She struggled the distance in a half hour. That entire time, she kept the buzzards in sight. More of them circled now. Fortunately, no one else was around. They would have easily caught her. Her entire focus was on those buzzards.
As she got closer, she saw something large lying on the ground. In another few moments, she saw it was a cow. The closer she got, two things made an impression on her.
One, the smell nearly gagged her. Before getting close, the steady south wind had pushed the stench away from her. Up close, not even the wind could get rid of all the stink.
Two, she heard a steady, low buzzing. Flies worked around the cow’s eyes, ears, mouth and any other body opening. Ants were interspersed with them.
Tess covered her mouth and nose with one arm while she made a circuit around the cow’s body. No wounds were visible anywhere. Could this be the cow she saw carried by on the rushing water outside her overhang shelter?
She gazed all around the area. How could this cow have gotten here?
Shaking her head, she cleared it of those thoughts. It didn’t matter how it got there. What did matter was how it could help her.
She sat down nearby and started pondering how this dead cow could help her. No doubt the meat was spoiled by this time. There was no way to cook it, anyway.
Idly toying with the Indian boy’s knife, an idea came to her. What about cutting strips of the hide to make some kind of covering for her feet? She’d heard of plains Indians doing that with buffalo hide to make moccasins. Of course, that was after they’d tanned the hide.
I don’t have time to tan any hide, but why wouldn’t just the hide itself do? I wouldn’t have to make anything fancy, just something to cover my feet .
She tore another strip from her dress and tied it around her mouth and nose. It took her over an hour and a great deal of sweat to saw off two strips of the cow’s hide. Her idea was to put her foot on one end of the strip, then fold the other end back over her foot, and tie it on with more strips from her dress.
When she laid the strips out, the underside of the hide was glossy and slick with fat. She didn’t know if she could put her feet on that or not. Working with the knife, she scraped the fat and whatever else was there off. At least most of it.
Tess gritted her teeth and stepped onto the freshly scraped hide. It was still slimy.
I’ve got to do this , she reminded herself. I can’t walk barefoot all the way back to the
ranch. This will be better than nothing. I can do it; I know I can. Forget what it feels like and do it.
Quickly then, she folded the hide back over her foot and began tying the strips from her dress around it. The other foot followed.
Not the most fashionable thing in the world. But my feet are covered. If I’m careful, they should last. I might have to cut up the rest of my dress, but I’ll do it and walk into the ranch naked if I have to.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The same day Tess found the dead cow, Rafe and Merita rode through some hilly, broken country. They had lost the trail of the wagons in a rocky area and were walking their horses, checking the ground for tracks.
“Did you lose the trail?” Merita’s question carried more than a little sarcasm and challenge. She gazed at him from the edges of her eyes.
He didn’t answer for several seconds as he continued searching the ground. With a great sigh, he said, “‘Pears I did.” He lifted his head and turned to stare behind them. “I think we didn’t come far enough west to pick up the trail after that last storm. I think we should head that way.” He turned and pointed with a nod to the west.
For a few more seconds he stood looking in that direction, flipping the reins in his hand. His horse grazed on the sparse grass along the way they were headed. In another moment, his head jerked up, and he stared toward a spot ahead of them. He took a deep breath, and Rafe put a hand on the horse’s nose to keep him from nickering.
“What is it?” Merita asked, looking in the same direction.
“I think he caught a scent of something,” Rafe replied. “Something up ahead of us. Don’t know what it might be. I thought I caught sight of some movement ahead a while back. Thought it was prob’ly a coyote or somethin’. Might not have been.” He paused long enough to take in the cluster of huge boulders that had trees among them. A perfect place for an ambush. “Let’s ease over among these trees and take a breather.”
They hadn’t been in the trees for a minute, when Rafe caught sight of a small flock of
birds flying around. He watched as they flew into one of the smaller trees up ahead, then immediately flew back out.
“Did you see that?” he asked Merita without turning from the area where he saw the birds.
“See what?”
“Birds. They flew into that smaller tree, then flew right back out. I think there may be somebody hiding under there.” He turned to her then. “I’m gonna slip around this way,” he pointed behind her. “You can stay here.”
Before he could even finish that sentence, she replied, “No. I’m going, too.”
Her face told him he’d have to tie her up to keep her from going. “All right. But we have to go slow and quiet. No noise. All we’re gonna do first is see if there’s really somebody there, or if I just imagined what I saw.”
She glanced toward the rocks ahead, then came back to him. “All right. I’ll follow you.”
A nod, and he started off. They walked through the trees first to keep out of sight of anyone who might be waiting ahead. As they slipped through the trees, avoiding branches on the ground that might crack if stepped on, Rafe considered their situation.
Did I really see somethin’ up there? If I did, was it just a coyote? Who would be tryin’ to ambush us? Indians, maybe. That bunch we saw before didn’t look like a war party, but even if they were a huntin’ party or comin’ back from a raid down in Mexico, they might not want to pass up a couple of white scalps. We need to make sure we see them first.
