Red River Ruse

by James Reasoner

  Nacho's grin widened as he put on his shirt and settled down on the bench to finish his coffee. Cambridge went around the table and sat down on the other side, across from Maxwell.

  "You remember what we talked about yesterday, Billy," the stationmaster said, "if you start out after that gang today."

  "I will," Cambridge promised.

  Nacho looked back and forth between them. "What did I miss?" he asked.

  "Jake just helped refresh my memory about the lay of the land," Cambridge replied, draining the rest of the strong black brew in his own cup. "And we discussed the fact that you and I can't hope to capture those men by ourselves, Nacho."

  "We can't? Why not? There were only six of them," Nacho said in complete seriousness.

  "That we know of. There could have easily been more of them waiting back wherever they hide out. Anyway, three to one odds is a little higher than I like."

  "But you told me that when you rode across the Rio Bravo with Señor Maxwell here and Prescott and Rip Ford and the other Rangers, there were only fifty of you against a thousand Mexican renegades. Those odds were much higher, and yet you prevailed."

  "Well . . ."—Cambridge grimaced—"that was different."

  Maxwell had broken into a broad grin. "And Billy might've exaggerated just a mite, Nacho."

  "Besides, we were all a lot younger then," Cambridge said. "Remember, Nacho, I'm the lawyer. It's my job to turn folks' words around."

  "Si, I forgot." Nacho stood up. "I'm ready to ride."

  "So am I," Cambridge said thankfully. "Just remember what we were talking about. All we want to do is locate the gang's hide-out. Then we'll let the authorities take care of them."

  "Sure," Nacho said with a sigh. "That's fine, Billy."

  Ten minutes later, they were saddled up and ready to leave. Cambridge was riding the same horse he had borrowed from Maxwell the day before, and Nacho was atop a rangy, mouse-colored, lineback dun. "He's not much to look at," Maxwell told Nacho, "but he's got sand."

  "I can tell," Nacho agreed. "Thanks for letting me ride him, Jake."

  "Just don't let those outlaws get hold of him. They're probably horse thieves, too."

  Nacho promised, "I'll bring him back safe and sound."

  The two men rode away from the station, heading straight back down the road that would bring them to the spot where the stagecoach had been held up. Cambridge set the pace and kept it slow. Nacho knew perfectly well why the lawyer was being so leisurely about things. Billy was trying to take it easy on him, and that knowledge grated on Nacho. He had never been one to ask favors, and he hated to start now.

  A little after mid-morning, they reached their destination. Cambridge reined in and pointed out the tracks to Nacho.

  Looking around the scene, Nacho felt a slight chill go through him. This was the spot where he had been gunned down and had come awfully close to death. Solemnly, he looked at the road where his body had been sprawled after the leader of the gang shot him.

  "Billy," he said quietly, "I really want to catch up to them. I don't want them to get away with this."

  "Neither do I," Cambridge replied. "You think you can follow those tracks?"

  Nacho nodded grimly. "I can follow them."

  They edged their horses off the road and headed across the open range. Along the road, the terrain was mostly gently rolling, wooded hills and grassy fields, but both men knew it wouldn't be long until they reached more rugged country.

  A full canteen hung from each saddle horn, and the saddlebags contained enough biscuits and jerky for their noon meal. The fare was as plain as it could be, but it would keep them going. Cambridge planned to return to the Red River station that night so that Nacho could rest in a bunk at least one more time. Later on, if need be, they would bring more supplies and stay out three days or five days or however long it took to find the outlaws. Today's trip, though, was more of a feeler than anything else.

  Nacho kept his keen eyes on the ground as they rode, letting Cambridge watch their back trail and the area around them. The tracks left by the outlaws were very faint at times—a stone scarred by the shoe of a passing horse, a broken branch on a bush, a strand of horsehair snagged by a bramble. There were other stretches of ground where the trail was as plain as day. Regardless, Nacho followed the signs with little trouble.

