“That he does. He wants things a certain way and don’t suffer much in the way of contrary thinkin’. Me and Henry Wymer, we’re two who’ve ridden with him since the beginnin’. We can question him now and then. But even we know not to take it too far.” Pride gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Then again, there ain’t much call to question Sam. He may be cold and rough in his ways, but he’s made us a lot of money that’s socked away safe in our badlands hideout along with plenty of provisions to see us comfortably through the hardest winter. Come spring, we’ll ride out for some more.”
“How much farther to this hideout, these winter quarters we’re headed for?” Craddock asked.
“Another two or three days. Dependin’ who gets what route when we split up.”
“Split up?” Craddock echoed.
“That’s right. Whenever we return to our hideout,” Pride explained, “we never go there in a straight line and never all of us in one bunch. We separate and take a couple of different ways in to throw off anybody who might try to follow. That’s what we’ll be doin’ when we ride out of here today. And we’ll leave three or four fellas behind in these rocks for a few extra days as well. To pick off anybody who might be foolish enough to show up on our trail. Not that we usually get much of that. But Kelson wants to make damn sure nobody gets too close.”
Craddock arched an eyebrow. “Kelson’s a mighty careful hombre, ain’t he?”
“Careful and smart. That’s what’s kept us runnin’ clear and pilin’ up plunder the way we have. Losin’ as many men as we did in that piddly little town we just came from is the biggest hitch we’ve run into so far. That was just a piece of freak bad luck, and we still got away with a nice haul and left the place a pile of ashes.” Abruptly, Pride straightened up. “Come on. Let’s go get us some of those biscuits. All this talk is makin’ me hungry.”
Chapter 21
“I’ll be damned,” Tom Burnett exclaimed from his horse. “You mean he rode right into the path of the Legion of Fire?”
“That’s the way it reads.” Luke stood on the ground where he’d dismounted to examine sign.
The other men sat their horses. The posse was halted in the draw where the Legion raiders had overtaken Craddock and Millie. Overhead, the sun was climbing toward its noon zenith.
“So what does it mean?” Russell Quaid said, his forehead puckering anxiously. “Did the raiders . . . harm them?”
Luke shook his head. “Doesn’t look that way. There’s no sign of any kind of struggle, no trace of blood that I can see. Appears they palavered here a bit and then all just rode on together.”
“You mean Craddock joined them?” Burnett asked.
Luke frowned for a moment, considering the question before answering. “I’d be inclined to think so, yeah. Either that or they took him prisoner. But that doesn’t make much sense. What use would they have for him as their prisoner? From what you’ve told me, anybody who’s of no use to them pretty quickly ends up dead. Since there’s no sign of that, most likely they signed Craddock on as a new member of their gang. With his background, it would make a certain amount of sense for both parties.”
“So what does that mean for my daughter?” Burnett said, a trace of hoarseness creeping into his voice as he made the inquiry.
“I imagine it means she got tossed in with the rest of the women hostages the Legion took,” Luke responded. He wished he could have stated it less bluntly, but there was no sense sugar-coating it. The answer should have been obvious enough to begin with. Still, he tried to soften it some by adding, “Could be that works in her favor—being part of a group rather than left strictly in the hands of Craddock. I doubt, him being a new recruit and all, he’d rate laying claim to a woman all his own.”
Russell scowled. “I don’t care much for the callous manner in which you discuss Millie and the other women. You make them sound like soulless objects to be passed around by this pack of scum as if they’re . . . they’re—”
“Those are your words, kid, not mine,” Luke cut him off. “If your sensibilities are too tender for the picture you’re conjuring up, then don’t go there. And if you haven’t got it in your head by now that the hombres we’re on the trail of are as harsh and lowdown as they come, then maybe you’d better go back home.”
“I’m not stopping until I’m dead or have rescued Millie!”
“Have it your way,” Luke said, “but don’t waste any more of my time objecting to the way I say things!”
