"All right, Tom. You take your mother up that trail. Follow right along where the deer went and cross the open place up there to the trees across the way. You wait there for me."
"Duncan? What about you?" Susanna asked.
"Don't worry. I'll wait, fire a few more shots, then get out. That will make them think we're still here."
"And if we miss each other? What then?"
"Go to the hidden corral, where we left the mules."
Tom tugged at his mother's arm. "Ma! Come on!"
Reluctantly, with a quick glance over her shoulder, she followed. Bright as the moonlight was out in the open, it was dark and still back under the close-growing aspens. The path was steep and even darker. Holding her skirts away from the brush, Susanna followed Tom. It was only a dozen yards or so to the top of the bank.
Tom looked quickly around, found the way the deer had gone. Tom grabbed his mother's arm. Swiftly, they moved along the trail.
Duncan McKaskel looked out into the moonlit clearing. A tall man in a slope-brimmed slouch hat was standing there with a gun in his hand. The man's face was invisible, but there was no doubt that he was one of the renegades.
"Howdy, Mac. Was you goin' to go some wheres?"
Duncan McKaskel had expected to be frightened, and he supposed he was. These men were not the sort to hesitate over a killing. He knew that. "Not really," he spoke quietly, stalling for time, for any kind of a break. "I was looking forward to a talk with you."
"With me?" The man was obviously startled.
"Why, of course. I am a curious man, Mr ... ah?"
"Mantle. Ike Mantle."
"I am a curious man, Mr. Mantle, and ever since this all began I have been curious. I have been wondering why you were following me. If you don't mind, it did seem rather pointless."
Ike Mantle was puzzled, and he was curious, also. This man was different, somehow. He was a tenderfoot—everybody knew that—but he was different.
"Ain't so hard to figger," he said conversationally, "we wanted your gold."
"Gold?" Duncan McKaskel was startled. "But I have no gold. Lord, man, if I had gold do you suppose I'd ever leave all that back east and come out here? I don't know if you've been east—"
"I ain't."
"What I mean is there's a dozen ways to enjoy money back there for every one out here. If I had any gold I'd of stayed there until I spent it." He paused. "In fact, that's just what I did, I am afraid. I never had much but what I had just seemed to dribble away."
Ike understood. "I reckon it'll do that wherever you are." Then the fact touched him and stirred him to irritation. "You mean you got nothing in that wagon?"
"We did have some of Susanna ... that's Mrs. McKaskel ... we did have some of her furniture, but the load was too heavy. About all that's left now are a few tools, our bedding, and what we need to live. You know, a small sheet-iron stove, Dutch oven, and such things."
"Well," Ike said resignedly, "you got mules, horses, and your woman. We'll have to settle for that."
Ike was rather amazed with himself. Here he was talking things over with a man he fully intended to kill, but it was McKaskel's approach that threw him, the easy, conversational way that invited the same sort of reaction.
"Why don't you just ride off, Mr. Mantle? Look, those horses and mules will do you nothing but harm. They are known, Mr. Mantle."
"Don't matter. Ain't no law out here that doesn't come from the barrel of a six-gun, and mine's as good as any other."
"There's a rope, Mr. Mantle. I have heard it said that quite a lot of law is enforced with a rope. Particularly where a woman is involved ... or the stealing of horses."
"Who'll know?" Ike said. "Horses are horses an' mules are mules, and you folks ... you won't be givin' evidence agin us."
"Mr. Mantle? Why don't you fellows just ride out of here and forget all this? You thought we had gold. We have none. Our wagon has nothing that would be of value to riding men, and I must warn you. Our mules and the sorrels would be a death-trap for you."
"A death-trap? What's that mean?" Duncan McKaskel lied quietly, coolly. "Mr. Mantle, my brother is in Cherry Creek. He is an officer in the cavalry there. There are, I believe, three troops of cavalry stationed near there at this moment because of expected Indian trouble. My brother is expecting us. When we do not arrive on time, and we are already several days late, he will be curious.
