“Worse, Temp,” Kane answered. “Deef as a snubbin’ post.” He hesitated a split second and added, “Still real fast with the iron, though.”
Yates absorbed that, but said nothing.
Kane tried to take a step toward Yates, but Garrett yanked him back. From where he was, the wolfer said evenly, “You killed one of my boys, Temp.”
“Uh-huh. He shouldn’t have drawed down on Garrett here.”
Garrett was surprised. “How come you know my name?”
“Got it from a mutual friend by the name of Charlie Cobb.” The gunman smiled. “See, that’s why I’m here—protecting Charlie’s interests, you might say.”
Realization dawned on the young rancher. “It’s been you on my back trail all along.”
The gunman nodded. “I wasn’t supposed to show myself until you got the ten thousand and were on your way back to Fort Benton.” He waved a hand toward Kane’s assembled men. “But then this happened and I had to make a play earlier than I planned.”
“Temp,” Kane said, “you know I’m not a forgetting man. I’ll sure remember this.” He nodded toward the dead man on the ground. “Brooks Landstrom there was half Swede, half Mexican and all son of a bitch, but I set store by him.”
If Yates was moved he didn’t let it show. “That’s too bad, Thetas. Maybe if I’d known that I would’ve just nicked him.” He smiled. “But probably not.” He studied Kane closely. “What the hell happened to your face? A woman do that to you?”
Kane shook his head. “Had a run-in with a wolf.”
“Goes with the profession, I guess,” Yates said, his passing interest gone.
“Thetas,” Pickett said, his eyes on Yates, “what do you want me to do?”
Kane shook his head, and raised his voice to a shout. “Nothing yet, Deke. The puncher here says he’ll scatter my brains and he’s just dumb enough to do it.” His eyes lifted to his other men. “That goes for the rest of you. You’ll get your chance later. Until then, let it lay.”
“You men, forget the cat wagon. Get those women on horses and bring them up here,” Yates said. “Sack us up some grub while you’re at it. Oh yeah, and saddle a horse for Thetas.”
The wolfers looked to their leader. Pickett had his powder horn to his ear and seemed uncertain and bewildered. “Do as he says, boys,” Kane said. “Saddle my dun.”
Yates leveled his rifle on Kane. “Garrett, fill as many canteens as you can find and share them out among the women. From now on we travel light and fast.”
It was in the young rancher’s mind to tell Yates to fill his own canteens. But the man had no doubt saved his life and he told himself he owed him a favor. By the time he had the canteens ready the five women were mounted, bunched up well away from Yates and Kane.
When Garrett handed a canteen to Jenny, the girl looked down at him, her face and hair bright. “I knew I’d see you again, Luke,” she said. “I just knew I would.”
Garrett nodded, remembering, this lovely girl’s past lying like a dark mist between them. “Think nothing of it. Just doing the job Charlie Cobb is paying me to do.”
Jenny picked up on Garrett’s curt tone and a small hurt showed in her eyes. “Luke, are you feeling all right?” she asked.
“Hell, look around you,” Garrett said, waving an arm that took in the tense and angry wolfers, then Yates and Kane. “I’d say right about now I’m feeling just peachy.”
The girl opened her mouth to speak again, but Garrett stepped away from her and handed out the remaining canteens.
Annie Spencer took her canteen and looked at Garrett, raising an eyebrow, a slight smile on her lips. “Quite the gentleman, aren’t you, cowboy?” she whispered. “Jenny really cares about you. She didn’t deserve that.”
Garrett tried to think up something clever to say, but the words wouldn’t come. In the end he turned away and walked back to his horse, feeling like he’d just shrunk a couple of feet.
“Ready to pull freight?” Yates asked after Garrett was in the saddle.
The rancher nodded and Yates said, “Seen some of your cows back on the trail. A man could round ’em up if he’d a couple of weeks to spare.”
“I’ll study on it,” Garrett said. “Maybe after all this is over.”
Yates gave him a strange, guarded look that Garrett couldn’t interpret. But a warning bell was suddenly ringing in his head and he didn’t like the sound of it.
