by Max O'Hara
Off the beaten path.
You could usually pick killers like Lester Bohannon, whom Stockburn had killed earlier that day along with the three others in Bohannon’s company, out of even a good-sized crowd. Whomever had hired the crew of gun wolves would probably have ordered them to hole up out in the mountains somewhere—possibly around an abandoned mine or a ranch headquarters. They’d demand a few creature comforts. They might even have demanded a woman or two.
Killers were usually restless.
Stockburn had discovered tracks just before sunset, but only a couple of sets—two riders riding separately though generally in the same direction. The tracks had been relatively fresh. Since he’d uncovered few other clues out here as to the identity of the killers, he’d decided to follow the tracks and see where they led.
They might belong only to drifters or range riders employed by either the Tin Cup or the Triangle. Wolf might find they only belonged to rustlers, even. There were likely plenty of those out here.
On the other hand, Bohannon and the three others had been out here. If Bohannon had belonged to the same group of killers who’d killed the track layers, then maybe the rest of the group was out here, as well.
Stockburn hoped to get lucky and find that the tracks he’d picked up would lead him to the killers’ hideout. Probably a long shot, but sometimes that’s all you had. And a long shot was about all that Wolf had so far.
He had the frustrating feeling that he’d uncovered clues in the two days he’d been here, but those clues remained too slippery to name. Which meant he had no way of knowing where those clues might lead.
The early mountain night had forced him to make camp before he’d been able to follow those fresh tracks more than a couple of miles. He would continue to follow them in the morning.
Until then, he’d keep the two eyes in the back of his head skinned. He may not be alone out here. Two riders had passed through this area relatively recently—possibly two killers having retrieved supplies from town and were riding back to their hideout separately, to avoid suspicion.
Also, the bastard with the large-caliber rifle might still be shadowing him, looking for another opportunity.
Stockburn stared into the night, all senses alert.
He’d set up camp on a piece of high ground between two valleys. From here, he had a good view of a broad stretch of terrain. He’d hoped that after good dark he’d spy a flickering campfire, which might indicate the killers’ hideout.
So far, no luck.
While his own fire was small, it could probably be seen from a good distance away, and that was all right with him. If the killers were out here, why not lure them to him? He just had to stay alert and be ready if and when they came.
He also had to be ready for the bastard who’d almost greased him with the large-caliber rifle. He had to assume the assassin had been sicced on him particularly, to get him off the killers’ trail, and that he’d try again.
Stockburn sat, waiting, watching, sipping the coffee, and smoking.
The stallion whickered softly.
Wolf looked toward where he’d tied the gray horse a couple dozen feet down the slope on his left. The moon was three-quarters full and kiting high, fading the stars and casting pearl light onto the gray’s long back. Silhouetted by the moonlight, the mount was staring off behind him, to the west.
A horse trail threaded through the mountains from that direction. In fact, the man whose tracks Wolf had been following earlier had followed that trail, heading northeast.
Again, Smoke whickered—a little louder this time.
A few seconds later, the muffled thuds of a distant rider touched Wolf’s ears. As the thuds grew louder, Wolf stretched his own gaze to the west.
Sure enough, a rider was coming hard and fast along the trail. The trail snaked around the base of the slope on which Stockburn was camped. That meant that if the rider was following the trail, which he must be, for it was the only trail Wolf had come upon, the man would be here soon—within a long stone’s throw of where Wolf sat now.
Stockburn rose from the log he’d been sitting on. He set down his coffee cup, dropped the cheroot, and mashed it out with his boot toe. He hurried over to his fire, and kicked dirt on it, smothering it. Smoke wafted in the moonlit darkness, the still-glowing coals crackling.
He picked up his rifle, levered a round into the chamber, then lowered the hammer to half-cock. He looked down the slope toward his horse, and said, “Easy, boy. Keep quiet, now—hear?”
He knew the horse would. They’d been together a long time, and they understood each other.