  By noon the two men had covered several miles. The only problems they had encountered so far had occurred when the trail crossed a couple of small creeks. Nacho had been forced to search up and down the banks for the spot where the outlaws had emerged from the streams. Each time, though, they had picked up the tracks after only a short delay.

  Cambridge called a halt when the sun was directly overhead. "Let's have some lunch," he suggested. "You need rest and food if you're going to get your strength back."

  Nacho looked offended. "I'm fine," he declared. "A ride like this is nothing. I could do it with a dozen gunshot wounds."

  "Well, let's just worry about the one you've already got, all right?"

  Nacho snorted in disgust as he swung down from his horse, but when his booted feet hit the ground, he had to clutch the saddle horn for a second while a wave of dizziness washed over him. It passed quickly, and he hoped that Cambridge hadn't noticed that something was bothering him. Billy was enough of a mother hen already, Nacho thought.

  But if the truth had been told, he was a little tired. It would feel good to sit down under a tree, eat some biscuits and gnaw a strip of jerky, and drink some of the water from his canteen. If the circumstances had been different, he might have even lowered his head and tilted his Stetson down over his eyes for a little nap. They couldn't afford that luxury, though, not with a band of outlaws to catch.

  As if reading his mind, Cambridge asked, "How are you really feeling, Nacho?"

  "I told you, I'm fine," the vaquero insisted.

  "You're looking a little pale."

  Nacho took his canteen and the cloth sack full of provisions from his saddlebag and settled down cross-legged on the ground with his back against the trunk of an oak tree. He said, "If I'm pale, it is because you try to keep me cooped up so that I never see the sun. Quit worrying about me, Billy. Think about those desperados we're chasing instead."

  "Maybe you're right," Cambridge said as he sat beneath another tree with his lunch. He tore off a hunk of biscuit, munched on it for a moment, then washed it down with a swig of water from his canteen. "This is a far cry from the meal I had yesterday over at the Baptist church. You should have seen it, Nacho." The attorney launched into a description of all the food that had been available.

  Nacho listened for a few moments, then looked down at his biscuit and jerky and let out a groan. "Stop torturing me, Billy," he pleaded. "Next Wednesday you have to take me with you. I could do with a little religion."

  "I won't disagree with that. But I hope we've got that money back and are long gone by next Wednesday."

  For a few minutes, they ate in silence, the only sounds coming from birds and small animals in the brush. Suddenly, Nacho looked up, his jaw freezing in mid-chew as he concentrated on the unexplained noise he had just heard. It had sounded like a small rock bouncing down a slope.

  And something about it, some inexplicable sensation, told him the noise hadn't been made by an animal.

  A man had accidentally kicked that rock.

  Nacho resumed gnawing the jerky. Around a mouthful of the stuff, he said without looking at Cambridge, "Keep eating, Billy. We got company."

  Cambridge's flicker of reaction lasted only a split-second and was almost unnoticeable. He said quietly, "You sure about that?"

  "Pretty sure. Reckon there's somebody on that brushy hill over there to your right."

  Cambridge looked out the corner of his eye at the slope some thirty yards away. "I don't see anything."

  "Neither do I. But I heard something."

  Cambridge gave a miniscule nod, knowing how sharp Nacho's hearing was. "Think somebody's trying to bushwhack us?"


  "Don't know." Nacho reached down to shift his canteen on the ground beside him, but in actuality he was putting his hand only a couple of inches from the butt of his new Colt. "I'm watching for sunlight on a gun barrel." Even as he spoke, he saw a bright glint on the hillside.

  "Spread out!" he cried, palming out his pistol as he threw himself down and rolled away from Cambridge. The lawyer reacted instantly, moving in the opposite direction. Nacho wound up behind the trunk of another tree, and a quick glance told him that Cambridge had sought out the same type of shelter. Lining his gunsight on the hill, Nacho waited for shots to break out.

  The shots didn't come, but he did see the brush on the side of the hill begin to wave as someone scurried through it. He could hear the rapid flight of footsteps from whoever had been spying on them, too. The unseen observer was heading for the top of the slope in a hurry.

  "He's getting away, Billy!" Nacho called. "We've got to go after him."

