“But there are still rocks on one side of that pass overhead. Those could still come down.”
“Then you can’t go,” Sadie said, and rested a hand on Heath’s shoulder. “Neither of you can.”
“We’ll be safe, Sadie. It’d take time to set up an ambush like that. And your pa told the men when he’d be going in there. If someone wished him ill, they’d have had time to plan something.” Heath added, “I wonder if Big Red tore down that fence. Might be it was torn down by a more thinkin’ kind of critter and the cattle driven in there.”
“I don’t want the two of you in danger,” Sadie said after a moment of silence.
That was honestly a relief to Heath, for her worrying meant she was thinking of only the menfolk going. Still, he figured the woman would insist on coming along.
“But since you’re sure it’s safe, I’m going with you.” Sadie smiled that stubborn smile of hers.
Heath stifled a groan.
“We’d be well advised to hurry through there.” Now Cole was going.
“If it’s dangerous and someone was after Chance, trying to make it look like an accident, then there might be a reason he’d be after the three of you, too. No sense all being together in one dangerous spot. Nope, I’ll go alone. Cole, go do your mining. Justin, run the ranch. Sadie, you stay inside.”
The glares he got from the three of them were identical. Justin and Cole looked alike, while Sadie was more like her mother.
Until now.
Right now he saw the strongest resemblance between these three he’d ever noticed. First time he’d ever realized that stubborn could be a look.
“We’ll go first thing in the morning.” Justin nodded at Cole and a bit more grudgingly at Sadie. Then he turned to Heath. “You’re welcome to come along if you’ve a mind to.”
They were all going. He wasn’t real surprised, but Heath figured he’d had to at least try and save their contrary hides.
“I’ll be waiting with the horses all saddled when you three manage to roll out of bed.” Heath left the table and maybe closed the door a bit too hard. He’d just insulted his bosses and walked out on them. But did that get him fired? Nope. Unless he was already fired. He couldn’t remember.
He couldn’t believe how much he liked these confounded Bodens. There was no doubt in his mind now—he had to return home. He was lonely for his brothers and sisters-in-law and all those cute nieces and nephews.
And that meant he had to leave Sadie, who couldn’t come along even if she was of a mind to tie her future to a mangy cowhand, because Chance wanted all his children here under his roof.
Heath was mighty sure there was a Bible verse about that. “A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home.”
If Chance ever got back here, Heath might just hold a little Bible lesson for the arrogant old man.
In the meantime, there was a mystery to solve, even if solving it meant just proving Heath was worried for nothing. Which he surely hoped he was. Yet the more he thought about how “unlucky” Chance had been, the more he was sorely afraid that what had happened to Chance had nothing whatsoever to do with luck.
14
Sadie, Cole, and Justin rode out of the barn, leading Heath’s horse, in the darkest hour of the night, while Heath walked out of the bunkhouse. He stopped to see them all up and ready.
“I knew you’d be trying to prove something this morning.” He took the reins from Cole and swung up onto the saddle. “Did you do this to save my poor scratched-up fingers?” Grinning, he fell in beside Cole. Justin took the lead, with Sadie riding beside him.
Heath sure wished Cole would exert himself and insist on leading or at least riding with Justin to be a full partner in being in charge. Then he’d get to ride beside Sadie.
But he strongly suspected her annoying brothers were deliberately keeping them apart.
They’d ridden well away from the ranch in silence before Justin said quietly, “I didn’t get you told last night that Sister Margaret’s niece arrived in Skull Gulch yesterday.”
Sadie perked up. “Angelique? She’s here already? That’s wonderful. Is she elderly? Will she be able to do most of the heavier lifting?”
“She collapsed in front of me at the train station.”
“Collapsed? Is she sick?” Cole rode up on Sadie’s other side, and Heath came up beside Cole. They were still keeping her away from him.
“What happened, Justin?” Sadie reached out and grabbed her brother’s arm. “She didn’t bring something dangerous like cholera or smallpox to town, did she?”
