He listened to the constantly falling rain. Outside of that there were no other sounds audible across town. Everyone with any sense was inside out of the storm. The rain had muted the world. He had no concern about anyone—Austin Szabo, for example—following them into Drovers’ Springs. Not on this night, under these conditions. Sage even managed to doze for a few minutes before his tub and the following procession of men carrying hot water to fill it with arrived. When this group was gone Sage lowered himself into the copper tub and its exquisite warmth, settled in with his whiskey glass in hand and dozed off once again.
Life was good.
After soaping down and rinsing he felt almost like a complete man. He rubbed his jaw, considered shaving and then decided that could wait until morning. He slipped in between the sheets of the bed and pulled the blankets tight around him. After a few minutes he longer heard the insistent drumming of the rain against the hotel’s roof. He was away from Drovers’ Springs, away from the troubles of the world in some distant place where all was warmth and comfort.
Morning was a bright splash of gold against the window of Sage’s hotel room. It was a harsh sort of awakening after the gloom and gray of recent days, but he knew he had to rise, and soon. There was a long trail awaiting him still. But, yawning, he rolled over in bed and covered himself tightly again. After the deprivation he had suffered lately, he was reluctant to leave his small paradise and step out of bed into the chill of the morning.
When he finally did spur himself into rising, he was surprised and slightly angered to realize that he was doing so not for the sake of his quest, but because of another human being for whose welfare he had tacitly assumed responsibility. That is, he was concerned about Gwen.
Why he should waste any more time concerning himself with the small, dark-haired woman was beyond him. She had simply popped into his life seeking his protection. He owed her nothing more. He had done all that could be expected of him, taking Gwen across the river in the night, finding a bed for her to tuck into. She was not a child; she had made her choices: let her live with them and solve her own problems.
Her condition was not a happy one, alone away from home, an angry and quite dangerous suitor probably on her trail. Without money, with no place to stay, it was an unenviable position, but, as Sage reminded himself again, the girl had made her choices.
There was a moment’s confusion when Sage finally swung his legs to the floor, looked around and realized that he had no clothes to wear. He remembered now sending them out to be dried in the hotel kitchen. An expensive but probably necessary action. He could imagine trying to get into a cold, rain-heavy pair of jeans on this morning and being subsequently condemned to wearing them all day.
There was a thimbleful of whiskey in his glass from the night before, and nearly a cup of cold coffee in the pot. With his blanket still worn Indian-style he settled into the rocking chair once again and drank both.
He became growingly annoyed with himself. It was time to get moving. There was now no barrier between him and the end of his trail. He decided to look out into the hallway to search for a hotel employee who might have his clothes sent up.
Almost at the same moment there was the light rapping of knuckles against the door to his room. Good. The hotel must have anticipated his need.
Walking that way, he swung the door open to find Gwen Mackay standing in the hall holding his clothes up on a wooden hanger. Silently he groaned; aloud he said, ‘Good morning, what are you doing here?’
‘I brought your clothes,’ she said, holding them up. ‘I saw them hanging on your doorknob and figured you would be needing them.’
Holding the clothes high so that they did not touch the floor, Gwen entered, her eyes averted, but not deliberately so from the tall, whiskered man wrapped in a striped blanket.
‘Fine,’ Sage said, ‘thank you.’
‘Do you want me to leave?’ Gwen asked. ‘While you dress, I mean.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me,’ Sage said. ‘You might want to spend a few minutes looking out the window, though.’
He noticed that her own jeans and flannel shirt were dry, that she had managed to do something with her hair, pinning it up. He felt a little awkward and primitive suddenly.
With Gwen staring out the window at the ramshackle town of Drovers’ Springs, he stepped into his dry, creased jeans and stamped into his boots, finding them still damp. Shrugging into his shirt but not buttoning it, he retrieved soap and razor from his saddle-bags. What the point in shaving was at this point he could not have said, but he applied a half-dozen strops to the razor from the leather hung on the wall for that purpose and proceeded to shave. Gwen was still standing, hands behind her back, watching the damp buildings and the town where the new sun caused the rain’s leavings to gleam like silver.