  "What if it's a trap?"

  "What if it's one of those outlaws?" Nacho countered. "We don't want the whole bunch knowing we're out here looking for them!"

  "You're right," Cambridge said grimly, coming to his feet. "Let's get mounted."

  With his skin crawling a little from the knowledge that there could be other ambushers lurking nearby, Nacho came out into the open and ran over to his horse, scooping up the canteen and food along the way. He and Cambridge hit the saddle within seconds of each other, and they turned their horses toward the hill, urging the animals into a run.

  As they started up the slope, Nacho caught a glimpse of a man topping the hill. All he saw was a floppy-brimmed hat with an eagle feather stuck into the band, but that was enough. Their quarry disappeared over the crest as Nacho and Cambridge sent the horses up the rugged hill.

  They had not quite made it to the top when the sound of hoofbeats reached their ears. "He got to his horse!" Nacho called. He dug his heels into the flanks of the dun, trying to get more speed out of the animal. Cambridge was just behind him and to the right.

  Nacho's mount went sailing over the top of the hill, its hooves clattering on the rocky ground as it struggled to maintain its balance. The slope on the other side was more gradual, falling away into a valley with another creek winding through it. Nacho saw a buckskin-clad man on a big bay vanishing into the trees along the stream.

  Cambridge spotted him, too, and shouted to Nacho, "That's not one of the outlaws! None of them were wearing buckskins or a feather in their hat!"

  "Could be another member of the gang! You said there might be more of them!" Nacho replied, using Cambridge's earlier logic. He holstered his gun but didn't slow down.

  Neither did Cambridge, and Nacho knew the lawyer agreed with him. They had to catch up to the man on the bay. Even though he hadn't fired at them, they had to know who he was and why he had been watching them from hiding.

  Obviously, the man they were chasing knew this territory. He rode confidently, ducking through openings in the brush, avoiding gullies, and taking shortcuts that led him around the roughest of the terrain. But Nacho and Cambridge stuck to him stubbornly, sometimes falling back a little, then regaining lost ground. Nacho had a feeling that both his horse and Cambridge's had more speed than the other man's mount, but that didn't count for much in a pursuit like this. Quickness, stamina, and responsiveness to a rider's commands were much more vital than sheer running ability.

  Nacho felt pain pluck at his side. So far, the hectic ride hadn't caused his wound to open up again, but the constant pounding and jerking couldn't be good for it. He wasn't going to slow down and back off, though. The buckskin-clad man might prove to be important in locating the bandits who had held up the stagecoach.

  A half-hour passed, and they weren't any closer to the other man than when they had started. He still had a lead of several hundred yards. The blood was roaring in Nacho's head, and he knew he would have to stop soon. He hoped that he and Cambridge could find their way out of here; he had been too busy chasing the man in buckskins to pay too much attention to the landmarks they were passing. Still, they knew they were west of the road between Sherman and the Red River station. All they had to do was head east, and they would hit the trail sooner or later.

  He wasn't going to assume defeat that easily, Nacho told himself. He leaned forward in the saddle, grimacing as the motion pulled against the tightly wrapped bandages around his torso. Urging his horse on, he tightened his grip on the reins.

  The man on the bay rode over the top of another hill, momentarily dropping out of sight. Nacho and Cambridge rode hard after him, and when they galloped over the rise a couple of minutes later, they fully expected to see him again.

  But he was nowhere in sight.

  Nacho reined in and stared. A grassy field, beginning to turn brown with the onset of fall, spread out in front of them. The meadow was at least five hundred yards wide. A thick stand of trees grew on the other side of the open space, but the buckskin-clad man hadn't had time to reach them.

  "What the devil!" Cambridge exclaimed, coming to a stop beside Nacho.

  To their left was more open ground, three hundred yards of it before some brush sprang up. In the other direction, to their right, was a thin line of trees. The rider they were pursuing might have had time to reach those trees, but the growth was so sparse that they should have still been able to see him.

  "Where did he go?" Nacho asked, staring in disbelief. "He could not just disappear . . ."