"My brother is a very hard, persistent man. He will begin to look around. Those mules and the sorrels were purchased from my brother, who raised them himself. As you have noticed, these are no ordinary sort of mules, and the sorrels are well bred. He will start looking for those horses, and he will find you and your friends.
"I might add, sir, that my brother is a very precipitate sort of a man. I mean, when angered he acts quickly, and he will have several hundred soldiers to help him."
It was a good story, and McKaskel wished it were true.
"You!" Ike Mantle gestured with his gun. "Walk out there in the open." McKaskel walked. "Now right ... into the trees."
They were waiting for him.
"Where's the woman?" Hyle demanded. "Where is she?"
"Gone. They done pulled out. I caught this one as he figured to go after 'em."
"I'll kill the—"
"Hold up there!" Ike threw up a hand. "You pull in your neck, Red. This here's my prisoner. Anyway, you better hear what he told me."
Ike repeated the story, with some trimmings, and Doc Shabbitt swore. "Hell, Ike! He's lyin'! Can't you see that?"
"Mebbe. But you want to ride into Cherry Crick with them mules and find out you're wrong? They hung a man over there a few weeks ago. They'll do it. That there's a rough bunch."
"Where's your woman?" Red thrust himself at McKaskel. "Where'd she go, damn it!"
"I haven't the slightest idea, and if I knew, I would not tell you."
Red swung a wicked backhand blow that knocked him sprawling. McKaskel hit the ground with a jolt, his head spinning, the taste of blood in his mouth. He had been hit before. He had been a boxer and it was his instinct to get up. He started up and looked at three guns.
Slowly, he got to his feet.
"She's with Vallian," he said, and spat blood. "She left me."
Chapter XVIII
Even as he lied he hoped she was with Vallian, for with him she would be safe ... safer, anyway. He put the back of his hand against his smashed lip and stared at the blood. He could feel something happening within him.
He had been a peace-loving man. He believed in peace, had argued for it, written about it. There was no difficulty he had said, that could not be solved without violence by reasonable human beings. That was what he had said, and what he now believed. Or had believed until now.
"We have no reason for trouble," he said quietly. "As I was explaining to Mr. Mantle, I have nothing of value. That was the reason I came west, to start over again."
"Was that true? What you said about your brother and troops in Cherry Creek?" Shabbitt demanded.
"Why else would I have said it?" he replied. "But even if it were not true you know what the attitude would be toward such an attack as this."
"Kill him," Ike Mantle said, after a moment. "Kill him and let's get out of here."
"Why bother?" Purdy wanted to know. "Just turn him loose. He's got no horse, an' he's a tenderfoot. There's Utes all over this country who'd take his hair."
"Build a fire," Shabbitt said suddenly. "I want some coffee. No use tryin' to trace 'em down until daylight, anyway."
Purdy looked at McKaskel. "You say Vallian's got your woman?"
"She's gone, isn't she? And so's he. They even took my boy."
"I wondered why he was hangin' around," Shabbitt said. "Begins to make sense." Doc glanced around at Red Hyle. "He beat you to it, Red."
Hyle shrugged.
Purdy began to gather sticks and put a fire together. He broke some bark from a dead stump and shredded it between his palms to use for tinder. It caught q
uickly when he held a match to it, and flared up. He added some thin tissues of bark, then twigs.
Ike walked to his horse and got a coffee-pot and came back. "He ain't worth nothin'. We can kill him or leave him."
"Somethin' funny here," Shabbitt said. "If Con Vallian stole his woman, why ain't he sore? Why ain't he after him?"
"Turn me loose," McKaskel said. "Give me a chance."
"You want to go after him?" Purdy asked.
"Well, I would have to consider it. Con Vallian is a dead shot. I'd have to make up my mind whether I'd trade my life for a woman. There's other women, but I've only one life."
"It makes sense," Purdy agreed.
