Another couple of miles and he came to a low ridge running north and south. He rode up to the top, surprised to see what appeared to be a river, outlined clearly by the growth of trees and shrubs along its banks. Seeing a small cabin caused him to pause, however. Little more than a shack, it sat back among the cottonwoods. So these damn tracks do lead somewhere, he thought, and strained to see what appeared to be the corner of a corral behind the cabin.
He estimated a distance of almost a mile, so he couldn’t quite tell if there were any horses in the corral or not, for he could only see that corner. He had to consider the possibility that he might be dealing with more than one person. He was suddenly struck with a feeling of caution, for he had to make sure he had not followed Womack to an outlaw hideout.
Cole looked long and hard at the cabin and the ground between him and the trees that guarded the river. He decided it was too risky to follow the trail that led straight to the shack and guided the bay about halfway down the slope before turning its head away from the trail to circle around to the south and advance upon the cabin from downstream.
Making his way cautiously along the west bank of the river, he stopped and tied his horse near the water when he was within fifty yards of the cabin. From there, he advanced on foot until he was close enough to get a clear view of it and everything around it. He could see no sign of any activity. The corral was empty, and there was no smoke coming from the short stone chimney. If he had been following Troy Womack’s tracks from Laramie, and not on a wild-goose chase as he had feared, then he could conclude that Womack had already come and gone. Maybe he would be back.
Cole took a few moments to decide what to do—wait in ambush for him to return or figure he was not going to.
Another possibility returned to caution him once again. What if Womack knew he was being followed, and was at that moment watching the cabin from a spot upstream, with an ambush of his own in mind?
Hell, Cole told himself, I could spend the rest of the day waiting for him to show up while he’s making tracks to someplace else. That thought caused him to look up at the sky. Not much daylight left. The thing that worried him most, however, was the look of the low-lying clouds moving in from the west. They had the look of more snow coming. So far, he had been fortunate in that there had been a mere dusting of snow on the ground, making tracking easy. From the looks of the sky, that might not be the case come morning.
He took another long look at the cabin, sitting small and dark against the riverbank, seemingly deserted. “Hell,” he muttered. “I’m goin’ in, ambush be damned.”
He walked back to get his horse, then rode cautiously up to the front of the cabin, holding his rifle in his arms, ready to respond if, in fact, he was riding into an ambush. There were no shots, however, and no ambush. Wasted a lot of time, he thought. One thing was confirmed before he even stepped down from the saddle. There were a multitude of tracks, both boots and hooves, so more than one person had been there. Many of the tracks were fresh. He was especially interested in the hoofprints leading out of the corral and heading directly down to the river. Whoever had been there had evidently left, and maybe not more than a few hours before.
A quick search inside the cabin told him that the recent occupants had left nothing behind, which led him to believe they had no intention to return. The fire had long ago gone out in the fireplace, but the ashes were still warm. He concluded that Womack had ridden to the dilapidated shack to meet someone, and then they had decided to leave together. Where they went was the problem.
Cole walked back outside. “Damn,” he blurted as soon as he cleared the door, for he was met with the first flakes of snow falling to land softly on the doorstep. If this keeps up, he thought, it won’t be long before any tracks they left will be covered up. Knowing he couldn’t afford to waste any more time, he stepped up into the saddle and followed the tracks that led him down to the water.
Frustrated, for he was still not certain he was actually following Troy Womack, he decided to stick with it because it was the only option he had, other than giving up. With that discouraging thought in mind, he pushed on across the river to pick up the trail where it emerged on the east bank. All the while, he apologized to the bay gelding, for he had not rested the horse as he should have. He had to follow the trail for as long as he could before it disappeared under the snow, which was falling in earnest. Even when all traces were gone, he counted on at least knowing the party’s general direction. And given that, maybe he could guess where they were heading.
As darkness settled in, he continued following the tracks of half a dozen or more horses until he finally lost them at the forks of two small streams. His horse was tired, and he could no longer see any tracks left by the men he followed. He had no choice but to call it a day.
