Buckhorn urged his horse into a run. Sid followed closely behind him. Buckhorn weaved through the scrubby trees and burst out into the open. He galloped toward the mountains, in roughly the same direction as the trail that led to the Jim Dandy.
Whoops and gunshots came from behind them, but Buckhorn and Sid had already gained a little distance and the horses were running well. If they didn’t encounter too many obstacles, they stood a chance of getting away.
A moment later, Buckhorn realized he shouldn’t have allowed that thought into his head. He spotted a dark line on the ground up ahead, and as they raced closer, he realized it was an arroyo.
“Trouble up ahead!” he called to Sid.
“I see it!” the miner replied. “That’s the gully that cuts across the trail back to the east! There’s a bridge that crosses it, maybe three-quarters of a mile east of here.”
Rapidly, Buckhorn considered their options. They could cut east and make for the bridge, but there was a good chance bounty-hungry hombres from Crater City already had it covered. Plenty of people had seen him escaping in Hugh Thornton’s wagon, with Thornton’s men in the back and Amos Woodrow at the reins. Woodrow should have had time to make it over the bridge before anyone could block it, but that probably wasn’t the case now.
They could head west instead, thought Buckhorn, and follow the arroyo until they came to some other place they could get across, but there was no telling how long that would take. The pursuers could pin them in against the gully.
Or they could keep galloping straight ahead . . .
“How wide is it?” Buckhorn shouted to Sid.
“That arroyo? Reckon it’s maybe fifteen feet—Oh, no! Hell, no, Buckhorn!”
“You know of a better way?”
“But these horses . . . we don’t know what they can do—”
“Better hope they’re good jumpers,” Buckhorn said as he leaned forward in the saddle and tried to get more speed out of his mount.
Beside him, Sid did the same. He might think Buckhorn was loco, but evidently he had a wild streak that the gamble appealed to.
It was too late to try any other strategy now. The arroyo was coming up fast. They might break their necks, Buckhorn thought, but as far as he was concerned, that was better than being hanged for a crime he hadn’t committed.
And if he didn’t make it . . . well, maybe that was just fate catching up to him after all. Maybe he’d been a fool to think that any destiny other than a violent end might be waiting for him.
“Now!” he shouted as he jabbed his heels into the horse’s flanks and sent the animal leaping off the edge.
Sid did likewise, and side by side, the two animals sailed through the open air, the rocky bed of the arroyo waiting some twenty feet below them to break their bones and crush the life from them.
The breathtaking leap seemed to last forever. It seemed to Buckhorn that he and Sid and their mounts were hanging there in midair, motionless, poised as if they were figures caught on canvas by some painter.
Then the ground rushed up at them and the horses reached out with their hooves, straining, searching for live-giving purchase . . .
Those iron-shod hooves thudded against dirt and pulled the horses forward and in the breathless blink of an eye Buckhorn and Sid were across the arroyo. The animals galloped on, never breaking stride. Buckhorn’s heart thundered like a great cannon in his chest, exploding the blood through his veins. For a moment he couldn’t seem to get his breath.
Then he settled down a little and glanced over at Sid, who looked as stunned as Buckhorn felt.
“You all right?” Buckhorn called with a wild grin.
“Yeah . . .” the miner replied, and then his voice gained strength as he went on, “yeah, but nobody’ll ever believe what we just did! I’m not sure I believe it!”
Pistols boomed, rifles cracked, and men shouted angrily in the distance behind them. Those sounds were falling farther behind with each racing stride of the horses.
“Those old boys aren’t crazy enough to try that jump!” Sid called exultantly.
“Thank God for that!” Buckhorn said.
“They’ll go down to the bridge and keep chasin’ us, though.”
“They’ll be too late,” Buckhorn said. The foothills were close now. It wouldn’t be much longer now before they were among the mountain canyons, working their way toward the Jim Dandy.
He was anxious to get there, because for the moment all he could do was hope that Woodrow had gotten away with Matthew Garrett and the other men from the mine. He wanted to know that for sure.
