“You, too, Ardella,” Cam said. “You’re goin’ with us.”
It had not entered the stocky woman’s mind that she would run with them. “Me?” she responded. “Hell, I ain’t leavin’ my place here. This is my cabin. They’ll have to go through me to get to you folks. Besides, they ain’t lookin’ for me. I’ll tell ’em you’ve already gone.”
“Ardella, these men are killers. Every one of ’em that’s come after us has come with murderin’ in mind. They’ll kill you without askin’ the first question. So get whatever you just can’t do without and let’s get goin’.” She still hesitated, causing him to lose his patience. “You’re goin’. I ain’t havin’ you on my conscience. So get movin’. I’ll saddle the horses.” She hesitated a moment longer but decided he might be right, so she ran to get her belongings.
When all were ready, Ardella led them into the ravine behind her cabin. “We’ll have to walk and lead the horses,” she told them. “It’s pretty steep right off and we might go head over heels if we try to ride down this ravine. But if you walk where I walk, we’ll make it all right, and maybe won’t cause a landslide.”
Her precautions proved to be legitimate, for the horses slid and skidded as they descended the steep ravine. Cam, leading the packhorses as well as his dun, had all he could do to keep from being caught up in an avalanche of horseflesh, and it looked as if Mary’s fortune in gold was in danger of being spread over the rocky trough. Somehow they managed to reach a wide rock ledge that gave them a nearly level footing, but still not to the extent they could climb in the saddle. The ledge looked to become even wider as it extended to their right, and Cam started to lead his horses that way until Ardella stopped him. “Go this way,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction to a narrow rock ledge.
“This way looks a helluva lot easier,” Cam replied.
“That way leads halfway around the mountain to a cliff,” Ardella told him, “and there ain’t no way down from there.”
“You lead, I’ll follow,” Cam said, and made no more suggestions till they reached the bottom.
Finally they came out on a game trail that led down the mountain, and they were able to climb onto the horses at that point. They continued a slow descent until reaching an open meadow near the bottom. Grace, who had been looking back, exclaimed, “Look!” The others turned to see where the child was pointing. High up near the top of the mountain, a dark column of smoke rose above the rocky defile.
“That’s where my cabin is,” Ardella blurted, “or was.” She looked at the sympathetic faces turned to her then, none knowing what to say. “That’s all I had,” she said. “Now what the hell am I gonna do?”
Mary didn’t hesitate. “You’re coming with us. You don’t want to end your days up there on that mountain alone, anyway.” She glanced in Cam’s direction when she added, “If you don’t mind taking your chances with us. But I warn you, so far we haven’t had an easy time of it.”
Never one to harbor negative thoughts for long, Ardella brightened and asked, “You mean it?”
“Of course we do, Aunt Ardella,” Grace answered for her mother. “We wouldn’t leave you up there on that mountain by yourself.”
“Well, let’s go, then,” Ardella exclaimed, “before those scoundrels up there find out which way we went.” She pointed the way to Cam. “Follow this trail. It’ll take us to the other side of the mountain from the way they went up to my place.” They wasted no more time looking at Ardella’s past eighteen years going up in smoke. “Aunt Ardella,” she murmured to herself. “I kinda like that.”
Under way again, they paused when the report of two gunshots, high above them, rang out. Too far away to hear more than a muffled sound, they could only speculate on its purpose. It was a pistol, Cam felt. It was too far to be aimed at them, and it was not followed up by other shots, so they wasted no time worrying about it. Once they reached the floor of the valley, they set out in a southeastern direction, with no real idea where they might be heading. Their only thought was to get as far away from the men following them as possible. They held the horses to a comfortable lope for a good while before easing up on them. At this point Ardella was more familiar than Cam with the country they traveled, and she soon proved it, while leading them through some unlikely looking passes and draws until finally coming to a river. “It’s the Laramie,” she told them.