Going about the business of making a camp. his first concern was for his horse. He pulled the saddle off, leaving the blanket on. Next, with his hand ax, he cut some of the smaller limbs from several of the cottonwoods beside the stream and peeled the bark from them to serve as horse feed. “Just as good as oats,” he commented to the bay while it made short work of them. He gathered an armload of dead limbs from among the cottonwoods to start a good fire and carried them into a stand of pines on the opposite bank, where he made his camp for the night. Bending some young pines over and tying them together formed a scanty shelter. Soon he had the fire burning hot enough to burn even the peeled cottonwood limbs, one of which he used as a spit to roast some of the smoked venison he carried.
Once he’d eaten, he crawled under a flap of deer hide he carried and fell right to sleep.
During the night, he slept fairly well, waking in the early morning hours to discover that the snow had stopped. He shook off the inch or two that had found its way through his pine tent onto his deerskin cover. Placing more wood on his fire, he stayed until the first fingers of light filtered through his canopy of pines. Eager to see if there were any traces of a trail, he saddled the bay and was underway before any thoughts of breakfast or even coffee. He found out right away, however, that there was no need for haste, for the snowfall had done the work he had feared. He rode up from the forks of the stream to gaze out upon a wide snow-white prairie devoid of tracks.
All he had to go on was the general direction the party had started in. It was a guess at best. Based solely on his intuition, he decided the course suggested two different destinations. Even though he was not familiar with the country west of Laramie, he figured that if he continued in the direction he had been riding, he would end up somewhere near Iron Mountain on Chugwater Creek. The trading post there was well known as a hangout for outlaws and was one of the reasons he had chosen to take his hides to Fort Laramie to trade. On the other hand, the party could have turned back slightly south and gone to Cheyenne. He had to consider that possibility. Iron Mountain made more sense because Womack had just fled Cheyenne. And Raymond Potter, who owned the trading post at Iron Mountain, was more like the people Womack was inclined to deal with.
Cole nudged the bay with his heels and started for Iron Mountain.
* * *
Martha Green walked into the store from the storeroom in back carrying a bolt of calico. “I forgot I had this,” she said to Carrie, who was dusting the shelves behind the front counter. “I think it would be just right for a dress you could wear when you’re helping out in the store.”
With her face lighting up in a big smile, Carrie exclaimed, “Oh, Mom, it’s beautiful.” Right from the beginning of their short relationship, the Greens had insisted that Carrie should call them Mom and Dad. She was still somewhat astounded by their generosity and acceptance of her as their daughter. After all the fears she had entertained before meeting them, she was eternally grateful for their warmth, and at last she felt that she was in a safe, comfortable place in her life. She turned to meet Douglas Green’s smiling countenance. “What do you think, Dad?”
“You’ll be pretty as a picture in a dress made outta that. Robert
woulda liked that, too.”
“But this is material you hope to sell,” Carrie said. “I have that money Cole Bonner gave me. I should pay you for the material.”
“No such thing,” Martha insisted at once. “You’ve got to stop trying to pay for everything. You’re family, and family doesn’t pay for things in the store. Isn’t that right, Douglas?”
“That’s a fact,” he replied. “Family don’t pay.” He chuckled then. “Besides, that bolt of cloth has been settin’ back there in the storeroom for over a year. Came in with the stock we hauled from Julesburg.”
“You’re both spoiling me,” Carrie said.
“Ain’t nothin’ too good for our daughter,” Douglas declared. It had been a hard thing to lose their only son, but the sweet girl he had left a widow was a genuine help in the healing. Now that Carrie was with them, it was a little bit like having their son still with them.
“When I get back,” Martha said, “I’ll dig in that drawer where I keep my patterns and see if I can find one that would be best for you.” She went out the back door then to deliver a sack of flour to the hotel as a favor for Maggie Whitehouse. Outside, she was not aware of the dark cloud that an ill wind had just then gathered over the little settlement of Cheyenne.