‘You don’t have to keep looking out the window,’ Sage said to her as he positioned his razor.
‘I didn’t know how sensitive you were,’ Gwen said, turning toward him.
‘Not at all. I’m hardly a sensitive man,’ he replied, shifting his cheek for the razor’s downstroke.
‘You hide it well, or you imagine that you are doing so,’ was Gwen’s reply. Sage didn’t feel the obligation to answer that remark.
With the bristle off his jaw he dabbed his face dry with the towel and buttoned his shirt. Gwen watched him as if he were a strange, unpredictable animal.
‘Well,’ Sage suggested, ‘what do you say we get some breakfast? Then we can talk about what to do with you.’
‘Do with me?’ Gwen was completely surprised. ‘Why, I already told you—I’m continuing on to Trinity one way or another. I don’t know what there is to discuss if it’s not finding a way for you to just desert me here.’
‘Gwen,’ Sage said in a slow, firm voice. ‘I know you would be stranded if I left you in this town, but I am telling you again: I’m riding a dangerous trail and in Trinity there’s going to be trouble.’
‘Yes, so you said.’ She shrugged her narrow shoulders. ‘But that’s only after you get there, right? As soon as we hit town I can start looking for my maiden aunts. I’ll be all right after that.’
‘You have a lot of faith.’
‘Yes, I do, and I have some in you as well. If Trinity is trouble for you, think of what the trail to Trinity could mean for me, traveling alone.’
Sage had been thinking of that. A lone woman, unarmed, with trouble on her trail ... the situation stank. He finished buttoning his shirt and growled, ‘Let’s eat.’
Gwen only nodded and they exited the room, traipsing down the hallway of the still mostly asleep hotel. Breakfast was scrambled eggs and ham served in a low-ceilinged, kitchen-smoked restaurant by a surly waitress with drooping jowls. Maybe, Sage thought, they could have looked around and found a better place. But who knew, this might have been the finest establishment in Drovers’ Springs. Besides it was more important to just jam some food down and hit the trail again early.
Sage was pleased and surprised to find a small but ripe fresh peach served for dessert. He stood now on the porch of the restaurant, nibbling at it. Beside him Gwen said little as she had said almost nothing over breakfast. Sage could tell she was anxious and uncertain.
‘What’s your plan?’ Sage asked now, separating his business from hers. It wasn’t that he disliked her, but she was an impediment to his goals.
‘I’ve told you once or twice at least,’ Gwen replied, her voice sounding a little snippy. ‘I am riding on to Trinity to stay with my maiden aunts.’
‘Your father will certainly miss you by now, he not even knowing where you have gotten to.’
‘I will write him a letter for Trinity. He’ll understand why I had to get away from the farm,’ Gwen said, her voice still a little stiff. Sage felt as if he were letting the woman down, but then he had made her no promises, owed her nothing. She watched him as he silently munched on the juicy peach, wondering how the restaurant had come by it in this part of the country.
/> ‘Father once tried to grow peaches from good Georgia root stock, but the winters here are too cold, the summers too dry. Besides, the soil is not suited for them as it is in the South.’
Sage only nodded. He had stepped from the porch into the muddy street. The traffic was light. One ore wagon passed them by and a roaming cowboy, apparently lost, looked over the street from the back of his pinto pony. Gwen continued to chatter as they walked toward the stable. It seemed to be some nervous reaction to her uncertain circumstances. ‘Besides there’s not much that can be done with peaches except putting them up.’
‘Peach pie is good,’ Sage said, just so that Gwen would not think he was ignoring her. He was hoping that his gray horse’s hock had recovered after a good night’s rest. He needed to make better time than he had been.
‘Yes, it is,’ Gwen agreed, as they walked along, Sage obviously striding too rapidly for her. He slowed himself deliberately.
‘What did your father want to do with them? And why did he give up on them? A few trees would be nice to have.’