“The story was that she gave all her money to a hungry family on the train, a woman with three little ones, and kept back nothing for herself. She hadn’t eaten for as long as three days.”
Sadie pressed harder on Justin’s arm. “What a lovely thing. She will be the best teacher the orphanage could hope for. I sent money for a ticket and for other travel expenses, but I never dreamed she’d give so sacrificially. I should have sent more.”
“The other lady traveling maybe should have had more too, for herself and her children. I think it’s more costly than it used to be, and her husband didn’t figure it right. Or he just sent all he had.” Justin patted her hand.
Sadie looked down and pulled her hand away. Heath could see fingernail dents in Justin’s shirt.
“I think Angelique was weak from hunger, nothing more serious.”
“Angelique?” Sadie said. “She’s French like Mama?”
Justin shrugged. “It sounds French enough.”
Sadie’s jaw clenched for a time, but she couldn’t seem to ever stop talking altogether. “I should be there helping.”
“Sister Margaret will fatten her up. And Mel’s still helping out. Beyond showing herself to be a mighty generous woman, I barely saw her open her eyes. She fainted right as she stepped off the train and was mostly asleep the whole time.”
Sadie frowned. “I have to go in and see if she’s all right. I won’t stay. I won’t help in any way that Pa would object to, but I have to see.”
“We can stop in to see her after church tomorrow,” Cole said. “Make sure the orphanage has all it needs. I reckon she’s little help now, but she’ll soon regain her strength.”
Nodding, Sadie said, “I don’t want to disobey Pa’s wishes, not even in spirit. But he would let me visit a sick woman, I’m sure he would, even though she’s at the orphanage.”
Heath couldn’t believe they were wasting time worrying about visiting after church when there might be a murderer around. In fact, if his theory was right, there’d been two murderers. The man keeping watch on the mesa, and the man who set off the rockslide.
“Speakin’ of your pa’s strange wishes, if someone hurt your pa, would there be any way he knew about the new will? Maybe someone is thinking with Chance gone and you three not that easy about living under the same roof, somehow the ownership of the CR could end up in other hands. If this cousin of yours is as poor a rancher as it sounds, once he took over, the CR would be easy pickins.”
They all three looked at Heath.
“Another thing, who knew your pa was riding into that canyon? And how long ahead did they know? If someone knocked down that fence and drove the herd in there, he did it, or I should say they did it after they had the trap all set. To know your pa’s plans, they’d have to be close. Does that mean our two outlaws are your hired hands? Or at least one of them—he could have a partner hiding out nearby. Whoever drove the herd in there was hoping Chance would go after them, but what if he’d just sent men in and gone another way?”
“Nope, that pass has always been treacherous. Falling rocks is nothing new, though they fall one at a time as a rule. So Pa wouldn’t send men to do a dangerous job without going himself. Or . . .” Justin stopped talking, causing all three to look over at him.
“Or what, Justin?”
The silence stretched on. Finally, Justin answered, “Or he’d send me. He’d have let me go most days, but there
was trouble a far piece out with a herd that’d wandered. Pa lets me travel the long distances lately.”
“Which makes me ask,” Heath said, “did the herd you went after wander on their own or were they driven? That made it most likely your pa would be in that canyon pass.”
“That’s a fancy plan, Heath.” Cole turned to face the upcoming pass. “Busted fence, cattle driven in a pass, another herd run off, two men keeping a lookout. All so they can pick the right moment to strike. It’s hard to believe anyone around here would plan something so devious.”
Hard to believe, Heath thought, but he couldn’t help but wonder.
Justin spurred his horse to take the lead. “Let’s keep moving through here—not fast because the horses have to pick their way around these rocks, but let’s don’t take it one second slower than we have to.”
Pushing his horse to a fast walk, Justin headed into the dark maw of the passage and nearly vanished in the shadows.
