Even before they cleared the top he exploded the dynamite with a single shot. He could have waited till they got close enough for the explosion to do some damage. But half a stick wasn’t much to count on. By then they’d be too close if the dynamite didn’t do more than make a loud noise. All he wanted was to make them think he had more dynamite.
They started climbing again, hidden by the cloud of grey dust that boiled up when the dynamite went off. It was three to one now, not such good odds even without the girl to slow him down. But better than before.
The rock walls closed in and he knew there was no way back. The girl was barely able to walk. The swollen ankle had tightened up inside the boot. He had to choose between letting her rest and carrying her. Here’s where you really start earning that ten thousand, he told himself. The path between the rock walls climbed sharply. It was strewn with broken rock and he had to take it slow, a few steps at a time. The worst part was getting over an old rock fall that would have blocked it altogether if it was much higher.
Fighting for breath, Carmody went over first, then pulled the girl across. Her body shook under his hands and he thought she was crying. She wasn’t far from it but now she was laughing. The bitch was laughing.
Carmody guessed it was pretty funny at that. Setting her down to rest behind the fall, he sighted the rifle back the way they’d come. He couldn’t see them but he could hear boots scraping over rock. They were coming, not as fast as they could have.
The rock fall was a perfect place to stand them off, provided he had water, food, extra shells. All the things he didn’t have. The girl was still shaking.
“Having a good time, are you?” Carmody enquired with a sour grin.
The tears started to come and she opened her mouth to scream. This was what Carmody had been waiting for. It should have happened long before. A slap rocked her head. It took another slap to make the tears come quietly. There was nothing to do but let her cry. Soft talk might make her feel better; it might also cause her to go to pieces. There was still some toughness behind the tears, and some of it was real. Carmody knew she was just a spoiled, rich man’s daughter playing a game that had suddenly become real. Anyway, he was no good at soft talk, even if he did feel sorry for her. He didn’t.
“Climb on,” he told her. “Climb on and shut up.”
Katherine Yates was a big, rangy girl. Silently, Carmody cursed her for not being a wispy little thing with an hourglass waist. Her hat brushed against the rock wall and fell off, spilling red hair down Carmody’s back. Set down too hard, she cried out with pain. Carmody scooped up the hat and rammed it down over her ears. He was glad to see anger jump into her green eyes.
“If the folks in Denver could see you now,” he said. The rock walls opened out into a sandy draw without cover of any kind. Smooth grey rock, slanting inward up near the top, hemmed it in on all sides, shutting out the sun.
There was no water, not even seepage. Rifle shots echoed up from the crack in the rocks. They were shooting at where they thought he might make a stand.
The wide fissure in the rock continued on the other side of the draw. To Carmody, it felt like ten years since that last drink of water. Putting the girl across his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, he carried her to the other end of the draw. In spite of the high country chill, the sweat was soaking through the lining of his sheepskin coat.
The entrance wasn’t wide enough to let them through together. He set the girl down and said harshly, “You had your rest. Now you walk for a while. Crawl if you like. Just get in there.”
Hopping on one foot, she did what she was told. She fell and Carmody had to wait for her to get up. It was almost the last time he ever waited for anything. A rifle cracked behind him and the bullet nicked the top of his ear. It would have killed the girl if she’d been standing up.
Carmody pushed himself into the crack and yelled at the girl to stay down, to keep moving. Three rifles began to crack and bullets whined and ricocheted. Flat on his belly in the crack, Carmody shot back, levering fast, spraying the other side of the draw with lead. The sound of the shots rolled together and echoed like thunder.
Garrison showed his face and Carmody shot at it. Garrison ducked back and Carmody turned and started after the girl, loading the rifle on the run. A bullet tugged at his sleeve. Another blew hot wind in his face. He turned and fired at the rifle flashes. The shooting slackened off. Carmody went after the girl.
He found her gasping at the end of the crack. The light was bright up ahead. The rocks had torn the girl’s Levis. Blood was soaking through at the knees and her hands were scraped raw. He grabbed her by the back of the coat and dragged her into the sunlight.
They were at the start of another draw that sloped down and lost itself in a tall stand of hemlock. The distance to the trees was too great without being killed before they got there. Carmody dumped the girl in the sand and told her to keep her head down. There was no use running; he’d have to face them.
He lay on his belly and squinted at the sun. A long day had dragged by since morning. Now the sun was beginning to slide. The girl lay quiet and still. Carmody hoped to hell there was water down by those trees—if they managed to get that far.
They came out of the rocks at a run. Bud Hatten was first and Carmody shot him twice through the chest. The other Hatten, Corey, was next. Just as Carmody put the rifle on him, Corey’s wounded leg gave way, and he went down. Garrison fired as fast as he could work the lever. Bullets kicked up sand all around Carmody. He rolled away, firing without aiming, trying to keep them pinned down.
He rolled again, steadied the rifle and killed Corey Hatten. Garrison ran back into the rocks. Swinging the rifle, Carmody pegged two shots. Garrison roared but he made the rocks.
Carmody raised his head and Garrison threw a shot at it from cover. Now it was just the two of them. Garrison still had the advantage, for the moment anyway. As soon as it got dark they’d be even.