‘As I say, you can’t do that much with them,’ Gwen said, still hurrying along beside him, her eyes turned down, her face intent, ‘unlike apples.’
‘I don’t see much difference,’ Sage said, as they reached the plank walk across the street. ‘Wouldn’t Mr. Kiebler be just as pleased to carry peaches as apples and cherries in his store?’
Gwen almost stopped in her tracks, turning to face Sage in front of a hardware store where a man was sweeping the walk.
‘I never thought that you were such an unobservant man, Sage Paxton,’ she said, puzzling him.
‘What are you talking about?’ he asked a little gruffly.
‘There’s a lot than can be done with apples,’ she said, now fixing her dark liquid eyes on his. ‘Especially when the product can be smuggled on to an army post.’
‘Product? Look, Gwen, maybe I am unobservant, but I still don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She gawked at him as if he were the fool of all time.
‘Do you know what applejack is?’
‘Of course I do, though I don’t favor it—hard cider, you mean.’
‘That’s right. Wouldn’t you suppose there’s more profit in that than in fresh fruit?’
‘Of course there would be,’ Sage admitted. They still had not moved along the plank walk toward the stable. Now as the sweeping storekeeper moved nearer, Sage nodded to the man and they stepped down into the muddy alley.
‘You can’t mean what you’re saying,’ Sage said. ‘Your father is selling applejack to Kiebler, who sells it to the soldiers at Fort Vasquez?’
‘Of course! Didn’t you notice anything while you were loading Kiebler’s wagon?’
Thinking back, Sage did remember thinking that some of those sacks of apples were awfully heavy. ‘Kiebler would never sell liquor to the troopers. He told me so.’
‘What would you expect him to say?’ Gwen asked, a sort of pitying look on her face.
‘It would cost him everything if Captain Rowland found out about it,’ Sage objected.
‘Sage,’ Gwen said with a little shake of her head. They had halted beside a freight wagon which stood in the alley next to the stable. ‘There’s plenty of profit to go around.’
‘You can’t mean that Rowland knows all about it! That could cost him his commission.’
‘Who is ever to find out?’ Gwen asked. ‘Rowland can always claim that he knew nothing about it. When there is to be a delivery, the captain is always conveniently away from the post.’ Yes, well, he had been gone this time, Sage knew.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Sage said.
‘What? That men will break the rules if there’s a profit in it?’
‘But Kiebler said that he was dead-set against liquor being brought on to the post.’
‘Again, what would you expect him to say? Confess all to a man he had just met?’ Gwen shook her head. ‘I like Mr. Kiebler—I happen to think he’s a nice man, but then he is just a man who saw an opportunity to make a lot of money; Rowland, as well: the captain was probably raking in twice or three times a month what the army pays him.
‘I’m starting to wonder about you, Sage. I believe you are an honest man, that is why the most transparent lie may not seem so to you.’
‘I thank you for that, if it was intended as a compliment,’ he replied.
‘It was,’ Gwen said, now smiling up at him, ‘as awkwardly phrased as it was.’
‘I’ve got to see about my horse,’ Sage said, still a little miffed at Gwen’s comment.
He stepped away from the parked wagon and started toward the stable doors, which is when the bullets from the unknown gunman began to fly around them.
Chapter Six
The bellowing sounds of a .44 being touched off filled the alleyway, and wood exploded from the holes being bored into the wagon’s side planks and whined off the metal brace straps. Taken completely unaware, Sage Paxton dove for the ground, slapping Gwen’s legs out from under her to bring her down as well. Wriggling aside a little more, Sage glanced at Gwen to see that she was all right and simultaneously slicked his Colt from his holster.
Lying prone, peering into the shadows of the alley he could see nothing, no one. Gwen was clinging to his arm and he shook her off. There was nothing but the rolling clouds of black powder smoke rising toward the clear sky and the insistent lingering echoes of the gun.