“Jensen’s right, Russell,” Marshal Burnett said. “I don’t like hearing or thinking about the plight of our women, either. But what we say or don’t say means little compared to what we do and how fast we’re able to do it. That’s why we need to quit jawing and get to riding hard again, especially now that we’ve got a single trail to follow.”
“I’m all for getting a move on,” Luke said, “but it might be best to hold off for a spell on that riding hard part. We’ve pushed our horses at a pretty good clip ever since leaving town. I’d suggest walking them for a ways, letting them cool off, then watering them and ourselves before we saddle up again. We’re still a full day behind the Legion with no chance of catching up any time soon, no matter how hard we ride. No sense burning out our mounts the first day.”
It was true they’d worked their horses steady all morning, following the wide loop Craddock had made to the east upon first leaving town, before curling back to aim due north and eventually reach the draw where he’d encountered the Legion of Fire. The posse horses, even though they’d been halted for a few minutes, were still blowing fairly hard.
“I guess you’re right,” Burnett said, his expression a bit sour at having his command questioned. Nevertheless, he was savvy enough to see the wisdom in Luke’s suggestion. “Everybody climb down. Let’s walk for a ways, give our horses a breather.”
They set out in a somewhat ragged single file with Luke leading the way, continuing to study ground sign. The trail of the Legion gang, from every indication with Craddock and Millie in their midst, could have been followed by anybody short of a blind man. A score of horses pounding hard across the prairie tended to chew the ground pretty thoroughly and mark their passage plain.
Still, Luke continued to scan the marks closely. Not so much to determine their obvious direction, but rather to pick out any oddity or distinction in any particular hoofprint that might mean something or could perhaps be useful later on.
After they’d been walking for several minutes, Burnett moved up beside him. It turned out that the tracks were on his mind, too. “Now that they’re all in a jumble, is there any way of picking out the marks of Craddock’s horse as for sure being one of them?”
Luke shook his head. “Not by me. I’ve known a couple of trackers who might be good enough for that.” He was thinking mostly of Preacher, the old mountain man who was his brother Smoke’s friend and mentor. “Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. Not even close. There was nothing distinct or special about the prints Craddock left when we were following just him. To try and pick them out of all these others . . .”
Burnett didn’t say anything right away after Luke’s words trailed off, then finally said, “What I’m thinking . . . what I’m worried about . . . is that if the gang splits apart like we expect them to do at some point . . . well, I guess you can figure out the rest.”
“Unless I can spot something in the tracks,” Luke said, picking up the marshal’s train of thought, “there’d be no way of telling who was in any one of the groups they splinter into.”
“And we damn sure don’t have enough men to split our own force and try to follow each of their smaller groups. Hell,” Burnett said gruffly, “we don’t even have enough men to make a decent-sized posse to begin with.”
“You said back in town there’s been speculation that the Legion has a hideout in the Pawnee Badlands,” Luke reminded him. “Is that the way we’re headed?”
“Yeah. At least in a general sense. The badlands lay to the north.”
“If the gang splits and there’s uncertainty about which trail to follow,” Luke said, “maybe we should think about going straight on to the badlands and waiting to catch them when they converge again there.”
Burnett gave him a look. “You ever been up that way?”
“No, can’t say as I have.”
The marshal shook his head. “Those badlands sprawl for hundreds, maybe thousands, of square miles. It’d take an army to cover all the ways in and out of there, not to mention the snake’s nest of canyons and gullies and dead ends that twist all through the heart of it. Like I just pointed out, we’re a long way from being an army.”
“We’ve got what we’ve got,” Luke said stubbornly. “Sometimes a small, quick-moving force can be surprisingly effective.”
The remark didn’t improve Burnett’s gloomy expression any. “Not effective enough to be in more than one place at a time,” he said, sounding almost bitter. No sooner had he spoken the words than he appeared to regret them. “Damn it,” he quickly added. “I didn’t mean for that to sound ungrateful, but I can’t get out of my head what that doggone kid said. It’s tearing me up inside—the thought of the two people I care about most in the world, my daughter and the woman I’m intending to marry, in the hands of those animals. When it looked like we had a decent chance of catching up with at least Millie fairly quick, I could bear it, stay hopeful. But faced with possibly failing both of them . . .”
