by Jory Sherman
Brad walked over each set of tracks. It wasn’t easy. The three paths were a maze of cattle and horse spoor. It took a lot of time for him to figure out which horses went with each portion of the split-up herd. Julio waited, holding the reins of Brad’s horse while he studied the tracks.
Finally, Brad walked back and took his reins from Julio.
“Bad news, Julio.”
“Bad news?”
“We’re going to have to split up. I don’t like it, but that’s the way it is.”
“Why?”
“Felicity’s horse went south with about seventy-some-odd head. Pilar went in a different direction. I’ll show you the way.”
“This is not good,” Julio said.
“No. It means we split our forces. It will be dangerous for you.”
“And for you.”
“For both of us. But, we can’t just give up. Not now.”
“No, we do not give up, Brad.”
“No telling where they’re taking the cattle or our women.”
“We do not know, that is true.”
“Is this the way you want to do it? You follow Pilar, and I’ll follow Felicity?”
“I do not know what to do.”
“If we find one, we may lose the other.”
“That is true.”
“We must plan on meeting after we find our wives.”
“Yes. Where?”
“In Oro City. Two sets of tracks, the one where Pilar is, go toward town. I have to get a horse for Carlos.”
“Oro City, yes.”
“Do you know the cantina, High Grade?”
“Yes. I know it. It is where the miners take their cups.”
“Let’s give it two days. No matter what. You meet me at the High Grade.”
“I will have Pilar with me.”
“Buena suerte, Julio.”
“Suerte,” Julio said. “Have the luck.”
The two men said good-bye and started out on their separate paths.
Soon, Brad was alone, following a track that would dim with the dusk, fade in the dark. Julio would face the same dilemma. They would have to feel their way, ride blind much of the night.
Brad knew only one thing. Felicity rode with two men. If he could catch them off guard, he might have a chance to rescue his wife. That was the thought that kept him going long after the sun set and every bone in his body ached. He hoped the men he tracked would stop for the night and make camp, light a fire, bed the cattle down.
When the moon rose, he knew that he had hoped for too much.
The tracks went on into the darkest night of his life.
TWENTY-THREE
Brad heard the groans and grunts of the cattle long before he saw them. The sounds carried on the night air and they told him some of the story. The cattle were no longer moving. They were bunched up or corralled somewhere to the south of him. From the bellows and moos, he figured they were in a draw or some other tight space, crowded together.
He had no idea what time it was. The moon was high and thin, curved as a snipped-off fingernail, and the stars so close he could almost feel their cold glow on his face. It had turned chill, and he shivered in the light denim jacket he wore over his flannel shirt.
When he looked down at the ground, he saw that it had been dragged clean of tracks. He could barely make out the drag marks, but they were there, as if someone had pulled a wide board across the road. And it was a road; he knew now. How long he had been on a cut road, he didn’t know, but it might have been after he crossed a dry streambed that had seemed unusually wide
The darkness played tricks on a man’s eyes. Brad knew that, but he was surprised at himself for not noticing how the land had changed under his feet. He should have noticed the change of sound from his horse’s hoofbeats, the subtle change of vegetation. Had his mind wandered? Of course it had, he reasoned. He had thought of Felicity and Pilar and even of Carlos and Julio. They were men who had depended on him, not only for sustenance and jobs, but also for their safety. He had gone off, chasing after gold, and left the ranch at the mercy of rustlers and killers.
Yes, his mind had wandered, and he hadn’t realized that he was riding down a road. A man-made road, blasted out of a hill or mountain, graded, widened, flattened.
But now he knew. And he knew it was an old road, built for a purpose. In the starlight and the thin light of the moon, he could make out limestone bluffs off to his right, the talus-strewn ditch, the shards of shale that signified someone had used dynamite to take out a natural obstacle to the road.
He felt imprisoned by that road and the low cliffs. He felt as if he had ridden into a trap and mentally kicked himself for being a fool who had lost sight of his objective. Sure, he was tired, but he was also burning inside. Burning to rescue his wife, burning for vengeance, and sick at the loss of his home and his cattle. And Felicity.