It was quiet suddenly. Birds scared out of the hemlocks by the shooting flew back. They sounded like magpies.
“What do you think, Carmody?” Garrison called out. “Still think you’re going to make it?”
Carmody’s mouth was dry. The shout he gave was more like a croak. “I made it this far,” he said. “What do you think?”
Garrison gave out with a big laugh. Carmody held his rifle steady on the entrance to the rocks. Garrison didn’t show himself.
Carmody said next, “Just the two of us, Frank. No use putting this off any longer. You just step out and we’ll settle it in a jiffy.”
The wild laugh boomed again. “You’d like that, haw Carmody? A nice, clean shoot-out.”
“It’s an idea, Frank.”
“You go to hell, old pard.”
Carmody didn’t say anything else. After a while Garrison said, “No hurry, old pard. I’ll be right behind you wherever you go. When I kill you, it won’t be easy.”
Carmody looked up at the sun. About another thirty minutes to go. He spoke quietly to the girl. “Start crawling toward those trees.”
Katherine Yates nodded. The fire was gone out of her eyes. There was no way yet to know what that meant. It could mean that all she wanted right now was a quiet place to lie down.
It got dark while Carmody watched the place where Garrison was holed up. No more bullets came out of there, no more talk. Carmody let it get good and dark. Then he stood up and went quietly after the girl. He stopped and listened, then went on again. He did this three times before he heard the girl moving through the sand ahead of him.
She didn’t make a sound when he reached down and picked her up. It was going to be another long night.
Chapter Twelve
Even with the moon it was dark under the hemlocks. With Garrison stalking them there was nothing else to do but sit and wait. There was no point gagging the girl. She wouldn’t hear Garrison when he came. Besides, he figured she’d had about enough.
A stream ran through the trees. That was the only no
ise. Carmody knew Garrison wouldn’t need more noise than that to sneak up on them. There was no telling when Garrison would make his move. That was the bad part of it. It could be any time at all. Maybe two nights from now.
Past the trees a broad meadow opened out. With Garrison behind them it was just as risky to try to cross it by night as by daylight. Carmody decided the business with Garrison would have to be finished right where they were now.
Carmody filled his hat with water and brought it back to the girl. When she finished with it, he took off his sheepskin coat, scraped out a soft place among the dead leaves, and told her to he down. His shirt was still damp with sweat and he shivered in the cold air.
Giving her the coat wasn’t an attempt to play the gentleman. Warm, she might go to sleep. With his back against a tree he watched her until she dropped off. Beaten down the way she was, it didn’t take long.
Chewing on the stub of a cigar was the closest to a smoke he could get. An hour went by. Finally the cigar fell apart in his mouth. He bent to one side and spat silently. The girl slept quietly. Another hour passed and the only thing he heard was a porcupine or a badger scratching in the rocks on the other side of the stream. He saw the animal’s shape without making out what it was. He lowered the rifle.
The waiting was supposed to make him edgy. It didn’t. He was too tired to be edgy. Staying awake would have been harder with a full belly. Nothing worked better than an empty belly and mountain cold to keep a man awake. There was no chance at all that Garrison had given up the hunt.
He wished to hell they weren’t camped by a stream. Running water could send a man to sleep as fast as a quart of whisky or a roll in the hay with a woman who knew her business. Thinking about some of the women he’d straddled helped him to forget about the stream for a while. Dainty little women were all right in their way. For a good all-night straddle party you needed a woman with muscle and stamina. A woman like Katherine Yates. Now there was a female who looked as if she could give back as good as she got. Any woman who could walk and then crawl over the mountains wouldn’t be easy to satisfy. It sure as hell would be worth the try.
It was getting past midnight and he had considered Katherine Yates from every angle, as well as the famous Tessie Betz who worked in the Fort Griffin whorehouse. Also, a great many women who didn’t work in whorehouses. The sound of the stream came crowding in and he had to think about something else. Guns and horses took up some time, but not enough.
Carmody rubbed his eyes and brought up the rifle. Something was moving out there in the dark. It could be that same goddamned badger, or whatever it was. It could be the wind moving a broken branch. Without knowing why, he knew it was Garrison.
As soon as the moon clouded over the movement began again. Carmody stayed where he was. He knew Garrison couldn’t see him. The movement stopped again. That was an old trick and it could go on all night.
Carmody lowered the Winchester. When the movement started again he didn’t do anything at all. Every time a man tensed up, ready to shoot, and then nothing happened, his response to danger became less controlled. It was an old trick, one of the best. Carmody had used it more than once.
Carmody’s eyes were dry and hot and they hurt when he blinked. Before morning they’d begin to stare like a man who sees things other people can’t see. By the following night, if it lasted that long, he wouldn’t be able to blink at all. The eyes got red and grainy and the brain behind them began to go to sleep by itself.
Forcing his eyes shut, Carmody rested them for a bit. He opened them again and nothing had changed. The girl groaned in her sleep and the wind stirred the hemlocks. The next time he opened his eyes he saw Garrison’s head and shoulders coming up over the bank of the stream. He thought he saw it; he wasn’t sure. He rubbed his eyes and there was nothing.