“Thetas, you’re coming with us,” Yates said as the wolfer swung into the leather. He smiled. “At least part of the way.” The gunman turned and waved an arm toward the women. “You gals move on out.”
Yates waited for a few moments until the women were walking their horses toward the trail; then he swung down his Winchester and shot Deke Pickett dead center in the chest.
Pickett stumbled back, his cheeks ashen. He clawed for his revolvers but Yates shot him again and a sudden red rose blossomed between the gunman’s eyes. This time Pickett fell on his face and did not move.
Stunned by what he’d seen, Garrett yelled, “What the hell did you do that for?”
Yates was smiling through a shifting veil of gray gunsmoke. “I never leave a fast gun on my back trail,” he said. He motioned to Kane with the muzzle of his rifle. “Now you, Thetas. Move out.”
The big wolfer’s eyes were murderous, but he didn’t say a word as he swung his horse around and rode toward the women, who had all turned in the saddle, watching, their faces white.
It came to Garrett then that he still had a long ways to travel on the Whoop-Up Trail—and riding with Temple Yates he was in the company of a ruthless, cold-blooded killer who was not entirely sane. And that would make him all the more dangerous.
Chapter 19
Garrett took up the rear, keeping Kane in clear sight, as he and the others reached the trail. The heat of the day was intense, the shimmering horizon melting into a colorless sky. Only in the far distance across the brush flats where phantom lakes sparkled in the sunlight did the sweltering land look cool.
Kane in the lead, Yates’ rifle pointed at his back, they followed the trail to the northwest in the direction of the Sweet Grass Hills, three grass-covered buttes rising almost seven thousand feet above the flat.
Garrett could see the peaks through the haze, just a few miles south of the Canadian border. But they looked much closer than they were. It was a three- or four-day ride to the Sweet Grass, and he and the others still had the bend of the Marias to cross.
They rode in silence for an hour, and every now and then Garrett caught Jenny looking at him, her eyes pensive, as though trying to understand where she stood with him.
Garrett had thought he loved her. Did he still? Or had Jenny’s past destroyed all that?
The West was a hard, unforgiving place where the weak and the timid went quickly back whence they’d come and only the strong remained and endured and shaped the stubborn land to their needs. Jenny had nothing to return to, no family, no friends, and she had survived the only way she could.
Who was he to judge her? Even now he was part of a crooked scheme to defraud five miners out of their hard-earned money, consoling himself with the thought that the end justified the means. But was a Red Angus bull worth a man’s honor, the very thing that made him what he was?
Garrett looked at the sunlight tangling itself in Jenny’s hair and realized right about now he was not entitled to be her judge, or anybody else’s for that matter. An old Bible verse came to him then, something he’d probably heard around the shallow grave of some poor puncher back along a forgotten trail: Judge not, lest you be judged.
He didn’t know who first said it, but whoever he was the man had to have been a right savvy hombre.
As he rode, Garrett thought things through again and again, like a dog worrying a bone, and the next time Jenny turned her head and looked at him, he smiled at her. She didn’t smile back.
The sun was dropping lower in the sky, a few puffy white clouds showing to the south, when Temple Y
ates threw up an arm and said, “Right. This is far enough.”
Garrett rode up beside the gunman. “Why are we stopping? We still have a few hours of daylight left.”
Yates nodded. “I know that. But this is as far as Thetas goes.”
The big wolfer turned in the saddle, a grin on his scarred face. “I’ll come after you, Temp. You know that, don’t you?”
Yates didn’t answer. He made a chopping motion with his rifle barrel. “Climb down, Thetas.”
Kane swung out of the saddle, and so did Yates, slapping the horses out of the way as he stepped closer to the wolfer. He glanced up at Annie Spencer. “Annie, come here.”
The woman dismounted and walked to Yates’ side, her eyes asking a question.
“I been hearing things in Fort Benton, Thetas,” the gunman said, ignoring her. “Well, there and other places.”
“What have you heard, Temp?” Kane asked. His wary gaze was fixed on Yates’ face. He was obviously wondering what the tall gunman was getting at.
“I heard you’re spreading it around that one time back in the Mogollon Rim country you put the crawl on me. I didn’t like the sound of that, Thetas. It hurt my feelings, like.”