Cole made a sweeping gesture with his arm, and Sadie went next. He looked at Heath and said, “Bring up the rear, Kincaid. I’ll ride after Sadie.”
That sounded like the next thing to a threat. Nope, it was exactly a threat. Cole was saying, Stay away from my sister.
Heath let Cole go and kept a straight expression on his face until he was at the back of the line. Then he grinned. And wondered about home. If the Bodens weren’t in the middle of so all-fired-much trouble, he’d have set off for home right this minute. He wondered how Seth’s fifteen-year-old son was doing. Connor had grown up to be a wild man just like his pa, but with a sensible side like his ma, Callie. He’d always been Heath’s favorite, although he loved all his nieces and nephews. Connor was special because he and the boy had come into the Kincaid family at the same time. Seth had five more sons besides, so Callie sure enough had her hands full.
Heath had been away for going on two years. By now, Ethan’s two girls were getting to be marrying age. What if they’d found husbands and moved with them far away? Heath might never see them again. They were beautiful, sweet girls, the spitting image of their fair-haired mother, Glynna.
Ethan and Audra had four more young’uns after the girls, three of them boys, so his family had equal numbers of children. Rafe had four children, two girls as smart and bossy as their ma, Julia, and two sons as stubborn and hardworking as their pa.
And they’d all been mighty good to Heath. He’d surely like to see them again. Now that he knew he could handle his big brothers and demand the respect of running his own spread, he could settle down and be happy in Rawhide.
The shadows wrapped around him and he trusted to his horse more than his own eyes. The other horses had picked their way through, and his buckskin followed along without paying the trail much mind. The light clopping of hooves guided him. Rocks, piled in the middle and scattered here and there, were like barriers warning them not to go on.
The bottleneck pass became a curved trail a couple hundred feet long. Heath reached a spot where he could see the far end. Justin emerged into slightly brighter shadows as day pushed back the night. Sadie appeared next and she was bareheaded so that the meager light gleamed off her pretty yellow hair. Cole was through, then Heath. He took a deep breath, glad they’d made it in, yet knowing they all had to make it out.
“I want to see what’s on top of this rock wall first.” Justin rode his horse to a sharp uphill slope. He dismounted, rigged a halter to his horse, and tied it to a clump of aspen with a long enough rein that the animal could graze. He loosened the girth on his saddle.
Heath was a pace behind the others, but he was quick about seeing to his horse, then falling in line with the Bodens to climb the hill.
Heath reached the top only to be hit with a chill wind. He hadn’t known how sheltered they were during the ride out. Justin crouched, studying the ground. Cole strode to the west. The top of the canyon was the beginning of a solid streak of high ground that built until it could call itself a mountain.
Sadie gazed out in every direction, her coat pulled tight around her. She carefully approached the edge of the pass and peered down at the fallen rocks.
Heath satisfied himself that she was being cautious and then walked on north, trying to figure out where the slide had started. He watched where he stepped so he wouldn’t wipe out any footprints left up here, and when he finally looked up, it was to stare straight across at the mesa. Skull Mesa was yards higher than they were. Someone on top of the mesa who came to the edge, and someone on top of this pass, could signal each other easily. Heath wished he could get just a bit higher and see the entire mesa top. Maybe then he could tell if there were signs of life.
Looking around, it was clear they stood on the highest level without going so far west that even a strong spyglass wouldn’t let them study that blasted mesa.
“Look at this.” Justin’s sharp order brought them all to his side. He was hunkered down on a stretch of solid rock that sloped away toward the bottom of the pass just a few steps ahead. “All the dirt and small stones are swept clean.” Justin pointed. “These white marks are scratches in the rocky ground. A slide would leave gouges, but this is the very top. No rocks came rolling past here.”
The white gashes appeared to be fresh-made.
“That’s left from someone working with a pry bar.” With a sudden move, Justin surged to his feet and looked Heath in the eye. “You were right. Pa was the target all along.”