He stopped for a moment and blinked his eyes several times to see if his night vision could be sharpened. He looked at trees and tried to find definition. He looked at the sky and then at the ground. Was that a bush or a man? Was that a cactus growing beside the road or a man lying on the ground with a rifle in his hands?
He could smell the cattle now. He could smell their offal and their hides. Now that he looked at the ground more carefully, he could see their cow pies swept to the ditch by some kind of wooden or metal drag. And, when he leaned down so his eyes were closer to the ground, he could make out a faint track or two of a horse or a cow.
How far away were the cattle? He did not know. Half a mile? A mile? Two? Hard to tell. But he could smell them, and if he could smell them, they were not far. And two men and a woman, his woman, would be with them.
He must be careful now. He knew that. The road ahead curved, and it might be a perfect place for an ambush. A man could sit there, behind a rock or a tree, and shoot Brad as he rounded the bend.
It seemed to get darker, and Brad knew he would be making a huge mistake to keep blindly riding down that man-made road. Despite his eagerness to rescue Felicity, he knew he had to stop, wait for daylight.
Or almost daylight.
If he was going to be of any help to Felicity, he had to be able to see.
Brad turned Ginger around and began looking for a place to bed down for the night. He rode back until he ran out of bluff and saw trees, a place to get off the road and hide out for the night. Get some rest. Rest Ginger.
He found such a place, and he marked his bearings when he left the road, making sure it was the road and not the wide streambed. He rocked in the saddle as Ginger climbed into the timber. On a level place, he took his bearings from the North Star. He would need to sleep facing east, so the first flicker of sun would wake him. He took his time looking for a suitable spot to lay out his bedroll and sleep until dawn.
And there was such a place on a small shelf of rimrock. A place where he could hobble Ginger on grass and be high enough so that he could look down on anyone who might approach during the night.
He left Ginger saddled, hobbled him, and climbed up onto the ledge, carrying his bedroll and rifle, his canteen and saddlebags. He walked up and down the rocky outcropping to make sure it was clear of snakes and scorpions. He laid out his bedroll, placed his saddlebags at one end. He used one of them, the softest, for a pillow and lay down. He pulled his wool blanket over him, set his pistol within reach under the unused saddlebag.
Ginger was quiet, grazing. If anyone tried to come up to where Brad was, the horse would whicker or whinny to warn him. He closed his eyes and felt the tiredness begin to seep from his legs and bones. A fresh breeze tugged at his hat, and he took it off, put small rocks on the brim. He lay back down and closed his eyes again.
He fell asleep, dreaming of golden rivers and green pastures, of a woman like Felicity running across a glacier field with wolves chasing her, and of a rifle in his hands that would not work, its mechanism falling apart, spilling to the ground as he ran through hard-rock canyons and over windswept hillocks
crawling with spiders and snakes.
Brad awoke just before dawn as if he had an alarm clock in his brain. One moment he was sound asleep, and the next his eyes opened and the tips of the pines came into sharp focus. It was still dark, but he could see the sky becoming just a tinge lighter as if the blackness was slowly bleeding away with the first light of the unseen sun.
He grabbed his hat, plunked it on his head, pulled his pistol from under the saddlebag, holstered it, and walked off into the woods to relieve himself. He stretched his arms, yawned away the last dregs of sleepiness, rolled up his bed, hefted his saddlebags, rifle, and canteen, and slid on his butt the short way to the flat where Ginger lifted his head and nickered to him softly.
He slid his Winchester back in its sheath, set the saddlebags atop Ginger’s rump, and took a swallow of water before slinging his canteen onto his saddle horn and pulling himself up into the saddle.
He was hungry, but he was not going to eat. He never ate before he went hunting. He told Felicity that fasting sharpened his senses. He could see and smell game better on an empty stomach.