Holding the rifle in one hand, he walked down the west side of the slope, meandering through tall pines, cedars, and large rocks. As he gained the base of the slope, he crouched behind a rock. The trail passed within ten feet of his position. From his left, the hoof thuds grew louder as the rider approached.
They grew still louder and were joined by the rattle of a bridle chain and the squawk of saddle leather until the jostling shadow of horse and rider appeared, following a curve in the trail then coming straight on toward where Stockburn crouched behind the rock.
The rider was pushing the horse too hard. There was plenty of moonlight, but not much of it reached the trail down here in this hollow. The horse was liable to trip over a fallen branch or a chuck hole and kill them both.
As horse and rider came to within fifty feet, they rode into a large pool of milky moonlight. The light shone on long, dark hair tumbling down from the hatted head and on a nicely filled cream blouse. Not a shirt.
A woman’s blouse.
Stockburn rose from behind the rock, took the rifle in his left hand, and raised the right one palm out. “Lori?”
The girl gasped as she jerked back on the horse’s reins, stopping the horse, which curveted, aiming its head at Stockburn. Sweat lather streaked its snout and withers, glistening like silver in the moonlight.
Lori McCrae jerked her own startled gaze toward the tall man standing beside the trail. Her face was shaded enough that he couldn’t clearly make out her features.
“Lori McCrae, is that you? It’s Wolf Stockburn!”
The horse, a long-legged buckskin, danced in place, tail arched, and shook its head, rattling the bit in its teeth. The girl stared toward Stockburn, her wide eyes reflecting the moonlight. Fear and anxiety fairly radiated off of her. “Wolf?”
“What are you doing out here, Lori?”
Stockburn heard her sob, shoulders jerking. She sniffed, tossed her head, shaking her hair back from her face. “Please, don’t try to stop me, Wolf!”
She reined the horse around then rammed her heels against its flanks. The buckskin lunged off its rear feet and broke into another ground-consuming run, hooves thudding loudly.
Stockburn yelled, “Lori!”
Horse and rider continued around another bend in the trail, and the dark night consumed them.
Stockburn stood listening to the quickly dwindling thunder of the horse’s hooves. He raked an anxious thumb down his jawline. “Where in holy blazes is she off to this time of night?”
The last time he checked his time piece, it had been nearly eleven-thirty. Owls were hooting, and coyotes were yammering.
She’d told him not to try to stop her. Something told him he should, that she was riding into trouble. At least, he had to find out where she was headed and what trouble she might be getting into.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d been in a bad way. It appeared she still was.
Stockburn hurried back up to his camp. He threw his saddle blanket and saddle on his horse and strapped the saddle into place. He tied his bedroll and war bag on, as well, and tossed his saddlebags over the bedroll. He swung up onto Smoke’s back and eased the horse down the dark slope and onto the trail.
He booted the gray into a trot. That was all the faster he cared to travel over rugged mountain terrain.
He’d catch up to Lori when she stopped. Judging by how tired her
horse had appeared, that would likely be soon. There was only one trail, and she was following it. Wolf would follow the trail to the girl.
The trail traced a crease between two forested ridges. It rose up and over a low pass, then curved sharply to the left. It followed a canyon, the canyon floor rising toward yet another pass.
Wolf stopped Smoke in a patch of moonlight and swung down to study the trail. Fresh hoof prints shone in water trickling over the trail from a runout spring in rocks to the right. Lori’s tracks. She’d passed this way, all right.
It was too dark for him to see the tracks from the saddle. He’d wanted to make sure he wasn’t on a wild goose chase.
Stockburn mounted up and continued on up the canyon. He’d ridden maybe a quarter mile before he jerked back sharply on Smoke’s reins.
Maybe forty yards ahead, something had just leaped onto the trail from the left—a shadowy figure roughly shaped like a deer. The deer gave a horrified bleating sound as something else leaped onto the trail behind it, in close pursuit.
This figure was low and long and gave the impression of speed and sleekness.
