain and now this whirl of snow. It was warm a couple days ago, and it’ll warm right back up in another day or two. All we got to do is hunker down and wait it out a little longer. Then we can be on the move again.”
“Some coffee and decent grub would go a long way to make it through the hunkerin’,” said Wilby. “I suppose the way you see it, Macready, we’re lucky those horses we stole had tin cups in their saddlebags so’s we can boil rainwater or melt snow for something to drink. Me, I say that’s mighty slim luck when you ain’t got nothing else to put in those cups.”
“And that, my friend, is the difference between bein’ thankful for what you’ve got and bellyachin’ about what you ain’t got,” pointed out Macready.
“Well, since we ain’t got shit, the way I see it,” insisted Wilby, “ain’t very hard to out-balance the thankful stuff.”
Macready shook his head as if in disbelief. “Let me get this straight. When you say ‘coffee and decent grub,’ are you actually talkin’ about what they served us back in prison? Good God, man, the so-called coffee they gave us was nothing but pot rinsings from the real coffee they fixed for themselves. And the ‘decent grub’? You can’t truly mean that slop that had maggots crawlin’ in it half the time.”
Hinkson emitted a wry, raspy chuckle. “Stop, now you’re startin’ to make me hungry. And what do you mean about havin’ maggots in your grub only half the time? Once again the black man gets the dirtiest dealin’. Mine had maggots in it all the damn time.” He chuckled some more.
“That ain’t funny. That ain’t funny nohow,” said Wilby. “The pen food wasn’t that bad. Didn’t none of us die from it, did we? And how could it be any worse than the horse meat we been chokin’ down for goin’ on three days now?”
“For one thing, the horse meat ain’t got maggots crawlin’ on it,” Macready answered. “And, once you get past the idea of it, ain’t a dang thing wrong with horse meat. The Injuns used to thrive on it. They couldn’t hardly wait to raid other tribes in order to build up their pony herd big enough so’s they could spare a couple head to cook and eat.”
Hinkson’s face bunched up with his own dubious expression. “Next thing, Macready, you’ll be tellin’ us it was a stroke of good luck when Wilby’s horse stepped in that crack and broke its leg so we had to shoot it.”
“It gave us fresh meat while we’ve been holed up here, didn’t it?”
“But that misstep—along with this blasted weather—are the main reasons we needed to hole up here.”
“Yeah, and as far as the stupid Injuns, they ate dogs, too. So what?” Wilby made an exaggeration of craning his head and looking in all directions. “Where are all the noble red men now? Oh, that’s right—they got their asses whupped and run off.”
Macready shook his head again. “You two are hopeless. Here, I’m gonna hand up some twigs I had shoved under my blanket to dry ’em out some. Feed ’em slowlike into that fire. They should burn better on account of bein’ drier. When they get goin’ that’ll help some of those bigger chunks burn better, too, and we’ll get some heat out of that rascal of a fire yet.”
“Boy, I could go for that,” said Hinkson, rubbing his thick-fingered hands together.
“Slowlike now on feedin’ in those twigs,” Macready cautioned.
“Yeah, yeah. I heard you,” Wilby said as he fed the fire.
After a few minutes, the flames were snapping and popping higher, giving off less smoke as the bigger pieces that had been mostly only smoldering before started to burn, too.
“Now that’s more like it,” said Hinkson, hitching a little closer and rubbing his hands together some more.
“Now we need to just keep feedin’ in more fuel, slow and steady,” Macready said. “We get her burnin’ good and hot, even some of those wetter pieces we drug over—long as we don’t shove in too many at once—will dry right there in the flames and burn just as good. I can hitch up there and take a turn feedin’ some if you want, Wilby.”
“Naw, I’m doin’ okay for now,” said Wilby, busy enjoying the heat.
“Well, okay. But before long,” Macready told him, “I’m gonna want to move up and cook me a piece of that horse. Even if you don’t, I like it fine and I’m blamed hungry.”
“That don’t sound like a half-bad idea, especially now that we got us a decent fire,” spoke up Hinkson. “What we ate last night, when it was howlin’ rain, was smoky and half raw on account of the pitiful little fire we was tryin’ to work with. Now, with some good hot cookin’ flames, I believe I can manage me a taste for some more of that mangy ol’ mare.”
Wilby frowned and seemed to be considering something. After a minute, he said, “Okay. Since watchin’ you two chawin’ on horse is about as disgustin’ as downin’ some myself, I reckon I might as well go ahead and join you. See if I can’t squee
ze some nourishment out of it to help keep me goin’.”
Macready grinned. “That’s more like it. That’s the spirit, Wilby. We’ve come this far, we got to keep goin’. Right?”
Wilby sighed, indicating his willing spirit wasn’t all that strong. “Yeah, but keep goin’ where? And when? Hell, as far as that goes, I don’t even know where we’ve got to so far. What’s the name of this place anyway? Anybody know?”
“I do,” Macready was quick to answer. “I read about it back in the pen. One of the few decent things about that hellhole was the library they had. Even it wasn’t much, to tell the truth, but it had a pretty good section on local stuff.”
“Couldn’t prove it by me,” Hinkson muttered. “A library don’t do much good to a fella who never got learned how to read.”
Macready didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just went ahead with what he did know. “So, anyway, this place is called the Orphan Peaks. Once we decided we’d head north after we broke out— instead of west, like we figured everybody would expect—I had a hunch we’d run across it.”
“What kind of name is Orphan Peaks?”
“It got called that,” Macready explained, “on account of how it’s this cluster of rock formations and peaks that sorta poke up out of the flats all of a sudden on their own. They ain’t really part of the Rockies to the south or the Laramie Range farther west, they’re just here in the middle of nothing. Like orphans. Get it?”
“Yeah,” Hinkson mused, “that’s sort of how they looked when we spotted ’em day before yesterday ahead of that storm movin’ in, didn’t they? Like a jumble of orphaned rocks out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Somebody must have a better imagination than me,” Wilby said. “All I saw was a place where we could hide out and hopefully find some shelter.”
“Wait a minute. It gets better,” said Macready. “The Injuns around this area had a little different name for ’em. I forget how it was pronounced in their native tongue exactly, but it translated out to the Bastard Peaks . . . Kind of the same thing, see? The little cluster of rocks that didn’t belong to any of the families of the bigger mountain ranges around. For a lot of years, that’s what the fur trappers and mountain men who passed through here called ’em, too. But then, when women and children started arrivin’ in the area on wagon trains and so forth, somebody decided they’d better clean the name up some. That’s when the whites started callin’ ’em the Orphan Peaks.”
Rattlesnake Wells, Wyoming Page 21