Nobody else spoke. The night air was cold and they moved closer to the fire. Duncan McKaskel decided to hold his peace. For the time they seemed to have forgotten him, and to have forgotten their intention to kill him. Yet it had at last come home to him that all men might not be reasonable. He had tried reasoning but it might not work. There was only a slim chance.
They had taken his guns but they made no move to tie him up. At the first move to escape they'd empty their guns into him, and he knew it.
A half mile away, in thick brush near the mules, Susanna saw the sky turning gray. There had been no shooting, but Duncan had not joined them. If he could have come, he would have. He was hurt or a prisoner. Yet why would they want him a prisoner? It might be they would hold him to bring her back.
Tom awakened and looked nervously about, then saw her. "Ma! Where's Pa?"
"He did not come. I am afraid he is hurt or they have taken him."
"I could look. I could go back there. Nobody'd see me."
"We'll both go."
"No, Ma, you mustn't. You're bigger than me, and your skirts rustle. They'd never see me, or hear me."
"Wait ... just a little longer."
Duncan would be with them if he could be with them. She was sure of that.
Nor did she dare leave this spot. Duncan had told them to come here, so if he arrived and there was no one he would start looking again. This was their base, here she was, here Duncan would come, and if Tom went he would come back to this place. And the mules and horses were here.
"All right, Tom," she said suddenly. "Go back to where we were last night. If you don't find your father, come right back here, for he expects us to be here."
After all, it should take Tom no more than thirty minutes, or perhaps an hour. He left quickly and faded into the brush. His very silence reassured her. After the first movement of the brush there was no further sound.
She was alone. More than a thousand miles from friends, relatives, all that was familiar. She was sitting alone in the forest, knowing only that her husband might be injured or dead and that she had let her son go off into the night, and that he might be killed.
She had the shotgun. She looked at the charges, still in place ... unfired.
She snapped the gun together again and waited. She forced herself to be strong, forced herself to be calm. Panic, someone had once said ... had it been Vallian? ... only enters an empty mind, and panic was what she must fear now—only panic. She steeled herself for what might lie ahead, and slowly the loneliness and fear left her. Although she was still alone, she was prepared for what might come.
Coolly, she studied the possibilities. Duncan was dead? If so, she must avoid Shabbitt's men and get to Cherry Creek.
If he was a prisoner, she must contrive some way to free him.
If wounded, she must find him, hide him, and treat his wounds. During this period they must move as little as possible, remain hidden, and avoid leaving any tracks even if it meant hunger.
She must trust Tom. He was young, but he was strong for his years and had grown stronger with the hard work on the trip thus far. He had learned a great deal from Con Vallian, and from Duncan. He was good at slipping around in the woods and he might be the one to locate Duncan.
She got to her feet and moved away from the spot where she had been to a slightly higher place on the side of the mountain where she could watch the place where she and Tom had been. From where she now sat she could also see the approach to the hidden corral, although the horses and mules were not visible.
Slowly, the minutes went by. She kept alert, but at the same time began to speculate on how she could treat and feed a wounded man without showing herself.
Her thoughts returned to Tom. He was so young, so very young! Had she been foolish to let him go? He was her baby! Why, it was only ... only a few years ago that she had rocked him to sleep in her arms, and now he had gone off in the woods searching for his father ... alone.
Tom McKaskel was scared. He admitted it. He was also delighted, although he would not have told his mother so. He was looking for his father, but creeping through the woods was like playing Indian, only this was not play.
Tom was careful not to step on a branch that might break, a stone that might roll. He stayed low, as he moved from hiding place to hiding place. He was sure he was doing it well. He had covered more than a quarter of a mile and was sure he had not been seen.
He was wrong.
For the past fifty yards he had been watched by the Huron.
Searching for Vallian, whom he knew was somewhere near, the Huron saw the boy. At first he believed he might be going to Vallian, but then he realized the boy was searching for his father.