Stockburn’s pulse quickened.
Both figures were gone in an instant—fleeing deer and pursuing mountain lion—dashing up the steep ridge on the trail’s right side. A loud snarl slashed across the night, exploding the relative silence. The snarl was followed by the deer’s clipped scream.
Up the wooded slope to Stockburn’s right rose violent thrashing sounds followed by more snarls and a few more screams, each scream softer and quieter and more plaintive than the last.
The thrashing dwindled, stopped.
Stockburn winced, shook his head. He could feel Smoke’s heart beating quickly. He knew it wasn’t merely from the exertion of the hard mountain run. The horse had smelled the mountain lion on the heels of the deer. The only thing a horse was more afraid of than a mountain lion was a grizzly bear.
“Relax, Smoke,” Wolf said, patting the horse’s left wither. “Just the call of the wild’s all.”
He booted the horse on ahead, eager to be a good long way from the puma, though the cat would likely be occupied till morning, feeding on its midnight meal of fresh venison.
He continued to the top of a saddle and reined Smoke to a stop. A light appeared ahead and below and slightly left—a dull yellow glow. Too large for a campfire.
Likely a cabin.
Stockburn gigged Smoke on down the saddle and into another valley. At least, he thought it was a valley. It was dark down here, the moonlight blocked by the tall timber on both sides of the trail.
Down here, he could no longer see the cabin, for inky black slopes tufted with forest rose to either side of him, but he’d made note of the cabin’s general position. He continued following the trail until it turned into what appeared a narrow side canyon.
Smoke hazed the air above him, where the moonlight shone on it, making it look like cobwebs. Stockburn could smell the pine tang.
The cabin wasn’t far.
Stockburn reined Smoke into the brush off the trail’s right side. He crossed a small, muddy stream then swung down from the mount’s back, led him into the cover of some large rocks and brush, and tied him to a cedar branch.
Stockburn slid his Winchester from the saddle boot, patted the horse’s neck, said, “Stay, boy,” and began walking along the stream, heading deeper into the side canyon.
The ground rose.
After Wolf had taken several more strides, the light appeared again, quartering on his right, maybe sixty yards away. He took a few more strides, crouching, trying not to be seen, keeping the rifle low so the moonlight wouldn’t glint off the barrel of the engraved brass receiver.
The stream trickled very softly to his right. Occasionally, his boots came down in soft mud. He could smell the muddy, green odor of the stream and the tang of wood smoke from the cabin as well as the cold birches, pines, and aspens surrounding him.
The cabin took better shape as Stockburn kept walking, moving slowly, quietly, wincing when his boots crackled on the coarse grass. The cabin crouched on the other side of the narrow canyon, on the opposite side of the tiny stream. It was a simple log affair with a small front stoop.
Two windows, one on either side of the cabin’s closed door, pushed the dull yellow light onto the stoop, revealing two figures silhouetted there as well as two horses standing before the cabin, heads down. One was tied.
The reins of the other one drooped to the ground. The untied horse was Lori’s buckskin.
Wolf’s heart beat with more urgency. He’d come to the end of the trail.
What in the hell was she doing out here? Well, at the moment, as he stopped walking now and stopped off the cabin’s left front corner, maybe thirty yards away from it, he could see pretty well what she was doing. She was currently locked in an embrace with another silhouetted figure.
The night was so quiet that he could hear her softly sobbing. The two were talking in hushed, intimate tones. As quiet as the night was, Stockburn needed to get a little closer to hear what they were saying.
Did Lori have a lover? Apparently so. Who?
It might not be any of his damn business. But, then, that had never stopped him from sniffing around before. It sure as hell wasn’t going to stop him now.
CHAPTER 23
Keeping to the shadows on his side of the little stream and staying behind the brush growing up along the stream’s edge, Stockburn strode forward.
The two people on the cabin’s stoop were still speaking in hushed tones. One was Lori, the other a male. They spoke too softly for Wolf to make out what they were saying.