“I reckon we’d better rest the horses for a spell,” Cam said. “They were workin’ pretty hard back there.” They rode along the river a bit farther, looking for the best place to ford. Cam decided to stop to rest on the other side, preferring to have the two men chasing them confronted with crossing the river to get to them. This was in case they were that close behind and caught up while they were still resting the horses. It was merely a precaution, for he didn’t see how their pursuers could possibly catch up to them this quickly, especially considering the several blind passes through which Ardella had led them.
“I don’t know ’bout you folks, but I think I could use a cup of strong coffee,” Ardella announced. “Maybe chew on a little piece of that jerky we smoked the other day.” When she saw Mary’s look of concern, she told her, “Them two ain’t gonna catch up with us for a while yet, if they trail us at all.” She was confident that they would have a great deal of difficulty finding their way down the rocky ravine right behind her cabin. Then if they managed to make it to the rock ledge without tumbling, she would bet they would choose the wrong way to go, just as Cam almost had done. And that would cost them some more time when they had to backtrack from the cliff. She winked at Grace and said, “How ’bout helpin’ your aunt Ardella find some wood for a fire?”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Mary said, a little less anxious since Ardella seemed so at ease. She went to the packs to get her coffeepot and coffee mill. “We’re running low on a few things. I hope we’ll get to someplace where I can get some things.”
“We need to decide where we’re goin’ from here,” Cam said. He turned to Ardella. “Where will this lead us if we keep goin’ in this direction?”
“Well”—she took only a second to remember—“if we keep going, we’ll strike Chugwater Creek, but I don’t remember how far it is from here. It’s been a while since I went that far. I don’t usually come over on the east side of the mountains.”
That was country Cam was a little more familiar with. “If we hit the Chugwater, we can follow it on down to where it takes a turn toward Laramie, then keep ridin’ south till we get to Cheyenne,” he said. “If we’re lucky, we might lose those two behind us, and I’m thinkin’ you might wanna put your gold in the bank there. I reckon they’ve got one big enough to take it.”
“Big enough to take it?” Ardella echoed. She was sitting by the fire, inspecting the repeating rifle she had gained with the horse and rig that had once belonged to Jed Fuller. “How much gold have you got?” As soon as it left her mouth, she wished she had the question back. “Ain’t none of my business, though.”
“I’ve got enough to take care of you,” Mary said. She felt a strong obligation to Ardella for disrupting her entire existence, and putting her in danger. She shifted her attention to the statement Cam had just made. “I don’t know what’s best. Maybe you’re right. I know I’m sick and tired of running all over this wilderness, trying to keep myself and my daughters from being murdered.”
“Cheyenne’s on the way to Fort Collins, anyway,” Cam said. “But from what you told me about Fort Collins, it ain’t hardly as big as Cheyenne. Ain’t that right?” She nodded. “So I figure they might have a better bank, and maybe some kind of law.” She seemed to be giving the matter serious thought, so he said, “First thing, though, is to see if we lost our two friends.”
After the horses were rested, they pushed on straight east. Cam stood on the bank of the river for a long time before they rode away, scanning the valley behind them, searching for some sign of two
riders. There was none, thanks to Ardella’s knowledge of her mountains, he figured.
• • •
Ardella’s guess about their pursuers’ probability of trouble behind her cabin turned out to be a near-fatal prophecy for the two bandits. When they found the tracks leading up the mountain on the old game trail, Roach was certain he had his quarry treed. The mountain was so steep that he was sure there would be no place for them to run, and the odds looked even more in his favor the higher they climbed. When they had finally reached the cabin, it was so well hidden they almost rode right up to the front door before Cheney suddenly reined his horse back sharply.
“Damn!” Cheney cursed. “Cabin!” They backed the horses away. “I damn near rode right in the door.”