Carmody moved just enough to swing the rifle. A bullet ripped into the bark beside his head and Garrison came yelling at him from behind a tree, guns blazing in both hands. The girl woke up and screamed. Garrison fired at the noise. Then he swung the guns back toward Carmody. A bullet splintered the stock of the Winchester right beside his face. Something hard tore away part of an eyebrow. Blood ran down into his eyes, blinding him. There was no time to do anything about it. He brought up the rifle and pumped and fired until it was empty.
The girl was still screaming. The noise echoed inside Carmody’s head. He sleeved the blood out of his eyes and roared at her to shut up.
Garrison was lying on his back, as dead as he’d ever be. The girl stopped screaming and began to cry. Carmody fumbled for a match and struck it on the trunk of a tree. The wood sizzled and he held it down so he could see. There were two holes in Garrison’s chest, close to the heart. Garrison’s face looked waxy and yellow by the dying light of the match.
Carmody took his coat away from the girl and put it on. No longer crying, she walked over and looked at the dead man. Carmody didn’t know what he expected her to do next. She didn’t do anything.
It was all over, the hard part anyway. There was still a ways to travel, but with a rifle to shoot game, with nobody trying to kill them, it shouldn’t be all that hard.
The girl didn’t object when he dragged Garrison’s body away from the campsite and dropped it in the bushes. Somehow he got the feeling that she had lost all interest in Frank Garrison. Women were like that— practical, above all.
She didn’t object when he yanked out her shirt again and tore off another strip to make a bandage for the cut over his eye. “Tie it good and tight,” he said.
“And after that start gathering brush to make a fire. First thing in the morning I’ll shoot us some breakfast.”
The girl ran to do what she was told.
Once the girl got the fire going. Carmody scouted around for fallen branches. It was good to stop running. Some of the branches were too thick to break, and he was too tired to try. They hadn’t much else right then, but, by God, they’d have the biggest camp-fire in Colorado.
Katherine Yates was using a length of branch as a crutch. She hobbled back to the fire and eased down. Her face was cold and pinched in the firelight.
“I’ll cut you a better crutch in the morning. We’d better have a look at that ankle.”
“All right,” she said quietly.
Carmody slit the boot from the top of calf to ankle. It took a while to get it off. There was pain, but the girl didn’t make a sound. He peeled off the sock and wondered how she’d been able to make it this far with an ankle like that.
After he carried water from the stream and poured it over the swelling, he said, “It’ll be all right if you keep the weight off it. We’ll travel slow. There’s no hurry now.”
Katherine Yates seemed to have forgotten about Garrison. Carmody’s words reminded her. “I guess not,” she said, and shivered, though the fire threw off fierce heat.
At this point a few soft words didn’t cost anything. “You’ll be all right,” Carmody told her. “Better try to get some sleep.” He started to get up.
“Carmody,” Katherine Yates said. He looked at her. There was new fire in her eyes as she reached for him.
The ground under them was warm from the fire. Carmody undressed the girl while she clawed at his buttons. Later they would be more tired than ever; now there was frantic energy. The tension of the past few days had built up. Now they struggled together, grunting and gasping to get rid of it.
To get rid of the tension took some doing. They stopped and rested without talking, then started again. By the time he rolled off the girl, the fire had burned down. It was cold again, but Katherine Yates didn’t seem to notice.
“Get dressed,” Carmody said, pulling on his pants. He shouldered on his coat and threw more wood on the fire. That would have to do until morning. Katherine Yates drew up her knees under her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. Carmody looked into the fire and chewed on a piece of wood. “Do you have to take me back to Denver?5’ the girl asked.
He told her that
was the idea. “You don’t have to stay,” he said.
“I won’t,” she said.
“Suit yourself,” Carmody said.
The girl wasn’t mad, just interested. “You don’t care what happens to me once you get the money, do you?”
There was no point in making things complicated. He said he didn’t care much. The girl had her own reasons for not wanting to stay in Denver. He thought he understood some of the reasons. He knew some women were wilder, more reckless than men. There weren’t many like that. But there were some. And he still didn’t care.
“We could have a hell of a time together, Carmody,” the Yates girl said.
There was no doubt about that, and Carmody grinned at her. “You’re too wild for me,” he said.
That pleased her. “What else is there? Except living wild, I mean.”
Carmody agreed with some of that. “Not much, I guess. The thing is—I see it more as a business. With you, it’s all wildness and nothing else. A girl like you could get a man into trouble.”
Katherine Yates laughed. The tension was gone; it was a real laugh. “And you don’t want that?”
“I like to pick my own trouble,” Carmody answered. “That doesn’t include you.”
“That’s a shame,” Katherine Yates said. “I was making big plans for you.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of. The answer, honey, is no. You go back to Daddy and I collect the money. After that you can go straight to hell.”
“That’s where I want to go.”
“You will, honey. You will.”
They huddled close together in the heat of the fire. Katherine Yates said Carmody needed a shave. Carmody said they both needed a bath. The girl thought that was funny. She was a wild one all right. “Sure I can’t change your mind?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
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