* * *
Leon Bloodworth walked out the door just in time to see the four riders trot past his stable. He couldn’t recall having seen three of them, but he immediately recognized the fourth. “Troy Womack,” he muttered and stepped back against the door, astonished to see the outlaw back in Cheyenne. “Lord a-mercy, he’s come back, and brung three more with him!” He was immediately struck by the thought that Harley’s fancy Mexican saddle was sitting in his tack room and Harley’s horse was in the corral.
Unable to move for a long moment, Leon didn’t know what to do. He should tell somebody, but who? There wasn’t really anyone in town who could stand up to the four obvious gunmen alone. It would take a gathering of the men who had answered to the vigilante call before and that wouldn’t be easy. The altercation when Slade Corbett had been run out of town had taken the will to fight out of most of the men involved. Leon, himself, was one of the men who first answered the call to protect the town. He was the one who’d approached his fellow citizens to organize but was reluctant to risk his neck a second time. John Henry Black had been hired to protect the town and was laid up in his bed in the hotel, with still a long way to recover from his wounds.
Leon thought of Gordon Luck, the man who had led the vigilance committee before, and thought he should get word to Gordon down at the sawmill by the river. Leon had little doubt that every merchant in town would soon know Womack had returned. Before he saddled a horse and alerted Gordon to the danger, it occurred to the liveryman that it would be wise to warn Harley that Womack was back in town. Knowing Harley was usually found in his favorite saloon, the Cowboy’s Rest, Leon headed there.
* * *
“Nice quiet little town,” Flint Yarborough declared as he and his friends slowly walked their horses past the Cowboy’s Rest, heading toward the hotel up the street. “I’m thinkin’ this is just what we’re lookin’ for.” He looked over at Troy riding beside him. “And you say the sheriff is dead?”
“I reckon he’s dead,” Troy replied. “I couldn’t hang around for the funeral, but I put two bullets in him, and he didn’t get up again.”
“Yep.” Yarborough repeated, “right nice little town. Just what we’re lookin’ for.”
“I’m thinkin’ we’re passin’ just what I’m lookin’ for,” Red Swann said. “Whaddaya say we pull over here and get a drink of whiskey?”
“Hold your horses,” Yarborough said. “Hell, there’s two more saloons up the street. I wanna get a look at the whole town first—see what we’ve got to work with here.” He looked over at Troy again. “Besides, ol’ Troy wants to see if that Harley Branch feller is still in town. Ain’t that right, Troy?”
“That’s a fact,” Troy answered, secure in his resolve now that he had the backing of three hardened gunmen.
“Probably a good idea to take care of that son of a bitch first, so maybe we won’t have to worry about gettin’ shot in the back while we’re settin’ around in one of these saloons drinkin’ whiskey,” Yarborough said. Riding past the locked door of the sheriff’s office, he joked, “I don’t see no sign on the door that says HELP WANTED.”
It brought a laugh from his companions. No one noticed the nervous figure walking hurriedly from the stable to disappear through the door to the Cowboy’s Rest behind them.
They proceeded past the Sundown Saloon as the occasional person on the boardwalk stopped to gape before quickly stepping inside one of the stores.
One young lady caught Tiny Weaver’s eye when she hurried into the general store next to the hotel. “Damn, did you see that?” he blurted, grinning, “Went in that store, there.”
“Yeah, I saw her,” Red answered him, getting only a glimpse of the woman’s back.
Yarborough pulled up to the hitching post in front of the hotel. The others pulled up on either side of him.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Red told Yarborough. “I need to see if they’ve got some tobacco in that store.”
“I’ll go with you,” Tiny said at once, eager to get another look at the woman.
“I’ll see ’bout gettin’ us a couple of rooms,” Yarborough said.
“Might be a lot cheaper if we can take a couple of rooms in one of those saloons,” Red said. “One of ’em has got two floors, so they most likely have rooms to let. I like livin’ high on the hog, but the hotel will most likely cost us too much.”
“Might at that,” Yarborough replied. “But who said anything about payin’?”