The entire area they walked through looked like the remains of a series of larger hills that had been worn down over the centuries. Weather and wind carved slices out of the hills, sending pieces of them sliding down from the tops. This left large boulders higher than Rafe’s head in several places. The shortest way past the hills was directly between four of them where these large boulders nested. Over time, birds and wind carried seeds of trees that sprouted and took hold among the boulders.
Altogether a perfect place to lie in wait for someone.
Going around behind two of the hills required slow going even if they weren’t trying to sneak up on whoever was waiting on them. Rocks the size of his head all the way up to those that came up to his waist dotted the bottom of the hill. Winding around them without making noise took time.
The heat magnified in the rocks as well. Not only did the sun bake them from above, it also reflected off the rocks, roasting them as they walked by. Rafe felt like a well-done steak by the time they got through the rocks. He pointed them toward a small strip of shade.
He motioned her close, put his lips next to her ear. “We’ll rest here a minute. If there’s anybody there, they’ll be right among those trees we can see between the hills there.”
She nodded, turned her head toward him at the same time. This put their eyes about six inches apart. For the space of two minutes, Rafe didn’t know what to do. Her soft brown eyes reached out and swirled all around his, holding them in that warm embrace. A tentative smile grew on her lips. Rafe felt his heart beat speed up and fresh beads of sweat form at his temples.
For years, a fist-sized rock teetered on the edge of a small ledge halfway up the back of that hill. Held in place by a few grains of sand, a particularly strong gust of wind blew through the hills, dislodging those last grains and sending the rock tumbling down the hillside.
The racket that rock made got Rafe’s attention – fast. His left hand reached around
Merita’s waist while his right hand grabbed his .45 from its holster. H
e pulled her to the ground behind one of the smaller boulders as he scanned the hillside for the source of the noise.
He wound up leaning over her protectively, down on one knee and holding his pistol ready to fire. No target presented itself.
Once Rafe determined there was no danger, he started to stand up and help Merita to her feet. But she tugged at his arm that still held her and shook her head.
When he frowned, she pointed to the other side of the boulder. Easing one eye past the edge of the boulder, he saw a man creeping down the crease between the two hills. His eyes were on the hillside where the rock rolled down. He carried a Winchester and looked like he knew how to use it.
Rafe slowly got into position to act if the man came around the boulder. In another minute, he heard the soft crunch of the man’s boots on the sand and dry grass just on the other side of the boulder. He set himself and waited.
Another minute passed with no sight of the man. Did he turn around and go back to where he had been hiding? Or did he somehow sense their presence and now was sneaking around the other side of the boulder to get behind them? If he did that, Rafe knew he could expect nothing but a bullet in the back. Nothing to do but trust Merita to watch behind them.
Another long minute crept by. Then, Rafe saw the man’s shadow just slipping past the edge of the boulder. He came fully into view a moment later, his eyes still focused on the hillside, his rifle loosely pointed that way.
Rafe came up off the ground and planted the barrel of his .45 hard against the man’s skull behind his ear. Immediately, the man dropped without a sound, just what Rafe wanted.
He pulled the man behind the boulder with them, took his rifle and pistol, then roughly tied his hands behind him with his own belt. The man never moved. Rafe wondered if the blow killed the man, but then saw his chest move with a breath.
Merita came up beside him and said in a very low voice, “I could see him around the other edge of the boulder when he came out of that little bunch of trees.”
Rafe nodded. “At least now we know there are people there waiting on us,” he said in that same very low voice. “Let’s go see how many there are an’ what they want. Maybe we can find their horses and set ‘em afoot.”
Not waiting to see whether she followed, knowing she did, he stepped out around the boulder. He kept his eyes moving constantly, trying to watch all around the area in front of them, not knowing where another man might be hiding.
Slowly, they made their way through the trees, careful not to step on any branches. At the edge of the trees, a flat area in front of a line of boulders that looked like they had rolled down the hillside years in the past. Tied to the trees were four horses. One of the horses surely belonged to the man he’d knocked out. That meant there were three men scattered somewhere in the rocks ahead.
Scanning the rocks, Rafe saw no one. He looked over at Merita, who shook her head that she didn’t see anyone either.
He eased out of the trees and crept toward the horses, keeping his eyes out for anyone showing up. He’d untied all but the last horse when a man stood from the rocks about ten yards away.
“Hey!” the man shouted. He lifted a rifle to his shoulder as he spoke.
Rafe shot him.
Two more men popped up among the rocks and began shooting at him. Caught out in the open, Rafe could only begin shooting back as fast as he could. Fortunately, the two men couldn’t shoot well. The bullets whipped by over his head or buried themselves in the sand around him. His own shots did no damage except possibly come close enough to the men to throw off their aim.
He leaped back behind the last horse that was bucking and tugging at the tied reins. He made it back to the trees where Merita shot several times, giving him cover. Once in the trees, he ejected the spent shells in his pistol and reloaded.
“Two of them left,” he said, eyeing the rocks where the men hid. “I’m gonna work my way around to the right, try to get an angle on the one over there. Can you go left?”
“Sure.” Her answer was immediate. When Merita turned to glance at him, her eyes sparkled. Whether it was the excitement of the moment or something left over from the incident before the shooting, he didn’t know.