Sensing danger, Kane touched his tongue to his torn top lip. “People say things, Temp. Make things up. You know how it is with people.”
“I’ve never been in the rim country,” Yates said. “Strange, that.”
Kane nodded. “Yeah, very strange.”
“Funny thing is, I heard too that you’re telling folks you’re faster with the iron than me.”
For a few moments Kane held himself. Then he said, “Maybe one day real soon we’ll have it out, Temp.”
Yates smiled. “No time like the present.” He pulled a fancy Colt from his left holster, spun it in his hand and held it out butt first to Annie. “Give Thetas that.”
The woman looked at the gun like it was a coiled rattler and backed away, color draining from her face.
“Give it to him!” Yates snapped.
“Let it be, Yates,” Garrett said. “We’ll let the law deal with Kane. He’s wanted in Canada for sure.”
“You stay out of this, cowboy,” the gunman said. “This is between Thetas and me and you’re way over your head here.” He turned to Annie. “Give Thetas this gun or I’ll drill him square right where he stands.”
“Hand me the Colt, Annie,” Kane said, smiling as his confidence returned. “Temp’s right. It’s time some outstanding business between him and me was settled.”
The woman bit her lip, then stepped next to Kane, offering him the gun. The wolfer’s right hand closed on the butt of the Colt, but his left shot out and grabbed Annie. He yanked her around and pulled her against him, using her as a shield as his gun came up.
With a blurred motion too quick for the eye to follow, Yates drew and his Colt roared. Hit hard, Annie slammed back against Kane, bumping his gun arm. Kane’s shot went wild and Yates fired again as Annie dropped at the wolfer’s feet. Hit low in the belly, Kane gasped, his mouth sagged open and he staggered backward. Yates shot again, the bullet higher, smashing into Kane’s chest. The gun dropped from Kane’s hand and he fell to his knees. He was still in that position when Yates shot him again.
Kane screamed in impotent anger, his bloodshot eyes blazing. He pointed at the grinning Yates and mumbled, “You . . . you . . .”
Then the light in his eyes faded and death took him, his lifeless body crashing facedown in the dirt.
Yates lowered his eyes to Annie and the fallen man, his face expressionless, empty of interest. He punched the spent shells out of his Colt, reloaded and slid the gun into the holster. Pushing through the women who were clustered around Annie, he retrieved his other gun and walked to where Garrett was still sitting his horse.
“Now Thetas and Pickett are dead, we’ve got nothing to fear from the rest of that riffraff,” he said.
His eyes angled to Annie Spencer, who was lying motionless on the ground, the blue death shadows already gathering on her face. “But now we have one woman less. Charlie will sure take it hard, losing two thousand dollars on this deal.”
A small anger flared in Garrett. “A woman is dying and that’s all you can think about, Yates? Charlie Cobb’s money?”
The gunman shrugged. “The woman meant nothing to me. Anyhow, it was Thetas killed her. All he had to do was let her step aside.” Yates’ eyes narrowed as they lifted to Garrett’s. “I detect a chiding tone to your voice, boy. You thinking of bracing me?”
Garrett shook his head, anger making him reckless. “No, but you don’t scare me none, Yates. I’m not bracing you. I reckon there’s already been enough killing today.”
Yates looked pensive. “I don’t scare you none, huh? Well, that’s a very foolish thing to say, Garrett. You should be very afraid of me, you know.”
The gunman clapped his hands together and laughed. “But why are we talking this way? We’re friends, you and me, since we both work for the same boss.”
“Charlie Cobb isn’t my boss,” Garrett said.
“Well, the same business associate then.” Yates turned and glanced at the sobbing women around Annie. “As soon as the woman dies, we’ll move on,” he said.
“After we bury her,” Garrett said.
Yates shook his head. “We don’t have time for a burying.”
Garrett leaned forward in the saddle, his hands stacked on the horn. “Yates, we’ll make time.”
A quick, dangerous light flashed in Yates’ eyes, but as soon as it appeared it was gone, replaced by a humorless smile. “Well, have it your way, boy. But all we’ll be doing is burning daylight.”