Red laughed. “That’s why you’re callin’ the shots. Come on, Tiny. I need some tobacco.” He and Tiny looped their reins over the rail and headed for the store proclaiming itself as Green’s Merchandise.
“Well, I’ll be go to hell,” Red muttered in disbelief when he walked into the store, his eyes focused on the young woman standing at the end of the counter. “Corina Burnett!” he declared emphatically. “I thought you mighta been dead. How the hell did you end up in a place like this? You workin’ in one of the saloons here?”
Douglas Green, at first puzzled, was stunned when he realized the stranger’s outburst was aimed at his daughter-in-law. He turned to stare at Carrie, his eyes wide with his confusion, when seeing the obvious alarm in the startled woman’s face. Looking back at the leering faces of the two crude drifters, he sputtered thoughtlessly, “Can I help you?”
Carrie, whose very soul seemed to have frozen solid inside her, was speechless, the knuckles on her hand white from the desperate grip on the broom handle she had picked up moments before.
Equally puzzled by her reaction, Red went on. “What’s the matter, Corina, don’t you remember me? Last time I saw you, you was workin’ in The Cattleman’s in Ogallala. Flint Yarborough was with me. I know you remember him, big man with a handlebar mustache. I know I remember you.”
She remembered him all right, but had made every effort to forget him and every man like him, especially the man he mentioned, Flint Yarborough. She had fled Ogallala to escape the brutish beast with the handlebar mustache who had become obsessed with possessing her. And now the nightmare had found her, seeking to destroy the opportunity to restart her life. Finally able to talk, she tried to speak in a calm voice, although her heart was racing. “You seem to have mistaken me for someone else. My name is Carrie Green, and I don’t recall ever having been in Ogallala.”
It caused Red to pause, unsure for a moment, but for only a moment. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? Your name’s Corina Burnett. Carrie, huh? Is that what you’re callin’ yourself these days?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. Turning to Tiny, he said, “Me and Yarborough was in Ogallala for a week, a couple of years back. We was in The Cattleman’s every night just ’cause Corina worked there. She was the best-lookin’
whore in town, no doubt about it. But the last night we was there, she was gone. Didn’t nobody know what happened to her. I figured some damn cowboy, crazy out of his head with that rotgut they sold for whiskey, mighta killed her. But it got away with Yarborough somethin’ awful. He liked to never got over it.”
Totally unaware of the cannonball he had just dropped in their midst, he turned to the still paralyzed Douglas Green long enough to order. “Gimme some smokin’ tobacco. You got it in them cans or them twists?” Turning back to Carrie, he said, “Me and my friends are gonna be in town for a few days. How about you and me gettin’ together tonight—maybe before Yarborough knows you’re here?” He turned to Tiny and grinned. “When Yarborough finds out she’s here, he ain’t gonna be sharin’ her with nobody else.”
Knowing her whole world was crashing down around her, a world that she had only recently discovered possible, Carrie had no choice but denial, even as she could see the shock registered in her father-in-law’s eyes. “I’m sorry, sir,” she replied, barely able to keep her voice from trembling. “I’m not this woman you knew. My name’s Carrie Green, and I’m not the kind of woman you’re talking about. So if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” With that she picked up the bolt of cloth and turned toward the storeroom door.
Again Red was stumped for a moment, looking back and forth between Carrie and the storekeeper. Then it hit him, Carrie Green and Green’s Merchandise, and he threw his head back to guffaw loudly. “Well, damn me to hell,” he bellowed. “I let the cat outta the bag, didn’t I?” He gave Tiny a playful slap on the back. “Carrie Green. Now that sounds right respectable.” He looked Douglas in the eye. “I gotta hand it to ya, you old hound dog.”
When Douglas continued to stand there in shock, Red demanded, “How ’bout that tobacco? Leastways, I can get me somethin’ to chew. I reckon we can find some female company in one of the saloons since ol’ Corina has got herself respectable.”
Massacre at Crow Creek Crossing Page 12