And then there was. Still peering from his position beneath the freight wagon, he caught sight of a man’s legs as the attacker raced toward the foot of the alley. Sage triggered off three rapid rounds. His first shot flew wide, his second caught the man in the leg and, as he doubled up, Sage’s third bullet caught him high on the shoulder. The gunman buckled to the damp earth, and Sage knew that it was over.
Gwen was gibbering meaningless sounds. Her hands were clawing at the earth, her face frantic. Her dark hair was now draped across her forehead and eyes.
‘What happened?’ she demanded in a shaky voice. ‘Who was it?’
‘I don’t know. Stay here; I’m going to find out.’
Rolling out from under the wagon Sage approached the downed shooter cautiously, his Colt still in his hand. Gwen had come off the ground as well and she plodded along behind him in short, nervous steps.
‘You don’t mind very well, do you?’ Sage asked.
‘No,’ she replied. ‘I wanted to see who it was. Do you think it’s Austin Szabo?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sage answered. The gunman had been his first guess as well, but if it was Szabo he didn’t deserve his reputation. The man had not been a good shot at all. He had not been more than fifty feet away when he had started firing, and he had missed with every shot.
As Sage suspected, the man was dead. The bullet he had taken in the shoulder had passed through and penetrated his upper ribcage, stopping his heart. Sage turned the man partly over with his boot toe and discovered that it was not Szabo who lay there. Gwen gasped.
‘Do you know this man?’
‘Yes,’ she said shakily, ‘it’s Caleb Hornblower.’
‘Who in blazes is Caleb Hornblower?’ At the head of the alley a few men, drawn by the gunshots, had gathered, muttering among themselves.
‘He worked for my father,’ Gwen told him. ‘He wasn’t a very nice man.’
‘What was he doing here?’
‘Looking for us, I’d imagine. Can we get away from him now?’
‘We’d better, I suppose. The law is bound to show up. If anyone asks neither of us knows who he was.’
‘All right.’ Gwen nodded solemnly.
‘I’ve got to get my horse, Gwen. I don’t intend to stay around this town any longer than we already have.’
Mutely she followed him back toward the stable. Sage said not a word to the gathered bystanders. To Gwen he hissed, ‘How many others have you brought along to trail us?’
‘Me... ? Sometimes you make it hard to like you, Sage Paxton,’ she said, affronted.
‘I don’t need anyone to like me,’ he said as they entered the barn under the curious stableman’s gaze.
‘A little trouble out there?’ the man asked.
‘The marshal can take care of it.’
‘All right, then,’ the man said, ‘but—’
‘How’s my horse looking this morning?’ Sage asked, ignoring the stableman’s eyes and unasked questions as he walked to the stall where the big gray stood, Gwen’s horse beside it.
He wasted no time in outfitting his gray. It showed no sign of continuing disability, which was for the better. Otherwise Sage, as much as he liked the animal, would have considered trading it off, and he hadn’t the money for a good horse—not as good as the gray, anyway. He thought of purchasing supplies for the trail, but he was now halfway to Trinity, and he had no extra money. He contented himself with filing his canteens from the rain barrel outside the stable, which was overflowing with the recent rain, unhitching his mount, and emerging into the clear sunlight.
To find Gwen Mackay, already mounted, waiting for him.
‘What are you doing here?’ Sage demanded.
‘I’m continuing on to Trinity, and we both agreed that it was not safe for me to travel alone out here.’
‘We did? When was that?’
‘We discussed it several times, Sage. Is your memory that bad?’
‘No, but my mood is.’ He yanked the gray’s head around and started toward the west end of town. The crowd in the alley still had not dispersed which could mean that the town marshal had arrived to investigate. Sage wanted no one noticing him and lifting a pointing finger in their direction. He had had enough of Drovers’ Springs and all he ever meant to see of it. He rode on, careful not to look back.
Soon they were out on the wide, red-soiled land, which was still slathered with rainwater which glittered dully beneath the sun hanging in the empty sky at their backs.
‘They’re not coming fast enough to be after us,’ Gwen said.
‘Who?’
‘Those men on horseback behind us.’
The Trail to Trinity (A Piccadilly Publishing Western Page 5