* * *
The sounds of pursuit faded until they were gone entirely. The only sounds were those of nocturnal birds and animals, and even those fell silent as Buckhorn and Sid approached, quieted by the ringing of horseshoes against the rocky ground that echoed back from canyon walls.
“You sure you know where you’re goin’, Joe?” Sid asked after a while. “Because I sure as blazes don’t.”
“I’m convinced we’re going in the right direction,” Buckhorn replied. “I don’t know exactly where we are, though.”
“So you’re sayin’ we’re lost.”
“Not at all.” Buckhorn pointed. “The mine is that direction. I know that from the stars. As long as we’re going in the right direction, we’re not lost.”
“But you just said you don’t know where we are.”
Buckhorn blew out an exasperated breath.
“We’re arguing over definitions,” he said. “It doesn’t matter—”
He stopped short and held up a hand in a signal for his companion to stop. At the same time, he drew back on his horse’s reins with the other hand.
“Listen,” Buckhorn whispered.
After a moment, Sid said, “I don’t hear—Wait a minute. Is that water runnin’?”
“I think so. There’s a creek that runs close to the Jim Dandy, isn’t there?”
“Yeah. That’s where we get our water.” Excitement came into Sid’s voice. “If we can find that creek, we can follow it to the mine.”
“Assuming it’s the same stream,” Buckhorn pointed out.
“It has to be.” Sid paused, then added, “Otherwise we’re lost.”
Buckhorn opened his mouth to argue again, then chuckled instead.
“Yeah, maybe so,” he admitted. “Come on.”
* * *
They found the creek a short time later and began following it upstream. The going was steep at times, and they had to detour around a few places where the fast-flowing creek cut through canyons with no room for riders on either side. In those instances, they had to search to locate the creek again, but Buckhorn’s instincts and keen sense of hearing didn’t betray them. Each time, they got back on the right path without too long a delay.
It was late, probably after midnight, by the time they struck the main trail leading to the Jim Dandy. Both Buckhorn and Sid recognized it. After that, it didn’t take long to reach the mine.
They were approaching it when a challenge rang out from the thick shadows among some boulders beside the trail.
“Hold it right there, you two!” a man called. “Come any closer and we’ll blast you out of the saddle!”
Buckhorn didn’t recognize the voice, but Sid did. He said, “Hold your fire, Nick! It’s me, Sid Halligan. Buckhorn’s with me.”
“Why the hell didn’t you say so?” the man hidden in the rocks exclaimed. “Old Amos told us he hoped you’d be coming along before the night was over.”
“Then Woodrow and the wagon made it all right?” Buckhorn asked.
The sentry stepped out where they could see him and held his rifle in one hand while he waved them ahead with the other.
“Yeah, he’s up at the boss’s place along with that other old-timer he brought up here from town. From the sound of what Amos was saying, I figured those fellas down in Crater City might’ve grabbed you and strung you up, or else riddled you with lead.”
“It wasn�
��t for lack of trying they didn’t,” Buckhorn muttered as he and Sid rode past the guard and then trotted on toward the mine headquarters.
Hugh Thornton’s house was ablaze with light. Sammy, Thornton’s big dog, barked relentlessly as Buckhorn and Sid rode up. Thornton and Amos Woodrow came out onto the porch, each of them holding a rifle.
“Dadgum!” Woodrow exclaimed while Thornton hushed the dog. “You made it, Joe! I didn’t really expect to see you boys again.”
“I’m heading for the bunkhouse,” Sid told Buckhorn. “All this adventurin’ will wear a body out more than swingin’ a pick all day!”
Buckhorn held out his hand to the miner and said, “Thanks, Sid. You’re a mighty good man for a fella to have backing his play.”
Sid gripped Buckhorn’s hand, grinned, and said, “Reckon I’ll leave the gunfightin’ to you from here on out, Joe, but I’m glad I could help.”
He turned the horse and rode toward the bunkhouse while Buckhorn dismounted and tied his reins to the hitch rail in front of Thornton’s porch.
“Where’d you get the cayuses?” Woodrow asked.