Garrett dismounted and stepped to where Annie lay. Jenny moved aside, clearing a space for him, and he kneeled close to the woman. Annie’s eyes lifted to his. “Hi, cowboy, come to say so long?” she asked.
“How do you feel, Annie?” Garrett asked.
“I need a drink.” Annie’s head turned. “Jenny, there’s a bottle in the sack tied to my saddle.”
The girl nodded. “I’ll bring it.”
Annie’s eyes moved to Garrett’s face again. “You take care of that girl, cowboy. She’ll need you.”
Garrett nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“Do better than your best. Don’t let her end up like me.”
Jenny returned with the bottle. She raised it to Annie’s lips, but the whiskey poured from the woman’s mouth and over her chin. She was dead.
Later, Garrett and the four women laid Annie Spencer to rest in a narrow coulee a ways off the trail. They used what rocks were on hand to cover her, and Lynette, tears staining her dark eyes, sang “Shall We Gather at the River” in a thin, quavering voice.
When it was over, Garrett fell in step beside Jenny, a silence arching over them that he could not find a way to break. Once the girl turned and briefly looked at him, but her eyes were cool and distant and Garrett saw nothing of himself in them.
Yates was standing by the horses when Garrett and the others got back. “You put the old gal away?” he asked, a smile touching his lips.
“She was twenty-six, Yates,” Garrett said, anger still riding him.
“Must have had a real hard life,” Yates said. He nodded to Kane’s body. “You wasn’t planning on burying him, were you?”
Garrett shook his head. “Leave him right where he lies. The coyotes got to eat too.”
“Then let’s mount up,” Yates said. “We got a heap of ground to cover.”
At Yates’ insistence they camped that night in a rocky arroyo a mile off the main trail. The gunman kept the fire small, barely enough to boil coffee and brown a few slices of salt pork. They ate beans cold from the can and after the meal was over and the coffee drunk, Yates quickly doused the fire.
He took Garrett aside, out of earshot of Jenny and the other women. “We’ll take turns on guard at the mouth of the arroyo tonight,” he said. “Four hours on, four off, and I’ll take the first watch.”
; “What’s eating you, Yates?” Garrett asked. “Kane is dead and so is Deke Pickett. You said the rest of them wouldn’t come after us.”
Yates nodded, his eyes shadowed pools in the darkness. “They won’t, but this is different. I ran into some woman trouble back along the trail.”
Garrett felt something akin to fear stab at him. “What kind of woman trouble?”
Yates shrugged. “Happened just after I left Benton. I was riding close to the Teton and saw a paint pony grazing among the cottonwoods. I rode over to take a look, and there was the prettiest little Indian gal you ever did see swimming naked as a jaybird in the river.” Yates’ grin was white in the gloom. “Well, I hunkered down among the willows, and when she came out of the water I jumped her.”
“You did what?” Garrett asked, alarm edging his voice.
“Jumped her. Hell, man, you would have done the same. Anyhow, swimming all nekkid like that, she was begging for it. So, after I was done with her, I slapped her around a little, then told her to scat. Thing is, she went to her clothes and came at me with a knife. Regular wildcat she was, cussing and yelling like a heathen.”
“What happened then?” Garrett asked, talking around the lump in his throat.
“I shot her.” Yates shrugged. “It didn’t bother me none, nor should it you. She was of no account, just an Indian squaw.”
Garrett opened his mouth, trying to find the words, but the enormity of what Yates had just said left him stunned.
The gunman was talking again. “Trouble was, then another Indian showed up. Must have heard my gun. Maybe it was her husband—I don’t know—but I took a shot at him. Hit him all right, but he turned and galloped away, to spread the word no doubt.”
“What kind of Indians were they?” Garrett asked.
“The red kind,” Yates snapped. “How the hell should I know?”
Garrett’s mouth set in a grim, tight line. “Yates, we’re parting ways right here. I’m cutting you loose.”
The gunman’s grin grew wider as he shook his head. “Not going to happen, cowboy. I told Charlie I’d see his women safe to Fort Whoop-Up and that’s what I intend to do.”
The Tenderfoot Trail Page 13
