Brock had signaled a halt with the setting of the sun. He’d found a good spot for their night camp in a stand of pine and cottonwood trees near an ice-edged little stream. Some fairly dry twigs at the base of the pines and an armful of thicker branches hacked from the underside of a fallen cottonwood trunk made for a good fire over which they’d cooked coffee and bacon. Sanders was given a cup of coffee and some hardtack, no bacon. He was also given a single coarse blanket to wrap himself in and then was handcuffed to the base of a pine.
“You don’t need no booze or no inside heating-up,” Brock responded to the prisoner’s request. “You ought to consider yourself lucky to have got the hardtack and coffee. It ain’t like fattening you up is gonna make any difference when it comes to what I got in mind for you.”
“Boy, you’re all heart. You know that, Brock?” Sanders sneered.
The former marshal glared at him through narrowed eyes. “No. Thanks to you, my heart got yanked out in little pieces, watching my Adelia’s life fade away.”
“Hey, don’t worry. I’m not about to share my tequila,” said Libby, trying to curb Brock’s intensity a bit. Not so much for Arlo’s sake, but mostly because when Brock got that look on his face it frightened her.
“See to it you don’t,” Brock grunted. “Actually, it wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to take it easy on that rotgut. Ain’t nowhere close by where we’re headed where you’re gonna be able to pick up a fresh bottle, you know.”
“No, I don’t know,” said Libby, bristling somewhat. “Where are we headed? And when are we going to get there?”
Brock didn’t answer right away. He just looked disapprovingly down at her for a long minute then turned partly away and let his gaze drift out at the night. “You’ll find out in the morning. We should be there before noon.”
* * *
“Look at that big ol’ wide-open sky up there, fellas,” said Milt Macready, peering out from under the canvas tarp that covered him and his fellow escaped convicts. “If it’s clear like that in the mornin’, we’ll see plenty more of the sun that finally broke through late today. That means meltin’ snow and warmth on our backs and the all clear to finally haul ourselves away from here.”
“Yeah, melted snow leavin’ slop and mud for us to wade through,” grumbled Wilby with his typical sour outlook on things.
“So what?” Macready replied somewhat sharply, allowing his annoyance at Wilby’s constant pessimism to show through. “The horses will be able to handle it. And mud and slop will do a good job, at least for a while, of fillin’ in our tracks behind us. What’s more, I expect the horses will be happy to get away from here, too. With the sun full and bright, that snow won’t last no time and that’ll even give ’em some grass pokin’ through to graze on.”
“To hell with how happy the horses might or might not be,” spoke up Hinkson. “Me, I’ll be so glad to put this rock pile behind us that I might just run on ahead of those nags.”
“That’d be swell,” said Wilby, a sarcastic smile matching his tone. “Then me or Macready won’t have to ride double with you.”
“In case you forgot,” Hinkson came back, “you’re the one whose horse went down. Any double-ridin’ will be you crowdin’ in on somebody.”
“Thanks for remindin’ me. That helps a whole lot.”
“Aw, lighten up, you two. Jesus!” said Macready. “With this break in the weather, we’re on the brink of takin’ this whole escape thing all the way and actually makin’ it work. We light outta here in the morning for those gold fields, find a ranch or small settlement on the way where we can swap out these stripes, and we’ll dang near have it licked. We’ll lose ourselves so deep in amongst those rock choppers and ground scratchers, nobody’ll hardly notice us, let alone figure out who we are.”
“You sure make it sound easy,” said Hinkson.
“Never said it’s gonna be easy. Never said it’s been easy so far. Hell, the hardest part was bustin’ out of the prison itself, right?” Macready set his jaw firm and didn’t wait for an answer to his rhetorical question. “We had the grit and brains to pull that off, we surely oughta be able to finish the job.”
Hinkson cut a glance over at Wilby. “The kid’s right, you know. We are a good ways along with what most people didn’t reckon could be done. The Laramie pen ain’t exactly no cracker box. Ain’t no reason to sell ourselves short and roll belly-up now.”