“Stole ’em, of course,” Buckhorn replied with a grin. “Didn’t you know I was a horse thief?”
The old-timer snorted and said, “I ain’t surprised. Are there any laws you ain’t broken at one time or another in your misbegotten life?”
“I can’t think of any,” Buckhorn said. He turned to Thornton. “How’s Garrett?”
“He made the trip just fine,” Thornton assured him. “I’ve got a good rocking chair, and that’s all he seems to care about. As long as he can sit and rock, he’s calm.” Thornton motioned for Buckhorn to follow him inside. “Come on. There’s coffee on the stove and some biscuits and bacon left over from supper.”
“That sounds mighty good,” Buckhorn said.
The three men went inside. As Thornton had explained, Matthew Garrett was sitting in a rocking chair close to the big fireplace, which wasn’t lit tonight even though there was a slight chill in the air. Garrett rocked back and forth just slightly, not moving more than a few inches at a time. The leather-bound book he had brought with him from Miss Quinn’s was in his lap with both of his hands wrapped around it.
“I’ll fetch that coffee and grub,” Woodrow offered.
While the old-timer went off to the kitchen, Buckhorn took off the borrowed hat and ran his fingers through his long, dark hair.
“It’ll be good to get my own duds back on,” he said.
“You don’t like looking like an honest workingman?” Thornton asked.
“I’ve been accused of being a lot of things, but that’s not one of them. I don’t guess you’ve seen any sign of Madison or any of Conroy’s other men?”
Thornton shook his head and said, “No, it’s been quiet. You weren’t expecting them to come charging up here tonight, were you?”
“No, but I wasn’t planning on being spotted in town in one of your wagons, either. Conroy and Madison are bound to have heard by now that I was with Woodrow and the others. I figure they’ll be paying you another visit in the morning, whether Amos goes to town to drop those hints or not.”
“Maybe he shouldn’t go,” Thornton suggested. “It might be too dangerous.”
Woodrow came out of the kitchen carrying a cup of coffee and a plate of food in time to hear his boss’s comment. He snorted and said, “You can forget about that. I’m goin’, just like Joe planned. We got to prod those no-good scalawags into comin’ after Matt Garrett.”
The elderly newspaperman started rocking back and forth a little harder. Buckhorn frowned as he noticed that. Maybe Garrett had heard his name and recognized it. Instead of taking the coffee and food from Woodrow, Buckhorn motioned for him to put it on a table, then turned toward Garrett.
“Do you know your name, Mr. Garrett?” he asked. “Are you starting to remember things?”
Wouldn’t that be a stroke of irony, thought Buckhorn, if Garrett really was able to testify against Conroy and Madison?
Garrett opened his mouth. His blank gaze still didn’t focus on Buckhorn or anything else, but he seemed to be struggling to say something.
“Good Lord,” Thornton said. “What do you think it is?”
He and Buckhorn, with Amos Woodrow behind them, moved closer to Garrett.
Finally a sound came from the old man’s lips. He croaked, “Ray . . . ven.”
“Is that somebody’s name?” Woodrow asked with a frown.
“No, he’s saying ‘raven,’ like the bird,” Buckhorn said, remembering what Edward Garrett had told him about the time Miss Quinn had visited his uncle. “That’s important to him for some reason . . .”
Buckhorn looked down, his gaze coming to rest on the book in Matthew Garrett’s lap. He drew in a sharp breath as a thought burst in his brain. His memory went back to something Miss Quinn had said, and he knew he should have figured it out before now.
He reached for the book and said to Garrett, “I need to look at this.”
“Ray . . . ven,” the old man said again.
“I know,” Buckhorn said. “This is a collection of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems, isn’t it?”
“Poems?” Woodrow repeated. “What in the Sam Hill?”
At first Garrett didn’t want to let go of the book. Then his desperate grip relaxed as he said again, stronger this time, “Raven.”
Buckhorn took the book and opened it. He checked the table of contents and turned first to the famous poem, “The Raven.” Disappointment went through him as he saw there was nothing unusual about it, nothing extra written on the page.