“There ain’t nobody here,” Roach said, “or they’da shot at us.” He looked hurriedly around the small clearing in front of the crude structure. “Where are the horses?” Furious and frustrated after having been sure he had caught up with Red Bandanna, he gave his horse a kick and rode up before the cabin. “Where is he?” he demanded loudly, his fingers itching to pull a trigger. “They ain’t been gone long,” he said, pointing to the dying embers of a cook fire on the ground. Dismounting, he then walked up to the door and kicked it open, his pistol in hand, only to confirm what he had already surmised. There was no one there. Enraged, he walked in and began to throw what little furniture there was against the wall, turned the table upside down, and kicked the small stove over, leaving the stovepipe dangling from the roof.
Cheney walked in behind him, disappointed, but a great deal calmer. “Somebody’s been livin’ here,” he said, stating the obvious. “But they’re gone now.”
Cheney’s innocuous statement only served to add fuel to Roach’s fury. “Where the hell did they go?” he demanded again. He stormed back outside and turned around in a circle, searching for an obvious way out. “There ain’t any way outta this hole but to go back the way we came up.”
When Cheney came out to join him, he again stated the obvious. “Unless they went out the back,” he said. They walked around to the back to look down the steep, rocky ravine. “That’s where they went,” Cheney said, pointing to the hoofprints at the edge of the opening. “Don’t look very safe to me.”
Roach took a closer look at the tracks. There seemed to be enough tracks to indicate that all the horses had descended into the ravine. “Hell, if they can do it, we can do it,” he said, and went back to the cabin. Inside, he picked up everything he could find that would burn and piled it up in the middle of the room. With some still-glowing pieces of limbs from the cook fire outside, he ignited the pile of broken furniture. After pausing a few moments to make sure his fire was going to live, he went to his horse, climbed into the saddle, and returned. “You comin’?” he asked when he pulled up beside Cheney.
“I reckon,” Cheney replied reluctantly, and went to fetch his horse.
Both horses hesitated at the brink of the rocky slide, but Roach kicked his repeatedly until the cautious gelding started down the ravine. Cheney followed. The first few yards were rough, but past that the horses’ hooves began to slide on the loose shale, and they were struggling to remain upright. Both riders were leaning until their backs were almost flat against their horses’ croups and their stirrups straight out before them. When Cheney’s horse lost control and almost crashed into Roach’s, Cheney frantically pulled the frightened animal’s head around, trying to wind up beside Roach instead of on top of him. In its effort to turn, Cheney’s horse stumbled on a loose rock and went down, breaking a leg. The horse screamed and tumbled, tossing Cheney out of the saddle. Unable to stop his fall, he bounced from one boulder to the next, grunting painfully with his impact against each one, until finally coming to a stop beside his dying horse on the rock ledge.
Trying to avoid the same fate that Cheney had come to, Roach took one foot out of the stirrup when he felt his horse beginning to stumble. When the horse started to slide, Roach rolled off the saddle, landing amid some smaller rocks, receiving some cuts and bruises, but nothing of a crippling nature. When he was able to get to his feet and find he was not seriously hurt, he couldn’t contain his rage, and he roared his frustration out over the rock ledge where he found Cheney and his horse lying still. His own horse had escaped the fatal mishap that claimed Cheney’s. In all appearances, Cheney himself had met the same fate as his horse on the treacherous rock slide, but then Roach heard a painful whimper emanate from Cheney’s lips. “I thought you was dead,” Roach said unemotionally.
“I’m afraid to move,” Cheney gasped. “I think I’m broke up inside. How ’bout my horse?”
“Looks dead to me,” Roach said. “Might as well be, even if he ain’t. He’s got a broke leg.” Realizing then that his pistol was no longer in its holster, he started looking around for it among the rocks. “They tricked us,” he said, still fuming. “They never went down these rocks, and now we let ’em get away again.”
“Roach,” Cheney pleaded, “you’re gonna have to help me. Somethin’s broke and I’m afraid to try to move.”