“No, o’ course not,” Wilby said. “I could hold a lot more positive outlook with some decent food in me. Once we’re on our way outta here—got this damn rock pile, as you put it, behind us—I’ll be okay. I just need to get on the move again, elsewise bein’ holed up here ain’t been a whole lot different from still bein’ in the pen.”
“That’s understandable. We all feel that way,” said Macready. “Speakin’ of food makes me think of that ol’ horse we been gnawin’ on and that makes me think of a piece of business we’d best take care of first thing in the mornin’ before we move on out.”
Hinkson frowned. “I didn’t follow that. What are you sayin’?”
“I’m sayin’ if we leave that horse carcass just layin’ there like it is, it’s bound to draw buzzards. They’d ’ve been swoopin’ overhead already if the weather hadn’t been so bad. Sun starts workin’ on that carcass tomorrow, they’ll be showin’ up in no time.”
“Who the hell cares?” grumbled Wilby. “They’re welcome to whatever’s left of that nag. I hope they enjoy her more than I ever did.”
Macready shook his head. “That ain’t the point. Stop and think how they’ll be hangin’ around this spot for three or four days, however long it takes ’em to pick the bones clean. A swarm of feathered varmints circlin’ in the air like that will be able to be seen for miles. Anybody sniffin’ on our back trail would be bound to notice ’em. They come around to investigate, it’ll tell ’em way more than we want a posse of law dogs or guard bulls to know about which way we went.”
“Damn,” Hinkson muttered. “The kid’s right again. We don’t want that nohow. We can’t run the risk.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” Wilby said. “We ain’t got no shovels or nothing to bury a whole stinkin’ horse.”
“No, but we got rocks all around us,” Macready pointed out. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find a rocky shelf of some kind we can kick at or pry on until it collapses . . . maybe a high, loose boulder we can send tumblin’ down so it takes some others with it. We use the other horses to pull the dead one in under something like that, we can make it so’s the rocks do our buryin’ for us.”
Wilby made a face. “Even so, it sounds like a helluva lot of work if you ask me.”
“If it keeps a posse from ridin’ up our rear end, ain’t it worth it?”
“Who’s to say a posse or anybody else will ever come close enough to even see those scavenger birds?” Wilby argued. “I thought we had it figured so’s everybody would think we took off west when we broke from the prison. Why all of a sudden the change of mind about somebody sniffin’ in this direction, anyway?”
Hinkson fixed Wilby with a hard glare. “Okay, mister. If you’re too stinkin’ lazy to help cover up that horse in the morning, like the kid suggests, you just go ahead and take it easy. You rest up real good. Because you’re gonna need all that rest and energy in order to walk your ass outta here on account of you didn’t earn the right to double up with one of us who did do the work.”
Wilby held the black man’s glare for a long count. Finally, he said, “One of these days, Hinkson, you’re gonna push me too far.”
“Then what?” Hinkson prodded.
Wilby turned his back. “You better hope you don’t find out.”
Chapter 41
Bob rode through much of the night until he came to a good spot to make camp. He grained the horses again then staked them where they could drink from slushy puddles of half-melted snow and even had a bit of grass poking through that they could graze on. He built a close fire and treated himsel
f to some sugar-loaded coffee and a half dozen strips of bacon. With his belly warmed and fed, he wrapped himself in his bedroll and slept for three hours.
By the time the sun was up, he was on the move again. His plan, unless something occurred to alter it, was to once more push steadily through the day and into the night. If his hunch was right about which way Brock was taking his prisoner and the woman, Bob figured he surely should have them outdistanced by the next morning. At that point he would begin his reverse sweep, looking for sign he hoped would lead him to them.
The interim, of course, left considerable time for Brock to do whatever he had in mind for Sanders. Bob hated to think what that might be, especially when there was really nothing more he could do to prevent it.
Yet somehow he had the feeling that Brock was in no hurry to close the book on Sanders. Dragging it out, in fact, might even be some added mental torture the former marshal was enjoying before he got to the actual physical punishment. It might be wishful thinking for Bob to believe that, he realized, but at least it gave him a shred of hope that he still could possibly catch up in time to save Sanders . . . save him for the gallows.