“You only fail if you give up,” Luke said sternly. “And you, especially, can’t do that. You’re the reason these other men signed on for this. And no matter how long it takes, the only chance those women have is this posse. We all need to keep that in mind.”
Burnett grimaced. “You’re right. Damn it, I’ve never been a whiner or a quitter. I don’t know what came over me, but I guarantee you won’t hear any more of it.”
Luke nodded. “That’s more like it. Now let’s get these horses watered and then saddle up again.”
* * *
The posse rode at a smart, steady pace through the balance of the day and well into the evening. They didn’t stop for a midday break but rather chewed jerky and drank from their canteens as they went. Twice more they dismounted and walked their horses for stretches of rest. The trail of the Legion raiders remained plain and singular.
With darkness full upon them, Burnett and Luke agreed on a low, grassy expanse between a pair of smoothly rounded hills to make their night camp. The graze was rich and green for the animals and there was even a shallow spring-fed pool for watering them and for refilling canteens and water skins. Although Luke didn’t believe they had closed the gap on the Legion anywhere near enough to worry about drawing attention, the hollow between the hills nevertheless provided good cover for a campfire to remain unseen.
While Whitey Mason and his son tended to hobbling and graining the horses, the rest of the men divided up chores such as spreading out bedrolls and scrounging for fuel to feed the fire. As soon as the latter was crackling good, Hennesy, the former cook, started preparing a meal of bacon, biscuits, and coffee. A low, cold wind was building out of the northwest, making a good fire, hot food, and some coffee very welcome indeed.
When the meal was done, the men sat close around the fire, some of them smoking, all with additional cups of coffee clutched between their palms. There wasn’t a lot of conversation. Weariness had a grip on each man. It was evident in the slump of their shoulders and in their expressions displayed by the pulsing light of the flames. It wouldn’t be long before the bedrolls became occupied.
Sitting slightly apart from the others, Luke studied each of them and calculated how they measured up for the job before them, the task barely underway. Their spirit and intentions were solid. These were good men out to find a measure of justice, to right a terrible wrong. He could take heart in that much.
Where he had some concerns, however, was in the physical stamina of the group as a whole. Whitey Mason and his son Keith, the two ranchers, were used to being on horseback several hours each day. The others were town dwellers who might know their way around a horse well enough but weren’t really in shape for long, grueling stretches in the saddle. Their commitment to the cause would take them a long way. Far enough, Luke hoped, but it was going to be mighty tough on some of them before it was over.
Even Burnett, who as recently as a couple of days ago had been lamenting about how stiff and sore he was after a night of chasing rustlers, had to be included in this. Although with his daughter and the woman he intended to marry somewhere out ahead, Luke pegged him as not apt to give up even if he had to drag himself across the ground.
Big, powerful Swede Norsky seemed cut from similar cloth. It was quickly apparent he was the least skilled horseman of the lot, but if Luke knew his type, he figured the blacksmith’s pride in his raw strength wouldn’t let him give up.
Pete Hennesy, the cook, was a little tougher for Luke to get a read on. He was also husky in build, but older than Swede. His broad, weathered, sad-looking face appeared to have a lot of hard miles on it, though, marking him as a survivor. Plus, the café where he’d been employed had been destroyed, giving him a personal ax to grind. There was something more. Luke couldn’t put his finger on exactly why, but he’d somehow picked up the feeling that Hennesy was very devoted to Lucinda Davis, the café owner who’d been taken hostage. She might be Burnett’s betrothed, but Luke had a pretty strong hunch that Hennesy was in love with her, too, meaning he’d push himself to the limit of his endurance in an effort to rescue her.