“I lost my damn gun,” Roach replied. “I gotta find my pistol first.” He climbed back up the slope partway, looking right and left among the rocks. “Go on and see if you can get on your feet,” he called back to Cheney. “That’s the only way you’ll know. One thing for sure, you can’t lay there forever.” A moment later, he heard a cry of pain from his partner as he attempted to get up on his knees. He looked back to see Cheney on hands and knees, unable to get any farther. “There it is,” Roach sang out when he caught a glimpse of metal down between two rocks. He reached down and picked it up and examined it for damage. When he was satisfied that there was no harm done, he put it back in his holster and said, “I’da played hell if I’d busted up my .44.”
With pain racking his spine now, Cheney cried out again, “Roach, help me.”
All that was on Roach’s mind at that moment was the fact that the man he hated more than anybody or anything else on earth was gaining distance on him. Cheney had been a pretty good partner, but now he was a liability. Roach made his way back down to the suffering man and stood over him for a few moments. “You got up on your knees. See if you can get on up the rest of the way. That son of a bitch is gettin’ away. We’ve got to get goin’.”
Cheney tried, but each time he tried to pull a leg up under him to lift himself up, the pain was enough to almost make him faint. “I can’t do it, Roach. I can’t move.” He realized how desperate his situation was and he began to beg. “Roach, you gotta pick me up and put me on your horse. I can’t do it by myself.”
“Shit, partner, I can’t pick you up. Besides, my horse can’t carry double down this mountain. I’d never catch up with that bastard.” He shook his head as if in deep concern. “I can’t stay around here. I’ve got to get ridin’.”
“What about me?” Cheney exclaimed, seeing the handwriting on the wall. “You can’t leave me like this!” When Roach did not reply, he cried, “Roach! You wouldn’t ride off and leave me here to die!”
“No, sir,” Roach told him, “I wouldn’t do that.” In one swift move, he reached across and drew the .44 and placed a bullet in the back of Cheney’s head. “There, now you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about.” Pausing then to decide whether to waste another bullet, he shrugged and put the injured horse out of its misery. He studied the pistol for a moment before holstering it. “I swear I’m faster with my left hand than I ever was with my right.” That thought brought his mind back to the urgency he felt to catch the man who had ruined his right hand. I’ve got to get moving, he thought, and wasted no further thought on his damaged hand.
He turned Cheney over and quickly went through his pockets to take the little bit of money his late partner had managed to save. The small amount of cash caused him to grunt his disappointment. “By God, you wasn’t lyin’ when you said you was about to run outta money,” he told t
he corpse. “Well, your six-gun and belt are worth more’n you are right now.” He pulled the belt from around the body, then went to Cheney’s horse and searched the saddlebags before pulling the rifle from its scabbard. When he had taken everything he thought worth something, he took his horse’s reins and started walking along the ledge where it widened as it led around the mountain. “It was nice knowin’ you, partner,” he called back over his shoulder facetiously. “I’m sorry I can’t take that saddle with me, but I know where it is if I ever wanna come back to get it. I doubt anybody’ll stumble on it.”
After following the ledge almost all the way around the mountain, he reached the end of it and stood glaring down at a sheer drop of several hundred feet. Cursing his luck again, he yelled out over the empty space before him, “What’d they do, fly off this damn mountain?” With no option but to reverse his path and go back the way he had come, he continued to fume, still convinced that the people he chased, with women and children and heavily loaded packhorses, could not have come down the way he had.
Chapter 11
They had hoped to strike the Chugwater by nightfall, but because of their late start from Ardella’s and the difficult country they crossed, darkness found them short of their destination. They were fortunate to come across a small stream that ran along beside a line of low, treeless hills, so they stopped to make camp there. Several times during the long day, Cam had waited while the others continued on, watching to see any sign of the two outlaws. And at the end of the day, he was halfway convinced that they had managed to lose them. Still, he climbed up the hill beside the stream to keep watch for as long as there was enough light to see anyone approaching. When supper was ready, Emma climbed the hill to bring him a plate of beans and sowbelly, and sat with him while he ate. She had attempted to bring him coffee as well, but barely half of it made the trip up the hill successfully.
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