And, once more, he also thought about the woman. Libby Sanders. She was no prize, that was for sure—not the way she’d duped and cold-bloodedly shot Peter Macy. Nevertheless, she was a woman. Bob couldn’t exactly say why he felt differently about someone who, if she’d been a man and done the same things, he would have little or no compassion for. But he did. And, the more he reflected on it, he grew increasingly convinced that Brock wouldn’t hesitate at all over such a detail. Once he’d closed the book on Arlo, Libby wouldn’t be far behind.
* * *
In the camp of the escaped convicts, Macready was the first to rise. He didn’t bother trying to wake either Hinkson or Wilby. The longer he let them sleep, he figured, the less amount of time he’d have to listen to them bicker and bellyache. Plus, he’d have just as good luck exploring by himself for a likely spot to collapse some rocks over the dead horse.
The sun was just sliding above the eastern horizon as the young Tennessean began his search. He paused for a minute or so to watch it, marveling at its shimmering beauty and how far he could see in the crisp, clear air. Having been raised in the Smoky Mountains until he was well into his teens, he sometimes missed their hazy, eerie beauty at early hours and the rich greenness that was revealed when the fog started to lift and the sun broke through.
All in all, he reckoned he liked the wide-open spaciousness of the West a tad better—especially now that he was back in it again. It was hard to appreciate the beauty of any surroundings when bottled up in a concrete-walled prison cell.
As he ventured out, Macready took with him one of the two rifles he and the others had managed to snag—along with a Remington pistol—in the process of their escape. They’d also grabbed a holster and shell belt for the pistol and a bandolier of cartridges for the rifles, providing them a fair amount of firepower if they ran into any trouble. Should they have to make a prolonged fight of it, their ammunition wouldn’t sustain them for long.
Macready took the rifle with him this morning for two simple reasons. One, for protection; two, in case he ran across any wild game he could bag for food. In spite of his lecturing about the suitability of horse meat and how lucky they were to have it, he couldn’t honestly claim to like it. It was better than starving, and that was about all. Given no other choice, he would cook and eat another slab of it before they left, but bagging a pronghorn deer or even a jackrabbit would certainly be preferable. Hell, it might even bring a brief smile to the faces of Hinkson and Wilby.
Thinking about eating, whatever the fare turned out to be, made Macready’s stomach growl a fierce reminder of how empty it was. To counter that emptiness with at least something, he scooped up a couple handfuls of clean, slushy snow and put it in his mouth, letting it melt and slowly trickle down his throat. It was good and even a bit refreshing, but it was a far cry from a satisfying meal.
As he continued on, Macready’s thoughts kept returning to his two companions. Instead of crawling out from under their canvas tarp when he first woke up, he’d lain there and started his day by doing some serious pondering about them. He hadn’t had the kind of thoughts he’d begun thinking until after the exchange between Hinkson and Wilby that ended with “You’d better hope you don’t find out” when Wilby was challenged to state what he’d do if pushed too far.
That both men were violent and dangerous there could be no doubt. Being a friendly, warmhearted person didn’t land you in the Laramie pen. And while Macready had a dangerous side as well, accounting for his own incarceration, he didn’t consider himself as ruthless and coldhearted as his fellow escapees.
Maybe it was time to start. For his own good.
One man on two horses with meager provisions had a whole lot better chance of making good the rest of his escape than three men on two horses with the same limited amount of provisions. Those were hard, flat facts. As such thoughts crossed Macready’s mind, he didn’t believe for a minute that Hinkson and Wilby hadn’t considered the same thing. The only question was, would any of them follow through with it?
After grinding on it during much of the night and in his waking minutes, Macready hadn’t felt desperate to make such a move before leaving camp. All he could do was hope he didn’t live to regret it.
* * *
“See that hump of rocks rising up away off there in the distance?” said Vernon Brock. “That’s our destination. Take yourself a good look, Arlo. You’re due to be spending a long, long time there after I’m done with you.”