He rode back down to the road. The sky was slowly paling and just before Ginger stepped onto the road, he saw a glimmer of cream spreading across the eastern sky, prying open the night. The stars faded into pale blue, and the sliver of moon was all but a memory as he went up the road. With each freshening of the light, he studied the ground. It was as he had suspected the night before, someone had dragged the road to obliterate all the horse and cow tracks.
Now he smelled them again as he climbed a shallow grade. At the top, the smell was much stronger. Lots of cattle leave lots of waste, especially if they are in a confined space, such as a corral or a tight gather. The sky blazed in the east, spawning bright splotches of gold and russet on the long pennants of clouds drifting high above the horizon, and he could hear jays, the throaty cooing of doves, and a far-off quail. And the bawling of cattle, deep rumbling in dozens of throats, like the sound of hungry bulls kept from pasture.
He found a place to ground-tie Ginger. He left his rifle in its scabbard, pulled his pistol, and spun the cylinder. Six bullets and half a box of cartridges were on his belt. It would be close work, he thought. Pistol work. So, no rifle.
He walked down below the road through a swale of tall weeds, rocks, and stagnant pools of water, jiggling with insects. Cockleburs clung to the cuffs of his trousers, and his boots crunched lightly on gravel. Water drained through this ditch, he thought, and with the cattle lowing, nobody was likely to hear him.
The road curved, and then he saw the pens. To his amazement, there were cattle crammed into an elaborate array of fencing that formed a stockyard. Beyond were two or three long buildings, with lofts and open windows. One small building behind them looked like a dwelling for a bunkhouse. Smoke rose from its chimney, and he could smell food cooking.
The cattle were squeezed tight together and protesting. A line of wagons, maybe a dozen of them, stood around the compound.
He walked past the stockyards and crept up to the building where he could hear low voices and smell the heady aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. There were no men outside. He detected at least four voices, all pitched differently. He crept up to a window, pistol in hand, and slowly raised his head to peer inside.
The window was slightly steamed, but he could see inside the room. It looked like a combination office, bunkhouse, and cookshack. Just one big room, with a desk, a table, bunks along at least two walls, chairs, a stove, sideboards. A coffeepot burbled and steamed. Men sitting around the table, smoking, drinking coffee. One old man with white sideburns was pushing a spatula around in a large skillet, and Brad could smell biscuits rising in the oven.
“Toad,” one man said, “you better give me a head count afore we start butcherin’. I want pay for every head I saw up.”
“After I get some vittles in my belly, Cap,” Toad said, and Brad knew that Toad had to be one of the rustlers. But where was Felicity? He looked at every corner he could see and at all the bunks. There was no Felicity.
Brad waited. He waited while the men ate, and when some went to the outhouse out back, he looked them over. Four of them were wearing leather aprons. Two were not. Toad and another man.
There was a corral beyond the outhouse he hadn’t noticed before. He sneaked past the bunkhouse and looked at the horses eating grain from a trough or drinking at the small tank.
And then he saw the two horses that were tied up and still saddled. One of them was Rose, Felicity’s horse, who stood hipshot. Rose raised her head when she saw him and nickered softly.
Damn, Brad thought, Felicity’s here.
Or is she?
Had he been tricked? Had one of the rustlers swapped horses with her just to throw him off track?
Brad’s jaw hardened, and his eyes slitted with anger. Where was she?
He walked back to a place of concealment near the stock pens and waited. He holstered his pistol but kept his hand close to its butt.
Finally, he saw Toad and another man walking toward the pens. The other man carried a tablet and pencil.
“I call ’em and you tally ’em, Freddie,” Toad said. “Let’s get it over with.”
“Can you even count, Toad?”
“I sure as hell can count fists poundin’ your face to mush if you don’t shut your smart mouth, Freddie.”
“Aw, I was just a-joshin’.”
Toad was puffing on a cheroot. Freddie was spitting tobacco juice. Neither man was looking in Brad’s direction when he drew his pistol and stepped in front of them. He pulled his rattles out with his left hand and shook them.
Both men stopped in their tracks.
“What the hell . . .” Toad said.