Harry Barlow, the bartender was another good-sized individual, broad of shoulder and thick-forearmed. He had a bushy black mustache and an intense scowl that had likely served him well when things got rowdy in the Brass Rail Saloon. What kind of fighting man he was with weapons other than his fists, Luke didn’t know. But, like Hennesy, he had something of a personal stake in that his place of employment had ended up burned to the ground. All Luke knew for sure was that if he fought with anything near the intensity that showed in his eyes, then he’d be somebody to have beside you in a conflict.
Finally, there was Russell Quaid, the young law clerk. On one hand, it would have been easy to categorize him as the weakest link in the group. Too prim, too proper, too young. Yet while all those things warranted concern, there was an undercurrent of something that couldn’t help but curb Luke’s doubts about him. Yes, he talked tough, but it was the untested bravado of youth and everybody knew what empty talk was worth. Still, it was also obvious he had feelings for Millie and was bent on making amends for being the one who got suckered by Craddock and allowed him to escape and take her with him. Were his feelings merely an infatuation or something deeper that would give him the determination to make good on his talk? Although it was too early to tell for sure, Luke suspected that maybe, just maybe, the kid had a strain of sand in him that might turn out to be surprisingly strong.
All in all, and in spite of his earlier words aimed at bolstering Burnett, Luke had to face the fact that the posse wasn’t the most competent body of men he’d ever ridden with. Hardly one he would have picked for the task at hand. Nonetheless, it was what he’d agreed to be part of. And yes, on his own he could have covered ground faster and caught up with the Legion sooner. Then what? He might have even been able to spirit away one or two of the women. But unless he was able to wipe out a significant number of the Legion in the process, which was highly unlikely, all he’d accomplish would be to turn himself and whoever he took with him from pursuers into the pursued.
So it came back to the rest of what he’d told Burnett. The women were the main thing, and the best chance for getting back any or all of them lay with this posse, less than ideal in its members though it might be. And the best chance for the posse was for Luke to stick with them, leading part of the way and pushing the rest, if that’s what it came down to.
Burnett disengaged from the others and walked over to where Luke sat. “You think it’d be a good idea to post somebod
y on watch tonight?” the marshal asked.
A corner of Luke’s mouth lifted. “I think it’s never a bad idea to post somebody on watch. I admit the chance for any kind of trouble seems remote, but I try not to take unnecessary chances. Even remote ones.”
“Makes sense to me,” Burnett said. “I’ll let the men know, set up a schedule for them to take turns.”
“It’s going to be a mighty short night at best,” Luke said. “With a day’s lead on us and no sign of pursuit right away, I’m thinking we might figure the Legion isn’t working quite as hard to cover distance as we are. Could be they’re stopping for noonings and not pushing so far after sundown before making night camp. Plus we know some of the men are riding double with the women they took, so that will slow them a certain amount, too. We need to hope for all those things to give us our best chance for closing the gap on them. In order to take full advantage, we’ll have to keep riding straight through the days and longer into the nights, like we just got done doing.”
“Okay. I got no argument with that.” Burnett frowned. “So what are you getting at?”
“What I’m getting at is, with the exception of the Masons and me, who are used to long hours in a saddle, there are some mighty exhausted men in this posse after just one day. It’s not the kind of thing they’re used to. That includes you, Tom. I’m suggesting the rest of you grab every minute of sleep you can get and leave the watches to us three.”
Burnett bridled. “Now wait just a minute, mister. I’m the doggone marshal here and I can hold up as good as any—”
“I’m not talking about just holding up,” Luke cut him off. “I’m talking about not getting worn to a frazzle, about staying as sharp as possible for when we do catch up with the Legion.”
Burnett started to say something more but abruptly bit it off. He just glared instead. Then slowly the heat left his eyes. “You’re right. Again. I’m getting a little sick of that . . . but not too sick and not too stubborn to refuse a good idea when I hear one and know it’s for the best. Go ahead and work out your watches with the Masons, then. Me and the others will grab some shut-eye.”
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