“Looks like a swell spot, Brock,” replied Sanders sourly. “Appears I’ll be havin’ me a mighty impressive tombstone.”
“You go ahead and joke all you want,” Brock told him. “Put on your phony brave act, have yourself some fun. Pretty soon it will be my turn to have some fun, and yours will be plumb over.”
Sanders glared at him with hate-filled eyes. “You ain’t got me in the ground yet, you vengeful bastard.”
“No, but it’s just a matter of time,” Brock promised, one side of his mouth curving in a cold smile.
The former marshal had signaled a halt on the crest of a low hill from which he scanned out ahead slow and careful before pointing to the distant rock formation. They’d quit their camp just after daybreak and had been on the trail for two hours. The sun was high and warm, quickly melting the snow on the hills and draining it to form shallow, muddy pools in the lower areas.
“Speaking of time,” Libby interjected into the exchange between the two men, “how much longer will it take to get there?”
“Couple more hours,” Brock said. “Like I told you last night, we’ll be there before noon.”
“That place got a name?” Sanders asked. “Besides servin’ as a tombstone marker for mine, I mean.”
“Matter of fact, it does. It’s called Orphan Peaks,” Brock answered.
“That’s a dumb name. When folks start referrin’ to it as the burial ground for Arlo Sanders, that’ll definitely be an improvement.”
“No. No, it’s not really a dumb name at all,” said Libby. “I can see it. I can see why they got called that. There’s big ol’ mountains off to the north and big ol’ mountains off to the south. But that little clump—not that they’re really mountains at all, but they kinda are—they’re plopped out there in the middle all by their lonesome. Like orphans, get it?”
Sanders rolled his eyes. “Well, you went and did it, Libby. You outdid yourself. You took a dumb name and tried to make an excuse for it with an even dumber explanation.”
“You go to hell, Arlo,” Libby snapped. “It’s a perfectly good explanation and anybody with a lick of imagination could see it that way.”
She looked away from Sanders and cut her gaze over to Brock, who was looking at her in a most curious way. “What’s the matter?” she said, feeling as if she might have done something wrong.
Brock did an eve
n more curious thing. He actually smiled a little bit. Not the cold, wolflike smile he aimed at Sanders frequently, but a regular smile that truly seemed to have some warmth in it. It faded quickly, but it had been there, Libby was certain of it. Stranger still, she found it almost more disconcerting than the other kind.
“Nothing,” Brock replied tersely to her question. “C’mon, let’s get moving again. We keep dawdlin’ here, we’ll make a liar out of me saying we can get there before noon.”
They started again, riding on for quite a spell in silence.
Despite his act of bravado, Sanders rode slumped in the saddle with a long, mournful expression on his face. His eyes hardly left the rocky hump drawing steadily closer.
Libby kept watching, too, as the Orphan Peaks grew more distinct in their shape and detail. Every once in a while, she glanced over at Brock, wondering about that fleeting, odd—well, odd for him—smile.
For his part, Brock appeared to give no notice to either of those riding with him. He just stared straight ahead, his expression somber, grim. Behind that expression, much more was going on. Listening to Libby talk about the Orphan Peaks had struck an unexpected chord in him. Her compassion for the “lonesome” pile of rocks had seemed genuine, echoing many of the same words his late wife had used to describe the favorite place of hers, where they had come often for picnics and exploring and—as it would sometimes turn out—bouts of uninhibited lovemaking under the sun. They talked of one day building a cabin within sight of the peaks and starting a small ranch or farm.
That was back when they’d intended to stay in the area . . . Back before Brock had taken the transfer to Kansas . . . Back before he convinced Adelia to go along with him . . . to where she would end up crippled and killed by Arlo Sanders.
He was taking Sanders back to close the circle. To deliver retribution for what he’d done, to make him suffer as Adelia had suffered, and to wet the ground of her favorite place with his blood in order to satisfy her spirit’s thirst for vengeance.
Rattlesnake Wells, Wyoming Page 24