  "Looks like that's what he did, amigo," Cambridge said. "Listen close. Do you hear hoofbeats?"

  Nacho squinted and tilted his head to the side in concentration. After a long moment, he was forced to admit that he couldn't detect any sounds of flight.

  "This makes no sense, Billy. A man doesn't just vanish, and neither does a horse."

  "You're right. But where did he go?"

  His eyes narrowing even more, Nacho studied the trees to their right. "A man might be able to hide behind one of those trunks," he mused. "If he could get his horse to lie down in the tall grass, we might not be able to see it."

  Cambridge nodded slowly. "It's a cinch he didn't go either of the other directions. You think he's trying to set up another ambush?"

  "I figure on finding out," Nacho said as he heeled his horse into a walk. He pointed its nose toward the trees.

  "We could be riding right into a trap," Cambridge pointed out. He fell in alongside Nacho as they rode slowly and deliberately toward the grove of young, slender oaks. The lawyer's forehead was wrinkled in thought. "You know, I thought somebody was spying on me yesterday when I first checked out those tracks on the road. It could be this is the same person."

  "Either way, whoever this is had chances to bushwhack us and didn't," Nacho said. "I'm curious, Billy. Who'd want to be keeping track of what we're doing?"

  Cambridge hazarded a guess. "The outlaws, maybe?"

  That made sense, Nacho thought. The gang probably thought this part of the country was their private stomping grounds; they'd be mighty interested in anybody who came poking around.

  Nacho was watching the trees closely as he and Cambridge approached. The tension had made him forget all about the ache in his side from the bullet graze. This was no time to think about anything except avoiding the potential ambush.

  No shots rang out as they neared the trees, and Nacho couldn't detect anyone lurking behind the trunks. He and Cambridge drew their guns as they rode into the oaks and looked around.

  "He's not here," Cambridge grunted as he glanced around in puzzlement. "Where the hell did he go?"

  On the other side of the trees, the landscape opened up into another pasture. If the man on the bay had ridden straight through the trees and kept going, he would have still been in sight.

  Nacho studied the field closely, then abruptly said, "There's something funny out there, Billy." He lifted the hand holding the reins and pointed.

  Cambridge shook his head. "I don't see anything. It just looks like an
open field to me."

  "Come on." Nacho walked his horse into the tall grass. Cambridge followed closely behind him.

  They had ridden about thirty yards into the meadow when Nacho halted again. He nodded to the narrow gully that cut across the clearing in front of them. "That's where the man went," Nacho declared.

  Cambridge studied the gash in the earth. The grass was nearly a yard high on both banks, and the gully was so narrow, only five feet across, that it was almost invisible only a few paces away. The banks were steep for the most part, but there were places where they had crumbled away enough for a man to lead a horse down into the wash.

  Nacho leaned over in the saddle and pointed to tracks on the dusty floor of the gully. "Those are fresh. You can see both the hoofprints and the tracks left by that hombre's boots as he led the horse away. That's why we didn't hear anything. He slipped away slow and quiet. I told you he knows this country, Billy. He had to know this gully was here. It's not the sort of thing you stumble on by accident."

  "He knows where he's going, all right," Cambridge agreed. "He just didn't count on you having such sharp eyes. Let's go."

  They rode down into the wash, letting the horses pick their own way. It was a simple matter to follow the tracks left by the man in buckskins; he hadn't tried to conceal his trail, no doubt thinking that his pursuers would be thrown off the scent by this partially hidden escape route.

  The gully zigged and zagged back toward the thickest growth of trees, gradually deepening until it was a good-sized cut in the earth. The banks were taller than the heads of Nacho and Cambridge as they rode along the wash. Twenty minutes after finding the gully, the two men reached a rocky bluff. The gully sloped down sharply, but their horses were able to negotiate the gravely path. They found themselves at the bottom of the bluff, looking out at another valley.

  The first thing Nacho noticed was the tendril of smoke climbing into the sky. Cambridge saw it, too, and said, "Somebody's campfire. Maybe the man we're chasing."