Standing close between two trees, his body merging with their darkness, he watched the boy moving from tree to tree. For a moment he hesitated, then turned deliberately away, leaving the boy to go his way.
After a moment, Huron turned in the direction from which the boy had come.
As the sky grew gray with approaching daylight, Red Hyle got to his feet. He felt surly and mean. He had waited too long, had wasted his time with this bunch of fools. He glanced at Doc Shabbitt, ugly distaste showing in his eyes, from across the fire Purdy seemed to be dozing, yet Red was not so sure. Purdy Mantle missed very little, and Red was sure that Purdy waited only for the opportunity to kill him.
Hyle suddenly turned and strode to his horse. Shabbitt made a move to rise and Hyle turned his head to look back over his shoulder. "Stay where you are! I got business to attend to!"
Duncan McKaskel started almost involuntarily to rise, but Ike was watching him like a cat. He would not make two feet before he'd be dead, and dead he would be of no use to Susanna or Tom.
"Where's he going?" he asked.
Ike grinned. It was an ugly, taunting grin. "After your woman. If she is with Vallian, he's as good as dead. If she ain't, he'll have her all to himself."
Protest would do no good. He sat back, trying to seem indifferent. Yet mentally he was searching every corner of camp, reaching out for any clue, any item that might help him to get away.
There was nothing.
Red Hyle swung into the saddle and turned his horse toward the trail. Within a moment he had found Duncan's trail and started off.
"Where's the Huron?" Purdy asked suddenly.
Doc shrugged. "Who knows? He just leaves ... goes where he pleases, when he pleases." Doc let the minute pass and then said, carefully, "Red's no hand for sharin', is he?"
Ike threw a taunting glance at Doc. "Hate him, don't you? Why don't you shoot him then?"
Doc spat. "Hun? He'll get hisself shot. Besides, we need him. He's mighty good with a gun."
"So's Purdy," Ike said. "I think maybe Purdy is better."
"He's not my meat," Purdy said quietly. "Get somebody else to do your killin'."
Duncan sat thinking of a way to escape when he looked up and saw Tom. He was in the trees, well back from the small clearing, and he was watching them.
Fear turned Duncaa cold. If they got the boy, if they even saw him—
Chapter XIX
Con Vallian awakened in the clear, cold hour before daybreak. He lay still, listening. His horse was standing quietly, so he got up, brushed off the grass and leaves, then stretched and stretched again.
He too
k out his six-shooter and spun the cylinder. It was in fine shape. He loaded the empty chamber, making it six rounds. Then he took up his Winchester and wiped the dampness from it.
He stripped the saddle from the mustang and let the horse roll, then rubbed it down with a handful of dried grass, and saddled up again.
He had a bad, irritable feeling this morning. It might be the uncomfortable place in which he had slept, and it might be a premonition. Maybe everybody had pulled out during the night and all were gone. He put a foot into the stirrup and held it there.
He heard a horse trot by, not far off. Taking his foot down he turned swiftly. Red Hyle was just disappearing into the trees, seemingly following a trail.
Red Hyle ... alone.
For several minutes he remained as he was, considering what that meant. If Red continued on that trail he would be very near to the mule corral.
Mounting, Con turned his horse and walked it along the edge of the trees, staying in the background so that he would not be easily seen.
He knew all about Red Hyle. He was a brute, and if he possessed any human feelings at all they had not made themselves obvious. His attitude was one of contempt for everyone but his sheer physical power and harsh manner allowed no room for opposition. Just nobody wanted any part of Red Hyle.
Vallian had been shooting since childhood and was a dead shot with any kind of a weapon. He was also gifted with dexterity, that natural coordination of hand and eye that permits a man to have exceptional skill with a gun. He never thought of himself as a gunfighter, never considered the use of guns as a goal to be attained. They were simply a part of his way of life and that of every man of his time.
He did pride himself on his skill as a tracker and a woodsman. He had believed he was second to none, and yet the Huron had twice come upon him without being detected. The thought rankled and worried him.
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