Then he heard the click of the Colt in Brad’s hand as he cocked the trigger.
“Sweet Jesus,” Freddie said.
“Who in hell are you?” Toad demanded, jerking the cheroot from his mouth.
“They call me Sidewinder,” Brad said, and shook the rattles again.
He watched both men as the color drained from their faces.
Then he stopped rattling, and it was silent.
It was silent for a long time, it seemed.
When a man faces death, that last second can seem like an eternity. And an eternity can seem like the single tick of a doomsday clock.
TWENTY-FOUR
In the singular moment when no man breathed, Brad fixed his eyes on the man called Toad.
“That bay mare one of you rode in here. It belongs to my wife. Now, I want to know one thing, Toad. Where is she?”
Toad took his gaze away from the rattles in Brad’s left hand. He looked at the cocked .45, its barrel so close it made him ooze sweat as if he were a sieve.
“She ain’t here,” he said.
“You didn’t answer my question, Toad.”
Toad looked at Raskin. Raskin licked dry lips.
“You ain’t goin’ to shoot us, are you?” Fred Raskin said.
“If I don’t get the answer I want.”
“Jeez,” Raskin said.
“You keep your trap shut, Freddie,” Toad said.
“I don’t aim to get kilt over’n a danged woman,” Raskin said.
“It’s up to you, Toad,” Brad said. “First the balls, then square between your sorry eyes.”
Brad lowered the gun barrel to aim at Toad’s crotch. Toad’s sweating increased until his palms were oily.
“I don’t know,” Toad said. “Boss took her and the Mexican gal with him.”
“Who’s your boss?”
“Delbert Coombs,” Raskin blurted out. “He’s the one what’s got them wimmin.”
“And where is Coombs?” Brad asked.
“I dunno,” Toad said. “Honest.”
“Honest? Hell, you don’t know the meaning of the word,” Brad said. “Either I get an answer, or I’ll blow both of you to hell. Those are my cattle you’ve got in these pens, and that’s a hanging offense.”
“
Mister,” Toad said, “Del Coombs took them wimmin, and I don’t know where.”
“Toward Oro City,” Raskin said. He was shaking now. His knees jiggled inside his trousers. He looked like a turpentined cat, and his face was almost sheet white.
“That true, Toad?”
“I reckon.”
“You point me there, and you can walk out of here, both of you.”
“He’s got a place north of town, and in Oro City, he stays at the best hotel,” Raskin said.
“You little bastard,” Toad growled. But he was still sweating like an eight-furlong horse.
“You,” Brad said to Fred, “drop your gunbelt. Run and fetch me that bay mare back there. Be quick about it, and keep your mouth shut.”
Raskin put his tablet and pencil on the ground, then unbuckled his belt and let his pistol and holster drop to the ground. He turned and trotted back to the stables, his boot heels making him wobble like a wheel out of round.
“You ain’t got a chance against Del Coombs,” Toad said, licking his dry lips.
“I’ve got a little advice for you, Toad,” Brad said. “These are stolen cattle. If they’re not back on my ranch by week’s end, I’ll come gunning for you. Just you. You butcher one head of my cattle, and I’ll take your hide to the barn door and set it afire. Got that?”
“I don’t make the rules, here. Del Coombs calls the turn.”
“Better think twice before you turn those butcher boys loose on my stock.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Brad saw Raskin leading Rose toward him. Then, an aproned man stepped outside of the cookshack. Raskin said something, and the man turned quickly and ran back inside.
“Get a move on,” Brad ordered, and Raskin trotted up to him, handed him the reins.
“Toad, you drop your gunbelt, too, and kick it away from you.”
Brad swung into the saddle. Rose turned in a tight circle as Toad let his gunbelt drop to the ground. He kicked it a foot away and kept his eye on it as if measuring the distance.
“Now, turn tail you two, and get to runnin’,” Brad said.
The aproned man emerged from the shack with two others. All three carried rifles. But Toad and Raskin were running for all they were worth.