Cole came up carrying a length of rope. He raised his hand, and a small stick hung from it. “And this is what they used. They loosened the stones, propped them so they were ready to slide, and then when they pulled the rope, the rocks went tumbling down.”
“How far back were you when you found that?”
“Back as long as this rope is.” Cole raised it high, and Heath saw the rope dragged behind him at least twenty feet. “It’s the only one I found; it had fallen into a crack in the rocks. I’ll bet there were more, but whoever set off the slide hauled them away. They missed this one.”
Sadie lifted one of the few rocks left on top of the canyon with a gasp loud enough to draw their attention. She rose from where she was hunkered down, a piece of paper fluttering in her hand. “I found something that makes all our searching for clues a waste of time.”
Heath stepped toward her, Cole and Justin coming just as fast.
“What is it?”
“A note. It says, ‘This is a warning. Clear out of this land you stole from Mexico.’”
“It’s a threat.” Cole took the note from her and studied it. “This sounds familiar, but I can’t remember why.”
All three of them became bonded by their anger. Heath felt like he was invading a family moment. To give them space to think and talk things over, he turned away and headed for the edge of the wall.
“You can’t see the pass right here for a long stretch. The top hangs out so far, the bottom isn’t visible. The only way he’d know the exact moment to set off the slide was if someone signaled him.” Heath pointed at the mesa. “From up there.” A gasp escaped his lips. “Someone’s up there now.”
All the Bodens spun to look. A long black shape appeared.
Heath shouted, “Rifle! Get down!”
The rifle barrel leveled. Heath rushed over to the Bodens and shoved them toward the trailhead, then grabbed Sadie. He ran with her to the trail that would take them out of the line of fire.
The distant crack of gunfire sent Heath hurling forward, tackling Sadie. A ping of metal landed far too close. Heath held Sadie to the ground, keeping her in front of him. Justin appeared on his left and caught Sadie’s arm just as Cole slipped past him on the right and caught her other one.
A steady explosion from the long gun sent them sprinting for cover. Justin and Sadie dropped over the curve of the hill. Cole was a step behind, positioned to protect Sadie’s back, with Heath on Cole’s heels. He saw all three diving for the ground. Heath needed about three more paces to get under cover himself.
He c
aught sight of a man-sized rock. One more stride before he could jump behind it. As he dove forward, a tearing pain sliced through his left arm. Another impact knocked his feet out from under him. He landed, skidding and rolling, facedown on gravel.
Rough hands grabbed him and hauled him behind the boulder. The gunfire stopped.
Justin drew his gun and fired it at the mesa. But he had a pistol, out of range for something so far off in the distance.
“Don’t waste your lead.” Cole had his own six-shooter drawn.
“Heath, you’ve been shot!” Quickly, Sadie rolled him so he was flat on his back, and with a strength that surprised him, she ripped his sleeve open up to his shoulder.
Cole rushed to Heath’s side and removed the kerchief from his neck. Justin supplied his kerchief next as he knelt at Heath’s head, staring with worried, angry eyes at the wound.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” Cole asked.
Sadie wrapped the kerchief tight around the wound.
“No, I think he shot my boot, but it felt like it hit the heel. No harm done.”
Justin lifted his hat above the rock, and no one blasted a hole through it. He then peeked out cautiously, rising to his knees to scan the mesa. “Somehow or other, that polecat climbed up there. He’s probably running right now because he knows I’m coming.” He slapped his Stetson against his knee in anger. “I’m going to get down there in time to catch him.” He looked at Cole. “Can you get Heath home?”
Cole nodded. “Yep.”
Justin pivoted toward the downhill trail and was gone, running at a breakneck pace.
Without bothering to make Cole work, Heath dragged himself to his feet to find the heel had been shot clean off his boot.
He headed after Justin, then looked down to see two kerchiefs wrapped around the wound. The sight of it made his stomach twist at the same time his battered boot skidded. The combination sent Heath pitching forward. He landed face-first and then slid down the steep trail.
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