Then he began examining the rest of the volume. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary . . .
He paused with his fingertips resting on the front endpaper. He pushed lightly against it, then said, “I need a knife.”
Woodrow pulled out a Barlow knife, unfolded it, and handed it to Buckhorn, who worked the blade carefully underneath the upper edge of the endpaper. He began peeling it back as Thornton and Woodrow looked on with great interest.
“There’s something under there,” Thornton said.
“Yeah,” Buckhorn said. “Somebody loosened this endpaper, slid something behind it, and then glued it back down. Had to be Garrett. Let me see if I can pull these papers out . . .”
He set the knife aside, took hold of the thin sheets concealed behind the endpaper, and ever so carefully worked them out of their hiding place. He set the book on the table next to the knife and spread out the four sheets. They were telegraph flimsies, messages sent from the station at Fletcher’s Crossing to someone in El Paso. As Buckhorn scanned the printed letters, he felt his heart begin to slug harder in his chest.
“What are they?” Thornton asked.
“Just what we needed,” Buckhorn said.
CHAPTER 39
Thornton and Woodrow crowded up next to Buckhorn to study the messages.
“The name of the fella those wires were sent to seems familiar to me,” Woodrow said. “Douglas Nickerson. How come I know that name?”
“Because he’s a cattle broker in El Paso and you’ve probably heard me speak of him,” Thornton said. “I’ve never done business with him myself because he has a rather questionable reputation, but as far as I know he’s never been in any real trouble with the law.”
“Suspected of dealing in wet cattle but nobody’s been able to prove it, eh?” Buckhorn said. “These are instructions to Nickerson about selling some stock that’s going to be driven to El Paso. And look who they’re from.”
His fingertip tapped the block-printed initials at the end of each message.
“DC,” Thornton said. “That has to be Dennis Conroy.”
“Couldn’t be nobody else,” Woodrow said. The old-timer frowned. “But where in blazes did Conroy get any stock to sell? He don’t have no ranches. Well, ’cept for the spreads he’s took over south of the Mesteños.”
“And that’s happened since Matthew Garrett was attacked,”
Buckhorn pointed out. “These transactions happened before that, before Conroy had any stock to sell, just like you said, Amos. They must have, in order for Garrett to have hidden these telegrams in the book and stashed them with Miss Quinn for safekeeping without her knowing about them.”
Thornton had figured it out by now. He said, “Those cattle are the ones Madison and Conroy’s other men rustled from those ranchers down south of here.”
“And the telegrams are proof that Conroy knew about it,” Buckhorn said with a nod.
“How did Garrett get his hands on them?”
Buckhorn shook his head and said, “We may not ever know for sure, but I figure he must have gone down to Fletcher’s Crossing at some point and persuaded one of the telegraph operators at the station there to let him know if Conroy sent any wires. If a federal marshal starts poking around, there’s no telling what he might uncover. Nickerson and those cattle transactions are the best place to start. I reckon if Nickerson believed his own neck was on the line, he’d be pretty quick to throw Conroy to the wolves.”
“I think you’re right,” Thornton said. He waved a hand at the telegrams. “This is even better evidence than what we hoped to get against Conroy and Madison. We have to put it in the hands of the law.”
Buckhorn said, “That’s just what I figure on doing.” He picked up the telegrams, layered them together again, and slid them back into their hiding place. He didn’t try to glue the endpaper down again, just closed the book instead and said, “We’ll tie some twine around this to keep it closed. That’ll protect the telegrams well enough. I’ll take them down to Fletcher’s Crossing, catch an eastbound there, and head for El Paso to turn them over to the U.S. marshal there.”
“You’re forgetting that Conroy has probably spread the word all over the territory by now that you shot his daughter and killed Edward Garrett,” Thornton said grimly. “If you go alone, everyone you meet will be trying to put a slug in you.”
“Why don’t all three of us go?” Woodrow suggested. “Folks know you’re an honest man, boss. You could tell ’em you were gonna turn Joe over to the law in El Paso because you were afraid if Conroy got his hands on him, he’d lynch him.”
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