Stockburn continued walking up canyon until he could no longer see the front of the cabin. As he turned to the stream, he faced the side of the cabin, roughly two thirds of the way down from the front wall. He crossed the stream in a single, short leap, wincing as his boots landed in mud and short, spongy grass, making wet sucking sounds.
Wolf froze, ears pricked.
If the two people on the stoop had heard him, they gave no indication. Wolf could still hear their soft, private voices.
He moved forward, pushing through the brush on the cabin side of the stream, trying to make as little noise as possible. He bit his tongue as the brush rustled against the sleeves of his buckskin coat and his boots crunched the cool, brittle grass.
There was roughly a twenty-foot gap between the brush and the cabin. No cover here, so Stockburn had to be especially quiet and hope there was no one else in the cabin, for a curtainless window looked out from the wall facing Stockburn.
Staying low, he moved slowly, holding the rifle straight down against his right leg, keeping one eye skinned on the window, the other on the cabin’s front corner, on his right.
Lamplight flickered beyond the small window, pulsating and wavering inside the shadowy cabin, like light under water.
Stockburn approached the cabin to the left of the window. He turned his back to the cabin then sidestepped toward the window.
He removed his hat and edged a look around the frame and into the shack. He pulled his head back suddenly when his gaze found a person in there. He edged a look around the frame again, squinting through the warped, dusty glass that had a small crack in the bottom right corner.
He swept the entire one-room shack with a quick glance then returned his gaze to a man—the only person in the cabin—standing with his back pressed to the front wall, between the door and a window to the right of it. The man stood oddly, back straight, chin up.
Stockburn frowned.
What the hell was the fella doing in there?
As Wolf studied the man more closely, he realized the man was eavesdropping on Lori’s conversation with the man on the stoop, only two or three feet from the eavesdropper. The man was grinning, showing his teeth. He held a cigarette down low in his right hand.
As he continued listening and eavesdropping, he raised the quirley to his mouth, took a shallow puff, briefly making the coal g
low red, then lowered his hand and blew the smoke out through his mouth.
Wolf felt the scowl lines on his forehead cut deeper as he studied the eavesdropper. The man wore no hat. Long, thin, dark-brown hair hung straight down to his shoulders. The crown of the man’s head was nearly bald. What piqued Wolf’s interest even more was the bandage on the man’s left cheek.
Stockburn remembered that one of the bullets he’d flung at the bastard with the large-caliber rifle had caused the man to jerk his head back sharply, as though the bullet had struck him or at least grazed him.
Wolf looked at the rifle leaning against the front wall, roughly four feet to the left of the eavesdropper. It appeared to be a Sharps. Likely with a caliber somewhere in the fifties, large enough that the bastard wielding it could blow a man’s head off from a distance of up to three hundred yards. Four hundred if he had an eagle eye.
Was Stockburn now staring at the bastard who’d nearly blown his head off?
If so, what was Lori doing here? And who was the man she was on the stoop with?
Only one way to find out.
Stockburn ducked under the window as he walked up to the front of the cabin. Near the corner, he pressed his shoulder up taut against the wall, feeling a little chagrined that he was eavesdropping on the pair now, just as the man inside the cabin was.
The two were still speaking quietly, but their tones were urgent. He still couldn’t hear them clearly.
Oh, hell—enough messing around!
Stockburn stepped around the cabin’s front corner and raised the rifle up high across his chest, not aiming it but ready to aim it if needed. “Lori.”
The girl jumped. She’d had her back to Stockburn but she swung around now quickly, gasping.
“Who’s there?” asked the man she was with, angrily.
Stockburn saw the man now standing to one side and a little behind Lori reach for a revolver on his right hip. “Keep it in the leather!” Wolf warned, aiming the rifle, clicking the hammer back.
“Wolf, no!” Lori cried.
Daniel Stoleberg had closed his lone hand around the grips of the revolver holstered on his right hip, but he did not slide the piece from the leather.