Putting that out of his mind, Rafe slipped from tree to tree, pausing often to throw a shot at the man he stalked. He needed to keep the man’s head down so he wouldn’t catch on he was being stalked.
The going got rough, then rougher. At the end of the trees, he had to dash across a small open space with absolutely no cover. Before making that dash, he watched exactly where the man hid. He emptied his pistol at the area, hoping maybe for a ricochet that would cut the man up. Immediately after shooting, he ran across the opening, hitting the ground behind a rock where he reloaded quickly.
Peering around the rock he lay behind, Rafe saw the man pop up and fire twice with his pistol. He watched the man shoot toward the trees. With relief, Rafe knew the man hadn’t figured out where he was.
He crawled out from behind the rock and got behind another. Sounds of firing came from his left. Merita must be getting close to her target , he thought. For just a moment, he felt the quickening of his heart rate just like he had during those few moments so close to her.
Again, he pushed that feeling away and focused on his mission. Rising to his knees, he watched the area where his man hid. He got to his feet, but stayed as low as he could and started easing toward the man’s hiding place. A rock about twenty feet from the last place Rafe saw the man became his target.
Without making any noise, he made it to the rock. A deep breath, and he stood with his pistol resting on top of the rock. When the man raised up to shoot, Rafe drilled him. The man fell back behind the boulder he’d hidden behind, his rifle falling to the ground beside it.
Two more shots came from the area where Merita’s man was hidden. Rafe waited for another couple of minutes to see if the man he shot was really down.
When he figured the man wouldn’t be getting up, he cautiously made his way to the spot where the man’s rifle lay. Kicking it aside, he stepped quickly around the edge of the boulder, his .45 ready for a snap shot.
It wasn’t needed. The man he shot lay on the ground, eyes wide to the sun and dust. A large hole showed just above his ear where Rafe’s round caught him. Blood soaked into the ground beneath his head.
Holstering his .45, Rafe glanced over where he thought Merita had gone, saw her head
just above a large rock. She appeared to be staring at something on the ground, her face expressionless.
Rafe walked over to the rock, getting there just in time to see her shoot the man who lay on the ground. When she did so, something like relief seemed to pass across her face.
“Merita?” he said softly.
She turned her head to face him without taking her pistol from pointing at the man on the ground. “He wouldn’t have lived anyway,” she said in explanation. “Too badly wounded. I put him out of his misery.”
Rafe just nodded. He saw the man had a hole in his stomach just above the belly button. He would’ve died, but it wouldn’t have been pleasant. He also saw the last round hit him right between the eyes.
Rafe certainly couldn’t blame her for killing the man. After all, he represented those who kidnapped and did, or were doing, who knew what to her best friend. He might not have done just the same, but at least something similar. But he had years of dealing with men like these behind him, while he doubted she’d ever confronted anyone like them before.
Just then, they heard the thudding of horse’s hooves going away from them. Rafe ran back to the place they’d left the first man, found him gone. Merita was right behind him.
“He got loose?” There seemed to be more to the question than just its words. She seemed to imply something about how he tied the man.
“Looks that way. Got loose and grabbed one of their horses. Wonder where he’s goin’?”
“These men had to be some of that raider’s men. Who else would be out her
e and try to ambush us?”
“Yeah. You’re right. That one is prob’ly high-tailin’ it to his boss to tell ‘im where we are.” He turned to face her. “We’ve got to be lots more watchful now.” Rafe was quiet for a minute. “Let’s go check these hombres’ pockets, see if we can find out anything about ‘em.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
The raider that got away from the ambush against Rafe and Merita drove his horse hard getting back to Snake Eyes. He knew pushing the horse as he did in the heat would probably kill it, or at least ruin it for riding, but he had to let his boss know about the man and woman. The news was important enough to ruin his favorite horse getting back.
But he didn’t make it all the way. In his haste, the raider failed to see the tell-tale mounds of dirt dotting the area he galloped the horse through. A colony of prairie dogs had lived there for hundreds of years and dug hundreds of holes.
The horse found one. Its foreleg broke through the thin crust over the hole and snapped just above the fetlock. Horse and rider plunged headfirst to the ground, the raider barely avoiding being crushed by the full weight of the horse falling on him.
Dust rose in a small cloud around them. The raider rose on hands and knees, shaking his head to clear it. That he had no broken bones himself was a minor miracle. He sank back to a sitting position in the dirt as he took in what happened.
His horse lay on its side, wheezing and blowing in pain. Blood flowed from its nostrils, indicating more injuries than the broken leg.
The raider rose on shaking legs to stand, unsteady, and then make his way over to the horse. He saw clearly the horse would not survive.
“Sorry, horse,” he said as he pulled his pistol from its holster. “I didn’t want this to happen.” He put the horse out of its misery with a single shot to the head. Then he stripped the saddle and bridle from the horse and carried it a little way until he came across a place where an ancient river had carved a shallow bed through the soil. A rocky wall along the edge of a rise was all that was left. After making sure he could find the shallow bed again, the raider dropped his saddle under a small overhang, took his canteen and a couple of pieces of jerky from the saddlebags, then started off on foot.
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